#and I just wish I had eddie 🥲

[deceptive-daydreams]

Eddie letting you release every pent up emotion when you’re with him and he notices you’re visibly just overwhelmed as fuck because life is kicking your ass, I’m talking letting you sob into his shirt, snot and everything, squeezing his hands, encouraging you to throw shit at the wall if you need to, anything to help you release some of the tension that’s built up within you over the past few weeks and then he holds you after while you’re still crying but exhausted so he just lets you sit for as long as you need in his arms while he rubs your back and hides you in his chest away from all the bad and scary things 🥲

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

i needed that episode to last at least five hours longer wtf i can't process anything

[luveline]

Would you write a fic with either Eddie or spencer about reader being ghosted by someone they genuinely thought was into them (not speaking from personal recent experience or anything😅🥲) but they’re in love with reader and comforts them?

“I thought we had a nice connection,” you mumble dejectedly. 

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “A connection? With him? He was five foot three.” 

“Eddie, that’s not nice. I don’t care how tall he was.” Your voice disappears into the cushion you’ve decided to lay face down on, your back a shuddering slope he wants to reach out and touch. “I don’t care about that. Much. What’s important was that he–” You lift your flushed head, eyes rimmed with teary wetness. “He was so nice to me, and he didn’t pressure me into anything, and he brought me flowers without me having to ask. He was nice.” 

“Your standards are so, so low,” Eddie says. 

You grumble and force your face back into the pillow. Eddie should be nicer. He wants you to feel better, and he hates seeing you upset, but if you’re sure that guy was your soulmate Eddie’s selfish enough to wish he’d stay gone. “Hey,” he says, finally putting his hand on your back, though the touch is for you rather than him. He loves you as your friend just as much as he wants to be more than that, and he doesn’t have any intent now but to get you smiling as he bends down to talk near your ear. “It’s okay. You didn’t need that guy, just like you don’t need any guy. You have me. I love you to pieces.” 

“I know, Eddie,” you say softly. “Just sometimes I want more, you know? I love you too, but I want a partner, I want a lot of things… I really liked him.” 

Eddie can picture the heartbreak quite clearly. “You want the picket fence, right?” 

“What?” 

You again raise your head. Eddie meets your eyes with a hesitant smile. “You want the white picket fence. The little two story house with a wrap around porch, or a backyard big enough for the kids to play in, the kids to play in it.” He licks his lips. “Or not. You don’t have to have kids, right? Anything would be enough if it was just you and…” 

You frown unhappily, and Eddie thinks shit, I’m making it worse, but you say, “I always thought you’d wanna live in an RV, travelling the country. You want a picket fence?”

Eddie shrugs self consciously. “Sure. I also want a games room and a five thousand dollar loan.” 

You look at him long and hard. “You've always said that stuff is dumb.” 

“It is dumb. Seeing you all torn up over some jagoff who probably can’t tell his hand from his dick is stupid.” You laugh and turn your head to lay back down again, cheek pressed to soft velvet. “That’s stupid, babe. Let’s give up on stupid things and– and stop crying over boys who don’t deserve you.” He can’t stop himself, says it too hotly, “He didn’t deserve you.” 

You're hard to read, still as a statue with your hands pressed under your heart, but at least you aren’t crying anymore. You nod against the pillow. “Okay,” you say hoarsely. 

He flushes white hot. “Okay. Good… That was exhausting.” 

You roll your eyes at his complaining and he pats himself on the back, sure he’s gotten away with it again. He completely misses the strange looks you give him from the corner of your eye, too focused on giving you the world's best, totally not too friendliest back rub. 

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Hello, hello! Congrats to the milestone! For the festivity may I wish for a fic with 1/A; 2/Canon- adjasond; 3/Hurt/Comfort and 4 is up to you. If it fits your jam, would be an outsider pov be possible? 👀

Thank you so much for the ask, I definitely gave myself some feels writing this one! I've never done a Wayne POV before, but I'm quite happy with how it turned out. 🥲

Your first warden

Words: 999

Rated: T

Tags: POV Wayne Munson; Good uncle Wayne Munson; Child neglect; Child abuse; Alcohol abuse; Drowning; Referenced parental death; Eddie had a shitty childhood; Post-Vecna; Everybody lives; Hurt Eddie Munson; Recovery; Caretaker Steve Harrington; Hurt/comfort

The first time Eddie almost died, he was two years old. 

Al had insisted on bringing him along for that fishing trip. A proper men's day out, he'd said. Of course Al’s idea of a proper men's day out was hitting the booze the second they arrived. By the time Wayne heard him snore, little Ed had already wandered off. 

He found him floating face down between the reeds a few yards away. The water lillies and the pretty lights rippling on the surface must've drawn him in. Wayne thinks he lost five years of his life in the seconds between pulling him out and the kid's first coughs filling the air.

“‘s okay, kiddo,” Wayne murmured as he rocked the both of them, tears and lake water drenching his flannel. “‘s okay. I gotcha.”

The ruckus drew Al, of course. He took one look at them and yanked Eddie away by the arm, slapping him hard across the face. 

“Quit howling, it's your own damn fault for going in the water. And you,” his eyes found Wayne's and his face twisted into something ugly. “Who d'ya think you are, his fucking guard dog? Keep your nose outta things that don't concern ya.” 

And maybe it was because Wayne never liked being told what to do, least of all by his drunk, deadbeat brother - but he promised himself something on that day. 

For as long as Eddie would need him, he'd watch over him. 

He'd often think back on that promise over the years. Teaching Eddie to ride a bike. Letting him sob into his shoulder at his mom's funeral, daring Al to say something about being a man one glare at a time. Taking him in when he showed up on his doorstep, bruised and beaten, hair shorn so short his scalp was bleeding in places. 

Wayne never regretted his decision, and he never broke that promise. 

Until the day Eddie almost died the second time. 

*

The beemer parked by the new trailer is a sight he should be used to by now. Still, Wayne can't help but grumble as he makes his way up the porch steps. 

Don't get him wrong, he'll be forever grateful to the Harrington boy for carrying Eddie out of literal hell, but he isn't sure if this new friendship between the two will ever be anything but bizarre to him. 

Maybe it's because the Harringtons don't mingle with the likes of them, or maybe it's because the lad is the exact type of kid Eddie hates with a passion, usually. 

Maybe it's because Wayne has noticed the way Eddie looks at the boy. He's always had a way of getting in too deep, Eddie has. Drawn to pretty flowers and rippling lights that'll slip through his fingers when grasps at them, luring him in until it's too late. 

The first thing he hears when he steps inside is a thud, followed by a wince. He's just taken the first step when Harrington barrels out of the kitchen and into Eddie’s room, completely unaware of Wayne standing in the door. 

“Eddie? What are you doing?” 

“Nothing,” comes Eddie’s reply, and Wayne knows that tone. The just-got-caught-doing-forbidden-shit one. “Just trying to put up this fucking thing.” 

Toeing off his boots, Wayne hovers closer to the half-open door. A look inside reveals Eddie, sitting on the bed with a sheepish grin on his face and that giant banner he made for his band beside him. Harrington, back turned to the door, huffs and picks up the hammer lying on the ground. 

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he scolds, climbing onto the bed and gesturing for Eddie to hand him the banner. A few swift movements and knocks of the hammer later, it’s hanging. “You could’ve opened a wound. Again. What do I need to do to make you stay in bed, tie you up?” 

Eddie grins toothily. “Okay, one: I am in bed, technically. And two: oooh, kinky.” 

Wayne groans soundlessly. Harrington rakes a hand down his face, plopping down cross-legged on the mattress. 

“Eddie.” 

Their knees bump together. Now that he has turned and he can see him in half-profile, Wayne recognizes the concern on Harrington’s face. Eddie’s grin shifts into something softer. 

“I know,” he says, watching his hand fiddle with a loose thread on his pajama pants. “It’s just … It’s annoying, not being able to do anything on my own. Being such a goddamn burden all the time. To Wayne, to the kids. To you.” 

“Hey.” Harrington’s hand settles on top of Eddie’s. “You're not a burden. We're all glad you're here. I'm glad. You know that, right? 

Eddie flips his hand, tangling their fingers together, and Harrington doesn't pull away. 

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs. “I know.” 

Harrington smiles, reaching up to cup Eddie’s face with his free hand. 

“You just wait,” he winks. “You'll be back to walking on tables in no time. And in the meantime …” 

Eddie melts into the touch, lashes brushing the other boy's palm as his eyes flutter shut. 

“In the meantime, you got me.” 

“I gotcha,” Harrington confirms, and leans in. 

Wayne is just about to sneak away when the kettle whistles in the kitchen. The boys turn … and then they all just sort of freeze.

“Hiya, boys,” Wayne rumbles when they're still silently gaping at him a few seconds later. 

“Mr. Munson,” Harrington croaks. “I mean … sir. I mean … hi?” 

“Wayne?” Eddie blurts. “H-how long have you been standing there?” 

Wayne considers that question while both boys continue to stare at him with matching scarlet blushes coloring their cheeks. Their hands are still lying entwined on the mattress between them. 

“Long enough, I reckon,” is what he finally says. “I'll take care of the kettle, Steve. You lads stay put.” 

And with that, he closes the door on their confused faces and makes his way into the kitchen. It's been a long day, and he's looking forward to resting his feet. 

More celebration ficlets

[lovebugism]

oh my god,,,, gurl!!!! THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT fic is sooo good 😫 my heart literally breaks every time I read this story. Thank you for blessing us with this masterpiece <3

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | square one

summary: eddie makes a confession that's been weighing heavy on his heart. you realize that your future with him is haunted by ghosts from your past. pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader word count: 16.3k warnings: hopper, steve, and robin being the reader defense squad, hints at reader's previously poor mental health, mentions of abusive and toxic relationships, a banshees of inisherin quote, b*lly h*rgrove because he needs a warning. (pretend any typos don't exist pls and thank u!) a/n: guess who's back, back again? ✨✨ i'd apologize for disappearing for a month, but then there'd be apologies in all my notes, so just know that i'm sorry every time i disappear unexpectedly, okay? 🥲 thanks for being so patient! please enjoy this long-awaited installment of tcar ily <3

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

Eddie’s got a 1986 Van Halen tape in his boombox and a baby pink heart stitched into the fabric of his shirt. He’s the least metal he’s ever been, but he couldn’t be happier.

You keep your promise to him to patch up his torn Hellfire tee. If anything, you use the absentminded assurance as your excuse to see him again. The night you shared before, all but baring your scarred souls underneath glittering stars and streams of pale moonlight, hadn’t satiated your hunger for him. Eddie left you craving in a way you weren’t used to before — a yearning to be close to him that went beyond the boundaries of physical intimacy.

It was a simple sort of longing. It was a homesickness. A sense of nostalgia for a love you’d never felt before.

You wish you could wear Eddie’s adoration for you like a blanket, wrap yourself in the hand-stitched quilt of many colors and bundle it tighter around your shoulders when the cold comes. You want his softness to hold you in a way you’ve never been able to hold yourself.

You feel swaddled in it, succumbed and cloaked and at peace in all his tenderness. You’ve never been so at ease, so blissfully comforted by the presence of another human being. And Eddie feels all of that, every ounce of warmth you feel, because it pours out of you like rays of sunshine and bathes him in shades of gold.

He didn’t think you could get any softer than you had been that night at Skull Rock, until you were nestled in his unmade bed the next morning. You curled your legs underneath you as you weaved the needle and thread through the tear in his t-shirt, eyes squinted and tongue poking out the side of your mouth in an astute concentration. 

All of the sudden, you were marshmallow fluff and honey on toast — made of all things sickly sweet that made his stomach feel suddenly full. 

You finish mending the rip in record time and beam when he wears the heart-shaped stitching with pride. The rest of the day thereafter was spent in the tiny confines of his one hundred square-inch bedroom. From there, the both of you came to the silent understanding that you didn't want to spend another day apart.

The weekend had given you a limited sort of freedom, allowed you to pretend that you lived in a world with no responsibilities or anything other than Eddie Eddie Eddie, but adulthood made you no such promises. He had a side job to do to keep himself afloat, and you had a cat that thought it was the end of the world anytime you were gone for longer than a night. Both of those things together meant that the eve of parting was ultimately inevitable.

Every second you spent away from Eddie felt like you were grieving.

You mourned for him in the darkness of your apartment and tried to pretend you weren’t half a person in the cat food aisle at Melvald’s.

You tried to lessen the unbearable distance with phone calls, though it didn’t come nearly as close as feeling his fingers thrumming imaginary beats on your thigh or his heartbeat thudding against your ear. 

But his voice filled the emptiness of your one-bedroom apartment and the Eddie Munson shaped hole he’d left just behind your ribcage, and that was good enough for you.

When you weren’t with him, you were roaming around your apartment like some kind of ghost, with the phone tucked between your ear and shoulder and the rotary clutched in your free hand. 

You cook yourself dinner with him ranting about his day in your ear. You hold the receiver closer to Bowie and force him to hear her purr when she’s being exceptionally cute. He falls asleep some hours later to the sound of your soft snores, and you wake up the next morning to the sounds of his.

It was pathetic, truly.

You’d be gagging at how sweet it was if it wasn’t happening to you.

But it was.

Every ounce of this sticky sweet goodness was yours, and it tasted just like honey on your tongue. 

It was the honeymoon stage times a thousand, all rose-colored and reflecting light — your own personal utopia. It brought with it a heavenly sort of refuge, a bubble of peace you never wanted to pierce.

Eddie basks in the serenity of it all when he finally has you with him again. You’re in his lap, on his lips, and all over him, but it still isn’t quite close enough. He doesn’t think he’ll be satisfied until you’ve successfully melted with him and your limbs have entwined with his like tree roots, destined to remain that way for the next couple of centuries or so.

And it’s weird because he could hardly handle living in such a tiny trailer with Wayne, let alone stomach more than a couple hours with the guys from Hellfire all in one place. But you? You entered his life all at once and now he can’t remember what it was like without you.

He doesn’t particularly want to, if he’s being real honest.

It’s why he’s always less enthused about letting you leave when you’ve both got responsibilities dragging you apart. He begs you to stay with him a few hours more, pleads for you to stick around while he makes a quick deal or an emergency pick-up when Dustin Henderson calls and says he needs a ride. 

And you promise you’ll wait on him there, because he makes it virtually impossible to say no to his rosy pouted lips and chocolate syrup puppy dog eyes.

That’s when you run into Wayne for the first time, when Eddie’s out and you’re making breakfast for when he comes back.

French toast and scrambled eggs sizzle on the stove and warm the kitchen with all its cinnamon confections. It makes the man’s face screw up in confusion when he steps inside the trailer because he’s never known Eddie to cook a day in his life. And then his eyes find you — a young, pretty girl all alone in his kitchen with his nephew’s van gone from the drive.

“…Who the hell are you?” he wonders gruffly and pops a cigarette between his lips, totally unbothered.

He’s got no reason to be intimidated by the stranger in his trailer. He’s more confused than anything else, and he’s got this contorted look on his face like he’s blaming the exhaustion from the graveyard shift for his vision of you.

“Oh— my god,” you mumble through the mouthful of whipped cream you’d squeezed into your mouth moments prior. You fight to swallow it all down. “Uh. Hi. I’m, um… I’m Eddie’s... girlfriend?”

It sounds like you’re lying. 

In some ways, it feels like you are. 

You’ve been spending more time in his trailer than in your own home, but it’s not like either of you has motioned to make anything official just yet.

He eyes you with a tired and heavy gaze, eyes as dark and as infinite as Eddie’s. The man gives you a once-over and then chuckles lowly to himself as he tosses his corduroy jacket onto the back of the recliner and his tin lunchbox to the coffee table.

You shift awkwardly on the other side of the room. “…What is it?”

“When Eddie said he was talkin’ to a pretty girl on the phone every night, I thought he was lyin’,” he admits through hearty chuckles. 

It makes you laugh too. 

There’s little talking after the fact, besides you offering him some of the breakfast on the stove and him joking that you should come around more often.

You recount the story to Eddie when he returns, utterly mortified about the whole thing. You’re even more embarrassed when the boy finds amusement in your horror and starts to chuckle to himself — not exactly at you, but not with you either.

He laughs louder when you swat at him for it. You clamber on top of him, mattress squeaking mattress under your weight, as you demand him to stop through giggles of your own.

Somewhere down the line, both of you stop caring. 

Neither of you is quite sure where the conversation stopped and ended, only that when you started kissing, you couldn’t stop. 

They weren’t innocent little pecks, but they weren’t sloppy and full of tongue either. You press your lips together with the intent of being as close as you can to the other, like you haven’t spent every second you could together.

Neither of you will be satisfied until you’ve swallowed each other whole.

And you, you’ve got this ache for him. A swirling of want that’s constantly rippling in your belly for this boy. He’s just not usually under you when it’s happening — and now that he is, the crackling embers have burst into white and blue flames behind your sternum.

Your lips click each time you part, a lewd noise you never want to stop hearing. The sound of it gives you goosebumps, like a good song you’ve just heard on the radio. You wonder if Eddie can feel them as his hands start to creep up beneath your shirt and find purchase along your waist. 

You open his mouth with your own and sneak your tongue inside just as you roll your hips over his lap.

It’s the most forthcoming either of you had been in your three-day stint of nonstop talking. Even when you were over at the trailer, totally alone and pressed underneath him, it was otherwise completely innocent. You just make out like a couple of teenagers until one of you wants to make a food run or offers to roll a joint. 

And you like that. You like that he doesn’t expect anything from you, but it does get a little agonizing when you’ve tried every attempt to give yourself to him and he just won’t take it.

Like usual, Eddie tenses when he feels you grinding on top of him — partly because he feels a tingle at the base of his spine when he gets instantly half-hard, but mostly because he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.

He keeps preaching to himself it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time — but he’s got no idea when it’ll ever be the right time, if it’ll ever be the right time, or if he’ll know it when it comes.

Because he’s had you to himself for days now — no Wayne, no responsibilities, no pressure — with his tongue rutting against yours and your hands fidgeting with the metal buttons of his jeans, and it still doesn’t feel good enough. Eddie doesn’t feel good enough.

He’s not sure if he ever will.

And it’s not you. God, it’s the farthest thing from you. As far as Eddie’s concerned, he’s never had more fun with anyone else. He’s never laughed harder with anyone else. He’s never felt as comfortable with anyone as he’s starting to feel around you. So he’s not entirely sure why he finds the rest of it so hard. 

Eddie wants you so bad that the ache of all his yearning is palpable. It’s like the weight of it is what’s keeping him from you — unstoppable force, immovable object, blah, blah, blah. 

Either way, it leaves him entirely unable to take things further with you, however much he wants to. There’s something in his way and it’s him. 

Your heartache is his own when he has to pull away from you.

“You okay?” you ask him with wide eyes and swollen lips, always so concerned for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he’s quick to assure you. He’s still breathless when he fidgets beneath you, trying to prop himself up on his headboard without rubbing his half-hard cock against your thigh.

When he succeeds, he musters a smile that shakes at the edges. “It’s just… you know, not everything… It doesn’t have to be about sex, you know?”

He makes himself as soft as possible for you when he says this. He gets rid of all the usual teasing lilts that tend to lurk on his tongue as the words spill from his mouth. The last thing he wants to do is hurt your feelings or, in some roundabout way, make you think you’re the problem. 

He just wants you to know that that isn’t why he’s been wanting to spend so much time with you. There was never an ulterior motive with him other than all the adoration he holds in his hands and his mouth for you.

The strike of hurt that flashes across your face is obvious to only Eddie, who’s spent enough time mapping out your features to know what twitches are ones of discontent. The slight frown that dips between your brows when they scrunch together for half a second comes like a stroke of lightning. It’s a brief flash of purple in the sky that leaves so quickly that it makes you wonder if it was ever there at all.

You fidget on his lap, not resting as comfortably upon him as you had been just moments before. “Oh…” you murmur through soft, jutted-out lips. “Sorry. I, I didn’t—”

“No, it’s not— that’s not what I—” he tries to assure over your insecure stammers, but succeeds only in tripping over himself in return. He cuts himself off with a breathy laugh, shaking his head while his fingers fidget on your hips. “That’s just not what this is about for me, you know? I just… I wanna spend time with you.”

It’s easily the softest thing he’s ever said to you — to anybody, for the matter — and the marshmallow sweetness of it all wraps around you like wisps of pink cotton candy.

Your apprehensiveness twists into something lighter, a pair of twinkling eyes and a bashful smile.

“Oh,” you hum again, obviously more pleased than before. “That’s nice…”

“No one’s ever said that to you before, have they?” Eddie asks you.

He tries to muster a crooked smirk as the words leave his mouth, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer. Hearing you affirm his suspicions will do nothing more than make him angry at all the assholes that had you before him, at everyone who taught you that you were good for sex and hardly a thing else. 

It makes him wish that he’d gotten to know you sooner. Maybe then you’d understand that he’d be happy just holding you like this and never doing anything more.

You don’t answer him verbally, just shake your head with your lips pursed softly to the side. You look more innocent than anything he’s ever seen before, even with your lipstick smeared on your chin. 

He’s still not quite sure how someone could be so reckless with such a fragile thing — to watch you break and not spend the rest of time grieving to know that you’ll never be quite the same again. 

There’s a primal instinct that swims in him then, an urge to keep you in his arms and locked in the confines of his trailer forever and ever. He wants to keep the wolves of Hawkins, Indiana from ever getting a whiff of you again. It’d be more than they deserved, anyway.

“God, you have got to get better boyfriends, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you with a playful lilt in his voice despite the anger simmering in his belly.

“Isn’t that what you are?” you giggle.

His world stops.

“Huh?”

You tense at his tenseness. Only when he’s gaping at you does the weight of your words dawn on you. “…Huh?”

The awkward moment goes as quickly as it arrives, chased out by the fit of laughter the two of you are quickly thrown into. Your entwining chuckles rise like smoke in his tiny bedroom and then settle back over you like a fuzzy blanket.

“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, babe?” Eddie teases.

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Babe.”

“Oh, right, of course not. That would be way too crazy considering we’ve spent, like, every day together and have made each other come… what is it now? Twice?”

“Three times for me,” you correct with you a smile. “You need to catch up, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Another time?” he offers with a scrunched nose.

“Whenever you want.”

Eddie is grateful for your lack of urgency, even more so for the kiss you press to the tip of his nose. 

You peck him on the lips after — once, twice, and then a thiiird, drawn out time — before moving on to his chin and jaw and neck. Whatever part of him you can reach (which is just about everywhere, considering the vantage point you’ve got sitting on his lap), you sprinkle a kiss to it.

It’s an innocent sort of affection, the kind that makes him wonder how it ever came to be in the first place. What evolutionary measures led to this, to you pressing your lips to his skin to show how much you care about him? Eddie doesn’t really want to know the answer, he’s just grateful that it happened in the first place.

You’re so good at it, loving on him. You’re always so kind and so gentle in your way and it makes him feel guilty. There’s a lingering feeling of undeservedness that settles something heavy at the base of his stomach. How could he ever expect you to be so open with him when he hasn’t done the same for you?

A heavy sigh rattles in his deflating chest. 

“I gotta tell you something, sweetheart,” he cautions when your lips smack against the thrumming pulse below the left side of his jaw. “Something you’re not gonna like…”

A billion things run through your head all at once. When you part from him, he can see the rollercoaster of emotions each one of them puts you through.

Your first instinct is that he’s got some kind of partner he’s kept hidden from you until now. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone steady with a guy who’s then told you about some other girlfriend he had — or, god forbid, a wife. 

But then you realize that you surely would’ve had some sort of inkling if that were the case. There’s no way Eddie would’ve been able to spend every second of his day with you — and then another several hours on the phone when you had to leave — without someone else coming along to burst your bubble. 

And so far, there haven’t been any angry wives, just the occasionally confused Uncle Wayne.

Then you start thinking he’s about to tell you he wants an open relationship. The you’re great, but I’m just not ready to settle down yet spiel that you’ve heard a thousand times before. Usually when people say that, they mean that they just don’t want to settle down with you.

You’ll become some douchebag’s fuck toy for a month or more until the girl next door comes around. He gets her knocked up in record time, his family forces him to marry her, and they begin their cushy lives together in the center of some cul-de-sac — really settle down, as it were.

You’re not sure if you could take that from Eddie. You could grin and bear if it you had to, take whatever attention he’s willing to give you because who cares if he’s giving it to someone else on the side? You’re just not sure how long you’d last like that.

And then you start to worry that he’s just going to break up with you entirely — it’s not you, it’s blah, I’ll always care about blah, please don’t tell anyone about how we blah-ed. That whole talk. 

All the rest of your worries stop mattering so much because you’ve only just called him your boyfriend. And here he goes, about to end it all before it can really even start. That’d be just your luck, you figure.

“Did I do something wrong?” you caution after a few moments of heavy silence.

Eddie’s bleeding heart wrenches at your words, at how sad they sound spilling from your mouth, and how you immediately think that it’s got something to do with you. 

He shakes his head feverishly in response. “No. No, it’s not you. You’re… you’re perfect.”

“Okay…” you concede quietly, voice trembling with a lingering disbelief.

“I just… I haven’t been totally honest with you, you know?” the boy admits before his glimmering chocolate eyes fly open and he corrects himself quickly. “And I haven’t lied to you or anything. Not— Not exactly. I just… I wanna be honest with you… As your boyfriend and all.”

You can tell by the sudden weight in his voice that he’s serious. But the fine coat of glowing rose that splotches Eddie’s cheeks after calling himself your boyfriend for the first time makes you melt. 

You smile to yourself and start to trace the heart you’d stitched into his t-shirt with your finger.

“Yeah. I mean, we are about to spend our two minutes anniversary together and everything.”

“Exactly,” the boy huffs out a laugh. It lacks its usual jest, though, because of the ice-cold anxiety that drenches him from head to toe and makes his hands and feet go numb.

His fingers tremble where the rest on your waist, trying and failing to find a comfortable position there because, right about now, Eddie feels the most awkward he’s ever felt.

“I just want you to know that I… I’ve never done this before,” he confesses quietly and with his eyes squeezed shut. He prays that he doesn’t have to be any less vague than that.

Your face twists in confusion — your brows furrow and your nose twitches and your head tilts to the side like a puppy. And then you’re laughing, a soft little thing of a giggle that normally makes his heart sing, though now he can only feel it breaking.

“What…?” he tries to scoff out his own chuckle. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’ve already told me that, dummy. That you’ve never felt this way before…” you answer, reciting his own words back to him. You haven’t yet forgotten how he’d looked at you as you said them, pale skin made silk under the moonlight while he sparkled beneath the beams of it and his love for you. 

“No, it’s… it’s more than that,” he corrects. “I’ve never even had a girlfriend before you. Or anything really.”

You still don’t seem to understand. You just look on at him with uncertainty. 

A quiet “okay?” tumbles from your mouth entwined with a nervous giggle, because you don’t understand what’s got him so somber. He’s never dated anyone, you’ve fucked half of Hawkins — these are just facts that went unsaid before now. 

And maybe it’s because you’ve never been with a virgin before, but the thought that Eddie might be one hasn’t seemed to cross your mind at all. 

It’s that exact thought that scares him. 

Because if it hasn’t already, maybe it’s because you’re avoiding it altogether. And why would he ever be the exception?

He opts to bite the bullet and hopes that his heart doesn’t get broken after.

“I’m a virgin. Okay? I’m a complete, total, proper adult virgin,” he blurts with a brazenness he’d previously lacked when it came to all this. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now, but I didn’t, because I liked you and I was scared. So if you wanna yell at me or if you wanna break up with me before our five-minute anniversary, I totally get it, but I should probably let you know that it’ll rip my little virgin heart to shreds, so…”

Eddie ends his nervous ramble with a trembling, lopsided smile that does little to ease the leaden tension he’s just manufactured in the four walls of his bedroom.

He can’t seem to gauge your reaction after the fact, which is strange because he always knows what you’re thinking. 

He knows when you’re laughing with him and not at him. You scrunch your nose and giggle when he tells you a funny joke, then tilt your head back and cackle when he trips over the punchline. 

He knows the exact moment when something’s started to bother you — when you get real quiet in your bubble of reserved stillness and your eyes start to glaze over. To anyone else, it might just look like a person who’s keeping to themselves. Eddie’s starting to learn that usually means trouble when it comes to you.

He knows the difference between your gentle sort of sadness and when you’re damn near inconsolable. When you cried at the end of Stand By Me, you smiled at him with a glassy tear-filled gaze, then rolled your eyes when he tried to comfort you. The tears only spilled over when you laughed because Eddie pretended you’d hurt him when you’d shoved him away. 

But when you’re really upset about something, you don’t show him at all — you fight to keep it all to yourself until you’ve squished the problem into a tiny enough ball that you can forget about all of it.

This is something different.

There’s too much crossing your mind all at once for him to get a good read of you.

You just gape at him, like you’re trying to figure out if he’s joking or not, and then fighting to understand what it means when you realize he’s being serious. 

And just when you’ve started to wrap your head around it all, when your brain remembers how to make words again and you realize you haven’t said anything in several agonizing seconds, a foreign voice sounds from down the hallway.

Not foreign in that it was unfamiliar exactly, just foreign in that you and Eddie had spent so much time alone that you were starting to forget that there was an entire world outside of yourselves. A great big world, filled with a great many people, some of whom were your friends who tended to get pretty worried about you.

“Edward Wayne— why the hell is the Chief in my driveway?” his uncle curses from the living room, sounding like he’s speaking through a cigarette in his mouth.

Eddie himself is immediately freaking the fuck out because he figures he must’ve gotten tipped off again. He tries to calculate the quickest way to get you off of him and to all of his cubby holes full of miscellaneous drugs so he can flush them down the toilet before Jim Hopper busts the door down.

And even though you’re not the drug dealer who’s had cops on their ass since they were fifteen in this equation, you look a whole lot more terrified than Eddie does.

Your eyes go wide and the whites of them swim with terror as you launch yourself off of his lap. You don’t spare another glance back at him, not even when you nearly trip over yourself when you shove your sneakers on your feet and shuffle out of the room. He’s forced to follow behind you like a confused puppy as you bound through the trailer at lightning speed. 

The haste of your movements startles even Wayne, who halts mid-puff of his cig when you’re in and out of the living room before he can blink. The opening squeak of the screen door and metal slamming against metal is the only thing that punctuates your exit.

“Would it kill you to answer your damn phone every once in a while?” the powerful timbre of Jim Hopper’s angry voice, of which only the man himself could pull off, is muffled until Eddie cautiously slinks onto the porch behind you. 

He finds the chief standing beside the Cruiser he’s parked sideways. The door of it is still flung open. A distant beeping sounds from the ignition. 

He’s still got on the pressed khakis of his uniform — complete with the golden badge pinned to his chest, darkened sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and flat-brimmed hat on his head. Even with the majority of his face covered, it does little to hide the anger that radiates off of him like a hot stove eye.

You remain on the porch, shifting your weight on your feet at the top of the steps. “Okay, Hopper, just listen to me for a second—”

“Three days!” he shouts over you, not deterred by your composed nature. “I have been calling you… for three days! Seventy-two hours. No answer!”

Eddie decides to speak up from behind you despite his better judgment. “Yeah, uh, that was kinda my fault,” he confesses with an awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t let her hang up the phone—”

“I’ll deal with you in a second,” Jim interjects firmly and without thinking. He goes back to berating you with an admirable finesse. “Buckley wanted my head on a pike when I wouldn’t file a missing person’s report in the first twenty-four hours, but seventy-two? She was gonna kill me!”

Rather than argue with him, like every fiber of your being so desperately wants to, you make the difficult choice to concede with a heavy sigh. Because you don’t doubt that Robin was on his ass the second she realized you weren’t answering your phone or at your apartment when she and Steve dropped by.

She did tend to be on the overprotective side, after all, which obviously paired well with her melodramatic disposition.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ve just been… busy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the one before,” the man answers bitterly.

“It’s different, Hopper!”

“I’ve heard the one before, too!”

Eddie can only assume that the both of you are communicating telepathically, what with the way your synchronized glares seem to say a thousand words (probably every curse imaginable, if he had to guess) without your mouths ever moving once. 

He stands on the outskirts of it all, feeling a bit stuck in the thorniness of such a tense silence, like any slight movement might cut him.

Jim moves slowly, akin to a creeping snake, as his hands raise to remove the glasses from his face. Their lack reveals the ice-cold glare that was previously hiding beneath them.

“Get in the car—” 

“—No,” you reject just as the direction leaves his mouth because you knew it was coming.

Jim inhales sharply and smacks his lips against his teeth, like a father whose child is most ardently testing his patience. He plants his work boot in the gravel and his hand on his hips. His steel gaze goes far off for a moment before flitting back to you again.

“…Get in the car or I put you in handcuffs.”

Your breath hitches at the threat. You squint over at him. “You wouldn’t.”

Jim smiles at you, but it’s more threatening than anything else. “We both know that I would.”

Eddie’s eyes flit between the both of you. He can tell that Hopper’s serious and that you’re trying to decide whether or not to call his bluff, with your arms crossed defensively over your chest and lips pursed in a tight line.

You ultimately decide not to. Because Hopper has, in fact, done that before. And even though the circumstances are very, very different, you wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. So you all but stomp your foot like a protesting child and spin on your heel to storm back inside the trailer.

Eddie’s nervous gaze flits between your disappearing form and the storm cloud of a police chief standing in his driveway. When their eyes lock, he realizes he should probably say something. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder and stammers, “I should— I should probably…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He catches the front door before it shuts and slithers through the crack of it to follow in behind you.

“Wait, was he— was he being serious about that?” Eddie wonders once you’re back in his bedroom.

It feels a lot less cozy than it did minutes before, less like the bubble of refuge that you thought nobody could pierce and more like a lonely space that feels entirely too empty. You pluck your things scattered around his room, and it starts to feel less and less like home with parts of you gone from it.

“I don’t know,” you answer within a sigh as you collect your cardigan from the back of his desk chair and shrug the thing back over your shoulders again.

“But it’s happened before?”

“Yeah. Once. When I was…” you confess quietly, then trail off. You get your bag from his nightstand and haphazardly shove your scrunchie, sunglasses, and chapstick into the bottom of it. “…When I was in a bad way— it doesn’t matter now.”

Eddie so desperately wants to pry.

He’d wanted to make a joke before, about the handcuffs — something less than tasteful about them and you and Hopper and some good ol’ freaky deaky that you'd scold him for after. But he decides not to now because you sound so strangely solemn about the whole thing, as though it was a story you buried deep with the intent of never bringing it up again.

“You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to, you know that, right?”

“Of course, I do,” you scoff at his worries, not nearly as threatened by Jim as the rest of Hawkins. You move to stand in front of him in the center of his room and meet his furrowed brows with a soft grin. “He’s not gonna do anything, he’s just pissed. He’ll berate me on the drive back to my apartment and then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

That seems to please Eddie well enough, though he’s still a bit disheartened at your leaving.

“I guess we couldn’t keep spending time together like this, huh?” he teases lightly, like the realization of it doesn’t make his chest ache. “Sorta forgot about the rest of the world… whatever that is.”

“It was fun while it lasted,” you tell him with a shrug and a whimsical sigh.

“Wait for me, will ya?” he jokes, if only to make you laugh and to feel like he’s stuck in some sickly sweet ending of a romcom for a couple moments more. 

You roll your eyes at his dramatics but let him wrap you in his arms anyway. His hands find purchase on your elbows, thumbs rubbing soothingly along the outsides of them. “How about a kiss, then?” he offers when the urge to feel you because too great to bear. “For our ten-minute anniversary and all?”

“You never have to ask me, Eds,” you assure with a laugh. You rise to the tips of your toes and he meets you halfway. 

Home is in your mouth. It’s warm and cozy and safe there. It’s easily the most familiar place he’s ever known, with your bottom lip nestled between his own. He feels homesick when you part from him. 

“You’re not mad at me?” he wonders quietly, feeling a bit like a cowering child from where he stands in front ahead of you — eased only when you shake your head almost immediately in response.

“No. I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, I think.”

“Okay. That’s… That’s good.”

“We can talk about it later, if you want. After I get lurch off my ass.”

He tries not to smile too wide, but it’s hard not to beam every time he looks at you. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess?” he stumbles over himself, having forgotten how to say goodbye to you. 

It’s equally as hard for you too, it seems, because you nod at him and turn to leave and then realize once you’re halfway down the hallway that you might not survive if you don’t kiss him again. 

So you turn and rush back, catching Eddie with his back turned and spinning him around so you can peck him again. You feel his cheeks heat beneath your palm and his sigh against your cupid’s bow and his lips melt against your own.

You etch each tingling sensation into the edges of your mind in the hope that you won’t drive yourself completely insane when you inevitably start to miss him like crazy. 

You focus on that and on him when you find Hopper and his stupid proud dad smirk. It’s the only reason you don’t punch him in the jaw and tuck and roll out of the Cruiser when the silence becomes so slowly insufferable.

You’re starting to think Jim left the radio off on purpose. You’ve never known the guy not to drive around without the strumming of an old-school folk song to accompany him. You figure it must be some sort of intimidation tactic, to make you so uncomfortable that you break. You’re a lot closer to that than either of you realize.

You spare a glance over at the man next to you. He hasn’t looked at you once since you get in the car. He’s got one hand at three o’clock on the steering wheel and the other with its elbow propped up on the door as he scratches at the stubble on his jaw. 

He’s too at ease not to be bothered. This is obviously some kind of front he’s putting on to conceal his inner irritation.

You give on the lecture you’d been trying to prepare yourself for and exhale sharply through your nose. Your fingers fidget on your thighs as you kick your restless feet up on the console. 

“Get your feet off the dash,” Jim scolds without missing a beat. 

You huff and obey. “Okay, this is crazy— can’t you just yell at me already?”

He barely wastes a second.

“I cannot believe you right now!” he seethes through gritted teeth, stewing in a dad-like sort of anger.

“It was three days, Hopper!”

“You know what happened the last time no one heard from you for three days?” he shouts back. 

You tip your head back against the seat and groan. You should’ve known he was going to play that card. 

He waves an accusatory finger between the both of you. “You and me— we had a deal, remember? You let me check in on you. You agreed to that. You visit your little high school friends, and I see you at work, so I can make sure you’re not off somewhere killing yourself.”

Hopper becomes a casualty to the tense silence he created then, when you don’t retort with some comeback of your own and force him to feel every ounce of pressure from the leaden quiet. 

He sighs a great big, too loud sigh and shifts in his seat. His softening gaze flits between you and the road. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that, okay? I just meant it, you know, figuratively. I wasn’t… trying to be mean.”

“When have you ever cared about being mean?” you monotone.

“I don’t,” he assures. “I’m just not trying to hurt your feelings, alright? Jeez…”

You try not to take too much pride in the man’s half-apology, though you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little bit rewarding.

Jim Hopper’s practically an iceberg. He only melts for his kid, Joyce Boyers, and you, apparently. 

It’s why he’s always so damn protective over you. He’s developed this sort of deep-rooted urge to keep you safe after watching you make every wrong decision a human being could possibly make. And when you mess up, because you do mess up, he feels like it’s partially his fault — that, if he’d done more, he could’ve kept you safer. 

It makes you feel like a burden most of the time, but you know it’s above yourself and mostly out of your control.

You’d known of each other for a while before you really met, because a troublemaker and police chief in such a small town are bound to. But somewhere down the line, he found you in a valley of mourning for someone that was still alive and you found him in a black hole of grief for someone who wasn’t. The empty and infinite voids within you both were stitched slowly together all over again. 

Jim Hopper was the dad you never had. You were the daughter he couldn’t.

And you thought something might change after he adopted El. You figured he might forget about you because it wasn’t like it was his job to watch after you or anything. Playing pretend always felt nice, but you knew it wasn’t real. 

It was to Jim, though, who’d developed a similar adoration for you as the one he had for Sara. He hasn’t been able to forget about you in the same way he hasn’t been able to forget about her. 

Every night, after he’s scrubbed the day off his body and washed it all down with a lukewarm beer, he lays on his pull-out bed in the small living room of his cabin and goes through a checklist in his head. 

He makes sure that he’s checked on El and reminds himself to wake up early to make her breakfast the next morning before he brings Joyce coffee at Melvald’s — Joyce. She always comes next on his list, always right after El, and then you. 

He forces himself to calm down when his blood pressure inevitably spikes at the thought of not having heard from you all day. He reminds himself that he saw you at work on his lunch break and that he’ll see you again tomorrow.

Jim hums to himself as he settles more comfortably into his springy cot, deciding that he’ll try a new wine he can’t pronounce when he sees you at Enzo’s the next day and that he’ll drink it while he rambles about Joyce or El’s new boyfriend.

He drifts to sleep with thoughts of Sara.

You’re as ingrained into his mind as every other person he’s grown to love.

He stopped worrying about never getting you out a long time ago. Like a tomato sauce stain on a dress shirt, he knows he’ll never get you out of his head. He knows even more so that he doesn’t want to — no matter how much you annoy him or how angry you make him when you don’t answer his calls.

“Sorry…” you murmur and swallow down whatever mundane argument you could’ve spewed then, at the result of his sudden warmth. You turn to gaze out the window and trace the edges of the puffy white clouds with your eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about that — the… deal, or whatever… Honestly, I was a little too busy being happier than I think I’ve ever been in my life, so…”

You don’t see the dramatic eye roll he gives you in response, but you can’t miss the hearty groan that spills from his mouth. 

“What?” you laugh in response. “Have you never been a kid in love before?”

It’s almost jarring how he goes from huffy to concerned in a fraction of a second. His head snaps over to you, jaw clenched and eyes suddenly stern and swimming with a lingering fear. 

“Love?” he repeats like he must’ve heard you wrong. “Love— That’s— That’s what this is?”

You shrug. “I don’t know… Maybe…”

His eyes flutter shut for a moment. “Please don’t tell me you’ve said that to each other yet. This guy was just a crush four days ago.”

“No, Hopper. We haven’t. I mean, he literally just told me he was a virgin, so I don’t think we’re even close to—”

“A virgin?” Jim echoes, voice high-pitched and giddy. He beams at you from beneath his bushy mustache and slaps you a little too hard on your arm when he laughs. “Shit, teacup. Are you runnin’ out of options over there or somethin’?”

You twist your body to hit him back harder with your right hand. “It’s not funny, Hopper,” you scold. “He’s nice.”

“You said that about Hargrove once—”

“This is different,” you monotone before the words have the chance to leave his mouth.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

The question stumps you for a moment because you don’t know — you can’t.

You’d never admit it out loud, but Hopper was right; you’re still not quite sure how you ever could’ve thought that Billy Hargrove was a good guy, but you did. You felt a similar feeling of elation with him as you do now with Eddie, an otherworldly sort of happiness that makes you feel like you’re the only person it’s ever happened to.

And here you are now, sometime later and reveling in the aftermath, still gluing pieces of your shattered heart together.

You treat love like a drug. You use and use and use until it stops being a fun thing and becomes a crutch you can’t live without. That’s always when it starts to hurt you, but you’re in too deep to stop craving it.

And you know it’s bound to happen all over again, but you have to believe Eddie’s different or else you might as well fall into the deep pit of despair you’ve been trying this whole time to crawl out of. 

He makes you happy, really really happy, and you’d rather gamble that he hurts you than give it all without even trying.

“I… don’t,” you conclude after a few moments.

Jim seems surprised by your admission, shooting you an incredulous look with his untamed brows raised to his hairline.

You meet his look with a wavering grin. “But he makes me really happy, Hop. Like… It feels like it should be illegal or something. He makes me feel so good my heart hurts. There’s like this—”

“Ugh,” the man grumbles in disgust, sullen all over again.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you weirdo,” you chide.

A grin twitches beneath his mustache in response. “I know you didn’t… ‘Cause Munson’s a virgin.”

“Oh my god!” you groan. “I didn’t even mean to tell you that, okay? Leave him alone— and a swear to god, Hopper, if you make fun of him—”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it, alright? I mean, he’s got the expert around to show him the ropes— ow!” You cut off his stupid joke and accompanying sardonic grin with a fist to his shoulder.

Steve and Robin tend to be quite the formidable duo.

They’ve barely got a brain cell to rub together between them, but there’s still something strangely intimidating about them when they’re both angry. It feels a bit like they’re your I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed parents, and you’re the scolded child taking your lashings in the form of a lecture.

It’s what you feel like now, sitting across from them in your designated booth at Benny’s Burgers — the one by the window in the corner. It’s far enough away from the bustle of the entrance but close enough still to gossip about the assholes you used to know from high school when they walk through the door. 

“You scare the shit out of us when you go AWOL like that, you know?” Steve confesses, still soft even though you know there’s a more upset part of himself he keeps hidden for now.

His chocolate gaze flits between you and the pile of fries in the middle of the table that the three of you share. He finds the one covered in the most salt and pops it into his mouth.

“AWOL?” you echo with a distant laugh when you realize how much he sounds like Hopper. “It was three days.”

“Yeah, and you fell off the face of the earth,” Robin retorts, half-muffled through the hearty gulp of strawberry milkshake starting to melt in her mouth.

“You guys are acting like I went halfway across the country,” you scoff. “I was with Eddie. At his trailer.”

“Exactly!”

Steve’s face contorts mid-bite. “Wait, you were with him? The freak?”

It makes you roll your eyes. He’d been too busy hopelessly flirting with the waitress at the counter to hear the entire recounting of your absence to Robin, though it was more of you gushing about it than anything else.

“Yep,” you answer.

“You skipped out on movie night to be with… Eddie Munson?” he reiterates for himself, as though there was any correlation between watching the same three movies while gorging on greasy junk food with your best friends and falling more in love with a guy you were already head over heels for as he tried to explain away the unopened box of condoms collecting dust underneath his bed.

Both are equally fun in their own ways, but totally totally different.

“How did you survive without me, Steven?” you joke back in response.

“He didn’t,” Robin quips.

“So… what? You guys just went on some kinda bender? I don’t get it. Did you just fuck the entire time or something?”

“Well, contrary to popular belief, I can actually spend time with someone and not fuck them—”

“Okay, that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And to answer your question — no, we didn’t fuck,” you confess, then elaborate more slowly, a tad bit awkwardly. “Because he told me today that… he is a… virgin.”

Your words seem to settle over each of them differently. Robin stills with her lips wrapped around the candy-cane striped straw then furrows her brows, as though their meaning hits her a few seconds after the fact.

Steve, meanwhile, goes entirely agape in an amazed sort of shock. His eyes go wide, his brows fly up and hide beneath the bangs that hang down over his forehead, and his jaw falls open. And then he starts to smile, a subtle hint of a grin on the corners of his pink lips, like he finds it funny.

“I knew it,” he murmurs to himself.

“…Why are you smiling like that?”

His smirk widens. “That freak said he screwed Vicki Carmichael senior year. I knew he was lying.”

“And why do you look so proud of yourself, exactly?” Robin asks him.

“Because now I feel less bad about never fucking her,” the boy explains like it’s obvious. He set his elbows on the table and gestures wildly with his hands. “I always thought the freak one-upped me because she, like, never gave me the time of day after Hargrove came along, you know? But… It’s good to know that I’m still king.”

His delighted grin is met with confused looks from both you and Robin, who look upon him with twisted eyebrows and squinted eyes. 

“Are you not aware of how strange everything that comes out of your mouth is?” you ask him, only partly joking.

“At least that settles why he wouldn’t let you give him a blow job,” the brunette girl concludes with a shrug as she slouches against the booth. “Poor guy was probably shitting bricks about it.”

You realize then that it does make sense, why he’d always been so adamant about your pleasure and never his own. Why he always touched you like you were some fragile thing he might break, and like everything was new to him. Because it was new to him. All of it.

And even though it baffles you to no end how he went his entire life without someone wanting to jump his bones (because truth be told, you’re doing a terrible job at hiding your want to do just that), the fact still remains — Eddie Munson is a virgin. 

He’s a virgin with an acute infatuation for the local slut, both of you freaks in your own right. 

It just adds more intricacy to a puzzle that already feels so complicated.

“I’ve never been with a virgin before,” you admit quietly, mostly to yourself, as you train your gaze on the straw wrapper you curl around your finger. “It’s different… Scary.”

“Why?” Robin wonders aloud.

“I don’t know. I just— I don’t know what to do now.”

“Just do what you always do,” Steve tells you like it’s that simple. He folds his arms on the table and leans in closer to you. “Experience is good. Okay? Experience is key.”

“No, it’s not that. I think I’m just… I’m scared I’m gonna treat him the way, you know, that I was treated. And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna do that to him.”

You’re not sure when the shift started, when you stopped being a person to people. You only know that you were something less than that. Somewhere between junior and senior year, you become a plaything that anyone could do anything they wanted to with, and you were too starved for physical affection to tell them otherwise. 

You liked the attention. You liked feeling loved, even if it was only for a minute and a half, and all you had to show for it was a pool of cooling come on your belly.

Eddie’s the fragile thing now that you were then. 

He was a delicate little thing that can break so easily, something you could split in half if you wanted to. 

You don’t. 

You want so desperately to be kind, but you’re scared you won’t know how to, because no one’s ever been kind to you.

Steve reaches across the table for you, taking a wild stab at an attempt for affection after several months of being scared to touch you — he did enough of that, he thought, and he’d hurt you. But he can see the lingering ache hiding in your glazed-over eyes and feels an overwhelming urge to quell your worry. 

Five warm fingers wrap around your wrist, not too tight or too strong, just enough to stop you from cutting circulation off to the tip of your pointer finger and to remind you that he’s still there.

“Trust me,” he tells you with a sudden soft swimming in his caramel-colored eyes and a smile playing on his lips. “You couldn’t do that to anybody. Not even if you wanted to.”  

Your heart nearly stops at his words, at the sheer kindness of them, and at the way he holds you in the soft way you’re used to only Eddie holding you. Your eyes go wide when they flit up to him and then start to sting with the weight of unshed tears. 

You’re quick to blink them away though, while you playfully shrug him off and joke — “stop being so nice before I get the wrong idea, Harrington” — because it’s easier than accepting his tenderness.

Robin takes one look at his fond gaze, all gooey and dripping with honey, and then at your rolling eyes and accompanying shy grin, and groans at the softness of it all. She slides out from the confines of the booth and grumbles something about getting a refill on her milkshake.

“Some fries too, while you’re up?” Steve offers with a hopeful grin.

He’s met with the girl’s signature scowl.

“Please,” you finish for him.

Robin grins. “Anything for you,” she croons, if only to make the boy pout, before skipping off to the counter.

She leans her elbows upon the red wooden laminate top and smiles that same sickly sweet smile for Benny by the grill — no doubt trying to get her refills for free. 

Even though the bearded man seems unimpressed with her presence, you know that he’ll give them to her free of charge. He’s always had a soft spot for her, one of the only people in town who could rival his wit.

The door dings open, a familiar and high-pitched chime that often becomes more frequent as the evening progresses. This time it lets in a foreign, bitter breeze when the door swings open and closed again.

You can feel the chill from a distance — it resembles the crispness of autumn despite being comfortably settled in the middle of March. It nearly takes your breath away, prickles your skin and makes you grimace back a shiver. 

When your eyes leave Steve, a difficult feat considering he’s doing an alarmingly good impression of a walrus by sticking fries in his upper lip, you find that it wasn’t abnormally cold air at all. It was a Peter Parker spider sense form of anxiety that had felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over you.

Billy Hargrove used to turn heads when he walked into a room. 

Now he just sucks all the air out of it.

And it’s not like you haven’t seen him since the break up; for a while, the asshole was painted on the backs of your eyelids — he all but haunted your consciousness. You’ll see him around town on occasion, in his sunglasses and jean jacket and too-tight denim pants, while he struts around Main Street with his new girlfriend (otherwise known as, his flavors of the month).

You think this is the first time you’ve been in the same room as him since your split, though. It feels like it must be with the way your throat starts to tighten and you forget how to breathe. 

All at once, you’re scrambling for an exit. It’s like Billy’s a fire and his smoke is rapidly filling your lungs. Your legs start to tremble when your adrenaline spike. Your brain tells you to get out as quickly as you can before he burns you.

Steve notices the look of fear flood your features like a dark storm cloud. You were laughing just seconds before the door opened, equal parts with him and at him, but now you just looked terrified — like a child who’s just spotted a boogeyman in her closet.

He turns in the booth to find what haunted thing has just caught your eye and finds that it’s worse than any monster you could conjure up. It’s Billy fucking Hargrove, with his pretty hair and his pretty smile and his pretty girl under his arm.

His presence filled targeted, almost. Like he chose to come to this diner, on this day and at this time just to fuck with the group of you.

“Don’t even look at him,” Steve advises when he turns back to you. “Look at me, okay? He’s not even worth it. That asshole doesn’t deserve to ruin our day.”

And you try to listen to him. You try really, really hard to let him change that subject to the cold fries or Robin taking too long or a combination of the two, but you can’t focus on him. You’re already so overwhelmed at the sight of Billy that you can’t focus on anything else but him. 

You settle on the fact that you might just have to drag Steve and Robin out by their wrists because you can’t sit in this booth any longer, and you definitely aren’t hungry anymore.

And that’s when he spots you.

Your eyes lock and you freeze, immediately averting your gaze but catching the sudden sparkle in his own as he grins a sly, sadistic grin.

“No way,” you hear him say with a laugh under his breath. The sound of his voice makes you tense. You hadn’t realized how at peace you’d been all this time without having to hear it. Now it feels like so many little needles piercing your skin.

“Fancy seeing you guys here,” he greets after he’s made a b-line for your booth and dragged Vicki Carmichael along with him. He smiles with all of his pearly whites while he smacks pungent wintergreen gum between them. 

When he slides into the booth beside you, he does so without invitation, and forces Vicki to slink in next to Steve.

And like it wasn’t already awkward enough, you know Vicki — like, know her, know her. There was a drunken makeout at a Halloween party in ’82. Then a one night stand with her brother before he left for college in ’83. And then her Tom Selleck clone of a father at a sleepover for her eighteenth birthday in ’85. 

You’re not exactly proud of it, but you’ve gotten a rather hefty taste of her family tree, and the fact that both of you know it makes it that much more uncomfortable.

“We’re kinda busy here, Hargrove,” Steve tells him when he notices how comfortable he’s making himself in your booth.

“Ooh… Is this a little date?” Billy teases with a grin.

Steve’s face falls. “…No.”

“Oh, right,” he nods, though the sardonic lilt in his voice tells you that he already knew the answer. He crosses his arms on the tabletop and turns to look at you with eyes bluer than any ocean. They flicker up and down your form. Suddenly, you feel self-conscious in your baggy jean and tank top duo.

“You’ve been seeing that guy, haven’t you? What’s his name again? The, uh— the freak?”

“His name is Eddie,” Steve answers for you, defending him because you can’t find the words to.

“That’s it,” Billy snaps his fingers, then points. He nudges you with his shoulder. The familiar feel of his jean jacket against your skin makes you wince. “God, you must be runnin’ out of steam over there, huh? I mean… the freak? Seriously? You couldn’t do any better than that?”

The jokes were tolerable coming from Jim and Steve and Robin — they weren’t funny by any means, but you could stomach them because you knew they were jokes. But this? This was just to hurt you. And it works too easily because Billy knows exactly how to break you. He knows all the wires to cut and buttons to push because the puzzle of shattering your psyche is one he memorized long ago.

“He’s actually a really nice guy,” you manage through a tight throat, still staring at your fidgeting hands.

“Well, that’s good,” he hums like you need his approval. “It’s about time, right?”

You huff and choose to entertain him despite your better judgment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He only shrugs. “I don’t know... Just, you know, that found a guy willing to settle for you. That’s all.”

“Settle?” you repeat, trying to laugh despite how tiny your voice sounds.

“You know what I mean, c’mon,” the blonde boy chuckles. “Sluts are fun and all, but they’re not the kinda girls you wanna settle down with. Steve knows what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Steve monotones quickly and without thinking, gaze hardened and jaw clenched. “And you need to leave.”

“I”m hungry, Billy,” Vicki whines, feeling every ounce of the tension surrounding her — like syrup or quicksand. She slides her permed bangs from her eyes and tucks a rogue strawberry strand behind her ear in a nervous tick. “Can’t we just get something to eat?”

“Alright, alright. I know when I’m not wanted,” Billy chuckles.

You grumble bitterly under your breath. “Apparently not…”

“I’ll see you around, Harrington,” Billy singsongs with a grin that wreaks of insincerity while his girlfriend slides out from the booth. He turns to look at you and squints. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? Matter of fact, point Munson my way, and I’ll give him a few pointers.”

You’re uncowed by his offer and angered by his mention of Eddie. Your eyes are stern and unwavering as you meet his gaze for the first time since he sat down beside you. 

“I think you could learn a thing or two from him, actually,” you retort, words sounding sweeter than the venom lingering behind them.

Billy’s grin only widens, impressed by your arguing. “Ooh… I forgot about the mouth you had on you, sweetheart.”

The use of the nickname makes you cringe. It doesn’t sound nearly as fulfilling as it does when it comes from Eddie. Now, it just sounds artificial — degrading.

He leans in close to you like he’s about to tell you a secret and splays his arm along the back of the booth behind you. The nicotine on his breath makes you grimace; it’s intoxicating when it comes from Eddie, disgusting from the boy sitting next to you. 

His eyes are bluer so up close, darker than you remember them being, and you notice he’s trimmed his usual stubble to a patchy mustache. He looks like the grown-up version of the boy you used to know, visually more mature but still the same in his way.

“When he gets bored of you — because, let’s be serious, he will get bored of you — you know where to find me,” Billy murmurs to you, a cynical smirk on the edges of his lips. “I’ll make sure you stay nice and broken in for the next dozen guys that want a taste—”

Steve can’t hear a word from where he sits across the booth, but he’s fuming with fists clenched under the table anyway. He hates how close Billy is to you, more so how uncomfortable you look with the proximity and how his words make you flinch. 

“Alright, you need to leave,” he blurts. “Now.”

Before the blonde could respond with a quip of his own, Robin all but teleports to the head of the table. She’s standing in front of the four of you suddenly, carrying a basket of fries and a strawberry milkshake and wearing a frown on her face.

“You’re in my seat, dickwad,” she monotones, even though she hadn’t been sitting next to you before. She’s not the least bit threatened by the Californian douchebag.

Billy smiles up at her anyway. “I was wondering where the third musketeer was! Still a carpet muncher, Buckley?”

“Happily.”

“What do ya say me and you head up to Lover’s Lake later?” the boy offers despite his date shifting awkwardly a few feet away. It’s a joke, for reasons that are more than obvious, and that’s what makes it so unbearably unfunny. 

He slinks out from the booth. The lack of his warmth is strangely comforting and you’re able to breathe for the first time in five minutes. He stretches his back out when he stands to his full height in front of Robin, then shrugs with his hands splayed on his hips.

“Maybe you just need some good dick. I mean… we’re gonna die anyway, right?”

“I’d rather,” she quips with a rouge-tinted smile.

The way it makes him laugh is startling. He finds a strange humor in being rejected — in most things, really. You still haven’t forgotten the cackles that left his bloodied mouth when Steve delivered blow after blow to the boy’s face in the middle of his living room, like it was all a fun game to him.

That was, of course, before Billy got the upper hand and nearly killed Steve that night. He laughed about it that too, until Max knocked him out with a baseball bat.

He’s got the same grin on his face now as he did then when he turns to look at you. A pink and pretty smirk, just wide enough to reveal the dimple in his left cheek. It’s nothing short of taunting, like he’s mocking you without having to say anything at all.

“Don’t be a stranger, alright?” Billy repeats. He keeps smacking his gum between his teeth and winks at you before spinning on the heel of his boot. He guides Vicki with him to the counter with a hand on the back pocket of her jeans.

Even when Robin slides in next to you and effectively pierces the bubble of tension that had already started to shrink with Billy’s leaving, you still find it hard to breathe. You have to keep reminding yourself, forcing oxygen in and out with wobbling breaths through your nose, or else you just stop altogether.

The other two move on rather quickly, having no trouble finding their voices again after he’s gone. Their words are muffled, though, like they’re underwater.

“I forgot what an asshole he was,” Robin grumbles.

“Well, I didn’t,” Steve retorts, eyes scanning the basket of fries for the most strategic pick of the bunch. “I can still barely breathe through my nose.”

“That’s because you didn’t go to a doctor, dingus.”

“Because I didn’t need a doctor, Robin.”

“Yeah, because being concussed three times in two years is so healthy—”

Your eyes act like magnets as they stay locked on Billy’s form. He leans in closer to Vicki to tell her something, then pats her once on the ass before walking towards the exit again. The door dings when he swings it open. Through the window, you catch him pulling out a red and white pack of cigarettes — the same brand of Marlboro Reds he’s been smoking since he was in middle school.

“You okay?” you hear Steve say, but it sounds too far away for you to realize he’s talking to you.

Robin nudges you with her shoulder to jog you from your stupor. You blink hard once and then turn to her with wide eyes. “What?”

“You doing alright over there?” the girl wonders.

“Yeah,” your answer is too quick and too high-pitched to be true. “Fine.”

“Like, fine as in you’re actually fine, or fine as in, if I leave you alone for too long, I’m gonna find you living under a bridge like a troll?”

You roll your eyes at her. “Fine as in, if someone bums me a cigarette, I’ll be good as new.”

Steve huffs when you hold out the palm of your hand toward him. He’s the only one of you who smokes recreationally enough to carry a lighter and pack of cigs with him. You swear he only keeps it with him because the weight of them makes him feel cool. You’re grateful for them now, though, and for the escape they unexpectedly provide you.

His fingers are warm when they brush your hand. The metal zippo he drops in the center of it is far colder and carries a comforting sort of weight to it. He thumbs a cigarette from the pack for you, and you take it with a sardonic smile and a sickly sweet “thank you, Stevie.” 

Robin gets out of the booth to let you slide out of it.

The door chimes again, this time over your head when you open it. 

Fresh, spring air nearly knocks you on your ass when it hits you for the first time. You realize then, that you’d forgotten to tell yourself to breathe and now your vision’s all swimmy. The cool breeze tries its hardest to quell your swelling anger, but you’re still at a simmering boil. Fists clenched over the lighter and cig duo in your palm and your sneakers slapping angrily against the cracked pavement.

That’s what signals your arrival, the raging stomps that echo in the alleyway Billy takes his smoke break in. 

The boy takes a puff of his cigarette and smirks on the exhale at the sight of you. All he needs is one glance to see how angry he’s made you. It’s an innocent, childlike sort of rage that’s got you all scrunched face and red — a heartbroken girl on a war path.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me, sweetheart,” he taunts with his signature sarcastic smile. He holds his arms at his sides, like he’s waiting for some kind of embrace from you. “You used to be like that all the time — all over me, you know? Clingy.”

“You know what you used to be?” you ask him once you’ve planted yourself a few feet away from him, fists shaking at your sides in a nearly overwhelming mixture of rage and apprehension.

“What’s that?”

“Nice! You used to be nice! Or do you not remember that?” you wonder rhetorically. Your anger fades slowly, an ebbing tide, as a reminiscent sadness eclipses your fury — a flood of blue in all your red. 

The sharp frown between your brows crumbles and so does your clenched jaw as your harsh features crumple like a balled-up piece of paper. You look upon the man that broke your heart with all the shattered pieces of it.

“You used to let me sleep over at your place when I was too scared to sleep alone at mine, and you’d bring me food when I told you I hadn’t eaten all day, and you’d take me on drives when you knew I hadn’t left my apartment in days,” you ramble in a single breath, gesticulating wildly with your hands — waving them at him and at you and the still air between. They fall hopelessly to your sides. 

“You used to be so sweet, Billy…” you conclude with a wavering breath. Your chest trembles on the inhale as you straighten out your shoulders and lift your chin, trying your best not to look as defeated as you feel. “And you know what you are now?”

Billy grins that stupid grin at you, the one that almost looks kind. Almost. It’s still soft in all its insincerity, like a parent entertaining their kid that’s gone on some meaningless tangent.

“No, sweetheart,” he answers after a beat. “What am I?”

“Not nice.”

He scoffs out a laugh.

“You used to tell me, all the time, how scared you were about ending up like you’re dad—” he tenses at the mention of the man, of his own monster in his own closet. “—He’d beat you black and blue every night, and I’d bandage all your cuts and put makeup on you when you begged, so you could go out and pretend like everything was normal. And you know what? You’re just like him!”

Billy doesn’t cower when you walk closer to him. He’s got no reason to be afraid of you, but your words hit him in a place far deeper than a thousand bloodied fists.

“What he did to you, is exactly what you do to me… Or do you know see that?” you don’t wait for a sarcastic reply, mostly because you wouldn’t see the indicators of it through the tears that blur your vision. “You’re not punching me, but it feels like you are. You break me over and over and over and I have to pretend like everything’s just normal and that we—”

“Real mature of you. To bring out the dad-card,” he interjects, if only to stop your ramblings so that he might not have to hear the truth that comes with them.

“You used to he nice,” you repeat, you agonize, you deflate. “Or… Or did you never use to be?”

The shell of your mind answers for you, paints itself with all the memories you’ve been trying like hell to forget for the past six months. It’s easier to pretend the bad things aren’t real than unravel all the reasons why they were bad to begin with, you find.

The negative memories come together like renaissance paintings — dark and gloomy and blotted with too realistic tears and spatters of blood. The oil stains the backs of your eyelids, destined to remain there forever like paintings in museum that’ll stand the test of time if you nurse them well enough.

You hadn’t yet been able to forget the screams and the cracks of fists colliding with bone. They tend to keep you up at night, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and beg for your memory to be wiped away completely. 

Billy crouches over Steve’s chest and pummels wholehearted punches to the boy’s face, never tiring in their force, even well after the boy goes limp underneath him. You beg for him to stop while trying like hell to shield Max from the sight of it all. 

For a while, you’d blamed yourself for it — for Max being there in the first place and for Steve’s cuts and bruises. 

You’d taken the girl and sought refuge in the Harrington home after witnessing a rather heated fight between Billy and his father. There was a sudden urge within you to take her far away from it before it ended how it always did — in weeping cuts and salty tears and insincere apologies when the cops were called.

But you made it worse anyway. 

For Max, for Steve. 

And you apologized profusely for it after, cried to the boy in his bathroom while you nursed his cuts like you were the one who put them there. 

When he told you it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t believe him. Not until now. Not until you realized that Billy had always been angry — always raging with an ocean of fear and grief and violence.

When he fought with his sister, you thought it was normal, that that’s just what siblings did. But the way she cried to you after couldn’t have been normal. Neither could the unearthly fury that washed over Billy like a riptide when he found out you and Max had sought safety in Steve The Hair Harrington — angered that it was Steve and that he couldn’t be that for the both of you.

And then there was the fights. The yelling and screaming and crying fights that felt like the end of the world every single time. The kind of fights you shouldn’t be having when you’re eighteen. You thought that maybe there was some normalcy in the cheating and the secrecy and Billy’s accompanying assholery because that was all you’d ever known.

Or maybe because you had to tell yourself that was normal in relationships because you didn’t want your’s to end. Billy was the first guy to give a damn about you in ways that went beyond just sex. How were you supposed to just give that up?

But then there’s Eddie — Eddie The Freak Munson, who was really just sunshine wrapped up in leather jackets and wild hair and chunky rings and metal music. He makes you happy. The sort of happy that makes you suspicious because something bad has to counteract all the goodness he makes you feel. 

Maybe that’s what this was. 

Seeing Billy after having wrapped yourself in a blanket of Eddie’s warmth made you see somehow more clearly. He loves on you so much that it’s made a mockery of everything else. 

Whatever you had with Billy wasn’t normal, it was a goddamn shit show. He loved you when it was convenient and then had you believing it was the real thing, that you wouldn’t find it anywhere else, when you tried to leave him. 

It was a lie, all of it.

The realization makes you falter.

“Oh, god…” you sigh, voice fragile like cracking glass. “Maybe you never used to be…”

For the first time ever, you see Billy’s grin shake. The edges of it flitter, like he’s fighting to keep the corners quirked up. And his eyes have gone a lighter shade of blue, the way they always did when he blinked back angry tears as he talked about his father.

It isn’t rage glassing his eyes now. It’s something sadder, but still as real — something you never got from him in the two years you were together.

He tries, still, to cover it all up. He smacks his lips against his teeth, sympathetically. “Sorry it took you this long to figure that out.”

The laugh you exhale then is heavy with sadness. Your smile is far away and so is your gaze as you stumble back from him. You turn your head to the edge of the alley where mom’s with strollers and people in fancy suits bustle on the sidewalk and keep your eyes on the strangers that whiz by you’ll probably never see again. 

“This is… This is pointless,” you murmur. His lean form is blurry through the burning tears you blink away. “Every time I see you, it’s just more bullshit so let’s just— let’s just leave each other alone, okay?”

Billy takes a puff from his cigarette. When he sighs, white smoke billows from his plump, pink lips. “That’s a shame… I was just thinking that you were the most interesting you’d ever been.”

The ebbing tide that had just left you rushes back in a bubbling scarlet wave. His words don’t make you sad anymore, they just make you angry all over again because you know you don’t deserve them. And you’re not entirely sure why he’s chosen you to antagonize out of all the other girls who’d made the mistake of falling for him, but you’re too far past the point of not caring to ask.

“Bother me again and I tell Chief Hopper,” you threaten even though you don’t feel very threatening just now. “I know you’re not scared of me, but you’d be stupid to be scared of him.”

“Why’s that?” he wonders before sticking the half-gone stick between his lips again.

“Because he runs Hawkins. And he fucking hates you—” for what you did to me, you almost say. You swallow the words down like bile before they have the chance to spew out. “And… And be nice to Vicki. Okay? She’s too good for you. Don’t do to her what you did to me.”

Your plea for another is the last thing you say to Billy before you turn away from him. You wouldn’t be upset if it was the last thing you ever said to him. You’re grateful for the resounding silence that follows. It’s nothing but the sound of your receding footsteps and the soles of his shoes scrapping the concrete as he snuffs out his cigarette. 

There is no snarky remark or insincere plea — just two people who used to love each other that have no idea to exist together anymore. 

When you step outside the brick confines of the alleyway, you feel as though a fraying string that had always connected the both of you had been finally cut.

It allows you to take a deep breath in for the first time in months. A lungful of fresh air that cleanses you, body and mind.

And when you catch Steve and Robin idling at the corner and doing a terrible job of pretending like they hadn’t just been eavesdropping, you don’t get upset or angry with them — you don’t feel much of anything, really.

You just hand the boy his lighter and unused cigarette and let them comfort you on the drive back to your apartment.

A misery sandwich. That’s what Robin calls the three of you and the heaping pile you lay in. 

Your queen-sized bed is in no way meant to accomodate three moderately sized adults, but you make it work anyway, like you always do.

Steve lays on his back, legs crossed and hands tucked under his head. Robin is on her stomach on the other end of the mattress, arms wrapped around the pillow she smushes the side of her face into. You lay between the both of them — on the both of them. Sprawled out sideways, you’ve got your head on propped up on Steve’s ribcage and your legs thrown over Robin’s thighs. 

The awkward position is the most comfortable you’ve ever been.

“I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to show up to the diner on our day,” the boy rants. “And then sit in our booth, I mean— who does he think he is?”

Robin’s response is mostly muffled by the pillow. “I thought he left, like, forever ago.” 

“Maybe he just couldn’t stay away. It’s Hawkins, shit attracts shit, right?” Steve answers with a shrug that jostles your head slightly. It doesn’t little to knock you from your stupor, though, where you’ve been stuck for the better part of the day. You pick at the skin around your nails with little regard for how red and raging it's gone.

He notices this and thumps you on your temple — hard enough for you to feel it, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt you. 

You turn your chin to your shoulder to look over at him. He tilts his own head to stare down at you, honey-tinted gaze somehow stern and soft at the same time. “If he bothers you again, I’ll kill him.”

You’re instantly warmed by his protective disposition. You know that he cares about you, even though you like to joke that he doesn’t. Steve hurt you once, made a promise to himself to make it up to you, and then just never left you alone. 

You’re grateful for it. 

You’re not sure who’d be the butt of every joke if he wasn’t around.

“Good to know,” you answer, nodding against his side and trying to hide the smile he gives you. You fail. “You think if he breaks your nose again, it’ll pop back into place?”

His face falls. “You’re real sweet, you know that?”

You open your mouth to respond, something along the lines of “I’m always sweet. You of all people should know that, Stevie,” before a knock sounds at the front door. It comes in the several rhythmic raps that Eddie is known to give when he’s got a tune stuck in his head. 

Apparently now, it’s the chorus to “Why Can’t This Be Love?” The Van Halen song he said he couldn’t stand before you.

Robin huffs at the sound of the muffled taps. She frowns like a child. “Who the hell…?”

“It’s just Eddie,” you affirm through a half-hearted grunt as you rise from your comfy position.

That brightens the two of them up almost immediately. Her and Steve share a look you can’t place as they grin at one another. Then they turn back to you with identical mischievous twinkles in their eyes. “Your boyfriend is here,” the former of the two singsongs.

You roll your eyes, but make no move to correct her. 

When you stand from the bed and make the short journey towards the door, you hear the patter of their feet following close behind you. 

“Gonna go all the way tonight?” Steve teases and jabs you on the shoulder. “Do you want us to leave?”

“No, nothing is happening. And yes, I think you should leave,” you monotone playfully.

Robin rushes past you suddenly and grabs the brass door handle before you’re able. She swings it open without thinking twice about it. Her sudden appearance, coupled with the fact that it isn’t you, startles the man on the other side of the door.

Eddie’s umber eyes go wide, brows raising and disappearing beneath his fluffy bangs, as his head jerks back.

“Eddie Munson,” the girl full-names the stranger she’s never spoken a word to before now. She leans against the doorway and effectively blocks the boy’s view of you. Steve, who squeezes himself in beside her, doesn’t make it any easier. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You too, Buckley…” he wavers, trying to peer past them for any sight of you.

“Perfect timing, Eds,” you call out from behind them. “They were just about to leave.”

He’s relieved at the sound of your voice — even more so at your appearance when the two in front of you step off to the side to toe on their sneakers. 

You don’t look much different than when he saw you last. You’ve put on some makeup that’s started to smudge after the long day and changed your baggy sweatshirt for a more fitted tank top and boxers, but other than that you’re still the same. Still familiar and comforting in your way, a home away from home.

His smile is a tired one and it wobbles at the edges. “Oh, shit, am I— am I interrupting something?”

“No,” you’re quick to reassure him. “You’re saving me, actually.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Steve scoffs. “You love us.” 

The boy pulls you into a hug before he leaves, and it’s not the rarest thing in the world, but embraces like this do tend to be few and far between. He whispers  “use protection” in your ear and then a sharp “ow!” when you jab him in the ribs.

He and Robin smile kindly at Eddie when they walk by him and out the door, but waste barely a second before turning back around and grinning wildly at you. Steve flashes you a thumbs up while she mouths a cartoonish ‘good luck’ — like it’s the first time you and Eddie had ever been alone together. Like they were just on your ass about having been with him this whole time.

You usher Eddie and shut the door behind them. A quiet sort of peace settles on the apartment like a weighted blanket. The boy revels in every bit of its warmth.

Exhaustion drips from him like syrup. He’s sticky with it. His eyes have lost their usual twinkle, weighed down now with the burden of his fatigue. His face has lost most of its color, leaving a pale sheath of monotoned skin, and his hair is wilder than normal, with an unintentional sort of ruggedness to his curls.

It’s what being without you has done to him.

“You okay?” you ask him softly. It almost makes him want to cry.

“Yeah,” he answers anyway and idles in the spot where your kitchen meets your living room. “Just had a pretty shitty day. Wanted to spend time with you.”

“Me too… About the wanting to spend time with you part— and the shitty day part, too, I guess.”

Eddie smiles at your rambling, but purses it to the side to conceal it from you. “And since it is just about our…” he trails off and bends his elbow to check the watch on his wrist. “…Twelve hour anniversary, I picked us up some takeout.”

He sets the plastic bag on the counter. The red logo of Oriental Jade on the side of it makes your stomach roll with a distant hunger. You hadn’t realized how starved you were feeling after you abandoned your early dinner at Benny’s. It makes you more grateful for Eddie, who always seems to be on the same wavelength as you without even trying.

“Keep this up and we’ll be married before we hit hour twenty-four,” you joke as you rifle through the cartons — chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, the works.

Eddie settles in next to you, propping his elbows on the countertop. “Well, I’m pretty sure the courthouse opens at nine, so… What were you thinking for the honeymoon? Hawaii? Bora Bora?”

“How about a cabin in the woods where no one can find us?”

“Hmm… Spooky. Sexy. I’m into it.”

You settle in the living room and eat on the couch while She Ra re-runs play on the television. You try to teach Eddie how to use chopsticks, though he can only work them with his non-dominant hand and all the wrong finger placements. You think it’s cute to watch him fumble with them, and you giggle about it until you’re scolding him for trying to feed Bowie some noodles. He laughs as you swat at him.

When all the containers are fully scrapped clean and tossed in the recycling bin, you migrate to the bedroom — which is perhaps too raunchy a phrase to use when the two of you only bury yourselves under the covers to talk shit.

Eddie drags out the chunky box fan you use when the air conditioner goes out in the summer — because it always goes out in the summer — and props it on the chest at the foot of your bed so the covers will billow around the both of you. “And it’s perfect because we can stay in the fort forever and not get hot,” he tells you, all giddy about it like he's a kid again.

“What if I get cold?” you retort.

Without missing a beat, he answers, “Well, lucky enough for you, I know several ways I can warm you up, sweetheart.”

He ditches his leather jacket and strips down to his boxers and settles in beside you underneath the blankets. The two of you lay shoulder to shoulder while you trace absentminded patterns on the palm of his hand and tell him about your day.

You make sure to leave out all the re-traumatizing-Billy-Hargrove bits, though. You focus mainly on the tense drive with Hopper and the small fight you’d had with Steve on the drive to the diner later that afternoon about the lyrics to Love My Way (both of you had been wrong).

Eddie tries his hardest to focus on your story and your fleeting touches, but he’s too far in his own head. You tell him all these things but he can’t stop thinking about himself — about whether or not you might’ve brought him up somewhere in between. 

He wouldn’t have blamed you, if you had. Steve and Robin are your closest friends and, for whatever reason, so is Chief Hopper, you’re bound to bring him up eventually. He was just hoping it would’ve been in a better capacity. Maybe about how kind he was or what a god he was in bed — not how he could only be one of those things because he’d never been anything in bed.

“It doesn’t make things weird between us, does it?” he wonders out of the blue.

You halt mid-sentence and turn to him with furrowed brows. “What?”

Eddie realizes then, that the first half of the conversation with you had only happened in his head. He prays that it’s too dark beneath the covers for you to see how red his cheeks get. “Just… What we talked about this morning. About me… you know…” He finds it hard to say the words. Or any of them at all.

“Why would it make things weird?”

“I don’t know. Because I wasn’t… totally honest with you, I guess? I feel a little bad about it, you know?”

“It’s okay,” you assure and turn on your side to be closer to him. Eddie stays on his back, more than happy to let you cuddle further into him. “I guess I do wish you’d said something before, though.”

His chest tightens. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know how to—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad!” you interject quickly when you catch the spiral of regret he was about to twist himself into. You curl tighter into his side, tossing a leg over his thigh and wrapping your hand around his bicep in an effort to melt with him. When he turns to face you, your noses nearly brush.

 “That’s not how I meant it. I just meant that, if I’d known before, I wouldn’t have… I would’ve taken things slower. I wouldn’t have been so, you know, so all over you.”

He hates how apologetic you sound. Like there was ever an ounce of him that would want to take back what happened that night at his trailer or a part of him that might hate how much you love on him.

“I liked it. I do like it.”

“Maybe we can just start over,” you offer. “Pretend like none of that ever happened.”

Eddie knows there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to forget about a single damn thing — not his cum stained jeans and how you looked so pretty washing them for him, not the feel of your tits in his mouth or you wrapped around his fingers, not how you made him blow his load all over his fist just by talking to him. 

He goes along with it anyway, though, just for you.

“Okay...” he nods slowly, then squints over at you. “You’re still my girlfriend, though, right?”

“Of course I am,” you giggle.

He grins proudly to himself. “Well then… Hope it’s not too early to have our first kiss then?”

It makes you roll your eyes because it’s such an Eddie Munson way of asking to kiss you. You told him earlier the day that he never had to ask you — in fact, you’d prefer it if he’d just kiss you out of the blue and take your breath away without you ever knowing it was coming. But there was something foreign and sweet in his little reassurances.

“Kiss me silly, Eddie Spaghetti,” you beam. He twists on his side to press tiny pecks to your smile.

It’s rather strange, you find, to kiss someone this way without the intention of it ever becoming something more. You kiss him just to kiss him — just to map the outline of his cupid’s bow and memorize the pattern of his tongue. Just to feel him, as much of him as your mouth will allow you to.

With one arm curled under his head and the other cradling your jaw, when his watch alarms — high-pitched beepbeepbeeps in quick succession — it’s sudden and close to your ear. 

Your lips click in protest when they part. His are pink and swollen and glossy with your spit. He smiles with them. “Happy twelve hour anniversary, sweetheart.”

“How long are you gonna make that stupid joke?” you laugh like your heart isn’t swelling so much you’re scared it might burst entirely.

“Uh, I was thinking… forever. Yeah. That sounds about right,” he concludes after a moment of feigned thought. He turns his watch off again and you swear you see him set for another twelve hours from now.

“Forever?” you echo.

“Uh-huh. Forever—” he presses his lips to yours once. “—And ever—” Twice. “—And ever.”

Eddie kisses you until you’re flat on your back and surrendering to each of his tiny little pecks. You twist your hands in his hair and let him love on you a little while more. You giggle when his mouth trails from your lips to your chin to your jaw to your neck. Please don’t get bored of me, you beg silently within your laughter.

I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, he answers with each kiss his sprinkles to your starved skin. How could I, when you’re the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me?

[diazheartsbuckley]

Soooo many to choose from, they all look so good! Ok get ready for a heap of asks 💞

🖤🖤🖤

Omg Hippo, I’m so sorry that I’m taking forever to answer 🥲

Hope you enjoy tho!

Prev snippet here (I don’t write in order, whoops)

🖤 aka lots of religious trauma

“I uhm-… I might have to reenlist if I don’t find a job soon” Eddie says, dragging his hands across his face, feeling a few beads of sweat forming near his temples. He doesn’t want to reenlist, he doesn’t want to leave Christopher behind again, he can’t do that to him. Not when he moved to another state just to be able to keep seeing him. Shannon had gotten a job offer that she couldn’t refuse and Eddie had willingly accepted that if they were to co-parent, he had to come with them.

And the last thing he’d expected was to meet someone as amazing as Buck, so loving and caring and kind and so proud of who he is. Eddie wishes that he could be like him, be happy with who and what he is. Surely, he’d come out to Shannon and Christopher but not to the world. He wasn’t ready for that. Maybe he’d never be ready and that scared him too because Buck…Buck makes him feel whole.

And even though he wasn’t ready to share his feelings with the world, he knew that he didn’t want to leave Buck behind either.

The concern spreads instantly across Buck’s face, forming deep creases on his forehead and even small lines around his eyes. “I won’t let you do that, Eds. You can’t do that to yourself. Or to Christopher” or to me, the last part remains unspoken because he knows that he might just be pushing Eddie away instead of holding him close. “There has to be another way”

Eddie exhales deeply, the fear almost palpable as he stares at a blank space right behind Buck’s head. He knows that if he looks at him for too long, those soft, blue puppy eyes will win him over. Without a doubt, he knows that he’s in love with Buck but he doesn’t know how to show it. Yet.

Instead, he reacts in a manner that he can only recognize as coming from his father. He halfway flies out of his seat and drags his fingers almost desperately through his hair. “Don’t you think that I’ve thought about that? Do you think I want to leave my kid behind again?”

Do you think I want to leave you behind?

“That’s not what I’m saying, Eddie. I’m saying that I want to help you” Buck replies, not reacting to Eddie’s outburst but instead stretches his hand out carefully, touching Eddie’s side with his fingertips.

Oh.

The silence lingers for a moment before Eddie speaks again, this time realizing that maybe he has to react differently. “I’m just-…”

“Scared. I know. But we can work it out. Together. Okay?”

“Okay” Eddie agrees despite the fact that he’s fighting every fiber of his being. A real man doesn’t need help from others, his father’s words echoes in his head.

Make me write ✍️

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[whoahoney]

Alright yall, Deftones/septum piercing boy turned into a ghost, may he rest in peace 💀 but never fear….

the Pizza Guy is here. 😏👀

That’s right, a new white boy of the month in Honeyland but that’s okay, I’ve decided to award him white boy of the month, every month for the rest of the year (at least) because he’s my BOYFRIEND!

he actually asked me and everything, like whaaaat?

I love the story of how we met so much so imma write it out a little bit before I toy with turning it into an Eddie fic like I did with the chilis waiter 💀🫶🏻

Read on if you’re interested in my weird love life, it’s appreciated but never required!

TW: pregnancy sickness, crush on someone other than your shitty ass husband (it’s okay we’re divorced now 🥳😂)

Basically back in 2021, I was heavily pregnant with my second child and alllllways craving pizza. I already order dominos often enough they know my name and order when I come in, but it was much more often than normal while I was growing a human 😂

One day, I go to pick up my order at the dominos hot spot in town and there is a handsome Covid-masked boy there waiting for me.

I’d never seen him before so I knew he was new. I got shy and just accepted the pizza, trying to get back into my car as quickly as possible. But then he gave me the loveliest smile and wished me a good day and I thought about it a smidge longer than a married woman should.

The next time I saw him, he gave me tons of paper plates and napkins and full shakers of pepper and Parmesan, and that became a regular occurrence I didn’t think too much of. (Turns out he was STEALING FROM WORK)

The next time, he asked me about how I was feeling, about my baby, and what his name was going to be.

And then the next time, I was late picking up my order, and it’s protocol to call the customer in that instance, so he calls me and asks if I’m okay. Truth be told, I wasn’t 💀 I had BARFED all over myself (cause pregnant) as I was driving over there. I was so upset, clamoring around my car searching for an old hoodie to pull on, but I couldn’t find anything 🥲

Obviously I wasn’t going to tell him all that, so I told him I’d be there momentarily, that I had just been sick.

He offers to drive it to me, free of charge, but I was almost there anyway.

He didn’t even acknowledge the puke on my shirt and gave me the same smile he always did (that I couldn’t see cause of the mask lmao) and told me to be careful going home.

lemme tell you that when I got back, I had a text from an unknown number asking if I got home okay 🥺 my friend was utterly convinced this dude had the hots for me but I was married and pregnant so I had a hard time hoppin on that bandwagon, “it’s not like anything’s going to happen anyway”

I’d say a month after that, I stopped seeing him and assumed he’d moved onto bigger and better things than dominos.

Cut to January 2024, I’m swiping on bumble, minding my business and I see the cutest guy in a Metallica shirt eating noodles straight from the pot over the sink. I was already set on swiping right, but then I looked further at his profile and lo and behold, a selfie in a familiar domino’s uniform!! It had to be him.

I swipe right, we MATCH, I confirm it’s him, he REMEMBERS ME, and we plan a date.

He suggested that we meet at our “old spot” and he’d bring dinner.

And what does he bring??

A dominos pizza and a dozen red roses. 🥺

Turns out my friend was right, he confirmed that he had a “huge little crush” on me and that he’d bargain with the other drivers to get my order if it wasn’t his to take 😭 he’d give them the tips I’d give him if he ever had to convince someone to switch with him 🥲

I’ve dated some very kind and respectful people since July 2023 but this guy blows them all out of the water 😭

He’s so communicative, his boundaries and emotional intelligence are unmatched, we have the same taste in music, his love languages are the same as mine, he’s also a single father (and absolutely rocks it), we share the same values, every day he’s surprising me with some lore of his, or his kindness, or thoughtful nature 🥺

he plans every date, sends me his work schedule so I know when I can come in for a surprise visit if I want to, he brings me snacks, pays for and pumps my gas, opens every door, and won’t even let me lift a finger in my own house!!! All without me asking.

And don’t get me started on the sex bro… I— I can’t. 🥲🫠😮‍💨

If you read this far, I love you, I hope you’re doing well, I miss my tumblr/eddie hyper fixation so much, but I feel it coming back 🤍 I hope to finish our beloved stories and give them all the endings they/we deserve 😌🥰

Xx

Honey

[magnoliabutters]

• FEELING EVERYTHING •

pairing: kas!vamp eddie munson x (she/her) reader

summary: so what kas saved your life?! it’s not like you owe him everything…

warnings: 18+ content, mdni, adult language; canon divergence, enemies to lovers trope, season 4 spoilers, previous parts mentioned; sexy angst, slight suicidal ideation, manipulation, child abuse (previous trauma mentioned), toxic ass kas, sexual advances tied with a misunderstanding, hot and cold dynamics, dwugs, depression, grief, anxiety (panic), y/n count: 3, etc.

word count: ~8.9k

reblogs, comments, & thoughts are appreciated 🦇

• stories of eddie munson series • season two • previous part •

note: as always, thank you for the patience! we're almost coming to a close y'all! in this part, i tried to challenge myself to focus more on describing the visuals and the scene. let me know your thoughts! i cannot wait to read your reactions!

note to the note: my partner, who was so kind to beta-read, found an inconsistency around the border of vecna’s “new world.” you may or may not catch it. i just wanna share i am aware, and i am upset haha unfortunately caught it too late 🥲

The dried grass is rough against your shins. A sea of plains ahead that curl into waves with each blow of the wind. The orange streaked sky, a beautiful sight, now a daunting reminder to find shelter before the night. You wish you could have been here any other time. The gorgeous way the sunlight trickles onto the glossy leaves of the trees. The way the sun feels against your skin. The air just cold enough that the warmth of its rays feel nostalgic. 

Eddie would have loved this. The opportunity to find civilization, as though it was some challenging quest. He would have compared it to some battle his Dungeons and Dragons character led the party into. His arms stretched out as he passionately tells the tale of how they won the fight with only a sliver of a chance. A heroic and miraculous story that only he could tell correctly. 

He always told stories in a way that made you feel as though you were actually there, feeling each and every emotion. All the ups and downs. He had you clinging to the edge of your seat, clinging onto every word no matter the topic. Your heart warms at the thought of that beautiful mouth speaking a million words a second as he excitedly shares a story. God, how you wish you could see him again. 

The uncomfortable scratching of the heavy grass continues to remind you that an oversized t-shirt and panties is not the ideal hiking gear. Not that you exactly had a choice. You struggle to step through the field, stumbling along with your arms held out wide for balance.

“You look like a bird,” Kas scoffs as his thick leather boots crunch against the yellow waves of the pasture. His bare chest still littered with pink scratches. He carelessly plows through the tall grass. Your eyes instinctually roll, leaving another muffled chuckle to drop from his lips. Your hands gradually fall to your side as embarrassment seeps into your pores. 

“Do you even know where we’re going?” he mutters as he swats away a horse fly. Your annoyance levels have been seriously dampened with the recent events. Kas’ constant “are we there yet” attitude is not helping in the slightest. “I figure if we keep heading north, we’ll get to the highway and,” you bite your lip, tensing your brow as you point over the vast hill. “Um, we’ll just hitchhike.” You shrug, looking back at him with a weakly confident expression. His face deadpanned as he stares back at you with lack lustered eyes. 

“Hitchhike?” Kas asks with a monotone. “Yeah,” you grumble in hesitancy. “Doesn’t everyone in a fifty mile radius of Hawkins think I am some satanic serial killer?” he inquires with the side of his lip pulled as he stares at you in judgment. Your eyes fall as you realize your mistake. “Well, um, let’s just find the highway first and figure out what to do from there,” you utter as you push through another bundle of grass. “Okay,” he says in a sing-songy voice as he walks off in front of you. 

This is your life now. You try your best not to compare between the two - knowing that would cause you nothing but pain, but it’s hard. It’s so hard to know what you had and what you have lost, and what you have now. A small part of you wishes you had nothing at all.

With great love, comes great vulnerability and despair. You find yourself wondering if it was worth it. If loving Eddie was worth the pain of losing him. Of having his complete opposite inhabit his body and parade the fact that he is no longer the love of your life. In fact, he punishes you for thinking that, as if you could resist the urge. The agony you feel, both physical and emotional, almost pushes you off the edge. The question of “is it worth it?” echoes through your mind. 

Kas looks ahead of the pairing. He notes a break in the clear pasture and sees a tree line. His eyes discern its distance, noting that it is a rather thin tree line. Suddenly, he sees motion rushing by behind the trunks. The only vehicles he is used to were filled with and destroyed by Vecna’s blackened veins, but he still identifies the motion as cars. Excitement fills his chest as he hurriedly turns around with a finger pointing at the tree line. 

But when he turns, his smile disappears. He watches as your eyes are glued to the ground. Your face is solemn. The edges of your beautiful lips turned downward as your hair covers your face. The excitement immediately shifts to worry as he takes a step towards you. His hand slowly moves to your gaze, interrupting your thoughts. 

As your head innocently raises towards him, Kas shoots you a comforting smile. His hands, both naturally and hesitantly, flow to the sides of your arms. You decide to shoot him a weak grin as you appreciate what he is trying so hard to do. And with that, Kas pulls you in - deeply pressured against his chest as his arms wrap around your upper back. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers against your ear. His chin finding a place upon the top of your shoulder. Such a familiar feeling, Eddie’s embrace, and yet you have another reminder of his lost presence. You want him so badly. You wish he could be here. That his true self was holding you, comforting you. Your hands fall upon the base of his spine, pulling him tightly into you. Abruptly, the sobs fall from your lips as you push yourself deeper against the warmth of his skin. 

Kas knows you are hurting - who wouldn’t be after what you have been through? The thing is he wasn’t sure exactly how much pain filled your saddened soul, but once he heard those sobs - he knew. It is gut wrenching to feel your body heave against his. The pain is so much worse than the sensation of your nails digging against his skin. His hands smooth out your back as he attempts to comfort your contorting body. 

Finally, you feel it. You feel everything you have pushed deep within yourself since you heard of Eddie’s passing. The pain. The anguish. The betrayal. The threat of death. The fear of death - an actual impending death - no longer one in the far off future. You lost the love of your life. 

Eddie is dead. 

And your heart has felt empty since your realization of this. Your knees give out and both you and Kas fall to the floor. Kneeling beside each other and still stuck in a beautiful embrace. 

As tears stream down your face, Kas pulls away slightly to look at you. His brows push together as his thumb traces against your cheeks. “Sh, sh, sh,” he whispers as one of his hands caresses the back of your head. He pulls you gently and closer to his chest. His chin now resting against your hairline. 

Abruptly, you pull away, sniffling as you do. You are confident you look a hot mess but you don’t care, not even a little. You wipe your nose as your eyes darken before him. He stares at you in confusion and worry. His body aching for your touch. 

“You said you saved me,” you start slowly, attempting to push down the sobs that climb your throat. “That you would have never killed me.” Kas nods with curiosity as your eyes raise to his. “I-I want to talk about something and I don’t want to hear shit about it,” you spit out harshly. However, your expression immediately returns to the vulnerable girl that Kas has grown to love. It leaves a hint of a smile on his face.

“What would you like to talk about?” he asks softly. With a deep sigh, you mumble, “I want to talk about Eddie.” Kas winces at the name, something you immediately notice. Another physical pain shoots through your chest as you prepare your body for his rejection. He takes a deep breath, placing his palms to his knees as he slowly nods with eyes to the ground beneath you both.

“Go ahead,” he whispers. Your heart fills with joy, enough to completely disregard his body language. Soft sobs follow your laughter. Your hand pushes the tears away from your cheeks as he slowly raises his head. “He was beautiful,” you choke out whimpers with an ambiguous smile to your face. “He is easily the best person I have ever met,” you laugh out weakly.

A small, tight smile forms on Kas’ face as his hand slides behind your head once again. He pulls you into the side of his neck. His other hand collapsing around your crying body. “At first, I had no idea how he could be so confident and silly,” a smile emerges on your face as he wipes another round of tears from your cheeks. 

“Do you remember any of his rants in the cafeteria?” you ask excitedly. Your inexperience with vulnerability attempting to make the conversation less one-sided. The smile on his face slowly grows as a low hum of a chuckle riffles in his throat. He slowly nods as his grip tightens at your waist. "I remember one distinctly about how the cafeteria stopped giving out corn on the cob," he answers.

In the midst of a laugh, you pull back to look at his face. “What else do you remember?” you ask, placing a hand to his chest. Tears now well in your eyes, as opposed to flowing down your cheeks. Kas takes a deep breath, following the press of his tongue against the back of his front teeth. 

The silence flattens your grin. You lean backwards to pull your thighs and legs from his knees. The tightness and excitement in his chest persists as Kas remembers how his words impact you. How your smile grows any time he shares a memory. How his heart flutters at the sound of your giggle. 

He winces, disgusted with the warm, cuddley shit that Eddie’s more accustomed to. And yet, here he is - desperate to put a smile on your incredible face. A part of him wonders if you were manipulating him. Show him a grin and he is a puddle between your thighs. He hates the hold you have over him. How your happiness makes his undead heart beat. 

Kas wonders if he will ever have autonomy, or if he will continue to be a slave for others as long as his mystical life will allow. His body craves for yours, pushing his mind to find a way back to caressing your soft skin. He sorts through the hazy fog and recollected memories. 

With a huff, he shares, “I remember the day you made Mac n Cheese.” He lightly taps his fingers against his thighs as he adjusts to sit cross legged. His eyes were down, but he could see you beaming off-center of his gaze. 

“We were with, um,” he hesitates as he looks up. His hands quickly move around, gesturing as he speaks. “Wayne,” the name pops out eagerly from your sweet lips. An encouraging nod to follow. “Wayne, yeah,” Kas agrees slowly, pretending as though he did not know exactly who his uncle, Wayne Edward Munson, was. 

“He liked you,” Kas says, lifting his brow as a smirk appears on his cheek. You laugh to yourself, feeling a warmth in your chest. “You know, Eddie - I mean - he told me that but I still wasn’t sure,” you end with a chuckle. His eyes lift to yours - those button eyes comparable to your childhood teddy bear. They always left happiness ringing through your body. 

He shakes his head. “No, darlin’,” he starts. “There’s no world where you wouldn’t be on anyone’s good side.” With a slight chuckle, he adds, “Hell, I kept pushing you away and I couldn’t stay hating you.” You bite your lip, trying to hide the largest smile since you last kissed Eddie. “I am pretty loveable, aren’t I?” you ask sheepishly. With his tongue stuck to his canine, he lets out a deep sigh paired with a smile. “Yeah,” he says slyly and with a shrug. “I guess that’s true.”

Your eyes flow towards the sky, noting the bright stars twinkling above. The joy you feel is addicting. Something incomparable to the last few days. You dare not disturb it. And yet...

“There was something about your family,” Kas starts with a furrowed brow. A memory floods his brain, something he did not account for. “It was complicated. You had so many locks, to be safe - to feel safe.” Your smile dropped, but he had not noticed. His eyes pull straight, narrowing as he attempts to grab hold of this memory. 

“They hurt you,” Kas lets out as a sigh, as though the realization was just then. “Why didn’t he do anything about it?” he asks in an accusatory tone. His nostrils flare as his chest rises and his back straightens. He places his sights on you. Your hands push together, sliding between your thighs. Eyes resting upon them as the sadness sinks in your heart.

“Eddie, you just don’t understand,” you say as you harshly push the tear from your cheek. “No, baby, I understand completely. What do you think my dad did to me before Wayne ran him off?” Eddie whisper yells as he points up the stairs. “They can’t keep doing this to you!” The fire fueling in his stomach is the same firing his clenched fists. How dare they hurt you? How dare anyone lay a finger on you?

“Please, Eddie, please just stop,” you mumble in between cries. Your hand pulling at his arm, creating distance between him and the stairs. Eddie could see your eyes were fixated on your bedroom door. “No, y/n,” he says abruptly. His stance fixed and firm. His eyes unrecognizable.

Eddie pulls his arm from your grasp, causing you to take a step back. But quickly, he grabs hold of your forearm. His fingers squeezing against your skin as he tugs you closer to him. His other hand lightly lands next to the assorted bruises you had up and down your arm. Gently, he raises your arm to show the purple splotches thrown against your ribs that were hidden by your shirt. He expected the surprise on your face, as he knew you thought he only saw the marks on your arm. 

“Y/n, there is no way in hell that this is okay,” Eddie says through grinding teeth. Heavied breaths fall from his flared nostrils as he looks up at the stairway again. “Eddie,” you say weakly as tears run rampant down your face. “Please, you’re hurting me,” you share as you lightly push at his hardened grip. 

Eddie quickly turns around with horror on his face as his eyes are met with the dark pink imprints of his fingers upon your skin. He stumbles back with his hand placed against his chest. “I-I I’m sorry,” he starts as he backs into a support beam. A small cough exists between you two as he clears his throat. His eyes watering as his chin glues stuck against his chest. 

“Baby,” you crumble before him. Your hand leading your body as it lands softly against his cheek. His hand collapsing over yours. Your other rests against his sternum. “Eddie, baby, you didn’t mean it...” 

Kas snaps his eyes towards you. Abruptly, he pulls himself from the memory, having seen everything he needed to see. His brows push together as his upper lip slightly pulls. “He hit you?” he asks with shock thick in his intonation. A hand reaches out to your knee. 

“Excuse me?” you pull away disgusted. You cannot help but stand and look down at him. “I just,” you chuckle in disbelief, giving up further with each breath you take. Your hands gesturing with a shrug. “I wanted to be happy, remember the times when life was actually good, for once.” A scoff falls, and you shake your head. “It’s like you want me to be in pain - to suffer along with you.” Eyes looking off into the night sky, desperate to go back to that happiness. But it does not come. 

Kas pulls his hand away, landing it softly against his lap. A white hot flash spreading between his nostrils and eyes. He meant to make you happy, but he remembered something. He pursued it, like he figured you would want him to. But maybe not this memory. Are there bad memories between the lovebirds? 

Like a switch, his anger kicks in. An undeniable defense mechanism that he will continue to deny. “And what pain am I in, darlin’?” he scoffs. Your eyes flick up, searching for some sign of dismay in his. You find absolutely none. “God, just never mind,” you throw your head as you continue forward, brushing the thought off to hide yourself from more pain. 

“No, no, no, little lady,” Kas laughs as he grabs your forearm, pulling you backwards. “We’re still talking.” The whiplash of his grip twists your body into his. His other hand quickly falls at the base of your back as he pulls you onto him. “Let go of me, asshole,” you demand brutally as you push against him. He laughs as he lets you stumble back. An ache begins to ring in your wrist. 

“You want to talk, Kas, fine,” you yell at him, pushing your palms harshly against his bare chest. His stumble back is met with another condescending chuckle. “Eddie never hurt me.” You can feel your entire face tensing up. Every muscle, even those you didn’t even know you had.

“Don’t forget, I was there,” Kas mocks, pointing a finger to his temple. “You weren’t there,” you spit out. “Those are Eddie’s.” He laughs, leaning over and holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath and in a combustion of sarcasm and genuineness, he softly says, “Eddie’s not here anymore.” 

Now, it is your turn to scoff. “And you just love reminding me,” you say, shame-filled. He chuckles, his head swaying side to side as he settles into his suave stance. Confident, boisterous, annoying.

“You do understand though, right?” you ask with confidence. He adjusts immediately detecting that he now has a contender in front of him, as opposed to a weak girl. “Eddie never hurt me,” you say softly. “You, on the other hand, you’ve hurt me every second since I met you,” you end with a hiss. 

Kas’ lips fall into a line. His eyes raking over your facial features, processing those sinful words. You watch, pleased with his response. You soak in the pain displayed exclusively on his face without regret. “What was that again?” you exaggerate thinking with a finger bouncing off your chin. “What pain are you in, darlin’? This kind,” you end with disgust as you point him up and down. 

He continues to stare at you with widening eyes. His face blank now, as though all the blood drained from it. “Let’s just keep going,” you suggest. The moral compass in your head is wavering. You walk forward, noting his lack of movement.

“Do you remember anything else about that night?” Kas calls out blankly. You turn around to face him, expecting sarcasm but seeing absolutely nothing in those dark brown eyes. “I do,” you whisper.

“Will you tell me?” he asks with his head down as he takes a step towards you. A part of you hesitates, wondering if this is just another trick of his. But you wanted to reminisce on memories. Here is your chance. “Sure,” you say in a lackluster tone. He nods, encouraging you to continue.

“It was just another regular day. Eddie came over after DND, like usual,” you shake your head as you attempt to remember. “My dad was a dick that day so Eds had to meet me at the back door.” Your eyes close as you continue, “I snuck him in and we went to my room and we were just talking about our days on my bed eating pizza.” You smile. “When we were laying down, I guess my shirt rolled up and he saw the bruises from earlier that day."

You laugh aloud, quickly pinning your mouth closed and hiding a smile. “He is the most stubborn person I know,” you share, forgetting who you were sharing with. “He wouldn’t let it go. He needed to know where the bruises were from and to see more.”

You stop immediately when you feel hot at your tear ducts. You quickly decide to keep a memory of love between you and Eddie. Another smile emerging as you acknowledge the realization that that was the moment you knew, without a doubt, Eddie Munson loved you. That he was the only person who loved you enough to care about your safety. 

“I fucking caved, as usual,” you giggle. “And when I showed him, he got pissed. I’ve never seen him more mad. I saw this fire in his eyes, I saw…” your brain stops working. Your brows crunch together as your eyes fall to the floor, processing the new information. 

After some time, you look up to Kas, who has been watching you continually. “I saw you in-in his eyes,” you say in awe. Kas’ flattened lips slowly flicker into a smirk.

You knew Kas? You saw him in Eddie, and you did not run. He existed before Eddie died. You know it to be true. He was there, and he was loved … by you. 

Quickly, you shake your head, trying to rid yourself of the thought. You would not dare disrespect Eddie by comparing him in any way to Kas. “Uh, he wanted to beat up my dad for hurting me. I had to talk him down,” you say plainly. “He was feeling all those emotions so he-he just squeezed my arm,” you reenact the movement. “But when I told him to stop, it was like he realized he was hurting me and acted like he had control of it, like he should’ve known better.” 

Your eyes fall on Kas’ once again. “He did not hurt me on purpose. He would never hurt me on purpose. And that is what you should remember,” you say clearly.

But Kas will not remember that distinction. He has better things to think about. “Just as long as you remember that you saw me that night,” he says with a chuckle. “God, you’re so damn good at making everything about you,” you throw out with a hand to your hip. “Oh yeah? 'Cause I thought it was all about you later that night?” he asks with bouncing brows. Your eyes darkened. “You remember,” you reply flatly. 

“Yes, baby, I remember that night,” Kas smirks as he takes another step, like a lion stalking it's prey. “I remember when he laid you on the bed. How he traced his fingers up your leg,” he says softly as he attempts to do the same. You pull back in disgust, unsure of where this is coming from. He looks at you daringly.

“You liked it when he did it,” he huffs. “Well, what about when he kissed your neck.” He steps forward once more, hooking his arm around your waist and pressing your torso against his chest. Frankly, you were completely done with his manhandling. His lips fall upon your skin like unwanted tickles. Your elbow rests against his chest as you press your weight upon it. But this time, he did not pull away. He continues on.

“Oh, not that?” Kas asks amusingly, clearly not understanding the situation. His hands slowly trickle down your sides and to the front of your waist. “What about when he unbuttoned your pants-” “No, Kas!”  you yell, pushing with all your force. He stumbles backwards with arms held out wide. His face both concerned and surprised. "No," you repeat sternly.

“I thought we were…” he trails off, slowly understanding exactly what he was doing. “No, Kas, we weren’t,”  you say roughly. “Fuck, man! Why the hell would you even think that?” You push the hair from your face as you await his explanation. Kas’ held out hands slowly raise to a defensive position. “I-l I didn’t mean for any of that, we just, uh, we fight and then we,” he stutters. Wide, watering eyes. Stumbling his words as he continues to step back.

You could see him. Just like that night. Just like when he hurt you accidentally. His remorse. His horror of what he has done. You could see Eddie again. 

“Thank you for backing off,” you whisper. You look up to Kas as he sucks his tongue against his gums, pushing tears back into his eyes. He hides his face form you’d “I’m sorry,” he says with a deep voice after a quick clearing of his throat. “Thank you,” you mutter. “Let’s just keep walking, okay?” you suggest, pushing ahead. Kas solemnly follows behind you - at a distance. 

It was stupid to stop and talk. The sun is completely gone. That road Kas thought he saw? Yeah, that was a river. A river you both had to strategically hop stones to cross. A river you fell ass first in when you slipped on a mossy stone. His bustling laughter echoing in the emptied space, and yet you trek forward. 

An odd gesture but Kas offers you his black boots. The first six times you refused, but once your feet started bleeding you decided why the hell not. They were two sizes too big and clunky things. You don’t even think Eddie would wear these, not outside of his room. But Kas? He does not have a single care in the world. 

You figured that after Vecna, normal things like dark forests would not bother you in the slightest. You were wrong. You could hear him in any brush of leaves from the wind. You could feel him when you step on unexpected rocks, attempting to navigate through the tall grass. You could see him in the shadows by the tree trunks. You could smell him in the dry air. 

A snap. 

“What was that?” you whisper quickly. Your arms are held defensively in front of your chest as though you are ready for something to jump out. Kas looks back at you and immediately rolls his eyes. “I stepped on a branch,” he laughs. You cannot fully trust your eyes, but you swear you saw adoration in his smile as opposed to the usual condescending attitude. 

You shake off the jitters, feeling prickles trace down your limbs and up your neck. “It’s cool, I’m, uh,” you say as something catches your eye on the ground. You let out a soft sigh of relief as your eyes return to his. “Yeah, I am a-okay,” you say more convincingly. You could almost convince yourself. 

Kas bites his lip, studying you as you walk past him. “Are you afraid of the dark, little girl?” he whispers in your ear as ticklish fingers prance against the skin of your sides. “Kas, stop,” you stay sternly, swatting his hands away. “Seriously, though, what do you have to worry about with me here?” he scoffs amusingly. A smile growing on his face by the second as he catches up and walks beside you. 

“Hm, I don’t know. Maybe that flayed piece of jerky back there?” you say pointing behind you as you roll your eyes. “We’re outside of where he can reach, there’s no way he could get us,” he tries to soothe with a smile, but immediately recognizes the thin line growing between your brows. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kas whispers as he gently holds your wrist. He stops you in your tracks. You suck your tongue against your teeth as you avoid eye contact at all costs. “Hey,” he repeats in a deeper tone. His hands now cupped to your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. “Vecna cannot get us here,” he says clearly. “No one will hurt you as long as I am around.” 

You cannot help but search for Eddie in those eyes. Just to see him one more time, but you know that will never be enough. Kas will never be enough. But his words help and you are able to take a deep breath. 

You nod, and he slowly drops his hands from your face. “Thank you,” you murmur. The word is now way too common in both of your vernaculars. Kas walks off with a smile, not turning back to look at you, not even once. 

Staring at the glow of the moon, you would guess it had to be at least 4 or 5am. Not that you would even really know what to do with that information gathered from this view. All you know is that you are getting tired, and the night sky is changing from pure darkness to a deep gray. 

“Ok, I know last time I was wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s an intersection,” Kas mumbles as he points forward. Your head snaps, following his gaze, with widening eyes. Your palm lands softly at your forehead as you quietly scoff in disbelief. Do your eyes deceive you? A honk of an 18-wheeler confirms your wish. You turn around with hands up in excitement. He chuckles at how big your eyes have gotten. A hand covering his growing smile. 

“That’s a car, Kas, that’s a fucking car!” you scream. You rush through the trees, trying your best not to slide atop of the wet leaves. Alas, you ram your torso against the trunk of a tree in excitement as you watch the scene unfold before you. The pain is unnoticeable.

The street lights illuminate like auras against the misty fog. The wafting smell of cigarettes fleeing the convenience store. The blinding shine of headlights wrapping around the corner every few seconds. Honking, dings, spitting, ringing, a musty old muffler - finally, people.

Not once would you have ever expected the joy of finding people again, and yet here you are. You just needed a fresh look at how shitty the alternative is to know that reality is at least 1% shittier. Hope fills your chest as you take a step forward, only for Kas to pull you back. 

“What?” you bark at him, pulling your arm away. “Take a good look at yourself, darlin’. You really want to walk up to that gas station like that?” Kas says with a point as he nonchalantly leans back on a tree behind him. You look down at yourself, remembering your lack of pants, Kas’ ratty shirt and his stocky boots. You take a deep breath as you softly say, “I guess you’re right.” 

He stands up, almost immediately, which draws your attention. A smirk growing on his face. “What did you say?” he asks with a leading tone. You roll your eyes recognizing his intention. “Must not have been important if you didn’t hear it the first time,” you murmur with a grin.

Kas slowly walks towards you, making your grin beam more and more with each step. “Oh, I heard it,” he says softly as he leans in closer to you. “I just wanted to hear it again,” he whispers and pulls back. You push against his chest with a laugh, leaving him with a chuckle and a raised chin as he peers down at you. 

“Okay, Kas, if we can’t go down there, where are we going to go?” you ask sarcastically. Kas smiles, moving his head to its side. “Oh, sweet girl. I know exactly where we’re going,” he murmurs. Your face deadpans as you watch him confidently strut down the hill and next to the street. “Wait, what do you mean?” you call after him. Rushing to follow him, you slip but Kas was able to hook his arm around you before you landed against the dirt and dust. He relinquishes his hand, faster than you expected and it leaves you confused. 

“You see that street? Hudson Ave?” he asks, pointing up at the street sign. You watch him with a perplexed expression, unsure of where he was going with the conversation. “Yeah?” you answer confusingly. “I know Hudson Ave,” he shares, looking back down at you. “We’re by Lover’s Lake.”

You take a deep breath of disappointment as you wipe your palms against your face. “I thought we were closer to the school than that,” you sigh. That would mean at least another 5 to 10 miles before being able to collapse into a bed. “Sounds like we need a place to stay for the night,” he says with excitement, as though he already knew the answer. “Yeah?” you ask again with squinting eyes. 

“I know a place. It’s safe, closed off, no one’s gonna be there,” Kas adds with a bit lip and slow nodding. Your face is emotionless as you watch his encouraging eyes. “How far is it?” you ask. 

“Kas, you didn’t tell me we were breaking into the place!” you ask with a worried, hushed tone. Your back stands behind Kas’, covering him as he hunches over to pick the front door’s lock. Your eyes scanning for any sign of life as the sun begins to rise over the patch of forest.

Arms are crossed against your chest, attempting to gather as much warmth as possible. “Yeah, I don’t tell you a lot of things,” Kas whispers to himself. A tongue stuck between his lips with pressed brows as he focuses on the clicks within the lock. “Almost there,” he leads.

One click and his smirk grows to an unbearable size. He turns to you with the utmost confidence. You pull your eyes away in an attempt to avoid looking at his sweetness. “Okay, we get it. You’re a badass,” you mumble, quickly moving into a whine. “Common, it’s cold out here!”

Kas chuckles to himself, almost a hum that vibrates within his chest. You could feel it too, in your own, that leaves a spark of something familiar. You push it away, deep within your stomach, refusing to acknowledge it. 

“Alright, alright,” Kas brushes off. “I’m hurrying.” With a twist and a push, you were in. The room was dusty. The air was stagnant. Your face showed everything, all your thoughts on the place. Completely disgusted by the state of the place. He couldn’t help but laugh to himself.

“It’s, uh, it’s cozy,” you whisper as you take a sharp breath. Half drunken beer bottles are left piled in the sink. A bra of unknown origin rests strung against the top of the couch. A rug, if you were so kind, rests tattered and torn throughout the room. A spindle of its fabric lays beneath your foot. 

The only pristine thing in the place is a glass cabinet filled with different variations of bongs. As much as you would like to deny it, the sparkles catch your eye. A brown glassed stem filled with peace signs - you imagine it to be at least 10 years old. Another looked like the yellow smiley face that has spread across the world in the past few years - you enjoy that one. One shaped like a dark blue toilet bowl - you are not too keen on that. Lastly, a pipe with a bowl painted like R2-D2 - that might have been your favorite. 

Before you knew it, you were standing right before the glass. Admiring the collection. Kas walks behind you. A cool whisper against your neck, “Can you guess where we are?” You shudder at his breath, but a piece of you welcomed his proximity.

“A dealer,” you say matter-of-factly, as you turn to face him. “Rick’s, right?” You knew he wanted to throw you off guard. He pulls back and slowly nods as respect fills the room. Of course, a respect that did not last very long.

“Then you must’ve known that this is where he stayed,” Kas mumbles carelessly. He carefully and judgingly picks up an opened bag of Fritos with his thumb and index finger off of the coffee table. Nuggets of weed organized perfectly upon the surface. Crushed green resting within a silver grinder. 

Eddie most definitely was here. You try your best not to let it show on your face, but you wondered if this is where he radioed you. Did he sleep on that disgusting ratty couch? Was that the last place he ever slept? You make your way into the kitchen, careful not to show your haste. Opened tin cans of corn stacked in a pyramid stare back at you. His last meal? A pot is barely balanced on the stove’s burner. 

Despite the rush of emotion in your chest, you smile at the thought of him cooking. Eddie was always a mess in the kitchen. You are honestly surprised that he did not leave the gas on. Memories of burnt pancakes and hardened spaghetti fill your taste buds. 

He may not have been the best chef, but he made up for it. There is nothing like watching him and that messy bun. Flour on his face as that familiar tongue sticks out while he’s focusing. An apron somehow already covered with syrup, even though there was yet to be any pancakes. His shirt cut off at the sleeves with strings of fabric comfortably against his biceps. 

Watching him in that moment, you saw your future. A future filled with laughter and messes. Dancing in the kitchen. Finally, feeling safe - safe in his arms. Maybe he would even make you feel safe enough to give him a little one when you were both older. The world deserved another Munson, another Eddie. 

But just like the rest of your dreams, this one will never come true. Another future ripped from your grasp. A happiness you had only a taste of and will never see again. And somehow, you are supposed to be okay with that - to keep moving on. Especially now that there’s some super villain dickwad that wants you dead. 

There’s no time to stop and grieve, like you thought. Part of you wishes you could, but another is thankful. Truthfully, you are afraid of what your life would look like if you truly let yourself feel everything. Feel your loss. It would not be much of a life, not after you get your revenge. 

Take one step at a time, you remind yourself. Vecna’s death is and should always be the highest priority. How do you kill him? How do you ensure that you are the final blow? What are his weaknesses? 

“Darlin’,” Kas whispers. He has been watching you silently as you stand in the kitchen. His intention was to catch you off guard with the information of Eddie’s stay. And he did just that but yet, no enjoyment in the act. What typically brings him happiness, his fucking with you, is not hitting the spot anymore.

He now worries about you. He worries about you constantly. He hasn’t stopped since that night in the diner. If he is honest with himself, these feelings would track all the way back to the night he first saw you. 

Kas lays a careful hand against your shoulder. Your head quickly turns to look at him. A shock coursing through your body. “Let’s get washed up,” he suggests softly. You nod, but a slow smile grows upon your face. His expression turns inquisitive as a chuckle leaves his throat. “Dibs on the shower,” you scream as you rush up the stairs. He watches you run and instinctually follows just as quickly behind you. 

You both playfully bump into each other as you struggle up the narrow staircase. As you manage to get a two step advantage, Kas grabs onto your ankle. You lightly fall against the wood as he scoots past you. “Fucker!” you giggle as you run to catch up to him. Bouncing off the walls, you push against his shoulder. You gain the advantage as you burst through a door.

Immediately, you are horrified by the sight. A tossed around bedroom with bright orange carpet. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the mirrored ceiling, which then led you to the cheetah print sheets. Your lips part as your jaw hangs open.

“Oh my god,” you whisper as Kas finally catches up. A laughter erupts beside you, but you cannot pull your gaze away. “Oh yeah,” he jokes in your ear. “Reefer Rick’s got bangin’ taste.” You push him away from you with a sneer. 

Beyond the disturbing clash in colors, you see a sliding door that leads to a balcony. The wood is of a greenish tint. Ivy covers its banisters. An old copper-rusted chair rests in the middle of the panels. A heavily used bong, tinted brown with tar, rests at its very edge. 

But despite all that, the view is incredible. There is no denying it. A gray and purple fog resides just above the black water. You could actually see the sun’s rays refracting within its dense mist. Sights like these have always made you feel better. There is nothing like Mother Nature to make that debby downer within you disappear. 

“Shower’s over here,” Kas says as he leans against the threshold bathroom’s threshold with crossed arms. You smile, turning around, and walking into the room. “Didn’t think you would actually respect a dibs,” you share. Thankfully, Reefer Rick seems to have better standards for cleanliness in the shower. You are pleased with its state. “Oh, I can’t mess with the dibs gods,” he scoffs incredulously. 

After noting which knob is for hot water, you realize that Kas is still standing beside you. You turn around to him beginning to unbuckle his belt. “What are you doing?” you ask with a nervous giggle. He pops his head up from his hands. His mouth in a thin line.

“Um, getting ready for our shower,” he answers. “Our shower, huh?” you giggle. “Oh, what? I thought you liked taking showers with your men?” he says as he leans in to you. His hands drop his buckle as his belt rests open at his waist. You struggle not to draw your eyes to it. 

You quickly recover and smile. “You remember a lot more than you’re letting on, Kas,” you say under your breath. “First of all, there are no men. Only Eddie, and you’re not him, right?” you ask with a leading tone. “So, I’m going to take this shower alone.” You point towards the shower curtain behind you with a smirk. 

Kas smiles with a shrug. “I guess I’ll wait my turn,” he says lightly. “Great call,” you whisper. Almost retaliatory, he unbuttons his black jeans, pulling the zipper down slowly. Teeth digging into his bottom lip.

You try your best to keep your eyes on his, but you are clearly struggling and he knows it. He loves it. The smirk growing on his face by the second. A hint of blush to his cheeks. “I’ll just be out here, sweet girl,” he soothes. His own thumb pointing back into the bedroom as he slowly walks backwards. 

An undeniable, unstoppable grin beams across your face as you close the door. Fuck. The thin wooden barrier gives you enough space to consider the wild things rushing through your mind. How you wish you could just pull those jeans down, get on your knees, and make him forget that Vecna never existed. How you wish you could have dragged him into the shower with you. How he could make you forget that your pain even existed with those hands of his.

You need to cool down. Quickly. Dragging your palms down your face, you walk towards the shower. You turn the knob for cold water, leaving a slight bit of heat to settle in. You slowly raise your arms, attempting to take your shirt off, but the pain hit you like a truck. You wince at the feeling. Immediately, you hear Kas knocking. “You alright?” he asks. You laugh, “Yeah, Kas, I’m good.” 

It feels so damn good to take off that ratty shirt. To take off those panties. To take off his oversized combat boots. With a deep breath, you step into the shower. The rush of the freeze was shocking, yet comforting at the same time. The feel of the water splashing against your scalp and running down your temples, cheeks, and chin. 

You reach for the soap and are immediately presented with a conundrum. You debate whether or not you should rub it against your skin. You wouldn’t imagine your body being any less dirty than Rick’s bar of soap, and yet, you hesitate. With a shake of your head, you rub the soap against your hands and then lather the suds upon your body. 

Feeling the sensation against your skin, you cannot help letting in the trickling thoughts of Kas. The sensation of his hands on your body. His finger tips pressing against your aching muscles. Fixing all your pains. His palms exploring your waist, making their way up your torso and to your breasts. You think of Kas. You wanted Kas. 

As you step back, your calf bumps into a bottle that clunks onto the bottom of the shower floor. The abrupt loud noise echoes through the air. A burst of adrenaline fills your chest as you startlingly fling yourself against the tiled wall. The scuffle of your movement is heard from outside the bathroom. 

Deep breaths heave against your diaphragm as you slowly slide down to the base of the shower. Rushing cold water hits harshly against your skin. It causes your hair to glue thickly against your face. You can’t breathe. You can’t. You just can’t. 

Kas knocks once again. “Darlin’,” he calls out but you don’t answer. You can’t. You were stuck. Stuck against the ground. You could not move. If you moved, you had no idea what would happen. You were safe, barely safe in that shower. Don’t leave that spot. You can’t. You won’t. 

He slowly peeks open the door. “Y/n,” he calls out but you are silent. You hear him walk closer. You can see his shadow against the blue mildewed curtain out from your peripherals. He opens the shower curtain to see your arms wrapped around your knees. You were in a tight ball, as tight as you could manage, shuddering in the cold. 

“Shit, baby,” Kas hushes. He quickly turns the knobs, adding more warmth to the water pouring against the crown of your head. Without thinking, he hops inside the shower and crouches behind you. His arms tightening around your shoulders. “You are safe,” he whispers. “You are safe.” The words falling naturally, almost scripted.

With the added pressure, you can feel your heart rate slowing. You naturally place your hand against his forearm as he tightens his squeeze. You have not felt this in some time. Your eyes close as slow breaths enter and exit your lungs. The silence is comforting. A reminder that nothing is actually happening. Reality is currently safe. You are safe in Kas’ arms. Your body can calm, can take in the cues of relaxation in this warm shower. 

“I am safe,” you whisper as you lightly land your forehead against his forearm. “You are safe, darlin’,” he murmurs. His head laying against your shoulder. And there you both rest. You naked in his arms. Him drenched in his jeans behind you. A tightening embrace underneath a constant stream of warming water.

Dustin has never been the same since that night. He knows his friends are worried about him. That they freak every time he disappears for an hour or two. But they wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t understand why he needed to visit him. How he would talk to him, even though he wasn’t there. 

He couldn’t even manage to radio Susie back anymore. It didn’t feel right to be happy with Eddie gone. He avoided it, avoided happiness like the plague. He avoided his friends, his family, his mother. He grieves in solitude, unsure of when he will ever be done. 

Every day since, Dustin made the trek to Lover’s Lake. To that spot in the woods where Steve, Nance, Robin, and Eddie went to Watergate. It is the closest he can get to Eddie. To remembering him. To wishing he was still there.

After a few trips back and forth, Dustin could make his way there without the compass - not that the compass was that helpful anyway. He would bring his backpack filled with old DND books, some of which were filled with “Munson’s Property” in thick sharpie. Sometimes he would run his fingers over them, hoping that Eddie was there too.

He would talk about the campaigns he wished he could play with Eddie. The one’s he knew the party would have a great time with. He would reminisce about when Eddie said he was “grooming him - grooming him to become Hellfire’s president. To be the Dungeon master. To be him. 

That is all he could ever want. Well, that and Eddie being alive. 

Another day and Dustin still sits upon his stump beside the lake’s shore. Seventeen rocks still scattered across the dirtied sand. He counts them here and there, ensuring they remain the same number. That everything remains untouched, like that day. But the fog was thicker today.

He could see the purple flecks within the gray mist. He appreciated when it was foggy. It meant he didnt have to think about the gang getting attacked in the middle of the lake. It meant he didn’t have to remember watching his friends and being helpless as they all dove into the dangerous waters. How he watched two of his heroes go in the abyss and never come out. 

Sometimes Dustin wonders if he will see the canoe floating out on the water abandoned one day. Or maybe he’ll find it on the shore somewhere. Maybe there’s something on it? A piece of Eddie, something he left behind. He wanted to venture out but felt glued to this stump. Glued to looking out into the water and hoping Eddie might just come out from the fog. 

Or maybe something will come out and take him. Take him far away from all this pain. Dustin was at his lowest, and yet he could only imagine going lower. Permanent reds to his eyes as tears continue to fall. It is his new norm. A new world without his big brother, without the person he looked up to the most. 

Dustin heard a branch snap behind him. He turns, hoping it’s not Mike or Lucas trying to drag him back to the Wheeler’s, to his mom. He is surprised by the emptiness of the woods. How it reflects how he feels inside. He assumes the noise to be due to an animal. A sigh and he’s turned back around to the lake. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of something odd. His head turns to the structure to his left - Reefer Rick’s. “What a shithole,” he mumbles to himself. He places his elbows to his knees as his palms carry the weight of his chin. A light turns on, clear and bright within the fog. Enough to pull his attention back to the building.

Dustin stands with furrowed brows and a need to investigate. Cops were his first thought. Maybe they were still looking for Eddie, or maybe Rick broke out of the jail? Rick did have a tendency to do that. Although, they would always catch him seeing as he would just go home to smoke more dope.

He walks up closer, trying to get a better look, and catches a glimpse of something on the balcony. Another side step and he tries to look past the tops of the trees. There were no beams of flashlights bouncing around the windows. Maybe it wasn’t a raid. Maybe it was more of Jason’s lackeys? Still looking for Eddie, and yet - they’ll never find him. Or maybe they’re looking for Jason? They won’t find him either. 

But who Dustin saw walking out the balcony made his blood instantly run cold. He was frozen, stuck in place, with a jaw dropped and shaking hands. The person is pale with black, wet, stringy hair resting at his shoulders. A familiar stance and posture that Dustin knew all too well.

Large, healed wounds wrapping from his lower back, across his side ribs, and a bit of his front. A familiar spider tattooed across his chest. The figure had a white towel wrapped around his waist. He is looking out - looking out into the lake. Just as Dustin was. 

His heart starts pounding. In an unrecognizable world he now finds himself in, he finally sees the one he has missed so dearly. “Eddie,” falls from his lips like a whisper. As though it was a secret that was never meant to be spoken. A secret that only Dustin knows. The hope that he might be back, that maybe he never left. 

Before his mind could register, Dustin’s feet were already running around the battered house, faster than he thought possible. His bag and compass left hastily by the shore. He stumbles trying to find his footing against the worn wooden steps as his fist crashes against the front door. All the excitement pumping through his body as he hears steps grow louder behind the door. 

It opens. And Dustin feels everything. 

note: hi, katrina here. i didn’t feel like it would work in the story (timeline wise), but i wanted to share that i most def wanted eddie to go up there and beat her dad’s ass. let me know what you think, please? ♥️

next part • posting 07/15 at 5pm pst •

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[thesimonthedevious]

I wish you’d write a fic where the Old people foursome has a double date and doesn’t have to worry about saving the fucking world for once 🥲

(Or Zorya is in a mustached sandwich between Murderface and Eddy)

This turned into waffle, but I kind of like slice of life waffle!!

Wine night was nice when it was just the two of them. Roisin and Magnus had created a regime that worked for them. That kept them safe, and away from the nightmarish world. Her warmth had opened his eyes to his wrongs, and the wrongs he could have done. Now? His haven is her lap, his home is his face within her hands. His lifeblood is the feeling of her lips on his.

Then their two turned back into a three, and it was welcomed. Though there might have been teething issues between Magnus and Charles – created by each other against each other, fabricated in fear of things not being the same – but they were quick to come to their senses. It was like being in college all over again, except they’ve all learned lessons now. They’re not worrying about reports or dissertations. Not even about lights out and sneaking in weed to their rooms.

And now there’s four.

It’s a good number – means no one is left out. Means their lives are forever changing, and that’s a good thing. A reminder that their lives move on, and on, and on. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes it’s a comfort.

“I can’t believe you’d say that – Nick Pizzazz is the best wrestler of his generation!” you’d never have thought Cal is the newest member, refilling Roisin’s wine glass to the brim as she argues (light-heartedly, they assume) with Magnus. He sneers, but the corners of his lips are lifted just enough to make it less threatening.

“He’s all about show – there’s no skill!”

“I was his protégé!” Cal sounds aghast, lifting her own glass, and she huffs as Magnus actually lets out a bit of a laugh.

“I know.”

Roisin laughs because Magnus laughs, and she finds the sound inviting. Charles chuckles, because he does find it funny, and he can see that Cal finds it funny too: the way her eyes aren’t going that certain way, or the way she isn’t tensing up or gripping her glass. Magnus watches her, not knowing these little facets of her yet, smirking, and Cal smirks back behind her glass, taking a long drink. “You’re lucky I’ve already had a glass, sug’, or I’d show you the kinda things he taught me.”

“Some other time, hm?” Magnus gets up, walking over to the aga, stirring the veg in the pan, “When was the last time you made dinner for yourself, huh, Charlie? Can’t believe the rich boy shit you get up to now.”

“He’s busy doing other things.” Roisin teases and defends in one breath – Calypso always admires that about her. She only ever finds that flawless two-faced kindness in Texas, and yet from Roisin it is delightful – it doesn’t make Calypso put her guard up.

“I cook,” Charles’ quiet rebuttal goes over their heads, except Cal steps towards him nonchalantly and puts her hand across his shoulder. He leans his head back, the nape of his neck against her arm. “Since when can you cook anything edible?”

“Hmph,” Magnus refuses to answer, adding more spices to the mix. Roisin sips her wine. Something is on the tip of Magnus’ tongue, she can tell, but he holds back, and lets it fall away. But Charles can’t help it – he’s watching precious mushroom fall from the wok.

“You’re too rough.” He gets up, gently moving past Cal – his hand grazing her thighs in the last moment of touch before walking over. Magnus rolls his head back, eyes going with, but does step aside without a battle, giving him a mocking bow and drinking more of his beer. Cal stays standing, not sure what to do until she feels a hand guide her down to Charles’ seat. Roisin wraps her arm around Cal’s, not even bringing attention to it as Charles and Magnus ‘discuss’ the best way to present the whole thing. Cal’s fingers circle the rim of her glass, smiling as she watches Charles in his true element. No demands, no stress, tie even gone and shirt unbuttoned (just the one though, don’t want to go crazy). And she fits. The one thing Cal had been panicked about the most – for surely if she never fit with Roisin and Magnus, then she’d be out the door. It had never been about impressing Charles himself (she knows she does), but the people he considers his confidants in dark days.

Roisin squeezes her arm, and Cal is brought back out of her wondering. Because her thoughts and her worries don’t matter, not now. It’s all she needs.

[deceptive-daydreams]

Some more comforting Eddie below the cut, it just be like that lately 🥲 my neurodivergence is really showing

Having a particularly rough day where it just feels like rain clouds constantly loom over you and nothing feels right.  Your thoughts are just self-deprecating and you constantly think “Why am I like this?” , “I’m useless.”, “Why do I fuck everything up?”, “I don’t want to exist.”   You’re having difficulty swimming to the surface for air so drowning in your depression was the only option.  The pressures of the world had a tight grip on you, shoulders and neck always tense and stuck in fight or flight.  There was this longing feeling lingering inside of you, like a strong desire to go home but the thing is you were already home.  It made no sense and only caused more turmoil throughout your mind.  I want to go home…but I am home.  

As you sit in bed, the room dark and cluttered as it gets when an episode takes over, your face is buried in your hands trying to navigate each emotion but hot tears just fill your palms and your breathing becomes erratic.  The weight of the world sits on your shoulders and you break underneath it.  I don’t fit in anywhere, you think to yourself, sobs escaping you.  

It isn’t until you hear the creak of the door as it’s lightly pushed open that you look up through blurry eyes to find the source.  Eddie.  Your dear Eddie pokes his head in, large bambi eyes filled with concern as he sees you falling apart right before him.  It’s not the first time.  Whenever he finds you crumbling apart like this he wishes he could take all the pain and give it to himself if only to provide you with some relief from the burdens your brain pushes upon you.  

He knows that you’ll let him hold you if he slowly slips himself behind you, and so he does.  He has you in between his legs, arms wrapping around your waist gently while you continue to sniffle and keep your crying minimal.  A whispered “C’mere.” in your ear coaxes you to turn and press your face into his chest.  His hand holds the back of your head to him and he presses a kiss to your temple.  What he says next only makes you cry more and it’s not his intention but you can’t help it.  “If I could take the pain from you I would.  I would take any amount of pain just to see you happy.”  His words would be hushed.  Snot and tears would be mixing together on his shirt but he wouldn’t care.  He would let you sit there and cry for as long as you needed.  “I love you.  Okay?”  He’d whisper softly to you.  “No matter what that little voice in your head tells you, I love you.”  You’d only be able to offer a nod against his chest, snot covering your upper lip and salty tears on your tongue.  “You’re my girl.”  His hand would gently caress the small of your back.  “And I don’t know what I’d do without my girl.”  His words are not taken lightly and he knows this because your hand ever so slightly squeezes at his bicep, a small gesture that says ‘thank you for not giving up on me’.  

How could he when you’re the one talking him out of his nightmares on nights when they’re extra bad?  When you offer him the same comfort in his time of need.  When he feels especially bad about himself after being called a freak all day.  You both had your moments of vulnerability and weakness but through those moments your bond to each other grew stronger.  

Soft kisses against your forehead told you ‘You’re safe.’  And you were.  In Eddie’s arms, you were safe and loved.  It didn’t completely wash away your worries or anxieties but knowing that you didn’t have to go through it alone meant the world and Eddie would do it forever if it meant you felt safer and less alone.

~end~

[honestlyeddie-im-bi]

Tease Tidbit Tuesday!

Tagged by @disasterbuckdiaz and @lover-of-mine ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

This is still from "you might be the answer to the sinner in me" because Buck is being difficult at the moment 🥲

But he doesn’t need to say a word. Because just thinking about his own childhood makes Buck wonder about what Eddie’s must have been like. How the little kid that had to grow way too fast, who had to become man of the house at ten years old because his father was never home, must have felt at feeling something for other boys. Tears well up in his eyes as he looks up at Hen, who looks at him with… well, maybe not pity, but definitely sadness. “Hen. Hen, how do I fix it?” Buck asks her, almost begging. “Oh, Buck. I wish I could tell you.”

No pressure tags: @mangacat201 and everyone else who wants to do it!!!

[shannara810]

Characters I don't like in stranger things( some of these characters I dont hate. I just dont like them) I didn't start liking Nancy till season 3, and Jonathan till his funny moments in season 4(still hate his character. But the actor managed to add a sescond thing I liked about him besides being a good brother to Will) Hopper. I love the actor when hes being soft. And good caring dad. But he has these moments that kind of trigger me a little bit. Personal reasons. Hes over all cool. But I'm are constantly reminded, hes an alcoholic cop who yells! Ok I'm going to get hate for this but I'm not a fan of Eleven. She just feels to over hyped and boring to me at this point. I kind of agree with the writers and wish they killed her off in season 1. She has no personality besides trauma and ooh I'm so powerful. And I feel like they use and rely on her and her powers too much. Hopefully season 5 gives her independence and she can be happy on her own to figure out who she is.

Characters I hate: The wheeler parents. I hate them with a burning passion. The government. Like especially Brenner and Owens. Hate them and they remind me of our own government turn up to an eleven. Nial Hargrove. The angry mob Jason created because I feel like thats going to come to play in season 5. Lonnie Byers. Go I hate that asshole. Like the more normal and real the villians are the more I hate them you know.

Gonna answer all here.

I liked Vecna's story the way it was. Let's hope the Duffers won't make him a "grey-character/anti-hero" in the end, 'cos I hate how we can't have villains anymore. It's like authors can't write people doing bad things without a tragic backstory to justify their reasons 😑 A trauma can shape your way to see life, true; but it doesn't define who you are.

Nancy... Nancy is a good character when she is alone. This ping-pong match between her, Steve and Jonathan is boring. That girl can do and be a lot, but she needs to be free of the useless romance ballast the Duffers gave her.

I liked Chrissy 🥲 And Eddie. I liked the Hellcheer. They could have done wonders together!

The same could be said for Billy Hargrove. Okay, okay, I'm a Harringrove shipper and I may be biased but gods! Dacre had so many feels and ideas about his character! A Billy's redemption arc would have been the best thing ever!

Eleven... Mary Sue 😑. I don't think I need to add more about her.

[littlerosetrove]

Yoooo another banger episode! Hot dang this feels great, y’all. ✌️ I’m really impressed with their balance of dramatic/emotional scenes with comedic scenes in this episode. It was so fast paced, but somehow they got everything in. Once again seeing the connection of the 118 is all I want. ❤️ That’s a team and a family. This was Athena, Bobby’s, and Hen’s episode. 

Now my initial Spoiler Thoughts for 7x3:

Bobby is a badass! Hahaha Athena saying she wishes Buck could see Bobby do the rescue, and Bobby wishing he’d seen Buck do it instead.

Wes! My man!! So good under pressure helping Bobby and rescuing Norman. And then… yeah I cried when Wes died. What didn’t help was him telling his captain to tell his wife and kid he loves them. =(((((( Another lovely touch was Bobby holding Wes’s hand before he had to leave.

Corey’s family is like Home Alone with Kevin being left. Twice. I enjoyed the chaotic comedy the family gave though.

Norman believes in Bobby. <333 Norman is such a great hype man for Bobby and Wes, but he’s also a bit of a savage with Lola. Well deserved.

Huh, Tommy ready and willing to help people he knew from the 118 to uh, go above board? Well to do a rescue that wasn't sanctioned or whatever the term is. Nice. He’s got a sense of humor too, which I certainly appreciate.

“I think this is an open channel.” himbo Buck 😆

Loved the comedy in the helicopter both times. Honestly great comedic timing from everyone. 

I like that Eddie will have a better memory now in association with helicopters.

Really impressed with the balance of heavier moments with lighter moments, as I said in the non spoiler part, but it’s true.

Dude I was getting misty eyed when the chopper was coming down because they saw the flare. Wtf. 🥲

"Need a lift?" Eddie and Buck saving Bobby and Corey! <333

Don’t think I didn’t miss the blocking on that rescue ship. Buck and Eddie standing next to each other, then Tommy being in the middle. Then Buck doing a “thank you for the help” shoulder grab. People can interpret that however they please, but it really did just look like grateful thanks from Buck to Tommy. And btw, I’m not opposed to Buck and Tommy possibly being romantically involved for a time. Like, I don’t feel strongly about Tommy one way or the other right now, but he seems like a decent dude I guess. While I’m still hoping for a Buck and Eddie endgame, it’s perfectly okay and fine if Buck dates other guys before dating Eddie. That’s life, yeah? (...although I am wondering if Buck will still have a bi awakening, but may not date someone. like. i really don't know, but who knows? maybe Buck and Eddie will still be the first guys they're with. we'll have to wait and see.)

And Lola is back to jail? Prison?? Probably prison this time. I did appreciate that she owned up to her big mistakes and apologized to Norman. 

The Bobby and Athena reunion hug? That was sweet.

Oh so Hen will not get in trouble. I still feel like she’s going on some kinda arc this season, something to deal with… maybe some biases and how she makes calls? Someone else may have phrased this better than me. In any case, I’m curious where it’s all going for her. 

Yay more Hen and Maddie scenes! Heh, and Hen thanking Maddie for - I can’t remember the phrasing now, but basically for being a gossip with Chimney haha.

Athena and Bobby just. laughing at the stress of it all once back home, then…. *sexy music starts playing* 👀 Heyyyyyy. 🤙

Oh! Before I forget. Once again Buck and Eddie were, I think, in every scene together. Never separated. Others in fandom have spotted this *gestures* thing going on this season so far. Any scene Buck is in? Eddie is with him. 👀 Okay. 👀 👀

Another really fun episode. Again I was so happy to see our 118 family talking/calling/communicating with each other. That’s when this show is strongest, when they’re together and not separated *cough* unlike in season 6 and some of season 5 *cough*. Anyway!

Hm, I do think this 3 episode story could’ve been 4 episodes if they had a longer season. But given the time constraint, I think they did a great job. =))

[andvys]

Ok!

-Ray is an asshole, again

- I hate that Steve wants Reader but he's still with Nancy

- "Seeing the way he treated her reminded you of the way he never treated you" That was a punch to my heart! Even tho I'm an Eddie girlie

- He only treated Y/N good for the FIRST WEEKS and with Nancy they've been in a relationship for months and he's still sweet with her! What the hell Steve???

- "Your mind is too busy recalling every painful moment that you have had with him" Poor Y/N :(

- Heather and Chrissy appear again!!!

- Heather noticing Y/N's bruises ahhhh!!!

- At the pizza part, I was wondering if Y/N is still dealing with her ED?

- "You can tell us everything Y/N" "Since when do you keep secrets" that was so good!

- "I don't know, you tell me" THE ANSWER. I love Reader so much 🩷

- "You know that you're doing the same shit Steve did to me, right?" Aw :( Poor Y/N thinking Heather and Chrissy don't want to be her friends anymore

- "You are still our best friend, even when we're not yours anymore" "Yeah Eddie stole that title" I think it's bc she felt like they didn't want to be friends with her anymore, but Eddie did want to be his friend and he acted like a friend? That's how I see that

- "You are still my best friends too" 🩷 that's so sweet!

- I get that Steve is still loving Y/N and doing what he did to Ray bc of Y/N , but, why is he still with Nancy if he wants Y/N?

- "My weed man is really good" For you? ABSOLUTELY

- 'Not for this. Are you still becoming a stripper? You always joked about it, telling him that you would became the best stripper in town' I LOVE THAT PART, it was so funny!

- I don't like Mrs. Jones, she's mean

- 'No, I want to be a groupie now's Eddie's groupie?

- Steve getting ready for Tina's party, but not for Y/N?? I hate him!

-"Don't look at me like that, that's fucked up" WTF?? I HATE HIM!!!

I wish that Eddie would've appeared in this chapter, I love him

-🩷

Steve is like the biggest idiot ever! But…. there’s something coming, something unexpected 👀

And yes, he never treated reader as well as he treats Nancy, it’s really sad.

She really is dealing with an ED, all the trauma from the past have triggered it 🥲

Definitely Eddie’s groupie btw

If you think that flashback was painful, just wait for the full flashback! That wasn’t even all!!! Get ready for some angst in the next chapter!

You’ll see Eddie soon!!! 🥹

[local-redhead-bookworm]

Honestly?? I'm not even sure what to think after s4 ended. I've been racking my brain to come up with something worth mentioning. I see what you mean, though, about the possibility of Billy still being alive 🤞🏼 Vecna left that statement open-ended. And now I know that the tattoos and merch were much more of a tribute to Eddie 😅 also, I love that Max wrote a letter to Steve. I know he complains all the time about being a babysitter, but he truly means so much to them. It was so sweet. And it pisses me off that Neil's bitch ass got off scot free. I hate that they added "he couldn't stick around after you were gone". Sickening. And like you said, it doesn't sit right with me they didn't add Billy to Max's memories. I am loving the girls showing up and showing out. Nancy and Robin at Pennhurst. Suzie being a genius and getting those coordinates. Everything Erica does. Max stepping forward as a decoy (that may have backfired 🥲 I am upset that we went through Dear Billy just to have ep9 happen). I know that the Nina plot was drawn out, but I think it showed development for El. Being able to separate herself from others, to choose her own path. I also loved that she stood up to Angela. As for the last 2 episodes, they were very distressing. I hated that Vecna used the sauna test to torment her, but as someone pointed out earlier, it was a moment the mindflayer had taken over. Both times Billy appeared to her, it was flayed Billy. She was never actually scared of him. I am distraught over Max's plot after this. I am curious about the Vecna and Will connection. But other than that, I'm left kind of stumped. I'd love to hear your thoughts on anything, though

🌸 anon

You and I have a lot of similar thoughts on s4, anon. I haven’t been able to bring myself to rewatch it because of how emotionally distraught it made me, and I don’t have time for another breakdown.

I genuinely despise that the only solution the writers could come up with is “oh Neil couldn’t bear to be around here any longer without you.” In my opinion, it would have made far more sense if his anger had turned on Susan and Max, then Susan had put her foot down and left him.

I wish that more had been done with the girls, honestly. I liked what bits we did get, and Robin’s improv speech at Pennhurst made my theater kid heart so proud. I have some personal nitpicks with Nancy’s treatment of Robin though, don’t love that from her. And as much as I loved Susie, I feel like she’s always just kind of…there? She only shows up twice to deliver information so she feels a lot like a plot device to me. Erica is an absolute sass-master, and episode 9 had me super worried for both her and Lucas.

The Nina Project…had its good elements and bad elements. You’re right, it did develop El and it showed her standing up to Brenner, but it was also clearly insanely triggering for her. Her expression when she wakes up and realizes they’ve buzzed her head again absolutely gutted me. I would have preferred it if Owens had been the only one in charge and if El had had more of a choice. The fact that she was essentially forced to relive a traumatic part of her life didn’t sit right with me, it would have felt more powerful if she’d chosen to confront those memories herself. And I’m glad that she never forgave Brenner, he doesn’t deserve her forgiveness.

I’m so glad she stood up to Angela too. I know violence isn’t the answer and all that, and it was a bit severe, but it certainly felt satisfying seeing Angela get whacked in the face for repeatedly humiliating and picking on El.

I do wonder what the show plans to do with Will’s connection to Vecna, especially since he’s now the only one of his victims to survive. I know they’re going to bring Max back next season, you can tell, but the fact that episode 9 is left as her final opinion on Billy and that she never brings up that she cared and that she realizes now why he was the way he was, it feels like a complete 180 on her character.

Eddie’s pointless death and the absolute butchering of Max’s character made me lose hope in the writing of the show. And don’t even get me started on the wasted potential of the Russia arc! I spent so much of the time before s4 thinking up theories, and I’ve read other folks’ theories and fics that are 100 times better than what actually happened. S4 had some good bits, but I was just so frustrated with it. Obviously if you enjoyed it I’m completely fine with that, I’m just annoyed by the wasted potential.

[dedfandom-xwx]

Hey this is me rambling at 4am so if you don’t wanna hear my random stuff then just skip over this post, but if you do then read under the cut. Idk what this is gonna contain and it might turn into a vent or get very opinionated so please so hate on me I just wanna ramble 😭👍

Okay but like can we just talk about Noel Gruber and Mischa for a second? Or like, Eddie Dear and Frank Frankly? I just realized Eddie and drink don’t have the same last name even though they’re married. I know some people like don’t change their name and that’s like totally cool and everything like no shame but I had no clue at first that they were married. Do they even have rings…? Idc if they do or not their designs are so friggin cute. I wanna hurdle a specific VR skin of Eddie into a wall though.

ANYWAYS, Noel and Mischa, am I right? That is true best friend energy right there. So silly goofy. A angry SoundCloud rapper and a romantic gay being. I never thought better energy would come from two characters.

i started to try animating. I made a little Home animation and I’m hoping to post it soon. Took me about 2 hours. It’s my first ever animation I’m actually a little proud of so please no throwin shame 🥲

ALSO I also wanna talk about how funny some of the word in the English language are. I know we kinda steal a lot of words from other places and like a lot of Latin words and stuff like that. But tell me, how in the fresh heck did we come up with words like the ones in science on the table thingy that I can’t spell correctly the one with all the boxes and colors and stuff?? (I know what it’s called but i just can’t spell it.)

Oaiajekeowowiwiwiwhwhwhwjskaopworurhrnxnxnxncgdbsjslalwiw

the current worm in my brain: Tick, Frank Frankly, and Sam Winchester for some reason??

man do I love supernatural. I also really like Friends and Big Bang Theory and Good Omens and Unsolved Mysteries and stuff like that. THATS what you call quality content.

i wish people would ask me more questions. Random Ik. I hate talking about myself but I like to answer peoples questions. Is there something wrong with me for that??

i really should log off and get some sleep but I don’t feel like it. This is a loooooooong ramble. I should probably shut up or som.

OKAY but physical pain. Like why. I just want to ride roller coasters and not feel like I’m gonna cry every two seconds when I’m trying to sleep.

when you meet a buisness man you must stake him by the hand

I wanna lick a book. Like one of the really old ones with canvas covers. Feel like it’s taste good.

I feel like Sundrops pants would be such a bad texture. Probably grimy and yucky and like a potato sack.

YUPPEE

In my life, I was Noel Gruber who worked at Taco Bell in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. But in my dreams I played a different role. I was Monique Gibeau in post-war France!

not gonna say the next line cause it’s a bit SuGeStIvE I guess

why are suggestive songs such a bop. Like you take away the lyrics or listen to piano versions and I’m head banging like I’m at a rock concert like it’s that good. For example, Say No To This from Hamilton. Or ofc, Noel’s Lament from RTC. BANGERS BRO. As an ace person, yeah a little uncomfy BUT THEYRE SO GOOD WKSGSISNWBSOSK

I wanna eat fries

I need sleep

WE ALLLLL HAVE A WOOOOORM IN OUT BRAAAAAAAAAAIN

I’m legit crying over SIOB rn why am I like this if didn’t even watch the episode kasoajwosgsiswdns

imma try to end this ramble here. If you make it this far, you’re amazing. Hope you’re having a nice day/night/evening/afternoon! 🫀🫀

and an apple for Wally 🍎

🚪🏃