#and i'm not even fishing here im just fucking insecure lmao

[cambria-writes]

ETA 27 Nov 2022: it has taken me literally weeks to realize that this is chapter thirteen, that i posted as chapter twelve, and that there’s a whole almost 4K words missing between this and the chapter i posted before it. i cannot express how much of an utter fucking buffoon i feel like please forgive me oh my god

hello! i think i proofread this, but as i mentioned before I wrote all of this in a trance after a really shit day so. honestly who knows.

i actually. i'm super insecure about this and i really don't. i don't know man. i'm trying not to make reader a mary-sue but i'm also fighting tooth and nail with myself about the fact that it wouldn't matter even if she was. my inner demons are bitches fr. send help

if i'm totally real i might. i might rewrite this and shove a few things into the next chapter. i don't know. i don't know!!

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: M, each chapter rated individually warnings: swearing, bleading, minor injuries, author was dissociated while writing basically, pacing is off the charts word count: 4,481

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𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔣 ℜ𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔩

The silence in the RV is practically deafening. Your skin feels too tight and your head feels full of cotton. It’s hard to think past the anxiety of it. For years, now, you’ve had to deal with nightmares, visions and horrifying knowledge that wouldn’t be believed. Years of being made to feel like Cassandra; bringer of prophecy and never believed. You’ve had to watch people die over and over again, without any ability to do anything about it. 

You haven’t had much time to stop and think about why you have powers now in the first place. It’s connected to Eleven opening the gate in ‘83, that much you know. Well, you assume. The timing is a little bit too convenient for these things not to be connected. 

What you’re not sure about is why all of a sudden you can do things now, instead of just having to spectate. You’re filtering through the events that you remember seeing, but nothing matches up with the timing. Nothing happened right before the night you first plane shifted. Even Chrissy was… even that was after.

A part of you wants to believe it’s just a reactionary thing; maybe some part of you is connected to the Upside Down, maybe it’s just nature providing its new predator with a foil. When you sigh, a hand comes down on your shoulder. You’re sat on the ground between Eddie’s legs; you don’t need to look up to know he’s wanting to ask what’s wrong. You shake your head and wave him off. 

You’re overthinking things again. 

When Steve hits the brakes on the RV, you slowly get up and follow Lucas, Erica and Sam to the door. You stop on the last step and look out at the house in front of you. 

“Well that’s… that looks safe.” 

Lucas snorts and Max turns around to look at you. 

“Welcome to Creel Manor,” Max says, extending an arm out towards the run down building. 

“Wait,” you say, when the three are about to walk off into the house. You reach out to grab Lucas’ hand and put your handgun, grip first, into it. “The safety’s already off, so be careful. Just…” You look from Lucas’ shocked face to the house, behind you to the RV, and back to the boy in front of you. “Anyone show up, aim for the legs, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lucas agrees, quietly, looking from the gun back to you. “Enough people dead already, right?” 

When you give him a pat on the shoulder, the thought comes to you. You run back in to tell Steve to wait for you for just a second, grab one of the soda’s from your designated pack by Eddie’s feet, and run back out, past the kids, straight to the front door. 

“Hey, what are you—” Erica starts, but you hiss at the lot of them. 

“Shut up, I need to focus.” 

You use the corroded knob on the front door to pop open the soda and chug it as fast as you can. It burns the entire way down, and when the bottle is empty you feel like you’re five seconds away from regurgitating it all back up. You take a few deep breaths to steady yourself, and place your hand on the panels covering what you know is a stained glass window underneath. 

You have no idea if this is going to work. You know this is at least an eighth level spell, and you have no way of knowing what can or can’t work with you. You’ve used different schools so far—alteration, divination, necromantic—so there’s no real way to know for sure. 

Nevertheless, you close your eyes, try your best to develop a mental image of the front porch you’re standing on, and take one last deep breath.

On the exhale, you whisper something low enough that you know that no one else could've possibly heard you. 

Immediately, the wooden panel under your hand splits, and you can hear the bushes around the porch rustle. You can hear the three kids calling after you behind you, mostly panicked. When you pull you hand away from the door and look at your palm, there’s a small gash where the splintered wood cut the skin open. 

You ball your hand into a fist and wipe the blood from your nose before turning around. You toss the empty bottle into the bushes and ignore Lucas and Erica in favour of walking up to Max.

“Remember what I said at the lake,” you say, sternly, clenching your jaw against the headache pounding behind your eyes. “You’re not responsible for this. It’s not your job to fix this alone.” 

“Yeah,” Max breathe, nodding shortly. 

You bite your lips and nod once before running back up and in to the RV. Steve speeds off before the door even shuts behind you, and Eddie is right there, grabbing you by the shoulders with a force that startles. 

“What the hell was that?” 

“Contingency,” you say quietly, slowly reaching up to pull his hands off your shoulders. “I don’t have to think about or do everything, but I can at least give myself a plan B.” 

“And what’s your plan B, exactly?” You hear Robin ask. You turn your head to look over your shoulder at Nancy before looking back up at Eddie. You let him reach up to swipe a thumb over your upper lip.

“Evac.”

“Okay,” Nancy starts, pushing herself away from the front seats to look back at the rest of you. “I wanna run through it one more time. Phase one.”

“We meet Erica at the playground,” Robin says, voice calm and low. “She’ll signal Max and Lucas when we’re ready.”

“Phase two.”

“Max baits Vecna,”Steve says, hands on his hips. “He’ll go after her, which’ll put him in his trance.”

Nancy nods. “Phase three?” 

“Me and Eddie draw the bats away.”

“And if anything goes wrong?” Nancy prompts, and you raise your hand from behind Eddie. 

“I plane shift them back, we take the bikes and meet up with Erica.”

“Four.”

“We head into Vecna’s hopefully newly bat-free lair and… flambé.” Robin says, holding up one of the Molotovs.

“Nobody moves onto the phase phase until we’ve all copied,” Nancy starts, before looking pointedly at you. “Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?” 

You just nod while the rest voice their confirmation and swallow thickly. It’s obvious she knows you’ve got a plan no one else is involved in, and she seems adamant in letting you know not to resort to it. 

And you can’t make promise like that. Not for this. 

When everyone moves for their gear, after you’ve picked up your bag from the floor, you grab Eddie by the arm and hold him back. 

“Hey, you trust me, right?” You ask, letting your hand slide down to his once he’s stopped to turn around to face you. He frowns but nods once. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, sounding unsure. “Yeah, of course. Why…” 

You take a second to bite your lip. “Word of Recall,” you whisper, tightening your fingers around his hand. “That’s what I used. Just… just in case.” 

“Hey, what’s the hold up?” Steve calls out, poking his head in through the door. “We’re on a time crunch here guys.” 

“Yeah, sorry,” you apologize quickly, dropping Eddie’s hand and bolting before he can say anything. You pull your bag around to your front and rummage through the contents to grab a switch knife and tuck it into your right front pocket. 

Inside the trailer, you move past the gate and head straight for the bathroom. 

“Hey, I get that this is really stressful and we probably won’t be able to use the bathroom in a while but,” Robin starts, following you and pausing in the doorway.

Your hand is deep under the sink’s cabinet, reaching for the two cans of hairspray you know are tucked in there. 

“Okay now I’m even more confused.” 

While you stuff the cans into your bag, you pull out a zippo with your free hand. 

“They hate fire,” you explain shortly, tugging harshly on the bag’s ties before getting up on the floor. “I know it’s not part of the Grand Plan or whatever but honestly I’d rather be safe.” 

Robin just stands there and looks at you for a second before shrugging her shoulders. “Suit yourself, as long as you don’t blow yourself up.”

Thankfully, going through the gate doesn’t bring or induce anything awful this time. When Nancy and Robin pull you up to your feet after dropping in, you stand to the side just to listen. Your head stays blissfully free of any lich telepathy. You glance quickly over at Nancy, who’s grabbing the weapons Eddie’s throwing up through the gate, and can’t help but wonder. 

You shake the thoughts out of your head and, once everyone and everything is through safely, you head out the door, behind Dustin. Eddie’s just put his hand at your lower back when Steve turns around. 

“Hey, guys, listen” he calls out, making his way back over to the three of you. He points at you. “If things here start to go south—”

“Abort, take them back,” you finish for him, heaving your back higher up on your shoulder. “We’ve been through that, I know.” 

“Right. Just, draw the attention of the bats, keep ‘em busy for a minute or two, and we’ll take care of Vecna. Don’t try to be cute, or, be a hero or something.” You notice how Steve seems to be looking more intently at Dustin, now. “You guys are just—”

“Decoys,” Dustin interrupts. “Don’t worry, you can be the hero, Steve.” You can’T help but snort. 

‘Absolutely, I mean,” Eddie continues, and vaguely gestures at the three of you. “Look at us. We are not heroes.”

Steve looks pointedly at you again and you put your hands up. 

“Hey, I’m not a hero either man, I’m just the party cleric.” 

Steve looks entirely unconvinced, though that might just be the nerves showing. He nods, and moves to walk away, but Eddie takes a step forward and calls out to him. He looks back at Dustin, then over his other shoulder to you, before saying, “Make him pay.”

Red lightning strikes immediately followed by a clap of thunder. You flinch at the sound, immediately followed by yelp when you feel something at your elbow. 

“Hey, sorry,” Dustin says, leaning away and putting his hand up. “You alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” you mutter, clearing your throat. “Come on,” you say a little louder, tapping Dustin’s arms and moving towards one of the other trailers. “Time to set up.” 

While Eddie and Dustin go through the Munson trailer to get the amp, wires and his beloved Warlock, you busy yourself with getting the ladder. You prop it up against the side of the trailer as best you can so it won’t be too wobbly, and make your way onto the roof. You let your bag drop and give a few thumps with your feet. When you hear Dustin shouting, you smirk and move to grab the length of rope you’d stashed in your bag. You work to loop part of it around your waist and tie it as tightly as you can manage, sit just beyond the ladder, and toss the rest of the rope down.

The front door makes you jump when it slams open, and you sigh when you hear Dustin whooping. 

“You ready for the most metal concert ever?!”

“I would’ve rather be at the Hideout to hear Eddie play for the first time but I guess this fuckin’ works,” you return, leaning back on your hands. “Hurry up losers, we’re wasting daylight.” 

“Yeah, calm your tits, woman,” Eddie grumbles, hitching the amp higher in his arms. “Isn’t even any daylight in this place anyways.” 

When they’re up next to the ladder, Dustin carefully ties the handle of the amp before making his way up the ladder. Slowly, the two of you pull the amp up along the ladder. You scoot back as much as you can while Dustin grabs the thing and heaves it up onto the roof. The larger amps nearly make you slide off the edge of the roof, but after the second one, the other two don’t feel as heavy.

“You’re good!” You call out to Eddie, quickly untying the rope from your waist. You’re about to just toss it to the side, but quickly ball it up and toss it back into your bag. 

Eddie tosses the aux cords up first, then the spears. He goes back down to get the makeshift shield and, when he’s high enough up on the ladder, pulls the guitar from his back and passes it over into your waiting hands. 

“You find the generator?” You ask, passing the guitar off the Dusting, who carey gingerly leans it up against the amp.

“Yeah, just gimme a minute to get it running,” Eddie says, strained, before letting himself slide back down the ladder. You cross you arms and worry at your lower lip while you start to pace. 

“So,” Dustin starts, and when you look over at him he’s got his hands behind his back and is rocking back and forth on his feet. “How long have you and Eddie been a thing?” 

Though you do your best impression of a blank stare, you feel your stomach drop and your heart leap into your throat. 

“What?” He whines, easing his back and forth swaying and brings his arms in front of his to gesture at you. “Have you seen  the two of you?” 

“Bullshit,” you spit, leaning down to grab your bag. “He’s like that with everyone. Besides, I haven’t even seen him in like, three years. We barely know each other.” 

“Uh huh,” Dustin nods, and you groan when he looks entirely unconvinced and very much like a little shit. “Look, I’m just saying! He doesn’t look at us that way!” 

“Look at you in what way, dude? He looks at me with eyes and a face like a normal human.” 

“He looks at you,” Dustin starts again, lowering his voice and walking up to you. “Like you’re a ghost he never thought he’d see again.” 

You scoff and turn your head away. “Yeah well, he’s not wrong.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

“It means we’re different, kid,” you say quietly, pulling out a hand to inspect your suddenly very interesting nails. “A lot has happened since ‘83. Maybe he’s the same, but I’m not.” 

“No, you’re right.” And the shock of his agreement has you looking back at Dusting. “I mean, a lot has happened in three years, sure. And yeah, I mean look at you, you’ve got legit superpowers now.”

“And massive trauma from seeing people die all the time.” 

“And massive trauma fr—wait. You saw people die?” 

You turn away again and run a hand down your face. 

“Yeah. Yeah I did. I saw Nancy’s friend get caught by a demogorgon. Some scientist at the lab. Bob, all the people that got turned into—into goop. Fucking, Billy.” You take in a stuttering breath. Somewhere not too far away you hear Eddie swearing before the sound of a generator starting drowns him out. “Any time someone died because of the Upside Down, I was there. I saw it.”

“Shit,” Dustin whispers. 

“Yeah. Shit.”

The sound of the generator cuts out, and Eddie’s is audible again. You exhale sharply through your nose and turn back to face Dustin. 

“Can you promise me something?” 

“Uh,” Dustin takes a step back and frowns. “That depends entirely on what the promise is.”

You lick your lips and point at him. “No matter what happens, okay,” you start, pointing down at your bag. “And I don’t give a flying but about Wheeler’s plan. No matter what happens, once we get out of here, I need you to distract Eddie for me.” 

“What, why would you—”

“I’m expecting an answer, Henderson, not an interrogation. Will you or won’t you?”

The frown stays on his face a second longer before realization takes over his features. Not a good kind of realization. 

“When you were talking about evac,” he starts slowly, first turning to walk away before turning back to point at you. “You were talking about Max.” 

“Dustin,” you warn, voice low. 

“You were. You’re actually thinking about trying to be a hero.” 

“I’m not! I’m just, this is stupid!” 

“What’s stupid now?” Eddie calls from the ground, and no sooner you turn around to face the ladder does an extension cord come flying over the edge. You and Dustin both stand by and watch it slowly slide back over the edge. “Seriously guys, hello?” 

Dustin moves first to kneel at and look over the edge. You huff and make yourself useful and start plugging up the amps and the guitar. Once Dustin manages to grab the extension cord—after several almost-hilarious failures—it’s a quick fix to get the amps plugged in.

You barely have a second to breathe before the walking crackles to life.

“She’s in, move on to phase three.” 

“Fuck,” you mutter, turning to Eddie while Dustin confirms. “Remember, no funny business. THe bats show up, we go in, and we get the fuck out of here.” 

“And if shit hits the fan, we’ve got you,” Eddie confirms, surprising you by pulling you to him with a hand behind your neck, and knocking your foreheads together. “Get ready to have your mind blown.” 

You almost laugh and slowly take a few steps back when he lets you go. Dustin walks up next to you after turning the amps up as far as they’ll go, and nudges you with an elbow. You smack him upside the head with a scowl in return. Eddie whispers something you don’t quite catch when he rips the guitar pick from around his neck, and starts to play. 

Your whispered ‘what the fuck’ is lost in the opening bars of Master of Puppets. Next to you, Dustin seems to appreciate Eddie’s performance, but you can’t help the slack-jawed, shocked look you know is on your face. That song came out barely three weeks ago. 

Dustin smacks you in the arm, looking absolutely delighted while bobbing his head to the song. You frown and nod—yeah this is. For a once man show in hell surrounded by murderous everything, this really… this really isn’t that bad.

It’s not too long after, once Dustin’s taken a look through his binoculars, that the countdown starts. You throw your bag over your shoulder and run for the edge of the roof where you know a truck is parked and hop down. You can barely hear Dustin calling out for ten seconds by the time you’ve opened the door beyond the fence. You hear the clatter of the guitar against the roof and usher the two of them in through the fence. By the time you slam the door shut behind you and the three of you are in the trailer, you’re lightheaded from holding your breath. 

Slumped against the door, you can help but chuckle when both Dustin and Eddie start jumping up and down like excited kids. Though you’re glad they’re capable of having a good time about this, you really wish adrenaline could have the same effect on you.

You really just feel like vomiting, and the sound of a swarm of shrieking bats outside isn’t making things any easier. 

When you hear the tell-tale thump of bats landing on the roof, while Eddie and Dustin move to stand back to back just underneath the gate, you once again move past them to the bathroom. Reach under the sink, and pull… three? Alright, cool, three more cans of hairspray. You drop them onto the mattress when you walk back out, and grab the two from your bag to throw them down too. You pause from where you’re sitting on the mattress, looking up and Eddie and Dustin. Eddie shrugs, just as confused when the trailer goes silent.

“Hey dipshits!” Dustin screams, and you’re shocked at how guttural it sounds. “Give up that easy huh?!”

“Dude shut up!” You whisper harshly, fishing for the lighter in your jacket 

“Is that really necessary?” Eddie asks, but before Dustin can say anything else there’s a thump on the roof,

And another. And the thumps are headed in… a specific direction? 

Spray in one and and lighter in the other, you slowly follow Eddie and Dustin as they make their ways toward—

“Tell me that’s not a fucking vent,” you whisper, nudging Eddie. 

“They can’t come in through there, can they?” Dustin asks. And you’re about to berate him for saying possibly the worst thing he could say in this situation when the plastic cover comes flying off.

You shove post Eddie and Dustin out of the way, flick your lighter and start spraying. 

The fire and heat shock you, but clearly not more than it shocked the bat who stuck it’s stupid little head inside. 

“Get out of the way!” Eddie shouts behind you, and though you back up a little, you keep the fire going until you realize what he’s. 

Eddie hops on the chair he slides over, hops on and jams the shield right into the ceiling. When it’s been quiet for a second, you let out a breathy laugh. 

“Would you look at that, the nails didn’t pop out.” You turn when the two high five each other, but frown and wave them down. “Wait hold up.”

“Are there any other vents?” Dustin asks, and Eddie doesn’t even say a word before he takes off for the other end of the trailer. 

You stay stock still under the gate, fingers gripping the can and lighter with sore fingers. You give yourself a moment to close your eyes in resignation when you hear a swarm of bats burst in through Eddie’s bedroom. 

“Come on!” You scream, motioning wildly at Dustin to get up and through the gate. “Get up there!” He swears the entire way to you, through the gate, and when he finally stands up on the other side, relatively safe and sound. You quickly grab your bag and scoop the hairspray back into it. 

“Leave that shit here!” Eddie yells, spear and second shield aimed at the slowly splintering door. “Get up there!” 

Tie the bag firmly shut and bring it to your front, pocket your lighter and jump up as high as you can to grip the rope. Just as unpleasant the third time around. You’re rolling off the mattress, clutching your bag for dear life and briefly wondering what the tipping point is for a glass bottle of soda to explode, when you notice Dustin’s shouting getting desperate. 

You scramble to your feet and trip over the mattress. When you look up,Eddie’s barely made it halfway up. 

And he’s just hanging there. 

“Eddie, please,” Dustin pleads, and the look on Eddie’s face makes your blood run cold. 

“Eddie,” you whine, grabbing the rope with one hand. “Edward Munson, I swear—”

“On your dad’s Elvis vinyl collection, I know,” he says quietly. But nevertheless, he lets himself drop back down and while Dustin is shrieking, Eddie.

Eddie cuts the god damn fucking rope. 

“No,” you growl. “No, no no no, no that lying piece of fuckign shit. Dustin, stop,” you call out, walking over and pulling him away from the table.

“What are you talking about, Eddie’s—”

“Eddie’s lucky he has a fucking plane shifting friend is what he is!” You shout, shoving Dustin toward the trailer door. “Go meet up with Erica, and don’t get caught. I’ll get us both back in one piece.”

“But—”

“Go!”

You’re fuming. Absolutely raging. You let yourself pace for a second before closing your eyes.

Your stomach drops. Your breath gets caught.

And for a wonderful fraction of a second, there’s no sound. 

And then it’s right back into the shrieking swarm of bats. And though you’re almost loathe to recognize it, you were right.

None of them come even close to touching you as the few stragglers left in the trailer fly out the door. You run out the door after them just in time to see Eddie pull a bike up off the ground. 

“Eddie, you son of a bitch!” You scream, barrelling into him to knock you both down to the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” 

“Saving your stupid fucking idiotic traitor ass!” You shout back, awkwardly shimmying the bag off. “They can’t get me but they can get you, god, fuck, why did you do that,” you grind out between grit teeth, looming over Eddie with both hands braced on either side of his head to keep you up. 

You feel the brush of sharp wings and serrated tails on your back as the bats swarm around you, until you don’t. A quick glance to either side of you confirms that the bats are, in fact, trying to get to Eddie by crawling on the ground. You don’t even have time to question why the hell they’re so intent on him.

Eddie shoves you off as gently as you figure someone can manage in this kind of situation, and immediately reaches into your bag to grab a can of hairspray. You lunge for the bag on the ground and dump everything. Pull the switchblade out and cut a few inches of rope and unravel it. 

Pull out your lighter.

Flick it on. Carefully tie the rope around to keep the switch depressed and release.

Put the lighter down on the ground in front of you and reach for the hairspray.

Tie the rest of the rope down the length of the can to make sure the nozzle keeps spraying.

When you put it next to the lighter, it’s close enough to catch fire. 

You stumble back up on your feet and snatch the bottle of soda. By the time you have your free on Eddie’s shoulder to pull him back, he’s got the bats flying back up in the air, a column of fire keeping most of them away. 

“Count down to one for me,” you say, popping open the bottle of soda with your teeth. There’s a quick shot of pain before you take another swig, and you know you’ve chipped a tooth. “From five!”

“What the hell am I counting down to?” Eddie asks over his shoulder at you. 

“Do you trust me or not?”

You can see Eddie twisting his tongue. 

“Five.”

You close your eyes and take another swig of the soda. 

“Four.” 

Dry bushes, rotten wood, covered stained glass. 

“Three, and this better be good cause I’m running out!” 

You take a deep breath and think about derelict manors.. 

“Two!” 

“Cut the fire.” 

“What?!”

“You were supposed to say one,” you whisper. “Ravenloft.”

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@storiesbyrhi @anothermunsonsimp @doratheignora @alovesongshewrote