#away from hawkins' cursed ass shadow

[missybee-writes]

Shadow in the Dark: Chapter Four - Code Name, Farrah Fawcett

Genre: Sci-fi; Romance; Horror

Warnings: (eventual) sexual content; violence; gore; swearing; alcohol and drug use.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!OC

Summary

In July ‘85, an ambitious realtor sells the crumbling Creel house to a family looking for a new start.

Rose McAllister may be living in a grand and gothic murder house in a small Midwest town, but senior year in high school is the stuff of her nightmares: a last chance at a normal school year without being the odd one out, the sick girl, the weirdo from across the pond. Blend in, make it through the year, and make some friends. Stay unnoticed at all costs.

Hawkins, and one seriously loud-mouthed metalhead, is about to flip that carefully laid plan Upside Down.

Chapter one: Cursed

Chapter two: Munson Magic

Chapter three: Fearless

Ao3 link

---

“Never?” Dustin asked, his muffled squeal cutting through the quiet atmosphere in the study desk buried in the corner of the library, behind the physics and math section. “Not even once, not at all?”

Rose shrank away from the harsh stare of the librarian, whispering over the pages of the book. “Nope. Never heard of him.”

“Al Yankovic,” Dustin said, like he was talking about the President or the bloody Queen. “Weird Al. My Bologna, Another One Rides the Bus....Eat It? Seriously ? I thought you had MTV.”

“Sorry,” Rose said apologetically. “Is he funny?”

Dustin took off his cap and ran his hand through his curly hair; a memory from Monday made her own head tingle in sympathy the near scalping by Eddie, his rings intruding on what might have been a very romantic moment. Focus, McAllister.

“Uh, does a black hole emit Hawking radiation?” Dustin asked, completely confident in his own knowledge on the subject.

“Yes?” Rose bit her lip, trying to recall. “I take chem and biology though, not physics.”

Dustin’s mouth gaped open, braces glistening in the overhead fluorescent lights. He was weirdly charming. Something about him reminded her of Eddie. “Well, you should listen to his songs. His videos are hilarious too. Me and the guys, we laughed so hard when we heard I Love Rocky Road, it’s the best. Lucas pretends he’s too cool for it, but I see him trying to hold back his laughter. He can’t fool me.”

“Dustin,” she asked tentatively, chewing on the end of her pencil. “How did you get into D&D?”

His eyes brightened at her genuine interest and wondered how many people truly got to know the quirky kid, beyond his immediate friendship group. “Will and MIke were huge on it. They were best friends with Lucas since the first year of kindergarten, but I didn’t move to Hawkins until fourth grade. It was kinda hard for me to make friends. Zach was bullying me a lot, and he...” he trailed off, his mouth pressed in a thin line, crossing his arms across his chest defensively. “He, uh, kicked the crap outta me in the boys bathrooms, so I was upset, and Will came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be a magical spellcaster, and kick the ass of an ogre. And it was kind of awesome , and then we became friends.”

“I can’t even imagine the other guys without you,” she said, nudging his shoulder. “You’re like the heart of the group, and the brain too. Possibly the guts and the spine, and the funny bone. You’re all the good bits. But don’t tell them I said that.”

Dustin ducked his head and almost blushed, smiling like a goon. “I don’t know.”

“Well it looks like it to me,” Rose reassured him. 

He scoffed and waved away her compliment, with a weird little squeal that she found incredibly endearing. 

She was surprised to hear Dustin was the newest in the little friendship group. Where he went, Mike usually followed, and whilst Lucas seemed to be torn between Hellfire and basketball, he had an easy familiarity around the other two that spoke of long years of friendship and growing up with an unshakeable bond. Rose was fascinated by the way they understood each other's jokes and communicated without words. Envy burned in the back of her throat, for she saw in the freshmen boys what she had always longed for; someone who had seen you at your very best and worst, and who stood by you anyway.

It might be too late for Rose, but on the bright side, she wasn’t exactly alone, either. Dustin had been so thrilled at the prospect of helping her build a character that she couldn’t refuse his help, particularly when she knew so little about Dungeons and Dragons and the mechanics of the game. He was giving up his Friday lunch to help her.

Beyond that, the Hellfire guys said hello to her in the hallway, and welcomed her to the group. Tuesday and Thursday of this first full week at school had seen her at Hellfire’s lunch table; the first day, she was the complete focus of the lunch hour, much to her embarrassment. They peppered her with questions and stared at her until Eddie had to call them to order, requesting they back off and leave the lady alone. By Thursday, after she spent Wednesday hanging out with Robin, the Hellfire boys seemed to regard her as a permanent fixture, a piece of the furniture when she sat down at the table. Except for the pestering about her character, and harassing Eddie about tonight's campaign, of course. 

And Robin too, she was becoming a friend. She was going through a difficult time, clearly affected by the fire that killed so many people over the summer, finding it difficult to engage with her old friends after being right there during the tragedy. Rose could understand to some degree, she found it hard to carry on with old friendships after her illness. In a way, they could start fresh, a friendship with no before mall fire or before her surgery clouding the view of who they were right now.

Then there was their dungeon master, the leader, the glue of the club. The reason for her heart skipping a beat as she arrived at school each morning, searching for a telltale Chevy van or a big mane of frizzy hair, leather and denim. Her eyes scanning the parking lot, the hallway, or anywhere at all, really. The reason she lay listening to metal songs deep into the night, curled up in the window seat of her attic, examining every interaction, every glance and touch over the last week, trying to kid herself that it was just a new friendship, not getting her hopes up in case it was some kind of mistake, or he acted like this around every girl at school. But if she had any hope of concentrating she had to nip any thoughts of Eddie in the bud.

She turned to the sheets of paper on the study desk, her pencil twirling idly and drawing out a little flower-shaped spiral in the corner of the page. A character sheet, a chance to impress Hellfire tonight, and not appear like a silly, frivolous new girl with no clue what she was doing.

“Dustin,” Rose sighed. “I feel like i’m missing so much of Ceverra’s backstory. Yes, I was a noblewoman studying arcane magics at the Citadel, but what made me turn to necromancy?”

“Curiosity?”

“Maybe,” she hummed. “But the arc and the character have to be entwined, one feeds the other. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to raise the dead, you have to have a horrific reason...there has to be foreshadowing in her story. Maybe once we realise her backstory, we’ll work out why she’s here.”

“There’s an element of randomness to D&D play,” Dustin warned. “No one can predict the dice.”

“I still think she should have a good motivation. Something I can pull out when we get to the final villain in the campaign. A clue in her past, something hidden there all along that explains why she raises the dead.”

Dustin flipped through the pages of his Dungeon Master’s manual, one he explained belonged to his friend Will, who had just moved to California. He’d left behind his D&D books so they could play together when he came home for the holidays. The pages were weathered and dogeared, like they’d been used and loved for years. It brought a smile to Rose’s face; she too preferred her books that way. Lived in.

“Maybe we can find a magical reason, something happened to you as you studied to be a cleric,” Dustin rambled, concentrating on the pages.

“No,” Rose said. “It had to be a human reason, something tragic. I think...I think she lost her family. They were drained of life by a cult of warlocks or something, whilst she was away at the Citadel, and when she returned she found them all dead. She wasn’t there to protect her mother and father, and a sibling, a little sister maybe, so she turned to the dark arts. But it's doomed, because if she succeeds in raising her family, she will have become the thing they hate. In raising them, she kills herself, the Ceverra they loved. She turns to her old companions from the Citadel, including your bard and Jeff’s spellcaster, to aid her in finding an artefact she needs to raise her family. And gets drawn into whatever Eddie’s campaign is, before she can cross over that line and become a soulless lich. A last chance for redemption before she goes full chaotic-evil.”

“Shit,” Dustin snapped up. “That’s good. I think it works. Deeply personal motive, check. Dark magics, check. Reason for your joining the party, check. I think we have it, Lady Ceverra. We just need to determine how to spread your 27 ability points. You want three high abilities, three low. For a cleric, I recommend focusing on Wisdom and Intelligence. Plus, it kinda suits you!”

“I trust you, Dustin. Wisdom and Intelligence it is.”

He handed Rose the open book, and she searched the page, fingers tracing the scoring system; she made some notes and began to add some scores to her sheet. After ten minutes of diligent work, she handed him the character sheet; it felt like returning homework, except she suddenly cared for Dustin’s opinion more than any teacher, desperate for some kind of approval. She knew the kid was a genius, she knew he was Eddie’s protege, and somehow Robin knew him. All her favourite people seemed to regard Dustin highly. 

He leaned back in the chair, his Hellfire shirt barely visible under a brightly striped baseball-style short sleeved shirt, covered in some kind of novelty mathematical equation - probably a real one knowing Dustin - with a green Camp Nowhere badge newly sewn into the hem. It almost reminded Rose of Eddie’s battle vest, and she smiled like an idiot. Dustin idolised Eddie, she could see it in the way he deferred to the leader of their group, and copied some of his mannerisms subconsciously. 

“Okay, okay,” Dustin said positively, scanning the sheet. “The stats pass muster. I think this is gonna work. And the backstory kicks ass, like, you should be a writer.”

Rose felt herself smiling, and babbled dismissively. “Oh, I don’t know. I would like to study English Literature at university though. Maybe not cut out to be a full-blown author though...”

“That is so cool,” he said, head propped up on his elbow. “I’ve always been more of a math and science kind of man, but you’re a whole different kind of smart. Where do you wanna go to college?”

“I don’t know,” Rose faltered, making a strangled noise in her throat. She’d been so focused on achieving one single full year of school, one year with friends and normal teen experiences, that she’d put off thoughts of university. “I suppose i’d always imagined going back home, probably to London. Beyond that, i’ve not thought about it.”

“Well, you have plenty of time,” Dustin said comfortingly. “Probably two whole months, right? That’s if the application process is the same as here.”

Rose swallowed down her terror and turned back to the character sheet, where a large gap was left at the top. “Gareth is going to draw my character in art class today. He thinks the teacher won’t mind because he’s finished his assignment already. That way, it's ready for Hellfire tonight.”

Dustin looked at the sheet, with her neat, calligraphic script, his direction and shaping, and a space for Gareth’s impressive drawings. “You’re really going all out on this, huh. Eddie is going to lose his shit tonight, he’ll love it.”

“I hope so,” she said, trying to contain a gleeful grin. Since Monday’s beautiful, disastrous near-kiss, she hadn’t been fully alone with him. The closest was those two whole lunch hours at the Hellfire table, Eddie saving a seat next to him and pulling it out like a true gentleman, each of them sneaking dreamy-eyed glances at the other, careful not to be caught staring for too long. It was like a game of tag, a thrill of electricity each time they made eye contact.

White noise crackled in the quiet of the library, a muffled sound of something electronic, like white noise from a radio. Then out of the noise came a single word.

“Dustin?”

Rose went still, trying to locate the noise, but Dustin exploded into action,ducking under the table to get to his backpack, knocking over all his stuff in the process.

“ Is this thing even on? God, this is so stupid. Dustin, if you’re hearing this, it’s Steve. We have a code red. I repeat, a code red.”

“Shit,” Dustin hissed, fumbling about with his bag. He’d dropped to all fours on the beige floral carpet of the library, eyes sweeping the room for anyone watching: all clear, the place was quiet at the end of lunch, no one in their right mind would sacrifice their free period for more time around books. Except Rose and Dustin, clearly.

He retrieved a brick-sized hunk of plastic and metal from his bag, a walkie-talkie, pulling out a foot-long metal antenna from the top.

Dustin pressed down the walkie’s button, putting the mouthpiece close to his face. “This is Gold Leader. State your code red. And by the way, I told you, code names only . Also, you should bear in mind i’m in earshot of a civilian. Over.”

The combination of Dustin’s deadly serious demeanour, and his position on his knees by the library table clutching a walkie-talkie was so funny, she could almost laugh. But she really, really wanted to hear what he was saying, so leaned forward over the pencils and D&D handbooks, quiet as a mouse and straining to hear.

“Come on, not the code name. Seriously?”

“I’m deadly serious. And we spoke about this, you have to end with over . Over.”

The crackling went on for a couple of seconds, before a defeated voice came out again. “This is Farrah Fawcett, reporting a code red. There, you happy? Uh, over, or whatever.”

“I acknowledge your call sign, Farrah Fawcett. What is your code red? Does it involve any encrypted messages in other languages? Over.”

Encrypted messages? Rose was clueless, but already hooked. 

“No, Dus- I mean, Gold Leader. So Keith is busting my ass again. He says if I can’t work out which section of the video store to shelve This is Spinal Tap, i’m fired. He is so unreasonable! Over.”

Dustin growled. “We talked about this Farah Fawcett, this is not a code red. A code red is a life-threatening emergency. Or at least something that involves being so grounded that I won’t see daylight until i’m in college. Please keep this channel of communication open for genuine emergencies. Over and out.”

“Dustin, he’s gonna fire me! My dad is going to kick me out of the pool house, and then i’ll have to move in with my Aunt Josephine in Cincinnati. Is that code red enough for you, huh? No more rides to the arcade, no more free popcorn or videos, no more babysitting duties. Do you want me to suffer? Do you want Robin to suffer?”

Dustin made eye contact with Rose and shook his head, like he was forty, not fourteen, and the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “Okay, message received. What was the name of the tape again?”

“Thank god. It’s called This is Spinal Tap, which is some British rock band, apparently. Cover’s got these guys with huge hair and guitars on it. I don’t know if I should put it in the documentary section, or the music section. He’s back in two minutes, so I need an answer, like, now. Over.”

“Oh shit,” Dustin said, his finger still pressed on the walkie. “My mom won’t let me see those kind of movies, Steve. But it's not like a music video, it's a documentary, right? Over.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence, Gold Leader. Should I go with Documentary?”

Rose scooted further over the table, into Dustin’s view. “Dustin, I know this one. I know it!”

“Wait, who is that?” The mysterious Farrah Fawcett - slash Steve - asked quickly.

“I’m with a girl, I mean a lady . Hold on a second Steve. Over,” Dustin looked up at Rose, eyes hopeful. He let go of the walkie and spoke privately to her for a second. “What should it be?”

“A lady? Hey, Robin doesn’t count you know. It’s Nancy isn’t it. Or maybe not, it’s Homecoming and she’s gonna be slammed with the committee today. Come on, Dustin, who is it? Is she pretty?”

Rose ignored the voice, thinking back to Monday. “It’s one of Eddie’s favourite movies. It’s a documentary, but a fake one. There’s no such band as Spinal Tap. Eddie said it was so funny he nearly pissed himself!”

“Huh,” Dustin replied, taking off his cap and mopping his brow. “He told you that? Jesus, that’s kind of personal. So it’s a comedy then?”

“Definitely,” Rose nodded wildly.

“Okay, but if you’re wrong, Steve and Robin are never gonna let me hear the end of it.”

She sat back, completely confused. Robin? What did Robin have to do with this?

Dustin turned back to the walkie. “I’ve conferred with my study buddy Lady Thorn, and can confirm the tape should be shelved in comedy. I repeat, comedy . Over.”

The static crackled. “Really? It doesn’t look funny. ”

“Just do it, Steve. I’ve gotta go, I think we’re attracting attention from hostile actors. This is Gold Leader, over and out.” He switched off the talkie, and sagged with relief, collapsing the antenna with a slap of his hand and stuffing it back in the backpack.

Rose sat back on the chair, mouth agape. “Hostile actors?”

“The librarian is giving me the side-eye,” Dustin explained, pointing subtly toward the desk, at the far end of the stacks. “I think she’s gonna kick us out.”

“Ms Miller likes me,” Rose assured him, returning to a whisper, just in case. “She’s obsessed with romantic English Literature, and I gave her my copy of an Elizabeth Gaskell book she’d never read before. She thought Mr Rochester was the pinnacle of a brooding gentleman? Oh ho, she’s yet to meet Mr Thornton. She’ll be swooning for days. No way she’ll kick us out.”

Dustin was bright-eyed as a puppy. “You really are a nerd, aren’t you.”

Rose snorted. “I thought that was clear already. Wait, you’re not getting away that easily. Who on earth was that? Is he your older brother?”

“Steve?” Dustin’s voice was so far it went into the stratosphere. He slapped his knee, laughing. “I'm so going to tell him you thought we were brothers. You know, we do both have fantastic hair. Maybe long lost cousins or something. No, Steve is a...friend, slash babysitter? It’s hard to capture with words. There’s nobody like him.”

“And you just go around with a walkie talkie, on the off chance you want to speak to this babysitter slash friend,” Rose said, suspicion creeping into her voice. 

“Sure. People do that, all the time. It’s really common in Indiana. Who needs a payphone when you’ve got a personal walkie? That’s free! Cause then you don’t need a whole stack of quarters,” Dustin shrugged his arms. “What? It’s practical!”

His voice went higher with each statement, until Rose knew he was covering something up. What an odd kid. 

“Right,” Rose narrowed her eyes. “If I didn’t have to get to class, I'd have a few more questions for you. But it's your lucky day.”

They got up from the study desk at the back of the library and slung on their bags, Rose carefully stowing away the character sheet between the pages of her math textbook as they swung open the library door, entering the hallway with its aura of enforced cheer, balloons and all sorts of glitter-laden signs announcing Homecoming! as if anyone in this school could forget it. Everyone congregated in the hallways, gossip and buzz in overdrive, like they could already taste the sugary-sweet tropical punch, feel the air thick with Aqua Net and cheap cologne, and  hear Indiana’s most middling DJ blaring out school-approved pop and light rock, a tepid beat that would fill the auditorium in just a few hours time.

They turned a corner and were met head on with a wobbling tower of boxes, shiny silver streamers spilling out the top.

”Excuse me, coming through,” a voice called out, muffled behind the decorations. 

“Hey Nance, hold on a minute,” Dustin leapt forward and took the top one, pulling it away and revealing a very frazzled Nancy Wheeler with bloodshot eyes and a don't-cross-me kind of glare.

Rose felt guilty for standing unencumbered whilst they carried heavy loads of decorations, so she followed them, running forward and opening the double doors to let them into the auditorium.

“Thank you guys,” Nancy said breathlessly, stacking them on a table and directing Dustin to do the same. “I would have collapsed in the hallway without you. Wait, Rose? I haven’t seen you since last Friday, I was going to check up on your first week but you’ve been a hard woman to find. I checked the cafeteria but you weren’t there.”

“That’s nice of you. I was a little busy today, Dustin was helping with a project in the library.”

Nancy’s face screwed up. “Dustin? Well he is a great tutor, he was always the best at math and science, better than Mike, but don’t tell him that.”

Dustin looked smug. “Mike’s known since the seventh grade, that secret is out. But it wasn’t math or science, it was something a little more fantastical , if you get my drift.”

Nancy looked between them, realisation coming to her at last. “Oh my god, did he rope you into Dungeons and Dragons? Just remember those sessions go on for hours . Sometimes the whole day. And I would get so tired my eyes would blur, and I couldn't even see the dice anymore.”

“Amateur,” Dustin said under his breath. “And it was not I that did the roping. It was Eddie.”

“Munson?” She asked, confused. “Isn’t he a little...aggressive?”

“Not at all,” Rose said immediately. “Not even a little bit.”

She could only picture Eddie smiling; slow, creeping smiles that turned up his lips and lit up his onyx eyes; wide, manic grins that cried out joy and enthusiasm; and those smiles that were infectious, laughing wholeheartedly at Dustin or Gareth’s antics. The way he held her hand in the woods, gripping it like she could possibly let him go. The way he cradled her cheek, like she was made of fragile glass. How in the nine hells of Asmodeus could Eddie Munson be called aggressive? Okay, if you were shallow you might see the hair and the jacket and the wild charisma, but when did clothes become more important than who was under them?

“Okay,” Nancy replied eventually, a thoughtful quirk to her head. “You guys can go now, thanks for the help. I’ve roped in Fred to help with the last of the decorations. He’s not on the homecoming committee, but he’s volunteered to help anyway.”

Rose and Dustin said goodbye and headed out the door; the kid waited until the door closed firmly behind them before leaning into Rose, making sure no one was in earshot before speaking low into her ear.

“Fred Benson is not helping out of charity. He’s totally in love with Nance,” Dustin dished the dirt. “He follows her around like a little puppy dog, it’s kinda sappy.”

“Which one is Fred?” She whispered back, wary of insulting any of the guys in the hallway.

“Glasses, blonde hair, has a scar on his face. He’s in the school paper with Nancy.”

“And Nancy doesn’t like him back?”

Dustin chuckled. “Seriously, if you want gossip you should hang around more girls...not including Robin. It’s complicated. Fred is in love with Nancy, but her boyfriend Jonathan - Will the Wise’s older brother - just moved to California so they’re long distance now. But Nancy’s ex Steve still has a torch for her.”

Rose gasped. “Walkie-talkie Steve?”

“Yeah!” He squealed gleefully. “They dated in Nancy’s sophomore and Junior year, but broke up because she fell for Jonathan. It was a whole thing.”

“Wow,” Rose tried to keep up. “So half the school’s in love with Nancy Wheeler. Noted.”

Dustin’s skin flushed. “I may have liked her for a little while, but that was just a silly kid thing. And it was B.S.” Dustin saw her confusion and made a wild little gesture. “ Before Suzie , of course. You’re right though, half the school is in love with Nancy. And the other half is in love with Chrissy Cunningham.”

Chrissy...Rose had biology and English with the cheerleader, whose forlorn aura and sweet smile made her stand out against the bolder, more brash girls who hung about in those cliques, circling about the basketball players. Her anxiety flared again, the sudden memory of Andy and some unnamed meathead insulting her on her first day, calling her kinda fat , in comparison to Nancy the broom handle . It was insulting to both of them, to women in general, and it brought out the self-doubt she’d tried so hard to bury. 

Don’t do it, Rose, don’t do it .

“So,” she said, pretending to be casual. “Which half are the Hellfire guys in?”

“Ew, gross,” Dustin said immediately. “Some of us are basically related to Nancy, or at least it feels like it now we’ve grown out of any middle school crushes.”

One thing Rose had determined over the last week, and was fairly certain of, was that Gareth, Jeff and Chris knew something was up between her and Eddie. Gareth’s smirk was too smug, his eyes too watchful when she sat next to Eddie in the cafeteria. Mike and Lucas she could see were observant too, but Dustin? Dustin seemed to have no idea. Or if he did, he was an incredible actor.

She fidgeted nervously with the end of her French braid - which was totally a coincidence, not that she could be more easily held or kissed or whatever by a certain metalhead covered in snaggy silver jewellery - feeling like a complete idiot. “And the older guys?”

“They don’t like Nancy, I know that. I’ve definitely seen them looking at the cheerleaders. Eddie and Gareth had this whole thing about who was hotter, Trisha Miller or Chrissy Cunningham. Gareth said Trisha because of, well,” he shot an embarrassed look at her, “She fills out the front of her uniform, if you know what I mean. That was his whole argument: boobs. But Eddie said Chrissy had the delicate aura of an elf princess, which is far more gentlemanly. He’s so freakin’ cool. Don’t tell him I said that. I don’t wanna sound like a pleb.”

Rose’s answering nod was weak. “Got it. Not a plebeian. Just a regular old equite, a knight of the Republic, maybe even a senator. I could see you as a tribune of the people. Or a philosopher.”

“Oh my God you are such a nerd, Hellfire is lucky to have you. You know, I think Eddie likes having a girl in hellfire. But not like a girl , if you get what i’m saying. Not like that,” he gave her a signature gap-toothed grin. “You’re just like one of the guys!”

---

The brief space between her last two classes found her scuffing her feet on the floor of the hall, trudging to her locker without the infectious enthusiasm for Hellfire that she had earlier.

She stowed her books and the character sheet for later. Gareth’s drawing of the lady necromancer and cleric adorned the top of the page, an elegant figure in light leather armour and a cape, wearing a bone charm around her neck. Perhaps he’d focused too much on the boobs, it was looking a little...voluptuous. And the armour wasn’t really functional, far more decorative. Just like those stupid uniforms, come to think of it. Damn cheerleaders, with their nonexistent little skirts and bouncy ponytails, and -

“Whatcha doing, McAllister?” Robin’s head was right behind her locker door, popping up like a poltergeist in a haunted house.

“Jesus,” Rose clutched her chest. “Announce yourself next time. You’ll be the death of me.”

Robin gave her a toothy grimace. “Sorry. Come to think of it, that’s not the first time someone’s said that to me.”

“I’m getting you a bell.”

“Are we talking like a necklace with a cute little charm, or a full-on cat’s collar here? Cause i’m not sure I can be contained, you know? I once got locked in a gas station bathroom and I broke out in hives. The mere thought of being stuck in an elevator makes me wanna puke. Oh god, what if the lights cut out while I'm in there...”

Rose clicked her fingers in front of her friend’s zoned-out face. “Wake up, Buckley. You’re not in an elevator, or a coffin, or a locker, or anything confined. You’re spiralling.”

“Hey! Claustrophobia is no joking matter,” Robin fired back. She watched Rose heft her books into her satchel and slammed the locker door emphatically. “What did the locker do to you?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Except for reminding me of my existential dread, social awkwardness, and the fact that i’ll die alone surrounded by a thousand cats.”

Robin’s nose scrunched up. “Do you even have a cat?”

The two of them fell in step, traversing the busy hallways to get to O’Donnell’s last period English class. 

“No, “ Rose said. “But I assume the cats will be attracted by my sad, spinster aura, and flock to the house in droves when I end up pathetic and alone. Maybe i’ll emit a strong catnip odour. It will just be me, a gigantic gothic murder mansion, and an army of cats. Come to think of it, I did see a mouse in the pantry last week chewing on a box of Ritz crackers. I screamed and smashed my favourite Bagpuss mug, and i’ll never find another one of those over here. Perhaps the cat army could come in handy.”

“See?” Robin casually slung her arm around Rose’s shoulder as they walked. “Look at you, thinking positively. But seriously though, why would you end up alone and miserable? You have your family. And me too, I'm your friend?”

Rose beamed. “Of course you are.”

“And the Hellfire guys.”

Her mouth twitched. “Hmm."

Robin stopped in her tracks, almost destabilising them, retracting her arm from Rose’s shoulder. “It’s those assholes, isn’t it. Have they said something weird or insulting? Done something utterly stupid?”

“It’s really nothing,” Rose said dismissively, folding her arms defensively.

Robin had none of it. Her blue eyes narrowed until they were dark and stormy. “I knew it. Something is going on. They’re teenage boys, they don’t have the self awareness to know how irredeemably, stupidly immature they sound. Whatever it is, i’ll knock some sense into them. But I should mention that i’m a pacifist at heart and I don’t even know how to throw a punch,” Robin pondered something, pointing her finger when an idea came to her. “I could ask Steve! Actually, he’s kind of a punchbag, i’m not sure he could survive another blow to the head. The man’s gonna end up with amnesia or something. So not Steve. Aha! I know a scathing, very intimidating middle schooler that we could rope in for Hellfire-defeating duties.”

“Robin, i’m not sending in a child to fight my battles,” Rose insisted. “Wait, its not even a battle! There is no battle, i’m just feeling..off.”

Robin groaned and looked at her long and hard. “Hey, are you busy this weekend?”

She shrugged. “Hellfire is tonight. We have to finish by six, or the Homecoming committee will turn us out of the drama room.”

“I don’t think many people have the right school spirit for Homecoming this year. I know Linda’s going, which makes me doubly glad i’m not. But what are you doing tomorrow?” Robin asked hopefully.

“I have three hundred years of American history to memorise before Ms Baldwin’s history assignment. But I can do that anytime.”

“Okay,” Robin grinned. “I have to work Saturday until six, but do you wanna watch a movie after? We can choose something the Hellfire guys will hate, something sophisticated, something...intellectual.”

A warm feeling spread in Rose’s chest, and she toyed with the strap of her bag, trying not to sound too desperate. “I would like that.”

Robin slapped her own forehead. “Agh, but my parents have this thing, this dinner party with my Dad’s old college friends. It’ll be three hours of smalltalk, devilled eggs, thousand island dip, and charades. And sherry, who drinks sherry? There’ll probably be reels of photographs from Mimsy’s trip to Nantucket. A fate worse than death.”

“We could...we could do it at my place?” Rose said, feeling emboldened by Robin’s willingness to suggest a weekend hangout, something beyond prescriptive school time. “My mum and Jerry will be there, but they are quiet, and I have the third floor all to myself. It would be like they weren’t even there. You could even sleep over, if you wanted to. I know the house is a bit...dilapidated. But there are only four windows still boarded up, the rest have all been replaced. And no more leaks!”

She felt stupid even asking; she was eighteen, not eight. Do young adults even do sleepovers?

“A movie night in a dilapidated murder mansion? Are you kidding? It’s so whimsical!” Robin was excited, hands gesticulating at a hundred miles an hour. “If you stop by Family Video before we close, we can have our pick of movies, courtesy of a very special employee-perk a.k.a what Keith doesn’t know, won’t kill him. Plus you can meet Steve.”

Rose cocked her head to one side, thinking through the mutual friend everybody seemed to have. “I don’t understand how everyone knows this Steve.”

Robin grew shifty, fidgeting and looking anywhere but Rose’s eyes. “Just, normal places. Work, school. You know, where everybody meets everybody. Oh, and if he hits on you, just let him down gently. He’s had a bad year in the romance department.”

“So Dustin tells me,” Rose said. She zoned out as Robin nattered about Steve’s failed dates and some kind of scoreboard, because she spotted Eddie’s unmistakeable figure coming down the hallway, toward Mrs O’Donnell’s classroom door. 

Where others walked, Eddie swaggered. He was all gangly limbs, swerving around the corner as came into the corridor, almost knocking over other students, brushing off their angry looks or jeers with a middle finger or a scary face. But today, he actually had a book. Hell, he had two books in his hand, tucked against his battle vest. Rose had gathered from their few shared classes and the brief, staggeringly honest exchange in the woods on Monday that Eddie was not exactly committed to academics. He tried, he showed up most of the time, but he was often fidgety, overwhelmed or completely buried in his own head rather than the lesson. Yet she knew he read fantasy extensively and designed complex D&D campaigns that required a serious degree of storytelling. 

Eddie hadn’t seen her yet. He hovered by the door, face falling as he looked inside. He’d paused on the threshold of the classroom like he might still make a run for it. She should wave, she should run up and say hello...maybe they could sit together. Who was she kidding, she was definitely sitting next to him if the seat was still free, just like on Monday.

But now, thanks to Dustin bloody Henderson, every bit of her recent burst of confidence was put into doubt. What if he was looking for a cheerleader? Did he search for Chrissy Cunningham in the crowd, with her gentle Elvish princess aura or whatever else Dustin had repeated to her? 

Rose looked down at herself, her Live Aid t-shirt, acid wash jeans, and Doc Martens, and felt incredibly underdressed. Well, at least she’d blend in with the Hellfire boys tonight; it might not be an official Hellfire shirt, but it had a similar vibe. It certainly felt more her than the awful pink high-collared cardigan she’d thrown over a dress last Friday on her first day, in a desperate attempt to cover her surgical scar.

She was miles deep in desperate thoughts about her own imperfections compared to the gaggle of cheerleaders that hovered nearby, all seeming to take her English class, when Eddie looked up. Their eyes met across the hall, a single sizzling, sparking second of contact that almost affected her as physically, as the near-kiss, even though they were twenty feet apart. 

Eddie’s brash, confident personal bled out of him until he was like jelly, leaning against the doorframe for support, eyes bright and hopeful. God, she’d missed that dopey smile. It was no more than 24 hours since they last spoke, but in a single week of acquaintance a day was a long time. Too long. She hugged her copy of Poe to her chest, not sure if she should wave. Is waving too much? Too boring? 

Rose’s arm twitched before her brain engaged; her imagination ran away with her and she did a weird little curtsey, actually dipping at the knee and nodding her head; to Eddie’s absolute, crazy-grinned delight. He did a full-on bow in response, bending at the waist, arm spreading wide.

Her view of Eddie’s theatrics were cut off as Robin stepped into her field of view dramatically, her freckled face only inches away.

“Oh, i’m sorry,” Robin’s voice was teasing, vibrating with restrained energy. “Am I interrupting something here?”

Rose snapped back to her friend. “What?”

“Don’t you give me that , it’s me that’s asking ‘what’...as in what the hell did I just witness?”

Nerves hit her in the stomach, like she’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit jar. Just as she opened her mouth and ready to babble some meaningless excuse or denial, the shrill bell rang out just above their heads, Rose flinching and clutching onto her books.

Rose drew as tall as she could - still several inches shorter than Robin - and tried to look dignified and imperious. “I have no idea what you are talking about. A girl can curtsey if she likes, nothing wrong with it. In fact-”

Robin’s gasp was loud and drawn out. “Oh my god. You like him.”

Heart racing, palm-sweating. Rose didn’t like that feeling, it reminded her too much of being ill, and damn did all this fancying him push her close to that heart-fluttering feeling. She walked toward O’Donnell’s room, where Eddie had gone inside with all the rest of the waiting seniors. “I like all the Hellfire guys,” she whispered to Robin. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Robin looked like a ripe tomato, red, cheeks about to burst. She was about to say something when Rose ducked into the class, using Mrs O’Donnell and her class as a shield, knowing they couldn’t talk freely beneath her bespectacled, scathing gaze.

She let out a deeply held breath, relieved and nervous when she saw Eddie in his usual spot at the back, winking at her and nodding toward the empty seat by his side. 

She could feel Robin’s eyes upon her back as she fled to the back of the classroom and took the empty spot.

“Milady,” Eddie greeted, mischief in his eyes. “I had to fend off an army of orcs to keep the spot free, so you’d better take it.”

“Orcs?” Rose raised a brow.

He shrugged and pointed with his skull-ringed finger toward the front of the room. Gareth was sat between two of the mathletes from the terribly named science geek lunch table, brooding, arms crossed over his chest and shooting Eddie dirty looks. 

She grimaced. “Oh no. I don’t want to piss off Gareth. He might stab me in the back during the campaign later. And i’m not sure if I mean literally, or in the imaginary landscape of the Icewind Dale. I could move, if it will make him feel better.”

Eddie leaned over, and put his hand on her desk table. “Gareth the Great will survive. In fact, he might just concentrate more up there without me distracting him. I’m basically inflating his grade from a C minus to a B.”

“So generous of you,” Rose smiled, staring at his hand, just a finger’s width from hers. “So now it’s my turn to be distracted? Didn’t think about my grades, did you?”

When she turned to face the front, Robin was sitting four desks away,  neck craned comically, keeping an eye on their interaction. 

Eddie didn’t seem to notice, his voice low as he replied. “What’s the worst I could do, drag you down from A plus plus to a measly A single plus? I get the feeling that you know more about this literary shit than Mrs O’Donnell ever has, and you’re just sitting amongst us mere mortals to pass the time.”

“We actually have a double plus at home, it’s called an A star, but...it’s silly really,” A shaky laugh came from Rose’s throat, one she silenced quickly when the teacher’s chair scraped against the floor and O’Donnell stood, surveying the students with a predatory gleam.

“You’re all looking forward to Homecoming tonight, aren’t you,” O’Donnell said gleefully. “Dreaming of corsages and slow dances. But before you scurry home and put on your fancy frocks and bow ties, you owe me something. Assignments.”

Andy the meathead slunk deeper into his chair, with a low, desperate groan.

“Yes, Andrew.” O’Donnell pointed at him. “I will be paying particular attention to your grade this semester. Come on now, everyone pass your assignments forward. Don’t forget, this will count as ten percent of your final grade.”

A whole room shuffled and produced stacks of papers from the inside of their books or their bags on the floor. Rose pulled out a ten page behemoth she had penned at home in the window seat of her attic room.

Eddie plucked out two creased pages from the inside of his jacket, and eyed hers with a nervous smile. “Jeez, did you write a novel or something? How long did that take you?”

Rose bit her bottom lip, feeling her face warm up. “Not that long. But the power cut on Wednesday night really helped, there was nothing to do but read by candlelight in my room.”

He nodded vigorously, passing their essays to the guy in front. “Cool, uh, cool image. Big creepy mansion, candlelight, rooms, bedrooms with...beds. Very gothic.”

“I suppose,” she said weakly. Better than admitting she had nothing else to do on a weeknight than delve into literary analysis in her bedroom, watched over by her wall of handsome musicians and actors pulled from the glossy pages of magazines.

“Wait,” Eddie burst out, head cocked to one side. “What power cut?”

“Thank you class,” O’Donnell interrupted them. “Barring Andrew, of course. If you can’t produce an essay by Monday you’ll be marked as a zero. Which somehow means, Mr Munson, that you handed in an essay on time. I think this has to be a first. I take it this one is yours?”

Mrs O’Donnell held aloft Eddie’s two-pager and she could see it was headed with an eye-catching drawing of a beating heart, anatomically correct...just like the one she’d sketched on his desk last week.

“That’s right, Mrs O,” Eddie said with a smug grin. “But be gentle with my heart, I don’t know if it can take another F.”

The teacher held it with two fingers, slightly away from her body like it might be covered in something unpleasant. “It’s certainly...something. I’m surprised you stopped staring at the cheerleaders long enough to read a single word of Edgar Allen Poe. Let’s hope you can keep it up.”

Oh shit. Rose wasn’t sure which hurt more, the entire class making disgusted noises and turning in their direction, or the sudden realisation that Chrissy Cunningham was three seats in front of Eddie, directly in his field of view. Chrissy was the only one that hadn’t turned around, like she was in her own world, picking at the beds of her reddened, bitten nails. Coincidence or not, it was enough to drain the confidence from her yet again.

“Fucking freak,” Jason Carver muttered under his breath. Rose didn’t miss that he looked between her and Eddie, seemingly just noticing the proximity of the freak to the new girl, his brain slowly ticking and putting together an association of some kind. Not that she cared for the opinion of a such a crowd-peddling narcissist, 

O’Donnell gathered the papers and swung right into the lesson, giving them three poems to read in silence whilst she marked the assignments at the desk, sipping from a mug of steaming black coffee. The woman looked up and snuck a glimpse at Eddie and her, and Rose just knew it. The woman had it out for him, big time.

Rose kept her head down, reading the page a dozen times and not taking in a single line of poetry. Sure, Eddie had flirted with her. Even she was clued up enough to recognise that. But was that because she was just there, literally walking into his domain last week in Hellfire? Was she a consolation prize? 

A grating, irritating noise sounded to her left. She snuck a glance past her makeshift shield a.k.a. notebook, and Eddie was downcast, pencil tapping incessantly on his book, completely wired and ignoring the book altogether. It was worrying, like he was disassociated from the classroom, not able to concentrate on the work, about to snap at any second.

Something clicked within her; he looked like she had felt, stuck in a bright, sterile hospital ward, tethered to bleeping monitors by wired electrodes stuck to her chest, worried sick every second that this was how she would die. That panic threatened her now, an urgent need to flee, her breathing coming hard. If this was how Eddie reacted to a classroom, no wonder his grades had suffered. No wonder he’d repeated senior year not once, but twice now. Rose was kind of in awe that someone would put themselves in that situation willingly, over and over again. She didn’t think she could.

Fuck O’Donnell, fuck the Jason Carvers and the Andys of the world, those that made Hawkins High a real hell for Eddie and those who were different. Rose made a silent vow to herself that she’d help Eddie get through this class, no matter what. Romantic weirdness aside, that smug bitch O’Donnell was not getting one over on them. Not on her watch.

An hour of silent reading later they were turned out of the classroom, collecting their assignments on the way out. Gareth had passed her something covertly and headed early to the drama room, to meet Chris and Jeff before the session began. And as Eddie hadn’t yet left his desk, Rose said a quick goodbye to a very perplexed Robin. Her friend was obviously about to explode with questions, but had to leave as the mysterious walkie-talkie Steve was giving her a ride to her Friday night shift at Family Video.

Eddie was last out of the class, face buried in his assignment. He saw her waiting, flipping over the page and pointing to a big, red D overlapping the sketch of the heart.

“It’s not much,” he said, squirming from her gaze. “But all I need is a D in Mrs O’Donnell’s, and then I should have enough credits to graduate. So it's better than an F.”

“That’s fantastic. Ten percent of the class, already locked down. Ninety to go,” she prattled nervously. “You felt compelled to actually read the story then? It’s as exciting as Tolkien.”

His confident grin returned slowly. “What can I say, I’ve developed a sudden interest in beating hearts and haunted houses. Both very metal. But what did you get, an A or an A plus? Oooh, don’t say a B, you couldn’t live with the shame.”

Rose stepped closer. “Oh, that assignment? Yes, it was an A plus, though she left a note complaining about the length and some of the source material being outside of the curriculum. But actually, i’ve been waiting to hand in my real assignment all day.”

He looked perplexed, brows furrowing, big doe-eyes looking around like he might find the answer in the corner of the room. “Uh...what?”

She produced a sheet of paper from behind her back, holding it up; her newly illustrated character sheet, Lady Ceverra beautifully drawn in monochrome by Gareth during his Art class, except for the red of her hair beneath a dark hooded cloak. It looked like something from a comic book, but less childish, more gothic. 

Eddie’s eyes widened until they almost popped from his head, scanning the drawing, surrounded by her calligraphic script with her character’s name, boxes full of stats, and alignment. “McAllister, what the hell? You did this since last Friday?”

His hand reached out to take the sheet but she pulled it back, planting a hand on his chest to keep his greedy hands away. “It’s a surprise. No reading it before the campaign, dungeon master. You’ll have to discover who Lady Ceverra is as we go through whatever you have planned for us tonight.”

She could feel the rumbling in his chest as he laughed. Somehow her hand had slipped past the layers of open denim and leather, resting over his Hellfire shirt, warm and solid chest right beneath her palm.

“Gimme,” he said, trying to snake his arms past her. “I see some seriously badass leather armour, and suspiciously low cut...did Gareth draw it for you?” He did a dramatic gasp. “Have you been meeting all the guys behind my back, McAllister?”

Rose’s lips twitched upwards. “Only Gareth. And Dustin; that’s why he was missing from lunch today.”

“That little shit. I thought he had the stomach flu. Give it, I wanna see!”

Rose twisted away, keeping the paper away from his grasping hands, surrounded by a curtain of his hair. “No, you’ll have to wait! Be patient!”

She broke away, dodging from him and stepping backward, running down the now-empty corridor with Eddie in pursuit, the place echoing with footsteps and their laughter. She felt like a kid again, being chased in the playground in a game of tag, without a care in the world. She rounded a corner and ducked into an alcove, letting Eddie run past. He kept going to the drama room, arms flailing, wobbling about like a goofball. He has such a stupid run that she couldn’t make it to the drama room door without a breathless cackle coming from her throat, alerting Eddie to her presence as he was about to burst through the door.

“What the hell?” He said, whipping around. “Your stealth must be off the charts.”

She raised the character sheet. “Try Wisdom and Intelligence.”

He bounded over to her like an over-eager puppy, chains clanking on his jeans, hair swishing manically around his face. “Oh please, Lady Ceverra. This humble bard only wishes to learn more about you.”

Her laughter slowed down, became more of a low hum in her throat, finding herself with her back pressed against a locker and Eddie bracing his arm just inches from her head, not caging her in completely but overwhelming her senses.

She held up the paper, obscuring the lower half of her face with it. “Is it proper for the Dungeon Master to read a character sheet before a session?”

Eddie’s eyes were wicked in the gloomy hall, with half the lights turned off already. “I don’t know about proper. More, uh...insatiable curiosity, I guess. I just can’t help it. Not when it comes to you, Rosie. Will you show me who you are?”

This was more than D&D, the seriousness of his tone was clear. And the way he was ignoring the sheet, looking right into her eyes. Her hand dropped and limbs had turned to warm jelly, surrounded by Eddie, still not getting enough , her fingers and lips tingling with the need to touch, to do something phys-

“Oh shit, you two disappear for a minute and you’re getting all pon farr on the lockers,” a very pissed off Jeff said, emerging from the drama room. “Hey, that’s my locker!”

“Goddamn it Jeff,” Eddie gave Rose an apologetic look and pulled away from the locker reluctantly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Enough with the sci-fi references. Not everyone watches Battlestar Galactica.”

Jeff looked like he might pass out. “Woah, woah, woah...that’s Star Trek, not Battlestar. How could you, man. I know you're more of a fantasy guy, but you’ve gotta respect the greatest TV show on the face of the planet.”

“Alright, alright,” Eddie sighed and shepherded Jeff into the Hellfire room and looked back nervously, gesturing to Rose to enter. “If the Lady Ceverra will forgive the foolish jester back there, could I still tempt her inside? The party of adventurers won’t be the same without her.”

Rose peeled herself from the lockers, her back aching from the cold metal. “You can’t put me off now, Dungeon Master. But one question. What’s a pon farr?”

Jeff’s muffled voice called out from within. “It’s a Vulcan mating rit-”

Eddie leapt inside, suddenly filled with panic. “Shut it. Silence Jeff, I swear to god i’ll tape your mouth up if you don’t stop right this minute.”

---

“Your quest has led you to here, every tavern rumour, bribe and threat to the wizards of the Citadel has proven right. The burial mound slopes gently in the wooded hollow, weathered by storm and wind and frost over eons of time, now smothered in vines and moss. The entire mound emits an aura of magic, intense magic. There are wards placed to keep out magic users like you. What’s inside, you ask? Oh, I don’t know, you’ll have to find out yourself by exploring the dark, dank tunnel crumbling into its side. Damp air, thick with mouldering earth, stale with decay, lingers at the tunnel mouth. Do you dare enter?”

When Eddie, reclining on his throne with goblet in hand like he was at a bacchanal, finished his monologue, the party looked at each other one by one. Gareth flexed his knuckles like he was faced with a physical fight, Dustin was nodding vigorously, and Lucas tightened the bandana around his forehead, like he was Rambo himself. 

“Do you even have to ask?” Chris said scathingly. “Each one of us has bled for this moment, dungeon master. I, Thordus Boulderbash, enter the tunnel with my axe-”

“Wait, we’re the Circle of Eight, remember?” Mike prompted him. “We’re playing as wizards for the beginning of the campaign.”

Rose leaned forward onto her elbows. “Wait, why is that? I spent so much time on Lady Ceverra, I was looking forward to playing her.”

Eddie raised his goblet, and threw his leg over one of the arms of his wooden throne. “Children, and milady , hold on. It’s all about trust, man. Let me guide you through this,” he turned to Rose, seated on his right hand side just like last week. “Sweetheart, I know you were excited about this. Just be patient. And in the meantime, you can make the wizard you’re playing now a cleric. You can still heal and eventually raise the dead.”

“Okay,” Rose sighed. “I trust you.”

Jeff muttered under his breath. “I’ve been scarred by Eddie too many times...I feel something big coming, something bigger than a demogorgon, man.”

Dustin nudged Lucas and whispered; Rose had no idea how all the younger boys acted when all three were together, so she just observed and assumed this was all normal.

“We climb into the tunnel,” Gareth picked up the narrative thread. “One by one, we get on our knees and crawl through the dirt, raising torches to light the way.”

Eddie rolled a dice behind his screen. He hissed and popped up, grimacing at them. “Sorry my little adventurers, that’s...a rockfall. You’re clambering through the tunnel and the roof collapses, causing ten damage to the last three people into the tunnel, sealing off your exit. Now, you’re trapped.”

Lucas moaned loudly. “Why did I have to go last? Last is usually safest. Wait - Rose, you’re a cleric, right? Can you do a healing spell? Keep up my HP?”

Rose’s brows raised, and she looked around the table. “Can I?”

Eddie nodded. “You can.”

Rose whistled with relief and threw a d20. 

“That’s a miss, sweetheart,” Eddie says gently. “You all proceed, damage remains.”

“I feel useless already,” she said.

“You’re level one, it’s kind of expected,” Dustin explained. “But look on the bright side! It only gets better from here. Sure, you’ll be slow, miss most of your attacks, and won’t be able to use your necromantic powers until you hit level ten, but you’ll get there.”

Rose tried to mask her disappointment. “Level ten?” 

Eddie placed down his goblet, sitting upright like a normal human for once. He waited, each second he purposefully paused drawing out the tension in the room. “Necromancer’s aren’t born, milady. They have no natural place in the order of things. The land of Greyhawke might be full of magic, but life and death, those are...immutable. And the power to raise something already dead back to life? That’s against nature. That’s something you earn with blood, sweat, tears and a mother fucking tonne of XP points. But when you get there, it’s...intoxicating, like a high,” he gave her a smile that travelled straight into her veins, pulsing warm and dizzy all around her body. “When the time comes, you’ll fucking love raising the dead.”

Rose cleared her throat and pressed together her legs, aware of a very distressing, very urgent pulsing in places other than her heart, hopeful that the other guys didn’t notice the flush to her skin. “So, um, why does it take a necromancer so long to build up to their attacks?”

It was Mike who answered, his gangly awkwardness long gone, confident in the game and as knowledgeable as Eddie. She remembered he was the younger boys’ Dungeon Master.

“Whether good or evil, a necromancer can’t just practice raising the dead straight away,” Mike gestured with his pencil to the board and the character sheets they all placed in front of them. “There’s not really a halfway to raising the dead, right? They will have to practice slowly sucking the life force out of people before they can make their first thrall - that’s the zombie they create, a thrall. So it might be like they’re sucking the energy out of someone for a long time, making them sick. Like...their eyes might start bleeding, organs sucked out their bodies.”

“I guess,” Lucas chimed in, with a grin. “But I think it's more psychic than physical. So they might feel sick and have headaches and shit, but they’ll look fine, until suddenly they’re not fine at all. The lich is hungry, and they need a snack before they have the energy to fully raise the dead. But once a necromancer has practiced enough? Once he or she has reached level ten? All bets are off. Their Raise Dead spell is like a nuclear bomb on the D&D board, a weapon more powerful than most other classes. They go from nought to sixty, killing and raising people as thralls left and right.”

Rose looked down at Lady Ceverra, at the drawing Gareth had finished this afternoon. The drama room spotlights and flickering pillar candles lit up a fighter in light armour, a cleric with healing skill, and one day, a necromancer. A thing of power, but with that power came the serious temptation of evil. Whether her character could resist all that temptation at level ten was to be seen. Raising creatures from the dead sounded fun, but she’d been dead herself, technically. Even if it was just a few minutes. Was she a thrall, bound to do others bidding? Or now she was alive again, was she truly herself?

The game went on for three hours, screaming, jeering, dice flying across the table. They encountered a horde of gargoyles in the burial chamber, losing Lucas to the creatures before the party could make it to the main chamber in the burial mound. Chris was slain at the burial chamber, inhaling poisonous spores, and their party became just five.

Eddie ducked behind his screen again and read through his meticulous notes, then he launched upward, standing on the throne, speaking down to them like a King to his subjects.

“You creep into the burial chamber. Runes on the wall are familiar, but older than any you’ve seen before, layered with a thousand years of dust. And all around a central sarcophagus are long given offerings of wine, incense, coin, and something even more sinister...corpses of animals, of people, pitchers of dried blood filling the air with the thick scent of copper and iron.”

“Oh man,” Gareth said shakily, hands buried in his hair. “I don’t like this.”

Eddie smiled, and continued. “A blast of air colder than ice, colder than death itself, ripples through the chamber. It sucks the very last breath from Dustin, killing him on the spot.”

“What?” Dustin threw his hat across the room. “What the hell, Eddie? I didn’t even get to roll?”

“Mike is next,” Eddie says, sinister, creeping toward the back of the boy’s chair. “Your lungs struggle, coughing and snapping something in your body, gargling on the sudden warmth of your own blood and choking to death.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, deadpan.

Eddie crept around the table clockwise, talking to each of his friends, and Rose got a vague idea of what was happening. 

“Jeff, you’re next. Death comes for you as swift as a knife in the dark. Then Gareth...ah, Gareth. Your power is obvious, your skill known throughout the land. But even you cannot face the forces of darkness and evil alone. You form a fireball with your hands just as the cold takes you, desperate for its warmth. Your body shrivels and hits the floor in an instant. But the light it casts illuminates the dark chamber for just a second...”

Eddie turned to her, his dark eyes wild, the candlelight flickering in their glassy depths.  “Lady Rose, the flare of light gives you just long enough to see a lumpy, grotesque shape emerge from the sarcophagus...a skeletal frame, grey-skinned, with white hair and broken teeth. He raises two gaunt hands toward you and snaps your neck with a single click of his fingers. And his last words? Hail, Vecna.”

“Jesus Christ!” Dustin flung his pencil on the table. “The wards weren’t there to keep wizards out, they were there to keep Vecna in!”

The guys made noises of shock and horror, Rose holding her breath, waiting for an explanation.

“Hold on, it can’t be Vecna,” Gareth said to the group. “The thing had two hands. We know Vecna’s left eye and left hand were sacrificed long ago, so this is just one of his followers, another necromancer. The fucking Cult of Vecna, dude. This campaign is going to break us, it’s going to kill us all.”

Rose was confused. She let them talk amongst themselves about the significance of the villains she’d never heard of before, but her eyes kept going back to her character.

“But we all just died!” She shouted, cutting over the masculine voices. “Isn’t that the end of the campaign?”

Eddie leaned toward her, palms planted on the wooden tabletop. “She’s right, you did just die, so let me finish. Rose, your wizard is dead, as are all of you. The Circle of Eight - which you were playing as - has perished in the tomb, releasing a powerful lich, a cultist of Vecna. But as each of you die, you wake in your mortal bodies. Rose, that means you’re now playing as Lady Ceverra, and everyone else as their own characters. Each one of you awakens with the same thought: Vecna will rise, and the Circle of Eight is slain, the last force strong enough to contain his evil already fallen. One thing each of you know is that you must find Mordenkainen, the Circle’s leader, the last hope for defeating Vecna and his cultists. The quest for Mordenkainen is next week, brave warriors. Get your characters ready, this is the start of my longest campaign yet, we’re talking months.”

“Holy shit,” Dustin cried out. “Vecna is going to be so tough.”

“I know,” Lucas shook his head. “Erica is going to be so jealous. She’ll pretend it's dorky, but she secretly thrives on shit like this.”

Rose felt so behind compared to the others, out of her depth when it came to the gameplay and technical knowledge. She smiled weakly and packed up her things with the others, blowing out candles and wafting away the smoke before the Homecoming committee barged in and accused them of smoking.

A hand appeared on her shoulder; Eddie, with his bashful smile, trying to stop her from tidying the room.

“Hey.”

She smiled back. “Hey.”

Wow. Thrilling exchange, McAllister. What next, how are you? Do you come here often?

Eddie crossed his arms over his Hellfire-emblazoned shirt. “So Vecna is basically the Witch-king of Angmar, once a king, kind of ascended to godhood but not really. So  maybe a cross between the Witch-king and Sauron?”

“Ah, my nemesis,” Rose laughed. “Because...because i’m Eowyn...from last week.”

Eddie blinked a couple of times. “No, I get it. Very appropriate. But Vecna’s a big deal, I hope you have fun. I mean, the whole point is to have fun whilst doing this. So if at any point you think it's boring or don’t wanna continue, please don't pretend and secretly grow to loathe and hate me for dragging you here. What I mean...I mean...”

Rose hushed him. “No one is forcing me to be here. I like it, your storytelling is amazing, and the guys are all fun.”

He seemed to like that, growing brighter as she spoke. “So you’re not going to Homecoming tonight then? No desire to put on a poofy dress and dance? You know, they’ll probably play some Duran Duran at some point. Your favourite.”

Eddie did a little tap dance across the drama room, with the guys in the background making groans of despair or laughing along as they saw him up to his usual antics. He looped around the table and came right back to Rose, bowing at the end.

“Is that how people dance at school events? Like their boots are on fire?”

“Nope, that’s the Hellfire special, dance like Satan’s watching you, and your feet are licked by the flames of hell itself.”

“Satan licks feet?” Rose feigned surprise, hand on her chest. “That’s a bit  kinky. I would expect no less from the dark lord himself.”

Eddie’s grin was a mile wide, and he bit his bottom lip rather sinfully. “You just wait until Halloween. The ritual sacrifice is so worth a whole year of red tape and consent forms.”

Chris made a disgusted noise in his throat as he walked by, putting on his own leather jacket and getting ready to leave.

Dustin, Mike and Lucas ran out, called by someone’s parents in the hall, probably Mike’s mom dropping Nancy off early for homecoming prep.

Eddie watched go fondly, and turned back to Rose. “Your Balrog isn’t here yet?”

“My mum? No, she’s relaxed her claws a little bit. She’s not very well, and my stepdad’s working late, so I get to take the bus. It’s quite exciting really, she’s been overprotective about it for years, like she thinks I need to be within ten feet of a trained paramedic or first aider for the rest of my life.”

Eddie’s frown lined his face deeply, mouth pursed and slightly open. “You’re getting the bus? But that doesn’t come for almost an hour.”

“I’ll wait. Maybe Nancy needs help with decorations or punch-bowl filling.”

He wasn’t convinced. “Nope. Nuh-huh. The carriage has plenty of room, i’ll give you a ride home if you don’t mind sitting next to Gareth for a while, his place isn’t too far.”

Rose toyed with her hands, fidgeting awkwardly. “Really? You’re sure?” 

“Deathly serious,” he replied. “No maiden roams the streets and takes the bus on my watch. Besides, we can continue your metal education, introduce you to a few new songs. I still have to build you up to Megadeath, remember?”

“Sounds...slightly terrifying. But thank you.”

He went a little shy, grabbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact. “You never have to ask, alright? Just tell me when you need to get home after Hellfire...or school, or whatever. The van is at your service. And, uh, me too. At your service. Just, whenever.”

Rose could hardly stop smiling, a smile that persisted all the way through clearing the drama room, through Gareth calling shotgun as they walked through the parking lot, through Eddie insisting she get the seat closest to him, but only because Gareth’s house was first, so he’d need to be by the door.

The chariot smelled of cigarettes, weed, and stale fries. But Eddie opened the van door for her like a true gentleman, running to his own side and scooping up wrappers and all kinds of stuff that lived on the front seat, throwing it into the back frantically. She climbed in and buckled the seatbelt, examining the stack of tapes he’d shoved on the dash; Judas Priest, Dio, W.A.S.P, and Jimi Hendrix. 

Gareth crammed into the seat by the door, and Eddie took the wheel, engine roaring into life with an aggravated growl. 

“Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen,” Eddie threw the van into reverse, swinging his arm right behind Rose’s shoulders to look out the back. The van jerked backwards across the lot, swerving around a corner so quickly the thing felt like it would flip over, rubber screeching on the tarmac.

“Jesus,” Gareth hissed. “Lighten up on the gas, dickhead.”

“Drama queen,” Eddie said sheepishly.

Despite clinging onto the seat belt for dear life, Rose was more focused on the arm snaking dangerously close to her shoulders, feeling bereft when he withdrew it. “So what’s next on my metal journey?” Rose asked. “Do I get something heavy yet?”

Gareth replied before Eddie could open his mouth. “Don’t let this guy brainwash you with his Dio obsession. Ozzy Sabbath is the best Sabbath.”

“I have nothing against the Prince of Darkness!” Eddie’s voice rang out shrill in the small van cab. “Lady Evil and Heaven and Hell just happen to be great songs, that’s all.”

Gareth chuckled sarcastically. “Better than War Pigs? Better than Iron Man or Paranoid?” He scrambled around and found a tape, leaning over Rose and shoving it in the cassette player. “You know Sabbath wrote Paranoid in under an hour, just to fill up the album. One of the greatest metal songs of all time was just Ozzy’s filler . How can Dio compete with that?”

Gareth punched the play button and the opening riff blasted in her ears, her hands coming up to muffle them.

“Sorry,” Eddie reached over for the dial and turned it down, swerving just a little as they came out onto the main road. 

“It’s a miracle you still have any hearing left,” Rose commented. Her knee bounced to the rhythm of the song. “I like this. Weird that he’s blaming his girlfriend for his craziness, but I can overlook it.”

“See?” Gareth said smugly. “Ozzy Sabbath is the pinnacle.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie murmured. “Lady Evil still kicks ass. Dio has the range, you can’t deny it.”

Rose laughed and just observed ad the guys argued back and forth in the ten minutes it took to get to Gareth’s house, a split level ranch in a neat, tidy neighbourhood, the very picture of suburbia with manicured lawns, little garden gnomes and flower beds, and practical sedans and station wagons parked on the roomy driveways.

“Don’t forget practice on Sunday,” Gareth called out as he leapt down from the van. “You still owe me those extra drumsticks.”

Eddie nodded. “I’m good for it. See you later, man.” 

The van door closed and Rose was acutely aware of their proximity, and the fact that they were alone again.

“So,” Eddie grinned. “The cassette player is all yours now, milady. What do you want to play?”

She hummed, making a show of thinking intently. “Give me something heavy. I can take it, I promise. What’s your favourite?”

Eddie sucked in his breath and whistled. “Oh, I don’t know. Not sure if you can handle it.”

Rose pivoted in her seat, belt straining across her chest. “Is that what you think, hmm? I’m not delicate, trust me. Favourite song, give it to me.”

Eddie swallowed hard. “I...I, uh think I can do that. Maybe it's time to introduce you to Metallica. I mean, it’s only fair after I listened to about an hour of Duran Duran last weekend.”

“Hey,” she swatted his arm. “No one forced you to eavesdrop on my personal mix tape, Edgar Munson .”

“I knew you’d pull the Edgar card eventually,” he chuckled as they pulled out of Gareth’s drive, back on the road again. “I told you, restraint isn’t my strong suit, sweetheart. God, what do they all even do? Do they have instruments, or just stand around doing a little dance as they sing backing vocals for the main Simon Le Bond or whatever?”

“Simon Le Bon,” she corrected. “But stop trying to distract me, give me some Metallica.”

He grabbed a tape from the dash and tossed it over to her, an electric blue case, forked with lightning, with the band’s name in big letters. “Fast forward for a few seconds, press play exactly when I tell you. Keep going...now.”

Rose hit the button and a sonorous church bell rang out, followed by a heavy guitar riff, the sound filling the whole van. She let the music unfold, watching Eddie headbang and tap his ringed fingers on the steering wheel out the corner of her eye.

By the time the vocals kicked in she was nodding with him, bowled over by the incredible guitar work. It might be kind of a new genre to her, but there was something so atmospheric about it, unpretentious, out there...very Eddie. A drumline so strong it thrummed through her like a heartbeat.

Minutes later, the song faded slowly away, and Rose snuck another glance at him. 

“You like?” he asked, face vulnerable. “Don’t lie if it’s too much.”

Rose smiled. “I like. A lot.”

He let out a breath, sagging against the steering wheel. “That’s good.”

“So what’s next? More Metallica, or do I get to graduate to Megadeth?”

Eddie cocked his head in surprise. “As much as I wanna walk you through my whole collection, you know you’re home, right?”

She startled, looking out the window. They were parked on her vast driveway, sweeping up to the double-fronted house, the grey-blue faded paintwork of the gothic mansion fading into the gloomy dusk, bright lights in the first floor windows lighting the place from within like a great big jack-o-lantern. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She gripped her satchel hard, stilling her fidgeting fingers, leaning back against the lumpy van seat. “Maybe, do you want to...you could come in. I mean, if you wanted to.”

Eddie grabbed a handful of his hair and covered his mouth. “You want me to come in?”

Rose felt so utterly lame, so bumbling and terrible at talking to him, that she willed the ground to swallow her up whole. “Only if you want to.”

He leaned in, looking between her and the house. “I don’t think I should.”

Rose nodded vigorously, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for the door, clambering out as quickly as she could. “Of course, no big deal. It's Friday night, after all. That was stupid of me to assume you wouldn’t have any plans-”

Eddie’s door slammed as she backed away from the van, and before she knew it he was out on the path ahead of her, palms held up like she was skittish and about to run away - which she supposed, she was about to do. “No, no, no,” he said frantically. “I mean I literally can’t come in. I, uh, I really want to. Like really . But I promised someone I wouldn’t, and I don’t want to break that promise.”

“Ah,” she said slowly. Oh god. This was the part where he admitted to having a girlfriend, wasn’t it? Someone less bookish, someone metal , who wore leather and listened to Megadeth every day with her breakfast. Not Duran Duran. God , she probably had a Megadeth tattoo. Complete fucking opposite of Rose. What the hell, she was probably a cheerleader too. A rocker-cheerleader, with blood red lipstick and teased out Joan Jett hair, and nipple piercings. Yep, an anti-Rose. 

Eddie sighed, frustrated, crossing his arms and pivoting about, feet restless. “I can’t be that guy, going back on my word, you know? Everyone expects a Munson to be a fuckup, a criminal, a cheat. I don’t wanna be like that.”

Rose laughed, but instead of careless and breezy it came out deranged and shrill. “I get it, Eddie. Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in class next week.”

She dodged around him and marched up the path, towards the imposing house. Don’t turn around, she told herself, tears stupidly prickling at the corner of her eyes. Don’t look back. She fumbled with her keys at the huge door, the one with newly fitted stained glass in the shape of  a rose, of all things. Mum insisted it had to be a rose, she thought it was a lovely coincidence.

“Fuck it. Bollocking fucking fuck,” she cursed, keys clinking as they dropped to the floor. She bent down as the door swung open, the light inside bathing the gloomy night, a pair of tartan slippers right in front of her nose, attached to corduroy trousers, with novelty socks peeking out.

“Whatcha doing there, kiddo?” Jerry’s chipper voice said loudly. “Got the old butterfingers, have you?”

“Something like that,” she said, all the energy draining from her.

A car door slammed in the distance, and an engine roared into life, chugging away and fading within a few long seconds, all with Rose still bent down on the porch.

Jerry shielded his eyes with his hand. “That’s a strange looking bus to me.”

He left. Of course he’d left. She groaned as she stood back up. “A friend gave me a ride home.”

Jerry nodded, standing aside so she could come inside. “You’ll have to ask your friend to come in next time, I know your Ma would love to meet them.”

Her laugh was shrill, just like earlier. “Wouldn’t that be nice, Jerry. I don't think he fancied coming in for a cup of tea.”

“Maybe next time, eh?”

She sighed heavily. “Maybe next time.”

The entrance foyer to the house was a mess. The facade of the fireplace was fancy as hell - and who the bloody hell has a fireplace in their foyer? - but the metal grate was missing and some tiles needed laying. The huge sweeping staircase was in need of a good sand and varnish and two spindles were missing. 

Rose had never minded living in a construction project, the dilapidated state of the house had given it a romantic air, but tonight she saw what others must see: decay. Her imagination was running wild, wondering where the murder had taken place. Hopefully not her room.

“There you are, love,” her Mum pottered into the hallway, a cup of tea in hand, her face drawn and tired, blonde Princess Di hairdo mussed up and tucked behind her ears. “How was your day at school?”

Rose kicked off her Doc Martens and stomped across the creaky floorboards. “Still alive, so there’s that at least.”

“Don’t,” Mum said, a hint of panic in her voice. “Don’t joke about that, Rosebud. My nerves won’t take it.”

She felt horrible, guilt eating away at her stomach. Rose’s little brush with death may have affected her far less than her mother, after all Rose went itn surgery and came back out feeling like shit, that was all. But Mum? She’d lived through being told her daughter was dead, and they’d begin resuscitation, with a slim chance of success. Yes, Rose knew the impact on her was far greater, despite the scar she lived with now.

“I’m sorry, Mum,” she gave her an impetuous hug, holding her tight. She’d lost weight, her bones felt fragile as a bird. “Shall we watch some telly that Jerry won’t understand? Monty Python, or Only Fools and Horses? I’ll make you a proper cup of tea, his always tastes a bit odd.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Jerry’s voice floated from somewhere across the house.

Her mother beamed, grabbing onto her tight. “Really? I thought you’d be busy, maybe even go to that school dance that’s on tonight.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “It’s not like a school disco, it’s all big poofy dresses and tuxedos. Plus, I think someone has to ask you.”

Mum settled in front of the TV, under a knitted blanket Rose had made when she was ten, misshapen and lumpy. “So. No nice boys at school then? No one you’d have liked to dance with?”

She snorted as she joined her mum on the couch, trying to imagine Eddie Munson in a bow tie, slow dancing to Bonnie Tyler or REO Speedwagon. “The less said about the boys at school the better.”

Her mum was no fool, her eyebrow twitched and she watched Rose with sudden interest. 

“Actually,” Rose reached for a diversion. “I have a favour to ask. Can my friend Robin come and stay tomorrow night? I may have promised her we’d watch a film.”

Mum’s face lit up. “Oh, that sounds lovely. Does Robin know about your heart?”

“No,” Rose moaned. “But i’ll add it to the interview process for my potential friends, shall I? Sense of humour, check. Good taste in music, check. Can recognise congenital heart failure and perform resuscitation, check.”

“No need to be sarcastic, dear. Invite her over, I’ll make sure Jerry is occupied in the garden or in the basement. Give you girls some peace, so you can gossip about musicians or boy bands or whatever girls your age talk about these days.”

“I think Robin wanted to watch something sophisticated, maybe something French. She speaks it too. Maybe a foreign film or a documentary.”

“God,” her mum sighed. “When I was your age...well, we didn’t spend much time watching documentaries, if you catch my drift. Ah, the sixties. Just before I met your father I had a fling with a very dashing pipe welder from Sheffield. My goodness, he had muscles in places I didn’t know could be muscled.”

Rose buried herself behind a stuffed pillow, muffling her cries of horror. “ Stop, please , before I vomit on the sofa.”

“Youth is wasted on the young. Do you want some booze tomorrow? I’ve got some Peach Schnapps and some Tia Maria in the pantry, on the top shelf.”

The pillow moved just slightly, until she could speak. “Yes please, Mum. If you’re going to talk about muscled pipe welders, i’ll need to be drunk.”

---

Rose slept fitfully that night, hovering on that surreal place between the waking world and the sleeping one. In her dreams she was floating aimlessly, on a river in the dark. At first it was peaceful but the current dragged her under. Through the muffle silence she could hear a melody, a beautiful tune hovering on the edge of her consciousness, like she’d left on her walkman and it was bleeding into her dreams.

She woke for the briefest of seconds, the delicate keys of a piano still thrumming through the air, an echo of the dream music in the quiet, creaking house. Her breath came short and she flung her arm out, grappling with the pull-switch on her lamp. Light flooded the room again, but there was nothing, no figure in the corner, no monster lurking in the shadows. Just the old piano by the window, untouched, and silent, the black and white keys illuminated by the lamp and the sliver of moonlight from her window.

She sagged back down on her bed. On the edge of her consciousness a thought crossed her mind; she would have sworn the lid over the keys was shut...wasn’t it? But sleep came for her like a thick, warm blanket, and any thoughts of haunting music and piano keys were forgotten.

[kittyphoenix12-xx]

>_> you gotta link for that puppy? or is it a WIP.

sadly it's a wip rn because the original file got corrupted and i had to take a break from rewriting before i started crying lmao

but! here are the first 500 words because I'm very excited about it :)

There was something in the woods of Hawkins. It was moving in the shadows, out of the corner of Billy’s eye. As he lay on the floor, neck aching and veins burning, all he could think was the Byers have one creepy ass house.

A cool wind blew in from where the brats had left the door open, hauling Harrington’s fat ass to wherever they were going. He had heard the Camaro’s engine rev and disappear into the night. Billy hoped they crashed and died.

He tried to sit up, but his head hurt like hell. Sure, Harrington got a few good hits in, but the shit Max shot into him fucked him up more than he thought. With a dizzying exertion, Billy finally hauled himself up and slumped against the Byers’ counter.

“Fuck,” he muttered and scrubbed a hand down his face. This couldn’t’ve gone any worse. His mouth ached from where he’d been punched, and he could still taste the blood coating his gums. He ran a tongue over his teeth as if to clean them and looked blearily at the house.

It was a mess, and Billy knew that it hadn’t been him.

Those weird drawings were still on the walls, but the rest of the house looked like a hurricane had sauntered through. Billy had heard some things about Joyce Byers, about the near mental breakdown she’d had the year before. He could see it when he looked around the house.

“Fuck,” he muttered again as he stumbled to the fridge. His head was aching worse than before, and he hoped this creepy family had some ice, at least.

They did not have some ice. They had an alien in the refrigerator.

Billy took a breath and then another.

Max was in a fucking alien cult or some shit. And that was not Billy’s problem.

With shaking hands, he shut the fridge door, rubbed at the ache in his forehead and decided to go home. He could deal with the consequences tomorrow, but part of him (a small part, he wasn’t a pussy) was scared of what would happen if he waited for them to return. No weird cult shit for him, thank you.

But there were monsters in the woods of Hawkins.

The wind was biting when he stepped onto the drive. Gravel crunched underfoot as Billy shivered and stumbled, cursing as he tripped over nothing. The Byers lived fifteen minutes away by car, so it would probably take Billy an hour at this rate. God.

The drugs in his system were doing nothing to help. The shadows walked with him, swirling around his ankles like waves, leading him deeper into Hawkins's open blackness at night. There weren’t any streetlights, and the trees blocked the stars, so Billy was left in darkness.

He wasn’t left for long. He could hear a familiar rumble through the fog, and he almost cried in relief. The bright headlights came over a ridge and slowed down as they approached him. Billy slumped against the nearest tree, body losing to the drugs in his system as he giggled deliriously.

The slamming of a car door jerked his body as it echoed. He forced himself awake and blinked. A man was in front of him, lips twitching in subdued amusement. He was wearing a suit and tie, sunglasses on, and he was holding a card in front of him.

“Good evening.”

“Hey,” Billy replied dryly, squinting at the card. It was kinda difficult to read, but it seemed very official and shit. “You government?”

“Do we need to be?”

Billy shrugged. They may be government, but he always had issues with authority. The man acknowledged his silence with a smile, scanning him up and down. Billy was aware of the bruises around his face, the blood on his teeth and the shaking in his hands.

Another man got out of the car. He wore the same uniform but looked serious and less likely to take bullshit. He leaned down and whispered something to the other man before taking something out of his pocket.

“Have you seen anything like this?”

Billy took the photo and held it to the light. Huh. Guess he hadn’t hallucinated that thing in the fridge. “Yeah,” he said.

They both looked as if they wanted him to say more. Billy bit his lip.

Max had run away to a creepy cabin, drugged him, stolen his car and left him stranded where there were more of those aliens running around… but Billy didn’t want to send these government spies after her.

“I hit it with my car.”

“Did you, now?”

Billy scowled. “Yeah. I hit it and flipped my car. Got out, saw it, thought I had a concussion and was on my way to find a phone or some shit.” He didn’t know how believable it was, his speech sounded slurred, and he was getting dizzy again.

The first guy seemed to notice as he gently put his arm around Billy. “We can take you to the hospital, okay? We appreciate what you told us.”

As he helped Billy stumble to the car, which at a closer look, was one of those big black military vehicles, Billy felt warm. They got him into the back, and something caught his eye as the engine turned back on.

The symbol on the badge, the one that Billy originally thought was the government, looked nothing like it. It looked familiar, though, and Billy was so tired.

There were monsters in Hawkins, and to Billy, they would always be human.

[pleuviors]

⊹ . ⁺ 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄

‘IN THE MIDDLE OF THE POURIN RAIN…

I JUST WANTED THINGS TO BE THE SAME’

𖥔

warnings: shitload of angst, cursing, asshole!eddie + asshole!reader—they’re both hurting and bad at feelings ok, hurt/some (?) comfort, mentions of eddie x oc, open-ended?

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: love is both a game of give and take, a play too fragile to hurry; yet a push from eddie’s new girl sends a friendship on the rocks to its end after she begs the question—you or her? when he chooses the latter, an argument in the rain ensues.

a/n: so out of my element posting this. writing is most def not my thing. if it’s very she said/he said that’s why….. literally just wrote this for fun lol but how very me to willingly choose to write my first fic with pure angst.

you sniffle softly as your tears stream down the apples of your cheeks. the heavens weep alike, fusing the shower with your own as it pelts onto the dirt path below you. the consistency of the earth grows heavier with every falling drop.

and yet, you bare witness to the site of your soiled converse unflinchingly, entranced by the sludge clinging to them. you know full well it’ll brew a storm within your mother similar to the one flooding the streets of hawkins. the thought does nothing to sway your mind, you’d still be here, honed in on your lathered laces. you’d do it a million times over too and you’d take it in stride because truthfully, it beat facing the reality of the dire situation before you.

your mothers fury was nothing compared to the sight of the cowardly man before you.

your teeth clench as you hear his feet shuffle along the the trailer's steps. his legs itching to bolt inside, you figure—yearning to retreat inside the haven and escape the tension radiating between you. your own legs tempted to do so in the other direction.

still, something about the scene is akin to that of a terrible car wreck—you just can’t seem to look away. it's why he continues to twitch before you, practically burning a hole through the soles of his worn reeboks.

your eyes dart behind him.

a fire sparks within you as you watch her dimly lit silhouette move behind the trailers curtains, the words barreling out before you can stop them.

“so that’s it?” you croak out, “she whistles a command at you and you’re just—oh what?!” you cut yourself off as you watch his eyes widen in fury.

“don’t you dare give me that look, you dillhole. you know that that’s exactly what’s happening here!”

he rushes down the stairs, glowering at you as he comes short a couple steps from your trembling frame. ten feet away at best yet he feels light-years away.

the shadow remains, growing rigid as she listens in.

“what’s happening here is i’m doing what’s best for my relationship!” his hands gesture around wildly, tone shrill, “look at the position i’m in right no—”

his fingers snap at you, forcing you to snap your gaze back at him. the crack of his digits leaves your mouth agape, eyebrows furrowing at his sheer audacity.

“don’t snap your fingers at me, asshole!”

“look at me when i’m talking to you then—”

“fine,” you shrug, “but if you’re gonna talk out of your ass at least turn around so i can hear you better!”

“what the fuck is wrong with you, huh? can’t you be civil for five seconds—”

“letting you even be near me is me being civil!”

he throws his hands up and steps back dramatically in true eddie fashion, head spinning in all directions in search of…. god knows what.

you shift your weight onto your left hip. crossing your arms you turn your gaze heavenward as he continues his theatrics. it’s not long before his voice rings out again.

“just had to check who you were talking to real quick cause i sure as hell know it’s not me” his hands come to rest on his hips. a laugh threatens to slip past your lips at the sight, his resemblance to steve uncanny.

“are we adding blind to deaf,” you arch your eyebrows, giving the trailer park a quick once over, “do you see anyone else here, helen keller?”

“jesus christ, i’m trying to have an adult conversation with you here—”

his lips press into a thin line as you interrupt with a loud scoff, “oh is that what we are?”

frustrated, he shakes his head and mimics your noise of protest.

“for fucks sake, i’m not tossing you aside, alright!”

the reminder of your argument comes out of left field, you waver slightly but find your footing quickly.

“oh that’s rich! right, you’re not tossing me aside” you nod, your tone mocking and cruel, “no, not at all—can you tell me, when was the last time you and i hung out, hm? no grand ol’ plans alright, seriously think here: when was the last time?”

eddie tears his eyes away from you with a huff, yet nothing follows—not a peep leaves his lips. the only sound that rings through your ears is the muffled noise of the mayfields tv wafting through the open trailer window.

huh, two shows for the price of one.

lucky mayfield.

“c’mon, sweetheart” you egg on, venom dripping off the term of endearment, “use the big girl brain i know you have rattling around in there!”

“what do you want me to do, huh?! what would you have me do?”

when you fail to respond, he calls your name in a desperate tone. your own feet shuffle beneath you now, an action to distract you from the crushing weight settling on your chest.

his frustration at your lack of attention quickly bubbles over, “look sweetheart, evidently i missed a class or two on telepathy at the x-men school��”

god he’s such a nerd, only he would bring them up at a time like this.

it’s almost enough to crack your facade.

“…so you’re gonna have to actually communicate your feelings verbally with me!”

you blink and stare back at him defiantly.

he calls your name once more, your lip quivering as you cast a glance to your left, jaw ticking as you attempt to rein back more tears “i don’t know… i—”

you pause, torn between going in for the kill and attempting to smooth things over with your best friend. the boy who’d stood by you and supported and loved you no matter what since grade school.

you were each others longest relationship; and because of it, you each knew exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most—and no one played dirty with their words better than you and eddie.

the ache is still fresh so you can’t help your sharp tongue when you do finally respond.

“why don’t you go ahead and whistle for me, maybe your little shadow over there will run into your lap and help us decide—”

eddie groans, his ringed hand running down his face as he fixes you with a scowl, “don’t circle us back to this!—”

“whistle, munson” you bite back.

“right, i forget you get shits for brains when you get pissy, so let me say it slowly—”

“oh fuck you, man”

eddie laughs humorlessly and inches forward, “oh nice one, trouble! you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“oh what, your girls love ain’t supplying it for you anymore? you want some love, get a hooker—” your eyes travel back to the window, a smirk dancing on your lips, but his stern tone has you reeling.

your skin crawls as he interrupts your bite with his own, “don’t fucking say it”

the first drop of blood falls, yet you refuse to throw down the knife, “what’s the matter, hitting too close to the truth there am i?”

“oh get bent. you know, you’re acting like a real—”

“bitch?” you finish for him, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “yeah, are you new here?!”

“all bark and no bite—”

your eyes sparkle with anger, a snarl leaving you, “you calling me a fucking dog, munson?”

“if it barks like a dog—”

“ooh, you wanna talk dogs? let it fly then, whistle for me” you point behind him, “i’m sure she’s just standing by her little doggy door, waiting your signal!”

he closes in on you, an arm’s length between you now, “maybe you’re not cut out to wear the name. dogs tend to listen better and clearly, you’re not up to their ranks yet, princess”

you’d laugh at his quick wit if your fist wasn’t itching to knock his teeth in.

“i just wanna see how well you have your girl trained, seeing as how much of an amazing job she’s done with you!”

“look at us! here we are, back at it again—back to square one!” his hands move between your bodies, softly gracing your stomach, “trouble… i’m—”

you blanch, the sincerity in the name catching you off-guard. your mind had been racing, trying to think of a list of insults to hurl back; yet at his change of tone, the only thing you felt like hurling now was the sandwich you’d eaten earlier.

“…i’m sorry, alright? but it’s—i just can’t—”

crossed arms unravel and fall at your sides as your eyes round with concern, defensive position faltering.

“i can’t cut and run before i can even try to make it work,” he chokes out.

his softening tone does nothing to lessen the blow, your heart hammering as a stinging sensation fills your nostrils.

he’s right, and you know he’s right. he should do what he can to make his relationship work, to make his girl happy… you just never imagined your friendship would’ve been the cost for his happiness.

you’d been the only one closest to coin the title of ‘eddies girl’ and reap the perks. you had all of him unknowingly and you hadn’t had enough time to bask in the revelation before he was ripped away from you.

his friendship is all you’d ever known, and maybe that’s why you responded with as much bite as a territorial animal would. especially when she had suggested he see you less and less.

to be fair, your breaking point had come much later than you would’ve presumed—exactly three weeks after eddie had first sprung the separation on you.

in the back of your head you knew why he had been so eager to please her, the many faded moments you’d spent lounging on the couch—both sober and under—vivid in your memories.

the nights he’d jokingly throw innuendos at you, saying: “got enough for a quick bump here, trouble” he’d lazily roll the joint before asking, “care for a quickie?”

and without fail you’d quip back, “god, i love it when you talk dirty to me”

and yet it had all meant nothing—nothing until the underlying remarks began meaning everything.

those nights had also been when he’d felt vulnerable enough to admit his longing to be known, to be loved.

but you had known him already, and yet; it wasn’t enough because here he was, cutting and running on your friendship.

you wouldn’t bring it up now, because as he watches you through his unshed tears, his eyes pleading for you to say something, anything to ease this hardship, your hope completely dissipates.

he’s made up his mind and in turn, he’s made up yours too.

your nerves are shot and your throat bobs as you muster up the courage to speak again. at the end of it all, your anguish is all that’s left in the wake of your quarrel.

sorrow floods your veins, the mask of anger you had hid behind falling at last.

“well… so glad her hand finally found its way off your dick long enough for you to properly send me off” you manage to rasp out.

the joke falls flat.

the silence sends you down a spiral, it’s seconds of white noise but the stretch feels like an eternity. you shut your eyes, willing the downpour to sodden the earth enough to send you sinking into the floor—anything to escape the torture.

just when you’re about to flee, eddie snickers before his voice cuts through the trickling rain, “does her name happen to be ‘right hand’ ‘cause that’s as much action i’ve gotten so far”

your lips twitch, “interchangeable with ‘left hand’ when you want it to feel like someone else, right?”

eddie hunches forward, gripping your forearms as he lets out a belly laugh, you twist your wrists to clutch his forearms back as your own noises of glee mix in. through all the anger you had harbored, you’d forgotten the sound of his laughter was your favorite song.

his laughter dies down and he returns back to his full height. his tight grip on you remains, fearing you’d bolt the minute he let go.

“there’s the rainbow” he whispers.

you narrow your eyes as you scan his face, wait what did he mean by rainbo—

you still, recognition washing over you.

the rainbow was what eddie called the first laugh he’d manage to coax out of you after a crying session.

“yeah” you breathe out, “rainbow”

eddie peers down at you, chest heaving wildly as he tries to match the rhythm of your breaths. your eyes marvel back at him, the fallen drops that cling to your lashes reminiscent of the morning dew that litters the parks grass—

shit.

the trailer park.

the girl waiting inside his trailer.

double shit.

his smile falters slightly, his attempt to hold back any sign of his gained sense is futile. you were the ying to his yang, if he had sense that left you with sensibility; and right on cue, a look flashes across your face—consciousness.

your touch relents.

his own grip falls a while after.

you step back causing him to inch forward but you throw a hand between you, “wait—” he reaches for your arm, a desperate attempt to close the distance again, but you stagger back before he can touch you.

a flash of hurt crosses his face, his big brown eyes stare back at you in exasperation. you will your feet to move forward, hesitantly reaching up to touch his bicep. goosebumps litter his body as you make contact, a shaky exhale leaving his lips.

you stare at the faded motley crue logo on his black tee, the one you had bought him many moons ago for his 15th birthday. you had saved up all your babysitting money in order to snag it, but the look on his face when he had opened it had made all the tantrums worth it. the bone crushing hug he had pulled you into after had somehow bested your gift.

you blink the memory away as you struggle to bid your best friend farewell. your lips twitch as they wrap around your unspoken thoughts, a whimper threatening to escape; however, the bustle of movement within his trailer snaps you back to reality.

growing conscious of the heat of his skin beneath your palm and his piercing gaze brings a rush of warmth to your damp cheeks.

perhaps she had a point in suggesting space, you realize, because friends shouldn’t make each others mind race with intimate thoughts at mere touch.

the soft call of “trouble” has you dropping your hand, your fingertips gliding down his arm as a sad smile settles on your lips.

“i’ll see you around, eds” your tight smile and defeated gaze throws him off. something about your tone sounds too final, too conclusive.

he manages to catch your hand before you can spin away, “i don’t want space” he whispers, “that’s the last thing i want from you”

a bittersweet confession.

although it relieves you to hear his hesitance, it pains you even more knowing this’ll inevitably end in your departure. because you know he has to try his hand at the opportunity in front of him—for both of your peace of minds.

“eddie—”

“don’t go” he pleads.

“it won’t be forever, eds. we need the space, i get it now—”

“get what?! i was full of shit, ok! you win just—” his head lulls forward, eyes shutting away the tears collecting along his bottom lid, “…just don’t go. don’t give me space—”

“i have to—”

“i’ll grab the handcuffs right now if you don’t quit reciting that bulls—”

“oh what, and you’ll just barrel past your little friend in there without another word?!”

you can see a flicker of irritation in his eyes, a trace of the old flame you’d sparked earlier—it had yet to simmer away. it’s that lingering fire that rids you of any doubts about your future together.

“we’re gonna be fine” you whisper back.

“you don’t know that,” his grip is bruising but you endure it, anything to keep his touch on you a while longer. he glances back at his trailer quickly, “you’ll grow tired of waiting”

you cock your head, and without skipping a beat you answer, “no”

“no?” he shoots back, growing annoyed with your evasiveness.

“no,” it’s firmer this time, doing your best to drill it past his curly mane and into his skull, “till the poets run out of rhyme, right?”

“christ, only you would find away to quote barbra lewis”

“right?” you try again.

with a reluctant sigh, eddie nods his head, “till the end of time”

his small laugh brings you a small victory.

before your nerve can leave you, you reach up and wrap your arms around his neck. his own arms barley make it around your drenched figure before you’re pushing yourself away again.

you nod your head in his direction and turn on your heel, hand running through your damp hair as you trudge down the forest hill property and make your way back to your car.

he doesn’t call out for you and you don’t expect him to, yet you can’t help the disappointment that settles over you.

till the stars fall from the sky.

the spark of life your engine lets out casts the lingering presence behind the curtain away.

he’d completely forgotten she was in there and your tires hitting the gravelly road is enough to elude the idea of her from his mind again.

you pause as you shift gears, casting him one last glance before putting the car into drive.

eddie can’t help but feel a sense of regret wash over him as he stares after your vehicle's shrinking figure.

he continues to squint down the road until you're nothing but a speck in the distance and only then does he turn on his heel, huffing as his hand ghosts over the doorknob. his feet refuse to move, unwilling to cross the threshold of the trailer. in the back of his mind he knows once he crosses the barrier, it’s the end of you and him.

for now, anyway.

the rain picks up, kissing the earth below the trailer harshly, ridding its marred surface of your footprints—washing away the argument and reconciliation that had taken place mere moments ago.

the dam breaks then and his tears roll down in waves. the sky above grumbling relentlessly as if it shared in his tragedy.

it’s a suffocating kind of hurt; and yet, he basks in the feeling wrenching at his heart—because even through the pain, he recognizes it’s a feeling you have inflicted upon him.

and he’d rather bare it a million times over than feel nothing from you at all.

— ★ .

‘CAUSE IF I HAD MY WAY, YOU WOULD ALWAYS STAY

AND YOU’D BE MY TINY DANCER, BABY’

[filthy-rat]

Eddie "my girlfriend is 80% of my impulse control and she was out of town that day" Munson takes a pair of scissors to his shirts when summer’s heat gets unbearable 

[steddie-thirst]

Four Eyes | Eddie X Fem!Reader |

((DO NOT REPORT THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY OLD ACCOUNT DUE TO SHADOW BANNING!))

Warnings: Jason being an asshole, Eddie being Eddie, cursing, bullying, mentions of blood, jason getting his ass handed to him

Summary: Eddie realizes that he's not the only who receives the brunt end of Jason's unrelentless teasing and bullying. Jason uses Eddie's soft spot to get into his head, but ends up getting his own ass kicked.

Eddie always egged Jason on knowing full well the jock couldn't stand being called out or shown up. However, he didn't know that his antics had a domino effect. Jason had learned his lesson after one particular encounter with Eddie. The jock got his ass handed to him, so he relented to just throwing words instead of hands towards the freak.

However, no sooner then this started you had joined Hawkins for your senior year. Hoping there would be much fun and many friends to make along the way. You had not expected to become the target of a certain jock's unrelenting anger and hate.

Until today. Eddie had been on yet another one of his lunchroom tabletop rants when he called Jason out, yet again. "-Or a game where you toss balls into laundry baskets!" The metalhead shouted voice growing progressively louder as he spoke. Turning everyone's gaze towards him and Jason.

"You want something freak?" He stands going head to head with Eddie. The boy retaliated to his question by sticking his tongue out and forming two little horns by his head imitating the image on his shirt. Jason huffed and sat back down mumbling to himself, "Prick.."

Eddie chuckled turning back around huffing as he continued, "It's forced conforming-" He jumps down off the table, "-That's what's killing the kids!" He shouted nearly running into another student. Eddie locks eyes with you and he smiled stepping aside allowing you to walk past. The metalhead watched after you and couldn't help the smile that made it's way onto his face. He quietly took back to his seat and with his friends noticing the change in his behavior decided to leave it be.

You were new so no friends, and no social status, which led you to sit alone during lunch. Just for now hopefully. Jason had watched the interaction between you and Eddie, clocking you as you walked over to a table all alone. He stands up and walks over to you.

Dustin had noticed the way Jason was approaching you and reached over to nudge Eddie. The brunette looked to the curly-haired child and huffed, "What is with you Hend-"

"Look." He urgently gestured over to the table off in the far corner. Eddie snaps his head in that direction watching Jason march over to you.

"You don't think he'd do anything right?" Mike asked suddenly super nervous. Eddie shares a concerned gaze with the two young boys.

"No, I'm his target." Eddie brushed away the worry by making this statement, but Dustin just had to interject.

"No offense, Eds. But ever since you kicked his ass he hasn't bothered to physically make any sort of move, it's been words and empty threats." Eddie hated to admit, but the kid was right. Jason had not even bothered aside from his rants. Jason was changing tactics towards the new girl. You.

"Hey there." Your gaze travels away from your lunch box and up at the blonde standing in front of you. Easily he was recognizable. "Hi, Jason." You greeted back politely. He smiles towards you, but it holds a double meaning. You reach up to adjust the glasses on your nose and Jason laughs.

"Can I help you?" You ask him and he leans forward on his forearms. He eyes your face making you un-comfortable as he stares into your eyes. "Nope." He suddenly snatches the item from your face. He climbs up on the table. You stand up quickly trying to grab the object, but end up slipping and falling down to the floor, pulling your lunch down with you. The milk carton falls on your head spilling over your hair, face, and clothing. The peanut-butter and jelly sandwich you had packed toppling down and sticking into your hair.

"Haha, God." Jason laughed down at your pitiful form. He watches as your eyes fill to the brim with tears mixing with the milk still spilling down your cheeks. The whole cafeteria burst into laughter at you and Jason crouches down and you whimper. "Clumsy, bitch. Can't fucking see without these. Fuckin four eyes." He tosses them at your face and you burst into a full sob and stormed out of the room.

The Hellfire table was the only one silent out of the entire cafeteria. Eddie looked back at the group. "Shit.." Dustin muttered. The guitarist stood up pushing his chair back and walking over to the exit. Jason turned his head just in time for Eddie to slug him across the face and the room erupted into a bunch of 'ooohs' and gasps.

He leaned over to Jason when he recovered, "I'm going to kick your ass if you touch her again." The boy was shaking as the metalhead stood over him, but then backed off following after you. He followed the trail of milk to an empty classroom, the door only open a crack. Eddie could hear you crying from the other side of the door. He knocks alerting you of his presence.

"G-Go away!" You hiccup sniffles following after. You sounded awful and Eddie could not just walk away. He pushes the door open and you stare back at him, knees pulled to your chest, and arms crossed over them hugging yourself. The sight broke his heart and he crouched down in front of you. He smiles not in a sinister way but a caring and genuine smile. It almost makes you smile it was contagious.

"You know-" He starts, "Princesses aren't supposed to cry." He tells you and you wipe your tears away with your sleeve.

"M'Not a princess." You argue gently. Eddie shakes his head messy curls bouncing around his shoulders as he moved.

"But you are." He presses. You finally manage a smile and Eddie sighs. "There it is."

"What?" You ask reaching up to your face.

"The prettiest smile in all of Hawkins." Eddie reaches over you and removes a piece of bread from you hair, brushing some stray strands out of the way. The touches made your heart flutter. In many ways Eddie was many things, but a monster he was not. He was more like a knight. Your knight in shining armor.

"Now, come milady. We cannot have our princess sitting by herself and covered in filth." You giggle. "And of course--" He removes something from his pocket, your glasses, you could see Eddie partially but without them everything was blurry. When you had full vision Eddie was dangerously close offering his ring-clad hand for you to take. You eagerly take his hand and he pulls up, with a little to much force, because you collapse into his arms no doubt covering his shirt in your lunch.

"I'm so sorry!" You apologize and Eddie shakes his head.

"It's fine. Let's get you cleaned up. I'll give you a ride home." As the two of you walked Eddie let you hold onto his arm for comfort still reeling from Jason's assault on you earlier.

"And if Jason ever touches you again I'll kick his as M'kay?" You nodded and smiled at him.

"Okay, Eds."

Eds? That was new. No one had ever given him a nickname before. He was going to get used to that.

[whirlybirbs]

“ so , how does it feel to know me? a blessing , isn’t it? “ with hopper? please!

—-  SO MUCH FOR THAT  ;

summary: hopper interrupts a home invasion. cue the bullets, russians, injuries, freak-out’s... everything you didn’t want. date night, ruined.word count: 2.2kpairing: hopper x teacher!reader, from my fic moonrise radio.a/n: we love some good ol’ action to further the drabble plot machine.

Hopper knows something’s not right -- he can feel it in his gut, sitting there like hot, molten piece of lead that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand upright. 

It’s a feeling he’s never really gotten used to. Even after Vietnam, even after all those years working homicide in New York, even after The Upside Down, the feeling still makes his skin crawl. It’s one that can only really be described as dread -- a deeply-rooted recognition of something being wrong. 

He knocks on your front door again, only to be met with silence.

His watch reads 6:43pm.

If Jim knows anything, it’s that you’re not standing him up -- especially when you’d excitedly accept his offer for the ride to the drive-in’s. You’d been nothing but honest and kind and sweet and pretty and an absolute dream, and even though doubt bites at his mind, Jim Hopper pushes it far away.

He decides to snoop.

Snooping is what he does best. 

He leans, peaking around through the front window and spies nothing out of place, really. The lights are off, as if no one’s home, but your faithful jet-black Camaro sits a few feet behind him in the drive-way to contradict that possibility... unless someone came along and picked you up? 

Hm.

Then, something catches his attention.

Light flickers, blue and inky black, across the window in nothing more than a passing reflection. 

Over the couch, your television sits.

It’s on.

Jim chews his lip. 

He has two options in that moment -- walk away, decide this was maybe never meant to be, go home, and order take-out from King Chef. Or, he can reach for that doorknob and hope you don’t bear spray him again. 

He exhales, planting his hands on his hips. 

Then he sees the boot mark right below the deadbolt.

His eyes widen in realization.

There’s no question in his mind when he doubles back to his Blazer and pulls out a handgun from the center console -- he’s fast to check off the safety and pull the hammer back; he bites his tongue, wishing he’d just trusted his fuckin’ gut from the get-go.

The door is unlocked.

It swings open without a sound.

The T.V. is loud -- blaring some MTV music video that echoes off the walls of the house. It’s late now, nearly 7pm, and the sun has crept below the hills of Hawkins and drenched your home in all types of shadows. Jim’s footfalls are quiet as they can be as he raises his gun and begins to move through the home.

He stops short at the couch, noting the remote on the floor feet away and the mess of blankets dragged from the pastel pink sofa. 

In front of the television, that old radio you’d first heard those faux-Russian communique's on lays. 

It’s smashed to smithereens.

Hopper turns, then, and sees you in the kitchen.

Your eyes are pulled wider than a mile in fear as you rock in the high-back chair, trying desperately to scream something, but it comes out as nothing more than a muffled cry. There’s a tight strip of black duct tape along your mouth, a matching strip across your torso and hips. 

If there’s anything Jim’s learned from moments like these, it’s that your brain never really understands what’s going on until it’s too late.

In his circumstance, he doesn’t realize what’s going on until he’s being charged by a man a little smaller than himself, decked in all black, screaming in a language that sets off thirty thousand red flags in his head. He sees the knife first -- Jim doesn’t even have time to react when he’s tackled into the sofa. 

His gun clatters across the foyer, sliding onto the patterned linoleum of your kitchen floor.

Your eyes widen, trained on the handgun sitting feet from you. 

This has not been a good hour.

When the doorbell had rung at 5:30, you’d excitedly chirped that Hop was early for your date -- not that you minded -- before you were suddenly being forced backwards at knife-point by two men screaming in Slavic tongues. 

They’d then, unceremoniously, searched the house for that damn radio after binding you to the kitchen chair and interrogating you about some Energy Department in the most broken English you’ve heard in a while.

On MTV, Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For a Hero begins to play.

And now, here you are, hopping up and down in this fuckin’ chair, trying to get closer to the gun as the two grown men in your living room recreate Street Fighter and make quick work on destroying all of your furniture. 

Almost there.

Sqreeak, sqreaak, sqreaak. 

Jim takes a nasty upper cut to the jaw and hits the floor so hard the whole house shakes. 

You freeze, panic lighting up in your chest as the assailant leaps onto him -- in a well-timed moment of mis-calculation, you forget about the lip in the kitchen and suddenly, you and the chair are toppling to the ground. The sound is loud, followed by your muffle groan of pain, and it sends the Russian’s head snapping to the sound. 

Jim plants a hard kick to the guy’s groin, sending him into a feeble curl as Jim rolls away, hair wild and nose bleeding profusely. He’s fast to punch the guy while he’s down, absolutely wailing on him.

You’re kicking now, trying to get Jim’s fuckin’ attention -- and only once the man before his feet has stilled completely that Hop rises from the ground and moves into the kitchen, knife in his hand.

“MOO!” is the sound coming from your mouth as Hop plucks you and the chair up, squinting at you, “MERE’S MOO!”

His lips part and his brows knot.

“Moo...?”

You serve him a look and he’s fast to rip the duct tape from your nose and mouth, wincing slightly as you curse and hiss, eyes ringed with make-up from the tears that had gathered there -- you speak so quick, Jim has to gawk.

“There’s two,” you gasp for air, “Jim, Jim, get my hands free --”

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding --”

He saws at the tape. 

Then the footsteps start from the stairwell. 

You both freeze, gazes connecting.

Back door, you mouth.

Jim nods.

You claw at the tape on your ankles, jaw clenching as you stand -- Jim’s hands are on you in an instant, worry lighting up his face; he’s quick to note the black bruise forming around your left eye and up your cheek. 

You’re fast to snatch up the gun by his feet and hand it to him, though, moving past the fear in your chest and gesturing for him to follow you towards the back sliding door. 

“дерьмо!” you hear from the living room, rolling from the larger Russian’s tongue in a carnal bellow, “вернитесь сюда!”

You, then, unceremoniously shove Jim Hopper off your back deck.

You follow, hitting the soft grass with a groan as gunfire suddenly lights up the back of the house and the windows shatter, raining down through the slats in the wood -- for a moment, you both roll in pain; but it doesn’t last. 

“Time t’ go!”

“No shit, Jim!”

He snatches your hand, dragging you from the grass and around the house -- you both break into a sprint towards Hop’s cruiser, ignoring the man who’s now in chase.

Jim muscles the gun from his waistband and chucks you the keys. “Drive!”

You catch them, by some grace, and fumble to find the ignition key on the ring as Jim lays down fire that seems to not phase the huge Russsian coming right at him in a ski-mask. 

“Shit, shit, shit shit shit shit, shit shit --”

“Ты мертв!”

“FUCK OFF!”

Your hands are shaking, keys jingling as you try each and every fucking one. Anger flares in your face, eyes darting to Jim on the front lawn popping off rounds.

“Jim, what key!?”

“GOLD!”

You finally get the key, the Blazer roars alive.

The second Jim’s ass is in the seat, you floor it. 

You skirt around the cul-de-sac as gunfire ricochets off the side of the car, your own scream fading into the peel-out as Jim curses and flies into the side of the door. An apology flies from your lips as you put the pedal to the metal and fly out of your street, onto the main road. 

Jim’s twisted around the back of the seat, eyes set on the fading house and figure standing on your front lawn. He doesn’t even try to follow.

“Where should I go?” you ask, panic hitched in your tone.

“Starcourt,” Jim barks without hesitation.

“What?!” you cry, flinging your head around to look at him with an exasperated look, “What the hell do you mean, Starcourt?!”

“Just,” Jim seethes, jaw set tight, “Trust me --”

“You said --” you screech, finger raising as you head down the main straight in town at 80mph, “You said that... that those communications are fake!”

“Yeah,” Jim snaps, “They are!”

“Oh, okay, great, Jim, then why don’t you explain to me why the fuck I was just bound and gagged in my own kitchen! By two men! WHO DON’T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH --”

“Murph’, calm down --”

“No! No, nope, no,” you shove his arm, “Do not tell me to calm down, Jim Hopper --”

His mouth snaps shut and he turns, sitting forward and exhaling tightly through his nose. His eyes flutter shut as he speaks, trying to imitate the same calmness he wish he had.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am freaking out --” your voice cracks and you regret it immediate, facade of fearlessness cracking under the sudden dive in your adrenaline. 

Jim’s face softens, finally getting a good look at you. You look like hell. He’s sure he does, too, after the royal beat down he was served by Svedka in your living room. His hands move, carding through the blood matted tendrils by your temple. There’s a mean gash along your hairline that’s slowed up. The blood flakes away and Jim can’t help but wish he’d fuckin’ got to your house sooner. 

“Hey, hey,” he calls, voice soft, “Look at me.”

You blink his way. You shrink.

The tears making your eyes swim break his whole heart on sight. Your lip quivers. Jim feels like he’s been punched in the gut. When you speak, your voice is as meek as a mouse.

“... That was really scary.”

“It’s over,” Hop says confidently, “Over. We’re going to go see the people who can make sure it’s over.”

“The Scoops Ahoy people?” you ask weakly through an attempt at a laugh.

Jim exhales softly in a chuckle, leaning to press a firm kiss to the side of your head. “Yeah, sweetie, you could say that.”

The rest of the ride is relatively quiet, filled by your sniffles and Jim turning to peek over his shoulder ever few minutes. When you finally pull up to the bustling Starcourt, you’re surprised when Jim gestures to the back and points.

“Head to the loading area.”

You squint, but follow the direction.

Rounding the parking lot, you see hordes of folks coming in for some Sunday evening shopping -- lone teens and families alike. The neon of the store fronts bounce off the windshield in slivers of purple and green. 

Suddenly, as if out of no where, a gate appears around the back of the building and you’re pulled to a stop by four guards in Starcourt Mall gear. Jim’s face pulls into a heavy frown as he rolls down his window, flashing some sort of identification in his fold-out wallet. 

“I’m here to see Owens, it’s an emergency --”

“And who the hell is she?”

Jim’s eyes narrow. You wring your hands on the steering wheel.

“... Officer Collins, is it?” Hop says slowly, “Do you see the bullet holes in the side of my cruiser?”

Silence flies between the four of them.

“And do you see the injuries on both myself and the lady driving?”

More silence.

“And did you not hear me say,” his voice raises an octave, vein in his neck popping as he begins to scream, “That this is an emergency?!”

The gate lifts with a BRRZZZZT. 

And that’s how you find yourself in a very sterile interrogation room, pacing back and forth and back and forth for what feels like hours. It’s horrible -- the lights buzz and flicker fast enough to give you an even worse headache than the head injury does and it’s cold and you just wanted to go see a damn movie with Jim. Maybe kiss a little, fool around, have fun. 

But, no. Here you are.

Finally, after an hour and a half, the door opens mid-conversation.

Jim is looming behind an older man.

They both look apologetic.

“And this must be our new Bond Girl, huh?”

“In the flesh,” Jim rumbles, “Murph’, this is Dr. Sam Owens. He’s a friend.”

You narrow your eyes. The man offers his hand and you shake it, speaking slowly. “I guess Jim and I are gonna miss our double feature, huh?”

“I’m afraid so, Miss Murphy,” he says, gesturing to the table and chair in the center of the room, “Now, why don’t you tell me about those men that broke into your home?”

He pulls the chair out for you.

You sigh.

This is going to be a long night. 

So much for that date.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 E3: So Many Dragons in This One

Y’all so I’m like getting over a pretty nasty cold that’s pretty much wiped me clean like a hard reset and this episode coinciding with it is something else because this episode is essentially a fever dream start to finish.

First off:

If your mind didn’t immediately start playing ska-like alt rock and go through every lyric from “Escape From the City” then I can’t help you. Because that’s where my mind directly went and stayed for the entirety of this episode.

Back in the museum, Yugi learns about some more crypto-history.

Because Y’all, Yugioh just LOVES to screw with history. I mean we’ve already seen what they did to Seto Kaiba’s timeline, but get a load of what they’re about to do with world history.

(Arthur now has the USA gradient because I was at a loss of how else to describe Arthur. If Bandit Keith comes back then I’ll be mixing fonts, yet again.)

This was done mostly to recap the last 3 seasons, but also to drop in some brand new lore that came out of freakin nowhere.

Atlantis.

Yes, he said Atlantis.

(read more under the cut)

In the actual dialogue of the show, Tea mentions she read a single book about Atlantis once in her life, and then Joey and Tristan go “Tea, you nerd!” and it’s like wow the standards are low in this group. One single book, boys? That’s all it takes to be a nerd? When you have any of the KAIBAS right over there? One single book is the requirement?

Starting to think no one in this universe knows what a nerd is.

So the underwater cave dwelling from a few episodes back is none other than the Atlantis ruins. I feel like this should be a way bigger deal in terms of like all of history, since in this universe, Atlantis is time wise at the dawn of (checks wikipedia)...proto-writing...and yet they seem to really have their math and large construction science down.

The arch wasn’t really utilized (I hesitate to say “discovered” as it is an arch) until about 2000 BC or so. Good on the Atlanteans, I guess?

Don’t know why we’re getting so sidetracked by cards when a civilization 10000 years ago could make immense underwater 60 ft castles that don’t immediately collapse under the pressure, but this is the Yugioh universe and everyone’s card addiction runs strong and true.

It just seems funny to me that Hawkins, who devoted I want to say like 60 years of his life toward becoming a walking encyclopedia about Egypt, got super sidetracked and ended up 10000 leagues under the sea in Atlantis. He just threw all that Egypt work completely to the wind and basically changed his career at age I dunno 70 or so. Or maybe this guy is only 50 but he just seems super way old to me.

(And raising his granddaughter for some reason? Hell knows what happened to Rebecca’s parents, but knowing Yugioh, it will probably be really, really tragic.)

So then, although Atlantis is in our world and under the sea, Hawkins decides to throw another fast one on us.

(I just chose a random number, but Buzzfeed decided Washington was 34th. Which is wild.)

Bro took this moment to explain to me in great and excruciating detail that the Atlanteans in Aquaman did in fact invent tanks. Aquaman is his favorite. Ya, I know.

So I thought “ah, this is the Shadow Realm” (since we have seen Bakura just make a monster a real boy before) but then it became kind of unclear if the Shadow Realm is a different realm than this other realm which is just where the nice monsters live. So um...I’m still not sure about that one, I’ll get back to you when it’s made clear (I may never get back to you on that one)

Then Rebecca decides to drop this lore about the ghost that lives in Yugi Muto’s head that we’ve been *pretty Sure* up to this point was strictly Egyptian dealing with strictly Egyptian things.

I am not entirely sure how we’re going to take a guy who lived 5000 years ago and explain why he’s living now in AD 2002 Yugi Muto’s head because of some guy 10000 years ago. But they’re going to try.

Like I’ve heard this referred to as a filler season, because it uh did not happen in the Manga. So, legally, they can’t really touch the manga at all (and I assume they were probably waiting for the manga to finish at this point), and so we’re just gonna...pull Atlantis out of nowhere because the nice thing about Atlantis is that it is so freakin old that it is well outside of copyright. Completely fair use. But it’s still kinda wild.

Also, Yugi made sure to off-handedly tell us that most of the monsters who’ve invaded their world have been very, very, nice, and that’s why everyone has been so chill.

I mean. OK?

You still have literal dragons flying around but apparently only some of the dragons are mean and attack, the rest just chill and float around like a fish or something. Personally, I wouldn’t be thrilled by this.

Hawkins notices Yugi’s enchanted dead guy necklace, and without asking “so...does this belong to a dead guy? Did you get this from the dead guy’s corpse? Yugi? Yugi, look at me. Yugi, young man, is this another dead guy necklace you’ve been carrying around in your pocket because I feel like I see a problem here, buster.”

Hawkins suggests, instead:

Oh OK...that’s a lot to take in.

Didn’t expect giant possessed lady statues but it’s a nice spooky touch. Can’t have enough giant possessed lady statues in your anime, honestly.

Also, I’m really glad they gave this skinny lady statue a double chin.

And after all that, Hawkins decides he’s done with his one single afternoon in Japan, and he’s going to go and travel 16 hours back to the US stuck in a plane within hearing distance of Rebecca. Worth that 32 hour round trip for that one afternoon in Japan (or actually one way is 4 hours longer than the other way or something? I forget the details.)

And like the show had him blush and then Tea got mad, but like Yugi also blushed when Mai gave him a note once that said “thanks for the help!” so I feel like Yugi just shuts down completely whenever he has to deal with girls.

Maybe this is just the face Yugi makes when he quickly enters the pyramid zone and is like “Pharaoh, it’s getting mad weird out there!” And Pharaoh’s just sitting on his throne eating cheese whiz straight out of a can in star pj’s with matching bootspants and he’s like “My Gods, Yugi! If I’m here, and you’re here, who’s driving the plane!?” and then they just start shrugging at eachother about who has to go on the date this time until Yugi snaps out of it.

ah, a disembodied voice.

Literally thought it was my own voice.

It keeps Yugi up for a while, but when has Yugi ever fallen asleep right away on this show?

After Yugi calms down enough to go the hell to bed, we zoom back to our Xtreme sports boys who have finally decided to stop Tony Hawking all over this island long enough to deliver the sober news that Gurimo is freakin dead.

Which they barely brought up at all because who freakin cares about Gurimo? This guy sure didn’t.

Cool. Good plan.

Hard to rebuild civilization without people. Just throwing that out there.

But ya. Lets go end mankind on Episode 3. Thought it would take a little bit longer for him to get enough soul juice but apparently he’s good on the soul juice from these three juicy cards that have no souls (I thought).

3 God Cards + 1 Gurimo - 1 Rex - 1 Weevil = Destroy Humanity

First, a dream sequence.

This is one bizarre ass dream sequence and like...I don’t even know if I have much to say because it’s like...so out of left field and both out of the lore of this show and just barely inside the lore enough for it to work.

Still feels hella out of nowhere though.

That may be just the Dayquil talking.

Either way, we get to have Yugi run around in pjs again, but unfortunately they have no stars so I just don’t freakin care when see it. I get that stars are hard to animate and he’s a year older and maybe grew out of the star pj’s but c’mon. We had a good thing going, show.

But they hear a voice within the pyramid, and I’m using Tea’s font color here but it’s not Tea, it’s another girl who is...a lot like Tea honestly.

So up to this point we’ve accepted that the puzzle is all of Pharaoh’s mysteries and also mixed with the memories of Yugi as well. We have a room of short term memory (that pharaoh never uses) full of little clones of Yugi’s friends. We have a room full of all the lego pieces that Yugi lost over his young life (and 2 very cursed tamagachis.) We have a room that has a gigantic guardian Dark Magician who almost killed Shadi once. We also have several rooms that are just traps that can basically kill you, or if you are Shadi, just totally set you on fire, because screw Shadi.

Also it has this room:

But we find a new room that is like an entire fantasy realm and it’s like...so what memory is this?

Somewhat confusing if you’re me and you’ve assumed up to this point that everything in the puzzle has something to do with Pharaoh’s past. Apparently there’s just a door to another world in here they just never knew was here.

Just this entire time Yugi and Pharaoh were completely unaware that they had a DOOR TO ANOTHER WORLD in their necklace. Which, as I mentioned before, is where all the duel monsters live, but looks nothing like the Shadow Realm, which we’ve seen before.

And like honestly I kinda just figured at first that the giant eye was supposed to be there eating dragons, as if this was some sort of cycle of life for the duel monsters, to be a dragon, grow old, and then get devoured by the eyeball in the sky to start over again as nutrients to feed the baby dragons.

But in fact the eye is Not Normal and we should be alarmed by it.

Very hard to know what should and should not be normal when I’ve never seen this place before, also it has three crystal dragons that I guess the other monsters MUST be worshiping or something because check out the purple tile palace they made just for these crystal dragons.

Like this made me ask a LOT of questions about the civilization of duel monsters. Like who made this? Did a bunch of Kuriboh make this? Hell does this civilization works and is it a monarchy and are there castes?

Do they do taxes?

And then we meet her, the voice asking for our help, it’s this girl. Dark Magician girl. Nice to finally meet you. Wish it had a little more build up and made more sense.

We’ve talked to this chick before. She was digital at the time, but she kind of pretends that she already knows Pharaoh and Yugi and they kinda just...take this as it comes. I mean there wasn’t much time to deliver this dialogue so they were like, if the lady in the cornucopia hat says so, I guess we have to do the thing.

It is nice that we do finally get an explanation for why Pegasus could make all these cards but could not resurrect his dead wife--being that she is...not from this world.

But like now the puzzle not only dives into Pharaoh’s past but is also just a straight up a dimension portal. You can just...visit these people whenever? I guess?

I was getting used to the puzzle being a very large metaphor, and I wasn’t actually prepared for it to have a utilitarian use like a Stargate. This asks a lot of questions, but put those questions aside because we have to adopt this dragon by pulling a huge ass sword out of it’s right eyeball.

This show is SO mean to eyeballs.

She explains that there was some lore that lead to this sword being plunged into this buddy’s eye over here but I forgot it already. It was like half a sentence and then it was gone and I’m on Dayquil and I’m sure it’ll come back. At some point they’ll bring it all full circle, I’m sure.

Like if this happened in a dream then does this place even exist on a mortal plane at all? Can it only be accessed through dreams and being dead? It’s kind of a fascinating concept since these duel monsters have to be summoned through paper, which has all sorts of relevant meaning in a lot of Eastern mythologies.

Stuff I’ll never know because say goodbye to the Duel Monster Land that Apparently-Exists-Now-And-Absolutely-Always-Existed,-Stop-Thinking-About-Who-Invented-Tanks,-It-Was-Obviously-The-Atlanteans-10000-Years-Ago, we’re gonna go and take this huge ass dragon we have no business inheriting but are anyway because the dumbass ghost in our brain has this grand reputation that he banished some sort of evil 5000 years ago but has absolutely no memory of how the hell he did that or what even occurred, and because of his completely wiped bean, this makes him a complete idiot at best and a complete psychopath at his absolute worst.

But yeah, lets take this dragon and see what happens.

You gotta bring furniture, but the dragon is free. 2 bedrooms, no rugs, it’s free.

I just realized we got a dragon and not the sword. Only in this anime.

And then he wakes up to the last thing I expected.

It was nice of Yugi to take the time it took for him to get entirely dressed and ready, but I guess if the world has to end you gotta go out in style. Which for him means his school uniform because, although Yugi absolutely hates this school for some reason, he has a lot of pride for it. Just a crazy amount of school pride for how rarely he attends school and for the lengths he went to get out of soccer practice that one time. But will Yugi be caught dead in anything but his school colors? No.

HOW IS THIS CITY STILL STANDING.

Also Kaiba must be having a wild time on the top of Kaiba Tower but maybe he took a helicopter a while back to go on a world dragon tour because we didn’t hear a peep out of him this entire very Very VERY dragon-centric episode.

Really weird how many dragons there are with so few Kaibas. It’s like the moment they turned around, every dragon on Earth came out of hiding to throw a huge ass dragon party.

PS get a load of this dragon.

Why would you ever give a dragon an ass?

I don’t even know how this is possible because it doesn’t have a butt crack, but it’s got serious ass going on. It’s the Lizzo of dragons, when you set it to defense mode, it probs just twerks to intimidate the other side.

(Yugi’s friends are so freakin patient OMG)

Also how the hell can Yugi play this card on his duel disk if neither Kaiba or Pegasus have any idea this card exists? Magic, I guess? The duel disk is part magic?

Not like it matters much, we know from Bakura that you don’t need a duel disk to make real boy cards if you have a millennium item anyway.

So at this point I’m like...I think I watched the last episode of the season, I think it’s...out of order and bro was like “nope...it’s Episode 3. We’re still on Episode 3.”

And so after that it closed the...dimension joining portal, which was a Golden Compass style aurora borealis, then Dark Magician Girl returned to her home planet.

...Which is also dangling around Yugi’s neck.

This was a lot.

I have a lot of questions.

Everyone in domino SHOULD have a lot of questions but I think they all went back to bed.

A tornado with a GLOWING EYE tried to destroy their city, and they just rolled over and went back to bed.

This season sure takes off really quickly holy crap.

Now fair warning, because I’ve been hella sick the next recap is uhh...a huge mess so it will probably be a week or so before I post it/even get to it. At some point I started numbering them completely wrong and I either saved 10 caps to a different folder or I never made them in the first place and I honestly am not entirely sure. Last week is kind of a blur and it’s a mess on my desktop right now, so my pacing is gonna reflect that because I am...behind...on everything.

Oh dude and actually now that I look at what date it freakin is, I have to go to one of my best friends weddings real soon so can we just say...it might be a few weeks before I can steadily update again? I have to learn a whole dance routine for this giant wedding and y’all, I am not a dancer. And, while my friends have had dance classes since they were like 5, I’m like...low key extremely certain I will fall completely on my ass. Anyway, there is no way out of this situation I thought would never actually happen, and thought was just a funny idea they invented when they got drunk at the bachelorette, but nah, they remembered, and this is really happening but the bride will think it’s funny so here we go.

PS this dance is to the only existing mashup of Bollywood and N*syncs Bye Bye Bye (which, yes, it is a breakup song) I hope you feel the second hand embarrassment through your computer, I am dancing for 300+ people. Directly following the groom’s parent’s dance, which is 10 minutes long, and for which they hired a professional choreographer. We are the only dance out of four epically spectacular dances that is from the bride’s side, and our dance is...2 minutes and the equivalent of a high school lipsync.

TBH I'm low key excited to do it because potentially it could be a really great story depending on the reaction of what happens.

Anyway, so if I disappear for a while only to post fanart I’ve drawn out of stress, that is what I’ve been doing in the background. I’ve just been trying to remember how to do the Bye Bye Bye dance correctly for 2 straight weeks while feverishly trying to catch up with all my other work.

Also, because I mentioned George Washington, I had to go and find the horny grandma clip from Gilmore Girls and I’m so glad that two people on the internet managed to clip it, and I can’t believe the only two people who’ve clipped this did it with their phones. In fact, kudos to this youtuber for videoing a Tablet with his phone, because there’s no better way to watch a show from the 00′s than to make you feel really illegal about it.

[tastefullynefarious]

Torment never looked so goddamn fine

Chapter 2 / 10 - Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

Sooooo, i was very disappointed that most of the songs in Billy inspired playlists are post 85, so I’m adding one per chapter, a little song that could have actually plaid in the background as the story unfolds.

Word count: 4,134 

Warnings: 18+, I have no shame!, Should have proof read this one more time, shameless smut in case I wasn’t clear

Last night a little dancer came dancin' to my door

Last night a little angel came pumping on the floor

She said, come on baby, I got a license for love

And if it expires, pray help from above

Because

In the midnight hour she cried, more, more, more

With a rebel yell she cried, more, more, more

In the midnight hour, babe, more, more, more

With a rebel yell, more, more, more

More, more, more

There was lots of shouting. Screaming actually, long pain-filled howls mixed with curses in a language she didn't yet fully understand. The scalpel was small, but she didn't need much to make them crumble beneath her power. She barely needed anything at all, the minuscule knife and the drawn blood were nothing more than visual aids. That was the beauty of the human brain, you could trick it into believing anything if determined enough, people did it to themselves often without even realizing. But she, oh she could do so much more.

Pain was a funny thing. It lifted some up, made them fight harder, while completely shattering the spirits of others. It was fuel, and its consequences were up to the mentality of whoever it was inflicted upon. But no matter who you were and how strong you thought yourself, there was a threshold, a limit of suffering the brain could handle before it sent signals to the heart to stop. And she could play with that limit as she saw fit, like a dial to turn up and down, making the smallest of cuts feel like the insides were being torn open or a bullet wound like a mere pinch. She could bring the prisoners from the depths of hell to the sweet bliss of nothingness with just her mind and they would spill all their secrets in broken shouts, in that rigid language, needless blood on her hands. And she would hear them long after she was sent back to her little square room and she would see their faces when she closed her eyes.

Sandy woke up in the midnight hour, cold sweat covering her entire body, the screams still rang in her ears. It took her several minutes to distinguish reality from dream, her body shaking uncontrollably. She was not in that room anymore, and she'll be damned if she ever went back. That was the whole reason she came to Hawkins after all.

She hopped in the shower, letting the steaming water soothe away some of the aches in her body and the itch under the skin of her left wrist. She scrubbed the spot relentlessly to no avail, before the pain made her stop. But pain was not a problem to her, never had been; she could just make it stop. Her eyes stared a hole into her wrist, the cover up tattoo faded just enough to make out the original underneath in bold black - 007. The tears came out of nowhere, the shame followed soon after.

How was she still so weak? So easily brought down by things so far in her past? It was pathetic. She punched the hard tile wall, shock spreading through her bones like ink on paper, but she didn't turn the dial down. Sometimes it was good to just feel the burning ache. Sometimes feeling nothing scared her more than the soreness of bruised bones and split open skin.

Sleep wasn't going to come again that night, not between her recurring nightmares and the new problems that arose. She was in her car in moments, hair still dripping wet and an oversized shirt haphazardly thrown on. Driving usually helped calm her nerves, but it was doing little in that moment. Coming to Hawkins must have been a mistake after all. It only brought more questions and none of the sweet release she had dreamed of.

She found the quarry easily despite not particularly looking for it, but it was a good a spot as any to ponder and make sense of her raging thoughts. She was tired. She had expected the nightmares not to fully disappear, but honestly she was hoping they would have at least changed to the new horrors she was exposed to. Apparently childhood trauma was stronger than finding out there was another dimension filled with mind controlling monsters and human eating dogs. It hadn't helped at all to find out that Dr. Brenner - papa - was killed by one of the creatures from the so called Upside Down. She felt somehow cheated. She hadn't particularly wanted to kill him herself, add more blood to her already dripping hands, but she wished she could have seen it, even if just to make sure the fucker had actually bitten the proverbial dust.

Passing her hand through her hair she spotted the blood on the sleeve and recalled the previous day and meeting police chief Hopper. Joining him in the tunnels beneath the pumpkin field, more or less with his knowledge and consent, and then the vines and the creature that attacked them. She was so accustomed to use her powers to get out of anything, but apparently those things - demodogs - felt pain differently. Or perhaps it was because of the hive mind. The pain was not dealt directly to the 'main' brain so it affected the host less. She let out an exasperated sigh, head resting backwards on the seat. It was insane, all of it!

Finding out about El had also been heartbreaking on its own, even if she never got to meet the girl before she had ran away. Hopper didn't, couldn't, understand what is was like to spend your life in a little square room and then being offered a glimpse of the world beyond. It was only a matter of time before the poor girl went to explore the glorious outside with all the restrictions he was putting up. His concern was understandable, his method not so much.

Eleven. There had been four more attempts after her. Four children kidnapped and their families destroyed. She didn't dare wonder too long on what those poor souls had been though, lest she'd be reminded of her own torment. But now that El was gone, Sandy thought her next move would be to find the girl, and maybe even the other three, if they were still alive. She knew for a fact that all the ones before her were long gone, but she hadn't been aware of the ones after. The MKUltra program hadn't died when she burned down the last lab, just redesigned itself. And apparently moved from torturing Soviet spies to opening portals to deadly dimensions of horrors. Fun!

She pressed her head to the steering wheel, exhaling slowly and closing her eyes. Which was a horrendous mistake. She jerked up the second after, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. It was so dark and quiet, almost too quiet. Was that normal silence or the dead stillness that foretold of evils lurking just out of sight, the calm before the storm? Her drumming heart was the only sound for the longest time, so loud she was sure it could be heard all the way to the fucking Upside Down. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a flash of light darted at the edge of her vision.

It turned out to be a car, a blue Camaro in fact. She watched Billy park the car right beside hers and give her a small nod, not opening the window or giving any sign he was going to move from his seat. If anything, he looked like he wanted to be left alone, which was pretty obvious by the choice of place and time.

There was a moment of calmness, his presence there, the normality he brought, chasing away the shadows in her head. But as soon as he turned off the headlights and they were plunged in a seemingly deeper darkness than before, her eyes started again to frantically search for threats behind the treeline. She kept looking his way as well, wondering if he would send her away if she jumped in the passenger seat of his Camaro or be up to relieve some tension with her. She didn't want to be alone, it was selfish, she knew. But at the same time, he didn't seem like the kind of guy to mind a meaningless one time fling. How many girls he must have charmed with that car alone, not to mention that ass?

When she spied that he was having trouble with his lighter Sandy didn't think twice as she opened the door and slipped into his car in one fast, fluid motion, like the night air could have been toxic. She passed him her own lighter as an excuse, but the small smile on his lips and raised brow showed he saw right through her tough girl act.

"Scared of the dark, are we?" He took the lighter nevertheless and she was happy he was letting her stay, even if it was for a little while.

"Of what could be lurking in it." He gave her a weird look, like he had been expecting more of her, despite not knowing anything about her, probably not even her name if Max hadn't told him. "Don't laugh, there had been some weird animal attacks in this stupid town."

Billy just stared at her for another second before turning to look ahead and taking one long drag from his cigar. He was tired and didn't have the energy to mock her for the childlike fear or her disheveled look. He had hoped she would have left after he returned the lighter, but the girl took a cigar out of his pack as well and was now smoking besides him in an odd, but comforting silence. If he was completely honest with himself, he hadn't wanted to be alone, not after Neil's outburst and the pain in his ribs, but he had nowhere to run to, no friends to confide in and no one to tell him it will all be over soon, he just had to finish high-school. One more fucking year! In Cali at least he had his surfing and some 'friends' he could always count on to drink the pain away with without having to explain himself.

He eyed the girl again, trying to get his mind off of his home life. What was her deal? And more importantly, was she wearing no pants? His eyes trailed her exposed legs. They were barely visible in the moonlight, but the nasty looking burn mark on her thigh was standing out like a sore thumb. He had hoped he would have seen her in school, but Tommy H and Carol knew of no one with her description. It didn't help that he didn't even know her damn name. His brows furrowed, who was this stranger sitting in his car?

"Are you ever going to tell me your name?"

"Ask me nicely and maybe I will."

"It's only fair, you know mine."

"Ah, you're no fun..."

"I'm plenty of fun!"

"I bet you are." It was a half mock, half praise, the little smirk on her lips as she blew the smoke away as sinful as the glint in her eyes when she winked. It brought out his more flirtatious nature, the momentary anger turning into lust.

"Fine, don't tell me, doll." She scoffed, something between surprise and irritation, but she kept the playful demeanor, the smile never leaving her lips.

"Do I look like a doll to you?"

"It's all I got if you're not giving me your name." He raised his shoulders, the corners of his lips lifting into a smirk. He was quite proud of the nickname he gave the mystery girl. "Besides, it's on your registration plate, doll." He used it again, in hopes he'd make her give up her name. But the effect had been nothing of the sorts, her eves lighting up with mischief, eyebrows raised. He felt like she was in on some joke he had no clue about.

"Ah, so with just one 'L'?"

"Does it matter? It sounds all the same."

"But it doesn't mean the same!" She turned in her seat to fully face him, one leg carefully tucked beneath her. His eyes were drawn again to that burn mark, but her gleeful voice brought his attention back to her face. "Dol, D-O-L, is a unit measurement for pain. They use these instruments, dolorimeters - I know, funny name - to find out a person's pain sensitivity level when they apply steady pressure, or heat, or electrical stimulation to some areas of the body. Or even when they pop out a joint or break a bone. Crazy what scientist are doing these days."

Billy blinked a few times, slowly making sense of her word vomit. What the actual fuck? What kind of teenager knew these kind of things? And more importantly who on earth was so into it? He grimaced when his thoughts took him back to his father. Neil would have a field day with one of those dolori-something pain inducing instruments.

"You're weird."

"I'll take that as a compliment." She gave him a shit eating grin and for a moment he thought she was just messing with him. It was all an attempt at some lame joke, finding her there in the middle of the night, no pants, alone and flinching every time a sound came from outside the car, talking about torture devices. But her expression softened for a brief moment, the glee completely draining from her eyes before she turned her head to check the trees for what must have been the tenth time since she got in his Camaro. The question formed on his lips before he could decide if he even wanted to know or not.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Probably the same as you." She paused, and for a moment it didn't seem like she was going to continue. When she did though, her voice came out as more of a whisper. "Running away from my problems mostly. Trying to figure out what to do next. Things like that." Billy couldn't stop staring at her. Barely clothed, hair a wet mess. The little scar on her upper lip and burned flesh on her thigh. Skittish, her eyes checking for a threat to jump out of the trees. Was she in some kind of trouble? All he knew about her was the was 'just passing through'. His breath caught in his throat when he noticed the dark rusty spots on her sleeve, the evidence piecing itself together in his head like a tragic puzzle, one he knew so well. Someone had done all that to her.

"So what brought you to Hawkins from beautiful Florida?"

"What brought you here from sunny California?" His initial concern was dimming, the girl's evasive responses getting old and tiring. He was curious, sure, but he wasn't going to pry if she wasn't comfortable to tell him. He knew how crucial it was to hide the truth, to keep it all in, buried as far from the light of day. All it ever brought was pity or judgement, none pleasant to experience.

"You don't give straight answers, do you?" She poked her tongue out at him in a childish manner before turning back to look at the forest. There was just no winning with this girl. He wasn't sure why the next words left his mouth, but he felt the blood boiling in his veins with each syllable, his fingers curling tightly around the steering wheel as if bracing for an impact. "I'm here instead of on a beach, because of my shitty dad and his wonderful new family." That seemed to get her attention though, her head snapping back to him. She seemed to weight her reply carefully, before finally speaking.

"I'm just passing through. Might actually leave sooner than expected…" He was surprised she changed the subject. Most people would have asked him to elaborate or worse, insist his life couldn't be so bad, give a motivational, positivity dripping monlogue, as if they knew anything about him. But she brought the discussion back to her and it kept his mind off the fact that sooner or later he had to head back to his own home, if he could even call it that anymore. Maybe Neil, Susan and Max would all be happier if he just… disappeared, packed up a bag and head out into the world.

"Going back home?"

"Don't actually have a home, I guess." His brows furrowed, jaw clenching slightly. Again with the evasive half answers. How could she not have a home? Was she an orphan? But even so, she would have been put in the system. Had she ran away? Was it like his 'home', a place where he went to sleep and eat, but with little else of the qualities usually attached to the word?

Sandy watched him as the frown took over his pretty boy face. She could see the cogs working in his brain trying to piece together the meaning and implication of her last sentence, and perhaps even preparing to bombard her with questions. But how could she ever explain she was born in a lab and raised by a crazy scientist who made her torture people for information? And what was it with his sudden interest in her non existent home? She turned to look at him straight in the eyes for the first time that night. She stared long and hard into his blues and reached with her mind and felt the pain he was hiding just beneath the surface. Her eyes fell to his torso, hand sticking out to graze the tender spot hidden by his shirt. He flinched, but she knew the pain never hit him from that little touch, nor when she flung her leg over unceremoniously to straddle him. Good thing she forgot to put on pants when she left.

"You want to talk shitty pasts or fuck till we forget our problems? Dealers choice." But she already knew the answer, his hands burning on her cold skin, trailing up her thighs. If she surprised him with her sudden move, he didn't show it. Perhaps he didn't really care, her desperate need for a distraction mirrored by his own. Meaningless sex was always a great way to keep our mind off pressing matters. He seemed to know that well, perhaps they were not so different.

Their lips met in a furry, neither sure who closed the space between them first and neither caring. They kissed, hard and desperate, just like she liked it, the sheer force leaving her lips throbbing. Sandy's hands puled his shirt out of his jeans hasty, the need to feel his skin against hers paramount to her very existence and broke the kiss for the briefest moment as it came over his head. Had it really been that long since she'd been with anybody? She couldn't remember, not with Billy's hands squeegeeing her ass and pulling her closer to him, grinding up towards her. She wasted little time, taking off her own shirt, the size of it allowing her to leave to buttoned up, before bringing her mouth back to his, her hands snaking around his neck and chests pressed together. His hands roamed on her back, fingertips digging in her skin, occasionally stopping to feel the length of a scar or another.

He was so wonderfully warm she melted into him, moaning into the kiss as she slowly started grinding into him. She felt him smirking, lips never parting further than to allow him to leave a trail of soppy kisses on her jawline and down her neck. One of his hands wound tight in the hair at the base of her neck, as his teeth sunk in the flesh just beside her pulse and Sand found herself smiling.

"Shit, stop with the teasing!" But he said nothing, only letting out a huff of acknowledgement, his plump lips still attached to that sweet spot where the neck met the shoulder. His other hand, once done with exploring, found one of her breasts. She let out a straggled moan, the air caught in her throat. She was dizzy, his warmth seeping into her her, intoxicating like a new drug. And to think he'd barely touched her. She wet her lower lip with her tongue, the thought of what was to come maddening. In her drunken state she almost begged. Almost. Two could play that game and she wasn't know to be fair.

The button and zipper of his jeans flew open before he realized. Billy gasped when her hand pressed none too gently over his dick, rubbing it through the soft fabric of his boxers. A part of him relished in the small pleasures of teasing her raw. The other part made him lift his hips when she struggled to push his jeans and boxers aside. His head flew backwards hitting the headrest as her fingers wrapped tightly around his freed cock, thumb pressing into the tip to smudge some of the precum. She pumped him with a steady, merciless grip, but it was her expression that made him give in, eyes dark with lust and a grin that knew she was going to get exactly what she wanted out of him.

He gripped her wrist and pinned it to her lower back while his other hand pushed her black panties aside, not bothering to fully take them off. She lifted herself just enough, shuddering when his fingers made a straight line from her collarbone all the way between her folds. Her hands resting on his shoulders for support. She was dripping wet, not that he was surprised. He slipped into her fast with one powerful thrust, sheeting his dick completely. She arched her back with a lewd moan, like a coil falling back to place. Billy rested his forehead above her breast, the heat and tightness of her pussy making his head spin.

"Fuck."

"Me." Her breath was hot on his ear, the hairs on his neck standing. "Hard!" She needn't say it twice. Both his hands found her waist to guide her, but the vixen knew what she was doing, her body undulating in time with his violent thrusts. He found he couldn't quite take his eyes off of her, the moonlight emphasizing all the right places. The curve of her neck as her head lolled back, lips parted, the little scar almost invisible if he didn't already know where to look. Her breasts bouncing in a hypnotic rhythm, nipples perky as they occasionally grazed his chest in the cramped space. And that sweet mage of his cock disappearing into her, her vulgar moans and slapping skin the only sounds filling the car.

Sandy tried to keep her eyes open, the image of Billy's taunt muscles and fully blown eyes imprinted on her retinas, but failed miserably when his fingers wrapped around her neck. She relished in the feelings instead, her skin tingling wherever his caressed, fondled or dug into. She cursed his jeans for only being lowered to his thighs, precious territory left unexplored. The steering wheel was pressing hard into her back, the ache in perfect contrast to the pleasure shooting up from between her thighs as Billy rammed into her viciously. She came hard, pure bliss passing through her in wave after wave making her quiver uncontrollably. Strong arms encased around her, grounding her in reality, as he somehow picked up the pace, his rhythm erratic. He spilled into her while she was still coming down her high, his head buried into the crook of her neck. They stood there for a moment longer, breaths ragged and bodies slick with sweat, her fingers twisting his damp hair around.

Sandy was the first to speak.

"Well hot damn, should have jumped you in that paring lot." He chuckled against her skin, the vibrations pleasant to her still sensitive body.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, doll." The corners of her mouth twisted into a sly smile and she untangled herself from him, his hands lingering on her until the last second. She regarded the completely fogged windows as she found her shirt and put it back on, but she couldn't bring herself to worry about the world outside that Camaro. Not yet at lest. She turned toward him, his almost sheepish expression endearing.

"I'll be in town for a coupe more days. Motel 6, room 13. Don't be a stranger." She pushed the door open and stepped into to cool night air, but passed him a final wink before getting into her own car. "Oh and, you can call me Sandy."

[lollercakesff]

we were everything

wordcount: 4,034 tags: angst, pregnancy, tw: suicidal thoughts, tw: abuse relationship: Joyce x Hopper

Jim Hopper and I were never friends. Acquaintances, sure. We shared a few classes, a few cigarettes, maybe a laugh once or twice, but we weren’t friends. He was the kind of guy who had friends - loud, boisterous and drunk ones - and I was not. My circle was relegated to the disjointed ones, people who drank themselves silly and made questionable decisions because nobody really cared if we lived or died. That was my circle and I was staying in it, at least until I could get out of this town and free myself from the shithole where I lived and the class-act parents who failed to raise me right.

But that was all before today.

Here I was, minding my own damn business as I browsed the aisles of the local drugstore when I realized I hadn’t bought a tampon or a pad in almost three months. Time had slipped by, I hadn’t needed them, and sure, the signs were there but I refused to even acknowledge them. The weight gain was because I was working less at the diner. The puking? A spell of the flu. But this was much harder to deny and to say a chill ran through me would be an understatement.

My first thought was of my mother, young and unwed and desperate to escape her circumstances until she popped me out and was trapped for life. I couldn’t ask her. That was an absolute no. She couldn’t bear it and would probably pull out my Dad’s belt, the sharp pain of it still distinct in my memory.

“Fucking hell,” I croak and press my hands to my face, exhaling as I look up and down the aisle. A woman I recognize from church looks over at me and scowls, shaking her head and muttering to herself. Does she know? Can she tell?

I bolt from the store as quick as I can and high-tail it over to Lonnie’s, the only other culprit for getting me into this mess who isn’t me. When I get there he’s already half wasted, eyes bloodshot and a stain on his white tank top. His slicked back hair is pressed down on one side, almost like he’s just woken up, and his breath needs to see a toothbrush in the near future.

Pushing my way into his apartment I turn on him and lift a pointed finger, words freezing in my throat. He groans and collapses onto the couch, waving his hand as though edging me forward. “If you’re going to lay into me, might as well get it over with,” he hisses and pulls a sip of beer from his bottle.

“I… I’m,” I struggle to put a sentence together and then it explodes from me, heavy as an anvil. “I think I’m pregnant!”

The silence rolls over us, Lonnie’s frame prone on the couch as he stares into the wall. I bite my nail and wait for him to say something, anything. He doesn’t though. Because he’s Lonnie. Because he’s always been short of words. Because that wasn’t why I slept with him. I did it to forget the shit that haunted me and to try to get away from everything that pulled me down. It never worked, but dammit, this was the first time it was actively working against me.

“Well?” I hiss after a few moments, stepping in front of him and kicking his boot to rouse him.

“Well what? It ain’t mine, that’s for damn sure,” he grunts. My insides curdle and twist, my stomach pitching south as a ringing sounds in my ears.

I stand there for another minute before kicking his boot again, jumping back when he lurches towards me and pushes me back against the living room wall. His hands are tight on my shoulders, his lean frame shadowing me as his face reddens.

“Don’t blame this on me, Joycie. You’re a loose woman and I won’t let you trap me like this,” he sneers before pushing away and pacing across the room. I nearly collapse with his release, my knees wobbling as the tears come hot and heavy to my eyes. I should have known this would be his answer. Should have known this would be my kind of shitty luck.

“You’re a real motherfucker, you know that Lonnie? It’s yours and now you’re not even going to own up to it. Going to just hang me out to dry?” I shout before I even realize I had the words in me. He turns on his heel and stalks towards me, his hand coming out to wrap around my neck. He doesn’t squeeze but I can see it in his eyes that he wants to, the fury and drink evident.

“It ain’t mine. Now get the hell out of my place before I kick your ass to the curb.”

The threat follows me out of his apartment, the vivid swearing and the crash of furniture behind his door telling me more than he’ll ever know. When I’m back out on the street I try to hash out some of my options but come up empty. Lonnie won’t help. My mother will kick me out and Dad? He’ll probably beat the shit out of me until there’s no more issue to deal with.

I’m alone. Knocked up and just barely finishing school, a shitty job at a diner and no shoulder to cry on. I sink into myself at the realization as I start walking towards home, the house at the edge of town offering me one last chance at redemption.

My arrival goes unnoticed, like nearly every other day, and I try to keep it that way as I head upstairs to my room. I almost make it before my mother opens her bedroom door, frowning and leaning heavily on the jam. I can practically smell her from here, the booze leaking from her pores as she glances over at me.

“Why aren’t you in school?” She rasps, walking unsteadily in my direction.

“It’s Saturday, Mom.” I shift on my feet and back towards my room, wanting to get away before I spew the words into the empty space between us.

“What are you hiding then? You look suspicious.” Her eyes drop to my toes and scrape over me until she reaches my midline, brows furrowing as her gaze snaps up. “Girl, are you in the family way?”

How can she know? How can this drunk know the moment I realize it myself? Is it written on my face? Is it obvious and I was just in denial for so long? I barely get a chance to figure it out before she’s lunging towards me, arms outstretched and anger apparent on her face. She pushes me into my room and swears like a sailor, vowing to tell my father and cornering me near my closet. Covering my face with my hands is the best I can do to stop her onslaught of terror, my body slinking lower until I’m nearly curled in a ball.

Eventually she leaves to deal with her own shit, probably to drink some more but hopefully to go pass out and forget this conversation ever happened. I know it’s unlikely but I wish for it anyways, slowly getting up and rifling through my drawers to change into something warmer. Below me I hear the front door slam in the familiar arrival of my father, a new level of fear coursing through my veins as I hear my mother cursing from the front hall.

Another second passes and my father’s heavy steps rise up the staircase and towards my room, the clink of his belt audible even as I slide the window up and start to climb through it. I’m nearly gone when he bursts through the door and grabs at my wrist, yanking me back from my descent.

“Get up here now before I kill you, girl,” he roars and twists, a bruise inevitably starting to form from his grip. I shake my head and try to loosen his hand, panic driving me to get further away from him than ever before.

“Let go!” I scream and snap, pushing away from the house with my feet until he let’s go and I tumble head over heels down the roof and onto the ground with a thump. I land like a broken doll, my head fuzzy and my body aching, but get to my feet before he can make it through the front door and see me escape into the trees.

I wander for hours in the forest, thinking through my options and coming up empty. There was nowhere to turn for help in Hawkins, at least not for unwed teenage mothers. Here we were left on our own, scorned for daring to live and ostracized because the men who got us into this position were too pathetic to do what was right.

Breaking through the treeline I find myself on the edge of the quarry, the outcropping of rock familiar as a place where things ended. I didn’t want to keep doing this, covering up the bruises that marred my skin and my soul. It was exhausting and only getting worse, especially now that I was going to have a baby with someone who clearly had no interest in being a father.

The idea of escape floats into my mind then, hovering over me as I stand on the edge of the rock to watch the sun start to set, a last beautiful evening to see me off. There was always something in the way the breeze floated around me that felt comforting, like maybe this was what was meant for me.

Misery pushes me forward and I look down at the pool of water that lay dark and ominous below. I could slip and fall, crash into the abyss and never come up. It would mean I could stop struggling. That I could finally be free of this place and the people in it. Inching closer again my toe kicks forward a rock that falls over the edge, crashing and colliding with the bits down below.

“Hey,” a familiar voice calls out from behind me, startling me until I lose my footing and tumble down. I land on my side, the air knocked from my lungs as I slip and grapple at the ground as my body slides further over the edge.

“Help me!” I scream and thrash, trying to hold on as I move closer to letting go. All the thoughts from just moments ago disappear as I fight to stay alive, if only to meet the baby growing inside of me.

“Woah, it’s okay!” Jim grunts, getting onto his stomach and reaching his arms down towards me. One hand grabs at my collar and the other wraps around my elbow, his arms lifting me back up until I can swing my leg over the ledge. “Jesus Joyce, what are you doing?”

I keep my mouth shut until I’m back on top of the rock, the air heavy as I suck it back with deep wracking breaths. “Don’t surprise people like that,” I scold, trying to hold it together.

I fail. The tears come once more and soon Jim is crawling towards me and scooping me up in his arms, his body wrapping itself around mine as I sob into his training jersey. He smells of sweat and old aftershave, the heat rolling off of him soothing me in a way I hadn’t expected.

“Hey, it’s okay. Really. It’s okay. You’re alive. Didn’t die or anything,” he whispers and clumsily pats my head, pulling back only once I’ve stopped crying long enough to let him look down at me. “What were you doing here, standing so close to the edge like that? Don’t you remember Teddy Brown? The kid in grade school who got too close and fell?”

I pull away, a hand coming to rub the tears from my face. “Maybe I didn’t need rescuing,” I mumble and shift, putting space between us.

“Come on now, I wasn’t just going to let you fall.” He leans back on his hands and I blink from the sight of him. He’s sweaty and a mess but his smile is soft and kind, the same type that he gives when he lights my cigarettes for me. At least, it is that smile until he takes in my whole rumpled appearance and the bruising along my arm. “Joyce,” he starts, sits forward and reaches out a hand for mine.

“I wanted to jump.” My voice cracks and his smile disappears, his posture tightening as I duck my head in shame. His fingers ghost up my arm and slide to my neck, his breath catching as a sob hiccups out of me. Another second passes and he gets to his knees, arms wrapping around me and his hand cradling my head against his shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers into my hair, a slow hand rubbing against my back. It feels like a lie being curled up against him, like a false sense of comfort, but I lean into it anyways and try to get lost in the feeling of it. I don’t remember the last time I felt like this, like someone cared, and it’s a raw wound that splits and festers.

It’s sometime later before he eventually pulls away, his fingers grazing my cheek and brushing my bangs away from my face. His expression is unreadable and I have to close my eyes from his searching gaze because it feels like he’ll know all my secrets if I let him in.

God, do I want to let him in.

“Do you want a lift somewhere? I’ve got my Dad’s truck out on the highway. It’s a bit of a hike but it’d save you the walk home.” His offer is sweet, kind, the type of thing that I used to scorn, but right now it feels like a lifevest in a stormy sea.

“I don’t have - I can’t go home,” I reply lowly. My hands open and close, sliding protectively across my belly as my eyes slip up to his.

“That’s okay. We’ve got this old army cot I can set up in the garage. You can stay there for the night until we can figure out what to do next. Come on.” He gets to his feet and reaches a hand down towards me, a gentle giant to my too small frame. I take it and we head through the trees to the edge of the road, his hand on my back the entire way.

Once inside the cab he starts the engine and turns up the heat, a hand reaching out and bringing mine from my lap to the vents, holding them there. I look at him then, this boy who I barely knew, who was saving me from myself. We’d spent years in the same school, the same classes, and while we’d spoken, it had never really been about anything real. He’d been a fixture, like a lightbulb, always there but never noticed until the light went out.

“Thank you,” I mumble when he eventually let’s go of my hands, his own coming to rest on the wheel and gearshift.

Pulling away from the grass he gives me a look, one I can’t decipher, and starts off down the road. We sit in silence for a while before he asks me something too low to hear. I frown and look at him, waiting for the sentence to come around again. “What made you want to jump?” I shrug at his question and look out the window, avoiding and hiding from what I didn’t want to admit.

The drive back to his place is quiet after that, neither of us wanting to press on the subject. When we pull into the drive the lights are on in every window, the house leaning over me as I slip from the passenger seat. I hold onto the door to ground me as he walks towards the front entrance, giving him space to go inside and open the garage without rising the suspicion of his parents. I figure hiding out is the least I can do since he’s letting me stay here, but when he reaches the door and looks back it’s confusion that paints his features.

“Joyce!” He calls out, concern evident as he jogs back towards the truck. He lets out a breath when he sees me still there, wide eyed and pale. “Come on, we’re going this way.” He motions with his head back to the house and let’s me walk in front of him, the heat of his chest rolling off him in waves.

Together we step inside the house and into a cheerful hallway, painted bright and tidy. I watch as he toes off his shoes and heads towards the kitchen, his tall form filling the space as he leans into the room. A moment later his parents look around the door jam, his mother’s face pinching as her head shakes. There’s whispering that I can’t quite make out, his father nodding and pushing past him to go upstairs. His mother rests a hand on his shoulder and steps around him, coming to stand in front of me with a soft smile on her lips.

“Would you like some tea, dear?” She asks, her hands clasped together as Jim looks back at us.

“No, I don’t want to be any bother,” I answer. Instinctively I wrap my arms around myself and look away, a practice familiar with people who are too soft and too kind for me. The move has the opposite effect on her and she gasps at the sight of me, the blotchy bruises evident in the bright light of the hallway.

“It’s not - oh my dear,” she shakes her head and looks back at her son, a hand coming up to her lips. Colour creeps up my neck and burns my cheeks with embarrassment, my desire to escape flooding my senses. A moment later her husband appears in the stairwell, arms loaded with blankets.

It’s all too much. I wasn’t built for this kindness, this pity. My family would never take in a stray, especially one who looked like me, and I didn’t know how to deal with the anguish that seemed to fill the air the longer I stood there. With my hand on the doorknob I turn to leave, the air thinning and causing me to hyperventilate as I try to get it open. Jim is there then, his steadying hand on my shoulder forcing me to look up at him.

“Please, Joyce. Just stay the night.”

I close my eyes and picture the alternative, sleeping outside as the air chilled and the grass cooled. I’d likely freeze, or at least catch a cold, and then I’d have to face all of this alone operating at half of my capacity. The vision of it forces me to nod, a relieved sigh escaping from one of the Hopper’s.

The next hour is like an odyssey. I’m given some of Jim’s old clothes and access to a shower, the warm water like a balm to my broken down frame. When I exit the shower it’s to find Jim waiting on the made up couch, his outfit changed from his running attire but his hair still matted slightly from sweat.

“Thank you, for this,” I say from the entrance to the room, my arms wrapped tightly around my ball of clothes. I hold them in front of my belly, just in case the evidence of my real problems are apparent.

“You scared me up there at the quarry,” he admits as he gets up from the couch, stepping away so that I can sit down. I tuck myself into the blankets and pull them up to my neck, my knees drawn in towards me as I watch him pace and then slide down next to me with his back leaned against the couch.

“I didn’t - I mean, it wasn’t my intention, I just - “

“I know it wasn’t. I’ve just never had to do that and now I can’t stop worrying about you. What’s so bad that you wanted to hurt yourself?” He leans against his knees and hides his face as he asks, the question burning the air around us.

“I think I’m knocked up and I don’t have anybody really. It sounds pathetic but I’m scared. I didn’t know what else to do.” I whimper and curl up tighter, bracing myself for the rejection that was bound to come.

But it doesn’t. Jim simply turns and looks at me, steady gaze levelling against mine. “It’s gonna be alright,” he assures me. I nod because it’s all I can do, the argument dying on my lips as he leans back and rests his head against my legs.

I fall asleep not much later, carried away by the sound of his deep breaths marking his own rest. When I wake up I find him closer, his body stretched out on the floor and his hands wrapped around mine as it hangs off the couch. I disentangle myself and sit up, glancing around the dimly lit room and finding the sun starting to creep in through the windows. The guilt is heavy on my chest as I climb down and over him, careful not to wake him as I slip to the bathroom.

Splashing some water on my face, I examine my arms and the shades of blue and red that stretch along my skin. I look a wreck, like someone who has been through a meat grinder, and it takes me a second to fight back the angry tears that threaten to give way. I won’t let this define me. I can’t let this beat me down.

Back outside in the living room I round the corner to find Jim already on his feet, hands in his hair as he spins towards me with a shocked expression. “I thought you’d gone,” he states, lowering his arms and rubbing his hands across his face.

“Just a bathroom break,” I reply. We stand at odds for another drawn out moment before he nods briskly.

“I think Dad wanted to talk to you this morning. To uh, take a statement?” The words run a chill over my skin, the gooseflesh rising as I look at the floor. I knew this was a trap. I knew this was nothing more than a way to reel me in and make me a snitch.

“I have to go,” I counter, sidestepping around him and grabbing my clothes from the floor. I slam my way back into the bathroom and hurry to change, stumbling into my pants and shoving my bralette in my pocket. When I re-emerge he’s standing at the door, panic etched into his face.

“You don’t have to go - just stay for breakfast. Let us help you,” he tries to offer, tries to plead as I slip on my shoes. I give him a withering look as he blocks my exit, a sigh pushing out of him when he eventually steps aside. “Joyce,” he says as he follows me onto the porch, his voice growing more distant as I put space between us. “I know we haven’t really been friends, but I do care. I’ve always cared. Even if you didn’t realize...”

I sprint away from his promises. From his lies and his hope. I leave him standing on his front porch, agony in every facet of his being as I head somewhere, anywhere, far away from the life I could never have.

Jim Hopper and I were never friends. We were two kids who grew up together, who caught each others eye in class and shared smiles in the hallway. Shared smokes and brief touches, shared secrets and honest truths. Sure our paths crossed on some occasions, but we were never friends. He was more than that to me. I was more than that to him. And it took us a whole lot of heartbreak to finally realize that we weren’t friends, we were everything.

[imagineaworlds]

Resolving Issues -- Steve Harrington

Written by: @strangerhennig

Requests: “Imagine idea: Being Dustin's sister and initially thinking Steve's an asshole but falling in love with him through out all the events with the kids (let's imagine she's with them the whole time).” "can u do steve harrington smut ? can it also be like you two “”hate”” each other but obviously have feelings but are too hard headed to admit it please and thank u” "Can you do a Steve imagine where you’ve always liked him but he always liked Nancy and when all the stuff with the kids happen your there and he realizes he likes you”

Warnings: Smut!!! (16+) cursing, oral sex (male and female receiving), spanking

Pairing: Steve Harrington x female!reader

Summary: You and Steve are constantly bickering in the tunnels of the Upside Down, but once the two of you are out, so are your true feelings, which leads to a lot of frustrations to be released.

Word Count: 3,336

Listen To: Methyl Ethel - Ubu

“Oh, my god, Harrington, would you please shut up!” You hissed as the teenage boy yet again slipped over a vine in the dark tunnels of the Upside Down, letting out a loud string of cuss words to fall from his lips.  “Number one,” you pulled your bandana covering your mouth down, pausing for a moment to look at Steve, “my brother, who is only thirteen and his friends, are right behind us,” You say motioning to Dustin, the boys, and Max who looked away as you mentioned them. “Number two, there is the huge possibility of a Demodog hearing you and chasing us down.” You finished in a harsh whisper, continuing to walk ahead.

However, the brunette boy looked at you you side on with squinted eyes and let out a snicker. You truly wished you hadn’t been dragged into this mess. If it weren’t for that commotion in Dustins room, you wouldn’t have checked in and found your brother trying to wrangle Dart. This then led you on the path to trying to find the mutant being with Steve Harrington and your brother. You couldn’t stand the attitude Steve held towards you. It felt as though his anger over his breakup with Nancy was being fuelled into snarky remarks towards you.

“Yeah, it’s not like they heard your elephant like footsteps this whole time or anything.” He shot back, causing you to roll your eyes and pull the bandana back over your mouth, wiping your cheek, which was covered in blood from a blow Billy gave you during you and Steve's fight with him.

“Alright Wheeler.” Steve said looking up from the drawn map in his hands. “I think we found your hub.” You all came to a halt and looked around the centre of the tunnels, the one place they all met.

“Let’s drench it” Mike stated as you all began to dowse the large space in petrol. Steve walked your way, staring blankly as he ordered you to go take the other tunnel as you weren’t drenching this one properly. His tone bitter and but also monotone causing you to furrow your eyebrows.

“What the hell, Steve! I’m literally doing the exact same as everyone else. Just get over yourself and leave me alone!” You say turning your back to him.

“What is your problem, Y/N?!” Steve questioned, pulling on your lower arm to face him.

“My problem, Steve? My problem is you! You’ve been non-stop treating me like shit since your whole ordeal with Nancy. I don’t care if you’re pissed, just don’t take it out on me!” You finally snap at him, watching as he pulls his bandana down to speak to you. “Look, we don’t have time for this now, Steve. Let’s just do our job and get the hell out of here,” you state, causing Steve’s mouth to shut as you turn and walk away. Soon enough the place was completely doused in petrol, so all six of you huddled in one of the tunnels.

“You guys ready?” The brunette asked, causing a string of “yeah” to fall from everyone's lips.

Steve pulled out his lighter, flicking it on, causing Dustin to look at it and smile, “Light her up.”

“Yeah, do it,” I agree, “Light this bitch on fire.”

“I am in such deep shit,” mumbled Steve before throwing the lighter into the petrol filled core. The place became engulfed in flames and we quickly began to run to the exit. The encounter with Dart sent shivers down your spine and your body twitched with fear as you thought of what could happen to your brother, but, all ended well as you finally made it to the exit. Max, Lucas, and Mike were hoisted up and you were helping Steve get up also. But then you heard the rumbling of the Demodogs running towards you, and you saw their shadows nearing. You held your brother’s hand as you heard the screams from his friends.

And then you heard Steve’s voice pierce through the others. “Y/N! Get your cute little ass up here now!” But instead you stood there and brought Dustin behind you, muttering a quick, “I love, you little one.” The monsters approached, but before they did, Steve dropped down from above and clasped you close to him, protecting you from the beasts which were running around you. As the Demodogs cleared, you looked up at Steve, letting out a choked thank you before pulling him closer for a hug and then turning around and tightly hugging your little brother. You all climbed out of the tunnels and to the car. Steve dropped all the kids back at Joyce’s house where everyone else was, and you silently thanked that Billy was no longer there and had obviously walked home.

You turned to Steve who was in the driver's seat as all the kids spilled out of the car and ran to meet up with Will. “Look... Thank you for before. I— it meant a lot.” You said in a quiet voice as you opened the door and got out of the car.

“Look, hey, let me take you home at least to kind of make up to you for everything?” Steve offered as you turned back around.

“I can’t see my mum like this. I’m covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. If I didn’t die from the Demodogs, then I’m certainly gonna be killed by her.” You state with a smile.

Steve reflects your smile and lets out a chuckle, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, tongue swiping out to lick his lips before speaking. “Hey, just get back in. How about you come to mine, get cleaned up and then I’ll take you home? My parents are out of town, as per usual, so nobody will be there to question the state we’re in.” He suggests as you smile with a nod and hop back into the car. You arrived at his house in a few minutes and hop out of the car following him to his front door. You both stepped inside and he closes the door behind you. Steve then leads you to his bathroom where he gives you a spare tee of his and a towel. He leaves you be and you take a hot shower, helping wash away the grime off your skin from the events of tonight. You sigh and close your eyes before stepping out and slipping into Steve’s long tee. You open the bathroom door and there he stands.

“Y/N, we need to talk. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you.” He admits taking a step towards you. “Honestly, it is because of the whole Nancy bullshit.”

“Knew it.” You muttered, strutting passed him. But for the second time that night, Steve grabbed your lower arm and pulled you to face him again. He then saw the tears brimming your eyes. You didn’t want to admit it to him. Heck, you didn’t want to even admit it to yourself. But you truly liked this boy. You liked the way he took care of your brother and his friends with such concern. You liked how he spent so long prepping his hair with Farrah Fawcett each day. You liked how he managed to still remain dorky and uncoordinated, despite being the “king” of Hawkins High School. And it tore you apart that he was still into Nancy Wheeler.

“Hey! Y/N, wait! Look, it was originally about her, but the more I talked to you, spent time with you, and seeing you tackle things the way you have been these past few days, has put me into a state of annoyance. I shouldn’t be over Nancy so quickly and that’s why I was so shit to you, Y/N.” Steve said as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and wiped away a loose tear which rolled down your cheek. “I was being a dick to you because I—” Steve paused, letting out a deep breath. “God damn it!” Steve clasped your face and pulled you into him, attaching his lips to yours. Your body ran cold with shock. Steve Harrington was kissing you. You then slowly began to move your mouth with his and your eyes fluttered shut. Steve’s hands trailed down your body, from your cheeks to your waist. You then snaked your arms up around his neck, playing with the hair which rested there. You tugged at the strands, causing a low growl to roll off his lips through the kiss. His hands then began to trail down your ass, squeezing it, making you let out a moan. Steve used this opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, letting the two of your tongues battle for dominance. He won quickly and then pulled away from the kiss, capturing your lower lip in his teeth, pulling at the flesh, causing you to whimper. He then began to kiss along your jawline to your ear, leaving a string of moans to escape your lips. He reached your earlobe, nibbling on it before whispering “jump”.

You jumped up, wrapping your legs around his waist as he began to carry you towards his room. He threw you on the bed before crawling over you, attacking your neck with open mouth kisses, leaving harsh love bites scattered around the skin there, licking over the marks he made, leaving you a moaning mess. Your fingers played with the hem of his shirt, indicating you wanted it off. He ceased his assault on your neck, lifting his body up, allowing you to pull it over him. You couldn't help to admire his body, a smirk forming its way onto your lips as you pulled him back onto you before flipping you both over so you were straddling his waist. You then pulled Steve’s top over your frame, leaving you almost fully naked as you only had your undies on.

“Damn, Y/N…” Steve mumbled, his tongue darting out and licking his lips. He then reached his hand up to caress your left breast and you bit your lip as you looked down at him. You then began to grind your clothed pussy against his hardening cock, which was contained under his boxers and jeans. A large satisfied sigh escaped his lips as his hands still massaged your breasts.

He then flipped the two of you over again, kissing down your body along your boobs, slipping a nipple into his mouth and sucking, causing you to let out a moan.

“S— Steve please. J— just do something,” you struggle to get out, Steve then letting go of your nipple with a popping sound. He began kissing down your body again, reaching your thighs. He hooked a finger on your panties and slipped them down, getting a clear view of your soaked core.

“Shit babe your so fucking wet.” He admired and a groan left your body at his pet name. Steve began kissing up your inner thighs, finally getting to where you needed him the most. A hot breath fanned your aching pussy and you thrust your hips towards his face, just wanting the contact for his tongue on your sensitive area. All of a sudden a large strip was licked up your slit and you moaned out his name.

“Yeah, baby, like that.” He said huskily leaving you to yet again let out a moan. His mouth then attached itself to your clit, sucking harshly while two of his fingers made their way to you entrance. He parted your lips and then inserted his fingers in slowly, creating a low moan to echo through the room. Steve began pumping his fingers in and out of your pussy, each time bringing his fingers knuckle deep into your core. He then added in a third digit and began speeding up his movements. His fingers them began to curl upwards, hitting that sweet spot inside of you.

“Oh, fuck.” You cried, throwing your head back, arching your back at the feeling. Steve hummed into your pussy and you could feel him smirk into your sex, somehow magian turning you on even more than you already were. He continued to thrust his fingers in and out of your pussy until your thighs began to shake.

“S— Steve I’m so c— close,” you let out, but your pleasure was cut short as Steve pulled away, making you push up onto your elbows and look at him.

“What the fuck, Steve?!” You questioned in annoyance.

“I want you to cum around my cock instead.” He stated, standing up and stripping down to nothing, letting his hardened girth spring free.

Your eyebrows raised at the sight of his cock, its length far greater than you could of imagined, and yet again you bit your lip. “Shit, Harrington,” you said quietly as he just smirked, pumping his length a few times while walking over to his bedside table and pulling out a condom. You reached over to him and snatched the rubber from his hands, placing it on the bed. You hopped onto your knees and began to pump his cock. You then kitten licked his tip, Steve letting out a sharp hiss at the contact, grabbing a fistful of your hair, bucking his hips towards you face.  You pulled back, “Uh, uh. You want me to suck you off, then you have to behave.” You said seductively, leaving Steve to tuck his bottom lip between his teeth and nod. You then grabbed his cock, licking a large stripe up the underside of his length before returning to his tip. You took his cock in your mouth and slowly eased your head down it. You began to speed up, still pumping him, but now managing to deepthroat him a few times, making you gag. The vibrations from you gagging however, made him moan, his pants speeding up, hips twitching as he restrained himself from grabbing your head and face fucking you into oblivion. You moved your free hand to his balls, cupping them and playing with them. He let out a strangled moan of your name and you then began to feel him twitch in your mouth. You however decided to pay him back, pulling your mouth off his cock and standing up to face him.

“What— Hey, Y/N! What the fuck? I was close!” He said in a low voice, eyes becoming a full shade darker as he looked down at you.

“Oh, I know.” You state simply and sweetly.

“You are in for it, Y/N.” Steve growled out, smacking your ass before pulling you into a heated kiss. You pushed your hips towards him but he simply just pushed you back onto the bed grabbing the rubber yet again, tearing it open and rolling it down his cock. He pulled you close to him and then flipped you over again and pulled your ass up and you played along, perking it up for him, giving him a clear view of your dripping cunt. He raised his hand and collided it with your ass cheek, creating a cry to fall from your lips.

“There we go. That’s a good girl.” He mumbled as he lined his cock up with your entrance. He slowly pushed himself inside of you letting a satisfied sigh to fall from both of your lips, a mixture that turned you both on more. Steve kept pushing his dick in until it was fully sheathed in your pussy.

“Holy fuck, you’re so tight, Y/N.” He breathed, but paused his movements allowing you to fall accustomed to his size. You had had sex before, but not for a while, and Steve was quite large. You let out a little whimper as a tear fell down your face from the initial discomfort, making Steve snap his head upwards, concern washing over his face as he looked at you.

“Hey, hey, Y/N. I can stop if you want. I’m so sorry” He said, beginning to massage your back.

“N— no, no, you’re fine, Steve. I just haven’t had sex in a while. I— I’m just not used to it, that’s all.”

“Okay.” He said, leaning forwards and kissing your back. After a minute you signalled that it was okay to move. His thrusts started off slow but as the pain subsided you told him to go faster and soon enough that pain bloomed into pleasure.

“Harder, Steve, please.” You begged in a whimper.

“Your wish is my command.” He said before snapping his hips at faster speed, bottoming out with each thrust.

“Yes, daddy.” The words accidentally fell from your lips and Steve slowed his movements, his eyebrows shooting up at the name. You’re cheeks heated up and your eyes widened and you began to protest but Steve cut you short.

“Fuck, that was hot.” He breathed and picked up your upper half so your back was pressed against his chest. He began thrusting upwards at an ungodly pace hitting your g-spot with each thrust, making you scream his name out in pleasure. You then moved forward, letting Steve slip out of you and you turned to face him, pulling him into a passionate kiss before making him lay down. You then began to straddle him, easing yourself back down onto him letting out a moan once again. You then began to bounce up and down his large dick scratching down his chest and in return his hands flew to you breasts and massaged them. You then leaned backwards, hands resting on Steve’s legs as you ground your hips in circular motions, making the whole scenario far more pleasurable. Steve then ran his hands down your body to grip your waist as he began to thrust up into you, hitting that spot yet again that night.You arched your back pressing your cunt further onto his cock, your thrusts meeting each other and going as such a fast pace that white dots began to cloud your vision and a knot to form in your stomach.

“Yes, daddy! Right there! I’m so close!” You screamed, thankful that his parents weren’t home.

“Oh, fuck Y/N! Cum for me.” Steve moaned in response. You could feel his cock twitching inside of you, signalling that he too was close. All of a sudden you’re legs began shake and that knot in your stomach let loose. Your walls clenched tightly around Steve’s girth as you came around him, a scream accompanying your orgasm. This then sent Steve off, the room filling with the sounds of your screams and moans. Steve came too his thrusts slowing as the last of his seed spilled out into the rubber condom. You rolled off Steve, laying next to him as he rolled off the condom, tied it and threw it in the bin. You lay for a minute panting before sitting up next to him.

“So, I think I gathered that from what you were trying to say before, is that you like me?” You questioned the brunette with a smirk.

“If it wasn’t obvious.” He laughed, leaning over to you, giving you a passionate kiss. He then pulled away and looked at your neck with a meek smile.

“Ah, so if the cut on your cheek wasn’t bad enough, I may have accidentally given you a few more marks to add to the reason why you’ll be killed by your mom.” He said squinting his eyes and slightly nodding.

You just roll your eyes and chuckle, “Well good thing your parents are out of town because I’m crashing here tonight, then.” You say leaning back down on the bed, Steve just nodding with a smile. “Oh, and if that,” You say motioning between you, “wasn’t obvious enough, I like you, too, dickhead.” You say with a smile.

“Oh, is that right?” Asks Steve as he slides over the top of you. “Well if you like me so much, how about we go for round two?”

[gayshitiguess]

So since @riahawk messaged me the second after I made that post saying simply “playlist yes” I thought I would share.

So I chose one song for every chapter and thought I would do a Critical Role styled explanation! I hope you guys like it!

Chapter 1: Modern Literature

“Dying in LA” By Panic! At the Disco

“Every face along the boulevard is a dreamer just like you./ You looked at death in a tarot card and you saw what you had to do.”

What can I say, this song has always screamed Mollymauk to me, especially these two lines in the pre-chorus. Beware takes place in LA, so the title is just that much more accurate. In this first chapter and for most of the story, Molly keeps drawing the same three cards from his deck, the Fool, the Devil, and Death. He is literally looking at death in a tarot card. This is him trying to find his way, trying to gleam where he’s supposed to go from here. Luckily, he finds his way.

Chapter 2: A Show of Scrutiny

“I Put a Spell on You” By Screamin Jay Hawkins

Enter magic awkward dude! This chapter deals mostly with the aftermath of Molly finding out holy shit, magic is real. I chose this version of the Nina Simone version simply because I wanted to capture the frantic, scream argument part of this chapter. This version has Jay Hawkins literally just screeching into the mic, and if that doesn’t sum up Molly’s mood for this chapter, I don’t know what does. Bonus, it's a love song, and this is where the seeds are planted. Love is in the air, but mostly panic and magic!

Chapter 3: Lost and Found

“Junkie Church” By AJJ

“Last week I saw you at the junkie church/ you told me all the things I need to hear/ like I’ve got a heart of gold/ and a kind and open soul.”

This is one of my favorite chapters in the entire piece. I love to put in little lunar interludes of sorts between the big stuff, and this really was that at its best. In this chapter, we get a bit of insight into Caleb’s past, but not nearly the entirely. We also get a tarot reading from Molly to Caleb that somehow managed to give Caleb’s fucking terrible story positivity. Con men really are in the business of telling people what they want to hear. Molly made it his business to tell Caleb pretty things. He’s very good at that.

Chapter 4: Shadows

“Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)” By Fall Out Boy

“I hope the roof flies off and we get blown out into space/ I always make such expensive mistakes.”

You know my emo ass had to throw in some Fall Out Boy. Really, everything that they do in this chapter is mistakes. This is where shit gets bad. So many bad choices were made from Caleb giving Molly the necklace to letting the entire group into the haunted house. It had to end in a possession. Plus, I need some sick guitar riffs to get into a fight scene.

Chapter 5: Passed Through Fire

“Holy Calamity [Bear Witness II]” By Handsome Boy Modeling School

Did I say that I needed sick guitar riffs for a fight? I’m so sorry, I meant that I needed classics of the hip hop scene blowing out my speakers. This song just captures the absolute chaos of what the fuck is happening in the chapter. Shit gets crazy from the moment that the song begins, and this chapter’s contents are enough to have you screaming “Holy Calamity!” from beginning to end

Chapter 6: Reunions

“Safe in my Garden” By The Mamas & The Papas

This really is the quintessential Caduceus song to me. Really, the idea of him bopping to The Mamas & The Papas is such a lovely one. This song just reminds me of the Blooming Grove, the smooth, sweet sound, the very name just feels like the Grove. And here we get to see everybody coming to Caduceus for help and for protection. They’re all safe in his garden.

Chapter 7: What Lies Beneath the Surface

“Zombies” By Childish Gambino

“You will find/ there is no safe place/ to hide.”

Zombies! I mean, really, there was no better song for this chapter. If I was going to do a chapter about the undead, I had to throw Gambino in there. This whole album could be the soundtrack for this story, but this one especially. This chapter completely negates the safety of the last, completely ruins the safe garden that Caduceus maintains. It's a wrench in the plan and it’s a song that sounds so different from any other on the playlist, that its a wrench in the sound.

Chapter 8: Omens

“Nausea” By Jeff Rosenstock

“I got so tired of discussing my future/ I started avoiding the people I love./ Evening of silence and morning of nausea/ Shake and sweat and I can’t throw up/ I got so tired of discussing my future/ That I walk through my life like I'm the only one”

Caleb has a really hard time communicating what he wants to other people. He also has a hard time talking about his future, since he hasn’t really planned on having one since the academy. It's hard for him not to push people away, but Molly is stubborn and he isn’t willing to let Caleb push people out of his life.

Chapter 9: Strange Bedfellows

“I’ve Got Problems” By Harley Poe

“Talking to myself again/ About how I'll never win/ I look into the mirror/ And that's how my day begins/ I wonder when did all this black fill up my mind/ Well I don't shower/ I'm a slob/ I've gone years without a job/ And I can't seem to keep my hands out of my pants and off my knob/ Because the perversions in my head are of the sickest kind”

What can I say? Caleb’s got problems. Like, big time problems. He’s one fucked up shit. Just as “Safe in my Garden” is the quintessential Caduceus song, this is the quintessential Caleb song. I really could put the entire song in quotations because it is perfect. He’s trying his best here to convince Molly that he is FUBAR and honestly? It kind of works. He’s a fucked up guy who does fucked up things, and there’s very little that either of them can do about it.

Chapter 10: Dangerous Liasons

“Would you Be So Kind” By dodie

Caleb and Molly have been hinting at romance for the entire piece, but this is where it really starts to bloom. Molly expressed how serious he is about this, and tells Caleb that whenever he’s ready, Molly’s there. Molly is baring his soul in a way he hasn’t to anybody before. He’s trusting Caleb in a way he hasn’t with anybody. It's scary and he’s afraid to fuck it up, and all he can do right now is ask Caleb “could you maybe fall in love with me?”

Chapter 11: Crimson Deplomacy

“Devil’s Haircut” By Beck

Molly’s worst fucking nightmare; finding out what exactly is in his head. It turns out that it's Lucien. It's his worst case scenario. Getting real, concrete answers to his past that he never once asked for. And it only means bad things on the way. There’s something decidedly evil in his mind and he’s stuck. All he can do is hope that he’ll be okay. Plus, what a use of the kazoo.

Chapter 12: At Dawn, We Plan!

“Bad Moon Rising” By Creedence Clearwater Revival

This song is cursed and so is this chapter. It's all about bad tidings and warnings, an omen of bad things on the rise. Although this chapter is relatively tame, there is a permeating sense of unease. Molly knows that this is going to go badly. He knows that something horrible is about to happen. And there is absolutely nothing that he can do about it. There’s a bad moon on the rise, and Molly’s going to have to face it.

Chapter 13: Found and Lost

“Through The Roof N’ Underground (feat. Eugene Hütz)” By Gogol Bordello

“When there's a trap set up for you/ In every corner of this town/ And so you learn the only way to go is underground/ When there's a trap set up for you/ In every corner of your room/ And so you learn the only way to go is through the roof”

Taliesin said it himself, Molly was always going to end with this song. This whole chapter is a fucking disaster. Molly “dies,” Lucien comes back, Lucien “dies,” there’s a lot of our favorite Bloodhunter biting the dust. Molly is doomed the second that that demon enters the room, and so he makes his way underground. Lucien is dragged up by his teeth from the inside of himself, and he goes straight through the roof. I’ve really found a love for this song and the intense, falling to pieces nature of it. By the end of it, the instrumentals and vocals fall out of sync and fade into nothing, just like Molly.

Chapter 14: Epilouge: The Chapter Closes

“Safety Song” By Andrea Gibson

“I was walking home in the red night zone/ I had a pair of flowers/ you had pegs on the back of your bike/ it was almost the morning hour/ I said come with me to the carnival/ we can sneak in when the power goes out/ we can sit real still in the bumper carts/ and see what it's all about to be safe/ from the crashing day/ we can be safe from everything/ you caught my eye in the funhouse mirror/ you look so pretty even like that/ you held my hand while I held my tongue/ and blushed beneath my baseball cap/ you said we've all got monsters under our bed and under our skin as well/ we can hold them in the corners of our little shame or bring them to show and tell/ just know your safe to tell me anything/ you are so safe to tell me anything/ lying in the grass by the ferris wheel/ I saw a train i knew we could catch so/ we ran through the streets and the parking lot/ and we caught that train as we caught our breath and we rode through the hills and the silo fields/ I knew my heart had no fire escape/ but I stood in your lightning like a sycamore tree/ love is a risk you have to take I feel safe to risk everything/ I feel safe to risk everything”

Finally, finally Molly has made it. After several months of recovery, plenty of therapy, and lots of soul searching, he’s able to breathe. This entire story has felt suffocating for me. I believe that Molly’s arc would have been an extremely painful and cathartic one to watch, so I thought that I would make something similar. This song is slow and sweet and tenuous. For a story that goes so hard for so long, I wanted to slow it down at the end and deliver something sweet. This is where Caleb and Molly decide to risk it, amnesia and trauma be damned, because love is a risk, but it's one that they have to take. And he’s safe. Finally safe.