#eddie gets him a set of custom clubs

[thefreakandthehair]

my former-jock fiancé is at a charity golf tournament this morning which makes me think of a slightly older steve harrington finding that— much to his own chagrin— he quite likes golf. it’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and it doesn’t aggravate his injuries as much as other higher-contact sports. dustin is about to tease him for it, not realizing how rough his body has been rattled over the years, and robin and eddie give him matching death glares before he can say another word.

[lostalioth]

𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞

→ premise: forgetting your money for your dealer for the first time in a year sounds like a stroke of bad luck. only for you it seems quite the opposite.

→ pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

→ warnings: smut | 18+, high sex (just eddies high), bribery/sex as payment? (I did intend to write it as actual bribery than idk what happened), nicknames [favorite customer, dirty girl, baby], drugs [mention, use, buying], unprotected sex, sex outside/in the woods

→ a/n: kinktober

Now technically you didn't actually need more weed, you had bought enough last time to last you the week. But god did you really badly wanna see your dealer. Eddie munson, everyone else called him a freak because of a game club he had and the way he dressed. But to you he was just so pretty you couldn’t help it, you wanted to see him again, and you didnt wanna wait til next week. In your haste and dazed state daydreaming about your pretty dealer while getting ready, you space out and forget the most important thing. Your stupid money. It was a rookie mistake that you hadn't made sense the very first time you bought from Eddie. You were so nervous that remembering to bring your money left your head. He was so sweet about it, a small smirk on his face as he handed it to you anyway. “It’s on the house, first time customer and all, hands down the prettiest too” he winked playfully at you and you think you've been smitten with him ever since.

You had found out later on, Eddie never gave anybody weed ‘on the house’ first time buying or not. You were still so lost in your head, excited to see him again that as you sat down at the meeting spot you had yet to realize you left your wallet on your dresser.

“There's my favorite customer” he beamed softly at you “I know I call you that but two deals in one week? That's a record for you” he chuckled lightly, his voice breaking you from your thoughts as he emerged from the woods. You smile coyly at him in embarrassment. Your thighs clench together slightly at the sight of him, he had ditched his usual hellfire t-shirt for a black hoodie, keeping his regular black jeans. His eyes lidded with a slight red hue around them, making you realize you probably interrupted him in the middle of his session. As he sits down at the rundown picnic table he sets his regular lunchbox on the table. The idea of him always keeping his drugs in an old metal lunch box was funny to you, and oddly adorable. But you’d probably find anything he did cute, it was getting harder and harder to hide the massive crush you had on him. The flirty banter back and forth between the two of you only intensifies it tenfold.

“Yeah I ran out a little faster than I thought I would” you cringe a bit at how easily the white lie slipped through your teeth. It felt oddly wrong lying to Eddie. He tilts his head in a way that makes you think he doesn't believe you. Before you can jump to your defense he’s opening the metal box and pulling out the lunch baggie of your regular order from him. You didn't notice the missing wallet until it came time to look for it after he had handed over the little baggie. You barely took a glance at it, tucking it in a pocket of the bag you brought that laid on the ground leaning on the leg of the table.

“Oh fuck…” you cruse under your breathe and start double checking all your pockets though you didnt have many with the outfit you had on. You even check the few the bag had. No wallet to be found.

”Left the money at home huh?” He questioned, cocking an eyebrow at your frantic searching of your clothes. In defeat after remembering it was last sitting on top of your dresser you sigh. “Yeah.. fuck im sorry Ed’s” you pout slightly, you were always good about remembering it. You’d even slip him cute, sometimes flirty little notes with the money for him to find when he’d get home. Back to being lost in your head you don't hear him getting up or coming around to sit next to you on your side of the table.

“You know…” his voice startled you slightly, both the new unfamiliar tone to it as well as its proximity. He was leaning in closer, your body slowly on its own turning in his direction aching to be even closer. ”You could pay me in another way..” his hand was now drifting to rub over and up your thigh, his eyes flickering down to your lips.

You were fine just giving the baggie back you had enough left from the last deal or quickly running home for the money. But understanding quickly what he’s implying, you decided that his payment plan was a more enjoyable idea. You’ve been dying to kiss him, to get even just a little further with him than all the teasing flirty looks and words. Realizing you haven't stopped him, he finally leans in fully, his free hand coming up to grab your chin pulling your mouth against his. The kiss sparking a fire in the pit of your stomach as his lips molded with yours. With a small mumble, the words lost in your lips Eddie pulls you even closer, hands falling to your hips to pull you off the wooden seat and onto his lap.

In the heat of the moment your hips seem to have a mind of their own, absentmindedly rocking against Eddies. He pulls away slowly, leaving you with parted lips and lidded eyes panting softly. You could feel him under you growing harder by the passing second, he wanted you just as badly. Eddie felt like his skin was on fire everywhere your bodies were touching, his hazy and cloudy head from his high causing his senses to be heightened. Your own head still full of your fantasies and daydreams from earlier that you were desperate for something more. Running your hands down his chest they land on his belt and waist band of his jeans.

“Need more Ed’s…” you whine, your pupils nearly just as dilated and blown as his, though for different reasons.

“Oh fuck it” he grunts and starts frantically undoing his belt buckle and the button to his jeans. Helping him along you lift your body off him, hovering still as you help him pull his pants halfway down his thighs.

You were smart enough to wear a skirt though this was the last thing you expected to happen. You just knew Eddie loved peaking at your ass as you walked away, so you always wore them when it was warm enough to meet up with him.

Pulling the bottom of his hoodie up a bit and pushing down his boxers after his jeans, he finally frees his cock and god it was just as pretty as you imagined. A happy trail leading down to it, the tip pink and leaking, a patch of black hair nestled at the base. Thoughts of moments like this fueled more than a few nights with your hands between your thighs. His hands return to your body, hiking your skirt up your hips he gawks at your soaked panties. “Look at my favorite customer being such a dirty girl, mighta thought you planned this all out if I didn't know any better” he groans, running his thumb through your slick folds, over your underwear. “Wore a tiny little skirt and the prettiest panties for me, and look at em’ all soaked and ruined already” he chuckled and leaned in closer, his forehead pressed to yours, eyes fixed on yours. “I've barely touched you baby” he coos and rubs small circles on your clit through the fabric.

“Need you Eddie, please~” you huff out and gasp in pleasure at the little amount of attention he was giving your throbbing bundle of nerves. His hands on your body were giving you a better high than any drugs you had ever bought off him before, and were far more addictive. “Tell me dirty girl, what exactly does my favorite customer need huh? I always aim to please” his voice has a sweet yet taunting edge to it, his thumb not stopping its teasing circles. His head shifts and his lips are ghosting over your own now. “Especially you…” he whispers as though it was a secret and there were other people around, though you both knew there wasn't anybody for miles in every direction.

“I need you inside me Ed’s, need ya’ to fuck me so bad please” you whine and plead against his mouth as you try leaning forward to feel his kiss again. You let out a sharp gasp before you even make it to press your lips to his again. While you were begging, Eddie had pulled your panties to the side and with a sharp thrust he pushed all the way in to the hilt.

“Holy fuck” he hissed through his teeth as your welcoming heat consumed his cock, your walls already squeezing around him. He sets his hands back up on your hips, trying to hold you still to give himself a second to calm down. It was pathetic but he knew he wasn’t gonna last that long, especially not with how long he's wanted this coupled with all his nerves on high alert from the weed in his system that wasn't wearing off any time soon. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you finally lean all the way forward and kiss him frantically and deeply. Hips rocking against his, the thick vein running along the side of his shaft dragging along your walls as your hips rise and drop. Teeth clashing together as you make out, tongues sliding around and fighting for dominance. Your one hand travels up threading your fingers through his mess of hair.

“Just like that baby” he groans in the kiss, fingers digging into your hips as he does his best to hold out. You already weren't all that far behind him, his cock throbbing and pulsing inside you tightening that knot in the pit of your stomach faster and faster.

Eddie pulls away from the kiss to catch his breath, his eyes squeezed shut as his head falls back when your hand comes down and nails scratch over his exposed lower stomach.

“Fuck why havent we been doin’ this every time you buy from me huh?, feel s’good” he grunts and thrusts his hips up to meet yours as you bounce down. Your ass bouncing off his thighs making an obscene and filthy slapping noise that drowns out the melodic sounds of nature. “Screw money baby, just want this pussy as payment instead. Want it all the time god~” he rambled off as you continued riding him, your hips moving fast and frenziedly chasing your high.

“Gonna- fuck im gonna cum Ed’s, baby shit” you let out a wanton moan when he starts abusing your clit with his thumb, rubbing circles like before though this time with no barrier. “Cum baby, cum on this dick dirty girl come on” he eggs you on as he speeds up his thumb making your legs shake slightly and the bouncing and rocking of your hips falter.

With a moan loud enough you swore you scared birds away, the knot in your stomach snaps and your climax crashes over you. Your cunt squeezes Eddie's cock and as he watches your body shake as you cum, his own climax hits him like a truck. Thick ropes of cum spilling deep inside you.

After a few moments pass, letting the two of you catch your breaths and your high’s wash over you. Eddie speaks up. “You know, I was only intending the different payment to be a kiss” he chuckles softly, his cheeks flushed. Your eyes snap up to his, your mouth agape. “I- well” you try speaking but he cuts you off with a belly laugh. “Baby it's all good, this was much better payment. Pay me like this from now on okay?” He lowered his voice again, the softness making your body turn to mush in his arms that he wraps around you.

“And uh hey could you pull the baggie i gave you out again, there's something you missed about it” he sounded nervous all of a sudden. You give him a questioning look before leaning over a bit and pulling it out of your bag that laid on the ground.

As you pulled it out you noticed writing that you hadn't before on it. The bag read ‘wanna go out on a date with me?” In Eddie's chicken scratch version of a handwriting.

A big smile spreads on your face and you look back up at him. “Well?” He questions, a nervous edge to his voice still, did he really think you'd say no? “Eddie, what do you think the answer is” you motion down with your eyes to where your bodies are still connected, his limp cock still buried inside you twitches a bit.

“So it's a yes?” He smiles softly and leans up ready to kiss you once again, he never wants to stop now that he gets to. You give him a nod and chuckle softly.

→ a/n: yes this is the cliché ‘you can pay me another way’ typa fic lol. i just really liked the idea, the name is also a play on quid pro quo if you didnt get that.

[r-o-s-e-f-i-r-e]

idk i’ve been thinking for the last day about modern day corroded coffin, semi-successful in the local music scene, did a self-funded tour through six states last fall where they all lived in the van together and didn’t shower for four weeks, has a standing gig at the dive bar next to the highway and the strip club, they’re established, they have a small but dedicated local following, they —

“can’t play a WEDDING, are you fucking with me?” eddie says, when gareth shows him the text from his cousin who’s getting married in two weeks and who, as of last night, has no wedding band because they accidentally double booked themselves and gareth’s cousin had sent the deposit in late.

“i’ve explained to him so many times,” gareth says, furiously texting his cousin back, “we’re not that kind of band—”

except gareth’s cousin, instead of responding directly to gareth’s text outlining the musical thesis of corroded coffin or watching the youtube link gareth sends to the show last month where eddie got a black eye in the pit from someone in an inflatable garfield costume, just sends back —

“holy shit,” eddie croaks, looking at the string of zeros on the end of the number gareth’s cousin offers me to pay them in exchange for saving his ass and his wedding and his marriage, since his fiancé was demanding a live band. “that’s—”

“three months of rent for each of us,” gareth says, awed. “that’s buy actual fresh vegetables money. that’s go to the dentist money—”

“yeah, okay, give him my number,” eddie says.

so they spend the next two weeks practicing every white people wedding song they can think of. there’s no way they’ll be able to do, like, get low, tragically, but they can pull off the classics, especially after they bring chrissy onboard for vocals and keyboard. there are places where eddie draws the line — no fucking journey or especially insipid top 40 — but they can do some whitney. abba. fucking — mr. brightside. a lot of it is pretty simple, when you get down to it, “and people will be wasted anyway,” jeff reminds them. there’s an open bar at the six figure venue gareth’s cousin booked. hopefully everyone will be too hyped just hearing the opening baseline to i want you back to notice if they fumble anything hard.

rehearsal montage, chrissy takes the boys to the mall to buy suits montage (except for gareth who, like most transmasc dudes, already has a custom fitted and tailored suit ready to go in his closet; instead he makes catty remarks about brian’s tie choices.) chrissy makes eddie put his hair up and eddie makes jeff shave the experimental mustache he’s been growing and eventually the day of the wedding arrives and they load up the van and drive 45 minutes to the six figure waterfront reception venue.

they riff for about ten minutes while the whole wedding party makes their grand entrance into the massive tent set up on the lawn, ending with gareth’s cousin and his new wife dancing in, the whole crowd screaming and clapping. it’s cute, eddie thinks, vamping as long as he can while gareth’s cousin’s best man takes the mic and introduces the new couple and directs everyone to their seats for dinner.

and meanwhile: best man is frankly one of the hottest dudes eddie’s ever seen. he’s got longish brown hair that he keeps pushing out of his eyes, full lips, an insane shoulder to waist ratio, big hands. eddie sneak looks at him while they play a bunch of low key jazzy standards for people to eat their expensive dinner to. he’s sitting with his arm around the shoulders of a girl with shaggy auburn hair, and they keep leaning in to whisper to each other and giggle, so. oh well. but it doesn’t hurt to look, eddie thinks, watching the guy take his suit jacket off and roll up his sleeves and make a toast to gareth’s cousin and his new wife’s long and joyful marriage.

once most people have had their plates cleared away jeff turns to eddie and the rest of the band and nods, once, and while chrissy plays the opening synth chords to i wanna dance with somebody, jeff turns his front man showmanship deal all the way up.

it’s good. people are fucking hyped, so they throw themselves into it, feeding off the crowd’s energy, and almost no one is more hyped than mr. best man. he’s jumping up and down, his arms around gareth’s cousin and his wife. he knows every word to dancing in the dark (hot). when they transition into robyn’s dancing on my own he turns to the girl with auburn hair and points at her and screams. cute, eddie thinks, watching best man pick her up and spin her around while she downs her wine and shouts along. okay, really fucking hot, eddie thinks, when he finally pulls his loosened tie all the way off and unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt and eddie can see a hint of chest hair peeking out.

they slow it down for the first dance. it’s the leon bridges one everyone always does, but it’s perfect in jeff’s range, and there is not a single dry motherfucking eye in the audience. they do a couple more slow ones, throughout the night. best man dances with his girlfriend and then gareth’s grandmother and then with every child under the age of 10, letting them stand on his shoes while he twirls them around. how is this guy fucking real, eddie thinks, which of course is when best man notices eddie looking right at him and their eyes meet. best man looks a little flustered, at first, and then grins at eddie, right at him, before spinning the flower girl around in dizzying circles.

jesus christ, eddie thinks.

they’re closing out the night on the only other request gareth's cousin gave them: the one from the end of dirty dancing. jeff thanks the crowd, offers his congratulations to gareth’s cousin, and then goes right into it. except as jeff sings the first line everyone absolutely loses their shit, turning to best man and jumping around him and one of the bridesmaids. what the fucking hell, eddie thinks, keeping one ear on jeff and chrissy’s duet and one ear on the crowd piling around best man “—you guys HAVE to, dude, you’ve GOT to—“ but whatever it is he has to do is not immediately apparent to eddie. best man dances in a circle with the rest of the wedding party and auburn hair and the bride and groom, shout-singing along, and then during the build up to the second prechorus gareth’s cousin’s wife and her bridesmaids start pushing everyone to the sides of the dance floor, so there’s a long space in the middle, so the bridesmaid with curly dark hair is at one end and best man is at the other end and oh my god is he actually going to —

the bridesmaid runs and then launches herself at best man, who lifts her perfectly, right on cue at the peak of the second chorus, his hands steady on her hips while she floats her arms out in front of her just like jennifer grey. they hold it for a few moments while everyone loses their fucking minds and takes a thousand pictures. eddie actually takes his hand off his guitar for a minute. he thinks his mouth is open. he can see the muscles in best man’s arms flexing under his white button up shirt as he carefully lowers the bridesmaid back to the ground, laughing, his eyes scrunched up in joy.

eddie is maybe a little bit in love.

they close it out. the whole crowd whistles and stomps and applauds for them, which feels pretty good, eddie’s not gonna lie. as they start packing it up and high fiving each other and a couple people come over to ask if they have a card, if they’re still booking for next year or the year after (what?) gareth’s cousin comes over and hugs every single one of them, almost in tears, and then adds another 2k to the check he writes for them. eddie pulls out his cigarettes right then and there.

“steve, come meet the band,” he yells, when steve and auburn hair walk past. “gareth saved my whole ass, oh my god —“

“you guys were fucking incredible,” steve says, grinning, shaking gareth’s hand. “best wedding band i’ve heard in years —“

“they’re not even a wedding band!” gareth’s cousin shouts. “they’re like metal — moshing — thrash, i don’t know, LOUD—“

“whoa,” steve says. he pushes his hair out of his eyes and then turns that blinding smile right on eddie. eddie feels struck by it, wants to stagger back like he’s taken an actual blow. “cool, so you guys — play locally, or —?”

“oh my god,” his girlfriend says, rolling her eyes; steve elbows her in the side.

“i like your guitar,” steve says, gesturing at the warlock eddie’s still holding in his non-cigarettes hand.

“oh, uh, thanks,” eddie says.

“it’s a cool shape,” steve says, stepping closer, flicking his eyes down and then back up to meet eddie’s. there’s sweat gathered along his hairline, dampening the ends of his hair. behind him, his girlfriend coughs something loudly that sounds vaguely like slut.

eddie feels his eyebrows go way up.

“uh, thanks, shapes are. you know. shapes are great,” eddie says, nonsensical. he sees gareth shoot him an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye.

“can i bum one?” steve says, looking down to the cigarettes in eddie’s hand.

“totally,” eddie says. “let me just—“ he holds the warlock aloft and gestures to the open guitar case.

“sure,” steve says. he waits around while eddie hustles through getting his shit sorted out and then turns away politely while eddie has a silent desperate telepathic conversation with the rest of the boys, who roll their eyes and make their way over to the still open, still free bar.

where auburn hair is standing and talking to chrissy, putting a hand on chrissy’s arm while she laughs at something chrissy says.

hm, eddie thinks.

“so,” eddie says, walking out from under the tent with steve, down towards the water, awash in the moonlight. he holds out his cigarettes. “you like springsteen?”

[lovebugism]

i am so sorry but reader talking about robin right before making out with eddie is like absolutely the best thing i’ve ever read i’m obsessed i genuinely can’t wait for anything else in that universe that you do

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | god help the girl

summary: in which you come to terms with the fact that you're hopelessly in love with eddie munson. pairing: virgin!eddie munson x reader word count: 13k warning: phone sex, more discussions of shitty boyfriends, j*son c*rver name drop, talks of unhealthy eating practices, smut 18+ mdni! a/n: this ask has been sitting in my inbox for ages now, but i wanted to save it until robin made an appearance in the series! thank you, anon, for being so sweet! and for the few of you who've been waiting on me to finally post <3 hope you enjoy! xoxo

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

They only met once, but it changed their lives forever. 

That’s what the movie cover reads at least, but the words have long blurred into a jumbled mess at your tunnel vision. John Bender stares you in the face, but all you see is Eddie — boyish and brazen and scowling because he thinks it makes him look intimidating, but nowhere near as cruel as he seems. 

He’s certainly got the hair for it, much longer and curls far wilder than Judd Nelson’s measly set of brushed-back locks. He’s got the terribly animated personality down pat, too; the one that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or squirm in discomfort when it’s pointed your way. And the style’s a pretty fine match also, though you’d argue that no one sports a leather jacket quite like Eddie Munson does.

Wallowing in your boredom at the empty Family Video store on Main Street — where your best friends slave over mundane work with aching backs and a lingering sense of gratefulness that no customer has been in in well over an hour — you find yourself analyzing each character pictured on the front cover of The Breakfast Club.

Robin would surely be Allison, you conclude rather quickly, because their deadpanned glowers are eerily identical. They’ve also got this sort of atypical aura to them, too, like a dark storm cloud or the promise of a long night. But strangely it sparkles — strikes of lightning or a sky full of stars. It draws everyone’s attention to them; even when they’re desperately trying to hide in the very back of a room.

And Steve would be Andrew, not particularly because of his affections for this Allison-Reynolds-Robin-Buckley hybrid you’ve concocted, but because "popular guy with daddy issues" is a trope that fits him far too well. He’s way more likely to get detention for trying to look cool in front of his assholes friends than for anything actually malicious of heart. But that would’ve been years ago now. He’s not that kind of guy anymore. 

He’s soft and sweet — a Brian Johnson sort of soft and sweet, if you will. If Brian wasn’t the brains, but the sweetest dumbass anyone’s ever met.

You realize then, that Jim Hopper would make a mean Richard Vernon. He’s impatient to a fault, almost too stern at times, but never enough to make you genuinely fearful of him. You’ve found that it’s virtually impossible for you to take him seriously when he’s so cartoonishly angry. It’s a match made in heaven, you find, though Jim might take offense to the comparison.

And if Eddie is Bender, then that’d make you the Claire Standish of the bunch.

She’s dreadfully stylish, a bit stuck-up at times, and perhaps a little bit more spoiled than the average person; but it’s not like she ever claimed to be perfect. And you wouldn’t either.

You’ll take more pride in your wardrobe filled with pretty pleated skirts and flouncy dresses than your somewhat glacial disposition. And you might not be drowning in daddy’s money, but you’re certainly spoiled in other ways — if only in the employee discount at Enzo’s that got you wine for cheap and your connections at Family Video that meant free movie nights whenever you wanted.

The bad boy and the princess was a tale as old as time itself. It’s a fairytale you wouldn’t mind living in if it ended how it did in the movies — with a kiss on the cheek and an exchanged diamond earring in the calloused palm of another. A soft pink smile and a celebratory fist in the air.

But you’ve met your fair share of John Bender’s and none of them had been particularly kind to you, let alone had fallen in love with you. 

Maybe that’s because you were no Claire Standish. Never pretty enough, never mousy enough, never pure enough.  You try and dissect why you’ve never been successfully loved, and all the signs point to you, you, you.

You hope Eddie’s different. You need Eddie to be different.

“Something’s wrong with me,” you blurt out of nowhere.

Well, it’s not totally out of the blue for you. You’d been stewing over that thought since you got there — since you left the woods with damp underwear and the scent of you on Eddie’s fingers.

But to Steve and Robin, who’d stayed relatively silent and locked eyes only once after they noticed how abnormally hushed you’d gone, it catches them quite off guard.

Steve lifts his heavy head from where he mans the counter. His tired eyes leave the computerized catalog for the first time in forty minutes, and he has to rub at them with the bottom of his palms to see you properly. Meanwhile, Robin crouches at your side, taking returned tapes from the bin sitting next to her and placing them back upon the shelf you lean against. 

She blinks up at you, deep ocean eyes swimming with apprehension, like she can sense the spiral you’ve just about twisted yourself into.

“What do you mean?” she wonders, ever the supportive best friend, as she plucks Heather’s, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science from the bin and sets them onto their assigned rows in the Teen Drama section.

“Eddie won’t fuck me.”

Neither of them is particularly stunned by the unabashed nature of your admission.

Not only have they both fucked you at one point or another, but they’re your best friends — no one’s ever going to know you quite the way they do. It leaves little left unsaid between the three of you, with secrets you’ve all sworn to take to your graves. Steve once stuck a finger in his ass to see if he liked it (he did) and Robin sometimes gets off on her childhood teddy bear (rather ironically named Mr. Snuggles). 

So this? This was nothing. Especially in comparison to all the other shit you’ve confessed to them because god knows the whore of Hawkins has a plethora of stories to tell.

Steve is more shocked by the name that leaves your mouth than anything else. “Eddie Munson?” he repeats with furrowed brows, like he had to have heard you wrong.

You bring your chin to your right shoulder to look at him, then nod.

“Eddie… The Freak… Munson?”

You nod again, slower for him this time.

“You wanna fuck… Eddie Munson?” Steve reiterates once more, as though the idea was too appalling to be true. “Eddie Munson — The Freak?”

“Yes, Steve,” you huff in irritation.

His face contorts into a puppy-like confusion. A frown settles between his bushy brows and he cocks his head to the side, nose scrunching and his lip quirking slightly. He couldn’t look more disgusted if he tried.

“…Why?”

You groan and tilt your head back dramatically. “That’s not what’s important here, Steve. The better question is why won’t he fuck me?”

The boy’s lack of any actual assistance doesn’t surprise Robin in the slightest — his dumbfounded gaze and innate confusion are actually pretty on brand. It just puts all the burden on her, to help you wriggle out of the mess you’d tangled yourself into. 

It’s not like she isn’t used to it, though, nor does she mind doing it for you. She walks you through your emotions like a professional, squashing out all the burning orange embers for you before they have the chance to burst into flames.

“Well, what do you mean he won’t fuck you? Like… did he actually say that or does he just wanna, you know, take things slow?”

The latter would’ve been way too easy. Eddie’s always been nice enough to you. It’d make sense for him to want to stay unhurried and gentle with you, but those words weren’t exactly in your vocabulary. 

The first time you were alone with him, you were getting yourself off on his thigh after making him come in his jeans. The next time you saw him, after four days of him clinging to your consciousness, there wasn’t as much small talk so much as there were two of his fingers stuffed knuckle-deep inside of you.

You don’t know Eddie’s birthday, but you know how he likes to be touched — squeezed and not rubbed. You don’t know his middle name or how he likes his eggs in the morning or what his relationship with his mother is like, but he’s already made you come. Twice.

You are completely, utterly, and totally incapable of taking things slow. So it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be. So it had to be the other thing. The very scary, terrifying, boogeyman of a thing.

“I mean, I offered to give him a blowjob and he completely turned me down,” you lament in reply.

Robin and Steve wince. Like, physically wince. Their faces scrunch and their heads flinch from something invisible. Audible ooh’s fall from their mouths without them even realizing it, because you don’t get rejected. Ever. Especially not after offering to pleasure someone without much of anything in return.

They don’t mean to react the way they do. The visible shock that coats their features is involuntary more than it is anything, and it only adds to your fears.

“Exactly!” you exclaim.

“I hate to say it, but I think hell might be freezing over as we speak,” Steve half-jokes.

“Well, he was working, right?” Robin asks with raised brows. “Maybe he was just busy.”

“Sorry, Rob, but no guy’s too busy for a blowjob.”

“Real charming, Stevie.”

“Maybe he just has a small dick,” the boy concludes with a shrug.

“I felt his dick,” you shake your head almost immediately. The feeling of Eddie’s hard cock through his denim jeans, all rough and warm against your palm, hasn’t yet left you. “It’s not small.”

“Well, maybe he can’t get it up—”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem either.”

Eddie was rock hard when you left him, throbbing and aching and obviously needing some kind of relief. That’s partly why you’d been so ardent to return the favor, though the other half of it was purely selfish — you haven’t seen a more beautiful sight than Eddie Munson getting off. To deprive yourself of that masterpiece made you feel like you were starving.

You have a hard time imagining the raging hard-on just… dissipating after you’d left him. That means he probably jerked off in the back of his van and you missed it. And if he came, right after he promised everything was okay, that means he just didn’t want you to do it… right?

Steve seems to be caught in the same inner turmoil you’re currently stuck in; and for good reason. In all the years he’s known you, he can count on one hand how many times he’s had to turn you down. And every time, it was because he’d gotten back together with Nancy. It was never because of you. Not once. And sometimes he felt like it hurt him as much as it did you. 

As far as Steve’s concerned, you’re so out of Eddie Munson’s league that you’re not even in his fucking orbit — so the freak show, turning you down, doesn’t make whole lot of sense to him.

“Huh…”

“It’s me. It’s definitely me,” you conclude with the shake of your head. A bitter, almost hysterical laugh spills from your lips. “He thinks I’m fucking ugly or disgusting or something. It’s totally fucking me—”  

Robin completely abandons her basket of tapes then. She rises to stand in front of you, looking timid as she does so. Her raised brows form wrinkles on her freckled forehead and her blue eyes widen to reveal more of the whites of them. She looks like she’s approaching a wild animal. A bomb that’s about to explode.

“Okay… You’re starting to spiral, alright? So let’s just try and take a few deep breaths—”

You don’t listen to her. 

Actually, you do quite the opposite, as you begin to blurt every fleeting thought that crosses your mind.

“I’ve made out with nearly everyone in this stupid town— I’m pretty sure I’ve fucked almost half— and you’d think Eddie would wanna take advantage of that, the way everyone makes him out to be some sort of freak, right? But he hasn’t and at this rate, he won’t, and I just don’t understand why,” you ramble without taking in a single breath. “Usually being a slut is a huge turn-on for guys, you know? But what if Eddie thinks it’s gross? I mean, it is gross— I’m gross—”

You only stop for air when Robin takes your shoulders in both hands. She looks less apprehensive and more stern, as she forces you to look at her.

“Look. I love you, but you need to get a hold of yourself, alright? I know you’re not used to being told no, and I know how much it sucks, but shit happens. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ve ever seen that whatever is going on with Eddie has nothing to do with you, okay? And if it’s making you this upset, maybe you should just talk to him.”

“But I don’t wanna seem like I’m too eager, that’s gross—”

“Then find someone else to fuck,” she offers with her signature Robin Buckley half-smile. “I’m sure it would take you less than five minutes to find a willing participant.”

“Yeah, right here,” Steve jokes from the counter with the pathetic wave of his hand and a dumb grin on his lips. 

You don’t hear him over the voices in your head — half calling you crazy for letting a boy drive you this mad over nothing, and the other half bitterly affirming each of your deep-rooted insecurities.

Your face screws up, like the thought of being with anyone other than Eddie upsets you — it does upset you.

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?” Robin yells in your face, shaking you by your shoulders.

“I want Eddie!” you shout back without thinking. The words seem to spill out of nowhere. It takes you of all people by surprise. No one in this rat trap town would ever expect the whore of Hawkins to want to settle down, least of all the harlot herself. It’s strange; it’s riveting; it’s really fucking scary. “…Fuck.”

The brunette smirks, proud of herself. “Well. There’s your answer.”

“I hate when you’re right,” you mumble to yourself, pouting as she crouches back down again.

“I know.”

It was a terrifying thought, to know that you were head over heels for someone else. You try to come to terms with what that means. 

Sometimes you think you fall in love with a new person every day. A cute guy holds the door open for you, a pretty girl compliments your outfit — they never think about you again, but they’re on your mind for days. It was so easy to develop such meaningless infatuations, especially when you were bored.

But Eddie was different.

He was a nice guy. A nice guy that was sweet to you just for the sake of being sweet to you; not because he secretly wanted something in return. That made you fall for him at first, but then you just… kept on falling. Eddie Munson was an infinite void you couldn’t crawl your way out of even if you wanted to, even if you tried.

And that’s what frightened you the most.

Because if you really thought about it, you’ve only truly been in love a handful of times. And, sure, it didn’t work out — that was normal — but some of them fucking ruined you. 

You’re still trying to figure out who you are without all of the people that have broken your heart. You’re still fighting like hell every day to recognize the person you see in the mirror, while Billy Hargrove fucks off with a new girl every other week like he didn’t totally destroy you.

But, even still, Eddie was completely different. No one’s ever made you feel the way he makes you feel. And it’s more than the stupid heavy petting — it’s more than anything. It’s never been like this before; not even with the blonde mulleted asshole who ripped your heart to shreds. 

And you’re scared that if you get hurt again, you’ll never be able to come back from it.

“Steve, do you have another copy of Fast Times in the back?” you suddenly ask the boy, tossing him a look over your shoulder.

It’s your last ditch effort to rid yourself of the ponderous, gray doom and gloom surrounding you like some storm cloud. Your comfort movie solves all of your problems — or, at the very least, Phoebe Cates does — but it seems everyone else in town has developed a similar fondness for minute fifty-three of the film and got all the tapes off the shelf before you could get your hands on one.

“You know I keep on in stock for you,” he answers quietly.

He reaches below the counter to pull out a spare copy for you, and your heart swells with the rays of a thousand rising suns and the songs of every morning bird.

Steve told you some time ago that he could change. And back then, all it did was piss you off, because he didn’t want to change for the town slut — for the girl he put through the goddamn ringer. He wanted to change for Nancy. The princess bruised his brittle ego a little, and then he realized what an asshole he’d been to everyone, to you.

But as angry as it made you, you never believed him. “Once the King of Hawkins High, always the King of Hawkins High,” you remarked bitterly.

You wouldn’t say it to his face, for the sake of keeping his ego from inflating all over again, but you could tell he was really changing.

He was kinder, he was softer. He stopped caring about what everyone thought about him, about what not caring would do to his reputation, and started giving a fuck about the people worth giving a fuck about. 

Apparently, you were one of them.

“…Really?”

He nods with a subtle shrug. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the sweetest things he’d ever done for you — keeping your favorite movie on hand so you’ll always have a spare, knowing that it’s the only thing that gets you out of a deep, dark funk sometimes.

“Stevie… You’re gonna make me blush,” you lilt with a grin as you saunter over to him, hands innocently laced behind your back. “You need to be careful, Harrington. I’m gonna start to think you actually like me.”

He scoffs. “I do like you.”

“Yeah, when it’s convenient.”

It’s obvious your joke hits him where it hurts. It serves as a bitter reminder of the asshole he used to be, the douchebag he’s trying like hell to grow out of. He looks up at you with a sheepish, honey-tinted gaze before ducking away again.

A year or more ago it would’ve made you feel good, to know that you hurt him just a fraction of the way he hurt you. But you know that that isn’t the same man standing in front of you now, that he’d rather die than make hurt your feelings, and it makes you feel like shit for saying it in the first place. 

“Sorry,” you apologize with a scrunched nose. The palms of your hands dig into the edges of the counter as you lean against it. Your shrug. “It just kinda came out…”

The barcode scanner in his hand beeps as he passes the thing over the back of the tape — never charging you, just getting the movie out of the database.

“So, uh…” he starts before clearing his throat. He focuses his gaze on the computer and types on the bulky keyboard with the tip of his pointer finger. “You really like this Eddie guy, huh?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“And he’s not, like… a total freak or anything?”

You can’t tell if he’s trying to look out for you or if he just wants intel on what it’s like trying (and failing) to bang the local weirdo. Either way, it makes a smile tug slow at your lips as you joke: “Not in the way everyone thinks.”

“Jesus,” he winces at the obscenity of your words.

“Sorry,” you apologize again, though the laugh that bubbles from your lips after cancels out any hint of actual sincerity. “You don’t need to give me the talk or anything, Steve. I can take care of myself.”

“…Can you?” he half-jokes.

It makes you falter. “Well… With you and Robin and Hopper constantly on my ass, then yeah.”

“Just don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve finally admits, soft and suddenly shy as he hands the VHS over to you.

“That’s rich coming from you—”

He jerks back the tape before you can take it from him, leaving your hand reaching for thin air. His cinnamon eyes glimmer with a foreign seriousness, not completely unkind, but lacking their usual blithe. “That’s why I’m saying it. I just… I want you to be okay.”

Steve is one of the rare ones, you conclude right then in there — in the liminal emptiness of Family Video, beneath fluorescent lights that cast sharp shadows upon his already chiseled features. He was a mythical creature of a man, one who breaks your heart and does everything in his power to mend it again.

He hasn’t forgotten about what he did to you, not like Billy did, and he won’t. Not ever. He saw what he did to you and he never moved on from it, just matured enough to make sure it never happened again. And he won’t let another unworthy douchebag hurt you like he did. Not if he can help it, at least.

And he did try to warn you about Hargrove, to be fair. You were just the dumbass that didn’t listen.

“Well, me and my Phoebe Cates wet dream are golden, Pony Boy,” you promise. He hands you the tape again and lets you snatch it from his grip this time. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Stevie.”

Steve Harrington was right. 

The fleeting thought flashes across your mind for half a second, and you quickly realize that those words have never been uttered in the same sentence before now. But he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said about you, just before you left — you were completely, totally, absolutely, and implicitly unable to take care of yourself.

You nearly passed out in the bathroom after taking the hottest shower of your life, feeling too woozy to slap on anything other than moisturizer because you failed to remember to actually eat something that day. It wasn’t totally your fault, though; if anything, it was because of Eddie and all the butterflies he’d given you that made food the very last thing on your mind.

You half-heartedly dry yourself off, keeping your hair in a towel, while you slip on a cotton set of underwear you’ve had for way longer than what's likely acceptable. Damp and half-naked, you prance into the kitchen to fix Bowie her bowl of dinner before you feed yourself.

You fork a can of wet food onto a flower-shaped plate and let her eat on the counter — because you’re an adult now, and you can do that sort of thing.

The calico purrs while she feasts, but your stomach thunders with negligence. You peek into your mostly bare refrigerator and make a mental note to go grocery shopping when you get paid next week. 

With a lack of food and an even lesser will to cook something, you settle for the half-eaten chocolate bar you keep stashed in the very back of the fridge; kept only for the most special of occasions — when you’re reveling in your loneliness and trying to convince yourself that you can make it on your own.

It was practically the size of your forearm when you first bought the thing at some too expensive candy store in the city. Now it’s no bigger than your hand.

You eat the thing in bed, even though you know you’ll get crumbs everywhere and that it’ll make sleep agonizing for you — if you get any, that is. You’re bound to feel like a total zombie by the time the sun rises and the late-night sweet will likely make its appearance on your skin by then, in a red and raging blemish of a consequence.

You’ll feel empty and starved and surly, a snapping grouch instead of an actual person, until you get some actual food in your system.

And you’re more than aware of all of these things, but you don’t do a single damn thing about them.

You’re nothing but a sulking lump upon an unmade bed, lying in a pitch-black darkness that’s evaded only by the static-y television across your room, trying your best to pretend like you aren’t waiting for Eddie’s phone call. It’s hard to remember to forget him, though, when the movie you’re watching is practically a feature film of him and all the ways he makes you feel.

Spicoli and his terribly inebriated friends slur as they chorus “No shoes, no shirt, no diiiice” and you swear you can feel Eddie’s shoulder bump softly against yours as he laughs, hear every sound of his melodic chuckle in your ear that made you giggle right along with him. The low bass of Moving in Stereo plays in the otherwise empty silence of your bedroom, and every beat feels like the rhythm of your thrusts against his thigh.

Eddie Munson is all-consuming.

Even the thought of him feels physical.

Phoebe Cates all but undresses herself in front of you, but you’re stuck thinking about some guy who lives in a trailer park across town, deals drugs for a living, and can’t graduate high school. You’re a total fucking goner.

Your eyes flutter shut, and instead of the backs of your eyelids, you see Eddie’s trailer. Your lips start to tingle as they kiss his for the first time — hungry, yearning, needing. His thigh is pressed snugly into your cunt, denim jeans rough against your soft cotton panties, and you have to bite back a moan when he tenses every time you squeeze his hard, covered cock.

You can feel it, all of him, like he were here with you now. 

You wish that he were.

His fingers would feel far better, leave far more sparks of electricity in your belly, than the ones as you sneak through the hem of your underwear.

You try and take things slow with yourself, to be as gentle as he had been with you earlier in the woods, but it feels strange to treat yourself with so much tenderness. To touch your pussy like it’s the first time it’s ever been touched. Like it’s a beautiful thing you need to be sweet to.

Maybe you find it so foreign to be careful with yourself because no one has ever been careful with you.

No one, except for Eddie.

Your touch doesn’t rival his. It doesn’t even come close.

No matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut or how hard you try to pretend that they’re his fingers inside of you, you can’t make yourself feel as good as he did.

Your fingers aren’t as rough as his guitar-string-scarred ones and they don’t caress your clit with the same methodical care. They don’t fill you quite the same either, nowhere near as satisfying as his much thicker ones.

And you’re no stranger to masturbation, not by any means. Sometimes it’s the only way you can guarantee an orgasm for yourself when you’ve got a partner who cares so little about your own pleasure. But Eddie was different. Eddie cared — so much so, that he’s gotten more orgasms out of you than you’ve gotten from him, which is something you’ve never said about anyone else you’ve been with.

It’s rare and unfamiliar, a bouquet of all things refreshing and terrifying and strange, tied together with a pretty little ribbon.

You know that you can make yourself come. It’ll just take way too long to actually be worthwhile and won’t be nearly as mind-blowing as you need it to be. You won’t be left with trembling thighs and nearly numb legs — just a pitiful excuse for an orgasm that you could get from any one of your exes with half as much work.

What you need is Eddie. 

And you hate that. You hate how much you need him and you’re terrified of what that means.

As far as precedent goes, right when you start needing someone is usually when they start to leave. It’s like fucking clockwork most of the time — like everyone knows that you’re a ticking time bomb and eventually it gets too risky to stand too close to you. 

You’ll just have to keep Eddie at arm's distance. So he won’t see the grenade that you are.

You pull your fingers out of your wanting cunt, still slick and throbbing with a need that you can’t give it, when the phone rings.

The high-pitched shrill in the quiet makes you tense like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the damn thing. Your breath catches in your throat, first out of fright and then at the inclination of who waits for you on the other line.

Suddenly, you’re scrambling to collect yourself. As though there was any possibility that Eddie might be able to see you through the phone line.

You wipe your wet fingers haphazardly on the cotton of your underwear and sit up straighter from your ungracefully lazed position. Then you count to five — one mississippi… two mississippi… three — so Eddie won’t think you’re some kind of crazy person who doesn’t have anything better to do than wait for his call. 

So he won’t know that’s exactly what you are.

You lift the ruby red rotary from its hook at your bedside table and stretch the corkscrew cord to press it to your ear. “…Hello?”

“Yeah, hi. I’d like to order a pizza. Half pepperoni, half hawaiian.”

You roll your eyes at his dumb joke, even though the familiarity of his voice makes you smile. It warms you like a home-cooked meal, like you were high-pitched and starving before and now you’re on the soothing comedown of finally being satiated.

“Yeah, sorry, we’re closed.”

“Then why’d you pick up the phone, huh?” he teases back. You swear you can hear the grin in his voice. You didn’t know a smile could be so audible. It makes you wonder if he can hear yours — if you’re doing a real shit job at pretending. You anxiously twirl the cord with the pointer finger of your free hand.

“Because I’ve been waiting for you to call me all night, dummy.” 

Your answer is more honest than either of you were expecting. 

Eddie’s sigh crackles through the shoddy reception. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart. I’ve been working all night. I only got home, like, five minutes ago.”

You can hear the heavy exhaustion in his voice. “Rough day?”

“Kinda,” he answers with a shrug. You can hear the grating squeak of his mattress as he plops down onto his bed. “I dealt to one of Jason’s goons today… They always give me a hard time.”

“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to answer. 

Eddie’s been the brunt of every joke since seventh grade — people made fun of too big clothes, his too wild hair, his too loud music. But he took it all in stride, laughing with everyone else before volleying a harsher joke back in response. You almost started to think that he liked it. That, somewhere deep down, he was fond of all the attention he got from people who supposedly couldn’t stand him.

But it hurts to know that it hurts him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you did anything,” he assures with a soft laugh. He makes the bold decision to be honest then, too. “You, uh… You made my day a whole lot better, actually.”

You don’t know if he’s talking about the brief fling in the woods or the phone call you’re sharing now or if you particularly care either way. Your heart flutters like it’s been kissed by the wings of a butterfly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t know— I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. And, knowing that I was gonna get to talk to you again kinda got me through the day, I guess… And, yes, I am fully aware of how lame that sounds, but—”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his excuse, of why what he just told you totally isn’t lame, because you’re covering the receiver with your palm and turning to squeal into your pillow. A far more pathetic sight, in your humble opinion.

There hasn’t been a more fulfilling feeling than this one, to know that he’s been feeling the same way you’ve been feeling about him this whole time. It’s better than all the orgasms he could give you combined, to be loved so wholly.

“…You okay?” you hear his muffled voice ask after you’ve gone suddenly AWOL.

You press the phone back to your ear and nod like he can see you. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. The phone… fell— you said you just got home?”

“Uh, yeah. I met with Hellfire for a bit at school. We’re almost at the end of the Cult of Vecna, so they’re kinda on my ass about it. The little shits are obsessed.”

“Well, they should be. It’s a really good campaign, Eds.”

“Thanks to you,” he mutters. You can almost picture the glimmer in his button eyes and the shaky half-smirk he always looks at you with when he gets all shy.

“That was all you, Eddie Spaghetti,” you retort. “I still have no idea how you did it.”

“Did what?” he wonders, chuckling a bit at the nickname.

“Make something so beautiful out of thin air.”

Lying in the depths of his bedroom, blanketed by the darkness and bathing in streams of moonlight, Eddie feels his breath catch in his throat. 

For the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a joke to spew out on the spot. He’s speechless, just for a moment, a quick blink of a second, with nothing to say. Because, if he really thinks about it, that’s sort of what happened with you.

You were just his customer and he was just your dealer.

You were a loyal client and then a girl way out of his league that he developed a too big a crush on. Then you made him come in his underwear and washed the sticky stains out of the denim for him. Now you’re on the phone with him. You let him tell you all about his shitty day and apologize like you weren’t the only good thing about it — like you aren’t the only good thing, period.

It’s not the most cliche love story, nor is it the most beautiful, but it has his cynical little heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird.

Then, when all the mushy mess fades like fog, he finally thinks of something to say.

“It’s the witchcraft, sweetheart,” he shrugs to himself. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a devil-worshipping freak.”

“You know that’s not it, Eds,” you retort with the roll of your eyes.

You know that it’s hard, to be a metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks in the eighties — at the height of the Satanic Panic and all the delusional craze. That shit’s followed him since freshman year. Even still, it nips at his ankles like rabid dogs.

Maybe you were never naive or bored enough to believe all the rumors, but Eddie Munson was always more than that to you.

“No?”

“You can blame it on being a freak show all you want, but I know it’s because you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most creative guys I’ve ever met—”

“You must not know a ton of guys then, sweetheart,” he interjects playfully, like he couldn’t stand to hear you compliment him any longer. You’d give anything to see his blushing cheeks just now.

“…You’re kidding right?” you giggle in response.

“Sorry— that’s— I didn’t mean it like— It was— I was joking,” he stammers, frightened that he might’ve offended you in some way. 

It only makes you laugh harder. Both of you know you lost count of all the guys you ‘know’ a long, long time ago. You do imagine it’s somewhere near ‘a ton’, though.

“I know, Eds,” you assure with a contented sigh. “I was just teasing.”

“Oh.”

“The slut and the freak… Who would’ve thought?” you wonder all dreamily, like it’s a fairytale as old as time itself. That’s what it feels like, sometimes.

Eddie isn’t sure what you mean — who would’ve thought you’d be friends? Two people caught in that in-between stage of platonic and romance that’s complete agony and total, total bliss? A couple of kids falling in love—

“It’s sort of kismet, huh?” he answers.

“I think so.”

“So, uh… What are you up to?” Eddie wonders then, equal parts curious and eager to keep the discussion going. He’s frightened any lapse in conversation is going to lead to saying goodbye. 

He wants to stay on for hours, until both of you are fighting to stay awake, and then listen to the sound of your heavy breathing when you inevitably lose — like that isn’t the creepiest thing anyone’s ever wanted. He’ll fight Wayne about the bill if it comes to that, he doesn’t care, he just never wants to stop being this close to you.

“Do you want the real answer or the fake one?”

“Uh… Both?”

“Well, I’d say I was doing something super productive with my night, you know, catching up on all the boring adult shit, but then I’d be lying. And I don’t wanna lie to you, Eds,” you tell him with a teasing lilt playing at the edge of your voice.

Eddie swallows thickly, fearing he’d somehow been caught in his own lie — or rather, his half-truth. He moves on quickly, though not exactly full of grace. “Right. Yeah. Totally.”

“Honest answer is, that the only productive thing I’ve done tonight is shower, and now I’m in bed watching Fast Times and eating all the chocolate in my house, because I can’t cook for shit and I have nothing else better to do with my night,” you admit to him, picking at the thread of your comforter.

“Oh, don’t tell me I missed the ‘Moving in Stereo’ bit,” he agonizes.

“Just.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, sweetheart, but it sounds like you’re having loads of fun tonight.”

“I’m having a lot more fun now,” you assure him.

“Glad I can be around to make you laugh,” he retorts like he’s not all too happy to do it.

“You’re a total comedian, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“If I’m the jester, you’re the queen, sweetheart,” he promises, a grin evident in his voice.

Your breath catches in your throat something fierce; you’re almost worried that he’s heard it. His words pierce your heart, a stroke of lightning or a blade of steel. He’s joking, but it’s so strangely profound, the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to you and it’s dripping in sarcasm. 

It’s sort of Eddie’s love language, you’ve come to understand, to say something so sweet but coated in venom to make it sour again. It makes you feel special, loved, almost.

A fire builds behind your rib cage, sharp and distant and all-consuming.

“Are you alone, Eds?” you ask him suddenly.

The sudden curve ball in the conversation takes him by surprise. “Uh, yeah, Wayne’s at work right now… Why?”

“Because I want you to talk to me…”

“Oh?” is all he can say because isn’t that what he’s been doing this whole time?

“And I want you to say things that… maybe other people shouldn’t hear,” you explain slowly to him.

“…Oh.”

He’s heard about this only once before, the whole phone sex thing. 

It was from Andy in the back of Ms. O’Donnell’s class a year or more ago, though Eddie never called him by that name. Andy, in all actuality, was Jason Carver’s right-hand man, and he meant that in every sense of the phrase. Eddie was more than convinced that the guy was so obsessed with the blonde haired, blue eyed douchebag that he was giving him handjobs on the regular.

But it seemed the dick brigade couldn’t function properly without their leader and Eddie had the misfortune of hearing all the mindless bullshit they were spewing behind him — basketball, parties, girls; in true white bread fashion.

His friends gathered around him like he was telling some sort of secret, though it was loud enough for anyone in a three foot radius to hear. Eddie, caught directly in the line of fire, heard all about Chrissy’s older sister, Wendy, who was two years older and off at college. 

He’d gotten her number from some party he’d crashed. At least that’s how he told it, right before telling everyone that she swore like a sailor when she came and that she told him all the dirty things she wanted to do to him while she did.

“It was like her hand was on my dick, dude, I’m serious. That shit was crazy, bro,” he’d laughed after retelling the whole conversation in excruciating detail.

Eddie rolled his eyes to himself then, inwardly jealous that he’d never get to meet Wendy — or any other girl that would be willing to have phone sex with him, for that matter. His phone only ever rang for telemarketers or a rogue Dustin Henderson calling to annoy him.

But, here you are now, the most wanted girl in Hawkins, offering it to him on a silver platter. He wonders if you’ve done this before, surely you have — oh god, he thinks to himself, what if you’ve done this with Andy?

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you assure him after his unusually long silence. “I know you’re probably busy and tired and everything—”

“No! No, yeah, I— I want to. I totally want to.”

“Okay,” you nod. Petals of a flower begin to bloom in your chest as you lie back in bed, settling further into the mattress. The movie, already long forgotten, serves only as light and background noise. “So… What are you wearing, Eds?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs. 

On the other side of Hawkins, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, Eddie rises from where he’d originally flopped back onto his bed with the notion that it was going to be a semi-normal night. He props himself against his headboard. His fingers twitch at his thigh.

“Beat ya to it, Munson.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that it is very sexy, sweetheart. I’m wearing the same Hellfire shirt you saw me in, I don’t know, five hours ago — except now it’s got a rip in it because I totally ate ass on the way back to the van.”

He tells you this to make you laugh — it works — but he prays you don’t ask any questions. Because he got it while hurrying back to his van mere minutes after you’d left him, so hard he thought he was going to burst, with no more than seven minutes until his next client arrived.

 Thankfully, he only needed three.

“I love that shirt,” you respond in place of saying what you really want to — ‘I love how that shirt looks on you’ — how it clings to his lean torso and reveals his midriff whenever he stretches his arms over his head.

“She’s a lit-tle worse for wear now, sweetheart,” he lilts.

“I’ll stitch it up for you.”

“And I’ve got on a pair of boxers that are so old they’re practically see through because I’m pretty sure they used to be Wayne’s back in… I don’t know… the eighteen-hundreds.”

Eddie was right. It was sexy, though, for the exact reason they weren’t supposed to be. 

There was something so domestic about it all. You can picture him lying in his bed, in the most comfortable clothes he owns, in the one place he can feel at peace. Like a renaissance painting, something familiar and comforting and beautiful — fuck, you’d give anything to be next to him.

“…I think that means it’s your turn now, sweetheart,” he teases.

“Is it?” you mock in return.

“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’ over here.”

“It’s nothing, special,” you assure. Your eye flits down to peer at your own body — nothing special, indeed, you think to yourself. The lilac cotton set came from the grocery store downtown on the clearance rack you so often frequent. “I just have my underwear on. It’s very boring, I’m afraid.”

It’s not boring. Not to Eddie — the boy who prides himself on his insanely active imagination. He might not be able to pass english with his brain, but he can certainly create worlds with it, and it’s too easy for him to picture you. He imagines you, freshly showered, and smelling of the warm lavender-vanilla scent you always smell like, mostly bare and lazing upon a fluffy comforter.

He swallows thickly. “Oh, that’s— that’s really, uh— that’s really sexy.”

His thankful that you don’t seem to mind his poor excuse for dirty talk.

“It’s only because I was too lazy to get into actual pajamas.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah?” you press, smiling to yourself and caging your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Eds?” you wonder, made brave enough by his own admission.

“‘Course you can.”

“Before you called…”

“…Uh-huh?” he eggs on, intrigued at the way you trailed off, sounding suddenly shy.

“I was…” The thought of telling him what you were doing mere seconds before he called makes you nervous. It wasn’t like you were ashamed of touching yourself or anything, nor is the art of dirty talking lost on you, but something about Eddie makes you timid.

“You were… what, sweetheart?” he wonders gently, with a too audible grin.

“I was touching myself.”

That’s all you tell him. The words linger and hang in the air of your separate bedrooms and you cling to the silence — almost mortified and anticipating his reply. Eddie, meanwhile, feels like his tongue has swelled in his mouth and all the air has been punched out of his lungs.

“Oh...” he tries to respond without the breath to accurately do so. “…Yeah?”

“You know what Phoebe Cates does to me,” you try to joke.

His laughter crackles through the receiver. “Yeah. I kinda have her to thank for the other night, don’t I?”

“Give yourself some credit, Eds. The hottest guy in Hawkins was sitting right next to me, what was I supposed to do?”

“No way you think I’m the hottest guy in town,” he scoffs. “Everyone knows you’ve got a thing for pretty boys.”

“Pretty boys?” you echo with a giggle.

“Uh-huh. The Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington type, you know?”

“Well, I think you’re a hundred times prettier than he is.”

“Really?” he scoffs cynically, obviously not believing you.

“He wasn’t the one I was thinking about with my hand shoved down my panties,” you admit, immediately quelling his self-doubt. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Eddie clears his throat and then stammers, “I— I guess so— yeah.”

“Are you hard, Eds?” you ask in a breathy whisper.

And he just nods to himself at first, too stupid to answer audibly. He can feel himself stiffening in his boxers, only halfway hard now, but getting firmer by the second. Soon, he’ll be aching. 

“Yeah…”

“Can you touch yourself for me?”

Eddie would rather take a bullet to the chest than say no to you — at least, he figures that’d probably hurt less — so he slips his fidgeting fingers through the band of his boxers and takes his warm, stiffening cock in his hand. He squeezes himself just enough to make his stomach tighten.

“Want you to touch yourself, too,” he admits, neither asking or demanding it, just telling you.

“Yeah?” you tease.

“Well, I think it’s only fair, sweetheart.”

You can’t help but notice how breathy he’s gotten — how it shakes on the inhale and hitches on the out. He’s got his hand shoved down his underwear and you’re jealous of the fingers that get to wrap themselves around his cock. You wish they were yours. Both of you will have to settle, it seems.

“Whatever you want, Eds,” you answer playfully. 

You obediently slide your hand back into the warmth of your panties. Your fingers slot between your lips and collect the slick that had gathered there since before you’d even answered the phone. You bring it up to your clit, circling the pads of your fingers there until you twitch, then dragging them down to press into your opening. They slip in with ease. 

Both of you have turned into lovesick idiots, separated by so many miles, and missing the other most ardently. Lying in the depths of your bedrooms, basking in a velvet loneliness, building with a mutual pleasure with nothing but yearning hands and longing sighs.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut at the sounds of your low moans and fragile whimpers that crackle through the static — beautiful still, but certainly no match to the ones you were breathing in his ear just hours ago. 

His lashes dance across his cheeks as he tries to remember how you’d felt against his fingers, soft like velvet and delicate like silk, weeping and pulsating with need. 

He drags his hand from his boxers and lets the band snap against his pelvis. He spits into his palm and wets his cock with it, sighing as he tugs at himself without much friction.

“Are you wet, sweetheart?” he asks, though the words threaten to get stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” you whisper back like it’s some kind of secret. 

You work yourself open with your middle finger and slip your pointer in next to it without much trouble. Your walls flutter around them while you fight to find the spot the makes you keen. You’re only able to tease it, fingers not quite long enough to caress it completely. Your thumb keeps working at your clit, though, to make up for the lost pleasure. 

“I’ve been wet since I left you,” you admit through labored breaths. “Haven’t been able to… to stop thinking about you, Eds.”

“Glad I’m not the only one whipped over here, sweetheart,” he manages a laugh.

“No one’s ever made me come that hard before. Not just with their fingers,” you tell him mindlessly, dumb on pleasure, as you feel yourself climbing that peak.

“Really?”

“Never,” you promise, then whine. “Doesn’t even feel as good now… Can’t get as deep as you can—”

Eddie hangs on your every word as he works his palm up and down his stiff cock, squeezing at the base and swiping his thumb over the head with an expert hand. His face scrunches as his stomach starts to tighten, he’s close to coming — too close for his liking. He doesn’t want this to be over so quickly.

“You’ve ruined every other guy for me, Eddie Munson,” you confess, more than pleased to hear how it makes him whine. It sounds like it comes from the depths of his chest, the way it crackles low and needy through the receiver.

“Good,” he grumbles through his pants after he’s gathered himself all over again. “Don’t want anyone else to have you, sweetheart.”

This time you’re the one letting out the most pathetic of whines. It makes a smile flicker at the corners of his lips.

“You like that?”

It sounds so dirty, but you can tell by the sincerity of his tone that it’s genuine. So you answer with a longing truthfulness, a delicate “yes”entwined with a yearning moan.

“You just wanna belong to me, don’t ya?” 

Now, this is dirty talk. The teasing lilt of his tone — it’s almost degrading —  and makes you clench around your fingers. “Yes, please,” you whine, all but pleading for him now.

Eddie’s close, so dreadfully close, with a pleasure so tangible he could taste it. Your words make his cock twitch in his hold as the fire builds in his belly. 

Through your whole-hearted promises and wanting moans, he can hear the sound of your slick through the receiver. The static reception doesn’t do it justice, but the wet click of your fingers working you open was unmistakable.

A moan grumbles in his throat as he digs the crown of his head back into his pillow. “Holy fuck— I can hear you, baby.”

“I’m so wet for you, Eds,” you tell him through fragile slurs, like it wasn’t inherently obvious. 

You were wrong before, about wanting to hide from him. You couldn’t conceal your need for Eddie if you tried. The honey you drip, all sweet and just for him, wouldn’t let you keep it a secret.

“I know, baby, I know,” he nearly coos. “Are you— fuck, please tell me you’re close?”

“Yes,” you promise in a whine. Your thumb presses harder into your clit. It makes your thighs tense until they’re shaking.

“You rubbing your clit for me, sweetheart?” he asks like he knows. “I know that’s what you like.”

You whimper, working at the spongy spot within you as your hips buck off the bed. “Yeah.”

“Keep rubbing yourself like that for me, okay? Want you to keep going until you come for me.”

If he keeps talking to you like that, it’ll come a lot quicker than he’s prepared for. 

It’s too soft to be much of a demand, but you listen obediently anyway, rubbing at yourself though your sensitivity keeps building. It grows like a morning tide, rising and flowing like white waves on an ocean, stirring something fierce in the depths of your stomach.

“Eddie,” you sigh out his name, broken through staggered pants.

You hear his stuttering breaths, too. “Y—Yeah?”

“I’m about to come,” you promise through a whine when the familiar crescendo sends a shock through your body.

“O… Okay,” he responds, pathetically, then whines, even more so.

“Want you to come with me… Please…”

“Fuck— okay. Shit, sweetheart, I’m almost there.”

“What are you thinking about?” you ask him.

“Your pussy,” he answers without thinking — he’s not doing a whole lot of that anymore. “Wish I’d gotten to taste you earlier. Wanna feel you… fuck… Wanna feel you come on my tongue.”

“Holy shit, Eds,” you moan at his words, at the vivid picture they paint in your head.

“And you get so… God, you get so fucking wet. Just want you to drench me, baby.”

It feels good, to be complimented for something boys used to make fun of you for, to realize for the first time that’s it’s sexy — that you’re sexy — and that Eddie is more than happy to drown in you. The feeling almost rivals the impending orgasm that’s bound to hit you like a tidal wave.

“I’m thinking about how I coulda took you on that bench… Just, fucking, get on my knees for you. Shove my head between your legs. Hold your— shit, baby— hold your thighs open, keep you exactly where I want you,” he rambles but then cuts himself off to moan at his own words. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Wanna taste you so fucking bad.”

The moan you let out is pitiful. It leaves your mouth in the most delicate cry. 

No picture has ever been clearer than the one of Eddie between your thighs, your hands knotted in his hair to move him to exactly where you need him most and forcing him there. You can feel his fingers digging into your hips, his rings pressed against your burning skin, and the way your legs tremble on either side of his head.

“Yeah. Keep— Keep doing that. Keep moaning for me,” Eddie tells you. “I’m about to… holy fuck, I’m about to come.”

“Wanna feel your tongue in me so bad, Eds,” you whimper, egged on by the moan he lets out. “Want your cock even more.”

That’s what does him in, the assurance — the promise — that you want him just as bad as he wants you. 

He tightens his fist around his cock, achingly hard and raging a crimson at the tip, trying to imitate the way you’d feel around him. It’s not all that close, not nearly as wet as the honey you’d be dripping for him, but his imagination does the rest of the work for him. 

All at once, you’re on top of him, riding him for all he’s worth, your pussy threatening to swallow him whole. You’ve drenched him, just like he’d begged for, and that wet schlick noise still echoing from the receiver is the evidence of each of your assured thrusts over top of him. 

You’re still pleading for him anyway — for more, for his tongue, for his cock — and he wants so desperately to give everything to you.

“Oh god, baby—” he sputters. He grips the phone in a white-knuckled, fist trembling. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, baby.”

“Please, Eddie. Please come for me,” you plead over the low sounds of the forgotten film playing across the room and all the dirty wet sounds your pussy makes against your fingers. You sound like you need it, like you want his orgasm more than your own.

“Want you to come with me… Can you— Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Please?” It’s not dirty talk anymore. He’s actually fucking begging you and doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed to do so. 

He wants to hear all the pretty noises you make when you come — that initial cry that stems from the depths of your soul, the high-pitched whimpers that come when the sensitivity builds, and the whines that leave you when it ebbs.

He wants to hear it over and over and over again, like a worn cassette, and play it until the tape spins out.

“Yes…” you promise through a set of stuttering breaths.

There’s no talking when either of you come. Eddie’s long forgotten to talk you through it, but you would barely hear him if he had. The phone slips out of your hand when your grip slackens and it falls to the pillow beside your head.

You chase your orgasm full throttle, working through the crescendo and the strikes of lightning, focusing only on his muffled moaning and the pretty sounds he makes as he comes. 

The breath of your name whimpered through a tight throat is what does it for you. Your body has hardly any time to warn you before you’re gushing all over your fingers, twitching every time the pad of your thumb rubs over clit.

That cry, the one you always let out as you come — all wet and full of need — makes Eddie orgasm right alongside you. 

He swipes his thumb over his head again, collecting the pearls of precum gathering there and sliding them down the base to squeeze himself there like he’d been doing this whole time. He clutches harder this time, imagines it's your cunt locking him in a vice-like grip, and whines in his throat when he comes.

Several loads of it spill onto his cotton boxers, most of it gathering along the side of his hand and dripping down his knuckles. His breath staggers as he works himself through his high, praising you through the phone like you’re the one who brought him to it. 

“Fuck, baby… You’re so good… So fucking good.”

You’ve long settled from your own orgasm, still tingly and numb in some places, but not as gone as you had been just moments before. You still float on a cloud, getting lost as you stare through your window at the half-hidden stars sprinkling the night sky and feeling as though you could reach out and touch them.

You can feel the satin moonlight bathing you, and the jittery static of the neon of the television screen. You can feel everything and somehow nothing at all. 

“I don’t know how you do it, Eds,” you confess, hardly thinking about the words spilling from your mouth when you lazily bring the phone to your ear again.

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know… You always make me feel good. Even when you’re not here… Even when we’re not getting each other off.”

“I feel the same way,” he promises you, all mushy, even though he feels like a slob for wiping his hand off on his discarded jeans on his bed. “Just… wish you were here.”

“I wish I was there, too… Wish I could clean you up.”

Eddie’s eyes shut tight as his head tilts back to his pillow at the thought. “Fuck… You’re gonna make me hard again, sweetheart.”

You perk up suddenly as an idea sprouts like a flower in your head. A smile blooms on your lips, and you rise up onto your elbows, glowing with an unanticipated excitement. “How long would it take you to get ready?”

“…Get ready?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” is all you say.

“I mean, I— I don’t know. I figure if I put on some new underwear and a fresh pair of pants, I’ll be good as new... Why?”

“You wanna do something?” 

“Yeah. Sure. Anything,” he answers clumsily in place of saying, ‘Anything to not have to be without you.’

“I wanna go to Skull Rock.”

“Skull Rock?” he repeats. 

Legend has it, you and Steve made that place a local landmark. People have always said that Hopper caught the both of you one too many times up at Lover’s Lake and the Quarry, that you needed a more hidden place to fuck. So you’d stumbled around in the middle of the woods until you found a place the chief wouldn’t think to look for you.

You’d certainly found it. Then every other horny high schooler did too.

It’s the place you go to fuck, the most private place in all of Hawkins — hell, maybe even Indiana entirely for teenagers who can’t get the house to themselves. And as appealing as it sounds, to take you beneath a sky of twinkling stars, Eddie doesn’t want his first time with you to be on dirt or in the middle of the woods. That’s how all the horror movies start, don’t they?

So, needless to say, your answer takes him by surprise.

“Yeah! You can see all the stars really good from there. It’s too hard to see them so close to town.”

Eddie’s heart swells all at once at how sweet you are, like sugar poured directly onto his tongue. You’re not eager to be without him either, it seems, and that thought is as gratifying as it is thrilling. 

You’re an adventure he’s about to go on, without a map or a way out, a journey he’s happy to go into blind as long as you’re holding his hand the entire way through it.

It breaks his heart to hang up the phone. He practically begs you to do it for him, and it makes you laugh — a kind giggle entwined with a tease ‘you’re such a baby.’ It rings in his ears long after the receiver clicks.

Most of all, he hates all the stoplights that separate your place from his. He hadn’t known where you lived before now, not until you uttered it over the phone. He makes a mental note to figure out a quicker way, somewhere through the winding back roads that his old van can speed through to make the distance less daunting.

He pulls into your apartment complex, a quaint two-story thing on the quieter side of town, where the woods are plentiful and the street lamps far fewer. He turns his radio down out of respect for all your neighbors that he’s sure he’ll never meet and spies you through the neon orange porch lights. You shut and lock your door in quick succession, then scurry across the way to meet him.

Eddie leans over to unlock the passenger side door for you, already beaming, and finds you’re smiling too when you climb in next to him. The grin you shoot his way outshines the night sky and makes a bright yellow sun of the girl sitting in his passenger seat.

“Hi,” you’d greeted him, all shy like you didn’t just make him come all over his hand thirty minutes ago.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he volleys back like he always does, with that big ol’ smirk and teasing lilt as he cock his head to the side — using his playfulness to cover up the bashful mess you so easily reduce him too.

Neither of you had gotten particularly dressed up to see each other. All he did was put on fresh under and pajama pants. You succumbed to a smilier laziness it seems, haphazardly brushing through your half-damp hair, throwing on a too big t-shirt, and calling it a day. 

The cotton hangs low at your chest, stretched out and obviously well-loved. It falls well past your thigh, though you spend much of the drive anxiously tugging it down. 

It makes him wonder what you’re wearing beneath it. If you’ve tugged on a pair of shorts or if you’re in the bra and (undoubtedly wet) underwear you’d told him you were wearing over the phone. 

Eddie winds himself up all over again while you sift through the flimsy case of endless cassettes he keeps tucked in the glove compartment that never quite shuts all the way.

“How do you now have any ABBA tapes?” you wonder like it’s baffling, with an Iron Maiden tape in one hand and Cinderella in the other. Metallica plays lowly, nearly inaudibly, from the stereo.

Eddie laughs and darts his eyes from the darkened back roads to look at you, all smiley and bathed in moonlight, before turning back to the road again. “Uh, because I’m not a thirty-year-old woman. That’s the shit moms listen to.”

“Moms and hot girls,” you retort jokingly.

“Right, moms and hot girls listen to ABBA — of which, I am neither, sweetheart. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… Besides, it’s not like you walk around listening to, fucking, I don’t know— Van Halen or whatever.”

“Hey. I listen to Van Halen,” you shoot back.

He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s got what it takes!” you sing suddenly, not quite catching the rhythm of the song, but smiling anyway as you reach for his forearm resting on the center console. “So tell me why can’t this be love!”

“Oh, my god— that’s literally their worst song,” Eddie chuckles through the widest grin you’ve ever seen from him. 

It makes you smile big too, looking like an idiot who’s totally head over heels for the boy next to her. And of that, you’re happily guilty of.

“Not true,” you shake your head defiantly. “I love that song.”

“So that means it has to be good, right?” he retorts playfully, shooting you a teasing look, though his beam is more than sincere.

“Obviously,” you answer with a scoff that makes Eddie roll his eyes.

He knows he’s going to start to love it, though, if only because it’s the only Van Halen song you halfway know.

He’s going to hear that song on the radio and he’s going to want to turn it, but he’s going to remember this moment now — the one with you reaching for him while you sing the lyrics to a song he can’t stand, sitting pretty in his passenger seat, while the moonlight blanches your smile and the bare skin of your thighs.

Eddie Munson is going to love that goddamn song for the rest of his life.

He parks as close as he can to Skull Rock, knowing his van can’t work its way that far into the woods. The two of you are forced to walk the rest of the way, not exactly minding it, though Eddie’s incessantly worried you’re going to get cold. 

He’s already forced his jacket upon you, which you took with little fight. It warmed you almost immediately — with his cozy heat and musky cologne.

You make mindless conversation the entire way there, about music and then about his band and then what animal you’d want to be in your band if that were the least bit possible. Eddie chooses a sheep without any hesitation, though you’re confident that a penguin would be far cooler. 

You keep a careful distance between you, at first, like both of you are too scared to initiate the first move. That is, until you trip over a raised branch and nearly eat ass on the forest floor. Then Eddie’s holding your hand the entire way, keeping you close.

“If you wanted me to hold your hand, you coulda just said so, you know?” he jokes. “Didn’t have to go through all the dramatics, sweetheart.”

You try and yank your hand out of his grip in protest then, but he doesn’t let you. In fact, he pulls you closer and twirls you into a bear hug that you happily relax into.

He feels your sigh fan against his collarbone as you rest your head at the nape of his neck, his arms wrap around your shoulders as yours settle at his waist. He rocks you back in forth, in a moment that’s too almost sweet to make fun of.

Eddie finds a way, of course, “See?” he singsongs. “I’ll hug you like this all the time, if you want. You don’t have to almost kill yourself to get my attention, babe.”

“All I did was trip,” you laugh at his theatrics.

“Death by tree root… What a gnarly way to go.”

He holds your hand the entire way to Skull Rock. 

He doesn’t let you go once, not until you’re ascending the large boulders to plant yourselves at the very peak of them. He’s grabbing you again once you settle, though, and the two of you just sit there, for several long moments, just gaping at the stars that dance with life above you. They sprinkle an infinite void with enough light that manages to touch you, trillions of miles away.

There’s a subtle beauty in that Eddie never would’ve appreciated before now.

“Shit, babe,” he breathes through a whimsical existential dread. “You were right. The stars are really fucking pretty out here.” 

You love how much he loves this, to come to Skull Rock with you and count the stars. Any other guy would’ve had their tongue down your throat by now, stuffing your hand down their unbuttoned jeans.

But not Eddie.

He just holds your hand because he likes the feeling of his fingers entwined with yours, grasping tightly onto you while he gazes at an infinite universe — like you might float off right along with it.

His neck is stretched to gape at the night sky. You catch his adam’s apple bobbing every time he swallows. You want so desperately to kiss his milky white skin and sprinkle blotchy red bruises there.

His curly locks fall over his shoulders. He shakes his head to get his bangs out of his eyes while the chocolate buttons of them dart around the endless void.

He’s more beautiful than every star in the sky combined. You can’t be sure of how many that is, of course, but it’s a whole bunch if you had to guess. It makes sense, though, for the prettiest boy in the whole damn galaxy.

“Told ya,” you answer with a smile, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with yours. “You come out here often?”

You’re asking if he takes girls here and he knows it, but it’s not like you’re being inconspicuous about the whole thing. Eddie gauges it almost immediately, the subtle jealousy hinting at your tone — something no one else would’ve caught — and he squeezes your hand in reassurance.

He shakes his head. “No… Never.”

“Never?” you press with raised brows, like his answer shocks you.

“Ever. It’s not really my scene, I guess… But what about you, sweetheart? Never seen you around these parts before.”

You knock his shoulder again, harder this time.  “Shut up. You already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah…” he nods to himself, eyes darting back and forth as he reminisces on something. “You and Harrington, you and Hargrove. Hell, I think I heard about you and Jason one time—”

“That was a long time ago,” you argue. “Before I even knew you, okay?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs in defense. “You totally have a thing for pretty boys, sweetheart.”

“I never said I didn’t, Eds. Just that you were pretty, too.”

“Whatever,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes like he isn’t glowing red beneath the moonlight.

“You’re better than all three of them, Eds,” you confess with a sudden softness that catches his attention almost immediately. He turns his attention from the sky to look at you properly again. His breath catches at you sad you look — all beautiful and coated in shades of blue.

“…Yeah?”

You nod and drag his hand into your lap to fidget with his fingers. You trace the skeleton heart on his middle finger, subverting all your attention there because it’s easier than having to look at him now. “Better than all of them combined— not even just them, you know? Out of everyone. No one’s ever been this nice to be before.”

“Me neither, sweetheart,” he confesses with a morose grin. “The freak of Hawkins High attracts a lot of assholes, believe it or not.”

“Is it bad?” you wonder cautiously, like you’re scared to hear the answer. In some ways, you are. 

You hadn’t known him in high school, not really. For obvious reasons, you ran in very different circles. You never even had classes together. There was never any excuse to be close to each other before now, never a reason to become friends. So you didn’t.

You grew to know him as a freak, and he knew you as the town slut. Then somewhere down the line, he became your dealer and now… here you were. 

But you’ve graduated now and he’s still army crawling towards a diploma. You couldn’t save him from the hell of Hawkins High even if you wanted to.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs. “Jason and the dick brigade just wanna make my life hell, that’s all.”

“I hope they aren’t,” you respond shyly.

Eddie scoffs then shoots you a smile. “Oh, of course not. Look at me. I’m at Skull Rock with the most wanted girl in Hawkins. I’m living the dream, sweetheart.”

“So you don’t care?” you wonder, peering at him through your lashes, as you twist the silver cross around his finger.

“Care about what?” 

“That I’m a slut,” you laugh like it’s obvious.

Eddie doesn’t think it’s all that funny. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s not like it isn’t true, Eds,” you retort with a trembling smile. “I mean, that’s literally what people call me — most people don’t even care to call me by my real name anymore.”

“I don’t care,” Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit about what people say about you. If everyone cared about what everyone said about everyone, neither of us would be here right now… Because you’d think I was some devil-worshipping freak and I’d think you were too busy getting it on with Chief Hopper.”

You screw your face up immediately at the thought. The mere idea was repulsive. The asshole was practically your father these days. Jim Hopper was in that small bunch of available people you would never fuck, and happily so. 

“I’d never stoop that low,” you joke.

“I like you, how you are, right now,” Eddie promises. “Don’t want you to change a damn thing.” 

His brown eyes twinkle with a sincerity that rivals the stars above you. All of a sudden, you don’t care about a bunch of heavenly bodies light years away from you — you care about this man, the one sitting beside you now, holding your hand even though your palms have gone all sweaty.

It’s too good to be true — the way you looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he treats you. You’re scared that it’s a dream, that you’ll wake up and find that none of this was ever real. Or worse, that he was, and that he just didn’t care about you the way you cared about him.

It’s almost irrational. Almost. 

But it’s happened before. 

And it’s left you a scarred and mangled mess.

You shake your head to yourself and scrunch your face as you turn to look him. “Have you ever done this before, Eddie?”

“Don’t what?” he wonders with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know…” you shrug. “Any of this? With anyone else?”

He’s grateful he doesn’t have to lie. Or tell some clumsy half-truth for the sake of saving his own skin. He realizes tonight is perhaps the most honest he’s ever been with you, baring his pale soul beneath a silver moonlight. 

“Never,” he answers, unwavering, with a firm shake of his head.

“Really?”

“Really,” he nods, then swallows thickly at a gut-wrenching realization. “I’ve never felt his way about anyone else before.’

“Me neither,” you promise. 

It’s a tad more meaningful coming from you than from a boy who’s never had someone to love and to love him back.

You’re experienced, you’ve found what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve been with guys who have given you the world and guys that have ended yours altogether. And out of all of them — all of the assholes in Hawkins you could’ve picked — you’ve chosen the freak. 

You want him. 

You want Eddie.

The revelation makes him grin. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart, Eddie Spaghetti.”

[hellfirenacht]

This Machine...

Summary: Your birthday is coming up, and Eddie makes you a present. 

Tags: sfw, friends to lovers, slightly possessive Eddie and Reader if you squint, Eddie Munson x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k words

Master List

There were certain perks to being the school’s resident dealer. For one, Eddie had made very good friends with the old janitor that kept to himself, flying under everyone’s radar, including Higgins’. The nice perk that came with being friends with ol’ Mr. Greg was the fact that he had the keys to every single room in the school, which meant that Eddie’s lock-picking days were lowered considerably. 

These were good perks to have, especially since your birthday was coming up. Eddie had convinced the art teached at the beginning of every year to allow himself and his club to use the art room to make their Hellfire shirts. The art department had managed to get funding four years ago for a screen printing kit, convincing the board that having the ability to make shirts would create unity within the school. 

Frankly, Eddie thought that was a load of bullshit. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use it to his advantage when he could. So every September, Eddie would gather his little sheepies for an afternoon of arts and crafts, creating the shirts and ruining the ones they were wearing in the mess. Eddie would always try and make a few extra, just in case there were stragglers that needed saving from the conformity of Hawkins High school. Not once did he consider the irony of having his sheep in uniform.

In most cases, the art teacher was willing to work with him and let him in without much fuss. Of course, that was when Eddie was still a student. He had now been a proud high school graduate for seven months and the shock of not being in school had him spiraling for the first month before he found himself working at the Hideout again. Work, rehearsal, work, rehearsal, a thirty minute set at the Hideout if he was lucky, work, rehearsal. 

God, he missed Hellfire. That was the only part of school that he missed; a consistent Dungeons and Dragons schedule. 

Still, it wasn’t all bad and monotonous. Turns out that if you aren’t stuck at school 8 hours a day, 5 days a week you can go other places when children are at school. And when you go to places where kids aren’t, you tend to meet adults. 

Enter you. 

You had been working at the record store on morning shift, and had been for a few months now. Although you had more often than not worked weekends, somehow you and Eddie had eluded each other in the two years of you sorting through the various artists and ringing up customers. 

It had been a Thursday when Eddie met you, a fact he only remembered because the previous night had been the day that Bev allowed him to go on two nights in a row at the Hideout, which had been unheard of for Corroded Coffin. 

“Ain’t no one barely here anyways, Eddie.” she’d said, having long since stopped calling him Junior. 

He had been flying high, and an old drunk had even left him a tip on the bar, enough to drop by the record store and pick up an album he’d been eyeing for a while. You had been standing at the boxes, resetting them and reorganizing them for the hundredth time that week. It had been so slow that day that it was all you could do to keep yourself busy. 

W.A.S.P had been playing at a near whisper quiet volume, and when Eddie asked you about it you had just smiled, shrugged, and said that the owner only allowed you to play them on Thursdays when it was dead, or Sunday morning when anyone who’d get offended by the lyrics would be at church. 

The two of you had been friends ever since. 

A half hour of idle chat about music had turned into five months of late night talks on the phone, hanging out in Eddie’s van, swapping music back and forth, visiting each other during your shifts, and a tentative bi-monthly D&D session with you, and Corroded Coffin. 

Eddie would never know how badly he messed up your sleep schedule, going on late at night with Corroded Coffin when you had a morning shift, but it was always worth it to give him a sober audience member. 

The best nights though, were the times where you’d come over and just... hang out with him. You’d come over to Wayne’s trailer after your shift, or he’d pick you up from your place, and the two of you would just sit and talk. 

You never bat an eye at how messy his room was, and he made sure there was no food left out and would at least make an effort to clean out all of the beer cans in his room. Mostly you’d just sit on his bed and watch him play guitar, or spend hours talking about everything and nothing. 

As much as you enjoyed hearing him practice the same riff on his electric guitar over and over again, you had admitted to him that you always had a soft spot for the acoustic guitar that collected a little more dust in the corner that he’d pull out on rare occasions. 

THIS MACHINE SLAYS DRAGONS

You’d voiced your fondness for the instrument several times, enjoying the combination of Woody Gunthrie’s iconic guitar adjusted for your friends’ eccentric taste. 

Five months of friendship. Five months of hanging out with no pressure, no needing to look after each other, five months of feeling like a fucking human in this damn town. 

And one month of having the most embarrassing and awkward crush on you. 

Eddie had dated before, and he’d been interested in girls and some girls had even shown some interest in him until they realized that Eddie wasn’t someone to be fixed or saved. Eddie had even had sex before, but not to the extreme lengths that he’d found had been circulating in high school. 

Seriously, who had the time to come up with half the shit that this town thought he’d allegedly done? 

You found great joy in hearing about his spin in the rumor mill. Whenever one of you heard a rumor about the Freak, you’d compare notes and laugh about how stupid it was. Of course, Eddie put little effort into actually stopping the rumors, and now that he was no longer in high school it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. He’d still get dirty looks from people in town but he found that more often than not people would just leave him alone now. Jocks, nerds, freaks, cheerleaders; outside the halls of Hawkins High those words didn’t hold half the weight they used to. 

“So they’re saying that now you spiked the punch at homecoming?” you asked, laughing. “I must have missed that dance.”

“Yeah, so did I. I only went to homecoming once in school and that was Sophomore year.” Eddie replied, his fingers tabbing out a melody that he had been working on for a new song. “And there was no way I was able to get my hands on any alcohol that night.”

“Why would you waste perfectly good alcohol on a high school dance, anyway?” you laughed.

Eddie could listen to you laugh for hours. 

And it was because of this, that Eddie was now back at Hawkins High, while Ol’ Greg unlocked the art room on this fine weekend. It didn’t take much convincing, Ol’ Greg didn’t give a shit about Eddie’s reputation and never had, and for that Eddie had slipped the janitor an extra joint for his trouble as payment for letting him in. 

The room looked about the same as it had the last few weeks of school, aside from some new art projects. Other than that, everything was in about the same place. Eddie wasted a little time wandering around the room, looking at the different projects and taking in the scent of old clay and dried paint. Aside from the old drama room, the art room was the only other place in the school where he felt okay in this hellhole. 

It didn’t take much to get your shirt size. You always had a bad habit of leaving your sweaters in his van, so going to grab a blank hoodie in your size was the easy part. The design he was using was easy as well, and after so many years of making Hellfire Club shirts he could probably make this in his sleep. 

But he wouldn’t, because he wanted this to be perfect. So for the next few hours he carefully pulled out the equipment, found the right shade of red he wanted to use and painstakingly created the stencil, adding his own personal flair to it. The finished product was probably nicer than any Hellfire Club shirt he’d ever made. 

By the end of it, your new hoodie was done and he was sure that you’d love it so much that you’d never forget it in his van. 

With the finished product in hand he was able to lock up, thank Ol’ Greg, and make his way home. 

Now all Eddie had to do was give it to you for your birthday. The two of you had made plans to hang out that morning together at Benny’s for some birthday waffles or pancakes or french toast or whatever you wanted. He’d treat you, he’d been saving for this. 

Then he’d give you the gift, and you’d love it and then he’d suck it up and ask you out. He could do this. Jeff swore to Eddie up and down that you clearly had feelings for him. Eddie wasn’t stupid, he’d noticed your flirting and had flirted back so many times. This dance between the two of you had been going on for weeks now, but it didn’t make it any less terrifying. With any luck, the note he had tucked into the pocket would also help him out. 

You were already at your usual booth when he arrived that Sunday morning. It was supposed to be a very quiet morning, Benny’s was never busy first thing on Sunday. So when Eddie walked into the diner to meet you, his stomach dropped as he saw the rest of his band already sitting with you. 

A chorus of his friends called him over, and Eddie, dejected, slid in the booth on the opposite side of you. You were on the end of one booth, seated next to Jeff and Zack, while Eddie took the spot next to Gareth. 

Eddie wanted to be pissed at the guys for ruining his plan, but then he saw the look on your face. You were thrilled to be around everyone and were excitedly talking to Jeff about the new song that he was learning. It was your birthday, your day, and if you were having fun, that was the important part. He did make sure to put your food on his tab though, he wasn’t going to let anyone else have that satisfaction. 

As the morning went on, Eddie had completely forgotten about the hoodie currently sitting in the small bag by his leg. He was only reminded of it when Gareth got up to go pee and Eddie was forced out of the booth, as his foot kicked the bag and you noticed it. 

Your eyes immediately lit up when you noticed the red gift bag and your smile widened. 

“Eddie, is that for me?” you asked, batting your eyelashes. “Did you get me a present?”

He didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone, that hadn’t been part of the plan. But he sucked it up and pulled the hoodie out and tossed it to you. Eddie could worry about asking you out later when the rest of his friends weren’t around. He’d never want to put that pressure on you anyway. 

“Yessss!” you grabbed it eagerly in your hands and unfolded the hoodie, noticing the design. 

This Machine Slays Dragons was splashed across the front, and on the front pocket was a small colony of bats, just like the ones on Eddie’s arm. He watched as your eyes widened, in surprise and delight, and felt a wave of relief wash over him as you eagerly put it on. 

“Holy shit, Eddie, I love it!” you said, and got out of the booth to throw your arms around him. Your lips pressed against his cheek, and for a moment Eddie felt like he was on cloud nine as he hugged you back, giving you a slight squeeze before you pulled away. 

“You always said you liked my guitar.” He said, shooting a look to his bandmates who were making kissy faces behind your back. The glare only egged them on. 

“It’s got your bats on it.” you said, looking down at the design, smoothing it out. “This is so fuckin’ cool!”

As you ran your hands down the design, you heard a faint crinkle in the pocket. When you reached inside, alarm bells went off in Eddie’s head and he quickly muttered something about needing a cigarette before turning on his heel and walking straight outside to his van. 

He’d completely forgotten the note that he had slipped into the pocket. You absolutely were not supposed to open that in front of everyone. Eddie leaned against the back of his van, lightly smacking his head against the door, the barely touched cigarette in his hand. 

“Eddie...?” Your voice made him go stiff, his head still against the fan. He took one long drag of the cigarette and exhaled the smoke before standing up straight to look at you. You were holding the note in your hand with a sheepish grin on your face. 

“Hey.” He said, not sure how to proceed. He couldn’t read your smile. Was it a sad smile? Were you going to awkwardly tell him that you didn’t feel the same but you could be friends? He could live with that, but it would really sting. 

“So....” you looked at the note and read the two words printed there in his handwriting. “‘Date me’, huh? I’ve heard you come up with the wildest descriptions for things when we play D&D, but the most you could jot down was... ‘Date me’?”

It was. Eddie had racked his brain for hours on what to say to you, but he couldn’t find the words he wanted to. Everything felt either too cheesy, or too stiff, or not him, or too casual. He was really banking on the hoodie to be more of a selling point than the note. 

“I thought it’d be cuter if it had just been the two of us this morning.” Eddie admitted. “Look, I get it if you’re here to respectfully decline. We can just be friends, I swear I won’t make it weird-”

“I’ll date you.” The words were firm and steadfast. There wasn’t a single waiver in your voice as you said those three words. You took a step closer to him and shoved the note back in the hoodie pocket. “Eddie I... I want to date you. I’ve wanted to date you for about 10 minutes after we met.” 

Eddie’s head lowered slightly and his eyes widened as he stared at you. “Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah.” you said. “A cute guy walks into a record store, knows about good music, invites me to play D&D and then becomes one of my best friends? Yes, Eddie, I want to date you.” 

Eddie snuffed out the barely touched cigarette and leaned in towards you. God, he was fucking clueless sometimes.

“You know... that hoodie looks good on you.” He said, trying to sound smooth. “It’ll look better in the back of my van.” 

You stared blankly at him for a second and then burst out laughing, your head thrown back. “No, no, nevermind.” you cackled. “I changed my mind. I’m done. We’re done.” 

Had Eddie not known you as well as he did, he might have taken that as a real rejection. But he knew that laugh, he’d heard it a hundred times over the past few months. 

He reached out and grabbed your hand and pulled you closer to him, you were still smiling wide when you looked up at him. “Seriously, Eddie? I agree to date you and you pull out that line?”

“Don’t get mad at me, Sweetheart.” He said. “You’re the one constantly leaving your clothes in my van. I don’t know why you’re laughing at my perfectly innocent statement.”

“Oh fuck off, Eddie.” You laughed. “You know exactly what you said and how you meant it. And maybe I wouldn’t have had to leave my clothes in your van all the time if you had asked me out earlier.” 

“And would you care to share that logic with me?” Eddie raised an eyebrow. Had you really been leaving things in his van on purpose?

“I had to mark my territory.” you said with a smile. “Can’t let anyone in your van think that you’re seeing someone else.”

It was Eddie’s turn to laugh and you wrapped your arms around his neck. “Ah yes, the most popular freak in all of Hawkins definitely has a line out the door of people wanting to date him.” he said, his hands finding your hips. 

“You’re laughing. I’ve seen you flirting with Ms. Robin’s at The Hideout and you're laughing at me?” you tried to pout, but you were holding back your own giggles. 

“Ms. Robins is a 75 year old woman who can drink everyone under the table.” Eddie pointed out. 

“See? How am I supposed to compete with that! I had to sacrifice my jackets to make sure no one would be asking you out.” you protested. “What else could I-”

Eddie had originally planned on asking if it was okay for him to kiss you first, but he knew that if he didn’t do something now you’d keep cracking jokes and this conversation wouldn’t go anywhere. You tasted faintly like your birthday breakfast, but Eddie quickly decided that it wasn’t a bad thing. He felt the faint push of your lips back against his, and he mentally kicked himself for not doing this the first time you two hung out.

“Happy birthday.” Eddie said, as he finally pulled back. 

“Guess I got my wish, and I didn’t even have to blow out any candles.” you replied, just a little bashful at the admission.

“You aren’t allowed to leave this hoodie in my van.” Eddie said. “You can leave any other jacket or sweater in there but not this one.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” you said, “But why this one specifically?” 

Eddie touched the pocket that had the bats that matched his tattoo. “Because how else will other people know that you’re seeing someone?” 

“Oh, you little shit!” you laughed. “Really? You think I’m weird for what I did when you basically put your logo on a hoodie that you know I’m going to wear every day?”

“Guess that makes us both freaks now.” He replied, with a satisfied grin. 

“There are worse things to be in a small town.” you decided, taking his hand. “So I guess this means you’re my boyfriend now. No take backs.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sweetheart.” Eddie crossed his heart.

You leaned in and gave him another quick kiss. “Come on. The sooner we go back in there, the sooner you all can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and the sooner that’s done, then the sooner we can leave. And if you play your cards right, Eddie, you might get lucky and see this hoodie on the floor of your van anyway.” 

“So, the line worked?” He smirked. 

“Come on, Zack is hiding a box of cupcakes.” you laced your fingers with his. “Dessert first and then second dessert.”

“And then elevensies dessert?” Eddie teased. 

“It’s my birthday and I will change my mind, I swear.” you cackled, walking back into the diner with him. 

And because he knew your laugh so well, he had a very good feeling about how he’d help celebrate your birthday when the two of you would finally be alone. 

Thank you @hellfiredarling for the hoodie! They made it for me for my birthday last year 💜

Divider by @strangergraphics

[gloomysoup]

todays edition of snippet sunday isn't really an actual snippet tbh but i haven't done much writing this week and i had a thought today. so this is what we're doing instead.

i know the exotic dancer/stripper steve aus have made their rounds lately (specifically thinking of @ladykailitha with this one) and of course i have to hop on the bandwagon. i was driving home today when i thought of this, listening to next contestant by nickelback (shocker, i know)

so anyway all i really have with this right now is omega!steve being a stripper in a popular club where alpha!eddie works. this could also be a mafia!eddie au to add some extra spice (because who doesn't love a good mafia au). eddie is obsessed with steve from the moment he lays eyes on him. the attempts at courting start pretty much instantly. steve entertains it, for a while only thinking about how much it would benefit him to have rich powerful alpha who desires him. maybe he'll get lucky and finally get the pups he wants, with the bonus of being set for life and never again having to worry about whether or not he'll be able to pay his bills. somewhere along the way, though, steve falls just as hard. it turns out that eddie is so sweet and dorky and adoring. he dotes on steve and makes him laugh and spoils him with more than just expensive gifts.

their relationship is established, and steve is still working. he honestly does love his job. most of the time, at least. plus, it's great exercise to keep him active (and eddie definitely isn't complaining about the added bedroom benefits) eddie doesn't stop steve from working. he would never dictate his life like that. but he is there every night, not far from steve at any given moment.

the thing about eddie is that he's possessive. he knows steve would never do anything to betray him, but he sees the way the patrons of the club look at him. steve is hot, and he knows everyone else knows it too. but again, he's possessive. he doesn't like others touching what's his. so when a patron gets too handsy, or says something that makes eddie's skin crawl a little, it isn't long before they learn their lesson. he's always there to swoop in when steve gets uncomfortable, and he's always there to take steve home at the end of the night.

it takes a long time for steve to realize what eddie's been doing. it's only when he notices the patrons have been a lot less handsy lately, and he's heard fewer comments, that he starts to get suspicious. then he notices that a lot of his problem customers have mysteriously stopped showing up. he confronts eddie about it, a little mad that he would go behind steve's back and make examples out of his customers. until he sees eddie's face the next time someone makes a grab at steve's ass. the possessiveness, the jealousy, the borderline fury. it all makes sense. and honestly, the way eddie's eyes darken and his face sets instantly sends a chill down steve's spine. he's dripping by the time he gets a spare moment, and instantly drags eddie into the back room and locks the door. obviously they fuck nasty about it.

that's all i have planned but the thoughts are swirling.

[steviewashere]

Let Us Cling Together As The Years Go By

Rating: General CW: None!! Tags: Post-Canon, Set in the '90s, Future Fic, Comfort No Hurt, Tooth Rotting Fluff, Sappy, No Angst, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Boys in Love, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Kissing, Steve Harrington Loves Kissing, Soft Steve Harrington, Soft Eddie Munson, Marriage Proposal Song referenced in the piece is "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)" by Queen. It's also used for the title. <3

💕——————💕 Eddie breaks away from him with a gasp. Even putting just a few centimeters of distance between them has Steve pouting, trying to come back in. “Hold on,” Eddie pants, “hold on, hold on, sweetheart. Lemme catch my breath.”

With a deep flush to his cheeks—(which is terribly fond)—Steve finally relents. One of his hands is rested on the side of Eddie’s neck, and the other on his hip. Thumbs tracing over skin, over the curled hem of Eddie’s Hellfire Club t-shirt. Even with space, Steve can’t keep himself away. Can’t help but keep himself attached, no matter how little, no matter how far away he needs to be.

“Sorry,” Steve whispers sheepishly, “I just”—

“Can’t get enough?” Eddie quietly teases. The smile on his face is small and soft, lightly amused. His eyes are half-lidded and glossy, the richness of his irises like the smell of aged paperbacks in a cafe-bookstore; they’re the heavy cups of coffee—completely black—that Steve drinks early in the morning to wake himself up. Just one look at Eddie makes him incapable of closing his eyes, he wants to take this in forever, wants to know every subtle thing that Eddie does. Like the way his tongue traces the inside of his lower lip, slow and thoughtful when he’s ravenous for something.

Steve isn’t sure what to do with that hunger directed at him. But he makes himself move, as if he could think to ever stop completely moving. Pulls back into Eddie’s magnetized orbit, rubs the tip of his nose alongside Eddie’s, and sighs contently. “Yeah,” Steve murmurs, “I can’t get enough of you.”

His lips are aching, spit slick, and warm. And yet, even with exhaustion heavy on his mind and deep in his bones, he lets Eddie devour first. Lets him sample the plushness of the lower lip, lets him lick and savor the inside of his wet mouth—even as it tastes like everything he’s had that day, even as it tastes like held back retorts that were kept away from dangerously stupid customers, even as it tastes like the long drive back to their apartment in which he sat in the driver’s seat wishing and hoping for Eddie to be next to him with that rasp in his own voice to sing the final track of Queen’s A Day at The Races. Even as his mouth tastes like the words “Be not gone,” sang with a mumble and the deepest sigh Steve could conjure from within him. He lets Eddie slobber, lets Eddie touch him softly on the insides of his wrists and in the warm creases of his elbows, lets Eddie love him the way he has always loved others. With deep infatuation, extreme curiosity, and head-first trust that could concuss either of them without a moment’s notice.

He doesn’t care, though.

They’ve been together for going on two years now. And they’ve only had sex a handful of times in all those months. Steve’s not sure what changed for him—whether it be that Eddie’s a little inexperienced, or whether it be that Steve’s just tired of giving his body and not getting anything long term out of it. But he finds that he doesn’t mind this. The saccharine slowness that ends his every waking day. The way Eddie is so eager to see him, even after all this time. The way he can expect to be treated as if nothing will ever separate them from the moment they met and onward. He knows, deeply and truthfully, that nothing will separate them—this is it.

It’s coming home. It’s being held on the sofa while watching a movie. It’s kisses to the back of his neck as he’s brushing his teeth. It’s getting his hair pinned back while he’s making spaghetti for dinner. Pulling down two mugs from the cabinet, Garfield and Boba Fett, and knowing what will fill Garfield’s smug face every morning. Writing out a month long calendar with their initials—E at Hellfire 8pm, S at Work 5pm. Tense knots being massaged by careful thumbs and a forever question, “Do you want chamomile or green tea?” Splaying palms on backs, scrutinizing for new moles, counting summer freckles, drawing ballpoint masterpieces for one another to admire in the mirror later. Putting on a Metallica t-shirt in the dark, putting on a red sweater in the dark; saying one another looks better that way, meaning it. Herbal Essence next to Suave strawberry—sometimes smelling themself on the other.

It’s coming home.

Steve pulls back after a moment, needing to catch his own breath. That same fond expression on Eddie’s face, half amused and completely in love. He’s still not sure what to do when Eddie looks at him that way. It makes him want to scream. Makes him want to run a lap through their narrow hallway, wake up the neighbors below them and shout about how loved he is—crazy eyed and foolishly grinning, knowing he’ll never have to wonder if there’s somebody out there who could love a person like him. Because there is a person out there and he’s syrup-sappy, soft in a way that his beaten up battle vest wouldn’t say.

When Eddie tries to dive back in that time, Steve stops him. Holding him in place with palms on either side of his face, handsome and doe-like all at the same time. Finds himself caressing his thumb on the edge of the silvery, aged scar that swamps the lower left of Eddie’s cheek, pinching the corner of his mouth—effectively making each one of his smiles endearingly crooked. He catches himself just admiring Eddie, but doesn’t make himself stop. Who in their right mind would stop?

“Eds, will you marry me?” Steve asks softly, murmured and measured, careful. He’s not afraid of the answer, whatever it’ll be. Even if it’s a solid ‘no’. Because they’ll have time, he assured that when they saved the world six years ago—when he watched Eddie recover, when he held his hand, when he soothed him through terrible physical therapy appointments, when he suggested they get away from Hawkins and move-in together, and when they tentatively started dating a short time after it all. When he let his heart beat out of his chest and lay in the center of Eddie’s palms, whispering for it to be loved, to be kissed, and to be cherished with Eddie’s touch alone—met instead with everything and words, too.

“It won’t be legal,” Eddie whispers in turn.

Steve shrugs. “Who cares?”

Eddie chuckles. Not nervous. Not tepid. Not denying. Fond. So terribly fond.

“Yes, baby,” is the answer. Eddie’s hands splay on the backs of Steve’s. Fingers curling to trace gently on Steve’s veins, reverent in ways Steve didn’t know a person could be. “You beat me to the question.”

“Good,” Steve murmurs. He leans in, pecks Eddie on the tip of his nose, the center of his lips. “Lasagna tonight?”

Eddie hums. He’s not thinking about it, Steve knows. Because the answer is always, “Fuck yeah, sweetheart. You want my help?”

“In a minute,” Steve says, “I’ve got something to do really quick.”

And they know this song and dance. Steve’s hands fall away from Eddie’s face, instead resting on the sides of his neck. He tastes Eddie, too. Because dessert before dinner is always the way to go. Besides, they’ve got time. He’s not worried. Not with Eddie.

💕——————💕

[scoops-aboy86]

🧠🪱Wiggly Wednesday🪱🧠

No one tagged me, I just had a brain worm on account of the @softsteddieseptember prompt “cheesy pickup lines” for this week. But this isn’t really an entry, just an outline that I don’t have the brainpower for right now. 

Steve is an actor who always gets what (who) he wants. He’s kind of been a fuckboy about it in the past, but his best friend and frequent co-star Robin is a good influence on him, helped him come to terms with and come out as bisexual and everything. 

Eddie is a computer programmer with a part time job as a barista, and has what he definitely feels is the misfortune to make Steve’s ridiculously customized latte. 

The latte isn’t foamy enough or something. Actually, it’s just that Steve has taken an interest and wants to get to know the cute barista, likes that Eddie doesn’t even recognize him from his movies at first. 

Eddie says something about his computer programming work, and Steve laughs and calls him a nerd, which does not go over well. 

Steve comes back most days whenever he’s in town, trying to salvage it, but Eddie is firmly convinced it’s unsalvageable, a nonstarter in the first place. No matter how disappointed he always feels on the days Steve doesn’t show, or how much he ends up telling Steve about his life in between rejections.

At some point Robin shows up at the cafe to let Eddie know she’s sorry he has to put up with her hopeless bff’s low-key stalking and that she’s trying to talk Steve into a long filming project in Europe to chill out, so he’ll soon be out of Eddie’s hair. 

Something something, idk, maybe Steve talked about Eddie to Dustin, who works in computers or something and needs a new programmer. Dustin reaches out to offer an interview while Steve is off incommunicado on set, totally Dustin’s own idea, Steve is just the reason he knows how to find the guy. Eddie gets the job purely on merit from that point and gets to quit working at the cafe, all his money problems are now solved. 

By the time Steve gets back, Eddie is close with Dustin and the rest of the kids, Hellfire Club style. They all think he’s the coolest. Also, they end up telling him a bunch of stories about Steve and how he used to be kind of a douchebag but has since grown into a really good dude. And even more recently (which Eddie eventually realizes means since he and Steve first met) has cooled it on dating around and ended up in a lot fewer gossip mags and tabloids, which has generally been pretty good for his mental health. 

Steve comes by one of their game nights and is caught completely unaware off guard. But he takes Eddie aside and apologizes for hanging around so much before. 

Eddie forgives him. Really, the worst Steve ever did was greet him with increasingly silly pickup lines and offer to show him a good time, only to leave with a shrug and his latte when Eddie turned him down again. Always tipped everyone at the cafe well, not just Eddie, and never made him feel like he expected anything because of it.

Steve points out that (*gestures the Party*) most of his favorite people are nerds, he’d just put his foot in his mouth like a dumbass that first day. (He does not mention that he used to get really defensive when people noticed/called him out on that, he’s come so far! Robin is so proud, even though he’s still definitely a dingus.)

Anyway, they start to part on good terms. Just before heading out, though Steve turns with a huge grin that Eddie recognizes and says, “Hey, since we’re starting off on a different foot now, let me introduce myself… My name is Microsoft. Can I crash at your place tonight?” 

Eddie stares at him, then laughs so hard that his face hurts. 

He finally takes Steve up on that date. 

Did I write all that up for the cheesy pickup punchline? Absolutely.

Do I wanna write the actual fic? Nah. So it’s up for grabs if anyone else wants to, just tag me so I can read it someday.

Tagging… idk, my permanent tag list I guess. 😛 I’m stuck in a car for 6 more hours (out of 11), gotta get this pasted in before I lose reception again.

@hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @irishvampireboy @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

[sleepy-steve]

Steddie sw au. I needs it. For the WIP title game.

🤩🤩🤩🤩

from the wip title game!!

ohoho my little secret project!! my steddie sex worker au!!

i've had this one on the backburner for A While. basically since before i even started posting fic this year. i'm so passionate about this idea but i really want to be able to do it justice so i'm letting it cook.

while i don't have anything solidly written, i have close to 4k in notes. everything from conflicts to soundtracks to various looks the boys will have bc this one is gonna span years of their lives.

basically it's a 90s AU about stripper steve and metal singer eddie who meet right before eddie's band takes off and becomes famous. they have an instant connection but steve is wary of falling for a customer and eddie is travelling a fair bit with the band. they keep meeting on and off between eddie's tours and continue to fall for each other but due to a variety of reasons they can't be together.

unfortunately i don't have a proper snippet for this one, but i do have some silly notes and a very very drafted scene from chapter 1!

eddie comes into the club after his band’s first big show in chicago

eddie is shouting a night for the band and small crew using a healthy chunk of the money they earned from their gig bc holy shit they actually made good money from it and had a sold out venue even! 

eddie is gay but still enjoys going to a strip club, he enjoys the stage shows and finds that strippers always have the most interesting stories to tell, plus he loves to shout for his friends to get dances 

the last thing he expects is a male dancer to grace the stage in a pale yellow lingerie set and platform heels with tanned muscly legs for days, swoopy soft hair, and the cheekiest smile he’s ever seen

it takes literally every ounce of his restraint to not hand over the entire amount the band made that night to that man the second he flashes a smile at eddie, but he does throw a decent stack of cash onto the stage

steve comes around after his stage set to thank eddie for tipping and to hustle his way into some more cash (part of the job babey!!) but actually finds this sweet little punk with big doe eyes, a huge smile, and a slutty little waist to be really super charming and actually fun to talk to

it’s to a point where he’s almost sad that the club is closing, but he won’t complain about the stack of cash he made that night (now he and robin won’t worry about making rent that month at least)

MAYBE the first night eddie is a bit drunk and accidentally asks steve to go out with him, or even worse, to marry him. lmao.

“i’m drunk” the voice croons. the beat kicks in. the spot lights flash on. the dancer’s head flicks back, hair jumping softly, long neck exposed, and holy shit?? that’s a Man. “but right now i’m so in love with you” the song continues. the dancer brings a hand to his face, slowly dragging it down his jaw, his neck, his chest, across a soft yellow lace bra. his body is rolling effortlessly with the sound of the music. the rolls start at his chest, travelling down his toned stomach, down his hips, all the way down to his clear platform heel. “and i don’t wanna think too much about what we should or, shouldn’t do” he takes his extended leg, dragging it underneath his bent leg, turning his body around, pole dragging across the back of his shoulder lazily until he’s facing the pole, back arched, ass sticking out, endlessly long legs stretched. his hips swivel back and forth in turn, and he brings a hand slowly up the pole, wry smile on his face. eddie is fully losing his mind and it’s like 15 sec into the song.

[siriuslysmoking]

The Blues | chapter 4

(The Year Everything Flipped Upside Down Masterlist)

—You know you can't hold me forever I didn't sign up with you I'm not a present for your friends to open This boy's too young to be singing The blues, ah, ah— -Elton John

“Hey, Steve.” Dustin and Max walk into Family Video. She’s alive. They’re storming in, looking like they’re on a mission

“Did you see this?” Steve questions.

“How many phones do you have?” Dustin says back.

“Someone was murdered.”

“How many phones do you have!” He pushes, raising his voice.

“Two, why?”

“Technically three, if you count Kieth’s in the back.” Robin adds.

“Yeah, three works.” Max finally speaks. Dustin swings his backpack off his shoulder and over the counter.

“What are you doing?” Steve says plainly, already knowing. Dustin pushes to his tummy on the counter twisting and sliding over the counter. “No, no, no, my tapes, Dude! What are you doing man?”

“Setting up base of operations here.” Dustin slides into the chair in front of the computer, quickly starting to type.

“Base of operations?” Robin inquiries

“What shit are you two in now?” Y/n spoke as Max walked around her, she didn’t notice that the redhead had walked around the counter -the proper way to get around the counter.

“Get off.” Steve motions to the computer Dustin’s still typing on, it looks as though he’s looking for customer data.

“I need it.” Dustin replies, not looking away from the screen.

“For what?” Steve questions.

“Eddie’s friends’ phone numbers.”

“Shouldn't you know his friends since they’re in the club with you?” Y/n butts in.

“Oh, Eddie, your new best friend you think is cooler because he plays your nerdy game.” Steve actually looks sad Dustin’s found another older friend.

“Yeah, we’re cooler, we’ve actually killed those things in your games, can he do that?” Y/n asks, “No? Didn’t think so.”

Dustin shakes his head, “Yes.” and then pauses, “I never said that.” he says in disbelief.

“Seriously, if you guys came on a monday you can play around here like toddlers, but it’s a saturday.” Robin’s cleaning up all the tapes Dustin’s feet had knocked over. “It’s our busiest day.”

“Look, Robin I totally empathize, but this cannot wait until monday.” Dustin’s now writing data on a clipboard.

“Oh my god.” Steve mutters, running his hands over his face.

“What calling all of Eddie’s friends is an emergency?” Robin asks, still putting the front counter back together.

“Correct!” Dustin raises his voice.

“Uh, Do you want me to strangle him or do you wanna do it?” Steve asks standing next to Robin but still in ear shot for Y/n to hear.

“We could take turns.” Robin speaks cheerfully.

“Can you fill them in while I do this?” Dustin speaks to max. She turns the trio behind them both.

“Fill us in on what?” Robin asks, turning to face the two younger kids. The sound of Dustin’s fingers hitting the keyboard is the only sound as Max goes quiet.

“Last night I went outside and I saw Eddie Munson, walking into his trailer with Chrissy Cunningham.”

“And that has something to do with us… how?” Y/n asks quietly.

“Later that night I heard screaming, it was Eddie, I looked out and saw him get in his van and drive away but when he opened his door to his trailer, I saw a body on the ground”

“He killed Chrissy?” Steve asks in disbelief. Y/n is quiet, she listens while she stares blankly at the wall.

“That's the thing, he was scared, terrified.”

“Cause he’d just killed someone.” Steve points out obviously.

“I don’t think so.” Max sighs, “If you had killed someone would you run away screaming and leave the body?”

“Well Eddie probably left the body because-” Steve was cut off.

“Not just body, Chrissy’s body.” Y/n doesn’t move her gaze from the chipping paint spot on the wall. “Chrissy’s dead? That’s what you’re telling us?”

Max pauses as she sees a small wobble in Y/n’s bottom lip as she speaks. “Yes. I believe so.”

“Oh.” she sniffles, “Okay.”

She doesn't say anything else as she quickly hops off the counter as she heads towards the staff bathroom, she almost doesn’t make it, the burning down her throat as she lowerss to her knees bending over the toilet and letting go of her breakfast this morning, so much for the toast.

Steve’s hot on her trail, pushing stray hairs away from her face, slowly rubbing circles into her back. He’s always been the first to comfort her.

Y/n is laying in bed, wide awake, she’s tossed and turned all night. It’s two in the morning when she gets a call from her phone on her night stand.

She rolls over and lazily pulls the phone to her ear. She waits for someone to speak.

–Y/n?

“Steve?” Y/n seems to sober up from her sleep quickly. “Are you okay?”

–Yeah, can’t sleep.

There’s a pregnant pause, she hears him sigh.

–did I wake you up?

“Nah, I couldn't sleep either.” she thinks for a moment “Do you wanna go for a drive?”

–yeah, I’ll be over in ten.

“See you then.” She hangs up and slips tennis shoes on, grabs her bag, and writes a note just in case someone wakes up and wonders where she is. She leaves it on her pillow and heads down the stairs.

She’s sitting on the porch’s steps by the time Steve rolls up into the neighborhood. She stubs out her cigarette on the pavement of the driveway before standing.

She see’s Steve lean over to unlock the passenger’s door as she draws closer.

“Milkshakes?” He asks as he starts to drive.

“Milkshakes.” Y/n hums in agreement. As Steve starts to drive to the 24-hour diner, Y/n starts to look through his cassettes, finding her favorite, Never for Ever by Kate Bush. Steve had bought it just for her on their late night drives, he wasn’t as into music as she was but he agreed with her that ‘Babooshka’ was a good song. Maybe not his favorite but definitely hers. The two of them could both agree on their love for ABBA and their songs, those were the most frequent songs played.

“Have you heard from Eddie recently?” Dustin asks on the phone, that’s the first thing she hears once she’s walked back into the main room, finally calmed down enough to walk. The TV’s playing Doctor Zhivago instead of the news, definitely Robin’s doing. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

“Eddie Munson.” Max’s head’s in her hands as she’s pacing back and forth with the phone to her ear. “Have you seen him?”

“Okay.” Dustin sighs in defeat. “Sorry to bother you.” He crosses off a line on a white board he’d written on with different names and numbers. All three, Robin, Max, and Dustin are on the three phones they have in the store.

“Reefer Rick?” Max questions to the phone. “No. Does thetis Reefer Rick have a last name? I mean it’s kind of…”

Y/n’s attention falls onto Steve who’s the only one doing his job, by the looks of it. But his pathetic attempt to flirt and pick up a girl looks as though it’s in vain, as he says “See you later… Alligator.”

Y/n just rolls her eyes as she sits down at the swivel chair behind the counter, fidgeting with her hands.

“Hey guys, I might have a lead.” Maax hangs up her phone, talking to the group, knocking Y/n out of her head. Robin hangs up her phone as Dustin swivels to look at Max from his position at the computer.

“Seriously?” He asks, smiling.

“Yeah.” She pauses, “Apparently Eddie gets his drugs from some guy Reefer Rick and sometimes Eddie crashes there.”

“That sounds promising.” Robin says, “Where does this Reefer Rick guy live?”

“See that’s the thing, no one knows. He’s more of a legend than someone that people actually know.”

“What about a last name?” Dustin questions.

“I don’t know that either.”

“Bet the cops know.” Steve butts in. Max asks what he means, “Cops. I mean if this Refer Rick guy is actually a drug dealer I guarantee you he’s been busted at some point.” Steve leans across the counter, looking at them all. “Means he’s in the system

“The cops?” Dustin asks in disbelief. “Really, Steve, that's your suggestion?”

“I mean I think at this point they should probably be filled in on what we know, what’s going on.”

“You think Eddie’s guilty don’t you?” Dustin gets defensive.

“W’whoa, I believe innocent until proven guilty, all the constitutional shit.” Max looks concerned for Steve. “I just don't think we should rule it out.”

“That’s precisely what we’re trying to do here to Steve.” Max counters

“And maybe we’d have a little bit more luck if you’d spent less time trying to find a girlfriend and more time trying to find Eddie.”

“Well someone has to attend to the customers.” Steve points out, motioning ton the store around them.

“Especially if they’re babes, right?” Robin winks at him.

“Hey, not fair, I attend to all customers equally, babes and non-babes alike. We’ve got a big selection in here, it can be super overwhelming for people.”

“Wait, Steve was right.” Y/n finally speaks.

“Thank you!” Steve laughs, “About what?”

“Rick being in the system.”

“We’re not going to the cops!” Dustin pleas.

“No.” Y/n stands and walks toward the computer, “He’s probably in their system but he might be in ours.”

“What?” Robin asks.

“I’m guessing drug dealers also enjoy a good movie.” she starts to type in ‘Rick’ in their data system. “Twelve Ricks, have accounts here.”

“That’s a lot of Ricks.” Max speaks.

“So let's narrow it down.” Robin speaks from behind Y/n, typing in something over Y/n’s shoulder. “Rick Alderman’s latest rentals are Annie and Dumbo.” She looks towards Max and Dustin. “Chance our drug dealer has a family.”

“Not likely.” Max shakes her head.

“All right. Rick Conroy.” Robin scrolls. “Sixteen Candles, Teen Wolf, Romancing the Stone.”

“No.” Max, Dustin, and Steve all say at the same time.

“Okay, Rick Joiner. Mask, Footloose, and Grease.” Y/n speaks this time.

“Nah.” they say again.

“Rick Kimbrough, The Blue Lagoon and Splash.

“Definitely not.” Steve laughs.

Y/n clicks on the next one, “Rick Lipton, Fast Times, Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams, Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke.”

They all laugh and look at each other as Dustin says, “Bingo.”

“Lipton?” Max asks.

“Spelled like the tea.” Robin says, reading the screen. “2121 Holland Road.”

“That’s out by Lover’s Lake.” Dustin says

“Middle of nowhere” Max points out.

“Perfect place to hide.” Robin speaks next.

“Looks like we found our Rick.” Y/n high fives Robin, they all grab their bags, rushing out the door, all packing into Steve’s BMW as Robin quickly locks up the store. The five of them headed up to Lover’s Lake.

—

—

I hope you enjoyed the 4th chapter! Reposts, comment, and likes are super appreciated! Updates every sunday!

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

Cabaret: How Hair and Makeup Create the Kit Kat Club’s Effervescence

by ANNIKA OLIVES

Details bring a story to life, but they’re all the more important in this current Broadway production of Cabaret. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall, this revival of the timeless musical is an immersive experience: audience members are handed a shot of cherry schnapps at the door and dinner-service seats surround the arena stage. A challenge with staging a show in the round is that there are no backdrops and minimal props, giving the cast fewer resources to set the scene. But this is where the creativity of Hair & Wig Designer Sam Cox and Makeup Designer Guy Common truly shines through. 

While Cabaret is set in 1930s-era Berlin, the designers were open to a more modern interpretation. “We tried to steer clear of what had been done before and look at this story through a different lens, taking inspiration from the period but not dismissing a modern take,” says Cox. 

“When creating the designs for this show, I looked to a variety of source material from the time to give the looks a grounding in history: the shapes of the brows, the placement of the blush, and of course, the lip shape,” adds Common. “But I imagined the audience being contemporary with the cast and viewing the show through a feverish, intoxicated lens.”

The show opens with our Emcee, played by a puckish Eddie Redmayne, standing center stage. His striking ginger hair feels synonymous with this revival’s branding, emphasizing the colorful quality of his character. “With (scenic designer) Tom Scutt’s sketches, we collaboratively conceptualized a look that felt right for Eddie,” says Cox. “ [We looked] at different tones of red against his skin that would work well with Guy (Common)’s makeup and shapes to suit his face.” 

Redmayne starts as the mischievous master of ceremonies of the Kit Kat Club, but his character is a shapeshifter, bridging reality and fantasy. During “Money Money,” he dons an army helmet and black-and-white mime-like face paint. He dances with a gorilla in “If Only You Could See Her,” wearing a clown suit, bright red lips, and a party hat, a little off-kilter. 

“The Emcee is a joy to design due to the multiple facets of his personality: from impish playfulness at the opening of the show to the stark red, white, and black of his Pierrot that perfectly reflects the Nazi undertone lurking beneath his grinning facade,” says Common. “Working closely with Eddie gave me so much insight into the way he viewed the character and allowed me to use that insight when customizing my designs for him.”

Sally Bowles (Gayle Rankin) also goes through a transformative journey throughout the show. When we first see Sally in a perfectly curled red bob, powdered face, and fluttery lashes, she’s the alluring—but chaotic—singer at the Kit Kat Club. By the end of the show, she’s still singing, but there’s a different tone to her voice.

“Sally is such a complex character. Despite her fervent insistence that she is going to be a huge star, there is an underlying melancholy and a deep-seated belief that this may not happen,” explains Common. “I wanted to start off with an almost mask-like opening look that slowly gets stripped back as we see more and more of the real Sally.”

Stage makeup is already highly pigmented, but the Kit Kat Club turns it up to full volume. Bright pink cheeks, glittery neon eyeshadows, and drawn-on black brows are staples of the nightclub scenes. “The Kit Kats are a motley crew of nightlife performers. I imagined them living a fully nocturnal life, never fully coming out of their stage looks, just adding on top of last night’s remnants,” says Common. “Something I was keen to impart on the cast [was] it’s good if the look is a little undone.” 

Also unique to this show is that wig caps become part of the looks, adding to the blurred reality aspect. “The idea behind the wig cap look was to make you feel like not only are you present at the Kit Kat Club, but you are also behind the scenes with the characters,” says Cox. 

Cabaret is already a memorable show for its political commentary, but the dedication to detail and character makes this production visually distinct. Through the high level of artistry and collaborative excellence, the Cabaret designers have managed to create a world you can’t help but lose yourself in—and much like the show itself, once you realize, it’s too late. 

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, at the August Wilson Theatre. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. For tickets: kitkat.club.

https://www.beautynewsnyc.com/city-pulse/art-culture/cabaret-how-hair-and-makeup-create-the-kit-kat-clubs-effervescence/

[tartarusknight]

you’re losing your memory - Part 1/3

It happened on a Tuesday. There was nothing special about this day. It was late August, and Robin had been enjoying her day off in the silence of her own room. It wasn't too warm, wasn't too cool, it was just average. She had plans to finish the book she and Nancy were reading, their own little gay book club. Well, she was going to read until Steve got off of work and picked her up. Then they'd go over to Steve's, and Nancy and Eddie would join them. Just an average day.

Robin wished it had been average.

Robin had been sitting on her bed when she heard it. The police sirens. She stood up slowly, unsure of what was happening, but her body was trained to react during moments of duress. She moved back down the stairs and grabbed the phone, dialing a number she knew by heart. It rang out. She rang Family Video again, but still no response. She moved and picked up her walkie, switching to the channel they had Dustin set up for the two of them. She whispered Steve's name until her voice grew to a scream, and she started to panic.

She's known Steve for over a year now, and they've called each other often. Especially after Vecna, as they both attempted to try and be normal. It never worked, but they tried. Yet time and time again Robin would wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of Steve's voice coming through the walkie or she'd be the one to call him. And not every panic call was about the Upside Down. No, some calls were Robin whispering about her fears of someone seeing through her and knowing her secret. Of losing all their friends just because of who she was born as. Or the calls where Robin attempted to guide Steve through the sexuality crisis that Eddie Munson had caused.

Some weren’t even bad. She had radioed him when Nancy had kissed her. Steve had when he heard back from the community college just the town over from the university Robin applied to, that he had been accepted. Or even when they wanted to talk about anything and everything. But no matter what it was, they always answered. The longest it ever took was 10 minutes when Steve had been in the shower and had fallen in his scramble to get to the walkie. She had gotten Nancy to drive the two of them to the emergency room as they whispered to each other in the back.

All this time, every single time they called or tried to talk, Steve answered. he always kept the walkie nearby, and unless Family Video was bustling with customers, which it never was. (And even if it was, Steve always uses the excuse to pick up the phone to get out of dealing with them.) And he rarely left the house if not to hang out with her. So, Steve should be able to answer.

She ran out of her room and grabbed the keys to her mom's car. Calling out a goodbye before she jumped into the car. Robin didn't want to learn how to drive but after Vecna Steve and Nancy taught her and now she's extremely grateful. Robin bounced in her seat as she glanced at the walkie in her passenger seat periodically. She prayed his voice would come through the speaker, but it didn't. And she knew why as she saw Hopper's police car and an ambulance in the parking lot to Family Video. Robin jumped out of the car and ducked through the growing crowd of people, all trying to figure out what was going on. Her eyes danced around, seeing Hoppers' tall frame. She ran over and grabbed his arm quickly. The man jumped, looking ready for a fight until she came into view. His eyes flickered to the store, and Robin's heart was stuck in her throat.

Her eyes followed his gaze to the cot being moved toward the back of the ambulance. She watched as a hand dropped off the side, completely limp. The watch on the wrist had her complete focus. She couldn't look away. She just stared at the watch. Many people could have that watch. With the same little woven rainbow bracelet tied to it because El made it for him. Anyone could have the same little triple-knotted thread. It didn't have to be Steve's.

The cot was lifted into the ambulance, and she raced over. Hopper didn't stop her. In fact, he followed right after her. She carefully looked away from the wrist and watched a paramedic place a mask over Steve's face like Steve couldn't breathe on his own. It was ridiculous, Steve breathed just fine. Hopper helped her up and said something to the two others in the ambulance that she couldn't hear over the ringing in her ears as she carefully grabbed Steve's hand into hers. But he didn't look in pain. He looked like he was sleeping, and Robin wished she was back in the Harrington house. Waking up next to Steve because she hadn't wanted to be alone, and Steve didn't want to either. How she had woken up before him for once and thought she had to be a lesbian cause if she couldn't love Steve then there wasn't a man out there she could love.

As she took him in, she couldn't find what was wrong. It was just Steve. But her heart was failing anyways like she already knew what happened. She couldn't tear her eyes from the peaceful look on Steve, one that hid whatever had happened. "You'll be fine," She whispered, and she forced herself to believe it. For she had gone to war with Steve, and he had been beaten into the ground over and over, but he always got back up. He never let them keep him down. Steve had helped with the Upside Down after being beaten up by Billy. Steve had gotten tortured by Russians and got back up to keep fighting until it was all over. He was almost eaten alive and still got up and helped with the fight against Vecna. He carried Eddie's limp body out of the Upside Down even though he looked ready to collapse. Whatever had happened, she knew he could get back up. He always got back up.

But as he was wheeled away and she was forced to stay in the waiting room, her fears only grew. She didn't move from her chair as Hopper sat down, not even when Eddie, Nancy, and Dustin scrambled in a little while later. Eddie kneeled in front of her, and she knew he was trying to comfort her. But how could she be comforted when the person she loves the most is hurt? Soon enough, she was pulled into Nancy's side, and they all watched Dustin pace.

She didn't think she even breathed until a doctor came out and called, "Harrington." Robin grabbed the one simple ring that had belonged to Eddie’s mom and slipped it on her ring finger. Eddie didn't even seem to mind as they stopped in front of the doctor. "Are any of you family?" He raised an eyebrow, and they all knew he knew them enough. It was a small town after all.

"He's my fiancé. Um, I’m Robin Buckley," Robin but in and the doctor's eyes grew. Dustin spluttered at the reveal, looking completely lost. After all, no one but her, Steve, Nancy, and Eddie knew that Steve wasn't exactly her type.

"Please tell me he's okay," She begs, not caring how Dustin reacts. Eddie places his hand on her shoulder and they stand there, a group of mismatched people brought together for this one man. Hopper stood behind them as if daring the man to say something. To tell them no.

"It wasn't anything new, I'm afraid. I'm glad whoever called it in at his job. If he hadn't come in a few weeks ago, this could've been much, much worse. But we've already discussed a plan with Mr. Harrington. He's awake at the moment, but very disorientated. He's not sure of the date but it's perfectly natural for his condition. We'd like to keep visitors to a minimum. So, one of you may follow me. Perhaps his fiancé?" The doctor spoke and Robin was beyond confused.

But she nodded and followed after the man. Leaving the other three up front. As she entered Steve's room, his gaze was lazy like he wasn’t completely there. “Mr. Harrington, this is your fiancé, Robin Buckley.” She looked over at him with an apology for lying only to see a different version of confusion on his face.

“Hey Stevie,” she said softly and he just blinked at her. Like he didn’t know her. It made Robin freeze.

She looked back at the doctor, "he's missing some time. But most of the time that's normal." The doctor stated and Robin felt the world melt away from her. She looked back at Steve, a Steve that didn’t know her.

Robin shook her head, "normal? This isn't normal. He should- this- he should remember me. I- I’ve known him for two years."

"Years?" Steve asks as the doctor speaks over him.

"Seizures can cause loss of time, but as I said, it's normal. But I’m afraid the path to remembrance isn’t as straightforward as we’d like. He might remember it all just to forget it again.” The doctor says like it’s not breaking her entire world apart. Like… it’s not crushing them both. She can see Steve’s face fall in the corner of her eye.

But it's the word seizures that makes Robin's heart stop. Sure, Steve had gotten hurt a lot. Maybe even a couple of concussions more than he should have, but he was healthy. He ate well and exercised even though it was in fear of being too slow in the event of another fight with the supernatural. Dammit, Steve was healthier than she was. And- and now he isn't?

Steve glanced over at the doctor who understood, heading out of the door. "Hey, uh Robin, I- I'm okay." He sounded like he was struggling to find his words. Or maybe it was just hard to talk to someone you should know but don’t.

But Robin was hurt. Hurt that her platonic soulmate didn’t know her. That he now believes they’re actually engaged. And she wasn't sure if she should say anything because she didn’t know this Steve. She moves to sit on the side of his bed but she stops. She hesitates and takes the chair next to his bed instead. She looks up at him and chokes on her words, “Please don't tell me you're okay when I know you're not."

Steve smiles and it's the tired one she knew all too well. "Yeah... but if I keep saying it, maybe we'll believe it." And it's so stupid that she laughs. He grins all dopey and it makes the tears fall.

She takes his hand and he holds it tightly. “What- How much time is gone?” She asks and the doctor looks up from Steve’s chart.

Steve clears his throat, “um. I- don’t-“

The doctor cuts Steve off, “He’s lost a few years. His last memory of November 1984.”

That hits Robin even harder. Out that door, we’re the people Steve grew closer to after 84. He became closer to Dustin in 84. She nodded jerkily, “could I talk to him alone?” She asked and the doctor gave her a look before heading out.

Robin felt at least a little better that it was just her and Steve. "Hey,” he says and it’s all soft. Like he knows he should love her but he’s not sure.

She sniffs and takes a deep breath, “Hey. Uh, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say, honestly.” She murmured and he nodded slightly. He looked so hesitant to talk to her that it made her want to scream.

“So… fiancé?” He asked and she looked over at him. He gave her a small smile at that. “Cool, cool, uh so,” and he was nervous. Then his eyes drifted down to the ring on her finger.

But then his brow furrowed. “I know that ring… how- isn’t that Eddie Munson’s?” He asked and her eyes blew wide.

“Uh… so um, yes?” her voice squeaked and his brow furrowed. She took a shaky breath. “How did you- oh never mind. I’m going to- I’m just going to trust that you're still my Steve even if you haven’t- we haven’t even met yet.”

His brow furrowed even more, “you sit behind me in class. Sure, I never spoke to you. But like, I can recognize your face.”

Which okay, what? “Really?” She asked and he shrugged.

“I mean sure, I asked you for a pencil just the other day-“ He stopped and just kind of froze.

She nodded to herself, her dingus was in there somewhere. “We’re not actually engaged. But um, none of us are actually family out there. And well you and I actually went to Indy a few days ago pretending to be a couple planning a wedding for free cake tasting. So I figured you wouldn’t mind if I said it. And I stole Eddie’s ring 'cause he’s out there too, he’s your friend. My friend. Lots of people think we’re dating but we’re not. We’re friends. Really good friends. You and Eddie along with another of our friends actually just got a house together. Well, I say house but it’s just an apartment.” She rambled and he just listened. No matter what version of Steve she got, he always seemed to listen to her.

She sniffed, “So, how about I give you a recap?" He looked relieved as Robin got started. She rambled on and on about what she knew from others about his senior year, before she started on Starcourt and their meeting. She quietly mentions how the Upside Down came back in 85 and how the two of them had gotten wrapped up in a Russian coverup which just made Steve look tired. He didn’t even look surprised, he just groaned when she mentioned that Dustin brought him into that too. Then she rushed over to the end and talked about getting a job at Family Video. How he and her spent a lot of time together at his place. How she took over the spare bedroom across from his. She talked and talked, but as it got to the last attack, she hesitated.

She couldn't hide the attack, not when Steve had the scars to prove it. But could she at least spare him some of the details? So she skimmed over Vecna, "The Upside Down did come back but El was able to finish it once and for all." She said softly and he didn't like it but he also didn't push for more. Instead, she gives more happy updates. Leaving the worst parts out. And Steve just listens quietly, asking her questions here and there. So, Robin did her best even if she was crying silently as she explained everything.

"Robin," Steve murmured and she leaned down, sitting next to him on the bed. "I'm sorry for worrying you."

She flicked him on the forehead, "Don't be. Just- I'll always worry so next time don’t make it a surprise?" She tried to demand but it came out too soft and too nervous.

Steve leaned into her, not out of the desire for her comfort but more because he was too tired to stay upright any longer. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. It… it’s nice that I have someone like you.”

“A friend?”

His smile was sad, “someone who cares about me.” Her words stuck in her throat and she desperately wished she could go back in time and give Steve a friend a long time ago.

She threads their fingers and tries to keep her tears silent as he slowly falls asleep on her shoulder. The doctor returned when he was out cold and did a few final checkups, along with a few tips on how to help him. She already knew that he had a pair of glasses but the news about his hearing aids was new. It surprised her that he went without her. But... she tried not to let it bother her. Even if she had to basically tie him to a hospital bed after Vecna. But it didn’t matter too much because she would be there anyways.

And when the doctor okayed more visitors Dustin, Eddie, Nancy, Hopper, and Joyce all made an appearance. With Steve still slumbering and her tear tracks on her face, they looked worried. Robin didn't let go of Steve's hand even though she got some looks at the ring. Nancy moves and takes her other hand, standing by her side as Robin gets ready to tell them the news. Eddie stays next to Nancy and Dustin while Joyce and Hopper take the other side of the bed. “Is he okay?” Dustin asks and his voice is so small.

Robin sniffles and holds Steve’s hand a little tighter. She wants his support in this. But right now, she needs to support him. So, she takes a deep breath and starts to explain it all.

Eddie takes it the hardest. Slipping into a chair like his legs wouldn't hold him anymore. But Robin understood. All of her time with Steve was gone too. Steve had nothing but her word of their lives together. No memories. Nothing but a familiar face from school. "He's okay but- but the doctor says he'll probably have more episodes because of this one. He- he hit the ground really hard and they, well they think that probably didn't help. But apparently, he's already started working on a plan with the doctor and he's been having small ones since spring break. He-"

Robin pictured Steve running towards her to help. His ax not doing much to stop the vines before they grabbed him. How he had been slammed into the wall across from her. How she had thought about dying. How if she could just die before having to watch Steve die, she would be happier. But they had lived. They lived but Steve didn't get away without permanent damage.

"He told the doctors that it happened the same night as the big showdown with Vecna. They thought it had to be because of the tremors. But I-" She shook her head, unable to find the words. Dustin looked so lost and so young. "But he's going to be okay." She said and she hoped they all could believe it. "We've just got to give him time. See if he'll remember on his own. I gave him a recap but... I left out a lot of details."

They all went silent before Hopper moved, getting out of the room. Joyce hesitated for a moment before following him out. Robin just sat there, holding onto Steve like he was going to slip out of her grasp. "Is- did he..." Eddie tried but he couldn't seem to find the words.

They sat in silence until Steve shifted, waking up. "Robin?" He groaned, pushing away from her. It hurt. it really did. They never pushed away from each other anymore. Not once they got comfortable with each other. After Vecna, all of their (admittedly limited) boundaries were just gone. She's even taken a shower with him. Granted they were running late to work and kept telling each other not to look but... she's seen everything there was to see about Steve, inside and out. They cuddled. They held each other. They didn't push each other away.

Still, she tried not to let it bother her. Even if she knew Eddie saw right through it. "Morning, dingus," she murmured and Steve huffed a laugh.

"So, we're best friends and you call me a dingus?" Steve questioned, his eyes not truly open yet. She took note of Eddie's hesitance, how he looked at the door like he should run, and Dustin's nerves, how he tapped his fingers on his arm in a fast beat.

Robin swallowed, "Not just a dingus, dingus. Your my dingus. The dingus." Steve laughed and finally opened his eyes.

He looked over at her but saw Dustin, Nancy, and Eddie behind her. He hesitates at the sight of Nancy, his eyes going back to Robin. An old heartbreak new and fresh in his eyes. And yeah… they had just broken up, haven’t they? Steve clears his throat, "Um, hey, dipshit." He says towards Dustin who moved fast, slamming into Steve. "Whoa, hey, it's okay. You're okay. I'm-"

"But you're not!" Dustin interrupted. "You're not okay! You had a seizure and it wasn’t even your first one. And you never once said anything about it. You just pretended everything was fine as you went to the doctor alone. You don’t get to tell me it’s okay because you- you’re not okay.”

Steve paused at that and he looked over at Robin before his gaze settled on Dustin. He pushed Dustin up, something the old Steve had done. One that wasn’t good with touch because he had been starved of it for so long. Her Steve never did that anymore. He hugged and touched freely. Never hesitating after Vecna almost got Max and Eddie. Steve had been freaked out over Dustin’s broken ankle too. He held the kid close and never once pushed him away after he realized how close Dustin had been to death. But this Steve didn’t have those memories. And he once again pushed them away.

Dustin let out this hurt sound but he let himself be separated from Steve. “I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything. But I probably had it handled. I’m not an idiot and can handle my own injuries, I always do.” Steve crosses his arms and he looks away from them. Robin blinks as she tries to think back to after Starcourt. How did Steve deal with the injuries the last time? She was sure that she and Dustin were always there, even Erica stopped by to check on him. Then she remembers her sobbing on Steve’s shoulder as they curled up in his bed after a nightmare. How she told him that she could hear him scream and tell them the truth and how she couldn’t do anything about it. How guilty she had felt… it was after that, that Steve let her help him get better.

“We don’t let you do that.” Eddie snapped and it was the first time he had spoken. “No way in hell. If we did, you’d be in the hospital for infection because you refused to take care of yourself. You don’t get to say that other people have it worse so you don’t have to take care of yourself. That won’t fucking fly anymore.”

And Steve just stared jaw slack. Robin distantly wondered if Eddie kept going on like that if it would trigger the sexuality crisis that shoving him against a wall in the boat house did. “What the fuck? I’m sorry, why the fuck would you get a say, Munson?”

Eddie’s hands threw up into the air, “Because I’m your friend! I’m your friend and even if you can’t remember, that doesn’t change. You sat by my bedside when I was in here so it’s my turn.”

Nancy nodded, “We’re right here for you Steve. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed, “Right. But you seem to be under the impression that I want your help, Nancy. I don’t. I- I don't even understand why you're here. I thought all I was, was bullshit to you.” Steve spit out and Nancy flinched back.

“Steve- okay I was wrong. I was very wrong to do any of that. I didn’t blame you. Honestly, I just took out my own issues on you. I told you that you didn’t love me and that… you were bullshit because I couldn’t say it to myself. I told you off for trying to support me and give me an escape. I didn’t want to ignore the bad I wanted to make it better. But all I did was make things worse between us. I really- I wanted to love you but I didn't and I took that out on you. I’m sorry,” Nancy says and they all stare at her in awe.

She took Robin’s hand and took a shaky breath. “You and Robin helped me honestly. I didn’t see platonic relationships for what they could be until I saw you and Robin. You helped me understand that while I liked both men and women. I only ever wanted to date women. That I didn’t get that same emotional connection with guys. And I’m sorry about that.”

Steve blinked at her. “Oh, um… wow. Yeah uh.” He seemed lost and kept looking between Robin and Nancy. There was a hurt in his gaze but not one she truly knew. Robin glanced at Dustin who looked shocked but like he was already on board with what was happening. “I- did I make-”

Nancy gave him a small smile, “Steve, dating you and then Jonathan was a good experience that I wouldn’t take back. I wish I could take back how it ended between us but… I can’t. So, I’m sorry. But I did enjoy it in a way, that I can barely wrap my head around.” She said and Robin gave her hand a squeeze.

He looks at the two of them and he takes a deep breath. “I’ve been told that Robin Buckley is my soulmate. Now, I haven’t been able to verify it but I swear to god if you hurt her, Nancy Wheeler, I don’t care I’ll hunt you down and use my nail bat until no one would be able to recognize your corpse.” He says and Robin splutters.

Nancy just smiles and nods, “Less vivid this time.” She says and Robin blinks suddenly aware that Steve had given her a shovel talk already. And this Steve, the one who didn’t even know her, cares enough to give another. Then she realizes that Steve once again accepted her and who she loved just like that.

Her eyes watered and he look over at her. He leans closer to whisper, basically leaning his full weight on her. "I trust that- just don't let her..." He looked like he was trying to find the right words and she grabbed his hand once again. Squeezing it and sending him a smile.

She leaned close to him, "She grew up. Just like you did. I trust her. And well... you will too."

He looked a little wary but then he nodded. He smiled a little, “it seems that we do share a taste in women at the very least.”

Steve leans back once again and he’s got a soft smile on his face. Silently telling her it’s okay. It’s then when Joyce and Hopper return. “Oh honey,” Joyce says as soon as she sees that he’s awake. Hopper is standing a little awkwardly by the door and Joyce moves, kissing the top of his head. “How are you feeling?” She asks and this Steve is easier to overwhelm.

“I’m fine. I feel fine. I’m just tired. I don’t-” he huffs and crosses his arms. It makes Hopper smile though.

Hopper moves over and claps his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. Always tired and never anything worse.” He says and Steve seems to redden under the attention. “You act like I didn’t force you to stay at my cabin when you were healing from 84.”

Steve huffs, blowing his hair out of his face. “That was kidnapping and you know it.”

Hopper smiles, “Good thing I was the chief of police then.”

Steve looks up at him, “You aren’t anymore?”

“Nah, I’m retired. Got enough shush money to live comfortably the rest of my life.” He says and places his other hand on Joyce.

Steve’s eyes follow the movement. His eyebrow slowly rises, “yeah. And does this future have a woman in it?”

Hopper rolls his eyes, “Yes you were right and all that shit. But I’m not letting you rip into me twice.” The man huffs and Robin never saw this side of the two of them. Almost like father and son. She didn’t know that Hopper’s death and return had changed them so much. But she sees that Steve had definitely pulled back after Hopper returned. Maybe he had been scared of losing him again. Or maybe he didn’t even notice. All she knows is that it’s nice to see. And that she’s glad she didn’t mention the older man’s temporary death yet.

So, she sits there quietly, listening to the two bicker back and forth. She can see how Hopper seems to relax into the conversation and Steve is okay. It’s hard to watch. It’s so different. Sure Steve bickers with everyone but this familiarity isn't normal for those two. Not since she’s known him. And she thought she knew him. But apparently, he and Hopper were close before Hopper’s death. And Steve went to the doctor without her.

As it gets late, the doctor returns. He tells them that they’ll have to leave, however, Robin’s allowed to stay. But Steve looks over at her and he just shakes his head, “Can I, I’d just like a night to wrap my head around it.” He asks and she’s silently thankful. It makes her feel sick, that she wants to get away from the person she calls her platonic soulmate. In fact, it’s the first time she’s ever wanted it after they got to know each other. She gives Steve’s hand a quick squeeze before she lets Nancy guide her from the room.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, tears are welling up. “Robin?” Joyce’s voice is soft as she looks at her. A sob breaks free and Nancy’s fast to catch her as her legs give out. She’s crying for the person she knew and for the one she didn’t. She’s crying because she doesn’t know what to do. Her hands cover her face and she cries. And it’s like a bomb goes off. Dustin’s crying too and Eddie’s pretending he isn’t as he holds the kid. Hopper is standing taller, trying to keep himself in check. Joyce and Nancy with Robin as she chokes out sobs. Her hands are shaking and she’s not sure what she can do. If she can do anything but this.

“He doesn’t know me,” she finally says and it hurts to admit. “He doesn’t know me and I- I don’t know him.” And suddenly, the words don’t stop. They’re falling from her lips like rocks thrown into the quarry. Large and moving fast before they hit the water with a loud splash. It’s loud and filled with teenage angst. She feels so young and she wants Steve to tell her it’s going to be fine but he’s in there… he’s not in there. The others are helping her outside and the warm air of summer feels overwhelming. But all she can do is hold onto Joyce and Nancy a little harder. They help her to Nancy’s vehicle and she curls up in the front seat, tears not coming anymore but her feelings still there. She just stays there trying her best not to start crying again.

Nancy brings her home and Nancy’s parents aren’t surprised to see her. But they are surprised to see the state of her. She hears Karen say something but she’s too out of it to respond. She feels like a shell of who she was and as Nancy pauses to open her door, Mike steps out of his room. “Robin?” He asks and Nancy shoots him a look that Robin doesn’t bother trying to catch. But then Mike’s helping Nancy get her into bed and she curls up as soon as she touches the mattress. “What happened?” Mike tries to ask and Nancy pulls him out of the room. Leaving Robin alone for the first time since…

She blinks at her hands. Her fingers were longer than Steve’s. Not by much but Steve’s were thicker. They were steadier. She remembered going over to Steve’s for dinner one night. His parents were home for the first time in a few months and he had invited her to join them. She had learned then, that Steve had been taught piano. She had sat next to him on the piano bench after his mom basically demanded a show. She watched his fingers dance across the keys. He had tried to teach her a simple piece and she had laughed as her fingers stumbled. But they were able to play a shitty version of Heart and Soul. She had watched Steve’s parents dance together. It had been obvious that these were the people who raised Steve.

They hadn’t been perfect. Too caught up in their own world to realize their actions caused harm to others. Steve had told her how they were childhood sweethearts but with his dad gone all the time, he had started to lose that love. His mom had fought for it. Going off with him, proving that she was still the one he fell in love with. Their love had rekindled. But their love was never meant for any more than just the two of them. That they couldn't share that love for very long. That Steve... Steve would never get that love from them because it was used up already. That Steve's birth had almost ruined their relationship.

It hurt to hear and it had hurt Steve to explain. But he told her that’s why it was so hard to let Nancy go. That he wanted to have what his parents had. That he grew up seeing their love and the pain that showed at their partings. He had laughed, tired and bitter, saying he wasn’t meant for that type of love. Robin secretly agreed. Steve had so much love to give, it could never be given to only one person. It would always spill over to others.

Steve enjoyed being around people, the social butterfly to Robin’s wallflower. He would have a big family and never tire of them. But she didn’t say that, she just told him that he’d find love one day. It didn’t stop being possible just because he wasn’t in high school anymore. They had pressed their hands together and compared themselves to each other. Falling asleep in a tangle of limbs.

She choked on a sob at the realization that Steve didn’t remember that conversation. That conversation was gone and it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t remember telling her that nor would he remember her words. She was startled as Nancy crawled into bed. She laid down facing her. Robin reached out and pressed her hand against Nancy’s. Her fingertips could slightly curl over Nancy’s fingers and she let out a sob. She grabbed her hand and just pulled her into her arms. Holding her close and just asking her what she was going to do now. What could she do now?

Part 2 | Part 3

[porchlightfairy]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕖𝕨 𝔹𝕒𝕟𝕕

summary: Eddie joins a band

a/n: there is one more in this miniseries and then i'll be done with it. i've run out of ideas. thanks for reading <3

New Life Fresh Start masterlist

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Joey had invited Eddie to the club his band played at in the downtown area. And of course Eddie was nervous to go so he asks if you can come too. Joey was kind to Eddie and never pried when he got skittish about too many customers or cop cars outside. So he wasn’t too bothered about extending the invitation to you as well.

Eddie developed an anxiety about public places. After a certain amount of time in public he will start to get nervous and could possibly have a panic attack. It had only happened once when you were having a picnic in the park. You spent a few hours there when a kid’s birthday party started to ramp up. Eddie hides behind you and tries to bury his head into your back. That’s when you knew it was time to go.

Neither of you had a nightlife either so going to this venue was a new experience. “If we need to leave, we can, okay? I’m sure Joey would understand.” You assure Eddie , giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

You both got a drink at the bar casually sipping it as you wait for the band to set up on stage. In the corner of your eye you see Eddie making sure he looked alright as the night went on. You didn’t want him to feel surrounded or trapped. You took note of the exit and the routes to get there.

A squeeze from Eddie snaps you out of your thoughts. You look up at him confused, “You don’t have to worry about me.” He whispers before kissing your temple, “I’m okay.”

“I know, it’s just in case.” You mumble into your drink.

After a few minutes the band is supposed to start ut noody comes to the stage. Everyone starts to get antsy as they are forced to wait longer. “I wonder what’s going on?” You say to Eddie. He furrows his brows when he sees Joey appear among the crowd heading towards him.

“Eddie, man, I need your help.” He looks at Eddie pleadingly.

“What’s going on?” Eddie looks back at him with concern.

“Our guitarist can’t make it to the show. We need someone who knows the songs to play tonight.”

“And you want me to do it?!” Eddie’s eyes widened.

“You helped me pracitce.you know the chords. Eddie please.”

Eddie’s heart begins to race, he wasn’t sure he could do it. In front of all these people, under the stage lights, they could recognize him, hurt him, hurt you. “I don’t know if I can.” His lip quivers, he issued playing on a stage but it was too risky.

Joey deflates but nods, “It’s alright, man, thought I’d try and ask.” He heads back towards the stage. A little bit of Eddie wanted to follow him, say he changed his mind and get on stage to help his friend.

“Do it.” You say. Eddie looks at you, “I know you were thinking about it. Go ahead.”

“But I don’t want to leave you back here.”

“Then I’ll move to the front.” You smile, “It’s okay, you’re okay. Like you said. And who’s gonna stop you if you just stop and leave.”

Eddie laughs a little, “No one I guess. I love your brilliant mind.” He grabs the sides of your face and kisses your forehead. He then heads towards the stage . Unable to hear oer the people you see Eddie and Joey speak. Joey smiles and hugs Eddiebefore taking him backstage. A few moments later the band comes out ready to play.

Eddie smiles when he spots you now closer to the front. He doesn’t feel as nervous anymore. As the band begins to play Eddie is more focused on the guitar.  He doesn’t dare look up from his fingers. You look around to see the crowd is vibing to the music.

You then look at Eddie and smile widely. It was nice to see him on the stage again. He always looked like a natural under the lights.

After a few songs the concert ends and you and Eddie leave the club. Joey follows after, “Eddie, You really saved our butts, man. I can’t thank you enough.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.” He waves it off.

“Nah, man, it was a huge deal! We wouldn’t have played tonight if it weren’t for you.” Joey smiles wide, “If you ever, and I mean ever want to do that again hit me up.”

“I’ll think about it,” Eddie chuckles.

“You can think for 100 years, man. I’ll be waiting, i don’t care. Thanks Eddie.”

He then bids them both farewell and heads back into the club. The whole way home Eddie was grinning so big he was generating heat. “You looked great up there,” you say, “How’d it feel?”

“It felt great!” He laughs, “It was nice to know there was a full crowd.”

“Good,” You smile, “You looked great up there, you looked a part of the band.”

A pause, “Would you want to do it again?”

He shrugs, “Maybe…”

“Well Joey will wait a long time for the chance.”

Eddie laughs before facing the window, “I won’t make him wait too long.” He mumbles under his breath.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

One day, Eddie is sitting on your living room food with a guitar in his lap and a notebook in front f him. It had been a while since you had seen him in that position.

The first year you were in California, you had spent it establishing yourselves, going to school, working, and making friends. You didn’t have time for the little things at least that’s what it felt like. So, seeing him do what he enjoyed was nice.

You lay one the couch and watch as he goes over what he had already. You didn’t think a soft ballad was his kind of style but it sounded very sweet. When he finishes he looks at you, “It’s just for practice.”

“I dodn’t say anything.” You throw your hands up defensively.

“Well you were gonna.” He mutters, “It’s just something to get back into the groove.”

“Okay, so we’re grooving now.” You smile.

Eddie rolls his eyes and frowns, “It’s nothing serious.” 

“I believe you.” You say, “Play more?”

“He smiles, “How can I say no to you, baby?” He begins to play again.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

At work, Eddie works up the courage to ask Joey about his music. “How’s the band doing?”

Joey sighs defeatedly, “Not too good, our guitarist, the one that ditch us at the gig, apparently moved to D.C. for the punk scene there. Good for him, i guess. Just kinda wish he said something.”

“That sucks.” Eddie pauses, “Are you looking for someone new no?”

“We kinda have to before we an play again. I just don’t know where to start and it was hard to find the other guy…” Joey stops short, and turns his head slowly towards Eddie, “You sound like you are interested.”

Eddie shrugs, “Maybe.”

“Maybe as in ‘yes’ or maybe as in ‘no’?”

“Isn’t maybe the middle option?”

“No. Maybe is the lie you are telling yourself or the other person. So, which is it?”

“I am interested, but it’s a big decision for me. Being on the stage was a lot.”

“We barely get gigs like that. You don’t have to worry. We’ll do more underground show. Easy on the heart.” Joey smiles, “If you join that would be incredible. You’re so talented and I am sure everyone else would love to have you in the band too.”

“I’ll let you know my definite answer later.”

“Here,” He scribbles on a piece of paper, “The address where we jam. Come by! Please, Eddie, you’re the best player I know and joining the band would bring me pure joy, man.”

Later in the week, you drive Eddie to the address Joey had written. You parked just a lock ahead so Eddie could have a moment to himself. It had been a few minutes since you had arrived. “You don’t have to go now. We can come back..”

“I want to do this,” He frowns, “It just feels wrong. It should be Corroded Coffin, back in Indiana.”

“Do you think you should have left everything you loved behind? Even music?”

“No,” He scoffs.

“Then you’ll be okay doing this. I bet the boys back home would be happy to know that you never stopped playing.” You rub his back for comfort.

“I think they’d be happy to know I’m alive.”

“Then keep living.” You kiss his cheek, “Not just for them but for yourself.”

The tension leaves his shoulders as he takes a deep breath, “I don’t think I can express how much I love you.” He gives you a feverish kiss before leaving the truck.

You laugh before sticking your head out of the window, “Dedicate a song to me. And don’t forget me when you get famous.” You then pull off honking as he arrives at the band practice.

[in-my-shifting-era]

Stress Relief

Eddie Munson Imagine [Fluff]

Summary: When the cloud of stress refuses to clear you go to the only person you trust to get you what you need do relax, Eddie Munson. (Reader and Eddie are over the age of 21. The events of season for do not accrue.)

Warnings: adult themes; talks of selling, buying and smoking marijuana. Also talk of stress and anxiety. minors please dni.

———————————————————————

Anxiety has plagued your brain all week. Having to balance college classes on top of a part time job to help pay bills is has all become lot to manage. Your friends offered a night out at a party to let loose and clear you mind if things, but the thought of being in a crowded room full of sweaty drunk college kids was not how you wanted to relax on your weekend off work and school. What did sound good to your stressed out brain brought you back to one person who just always seems to ease that stress, Eddie Munson.

You where supposed to be in Eddie’s graduating class before he was held back and made a third time senior. You weren’t close Eddie or any of his hellfire sheep but you did share several classes with him in your time at Hawkins High. While everyone thought he was the leader of some satanic cult who sold drugs to kids. You never took part in the name calling and rumored whispers. What you did do was buy weed accusingly from the nerdy metal head who wasn’t as big and scary as the town made him out to be.

Weed seemed to calm the buzzing thoughts of anxiety. It made the unmanageable seem, well manageable. First it started with a puff while you studied for a test or a puff when you’d need to do chores to bust the motivation you need for them. The first time you approached him in his spot in the woods to buy your Junior year after applying to colleges triggered your first panic attack. That’s when you learned his satanic cult was a D&D club and he secretly had a heart of gold. After his initial confession with your interest in the drug you soon became one of Eddie’s favorite regular customers.

After graduating you stopped buying and using weed regularly. Saving money was also a huge plus from using the herb as an anxiety aid. Eddie quickly became a distant whisper you here on the street when you where walking around town.

Now your new anxiety with college and adulthood brought you to that same spot. The same worn picnic table is somehow still standing. You tap your fingers along the side of the table, an anxious habit you’ve picked up since high school. A twig snap brought you out of your thoughts.

You turn your head in the direction of the sound and your shoulders relax when you are met with familiar soft brown eyes. “ I don’t mean to scare you. I just got back my favorite client. I don’t wanna lose her to a heart attack. I honestly thought you had dropped my number after you graduated.”

The metal head held the same dimpled cheeky smile on his face as he rocked awkwardly on the balls of his feet with his hands in his vest pocket. His hair was longer and more tamed since the last time you saw him. He’s gained some muscle and got taller, something you didn’t think was possible.

“I’m sorry I kinda vanished on you. Once I went away to college I was too busy to smoke.” You offer Eddie and apologetic smile that he takes with a small nod as he maneuvers his lanky legs to join you at the picnic table setting his families metal tin down between you both. “I’m just happy you remembered my number when you needed the stress relief again. Has that gotten any better; the anxiety?”

Eddie know why you stared to smoke. He had asked you why such a popular and pretty girl was buying weed off the twin freak. The sweet gesture of him asking made your cheeks burn a light pink which you try to hide with a smile and eye contact as you spoke. “It’s became different stress but I’m managing. Weed just seems to help in that.” You laugh shyly meeting his gentle gaze from across the table.

Eddie smiles your demeanor and opens his Tim taking out an 8th and placing it on the table. “Since you’re a returning customer I’m giving you a special discount. $25 for the 8th. I even rolled it for you because I remember you told me one time you hated rolling yourself. No extra charge.” His ringed hands fidget with the plastic bag as he throws you a comforting smile.

A small blush creeps onto your face at the kind gesture and the fact he remembered something so small just to make you feel comfortable. “Thank you Eddie, I really needs to repay you for being so accommodating to my herbal remedy fix.” Eddie’s dimples return as he closes his tin and stands to bow at you. “I am happy to assist you m’lady. I hope this helps your stress. You know where do find me if you needs anything. Even if it’s not herb related.”

You smile widely as Eddie stands up stepping away from the table. “Thank you Eddie. I promise you’ll hear from me again. I may need someone to smoke with if I’m going to get back into it regularly.” This makes a small blush fall onto Eddie’s pale cheeks. “I don’t usually smoke with clientele, but I do smoke with friends if the offer would still stand then.”

You match his blush with your own and smile widely. “ I’d like to smoke with a friend sometime. Stay out if trouble Eddie Munson.” Eddie starts walking towards the street where you imagine his van is parked turning for a moment to flash a friendly smile. “I’ll do my best sweetheart. No problems though.”

With that he left you sitting at the picnic table shaking your head laughing lightly to yourself. Maybe you’re anxiety can lead to something worth while if it means being with Eddie Munson more.

Ah I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s kinda self indulgent since I use weed to release stress and I’d do anything to have Eddie as my cute drug dealer. Anyway let me know what we think of this. Feel free to leave a request!

[inairbinad]

Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson; 9/12 chapters; Explicit

Things are progressing for our boys...read chapters 8 & 9 on ao3 now!

A future fic where Steve gets a glimpse at an alternative universe where Barb survived, causing a cascade of changes in their lives that somehow leads to him being practically married to Eddie Munson. By the time he's thrust back into his regular life, he's got some decisions to make about how he wants to live moving forward, especially when Eddie comes crashing back into his world.

“I cannot believe you’re wearing that,” Robin had eyed him skeptically as they both got ready to work through closing. “I’ve only ever seen you in it when we go to clubs, and the very gay ones at that.”

“I have definitely worn this to work before,” Steve argued, once more checking his reflection in the mirror. He was wearing his best pair of jeans that he knew for a fact his ass looked great in, along with a black crop top that had Pretty Boy printed across the chest in stark white letters. 

“I’ve literally never witnessed that,” Robin countered. “You know he already likes you, and you don’t have to pull out your slutty outfits to get his attention?”

“But my slutty outfits are so fun,” Steve winked at her. Robin rolled her eyes and left him to perfecting his hair. 

Steve realized that she was right, of course. He probably didn’t need to whip out a crop top to get Eddie’s eyes on him, but he’d already decided that one of the best parts of charming Eddie would be getting to watch him sweat. So that’s exactly what Steve planned to do. 

Eddie didn’t come in until after nine, once again with his hair pulled up and wearing his “normal” clothes. Not that it would make a difference tonight, though. The new customers in the crowd were definitely the types to recognize Eddie on sight, even if he was mildly dressed down. 

No one else in the room mattered once Steve caught the exact moment Eddie spotted him. Will, Mike, and El were set up at a table near the door, so Steve heard their excited chorus of “Eddie!”s before he actually saw the man in question. It gave Steve the split second’s notice he needed to look up just as a sea of people parted between them, just in time to catch the small quirk of Eddie’s lips when his eyes landed on Steve. Then that smile drooped right off his face as he dragged his gaze down Steve’s front and his jaw slackened somewhere around where his shirt ended and bare skin started.

Using every bit of self-control he had to not do a victory lap right then and there, Steve instead shot Eddie a wink and went back to trying to take the next person up’s order. He could still feel Eddie’s stare on him, and, out of the corner of his eye, even caught the little way Eddie shook himself out of his daze before heading up to the bar. 

“And whoever said you weren’t humble?” Eddie said first thing, eyeing Steve’s shirt with a slight flush to his face. Steve opted to give him the benefit of the doubt on that front. It was hot in there.

“Oh this?” Steve asked, looking down at himself. “Funny thing, this is a magic shirt.”

“Let me guess,” Eddie said with a skeptical grunt. “‘Cause it helps you get lucky?”

God I hope so. Steve only thought it, but his smirk probably gave the hope away. 

“Well, maybe—but no,” Steve leaned his elbows on the bar, delighting in the way Eddie’s eyes widened just a fraction, and lowered his voice. “It’s magic because it tells the person reading it what I really think about them.”

Steve was close enough to hear Eddie’s breath hitch, and the sound of it sent a shiver through him. Eddie just stared back at him, almost disbelieving, but there was something else in his eyes that Steve had seen there before. Only now he knew how to recognize it. It was longing.

Then Eddie leaned forward too, until their forearms brushed and he could reach out to pinch the fabric of Steve’s shirt between his fingers. 

“Buy a pretty boy a drink, then?” Eddie hummed, eyes still locked on Steve’s and gleaming. 

Steve felt like he’d started off with the power here, but it was already slipping away from him. He wasn’t sure he minded.

“What’s your poison?” He asked, then wondered if that was entirely too cliche. Eddie didn’t seem think so.

“Whiskey,” Eddie smiled. “I feel like I’m gonna need it.”

[xtrafluffyteddy]

Pleasant interruptions

Pairing: Eddie munson x reader

Mentions: babies, past pregnancy, fluff fluff

“Ozzy! Ozzy baby wait” you quickly rushed after your son as he ran down the hall towards the familiar club room. “Shit shit” you tried to catch up but he was already through the door and running towards his father before you could grab him.

“And the cult chants- woah hey squirt”Eddie says as he picks up yalls son setting him on your lap “what’re you doin here kiddo where’s your mom” he looked around for any sign of you.

“Sorry sorry he slipped out of my arms when he got out of the car sorry for interrupting the campaign” you rushed in out of breath taking a second before reaching for Ozzy who burrowed himself in Eddie’s arms “Ozzy baby daddies having a meeting we are just dropping off his lunch” Ozzy just sticks his tongue out at you causing Eddie to laugh “awe it’s okay he’ll have to learn to dm some day so he can follow in his cool dads footsteps isn’t that right Oz” Eddie ruffled his kids unruly mop of hair that matched his perfectly.

You sigh but smile “fine fine but if he gets to crazy I’m taking him home” you warned kissing Eddie gently before taking a seat beside his throne smiling as your son giggles “crazy? Sweetheart he’s my kid he’s born with crazy in him” Eddie give his son a loud kiss on the cheek before turning back to a very shocked club

“What? Never seen a baby before?” He questioned letting Ozzy play with his rings “no no it’s not that just-“ Dustin began “since when have you had a kid?” Mike finished looking between Eddie, then Ozzy then back to Eddie

“Uh since like graduation well what was suppose to be my graduation if I hadn’t have flunked o’donnells test” he stated matter of factly “cute isn’t he? My very own hellspawn” he said proudly as Ozzy played with his custom dnd dice.

“Our very own hellspawn Ed’s” you reminded your boyfriend giving him a silly smile “yeah yeah our own hellspawn” Eddie said lovingly reaching back to squeeze your thigh like he always does.

“Okay well uh- can we get back to the campaign now?” Dustin questioned satisfied with how Eddie suddenly has a whole son

That’s how the night wore on, Ozzy sitting happily in his fathers lap giggling with excitement when his father lets him roll the dice or make monster noises for him.