#enjoy some munson/Henderson fam goodness

[formosusiniquis]

Chapter Two

There’s no gravel crunching beneath his tires, as Eddie pulls up the drive to the house. Pop must have had it paved sometime after Eddie sliced his knee open to the bone at twenty catching Dustin and his tumbling bike. But even on smooth concrete Eddie thinks he can hear the leitmotif of abandonment repeating. Especially when he’s parking his beater van next to a new model Corolla in the drive.

He grabs the wheel of the car hard enough that he can see the skin whiten, veiny way his knuckles drained of blood.

A screech from the passenger seat reminds him that technically he’s the one doing the abandoning. Majesty perched atop his estate sale doctor’s bag, definitely ruining the leather on the handle but hopefully not crushing any of the medical necessities that Eddie keeps with the rest of his toiletries inside. Having given up on ascribing something akin to humanity to the bird the moment he was threatened for pulling out a cat carrier so they could take their hour long trip down the interstate, Eddie thinks now that the expression on its face is wariness.

If he looked even close to this scared he wonders how The Artist could have left.

“I’m gonna level with you,” he says. ���You are staying here. Not like here here, I gotta drop off my luggage and check on my folks and also the bird place doesn’t open until tomorrow. But you are staying in Hawkins.”

The low rumble he gets in response is hard to interpret, so is the stoic white of its moon shaped face.

He looks out his windshield, half expecting a Pop who was still hanging onto his 30’s to be out on the wraparound porch, drying his sudsy hands and hiding his disappointment at what he already suspected was happening. His left leg bouncing, Eddie feels like his younger self is sitting just below the surface of his skin fighting to come out. Ike if he looks in his reflection he’ll have gone back in time in his sleep.

His younger self, angry and scared. Who dumped his clean laundry, waiting to be folded, into the old leather suitcase Ma had given him at his high school graduation. He had come back, just like he promised.

Maybe that’s why he’s different. The Artist had promised to come back, and he’d waited for years before he realized that was a promise that wasn’t coming true.

His front seat companion makes another affronted noise, ruffling feathers and glaring at Eddie with an impatient sneer. He had turned off the car and there was a chill from the late fall air seeping into the cab of the van.

“Yeah, let's get it over with, huh?”

Coming around to the passenger side, he gently helps Majesty up to his shoulder to perch. A bag in each hand, the silhouette he must paint going up the front steps to the door reminds him of a fantasy hero not yet sure how to approach his call to action. Bilbo with his bags in hand, thinking he’s ready to leave the Shire but bringing as much of it along with him as he can. And also he has a bird.

It’s not a perfect visual metaphor.

Especially when it’s more like he’s the sad main plot of an ER episode.

Or an eccentric Austen hero come to stay with an ailing relative until he gets swept up in some grand romantic plot; the ailing family relegated to B plot until their untimely, dramatic death. Majesty starts preening his hair, distracting him from the fact that he's plotting Pop’s death in the nonexistent narrative structure of his life.

Reaching up to fix whatever it is his companion is doing, Eddie gets his fingers nipped for his trouble. It’s the first time Majesty has actually done anything close to hurting him since he’s had it.

Distracted, Eddie isn’t paying attention to what he’s walking into until he’s standing in the middle of the storm.

“You can just go back to school- oh hell.” 

Pop looks spitting mad, sitting up in his recliner in the living room. Eddie can just make out the flushed frustration making its way through the sickly pallor from where he’s standing in the open doorway. Ma is behind him, can feel her steady presence even if he can’t see her. In the quiet he’s now created, he can hear the soft rusting of cotton. He can picture her careworn face, wonders if she was able to sleep at all last night or if there are bags beneath her eyes.

There are under Dustin’s. Eyes red. He’s midway up the stairs, hand gripping the handrail so tight it's shaking underneath him. His face is pinched, mouth pulled into a lipless line. 

“I told both of you not to bother coming in,” Pop says in the same tone of voice he usually says, ‘I told you I didn't need anything for my birthday’ or ‘You put money in one more card I'm going to start sending them back unopened.’

It’s a very Pop thing to say, stubborn and trying to turn the dramatic into a joke. But that doesn’t make it land any better. Ma sighs from behind him, long and annoyed, the way he’s only heard when she’s telling stories about difficult patients; and Dustin, well he’s never seen Dustin like this.

Fear has taken its sharp and ragged edges, cut away at itself until it resembles something more like anger. A storebrand version of the emotion, Dustin is shaking from tip to toe and his eyes are bright with a thousand things he must be holding on the tip of his tongue. But Dustin is shaking and Eddie has spent a long time riling up his brother, annoying him the way only family can. Even enraged, his brother manages a steely calm and a surgically still hand.

“Well I’m just here for the room,” Eddie jokes, before fear drags something Dustin can’t take back from his mouth. “I’ve got a friend who needs a visit to the animal sanctuary.” He wiggles his shoulder enough that Majesty introduces himself to the rest of the room, trilling like it’s some kind of dove instead of the screams it’d been making since Eddie picked it up. It’s suspicious, but then being suspicious of a bird is the kind of thing his therapist would raise an eyebrow at before making a note in his pad.

“But,” Eddie continues, “if it’s cramping your style, Pops, I’ll be sure to hang around for a bit.”

Dustin scoffs and disappears up the stairs, Eddie assumes to his room where he’ll hopefully sleep off the lingering jitters from the redeye he must have taken to get here from Massachusetts before Eddie could shoot down 65.

“You’re welcome here anytime you want as long as you want,” Ma says, a gentle hand at his shoulder pulls her into his eyeline for the first time. It’ll make him sound like a shit, but she’s looked better. Like Dustin she looks bleary eyed and stressed out, decades of nursing experience under her belt he isn’t sure if he likes what it means that she’s also losing sleep about all of this.

“Thanks Ma.”

“Your guest probably wants some sleep,” she lifts a hesitant finger toward Majesty. She coos as it rewards her, rubbing his face against her offered finger like a cat. “Why don’t you both go upstairs and get settled.��

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[uglypastels]

can you make a eddie munson x reader fic where they spend a fun day at the pool or something? just some pure fluff and eddie liking the reader in their swimsuit

ok so I absolutely love this request and the fact I'm on holiday rn with a giant pool and no eddie is a criiime, so yeah, i might be projecting on this one.

no warnings. pure Hawkins fam pool fun. not proofread.

Steve Harrington would give 20 bucks to anyone who could explain to him how his life had come to this… When his parents left for the week, they expected their son to throw a pool party, of course, but they had never imagined that the party would be more like a large-family-all-inclusive-pool-holiday kind of thing. 

'Hey, hey, hey! Assbutts,' he shouted across the pool, 'no running!'

'Yes, mom,' Dustin, Will and Mike rolled their eyes before continuing to run across the garden. Max was busy dunking Lucas' head under water, while Robin had, somehow, gotten her hands on a water pistol and was squirting the water directly at Steve's crotch, laughing hysterically. 

'Wow, real mature, Buckley,' he was slowly giving up on the entire group. The only people who seemed to know how to behave themselves were Nancy, who was lounging next to Jonathan in the long chairs, reading their books, and you and Eddie. However, something about the way you two were sitting under that parasol, canoodling, didn't feel quite right to Steve "the Lifeguard" Harrington. His spidey senses, or whatever Henderson had called it, were tingling. 

'What are you two up to?' He asked once he had walked up. Both you and Eddie looked up, covering your eyes from the sun to look up at Steve, hands in their natural position– on his hips. 

'Nothing,' you said in chorus, and you couldn't help but laugh at it. Eddie shushed you quickly, not wanting to put any suspicions on your plans– god, it felt like you were small kids again, plotting. Steve got that as well, certainly not convinced by anything you had said. 

'Relax, Harrington,' Eddie got up, placing his hand on Steve's shoulder, leading him away from your seats, 'your mommy complex is really taking the fun out of everything. You don't always have to be on the lookout for mean baddies, yeah? All's good here.' Steve tried to protest, but Eddie was again quick to shush him. 'Ah. ah. Ah. Just, you know, enjoy the weather man, go take a dip, huh?' And at that precise moment, he let go of Steve, giving you– who had already sneaked up behind him– the opportunity to push him right into the deep end of the pool. The water splashed out in all directions as Steve went down, only to come back up with his face covered by his once luscious hair. 

'You're both dead. Dead, you hear me?' he pointed very sternly at you, omitting everyone's laughter. 

'You look like a wet cat,' Robin commented, not helping poor Steve's situation, who immediately went in for a splash attack. While that water war took place, you went back to your seat in the shadow, Eddie following not far behind. When Steve had walked up to you, he had actually been in the middle of applying sunscreen to your skin, while plotting your little evil scheme, so that had to be finished. 

'How are you so good at this?' You said, enjoying the feel of his hands on your hot skin. The only thing missing was his rings, which he had taken off, not wanting to lose them in the water. 

'I'm literally not doing anything,' he chuckled, 'but there, all done.' 

'Thank you!' you squealed out in enthusiasm, turning around to face him, 'let me do you now.' 

'Oh wanna do me, huh?' he wiggled his eyebrow suggestively, leading you to push him away in giggles. But then, he did turn around and let you apply the sunscreen, just to gasp out as the cold liquid touched his skin. 'Oh, fuck! Fuck.' His gasps were so loud, so explicit, that everyone looked up at the two of you, just to realise it was Eddie being his typical Eddie-self and then went back to whatever they were doing previously. 

'You're an idiot, Eddie Munson,' you said, slowly rubbing the sunscreen into his back. 

'Ah, you love it.' And it was true. You couldn't deny it. You loved everything there was to love about this idiot. 

Once done, you both sat back down, giving the lotion time to sink in. The smell of it taking over your nostrils. It truly felt like summer. 

'I really like this suit, by the by,' he said, kissing your already sun-kissed shoulder. 

'Hmm?' 

'The new suit, it's cute.' 

'Well, good, since you picked it.' You had brought him along shopping the previous week, and he had picked out one that was a combination of his favourite colours: black and red. And it fit you perfectly– he could look at you all day, and he has, really. Couldn't take his eyes away from you. 

'Hey, you two, are you getting in or what?' Dustin shouted out from the pool, but Eddie just flipped him off as he gave you a swift peck on the lips. 

Easy to say, this was the start of a perfect summer.

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