#i need to watch lisa frankenstein next

[chelldoscocaine]

i watched jennifers body today

[canislupusangelus]

THEY DID THE THING!!!!!!!!!! The gingersnaps(and jennifers body) hallway thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[scribe-of-monsters]

Ok so I started watching The Last Voyage of the Demeter (about halfway through rn) and all I'm saying is if you had to choose a Dracula-inspired horror movie revolving around characters besides the crew of light that came out in 2023. Pick this one

[queenimmadolla]

𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

next ┊ 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Summary: After a series of unfortunate events in your life, and lonelier than ever, you often turn to a dead guy and his tombstone for comfort. Never in your wildest, fucked up dreams did you imagine he’d turn to you for the same thing, but you find yourself hiding a living corpse, bringing him further to life, reaping some justice, and cutting off a lot of body parts all while trying to fit in and falling in love.

a/n: Part One is here! Just want to say thank you to my friends for hearing me rant and rave about Lisa Frankenstein for weeks now, though I’ve been unbearable with this concept in my head. This will be the longest chapter, just to establish some stuff, but we’ll get to the slaying! Hope you love Undead!Zombie!Eddie as much as I do. Happy reading! (p.s.,there will be some romantic smut in a later part)

Chapter warnings: a bit steve harrington x reader, some eddie munson x other female, death of a family member, brief description of SA (bordered with RED DIVIDERS if you’d like to skip), mistreatment of Reader, suicidal ideation (reader just has dark humor), implied murder, very campy, very cunty.

THEN, 1986.

  “Where you head’n too so in a hurry, boy?” Wayne Munson asked, sat on the couch with a mug of steaming hot coffee in one hand and the television remote in the other as he watched his nephew bounce around the trailer, grabbing all of the the items he let haphazardly around. 

  Wayne always told him to pick up his things, but like the rambunctious boy he was, there was no breaking out of his messy habits.

  “I got people to see, pops. Things to do. Trouble to ‘cause, cops to anger, you know the drill.” Eddie didn’t even need to turn around to know his uncle was scowling but he was proven correct when he turned to throw his father figure a shit eating grin over his shoulder, “Kidding, old man. Mom had me baptized when I was a baby, remember? I can do no wrong, like Achilles.” 

  “Wha’?”

  “Ugh, dad. If I have to explain the joke, it ruins it. I’ll be back by dinner, alright?”

  Wayne fixed him with a pointed look, “You best be on your best behavior, you hear me?”

  “Always.” Eddie gave a mock salute before dipping out the front door, still grinning as he tossed the keys of the van and caught them midair. 

  While he wasn’t necessarily going to cause trouble, he certainly would be providing the fun grass, powder and pills that were often behind it. Eddie knew Wayne was aware of what he did, had implied so when talking about how he knew Eddie was a good kid, just living in the wrong circumstances sometimes. Always said he wanted nothing but the best for his boy and for Eddie to realize he was meant for more than what this particular town forced on him. 

  Made Eddie’s chest tight, but seeing things like the broken patio board—Eddie had accidentally stomped through it after seeing a spider—reinforced Eddie’s belief that he’d much rather help out any way he could than let his uncle bear the financial weight of providing for him. 

  The van roared to life, after sputtering for a good seven seconds, and Eddie revved the engine a little. As he let her warm up, something in the side mirror caught his attention. 

  Someone. 

  Sheila. His neighbor in the trailer across the street. She was hauling a box to a car, looked rather heavy and Eddie would have dropped everything to scramble over and help her, had it not been for Mr.Brawn at her side. 

  Eddie watched as the guy, who stole the girl he was in love with right out of his arms, grabbed the box. The two lovers exchanged words which ended with them laughing at something as she followed him to the car.

  He slid the box into the packed car as she climbed into the passenger seat, and before Eddie knew it, he was watching her drive away, right out of his life forever.

  Eddie hadn’t even realized he was clutching his steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were straining against the skin, hot tears pooling at his waterline but he refused to let them fall. He’d shed more than enough tears over her, over what could have been.

  They started off so promising; throwing flirty waves from their bedroom windows, occasionally at school, before she approached him for weed. After that, came the whirlwind romance and Eddie hadn’t considered himself a romantic before—hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to make that discovery but he was so fucking romantic. A big sap. And he wasn’t ashamed of it. 

  Until she’d graduated, and he hadn’t. Again. Turns out, not trying at academics all year and then aiming to ace finals wasn’t enough. 

  Suddenly, all the bullshit naive plans they had to run away somewhere far from Hawkins weren’t possible. At least, Sheila couldn’t with Eddie. 

  He lost her to a guy in another band, had made the mistake of taking a piss after he and Corroded Coffin performed to their tiny ass crowd, and had come back to see her talking to the keyboardist of the band that had gone on before them. She looked entranced, leaning forward to hang on to whatever the fuck he was saying. When Eddie had gone over to ask her if she was ready to head out, fully prepared to tuck her under his arm and way from the keyboardist, she’d insisted and told him to his face, in front of his apparent competition, that she was gonna stick around a little longer and he should head out without her.

  He’d spent the entire night pacing in front of his window, glancing out of it every five minutes and every time he heard a pair of wheels turn onto the dirt road. Eddie got his confirmation when his car happened to be one of them. He’d watched, heart splintering, as the keyboardist got out of the car and walked around to open her door for her before they disappeared into her trailer. Eddie knew her dad worked nights. Knew what she and that musician were doing and he’d thrown up the entire contents of his stomach at the imagery before passing out.

  Eddie woke up to Sheila hovering above him and framed by the glow of the bathroom light like some angel. She’d dumped him right there and left the spare key he’d trusted her with on the table.

  And now, she was living her dream with someone else while Eddie got to stick around this shitty town with these people who could barely stand him for no reason (and yeah, okay, maybe he’d poke their buttons). In truth, while he was a little heartbroken over her, it was the fact that she still got her happy ending that hurt the most.

  The girls around Hawkins might have been interested in maybe hooking up with him, but they weren’t interested in being Eddie’s girl. Weren’t interested in falling stupid in love with him, making plans to start a life together. Didn’t want him in their plans.

  Eddie Munson was lonely. And it sucked.

  With a heavy sigh, he cranked on the radio, fingers twisting the volume dial up to the most obnoxious level before shifting the gear to drive.

  “It’ll get better, Munson. Love ain’t no stranger.” He mumbled, sucking on his teeth and pulling out on the road.

  If he had known then where it would lead him, where the night would take him, he would have at least hugged his uncle. It would be the last time he saw him, and it would be the last time Wayne Munson saw his nephew alive.

  Three days later, he’d be identifying and weeping over his boy’s body in the morgue after reporting Eddie missing when he didn’t come home.

  NOW, 1989

  “Where are you going? It’s almost time for breakfast.” Chrissy called out, head poking out from her bedroom as she watched you race down the hall.

  “Not hungry! I’ll be back soon!” You called over your shoulder, the large sheet of craft paper wrinkling in your hand as you took the stairs two at a time before bounding down the short entryway.

  You’d almost crossed the foyer and then slammed yourself back against the wall as you saw Laura, Chrissy’s mom, fiddling with something at the table. She had the radio on, some garbage self help tape spewing nonsense to her, and that condescending smile on her face.

  Yeah, you’d be avoiding her, lest you wish to be verbally and eloquently belittled. How Chrissy came out of her toxic womb to be such a good person, you’d never understand. 

  When Laura crossed into the kitchen, you sprinted for the door, fumbling a little with the knob in your urgency, but once you got it open, you were out, running across the walkway and the fencing around the house until you were in the woods behind it.

  Only then did you feel safe, the trees a welcome reprieve from your living situation, the magnifying glass this new town had you under, and from the world in general.

  You’d come from a small town before Hawkins, so you were used to small town living. But these people were so judgemental. You hadn’t even grabbed a box from the moving van before your neighbors were casting you snide looks, noses turning up and backs to you as they watered their yard and lounged about.

  Four months later, nothing had changed. If anything, they were more open with their disdain for you, commenting on your demeanor (and you were a cool fucking person), outfits, hair, body. It was annoying. They were annoying. EVERYTHING was annoying. 

  You didn’t even want to be there but you had no real choice. You’d graduated high school a couple of years ago and despite the popular teenage notion that you’d simply pack up your things, go to college and be successful at whatever career you wanted, life did not happen like the movies. The freedom you’d been promised by your own delusions never came. That bitch came with a hefty price tag and you weren’t exactly jumping into a safe of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck with your minimum wage job. 

  You’d gotten into several schools of your choice, but scholarships wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover it, and you’d literally have to sell your entire body to science if you wanted to be able to afford the loans you were being offered, since their interest rates were higher than the standard human beings’ lifespan. 

  So, living with the ‘rents was checked off on your list of things you didn’t want to continue doing past your high school graduation. And hey—you were only 19 years-old! You were still young! Just save up a few years, and maybe one day you’d be able to think about taking a loan. You had time. What could possibly go wrong to throw your plans off?

  Your mother was murdered.

  Yeah, that was a bummer. Could’ve been worse, you supposed. You could have died with her, when your home had been broken into, and sometimes you wish you had. Alas, you were still breathing, albeit extremely traumatized. But only good ol’ mom was six feet in the ground, in an entirely different town, because your father had also moved on a mere few months after her death, with the worst woman to leave flaming footprints on the earth’s crust, and they’d eloped after like six dates before moving you to a town where you knew no one.

  Thinking about it actually made you sick and feel a little delusional. 

  The only real good thing about your entire soap opera of a year was the community college you’d been able to enroll in. You had no real idea what you wanted to do in life, had no real drive for career paths, but you were doing something, and that something kept the she-devil that was your stepmother off your back. Most of the time. Some of the time. She couldn’t say you were a deadbeat yet.

  Chrissy, your sweet to a definitive and insensitive fault step-sister had pushed you into going with her for registration. Convinced you it was the perfect way to make some friends. It was hard to say no to Chrissy, she had a way with people and could make the meekest soul feel like they were capable of anything and everything. She could always see the best in people, and she was outgoing. Your time in Hawkins had been brief, but you’d easily gathered Chrissy was popular, a former cheerleader (and she’d successfully tried out for the community college team) and beloved by all. While part of you felt a little jealous at her confidence, you admired her more. She was never intentionally mean to you, either. She made the occasional comment, but it seemed like Chrissy had more so a filter problem, rather than spitting anything out with sugar coated hostility like her mother. Chrissy was...nice. After everything you've been through, you could use a little nice in your life.

  And sometimes nice was also the woods behind your house, as it led to the Hawkins’ Cemetery. 

  Morbid, sure, but you couldn’t help yourself. After a particularly nasty encounter with Laura the first week of your Hawkins sentence, and feeling lonelier than you’d ever felt before, you’d gone for a walk, tears decorating your face with wet trails as you tried to physically hold yourself together, arms wrapped around yourself. 

  You’d arrived at the cemetery, and because you couldn’t pay your mother a visit, you decided the only decent thing to do was visit other lonely souls.

  You’d stopped to pay your respects to just about every tombstone and plaque, but one in particular caught your attention.

  Tucked away in a corner and separate from the other graves, under a weeping willow, was the most damaged tombstone of them all. Parts of it were broken off, a lot of the information pertaining to the individual underneath it was seemingly grated off. You had no idea who it was, the only remaining legible letters were MUN and you figured it was he simply because you’d taken some paper to the tombstone for etching and ran a black crayon over it. You’d been able to make out the word ‘he’ on the paper and deduced it had once read may he rest in peace. 

  The state of his tombstone surprised you, given how recent the date of death was. While his birth date had also been worn away, the year of death—1986–had been left. It was 1989. No way his grave should’ve looked like that.

  Apparently, even the groundskeeper avoided his part of the cemetery. The grass around his grave was overgrown, and pitiful. So, you’d gone home, grabbed the lawn mower, and pushed it all the way over. You’d ended up disgusting, covered in grass, dirt and sweating like a cheater on a Sunday morning, but his grave was looking better. You’d taken to caring for his grave after that. A bunch of your trinkets and things you'd seen that you immediately thought he’d like surrounded him now and you’d even planted some bluebells. 

  He also made surprisingly good conversation, even though he never talked to you. His presence, while mostly imaginary to you, was comforting. 

  So, during any free time you had, you were sat against his tombstone, chatting about your day, life, whatever you wanted. Felt like he was always listening, no matter the subject and it was really lovely to be heard.

  When you arrived at the cemetery, it was practically vacant, with just the red headed girl you normally saw. You didn’t see her all the time, she was just one of the faces you saw the most, and that was only a handful of occasions. For the most part, Hawkins didn’t seem keen on remembering the dead. 

  “Hope you haven’t been lonely without me,” You greeted as you approached his tombstone, ducking under a few low hanging willow branches that still brushed over you anyways. You’d have to ‘borrow’ Laura’s shears soon, the willow tree was hauntingly beautiful around his grave, but you wanted its branches and leaves to frame his grave, not conceal it, “I missed you.”

  It was a little odd, but you did. 

  When you weren’t at his grave, you were thinking about him, trying to put a face to MUN, wondering what his life had been like. Did he have any loved ones? What had his interests been? How had he died? Had he felt as lonely as you did?

  “I know, I know.” You settled onto the grass in front of his tombstone, securing the craft paper to his tombstone with some masking tape, “I was just here last night.” You imagined he would say.

  “I just can’t stay away from you. You have a very intriguing aura: I can’t see it because you’re dead, and that makes me want to know you more.” You pulled a black crayon from your pocket and went about scribbling on the paper, over where you knew MUN would be etched in stone, “I’ve said it a million times, and you’ve probably turned over in your coffin repeatedly because of it, but you’re the only one who understands me. And you’re the only one here that I care about—probably in the whole world actually, except maybe Chrissy but I know her friends think I’m weird, and I don’t want to drag her down with me.”

  Once the letters appeared on the paper, you sprawled out STER and you dropped the crayon to produce a pretty hot pink marker from your pocket instead, signing your name with a little heart to go with it just above the last name you’d crafted for him.

  The odds of this dude being a Munster were slim to none, but you thought it was fitting for someone who lived in a cemetery.

  You sat back on your haunches to admire it, it was a cute piece. Would look nice on your wall and whenever you missed him and found yourself longing to be near his grave, all you���d have to do is turn on your side and you'd be able to see part of him. 

  You ripped the paper off his tombstone, and weighed it down on the grass with a rock. With that out of the way, you gave him your full attention, shuffling until your head and shoulder were leaning against the stone, “Would you wanna be dragged down with me? Be seen with me? I’m somewhat of a pariah around here. Did you have better luck when you were still kicking?”

  You figured with how fucked up his tombstone had been, probably not. You imagined he’d confirm it, too. Just out right say, ‘Nah, these assholes hated me.’

  “Yeah, looks like we’re two peas in a pod.” Then you glanced down, fingers, twirling the blades of grass over his grave, “Or, you know. Casket.”

  You let silence fall over you, broken only by the chirping of birds in surrounding trees.

  “Goddamit, why do you have to be dead?” Your eyelids fluttered close, and instead of the cold stone, you imagined your head pressed against a warm chest, rising and falling with breaths, and a heartbeat thumping strong below your ear, pushing blood throughout his body. Imagined he was alive, arms slipping around you, firm and strong to hold you together so you didn't have to anymore.

  But he wasn’t, and you were reminded when the groundskeeper shouted, “HEY!”

  You shot up, glancing around until you saw him by the entrance with a leaf blower, “YOU AWAKE?”

  What kind of a dumbass question was that? Sure, it had looked like you were asleep but you were clearly alert now.

  “YEAH!” You shrieked back to be heard, and he went back to not caring. 

  “He can see me leaning against your tombstone, but he can’t see overgrown grass, weeds, rocks, or your grave in general when I’m not here. Men, always so selective, amirite?”

  You glanced at the stone, half expecting it to respond. “Eh, what do you know, you’re just a man, too.” You reached your arm back, knuckles trailing over MUN.

  “Despite you mouthing off to me most of the time, I brought you something.” You reached into your other pocket and pulled out a necklace, lined with black pearls and a cross pendant. It had been your mother’s. While she had a pension for religion, it wasn’t something you thought about. Dying, sure, but whatever afterlife? Not so much. Felt wrong, sometimes, to carry it around with you—felt like you were disrespecting her a little bit to not believe what she did, even though she had no qualms with it when she was alive. So, you figured why not trust it with the other important person in your life?

  “Pretty, huh? It was my mom’s. She’s dead, like you. You wouldn’t happen to have seen her around, would you?” You joked, fingers stroking over the pearls. There was no risk in leaving them with your dead friend, people avoided him and you had a feeling even grave robbers wouldn’t dare step near the willow, so they’d probably be with him for the rest of eternity, “I want you to have them, take care of them for me.”

  You placed the necklace over the peak of his tombstone, smiling when they didn’t fall from their place, “Mm, you look good in them. Better than I do, I’m not big on pearls. More of a silver jewelry kind of girl. I could do gold and diamonds, though, only for a wedding ring.”

  You held your arm out, admiring your ring hand void of any actual rings, “Nothing too gaudy, of course. That’s what my earrings are for.” 

  Your eyes trailed from your outstretched fingers, to your wrist, and the watch decorating it. The time made you heave a heavy sigh, “I gotta go. Chrissy’s dragging me to a party tonight, so I’ve got to mentally prepare for that. You’ll think of me while I’m away, won’t you?”

  Trailing a finger down the stone, you leaned forward to press your lips to it in a sweet kiss. 

  “I’ll be back soon, and this time I won’t forget my book of sonnets. I know how much you love the cynical poems I force on you.”

  And though you announced your departure, you found it hard to leave him, like you always did. It took all you had to gather your crayon, marker, and your new poster (and you kept dropping all three to have an excuse to linger) and leave the cemetery behind, glancing back impulsively every couple of steps until it was no longer in view, and the moment it wasn’t you wanted to drop everything and run back to him.

  You had to remind yourself he was a stranger, who didn’t care for you, rotting in the ground. And it sucked. 

  “I don’t wanna go.” You announced, staring into the bathroom mirror you shared with Chrissy. You’d just finished your makeup, eyes heavily lined, and lashes coated an electric blue that made your eyes pop. You were always a little heavy handed with your makeup, you figured the whole point of it was to use it as you wanted. Your hair had been manipulated to hell and back, but regardless of what you did, you were unsatisfied with the girl staring back at you, “I’ll just stay home.”

  “Not on my watch!” Chrissy declared, reaching in front of you for her pink lipstick. The bathroom counter was littered with your combined beauty products, “This is the first major rager of the year, the perfect social gathering. You need to meet people, sissy.” 

  You scowled at the idea, “I have met people.”

  Chrissy tubed the lipstick bullet, rubbing her lips together as she gave you a concerned side-eye, “People who like you, sissy.”

  Ouch, there’s that brutal honesty.

  “It’s not good for you to be on your own all the time,” She set the lipstick down so she could place a dainty hand on your shoulder, big blue eyes focused on you, “I worry about you. Daddy and mom worry about you. Your doctor worries about you. You need to get out more.” Chrissy stressed, pink lips pulling into a reassuring smile before she went back to focusing on the mirror and her makeup.

  You let out a heavy sigh, mulling her words over. Definitely could have been phrased better, but Chrissy was right. You were currently the town recluse, and occupying your room and the town cemetery wouldn’t change that. 

  “That blush isn’t the right shade for you, sissy.” Chrissy broke you from your thoughts and your eyes drifted back over to your reflection, the girl looking so unsure and right back at you, “You really have to accentuate your features, compliment them, because you’re already beautiful.” 

  Didn’t feel like it.

  Your expression must have given your inner thoughts away because Chrissy turned to you again, practically bouncing, “Wait a minute, you could use my tanning bed!”

  You deadpanned at the mention of the ridiculous full on salon tanning bed that Chrissy owned. There was a dedicated mini garage in the backyard for it, next to the pool, and complete with neon lights, her beauty pageant trophies and sashes as well as her cheer trophies. The PG&E bill was always through the roof for the Tan Shack alone, and you still had no idea how Laura could afford it.

  “No, Chrissy I-I don’t think that would work on me. At all.”

  Chrissy waved off your concerns, “It’s not about the tan, or even if you can tan. It’s the experience. When I lay in that tanning bed, with those little goggles on my eyes and I can hear the buzzing, I feel myself blooming. Regardless of whether or not my skin actually tans,” It didn’t. Chrissy burned but she somehow still looked good, “I feel amazing about myself.”

  “Are you sure that’s not cancer?”

  “You’re so funny!” Chrissy laughed even though you were being serious, “Sissy, every girl deserves to feel beautiful. If I can provide you with an experience that might raise those confidence levels that are dragging across a nail-covered floor right now, why wouldn’t I?”

  Your eyebrows furrowed, trying to decipher if that was a compliment or not, but you didn’t have long to mull it over before Chrissy was framing your face with her hands. 

  “And I can. Please, let me do this.”

  You groaned, long and drawn out and awkward, before squeezing your eyes shut and slowly nodding your head. She squealed, clapped her hands together and dragged you out of the bathroom.

  After explaining how it all worked, Chrissy bid you a cheerful goodbye and left you to your own devices so she could finish getting ready for the night ahead of you both.

  You’d selected your tan level, positive you wouldn’t see any real results but maybe the ‘experience’ would benefit you and shed your fuzzy slippers and robe, leaving you in some boy shorts and a tank top as you tried to settle yourself in the tanning bed. The dip was awkward, and you couldn’t get a good grasp on the top of the tanning bed since it was meant to only open and close rather than stay in position so grasping onto it for balance as you lowered yourself in led to you conking yourself on the head with a noticeable bonk.

  You hissed in pain, rubbing the sore area as you clambered the rest to the way in. Once you’d stretched your legs out, lowered the top, maneuvered the goggles over your face and waited for the magic to happen as you were surrounded by neon blue lights.

  You heard the buzzing as the tanning bed started up. The magic happened alright. The entire tanning bed shocked you, and you shrieked as you felt the intense electric current ripple throughout your body, sparking every single pore in the worst way possible.

“I’m so sorry you got electrocuted, sissy.”

  Chrissy broke the silence as you sulked in the passenger seat, your hair a little bigger than normal and not a result of styling. After getting all five senses shocked out of you, you’d come out with a hairdo that would not usually be up to par with you, and some serious case of static electricity. You’d tried to gently press your hair down and when you saw a literal spark in it, you decided to just leave it alone.

  Your step-sister had been apologizing since.

  “It’s alright. I survived.” And you wanted to forget about it. 

  You could see Chrissy glancing nervously at you from the corner of your eye as she drove you to the party location.

  “So…how are you liking Hawkins Community, so far?” She asked, thankfully changing the subject. 

  “It’s fine. The campus looks relatively the same as the community college I toured in my old town. Classes are decent.” Pitiful. The classes were so boring and straight out of the book, but it cost you a fraction of a fraction of what you’d have to pay to attend a university. 

  Chrissy lips turned up in a mischievous smile and you internally groaned, fully expecting her next question.

  “See any cute boys?” And then, as an afterthought, “Or…girls?” Then she took her eyes off the road again, squinting at you as if she was trying to assess something, “Or…..anyone?” 

  You betrayed yourself, eyes darting to the window before they were back on her and she perked up in the driver’s seat. 

  “Okay, spill.”

  Your heart started thumping wildly in your chest as one particular guy came to mind, but you hadn’t thought about him too much. Hadn’t allowed yourself to entertain the idea of a romance with him. That’s how people got their hopes up and letdown.

  “Sissy! Sissy, come on. You have to tell me. I’m your only friend!” 

  This time, you could tell she was joking, even though she did have merit. You bit your lip as she ribbed you a bit more, the corners of your lips tugging up into a smile. 

  “Okay, okay!” Your hands flew to cover your face, embarrassed, shy and a little giddy all at once to actually be admitting you had a crush. 

  “Steve Harrington.”

  “STEVE HARRINGTON?” She repeated, incredulous and you shushed her even though it was only you two in the car.

  “Sissy, that’s so unexpected! I haven’t really seen him since high school but I didn’t think he’d be your type.” Chrissy admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “He works in the library.” You sighed out, recalling your brief interactions with him when checking out a couple of books. He’d been kind, made a couple of humorous comments about the titles, and always tried to meet your avoidant gaze, which meant he was being nice to you. Coaxing you out of your shell. You actually didn't have much trouble interacting with people, you were more abrasive than you ever were shy, Steve was just a little too easy on the eyes. Made you forget how to talk, and on occasion, walk. It was embarrassing, “Always makes those cute displays with recommendations.”

  “Good for him,” She commented, sounding impressed. “I didn’t really know he was intellectual. Wasn’t, the last I heard. Had a big reputation in high school, seemed kind of mean and everyone called him King Steve.”

  You frowned, feeling the need to protect him, “Didn’t they call you the Queen of Hawkins High?”

  “Yeah, but only to make me seem pretentious.” 

  You raised your eyebrows, glancing away. Chrissy was kind, but sometimes, she could be pretentious.

  “And anyways, I’m not a student at Hawkins High anymore, so they can’t call me that. Maybe Steve really did change. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much about him since he struck out with a series of girls. Maybe he took a good look at himself and decided a change was needed.” You could feel her eyes on you again. 

  “Does he flirt with you?”

  “No.”

  “See him flirt with any girls?”

  “Nope.”

  “Does he still make his hair all big and poofy?”

  “Looks more voluminous than poofy.”

  Chrissy hummed, “An improvement. Is he all beret wearing and drinking coffee now?”

  You tried to recall ever seeing him in a hat, let alone a beret, “No, I don’t think so. If anything, he’s introspective.”

  “He’s on the spectrum?”

  Your smile waned when you realized she was asking a legitimate question, “Oh. No. That’s—that’s not what that means. I just meant he’s thinking about what he does; how he acts, how he behaves.”

  It got quiet for a few moments.

  ”Well,” Chrissy broke the silence once more, “He might be there tonight. I’m not sure if they’re still friends, but Tommy Hagan is hosting tonight, and once upon a time, they were inseparable.”

  You made a sound of acknowledgment, upper lip twitching in disgust. You knew Tommy, saw him around campus. He was a big jerk, you’d witnessed him throw some guy’s backpack in the trash and pour his drink on it. You wish you’d known it was his party you were going to in advance. Tommy was a nasty piece of work, so his friend group was the same. Out of all of them, though, Carol got on your nerves the most. 

  She didn’t pay you a whole lot of attention, but when you were walking in with Chrissy—and this is Chrissy, so she acknowledged everyone—and she said hi, Carol would just look you up and down before pursing her big mouth like she’d sucked on something sour. One day, you’d like to give her your fist to suck on.

  ”Patrick McKinney is bringing three kegs and I heard Reefer Rick is bringing his whole inventory.”

  “Reefer Rick?”

  “Yeah, he’s the local drug dealer now. I mean, he’s always been but he used to have somebody sell for him while he supplied, but he died.”

  Your eyes widened while your pupils dilated, mind conjuring up some image of a poor dude being murdered for drugs and then the supplier just taking over, not fearful at all of meeting the same fate, “He died?”

  Chrissy nodded her head, looking thoughtful, “Yeah, Eddie Munson.”

  Munson.

  You sat up in your seat, fully alert and invested in the conversation now, “Eddie Munson? Is he buried under the willow tree in the cemetery?”

  You stared at Chrissy, willing her to think faster as she squinted and pursed her lips, “I think Tina mentioned something about someone peeing on a tree over there, so I think so.”

  Your mouth dropped open, expression utterly horrified that someone could do that, “That’s beastly, what the fuck?”

  “I know,” Chrissy sighed with a shake of her head. “I didn't know him all that much, bought some weed off of him a couple of times and he seemed a little scary—appearance and mannerism wise—but he seemed nice when you had to interact with him. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “How did he die?” You asked, voice small and heart shrinking. You didn’t like where this was going. Didn’t like it one bit.

  “Well, the official determination, if I remember right, was like a drug deal gone bad or something, but no one really believes it. He was known to have weed on him, kept the harder stuff somewhere else. Everyone knows he was murdered. They did a number on him, it was all everyone could talk about because Sydney Porter couldn’t even get her dad—he worked at the station—to show her pictures. He told her they messed Eddie up bad. People here really didn’t like him. No one knows who did it though.”

  You sunk back into your seat, mind troubled and stomach turning. This whole time, you'd been tending to and caring for the grave of a murdered guy, taken from this world simply because people didn’t like him. He must have been so lonely. So scared. And they killed him.

  Chrissy was wrong. People in this town knew who killed him, because one of them, or some of them, had to have been his murderers.

  Your fingers curled into tight fists, painted nails digging into the flesh of your palms. Chrissy noticed the change in your demeanor.

  “Oh, sissy. You’re such an empath. Don’t be so sad, I know it’s a horrible story, but he’s resting now. In peace.”

  “No, he’s not. They fucked up his tombstone. He can’t even be dead in peace.” You huffed, furious on his behalf.

  “How do you know?” Chrissy asked, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. 

  “I go there a lot, it’s nice. Quiet. A little creepy, but that adds to its charm, makes it relatively peaceful. I’ve been visiting all the graves, but I was drawn to him the most. Etched his tombstone. He’s my favorite.”

  Despite the horrors you’d learned, the thought of Mun—Eddie, still brought a wistful smile to your lips. Maybe your presence was enough to settle him, bring him a little bit of peace this town and the people in it refused to give him.

  “H-He’s your favorite…?”

  “Yeah. I feel this….connection with him. From the very first time I visited. Now, I leave him gifts, flowers, pretty stones, poems I wrote, a book of sonnets I stole from the library.”

  “You….should talk to your doctor about this, Sissy. That’s really weird. That’s really weird, sissy.”

  You fought to not roll your eyes. As much as you cared about Chrissy, and knew she cared about you, she didn’t understand you. 

  “Well, since people ruined his grave, I thought it might be nice to clean it up and make sure he’s not forgotten.” You snapped, “It’s not like I call him my boyfriend or anything.”

  Chrissy eyed you skeptically, “Well, then that’s nice of you, I guess. Just don’t go around telling everybody about that, or you’ll be known as the Ghost Whisperer.”

  “He hasn’t talked back to me yet.”

  Chrissy laughed, and freed one hand off the wheel to lightly slap your arm, “See, now that’s funny. If you do tell anyone, end it with that joke. You’ll be a riot.”

  You smirked, staring out the front windshield. You’d let her think it was a joke. For now.

  You made a sound of displeasure as Chrissy pulled into a clear space on the grass and parked. She jumped out to dance over to her friends, some wine coolers cradled in a plastic bag she clutched.

  You allowed yourself a full minute to stew in your misery before getting out of the car and following after her. As you neared her group, you quickly realized that was a bad idea. 

  “Oh my GOD! Vickie, you fixed your teeth! They look so good. I wasn’t gonna say anything because I thought you were happy with the overcrowding, but now that you fixed it, I can’t look away!”

  Yeesh. You beelined away from them and wandered around the crowded front lawn, dodging rowdy friend groups and couples until you spotted a cooler.

  Maybe a drink would calm you down.

  You squatted down and popped the lid, digging around the ice but all you spotted were Pepsi and Squirt cans.

  “The liquid fun is inside.” A guy’s voice came from behind you and you rolled your eyes. You were so not in the mood to be hit on right now. 

  “What?” You asked, tone bored, but you didn’t want to make him seem helpful so you grabbed a Squirt.

  “Alcohol. He keeps it inside.”

  You slammed the cooler shut and popped the tab of the can, rising to your feet, “Yeah, I figured that mu—shhhh.”

  Oh, shit. 

  Steve Harrington was standing before you, eyes alight with mirth as he smirked down at you.

  You swallowed hard, hoping to god your tongue hadn’t gone down with the movement. See? Here you went getting all stupid around him.

  ”Funny seeing you here.”

  You laughed nervously, “Yeah. I—uh, mhm.” You forced yourself to take a drink of your soda to keep from making an even bigger fool of yourself.

  “Sorry if it’s weird of me to just walk up to you. I was chilling on the side of the house and thought I saw you, but I’m a little nearsighted and I didn’t bring my glasses.”

  You pulled the can away from your mouth as your brain registered the lack of metal frames on the bridge of his nose. He looked handsome with and without them, that wasn’t fair. It was still throwing you off. 

  “It’s—It’s okay. Uhm, no harm done.” You shrugged your shoulders, hoping it looked cool and not as stiff as you felt. You even added in a smile with some teeth for a little razzle dazzle.

  “I actually came over here to tell you your books are significantly overdue.” Steve deadpanned, tongue playing with his canine tooth as he scrutinized you and you shrunk, smile falling from your face. You had got to get better at following up on your due dates.

  “Oh.”

  He scoffed, face breaking out into a grin as his shoulders shook with his chuckles “I’m kidding.”

  OH, THANK FUCK. 

  “Oh,” And then, because every god probably hates you, you started snorting with laughter. You cut that shit quick, clearing your throat as you took another sip of your beverage.

  “So,” Steve took a step closer to you, “Are you enjoying─”

  “Hey!” Carol stepped right up to Steve, practically leaning all over him as her ruby red lips spread into a seductive smile, eyes lidded and no doubt a few drinks in with a drink for Steve in her hand. For the billionth time that night, you rolled your eyes, trying not to gag at how desperate she was. You knew Tommy had recently dumped her, the entire town knew and now she was clearly trying to get into Steve’s pants, “I found the keg.”

  She could eat shit, his pants were yours.

  “Oh, Thank you.” Came Steve’s bleak reply and part of you thought he might have actually wanted to talk to just you. Now, you were really annoyed she’d interrupted.

  “Hey, Carol.”

  Carol looked surprised that you’d even dare speak to her, raising her eyebrows, “Hey. Hi— sorry, how do we know each other?”

  “You’re my lab partner.” You were unimpressed, you expected her to be a better mean girl. 

  “Yay me.” The smile she directed at you was anything but friendly, reminding you of the one Laura would make after you did something in public she didn’t like, but she couldn’t yell at you until you were home. Carol swirled the liquid in her cup around, head tilting as she offered it to you, “You wanna sip, partner?”

  “Carol.” Steve warned and she tutted, flicking her wrist.

  “You’re right, I don’t know why I assumed she partied.”

  “I’ll take a beer,” You could handle alcohol, had cleared your mother’s wine cabinet after she was murdered, so this would be no big deal.

  Carol looked annoyed but handed you the cup, and to make sure you wouldn’t gag and vomit, you threw it back, throat opening as you swallowed the liquid as fast as you could to refuse it as much time on your taste buds as possible.

  When you lowered the cup, you realized you’d made a mistake and glanced into it at the small amount left behind, watching as the ground in your peripheral view began to shift.

  Steve seemed to realize something was wrong, quickly taking your cup and ingesting what was left. His suspicions were confirmed and he spat it out on the grass before scowling at Carol, “PCP? Really, Carol? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why the hell would you give that to her!?”

  “Oopsie.”

  But it was too late for you. You dropped the soda can in your other hand and lifted your hands to your face, watching the lines around your palms and fingers begin to move, swirling around and you backed away from them, watching as everything around you began to come undone.

  “Hey!” You heard a voice next to you and someone started rubbing your back, you hadn’t even realized you were crouching. You craned your head up to see Chrissy and you frowned. Her voice was so different, distorted. She sounded more like your dad than Chrissy. 

  Her face was both far away and right in front of you, you reached a hand out to test the theory, see if it really was close. Chrissy caught your wrist, frowning at the state you were falling into.

  Chrissy started asking you questions, about what you’d taken, what you drank but her voice was too loud for you, and the purple behind her head was distracting. Still, you nodded your head.

  At your confirmation, Chrissy’s frown intensified and she helped you to the ground before darting over to chew Steve and Carol out.

  You couldn’t stay on the grass for long, the blades of it stabbing you and sending pain shooting up your palms and into your bones so you crawled some distance away before you managed to push yourself up and stumble towards the house. It was hard.

  Everything was moving. You heard a loud sound and glanced around wildly until you were staring up at the sky, mouth dropping open to see green clouds and lightning. 

  You had to get away, the need to escape, be safe was urgent but it felt like the closer you got to the front door, the farther away it went. Your breathing was heavy and panicked as you kept stumbling forward, arm outstretched and finally you reached it.

  You yanked it open and nearly fell inside, tripping over your feet until you hit the back of the couch and used it to sink to the floor.

  You heard your name being called and lifted your head, eyes crazed as you tried to find the source. Fred Benson approached you, the skinny boy squatting to be eye level with you.

  “You okay?” He asked and you reached forward, grasping his face in your hand and squeezing to make sure he was a real person.

  “You.” Was all you said, booping his nose but still suspicious of him. Was he real?

  “Uh, yeah. It’s me. It’s Fred, we sit next to each other in ASL class.”

  He looked like Fred. You still didn’t believe he was human, squinting as your hands grasped at the back of the couch.

  “You don’t look so good,” Fred pushed the frame of his glasses up his nose, brows furrowed in concern, “Let's find somewhere for you to sit down for a minute. Or maybe a while. Man, what did you drink?”

  He stood up, offering you a hand and you took it but didn’t pull yourself up. Fred heaved with all his might and managed to get you on your feet but he realized just walking you wouldn’t be enough, and so did you because you draped yourself over him, one arm over his scrawny shoulders.

  Fred cursed under his breath but held your weight, leading you out of the populated living room and you watched a couple furiously make out on the couch cushions as you passed.

  “I hate parties. I don’t know why I came—well, actually I do. I never got invited to these in high school, so I guess I’m living out my fantasy now. In all honesty, I’d much rather be watching Weird Science. So far tonight, I’ve seen three cheerleaders throw up and a baby being conceived.”

  “Uh huh,” Was all you could get out, watching people swirl past you like shooting stars.

  “Would you count that as escaping the teen pregnancy statistic? I know they’re out of high school, but we’re all still pretty young.” He commented as he led you up the stairs. You tripped several times and almost sent him flying down them but the two of you managed to make it. 

  Fred was heaving by the time you'd shouldered him into the hallway wall, his face and hands clammy.

  ”Good god, how did I pass P.E.?” The two of you paused there until he regained his breath while you plastered yourself against the wall, cheek pressed to it and hands stroking over the wallpaper. Eventually, Fred peeled you off of it and kept moving until he could find a place to put you.

  “You like movies right? Got any favorite directors? Or favorite films?”

  “Wall.”

  “Huh? Oh, you’re just admiring the wallpaper.”

  “Great Wall of China.”

  Fred positioned you against the wall, looking a little annoyed. You didn’t care, could only focus on the framed photo of the Great Wall of China directly across from you.

  “Oh.” Was all he said when he spotted it. “Stay right here.”

  Then he disappeared and you watched as the painting came to life, and the stones of the wall began moving, rippling. You didn’t even know stones could move like that but now it made so much more sense. 

  Fred appeared again, tugging you along into an empty room. You spotted a trash can and nearly threw Fred into the bedroom wall as you dove for it, retching everything out of your stomach. You could hear Fred gagging, but he was decent enough to make sure your hair stayed out of your way. When you were done, he helped sit you up on the bed, and nearly collapsed next to you.

  ”We did it,” he cheered with no real gusto. And you sat there, still feeling the earth orbiting. It was the most odd sensation, you could feel a spot on your brain pulsing, like a migraine but it felt so euphoric to close your eyes.

  “Here,” They snapped right back open and you glanced to your side to see Fred offering you a handkerchief. Of course Fred Benson carried around a handkerchief. How amusing. 

  “Thank you,” You gave the three versions of him you could see right then a smile and used the handkerchief to wipe your mouth, eyelids fluttering close just as the sound of thunder filled the room, and a flashing of lightning accompanied it.

  “Huh, a rainless thunderstorm, looks like the angels are bowling.” You heard him muse next to you.

  And it brought another smile to your face, “My mom used to say that.”

  At the mention of her, your brain conjured up all the happy feelings and memories of her, huddled on your couch, in your old home watching black and white horror films. They didn’t scare her, so she could tolerate them. You missed her. She made you feel so light, so seen, so—no.

  Something was wrong. Something felt very, very wrong.

  Your smile faded and you felt your belly sink as you opened your eyes.

  “Does that feel good?”

  You didn’t want to, but you looked down to see Fred’s hand on your breast. Your breathing picked up and Fred let go of you to grab your wrist and force you to touch his crotch, “Well don’t just sit there, help me out. Finish what you started.” 

  Anger filled you and you yanked your hand away, “No.”

  Fred opened his mouth as you got up, rushing away from him and stumbling back out the way you remembered while he yelled at you.

  You had to get out, had to get away. Had to be safe, feel safe. You banged against walls as you went, desperate to get out of the house, away from Fred, from everyone, and to safety. That was your only concern as the drug really hit you.

  All you could remember was seeing colors, hearing and feeling the wind against your sweaty skin, leaves blowing with it and gusting around you.

  You had no idea how you escaped the mad house, how long you’d even been walking or how you actually got there, but you found yourself in front of the cemetery, a flash of lightning illuminating the gate.

  To anyone else, a cemetery would have been the worst place to find themselves on a night like this, but you’d already been to hell so you trudged forward, feet taking you to him. Even in your drugged state, you were able to find your way to Eddie. Always would be.

  Your knees dug into the grass as you collapsed in front of his tombstone, fingers reaching forward to trace over MUN and 1986 before your body curled around the large stone, hugging yourself to it. Electric blue tears slipped down your cheeks, staining them with your mascara.

  “I wish I was with you.” You whispered, hating everything, hating this town, hating the people, hating Fred Benson, hating Carol, hating Laura Cunningham, hating how your mom wasn’t alive, hating how the one person you’d unknowingly sought for comfort was someone you’d never met before who was six feet under the ground. And you hated how you weren’t down there.

  You laid there, hugging his tombstone for hours under the thunder and lightning as the PCP slowly left your system.

  When you were able to stand up on your own, you gave the tombstone another kiss, rested your forehead against it and quietly thanked him for helping you find your way home before you left, following the path you’d made during all of your visits.

  The house was quiet when you got in, and Chrissy’s car hadn’t been parked in the driveway when you’d walked up so you figured she was still at the party. Sluggishly, you made your way up the stairs, falling into your shared bathroom. Your hand searched the wall, struggling to find the switch. Once your fingertips made contact with it, you flipped it and squinted as the room was flooded with the warm light. It was still too much for your eyes but you kept it on and walked towards the mirror

  The girl looking back at you was not the same one you’d last seen in it. This girl had blue smudged all around her eyes, faint trails of it over her cheeks and a rats nest for hair. Her eyes burned, not from the light, but from a fury within. 

  She was stuck in a life she didn’t want to live and couldn’t do anything about. As a large strike of lightning flashed from the window positioned at the back of the bathroom, towards the back of the house, you decided to put her out of her misery, picking up a blow dryer and smashing it against your reflection with a yell.

  You stood there, chest heaving as you stared at the broken reflection. Then you tossed the blow dryer onto the counter, and went to bed.

  Your dreams were much more pleasant than your reality, eyelids fluttering open to the ceiling of your old bedroom. A glance to your side confirmed your mother’s photo was at your bedside, next to your alarm clock on your old bedside table.

  “Well?” Her photo asked, shooting you that gorgeous smile of hers, “What are you waiting for? Go get him.”

  Your confusion was momentary, your mother raised her chin in a direction and you knew what would happen, you were giddy for it as you looked down to see yourself wrapped in the most beautiful wedding gown you’d ever seen.

  You rose from the bed into a sitting position, picking up the bouquet on the pillow next to you. Your dresser mirror was directly across from your bed and you took a moment to admire the beautiful girl staring back at you. Where you last remember seeing trails of tears were diamonds, glittering against your skin. Her eyes sparkled with a joy you’d never known. You bid her one last smile as you turned your head to the figure sitting on the edge of your bed, dark curls cascading down his neck, past broad shoulders with his back to you. 

  His right arm was out, palm up.

  He was waiting for you.

  You shifted until you were on the edge of your bed next to him, staring straight forward just as he was.

  Without looking, you knew exactly where his hand was, and you placed your left one over it, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours. Slowly, the two of you leaned towards each other, until your head was on his shoulder and his cheek was pressed against the top of your head, his fingers curling around your hand to ground you. You sighed, all the tension and weight of the world leaving you.

  “Sissy. . .”

  “Sissy…”

  “SISSY!”

  You groaned as Chrissy shook you awake, eyes prying through all the mascara that had crusted over your eyes. It took a couple of blinks until you regained your clear vision, gaze locking on Chrissy leaning over you. Her face was clean of any makeup, skin glowing and hair wrapped up in rollers.

  She’d gotten home later than you and had still been able to look perfect. 

  What the hell?

  “You better get up, sissy. My mom’s losing it over the bathroom mirror.”

  You were confused for a second until you remembered smashing it with a blow dryer last night—or this morning. Well, it definitely would have broken at the sight of you now, anyways. 

  You frowned but made no move to get up so Chrissy tugged your blanket off of you, giggling when the both of you realized you had your hand in your underwear. Hastily, you yanked it out, and threw the blankets back over yourself.

  “It’s okay, Sissy. Everyone does it. It’s natural.”

  “Oh my god…”

  “So, what happened last night to bring this on?” She wiggled her eyebrows and you stared at her for a second. Part of you wanted to yell at her, berate her for letting you stumble around while high on a drug you’d never taken before, the other half knew in Chrissy’s World, it was all rainbows and sunshine—at least, it had been since she’d forced her mother to respect her boundaries. Chrissy didn’t expect the worst in anyone, didn't expect anyone to take advantage of you and certainly didn't expect you to wind up walking to the cemetery and then home on a bad trip. No, in Chrissy’s World, you’d probably spent the night flirting with someone, probably Steve, maybe fooled around in his car before he drove you home.

  You didn’t see it necessary to shatter her world so you groaned instead, the full force of your migraine hitting you now that you were out of sleep’s clutches, and covered your hands with your face.

  “Ooh, your knees…”

  You glanced down to see what she was staring at and sure enough, your knees were scratched up from kneeling at Eddie’s grave, but in Chrissy’s World…

  “I fell.” Was the only excuse you could come up with and Chrissy smirked.

  “Me, too.” Her eyelid dropped in a wink just as Laura yelled upstairs for you, so, begrudgingly, you wrapped yourself in your robe and headed downstairs to receive your punishment.

  Just as you suspected, Laura had attacked you with allegations—that were true for once, you had smashed the bathroom mirror—and your dad looked like he could care less.

  “You know,” She stated, fixing you with those unnaturally blue eyes of hers, “Your dad wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. See the good in you, but I knew. I’m an Intuitive Person, you know. An IP. They’ve got seminars for people like me.”

  Your mind flashed to How to Handle a Narcissist. 

  “Laura…” Your dad warned and Laura inhaled sharply, displeased that your dad was sticking up for you. For once. 

  “Did you know there was a tornado last night? It hailed. Wind blew the fence over. The yard is covered in debris, and now I have to focus on repairing the bathroom, too. I don’t think that’s fair.” She huffed and Chrissy spoke up from her place on the couch.

  “It was a tornado watch, mom. Not a real tornado.”

  “Actually, Chris, the weather was downright crazy last night. I mean, it was really something, I saw green lightning. Big balls of it in the sky.”

  You and Chrissy shared secret smiles at hearing your dad talk about big balls.

  “Love muffin, could you swap out being a weatherman for being a father, right now?” Laura gritted out through her chemically whitened teeth.

  “It’s a Meteorologist,” You mumbled and her head snapped over to glare at you before she was speaking to your father again.

  “Honey, your daughter is a vandal. She’s got a taste for vandalism, and she is deliberately vandalizing and destroying property. First, it was my collection of Precious Moments figurines─”

  “That was an accident, you didn’t wrap them in bubble wrap and I dropped the box when I tripped over the front steps.”

  “Mother,” Chrissy chided, hands crossing over her robe. “Be. Nice.”

  “I am being nice,” Laura hissed, glare never leaving you, “But I refuse to coddle her. She’s headed straight to the nut house with this behavior.”

  You frowned, wiping away some of the dried mascara under your eye, “Can you say that if you’re a Psych Nurse?”

  Laura had the decency to look embarrassed before whacking your father’s arm. He sighed, putting his newspaper down, “Sweetheart─”

  You clocked the twitch in Laura’s eyelid at the affectionate name your father used to refer to you.

  “─You’re gonna clean your bathroom, alright? Sweep up all that glass.”

  ”And?” Laura pushed, still staring at you.

  “And…..um. Pay for the mirror, I guess.” Laura turned her nose up, hurmphing. 

  “That’s fine, can I get ready for work now?”

  Your dad nodded and Laura looked like she wanted to protest but you turned your back to her and made your way upstairs, hesitating at the top when your fathered turned the volume of the TV back on and you heard the news reporter reporting from the cemetery, talking about a grave, under a tree, that had been struck by lightning. 

  You wondered if it had been Eddie’s. There’s no way you’d be able to check today, you’d get home from work too late, so you’d have to check tomorrow.

  You tried to stay busy during your shift at the local tailor’s. You didn’t really have a passion for it, but you were relatively good with a needle and thread. With the magnifier headlamp, you were practically unstoppable, altering coats, dresses, blouses, shirts, all with minimal finger injuries—though luminol on some of these clothing items would no doubt reveal traces of your blood.

  But hey—you now knew what it meant to work so hard you put your blood into something and you always had band-aids on you, in case anyone needed one.

  You were so invested in your work, you hadn’t heard the bell above the door chime when it was pushed open, and didn’t notice Steve leaning against the counter, watching you work until he cleared his throat.

  You jumped, head swinging around to see your crush smiling at you and you raised the magnifying glass portion of the head lamp off your face, feeling embarrassed that he’d seen you with the headgear on in the first place.

  “Hey! I didn’t know you worked here.”

  You let out some nervous laughter, mind racing for ways to make this seem cool but you came up short. “Yeah, I—employed.”

  “I can see that,” He chuckled, amused by your lack of verbal sparring.

  You didn’t know what to say after that so you stared, fingers twisting and pulling the thread you’d been working with, desperate for him to say something or get out.

  “Oh! Uh, I heard you guys also get rid of stains? I’ve got this one on my pan─”

  “THAT WE DO!” 

  You sighed, eyes slipping shut as your moron of a boss came bursting out of the office.

  “What can we do for you, Harrington?” Murray asked, leaning against the counter, causing Steve to lean back, smile now less than thrilled.

  “Murray…I forgot you worked here.” Steve said it in a voice that made you think he would have avoided the shop had he known who it was that was currently in charge of running it.

  “Yup, got me this sweet little gig. And no radios.” He gestured around to the shop, void of any technology save for the cash register—and he made sure it was never him operating it, “Would like to see the government try to control me now.”

  “Right, I just came here to drop off my pants, spilled something on—well, it doesn’t really matter, I just spilled something on them.” Steve placed the folded pair of pants on the counter and Murray immediately unfolded them, searching through the fabric until he found the stain by his crotch. To both your horror and Steve’s, he lifted the strained fabric to his nose, sniffing deep.

  “Mm. White wine?”

  It took Steve a moment to find his voice and close his jaw, “Crush. The soda.”

  “Same thing. We’ll get this right out, my man.”

  You and Steve shared one more look of disbelief before he slowly backed away, the bell above the door sounding as he left.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Murray commented and you shrugged your shoulders, wanting this conversation to be over, “I’m surprised you know him, little loser.”

  You shot him a glare.

  “Oh, c’mon, lets not pretend you’ve got an active social life—if I call you in for a shift, you’re available. Nothing wrong with being a loser. I was one throughout high school and look at me now. Who got the last laugh?”

  You were positive the look of pain on your face should have told Murray that anyone other than him got the last laugh. He was a forty something year old, afraid of technology, convinced the government was watching him, who tried to befriend teenagers. 

  You’d have to kill yourself if you were anything like him.

  When he disappeared back into the office, because of course you’d have to get rid of that stain for Steve, you snatched the pair of pants off the counter. Glancing around to make sure there weren’t any eyes on you, you pressed them to the side of your face, imagining yourself hugging Steve instead of the pants. They smelled like him. It was bliss.

  Then your eyes snapped open.

  Oh, god. You were a loser.

  After your shift, you’d gone straight home. Normally, you’d stop to grab a bite or something, you still had to pay for the mirror you broke so fast food was off the table for a couple of weeks, but on your dining room table when you walked into the house.

  A pizza box. Your stomach growled as you imagined the slice of cheese waiting for you.

  “Is there any left?” You asked, already making a beeline for it.

  “Should be a slice left,” Your dad mused and as you tossed the top of it open, all you wanted to do was maybe beat him with it.

  There, on the parchment liner of the pizza box, was the skinniest and tiniest slice of pizza to ever be cut. Not even the width of two of your fingers.

  “Want me to order another one, sweetheart?” Your dad asked and Laura immediately inserted herself into the conversation. 

  “She can eat it, love muffin. Besides, we’ve got vegetables in the fridge if she’s still not full.”

  “I said we should have ordered two, but my mom had a coupon she wanted to use.” Chrissy didn’t sound impressed.

  “Yes, we got a free soda!”

  Chrissy ignored her mom, “Sissy, we’re going to the movies! You could get something there, they sell pizza and nachos, right?”

  You knew she was trying to find a solution for you, but your bullshit meter for the day had already been capped. You didn’t want movie theater pizza or concessions, you wanted a  reasonable slice of this pizza, not some scrap your step-mother had saved you. It was obvious she was implying that she, your dad and Chrissy were the perfect sized family and you were simply an afterthought. Unwelcome.

  “Yeah, I’m passing on the movie.”

  Before you could stomp upstairs, Chrissy caught your hand.

  “Sissy, please? We’ve got to bond as a family, it’s crucial. If it takes two, how can I do it as one?” She pulled you into her side.

  “Really, Chrissy, I’m super tired.”

  “You’re tired?” Laura asked, incredulous. Here we go again.

  “All you do is work with a sewing machine for hours like some old spinster, I can hardly imagine that being tiring, but my Chrissy just got back from a five hour long cheer practice. They were throwing her around like raggedy ann and she stuck every landing.” 

  “Mom, stop.” Chrissy blushed, but you could see how proud she was of herself, “I’m sure Sissy pokes herself with those needles all the time, and it hurts, I’ve been prodded myself during all of my custom fittings.”

  “I have finger calluses so I don’t even bleed anymore,” You begrudgingly admitted, “I can take it.”

  “I bet you can.”

  After they’d left for the movies, you’d gone upstairs, showered, put on your comfiest pajamas and fuzziest slippers, you grabbed a bowl of chips and set yourself up in front of the TV to watch Dawn of the Dead. You had to give props to all these zombie actors, you couldn’t imagine having to act out being one of the walking undead, imagined it felt pretty stupid but the paycheck and experience must have been cool.

  You popped another chip into your mouth just as someone knocked on the front door. As you placed the bowl of chips on the table to get up, the knocking got louder, more aggressive and you hesitated, fear beginning to swell up inside of you.

  Maybe if you ignored it, they’d go away.

  You turned your attention back to the tv, picking up the remote to lower the volume and hopefully hide your presence in the house. 

  Then, much to your horror, you heard the distinct sound of a pained, gurgling groan. It sounded very similar to the ones you’d heard the zombies making on your tv, but this one was louder. 

  And it was coming from outside your front door.

  You crouched, duckwalking to the foyer where one of the house phones was placed. You’d just picked it up from the receiver when a shadow from the living room window caught your eye. You barely had time to turn your head when something came crashing through it, breaking the glass and yanking the curtains from the rod.

  Shocked, the phone slipped from your hands, banging against the hardwood floor of the foyer and you let out a scream at the same time as the person on your TV, running away from the figure invading your home. 

  You made it to the dinning room. Literally scrambling across the table to put an obstacle between you and the stranger—no, creature. Tall, caked in mud, leaves and stems, it resembled the Swamp Thing. It grunted, groans low and reverberating off the walls.

  “Uuuhhhnng…”

  This couldn’t be happening to you, you couldn’t die like this!!!! It was supposed to be by your hand or nothing!

  ”STAY AWAY FROM ME!” You shrieked, picking up the decorative plates from the table to throw at the creature. You nailed it a couple of times, watching it stumble as the fine china shattered against it. When you ran out of plates, you bolted from the dinning room, screaming as you scrambled up the stairs, and lost one of your slippers in the process but to hell with it! You had to get out of there. Hopefully, one of your neighbors heard your shrieks of terror and called the police.

  You peaked over the railing at the top of the stairs, to see the creature analyzing your slipper. While it was distracted, you locked yourself in your room and made your way to your bedroom window, pulling it open.

  “Okay, okay. I can do this, no big deal. Stunt actors do it all the time.” You climbed outside of your window, body nearly convulsing as you almost slipped down the roof, “Nonononono.”

  You tried to grip onto a couple of shingles but they gave away, slipping right off the house to shatter against the concrete walkway and you realized Laura had no fucking idea what she was doing when it came to house repairs, the dumb bitch had just laid the shingles out without securing them.

  “OH MY GOD-I’M GONNA DIE! HELP!”

  Your body slipped further down the roofing, until you were forced to grab the gutter, gagging when your fingers squelched against whatever was in it. You dangled a good six feet off the ground, and while it wasn’t exactly a ten story fall, with your luck, you’d land on your head and break your neck.

  Whimpering, you tried to pull yourself back up the roof, but it was no use. You had nothing stable to grab onto as you yanked yet another shingle clean off. You glared at it and muttered a goddammit before tossing it somewhere behind you as you went back to hanging on for dear life. 

  “Oh, no.” You mumbled, terrified as your fingertips began to lose their grip, wet with the mystery sludge from the gutter. “No, NO!” 

  You lost your grip, plummeting down but you didn’t meet the concrete. No, the Creature broke your fall and you were now face to face with it. The pressure of you landing on it, made it spit up into your face, green sludge, and you gasped before breaking out into screams again.

  Pushing yourself up and off of it as you ran around your front yard, nearly blind. You were not opening your eyes to let that bacteria infested swamp slime, water, whatever the hell it was, into your eyeballs. 

  You could hear the Creature stomping around behind you as you bobbed and weaved, could feel his presence and you could not believe you were actually gonna die fighting off a swamp monster in your front yard while blinded—in clear and plain view for your neighbors to see, by the way, and unbeknownst to you, an elderly couple was watching you, not even a little concerned about your well being or the creature chasing you around.

  “Stop it!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Go away, I’m just a girl!”

  The timed sprinklers went off and you were soon assaulted with them as well. With just about all your senses done for, and the sprinklers washing the guck away from your face, you made a run for the house, slamming your back against the door and locking it behind you.

  Your chest was heaving, wet body pumping with adrenaline as the back of your head thumped against the door. You weren’t done yet. That creature was still out there!!!

  You dove for the phone on the ground, hanging by its springy cord and shouted out hopefully loud enough for it to hear, “I’m calling the police, so if you don’t want your ass riddled with bullets, I’d suggest you leave! They shoot before asking questions!”

  You frantically dialed 911 but there was no ringing, instead, you could still hear buttons being pressed on the other line.

  Bleak, and accepting your fate, you put the phone back on the receiver, and turned towards the living room, where the other phone was located. 

  On the chair, next to where the table the phone normaly rested on, was The Creature. 

  You grabbed one of the lamps, ready to use it as a weapon but it didn’t attack you, just turned the phone receiver this way and that, as if admiring it. 

  Despite your fear, you took a reluctant step forward, casting the creature in the glow of the lamp you clutched and for like the billionth time that night, you gasped.

  The sprinklers had washed some of the filth off of it, too. Before, its head had been caked in a mud helmet, but now, you could actually see it’s head. It had long, disgustingly dirty curls, and wore a leather jacket, jeans and tennis shoes, all covered in grime.

  When it craned its head up to look at you, you readied the lamp, poised to throw it at it—him. It was a guy. Big brown eyes, stared up at you and he made no move to attack.

  Slowly, you lowered the lamp, and crouched down a few feet away.

  His attention returned to the phone—shoe shaped—in his hands and shakily, with stiff limbs, he put it back on the receiver.

  “It’s…It’s cool looking, right? The-The shoe phone.” 

  He glanced over at you and then the phone again as you mumbled out an explanation, 

“Our neighbor in our old town cheated on his wife and she threw all his stuff out the window at him and my dad snatched the phone.”

  “Merrrruhhhhh.” He moaned out, picking up your slipper and offering it to you. When you just stared, he dropped it and you moved the lamp to the side, crossing your legs.

  “I’ve never seen a zombie before.” You marveled, then squinted, “You are a zombie, right? An undead?”

  It took him an entire minute to choppily raise his shoulders, you realized he was shrugging. Or trying to. Every movement he made was choppy. Reminded you of how stop motion was made, except his scenes weren’t being played fast enough to have fluid movements.

  He tried to get up and promptly slipped, accidentally elbowing the mini sound system at his side. It turned on, Sinead O’Connor’s Drink Before the War playing. You’d been the last to use it.

  You watched as his head tilted in interest as Sinead began to croon out lyrics.

  “Do you like music? This is Sinead O’Connor. She makes music that heals souls.”

  He raised his wrist to his chest and you inhaled sharply as you realized he was missing the hand on it.

  “Uhm, no—I don’t think she healed your soul. I meant like, figuratively. Her music makes people feel.” You placed your hands on your own chest, trying to convey your meaning, “She’s one of my favorites.”

  A surprisingly comforting silence fell over the two of you—though he sometimes made his quiet dead guy gross sounds—as you stared at him, taking in the green-gray tint of his skin beneath the dirt all over him, cheeks sunken in. You had a feeling if you touched his skin, it’d be hard, maybe waxy and it was a bit unnerving how human his eyes were, but duh! Of course they were, he was a human. Just. A dead one. At least he wasn’t a skeleton.

  Man, Hollywood wasn’t too far off with their interpretation.

  “C’mon,” You stood up, eyes taking in the state of your home and all the dirt the two of you had dragged in, “I gotta hide you, new dead friend.”

[thebowieconstricker]

HIIIII, I noticed you are writing Lisa Frankenstein/ the creature and I just wanted to give u like a writing idea ( also the creature is SO FREAKING UNDERRATED AND HES SO FINE)

What if the readers just had a bad day, didn’t go as planned ect and the creature takes them to dance in the backyard (like in that one scene) and ends it all with him laying on the readers chest and it’s all cuddles n kisses. Like idk he seems the cuddly kind

masterlist

AN: THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY REQUEST UGHHHH

He is SO the cuddly kind, he loves making his partner feel so special and I’m certain that after being in a grave for so long, the poor baby is touch starved.

It took me a while to get around to writing ‘cause I needed inspiration (aka today sucked and I needed comfort lololololol) anyways our beloved Creature is here to love and comfort!!!! Y’all enjoy <333

~~~

Whoever said senior year was gonna be “different” was a liar.

Three lousy years of stressing over tests, dodging shoulders in the hallways, and crying in your room for what? More homework? More essays? More friends distancing themselves from you and all you can do is watch?

It was hard to make friends in the first place, never mind keep them. You’ve never been the pinnacle of extroverted-ness, so when you thought you’d finally made some pals, you were grateful.

Even if it felt strange sometimes, like when you were always the last one to find out about parties. Like when they always forgot to save a seat for you, or wait up for you.

Like when you had found out they had all planned a movie night tonight without you.

“You can come if you want?” The only thing they could say.

Bullshit, you thought.

So, you weren’t going. You didn’t want another night of awkward small-talk and laughing at inside jokes you were on the outside of.

You had homework, anyways.

Walking to your front door, you noticed your parent’s cars weren’t home. They both had to work pretty late, but you wondered how late tonight would be.

However, this didn’t mean you wouldn’t have company.

You see, through a pretty complicated series of events, you had managed to raise a little hell of your very own. Currently living in your house was a creature, a once living man who had risen from the grave, caked in dirt and grime with electricity coursing through his veins.

A terrifying prospect, one would imagine.

Nay. He was actually just a huge dork.

You never completely understood why he had taken up such a fascination with you, but what you did understand was that the two of you shared a connection. You got each other in ways no one else had. So, after you had gotten over your initial shock at his existence, you had cleaned him up and offered him a place to stay.

Anyways, you opened your door, only to immediately hear the faint sounds of gentle piano. You smiled to yourself.

“I’m home,” you called, somewhat defeatedly. A voice grunted back. You walked to the living room and there your monster man sat, hands gliding ever-so-elegantly across the plastic keys of your keyboard. He paused his playing to look at you. Immediately, he smiled, his eyes brightening. He gave you a small wave, which you returned with a grin that didn’t reach your eyes.

Somehow, he noticed.

He quirked an eyebrow, then pointed towards yourself.

You okay?

Embarrassed, you looked away. Yes, you knew emotions were valid and all that, but it didn’t make you feel any more comfortable sharing your feelings. Avoiding eye contact, you took a breath.

“It was a long day.” That’s all you said.

You heard a gruff sigh in response, which you took to mean I understand. What happened next surprised you, though.

He actually stood up from his piano. You looked back to him and watched as he made his way over to you. He then offered a hand.

You looked at his face. When you had first met him, it was covered in sludge and moss. His face had been completely unreadable. Now, although he was still unnatural looking, his expression was compassionate. His eyes twinkled with kindness, with pure intentions. He was trying to help.

You took his hand, the small grin on your face never leaving. He nodded and gave it a soft kiss, ever the gentleman. Then, much quicker than you expected, he dragged you to the backyard.

You laughed following after him, making exclamations of “woah, wait, slow down!” He continued, and soon, the two of you were in your family’s fairy-light illuminated backyard. It was dark enough to see a few stars in the sky, but what shone the brightest was the moon. You looked out at the dark realm and, once again, your eyes fell upon the creature. He seemed at home in the darkness, a welcome sight.

He looked at you with a grin and bowed.

You giggled. “Wait, if we do this, we need music.” A small radio sat on the sidewalk around your backyard, and you quickly bent down and clicked the play button. The first few notes of one of your favorite songs rang out.

You then looked back at the creature, who flexed his wrist towards you.

Well?

You raised your eyebrows, enjoying the sass. You bowed in return, as regally as you possibly could.

And then, you were swept into his arms. The music was upbeat enough that soon enough, the two of you were twirling each other around. He lifted you into the air by your hips, looking up at you like you’d hung the moon. You raised your arms towards the sky, ‘woo’ing and laughing. Once you were back down, the two of you moved to a more gentle rhythm, lightly swaying back and forth. You steadied your breathing and he smiled looking at you.

After a while, the two of you ended up lying down side by side on the fake grass, staring up at the stars. You had leaned your head on his shoulder, finding comfort in his presence.

“Thanks for… this.” You said in a sigh. He hummed beside you. “No, seriously. This was-“ suddenly, your eyes were watery and you sniffed.

Concerned, he sat up to look at you. “Oh, no, I’m fine.” You tried to stop the tears but suddenly, they were here. Sitting up, you wiped one from your cheek. “Shoot, my makeup.” You whispered to yourself. He quickly moved his hand to gather your other tears, taking care around your eyes. His eyebrows were knitted together with so much worry.

“Sorry, I just- I really appreciate this.” You admitted between tears. His eyes widened, and then he nodded, smiling. He took your hand gently, so so gently, and gave it a small squeeze.

Once again, you leaned your head on his shoulder, then wrapped your other arm around his, a new desire to hold him taking over. His grip on your hand tightened as his thumb caressed it.

The two of you sat in silent understanding, watched only by the twinkling stars above. As the music faded into the night, you felt comforted. This horrible day was over, and now you were safely in the arms of someone you loved.

Loved. You hadn’t thought that word before.

You snuggled your face into the crook of his neck, making yourself comfortable. He laughed lightly to himself at your antics. You felt a soft kiss on the top of your head, making your face warm.

Later, you would find yourselves in a pile of pillows and blankets, stargazing. You laid upon them, fingers tangled in your love’s hair while his head rested on your chest. You’d giggled to yourself when he first put it there, but it seemed right. As one of your hands played with his hair, he traced patterns on the other. Occasionally, it received a soft kiss. As you rambled endlessly about friends and classes and anything else, he listened. Even though he was silent, you knew he listened.

Loved, you thought to yourself.

Sounds about right.

[puppyluvfics]

Creature | Lee Jooyeon

Okay so I just finished watching Lisa Frankenstein for like, the 8th time, and once again, I NEED to talk about Creature!Jooyeon. Now I have a platform to do so!! So let’s talk about it.

no proper formatting on this one bc i just needed to put it in the universe... also uhm, spoilers if you haven't watched Lisa Frankenstein yet... you should do that. WC: 729 but it's a lot of photos and gifs so... long post.

Creature!Jooyeon who doesn’t talk, not because he can’t but because he likes listening to you talk and ramble about things… and also because he forgot how to talk idk

Creature!Jooyeon who lets you dress him up in whatever you want and puts on a fashion show just so he can see you smile and giggle, even if he hates it

Creature!Jooyeon who makes soft little noises of appreciation when you comb his hair, or even wash it for him

Creature!Jooyeon who picks out cute things for you to wear, and when you do, his eyes light up so bright and he smiles so cutely

Creature!Jooyeon who listens to you talk about your day and shares little candy snacks with you 

Creature!Jooyeon who invented simping for you and doing anything you asked because he just wants to be around you all the time

Creature!Jooyeon who lays his head in your lap and asks you to play with his hair just so he can feel you scratch his scalp and feel your warmth

Creature!Jooyeon who draws little things on your hands as an excuse to hold them, but also as his own little way of marking you

Creature!Jooyeon who, despite loving you, won’t laugh at your stupid jokes… but WILL laugh at the silly, awkward silence that follows right after

Creature!Jooyeon who lets you sit in his lap whenever you do things at your desk because one (1) time, you complained that your chair made your ass hurt

Creature!Jooyeon who notices all your little quirks when you focus, like how you bite your lip or stick your tongue out, how your head tilts to different sides depending on what you’re doing

Creature!Jooyeon who’ll never pass up a free moment to spin you around and dance with you, even though you both suck at dancing, especially ballroom… but he’d never, ever let you fall

Creature!Jooyeon who’ll play bass for you at any given moment, happy to learn any song you asked him to learn, be it by ear or sheet music

Creature!Jooyeon whose eyes light up when you sing along to whatever he’s playing, no matter how off key you are

Creature!Jooyeon who loves going through your stuff and hearing you tell stories about the life you had lived before he entered it

Creature!Jooyeon who’ll give you back massages and who listens when you tell him where you want to be touched and how !!!!!

Creature!Jooyeon who sleeps next to you and is always happy to be the big spoon, so he can play with your hair and smell the last little bits of your perfume or your shampoo after a shower

Creature!Jooyeon who nuzzles his face into you every night, keeping you as close as possible

Creature!Jooyeon who lets you play with his hair when you talk with him late at night in bed, leaning his head on your shoulder so you don’t have to reach so far

Creature!Jooyeon who would always rub your cheeks before he kissed you, cupping your head in his hands gently

Creature!Jooyeon who’d always kiss your knuckles

Creature!Jooyeon who’s playfully put peach rings on your fingers and bite them off playfully, and who’d let you do the same thing

Creature!Jooyeon who’d always carry you to bed whenever you were too tired to walk

Creature!Jooyeon who’d kiss all over your face before bed and every morning because you are just that precious to him

Creature!Jooyeon who is constantly looking at you with so much love in his eyes

Creature!Jooyeon who would never ever just “have sex” with you, it would always be slow, gentle and sensual

Creature!Jooyeon who helps you get off and never expects anything in return, and won’t stop until you come at least twice, genuinely. 

Creature!Jooyeon who’d cut someone’s dick off if you asked him to (LOL this is just a silly one sorry)

Creature!Jooyeon who would read to you while you laid in his lap if you were restless

Creature!Jooyeon who loves you more than life itself

CREATURE!JOOYEON, DEATH IS TEMPORARY, I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!!!!!

[mariusperkins]

for the writing asks: 2, 10, 28, 33, 41, 42!

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

honestly I think more than what they say about my fics, they accurately represent my need to make my AO3 tags as businesslike as possible lol

10. How do you decide what to write?

It can be a lot of things, I mean, I'm sure we're all familiar with watching an episode of something (or reading a book, or watching a movie, or whatever) and thinking like "well, okay, but what if THIS had happened" or "but what did THIS OTHER CHARACTER think about what happened", but apart from that it can be almost anything - cool fanart (honestly SO much of @wereshrew-admirer's art but most recently for relax we've time to spare (friends at the table)), a character I wish got more screen time (never did run smooth (the artful dodger), Rita Minute: Origins (the penumbra podcast), hand in glove (bridgerton)), a line in an episode (Five Calls Between Thisbe and The Witch In Crystal (friends at the table)), a fan theory that didn't pan out in canon (the long journey through the void of life (fantasy high)), or just plain ol' "can't stop thinking about this thing" ( I'm Not An Angel But At Least I'm A Girl (hello mary lou: prom night 2), Greetings From Nowhere (wish you were here) (lisa frankenstein), Final Girls Club (friday the 13th movie series), social media strategy for the unknown (knives out)) - really, I kind of just write whatever idea I can't stop thinking about. Whenever I get a new idea it goes in it's own google doc with as many notes as I can get down about the idea at the time (with links to whatever inspired it, if it's linkable), and then if it gets fleshed out enough (aka I'm so obsessed with the idea that I start writing it immediately) it goes into the spreadsheet I use to plan out my posting schedule.

28. Does anyone read your fics before you post them? If so, who?

I post too much to put someone through that schedule lol

33. If you write chaptered fics, what’s your ideal chapter length to write? Is it different from your ideal chapter length to read?

This is going to sound very like, horribly algorithmic, but when I'm writing out chapters or a multi-part thing, I try to make it so they're all of about the same length (generally, at least 1k, although if it's something that's multi-chapter it probably means it need the room, so likely around 3-4k). It's less of a like, 'optimising people's calculated reading time' venture capital bullshit and more like, I think it helps my pacing not go totally off the rails or spend more time on one character over another if I'm wanting to do an even-ish pov split.

My ideal length chapter to read is as much as there is written, read multiple times over until the next update (you'd better believe I do this with all of @msharmonycobel's gilded age fics).

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

I truly do go back to Reciprocation (merlin) by astolat any time I'm trying to write someone falling in love without knowing it, I feel like this fic does such an incredible job of cluing you into what's actually happening without it ever going out of Arthur's pov. It's funny, it's sexy, it's got heart! Areas of expertise (It) by dudski is another one I return to all the time, it's so funny and light and mostly outsider pov, touching on meta jokes about the It fandom and fandom/how internet culture snowballs (positive) as a whole, and all the voices really shine. And I really should say All the Worlds Between (x-men first class) by manic_intent, a role-swap fic that I would recommend to anyone trying to write role swap fics, it does such a good job of figuring out the points that would need to diverge from canon without it feeling like a complete personality transplant for either character, and figuring out the ways they would still align and fit together.

Also, if it's not to cliche to say since everyone who came within breathing distance of early marvel fandom heard about this fic, but 4 minute window (CA:TWS) by Speranza - if I can write anything that affects someone as profoundly as I feel when I get to the line "I can hold the line at two dogs" I will leave this earth feeling as though I have accomplished all I needed to (I mean, even setting aside the worldbuiling and fleshing out this fic does of canon, the layers it gives everyone inside it, it's the first time in the fic we hear Steve say something hopeful about the future! Something without this ragged edge to it! It lives in my mind and heart every day, rent free).

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

Any comment that I received on Blue Moon (les miserables) during it's literal ten year hiatus between chapters - just the fact that people came across it (or even came back to it!) over the -again- literal ten years that it did not update... it means so much to me. I mean, every comment does, really. I've been doing this for a while but it still kind of blows me away that people want to ready anything I write, let alone more than once. I mean, I like what I write, but I also think the movie Waterworld (1995) is the greatest movie ever made, so I cant trust my judgement.

ask me!

[gemsofthegalaxy]

I need to watch Lisa Frankenstein this month or next month

[simplylove101]

2024 Horror Watch Challenge Faves, Honorable Mentions, Non-Faves & Everything In-Between

Well, as per tradition since at least my third time doing a challenge (the year 2019 to be exact) I started doing a little wrap-up ranking post once it's all done just to look back on the movies I watched and which ones really stuck with me (good or bad) Normally I just group them in no specific order because it's hard for me and also, it saves time tbh but I really wanted to try and challenge myself this year so I'm going to attempt some ordering of preference beyond it being a fave or not (also, so every movie I watched gets mentioned for once). Wish me luck. lmao Also, decided to change the format just slightly because I think I watched more movies from the current year vs. older ones than ever before so it only made sense to me to separate those rankings from each other. It's already hard enough to rank them as it is so this is neater for me. lol

2024 RELEASES

FAVES:

The Substance

Last Night with the Devil

Oddity

Lisa Frankenstein

Longlegs

It's What's Inside

Abigail

Milk & Serial

Strange Darling

Exhuma

The First Omen

MadS

Still split on certain placings because this is the one that's really hard since I enjoyed every one of the movies in this section, which made it so I couldn't even settle on a Top 10 so it became a Top 12 List instead. lmao But yeah, I had to keep The Substance as my top spot just because like I already said, it was truly unforgettable to me and it feels like I gotta give credit where it's due. A campy body horror masterpiece. The rest of the top 5 spots felt like they had to belong there (Oddity was originally 2 but then I just really loved Late Night with the Devil overall even more while Oddity is more because it scared the shit out of me in a way I didn't expect lol) It's What's Inside almost took Longlegs' spot but then I was too split about that. The rest I feel pretty good about. MadS is the biggest surprise on the list probably but it just really stuck with me Idk.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Immaculate

Blink Twice

Infested

Stopmotion

Maxxxine

Speak No Evil

I Saw the TV Glow

Lowlifes

Terrifier 3

A Quiet Place: Day One

Some of these could have been a contender for a Faves spot in a different year probably, just short being there. Some of these were fighting for a spot in the next category as well since I decided to add more to highlight other watches I normally wouldn't have categorized. The top 3 were the ones fighting for a Faves spot ofc, everything else feels right. I debated where to put Maxxxine but had to do it. And honestly no one is more surprised than me to see a Terrifier movie in the Honorable Mentions section, especially before a A Quiet Place movie but well, I can't say I wanted to like it more than I did cuz it me gave what I expected and it certainly wasn't mid but it couldn't be on the faves either so. lol

Wanted to Like It More:

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Alien: Romulus

Cuckoo

Night Shift

Trap

Double Blind

Decided to make this a category because honestly, there's some movies where I wanna put them in the Honorable Mentions section but then had decided there was a better movie to take what would be in its spot instead and some of these just really needed something else to beat the other ones I put there. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn't really that bad but it just felt so long at times I couldn't put it any higher in my rankings. Night Shift is actually pretty mid material in retrospect but I'm biased for Phoebe, same for Josh with Trap. If I didn't have this section, they'd definitely be in the next category instead. Double Blind makes the cut cuz I personally liked the actual concept and some of it was cool.

Mids:

+ (almost forgot to count this one too since I decided after watching it that this isn't a horror to me at all personally)

Lovely, Dark & Deep

Tarot

In a Violent Nature

Apartment 7A

The Watchers

Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire

Never Let Go

Humane

Hold Your Breath

Arcadian

Don't Move

Frogman

Another new category this year and that's because some of these are technically ones that could be in the worst of the bunch but there were too many duds this year already. lol Lovely, Dark & Deep could have been put up on a higher tier if certain plot points were believable but welp. Also, this is me once again saying I don't think Tarot is as bad as IMDB will have you believe it is (is it great? No. But it's watchable imo) The rest aren't necessarily set in stone with their placements but both Don't Move & Frogman are on this list because they're just shy of being Nopes for me.

NOPES:

Night Swim

Imaginary

Afraid

The Front Room

Founder's Day

The Blue Rose

Sting

The Strangers: Chapter One

Little Bites

House of Spoils

The Exorcism

The Crow

Subservience

Under Paris

Azrael

Now, tbh, there's not necessarily a proper ranking I could do for all these movies because frankly, if they made it on this section, there's really no redeeming them for me tbh. It means I genuinely didn't care for it. But I attempted an order of how much I truly hated them. Night Swim, Imaginary & Afraid are all together because all three were horrible and I need Blumhouse to stop making movies like these immediately. lol The only one originally on the Mids list was Azrael because of my Samara Weaving bias and it showed some promise but I just didn't really enjoy it so couldn't lie.

COULDN'T FINISH:

Frankie Freako: I get this was meant to be a horror comedy and a love letter to 80's horror I'm sure but I just couldn't even get into this. It felt like it was trying way too hard to be cheesy for the sake of being cheesy and I just checked out as soon as I got that feeling

Mind Body Spirit: Interesting concept and I was willing to give it a chance since the lead seemed like she was really game in her role and the premise was a little different. What threw me it wasn't a true found footage movie. It changed the tone at weird times and I wasn't really here for that so I turned it off.

The Platform 2: Made me so annoyed because I actually remember really liking the original movie and this one was just a lot. Also, I was really confused. lol

Time Cut: My original horror comedy Halloween watch. It doesn't help I kept hearing bad things about it all day before I was gonna watch and then when I finally turned it on, I knew almost immediately it was not gonna be good. Why we are already doing time travel movies to the 00's and we can't even be accurate?? Also, the acting was giving awful. :/

STILL TO WATCH:

Heretic

Your Monster

Nosteratu

Smile 2

Y2K

A Different Man

The Devil's Bath

V/H/S Beyond

Pretty much in the order of my excitement to watch them I think. Heretic looks like it's gonna be cool. My work friends are very hyped for it. lol I haven't seen enough to really get what Your Monster is gonna be like but it just sounds like it's gonna be my vibe hopefully. I desperately need Nosferatu to be good. lol Smile 2 apparently is superior to the original for some people so that makes me curious. Y2K being a horror comedy already means I'm definitely in. lol A Different Man = body horror? Could be interesting. And I actually meant to watch The Devil's Bath cuz Spookyastronauts raved about it but I just never did. Oops. XD

OLDER MOVIE RELEASES (2023 OR BEFORE)

FAVES:

The Sixth Sense

The Host

Godzilla Minus One

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Skin I Live In

Dream Scenario

Influencer

Compliance

To be honest, I'm not surprised The Sixth Sense turned out to be my fave of the semi-older movies I watched this year. Kinda crazy it took me all these years to finally watch it but hey, better late than never. And it lived up to the hype! As did The Host. The pleasant surprise was giving The Killing of a Sacred Deer a second chance and actually liking it once I got over how odd it was gonna be. lol Influencer is a bit of a Shudder original gem as far as I'm concerned because what a great performance by its villain. And it feels weird putting Compliance on a Faves list a bit just cuz it's so heavy and uncomfortable but it feels like it deserves the spot for me.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

The Stranger

Speak No Evil (2022)

Planet Terror

The Strangers: Prey At Night

Suitable Flesh

Blood Tea & Red String

How to Be Alone

Even tho, The Stranger was released as a movie in 2024, I decided to count it on here since when it was released as a miniseries, that was 2020. Either way it earned it's spot on here cuz of my Maika bias and it was a rollercoaster. The original Speak No Evil was solid like the remake but no enough to be a Fave. The Strangers: Prey At Night is my fave Strangers movie just because it's campy slasher fun imo. idk lol I've decided Suitable Flesh was pretty fun after all. And yeah, I added another Maika thing with How to Be Alone just because XD

MIDS:

As Above So Below

Sister Death

No Exit

Studio 666

Th13rteen Ghosts

The Lords of Salem

Willy's Wonderland

House on Haunted Hill

Gotta say, even though I listed all of these movies as mid, a good amount of them are still better than the Mids of 2024 imo. Or at least entertaining, despite (or even because of) its cheesiness. In particular that means As Above So Below & Th13rteen Ghosts I think.

NOPES:

The Remaining

Sleepwalkers

Dead Silence

Cat Person

We're All Going to the World's Fair

God Is a Bullet

So, in the case of these Nopes, The Remaining is for sure the worst movie on it. It was nice seeing Italia Ricci & Alexa Vega both in a movie together but it was not worth it tbh. lol Sleepwalkers is 90's bad, which means yes it's definitely bad but at least it was amusing?? Same for Dead Silence, it was 00's bad, which means it's laughable but I liked that in a weird way. Now Cat Person... That movie just made me uncomfortable and annoyed. lol We're All Going to the World's Fair... I genuinely wanted to like that movie more. I continue to think that style just isn't for me but then I did enjoy the director's other movie so who knows. And well, God Is A Bullet was just a weird movie. But I love Maika so it could have almost made the Mids list instead in a different year.

And the one COULDN'T FINISH that was older that I could remember trying to give a chance only because its poster grabbed my eye on Tubi before I quickly realized that this was gonna probably suck LOL:

Well, that concludes the rankings for my 2024 Horror Challenge. Kinda crazy I watched 88 movies this year. What the hell. And most of them were from this year or last year. lol Anyway, hopefully I'll try watching more older stuff again for next year's challenge but it was still fun regardless. Another successful year I guess! heh

[nyrhtak04]

One Week In

This is quite the rant, so bear with me. I'm using this post to process what happened.

So I go to a small, Christian, liberal-arts-heavy university. Most of my friends are queer, and all of us are neurodivergent. My brother was the token cishet neurotypical friend (as far as we know, anyway).

Some of us formed a movie-watching group. A lot of us grew up sheltered in one way or another (missionary kids and/or homeschoolers, restrictive parents, etc.) and so those who weren't decided to show us movies they liked but we hadn't seen. Also, we just wanted to laugh at dumb, campy movies like Twilight.

So by Friday of the first week of school, we had watched Twilight and Lisa Frankenstein, and some of us were in the middle of Totally Killer.

On Thursday, I drove my brother and some of my friends (all girls) to a small indie rock concert. We all had a great time, and we got to meet the band members and get pictures and signatures. They shouted us out onstage; it was awesome.

On the way home, we were all screaming about how hot the lead guitarist (a woman) was. We meant it in the aesthetic sense; even our straight friend was gushing about her. My brother was quiet.

I was only out to my queer friends. Up until this point, whenever he was with the group, we didn't usually talk about "gay stuff" since we weren't sure how he would react. And up until this point, he had never said anything. I was the only person in our group who could tell he disapproved, and even then, he only looked vaguely uncomfortable.

Friday lunch, we were all sitting together talking about the concert, what movies to watch next, and stuff like that. Some of my friends brought up that the band's lead guitarist dressed bi. I knew most of the cues, but the rings were new. This launched a conversation about how bi girls dressed, and our bi friend was cringing the whole time because she hit every stereotype.

As my brother came to sit with us, the conversation changed subjects. One friend may have said something about "never [having] met an aroace person before," but I wasn't sure how my brother interpreted that if he even caught it.

That afternoon, he and I were walking together, and he mentioned that he had looked up the movies my friends had suggested. He referred to said movies as "lesbian propaganda," which made me snort. He advised me against watching those movies, and I humored him. I told him that we could just watch something else. This had proven true in the past since one friend was not a fan of Lisa Frankenstein, and we had agreed to let her choose the movies we watched with her. Let her show us movies.

On Saturday, I called my best friend (who attends a different university) and discussed our first week of school. I was telling them about my friends; it was nice to have queer friends (they're queer, but also my only friend until I moved for college).

After lunch, I headed to the parking garage to drive across campus for a theater activity in which I was involved. As I walked to my car, I got a call from my dad. This wasn't super weird, but I would have expected him to text ahead. I had left lunch a little early, and had about 15 minutes before I needed to be at the activity, so I picked up.

He asked if I "had time to talk." This has never been a good sign, no matter how many times my parents get mad at me for being distrustful. (when have I been wrong about this? It's not pessimism, it's pattern recognition.)

I answered that I had an activity, but had about 10-15 minutes before then. He said that wasn't long enough, and asked when I was done for the day. This was REALLY not a good sign. I told him I had a good chunk of time starting around 4pm. He agreed we could talk then.

I pressed him for the topic of discussion. He eventually admitted that it was about "sexual orientation."

I hung up with him and called my brother. There was no reason my dad would want to talk to me about that unless my brother had said something. He had not spoken to me at all. There was no warning.

He would not tell me what he told our parents. The only response I could get out of him was "You're just going to have to talk to him," over and over.

I hung up on him.

I headed over to the rehearsals, my heart at least 130bpm. I did my best to keep it together, but I wasn't very successful.

All art students at my school are required to attend the art gallery openings (usually showcasing students or alumni). There was an opening that afternoon. I walked around the gallery for a few minutes, and while I could recognize that the show/pieces were beautiful, I couldn't really appreciate it.

I went to my room and called my dad. It was about half an hour before we had agreed to talk. But surely, sooner was better, right?

He was driving and told me that he would call me back "when we agreed" in an unnecessarily aggressive tone. Then he hung up.

At this point, I completely broke down. My roommate and one of our friends found me.

I explained that my brother had told our very queerphobic parents something about me but that I didn't know what he told them. I was terrified that I was going to get disowned.

They assured me that my parents weren't going to kick me out but that if they did, they (my friends) would ensure I had a place to stay over the summer. They assured me that I had family here and that they would take care of me if things went south.

My roommate stayed in the room when I made the call.

My dad started with the usual small talk, how-are-things-at-school deal. Once we were done with the niceties, he asked if I wanted to have this conversation on speaker, since my roommate had been interacting with us during the phone call. (Why wouldn't I? I had no idea where this conversation was going, and I wanted someone who could intervene if the need arose).

Apparently, my brother had told them that I was bisexual. Not because I had shown any interest in girls, but because I didn't hate my queer friends.

My parents had interrogated my sister, who gave up that I was asexual. I think she tried to explain biromantic asexual (since I had not come out to her as aroace; I had just told her that gender was not a consideration for me), but my parents didn't really grasp the concept.

Anyway, long story short, I clarified that I was not bi, but couldn't get out of admitting that I was ace.

My dad was cool with it, mostly. He assured me that whether or not I ever came home with a guy was none of his business.

He's not sure about the label though. Apparently, my mom is demisexual (in the proper sense of the word) (she would balk at the vocabulary though). My dad just thinks I'm like her.

Overall, it went better than I expected. My roommate did not have to intervene but occasionally touched the bedframe to remind me to breathe.

At dinner, I sat with my friends, still visibly distressed. I don't remember how the subject came up, but I decided to fill them in. It seemed appropriate, given that my brother had been talking (lying) about them behind their backs.

They were very upset, on both my behalf and their own. One friend walked over to my brother and told him that she would text him later. "You know what it's about."

After dinner, I went over to the theater event. It went well. My brother attempted to call me multiple times on the way back. I did not pick up, partly because I didn't want to talk to him and just because I was driving.

I went to hang out with the friends who had been accused in the "salem dyke trials." One showed me the text she had sent my brother after dinner. She called him out on his terrible communication skills and for completely taking away my choice in the matter.

We decided to keep watching Totally Killer to take our mind off the afternoon.

I got a call from my dad. I sprinted to go hang out with some other friends, because I could guess the nature of this call.

He asked how the theater event went. I told him. He asked me what I was doing now. I told him I was hanging out with some friends and we were planning to watch TBoSaS (which was true). He asked if the accused friends were there, too. I told him they were not. He asked if I had "told [friend] to text my brother." I had not, but I hadn't stopped her, either.

My brother, upon receiving the friend's text, did not respond to her. He forwarded it to our parents. He proved her point for her.

My dad asked if I had read the text. I played dumb, not sure how he had interpreted it.

He went on this rant about how my friend was manipulating and isolating me. I was astonished. Had we read the same text?

I explained that I wasn't picking up my brother's calls because I was pissed off at him for outing me behind my back. He had not said anything to me before going to them. This had nothing to do with my friend except that he had accused her of trying to turn me gay (or something like that).

My dad told me that my brother wanted to make it up to me. I said that I was not going to speak with him tonight. My dad encouraged me to at least talk to my brother in the morning.

I agreed to this and we hung up.

By this time, TBoSaS was not an option, so I went to hang out with the initial group.

We came up with a game plan for how I would talk to my brother the next day, and generally just verbally processed the situation.

I'll make another post about the next day because this one is already way too long.

[spicebiter]

Watch List- English Language Movies (Latest Update Nov. 6, 2024)

My extensive movies list. Not numbered because tumblr has a character limit in blocks of text that affect numbered lists apparently, but fyi before you open the read more there are 300+ entries in this list.

Because of the sheer number of things I want to watch I’m separating my watch list posts into four categories. I keep them separate primarily for organization so I can decide what to watch based different variables (mood, time, language, etc)

I’m pretty much constantly adding things to all of my lists- hence why I’m amending when this was last updated to the title itself- and will update this post anytime I update the wheel I use to randomize my next choice, which usually happens after I’ve added or subtracted a significant number of options.

3096 Days

48 Hrs.

8MM

A Bucket of Blood

A Fistful of Dollars

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

A Tale of Two Sisters

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

All About Evil

All Eyes

All of Us Strangers

All Hollows Eve

Alyce Kills (2011)

American Guinea Pig

American Mary

An American Crime

Antlers

Apostle (2018)

Area 51

Arrival

Artemis 81

Asylum of Satan

Audition

August Underground

Baby Driver

Bad Boy Bubby

Bad Influence (1990)

Basic Instinct

Bathory

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Being Human (US)

Below (2002)

Beyond the Black Rainbow

Bird Box

Black Sheep

Black Mountain Side

Black Narcissus (1947)

Blade series

Blade Runner

Bleed With Me

Blood Quantum

Blue Velvet

Bones and All

Brain Damage (1988)

Brand Upon the Brain

Buffalo ‘66

Bullet Train

Butchers (2020)

By Any Means

Byzantium

Cabin Fever

Campfire Tales (1997)

Cannibal

Cannibal Apocalypse

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter

Cargo

Chained (2012)

Chernobyl Diaries

Cherry Falls

Christopher Robin

Cobweb (2023)

Cohasset Snuff Film

Cold Skin

Constantine

Crank (2006)

Crash

Crowsnest

Cujo

Curfew (1989)

Cut (2000)

Dark Harvest

Dark Places

Day of the Dead

Daybreakers

Dead Birds

Dead Body (2017)

Dead Calm

Dead Ringers

Dead Silence

Dead Snow

Deadstream

Deathdream

Deathwatch

Dementia 13

Detective Pikachu

Devil's Advocate

Diabolique

Dig (2018)

Digging Up the Marrow

Don't Worry Darling

Dragonslayer

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Duel

Eden Lake

Electric Dreams

Eraserhead

Estranged

Even Lambs Have Teeth (2015)

Eve’s Bayou

Ex Machina

Extracurricular (2018)

Eyes in the Dark

Eyes Wide Shut

Feed

Feral (2017)

Fertile Ground

Flatliners

Flowers (2015)

Found (2012)

Fox Trap (2016)

Frankenstein

Frankenstein’s Army

From Black

Funny Games

Gaia (2021)

Ganja and Hess

Gentleman's Agreement

GetAWAY (2020)

Ghost Ship

Girl in the Bunker

Glass Onion

Godzilla series

Good Time

Goodnight Mommy

Gray Man

Grotesque

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

Hacksaw Ridge

Hard Candy

Hatchet (2006)

Head Count

Headless (2015)

Hear No Evil

Hell House

Her Name Was Torment

High Tension

His House

Home for the Holidays (1972)

Honeydew

Honeymoon (2014)

Hotel Hell

Hotel Inferno

House of Flesh Mannequins

House on the Hill

House That Jack Built

Howl (2015)

Humanoids From the Deep

I Am Elizabeth Smart

I Saw the TV Glow

Identity (2003)

Imperium

Imprint (2006)

In Her Skin

In The Mouth of Madness

Inception

Infinity Pool

Inland Empire

Interview (1998)

It Comes at Night

It's Such A Beautiful Day

Jack the Bear

Jacob’s Ladder

Jaws

Jug Face

Juice (1992)

Just Before Dawn

Kill List

Kissed (1996)

Lake Nowhere

Last House on the Left (1972)

Last Shift

Leave

Legend (1985)

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

Leviathan

Life (2017)

Lisa Frankenstein

Little Deaths

Little Monsters

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Longlegs

Lord of the Rings

Love Exposure

Love Lies Bleeding

Lovely, Dark, and Deep

Lovely Molly

Mama

Mandrake

Maniac (2012)

Marionette (2020)

May (2002)

Mayhem (2017)

Megan is Missing

Melancholia

Memories of Murder

Mister Creep (2022)

Mockingbird Don’t Sing

Monkey Man (2024)

Mukavemet (2022)

Murder By Numbers

My Own Private Idaho

Need for Speed (2014)

Night of the Creeps

Nocturnal Demon

Nope

November (2017)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Only Lovers Left Alive

Orphan

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

Pearl

Phantom of the Opera

Phantom of the Paradise

Phantom Thread

Phase IV

Pig (2010)

Poltergeist

Poor Things

Poughkeepsie Tapes

Predator

Premium Rush

Primer

Prisoners (2013)

Psycho Goreman

Rabid (1977)

Rawhide

Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves

Requiem for a Dream

River’s Edge

Roadhouse

Robot Dreams

Rope (1948)

Rose Red

Safe (1995)

Satan's Servant (2020)

Scanners

Sea Fever

Seasoning House

Seed (2007)

Serial Mom

Session 9

Shark Side of the Moon

Shrew’s Nest

Silver Bullet

Small Soldiers

Smokin’ Aces

Snatch

Sole Survivor

Some Like It Hot

Sometimes they Come Back

Sonic the Hedgehog

Splice

Splinter

St. Maud

Star Time (1992)

Star Wars series

Still Breathing

Stoic (2009)

Straight Edge Kegger (2019)

Student Body (2022)

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

Sunshine (2007)

Super Dark Times

Suspiria (1977)

Swallow (2019)

Swiss Army Man

Talon Falls (2017)

Tank Girl

Terrifier

Terror Vision

The Abyss

The Atticus Institute (2015)

The Awakening

The Babadook

The Beach House

The Beyond

The Block Island Sound

The Boston Strangler

The Breed

The Burrowers (2008)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cave (2005)

The Color Purple

The Dark

The Deeper You Dig

The Devil's Carnival

The Divide (2011)

The Dunwich Horror

The Dyatlov Pass Incident

The Endless

The Evil of Frankenstein

The Girl With All the Gifts

The Gracefield Incident

The Happening

The Haunting (1963)

The Invisible Man (2020)

The Killing Kind

The Lair of the White Worm

The Last Broadcast

The Last Exorcism

The Last Unicorn

The Lazarus Effect

The Lords of Salem

The Machinist

The Matrix series

The Menu

The Midnight Meat Train

The Night Flier

The Old Ways

The Omen

The Others

The Passenger

The People Under the Stairs

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

The Pit

The Plague Dogs

The Quarry

The Red Shoes (1948)

The Reflecting Skin

The Relic

The Resurrected

The Serpent and the Rainbow

The Slayer

The Sleep Experiment

The Tall Man

The Tank

The Thaw

The Thief and the Cobbler

The Tommyknockers

The Triangle

The Triplets of Belleville

The Usual Suspects

The Void (2016)

The Vourdalak

The Wickerman

The Wisher (2002)

The White Reindeer

Thelma and Louise

They Live

Tigers are Not Afraid

Tombstone

Total Recall

Tremors

Triangle

Trilogy of Terror

Tron

Turning Red

Tusk

Twins of Evils

Underwater

Unearthed

Unhinged

V for Vendetta

Vamp

Velvet Buzzsaw

Videodrome

Violation

Virus:32 (2022)

Vivarium (2019)

We Are Not Alone

We Are Still Here

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

Wendell and Wild

What Josiah Saw

White Snake

White Zombie

Willow Creek

Wolf Creek

X (2022)

X-Men

You'll Like My Mother

Zodiac

Zombie (1979)

Zombillenium

[queenimmadolla]

𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

previous — next part ┊ 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ( + playlist)

Summary: You learn the identity of your new undead friend, get a mini ‘makeover’, catch your crush’s attention and bury a body while Eddie learns throwing up on the girl he’s interested in probably doesn’t display his potential as a boyfriend, but his protective nature might.

Chapter Warnings: a stinky boy, dark humor, unpleasant home life, intense longing (on eddie’s behalf). oh yeah, and murder.

a/n: so i lied, this is actually longer than the first chapter and i accepted my fate. we’re getting to the fun stuff, though. next up: more vigilante justice, eddie lore and emerging feelings for a certain dead man walking. hope you like it!

light dividers ℗ cafekitsune ♡

“C’mon, over here.” You gestured to your open doorway, watching your new zombie pal hobble up the final step and round the staircase. His movements were harsh, stiff as hell and made your bones hurt to watch for whatever reason. Every over limp was accompanied by an inhuman grunt, and you wondered if moving his limbs might actually be painful for him.

  You were never particularly skilled in the art of masking your emotions, so your eyebrows were furrowed, mouth parted and upper lip tucked up to clearly display your phantom discomfort. 

  Once he was close enough, you crossed over the threshold, standing a little in front of your bed as he wandered in, large eyes immediately raking over everything on your walls. After beckoning him further in, you moved around the filthy corpse standing in your room to close the door. 

  “Despite your deadly good looks, we can’t risk anyone seeing you. No one else can know you’re here.” You informed him, trying to stress the seriousness of the situation without seeming too controlling. While you had waited for The Zombie to struggle up the stairs, you’d determined there were three possible ways this town would react to discovering a member of the dead had risen—that only seemed to be socially acceptable and celebrated in the form of Jesus Christ:

 1.) Pitchforks and Torches.

2.) News, Military, and Government attention, which would no doubt mean you’d have to break him out of some lab.

3.) Pitchforks and Torches, News, Military, and Government attention, which would mean you’d have to save him from an angry mob before inevitably losing him once News stations picked the story up, causing subsequent Military and Government interference and the scientific study of your undead friend in some high tech/high defense lab, leaving you to figure out how to break into and get him out of it. 

  Or, he could just not leave your bedroom. A beautiful alternative.

  The Zombie didn’t even pay you any attention, stumbling forward—and banging his foot against the leg of your bed frame—to take a better look at your things. He was grunting and groaning, though this time it seemed to be a little different. It almost sounded like he was talking to himself. Or maybe to you. 

  Zombies in film seemed to be able to voice their demands for brains. Could he? Did he have the same urge or need to eat brains? How would you even feed a zombie?

  “Can you talk?” You asked, leaning back against the door, eyes on him as he had to hop in place in order to turn his body to face you, “Like, speak? With words?”

  He seemed to consider your question for a moment, eyes darting to the side.

  “Uuuuuuunnnggghhh.”

  “So, that’s a no. Do you…do you need brains? Because I’m not sure I can get you any of those—and if you think for one second that you’re gonna eat mine, you should know I fall under fight when it comes to fight or flight responses. I’m like an alley cat, I’ll fuck you up.”

  The Zombie stumbled back, rocking from side to side. It took you a moment to realize he was trying to shake his head, no.

  Interesting.

  “No brains?”

  Again, he rocked from side to side, “Uunggh-uunghh.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Your defenses dropped immediately as you played with your hair, pulling gently at a section of it, “Well, what do you eat?”

  He did the choppy shoulder raise he’d done in the livingroom earlier, “Unnhh unnhh.” 

  Your lips curled into a small, fascinated smile. Okay, you knew he had been once alive, once a human being existing on this earth with blood pulsing through his veins—and now he was dead.

  Yet, he wasn’t dead. He was dead but standing in your bedroom, amongst your girly things and not so girly things, staring at you in his grotesque form, and shrugging I dunno, like some alive person. A full blown, supernatural one-time (to your knowledge) occurrence only depicted in Sci-fi films and horrors.

  Why you? What did he want with you?

  You hadn’t realized you’d voiced the question until he hobbled back around to your bedroom wall, raising his left hand, and the only one he seemed to have, up to one of the tombstone etchings. His fingers were all sorts of fucked up, frozen in the most uncomfortable looking positions as a result of rigor mortis in whatever position he’d died.

  “What? That? It’s just an etching I made of a tombstone.”

  He craned his head around, and you tried not to be freaked out with the way his neck hadn’t turned enough with it, tapping his crooked pinky finger against the craft paper and then moved it to his chest.

  Your eyes zeroed in on the etching, trying to understand what he was attempting to tell you. 

  It was MUN’s tombstone—no, Eddie Munson’s tombstone.

  Your jaw dropped. Had to be somewhere around your feet, on the floor. Holy. Shit.

  “That’s you? You’re Eddie Munson?” It was rude, but you openly pointed at him.

  He didn’t grunt in response this time, rather, he began to cough and gag as he jerked his body around to get his hand in his dirty jeans. 

  While he did whatever it was, you took the time to take him in even further. He wore black jeans, but under his leather jacket he seemed to be wearing a discolored dress shirt that had once probably been white. You had a feeling the sneakers on his feet, while horrendously dirty, weren’t all that worn out. Dress pants were pricey, you knew that much after buying some for your father when your mother would take you to outlets and malls with her. Dress shirts were a little cheaper and new shoes were seen as a staple in big events for peoples’ lives, such as graduations, birthdays, dances, weddings and funerals. 

  You had a sneaking suspicion this lively carcass hadn’t been from this part of town when he was alive. 

  “UUUUUUNNNNGGGHHHH!” The Zombie moaned out, almost victoriously as his stiff arm stuck straight up in the air. Dangling from his curled fingers, was your mother’s pearl necklace. You’d seen it last when you’d entrusted MUN with it yesterday.

  You gasped, reaching out as he lowered it into your furled palm. 

  With the proof in your hand and his corpse before you, you knew you were speaking to Eddie Munson. He was, without a doubt, the grave you’d been running to.

  “Holy crap, you are Eddie Munson!” You gripped the pearls in your fist, eyes wide and blinking rapidly to try to make sense of it all, “You were murdered and now you’re not—I mean, you were, but you’re back from the dead, standing in my—ooh, standing pretty close actually.”

  You tried not to flinch as you became aware of just how close he’d stumbled over to you. Definitely within arms-length. He didn’t exactly stink, his flesh looked much too leathery to actually smell (you weren’t about to lean in and sniff to test the theory), but the scent of wet dirt was strong and the smell of whatever he’d spat on you earlier seemed to be lingering. 

  Zombie Eddie was in desperate need of a shower.

  “So, this is all pretty cool and bizarre—I’m a fan of both—but uhm, why are you here…? Like, in my house.”

  He slouched even further into your space, this time you did flinch a little as the most muffled whimper sounded from him. Reminded you of the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz when he couldn’t speak properly because he was all rusted up. 

  Eddie held eye contact as he struggled to grab hold of your hand and the minute he did, dirt from his skin pressing into yours, you knew what was coming.

  Because of course it would. This is something that would only happen to you.

  Shakily, Eddie tried lifting your hand and your mouth puckered, brows furrowing before you sucked your lips into your mouth as you watched him prepare to kiss your hand with his filthy, dead, dried out lips that still had bits of that green goop he’d spat up around it.

  You were a nice person—a relatively decent human being, but you weren’t that nice and you didn’t wanna have to go to the hospital on the off chance that you caught something from a corpse. Explaining that one would send you straight to the psych ward and probably end in some sort of abuse of a corpse charge, so you quickly pulled your hand out of his grasp, rubbing your fingers together to roll some of the dirt off of them.

  “Okay, okay, I see, mhm—alright. You’re here because—when I said I wished I was with you, I didn’t mean like, I wanted to have your dead body…y’know, pressed up against mine. I meant like…in the grave. Next to you. Like buried there because I’d be dead. It was a moment of intense angst—I’m nineteen and my life is in the fucking gutter. I’m surrounded by terrible people in this town and I have the rest of my life to live out this way.

  “I didn’t mean to lead you on or something, and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime to do literally anything with a corpse, other than bury it.”

  The two of you stood there, just staring at each other. He still hadn’t moved out of your space and you were still kind of leaning back, away from him, so you added, “So. Just a little recap, I wanted to be dead. Did not mean I wanted to be with you. Romantically. Together. Like a couple.”

  And then you felt a little guilty because that wasn’t entirely true.

  “Well, not with you as a cadaver.” Because you had fantasized about the person in the grave being a source of comfort to you, “Or—or, you in general. ‘Cause…’cause I didn’t know it was you given how fucked up your shit was, and I didn’t know you when you were alive.”

  God, you were messing this up. Rather than continuing your ongoing word vomit, you flashed him a tight smile.

  Finally, you got a reaction out of him. He creaked back, those little whimpering sounds coming from his lips before that same nasty ass green shit from before started leaking out from behind his eyeballs.

  You’d made him cry.

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—I just moved here a couple of months ago and you were already dead by then! I’m sure you were a lovely person and I would have liked y—y—yo—ECH!”

  You gagged, hand flying up to cover your mouth and nose as you felt the contents of your stomach start to make its way back up. While your hand was in that position, it squeezed the tip of your nose, cutting of the assault currently taking place against it.

  Whatever it was Zombie Eddie was secreting instead of his tears, stunk. It was the most putrid scent you’d ever had the misfortune of knowing. Nothing could compare to it, not literal shit, not vomit, not pasta that had been left out to cook in the sun for several weeks, nothing.

  You were sure one more sniff of it, and your nostril hairs would either shrink and curl up, or disintegrate. 

  “MOTHER OF GOD—your tears smell horrendous—I’m gonna throw u—ECH!”

  You gagged again, tears flooding your sight and you hurried over to the bathroom, gesturing for him to follow behind you.

  Chrissy had left her door to the bathroom open, so you skidded across the tile to shove it closed, desperate to make sure the scent didn’t reach the room and wouldn’t linger in there.

  She’d drive you straight to the ER to get checked out, because nothing you could possibly shit out should ever and would ever smell that bad.

  You yanked the shower curtain back from the tub, setting Chrissy’s products to the side and out of the way, “You need to bathe like two years ago, my dead guy.”

  You stepped to the side, pointing into the tub with a finger as your other hand rested on your hip like you were ordering a misbehaving child in.

  Eddie groaned, and you got the feeling that he was unimpressed with your theatrics. Unfortunately for the both of you, you hadn’t been dramatic about it. His stank tears had to be an actual biohazard and you didn’t want to think about the fact that very same biohazard had been projectile vomited onto your face a couple of minutes ago. You were so gonna scrub it raw.

  Begrudgingly, he hobbled over to your tub and struggled over the edge until he was in—his upper half slamming into the tile wall. 

  You didn’t say anything about him being fully clothed, shoes and all, because everything he wore needed a good rinse off. If not, you’d have to hose his clothes down in the yard before subjecting the dryer and washer to them.

  “There’s my soap.” You pointed out the pink bottle of pomegranate and berry scented shower gel, “And my shampoo and conditioner—those two are very expensive and a little goes a long way, so don’t waste any.”

  You eyed him for a moment, mouth twisting in consideration, “Nevermind, it’ll take half the bottles to get your hair clean, I’ll just have to replace them a little earlier than my budget expected.”

  This time, Eddie’s mouth parted rather wide as he moaned out, “UHNNNGGHH.”

  He was probably telling you to fuck off already, but you were distracted by whatever insect was currently in his mouth, on his tongue.

  “SPIT IT OUT!” You shrieked, and he aimed his head down, the large thing with too many legs falling right out to crawl around on your bathroom floor.

  You screamed as you began to stomp around, trying to crush it beneath your remaining slipper but it kept evading it! Finally, your foot flattened it with a satisfying crunch.

  The evil had been defeated. You were nearly panting, shoulders rising and falling as you calmed your breathing and another sound registered.

  Eddie was croaking now, it sounded almost like the most painful gasps someone would let out on their deathbed. You stared, puzzled for a moment before it dawned on you.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  He did it again, stiff body leaning completely back on the shower tiles now.

  “Oh my god, you are! YOU DICK!” You slapped the side of his arm and then quickly yanked it back, frowning at the mud now caked to the back of your fingers. 

  “Ugh,” you tried to shake some of it off over the tub, your head shaking as well—and despite the predicament, you found the corners of your lips twitching but you refused to smile. Wouldn’t let him get that over you, “You’re gross. That better be the last living creature to come out of you, you Zombie Headbanger, take a shower.”

  You didn’t give him a chance to moan, groan or croak at you again, yanking the curtains back to shield the tub and it’s undead occupant.

  You rolled your eyes, almost fondly, and gathered too much toilet paper to wipe up the remnants of the bug and toss it in the trash. Should’ve been in a different corpse’s mouth if it wanted to live.

  “You know how to work a shower, don’t you?” You asked aloud as you approached your bathroom counter, taking notice of the bathroom mirror as you uncapped a room spray and gave your bathroom a good burst of it. The mirror had already been replaced, looked like Laura couldn’t stand to know there was something imperfect in the house—aside from you. 

  You heard the tub start to run before the shower stream took over. At least he still remembered that much.

  “You wanna listen to some music?” You asked over the loud stream of the shower.

  “Uunngh.”

  You took that as a yes and leaned over the counter to tweak the knob of the radio you and Chrissy always left on it. Immediately, a country station started playing and you quickly switched the station.

  “That’s not one of mine! Chrissy listens to Country whenever she misses her ex-boyfriend, I don’t know why.”

  You kept twisting the dial through various stations. When you hit a station midway through Disposable Heroes, you turned the knob again only for your companion to voice his outrage.

  “UUUUUUNNNGGHHHH!!!”

  “What?” You switched the station back, “You like Metallica?”

  He grunted from behind the shower curtain, and the scent of your body wash began to fill the bathroom, much to your relief. You could hear him banging around in there, probably not the easiest to wash up with a bad case of rigor mortis.

  “They’re alright, I liked Ride the Lightning, but Master of Puppets is good, too. Their last album was good, too, but it felt kind of different. Not the same without Burton.”

  Eddie made a sound of confusion, hand with the fucked up fingers reaching out to push the curtain back so he could poke his head out.

  You met his gaze through the mirror, “You don’t know?”

  He just blinked, almost owlishly. 

  Shit. He must have died before the fall of ‘86. You’d have to ask Chrissy when exactly Eddie had died.

  “The bass player, Cliff Burton? He died in ‘86. Bus accident.”

  You watched as Eddie’s gaze dropped, and the groan he let out sounded remarkably sad as he ducked back behind the curtain.

  Unsure of what to say to make him feel better, you let the radio play out the rest of the duration of Eddie’s shower and took diligent care in washing your face and brushing your teeth. Once he was done, smelling amazing and just like you, you’d had him shed his clothes for one of your nightgowns and dragged him back to your closet.

  You knew he was quite literally stiff, but he seemed extra unenthused with his choice of ensemble, so you were going to let him choose his own.

  “Alright, take your pick.” You yanked the doors of your walk-in closet (as in you could take three steps in and that's it) open and he flinched back at the amount of pink seeping out of it. When he made no move to look through his options, you selected one for him.

  An even gaudier nightgown you tried to shove in his arms. And he let you, before purposely dropping it to the ground while holding eye contact. 

  “Well, I thought you would have looked great in it.” You mumbled as he creaked down to pick it up for you. When Eddie hobbled into the closet to hang it up, you shut the doors behind him, “Pick something else and then you can come out!”

  Your closet doors didn’t lock though, so you were just banking on him assuming they did and you heard his offended zombie groaning. While you waited, listening to him no doubt bang into the walls as he struggled to dress himself, grunting and groaning, you twirled around on your desk chair.

  Eventually, the closet doors parted and you gasped at the sight of him, standing there in your lavender fluffy, oversized sweater and pair of white pajama pants with hearts all over them. He couldn’t really move his face all that much, not very expressive and yet you could somehow tell he was scowling.

  “You look like Grimace.” Was all you said, mind conjuring up Ronald McDonald’s purple monster friend.

  The closet doors were promptly slammed shut. When he emerged once more, gone was the former ensemble. Eddie was wearing a neon green skirt, a tight off the shoulder black top, and nothing else.

  You wolf whistled at his skinny, severely discolored legs.

  He stuck one out, modeling it for you and you realized he was humoring you. You laughed, eyes crinkling.

  “You tryna knock me dead, too?”

  When he nodded, you laughed again and stood up to rummage through your dresser. You found a band tee you used as a pajama top, and some black pants that looked like they might fit him. Then you spotted a red plaid flannel you had hanging on your bedroom door, waiting to be placed in the closet.

  The clothing items were shoved into his arms and you pushed him back into the closet.

  When he came out (eheheheh) again, you were practically bouncing in your seat. You’d never seen Eddie alive before, had never seen him in clothes that weren’t his burial ones, and he definitely still looked as much of a Zombie as Michael Jackson had looked in the Thriller music video, but he also looked like a young adult, and very much so in his Metal element. He was stretching your baby blue socks to their limit, but they’d have to do until you could steal some from your dad. You’d scrub his shoes tomorrow, before class.

  If Eddie were alive, he’d look…hot.

  You smiled to yourself, still taking him in as you realized you were looking at Eddie Munson.

  To show your admiration, you clapped for him, “That’ll do real well. What do you think?”

  Eddie raised his forearm and you tilted your head, confused. He followed your gaze and groaned, rolling his eyes as he realized that was the arm lacking a hand. Then, he held up his other arm, painful looking thumb finger cracking and popping until he was giving you a thumbs up. You ended up tying a scarf around the wrist without a hand, just to hide the gaping wound. 

  With the matter of his clothing solved, you moved onto his hair, sitting on the bathroom counter while he stood in front of you as you worked on detangling with a spray bottle and a legion of hair products. It took some TLC, and ignoring the hole where his ear should’ve been, but you brought his curls back to life. You were shocked to even see he had bangs, they’d been plastered to the top of his head when he was the Swamp Thing.

  They framed his eyes, looked real good on him and he seemed to enjoy the entire process, eyes slipping shut and little moans (not like that) coming from him.

  “Well, I think we’ve got you back in good shape.” You put down the comb, placing your hand on his shoulders to turn him towards the mirror, “Is this Eddie Munson?”

  You watched his gaze scan his reflection, before those eyes were on yours in the mirror. 

  “Unnnghhh.” Eddie held up his arm with the missing appendage and you nervously scratched the back of your heard.

  “Well, you see, I don’t really have any extra hands on me, at the moment. Just down to these two,” You emphasized the sentence with some jazz hands to display yours, then immediately felt guilty over still having yours so you hid them behind your back.

  Eddie groaned low, lifting his wrist to the side of his head, where his ear should have been and you made a displeased sound. 

  “Oh. Noticed that, did you?”

  His eyes narrowed and even though you had no idea what Eddie had sounded like, you could still hear him in your head, Notice my fucking ear is missing? Yeah, I did.

  “I don’t have any extras of those, either. If it’s a body part, I’m out of stock. But—who cares? Plenty of people live without them.”

  Eddie grunted, eyes narrowing even further at you.

  You winced, “Poor choice of words—the point is, no one will even notice. Because no one is going to see you.”

  Eddie’s next grunt sounded disappointed and you felt even guiltier. What were you supposed to do? You’d already made him look as relatively normal as you could, there was only so many ways you could disguise a zombie who walked oddly, communicated via moan, groan and grunt, and looked like he had a medical skin condition.

  You were about to try to comfort him when you heard the front door open and you gasped.

  “WHAT IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?” You heard Laura cry out, and your dad shouted your name. 

  “I don’t mean to sound homophobic, but back in the closet!” You shoved him out of the bathroom and in the direction of his new hiding place. He hadn’t looked very keen as you shut the closet doors on him, but he’d have to wait for now.

  Your dad was probably having one hell of a heart attack, staring at the mess of the house, the broken window, fearful a similar situation as your mother’s assault had taken place with you as the victim.

  “I’m alright, daddy!” You reassured as you raced down the stairs to your concerned father. He was concerned alright, but not about you.

  He had Laura in one arm, who was openly distraught about the shards of her damn plates, and Chrissy, who was staring at the mess with open confusion, in the other.

  “You,” Laura spat at you with venom the moment her chilling gaze locked onto your approaching figure, “What. Did. You. Do?”

  Wow. You’d seen an actual Zombie—he was upstairs, in your bedroom closet—and still the most unbelievable thing to happen to you was your ‘family’’s ability to immediately blame you. You hadn’t expected Eddie’s corpse to be the first suspect in their head, still, they’d seen your house ransacked—as you tried to escape your friendly deceased headbanger—with you nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been at all concerned for your wellbeing. God, they sucked.

  “Me?! I didn’t do this!”

  “Then who did!?” Laura screeched back and you found yourself getting angry.

  “The guy who broke in!” You shouted back and Laura immediately rolled her eyes. You could hear your dad say both of your names to calm you down, but you were growing tired of him, too. Like Eddie, he seemed to be missing parts of his body. Noticeably, his goddamn spine.

  “Really? You expect us to believe that after last night? The smashing of the mirror, my precious moments figurines? Muffin, your daughter is out of control. She destroyed my house!”

  “Do you ever use those creepy eyeballs stuck in your skull?” You found yourself blurting out, “Does it look like any part of my body came crashing through that window?!” You pointed aggressively in the direction of the livingroom, where glass littered the floor. It was too much for just an object to have been thrown through and your body had no cuts, nothing to show from possibly jumping through it.

  “Mom, if sissy was attacked─” Chrissy tried, her her mother was having none of it.

  “Attacked? Who would want to attack her? She’s invisible, taking up space!” Laura was practically hysterical as she gathered pieces of her broken dishes, “That’s why she’s acting out, can’t you see? She’s recreating the crime scene that got her so much attention and you’re all falling for it!”

  The woman was crying, mascara smearing around her eyes as her angry glare was once more directed to you, and you found yourself shrinking and hurt at the accusations, “You need serious help. You’re crazy and a danger to us all!”

  “I think you might be mistaking me for your psyche.” You mumbled before turning your attention to your father with pleading eyes, “Daddy, there was a home invasion! I tried to call the police, but as soon as I heard him, I ran up to hide in my room.”

  “She needs help, institutional treatment.” Laura hissed into your father’s ear as as though she was the devil on his shoulder.

  “Daddy…”

  “Mom, sissy’s not a nut, we can’t send her to the looney bin!” 

  You wanted to scream. All this talk about you being insane, and there was a literal walking corpse upstairs who could disprove that. You just weren’t willing to sacrifice Eddie for yourself. 

  “Dad, I’m not crazy. Okay? Last night was just a mirror, and tonight someone broke in. There’s a huge difference between the two, I’m not crazy.” You tried to reason, desperate to not get shipped off to some mental ward. 

  Your dad appeared sympathetic, “No one is calling you crazy, sweetheart.”

  ”I did.” Laura guffawed at your father siding with you.

  “She did, I heard her.” Chrissy confirmed, frowning at her mother.

  “No, Chris. Your mother’s just upset, she’d never say something like that and mean it.” You watched with disgust as he pulled Laura into his arms. It was more than you could stomach so you stormed out of the dining room, making a retreat for your room.

  You were on your own. Your father had just proved that. Laura could say anything to you, treat you like crap, starve you and he wouldn’t ever step in, just continue being his wishy washy self. If it had been him and not your mother that night, you wouldn’t be suffering like this. 

  You’d have a loving parent. 

  You quietly shut your bedroom door once you made it in, leaning your forehead against it as a tear slipped from the corner of your eye. Emotions were something you tried to embrace, but crying because of your family felt…wrong. Like something you shouldn’t have to do. 

  Wiping your face, you realized more tears would be coming. Tonight was meant for crying. So, you slipped into bed, tears leaking steadily down your temples to seep into your hair and pillows. You were so hurt and you wanted to sob, but you were conscious of the dead guy in your closet. What if he heard you?

  With a stuttering breath, you peered over at the closet to see the doors barely open and Eddie peaking out at you.

  You rolled onto your side, back facing him to hide your tear stained face and weakness as you thought about how loud you and Laura had been downstairs. He’d probably heard what she said about you.

  It was one thing to be treated the way you were, it felt extra pathetic to have someone bear witness to it. 

  The closet doors closed quietly behind you and just as you did every night, you squeezed your eyes shut, willing sleep to come so you could be done with the day and move onto the next, just solemnly trying to make it through life. 

  Maybe you and Eddie had more in common than you originally thought. Maybe you were a zombie, too.

  When your alarm blared from your nightstand, rousing you from sleep—the only peace you ever seemed to get—you stumbled out of bed almost blindly, eyes heavily lidded with exhaustion as you yanked your closet doors open.

  A garment was immediately thrown over your head, covering your face and you remembered your current house guest.

  With a sigh, you yanked the clothing off your head, balled it up and threw it back at Eddie, “Dude, I have to get dressed. I have class today.”

  Eddie grumbled, un-balling the little black dress and holding it up for you. It was the dress Chrissy had bought on sale and then given to you when she came to the conclusion that black washed her out and she looked much better in pastels.

  “I’m not wearing that, not so much my style.” You tried to push past Eddie, but he remained planted where he stood, grunting as he held the dress out to you once more.

  “Do I look like Madonna to you?” You asked, pushing the dress back towards him. Eddie groaned and threw the dress at your face again, closing the closet doors while you yanked it off your head, again.

  “We’re gonna have to have a conversation about your communication skills later.” You called through the door and fiddled with the dress, “Can I get a sweater or something to go along with this?”

  The closet doors were quickly opened and a new article of clothing was flung over your head before they closed. You’d just pulled the sweater off of your head when the doors opened once more and a hat was tossed at you.

  “Dang—anything else?”

  “Uuunggh.” Eddie moaned through the door, and you tried to pull at them but he must have been holding them shut from the otherside. 

  Resigned to your fate, you swapped out your pajamas for the outfit Eddie had apparently selected for you. He would navigate to the black clothing. You were unsure of it until you saw yourself in the mirror. Normally, your clothes weren't all that revealing. Form fitting—maybe, but never as attention drawing as this. You just figured you weren’t the type that could pull it off.

  You were wrong. 

  The dress hugged your figure in the most complimentary way. It was short, stopped mid-thigh, but it didn’t look awkward or make you feel like your vagina would be on display if you bent over, thanks to the lace of the bottom hem flaring out.

  For once, the girl in the mirror looked stunning. And when you did your makeup, taking your time to smoke a dark blue shadow out along your lash line and eyelids, she looked drop dead gorgeous. 

  You’d walked onto Campus with your head high, body rocking and a new found confidence that hadn’t quite made it’s way to the surface before. The heads turning in your direction were new and you found you kind of liked it, their gazes weren’t uninterested, scowls or looks of annoyance. They were appreciative, even from the straight girls!

  “Okay, am I seeing things or does your sister look drop dead gorgeous?” Tina asked, as Chrissy and her friends stood admiring you from the bench they were occupying.

  “You’ve got perfect 20/20 vision. She’d be unstoppable if she kept the confidence. Could probably even win pageants. Do you think she’d join cheer?”

  Eddie fiddled with one of your shoes, tugging on a shoestring in boredom. He was sat on the floor of your closet, light from your bedroom windows creeping in through the cracks of the doors. 

  You’d lectured him before you left for class, told him he had to stay put. Laura wouldn’t be leaving for her nurses’ conference until the afternoon, so she’d be lingering in the house and she’d have a cow if she stumbled upon him.

  So you’d pointed and lectured until he was creaking and groaning his compliance. 

  He’d stayed in the closet while you got dressed and, after you’d made sure Chrissy had already left, watched you do your makeup in the mirror while you chatted about the classes you had to take for the day.

  Eddie had listened, to the best of his ability with one ear, and stared at your reflection as the heavy sense of longing settled on his chest, crushing the heart that no longer beat but desperately wished to. For you.

  Death was not like he’d ever expected. No heaven, no hell. He was just…dead. Maybe it’d been the way he died. Perhaps, the suddenness of it, his lack of peace in life while living, or the fact that he was murdered, was the reason he saw neither heaven nor hell. He’d just been in a dark place. Literally, no source of light, no out of body experience, just darkness. For a while, it was tolerable, he’d heard Wayne’s voice comforting him. Telling him how much he loved him, how much he missed him. Then, nothing.

  Nothing for so long. Quiet. Silence, not at all a peaceful kind. He no longer existed in life and yet the silence was still somehow smothering. 

  Until one day, he wasn’t alone anymore. 

  You found him. 

  Talked to him all the time, laid with him, kept him company and said such wonderful things. Eddie had no idea how much he’d appreciate hearing about current news events as a dead guy.

  And while you kept him from feeling lonely, there was always a sadness to your presence. Broke his heart when you told him out of place you felt because he just wanted to claw his way out of his grave and tell you that no, you weren’t odd, you weren’t weird, you weren’t out of place. You were unique. You were the type of person he would have admired if he had been alive, different but not desperate to fit in. Just longed to be accepted.

  He understood the sentiment all too well. 

  Eddie understood you. And you had no idea who he was, had voiced as much to him, couldn’t come up with his identity because some fuckers had defaced his tombstone—of course they would—and yet, you knew exactly who Eddie was. Knew him to his very core.

  When you visited him, Eddie felt warm. He had no idea he could even feel things, other than the constant loneliness that had plagued him after Wayne’s presence disappeared, and before you.

  With you, it felt like you were right there with him, beside him. A warmth, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him in for some much needed comforting. How ironic that he finally found someone who could finally see him, and he couldn’t do anything about it because he was dead. 

  And when you had come to Eddie that fateful night, the sadness he always noticed about you was heavier. A new despair attached, one that had him desperate to get to you, comfort you as you’d done for him.

  I wish I was with you.

  You’d said it. Had said what Eddie had wanted to hear you say for so long, even before he was dead. Before he knew you. It had always been you he was waiting for. He was beginning to understand the universe was bigger than anything he could have imagined (and yeah, maybe universal studios was the first thing that came to mind when he was alive), was positive the heartache he went through was necessary if it led him to you. Eddie could have done without the murder—there was no undoing that. Except, there kind of was. And it happened with a strike of lightning.

  Unlike the many times he wanted to before, he’d actually been able to open his eyes, break out of his coffin and dig his way out of his own grave. 

  Eddie had had a major breakdown, freaking out at just about everything regarding returning from the dead after he’d broken through that final layer of thick terrain, minutely softened by some light rain from the storm. He had first tried to go home, only to find himself face to face with an unfamiliar mobile home set up on Wayne’s lot. A peek into the window revealed a couple. 

  No sign of his uncle.

  It filled him with a sense of panic and he’d needed something—someone to stabilize him, keep him grounded. 

  Eddie was sure he was tied to you. Not only because of the unique bond you shared, he also felt a pull to you. Just some intense instinct. 

  He knew where to go after.

  Your welcome hadn’t exactly been as warm as the grave hangouts—he didn’t blame you, his vocal chords were useless to him for the time being, meaning he couldn’t explain himself as you shrieked and flung dishes at him (and he was impressed) and fled from him. He could make sounds, so Eddie suspected he had the ability to talk, just lacked the healthy cords due to years of non-use to them, what with him being dead and all. 

  Eddie’s case was definitely not helped when he’d broken your fall—he was freaking the fuck out about you dangling from the roof like that—and you’d pressed on him stomache when you landed on him. 

  He hadn’t meant to…y’know…spit all that up on you, it just happened and he immediately wanted to die right after, just roll right back into his grave, he was so fucking embarrassed.

  Projectile vomited on the girl you’re tryna romance, Munson. Nice.

  Then, you hadn’t been attacking him, tugging him along to your room instead where you immediately told him you were just using dark humor to cope and didn’t actually want to be with him.

  Probably something you should have clarified for him before he returned from the dead to be with you, but whatever. He wasn’t mad about it. Just a little bit heartbroken. Definitely didn’t stink up your closet with a little cry sesh while you were at college. Totally didn’t smell like Cherry Bubbles (how is that a scent?) from the bathroom spray he’d had to limp out to grab in an effort to hide the scent of his rotting body tears.

  Now, he was just confused. Had no idea what the hell to do. Thinking on it, it had obviously been stupid as fuck to think you’d want him when he was literally a dead body. Couldn’t exactly stroll down the street, holding his one hand without garnering a few odd looks and arrests. 

  So, what could he do now? Sit in the closet and think about everything. Try to remember everything about his last moments alive—and when it had him wheezing in the closet, cowering in the dark, he’d switched to thinking about his uncle. Concerned. Wondering what had happened to him. When that subject, too, began to promise a panic attack—he switched to thinking about you, and oh how he ached in a different way. You were right there, in reach for him and yet the two of you couldn’t be. 

  The most frustrating part is how good the two of you could be for each other, and Eddie literally couldn’t talk you into giving it a chance, couldn’t even flirt with you. 

  He had some mad rizz when given the opportunity, a body that wasn’t stiff as hell and a fucking voice. Eddie knew he’d be able to get you all shy and cute, similar to how you were when you talked about what you thought he was like back at the cemetery. 

  FUCK. What the hell? Life wasn’t fair to him, death wasn’t fair to him, now life as some zombie wasn’t gonna be fair to him?

  What kind of fucked up existance was this?!

  All because of some stupid fucking lightning that—

  Lightning. Eddie perked up, theories racing through him. If it had brought him back from the dead, maybe it could do more. Before he could think on it further, he heard your door open and froze. 

  It was too soon for you to be home. You said you’d be back in the afternoon, after Laura had left. 

  Eddie heard a scoff.

  “How has it gotten even worse in here?” Laura mumbled to herself. 

  Eddie scowled, as he heard her footsteps enter your room, could hear her padding around. 

  The fuck was she doing in here?

  It was a risk, Eddie pushed the closet door open, just enough to give him a crack to peep through. 

  Your stepmom was in some sort of jazzercise outfit—ugh, of course she did jazzercise. The blonde woman was currently rummaging through your drawers, looking amongst your belongings. 

  She was invading your privacy.

  If Eddie had blood flowing through his veins, it would have been boiling. 

  He’d heard what she said last night, how she berated you. Accusing you of using your mother’s murder to seek attention.

  And the other members of your family weren’t speaking up nearly enough to defend you. He was surprised that Chrissy—small town for Cunningham to be the Chrissy you’d been telling him about—even tried to defend you but she should have been putting her mother in her place. She hadn’t come up to check on you, either. 

  Eddie had a few things he wished he could say to Laura Cunningham, tell her exactly where she could shove her stupid figurines and verbal abuse. 

  If she was searching for something, Laura didn’t find it. She slammed one of your drawers shut, eyed your sketches pinned to your wall with disgust before speed walking out of your room. When she passed the closet, Eddie took notice of the headphones over her ears, could hear whatever she was listening to, Walkman probably set to the loudest volume.

  Eddie’s mouth chipped up into a smirk that kind of hurt his face. He opened the closet door fully, stumbling out to poked his head out of your bedroom doorway just in time to see your stepmom disappear down the stairs.

  Eddie followed, steps loud and uneven. Laura didn’t notice his presence, too engrossed in whatever she was listening to and occupied with her own ego. Looked to be cleaning up the place before her little trip. 

  Laura disappeared into the kitchen, well out of view of the living room so Eddie stumbled in, eyeing the pristine setting. The place looked impeccable, spotless, antiques everywhere that Eddie just knew the old bat was dying to have people ask about so she could name drop and be as haughty as possible.

  Eddie could wreck all of this in no time, and he would if he didn’t know she’d immediately blame you for it. He still felt guilty you’d been chewed out for the mess he made. 

  Bitch.

  Eddie heard her returning, so he hid behind the wall, waiting a few moments before he peered around it and across the foyer, into the dinning room where she was seated after having fixed herself something. Laura still had the headphones on, so Eddie took that as the all clear to continue exploring.

  He spotted a family portrait hung over the fireplace, a seemingly picture perfect family was displayed. A man he assumed to be your father loomed over Laura and Chrissy, one hand on each of their shoulders. Eddie barely glanced at them before you pulled all of his attention. You were stunning, light catching the highlights of your face, lips parted just enough to encourage a pout. Your hair was wild in comparison to the other women in the portrait—Eddie loved it. You looked like you belonged on an album cover for some rock band, even with the sorrow swirling around in your eyes. Your unwavering melancholic stare pinned Eddie, and he could feel himself getting protective over you again. You must have been miserable that day. 

  See, if he had been around, he could have easily cheered you up. Snuck over on the day in question. Laura would have hated his fucking guts—Eddie wouldn’t have minded being the boyfriend your stepmom didn’t approve of.  Horsing around behind the little photo shoot set up to get you smiling, get those pretty eyes of yours twinkling before whisking you the hell out of there once they got the money shot.

  He rolled his eyes, grumbling to himself as he turned away from the past that never was. Couldn’t have (he’d already been dead), should have (but couldn’t) and would have. In a heartbeat.

  His posture worsened under the weight of his own despair, sulking with it until he spotted an acoustic guitar, tucked in the corner and resting on a stand.

  “Mm?” Eddie tilted his head in curiosity before making his way over. It was difficult to do, but he managed to settle the neck of it in the crook of the arm lacking a hand, and strummed with his stiff fingers, pleased to find that it was already tuned. 

  He plucked a couple more chords, stopping once to adjust a peg. Then the doorbell rang and Eddie’s eyes widened. He fumbled to place the guitar back on its stand and plaster himself against the wall as Laura got up to answer it, having apparently been able to hear it ring but not his guitar playing.

  “Yes?” Laura asked as she opened the door, impatience soaking through her tone.

  “Carpet cleaning.” A man’s voice stated, sounding bored beyond measure. 

  “Carpet Cleaning? My carpet is so clean you can lick the fibers.” God, was your stepmom ever not insufferable? The carpet cleaner salesman seemed to be thinking the same thing and Eddie figured he had to be annoyed with his work day already to say what he did next.

  “I doubt the one downstairs is.” The salesman snorted and Eddie would have snickered if he could as he heard Laura let out an affronted and embarrassed gasp. 

  “EXCUSE ME?!” 

  The guy must have turned tail because Laura was stepping out after him, yelling as she closed the front door behind her. 

  Eddie eyed the bowl she’d been eating from, curiosity getting the better of him as he stumbled over to inspect it. Spaghetti.

  He shouldn’t….But what was the point of being a dead corpse if he couldn’t use dead guy powers for good?

  It only took a little effort, Eddie successfully gagged and heaved until a warm that had been lurking in his stomach came out, dropping out of his mouth to wiggle around in Laura’s lunch. Eddie watched as it disappeared between the noodles and sauce, satisfaction filling him.

  Served the hag right.

  With justice served, Eddie made his way back upstairs to your room. He’d just made it to your doorway when he heard Laura return. He waited a few more moments for her to sit down, settle herself, twirl some spaghetti around her fork and put it in her mouth.

  Eddie was beginning to think the worm had made its way to the very bottom of the bowl when Laura let out a high pitched scream. 

  That one was for you.

  Eddie smirked and walked back into your room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  You had two classes for the day, back to back so as to not have to stay on campus longer than necessary, and both classes were pleasant. There hadn’t been any change in the materials covered or anything, eyes just kept attempting to discreetly take you in, which you caught from your peripheral vision. 

  While you enjoyed the new attention your attire and the way you carried yourself brought you, you quickly realized it wasn’t something you needed. What you needed was to feel good about yourself and for once in your life, you did. 

  You were absolutely giddy, and you felt so badass somehow, was this what Chrissy and her friends felt like all the time? Maybe putting effort into your appearance wasn’t just a load of crap dispelled onto ugly people by the conventionally attractive. 

  Regardless, you were strutting your way to the library, eager to turn in some books, make Steve Harrington’s jaw drop, then run back home to Eddie so you could thank him profusely for not having fugly taste.

  Once you made it to the library, you noticed no one was at the front desk. Steve must have been putting some books back on their shelves.

  No problem, more time to prepare yourself, maybe run through some possible conversations so you wouldn’t go stupid at the sight of his gorgeous face.

  Your bag hit the ground with a thud, thanks to the weight of the hardcovers within it and you bent down at the waist to rummage through it, placing one heavy hardcover book, two heavy hardcover books, three heavy hardco—

  “You got the rest of the library in there, Mary Poppins?”

  You snapped back up, whipping around just in time to see Steve’s gaze rise from where your ass had been unknowingly on display, to meet your eyes, his honey brown ones swirling with warmth.

  Oh, god. Just play it cool.

  “Just some tampons and some chips.” 

  Leave. Walk out. Save face.

  “No chocolate for that time of the month?” He asked, leaning up against the desk, rather than going around it to handle your returns. Steve wanted to talk to you. He’d been eyeing your ass and now he was making small talk. 

  You were going for it. 

  “Craving a different kind of sweet thing right now.” You leaned in, just as he had at the tailor’s yesterday. You were laying it on thick, sure. It worked though. Steve leaned in, too, and you clocked the tick of his eyebrow. Interest. Holy shit—things were finally looking up for you.

  “I’ve got some starbursts in my car,” Chrissy chirped, materializing out of thin air to stand in front of you and Steve. 

  You almost knocked down the books you’d stacked on the desk, cursing under your breath. “Geez, Chrissy.”

  “Hi.” She grinned at you, her darling crooked teeth gleaming before she was fixing Steve with a stern look, “Sorry, I need to talk to my sister. Preferably, alone.”

  “I’m not exactly gonna run to the gossip columns about anything.” He mused, exchanging an amused look with you but you couldn’t really hear anything going on around you because Steve Harrington was flashing you smiles around Chrissy, your pretty and practically perfect step-sister, and not her. You’d entered another dimension and you did not want to leave. All you could do was smile back at him, like some infatuated idiot while your fingers reached up to pick at your lower lip.

  “That may be so, but I think it’s best if she hangs around a good crowd.” Somehow, Chrissy had wedged herself between you and Steve, standing protectively in front of you with her arms crossed. She was about as intimidating as a pomeranian. Still, it was endearing to have someone act like they cared about you.

  “And the library is just full of Neanderthals, is that what you’re implying?” Steve leaned both elbows back on the desk, gesturing out to the few students—most meek in appearance—occupying the area.

  “I was thinking more of creepy librarians, high school peakers, and former playboys.” Chrissy shot back and you nudged her, hissing out her name. The protective thing was nice, just not when she was trying to scare away the man you’d be making your boyfriend.

  “Golden coming from you, of all people, your royal highness, the Queen of Hawkins High; former head cheerleader and Miss Hawkins of ‘87, but not ‘88 and I’m pretty sure Heather Holloway won again this year, so looks like we both don’t have a lot going on, do we?” Steve was smug, shooting you a wink that made your heart melt and drip down your sternum.

  Steam was practically blowing out of Chrissy’s ears, “Shoo fly, don’t bother us.” 

  Steve rolled his eyes before they fixed on you, past Chrissy’s head, “I’ll see you later okay? Thanks for bringing your books back on time.”

  You giggled, still staring at him as Chrissy began to tug you away, “Until the next time, I guess?”

  Steve held your stare, smirk softening into a smile, “I’ll be waiting.”

  It was easy for Chrissy to guide you out after that. You were floating. Light as a feather and high on life.

  “You are the only girl I know who can survive a spiked drink and still want to have anything to do with the guy.” Chrissy sighed in exasperation as the two of you loitered by the drinking fountain, “There’s like at least four other guys here who would date you, sissy! Don’t waste your time on that one.”

  Okay. Only four other guys? Ouch. “Steve didn’t spike it. Carol did.”

  “And she’s always following him around like some sad little mutt. Better to just stay away.”

  You scowled, mood souring. One afternoon. You couldn’t have just one afternoon where you felt good about yourself without someone bringing you down. You knew Chrissy meant well, but in that moment, she was pissing you off. 

  She seemed to pick up on the shift of your attitude, changing the subject, “After practice, I’m gonna go out tonight. Some of the girls want to go bowling and then have a little kick back. Cover for me?”

  How very much like Chrissy to insult you in the name of protectiveness, and then ask you for a favor. She still cared more about you than your own flesh and blood, so, “I thought your mom was gonna be away for a few days in Akron.”

  “She is, but daddy’s not. And he’s way too overprotective, I can’t even sneeze without him bursting into my room to ask me what’s wrong. He always wants to know where I’m going, argues with me when I try to go out late—it’s so annoying.”

  All you could think about were the many times you’d said goodbye to him as you left the house at whatever hour you wanted while he mumbled a bye and read whatever magazine he was reading or watched TV. 

  You tried to consider it a good thing that he let you be so independent, yet something in you ached, sure he simply didn't care enough for you. Not like he did Chrissy, and he’d known you longer, all your life. 

  “Oh. Uhm, I think he works late today, anyway. I’ll cover if he asks, but I’m sure you’re good.”

  Chrissy perked up, pulling you into a tight hug, “You are the best! I knew I was gonna love having you as a sister. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  Chrissy didn’t wait for your reply, practically bouncing down the hallway and you sighed. 

  At least you’d have some peace and quiet, maybe you could get Eddie into better shape too, and you’d get to tell him about your day!

  With your classes done, you made your way to the parking lot, where Mystery waited for you. 

  You slid the back door of the Volkswagen open, tossing your bag in before sliding the door shut and climbing into the driver's seat of the bus. Then you started your mantras and manifestations, gripping the key with a sweaty palm before you were sticking it into the ignition and turning it with bated breath.

  She roared to life and you sagged back in your seat, bones like jelly knowing you piece of crap bus was still kicking.

  It was the biggest lemon of a car you’d ever seen, carried around jugs of coolant in the back because it had to be refilled almost every time you started it.

  But it was yours.

  When you pulled up to the house to see Laura’s car was gone, you felt yet another weight lifted off your shoulders. You were completely free to be you. Snatching your bag from the back, you made a run for your house, quickly unlocking the door before stampeding up the stairs. 

  You burst into your bedroom, chest heaving to find it in normal condition and no Eddie around. Frowning, you tossed your bag on the floor, beside your bed, and made your way over to the closet, yanking the doors open.

  Eddie peered up at you from his position on the floor, rocking an old feather boa of yours.

  “Eddie, I told you you were free to roam once Laura left. You don’t have to stay cramped in there all day when no one is around.” You offered him a hand and helped hoist him when you took it, “You wouldn’t believe the day I had—you’ve got stellar taste, by the way.”

  “Uuungh?”

  You reached under your bed, snatching an old Easter basket out that you used to hide your snacks. After you settled on the bed, you patted the spot next to you, and Eddie hobbled his way over, grunting as he settled onto the cushy comforter.

  “I know I was grumpy this morning. I’m sorry, you were right. The dress was a hit!” You exclaimed, ripping a bag of sour gummy worms open. The pink end was clenched between your teeth as you bit it off, bag of sweet and sour treats held out to Eddie as an offering.

  Eddie reached into the bag, attempting to crook his fingers enough to hook one. You watched the leathery skin between his brows pull—if you had blinked, you would have missed it—as he struggled to free his hand from the bag, shaking it a little until you pinched the bottom firmly, allowing him to pull it out.

  “Unngh.” He grunted in thanks. 

  As Eddie moved onto the challenge of getting the gummy worm to his mouth, you went back to telling him about your day, “I mean, god—all I did was put on a little dress and I felt kind of invincible. Not to mention Steve Harrington seemed to like it.”

  Eddie froze, gummy worm hanging out of his mouth, “Mm?”

  “Steve Harrington, did’ ya know him?” You asked, steamrolling right on as if you hadn’t, “Talk about winning the genetic pool—that man is so fine. We talked a little at that party I told you about, and before I did drugs, he was being so nice to me. And I didn’t look as hot as I do now, so I was hoping for a reaction out of him—BOY did I get it.”

  You let out a dreamy sigh, recalling the way Steve had leaned into your straightforward flirting.

  “He’s kind, funny, and sometimes he even has good book recommendations. He’s like the total package and I think he might actually like me.”

  You paused your ranting to look over at Eddie. If you didn’t already know his face was stuck like that, you would have thought he was scowling. 

  “You got a little…” Reaching a hand up to cup his jaw, your thumb lifted the gummy worm hanging out of his mouth the rest of the way up. Eddie’s cracked lips parted, just enough for you to press the rest of it in, then he chewed slowly, face not even twitching to clue you in on his emotions. 

  “There.” Your hand dropped back into your lap as you perked up, “I wanna assume he’s better than the other horndogs who popped woodies just because I wore a dress and flashed some leg.”

  You stuck out your leg to demonstrate, the dress slipping even further up your thigh as you held it out, smooth (mostly, she was a little prickly but no one would notice unless they were stroking it) skin on display under some fishnet stockings.

  Eddie let out a pained sounding groan, which you figured meant he was agreeing with you about the rest of the male population. 

  “Yeah. Well, I think everything’s gonna work out perfectly. Even if Chrissy keeps butting into my love life like some fairy chastity-mother. God—I just, I’ve never been close to actually having something I wanted before, you know?”

  Eddie whined from behind closed lips, holding up the wrist that lacked his hand. 

  “What?” You asked, glancing down at the scarf wrapped around it. Eddie reached up with his fucked up fingers to point at where his ear should have been and it clicked for you, “Eddie, I can’t pull an extra hand and ear outta my ass. I wish I could, but I don’t have spare human parts lying around like pieces of a vacuum.”

  Eddie whined again and this time you could actually see his lips pulling down, frowning.

  “I told you I wish I could, but I can’t! I don't know how to get people parts and I don’t exactly have the black market on speed dial. Besides—you’re fine like this, I mean what are you able to do as walking dead guy anyways?”

  “MUUUUNGGGHHHH!” Eddie groaned, loud and obviously upset as he dramatically flung himself back on the bed hard enough to shake it.

  “Hey!” You snapped, fearful for your bed frame, “Chill out dude—don’t act all coked out!”

  He turned his head, face miserable but before you could continue your scolding, you heard your name called upstairs.

  Laura.

  “SHIT, hide!” Eddie stumbled up and barely even had the chance to turn around before you shoved him into your closet, shutting the doors.

  You’d barely stepped away when Laura burst into your room. She was dressed in her nurse uniform, complete with the stupid hat, yet there was something off with her. Her skin had a grayish tint to it, she looked clammy, eyes and nostrils red with irritation and her mascara was running. Laura Cunningham looked just as terrible on the outside as she was inside.

  And for once, she scared you.

  “Laura! I thought you were headed out of town for your trip.” Laura’s stare was even colder than you’d ever seen it, unnaturally icy blue eyes both vacant and filled with a deranged sort of rage. You expected her pupils to turn into slits any second, it would be the last physical trait she’d need to resemble a demon.

  Stepmother from hell, indeed.

  “Mmm, I’m sure you were looking forward to that,” Her voice was soft, almost gentle and nothing about it was kind. It was as if to coax you forward to her, lull you into a sense of ease before striking. You were reminded of the anglerfish, and the glow of their fin ray. They used it to draw unsuspecting prey towards the light before they were devoured. 

  You took a small step back. She took one forward.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to attend next year, I’ll be skipping the conference this year. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do much learning or networking with my head plastered in a toilet bowl. I seem to have come down with something. Do you know what my symptoms are?” She asked, voice so sugary sweet and thick. 

  “Uhm. I-I’ve been on my period. Maybe we synced?” You hated how small your voice sounded.

  Laura’s lips pressed into a thin, cruel smile, “No. I haven’t been throwing up with a cramping stomach because of my period. I’ve been vomiting non-stop because a little slut under my roof is trying to kill me. And do you know who that psychotic little tramp is?”

  Your eyebrows furrowed, mouth parting in shock. Did your stepmother just call you a slut?

  “ANSWER ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU!” She bellowed, making you jump and gasp. You’d never heard Laura raise her voice like that, it dropped several octaves and she was staring at you with nothing but pure hatred burning in her eyes.

  All you could do was shake your head. You were terrified, but you weren’t about to play her game. You were neither a slut nor a tramp and it was clear, regardless of what you’d say or do, she’d be unleashing her wrath upon you.

  Laura chuckled without humor, “You really are just a stupid, insignificant bitch, aren’t you? I open up my home to you and you do nothing but cause trouble every time I so much as turn my head. I have been nothing but kind to you, even after you wrecked my home. I’ve been an angel. But putting worms in my food?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I didn’t touch your food, I just got home from classes. An—And I didn’t ask for any of this, I didn’t ask to move here.” You could see tears beginning to blur your vision, welling up and threatening to cascade over your lower lashes. They didn’t. You refused to cry in front of her. Refused to give her that satisfaction. 

  “Oh, please.” Laura scoffed, looking at you in bewilderment, “Did you want to stay in the house where your mother was sliced and diced? Was that a comfort for you?”

  “You know that’s not what I meant, I didn't want to start my life over in some town full of ignorant people.” You gritted out, hand clenching the bag of gummy worms.

  “Ignorant people, and yet—you still don’t fit it in. Telling isn’t it?”

  Despite your fear, you felt your own rage starting to build within you and before you could stop yourself, you spat out “What do you care? You never wanted me here. You just wanted my dad here in your clutches and you knew that wouldn’t happen if we hadn’t moved. He would have never chosen you over my mom.”

  Laura sneered, “It’s not much of a choice when she’s rotting in some coffin, six feet under, is it? I’m sure she’s relieved to be done with you and all the disgusting things you do for attention.”

  “Shut up!” You demanded, seething now as the devil incarnate dared to speak about your mother in such a disrespectful manner. Laura was only able to sleep in a bed alongside your father—wear that tacky ring on her finger because your mother had tragically lost her life. 

  Laura wouldn’t be but a mosquito in the room if your mother were alive.

  You hadn’t been expecting the strike that came next, hadn’t been prepared for Laura to pull her arm back and swing it forward, cracking your cheek so hard you almost spun. You yelped, hand reaching up to press against the skin of your cheek, feeling it throb and sting under your touch.

  She fucking hit you. You gaped at her in disbelief and Laura didn’t look remotely apologetic.

  “I am beyond tired of you and I am not going to wait until some maniac guts me to be rid of you. Especially when you’re already a threat to my life. No. I won’t stand for it, so I took it upon myself to begin your admittance to Hawkins National Psychiatric Center.

  Your blood ran cold as images of the unsettling ‘center’ flooded your mind. You’d heard of it before, horror stories told amongst your peers. A psych ward. And Laura Cunningham was going to have you committed. 

  “No, please. No.” You whispered, voice laced with fear.

  “It’s for the good of everyone,” Laura began, leering over you. “You don’t belong here. Your place is locked up, solitary confinement where no one will have to see you ever aga—

  THUNK.

  Laura let out the smallest of gasps.

  You watched the unsettling blue of her eyes give away to whites and red veins as they rolled to the back of her head, her body going limp as she tipped forward and fell face first to the ground. Your mouth dropped open as you watched her collapse, gurgling and twitching on the ground for just a few seconds before she went still. Then your gaze flitted to Eddie, who stood tall with your old sewing machine clutched in his hand, a corner stained red. 

  Your eyes flashed back down to Laura, and they widened in size when the pink of your carpet began to turn a bright red, blood seeping out of her skull to pool around her head and soak into the floor.

  Eddie made a grunt that sounded more so like a noise of satisfaction and tossed the sewing machine back into the closet. 

  You heard them before you saw them. Eddie had found the small pair of scissors included with your sewing machine and clipped them in the air before he bent down. You could only watch, stunned silent and with morbid curiosity as Eddie snipped your stepmother’s ear off.

  “Oh, god…” You finally found your voice, eyes darting anywhere else to avoid seeing the skin severed. You breathing became labored, chest rising and falling rapidly as you staved off a panic attack while your undead friend cut the ear from Laura’s dead body.

  Eddie held it up in triumph, like it was some sort of medal rather than a human ear.

  “Wha─? Why─?” You couldn’t even finish a sentence and Eddie must have noticed how distraught you were. He rose from the floor, stepping over Laura’s body to pull you into his arms and despite what had just occurred, you returned the embrace; arm slipping under his to clutch at the back of his shoulder, desperate for the comfort he was offering. His hand rubbed circles over your back and you leaned your cheek against Eddie’s shoulder, stare never once leaving Laura’s body as you whimpered.

  When he pulled back—just enough to be able to look at your face—he held the ear up, towards you.

  You knew exactly what he was asking you to do.

  ”Eddie…I—I can’t. I can’t do that…We have to bury the body first.” You placed a hand on his chest, leaning into him again as you both turned your heads to stare at someone who was no longer a problem for you. For the first time, in a very long time, you felt safe.

  Eddie had rescued you.

Moving the body was surprisingly easy. You’d expected Eddie’s limbs to be fragile for some reason, a foolish thought considering he’d so easily crashed through your window that first night. Eddie actually possessed a great deal of strength, easily lifting Laura’s body—wrapped in sheets—and carrying her downstairs. 

  Movement seemed to be getting easier for him, limbs that had been out of use for years returning to life and unstiffening just as he had. If his arms could support Laura’s body with no problem, you wondered what had happened to his missing hand in the first place.

  You made sure the coast was clear before you pulled your bus up the driveway and Eddie placed the body in the back. It obviously hadn’t been strapped down, so while you drove to the cemetery, Laura’s body was rolling around, banging against the sides of the Volkswagen. Eddie just turned up the music you’d been playing.

  The cemetery was vacant, thanks to the relatively early time of the day. Most people still hadn’t gotten off of work yet, which made this easy for you and Eddie. It wasn’t the most respectful thing to do—you were just out of options. A grave had already been dug out, for some poor recently deceased soul (not Laura, she could go to hell), so, the two of you had quite literally dumped Laura’s body into the empty hole and covered her with a layer of dirt so she’d go unnoticed when they’d lower the coffin, of whoever’s grave this was, into it. 

  After the deed was done, the two of you stood side-by-side, staring into it. 

  “Is death comforting?” You asked, breaking the silence. Eddie didn’t answer, didn’t even grunt, so you turned your head to the side to find him already staring at you. 

  He shook his head. 

  “Good. C’mon.” You gave the burial plot, now and forever housing Laura, an extremely and aggressively disrespectful finger, and tugged Eddie back to the bus. He went willingly after kicking some more dirt into it.

  When the two of you returned home—after you briefly stopped for ice cream while Eddie waited in the bus—you’d gotten straight to work; Eddie’s head in your lap as you sewed the ear into place.

  While you threaded the needle through the skin, Eddie waited patiently, thumb playing with your fishnets. Once you knotted the string and used your teeth to nip off the excess, you admired your work. 

  Good stitching, secure and it wouldn’t fall off. The coloring was a bit odd, skin appearing obviously more lively than Eddie’s dull gray-green tint. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Done.” You announced, hands resting on the mattress at your sides. Slowly, Eddie rose to a sitting position, head shifting around to face you, “What’s the survey say? Ear any good? Hear anything?”

  Those big, deep brown, baby cow eyes of his looked despondent as he shook his head. 

  “Mm-mm.”

  You sighed, feeling a bit despondent yourself. He’d saved you from a life of medicated compliance and padded walls, and you couldn’t even get the human ear you’d stitched to the side of his head to work. You felt guilty knowing you couldn’t make him whole again, as he so desperately wanted to be. Couldn’t be his blue fairy.

  You reached your fingers up, tips brushing alongside the soft outer edge of his ear. How funny that an appendage that had once belonged to the nastiest person you’d ever encountered, a woman who hated your very existence, was now endearing because it was a part of the guy before you. Your friend. Your protector. What had taken place that afternoon would no doubt lead to trouble, but you knew Eddie hadn’t acted out of malice. 

  He’d simply wanted to help you. And—okay, yes, he got an ear out of it, but it didn’t work. What mattered is that you weren’t alone anymore. You had someone that actually cared about you. Enough to kill for you, even. 

  It felt…like you mattered to someone.

  “I’m sorry.” You mumbled in disappointment, “I really did think it was gonna work, too. Guess Laura’s still useless, even when she’s dead.”

  Your hand dropped back into your lap as the two of you simultaneously heaved out sighs. 

  “At least you have something there, you know?” You tried to see the positive side, keep Eddie happy, “Like nipples with boob jobs. The dial doesn’t work but you can still turn the knob.” 

  He made a humming sound, contemplating the analogy, weighing it as his head tilted this way and that way. 

  “Maybe it’ll catch up with you later, like the rest of your body. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you getting better at moving around.” You teased, nudging your shoulder playfully against his.

  Eddie stiffened and you thought you might have offended him, “I mean—I’m not paying super duper close attention or anything, I just like to watch you—It’s not like I see a living dead guy every day.”

  “Unngh.” Eddie seemed to pay no attention to your word vomiting, pointing at a sharpie on your nightstand. 

  “What? This?” You reached over and snagged it, offering it to him. He carefully took it from your hands, his hardened fingers brushing over your soft ones, and awkwardly popped the cap off with his thumb. 

  Your eyebrows shot up as Eddie began doodling on the skin of your hand near your thumb and index finger. 

  “Why did I think you were illiterate?” You mused aloud and Eddie briefly stopped to glare at you and grunted, unamused, “You can’t blame me, you could have picked up a pen and paper this entire time, hell—I have an Etch A Sketch you could have been using instead of making me decipher your ‘uuunnngghhss’.” You did your best impression of his zombie grunting and he put the sharpie between his thighs so he could flick the cap at you. 

  Like an expert dodger, you lifted your hand just in time for it to bounce off your palm as you giggled and he went back to finishing up his little doodle. 

  A lightning bolt. 

  Your lips pulled into a soft smile as you admired it, something warm pooling in your belly. It was cute and there was something very attractive to you about walking around with Eddie’s little sketch on you.

  An Eddie Was Here, if you will.

  And then it hit you. Lightning.

  “OH.”

  Eddie grunted, pleased that you’d picked up on what he was trying to convey.

  “But how are we gonna…” You trailed off, brows furrowing as a montage of the two of you played in your head; sticking a metal rod in the ground with Eddie holding onto it as you waited for some approaching storm to electrocute him. The only problem was the weather forecast for the week predicted nothing but sunshine and clear, starry nights. No electrocution for the week. Unless…. “Oh my god.”

  You turned to Eddie, grinning almost maniacally, “I’m a genius.”

  Forty minutes later, you found yourself staring at your reflection in the vanity mirror Chrissy had set up inside the tan shack. It was softly aglow with pink and warm hued fairy lights, and neon blue coming from the tanning bed. One of her beauty pageant crowns was placed on your head, and you had to admit, it did make you feel pretty. It looked good on you, too. Huh. Maybe you should have done pageants, could have won one, even.

  Sparks flew from the tanning bed, some feet away, with Eddie inside of it. 

  It was the next best thing to actually being struck by lightning. Well, it was either the tanning bed or electrocuting him in the small pool with a plugged in radio, but you didn’t want to get wet.

  You grabbed a little fairy wand, no doubt part of one of Chrissy’s pageant costumes—probably Galinda—and posed with it, pleased with your reflection. Your hair was frizzy and it somehow added to your allure. 

  You could rock with this confidence thing for a while if it made you not hate yourself like usual. 

  The tanning bed’s buzzing whirled down until it was silent, save for a few random sparks, and the bed opened up, top lifting to reveal Eddie laying in a cloud of smoke, wearing those little goggles you’d insisted on to protect those pretty eyes of his.

  You got up to check on him, tapping his chest with the end of the wand, “You baked enough?”

  He groaned as he sat up and dinged his head on the top of the tanning bed and you flinched, dropping the wand.

  “Ooh, yeah, I’ve been there too.”

  Grabbing onto his hand, you helped pull him out of the tanning bed to sit on the edge and sat beside him, pushing the goggles up his large forehead and pinning away his bangs.

  Eddie didn’t say anything, just blinked sluggishly. He was baked alright, that voltage was no joke.

  “Eddie,” You leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Can you hear me in there?”

  No reaction. 

  “EDDIE MUNSON, CAN YOU HEAR ANYTHING I AM SAYING?!”

  To your amazement, Eddie flinched away from your shrieking, and with his face turned to you, you noticed he looked different, skin more…skin like. Not the leather you’d noticed before. He still hadn’t answered you, so you kept going, “IS THAT A YES—YEAH?”

  Eddie groaned out, face affronted as you continued to scream at him and your shrieking turned into screams of excitement. Eddie joined you in yelling (well, he tried, it was very loud groaning) when it dawned on him.

  It worked. Eddie Munsons had two working ears.

  “Oh my god!” You flung yourself at him and immediately jolted away when you got shocked. Eddie reached out for you, resting his hand on your shoulder, “No, it’s okay, that was on me. I got too excited, but oh my god! Eddie! It worked! We got you a working ear!” 

  You were beaming, felt like you’d cracked the secret of life. And it looked like Eddie was trying to smile at you, corners of his lips pulled up just a tad. 

  The two of you looked ridiculous, you with your frizzy hair, crown and fairy wand, and Eddie with his electrocuted hairdo, tanning goggles making his bangs look insane and a slightly discolored (actually, it was looking more like his skin tone now, bizarre) ear, with one earring and one hand.

  You glanced down at your arm; specifically, at Eddie’s arm resting against it. The one that lacked a hand.

  Well, you’d already started. 

  “I think I know someone who can give you a hand.”

[notmuchtoconceal]

This is going nowhere.

I'm spelling it out, but you're not listening,.

Your troubled schooldays. How you're conflicted about marriage. Your denial of death. The unfounded guilt. Abnormal sexuality.

18 years of denial.

A whole universe of fantasy in that thick skull of yours. A skull teeming with agents of repression. Blind children clutching photos in the dark. Pale freaks, goggle-eyed from watching home movies on loop.

The term is complicated grief. But it's simple, isn't it?

A young girl. Her parents don't get along. She blames herself, as all children do. Then daddy dies. What's a girl to do? Deny that daddy died. Denied who daddy was. What seven year old actually knows who their parents are, anyway? So she obsesses and obsesses over this fantasy dad, propping up her make-believe with scraps. Scraps of a happy life that never was. Scraps of a happy life that never existed.

WAKE UP.

Your dad wasn't a hero. He wasn't your knight in shining armor.

[ [

He was a human being. You never knew him. And you never will.

The dad walking around inside your head isn't even a ghost. He never existed. A Frankenstein's monster. A child's fantasy.

But you're alive. Your mother is alive. She's not the monster you make her out to be. You need to live your life. Cheryl.

...

You've been with me for so long.

I always will be.

...

[[[ ]]]]

\ Why did you have to die?

It wasn't my fault.

Someone has to take the blame.

Forget me.

[[[ ]]]

/ Dad.

You are a hero.

The man who died? That wasn't my father.

That isn't who I remember. Those memories are all I have.

You're all I have.

... I'm not even a ghost?

| ((( )))

|

/ ... /

aha haha

sweetie

daddy?

i love my daddy

/ . / You'll be careful...?

Sure.

Harry.

We've said enough. Let's just...

Sweetie, don't film this.

You know this has nothing to do with you.

Even though mom and dad don't love each other anymore, we'll always love you. And we always will.

\ . \

Action.

Come on, girls! Introduce yourselves!

I'm Michelle. And I'm Midwich High's Prom Queen.

And our next star ... ?

haha I'm Lisa. I'm a nurse.

And I'm Harry Mason!

Famous author and seducer of Prom Queens and Nurses!

Can we be in your next book?

Suuuure.

Can you dedicate it to us?

Nope. Dedications are always to my wife and daughter.

It's only fair.

Ahahahahahaha

woooooaaah

\ . \ You piece of shit. When are you gonna bring in some real money.

[ ]

You think your crap is Shakespeare? Your piece of shit novels?

NOBODY EVEN READS THEM!

[ ]

BE A MAN!

COME ON FIGHT BACK!

You're pathetic.

To think I used to hang off your every word!

DICKLESS WASTE OF SPACE

...

.

.

/ . /

, , ,

,

,

What the hell are ya filmin me for?

Am I suppsoed to dance for ya?

ya ya hey hey hey hey

' ] [

GAGH

Be a good girl for daddy, get him another drink, will ya?

NOW

GIMME A DAMN BEER

no i wonder i drink with a family like this...

. ,.

,

.

,

|

This.

This is it?

After all we've said, all we've discussed...

You honestly believe ... that your father was abducted by aliens?

It made more sense when you were talking about cults and demons!

This whole town... It's really a giant spaceship :D

[[[ ]]]

James?

Wrong day again?

See you tomorrow, James.

]]] [[[

One of my couples therapy patients.

Haven't seen his wife in a while...

Where were we?

(woof-woof-woof)

My mother was a bitch.

((( ))) )))((( ((()))

Go on. I'm listening.

[antihero-writings]

Undead Memory (Ch1)

Fandom: Castlevania (Netflix) (Season 2)

Character Focus: Alucard

Summary: What happened during that month in which Alucard was alone in the castle?

Alucard dealing with the aftermath of S2, and trying to cope with the death—or, more accurately, the ghosts—of his parents.

Notes: First of all, spoilers for season 2!

Another Alucard-centric fic, but actually about the show this time!! Whoo!! I'm excited to finally start posting this one. 

Believe it or not, I started this idea a while before S3 started, wanting to write something for the time after S2 of Alucard being alone in the castle. Then after S3 I wanted to write it both more and less XD The idea of Alucard seeing ghosts brought up at the end of S2 is an interesting one, and one I thought deserved more exploration. As well as just that month where he's alone being something interesting to write about. 

This is one of those fics I wanted to post as a long one-shot, but ultimately got stuck and decided it would be better to break it up into chapters to make it more manageable for both reading and writing. I said it'd be 4 chapters above, but I'm not quite sure exactly how many it'll be. It just helps me to jot down a manageable ballpark number.

That being said, one of the reasons I hesitate to break things up into chapters, is because if people don't seem interested it severely inhibits my desire to keep writing that fic. So, it really does help my motivation a LOT when you comment and say you want to read more!! So just know that when you comment, you're helping more of this fic get written!!

Shoutout to @it-burns-when-i-pee for giving me the clock idea!

Chapter 1: Reminders

There were no graves. Dracula and Lisa didn’t get graves. The rest of the world would have said they didn’t deserve to rest in peace.

Antigone would say Polynices deserved to sing in Olympus all the same.

The only grave they got was a castle. And many would say it was better than most—that they’d take a castle over a headstone, a mausoleum, or the ground any day. They’d say a castle was a hell of a lot better than being dumped down the sewage grate.

And all that’s fair, but perhaps the bigger problem was this: there were no remains.

They both burned. One in holy fire, one in hell. (And who could say where they truly ended up, if there was a heaven and hell after all?)

All that was left of Lisa Tepes was a pile of charcoal on an altar to a priests own pride.

And all that was left of Vlad Tepes was a ring, and a soot stain on the carpet.

Most would say they got what they deserved; to die without chance at Olympus.

Adrian doesn’t know where to put his flowers.

Most children bury their parents eventually, but usually this is when they have children of their own to keep them company, and their parents have been bouncing grandchildren on their knees for at least a year or two, with white hair and crinkled smiles, barely able to walk, or see: sick and ready to greet the gods.

Adrian may look old enough to settle down, but he’s younger than most would surmise. And while he can certainly handle himself, he was not prepared for his parents to die within a year of each other…especially considering that the parent who was meant to be immortal died by his own hand.

He would have liked to have some respite in his own home.

But perhaps, more important than where to put flowers, there was most unfortunate side effect of the lack of remains, and the castle grave:

Ghosts.

And this isn’t the pearly white wraiths wandering around saying ‘boo’, or skulls that float about the head gnashing their teeth. Not even a chained apparition to remind one of their sins.

This is something much worse. Worse because they belong to the house’s owner. Worse because their true grave is his head.

—(And that place never rested)—

Their ghosts wander the castle, not just a graveyard. This castle seems to have an affinity for the undead.

Maybe not everyone could see them. He tries not to indulge the thought that maybe there’s nothing there at all, and they’re nothing more than undead memory.

Alucard has been seeing ghosts since the moment he was left alone in this place.

He’d rather have a grave to mourn them at, and converse with the memories, than watch their ghosts keep him up at night, unable to touch, or to talk to them.

He should remind himself to look up the definition of ‘torment’ later.

At first it was his father’s steps when he walked up the stairs. His mother’s smiles, his own young laughter when he sat in the study. When he sat at the table to eat, he watched the vampire king tossing a young boy into the air, both laughing like fairy wing beats, as Lisa watched on from the table. Alucard tried not to lose his appetite.

Then they were given voice: it was Father’s lessons when he looked for a book in the library. Mother’s stories as he sat reading, making him incapable of concentrating to his own book all the while. Baking cookies together in the kitchen. Father allowing him his first drink—(of wine or blood? Take a guess. He only needed one of them, after all)—as he walked through the cellar. Mother decorating the castle, making it look a little nicer, a little more alive. Not all of them were positive. Their arguing voices down the hallway. His own tears.

Father’s claws against his chest.

And he wouldn’t dare get close to that room. Because whenever he walks past the door, he can still hear his father speak to him like he did when he was still a child dressed in sunlight, and there was nothing but love.

Mother, father and…himself. As if he died long ago with them. As if the happy child he was within them is gone. As if he’s no longer the Adrian who sat with his parents, read with them, baked cookies, and laughed with them…but the Alucard who killed them.

And, well, maybe he didn’t kill his mother, but sometimes he didn’t know what else to think but to blame himself for the thought that he could have saved her.

And he did kill his father.

He still feels that stake in his hand when he walks by that room—(But it wasn’t a stake was it? It was the bedpost of his childhood bed, as if ripping his childhood at the seams and denying everything he was born as). He still feels its splinters in his fingers, the smell of pine, the feeling of it piercing his father’s chest, the way his heartbeat refused to stop—(he rested his head on his chest once, the constancy of the rhythm was comforting then). The warmth of his father’s blood draining over his fingers. The sound of his father’s ripping voice. The unearthly, ungodly howling of the souls trapped inside him—(was he really so bad?). He could still smell his flesh burning.

He still wakes up in the middle of the night with the image of his fathers face melting off its bones as it came closer to him, reaching out as if to to caress his son’s cheek, seared onto his eyes—(is this how Victor Frankenstein felt when the creature smiled at his window?)

But when the morning came, he took that ring and he wore it on a chain around his neck all the same, to remind him of a few things:

One: that love is one of those things that is free, but comes at a high price. If you take it lightly, it will leave you heavily.

Two, an addendum to one: that love is not soft. Love is not flowery words, or even the insatiable desires the romance novels say it is. Love is an insidious fire, when you have it, it rages, and you know what warmth is. When the fireplace is empty it aches, and when your heart breaks your chest gets cut on all the pieces. And underestimating it, calling it weakness, will always be your undoing.

Three—(one that was beginning to weigh heaviest): that living and immortality are not the same thing. Vlad may have been immortal, but he was only ever alive with Lisa.

Four: to always know where he came from…and where he didn’t want to end up.

Five, and final: that though he had saved lives, though it was noble, and the stories and songs would say he was brave, and though Trevor and Sypha would say it was for the greater good…he would always be the son who loved his father…and the son who drove the stake into his father’s heart.

All for love.

He can find respite from the memories sometimes. He finds himself spending too much time down in the Belmont hold, reading, organizing, putting away ancestors—(ancestors not of his, ones that didn’t come back). Learning, pursing his lip in disapproval, or laughing to himself at the thought of some of the things Trevor’s relatives did (making a mental note to use the story against Trevor when he next saw him). Thinking of his friends…and trying not to think of them, lest they become ghosts too.

He likes going out into the woods to get food, and water, and fresh air. He wavers there at times, wondering if maybe he could just… leave. He spends more time out there than is strictly necessary.

Sometimes he runs out into the woods—well, more precisely padding, cantering on paws—and other times flies—trying to make sure his tongue can taste freedom, and his wings can snare sunlight, before he turns back.

But he always has to return. Return to the stuffy, putrefied remains of the castle. The air where he hears his parents whisper sweet words that are gone, where memory reconstructed from fairy castles sweet worlds he’s ripped away.

Would it be so hard to just leave?

Surely we can let the poor wandering souls in the woods find refuge. It was a grave after all. Just let the lost rest against the headstones, though they know not whose skeletons lie beneath them.

He leans against Trevor’s tree, and sees a young boy playing on the branches—laughing, free—and smiles…before it becomes gasp and grimace, and he shakes his head, returning to the castle.

Not them too.

He thought he could take it. The grief. The ghosts. The wrath of the gods

But he can’t stay.

Not forever. That is to say, he can’t leave for long. Just to visit town, to see another person or two, to get out of his head, and pray the specters won’t follow him.

He slings his bag over his shoulder, along with the coat he always wore—the one that smells like the campfires he sat at with Trevor and Sypha—and sighs as he walks out the door.

He has another grave to visit.

[ranger-of-estel]

Finding Refuge

Day three of #CCWeek2018 by @writing-multifandom

This one is actually part of a project I’ve been toying with for a little while. Figured this was a good way to find out what you all think (That said, since it’s an early chapter this is a pre-relationship CC fic)

Alternate Universe

               Sara’s whole-body aches as consciousness slowly returns, but she finds her hip is the worst as she takes inventory. She remembers being chased by the pack, nips to her heals and calves as branches scratch her arms and face. But then one of them had lunged, caught her hip and… “Vampire!” she jerks up, crying out as the pain intensifies in her side.

               “Easy Sara, you’re safe.” A woman is at her side now, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves and concern in her eyes. “You need to rest,”

               “Where am I?” she pushes down the panic that’s threatening to bubble up.

               “You’re in Refuge Manor,” she gives a gentle smile, “My name is Gideon, I’m one of the caretakers here.”

               Sara looks down to where the woman’s skin is touching her arm. “Your skin is cool.”

               The woman nods, “I am an android, I do not produce heat like most other beings.”

               Sara nods, though part of her is still processing the words. “What happened?”

“I appear to have ended your would-be execution last night.” A male voice drawls, looking up she finds the blue eyed vampire that had stepped in, throwing the wolf off of her and frightening the others.

“I suppose you’re expecting a thank you.” His keen eyes remain focused on her as her own gaze roams. He’s dressed entirely in black, the only skin she can see his face and where his long fingers hook into the pockets of his tight jeans.

“Hardly,” his smooth voice draws her attention back to his face, lips curved in a smirk as he pushes away from the wall. “Gideon sent me out to find you.”

Her attention turns curiously back to the woman at her side, “Let’s get you back on your feet, then we can answer whatever questions you may have.”

“I’m fine,” she swings her legs over the opposite side of the bed, absently noticing that she’s never seen the cargo pants and baggy shirt she’s wearing. The observation is short lived as her leg attempts to give out beneath her.

A cool hand catches her arm, waiting until she’s steady to release her. Part of her is unnerved at how quickly the man was able to move, the other part is too distracted by his eyes. His brow is furrows in something dangerously close to concern, and she quickly pulls away with a mumbled, “thanks.”

“Just didn’t want to have to pick you up off the floor.” He replies with an uninterested shrug. But still remains within arm’s reach of her.

“Leonard,” Gideon draws both of their attention. “Why don’t you take Sara for a walk on the grounds?” she motions out the door, “Then Rip and I can explain things in the study?” she turns her attention to Sara, “If you do not oppose?”

Sara shrugs, “Can’t see why not.” She glances back at Leonard, “he seems as safe as anyone right now.”

“Then it’s settled!” Gideon claps her hands together, smiling at them. “We’ll see you soon.”

Leonard motions toward the door and while having him behind her is not ideal, she wants out of the room. He moves to walk silently beside her, and she allows herself to admire the paintings and photos lining the walls. Footsteps pull her attention back up as a brunette approaches them.

“Lenny!” the girl grins, then turns her attention to Sara. “And Sara, right?”

As she gets closer Sara can see the small fangs in her smile. “That’s right…and you’re?”

“Lisa,” the woman offers her hand. “I’m Leonard’s sister.”

Sara accepts the gesture, again surprised at the difference in temperature. “It’s nice to meet you…I think.”

Lisa just laughs, eyes sparkling with a life Sara didn’t know was possible in her kind. She turns to her brother, “I’ll catch you later.” She presses a swift kiss to his cheek before dancing away.

They begin walking once more, and she glances up at her escort. “This isn’t what I pictured Coven’s looking like.”

She gets a short chuckle in return. “This is not a coven Miss Lance.” There’s a hint of real amusement in his features, “and most of the team here would take insult to being called such.” He indicates his head to a room on their right, and she follows him in.

It’s a gathering room, with couches and recliners spread around a large TV. As they enter a large man rises from one of the cushioned seats to approach them. He’s the opposite of the one beside her, his jeans and shirt loose fitting and crumpled. He radiates a heat and energy that Sara is familiar with, a slow anger building as light reflects off something around the man’s neck.

“Sara,” Leonard speaks from her side, “Meet Mick Rory, our-“

“Werewolf,” Sara finishes, looking up at the man who’s watching her curiously. “Collared like a family pet,” she growls.

“I like this one,” Mick grins, “She’s got fire.” He looks back down at her, “But the collar ain’t a form of ownership Blondie.”

“I made it,” a new woman, dark skin and jet black hair, steps up beside them. She only reaches his shoulders but has a powerful presence all the same. “It has properties to help keep his…hotter emotions…manageable.”

He smiles down at her, “Saves a bunch on clothes,”

The new figure turns back to her, “It is good to see you awake.” She rests a hand over her chest, “I’m Amaya,”

“You’re…not a wolf or a vampire.” Sara looks at her curiously.

“No, I’m a practitioner of the old arts.” She offers a wry smile, “Or a witch, by most people’s standards.” She shrugs, “But aside from a little magic, I’m quite human.”

“An android, two vampires, a werewolf and a witch co-existing…The more I see the less I understand,” she frowns.

“Refuge is a place for outcasts.” Mick shrugs, “all kinds of us ‘ere.”

“You hardly strike me as the type to be tossed aside by society,” she gives Leonard a side glance.

He’s smirking at her again, but there’s something self-depreciating this time. “You’d be surprised.” He motions back to the main hall, “Come, I’m sure Rip and Gideon are waiting.”

“Lead the way,” she motions, following him out.

She doesn’t realize she’s started to limp until he’s slowed to walk beside her. “Perhaps touring the grounds was not the best of ideas with your injuries.”

“I’ve managed with worse.” She glares, and he just watches her with a distant curiosity, but doesn’t move from his place alongside her.

The next room they enter appears to be a lab, a young man turning from one of the tables as they enter. “Snart! Good, I was hoping you could –” he trails off as Sara comes into view. “Ah, I see the newest guest is on the mend.”

“This is Sara,” Leonard replies.

“Oh!” he gives her a blinding grin. “I’m Raymond, but everyone calls me Ray.”

“Human,” Sara raises a brow.

“100%” he nods.

“So what’s your story?” she asks, looking around the room. “This seems like a strange place for a man of science.”

Before he can answer a new voice comes from a second doorway. “Ray, are you done with that plant yet? Amaya want’s it back.” Sara’s attention is caught as the light reflects off twin pairs of sheer wings on the woman’s back. They flutter impatiently as she stands with arms crossed, inky hair pulled back to reveal her dark eyes and features. She gives Sara a half-glare, “What are you looking at? Never seen a fairy before?”

“Zari, be nice!” Ray half sings as he turns, “Lily went to water it, I’ll take you to her.” He turns back to wave at Sara, “It was nice meeting you Sara!”

As Leonard leads her toward another doorway she looks back. “I’m not sure what I find more strange. The human size fairy, or the scientist in a hideaway for the supernatural.”

“Well, Dr. Frankenstein is the reason Zari is our size. She can also be small, and it’s far more irritating.” Len makes a distasteful face before shaking his head.

Sara stops, staring at Leonard’s back in surprise. “Wait, did you say Frankenstein…as in the Frankenstein?”

He turns, amusement in his eyes. “A descendent yes.” He frowns, “apparently attempting to conquer death runs in the family. It’s why he’s here.” Leonard motions forward, and they resume walking. “Raymond’s fiancé was killed, and so, struck with grief he decided to bring her back.” He shakes his head, “It failed, but was enough to catch Rip’s attention…which is a story I will let him tell.”

“Okay…so if there’s not a monster, then why is he still here?” Her body is beginning to ache, and she attempts to focus more fully on the conversation.

“The scientific community aren’t huge fans of his work. And, despite his painfully bright personality, he’s good to have around. In fact, he and the other resident science geek, Lily, are the ones who made Gideon’s current form,”

“And Lily, is she?” she cocks her head.

“Also human. Rip rescued her from a changeling nest, she’s grown up here.” He offers a half smile, “She’s some of the more tolerable company in this place.”

If he says anything else Sara misses it, her attention captured entirely by the immense library they’ve stepped into. Sunlight comes in from windows, many of which have reading nooks tucked neatly inside. Two figures rise from a table at the center of the room as they approach. One Sara recognizes as Gideon; the other, a thin man with sharp eyes and short hair in disarray, is unfamiliar.

“Hopefully Leonard was not to terrible of company,” the man has a distinctly British accent, brown duster shifting as he approaches.

Sara offers a half smile, “I’ve spent time with worse.”

“And with that,” he offers a half bow, “I have other matters to attend to.” He gives Sara one last look, “Miss Lance.” And then he’s gone.

“Vampires, they do enjoy their dramatic exits.” The other man shakes his head, making a sweeping motion toward the table. “I’m Rip, the head of this..”

“Household.” Gideon finishes as Sara sits across from her. “Dysfunctional as it may seem.” She has that little half smile again.

Rip nods, “And we’d like you to join us.” He settles next to Gideon once more, “But I’m sure you have questions, so please,” he makes an open gesture before him.

“Who are you?” she narrows her gaze, “How did you find me?”

He chuckles, “By trade I am a Hunter, one of Van Helsing’s line.” She tenses, and he waves a hand dismissively before them. “But I assure you I mean no harm.” He offers a depreciative laugh, “I have not been part of the order for many years.” He motions to the woman at his side, “As for locating you, it’s one of Gideon’s skills.”

“I am able to sense out non-human lifeforms using a vast array of information alongside my algorithms and probabilities.” Gideon picks up, “It is how I located you, and also how we knew you were not like the others of your pack.” She frowns, “I just wish we could have reached you sooner.”

Sara shakes her head, “I would not have come.” She gazes out one of the windows, “Even now there is a pull…to return to them, even though I know it would end poorly.” Her attention shifts back to Rip. “But why leave hunting?” her gaze narrows, “Why walk away from that to build this place?”

“Have you ever been in love Miss Lance?” he asks in return, sadness in his eyes.

“Yes…I think.” She frowns, “But that’s hardly an answer.”

“On the contrary, it is entirely the answer.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it in some disarray. “I fell in love with a woman, we were married, had a beautiful son.” He sighs, “But eventually the order learned she was not human,” there’s darkness in his eyes, “And they took my family from me.”

“I’m sorry,” she drops her head slightly, “I didn’t-“

“It’s quite alright,” he gives a small smile, and she notices how Gideon’s hand has moved to cover one of his on the table. “But that is why I made this place. Somewhere that others like Miranda; who are victims, not monsters, can live.”

She looks down to where her hands fidget against the table, and then back up to the pair before her. “You must understand, this is a lot to process.”

“Of course,” Rip nods, “Life in the Refuge is very much different than any home you have had.”

“We do not expect an answer now, only that you think on it.” Gideon offers her an encouraging smile, “Come, we have a room you can stay in while you decide.”

Sara takes the offered hand, allowing the woman to lead her up a set of stairs and down a door lined hall. “How many of you live here?”

Gideon shrugs, “It varies.” She motions to one of the doors, “Leonard likely introduced you to most of our full time residents. But there are a few that are in and out.” She motions to Sara’s clothes, “Kendra was kind enough to offer her clothing while she is away.” She shakes her heads, “Shifters do not settle anywhere very long, but she and Carter will be back I’m sure.”

Gideon stops, unlocking door and allowing it to swing open. “I must insist you remain with us until your wound has healed; but regardless of your final choice the manor is at your disposal for as long as you wish to stay.”

Sara nods, and Gideon leaves her with her thoughts. Rip is waiting when she reaches the main platform, his mouth set in a thin line. “Will she stay?”

“I cannot be sure,” Gideon shrugs, “But I do not believe she has many options.”

“I do not want to frighten her, but she is in a great deal of danger.” He sighs, “Phoenix are a rare breed, and their power is sought out by Hunters and creatures alike. The wolves already know of her existence, it is only a matter of time before others join.”

Gideon pats his arm, “Let’s not rush things, there is a good chance she will choose to remain with us for other reasons.” Her hand slides into his, fingers linking as she pulls him toward their own room. “One challenge at a time my love. One at a time.”