#i had to do pickup in store

[thesebootsaremade]

you know those days where you have a constant low-level anxiety because you’re stressing about all the wrong choices you’ve made in your life, and the avalanche of all those decisions both big and small is rolling over you and you feel like you’ll never be able to make enough good choices to get out from under it?

[swashbucklery]

OMG I spent so long being AMPED for the Valhalla release and then November was so very November that I forgot it was today?? Thank you Tumblr for the reminder.

[peachlit]

fuck gamestop and their stupid fucking policies

[sluttyten]

i just wanted to say i love your account so much and all your writings are works of perfect art🥺🥺i hope you’re doing well and eating lots as well as staying healthy and safe💚once again you’re a talented and amazing writer and ilysm —🍍

thank you so much 💗 I am doing well. I’m probably not eating enough tbh but that’s just because I’m staying up until the wee hours of the morning and then sleeping in late, so I really only eat like 1.5 to 2 meals a day. I also have really limited food choices here at home, which sucks :( I keep wanting to bake stuff but if I do I’ll end up using pretty much our whole supply of eggs. 

[imwritesometimes]

pls god let the new motor for my fckn heater come tomorrow I am so cold and so tired and I cannot exist like this another week 🥴🤞

[campirebitesarchive]

Good morning sweet baby boy, I'd give anything to have you in my bed right now so I could hold you and fall back asleep

How's your day been? 🇭🇲

Hiiiiii 🥺🥺🥺🥺 omg omg this sounds lovely 😭😭

I’ve been home from work for a minute decompressing from the day it wasn’t bad just a bit stressful

[sanguineterrain]

no other will do - e.m.

Summary: You're home from college for the holidays. Eddie's playing a show and he wants you to be there. How can you say no to the boy you've been in love with since freshman year?

Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Word count: 4.8k

Warnings/tags: mean girl who is jealous of reader, friends to lovers, absolutely lovesick eddie. this man is so in love with you!!!

Eddie's waiting in front of the gate when you come out. 

You'd honestly believed you'd convinced him not to come. Five times on the phone you had told him he didn't need to. It's a long drive from Hawkins to O'Hare International Airport. You're on break, Eddie's probably busy; there's no way you'd expect him to spend a day chauffeuring you to town. 

But there's his van. 

Eddie is not dressed properly, despite it being November, clad in a leather jacket and jeans. His hair is tied back in a ponytail. You're struck with the urge to run over and kiss him. 

No! No. Bad Y/N. You'd gone to college four states away for a reason. Yes, it had the program you wanted and branching out of Hawkins was necessary. But more importantly, it gave you ample space to get over your longtime crush on your best friend. 

Mission failed, obviously. 

"Eddie," you call weakly, waving. 

He looks up and his face splits into a grin. Eddie meets you halfway to the van, taking your suitcase. 

"I distinctly remember telling you not to pick me up from O'Hare," you say, following him to the car. 

"How long have we been friends?" Eddie asks. "You should know by now that anything you tell me not to do, I'll do it."

"So if I had asked you to pick me up, you wouldn't have?" 

Eddie pretends to think about it. 

"Hmm. Nope. I'd still be here. Gotta make sure Hawkins' princess arrives safely."

He loads your suitcase and closes the door. Then he turns to you, beaming. Your heart does a flip-flop.

"Missed ya, sweets," he says softly.

"I missed you too, Eds."

He pulls you into a hug and you melt. Eddie’s warm and smells like that familiar spicy cologne you’ve been homesick for for the last three months. All the promises you'd made yourself about not getting soft and dumb for Eddie Munson fly out the window. You're hopeless. And he doesn't even know it. 

He releases you and opens the passenger-side door for you, then gets in on the other side. 

"This is pretty," Eddie says, turning the ignition. 

He tugs on the hem of your green knitted sweater. 

"Oh." You swallow. "Thanks. It's new, I got it at a shop near school. They have a guitar store, you know?" 

"Yeah? Did you go inside and wow them with your knowledge about heavy metal?" 

"No," you giggle. "I'd never look at guitars without you. 'S sacrilegious."

“Sacrilegious, huh? Am I some kinda guitar god?” Eddie grins.

“I’m not gonna answer that and blow up your already giant ego.”

“Ego! That’s it. Outta the van, princess.”

“No chance,” you say, clicking your seatbelt. “Royalty deserves proper treatment.”

“You called my bluff,” he sighs. “I have a hard rule about never kicking pretty girls out of my van.”

You turn to look out the window so Eddie won’t see your reaction to that. He starts the car and pulls out of the pickup zone. 

“Hey, so,” he says. “Speaking of guitar gods, we, uh… got a gig.”

You snap your head back. 

“You did? Where?” 

“It’s called Excalibur, ‘bout twenty minutes from Hawkins. Kinda feels like a sign,” he chuckles.

“A paying gig? Eddie, that’s amazing! I’m so proud of you,” you gush.

Eddie’s suddenly shy, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Really?”

“Of course I am. I always believed in you. If anybody can be a rockstar, it’s you.”

Eddie glances at you, then back at the road. He seeks out your wrist and squeezes. He might as well be squeezing your heart.

“Thanks, princess,” he says fondly. “Well, so, what I wanted to ask is: will you come? I’d get you in for free, obviously.”

“Eddie, it’s a business—”

“That can afford me bringing a plus one,” he finishes with a wink. “Non-negotiable.”

“You want me to come? I’m not exactly heavy metal.” 

“Of course I want you to come, sweet thing. You’re my best friend and you’ve supported me from the start. I know it ain’t your scene, but you don’t have to stay the whole time! We’ll probably go eat afterwards and you can meet the others.”

“Others?” you ask.

“Yeah, well, since we got booked, we’ve been scoping out the place. We met this other band, Birds of Prey. The lead singer, Missy, she’s cool. Real Janis Joplin vibes, y’know?”

“Oh.” Missy. Of course Eddie had met a girl. You couldn't expect him to just not. Eddie’s a sweet guy. Funny. Handsome. Love of your life. Et cetera. 

“So you’ve met a lot of… girls?”

Eddie glances at you and shrugs.

“Some.”

“Like on dates?”

Shutupshutup. Eddie’s too clever for you to be asking direct questions like that. You might as well hang a neon sign around your neck that says jealous!

He laughs. 

“I’m really not the kinda guy people go on dates with, angel.”

Which is not true. At all. If you can figure out Eddie’s a winner, any girl with a half a brain can do the same. But you don’t tell him that, because you’re selfish and pathetic. 

“I want to go,” you say instead. 

Eddie lights up. “Great! Oh, awesome. It’ll be a bitchin' show, promise.”

“I don’t doubt it.” 

Eddie seeks out your hand, rubbing your knuckles. You smile despite the acute feeling you’re sealing your doom. 

Friday comes fast. You spend most of your time before Eddie's show agonizing over why you love tormenting yourself. Then he rings you up and asks if you'll come over for a pre-show soiree. And because you're a sucker for Eddie Munson, you say yes. 

You've been to the trailer before. It's not strange at all for you to be here. Wayne knows you well. But for some reason, this feels different. When you saw Eddie everyday, you could pretend. His constant proximity was normal then. Now, after three months apart, you're a lovesick calf. It's just like when you'd first realized your crush on Eddie back in freshman year. You'd been an absolute mess and it'd nearly cost your friendship.

You've sworn not to make that mistake again. 

Eddie’s room currently looks like a tornado ran through it. Clothes are strewn everywhere. You dodge a flying bandana from your place on the bed as he continues to rifle through his closet.

"Eds," you sigh. "Does it really matter what you wear?" 

"Of course! It's a statement."

"But the whole point of metal is to not care," you say. “Come back so I can do your other hand.”

Eddie obeys. He kneels one leg on the bed and sticks his unpainted hand out. He’s got a bit of black kohl around his eyes and brand new spiked boots. You make sure not to look at his face for too long so you don’t do something really stupid. 

You laser in on Eddie's fingernails, carefully painting them with black nail polish. He holds his breath every time you get close, still as a statue. 

"Actually, the point of metal is to protest societal structures you don't agree with, like the government,” he says. “Metalheads definitely care if you're not dressed for a concert."

“But I thought everything in your wardrobe is metal.”

“Yeah, but—” Eddie gestures to his Metallica tank top. “This isn’t concert metal. I have a reputation, y’know.”

“Well, I’m not dressed for a Corroded Coffin concert either,” you reason. “I don’t own anything metal.”

You’d tried, for the record. You'd found a charcoal gray sweater and black tights. That’s about as close to metal as you can manage.

“That’s okay, princess. You’re so pretty, you don’t need to wear proper attire. I, on the other hand, need to look like I eat souls for breakfast.”

You cap the polish. Eddie thinks you're pretty.

“Okay, done. Don’t smear it.”

Eddie wiggles his fingers with a grin.

“You’re a doll. What if I pair this with my jacket? Or wait! What about my torn black jeans?"

Eddie gets up, hands poised delicately. He stops at his closet and pouts. 

"I'll ruin your hard work," he frowns. "D'you mind helping me look mean and scary?"

You get up with a smile. 

"Impossible. You could never be mean and scary."

"Way to crush a guy's dreams, princess."

You shrug. "Somebody has to tell you."

You gently push through Eddie’s “clean pile.” You pick up a leather jacket and a torn sleeveless top that says Devil’s Advocate.

“What about this one? You look nice in this one,” you say, holding it up to him.

“Nice? I can’t look nice! I’m not going to prom, Y/N.”

You sigh.

“Fine. You look mean and scary. Straight from the Underworld. Satan himself. Better?”

Eddie shivers exaggeratedly, grinning.

“Getting me hot under the collar with that talk, princess.”

“Shut it,” you huff, throwing the jacket at him to hide your fluster.

Eddie squawks, dodging the jacket. He wiggles his fingers.

“They’re drying!”

“I’m pretty sure they’re dry now, Eds.”

“We really can’t be so sure, can we?” 

You get up with a sigh. 

“I am not taking your shirt off, Eddie.”

“Well, ouch, princess.” 

He shrugs and in a second, pulls his shirt off. You immediately turn, looking up at the ceiling.

“Jeez,” Eddie says behind you. “‘M not gonna blind you. They show male chests on MTV, y’know.”

“I’m giving you privacy,” you say, face hot. “Now hurry up. You don’t wanna be late.”

You peek, just for a second, and catch a glimpse of pale, freckled skin and a line of hair that disappears under his jeans. Nope, nope. You are not going down that rabbit hole of thought.

“Can you at least help with the jacket?” he asks.

“I suppose.”

You take the jacket and bring it behind him. Eddie sticks his arms through, never breaking eye contact.

“Good?” you check.

“Perfect, sweet thing.”

You frown at the jeans he’s chosen.

“Eddie, those have holes.”

“Yes, dear, I know. I made ‘em.”

“It’s November! You can’t wear clothing with holes.”

Eddie beams, eyes scrunching. You cross your arms.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” he says. “‘S just nice you care so much ‘bout me not getting sick. You really are a sweet thing.”

“Well, I don’t want you to be sick over my visit.”

“Purely selfish reasons, huh? Tsk tsk.” Eddie shakes his head.

“No! I just—wanna spend time together,” you say. “And we can’t do that if you’re sick.”

“Alright, alright. What if I wear my lightly torn jeans? ‘S that fair?”

Eddie steps away from you, beginning to undo his belt. You panic.

“Uh, yeah, yep! Fine! I’ll go start the car.”

You scurry down the hall and grab Eddie’s keys. You get into the van. By the time Eddie comes out, the car’s already warmed up. He wears jeans that have significantly less rips. Eddie puts his guitar in the back, then gets into the driver's seat. He smiles at you.

“Aw, look at you, keepin’ my seat warm.”

“Because you have the blood circulation of a vampire,” you reply with an eye roll.

“Vampire and the princess. Now there’s an underrated literary trope.”

Eddie looks at you a moment more. Then he seems to make a decision, sliding off the cross on his middle finger and putting it on your left ring finger. Your eyes widen.

“Eddie—”

“For luck,” he says.

“But… I’m not playing.”

“I know.” He shrugs. “But if I know you’re wearing my ring, well, I gotta make you proud. Don’t wanna be an embarrassment while you’ve got my ring on.”

“Oh, Eds. I am proud. You’re doing it.”

Eddie gives you the softest smile you’ve ever seen.

“Thanks, sweet thing.”

“You’re welcome. Now you really have to drive, Eddie. You’ve got a half an hour till your show starts.”

He checks his watch.

“Shit! Alright, hold onto something. We’re cutting this twenty minute trip down to ten.”

Eddie ends up making some questionable driving advances. Halfway through, you question if you should’ve gotten into the car with him. But you get there on time. 

Eddie ushers you out. 

“Eddie, just go, it’s okay. I can find my way inside.”

“Oh, absolutely not, princess. This crowd is rougher than The Hideout’s. Plus, I gotta get you in somehow. C’mon, pretty girl.”

Eddie keeps his guitar in one hand and you in the other. You’re practically glued to his side as he corrals you both to the back entrance. 

“Hey, Sal.” Eddie waves at the bouncer parked at the door. “Everybody’s inside?”

“Sure is. You’re on in ten. Better hurry.”

“Thanks. This is Y/N. She’s with me.” Eddie nods to you. 

“No guests, Munson,” Sal frowns. 

“Watch it, Sal,” Eddie pushes back. “She’s not a guest. She’s my girl. Came all the way from college to see me. Y’mind? We’re on a tight schedule.”

Sal looks at you. You hope he doesn’t ask questions; you have all the speaking ability of a fish right now. 

“Hmm. Fine. No tricks.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Eddie grins, tugging you through the entrance.

“You lied to him,” you whisper when you’re far enough away. “Eddie—”

“Sweet thing, what was I supposed to say? Had to get you in. And I didn’t lie, okay? You did come from college and you are my girl. Only girl I’ve got, right?”

“But… you made it sound like we’re—”

“Dude!” Gareth hisses. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Chill, Gare-Bear. We’ve got time. Where’s Jeff?”

“Bathroom. Hi, Y/N.”

You wave shyly.

“Hey, Gareth. Cool chain.”

Gareth gives Eddie a look. You don’t know what it means, but whatever it does makes Eddie’s cheeks redden. He turns to you and squeezes your waist.

“I gotta go. Stay in the front so I can see you, ‘kay?”

“Why? Afraid I’ll run?”

“Nah,” he grins. “Just rather look at your pretty face instead of these ugly mugs.” 

“Hey!” Gareth huffs.

“Eddie…” you tut. “Be nice.”

“Not nice. Mean and scary.” 

He makes Devil horns with his fingers and sticks out his tongue. You giggle.

“See you after,” you say. “Good luck!”

And with that, you brave the crowd. Immediately, you feel out of place.

You’ve been to Eddie’s shows before at The Hideout. But this crowd is bigger and definitely a more intense scene than Hawkins. Most of the crowd is already drunk, or at least buzzed. They’re loud with excitement and unaware of their surroundings. You focus on not getting pummeled and on finding a seat up front like Eddie’d told you.

A group of girls push past you. The ringleader knocks into your shoulder and gives you a dirty look. She has long, dyed purple hair and black makeup. Her features are striking and perfect for the atmosphere. You wish you could fit in like she does, at least for Eddie’s performance. You’re starting to feel like you might be the embarrassment tonight.

“Watch it,” she snaps. 

“Sorry,” you mumble, and grab a seat.

Thankfully, nobody else bothers you. It’s only another minute before the lights dim. The first band is clearly very popular, judging by the howling cheers they get. Their frontman is covered head to toe in tattoos. You make a note of a green dragon inked on his neck. Eddie will like that one a lot. 

You do your best to match the energy in the room, despite not knowing many songs. Eddie’s played a few bands for you, but since metal isn’t really your thing, you’re lost when it comes to the less well-known bands.

After the opening act finishes, you see a curly head of hair poke out of the curtains. Eddie searches for you. You wave and he finds you then, giving you a big smile.

“Having fun?” he yells.

“Tons!” you shout back.

He gives you a thumbs-up and disappears backstage. The curtains part.

“And now, Birds of Prey!”

The group of girls who’d bumped into you step onstage. You clap lightly and stay seated. Their lead singer, the purple-haired woman, gets to the microphone. Missy. 

“You guys ready to hear some real music?” she laughs.

The crowd screams.

“Good!” 

They launch into Enter Sandman. Missy has a perfect voice for it, raw and raspy. You prefer Eddie’s voice, sweet and low. He always complains it’s not metal enough. You’re sympathetic but you secretly love that Eddie can croon, if he really wants to. Sometimes he does, when he’s had a beer or two and is sleepy with affection. Then he’ll sing along to Wayne’s Buddy Holly records. Your very own Eddie Munson exclusive.

Bird of Prey finish after a couple songs. You politely clap with the crowd. 

“And now, something fresh!” the emcee announces. “Corroded Coffin!”

You jump from your seat, clapping excitedly. The band comes out. Eddie dances around the stage, hyping up the crowd. They eat it up. Eddie’s born to perform.

His eyes find yours and he blows a kiss. You shake your head. After all these years, Eddie still flusters you better than anybody.

“Those ladies before us were pretty dope, huh?” Eddie asks the crowd.

They scream their agreement. He grins. 

“Hope you guys like Ozzy.”

Eddie is beautiful. He plays guitar like it’s an extension of himself. Everyone else is yelling to the lyrics, nearly drowning out the sound. You can only stand and stare. You probably look ridiculous gawking at them. But oh, well. You love Eddie Munson. If you look like a fool, so be it.

Jeff closes their performance. The crowd goes wild with applause.

You go backstage before the next band goes up; once the lights go down, it’ll be impossible to navigate the crowd. Backstage is thrumming with energy. You spot Birds of Prey first. Missy locks eyes with you. She struts to you, brow raised. You draw your shoulders back, braced for a fight.

“Princess!” 

Eddie drapes himself over you like it’s been years since you’ve seen him as opposed to forty-five minutes. You hug him back, tearing your gaze from Missy.

“Hi, Eds,” you say.

“Hi, sweet thing!” 

He squeezes you hard, curls tickling your cheek. Ah, yes. This is why you’re here.

“You were amazing,” you gush. “Really, really wonderful, Eds.”

Eddie looks like you’ve just told him he won ten million dollars.

“You really think so?” he asks. “Not just pumping my ego, are you?”

“No, Eddie. I loved it. Especially the Dio one.”

He grins.

“Oh, I know. Saw you dancing, pretty.”

“Stooop,” you whine. “Don’t make fun of me, Eds.”

“I’d never. You’re the best dancer there, angel.”

“Yo, Munson!”

One of the performers waves at Eddie.

“We’re heading out! C’mon.”

“Yeah, Eddie,” Missy coos. She looks at you. “Bring your friend too.”

Your stomach twists. Eddie turns to you.

“Hungry?”

“Oh, um… sure. Where are we going?”

“This burger joint. ‘S not far. I’ve been there loads of times.”

“With Missy?”

Eddie gives you a funny look.

“Sometimes her band comes. Wanna check it out?”

You don’t want to be a drag. Eddie is genuinely excited, hopped up on adrenaline. The rest of the band will be there too. It’s not fair to make him take you home.

“Okay,” you say, trying to smile. “Sure, Eds. Sounds great.”

Missy, luckily, takes another car. So it’s just you and Corroded Coffin in Eddie’s van. Jeff and Gareth chatter about the show and songs they should play next. You’re in the front seat, because Eddie always has you sit up front no matter who’s in the car.

“Eds?” you ask.

“Hm?”

“Are you, uh… h-how well do you know the bands that played tonight?”

Nice. Subtlety +100.

“The first guys who performed, Black Tar? Not that well. Their frontman, Beetle, he’s kind of a legend at Excalibur.”

“With the dragon tattoo?”

“That’s him. Staring at other guys’ tattoos, huh?”

“Actually, I was thinking the dragon would look much better on you, Eds.”

Eddie grins. 

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” 

“I have been thinking of getting a new one. You haven’t chosen a tat for me since freshman year. High time we continue the tradition.”

“I think a blue dragon would look cool,” you say. “On your back or something.”

“My back? But then no one would see it, sweet thing.”

“I’d know it’s there.”

Eddie laughs.

“Would you come with me to get it?”

“Of course,” you say. “I always do. Even when you got your bats from that skeevy guy at The Hideout.”

“Now Bill was a nice dude and dirt cheap. ‘Sides, my arm didn’t turn green, did it?”

“Thank God,” you huff.

“Always worrying about me, sweet thing.”

“Somebody’s gotta make sure you don’t wreak havoc on unsuspecting Hawkins.”

Eddie pulls into the parking lot of Brey’s Beef. Big deals on big beef! the sign reads. Your chest tightens at the sight of Missy and her band inside. Eddie reaches for your hand and squeezes.

“Ready?”

“Yeah, yeah. Ready.”

Eddie opens your door and you curse how sweet he is and how in love you are. 

Brey’s is a tiny burger shop that looks like it time-traveled here from the 50s. You go with Eddie to the counter and study the menu boards while you wait in line.

“Their milkshakes are to die for,” Eddie whispers in your ear. 

“To die for, huh? Munson approved?”

“One hundred percent.”

You order a cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake. Eddie orders an ungodly creation called The Demon and a mint chocolate milkshake. You make a face.

“Hope you like your toothpaste shake,” you snort.

“Mint chocolate is superior,” Eddie shoots back and pulls out his wallet.

“Eds, wait—”

“No, no,” he says, pushing your coin purse aside. “I’m paying.”

“Eddie, no, c’mon…”

“Who got paid tonight?” Eddie asks, shaking his wallet. “Lemme treat you, princess. ‘S not like I get to do it much this year.”

Eddie pays and scoots you to the condiment counter. You sigh, shoving your coin purse back in your coat.

“Eds, I would’ve paid. You should save that money.”

“‘S okay, sweet thing. You’re worth it.”

God, how can he just say those things? He has to know what they do to you, doesn’t he?

“I’ll wait for the food, ‘kay? You can sit down.”

You glance at where the others are and try to hide your grimace. 

“Okay, Eds. Thanks.”

You take the seat at the end of the table. Missy and her band are in the middle, heavily flirting with the Black Tar members. As soon as she spots you, she stops. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

“So,” she says. “This is the famous Hawkins Princess I’ve heard so much about.”

“Just Y/N is fine,” you mumble.

She laughs and tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“Didn’t know Eddie hung out with your sort.”

“My sort?”

“Y’know.” She gestures. “Normie. Uptight. Did you even know any of the songs tonight?”

“Some of them. Eddie’s played Dio and Sabbath for me.” You turn to Beetle. “Your opening number was a really cool cover. Judas Priest, right?”

Beetle winks at you. “Hell yeah it was. Thanks, Hawkins.”

Missy sneers.

“Well, you know how to pretend, I’ll give you that. I’m surprised, though.” She turns to her friend. “Remember when that one townie wandered in? How embarrassing.”

Her friend giggles. 

“Oh, yeah. He was so jumpy too. God, what a freak.”

The word makes you feel sick.

“Eddie thought it was hilarious too,” Missy adds. She looks at you. “I guess metal’s not for everyone.”

“Lay off, Miss,” Beetle says. “Don’t be an ass.”

“I’m not!” she squeals. “I’m just saying, y’know, people should stay in their lane.”

“Eddie says metal is for everybody,” you say, stronger than you feel.

“Of course he’d tell you that,” she scoffs. “And then you’ll go back to college for six months and he’ll forget all about you. Eddie’s not gonna want somebody holding him down, duchess.”

And that does it. You can’t take anymore. You’ll apologize to Eddie in the morning for walking out but right now, you’re tired. If this is the girl Eddie wants, you won’t fight. 

Missy whines after you, syrupy venom sinking into your brain. 

“Running already, queenie?” she mocks.

Eddie told you once there’s no shame in running. He said taking shit isn’t heroic. If you can, leave. So you do.

It’s windy and freezing. You know it has to be midnight at least. November nights in Hawkins aren’t known to be mild. You pull your jacket tighter around your shoulders and walk down the sidewalk. Maybe you can hail a cab or something.

Something wet hits your cheek. You wipe away the tear. Another falls, then another.

“Y/N, angel? Wait up!”

Eddie catches your bicep, tugging you around to face him. Fuck. You’ve never been good at lying to Eddie. He can see right through you. You have to think of something. 

“Sweet thing, why are you crying?” Eddie pulls up his sleeve and brushes your tears. He looks devastated. “Princess, please don’t cry. Who did this? Tell me, I’ll make sure they don’t bother you again.”

And you can’t help it. The name falls out.

“Missy,” you gasp. 

Eddie’s immediately confused.

“Wh—Missy? She made you cry?”

You nod, sniffling pitifully. This is not how tonight should’ve gone. 

“What the fuck,” he snaps, and you flinch. This is it; this is where Eddie chews you out for starting drama with the girl of his dreams.

“Oh,” Eddie whispers, eyes wide. “No, no, ‘m sorry. Not mad at you, babe. Sorry, sorry. I just—fuckin’ cannot believe she made you cry. How shitty can you get?”

“I shouldn’t be crying,” you say. “I shouldn’t, it’s stupid, I just—”

“Hey, hey.” Eddie pulls you into a hug, rubs your back in slow circles. “Stop it. Don’t say it’s stupid. If it made you upset, it’s not stupid.”

“I know you like her,” you cry into his shoulder. “I don’t mean to ruin that, I—”

“Whoa, what? Sweet thing, Missy’s just another singer. We’re not betrothed or anything.”

“But you said—over the summer—”

“Yeah, we got to know each other. But she’s just part of the scene. And there’s a bajillion people like that. She’s nothing special, princess, no way. She definitely doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

“But she is metal. And I’m not. And I’m gonna go back to school soon and you’re gonna find somebody who knows all of Dio’s albums and plays Dungeons and isn’t scared of getting tattoos or piercings or—”

“Y/N,” Eddie says. “I don’t care about any of that. You could religiously listen to the Hot 100 like Harrington does, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Won’t change the fact that I’m crazy about you. Nobody’s got my heart but you.”

Eddie freezes. Slowly, you draw back to meet his gaze.

“You’re crazy about me?”

He gnaws the inside of his cheek, looking everywhere but you.

“I, uh… y-yeah. I am.”

You hold on tighter because it feels like Eddie might try to back up first so you won’t have to push him away.

“I’m crazy about you too,” you confess.

Eddie’s eyes go big as dinner plates.

“Me?”

“There’s never been anybody but you,” you inform with delight.

Eddie’s smile is sweet and a little bashful. He surges forward, hands landing on your hips. You put your arms around his neck.

“Kiss me, Eds?”

“Anything for you, sweet thing.”

Eddie is gentle. He moves his arms up, trying to block you from the wind chill. You play with the ends of his curls. It’s everything you’ve wanted since freshman year and more. Eddie’s warm and everywhere. You feel him smile against your lips.

“Told ya you’re my girl,” he murmurs.

You smile softly. 

“Sap.”

“Oh, I mean, uh—” Eddie clears his throat. “You’re my girl in a mean and scary way.”

“Very convincing.”

“Thanks, baby. Wanna get outta here?”

You frown at the windows. 

“I kinda wanted to try those Munson-approved burgers.”

“Oh! Shit, hold on.” 

He hands you the keys and runs inside. You turn on the van, cranking the heat to four. Eddie flits from the counter to the table. He says something to Missy she does not look happy about. You wiggle giddily in your seat.

Eddie returns shortly. You roll down the window so he can give you the food and shakes. Then he gets into the car, blowing hot air into his hands.

“I hope you didn’t start a fight with Missy,” you frown.

“I just told her to stay the hell away from us.” Eddie shrugs. “Turns out Beetle chewed her out plenty.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah. You made quite the impression.” Eddie grins and nudges you. “You’re more metal than me, sweet thing. Gareth and Jeff are getting a ride back with him.”

You grimace. 

“I guess they weren’t too happy about us ditching them.”

“Nah, they were understanding. Told them I wanted to take my girlfriend home.”

You laugh, warmth flooding you.

“Oh, really. And what did they say to that?”

Eddie grins.

“‘It’s about damn time.’”

[kuoringankalmo]

this morning has been such a hassle i feel crazy 😵😵

[cheerscoops]

Coffee Cups and Unconditional Love

Summary: Wayne Munson has been there for his nephew since before he was born, and he'll be there for him for the rest of his life - a.k.a. an explanation of why Wayne Munson owns so many coffee mugs as told through his relationship with his nephew

CW/TW: alcoholism, mentions of child neglect, death, illegal activities, dismissal of mental health issues because it's the 70s/80s, season 4 spoilers if you haven't finished yet

Word Count: 17.6k

A/N: I'm just gonna apologize in advance for this one. It was a labor of love, and I hurt my own feelings writing it.

April 1965

Wayne Munson was a simple man with simple tastes. It didn't take much to make him happy. A couple cigarettes from his pack of smokes, a cold beer, and a working radio were the only things he needed to unwind after a long shift at the plant. He mostly lived off of TV dinners, cold sandwiches, and cereal, and that was fine with him. He had never been the greatest cook, and not wasting his time in the kitchen gave him more energy for work anyway.

At the age of twenty-three, he only had a few more payments left to make on his trailer before he owned it outright, and he had a foldout bed for his younger brother Richard to use when things weren't going so great with their parents. He'd made it clear that his home was always open to him, no questions asked.

However, that didn't mean he wasn't surprised to find his brother and a crying girl sitting on his front step when he got back from the grocery store.

Wayne was a man of few words, and the few he did have did not equip him with the skills to handle a clearly distraught, sixteen year old girl. He and his brother exchanged a look before he wordlessly ushered the two inside.

He put on a fresh pot of coffee before busying himself with putting away his groceries, occasionally glancing over to where his brother was attempting to calm down the crying girl on his sofa.

"Everything is gonna be okay, Linda," he heard his brother say. "Wayne'll know what to do."

Once his groceries were put away and the coffee was finished brewing, he realized that he only had the one coffee mug. He found a couple of plastic juice cups in the back of one of his cabinets and poured the coffee into those and the lone mug. He set the mug in front of the girl and then handed one of the cups to his brother. He held his own cup as he sat down in the chair across from the couch.

Before he could ask what in the world was going on, the girl gave him a funny look.

“Where are your other mugs?” she asked as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

“I’ve only got the one,” he replied.

“Who only owns one coffee mug?”

Wayne shrugged.

“My mother owns three entertaining sets in different patterns with eight mugs a piece. I can’t imagine someone only having one mug.”

She sniffled a bit, but it seemed as though she’d stopped crying for now.

“Don’t really need more than one when you live alone,” he said before taking a sip of his coffee. “Now, does someone wanna tell me why you were crying on my porch?”

Wayne looked back and forth between the two as they shared a look, both hesitant to come right out and say it.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, Richie.”

“Linda’s pregnant,” Richie blurted out as he started talking a mile a minute. “We didn’t plan for it to happen or anything, but it did. And then her parents found out, and all hell broke loose. You shoulda heard what they said about me, Wayne. About us. About our family.”

Even without being there, Wayne could imagine it pretty perfectly. Their parents weren’t exactly the greatest people, and there was a reason he’d left home as soon as he could, a reason why he had a spare bed specifically for his brother. Their dad was a mean drunk and took it out on everyone around him. The neighbors would hear him yelling, and the next morning, broken furniture would be sitting on the curb waiting for the next garbage pickup. Their mom just made excuses for him and watched as it happened. A bystander in her own life sweeping up broken glass and scrubbing beer stains out of the carpet. They weren’t exactly the kind of family that you’d want your daughter to involve herself with. Wayne had some firsthand experience with that fact.

“It was just awful,” Linda said as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They told me I could either stay with my cousins in Kentucky until I had the baby and gave it up, or I could get out of their house. So, I got up, and I marched out with Richie.”

“I didn’t know where else to take her,” Richie continued. “There’s no way I’d leave her at mom and dad’s, and I just panicked and brought her here. We could help pay your bills or buy groceries or anything else you need. I got that job that I was telling you about - the one as a bag boy down at the grocery store.”

“And I’m going to pick up as many extra shifts at the diner as I can until I’m too pregnant to work,” Linda added, talking over Richie. “And we’ll help out around here with anything you need. You’ll barely even know we’re here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck and abandoned his coffee on the table.

“Where’s all your stuff?” he asked. “You’re gonna need stuff if you’re moving in.”

“They didn’t give me time to pack when they threw me out,” she replied. “But I still have my house key, so Richie was going to take me back over there to get my things tomorrow when I know they’re both out of the house.”

“And I was gonna head over and grab my own stuff after we talked to you,” Richie continued. “Didn’t want to show up here with a bunch of stuff if we were gonna have to go somewhere else. I figured she could use the fold out I usually sleep on, and I can sleep on the couch.”

“No, you’ll take my room,” Wayne said as he moved to get up from his seat. “I’ll be fine out here. Just gotta straighten it up a little bit for you.”

Before he could leave the room, Wayne was practically knocked over by the force of Linda leaping up to wrap her arms around him in a tight embrace.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said.

He awkwardly patted her on the back.

“It’s fine,” he replied. “I’d do anything for my brother.”

The next day, Wayne busied himself with getting his room ready for Linda and Richie to move into while they were out collecting Linda’s things. When the couple returned, Linda handed a brown paper bag to Wayne.

“These are for you,” she said with a smile. “A little thank you for all that you’re doing for us.”

Wayne opened the bag, and inside, he found three different coffee mugs - one dark green, one light blue with pink rosettes, and one yellow and white striped.

“I snagged a mug from each of my mother’s entertaining sets. It’ll drive her nuts, and now you have enough mugs for us all to have a cup of coffee. Everybody wins.”

The gift of coffee mugs wasn’t the only way Linda started to improve his life. She actively scolded him about the way he’d been eating and told him that she was going to fix his diet even if it killed her in the process. And so his TV dinners were reserved for the nights when Linda was working the dinner shift at the diner and hadn’t planned for leftovers that Wayne and Richie could easily reheat on their own.

She’d promised that he’d barely even know that they were there, but she made her loving presence known.

October 1965

Wayne ducked out of his shift at the plant several hours early when he got the call that Linda had gone into labor. His brother wanted him there for support, and he wanted to meet his niece or nephew the second they were born, so he was happy to do it. He sat in the waiting room for hours until his brother came to grab him.

“Ready to meet your nephew?” Richie asked him as they entered the hospital room.

Wayne’s attention was immediately drawn to Linda sitting up in bed cradling her tiny son. She was sweaty, and her wavy, dark hair was even messier than it normally was, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look happier in the six months he’d known her.

“Do you want to hold him?” Linda asked, never looking away from the baby in her arms.

Wayne nodded and made his way to sit in one of the chairs by her bed. Richie carefully took the baby from his girlfriend’s arms and placed him in Wayne’s awaiting hold.

“Wayne, meet Eddie. Eddie, this is your Uncle Wayne.”

"Hey Eddie," Wayne whispered, as he cradled the newborn. "It's nice to meet you."

"His full name is Edward Wayne Munson," Linda said, causing Wayne's gaze to snap up from the baby in his arms to look over at her.

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?"

Wayne's heart swelled, and he would have been lying if he said that he didn't get a bit choked up.

Wayne was often awake with Linda during the late night feedings. With Richie still going to school and working extra shifts whenever he could to support his little family, he needed all the sleep he could get, so Linda would take Eddie into the living room whenever he got fussy.

"Are you sure this is alright?" she'd asked the first time she accidentally woke him up.

"Don't worry about it," he reassured her. "I've always been more of a night owl anyway."

So the two would sit together at the tiny kitchen table as Linda fed her son, a light blanket draped over her chest to protect her modesty. Not that Wayne would have ever stared at his brother's girl. He'd come to think of her as the sister he never had, and he was fiercely protective of her. He'd make her tea, and she'd tease him about how nice it was to have more than one mug to share between them.

"If I didn't steal my mother's mugs, we wouldn't be able to have nights like these," she said. "And wouldn't that be a shame?"

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he asked with a small laugh.

"The handle was chipped, Wayne. You only had one mug, and it wasn't even in good condition."

"I've never needed much."

"Well, you'll never have to drink out of a chipped mug again. I'll make sure of it."

On the nights where Eddie was particularly fussy and wouldn't go back to sleep after being fed and changed, Linda would move over to the couch and pass the baby over to Wayne. Wayne would sit in the worn out rocking chair that he'd picked up at the Goodwill, and he'd slowly rock with him as she made herself comfortable. By the dim light of the lamp on the end table, she'd read aloud from her beat up copies of the Lord of the Rings novels, and Eddie would fall asleep to the daring adventures of hobbits and elves with his uncle’s finger in his grasp.

December 1965

Eddie was only a little bit over two months old for his first Christmas, and he could barely hold his own head up, but Linda still went over the top to make it as special as she could on her limited budget.

They couldn’t afford to get Eddie’s photo professionally taken with the Santa at the big department store in the city. It was just too expensive if she wanted to put any gifts under the modest tree that they were all pretty sure Richie had chopped down illegally. Instead, she placed her son in the Christmas stocking that she’d found at Goodwill and stitched his name onto and had Wayne take pictures of him with his beat up polaroid camera. They didn’t have anyone that they wanted to send the pictures to, so every single one was hung up on the refrigerator until Linda decided it was time to add them to her photo album.

“Next year, I want pictures of him playing in the snow,” Linda said as she looked at the collage of photos on their fridge. “And I’m getting a picture of him with Santa even if I have to force one of you to dress up to make it happen.”

On Christmas morning, the three of them sat in a circle on the floor in front of the tree with baby Eddie laying on his stomach in the middle. They all knew that he was too young to know what was going on, but Linda made a point of setting each of Eddie’s gifts in front of him so he could marvel at the brightly colored comics that she’d wrapped them in. There weren’t many presents under the tree, and they were all for Eddie anyway, so everyone was content to sit there with their morning cups of coffee for as long as the baby wasn’t fussy.

“Oh, before I forget,” Linda said as she popped up from her seat leaning against the sofa. She headed back to the bedroom and returned with a small parcel wrapped up in newsprint. She handed it over to Wayne as she sat back down and pulled her son into her lap.

“I thought we agreed on no gifts?” Wayne asked. “Save all our money to make things special for the kid?”

“It’s not from me,” Linda said as Eddie gripped her finger. “It’s from Eddie, of course, and you can’t expect him to follow our rules. He’s just a baby after all.”

Wayne sighed and carefully unwrapped the gift. Inside the crumpled newspaper was a coffee mug with “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint of Eddie’s.

“It’s not much,” Richie said. “But we hope it shows even a little bit of how thankful we are for everything you’ve done for us.”

“It’s perfect,” Wayne replied. “Really. Thank you.”

April 1967

For Wayne’s twenty-fifth birthday, he insisted that he didn’t need any gifts, and he didn’t want them to make any sort of a fuss over him.

“You’re being absolutely ridiculous,” Linda told him. “We can’t just skip your birthday.”

“I’m happy with what I have,” he said with a shrug. “We don’t need to bring more stuff into this trailer, and I’d much rather just spend the day playing with Eddie and maybe listen to the ball game on the radio if there is one.”

“That’s fine, I guess. But I’m making you your favorite dinner. And a cake. I’ll maybe even get some ice cream to go with it. And we’re singing to you while wearing party hats made out of newspaper whether you like it or not. It’s been decided, and I will not fight with you on this one, Wayne.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a laugh.

So, on his birthday, Linda made a pot roast slow roasted with carrots and onions and a side of mashed potatoes with extra, extra gravy. For dessert, there was a double chocolate chip cake with vanilla frosting and strawberry ice cream. Wayne didn’t fight about the newspaper hat that Linda made him wear, and he pretended that he didn’t hate being the center of attention when they all sang to him if only because he got to hold Eddie while it was happening. The eighteen month old tried to feed him a handful of cake before shoving it in his own mouth and giggling wildly.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Linda set a small gift in front of him. He knew what it was without even opening it. Every time she thought of giving him a gift, it was a coffee mug, and he had started giving the same to her. They’d started an almost competition of sorts, seeing who could find the most interesting mug at Goodwill or one of the small thrift stores in the city. This one was beige and had the words Ohio University Grandma printed in green on the side. It might have been the best one yet.

“We have something else for you,” Richie told him after sharing a look with Linda. “A gift we couldn’t really wrap.”

“I expected the mug, but I told you guys that you didn’t have to give me anything.”

“We know, but this is a really important gift,” his brother continued. “We’re giving you your bedroom back.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind sleeping in the living room. We’ve been over this a hundred times. You need your privacy more than I do, and with the kid, you need the extra space.”

“We know that’s how you feel, Wayne,” Linda said. “But it’s time for you to start sleeping on a real bed again.”

“Which is why we’re moving out,” Richie blurted out.

“You’ve been so good to us these past two years,” Linda continued. “And we are so grateful for everything you’ve done for us and the life you helped us build. It’s because of everything that you did that we know we’re ready to take this step.”

“I finally grew a pair and asked her to marry me, and we found an apartment that’ll be ready for us to move into next month. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re excited. Really excited.”

“Well, I’m really happy for you guys,” Wayne told them. “Truly. But you’re gonna leave the kid with me, right? I’m way too attached to him to let him leave.”

As if agreeing with Wayne, Eddie reached up and pressed a sticky, chocolate-covered hand onto his uncle’s cheek. Wayne dug his fingers into the boy’s side and smiled down at him as he giggled and squirmed.

“I don’t know,” Linda said. “I think I’d miss him too much.” 

She looked at her son as if he was the whole world, and to her, he probably was.

“You’re probably right.”

“But you’ll still see us all the time,” she promised. “We’ll be over here bothering you every chance that we get, and as soon as we’re settled into our place, we’ll be having you over for dinner every single Sunday night. You’ll get sick of us and be longing for some peace and quiet before you know it.”

Wayne didn’t know how to tell them he didn’t need peace and quiet anymore. He’d grown used to coming home from work to see his nephew playing in the living room and laughing as he toddled around the trailer. He was used to Linda singing loudly and off-key along with every song on the radio as she busied herself in the kitchen. He was used to his brother cracking jokes and making loud comments about every single sport he watched on TV. He was used to there being too many people in his tiny trailer, and he didn’t want that to change.

But he was proud of them. So extraordinarily proud of the two of them and the life they were building together. In the past two years, he’d watched them grow from a couple of scared kids into the loving parents that neither of them had ever had themselves. It would hurt to live apart from them, but he knew that it was what was best for all of them.

May 1970

“Munson residence,” Wayne said as he answered his ringing phone.

“Wayne, it’s Linda,” the voice on the other end of the phone replied.

“I was just about to head over to your apartment. Need me to pick up anything on my way?” 

It wasn’t unusual for Linda to ask him to pick up something on the way to dinner. Especially now that she was in college. She’d gotten her GED the year before and was about to finish her first year of schooling to become a teacher. Now that Eddie was a little older and getting ready to start preschool, she was ready to give up her waitressing job and work towards something more stable that fit better with her life as a young mom. Something that would allow her to be home for his bedtime every night.

“Actually, I was calling to ask you for a different sort of favor. I hate to cancel our dinner so last minute, but Richie got called into work for an extra overnight inventory shift at the grocery store, and I have a huge group presentation for one of my classes due tomorrow. Normally, I would give you more notice, but I was wondering if I could maybe drop Eddie off over there for a sleepover? Richie would be able to pick him up first thing in the morning when he gets off work, and this way I can meet up with my classmates to put the finishing touches on our project. I’d owe you a huge favor.”

“You know he’s always welcome over here. Are you heading over now?”

“In a little bit. I still have to pack an overnight bag for the kiddo. One of the girls from my group is going to pick me up, and then we’ll drop Eddie off with you before we head over to the library.”

“Sounds good to me. See you soon.”

While waiting for his sister-in-law and nephew to show up, Wayne looked through the kitchen to see if he actually had anything that he could feed Eddie for dinner. He hadn’t been expecting to have to cook that night, and he usually did his weekly grocery shopping on Mondays before he came home from work. He supposed he could make the kid a TV dinner if it came down to it, and he maybe had a can of soup or two in the cupboard, but neither were up to the standards of the food that Linda normally made him.

But, when Linda arrived with Eddie, she entered the trailer carrying dinner for them.

“I’d already started cooking before Richie got called into work,” she said as she set the lasagna down on the table. “I knew you wouldn’t have had a solid dinner plan, and I wasn’t going to let two of my favorite boys get stuck eating what I’m sure would have been TV dinners.”

“You know me too well.”

Before Linda could respond, Eddie took a running leap at his uncle who caught him easily.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he clung to his uncle’s chest. “We get to have a sleepover! And mama said I can stay up an extra half hour ‘cause it’s a special occasion!”

“She did? Well, that’s a good thing because I was thinking we could have a campout in the living room, and maybe if it’s okay with your mama, we could even make some hot chocolate.”

Eddie shifted in Wayne’s arms to face his mom and fixed her with his best pleading gaze, all puppy dog eyes and pouty bottom lip. The kid had them all wrapped around his little finger, and he knew it.

“How could I say no to this precious face? It’s fine with me,” Linda said with a small laugh at her son’s excitement at her answer.

Wayne set Eddie down on the counter next to the sink.

“Why don’t you wash your hands while I talk to your mama, and then you and I will have some dinner, okay?”

Eddie nodded vigorously and turned on the water, so Wayne turned his attention back to Linda.

“Alright, so bedtime is anywhere between seven thirty and eight tonight. He’s gonna be home with Richie all day tomorrow, and I know it’s going to be a lazy sleepy day anyway, so he’ll get plenty of rest if he doesn’t sleep enough tonight. His pajamas and clothes for tomorrow are in his backpack, but if you don’t have him dressed before he gets picked up, that’s fine, too. If he wants a bedtime story, Peter Pan is his favorite right now, and he usually falls asleep around the second chapter. That’s somewhere in his bag with Mister Lion. I gave him a bath earlier, so you don't need to worry about that, but make sure he brushes his teeth. He will try to convince you that he doesn’t need to, but he wants to be just like his Uncle Wayne, so if you brush your teeth when it’s time for him to, he shouldn’t put up too much of a fight. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything, but it’s not like you’ve never watched him before. You know how to handle my little hellraiser better than anyone.”

She looked over towards her son who was now laying with his stomach flat against the counter as he clapped his hands under the running water repeatedly trying to make the biggest splash he possibly could. She moved to turn off the sink before sitting her son upright on the counter and drying his hands off with the dish towel.

“Were you making a mess of the kitchen, you little stinker?” she teased as she skittered her fingers across her son’s belly.

“No,” he replied through his giggles as he curled in on himself. She stopped tickling him and ruffled his messy curls that matched her own.

“You be good for your Uncle Wayne, okay? Daddy will be here to pick you up first thing in the morning. Now give mama big hugs and kisses.”

Eddie stood up on the counter and flung his arms around Linda’s neck. Once she’d wrapped her arms around the boy, he moved his hands to squish her cheeks as he smothered her with as many kisses as he could give.

“I love you so much, Eddie Bear,” she told him, laughing as he kissed one of her eyes.

“I love you more,” he replied.

“And I love you most.”

She gave him one last big squeeze and kissed his forehead before setting him down on the ground.

“Alright, I’ve kept Sandy waiting out in the car long enough. Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Wayne and Eddie had a relatively easy night together. They ate dinner, and Eddie didn’t fuss when Wayne had to wash the sauce off of his face afterwards. He sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures with the crayons and notebook paper they kept at the trailer for him while his uncle cleaned up the kitchen, and he narrated all of his art as he drew. They had the hot chocolate that Wayne promised with extra marshmallows, and there were no complaints about brushing teeth since Wayne was brushing his teeth, too. Wayne set up the foldout bed in the living room with an extra set of sheets and the fuzzy yellow blanket that was Eddie’s favorite. They both changed into their pajamas, and then they read four chapters of Peter Pan before Eddie fell asleep on the couch curled up against his uncle’s side with his fingers threaded through Mister Lion’s mane. Wayne carefully moved the sleeping boy to the bed and placed a kiss on his forehead. He fell asleep on the couch shortly after.

Wayne always woke up at five without an alarm clock no matter what time he went to bed the night before. It was both a blessing and a curse. Being careful to keep quiet enough that he wouldn’t wake Eddie, he made his way to the bathroom to take a quick shower before his brother got there. He didn’t know when his brother would be there, so he wanted to be ready to head to the plant early just in case he’d be racing out the door.

When he was finished getting ready, he headed into the kitchen where he found a very sleepy looking Eddie with the fuzzy, yellow blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was dragging Mister Lion by his tail behind him.

"What are you doing up, Eds? Did I wake you?" he asked.

"Bad dream," Eddie replied, sniffling a little. “‘Mnot scared, but Mister Lion needed a hug.”

Wayne scooped Eddie up, and the boy immediately wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck.

“I got ya, buddy,” he said as he rubbed the boy’s back. “I got ya.”

Wayne continued to hold Eddie as he moved around the kitchen and started his morning coffee. Once he’d poured himself a cup, he headed to sit down on the couch.

“Why don’t you try to get a little more sleep, Eds?” he suggested. “I’ll start making breakfast after I finish my coffee, and then I’ll get you up, okay?”

Eddie nodded a little and moved to curl up next to his uncle on the couch not wanting to stray too far from the comfort that he’d found.

By the time Wayne had finished his coffee and used the little he had left in his kitchen to make some scrambled eggs and toast for the boy, it was close to seven. He had to be at the plant by seven thirty, so he was going to have to call in sick if his brother didn’t show up soon.

Eddie was not a morning person, so it took a few minutes for Wayne to get him up and seated at the table, and when he glanced at the clock on his wall, he knew he wasn’t going to make it to work on time.

“Mr. O’Grady? It’s Wayne Munson,” he started when his boss at the plant finally answered the phone. “I’m gonna be a little late for my shift. I’m watching my nephew. My brother was supposed to pick him up by now, but I’ve still got the kid, and I can’t leave him here alone.”

“It’s fine, Munson,” his boss answered. “In the ten years you’ve worked here, you’ve never taken a vacation, and the only times you’ve ever called off were when your nephew was born and when he broke his wrist last year. Take the day to spend with the kid. Sullivan has been asking for more hours anyway, and I can call him in to cover for you this time.”

“Thanks, Mr. O’Grady,” he said as he lunged to take the ketchup bottle away from Eddie before he could empty the entire thing onto his plate. “I really appreciate it.”

Wayne poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down across from Eddie who was more interested in eating ketchup than the eggs on his plate. He figured that inventory took a little bit longer than expected. The grocery store opened at nine, so they’d have to be done by then, and if his brother wasn’t at the trailer by nine thirty, he’d start calling their apartment.

Nine thirty came and went, and the phone call to Richie and Linda’s apartment went unanswered. The same happened every other time he called between then and noon. Wayne was starting to get worried, but he was trying his best not to let it show. His focus was on Eddie who didn’t seem to mind that he got to spend extra time there.

Finally, when Wayne was getting ready to set the table with the TV dinners that he’d ended up making for their lunch, someone answered the phone at the apartment.

“Hello?”

“Is everything okay over there?” Wayne asked, skipping the pleasantries. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning.”

“Everything’s fine. I was sleeping,” Richie replied. “What time is it?”

“For the love of god, Richie.” Wayne lowered his voice and glanced into the living room to make sure Eddie wasn’t paying attention to him before he continued. “I was starting to think something bad had happened. I called you at least a dozen times. Scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m sorry. I came home from work and passed out immediately. Didn’t hear the phone until just now.”

“But you were supposed to pick up Eddie before you went home.”

“I stopped on the way to change my clothes. Smelled like sweat and pickle juice after someone dropped a box and the shit splattered everywhere. I figured Linda changed her mind and was picking him up since she wasn’t home when I got here.”

“Well, she definitely didn’t come here.”

“She had a group presentation due today, and she was really hounding the other girls to make sure it was perfect. She probably just caught the bus and headed over to campus early. Do you want me to come over and get Eddie?”

“Don’t worry about it. You should get some more sleep. One of you can come and grab him after Linda gets home from class.”

“Are you sure? I know he can be a handful.”

“We’re fine. I’ll take him to the park or something, and he can do my grocery shopping with me. Besides, I just made him lunch, and I kinda like having him around.”

“You wanna keep him?” Richie asked with a laugh.

“Don’t tempt me,” Wayne responded with a laugh of his own. “But I don’t think Linda would be too happy about it.”

“You’re probably right. We’ll give you a call when we’re on our way to get him, okay? Most likely right around dinner time?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After lunch, Wayne finally got Eddie dressed and took him to the playground across town. Since they’d done nothing but sit around the trailer all morning, the kid had a lot of energy to burn, and he chose to burn it by giving his uncle a heart attack every time he went to leap off of something he probably shouldn’t have climbed in the first place. Eventually, he got tired of scaring years off of his uncle’s life, and Wayne agreed to push him on the swings as long as he promised not to jump off of those, too.

Once he’d successfully tired out the kid, Wayne loaded Eddie into his truck and headed to the grocery store. His usual get in, get what he needs, and get out trip took a lot longer than normal with his nephew riding in the cart, but debating about breakfast cereal and lunch meat with a kid who wasn’t even going to be eating them was wildly entertaining. In the end, he only ended up with three things that Eddie had wanted in his cart, and he was taking that as a win.

Standing in the checkout line, Wayne couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between the two housewives behind him. He wasn’t one to pay attention to town gossip, but he couldn’t ignore them.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the accident last night,” the first woman said.

“News travels fast in a small town like Hawkins,” the second replied. “It’s a shame really. Those poor girls.”

“Oh, I know. I wonder if they’ve been able to find their families by now. Eleanor said that they weren’t sure who to call.”

“How did Eleanor get so much information about this anyway? It wasn’t in any of the papers today.”

“Her husband was on duty, and you know he went home and told her every detail. The man can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

“Can you blame him? A drunk driver crashing into a car full of girls leaving the community college library is probably the most exciting thing he’s ever seen working around here. Not that a tragedy is exciting mind you. It’s just more interesting to talk about than the occasional traffic violation.”

Wayne almost dropped the milk that he was holding on the ground. Their conversation meant nothing to him. To him, or his brother, or the little boy who was currently fighting to stay awake in his shopping cart. The fact that no one had seen Linda since last night was merely a coincidence. She was probably at home with Richie right now telling him all about how her presentation went and getting ready to pick up her son. She had to be.

But, when Wayne pulled up to his trailer to find his brother sitting on his front step looking more scared and alone than he had when he came to tell him that Linda was pregnant, he knew that wasn’t the case.

Wayne held Eddie throughout the funeral. Richie was an absolute wreck and could barely hold himself together let alone take care of his son. But he had his older brother to help pick up the pieces, and that was a comfort in such an upsetting time.

Wayne hadn’t expected such a large turnout for the funeral. With the way she lit up every room she entered, the fact that she had had an effect on so many people in her short twenty one years shouldn’t have been a huge surprise. There were groups of girls from all of Linda’s classes, and the diner had closed for the day because all of the waitresses and cooks wanted to be there. There were high school friends who had just arrived home from college, and there were families from their apartment building. All there to pay their respects. The only notable absence was Linda’s own parents. Not that anyone had really expected them to show up anyway. They hadn’t tried to contact her at all in the time since they’d kicked her out, and Wayne would have forced them to leave if they’d tried to show their faces.

After the services, Wayne took Eddie straight back to the apartment. He and Richie had discussed it beforehand, and they figured that the whole situation would be too overwhelming for him. They’d explained to him what had happened in a way that was simple enough for a child to understand, but the boy was still so young and confused about why his mother wasn’t coming home. He didn’t need to be surrounded by a bunch of people he didn’t know talking about what a shame it was that his mother was gone.

So, while his brother stayed behind to receive condolences, Wayne reheated one of the many casseroles people had dropped off at the apartment for them, gave Eddie a bath, and put him to bed. But throughout it all, he couldn’t help but notice that his usually bright and talkative nephew was the most quiet and reserved he’d ever been since he learned how to talk.

When Richie finally came home, he didn’t say anything. Just grabbed the casserole dish that Wayne had left on the counter along with a fork and sat down on the sofa where Wayne was pretending he cared about whatever was on TV.

Without saying anything, Wayne got up and grabbed a drink for his brother. Nothing fancy. Just a glass of the iced tea from the fridge. But there was an unspoken meaning behind it that they both could feel. That Wayne was always going to take care of them and get them what they needed. No matter what, he would always be there.

“Thanks,” Richie said as he accepted the glass. “For everything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wayne replied. “It’s what I’m here for.”

August 1970

Sunday dinners had remained the norm for the three Munson men, but Linda’s absence was always in the forefront of their minds. Not just because she was the best cook out of the three, but because she was the one who really got them to talk to each other. Wayne and Richie were never big talkers, and she had bridged their gap in communication.

And maybe that was why Wayne had accepted the Sunday overtime shifts that were offered to him. He hated missing the time with his family, but he hated the awkward silences more.

After not attending Sunday dinner for nearly a month, he figured that it was time to start going back. Eddie was starting school soon, and he felt guilty for the time he was missing with the kid. He felt even more guilty once he saw the state of their apartment.

He’d let himself in like he normally did, and the first thing he noticed was his brother passed out on the couch. There were empty beer cans strewn across the floor around him, and the room was in complete disarray. The kitchen wasn’t any better. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, and the trashcan was filled with enough beer cans to show that this probably wasn’t the first time this had happened.

He made his way back to Eddie’s room since the kid was nowhere to be found in the front of the apartment, and he found his nephew happily playing alone. It wasn’t exactly a comforting sight though. While the room was in relatively decent shape, the laundry hamper was overflowing to the point where there were small piles of clothes surrounding it, and there was a distinct odor hanging in the air. But the worst part was Eddie himself. The boy looked dirty. This definitely wasn’t the first day that he’d worn those clothes, and his hair was a tangled mess that obviously hadn’t been washed anytime recently.

“How’s it goin’, Eds?” Wayne asked, finally alerting his nephew to his presence.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie leaped up from his spot on the floor to give his uncle a hug.

As Wayne picked up the boy, he was hit with another wave of that stench, and his suspicions about said stench coming from Eddie were confirmed.

“So, when was the last time you had a bath?” he asked.

“We don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said with a little shrug.

“And I’m guessing you’d have the same answer if I asked why the kitchen isn’t clean?”

“Yep.”

“And why the laundry isn’t done?”

“Yep.”

“Do you know anything?” Wayne teased.

“I know we’re eating TV dinners tonight!” Eddie said, excited that he could tell his uncle something.

“And how do you know that?”

“‘Cause we eat ‘em every night. Daddy puts ‘em on a plate so I won’t know, but he never throws out the box cause he’s too busy sleeping on the couch.”

“Does he do that a lot? Sleep on the couch like that, I mean?”

“Yeah. He’s no good at bedtime anymore.”

Wayne couldn’t tell if he was more heartbroken for his nephew or angry at his brother at that moment. All he knew was that he needed to do something.

“How do you feel about coming over for a sleepover?” Wayne asked. “We haven’t had one of those in awhile, and I miss hanging out with my favorite kid.”

Eddie’s response was an enthusiastic yes, so Wayne set him back down.

“I’m gonna go talk to your daddy, and then we’ll get your stuff ready to go, okay?”

“Okay!”

Part of Wayne wanted to be thankful that at least Eddie still seemed happy. He was okay on the inside even if it was clear that his dad had dropped the ball. But a much larger part of him was consumed by his anger. Angry at his brother for letting his home get this messy. Angry at his brother for clearly not taking care of his child. Angry at his brother for picking up their father’s bad habits.

But, most of all, Wayne was angry at himself for avoiding the awkward silences. If he’d kept going over for Sunday dinners, he would have caught the warning signs sooner. He could have kept things from getting this bad. He could have done something to help, and he was going to live with the guilt of not helping sooner for a very long time.

When Richie didn’t respond to his name or being shaken, Wayne grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and dumped it over his brother’s head.

“What the hell, Wayne?” Richie sputtered as he came to and glared up at his brother.

“Don’t what the hell me,” Wayne replied. He was trying to keep his volume down so Eddie wouldn’t hear them. “It’s barely five o’clock on a Sunday, and you were passed out drunk.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. I shouldn’t have to tell you that with the way we grew up. Do you really want to put your kid through that?”

“I’m not turning into dad.” Richie sat up and laid his head in his hands. “I will never be anything like that man. I’m just not doing the best right now, okay? After everything, I lost my job. Missed too many shifts. It all spiraled from there. I just need some time to get back on my feet so we don’t lose the apartment.”

“You can’t take time when you’ve got Eddie to think about,” Wayne said as he took a seat next to his brother. “I’m bringing him home with me. This isn’t good for him, and you know it.”

“You can’t take my kid away from me.”

“The boy stinks, and I’m guessing he barely has any clean clothes left from what I saw in his room. This place is a wreck, and you don’t seem to care because you’re too busy drinking. He told me all you do is sleep on the couch like you were when I got here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck. He hated putting this out there, but he had to open his brother’s eyes, and he didn’t see any other way.

“He starts preschool next week, Richie. If he gets there looking and smelling the way he does now or tells anyone anything about the way you’re living, someone is going to come here and take him away from you. He needs a safe and stable living environment, and this isn’t one right now. So you can either let him come with me while you pull yourself together, and you can still come and see him everyday. Or you can keep living like this, and you could wind up losing him for good. The choice is yours, and one of those options seems a lot better than the other to me.”

“Shit.”

Richie kicked the coffee table in frustration and sent empty beer cans flying.

“So, I can come see him everyday?” he asked after a moment.

“Whenever you want. I promise.”

“Okay . . . I’m not really turning into dad, am I?”

“No. I just think you went through some shit that you’re way too young for, and it made you make some bad choices. You’ve at least acknowledged it, so you’re doing better than he ever did.”

Wayne didn’t wait for a response from his brother. He just grabbed a garbage bag from the cabinet under the sink and headed back to Eddie’s room where he started shoving all of the dirty clothes into the bag.

“You can’t throw away my clothes,” Eddie pouted. “I need those.”

“I’m not throwing them away. I’m gonna do your laundry. Your daddy is awake, so why don’t you go talk to him while I get your stuff ready to go?”

Once Eddie’s clothes were taken care of, Wayne moved around the room grabbing whatever he saw that he thought his nephew would maybe want at his house and loading it into the duffle bag he found under the bed. He took the dinosaurs and toy cars that Eddie had been playing with when he came in. He took the stack of books and photo albums that were sitting on the tiny nightstand by his bed. He even grabbed the toy guitar that he was sure he was going to regret bringing with him. And, of course, he grabbed Mister Lion.

After a quick trip into the bathroom to grab Eddie’s toothbrush and other toiletries, he headed back into the living room where Eddie was giving his dad a goodbye hug.

“You be extra good for your uncle, okay?” Richie said as he pulled away from his son. “And I’ll be over to see you every day.”

“You promise?” Eddie asked.

“Cross my heart.”

Once they were back at the trailer, the first thing Wayne did was give Eddie a bath.

“I thought I didn’t need to do this anymore,” Eddie pouted as his uncle worked the shampoo into his hair.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Eds,” Wayne replied. “You smell, and I can’t have you stinking up my trailer. So, it’s either you take a bath on a regular basis, or you’re sleeping on the porch.”

Eddie looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“You’d make me sleep on the porch?

“Never. Which is why we need to get you cleaned up.”

Getting Eddie bathed was the easy part. Tackling the tangled mess of his hair was an entirely different beast. Wayne tried to be as careful as possible as he worked through the knots, but Eddie was especially tender-headed, and his hair was a mess from the neglect, so there were plenty of complaints and tears.

“Mama never made it hurt,” Eddie said between his sniffles.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” Wayne replied. “I’m being as gentle as I can.”

“I miss her.”

“I know. Me, too.”

Wayne made grilled cheese and tomato soup for their dinner. It wasn’t anything special, but it was better than a TV dinner, and he made himself a promise that he’d never feed his nephew one of those for dinner ever again if he could help it. And, after the table was cleared and the dishes were done, he put the kettle on the stove to start heating up some water to make tea for himself and hot chocolate for Eddie.

When Wayne’s mug collection started to outgrow the small cabinet shelf, he’d moved most of them into the living room to put on display, but his favorites were kept in the kitchen for easy use. He pulled out the mug from Eddie’s first Christmas for himself, and then he grabbed Linda’s favorite mug - the light blue one with the pink rosettes - for Eddie. He carefully carried the mugs over to the coffee table before going through the bag of Eddie’s things to find the book he was looking for.

“Hey, Eddie, can you come over here?” he called over to his nephew as he sat down on the couch.

Eddie abandoned his crayons and the picture he was drawing to climb onto the couch with his uncle.

“You were too little to remember it, but did your mama and daddy ever tell you that you all lived here with me when you were a baby?”

“We did?”

“You did. The three of you shared my bedroom, and I slept out here. Whenever you were up at night, your mama would come sit in the kitchen, and we’d have tea together while she fed you. And then, when you still wouldn’t go back to sleep, she’d hand you over to me. We’d sit over here, and she’d read her favorite book to you until you fell asleep in my arms.”

Wayne grabbed the mugs off of the table and passed Eddie’s to him before picking up the copy of The Hobbit that he’d set aside.

“I know you miss your mama, and I know this isn’t the same as having her here, but this is a little piece of her that I can share with you.”

Eddie curled up against his uncle, and they sipped their drinks as Wayne started to read Linda’s most favorite adventure out loud to her son. It wasn’t much, but it was all Wayne could do to make Eddie’s first night in his trailer a little bit easier.

December 1970

Richie had made good on his promise to come and visit every day for the first two months that Eddie was staying with Wayne. But right around Halloween, he started missing days. And then multiple days in a row. It broke Wayne’s heart every time he saw Eddie realize that his dad had forgotten about him again, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Richie had either stopped answering his phone at the apartment, or he was never home no matter what time of day Wayne called. Nor did he answer the door any of the times Wayne dropped by to check on him.

On Christmas Eve, Wayne realized that his brother hadn’t been over to see them since Thanksgiving, and he wasn’t sure if they’d be seeing him at all the next day. Wayne wasn’t going to let his brother’s screw ups ruin the holiday for Eddie though. It was going to be hard enough on him to spend his first Christmas without his mom. He didn’t want the whole day to be miserable.

Wayne had hidden all of Eddie’s gifts from Santa in the cabinet over the fridge - the only cabinet that Eddie hadn’t found a way to climb to yet - and he had gotten a small tree to prop up in the corner. It wasn’t very impressive, but Eddie was all smiles when he got to put the star on top, and that was good enough for him. He’d even picked up everything he needed to make cinnamon french toast for breakfast and a roast for Christmas dinner. It was shaping up to be a fairly decent holiday.

But, when he asked Eddie if he was excited for Santa to visit them that night, he was met with frustrated tears instead of the happiness he’d expected. Wayne stopped what he was doing and went over to where Eddie was sitting on the couch. The boy had tears streaming down his cheeks, and his tiny hands were balled into tight fists.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Wayne asked as he knelt down to get on Eddie’s level.

“I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“I forgot your present, and now it’s too late.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to get me anything. I promise.”

“No, I gotta,” Eddie said as he wiped at his tears. “Mama said it wasn’t special if you didn’t get a mug, and I wanted it to be special.”

Wayne moved to sit on the couch and scooped Eddie up in his arms, allowing the boy to cry into his shoulder and get his feelings out.

“I was going to ask daddy to take me, but he’s never here.”

Wayne could pinpoint a lot of things about his brother that had angered him lately, but he didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for hurting Eddie like this. Still, he didn’t want his nephew to end up hating his dad. When Richie pulled it together, they’d be a family again, and he didn’t want moments like this to sour that.

“It’s my fault, Eds,” Wayne lied as he rubbed Eddie’s back in an attempt to soothe him. “Your daddy gave me some money so you could buy me a Christmas gift and told me that I should take you, and I got so busy with work that I just forgot about it. But if we leave right now, I bet we can make it to the Goodwill in time for you to pick out something real special.”

The opportunity to go present shopping cheered Eddie up immediately, and before Wayne knew it, the boy was pulling at his arm to get him to help grab his coat and shoes.

The Goodwill was still open when they got there, and nobody was inside except for the very bored looking teenager running the cash register.

“Now, you go pick something out, and I’ll wait here until after you’ve paid so whatever you pick can be a surprise,” Wayne said as he handed Eddie a few dollars.

Eddie took the money and wandered off towards where the homegoods were kept, and Wayne busied himself by looking at a rack of kids clothes near the front of the store. He wasn’t necessarily planning on buying anything, but if he could maybe find something decent that would fit Eddie, he might as well look. He only turned his attention back to the checkout counter when he heard his nephew’s voice.

“Excuse me,” Eddie said as he reached up to set his purchase on the counter. The counter was taller than he was, so he had to stretch just a little bit. “I want to buy this as a Christmas gift for my uncle, please. I have my own money and everything.”

“Well, aren’t you the cutest,” the girl working the cash register said as she picked up his mug. “Are you sure this is the one you want to get him though?”

“Yes, it’s the best one.”

“Okay, that’ll be one dollar. And for an extra quarter, I can even put it in one of these fancy gift bags for you if you’d like.”

“Yes, please.” Eddie set his money on the counter and waited as the girl got his change and wrapped his purchase.

“Here you go, sweetie,” the girl said as she handed Eddie his things.

“Thank you! Merry Christmas!”

Eddie raced back over to his uncle, and it was apparent that the tears from earlier were long forgotten.

When Wayne unwrapped his new “Virginia is for Lovers” mug in front of the tree on Christmas morning, he couldn’t contain his laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Eddie asked.

“It’s nothing Eds. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Did I pick a good one then?”

“You picked the best one. I love it.”

And he did. Not just because it was Eddie that gave it to him, but because he knew it was the exact mug Linda would have chosen if she was there.

June 1973

Wayne and Eddie had settled into a routine together. During the school year, Wayne put Eddie on the bus before heading to work, and then he picked him up from after school care on the way home. Wayne made them dinner while Eddie did whatever homework he had to do, and then it was bathtime and books before bed. There wasn’t really enough room for two beds in Wayne’s bedroom, but he’d rearranged the furniture enough that they could just barely fit the fold out bed in his room when Eddie had expressed that he didn’t like sleeping out in the living room alone.

The only difference during the summer was that Eddie went to daycare instead of school. It was a little too expensive, but Wayne was doing his best to make it work.

Richie’s visits were few and far between at this point. They were lucky if he came to visit Eddie once a month, but it was usually a longer absence than that. They didn’t even have a way to contact him when he was gone anymore because he’d lost the apartment, and the only reason they knew he lost the apartment was because he’d told Wayne that if there was anything of Eddie’s still there, he should probably get it before the landlord changed the locks. When Wayne had showed up to grab the rest of Eddie’s toys and books, he’d grabbed the rest of the photo albums and a few of Linda’s things that were still around that he thought Eddie might like to have one day. Richie was supposed to give them his new address and phone number once he’d settled into a new place, but that had been nearly a year ago, and Wayne wasn’t holding his breath. His brother had broken so many promises since Eddie had moved in with Wayne, that he had a hard time believing anything his brother said.

So, when Richie showed up that morning and said that he wanted to take Eddie for the whole day, Wayne couldn’t have been more surprised. Even when Richie did remember to show up, he never spent the whole day with his own kid. But his brother said he had a new job, and he wanted to celebrate with his son. Wayne was reluctant to let it happen, but he knew the kid missed his dad, and if Richie wanted to step up, it would at least give him a chance to get some work done around the trailer without any distractions.

But when they came back around dinner time, Wayne regretted letting them go alone. Physically, Eddie was fine, but they returned in a different car than the one they’d left in. A much nicer car that Wayne knew his brother wouldn’t have been able to afford. He’d heard some rumors about cars getting stolen around Hawkins and getting brought to a chop shop somewhere outside of the town, but he hadn’t given it much thought since no one wanted to steal a car from someone who lived in a trailer park.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he climbed out the car and ran to his uncle. “We had the best day!”

“You did?”

“Yeah! First, we went to the arcade, and then we got hot dogs, and after that, dad showed me how I can get any car I want for free!”

“Oh really?” Wayne glanced over at his brother who was leaning against the hood of what Eddie had all but confirmed was definitely a stolen car. “That sounds like a really great day, Eds. Why don’t you go inside and get washed up for dinner while your dad and I have a little chat, okay?”

Wayne waited until Eddie was out of earshot before he walked over to his brother.

“Seriously, Richie? Is that what your new job is? Stealing cars?”

“Lighten up. Do you know how much money I get for each car I bring in? I might actually be able to afford a decent apartment again, and I can quit sleeping on people’s couches. Eddie could even come stay with me.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Being enmeshed in illegal activities is exactly what every seven year old needs. Do you even hear yourself?”

“Don’t tell me how to raise my son, Wayne. I think I know what I’m doing here.”

“Well, that’s rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since when are you the one raising him, Richie? The last time I checked, we haven’t seen you since March.”

“He’s still my son.”

“Then act like it. Because I’m the one who gets him to and from school and makes sure he gets his homework done. I’m the one who makes sure that he’s fed and clothed and has a roof over his head. I’m the one that he cries out for whenever he has a bad dream or he’s sick. And I’m the one who comforts him and distracts him every time you say you’ll be here and then don’t show up because you’re too drunk or you overslept or just forgot and didn’t care. And I am sick of you coming back around for a day and lying to him about how you’re going to be around more often and promising to spend more time with him because every time you break that promise, his heart breaks all over again. He deserves better than that, and you know it.”

“Shut up.”

“You can’t just tell me to shut up when you don’t want to hear the truth, and frankly, I’ve stayed quiet long enough. This is something you should have heard a long time ago.”

“I said shut up.”

“If she could see the way that you’re treating her boy, Linda would be so ashamed of you right now.”

“Fuck you!”

Richie launched up from where he was leaning on the car to post up to his brother. For a minute, Wayne was convinced that Richie was going to take a swing at him from the anger burning in his eyes, but nothing happened.

“You want me to be a better dad? Fine. I’ll be a better dad,” he spat as he stormed toward the trailer door. “We don’t need any help from you anymore.”

Before Wayne knew it, his brother was marching out of the trailer pulling a very confused looking Eddie behind him.

“Say goodbye to your uncle, Eddie,” Richie said as he opened his car door. “You’re not going to be seeing him for a while.”

“Richie, be reasonable.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Wayne. Either I’m the dad that you want me to be, or I leave him here with you. So I’m taking my son, and we’re leaving because I will not stand here and listen to you insult me. And if I ever hear Linda’s name leave your mouth again, that’ll be the last time you ever speak.”

Richie climbed into the car and slammed his door shut. Once Eddie was inside with him, he sped away and out of the trailer park leaving Wayne to spend the night alone for the first time in years.

February 1976

It was after midnight when Wayne got the call. He'd been asleep for a few hours at that point, and he'd been woken up by the phone. At first, he'd tried to ignore the call, but the person on the other end of the line was persistent, so the phone just kept ringing. He stumbled out of his bedroom and into the kitchen to grab the phone.

“Hello?” Wayne answered the phone, his voice hoarse from barely being awake.

“Have we reached Wayne Munson?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Munson, this is Chief Carver with the Hawkins police department. We currently have your brother in custody down at the station. His bail hasn’t been set just yet, and he declined his one phone call, but I’m calling to inform you that we also have your nephew here. He was asleep in the back of the car when my officers picked up your brother, and we’ve been told that you’re the only other family the boy has. We were hoping to place the child in your care as we’d rather contact family than anyone else in situations like these.”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

Wayne didn’t need to hear anything else before he was putting on real pants and racing down to the station. He’d barely seen his brother and nephew since their fight as Richie had cut him out of their lives. He only saw them in passing, but Richie would quickly leave whatever public space they were in when he noticed Wayne was there, too. And even if he had a phone number, he doubted Richie would take his calls. He didn’t want to say that he was afraid of what he’d find when he got there, but he wasn’t expecting anything good.

“I got a call from the chief about my brother,” Wayne said as he walked up to the officer sitting behind the front desk. “I’m supposed to be picking up my nephew.”

“Wayne Munson, right?” the officer asked. “I’ll take you back to see your nephew shortly. Just gotta go over some official business first. You know how it is. Now, your brother will be staying here overnight because we won’t be able to get him arraigned until morning.”

“What is he facing in the way of charges?”

“Well, for starters, he was already wanted for multiple counts of grand theft auto and the possession and selling of stolen merchandise. Tonight, he was picked up on a DUI with multiple traffic violations, expired plates, and child endangerment to sweeten the deal. There was also a startling amount of liquor in the car with him. When he was pulled over, he attempted to assault an officer, and he resisted arrest. We don’t expect you to stay here until he’s arraigned, so we can call you and let you know what his bail is set at after the hearing occurs.”

“Don’t bother,” Wayne replied. “I won’t be posting his bail. All I care about is my nephew. Is he okay?”

“As far as we can tell, the boy is fine. A little shaken up, but okay. He was asleep in the backseat when the car was pulled over, and he only woke up when your brother started to get belligerent. We have reason to believe they were living out of the car from the sheer amount of stuff loaded into the trunk and backseat. Because the car was one of the ones he’s accused of stealing, everything inside it was admitted into evidence. However, we’re hoping someone will be able to sort through it after the weekend, so we can set aside anything that belongs to the boy and get it to you then.”

“Can I see him now? I just want to take him home.”

Finally, the officer led him back to the station’s break room where he found Eddie sitting on the sofa with his knees hugged to his chest.

“Alright, Eddie,” the officer said. “Your uncle is here to take you home.”

Eddie got up from the sofa and headed over towards where they were standing without saying a word. It was the quietest that Wayne had ever seen the boy other than when he was sleeping, and he hated it more than he could say.

Eddie stayed quiet the entire way back to the trailer despite Wayne asking him how he was doing, telling him he missed him, and just trying to get even the smallest bit of a conversation going. He tried not to read too much into it. It had most likely been an overwhelming night for him so far, and he was probably worn out.

It was only once they were back at the trailer that Wayne realized he didn’t have any pajamas or extra clothes for Eddie. He still had most of the clothes that had been left behind when his brother had taken the boy back, but he’d grown in the three years since he’d worn any of that stuff, so Wayne doubted he’d be comfortable in any of them. He grabbed one of his own t-shirts out of the basket of clean laundry he’d neglected to put away and offered it to Eddie.

“I know it’s not pajamas, but you might be more comfortable sleeping in this.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie replied, not bothering to take the shirt. “I sleep like this most of the time.”

The boy moved to sit on the edge of the couch, and Wayne set the shirt down on the coffee table just in case Eddie ended up changing his mind.

“How long do I get to stay here?” Eddie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Am I gonna have to go stay somewhere else?”

“No, Eds. You’re here with me for good.” Even if Richie didn’t end up in jail for any of the charges he was facing, Wayne was never letting Eddie out of his sight again. Even if that meant spending what little money he had on a custody battle for his nephew’s wellbeing.

Wayne noted the confused look on Eddie’s face at his response, but he didn’t press the issue further. It had already been a long night for the both of them, and he was surprised that Eddie wasn’t already passed out.

“I’ve still got all of your stuff here from before, so I figure we can go through it tomorrow. See if any of your clothes might still fit or if there are any toys you might still want, and then we can go to the Goodwill and maybe get you some new things to replace what doesn’t work anymore.”

“You kept my stuff?”

“Of course, I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said as he looked down at his shoes. “Figured you wouldn’t want my stuff here either.”

It was the either that struck him. How Eddie was so quiet when he said it as if he didn’t want to voice his fears out loud. Wayne moved to sit next to Eddie on the couch.

“What do you mean?” he asked gently.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Eds. You’re upset, and I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Eddie refused to look at his uncle, continuing to stare at the ground instead.

“Dad said you didn’t want me here anymore. That there wasn’t space for me, so I had to go back with him.”

Wayne thought that being punched in the chest would have been less painful than hearing that. As much as he wanted to sit there and call his brother a liar along with a slew of much harsher names, he couldn’t let himself do that. Eddie had already been through so much that night, and he wasn’t going to be responsible for worsening the boy’s opinion of his own dad. Instead, he placed a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. There was not a day that went by that I didn’t wish you were here with me. Your dad and I had just had a fight, and it made more sense for you to be with him than it did for you to stay here. That’s all it was.”

Wayne got up from the sofa and moved over to where the old foldout bed was pushed into the corner. Behind it was a small, wooden chest. He picked up the chest and set it back down in front of Eddie. He encouraged Eddie to open it, and when the boy did, the first thing he saw was his old stuffed lion. He pulled the plushie out and hugged it to his chest before looking back to find many more of his childhood play things. Toy cars, dinosaurs, and little army men mixed in with crayon stumps, notebooks filled with his drawings, and his mother’s well-loved copies of Tolkien’s epic fantasy. The boy looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry if my mistakes ever made you feel unwanted,” Wayne started, “because the truth is that I would still want you here and have the space for you even if this trailer was the size of my bathroom and nothing bigger.”

“You swear?” Eddie asked. He held out his pinky, and his uncle immediately gripped it with his own.

“I swear.”

Wayne moved to set up the fold out bed.

“You don’t have to go through any of that tonight. It’s late enough as it is. Let me get your bed set up, and we can deal with all of that tomorrow.”

“I’m fine on the couch.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not gonna let you sleep on the couch when I’ve got a perfectly good bed for you.”

“It’s really okay. When we weren’t sleeping in the car, I slept on a lot of couches at other people’s places. The floor sometimes, too. But I always liked the couches best."

The boy seemed eager to please as if he'd been told not to be difficult about where he slept in the past. To accept what he was offered without complaint. Wayne didn't want to fight him on this, but he also didn't want Eddie to think that this was any trouble for him. He'd give him the choice and let the boy do whatever he was most comfortable with.

"Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and set up the bed anyway. You don't have to sleep on it if you don't want to, but I want you to have it as an option."

Wayne barely slept that night. Eddie had looked at the fold out bed as if it was a trap before curling up into a ball on the sofa. It was then that it occurred to him that his nephew hadn't had his own room or any space to really call his own since the first time he'd come to live at the trailer. He'd always shared his uncle's room or the living room or whatever space his dad was able to provide.

Wayne had never needed much space. He didn't have a lot of stuff, and he figured he could fit most of his things in the tiny closet outside the bathroom if he did a little rearranging. Most of his drawers had been taken up by Eddie’s clothes when he lived there the first time anyway. He could take the fold out bed in the living room and give up his bedroom for his nephew. And if Eddie had his own space, maybe that would silence whatever was telling him that he was unwanted and allow him to relax.

So, instead of sleeping, he went through his closet. The boxes filled with Eddie’s old clothes were emptied onto the bed so he could load them up with his things. Moving it all into the hall closet and drawers could wait until morning since he didn’t want to accidentally wake his nephew, but he could get the room mostly ready for the boy to move into it. 

By the time it was a reasonable enough hour for him to go and make his morning coffee, he had all of his stuff piled in boxes in the corner and another box of things he was planning on donating to Goodwill. He figured he could wash the sheets and put a fresh set on the bed later, but everything else was ready.

Eddie was still curled up asleep on the couch when Wayne exited the bedroom, so he tried to be as quiet as possible as he started the coffee. He woke up before the coffee was done though, and soon enough, he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he stood next to his uncle in the kitchen.

“You sleep okay, kiddo?” Wayne asked as he pulled out a couple cereal bowls.

Eddie nodded before moving to take his normal spot at the small table. Wayne didn’t want to pry too much, but he was clueless about what Eddie’s life had been like over the last few years, so he tried to get the boy to talk to him without it seeming like he was interrogating him.

Over bowls of Cheerios, Eddie shared that most of the time, his dad had him hang out at the comic book shop after school and on the weekends. He wasn’t supposed to get in the way while Richie was working, so every week, his dad gave him two dollars, and he could spend that on whatever comics he wanted even if the only ones he really cared about were the X-Men ones. The guy who ran the shop was really nice and let Eddie sit there for as long as he needed to even on the days that he wasn’t buying anything. He never missed school, and his dad always made sure he was fed, so at least he hadn’t been lacking in those departments. Richie was neglectful in a lot of ways, but he had managed to do the bare minimum. He could be thankful for that at least.

After breakfast, Wayne had Eddie help him sort through the boy’s old clothes. None of the pants were going to fit him anymore, but he had a handful of shirts that had been a little big before that he could still fit into. Wayne just hoped that they’d be able to find a few pairs of jeans in decent shape while they were at Goodwill because he definitely didn’t have the money to drop on new pants.

Eddie wanted to keep his dinosaurs and the one little car that had been his favorite, and of course he was keeping Mister Lion, but the rest of his old toys joined the Goodwill boxes. He just wasn’t interested in those things anymore. Wayne made a mental note to pick up a new box of crayons the next time he was at the grocery store since Eddie was very adamant about keeping all of his old drawings, and his old crayons were barely usable anymore.

Their trip to Goodwill was a successful one. Wayne had to use up a good portion of his cigarette budget for the month on a new wardrobe for Eddie, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He’d been meaning to cut back anyway.

“Why don’t you go and put your clothes away in your room?” Wayne told Eddie when they returned to the trailer.

“My room?”

“The bedroom is yours, Eds. I just have to move a few things into the other closet and change the sheets, and then it’ll be ready.”

“You don’t have to give up your room for me.”

“I know. But I want to. Figured you should have a space of your own if you’re gonna be staying here permanently.”

Eddie dropped the bags he was holding and went to give his uncle a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“No need to thank me. You deserve this.” As Wayne was moving the rest of his stuff out of the room, Eddie was drawn to one item in particular.

“You play guitar?” he asked, eyeing the old acoustic in his uncle’s hands.

“I used to. I don’t think I’ve actually played it since before you were born. I was about your age when I learned though.”

“Could you teach me?”

“Sure can. I was just gonna stick it in the closet, but you can keep it in your room if you want and you promise to be real careful with it.”

Eddie nodded enthusiastically before taking the guitar from his uncle and carrying it back into his bedroom.

The rest of Eddie’s first day back at the trailer passed by without any incident. Eddie was slowly warming up to being there again even if he still seemed cautious about what he was and wasn’t allowed to do. It wasn’t until bedtime that Wayne was certain things would be okay between them.

By then, he was exhausted from having stayed up all night and all the work he did to get the bedroom ready for him. He’d just tucked Eddie in and was getting ready to set up his own bed in the living room when he heard the bedroom door open.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked. “Thought you were going to sleep?”

“I was,” Eddie said as he looked down at the ground. “But I was just thinking maybe you could set up your bed in my room like we used to? Just for tonight?”

“I think that can be arranged.”

Wayne squeezed the fold out bed into the cramped bedroom. Without saying a word, Eddie handed his uncle the copy of The Hobbit that was sitting on the nightstand, and even though he was ready to crash, Wayne settled in and read until his nephew was softly snoring beside him just as he had so many times before.

December 1976

Wayne was not spoiling Eddie for Christmas this year. If anyone asked, he insisted he wasn’t. He was staying well within his budget for the holidays, but he was buying pretty much everything secondhand, so his money went a little further. He’d picked up a few board games and an assortment of mismatched legos from the Goodwill, and he’d managed to get a good deal on a new set of strings for the guitar. He’d even picked up the 64 pack of Crayola crayons that had a sharpener built into the box and some plain, unlined paper for him to draw on. Eddie's Christmases with his dad hadn't exactly been great ones, and he wanted to do what he could to make up for that. There was just one last thing he wanted to get.

It had all started when Eddie had spent an entire day drawing at the kitchen table. Wayne hadn't been paying much attention to him because anything that kept Eddie occupied and quiet for more than five minutes meant he could get some cleaning done around the trailer without his nephew getting underfoot or making more work for him. He loved the kid as if he were his own, but he could be a handful at times. When he went to put another load of dirty clothes in the washer and figure out what he was making for dinner, he got a good look at what Eddie had been drawing.

Wayne gathered up the papers and shuffled through them, and he was amazed by Eddie's work. They were good drawings. Not just good for a kid drawings where you could tell what they were supposed to be but they still looked clumsy. These were actually good, and they were all dragons. Different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some breathing fire, some flying, and some sleeping, but all recognizable as dragons.

"Did you draw all of these?" he asked.

Eddie nodded without looking up from his current drawing.

"And you didn't trace 'em or copy them from something or anything?"

"Nope. I just drew what I pictured."

“These are really great, Eds. Best drawings I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Don’t know where you got all this talent from. No one in our family can draw more than a stick figure.”

Eddie was absolutely beaming from all of the praise.

“Which one is your favorite?” the boy asked.

Wayne flipped through the stack of drawings in his hand before pulling out one of a purple dragon asleep on a pile of gold coins and jewels.

“If I had to pick, it’s this one,” he said as he held up the picture. “Would you mind if I hung it on the fridge?”

“You wanna hang up my picture?”

“Of course, I do. Gotta display it like the masterpiece it is.”

After the first drawing was in its place on the fridge, Eddie wanted to hang the rest of his dragons up in his room, so Wayne carefully taped up each and every one of them exactly where Eddie told him to. The entire time, Eddie was sitting cross-legged on his bed monologuing about how cool dragons were and why they were his most favorite fantasy creature. It was then that Wayne knew he had to find a way to get his boy something dragon-related for Christmas.

The problem he was facing was that there seemed to be absolutely nothing dragon-related in all of Hawkins, and he was running out of time. He didn’t know what he was going to do until he spotted something on one of the shelves in the comic book shop.

Wayne couldn’t give Eddie as much money as his dad had been giving him to spend on comics, but every Saturday, they took a trip there after lunch and before they did their grocery shopping for the next week. Eddie was allowed to choose one comic to take home, and Wayne would let him take as long as he needed to make that decision. Usually, he’d just stand and wait with Eddie, but a box with a large red dragon on the front had piqued his interest, so he went to examine it. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it was the perfect gift for his nephew.

When Eddie ran up to him with the comic he’d chosen, Wayne told him to go wait in the truck while he paid. As soon as his nephew was out of his sight, he grabbed the box and bought it along with the comic. It was a little more than he wanted to spend, but he knew it would be worth it to see Eddie’s face when he opened it on Christmas morning.

Wayne had barely opened his eyes before Eddie was shoving a gift into his hands on Christmas morning. He’d insisted that he didn’t need anything like he had for every single Christmas of his adult life, and he had been ignored as usual. When he opened the gift bag, he was presented with four different coffee mugs.

“There’s one for this year, and one for every Christmas I missed,” Eddie said, looking very proud of himself.

“How’d you get the money to pay for these?”

“A group of kids on the playground bet me their milk money that I wouldn’t eat a worm.”

“You ate a worm?”

Eddie shrugged. “It didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.”

Wayne snorted and moved to ruffle a hand through the boy’s curls. “We’ve gotta work on your impulse control, kid.”

“Do you like them?” Eddie asked.

“I love ‘em. In fact, I’m gonna have my morning coffee in one of them, and I’ll make you a special Christmas hot cocoa in one, too.”

After the drinks had been passed out, Wayne pushed his bed to the side so he and Eddie could sit on the floor together with the tiny fake tree that Wayne had found at a garage sale. It wasn’t much, and it looked even tinier when the small pile of gifts for Eddie was almost the same height, but Eddie had just been excited to have a tree which was good enough for Wayne.

As Eddie opened his gifts, Wayne made sure that the one he was the most excited to give him was the last one he opened.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Eddie read off the front of the box.

“It’s a fantasy roleplaying game,” Wayne told him. “I don’t know much about it, but the guy down at the comic book shop said it’s pretty fun, and I know how much you like dragons and fantasy stuff, so I thought this could be fun. I figured you could read the manual and maybe teach me how to play? If that’s okay with you, of course.”

It was more than okay with Eddie. Wayne watched as Eddie did nothing but read the manuals and plan out a small campaign for them to play for pretty much his entire winter break. On New Year’s Eve, he sat his uncle down at their kitchen table and walked him through creating a character before diving into their fantasy adventure. Wayne tried his best to understand what was going on, and Eddie often had to remind him which die to roll and when, but the boy’s excitement and enthusiasm for the game was apparent the entire time. He never got frustrated with him for forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, and he put every bit of his dramatic, over the top personality into painting a picture of this fantasy world.

There were plenty of days where Wayne was convinced that he was doing everything wrong when it came to raising Eddie, but as he watched his nephew fall in love with his new game, he knew that he’d done at least one thing right.

May 1980

When Eddie started middle school, Wayne had decided he was old enough to take the bus home from school and be alone at the trailer until he got home from work. For the most part, this hadn’t been a bad idea, and Eddie had only almost flooded the trailer once. But, towards the end of eighth grade, there was one big hiccup.

“I messed up,” Eddie called from the bathroom the second Wayne had walked in the door.

"Messed up how?"

"Can you just come here?"

Wayne made his way back to the bathroom where he found Eddie leaning over the sink. Sitting on the edge of the sink was a pair of scissors, and there was a very obvious chunk of hair missing from the left side of his head. Considering the fact that Eddie had just told him a week before that he was planning on growing out his hair in an attempt to emulate his favorite musicians, Wayne was more than a little bit confused.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" he asked.

"I was just minding my own business and talking to my friend Jeff about how awesome Corroded Coffin was gonna be at the talent show next week when the kid in the seat behind me smashed his gum in my hair."

"Is this the same kid who called you a freak and ripped up your notebook last month?"

"Yeah . . . I've been ignoring him like you said, but he just won't leave me alone."

Wayne had never considered beating a child before, but there was a first time for everything.

"And I'm guessing the scissors are out because you were trying to get the gum out by yourself?"

"I tried everything. But I couldn't get it out with my hands, and trying to pick it out with my comb only made it worse. And I didn't know what to do, so I figured I could just cut it out, and no one would notice. But I ended up cutting off too much, and now I look like this."

"Why didn't you wait for me to get home? I could've helped you."

"I was embarrassed," Eddie said. The boy looked like he was about ready to cry. "I don't like talking about this stuff, so I thought maybe I could do it alone, and then I wouldn't have to tell you."

Wayne sighed before squeezing past Eddie to pull his clippers out of the bathroom cabinet.

"I can fix this," he said. "It's not going to be what you want, and it's going to take awhile for your hair to grow back, but I can at least even it out and make it look like you wanted your hair to be shorter, okay?"

Eddie nodded.

"Good. Now take a seat and let me take care of you."

Eddie sat down on the edge of the toilet, and Wayne got to work. To make it easier for the clippers to do their job, Wayne started out by using the scissors to cut off Eddie's curls in chunks that he tossed aside in the sink. Once his hair was a more manageable length, Wayne turned on the clippers and started evening out the cut. It definitely wasn't what Eddie wanted, but soon enough, the boy was sporting a fresh buzz cut.

“I’m going to clean up in here, and then you can take a shower if you want. After that, meet me in the kitchen. I think you and I might need to have a talk.”

After sweeping up Eddie’s hair, Wayne headed into the kitchen and put on the water for hot chocolate. That was their routine. Whenever they had to talk about something even remotely upsetting, they did it over cups of hot cocoa in the hopes that the sweetness of the drink would soften the blow.

Eddie came out of the bathroom and took his usual seat at the kitchen table just as Wayne was finished making their drinks. He set Eddie’s mug down in front of him before taking his own seat. It was obvious to him that the boy had been crying while he was in the bathroom from his red-rimmed eyes, but he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t want to make Eddie feel worse than he clearly already did.

Wayne couldn’t get a word out before Eddie started talking.

“I don’t think I wanna do the talent show anymore,” he said as he stared into his mug.

“Why not? It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks.”

“They haven’t even heard me play yet, and I’m already getting picked on for it. What if I suck, and it gets worse?”

“So what?”

“What do you mean so what?” Eddie asked. “You just had to shave my head. I don’t want anything like this to happen ever again.”

Wayne sighed and took a sip from his mug.

“I know we don’t talk about your mama very often, but after you, music was her favorite thing in this world. When you all lived with me, there wasn’t a moment of the day that she wasn’t singing along with whatever was playing on the radio, and she might have been just about the worst singer I’ve heard in my entire life. Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if her life depended on it, and we all teased her about it constantly. But that didn’t stop her from singing her heart out whenever she heard her favorite songs.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“People around here are small-minded, and they’re raising their children to be a bunch of small-minded idiots. No matter what you do, there’s always going to be someone who’s gonna try to make you feel small. That’s just the way life is. And if you stop yourself from doing the things you love just because someone else is making fun of you for it, you’re only letting the bullies win. You’ve gotta be a bigger and louder version of yourself and not let them affect you.

“You are so much like your mama in a lot of ways. Practically a little clone of her at times. Especially when you smile. But the biggest difference that I can see is that you have talent. I may not understand the kind of music you like, but I can tell when something sounds good. I hear you practicing, and you’ve got a gift. I won’t lie to you and pretend that everyone is going to love your performance or that the bullies will magically disappear, but what I can tell you is that it would be a damn shame if you didn’t share your gift with the world just because some little shit stain on your bus clearly wasn’t raised right.”

Wayne got up from the table to put his mug in the sink, but he’d barely taken a step before Eddie had jumped up and wrapped his arms around his uncle in a bone-crushing hug.

“Thank you,” Eddie whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Wayne replied as he hugged him back. “I probably don’t say this enough, but I hope you know that I love you, and I’m always going to be in your corner.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“Good. And if you have any more trouble on that bus of yours, you let me know, and I’ll kick that little punk’s butt. No one is gonna get away with treating my boy like crap.”

Eddie snorted as he pulled away from his uncle.

“I’m sure he’ll be terrified. You’re basically the least intimidating person I know.”

“Okay, smart ass. I’m plenty intimidating.”

“You’re about as scary as a teddy bear.”

It was Wayne’s turn to laugh.

A few weeks later, when Father’s Day rolled around, Wayne woke up to a gift and a homemade card waiting for him next to the coffee maker. He opened the card first, and printed in Eddie’s messy scrawl, it read:

I feel like this is probably long overdue, and I should have been honoring you today for at least a few years now. You’ve been more of a dad to me than I ever remember mine being, and I feel like I don’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me enough. So thanks for always being there. Happy Father’s Day from your boy.

Feeling a little choked up, Wayne pulled the gift towards himself next. It was wrapped up in the comics from the day before’s newspaper with way too much tape. He knew what it would be before he'd even unwrapped it, but he was always happy to see whatever mug Eddie had picked out for him. This one was dark green and patterned with sunflowers, and he knew that it was going to become one of his new favorites immediately if only because of the circumstances in which he received it.

March 1986

Wayne Munson was tired. Tired of people judging Eddie without really knowing him, tired of people not listening to him, and tired of people defacing his missing posters instead of actually helping him look. He was tired of having to keep his guard up when anyone tried to talk to him because he didn’t want to lose his temper and attack someone for spouting vile nonsense at him, and he was tired of spending every waking moment - and most of his sleeping ones - worrying about Eddie. Tired of sleeping in the high school surrounded by people who had actively been hunting down his boy to do who knows what to him. He was just tired.

So, when Dustin Henderson came up to him and gave him the news that Eddie was gone, he could feel himself crumbling from the inside out. At first, he didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true. His boy was out there somewhere and hiding until someone could find concrete evidence that cleared his name. He had to be. But the guitar pick necklace that Dustin held out to him and the apparent pain plastered across the kid’s face had sealed it. His boy was dead, and he was never going to see him again.

Wayne had never been one to outwardly express his emotions. He tended to keep things tucked away until he could have a moment in private, and he certainly never cried in public. But hearing the way that Dustin spoke so fondly about Eddie broke him. Because Dustin was saying everything that he already knew to be true. If Hawkins had really taken the time to get to know his boy, they all would have been able to look past his outer appearance, and they would have loved him just as much as Wayne did. He was certain of it. He just never thought he’d hear someone else say it.

Shortly after he spoke to Dustin, Wayne and the other trailer park residents were given the all clear to go back to their trailers and gather their things. The relief workers had marked it as safe for them to enter briefly, but no one was going to be allowed to stay there for very long. They were instructed to gather up anything important and head back to their temporary housing at the school as soon as possible. Eventually, they’d be able to come back and grab the rest of their things when more permanent housing was found for them, but for now, they were limited in how much they could take.

Wayne didn’t know how much of his stuff was going to be worth saving. Frankly, he was surprised that his trailer had even been left standing when he saw the fault line that ran through what had once been his living room. Out of an abundance of caution, he had entered through the door down near the bedroom instead of the main entrance. He moved quickly, shoving as many of his clothes in his bag as he could. He’d much rather wear his own stuff than the donations that people brought into the school.

After that, he grabbed the sentimental things. For once, he was thankful that he didn’t keep things in conventional places because that meant that all of his photo albums were safe. The notebooks full of Eddie’s childhood drawings and his favorite dragon picture were safe. Eddie’s beloved stuffed lion was safe. All of these were carefully added to his bag. But the one thing he couldn’t take was what hurt the most to leave behind.

He’d known the second that he saw the fault line running through his home that his mugs wouldn’t have made it. What was left of his living room display was now smashed on the floor, and he could tell just from the look of it that there was nothing he could save. He knew it was stupid for him to be so upset about them. They were just a bunch of mugs and nobody else would find them important. Anybody else wouldn’t give them a second thought because they could be replaced. 

But they were important to Wayne. Those mugs tied him to better times with people he would never be able to see again. He could buy a new mug, but he couldn’t buy the mugs that Linda had stolen from her parents for him, he couldn’t buy the mugs that Eddie had eaten a worm to pay for, and he couldn’t buy the mug that Eddie gave him the first time he recognized him on Father’s Day. He couldn’t buy back the happiness that looking at those mugs and remembering their stories gave him. That was gone forever.

He didn’t want to set himself up for even more disappointment, but a part of him needed to know if the mugs that he stored in the cabinet had made it through the earthquake. Those were the ones that he used the most often. His favorites. He would be heartbroken if they were all destroyed, but he needed that closure.

When he opened the cabinet above the coffee maker, he was met with a shelf covered with the broken pieces of his mugs that had smashed against each other in the enclosed space. He knew not to get his hopes up, but it was still a painful sight to see.

But, pushed into the very back corner of the cabinet, there was one mug that appeared to still be intact. He carefully pulled it out of the debris to inspect it. Sporting a new chip on the handle, the mug featured the phrase “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint. The mug from Eddie’s first Christmas.

As he carefully wrapped the mug in a sheet of newspaper that was sitting on the floor underneath the kitchen table, Wayne felt himself choking back tears for the second time that day. It wasn’t his whole collection, but at least it was something. After all, he was only one man. He always said he didn’t need more than one mug.

[kissingrhi]

safe haven ♚ jesse pinkman

notes: obviously breaking bad/el camino spoilers! this is tooth rotting fluff and extremely self indulgent because i just love him! maybe listen to fix you by coldplay while reading because that song reminds me so much of post el camino jesse.

this is also posted on my ao3, @peachyrhi

you were at the grocery store, your jacket hugging your body, shielding you from the nipping cold in the air. you were buying basic necessities for your average life: working as a mail sorter down at the post office, just 1.5 miles from the store you were at. you bought whatever seemed to suit your interests, not thinking too hard as to what you put in your cart. you enjoyed the freedom of living in such a secluded place. after years of having a clouded mind, you finally felt at peace.

as you were checking out though, someone caught your eye. that someone being one of the most beautiful men you’d ever seen. while his face was littered in fading scars, his rose tinted skin and arctic blue eyes had you holding your breath. he was a few isles away from you, so you could sneak glances without being obvious. what you didn’t know was that he was paying attention to you all the same.

he was obviously new in town. in a place like this, everyone knew everyone. he was obviously trying to keep a low profile, a black beanie with a white eagle imprinted on the side with a maroon hoodie thrown over top. he was avoiding eye contact with the cashier, picking at his nails as the worker scanned his very random choices: a comforter, two boxes of captain crunch, and hot sauce. he was intriguing. you wanted to drink him in as much as you could.

that was only the first instance. the second time you bumped into ‘isaac driscoll,’ you were at your job. on days where you weren’t sorting mail, you worked the front desk at the post office, face adorned with a blank smile as you said, “have a good one.” for what felt like the 20th time today. you were now sitting, drumming a pencil against your desk to the beat of some song you’d heard on the radio earlier that day. you were tonguing a cut on the side of your cheek, holding your head flat against your palm as your leg uncontrollably jumped up and down.

you were bored. really fucking bored. that was until you were greeted with none other than the mystery man who’d festered his way into your head for the past couple days, head perking up to the sound of the bell jingling. you finally got to see him closer. he looked about your age, maybe a year or two older. but god, he looked like he’d been through hell. his eyes were worn and exhausted, a dusty pink underneath them, the scars on his face raised and still healing.

you wiped your now sweaty palms on your uniform, eyes widening at the sight as he walked closer and closer. “good afternoon. what can i do for you today?” you asked, drumming your fingers against your thigh, tilting your head. “i’m here to- uh.. pick up a package.” he sounded uncertain, even to himself, like he didn’t understand the words coming from his mouth. his voice was gravely yet chipper, he was obviously expressive in how he spoke. he seemed extremely nervous, so you tried to tread lightly.

“alright, what’s your name? and whose the package from?” you asked, avoiding eye contact with the wiry man in front of your desk. “isaac.” the silence droned on, isaac spacing out in front of you. “isaac driscoll. the package is from ed galbraith.” he sputtered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. he was anxiety ridden, not cracking a smile even once.

“alright, i’ll go check in the back.” and so you went into the storage facility, sifting through clear boxes labeled “pickup.” finally, you settled on one of the biggest packages you’d ever seen, muttering a quiet, “oh fuck me.” you made the annoyingly long journey to find a trolley. i mean come on, a package this size was just insane. maybe you were just being dramatic.

after retrieving the hefty package, you pushed your way back into the office, giving a pained smile to the tired man ahead of you. “albuquerque, huh?” you started, and isaac looked as if you had just stabbed him, his mind rushing at a million miles per hour. “y- yea.” his voice was quiet, pained. “yo, uh. you don’t mind if i wheel this out to my car, do’ya?” he nodded his head to the package in front of you. “no, that’s not a problem at all.” you handed the trolley over to him, “just bring the trolley back in after you’re done please.” you spouted, internally cringing as the two of you brushed hands. “okay.” was all he said.

and finally, the third and final instance before the two of you become inseparable. see, ‘isaac’ had began to take a liking to you as well. he enjoyed how polite you were, how interesting your style was, how you were the opposite of intimidating. you wore warm pastels in contradiction to the bitter alaskan air, you smelled like vanilla from what little scent he’d picked up at the post office, you always have on a single brown, braided hair tie. the final time the two of you had an awkward exchange was at one of the only bars in haines, the fogcutter.

you’d had a rough day, your dad calling you and being a hardass, making you cry at work. no matter how many times you asked him to stop calling, told him that you needed space, he never stopped. and you couldn’t find it in yourself to block him. so you found yourself walking down the street as the sun set, brushing cold tears from your eyes as you entered the nearly empty bar.

you plopped yourself into a chair, leaning your upper body into the bar, making eye contact with the bartender. “what’ll it be tonight?” she said, smile not reaching her eyes. “just whiskey please.” you returned the same half smile, before returning to fidgeting with your hair tie. that was until you noticed a familiar presence beside you. you could tell it was him, even if his body was turned to look at the tv in the corner of the room, seemingly interested in the football game shown. you couldn’t help yourself. “hey. isaac right?” you said, barely above a whisper.

he turned to face you, tired eyes twinkling. “yeah.” was all he said, turning back to the tv. you turned your body to face him now, “you’re new, aren’t you?” you said, legs kicking against your chair. “yeah.” he said again, not even turning to look at you. “well, you know…” you started, as he turned to you again, one of his eyebrows quirking up. “everyone here knows everyone. so we’re gonna have to actually meet one way or another.” you held out your hand, and the rest is history.

he was so shy at first, barely speaking. he listened. he listened when you two met again and you talked about your interests and what brought you to haines. he listened when he first visited your house and you talked about your passions as you ate pasta. he listened when you called him late one night in tears, going on about your “stupid fucking idiot father.” he was interested in you and enjoyed being around you. for one of the first times in his life he felt like you were never going to harm him or fuck him over. you were a real friend.

and as time progressed, you learned more about him as well. you learned how much he hated talking about his past, that he said the word bitch way more than the average person, and that he was awesome at left 4 dead 2. the more the two of you hung out, the more he opened up about himself. it was like the two of you were meant to meet each other, and what you didn’t know is that a part of him healed every time you invited him over, or bumped into him at the bar, or caught his eye at the car wash.

a few months after you two met, you had just finished dinner at your place. one of the first things you learned about isaac was that you and him both had an astounding love for mac and cheese. so any chance you got, you cooked it. and as you were cleaning up your mac and cheese, putting the leftovers in tupperware for isaac, something clicked in your mind. you glanced at the clock at your microwave. 10:48. it was pretty late anyways, right? you don’t think it would be too far if- “isaac?” you said, looking up at him as you closed the red top of the tupperware. “you wanna spend the night? it’s pretty late.” you said, sliding the leftovers across the counter to where he stood.

you waited for a response, biting your cheek as you looked back at the flushed man in front of you. “i mean- sure. it’s just. i don’t have any clothes.” he said, awkwardly laughing and scratching the back of his neck. “it’s fine.” you drew out the word, walking over to him, elbowing him as you teased, “most of my clothes are way too big and besides, we’re about the same height anyways.” he slapped your elbow, rolling his eyes and spitting out, “hey, i’m still growing. i’m a growing boy, bitch.” and you laughed, leading him to your room and pulling out a pair of plaid pajama pants and a giant black shirt with white stripes on it. “alright these are the biggest i could find.” you said, throwing the pile of clothes at his chest, glaring as he raised his eyebrows at your statement.

you then sat down on the corner of your queen sized bed when the two of you finished changing into your pajamas, patting the space beside you for isaac to sit. “hey.” you smiled. “hey.” he grinned, pulling his legs to sit criss cross and face you. “i know this might be like- totally out of line.” you started, looking in his eyes for any sign to stop. instead his face just stiffened up, and he waited for you to continue. “and i know you hate talking about your past but i just like-“ you cut yourself off, staring down at your feet. “it’s ok.” he said, voice quiet and unconvincing. “i wanna know if you’re okay?” you asked, tilting your head at his bad posture and achingly sad demeanor.

“y’know how i told you i used to be really heavy on drugs?” he asked, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. and that night, the man you now knew, ended up bawling into your chest. it was only when the two of you fell asleep: one of your hands holding his head against your chest, the two of you curled into each other as you whispered kind words into his head, telling him that you loved him all the same, addressing him as jesse. when he knew he’d gone to the right place. when he knew he’d found a safe haven.

[fezco-youphoria]

Soulmate

a/n: just a lil fluff. sorry i didn't know how to end it lol

summary: You and Fez spend a rainy Sunday together.

tw: smoking weed

pairing: Fezco x reader

It's a rainy Sunday afternoon. You’re chillin on the couch at home with Fez, sharing a blunt. He’s not working at the convenience store today and nobody is supposed to stop by the house for a pickup. You already finished your homework so you could have a day to relax. This is the first time in a while you’ve both had the same day off and all you wanted to do was spend it together.

After taking a hit, you pass the blunt back to your boyfriend. Then a cold breeze suddenly goes through the slightly open patio door into the living room. It becomes so chilly that you start to shiver. Fez sees you cross your arms against your chest in an attempt to warm yourself up.

“You cold, ma?”

“A little,” you quietly answer.

Fez reaches behind him and grabs a throw blanket. He hands it to you.

“Thanks baby,” you smile as you cover yourself with the blanket.

“You know I got you, shawty,” Fez softly replies.

Fez exhales some smoke and gives you the blunt. You take another puff and glance out the window, listening to the rain pitter-pattering against the glass. You don’t know if it’s because of the weed, but the rain sound is so calming to you right now. You feel so happy, relaxed and at peace.

“So, do you like believe in soulmates?” your boyfriend asks, snapping you out of your own head.

You raise your eyebrows, confused. You have no idea where this question came from.

“Uh, I think so,” you nod, “Like I believe in true love and that there is someone for everyone.”

“Word.”

“Why are you asking?” you question him.

“I was listening to that Mac Miller song the other day and thought of you,” Fez tells you.

“Really?” your face lights up.

“Yeah. You my soulmate…”

You blush and momentarily look away. From the corner of your eye you see Fez shyly smile at you. You reach out to him from across the couch. He takes your hand, gently rubbing the top of it with his thumb.

You both share a moment of comfortable silence, just staring into each other's eyes. Even before you started dating, you were always so drawn into his eyes. You could get lost in those baby blues for hours. You thought his eyes were soulful and beautiful. They are one of your favorite things about Fez. His eyes enabled your quiet, soft spoken boyfriend to communicate so much emotion without saying a word. And you love the way he looks at you. He makes you feel seen.

“Sorry if that was hella corny. I just-” Fez tries.

“It wasn’t,” you interrupt him, “That was perfect... You’re perfect.”

[wordstro]

[20] apocalypse + ex! san + "i can't fix this, can i?"

part 19 | masterlist 

a/n: 9k words whew. also the final part! thank you everyone for showing so much support for this! i love you all!!! warnings for some very existential talks, mentions of su1c1de once again, and some setting-typical gore descriptions. i am very sorry for how this ends lol........i will say this ended a little differently than originally planned though.

-

"how does this thing always survive?" you ask san, fiddling with the beat up radio.

san chuckles, shrugging, "if the internet still existed, i'd give this thing five stars."

you flip the radio in your hands for a moment, the grooves and scratches scraping at the pads of your fingertips. the volume button is beginning to come off. you carefully clip to your belt loop and decidedly ignore the memories of the sanctuary the thing dredges up. you'd decided long ago that you wouldn't talk about the place. in fact, you're yet to visit the burnt remains, despite knowing how close it is to your cabin.

you look up at san. he sits on the remnants of a broken brick wall in front of one of the more damaged houses. someone crashed a small pickup truck through the wall. you both already scoured the house in search of anything salvageable. all that was left was broken glass and plates all over the floor. the walls were stripped as bare as the pantry. even the bedroom mattresses were stripped of all its bedding. you took great care not to look to far into it, as you usually did when you broke into abandoned homes in search of food or shelter, but five minutes ago, you both came upon a locked attic door and the stench of rotting flesh, maggots crawling along the hallway floor. how either of you can make jokes, or just...move on, when something like that sits mere meters from you is yet another thing to feel guilty about.

san kicks his feet, his hair falling into his eyes. you say, "your hair is too long."

"my hairstylist is all booked out this month," san says.

you can't help but laugh.

san gives you a small smile, his gaze lingering on your face for a long moment. you're unsure, sometimes, what you're supposed to do when you catch him lingering like that. you figure it makes sense. he thought you were dead for months upon months. he's going to look at you like he's trying to remember details of your face he'd forgotten. you give him a pass for that because, frankly, it's understandable. still, you find yourself trailing off, gaze falling to the radio once more. you don't want to deny him that, especially when you let him believe you were dead for so long, and you don't necessarily hate the lingering moments, but you don't know what to do with it. the way it makes you a little nervous, the way it makes you look away, you don't want to examine that. it's baggage you're determined to never ever unpack.

there's a beat of silence before san points at the radio clipped to your belt loop, "i'll bring extra batteries next time. i think the convenience store south of the bunker should still have some."

you sigh, "you really don't have to. i can find some on my own."

it's been four weeks since you saw san again, and you've seen him every week since then. four days. once a week. for four weeks. you'd both agreed on it after that first day, and maybe you were a total idiot to take on his offer, to let him back into your life after everything, but everything he had said that day was not wrong.

you'd thought about it all that first week. you spent so many nights wide awake, curled on your side and listening to the faint clicking noises beyond your barricaded door as you mulled over every single word san had said to you, and how he said it to you.

that second time, you'd stood far enough from san that you both had to cup your hands around your mouths to shout at each other so the other could hear, and you'd yelled, "i'm not going back to that bunker."

san said, "i don't blame you."

the look in his eyes was...sad. you'd wondered during your nights wide awake if he was ever upset with his friends for what happened. you'd wondered how that day went after he thought you'd burned yourself with the sanctuary to save him and his friends, the same friends who put you in that damned place in the first place.

you'd said, "and i don't want to go anywhere near the sanctuary. ever. understood?"

"i don't...i'd never ask you to go back there. i haven't been back since the day...since the day after. when i tried to find your body," san called, shrugging. he kicked at grass, hands in his pockets, lips pursed.

something in your chest curled at the thought. he'd even gone back there.

you'd also called, "you don't get to know where i'm staying."

san nodded, "i understand."

from then on out, the conversation faded out and you were both left in silence. somehow your weekly meetups turned into hours of rummaging through houses and stores for food and supplies to split between the two of you.

neither of you really said much, but the company was enough. at least for you. sometimes, san would hold a tree branch back for you as you trekked through trails to explore smaller towns and farms off the highway, or warn you of sudden steps. sometimes, he'd ask if you were hungry and conjure snacks.

your meetups consisted of the smallest of small talks, yet the silences were...comforting. perhaps, you've gotten used to having a companion with you - from spending most of your chore time at the sanctuary at jongho or san's side to all that time with mrs. kim - and that's why you've started finding yourself looking forward to seeing san every week.

that was something you did not wish to delve too far into. so you decided that your time with san reminded you of your time with mrs. kim. to an extent, it really did. it was as if you were both living in a little bubble of peace that did not make sense in a world like this, and it brought you a moment of serenity you thought had walked away with mrs. kim.

but the dread? the anxiety? it was still there. worse than when you sat in limbo with mrs. kim. it sat at the pit of your stomach and draped itself over your shoulders, whispering of how things were going too smoothly. how this was too good to be true.

now here san is giving you the same damned radio you'd left your apartment in the city with. it's like an omen, especially coupled with what you'd both left behind in that house. death always follows this radio, you've learned, and that thought has your stomach churning.

you glance over his shoulder, at the broken house, fingers curling around the radio.

"i know i don't have to, but i want to." san's voice drifts through the silence, "besides, i think we should have some way to communicate throughout the week."

"i..." you turn the radio over in your hands, once, twice, before you say, "okay."

you turn your gaze from san to the broken pickup truck lodged into the wall san sits on. there's a pair of fuzzy purple dice hanging from the crooked rearview mirror inside the car.

san says, "i wasn't going to give that to you, but..."

your gaze flits to san, from the way he fiddles with his fingers in his lap, to the way he turns slightly to look back at the house. he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. the expression on his face is a familiar thing, something you'd feel lodge in your throat whenever you'd stare at that damned rifle for far too long. live with it, live with it, live with it. your own words echo in your head like a mantra, like a prayer, like a plead.

the thing about the end of the world is that death is a constant. every morning, you'd come upon mangled bodies that you believed were the fog's doing. oftentimes you'd come upon scenes just like the one in the house, bodies hanging from chandeliers and ceiling fans, or worse, with guns lodged in their mouths or knifes clutched in their fingers. it's normal, even, you'd say. each body was another guilty notch on your list of reasons to live, and maybe that does make you a naïve idiot, to let everyone else's problems become your burden. or maybe that's just what you're wired to do. either way, you find yourself frowning at san, at the clear unsaid words lingering in the air between you both.

you say, "i'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're afraid of."

san blinks.

you roll your eyes, but your heart is lodged in your throat, and live with it rings loud in your ears and you say, "i killed all those people when i blew the sanctuary up, and that guilt eats me alive every single fucking day. i don't think i'm allowed to just...die. not yet."

san's fingers curl into fists in his lap. he says, "why did you do it? why didn't you just come with us?"

"if the sanctuary survived, they wouldn't have left us alone."

"that was never your burden to bear," san says with a sigh, dragging both hands through his hair. his eyes glitter with an unreadable emotion. those words make you come to a pause. no one's ever said that to you. not in so many words.

"should i have let jongho do it, then?"

san gives you a small smile. he says, "i guess not."

then you both fall into silence as he walks you to the edge of the forest and you both say your goodbyes.

~.~.~.~.~

with the radio comes conversations throughout the week. they're sporadic, but you keep the radio clipped to your belt even as you're wringing out laundry in the clearing outside the cabin or exploring the woods to find dry wood for fire. they start off as small pleasantries, reports even about your days.

things like:

"jongho is trying speech therapy. yunho says it'll work." san said one evening, while you were boarding up the door and windows for the night. your heart did a little flip at the name and the confirmation that he's alive and okay, despite everything.

"is yunho even a trained doctor?"

"not a paramedic like you were. but he was two years into med school when everything happened. doubt any residency would have ever given him half the amount of hands on training he's had since everything went to shit though."

and:

"mrs. kim tried to teach me how to make rabbit and squirrel traps, but we're both awful at it," you'd explained once.

san said, "i can teach you next time. apparently that's one of my talents."

"setting up traps?" you'd asked, "sounds about right."

san had groaned, "that's fair."

even:

"do you want me to bring you some books? no one reads around here."

"please," you said, "i've been reading the same book for months. i think i can recite it word for word now."

san laughed, "you can't just say that and not recite it word for word. go on."

and sometimes even just:

"good night."

~.~.~.~.~

three more weeks pass, and san's kept his word on taking you into the woods to show you how to set up traps to hunt for food.

he holds a low hanging branch as you edge past him. the ground is cold and hard, trees bare of leaves, and you both know you're not going to catch anything anyway. it's the dead of winter, and the animals are sleeping. still, san showed you how to tie secure knots, raising a brow at you in silence, waiting for your permission before he placed his fingers over yours and guided your hands through the proper motions. even Before, he'd never been quite so sweet, but you figured this was because he'd promised to start over, and the san you once knew is not the san of After. you used to think that was a strange thing, and it made you uneasy. and, maybe, it still does, to an extent. however, in the grand scheme of things, it certainly makes starting over easier.

san trips over a protruding root, and the little yelp that leaves his mouth as he catches himself has you giggling. san narrows his eyes at you, but his grin is contagious.

you don't know about forgiveness, or forgetting, or even trust, but three more weeks have passed and you think maybe you're both getting somewhere.

~.~.~.~.~

the trees start to bud around your clearing. you'd missed the foliage shading you from the sun, but the tiny pink buds of one of the trees brings a fullness to your heart you hadn't felt in a while. you'd never stayed in one place long enough to see the seasons change.

even then, winter does not seem to want to leave. it's snowing.

san blinks up at the grey skies, his nose and the tips of his ears pink, his cheeks flushed, and his hair falling into his eyes. white snowflakes stick to his hair.

you hold out a hand, and you find yourself smiling. "so pretty," you say.

"yeah," san says, and you look back over your shoulder to find san looking at you, his dimple peeking out over his scarf. he looked away first, his cheeks flushed.

you laughed. san grimaced at you, fighting a smile all the while.

maybe starting over isn't so bad.

~.~.~.~.~

only a week later, when the snow has melted away completely and the flowers are still tiny colorful buds, you trip over a familiar boot lodged in the bushes. san catches you by the arm before you can smack your face into the hard ground, but that still doesn't stop you from sinking to your knees.

you recognize that boot because you've spent too many mornings staring at them from your vantage point sprawled in the grass of the clearing in front of the cabin while mrs. kim cooked or cleaned or just sat in silence.

you and san hadn't ventured far from your cabin. you still have not shown him the cabin, but you've both been venturing the forest around it recently. the thought of mrs. kim's boot being so close to your cabin brings a sinking feeling to your stomach.

"y/n?"

san crouches beside you, his hand on your back.

you say, "this is mrs. kim's."

you never told san much about mrs. kim, other than the fact that she saved you and she left for the sea before you met san again. still, san's hand stills on your back.

"maybe," your voice sounds shrill to your own ears, "maybe she had a spare?"

and, perhaps you will always be the type to seek out more reasons to feel guilty. perhaps you really are wired for it.

because you stand up, and you start to look, and san his on your heels, quietly following you as you call for her knowing damn well she's not going to answer.

under a tree further north, you find her other boot. it's tied to the lowest tree branch by its shoelaces, the ratty black boot swinging lightly in the breeze.

you step forward, intent on looking further, when you feel a tug on your sleeve.

you turn, and san's hand remains on your elbow, squeezing lightly. his touch is reassuring. he says, "what are you going to do with yourself if you find her?"

you both know damn well you won't find her alive. you can't help the way your eyes start to sting. in fact, you try to stop the tears, fingers curling into fists. you want to shout. you want to cry. you want to understand how the hell she only made it this far.

"she was," you take a deep breath, "she was supposed to visit."

but your voice cracks as you say it, and you find yourself crumbling despite everything. you hadn't even cried like this when you saw san again and you two talked about starting over. as you stand here with one of mrs. kim's boots dangling from your fingers and the other one dangling from the tree branch, your tears do not stop. your chest hurts with the pain of it. your knees buckle. san catches you before you fall, and he wraps you up in his arms. you clutch onto him. he presses your face to his chest and you let yourself sob. you hadn't cried for a long, long time. you've forgotten how to, your breathing unsteady as you gulp for air.

you cry, and san strokes your back.

~.~.~.~.~

san sits on the steps of your cabin beside you, the two of you staring at the mound of dirt in the clearing. you'd dug up the hole and buried her shoes away. you hadn't dug the hole deep enough.

you say, "she told me she helped me because she owed you."

"oh," san lets out a small, breathless laugh. you watch him look down at his hands. the skin around his nails is rough, as if he's been picking at them. that is a habit he'd never had before. it's new. "before the bunker, i spent some time with another group. there was this girl, doyeon. i wasn't surprised she was mrs. kim's granddaughter. she was so nosy and loud just like mrs. kim. we all used to share stories and so many people talked about their grandparents, and doyeon used to say she wished she had the chance to get to know them."

san trails off, and you ask, "what happened to her?"

san closes his eyes. maybe you aren't the only one wired to carry the burden of guilt on your shoulders. he draws his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his knees. he says, "my old group found the bunker. there used to be a lot of in-fighting. i picked a side, when i should have tried to keep the peace, but how was i supposed to know this fight would be serious?"

san lets out a shuddering breath, his shoulders drooping. it explains why he maintained such neutrality between you and his friends.

"it was five against three that day. me, wooyoung, and doyeon against five guys. things didn't work out. they beat the shit out of us. i'm talking broken bones, lots and lots of blood... we were tied up like pigs for slaughter. wooyoung had a fucking knife in him. i had broken fingers - i don't even think they've healed properly. doyeon's jaw was broken, and she could barely talk. as night drew closer, it became increasingly obvious that it was either us or them. so -" san rubs his red-rimmed eyes, "so we came up with a plan. doyeon thought of it, actually, and sometimes, i wonder if she just...knew what was going to happen to her from the moment she suggested the plan. she lured them out to the front of the bunker. i'll spare you the details, but we managed to push them out of the bunker. it was going smoothly, until it didn't. as we were closing the doors, one of them dragged doyeon out with them. i tried so hard to save her, but...but the sun was setting quickly and she decided to let go. the look in her eyes - i think she knew. woo says it wasn't my fault. either way, she died that night and i couldn't save her. the next morning, there were only pieces left of them. ears and limbs and...and doyeon's hands. woo and i buried her in her favorite part of town and we decided to stay at the bunker anyway. we decided we wouldn't let something like that happen again. that's why it's so hard for the boys to trust people, y/n, and i understand that isn't an excuse, but i think you deserve that explanation. doyeon...i couldn't keep her safe even though i said i would, and i thought i could live with that too, but then i ended up at the sanctuary and met her fucking grandmother." you watch san let out a staggering breath, his eyes fixed on the burial spot, "if anything i'm the one who owes mrs. kim."

you don't know what to say about san's admission. you remember him telling you he'd done horrible things to end up at the bunker. you remember how irritated he had been when you let it slip that you felt safe in the bunker that first night, despite the fact that you were surrounded by strangers. he'd been so angry, and now you can see why. you don't know what to say, so you resort to an attempt at lightheartedness, your chest tight.

"join the club," you mutter, your voice shaky despite your attempt for nonchalance, "i owe her my damned life too, and instead of letting me repay my debts, she had the fucking nerve to die so close to home."

san laughs, says, "she could have at least made it to the sea."

you snort, letting your head rest on his shoulder as you both sit in silence. you say, "if it's any consolation, i'm sorry about doyeon. you tried your best."

he says, "i thought i'd come to terms with it, but when you...i promised i'd keep you safe, and i couldn't do that with you either."

"you tried," you repeat, "that's what matters in the end, i think."

"it wasn't enough."

"it will be."

you can hear the sharp intake of breath, the way san stiffens under your head, but he does not move. he does not say anything.

you hear a sniffle. he says, "you think so?"

you push away to look up at him. he peers down at you, his face inches from yours. his eyes are glassy, and his hair is too long, and his nose is tinged red, and he looks so otherworldly, like a painting. his honeyed gaze curls around your racing heart, and the sun casts gold over his sharp features. you think you understand why throughout history people went to war for pretty queens and kings.

he presses a thumb to your cheek. your heart pounds.

you say, "you really need a haircut."

san laughs. you could drown, you think, in his dimples and his glassy eyes and the rough circles he traces along your cheek and loud laugh.

he asks, "do you have scissors?"

"kitchen scissors."

his gaze flickers over your face. he says, "perfect."

he sits on mrs. kim's once untouched chair, and stares apprehensively at the rusty kitchen scissors in your hands.

he helps you board up the windows and door when the sun starts to set.

he opens the canned food for you. canned food tastes better, you find, when you share it with someone.

he sleeps in mrs. kim's once untouched bed, and you really do think trying is enough.

~.~.~.~.~

only three days pass when you start to notice things are...strange.

not between you and san, but in the woods.

"i think someone must have accidentally planted a shit ton of mint leaves around here. they were too small last time i saw it, so maybe now it's going to -"

you come to halt next to a giant oak tree. its bare branches stretch out to one side, trunk bowed, as if it is a giant looming over you. nailed to the trunk sits a purple piece of cloth. it's flag-like in its shape. it flutters in the breeze. a chill runs straight down your back. you hadn't seen a purple flag since that day you ran into san. you hadn't seen flags since your attempt to avoid the sanctuary. the fact of the matter is that this flag means that someone is out here other than you and san. and they are close.

san's voice echoes all around you, crackly and filled with static. "y/n? y/n? what's wrong?"

your stomach churns as you swivel on your heels, scanning the other trees. despite the beginnings of spring, the leaves have still not returned fully. there are so many bare branches and dead leaves. as you walk, the leaves crunch under your boots.

for a moment, you don't think you should say anything.

but you're starting over, aren't you? you're supposed to try. you don't have to -

a few hundred steps away, another purple flag is nailed to an old tree trunk. your heart jumps in your chest.

you press the radio, "what do purple flags mean?"

your voice is quiet. the ensuing silence rings loud as you step further through the forest, as you come upon another one. it's a trail, you realize, as you keep walking. maybe you shouldn't follow it.

yet you do, even as san's crackly voice fills the silence, "purple flags?"

it takes thirty-six seconds for you to recognize the trail as you keep walking, dead leaves crunching beneath your feet. you say, "there are purple pieces of cloth nailed to the trees, san. they look flags or markers or something."

a pause. "are you following them?"

"yeah," you come to a stop at the next nailed purple flag, your gaze falling on the familiar trees. the clearing. your clearing. you swallow the lump in your throat, your grip on the radio so hard you're afraid you'll break it. "fuck."

"y/n, what is it?"

you say, "it leads to the cabin."

"shit," san's voice is sharp, alert, with an undercurrent of terror curling underneath everything, "y/n, you need to leave now. get out of there right n-"

you turn off the radio, dousing yourself in the silence of the woods. it's not so peaceful now, and every crack of a branch, every rustle of dead leaves, makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. you should run. every cell in your body screams at you to do so, but you find yourself stepping forward. you find yourself peering into the clearing.

wedged into the lump of overturned dirt where you buried mrs. kim's boots is a purple flag fluttering at the end of a wooden stick. there's nothing telling about it. it's merely a poorly dyed purple bedsheet, splotchy and lighter in some parts then others, wrapped around a wooden stick. still your heart pounds against your ribcage. it's as if the shoddiness of the person's work is more terrifying then if the flag was cleanly done, the way the sanctuary's had been. and a smidge of anger curls at the pit of your stomach. your eyes drift to your cabin. the door is wide open, swaying on its rusted hinges.

you back up, one step, two steps, three, until you're running.

~.~.~.~.~

you emerge from the trees to san out of breath, his hair windswept.

you blink in surprise. he surges forward, clutching your shoulders as he gives you a onceover, out of breath the entire time.

your stomach continues to churn, even as san says, "you're okay. you're okay."

you're not sure who he's trying to convince of that.

you are not okay.

you'd spent so many months in a bubble, thinking that everything would be fine. that the end of all things was this gentle, careful, serene thing where all that is left in the world is yourself and anyone you allow in it. that you could make a home somewhere and you would be okay. but the world is nothing like that. you're unsure why you ever thought otherwise. you were in that fucking sanctuary. you were robbed at knifepoint by san and his friends. you killed your mother. you've come upon dead bodies, whether by others doings or their owns. mrs. kim is dead.

you're no ghost, because at least ghosts wander peacefully. you will never find any peace. someone or something will always find a way to burst your bubble. they'll encroach on your space, and you will never truly be safe, and the realization, however late it is, is terrifying. maybe you are naïve. you thought you'd hardened after everything, but you still clung to hope. you look at still san. you still are. to have reprieve from the terror of the end of the world only to feel it so wholly all at once - it's fucking jarring. you hate yourself for ever believing the reprieve could be permanent. as long as those things float in the sky, you'll never find peace.

your hands are shaking. your vision is blurred.

your gaze slides over san's worried face.

wooyoung stares back at you.

you grab san's hands, placing them at his sides, and you squeeze them once before letting him go. you ask, "someone was inside my cabin. they fucking...they put a marker on mrs. kim's grave. purple. everything was purple."

wooyoung is the one to speak, his voice low, thoughtful, "i've been seeing purple markers all over the place, but they never led anywhere. i thought someone was just using them to help them remember places."

"you can't go back there," san's voice is a quiet thing, fragile almost, "it's not safe. i know you said you didn't want to go back to the bunker, but y/n, you cannot go back there."

"it isn't safe anywhere," your fingers curl around each other, "i'd feel safer squatting in one of these houses then staying in your bunker."

you give wooyoung a pointed look, even as you gesture at the dilapidated stone houses around you.

wooyoung rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he cocks his head to the side, "come on, y/n. wasn't robbing me enough?"

"no, actually," you turn fully on him, stepping closer. "let me get a few more punches in."

wooyoung laughs, eyeing you up and down as you round on him. "good to see you're back in tip top shape."

"you really want me to punch you don't you?" you say, fingers clenched into a fist.

"oh," wooyoung grins, tone dripping with honeyed amusement, "i'd love to see you try."

"wooyoung, shut the fuck up," san groans, dragging a hand over his face. san puts a hand on your elbow, and you realize that you are inches from wooyoung, fists clenched, all while wooyoung grins at you without stepping back.

you step back first, glaring at wooyoung for good measure.

san says, "i'm serious, y/n. we don't know who this person is."

"or group," wooyoung mutters, his grin turning into a frown.

san nods, "exactly."

"he's showing absolutely zero remorse, san. if wooyoung's anything to go by, i'd rather get eaten by those aliens then spend a night around your snake friends."

there's a long long stretch of silence. the hairs at the back of your neck still stand on end. the three of you are still at the edge of the forest, out in the open for anyone to watch from the woods. how could you be stupid enough to think no one was ever watching all this time?

"just one night," san says, pleads really, "that's all. just so we have time to clear your place together and find you a new, safer place."

your heart skips a beat at his words, while another part of you is angry you even have to find a new place. you're tired of wandering, and you're tired of feeling scared. you're tired.

still, you meet san's gaze and you sigh. "fine."

~.~.~.~.~

the walk to the bunker had been silent. wooyoung wandered ahead while san matched your strides, his shoulder occasionally brushing against yours.

"i punched him, you know," san says quietly.

you blink up at him. san nods his chin towards wooyoung's back as he leads the way.

"so many times, actually," san smiles a little, "and wooyoung didn't hit me back once. you know him. he always has something to say back, but for months he just...let himself be my punching bag, figuratively and literally, after i lost you."

"that doesn't mean he's sorry," you say, frowning at wooyoung's back.

"in his own way, he is." san purses his lips, "doesn't mean you have to forgive him though. i know i haven't."

you blink. oh. you didn't think he was ever going to hold his friends accountable in any way. you didn't think he even blamed his friends for anything. something churns at the pit of your stomach, and it feels like the strangest bout of guilt. you say, "you love him. you love your friends."

"i think we both know you can love someone and still never forgive them," san murmurs. he looks down at you.

"still," you say quietly, "i'm sorry. your relationship is strained because of me."

he shakes his head.

"it's strained because of their decisions."

"i'm still sorry."

"at least they're trying," san says, and his tone is soft and kind, maybe even a little sad, "they won't hurt you, y/n. please trust me on that at least."

wooyoung turns into a familiar alleyway, one you'd passed through a long, long time ago.

the metal door leading to the bunker sits straight ahead. it's blocked off by abandoned cars, hiding it from view unless one knows where to look. you know where to look.

you take a breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding. months ago, you wouldn't have conceded with san even on this point, but now you find yourself believing him. maybe that's stupid of you, but you find that you believe him. just a little bit.

~.~.~.~.~

the bunker is exactly as you remembered it. the strewn blankets and cushions. the comforting lights. the long hallway. the way the cold air raises goosebumps along your skin. the feeling that this place is lived in, despite being a metal bunker space.

"you can sleep in my bed," san says, from where he stands awkwardly across from you, next to the kitchen island stools. he fiddles with the hem of his shirt, though his gaze remains steadily on you, "i'll sleep down here."

wooyoung looks between you both in the silence that ensues afterwards, before he turns on his heels and disappears down the dark hallway without another word. you stare after him before turning back to san.

"no," you shake your head, "i'll sleep down here. it's fine."

san looks like he wants to argue, but he just nods. he opens his mouth as if he wants to say something more, but you hear the smallest of gasps.

you look up, and jongho is stands at the end of the hall. wooyoung is behind him, hand on his back. he meets your gaze, and you can't help but smile at him. wooyoung just rolls his eyes and disappears back into the hall, making you wish you could take back that second of gratitude.

jongho blinks over and over and over, and you can't help but let out a laugh. sure, jongho betrayed you, but he'd been a victim, and you couldn't blame him. you really couldn't. here he is, looking well-fed and like he sleeps well, and your heart feels like it's growing three times its size in your chest.

he hovers, and san steps aside, gesturing jongho forward. jongho just stares at you, waiting. you realize he is waiting for permission. that makes you deflate a bit. he likely thinks you hate him, and maybe you should, but you can't find it in yourself to hate him.

so, you hold out your arms, and jongho takes a step, another, before he walks into your arms, still so uncertain, and you say, "you're alive."

he glares at you, even as he wraps his arms around you and hugs you tight. he doesn't need words for you to know what he's thinking. he leans back, frees his arms, and makes a gesture of touching his forehead. he brings his arm down. he keeps doing it. you look at san in confusion.

"it's sign language," san explains quietly, "he says he's sorry."

"oh," you look at jongho. there's a sincerity there you'd always liked about jongho. the apology is something you realize you'd wanted until now. you press your hands to his, and you say, "i know, jongho. i know you are."

jongho nods, over and over and over, as he pulls you into another hug.

~.~.~.~.~

in a way, you expected this eventually. the bunker was only so big.

but jongho asked if you wanted to talk upstairs, and you ended up in that living room once more. san stayed behind downstairs. when you'd pulled yourself through the hatch to the living room, that same feeling you'd felt the first time hit you all at once. the coziness of the room, the home that was so obviously made here, it hurt worse this time knowing that you'd built something like it in the woods and it was encroached upon by intruders. it's like you lost normalcy a second time, and it makes you so angry, yet so fucking sad.

you'd sat on the couch and jongho took out a notebook, and he asked, how are you alive?

you started from the beginning, recounting mrs. kim and your time with her. robbing wooyoung and yunho. jongho giggled at that. you spoke of your time with san. it wasn't a very long story, but it was the first time you'd spoken of it all at once, and it was yours. you hadn't had much that you could call yours since the world ended.

where will you go after tonight? jongho asked.

"i don't know," you said. jongho put his hand over yours. he seemed to be thinking, his brows furrowed, but before you can say more, there are footsteps hurrying down the stairs in the corner.

you look up, and the person comes to a screeching halt at the threshold to the living room, his eyes widening as he meets your gaze.

it's yeosang.

you shoot to your feet.

yeosang frowns as he steps further into the room, his eyes narrowing as he glances between jongho and yourself.

he says, "are you fucking kidding me?"

his voice is loud, angry, and your fingers curl into fists. suddenly, all the anger you've ever felt, from wandering as ghost, from your time at the sanctuary, from learning of all the betrayals, from the death of mrs. kim, from the fact that your cabin was broken into, bubbles at the pit of your stomach, and all you see is fucking red.

"someone's been keep tabs on you and san's first thought is to bring you here?" yeosang grits his teeth as he scowls at you.

"is that really going to be the first thing you say to me?" you ask, matching his tone. you step closer to him, and he does the same. jongho steps in, putting a hand on yeosang's shoulder, and he shrugs it off, his jaw clenching as he peers at you.

yeosang says, "do you want an apology or something?"

"yes," you grit.

yeosang rolls his eyes.

you can't help it when you swing your fist at him. to be fair, it's been a long time coming, and you'd fantasized about this moment often while lying in the clearing in front of your cabin and staring at the clouds pass by. the sound of your knuckles hitting his face echoes all around you. pain shoots through your arm, but the way yeosang doubles over in pain is absolutely worth it.

yeosang clutches his nose - it's bleeding, you realize with a giddiness you haven't felt in a long, long, long time - and glares up at you with so much vitriol, it makes you laugh.

"didn't think i'd do it, huh, asshole?"

then yeosang lunges at you, fury in his eyes.

you yelp when your back hits the ground. yeosang gets a swipe in on your face, and the pain makes you angrier. you grab him by the collar and use all your weight to roll on top. it works for half a minute before he yanks at your hair. you smack him over the top of the head. he gasps. then he kicks you.

maybe this is stupid, or perhaps you should have predicted this. it's not like yeosang ever seemed like the type to take a punch without retaliating.

before you can retaliate fully, though, you're flailing as you're pulled back. you kick and thrash in the arms of yeosang's savior, only to find that he's also being pulled away. by yunho. you look up. mingi meets your gaze, expression unreadable. mingi promptly places you on the ground. you don't move from the spot.

yeosang's nose is bleeding and his lip his cut and there's a bruise blooming under eye, so you don't fight mingi. sure, your cheek is throbbing and he may have ripped out some hair, and if you get the chance you'll punch him again, but for now you're satisfied enough with the damage you've done to stop fighting back.

yeosang is glaring at you, chest heaving.

yunho scowls between yeosang and yourself, "what the fuck was that?"

"he deserved it," you say, with a shrug.

the floor hatch to the living room swings open, and both san climbs out. san blinks between you both. wooyoung only snorts as he remains on the ladder leading out of the hatch, resting his chin on his hands as he watches.

yeosang rolls his eyes, "they deserved it too."

"you're literally acting like children," yunho sighs, shaking his head as he plops down fully on the ground next to yeosang.

the living room looks small with everyone in it. with you leaning heavily against a wall and mingi seated cross-legged next to you, his long limbs taking up too much space, and yeosang leaning against the sofa, yunho groaning with his head thrown back beside him, rubbing his eyes as he does so, and jongho sitting on the couch where you'd left him, his arms wrapped around his knees, and san with his arms crossed over his chest, looming over all four of you, and wooyoung amused from his position at the hatch door.

you scowl, "so i'm not allowed to be angry? is that it? should i just ignore what you've put me through?"

yunho frowns at the floor. no one quite meets your eyes.

"that has nothing to do with this," yeosang snaps, "you have a fucking target on your back and you've dragged us into it."

you start to laugh, and the hollowness of it is jarring even to your own ears, "do you fucking hear your hypocrisy, yeosang?"

yeosang sits up straight, his lips pressed into a straight line. his fingers clench and unclench as he glares at you, "you should have stayed dead if you were just going to bring trouble with you."

"yeosang!" san's voice is sharp as a knife.

you shake your head at san, arms crossed tighter over your chest, "no, i want to hear this."

yeosang stays silent, clenching his jaw as he rolls his eyes.

you raise a brow at him, "go on. tell me how i'm the bad person here."

yeosang says, "every time we leave this bunker, it's dangerous. every week san spends hours outside the bunker with you. do you understand the danger that's putting not only him, but the rest of us, in?"

he keeps his gaze fixed on you, but you glance at san anyway. san looks angry, in a way you hadn't seen in a long long time. he opens his mouth to say something, but wooyoung tugs at his pant leg, shaking his head.

you sigh, turning back to yeosang, "i'm not putting a gun to his head and making him meet me every week, and i certainly did not give the wrong directions to -"

yeosang scoffs, "i did what i had to do to for my people, y/n. the sanctuary was necessary. i'm sorry you got caught in the middle of everything, but i'm not sorry for what i did. we got san and jongho out. we destroyed the sanctuary. everything worked out in the end."

the anger at the pit of your stomach is tumultuous. you want to throw up at how overwhelming the urge to throw another punch is. maybe, in this world, this makes sense. you are not included with yeosang's people, and you never would be. he doesn't owe you anything. not even just a moment of genuine remorse.

"are you even capable of remorse?" you ask.

you don't mean to say it out loud, but your words spill from your mouth, and the room goes so silent, you could hear a pin drop. san is looking at yeosang, waiting for a response. mingi shifts next to you. yunho bites his lip. wooyoung just watches.

yeosang's hard expression falters. it lasts for the blink of an eye, like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings, and you only catch it because you're watching. his gaze flickers to san, as well. for just a moment. it's a tell, you realize, that you've struck something underneath his hard exterior. he clamps his teeth over his bottom lip, lips stretching into a thin line, and his gaze meets yours again just milliseconds later. his face hardens more than you've ever seen it before. if you didn't know better, you could mistake him for a marble statue, carved into the picture of insolence.

he does not respond, though, despite his façade.

yunho frown deepens as he looks at yeosang.

no one looks at you.

so you speak into the silence, "i guess not."

you get to your feet, pushing past san, past the living room table. wooyoung climbs out the hatch, moving aside from you, and he doesn't say anything either. his expression is devoid of his usual shit-eating grin and unfiltered amusement.

in the dimness of the bunker room, you wrap yourself up in a warm blanket - it's the big fur kind you grew up with, right down to the giant floral decal - and you hate how the anger is still there, turning inwards instead. you should have known this would happen. you can't truly start over with san when you share so much history, Before and After.

~.~.~.~.~

you can't sleep. you want to - you'd learned your lesson last time, and if anything the bunker is safe from the aliens, and you should take advantage of it - but you're overheating under the fluffy blanket, and the battery powered light at your side, even at it's lowest setting, is too bright. yunho brought it down for you, wordless in his exchange before he headed back through the hall. you didn't hear the opening of the hatch, so you figured he must have gone into one of the rooms lining the narrow hall. you don't want to turn off the light completely. total darkness unsettles you.

you contemplate going up to the living room and finding a book to occupy your time. at least this time you wouldn't be sneaking around.

before you can, you hear the creaking of the hatch - you'd memorized the sound, a series of cranks and a long squeak followed by a full thud - and you go still in the blanket, peeking over to the dark hall. just in case.

moments later, a shadow appears at the end of the hall. the shadow stretches up onto the ceiling due to the light from your lantern.

your fingers curl around the edge of the blanket as you keep your eyes fixed on the figure, even as you continue to pretend to sleep.

"i know you're awake," san's soft voice fills the bunker. he sounds exhausted.

you sit up. san comes closer. you dial up the brightness of the lantern, illuminating his face. you watch, leaning back on your elbows, as san takes a seat beside you and the lantern, his arms winding around his knees as he chews on his bottom lip.

it's so silent for so long, before san murmurs, "i can't fix this, can i?"

"no," you tug the warm blanket closer as you shake your head, "but at least we tried."

"i can go with you and -"

"no," you interrupt him. you can see it in the furrowed brows, in the way he frowns, that he's going to suggest something stupid. something he'll eventually resent you for. "we said we wouldn't lose ourselves in each other this time, didn't we?"

"y/n."

"you love them," you say, and your heart feels like it's being ripped from your chest. this is worse, somehow, then the anger that had been churning in you earlier. "for better or for worse, you love them. wooyoung, yunho, mingi. yeosang. they are your family. you can’t forgive them, but you can still stay with them. i can't. so i will not and cannot ask you to leave them for me, san."

in the low warmth of the lantern, san's features are softer than ever. his eyes remind you of the earth after rain. you watch as he reaches out, as he slowly presses his fingers to your cheek. first the pads of his fingertips, light as feathers, and then heavier touch of his calloused palms, his thumb. he draws small lines along your jaw, and he looks at you like he is committing you to memory, like he is determined to etch your likeness into the recesses of his mind.

his thumb traces down your jaw, along your cheek, to your hairline. around and around and around.

his wet eyes dance in lanternlight.

he says, quietly, "i'm sorry i wasn't enough."

you shake your head, and you swallow the lump in your throat, "these past few months, you were more than enough. you were everything. you are everything." your fingers curl into fists around the blanket wrapped around you, "i'm glad we at least got a little time together. without all the fighting."

"i'm going to miss you," he says quietly, "i'm always going to miss you."

"me too," you whisper, unable to articulate fully how much you agree. you'll miss him in the next life, too, you think.

his fingers brush along your forehead. then he leans in and presses his lips to your forehead. it's short and sweet, and the warmth of his hand on your cheek is enough to make you truly feel like he's ripped the rest of your heart out with that alone. he already has so many pieces of your heart, and now he's taken the rest of it.

the silence between you both is heavy. loaded. it is everything said and unsaid all at once. everything and nothing. it's you and san as you were Before, and as you are Now.

you clear your throat, leaning away to pat the spot next to you, swinging the end of the blanket his way. you say, "tell me a story please."

san smiles, his dimple appearing as he scoots in beside you, his voice soft as he tells you something about mingi stepping on yunho. his voice is soothing, soft, and, just this once, you let yourself relax with him next to you. san brushes at your hair as you do.

the next morning, he is gone. the bunker room is cold and dark, despite the blanket wrapped around your shoulders. the feeling of home you'd felt here is gone, with san.

that morning, only jongho sees you off, and you're grateful for it. you don't think you could leave otherwise.

~.~.~.~.~

one year passes, yet the year feels like a decade. time is a funny thing when you're alone, and you'd forgotten that when you'd had constant company. the things in the sky are still there. the black fog at night is denser than ever. you avoid people now more than ever. you don't stay in one place for long, though the country is too damn small to not visit the same area twice. you've traveled far enough away from the bunker where the radio clipped to your belt loop remains out of range, not once straying north. you visit the shores to the south. you find wild vineyards to the east. you remain at the outskirts of the bunker, never within range, but not quite far enough away. still, it's as if nothing has changed, as if you've never even met san again or ended up at the sanctuary.

yet everything's different. you avoid going north in case you stumble upon the sanctuary's ruins. you avoid the west so you can stay out of the bunker's range and resist the urge to return to your cabin. but a year has dulled all that, and everything different starts to bury itself away until you can pretend it doesn't affect you anymore. you've gotten very good at that.

it's summer, when you finally have the courage to travel north. this will be your first step in letting go completely, you decide the night you make the decision to go north. did you already cry your eyes out the minute you'd left the bunker while crouched behind an abandoned car? yes. did you keep doing that for months and months after? maybe. but, now you're ready to really, truly start over. no san. no sanctuary. no bunker. no fears. you can truly let go.

the hike had gone well. you were sweating through your shirt, and your water was running low, but it was going well. you felt reborn, really, from sweat and the dense summer humidity and the feeling of your skin burning under the hot sun.

as you climb over the hill, your radio starts to crackle. you must have forgotten to turn it off. everywhere you go, you gather batteries for the thing, so it doesn't die. you don't wish to delve into the reasons as to why you do that when you're never in range of the bunker anyway.

you trudge up to the hillside, kicking rocks as you go, ignoring the soft crackle. the sound is more comforting then the silence and your heavy labored breathing, anyway, so you keep the radio on. besides the radio never picks anything up anymore anyway.

some nights, you'd clicked the talk button and tried to say hello. all you were ever met with was silence. it was understandable, but it still hurt more than you liked to admit.

you reach for the trunk of the lone tree on top of the hill, catching your breath, when you hear a voice over the radio. it's unfamiliar, cutting off between words, but the sound still makes you jump.

you'd forgotten what it was like to hear voices. especially voices that aren't your own.

you fumble with the radio.

...four boxes incoming....south....open....roger.......

you nearly drop the radio when you look over the hill. in the valley sits a sprawling camp, surrounded by wooden walls that were clearly built. there are vehicles and people walking the perimeter. you can hear laughter. it's the unmistakable sound of children giggling, playing. chills run down your spine at the sight. you see military trucks at the furthest end. not every truck is a military truck, but many of them are.

your fingers tighten around the radio. the walls have makeshift guard towers. for a moment, hope sparks at the pit of your stomach. you want to trust this place so badly. there are military vehicles. there's organization. it looks nothing like the sanctuary.

at least until your gaze lands on the guard towers. fluttering at the top of each makeshift guard tower sits a purple piece of cloth. it's identical to the purple pieces of cloth you'd followed back to your cabin, poorly dyed and the color of eggplants.

dread curls down your spine at the affiliation. this isn't a coincidence. it can't be. fear mixes with that spark of hope, and you start to back away. you don't know what to do. should you leave, or should you investigate further? are they another sanctuary, or are they safe?

then you hear a familiar voice through the radio, a crackly voice that will never leave your memories no matter how hard you try to drown it away. it's been a year, yet you remember the voice so clearly, even as he says, "yeosang...open....five."

your breath catches in your throat.

it's choi san.

it's always choi san.

[leviathans-watching]

home is wherever I'm with you

includes: mammon x gn!reader (no pronouns mentioned)

wc: 1.3k | rated t | m.list | cross-posted on ao3

warnings: some spicier flirting, running away (but not in an angsty way), mentions of tears/arguing, light angst, explicit language

a/n: title is from home by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros!! my inbox is open to chat/leave feedback/req so come stop by!!

“let’s get out of here,” you say one day, in the wake of an explosive argument between the brothers that left mammon nearly in tears.

“what?” he says, tilting his head towards you. “just- drive?”

“yeah. we’ll come back eventually, but let’s just go somewhere that’s not here.” mammon doesn’t look quite convinced, so you double down, pleading with him. “i’ll take all of the blame and everything. please mammon, i just want to explore some.”

“lucifer’ll kill us.”

“not if he can’t find us,” you say with more cheekiness than you feel, making mammon snort half-heartedly. “c’mon,” you wheedle, “just the two of us, complete freedom, no tasks, no chores-”

“fine,” mammon agrees, and you grin. you feel impulsive and wild, the wanderlust already taking over. “let’s do it.”

“yes!” you stand, extending your hand. “let’s pack a few things then go. fast as we can.” you know the other brothers would throw a fit if they knew you were leaving, but the air was too heavy, the silence too stifling. you couldn’t stay at the house of lamentation for a moment longer.

splitting up in the hallway, the two of you head towards your rooms. you throw some clothes into your back with abandon, racing to the bathroom to grab the essentials- you don’t know how long you’ll be gone, but it can’t hurt to be prepared. grabbing some of the grimm you have socked away, you make your way to mammon’s room, blanket and pillow clutched in your arms.

mammon’s still finishing up, so you help, handing him his phone charger and toothbrush, which you had grabbed when in the bathroom. it’s only a few minutes before the two of you are ready.

“start the car?” you half ask, half direct. mammon does, disappearing with your stuff down the hall towards the garage, and you follow, stopping in the kitchen, grabbing a few non-perishable snacks and drinks. you’d have to stop at the store but that was alright.

quickly penning a note, you feel a little guilty for dipping, but you’ll be back, and the boys will just have to understand. you’ll be safe, you’ll have your phone, and if you ever end up in a tight spot, you’ll call them to you with the pact. sighing off, you search for a magnet, slapping the paper don't e fridge in plain sight where anyone would be able to see it.

by the time you get out to the garage, mammon already has the car started and the radio on. you smile at him as you slide into the truck, a trusty pickup that got pretty good gas mileage, and mammon wastes no time backing out of the garage, shifting gears with ease. once you’re on the road, you place your hand over his.

“pick a direction, babe,” he tells you, and you purse your lips.

“west.”

“got it.” mammon turns onto the road that will take you to the freeway, which will, in turn, take you west. “you’re crazy.”

“maybe,” you say, laughing a little. “but so are you.”

“nah,” mammon denies. “i’m obviously the voice of reason here. i’m gonna tell lucifer you forced me to come with you.”

“do that,” you say with a shrug. “i already told you i’d take all the blame.”

“jesus.” shaking his head, mammon flashes you a smile. “how does the beach sound?”

“perfect.” it’s not really beach weather; it still hasn’t warmed fully up, and it’s no doubt going to be windy as hell by the coast, but you don’t care. all of a sudden you just want to smell the water, feel the sand underneath your feet.

mammon grins at you again, reaching for the stereo. you let him, gesturing for him to turn the radio up even louder. your phone starts to vibrate, but you ignore it. you have a beach to go to, after all.

“how long is the drive?” you ask, and mammon shrugs.

“day or two, maybe?”

“prefect,” you say again. “i love you.”

“love you too,” mammon says, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

the drive passes easily. things are easy with mammon, always have been. where before, you’d been feeling helpless and queasy, you now felt much, much better. you’d be in heaps of trouble when you got back, but you were also someone who could make their own decision, something lucifer tended to forget or disregard.

you stop for food at some point, and continue driving well into the night, the cars on the road with you becoming less and less frequent. reminding yourself to make mammon let your drive tomorrow, you tell him that you should stop fir the night.

you’re not in any hurry to get to the beach, anyway, so stopping isn’t a problem.

directing mammon to a cheapish hotel, you gather all of the trash, ready to throw it away when you get out of the truck. thankfully, there are vacancies, so you and mammon are able to book a room in seconds, carrying your backpacks up.

“i don’t know about you, but i’m going to shower,” mammon says. “join me?”

“maybe next time,” you tease. “i’ll get us all set up and then take my own.”

shrugging good-naturedly, mammon closes the bathroom door, and a moment later you hear the shower running. deciding to respond to some of the messages now that mammon wasn’t going to hear, you bit the bullet and dialed lucifer.

it barely even rung before it was picked up.

“mc,” lucifer breathed into the phone. “are you safe? where are you?”

“what?” you ask, “not going to yell at me?”

“i think i did enough of that earlier,” lucifer says honestly.

“yeah, i think so too,” you respond, a little relieved. he seemed more concerned than angry. “but yes, i’m safe, and currently at a hotel. mammon’s in the shower.”

“okay,” lucifer says. “okay. i know i won’t be able to convince you to come back, nor do i feel like i should, as if you felt the need to literally run off with mammon you probably don’t want to be here, but please, do you know when you’ll be back?”

“few days, maybe,” you say. “a week, tops.”

“okay,” lucifer says again, seemingly steadying himself. “keep me updated so i know you’re alive?”

“sure, as long as you don’t push.”

“i can try,” lucifer promises, and you hear the water turn off.

“i’ve got to go,” you say, and he exhales audibly.

“i love you and i’m sorry.”

“love you too,” you tell him. “give my love to the rest of the brothers? and tell them i’m okay?”

“of course.”

you hang up then, right as mammon comes out of the bathroom, hair damp. he’s shirtless, just a pair of sweats on, and you can’t help but let your eyes trail over him. he’s achingly, otherworldly, beautiful.

“like what you see?”

“always,” you sing, and mammon brightens at your obvious good mood. not that you weren’t in one before, but coming to a compromise so easily with lucifer had really made things much easier. you were glad that you’d called him.

mammon chuckles, launching himself on the bed. you squeal as he jostles you, but his arms wrap around you, shielding you from any real harm. he kisses you, once, twice, before you push him away.

“i’ve got to shower now, i’m all gross.”

“i don’t think you’re gross,” mammon chirps, and you push his face away with a snort.

“sweet-talker.” rolling off of the bed, you head for the bathroom, glancing back at mammon. he’s watching you, eyes soft. you hadn’t thought you’d ever be in a random hotel room with mammon, running off without a second thought, but you don’t know if there’s anywhere else you’d rather be.

leviathans-watching’s work - please do not repost, copy, or claim as your own

[imaginesandbandfiction]

Fezco’s House Part 1 — Little Freak

A Euphoria Imagine

Pairing: Fezco x Reader, a little bit of Fezco x Lexi but that’s not the main focus.

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: drugs, alcohol.

Summary: The girl that enters Fez’s store doesn’t look like a drug addict, but he sells to her anyway, and their friendship blossoms from there.

A/N: So this is… not a Harry fic lol. But it’s Harry-inspired! This idea would just not leave me alone and I sat down and wrote this all in one sitting. It’s gonna be a mini-series, with either 3 or 4 parts, but this can be read as a stand-alone oneshot, too. Hope you like it!

Masterlist

His eyes scan the room for her, a reflex he can’t quite shake no matter how much time passes. A soft smile graces his lips when he catches a glimpse of a familiar smile and a flash of Y/H/C hair as she and Jules spin each other around on the dance floor.

He still remembers the first time he saw her. It was a slow Saturday morning; Ash was out running a couple of routine drops, so Fez was alone in the store, sitting on the counter, scrolling on his phone, when the door opened and the bell rang. Her gray sweatpants were tied tight around her waist, accentuating her curves. A strip of bare skin separated the waistband from a simple black crop top, and his eyes dropped to it immediately. She paused for a moment, just inside the doorway, and their eyes met as he trailed his gaze up her body and to her face. Her hair hung damp on her shoulders. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and looked away, the eye contact seeming to shock her out of whatever was going on in that pretty little head of hers.

Fez watched as she wandered the aisles for a few minutes before finally settling on a bag of Doritos and a Coke. As she placed them on the counter, he noticed her hands were shaking a little bit. She tapped her nails on the counter as he rang her up, and handed over her credit card without a word. He handed her the bag with her snacks, and instead of leaving after he handed it over to her, she didn’t move.

“Anythin’ else I can do for ya?” He asked with an amused smile. She wasn’t the usual type, but then again, who was he to judge? She looked down at her hands as she mumbled a response.

“I’m, uh, here for a pickup?” Her voice lilted up as she spoke, phrasing her answer as another question.

“Sorry, I don’t deal to kids.”

“I’m not a kid,” she said, louder this time. “I know you dropped out last year, but I remember you, Fezco. I was two years behind you in school.” Her tone is accusing and she points at him with a manicured finger, brows furrowed.

“Whoa, okay, mama, my bad.” Fez chuckled and held his hands up in surrender. “Come on back, then, shit.”

He led her to the back room, shutting and locking the door behind her.

“What’chu need, then?” He asked, leaning against the wall and staring at her with a furrowed brow.

“Fentanyl,” she answered without hesitation, as if he had just asked her what her favorite color was and not what drugs she takes.

“You don’t seem like the type.” Fez watched her out of the corner of his eye as he grabbed what she asked for. Before he could tell her how much, she handed him a wad of cash. After quickly counting it, he nodded. It was exactly enough, which only deepened his curiosity.

“It’s not for me.” He held out the bag of pills but didn’t let go when she grabbed it. The tips of her fingers were just barely touching his, but it was enough to make his heart race and breath hitch in his throat. His blue eyes were fixed on her own, asking a silent question.

“My dad,” she clarified after a few moments of tense silence. Humming in acknowledgement, he let go of the bag and she shoved it into her pocket. Neither one of them moved; his blue eyes twinkled in the low light of the room and she was mesmerized. The air between them grew heavy and Fez felt light-headed and breathless.

“Well, thanks,” she said, clearing her throat and breaking eye contact with him.

“Fo’ sure, fo’ sure,” he said, reaching back to unlock and open the door. He stepped out of the room and leaned against the open door, holding it back so she could leave.

“Hey, wait a sec,” he called after her. She turned to look over her shoulder at him with a smile and her eyebrows raised. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N,” she answered.

“Y/N,” he repeated. It tasted sweet on his tongue. “Well, see ya around, Y/N.”

“Bye, Fezco.” The door swung shut behind her and Fez sunk into the camp chair behind the counter with a deep sigh.

She showed up again the next weekend and, this time, didn’t hesitate in the doorway. Flashing Fez a coy smile, she made a beeline for the coolers at the back of the store and then grabbed a bag of chips at random on her way back to the counter.

“Hi,” Fez said with a bright smile when she dropped her things on the counter.

“Hey,” she whispered, suddenly shy as she avoided meeting his gaze. As he finished ringing her up and handed over the bag, he jerked his head towards the back room. She nodded and followed him there.

“Same as last time?” He asked as soon as the door was shut behind him.

“Yeah,” she answered, shifting her weight from one foot to the other while she waited for him to grab the pills. He didn’t bother counting the cash she handed him, and he had to swallow a gasp when her arm brushed against his as she slid past him and out the door.

When she brought a bag of chips and a bottle of Coke up for a third time, he shook his head and shoved them back across the counter.

“On the house,” he said with a grin. Neither of them noticed as Ash, seated in the chair next to Fez, looked up from his Nintendo Switch with wide eyes; they were too busy smiling at each other.

“Thanks,” she answered. Once she had gathered her things back into her arms, he made his way to the back room, and she followed.

“Usual?” He asked as he opened the door.

“Yes, please,” she answered. She leaned against the wall with no trace of the nervous energy that had permeated their previous interactions. When the deal was done, he walked her all the way to the door. He leaned against the doorframe, holding the door open as she exited the store.

“What’re you doin’ later?” He asked before she got too far, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his voice was shaking.

“Depends on what you’re suggesting,” she said with a playful grin, spinning around to face him.

“Nothin’ crazy, but I’ll be here all night. You should come through.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand as he waited for her answer.

“I think I might be able to make that work. See you later, Fezco.” She waved at him as she got into her car.

“Bye, Y/N.” He stood in the doorway until she disappeared down the road. Ash was waiting for him with a shit-eating grin when he returned to the counter.

“Shut the fuck up,” Fez muttered, cuffing his brother upside the head, which only made Ash’s smile wider. “Play yo’ damn video games.”

She became a permanent fixture of Saturdays at the store, and Fez looked forward to it every week. He greeted her with an ice-cold Coke pulled straight from the cooler when she arrived after lacrosse practice, and, once she had ran back home to drop off the drugs for her dad, she would drive straight back to the store and hoist herself up onto the counter to watch the door while Fez and Ash took care of business in the back.

They learned a lot about each other, as she followed him through the aisles as he restocked, as he helped her with her math homework and she teased him about dropping out, during his smoke breaks out back where she’d flop onto her back in the grass beside him and point out the shapes of the clouds.

“I’ve never thought that much ‘bout clouds,” he confessed one afternoon. He had finished his joint and laid down next to her, gazing up at the sky. “They all just be lookin’ like clouds to me.”

“C’mon, Fezco, that one is clearly a rocket ship.” She lifted a hand to point at a cloud to her right, and he squinted against the sunlight as he looked over at it.

“Shit, maybe.” Fez chuckled. He was too focused on the proximity of her hand to his, the fact that if he just stretched his pinky a bit, he could hook it around hers, to be worried about the clouds. But he knew that she loved that shit, so he tried to make an effort. “I guess that one looks kinda like a… cat without a tail?” He used his left hand to point directly above them. She leaned her head back to get a better look at it.

“Okay, okay, yeah, I see it.” While she was distracted, he slid his right hand over just an inch, until his pinky was resting on top of hers. She turned to him with bright eyes and a wide smile, and wiggled her finger underneath his, sending them both into a fit of giggles. He curled his finger down and wrapped it around hers like a pinky-promise, and they laid there until Ash yelled for Fez from inside.

Saturdays turned into Sundays, and Fez would close the store early so they could get out for a bit. Her sophomore year ended and the heat of the California summer settled around them as they biked around the city. She gave him a taste of the childhood that he never got the chance to have, beating him at mini-golf, teaching him how to play hopscotch, and sneaking into parks late at night and making him push her on the swings.

One night, after checking to make sure her dad was out cold, she snuck him into her backyard and onto the ancient trampoline. The springs creaked under their weight until the old metal got used to moving again. The squeal that escaped Fez’s lips as soon as he stepped onto the canvas was uncharacteristically high-pitched but matched his wary look perfectly. Y/N had climbed in ahead of him and was already jumping on the opposite side of the mat. She jumped higher and threw herself forward into a flip, the trampoline shaking as she stuck the landing. Fez held out both of his arms and bent his knees to try and keep his balance. Y/N’s giggles echoed throughout the empty backyard, and affection nudged some of the fear in his chest to the side.

“C’mon,” she said through her laughter, taking three big leaps and landing just a few inches in front of him. “You gotta jump!”

“Bro you wildin’ if you think I’mma do that shit,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. She reached out and took both of his hands in hers, tugging him towards the middle of the mat.

“Okay, we’ll take it slow, then.” Taking his tentative nod as permission, she bounced up and down without lifting her feet up. They were so close that he had no choice but to bounce with her, and after a few minutes, his face softened as he relaxed. “See? That’s not so bad, is it?”

“Guess not,” he mumbled, lowering his eyes to his feet to try and hide the shy smile on his lips. “‘S long as you don’t let go.”

“Pinky swear.” Y/N tapped her pinky against his hand three times in quick succession. “Now, try and jump a little higher.” Though he was hesitant, he trusted Y/N and wanted to make her happy, so he jumped with more force, letting his feet leave the ground for the first time. His bounces slowly became more confident and steady, and she could see joy blooming on his face as he let go of his worries and gave in to his inner child.

“You’re doing it!” She exclaimed with an encouraging smile.

After a few minutes, they were jumping around in circles and Y/N let one of her hands slip out of his, watching his face for any signs of distress. When he nodded, she let go completely. She let him bounce for a few minutes before she jumped toward him with her arms outstretched. She grabbed at his shoulders, but miscalculated her angle and ended up running straight into his chest. They fell down in a heap of flailing limbs, shrieking with laughter. Y/N rolled off of Fez and settled in next to him. The trampoline dipped under their weight, shoving them closer together. Though they were facing straight up and couldn’t see each other, their sides were pressed flush together and both of them were very aware of that fact.

“I’m glad you're here,” Y/N whispered into the dark. Fez could detect a hint of sadness in her voice. He twisted his arm and felt around until his fingers found hers and he laced them together with a gentle squeeze.

“You don’t gotta be sad, mama, I’m here wit’chu,” he said, voice soft as it traveled through the darkness between them.

“I know, it’s just… I haven’t done this since my sister…” She trailed off and wiped her eyes with her free hand. He rolled onto his side to face her and she mirrored his actions. The tears on her cheeks glinted in the moonlight and he reached up to cup her cheek, resting his hand on her skin. His thumb brushed against her cheekbone as he wiped the stray tears away. A shiver raced up her spine; if anyone had asked, she would have told them it was from the chill of the early-Autumn air and not his touch, but she leaned into it and Fez nearly kissed her then and there. Their breaths were visible puffs in the space between them and he could feel her heartbeat against his chest. His willpower was slowly draining out of him, so he pulled his head back until he could no longer feel the heat from her lips on his own, and coughed to clear the lump in his throat.

“I know you don’t like to talk ‘bout her, but if you wanna, I’ll listen,” he said, knowing that if they stayed in that silent near-embrace much longer, he would lose all of his self-control.

“She would’ve turned twenty-one this year,” Y/N said, voice low and shaky. “I was always so jealous that she’d hit that milestone before me. It’s funny how things work out.”

“How old was she when…?”

“Seventeen. One more birthday, and I’ll be older than she ever got the chance to be.”

“‘M sorry.”

“‘S okay, but thanks. She was sick for a long time, so I was able to wrap my head around it before it happened.”

“What was she like?”

“She was a spitfire; she headbutted her way through life and never took no for an answer.” Y/N snorted. “One time, when she was nine and I was five, she persuaded her teacher to let me go on the fourth-grade field trip to Sacramento with her. She got half of the teachers to sign a petition, and then brought it to the school board at their monthly meeting. They initially said no, but she yelled at them about freedom and human rights until they reversed their decision.”

“Now I know where you get it from.” Fez laughed and nudged her foot with his. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew she was rolling her eyes. He liked that he knew her well enough to be able to predict her reactions, and he’d never admit it, but he loved to coax them out of her.

“Hey! I’m not that bad.” He could just barely make out the pout on her lips in the darkness.

“Nah, but you got a feisty side, fo’sure.” Y/N nudged his foot back but didn’t argue with him, and they fell into a comfortable silence once again.

Things came to a head that fall, at Nate’s Halloween party. The girls dressed up as the Spice Girls, and since she was the only one who actually played a sport, Y/N was rocking a matching dark blue Adidas sweatsuit and shoes with minimal makeup and her hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Surprising no one, Maddy was Posh Spice, Kat was Scary Spice, Cassie was Baby Spice, and Jules was rocking a bright red wig as Ginger Spice. Rue and Fez sat on the front steps and shared a joint, laughing as they watched the elaborate photoshoot happening in front of them.

“Y'all are ridiculous,” Rue said as they made some random freshman stand over them to get an aerial shot of them all laid in a circle.

“At least we dressed up for Halloween,” Maddy shot back, teasing her friend for showing up in a literal groutfit. “Like, what the fuck are you guys even supposed to be?”

“Hey! I’m clearly dressed as concrete and he’s, I dunno, like, Mr. Rogers or some shit.” Rue shrugged and gestured with the joint at Fez’s dark green sweater.

“Yo! Watch it,” he snapped, and snatched the joint from his reckless friend, taking a long hit and holding it in his lungs for a few seconds before blowing the smoke in her face. “This cost more than your house, bro.”

Once the group was done taking pictures, they headed inside and everyone grabbed a drink. Fez and Rue claimed spots on the couch while everyone else danced, and eventually they lit up another joint. Jules dragged Y/N over to them and they collapsed on the floor in front of the couch in a fit of breathless giggles.

“You guys are boring,” Jules said with a huff as she took the joint from Rue.

“Yeah,” Y/N agreed, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she looked up at Fez with a pout. She had ditched the jacket and the action pushed her boobs up; they came dangerously close to spilling out of her sports bra. He leaned his head back and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, taking deep breaths to try and prevent himself from exploding. Y/N couldn’t spare him, though, even for a second, because she stood up and straddled his lap, draping her arms over his shoulders.

“C’mon, Fezzy, dance with me!” she begged, putting her face up close to his so he could see her puppy-dog eyes. He groaned and put his hands on her hips, pushing her back towards his knees to spare his dick.

“If I say yes will you get offa me?” He asked, pretending to be upset when really he was golden inside. She nodded and clambered off his lap and took his hand, hoisting him to his feet and dragging him behind her to the dance floor. He stumbled a bit as he stood, and beer sloshed over the side of his cup and onto Jules as she slid up to settle on the couch next to Rue.

“Shit, sorry,” he called over his shoulder, already halfway to the dance floor by the time he realized what had happened. Jules and Rue just laughed as Y/N spun Fez around with wild abandon. They’d never seen him dance before. After three and a half songs, Fez was dizzy, not from the spinning but from the feeling of her arms around his neck and the sweet smell of her perfume surrounding them in an intoxicating cloud.

“Calm down, mama,” he laughed, slowing them to a stop. Y/N stumbled at the sudden change in speed and shrieked with laughter as she fell against his chest. He tightened his grip on his waist and rested his chin on top of her head. “You wanna get some air?” He felt her nod and led her out the front door. She made a beeline for the porch swing and patted the seat next to her. He hesitated in the doorway.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his cropped hair before crossing the porch and sitting down next to her.

“Hi,” she whispered, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Why you whisperin’?” he asked with a laugh.

“It feels wrong to be loud when the night is so quiet.”

“Oh, my bad.” Fez turned his head towards Y/N and whispered the words into her ear.

“Hi,” she whispered again as she turned, too, so they were face-to-face.

“You said that already.”

“Sorry, I’m nervous.”

“You don’t gotta be nervous around me.” Fez rested his forehead against hers. “We’re friends.”

“But what if I wanted to…not be friends anymore?” His heart nearly teared through his skin as it swelled with hope and he forgot to breathe as he replied.

“What’chu talkin’ --” Y/N interrupted him by leaning in and pressing her lips to his, softly at first, but then with more pressure when he didn’t immediately pull away. He felt his eyes flutter shut and he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer. She lifted a hand to his cheek and her fingers were freezing against his flushed skin. As he leaned forward, he parted his lips to deepen the kiss, and swallowed her quiet sighs. Somewhere deep inside him, warning bells were ringing, and he mustered enough courage to pull himself away. Y/N’s Y/E/C eyes were wide and shining and her tongue slipped out for just a second, dragging over her bottom lip. Her innocence was a bright light in the dark, and his chest tightened and his breathing grew heavy and uneven as his mind split in two. One side wanted to pull her into his lap and kiss her until she was incoherent, but the other side was flashing with scenes from their possible future: Y/N lying bloody and bruised on the floor after trying to get involved with one of his deals, her shaky voice on the phone telling him that someone was parked outside of her house with a gun, her sobbing next to a coffin at his funeral. He knew he couldn’t put her through that, and even though it felt like a million knives were stabbing him in the stomach, he broke her heart.

“That was… fuck, Y/N, we can’t be doin’ that shit,” he groaned, leaning his head back for a few seconds to get his bearings before turning back to the girl at his side. Her lower lip was stuck out in a pout and it took every last drop of willpower for him not to lean in and suck it between his teeth.

“Yeah, we can,” she said, and she leaned in again. Fez pulled back before it could become more than a quick peck, but he tightened his grip around her waist, relishing every second that she was pressed against him.

“‘M serious.”

“So you don’t want me, then?” Y/N’s voice was a challenge, and she set her jaw and crossed her arms, daring him to lie.

“Fuck, no, I didn’t say that. I just mean…” he trailed off, pausing to gather his thoughts. “My life is dangerous, and I can’t be bringin’ you into that shit. The guys I work with aren’t good people, and if they knew I had a girlfriend… I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if somethin’ happened to you.” His words settled into the air between them, becoming an invisible barrier, and Y/N pushed herself off of the swing, slipping out of his grip to stand in front of him with her hands on her hips.

“You’re a coward, Fezco O’Neill. I’m already involved in ‘that shit,’ whether you like it or not. My dad made that choice for me.” She paused and leaned her head back, blinking rapidly to prevent the tears from falling, and when she started talking again, her voice was softer. “You could break my heart a thousand times and I’d still be grateful that at least something good came out of my dad’s drug addiction. It brought us together.” After one last frustrated huff, she spun on her heels and ran back inside, leaving him alone with his regret.

She stopped showing up on Saturdays, but every week, he still pulled a Coke for her and left it on the counter until it went warm. He sent Ash to deliver to her house, and that was that. A clean break.

Now, two months later, his stomach still does somersaults every time he sees her. He watches as, across the room, a tall guy that Fez is pretty sure is on the football team approaches Y/N. She laughs at something he says, and then nods and follows him into the middle of the dance floor. He looks away, and down at the drinks in front of him instead; a glass of red wine and a can of ginger ale, and smiles. He can hear her laughter in his mind, the snarky “Red wine and ginger ale?” comment she’d make. Before he can seek her out again, a girl in red pants sits down on the other end of the couch, looking upset, and it pulls him out of his daydreaming. He looks at her for a second, and he thinks he recognizes her from somewhere.

“Yo, you Rue’s friend, right?” He asks her, unsure of how to comfort her but wanting to make an effort, anyway.

“Yeah, since, like, preschool,” she answers. “Sorry, I dunno why I said that.” She looks away from him, embarrassed.

“Nah, you’re good, you met where you met. Yo, what was your name again?”

“Lexi.”

“Lexi, I like that. That’s a nice name.” She turns and smiles at him and he feels something flutter in his stomach. It’s not somersaults, but it’s something.

[seat-safety-switch]

Recently, I was siphoning gas from a pickup truck at the gas station. You might think this is faintly ridiculous, but the folks in my town like to leave their cars running at the pump, while they go into the little store to buy scratch-offs and darts. Because they're blocking the pump, and also because I don't like paying for things, I have decided that it is ethically and morally correct to take a little percentage of their freshly topped-up tank as a "tip."

Anyway, while I was there filling my own tank using a gently-ageworn piece of garden hose, I took a look at the prices. And they shocked me! Gasoline had become so expensive that it was getting close to costing more than windshield washer fluid. That's why, when I got home and had a couple gargles of mouthwash, I got right to work starting up a biofuel company.

Every government in the world is super jazzed about biofuels. For one thing, it gets off our dependency on dinosaurs. We gotta keep as many of those suckers in the ground as we can, because otherwise palaeontologists will be out of a job. And for another, it helps knock down prices. Exxon won't want to take their usual six-hundred-percent margin if they know some heehaw can just make a couple gallons. They saw what happened to heroin.

How's it going so far? Well, not that great. To be honest with you, I've been pretty lazy at trying to get investment. We did have a big launch party that flopped recently. All of the billionaires and government officials are just too invested in the old way of doing things, which is funny because those super geniuses weren't smart enough to ask why the parking lot valets at the venue had so many jerry cans and hand pumps lying around.

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

could you possibly write an eddie munson x male reader fic where the reader is a goth femboy?

i rly enjoy your fics dude <3

Addition: "the reader has just moved in next door and he meets eddie and they bond over being alternative. they become close friends but after a few months eddie starts pulling away, when confronted about it he confesses his love."

Happy to give this a try! I'm sorry if it's not great, tried to get such a big topic without being overbearing on the length.

Send me request here! Currently writing for Eddie Munson. I write for a variety of reader inserts (male, female, gender neutral, POC too).

The more details you had to your request, the better it is for me. EX: “What about some fluff for Eddie after he’s had a long day?”

Feel free to look through my masterlist here!

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It's not early when Eddie wakes up, but it's shockingly not as late as Eddie would normally sleep in on a summer day. There's no school to have to be up early for. His shift--shockingly grabbing a job for the summer stocking shelves at the local grocery store--isn't until tomorrow so Eddie's normal plans should be sleeping in, waking up when the sun literally could not be brighter and then slugging himself throughout the rest of the day.

But Wayne had insisted that Eddie greet the new neighbors. How Wayne knew someone was moving in before it actually happened doesn't shock Eddie. He assumes his uncle, like much of this town, is no stranger to work gossip. Someone knows someone who knows someone who blabs and before anyone can blink twice, the rest of the town knows.

So Eddie wakes to the midmorning sun and fumbles himself into fresh clothes. He doesn't care what he's got on as long as it's clean before he's sliding into the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash some water on his. Content with the slight haggardness that ghosts his face, Wayne picks up the dish Wayne marked with aluminum foil as do not eat and heads the down to the end of the road.

The new neighbors are easy to spot with the pickup truck and a U-Haul trailer hitched to it. So Eddie takes the moment to look around to see if anyone is outside but no one comes out to the truth or leave, so he's careful as he heads up the steps and knocks on the door.

"Comin'!"

Eddie takes a step back at the sound of the voice to give some clearance as the door opens. Eddie's not sure what he was expecting when the door opens. Maybe he was waiting for someone to yell at him, ask him why he's disturbing them on their first day in the neighborhood.

But the black crop top and skirt are absolutely not the thing Eddie was expecting. The smile seems genuine that greets Eddie but he's still too stunned.

"Is everything alright?"

Eddie finally blinks at the question and shakes his head. "No, no, uh, I wanted to greet you to the neighborhood. Hand off this," Eddie states. "I know it's not a lot, but welcome."

Your fingers brush as you take the dish and Eddie swears something like electricity runs up his spine. "Thanks."

"Do-do you need help with any other stuff? Getting things inside or anything?" Eddie's not trying to be pushy but he'd like to spend more than just a minute at your door if he's honest. He'll take the no, it wouldn't make him angry. Though, it would make him sad.

You shrug. "Sure, I guess. It would make a big difference."

Eddie nods, his grin growing. "Put me to work."

And Eddie wonders, as he leaves your place later that evening after helping get the sofa and mattress in for you, if the universe has gifted him an angel or just another unfilled fantasy. That is, until, you come into the grocery store a few days later grabbing additional essentials and Eddie spots you--the platform boots giving you away before anything else amongst the short shorts.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Eddie teases, lifting the box back onto the pallet now that he's done stocking the lower shelf.

You laugh taking in the chains and Dio t-shirt peaking out beneath the red vest. "Looking pretty out there too," you laugh, grabbing a few cans of the soup.

"Those expire at the end of this year by the way. If you want some that'll last longer, go back a row," Eddie tells you, almost like he's on autopilot.

You nod. "Noted, thanks."

"Anytime."

The trips to the grocery store turn into nights spent at Eddie's place or at the arcade. By the time the school year starts, you're happy to have at least one friendly face that can greet you in the otherwise unfamiliar hallways. However, when you get there the first day, though Eddie does greet you, you notice it's with considerably less pep than normal.

Maybe he's nervous--especially since his friends are around, and you're willing to him the benefit of the doubt. The morning incident seemingly fades as Eddie shows you around the school, and even offers you a ride home.

But a day turns into a week, and a week turns into three. You sit at his table with his friends, who easily accept you into the fold, but the more you look over to Eddie the more you think he's a shell of someone you once knew.

"What the hell is going on?" you ask, grabbing onto Eddie's elbow and pausing him as the lunch bell rings.

"What-uh, lunch is over? Is it not obvious?" he gives a chuckle, but then he tugs back his arm and you let him have it back.

"No, I mean with you. We were just, this summer, hanging out and having a grand time, now you barely speak to me."

"I don't exactly have the greatest reputation," Eddie returns. "Not here at least."

You scoff. "And you think that I'm exactly looking to fit in," you laugh, gesturing over your outfit.

"You look great, shut up," Eddie huffs.

"Yeah, but I don't look like this to fit in. You don't have to spare me." Eddie's gaze still doesn't linger on yours longer than a second. He fidgets, like he's trying to find his opening to get out of the situation. "You're not telling me everything."

How could Eddie tell you everything? You were undeniably cooler than he was and feelings really only serve to get someone hurt. Eddie's not trying to get hurt again. He shakes his head. "Are-are we good here?"

"No, no we're far from good actually, Eddie. What are you scared of?"

A dry laugh leaves his throat. "It's pretty scary to know you have feelings for someone and not knowing if it's going to blow up in your face or not."

"Who? Who do you have feelings for? Why are you worried about it blowing up?"

Eddie's thankful for the moment the cafeteria is empty. His eyes settle back onto yours and it's with a deep exhale that Eddie surges forward, lips finding yourself. You freeze with surprise. How long had Eddie liked you? Had he always guessed the same for you about him?

Before you can think to reciprocate, Eddie is pulling away, a bitter laugh falling from his lips. "See. That's what--"

The sentence never gets fully uttered before you're surging in, hands on his face as you kiss Eddie. It's his turn to freeze in shock and then as your hands tug at the lapel of his jacket, Eddie melts into you, hands finding your waist and pulling you closer until the two of you are chest to chest.

The sounds of your kisses--lips parting only to find themselves slotted perfectly against each others again--echo around you in the empty room. Eddie swears his head it going to roll off his neck if he takes longer than a moment away from your mouth. But you laugh, bumping your nose over his as you maintain just a few inch distance from his lips.

"You're an idiot," you tease.

"If I had've know being such much of an idiot would reward this handsomely, I would've been an idiot a lot sooner," Eddie laughs.

You press another kiss to his lips. "Next time, talk to me, okay? Whatever's going on in that pretty little head of yours, I want to know okay?"

It's a simple sentence but it falls from Eddie's chest with so much sincrerity you feel it in your own chest. "Okay."