#is eddie a hypocrite and in the wrong

[paladin-n-cleric]

reminder that tv shows are supposed to send a message and often times logic is besides the point.

you could excuse mike and els behavior in the beginning of s3, but the audience is supposed to find them annoying. you could defend mike at the airport but it’s supposed to be annoying. you could, of course, argue that el was wrong for hitting angela, but the creators want you to feel proud of her. you’re supposed to like miIeven after they reunite, but you’re also supposed to notice the couples in the finale.

[touchlikethesun]

finding out that another english actor that you thought was alright actually went to public school like “oh so they’re a proper cunt then damn.”

[ashwhowrites]

Ohhh babes I saw you want angst and YES Miscommunication + secret dating TOTES SOUNDS 🔥 . So, Eddie n reader dating on the dl bc Eddie worried reader would get treated bad or bullied?? but he didn’t actually tell her that Just asked to keep it secret/quiet/whatev. So maybe Billy Steve or ??? knows Eddie is her friend and asks Eddie like whats she like, she dating anyone, I wanna take her out.

And Eddie straight panics and instead of oh she’s got a boyfriend at another school or some smart… he down talks her. she boring, annoying, she always [thing reader actually does alot!], dont bother. And course reader hears and is right devastated and thinks thats why the dl, cause he’s embarrassed/using her for sex/it’s all a big joke to him.

After end of day in private she breaks up with him, doesn’t say she overheard. Eddie has no idea what he did wrong, she avoids him, won’t talk. He’s broken. Finally he finds out she heard what he said and what she thinks. Could it end happy eventually? Like maybe he makes a loud speech like he does on the caff tables to show he’s never been embarrassed of her, yeah?

Hurt me with the angst babes. Xoxo

I hope this is what you wanted and you enjoy it. Thank you for requesting 🫶🏻

DL

Y/N wasn't the best at keeping secrets, everything she felt was said on her face. She never saw the point in secrets, which is why she felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world. Because here she was keeping her whole damn six month relationship a secret.

It wasn't that she wanted to. Her boyfriend begged her and she tried to understand. She loved being with Eddie and it hurt to be a secret. She wanted to be with him so she agreed to give him time.

She felt like six months was enough time. She was growing a little irradiated and bothered. Anytime they talked about it Eddie said he was ready. But it never seems to happen.

Eddie locked the van and the two began walking towards the small restaurant. Y/N walked close by, her hand inching to slide her hand in his. Upon contact, Eddie was fast to move his hand in his pocket. Y/N swallowed the lump in her throat and added a bit of space between them.

"About time," Dustin groaned, welcoming the two to the table. Y/N sat across, moving over for Eddie to fit in the spot next to her. She wasn't surprised when he took the seat next to Dustin instead, but it still hurt.

"What's that?" Dustin asked, noticing a dark mark on Eddie's neck. Y/N felt her cheeks burn as she realized she left something behind from their makeout earlier. Dustin flicked the mark, making Eddie hiss.

Eddie quickly looked at Y/N, her smirk obvious. "Nothing."

"That's a hickey! Who are you getting nasty with?" Dustin teased

"Some random chick at the bar, drop it," Eddie hissed through his teeth. Y/N knew it was a lie, obviously, but hearing his lie made her stomach turn.

"Damn dude, massive hickey," Steve laughed as he joined the group, sliding into the open spot near Y/N. Eddie stiffened when Steve was shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

"Yeah apparently a chick at the bar," Dustin giggled, "Was it Lauren? She always looks at you after your shows."

Eddie gulped as Y/N's hard gaze landed on him. She'd been to see him play a few times, and she didn't know who this Lauren was.

"Lauren? Who's that, Eddie?" she asked, a fake smile plastered on her face

"I've never talked to her, so I don't know who she is. And it wasn't her so like I said, drop it," Eddie demanded. The table got awkward as Eddie fumed as he looked over the menu.

Y/N couldn't help but glare at him over the top of her menu. Maybe she wasn't the only secret girl in his life.

"Anyway, how is your day going?" Steve asked, Eddie looked up to see who the question was for. His blood boiling as Steve turned his body to face Y/N completely.

Dustin tried to talk to Eddie, but he was laser-focused on Steve flirting with his girlfriend.

~~~

Eddie didn't realize how big of a mistake it was to be a secret until he was hit with the reality of someone wanting her.

"DON'T RUN!" Steve yelled as the gang ran through the arcade. Eddie laughed as they ignored him, running without a care in the world.

Eddie went to walk away but Steve grabbed his arm. Eddie froze and looked down at his hand, making Steve retreat.

"Sorry, I just wanted to ask you something," Steve said. He nervously put his hands in his pockets. "You and Y/N are pretty close right?"

Eddie felt a hot rush of jealousy run through his body, just by hearing another man say her name. "Why?"

"Do you know if she's seeing anyone? The few times she's been around I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I want to ask her out," Steve explained. Eddie scoffed at the red blush that coated his cheeks. He was blushing over his girlfriend?

"Y/N, oh you don't want to ask her out!" Eddie scoffed, letting out a soft chuckle.

"Why?" Steve awkwardly laughed. Neither boy recognized Y/N walking up to them.

"She-she-uh- she's so clingy. I've heard from all of her ex-boyfriends that she's good in bed, but that's it. She's got a boring personality. She's a bit annoying, with all her "save the planet, don't do drugs, and cigarettes are poison". You look like an independent guy, Steve. Do you want a girl to nag and control you?" Eddie asked, planting a hard smack on the boy's shoulder. Steve hissed at the connection, rubbing the skin when Eddie removed his hand.

Y/N felt her throat burn as she took in Eddie's words. It all made sense now. He was embarrassed by her, hell he didn't even like her. He was interested in the sex, that's all she was good for. She swallowed her sobs and walked off. She didn't care to hear what Steve would say. She was falling in love with Eddie and he couldn't stand her.

Eddie smiled in victory as Steve walked off to a machine. With the sudden interest in Y/N, Eddie felt the need to see his girlfriend. He didn't bother to say goodbye to anyone, heading out to his van.

It didn't take long for him to arrive at her house. He parked his van down the street and snuck over to her window. He pulled himself up on her roof, thankful it was night so no one would be calling the cops.

He tapped on her window.

She sighed as she heard Eddie at her window. She wasn't ready to see him.

"Come on, baby. I wanna see you,"

She wiped off her face and walked to the window. She opened the curtain but didn't open the window.

"What the hell do you want?" She spat. Eddie flinched at the venom on her tongue.

"Woah, what the hell did I do?" Eddie asked.

"Are you going to tell people about us?" She asked, keeping her head held high.

"Baby," he sighed, she scoffed and shook her head. She already knows the speech.

"We're done, Munson. Now get the fuck off my roof," she hissed. She closed her curtains and raced to shut off her light.

Eddie stared at his reflection as he tried to process what happened. He rapidly knocked on her window but she never came back.

"Y/N!" He harshly whispered, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. He continued to knock but left that night with no reply.

~

The next morning Eddie was already racing back to her house.

But again, got no reply.

~~~

It took around three days for the gang to notice Y/N wasn't around. They all wanted to ask but there was this look on Eddie's face that made them scared to ask. Dustin was worried for his friend. Eddie was always moody and snippy. But now he seemed so sad and in pain. Dark bags under his eyes and his voice always sounded dry and cracked.

Steve felt a little awkward about it. Feeling like he was the cause of whatever happened.

No one in the gang was close enough to her to ask her what happened. So everyone was stuck with not knowing what went down between the two.

Eddie's eyes followed her everywhere. It seemed no matter where she went, those brown puppy eyes were warning her skin. She knew she'd suffer with seeing him at school, but she didn't think he'd be so obvious that he suffered too. She was shocked to see he was affected but she convinced herself she didn't care.

Eddie was falling apart and he didn't care to hide it. He had one amazing thing in his life and he fucked it up.

Eddie let another week pass before he got desperate. He knew he was going to look insane, but he was done. The next time he saw her, in the halls at school, he quickly picked her up and locked them in a classroom.

"Are you insane!" She hissed, slapping him as he dropped her.

"It's time we talk,"

"I don't want to talk, Eddie. I told you we're done," she went to walk past him but he stepped in front of her.

"Can I explain myself? If you knew why I kept us a secret, it might help," he pleaded but she shoved him against the wall.

Her face was close to his as she stared him down. "I know exactly why you wanted to keep us a secret."

"You do?" He gulped. He was embarrassed that he got bullied as practically a young man.

"I heard everything you had to say to Steve. So no, knowing that my boyfriend doesn't even like me doesn't help at all! I'm glad I gave you a few good fucks, asshole. I'll make sure to give Steve the best head of his life so he can ignore all the flaws about me."

Eddie growled as Steve's name left her lips. He harshly grabbed the back of her neck and shoved his lips against hers. He was possessive and jealous, reminding her he was the best she'd ever had. She fought to not kiss him back but she was weak. She melted into him and lost herself in his lips.

"No one will ever have you like I do," he growled.

She shoved him away from her. "Well to the whole world, I'm open to take."

"I made all that shit up, okay? I didn't want Steve to go after you. I got jealous and instead of telling the truth, I choked. I'm sorry for hurting you. I didn't mean anything I said."

"If you didn't mean anything you said, then why am I still your secret?" she whimpered. She felt exhausted from the secrets, it was making their relationship harder than it needed to be. "I am so tired of being ignored by you. I feel used when we have sex and the very next day, I'm nothing to you. You don't want anyone to have me, yet it seems like you don't even want me." Eddie frowned as tears slipped down her face.

"Please don't cry, baby. I do want you, and I'll always want you. It's just that I'm a loser, baby. The town hates me, and I'm a held-back senior who still gets bullied by the jocks. It's embarrassing, I'm embarrassing. And I didn't want you to receive the treatment I get. You don't deserve to be treated like shit because you gave me a chance," he explained. She could see all the emotion in his eyes and she sensed all the truth he spoke. "I thought I was protecting you but I can see I did it all wrong."

"I don't care about anyone or what they think. All I've wanted was for us to be together," she whispered as she cupped his face, allowing him to press his body against hers.

"I'm sorry for everything. I love you so much and I want everyone to know. I don't want anyone to think they have a chance with you," he muttered, his lips inches away from hers.

"Then show them,"

He smirked and ran out the door. She wasn't sure where he was going to go, quickly following. He busted through the cafeteria doors and stood on a table with his dirty sneakers.

"Eddie!" Y/N hissed but he sent her a wink.

"ATTENTION PLEASE!" the room went quiet as they turned to look at Eddie. Some people whispering.

"IS ANYONE HERE INTERESTED IN THE LOVELY Y/N?"

She felt her skin burn as the attention turned to her. She begged Eddie to get done but this was what she asked for.

Eddie didn't wait for anyone to answer, "TOO BAD. SHE'S MY GIRLFRIEND!"

"Can you get down here now?" she asked, Eddie stepped down and the cafeteria went back to talking among themselves.

"That work for you?" he asked, scooping her in his arms. She laughed and nodded. He gave her a quick peck on the lips before a teacher came over to discipline him for his commotion.

"See you after detention, m'lady," another wink sent her way.

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93 @gretavankleep37 @bellaisswagger @arlxt @ineedmentalhelp123

[strangersteddierthings]

Good People - Final Part

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Final Part

It is not often that Wayne is happy with the monotony of work. Tonight is one of those nights, if only because it allows him to think about where he went wrong speaking to Eddie. He had never meant to imply he thought Eddie was like Al; he'd meant the apple and tree comment to for Richard and Steve. However, he does acknowledge why Eddie drew the conclusion that Wayne might have thought Eddie would follow in Al's footsteps.

Wayne's being a hypocrite, applying the logic to one boy, but not the other. And even though he never, not once, thought that Eddie would become Al, he'll never be able to take that thought from Eddie's mind that he had. He can apologize until he's blue in the face, Eddie might even forgive him, but he's not sure Eddie will ever believe him. Not truly.

And how could Wayne expect him to?

No. That's a shame Wayne will take to the grave.

Next strike to Wayne's conscious; the misjudgment of Steve Harrington, and how it ties into the fact Eddie accused him of not trusting his judgement, and, moreover, Eddie being right. Wayne hadn't trusted in Eddie's trust of Steve.

He should have. It's been years since Eddie came home crying about a boy, but what father doesn't see their kid crying over their first heartbreak and doesn't grow protective? And with Eddie, it's even more terrifying. Getting mixed up with the wrong boy could mean bruised ribs, black eyes, or worse.

In a town like Hawkins, a boy would just have to claim Eddie made a sexual advance and his murder could (would) be justified.

Now add the manhunt and being suspected of murderer to that. Well, Wayne's scared for Eddie's life almost every minute of his day.

But it's no excuse. Or if it is, it's a poor one.

Wayne doesn't know the full story but he does know that Steve was with the group of people on Eddie's side; that he was there with the Henderson kid, the Buckley girl, and Nancy Wheeler, digging Eddie out of the rubble from the earthquake, getting him to the hospital as fast as they could.

Steve Harrington was part of the group that saved Eddie's life, and that should have meant more to begin with. Instead, Wayne's been waiting for a shoe to drop that very well isn't coming.

He's going to fix this.

He'll give Eddie his space to be angry with him, and he'll try again in a few days.

When Wayne gets home, around 6:30am, Eddie's van is gone. He's not surprised. He probably left shortly after Wayne did, not leaving sooner just to avoid him.

There is a note on Wayne's bed when he makes it there. Says he's at Steve, and instead of letting Wayne know when he'll return it just says the words 'be back' followed by a bunch of questions marks. He ends it with 'call if worried' and leaves a phone number that must be for the Harrington residence.

Another hurt Wayne can't blame on anyone but himself.

Wednesday passes. Wayne eats breakfast, goes grocery shopping, pretends to care about his shows before sleeping the afternoon away to prepare for another graveyard. Eddie has not returned when he wakes, and two short hours later, he's off to work.

Eddie's van remains gone.

Returns from work Thursday morning and repeats Wednesday. He replaces grocery shopping with laundry and cleaning out the leftovers for trash day tomorrow morning. Goes to work.

Friday morning he returns home. No Eddie. He waits for it to be a more appropriate time, a little before 10:00am to call the number Eddie left.

It rings, rings, rings, then, a voice he hasn't heard in years. Richard Harrington's voice sounds as cold as it always was as the answering machine recites, "You've reached the Harrington's. We are not available. Leave a message."

"This is Wayne Munson. I just wanted to make sure Eddie's- that's he's alright. Let him know that I called. Checked on him. He doesn't need to call back but I'd appreciate it."

He hangs up the phone, lump in his throat. He misses his boy, and he wants to make his right, but he can't force that. Eddie has to always want to make it okay between them.

He's usually off Fridays, but he asked to pick up a shift. He can't face Linda without having fixed this. He spends the morning and afternoon doing all the small fixes he'd been putting off. Anything to keep him busy. He goes to sleep at his usual time, and wakes up two hours before his shift like normal.

Check's his answering machine but if anyone called while he was asleep, they didn't leave a message. There's still no van when he heads to work.

The plant tells him to leave an hour early. He tries to argue to stay but he's just waved off, told to go get some sleep because he's been looking a little worse for the wear.

He gets back to Forest Hills around 5:40am and finds there is another car parked at his home. Not Eddie's van, but the sleek maroon BMW that belongs to Steve Harrington parked where the van usually is.

When he pulls into his spot, the headlights of his truck light up Steve, sitting on his steps, wrapped in a coat. It can't be more than 50℉ outside right now.

Steve stands as Wayne cuts the engine and climbs from his truck. He gets to the front of his truck and Steve speaks.

"Eddie's okay," Steve says, hands shoving deep into his pockets, "I tried to get him to call you back yesterday but, well, you know Eddie."

Wayne nods, because he does know Eddie. "I appreciate you tellin' me. But you coulda just called."

"I could have."

They look at each other for a moment, and just as Steve opens his mouth, probably to tell Wayne he's going to go, Wayne speaks first, "you wanna come inside and have a cup of coffee to warm up?"

Steve tilts his head slightly to the left before he says, "are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Alright," and then Steve steps away from the stairs so Wayne can climb them and let them into the trailer. Steve follows behind silently but with familiarity. He's spent so much of his time here since spring break- the shame crawls through Wayne again. He'd assumed, once upon a time, that Eddie and Steve spent more time here than at Steve's because why would Steve want the trailer park boy in his big fancy house? Now, though, he wonders if it's because this place felt more like a home, even with Wayne's cold shoulder.

Steve sits at their little kitchen table, a luxury they didn't have before because there was no room in the single wide, one bedroom they'd had before. The new double wide (with three bedrooms) offered them a bit more space for a dining area.

Wayne's still suspicious of the government's offer to replace their destroyed home, but he wasn't foolish enough to deny the offer when it was made to him by Jim Hopper (newly returned from the dead back then).

"How do you take your coffee?" Wayne asks, once the machine finishes filling the carafe.

"Oh, I can fix it-"

"Nonsense," Wayne waves him back to sitting, "just tell me."

"I like it with just enough milk to take the scalding heat out of it," Steve says, and while Wayne's not sure just how much that it, he tries anyway.

He sets a cup in front of Steve before taking a seat across from him. "I really do appreciate that you came to tell me Eddie's okay. I want to give him his space but...."

Steve sips his coffee before shooting his cup a small smile. Wayne must have got the ratio right. Then, he looks to Wayne and the smile drops, a more serious expression taking its place and he says, "Eddie wouldn't really tell me what your fight was about, other than, uh, me and that you... overheard some of what I said last time I was here. I don't, like, want to come between you and Eddie, but I'm not, I'm not going to let you scare me away. So, just tell me what I have to do to get Eddie to believe we're cool, and I'll do it. Anything, except for getting out of Eddie's life. 'Cause I won't."

"I would never ask you to do that," Wayne says. Steve squints at him, a look of suspicion now. Completely warranted, given what Steve has known of Wayne thus far. "I owe you an apology, Steve. For how I've been treatin' you."

Steve's eyes go wide, "Oh. What? Why?"

"You've been nothin' but good to Eddie. For Eddie. And I refused to see that. I made a judgment about you without knowin' anything but your name." Steve let's out a soft 'oh' at that, but Wayne plows on, "And that weren't fair, and it weren't right. I can't undo it, but I want you to know I regret it. I'm sorry."

"Okay," Steve says, after a moment. "I forgive you."

It's Wayne's turn to be surprised. He's a bit speechless. So much so, he takes a page right out of Eddie's book and asks, "are you sure?" which is a question he's never asked after having an apology accepted before, but one Eddie had asked a lot when he first came to live with Wayne, and they were learning to co-exist.

"Yeah. I get it."

He doesn't like that answer. Doesn't like the he contributed to the mind set that gave Steve that answer. "You're allowed to be mad at me for it."

"I think Eddie's mad enough for both of us."

It doesn't feel like closure. It doesn't feel like forgiveness, but Wayne doesn't know what to say. He can't just start sprouting all the bad things he thought about Steve; there's no reason Steve should have to listen to that. But without hearing it, Steve doesn't even know what he's forgiving Wayne for. "I'll be honest with ya, Steve. It feels like you shouldn't."

Steve frowns at him. "Why?"

Why? Why? For all the reasons Eddie yelled at him, and all the things Linda said, and all the agony he's felt these last few days. The guilt and the shame that still eat at him, even as Steve Harrington says he forgives him. "It's too easy."

Those three words have Steve leaning back against the chair. His eyes dance around Wayne's face before taking in the whole of him. Or, what Steve can see of him with from across the table. When Steve meets his eye again, Wayne sees recognition there. "If you can't forgive yourself, I get that. I do. I-I've spent most of my life as one big apology. And I'm not saying that I, like, don't still feel like- what I mean to say, is that, I forgive you. I'm not, like, gonna hold it against you that you were just trying to look out for Eddie, man. Like, two years ago your fears would have been justified, so."

"Don't make it right," Wayne argues, but he doesn't know why.

"No," Steve agrees, "but I'm forgiving you anyway. You think you're the first person to hear the name Steve Harrington and assume you know everything you need to know about me already?"

Steve's words sound like they could be confrontational, but his tone is light. Teasing? Wayne says, "no. Suppose I'm not."

"Every person I love has done that," Steve says, and the ease of which he says that has Wayne feeling some sort of way. Eddie's words echo in his mind 'you made me help him feel that way'. How many other people have made him feel like he's a bad person? "Even- even Eddie. He made a point, during spring break, to, uh, well, he didn't apologize for anything because there was nothing to apologize about, but he made a point to tell me I was very 'metal' and a 'cool dude' so.... I know my name comes with, like, a shadow or a curse or whatever. I think it will for as long as I live in Hawkins, but that's," Steve flaps his hand in the air, as if that fills in for the word he can't find, and it's a move so reminiscent of Eddie. "Anyway, if you aren't actually, like, ready to accept an apology, you shouldn't be making one."

Wayne sits in that for a moment. There's a lot more to Steve Harrington than he'd ever thought. So much he doesn't know, actually, but he thinks he's okay with learning more. This boy told Eddie he was half-way in love with him earlier this week, and while Wayne never heard Eddie say it back, he knew anyway. It's why he was so protective. "You're pretty wise for your age."

Steve grins and shakes his head. "Nah, that last part was all Robin. She says it all the time to me."

"Well, then you best stop apologizing when you ain't ready to accept the forgiveness," Wayne parrots back the words.

Steve throws his head back and laughs.

They finish their coffee with silence and small talk. Steve tells him about how he never thought he'd miss his job at the video store but working at Melvald's is making him long for the days when the biggest complaint was late fees. Apparently, there's so many more things to complain about in retail.

Wayne talks about working at the plant and how the tasks are repetitive and a bit labor intensive, but the graveyard pay is worth it. Steve asks him a few more questions about working at the plant that Wayne's happy to answer and the more Steve asks, the more Wayne becomes aware that Steve might be looking for a change of occupation. He makes a mental note to put in a good word to Floyd, just in case.

Steve leaves with the promise of returning with Eddie, as soon as possible. As he was heading to the door, Wayne asked why he showed up so early.

"Eddie can't stop me if he's not awake," was Steve's answer, a mischievous grin on his face.

Wayne watches from the porch as Steve backs out. Steve shoots him one last little wave with his fingers before heading away.

He goes back inside and washes the dishes. Even dries and puts them away, a feat usually done once a week; he and Eddie have no qualms with using dishes directly from the dish drainer. His only other chore for the day is leaving for work a bit early so he has time to stop at the gas station and fill up the truck.

Grabbing the remote from its spot on the coffee table, Wayne plops onto the couch to spend his day as mindlessly as possible with some TV.

He goes to sleep at his usual time and wakes up at 7:43pm according to his alarm clock; a little over two hours before his shift is to start. It's time for more coffee, he thinks as he dresses for work before heading to the kitchen.

He jerks to a stop when he sees Eddie and Steve sitting on the couch, leaned close and talking softly. He's not about to repeat a past mistake, so he makes his presence known. "Evenin' boys."

Eddie pops up from the couch quick as lightning, taking a few steps towards Wayne before stopping. "I don't like being mad at you."

Wayne nods, "I don't much like you bein' mad at me, either. For what it's worth, I am sorry."

Eddie closes the distance between them, then, and pulls Wayne into a tight hug. Wayne returns it instantly, how can he not? He hears Eddie say, softly, "it's worth an awful lot, you terrible old man."

They part, and Eddie speaks first, "but if you ever pull shit like this again, I won't be so quick to forgive."

"I won't," Wayne says, at the same time Steve says, "he won't."

Both Munsons look at Steve, who grins back at them.

"You think you know my uncle that well already, from one shared cup of coffee?" Eddie asks, sounding amused.

Steve shrugs, "no. I just, uh, plan to stick around, y'know. Kinda hoping there's no dude after me for him to be an angry dad about. I would appreciate it, though, Mr. Munson, if you'd skip the shovel talk bit of all this?"

Eddie sucks in a breath and Wayne's a bit shocked by what Steve's implied. What Steve's admitted, really, out loud in front of another person. Wayne wonders if any boy Eddie's ever liked before would have done that.

"What good's a shove talk when you've already told me you ain't goin' anywhere?" Wayne says, hoping his tone is as light and teasing as he wants it to be.

"Glad we're on the same page," Steve agrees, "but, uhh, do you want me to go? So you can have a real talk?"

"No," says Eddie.

"No," says Wayne, at the same time.

"Oh. Okay. Uh, in that case, you got anything to drink here besides coffee?"

Wayne nods and they all pile into the kitchen to get a beverage before settling in the living room. There will be time to talk later, Wayne realizes. He's going to apologize properly.

Later, though, when he'll really be ready to accept Eddie's forgiveness, because there's no doubt Eddie'll forgive him. So, he's going to sit in the living room and chat with his boys until he has to go to work.

By the time Friday comes around again, he'll be able to tell Linda she was right, everything's going to be okay one day, and maybe ask her on a date he's been putting off asking for since high school.

Done!! I hope the ending is sufficiently cheesy.

I'm so sorry if I missed you! There were a lot of people asking to be tagged haha

@i-less-than-three-you @nburkhardt @afewproblems @skepsiss @unclewaynemunson @kaij-basil-lionelli88 @swimmingbirdrunningrock @mugloversonly @limpingpenguin @krazyperson @acrolius @salisbury-at-the-stake @littlebookworm86 @savedbytheirmusic @wxrmland @myownworstenemyyy @thelittleclare @awkotaco24 @djohawke @wrenisflying @croatoan-like-its-hot @actualwakingnightmare @krowepoison @jamieweasley13 @yourmom-isgay @irregular-child @oldwitcheshat @abstractnaturaldisaster @wishiwasacasualfan @vinteraltus @zerokrox-blog @warlordess @stevesbipanic @steveshairspray @slowandsteddie @samsoble @waelkyring @just-a-tiny-void @saramelaniemoon @halfadoginatank @nightmareglitter @scarletyeager @hellfireone @rovia2312 @munsonslure @a-little-unsteddie @soaringornithopter @eddiethehunted @starlight-archer @dryptid @inkjette

[tinytalkingtina]

Cool Whip

Rating M | WC 1330 | Ao3 link

Tags: getting together, first kiss, innuendo, bisexual steve and eddie, eddie speed-runs a sexuality crisis, inappropriate use of whipped cream, fast burn (these two have never gone slow in their lives), fade to black

Written for the STWG July 28 prompt "Oh. Oh."

Steve stared at Eddie in complete silence.

Eddie fidgeted under his gaze. “So. Perhaps. In this instance, giving into the gremlin that lives inside my head was not the best choice I could have made,” he said sheepishly.

“Really Edward. You don’t say.” Steve was still holding the incriminating weapon, had been since he confiscated it. Every so often he twirled it around in his hands.

“What if you uhhh, did it back to me? We’ll be even?” he offered. “Come on, it’s fine, I won’t even fight you on it!”

“Can’t do that because we’re at my house, not yours, and this was my last pair of clean pants and underwear. So, unless you want to walk around like Winnie the fucking Pooh for the rest of the night, maybe we don’t spray whipped cream down your jeans too.” 

Steve ran an agitated hand through his hair. “I’m going to go take a shower and wash this shit off of my junk now, ‘kay? Just put the ice cream back in the freezer, we can do a movie night together another time, I guess.” Disappointment was written all over his face. Oops, Eddie didn't realize how much he must have been looking forward to watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

As Steve turned around to go, Eddie knew he should let him. Unfortunately, Nosnum Eidde, the impulsive gremlin living in his brain, was still firmly in control.

“Wait, let’s not waste it. Let me clean you up!” He blurted out.

What?

“What?” Steve was staring again, this time with eyes wide in confusion.

“Let me…clean up the mess I made. On your body.”

“Eddie I really can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

It did sound like a joke didn’t it. But if it was a joke, why was the thought sending sparks of lighting along his spine. 

“I don’t. Don’t think I’m joking right now,” Eddie said slowly. “Give me a minute here.”

It wasn’t like his brain had a perfect track record when it let Nosnum have the wheel. Like those times it had told him that he could climb the tallest tree in the trailer park without getting stuck at the top, or point out how hypocritical O’Donnell was acting during class without getting detention. 

But it had also gotten things right on occasion. And with Steve standing so close, it was busy pointing out things Eddie hadn't thought about before: like for example, when Steve chewed on his lips in agitation, they became invitingly plump. And, despite the growing damp spot on the front, those jeans were still hugging Steve's ass perfectly. 

Perhaps most importantly, he wasn't rushing forward to punch Eddie's lights out for insinuating, well. He just stood there with a faint blush coloring his cheeks. In his house, a place currently unoccupied by anyone else, not even Robin. While wearing a shirt that was just on the wrong side of too tight with his hair coiffed for a night out and oh my G-d—

“Steve…was tonight supposed to be a date?” Eddie was shocked the question fell out of his mouth so steadily.

The blush on Steve's face grew darker. “I mean, sort of? Was getting mixed signals from you but—yeah.” He shrugged. “We haven’t been able to hang out one on one since I figured things out. Thought I’d see how tonight went before making a move.”

“Oh. You. You had a plan to seduce me.” Eddie wheezed a little. "You like me like that?"

“I uh, kind of put two and two together about a month ago. Had a really long talk with Robin, and turns out apparently normal men don't want to, you know, make out with their guy friends. Or imagine Harrison Ford holding a whip when he’s all sweaty and—wait, what about you, Mr. 'Propositioning My Friends To Use My Mouth?’ How long have you known?"

“About five minutes consciously.” Eddie said in a strangled voice. “Maybe ten if we consider what I did to your pants subliminal foreplay.”

Steve snorted. The gremlin in Eddie’s brain was convinced this made him even more attractive. Huh, maybe this had been going on for longer than he had realized, if a snort could set him off.

“Not really sure what submarines have to do with Cool Whip, but yeah we can probably count that. Welcome to the ‘part gay’ club man! You’re taking this really well, no offense.” Steve pat him on the back, the brief contact sending more sparks through his veins.

“Yeah, in 1985 I’d probably be doing something destructive right about now.” Eddie agreed. “But the me of 1987 can’t really muster up the energy for another panic attack after finding out about inter-dimensional portals or. You know. Everything else that happened.” Wow, real smooth Eddie, way to kill the mood of whatever fever dream was happening right now.

“Besides,” he tried for a joke. “1987 Eddie has a high school diploma. My brain’s so full of facts there’s no more room for anything else unless we shove it into my mouth and—“ His eyes widened as he caught up with what he was saying. He ducked to hide behind his hair. “Uh, what I mean was, um. Yeah I’ve got nothing to say for that.”

Steve gave another adorable snort and walked closer. “We may have to work our way up to that one, but maybe I could give your mouth something else to put its lips around instead?”

“Dude that doesn’t even—what, do you want me to vacuum seal your mouth with mine? How would we, wait, please tell me that isn’t the secret move you pulled that had all the cheerleaders in school losing their minds over?” Eddie squeaked out.

Steve blushed again even as he laughed. “First of all I only ever actually dated like, three people in high school, I wasn’t as big a slut as rumors made me out to be. And okay that might have sounded better in my head, but in my defense I kind of can’t think of anything but kissing you right now.”

Eddie rapidly nodded his head. “Yes, that’s. We should do that. Please.” After a slight roadblock in which both of them on autopilot tried to take the lead and grab the other’s face, they finally managed to actually press their lips against each other.

And oh. Oh. 

Look, this was far from Eddie’s first kiss. But this was the first time someone still wanted to kiss after seeing him eat eggs with maple syrup on them. Or who knew he secretly slept with his childhood stuffed animal. Because Steve wasn’t angling to get cheaper weed, or trying to get back at his parents by having Eddie knock on the door in his ripped jeans for a date.

Steve knew Eddie’s whole sordid history, and kissed him anyway, holy shit.

The kiss itself was short and relatively chaste. But after they stopped, Steve didn’t immediately lean out of Eddie’s space. Instead he gave the tip of Eddie’s nose a quick peck before resting their foreheads together. A giggle bubbled up out of Eddie’s chest.

Steve rapped his knuckles on Eddie’s head. “Everything okay up there?”

“You like me. Steeeeve Harringtonnn likes me!” Steve smiled softly at him as he cupped Eddie’s cheek in his palm.

“Yeah, I do, you big dork. And I’d love to continue this, but because someone sprayed whipped cream onto my junk, I need to go shower it off before it gets even crunchier because wow, this is uncomfortable.”

Now it was Eddie’s turn to blush. “Sorry about that again. But if you want maybe uh, maybe I could join you and actually help clean it off?”

Steve smirked. “I think we can work something out, yeah. Come on.”

Running up the stairs while Steve tightly held his hand, Eddie decided that perhaps this time, his brain might have had the right idea after all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that evening:

Eddie: "Wait, I was flirting with you the entire Spring Break from hell wasn't I."

Steve: "That was point #1 on Robin's 'Eddie is into you' list."

Eddie: "In hindsight this does explain why she kept saying I could be myself around her last week. I used the opportunity to give her a 2 hour long intro to metal music lesson."

Steve: "Yeah, she said I still owe her for that."

@augustjustice @stellarspecter Come get your fast burn Steddie!

[flowercrowngods]

based on an idea i had about steve getting a bad migraine from the sudden bloodloss after kas feeds from him

post-canon, steddie don't like each other, hermit kas, depressed brain injury steve, kinda gloomy, anxiety & compulsions

Steve cuts the engine with a sigh, feeling heavy and alien, like a lone survivor in a ghost town. He’s not a lone survivor, and Hawkins isn’t technically a ghost town because there’s still enough of them here to build it back up or to watch it crumble and cave in on itself, front row seats to the fourth wave of destruction. 

Maybe the real ghost is Steve, actually, floating through his days just waiting for his brain to decide it’s had enough. Just waiting for the perpetual ringing in his ears to rise in pitch and frequency and for his skull to fucking crack open from the never ending waves of the never ending buzz.

Robin asks him about it a lot, notices how he will stop and listen to his body on every inhale that feels slightly wrong, or every movement that’s just a little too fast or just a little too sudden, the blood rushing into his head or out of it, the doctor’s words ringing in tune with the tinnitus: You watch that head of yours, young man, and do not hesitate to call emergency services when the headache won’t stop after a few hours, or when anything feels off, you hear me? 

The truth is, he barely heard him then. Blood was roaring in his ears, the tinnitus still quiet, but his hearing still dull from impact and screams and shock wave after shock wave of the world sewing itself back together. 

He sighs again, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel and trying to catch his breath. Taking stock of his head, the heartbeat he can only feel in his hands right now and nowhere near his temples, and the quiet little tap tap tap of his finger nails hitting the leather, wanting to make sure he can hear it. Wanting to make sure he doesn’t imagine the sound. 

Always fucking needing to make sure. 

Soon, he breathes a little steadier, convincing himself that getting out of the car won’t be the last thing he’ll ever do. It’s so stupid, too, that fear, all that anxiety living inside him just waiting to boil and spill over until he does something stupid just to spite it.

The cool breeze hits his face, working in tandem with his calming breaths to alleviate his obsessive thought spirals, and he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he does nothing but breathe for a minute there. 

He’s up. He’s standing. He can walk through the forest to the vamp’s hiding place, it’s fine. It’s fine. Although standing so suddenly makes him aware that he hasn’t eaten much today, too busy hating everything about this town and helping to rebuild it anyway. 

Forgetting to eat and drink is another thing that’s new to him. There’s quite a few things he forgets a lot, but those are the worst. Robin is always on his ass about that, but at some point he stopped telling her. It feels like he’s stopped telling her a lot of things. Maybe that’s something else that comes with severe brain injury, young man. 

He feels plenty guilty about it at least — but not enough to tell her about all the horrible things that are happening to him, or the horrible things he thinks are happening to him. The Upside Down is gone, Vecna is dead. These bad thoughts, they’re all him. But knowing that doesn’t fucking help.

Pushing away from the car and turning around to lock it, Steve decides to wallow in self pity no longer and to just get on with it. As much as he hates it. As much as part of him wants to just go home and claim that he forgot about that, too. 

It’s no secret that Steve never liked Eddie. The boy’s a hypocrite, he’s loud, he’s annoying, and he just likes to shame people as publicly as possible, spitting proclamations of conformity and sticking it to the Man while at the same time turning anarchy into despotism under the guise of rebellion — and he’s the dictator. 

Or, he was. And Steve never cared about him or his larger than life attitude that was worse than any of the smiles Steve ever wore to fit in in high school. Steve mostly ever just wanted Munson to shut up and eat his lunch, stop pretending he’s better than any of them just because he liked different things.

Although it wasn’t even about liking other things, it was only ever about disliking. And shaming and denouncing. Steve always wondered what kind of a miserable life that dude must have lived, shaping himself not from what he liked but from what he hated. Creating an identity that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth because it was so fragile and contradictory and, frankly, so fucking annoying. 

Still, he’d never wished for Munson to get involved in all of this. He’d never wished for the man to die. And then to come back only to be turned into some kind of vampire, doomed to live an even worse existence than he did as a human, hidden away in some shabby cabin. 

Steve feels a little bad for him now. For Eddie. Or Kas, as the kids like to call him because he never reacts to his name anymore, more monster than human these days, although Dustin is sure they can domesticate him into becoming his old self again. 

“Like Dart, remember?”

“Dude, don’t compare our friend to your sick little creature.” That was Lucas, affronted and annoyed. Steve could relate, although… 

“You gotta admit, he’s kind of a sick little creature himself now.” 

“Steve!” they’d both yelled, and Steve just playfully shoved their heads back before going to grab a coke from the fridge.

And Kas, because vampires are apparently a thing even after the end of the world, needs blood to survive. The forests are void of animals most of the time, like nature has decided to give Hawkins an ultimatum before returning and the day hasn’t come yet. Maybe it’s something to do with electromagnetic fields, or maybe it was something else entirely leading them all to safety while Hawkins was turned into a war zone. Either way, there is nothing for him to feed here. 

Kas can’t just stalk around the woods at night and drink up a deer or two. Nor can he go rob the blood bank at the hospital, they’re running low as it is anyway. That left them all with only one option that Mike so disgustedly pointed out back then: Kas needs their blood. And Steve feels just bad enough for him to play along. 

So now he is out here playing blood bank for the monstrous version of a guy he never even liked, and his hometown is in shambles, and his head might actually sign the fuck off at any moment now, apparently. 

Things are going great. 

Saving the world is just… really fucking isolating. 

Still he has no choice but to announce his presence with a firm knock on the door, the pattern easy but memorable. 

“This is Steve,” he adds as his hand falls to his side, waiting. 

Kas always takes a while to come out and open the door, hiding away from any noise like a feral cat. Steve can kind of relate — he and Kas don’t have the best relationship either. He has no idea how sudden vampirism works, but just like feral cats will be able to tell when someone wants to hurt them and when instincts should be kicking in, Kas seems to realise how little Steve wants to be here and help him. How little he wants to have his blood sucked out of his body leaving his limbs to feel numb and uncomfortably tingly. 

Eventually, though, the door opens with a creek, just enough for a pair of eyes — too large, too wide, too wild — blink back at him. Steve just lifts his eyebrows, really kind of not in the mood to deal with this barely human vampire and his absolute lack of learning curve about this situation.

When he’s sure Kas has blinked at him for long enough now, he pushes open the door and shoves inside rather roughly, immediately feeling bad when he hears the slight whimper. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, stuffing his hands into his pockets again and trying not to grimace at the stale, disgusting air in the cabin. “Jeez, you really gotta open a window every once in a while. Thought vamps were supposed to have heightened senses or some shit.” 

Kas growls at him, mirroring Steve’s move and shoving past him this time, his shoulder slamming into Steve’s with painful strength. Glowering at the stupid vampire, he rubs at his shoulder before crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

“Listen, buddy, I can just leave and have you deal with your hunger, okay? No big deal for me, I even get to keep my blood.” 

Kas snaps at him, showing his fangs and crossing his arms, too; a laughable copy of Steve’s own stance. 

“Or you could just cut the crap and get on with it so I actually can leave again without taking shit from the peanut gallery. Your choice.” 

The huff that follows is so indignant, Steve wonders if that could be what gets Kas out of Munson’s body and let the human win over the monster. Maybe indignation and annoyance is what will break the spell eventually, lift the curse just enough for Munson to get back into his old habit of monologising and spouting nonsense out of that big mouth of his. 

Steve is half tempted to try, but he really does want to just go home and lie on his large couch with no sensory input whatsoever, tuning out the world and his anxieties that might be about to turn into compulsions just for him to gain a little control over everything again. So he squares his shoulders and takes off his jacket before tilting his head to the side, allowing Kas full access to his neck. 

It’s always a little scary but still oddly fascinating, filling him with that same rush that came with witnessing all the supernatural shit over the past few years. Kas is the last remnant of all that, and somehow, buried beneath piles of rubble and trauma and the teenager he had to give up on being, Steve feels weirdly protective of that. 

Not of Eddie. Of Kas. Of the monster that lies dormant. Of the last bit of danger in his life, because he doesn’t know how to live without it anymore — so much so that he has to make it up.

Maybe it’s a symptom of his self destructive tendencies, as Robin would call it. But Steve might be as fascinated with the vampire as Robin is with fire; so she doesn’t get to have a say in this.

There is always a strange intimacy in the way Kas approaches him. Slowly, carefully. Like a hunter his prey. Steve doesn’t feel like prey, not really, but a part of him wants to. A part of him needs to be prey again, if only for those instincts that manifest with a perpetual tremor and a restless feeling in his chest to be of use again. If only so he can have a point again. Something to fight that’s outside oh his own head. 

Now, his point is standing still entirely and feeling those chapped but warm lips trail up and down his throat a little before Kas finds the right spot that won’t really hurt Steve, the right spot that will make it all go by quickly and without any hiccups. 

Still he shivers, like always, and Kas holds him close when he finally bites down. Like always. 

He stands motionless as he feels his blood flow alternating, rushing in his ears and his head, his heart thump-thump-thumping, putting up a fight against the strange intrusion. He hardly even breathes at all, focusing instead on his body and burying his finger nails in his palm for five seconds before releasing his hands and repeating the process three times before he gets it right. 

But then his head is pulsing, his heartbeat slowing down as his vision briefly blacks out in the same way it does when he gets up too quickly, and his heart falls. It’s too much. Too sudden. 

“Kas,” he says, but the vampire doesn’t hear him, drinking more and more of the blood that must be so thick with how little he’s had to drink today — something he only just remembered. “Kas,” he says again, more urgently this time; but still the vampire drinks. 

And where before Steve had a clear vision of the door in the dark room — the light of day streaming in through the cracks and framing it almost mystically —, it’s spotty now. Just slightly off. Like something is missing but his brain is working overtime to complete the picture anyway, reducing the blind spot to merely an illusion. But Steve knows what’s happening. He knows what the sudden pulsating of his head means, especially when it’s followed by his vision just going AWOL on him.

No, he thinks as the situation really settles in, and he begins to push Kas away. Not like it matters anyway now; the damage is done. No, no, no, no, fuck! 

He frantically shoves at the vampire now, blinking against the blind spot even though he’s painfully aware it won’t help. Kas breaks away from him, wiping his mouth and smearing his face and the back of his hand with Steve’s blood. If he looks just right, he can’t even fucking see it. 

Heart falling further, Steve buries his hands in his hair and pulls, hoping that by some kind of miracle he can just pull the migraine out of his head before it can really settle. It’s his only chance. He can’t drive like this, he shouldn’t walk like this, and soon he won’t be able to do anything at all. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” be hisses, hearing the edge of desperation in his own voice and caring very little about that right now. 

Kas is on him again in a second, and Steve waves him off, tries to shove him away but the vampire is stronger and persistent. 

A high keening sound builds in Kas’s chest, and Steve knows he doesn’t really speak, doesn’t really use his words, ever — maybe he doesn’t know how. But the keening sounds more like a whine, and the way he pulls at Steve to look at him is as much an indicator of worry as he’s going to get.

But Steve doesn’t want Kas’s hands on him, wants to just get out and away before the pain comes. So he takes another step back and holds up his hands, hoping that the vampire will just fucking take a hint. 

A little too quickly and a little too frantic, Steve shakes his head, his eyes flitting about the room to see if there’s still pieces of it missing or if phase two is about to start. He has about twenty minutes left before his body will be composed of nothing but skull-splitting pain that is only equal to someone ramming actual nails into his head — and even that would be preferable right noe, because at least that pain he wouldn’t need to explain. Or justify.

Another keening sound interrupts Steve's burgeoning spiral, and his eyes land on Kas, who really looks like a kicked puppy right now. 

"I gotta go," he says, voice a little unsteady with apprehension and panic, but just as he's about to rush out of the cabin, Kas crosses his path and won't let him move. 

A strong hand lands on his chest, and Steve really, really doesn't want to deal with that right now. He tries again, tries with more force to sidestep and push past him, but Kas won't let him budge. 

"Let me go." But Kas doesn't let up. "Kas. Please. You gotta let me go, I gotta get home, I—“ 

The first flash of white in his peripheral vision catches him off guard, moving his focus away from the clawed hand on his chest and toward the flickering line that cuts through the left side of his vision right now. 

Curious or worried or maybe just really fucking stupefied at having Steve act so weirdly, Kas inclines his head and ducks to catch Steve's eyes. 

"Move," Steve says again, as assertive as he can manage with his brain and body scattered between following the flickering lights that are invisible to everyone else and the pain that is about to consume him, leaving him incapacitated for several hours at least.

Instead of moving out of Steve's space and allowing him to leave, Kas shoves him backwards with that superhuman strength he has now, forcing Steve to stumble back helplessly. Fear rises in him again, and it's a different flavour this time that mixes horribly well with the anxiety and apprehension and all the waves and waves of blinding panic he feels out of nowhere almost all the time now. 

His knees buckle when they hit something rather violently, and then he's falling, landing on the worn couch with a breathless gasp, his instincts running wild. He needs to fight, he needs to run, he needs to get home and be safe and get the fuck away from this monster who won't let him go now. Steve doesn't know Kas as someone who will just take what he wants, but, well, he is Munson, in a way. So that tracks. 

But instead of attacking him, instead of going for his neck again and sucking the rest of his blood, instead of beating Steve to a pulp to keep him pliant and unmoving and turn him into some sort of personal livestock, Kas just... sits down next to him. Hands in his lap. Worried look trained on Steve, who needs to catch his breath and calm down.

"Hurt." 

It startles Steve. Kas has never spoken to him. But what’s more, Steve shouldn't be that obvious. He doesn't want to be that obvious, especially about hurting and being hurt. 

So he shakes his head, his hands coming up to press into his eyes, hoping to get rid of the flickering lights even though he knows that once they stop, the pain will come; and it will come badly. 

"'M not hurt," he says, lying through his teeth and the heel of his hand. "I just gotta go home." 

"Hurt," Kas says again, and it's more assertive this time, less of a question. Like he's telling Steve rather than asking. Like he's making him understand. 

He reminds Steve a little of Robin in that regard, and he almost has to smile. He would, too, if he wasn't so aware that it would become a horrible grimace, wavering and pale even by vampire hermit standards. 

So he sighs instead, letting his hands fall into his lap and wringing his fingers. There are about ten, maybe fifteen minutes left. Not enough to get anywhere safe on foot, and he sure as hell ain't driving when his vision is halfway through its rendition of a TV without signal, zig-zagging in white and red and green, flickering and flaring and leaving him a little disoriented even when all he's doing is sitting on that dusty old couch. 

"Hurt," Kas repeats for the third time, and Steve tenses, ready to snap at him to shut up, that he's not hurt yet but will be any minute now and that Kas should really just shut the fuck up and leave himself if he won't let Steve go anywhere. 

But looking at those wide eyes, he doesn't snap. He deflates. His shoulders fall and his eyes close, which only makes the flickers worse, he feels.

“I’m… I’m gonna have a migraine," he sighs, letting that hang in the air between them, letting the words take up the whole room and suffocate him while he knows that they won't touch Kas. That he won't understand. Nobody does. 

It's just a headache, Steve, get over it. 

They leave a bitter taste in his mouth, and he's just waiting for the huff to come. 

But it doesn't come. Instead, Kas just keeps looking at him; same worried expression, same unobtrusive posture, same everything. Right. He probably doesn't know jackshit about what that's supposed to mean. 

So Steve explains. “I, well. I kinda can't really see right now, but that'll pass. That's when the pain comes. I won't want to move. No light. No noise. No nothing. And all I can do about it is wait it out, which is why I need you to let me leave..." 

It's one of those moments where he hates that he's the only one of their group with a license; that he can't just radio with a code red and have someone come get him no questions asked. 

"I just wanna go home, man," he sighs, hating his voice for the weak whine around the edges. 

A beat passes between them, and Steve pretends like he's not counting the seconds. Like he doesn't notice that the flickering zigzag line is getting smaller and dimmer, and that agony is imminent. 

"Here," Kas says then, and somehow it's both an offer and a command. "You. Here."

Steve blinks, the words not really translating through the tired fog of his brain. 

"Huh? Sorry, uh, what?" 

"You," Kas says, shuffling closer to him, like that sort of helps him translate what it is he wants to say. 

"Me." 

Kas nods, then motions around the room and pats the couch cushion, releasing a cloud of dust from it. "Here."

“You—“ Steve frowns. "You want me to stay here?"

The nod is decisive and in another world Steve would have called it eager, with the way Kas is shuffling on the spot. 

"Kas," Steve sighs, rubbing his face, not quite sure how to make the vampire explain that it's gonna be bad. Really, really bad. The flickering shimmer is already waning, and phantom pains are already setting in, settling along his skull like little pinpricks of warning. 

A clawed hand reaches for his wrist, making Steve flinch away, but Kas doesn't hurt him. He pulls Steve’s hand away from his face almost gently, slowly, and makes sure Steve looks at him. 

"Safe." And he looks so genuine about it. He looks like he knows what that word means. "Safe." 

With a sigh, Steve accepts his fate. Kas isn't gonna let him go anytime soon, and at this point Steve really doesn't want to face the gloomy weather outside, stuck as it is somewhere between drizzle and downpour and so endlessly grey for days. 

Still he feels pathetic about it. Vulnerable. Exposed. Like a last bastion falling, the castle walls crumbling, the fragile house of cards finally falling, because suddenly this agony isn't something he keeps only to himself. 

Even if it's only Kas who witnesses it. Kas, who’s endured worse than that, Steve knows. Brainwashing, manipulation, the agony of shaping human into vampire so excruciating his mind has gone into hiding still. 

"Okay," Steve breathes at last, pretending that his voice didn't break on that single word. "Okay."

Kas hums, the sound resembling more a gurgle than anything else, and before Steve knows what's happening, cold hands are pulling him up and off the couch. 

"Jesus," he mumbles, barely catching his footing and pulling away from Kas's grasp, but following nonetheless, not even thinking about fleeing now. "I'm coming, I'm coming, man, don't touch me." 

Miraculously, Kas does stay away, walking just one step ahead of Steve, turning towards him every two steps to make sure he's still following. It reminds Steve of a mama duck herding her ducklings across the street and making sure they're all still there. It's weirdly endearing. 

"Why do you even care?" 

He doesn't get an answer, but that's no surprise, and he doesn't really mind either. It was more about wondering, about putting that question out there and letting it take up space for future contemplation. 

Kas leads him to an adjoining room, the north-facing windows all barred shut, ripped and moth-eaten curtains drawn to block out the last of the light. Right. Fitting, for a vampire's lair. 

The bed in the middle of the far wall is surprisingly large, though, and looks surprisingly soft. It's unmade, but that's just as well. There are no belongings in the room otherwis that Steve can make out, the framed pictures on the wall look as dusty as the rest of the cabin, so they can't belong to Kas. Or maybe he likes them enough to keep them, to claim them as his own now. 

It’s a heartbreaking thought. 

Stupidly and out of nowhere, Steve wonders if he could take care of this cabin. Dust it and clean it and only fill it with things Kas likes. Maybe things Munson used to like — surely the kids would know how to go about that. Or Wayne. 

He's about to ask; about the pictures, about the stuff, about Wayne — if he's been around lately, if he's still telling stories to bring back the dormant Eddie parts of his modified and manipulated mind.

But just as he's about to turn to the vampire and ask, the blinding flickers disappear from his field of vision in the dark room, and within seconds something inside his skull bursts, leaving his body awash with pain that nearly has his knees buckling. A whimper escapes him that he tries to steer into a groan, but then his hands are flying to his head and he stops caring about how he expresses this immediate agony to the world. 

Kas is on him again with a whimper, suddenly just as fucking tactile as his once-human form. 

“Don’t touch me,” Steve rasps, wrenching himself free from the gasp once more. He really wishes Kas would stop touching him. "You want me to lie down here, yeah? Take your bed?" 

Kas nods again, looking at Steve with those wide eyes that seem to glow in the dark — or maybe that's his migraine-addled mind seeing things where they aren't, making up for the blind spot and the flickering. 

Steve looks away, the motion hurting his entire face, and he closes his eyes as pins and needles are moving along the inside of his face, pricking up against the skin but never breaking through. 

"Right then," he whispers, his voice barely audible and still too loud, making his ears click and pressure collect around them, making him wonder if they're going to burst. "'M gonna lie down." 

Struggling with the heavy blanket, Steve is close to giving up and just lying on top of it, but Kas is quick to help him once he realises that Steve needs it. He pulls back the blanket, still looking so damn stricken about everything, like he's genuinely worried about Steve. It doesn't make sense. 

He doesn't have the strength for a Thanks or even a smile, but he nods just once, just barely, before sluggishly falling onto the bed and fumbling with the blanket once more. Every movement hurts. Every twitch of a muscle is too much, and just moving his pinkie is enough to douse his body in never-ending pain that travels from his skull all the way down.

Something Steve has always wondered is why migraines make his body shut down like that, leaving him in a state where all he can do is lie down and fall into a near-catatonic limbo until the pain has lifted enough to face the rest of the world again. Fighting inter-dimensional monsters and posing as a feast to demonic, modified monster bats was also agony. It also made him lose his footing and almost pass out from blood loss and pain, his back scratched open completely where the bats dragged him across rough stone. 

Migraine pains don't really compare to those, though, and it scares him. Because he knows that's all up in his brain. His fucked up, mangled, thrice-concussed fucking brain he never got cared for because the government goons never took them seriously. Never took him seriously. 

And now here he is, lying in a stranger's bed in a pitch-black room that's still somehow too bright, unmoving, too weak to even pull up the blanket, and hoping to pass out from it all. Hoping he won't hallucinate again this time. Hoping that he won't throw up this time, his body convulsing because it knows it shouldn't be feeling like this. 

Throwing up from pain. There's really nothing more fucked up than that. Or, there is. Throwing up from pain and begging an invisible man to make it stop, only to realise hours later that the most painful migraines can also make you hallucinate. 

He doesn't want that. He doesn't want any of that ever again, and certainly not in a strange, dark cabin with a vampire forged from a human he never even liked. 

Tears spring to his eyes, but they're not the kind that'll fall and bring relief. They just stay in the corners of his eyes, his only way to express the waves and flares of pain washing over him, wishing he could just pass out now. 

Kas tucks him in. Steve didn’t know he could do that. It strikes him as extremely non-vampiric even in this state he’s in. Steve doesn’t react, doesn’t so much as blink his eyes open as the pain travels up to his hairline and settles there, flaring over his forehead to his eyes and down to his cheekbones and then up again, a never-ending motion that he never stands a chance to get used to. 

“Safe,” Kas says again, and it zings through Steve’s body with violent force that doesn’t match at all with the gentle tone he’s using. 

Scrunching his forehead to stave off more words, Steve hopes that Kas will take the hint and know to shut up. 

But he has no such luck. 

“Here.” 

“Shhh.” He shakes his head minutely, shushing the vampire with a barely there noise, keeping the damage to a minimal amount. “You can go,” he slurs, trying not to speak at all. “Please.” 

A beat of blessed, blissful silence, before there’s shuffling again. Kas does walk to the door, but then stops in the doorway. Steve doesn’t want to look. 

“No.” Kas sounds surprised about it. Mystified. Like he wants to leave but can’t. 

What?

“Stay. Here.” 

Whatever you do, just please be quiet about it, Steve thinks desperately. Instead of saying any of that, he shushes him again, hoping that the thump he hears means that Kas is sitting on the floor now. Though he doesn’t understand why. 

Why do you even care? 

“Safe,” Kas says again, whispering the word into the room, and it doesn’t zing through Steve this time. 

With Kas refusing to leave and his pathetic state of existence so blatantly on display, and with waves and waves as his nerves fire signals to his overworked and tired brain, more tears sprint to his eyes. And this time they fall. Silently, and without a sob, without even a sniffle of acknowledgment. But they fall. 

And Steve just wants to go home.

🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @stobin-cryptid @hotluncheddie @gutterflower77 @auroraplume @steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important @stevesjockstrap @brainvines @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround @hammity-hammer (lmk if you want on or off, for this story or permanently)

part 2 here

[munson-blurbs]

Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: Apologies were in order when Eddie's true whereabouts were revealed, but would a rainy evening bring forgiveness or an even harsher storm? (4.6k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, misunderstanding, anxiety, self-deprication, parental conflict, poverty, jealousy, brief touching, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

chapter eight: mind your own business

A simple conversation changed everything.

Admittedly, it was not your conversation, but one you had eavesdropped on. 

You had turned in the final exam for your Experimental Psych class, ruminating over any possible wrong answers as soon as your paper touched the pile on your professor’s desk. Did you get an abnormal amount of Cs in the multiple-choice section? Were your short answers detailed enough?

And then you overheard two guys talking in the hall, one sounding like he’d just chain-smoked a carton of cigarettes. 

“Dude, what the fuck happened to your voice?”

“Lost it at a concert the other night. Totally worth it, though.”

“What concert?”

“Death’s Echo.”

You froze, hoping your sudden stop didn’t draw any attention to you. Death’s Echo had a concert? Where was it? Is that where Eddie was on Monday night?

Potential exam mistakes forgotten, you strode over to the guys on a quest for information. “Excuse me.” Your lips curved into your best customer service smile. “Did you say you saw Death’s Echo?”

The hoarse-voiced one nodded. “Yeah, why? You like them?” His eyes narrowed in assessment; you clearly didn’t embody his expectations of a punk music fan. A fair enough judgment, because you certainly weren’t. 

“Where did they play?” You pressed, ignoring his question. 

“Webster Hall,” he coughed, and his buddy laughed at his apparent pain. “You listen to them?”

“Yup,” you lied easily, not wanting to stick around and have him find out why a “fan” didn’t even know about a local gig. “Um, feel better!” You hurried out of the building, head spinning with this newfound knowledge. 

Webster Hall. It was just over an hour to get there, which meant that the concert must have started late; a practice not unheard of for more up-and-coming bands. The prime time slots went to the headliners who brought in the most money. 

If Eddie had gone to the concert on Monday, why wouldn’t he tell you? Did he think you’d be angry? Disappointed?

Or maybe he just didn’t want you to know he was blowing off work for a concert, you reasoned, and your opinion beyond that is irrelevant. 

Should you ask him about it tonight? Could you? He might hole himself up in his room, ignoring your knocks and only coming out after your shift.

Maybe that was for the best. 

His harsh words from last night continued rattling around your brain, barely taking a reprieve during the test. Honestly, you were grateful you wrote down actual psychological terminology instead of I am a total hypocrite over and over until self-deprecation filled the pages. 

Tomorrow was your last official day of your undergraduate career, your own personal deadline for confessing the truth to your parents, and yet you were no closer to being ready than you were when you first made that silent promise. 

The problem spun a web woven from neurons and synapses, its delicate threads slowly taking over your mind and catching the most daunting tasks. 

NYU Essay revisions Graduation The motel Eisen’s Eddie

Too much. It was all too much, but you couldn’t shake them from their entrapment. You wanted to squeeze your eyes shut and only open them once everything had been resolved. 

You had a fleeting thought of boarding the bus and remaining seated as it rolled past the motel, leaving it all behind and reclaiming your sanity. Running away was always an option, in theory; realistically, you would be overwrought with guilt before the bus made it to the next stop. 

What you’d once considered loyalty was now stained with splotches of cowardice. 

Maybe one day, you would be able to see yourself the way you wanted to be seen: as a trailblazer, a go-getter, a woman in pursuit of her dreams. 

Today was not that day. 

Rain streamed down from the clouds in thick sheets as though compensating for the week’s idle threats of stormy weather. It pelted against the motel’s windows like a steady drumbeat that wouldn’t be drowned out by your clock radio cranked up to its maximum volume. 

Darkness loomed in the night sky, heavier than usual. Wind accompanied the rain, jostling the power lines and making the lights flicker. 

If the electricity went out tonight…

You couldn’t finish that thought, not when the front door swung open to reveal Eddie, drenched from head to toe. His curls clung to his forehead, his cheeks, the back and sides of his neck; his chest heaved beneath a faded Black Sabbath t-shirt that was saturated with rainwater. 

He stood in the doorway for a moment, unmoving and catching his breath. 

This was your chance to apologize. To admit what you know—what you might know. The timing of the Death’s Echo concert could have been a coincidence, but your intuition told you it wasn’t. 

Another awkward smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a tentative “hey,” and he was trudging past you without attempting to stop.

Opportunity went as quickly as it came. Every word you had planned had been scrambled like a tornado swept through your brain and left gibberish-laden debris. 

The version of you that had confidently confronted him about smoking pot a few weeks ago would have scoffed at the way you failed to utter a simple apology. But this was much more complex. 

Eddie’s forgiveness—if he forgave you—was only half of the battle. His blatantly false accusations about your work ethic had cut too deep to ignore. 

Did he really think that little of you? Or was that his own defensiveness rearing its ugly head and taking over?

Then came a cry from down the hall.

“Of fuckin’ course!” Eddie boomed loud enough to be heard beyond his closed door. “Goddammit!”

You abandoned the desk, grabbing your essay papers and bolting to his room. He was at the window, violently pushing down on the pane, but it remained open. The shirt he’d been wearing earlier laid right next to the door as though he’d peeled it off as soon as he stepped into the room. 

Your eyes landed on the dusting of hair that was now plastered to his pecs, another effect from the weather, the soft brown tendrils partially obscured by his demon head tattoo. 

This wasn’t the first time you’d seen him bare-chested. The night he had arrived, he answered your knock in only his Calvin Klein boxers. He was wearing Fruit of the Loom tonight, the elastic waistband exposed from the weight of his rain-sodden jeans. 

Heat burned in your belly, a sensation you hadn’t experienced in a long while. 

“Little help?” Eddie grunted impatiently, and you nodded, tossing the essay onto his nightstand among a sea of his own handwritten papers. 

Had he caught you staring? 

He moved over, bringing both of his hands to the right side so you could press both of yours to the left. The combined force was enough to smack it closed, the resulting burst of wind sending the papers airborne. They floated to the ground, paragraph-laden parachutes, but all you could focus on was the patch of carpet beneath you. It was completely soaked, visibly darker where the rain had seeped in, and it squelched under your sneakers.

“I’ll grab towels.” You started towards the door, pausing to scoop up a sheet of looseleaf that had landed near your feet. It was obviously Eddie’s; his was not as meticulously curated as yours, full of scratch-outs and barely legible, but the words you could make out were enough to pique your interest.

Want what I can’t have

She’s got me mixed fucked mixed up

You couldn’t read any more of it without him noticing, and you certainly did not want to get caught snooping after upsetting him, so you placed it on the bed as casually as you could.

There were extra towels stored in the supply closet, and you jogged back to the lobby, mentally calculating how many you’d need to sop up the mess. Taking as many as you could carry, you perched your chin atop the oversized pile and lumbered into Eddie’s room, dropping them to the ground. 

To your dismay, he had put on a new shirt, but it did nothing to temper your thoughts of running your fingertips over his inked skin. 

The air was now rife with the scent of burning tobacco, the cigarette between Eddie’s lips already smoked halfway to the filter.

“Thanks.” It was muffled and gruff, hardly an olive branch, but it was enough to tug the corners of your mouth in a tepid smile.

You wanted to stay, wanted to ask about what he had been writing, but Eddie snatched up your essay papers from where they’d scattered before you could ask. He shoved them towards you, leaving the edges creased where they crinkled under his grip. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t vandalize them,” he sneered. A gray cloud whorled from his lips as he spoke, but it didn’t hide his sarcastic grin. 

You steeled your gaze and forced yourself to look just above the glowing ember and into his eyes. “I’m sorry.” You let your apology float downwards, watching for any indication of a softening expression, but he remained tense. 

“You didn’t even bother asking where I was,” he spit. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, less abrasive this time. “I assumed...because you were so mean to Ben…” Any further explanation felt too much like an excuse, so you left the sentence unfinished.

Eddie’s chest deflated slightly, his bravado extinguished. He’d been expecting a fight, you realized. 

You refused to give him one. 

“Were you at Webster Hall?” Your voice deliberately turned up at the end, careful to pose it as a question rather than a declaration. Certainly not as an accusation. 

Eddie flinched, his forefinger and thumb quickly pinching his cigarette to keep it from falling. “What?”

“Monday night,” you said. You pushed your right foot into the mound of towels, hit with a sudden bout of antsiness. “Was your errand seeing Death’s Echo play at Webster Hall?”

He said nothing, just looked at you. Really looked at you, assessing whether or not you deserved to know the truth. 

The admission came out gradually, as if it was being met with resistance, pulled from a place so deep he had forgotten its existence. 

“Yeah.” 

“Why?”

Eddie took another drag from his cigarette. He held the smoke in his lungs until forced out with a cough. “Wanted to hear how they sounded with their new, ah, frontman.”

Lower lip tucked snugly beneath your front teeth, you nodded. “And how did they sound?”

“Great. Really fuckin’ great.” His wry smile held more sadness than amusement. “Better than when I was with them.”

Your heart lurched. Without thinking, you reached out and took his hand, giving it just a little squeeze before letting go. “I know that’s not true,” you said. “I heard you playing on Sunday, and you’re good, Eddie. Not just anyone could pull off playing Metallica without an amp, but you did.” 

You wished he could see himself from your perspective, see the man whose talent was too vast for a dingy subway station, whose music deserved to be heard by sold-out crowds at The Garden.

Eddie didn’t agree, but he didn’t disagree, either. His face remained neutral, and given the circumstances, you considered that a win.

“I can work tonight. Hang the new wallpaper.” A lightning-speed subject change, but you were becoming accustomed to seamlessly shifting tracks to follow his train of thought. “I’ll be back out as soon as I finish this.” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth again and you nodded, closing the door behind you.

Part of you expected him not to return. If his brain worked like yours, he would overthink the conversation, replaying it over and over until he’d wrung out all the positives and left it saturated with the negatives. He’d opt to stay in his room and smoke out his pack, leaving the wallpaper job unfinished. But you heard the door hinge creak and his footsteps pattering into the lobby.

One thousand words flooded your brain to form myriad sentences, from a joking long time, no see to a much more serious who were you writing about?

Ben thought Eddie had feelings for you, ones that stretched past the platonic confines. But he’d only met him once, briefly. He didn’t really know him. 

Want what I can’t have She’s got me mixed up

Did you really know him?

Eddie had an endless list of things he couldn’t have, which often was the case for people facing poverty. As for the girl who had him mixed up, you couldn’t narrow that down, either. The only women you’d seen him interact with were Phyllis (an unlikely muse, but it wouldn’t be the most bizarre case of unrequited love you’d ever heard of), your mom (again, not likely), and you. 

There was no doubt you had him mixed up. Maybe even fucked up, as he’d written and crossed out. But had you had enough of an effect on him to warrant poetry or song lyrics–

Song lyrics.

It all clicked into place: The band; more specifically, the drummer who happened to be his ex-girlfriend. He’d gone to see them play. He could have spoken to her, and maybe realized that a spark was still present. A real spark, not whatever pathetic flicker you might have felt that night when he’d held your hand as you removed wallpaper, or when you’d exchanged gentle touches after his unfortunate wasp’s nest encounter, or when he’d loomed over you in the subway car and a delicate dip in your belly made itself known.

You decided that this explanation, the one in which you had little to no involvement, held the most logic. His inspiration was his past love–potentially his current love–and your argument was a mere distraction from a much more complicated situation.

A natural silence fell over the lobby, a healing balm over the wound you’d taken turns picking at and reopening. It was the perfect setting to finish editing your essay, and yet you found the task impossible. Any threatening grammatical errors paled in comparison to the slight movements of Eddie’s back muscles, visible through his white cotton shirt as he smoothed down the wallpaper panels. 

The pronounced flex of his tricep as he drove the paper cutter above the moldings with utter precision. 

The soft grunt that escaped his lips as he pressed on his thighs to stand up and admire his handiwork. 

You didn’t know how long you’d been staring at him before the slamming front door snapped you out of it. 

“L-Looks good,” you managed, throat suddenly bone-dry. 

Eddie crossed his arms, took a small step back, and nodded. Wide brown eyes scoured the wall for any uneven edges or unglued seams, his lips pursed in concentration. “Not my best work but, uh, it’ll do.” He smirked at you, then jutted his chin to your left.

A middle-age man stood beside the desk, rainwater dripping off of the slope of his nose. He held an umbrella, turned inside out and rendered useless by the wind. 

“Sign out front says ‘vacancy.’” He grumbled and swiped at his bushy eyebrows, revealing a sliver of beer gut when he raised his arm. “Just need a room for the night.”

“Mhm, of course.” You found your footing with a polite smile and collected the stranger’s money, just as you always had, just as you were supposed to. Because you were at work, and that was your job–not watching Eddie hang wallpaper.

As you scanned the wall behind you for a key, a warm whisper tickled your ear, breath tinged with a smoky aroma. A shiver reflexively wiggled down your spine as Eddie spoke, your body unused to this level of proximity.

“Put him away from my room. He looks like a snorer.”

You tucked your lips into your mouth to stifle your laughter. Eddie was right; you weren’t quite sure what it was about the man, but he did look like he snored. Loudly. 

You meant to look over your paper after your shift, but sleep was too seductive to resist. Just one more day, one more final exam, and then you were done. At least until August. 

Summer stretched before you, and though you would still be spending nights behind the desk, your days were wide open. 

Days that might be spent alongside Eddie. 

There was no formal apology from him last night, a fact that nagged at you throughout the bus ride to school and prevented you from looking past the first page of your essay. That, and the burdens of shame both you and Eddie carried: yours from the blatantly wrong accusation, his from…what, exactly? Why was he embarrassed to tell you where he’d been?

The wound was still too raw last night to press on it, to ask further questions; instead, you kept the conversation light and airy. The only foray into dangerous territory came from Eddie himself when he asked about the vandalism at Eisen’s. You couldn’t answer fast enough before clumsily pivoting the discussion to the warming weather.

And maybe it was your inner people pleaser that craved reconciliation, needed it to unfurl and bloom like a budding rose, that lowered your guard and bade you to talk with him. But people-pleasing didn’t explain the warmth that crept through your body, lazily winding through your veins, when he laughed at your jokes.

That laugh–the gentle nose scrunch it evoked, the lightheartedness it exuded, how it chiseled away at the remaining iciness between you. It was all you thought about that night, your heart relaxing as the friendship was no longer in limbo. 

But when you got to class and flipped through your essay one last time, that newfound homeostasis meant nothing. Yes, there were ten pages present and ready to be stapled, but unless your conclusion focused on angsty song lyrics, you were missing the final page.

Dread’s chill pricked at you, followed by an overbearing wash of heat. The granola bar you’d scarfed down threatened to make a reappearance. 

Stupid. How could I have been so careless? All I had to do was check before I left home, but I was too busy thinking about Eddie to do the bare minimum.

It was a bad dream; you’d wake up and find yourself in bed with your full essay safely stored in your bag. All you had to do was wake up and page ten would be a continuation of psychological development in infancy. 

Your eyes opened hopefully, but you were still in the classroom, and the page still beared Eddie’s sloppy scrawl:

I’m the castle She’s the queen Can’t be a king I’m too obscene

The lyrics a few lines down stopped mid-sentence:

Crushed beneath a broken dream Failed to launch now I

You were wasting precious time. If you left now, you could probably make it home and back before the professor left. You’d have to fork over the money for a dollar cab and forgo your afternoon coffee, but it was a sacrifice you needed to make. 

Stupid stupid stupid—

Your name being called drew you from your pit of self-loathing. It wasn’t Nora; the voice was too masculine and too far away for it to come from beside you. 

It was someone with the same name. Just a coincidence. 

And then you heard it again. Loud enough so it echoed down the hall, but not frantic. And yet your heart fluttered in your chest. 

Eddie. 

There was no way; he couldn’t be—

You squeezed past Nora and thundered towards the door, trying to quell your hopes before they rose too high. 

But there he stood, sweat pasting his hair to his forehead. His chest heaved beneath a white cotton undershirt that was tight around the biceps. Deep brown eyes lit up when he spotted you in the doorway, his lips curving in a triumphant smile. 

“I have your paper!” Sure enough, your conclusion paragraph was clenched in his calloused hand.

You could have cried with relief. Fueled by gratefulness and residual adrenaline, you flung your arms around him. Your hands found his back muscles; at first tensed, almost reflexively, but quickly relaxed. The paper crinkling between your torsos jarred you out of the moment, and you took a step back before he could return the gesture—if he even would have. 

“Sorry, I…” Words suddenly evaded you, eviscerated by the musky scent of his deodorant. He didn’t appear to be uncomfortable, all soft doe eyes and lazy grins from his unlikely heroism, but…still. Your relationship now teetered between employee and friend, and you couldn’t afford to knock it off-balance. “How did you get here so fast? And how did you find me?”

Eddie exhaled a chuckle. “Took a cab. And when I got here, I asked every other person where the psychology classes were.”

“You walked from where the dollar cab dropped you off?” How many blocks was that? No wonder he was sweating. 

His cheeks, already flushed from exertion, tinged a deeper shade of pink. “N-No, I, um…it was a regular cab.”

Sheer disbelief widened your eyes. He must have dipped into his meager savings to shell out the money for an actual cab, putting him even farther behind in his journey home. 

“I…” There were one thousand ways to finish your sentence. 

I can pay you back. 

I can’t believe you did this for me. 

I am so sorry I ever doubted your character. 

I wish we’d hugged just a moment longer. 

You finally settled on a string of words that required no courage at all, just a genuine thankful smile. “I have your lyrics. Let me turn in my paper and I’ll grab them for you.”

Eddie’s timid expression shifted into one of amusement. “Shit, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Was wondering where those went.”

Opportunity splayed out in front of you, tempting you to ask him about the woman who had him mixed up. Every cell in your body ached to know if she was the same queen he’d placed on a royal pedestal, unattainable despite his valiant efforts. 

Was it fear or politeness that held your tongue? You weren’t supposed to see the lyrics in the first place; how could you justify your questions? Sorry I read your innermost thoughts without permission, but could I pick your brain about them?

Any doubts about your intentions were confirmed when he took the page from you, cocked his head, and asked: “What’d you think?”

There it was. Your opening. You could see it, practically touch it, your fingertips brushing the chance to admit that the songs’ mysterious inspiration gnawed at you—

But then he might ask why you wanted to know. And, quite honestly, you lacked the energy to figure it out for yourself. The desire was too strong to be nosiness, too personal to be gossip. 

Not to mention the inexplicable sourness that burned your esophagus when you’d considered the high probability that he’d written them about his ex-girlfriend. 

“Really good,” you managed. “I can’t wait for the finished product.”

Coward. 

“Me, too,” he agreed with a laugh. “I’m sure the folks at the train station are dying to hear it.”

“The rats’ll give you a standing ovation.”

He snickered. “My biggest fans.” 

A hand squeezing yours prevented you from getting lost in the slight dimple that appeared when he smiled. Nora now stood beside you, expression innocuous to Eddie or any other man, but her dark brown eyes silently asked, are you okay?

I’m fine, you replied with a squeeze of your own, grateful for someone who swooped in seeing you with a man she didn’t know.

“Nora, this is Eddie,” you introduced her. “He’s–he’s my friend who’s been helping us out around the motel. Eddie, this is Nora, best friend and study buddy extraordinaire.”

“Ahh, Wallpaper Boy.” Nora furrowed a brow. “You go to school here?”

Eddie cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. “No, I…she left her paper, so…” He trailed off as though embarrassed by his chivalry. 

“So now she can graduate!” Nora wrapped you in an embrace so tight that you briefly worried about your shoulder dislocating. She leaned in knowingly, her tone teasing with an air of seriousness. “And keep me company at the ceremony, right?”

You rolled your eyes, acutely aware that Eddie was watching the entire interaction. The last thing you wanted was attention drawn to the fact that you weren’t attending graduation. “Maybe,” was all you said, and Nora left it at that.

There was an awkward beat before anyone spoke again, and it was Eddie who eventually filled the silence. “Heading home now?” He asked you, already starting towards the building’s doors. 

“No, I’m going to Eisen’s. I promised Ben that I’d help clean the graffiti.” You braced yourself for a volatile reaction, or at least something akin to annoyance, but his response was more surprising than any snarky remark. 

“I’ll come with.”

Cocking a disbelieving brow, you did your best to keep your tone free of judgment. You were waiting for the gotcha, but you couldn’t let him know that. “Seriously?”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, why not? I’ve got the day free, and I have some…expertise in graffiti removal.” He relented with a shrug when you and Nora exchanged curious glances, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. “My trailer got hit a time or twelve back in the day. The tragic life of a Satan-worshiping freak, y’know?”

“But I bet the vandalizers were upstanding citizens.”

“Keys to the city and everything.” Eddie stuck out his hand, palm up, and you could see the details etched into his pale skin. Calluses decorated the pads of his fingers; you’d assumed they were mostly from guitar playing, but now you could add physical labor to their origins. He looked down at his hand, then back at you. “Shall we?”

Your own hands were suddenly slick with anxious perspiration, like a middle school student on her first-ever date. Even that juvenile scenario held more significance than this—two friends scrubbing down a hardware store was a far cry from the Sandra Brown romance novels you secretly devoured in high school. 

And yet, you felt it—that soft electricity that crackled through your whorls of fingerprints when you slid your palm against his, the jolt of energy as he tugged you forward and laced his fingers with yours. If he noticed the nervousness that embarrassing seeped from your pores, he didn’t mention it. 

Nora, ever astute, excused herself with a story about not wanting to miss the bus, but not before whispering in your ear, “he’s cute.” An approval that would almost certainly be followed up with a phone call later to discuss the fine details of the afternoon’s escapades. 

There are no ‘escapades,’ you reminded yourself. You’re removing graffiti, not embarking on a Parisian vacation. 

Eddie led the way until he reached the building’s doors, blinking as his eyes once again adjusted to the sunlight. “I, uh, I have no idea where we’re going.”

You laughed at his candor. “Follow me.”

It was an opportunity to break the grasp, to unleash the anxiety that threatened to cleave you and Eddie back into two separate pieces. He was dangerous because he was temporary; if you allowed him in even farther than you already had—beyond the confines of friendship—his inevitable departure would destroy you. 

Let go. Let go. Let. Go. 

And yet you kept holding on, adjusting only to take the lead. Eddie’s thumb brushed against yours, pausing just at the knuckle to press down in subtle acknowledgment. 

Hi. 

You pressed back with an accompanying smile. 

Hi. 

This time when you reached the subway station, you both jumped the turnstile. 

--

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[lilpomelito]

“What's wrong with Pop music?”

Eddie stops mid rant and spins around. Steve is sitting upside down on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, his silky hair touching the floor.

“I mean,” Steve continues, his voice a little strained by his position, “if so many people like it, there has to be something good about it, right?”

Eddie shares a look with Jonathan, hoping to find an ally, but the man looks zonked out of his mind. Argyle really brought the good shit with him.

“That's not the point, Stevie,” Eddie explains as he sits down on the floor next to the guy's head. “It's popular because it's the only shit the big corpos are pushing on the radio. It's what everyone listens to, so everyone thinks they have to like it to be liked. To be accepted. And it's not even good music! Where's the artistic merit in cheap studio synthesizers mixed with braindead lyrics like wake me up before you go go?"”

Steve frowns. “Not all popular music is like that. Also what's wrong with wanting to be liked?”

“Do you not like Freddie Mercury?” Robin gasps, lifting her head from Steve's stomach, and she sounds heavily offended.

Eddie blinks for second, confused as to where the conversation has suddenly turned. But Steve nods, apparently following her line of reasoning.

“Yeah, man. Queen is like, the most popular band in history. Do they not have artistic merit?”

“No, of course not, that's not what I–”

“And the government is not conspiring to push pop music, Eddie, we've seen they're too busy experimenting on children and opening portals to a parallel dimension,” Robin says.

“What about Bowie?” Steve says. “You loved Labyrinth. Didn't shut up about it for like a week. He's pop!”

“The point,” Eddie insists, flustered, avoiding to watch directly Steve's upside down smirk, “is forced conformity. Queen are all nerds! Bowie is a huge nerd. Where would they be now if they had played high school football?”

Jonathan nods slowly, but doesn't comment.

“What about astronauts?” Nancy asks, from where she's sitting at Johnathan's feet. “They're nerds, yes, but they also have to be in great physical shape. I bet most of them were athletes in school.”

“Yeah, totally!” Steve nods. “Remember Casey Johnson? He was captain of the basketball team when I was a freshman. He was valedictorian, and I think he went to Standford on a sports scholarship!”

“Yeah, I remember him,” Robin says, rolling her eyes. “One of my friends had a huuuuge crush on him.”

Steve's cheeks go red. He incorporates himself, despite Robin's protests, and sits on the couch like a normal person.

“Whatever. He was a nerd and an athlete. What's conformist about that?”

Eddie stares at him, narrowing his eyes. “Nothing, I guess. Or everything. He succeeded at academia, which was designed to shape kids into exploitable workers under capitalism—”

Jonathan groans behind him.

“—and made captain in a sport that's basically throwing balls into laundry baskets and calling it strategy. Praising people for that to the point where schools are giving scholarships is a little too much.”

“You try it, then, man,” Argyle calls from where he's laying on the rug, star shape style. “I bet you ten bucks you can't win at throwing laundry into baskets against Steve. Or my boy Lucas.”

Robin laughs maniacally. “Oh, I want to see that! Steve please destroy him, his ego needs a little humbling.”

The conversation moves on after that, since everybody looks like they're already over Eddie's rant. He doesn't mind, really. It's fun to ramp up the dramatic indignation against The Man, or whatever. It always causes a reaction, and even people who agree with him somewhat eventually hit a limit. Eddie likes to stick his finger and find that limit.

But not Steve. He's looking at Eddie like he's fascinating.

“You're a hypocrite.”

Eddie falters, biting down a smirk. “How come?”

Steve scoots a little closer. “You want to be a rockstar. You don't just want to live off making music. You want to be famous. You want people to like you.”

Eddie stares at him for a second, frozen in place.

“That's not—”

But Steve smiles, gentle. “That's alright. We all do. And you want to know a secret about being popular?”

Eddie can't resist. For all he protests about popularity and conformity and being so normal everybody likes you, he does wonder what it feels like to be on the other side. So he nods.

Steve smiles sadly. “It doesn't actually change anything. You think it means more people like you, but it just means more people are aware of you. What you do, what you say. Who are your friends, who you date. Where you go, when you go there. And at some point you feel like you can't escape it. And yeah, you do start to conform to the norm. Not because you think it's what's best but because you're so aware of people's opinions of you that you always choose the path of least resistance.”

Eddie... has never considered that. He moves a little closer to Steve as his voice goes quiet.

“You think it was fun to run into a random suburban mom in the grocery store and have her be furious at me because I was dating Susan Davis? Who apparently was her daughter's cousin, and she had a crush on me, and was planning on asking me to prom? How on earth was I supposed to know that? And she was double mad that I didn't even know who her daughter was. Like there's two hundred kids in Hawkins High. I can't know everyone!”

Eddie tries not to laugh, because Steve seems upset by this, but the situation is kind of ridiculous.

“And I think they got into their heads that because they knew of me I was supposed to also know them. But they didn't actually know me. I made prom King, people were mad. I was captain of the basketball team, people were mad. I then turned down being captain of the swim team and was just co-captain, people were still mad. I took a job, and people made fun of me. I lost that job because the mall caught on fire, people also made fun of me. I took another job, and people say I'm "wasting my potential", whatever that means. I don't know man. I think you can never win with people.”

Eddie grabs Steve's hand, touching softly his palm. It seems to work, and Steve relaxes a tiny bit under his touch.

What Steve said sounded exactly like what Eddie was talking about: the pressure to be what society wants, not what you want. He can tell it's a touchy subject for Steve, who has been under the crushing spotlight of being a relatively small town's golden boy.

So Eddie doesn't push any further.

“You got me there, though,” he says.

Steve smiles again. “Yeah?”

“Yeap,” Eddie nods. “I do want to be a famous rockstar. I do want to be known and liked and admired. I've never had that. But I guess you're right. We can't have it both ways.”

Robin, who up to that point had been discussing with Argyle the difference between an oboe and a clarinet, jumps in. “It's the horrifying ordeal of being known.”

Steve laughs. Eddie can't help it, his laugh is too contagious. He can't understand how people in this hellscape of a town ever looked at this boy and thought "he's not enough." With him? He gets it. Eddie's list of failures is a mile long. But Stevie? Sunshine incarnate, puppy-eyed, bitchy beautiful and smart Steve Harrington? There's nothing to complain about.

[cosyvelvetorchid]

Hugs / angsty or fluffy 💙

How about angsty AND fluffy? 🩶

**********

The part of Bucks brain labeled “abandonment issues” had been all been eradicated since meeting Tommy. He’d so effortlessly made Buck feel like he was enough just as he was, that every day the fear of Tommy leaving him for being too much was lessened.

Until now.

Tommy had left for his 48 hour shift perfectly fine, kissing Buck before he left as he usually did. They’d texted throughout the first 24 hours trading stories from their shifts mixed with flirtatious or sweet messages.

But then Tommy stopped replying. It was fine at first—they both would leave gaps between messages when they were busy working. But Buck could see he’d been online and then when Eddie had casually mentioned getting messages from Tommy it started to make Buck worry.

He scoured over his previous messages trying to find something he’d said wrong that had upset Tommy. But there was nothing. Tommy’s last message was telling him that he had a surprise for Buck.

The plan when he finished his shift was to go to Tommy’s but as he pulled up outside his house his nerves kicked in, being unsure if he should be there.

He tentatively entered Tommy’s house, dropping his bag by the door next to Tommy’s as usual. His bag being there next to his boots and his car in the driveway meant that he was definitely home, but all the lights were off.

He walked up the stairs and slipped quietly into Tommy’s bedroom. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could see the shape of his boyfriend lying bed facing his nightstand. He quietly undressed down to his boxers and slid into the bed.

Usually, even in Tommy’s sleep addled state, he’d detect Buck being there and turn to pull him onto his chest. But this time he didn’t move. Buck moved closer to him and wrapped an arm around Tommy’s waist.

Again, usually Tommy would reciprocate his affection but he didn’t. His body was completely still. They’d only been dating a couple of months but they’d spent so many nights sleeping together that Buck knew the difference in Tommy’s breathing when he was sleeping, so he knew that Tommy wasn’t asleep. At least not deep enough to not know Buck was there.

The rejection sank his heart to the bottom of his chest. He laid there for a few more minutes before removing himself from Tommy’s back and turning away.

—

Tommy felt bad. Awful, even. But he was just so- there were many things he was feeling. Anger, upset, confusion.

From the beginning one of the things Tommy admired the most in Evan was his honesty. Even when admitting his own mistakes or wrong doings, he was always open about them. It had given Tommy himself the courage to be more open with people. Which in itself was a huge feat consider he’d spent so many years closed off and hidden away.

But Evan had lied to him. Kept a secret that Tommy hadn’t seen coming and he didn’t know how to handle it; how to confront it. Confront Evan. He wasn’t deliberately ignoring him but he was worried he’d say something he’d regret and needed time to figure out how he felt and what to say.

Then he heard the sniffing behind him followed but a hitching of breath.

Evan was crying.

Tommys heart cracked wide open. Despite his own feelings right now he’d never want to hurt Evan. He reached behind him and placed his hand on Bucks hip.

“Are you okay?” He whispered in the dark.

“I’m fine.” Came the response.

“Evan.” He said in that tone that usually would comfort Buck. But not this time. This time is actually pissed him off.

“Don’t.” He snapped.

“What?”

“Don’t say my name like that.” He told him.

Tommy turned his body to face Buck. “Something is obviously wrong.”

Buck scoffed. “Says the man who is upset with me but won’t tell me what the problem is.”

Tommy fell onto his back with a sigh. His boyfriend was right—he was being a hypocrite expecting Buck to tell him what was wrong when he himself hadn’t done that.

“You lied to me.” He said into the darkness of the room. Buck immediately turned his body around.

“What? I haven’t lied about anything.” Buck replied utterly confused.

“Really?” Tommy said sarcastically.

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, Tommy. I have no idea what you’re talking about. What lie?”

“You told me that you didn’t have kids.”

“I don’t.” Buck answered immediately.

“No?” Tommy repeated still not believing that Buck was lying to his face.

“No, Tommy! I don’t have-“

And then it hit him. Like a brick to the face he realised what Tommy was talking about. He chastised himself in his head for not telling Tommy about it before. It wasn’t on purpose—he truly rarely ever thought about it. They’d only been together just under 3 months and he’d been so wrapped up in all the excitement and the overwhelming developing feelings he was having for Tommy that it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that he hadn’t talked about it.

He reached across to the nightstand and switched on the lamp. His heart broke at the sight of Tommys pained face. He’d seen Tommy exhausted, seen him annoyed, even frustrated—but he’d never seen him hurt.

“You’re talking about Kameron?”

“Is that your daughter’s name?” Tommy asked.

“No, Tommy.” Buck took a big breath to centre himself before continuing. “Do you remember I told you that I tended a bar in Peru years ago? I met this guy, Connor, when I was there. We became good friends and it was him, actually, that convinced me to come to L.A. Anyway, we lost touch for a while and a couple of years ago he called me and invited me to dinner to catch up. He introduced me to his wife Kameron and told me how they’d been trying to have a baby but were struggling to get pregnant. They wanted to know if I’d be a sperm donor for them.”

Tommy was taken aback by that. “A sperm donor?”

“Yes.” Buck replied softly. “They considered a sperm bank but Connor said they wanted someone who he knew was a good person, so-“

“So they picked you.” Tommy finished, beginning to realise that he may have gotten the wrong information. He made a mental note to chastise Lucy for telling him Buck had a child. She’d told him she’d overheard a conversation between Hen and Eddie once talking about an ex of Evan’s helping to birth the kid.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to do it. I talked to Hen about it and even though I knew it would be weird to know that there was kid out there with my DNA, I saw how much it was hurting them not being able to conceive and I wanted to help them if I could.”

Guilt was beginning to nauseate Tommy.

“You helped her give birth?” He asked.

Bucks face morphed into confusion. “How did you know that?”

Tommy sighed. “Lucy.”

“How did she know that?”

“She overheard a conversation between Hen and Eddie once. They said something about you and an ex helping to deliver the baby.”

“Natalia.” Buck informed him. He was definitely going to speak to Lucy about this. And Hen and Eddie. But that could wait—reassuring Tommy was more important.

“Kameron and Connor were fighting and she turned up at my apartment looking for somewhere to go. She was only supposed to stay a couple of days but then she went into premature labor and ended up giving birth on my couch. Natalia showed up right as it was happening and helped me deliver Kameron’s son.”

“It was a boy?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you keep in touch with them? With.. your son?”

Tommy had seen in his mind more of a future with Buck than he had with anybody he’d ever dated. Definitely living together, maybe even getting married but those were subjects they’d sort of talked about before—mostly in a casual sort of way about what they’d like to have in the future but no concrete plans were made. But they hadn’t broached the subject of children yet and whether they wanted to have them.

Tommy had spent most of his adult life being certain that he didn’t want children. Between believing that he wouldn’t meet someone to have kids with, and his own fear that he’d turn out to be like his own father, he was sure it wouldn’t happen for him. He still wasn’t sure now if he wanted to have any but the idea terrified him a lot less when he pictured doing it with Evan.

But Evan having a son out there already tapped into that small river of jealousy that flowed through him sometimes. The idea that the milestones they might have in their relationship together weren’t a first experience for both of them was what hurt him the most. And he knew it was stupid—they’d both lived lives before they met, but it bothered him, still.

“Not really.” Buck answered. “Connor emails occasionally to catch up but that’s about it. And, he’s not my son, Tommy.”

“He’s half your DNA, Evan.” Tommy argued quietly.

“Technically. But he’s their kid—he always was and he always will be. That was always the plan and I’m happy with that.” Buck tried to reassure him. “Donor not dad.” He added.

Tommy looked away from him trying to reconcile this new information and how he felt about it. It was a relief that his boyfriend didn’t have a secret son he was hiding from him. But it was still a lot to process.

Buck reached out and took Tommy’s hand.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about it. Honestly, I’ve been so caught up in this, in you, that I’d forgotten about it. Like I said, he’s not MY son and I don’t ever think about him that way—I never have. I just helped out an old friend. But, I get why you’d be upset. I should have told you and I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t.”

Tommy looked up at Buck and his heart cracked a little more seeing his eyes filling with tears waiting to spill over. Before he had the chance to say something back, Buck continued.

“I.. These last few months.. you’re the most incredible person I have ever met, Tommy. The way I feel about you.. the way you make me feel about myself.. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I love you. And-and I know it’s probably too soon to say that but I do. And you don’t have to say it back if you don’t feel the same, I just need you to know how I-“

Am immediate warmth spread through Tommy’s body at Buck’s confession and he threw his arms around him in a crushing hug. Buck gripped onto Tommy’s body tightly and couldn’t stop the tears from finally falling from his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” He mumbled into Tommys neck. Tommy brushed a hand through Bucks hair before pulling back and holding Bucks face in his hands.

“No, Evan. You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m sorry. When Lucy told me I immediately reacted without talking to you about it. That wasn’t okay. You deserve better than that.” He pressed his lips into Bucks firmly. It wasn’t hot and heavy and leading to something—it was an act of reassurance—something to show Evan that he was there; that he was in this. Completely.

He released the kiss and rested their foreheads together.

“For the record I don’t think it’s too soon for you to say that.” Tommy told him.

“No?” He sniffed.

“No. Because I love you, too.”

[nqueso-emergency]

Cherry has always been a toxic bully. One of the worst 911twt people. That whole group has always been insufferable and a lot of people in the fandom agreed but now the buddie shippers have united in the worst bullying and hatred towards others they overlook it to have them on their side . Classic mob mentality of weak people - hate it when it’s impacting them but happy to sit back and be part of it when it’s aimed at others. Plus the influx of really young, impressionable and clueless people into the buddie fandom since bi Buck happened has made it easier for them to brush aside how unfavorably the rest of the fandom had been seeing that group leading into season 7.

Cherry has been front and center for ages bullying other fans, talking crap about the main cast and hating on the actresses who played LIs, talking about getting them fired and stalking their socials like a creeper. They liked Lou until they realized their theories about him only being there for a short time were wrong and that people liking bucktommy would reduce their power and the monopoly of buddie in fandom spaces - then they decided to roll out the toxic, hypocritical vitriol and preformative activism to try to get people to turn against him and the bucktommy ship (and its shippers). It’s their cycle of behavior which we’ve witnessed on the regular - pretty typical of a scared, online bully who is miserable in their life and gets joy out of bringing that misery to others.

Also for ages they’ve been saying they only liked Eddie and not Ryan because of his racism but still thirsting over the actor and not the character. At least they’ve stopped pretending to dislike him now cause the hypocrisy was getting a bit much.

Oofff anon. I can tell you've been wanting to vent that for a while now. Happy to have a place where you can.

The buddies not so secret mantra is: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Even when they fucking hate each other they will become bestie boos to trample ONE bucktommy fan that happens to post a picture of Lou.

It's fucking ridiculous and it's a reason I made this blog.

Cherry for context:

[mstigeress37-blog]

whipped

Eddie.M x Sunshine!Cheerleader!Reader

Desc: Eddie never knew why you hung out with the cheerleaders. They were terrible people.

OR, Eddie’s whipped for a cheerleader.

-----

Eddie seemed to know every person in his grade, especially the cheerleaders. He knew them from when they begged for weed, begged for a fuck (since their jock boyfriends couldn't satisfy them), or flat-out just bullied him. Not everyone knew Eddie, nor did they need to, but Eddie knew everyone.

So when he didn't know you, he just assumed you were a new student that the cheerleaders and jocks adopted - you seemed too sweet to be friends with people like them, but for some reason, you were genuinely happy with them.

He sat in front of you for English class. Sometimes, he'd wonder if you ever stared at the back of his head, so suddenly his hair was just a little bit neater than it is on days when he doesn't have English class. You've talked to him once, and Eddie will forever kick himself over the fact that he practically fumbled the bag.

---

If it wasn’t for you, Eddie could be sleeping with his head on the desk right now. But he wants to behave nice for you, so he’ll prop his elbow on his table, resting his jawline in his hand (and maybe pretend he’s paying attention and actually sleep since you’d never know from your angle). 

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He glanced to his left, then his right, before concluding that it was *you* who wanted his attention.

“Eddie?” You said after he didn’t turn back. Maybe he didn’t feel you? As you panicked about whether or not he heard you, Eddie’s thoughts were going 1000 miles per hour. Hearing his name come from your lips made him freeze - his name suddenly sounded appealing to him.

As you were about to retreat and just ask Jason behind you, Eddie finally turns around with a facial expression that you could never describe: his face was blank, or was he trying to smoulder?

You give him a smile. “Sorry, my pen ran out of ink. Do you have a spare pen?” You softly spoke, tilting your head to the side slightly.

Eddie didn’t even have a pen for himself, never mind for someone else! Tongue down his throat, he just shook his head.

“It’s okay, no worries!” You said before slumping back and whispering to someone else, probably Jason. Eddie turns around, what the hell was that?

He admired her, sure. He thought she was cute, sure. He thought she’d make a good girlfriend, sure. But when she makes him that nervous, something is obviously wrong. Aside from her hanging out with awful people, of course.

---

Eddie was meeting up with one of cheerleaders right before a game for a deal under the bleachers - apparently she can only do the deal during a cheer rehearsal break - otherwise he wouldn't be here.

He watched from under the bleachers through the seats as they did their pyramids and their tumbles, yadda yadda yadda. He didn’t care until a familiar face showed up.

You.

“Sorry I’m late!” He could hear you yell. You were in a cheerleader’s uniform and you were walking in as you did you hair into a messy ponytail. A few of the cheerleaders greeted you with a smile and a hug, telling you to stretch before you joined them.

Eddie didn’t know how to feel. Was the cheerleader’s uniform always so hot? Was a rushed ponytail always so sexy? Should he buy some basketball tickets now? Shit, now he cant’ say that all cheerleaders are bitches now, especially since they seemed to treat you well.

He had to turn away as she stretched, he’d be no better than Jason and Andy then.

Soon enough, his buyer found him.

“Thank God. I’m about to die.” She complained, handing him the money. Eddie checked through it before giving her the bag.

“Thanks, freak. [Name]’s gonna love this!” She said as she turned to walk away. Eddie felt himself go wide eyed.

“No.”

She turned around. “Huh?”

Eddie didn’t know how to react again. He smokes weed, he smokes cigarettes. He knows he’s a hypocrite by trying to stop you from doing what he does, but so be it.

“That’s just enough for one person. You want someone else to try weed, you send them to me. I only sell 1 gram.”

She starts walking back to him in a slight rage. “Listen, fucker. Market your shit somewhere else. How’re you gonna know if I share this shit or not?” She cackles in his face, but he refuses to back up.

“Fine. Ask Chance if he’s fine with the bag I gave him the next time you fuck and sniff some of the white stuff, yeah? Or maybe I should ask his girlfriend instead.” Eddie smirks, tilting his head to the side innocently like how you did. Her face drops and she backs up.

“Cunt,” is all she says before walking away, walking backwards to hold eye contact and shoot daggers at his smirk before turning around and walking away.

---

Entering the cafeteria the day after a basketball game felt like hell. Somehow everyone loved the players enough to go into the cafeteria instead of their normal lunch space just to congratulate them. He finds his table and makes his way over to it before seeing you sit at his table, Dustin bombarding you.

You sat in his chair.

Good.

When Dustin notices him, he seems to panic. “Hey, you wanna sit next to me, [Name]?”

“It’s fine, she can stay there.” He smiles at you. He fucked up last time, he won’t now.

“Thanks!” You give him another warm smile. Never mind, maybe he’ll fuck up again.

Everyone moves down for Eddie to sit at least close to the top except for Dustin, to which Eddie has to clear his throat and slap his arm a bit before Dustin did so.

“So you were saying?” Dustin ushered.

“Oh yeah! So, I hurt my ankle, but at the time, it didn't feel as bad, guess it was the adrenaline, but the moment we finished and I sat down, I felt it and, guys, I can’t even describe the pain- Hey! Like, I’ve never sprained my ankle before, pulled a muscle sure, but- yeah, I’ll be there in a sec! But it was awful!” You ramble, people greeting you as they walked past the table.

Eddie caught himself whipped for you, taking in every word of her rant. She hurt herself? Shit, let him take care of you. You wanna know when she’s coming to your table? Listen to her, she said she’ll be there in a second so give her a second. She’s popular? Who wouldn’t like her?

The group talked for a bit until the bell rang.

“Oh, shit! Um, I wanted to ask if I could join your DnD games if you needed someone? I already have a character and everything if that helps!” You said.

Yep. He’s whipped.

[shadowyhideoutpeace]

Multi-fandom Fic Recs

(updated 09/08/24)

Part 2

ALL OTHER OSCAR ISSAC CHARACTERS ARE NOW HERE

Five Hargreeves

Fluff

We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals | Run Boy Run

Attention

Catch

Illness

Mr. Jackson

I'm Better

Angels and Devils

Five x TEEN!Y/n

I Hate The Taste Of Coffee But I Love It On Your Lips

Stain

Five x reader blurb

Last night of the world

Heal My Heart

A Date at The End of The World

Wedding at the End of the World

Watching

Better

“If you seriously propose that I sit on your lap, I will kill you."

Angst

You're Fucking Pathetic

All versions of you

Forget-Me-Not

Slightly suggestive

𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬 , 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬

Retired

Series

amnesia, arguments and..attraction?

❝ It All Started With an Apocalypse ❞

Whispers

A Date at The End of The World

Masterlists

Parkersbliss

ch0c0-cake

Eddie Munson

Fluff

Cool As Hell

Eddie Munson x Henderson’s Sister!Reader

Untouchable

She Did More Than Try

Girlfriend

EDDIE MUNSON AS A DAD | Dad Munson part 2

RIBBONS, CHEERLEADERS, EDDIE

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 ─ 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝟖𝟕'

𝐒𝐇𝐄'𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 ─ 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 '𝟖𝟔

Basketballs and Bat Tattoos

No Bone Zone

𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭

Out of Touch In Harmony

Ten Things I Like About You

pretty

ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴɢᴍᴀɴ ᴅᴜꜱᴛɪɴ

kiss me

Play Pretend | Play Pretend | Part 2

SHE IS ART

HER

EDDIE MUNSON X SINCLAIR!READER (a/n this is a love letter to my fellow black readers <3)

Club Pickup

sailor boy

But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you…

she's stolen my heart

she’s an angel

Eddie Munson wouldn’t call you a hypocrite...

red in the face

late night drive !!

sinclair!reader that’s dating eddie

Angst

"a clueless eddie munson doesn't realize his best friend his jealous and pulling herself away from him."

ᴵ'ᵐ ᴬ ᶠᵃⁿ ᴼᶠ ᶜʰᵉᵉʳˡᵉᵃᵈᵉʳˢ

Eddie Munson x Pregnant!Henderson!reader

“Dumplin?”

Employee of the Month

DID YOU HAVE TO BE THAT HONEST?

It all went wrong in a night

Whiplash

Cherry Blossom Colored Kisses

Smut

“You are such a good girl.”

𝔰𝔢𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔱

The Blackout

Series

“I think I’m in love.”

The Metalhead and the Material Girl

oh, baby.

𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲

Masterlist

loveronlineee

Eddie Munson Masterlist

𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗜𝗠𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗔

fettuccin-e

George Weasley

Fluff

Cool Off

The Set Up

Don't Make Her Wait

Dreamlike

Exactly my cup of tea.

Angst / fluff

Adrenaline

x of swords

The Rest Will Be History

PLEASE BE CAREFUL

war is over

wish it on your worst enemy

ANGST

𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞

Series/Masterlists

Can’t Stay Away

Seeing Her

[sickofthistoxicshit]

Crude but nescessary reality check,

For all you dumbasses who think Ryan is homophobic and are too fucking lazy to do a small research,

Out of the two of them (Ryan and Oliver) - until of course Oliver was saddled with what was supposed to be Eddie’s LI - T - Ryan is the only one who portrayed a gay character before 911.

The Movie is called Papi Chulo

Hot as hell (and gay, sadly ;)) the genius Matt Bomer is in it.

Here is the clip from the movie,

Side-note though, before spewing hate based in lies, do your research first so that you don't turn out to be complete idiots online, so that you would not only be proven to be wrong and dumb, but also fucking racist hypocrites.

Life lessons and all that.

[annaliseblr]

can shows stop redeeming shitty parents? i thought brooklyn nine-nine finally changed this when i saw captain peralta, where they ended the ep with jake confronting his father, but then they brought him back next season and gave him a really random redemption arc. then rosa's homophobic parents got redeemed, which didn't annoy me as much bc her dad at least properly apologised to her, and her mom definitely put a lot of work into fixing things - they changed, jake's parents didn't.

9-1-1 is by far the worst offender of this i've ever seen. buck and maddie's parents emotionally abused and neglected them their whole lives, to the point where maddie was essentially raising buck on her own at the age of nine and buck only ever got attention when he was injured, maddie didn't leave her abusive husband in part because her mother would just say, 'i told you so,' and buck became the human embodiment of passive suicidality. then they just?? forgave them?? in one episode?? then chimney's shitty dad came back, and he made amends with him bc his daughter 'needed a good relationship with her grandparents.' eddie's dad was never around and the only things he did that involved eddie were yelling at him for trying to help his mother when she was in labor and declaring him the 'man of the house' at age 10. also, both his parents hated his wife, treated his son like an infant, and tried to get custody of said son. but he forgave his father and practically never addressed anything his mother did.

how to get away with murder thankfully never redeemed jorge castillo, which i approve of, but then connor's dad, who literally said he knew connor, and he knew oliver wasn't right for him (which is absolutely insane to say when you ran out on your son when he was 12) [he still could have been part of connor's life while being with ted!!]. and it basically just ignored that connor's mom let him, a teenager, have sex with a man in his twenties. because letting your son get raped is fine, i guess. and then annalise's dad, who didn't believe her when she was raped by her uncle, came back into her life. yay.

and then there's community. what annoys me is that they let jeff and pierce's dads be thrown into unforgivable territory (which i approve of, honestly - they sucked and advanced gay and cooperative escapism in familial relations are two of my favorite episodes), but britta's parents deserved forgiveness and britta was somehow in to wrong when she was molested and her dad took the guy's side??? she had to forgive her parents? that was just unfair and blatantly hypocritical.

stop redeeming horrible parents, please.

[eddiegettingshot]

Yay your post … its so annoying because really chris did not leave because he wants to live in texas. He left because he felt betrayed by the person he trusted most and was probably freaked out about kim and her being in LA. And maybe a bit he wanted to feel connected to the time his family (eddie/shannon/him) spent in el paso. But at no point has chris actually expressed a desire to move to texas specifically and permanently. Eddie just assumes chris wants to stay because hes building a life there, and helena and ramon assume chris wants to stay because they think they are better parents for chris than eddie is. which is where they are wrong… as long as eddie is willing (which like. He has been willing for all of chris’s life. Hes always loved being a dad even when it scared him.) the best option for chris will always be his own dad, no matter how many mistakes eddie makes. And tbh chris is a teenager most teenagers probably do not spend their time considering things like hm which city would I like to live in. Or hm I feel like making a big move again. because parents are usually the ones who choose that as the providers. And so I doubt chris would even consider wanting to move back to LA or consider if he is ready to do that unless he is presented with an opportunity to consider it. Which helena and ramon are doing the opposite of by building him a pool and signing him up for 27 clubs. Which at least eddie moving will make chris consider if he actually wants to stay in el paso. Which considering that chris’s entire formative life has been in LA… I doubt it? Unless hes (fairly) too freaked out by kim, which in the show seems like an unlikely direction for them to take. And its sooo hypocritical because the diazes moved chris to texas under the premise of chris’s (13yo) autonomy which was a choice chris made on the foundation of the relationship eddie has worked hard to maintain between his parents and chris despite eddie hating his parents lowkey. But the diazes will not afford chris the same autonomy by even asking him simple things like hey how do you feel about your dad. Do you miss LA. sigh

exactlyyyyyyy!!!!!! and especially if you think about the deleted scene like this was very much about chris losing his mom in addition to eddie hurting him. chris is fundamentally incapable of thinking about the situation the way an adult would, he has no sense of the long-term or of the ramifications of what's happening, like it is completely on eddie's parents to be doing this work and they're NOT.

and actually i'm glad you brought up the fact that parents are the ones who make decisions about where to move because this has been on my mind since yesterday due to the discourse... objectively eddie would be well within his rights to choose to move himself and chris to texas for whatever reason he saw fit even if chris weren't mad at him 😭 like superficially this is the least weird part of the situation to me and he hasn't even actually decided to do it yet

[artiststarme]

Ex-fucking-cuse you

Thank you to @carlyv for the title idea! I don’t know if I really like whatever this is but other people seem to so I’ll leave it be. Let me know what you guys are thinking in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Whenever he had shared his feelings in the past, he’d had them stomped on. From crushes to life goals, anyone he’d ever confided in had laughed in his face. The first memorable time had been when he told Tommy about his crush on Heath Sellers at recess in fourth grade. Tommy H. told him that he wouldn’t be friends with a fag and if he ever mentioned liking a dude again, he’d kick his ass. That circumstance really showed Steve that he couldn’t trust anyone. If he couldn’t share what he was thinking with his best friend, who else could he tell?

The second time was with Nancy Wheeler. Steve told her he loved her even though he knew it was too early into their relationship and he knew she was still grieving Barb. But he still told her and all she did for the first few times was call him an idiot afterwards. Steve loved too much and too hard. Sure, after a few weeks she said it back but Steve could tell it wasn’t genuine and was most likely said out of pity.

The fact that she called him bullshit just two weeks later kind of cemented that fact in his mind.

It made him feel sort of hypocritical. He told the kids to be open and honest, prided them on their communication. And then he neglected to do the same. He hid his nightmares and semi-suicidal thoughts behind an impenetrable wall that no one in the Party could breach.

Until Eddie.

For months, Steve hated Eddie because it felt like he was stealing the kids away from him. He was jealous that they shared a common interest that he couldn’t understand and was gearing up for the kids to leave him behind. But then, Eddie told him that the kids worshiped him and he’d been jealous too. Jealous of the cool babysitter that influenced their actions in DnD and could do no wrong.

Steve felt like Eddie could truly see him, could understand Steve, and liked what he saw. He could tell that Eddie was going to be a great friend of his, or more. He liked more.

But when he ran back to the trailer park after flambéing Vecna, he saw a blood soaked Eddie being cradled by Dustin. His slow paced jog turned into a full blown sprint. Steve yanked Eddie out of Dustin’s arms and made a mad dash towards the portal in his trailer. He wasn’t going to lose the one guy that made him feel more understood than anyone else had ever made him feel.

The girls and Dustin tearfully followed them but Steve couldn’t spare them any attention. He was solely focused on the sluggish bleeding of Eddie’s wounds.

“Ow, Harrington. Calm the fuck down.”

“Eddie?!” The metalhead’s eyes were blurry but somewhat focused on Steve’s face. “Hey man, you have to stay awake. When we get out of here, you can teach me all about your shitty yelling music and nerd game, okay?”

The blurriness lifted slightly as pure offense filled his face, “ex-fucking-cuse you. That “shitty yelling” is true music unlike your Tears for Fears garbage or whatever the hell else you listen to. I have taste. And yeah, Harrington. I will be teaching you Dungeons & Dragons when we get out of here. Lugging my body out of here when I was trying to make a noble sacrifice is disgraceful.”

“You’re not allowed to die, Eddie.” Steve said, panting with exertion and stress.

“That’s not up to you,” and then he passed out.

“Fuck!” Steve screamed. That fucking dramatic shit, if those were his last words, Steve would bring him back just to kill him again.

Steve’s feelings were threatening to overcome him as his hands shook while he put Eddie into the car. Nancy held one of them and gave him a look of meaning. “I’ll drive.”

“Um, yeah, yeah. Okay, thanks. Henderson! Keep pressure on his wounds. We need to stop the bleeding.” He desperately put pressure on the worst of the wounds on his torso and prayed to a god he no longer believed in.

And then they sped towards the hospital.

Steve was there when Eddie woke up, just as he had been in the four days he’d been unconscious while recovering from shock. He was trying to read the dancing letters in The Hobbit but when he looked up and met Eddie’s eyes, the book dropped from his hands.

“Didn’t take you for a fantasy nerd, Harrington.” Eddie mumbled, his voice hoarse but unwavering.

“We need to talk about your theatrics, man. You almost gave me a heart attack, Eddie.”

“Oh, we’re on a first-name basis now? If I’d known all I had to do was risk my life to be in King Steve’s court, I would’ve done it a long time ago.” Eddie smirked at him.

“I’m not a king anymore.” Steve said and shook his head. It’d been a long time since anyone had called him that and he didn’t like the way it sounded on Eddie’s lips either.

“My apologies, Steve. You’re not a king, you’re a paladin. And that’s better than any noble.” Eddie said wisely.

Steve had no idea what the fuck any of that meant or what a pal-man was but he could listen to Eddie rant at him for hours as long as he kept looking at him like that. His face was fond and his lips, though scarred with a vicious bite marring their softness, smiled softly at Steve.

He coughed a bit to clear his throat and tore his eyes from Eddie’s lips to his amused eyes. “Um, do you said you were going to explain your screamy metal shit?”

That got Steve his desired reaction and Eddie squawked. “You motherfucker-”

As Steve listened to his enraged ranting, he made himself a promise. He was going to be more like Eddie. He was going to be more free with his feelings and he would find a way to talk to his friends about them. But for now, he’d listen to Eddie’s virtriolic soliloquy about the merits of metal artists and the importance on nonconformist music in “this sweaty armpit of a state”. And Steve couldn’t be happier.

@doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @carlyv