#jo hawkins

[welcometogrouchland]

EXTREMELY CRUSTY but I’ve been working on oc designs in between DC prompts. My little meow meows im so sorry i neglected you (i will inevitably do it again </3)

[soranatus]

John Timms’ cover art to DC’s Essential Graphic Novels (2023)

[chicinsilk]

US Vogue September 1, 1961

Dolores Hawkins wears a red fleece coat, lined with blue satin, over a lighter red wool dress. The ensemble. By Pattullo-Jo Copeland. Matching cloche hat by Mr. John. Pumps by Palizzio. Copper beige stockings by Glen Raven. Blue-red lipstick: Royalty Red by Dorothy Gray.

Dolores Hawkins porte un manteau en laine polaire rouge, doublé de satin bleu, sur une robe en laine en laine rouge plus légère. L'ensemble. Par Pattullo-Jo Copeland. Chapeau cloche assorti de Mr. John. Escarpins de Palizzio. Bas beige cuivré de Glen Raven. Rouge à lèvres bleu-rouge : Royalty Red de Dorothy Gray.

Photo Bert Stern vogue archive

[wwemcumuscleslover]

Ok!!! Now I feeling anxious and Sad!!!

Chicago Pd what is going to happen in this season finale!!!

I am here trying not to cry, But What is going to Happen too Voight, I will be very mad if something bad Hurt my dear Sargent

And let me Highlight here, Jesse Lee Soffer is an amazing Director.

[spntoxicfemslashevent]

While on a hunt, Jo meets Annie Hawkins. For some reason, she reminds her of her mother. Maybe that’s why she keeps calling her mommy when they sleep together

🫡

[jazzdailyblog]

Benny Carter's "Further Definitions": A Jazz Masterpiece Reimagined

Introduction: In the annals of jazz history, certain albums emerge as pivotal milestones that transcend their time and leave an indelible mark on the genre. One such gem is Benny Carter’s “Further Definitions,” a 1962 release that not only pays homage to an iconic 1937 Paris session but also stands as a masterpiece in its own right. This album, orchestrated with meticulous detail, showcases an…

[insidecroydon]

Perry's council refuses to name its design review panellists

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Mayor decided to re-boot jo Negrini’s Place Review Panel, but after almost a year’s delay, the identities of the ‘experts’ assembled remain closely guarded secrets. By WALTER CRONXITE Missing some essential detail: will the council’s design panel help improve the borough’s built environment? “Just what are they trying to hide?” a Katharine Street source said today after the…

[cagesings]

@heygutlcss​  /  riff  sent:  ❛  cupid  called  ,  he  said  we  look  great  together.  ❜

 her  nose  wrinkles  as  she  flings  her  backpack  strap  over  her  shoulder.  cupid?  really?  as  the  kind  of  girl  who  doesn’t  get  flirted  with  all  the  time  and  who  doesn’t  have  a  chance  at  getting  asked  to  dance,  johanna’s  left  stunned.  even  though  she’s  technically  been  dating  riff  for  a  few  months  now.  and  technically  before  that  she  really  liked  him.  left  without  a  clue  on  how  to  react  (  she  can’t  blush  at  something  like  that  --  it’s  stupid,  nor  can  she  push  him  away,  because  what  if  she  pushes  him  away  forever?  ),  she  begins  on  her  way  out  the  front  door  of  hawkins  high.  unintentionally  making  riff  chase  her.  

 ❝  if  cupid  really  had  called  you,  he  would  have  had  to  make  awkward  small  talk  with  your  aunt  for  ten  minutes  before  she  randomly  hung  up  on  him  and  he  would  have  to  hope  that  you  would  be  able  to  call  back  because,  let’s  face  it,  cupid  would  know  how  your  aunt  and  uncle  are.  ❞  her  brow  raises  at  him,  slowing  her  pace  somewhat  to  actually  talk  to  him.  ❝  it  sounds  like  you’re  asking  me  to  a  dance  or  something.  and  we  both  know  that’s  kind  of  impossible  for  me.  i  can’t  go  plus  i  can’t  dance.  at  all.  ❞  johanna  knows  she  shouldn’t  just  run  off  when  he  says  things  like  that.  it’s  difficult  to  do  when  running  away  is  second  nature.  she  continues  to  slow  her  pace.  ❝  is  this,  um,  code  for  something?  ❞

[munson-blurbs]

Eddie and Ms. Sweetheart's honeymoon 🥹🥹🥹

The way I ran to Google Docs to write this, not just because I love me some fluffy smut, but also because I love you.

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!ReaderSeries

Summary: Relaxing on the beach, giving your new husband a sexy surprise...what more can you ask for?

Warnings: smut (18+ only, minors DNI), p in v, breeding kink (of course), Ms. Sweetheart/Reader wears lingerie

WC: 1.1k

A/N: Big thank you and smoochy kisses to @jo-harrington for helping me make this piece body-inclusive, and to @corroded-hellfire for ensuring the breeding kink was on point.

August 1998

“What a day.” Eddie flops onto the king-size bed face first, still in his wet swim trunks. Sand sticks to the bottom of his feet; you swear he’s traipsed in half the beach. “Who knew lounging in the sun could be so exhausting? I don’t know how we’re gonna go back to our normal lives.” He flips over onto his back so his words are no longer muffled. “Like, my body might be back in Hawkins, but my mind will be in Myrtle Beach.”

You laugh, arms crossed over your chest and pressed against the thin fabric of your cover-up. “Can you drag yourself into the shower and wash off?” When he doesn’t move, you let your fingertips dance along the sole of his foot. He giggles maniacally and reflexively, drawing inwards. 

“Dammit, okay, okay!” He shakes his head and pushes himself up to an upright position. “The things you do to get me naked…”

“Mhm.” You roll your eyes dismissively as though his suggestion is absurd—even though that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. 

As soon as you hear the squeak of the spigot and the ensuing stream of water, you unzip your suitcase and rifle through until you find what you’re looking for. You feel it before you see it, fingers grasping the lacy fabric triumphantly. 

You shed the flower-printed cover-up, catching a glimpse in the mirror of yourself in your swimsuit. Eddie had picked it out for you—a one-piece that hugged you in all the right places. Truthfully, you could wear this and it would turn him on, but this is your honeymoon, and you want it to be special. 

Peeling off the damp suit, you toss it aside; it lands on the floor with a comical thwack, and you make a mental note to pick it up later. 

The teddy you’d bought weeks ago suddenly looks daunting, purchased during a trip to the mall with Jess. She’d insisted that no honeymoon is complete without some lingerie, and you’d reluctantly given in after she’d assured you multiple times that Eddie would, quote, “lose his goddamn mind.”

Soft black cups perfectly hold your breasts in place, accentuating your decolletage. The sheer mesh covering your torso is embroidered with lace roses, leaving just enough to the imagination. 

All right, you can admit it—you look good. 

You lounge on the small sofa that faces the bathroom, adjusting the bodysuit’s thin straps as you wait for the steadily falling water to cease, punctuated by several rogue drops. Your heart leaps with excitement as you hear the door knob twist and you’re bathed in a plume of steamy air. 

“Surprised you didn’t try to join—holy hell.” Eddie exhales with a grin, taking in your scantily-clad body. A white towel is slung low on his hips, sopping up the water trickling from his curls. “Where did you get this little number, baby?”

Heat creeps into your cheeks as he saunters toward you, one hand finding the small of your back while the other caresses your cheek. He leans in and kisses you hungrily, his burgeoning erection pressing against your bare thigh.

“Got me all worked up just by looking at you, Mrs. Munson,” he murmurs into your lips. It sends a shiver of pleasure down your spine as he deepens his embrace, pulling you as close as he possibly can.

Your fingers dip beneath the towel, tugging it from where it’s tucked along his waist and letting it drop. He’s fully exposed, and it takes all of your willpower to keep up this game of seduction and refrain from kissing down his happy trail.

“Since you’re so tired tonight, baby,” you coo, nipping at his earlobe as you speak, “I figured I could take care of you.” Your palms journey the expanse of his chest, draping them over his shoulders and guiding him onto the bed. The fresh bed sheets are crisp underneath your knees as you straddle him, grinding your core against his. “‘S that okay?”

Eddie nods, letting out an incredulous breath. “Course, yeah, whatever you want…” He sits up slightly, mouth drawn to your breasts as though pulled by a magnet. 

“I want you,” you tell him, sucking bruises into his neck that you hope will last until you return home. “I want you inside me, filling me up, making me feel so, so good…”

The fabric between your thighs is already soaked with proof of your desire, and you shift it over so you can sink down onto his hardened length. You take him inch by inch, the tip breaching your hole and stretching you in its delicious, familiar way.

“Oh, my god,” you whimper, bringing his hands to the flesh of your ass and giving your movements more stability. Each rock of your hips draws a moan from your husband’s plush lips, his tongue darting out to wet them every so often. “Eddie, oh, my god!”

His grip on your ass tightens as you clench around him and continue to bounce. “‘M close,” he grunts, breath hitching as he begins slamming up into you to chase his release. “Fuck, baby, you’re so fuckin’ tight…can’t hold back any more…” He speaks through gritted teeth, purely animalistic in nature. 

Your middle finger finds your clit, rubbing small circles into it. The small movements drive both you and Eddie absolutely wild. 

“Thassit…touch yourself for me,” he groans, barely audible above the lewd sounds of skin-on-skin and the way you’re drenching him right now. “You look so goddamn perfect like this, filled to the brim with my cock.”

“Wanna be filled with your cum, too,” you whine, feeling the beginnings of your own orgasm. “Wanna take all your cum, Eddie, like a good little wife.”

Eddie’s eyes practically roll back in his head. “My good little wife, all barefoot and pregnant…fuckfuckfuck…takeittakeittakeit.” With a final few thrusts, he spills into you with everything he has. His grasp loosens as he softly kisses your arms, desperate to remain close to you in any way possible. 

“So,” you start with a giggle, gently moving off of him so you can cuddle into his perspiration-slick chest, “looks like you got a second wind.”

He tilts your chin up, his eyes studying your face like a precious gemstone. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll get a third, okay, Sweetheart?” He winks, thumb gliding up and down your jawline. “Keep that sexy outfit on f’me, though. I’m not done with either of you.”

--

[trashmouth-richie]

Eddie x fem! Reader [masterlist]

Prev | vol viii

Summary: November 1st, Steve’s birthday celebration, a new friend is brought into the mix, Eddie’s past is revealed.

Trigger Warning: no minors pls, language, drinking, reader wears Eddie’s jacket, fluff, angst.

W/C: 11.5k

@jo-harrington + @ghost-proofbaby for beta reading this a tiny bit for me

The sun is waning through your curtains, blinding your eyes with a light so bright it’s like you’re staring into a flashlight. The ominous whirring of your fan oscillates, sending a chilling breeze across your room

Silently thanking yourself for taking ibuprofen before falling asleep last night, the pounding in your head is minimal, but the scratchy dryness of your throat is a steady reminder of the impromptu karaoke singing and the toe to toe chain smoking contest you bullied Eddie into. Your former drunker self turned cockier with every drink.

“I bet you… this house! This fucking house! That I can smoke more cigarettes than you can at once,” you slurred in a buzzed stupor as you swayed your body with the faint music of REO Speedwagon, your finger pressed into his chest where the fabric v’d open.

Red eyed and already higher than Willie fucking Nelson, Eddie grins wider than the Cheshire Cat, dipping low to your ear to whisper, “game on, sweetheart, but we’re smokin reds not your menthol shit.”

News flash. You couldn’t out smoke Eddie. And your burning croaky throat was proof of that.

Feet on the floor, your cold toes inching towards purchase against the carpet for your slippers. Opening your eyes, you assess the room. The Eddie costume you proudly wore all night, was strewn across your floor, complete with the wig. A rumbly laugh reverberates through your lungs along with a horrendous hacking cough. The memory of Jeff wearing it and imitating Eddie jogs across your mind. The way Eddie pouted and glared through his lashes made you smile sweetly at the memory.

A quick glance at your body in the mirror shows that you’re still wearing the soft black DIO shirt from lastnight, but thankfully you changed into pajama pants.

Another rough barking cough against your already achy throat surrenders it’s vices and begs for water. Opening the door you are met with a freezing chill. Eyes blinking in the bright sun from the windows in the living room, you take note of the heaps of bodies snoring and drooling amongst the floor.

Mike and El are cuddled up like two little kittens against the back corner in the living room, her blonde wig used as a pillow, Mike’s Mad Hatter jacket and his arm draped over her. Finding yourself gawking at the sweetness of seeing them curled into each other, you wonder if you would ever have a great love like they did. Your stomach leaps when the one crossing your mind is Eddie.

It was wrong. You shouldn’t be feeling this way about your brother’s friend, your roommate for fucks sake! He was everything you hated about the male population. Loud, annoying, an absolute pervert. Messy beyond belief, couldn’t boil a goddamn egg. But, he was also gentle, kind, and caring. Your yearning heart ached for his touch like the day he held you close to his chest during your darkest hour.

Not to mention he was cute. Okay, that’s a lie. Eddie was hot, in that rugged ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’ kind of way. Different from most guys in Hawkins, who were obsessed with their appearance, their family name. Eddie didn’t care, he was just himself. Always had been, always would be. And something about that cocky demeanor, burying the kindest heart you’ve ever come across, made your heart stutter in your chest.

Would he hold you like Mike was holding El if you were his? Would he cover you in kisses and do cliche things with you like matching couples costumes on Halloween? Something deep inside told you he would.

“Cute aren’t they?”

You jump out of your skin at the low, velvet voice, not realizing he was awake, your hungover mind foregoing the aroma and slow drip of black coffee being made. Too wrapped up in thinking about him to notice that he had approached you on your left, his messy curls swing against your cheek as he had bent down to your ear.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says with a chuckle.

You turn and look at him, he’s so close to you your noses almost touch. The tickling shock of nervousness from last night returns and travels up your spine, curling into your hair, igniting every hair follicle, a burning welcomed pleasure against your scalp. A quirked smile on his lips as you take a step back.

Blinking slow, you take him in. His smile could melt the polar ice caps, that goddamn panty dropper grin, you curse yourself silently for feeling the heat on your neck. He’s wearing black sweats, cut above the knee and rolled at the hem from many washes. A horrendously sawed off cut t-shirt adorns his broad shoulders. The same raw hems rolling inward, exposing a silver hoop in his nipple. The sun catching the steel ring and casting a blinding glare against it. He tips the coffee mug he’s holding back to his lips, emptying the contents in one gulp. The smell of potent orange juice fills your nose as you stare at his lips. His tongue poked out to lap up the last spilled drops.

“No, you’re fine—I didn’t realize you were up,” you explain, rubbing sleep from your eyes. Peering around him at the small wooden clock on the wall, it’s only 8:30, “didn’t know you were aware that there was an 8:30 AM on Sundays.”

“Are you always this witty in the morning?”

“It’s a gift,” you say with a smirk, “consider it a blessing, you’re late by the way.”

“Late for what?” The lazy way he smiles at you should be a crime.

A coy smile on your lips, “Sunday Service.”

Eddie snorts a laugh and grabs his side, wincing slightly, “agh, don’t make me laugh,” he groans, “I think I fucked up my back or something from falling down those steps last night.”

“…twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…”

Gareth turned his head from the spout engulfing deep breaths from the chilled night air. Argyle and Jonathan let his feet back down to the deck. Standing next to Nancy and Ash, you whoop and holler along with everyone else, cheering on the new Keg Stand Champion. Gareth, stands on wobbly legs, taking a deep breath, he shouts, “And that's how it’s d—“

Before he can finish his victory speech, he projectile vomits all over Big D. Covering him shoulders to waist in foamy chunks of party food and the cheap keg beer. Laughter erupts from Eddie, he throws his wild hair back in amusement. Clutching his stomach and choking on the smoke from the joint he had just inhaled. Karma, proving again that she’s a cunt, Eddie leans back just far enough to fall backwards down the five steps to the ground.

“Jesus down, Jesus down!” Eddie exclaimed, roaring with laughter.

Concerned, you delicately reach for his wrist and move his hand away from his ribs. A small splatter of deep purpling color against his alabaster skin suggests that they are more than likely bruised from the fall. The dainty touch of your fingers on his body sends goosebumps against his flesh, and it wasn’t because your hands were cold. He swallows hard, adoration in his brown eyes as he takes in your smell, how messy your hair was, the hum on your lips as you observe him, pressing the pads of your fingers into his skin.

Who would have thought that simple minuscule touches from you could cause a frenzy in his blood. He thought the hair washing would bring him to his knees, but this? He didn’t realize he stopped breathing until you spoke.

The hitch in his throat is dismissed by you, “sorry, my fingers are probably freezing,”

He murmurs, something along the lines of “it’s fine,” but you barely hear it.

His skin is surprisingly smooth. Women spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in their lifetime to have perfect skin, and here Eddie Munson was, baby soft skin on a metal head’s body. You take the time to admire the exposed tattoo on his ribs next to the bruises. Tracing your finger over the triangled black ink outlined in red, angry against his skin. You’ve seen the symbol before but never understood what it was. An eight laying sideways, in the overlapping section is a cross with two lines instead of one.

Seconds fade to minutes of your fingers tracing his skin. Neither you or Eddie have said a word. Unhurried migrations on your fingers skate across the alabaster, feeling for any broken bones, but only feeling the velour cream of his skin beneath your hands.

Clearing your throat, you look into his blown out eyes, “I —um,” the air is thick between you both, making it hard to breath, or it could be the fact that the caramel pools of his eyes are pouring into yours, “ looks like it’s just bruised,” you say, slowly moving your fingers away from his skin. Your nails scratching his skin casually. And a quick intake of breath hisses between his teeth.

Eddie’s voice comes out shakier than he would have liked, he licks his lips, “o-oh good.”

He casts his eyes downwards, his fingers tug gently at the sleeve of the DIO shirt you’re still wearing from last night. His eyes find yours again, the browned oasis beckoning you, “are you still mad at me for winning the costume contest?” he asks in almost a whisper, lips barely moving, his focus full on the way your soft skin under your shirt feels against his calloused fingers.

The jump in your lower belly ignited the flame within you, sending burning hot coals to your core at his ghosting fingers on your arm. You blink rapidly and scoff. Rolling your eyes to extinguish the flames, you force yourself away from him, brushing past him, your shoulder grazing his chest sends more fire through your veins, a last attempt on keeping the heat blazing. “I was never mad,” you explain. Opening the cabinet with shaky hands and grabbing a white mug with tiny yellow flowers on the rim, you take a deep breath to steady your voice, turning it into a makeshift yawn, “who do you think decides who wins the contest anyway?”

Pouring the hot black coffee into the mug the aroma fills the room. Creamer sloshes against the liquid mixing merrily into a toffee colored dream.

Eddie leans against the counter, taking a piece of candy from the plastic jack-o-lantern dish and twisting the ends between his fingers, the orange hardened sugar melting slow on his tongue.

“You voted for me?” he asks earnestly, his head bowed in bashfulness, “you’re going to make me blush, sweetheart,” he coos, swirling the candy around his mouth, clacking against his teeth as he tries to hide a smile.

Sipping the piping hot coffee gingerly between your lips, you shrug, “not every day I get to see you acting so holy, thought we should capitalize on the opportunity, plus, it really was one hell of a costume.”

The bubblegum blush on Eddie’s cheeks make him look like a teenager, twisting his hair as if he just received his first kiss.

“I don’t know, I kinda liked yours,” he said matter of factly.

“That’s cause you’re full of yourself,” you say with a teasing tone, sticking out your tongue, and coughing roughly again.

Eddie’s eyebrows pull inward, a mocked scoff on his lips, “I refuse to take insults from someone who sounds like my Uncle Wayne— told you you couldn’t hang with the big dogs— but no, Tooty doesn’t listen.”

You dismiss him with a suggestive middle finger and a smirk as you sip the coffee again, “I can do anything I want, you’re not my babysitter.”

Neither of you knew that Robin and Steve were both awake, listening intently to your light banter, your giggling voices as you teased each other. The way yours pitched in a high squeal when Eddie’s hands tickled your sides and you tried to fight him off with the paper towel row.

The two friends sit side by side on the couch, smiling widely at one another, wondering when you would let eachother in.

-

It was noon before Gareth woke up, a combination of dried puke and drool on his face. The other four party go-ers had already left and did the sad walk of shame out to their vehicles. Both Robin and Steve give you weird looks and wide glances all morning, you even noticed Steve wiggling his eyebrows.

Yawning and reeking of alcohol. The loud snores from Gareth’s slack mouth could awaken the residents lying 6 feet under in East Hawkins. He’s laying with his head in a popcorn bowl, a poorly drawn sharpie penis crudely coloring his cheek, thanks to Eddie. The cold puke slowly oozing from the bowl onto himself has your stomach lurching.

Eddie finally woke him by shaking his shoulders violently, yelling into his face, “dude! You’re gonna rattle the fucking house off the foundation with that deafening snore, Christ almighty!”

Gareth stirred alive, swinging his arms frantically. “Fuck, man, scare the hell out of me why don’t ya!”

“Oh relax, trust me— it was either this or the Tooty method,” Eddie says with a grin motioning to you standing behind his shoulder holding a cup of cold water, a devilish smirk on your face, “seriously though, get up you smell like two-week-old rotten asshole.”

After Gareth and Eddie argue over why he has a dick drawn on his face, and Eddie swearing it wasn’t him, Gareth bumps his fist into Eddie’s and waves goodbye as he stands at the front door, and addresses you, “helluva party Tooty, hopefully I didn’t make too much of a mess and you’ll invite me again next year,” his easy smile is something you’ve never seen directed at you. Of all Eddie’s bandmates, Gareth was the hardest to read.

“Duh, you’re the reigning keg stand champion, you gotta make a return,” you smile back.

Gareth laughs, his floppy thick hair matted from the habit he wore all night, “think my keg stand days are over.” He looks from you to Eddie, watching the way Eddie smiles at you adoringly, and he starts to finally get it. Understand why his friend acts the way he does around you. You’re easy to talk to, friendly, kind, once you let your guard down. He looks to Eddie again as you turn and walk back to the kitchen, giving him a knowing glance shifting his eyes to you, and nodding his head once in approval, “see ya around dickhead,” he jokes to his oldest friend, his role model, his brother.

-

“Why the fuck do I have to wear this?” Eddie groans, pulling at the stiff collar on his shirt, buttoned too tight around his neck, not used to material that wasn’t leather or soft cotton, the metalhead was crabby and uncomfortable in the borrowed maroon button down shirt and black skinny tie from Harrington, “I look like a bible salesmen!”

Steve’s birthday was tonight and he requested to have dinner at his favorite restaurant in Indianapolis. He had gotten a big promotion at work the week after Halloween and was in need of a little celebration before the task of being executive director started.

Slotting silver iridescent dangly earrings you had borrowed from Nancy into your ears and adjusting the matching choker against your throat, you take the last curler out from your hair and fluff it with your fingers to give it shape. You holler from closed confinements of your room, “it’s for Steve’s birthday, not your birthday— quit being a big baby!”

Stepping your tights into the borrowed black velvet pointed heels, and smoothed down the black velour mini dress with the spaghetti straps you had bought last week from an ad in the paper about selling prom dresses for cheap. The material was snug against your curves fitting like a glove. Your makeup was darker than you would have normally done on any other given day but since this was such a fancy event for one of your closest friends— you smoked out a brown eyeshadow across your lids and added a heavy coat of mascara to your lashes with a thin line of eyeliner. Your favorite lipstick swiped delicately across your lips.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, you are pleased at your reflection. A patch of doubt trickles up your chest making you question if you should change. Is it too much? Is it over the top? But all that comes to a halt when loud banging is heard on your door. Stopping your spiraling shame cold in its tracks.

“Tooty?” Eddie raps on the door, “Steve just pulled up. You ready or are we leaving your ass at h—”

For the first time in Eddie’s life he is speechless. Not counting the time that his jaw was wired shut for 6 months when he took his skateboard off the roof of Gareth’s house in middle school.

Tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry and itchy like eighty grade sandpaper. His eyebrows are lifted, tucked beneath his bangs. It’s as if everything was going in slow motion, he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, he was stunned by the drop dead gorgeous woman in front of him.

Your beauty wasn’t something that just happened in a movie with you pouncing down the stairs to some cheesy song with your friends clapping at the top and high-fiving over their “miracle makeover”. Eddie just simply wasn’t accustomed to seeing you dressed up like this.

It’s taking everything in him to not spring forward like a rabid dog and close the gap between you. Slot his lips against yours. A desperate, needy kiss so full of urgency that your head would spin. He’d keep you in the spinning wonderland until both of you were seconds from passing out. Dizzy from the floating clouds and blissful euphoria soaring around in his arms. He wants to grab your waist, wants to fist his fingers around the nape of your neck, wants to see the way your mouth would open with a gasp as he kissed your collar bone, so sweetly, so delicately— his name a whisper on your breath. He’d kiss your lips until they were chapped, sore, and tender to match his. Then he’d kiss them better, his lips the antidote, curing your craved pain.

He’d give anything— his van, his guitar, the band whatever it took— just to get a taste. In this dream land he’s everything you wanted, everything you needed. You loved him, adored him. Accepted his flaws, his past, his scars. He’d hold you tight while you slept, your head tucked into the crook of his neck, stealing sleepy kisses on your hair, enamored by the perfume of your hair, intoxicated, drugged by the lust of your skin. He’d learn how to cook, make you delicious meals, clean the house, do the laundry, be the perfect man. All for you.

He wanted to feel your body forming and molding around him. Yearned to know the valleys of your body, each curve, each beauty mark, each scar visible or not. If it weren’t for his heart hammering into his ears he would have thought he had gone deaf for sure.

You’re talking but he can’t hear you.

He’s still in the dream land, dancing on Saturn’s rings, cooling his feet in Jupiter’s springs, holding your hand and taking you higher with him. Your smile taking flight in his chest and ascending you along the majestic sights of the Milky Way. Completely gone from this world. A world where you were his, and he was yours.

The more he fantasizes it— the more the impossibility of this dream increases. His bravado falls, crashing through the sparkly dream with fluffy clouds, falling further down. Away from you. Away from the dream he wanted, craved to be reality.

He fell through the clouds, clinging to your fingers, would you reach out for him? Help him? Save him?

Would you ever want to be his? He was Eyeball’s friend, Prince of the Trailer Park, probably annoyed you more than Eyeball himself did. You were beautiful and put together, and him? He was lint in the dryer, causing house fires when forgotten about. Voted most likely to end up in prison for the graduating class of ‘85 and ‘86. A failure, a crack in the sidewalk you’d avoid to break your mother’s back as a kid.

Avoid the trailer park trash. Avoid Eddie Munson.

So he pushed the thoughts away, the ooey galaxy of cotton candy trees and rainbow lollipops— fading back to black as he fell faster harder, back to reality. The dead, decaying ashen life of shitville Hawkins, Indiana. Where reality came in the form of working long days to barely survive. A name branded to his soul, weathered and tarnished like forgotten silverware in a rich dementia riddled woman’s home.

Nothing. Munson trash. The town freak. Social outcast. Scum in the drain. Bastard child.

“Earth to Eddie!”

A snap of your fingers and the impatient wrinkles between your brow bring his soul back to his body.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, wiping his clammy palms on the thighs of the cleanest pair of black jeans he owned, “We—uh,” blush creeps to his cheeks, adamant to push it down, to the cobwebbed box in his brain that never opened, he grabs your hand and starts to yank you towards the door, a gruff annoyance in his voice, “let’s go.”

You’re crestfallen.

Oblivious to his inner intergalactic battles of hoping that he was good enough for you but deep down knowing he never would be.

Not anywhere near the suaveness of Casanova he pretends to possess on most days, motor-mouth Munson was all out of gas. Spending his last tank, last drop of fuel taking you to the moon and spinning you amongst the stars.

-

Steve is wearing a black suit, standing against a new SUV, shiny ink black like the velvet of your dress, and the pretty girl’s hair standing next to him, she’s wearing a purple velour sweetheart neckline dress, with rhinestone straps, her shoulders are bare until the dress continues to cover her arms, into a full sleeve. Robin is hanging out of the back passenger side window, a tie hung loosely around her neck and a white button down tailored shirt adorning her body. Waving a bottle of Boonesfarm around.

“Come on! Let’s party like it’s 1984! Before Steve had this new bitchin’ car and still half of his virgini—“

“Robin!” Steve scolds, threading his fingers through his hair, the girl on his arm shooting Robin a pleasurable laugh, her hand on Steve’s chest.

Eddie is still dragging you along, hurrying you along. In a rush but not saying a word. “Eddie, Jesus Christ, stop, I have to get my purse,” you yank your wrist from his grip and take a step backward. Silent and fuming, your arms crossed over your chest. Looking up at him with water brimmed eyes, corners of your mouth turned downward in a confused frown.

It’s the same expression he had seen during the first few days he had moved in, when he hurt you.

Shaking his head with a huff he descends the concrete steps and stands next to Robin, clutching the Boonesfarm bottle and taking a long hefty swig, wallowing in his own self pity and self doubt of never being good enough for you.

Of course this is how it would be with you. Why would you ever want him when there are people like Steve Harrington in the world. Offering you anything and everything you could ever need. And what could he offer you? Nothing. A tainted name and a ring pop replacing a diamond.

He wasn’t good enough for Chrissy, wasn’t good enough for Trish. How would you be any different? Swallowing his pride with each swig of the sugary Boonesfarm, he tries his hardest to push the idea of you wanting to be with him, wanting anything other than someone to take up space and pay rent on time, out of his mind.

“Tooty,” Steve says, waving you over once you shut the door to the house and locked it, “Eddie, this is Leighanne, my girlfriend.”

A smile breaks on your face, pure unadulterated joy for your friend. The way his face lit up saying girlfriend, the way they’re clutched together, a perfect match, him looking adoringly into her face, staring in wonder and awe as she beams a radiating light back up to him— it’s sugar sweet.

A low ache in your chest fires again, whatever had burned for Eddie was now boiling on high heat but the pot was empty.

You thought that maybe he… hadn’t he? The bitter truth stinging your tongue, not admitting it to yourself. Not allowing yourself to think any further on the subject, you extend your smile to Leighanne. Pleasantries in your voice as you push down your own worrying heart and open it up to hear all about how Leighanne and Steve met.

“Damn, new fancy job and a car to match— never seen one of these in real life before Harrington.”

Steve dives into the story of him trading in his car for the G Wagon, a year old and less than 10,000 miles. Eddie asked questions and walked around the vehicle with Steve as he kicked the tires and inspected the paint job.

The ride to Indianapolis was full of Leighanne’s bright laugh, teasing Steve and joking with Robin. Her fingers never unlaced from his. She was funny, charismatic in a way that complimented Steve. You’re stuffed in the middle in the backseat. Robin on your left and Eddie on your right, preoccupied with staring out the window.

He’s brooding, steeping like a tea bag in the heat of the sun. Only he’s cold, off putting and sulking. Not engaging once in conversation other than. Answering yes or no to Steve’s questions, giving little up.

And you were doing the same, trying hard to focus on what Robin and Leighanne were giggling about but finding Eddie’s bad mood taking you over. His pitch black aura sucking you in and consuming you. Dampening the celebratory night for your friend that hasn’t even begun because he’s irritated by God knows what. It’s the longest ride to Indianapolis you’ve experienced yet.

The restaurant is burnt brick with an old prohibition era feel to it. Low jazz music is playing by a live band in the back corner. Reservations for Harrington bring the five of you to a secluded area low lit with hues of blacks and coppers and mahogany wood filling the space, setting the ambience for a private affair. The round table is set with a cream colored silk cloth that alone probably cost more than the value of your house.

Steve pulls out a chair for Leighanne. A pinky rouge on her cheeks as she sits down delicately. Robin climbs next to her, body angled towards her, her feet on the seat of her chair.

Taking the seat next to Robin, Eddie takes the seat next to you, angling it ever so slightly away from you, his right elbow on the table, head facing away from you.

What the fuck?

Two waiters arrive holding a large round platter filled with various selections of wines, whiskey, and beers in stout glasses. Each one filled to the brim of the finest liquor ranging in black browned ale to lighter amber on one side, the others full of their house made brew, an inch head of foam in each glass, and wine ranging from white to a deep burgundy red.

Before the waiter can even walk away Eddie has two glasses of the dark colored whiskey in front of him, shooting them down like he’s at a high school party and has a curfew. “Shit man, these are for sipping, ya gotta ease into it a little,” Steve says with a chuckle. Eddie grabs another glass from the circle of the platter, sipping it slow between his lips, letting the fervor of the liquor burn his mouth, welcoming the burn.

-

Eddie hasn’t said a word to you all night. In fact— he’s ignoring you. Usually the first to start joking around, he’s completely sullen, sinking into his bad mood letting the veil of self loathing cover himself like a blanket, choking his insides. He’d converse with everyone but you. “Can you pass the pepper,” you’d asked after laughing obnoxiously with Leighanne about how Steve couldn’t throw a punch to save his life.

Silence.

“Eddie?” You ask again, “can you please pass me the pepper?”

Another ignored moment of silence from the brooding metalhead.

“Eddie! Hello!?”

Nothing.

A swift kick from Steve to the shins finally roused him alive, blinking his eyes slowly away from his glass, thumb moving over the condensation. “Dude—Tooty needs the pepper.”

Eddie looks at the pepper shaker with hooded, bored eyes, far from the conversation around the table. Trapped in the black box of dread in his mind. He scoots it closer to you but not enough by far. Scooting your chair back with a screech, you stand and lean across him, fully in his space. Encroaching on his doomed self with your perfume wafting into his nose. Your hairspray stinging his eyes when your hair brushes over your shoulder in front of him. It’s intoxicating. The way your necklace catches the light, as you lean over him hits his chest like a lightning bolt. b

A quick turn of your face and he catches your glare, heated and angry, but his eyes are soft, solemn, sad.

“Thanks, Eddie— really appreciate you helping me out there. Next time I’ll just lay across the table when I need something, or I could simply go fuck myself if that’s easier for you? Don’t want to interrupt whatever the fuck you’ve got going on.” you spit, venom on your lips dripping from your teeth as you aggressively shake the pepper on the salad.

Eddie stands abruptly, “going for a smoke,” he says to nobody in particular, Steve stands and follows him out, with the helping nudge of Leighanne’s elbow in his ribs.

The two guys strut outside, breathing in the night air, a flick of lighters and the burning, crinkling sound of the end of two cigarettes fills the almost barren sidewalk. A minute or so passes before Steve speaks first, “nice night out, considering it’s the middle of November.”

Eddie only nods, inhaling the smoke and trying to relax.

“You alright?”

Again, Eddie only answers with body movements, shrugging his shoulders, blowing smoke through his nose.

Steve inhaled his cigarette slow, “Tooty looks nice tonight.”

Eddie bites his bottom lip and rubs his eyes with this thumb. Smoke curling around him in a makeshift halo. “Yeah,” he finally speaks, nodding his head, a huffed chuckle on his lips, “she does, doesn’t she?”

“What’s going on, man?” Steve questions, “last I knew you were head over heels for her— now you’re ignoring her and acting like a jackass in there.” He says pointing to the door, “you’re gonna fuck this up before you’ve even let it start!”

Eddie shoves himself off the wall, the cobwebs on the box in his mind where he stored his pain, were wiped away, fingerprints on the lid, “oh give it up, Harrington.” Rubbing his hands down his face with a groan, “I’m— fuck, I’m so fucking stupid. Falling for someone like her.”

“What do you mean someone like her?” Steve asks frustrated, “fuck man you really are dumb aren’t you?”

“What?” Eddie asks, his chest puffed out in confusion, “this isn’t like some magic eight ball shaking it to see if your crush likes you Steve! That’s not how shit works!”

“You’re a dumbass! Even I can see that she’s hurt by the way you’re acting!” Steve shouts, stomping out his cigarette.

“Dude I’m not talking about this right now, back off,” Eddie pleads, flicking his cigarette into the street and attempting to walk around Steve.

“Why are you being an asshole and trying to shove her away?” Steve goads.

“I’m not.” Lid is off the box, contents exposed.

“Don’t be a douche fucking tell me!”

“Because she’s too fucking good for me!” Eddie finally screams into the night, throwing his hands up in the air.

The box is dumped out. Contents spilled out in his mind, hurt behind his eyes, for anyone to see.

He hangs his head, shoulders slumped forward, he slides down the wall and sits on the cool concrete, breathing heavily, “She’s— fuck, she’s never gonna want to be with someone like me, man.”

All of his self doubt from earlier tonight, all the pain he’s ever felt from being a neglected child, an outcast in school amongst his peers, being cheated on, lied to— it all came crashing down around him. All the alcohol he consumed wasn’t helping matters either.

He was a failure, in more ways than he could count. Twenty-six and just freshly moved out of his uncle’s place. Twenty-six and still playing in a band at the bar on the weekends. Twenty-six and still alone. Horribly, utterly, bitterly alone. Drowning himself in groupie pussy every night before he moved in with you. He hated himself.

“Has she said that? Did you ever think that maybe she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks? You think it was easy for her to stay in Hawkins after her parents up and left? After Kevin was thrown in prison? After that piece of shit Chad Cunningham hurt her? If there’s anything we know about Tooty it’s that she’s a fighter, she could have left at any time, packed her shit and never looked in the rear view mirror. But you and I know that she’s too damn stubborn to let Hawkins get the best of her.”

Eddie lifts his head, looking at Steve sitting beside him.

“She needs you, man, you’re good for her.”

Mansion dreams on a trailer park budget. He could never afford the things you deserved. He loathed the thought of anyone else being able to give you the things he couldn’t, the pit of his stomach rolling.

“I don’t know, Steve,” Eddie says, timidly throwing his curly head against the brick behind him, “I saw her today all dressed up looking so absolutely gorgeous, and it hit me, I could never give her the life she deserves.”

“Come on, man,” Steve chides, knocking his shoulder to Eddie’s, “you really think I would have told you about her needing a roommate and insisting that you go and look at the house, if I didn’t think you’d be good for each other?”

Eddie shrugs his shoulders again, the self doubt creeping back, putting the box back together.

“After Nancy moved out, I knew she was scared— she’d never say anything about it, but we worried about it. She needed someone around who she could trust. Robin and I couldn’t get out of our lease, but then you told me you were looking for a place, and honestly there isn’t anyone better for her than you.”

Eddie thinks on this for a few seconds. Steve was right, he did fuck this up. “Christ, she’s probably madder than hell at me right now,” he says with a groan.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, standing and holding out a hand for Eddie, “you’ve got some making up to do.”

-

“Am I drunk, or is he acting weird as hell tonight, like more weird than usual?” Robin slurs, almost falling out of her seat as she whisper-yells across the table at you the minute Steve follows Eddie out the door.

“Oh, honey,” Leighanne whispers, holding Robin by her arm and guiding her back into the chair, “you’re very drunk, but also I’ve never met him, but he seems sad.”

Stewing in a pot of shame and regret, you try to tune Robin and Leighanne out. A shiver of hatred stirs in your chest, pulling at your heart strings and gnawing on the fleshy stretch cords until they’re rotting, black and withered.

How silly of you to be so nervous about wearing this dress, when Eddie only took one look at you and immediately turned sour. How stupid of you to think that he had somehow turned into a decent human being, a friend, a confidant, a shoulder to cry on when you were desperate and needing consoling. How fucking dumb of you to be so mad in this moment that he was ignoring you, acting like a complete jerk and ruining this nice evening by being a pouty child.

Fuck him, and fuck this.

Reaching for the now warm wine you toss it back, chugging until your throat ached. It’s easier to swallow than the embarrassing way you thought that Eddie was growing to like you. Your mistake.

Won’t happen again.

-

By the time the guys come back, you were slightly buzzed, feeling giggling with the bubbling of the flutes of champagne that had been brought out after the dinner was cleared from the table.

Steve slaps Eddie on the back and shakes his shoulders a bit, sitting down quickly beside Leighanne and whispering into her ear, she turns scarlet red as he nudges his nose down to kiss her neck. You turn your face away, ashamed again, for wanting a love like that so bad, yet sold short.

“You okay?” Robin asks Eddie. You can feel eyes on you, burning into the side of your face, but you won’t give him the time of day. To hell with him.

He answers her back, making up some lame excuse about not feeling good as to why he was acting like an asshole all night.

“Hmm,” you hum, raising your eyebrows and huffing. Tossing your napkin from your lap onto the table, grabbing another flute of champagne and downing it instantly, crossing your legs and leaning further away from him. “Isn’t that funny?”

“Tooty?” His voice is soft, dipped in butter and spread across a warm croissant. Almost timid the way he’s barely speaking above a whisper, you pretend not to hear him.

A nudge in your side goes unanswered as you turn your face towards an almost passed out Robin. Another poke to the ribs, a ticklish spot for anyone. A tap on your hand, fervent and annoying, your name repeated in high and low tones, as you actively avoid him. He finally stops, and when he does you take a shaky breath, right as your chair is flung backwards on the back legs, and you’re suddenly upside down, peering into Eddie’s face. That cocky Munson grin plastered onto it, the one you haven’t seen all night, sends shock waves to your core, and a burn to your chest.

Goddamn him.

“Put me down,” you emphasize with bitterness behind each word.

Eddie smiles widely, “not until you talk to me, sweetheart,”

“Oh look at that everyone, the pouting child act is over, guess we are blessed after all,” you spit back, crossing your arms and trying to wriggle the chair free.

His smile is pulled back slightly, voice dipped low as he leans forward slightly, “can we talk? Privately?”

You glare back at him, venomous cold eyes peering into his, hoping he understood how annoyed and hurt you were with the bullshit he’d been pulling for hours, “Congratulations on finding your voice Ariel, but if you don’t put my chair down I’ll—“

“What? You’ll do what?” Eddie bickers back with a grin, leaning closer you can smell his musky cologne, and the burnt scent of his cigarette on his breath. He enjoys watching you squirm and get pissed off at him. Something about the way you scold him sends him over the moon.

But, he could never anticipate what you would do next.

His hands on the back of your chair, you turn your head in a swift motion and find his thumb and bite down on it until he squeals and yelps in pain.

“…bite you,”

Instinct taking over Eddie pulls his hands from the back of your chair. And you start tumbling backwards. Falling falling, reaching backwards, you grab onto the first thing you can get your frantic hands on.

It all happens too fast, one minute you’re falling backwards, the next your fingers are gripped tight on the buckle of Eddie’s belt. Your breath hitched in your chest, as you grappled to stay upwards. In a swift motion Eddie grabs under your arms and the chair falls to the ground.

Eddie pulls you up, your body skimming his as he turns you around to face him. “Damn, I’m right here. No need to get so handsy,” he murmurs in a low husky laugh.

You take a deep breath to calm yourself, sudden shock of fear fading from your body as you look into his face. Even though he’s laughing, his pupils are blown and dark, eyebrows twisted inward, and raised, pulled into concern.

“Fuck Munson,” you say, straightening your dress, trying not to melt from the heat of Eddie’s hands on your waist, “trying to kill me?” The room was spinning, you hadn’t hit your head, but maybe the rush of falling backwards mixed with the alcohol you had drank was a combination for a migraine. Definitely not the way he was lazily drinking you in, his lips stretching into a wide, pretty smile.

“Kill you?” He scoffs, hands still heavy on your waist, rubbing slow circles with his thumbs, sending your nerves into a fizzing frenzy of want. “I’m not the one biting others, kitten.”

Of all the nicknames Eddie has called you— princess, sweetheart, baby— kitten was a new one. And you’re ashamed at the pulse in your core and the heat in your cheeks as his eyes twinkle like brown Christmas lights back at you, the flick of his tongue against his lips almost sends you into cardiac arrest.

“Hey—“ Steve interrupts, stepping into your peripheral vision, “—don’t mean to break this up—but we have a problem.”

-

“Alright guys, good news or bad news?”

Steve steps through the lobby door to the sidewalk, where you, Leighanne, Robin and Eddie were all waiting for him. The chill of the night air is biting through your tights and stinging your cheeks. Even in the cozy musky warmth of Eddie’s leather jacket that he insisted on you wearing, after listening to your chattering teeth for ten minutes, “here,” he announced, stopping abruptly and shucking the jacket off his arms, and wrapping it around your shoulders, “I swear you’re gonna chip your teeth with the way you’re chattering them, it’s annoying,” he said in a faux grumble, his voice mean but his face lighting up when you hurriedly slot your arms through his jacket. Inhaling his smoke musk and cool leather combination as it dizzied your mind.

Ever since the restaurant kicked you all out on account of being too drunk, you’d been walking to a hotel. The restaurant manager had refused to let Steve get his car from the valet because they thought he was too intoxicated to drive. And also denied him from using the phone to hail a cab. There was no other choice.

So that's what led you all here. Walking fifteen blocks— in heels, dresses and fancy shirts, to the nearest hotel. Well technically thirty blocks because the waiter gave Steve the wrong directions. Everyone was freezing, tired and crabby. The drunken happy stage left about twenty blocks back.

“Bad news, Harrington hit me,” Eddie gripes.

Steve brushes his fingers through his hair, “Okay, uhh—bad news… there’s only one room available, with two beds.”

“But, there’s one… two…three..four.. six of us!” Robin counts, hiccuping loudly and letting a giggle escape her slack mouth. Maybe the restaurant wasn’t wrong in kicking you all out after all.

“No— there’s five of us, but there is a chair!” Steve chimes, “that’s the good news!”

You knew what that meant, obviously you would be sharing a bed with Robin or Eddie, and given the fact that Robin was probably a good ten minutes away before she started throwing up like she was notorious for— you were about to share a bed with Eddie.

-

The room was small but decent. Maroon, itchy bedspreads with pilling fabric sat atop the beds, white linen sheets and overly stuffed pillows with matching cases shoved into the perfectly made beds. A tiny tv sat atop a chestnut dresser complete with channel listings and a remote velcroed to it. Leighanne crosses the room and immediately finds the furnace, cranking it up as high as it will go and shutting the drapes, she sits on the bed furthest from it, and begins taking her earrings out of her ears. Sighing with relief as the heavy dangly bejeweled gems clink onto the bedside table. Steve sits beside her, leaning forward and grabbing her ankle, delicately sliding the strappy heels from her sore feet, rubbing them between his hands and murmuring apologies to her, kissing her shoulder.

Eddie is kicking the toe of his boot into the carpet, hands pushed into his pockets and looking downward. The awkward question of who-will-sleep-where is weighing heavy on your mind, just when you’re about to ask him what he thinks, Robin pushes between you both and makes a mad dash to the bathroom. Like clockwork.

“I’m never letting her drink again!” Steve says with a huff, “every time, she does this every single time!”

You snort out an exhausted giggle, this night went to hell in a handbasket the minute you left Hawkins. The only thing left to do was laugh about it.

Leaning your body against the wall, you carefully step out of your heels, the dingy carpet a glorious welcome to your aching feet. Stretching your toes out and wiggling them against the carpet brings a sigh to your lips.

Body tired from the constant shivering and cramped calves, you couldn’t wait to get the dress off and feel the warmth of the blanket around you, cocooning yourself like a caterpillar in a chrysalis.

Fuck.

You didn’t have any clothes with you, just the dress you were wearing, tights and a black thong. If it was Eddie you’d be sharing a bed with, what the hell were you supposed to wear? The thought hadn’t even trickled into your mind until this very second as you noticed Eddie unlace his boots.

Panic riddles your body, fuck would you lay naked next to him? Should you keep the dress on?

“Hey,” Eddie whispers into your ear, reigning you back in with his velvet voice, “there’s a vending machine by the elevator, wanna come with me?”

His lips contort into a smirk, and his hair wisps against your cheek, tickling your skin as you turn into him. Still wearing his jacket the neckline covers your mouth and nose as you nod your head yes.

-

The low pile fibers of the emerald and turquoise hallway carpet feels plush and luxurious against your nylon toes. A welcomed dream to your throbbing feet. You focus on the intricate leaves pattern as you walk the hallway with Eddie, his socked feet thudding along softly in tandem with yours.

The silence is deafening, and you can practically hear your heart beat out of your chest when his knuckles ever so gently, ever so delicately, graze yours as he swings his hand when he walks.

“Think it’s this way,” Eddie says pointing a thick ringed finger down a hallway at a T intersection. “I’m so hungry I’m going to eat the carpet if I don’t find something to eat.”

“Should have ate while we were at the restaurant,” you poke at him, “but you were too busy being an asshole.”

Eddie chokes out a throaty laugh, “I saved your life, Tooty— how am I still an asshole?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call me-falling-because-you-tipped-my-chair-backwards saving my life, but whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart,” you barely choke out the last part before you burst into a too-tired giggle, hiding your mouth with the collar of his jacket.

His own nickname on your lips burns his insides, mocking or not he wanted to hear it again and again.

“You fight dirty, I had no idea you were into biting.” Eddie teases, his eyes bright and playful matching his smirk, the vending machine comes into view and his eyes light up even more, “oh fuck yeah, come to daddy!”

The black vending machine is lit with a flickering light over head. Eddie thumbs through his wallet and grabs out ten one dollar bills.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Eddie crooned, “pick your vice.”

Deciding on a package of orange squared crackers with cheese, Eddie buys a bag of chocolate cookies, chips, and two bags of candy.

Carrying five cans of pop from the pop machine and Eddie’s plethora of snacks, both of your arms are full.

“So back to you assaulting me—I’m going to take your dental record down to Hopper— I’m turning you in.”

Laughing harder than anyone should have at midnight, your laugh echoes off he walls and bounces around the hallway. Making Eddie’s heart soar with glee. “Turning me in huh?”

Eddie knocks his shoulder into yours, throwing you off balance slightly, “yeah, I’m turning you in, you could have rabies! And I could start foaming at the mouth in my sleep, you’re dangerous and when I get home I’m taking you to the vet!”

The flirty banter is undeniable between you, his giggles match yours as you pad slowly down the hallway. Cheeks burning, coy smiles filling the empty hallway.

Stopping in the hallway with one hip thrown out and a perfectly placed look of innocence on your face you ask in the sweetest voice you could muster, “I’m dangerous? Me?” Making sure you bat your lashes and pout your bottom lip.

Here it was, his opportunity to show you what you really meant to him. No longer laughing, his face turns very serious. Shuffling the snacks around in his arms so he has a hand free, he reaches up to your face, tracing the outline of your jaw and brushing the pad of his thumb delicately against your cheek.

“Baby,” he whispers, that velvet smooth voice on his tongue, eyes dipped in gold and yearning into your own, “I wouldn’t turn this cute face in even if you murdered that son-of-a-bitch, Mr. Derry.”

Heart rate increases, you’re sure there's a pulse where Eddie’s hand is placed on your cheek. The calloused pads of his thumbs stroking your cheek has you weak in the knees. Tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth.

“Cute?” You exclaim, feigning shock, heat trickling up your neck and planting itself into your cheeks, the warmth spreading below Eddie’s hand.

His eyes are trained on yours, flicking from your lips and back up again, and you know whatever he says next 100%, without a doubt shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“Tooty,” Eddie breathes, his voice melting around you, forming to every cell in your body and holding you tight. “You’re beautiful, and not just tonight…every single day.”

No one.

Not your parents.

Definitely, not Chad.

Nobody.

Has ever uttered those words to you. The final wall around your heart falls, crumbling at the base with Eddie holding a sledge hammer to it, begging to be let in.

This menace, prick, pervert, absolutely disgusting man. Has made you fall for him and without words has made it clear that he’s falling for you too.

Butterflies tickle your stomach the rest of the walk back to the room.

-

Steve and Leighanne are already asleep by the time you make it back, she’s wrapped tight against his bare chest, a hand threaded at the nape of his neck and through the tufts of his chest hair. His lips lay lazily against her forehead.

Robin took the comforter from the other bed and made a makeshift bed in the tub, Eddie places a can of 7-UP next to her, rustling her hair and making sure she’ll be okay for the night.

Flipping through the channels and leaning your back against the headboard, you find an episode of the Golden Girls, opening your snack crackers and nibbling into them,a can of Pepsi nestled between your knees. Eddie runs and jumps onto the bed beside you and starts ripping open his snacks, starting with the chips, and cracking open a can of Mountain Dew. Chugging the lime colored liquid until it drops down his chin.

He lets out a louder than life belch and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. Looking over at you to see if you’re impressed.

You raise up ten fingers and clap, applauding his behavior.

“I’d like to thank my fans, and the Pepsi company, for encouraging the best of burps, with the help of carbonation.” He bows and waves like he’s at the academy awards and you giggle along with him.

You both stay like that for a while, on top of the blankets, watching the Golden Girls and eating snacks, content with filling your stomachs with crappy food and over carbonated beverages.

-

The looming idea of sleeping in the same bed with Eddie is no longer something you can avoid, when a loud yawn escapes your body and has you snuggling deeper into his leather jacket.

“I—I can sleep in the chair, or on the floor.” He says quickly.

The idea of him sleeping on the floor or with a strained neck in the office chair is unacceptable to you. “No, you can sleep in the bed with me, we can—“ thinking fast for an easy solution, “we can just use different blankets.”

“Oh good,” Eddie whispers, taking off his already loosened tie, and unbuttoning his shirt, “because I would bet a million dollars that you’re a blanket thief.”

Laughing and unzipping his leather jacket, you smirk, hanging it on the back of the chair, “how do you have the vocabulary of a ten year old and a foul sailor all at the same time?”

Eddie unzips his pants and untangles his legs from the dark denim, sitting on the bed with a groan in just his boxer briefs, “I’m like a poor Peter Pan, who grew up on the wrong side of tracks, I’ll never grow up.”

Foregoing any previous thoughts of keeping the dress on, you decide to take it off, exhausted from the night, the cold seeping into your bones and chilling them made you almost delirious with needing sleep, “Can you—will you close your eyes?” You ask in a hushed voice, “at least until I lay down?”

Eddie yanks hard on the sheet and wraps it around his head in a giant makeshift blindfold. “Will this work?”

This angle gives you free range to see his body. It’s not as if you haven’t seen him like this before, but this time it felt different. Every inch of his creamed colored skin, every inky smoked out line of tattoos, the veins protruding from his muscled arms, the ruddy roughness of his knuckles, ghosting with the silver rings on his fingers and in his nipples. The fading sun colored bruises on his ribs. You could write sonnets on the way his breath expands his chest and falls back flush with the rest of his body.

It’s hard to peel your eyes away, but you manage, grabbing your dress by the bottom hem lifting it off of your body. Sliding the tights down your legs until you are completely naked besides the silk black thong. Covering yourself with the off white cotton threaded blanket on the bed, you wrap it around you and sit delicately on the other side of the bed, facing the window, and the furnace.

“I’m done,” you announce, laying your head onto the goose feather pillow and facing Eddie, curling your legs to your chest. Taking slow breaths through your nose to even out your nerves and settle yourself down, the excitement of laying next to Eddie in a bed with both of you only wearing underwear has your body throbbing.

“Finally!” He exaggerates, “were you wearing a dress from the 1800s with all those fancy layers?”

“I was having some trouble with the zipper,” you lie.

“Funny—“ Eddie preens, “I didn’t see a zipper on your dress.”

The idea of him watching you, eyes stuck on your silhouette all night, through dinner, walking to the hotel, makes you feel less bad about staring at him before you crawled into bed. You clench your thighs together.

“How would you know there wasn’t a zipper? Unless of course— you were gawking.”

Two can play this game, and what Eddie didn’t realize is that you’d gotten pretty good at bantering with him.

“Why would you say your dress had a zipper when it didn’t? Maybe you were the one gawking, I mean I get it sweetheart, I’m funny and sexy. Double whammy.”

“Good night, Eddie.” You say with a final laugh. “And I swear to God, if this bed starts jerking in any way—I’ll shave your head and bleach your eyebrows.”

He lets out a laugh loud enough that it makes Steve roll over, scolding you both, about the time and needing to get some sleep. Always in mom mode.

“Sorry dad,” Eddie whispers, giggling like a little kid as he tucks himself in, and turns off the tv and the light between the two beds.

You close your eyes and breathe deeply, allowing sleep to take over your body. Sleep finds you quickly, a deep dreamless sleep, you aren’t sure if you’re awake or not when you feel a pair of lips on the crown of your hair line, a hand moving your hair away from your face, and a voice whispering to you, “good night, pretty girl.”

-

The next morning, Steve drops you and Eddie off at your house. The ride home seemed to drag on forever, everyone was hungover and trying to stay awake. Robin having her head out of the window for most of the drive. Still gagging from the night before.

Getting into Hawkins, Eddie turns towards you, a menacing smirk on his lips and a devil gleam in his eyes, “rock, paper scissors for dibs on first shower?”

“You’re on Munson,”

-

“I just don’t understand how paper beats rock!” Eddie complains as he takes a piss talking to you as you take a shower. The humidtiy from the bathroom moistens his curls, frizzing them into oblivion, “in what fucking universe does a paper lying over a goddamn rock win?”

Placing the razor against the white pillowy peaks of the shaving cream you slide it up your leg, careful to not cut your knee. “Don’t be a sore loser because you chose rock three times in a row.

“It’s the most common way to win!” He whines, slamming the toilet seat down and plopping himself on top of it. “Are you almost done? I feel like I’ve been freezing for 24 hours, I never warmed up lastnight.”

Rinsing the last bit of conditioner from your hair you turn the water off, throwing a hand out from the shower curtain to reach for your robe, wrapping it around you tightly, and opening the shower, you notice that Eddie looks paler than usual.

“Are you getting sick?” You place the back of your hand on his forehead, it’s clammy and abnormally warm. The twinkle he almost always has in his eyes is gone, he looks rundown. “In the nicest way possible, you look like hell.”

“I feel like shit,” Eddie complains.

“Here,” you offer, starting the water for him, “take a hot shower and I’ll go make us some food.”

-

When Eddie gets out of the shower the kitchen smells of sweet thick batter, sprinkled with a hint of cinnamon. The waffle iron you had bought with Nancy before Halloween worked like a dream, it was in better condition than you had thought.

Two plates are sitting on the counter, as Eddie walks into the kitchen, wearing a hoodie and sweats, he comes behind you, moving your hips gently to the side as he peers over your shoulder to see what you’re making.

“Waffles?!” He squeals into your ear, “I didn’t know we even had a waffle press thing,” he says, messing up your still damp hair with a tousle, “wait is that the thing that’s kept in the bathroom under the sink?”

Racking your brain you try to envision what he’s thinking of, “no Eddie that would be Nancy’s hot rollers, for her hair..”

“Well that’s not edible,” he says walking to the fridge and pulling out his jug of milk.

Hollering over your shoulder and opening the waffle iron to carefully remove the perfect round breakfast delicacy from the iron with a fork, you announce, “that’s why they’re in the bathroom, under the sink. I bought the waffle iron when Nancy and I went shopping a few weeks ago, how are you feeling?”

Taking a big gulp of milk Eddie mutters, “better, much better, I’m just really tired.”

Plating the waffles and getting the syrup from the cabinet you set the plates down at the table, bringing over two glasses and two sets of silverware, “can you grab the orange juice, and the butter?”

Bringing the requested items to the table, Eddie sets them down, next to the napkin holder. Grabbing a knife hastily and spreading the pale yellow butter around the crispy pockets of the waffle, melting into delicious puddles of savory goodness, awaiting the courtship to be reunited with the sticky sweet syrup to combine into heavenly wedded bliss.

Cutting his waffle and diving in, the kitchen is surrounded by sound of Eddie’s satisfied moans, “fuck,” he cries with a mouthful of food, shoveling more in, “this is so fucking good, you’re a saint— no no! Wait, an angel.”

The waffles were good, the perfect amount of crispy and soft. Eddie finished both of his waffles in record time.

“So where did you get this thing?” he asked curiously, pointing to the waffle iron on the counter.

“With Nancy—oh! I completely forgot!” you say excitedly, “I got a record too, it’s by the rest of them near your record player, I didn’t want to use it and break it.”

Eddie pads over to the record player and thumbs through the stack on the shelf.

He had already been staring at the record for over a minute before you spoke again, saying his name asking if he wanted another waffle.

“Damn,” he interrupts you sniffing loudly, “I haven’t heard this since…”

He carefully pulls the sleeve from the record and slots it in place, putting the needle in place. The soft twang of Bobbie Gentry’s guitar plays as she plucks the strings, a few beats in and her sultry, smoky voice begins singing, retelling the story of the day she found out the fate of Billie Joe.

Eddie sits cross legged on the floor next to the record player, staring in awe. His socked feet tucked under his thighs. Elbows digging into his legs.

His mind drifts to a small house on the outskirts of Hawkins, the paint peeling and chipping away, a dog named Ruby running alongside him as he pedals his bike up the dirt lane.

She was standing in the kitchen, her soft brown curls waving behind her as she ashed a cigarette and cut his ham sandwich into squares, taking the crust off. She hummed along to the waning wonky tunes of the radio as Bobbie Gentry sang about Billie Joe. Her smile fading in his memory.

He never allowed himself to think of her. Despite what Uncle Wayne and the therapist at the stuffy office with the seafoam green painted walls, the cheerful posters with kids and their perfect families staring at him as he glared at the floor, toe of his converse trying to dig a hole through the tile. It only brought him sadness. It was something he couldn’t talk about, not to anyone. The panic attacks in the night when he dreamt of the day she was taken from him, right in front of his big doe eyes, would send Wayne into a frenzy. Helping Eddie breath, making the small child ground himself with his surroundings. So he moved on, throwing himself into music, and his friends. Anything to keep his mind from thinking of that day. But here in your living room, twenty years later, it was all he could think of.

Her perfume, hints of jasmine and lilac a tinge of cigarette smoke underneath. The way her glasses were perched on her head as she read through the paper. Her light brown eyes, like caramel apples you’d see at the fair. Her long fingers always thumping along to whatever song she heard. The gift of a piano player. The way she would dance with him in the living room, barefoot and giggly as she swung him around and around. Those were the good memories, the ones before she was ripped away from him.

The song finishes and Eddie leans up onto his knees, placing the needle to replay it again, this time the warm tears are flowing freely, running down his cheeks. He no longer cared if you saw him cry like a baby.

You’re standing at the edge of the kitchen watching him. You figured his mom was dead by the way he never mentioned her. Chrissy once asked him about his parents after he mentioned his Uncle Wayne, and he blew it off, like he blew off lots of things, “shit, think she joined the circus, married the world’s strongest man.” You wonder if the fib was easier for him to tell himself. Rather have her still around, happy and breathing than what she actually was. You’ve only seen him like this one other time and that was after you saw Chad at the grocery store.

Steve had told you how concerned he was when he came in to talk with you. How scared he was, how bad he felt that he wasn’t around to protect you when you needed it. And just like he did for you, you’d do for him.

Walking gently towards him you stand behind him, not sure if lightly touching his shoulder would cross a boundary but wanting to reassure him, you do it anyway. The pads of your fingers daintily skim his shoulders, running soft figure eight patterns. His face is hidden by his curtain of hair but you can hear him sniffling softly. A soft squeeze of his shoulder and he wraps an arm around your bare calf, holding onto dear life as you pull him into you. His death grip on your leg almost has you falling over. You find yourself threading your fingers through his wet hair. Rubbing along his scalp, his shoulders jump and shake with a deep sigh as the song finishes again. Eddie peels himself from you and turns the record player off. Standing and looking at the ground. Toeing the carpet with his sock.

“I have…,” he says, clearing his throat, trying like hell to gain composure, “I haven’t heard that song in years… it was her favorite.”

Reaching for his hand your fingers find their way into the spaces between his. Squeezing and rubbing his pointer figure with the pad of your thumb. “Eddie,” you whisper to him, your small soft voice reaching out to him beckoning him.

His eyes turn to you, tear filled and red, his body shaking with a light sob. Instincts kick in and you don’t realize what’s happening before it does, you drag him down the hallway, into your room. The same room where he comforted you in the warmth of his arms, you sit down on your bed, your back to the headboard and bring him down with you, his head in your lap. his arms wrapped tight around your bare thighs. Brushing his hair away from his face with your fingers, his body is racked with sobs, the tops of your thighs wet with his tears. You rub his back, comforting him and whispering to him that you’re sorry, that it’s okay, that you’re here for him.

The dishes would have to wait.

When you wake, you’re snuggled down into the confinements of your bed. Blankets covering both you and Eddie, his arms wrapped tightly around your middle like a child with a balloon at the fair, afraid to let go. His body is curved with yours, his light snores tickling your hair. Not waking him, you gently fall back asleep, the thought that he was right, skids across your mind.

Eddie was the first guy to sleep in your bed— and your heart leaped when you selfishly hoped he never wanted to leave it.

A/N: SEE YOU IN VOL: VIII HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED

[this message is for read more —, you big nasty, smelling bitch. Why you took me off the mf schedule with your trifflin’ dirty ass. Big bitch Oompa Loompa body ass bitch, I’m comin up there and I’m gonna beat the fuck …… (it’s a reference from TikTok) BUT TRY ME READMORE TRY ME]

[hellfirenacht]

Meet Me At 4:20

Summary: It’s hard to be the new kid in a small town during senior year, and there’s only one person you actually want to be friends with. So you do the only logical thing, and set up a drug deal. 

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, SFW, drug deals, meet cute, one shot

Notes: Thank you, @jo-harrington for helping me title this <3 If you read the original version I posted last fall, no you didn't.

Word Count: 2.3k words

Master List

You sat at the old picnic table, far away from the school. It was a quiet and mild autumn day, leaves were clinging to the trees and there was a satisfying crunch to the ground when you made your way through the woods.

You counted each breath in and out in counts of four. It wasn’t the drugs that you were planning on buying that made you nervous, but the man selling them. It felt so stupid, this whole plan was completely ridiculous but at this time you didn’t have any better idea to go off of.

You didn’t even like weed.

Your eyes closed and you played a cassette tape at a low volume, muffled sounds of music pulsating through your ears. If you could focus on this, then you could relax. You could talk to Eddie. You were sure that you could do it this time. You hoped you could do it.

The faint crackling of leaves crunching under footsteps alerted you to his presence. You kept your eyes closed and your breathing steady, not daring to open your eyes yet. The last thing you wanted was for Eddie to see you a shaking mess, anxious and stuttering and probably tweaking.

“Hello?”

You opened your eyes slowly, looking up at the man in front of you. Eddie watched you with a look of mild confusion, his hand dropping to his side as if he had been waving it in an attempt to get your attention. You removed your headphones and gave a small smile.

“Hey, sorry. Long day.” you said, only stumbling over your words a little.

“I get it.” Eddie said, taking a seat across from you on the table. His black lunchbox thumped down in front of him, and he looked at you expectantly.

“So… how does this work here?” you asked. looking between him and the lunchbox. This was the most you had dared look at him since you moved to Hawkins a few weeks ago.. Having his attention, his eyes on yours, almost felt like too much. You couldn’t stop the nervous smile from spreading across your face, and you wished that you could just keep yourself normal for two minutes.

“The same way any normal transaction goes.” Eddie shrugged. “Except cash only, no returns, and for obvious reasons… no receipts.”

“I guess that means no demanding to speak to the manager then?” The words were out of your mouth before you could stop them. To your surprise, Eddie gave a small laugh and seemed to relax just a bit.

“Demand all you want, he’ll tell you all sales are final.” He opened the box and pulled out a bag. “I got a half ounce here. $25. Should last you a while.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” You said, pulling out your wallet and pulling out some cash to hand over.

“Want to smell it first?” Eddie looked at you with a head tilt. Fuck, had you already blown it? Was that something you were supposed to do? You froze, and Eddie let out a snort. “You’ve never done this have you?”

You shook your head. “Nope. Not even once.” You admitted. There was no use in pretending otherwise. The only reason you had even set this meeting up was just an elaborate (and expensive) way to meet the only person in Hawkins you had any interest in talking to.

Ever since moving here, you weren’t a fan of the town or the people around you. You were sure that your new school would be the same and you had planned on fading into the background for the few months that you had to be here for your senior year. Who was going to want to make friends with the new girl during senior year in a small town? Cliques had been formed and no one would be wanting to add to their numbers this late in the game. Not when everyone else was going to be leaving after high school. 

But Eddie had captured your attention the very first day when he’d been running around his lunch table and laughing with his friends. 

“It’s not a normal thing, it’s a me thing.” Eddie tossed you the bag, not taking the money yet. “Give it a smell.”

You didn’t want to smell the bag. You really did not want to, but Eddie’s was looking at you, and his eyes were so big and round and he ASKED you to do something so…

Your face scrunched up involuntarily and you pulled your head back at the stench. “Ah. Yes. That is certainly weed. Glad to have that established.” you deadpanned. 

“It’s not oregano.” Eddie confirmed, looking amused at your reaction.

“The fuck you mean it’s not?” You laughed. “Here I was thinking that I was going to be buying the best Italian seasoning on the market and here I am with a bag of weed. I feel ripped off!”

Satisfied, Eddie took the money that you had left on the table and pocketed it. “Sorry, like I said, no refunds.”

You followed suit and stuffed the bag into another bag, which was then shoved into yet another bag that had your gym clothes. Can’t be too careful.

You assumed that Eddie would turn tail and leave but instead he picked up a lighter and a cigarette from his lunchbox.

“You sit at my table at lunch.” It wasn’t a question, but a truth. Eddie had noticed you sitting there. Then again, after the roach incident…

“It’s easier to sit in the same place every day.” You said as you nervously picked at the wood on the table. “You learn what to expect.”

“And what do you expect from our table?” Eddie took a drag and offered you the cigarette. You hesitated for a moment before shaking your head in a polite no. “A freakshow?”

“More bugs, but less people bugging me.” you shrugged. 

Eddie snorted. “We still give Jeff shit about that.”

“Yeah well, I’d still rather sit there than anywhere else.” You swallowed. “This may come as a surprise to you, Eddie, but people here kind of suck and aren’t the most friendly.”

“So, you’d rather be seen near the freaks than associating with any other group? That’s brave.” Eddie looked you over. “I’m surprised someone like you eats in the cafeteria. I’ve never seen you talk to anyone else. Most people find a classroom to eat in if they don’t have friends.” 

You stared blankly at him. “Gee. Thanks for the reminder.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide as he realized what he just said. “Wait, shit, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You’re not wrong.” you sighed, now wishing that you could have a drag of his cigarette. Maybe then you’d look interesting and mysterious instead of how you actually felt, which was awkward and annoyed. You knew you didn’t have friends here, but that didn’t mean he needed to point that out. 

By a technicality, the Freak was more popular than you, and now you had spent $25 in an attempt to be his friend and he might not even be interested. You were starting to regret this whole stupid plan.

“You know you…. if you wanted to. You don’t have to sit near us.” Eddie looked up, and saw you deflate instantly. Eddie sat up straighter “No, not like that, I mean. You could sit with us instead. We can make room, and I swear we won’t throw anymore bugs at you.”

Eddie took another drag of the cigarette, shifting so that the second hand smoke didn’t hit you in the face. It was appreciated.

“Really? I mean, are you sure? Would the others be alright with that…?” You asked, perking up more excitedly than you meant to.

“They learned to live with Mike and Dustin, they’ll learn to like you.” Eddie gave a grin. “Besides, Hellfire needs more members if they’re gonna beat my campaign.”

“The Cult of Vecna.” You said and Eddie narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously. “Don’t give me that look, Eddie, you guys are loud. It’s not eavesdropping when you’re standing on the table with your shoes right next to my sandwich yelling about your game.”

“So you’ll join us then?” Eddie’s grin widened.

“How much for a shirt?” You shivered as the wind blew around you. “I… I might need help character creating as well. It’s been a while since I’ve played.”

Eddie slammed his hands on the table, laughing. “I knew it! I knew you were one of us. Gareth owes me $5.”

“You made a bet about this??”

“I’ve only known two other girls that play. Sinclair’s sister who’s still in middle school and Ronnie Ecker who graduated 2 years ago.” Eddie said. He was so energized now and his eyes were bright, the late afternoon sun reflecting warm caramel and gold back at you. “I saw you with that D&D book yesterday but they didn’t believe me.”

You looked at him, sighed and reached into your bag and pulled out the book that had given you away. You really had never meant to be seen with it, you’d just needed a refresher. You had played at your old school, but hadn’t had a chance to in about a year.

Eddie reached for the old module and flipped through the adventure. “Tomb of Horrors.” he said approvingly. “We played this one last year with a few tweaks, of course. What’s your level?”

“I… don’t really have much of one.” You admitted. “Back with my old group we would just make characters for whatever suited the campaign. I usually went with some flavor of half-elf bard or ranger though.”

“The others would call that cheating. Most everyone has played with the same character from level 1 for the past few years.” Eddie said. “You’d have to work to keep up with us.”

“So I’d have to start at level 1?” You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing. “Damn, you are a sadistic DM aren’t you?”

“I’m the mean and scary freak of Hawkins High,” Eddie took a final drag of his cigarette. “It’s my job.”

“You’ve been nicer to me than anyone here so far, Eddie.” You admitted

Eddie looked at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. You swallowed, unable to look away and wondering if you had said something wrong.

“What?” You finally said.

“You’ve never bought drugs before.” Eddie said.

“….Yes. We established this.” You replied.

“Have you ever even smoked before?”

You frowned. “….Hm, no comment. I don’t think I want to answer that.”

“So that’s a no.” Eddie looked at the bag where you had stored your goods. “So why are you buying?”

You had two reasons for buying, the main reason was to give yourself a reason- any reason- to talk to him. There was a second reason though, one that you hadn’t wanted to get into but…

“I… haven’t been doing a great job of adjusting here.” You said picking at the grain of the wood of the table. “I won’t bore you with the details but… I’ve been having trouble sleeping and everything I eat just tastes like sawdust and I can’t get hungry. I was hoping this would help.”

“Do you know how to roll?”

You slumped slightly, looking down. “Eddie, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette.”

“You’re really coming in blind, huh?” there was a laughter in his voice though that made you feel less judged. “You live in Happy Forest Trailer Park. Yeah, I’ve seen you down the street circling your trailer late at night.”

“Ah. Lovely. Nice to know my night walks have been witnessed.” You groaned.

“Don’t worry, you’re still the least sketchy person there.” Eddie waived his hand. “I don’t normally do this, but you clearly need help. If you want, I’ll come over and roll for you and teach you how to smoke.”

“I feel like if you were anyone else I’d tell you to fuck off.” You said. “But, like I said, you’re the only person who’s been actively nice to me and I really can’t afford to say no. I’m… too damn tired.”

“Tonight?” Eddie offered. “We can help you put together a character.”

Your heart was pounding in your chest now. He wanted to come over to your house tonight? This plan was already going wildly off the rails but there was no stopping it.

“Okay.”

Eddie handed over his cigarette to you and you stared at it. “Just take a drag and show me where you’re at.”

You flinched, holding the cigarette in your fingers. You’d seen people smoke your whole life and the smell of it filled your memories with car rides, and heavy talks and… screaming.

“I can’t.” You said after a moment handing it back. “Sorry. I know it’s stupid. Weed is one thing but-”

“Hey, no need to explain.” Eddie said, snuffing it out. “I don’t know what just happened but don’t worry about it.”

You nodded. “Thanks.”

Eddie looked at his watch. “I have to meet up with someone else. Go home, I’ll be there tonight.” He closed his lunchbox and stood up and you followed suit.

“I’ll be home all night.” You said. “Thank you, by the way. For all of this. I hope it helps.”

Eddie chuckled. “Not many people stick around and talk to me after, let alone thank me. They usually take what they bought and run.”

“Sit with us on Monday.” Eddie said. “I’ll come over tonight.” He was sparing you from saying what you wanted to say; that you wanted so badly to be friends with them.

“I wanted to talk to you.” You admitted, and Eddie looked surprised. “I mean, I don’t have anyone here in Hawkins. Like anyone. And, I don’t know, I like hearing you and your friends talk at lunch and you all seem to actually like each other so… I…”

“Tonight.” You nodded.

The two of you parted ways, Eddie taking a separate way out of the woods while you headed towards the parking lot.

Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad.

[oneforthemunny]

gone fishin' |dad!rockstar!eddie munson x nepo baby!reader|

prompt: doing my own prompt again from #munnysummergame. domestic fluff with dad!rockstar!eddie :)

🐙- domestic blurb!! any of the dad!eddie’s take their kids to stay with wayne for a mini vacation (or staycation if they’re in hawkins). I love grandpa!wayne and dad!eddie make my ovaries cry.

contains: fluff lol. that's it no warnings just sweet dad!rockstar!eddie and grandpa wayne :)

"I mean... if you want to." Eddie's grimacing face says it all, eyes darting from his uncle back to his youngest.

Vega bounced on the tips of her toes, a grinning, bubbling ball of energy, ecstatic to be back with Grandpa Wayne. The summer trip back to Hawkins, before spending the remainder of July in the Hamptons, was annual for the Munson family. Wayne traveled to you when he could, but in his older age you wanted to make it easier on him, more accommodating; the opposite of keeping baby Vega.

At four years old, she was...energetic, and that was generous. Eddie had invested in a leash after her dash down Rodeo Drive, the ever chaotic child that kept you all on your toes. While you didn't doubt that Wayne would take care of Vega, you knew he would, you worried, truthfully, if he could.

Wayne lifted a brow. "Well, of course I want to, boy." Wayne gruffed, eyes rolling over Eddie's rigid frame. Even as a grown man, a father, he could tell when he was uneasy about something, read him so easily. "You don't want me to?"

"No," Eddie shook his head. "It's not that. It's just...I mean as long as you feel up to it-"

"I feel fine, Ed." Wayne rolled his eyes with a huff.

"Yeah, Ed." Vega parroted with a far greater attitude than she should at four. You blamed Persephone, Vega was observant- copying the seventeen year old's every move.

"Vega Jo," Eddie glared at her, a stern warning glare that had her giggling, hanging on Wayne's leg, laughing maniacally at his expense. Not quite the reaction he was hoping for, only praying that the name didn't stick. Not the way 'mother fucker' had- the drop off line at the elementary school is brutal, ok?

Wayne pressed his lips together to fight back a smile. "You go on. Go to Mike's party, and I'll take care of this one." Wayne petted Vega's unruly curls, already puffing and frizzing in the Hawkins' humidity.

"Are you sure?" Eddie asked again.

Wayne huffed in annoyance. "We're goin' fishing', Miss Vega. Tell you Daddy and Mama bye." Wayne glared at Eddie lightly, pushing off the wall to head towards the garage.

"What's going on?" You emerged down the hall, lipstick in hand. "Where's Vega going?"

"Grandpa's taking me fishing!" Vega cheered excitedly, a wide toothy grin dazzling up at you.

"Is he?" You asked, brows raised and voice lilting to that high octave you fell into when you baby talked. "That sounds like so much fun, baby. Is it just you and Grandpa?"

"Yes." Vega lisped, swinging her arms back and forth by her side. "Jus' me and Grandpa. Not you, or Sicily, or Sephy, or-or Ed." She giggled wickedly.

You hid your face to hide your smile. Fuck, kids were funny sometimes. It was hard not to snicker at Vega every now and then, especially at Eddie's expense. Sicily and Sienna didn't hold the same courtesy, doubling over each other in the hallway. Eddie glared at them, turning back to Vega.

"You better stop that, Vega. Or you're not going anywhere. I'll make you come with me." Eddie pointed at her in warning.

You watched it unfold in slow motion, the same scenario. Vega's little grin melting into a sweet smile, swaying until she scampered and hugged Eddie's legs tightly.

"I jus' kiddin', Daddy." Vega grinned, chin resting against his knee to look up at him with a sweet look. She patted his calve with childlike gentleness, the final nail in his own coffin.

You could practically see Eddie melting before your eyes, reaching down to hoist her on his hip. You hid your eye roll, shaking your head lightly. Your heart swelled nonetheless. How was this the same man you met nearly twenty years ago? The same rough and mean and nasty man, who now could be so gentle, not just with you and the girls, but with himself.

Eddie gave her an exaggerated mean look. "You better be kidding, Vega Jo. Better be good for Grandpa Wayne."

"Yes," You nodded, your hand rubbing over the cotton material of her little shirt. "Look at Mommy, baby. You have to be very, very good for Grandpa, ok? Listen to him and no running, Vega. That's not a funny game at all."

"I won't." Vega sighed heavy, like she was bored of the conversation.

"Vega, I'm being serious. You gotta stay close to Grandpa. Do what he says- are you listening to me?" You watched her tip back in a backbend, Eddie's arms holding her in place on his hip. She looked up at you, upside down with a grin.

"I'll be good." Vega repeated. "I'll listen."

"Yeah, right." Kensington muttered, passing the two of you to get to the kitchen.

"Kensie." You grit, eyes cutting to the fifteen year old, so angsty and moody all the time.

"I am good!" Vega growled, scowling at her older sister with a furrowed brow, a scrunched nose- the same expression she got from you. The look on Eddie's face told you that.

"Ok," You held your hands up. "You are very good. Very, very good, and you're gonna have so much fun catching fish with Grandpa, aren't you?"

"I-I'm gonna catch a big fish, like this big Mama." Vega stretched her arms out wide, nearly smacking Eddie's nose in the process.

"Yeah? You gonna bring it home? We can fry it up tonight. Dinner's on you." Eddie teased, tickling her sides so she shrieked.

"Ready to go?" Wayne called, holding a tackle box and two fishing poles- an old, black one and a bright pink one with various Disney Princesses on it.

Vega squirmed out of Eddie's grasp, flip flops smacking against the hardwood of the lake house towards the front door. "Be good, Vega!" You shouted after her, nervously pressing your fingers to your mouth. "I have my phone, Wayne, if you need anything-"

"-I got it, darlin'. You all go have fun. Don't worry 'bout us." Wayne gave you a warm smile, shutting the door with his foot behind him.

You hesitated for a moment, looking over at Eddie carefully. "She'll be good, right? He's got it."

"Vega? No way." Eddie scoffed, shaking his head. "But he's got her. He won't let anything happen to her." You frowned, lips jutting in a pout. Eddie sighed heavily. "I'll go check on them after a little bit, ok? In case it gets too much."

***

Eddie wasn't sure if it was the heat or surely someone had slipped something in his drink. He'd felt fine, pressing a kiss to your cheek before excusing himself, climbing in the car to go check on Vega. The best part about Hawkins was everywhere took ten minutes to get to, at most. The lake house was on the outskirts of town, a farther drive, but nothing he couldn't get to quickly.

Eddie didn't hear shrieking or crying or cackling, only hearing the eerily quiet sound of the breeze through the trees and the water rippling. His heart lurched, heavy steps pounding towards the back yard. The lawn that backed up into the lake, the bank meeting the soft grass where he saw them; Vega and Wayne, sitting in their own little chairs.

Vega was calmly sitting there, watching the bobber in the water, her own little pole slipping while she chatted with Wayne softly.

"...You don't like them Webkinz anymore? They not doin' it for ya?" Wayne asked gently, reeling in his line.

"No. I don't-I don't really like them anymore, because I like to play on the Wii. Me and Zarah play Just Dance a lot, but she alwaaayyys beats me." Vega sighed heavily, shoulders deflating. "She's so good at it. She can hit all the moves."

Wayne snorted lightly. "Yeah? You'll get there soon, Vega. She's a lot older than you, bigger. She's got more coordination."

Vega paused, nose scrunching when she looked over at Wayne. "What's coorginmasion?" She stuttered out the word with a grimace.

Wayne laughed. "Coordination. Means you can move quick. You'll get there. You're still little bitty. Got lots more growin' to do."

"Daddy tells me that too." Vega hummed. "He's really tall. Got lotsa co-or-di-nation." She sounded it out slowly, in between deep breaths that had Eddie grinning.

Wayne grinned. "Yeah? You'd think he would. Your Daddy can be a little clumsy sometimes."

Vega giggled loudly, nearly dropping her pole. "Yeah..." She sighed, far too heavy to be four. She'd definitely heard that from you or Eddie.

"Catch any big ones yet?" Eddie asked with a grin, arms crossed over his chest when he stepped forward.

Vega perked, curls whipping her face. "Daddy! You sneaked!" She giggled, swinging her pole around, ripping it through the water to point at him accusingly.

"Easy, Vega, easy. Gotta be gentle. Scarin' all the fishies, baby." Wayne cooed calmly, maneuvering his own pole away. "What're you doin' here, boy?"

"Just came to check on you. Make sure everything was alright." Eddie hummed. "Catch anything yet, Vegie?"

"No." Vega pouted, shaking her head. "No big ones. Grandpa said they're probably in the middle of the lake 'cause that's where all the sunshine is."

"Yeah?" Eddie grinned in amusement. "He's probably right."

Eddie sat down on the cool grass next to them, under the shaded trees, a hand on Vega's back to steady her on her makeshift chair, a turned over bucket. "Guess no dinner then, huh?"

Wayne huffed at him. Vega shrugged. "Grandpa has honey buns so we're good." She said easily, eyes cutting over to Wayne's, copying the way he slowly reeled his line in.

"Honey buns?" Eddie gasped. "And you didn't share any with me, Grandpa?"

"No. They're just for us." Vega declared.

"That's right." Wayne nodded. "Vega said we should use 'em for bait. The fish might like 'em." He grinned at the younger girl.

Eddie watched in awe as Vega sat peacefully, not fidgeting or bouncing or trying to jump off the bucket. She sat, chatting with Wayne, calmly and slowly, careful with her reeling and casting- well, as careful as a four year old could be.

Eddie felt his phone buzz in his back pocket, a text from you, no doubt. "Well, if you two are good, I'm gonna go back." Eddie hesitated, standing slowly.

"We're alright." Wayne nodded, eyes not leaving the water.

Eddie hesitated, leaning down to press a kiss to Vega's head, before ducking over to Wayne. "Did you... Did you give her something?" Eddie asked quietly. Wayne's head snapped to him in question. "Like to calm her down? I don't care if you did just-"

"Boy, get out of here." Wayne scoffed, shaking his head at Eddie. "We're just having a nice, relaxin' fishin' day, right, Vega?" He glared at Eddie.

"Yes." Vega chirped, tongue poking out in concentration, turning the gears around.

"I got it handled." Wayne nodded. "Handled you for many years, boy, think I can handle this one."

Eddie nodded, raising his hands lightly. "Just call me if you need me." He said, backing away slowly.

"I got it." Wayne huffed. "Get outta here so we can get another honey bun. Let's see if them fishies like it, Vega. Maybe that'll help 'em bite."

Sure enough, Vega was bounding towards the two of you hours later, buzzing with excitement to show you what she caught. A bass in the bucket, swimming in the half filled orange container.

Wayne grinned proudly, patting her back while she rambled and showed off her fish to you, Eddie, and her sisters.

"She caught this?" Eddie asked, lifting a brow carefully.

"With her pink fishin' rod." Wayne laughed. "Caught that damn fish. Wouldn't touch it and didn't want it to die, so we put it in the bucket 'til you got back. She wanted to show ya." He boasted.

"Damn honey bun trick worked. 'Bout to use that one on my next fishin' trip with Roy." Wayne laughed.

[jo-harrington]

Closing Time (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: Eddie watches the reader slay a dragon. (Reader works at Claire's in StarCourt and deals with a shitty customer before closing the store.)

Previous Part: Leave of Absence

Warnings/Themes: Semi-established relationship (friendship? Eddie isn’t sure what they are either), fluffy. Reader is not a Hawkins native, but it's kind of just implied. Eddie is a romantic boy and makes everything fantastical in that silly head of his. Also he makes a crude (ish?) joke. Typical teenage boy/young adult stuff. Nothing crazy,

Note: This is my first drabble I'm actually posting. (I haven't written actual fics in a hot minute, only headcanons). I hope it's good, but it really was an opportunity for me to get my frustrations out after work in a store for the first time in 2 years since I moved to corporate. And I kind of liked it so I might write more. (Therapy who?)

(Future Jo here...You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager and all of my other writing.)

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

___

"Ma'am, I'm sorry that this is confusing, but it's store policy."

"Then I'd like to speak to the store manager."

"I am the store manager," you explained, smile dropping right off your face only to be replaced by a cool mask of indifference.

Eddie stood just outside of the store, leaning against a railing that overlooked the Food Court, and watched you. It was a Sunday, which meant the mall was closed early, and all of the stores were dark except for yours. The gate was halfway down, but he could still see the tenacity--the ferocity--in your eyes as you dealt with an unruly customer and it took everything in him to ignore the little shiver that went up his spine.

When Eddie first gotten a job at Tape World, he had briefly wondered if it was a mistake. He had mostly been given closing shifts to offset gigs at the Hideout on Tuesdays and Hellfire on Fridays. Not to mention school once it was back in session. And seeing how closing shifts meant he was missing out at the opportunity to be dealing at local parties over the summer...well he didn't need to pass algebra to know it was costing him some potentially serious cash.

But the pay at Tape World wasn't awful and it was steady. Wayne seemed to be proud of him for finally having a steady job, despite the assurance that he would always be proud of Eddie. The discount was nice, and his manager let him promote Corroded Coffin shows at the counter.

And then there was you.

At first glance, it didn't make sense to anyone. You with your pastel purple name tag, mega-watt smile, trendy clothes, and stacks of scrunchies. And Eddie with his alleged devil-worshipping, superior taste in music, non-conformity, and hair wild either from too much head banging or the single window AC unit in his trailer. Shit, even he didn't understand it in the beginning; he thought you were everything he said he hated.

But you weren't.

Just like he wasn't everything the entire town said he was either.

Instead he found someone who was just like him, only sort of not at all, with your own flock of lost little bedazzled, pastel and neon sheep that you were protective of. You were a misunderstood soul, a compassionate leader, and one of the most patient people he ever met.

Except for right this minute.

The lights in the mall itself started to dim and the music went silent. Yet, there you still stood in front of one of the local PTA moms as she complained about a return.

She had already been in the store when Eddie arrived to meet you at the end of your shift. (Sunday nights were your...well, Eddie didn't know what to call them. Not date nights; not yet at least.) And you had given him one quick, apologetic glance over her shoulder before you geared up for battle.

But Eddie had been watching as your mood devolved ever since, and you went from understanding, to annoyed, to fuming. And here you were now, looking as though you could singlehandedly manifest a pit to open up beneath Loudmouth Linda to swallow her whole if she carried on with her rant.

And it was kind of hot.

Eddie wouldn't consider himself someone who thought anger was sexy. It was scary. He had seen the way his father would get angry over the most minor things and it stayed with him his entire life. He would freeze, even at the most minor indication that anger was being directed towards him. From his father, from a teacher, from Officer Callahan--although Hopper was usually there to rescue him from that one.

It was different when it came to bullies at school or the townies that spoke in hushed tones when he passed them by. He could stand up to the jocks and the popular kids that pushed him and his friends around. He could ignore the scathing looks from the busybodies at the grocery store. And as much as it hurt to be cast away by almost everyone he met for years, he knew that it wasn't anger--actually he wasn't sure what it was, really--that caused them to do those things.

Just like it wasn't really anger that fueled your fight for the past fifteen minutes. It was purely righteous indignation as you were attacked by this absolute dragon of a woman.

Deep down, he wished he could be your savior, having dealt with the spitting venom of these townies before on numerous occasions. But you were no damsel, and this wasn't your first battle either. You took every insult with grace, every octave of a raised voice was met with an equally raised voice before going back to calm. You verbally jousted, using every trick in your book, and when they didn't work...

"Once again it is against the policy of StarCourt Mall to have customers in the building this late past close and I will have to call Mall Security to come and escort you out regardless of your choice ma'am. So we can either proceed with your return and you get the money back that you paid and not a cent more or I tell my staff and security that you are no longer welcome in this place of business. And security will have to take your picture as they escort you out."

...You simply slayed the beast. With a smile. Although Eddie believed you were actually just baring your teeth in warning.

There was that shiver up his spine again, and were those goosebumps on his arms?

He sort of hoped to be on the receiving end of those teeth sometime soon.

Regardless, your customer was left speechless as you processed her return and called security to escort her to the exit. Eddie smiled smugly as they passed him by.

It didn't take long for the lights of your store to finally shut and for you to duck under the gate before locking it.

He didn't even get a chance to congratulate you on your victory and tell you how absolutely epic you were before you were walking face first into his chest and sighing as your arms went around his waist in a hug.

“Hey,” he chuckled and put his arms around you, one hand instantly rubbing up and down your back.

“Hi.” Your reply was muffled and you squeezed him a bit harder.

"Y'ok there?"

"Yeah," you responded quietly and rubbed your cheek against his t-shirt. “You wanna get DQ?” You looked up at him for a second.

“I could use a blizzard,” he agreed.

“Cool,” you sighed and settled back against him. “People suck.”

“They do.”

The two of you stayed like that in relative silence for a few minutes and as much as Eddie wanted to go on--to tell you that the lady was out of line, that she was entitled, and that he could never handle it as smoothly as you did--he knew that wasn't what you needed right now.

He momentarily wondered that it wasn't all bad, not being your knight, when he could instead be the home you returned to after battle.

And he would happily do it, even if you never asked him to.

"You know," he finally broke the silence. "I've heard people threaten to call security many times. Mostly on the receiving end, sometimes as an innocent bystander."

"Oh yeah?" You finally looked up at him, nose wrinkling with a smile.

"But I think that was the first time it almost gave me a boner," he admitted.

"Eddie!" you pushed away from him and slapped his arms as you laughed, eyes shining with joy. Your worries were not forgotten, he knew, merely smoothed over by, hopefully, your adoration for him. "You fucking perv!"

"I said almost," he defended.

He would be there. Happily.

Next Part: Team Building

[the-grey-hunt]

last year i talked somewhat about jonathan harker in the role of the gothic heroine, which seemed to go over well! this year i've decided to challenge myself to delve a little deeper and keep my literary analysis skills sharp (trying to keep away from anything revealed later than today's entry, for the new readers)

for context in the literary background i'm examining here, the female gothic (a term coined I believe in the 70s) is a lens of analysis for gothic literature which examines the role of women as expression of contemporary anxieties around women and their roles in society, particularly as mothers and wives. like many kinds of horror, political and social anxieties are deployed as supernatural forces with which to terrify the "ordinary" citizens.

jonathan, our ordinary man, is certainly faced with horrors—but in what way? sent by an older man, Peter Hawkins, jonathan enters a foreign landscape where he enters into the power of another older man, at a particularly vulnerable time where a loved one (Mina) is waiting at home but jonathan does not appear to be married. the horrors that jonathan faces are the same trials set up against gothic heroines: threatening older men with power over you, poised at a huge point of transition in your life, etc, etc.

the main argument against jonathan as a heroine is, I think, his job. His transition point right now isn't an impending marriage or that he needs one, but that he's just established himself as a solicitor and is meeting with Dracula for business purposes. however, I think how these are deployed as tools in the story, such as Hawkins almost transferring guardianship of his young employee/ward to Dracula (temporarily), still very much mirror the ways in which high-class social norms are deployed against gothic women. even the work jonathan does in the castle (talking to dracula about real estate) isn't in service of bolstering his manly prowess, but serves as a tool for dracula to distract him, and keep him from realizing that he is trapped and serving dracula's own will.

rather than being tried in a manly fashion by his strength or his wits being challenged, jonathan's gothic experience is of his environment and even his body being manipulated by the man meant to be a helping hand in a foreign land. when I say body people might think it's a little early for that, but it's happening—dracula keeps jonathan up late so he sleeps in, forcing him to acclimate to dracula's own nocturnal existence. when he gets a glimpse of blood, he attempts to take it from jonathan. even today, a few hundred years after dracula's social anxieties about women's bodies being trespassed upon by men other than the ones entitled to them, women may see echoes of their own anxieties about bodily autonomy.

Dracula also isolates jonathan socially. He makes jonathan mistrust his own ability to percieve reality (gaslighting, anyone, a story about a woman being manipulated by her husband?) by pretending that servants are in charge of the cooking and so on, when really it's just dracula keeping up a masquerade.

this comes to a head in the mirror scene, where jonathan's shaving mirror—an item he uses to attend to his appearance—ends up being a helpful tool which exposes the supernatural reality of what jonathan's up against. however, because dracula is still the one in power, he immediately gets rid of it, calling it "vanity". I recall the quote by John Berger:

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.

the ways in which jonathan is treated by dracula, and the ways in which he attempts to bolster himself against the threat (spying to see what dracula's really doing, seeing the lack of reflection by chance) mirror the highly gendered dynamics of the Victorian era which this book was written in the tail end of. perhaps purposefully subverting jonathan's gender as a further expression of the horror of dracula, stoker's work takes jonathan as a man secure in his position at home in england to being a manipulated, isolated, and precariously positioned figure subject to the whims of an abusive man while friendless in a foreign country

(and the essay on how race, ethnicity, and foreign versus home plays into this is a whole other post! racism effects gender too! it's not a mistake that jonathan is securely male at home but his gender is subverted abroad!)

[powderblueblood]

I know this has been done a million and one times, but Eddie just vibing at the gas station. Something inevitably goes wrong. Please and thanks dear Powder

jo my love i present to you 1k+ words of eddie munson's no good very bad wednesday night no warnings! just silly. and acab includes hopper

So it's eight thirty on a Wednesday night, the very armpit of the week, and Eddie's standing there under the glare of the gas station fluorescents. Right in the heart of the snack aisle.

"What's become apparent to me, Sam, is-is-is-is that it's fear. It's the iron claw of the bonds of being a scaredy-cat little bitch that has stunted me fundamentally."

Loaded. So stoned he's stalagmite.

"See, I'm a capable guy. Many capes have I, but it's like, I've finally mastered the fuck-you-chip-on-my-shoulder adolescent thing that I'm reluctant to let it go. I'm skirting around putting on my big boy pants. I'm failing my courses. I'm dumbing myself down to stick around high school, seemingly, on purpose. Because I'm afraid!"

Eddie's pouring his heart out to the narcoleptic octogenarian cashier, the guy that likely built this place out of shiplap and bullet casings way back when it was a horseshit stop for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Freak Show or whoever.

"And I know what you're thinking." Sam isn't thinking anything. Sam's sleeping with his eyes wide open. "Why not really, grr, take root with that family tree, huh? Drop out like my old man and my uncle did? Well, I'll tell ya--"

Eddie wonders, in the middle of his own sentence, what it'd be like to hitch his wagon to an operation like that and coast solely on being a moorless weirdo.

He's really stoned, okay?

"--high school is easy to fail in. Real life? Isn't."

And look, before you get all, he's got good reason. It's been a particular drag of a week, a real sandpaper to the balls kind of kick off. Corroded Coffin's Tuesday night engagement at the Hideout was a special kind of bust--not least of all because the slapdash stage finally gave way under all that threatening creaking, and almost took Jeff's neck with it.

The neck of his bass and his human body. Neither of which Jeff's ass is in any position to fix.

So Eddie's got a band that's bruised and barely in the pocket, and a mouth that won't stop running.

“WSQK 94.5, The Squawk!” Eddie echoes the radio, complete with eagle screech, as the opening chords of Renegade by Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes pick up. "Hawk-ening right back to a time when Ted Nugent hadn't yet sold all his actual guitaristry to that pissant Wango Tango-ing... You know what, man, this is it!"

His ringed hands come down on the counter all a-clatter, chip crumbs flying out the bag he hasn't quite paid for yet.

"Lock me in a room full of records under a radio tower and throw away the key, I mean, I would be good to fucking go. None of that shock-jock shit, either. I'd play nothing but real music. The Hawkins Midnight Rambler, huh?" But Sam isn't paying sufficient enough attention. "Think I got a face for radio, Sammy?" Because he's asleep.

It takes a couple of molasses-slow moments for Eddie to register this, he himself still working through his own big sluggishness. I mean, damn, even waving a hand in front of the old man's face is an effort.

He's out, though, like a light. Makes Eddie wonder how this place stays open, much less unrobbed.

Well. Careful what you wish for there, buddy.

His hand is slinking toward a Three Musketeers, ready to nab it from the shelf right under old Sam's nose and write him a little IOU for whenever he next has the cash, but Eddie senses a shuffling behind him.

"Put your fuckin' hands in the air!"

Oh? "Dude, what?"

There's this guy behind him, this guy whose corporeal form Eddie can't be a bajillion percent sure isn't, like, a vivid hallucination, with pantyhose tugged over his face. Poking a pistol around under the cover of his camo jacket. The whole bit.

"Put your hands in the air or I put a hole through ya, asshole! You too, old man!"

Eddie tuts, hands still very much hovering near that candy bar.

"What's the fucking hold up, you and your grandpa tryin' to get shot or somethin?!" this very serious masked assailant demands.

"He's asleep, guy," Eddie says. "He can't hear you."

"What?!" our villain splutters, "Well... wake the fuck up! I ain't got all day and I want what's in that reg--"

He goes to point his still-concealed fuckin' sharp shooter or whatever it is he has at Sam's face, and Eddie, with this strange surge of protectiveness and complete buffoonery, nudges his arm away.

"Don't! Number one, dude's a narcoleptic, you could give him a heart attack if you just woke him up like that--number two, I saw him pull a sawed off from under that counter one time and you're in way closer range so the hole he blows through you is gonna be, like, way bigger and... like, he'll kill you and shit. Be cool."

The would-be thief groans. Oh, god, Eddie just knows he thought this hit job would be way easier. In and out, quick and dirty, wham-bam-thank you Sam.

Eddie nearly laughs. He does laugh, actually, because he's still super-mega fucking high and can't exactly control the noises that come out of his mouth, so next thing the dude is rounding on him with the thing in his pocket. Eddie actually puts his hands up this time. Feels a cold shock go through him somewhere that he really hopes isn't piss.

You ever get that? Get so stoned you constantly think you're peeing yourself? Anyway.

"Get the fuck behind the counter! If the old man can't open the register for me, you're gonna do it!"

"But I don't know how." Liar. Lying ass. Eddie knows how to work a goddamn register. It's not like he's tucking that money from the Hideout straight into his garter belt. Though he could. Maybe he should. Maybe he should buy a garter b--

"I'm gonna tell you how, dickhead!"

"What's in it for me?"

"Is that a fucking joke, wise guy?"

Only kinda. Closed mouths never get fed. "Worth a shot."

But Eddie doesn't really love this dude's tone, so he obediently scoots behind the counter, and almost gets distracted by all the copies of Penthouse Sam is keeping back here. He knew the bastard was holding out on him.

"Um..." Eddie gingerly starts, hands just sort of floating in the direction of the register in a way he hopes to Christ won't disturb Sam and wake him into a world of cardiac calamity.

So the guy tells him what buttons to push, clearly a man of the trade, a fellow familiar with wiling countless hours away behind a counter, which makes Eddie be all, why don't you steal from your own job, you shyster and keeps hitting the wrong buttons on purpose.

But dear old Sammy must have this thing rigged to make Eddie look like an asshole, because out pops the fucking drawer anyhow!

This guy, the pantyhose head, the robber, lets out an honest-to-god yippee! as he reaches over to snatch that cash.

And Eddie, working solely on instinct at this point, narrows his lovely red-rimmed eyes and shoves the drawer right in on the unlucky fuck's fingers.

He screams. And Eddie screams. And something falls out of his pocket. And Eddie leans over the counter, expecting to see and hear the shiny clatter of a pistol hit the lino.

But there is no such hardware.

It was a banana in his pocket. He was not happy to see you.

"What the fuck, man!" they chorus in near unison. They could have been brothers in another life, says some disembodied voice in the back of Eddie's head.

But then, something yellow flies towards Eddie's face and the shock of it knocks him right back into the lotto tickets and cigarettes. Thunk! His head knocks far too hard against the fire extinguisher and now there's two unconscious guys behind the counter.

Now, I don't know if you've ever had a banana thrown in your face by a masked assailant before, but I would call that something of an overreaction.

Anyway, he wakes up to police sirens and that Callaghan dweeb hauling him up by the front of his Hellfire shirt.

"Sshsjesus, Officer Handsy, buy a guy dinner first," Eddie slurs, head pounding. Callaghan's dorky Buddy Holly glasses have an aura around them that he unconsciously tries to swat away.

"He's resisting arrest!" Callaghan yells.

"Keep it down, I have a headache!" Eddie blinks once, twice, twenty-million times and is still having a tough time taking stock of his surroundings. Cash drawer's open and empty, and Sam is nowhere to be seen. "Didja catch the guy or what? He had a banana gun. Threw it right at me."

"Pipe down. Edward Munson, you're under arrest for armed robbery--"

"--wait, hold on--"

"--endangering the elderly--"

"--hold the fuck on!"

"--and swearing at a police officer!" Callaghan clicks the cuffs on and Eddie's about to burst, he's so mad and his head is pounding with such a fury. Shuffling him out into the forecourt and into the squad car like some kind of penguin idiot!

"That last thing isn't even real!" he spits, "None of this is real--I was trying t--fuck, did you not hear me about the banana gun?!"

"Reminds me to drug test him when we get back to the station," Callaghan puffs as he slides into the passenger seat.

"No one's drug testing anybody," Chief Hopper grumbles from behind the wheel. "We don't even have those facilities. Plus, kid doesn't even have any of that stolen cash on him."

"Thank you!" Eddie barks from his seat in the back. He can't really seem to sit upright, and he doesn't know whether to contribute that to the lump that's risen on the back of his head or the drugs that are definitely still in his system.

"W--well, why are we arresting him, then?" Callaghan blubs. Which is actually a salient point.

The Chief shrugs. "I'unno. Wednesday night. Somethin' to do."