#lifeblood of my inspo lol could not have done if it i didn't think anyone cared

[cambria-writes]

hello! a week late for this one but believe me when i tell you it has felt like a hundred year war has been going on in my head. i'm alright now i think! should be getting better from here. i hope!

and here's to hoping that next week will have an upload, because that will be marking the end of Ravenloft. :)

thanks for sticking around! also sorry for any mistakes i did my best to proofread this but shit happens. yknow how it goes.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: T warning: swearing, mention of death, reader's afab but doesn't have much description, lots of jump cuts but it's okay i promise, reader maybe has powers? 👀, mention of hospitals, intravenous hydration and needles, mention of wounds (and blood I think?), two people being idiot saps word count: 4, 253

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𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔇𝔲𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔬𝔫 𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯'𝔰 𝔊𝔲𝔦𝔡𝔢

Eddie sits next to you at the top of the stairs, shoulder pressed into yours. He looks significantly better than he did when he walked in; as soon as your mother saw the sorry state he was in, she immediately ushered him into the bathroom with fresh towels and ordered you to get a change of clothes. Wayne tried to say that wasn’t necessary, but you and your mother both just kept talking like he hadn’t tried to turn down your hospitality.

Taking a quick glance at Eddie, you still find it unsettling. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants you plucked from your brother’s room, and one of your old oversized Cocteau Twins shirt. Though he looks comfortable enough, you still think Eddie looks... out of place.

You take a breath and open your mouth to say something—anything, honestly, to break the silence—but Eddie clears his throat. Leans his elbows on his knees and lets his head hang low before turning to look at you.

“Carver’s dead.”

You blink twice. “Excuse me?”

“They found his—someone moved his car,” he says quietly, quickly glancing at the bottom of the stairs. You can hear your mother and Wayne talking. “They found his car at the Creel house. I dunno, someone reported a body, and...” Eddie clenches and unclenches his fists in front of him.

“You don’t,” you start, exhale sharply. “You’re not blaming yourself for—”

“Wha—no! Fuck, no, just...” Eddie sighs and brings his hands up to rub at his eyes. “I guess I figured if we could save Max, maybe...”

You nod. You understand. Maybe no one else would have to die.

“They’re pinning it on him, too,” Eddie whispered, running his hands through his damp hair before crossing his arms. “All of it. Cause of all the army surplus shit in the car.”

“Fuck, that’s...”

You don’t know what to say. Jason Carver was never someone you particularly liked; his behaviour was too strange, too erratic. You could never get a good read on him and, honestly, after seeing how he treated Hellfire—and pretty much anyone who remotely approached the punk vibe—you kept your distance.

Not that the hyper religiosity wouldn’t have been enough to keep you away, because it absolutely would have been.

But to know that he’s dead, now, probably because you’d left him in the damn house... and that he’s getting blamed for Henry Creel’s horrors in death? That didn’t. That isn’t fair. It’s a struggle to come to term with the fact that maybe this could’ve been avoided—

“Hey,” Eddie calls, turning a bit and placing a hand on your knee to grab your attention. “If I shouldn’t blame myself for it, neither should you.”

You huff and look away.

“Am I, uh,” Wayne starts, peeking out of the doorway to the kitchen, up the stairs at you. “Am I interrupting?”

“Wha—no, uh,” Eddie stutters, nearly tripping in an effort to stand up maybe a little too quickly. You clear your throat and shake your head.

“Where are you going?” You ask, craning your head to look up at Eddie. He gently pats his abdomen with a wince.

“Hospital,” he answers, carefully making his way down the stairs. “Now that I’m showered and been demoted back to town freak from murderer, y’know.”

You look down the stairs at Wayne for a few seconds, before getting up yourself to go down to see your mother. You lean into her side where she’s putting away the dishes.

“Do you mind if I take Eddie to the hospital instead?” You ask in a whisper. Your mother keeps a straight face and barely hesitates in her movements.

“Sure, why?” She asks quietly, stacking the plates and carefully placing them in the cupboard.

“Wayne looks exhausted,” You point out, stacking clean cups before passing them over. “Do you have any idea when’s the last time he slept?”

Your mother hums and puts her hands flat on the counter. She looks back at Wayne, still in the doorway, talking quietly to Eddie.

“I haven’t seen him sleep at all.”

Going through triage is easy—for Eddie, at least. One look at the few injuries he’d gotten in the Upside Down had gotten him into a small room with a doctor right away. One look at you had a nurse bringing over an IV to help with what was apparently blatantly obvious dehydration.

No one puts up much of a fight when you and Eddie insist on remaining together. There were enough injured because of the ‘earthquake’ that the small rural hospital was already way over capacity, and they wouldn’t squander an opportunity to save rooms and beds.

The few bites and cuts Eddie had gotten from the bats were thankfully small enough not to warrant stitches, but they’d done up half his chest. You can see a few patches on his arms, too. Without being able to identify exactly what bit him, Eddie had also been antibiotics, fed through the IV he was also sporting for dehydration.

You lean back in the chair you’d been sat in while Eddie’s perched on the edge of the bed next to you. You stay quiet for a bit after the nurse leaves, after informing you both not to move your arms too much.

“So that...” you start, unsure what to say. “That was one hell of a spring break.”

Eddie’s bark of laughter catches you off guard. He laughs harder when he sees you nearly jump out of your skin.

“It’s not that funny,” you mumble, but you can’t help but start laughing, too.

It doesn’t even take a minute for your laughter to calm down, but the next deep breath feels a little bit easier afterward. Like there had been a vice around your chest that’s just... gone, now.

“I’m just glad we basically wrapped up the Cult of Vecna campaign,” Eddie sighs, fiddling with the IV with his off hand. “Don’t think I’d be able to keep going with it after...”

“Hmm. Yeah, well, at least now you’ve got songwriting material, right?” You’re rewarded with a short chuckle. “No, seriously, you could—”

“Hey, sorry, can I ask you something?”

“What—I mean yeah, sure, any time,” you answer quickly, frowning.

Eddie’s moved from fiddling with the IV to cracking his knuckles. You bite your tongue to keep from asking what’s wrong and decide to be patient about it. He opens his mouth to speak a few times but shakes his head. The fourth time, he speaks up.

“If you hadn’t been... caught up in all this shit,” Eddie starts slowly. “Would you have, I dunno, like. Would you have believed it?”

“What, the whole thing about the Upside Down?”

“No, I mean,” Eddie exhales sharply before raising his head to look at you. “About me. That I—that I killed Chrissy.”

You’re honestly so shocked by the question that it takes a second for you to try and formulate an answer that conveys just how unbelievable that bullshit story was to begin with.

“I’d literally eat my own arm before I’d believe something that stupid,” you try to say evenly, voice cracking. “No one who’s bothered to talk to you for more than ten seconds would honestly believe that.”

“Would... would you have come looking for me? If you hadn’t seen me?”

You open your mouth to answer right away, but pause to actually take a second to think. It’s almost easy to imagine a world where you’d never spoken to Eddie when the nightmares came back with a vengeance. A world where you kept either to the quiet shelves of the library or the silence of your room. Where you hear about Eddie’s alleged involvement in the murder of a high school girl and couldn’t believe your ears. Where you grabbed your car and headed straight for Forest Hills.

“I would’ve wanted to,” you answer quietly, turning to look down at your own lap. “I would’ve wanted to help.”

You turn your head back up when you hear the hospital bed creak. Eddie’s sliding over to make room, and pats the space next to him. You breathe out a short okay before carefully getting up from the chair and hopping up on the bed, careful to take the IV pole with you and not jostle your arm too much. Eddie brings his good arm around your shoulders and pulls you in; gently, though, like he’s worried you’d pull away.

You let yourself be reeled in, let him guide your head to rest just beneath his collarbone, and let him rest his head on yours.

Your stomach feels like it’s full of static. You feel like running away and crying at the same time.

You stay like that until the nurse comes back to check in.

April 12th, 1986

You look around the apartment before dropping the last box on top of one of the stacks in Eddie’s room. Might not have been as big as his room in the trailer, but this is one of two rooms. Which means Wayne gets to have his own space for the first time in god knows how many years.

And Eddie is beaming. Not an ounce of care that the place is a bit narrower than he’s used to. You interrupt yourself mid-sigh when you notice that he’s already put up the Corroded Coffin flag and several posters. You can’t help but laugh.

“Dude, you don’t even know where the furniture’s gonna go yet!”

“Incorrect,” Eddie says, slapping the remaining corner of an Ozzy poster with a bit more force than necessary. “I know where shit’s not gonna go, so I know where it will go.”

You narrow your eyes and shake your head at him when he turns to look at you triumphantly. “Sure, bud. Come on, Pizza’s waiting.”

“I’m kind of weirdly happy those made it you,” you point at Wayne who, despite being at it since the crack of dawn, was still busy unpacking his collection of mugs, of all things. “Shame about the hats though.”

“Old man’s gonna have to live with the reality that he’s been balding since I was twelve,” Eddie quips, patting the man on the shoulder and trying to herd him into the kitchen.

You’re halfway through your first slice of pepperoni-bacon-onion pizza when you hear thumping and cursing from the direction of the front door. Eddie scoffs around his own slice of pizza and rushes to open the door.

“Thanks man, really appreciate it, super quick response time,” you hear Steve say, clearly through clenched teeth.

“Can we move, please?” you hear Dustin calling from behind the couch he’s apparently helping Steve carry. “Or did we forget I’m literally missing bones?”

“None in your arms, numbskull,” you hear Steve mutter. “Wait, did you guys start eating without us?”

“The fuck?”

You decidedly ignore the sausage fest at the front door.

“How’d you find this place anyways, Wayne?” you ask, pouring yourself a glass of coke. “I didn’t think anything would be available in April, especially after what happened.”

“Strangest thing,” Wayne starts, putting his slice down and leaning back in his chair. “Some government agent showed up at your parents place while y’all were out. Said the government’s giving me paid leave and ‘providing accommodations’, on account of the earthquake.”

You freeze, glass of coke nearly at your mouth. “A government agent?” Wayne only grunts in confirmation. “You’re right, that is strange.”

“Eh,” Eddie interjects, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter next to the pizza. “We’ve seen stranger things.”

You twist and throw your arm around your chair to look back at Dustin and Steve as they make their way to the joint kitchen and dining room.

“Yeah, I heard Mike saw Susie on their way here. Spending time in a Mormon household...” You shudder and turn back to your pizza slice. “That’s definitely weirder.”

You ignore Dustin’s indignant and shocked gasp when Eddie catches your eye. He nods toward his (new) bedroom before hopping off the counter. You don’t bother excusing yourself; Wayne’s already back to unpacking and Dustin and Steve are busy bring a shining example of unrelated siblings.

“What’s up?” you ask when you enter the room. Eddie’s already bent at the waist going through one of the boxes.

“Got something,” he says shortly, quickly picking up the box and putting it aside to look through the next one. He gestures at the other boxes. “Find the one with the records?”

“Uh, sure,” you agree, hesitant, but you don’t have the chance to open a single box before you hear a loud ‘aha!’ Eddie’s victoriously holding a record over his head, before letting his arms drop and holding it out for you.

“What... Frank Sinatra? Dude are you good.” You frown down at the records—Fly Me to the Moon, of all things. It’s always been one of your favourite, but... but it’s not like you’ve ever told anyone that. Much less Eddie.

Not that you don’t trust that he would treat you the same as he always had, but... but, jazz isn’t. It doesn’t really match the rest of your personality? You’ve very much been catering your more punk inclinations, and jazz is...

“Your mom told me,” Eddie explains quietly, taking a careful step toward you. He leans a bit over to the side, trying to get a better look at your face. “She, uh. She said your grandpa played it for you a lot when you were a kid.”

You can’t swallow the lump in your throat.

“I... thank you, but why?”

Eddie nods at the record in your hands. “Pull it out.”

You look up at him long enough to give him a confused look. You pull the record out nevertheless. And it, itself, is completely unremarkable. The envelope that falls out, however, very much catches your attention. You slip the record back in its sleeve and pass it over to Eddie without looking.

You crouch to pick up the envelope and flip it over in your hands. No writing, huh. You flip it open, and it just takes the quickest of glances at what’s inside for you to scream and throw the envelope to the floor.

Two tickets for Judas Priest stare back at you.

You vaguely register Eddie shooing both Steve and Dustin away.

“You’re uh, you’re makin’ me nervous here,” Eddie says eventually. You crouch back down to pick up the tickets in their envelope.

“How?”

“Hush money,” Eddie shrugs, and with the amount of frowning you’re doing you’re almost worried your face will stay stuck that way.

“Judas Priest. In August, in Indianapolis. For Turbo.”

Eddie bites back a grin and nods. You look at him, down to the tickets, and back up at him.

“You’re coming with me right?” You’re barely done talking and Eddie’s pumping a fist in the air. “Wait, did you not intend for me to take you?”

“Uh, well, y’know I didn’t wanna assume—”

“And you put them in a Frank Sinatra sleeve?” You laugh, carefully tucking the envelope in the back pocket of your jeans before throwing your arms around Eddie’s neck and pulling him in for a hug. You almost pull away when you feel him tense.

But then Eddie sighs and wraps his arms around you, before promptly lifting you up just enough to spin you around once. When your feet are back on the ground, you look up at Eddie and can’t help but laugh again.

“We’re gonna see fuckin’ Judas Priest!”

May 4th, 1986

It’s movie night, and this time it’s at your parents’ place. In light of which day it is—and the fact that the host gets to pick the movie—you’re forcing Steve to watch Star Wars.

The house is blessedly empty, save for the invited few. Your parents’ wedding anniversary is, very conveniently, also May 4th, which means they’re out enjoying a lovely vacation far, far away from the gaping hellmouth that is Hawkins. Your brother, after the initial mess and organization post-quake, went back home.

Steve is comfortably reclined in your dad’s La-Z-Boy, Nancy and Robin are glued together at one end of your parents’ 4-seater while Jonathan tries to look like he’s not bothered by the distance, leaning against the opposite arm. You’re sat in your mother’s rocking chair with Eddie sitting with his back against your legs.

Just as R2 starts playing Leia’s message, you hit the pause button on the remote and clear your throat.

“Just wanted to say that I’m moving out in July cause Helen owns a place but her tenants hauled ass when everything went to shit so if y’all wanna help just scream.” You hit the play button.

You get about a second of hearing Leia plead with Obi-Wan before she becomes absolutely inaudible under the cacophony. Robin and Eddie both stand up in shock, Steve tries to argue that he doesn’t even know if he can help you move, while Jonathan and Nancy seem content to let the other three run wild with their questions.

You can’t help but laugh. “So you’re all helping then?”

Eventually, when everything calms down—which is to say, once Robin and Steve have calmed down—and you’ve paused the movie again, you take the time to explain. Properly.

“So Helen,” Robin starts, staring down at her hands to keep track. “Library Helen that didn’t like you two years ago, went to see you, first, to offer you a house.”

You make a face and lean your head back.

“I mean yeah, but like. It’s not too far from Forest Hills, so the guy who lived there with his brother just left the day that—the, when the...”

“Wait, so is it like, furnished?” Steve asks, and you can already see the shining beam of hope flashing in his head. So you nod.

“Yeah, pretty much. Sense of style’s gonna be horrible but it’s whatever, right?” You look down at Eddie, still dutifully sat on the floor in front of your legs, and playfully tousle the top of his head. “What matters is that I have my own place now.”

May 24th, 1986

“You didn’t have to come,” you say quietly, gripping your umbrella like it’s about to run away. Your shoes squelch uncomfortably with the rain. Your clothes feel damp and your left shoulder’s soaked.

“I know.” Eddie doesn’t say anything else, just occasionally bumps his shoulder into you to try and get you out of your own head.

And you were very, very deep in your own head.

It’s still hard to... to process, just. Everything that’s happened. There are three people dead. Three kids dead. And before that, there was—

Your throat still clenches when you think about what happened at Starcourt. Everything that led up to it—the progressively more imposing and suffocating feeling of something closing in. People going missing, the rumbling of the earth underfoot something massive.

Eddie bumps into you again. He doesn’t look worried or weirded out when you nearly jump out of your skin. When you look up at him, he just turns to look back ahead.

“We’re here,” he says, but gently puts a hand on your shoulder to hold you back. You can see Eddie’s gaze going from eye to eye to gauge your reaction—or maybe your current state of mind?—before gripping your shoulder a bit tighter. “If nothing happens...”

“Then I lose nothing,” you reply quietly, slowly reaching up to take his hand off your shoulder. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

Eddie swallows thickly but nods. You don’t let go of his hand.

It was... maybe a little weird. It was probably a lot weird, actually, to want to come to a cemetery right around dinnertime. But with everything calming down, with no sign of anything extradimensional fucking with shit again, it was like there was a gentle pressure at the back of your neck pushing you forward. Nothing creepy, nothing unpleasant, just something like a hand trying to guide you somewhere.

You’d asked Eddie to come just in case.

You pull him along with one hand, first to Barbara Holland. Heavy in your other arm is a bouquet of carnations—two toned, the scarlet red edging the petals a contrast to the stark white of the rest. You place one in front of Barbara’s grave before taking a knee in the muddy ground. You put the bouquet down next to you after passing your umbrella over to Eddie. And then you just close your eyes and... and wait, for a bit.

You’re not sure you expect anything to happen. You’ve tried messing around with the cleric spell list, for lack of a better way to put it, but you seemed back to normal. No weird powers, no weird dreams. Back to being just a small down librarian.

You jolt back from a near-doze, and Eddie has to catch you—awkwardly, trying to manage two umbrellas—before you hit the muds.

“You good?” He asks, passing the umbrella back over to you once you’ve picked the bouquet back up.

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, looking back at the grave for a second. “Yeah, I’m... good.”

You go through several people like that; you find the grave, give a flower, kneel down for a second to... meditate? Only to eventually be shocked back into wakefulness.

The last person you go see is Chrissy Cunningham. If there’s a second of hesitation in his step, Eddie hides it well. There’s a moment when you feel bad, when you’re both standing in front of the grave. Eddie’s breathing sounds strained, even over the sound of the rain hitting your umbrellas. Your fingers bump into his when you blindly reach for his hand. You give his hand a last squeeze before taking a knee again.

You close your eyes, and when you let your fingertips brush against the headstone, it feels like a shock. The back of your eyelids are painted white, before everything gets eaten up by an endless black. This feels familiar.

When you open your eyes, you’re here—this strange in between place you’ve seen Eleven in. The headstone is still in front of you but there’s... something else, here. Something nagging at you.

You stand up to look around. There’s a feeling like knowing, in your bones, that there’s something else here. You take a deep breath and start by looking down at your feet. And then, slowly, outward.

There. In the shallow waters, something... red?

When you make your way to it, there’s no mistaking it: that’s a whole ass rose bud. Just sitting there like it’s always been there and this is exactly where it should grow. So, naturally, you move to pick it up. The thing doesn’t budge.

So you kneel down by the almost-flower, and gently try to pull it up. Somehow, it’s like the entire plan is... beneath you? And this bud is the only thing that’s made it to the surface. You don’t want to just—well, no, you don’t think you should just pluck the thing. That... doesn’t feel right.

Instead, you start digging your fingers into the ground as best you can to try and unearth the would-be rose. When you’ve cleared enough of the stem to get a grip on it and pull, you have to take a second to warm your fingers.

You don’t think about why the water’s cold.

Carefully, trying to dodge and protect the rosebud, you wrap your fingers around the stem and tug.

Nothing. Not that you figured a tiny tug would do it.

You flex your fingers around the stem a bit more firmly. This time, you take a deep breath, dig your heels in, and pull.

It’s slow at first, but as you keep the tension, the stem starts to budge. Then, all at once, it’s like an explosion of colours; like fireworks and paint flying everywhere. There’s a cacophony of sound, too; laughing, shrieking, popping corn and a crowd cheering. The sound of flash bulbs burning out, the smell of pine trees and ink and paper, the glint of glass.

You come too looking straight up at a very concerned looking Eddie. You’re having a hard time breathing; you’re not... entirely sure what just happened, there. You think you might understand, maybe. You hope that maybe you’re right. That maybe you just helped some people get... unstuck.

You only realize you’re crying when Eddie gathers you up in his arms and sighs. He doesn’t sound put out or upset.

“Your mom’s gonna kill me,” he says, nose in your hair. You laugh a little. “You’re gonna track mud all over the place.”

You appreciate that he doesn’t ask about what just happened. You don’t know that you’d be able to explain it even if you wanted to.

The two of you only spend a few more seconds like that before Eddie helps you back up to your feet. At arm’s length, he takes a look at you and makes you do a spin. He groans and pulls you along behind him, barely giving you enough time to grab the two umbrellas where they’d fallen.

“What the hell was that for?”

“My van doesn’t deserve this, man,” Eddie moans, looking down at himself before gesturing at you. “It’s gonna take forever to clean everything out! You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“...did you just—”

“Don’t. No. I didn’t say anything. Shut up and get in the damn van, you heathen.”

You return the kindness to Eddie; you don’t ask about why his ears are scarlet red the whole ride home.

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

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