#the st4 ones were fun

[scoopstrooptm]

the st writers really are holding up a neon sign that says time travel for st5 aren't they

[su8arandspite]

Show Me

Summary: When Steve and Robin bail on you, you’re left alone with Eddie for the first time and you want him to teach you how to play the guitar. But you find it hard to focus. Or, alternatively, the one in which you find out why Eddie Munson keeps handcuffs in his bedroom and what those stains on his mattress really are.

eddie munson x afab!reader, steve harrington x afab!reader (implied)

Warnings and content: 18+ mdni, smut, mentions of the ud, canon-compliant brief gore, eddie lives!post st4, alcohol and drug use, use of restraints, squirting, limited physical descriptions of reader (though I think I inferred long hair), no use of y/n, reader loves journey bc me too

A/N: i was absolutely drunk when i wrote this ngl. it’s shameless filth, and i am not sorry. this is my first good faith effort to write in second person, so y/n is used only sparingly. inspired by the fun, spicy lil details in eddie’s room. this was originally a steve x reader x eddie threesome piece but it was simply too long, so who knows, part 2??

Word count: 9.6k

divider cr: @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

It was a Saturday night tradition. After a particularly mind-numbing shift at Family Video, you, Steve, and Robin were always in desperate need of some fun. Really, it was a miracle that Keith even let the three of you work the same shift, given the especially sloppy work you produced when presented with the distractions of your best friends. As much as you loathed Keith, you supposed you might as well use his apparent –albeit inappropriate– fondness for you to your advantage. After the first time Eddie called the store during your combined shifts, the routine formed easily: the second that the last customer left and the door was locked, the three of you piled into Steve’s BMW to meet Eddie at his trailer for a well-deserved joint or some shots of tequila, maybe a bit of both if the day was particularly unbearable.

Tonight, though, your friends seemed to have other ideas. It was Robin who first broke the routine. She burst into the store with a guilty grin and a rushed explanation about the maybe-date she had with Vicki. And, okay, you could admit that you were happy for her. The excited rush in her voice and dusting of pink in her cheeks made it hard to be too mad at Robin. Beaming, she nudged you in the arm:

“Besides, who wouldn’t want a night alone with Eddie and this dingus?”

You turned to glance at Steve, hiding the flush this brought to your cheeks. A sinking feeling settled deep within your belly as you caught sight of the giggly girl leaning her torso against the checkout counter. She batted her eyelashes at Steve, twirling her hair around her finger. You hadn’t needed to hear them to know that Steve was asking her out on another date that you were uncertain he even actually wanted to go on. For someone who claimed to hate it, Steve sure did seem to have quite a bit of mindless sex. Not that you wanted to think about Steve’s sex life, or him with his shirt off or– No. You pushed away the image before it could fully form in your mind.

“Whatever,” Turning back to Robin, you rolled your eyes. “Now, are you gonna help me restock the shelves, or should we risk leaving it for Steve?”

Chuckling, she nodded and followed you to the stockroom to grab the carts filled with the new arrivals. Both of you took one and wheeled it off to different parts of the store. You hummed to yourself as you lugged the heavy container towards the next genre. It was in the middle of your whispered rendition of “Lights” that Steve finally made his way over to help you.

He shot you a grin as he gripped the cart, taking it from you. You eyed him skeptically, raising an eyebrow:

“Someone looks happy,” you teased. “Did my tip to recommend Pretty in Pink get you a date again?”

Steve’s warm laughter filled the store over the radio playing through the loudspeakers. “That obvious, huh?”

You shrugged. Casually, you tell him: “There’s this little quirk to your lips that gives you away.”

Steve stared at you for a brief moment, surprised, but averted his gaze before you turned your torso back to him and grabbed another VHS. Shifting his weight, Steve rubbed his hand over his chin.

“Don’t worry, kid,” said Steve, unable to avoid a grin at the nickname. He gave you The Karate Kid Part II to put in the new release section. “I promise I’ll still drive you to Munson’s, okay?”

“Wait,” You paused, whirring back to gape at him. “What do you mean, ‘drive’ me? Steve, please tell me you’re not bailing, too!”

Steve broke out into a sheepish grin. You tossed your hands up in exasperation. While you busied herself with visibly pouting, you missed the knowing smirk that Steve gave in response.

You blinked at him. Robin, you understood; she’d been dancing around taking this plunge with Vicki for ages, but Steve…? Well, you didn’t know why that bothered you, but you suddenly found yourself filled with jealousy towards the stranger with her forced Valley Girl accent and ugly purple top. Unwilling to admit that, you instead focused on the other idea stirring your nerves. Robin wasn’t coming to smoke that night, nor was Steve. That just left you... And Eddie. It would be the first Saturday Smoke Nights without all four of you there. 

The thought made your tummy flip. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Eddie– in fact, he had quickly become one of your closest friends. Still, something about the idea of spending time truly alone with him for the first time since, well, since the Upside Down, sent your heart aflutter. 

You thought about canceling the whole thing until everyone was free. Except, when you floated the idea to him, Steve wasn’t having any of it. 

“Maybe I should just call it a night, then,” you shrugged.

“No,” he shook his head firmly. “I’m driving you.”

Steve shot an odd look your way as he pushed the cart of tapes to be reshelved towards the Action section. You followed closely behind him, holding two tapes at a time and replacing them on the shelves.

That was how you found yourself sitting on Eddie’s bed while he deliberated over the two movies you had swiped from Family Video to watch that night— Airplane! or Teen Wolf. Not that you could care less; it was only a matter of time before you and Eddie weren’t sober enough to really care.

After a moment, Eddie looked up from the VHS cases with a brow quirked. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “How do you expect me to choose between two such riveting pieces of cinema?”

You shrugged. “Sorry, we had to pick something that Keith wouldn’t notice went missing.” 

Eddie shrugged. “Werewolves it is, then.”

While Eddie held up the selected tape and carried it over to the VCR player, you rose to your feet. You adjusted your skirt as you stood, pulling the plaid material a little further down over your thighs. The white tank top that you had put on before work looked more see-through than you remembered it being without the oversized green vest of your employee uniform over it. With that shedded in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, the lacy black bra which you threw on that morning popped against the white.

“Hey, Eds,” you called out. ”You got any popcorn?”

Eddie spared you a glance, a finger suspended in the air over the play button. His breath hitched at the sight of you. He wondered if you knew how good you looked or if you meant to waste it on the renters at work. Or him, for that matter. Swallowing thickly, he told you about the Jiffy Pop he had waiting for you on the stove, and stared after you once your figure disappeared from sight.

When you returned to Eddie’s bedroom, snacks and drinks in hand, he was oddly quiet. You paused for a moment, your eyes scanning his face for signs of what was going on in that head of his. You bent to set the popcorn bowl on the floor by his feet and handed Eddie a beer. The tension in the room was palpable. It pushed you to plop yourself down in the space next to him. You watched the opening credits rolling on Eddie’s shitty TV as you settled into this new position, criss-crossing your legs. 

Your palms slapped against your thighs as you rallied his attention. “Okay,” you said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get wasted.”

Eddie snickered. “Okay, princess,” he cooed. “As you wish.”

A delicious calm washed over your body as your high set in. The beer was shitty and slightly warm from not being in the trailer’s refrigerator long enough, but it was the best you two could scrounge up in Hawkins. It warmed you up and, more to the point, got the job done anyways. By the time you had a couple beers and half a joint in your system, the movie was over, and you felt more comfortable being alone with Eddie. 

Your fingers ghosted over the tops of the cases as you sifted through Eddie’s cassette collection. It took a while for you to find something familiar. You waited until Eddie was in the bathroom to switch the stereo to Journey so that he couldn’t protest the change.

You spun around the room, strumming your fingers in the air against an invisible guitar. It was in the midst of this little solo act that Eddie returned. He leaned against the doorframe so as not to disturb you, a small grin overtaking him. Eddie’s eyes flickered to your hips subconsciously as the movement swished your mini skirt upwards; the sight gave him just enough of a show to stir up tantalizing thoughts about the soft skin of your upper thighs and up until they disappeared under your panties. His impure thoughts brought a dopey smile to his face. It was then that you noticed his presence.

Upon realizing that you had been caught, your cheeks heated. A small squeak passed your lips. You stopped dancing abruptly, hair falling like a curtain over your face. 

“Please,” said Eddie. “Don’t stop on my account.” 

Suddenly shy, you shrugged. “Shit, you scared me! But,” Your lips curled into a demure smile, “I thought you were the rockstar, Eds. Wouldn’t wanna steal your limelight”

He shrugged, “I don’t mind sharing, angel.”

You hummed. Your cheeks burned with embarrassment as you blurted out unfiltered thoughts:

“You know, your hair’s almost as awesome as Steve Perry’s.”

Not this again. Eddie cocked an eyebrow, “Almost?”

You shrugged, a coy smile playing over your lips. “Just a little less silky.”

Pushing your hair away from your face, you narrowed your eyes at him. You sauntered over to the bed and collapsed yourself down onto it. Your eyes flickered from his hands to his tongue as he pushed it out to wet his lips. Getting comfortable, you shifted on the bed, tucking your legs up further underneath yourself. Your hands rested patiently over your thighs as you tilted your head. 

“Hey, Eddie,” you said. “Will you teach me how to play guitar? I mean, how else am I gonna become a rockstar?”

His lips quirked up at this. “Sure,” Eddie nodded. “Most songs are three simple chords, anyways.” He lifted his hands to strum at an invisible guitar of his own. You couldn’t quite focus on his explanation with his hands moving like that.

 “Okay, teach. I’m all ears,” you looked up at him with wide eyes, leaning forward with your elbows against your thighs and chin resting in your palms.

Eddie marched over to the wall where his guitar hung in its place of honor. He slung the strap over his shoulder, grabbed a stray guitar pick from the desk and placed it between his lips, before taking center stage in the middle of the room.

“Now,” Eddie began. “First, you’ve just gotta learn three simple chords: D, C, and G.”

He positioned his fingers, one at a time, over the strings in the correct position. The tip of his tongue poked out between his teeth in concentration. Even as crossfaded as you both were, Eddie wanted to impress you. After all, it wasn’t every day that he had a beautiful girl sitting on his bed, and he planned to milk the moment for all it was worth. So, he did his best to look cool and, if he was lucky, maybe you would ask him to teach you again. Eddie slowed the chord down to illustrate the correct posture. He played each of the three a few times then in succession.

“Then, when you put them all together, eventually, you get a little something like this–” Eddie strummed the iconic guitar solo of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” He thanked God for the liquid courage that allowed him to play Journey for you, like he hadn’t memorized the song just because he knew you were into them. Thank Ozzy for alcohol and weed or whatever it was that kept you from pointing out that Journey wasn’t exactly metal enough for Eddie’s usual taste.

And you meant to pay attention, you really did, but your brain turned into mush at the sight of Eddie truly in his element. You could think of nothing but the quick pace of his fingers. The thick rings he wore just on the cusp of his knuckles demanded attention. You bet they would feel cool against your skin, flushed and chest heaving, while he— pay attention. You swallowed around your cottony throat. White heat snaked up your spine as your mind wandered to thoughts of what else those skilled fingers of his could do. You shifted slightly in your seat. The room suddenly felt stuffy enough to run your mouth dry.

The sound of Eddie’s voice calling your name pulled you from her reverie. “Hmm?” Your eyes drifted slowly up to his face. “Are you even listening to me?”

You blinked your eyelashes up at him. WIth a faint smile, you tilted your cheek to rest against your shoulder. “Sorry,” you muttered. “Uh, can you show me that last one again? D, wasn’t it?”

“C, actually,” he corrected. “‘S something on your mind?”

“Oh, uh, I–“

You failed to think of an excuse, but you certainly couldn’t tell him what you were really thinking. Instead, you opened and closed your jaw, unsure.

Eddie let his hands fall to his sides. He raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “What’s a matter, baby? Cat got your tongue?”

The burst of warmth this brought to your cheeks gave him confidence. Eddie gently shrugged his guitar from around his shoulders and set it aside. You could only watch, eyes wide, as he strode your way.

He moved to sit beside you with his hands laid flat against the bed to support him, one on each side of you like a lanky cage, and his tall stature leaning over you. Eddie’s tongue peeked out to wet his lips. As he leaned forward, the guitar pick which he wore around his neck swung forwards to tap against the exposed skin of your shoulder.

When you didn’t respond, Eddie continued: “You wanna know what I think?”

With Eddie so close, you struggled to think of anything at all. The weed mixed with Eddie’s cologne— since when did he wear that?— and made your head swim even faster. You barely registered the words as they left your lips, “What’s that?”

Eddie sucked his teeth, a low rumble of a chuckle rippling through his chest as he leaned in to drop his lips to your ear. His hair tickled the skin of your neck. Gooseflesh rippled over you as his hot breath met your ear, “I think you’d rather watch”

You swallowed thickly. There was little time to compose yourself, though you tried, as Eddie leaned back against his palms, flattening them to give himself a better view. The expectant way in which he looked at you made you melt like putty under his hot, hungry gaze. Eddie reveled in the way you averted your eyes, embarrassed, and knowing you’d been caught. His big brown eyes gleamed. 

Lamely, you shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“That’s not a no.”

“I–“

You went to call him an asshole but lost your train of thought entirely. The quip died in your throat as a flash of something shiny in your peripheral vision caught your eye. It was your turn to smile devilishly at him as you realized what it was. 

Eddie frowned at the dip of the bed as you rose to your feet and stepped away from him. His gaze followed your saunter as you tiptoed over a copy of Heavy Metal magazine and a pile of cassette tapes to stop before the wall.

You lifted up the silver object with one finger. Turning to the boy, your lip curled devilishly into a knowing smirk. Eddie knew he should have been embarrassed or something, probably needed to come up with some plausible excuse for why he kept handcuffs in his bedroom. Maybe you would buy it if he said he was trying a hand at being an amateur magician? No, that was lame. He wanted to be a cop? Yeah, right! He certainly couldn’t tell you that he liked to use his hands in bed and, sometimes, he wanted to be the only one doing that. Could he?

“You know,” you lifted your eyes from the cuffs to meet Eddie’s. “My big brother’s a cop.”

The way that you twirled them around in circles stirred up something within Eddie. This, along with the plump pout of your lips, left Eddie suddenly very turned on. He swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” he said lamely.

“Well, then, Eddie, baby, you should know that he also taught me a little trick about how to get out of them.” You pulled at each loop of the cuffs until the chain was taut. “Do you want me to show you how?”

Now it was Eddie’s turn to stare and squirm. The suggestive tone to your voice rendered him speechless. He nodded dumbly. Your lips curved upwards devilishly. Mimicking his tone from earlier, you teased: “Cat got your tongue?

“Put ‘em on for me?”

Eddie swallowed thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing as he did so. He rose to his feet at your command. Your hands brushed as he took the restraints from the end of your finger. You blinked up at him expectantly as you pushed your wrists together in front of yourself. The cuffs bound your wrists as one with a resounding click. Eddie took a step back to admire his work. You looked so damn pretty with your hands all bound up for him, your wide eyes the icing on the cake.

“Wait,” Eddie shook his head. He gripped your wrists in one hand, stilling them before you had a chance to show him your trick. “Keep them on”

The mere sight of you in his cuffs made Eddie’s cock stir within his jeans.

“Perfect,” he muttered. The remark was more to himself than anything. It made you dizzy nonetheless.

Eddie didn’t know where his newfound confidence came from–the weed, maybe, or the shine in your eyes as you looked at him– but it was welcomed either way. Playful banter and a flair for the dramatics were his bread and butter, sure, but this? Flirting with you and unabashedly ogling you in his cuffs was something Eddie never saw happening outside of his perverted fantasies. Whatever pushed him to do it, he was chuffed that he had the courage to say what he did next.

His thumb and forefinger pinched your chin, lifting it upwards to force your gaze upon him. “You didn’t really want me to show you how to play the guitar, did you?” he clicked his tongue. “No, you wanted me to teach you what my fingers can do to you”

Then his thumb pushed at your mouth, tapping against your pillowy lower lip. He applied gentle pressure to it, just enough not to push its way inside. “Is that what you want, angel?” A whine rumbled deep within you. You could only nod dumbly in response. Eddie clicked his tongue, head shaking. “Sorry, what was that? Can’t hear you”

“Yes.” That was all the confirmation Eddie needed. He pressed his thumb firmly so that it opened your mouth for him. Your tongue lapped at the intruder, teasingly, as you sucked him in. Eddie all but melted at the sensation and his cock responded similarly, his dirty thoughts racing with desire for that mouth of yours.

He jerked his head towards the bed. “Sit.” You obeyed readily and sat on the end of his mattress, legs dangling off the edge, and spread your knees wide for him. 

Eddie bunched your skirt up with his fists and flipped it upwards on your hips. This gave him an eyeful of skimpy lacy panties that the skirt hardly covered to begin with. Christ. A whine escaped him at the filthy sight. He pushed your thighs as wide apart as he could by the knee. His hands ghosted over your skin from the knee up to the thickest parts of your thigh. He grabbed at the fleshy part of leg just below your ass.

He pushed aside your panties with his thumb to expose your wetness to him. A slow, shaky exhale escaped him as he dragged his finger through the slick and back up to rub sloppy circles against your clit. This made your breath hitch in your throat. Your mouth hung open with the silent whine threading to spill out. 

Eddie’s Cheshire Cat grin only grew as he stretched his long fingers out to hook into the fabric of your underwear, keeping as much contact as he could with your clit, until he managed to yank them down your thighs and around the left ankle. Swiftly, and so smoothly that you didn’t even notice, he tucked the lacy material in the front pocket of his jeans. For later.

“Kiss me,” your voice sounded like a true angel whispering to him. His nickname for you had never felt more apt.

Eddie’s fingers never ceased on your clit as he dipped his head down to press his lips against your cheek. He mumbled a slew of praises and compliments against your skin as he mapped a trail along your jawbone to your neck, pausing to suckle a deep hickey on the jugular and ghost against your clavicle. Only when his name passed your saccharine lips did he give you what you wanted and press his mouth hungrily to yours.

As you melted into his touch, you breathed a happy sigh against him. You kissed every last inch of nerves and desire away into his waiting mouth. Eddie swallowed it readily. His mind buzzed with the hazy static of lust and illicit substances until he could no longer hear Steve Perry’s voice thrumming in the background. He thought maybe his heart was going to take flight. Deep unfiltered want drove Eddie as he added a second and third finger to your clit and increased the pace. He blinked through heavy lids as you twitched involuntarily at the sheer pleasure.

From the moment he laid eyes on you, Eddie was a hopeless fool for you. You were exactly the beautiful, smart, warm breath of air that he needed. His heart ached for you with each brush of your hands as you both reached for a kernel of popcorn from the same bowl during movie nights with your friends. That had been enough for him up until now; Eddie would take as much or as little of you as you wanted to offer him. Even if tonight turned out to be just another one of his elaborate fantasies, he’d die a happy man—he seemed to have more and more vivid images of you in all your sunny glory as of late, the filthy thoughts flooding his mind in the quiet moments when he was truly alone and his hand wandered on its own accord towards the waistband of his underwear. He had it bad for you, and Eddie didn’t want it any other way.

Though you couldn’t reach your hands up to card through his hair as you so desperately wanted to, you caught his attention just the same with nothing but those sweet lips of yours. He chased after your touch as you pulled away from the kiss, head shaking just faintly. The buck of your hips against him spoke for you.

Only, instead of taking your lead, his touch left you altogether. Eddie stared at you with heavy-lidded eyes, awestruck. His fingers drew shapes over your clavicle, inching over to your shoulder. The band of your bra strap snapped as he lifted it and let it flick back into place. Eddie hooked his finger under it once more but made no further moves.

“Can I?”

“Please,” you nodded.

Eddie pushed the straps off your shoulders, taking the tank top down with them. Gently, he propped you up enough to get the fabric up and over your head, tossing it somewhere behind him. With the dip of his head, Eddie leaned down to kiss the swell of your breasts just above the lace of the bra you wore, as he reached behind you to unclasp it once and for all. Before you knew it, that too was long forgotten. You laid bare on Eddie’s mattress, covered only with your skirt that was still bunched up around your hips.

He cupped your face in his hands. Your stomach flipped at the thrill of feeling your own arousal against your cheek. His voice and his grip forced your eyes on his.

“You’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he marveled. “A goddamn vision.”

There was an unmistakable fondness in his voice that made you feel warm inside with an emotion you couldn’t name. It only grew as he snaked one hand down your stomach and towards your core again, the other kneading your breast.

Ripples of pleasure rolled through you as he returned his thumb to its rightful place against your clit and pinched your nipples, rolling each between his fingers one at a time. You whimpered, hips bucking, and craving more and more of him.

The grin on his lips only grew at your silent begging. He lifted his hand, spitting on his fingertips, before bringing it back down to your dripping sex. It made an obscene sound as he gathered some of your arousal for good measure, toying with your entrance.

Slowly, Eddie pushed the very tip of his middle finger inside of you. His ring finger soon followed, and he twisted his wrist so that his palm now faced the ceiling. You writhed under him, craving more, but were unable to find it; his other hand gripped harshly at your hip to keep you in place. Only once he had you good and still did he push his fingers deeper. The thick rings he wore were cool against the fluttering heat of your body. He curled his fingers deliciously upwards. They only just brushed against your most pleasurable spot at first, leaving you just out of reach, teased.

You babbled at him. The sound of your own voice begging sounded far away, “Eddie, Eds, please”

Who was he to refuse you? “Well,” Eddie tutted. “Since you asked so nicely…”

Eddie knelt with his thighs pushed up against the mattress. He was close enough that your Achilles’ tendon brushed over the tattered denim of his jeans. But you wanted him closer yet. He still felt so very far away. Just as you mustered the core strength to pull yourself up without the aid of your hands, he moved his free hand from your hips to splay over your lower stomach, just above the pubic bone. It forced you back against the mattress, dumbfounded. You were fully at his mercy as he worked to fuck his fingers into you. They pushed slowly inside of you, down to the base and out again at a snail’s pace. He pushed them in faster, this time, only to the knuckle and curling them.

The added pressure of his hand on your stomach coupled with the speed of his movements ensured that every move hit you in a way that left you breathless. Eddie seemed to know your body like it was his, quickly finding the spongy area inside you that made your mind empty save the pleasure he was giving you. It was an electric spark that spread from your very core and threatened to burn you to pieces. You gasped at the sensation– a weak little sound that faded out into silent cries of pleasure.

And oh was that just the thing Eddie had been needing to hear all night. His own breath quickened as he doubled his efforts. The pace at which he thrusted his fingers was brutal and delicious. You mewled, unable to form a coherent thought that didn’t include Eddie and his magic fingers.

Each curl of his fingers caused the exposed skin under his tattoos to flex, and it looked so hot. Your eyes were drawn to the way his veins popped with the movement, and the sight nearly had you drooling. Every one of your senses was overwhelmed with him: his touch was unlike anything you could have anticipated, the shaky, aroused breaths that escaped him and the pornographic squelching sound of his fingertips each time he thrusted them into you made you dizzy, and you turned your head to whine into the mattress and breathed in his scent like it was pure oxygen. Eddie was everything. 

Your toes curled and your legs began to shake. “Eddie, ‘m gonna– fuckk, I–“

“Yeah?” He tutted. “Let go, sweetheart.”

His soothing voice and unrelenting cadence made it difficult for you to focus on anything but the overwhelming pleasure coursing through your body. The tugging warmth of your orgasm that had been building surged until it was all-encompassing; intense pleasure slammed you all at once. Every ounce of tension left your body as you came around his fingers.

Eddie kept his fingers tapped against just the right spot as you rode out your orgasm. He lazily rubbed the heel of his hand against your very sensitive clit. Unable to help himself, he palmed at his erection with the other as he watched you come undone. 

You’d had orgasms before, but never anything remotely like what Eddie was doing to you. The familiar knot in your stomach was there as it built, but it was accompanied by something else— another type of pressure that was foreign to you. He left you no time to dwell on it, because you were coming before you could even really process it. When you finally did, it was a release unlike any other.

You hardly noticed it at first, but once you started to return to your senses, you felt something wet between your thighs that hadn’t been there before. Leaning up, you tried to get a glance at it. Your cheeks burned, slightly embarrassed, as you saw what a mess you’d made. The bedsheets and—oh, God— Eddie’s forearm and parts of his pants were soaked. 

When you managed to look at him again, locking eyes, he was smug. There was no sign of disgust or surprise anywhere. He looked proud, almost.

“Eddie,” you said, at a loss for words. “I don’t know what… I’ve never done that before.”

Only you weren’t entirely sure what it was that Eddie had done to you, just that it was the most intense euphoria in the world.

He smiled at you in a way that made it hard for you to feel insecure. Like you were a work of art; his masterpiece, even. Eddie rubbed his clean hand against your cheek, gently stroking your skin with his thumb.

“It’s okay, angel,” he reassured you. “You’ve never squirted before?“

You hesitated. The term sounded vaguely familiar to you, like maybe you’d once heard your girlfriends whispering about it, but you didn’t think it was real. Hell, no other boy you’d ever been with had even come close to making you orgasm at all, so this was entirely uncharted territory. It left you wondering where the hell Eddie fucking Munson had been hiding those skills all this time.

“No,” you shook your head. “But it felt really good.”

“I’m glad,” he pressed a gentle kiss to the blooming hickey he sucked on your neck earlier. “Just wanna make you feel so good. Such a good girl.”

He breathed in your scent like he was trying to commit it to memory. Eddie stayed with his face nuzzled in the crook of your neck for only a moment. He was leaning back up all too soon.

Finally, Eddie pulled his fingers from you and held them up to the light. His lips curved as he admired the way your slick glistened, thick as he separated his index and middle fingers. A deep hum left him as he lifted his hand to his waiting mouth and licked them clean. 

“You taste so fuckin’ amazing,” he groaned.

“Yeah?” You asked, though your head still swam with the haze of your orgasm.

“Think it might be my new favorite dessert,” he confirmed.

Your heart flipped. Though you assumed he was only teasing, Eddie knew just what to say to render you speechless. You couldn’t get enough.

Eddie lowered himself onto the mattress next to you. As he propped himself up by the elbow, he brushed some hair from your face. His umber eyes were dark with lust-blown pupils.

Though your cheeks still burned, you grinned mischievously as a memory creeped up on you. It was probably something you should have forgotten, what with everything you had all been through since March of 1986, but you could still hear Eddie clear as day in your mind, see his doe eyes widen as he glanced nervously at you over Robin’s shoulder:

“Those stains are, uh… I don’t know what those stains are”

Gently, you nudged Eddie to get his attention, as if there were anywhere or anything else in the world that it would be.

“So,” you locked eyes with him. “That’s what those stains are, huh?”

Eddie chuckled. It was a full belly laugh that had his shoulders shaking in amusement. He shook his head fondly at you.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what the stains are.”

Well, that and bong water, —mostly the latter— but he thought it sounded more impressive if you thought of him as some sort of sex god.

You hummed in recognition. 

Eddie smiled at you. He gripped the hem of his shirt in his fingers and toyed with it, chewing on his lower lip. 

“You know,” he said. “I’m feelin’ a little overdressed here, don’t ya think?”

“You are entirely overdressed.”

You’re unable to fight off a smile. Eddie sat up again and reached to pull his shirt up and over his head. It fell in a heap beside the mattress. As he started on his belt, you let your eyes take in the marvelous sight of him.

His skin was pale and his long torso seemed to go on forever. The black ink of his tattoos and healed scars popped against his flesh, the largest of which spanned across his stomach, just over the naval, and blended into the beginnings of his happy trail.

Eddie and you had never discussed that fateful night in the Upside Down. It was easier that way than to admit  your nightmares were still mostly plagued by the overwhelming fear you’d felt as you and Dustin carried his limp body back to the base camp in that stolen RV and in the weeks you spent nursing him back from the brink of death. Eddie’s heart slowed to a pace so imperceptible he swore it had stopped and, for the briefest of moments, he was on the other side. He knew he should have died that day and that, really, he supposed a part of him had. 

Perhaps for the first time since then, Eddie didn’t feel nervous or hesitant to reveal himself, scars and all, to someone else. Because it was you, after all. You, who had cursed at him through teary eyes for his monumentally stupid need to play hero and had somehow managed to remain calm enough to stem the bleeding, then scoured through the vehicle for something to sew him up with. It had been you who shooed Dustin out of the room, at least enough to shield the boy from the gruesome sight of your shaky hands as they crudely stitched him back together well enough to last until Steve and Robin and the others returned to regroup. He knew then, even in his weakest state, that he was in trouble because the flutter of your eyelashes made his sluggish heart ache.  As he looked at you now, your eyes blinking up at him, Eddie realized he never stood a fighting chance when it came to you. He supposed it was impossible not to fall in love with you, the angel who had saved his life, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. And every moment since then. He had called you his angel ever since.

You kissed a trail from the scars by his chest, down his tummy, and the one that disappeared under his boxer briefs. His skin was warm but erupted into goosebumps at your touch. Eddie’s breath caught in his throat as you craned your neck further down to peck an open-mouthed kiss where the head of his aching cock strained against the fabric.

Suddenly, he’s stopping you. Eddie’s hands cupped your cheeks, gently pushing your face away from him. The flash of hurt in your eyes must have been clear because he immediately softened his gaze, stroking your face lovingly with his thumbs.

“What’s wrong?” Confused, you glanced from the tent in his groin back to his eyes. “Do you not want to?”

“No!” Eddie cut you off, maybe a little too quickly and too loudly. He cleared his throat to recover, playing it off as a cough. “No, believe me, I really do. Fuck, if I’m bein’ honest, angel, I’ve wanted you since the second I first saw you in that boathouse. But, right now, I just really want to taste you. It’s a need, actually”

Eddie wasn’t done with you yet. No, tonight, he wasn’t letting up until he made his sweet little angel come against his lips, clenching around his fingers, and, finally, around his cock. Only then, after he took everything you had to give, would Eddie allow himself to come.

This confession rendered you speechless. A meek oh was all you could make out. Though he smiled down at you, a hunger swirled in his eyes that had you feeling he wanted to swallow you whole, and God, you wished that he would. 

Even so, he made no further moves to act on it. His hands itched as he slid them from your face, down your chest and waist, before gripping at your thighs. He tilted his head, blinking expectantly at you. 

“So, uh, can I? Eat you out?”

“Fuck, yes,” you nodded. “I’d be offended if you didn’t, now.”

Eddie didn’t waste another second. He pressed himself down against the mattress, lowering his face closer to the apex of your thighs, and tightened his grip on your flesh, swiftly yanking you closer to his waiting lips. They were wet and warm as he peppered kiss after kiss up the insides of both your upper thighs, nipping at the soft skin there. 

“Don’t be a tease,” you wiggled your hips to chase his touch.

His breath hit your sopping core as he let out a quiet chuckle. Eddie nudged his nose foreword, just barely brushing it against the hood of your clit, dragging it down to your wetness.

He hummed, “Now, where’s the fun in that?”

“Eddie, I swear to–“

Your empty threat dissolved as he relented. Eddie shifted his grip to spread your lips open for him, thighs now caged in the crooks of his elbows. It’s when he wrapped his lips around your clitoris that the shock of pleasure shot through your spine and took the words from you. He sighed into your core and let himself push closer to it, almost smothering himself. 

Eddie intermittently flitted his tongue out as he suckled at your clit. His mouth worked at the perfect rhythm and if you’d had the presence of mind to listen past the hammering of your heart in your chest, you would have been able to make out the tune he was humming; ‘Open Arms’ was surely for your benefit. 

With his arms wrapped tightly around your hips, you had no choice but to ignore the urge to buck your hips against him. You got only what Eddie gave you, and good God, would you take every last ounce of pleasure hungrily.

After what could have been minutes, hours, or mere seconds —you couldn’t tell— Eddie broke his lips’ seal from your clit and let his nose take their place against it as he breathed out. He’s only off of you long enough to let out a low rumbling chuckle, asking: “Hm, what was that, angel?” 

But you’re unable to answer him, because Eddie’s reattaching his lips to you and sucking with more intention than before. You couldn’t remember what you were saying even if you wanted to. Your mind was wiped of everything outside of him. Eddie Eddie Eddie. Your thoughts were a chorus of his name and him only. Eddie!

You had little presence of mind left to be embarrassed about it, as your second orgasm snuck up faster than the first. You were already close, barely able to contain your whines and sweet sighs any longer. Eddie seemed to sense this, and shifted his right hand from his death grip on your thighs—which would surely bruise, you noted with a twinge of excitement—and prodded two of his fingers at your entrance.

He licked lazily at your clit between words, remarking, “Such a good fuckin’ girl.”

He plunged his fingers inside finally, curving them again to find the spot he’d discovered earlier. His lips had only just returned to their rightful spot around your clit when your release hit you.

 Eddie didn't let up on his suckling until you were still again, a broken sound falling from your lips. You pushed at his head as best as your restraints allowed, trying to wriggle away from the overstimulation. “‘S too much, Eds,” you pleaded.

He pulled himself away with a wet smack of his lips. Eddie wiped your arousal from his face with the back of his hand, though not without sucking it clean off his fingers. The grin he gives you is a delicate mix of devilish and heavenly.

Eddie crawled up the bed, long, alabaster torso towering over you as he planted his knees at either side of you. His fingers fanned out over your face and cupped your cheeks.

“You okay?” His eyes softened.

“More than okay,” you assured with a breathy giggle.

“Good,” Eddie said.

You could barely think. Not with your body still humming from your earth-shattering orgasm and not with Eddie’s big Bambi eyes blinking at you with such softness and deep affection. It made you feel like you were being seen for the very first time. 

He couldn’t help the smile on his lips as he dipped his head to press a kiss to your lips. It was gentler than before and he tasted of your slick, a fact that elicited a soft groan from your chest. Eddie swallowed it up. His guitar-calloused thumb stroked your cheek as he titled his head to deepen the kiss. It was passionate, sensual, and every brush of his tongue against yours stoked the butterflies in your tummy. There was a certain sweetness behind it, too, that you weren’t used to. The type of need that Eddie was oozing ran far deeper than lust alone.

It was Eddie who broke the kiss, panting to catch his breath and nuzzling his nose against your cheek. His cheeks swelled as he broke out into the fondest of smiles. You softened under the weight of his heady gaze.

Your entire body ached for him. Eddie may have been content to focus on your pleasure all night long, but you thought you might die if you didn’t get the privilege of returning that favor. 

Growing impatient, you were desperate to make Eddie feel good. You straddled Eddie as smoothly as you could, settling yourself in his lap. You locked eyes with him and kept your gaze steady as you pressed your dripping core harder into his erection, slowly dragging it for friction as much as his grip would allow. A low growl came from him as he blinked up at you with his wide chocolate eyes. A greedy hand grabbed at your ass, as the other lifted your wrists to his face. Eddie pecked soft kisses to your knuckles, the heel of your palm, and just above the metal cuffs. He pulled back just enough to see you properly, still stroking your hands with his.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he told you. Eddie’s smile never wavered. It had been a joke, but he meant it; part of him wouldn’t mind if you ripped his lovesick little heart from his chest and never bothered to give it back. He would let you with a smile.

He was painfully hard; you could feel it with every rock of your hips against his. The deep ache within him felt like your own, like every throb of his cock was your heartbeat.

“Eddie,” you whined. “Baby, please, I wanna make you feel good now”

Something inside his head short-circuited at the filthy words leaving your sweet, vanilla-scented lips. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he muttered to himself. With a heavy swallow, Eddie nodded. He gripped your hips tightly.

His thumb drew mindless shapes against your skin. “Think you can handle more?”

“Mhmm,” a breathy moan escaped you at the feeling of his cock twitching beneath you.

“Tell me if it’s too much, ‘kay?”

You gave a single nod, “Yes. I will– just, please, Eddie, I want you to fuck me.”

Eddie planted a searing kiss to your lips. He pulled you from his lap and set you down on the bed next to him. You watched with awe as he finally pulled his boxer briefs off and kicked them away. A rush of want swam around your head and in your core as you took in the heavenly sight of his nude form for the first time. 

You truly weren’t prepared for just how perfect he was. The tip of his dick was a needy red, painfully erect, and dripping with pre-come; the length curved to the left and was just the right girth.

The kiss he pressed to your lips once he’d fully stepped out of his jeans was sweet and short. He kicked the fabric aside and leaned further into you, gently using the force of the kiss to guide you back against the mattress. Eddie’s left hand pushed your cuffed wrists over your head, where he wanted them, while he pumped himself a few times with his right.

“Ready, angel?” He asked. 

This time, Eddie accepts the slow nod you give him. He tapped his tip against your swollen clit, lips curling devilishly at the whine that escaped you. Tease. Eddie gave you very little time to feel sorry for yourself before giving you what you needed.

With one slow, measured movement of his hips, Eddie thrusted fully forward. He planted his palms against the mattress to hold himself up and get better control. His breathing was shallow and ragged, eyes squeezing shut, at the feeling of your pussy adjusting and stretching to accommodate the curve of him. The stretch was a sweet ache, and you’d never felt so full. If you’d thought Eddie was everywhere before, he was the only thing now.

His hips pistoned into you at an unrelenting pace. After so long of ignoring his own need, Eddie chased any relief he could get. And this, burying himself balls-deep inside you, was better than any drug in existence; it made him feel like a virgin all over again. A string of expletives left his lips that would have confused you if you had enough presence of mind to pay attention.

Eddie lifted your hips further up, twisting just so to ensure every pump slammed into you at just the right spot. It knocked the breath out of you until your lungs burned with every gasp and whine. The curve of his cock was made for you, made to fit right against your g-spot with every pass. 

You thought of running your fingers through his hair. But, of course, when you pulled at the handcuffs, you were unable to get at him. A deep chuckle rumbled in Eddie’s chest that stoked a fire within you and reminded you exactly why you had plucked them from their hook in the first place.

Your third orgasm loomed at a rate that must have been some sort of record. Eddie had you too cock drunk to care, though. It was like you were floating and a lucid part of your brain wondered if the heat of your pleasure had set you ablaze and you were watching yourself from above. 

Eddie lifted himself away from you enough to get a good look at every inch of you— your plush lips parted in pleasure, brows furrowed, eyes glistening and pupils blown wide, the bounce of your breasts in time with his thrusts, the way his hand looked as he splayed it wide over your lower stomach, meeting just over where his cock hit your walls. He did his best to commit every last detail to memory.

His thrusts became sloppier, nearly stuttering, with the way your walls tightened. 

“You close?” He managed, but it wasn’t much of a question. “Come on, good girl, come f’r me, just one more. That’s it”

As if your words summoned it, you spasmed and contracted around him with your third and final orgasm. Your back arched clear off the mattress like a woman possessed, weak and held up largely by Eddie’s tight grip and where he was still fucking into you. The squeeze of your cunt around him was too much, and Eddie let out a guttural groan of your name as he came. His come was warm and foreign inside you.

Eddie collapsed onto you, the last of his strength he had been using to keep both of you upright finally giving out. His face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, panting into your sweaty skin until he caught his breath again. 

“Well,” he muttered. “Fuck. That was… fuck.” You chuckled in response and Eddie lifted his heavy head, not willing to miss a single second of it. “Yeah,” you agreed.

Eddie slowly leaned down to your bound wrists, pressing a kiss to the sore skin. 

“Here,” he helped you slowly sit upright in the bed. He pressed one last peck to your temple, then finally peeled himself away from you and his damp bed sheets. Eddie glanced around his room, ready to retrieve the key and free you, when your sweet voice pulled him back to you.

“So,” a playful smile spreaded over your lips. “You still wanna see that trick?”

Eddie hummed. He turned back to you, pulling his boxers back up to rest lowly on his hips with his eyes locked on you. His heart skittered as you blinked up at him.

“Ta-da!” you lifted your now-empty wrist to show off.

Your trick was impressive. Sure enough, you had freed your wrists from the bounds and the second cuff dangled from the chain, tapping against your forearm. If anything, it only made Eddie’s heart swell with the knowledge that you could have gotten yourself out of it at any time but you hadn’t, for him.

“Color me impressed,” he said.

Chuckling, you leaned in to him. Eddie keened, melting against the gentle touch of your newly-freed fingers against his face. Slowly, you pressed your lips to Eddie’s. The kiss was lazy, slow, and heavy. Your lungs burned as she breathed him in.

The unmistakable glow of headlights shined through the curtains as someone pulled up to the new Munson trailer. It was enough to break the delicate bubble of you and Eddie’s post-coital bliss.

Eddie grumbled, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. You lifted yourself to pull the fabric aside, taking a peek at who had pulled up. Panic inched up your spine as you recognized the car. 

“Shit,” you whispered. “Shit, Eds, it’s Steve.”

The headlights cut off, and you sprang to action. In your haste, you hadn’t paid any attention to where your clothing ended up. Your knees nearly buckled under your weight as you stood. With burning cheeks, you hushed Eddie’s cackle and could practically see his self-satisfied smirk without turning to look at him.

With Steve only moments away from catching you in far too compromising a position, you yanked your shirt as far down your hips as it would go and decided that would have to do; you couldn’t see your panties anywhere and you had no time to hunt them. Eddie, who seemed to have no trouble redressing himself, tossed your tank top to you. It was just over your head as you heard three telltale raps at the door to the trailer. 

Eddie’s long legs allowed him to rush ahead of you and lead the way to answer the door. His grin didn’t dull one bit.

“Relax, angel,” he assured you. “It’s just Steve.”

You really weren’t sure if that made you feel any better or it was somehow worse. Eddie’s touch burned as he slung an arm around your shoulders and you weren’t able to think about it any longer. 

“Harrington!” Eddie beamed at the younger man as he stepped inside the trailer.

Steve offered him an odd look at the uncharacteristically chipper tone but pushed past the pair of you and continued his beeline to the kitchen. He grumbled under his breath as he yanked open the fridge. Steve snatched the last cold beer and slammed it shut after himself.

You shared a brief glance with Eddie. Raising an eyebrow, you asked:

“I take it your date went well?”

Steve groaned again. Even his hair looked sad, drooping, as he shook his head. He opened the can and took a heavy swig. It told you everything you needed to know about his latest failed attempt at romance.

“That bad, huh?”

Eddie’s laugh is maybe a little louder than he meant for it to be, but there was no malice in his voice. Only then, as he set his beer down on the counter, did Steve properly look at you and Eddie for the first time since he arrived. It took him longer than it should have to notice something was off. When he eventually did, though, Steve’s jaw lowered. He blinked at his friends a few times as if he had somehow imagined it. 

You were worse for wear. Where you had it neatly styled when he dropped you off, your hair was tousled and messy, tank top askew on your torso. The thin fabric did little to hide your pert nipples from his sight and, holy shit, was that a hickey? Your lips were kiss-bitten and swollen, a matching set to Eddie’s, complete with spit and the gloss of your vanilla lip sheen. But all of that was nothing compared to when his gaze lowered towards your thighs. Steve struggled to look away, though he knew he should, but he was mesmerized with the sight of Eddie’s cum dripping down your thigh.

Only then, when he could still clearly see the single handcuff clasped around your wrist with its counterpart dangling at your side, did Steve say anything.

“It smells like sex in here.”

When no one responded, Steve trudged on:

“Were you two just– oh!”

Steve’s chocolate eyes widened slowly with the realization. 

You glanced over to lock eyes with Eddie. He barked out another laugh, his dimples popping with amusement.

“Sorry, Stevie,” he teased. “You just missed the show.”

Your fist didn’t even budge him as you smacked Eddie square in the chest for his lewd comment. He gently caught your wrist and snaked your fingers around his to hold your hand.

“Wait,” Steve flitted his eyes between you and Eddie. He called your name softly. “Is this why you didn’t want me to drive you here?”

“No!” You shook your head. “No, I just, uh, didn’t want you to feel like you had to or anything.”

Steve knit his eyebrows. “You’re never a burden, kid.”

Steve’s pretty face pinkened as he took in your disheveled appearance once more. You pulled uselessly at your skirt, as if it might grow longer. He hadn’t noticed he was staring until you squirmed under the heat of his gaze.

Eddie slung his arm around your shoulders easily, pulling you close. Cocking an eyebrow, he called, “Aw, Harrington, you’re just jealous I got to her first.”

“Wait, what?” You glanced between the two boys, brow furrowing.

The glances they shared conveyed some secret conversation you didn’t understand. You raised your brows, asking one of them to clue you in on their little secret.

Steve didn’t deny it when Eddie spoke for him:

“He thinks you’re pretty,” he batted his eyelashes at you, teasing.

“Fuck off, Eddie,” Steve whined. He turned to you, dipping his chin shyly. “But I, uh, yeah.”

It was just a fact. You were beautiful, and Steve didn’t see why he should have to pretend that was a secret.

Your stomach flipped. 

“Okay, well,” you stepped out of Eddie’s grasp and towards Steve. You picked his beer up from the counter and drank from it. Gently, you squeezed his shoulder and grinned. “Thanks for the ride, Steve.”

Steve’s pretty face darkened to scarlet, sparkly eyes blinking rapidly. He swallowed thickly and muttered out a weak response. You had them both watching your every movement as you carried the beer towards the living room.

“Now,” you called over your shoulder. “Who wants to watch a movie?”

You smirked into the beer as the boys scrambled to race each other to the couch, arguing amongst themselves about who got to sit next to you. Mentally, you decided you needed to thank Robin for ditching you tonight.

[henrysglock]

Another Fun Mothergate Installment: The Grocery Store Incident

This was supposed to be a short one...but as usual it turned into a rabbit hole.

1.06 The Monster (Timestamp: 19:05)

Well, well, well. What do we have here?

A guy who moves to have the Henward positioned hands (with a watch on the left one signifying a righty) as soon as El enters his line of sight paired with a) a Papa line, and b) a line asking about El's mom.

More specifically, though...he does the inverted Henward hands.

While asking where Mom is.

He is not Mom. He doesn't know where Mom is, but he'd like to. (The camera cuts back to El as soon as the topic shifts from asking about Mom to asking about Dad, and she calls the guy a mouthbreather.)

The scene in 1.06 is cut with this dialogue from Brenner, who wants El to search the darkness for the demogorgon:

Which is directly referenced here, in 4.08:

"Was I looking for him?" and then a specification on Henry, which is met with No. No.

This is interesting, because Brenner specifies between Henry and One:

So no, she wasn't looking for Henry. She was looking for the "Soviets" (I'm staring at the Russian Shadow and their demodogs, specifically the cut-open one that parallels both Henward's banishment in ST4 and Henward's exorcism from Will in ST2. I bet if El had asked if she was looking for One, she might have gotten a different answer from Brenner. We can't be sure, though).

But wait...what did Henry say, exactly?

If we balance Brenner's habit of truth-cherrypicking against a) his naming conventions for Henward, and b) all the other details stacked up against the two guys...

Then this remains Henry:

Right-handed:

With a middle part styled to look like a side part:

Which would mean he is Henry, in red:

(right handed)

And he is Edward, in green:

(left handed)

It also means he is Edward:

(natural side part)

and he is not Henry based on his handedness:

(left handed)

Which means that we were right. There is a distinct difference between these guys, two of which are never shown saying the sleepyhead or "not awake yet" lines (in fact, the inverse hands one doesn't speak at all):

First pass through NINA:

Mom lines said by Edward, and only he is shown.

Second pass through NINA:

Mom lines still only said by Edward.

Third pass through NINA:

Mom lines overlaid on El.

I'm not going to touch on the "look who finally decided to join us" weird hands guy too much, because I genuinely have no idea what's up with him and his in-between style.

I will note, though, that he's got the "shitty knockoff" vibes of someone who's meant to seem like the first guy...and he also isn't shown saying the Mom lines. In fact, he's specifically cut so that he never says those lines. When we see those lines said by a Henward, they are always said by the natural side-part Henward (read: Edward).

Ne'er the twain shall meet, or whatever.

All the mom lines are either visibly said by Edward, or they're overlaid on El.

And funny enough about our initial shopkeeper guy?

As soon as the conversation about El's parents ends, his hands abruptly swap position across the camera swap.

Hands clasped:

Cut to El:

And then BOOM. Completely different position:

If you watch it in real time, it's a lot more jarring than it looks in screenshots.

I'm telling you guys...this has all been set up since ST1. The references are all there.

[eddiernunson]

Trapped | Eddie Munson | Part 10

Prev Part | Master List | Next Part

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 20.1k

Also when going to add my tag list I realized I forgot during the last part to add my tag list. I am very sorry.

Warning: Cringey writing in which this version of the reader character is now written into even more of the show. Sometimes, she has nothing to add to the conversation. Sometimes she will take a line, sometimes the reader adds a line. It took literally months to write but personally only 35-40 minutes to read. But if you forgot a lot of what happens in first 9 parts then it might take longer.

There is no smut. Sorry.

Authors note: My life fell apart, guys. I had no motivation to write this. Some scenes were so daunting. I only wrote the scenes that affected the reader in any sense. There are moments where I cut dialogue because she couldn't hear it anymore but there are also moments in which she's not even present. You'll figure it out. I really tried to tie the characters and the bonds I created in my own story with what was happening in ST4.

Example. In my own story Robin and Nancy are already friends in a sense so none of that "so are we friends" but the Platonic with a capital P is still there.

And there is a lot of affection between reader and Eddie but I really tried not to take away the fact that these characters must be terrified out of their minds.

Chapter Five: The Nina Project

It’s about 7 in the morning, all of you have found a surface to lie down on, and the faint sound of Eddie calling out for someone suddenly rings loud in what falsely appeared to be a quiet morning. “Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?”

There is not a soul who even remotely stirs at the signal.

“Dustin, can you hear me? Dustin?” Dustin is peacefully sleeping propped up on the tv, but as Eddie calls out, “earth to Dustin!” Nancy bursts awake, and her brain catches up to reality.

“Hey, it’s Nancy.” She answers, her eyes still blurry from sleep.

“Wheeler! Hey.” Eddie says, relieved in an answer. “Um, I’m gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want me going out into the world—"

“No. No, no, no. Don’t do that.” Nancy chirps out, falling into the trap he lays out for her. “Stay where you are, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen um, can you pick me up a six pack?” Nancy shakes her head at this, annoyed she perked up for it. “I know, it’s stupid as shit, drinking right now,” as he’s speaking, Nancy starts to look around the room to everyone passed out, and she notices two things. One, Dustin is sleeping. Two, Max is not. In fact, she’s nowhere to be seen. ­“-but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves.”

“Hey, I’m gonna have to call you back.” Nancy hurriedly answers him, turning off the walkie as she sets it down.

“No, don’t you da- Wheeler? Wheeler?” Eddie asks, and he is met with radio silence.

“Dustin!” Nancy yells at Dustin, and it takes a moment for him to get his bearings, taking a second to look around him. “Wake up.”

“What?” Dustin manages out, still groggy.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on Max watch?” She asks, frustrated and worried.

“Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Sorry.” He answers, rubbing his eyes.

“Then where is she?” She asks, gesturing to where Dustin still hadn’t noticed her gone.

“She’s right- there. A second ago. I swear I just dozed off for,” He checks his watch, and looks up at Nancy, almost afraid to tell her. “...an hour.”

Nancy and Dustin trudge upstairs, worried sick Max took off and is already levitating somewhere. Karen Wheeler notices, and as she asks if everything’s ok, Nancy sighs in relief as she spots Max crouched down, sitting at the table.

As it turns out, Max was drawing, and from the looks of it, she was going for a while. She explains what she saw, and a hypothesis is brought out by Dustin that it might’ve been in Vecna’s mind, seeing as Vecna went into Max’s. Dustin makes fun of the drawing, calling it vague but Nancy recognizes the stained-glass door immediately.

She pieces the labyrinth-like drawings together and creates a setting, Victor Creel’s house. It sets up a piece of the puzzle Nancy feels she’s been missing and she fast-walks back down the stairs to wake the rest of you.

(Not without pissing off Mr. Wheeler one last time just for funsies from Dustin.)

-

Nancy wakes you all up, and despite the group’s collective annoyance, its an agreement that you’re burning daylight and yesterday took much longer than any of you anticipated. As Nancy explains the Creel House, Steve asks what they’re supposed to do about it.

“The only thing we can do. Investigate.” Nancy answers.

Now here you were, pulling up to the abandoned house with everyone in tow. Everyone shuts the station wagon doors, and it feels eerie as you walk up to it. “Yeah, that’s not creepy.” Steve comments, and the group echos the thought.

As expected, the doors were nailed shut. The rest of you watch as Nancy and Steve work together on digging out the nails with hammers one at a time and it’s hard not to feel awkward even given the circumstances. “What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?” Steve asks, border-lining on whining.

“We’re not sure. We just know this house is important to Vecna.” Nancy answers, unsure herself but just needing something to investigate.

“Because Max saw it in Vecna’s red soup mind world?”

“Basically.”

“Great.”

“Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is. Why he’s back. Why he killed the Creels. And how to stop him before he comes back for Max.” Dustin interjects- ever so perceptive.

“We don’t think he’s in there, do we?” Lucas asks, sounding hesitant.

“Guess we’ll find out.” Says Max.

“Ready?” Steve asks Nancy, all the nails now out. She confirms, and the wooden panel comes down with a creek and an overly dusty thud.

“Dustin. Dustin!” You grab his attention, “Do you have any extra walkies in case he reaches out again?” You whisper to him bending down from the step above him.

“Shit. No, I don’t.” Dustin answers, apologetic.

“Fuck. Keep that thing on you, then. Someone might find him.” You say, pointing to the walkie sticking out of his bag.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dustin responds, and you let your head fall back hopelessly. You glare at him, hoping to get the message across. “I’ll do it!” Dustin yelps, and you still don’t believe him.

Steve attempts the door. “It’s locked. Should I knock, see if anybody’s home?” He asks, not helping the situation but it was funny.

“No need.” You look to face Robin, who was no longer right next to you, but standing at the bottom of the steps. She dramatically holds up a brick, looks to it, and looks back. “I found a key.”

Robin gleefully throws the brick through the window, glass going everywhere as the window shatters. Steve reaches in to open it, struggling to find the knob. Once he does, the door opens with a comically loud creek. It’s quiet, dark, and dusty.

Your flashlights are routinely turned on, each of you scanning the house as you walked in single file. You enter second to last, moving towards the bottom of the steps inquiringly.

“Looks like someone forgot to pay their electric bill.” Lucas comments, and Dustin just turns on his flashlight.

“Where’d everyone get those?” Steve asks, looking around as he realizes everyone now has one.

Dustin glances back at him, and he pauses for a moment. “Do you need to be told everything? You’re not a child.”

“Thank you.” Steve deadpans.

“We grabbed them while you were in the bathroom, I think.” You comment, looking up at the impressive spider web in the corner of the room.

Dustin takes his backpack off, handing it to Steve. “Back pocket.”

This choice would come back to bite Dustin in the ass because Steve unceremoniously drops the bag onto the creaky hardwood, not knowing the promise Dustin had made you.

Nancy is peering into what looks like a living room. “They just left everything.”

“I guess a triple homicide isn’t good for resale value.” Robin jokes as you pass them, you elbow her to let her know it was genius as she thought it was.

“Hey guys?” Max calls out, and you all flock to where she’s standing. “You all see that right?”

“Yeah”

“Yeah.”

“Is this what you saw? In your visions?”  Nancy asks her, noting her incredibly still stature.

Max nods silently, clearly scared.

“I mean. It’s… just a clock.” Robin comments, trying to make something terrifying mundane. “Right?” She weaves around Max, reaching up to wipe away the years of dust build up on the clock’s face. She looks back at the group. “Like a normal old clock.” She adds, and you’re not even sure she believes herself.

“Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks?” Steve asks, looking off. “Maybe he’s like, a clockmaker, or something?” It’s…an interesting theory to say the least.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty.” You tell him, and he accepts the compliment, until he realizes it was not a compliment.

“Hey.” He calls out, but you’ve already moved on.

“All I know is, the answers are here. Somewhere.” Nancy says ominously. “Alright everyone stay in groups of two. Robin, upstairs.”

“Hey, hey there are seven of us.” You call out, following Nancy and Robin as they go up the stairs.

As you go up the stairs Max pairs with Lucas, walking further down the hall into the main level, and Steve and Dustin once again find themselves paired up.

Steve sighs heavily, and begrudgingly heads up the stairs.

“Was that a sigh?” Dustin asks, annoyed.

“No, I did not sigh.” Steve dismisses him outright.

“Why’d you sigh?”

“I didn’t sigh. Just come on dude.” He answers, sounding tired.

“I heard you.”

“W-we’re just always partners, okay?”

“What, you have a problem with that?”

“It’d just be nice to, I don’t know, mix it up a bit.”

You and Robin are exchanging looks that say “Oh god” as they continue yet another squabble, something that could’ve been heard through the entire house.

As they continued, the entire group misses the lights up on the roof spasming, showing signs that you weren’t exactly alone in the house.

-

Eddie sits across from a can, bored out of his mind for the thousandth time in two days, he’s currently playing a game his grandfather would’ve probably gotten a kick out of. Oh joy. He misses again.

Dammit.

A car drives by on the highway, and it startles Eddie out of his balance in a half crouch. He places his hands delicately onto the wooden windows, as to take a startingly quick glance outside.

Fuck. Please let it be a trick of the goddamn light. He glances back up, dammit. It was Jason and his crew all dressed in tuxes, heading for Rick’s house.

Jason had a crowbar in his hands.

“Shit. Shit.” Eddie whispers and looks out the back window to see how their investigation would go.

Oh god please let their perception check be shit.

They see the empty pot he left on the stove. They rolled a solid 17.

Shit.

“Hey, Dustin. You there? It’s Eddie. You remember me, right?” Eddie calls out, his teeth gritted as he crouches back on the floor so they wouldn’t see him. “Sweetheart?” He calls for you, hopelessly. “Hey. If anyone’s there, I really think I might be in a bit of trouble here. Okay?” And someone would’ve answered it, had Dustin not taken his bag off. “Wheeler?” He waits, and it still takes too long for anyone to answer. He gives the walkie a tap out of frustration. “ANYBODY?”

Eddie decided it was a lost cause, and he has to do something. He’s in a boat house and there’s only one way out. Shit.

-

As you and Robin make your way through the rooms and unhelpfully make comments on their choice of decor, Nancy was wondering how she ended up with the two of you as partners. She should’ve gone with Dustin, at least his commentary would add up to something. She wanders off from you two, thinking she might have to deviate from her own rules.

She turns a corner when Steve comes running backwards out of the bathroom, sounding panicked as he moves his hands up and down his torso to get a spider that fell off a meter ago. “Whoa, whoa.” Nancy ushers out as she realizes he was about to back right into her. She settles him as he catches his breath. “What’s wrong?”

“There was a spider.” Steve manages out, still out of breath.

Robin, eavesdropping after hearing the collision in the hallway, perks up her ears and starts walking towards the two of them, you follow her when she wasn’t answering to where she was going. You start to realize she was intentionally going towards Nancy and Steve.

“What?”

“A black widow.” Steve puffs out. You hear a slamming of a door. “Don’t go in there.”

“Oh. Oh.” Nancy comments, and you had to admit your interest was also piqued at this very underwhelming field trip. “Wait just…”

“What?” Steve asks, his voice sounding panicked. “Something? Shit. Okay.”

“Wait. Stop moving.” Nancy chides him. “Stop. I just… I got it. I got it.”

“Thank you.”

You and Robin come around the corner in time to see Nancy picking a stray web out of Steve’s hair. “If there’s a spider, you’re never gonna find it till it lays eggs and the babies spill out.” Robin taunts him, you struggling to keep in laughter right behind her.

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve asks her, and it was rhetorical, but it seriously freaked him out.

Robin snorts, not taking anything too seriously as she wanders off. “Robin, seriously.” He calls out for her, and the two of you had already forgotten the conversation.

“She’s got problems” Steve explains to Nancy, checking out his hair for any loose web.

Nancy sighs, staring at a freckle on his neck she forgot about. “Tell me about it.”

“It’s cool you two are friends now. All of you. Maybe after we find Vecna, kill him, save the world and stuff, maybe we can all go out or something.” Steve says, trying to sound casual. “Me, you, Robin, Y/N, Jonathan, when he’s back.” He adds for good measure. “It’s not like we’re dating. Me and Robin. Not like we’re dating. Right? She told you? That we’re not?”

Nancy sighs at his rambling, having finally gotten any cobwebs out of his hair. “Yes. She made that very clear.”

You and Robin had made your way back into ear shot, having exchanged side-eyed glances the entire time Steve was rambling. “Platonic with a capital P.” She clarifies, giving cheeky thumbs up when Steve thanks her for making a point that is still, apparently touchy.

Huh. You thought he was over it by now. Then again, you only just found out about it yourself.

Steve lowers his voice, and suddenly you couldn’t hear his further mumblings. Something about the world being in peril always manages to convince you that Steve and Nancy weren’t exactly over. But then they barely have a conversation alone for the next eight months and all is well.

How is this the second time in a row they’re tricking you like this?

It takes a minute, but Nancy finally rejoins you both with a perplexed look on her face, and something tells you that Steve said something very like himself.

About five more minutes go by and Nancy seems like she’s about ready to give up hope, seeing as their search has only found decades old dust and spiderwebs when Lucas and Max call for everyone to come down to the main area.

Now all seven of you are staring up at the ceiling chandelier, lit up despite the lack of any electricity running through the house.

“It’s like the Christmas lights.” Nancy whispers after a moment of silence.

“The Christmas lights?” Robin asks her, wondering if she heard wrong.

“Yeah, when Will was in the Upside Down the lights… came to life.” Nancy stares at them doe eyes wide.

“Vecna’s here.” Lucas whispers. “In this house.”

“Just on the other side.” You finish for him, suddenly understanding why Nancy had trouble looking away.

As you finished, the lights continue to flicker brighter and brighter with each fade in and out until they fade altogether. “I think he just left the room.” Robin states.

“Did he hear us?” Max asks, peering around for an answer.

“Can he see us?” Steve asks.

“Headphones.” Lucas states, and Max slips her headphones on in a fluid but hurried motion.

“Wait, wait.” Nancy protests. “Everyone, turn off your flashlights and spread out.”

You all follow her orders, as Steve protests the act. “We won’t be able to see if we all turn off our...” he fades out as he watches everyone else follow orders. “Jesus Christ.”

Everyone wonders down the halls and into the rooms, watching for any sign of him. You’re on the other side of the house when Robin pipes out, “I got him! Got him!”

Your feet take you across the house ridiculously fast as she calls out a third time.

As you wonder into the room, the light fades out from her flashlight. “I…I had him.”

The light seems to jump right to yours, startling you as you peer at it. “Whoa. I... think he’s moving.” You chirp out as you move along the trajectory of where the light was going.

“Oh, he’s moving.” Steve confirms, trailing behind. “He’s moving.”

You follow the light, taking you back up the stairs and you feel like you’re on him when the light fades again. “Shit.” You mutter. “Lost him.”

“No, we didn’t.” Max calls out, seeing a shadow of a light into a room with an ajar door. At least, it looked like a room.

Max peers into the doorway and hesitantly but bravely follows to where the stairs go up. The crowd follows her up single file, and Robin is already over it. “It’s an attic. Of course it’s an attic.”

At the end of the line, Dustin peers around the corner and yells up the stairs, “Hold up, guys. What if he’s leading us into a trap?” No one answers. “Guys.” Dustin grits his teeth. “Guys!”

By the time he’s swearing repeatedly and following anyway, you are all already at in the attic.

-

Eddie was perched right by a window, peering out with wide eyes, his breath shallow and his heart racing, looking into Rick’s room as he watches Jason’s friends continue their search for him.

Eddie ducks down as he sees the realization in Jason’s eyes. As a last-minute resort, he takes out his walkie again. “Sweetheart, I really need a hand here.” He pauses, closes his eyes in frustration. “Dustin? Please. Are…are you there?” No response. “Never mind.”  

Eddie finally does the thing he’s been debating on since getting trapped into this situation and gets back into the damn boat.

Jason kicks in the door of the boathouse, but all they see is water and an empty slot where a boat would be.

One thing Eddie will admit to as he is not an athlete. Nothing more of a struggle than attempting to get away in a canoe with only one person rowing wearing a two heavy, arm restricting jackets. He’s moving slowly and tentatively, as to not make too much noise to alert them but still make a getaway.

Somehow.

Any hope he has for getting away without them seeing him is lost in a second as he hears Jason yell, “Hey Freak!”

He looks back, and for the first time since getting roughed up badly in his early high school years, Eddie fears for his life.

“Where you think you’re going?” Jason yells, and as he undresses Eddie adds the equation together.

“Shit.” Eddie lurches to the back of the boat, pulling the cord at the engine with more energy than he knew he had. “Come on!” He yells at the engine spluttering, frustrated and scared. “Just,” pull, “come,” pull, “on! You piece of shit!” Eddie gives a strong pull, and he’s sure it would work until it splutters back down. “Come on.” He pats at the engine pathetically, shaking with adrenaline and nerves. “You gotta help me out here, man.” Eddie continues to beg the engine, still attempting to start it.

When he notices a figure splashing towards him in the distance, he knows he needs to start going. Somehow. “Nope? Okay. Alright. Okay.” Eddie stumbles across the boat back to the oar to start rowing away from Jason hurling towards him at a terrifying speed. Eddie tries not to look back at him, whimpering “Shit. Shit.” As each row gets him to what feels like nowhere.

Up in the attic at the Creel house, you make your way into the attic where a singular light bulb is fading in and out. As you’re looking up at it, Dustin calls out, “Flashlights.”

You look down to yours, and it’s lit up. Every one of them are. The crowd gathers around the light bulb, flashing your torches up towards it.

“Okay, what’s happening?” Asks Steve. None of you know, but you all peer up at the light, looking around the room and waiting for an answer.

Panic is now starting to really set in Eddie’s nerves as the two jocks almost catch up to him, barley escaping them. Eddie’s freaked out, panting, and far too exhausted to keep rowing at the rate he is. At a last-minute ditch effort to get rid of them, he gets up, and uses his oar to swing at them. “Hey, stay back, man! Stay back! Stay back!” He yells, his voice getting louder as his desperation grows.

He was trapped next to someone who never had a decent opinion about him to begin with now with a vendetta and armed. The only thing around him was water and with the rate Jason caught up to him he was not going to be able to swim away. None of this was pleasant.

“Come on! We almost have him.” Jason chokes out at Patrick, who is staring off into space. “Hey Patrick. Patrick! Patrick!”

Patrick suddenly is yanked into the water, and Eddie has no idea what’s going on, staring cluelessly into the water.

He had one idea, but he hoped he was wrong.

Jason continues to call out for him and its silent except for the sounds of the water in Lover’s Lake.

A splash erupts from the water’s surface as Patrick is elevated into midair.

Upon seeing the image of a body pulled into midair by nothing again Eddie steps back from it as far as he can get in bewilderment and momentarily forgets he is in a small boat, falling backwards into the water.

Your flashlights only continue to get brighter until Robin’s light pops, and it continues all in a circle causing each one of you to jerk away from it.

Eddie scrambles to swim back up to the surface, facing something he had hoped he would never have to see again. The cracks? Worse than he remembered.

Much worse.

All the lights seem to explode as Patrick’s extend limbs are cracked, finishing in sync as his eyes are, well, pulled.

Jason lands back in the water with a splash, Jason left to grab him while Eddie gets away only to find that his walkie no longer worked.

Fuck.

Episode 6: The Dive

It takes two hours of walking for Eddie to finally find the construction site he knew was happening by Lover’s Lake. They were onsite for almost a week at that point and Eddie thanked his lucky stars his uncle knew so many construction folks nearby. He spent the entire time wondering how he was going to manage a walkie out of one of their belts.

The first time a worker is in the bathroom he is beside himself in the bushes wondering how he would grab one. It was only when the door opened did the walkie sitting in the belt on the cutting table did he realize his missed opportunity. As the same worker makes his way back to the bathroom a mere 8 minutes later does Eddie sneak up behind the porta-potty. It wasn’t the smartest of ideas due to an odor assaulting Eddie’s nose but creeping to the cutting table to preen the walkie out of the tool belt was all worth the while.

The relief that Eddie felt as he ran back into hiding was unexplainable. As he walked in further back into the woods, he realized he recognized the path, and he knew that Steve should, too.

-

You sat in the back corner of the station wagon, your eyes popping open as Steve hits you with a licorice wand. You furrow your brows at him, he points to it mouthing, eat it.

Your eyes shift downward to your lap seeing the licorice in question. “Aren’t these for Eddie?” You ask, annoyed.

“Not the licorice.” Steve responds, words garbled thanks to a half-eaten wand in his mouth.

Your brows raise, as Steve was literally snacking on the chips you know you had picked out for Ed. Steve looks at you confused, his mouth half open and his pretty eyes peering up at you. You point to the chips. “It’s fine. That’s why we got more chips.” Steve says, gesturing to the numerous Pringle tubes at your feet.

Your eyes roll into the back of your head, the licorice hanging out of your mouth as you lay your head back down. 

“Not to be a wimp, but can I sit in the car?” Robin’s voice comes out of nowhere, and you open your eyes to see you had made a lot of progress out to the Lake. “’Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck.”

“It’ll be fine.” Nancy assures her.

“I can’t stand to see those dull eyes of Eddie’s break again. I really, really can’t.” Robin mutters and you wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment.

“At least he can drink himself into feeling better.” Steve calls out, holding the case of beer he had gotten Eddie.

“That’s what my mom does.” Max says off handedly.

“Why don’t we give it a trial? ‘Hey Eddie. Uh, good news first this time. We got you some Y/N approved junk food and that six-pack you requested.”

Dustin turns to you from where he’s between Max and Lucas. “Didn’t I provide most of the suggestions?” He asks, furious.

You roll your eyes, too tired and just looking forward to seeing that he was okay. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not the one whose—"

“Dustin there are bigger battles.” Steve interjects and Dustin turns around defiantly.

“Can I get back to the point? Practise?” Robin calls out, and she takes the silence as a guilty yes. “Where was I?”

“Uh, six pack.” Nancy offers.

“Right. ‘Oh yeah! We found Vecna. Bad news is that he’s in that other, darker, much scarier dimension, and the gate’s closed and so we have no way of getting to him. He’s entirely shut off to us, so basically, you’re screwed. And, no, I know you were already screwed, but now you’re liked, doubly, triply screwed.”

An audible gulp leaves your throat as the situation you have spent more time than you care to tell attempting not to think about how bad it was. Max’s concerned eyes land on you and you can barely hold back the mist that makes it into your eyes.

Not gonna cry. Not yet.

“Well. Maybe we don’t put it like that.” Lucas offers, his glance switching back to you. These looks of pity were charming yesterday. Now they’re about to get on your nerves.

“We’re one step closer to finding Vecna.” Nancy counteroffers. “That’s what we say. That’s what’s important.”

“See Robin? Positive spin can make all the difference.” Steve calls out, and you grit your teeth.

“Uh huh.” Robin calls back.

“Oh shit.” Nancy curses and you pipe up to see what she saw.

Shit.

A police cruiser, news van, and a crowd. You smile lamely at Steve as he crawls out the back area of the car and you stay, watching the mess from afar.

Despite you being unable to leave the car due to exposure Nancy leads all of them to around the van. Shit. What was going on?

Fuck it.

You got out of the back, using the police’s distraction in making civilians back up to sneak up behind the van. You round the back as Powell was describing the scene. You caught the end of his sentence, “homicide on the lake.”

“You can’t be here.” Robin whispers, you swat her off and shush her to listen to what he has to say.

“Officer Callahan here and myself arrived first on the scene. We made our way to the shore of Lover’s Lake, about ten yards from that house you see behind me. It was there that we found the victim, an 18-year-old senior from Hawkins High, Patrick McKinney.” Oh shit. That was one of Jason’s friends. Lucas played with him. “His limbs…his body, it was disfigured… There was an eyewitness on the scene. We have also identified a person of interest.”

Your heart drops into your stomach, and you pray that they’ve found another person to pin it on. Someone else. You would help prove their innocence of course but please, someone else.

You don’t realize how tense you already are, with your shoulders scrunched and teeth gritted until the chief flips up Eddie’s senior photo. The one he was so excited to take, to be a yearbook as a graduating senior.

Now used as his identifier as a suspected murderer.

All tension leaves your body in the worse way and looking back you wondered if you had the reaction because you could not have any more tension. You divert your eyes from any caring friends’ glances, you just needed to find him.

“Eddie Munson. We encourage anyone with information to please come forward.”

“Oh man.” Steve groans out. “This is not good. Really not good.”

Yeah, no shit, you shoot him an icy stare.

You barely hear what the chief finishes off his statement as the press have questions for him. What comes loud and clear, however, is the sound of Eddie’s voice on a walkie. “Sweetheart. Y-Y/N. Dustin. Can you hear me? Wheeler?”

His voice should’ve made you feel better, but a tear falls down your face as you realize he still doesn’t know the town will be on a hunt for him soon. “Answer him.” You choke out as Dustin already has the walkie in hand.

“Eddie. Holy shit. Are you okay?”

You follow closely behind the crowd around the walkie, sniffling and attempting to get yourself together.

“Nah, man. Pretty...pretty goddamn far from okay.”

At least the two of you were in the same emotional state.

“Where is he?” Robin asks.

“Where are you?” Dustin repeats.

“Skull rock. Do you know it?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s near Cornwallis and-“

“Garrett, yeah.” Steve says, interrupting him. “I know where that is.” Steve takes off into the trees and it takes a moment for your brain to catch up to the idea that he wasn’t going to the car.

“Hold tight. We’re coming. We’re coming.” You hear Dustin call out, and it felt like the end of that.

“She okay?” Eddie calls out, and its so quiet Dustin stops and asks him to repeat it. “My girlfriend. Y/N? Is she okay?”

You nod to Dustin when he looks up to you for help. Say yes. Do not be honest. You don’t need him to worry about you on top of being on the run. “Yeah. She’s ok. A little shaken up but she’s ok.”

“Good.”

You smile at Dustin in thank you when Nancy calls out. “Hurry up, we’re not waiting!”

Shit. You run to catch up.

-

Why did there have to be an uneven number? You wonder as you walk in front of Nancy and Robin, arms crossed as there wasn’t enough room for 3 to walk side by side.  

You’re walking and absentmindedly admiring some particularly tall trees while eavesdropping on Steve and Dustin’s argument ahead of you. “Dude, I’m telling you, we’re taking us the wrong way.”

“It’s north. I’m positive. I checked the map.” Dustin answers the same way yet again.

“You do realize Skull Rock, it’s a super popular make out spot?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Yeah well it wasn’t popular until I made it popular. All right? I practically invented it. We’re heading in the wrong direction.” Steve takes off in a harsh left, and Dustin calls out for him. “Stop whining. Let’s go. Trust me.”

You get used to the different terrain, walking downhill instead of slanted. As you do, Robin and Nancy catch up to you as it seems to get larger. You smile at the company.

“Okay, so apparently we’re going this way now?” Max pipes out. “I swear to God, if they get us lost…” She pauses, and you, Robin and Nancy give each other a look. “Hey. You okay?”

Robin stops you and Nancy, extending her arms out as to prevent either one of you from walking any further. “Wha-?”

“Shh” she shushed you, quick and fluid. “C’mere.” She leads you and Nancy to the side of the path that Dustin and Steve are still walking, and she clings onto a tree to get a good vantage spot.

“Uh, yeah.” He answers distractedly. “I’m fine. Just…thinking about Patrick. You know?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, it’s… it’s like, why him? But then, I remember this one day, he…he came to practice with a black eye. He said he fell, but clearly, he was lying. It’s like everyone Vecna targets has something in their life. Something that’s—”

“Hurting them.” Max finishes for him. “Haunting them.”

“Yeah. I…I didn’t really know Patrick, so it was easy to just look the other way, I guess. But I did know you.” This rings true, and you remember observing her pulling back but not saying much. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“It’s not your fault.” She dismisses him, but Lucas wouldn’t have it.

“No.”

“I disappeared.”

“No, no, you didn’t. I just didn’t look hard enough. Okay? But I see you now. I see you.” Knowing how hard it is for Max to be vulnerable that felt mystifying to hear Lucas say it.

As Lucas and Max continue down the path, Robin scrambles her way out of the tree she had made her way into, subtly starting back the path up to Skull Rock.

Your heart pitter-pattered. Eddie was at Skull Rock.

Robin scoffs. “Oh my God, they’re so adorable I just wanna squeeze ‘em, you know? If I’m permitted to see a silver lining in this end-of-the-world doom and gloom, it would be the rekindling of old flames that, frankly, never should have been snuffed out.” You and Nancy share a look before both turning your heads to face her. “I-I didn’t mean that as a hint or anything.”

“Right.”

Like a burning fire you can’t look away from. You knew that on some level Steve was still pining after Nancy but also Robin outright admitting to rooting for it.

“But if I did mean it as a hint would that be so terrible? To wish happiness for my friends?” Robin asks Nancy.

Nancy scoffs, “You think I’m not happy?”

“I…I’m sure you are.” Robin responds, assuring her. “It’s just, the other day, I mentioned Jonathan, and you flinched or winced or something like—”

“I didn’t flinch or wince.” Nancy protests, her voice annoyed.

“Ok.”

“Jonathan and I are fine.”

“Got it.”

“We’re good.”

“Right.”

It almost feels like a stand-off as you stand between the two of them.

You’re sure Nancy is about to dismiss the idea altogether…until her face shifts only for a moment. With Jonathan refusing to come up for Christmas and him procrastinating his applications repeatedly, it made sense.

“It’s just…” The three of you continue walking as she gathers her thoughts. “He was supposed to be here for the break, and then he backed out at the last minute for some vague, mumbly Jonathan reason. And to be honest, I’m not that surprised because I’ve been feeling him pulling away. And I don’t know if it’s because we’re 2,000 miles away or if he met someone new or what. And now I can’t find out why because apparently, he’s blown up his family’s house phone or something. So yeah, if… if the mention of his name caused a slight muscle spasm on my face, that’s… probably why.”

“Seems like a perfectly reasonable to flinch, wince, or something.” You comment, and Nancy turns to you, smiling softly.

“Oh, boom!” Steve calls out from the other side of some plants. “Bada Bing, Bada Boom. There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock! In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face.”

“It doesn’t make sense” Dustin’s voice echos.

“Yeah, yeah. Even with it staring you right in the face, you can’t admit it. Can’t admit you’re wrong, you butthead.”

You hear a loud echo of someone landing on the ground, and you nearly crumble in relief when you hear his voice. “I concur.” Dork. “You, Dustin Henderson are a… total butthead.”

“Jesus, we thought you were a goner.” Dustin tells him and you attempt to not let jealousy get a hold of you as you hear the back pats of a man hug.

“Yeah, me too, man.” You can’t hold it back anymore and run into a full sprint to him, ignoring the looks you know Robin and Nance are giving the back of your head. As you collide with him, his back towards you but you didn’t mind. “Whoa—” Your arms wrap around his stomach, squeezing him tight as you inhale the scent on the back of his jacket.

He turns around to face you, having trouble as your hold on him is so tight. “Hi, sweetheart.” He chirps out, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Missed you.” You mutter into his chest, and the faint smell of his odor is there, and you can’t help but feel guilty as he has been on the run for two days while you got to change your clothes.

He hums. “I missed you more than you know.”

You look up at him, chin still connected, and all tension in your body seems to leave at once.

-

As the town rushes out of town hall while ignoring Sheriff’s calls for a mandatory curfew, your mom sits nearly stunned in silence. Jason Carver, a boy that you have complained about to her repeatedly, lead a slam campaign that led to a town wide hunt for Eddie. Her heart stutters, she has no idea where you are, how Eddie could prove himself innocent, and what she is to do now.

Her head turns to face Karen along with both Dustin and Lucas’ parents and they all give her a look of strained pity. However much pity they feel for your mom, the hopelessness that Dustin’s mom felt seemed to overshadow it.

As they gathered in an inconspicuous circle Karen hushed Lucas’ mom as she attempted to talk. “They should all be back at the house, including your daughter. C’mon.” Somehow your mom doubted you were there, but the nagging hint of hope in the back of her mind made her want it anyway.

The rubber was harsh and stark against the cement as the parents’ cars pulled into the Wheeler’s driveway. All car occupants were leaving the cars as soon as they were put into park and right into the house.

Karen Wheeler entered her house in a rush, looking around anxiously around her house for any sign of any of the kids. “Guys?” She goes to the top of the stairs, opening the door to the basement. “Are you down here? Guys?” At the bottom of the stairs Karen looks around in her dark and dingey basement, and understands they are not in the house. She runs back upstairs. “They should have been back by now. They should be back.”

“What time was the movie?” Lucas’ mom asks.

“Uh, four hours ago.”

“Hate to break it to you, Mrs. Wheeler, but they lied to you.” Erica says, confident in her statement.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Holly sings, being a little sister.

“Holly.” Ted chides her.

“We don’t think they’re actually involved with this Eddie guy, do we?” Dustin’s mom asks frantically.

“Eddie did not do this.” Your mom pipes up, placing her hand out to “calm” her.

“How can you be sure?” Lucas’ mom asks her.

“Because they’ve been dating for five months and he’s been over so many times I put leftovers in my fridge for him to find.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t—”

“He didn’t do it. Let’s just focus on finding our kids.” Your mom finishes the discussion with finality.

Karen Wheeler passes your mom to the phone on the wall.

“You’re calling the theater?” Erica asks incredulously.

“The police.”

-

Now that Eddie has been located, it was imperative that you decided on a next step. The big question was to why Eddie didn’t get a hold of anyone after Patrick got Vecna’d. “When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys but, uh,” he takes a large swig of his water and no, you weren’t staring at his throat as he did it. (You totally were.) “My walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently. I ran.” He chuckles in his self deprecation, intentionally missing the look you give him.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” Nancy asks, and she has a hypothesis, you could just tell.

“Yeah, no, I…I know exactly what time it was.” Eddie moves to take off his watch. “My walkie wasn’t the only thing that got soaked.”

He tosses her the watch, nearly missing it at the lack of caution Eddie had used to throw it to her.

“9:27”

“Same time our flashlights went kablooey” Robin adds.

“Which means what, exactly?” Steve asks, still out of the loop.

“The surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick.” Nancy answers.

“Well, we’re one step closer. We know how Vecna attacks.” Robin adds.

“And where he attacks from.” Lucas says.

“So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart.” Max concludes.

“If he has a heart.” Robin jokes.

“A stake? Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?” Steve asks the last part of his sentence as if he was genuinely worried about the possibility.

“It was a metaphor” Max stresses.

“A bullet should work on him, right?” Eddie offers, you shoot a look at him in surprise. What he mouths to you.

A gun? You mouth back.

He shrugs. It would work.

“I say we chop his head off” Lucas declares as you and Eddie are having your silent conversation.

“I’d say all the above, but we can’t do any of that til we find a way to the Upside Down.” Nancy points out.

You look to Dustin, realizing he hasn’t spoken much, which was unlike him. You kick down to your boyfriend’s leg right next to you to point him out when you see him pacing like a madman.

“We need El to get her powers back.” Max complains.

“We had this girl. She had superpowers.” Steve starts to explain to Eddie.

“Yeah, I met El. Hey, uh, Henderson’s not uh, cursed, is he?”

“Cursed? No, no he’s fine. Mental? Absolutely.”

“Boom!” All of you are startled by Dustin’s loud voice echoing through the forest turning to face what madness was going on his brain this time. “Bada. Bada. Boom.”

Steve’s face scrunches up in bewilderment.  

“I was right. Skull Rock was north.”

“Seriously? You’re serious?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“This is Skull Rock. Okay?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You’re totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now.”

“Yes.” Dustin agrees with him. “And no.” Ok now you were lost, too.

“Oh my god.” Steve exclaims as he hides his face in his hands to rub the stress off.

Dustin holds up his compass. “This worked correctly when we left the Wheelers’. Correct when we got in the car on Kerley. But it started to slip the further east we went. Now it’s way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn’t wrong. The compass was.”

“So, you’re using faulty equipment. You’re still wrong.” Steve is still somehow arguing and missing Dustin’s point completely.

Dustin’s head tilted argumentatively, “Except it isn’t faulty. Lucas, remember what can affect a compass?”

Lucas scratches his head thoughtfully for only a fraction of a second. “An electromagnetic field.”

“Yep.”

“Electro-what?” You stutter out.

“In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power.” You glance to your boyfriend and watch as his eyes slowly start to glaze over as he doesn’t take a single word Dustin is saying. You felt less stupid. “So, either there’s a super big magnet around here, or…”

“There’s a gate.” Lucas finishes, the only one on the same page. (The same book, for that matter.)

Dustin points to Lucas, confirming.

“But we’re nowhere near the lab.” Nancy points out.

“But what if, somehow, there’s another gate? A gate that we don’t know about. It’d have to be smaller, way less powerful.”

“Snack-size gate.” Robin quips.

“How? Why?” Steve asks.

“No idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we’ve seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is because then we’d have a way to get to Vecna. And a shot at freeing Max from this curse.” Dustin seems to miss the social ques of everyone fidgeting as they’re still unsure of what any of what he’s saying means, as he turns around the opposite direction to let the compass show him a path to the gate.

That is, if there was one to begin with.

“Where are you going? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.” Steve calls out to him, and Dustin turns around exasperated. “Y/N’s still being sought out for questioning and Eddie’s still a wanted man. We can’t just go for a hike in the woods.”

“This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie.” Dustin pauses, raising his arms out dramatically to him. “What say you, Eddie the Banished?”

All the attention is turned towards your boyfriend, who is still perched onto his toes and crouched down. “I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor,” dork, “which, if I’m totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But, uh, the Shire…the Shire is burning.”

Dustin starts hopping up and down excitedly, his smile bared from ear to ear.

Without warning Eddie lurches himself up onto his feet, and you have to move away from him to not get hit by his dramatics.

“So, Mordor it is.” He walks right passed anyone in the circle to start walking, and it takes a moment for the rest of the group to catch up.

“Ed!” You call out to him as they weave around him. He jerks himself back around to you. “Your stuff?” You point to your feet where a white grocery bag still sat.

“Get your stuff dude, let’s go.” Steve berates him, and you give him the stink eye as you pass. “What?” Steve asks you, and you decide to leave it be. There are bigger battles right now.

Much bigger.

-

By the time the Compass is guiding you anywhere, the sun is nearly set on another day.  Something tells you that there aren’t many days left.

The crowd half pays attention to Dustin at the very front and his numerous zig-zags but the chatter remains. You find yourself walking next to Eddie, his hands brushing against yours as your strides match each other’s. “Police hadn’t gotten a hold of you, yet, eh?”

You shake your head, biting your bottom lip. “Nope. I don’t think if they had attempted to question me now, I would be any help.”

“Nah. You would save me.”

“Would I?” You counter back. “I’m so glad to be with you in person. Not knowing if you were ok, I felt sick to my stomach since the news broke out from in front of your trailer.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you like that.” Eddie states, his voice calm and soothing. “I should’ve called you—”

“No. It’s good you didn’t.” You interrupt him.

“No instead of running I should’ve come to you.” He argues back.

Your stride stops mid step, forcing him to stop, too. “You didn’t do anything wrong by reacting how you did, Eddie.” He doesn’t believe you, his eyes avoiding yours as they twitch around the light pink sky. “Hey. Look at me.” He hesitates, then they gaze back down to you. “You couldn’t have reacted any better than to get yourself away from the situation. You didn’t know what was happening. Someone was lifted into air with all 206 bones in their body broken by seemingly nothing. That was an appropriate response. I need you to know that.” You hold your hands out to frame his face, petting his cheeks and taking in the bags that were so heavy underneath his eyes from stress and lack of sleep.

Eddie goes silent, nodding. He places a hand on top of yours, grabbing it so he can gently kiss it. You grab his hand and lead him so you continue walking. You knew he still didn’t believe you but at least you got to tell him.

“C’mon, lovebirds! We don’t have all day!” Robin calls, about ten feet ahead of you.

Your eyes roll, and you know she says it out of love.

“I just hope Wayne knows.” He mutters under his breath.

“He does.” Nancy says, and you didn’t realize you had almost caught up to her, having let Robin continue walking down.

“You figure?” Eddie asks her, placing his hands in his pockets apprehensively.

“I know.”

“Wait a minute.” Eddie drops your hand and uses his long limbs to get next to Nancy. “What do you mean?”

“I went to the trailer park when news broke out to get a story for the school newspaper.” That was a very small summary of a much more nuanced story but that was beside the point. “I had went to every neighbour on your lot for a quote but they weren’t much help. I only had one possible person to go to and I had initially avoided him out of respect.”

“Wayne.”

Nancy nods. “He was on the bench, smoking. He wouldn’t even talk to me at first, he said he already talked to reporters who all had their story already. Once I convinced him, he…surprised me.” She admitted softly.

“What…what did he say?” His voice is soft, holding back.

“He doesn’t think you did it.” Nancy states outright. Eddie stumbles back in surprise. “He truly doesn’t think you did it. He said you might be rough around the edges, but he knew you weren’t capable of doing what happened to Chrissy.”

Eddie audibly gulps, his eyes blinking rapidly as he attempts to hold back his tears. “He. He. He said that?”

“There was no doubt in his mind. He knows you’re innocent.” Nancy smiles up at him, closed mouthed with a sad disposition on her face.

“Thank you.” He tells her, and she nods before walking up to meet back up with her designated walking buddy.

Eddie waits as you catch up to where he’s standing, and his eyes are glossy. “You okay? Need a minute?” He shakes his head jerkily to deny it, as he’s only staying silent so he won’t fucking cry. “Alright. Let’s go I think they’re starting to pick up.”

-

As it got dark, the group dissipated into several different pairings of walking buddies. You somehow found yourself sandwiched walking behind Eddie and in front of Steve.

As you get used to the group’s formation, talking softly as you continue, Dustin is hyper focused on the compass as it steadily twitches more and more. Out of nowhere he starts into a full sprint, running towards where the compass takes him.

“Dustin? Can you slow down? Dustin?” Eddie calls out for him and runs when he realizes Dustin paid no attention.

As Dustin and Eddie run out of sight everyone struggles to keep up with him. “I think we’re getting close.” Dustin calls out.

Eddie catches it before you could even call out, grabbing Dustin by the backpack before he takes another step. “Watch your step, big guy.”

“Oh man. You gotta be shitting me.” Steve exclaims as all eight of you stare out into the open water of Lover’s Lake. “Yeah. I thought these woods were familiar.”

“Lover’s Lake.” Robin names the body of water you were all staring at.

“This is confounding.” Dustin mutters, rubbing his eyeballs.

“There’s a gate in Lover’s Lake?” Max asks out loud.

“Whenever the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening. Maybe Vecna’s the same way.” Nancy deducted.

This is how you knew you wouldn’t have survived without her. Your brain couldn’t even process it.

“Yeah, only one way to find out.” Steve stares out into the open water. “How are we supposed to find out?” He asks, pointing out the obvious problem that was already vexing Dustin.

“Well.” Eddie pipes up, a smirk on his face.

After Eddie leads the group along the edge to where he had stashed Rick’s boat, tugging the tarp off with flair. It’s small and definitely wouldn’t fit everyone, but it would do.

The boat is picked up by you, Robin, Steve, and Eddie about four footsteps back into the water into shore. Eddie and Steve takeover to put the boat into the water, Eddie being a bit rougher than necessary. You maintain that he didn’t know his own strength.

“Easy…I” The boat lands with the metal creaking against the ground loudly, “I said easy, man.”

“Sorry, dude.”

Robin lines up to get into the boat, rejecting Steve’s extended hand. “Yeah, I’m just gonna do that.” She mutters, placing her hands flatly on top of their heads. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, that works, too.” Steve mutters.

Eddie climbs in, turning around to extend a hand to help you in. You grab onto it, annoyed at the rickety balance and lack of footing a boat provides for you as you step in. “Thanks.” You mutter to him, he winks flirtatiously back.

He turns around to face Nancy, also ready to climb in. Eddie extends his hand out to her, offering the same courtesy he gave to you.

“Yeah, you got her.” Steve mutters, still holding the boat.

“Wheeler.”

“Thanks.”

Dustin gives one last goofy look to his friends before attempting to get in. Eddie reaches out to flick him back. “Hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us? This thing holds three people tops, okay?”

Nancy bends sideways to see around Eddie. “It’s better this way, okay? You guys stay here with Max.” Eddie lets her move past him. “Keep an eye out for trouble.”

“You keep an eye out.” Dustin retorts childishly.

Nancy squints. Dustin makes an exasperated face back.

“It’s my goddamn theory. Plus, there are already four people on the boat.”

“You heard Nance.” Robin adds.

“Who put her in charge?”

“I did.”

“Compass.” Nancy states, holding her hand out for Dustin. Dustin sticks out his bottom lip, pouting as he reaches in to give Nancy the compass.

Steve pushes out the boat very slightly before saying, “Hey, there you go.”

Thwump. Dustin gets his backpack thwarted into his face. “Ow.” Steve uses the distraction to push the boat out into the water, using the momentum to get in. “You said three! That’s five!”

“Sorry.” Steve calls back, sincerely apologetic.

You and Eddie use the oars you had both grabbed and started rowing out, using Steve’s momentum to help get further.

Robin couldn’t help herself, as she was holding back her giggling with much difficulty. “Bedtime at 9, kiddos!” She calls out, to which Dustin coldly flips her off. This just egged her on. “Miss you already!” She calls out, standing up on the boat as she does.

About three minutes go by, and in all the effort rowing takes it felt like forever when Nancy finally speaks up. “Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Slow down guys.”

You and Eddie had taken the hint, using the oars to stop the boat from floating any further. All five of you peer into a circle with the compass centered, observing the way the arrow turned jaggedly without direction.

“Whoa.” Steve comments when he gets a good look at it.

“Guys, what’s going on?” Dustin’s voice erupts from the walkie, “Come on, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Robin picks it up. “Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital ‘aah!’.”

Steve starts to undress; you didn’t notice him take his shoes off, but it was far more obvious as he took of his socks. “Steve, what are you doing?” Nancy asks him.

“Somebody’s gotta go down and check this out.” He mutters. “Unless one of you four can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years then…it’s gotta be me. No complaints, all right.?”

Eddie lets out a silent chuckle. “Hey, I’m not complaining.” He looks over the side of the boat, peering into what looked to be a void of darkness. Night lake blindness was real and terrifying. “I do not wanna go down there.”

You reach out across where Robin was sat next to you, tapping his arm lightly to berate him. What? He signals to you. You just ignore it. He rolls his eyes, bringing out the white plastic bag he had in his jacket to empty all its containments on the bottom of the boat. You watched him curiously, wondering what he was doing. You watch him as he wraps the plastic bag around the flashlight, completely missing Nancy ogling Steve as he took off his shirts.

Eddie finishes the bag by tying it securely in a bow with the loops. “Hey.” He calls out to Steve, handing it to him. “Good luck.”

As Steve looks back to him, you peer up at him in awe. Something about this angle just looked so good on him. “Thanks.”

Steve prepares himself to hop in the water and Eddie pulls out one of his joints to pass the time while he’s down there. As he’s just about to light it, Robin pulls the joint out of his grasp and flings it into the water. “Gross.”

Eddie grits his teeth, shaking his head in a What the hell manner.

“Steve?” Nancy asks, and Steve peers back to her. You swear they share a moment before she says, “Be careful.”

Steve doesn’t say anything in response, just gives a subtle yet jagged nod. Without anymore notice, he dives in, the water creating a jarring splash in the quiet of the nighttime.

A few moments pass in awkwardness. It was odd, considering up until last week there really wasn’t any awkwardness to speak of. “Robin?”

“Hmm?” She replies to you.

“Now that Steve is momentarily out of the boat, can you—”

“Oh, yeah sure.” Robin moves her butt over to where Steve was sat, and you’re now able to have leg room.

“So, when was the first-time you guys dealt with… the other…world?” Eddie asks, leaning forward onto his knees with one arm and holding your hand with the other.

“1983” Nancy answers him without missing a beat.

“Is that it?” He asks again, but he already knew the answer.

“Again in 1984, and last time was in the summer.” You add, and Nancy nods along.

Eddie’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Remember the mall burning down?” Robin prompts him. “That was us.”

Eddie turns to look at you pointedly. “You helped burn the mall down?”

“Hey, did you want to turn into a giant flesh-eating monster?” You jab back at him. Eddie slowly nods his head to indicate no, he did not want that. “Us either. So, we got rid of it with fire. We figured out in ’84 they hate fire.”

“They?” Eddie asks, and you know he doesn’t even know what a demogorgan is. Hasn’t asked.

“Irrelevant. The point is. It was the mall, or Hawkins, so we did what was necessary.”

“So,” Eddie starts, “did the chief know about this?”

Everyone goes silent, as Hopper died a hero but not for the reasons Hawkins thought. “Yeah. He’s El’s dad. In fact, without Hopper most of us would’ve died two years ago.” Nancy comments.

“Oh.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Sorry to—”

“It’s fine, Ed.” You tell him. I love you. You mouth to him.

I love you too.  

Robin leans forward to Nancy as she looks back to her watch, having kept track of time the entire conversation. “Where we at, Nance?”

“Closing in on a minute.”

“Okay.” Robin lets out an audible huff, a way to let out pent up anxiety.

“Do you, do you hear something?” You ask, hearing a commotion come from where Lucas, Dustin, and Max were sat down.

“I see flashlights.” Robin offers. “Shit. Cops.”

“We should be good, right?” You ask anxiously.

Robin peers over the edge, watching for Steve to come back up. “As long as Steve comes back faster.”

Only two seconds pass of silence when it’s interrupted by the sound of water gushing loudly as Steve erupts out. The four of you are startled from the loud noise, Eddie letting out an involuntary, “Oh, Christ!”

Steve attempts to catch his breath his he barks out, “I found it.”

“You found it?” Nancy asks, confirming what she had heard.

“Yeah, I found it.” He pants, swimming up to the boat.

Robin grabs the walkie out. “Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein. Steve found the gate.”

Steve maintains hold of the boat still panting. “It’s more of a snack-size gate than the mama gate, but still, it’s pretty damn big.” Abruptly Steve “falls” back into the water, his hands leaving the boat as if he had no choice. You all clamour towards him, wondering what was happening. Steve grabs back onto the boat, looking back down at the water worriedly. Just as abruptly and clearly Steve was pulled back down into the water, the four of you yelling after him.

“Steve!” Nancy yells after him, both hands on the edge of the boat with her knees almost going over the edge.

All three of you girls call his name repetitively, hoping on some sort of level it would call him back to you.

Eddie was by himself, panicking. “No! No! What the hell was that, man?” Eddie asks no one in particular.

“Nancy, really, what happened?” Robin calls out to her loudly.

“Jesus!” Eddie yelps out in a higher note than you knew he could even manage.

Your mind was panicking but you were watching her closely as to what she would do. It was obvious what was on her mind when Nancy stands up and moves to the edge. “Wait, wait, wait.” Eddie stops her. “You’re not going in there, are you?”

Nancy pauses. “Just-wait here.” She says, holding out her arms. Leaving no room to argue she dives into the water.

“No, Nancy!”

“Nancy!”

“Goddammit!” Eddie calls out, frustrated and you would be entertained by him if your cortisol levels weren’t so high.

Mere moments pass by, and you already knew it was going to happen when Steve was pulled in as Robin sits up onto the edge of the boat.

“No, no, no, no. What are you doing? She said wait.” Eddie states, his voice nearly desperate.

“Yeah. I heard her.” Robin pipes back.

“She’s in charge.” Eddie bites, pointing sharply at the water.

Robin laughs hoarsely. “Are you kidding? I made that shit up.”

Robin plugs her nose, scooting back and falls back into the water with a splash as Eddie calls out to her. He sighs, turning his head to you, and you’re already standing at the edge. “No. No. Don’t go. Please.” He asks, much gentler to you than to either of the other girls.

You sigh to him empathetically. He didn’t sign up for this. “Sorry, Ed. It’s what we do. When someone’s in trouble…” you drift off, not finishing your sentence, jumping feet first into the lake. Before water engulfs you, you hear the last of Eddie begging you to stay in the boat.

As you start to move towards the vaguely red light at the bottom of the lake, praying you don’t run out of air, Eddie is still on the surface. “Goddammit! Lying son of a—” He picks up a snack he had from his bag and throws it to the other side. He stands up of the boat, pacing as he looks into the water. “Son of a bitch! Oh, this is so stupid, this is so stupid, this is so stupid.” Before he could procrastinate the inevitable any further, he takes the leap, “Shit, shit, shit—” his last curse is engulfed by the water as he takes the leap as well.

When you emerge on the other side of the gate back into the Upside Down, you find Robin and Nancy standing there, both looking off into distances. You land on your hands and knees coughing up the water you had managed to swallow. “Shit.” You mutter. “Where’s—” you still didn’t have your breath back yet. “Where’s Steve?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Suddenly, the sounds of creatures from the blaring sky erupt and off into the distance you can see a bat- a demo-bat that is, fly down to a specific target. Steve. Nancy looks to you and Robin, all thinking the same thing.

Nancy extends her hand to help you up with Eddie bursts out from the gate as well. “Fuck!” He yells, coughing as he wipes his face. “Jesus Christ. That was—” You hand an oar to him, interrupting his train of thought.

“C’mon.”

You start to make your way over in a half jog when the clear sounds of screaming are heard and echoing. Nancy breaks into a run, leading all four of you as you run to what you had hoped was Steve.

-

Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab

You, Robin, Nancy, and Eddie arrive to a scene of Steve lying on the ground and attempting to fight off five demo-bats all at once. While one choked him, the others attempted to make a delicious snack out of him. Nancy goes right in, locating an oar by a nearby skeleton of a boat and swings for one of the bats biting from his chest.

“Hey there.” She grunts and follows it up with another swing against the one on the other side of his chest.

Robin stomps onto the bat, meanwhile Nancy swings at it repeatedly at his face to kill it.

You look around for more bats anxiously and you get surprised by a thunk right behind you. You look over to see Eddie, and you realize there was one coming for you. “Thanks.”

“Welcome, now watch out!” His pupils dilate as he looks right behind you, and you move out of the way as Eddie hits this one with such force it breaks his oar. “Shit!”

You turn around to face one on coming directly to you, and your years of missed baseballs all seemed to come down to this. You focus on the trajectory and swing your oar at it. “Shit.” You call out when it works. The bat comes back to you, and you hit it again downward, causing the bat to splat onto the ground.

Nancy and Robin continue to fight the bat still choking Steve, as it showed no sign of letting go yet. “Come on, please!” Robin begs to no one.

“Nancy, behind you! Watch out!” You call to her, watching a bat aim specifically for her.

Nance lurches forward as the bat lands on her back. “Robin, get it off me!”

As another bat flies by, Eddie calls out that he has it, breaking the last of his oar.

Steve’s bat finally let’s go after he bites it, causing it to attempt to fly away. Steve yanks it back to him, slamming it onto the ground repeatedly.

Meanwhile Robin gets the bat finally off Nancy’s back and slams the bat down to the ground as well. She holds it as Nancy lurches her oar into the bat’s face and tells it to go to hell.

Eddie calls out to the bat coming to him, egging it on. “Come on, you flying son of a bitch!” When it flies to make a large circle Eddie calls back out, “I said come on! Let’s go!”

Before the bat even reaches him, you swing at it, breaking your own oar in the process and the bat spins like a frisbee over the boat skeleton.

You share a moment with him, both out of breath until you pay your attention to Steve who was still manhandling the bat. He gives one last swing with it into the ground, killing it for sure but just for good measure he steps on it to rip it in half. Wasn’t necessary, but to Steve, that was personal.

He spits out the blood in his mouth, panting as he glances around him. “Steve!” Nancy calls out to him.

“Jesus Christ.” Eddie exclaimed. “Jesus H. Christ!” He yelled even louder, almost a tantrum.

Hmm. Your boyfriend sure didn’t deal with stress very quietly. “Hey.” You reach out to him, grabbing his hand to pull it to you. “I know. It’s a lot.” Eddie lets his forehead rest onto yours clumsily. “We’ll get through this.”

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks, assessing the damage gasping when she saw the wounds.

“Well, they took about a pound of flesh.” Steve starts, looking down at his chest. “But other than that, yeah, never better.”

Robin was crouched on the ground, assessing one of the corpses.

Eddie had his arm around your shoulder, you tucked into his chest. It’s been so goddamn long since you were like this, it hurt.

It was four days, but it was a long ass four days.

“Uh, do you guys think these bats have, like, rabies?” Robin asks half heartedly.

“What?” Steve asks, making sure he and everyone around heard right.

“It’s just that rabies are, like, my number one greatest fear. And I think we should get you to a doctor soon because once symptoms set in, it’s too late. You’re already dead.” She rambles on and Eddie kisses and mutters into your hair, “Jesus Christ.”

None of you are given a chance to even ponder on that thought as a group of demo-bats steal the spotlight, screeching as they got louder. You all crowd together in anticipation to fight them, but they weren’t coming to fight. They flew right to where the gate was, all hissing at your direction. “All right. There’s not that many.” Steve anticipates as he preps himself and the rest up, facing the increasingly agitated bats. “We can take ‘em.” He huffs, “Right?”

In the distance, the sound that you all just collectively heard is amplified by a thousand, and a swarm of bats catch your eye, all flying around in the shape of a deadly tornado.

“You were saying?” Nancy asks, and the hand Eddie is holding tightens around yours as his others goes up to his hair in stress.

Nancy turns away, examining for any other solution. “The woods. Come on!”

She breaks out into a run, and your reaction times all flitter one by one as you follow behind her.

“Great. More running.” Robin huffs as she starts.

The five of you make a head start in the woods to take cover, no idea of where you were headed but grateful for the cover, nonetheless.

-

Back at the Wheeler’s house Officer Callahan and Sherriff Powell had brought Max, Lucas, and Dustin in their cruiser and the three were sitting on the couch all racking their brains on how they were going to get themselves out of this one.

While your mom was anxious that she didn’t know where you were, she was glad you weren’t found by them. Something in her gut told her that it was good. She wasn’t sure how much she trusted that feeling quite yet. Not that she shared that with any of the other parents.

“What exactly were all doing at the lake?” Officer Powell asks them, his hands on his hips in a power stance.

The kids sitting on the couch’s mouths all opened, none of them sure what to say, what their lie would be.

“Uh...its comp—” Dustin starts.

“We were… We were just going for a walk.” Max interrupts him.

“A walk?” Callahan asks, not believing it at all. “At 9:00 pm?”

“To the lake.” Dustin squeaks out, a voice crack drifting through the sentence. Callahan gives an incredulous look and Dustin avoids it. “We were gonna take a little swim.” Beside him, Max and Lucas look elsewhere, taking interest in random corners of the Wheelers’ living room. “Little night swim.”

“Dusty.” Mrs. Henderson peeps out, her voice desperate. “Someone was just murdered there.”

“Yeah, we… we didn’t realize that until we got there.” It was a dumb lie, but it was by far the only thing he could come up with that wasn’t totally over the top.

“That’s why we didn’t swim.” Lucas adds.

“And Nancy, was she with you at this night swim?” Karen asks, still confused about where her daughter was in all this.

“No.” Max denies.

“Yes.” Dustin says at the same time, choking on his words when he realized what happened, ignoring Max’s glare.

“We’re not sure.” Lucas offers.

“She was there. Then she left.” Karen huffs, having no more answers. “It’s all a little confusing.” Dustin whispers, hoping on some level, the adults were buying their bullshit.

“That’s when you guys came.” Lucas adds, tying what they were doing to when the police came.

“Right. Then they dared me to say what I said.” Max explains.

“Oh, yeah.” Lucas laughs.

“About the killer.”

Dustin and Lucas turn to one another, laughing too hard about this ‘dare’.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot.” Ted comments.

“Have you had any contact with Eddie?” Powell asks them, turning it back on track.

“That psycho…freak killer?” Dustin asks without any true bite in his voice. Your mom winced, and she knew Dustin was covering his tracks, but it was hard to hear. “God, no.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.” Max adds.

“No. We haven’t heard from him.” Lucas says at the same time. “Barely know him.”

“Who?” Dust asks, taking a step too far.

Erica was done at this point. “Oh, that’s a bunch of bull.” Her voice is loud and effective in getting their attention.

“Erica!” Lucas and Erica’s parents chastise her at the same time.

“I mean, you realize they’re lying. The whole couch is on fire.”

“Erica.” They warn her again.

“Just the facts.”

“Are you lying to these policemen, Dusty?” His mom asks, and your mom is astounded how little she knew.

“No!” Dustin objects, his voice screeching and high pitched.

“Lying to the cops is a crime, son.” Lucas’ dad says directly to him.

“I’m not lying.” Lucas insists.

“The fire is consuming us.” Dustin glares at Erica to cut it out.

“We also seem to be having a hard time getting a hold of Miss. L/N. Was she there with you?”

Your mom’s breath hitches as she watches them hesitate again.

“Sh-she left with Nancy.” Max stutters out, and Dustin and Lucas nod along side them. It wasn’t a lie, technically.

“Threaten them with a little jail time. Maybe that’ll loosen their lips.” Ted comments, mostly annoyed at how long it had taken just get a word that made sense out of the kids.

“Okay—” Dustin starts.

“You wanna send our kids to jail?” Lucas’ mom interrupts him.

“We need to take this seriously.” Ted maintains his stance.

“He didn’t mean it like that.” Karen says at the same time, cancelled out by what Ted says.

The crowd breaks out into arguing, everyone talking at once. No one seems to make any sense of what anyone has to say to one another.

“Shut up.” Powell attempts to call out, no one hearing him. He takes a deep breath in, preparing to project his voice. “Shut up!” It works, all voices fading down reluctantly. “We’re gonna try a more civilized approach. One at a time.” He points to Max. “You first.”

Max tenses up. “Wait, what? Why me?”

“Follow me.” He responds, ignoring her.

“I’m not even in the Hellfire club.” She argues further.

“Do I need to cuff you?” Callahan threatens, and it was completely unnecessary. Max sighs, realizing she didn’t have any other choice. “Chop-chop! Let’s go.”

Max passes Callahan on the way to the makeshift interrogation room, and Callahan gives Dustin and Lucas a signal that ‘they’re next’.

Lucas and Dustin sit silently on the couch, anxiety bubbled up in their stomachs, unable to do much more.

-

It wasn’t long that taking cover in the forest was deemed ineffective as demo-bats started to swarm over, seemingly seeking out the five of you.  The desperation for shelter came to a head when Steve pointed out Skull Rock. As you hunched under the rock, it was hard to stop the fear from growing. Steve being yanked into the abyss was scary. Being surrounded by monsters was a terror you had forgotten existed.

For good reason.

Finally, the bats seem to thin out, Robin takes the first step out of the rock. “Oh…okay. That was close.”

“Yeah.” Steve agrees.

“Too close.” Eddie remarks.

Your arms are across your chest, as if would somehow make you more secure. Eddie leans down to you. “You… you ok?”

You nodded. “You?” He nods back, and there’s nothing else to say.

“Oh, sh… shit.” You hear, turning to face Steve falling against the one of the rocks.

“Steve?” Nancy calls, seeing him fading out.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Steve insists to her, despite the clear evidence he wasn’t.

“No, no, no. You’re not. You’re losing blood.” Nancy insists, as again, clear evidence he wasn’t okay. “Come on, sit. All right?”

Steve reluctantly sits down, grunting in pain as his ass lands harshly on the hard ground. He holds the wound at his pant line, realizing how much in pain he truly was. “All right.” Nancy said, assessing her options in treatment.

As Eddie, Robin, and you look on in concern as the reality seems to set in of how injured Steve was. Nancy asks fast, ripping the excess of her undershirt off to make a decent gauze.

Concerned for her best friend, Robin kneels next to Nancy.

You hang back with Eddie, watching the scene unfold.

“So, the good news is I’m pretty sure wooziness is not a symptom of rabies. But if you start having hallucinations or muscle spasms or you start feeling aggressive, like you wanna punch me, let me know.”

“Robin” He stops her.

“Yeah”

“I kinda wanna punch you.”

She laughs, a little relief in her voice. “Sense of humor’s still intact. That’s a good sign.”

Nancy finishes ripping off the excess of her shirt, Robin gives them the room as Nancy moves in to dress it.

Eddie turns his face away from it, watching medical ‘procedures’ tended to make him squirmy, turning you away from it as well. Robin catches up to the two of you, and as Nancy wraps him up awkward small talk ensues.

(Unfortunately, you miss one of the most erotic scenes of someone getting their wounds dressed in all of history of man kind but its ok you never found out.)

A pinch appears between Eddie’s eyebrows, and you barely have a minute to consider the expression before he’s excusing himself. “What are—” you start to ask him, but his crouched position on the broken-down tree answers for him.

He crawls on all fours up the log, timidly standing as he reaches the apex of the arch. “So, uh, this place is like Hawkins but with monsters and nasty shit?”

“Pretty much.” Nancy answers him, allowing Steve to use her as a crutch.

Eddie nods, he assumed he was right, but the confirmation made it all the bleaker. He starts to make his way back down the tree, his step staggered when Nancy interrupts him. “Wait, watch out for the vines. It’s all a hive mind.”

You didn’t even realize he was crawling onto vines as he made his way up. Was he not avoiding the vines? Fuck.

Eddie remains paused. “It’s all a what...?” he asks timidly.

“All the creepy crawlies around here. They’re, like, one or something. Step on a vine, you’re stepping on a bat, you’re stepping on Vecna.” Steve answers, and you couldn’t have put it any better than that.

“Shit.” Eddie hesitantly makes his way down the tree again, comically side stepping one foot in front of the other.

“But everything from our world is still here, right? Except people?” Robin asks.

“As far as I understand it, yeah.”

“So, theoretically, we could go to the police station and steal guns and grenades and whatever we need to blow up those bat things that are guarding the gate.”

“Does the Hawkins PD even have grenades?” You ask, and Steve shakes his head.

“Grenades, no. Probably a lot of guns, though.”

“Well, we don’t have to go all the way downtown for guns. I have guns in my bedroom.”

Eddie plops off the tree next to you. “You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns, plural, in your bedroom?” Eddie asks, his voice seeped in doubt.

Not that you blamed him. You nodded to him nonchalantly, confirming.

“Full of surprises, isn’t she?” Robin jokes.

“A Russian Makarov and a revolver.” Nancy answers.

“Yeah, you almost shot me with that one.” Steve comments.

Eddie rolls his eyes, taking his vest off.

“Well, you almost deserved it.”

As they linger too long, you nod towards them pointedly at Robin, and she shrugs.

Thwap.

“For your modesty, dude.” Eddie deadpans.

Steve clutches onto the vest Eddie threw at him, half glaring at Eddie for hitting him so hard with it.

Steve isn’t given long to think about it, the ground shaking beneath your feet as effective as an earthquake.

The ground stumbles you off your feet, your hip hitting the ground harshly as the other two are effectively grouped into two. You crawl to the nearest two, your arms buckling as you barely make the embrace of whoever’s nearest.

Turned out to be Robin, awkwardly lying against Eddie.

It’s over as quickly as it started.

None of you are given a chance to catch your breath, a looming sound coming off from the distance reminding you that you needed to get out as fast as you could.

“So, guns seem like a pretty good idea to me.” Eddie concludes.

“Yeah, me too.” Robin nods.

Robin crawls to her feet, working her way around you and you find your back against Eddie as you fall back into him. Eddie allows it, using a hand to rub his leg as it hit one of the vines when he fell.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Steve asks and starts back down the trees. As he passes you scramble to your feet to follow behind them.

-

One disadvantage of navigating the Upside Down that even though it is the very same town you were born and raised in, it still felt labyrinthian at times. Not as many landmarks are present, resulting on far too many rerouting.

You walk hand in hand with him, your brain attempting to trick itself into thinking that things might be normal again.

“I think we deserve an extra spring break.” You mutter under your breath, the memory of your mutual plans now a hazy memory. It was supposed to be the final break where you could just be 18, lying in your boyfriend’s bed for days at a time, ignoring responsibility.

“It’s not all bad.” He tells you.

You stop walking, the scrunch in your forehead signalling your doubt.

“Ok its pretty bad.” He admits, his thumb caressing your own. “Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I just went to the police.”

“And?”

He chuckles humourlessly. “If I was in custody when what’s-his-name—”

“Fred”

“Fred got…Vecna’d. I would’ve had an alibi for them both. But with D&D being a-a target like it has been, I don’t think I would’ve been let go regardless.”

You gulp, your heart beating in your throat. “You think they would’ve found a way to pin it on you?”

“Yeah. I do. I just have this feeling.” His other hand finds its way to his stomach, his fingers fanned out. “I joke about it, but 60 Minutes had a documentary about it, and since then it’s just gotten worse.” He stumbles over a vine, his lanky limbs too long for himself. “I used to get a glare on the occasion but now my mere presence at the arcade is just a spectacle.”

“You think you would’ve been the scapegoat.”

He nods, confirming with enough conviction to worry you.

“I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“Wait, what?” He asks you, his eyebrows raised.

“If they had the nerve to attempt to blame you when I knew you were innocent, I would’ve fought it tooth and nail until they let you go.”

“And if that didn’t work?” He asks, a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Prison break.”

He stops, framing your face into a kiss in which his tongue evades your mouth, and you forget where the hell are for half a second.

“Lovebirds!” Robin calls to you.

You separate, as if both electrocuted by her interruption.

“Not the place!”

Eddie steps back into place with you, your hands brushing delicately, sending shivers down your spine.

Not the place.

“It just means a lot to me that you answered that so damn fast.”

Your cheeks heat up, and he staggers across a mess of vines. You take the off chance to catch up to the murmuring of Nancy and Robin, ignoring the smug looks they’re both giving you.

“Couldn’t we have tried a road, or something just slightly less creepy?” Robin asks, peering up at the silhouettes of the creepy trees.

“I think we’re getting close. We’re almost out of here. Don’t worry.” Nancy comforts her, and you find yourself comforted by it as well.

Having ran ahead, Steve takes the opening he waited for. “Eddie.” Eddie turns to him expectantly. “Eddie. Hey, man. Uh… Listen, I just, uh… I just want to say thanks. For saving my ass back there.”

Eddie doesn’t even hesitate. “Shit. You saved your own ass, man. I mean, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.”

“Ozzy?” Steve asks, unfamiliar with the world of heavy metal.

“When you took a bite out of that bat.” Steve doesn’t answer. “Ozzy Osborne? Black Sabbath?”

Crickets.

“He bit a bat’s head off onstage.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s very metal, what you did. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thanks.”

“Henderson told me you were a badass. Insisted on the matter in fact.”

So did you, and there was only one night where he genuinely believed you. Granted he was too drunk to remember.

“Henderson said that?” Steve asks, flattered.

“Oh yeah. Shit. Kid worships you, dude. Like, you have no idea. It’s kinda annoying, to be honest. I don’t even know why I care what that little shrimp thinks, but, uh, guess I got a little jealous, Steve.”

For the first time Eddie makes eye contact with Steve as he considered what the metalhead was telling him. Dustin Henderson was worshipping him behind closed doors. Huh.

“I guess I couldn’t accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually” he inhales, swallowing his pride, “a good dude. Rich parents, popular, chicks love him. Not a douche?” Eddie chuckles. “No way, man. No way. That, like, flies in the face of all the laws in the universe and my own personal Munson doctrine.”

There’s a pause, Eddie comes slightly too close to Steve’s face, breathing in his face. “Still super jealous as hell, by the way.” A laugh erupts out of Steve. “Which is why I would have never jumped in that lake to save your ass. Not under any, uh… normal circumstances.”

A branch snaps.

Eerie howling can be heard in the distance.

The two of them stop in their tracks, staring off on edge of their surroundings.

“Nope. Outside of D&D, I am no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run. Or at least that’s what I’ve learned about myself this week.”

“Give yourself a break, man.” Steve interrupts, patting his chest with the back of his hand.

“See? The only reason I came here was ‘cause those ladies came in straight after you.” Eddie tells him, pointing at your back side as you, Nancy, and Robin continue trudging your way through the freaky forest. “Now, I was too ashamed to be the one who stayed behind. My girlfriend jumping in as if there were no other options just rattled me.” Eddie pauses, pointing specifically to Nance. “But Wheeler right there she didn’t waste a second. Not one second. She just dove right in. Now, I don’t know what happened between you two, but if I were you, I would get her back. ‘Cause that was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.”

Steve considers what Eddie had to say, pausing. Steve’s eyes assess Eddie, glancing at Eddie’s two-day old stubble. He ignores the pull to Eddie’s lips, lingering far too long at them.

Wasn’t…Eddie…just steering him to Nancy?

He switches his glance back to her.

The ground doesn’t give Steve any chances to lull on any of what just happened, a rumble erupting. The ground becomes shaky again, feeling yourself unable to walk in a straight line.

“Here we go again.” Eddie bites out, his teeth gritted.

“Second on my list of favourite things, earthquakes.” Robin yells out, and you’re left wondering how she’s able to talk. “Seriously, I’m unsteady enough as it is.”

Nancy leans up against a tree, staring dead ahead, determined. She doesn’t hesitate.

She runs.

“Nancy, wha--!”

“Where are you going?” Robin calls after her. “Nancy!”

“Robin, come on!” You tell her, tugging her hand.

Before you knew it, you had all caught up to where she was standing, staring ominously at her house standing tall in a field of debris.

The five of you stare off at it, the sound of five of you catching your breath overwhelmingly loud, yet your ears remind you of the echo of thunder. Oh, God why so much sound?

“Come on.” Nancy urges, charging forward into the skeleton of her own home. You follow her, and the closer to the house you got, the louder the thunder seemed to get.

As you trekked forward, Dustin sat in the toilet of the Wheeler’s house attempting to use the left behind walkie to get a hold of the five of you. “Steve, do you copy? Nancy, Robin? This is Dustin. Where are you? We’ve been collared by the law, I repeat, we’ve been collared by the law. Do you copy?” At the radio silence, Dustin realizes how fucking hopeless it was. “Shit!”

He flushes the toilet, bursting out of the bathroom, past the parents crowded around Powell requesting if they needed lawyers. Karen is stood beside your mom, comforting her as she has started to worry about you. If Karen knew your mom hadn’t seen you in a few days she would’ve sent you home.

He nearly bumps into Holly holding onto her Lite Brite, walking it away from the commotion in the living room. He shelves the walkie, looking to Lucas’ expectant face.

“Anything?” He asks him.

“Nothing.”

They pause, a thought occurring to them at the same moment.

“You don’t think they went through…”

“Through Watergate?” Dustin asks, incredulous. “Without us? Without a plan? Without weapons?” He scoffs. “They wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“Yeah.”

“They must just be laying low ‘cause the law got us.”

“’The law?’” Erica repeats, walking into the kitchen with a juice box in hand. “What is this, Gunsmoke? The Stupid and the Ugly? Should I round up the posse? Saddle the horses?”

Lucas glares at her, not in the mood for what shenanigans Erica usually has to offer. “Erica. Please, just go away.”

“Here’s the deal. Either you tell me what’s happening, or I tell Dustin what I found under your bed.”

Lucas perks up, slightly terrified. Dustin turns to him, intrigued.

“Please, no.”

“Spill your guts, cowpuncher.”

“What’d she find?” Dustin asks, leaning onto his elbow.

“Nothing.” He claims, switching his glance between the two of them.

“Is it gross?” Dustin asks her. Erica nods. “Scale of one to ten.”

“A hundred.” Erica answers, not skipping a beat.

“A hundred?” Dustin asks, turning back to face Lucas.

Lucas gives up. “The serial killer is a dark wizard from the Upside Down. And we’ve been looking for him, but he’s in the Upside Down, which we can’t reach. At least we thought we couldn’t, until we found a gate at Lover’s Lake. That was reason we were there, but those stupid cops grabbed us.” He’s starting to get loud, as Dustin mentions for him to lower his voice. “And if you tell anyone about this, that’s including Mom, and Dad, and Tina…”

Erica continues slurping her juice, unbothered.

Lucas shakes his head, getting Erica to understand the seriousness of it. “…Especially Tina, I…will smother you…in your sleep. Do you understand?”

“Hmm…” Erica leans on one hand, pretending to think about it.

“Erica?” He leans forward on his elbows to her. “Do. You. Copy?”

Erica pushes off her elbows. “The smothering in my sleep part, but not much else. Why would they open a gate at Lover’s Lake?” She asks mostly to Dustin.

“What?” Lucas asks.

“The commies.”

“The commies didn’t do it—”

“Then who did?”

“Nobody.”

“So, it just opened up for fun?”

“Erica, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, she doesn’t, yet she raises an essential question.” Dustin interjects, noting Erica’s surprisingly good point. “How did Watergate open up? Only two gates have opened, so as far as we know. One by El, one by the commies. But it’s not the commies or El this time, so it…” He drifts off, something clicking. “Holy shit. Wait, wait, wait, wait.”

“’Wait, wait, wait,’ what?” Lucas asks him, wondering what the hell was going on in his brain.

“There’s one thing we’ve never understood.” Dustin starts pacing around the kitchen. “Which is why Vecna’s killing people. What’s his motive? Killing teens? It always just seemed too random. Too prosaic. On top of that, how does the Mind Flayer figure into all this? Maybe this is it. This is the answer.”

“What is the answer?” Lucas asks, completely missing the point.

“Are you sure you just want water?” Karen asks one of the police officers, making her way to the fridge. “We have Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper.”

They signal one another they need to get out of the kitchen to avoid eavesdropping, following Dustin into the hall by the dinging room. “Okay, just hear me out. How did El open the Mothergate?”

“She contacted the Demogorgon.”

“With psychic contact. Just like…”

“Vecna when he casts his spells.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what if, with each kill, he’s not simply killing them, he’s making a powerful psychic connection with his victims? A connection powerful enough to rip a hole in the fabric of time and space.”

“He’s opening up more gates.”

“Bingo.”

A few steps come from the living room. “Copy. We’re still at the Wheeler House.”

Damn cops. They turn the corner to where the basement goes down.

“Why would he be opening gates?” Dustin asks, voicing his thoughts out loud.

“To take over the world.” Lucas answers.

“Who do we know that wants to take over the world?” Dustin leads him.

“The Mind Flayer.”

“So if the Demogorgon was just his foot soldier, Vecna’s his five-star general. A five-star general with the power to open gates.”

“Holy shit.” Lucas curses, his mind blown.

“Holy shit!” Dustin answers in agreement.

“Holy shit.” Erica speaks up for the first time in a minute. “That was incomprehensible. You lost me at ‘Mothergate’. Please be kind. Rewind.”

“Ok, so remember the gate?” Dustin starts to explain to her, patient as his newfound breakthrough would allow him to be.

“Oh, no. I blocked that out.” Erica quips.

As Dustin answers, you’re catching your breath as you finally reach the door to the Wheelers.

The lights flare up as you pass by, a detail missed by Dustin, Lucas, and Erica.

Nancy bursts through the door, looking around a version of her own home she barely recognizes. You look around the house, the vines decorating the walls. “Might be time to get a maid, Wheeler.” Robin deadpans.

Nancy dampens whatever emotional reaction she was feeling, gritting her teeth. “Come on. I don’t want to stay here longer than we have to.” She starts her way up the stairs, Robin, you, and Eddie following closely behind.

Nancy goes straight to her closet, bursting through for the shoebox in the top left-hand side.

As she brings the box to open it up, you glance around, and something felt off to you about the room.

She opens the box to find tissue paper and a pair of heels.

“Those aren’t guns.” Eddie comments.

“These heels are pointy, but I was hoping for something along the lines of a deadly projectile.” Robin adds, and Nancy ignores them, trying to figure out where the hell her guns were.

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you left them somewhere else.” Eddie offers a solution, granted a weak one.

“There’s a six-year-old in the house. I know where I keep my guns.” She answers, defensive. “Also, I threw these away years ago.”

Nancy ends up doing a double take to some homework she doesn’t remember placing on her dresser.

“Uh Nancy?” You ask her, glancing her around the room. “Didn’t you get this wallpaper replaced a while ago?”

“Y-yeah, I did, actually.” She says, scanning the notes.

“I get that grades are important, but perhaps studying can wait till we get out?”

“She’s right.” Nancy says softly. She looks up to her wall. “I got this wallpaper replaced years ago.” She holds her flashcards up. “These notes are from sophomore chemistry. As Nancy gets more of a look around her room, she finds herself in a personal time warp. “This mirror was sold in a yard sale years ago. And you.” She rushes forward to where a stuffed bunny sits perched. “you’re not supposed to be here. No, I gave you to Cousin Joanna two years ago.”

Nancy pauses, and Eddie glances to you, nodding at Nancy in concern. You gesture toward her. When Nancy acted off or manic it usually ended in results.

She sits there, staring blankly at her diary. “What is it?” Eddie asks, and you can hear the vague annoyance in his voice.

“Nancy? You’re freaking me out.” Robin asks her.

“I think the reason that my guns aren’t here is because they don’t exist yet.”

“They don’t… exist?”

“Nancy, what’s going on—” you ask, walking up behind her. “Uh Nancy, why are you reading that specific date, also didn’t you al--”

“I did.” She interrupts you, walking back to Robin and Eddie. “This diary should be filled with entries. It’s not. The last entry is November 6—”

“1983.” You finish with her. “The day Will went missing.”

“The day the gate opened. We’re in the past.”

The four of you glance at one another, the looming idea odd.

“Dustin! Dustin!” Steve’s voice erupts from the downstairs.

Robin jumps into action, running down to see what the commotion was about as Steve repeats it, turning his flashlight around.

“Dust- Hello! Hello!” He calls, turning in circles with his voice a register higher than normal.

As you all watch in concern, Robin leans in. “Maybe he really does have rabies.”

“Steve, what are you doing?” Nancy asks him, a bit of a bite in her voice.

“Hello!” Steve calls out one last time, flashing the light right into your eyes. You hold a hand to shield them, a collective choice.

“He’s here. Henderson.” Steve claims, out of breath with a smile plastered on his face. “That little shit, he’s here. He’s like… He’s in the walls or something. Just listen. Dustin.” Steve starts screaming again, despite the bewildered looks he’s receiving from four people. “Dustin! Dustin!”

 Just when Steve seems to be going legitimately crazy, Dustin’s voice comes from seemingly nowhere, loud and clear. “That brings us to the question you first raised.”

Shit.

“Dustin!” The four of you join him, looking around the area you could hear him most, the dining room.

Eddie flips up one of the curtains, “Dustin?”

“Good spot, there, Ed.” You comment.

“Shut up.”

“Dustin?”

“All right, either this kid can’t hear us or he’s being a total douchebag.” Steve concludes, finally giving up after searching for an unfortunately long time.

“Will found a way.” Nancy mutters.

“What?”

“Will. He found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights.” Nancy scurries to the lamp on an accent table by the stairs.

“Lights?”

“Yeah.” Nancy attempts to turn on one of the lights manually, but to no avail.

“The switch, try the switch.” Steve says, pointing to it.

“Okay.” Nancy moves it do it, still unsuccessful. “It’s not working.”

“Hey. Guys? You seeing this?” Steve asks, his flashlight aimed at the large overhead light, a particular ambiance eroding from it.

As you peer around the corner next to Robin and Eddie, you catch a glimpse of Nancy with her hand raised by the lights, the mere proximity causing it to flare.

“Whoa.” Eddie murmurs a smile reaching his lips as you gather around the light.

As you reach the light Steve’s hand is raised in the light, rotating, his fingers experimenting with the feel. You follow as Robin and Eddie reach out, hesitant yourself into the feeling it would provide. As you reached out standing between Nancy and Ed, your fingertip reaches the light and it’s nothing like you expected.

You feel a sense of energy in your hand, it’s almost as if you sat on it for too long, but it tickles rather than hurt. The heat wasn’t too much to bear, just like touching a light bulb that was on.  

It was cool, you played with it, watching as your hand moved the light particles around.

“It…tickles.” Steve comments.

A laugh is stifled in your throat, in agreement.

“It kinda feels good.” Robin says, Eddie chuckling at it.

Somehow, tickles and good both felt like understatements.  

“Does anyone know Morse code?” Nancy asks.

“No.” You all answer her.

“Wait, does SOS count?” Eddie asks, his voice giving no hint of humour. You, Robin, and Nancy all deadpan to him. “Is that good?” He asks, unsure what the looks he was receiving were about.

“What?” He asks you, giving you a smile that you don’t think you’ve seen on his face since before this shitshow.

“You’re lucky you’re so pretty.” You smile up at him, grinning when he looks at you confused. “Yes, Ed. SOS works.”

“Shit, say that, then.”

He’s lucky he’s so pretty.

Eddie puts his fingers in, using his four fingers rapidly, against the light in three motions. S. O. S.

On the otherside Dustin continues to pace the dining room, asking some big questions, Erica barely paying any attention since the lights started noticeably flaring. “You said you followed Vecna through lights, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I think he’s here.” Erica is on edge, of course, thinking she’s only a dimension away from being in the same room as a mass murderer.

Dustin and Lucas make their way next to Erica, watching the lights flicker.

Finally, the voices on the other side fade out, signalling they were paying attention. “It’s working.” Robin comments, a hint of rare conviction in her voice.

Dustin creeps up to the light, finally witnessing the pattern. Dot dot dot. “S.” Dash dash dah. “O.” Dot dot dot. “S. Hey, uh, remember when I said they wouldn’t be stupid enough to through Watergate?”

“Yeah?” Lucas asks, apprehensive about what he was about to say.

“I overestimated them.”

-

Holly Wheeler lies down on her dining room floor, ignoring the sounds of the parents in the other room discussing what they must think is quietly, but she could hear every word.

She didn’t quite understand what it all meant, she just knew her sister and her brother’s friends were in deep shit. As suggested by her mom, she grabbed her Lite Brite to keep her company, but she wasn’t even allowed to go up to her room. She had to stay downstairs. That was dumb but her dad didn’t give her much of an option to argue against it either way.

In the middle of a bunny, footsteps passed her which she didn’t pay any attention to until her Lite Brite lost power. “Hey!” She protested.

Behind her Dustin runs to collect the brite lite, rushing out a sorry to Holly’s confused little face. Lucas repeats it, collecting the multicolored beads sitting in the Tupperware containers, dashing right behind Lucas.

Before Holly has any chance to even process what just happened Erica quickly kneels before her, giving her a pack of Skittles, saying, “For your understanding.” Well, a bribe is a bribe.

What, they couldn’t find something bigger?

-

Dustin bursts through the door of Nancy’s room, maneuvering the many wires cascading over such a small toy.

All gathered around Nancy’s bed seemingly three years ago in an alternate dimension you’re waiting around the Lite Brite as Dustin, Erica and Lucas all scramble to place the tiny little beads onto the board, camouflaging the bunny Holly had been working so hard on. It was a slow and painful process to wait for, Eddie gritting his teeth impatiently while Steve hurried them. “Come on, come on.”

As the final colored bead was placed, Dustin urging “Okay that’s it. Go, go, go.”

Lucas confirms, snatching the socket and lurching on the floor to where the wall socket lived, lighting up the brite lite.

“Okay you guys—”

“..seeing this?”

The space on the bed suddenly lights up with the same orange particles that had surrounded the overhead lights earlier. Nancy reaches in, creating the familiar shimmer affect as before. As she does a cackle of laughter echoing from Dustin as confirmation that it worked.

As Nancy’s hand floats around, you find yourself hypnotized by the dazzling shimmers around her fingers, your eyes glazing over. You catch a glimpse of Eddie and Steve sharing a look of holy shit behind Nance, you stick your tongue out at Steve when Eddie leans back forward.

Dustin’s voice echo’s, “We’re not moving it, but we’re gonna unplug it. Stand by.” The orange sparkles disappear as soon as the light is unplugged. “Okay, try it now.”

The five of you wait on edge as Nancy hesitates to reach out again. Eddie’s grip on your shoulder tightened, his other hand landing on his head, his fingers fidgeting.

If this didn’t work, you weren’t sure what other options you had.

Nancy reaches in, spelling out Hi as a test run. It feels eerily silent, waiting for the confirmation.

“That worked!”

The celebration is unanimous, the relief overwhelming to a tee.

Eddie is particularly satisfied, yelling out ‘yeses’ in his joy in between gritted teeth. “Hi!” He shouts in excitement to, no one in particular.

Robin lets out a full giggle.

Your nails end up digging into the heel of your hand, the hint of pain signalling just how tense you were in your own excitement.

Nancy thinks fast, leaning back into writing once again. STU…CK

“Oh ok, they’re stuck.”

“Yes.”

“We are.”

You nod rapidly.

“They’re stuck in the Upside Down.”

“Uh, you can’t get back through Watergate?”

“What the hell’s Watergate?” Steve asks.

“Oh, cause it’s in water, and it’s a gate.” Robin concludes.

“Oh, right.”

“That’s cute.” Eddie comments.

“Precious even.” You add.

“Um, no. It’s…” Nancy leans in again. GUAR…DED

It was humouring, to say the least to hear Dustin sound out the first syllable of it without realizing the rest.

“Okay. Uh, Watergate’s guarded.”

“Perfect. Yes. Yes. Yes.” Steve chants.

You hop on your two knees, a mini dance party in-between Eddie and Robin, celebrating with you.                                                                                                                        

“We think we have a theory that can help with that.” Dustin starts.

“Yes.”

“Genius child.” Robin whispers, and you had to admit, without his genius you wouldn’t be nearly as lucky as you have been.

“We think Watergate isn’t the only gate. That there’s a gate at every murder site.”

Confusion, all around. Wind through your ears. “Does anybody understand what he’s talking about?” Nancy asks, making sure you were all on the same page.

“No”

“No idea.”

“You heard words?” You ask, clueless.

Nancy leans in, drawing a large question mark.

“Okay. Seriously? How many times do I have to be right on the money before you guys just trust me?” Dustin’s voice barks back.

You blink, Dustin temporarily stunning you.

“Jesus Christ, this kid’s got to get his ego in check.” Steve remarks, his face scrunched up.

“It’s his tone. Right?” Eddie perks up, peering around Nancy to agree with him.

“I know.”

“I keep telling him.” You mutter. Eddie wraps his arm around you, his thumb caressing your shoulder.

“Okay. So…So how far is your trailer?” Nancy asks to Eddie.

“Seven miles.” Eddie answers.

“You just know that?” You whisper, Eddie shrugs casually.

“Nancy?” Robin asks, peering around you and Eddie. “Uh, I know your house here is like, weirdly, creepily, frozen in time and shit, but haven’t you always had bikes?”

Eddie turns back for her reply, a question he genuinely didn’t know the answer to.

You did, and so did Steve. “Robin, you genius.”

Nancy takes a few tries to communicate the idea formed in her head, it takes the words ED…DIE, TRA…ILER, Dustin immediately understands from the sound of it.

“H-how are we going to get there?”

Nancy was already writing BIK…ES by the end of his sentence. “Oh… that’s-that’s not bad.”

The sound of thumps down the stairs invades the deafening silence of the Wheeler’s house, Steve holding the door as he ushers you all outside.

The garage is opened abruptly, Steve resting one hand on the elevated garage door as his flashlight cascades over the bikes. “Hey, we uh, we only got 4 bikes.” He observes, looking over his shoulder.

“Well then, two are going to have to partner up. We don’t have time for this.” Nancy huffs, already marching towards one.

“Come on, sweetheart.” Eddie says, grabbing your hand to one of them.

“Use Mike’s, El used to ride on the pegs.” Nancy passes you, already walking a bike to the beginning of her driveway.

He does, you half jog to the end as Robin and Steve get themselves situated.

On the other side, Max is let go from the makeshift interrogation room, immediately ushered away by Dustin as Powell mistakenly distracts the parents.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find those girls.” Powell explains, emphasizing with the worried bunch.

“One of these little brats is gonna squeal. I just know it.” Callahan claims, assuring the parents with much less sympathy. “Where are they?”

“Upstairs.” The officer ‘observing’ them said. “Moping.”

Callahan sighs and turns to run up the stairs. “Oh, little pigs.” He calls out mockingly when he reaches the top. “Oh, little pigs.” He taps the door rapidly to tease them. “Let Officer Callahan in.” When he pushes his way through the door in attempt to scare them, the sight of an empty room with an open window greets him.

By the time Callahan peers through, he sees the kids on their bikes already starting to ride. “Hey! Excuse me! No, get back here!”

“I guess it’s just a minor misdemeanor.” Erica mutters, stabbing one of the wheels to the cop car.

Callahan continues to call out, it grabs the attention of parents as they start to understand what was happening. They run out to the front lawn but most of them are panting through each stride.

You sit yourself onto the back of the bike, ignoring your boyfriend’s smirk over his shoulder as he starts riding.

The wind hits your face as Eddie gets his momentum, your hand clutching onto his shoulder.

The parents stare after their kids making their getaway, worry stricken in their faces as they all wonder what they were up to at the lake, and why they had to get away.

Your mom had a feeling you had something to do with it, and any little hint of doubt you did had disappeared.

Dustin, Lucas, Erica, and Max rode on the street to get to the trailer park as fast as they could, matching in tandem with you, Eddie, Robin, Steve, and Robin.

Headlights on, wind in your ears, bats in the distance.

Nothing was gonna stop you now.

-

This was probably the most daunting bike ride of your entire life.

The idea of riding with Eddie lost its novelty at the fourth mile, your back sore from hunching over his back. At one point his hair, flowing wildly in the wind, made its way into your mouth. Normally, it wouldn’t be all that terrible, but it took an unreasonably long time to able spit it back out.

The red lightning didn’t seem as bad, and you almost catch yourself getting used to the distant screeches of the demo-bats.

That was until the haunting image of the Creel House, the place you knew Vecna attacked and resided, came into your peripherals.

Right. Vecna was a real… and was actively killing people.

No. Correction you thought. It was the most daunting bike ride of your entire life.

Nancy and Steve sped up and you squeezed Eddie’s shoulder to indicate to do the same.

Finally, Eddie turned the corner into the trailer park, and you felt a sigh of relief as Eddie’s trailer came into sight. “Right here.” Eddie said, gesturing to his little lot on the side.

Eddie stopped, letting you get off before unceremoniously letting his bike drop.

“That’s gotta be a Guinness World Record. Most miles traveled interdimentionally.” Robin exclaims.

You wonder for a moment how you would get someone to record it.

“Just inhaled a bunch of that crap.” Steve coughs, clearing this throat. “It’s stuck in my throat.”

Eddie led the way up the stairs into his trailer, the place unrecognizable. His eyes shoot straight up onto the ceiling, knowing exactly where to look. “Goddamn.” He breathes out. Not that he needed to inform you, the red glowing doing the work for him. It was downright terrifying. “This is where Chrissy died.” Eddie gulps out. “Like, right where she died.”

That is also downright terrifying.

“I think there’s something in there.” Robin observes, and by the shadowy figure exuding squirmy noises she might be right.

You peered in, watching an object slowly move out from the snack sized gate. “What the hell is that?” Steve asks, the exact appropriate amount of bafflement in his voice. 

A beat in silence passes before something seems to ‘pop’, startling the five of you to back the fuck off from it.

The object repeatedly smacks its way, a few drips of whatever was on the ceiling falling onto the floor. You glance around you, wondering what the hell anyone was supposed to do.

Steve volunteers, creeping up slowly, to peer up to it. You follow his example, the portal slowly coming into view. “No way.” Steve breathes out, the sight breathtaking.

It comes into view, and it’s somehow the weirdest thing you have ever experienced.

Dustin’s laughter is loud and clear as you see Lucas, Max, him, and Erica all looking up, appearing to be upside down in the way bats are in a cave.

“Hi there.” Dustin waves, glee radiating from him.

“Hi” You all wave back, smiles of relief on your faces as the escape is finally right in front of you.

���Holy shit this is trippy.” Robin comments.

“Holy fuck.” Eddie whispers, his hands resting on his knees. You bump into him endearingly, causing him to hike up and wrap his arms around you tightly. “We’re finally getting the fuck out of here.”

You look back up, watching Dustin’s overzealous jumps. “Bada-bada-boom!”

-

It took about seven minutes of struggle watching the four of them struggle around and ask Eddie where to find random things in his trailer until the mattress was plopped onto the floor. “Those stains are, uh…” he pauses, looking at his audience and second guessing himself at Robin’s side-eye. “I dunno what those stains are.”

“Mmm.” Robin grunts back to him, thrown off.

You sit next to him, wondering if you had noticed any of the stains before. He leans over to you, “Pretty sure those are from you.” He whispers to you under his breath.

Your face heats up, oh yeah, that was a good one.

 “I heard that.” Robin clears her throat, her face now scrunched up half in between disgusted and amused. Well, she knew your stories weren’t exaggerated at least.

Dustin comes into view clutching the tied-up sheets. “Not quite sure how these physics work.” He admitted, winding the makeshift rope to toss it, “but uh, here goes nothing.” The rope is launched out of his hand and lands roughly on the floor in front of you. You glance back up to Dustin, clutching the rope anxiously. “There we go. And if my theory is correct…” He lets go of the rope, and somehow, miraculously, it stays in place.

Seemingly it just, floats in suspension, nothing to yank onto, but working either way.

“Huh. Abracadabra.”

“Holy shit.” Lucas swears.

“All right, pull on it! See if it holds!” Dustin calls.

Robin steps up to it, placing each hand high on the rope and attempts to pull as hard as she can. When it stays in place the tension in the room seems to dissipate all at once. You have a way home.

“This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen some crazy shit.” Erica comments, sounding joyful, almost.

“Guess I’m the guinea pig.” Robin jokes, her hands already in place on the rope. She starts climbing, grunting slowly as she makes her way up.

Nancy holds her hand out for a safety net while they clear the landing pad on the other side. Robin reaches the hole in the ceiling, and once her head crosses the threshold she is yanked by gravity onto the other side, letting out a yelp of surprise.

She sits up the relief on her face clear as daylight. “Oh, thank God. That was fun.” she says, grabbing the closest hand offered to sit up from Eddie’s mattress.

You look back down to face your boyfriend already looking at you. “What?” You ask, startled.

He puts his hand lightly on the small of your back. “Go.” He says, giving you no options.

“But—”

His brows raise, daring you to protest him.

“Ok, then.” This might’ve been the only moment your gym teacher could’ve told you when you would need to use a rope climbing skill in real life to your disgruntled question. You reach forward and pull up to start climbing. It’s a bit more of a struggle than Robin’s but you only needed to get your head through to the other side. As you did, you felt the pull of gravity force you onto the mattress, sucking the air out of your lungs. “Shit.”

You recollect your breath, staring back up at him, a stupid glint in his eye. You don’t have too long of a moment, ripped out of it by Dustin exasperatingly pulling you off the mattress.

“Not your first time there eh.” Robin mutters.

You hit her shoulder, gathering around the mat waiting for the next climber.

You didn’t have to wait long, Eddie’s climb took half the time yours did. You and Robin both eased yourselves into the gravity, while Eddie lurched himself, basically cannonballing himself back into the right dimension.

No one saw it coming, all startled by his rough landing. He sits up instantly, “That, was fun.” He agrees with Robin. “Shit.” He grabs the hand extended to him and is helped up, but he does most of the work.

“That was fun to you?” You ask him, the only fun thing about it is being out from the dust particles.

“Woah. Ok something’s happening. Steve?” Dustin yells out

“Nancy!” You peer into the hole, seeing Steve clutch onto Nancy’s shoulders, calling her name repeatedly. “Stay with me. Nancy! Hey!” He grabs the attention of all of you, wondering what was wrong. “Nancy!”

Max gulps. “Vecna.”

Oh for fucks sake.

-

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you want to be added onto the tag list please let me know. Any feedback or reblogs are appreciated.

taglist: @emturtles @yourthebrokengirl @steeldaisies @skrzydlak @thirddeadlysin @sammararaven @bebe07011

[abibliophobiaa]

i hope you know that you and many other writers that are apart of this fandom bring me so much comfort like no other.

i was obsessed w reading fics back in middle school and i was always judged for it. i stopped and ended up forgetting about it, sometimes even making fun of myself for reading it (it was mainly because who i was reading for at the time, not the fics themselves)

when ST4 came out, it was the summer of me going into my senior year and boy did that do something to me. i felt as if i was the only one out of all the ppl i knew at the time who was OBSESSED with edward the munch munson (out of all my friends, i still am)

ive never had tumblr before, but i got it and decided to give it a try.

for the past year, this app has been my favorite thing ever and that’s because of writers like YOU. your work and many others brought me so much joy and i spend almost everyday looking to see who has updated and who has posted a new fic. it brings me back to little me who loved to read. the creativity you bring into this fandom is beyond. i love you, and thank you and the many others in this fandom who have given me so much happiness this year without even knowing it.

these people also include @ghost-proofbaby @pinkrelish @blueywrites @trashmouth-richie @luveline @harrywavycurly @andvys

Okay first of all — thank you so much! That means so much to me that you even thought of me.

And second, I totally understand that. I remember reading fic back in middle school and high school even and kind of wanting to keep it secret because people are often rude and judgmental and I hate that they were toward you as well.

But, I think that’s why we’ve all latched onto Eddie so hard. Because he’d be right there with us, telling us to live our best lives, be our fullest self. He’s a comfort character now for that reason alone, and I think he will continue to be simply because of what he stands for.

I’m so glad you gave tumblr a try. Because I love YOU so much and I’m so happy to have you in our little community and escape from the world. And I am so happy to also be surrounded by so many loving and creative people, just sharing our words but also our love for this character, and facilitating conversation about him as well.

So thank you, seriously. And I think also those mentioned would agree. It means so much. 🥹🩷🫂

[cloudycleric]

fun little stranger things story.

okay so i was watching rpdr15 right. & they have to lip sync to running up that hill. & as soon as i hear it im like oohhhh my god. & i look at my mom & we're like ohhh my god.

& my dad is like "kate bush? i've never heard of this" & i was like he'll recognize it when it gets to the chorus right. well he DIDNT. & we were like... he doesn't even know the cultural impact this song had. so i turned to my dad & i said "it was one of the main songs of st4."

& he was like, "oh," & then added "it just sounds like over produced 80s music"

& i just said sternly "THATS THE POINT"

me & mom then explain the scene where max is running out of vecna's mind palace. & im getting way too energetic because autism. i'm just saying how hard it fucks. & i'm like "sadie sink got awards purely for her performance in that scene yadadaa." BUT MY MOTHER IS AGREEING WITH ME. so this makes my dad more receptive to watching the scene.

but saying he didn't know the song had opened a pandora's box & he knew it & he just decided to tough it out with me. & i turned to him & i said "after this lip sync, you are sitting down & you are watching this ONE scene."

(context: my father has been a stickler about watching stranger things because he didn't like the second season & decided to never pick it up again. & then obviously i can be annoying about it so yk. he's made vague comments about maybe potentially rewatching the whole thing bc me & my mom told him it gets better after s2, but like he never was serious i think. & i've asked him if he'd watch the entire series with me so he can truly experience s5 with me & my mom but he has yet to take up with offer.)

so after the lip sync im like i have to turn this episode on real quick because he NEEDS to see this. i cannot lose this moment where he is genuinely interested in watching this. so i know the episode & time stamp & everything & i start it from when max enters vecna's mind palace. i accidentally started it further back then i wanted to originally so i was worried he would lose interest. but he WATCHED. he was WATCHING.

& then it gets good, max runs out, & the scene ends & i'm like "doesn't it fuck so hard." & he was like "hermherm no comment"

then me & my mom start gossiping like he do. & i was like "i think he like actually got invested watching that scene" & she was like "he was totally."

so TLDR is that rupauls dragrace may have gotten my father back into stranger things. but only time will tell

[hypahticklish]

Mad Max and the Week Long Tickle War: Day Six

Summary: Where Steve seeks vengeance on Eddie, and gets a little help of his own. A collaborative project with @nhasablogg and @lesbian-byers Fandom/Characters: Stranger Things / Steve & Eddie (pre-slash), feat. Max Wordcount: 2k ish A/N: …I had to rip the narrative out of Eddie's nerdy metalhead hands before he ran away with it… and then I did instead. Anyway, fun fact: the album mentioned was basically a set of lullabies for baby me and was my favorite growing up…that it also lines up to be the most recent release prior to ST4 is such a wild coincidence 😅 ← What happened yesterday?

~~~

"Alright, Harrington," he said as they shuffled off their jackets in the living room. "Today we're continuing your education into Real Music."

"Goody me," Steve grumbled. The sound didn't match the fondness in his eyes.

It was Steve's turn to hang out at Eddie's. Last time it was just the two of them, they had gone back to his place at Eddie's insistence - more space, more privacy, heated pool - and he didn't hear the end of the rich boy commentary while he indulged in whatever Steve's folks kept in the house. Eddie said his uncle rarely was at the trailer between work and the bar, but the tape deck and cassette collection must have been his true motive. Not that any of that mattered to Steve; if Eddie could spark light to whatever room he was in, then his home was the breath of life in and of itself.

Eddie swaggered backward down the short hall. "You've got your pick between my two greatest loves: Iron Maiden or Metallica."

"However shall I choose between US long-hair band and UK long-hair band?"

"You should be groveling at my feet for the opportunity to be guided to Valhalla by yours truly!" said Eddie with all the indignation of a fussy tomcat.

Steve threw up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, let's go with Iron Maiden."

"Newest or oldest?"

"Uhh, newest?" Steve chuckled at Eddie's quick change to a cheshire cat smile and took a seat on his bed.

The usual cold weather in Hawkins was interrupted by unseasonable sunshine and borderline warm temperatures if it weren't for winter's breath on the breeze; a phenomenon so delightful that most of the windows in the town were left wide open. Steve could not be more grateful to have the day off from work to spend getting to know Eddie better.

And to test what Dustin had mentioned off the cuff yesterday.

"You are a lucky boy, Stevie, because I have, in my possession, the Live After Death tour on cassette." Eddie presented him with the small plastic box case as if it were a sword. "The single best heavy metal tour of all time."

Steve swallowed the butterfly shaped lump in his throat at the nickname and instead raised an eyebrow. "M'okay?"

The speakers crackled to life in what Steve could swear was a World War Two broadcast before a hair-raising guitar solo kicked off the album. Eddie dove onto the bed beside him, leaned forward, and yanked back on Steve's shoulders to pull him down. "Lay back, relax, and get ready to have your life changed," Eddie said, scooping his curly hair up from behind his back.

Everyone who took the time knew the man relished in having an audience. Amidst some rather boisterous bouncing early on, Steve had turned onto his side to watch Eddie's performance. It was bad enough that Steve was still figuring out the knot worrying in his stomach when Eddie was around, but laying in Eddie's small bed with Eddie's bicep pressed to his chest, and Eddie's knee knocking into his, while Eddie passionately sang along to songs he had clearly developed his own choreography to when he wasn't playing air guitar, was driving it home to Steve that he may have something down bad for Eddie. He could not help but be mesmerized.

Thirteen and a half minutes after Eddie announced it was the last track of side one ("It's an epic poem, pretty boy, now shh!") the tape deck clicked. Only the music of rustling leaves and wind chimes outside remained. Eddie was pink cheeked, wide grinned, catching his breath with his limbs akimbo. "Fuckin' amazing, right?" he asked earnestly.

Steve smirked to himself. "Yeah, think it's growin' on me." Eddie punched the air and threw his arms back over his head. His well-worn 'Rush' shirt lifted from his low-slung jeans, revealing a triangle strip of healed scars across his abdomen. Steve nonchalantly cracked his knuckles and looked out the window to focus on anything else.

Eddie sighed contentedly, and then with a twinge of impatience said, "Alright, mind flippin' the cassette already?"

"What?"

"Well A) you're closer and B) you're closer. Soooo let's goooo!"

Steve's brows knit together but once he saw the impish glee smeared across Eddie's face, he sat up with Dustin's words echoing in his mind. "And here I thought you were one of the smart ones." He barreled past the scoff and pressed a hand to Eddie's sternum to keep him down. "No no, don't get up, I'll get it. Matter of fact, why don't you stay right here."

His big, brown eyes blinked into a squint. "Fine by me."

Steve got up and made a show of popping out the tape, turning it over, and replacing it. He ghosted his finger over the play button.

And then Steve was on his knees, looming over Eddie, ghosting his fingers along his exposed stomach. Eddie's hands jumped to catch him but Steve smacked them away. "Ah-ah. Don't move. You didn't wanna get up, remember?"

A fraction of hesitation, then, "No problem-o. I am at peak relaxation." Eddie tucked his hands underneath his bushy hair. His right leg began to bounce.

"Sure thing, Thumper, now hold still."

Having spent the past few weeks with Eddie, Steve learned he was a very touchy-feely dude; constantly hanging off his friends and clapping his large hands to their shoulders or knees. Eddie would dramatically wrestle with the brats and snuggle into whoever chose to be beside him. And yeah, sometimes those touches did turn to tickling the utter daylights out of whoever held his attention for the moment. He also knew that Eddie was easily provoked and startled, meaning that any retaliation attempts often turned him into a hyper maniac. Steve was banking on Eddie's stubborn ego to keep the tides from turning against him and having a repeat of last night.

(The swoosh in his chest at that thought was a problem for future Steve to analyze.)

Steve touched barely wiggling fingertips to the skin at the edge of Eddie's pantline and was immediately rewarded with goofy giggles. "Wow, really?" Steve laughed. "That's pathetic, Munson."

"F-fuck off!" His leg bouncing got worse.

"I struck gold without even trying," Steve joked. He walked his slow spider to the nearest shiny mauve bite mark. "Thought you'd put up a bigger fight."

"Shit shit shit!" Eddie's body jerked around the torrent of squeaky laughter slipping through his toothy smile. His hands scrambled up to clutch the edge of the mattress on both sides of his head and erected a tent between his elbows to hide in.

"Aw, well now that's adorable." Steve skittered near the jut of his hip bones up under his shirt toward his waist. Eddie's feet drummed into the bed as a plethora of snorts and swears broke apart his giggles. "You talk a big game for someone so ticklish it's silly. Imagine if I was trying to get revenge on ya."

Eddie's neck and cheeks turned from pink to red. "You-you just gonna be a-a-a fuckin tease about it, huh?" He sucked in his stomach and squirmed away from Steve's fingers.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Steve mocked. He tucked his body defensively, stiffened his hands into claws and vibrated them into Eddie's abdominal muscles. "Is this better?" He had to shout over the unhinged, shrieking laughter shaking the walls of the trailer.

Eddie's hands gripped his shoulders. His feet dug into the bed. Both vain attempts to push and buck Steve off from his stable wrestling position and the seismic fingers drifted toward his lower stomach. When those attempts to dislodge failed, Eddie tried to curl around Steve's instead.

"Rookie mistake, Munson!"

A loud, wet noise ripped from Eddie's unprotected side. "Wh-WHAT-oh jesus fucking CHRIST! Are you TWELVE?!" Another raspberry to his hip sent him cackling hysterically.

The front door to the trailer opened and closed loudly, followed by rapid stomps in their direction. Steve scrambled to his feet, wiping his mouth on his henley sleeve. The anxious breath caught in his chest released when he saw a serious looking Max enter the doorframe. "Oh good, it's just you…what are you doin' here?"

"Dudes, the whole neighborhood could hear someone screaming," said Max, relaxing into a smirk. They both looked at the panting, sprawled out puddle that was Edward Munson before meeting each other's gaze again.

"So you ran toward it?" Steve asked. Max shared a soft, albeit secretive, expression of familiarity with Eddie and shrugged. "We have got to work on all your kids' self preservation skills." Dustin's friends had a unique gift of making Steve incredibly tired.

"Well," Steve turned to Eddie, hooked his hand behind the crook of his knees and gave a sharp tug to pull him down the bed, "wanna be an accomplice to murder instead of a witness?"

"Yeah, sure."

The giggles had already ensnared Eddie in response to being manhandled. "Fuck off - no, you stay out of this, Red!" His arms glued to his side and fists balled to his chest.

Max clambered on top of Eddie as though it were second nature and peered down at the bundle of sparkly nerves beneath her. "And if I don't?" She took a moment to move Eddie's hair from where it could accidentally be pulled and away from his blush coated neck. Eddie made a competitive growling noise in the back of his throat.

"You two get on like a kitchen fire," Steve commented as he lounged across Eddie's lap. "Bubbling oil," he tripped his fingers up the center of Eddie's quivering stomach. "And cool water." Steve chuckled at the irked expression that crossed Max's face and kept the sibling rivalry observations to himself.

"For fucksakes, get off, you guys are heavy," Eddie grunted with an exaggerated show of effort. His feet flopped, first as a joke and second more frantic in the realization that he was unable to find the mattress to kick off from and gain leverage. "Oh shit."

"What's the matter?" Max asked with a saccharine lilt Steve only heard when she was challenging the boys into doing something exceptionally stupid.

Eddie was twitching, and maybe hissing?, until he was practically vibrating. In fact, this was perhaps the quietest Steve had ever heard Eddie be since he's known of him. Max, however, was snickering with the same sort of delighted mischief he'd heard Robin use at work when stacking Red Vine boxes precariously tall. She was hunched over and quickly extending and retracting T-Rex arms toward Eddie's neck, ears and chin.

It was when Steve casually wrapped his hand just above Eddie's knee that his resolve broke. "Wait - shit, don't! Steve-MAX!"

Laughter filled the room like spun sugar at the county fair; imperceptible at first but quickly growing in beauty and volume until all you want is to indulge in the fleeting sweetness of it. Eddie jumped at each of Steve's soft knee squeezes and craned his head away from Max's fluttering nails at his throat and squirmed futilely from Steve marching his fingers back and forth between his hips. Between their dedication to tenderness and the afternoon sun catching the dust motes swirling over Eddie's head, Steve felt he and Max had come to an unspoken decision to prolong this moment for as long as they could get away with.

A few minutes after they had slid off him, Steve helped him sit up against the wall while Max went to grab some sodas out of Eddie's fridge. "You okay, chuckle chops?" Steve asked.

"From the bottom of my heart, fuck you."

"How sweet," Max said, passing out drinks and taking a seat next to Eddie.

"Oh, don't think you're getting out of this." Eddie gulped from the can greedily and, consequently, belched in a way that made Max's face screw up in disgust. "And you called me evil, Harrington."

Steve didn't even try to stop the small swell of pride or the sideways grin. Instead, he just pressed play on the tape deck.

[noahschnappinfs]

I've seen some people say that Noah and his team are trying to save his image by using Will and byler. What do you think? 🤨

if that’s the case, then he needs to start making some calls to join the witness protection program by the time ST5 comes out because we all know that the bylers will come for his neck lol

now, let’s get more serious here. i don’t know why everything noah does must have some hidden sinister motive. millie, caleb and even jamie have been posting bts content these past few months and nobody over analyses it in the same way that they do with noah. noah isn’t waking up randomly saying “oh the fans hate me, let’s give them will bts content so they can love me again” and chooses to post bts pics because he wants to. every single thing he has posted publicly about the show this year must’ve been coordinated and approved by the netflix. we’re talking about a show that’s spending so much money in security and ndas to avoid leaks and spoilers so i can assure you that they aren’t letting their actors just post stuff for their own selfish reasons. the duffers, before they started filming, mentioned that they would let us see more because it’s the last season and clearly they’ve curated content for us to keep the hype up, and the actors are being instructed as well to do the same. it’s funny that only noah is the attention seeker or the one using his character for redemption here when other actors are also posting bts content. he’s excited about being will for the last time and he’s allowed to.

now let’s talk about byler. let’s make it clear from the beginning that he doesn’t write the show and it’s not clear if he’s got the complete scripts yet. if byler doesn’t happen, it’s not his fault. he clearly likes it, he has liked byler for years and supports the idea but even he has been aware that he doesn’t control the storylines and said at a con that he doesn’t want people to be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. this year he has barely mentioned byler since they started filming and let me say that if there’s a byler pic in his photo dump then it’s there because it was allowed to be there by netflix. let’s not forget that there’s also times people just look for byler in places they shouldn’t and then blame noah. for example when they were snooping on his spotify playlist and making it about byler, that’s obviously not his fault. even in one of his livestreams recently, he literally said “i can’t talk about that” multiple times and didn’t hint at anything and people said it was about byler and honestly that’s not his fault. writing theories is fun and all that but we have to be aware that they are just theories for now.

he’s been mostly posting and talking about his own life recently and he has posted will when he’s been allowed to. you all know that i love byler and i’d love to see it happen but noah doesn’t control it and we all have to be aware of that. we also shouldn’t jump at making conclusions so early because let’s not forget when people were attacking noah after ST4 part 1 came out because will being gay wasn’t clear yet. he tried to clear it up a bit and told people to wait, and some people still attacked him personally and even said that “he doesn’t understand because he’s a straight frat boy” at the time when he was still closeted.

i sometimes honestly dread for the day ST5 comes out if byler doesn’t happen because i know we will get a way worse repeat of that. i also sometimes wish he wouldn’t post so much ST stuff because they same people enjoying all that content also end up attacking him daily for it.

[joker-daughter]

One Tom look that everyone loved but you hated // One look that everyone hated but you secretly loved

If you could trap Tom in an escape room with any celeb, who would you choose (I say this after rewatching the video with Will Smith it was so funny)

Not Tom related but : another actor/celeb you find interesting and is fun to follow (because ngl it's getting drier than the desert in Tom nation, for people who can't see the play)

An underrated show / Movie that doesn't get enough credit in your opinion

(ps : I'm the anon who sent those 4 questions the other day about fav look, fav performance, dream project etc.. I like to ask questions as you can see 😋)

• One Tom look that everyone loved but you hated // One look that everyone hated but you secretly loved

I don‘t think there‘s one that I hated but I’m not the biggest fan of the FFH premiere look, it was nicely fitted, yes, but it wasn’t as insane of a look as some were saying back then…and I genuinely can’t think of a look that everyone hated but I liked, sorry but if there’s anyone who would like to share one, feel free to do so! • If you could trap Tom in an escape room with any celeb, who would you choose

probably Florence Pugh, it would just be so chaotic and very funny since both are dorky as hell, also Robert Pattinson just popped into my head? I think that would be extremely interesting

• another actor/celeb you find interesting and is fun to follow

RAYE, albeit she’s a singer, but my god, her artistry is incredible, also not someone I necessarily follow but Joseph Quinn is a very great actor and I remember saying during ST4 that he’ll make it far and I wasn’t far off lol and again, Florence too

• An underrated show / Movie that doesn't get enough credit in your opinion

The Book of Eli, maybe? I remember really liking that movie but never really hearing much about it also you can’t never go wrong with Denzel, the Equalizer trilogy is also amazing

thank you again for this, anon :) <3

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Stranger Things & The Fly

I was looking at the ST4 DNA board, which I haven't personally spent time closely examining, and I saw The Fly on there. I'm assuming they meant the 1986 version and not the 1958 one because...you know...the 80s. So my immediate thought was "oh. NINA."

But I decided to do a rewatch of The Fly to see what else paralleled, and it isn't just the NINA elements. Rather, there are two separate parts of the Stranger Things 4 story that echo The Fly. Someone has probably already talked about this, but I'm crap at searching for things, so I couldn't find it. SO I'LL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY. This will contain spoilers for The Fly (1986).

The purpose of the pods in The Fly is teleportation via disintegration. You put something in one pod, it disintegrates, then reassembles itself in the other pod. Sounds familiar, you say?

This is the second storyline I'll be talking about.

In The Fly, our scientist protagonist, Seth Brundle, has figured out how to teleport inanimate objects, but when he tries to teleport anything living, it goes wrong. I was going to post a screenshot of him attempting to teleport a baboon, but it's maybe too icky for tumblr? Basically, in Seth's own words, "It turned the baboon inside out." Hmm. Reminds me of...upside down? Seth says "Something was lost in translation." So when the baboon was transported by disintegrating and reassembling, it didn't come back right. This is because he says "Computers are dumb. They only know what you tell them." So he teaches the computers to understand flesh (yeah, idk how he did that either). And the next baboon lives! Huzzah!

What does that mean? Maybe that 001's transportation to this other world (which may or may not be the Upside Down...could even be, dare I say, the Inside Out?), something went wrong. We see how mutilated he became and while he lived and Baboon #1 did not, he still ends up looking like a grody sack of meat, just like Baboon #1. Seth apologizes to Baboon #2 about killing his brother in an aside, but the brother comment is interesting. Perhaps meaningless. But with all the weirdness surrounding Henry that we still don't have answers to (like who tf is Edward Creel?) and the time wonkiness we can expect from season 5, it seems possible that there's a different version of Henry (or Edward) that DIDN'T come out as a grody sack of meat.

After the baboon success, Seth decides to teleport himself (dumbass) and it's VERY IMPORTANT that there is nothing else in the pods or else the molecules could reassemble wrong. And a fly gets into the pod with him, causing his DNA to merge with the fly's DNA when he comes out the other pod. Which brings me back to the NINA Project.

The purpose of the NINA project is to do exactly what the pods do accidentally. The NINA project is intended to influence the person in the pod by putting them in there with an external source. So like Seth's DNA changes with the presence of the fly (accidentally), El's memory changes with the presence of the video tapes.

The fact that Seth comes out wrong could indicate that El does too. The video tapes could, in fact, be influencing her to remember events incorrectly rather than truly giving back her genuine memories of events. There are other people on here who have written some really incredible, comprehensive posts compiling evidence of all the discrepancies between what we see in flashbacks and throughout NINA, so I'm not going to try. But at the end of the day, we still don't know why. Evidence seems to support that Vecna is a different version of Henry/Edward than the one El is being told to remember in NINA, and what she's seeing may in fact be a combination of what she's being told to and what she truly experienced. If you were to look at this through the lens of The Fly, El and the videotapes being in a pod together would make sense as a merging of two things rather than as a recovery of her own memories. (How relevant The Fly is, who's to say, it's all speculation for fun)

Of course, Seth comes out monstrous and El does not (*cough* probably). This brings Seth back to paralleling Vecna, as his disintegration and reconstruction in a horrific way alters not just his appearance, but who he is fundamentally. I imagine something similar happened to turn 001 into Vecna.

There's a super weird quote in the movie after Seth merges with the fly but before he realizes what's happened. He's trying to get his love interest to go through the pods and she refuses.

"You're afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren't you? You're afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren't you? ...You can't penetrate beyond society's sick grey fear of the flesh. Drink deep or taste not the plasma spring...I'm talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh, a deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool." So...WTF amirite? It's sort of a bunch of raving nonsense, but there are key words and phrases in there that really stick out to me. Being destroyed and recreated. The multiple references to the pool. (There is no pool in The Fly. This is a metaphor but there IS one in Stranger Things) The veil beyond the flesh, which could be the veil of...shadows? And of course, it's all about fear.

Brenner tells El "If you go too fast, I'm afraid you could become lost in the darkness. And if you are lost, so are we all." As evidenced by The Fly, going too fast very much did get Seth lost in the darkness. Brenner was even at least partially right about El. He tells her she isn't ready but she leaves anyway and she doesn't save the day. The apocalypse comes to Hawkins. (And Max is lost in the darkness)

I think the clearest parallels with this movie are the pods and the disintegration method of travel. Everything else is me blabbing. But after this rewatch, I am intrigued by the idea of the other Henry/Edward being the "successful" version of a teleportation.

Here are a couple of other quotes I found interesting that I'll just be leaving here for funzies:

"The sheer process of being taken apart atom by atom and put back together again...why, it's like coffee being put through a filter."

"Human teleportation, molecular decimation, breakdown and reformation, is inherently purging. It makes a man a king."

[thestobingirlie]

Hello!! How are you?? So, I absolutely hate ronanc/e. Like you never ever date your friend's ex, especially if it ends badly. Which is what happened. There's going to be a ton a complicated feelings about Steve and ro/nance and even if Steve didn't express his displeasure about it, it would negatively affect Steve's relationship with Robin. Like ST4 completely screwed over Stobin for Stancy. And it drives me crazy that Steve, who canonically has issues with people committing infidelity, would go for someone already in a relationship. And Dustin, Robin and Eddie for convincing Steve to go after someone in a relationship!! And Nancy and Robin barely have a good relationship in canon! Nancy gets annoyed with Robin until she does something helpful to Nancy's cause. (Which is something that is now like ingrained in Nancy's character and I would like for the Duffer's to let her change from it, because it makes her so unlikable and the one of the most unrealistic parts of the show is that no one treats her like she only cares about people until they are useful to her.)

I honestly think people are harsh on Vickie (I adore her, she looks like a really good match for Robin and she's bi! If not canonically, then in my heart.) because Robin is the sole canonical wlw character in the party. So her love interest falls under way more scrutiny and when the Duffer's gave her a similar trait to Robin, people were disappointed, especially with how little screen time she has. And if the Duffers wanted, they could have really easily made Vickie a more prominent character. Have Chrissy take her for backup at Eddie's trailer and have them both go on the run or something. And most non party love interests get the same amount of development. (Take Suzie) However, on the fandom side of things, people will literally make up backstories for Gareth and ship him with Will???? You see this white boy who's a junior and got like 30 seconds of screen time and decides he's a good match for Will, but you see Vickie and deem she is too similar for Robin and won't bother creating backstories for her? People literally do it for Chrissy and ship her with Robin! Nothing against Buckingham, it's just that people will take any character and give them backstories and ship them but they won't do this for Vickie.

I think that the whole Robin and Nancy making fun of Steve things stems from Robin making fun of Steve in ST3 and Nancy just generally being demeaning to Steve in general. And ST4, with every single person demeaning Steve's intelligence did not help at all. And people say that you shouldn't bring a man's feelings into a wlw relationship, but Steve is entangled in this relationship. Nancy was his first love and Robin is his best friend. If the genders were swapped, people would be having a conniption. [Also, I honestly believe that if you swapped the genders of the characters, Steve would get a lot less hate and Nancy would get a lot more, but that's my opinion. Like people would never doubt that Nancy cheated on Steve and Steve breaking the camera wasn't all that unreasonable.]

Anyways, sorry for the long ask, I just have a lot of opinions on ro/nance and platonic Stobin and Vickie! (Also, from above, like Vickie and Chrissy could have been childhood friends but then grew apart but they know they can go to each other for everything, so Chrissy takes her to Eddie's trailer and then season 4 continues with lots of Rockie interactions. I would love to read a ST4 AU like that but unfortunately I haven't seen any of those on AO3 and I have negative writing skills, so I will be waiting for the day that it might come) ~@thestrangerthingsmeadow

hi!! i’m good, thank you.

i’m so glad other people dislike r//nance! the ship feels so difficult to escape within this fandom, which is insane, because it honestly makes no sense to me. i think a lot of people that ship it, ship it because they’re two hot women, and don’t really care beyond that. their personalities don’t mesh well, and their situations in life don’t either. like you said, steve is robin’s best friend and nancy’s ex. it’s just not the kind of thing that mix.

i didn’t love that a lot of stobin scenes became about stancy, and i feel like nancy replaced a lot of scenes that could’ve included robin. it is also weird to me that so many people were pushing for stancy when nancy and jonathan are still together. like you said, steve has major issues with infidelity, and while i can see dustin pushing for steve and nancy (because he loves to involve himself into steve’s love life) i don’t really understand eddie putting in his two cents.

and yeah! nancy really only likes people when they benefit her in some way, which is a really interesting character trait, but not if the character never develops out of it. nancy’s character development has been stagnated for 4 seasons, when they gave her a handgun and decided that was enough.

i love vickie so much and it kills me that the fandom doesn’t appreciate her. i’m pretty sure she’s canonically bi, but people toss her aside for no reason. and while i would’ve liked vickie to have more of a role, i also think it makes sense that she doesn’t. someone compared her to rosie from lotr. the calm in the storm, the peace at home, the hope you long for during horrible times. i know the st fandom loves trauma relationships, but i just love the idea of robin being able to have someone safe, outside of everything horrible that’s happened to her. and yeah, i don’t have anything against gareth, he’s a fun little character, but i have no idea why people love him and will so much, it’s honestly weird. people found the closest in age, good looking teenager they could, and said that’s good enough! wlw will always come under more scrutiny than mlm.

i’ve made a post about how much i hate steve becoming the butt of all stranger things jokes, but it’s even worse if it’s his ex and his ex’s new girlfriend that is also his best friend making fun of him. and i think it’s insane that people complain about a man being involved in a lesbian relationship, like… first of all, it isn’t even a real relationship (not in real life, or even the show) and second, a man is involved. he is quite literally at the centre. you can shove him off to the side, but in doing so essentially create entirely different characters. and i think i made a post about that!! if nancy was the man people would hate her, like she would probably be one of the least liked characters. people would consider it girl power that steve had slutshamed nancy, and smashed the camera. and if you’d had a drunk guy calling his girlfriend bullshit, and saying he’d never loved her. people would think they were the worst person alive.

you don’t have to apologise for long asks!! though it might take me a bit longer to respond!! and i do love that idea to involve vickie more!! honestly if i had written the season, i wouldn’t have given her a current boyfriend, but still, i’m just glad we got her at all. and if that fic existed, i’d totally read it!!

[apatheticlexicographer]

BYLER FIC REC WEEK 2023 DAY 4: FRIENDS & FAMILY recs

sorey i am so late with this one. i am. very sick

I Didn’t Know There Were Wizards In California by spotlightonmringenue, and its sequel

will (and richie)-centric; lots of plot. this is very popular on ao3 but i see??? nobody talk about it on here??? will meets and befriends richie tozier in lenora after they both move away from their respective helltowns. while this is technically a crack premise, it is written so well that u will simply not even realize. the first fic is set in lenora and focuses mostly on developing the friendship between will and richie (and the dynamic is great!!!), while the second is set after ST4 and focuses more heavily on the plot, addressing the events and lore of both ST and IT and broadening the range of POVs. multichapter series, sequel is ongoing

Mall rats by corncakes

will-centric; no plot outside of canon events. will ditches the guys at the mall in s3 and hangs out with el and max instead. he’s part of their plotline instead of the other boys’, and they all girlboss together. silly fun :]]] oneshot, complete

friend of my brother is my enemy (or something like that) by groovystarman

mike-centric (but through jonathan’s eyes); no plot. jonathan is a perceptive bastard, so he traps mike in a car and chews mike out until he cracks. yeah haha jonathan is president of the mike wheeler hate club but also he HAS known mike since he was a tiny child and he still has a heart, dammit. it’s a very cathartic read and an interesting perspective. oneshot, complete

[queenimmadolla]

ALWAYS, ok just a fun little question, I need to know why you’re so drawn to Eddie, JUST GO HAM AND GUSH ABOUT IT BABE

Boy am I glad I fixed (i think) the read more thing because I’ll give you everything I got:

I gotta start this off by saying i had no intentions and no interest in watching stranger things 4 when it premiered. The wait between season 3 and 4 was pretty long, especially because of covid and while i had attempted to keep the interest up, there wasn’t a whole lot of the fandom active until a little before st4 dropped, but the last time i was here, it was dead as hell. And so i left, not ever expecting to come back. then one day, after st4 had started streaming i was just scrolling through twitter and i saw a picture of Eddie. He piqued my interest immediately, the only thing i could equate it to is like when you were in high school, catching sight of someone you never really noticed before and being completely smitten at first sight. I wanted to know more about him, needed to. So i finally started the new season.

One thing that’s important to know before i detail exactly why i became so interested in Eddie is a little background information that i wont go too deep into detail about, but i lost my dad in early 2021. We were very close, he also liked Stranger Things (both of my parents did but we’re not gonna talk about my mom’s favs rn) and our bond only deepened during my late teenage years because of how into 70s and 80s music i was (am, but you’d think I was a 70s girl if you saw me)—like everyone else who was a teenager through st1-3, IT, and watched all the 80s tv shows that aired on like nick at night, tbs, tvland, etc.—and those were my dad’s golden years, he’d been in several bands and a DJ. He played the guitar (left me with so many guitars and a ton of amps) and he could absolutely SHRED it. He appreciated all genres—really, he just loved any song with a good guitar solo—but he loved rock and heavy metal, for obvious reasons (the guitar shredding). He was definitely a metal head, though he didn’t look the part (he’s black, heavily resembled Wesley Snipes especially back then, and you wont ever see a whole lot of aesthetics of black metal heads of the 80s for obvious reasons, and he was rocking the jerry curl lol, but it was a mullet). He was a pretty intimidating looking dude, that never stopped him from singing along to R5 with me and the Jonas brothers, one direction, Kelly clarkson, he’d encourage my love for music in whatever form/genre I liked. He got so excited when I also finally started appreciating the same type of music he did, but that wasn’t til around 2 or 3 years before he passed. And then when he did, i didn’t have any to talk to about it.

And here came Eddie, to the rescue (he and the rest of the Hawkins gang also popped up when I was being iced out of my only friend group at the time and I was really depressed). I liked Eddie, not only because I was INSTANTLY attracted to him, I also liked his style, I liked his hair, his pretty brown eyes (what they do to me should be illegal), how adaptable he was (stern when the hellfire boys needed it, gentle around people he could tell were shaken) and how he encouraged people to maintain their individuality (namely Dustin, while Eddie was really hot in the cafeteria scene, I wasn’t too fond of how he was ragging on people for what they liked, because they weren’t like him—when they weren’t even harassing or bothering him and I didn’t care for how he was unwilling to see Lucas—one of his little sheepies who was finding his way—play in one of the most important games to him but we got more Erica out of it so I’ll forgive him). His voice is also surprisingly comforting to me, I can’t explain why. AND HIS THEATRICS! My god, I could imagine watching him goof around, letting himself collapse onto the floor because of trivial things and just being dramatic and funny, all day long. The best part about him, is that he’s the most real feeling boy out of the “core three” (Steve, Jonathan and Eddie, I don’t count Billy for me because I don’t like him for obvious reasons) to me. See, I’ve been interested in all three of those boys. Jonathan first, then Steve (and still kind of) but my loyalty is to Eddie. Jonathan was first because it was Jonathan VS Steve, you know? The quiet underdog from the wrong side of the tracks, the good boy. it’s a character trope but a good one. And then Steve, former mean rich boy with a heart of gold. Another excellent character trope. Both of those boys are picture perfect Teenage Dreams. Then you have Eddie, who—I can’t explain how I know, I just do—would bark at someone who was bothering him until they were freaked out enough to go away. He’s considered trailer trash, a metal head with messy hair who deals drugs, becomes a friend to freshmen who no one else wants to associate with, starts arguments with the ‘popular’ crowd—that boy is NOT a victim, if Chrissy hadn’t died in that trailer he would have been harassing Jason and his crew more than the other way around lol—talks in weird voices, has weird gimmicks all while comforting sad girls, being chivalrous enough to help them into boats and holding Robin during the quakes in the Upside Down. In my opinion he’s far from a bad boy and difficult to stick into one character trope box. And out of all the boys, he’s the most realistic Teenage Dream. He’s one of a kind but it also feels like I could find him somewhere out in the world.

But my favorite thing about Eddie is the fact that I know I’d be gushing all about my love for him to my dad if he were alive. And my dad wouldn’t mind because he’d be his favorite character, too, with all of their shared interests and how Eddie is kind of the epitome for the crowd he used to be a part of. Sometimes, I entertain the idea it’d feel an awful lot like telling my dad about a boyfriend and him finally like him, my dad hated all my boyfriends and refused to let me tell him ANYTHING about them. Like everyone else who loves Eddie, I wish he was real, but mostly for that reason. Honestly, I’d barely be able to be friends with Eddie. My crush on him would be way too intense for me to like operate as a normal human being around him and with him, I can tell I’d regress to my high school self and love/admire from afar because of my shyness. Those high school crushes were pretty magical for me, though nothing ever came from them (I didn’t start my maneater ways until after high school when I got hot and started doing drugs) and yeah, that’s the type of teenage dream he is for me. My love for him is intense enough to have me not only reading fanfiction—which isn’t all that surprising because I’ve been doing it since elementary school—but freaking WRITING it!!! I can count the amount of times I’d done so in the past on one hand (most of which I deleted a long ass time ago) and still have fingers available. Now, i can’t stop. I just can’t. And it’s all because of him. Everything i write is like my way of writing a love letter to Eddie. Even if I did stop writing, I wouldn’t ever stop being drawn to him.

So, all of that is why I’m so drawn to him, why I really do love him, and why I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let him go. And you might notice a lot of that also reflects in my writing.

So, all of that is why I’m so drawn to him, why I really do love him, and why I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let him go. And you might notice a lot of that also reflects in my writing.

[eddiernunson]

Trapped | Eddie Munson | Part 11

Prev Part | Master List | Epilogue

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 11.6k

Next and final chapter will be an Epilogue.

Warnings: It's the last two episodes of ST4...so you get the gist. A large talk of grief at the end with a slight tw for EDs (food restriction due to depression). I don't put all three story lines from Hawkins in. This one has 90% of only what the reader experiences. At the end there's a gap filler for what happens for her over the two days later bullshit that we all had to just...sit through.

Authors Note: Fun fact, as I make this draft it was a year ago that I published the first Part. Man I didn't think I would follow through for the full thing at times but I'm happy to have proven myself wrong.

Chapter Eight: Papa

Stagnant relief made a startling switch into action as the stakes reached into space. A fire is lit under your ass into Eddie’s bedroom, attempting the hopeless task to find any sense of music both Nancy and Eddie would own.

As someone who resided and listened to his music with him, the task was daunting to see if he had any of that Madonna he was once accused of singing in the shower after you had just gotten together. Your eyes switch to Max’s trailer next door, wondering if you could just snatch a tape from her collection. However, it was clear from the yelling and the chaos that there wasn’t enough time for that.

Erica bursts into the room after being on Upside Down watch claiming, “Steve says you need to hurry!”

“Yeah? No shit!” Dustin yelled, on the verge of a rampage.

“We’re trying. We can’t find anything.” Max yells, having gone through half of Eddie’s music yet finding nothing she could use.

“What is all this shit?” Robin yells out, clutching a handful of tapes of artists she’s never even heard of.

“What are you even looking for?” Eddie barks out, this point annoyed his tape collection has been made a mess of.

“Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles? Music! We need music!”

Eddie grabs a tape from her, pissed off. “This is music!”

“Okay.” You interject, attempting to de-escalate the already high tense situation. “Okay, Max lives right down the road, why don’t two of us go and grab one that would—”

“Guys!” A loud bark from down the hall comes from Steve, calling out. The collective group makes their way over to see what he was yelling about, met with the sight of Nancy scared yet still alive.  

As Steve and Nancy both climbed the rope to make their way back, Dustin peers at you with a particular look on his face. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What?”

“Max’s house, when they get back, we’ll go meet over there so Vecna can’t eavesdrop as much.”

“That wasn’t—” You started, but realized there wasn’t much of a point. “Alright.”

Once Steve lands on the landing pad with a stupid amount of grace Dustin lets him know the plans. Steve rolls his eyes, implying they weren’t going to be able to stay with the gate being so close, anyway.

The plan is shared, and you make yourself comfortable at Max’s, while Nancy tells the story of what she had seen.

As it turns out, Vecna was Henry Creel, son of Victor Creel. He was the one who tormented and murdered his family and Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick. Apparently as an Orderly he murdered dozens more in the Labs when there were more numbers than Eleven. In fact, he was One.

Nancy explains everything she saw, and she starts to stammer when she reaches towards the end. Throughout her discussion, she is withdrawn and factual, an armour for her fear.

“He showed me things that haven’t happened yet. The most awful things.” She whispered, continuing her explanation. “I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this…giant creature with… a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn’t alone.” Her words rung out in a dead silence, no one even daring to breathe. It was truly a higher stake than any of you have ever faced, and it was terrifying. “There were so many monsters. An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes. And then… he showed me my mom,” Nancy chokes out, a tear running down her face. “And Holly. Mike. And they…they were all…” She can’t even finish her sentence, and she didn’t have to.

Steve, sitting to your right on the couch as you sat on the floor attempts to defuse the tension risen in the air. “Okay, but… he’s just trying to scare you, Nance.” He says, looking at his lap. You barely believed him and wondered if he believed himself. “Right? I mean…I mean it’s not real.”

“Not yet.” Nancy answers, not accepting his attempt. “But there… there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one outside of Eddie’s trailer, but…they didn’t stop growing. And this wasn’t the Upside Down Hawkins. This was our Hawkins. Our home.”

“Four chimes.” Max speaks up. Your eyes all flutter to her, as she stands leant up against the doorway. “Vecna’s clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly.”

Nancy gulps. “I heard them too.” You switch your glance back to Nancy, and to say you were a fan of this connection would be a lie.

The air hangs heavy in Max’s house, your pulse racing despite you sitting completely still.

“He’s been telling us his plan this whole time.” Max says.

“Four kills.” Lucas adds, doing the math. “Four gates. End of the world.”

“If that’s true…” Dustin chimes in, hands on his hips and at a loss for words, “he’s only one kill away.”

Eddie speaks up for the first time in a while, and you love him even more for what he says. “Oh Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.” He grumbles into his hands, his hair dishevelled and his body tensing up.

“Try ‘em again. Try ‘em again.” Steve urges Max, referring to the many calls attempted to get a hold of the Buyers before Nancy started explaining what she had saw.

Max does so, running to her phone to give it another ring. She barely holds it before she hangs it up again.

“Anything?” Dustin asks her.

“No. Rang a few times, then went to a busy signal.”

“Maybe you punched it wrong. Try again.” Steve tells her, momentarily taking his hands off his face for it.

“I didn’t punch it in wrong.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“I think she knows how to use a phone” Dustin interjects, sticking up for Max.

“I’m just saying, she could’ve typed it in wrong.” Steve argues.

Max punches in the phone again, hanging it up even louder after a few seconds. “Same shit.”

“How is that possible?” Lucas asks, his hands on his hips.

“Joyce has this telemarketer job. She’s always on the phone.” Dustin answers. “Mike won’t stop whining about it.”

“Yeah but his phone’s been busy for, what, three days now? That’s not Joyce. No way. Something’s wrong.” Max argues, and despite the telemarketing job being logical, she has a point.

“She’s right.” Nancy agrees. “It can’t be just coincidence. It can’t be.” She gets up, staring out the window. “Whatever’s happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I’m sure of it. But Vecna can’t hurt them. Not if he’s dead. We have to back in there. Back to the Upside Down.” Nancy announces, and she’s almost an entirely different person after these last five minutes. There’s a conviction in her voice that didn’t feel earned.

The following response is simultaneous.

“Whoa, no, no, no. What?” Steve asks in his most incredulous voice. (And as you know, there are levels)

“Nope. Nope.” Eddie dismisses out of hand, waving his hands to demonstrate his exact disdain for her plan.

“The place we just spent 12 hours trying to escape?” You ask her, hoping she wasn’t serious. Because surely she’s not.

“Let’s think this through.” Steve argues, getting up off the couch to get to Nance.

“What is there to think through?” Nancy interrupts him, confronting him.

“We barely made it out of there in once piece.” Steve argues back.

“That’s what I’m saying.” You mutter, agreeing with him. You look up at your boyfriend as he continues to rub his face in pure stress. You sit up on the couch next to him, rubbing his hand in comfort. He indulges, placing his head into your neck.

“Yeah, because we weren’t prepared.  But this time, we will be. We’ll get weapons and protection. We’ll go through the gate, we’ll find his lair, and we’ll kill him.” Nancy answers him, listing it off as if it were so simple.

“Or he’ll kill us.” Steve bites back. “The only reason you survived is because he wanted you to. He’s not scared of us.”

“And for good reason.” Robin pipes up for the first time in a while. “We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One.” She stammers, losing her point. “Sorry. What are we calling him now?”

“One.”

“Vecna.”

“One.”

“Henry.”

“Right. We’ve learned something new about Vecna slash Henry slash One. He’s a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin. But my…my point is, he’s super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It’s not a fair fight.”

“Then why fight fair?” Dustin asks, his mind reeling. “You’re right. He’s like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven’s strengths. And weaknesses.”

“Weaknesses?” Erica asks pointedly.

“When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna.” Dustin explains.

“That would explain what he was doing in that attic.” Lucas understands.

“Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I’ll bet you he’s back in that attic, physical body defenseless.”

“Defenseless?” Steve bites out. “What about the army of bats?” He says, pointing to his neck to where he was strangled.

“Right. We’ll have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow.” Dustin admits to a flaw in his ever-growing plan.

“And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?” Eddie bites out, standing up.

“No idea.” Dustin admits, and Eddie sits right back down. What was brewing in that mind of his? “But once they’re gone, he doesn’t stand a chance. It’ll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin.”

“That all sounds great,” you say, standing up from the couch, “in theory.” You finish. “We don’t know when or who he’s going even attack next.”

“Yeah, we do.” Max whispers out. “I can still feel him. I’m still marked. Cursed. I ditch Kate Bush; I draw his focus back to me.”

“Max.” Lucas whispers. “You can’t. He’ll kill you.”

“I survived before.” She gulps, nodding her head. “I can survive again. I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic. Then you can chop his head off. Stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up. I honestly really don’t care how you put this asshole into his grave. Just…whatever it is…whatever you do…try not to miss.”

The air hangs heavy, again.

But something about how a 15-year-old girl basically offers herself up for a potential sacrifice in the name of destroying the villain does that.

-

 “Check this out. The War Zone.” Eddie says as he taps the ad with his index finger. You stand in-between him and Robin, staring down at the open phone book. “I’ve been there once. It’s huge. They’ve got everything you need for uh…well…” He pauses, catching your eye. “Killing things, basically.”

“You think fake Rambo has enough guns there?” Robin asks, commenting on the ad. “Is that a grenade? I mean, how is any of this legal?”

“Well, lucky for us, it is, so… This… This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and uh, angry hicks.”

“If we’re trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn’t go to some store called the War Zone.” Erica points out.

“Normally, I’d agree but we need the weapons. So I think it’s worth the risk.” Nancy states, crossing her arms.

“Me too.” Lucas agrees.

“But is it worth the time?” Dustin asks. “It’ll take all day to bike there and back.”

“Who said anything about bikes?” Eddie asks him, and his voice sounded…cocky?

“You uh, got some car I don’t know about?” You ask, your voice a bit flirtier than you had intended it to.

“It’s…not exactly a car, there sweetheart.” He says, flirting right back. Oh, how you missed this. “And it’s not exactly mine, but uh…it’ll do.” Before you have a minute to revel in how normal your boyfriend seemed, he turns around towards Max. “Hey, Red, uh, you got a ski mask or a bandana, something like that?”

Max smirks, an old favourite making its way to the forefront of her mind.

-

Eddie’s gleeful smile when she hands over the Michael Meyers mask brings out a certain twinkle in his eyes you missed more than words could say.

He leads the entire group across the grassy fields that maintained a permanent home in the park up against one of his neighbour’s homes. He clutches onto a small grey bag you’ve noticed in a messy corner of his room once or twice, grinning at you maniacally when you have an unsaid question on your face. He scopes around the corner, giving a go a head when it’s all clear. The whole group follows him, all looking over your shoulders as Eddie flies across the grass to a specific trailer his fingers have itched for.

He leads across their front yard, the trailer’s inhabitants distracted by something on the radio. He sneaks around the back to a window he very specifically scoped out and opens and climbs in without a second to spare.

If your heart wasn’t racing so much from trying not to get caught you it would’ve been racing by how surprisingly turned on you were.

As soon as Eddie lands on the couch the Michael Meyers mask is unceremoniously ripped off, “That was suffocating.”

With help from Steve, you climb in, internally swearing at Eddie for making it look way easier than it was. As you get to the front, you sit in passenger seat, drawing the window curtain closed. Steve was right behind you, watching curiously as you were as Eddie made rewiring a vehicle look like idle work for idle hands.

“Where’d you learn how do this?” Steve asks him, paying more attention to the actual rewiring process than Eddie was.

“Well, when the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my dad was teaching me how to hot wire. Now, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wind up like he did, but now I’m wanted for murder, and soon, grand theft auto. So, uh, I’m really living up to that Munson name.” He jokes, giving you a saucy wink as he does.

“Eddie, I’m not sure I love the idea of you driving.” Robin admits timidly.

Eddie smirks, a glint in his eye. “Oh, I’m just startin’ this sucker. Harrington’s got her.” Eddie leans into him, teasing. “Don’t ya, big boy?” Eddie turns and starts the engine, causing a backfire.

The inhabitants of the trailer scramble to their feet upon the backfire. “Hey!”

The door right behind you shakes. “They looked the door!”

Eddie smirks to you, a wild look in his eye. He looks back to Steve, moving to his feet.

For the last two days it felt as if you haven’t seen Eddie experience anything but stress. But here, now, the sounds of the trailer’s true owners yelling after them while they make a quick getaway, he was goddamn thriving.

Steve swears loudly, and before he could even tell Eddie to leave his spot he was already bumping into Steve to the back of the bus. You go right behind him, letting Nancy take the passenger seat.

“It’s just a car.” Steve mutters mostly to himself. “Everybody, hang on to something!”

“Oh my God! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Lucas practically panics.

“Drive, Steve! Drive!” Dustin urges him, mostly everyone having found a spot by now.

Steve drives, and the amount of pure chaos that surrounds both the outside and the inside of the van is at the very least, entertaining.

The radio turned on one of Eddie’s favourite joyride songs, a perfect fit. While the rest of the crowd is on edge and anxious, you are thriving in watching him headbang during one of the most inconvenient times.

The motor home turns the corners of the trailer park hard, yanking your body every which way as everyone seems to simultaneously be yelling at once. The inhabitants’ voices eventually fade, and Steve turns onto the main road.

Mission: Grand Theft Auto was officially successful.

-

Along for the ride into the War Zone, you found yourself sandwiched next to Eddie near the back of the motor home. The two of you sat in comfortable silence, his hand tracing yours absentmindedly. There was an aura of a calm before the storm in the motor home. As soon as the weapons were in your arsenal it was about making them and preparing for the final battle.

The blueprint to which you are still not the happiest about, but you weren’t given much choice in the matter.

“You don’t talk much about him.” You started, allowing your eyes to look up at your boyfriend.

He glances down to you, his face unreadable. “Not much to say. He taught me how to steal cars and how to be freakishly good at pickpocketing.” He looks off, scratching at the stubble starting to form. “He’s not my dad, though.” He says, leaning into you.

You don’t say anything, just silently encourage him to keep talking.

“My dad is Wayne. I’ve never called him that, and only when he’s truly worried or upset does he ever call me son, but I know. He’s my dad. Sure, the man on my birth certificate is currently serving 25 years in prison for a multitude of things, but thanks to Wayne I have a head on my shoulders and I’m not out stealing cars for money. If my old man wasn’t caught, I don’t think he would’ve let me go passed freshman year.” He gulps, shaking his head. Something was clearly on his mind.

“What?” You ask him.

“Say we get through this. We defeat Vecna, the Upside Down is done, whatever.” You nod your head, listening. “How are we still going to prove my innocence? No offence but if I walk in with the same group of people who ran away from the police, I don’t think my case would be helped much.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” You ask him leaning in.

Eddie nods, eager for the distraction.

“Do you think we covered our own tracks the whole time?” You ask him, your voice border lining on skeptical. Eddie’s brow furrows curiously. “God no. The FBI is scary good at covering these tracks. Every time in the aftermath I get guided away by people in FBI jackets who take over the jurisdiction and make sure no wrongly accused get thrown away for the crimes of people in lab coats ten years ago.”

“So, you think the FBI will clear me?” He asks, and there’s just this sliver of hope.

“I will fight someone if they don’t.” You say in all seriousness, and he laughs at your willingness to protect him.

Eddie kisses your head, leaning his chin onto it. Lucas passes you, going to talk to Max one on one, and you turn away out of respect.

“So, how much of your history with this secret dimension do I not know about?” He asks you, an eyebrow quirked.

“Considering this is my fourth encounter, a bit.” You reply, unfazed.

“Can you tell me about it?” He asks, leaning onto one of his biceps to get comfortable.

“Ok.” You answer, and honestly you thought it might take more than that to get it out of you. “But promise me one thing.” Eddie nods rapidly. “When I get to the Russians, try not to get emotional. If I think too hard about it, I can’t even tell the story.”

Eddie gulps, wondering what possibly could’ve happened to require such a disclaimer. “Rule number 3.” He says, and you roll your eyes and start telling him anyway.

From the very beginning.

-

As Steve pulls up to the War Zone, it is immediately known that your rag-tag band of misfits weren’t the only ones who wanted weapons. He stands up from his seat, stretching his arms out before looking to the crowd in the motor home. “Alright. We go in. We get what we need, we get out. Make it quick, we have a wanted fugitive who we cannot risk being seen in this crowd.”

Everyone nods their heads in agreement, and all but you, Lucas, Dustin, and of course, Eddie make their way to the front of the motor home.

“Hey, Harrington!” Eddie calls to him, and Steve lifts his brows to acknowledge him. “Could you, uh, get me some spare uh…” he drifts off, aware of an audience.

Steve nods in understanding and gives Nancy the go ahead to open the door.

As the motor home became less crowded you sat next to Eddie under his arm, watching as they disappear around the corner to the main entrance. Eddie is tracing your hand slowly, and it’s so soothing you nearly let your head fall onto his shoulder. You hear him inhale and look to him with a questioning look on your face. He shakes his head, mouthing the words It’s nothing.

You don’t accept his answer, wordlessly caressing his cheek. He melts into it, and you want to freeze time in this moment and never leave. “Tell me.”

“When this is over, we’re going far from this town as we can get. I’m taking you on a road trip, we’re going to go the beach.” He says, looking off wistfully.

“The beach?” You ask, a smile on your face.

“Hell yeah. I need to see you in a bikini and know that everyone wants you but you’re all mine.” He says casually, his thumb rubbing your shoulder as he talks softly to you. “I would pack us a picnic for the ride, and mindlessly drool while you eat some watermelon. I would purposefully forget napkins but its ok, because I can help lick the juice off.”

“You…you put a lot of thought into this.” You whisper to him, dreaming of hot days on the beach a few thousand miles away from Hawkins.

“Well, I had a lot of time.” Eddie admits.

“I just want to lie down with you.” You admitted, knowing you weren’t even hopeful enough to want the beach you had just wanted to be with him. “I want to fall asleep, with you, and wake up with college being my biggest stressor.”

He gulps, the smile on his face slightly faded. “God, I would’ve followed—”

You interrupt him, shaking your head. “No. Don’t. We’re planning. What are you going to do?”

Eddie smiles softly, biting back laughter. “Sweetheart it don’t matter, you already know.”

You nodded shakily, beaming at him. He grabs your face into a fierce kiss, and there’s a part of you wondering of the salt water you tasted were his tears or your own. You separate, brushing your hands against his cheeks. He pulls you in for a hug, and you giggle involuntarily as he squeezes you so tightly.

Behind you, a cough. It was loud and firm.

“Hmm?”

“You’re cute n’ all but—” Dustin gags, pretending to throw up. “Too much.”

“I expected less of this when we were partnered up, you know? Just a moment of peace?”

Dustin shoots a toothy grin, shaking his head. “Nah.”

Eddie shrugs, knowing better than to expect such from him.

Lucas’ attention seems far from this conversation. “They should’ve been back by now.”

“When did they go in?” Eddie asks, his face growing serious again.

“Ten minutes ago.” Lucas answers, suspicion thick in his voice.

“Shit.” Dustin swears, getting up to pace.

Dustin and Lucas go back and forth on reasons they could be taking longer as the time continues to pass. Dustin checks his watch for the umpteenth time asking, “What the hell is taking so long?”

On cue, Steve bursts through the door, tossing a bag to Eddie promptly.

“What happened?” Lucas asks.

“Gotta go.” Steve answers, sitting directly into his seat.

Erica bursts through, holding a big brown bag. “Your old friends are here.” She answers, staring directly to Lucas.

“Shit!” Lucas swears.

Robin, Nancy, and Max run into the motor home, and before everyone was sat down Steve was being urged by several people to start driving. He shouts back, “I’m going, I’m going! Sit down!”

Eddie puffs his cheeks out in a big breath of “Oh, shit.”

On your way out Jason Carver stares off in frustration, ignoring the large motor home that near misses them on the way out of the parking lot.

-

Somewhere down the road between the War Zone and Hawkins Steve took a turn off to stay out of sight but have the open space required to make the weapons. Hammers, gasoline, a shot gun with a saw, sticks to tie to dazzlingly sharp knives all emptied out of the brown paper grocery bags.

Not to mention several axes and two stolen garbage can lids.

As all the crap was scattered about, jobs were naturally delegated two at a time, having teams partner up to create each specific firearm. Lucas and Erica sat to make the spears for Eddie and Dustin. Eddie and Dustin make armed shields out of nails and metal garbage lids. Nancy with the help of Max, set up a place to saw off the long end of a shot gun. Lastly, Robin, you, and Steve sit in front of the motor home to create the literal fire on demand.

Any possible ‘seats’ you could’ve used were in the form of crates the motor home’s cluster of random junk they assorted. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it still beat the itchiness of the tall grass in front of you.

As you sat down with Robin and Steve, both working on dowsing the gasoline cloths together, and you find yourself all too distracted. You watch absentmindedly as Eddie rough houses into Dustin, enjoying the smile you’ve seen back on his face. As much as Dustin tries to get Eddie on the ground, Eddie’s strength proves mighty in comparison.

You finally glance away from them, starting to prepare the other gasoline cans for battle. As you sit there, Robin and Steve finally tell you a piece of gossip they’ve been looking for a moment to share with you.

Steve didn’t seem to wrap his mind around Vickie being in a relationship with a boy, he was so convinced that her pause on Fast Times was evidence that she was also into girls.

You thought it was the way she dressed that gave it away, but Steve was unconvinced.

“It just doesn’t make sense.” Steve continues his train of thought from earlier, having picked up different conversations since then.

“What doesn’t make sense?” Robin asks, not caught up with him.

“That was Dan Shelter. He graduated, like, two years ago.”

“So?” Robin prompts him.

“So, he’s in college. Which means he was visiting on spring break. Fast Times was returned, like, I don’t know, a week ago? Right? Unless she’s got some horndog brother we don’t know about. Which is possible.” As Steve continues to ramble on to himself Robin keeps to herself, and Robin letting Steve ramble is not a common occurrence. “Or she’s just really into Judge Reinhold?”

“Steve.” Robin interrupts him, having enough.

“Nah…” he drifts off, then realizes Robin called out for him.

“I don’t care. I don’t understand why do either with everything that’s going on. Honestly, this feels like a perfect time for that little pull of the rug because…”

As Robin continues talking, a gut feeling that’s been sitting in the pit of your stomach comes to the forefront.

“…in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feels spectacularly low.”

“Yeah, I mean, I get you there, but… I still have hope.” Steve responds, somewhat optimistic, it seems.

“Not everything has a happy ending.” Robin tells him, adding a new bottle to the growing collection. You hand over a bottle to Steve as he grabs for it, him acknowledging you as he does.

“Yeah, yeah, believe me, I know.” He says, somewhat bitter about his own.

With everything prepared for them, you sit cross legged by Steve’s legs, the only one out of the bunch who opted to sit in the tall grass.

“Y/N?” Robin asks, seeing the pinch between your brows.

You sigh, lifting your legs so they’re held up by your elbows with your hands clasped in front of you. “Robin?”

“Care to help me out?”

“She’s not talking about failed romance, Steve.” You answer, and Robin knows you’re on the same wavelength. You turn your head to look back at Eddie and Dustin play fighting in the field. “I can’t speak for anyone else, here, but I’ve been having this, terrible, mind numbing feeling that…” you gulp, you can’t even say it out loud.

“It might work out for us this time.” Robin finished your sentence, brave enough to admit what you couldn’t even find it in yourself to think.

“You guys think we shouldn’t be doing this?” Steve asks, his voice hosting a level of doubt you don’t often hear.

“We’re absolutely bonkers.” You add, and it felt like Robin admitting what you were afraid to outloud had created a tight anxiety in your chest.

“We’re mad. The lot of us.” Robin agrees, also looking out. “But…if we don’t stop them, who will?” She asks, and unfortunately that is the caveat. If you, the only crowd of misfits that has any idea what is behind all of this are the only ones who can stop him, how could you not? “We have to try, right?”

“Yeah.” You turn around to face them. “To killing Vecna,” Steve toasts.

“Slash Henry.” Robin adds, also holding a bottle.

“Hey.” You nudge, reaching for one across them. Robin hands you one, and you insert a bottle in. “Slash One.”

-

By the time Eddie finishes roughing it with Dustin, he’s a damn mess, covered in sweat. It might’ve been hot if he had showered in the last few days. Who’s kidding, it was hot regardless.

This brought up a question you had. “Uh, are we going into battle wearing the same thing we have been wearing for the last two days?” You ask out loud.

“Funny you should mention that.” Steve answers, and he runs into the Motor home to grab a last bag he had, something he asked Erica to help him with, Battlefield clothes.

It felt odd getting dressed because it meant you were really going into another battle. It sucked, because none of those times did you know it was the final battle, but this felt…final.

An air was just different in the motor home. Any jokes, any attempts to fuse the tension have long gone home. The weight of how much was riding on you to win and beat him is a stupidly large dark cloud over looming everyone.

Never necessarily felt like the end of the world before, just Hawkins.

This is world ending.

High stakes, higher risks.

No one says a damn word.

You pull up to the Creel House so Erica, Lucas, and Max can jump out. Max doesn’t even say a word as she turns to shut the door, and there’s a part of you that wished you didn’t see the worry on her face as you pulled away.

Your throat felt tight as you started the drive to Eddie’s trailer, and you look over your shoulder to catch his eye.

He glances at you, his eyes torn from Dustin’s face of utter worry. I love you, you mouth to him, Eddie blinks slowly at you, tilting his head. I love you, he mouths back.

You turn around, facing forward to see that they had arrived right behind Eddie’s trailer park.

Great.

Chapter Nine: The Piggyback

As the Motor home is placed into park, Nancy gets up by the door to go over the plan once more. There’s a small temptation to roll your eyes at it, but anything to procrastinate leaving the false safety net that is the trailer.  

“Okay. I wanna run through it one more time.” Nancy starts to pace through the trailer. “Phase one.”

“We meet Erica at the playground.” Robin answers her. “She’ll signal Max and Lucas when we’re ready.”

“Phase two.”

“Max baits Vecna. He’ll go after her, which’ll put him in his trance.” Steve answers.

“Phase three?”

“Me and Eddie draw the bats away.” Dustin answers, and Eddie clutches onto Dustin’s shoulder fondly.

“Phase four.”

“We head into Vecna’s bat-free lair, and…we light him up.” You answer, your breath hitching. “Though I still don’t see why I—”

“You’re going with them.” Eddies interrupts you, jolting your attention to his soft eyes. “You’ve already argued this to death. Sorry, I know. But it makes most sense for you to go with them...two shields n’ all.”

You sigh, defeated.

“Nobody moves on to the next phase until we’ve all copied.” She continues like you hadn’t even spoken. “Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?”

“Got it.” You all answer, moving your way out the door one by one.

Your footsteps running to Eddie’s trailer were all light and fast, the last thing you needed was to be seen by one of his neighbours. As you walk into Eddie’s trailer, the rope still hanging, Steve is already getting ready to pull off somewhat of an acrobatic move.

“Be careful.” Dustin pleads, no ounce of sarcasm in his voice.

“Thanks buddy.” Steve says, patting him lightly. He hops to the rope, starting a climb. “Here goes nothing.” He sighs, mentally preparing himself.

As Steve reaches the threshold to the Upside Down, he pauses, taking a few deep breaths and using the gravity his body was in to lurch into a summersault. He lands gracefully, looking up to say ta da.

You stood by Nancy and Robin, all watching his pose. Robin leans into you both, asking “Wow, what does he want us to do, applaud?”

Steve pulls the mattress over in record time for a landing pad, no time to waste. “All right.” He calls out. “Let’s go.”

Yay. You get to go back in again. On purpose.

Nancy starts, taking her backpack off and Robin allows her to use her knee as a stepping stool. Nancy doesn’t waste much time, the climb fast and the drop sudden. You take off your bag, and Robin puts it to the side. “What, no stepping stool?” You ask her, and Robin rolls her eyes.

“Here.” Eddie offers, and you gladly take the offer.

Your climb is much faster this time, and the lurch onto the landing pad isn’t as new, but it still felt fucking weird.

Steve offers a hand up, and you’re only standing for a half a second when yours, Nancy’s, Steve’s, and Robin’s bags make their way across as well.

Eddie comes next, lurching himself into the Upside Down with as much force as he did last time, the wind visibly knocked out of him. He’s barely given a chance to recollect himself Steve offers a hand.

Eddie’s shield is sent, Robin decidedly coming next. As she lands after a quick climb, you and Eddie extend your hands to her, and she accepts.

Dustin is left to send one bag and the two makeshift spears before he makes the trip for the first time. As someone who’s greatest strengths aren’t exactly in athleticism it took him a minute to climb and get across, but as soon as he does, he sits up quickly to catch his breath.

No one gives him that moment, yanking him by the grey sweater to get off his ass.

All the gear is moved around appropriately, Nancy putting the gun on her back, Eddie taking some wires out of your bag, etc. As soon as everyone goes through a quick check list Nancy opens the door back into the red lightning, determined as ever. You follow behind Steve, a pit in your stomach as you know the moment is seconds away.

Eddie and Dustin follow behind, the door slamming behind them.

“Hey, guys, listen.” Steve starts, nearly stumbling into you as he turns around. You accept his apology and drift off to side to let him do his thing. “If things here start to go south, I mean, at all, you abort.” You nod next to him, your face serious. Eddie’s eyes drift to yours for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Okay? Draw the attention of the bats. Keep ‘em busy for a minute or two. We’ll take care of Vecna.” Dustin rolls his eyes at the dramatics, used to it by now.

“Don’t try to be cute or be a hero or something. Okay? You guys are just—”

“Decoys.” Dustin finishes the sentence with him, exasperated. “Don’t worry. You can be the hero, Steve.”

“Absolutely.” Eddie agrees, humour in his voice. “I mean, look at us. We are not heroes.” Eddie says, glancing next to him.

Steve accepts it, but you didn’t.

“Hey.” You say, pulling focus and ignoring your audience for a moment. “Listen. Don’t be a hero.” You emphasize to Eddie, swallowing the emotions that threaten to pour out to him.

Eddie nods like he already understood what you meant.

“No. I know you, Munson. You come back to me.”

Eddie gulps, his face losing any sense of humour it just had. You gulp as well, following as Nancy and Robin are starting to lead the group the other way.

You start to when Eddie calls, “Hey Steve?”

Steve turns around, and you can’t find it in yourself to face him again and still follow them.

“Make him pay.” Eddie says, and Steve doesn’t respond, but you could feel the tension from the nuance of what he had just said.

Their pace picks up and you’re right behind them when your body can’t seem to take another step with out doing one last thing. Nancy notices you’ve stopped walking, and when she’s about to ask you’ve already dropped the bag and the flashlight in your hand to sprint to him.

Eddie already knew what you were doing, as soon as you turned around he dropped his shield, preparing himself to catch you.

He does, effortlessly. You breathe him in as his arms engulf you, and this just made it ten times worse but all worth the while. “I love you.” You tell him, just loud enough that you’re not even sure he heard you.

“I love you.” He says it like a promise.

You couldn’t help yourself despite the inappropriateness of it. You kissed him. Just one taste. Just something. He kissed you just as fiercely.

As you separate, he opens his mouth to say something, but you don’t even let him.

No goodbyes.

You walk away from him, starting into a half jog when Steve is ushering you to hurry up. You fling your bag back on and pick up the flashlight, now matching the pace next to Steve as you make your way to the Creel House.

-

As you wonder through the forest towards the Creel House things are eerily quiet until Robin finally speaks up.

“Uh…I don’t mean to freak anyone out, but I swear we’ve seen this tree before.” She claims, pointing to specifically curvy little tree.

“That’s impossible.” Nancy answers her.

“That would suck, right?” Robin asks, rhetorical. “If Vecna destroyed the world because…’cause we got lost in the woods?”

“We’re not lost, Robin.” You tell her, and she bites out a sarcastic laugh. She starts running ahead, and you follow behind her.

“Robin, hey.” Nancy starts. “Watch out for the vines, guys! Hive mind! Remember?”

“Thank you!” Robin answers, and you follow just behind her to make sure she doesn’t lose her mind.

You end up following her, your lungs giving you shit for it. “Robin, slow down!” You call out to her. “Aren’t you supposed to be the clutzy one? How are you running this fast?”

“Fear.” She responds without missing a beat. “Mostly just the fear of being lost in the woods before we can save the world that keeps eating my brain.” She sounds out of breath, but she keeps trekking.

“Ugh!” You grunt in frustration but follow her anyway, despite a part of you begging to give your lungs a break.

Robin lets out a shout of accomplishment, and you see her coming back just as fast. “Found it!” She declares and passes right by you to run to Steve and Nancy.

You stop, finally, catching your breath. What the hell did you wind yourself before you got to the battle for? Hopefully Vecna wasn’t gunning for a on-foot chase.

“Hey guys!” You hear her voice echo. “You guys! Awesome news! Looks like we weren’t going the wrong way after all.”

You don’t a hear a response, and there’s a beat before Robin ushers them to follow her.

“Okay, jeez!” Robin starts running back towards you, and how is she not out of breath? “Ro…Show down! Ro…Robin!” Steve calls out to her as she starts to pass you.

As soon as she reaches you, you start walking again, having spent the last three minutes trying to catch your breath with your hands on your knees. Before long you’re navigating through some low and very prickly branches to view the Creel House in all it’s Upside Down glory. Damn, did those bats give you the chills.

Steve and Robin scanned the scene, looking for a specific orange glow. They spot it on the rocket on the outdoor playground. “Erica.”

-

Signal you give Erica is immediately met with a flashing signal. Feels like forever when Lucas finally signals back the message is copied.

“Okay, the lovebirds have copied, Max is Moving into phase two: Distracting Vecna.” Erica’s voice echoes.

“So far, so smooth.” Robin comments.

“Yeah, we’re not even at the hard part yet.” Steve adds on.

Nancy is busy like she has for the last ten minutes, dead focused on the Creel House. “Take the bait, you son of a bitch.” She urges quietly. “Take. The bait.”

It’s not like Vecna could particularly hear her, but it felt necessary.

It’s a waiting game. Max barely survived her last encounter with Vecna and this time she’s going in full throttle.

This is the worst thing to wait for.

“Okay, she’s in. Initiate phase three.” Erica’s voice echoes out of nowhere.

“She’s in. Move on to phase three.” Robin walkies not one second after Erica copies.

“Copy that. Initiating phase three.” Dustin’s voice answers on the walkie.  

Less than a minute later you can vaguely hear a guitar rocking out in the distance.

You remain crouched down right by the play set, waiting for a hint of the idea that phase 3 is working.

“Damn, is….is that Master of Puppets?” Steve asks you, his brow furrowed.

You had a bit of a knowledge of Heavy Metal bands by now, but you could barely tell just from the guitar riff alone. “If it is, that’s definitely his sense of humour.” You mutter, listening with a half smile. “He plays a lot to himself, but I haven’t had a chance to see him at the Hideout yet.”

“Haven’t had a chance?” Steve asks, incredulous.

You shrug, not having an excuse. “We didn’t get out much.” You admit, and it suddenly makes sense why Eddie insisted you go to the beach.

A shrill sound suddenly catches your attention, no less than a few hundred demo-bats flying over you to protect against the source of the sound.

“Okay, it’s working.” Nancy mutters. “Let’s go.”

Nancy leads the march into the Creel House, your heart beating out of your chest in sheer anticipation. Whatever Eddie and Dustin were continuing to do after the sounds of the guitar faded seemed to work, not a demo-bat in sight as you open the door to a house riddled in Vecna’s vines. When you thought Eddie’s trailer looked bad, this seemed like nothing in comparison.

You, Robin, Nancy, and Steve go one by one up the stairs to Vecna, a sense of purpose in each step as you aim for the wood between the vines. Steve offers his hand as each one of you make the top of the stairs after him over a particularly wide vine. At long last, the weapons are coming out to play. Robin hands you a bottle and her lighter, Steve grabs his axe, and Nancy holds her incomplete shotgun.

As you attempt to move forward an earthquake rumbles, this one bigger than ever, causing all four of you to huddle up, clutching on to one another so none of you end up falling over, and God forbid, onto one of the vines.

There’s a moment of relief, looking at one another as it passed.

The moment is too short, Robin looking down to a vine slowly making its way around her foot. She barely gets any time to respond, the vine tripping her. She lands onto it, yelping and it pulls her up against the wall. She was up there, too.

The vines continue moving around her, pinning her extremities down and around her neck. Robin calls out, voice full of panic. “Nancy!”

Your attempt at running to her aide is cut short, despite her not necessarily calling out to you. Nancy leans in, beating the vines with the butt of her gun, and before you could even attack it one by your foot gets a hold of you, dragging you on the front of your stomach and legs across the hall and strapping you up against the wall directly facing Robin.

“Oh shi—” you call out, the breath stolen from your lungs. You couldn’t even finish, a vine wrapping itself around your mouth to prevent any yelling…or breathing.

Steve turns quickly to your aide, attempting to use his axe against the vine that attacked you. A vine retaliates by grabbing at it, causing a tug of war between Steve and the vine. The axe is yanked out of his grasp, and three of the vines forcefully tug Steve five feet off the ground by the neck and waist.

Nancy hears Steve’s struggle, turning up in horror as Steve is dragged up to the wall. The floor is stolen right from under Nancy, the vine yanking her by one foot, as she barely manages to escape another one slithers down and across her stomach, yanking her up by the wall at an angle.

Each one of you is now pinned hopelessly against the wall, the vines wrapping themselves to immobilize the four of you. As the vine wrapped around your mouth slowly suffocates you, you can only hear Robin, Nancy, and Steve audibly choking.

Is…is this it?

-

It only takes a few seconds.

From going up the stairs deliberately, to pinned against the wall with no oxygen to speak of, it only takes a few seconds.

It only takes a few seconds.

From running to safety to chopping his only way out, it only takes a few seconds.

Eddie ignored every call for him to stop from Dustin. He ignored the echoes of your voice telling him not to be a hero. He ignored the gnawing feeling at the back of his mind…

He looks up to Dustin’s distressed face, picking up the shield and his weapon. “I’m buying more time.” He says, and runs head first into the swarm.

He picks up the bike he once dropped and starts on it, peddling as fast as his legs would let him. He gets a good minute of biking in, looking back and letting out his war cry.

Dustin uses all his strength to come after Eddie, severely injuring his left leg in the process.

His bike loses its footing. Eddie scrambles to his feet, one hundred percent bent on making his way back.

Back to you.

Then…

I didn’t know what to do, so I… I… I ran away.

I just ran, and I left her there.

I mean, look at us. We are not heroes.

He couldn’t run away. Not again. Not when for once in his life he could confront it, head on.

He breathes, mentally preparing himself. It…only takes a second.

His shield is pounded by his spear rhythmically, egging the bats on.

They charge after him. It’s not long before they surround him in a tornado, and he watched in awe, his heart painfully and eerily still. A few dive in after him, and he successfully thwarts them.

It only takes a second before one gets its tail around his neck. Others follow suit, grabbing arms…and legs.

Others dive in for his torso.

Dustin yells out after him, watching the scene unfold.

As his flesh tears, Eddie can only yell in pain.

It only took a second.

-

As your vision started to blur the vines around your neck suddenly loosen, letting the four of you fall to your knees. You blink as oxygen returns to you, the other three coughing from the vines being wrapped around their necks. You watch in awe as the vines retreat.

“I don’t believe in a higher power or divine intervention. But that was a miracle.” Robin breathes out, her breathing wheezy from the constant choking.

“Then we better not waste it.” Nancy declares, determined as ever now that you somehow escaped the clutches of Vecna’s vines. She cocks her shotgun.

“Phase four.” Steve manages out, still catching his breath.

“We light him up.” You finish, grabbing one of the bottles from Robin.

You approach Vecna’s room, seeing him held up by his vines and in a trance, completely vulnerable. You hold up the bottle to Steve, he grabs it from you and you ignite it with the lighter you grabbed earlier. Steve throws the bottle to Vecna, it lands perfectly on his chest as his whole-body catches fire. Vecna screams aloud, and he falls directly to the floor amid these new flames.

Vecna only writhes for a fraction of a second before standing up and facing you head on, somehow intimidating while simultaneously burning alive. You passed the lighter to Robin, allowing her to light up a new bottle and thrust another one to his chest. He falters back, and while you watch him charge forward, Nancy takes the moment to step forward herself, gun aimed.

She shoots, the barrel hitting his shoulder.

She cocks it and she shoots again without hesitation, hitting his lower stomach and causing him to fall back. Nancy shoots again, and again.

Vecna attempts to come at her, but he falters back as the weight of the fire, Hop’s sword wielding, and Nancy’s shots all in one. He lets out a howl, something from the depths of hell.

Nancy lets nothing about it falter her. She snarls her upper lip, letting Vecna know he can go where to back he came from.

Her finger pulls the trigger a final time and it causes Vecna to fall backwards through the wooden panels up against the window to the attic. She lowers the gun, turning back to face all three as you attempt to catch your breath.

You all run to where he supposedly fell, seeing nothing but ash and an empty space where Vecna should’ve been.

What now?

-

I think it’s my hear, Henderson.

I think it’s finally my year.

I love you, man.

-

It’s silent. None of you know any of what’s happening…neither Dustin, Eddie, nor Erica are copying back on the walkie.

The clock chimes from in the Creel House, and you catch up to it on it’s last and fourth chime. “Four chimes.” Nancy breathes, and the air is sucked right out of your lungs when you understand. “Max.”

You, Robin, and Steve stare at one another with bug eyes, wondering if its real life when the ground shakes under your feet violently. It’s not just the Upside Down, this time.

Eddie’s trailer, the roadside, the lake, and Vecna’s house are all ripped apart, the earth falling into it from several feet away. The only thing you can do is hang on to the bottom of the stair well, shaking around like beads in a damn maraca.

After God knows how long the ground finally ceases.

You get grab a hold of the banister and start running as fast as your legs could carry you through the forest.

Vecna had disappeared, but had apparently succeeded in his mission to kill four people, to kill Max. These were important details, but none compared to the most important.

The mission failed, time to regroup, assess damages and go from there.

Namely, time to regroup.

They all called after you, following behind by a few feet as you ignored them. They finally realized where you were headed, the path clear to them.

As you reached the park, you head straight for the trailer but someone calling your name stops you.

It wasn’t Robin, Nancy, or Steve from behind you.

It wasn’t Eddie either.

You look to the source, facing Dustin hobbling slowly towards you, with what appears to be an injured leg. Your concern for the injury fades into the back of your mind when you see his face. The glossy eyes, the runny nose.

Panic is already invaded your chest.

“I’m sorry.” Dustin chokes out, his voice thick with tears.

“Where is he?” You ask, needing the proof yourself.

“There was nothing I could do.” He continues, attempting to keep you from taking a step further.

Your teeth clench like your life depends on it. You stride to where Dustin was hobbling from and the glimpse of what you see when you go around the corner unmistakably shatters you.

Steve runs up to you, now catching wind to the situation as soon as the broken sob escapes your throat. You attempt to run to him, but Steve holds you back, and the pain is so sharp you can’t even tell what he’s saying to you.

You fight him off, tears flowing down your cheeks like a water fall and you’re crying so hard you can’t breathe.

You find yourself on your knees, bent over, clutching your chest as someone, you don’t know who, attempted to give you comfort despite this being one of the worst times to break down like this.

You don’t recall actually saying much, but the word No seemed to run through your head like a damn mantra. You had half a mind to push Dustin and demand what happened and why did he let him do something so stupid, but the only thing that escapes you is more full throttle chest sobs.

He can’t be gone.

He was just here.

He was just here.

-

Your friends wished they could’ve said they let you calm down when they finally managed to escort you from the Upside Down.

Given they didn’t exactly have the privilege, nor was time theirs to give for the moment, Steve tugs you up and lets you sob into his shoulder as he walks you over to what is less of a snack-size gate. You crawl your way through the gaping hole of what used to be his trailer. It was all too much, seeing his home ripped to shreds.

As your blinders go down, you saw the entire town engulfed in flames. Your sobs became hiccups, the pain still unbearable but there was no room for your grief when so much of your down is absolutely ruined.

Steve uses the motor home to drive you and the rest of the team to their respective houses, the only thing to do was to go home, get changed and figure out what came next.

On the way to your house, Steve keeps looking at you in the rear view, and you barely notice as you watch the outside in shock. He pulls up to your house first, despite passing Robin’s on the way.

Steve gets up and walks to you, and takes a deep breath in. “He died a hero. He saved most of the town. That’s what you tell her.” He states, knowing whether he was gentle wouldn’t make a difference to your mood.

Not that you particularly cared for his tone for the moment. You look up at him, your eyes shrouded over in grief. “This town hat—” you manage out, your words barely leaving your mouth through the thickness of your voice. You just nod, tears leaving the pair of eyes that already hurt from crying so hard.

You get up from your seat, mindlessly walking to the door and down the steps.

You make your way up the path, refusing to let any memories of him bubble to the surface, despite him the only thing on your mind. Steve asked if you were gonna be ok, but you barely registered it.

Before your hand reaches the door knob your mom opens the door. And before she could even ask what was wrong, another broken sob leaves your chest as lurch into her arms.

You cried for an hour before she could even get a word in, edgewise.

-

The police eventually reach your door, stopping by for rounds to make sure your family was ok for supplies and then told its not mandated but it is suggested to leave town. As you walk around the corner from grabbing a piece of toast just to stop your stomach from begging for more food, the officer at the door takes note of your presence.

“Oh, Miss. L/N! We’ve been attempting to get a hold of you to ask whether whereabouts of your current boyfriend, but we have not been able to get a hold of you.” He asks casually, like he wasn’t going to go arrest him.

You gulp, looking him dead in the eyes and say, “He died. In the earthquake.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that.”

“Mmhm.” You mutter, and your body somehow carries itself upstairs.

Your body spends time either in full pain mode or none. You refused to sleep in your own room, it was filled to the brim of memories of him that you didn’t need a reminding of. You had even attempted to spend all your time watching whatever your father had chosen to watch, but the words ‘Munson Murders’ on the news sent you seeing red as you stomped up the stairs.

After lying in the spare bed for a good portion of the day your doorbell rings.

Your mom calls your name after answering. You didn’t even bother responding.

There’s a knock on the door the door opened after the third one, Steve and Robin walking right in with Dustin on their tail.

Dustin couldn’t even come through the door, and there’s a shred of empathy that understands how guilty he must’ve felt.

“Hey. We’re going to the school to drop off and help with donations. Come with us.” Steve says, walking over to bend to your level.

You squint at him through your watery eyes. You sniffed. “I don’t think I’m the best person to be volunteering for the affected, Steve.”

Robin comes up to the side as well. “We know you lost him. And that- there’s no words to describe how much it sucks. But there are a lot of people in Hawkins who lost everything.”

“Are you telling me that people have it worse, so I should just get over it?”

“That’s the opposite of what we’re saying.” Steve claims. “we’re saying they’ll understand loss. There are other people who died in this earthquake you won’t be the only one mourning.”

“It wasn’t an earthquake.” You whisper, going underneath your blanket. You almost don’t make it under your covers to hide the violet sob that threatened to leave your lips.

They let you breathe for a moment.

The blanket is ripped off you, Robin yanking you out of bed.

She places some clothes on the bed. “Put these on, meet us outside.”

If you could’ve, you would’ve laughed. As they leave, you request they send in Dustin.

Dustin walks in with the help of a cane. He doesn’t look you in the eye, only the floorboards.

“I don’t blame you.” You whisper, shaking your head. “At first, maybe. I don’t even remember you telling me what happened, but I do know. He chopped it and ran, yeah?” Dustin nods shakily. “That was his choice. His stupid, fucking choice that he made about his own life. Not yours. I don’t blame you.” Dustin shoots you smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t blame yourself either, right?” You ask him. “Cause it’s not your fault.”

A tear falls down Dustin’s face and he wipes it away hastily.

“Dustin. It’s not your fault.”

Dustin gulps awkwardly and tells you he’ll meet you outside. Somehow, the interaction with Dustin convinced you to go with them. You nodded, implying you’ll be right there. Before he leaves, he turns around awkwardly. “Uh, thank you. I needed that.”

You nod in response, slowly shutting the door.

 You turn to face the clothes Robin has picked out for you, a pair of jeans with one of his shirts. You appreciated the sentiment but threw his shirt holding your breath to refuse the smell as you walk into your room to grab a different one.

You weren’t quite there yet.

As you run down the stairs you tell your mom you’re going to help at the High School. Steve and Robin promised you were only going to the gym and would be avoiding the real building for you at any cost.

On the way Dustin mentioned that El, Mike, Will, Johnathan and some buy named Argyle were in town, having made a long two-day trip from the middle of the desert. You gulped, watching outside as Steve drove to the school. You ask how Max was, having received the news from your mom after you had finally calmed down enough to talk.

You still hadn’t seen her, the guilt cutting through you like a knife. Not that you didn’t care about her, you just wanted to be able to stand for five minutes without the mere thought of him eating you from the outside.

She wasn’t any better or worse…which is good, you guessed.

You finally pull in and open the trunk to three boxes. Dustin attempts to carry one, but you take it from him instead, refusing his protests.

As shitty as you felt, seeing the gym filled to the brim with cots and people seeking necessities actually did put things into perspective for you. As long as you grieved, at least you grieved him in the privacy of your home. You see the missing persons reports posted, your throat tightening when you catch a glimpse of the graffiti on his.

You didn’t have it in you to take it down. Didn’t want to make a scene.

There were people in a med bay on oxygen, for Christ’ sake.

Robin greeted the volunteer kindly, pointing out each box and its respective belongings.

When the volunteer offers a tax receipt, Robin politely declines and in turn, offers the four of you for volunteer work. You’re ushered away into giving water with Dustin, Steve to the clothes, and Robin is making sandwiches.

As Dustin is making his rounds, he notices someone pull up to his poster and switch out the graffitied one for a new one. You’re talking with one of the affected about something when he calls out to you, nodding to him.

A pang hits your chest as you see Wayne holding a whole file of missing posters for him.

“I’m sorry, I just see someone I know.” You tell her, and she gracefully lets you go, seeing the gloss appear in your eyes as you do. As much as you didn’t tell her, she could tell you had lost something as well.

Dustin hesitates in approaching him, but you help cross the threshold for him. “W-Wayne?” You stumble out.

He recognises your voice, turning to face you as soon as your voice hits his ears. “Oh, bless the Lord.” He mutters as he pulled you into a hug.

You grit your teeth to stop a sob from leaving, a tear falling down each cheek as you involuntarily breathe in his cologne.

You are breathing heavy when he lets go, and he notices your disposition. “What’s wrong?” He asks you apprehensively.

You gulp, the words can’t even escape your lips. “Where is he?” He asks you, and the tears falling down your face is an answer in itself. He pulls you in again, this time you hear sniffles coming from him as well, the heat of his tears hitting your shoulders. This was someone who raised the person you have loved for five months. His pain must’ve been…unimaginable. “What-what happened?” He asks, pulling a way from you..

“He…” you gulp, “he died in the earthquake. I wasn’t with him.”

“I was.” Dustin chokes out, holding out the chain for him. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

Oh. That’s why Dustin refused.

Of course, you fucking narcissist.

Wayne sits down on one of the cots, clutching onto the chain like his life depended on it, attempting to hide his grief in a sea of people that believed his nephew was responsible for the problem to begin with.

Dustin manages to hobble right beside Wayne on the cot. “I…I wish everyone had gotten to know him. Really know him. Because they would’ve loved him, Mr. Munson. They would’ve loved him. Even in the end… he never stopped being Eddie.” That was the first time you heard his name in over 48 hours. You wouldn’t even allow yourself to think it. “Despite everything. I never even saw him get mad.” Your brow admittedly quirked at this, because could name five times you’ve seen him get mad in his last two days off by heart. The memories seem to cut through like a knife.

“He could’ve run. He could’ve saved himself. But he fought. He fought and died to protect this town. This town that… hated him.” A detail that still gets your anger phase of your grief revved up until you start crying in anger again, but you had to let it slide because this wasn’t technically about your grief. “He isn’t just innocent… Mr. Munson he’s… he’s a hero.”

A choked-out sob leaves your lips, same as Wayne. Your hand slaps across your mouth to mute it, trying not to draw any attention to yourself. Dustin leaves Wayne alone, letting him sit in his own grief.

After about five minutes Wayne wraps you in a tighter hug than before, and he whispers, “Thank you. You gave my boy life.”

By extension, by bringing him to Upside Down…did it mean…you took it away, as well?

You didn’t let out that part, let the tears fall as he continually embraced you. “Can I help with anything? You have a place to stay?”

Wayne shakes his head, refusing your help. You had a feeling he would, but knew he appreciated the offer regardless. “Sunshine?”

You turn around from where you were walking back for another volunteer position.

“Please call me every now and then, yeah? I need to know that you’re okay.” He asks, and you nod shakily.

Maybe you’ll break out an old t-shirt of his.  

-

Funny how losing someone as close as he was does the end of the world compare.

However, the phone call you had received that night was enough to get you to drive a half a mile out of town and to phone call’s origin.

The cabin opens with El standing in the doorway, her hair all buzzed off and a smile sitting on her face. You walk in, the cabin crowded. Suddenly you felt foolish as you realized how much you were missing.

Hop was…there. Living, breathing. Thinner.

He looks like he went through hell to get back, but he was grinning on the couch, arm around Joyce.

When Joyce sees you, her face lights up. She gets up immediately, throwing her arms around you. Felt warm.

“Oh my sweet girl. I’m so sorry about him.” Her eyes full of sincerity as she looks into yours.

Tears come back, and you breathe through them. “I missed you.” You admit, and Joyce lets out a chuckle as she hugs you again.

“So is anyone gonna tell me how—” you point to Hopper.

“Long story.” About four or five people chirp out. Well, you’ll find out one day.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner.” You tell Joyce, noting everyone has already made their way back to sit down and enjoy the company of the Byers and the extras that came with them.

“Oh, sweetheart.” You gulp at the nickname. “It’s so okay. It’s only been two days. As far as I see it you’re so strong.”

God it was nice to have her back.

“Family Video is caput.” Robin says as you walk up to them.

“We seriously need to find new jobs?” You ask her, your eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know about that.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Steve asks as you scooch in-between them.

“If you asked me yesterday, I would’ve said no.” You admit, watching the grainy tv set in front of you. You look around at the people who all risked their lives to get to the point where Vecna was burning right in front of you.

“And now?”

“Still no. But it’s nice to have some company.”

-

Thanks for reading! Remember reblogging and commenting really means the world to me I read every single one <3

taglist: @emturtles @yourthebrokengirl @steeldaisies @skrzydlak @thirddeadlysin @sammararaven @bebe07011 @prettylovley

[tal-vez-o-quizas]

Some takeaways from Stranger Things 4 with a member of the cast:

The actor that played Argyle 2.0 in ST4EP8 was in a podcast from 99porciento on YouTube 3 months ago and he described his experience on set. His name is Andres Figueroa. I will be paraphrasing some things he talked about. He's from Venezuela so the entire thing is in Spanish but I translated some things I considered were cool to share.

On set, Charlie Heaton invited him to eat with the cast so he joined everyone. Charlie smokes a lot (which, duh, there are so many pictures of him smoking) so they spoke a bit during smoke breaks. They played Mario Tennis and the trailer was huge. He said he spoke some Spanish with Millie, who was born in Spain (and was singing a lot of Selena, lol). He has kept contact with Eduardo Franco, who’s parents are Mexican so he has a very neutral accent when he speaks Spanish. He added that Eduardo has a very “stoner” attitude but he doesn’t drink or smoke at all; apparently Eduardo quit all that like 5 years ago.

In one of the takes they did when he was leaving Surfer's Boy Pizza, he actually put the joint (which is not a real joint, it’s a prop) on his lips, which the directors really liked but they couldn’t keep it because they said Netflix will had their asses, lol. The Duffers told him that they loved his audition and were really nice.

So, even if the rating bumped up from TV-14 to TV-MA for Stranger Things 4 (correct me if I'm wrong please), being more bloody, gory, with some sexual and drug references, they still had to hold back on some things. Now, I wonder if they'll go the extra mile on ST5 and increase these references.

Argyle originally had a whole speech trying to convince him to leave so they can use the Surfer’s Boy Pizza kitchen in the script, but they cut it because it may have not aligned with the final product.

This tell us that there must have been many scenes like this, were they cut stuff so it could fit their idea of what they wanted the show to be like (which reminds me of EP9 being initially like 2hr30 something minutes but then they cut like 10 minutes at the end?). It's not farfetched to think this must have happened a few times (like when we saw the bloopers and the first heart-to-heart with Will and Mike on EP4 seemed like it had more dialogue).

Everyone was really nice. He was nervous because he's a fan of the show but it turned out all right. The person he interacted the least with was Noah Schnapp, who was 16 when filming ST4. He said he was laying down on the sofa, scrolling through TikTok the entire time and the rest of the cast were asking him if he was going to play with them (everyone was playing Simon Says or something) but Noah kept using his phone, haha. He added that there have been some issues with Noah from production because sometimes they kept him longer than he had to on set (Noah, being 16 at the time, had to legally film for like 12 hours everyday or something, no more than that, as opposed to people older than 18) and some other things he’s not allowed to elaborate on, lol. I guess those issues are over once Stranger Things begins filming!

The podcast is actually fun and entertaining, so if you speak Spanish, go ahead and watch it. I wanted to share this for a while but I'm really lazy but got inspired today. Hope you enjoy!

[emblazons]

I firmly believe that a lot of the Byler hate comes from people who think that ST is the kind of lowbrow show that wrote Mileven badly because they didn't care and that the Duffers would never even think to make Byler canon. Between volumes one and two there were so many people supporting Byler because they thought it was a genuine possibility but then after Volume two crushed them, they joined the camp of antis that believed that we were delusional for thinking it would be made canon, and now most people who were former Bylers dislike the ship because they think it's all over, and this is also reflected in the views of the GA who think that since it didn't happen in volume 2, it won't happen ever and so they end up complaining about the way the story has been written and refusing to entertain the possibility that it could all be done like that for a reason since they don't want to get their hopes up and potentially get crushed again.

I've talked about this before, but: honestly I think a lot of the issue that we've just had a whole SWATH of popular tv in recent years that had writers finish off complex plots with horrifically written, underdeveloped narratives/surprises that devastated the hardcore fans of the shows (looking hard David and Dan of GoT, but they certainly aren't the only ones), which has left a lot of people ready and waiting to be disappointed by yet another favorite in ST.

I think a lot of people are more willing to write off what happened as shit writing than to believe it was done on purpose TO undermine mlvn and build up byler—and its because it's easier to believe the shitty relating of Mike/El compared to the two "platonic" male leads was an unintended consequence rather than meaningful action, the same way its been in a lot of other popular shows.

Given how many times writers of TV have fcked up the landing on both primary character relationships AND story in general (even without a queer element), their ongoing "its just bad writing, but also I don't know why they did xyz if" takes are understandable, if a bit frustrating for those of us who have spent the last year analyzing it. A lot of people on reddit rn honestly sound like me a few weeks after ST4 finished, because most of them have (quite fairly, if we're all honest with ourselves) not spent their fandom time connecting every little dot across 34 episodes of TV for fun.

Even so: I think most people "irritated" by mlvn while not shipping byler now will be pleasantly surprised if and when Byler gets its due —not necessarily because of "queer rep," but because it means that the way a show was written will have been intentional, and the writing and feelings caused by their earlier seasons will have a purpose rather than being the result of a writer having a plot line they were too stupid to see (or not capable enough) to follow through on. Mlvns who just get to yell and gloat about "winning" while most battle-weary fans stay silent is just part of the wait-and-see of the final season lmao

Thanks for the ask!