#animal lover!eddie munson | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

doomsdaybby · 1 month

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come on baby, get in

prompt: severely touch starved reader x eddie munson

eddie munson x plus size fem!reader. just you and eddie at lovers lake sharing a joint, and eventually ending up in the back of your car. 18+, purely smut, situationship/overly familiar 'friends'/‘what are we?’, touch starved!reader 🥺 (3.9k)

small cw’s for drug use (obvs), sex whilst high, unprotected sex, creampie 😛

was listening to animals by nickelback when I was writing some of this and became even more inspired. so everyone say thank you nickelback & @blahblahblahs4208

“Did you think this was how we’d be spending time together after y’been busting your ass waiting tables all week?” Eddie says beside you in a gradual exhale, a release of Reefer Rick’s finest greenery slipping past each word in a misty grey haze.

You tilt your head slightly to the left to peer fondly at him, cheek chilly as it presses to the cold rear window of your Ford Escort. His lids are heavy, dark eyelashes almost kissing. Eddie took hard hits, easily managing three of your singular drags at once.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” you smile, all jest and no malice. Eddie chuckles at that, a deep but airy sort of laugh that has your smile stretching even wider. His eyes are glossy, dark brown marbles that reflect the moonlight creeping out of the inky night sky above you.

You want to blame the drugs, why you notice the way they glint in the light, but it’s really just because his eyes are really fucking pretty and you can’t help but stare when you think he’s not paying attention.

Eddie was always paying attention.

You’re both perched atop the trunk of your car beside Lovers Lake, tyres barely crossing the harsh line where grass meets sand, a mere seven feet or so from the gentle rippling of water, passing a rather large joint between you.

You're tucked in on yourself, hands crossed over your sternum, knees pulled up so the heels of your dirtied scuffed sneakers sit snugly on the lip of the trunk. Eddie lays similarly but more slack, one arm hidden behind his head beneath the mess of deep brown hair that's frizzy with the sticky humidity of the faded day.

You sway your legs gently towards him to knock your knees every so often. Purposeful, very purposeful, but he didn’t need to know that. Though Eddie pushes back twice as hard each time on instinct.

Once Friday evening rolled around and you hadn’t even so much as called Eddie like you do ritualistically every other night, let alone seen him since the Friday before that, he had finally decided that enough was enough.

So come this Saturday evening, you’re slinging your worn tote bag over your shoulder as you exit the diner door, the jolly ting ting of the bell above you ringing shrill in your ears after hearing it on repeat since it was such a busy day.

Eddie was waiting for you, which was a welcome surprise, one that has a dusty flush spreading along your chest and collarbones, especially since he had never picked you up from work before.

“Does my pretty girl need a ride?” He would ask confidently with a smirk, swinging the passenger door of your car open with a gentlemanly bow that had waves of hair capsulating his face, unaware of the butterflies that churned in your stomach and crept up the back of your throat.

My pretty girl. Mine. Mine.

He had been charming, all cheery smile lines and bared teeth, not that you really needed much convincing. Especially when a fresh set of clothes sat neatly folded on the passenger seat, your heart swelling double in size knowing that they smelt a little bit like him - musk and discount deodorant. Eddie.

He knew where the spare key to your apartment was hidden, tucked safe and sound into the soil of the sad-looking hanging plant pot that hung beside the door above the buzzer that no longer worked.

Rarely did he ever let himself in, as it was only for emergencies, especially rarely swiped the keys to your car from the paint-chipped console table in your hallways. But in his head, the need to spend some time with you tonight was an emergency, and a dire one at that.

Flash forward exactly two hours later and here you were. Your busy week soon fading into the blanket of twinkling stars above you akin to the blooming puffs of smoke exiting your bodies, mingling in a dance amongst the gentle breeze.

“Make any good tips?” Eddie asks, taking another brief selfish drag before offering it to you. You scoff, lingering on the feathery brush of your fingers with his as you graciously accept the joint.

“What?” his smile was engulfing, eyes creasing at the corners and the cool night breeze dusting his cheeks a peachy hue, “You tryna tell me that a catch like you hasn’t been makin’ good tips?”.

The inhale of your hit sticks in your throat, wheezing over the gentle burn swirling around your tonsils. You sit up a little, propping yourself up on your elbow in an attempt to get some air.

That’s twice in one day Eddie had been awfully complimentary, flirtation poorly disguised as platonic flattery.

“You tryna to tell me something, Munson?” you cough sharp over the words, holding the joint at arms reach in the hopes to lessen the sting. Your eyes brim sparkly at the corners, and Eddie's jaw is tight where he's biting the inside of his cheeks to smother a laugh.

He sits up with you, shuffling that little bit closer on his palms. At this proximity you can smell his cheap cologne - cedar and sage, probably a birthday present at some point, and the weed residue that sticks like gum to a shoe on his signature denim jacket.

"I have no idea what you mean," the lick of a smirk teases the corner of his lips. He reaches for you, more so the near burnt out roll-up still glowing golden between your fingers, wandering eyes gliding over your taut expression.

It was silent then. Nothing awkward or tense, both accustomed very comfortably to the ability to sit together in peace. The cicadas are louder now you notice, shifting to sit upwards so you can wrap your arms around just below the curve of your knees.

Eddie flicks the spent joint onto the dirt beneath you once the cherry red end burns an inch or so from his pursed lips, hissing as he inhales to let the drug weigh heavy in his lungs.

"Tastes like shit," he chuckles as he puffs out, spluttering slightly over the bitter aftertaste that always settles close to the filter. Eddie wasn't much for a filterless jay, he at least had a small shred of decorum.

"Smells like shit, too," you agree when he's shoulder to shoulder with you, clothed skin on skin but he was still pleasantly warm. Eddie smiles, nodding, hand to his chest as he clears his throat over a laugh.

You watch him fondly, eyes round and longing. Eddie had always been flirtatious, exclusively teasing with no weight behind it. But now? he was laying it on thick.

You felt that there had always been something there, stewing and bubbling; overly protective when it came to whatever douchebag (his words, not yours) you decided to entertain next, religiously making ‘did you get home safe?’ phonecalls after your hangouts, and you being the first person to hear every snippet of a new song he had on the go.

You pushed it down, it was easier not to read too far in to it.

“You want another?” Eddie offers, nudging his shoulder with yours before jumping off the trunk with much more grace than you were prepared to give him credit for.

Your nose scrunches, “You do?”.

He shrugs, jaw tucked into the slip of his collarbone and bottom lip pursed.

“You can just say no, sweetheart” he turns to you then, and you lift your arms away from your knees on instinct. You’re at a perfect level now where Eddie can step forward to brace his forearms to your shins, narrowing his eyes and swaying himself forward, a languid motion that nudges you back.

“Well no then. Seems like you’ve had enough for the both of us,” your eyes crease back at him, and you notice then the small sting of rawness that comes with your high. The leather of his jacket is a welcome warmth to the bare skin of your legs, the frayed edged denim shorts he had picked out for you stopping mid-thigh and not providing as much purchase as you wished for at this time of night, the cool air almost biting.

“Pft,” Eddie rattles his lips, your gaze floating there and fixing, “I’m stone cold sober, babe”.

You snort, and that only has Eddie’s grin stretching into pretty little dimples that make him appear more boyish and soft.

“You don’t think I am?” his palms are on either side of your hips, fingers spread and daring, thumbs tickled by the jagged strands of denim.

You lean forward into his space, shaking your head with a downturn of your brows, inspecting him. The soft graze of your fingers along his hairline push his hair back from his face, Eddie’s shining eyes following yours that are taking him in in drawn out contemplation.

Your touch settles right over his ears, nails tucked into the soft roots of fuzzy hair at the scalp, palms partially encompassing the shell of them so everything sounds underwater, but he doesn’t mind.

He’s observing you just the same; tracing the dip and curve of your cupids bow, up and over each full apple of your cheeks, admiring the ripple of skin between your eyebrows from the way you’re peering at him, noting the fiery cherry clouding of your scleras, trailing back down to do it all over again.

“You’re hot,” he whispers, not that he needed to though it was more accidental, the words escaping him without meaning to.

“And you’re high”

“Correct” he muses, a closed mouth low chuckle that bobs over his adam’s apple. He looks endearingly goofy; rosy cheeks and hazy eyes, with a handsome cheesy grin to top it all off.

Eddie sways lightly in the space between your legs and you can feel your heart thumping angrily in your throat. You don’t think you had ever been this close to him, not like this.

Your face screws up, smiling, lifting one palm away from his ear to touch the back of your hand to his forehead.

“You look like you’re about to kiss me, Munson”

“Would you be mad if I did?” his hands pause next to you, studying your expression, thumbs tucked a few centimetres beneath the cuff of your shorts.

The drugs were making you both bold, and maybe it was just because you had missed one another so much, but there was really no other way to quite show the extent of it.

“No,” your voice is meek, trembly soft and the static in your head of your high mixed with the adrenaline flooding your veins is making you feel like you're on the brink of passing out.

Your lips are millimetres apart, tips of your noses graze one another and Eddie's breath is washing in heated deep roves over your beetroot cheeks. You brace your hands on his neck, right at the base where the curve of it meets his shoulders, rolling your fingertips carefully into the skin there.

It’s soft at first, courteous. Plush lips and innocence.

You were the first to push back that tiny bit harder, stroking over his neck with fresh intent, actually kissing him rather than the pleasant gentle press of your mouths.

Eddie reacts immediately, being the first to pull away if only for a second to part his lips, deepening the kiss. He hooks his fingers beneath your full calves, sandwiched between them and the cool metal of your car.

“This okay?” he murmurs against your lips.

You're nodding, laughing so pretty and girlish when his grasp tightens around the backs of your knees, gasping into his open mouth when he drags you a little meanly closer to the edge of the trunk.

"There you are," he hums, wandering hands dragging up and along the full hills of your hips, dipping into the curve of your waist and stilling there.

One palm presses to the side of his face, cool despite the way he’s heating up from touching you like the way he’s always thought about when alone.

You pull him closer and he obliges far too easily, smushing yourself against each other chest to chest. Eddie holds you so tight and he’s fucking giggling against your lips.

It became rather heavy in a hurry, tongue and teeth, beckoning him closer and welcoming every little squeeze and soft caress as he just drank you in. You craved it, and only really from him.

“Jesus, sweetheart” Eddie groans, smirking when you chase his lips, stare heavy and longing albeit sluggish and glazed, completely gone in the whirlpool of your high and his wonderfully suffocating presence.

“I need to feel you” you admit, voice quiet yet confident, not really hiding the fact that you had thought about this since the violent strike of puberty hit you both. When Eddie let his hair grow out and he grew that little bit taller, strong manly hands and lean torso.

You had run it over in your head in the safety blanket of darkness in your bedroom, hand between your legs and the image of him touching you, loving on you, pleasuring you.

“We- we don’t have to do that” Eddie says, squeezing your hips, eyes startling when your expression drops, “I mean I want to, shit, of course I want to,” he’s finding your gaze, chest hurting when he noticed the wobble of them under the slick sheen of threatening tears.

“We’re pretty fucked up and I don’t want you to regret anything when our heads are clearer”.

You gulp, eyes trailing back to the pink sheen of his lips that are sickeningly wet with you.

“I want to, I could never regret doing anything with you.”

“Fuck, okay, fuck it let’s do it.” Eddie rushes before either of you could change your minds, lost in the addicting rush and excitement of it all.

His lips are on you again, near frantic and passionate, silken tongues twirling together and he’s practically lifting you off the trunk and onto his waist, wrapping yourself around him not daring to let go.

It didn’t take long for you to end up in the back of your car after dragging Eddie across the grass and dirt with his collar bunched up in your fist, the other tucked into the hair at the nape of his neck. He almost tripped you as he followed, jacket shrugged off and forgotten, a dog on a leash, chaste kisses pressing to your forehead, cheekbones and each stretched corner of your lips.

There wasn’t much time for pleasantries, not by the way the two of you are panting and groaning pathetically into each other’s open slick mouths.

You had kicked your shorts off before climbing into Eddie’s lap, slowed by your sneakers and he’d chuckled watching you with soft, glittering chocolate eyes as you hopped on one leg, patting the tops of his thighs when you glared up at him.

“Can I?” his lashes fluttered, head dipping lower towards the juncture of your neck, waiting with puppy dog lovesick eyes. Who were you to deny him when he was looking at you like that?

“Please” you whimpered at him, grabbing at the back of his head and drawing him closer, desperate to feel his pillowy lips right over the sensitive skin of your throat.

Eddie moans, really moans as you tug on his roots, squirming in his lap when his hot mouth sucks and licks on you, blooming crimson reds and lilac blues. He has to flatten his palms at the plump of your hips, pressing there cruelly to keep you still since you’re rocking yourself so good against where he’s hardening beneath you.

“You need to stop doing that” Eddie almost seethes through his teeth, a warning though you know he doesn’t mean it to be harsh, heat rushing to your centre from the way his tone drops low and fierce. “Or else i’ll cum in the fucking jeans”.

It was all pent up energy, pitiful pining and taking advantage of the heat of the moment. You were wet and wanting beneath the cotton of your underwear, aware of the sticky sensation that felt foreign against the material when you ground your centre down onto the zip of his jeans.

“Just… just fuck me already,” you almost cringe at how dirty you sounded, far too desperate and you’ll certainly be embarrassed thinking back on it when all things are said and done.

“Holy shit. Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, baby” Eddie shoves a little at the crease of your thighs, his thumbs digging there to sit you back at his knees. The clinking of his belt and fidgeting hands tugging at his zipper has your heart pounding beneath your ribs, breathless gasps escaping you when he tugs himself free.

“C’mere” he beckons you forwards with two fingers, sealing his mouth back on yours with heightened fervour and frantic wanting as he spreads his thighs across the back seat, slouching down to allow a better angle.

Your soaked clothed centre brushes along his shaft when you move, clammy hands cradling his sharp jawline and swallowing down Eddie’s pants and huffed profanities.

His palms wander as you lick in each others mouths, the surrounding soft skin catching twinkly under the moonlight. Eddie kneads into your ass, rough, calloused fingers crude and playful, spreading your cheeks apart to push them back together again.

“Having fun?” you leave merely an inch between you, breath smoky and the smell of bitter weed sticks to his hair that closes around your faces, almost blanketing you from whatever may be lurking on the outside of your cramped car.

“So much fun,” and there was that grin again, painfully wide and you want to kiss each smile line that adores his pretty face.

“Touch me here. Please” your fingers twirl into his, guiding his knuckles up under your hoodie to finally meld to the balmy plump rolls covering your ribs. Eddie’s eyes are saucered, wide and disbelieving, mouth dropped and hanging slack.

He scans the naked buttery soft skin under his touch that is now available to him with your oversized hoodie out of the way, gliding over you with intense abundant delight. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers, your palms falling over his when he reaches the soft lace of your bra, nails catching on the hard underwire.

His large hands close around your breasts, cupping and squeezing them just hard enough to have pretty noises catching at the back of your throat but kind enough so it doesn’t hurt. Not too much.

“C’mon, Eds, please” you’re on the cusp of begging, stroking yourself over his cock that’s barely slippery with your arousal through cotton. A rather aggressive moan escapes from the depths of his lungs, clumsy when he takes hold of himself at the base.

You lift yourself up, knees planted wide on either side of him, legs shaking when he’s thumbing at the elastic lining of your underwear to pull it to the side.

If you were both clear of mind, you would rather your first time together be methodical and careful, more paced and tenderly slow. Eddie wanted to shower you with unhurried devotion, not leaving a single inch of your plump skin unscathed. Yearning to leave you kiss bitten and bruised in all of the nice ways.

The first slip of his tip as he enters has you mewling already, lowering yourself down inch by downright devilish inch. You reach for his collar again, his shirt wound tight in your fist and you're prying him into you. Eddie's face smushes into your neck, blissful hot breath fanning over your skin.

You pause when he's fully seated inside you, wisps of his hair tickling your nose as you bury yourself into the crown of his head. You cushion him to your breast bone, desperate for every shred of contact, adjusting to his girth that stretches you out so nicely.

The inside of the car is blazing. Windows dripping and steaming, droplets gliding down the cool glass and disappearing into the well at the base.

It was kinder then, your next actions. Your heart is skipping, the couple inches that Eddie drags himself out to push right back in, knocking some syrupy sweet sounds out of you that he wishes he could keep on tape.

Eddie licks his lips, whining into you, tongue laving over your salty skin with so much rampant fidelity, you never wanted him to stop.

You barely bounce, you didn't need to. Eddie merely has to see-saw his hips into the seat so he grinds up into your heat, groaning and mouthing incoherent sentences mixed with mewls of your name when his cock nudges spots you didn't know could be reached.

Eddie wraps both hands around your back, dipping beneath your pullover and hugging every curve he could grab on to. The initial intensity of it all had slowed into a deliberately slow pace, intimate and sloven.

His gasps tickle the column of your throat, bridge of his nose stuck under your jawline. Not much needed to be said, to be honest it was difficult to form any words when you were both so far gone in the ecstasy of it all, pleasure only amplified by your drug-induced state.

"Eddie" you plead, eyes closed and panting open-mouthed into his hair. He could tell by the clamp of your walls around him that you were close, probing into that sweet spot that blinds you, and it was a good job too since he could feel his own release approaching.

"I've got you, my girl" He releases himself from your grip, your chest tightening at the loss of him, but only for a moment. Eddie's eyes widen when you moan his name, an awe-filled smile shining up at you as his thumb circles over your clit.

Your stomach aches, a coiling wounding tight and pooling right at the pit of it, the promise of an orgasm looming and steadfast. He lays his head back against the headrest, lips swollen and tantalisingly rouge from where he had maimed you.

"Such a pretty girl" he coos and you're right there, his candied goading and sugary praise coaxing your release.

Eddie's eyebrows pinch, rubbing his thumb that little bit quicker, driving his hips up up and up right so he completely disappears inside of you to the hilt over and over again.

"I'm so close, so so fucking close" your whimpers hike, jaw hinging wide and eyes brimming watery under the sheer pressure of it all.

"Come on, baby. Cum with me" he works you right to the edge, dragging his cock in and out just right, and you didn't need any further instruction, eyes locking together as you both come undone.

Eddie ruts sloppily into your sweet wet cunt, gushing into every millimetre of you he could reach, his release dribbling out and onto his navel. Your breath hitches, and Eddie appears like he's in pain with the way you're pulsing around him, milking him of everything he has to give.

You're dizzy with him, putty and pliant over him, chasing that feeling with a slow roll of your hips when Eddie is pressed to you again. He kisses your neck, loving over where you're bruised, travelling up to that sensitive spot right behind your ear.

He makes his way gradually to your lips, caught in one long drawn out kiss as you both breathe in heavy through the nose. There's a quiet lull when you part, your buzzing brains catching up with the events of the evening, paused in each other's embrace.

You're laughing then, guiltless and elated.

Eddie talks first, weaving his hands behind your ears and tucking your hair back, pressing his sweating forehead to yours that's damp and beaded just the same.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah"

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x fem!reader smut #stranger things #eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #eddie munson imagine #stranger things fic #eddie munson x y/n smut #my writing

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lovebugism · 6 months

Note

hi! reader doesn’t like kids at all, but somehow eddie’s child is just different and the cutest sweetest child who warms their heart

✶ ┄ MAYDAY ! [ the beginning ]

summary: when steve harrington brings you as a plus-one to a munson birthday party, he forgets to tell you it's for eddie's four-year-old, maeve. (1.8k)

pairing: dad!eddie munson / f!reader

tags: strangers to lovers (eventually), slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love, meet ugly-ish, fluff, girl dad eddie munson™, r is not used to being around kids (and it shows), baby blurb turned spin-off universe <3

When Steve Harrington invites you to a birthday party, he fails to mention it’s for a four-year-old.

The tiny trailer is decked out in decoration. A fusion of black and rainbow, of bats and unicorns, of vampires and Tickle Me Elmo — like no one could land on a singular theme.

Steve guides you into the home with a golden hand on the small of your back, his other clutching a sparkly black bag with Count von Count’s face on it. You stop very suddenly in your tracks. Happy 4th Birthday, Maeve! reads a handpainted sign draped beneath the ceiling.

You become very hyperaware of the whiskey bottle in your right hand, something you figured would be the most sufficient thing to gift someone you’d never met before. You just hadn’t expected the stranger to be a child.

“What the fuck, Steve?” you bite under your breath, glaring at the boy beside you. “I thought you said this was your friend’s birthday party?”

“Maeve is my friend,” he answers with a stupid shrug. “Though, to be fair, I did say it was my friend’s kid’s birthday party.”

He most definitely hadn’t.

“What the hell— I brought booze!”

“That’s okay,” assures a wild-haired boy with a pretty pink grin as he walks up to the two of you. The friend in question.

Eddie Munson wears a silver ring on each finger and a thick leather jacket despite the warming spring season. His laughter sounds like sunshine. His smile is bright enough to give you a goddamn sunburn.

“Maeve’s been getting presents all day— It’s about time someone got somethin’ for me,” he jokes.

You grimace while the two boys laugh. “Sorry…” you murmur as you pass him the bottle, shrinking inside yourself in an attempt to hide from the moment. I’m never letting Steve convince me to leave the house again, you think to yourself.

Eddie shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. I’ll go stick this in the kitchen— Make yourself at home.”

Your racing heart quells only slightly. He must be more of a good guy than Steve made him out to be, if he’s willing to keep you around after you brought booze to his daughter’s party. Though, you’ll contend that you were only half at fault for this.

Steve bites back a chuckle as he walks you to the back door, standing with you on the little wooden deck lined with sparkly streamers. There’s a picnic table off in the distance, covered in a bat-patterned cloth and set with Sesame Street-themed utensils. A small crowd of teenagers gather around it, and a couple of their parents, you figure.

The spring breeze only half soothes your burning skin.

“See?” he lilts, trying not to laugh and failing. “He likes you already—”

You swat his chest with a less than kind hand.

“Ow!”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Harrington, I swear to—”

“What’s your favorite animal?” a tiny voice asks from behind you, a smidge too loud and confusing their R’s with W’s.

You look over your shoulder, face flooded with horror. A kid with wild chocolate hair stands at less than half your height, wearing the tiniest Ozzy Osbourne shirt you’ve ever seen beneath a rainbow tutu. You don’t know what to say, so you just blink at it for a moment — at her.

“Hey, Maeve,” Steve greets with a curt wave.

The girl beams, missing her very front tooth. “Hi, Uncle Steve!”

“Wha— Huh?” you stammer mindlessly. ‘Cause you’re not exactly the best at talking to people your own age, let alone to children. They’re too honest. And too loud. And beyond still feeling like a kid yourself most days, you don’t have anything in common with them.

“What’s your favorite animal?” Maeve repeats in the same inflection, smiling until a dimple appears in her freckled cheek. “Mine’s a Hefflelump.”

“Hef… Hefflelump?” you echo quietly, only vaguely registering Steve’s laughter as he disappears through the screeching screen door, leaving you all alone. You’re definitely killing him for this.

“Yeah… From Winne the Pooh!” she says like it’s obvious.

“Oh… Okay…”

“What’s yours?”

You stumble over your words to find an answer. “Um… Uh… I don’t— I don’t know…”

“Everyone has a favorite animal,” she scoffs like some kinda critic with a speech impediment. She tilts her chin to her chest and peers up at you with a pair of doe eyes, so brown they’re almost black. You shift your weight on your feet, visibly uncomfortable beneath her unwavering stare.

“Maybe like a… A blobfish, or something?” you shrug.

Her tiny face screws in disgust. “Gross,” she spits.

You flinch. “What? Why is that gross?” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest, more defensive than you’d like to admit.

“They’re so ugly,” Maeve giggles.

“Why?” you squint. “‘Cause they look differently than we do?”

“No!” she laughs, loud and golden, just like her father. “’S ‘cause they’re so slimy.”

“Well— You— You’re slimy,” you stammer.

The wild-haired girl grins with all her baby teeth (well, besides the front one, anyway). “You’re slimy!” she echoes with a mischievous twinkle in her chocolate eyes.

The screen door squeals open again, the rusted hinges screeching in protest. “Who’s slimy?” a male voice questions from behind you, a smile audible in his voice.

“You are!” you and Maeve chorus at the same time.

You whip your head around a second too late. Your heart drops to your ass when you find Eddie lingering in the doorway behind you. You stumble over your words while Maeve giggles. “Sorry! I thought— I thought you were Steve! I’m so sorry!”

A chuckle sputters from Eddie’s mouth. He’s nearly as grieved by it all as you are. “He just left,” he tells you with a lopsided smile, cocking his thumb over his shoulder. “I think he’s helping Wayne out front. They’re putting together Maeve’s d-o-l-l-h-o-u-s-e.”

His eyes flit upward as he tries hard to spell the word correctly. Upon your confused look, he says, “I can’t say it, or she’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“Right,” you nod.

Eddie crouches and holds his arms out for his daughter. Maeve’s tiny feet patter against the wooden deck as she rushes to him. He huffs at the weight of her — heavier than he remembers and getting bigger every day (which is weird ‘cause she was a newborn, like, a week ago). He grunts when he picks her up, propping her weight on his side.

“What were the two of you talkin’ about, then?”

“Blobfish!” she shouts with a beam.

Eddie breathes out a faint chuckle and turns to you. “She’s forcin’ you to pick a favorite animal, huh?” he wonders, then laughs a bit louder when you nod. “Yeah, she’s been doing that all day. It’s her new thing,” he says, nuzzling the tip of his nose into her curls.

Realization seems to him then, and his brows furrow when he looks at you. His face, all twisted in confusion, is an exact replica of Maeve’s.

“Wait— Your favorite animal is a blobfish?”

“That’s what I said!” the girl laughs.

You shift your weight on your feet and cross your arms over your chest. “I’m… feeling very judged in this moment…” you murmur under your breath, only half joking.

“I think that’s the most creative answer we’ve had yet, huh, Mae?” Eddie chuckles.

You scoff. “Well, I think Hefflelump’s pretty creative considering—”

The boy clears his throat, seeming to sense the rest of your sentence. His eyes widen in a lighthearted glare before he nods to the girl on his hip. Only then do you realize the words sitting on the tip of your tongue. You swallow them down immediately.

“Right…” you nod instead. “Nevermind…”

“Here—” Eddie huffs as he sets the girl down again. “—Go find Aunt Robin, alright? She’s probably decorating your cake as we speak.”

Maeve rushes off at the word cake, tottering on lanky, ungraceful legs. The two of you watch her go and linger in an awkward silence. Neither of you is quite sure how to make conversation without her there. You decide to start with an apology.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry, by the way. Again,” you laugh awkwardly at yourself, scratching at the back of your neck. “I’m not… I’m not really… great with kids. If you couldn’t already tell.”

Eddie grins, pink and lopsided and pretty. You don’t feel deserving of the warmth swimming in his button eyes, glimmering beneath an early setting sun. “It’s okay. Seriously. You should’ve seen Robin and Steve the first time they met her— they were hopeless. And now they’re… Sort of alright, I guess.”

You force a faint chuckle. “Yeah, I’m— I’m just not used to being around them, I guess. I don’t even think I’ve talked to a kid her age since, like, elementary school.”

“I was the same way. ’Til I had Maeve and all…”

“Well, I couldn’t tell,” you assure him with a wavering smile. “You’re, like, a total pro. You’re great with her.”

He ducks his head to hide his blushing cheeks. The apples of them speckle warm and pink beneath the weight of your compliment.

“Well… thank you,” he says, deflecting from your praise with that stupid, posh, D&D accent he always uses when he gets nervous. You don’t notice him grimacing at himself because you’re still stewing in your own embarrassment.

“And sorry for the booze, too. I seriously didn’t mean to bring— I mean, Steve didn’t even tell me that—”

“Stop apologizing,” Eddie chuckles warmly. “That part’s not your fault, alright? I don’t know if you know this or not, but your boyfriend’s a total idiot.”

Your face screws up. “Oh, he’s not— Steve’s not my boyfriend.”

The boy’s smile ebbs. “No?”

“No. No way!” you laugh before you mean to. “I’m pretty sure I’m just, like, his replacement best friend since Robin started dating Vickie.”

Wide-eyed and distantly relieved, Eddie stammers like a teenage boy. “Oh. Right. That’s… That’s cool. Yeah.”

“Yeah…” you echo.

“Well, uh— I’m gonna see if Wayne wants any help,” he blurts despite knowing he’s been barred from doing handy work since he nearly drove a nail through his own finger. He just needs a way out, lest he keep stumbling over himself and lose all of his cool points with you.

He saunters backward through the opened door and nearly trips over the frame.

You bite back a laugh. He forces a wavering smile.

“But, um, I was thinkin’ about cracking open that bottle you brought. You know, after Maeve’s in bed and everything. If you— If you wanna hang around that long…”

The silence makes him as nervous as a teenage boy, all writhing and uncomfy in his skin. You nod in agreement, and his sparkling chest swells all over again. “Yeah,” you reply, lip quirked in a poorly hidden smile. “Sure. I’d— I’d like that…”

He smiles, all proud of himself. “Good. That’s… That’s good,” he stutters, then swallows hard and scurries off before you change your mind.

Before he shuts the squealing screen door behind him, you hear Robin’s voice exclaim loudly from the kitchen. “What the hell’s a blobfish?!”

if u have any other ideas for hijinks these two idiots (and maeve) can get into, feel free to leave 'em here! (⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

#published by bug #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #st drabbles #eddie spaghetti drabble #eddie and maeve

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caxde · 3 months

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bright eyes | eddie munson x reader

summary Eddie runs into his ex while he's out in a date with you and his little girl, and you try to deal with his unresolved feelings (5.3k)

warnings fem!reader, girl!dad Eddie!!!!, fluff, mutual pining, yearning etc, slowburn strangers to lovers, idiots in love!!!, first ily, english is not my first language so I apologise if there’s some mistakes, not proof read!

a/n: thank you guys for the support, this was based on a request by @althea-tavalas and @callsignraver thank you both, and sorry it took a while! part1 part2 part 3 part 4 (they can be read seperatly)

“They’re pink!” Lua screamed as she saw the flamingos, standing still on their delicate legs.

“Yes, they are!” You added with glee, matching her energy as she found her way near the enclosure. You crouched beside her, holding her carefully by her waist, just in case she felt like running again.

“I thought they were yellow…” Eddie said as she crouched behind you, teasing his little girl with his colour confusion.

“That’s pink” She mumbled as her finger pointed to the animals, her head looking back at him, a shy smile on her lips.

“No, this is pink” He continued as he grabbed his shirt, a faded ochre tinted the fabric, and you heard Lua giggle as she shook her head no.

“Yellow?” She asked, looking at you while she grabbed her dad’s shirt. You nodded as you smiled, finding the whole scene overwhelmingly pure.

She whined as she rolled her eyes, you stiffed a laugh. She was copying Eddie to perfection, you had seen that same eyeroll a few moments ago when you told him you had to go to the merry go round before you leave, even if the sun was going to set soon.

He caught you doing so, and gave you a smirk, a look of recognition you both shared.

You stayed at her level, both of you pointing out what else she could see, while Eddie slowly stood up, his eyes not leaving the both of you as giggling escaped both of your lips.

“Bug, can you stay with princess for a second?” He asked with a soft touch on her shoulder. She nodded enthusiastically, her hand holding yours, just like he taught her to do so when he leaves her with you.

“Where’re you going?” He smiled as soon as he saw how your head tilted to the left, Lua was picking on that too. He gave you a quick look, the same smirk as you realised what he meant invaded your face.

“You’re going to need tickets…” He responded, not loud enough so the surprise could still work whilst he nodded to the carousel.

You smiled up at him and he took that as you giving him the all clear, distracting Lua with more questions, guiding her to the opposite site of where he was going.

He was a bit busy, thinking about you and how thoughtful it was, you buying the tickets for the zoo. It’s summer solstice! you had cheered as you tried to make it seem like it wasn’t too much, that you were excited to go and that you needed to celebrate. He had only agreed to do so, if he drove the three of you to Indianapolis, and he could take you out to dinner later that week. He had called it a real date, the promise of such made you blush.

Eddie was deep in his thoughts, he knew he couldn’t really afford Enzo’s -it was too fancy anyway- so he was trying to decide if the dinner was a better idea than a picnic by the lake. He was too focused, he bought two tickets instead of three.

But as soon as he saw the strawberry blonde hair his stomach dropped, closed and turned around all of a sudden. He hadn’t seen her since she called saying she couldn’t do it, that he had to do it alone, that she was leaving.

Now Paige's hand was wrapped around another boy he didn’t know the name of.

Her eyes widened as soon as she made eye contact with him, a shy smile appeared on her face as she waved at him, slowly raising her hand. He returned the gesture, not sure what to do, or why his feet felt so heavy.

He stood in place, looking back at where you were, scratching the back of his head in a nervous manner, he relaxed his breathing as soon as he saw you picking Lua up, walking a bit closer to the flamingos so she could see them better.

He started worrying right away though, he hadn’t told Lua anything about her mother, and she was right there.

What would he say? He figured he had more time, that he would be able to tell her about her once she’s grown up and asks for her. Hell, she doesn’t even know the meaning of the word mom, she had never heard of it. And even if she did, Eddie knew you had been acting like one ever since you met, he hadn’t even told you anything about it, because you hadn’t asked out of respect. The only thing he did tell you was that you could ask about it, and the only thing you said back was just how much you care about Lua, and how you’d never wanna make things awkward by asking too much. He had kissed you after that, and he could feel the sensation on his lips now, even when panic was invading his body, the thought of you seemed to relax him enough.

“Eddie?” Paige’s voice snapped him back with a painful stab at the memory, one where it didn’t hurt hearing her say his name.

“Hi.” He didn’t expect his own voice to sound that cold, but he didn’t care if it did if he was honest with himself.

“How are you? It’s been a while.” She tried to keep the conversation friendly, but Eddie pursed his lips, and she remembered enough to know that he did that when he was uncomfortable.

“Yeah, two years and five months.” He spitted out, reminding her how old her daughter was.

“Is she here?” She asked back, her eyebrows slightly raising as she looked for her near Eddie.

“Yeah. She’s with my partner, they wanted Lua to come.” He wouldn’t admit it, but seeing her lip quiver as he said those words made him smile internally, knowing that it was a small victory.

“Could I see her?” She tried again, Eddie noted the regret in her eyes. He also saw just how much they looked like Lua’s.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He barked back, slowly and calmly. “You made it very clear that you didn’t want to be involved.”

“She’s still my daughter.” Paige added with shame in her words, Eddie felt bad once he saw her eyes crystalize.

“I think I remember you saying a very different thing.” He was going in for the kill, he could taste the anger dripping out of every word, though it was anger but protection.

“That…” She tried to gather herself. “I know you’re pissed off but I… C’mon Eddie, I was a child!”

“I was one too!” He finally snapped back, raising his voice to match hers, he saw heads turning, but he didn’t mind, he never had. “And I stayed. You left.”

“I just… I wanna see how she’s doing, I thought about calling you but I didn’t know… I don’t know where you are, now that I know you live in the city I could-'' Eddie had to cut her off, he thought maybe someday he would want her back -for Lua’s sake- but this proved, he just couldn’t stand her and her selfishness.

“We don’t live here, and if she decides she wants to meet her, i’ll let her. Nothing else matters to me but her.” Eddie admitted, he could feel the vein on his neck growing larger as he became more agitated.

He looked back for a second, rubbing his chin. A moment of silence that he used to check on both of you, and he was glad he did once he saw you walking with Lua in your arms, as she cheered seeing the merry go round light up. He smiled for a second, it wasn’t a full one, but a half upside down smile, his lips still slightly pressed.

“I know I didn’t… I am sorry Edds.” She tried to apologise, rubbing her hands together in an anxious manner he knew too well.

“Eddie.” He corrected her. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this right now, sorry.” He ended up apologising, excusing himself, needing a way out once he heard the particular chuckle of his little one.

He desperately needed to hold her.

You noticed something was wrong as soon as you saw him stomping his way back to you.

You noticed the way his breathing was troubled, going up and down faster than needed.

You noticed the way his lips were pressed against each other, and the way his hands shake.

Before you were able to ask anything, you looked back at where he was coming from, it wasn’t that hard to understand. She really did have Lua’s bright eyes.

The scrunch in between his brows asked for permission to hold her, and you let your head hang on the left as you nodded slowly, leaving a kiss on his cheek as he bent down to grab her, holding her tightly.

“Do you need to talk about it? Later?” He didn’t say anything, he just gave you a kiss back, right where your hairline started. You knew it was a yes.

“Should we go, bug?” He asked Lua, pointing at the fast yellow lights turning, a soft melody emerging from it as it turned.

“Can we?”

“Anything you want” He promised, as he held her tightly, hugging her as he walked over, leaving you behind as you watched both of them.

You saw that girl, walking by you, with a strange mix of melancholy, nostalgia and jealousy in her eyes. You could swear she stopped as she passed you by, looking at you in an analytic manner. Even if her eyes were lost deep into her own thoughts, you could feel the way she judged you, and how her fingers twitched for a moment, wishing she got to hold her as closer as you did, even if she said she couldn’t all those years ago.

You decided to just avoid her sight, enjoying the way Lua was smiling, being held by her dad, who was enjoying more than ever having her that near.

“Is she asleep?” Eddie asked, his eyes not leaving the empty road.

“Yeah” You answered with a quick glance backwards. You noticed the way her eyes were shut highly, her long lashes and a bit of drool falling from her parted lips. “Her neck will hurt” You noted, Eddie kept his lips pressed, nodding slowly. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Maybe”

“Moon?” You pleaded, your hand reaching for his, holding the pedal shift softly as his fingers melted to your touch.

“Are you sure she’s asleep?” His voice was trembling now, impotence clear in his tone. “She’s more clever than you think” He added as he grinned to himself.

“Edds she’s drooling, I’m quite sure.” Your thumb petted the back of his hand, he smiled at the gesture.

“I do want to talk about it… I just… I think… you might know?” He tried to make you say it, as if admitting it outloud was just as painful as having lived it.

“I think I do.” He just nodded, his lower lip quivered in anticipation to hear you say it, he needed to be you to break the ice, he needed you to be the one to ask it. You knew he would never impose such a hard topic onto you, just as well as you knew he needed to talk about it. “So… That’s her mother?”

“Mmmh” He answered, his head nodding as he tried hard to contain his disdain for her. “Paige.”

“How long have- When was the last time you-” You didn’t finish asking yet he was already answering.

“Since she decided to leave Lua with me. Right after having her.” You could feel how hurt he had been in the past, and just how seeing her for such a short moment had reopened the wound. “You know she decided she didn’t even want to hold her? She never gave a fuck about her now she wants to see her? Why!? Because you ran into us and thought you had to ask? Why!? It makes no sense at all. She hasn’t asked in two years and five months she can wait until bug asks it herself.” Eddie’s eyes narrowed, as he tightened his fingers around the wheel, his jaw clenched. Poison dripping out of his lips. You let him breathe, your hand now on the back of his neck, caressing him softly.

“Better?” You asked, a shy smile found its way on your tone. You saw a chuckle escaping him.

“Kinnda.”

“How did you meet her?” You were genuinely curious, and he could tell with just a glance at you. Your eyes shined up to him, while your free hand played absentmindedly with the hem of your dress.

“I uh… Old customer” He winked at you, hoping you would understand.

You confirmed it with a short chuckle.

“Soft stuff?”

“The softest.”

“And how did… that happen?” You added with a nod at Lua’s direction. He laughed at the question, his eyebrows raising.

“I think you know how that happens” He answered with a grin on his lips, teasing you a bit, his shoulders more relaxed now.

“Eddie…” You flickered his ear in a playful manner.

“We were bored. Honestly. Maybe a bit high.” His confession started as he slowed the car, pulling into Hawkins now. “She came over for some uh… stuff. I fancied some so we smoked in my room, one thing led to another and… A couple of months later she came back, scared to hell. She said she didn’t know what to do. I held her, I told her we could figure it out. She said she didn’t love me, I said I knew. I didn't love her either for the record, not that it really matters but uh… We told Wayne. He was pissed but didn’t show it to her. He said I had to step up, and I did.” He gave a quick glance to the sleeping girl on the backseat through the rearview mirror. His eyes softened as soon as he saw her dreaming. “As soon as I held her I… I knew'' He took a deep breath in, bracing for what he wanted you to hear. You continued the soft caresses into his skin that he was so thankful for. “Nothing would hurt her, and if that meant I had to get my shit together… I did. I graduated, I got a job… a legal one.” You chuckled at that at the same time as he did. “I vowed to take care of her, and to do that I had to take care of myself, so I did.” His hand finally reached for your thigh, reciprocating the caring touch you had been giving him. “I also vowed to not fall for anyone again, not until I was sure anyway. It was all going well… Until I met you I thought I could keep that promise but I… I’m kinnda glad you proved me wrong though.``

The car stopped, and suddenly the silence grew louder. His words resonated stronger. And your smile grew wider.

“I should put her down. Thank you for listening.” He concluded, giving your wrist a slow kiss, his lips sent goosebumps through your skin.

“Moon…” You got his attention, not too sure what to say next. “I… I um… Do you wanna come?”

“I’m tired.” He admitted, hoping you wouldn’t get offended by his answer.

“I know, me too I just… I think you could use the company. Nothing has to happen just, I’m here if you want to, you know that. Right?” He tilted his head, his lips curving in the usual smirk he gave you. You swear you could draw it if you had to by now, it was a magical feeling.

“I don’t- I can’t leave her alone, not today.” The sincerity in his voice grew bigger as his eyes flicked to her little one, sleeping soundly on the back of the car, unaware of everything that had happened.

“Yeah I know I just… You deserve someone to take care of you too.”

Something inside Eddie clicked.

Maybe it was the way your voice had sounded, soft and full of care and meaning behind every word you enunciated. Maybe it was the way your eyes looked up at him, as if he was a bright night sky, filled with stars and no clouds. Or, perhaps, it had been the way he noted how you had chosen the words so meticulously, your fingers going over the same spot on the end of your dress, as your lip quivered before finally deciding what to tell him.

It didn’t matter, not to him anyway, what the cause had been, but he was sure now that he was ready to let himself fall hard for you.

Deeply, madly and truly.

But then again, maybe he already was and was just now realising.

But from your point of view, you just saw a lovesick smile with puppy dog eyes looking down at you. Half closed lids hiding his sight as his head tilted slightly, a soft rush of blood invading his cheeks. You nodded slowly, closing the distance between the both of you just so you could leave a short kiss on his cheek, the warmth of it clashing with the coldness of your unkissed lips. You opened the door on your side, mouthing a short and wordless ‘bye’ as you left. He was left looking at you, his smile turning into a big grin as he looked deeper into you.

Wayne waited for Eddie to put Lua down, before he asked him what's wrong.

He could tell something had happened by the way his nephew took off his shoes. He didn’t take them with the top of his heel and left them there for him to put away. He took them with his heel and left them out of the doorway neatly with the exterior of his foot. And Eddie only did that when he was overthinking something

So Wayne waited, a cigarette burning in between his fingers, an unburned one waiting for his boy layed next to him. He raised his brows at him as soon as Eddie closed the door pointing at it with his head, Eddie’s face relaxed in a soft thank you way Wayne knew way too well.

He waited a bit more. For Eddie to open the window so the smoke would clear out and for him to light his cigarette.

He gave him a hard long look and Eddie folded immediately, with a short chuckle precinidng his words, a way of telling him to fuck off for knowing him too well.

“Long day, Wayne.” His eyes were lost into the horizon, looking at the dull wall in front of him.

“I gathered.” He spoke nonchalantly as smoke escaped his lips.

A short beat of silence occurred as Eddie thought about how to tell him what had happened, in the end, it was best to just say it.

“We ran into Paige.” Eddie finally said, over enunciating every vowel, with a hint of irony masked as rudeness.

“Shit.” Wayne’s surprised tone was genuine, just as much as his head whipping around to meet his eyes. Eddie just nodded slowly, taking a drag out of his fag, enjoying the numbing feeling the smoke left in his tongue, as if would make it easier to speak. “How did that shitshow go?”

“Horrible.”

“Did you overreact?” Wayne raised his brow at the question, as his eyes finally met Eddie’s.

“I don’t overreact!” He opened his eyes even more at the squeak in his voice, he waited to speak after he let out the smoke. “Maybe I do.” He admitted.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I said maybe.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing!” Eddie was getting flustered with the quickness in which his uncle caught up to his bullshit. Wayne had only let his arm rest on his thigh, resting his head on the palm of his hand, looking deeply into him. “I just… She wanted to see Lua, and she made it very clear how much she didn’t want anything to do with her, so I told her no.” Wayne scoffed, dropping the accumulated ash off. “What?”

“Even if she’s a shit person, she’s still the kid’s mother.” Eddie couldn’t quite believe his words. “She’s got a right to meet her.”

“When Lua asks about her, I’ll tell her. Not now.” He pleaded, his eyes crystalizing at the idea of Wayne not having his back for the first time in his life.

“Okay kiddo, but you’ll have to tell her” Wayne pointed out, moving his hands as he spoke, smoke trailing after them.

“I know. I had to tell princess too.” Wayne’s eyes widened at the information as Eddie just nodded in confirmation, taking one more drag, seeing the smoke travelling off the window, finding its way to you.

“You did?”

“Yeah”

“How did she take it?” Wayne feared the answer. It being a negative one and therefore it being the answer as to why Eddie had a gloom over him.

“She told me if I needed company? And that I deserve to be taken care of too…” He trailed off, the soft look on your face coming back into his mind.

“She’s a good girl…”

“I know”

“And she knows you better than you do.” Wayne added, patting his thigh as he stomped the cigarette out on the ashfilled plate.

“What do you mean?”

“You do need company.” Wayne told him, standing up as he whipped his hands on his jeans. He clocked Eddie’s quick glance to the closed door, and shook his head. “I’m here, nothing will happen. And you deserve to be with someone that cares.” It sounded as if Wayne was scolding him off, as if he was telling him how big of a douche he was by not allowing himself to be vulnerable for once. “Go!” He added, opening the door for him.

“She wakes up in a big mood when I’m not here…” He tried to fend off for himself, some sort of excuse that would justify him.

“And I know you enough.” He pointed out, nodding to your trailer. “You’ll be here for breakfast.”

“Dick” He joked, giving him the winning point of the argument.

Unaware of it all, you stood on your toilet floor, washing your face whilst the kettle whistled on the stove.

The same oversized shirt you always used, the fabric had become soft and with the same wrinkles falling perfectly in the same spot after so many years. You didn’t mind it, you just shushed the whistling, as if it could actually hear you whilst you mouthed along a jingle that came out of the telly, the ad brake had given you the excuse to actually stand up the couch and snapped you out of feeling sorry for yourself.

You had been brave, he hadn’t. And that wasn’t your fault.

Maybe he had been a little brave, you now thought, after all, he did answer everything you had asked him, even if he seemed rather anxious about it. And that was him being brave.

You shook your head, as you saw yourself spiraling again. You splashed water in your face, trying not to go down the same overthinking abyss you seemed to frequent. So maybe it was the water that made you not hear the soft knocks on your door, and that prompted a somehow worried Eddie to let himself in, looking around with curious eyes unable to find you anywhere, spotting the noisy kettle on the stove that was now burning the lower end of it, he walked over the kitchen, turning it of in a quick movement.

Before he even realised it, he was already preparing your tea the way he knew you liked.

When you emerged out, you left your body rest on the wall, arms crossed over your chest as you just looked at him.

You liked looking at him when he was unaware of it. He was beautiful, and you did tell him so constantly and he’d play it off with a funny face that made you chuckle, yet it was true.

His eyes softened when he was busy doing something, yet his sight seemed to harden as concentration invaded his body. You started to notice these little details long ago, now they were your favourite things about him. If you had to, you could list them all, if only the world had enough paper, you thought.

“I can brew my own cup, y’know?” You broke off his concentration and dedication with a soft chuckle, he turned around with a pinkish hue already invading his cheeks.

“I know, yet you always seem to prefer the ones I make for you” He tried to force his lips not to curve upwards, falling miserably as he handed you the cup.

“Since I taught you how to make one” You added before taking a short sip, careful not to burn your own tongue.

“My coffee still tastes like shit” He remarked, making you both snort a laugh, while you shook your head, the hand that wasn’t busy holding your tea found its way to your forehead.

“It kinda does actually.” You laughed as you spoke, one of the many details Eddie loved about you.

Love, as it turns out, is not one particular thing, but a conglomerate of them. Eddie was now realising that, as he put that laughter on the bottom of the things he could not live without.

“You said it was good!” Eddie raised his tone as he playfully bumped your shoulder with his, your head resting on it now.

“I didn’t!”

“Yes you did!”

“No, you asked, do you like it? and I said yeah…” You replicated the downward tone, replicating the irony you had used in the past.

“Oh, fuck off.” He was the one laughing with you now, holding into you tightly, his arm wrapping around your waist. “I’m sorry I left myself in, I kinda needed to talk to you actually.”

“Shoot” You said as you nodded to the couch, knowing it was better if the both of you were sitting down, able to look at each other.

Eddie’s steps followed you closely, strangely enough his words didn’t worry you. Not if his hand was intertwined with yours.

“What’re you watching?” He raised his brow at the T.V, still playing nonsensical ads.

“I don’t really know honestly” You added in an embarrassed hushed tone as you turned it off. The silence of the moment makes the bubble feel smaller. “What do you uh…”

“Right.” He took a sharp breath in, enjoying this moment even if he wasn’t sure what he actually wanted to tell you, you looked too beautiful not to take in. Even if your hair was put away in a messly manner, flyaways framing your face as you tilted it, looking deeper into him. Even if the only thing you were wearing was that faded shirt, it still let him look at your legs, and the softness your skin promised if he were to touch them.

“Moon?”

“Sorry, got distracted.” He muttered, shaking his head as his eyes left your legs, linking back with yours. “I uh… I realised I may have been a dick earlier, as Wayne pointed out.”

“Wayne?”

“Yeah he uh… He really does know when I get into my head”

“I could kinda tell.” Your eyes now avoided making contact with his, focusing solely on the way your fingers wrapped around the end of your shirt.

Eddie had your nervous movements learnt by now. If you held his sight he knew you weren’t overthinking, just trailing off so you’d play with whatever you had at hand so you would stay focused, but if your eyes landed elsewhere, he knew that your brain was going a mile a minute.

So his hand grabbed yours, pulling you back to him.

A tilt in his head as he scotched himself closer to you was all it took for your heart to stop racing.

“Not your fault, my love.” He reassured now, his words trailing off in that softened tone he only had for you. “I just didn’t know how you’d take it, the whole Paige thing and I freaked out.”

“If you freak out, I freak out.” You pointed out as your gaze finally met his.

“I know, I’m sorry” You gave into the palm of his hand as he cupped your cheek, the other one was still interlocked with your fingers. “I’m just really scared.” He confessed, whispering now.

“What for?” You looked at him through your eyelashes, you had never looked more angelic, pure, a clashing look with the concern on your tone.

“That the more you know about me, the easier it will be for you to find a reason to run off. And I’ll stay here, heartbroken over you” You could feel the sincerity leaking through, the earnestness in which he spoke was truly admirable, you had never seen someone be as open as he was being.

Brave.

You could be brave too.

“I’m not leaving, Moon.” You kissed the tip of his nose before letting your forehead touch his.

Eddie could feel his lips curving upwards even if he tried for them not to.

“How can you be so sure?” If you weren’t as close as you were, you were sure you wouldn’t have heard it, or the warmth he emanated with his vulnerability.

Brave.

You had to be brave for once, even if you could feel your heartbeat on the back of your throat.

“Because… You don’t run away from the things you love.”

Eddie froze on the spot. A sense of complete glee washed over him, and he could swear he just felt his heart miss a beat, as if it had answered before he was able to. He widened his eyes before separating your foreheads, just so he could look at you.

You and your flushed red cheeks, you and the way the sincere smile turned into a flirtatious and nervous one, while you tried to mask it by biting your lower lip.

“I knew you’d say it first” He cave in with that stupid grin in his face, his dimple making an appearance on his cheek.

“Fuck off” You chuckled as you scotched in even closer, your legs finding their way over his.

“I couldn’t run away from you either” He pointed out, the hand he had on your cheek now on the back of your neck, fingers tangling with your hair.

“Why’s that?” You played dumb now, pushing your body into him, as you sat on top of him, your arms resting on his shoulders, your gaze deep into his.

“Because I might love you too” He played too, following your lead as he pulled you in even closer, your noses touching again.

“MIght?”

“I do”

“I thought so, idiot”

You were both grinning, smiling and laughing all at once.

A weight had been lifted, as you had finally been brave for once, and actually spoke your mind.

It was even better now that he was finally kissing you, his lips gracing yours with that slowness that marked a good meaningful kiss and moment. Only made better by both of your lips curving upwards, still processing what had been said.

It had been more than the first i love you.

It had been a promise.

One that you both intended to keep.

requests! are open

@took-me-hours-to-steal-those @edens-vices-art @micheledawn1975 @peachystenbrough @mewchiili @bylermaxmayfield @yujyujj @honeymoonmunsonn @paleidiot @ali-r3n @sunshineandwitchery @supernaturalstilinski @womencriedpower @saramelaniemoon @cultish-corner @babyloutattoo89 @witchwolflea @serenadingtigers @readergf @guineveresghost @saramelaniemoon

part 5 is up, thank for the support dudes <3

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steddielations · 1 year

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ao3 | hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, pre s4

"Hello? Ed, is that you? What's all that noise? What's goin' on?"

"Wayne, can you come pick me up ... I’m at a party at the Harringtons’ house ... I don't wanna talk about it, man … Can you please just come get me? Please."

Eddie hangs up the phone and swallows down the lump in his throat.

He refuses to cry in Steve Harrington's kitchen.

Making his way through all the teenagers crowding this soulless house, he blinks the fog from his eyes. No tears are gonna take him back to half an hour ago, shooting the shit with his dad in the van, happily ignoring years worth of bloody hatchets and skeletons between them.

While Eddie was desperate for it to be real this time, dear old dad hadn’t changed at all, taking off with Eddie’s van the second he came inside to scope out the party. Sorry to all the manicured girls of Loch Nora that pay pretty pennies for his shitty joints, but his stash is long gone, along with all the cash he made the last few days.

It’s all in the wind with Al Munson like always.

The muggy air washes over Eddie when he steps outside, rubbing his eyes against the cool sting of wetness brimming in them. He’s not gonna cry in front of Steve Harrington’s pool either, even if he’s alone out here.

It’s like a different dimension from the crowd inside, but everyone knows the pool is off limits, though no one seems to know why. Everyone just falls in line to the will of the king. Whatever, Eddie doesn’t give a shit he just needs a minute to breathe. He needs a damn cigarette, too, but of course, his smokes were in the van.

“Hey Munson, you sold out already or something?”

Eddie’s hands drop from his face, whipping around to where the voice came from. Caught off guard, embarrassment rises in his cheeks under the gaze of the man himself, Harrington. There’s an almost eerie blue glow casting off the water where he’s sitting poolside in a deck chair, strangely alone out here when he’s got a whole party inside.

Eddie clears his throat, trying to shield his vulnerability from a moment ago, “Nah man, all my shit was stolen.”

“That bites. Do you know who took it?” Harrington sounds oddly… concerned. “I bet it was that dickhead, Hargrove. I kicked him out like 10 minutes ago.”

“What’s it to you?” Eddie shoots back, instinctively distrustful, hackles raised like a cornered animal. He’s already taken a knife to the back tonight.

Harrington holds up a hand as if to ease him, like somehow in all his prim Polo-wearing properness, he’s used to handling wild things. “Just figured maybe I could help you get it back.”

“Why do you care?” Maybe Eddie’s being too defensive, it’s not like Harrington has ever given anyone hell like Hargrove or Hagan, but they’re all one in the same right? Or maybe Harrington really was ousted from the throne like the rumors in the hallways say. Eddie’s got more on his mind right now than the intricacies of Hawkins High pecking order.

“Uh, because it’s my house and I don’t want some thief around? Jesus you’re prickly, dude.” With an eyeroll, Harrington waves him over to the empty chair next to him. “Here, just sit down and relax for a sec. We’ll see if we can figure it out.”

Eddie hesitates, feeling like it has to be some kind of trap, but there’s no one else around. Harrington’s never done more than stand by while his jock buddies do their damage to whoever or call Eddie a freak under his breath a couple times, but who hasn’t? Eddie encourages it, even. What would Harrington get out of pulling anything now when it’s not for show?

Honestly, Eddie’s just trying to rationalize it because he could really use the beer that’s also up for grabs, offered with an outstretched hand.

So Eddie stalks over to the empty chair, warily sitting down as if it might snap him inside like a snare. His nerves are all frazzled. Between his dad’s little stunt and now the king of the jocks (former king?) is handing Eddie an open beer that he’s taken a sip from himself, give him a break. Eddie mellows out a tad after a couple chugs.

“Do you have any clue who took it?” Harrington asks, way too much concern in the line between his brows than he should be able to fake for Eddie.

“No one here.”

Eddie sort of wishes it was that simple. A stranger would only hurt his pockets, instead of this bone-deep betrayal he should’ve seen coming. He doesn’t even care about the money, or his van, it’s deeper than that. It aches somewhere the booze can’t wash away. He squeezes the cool bottle in his grasp, blaming the contents for what he woefully admits next.

“It was my pops, man. He ran off with my van and everything in it.”

For some reason, it’s embarrassing to say. Either secondhand for his old man pulling something so low-down, or just his own pride for falling for it. He stares at the unnaturally still water in front of him, instead of meeting the gaze beside him.

He can feel Harrington taking in it, questioning it. Maybe he’s wondering how a father could screw over his own son like that, or maybe he’s thinking everyone knows that’s exactly what Al Munson would do, and Eddie— especially Eddie, should’ve known that.

Even Jeff warned him this time too, having been there since the days that Al would bring Eddie a new bike when he won big at the casino, then steal it back the next week to sell when he lost. Seems like Eddie was the only idiot willing to give his dad another chance, even blowing off band practice the last couple days to spend time with him.

“Your van, huh?” Is what Harrington finally says, soft for some reason. “I could give you a ride home. Forest Hills, right?”

That’s… not what Eddie was expecting at all. Just picturing that hotrod that’s all the rage in the school parking lot kicking up gravel in the trailer park rubs him wrong. It’s all off-beat, Eddie feels so far off his center that he’s normally so sure of. All he can do is push back to try and find it again.

“What, you’re gonna ditch your party to slum it on the wrong side of Hawkins with me? Don’t worry about it, I called my uncle.”

Looking over, he sees how Harrington almost looks disappointed by that.

“Yeah okay, but I don’t really care about this party,” he says, not even trying to pass it off in a ‘cool’ way, he just seems put off by it, “Graduation’s coming up, y’know, it was Tommy’s idea. I should’ve said no, I don’t give a shit about it. Or Tommy.”

Again, not what Eddie was expecting. He feels a thud in his stomach at the mention of graduation, yet another failure under his belt. “Well I’m not graduating, so does it count as that kinda party if you’re out here with the super senior freak?”

“Guess we’re just having a shitty dads party then,” Harrington tries for what Eddie assumes is a reassuring smile, because for whatever reason in this twisted reality, Steve Harrington is trying to comfort him.

Him, Eddie Munson.

But it ends up striking an already sensitive nerve.

“What do you even know about it?” Eddie scoffs.

Harrington’s smile drops, snapping back, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

A bitter laugh bubbles up in Eddie’s throat. He hates how it sounds as awful as he feels. Gesturing with the beer in his hand, he states the obvious, “Look around, dude.”

Maybe Harrington’s not as popular at school, but he’s still well off at home. A rich, two parent household that he’s never had to worry about scrounging to keep the lights on. The only business he’ll ever have to do is for his Daddy’s fucking letterhead. Eddie will accept his pity to the extent of a free beer, but he won’t sit there and listen to Harrington pretending to know what it’s like for him.

“Yeah, look around,” Harrington retorts, an even more bitter curl on his lip than Eddie’s. “Got everything except parents, don’t I? Like if they buy me enough shit, I won’t notice they’re hardly here.”

The look in his eyes is a little hurt but fierce, grating enough to cut through Eddie’s defenses. Wayne keeps telling him to stop jumping the gun and going off half-cocked. Yet here Eddie is again, assuming he’s got this guy all figured out.

When in reality, all he knows is that despite being the talk of the town, Harrington’s parents are rarely ever seen around. He lost his girl, doesn’t seem to have any real friends to show, and looks about as lonely at school as he does now— while he’s doing nothing but trying to help Eddie.

“I’m sorry, man,” Eddie relents, “You’re just going against everything I thought I knew about you right now. I’m trying to kick the habit of putting people in boxes with the whole anti-conformity thing. Been told I can be a real judgemental asshole.”

“Yeah I wonder why,” Harrington says lightly, his lips curling back into a smile that sort of makes Eddie want to hide his face. It doesn’t feel wrong somehow, like the rare times that a girl spared him a look, more like it shouldn’t be directed at him. Steve Harrington shouldn’t be smiling at him.

“And call me Steve, alright? If we’re gonna be in the shitty dads club together, we should be on a first name basis.”

That actually gets a laugh out of Eddie. Short and pained as it sounds, it’s real.

“Okay then, Steve,” he has to look away after he says it, feeling his chest cave under the weight of that smile for some reason. Must be the state he’s in. Steve made him forget for a second but he’s sinking again, staring out over the pool, trying and failing to see the bottom.

Read the rest on Ao3

for day one of @eddiemonth prompt “Parents”

#pre season 4 steddie w so much eddie lore anyone anyone #full fic linked at the bottom hehe #steddie #steddie fic #eddie munson #steve harrington #al munson #arriving to eddie month so late but i’m here now #rueswriting #steddie ficlet #stranger things

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upsidedownwithsteve · 2 years

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Eddie Munson x fem!reader [33K] summer camp, a few almost kisses, that friends to lovers shit and your own personal rule: no boys.

I want you to want me.

The man in front of you seemed stressed.

The fax machine was whirring, the phone was ringing and there was a large glass jar on the desk that was stuffed full of dollar bills, a faded label on the front that said “therapy kayak money.”

Jim Hopper, your new boss and camp leader, handed you a set of keys and a shirt, sighing as he scrubbed a hand over his moustached face.

“Michigan? Right?”

You weren’t sure if the man was asking where you were from or blessing you with a new name because he couldn’t remember your real one. But either way, you nodded.

“Look kid, I’m sorry but things are crazy here today. The dumbass delivery truck is lost and we’re already a few counsellors down until the road through Martinsville opens back up.”

You raised your brows, confused.

“Fallen tree,” Hopper waved his hand, “it’s fine. Listen, the campers don’t arrive for another three days anyway. Can you get yourself settled? I’ll find someone to show you the ropes soon, I just gotta answer some calls.”

You nodded again, clutching your faded shirt in your hands. The collar and cuffs matched the same sun bleached green that the word “staff” was printed in and the keys had a tab with “cabin thirty one” attached.

Hopper must’ve seen your worried face because he sighed again, softening a little despite the way he was desperately shuffling papers and files.

“You’ll be fine,” the man told you. It was almost reassuring. “The rest of the counsellors are great - well, the majority of them at least. Don’t talk to Billy. Anyway, the kids are easy enough and Bob actually makes some decent food in that old kitchen.”

Jim looked at you with kind eyes and his voice softened even further, despite the way the phone was still ringing. “Grab some breakfast, tell him I sent you, yeah? And take the morning to explore.”

It was alarming, the way you’d found yourself in the middle of Yellowwood State Forest, a whole other state away from home. But after graduating high school almost two years ago with absolutely zero idea of what you were supposed to do next, and an ex-boyfriend you so desperately wanted to avoid, you figured a few months in the wilderness wouldn’t do you any harm. Especially if you were getting paid for it.

And besides, you were good with children.

“Welcome to Camp Upside Down, kid, don’t eat the mushrooms,” Hopper smiled somewhat tiredly and then you were on your own.

Fuck.

Stepping out of the cabin, the warmth and smell of a new summer washed over you. The forest was quiet in the early morning but still very much alive, soft chirps and buzzes from hidden animals, insects that lurked in the too long grass by the edges of the lake. Something splashed by the dock, and in the distance, you could hear a car approaching, maybe two, one louder than the other.

The dirt paths were empty, the lack of kids running around making Camp Upside Down seem almost serene. It was still early, the sun a little golden, the sky a little hazy and the light that shone through the tree canopy made pretty dappled patterns on the forest floor. Everything smelled like morning dew, damp grass and tree moss.

And then your stomach grumbled. Deciding that your bags could stay in your car for a little while longer, you took Hopper’s advice and headed towards what you assumed was the mess hall. The dirt paths led the way through trees, past the unlit camp fire that sat proud in the middle of the forest clearing.

You could smell coffee as you approached, maybe bacon, some maple syrup too. It cut through the scent of pine and leftover rain but then there was smoke and the familiar smell of weed and then - fuck - the solid frame of someone slamming into you.

“Oh shit.”

Or did you walk into them? You weren’t sure, but whoever it was had been hiding around the corner you were turning, their back pressed to the old, moss covered wood of an unused cabin. You dropped your keys in surprise, catching your staff shirt before it fell into something that looked more like sludge than mud.

But the person, the boy, you’d ran into picked up your keys before you could, your eyes a little wild because the forest had been so quiet and you hadn’t expected to see anyone. Not yet.

“Cabin thirty one?” the boy asked you, holding the silver back out by the keyring. He was smiling, kind, wide, a slow and warm stretch that showed off the dimples in his cheeks.

Oh fuck, he was pretty, and he was a lot more man than boy.

You took the keys from his hand, smiling in thanks but your breath was stuck in your throat because this guy in front of you was far, far too nice to look at. Dark, messy curls, bangs that were falling into the biggest, brown eyes you’d ever seen. They looked a little soulful, bright, full of mischief and they blinked at you when you didn’t say anything.

“Fuck, thanks,” you managed and then you gestured back to the the corner you’d turned, “m’sorry, I must’ve not been paying attention, I didn’t even s-”

The boy grinned, brushed away your apology with a hand that was still holding a lit joint. He winced and stubbed it out on the side of the cabin, winking at you as he did.

“Nah, s’fine, don’t worry about it,” he told you. “I was totally lurking. Definitely in places I shouldn’t be.”

He wasn’t wearing a staff shirt, you noticed. Instead, his was black with a band logo for Metallica on the front. The sleeves had been entirely cut off, the sides of the cotton gaping around his waist, tattoos showing through the slashes and there was so much bare skin.

It didn’t look like a counsellor uniform. Nothing about the way this boy looked like it was by the book. More tattoos littered his arms: some bats, a spider, some kind of dragon, a scary looking puppet. His black jeans were ripped, his belt too long and the end of it hung by his knee. His big boots were creased and worn, black and already layered with mud and pine needles from the forest.

And then he tucked what was left of his joint behind his ear and he was smiling at you in the softest way; big, brown eyes and dimples too. He suddenly wasn’t as scary as you thought he was trying to be.

“You're the new girl, right?”

You twisted your lips, nodded, because you had to be right? No one else stood with you at orientation - if you could call it that - and Hopper hadn’t mentioned any other new counsellors. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned anyone.

“I guess?” You replied, smiling a little more warmly when the boy grinned, tucked a curl behind his other ear and shoving his hands in his back pockets.

His arms flexed and you swallowed hard.

You told him your name, clutched your keys and your shirt a little closer to your chest because the boy was looking at you with those eyes that seemed to see through your fucking bones. Did you have a soul? You were sure he could see it if you did.

“I’m Eddie,” he told you, kicking stray rock. Was he blushing? “Eddie Munson, I teach music here.”

“So you do work here,” you squinted at him, eyes narrowed on the slashed up shirt, the ripped denim. “I was starting to wonder if I was just talking to some random dude in the middle of the forest.”

He laughed, tilting his head to look at you, “well that just tells me you’re far too trusting.”

“Or just up for a little trouble,” you replied too quickly.

His answering grin was nothing short of scandalous.

“Where’re you from?” Eddie asked, moving in a way that told you he had a problem staying still. He walked into a burst of sunlight that lit the forest floor, came alive under the glow of it, his dark hair turning a little lighter, his pale skin showing a little more signs of being touched by summer.

“Michigan, a small town you probably wouldn’t have heard of,” you told him. “You from around here?”

“Nah, Philly,�� he replied, still smiling at you like he’d found his new favourite thing to do.

You gasped, all faux shock like you’d stumbled across a celebrity. “Ooh, a city boy, in the woods? Do the papers know?”

Eddie laughed again, a proper, lovely laugh that made your cheeks heat up ‘cause you felt like you’d achieved something.

He hummed, leaned against the cabin he’d been using for his hiding spot and crossed his arms over his chest. You tried not to stare at the way his muscles moved, or how the collar of his shirt shifted to show off a glinting, silver chain around his neck.

“Sometimes it’s nice to just touch a tree, you know?” He smiled, almost flirtatiously if it weren’t for the fact his cheeks were rosy and his eyes were downcast shyly. “Plus, my parole officer says I gotta do at least another four summers here.”

“Par- what?” You tried not to let the shock show on your face. You weren’t sure you’d succeeded. “Oh.”

That grin was back, that wide, slow spreading one that showed off the dimple on his right cheek. It made his eyes flash, made them look darker than they were when he stood in the sun and Christ, fuck, he was a menace.

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh.”

“Or am I?”

You stood, slack jawed and unsure because this boy was still a stranger and even though he had nice eyes and a pretty smile, you didn’t really know him.

He must’ve sensed your hesitation though, because he was suddenly stricken looking, curls bouncing as he shook his head at his own last words. “No, no - shit - I really was kidding.”

Maybe it was something in his face that made you believe him, that awfully earnest shine in his eyes. He looked concerned, worried that he’d scared you away so quickly but then you were snorting, not the most attractive sound, but it made the boy light back up.

He was watching you carefully after that, your little sound of amusement leaving a pretty smile on your lips and he mirrored it, swaying a little on the spot like he was too excited to stay still. Then, a hand, not really offered for you to hold, but a gesture for you to follow him. Silver rings flashed in the sun, skulls and demons and was that a pig?

It didn’t matter, your feet were moving and you were following him.

He seemed as surprised as you were, looking over his shoulder at you with a big smile, catching your elbow when you tripped on a root. You would’ve been embarrassed if he didn’t do the same almost five seconds later, both of you snorting as his boots slid on some damp moss.

“First time at camp?” he asked as a way of distraction, hands shoved back into his jean pockets, like he had to stop himself from reaching out to guide you through the forest.

You nodded, finding your footing with him as he led you onto a narrow pathway, the wooden signposts pointing you both towards the mess hall.

“Uh, yeah, figured I’d try something new,” you said.

Eddie grinned like he’d heard that answer before. “What’re you running from?” he asked.

His words made you stop, shoes pushed to the pine needles and you felt a little warm, a little shocked, that he’d figured you out so quickly. And if Eddie sensed your surprise, he didn’t show it, he just leaned up against a tree trunk and waited for you to say something, even if it was to tell him to fuck off and mind his own business.

But instead, you shrugged and told him the truth.

“Tiny town with not much to do and nowhere to go,” you squinted at him in the sun, a humourless smile on your lips. “And maybe some people that get hard to avoid in a place that has a population of like, seven hundred.”

“A boy?” Eddie smiled knowingly.

“Presumptuous,” you shot back but he saw the heat on your cheeks and the way you stared at the tree behind him.

“But not wrong,” he countered. That smile was still there. He didn’t push at your silence though, just tilted his head further down the bath and said, “c’mon, trouble.”

“Have you worked here before?” You asked, scrambling to keep up with his long strides. It was obvious from the way he was leading you that he had, but you didn’t know what else to say. You winced in embarrassment. “Of course you have, I meant how ma-”

“This’ll be my fourth,” Eddie told you, putting you out of your misery by ignoring the way your cheeks were warm. “Started off as a lifeguard before I realised I can’t really save myself in the water, never mind some kids, and then Hop let me run my own music workshop instead.”

You were impressed, even though you tried to hide it. “A whole workshop, huh?”

Eddie smiled as he led you round another corner, passing empty cabins that would soon be filled with sticky handed kids. A larger building was finally in sight, with big windows and a pitched roof, a wooden sign with ‘mess hall’ above the door and the smell of fresh coffee coming from inside.

He hummed, a sound of confirmation and as you both strolled towards the hall, Eddie told you all about his job.

“A whole workshop,” he repeated, “I teach guitar, drums, a little piano and I’m working on getting some more percussion stuff in for the kids who are… lacking rhythm.”

“Oh, I’m definitely a percussion girl,” you cracked. “A triangle would be a challenge.”

“I give private lessons, if you need them,” Eddie murmured and you weren’t sure if you imagined the way his voice dropped a little lower, the way he seemed to be looking at you through his lashes.

You stalled, stumbled, close enough to the mess hall now that you could hear the hushed hisses of coffee machines, the clatter of some dishes. If your cheeks hadn’t been pink before, they certainly were now. You could feel the heat there, a rosy beam you were sure.

“Uh-”

“Ohmygodno,” Eddie rushed out, eyes wide and hands in front of him, like he was warding off a cornered animal. “No, no! I actually do give lessons. Private lessons.”

You were still staring, lips parted. The whole forest was quiet, like it was listening in too.

“Guitar.” Eddie’s voice was short. Strained. God, his cheeks were pink too.

“Oh.”

You were both silent. A beat passed, maybe another, and somewhere above, a bird called out, mocking. It suddenly felt so much warmer than it already had, the sun climbing, Eddie’s eyes trained on your shoulder, too shy to meet your eye.

The air felt thicker than it should’ve.

But then the boy was clapping his hands together, the noise sharp enough that it made a squirrel leap from a nearby bush and disappear up a tree. Eddie swung his arms, limbs clumsy, a little on edge and finally, finally, he looked at you again.

“So, this is the, uh, the mess hall.” He pointed to the sign that said as exactly such and clicked his tongue, closing his eyes in more awkward embarrassment. “Yup.”

You nodded, clutching your shirt a little tighter in your hand, keys clinking as you have an equally pathetic thumbs up to the boy. “Yeah, that’s great, yeah… thanks, Eddie.”

He clicked his fingers, pointed them at you like a fake gun and then he was groaning, thumbs pressed into his closed eyes as he stumbled blindly away from you. You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled in your chest, tried to hide it with a twist of your lips but it made your cheeks sore, in the nicest sort of way.

“Uh, yeah, so roll call’s at eleven sharp, Hop hates it when we’re late and uh-” Eddie stood a little away, what he seemed to deem a safe distance from you. “I’d offer to help you find your cabin but I’ve already proven myself to be an absolute sex pest, so-”

You really did laugh then, a choked off sound that made Eddie grin and you smothered your own behind you fist.

He was sweet, cute. Really pretty. Even sweeter when he smiled at you like that, eyes sincere and so bright, his lips stretched out soft like he was amazed he’d gotten you to laugh at all.

“They’re back past the firepit, right?”

The boy nodded, hooked a thumb over his shoulder and told you, “yeah, just follow the path that veers off towards the lake. You’re not that far from mine. If you come to a, like, massive cliff, you’ve gone too far.”

You tried to hide another grin, squinted at him in the sun and wondered how you were going to get through the summer with Eddie Munson and your own self appointed rule:

No boys.

—————

Hopper's office was packed when you slipped back inside just before eleven o’clock. The fax machine was still whirring but the phone had stopped and you realised as you sat down, that a man you hadn’t seen before was holding the cable for it in his hand, unplugged and blissfully silent.

He stared at you through thick framed glasses, clipboard in his other hand and he scanned his paper.

“Michigan, right?” He asked you.

You mumbled your own name, nervous to speak too loud with so many new faces staring at you. You spotted Eddie across the room, lazing on an old couch next to a pretty boy with wild hair and an even prettier girl on his lap. Eddie grinned at you, lifted his hand from his lap and wiggled his fingers in a wave.

But the older man was huffing, scanning what you realised was your staff file and he brushed off your reply.

“Yeah, uhuh, Michigan, that’s what I said.”

You didn’t argue, didn't dare, ‘cause every pair of eyes was set upon you, so you dropped to an almost empty sofa and stared at your feet. Next to you, a girl with short hair and a backwards cap leaned in. She had a warm smile, sleepy eyes and freckles across her cheeks, and knee nudged yours.

She felt like a friend.

“Unless you wanna be known as ‘new girl’ for the next six weeks, I’d let Murray call you Michigan.” She grinned, voice soft. “I’m Robin.”

Before you could reply, Hopper was standing back up, clapping his hands together and motioning to his camp assistant. “Okay kids, let’s go. Murray?”

“Roll call, shitheads, look alive!” Murray barked, grinning wildly like this was his favourite hobby. “Chrissy, welcome back, we missed you last year. You’re back on gymnastics, but we’re gonna need you to report to Joyce for a first aid refresher, okay?”

A blonde by the window grinned and nodded, eyes wide and bright, features perky and flushed pink.

“Steve, Hawkins,” Murray pointed to the two on the sofa, neither really paying attention to him as they whispered to each other. “You’re both on games too if you can promise to behave-”

“-and to not break anymore goddamn kayaks,” Hopper cut in. The room snickered and the couple rolled their eyes, grumbling something about the quality of boats at camp.

“-and Harrington, you’re off the lifeguard rota since you and Hargrove can’t play nice. We want you on orienteering and Jason, you’re on lake duty now.”

Two blonde boys who stood by the window fist bumped, and from the way one of them wore all denim and sunglasses indoors, you had a feeling that he was the Billy your boss had warned you about.

“Argyle,” Murray barked and a long haired boy jerked awake from where he sat sleeping against the back wall. “Woodshop…let's keep it to bird boxes and kitchen utensils, yeah? Mrs Harlaw didn’t appreciate her son coming home with a custom rolling tray last summer.”

“Sure thing, my dude,” Argyle nodded, smiling happily.

“Buckley, you’re back in the kitchens with Bob, the kids love your sloppy joes, who’d have thought it, huh?”

Robin gave an unenthusiastic salute, spinning her hat the right way around so she could pull the brim of it low enough to close her eyes and not be seen.

“Munson, we’re gonna need your workshop schedule by tomorrow, please and thank you,” Murray handed Eddie some sheets of paper, “and you have seventeen new sign ups for private lessons. If you can make it twenty by the time the first week is out, we’ll look at negotiating pay.”

“Yessir,” Eddie murmured, flicking through the list he’d been handed. His eyes found yours and you warmed at the realisation you’d been caught staring.

He tilted his head towards the sheet, smiled and mouthed, “wanna sign up?”

But then Murray stepped in front of him, barely looking as he said, “Edward, stop flirting with the newbie,” you burned at the laughter, looking at the wall that held a mess of Polaroids and crayon drawings, paintings that were dated back ten years plus. “Nancy and Jonathan should hopefully arrive tomorrow, once the road has opened back up, so in the meantime, please for the love of god, don’t make me have to babysit you all.”

The man turned back to you and grinned, almost menacingly, eyebrows raised in a challenge. “New kid, Michigan, whatever your name is…” Murray searched down the list for your information, a finger scanning over the page. “Okay we’ve got you on arts and crafts with Nancy and if Chrissy needs help in the gym, you’ll be working Fridays there too, got it?”

You nodded, smiling a little tight ‘cause everyone in the room was still staring at you.

And just like that, Hopper plugged the phone back into the wall and Murray clapped his hands together, a signal for everyone to gather their things, schedules clutched in their hands as they stood. The ringing started again, the fax machine whirred and you were pushed outside with the rush of the small crowd.

The morning sun caught you the same time a hand did, just as warm on the small of your back, right before you stumbled over old roots that had grown too wild. You turned to find Eddie, smiling kindly, a little shyly, holding you until you found your footing again.

“Doing okay there?”

You let out a sigh that you hoped he couldn’t hear shake, squinting a little in the sun. “Yeah! Yeah— just, just a little overwhelmed.”

He nodded like he understood, taking his hand away but you still felt the burn over your shirt, cheeks feeling just as warm as he kept smiling that smile. There was a boy hovering behind him, smirking a little, brown eyes on both of you as he pretended that he wasn’t listening.

“Just wait until the kids arrive, you really gotta watch out for the ones that bite,” Eddie grinned when you laughed, hands shoved in his pockets and he hoped he didn’t look as flushed as he felt.

“Are you speaking from experience?” You asked him, feeling lighter than you had inside the cabin. The air smelled like pine and the creek you knew that flowed nearby. “Should I have made sure my shots were up to date before I came?”

“Oh yeah, rookie error, sweetheart,” Eddie grinned wolfishly, “it’s the little ones that’ll get you, the five year olds that can still reach your ankles.”

You snorted and suddenly you were pushing at his shoulder, hand on his bare skin and he was warm and soft under the tattoo ink and nonono, you weren’t supposed to be flirting.

So you cleared your throat and took a step back, eyes searching the moss at your feet and the forest seemed so much warmer than it was before. Before you could say anything else though - before you could dig yourself any deeper - the boy that seemed to be waiting for Eddie interrupted.

He had wild hair and a staff hoodie that had a girl's name stitched on the chest instead of his own and he was smirking.

“Uh, not to interrupt this little,” he waved a hand between the two of you, “thing, but if you want my help moving the amps, Eds, we gotta get it done soon.”

“I hope you can sense the irony in that, Harrington,” Eddie shot back and the other boy - Steve, you were sure - just grinned. “But yeah, I’ll get you at the van.” Eddie threw a set of keys at his friend and then it was just the two of you once more.

“So, uh, there’s a staff party tonight,” Eddie explained, bringing one arm up to mess with the curls at the back of his head, squinting down at you like the sun was too bright and he was too casual to care about the words he was saying. “S’usually down by the dock, the beer is shit but it’s free. I’ll see you there?”

The boy was looking at you so earnestly that you couldn’t possibly have said no. Big, brown eyes, lined with impossibly thick lashes that blinked prettily at you as he waited for an answer. It wasn’t until you heard too much birdsong from the tree canopy that you realised you were staring at him, lips parted and saying absolutely nothing.

Then you were nodding, trying hard not to smile too much because the boy’s grin was contagious and he was too pretty with the way the sun shone on him.

“Yeah,” you told him. “I’ll see you there.”

—————

The lake was framed with the stacked kayaks, the sand so much cooler now that the sun had dipped below the mountains along the horizon. There was a din of music, laughter, conversation dulled with the sound of the lake lapping at the shoreline and the idea of this space in the forest being your home for six weeks, didn’t seem so bad.

You wandered closer with arms crossed across your chest, wary and unsure of the unfamiliar faces and the smell of weed in the air that mixed with the pine needles. But a blonde girl that you recognised from the morning meeting caught your eye and waved, ponytail swinging as she walked over to you.

“Hey! Michigan, right?” She smiled, cheeks and lips a matching bubblegum pink.

“Uh, yeah. Apparently,” you smiled, not bothering to correct her, especially when she was handing you a red cup of something strong. You sipped, grimacing at the taste of cheap beer, lukewarm at best. “You’re Chrissy?”

You prayed you’d remembered right and when the girl grinned and nodded, you let out a sigh of relief.

“How’re you finding things?” Chrissy asked, nodding towards the small fire that someone had made on the sandy knoll, to the group of counsellors sprawled around it. “Did you get settled okay?”

You walked with her, edging around an old dock that seemed ready to sink into the bottom of the lake, waving shyly to the people who greeted you, the music too loud to really exchange anything more. You leaned into the blonde, mouth near her ear as you replied.

“Yeah, yeah— it’s been good!” You shrugged, somewhat unsure. “It’s different. Quiet.”

And it was. Your cabin was the last one in the row of counsellor homes, far away from the main offices and mess halls, almost hidden by the overgrown shrubs, wildflowers growing up the sides of the porch stairs. Everything outside was birdsong and the buzz of insects you couldn’t see, a tiny trickle of water from a creek that ran by the back wall window.

Chrissy smiled and patted your arm, “enjoy it while it lasts, the kids will destroy the peace soon.”

“Looking forward to it,” you said wryly and just as you went to take another long sip from your cup, the girl's eyebrows shot up and she tilted her chin to something behind you.

“Someone’s waiting on you.”

You turned, heart picking up in an embarrassing fashion as you spotted Eddie lingering by the dockside, a matching red cup in his hand as he spoke with Steve and another girl, who were debating animatedly about something you couldn’t hear. But he was watching you.

You looked from the boy and back to Chrissy, hoping you didn’t look as flustered as you felt and Chrissy grinned, nudging at your arm with her elbow.

“Go say hi,” she said and her voice was too sweet and small to sound commanding, but you did so anyway. “I’ll see you tomorrow? We can go over the gym schedule.”

You nodded, already walking across the sand to where Eddie was standing and you wondered if you imagined the way he pulled himself up a little straighter at your approach. He met you halfway, seemingly eager to get away from his two friends who were now too busy making out, hands pulling at each other's belt loops.

“Hi,” you smiled, wondering how he looked as pretty in the moonlight as he did under the sun.

“You made it,” Eddie greeted, tapping his cup against your own. “Makin’ friends?”

Eddie waved at Chrissy over your shoulder, ignoring how she looked at your back and winked, shooting him a thumbs up in response to a question he didn’t ask.

“Uh, yeah,” you nodded, following him as he led you both over to a dried out log that sat a little away from the fire - and an apparent audience. “Yeah, Chrissy seems nice.”

“She is,” Eddie agreed, sitting close enough to you that your legs brushed. It seemed to be accidental, ‘cause he flinched and moved a little, leaving enough room between you both that you felt the cooler nip of the night air. “Most of the guys here are.”

“Most?”

Eddie scrunched his nose in a very endearing show of disdain. “Jason is questionable,” he stage whispered to you, leaning back in so you could smell his cologne and campfire smoke that clung to him. “And Hargrove is more than questionable.”

You snorted, eyeing the boy in question. Billy Hargrove was lit up by firelight, a can of beer held to his lips and his denim jacket was almost too tight across his shoulders. He was blonde, blue eyed and dangerous looking, the kind of pretty that was too good to be true, the kind your mother told you to stay away from.

And with good reason, you noted, ‘cause the boy caught your gaze and even though he grinned, you realised there wasn’t much kindness behind those pretty baby blues.

“Yeah,” you agreed mildly, “I’ve been well warned about him. I’m not interested in knowing more.”

Eddie seemed a little surprised, hiding his smile behind his cup as he took a sip. There was a rolled up joint tucked behind his ear that he seemed to have forgotten about, curls less wild than earlier now the heat in the air has fizzled out, a too big sweater on top of his previously slashed up shirt.

“Not your type?” Eddie asked, aiming for casual. He was staring out at the lake, taking quick glances at you from the corner of his eyes as he waited for a reply.

You huffed out a laugh and it sounded more like a sigh, the boy noted and the smile you gave him was a tired around the edges. You dug the heel of your sneaker into the sand, kicked at a rock you unearthed and tried not to sound too self deprecating when you explained:

“No one’s really my type, right now.”

“Oh?”

You wondered if you misheard the disappointment in the boy’s voice, if Eddie really did look a little sadder than before when your gaze met his again. He was smiling, soft, eyebrows raised in question and his knee nudged your own.

“I’ve sworn off relationships,” you explained, shrugging. The memory of a boy you wanted to forget was still lingering in the corners of your thoughts and it made your skin itch. “Kinda over boys, nothing but trouble, unfortunately.”

Eddie grinned wryly, placing his empty cup at his feet and fiddling with the silver rings on his fingers instead. You tried not to stare but the moon and the surface of the lake was glinting off of them, making you gawk at long fingers and wide palms, tiny silver scars that lit up in the low light.

“Trouble, huh?” Eddie asked, head turned to you so you could see just how brown his eyes really were. “That’s a shame. I’m good at trouble.”

You inhaled on your drink, beer hitting the back of your throat at his words and you could feel the heat in your cheeks as you spluttered. Eddie was laughing quietly when you swiped the back of your hand across your lips and glared at him, embarrassment making your chest tight.

“No boys,” you told him, choosing to ignore his reply. You didn’t really know what to say to that, not without being able to drag him back to your bunk afterwards — and that was the opposite of the plan. “I need a summer to just… recalibrate.”

Eddie was still smiling and he nodded, everything about his soft and gentle and lit up by the stars. There was a dimple on his right cheek you wanted to put your lips on.

“Seems like a good plan,” he murmured, eyes flickering down to your lips and Jesus Christ, the night seemed as warm as the day next to Eddie. He brought a thumb to your chin, sliding upupup until the pad of it swiped at the corner of your mouth, wiping away a little drop of beer you’d missed.

You swallowed, hard.

“Still a shame though,” the boy told you, sighing dramatically, letting his hand drop away. Eddie stared back out to the lake, grinning when you frowned.

“It is?” You weren’t sure where he was going with this.

“Oh yeah,” Eddie assured you, nodding emphatically. Everything the boy said and did seemed to be dripping in drama, glitter and theatrics. It made you smile even when you didn’t mean to. “I had a plan, you see.”

It was your turn to seem intrigued, brows raised, shoulders leaning into him. “Oh?”

Eddie sighed again, just as playful as before, heavy and over exaggerated. “We were totally gonna fall in love,” the boy explained, trying hard to keep the smile off of his face, but his lips were turning up at the corners and his eyes looked like brown sugar, glittering and warm.

You scoffed, a sharp noise of surprise bursting from your chest and it made Eddie beam. He was all soft edges and softer eyes as he looked at you, ignoring the way his friends were watching, his gaze trained on the way you were grinning for him.

“We were?” You laughed — you’d forgotten to be shy, you’d forgotten you didn’t really know this boy, not yet.

But Eddie nodded again, curls springing, bangs falling into his eyes with the movement and you were closer again, knees brushing, toes of your shoes touching his in the sand.

“Totally,” he told you solemnly. “Was gonna be a whole thing, we had the meet cute, right?”

Your cheeks hurt from smiling, a lovely ache that reached your chest. You nodded, aiming to look as serious as the boy did but failing miserably. You remembered the way you’d slammed into each other, morning sun and a tumbling in your stomach that you didn't want to acknowledge. “Oh, of course,” you agreed.

“And then we were gonna spend all summer doing that totally annoying ‘will they, won't they’ thing, y’know? Maybe a couple of almost kisses, an interrupted moment or two—”

“—wow, you’re a real romantic, huh?”

Eddie ignored you, but his smile grew bigger. “—but I guess we’re gonna have to change up the script. Start off as friends, do that slow burn kinda shit.”

“We are?” You hated that you were still playing along. You hated that you were so close to the boy, that you liked the way he smelled, like smoke and cologne and cheap beer and the way the lake smelled at night. “Do I need to learn lines?”

Eddie’s grin changed to something softer, gaze falling from your eyes to your lips and back again, his cheeks pink and his dimples deepening. He shook his head. “Nah, you’re a natural.”

Eddie was all pink cheeks and soft smiles, honey brown eyes and curls that made him seem like he’d just rolled out of bed. But he was looking at you like a new friend, a new something and the smell of campfire smoke and damp moss was the new scent of home. It clung to Eddie like it did you and it made your brain a little fuzzy, it made you forget about home and ruined plans and nine to five jobs in brick buildings and boys who broke your heart.

This summer tasted like cheap beer and it felt like sand in your shoes, like sunburnt cheeks and a new kind of boy who seemed to like to make you smile.

For the second time that day - your very first day at Camp Upside Down - you were struggling to remember why swearing off boys had seemed like such a good idea.

I need you to need me.

The kids arrived that Saturday and brought chaos with them.

They poured out of the out of service school buses, sunshine yellow amongst the trees, parents cars filling up the usually empty parking lot. There was luggage everywhere, backpacks abandoned on benches and at the foot of trees, forgotten about as friends greeted old friends.

Chrissy had been right, it was loud. The sounds of the forest drowned out by shouts and chatter, the overlap of parents yelling at their kids about the importance of vitamins and bug spray, all whilst Hopper, Murray and Nancy stood near the unlit fire and tried to yell out names.

It was a little mad and you were clutching your own clipboard, a list of kids on it that you’d never met before and suddenly you were terrified that the bunch of preteens you were responsible for keeping alive would hate you.

The kids ran rampant, already hanging from tree branches and trading god knows what from the hidden depths of their backpacks and Christ, someone was blasting ‘Sex Machine’ by James Brown from a boombox no adult could actually find within the crowd.

As if he could sense your panic, Eddie appeared at your elbow. He greeted you with the same smile he had on the first day, that slow, soft spread of his lips that made you feel too warm. His hair was pulled back today, a haphazard bun that kept the heat away from his curls and you could see more of his face; strong jaw, the slants of his cheekbones, the line of his neck. He wore the same staff shirt as you, long sleeves rolled to the elbow with his name printed on the front of his chest and there were a few patches sewn underneath.

A guitar, a skull and crossbones and a small teddy bear.

You grinned, reaching a finger out to poke at the last one. “Cute,” you said in lieu of a greeting.

Eddie frowned, or at least you think he tried to. His lips were turned up at the corners, nose scrunched as he batted your hand away with no force behind it. He was standing close, close enough that you could smell the shampoo he must have used that morning, close enough that you could hear him over the roar of the camp.

“You couldn’t have noticed the more metal ones, huh, sweetheart?” he acted offended, chin tucked to his chest so he could peer at the red guitar stitched near his name.

“Not a chance,” you laughed and Eddie lifted his head at the sound, gaze landing on your mouth as if he could see your happiness. “Why the bear?”

“Because--” Eddie hummed, scanning his list of names before finding the culprit on your own sheet. “--This little guy called me Teddy for his first two summers.” He pointed to a name on the bottom of your paper, someone called Dustin Henderson.

“Even cuter,” you told him and he shrugged, cheeks pink and seemingly enjoying your attention.

Eddie stretched, all faux bravado and charm his side brushing your own and you tried hard not to stare at the way his shirt lifted, a slice of bare skin peeking out between it and his jeans. “I know,” he sighed dramatically, like it was a hardship. “Fallen in love with me yet?”

You snorted, an awful noise that should’ve made your cheeks flush with heat but Eddie only grinned wider.

“Not yet,” you told him and you rolled your eyes when the boy grabbed at his chest with two hands, as if your rejection wounded him.

“There’s still time,” his reply was quiet and close to your ear, a brush of a stray curl over your cheek that made you shiver. “Anyway, what hellspawn have you been left with? Need help?”

You were grateful for both the change of subject and the assistance, handing Eddie your clipboard when he held out his hand. He chuckled at the list and nodded to himself, scanning through the names before giving it back to you and smiling kindly.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he told you, “you’ve got a good bunch.”

You blew out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding, smiling back at him, “yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” the boy assured and he nudged your arm with his elbow, squinting through the sun and the mess of loud colours at the kids that swarmed the main camp area. “And if they give you any trouble, you can just tell them your friend Eddie will sort them out.”

His words warmed you more than they should and the word ‘friend’ sounded lovely on his lips.

“Friend?”

Eddie peered down at you from behind his bangs, curls hanging messily in front of his eyes and it made him look a little younger than he was. There was that smile again, the wide, slow stretch of his lips and it was warmer than the sun, the summer, the June heat lingering even in the early morning hour.

He looked at you as if you’d told him a joke and he scoffed, “uh, yeah? This summer romance has to start somewhere, sweetheart.” He said it lightly, prettily, soft enough that you didn’t really want to correct him.

Besides, he was joking. Wasn’t he?

But then he was gone, reappearing ten minutes later with a gaggle of kids that were apparently a part of your group, smiling triumphantly when you visibly sagged with relief. The campers were still chattering, but they dutifully raised one hand and yelled out some sort of confirmation when you called out their names.

Dustin Henderson.

Mike Wheeler.

Maxine Mayfield.

Erica Sinclair.

Janie Evans.

Adam Johnstone.

Eddie was walking back into the crowd to find his own kids just as Maxine was telling you that you were to call her Max and only Max. In fact, the redhead pointedly informed you she’d ignore you if you called her anything else. But you caught the boy’s gaze just before he disappeared, returning his wave with your own raised hand and you mouthed a quick ‘thank you.’

He winked and then he was gone, swallowed up by campers, parents with bags of medication and inhalers, lists of allergies and yells of the yearly battle of who had the top bunk.

—————

The second week went as quickly as the first, the kids were happy to get to know you, each one nosy and inquisitive, challenging and entirely too entertaining. You spent the afternoons in one of the wooden cabins by the lake, sheltered from the heat of the sun and covered in paint and glitter, guiding the campers through crafting sessions and hoping Max didn’t glue anyone else’s hand to a table.

(Mike was still cursing a small chemical burn and Murray had insisted you could handle it, ‘cause the man admitted he was quite frankly, terrified of the young girl.)

Breakfasts were rushed in the mess hall, a noisy start to every morning but you got to say hi to Robin as she slid you extra strawberries in your yoghurt and Nancy always saved you a seat beside her and Jonathan. Every now and then lunches could be had in solace, a sandwich and a stolen carton of OJ eaten at the lake, the sun making the water glitter, toes dipped in the shallows.

You got your bearings quickly, six days in and able to navigate the forest easily enough, from the gym hall to the last of the kids' bunks. You got used to the noise of the tannoy each morning, the moss that grew on almost everything you touched, the ever present smell of chlorine, sunscreen and bug spray.

It was best at night, you found, when the kids were asleep - or at least pretending to be - when all the lanterns and torches were off, when the stars were the brightest thing around and you could find fireflies by the shoreline.

And then there was the walk back to your cabin after dinner was done and the benches were cleared, after you and Steve had taken your turn at hosting story time around the fire pit and Robin’s s’mores had been demolished.

Most of the kids were sent to their cabins for down time, to play cards, read books, share mixtapes and swap the candy they’d hoarded from home. Some went to Nancy for summer school classes, learning Spanish and Calculus to make up for failed grades.

Others went to the cabin near your own, a small wooden structure that leaked out sounds and songs, guitar and piano and sometimes drums - some pretty, some questionably out of tune. But if you timed it just right, you’d walk by as the last of the kids were leaving, guitars on their backs and drumsticks in their hands, leaving Eddie on the small porch, lit up by the lamp inside.

And this night, you’d strolled by in the evening heat, warmth still lingering in the air that smelled like cedar and leftover smoke, passing Dustin and his guitar on the pathway. The young boy stopped you with an excited grin, sheet music in his hand and he pointed out each new chord that he was able to play.

It was easy to get caught up in his joy, his pride and you gushed over Dustin as he did his guitar. But you couldn’t ignore the feeling of eyes on your back, a heat that didn’t come from summer that was still trapped in the night.

When you sent Dustin off after messing up his curls with an affectionate hand, you turned to find Eddie, just like you knew you would. He was leaning on the porch railing, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, an amber glow in the dark.

He wiggled his fingers at you in a wave, a smile hidden behind the smoke he breathed out. His curls were loose and wild, his staff shirt swapped out for a Metallica tee that was cut shorter across his stomach. More skin flashed between his top and his jeans and you couldn’t help the way your gaze faltered, looking down.

“Hey, new girl,” Eddie greeted and his voice was low and raspy from shouting intrusions at his students over the thrashing of bass drums and cymbals.

The air around you buzzed with cicadas and something else, something unknown but not unwanted, fizzed alongside it.

“Hey, city boy,” you called back and you felt admired from where you stood, Eddie a little above you on the porch, towering and broad and pretty. “Lessons over?”

Eddie grinned and stubbed out the cigarette against the wood, swinging himself around the post to come a little closer. He lingered by the door, hands shoved in his pockets. “Don’t have to be,” he smiled.

You told yourself it would be rude to not follow him, that friends could hang out and it didn’t matter that you thought he was too pretty for his own good. It didn’t matter that you liked his curls or his tattoos or the way he smiled at you each morning, it didn’t matter that you liked his silly teddy bear patch or the way he chased the younger kids around camp with a stupid ‘monster voice.’

It didn’t matter. No boys. That was your rule.

You could spend time with him, you could chat, hang out, maybe steal a smoke and listen to some music. You didn’t have to kiss him. You didn’t.

You didn’t.

The inside of the cabin was different from the larger one they held the main music workshop, the neat shelves of percussion instruments and chalkboard of music notes swapped for low light and a couple of chairs, a beanbag in the corner, a drum kit stacked by the door and some guitars and amps on an old paisley patterned rug.

It smelled like Eddie’s cologne, a little like smoke and rain, and there really, really wasn’t a lot of space. Eddie gestured to the chair across from him, sliding a tin out from underneath one of the amps stacked against a wall and he wiggled it at you.

“Can I interest you?”

You nodded with a grin, dropping down onto the chair and relishing in the way silence hugged the camp again. If you listened carefully enough, you could hear the lake lap at the shore, water against the moored kayaks and the whispers of the kids through open cabin windows. And then there was the flicker of a lighter, the sizzle of something burning and Eddie sighed, slow and soft.

“Long day?” you asked him, leaning in a little to take the joint he offered you and you tried really hard to not think about his lips when you place it between your own.

Eddie hummed, watching the way you took a drag, not as long and deep as his, but he smiled when you managed to blow the smoke to the ceiling without coughing. He was stretched out lazily on the chair that looked more suited to the kids than his lean frame and his spread knees almost knocked against your own.

“You could say that. Been chasin’ kids all day after Billy slept in and didn’t turn up for his hiking group and Hop’s been riding my ass about getting extra sign ups,” Eddie took the roll up back from you and smiled, looking at you from under his lashes in a way you’d become familiar with. “S’lookin’ up now, though.”

You tried to hold his gaze, you really tried. But those big, brown eyes still managed to pierce right into your soul and it made you dizzy, it made you feel too warm. You huffed out a shy laugh and ducked your chin, eyes on the floor just for a second - enough for you to try to collect yourself.

“Are you flirting with me, Munson?” you didn’t sound as bold as you wanted to, your words coming out softer, a little breathier.

But maybe it worked all the same, ‘cause Eddie had turned pink and was hiding behind his curls, joint forgotten about. He brought his fingers to his lips instead, rings glittering in the low light and he looked thoughtful, like he was deciding what to say.

“I’m trying,” he chuckled, “but honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

You wanted to tell him it was working anyway, that he didn’t even need to try. ‘Cause it had been a week at Camp Upside Down, a week of knowing him and you were already too far gone on his charm and his hair and his smile and his teddy bear patch and--

“You remember my rule, right?” you said instead, trying to smile about it, like you weren’t cursing yourself and your ex for making you so opposed to even trying with another boy.

“Mmm,” Eddie hummed and nodded, bringing the half burned joint back to his lips so he could relight it. “You mean your ‘no boys, no fun, no summer fling’ rule?”

He grinned, smug.

“I never said I wasn’t going to have fun,” you protested. “I’m just-- planning on staying away from anything that can break my heart.”

The tone in the cabin shifted, the air in the small space becoming a little heavier but you didn’t feel suffocated. In fact, when Eddie stubbed out the joint in one of his empty coffee mugs and leaned onto his knees, you didn’t feel the need to do anything but move closer too. Your foot nudged his and one side of his mouth quirked up into a small smile, his eyes careful on you.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked quietly.

You shrugged half heartedly and watched the way the lights of the camp slowly started to switch off, one by one, until you and Eddie were the only ones still bathed in warmth. “Not much to tell,” you murmured, “not without sounding like a cliche.”

Eddie’s knee nudged against your own, deliberate this time, and it made you look over at the boy. He was smiling, kind and so lovely.

“I don’t mind cliches, remember?”

So you sucked in a breath and told him about life in Port Austin, how there were only really a few parks, the lake and a farmers market to look forward to on Sundays. You spoke about your job at Murphy’s Bakery on West Spring Street, how you volunteered at the gallery on weekends because you loved paintings and watercolours and wanted to go to an art school when you could afford it. You dropped your voice and tried to keep your tone light when you told him about the boy that stole your heart when you were fourteen and how he promised you the world when you were eighteen.

You really wished you still had the joint when you huffed out a laugh that held no humour and whispered how you found him in bed with a girl you used to be friends with when you were nineteen.

And then there was another year and a half of your mom trying to make you stay with him because his parents ran the town committee and how were they supposed to show face when you made such a scene in their yard? And ‘didn’t you want to get married? Didn’t you want to settle down and have a family? Did you really want to have to start again? Is art school really a productive use of your time?’

Eddie, for the most part, stayed silent as you spoke, only frowning when necessary. And when you were done and your cheeks were a little damp and you sniffed without meaning to, the boy slid his foot along yours and held it there, the silence deafening. Night had finally set and the air smelled like oncoming rain and the remnants of smoke and Eddie Munson offered you his hand.

You wondered what it meant, you wondered what to do but when you looked at his face, his expression was soft and kind and open. You took it, palm sliding against his own and his skin was warm and rough, rings cold, fingers littered with guitar string calluses and they curled around you.

His hand was so much bigger than your own but when he gave it a squeeze, it was the most gentle thing you’d felt. You sucked in a breath and felt it stutter and hitch in your chest, gaze finding his in the low light and he smiled at you, a little sadder than before.

“I’m really sorry that happened,” he whispered.

It was nothing but sincere, the way he said it. Sweet and lovely and quiet, and god, you believed him. So you sniffed again, a little embarrassed and you wiped at your cheeks and eyes with your free hand - you didn’t dare take your other one from Eddie, not yet.

You didn’t bother with the usual responses, none of the ‘it’s not your fault’s’ or ‘it’s alright.’

“Thank you,” you said instead, just as softly as Eddie had spoke, your smile a little watery. “M’sorry… I really didn’t mean to blurt all that out. You didn’t have to listen to it.”

Eddie’s smile was soft and understanding, and it made you so ache. He was looking at you with those big, brown eyes, shining with kindness and he was bold enough to not look away when you stared back. In fact, it only made him grin wider.

So you had to be the one to break the moment, break the spell, gaze shifting to the wooden cabin floor and you let out a sigh that felt too loud for the space. You sniffed one last time and dabbed your fingers under your eyes, erasing any evidence of upset. You tapped a foot against Eddie’s converse, your toe touching the doodles he’d inked out along the sole.

“What about you?”

Eddie eyes you somewhat suspiciously, corners of his lips lifted in a shy smile and without the joint, he started to twist his rings around each finger. You tried not to watch, breath caught in your throat ‘cause his hands were big and wide, his fingers long andandand—

“What about me?” Eddie asked.

“Well,” you shrugged, smiling, “we can’t all be hiding out in the middle of the forest ‘cause a guy broke our heart, right?” You blew out the breath you’d been holding and tried to act normal.

“How presumptuous of you, sweetheart,” Eddie’s grin was wicked and it made you flush, heat travelling from your cheeks to your neck. “But I guess you’re right, I’m just here for the money.” The boy swung a leg over the arm of his chair, slumping down low and he tipped his head back lazily, watching you from under his lashes. “And I s’pose the kids are alright.”

“You don’t wanna be hanging out in the city each summer?” You asked him, hoping you didn’t sound too nosy. The idea of a city as large as Philadelphia was foreign to you. “Aren’t you missing out on concerts and stuff?”

Eddie hummed and smiled at you in a way that made you feel shy, like he thought you were all kinds of cute. “And stuff, yeah,” Eddie agreed but then he was pulling at the ring on his thumb, a large skull and his brows furrowed. “It’s not as exciting as you’d think. It’s just my uncle and I - Wayne - we’re not exactly living the high life downtown, you know?”

You didn’t say anything, you just leaned in a little, silently coaxing the boy to keep speaking.

“My mum left when I was pretty young,” Eddie explained, “don’t remember her all that much, not really, sometimes it’s easier when I see a photo or something. She dropped me with Wayne and just… didn’t come back.”

Eddie sucked in a breath. “The dude that got her pregnant didn’t even hang around to see me being born, apparently,” he snorted but his laugh was humourless. “So he doesn’t get the title of dad.”

“That’s fair,” you replied quietly.

“We didn’t have much money when I was growing up,” the boy continued. “Still don’t, I guess. But I remember being, like eleven, and really wanting to go to summer camp. I was obsessed with the idea of climbing trees and learning new shit in the middle of nowhere.”

Eddie’s voice was lifting, gaining back that happy undertone and he was smiling again, a little shy, but it was there. His eyes glittered as he looked at you.

“Wayne couldn’t afford it but he would take me to the park and create these treasure hunts for me - hell, he taught me how to play guitar too, never yelled at me once and Christ, he should’ve, I used to annoy the shit out of that old man as soon as he got home from work.”

You laughed and Eddie beamed, eyes meeting in the brief silence and the summer air felt warmer than ever, the open door seemingly incapable of letting in what little breeze there was.

“So I guess I like it here,” Eddie admitted, “as much as I need the money too. I wanna help Wayne out, y’know? But it’s nice to be able to do it somewhere like this.” The boy gestured to the small room with its tower of amps and carpet of wires and sheet music like it was home.

You leaned onto your elbows, close enough to the boy that you could tap your fingertips to his knee, once, twice, a small smile on your face that reached your eyes and Eddie thought it was lovely, the way you looked at him like he had every ounce of your attention.

“I think that’s a really nice reason to be here,” you told him.

And god, Eddie wanted to kiss you. He wanted to kiss you really, really badly - ‘cause your hair smelled good and your eyes were real pretty and he was damn sure you were looking at his lips the same way he was looking at yours. But he was so aware of the heartache you had just shared with him, your self appointed rule of ‘no boys,’ and Eddie Munson was very much a boy.

Maybe even more man than boy, you’d argue. And perhaps that was worse.

So instead he pulled back and your hand dropped from his knee and it was enough to make him miss you. Eddie looked at you thoughtfully, head tilted, smile shy and his cheeks were still tinged pink and all of it was awfully endearing. You cleared your throat, suddenly self conscious and Eddie stood.

“C’mon, sweetheart, lemme walk you to your cabin.”

It was easy to say yes. It was even easier to walk close enough to Eddie that your shoulder bumped into his bicep, arms pressed together and hands painfully apart.

You whispered and laughed as you followed him through the forest, down the narrow trails that criss crossed through the camp like heartstrings. And when the ground got a little uneven and the night was too dark to see the roots that snuck out from the forest floor, Eddie’s hand cupped your elbow and everything about his touch was warm and rough and electrifying.

The camp was quiet and it seemed like the world was made just for the two of you, the lake sitting like glass on your right and the soft silence of the woods and the trees on your left.

He was pretty in the moonlight. Prettier when he stood at the bottom of your cabin steps with his hands behind his back as he smiled and said goodnight, like he couldn’t and wouldn’t trust himself to move closer to your door.

‘Cause standing outside on a porch in the dark with a pretty boy surely led to a goodnight kiss, didn’t it?

Didn’t it?

And just before you closed your door, on the moon and the forest and the boy, Eddie called out to you by your name and hid his grin behind his curls, rings glittering in the low light.

“Happy first week at camp, sweetheart,” he told you softly, sweetly and you grinned in return. “M’happy to have you as a friend.”

Your heart stuttered and dipped at his words, a pretty warmth spreading over your chest and cheeks and you were ready to reply in like. And then:

“Just don’t, y’know, yell at me when you do fall in love with me.”

You barked out a laugh and hid your grin behind your door, too big and too wide to let him see, because goddamn it, he was getting to you too easily.

“I’ll be sure to keep the yelling to a minimum,” you told him, voice mild and too casual.

Eddie shrugged, still smiling lazily, “it’s inevitable.”

You rolled your eyes and shook your head, the rejection softened by the way you grinned too, eyes fond and stuck on him. “Goodnight, Eddie.”

—————

“She makes me—” Eddie let out a strangled noise that ended in a sigh and Steve frowned. “I feel— fuck.”

“Use your big boy words, Eds,” Steve commented mildly and from behind him, lying on the boy’s bed, Hawkins flipped a page of her magazine and snorted.

Eddie has scrambled back to his cabin after standing before your closed door for a few seconds too long, eyes fond, his smile dopey and his heart beating a little too fast.

And it was like the forest knew how he felt ‘cause the insects buzzed a little louder and there was something in the air that made it feel like a storm was on its way. He found Steve at the desk they shared, headphones around his neck and music playing quietly through static. His girlfriend was on his bed, flat on her stomach and too busy with her reading to really look up at Eddie, but she seemed thoroughly amused by the whole situation.

“You know that song? The cheesy one? The one that’s like ‘I can’t fight this feeling anymore?’ That one?”

Steve blinked, staring at Eddie for a second before he smothered a smile with his hand. He coughed, hiding a laugh. “REO Speedwagon?”

Eddie threw himself onto his bunk and whined, dragging his palms over his face. “Yes,” he replied mournfully. “Every time I see her it’s like that song plays and the wind picks up and everything is in slow motion.”

“Does she suddenly have wings too?” Steve countered.

“Fuck you.”

Hawkins laughed again and instead of flipping another page, she groaned and stretched out, moving lazily to the desk chair that Steve occupied, throwing herself down onto her boyfriend’s lap.

“Have I missed something or is there a reason you’re not asking her to hang out?” The girl was staring at Eddie earnestly, one of her hands buried in the hair at Steve’s neck.

“We do hang out,” Eddie protested. “We just did.”

Hawkins rolled her eyes at the same time Steve did and Eddie wondered if being in love with someone made you as annoying as them.

“Like an actual date, Munson.” She shrugged and gave him a smile that told Eddie she knew she was being annoying. “Some people brush their hair for it, maybe wear jeans without holes in the knees.”

Eddie huffed and let himself roll across his bed, face squished to his pillows to muffle his low groan of despair. For good measure, he kicked his feet against the mattress too. Finally, he resurfaced, cheeks pink and a little downturned and he said to his friends a little mournfully:

“She doesn’t date. Or, I guess, she doesn’t want to date.”

Steve looked perplexed. “Why?”

Eddie heaved himself up and sat against the wooden headboard, kicking his sneakers off until they thudded to the floor. “Uh, there was a shitty ex,” he explained. “Which I totally get… I just wish— I don’t know.”

Hawkins threw a pen at him, soft enough that it barely bounced off of his thigh but Eddie still sent her a look of offence.

“Ow.”

“Shut up,” the girl huffed. “You better not be pestering her, Eds, if she said she’s not interested—”

“I’m not!” Eddie defended himself. “I’m not. I just like to remind her that she’ll eventually fall in love with me. Eventually.”

Steve choked on a laugh and tried to cover it when his girlfriend frowned at him.

“Eddie!”

“What?” The boy answered petulantly. “I’m not serious about it,” Eddie lied, “I’m being, like, totally cute, s’fine.”

His two friends levelled him with a stare.

“And besides! I like hanging out with her. She’s cool. And pretty and funny and she— it’s fine,” he repeated, almost to himself. “We’re just friends.”

Despite the conviction Eddie said it with, neither of the three people in the cabin believed him.

I’d love you to love me.

The third week brought a split lip, a sprained wrist and thunderstorm that lasted two days

The kids were more than antsy with having to spend most of their time indoors as the rain flooded the camp grounds, the banks of the lake tested as the water kept rising and the winds shook the trees. Leaves lived permanently in the air, whirling on the harsh gales, branches scratching at cabin windows like the soundtrack of a bad scary movie.

So some activities doubled up, with more than the normal amount of campers crammed into cabin classrooms instead of being out on the lake or taking hikes into the mountains.

It’s why you and Nancy were nearing your limit with over forty kids inside the arts centre, the summer air still humid enough to make the room sticky and heavy, to make everyone cranky and uncomfortable. The rain of the metal roof was a musical reminder of how there was no chance of escape.

There were wars over glue sticks, more paint on the floor than on any paper and half way through the activity block, Argyle squelched in with another fifteen kids, all soaking wet and clutching wooden bird boxes in various stages of completion.

“Cabin four is leaking, my dudes,” he explained with a smile.

And that’s how Max tripped over Will’s bird feeder, how she slipped on some spilled watercolours and went careening into a kid named Josie. Josie had wire framed glasses that were entirely too big for her tiny head and Max’s lip got caught and split on the corner of them.

With blood dripping down her chin and a smattering of colours on her bare knees and jean shorts, she looked a little startled, eyes wide at the red that came away when she wiped her fingers over her mouth.

But Mike Wheeler was fourteen years old and a boy, which meant that Mike didn’t really know how to act in public yet and when he laughed at Max, the girl responded by shoving him into a shelf full of paint cans and pots of glitter.

So the classroom was in chaos, Will was mourning his broken bird feeder, Max was bleeding and enraged and Mike was clutching his wrist that he claimed was broken all while pink and lilac glitter poured from his hair.

When the tannoy rang out at one o’clock, you sighed in relief and watched as the kids ran out the door towards the mess hall, the smell of pizza pockets and macaroni and cheese making the campers scamper happily through mud filled puddles and towards the large building.

Argyle wandered out after them, slow and lazily, like the rain that still poured didn’t really bother him and he didn’t seem to care that much when Dustin jumped into a puddle at his side and splashed mud up his slacks.

You and Nancy worked diligently to clean up the mess left behind, crawling under tables to retrieve forgotten paint brushes and pens that were missing lids. But you’d barely managed to make a dent in the chaos before Hopper’s voice crackled through the tannoy system.

“Can Hawkins report to the office, please,” the gruff voice was muffled between static. “—hit, Hawkins one, the good one, the first one… Nancy. Can Nancy report to the office.”

The girl rolled her eyes as she stood but there was a fondness there that told you she didn’t really mind, years of working for Hopper making her more than familiar with his bad habit with remembering names.

“Pretty sure he wants to go over next week's schedule,” Nancy told you, brushing glitter from her knees. “I’ll be as quick as I can, okay? Sorry to leave you with all of this.”

The girl did look regretful, brows pinched as she gestured to the mess around the room that only seemed to grow as more paint leaked out from tipped over pots.

You shook your head and smiled, “it’s fine, don’t worry. I’m alright on my own, mess hall duty can't be that much tidier, right?”

Nancy snorted a quiet laugh and hummed in agreement, “put it this way, lunch time clean up is usually reserved for punishments.”

“Poor kids,” you mused, crawling over to scoop up a fallen bucket of stickers and felt sheets.

“Oh, not the kids,” Nancy smiled wryly. “Just ask Steve or Hawkins, I’m sure they’d love to tell you.”

Leaving you confused, the girl left, clipboard in hand and you watched out of the rain streaked window as she ran across camp, daintily avoiding the muddy puddles that were already getting larger as the storm rolled on. So you stayed on the floor, bare knees a little cold on the old linoleum and you were swearing softly at a bright blue patch of paint that didn’t seem to want to budge.

You didn’t hear the door open again, not over the sound of the rain hammering down on the roof. In fact, you didn’t hear anything until someone let out a low whistle and started to speak.

“Unless one of the little demons suddenly got real talented, you weren’t kidding about art school, huh?”

You narrowly missed bumping your head on the table edge as you shot up at the sound of Eddie’s voice, heart hammering and stomach flipping in that way you were still trying to ignore.

The boy was perched against the edge of one of the small tables, legs crossed at the ankles and a too big sweater swallowing him whole. He looked cosy, the cotton a deep maroon and it had the camp logo on the chest, a small tear at the collar and leftover spots of rain over the shoulders. Eddie held up a notepad that you thought you’d placed face down, but he was showing you your own drawings.

“Architecture,” Eddie was scanning over the sketches of buildings and parkways, tiny trees inked out in black, dotted with what little green paint you could sneak from the kids. “I didn’t expect that.”

You blinked at him, still kneeling on the floor with glitter on your palms, paint on your knees. You lifted a hand and brushed back your hair, blowing out a breath with how flustered you suddenly felt. The large cabin felt warmer than ever and the rain only seemed to get louder.

It felt like the forest belonged to only the two of you.

“Uh, yeah.” You nodded awkwardly, feeling shyer than you expected at the sight of your work in Eddie’s hands. It was hardly a portfolio, just a few quick sketches you were able to manage between squabbles over paintbrushes and stolen pens, but it was something. “Most people don’t.”

“You’re good,” Eddie replied and his voice was the most serious you’d heard it. But he was still smiling, corners of his mouth lifted as he scanned over the paper, pinky finger tracing the outline of a building that had wild ivy growing up the brick. “Really good. So, art school, huh?”

You nodded and clambered to your feet as gracefully as you could, leaning against the table across from the boy. If you stretched out your legs enough, the toes of your sneakers almost touched his boots.

“That’s the plan,” you said and gestured to the camp in all its messy glory, mud and rain and paint and glitter. “I’m hoping this place can get me enough cash to even consider it.”

Eddie placed the book back on the desk with the same care you’d watched him handle his guitars with and the sight of it made your chest ache.

“Which one?”

The question made your brow furrow, ‘cause so many other people in your life had asked the same question - albeit with a lot more exasperation and condescension than Eddie had. But you gave him the same answer you’d given your parents and your senior year guidance counsellor and shit, even your ex.

You have a half shrug, eyes to the floor and picked at a fingernail. “I don’t really know yet.” You looked up at the boy and found him looking right back at you, brown eyes soft and warm. “To be confirmed.”

Eddie nodded slowly, pushing off the table and shoving his hands into the pocket on the front of his sweater. He stretched it down over his hips, grinned at you playfully and the mood inside the cabin lifted considerably, like he’d meant it to.

“You know,” he mused, “there’s a great art school in Philly. One of the best, in fact.” Eddie raised his brows at you suggestively, all whilst doing his best to play coy - you weren’t sure how he managed it, but he pulled it off.

You let out a laugh, rolling your eyes at him in a way that now seemed to be routine. “Is that right?” You asked him, putting on the same overly casual voice he had. “How strange, isn’t that where you live?”

Eddie gasped, ripping a hand from his pocket to grab at his chest instead, damp curls bouncing as he took another step towards you. “Holy shit, you’re right, I do live there.”

You were grinning, not that you had any control over it and Eddie was beaming right back, moving so he could stand in front of you, finally toe to toe. He kicked softly at your sneaker, looking at you fondly from under his lashes.

“What a coincidence,” he murmured softly.

“You’re flirting with me again,” you replied just as quietly and you tried to sound admonishing but your words came out just a little too breathily.

He was too close.

You watched him lick at him bottom lip, tongue peeking out for just a half second but it kept your heart ticking on a too fast beat for much, much longer.

“If I was flirting,” Eddie started to say, speaking slowly, voice a drawl, as if he were picking his words carefully. “I’d tell you about this nice little spot round the corner from mine. How I’d take you there between classes, split a cheese steak and let you show me all your badass work.”

You were entranced, eyes bush tracing the shapes his lips made as he spoke, the dimple that came and went on his left cheek when he tried not to smile between words.

“You’d graduate in the summer…” the boy mused and his voice picked up a little, lips stretching out into that wide smile you’d come to love. “We could totally have a fall wedding. I was thinking about early October?”

The spell was broken and you barked out a laugh, a hand shoving at the boy’s shoulder and Eddie grinned at the sound, letting you tip him backwards before he caught himself and acted wounded.

“You’re an idiot, Eddie Munson,” you told him but there was affection laced behind the jab and Eddie could hear it, his chest swelling at the sound.

“But autumn tones suit me so well,” he quipped back and he laughed when you shook your head and moved past him, hiding your amusement by picking up ripped paper that hadn’t quite made it to the trash.

“What a shame, I think I’m a spring,” you sighed dramatically and you didn’t have to look over your shoulder to know the boy was grinning. You could feel it, it lit up the room, it made you feel warm. “Guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

Eddie snorted and pushed himself back onto the table, narrowly avoiding a wet splat of blue paint. “Well, if you won’t come to Philadelphia, how about Chrissy’s cabin tonight? Staff get together.” Eddie enticed, legs swinging. “More shit beer, Steve’s awful taste in music and probably some weed if Jonathan and Argyle manage to get into town after dinner.”

“More shit beer?” You repeated, gasping dramatically as you made your way back over to him. You tapped at his boot with your shoe, like you weren’t able to help yourself from reaching out to touch him in some way. “How shitty?”

“Like, the shittiest beer you’ve ever had,” Eddie replied, “very room temp, some would say warm. Definitely flat and the label probably has some questionable tagline on it.”

You were smiling and so was the boy, too warm and too close and Jesus Christ, had you been moving forward? Eddie’s boots brushed your shins and if you took another step, you’d be between his legs that he had most definitely spread for you.

“How could I say no to that?”

Eddie shrugged, his smile all coy, cheeks a little pink and he was looking at your lips when he replied softly, “how could you say no to me?”

Your lips parted, breath caught in your chest and god, did he hear the way it hitched? Could he hear the way your heart rattled against your rib cage? Surely he could, it felt louder than the storm.

He didn’t let you reply, not that you knew what to say, not that you could seriously articulate words. Eddie was still smiling, looking as flustered as you felt, like he hadn't meant to flirt, like he didn’t know what to do now that he had.

Eddie gestured to your cheek, unsure, pulling back just before he touched you. His gaze was settled on the curve of your top lip and he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“You have, uh, some paint,” he murmured, “little dot… just there.”

You wiped at your cheek with the back of your hand, suddenly self conscious, wondering what kid managed to splatter you with god knows what colour. You caught your lip, bringing your hand back still clean and you looked at Eddie.

The boy still looked so unsure, a different kind of shy, but he tilted his chin and said, “c’mere.”

You weren’t sure how you heard him over the rain, the roll of thunder, the way the world outside seemed to roar for you both, like the forest was excited, waiting, watching.

You moved, hips bumping into Eddie’s knees as he coaxed you forward, a cautious hand on your chin, holding you still so his thumb could smooth over the spot of paint, the pad of it grazing your top lip.

Eddie’s touch was slow and soft, careful with it, his eyes lowered as he watched what he was doing and you were almost sure he was holding his breath.

You were.

“Got it,” Eddie whispered but his hand was still on your cheek, thumb resting on your chin and he was staring at your lips again, eyes hooded and a dark honey.

You made a quiet noise, maybe an agreement, maybe a thanks, maybe you were just disappointed, but neither of you moved away. Your own hands rested on Eddie’s knees, soft, worn denim under your palms and Eddie murmured your name like a question, head tilting forward—

The door bounced against the wall as it opened, the wind blowing rain and some stray twigs inside, causing you to stumble backwards, your eyes as wide as Eddie’s.

Murray was standing in the doorway, dripping wet from the rain, glasses smeared with water and he sighed, disgruntled. He flicked his arms out from his body, rain splattering to the cabin floor as he inspected both of you with suspicion.

Nose wrinkled, he appraised you from over his thick glasses: Eddie’s pink cheeks, the way you couldn’t look at anything but the floor.

“No,” the older man barked out, indignant. “No, I’m not doing this shit again, for Christ’s sake.”

Murray turned, leaving the way he came with no explanation to his appearance in the first place. He wrestled with the door handle, the old wood sticking in its frame and he cursed. “You’re all rampant. Goddamn kids and - Christ, this door - and their hormones, it’s like living with animals.”

The door finally shifted and slammed, shutting out Murray and the storm, the only evidence he’d been there was a puddle on the floor and some leaves that had blown in, sticking to the streaks of spilled paint.

Eddie looked at you, heart still thudding in his chest, only to see you busy tidying once again, head ducked down so he couldn’t meet your gaze.

Whatever had been going to happen, was over.

—————

Unfortunately, Jason Carver was the one to open the door to Chrissy’s cabin. You hadn’t seen much of the blonde boy around camp - not that you had minded - as he spent most of his shifts at the lake and preferred to disappear into town at night with Billy.

But he held the door as you and Robin walked in, arms full of the leftover pizza slices the other girl had managed to sneak from the kitchen as she finished dinner service.

“New girl,” he greeted, taking the time to rake his eyes over your frame instead of helping with the Tupperware. “Buckley. Still not like dick?”

“Go fuck yourself, Carver,” Robin shot back, rolling her eyes and ushering you into the room, dumping the food onto Chrissy’s desk. She grabbed two beers from the obnoxiously large stash, passing them both to Steve to open with the car keys he fished from his pocket.

“Shame,” Jason called back over the low music, ignoring the way Chrissy swatted at him, cheeks pink with embarrassment as she tried to get him to stop. “You and your friend could’a kept me company later.” His beady eyes settled on you, mouth curled into a smirk. “Gets cold at night, doesn’t it?”

Steve coaxed the beer back into your hand, one arm thrown around his girlfriend’s shoulders and he shook his head at you, grimacing. “Ignore him, he’s swallowed too much lake water or some shit.”

Robin took a swig of her own drink and smirked, nudging a friendly hand to Steve’s shoulder as she said, “we’re ignoring assholes now, huh, Harrington?”

There was a private joke, a hidden story you didn’t know there, and Hawkins grinned too, covering her smile with her cup.

“His fighting days are over,” she declared, pushing a hand to the boy’s cheeks with such affection that it made you feel like you shouldn’t look.

Steve scoffed, all false bravado. “Says who?”

His girlfriend smirked and squeezed at his chin a little firmer, just until his lips fell into a pout and she was able to tug him down to her for a kiss. “Me,” she told him as she pulled away and Steve just grinned, no argument left in him.

“Are we talkin’ about how whipped Stevie is?” Eddie appeared at your side, a beer already in hand as he grinned and dodged the other boy’s fist, snorting when it skimmed his shoulder.

You tried not to react when his arm brushed your own, when everything suddenly smelled like smoke and rainwater and Eddie. He hadn’t looked at you, in fact, he was actively trying not to, his curls hiding his eyes and when you turned to him just slightly, he ducked his head and took a long pull from his drink.

“Always,” Robin replied, matter of factly and she grinned at you as if to include you in these plans. “Where have you been, anyway?”

Eddie took another swig from his beer, gulping down the amber liquid almost too enthusiastically for how shit it did actually taste. He was stalling.

“Uh, private lesson,” he explained grimacing. He still wasn’t looking at you. “Ran a little over.”

It was a lie, it was a huge lie - you knew it - and the truth made your face burn. ‘Cause Eddie had stood frozen after Murray had left, watching you carefully from where he was still by the table, chest hammering.

He’d been so sure you’d almost kissed him. He was almost positive you had been leaning into him the same way he tilted his chin down to you. But the door had slammed, Murray had yelled and left and the silence that had taken over was more deafening than the rain on the roof.

So Eddie had coughed a little awkwardly and waited for you to stop cleaning up the mashed glue stick from the carpet and look at him. You’d stopped, sure. You’d even stood up from where you’d been kneeling but you didn’t quite meet the boy’s eye. And when he asked you:

“What just happened?”

You had toed at a forgotten pencil case and shrugged, your hands in the pockets of your shorts and replied, “nothing just happened, Eddie.”

And even though you still didn’t lift your gaze from the floor, Eddie had nodded, lips downturned and eyes sad, before he muttered something that sounded like ‘sure’ and left.

You’d watched him walk away from the camp, away from the direction of the music workshop and the canon where he held his lessons. In fact, despite the rain, he walked towards the lake, his hood pulled up over his head and his hands shoved in his pockets, the maroon fabric turning darker and darker the further he got from you.

And now he was standing next to you in the small circle you and his friends had created and he was trying so hard to pretend he couldn’t feel your bare arm pressed against his own, that he couldn’t smell the perfume he knew was yours.

He took another gulp of his beer, lukewarm and bordering on sour and he could sense your gaze on him. He caught Steve’s eye instead and his friend quirked a brow, gaze searching between him and you, questioning.

Eddie shook his head, an almost barely noticeable movement but you lifted your beer to your lips, making your arm brush Eddie’s and the boy went pink.

Steve started humming the opening bars of REO Speedwagon.

Eddie glared.

But then Billy was pushing into the small circle, all blonde curls and sharp, blue eyes, his smile even sharper. He clapped Eddie on the shoulder and wrapped an unfamiliar arm around yours, squeezing you into his side. Across from you, Steve and Hawkins scowled, busying themself with grabbing some cold pizza slices.

“Truth or dare,” Billy announced and he smelled like smoke and whisky, a far cry from the cheap beer everyone else had been left with. “C’mon assholes, look alive.”

Eddie shrugged the boy off and took another beer that Steve offered, eyes hard and staring at the floor as Billy kept his arm around you. You were too polite to move away, too conscious of all the eyes that were on you but you huffed out a laugh and asked:

“Truth or dare? Isn’t that kinda childish?”

Chrissy’s cabin was cast in little light, only a few lamps emitting a low, too warm glow and Billy looked positively dangerous in the shadows as he grinned at you. He tutted and moved to sweep a stray lock of hair away from your face, acting sweet for you.

“Not the way I play it, darlin’,” he grinned, all teeth and bad intentions and from beside you, Robin pretended to gag.

“Gross,” she muttered.

“Revolting,” Hawkins agreed and when Billy scoffed at her, she flipped him the bird and leant against Steve, her back to his chest.

“That’s a little mean of you, isn’t it, princess?” Billy pouted at her, “considering I’m the damn reason you two are together.” He pointed a finger at the girl and Steve, looking smug.

The rest of the room groaned, as if Billy taking credit for this was a regular occurrence.

Again, you felt like you were missing out on a joke that you weren’t privy to, an inside story from a summer that wasn’t yours. So you turned to Billy and raised a brow, questioning.

“What?” You asked, just as Steve pinned Billy with a stare and said:

“Don’t call her princess.”

But Billy ignored him and kept his arm around you, grinning wider than ever and he leaned in just a little, enough for you to smell his cologne and the nicotine that stuck to his lips.

His voice was all flirt, a soft drawl that made Eddie's nostrils flare. “Haven’t you heard?” Billy asked and he looked at you like he wanted to sneak a bite, like he wanted to know what you tasted like. “I’m practically Cupid.”

The rest of the group snorted and scoffed, all varying sounds of derision but Billy ignored them and just kept smiling, looking too handsome for his reputation, all the stories you’d been told about him.

“Got your eye on someone, Sugar? I can shoot an arrow or two, see if it sticks,” he winked and god, you didn’t mean it, you couldn’t help it.

Your gaze flickered to Eddie and fucking hell, he was finally looking back at you too. Billy’s grin turned bigger, wider, sharper. Neon signs flashed in your head and you swore you could hear your mothers voice. Danger! Warning! Retreat!

“Well ain’t that interesting,” he smirked, finally letting go of you. He stole your beer instead, wrapped his lips around the neck and drained the rest, smirking and wiping at his mouth when Steve muttered something that sounded like, ‘fuckin’ prick.’

“You sweet on the new girl, huh, Munson?” Billy was outright sneering now, turning to Eddie to poke and prod until he broke.

“Get fucked, Hargrove,” Eddie replied lazily, his voice a soft drawl as he leaned against Chrissy’s desk but you could see the way his eyes narrowed, the way his shoulders were set.

Everyone in the cabin was silent now, eyes on Eddie and Billy as the blonde boy took a step forward and smiled, baring his teeth in a way that could only be taken as a challenge. Your skin prickled.

“Truth or dare, Teddy bear?” Billy whispered.

“I’m not playing,” Eddie grunted back.

“Ooh, forfeit,” Jason laughed from the door, “toilet block duty for a week, Munson, better tie your hair up.”

But neither boy listened, both Eddie and Billy still squaring up to each other, eyes narrowed and jaws set. You looked at Steve, silently asking him to do something but Steve seemed to be waiting for the exact time he needed to jump in.

“Hey now,” Billy murmured to Eddie, all soft condescension and false friendliness. He looked back at you and licked across his bottom lip, glittering eyes giving away his true intentions. “If you don’t wanna play, I’m sure someone else will happily give her a little bit of attention.”

“Grow the fuck up, Billy,” Robin snapped and her hand slid over your wrist, guiding you towards the door. “Let’s just hang out in my cabin,” she told you softly.

“Aw, c’mon!” Billy jeered, holding his arms out like he was surrendering. The majority of the room shook their heads at him, not ready to entertain his antics. “I’m Cupid, remember? Y’gotta trust the process.”

The music stuttered and the tape got stuck, the last few notes of whatever Blondie song fizzing with static before it stopped, just as Eddie slammed down his beer and shouldered past Billy. He walked straight towards you, his eyes on yours for what seemed like only the second time that night.

You saw something wild in them, something new and something different. You realised then that Eddie Munson didn’t do well with being challenged, and with the way Billy was still smirking behind him, it seemed like he knew that too.

So the thudthudthud of Eddie’s boots on the cabin floor matched your heart beat and Robin let go of your wrist as the boy approached. He’d taken his sweater off from earlier but he still smelled like the storm, like leftover rain and pine from the forest, like a burnt out campfire, a little like a new home.

The toes of his boots touched your sneakers and you had to tilt your chin up a little to meet his gaze. He looked torn, kind of panicked, pretty in the way he always did but he’d lost the softness that he’d gazed at you with earlier, with paint on your face and glitter pressed to your palms.

You thought he was going to kiss you.

His eyes dropped to your lips and nobody spoke, but you heard Billy let out a huff of laughter, a dark chuckle that made your stomach dip and you weren’t supposed to let this happen, even if it was just a stupid game, ‘cause fuck — Eddie was never going to be a hangover and a bad decision you’d try to forget the next day.

He was standing too close.

You steeled yourself, wondering if you’d be mad if he kissed you like this. If he kissed you at all. Would you be more angry if he didn’t? This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

You felt yourself closing your eyes, lashes soft on your cheeks, just for a second.

And then he was gone.

—————

Eddie was sitting outside of his cabin.

The party was long over and you’d stayed behind with Robin to help Chrissy tidy up, keeping your head down as Billy swept past, a leftover beer in his hand and a satisfied smirk on his lips as he got into a car with Jason.

And when you walked through the forest, hearing the whispers of the kids in the cabins as you passed, you noticed a tiny light on the porch steps, the orange red dot of the end of a cigarette in the dark. Eddie stood when you approached, stubbed the end of the smoke out on the railing and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Nerves rolled off of him in waves and he took a step forward, old leaves and pine cones crunching under his boots. You shook your head and kept walking, the light from your own cabin a warm glow only a few dozen feet away.

“Hey, hey, listen,” Eddie coaxed softly, “can we talk?”

“I’m tired, Eddie,” you began, still taking slow steps towards your own home.

(And embarrassed and confused and frustrated, but you didn’t say that.)

“We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?” But then you made the mistake of stopping and looking back at the boy and he was all soft curls and softer eyes, sad and glittering.

He caught your wrist, a gentle hand with careful fingers and his touch was warmer than the night. You looked down, watched his thumb rub at the back of your palm and suddenly you weren’t as sleepy as before.

Maybe Eddie could sense the sway in you, maybe he was already a little too in tune with the way your body leaned into his. His hand slipped down, fingers skimming over your own and he wasn’t quite holding your hand but it felt just as nice, just as lovely. Eddie pinched your thumb between two of his fingers, looked up at you through his lashes and smiled, too sweet.

“Can we talk?” Eddie tried again. “Please?”

So you nodded because it was getting harder and harder to say no to the boy, to keep away from the boy - and you knew deep down that you were more angry at yourself than at him. ‘Cause you kept breaking your own rules and you knew fine well that you would’ve let Eddie kiss you. And to be mad at him for doing exactly what you asked him to - to be friends - wasn’t fair in the slightest.

But he was smiling now, soft and lovely, too sweet to seem real and his hand moved to cover your own and it left you wondering for the hundredth time: would it really be that awful to break some rules?

Eddie led you away from the cabins, hand in yours, fingers tangled in a way that made your skin feel too warm and you were both tripping through the trees in the dark until Hop’s office lights lit up the ground and you could see Eddie’s van parked a just away from the edge of the clearing.

He fished out his keys from his pocket, wiggled them in the air and quirked his brows. His hand was still in yours and you wondered if he could feel your heartbeat through your fingertips, if you were looking at him the same way he was looking at you.

Earnest, hopeful, with too much fondness.

“Wanna get out of here?” Eddie asked quietly.

You chanced a look at the cabin behind you, the warm glow from the window letting you both know that Hopper was still up, maybe even Murray and Joyce.

“Are we allowed?”

Eddie smiled, a soft grin that made your stomach flip ‘cause it was full of nothing good, all mischief and trouble. The night seemed so much warmer, like it was filled with more than just summer, more than the linger heat of the sun. You wondered if it was possible for another person to make you feel like this, like teenagers at your high school locker, nerves like the anticipation of a first kiss behind an oak tree, a passed note that you kept in your drawer for years and years and years.

He shrugged, too nonchalant. “No,” came the reply.

You bit your lip to try and hide the grin you gave back, unprepared for the feeling of complete and utter excitement that clawed at your stomach at his words. Eddie’s hand tightened around yours.

“Okay,” you whispered back.

It felt like a daydream when Eddie helped you clamber into the front of the van, the inside still stuffy and warm from the afternoon spent sitting in the sun and it smelled like him. Like coffee and rain and smoke and spice, and you grinned at the mess on the floor. An old sweater, the lanyard that was stitched with the camp's logo that only Nancy wore, wrapped around the stick shift. There was an open box of guitar picks on the console, a couple empty cans of soda, sheet music with footprints on it, one drumstick, too many cassette tapes - none in their cases - to count.

But every inch of the space screamed EddieEddieEddie and it consumed you. You didn’t hesitate to shuffle over to the middle of the bench when the boy sat behind the wheel, close enough that your thigh almost touched his.

You shouldn’t have.

You didn’t need to.

You couldn’t help yourself.

He rolled the windows down as he pulled out of the car park, the headlights off until he reached the main road and neither of you heard Hopper’s truck screeching after you.

Despite the late hour, there was still a pink tint to the sky, barely there and only making the horizon glow, a leftover streak of colour from where the sun had sunk. The rest of the night was dark, inky black and littered with stars and when the van picked up speed, warm air funnelled through the front of the cab and it picked at you and Eddie’s hair.

You didn’t know where you were going. You didn’t ask. God, you found that you didn’t really care.

So you let the wind cool down your sun warmed skin and you smiled when Eddie hit the button for the radio, a song coming on soft and low, an acoustic guitar and lyrics that were much sweeter than you expected. Neither of you said much, but Eddie tapped out a beat on the steering wheel and your gaze went between his profile and the trees that blurred at the side of the road.

You drove until the wilderness became a little more tamed, until the darkness fed into streetlights and the roads got a little bigger. Toy sized towns sprung up from the forests, gas stations with two pumps, sleepy sidewalks and neon signs that flickered in the night.

Eddie pulled up to a diner, one with wrap-around windows and red, leather booths, an aquamarine sign that flashed ‘OPEN 24/7.’ It was easy to follow him into the building, to get swallowed up by the smell of fries and coffee. The floors were a little sticky and the waitresses looked tired, the three other diners barely glancing back at you both as the bell above the door signalled your arrival.

The boy ordered two milkshakes, one chocolate and one strawberry and he batted away your hand as you tried to push some dollar bills into his. There was a smile on his face as he did it, soft lips and soft curls and even softer eyes, and he gave no explanation as he took the large cups from over the counter and headed back outside.

“You not letting me pay seems an awful lot like a date, Eddie,” you called out across the parking lot.

He barely looked back at you as he headed to the van, a soft laugh caught in his throat as stood in front of the driver’s side door and grinned. When he did turn to face you, he looked like trouble, holding up the two shakes as he nodded down to his waist.

“Grab the keys for me, sweetheart?”

It sounded like another dare.

You could’ve taken a milkshake from him. You really could’ve. In fact, all common sense told you that that’s exactly what you should’ve done. But you took a step forward and then another and another, toe to toe with the boy until you were both bathed under the aquamarine light, Eddie’s cheeks shades of pink and blue.

Maybe he didn’t think you’d do it. Maybe he was only joking.

But he held his breath and you could feel the air change when you curled your fingers around his jeans pocket, tugging a little cause the denim was too tight and Christ, you could feel the expanse of his thigh underneath when you fished for the car keys, the metal jingling in the quiet. He stared at you the entire time, sugar and strawberries filling the air and you gazed right back, chin lifted up to meet his eyes almost defiantly.

You weren’t sure what you were trying to prove, but you were pretty sure it was the opposite of what you were supposed to be doing.

The lock clicked and you didn’t look at Eddie as you walked to the other side, climbing back into the van that suddenly felt so much smaller than before. You kept your back to the passenger door this time, further away from the boy who was looking at you like he was scared you might take up cross country in order to get back to camp.

He offered you both shakes, smiling and nodding when you took the strawberry with a quiet thank you. You both drank in silence for a minute or two, the parking lot emptying of what little vehicles remained and when the clock on the dash hit two, you and Eddie were alone.

“Are you mad at me?” Eddie eventually asked, soft and a little apprehensive, looking over at you with worry in his eyes. “For not kissing you?”

Your breath shook as you let it out.

“I mean, I didn’t know if— ‘cause you don’t want to kiss me, right? Or anybody, really, I s’pose— you have your rule and I totally get it but you seem like you’re mad at me and—”

“Eddie,” you tried to shush the boy, but your voice was too soft and too small and Eddie kept rambling.

“—and maybe I’m crazy but in the cabin when it was raining… it seemed like you wanted to kiss me then too, but shit, maybe I’m just being optimistic, ‘cause I know you don’t wanna get involved in anything and I respect that and I’m happy to be your friend- so happy - but I don’t know what I was supposed to do—”

“Eddie.” You’d moved suddenly enough to surprise him, his words falling short as you shuffled to the middle of the bench, sitting on your knees as you gazed at him imploringly.

You smiled around a sigh, a soft, sad noise that made Eddie’s lips turn down and you were gentle when you took his half empty cup from him, sitting it on the dash along with yours.

“I’m not mad at you,” you explained when you turned back to him, your fingers pulling at a thread on the hem of your shirt, stomach tumbling at the thought of telling Eddie too much. “I’m pissed at myself, actually.”

Eddie’s brows shot up and a boyish confusion took over his features. He shook his head softly at you, as if to explain he didn’t understand. But he sat quietly, waiting for you to continue.

“I’m annoyed ‘cause I think I did want you to kiss me,” you closed your eyes briefly at your admission, not wanting to see the way hope flashed across the boy’s face. “And I shouldn’t want that ‘cause I told you I wasn’t getting involved with anyone and that’s not fair to you.”

You sighed again and it sounded even sadder, a huff of breath that hitched in the middle but you kept going, the cadence of your voice pitching higher as you rambled, the same way the boy had.

“It’s so entirely unfair and I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of bitch who’s leading you on, ‘cause I’m not! Or at least, I don’t mean to be - fuck - and I’m sorry if I am and I don’t want this to be confusing or complicated or, or, shit I don’t know.” You took a pause to breathe, blinking at Eddie who just stared back, eyes too pretty to look away from this time round.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” you said sullenly, as if meeting the boy before you was the worst thing in the world. Maybe it was. “And I’m sorry ‘cause I’m being real selfish, ‘cause I don’t wanna stay away from you and I like it when you call me nice things and when you meet me for breakfast and I think about ki—”

You broke off again and squeezed your eyes shut tight, like that would keep your secrets in too. And when that didn’t seem to work, you groaned and brought your hands to your face, fingertips still cold from holding your shake and you pressed them meanly over your lashes.

“M’really sorry, Eddie.”

You heard a soft laugh, barely there and not unkind, an even quieter tsk before two strong hands wrapped themselves around your wrists and tugged gently. You let Eddie guide your palms away from your face and when you opened your eyes, he was a little closer than before.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” he whispered. “And you’re certainly not a bitch.”

You blinked at him, trying to keep the frustrated tears you wanted to let out at bay.

“I like being around you too,” Eddie continued and he was looking at you in that way that made your stomach twist. “And if you only think you wanted to kiss me—”

You let out an embarrassed groan and Eddie grinned.

“—that’s okay. I can wait until you know for certain. And if you don’t, then we can still be friends, like we are right now.”

Nothing about your relationship with Eddie felt friendly. Every look and every touch felt electric, like the air around you both knew more than you did, ‘cause it fizzed and buzzed every time he was around. It felt like something else, something more.

“But for the record,” Eddie whispered conspiratorially, pink in the cheeks

despite the way he tried to act all theatrical for you. “I wanted to kiss you.”

You ducked your chin to your chest to try and hide the way you smiled, an embarrassing scrunch of your nose but Eddie saw and he grinned wider, you could feel it, you could sense the way the space between you turned lighter and heavier all at once.

When you looked back up, Eddie was watching you, head tilted and curls a little messy and wild. He was still holding your wrists, his wide hands covering some of your own and you weren’t sure if he even realised.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for something else yet,” you told him and you hated the way you sounded scared. ��My last relationship was so— so shit.”

“That’s okay too, well - the first part is. The second part is definitely shitty,” Eddie said, so soft it hurt and god, you believed him. He licked his lips, nervous and unsure, parting them as if to say something else but he stopped.

“What?” You prompted and you flipped your hands in his, palm to palm, so you were able to touch a thumb to the underside of one ring.

“Would it be so bad?” He asked, almost too quiet to hear. “To try?”

You took a breath, held the question and the answer in your chest until it burned and you wondered if it would be. Logic ceased to exist as you thought about leaning forward and pressing your lips to Eddie’s, the idea of your mouth parting slowly against his own was enough to make heat creep up the back of your neck.

You wondered what he’d taste like, if he’d kiss you soft, if he’d kiss you rough, like all his patience had run out and he just had to have you. You thought about his hands, if he’d be soft with them too, if he’d hold you sweet by the waist or if he’d cup your jaw and pull you closer to him. Maybe he’d make pretty sounds for you, maybe he’d groan and sigh low and sweet when your tongue touched his, maybe he’d pull away to whisper in your ear, run his mouth like you knew he was good at.

You were leaning in.

You didn’t even realise.

Eddie was too.

Hands still tangled and resting on your lap, his breath mixing with your own as his forehead touched yours. A curl tickled your cheek and when the bridge of your nose bumped softly against the boy’s, your lashes fluttered as your eyes closed and your heart was thumpingthumpingthumping.

Your brain was yelling. It sounded like your mother, like your ex and it sounded like you, shouting at them both that you didn’t need a relationship and you didn’t need boys and how this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Maybe you pulled back, maybe you just stopped. Or maybe Eddie just knew you better than you thought, ‘cause it had been three weeks of camp and he knew how you liked to visit the lake at least once a day, how you always woke up early and you liked it best when it rained through the night so you could sleep to the sounds of it.

Eddie sat back in the seat, took his hands with him and left yours feeling colder than they should’ve.

Before you could panic, before you could say sorry again and again, before the tears you felt thicken the back of your throat, Eddie smiled. He handed you back your milkshake, a little more melted than before.

“You don’t have to kiss me,” he said gently, and his words hurt your chest but he kept talking. “You don’t have to prove anything to me - or yourself,” he added.

He took a second to lean back in, just a little, the hand not holding his shake lifting to your face so he could push back a piece of hair that had fallen across your forehead. You think he just wanted a reason to touch you, and you realised then you’d let him do that as much as he wanted.

“I don’t want you to kiss me if you’re not sure,” he explained. “And I don’t want to make you feel rushed or—”

“You don’t,” you interrupted and your voice felt too loud for the front of the van, for the soft quiet, the blue light and strawberry air. “You don’t make me feel like that at all, Eddie. I just— I feel…”

Scared, torn, nervous, hypocritical.

You looked at him, sad, doe eyed and nervous, and if you chewed at your poor bottom lip any longer, Eddie was going to have to save it with gentle fingers.

“How ‘bout this,” Eddie said soft and lovely, like a secret, “if you work out how you feel, and you work out what you want…” he trailed off, felt brave again and took your hand back in his, a thumb running over the back of it. “Come find me, yeah? Let me know.”

You nodded, fingertips pushed to his palm, across the tiny guitar string scars and rough calluses.

“‘Cause I really like you,” he whispered.

“I like you too,” you whispered back and Eddie smiled, wide and bright and adorably shy.

“Good to know,” he nodded but his cheeks were flushed and he let go of your hand for the last time, curling his own back around the steering wheel. “We, uh, we better head back before Steve starts a search party for us.”

“For you, you mean,” you snorted.

“Don’t be jealous,” the boy quipped back but he was smiling. “This is gotta be the part of the script where the van breaks down on us, right?”

You laughed again, a soft huff and sounded so fond that it made Eddie’s chest ache. You were busy clipping your seatbelt back in, your shake almost empty and wedged behind your thighs and Eddie tried not to stare, he really did.

“And then what happens?” You asked, peering over at him, wondering if it was safe to ask, if you wanted to know.

Eddie shrugged, gave a sort of half smile that told you he was already thinking it over. “Depends what horror movie you like best, I guess.”

You scrunched your nose and watched the lights turn Eddie from aquamarine to a too warm orange as he rolled out of the diner’s parking lot. “A horror?”

‘I thought this was supposed to be a romance,’ you wanted to say.

You didn’t.

“Yeah, pick your poison sweetheart,” Eddie laughed, gaining a little more speed as he left the town behind and the only light came from the moon. “Ghostface with a knife? He gets me first when I go look for help,” Eddie wiggled his brows at you theatrically. “Or how ‘bout a good old fashioned zombie mob, huh? They surround the van and I obviously sacrifice myself to save you.”

You snorted, too amused. “Obviously,” you tell him.

“But once I’m all zombified, I turn on you,” Eddie grinned wide when you gasped, overly dramatic, just for him. “Start nibblin’ on that pretty neck like a chicken tender.”

You shake your head at him, still laughing. “You’re horrid.”

The boy shrugged, drove the van slowly through the skinny, dirt roads back into the forest. And when he stopped and killed the engine, silence settled over you both in a way it didn’t in town. Something far away chirped.

“Yeah, I know,” he appeased. His gaze settled on you, wide and bright even in the dark, a lot more hopeful too. “But you like me.”

PART TWO

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson smut #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson oneshot #stranger things fic

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powderblueblood · 9 months

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HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER SEVEN — WELCOME to the REAL WORLD, JACKASS

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summary: christmastime in hawkins brings a bunch of cherry bombs in the boy's bathroom, a trip down memory lane via seven minutes in heaven avenue, and the least likely trio this town has ever seen. content warnings: MINORS DNI i'm going to fuck you up and santa isn't real so we've got, smut including references to and descriptions of male and female masturbation, smoking, swearing, a pregnancy scare, era-typical misogyny and ANGST in the form of a flashback!!! word count: 12.5k. merry christmas babies

Dear reader, it takes you less than five weeks to become incapable of imagining your life without Eddie Munson.

Which, given his propensity for being an absolute neanderthal, is concerning.

Eddie Munson talks with his mouth full and plays his music too loud. He never closes a cabinet all the way. He walks through anywhere, literally anywhere, be it a store or the library or Ronnie’s trailer–leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. He talks during movies and puts his feet up on the seats at the Hawk. He makes fun of the books you read, but always grabs them away from you to stare at the blurb on the back. He never finishes a cigarette all the way before lighting another one, which is just wasteful. He pretends to be good at holding his liquor, but he’s not.

He stands too close to you in places where he’s got plenty of room to move. He makes you laugh, even when you don’t want to. He holds the door for you in school, at the bookstore, getting out of the van, even though you’re more than capable of doing that yourself. He takes advantage of you when you’re in a good mood, like making you scratch his head as if he were a cat.

Sometimes he calls you ‘baby’, as if you don’t have a nickname already. As if you two are…

You lean toward the only mirror in the girls’ room with decent light, reapplying the red lip stain you’d taken to wearing– it was coming on Christmas, for god’s sake, and despite everything, you’re feeling festive. Quick. Lighter on your feet than you have been in a long time.

“Hey girl, could I borrow that?” an out-of-tune simper rings right next to your ear and you almost jump out of your skin, lipstick clattering into the sink.

“Jesus!” you say, and Eddie Munson cackles. You knock him back with a one-handed shove, face setting into that funny little grimace you’ve taken to wearing when he acts up– and he’s always acting up. You’re gonna get wrinkles if he doesn’t cut it out. “What the hell are you doing in here? Hair in your eyes make you miss the sign that says girl’s room?”

You know that’s not true, because you were the one that just about tied him to a chair in Ronnie Ecker’s trailer so you could trim his bangs last week.

This is a fuckin’ violation of my human rights, Lacy!

Every time I’m seen with you, people think I’m out walking a goddamn Briard. Hold still!

“So, hot off the press, newspaper girl,” Eddie says, leaning against the yellow porcelain, “One, I am literate, much to everyone’s shock and awe. And two, someone threw a bunch of cherry bombs down the john in the boy’s bathroom and the place is fucking Hiroshima, but wet and kinda shitty smelling. So we all got told to use this…” He gestures around at the clean-ish tile. “...salon of iniquity.”

“Was it you?” you ask, plucking a cigarette from the soft pack he’s offering you.

“Huh?” He scrunches his brows, leaning with a lighter ready. He’s taken to doing that; cigarette at the ready, lighter at the ready, low-grade explosives at the ready, probably.

“The cherry bombs, was it you?” you say through a reel of blue smoke.

“For once, no,” Eddie sighs, head slumping forward like a Peanuts character, “Some other gorgeous, anarchistic genius got the jump on me.”

“Oh, god,” a frown sets in; you pick up your dropped lipstick and in its wake, ash into the sink, “There’s no other bathrooms on campus you animals could use?”

“Nuh-uh. Unisexuality, baby, it’s the way of the future,” Eddie tells you, fanning out his hands like P.T. Barnum.

A beat. You think. This bathroom, the unofficially allocated senior bathroom, the one you and the rest of the Hawkins in-crowd had been using since sophomore year, got crowded at the best of times. The fumes of Aquanet were a definite health risk, but that’s an occupational hazard when it comes to being a girl. You add boys into the mix, nay, couples into the mix–

Damn.

“We’re about to witness the conception of so many toilet babies.”

Realization dawns on Eddie, his brown eyes flaring. “Oh shiiiit. I never thought of that.”

“The band geeks alone, Eddie,” you whisper, head tilting toward him all scandalized-like, “We’re gonna show up at our fifteen year reunion and every single one of these suckers is gonna have their own little freshman clones.”

“Spare a thought for Heather Holloway.” Eddie’s face, a mask of mock concern, makes you roll your eyes.

“Why?” you scoff, not a fan, “She doesn’t inspire many.”

“Objection. Her implants do.”

You turn to face him fully. “J’excuse?”

“Swear to god,” and his palms are up, “Just saw her in Chemistry.”

“Good? Bad?”

“Conical. Jayne Mansfield.” Aaand his hands are gesturing, animatedly. Crassly. Pervily. “Take your goddamn eye out.”

“Wow. Christmas came early.”

“Christmas ain’t the only thing that’s gonna be coming early…”

“Ew.”

Eddie smirks and flicks his cigarette into the sink, hitting the faucet to wash it away– there were at least three good drags left in that, you think.

“Heather H, first one to get knocked up in the Great Bathroom Insemination Project of 1984. Mark my words.”

“And you think you’re in with a shot?” Your tone is dripping in sneer.

Eddie regards you for a moment, so you know something deeply annoying is about to happen. His voice goes all serious, barely above a whisper, as he closes space between you like he’s trying to beat a draft.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Lacy baby.” His hands brace either side of the sink you’re standing at, trapping you against him. See? No respect for boundaries. But– Hm. Not… that annoying. “Oversexed teenagers sharing the same bathroom– at Christmas, with all that mistletoe around and shit.” His eyes, searching you with a glint that’s s’posed to be provocative. You, elbow propped up by your folded arm, puff a plume of smoke into his face. He doesn’t even blink. Smirk pursing his lips up. The two of you have established a rhythm. “Anything could happen.”

“Ew, what the hell are you doing in here? This is the girl’s room.” Enter some upstart underclassman, and Eddie’s peeling away from you.

“You didn’t see the biblical flood on the second floor, Pippi Longstocking?” His voice is big and booming and bouncing off the tile, making the underclassman cringe. “Forcible takeover. This is my house now.”

“God, shut up, freak.” She shuffles by the two of you to a vacant stall with a look you recognize– she’s so telling her friends about those two trailer park abnormos just about copulating in the bathroom later.

“Great choice!” Eddie exclaims, door of the stall slamming, “I warmed the seat for ya!”

—

“Watch where you’re going, you almost milled down that stroller!”

“I wouldn’t need to go so fast if you two, freakin’ Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Priss Ass, didn’t insist on getting to this place before it closed!”

“We wouldn’t need to rush if you hadn’t spent all freakin’ afternoon at goddamn Lipton landing getting all– all–”

“All?”

“--toked up and shit!”

“Market research, Ecker! And, I’m gonna remember you said that! Later! When you want to get all toked up and shit– woah!”

Listening to Ronnie Ecker and Eddie Munson bicker in the front seat while you balance on a drum stool in the back of his van, clutching onto Ronnie’s passenger seat for dear life– no better way to get into the spirit of the season. You’d be joining in the milieu if you weren’t currently suffering from major motion sickness.

Eddie takes a harsh pull into a parking spot outside of Family Video and–“Go, go, go!”--you three load out like soldiers, locked on the target. He takes the lead, swinging the door open for the two of you ladies, but a voice calls out from the counter before Ronnie can even get a toe over the threshold.

“Oh, no– no way, no way!” Steve Harrington’s yelling from the helm of the ship, waving his hands. “We are– fifteen goddamn minutes away from close, I can’t do this tonight!”

“Highly unwise of you to turn away paying customers, Harrington!” Eddie gasps, Ronnie ducking under his arm.

“You guys come in here and spend honest-to-god hours talking shit in the aisles and– and you never even rent anything!”

“Well, your luck’s about to change!” Ronnie says, and Steve regards her with a mask of total confusion because, well, it’s likely he’s never heard her speak directly to anyone other than Eddie before.

That’s when you roll in the door under Eddie’s arm-arch, color rising in your cheeks that’s not from the cold.

“I am deeply reconsidering my association with you guys.”

“Tough shit.” “Find another trailer park.” “You love it. You love us. You’re obsessed.”

You pinch both of your hands towards them, the universal action to encourage zipping it, and cast a glance towards Steve. His shoulders relax. His vest is green and garish and a terrible color on him and… he’s wearing elf ears. And he’s Steve Harrington. And your stomach clenches, though it’s more muscle memory than anything else.

“Hey, Steve,” you smile, soft and small and not really all that there.

“Lacy. Hi.” He does smile at you, after a beat. “You responsible for these assholes?”

You hadn’t seen him since the night of his party, that grand inferno that had landed you here, standing between Eddie and Ronnie and feeling not entirely awful about it. Well, you hadn’t exactly seen him then either, except for a flash when Eddie was dragging you out of his house.

So, y’know, the blush is entirely justified.

“She’s bankrolling us,” Eddie says, closing the door to keep the heat in and speaking just to break the tension. True, too– you’d scored a part time gig at The Bookstore after a confrontation with the eagle-eyed Ivana regarding certain missing copies of Little Women, The Woman Destroyed and Fear and Trembling. You assumed you were working off the thievery, which you never directly admitted to and she never directly accused you of– but then, she paid you.

Ivana, it turns out, is incredibly pro-workers rights and even more incredibly anti-Hawkins gossip mill. Which works out a treat for you. The bookstore’s become more of a haven than it had been before.

“Can you scatter already?” you direct two thirds of your threesome towards the stacks. “Let’s make this breezy, I feel a wave of mortification rising.”

“No. I was promised in-store bickering,” Eddie says, rooting himself to the spot. You catch a weird flash of– something in his eyes. Ronnie, with her unlikely band geek strength, groans and yanks him toward the horror section. “It’s my favorite part! It’s like the pre-show!”

You take to the counter, gingerly, shyly. Why are you shy? Why, all of a sudden, after showing your ass in such a spectacular bruise-garnering fashion, are you shy to speak to Steve Harrington? Is it because Nancy’s dropped a tidbit here and there that he’s not exactly great boyfriend material? Is it because you sometimes secretly think, good, I hope you two are having a terrible time, even if you and Wheeler are making baby steps towards a friendship?

Is it because you never forget the first person that called you Lacy?

Fuck knows. Some of that.

“So you’re… what, hanging out now?” Steve asks, gesturing to the twin dipshits. There’s a bite in his voice from a former incarnation of Steve Harrington, one with (somehow) bigger hair and an unchecked ego. It doesn’t all shed at once, you figure. He’s sloughing it off and there’s still some left over, judging by the way he’s staring at Ronnie and Eddie.

You look over your shoulder to them. It would be so easy to deride it, right– only due to my unfortunate proximity to them, yes or girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do for a ride these days or it’s community service, I swear.

But you don’t. You turn back to him with a pinchy little smile. “I’m this close to getting them to let me play tambourine in their band. Can you even deal?”

Steve, after a beat and a brow furrow, sort of half nods. “Think I kind of… get that.”

You’re about to answer when another body comes barrelling in through the back.

“Just wanted to let you know, dingus, that I just got off the phone with Keith–you remember Keith, right, our manager who is currently in a war of words with our boss trying to keep this place open–and your little stock-take fuckup has cost us, like, weeks of manhours in work and–” Robin Buckley, complete with a light-up Santa hat, stops dead. Counts every person in the room. Shakes her head like she’s in a dream. “What is…”

“H–hi Robin!” Ronnie calls, her voice all squeaky– due to the scuffling headlock that Eddie has somehow managed to put her in without you and Steve even noticing. “Don’t worry, we– we’ll be out of your hair in a second!”

And Robin– wait, is Robin kind of… blushing? She backs down immediately, putting her Family Video branded binder flat on the counter. “Yeah, no… that’s totally okay, take your time!”

You look at Steve. Steve looks at you. You quirk an eyebrow like– is that, is she… And Steve shrugs like, don’t ask me, sister. Pleading the fifth. Saving Robin’s dignity.

But you’re still you and you’ve been bugging Ronnie about her situation for weeks so you hold up a finger.

“What are you two idiots arguing about?”

“Black Christmas–” “Silent Night, Bloody– ow, Ronnie, don’t pull hair, you girl!”

A swivel back to Robin, who is totally pink-cheeked. “We need a professional to settle this.”

Her mind seems to stutter like a badly wound tape. Oh, she’s suckered. “Uh– uh, Black Christmas, for sure. Not exactly the coziest thing to watch, but–”

“We’re not cozy people!” Eddie yells, Ronnie coming at him with arms like weed whackers.

“--but Margot Kidder, right?” you poke, goddamn Jimmy Page and John Bonham for the Midwest set slamming into the counter on either side of you.

“Olivia Hussey,” Ronnie says breathlessly. Eddie seems to have winded her somehow. “That’s– she’s cool–I heard she was in this–”

“Exactly!” Robin lights up, excited, “She– she played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet–”

“Wait, don’t you see her boobs in that movie?” Eddie jerks in.

“Yes,” Robin and Steve chime in unison. And glance at each other. Telling.

Ol’ Munson there snaps his fingers. “Sold.”

“But not in Black Christmas,” you say, almost gently, so as not to… let him down?

Eddie rolls his eyes and tilts his head toward your shoulder. “I’m a man with an imagination, ain’t I?” he rasps. You pretend-shudder.

“Okay, let’s do Black Christmas and– you got a copy of The Thin Man?”

Blink-blink goes Robin, like a cartoon. It’s nearly audible. “... like, the William Powell, Myrna Loy Thin Man?”

Your turn to roll your eyes. God, you guys love to roll your eyes, huh? “Is there any other?”

“Like the black and white movie. You’re sure? I just didn’t think it’d be your–”

But Eddie cuts right through that assumption that’s making an ass out of you and Robin, because he knows. He knows because you’ve made him sit through Double Indemnity at the Hawk, scolding him for putting his feet up (god forbid, right!) and you’ve even threatened to drag him to some Buster Keaton retrospective that’s playing there after the holidays. He keeps thinking, man, if Wayne Munson ever comes across this girl, he’s a goner, and then he remembers why that won’t be happening any time soon.

“She’s a freak.”

You regard him with a tight smile. Kind of a thanks, kind of a fuck you. Kind of your thing.

“I’ll watch it when these bozos pass out.”

—

Something’s gotten into Eddie.

You three are absolutely basking in the glory of your one night of freedom– see, Granny Ecker’s away on a weekend hotel stay in Indianapolis with one of her special friends from the Hawkins Senior Center. Which, on the one hand, gross, Eddie never ever wants to think about Granny Ecker getting lucky no matter how happy for her he is. But on the other, in the words of her beloved granddaughter–

“God bless the Indiana Sweepstakes!”

Eddie has stolen Granny’s usual spot, the kick-out recliner that seems to sag more with every movement. You and Ronnie are bunched onto the little two-seater together, with Ronnie shyly suggesting that you paint her nails (black, how totally hardcore)– now, Eddie knows this move. This is so she can distract herself from the bonafide creepiness of Black Christmas because while she tries to put on a brave face, Ronnie’s eyes for horror movies are way bigger than her stomach. She’s all nerves. It’s why she’s such a good drummer.

As you’d predicted, by the time the movie ends and you all clear the six pack that Eddie had procured, Ronnie’s nodding off– but Eddie is determined to stay wide awake. You make a move off the couch and she grumbles, having narrowly avoided propping her head on your shoulder. You move to arrange her in such a way that she’s sleeping Nosferatu style, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because I spent an awful lot of time on that polish and I won’t see it ruined, not on your account,” you chide, real quiet. Ronnie’s not listening, she’s pretend honk-shooing. Eddie, on the other hand, is.

He likes you like this. You’re sweet to Ronnie, in your prickly little way– making her flustered with your misdirected flirting, bonding with her about things so far out of the realm of his male understanding. Being a girl with her. It’s occurred to him that Ronnie, in her testosterone-soaked world of current comrades, might actually need that. Like, she’s friendly enough with Jeannie and that Vickie girl from band, but they’re not people she’d go out of her way to make a case for so’s that Granny Ecker will let them stay for dinner.

Which she’s done for you. Once or twice now. Which you’ve nervously accepted and even ruined your manicure for, by insisting on washing up the dishes. Eddie dried, because of course he did, because the Ecker trailer is the only place close to home that the two of you can hang out.

You’re, like– friends.

Which is horrible.

Eddie tosses you a cold can of soda from the fridge. You catch it, hands basketing above your head.

“Power forward.”

“Cheerleader.”

You lean over to the TV to swap the tapes out, insistent on watching your dumb little black and white movie. As you do it, your skirt lifts a little bit and–

Eddie’s gotta break eye contact. Stare at the floor for a second. Cock jumping like the fucking mole from whack-a-mole.

He almost hits it.

You bitch, are you wearing thigh highs?

“You need to pull trig, Munson?” he hears you from the kitchenette, clicking the video player’s play button. “You only had two beers.”

God, maybe. Was the room spinning? “Smoked a lotta weed today.”

“Right. Lipton landing,” you smirk. Ronnie’s derisive little nickname for Reefer Rick’s place. “Are you gonna get over here and snore through my movie or not?”

I do not snore, or some muttering of a similar fashion comes out but he’s doing exactly what you tell him to do. He can’t help it. Brain function gone all freaky from that flash of flesh squeezed out the top of your– yeah.

Eddie lands on the floor next to you with a little groan. Your eyes flick between him and the now-empty recliner.

“What are you doing down here?”

Oh. Busted. “I’m a gentleman, Lacy. Take the damn seat.”

Your face screws up in that silly way it does whenever he talks sense to you but you don’t wanna hear it. Brat. “No. I like to sit right up near when it’s something I really want to watch.”

A shrug of your little shoulder as you wrap your arms around your knees like a kid. Face illuminated by the greyscale on the television. Skirt rucking back against the carpet. Fuck.

Eddie lets out an unsteady breath, crawling forward to lie on his tummy. Closer to you. “You’re gonna get square eyes if you keep doin’ that, dorko.”

“Who died and made you my optometrist…” but you say it in this half-hearted, distracted way, eyes on the screen.

“Y’know, if you–” Eddie starts, eyes on the lace top of your–yes indeedy–stockings.

“Shut up,” and you tap him on the shoulder. “I love this part.”

Your hand stays there as some fancily dressed chick totally eats shit in the bar of some hotel or something. Christmas presents flying everywhere as she falls.

Women and children first, boys.

Say, what is the score anyway?

Oh, so it’s you he was after.

Hello, sugar.

Your hand stays there as you’re totally mouthing every single word, you true-blue nerd. Eddie, completely at a loss of how to react to this other than gaze, gaze, gaze at you, snaps his teeth at your hand.

You, so completely embroiled in Nick and Nora’s white hot banter, gasp at the near-bite and swipe at his head. Eddie dodges the blow by rolling onto his back, hair fanning out on the Eckers’ rug. He grins up at you, and all of a sudden the rise and fall of his chest in that worn-out Alice Cooper shirt is very distracting.

Pretty girl.

Yeah, she’s a very nice type.

You got types?

Only you, darling–

“--lanky brunettes with wicked jaws,” you say, beat-for-beat with William Powell.

“Talkin’ about me?” Eddie says, lips peeling back, eyebrows quirking.

“Not in your wettest, wildest dreams, Eddie Munson.”

“Oh, you don’t wanna know what happens in those dreams. It’s filthy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s twisted. It’s disgusting.”

“I bet.”

His hand is absent-mindedly stroking his chest, shifting the hem of that t-shirt up a little bit. Brushstrokes. You remember that? Eddie Munson has a happy trail like–

“You’re so nice to me. It’s so fffffucking hot.”

“How wildly out-of-character,” you scoff, and he laughs, and you shift in your spot the teensiest bit. Eyes back on the screen, back to safety.

From here, where he’s lying, Eddie has a fully illustrated view of the flash of skin up your skirt. Now that you’re not looking at him, he’s looking at it. Swallowing back saliva. Ignoring Nick and Nora.

It’d be simple as pie to walk his fingertips along the rug and brush up against you there–oops–by accident or design. Feel how soft that skin is. Feel that heat radiating from your–

“It’s alright,” he hums, eyes flicking to the ceiling. Otherwise, all the blood’s gonna drain away from his head and he’s going to fucking die. “I know I’m not your type anyway.”

Your head lolls to your other shoulder, exposing a flash of your neck. It’s sorely missing a tongue running along it, he thinks, breath shuddering a touch.

“You wouldn’t know my type if it hit you with an eighteen wheeler.”

“Can Steve Harrington drive an eighteen wheeler?”

Lolling your head back in the most exaggerated form of exasperation, you groan. “God. The way you talk about Harrington, I’m willing to put money on the fact that you have a crush on him.”

Eddie shrugs, hand resting on his sternum. You had your hand there once, you recall.

“I got prescribed one on the first day of freshman year, just like everybody else. But it wore off.”

“Sure about that?” Your eyes narrow.

“Sure as I am that I saw you makin’ googly eyes at him at the Family Video tonight.” Eddie crosses his own peepers for effect. Your attention darts back to the screen.

“I was not–”

“You can just say it, Lace.” His face is a twisty little smirk, if you’d care to look. “Regardless of how utterly pedestrian it might be.” That was a dig at you, by the way. That was an almost eerie impression of you.

“The things I felt in seventh grade don’t really have a lot of gravitational pull on me anymore,” you shrug, not giving. Because, when you think about it, you don’t have to give. It was a baseless kind of thrill, seeing Harrington tonight. One hit wonder. “He’s a cute boy. Reminded me I have a pulse. Nothing wrong with that.”

Eddie’s quiet for a few seconds, flicks his eyes up to watch the TV from upside down. Nick places an ice pack on a drunken Nora’s head.

Hmm… what hit me?

The last martini.

He smiles as you smile, and he wonders if you’re thinking of the same thing he’s thinking of.

“Alright, well– we can forget this ever happened. Resume being assholes to each other on Monday. Don’t, like, die in the meantime.”

“You say resume like we ever stopped being assholes to each other.”

“Funny you mention seventh grade…” Eddie trails off, tugging at the rug underneath him.

“Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?” Your voice is distant again.

“Little bit of both.”

“Why?”

Well, he thought you might be fucking with him, but– “... God, you really don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” He sees your brow pinch, he’s getting to ya.

“Not a fucking clue.” No give, no glory, eyes on the peeling ceiling.

“Remember what?” You’ve snapped your neck and are looking down at him now, thirsty for him to fucking spill it already.

“Total–” he blows a raspberry, “--blackout before freshman year, right?”

“Eddie.”

His name makes him sit up. Pavlovian, sure, and he’s trying to deny the fact that he’ll do just about anything you say when you call him Eddie in that slightly-tinged sour way and not Munson like you’re writing him off. He’s trying to deny that. He swears.

“Nancy Wheeler’s thirteenth birthday party.”

You two are shoulder to shoulder, him facing the couch, you facing the screen, his breath warming the bare skin of your off-the-shoulder top which is an insane thing to be wearing in the dead of fucking winter, but praise Jesus hallelujah you’re wearing it. Your expression is unimpressed.

“... yeah?”

“We played Seven Minutes in Heaven.” He lays that out a little too plain for your liking. Playing Seven Minutes in Heaven at a thirteen year old’s birthday party is like the non-denominational Hora for pseudo-white bread Christian teenagers, at least in Hawkins. Everybody does that shit. But hold on.

“... you were there?”

“Fucking obviously, dimwit, that’s the setup to the whole story.” He sighs in a puff, and he’s very close to you. Chin almost on your shoulder like that night at the Quarry. “Tommy Hagan ripped into me for like, fifteen full minutes because my spin of the bottle landed on you.”

Confusion is a disease and you’re terminal. “That was… not you.”

Insistence is a disease and Eddie’s fatal. “Yes. It so was.”

“That was John Hudson-Wasserman.”

“That was not–,” Eddie full on splutters, like slapstick splutters, reeling his head away from you, “you’re gonna get me confused with John Hudson-Wasserman? The guy who was like, pathologically obsessed with the Kennedy assassination? The guy who moved to Des Moines like, two weeks after that party?”

Then you’re spluttering back all of a sudden. Everything you two are doing is contagious. “His parents named him after John F., can you blame him? –actually, I can totally blame him, that was bizarre.”

“Lacy.” Well, the way he says that straightens your spine. “Use that pretty little brain to think for a second, huh? There’s one unmistakeable detail I bet I can get to jog your memory.”

But you’re already there. Activated. Like a sleeper cell.

“Your hair was all buzzed off. You had that bandage on your head.”

“I did. And you asked me what was under it, and I said–”

A hole. They cut out a part of my brain so I’d be– The Wheeler’s linen closet was tiny and you were breathing in lavender detergent from all angles.

The boy in front of you, scrawny and angry, had an aura around him like a firework. You knew it was dangerous, but you wanted to look closer.

–less of a freak? you finished. Such was the accusation du jour for this kid.

Less of a danger to society, he said, chest puffed. They let me keep it in a jar. Just in case shit gets really real and I need to shove it back in.

You don’t quite know what to do with that. Like. He is so weird, and his hair is unevenly shaved and he’s got little cuts and scratches and scabs all over him. Like he’s been running through brambles. He looks like a kid someone found in the wild.

Did you name it? you ask, finger drawing circles on a nearby towel. Your jar brain.

Eddie Junior, he told you, crossing his arms.

Aren’t you already Junior? Shouldn’t it be Junior Junior?

His jaw hardened. No. I’m Eddie.

You nudged forward on your toes to get a better look at the bandage– he was taller than you. It lumped out of his head, unmissable. Nothing to be done about it.

He seemed to cringe away from you.

Don’t try anything, skank.

You bounce back onto your heels.

I wasn’t, asshole. We don’t have to do anything– just… like… did it hurt?

He paused for a full ten seconds (you counted) and swallowed real hard. Eyes wide as hubcaps, and dark, and frightened. He craned his neck toward you a little.

Then the door swung open, Tina Burton standing there hand-in-hand with an irritated-looking Steve Harrington. Time’s up, losers!

Al hadn’t asked if it hurt, when he beat the crap out of him for doing something so stupid. Wayne hadn’t even asked if it hurt, when Eddie came back from the hospital like a dog with its tail between its legs.

You were the first, and you were the last, and it was before everything. Before you were even Lacy.

“What happened, anyway?” you ask. Soft. Like that last time.

Now, in retrospect, Eddie sees the error of his ways.

“I lit all my hair on fire with a butane torch.”

“You what?!”

“It’s not– entirely my fault! I think I saw someone with hair on fire in an X-Men comic and I thought, y’know, that’s an achievable look.” That’s a severe understatement. It was Johnny Storm from The Fantastic Four and Eddie believed that he could be like Johnny Storm only more badass and maybe with like a sick motorbike. What, you’re telling me you didn’t go through a pre-teen-to-mid-teen phase where you were secretly convinced you had superpowers? Smarten up.

“And how high–”

“Yeah, okay, I was also hitting a Reddi-Wip can like crazy.” The nitrous oxide did not help these delusions.

“Why the big bandage?”

“Eh, I got some, like, bitsy little burn. Total overreaction.”

“Do you have a scar?” Before he can answer, you’re parting his hair, right near the place you remember that bandage being. Eddie freezes, your frigid fingertips searching his scalp. You are… very close.

“Uh– no, I don’t.” He gulps, avoiding looking at you directly in your bright, curious little face. “Can I tell you something truly fucking dumb?”

“Wouldn’t be out-of-character for you, that’s for sure.”

Deep, deep breath. Fucking shit fucking goddammit fuck. Balls. “I regret it.”

“The hair thing? Yeah, you’d think–”

“No. Not kissing you.”

“Oh.” Your hands drop from his skull but don’t exactly leave his hair. Just kind of wound in there, hovering, the way you feel like you’re hovering now.

“You asked me if it hurt, and then I was gonna– but then, fucking Tina–” Eddie says, eyes dashing to you in these minute little glances. Away, back, away, back.

“Fuckin’ Tina,” you breathe.

“--and Harrington.”

“Ah.” You shut your eyes. He didn’t notice you were wearing green eyeshadow until right now. “The square root of the problem.”

“Huh?” Barely heard it. Too busy looking at the glitter on your eyelids. The way your eyeballs shift around underneath.

“You’re totally lemon sour bitter with Harrington because you think he made you blow your shot with me.” You open your eyes with a squint.

“That is so not–” Break a spell, why dontcha! But then, Eddie takes a bite. “Actually, if you pop-psychology that, there might be somethin’ there, but… I regret it because I didn’t just–”

You cut in. “Go for it.”

“Shoot.” He confirms.

“Power. Forward.” You emphasize, lips curling.

“Cheer. Leader.” Eddie says, gravel in his voice.

Do you know that your hand is still in his hair? Like, are you physically aware of it? (Answer: no.)

Nick. Nicky?

What.

You asleep?

Yes.

Good. I wanna talk to you.

Your head swivels back from the screen. He watched you look away, dart your tongue out onto your lip, look back at him.

“Eddie.” There’s fizz in your voice.

“Yes, Lacy.” He wonders what flavor.

“I think…” and you finally extract your hand to lay it in your lap. Withdrawing, willing to be shot down, but you’re you and you know that you won’t be. “We could make a case for making up for lost time.”

Eddie’s mouth has become very dry. “... meaning that…”

“Eddie, I think that you should kiss me like a seventh grader– eighth grader? So weird, why did Wheeler have eight graders at her bir–”

“Lacy. Back on track, please,” which is another horrendously pin point perfect impression of you. And he needs to be sure that you just said what you just said and that isn’t the ghosts of Lipton landing talking.

“We should try it out. An honest-to-god, never-been-done-before Seven Minutes in Heaven kiss. I happen to think it’d fix something in you.”

“Oh, come on,” he scoffs.

“No, I’m serious!” And it is kind of fizzing out of you, and you might not be entirely just talking about him for this next part, “I think you’re holding onto a lot of pent up energy that may have just gotten even more pent since we became, y’know–”

“Zoo animals with parallel enclosures?” Eddie says with an arching eyebrow.

“Wow,” you swallow a breath. “That really sounded like me.”

“I’m afflicted with a Lacyism from time to time.”

“Is that like astigmatism? Because you should get that looked at.”

“Who died and made you my optometrist?”

“Eddie.” Your voice, coming from your face, which is all dappled in the unserene technicolor glow of the Eckers’ Christmas lights, highlighted by the blaze of the black and white on TV. You make it look like stained glass. He would walk into oncoming traffic– “You trust me, right?” He would go and play on the freeway if you asked him to.

Eddie, Christ, he’s got to gather himself. Like the sweat gathering on his palms, he thinks, great work ethic, I need some of that. He gets a bright idea, brighter than those twinkling lights. “I think I need full authenticity in order to make this experience worth it.”

“What?”

“We need to find a closet.”

It’s pretty much a hard no on whether or not the Eckers have a linen closet (you’re a long way from Maple Lane now, babe), so it’s agreed that you’ll give Granny Ecker’s wardrobe a shot. You follow Eddie in there with tentative steps, like you can almost feel her watching all the way from the Best Western in Indianapolis she’s no doubt staying in. Trespassing is bad, yadda yadda, but it’s also exciting.

It’s exciting, being in here with him.

He glances back at you, eyes a glimmer in the darkened bedroom. “After you,” and he flourishes a hand toward the open closet.

You two are so not seventh graders anymore– heads bang against hangers, you’re kind of melting into a lot of denim and fleece and you… you don’t have much breathing room. No lavender detergent, just the beer-and-old-weed-sweet smell of Eddie Munson pushed close to flush against your chest. The scent of that shampoo you both use caught somewhere in the middle.

Your breathing is so shallow, you feel like you might be having an asthma attack. You don’t have asthma.

“Tight,” he says, and knits his brows, “I mean–”

“Cozy,” you correct, unsure of where to put your hands.

“We’re not cozy people.”

“So let’s do this,” you attempt to smooth your face into something resembling nonchalance, “Kiss me like a seventh-or-eighth grader, Eddie Munson.”

He clears his throat, shaking his head. A smile keeps flicking and dying on his lips. Heart about to burst out of his chest because of how weird this is, because of how weird you are, because of how– how–

Eddie knits his fingers behind his back in an imitation of you, your girlish pose, and leans forward. About ninety percent, just in case you decide this was a stupid idea, or you don’t like the look of his face up close, or– or–

You close that perfect ten. Your lips feel like flower petals. Light. Baby-soft. Crushable.

It’s so chaste and it’s so innocent. It’s so the diametric opposite of the two of you, brash and harsh in your diverging, abstracting ways– waving only to meet in the middle. It’s pretty, like you are, and Thumper-from-Bambi-thumping-his-foot nervous like he gets around you.

You pull away a fraction, and Eddie swallows a sound. To save face, he is about to say something– I give it a six or that’s what I’ve been missing out on this whole time or you flap that mouth an awful lot for someone who doesn’t know how to use it, something equally goading. Something that would make this… normal.

Until you take his bottom lip between yours. And it’s wet there. And it’s warm. And your lips are so, so crushable–

Eddie’s fingers unweave and find your arms, find your waist. Slow, slow, he takes it slow because he could scare you and he doesn’t want to scare you. You’re curving into him, lips slicking against his, and then his tongue licking it’s way into your mouth which you just fucking open for him and it’s so good–

–and he tastes like salt and smoke and he holds you like he’s anchoring himself against you. Your hands wind on up, up, up his chest, catching on his t-shirt where his chest is (duh duh duh you fucking idiot), where his heart is thrumming under that smatter of a tattoo you got caught staring at that night in his trailer. It’s all you’ve got in you not to tug it up and off him, but Christ, no, because you need to keep kissing him. It’s so nice, it feels so nice, kissing him, when was the last time something felt as nice, that’s all you can think with sensation seeping through your body like a sugar rush. Hands move to either side of his neck and he makes a noise.

Your fingers, fishing hooks in his hair, pulling him closer and closer to you.

The heat. Of his body. Matched only by the heat gathering in the cherry pit that lives in your stomach.

And he needs, god, Eddie needs it fucking bad. It is a lot of things. It includes your tongue so far inside his mouth that you can taste the Tab on his uvula this time. It includes more of your tits pressed against him, so he can feel if your nipples have hardened under his touch. It includes this moment, just this moment, just kissing you as your body winds around him–

But then you pull back. Before he can whisper the little, “No…” that’s coming like a reflex, you cover his mouth with your hand. The mouth that’s all slick from kissing– you.

Jesus Christ. You had really done that. The stupid, idiot both of you.

“Guys?”

Eddie, dizzy and down-the-rabbit-hole tipsy Eddie, gets the impulse to lick your hand, to take your fingers in his mouth and just start sucking, but he doesn’t do it. Because he has now snapped to the fact that that’s Ronnie Ecker calling out for you.

The two of you, twisted around each other like snakes in her grandmother’s closet.

“Go,” you hiss– no, you breathe. He was just expecting you to hiss. But you’re breathy and unsure about the command you’re giving. Still, you jerk your head.

Well, Eddie’s pretty hard up about telling you this, but, “Can’t. Need a sec–” Like, can’t you feel that?

Eddie’s standing more than half to attention, pressing in between the both of you.

You let out a jagged breath that sounds like oh, fuck, and it’s not the kind of oh, fuck he was hoping to hear and his heartbeat stutters.

And then you’re gone.

Eddie stands there, hands held aloft around the ghost of you that was there, that was right there and kissing him. Like you meant it, like it wasn’t an experiment or a joke or a dare or anything other than what you wanted. You wanted him. You wanted him. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he breathes into his hands, dragging them down his face, his lips, the smell of you still lingering around him. “Oh… I am so fucked.”

Kentucky fried fucked.

You make your way back to the living room on trembly legs, reaching for every steadying surface, attempting to destroy the evidence of a swollen mouth and Munson-finger ruffled hair. You find Ronnie sitting upright on the couch. Nick and Nora have nearly solved the case. You don’t give yourself enough time to make a mask of your face that could easily lie to her.

“Munson had to pull trig,” you say, and it’s not steady enough for Ronnie to not call bullshit.

But she doesn’t. Not outright anyway.

“He okay?” she asks, nearly wary.

“I don’t know. Could be comin’ out of both ends, I don’t know,” you start scrambling around for your bag and your shoes and your coat and not your right mind because you left that back in the closet, somewhere between Eddie’s teeth and tongue. “Look, I hate to ditch on you, but my mom–”

“She’ll be on your ass,” Ronnie says, measured like a cup. “Sure. Go on. I’ll think about calling 911 if he chokes.”

Breathing out some piss-poor rendition of a thanks, you dip out of Ronnie’s and past his van and all the way back the lot towards home.

It’s freezing. You’re not. For once.

When Eddie finally reappears from the closet, Ronnie is sitting in the exact same position. Except this time she looks somewhat judgier– maybe because it’s easier to be judgier toward Eddie than it is toward you. Some kind of girl politico he doesn’t understand.

“You feel better?”

“Huh?” Eddie says. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Do you feel better. Lacy told me you had to barf.”

“I… I guess.” Eddie has already cashed in his once-in-a-lifetime lie convincingly to Ronnie Ecker voucher.

“She also told me you maybe shit yourself?”

Alright, well, that was unnecessary. “Alright, well, that was unnecessary.”

“I guess I was just hoping that…” she sighs, crossing her arms, “... that you weren’t puking and shitting yourself…” she sits back against the couch, “... when you were making out with her. In my… bathroom?”

He really does consider leaving out this detail. “Granny’s closet.”

“Oh, you’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

“She’ll know. She’ll kill me.”

“Oh, she’ll kill ya,” Ronnie mutters, “And then I’ll go to work on ya.”

—

You two have got to stop fucking each other over like this.

Fucking each other over, conceptually, actually, is interesting. Because Eddie’s done a whole lot of fucking you over in his mind since that closet. Sliding your panties aside and fucking you with his tongue, polyester lace of your stockings creating static against his hair, sparks snapping off your inner thighs as you rub against his nose.

Following you back to your trailer and fucking you with his fingers against the cold, metal exterior, your nails digging into his neck and your voice stabbing his name into his eardrums.

Pulling you into his lap in the driver’s seat and tearing through the cotton of your underwear with sheer animalistic fervor, making you lean back against the steering wheel as he sucks your tightened nipples, cock safe and warm in the slick, deep wet of you.

Somethin’ like that. He didn’t sleep much this weekend.

Mind stuck on the one track, your lips smacking against his. Now in fabulous 3D!

In every single one of these fantasies, too, his idiot sap ass is whining your name fifty billion times more than you’re whining his– so much so that it breaks the fantasy barrier and he’s crying, “Fuck, Lacy-yy–,” into his limp pancake of a pillow, cum careening down a fist that should have nerve damage by now.

He is exhausted. And to make it worse, he hasn’t seen you.

He hasn’t even been avoiding you this time. So that’s all on you, you bitch.

“You bitch…” he mumbles, head resting against the cold brick of the newly-unisex senior bathroom, which has become a hellhole in no time. First period on a Monday is usually an okay time to get a bit of peace and fucking quiet, though, because everyone else is at least making an attempt at starting the week off on the right foot.

But not Eddie. Not worn out, prick-tired Eddie.

And not whoever is doing a horrible job of hyperventilating in the stall next to him.

“Excuse me?” a breathless voice says. He thinks he kinda recognizes it but–

Then, ew! Some gagging, some violent coughing, a little ugh, Jesus, please not again–

Eddie slides out of his stall and knocks on the next door– and it swings open with ease.

She’s crouched over the cistern–gross, fucking gross–and tears are streaming down her peachy cheeks, catching on her pointed chin.

“Christ, Wheeler. S’matter, you pregnant?”

Nancy Wheeler’s eyes flash in a flare of rage, a choked scoff spitting out of her. She’s about to fucking cuss Eddie out, it looks like, which he kind of wants to see, but then whatever straw that’s holding that together snaps and she lets out this wild sob of total incredulity.

Ohhh, as much as he would love to bolt out the door like it’s not his problem, Eddie realizes that this has now, somehow, somewhat become kind of his problem.

—

“I gotta talk to you.”

Ronnie Ecker appears like a lightning flash, knocking you clean out of your reverie of slowly crawling fingers and lips and teeth and guilt that had been plaguing you all weekend.

You had spent most of the last forty eight hours staring into the middle distance, ready to glue upright nails into your shoes and walk on them for penance. You fucking stupid slut. Kiss me like a seventh-eighth grader, Eddie Munson. You unbelievable fucking cowshit. See, because, okay, do you know what you’ve done?

You’ve taken the first real friendship you’ve possibly ever had in your life (save for Phoebe, God rest her soul that moved to Saskatoon) and completely entirely fucked it sideways, and sure, you’ve also spent a lot of the weekend thinking about other things getting fucked sideways, like you since you’re now cursed with the knowledge of the vague suggestion of the outline of Eddie Munson’s dick but moreso, foremostly and mainly you want to fucking take a swandive off the edge of Sattler’s Quarry.

Addendum– there’s too many quarries in this fucking county.

A ping-ponging of guilt-to-orgasm-to-guilt-to-orgasm-to-guilt-to-orgasm-to-guilt-to-slinking your way to first period the long way that’s only now broken by Ronnie Ecker coming down on you like an Acme anvil.

Meep meep.

She knows. Of course she knows.

“Ronnie,” you whisper, eyes following her as she lands herself into the aforementioned Munson’s seat behind you, “I can explain…”

“Don’t!” There is this vigor, this knife’s edge in Ronnie’s voice that is terrifying and kind of thrilling but mostly scary and having been in the presence of Granny Ecker even those few times, you knew she always had it in her.

You recoil. A little.

“If Eddie wants to be a fucking moron about you, please can we just let him, and not–” Ronnie’s mouth clamps closed like a Muppet’s might. Like she’s physically trying to calm herself down. “Look. I really like being your friend.”

Oh, Christ, your heart. “I r– I–”

“You’re dogshit with the emotional stuff, I get that, but I’ve been friends with that asshole so long that wearing my heart on my sleeve is like, second fucking nature so I’m not and I’m pissed off, frankly, that there’s a chance of him coming between, like… us.”

You and Ronnie. You, and your friend Ronnie. “Oh, it’s–”

“Because technically, by absolute technicality, I was your friend first, okay? We were lab partners first and I thought we had a vibe goin’ in Biology and I was the first person you wanted to talk to at the Hellfire table even if it was a thinly veiled ploy but you’re so good at ploys and you’re such a piece of work and you’re so funny and I wouldn’t know what Ponds cold cream actually does if it wasn’t for you. Fuck.”

“Granny’s a soap and water girl.” There’s a fluttering in your chest and a thickening in your throat. You swallow big, and you think you might actually start– “This doesn’t mean I’m gonna try fencing, Ron.”

“But it’s fucking cool, even if we do it with sticks.”

You take her in, baseball cap shoved over her coiled hair, darned-all-to-hell sweater sagging out under her overalls and you really feel like something is about to bust out of your chest. Your honest-to-god friend, Ronnie Ecker.

“Miss Ecker, last time I checked, that’s not your assigned seat.” God, Kaminsky’s such a relentless dickwad.

“I’m having a conversation,” Ronnie says, with the kind of as-yet-unheard volume from her that makes the rest of the class go ooooh!

Jesus fucking Christ, have you turned Ronnie Ecker into a bad girl?

“I don’t give a shit!” rumpled Kaminsky says, slapping that dusty chalkboard duster full of dust, “Have it in detention.”

“Hey! That’s–”

But if you can do one thing for Ronnie. “No can doozy, Mr K, Miss Ecker has a prior commitment.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, not you again,” he mumbles not-quite-under his breath. “And what is that? Lacy?”

Before you can even say the words peer tutoring, none other than Eddie Munson is barrelling through the door. He stops comically short at the top of the classroom, gesturing to Ronnie in his seat like what the fuck?

“Lacy!” he eventually says, and he’s breathless and flustered and just like you imagined him in–

“Munson, what in the name of the goddamn Father Almighty–”

“Weekly Streak–” and guy is just snapping his fingers, blinking wildly at you, “–thing!”

You stare on in a state of confusion until you spy Nancy Wheeler right in your eyeline, right through the open classroom door. Her little face streaked with tears, and god, she looks like shit, and she’s beckoning to you with a flutter and a fury.

“No, of course!” a little murmuring, uh, shit, and you hurry to the top of the classroom, slamming the homework that Kaminsky’s obviously going to ask for on his desk with a rattle.

“Kaminsk, my man, the future of print media is forever in your debt!” Eddie calls, ushering you out the door and into the echoey hallway.

“What is going on?”

Both Eddie and Nancy shuffle you down the hallway, avoiding the monitors (rat finks!), dipping under the east stairwell. A great stairwell. So much illicit shit has happened in this stairwell and you have an itemized list of it all, somewhere in your brain. The kind of person people tell things to.

Nancy’s just full tilt gulping like a fish out of water, and Eddie’s all, “Wait, shit, are you gonna barf again?” and you’re all, “Answers, please, tout suite!”

“I’m late.” Nancy’s voice doesn’t even tremble. She’s that scared.

“Fuck.”

“Very?”

“Extremely.”

“You’re sure?” you press, and suddenly you’re the kind of person that grabs Nancy Wheeler’s shoulders.

Her lip trembles. “I mean, I haven’t–”

“Well, we gotta. Right now.” And it occurs to you that Eddie is just standing there, a polite enough distance away that he’s involved but kind of not involved, but respecting the space that you two need. How does he know how to do that? How does he always know the right… “Eddie.”

He snaps to attention, mouth all serious and eyes all eager. You want to kiss him again, but this shit is not about you.

“We need a ride to the drugstore.”

The three of you pile into Eddie’s van, him insisting on doing the honors of opening the passenger door for you again, and Nancy quietly requesting that you share the passenger seat with her. You two are squished together, her spindly thighs overlapping yours. Denim versus dark suede. There is a very tense silence in place the entire van ride there, Nancy digging her nails into her palm and Eddie nervously thrumming against the steering wheel. The tape deck plays resumes mid-play– Metallica’s Ride the Lightning.

For your part, you experience a harsh zoom-out moment– Nancy, who you’ve learned is almost as strong-headed as you, just on a better moral track (lawful good versus chaotic neutral, you think Eddie once framed it), is stranded. She’s the eldest sibling to that little shitstain Michael and Holly, who’s a baby so to you has no discernible personality, and her mother is kind of an airhead and her father… you don’t know shit about, but it’s Hawkins, so dads. The responsibility of everything seems to fall on her all the time, and you can only be so resourceful as a teenage girl in a town like this. Especially when the other teenage girls seem to, at best, keep you at arm’s length, or at worst, ostracize you.

And Nancy had lost Barbara Holland. Who, when she mentions her, is talked about with such a glow that’s followed by such a wave of sadness that it nearly takes you under too.

She misses her so much. She misses her best friend so much.

Barb should be the one dealing with this. Not you. Which sounds like you’re shirking responsibility. But really, it’s because you don’t know if you fully deserve the privilege of helping Nancy.

Truth is, Nancy would probably be okay, handling this on her own. Sure, it’d be another inch of depth added to the chasm of loneliness building in that poor girl’s psyche, but she’d do it, because she’s Nancy and she handles things.

Just like you’re Lacy and you handle things.

But however Eddie Munson ended up as part of this situation… he brought her to you. Because he knew you’d know what to do. So she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

Because Eddie doesn’t want people to do things alone.

You only really have that impulse if you know how terrible it feels.

And if you don’t see kindness as a weakness.

Which Nancy doesn’t. And Eddie doesn’t. And you… don’t want to, anymore.

You reach and peel Nancy’s fingernails from the grooves they’re digging into her flesh. You don’t even look at the half-moon marks they’ve made. You just glue her palm to your palm and web your fingers. And over the frizz of Nancy’s perm–the nice kind, salon kind, the kind that doesn’t stink of egg–you look at Eddie, just as he glances at you.

He smiles, small and unsure and wavering. You bite your lips between your teeth and try the same.

“Shit, I don’t think I can go in here.”

The van has skidded into an inconspicuous (but not entirely, because have you seen that fucking vehicle) place near the drugstore.

“Why?”

“People– the pharmacist knows my mom and everything,” Nancy shudders, “There’s no way that people won’t have something to– fucking say.”

Eddie’s eyes widen and you give him a look like, welcome to the Nancy Wheeler Actually Swears Club. Care for a canape?

And y’know, you could argue so what. So what if people have something to say. You’re young, mistakes happen, the world keeps turning. But one skip in a perfect twelve-inch record of reputation like Nancy’s can make her life a living hell. You know that.

Shit, she knows that– you weren’t not aware of that stroke of creative genius vandalism that went up on the Hawk marquee that one time.

And it would shatter Nancy’s mom’s heart. And while you don’t have the same time of day for her, Nancy really loves her mom.

Once you’ve ruined your reputation, you can live quite freely.

That moveable feast motherfucker was onto something.

Click, and Eddie’s glovebox pops open in a clatter of tapes and a one-hitter and other ephemera. You reach in, retrieving sunglasses you’d left in here a little bit ago.

“So let’s give ‘em something to talk about,” you say, sliding on the shades.

Nancy clutches your arm, eyes wide and searching. “Lacy.”

You shrug, like it’s nothing. Except nerves have started nibbling at you. “Spot me a ten. What am I, a goddamn Rockefeller?”

“Not anymore,�� Eddie Munson grins at you. Sun breaking through the bleak midwinter. The nerves cease their nibbling.

—

The tension doesn’t exactly ease when you make a beeline for the drugstore (particularly because you’ve just accepted a goddamn miniature hero’s quest and he’s a little… well, he’s not not watching your ass as you walk away, let’s put it that way).

Eddie and Nancy Wheeler are still absolutely enormous universes apart. Not even the same species. He doesn’t mind keeping it that way. This right here is just, like… the right thing to do.

He moves to turn the radio down, figuring that the thrum of Fade to Black might be a little much for her right now. “Sorry. Didn’t mean for–”

“No, it’s okay.” Wheeler smiles that flat, priss smile reserved for the barest of polite gestures.

Eddie nods, propping his elbow against the window, cupping his face in his hand. He keeps kind of sneaking sidelong glances toward Wheeler, because– well, had you told her anything? About… Seven Minutes in Heaven? Does she even remember that, from her birthday party all that time ago? He knew that you two weren’t exactly tight, but were well on your way to getting tight, but not as tight as you are with Ronnie and certainly not as tight as you are–or were–with him and Jesus Christ almighty, he’s got to find a synonym for the word tight.

“You… play Dungeons and Dragons, right?” Wheeler asks all of a sudden.

Eddie glances down– he is in fact wearing his Hellfire shirt. She’s a sharp one, that Nancy.

“I dabble,” he says, a derisive little chuckle that’s not all-the-way mean spirited.

Wheeler bobs her head. “My brother, Mike,” she says, and he sees now that it’s an effort to keep her nerves steady, “he loves it. Like, he’s totally obsessed. Him, and his friends, they’ve got their own little party going. Majorly long campaigns, very involved.”

“Campaigns, parties. Using terminology like that, I’d say you’re something of a dabbler, Wheeler.”

Nancy chuckles. “I– may have dressed up as an elf for one. Or two. When I was way, way younger, though.”

“Well, your brother– Mike?” Eddie checks and Nancy nods, “Once he gets to high school, why dontcha tell him to look up Hellfire. Could be the best-worst decision he’ll make for the next four years of his life.”

“Right, because you’ll be passing the torch,” she says, grinning.

“And possibly to a Wheeler. Oh my stars and garters,” Eddie gasps, clutching his chest in mock-shock.

Wheeler laughs and, okay, maybe she’s not so bad.

“Shoot, we have movement.” And out you come, holding the Advance pregnancy test over your head, gleaming and victorious– but Eddie and Nancy flap their hands, willing you to put that fucking thing away! We’re being subtle!

Climbing back in the van, you announce, “Alright, so the good news– no doctoral interference, obviously. The wonders of modern medicine, everybody give thanks to Johnson and Johnson, et cetera. The bad news– who knows of somewhere we can steal–” you glance back at the box, “--thirty glorious uninterrupted minutes of time?”

“Lacy, I can just–” Nancy starts, but you stop her short with a tap to the head.

“And have you sitting in class all day with your guts churning because you don’t know what’s up or down that spout? I think the fuck not. We’re doing this now.” This is out of the goodness of your heart, you swear it is.

But there might be a fraction, just a generous sliver, that still loves the drama.

Like Steve Harrington, it’s not an immediate shed of the ego. It’s a slough.

“Well, my place is a no-go,” Nancy tells you, shrugging into herself. “My mom will definitely be home.”

“Ditto,” and your mother is the only person you know that loves gossip more than you do. Besides Eddie, of course.

After a beat or two of wondering silence, Eddie raises a hand. “I may… have someplace… we can go.”

—

How many cherry bombs does it take to make a boy’s bathroom look like the bombing of Dresden?

“So fuuun fact, turned out that some nerd swiped a hunk of sodium from the Chemistry lab and just blew this mother to shit,” Eddie brightly informs you and Nancy as the two of you pour over the instructions for the pregnancy test kit.

“While everyone was distracted by Heather Holloway’s implants, you mean?” you murmur, scanning over the small-sheet size booklet.

“Streets are saying she was an accomplice.”

Holy fuck, these instructions were involved. Nancy stands clutching the little rectangular tray that her pee is supposed to go in, nailing Eddie with a look beyond normal categorical nerves. “You’re sure no one’s gonna come in here?”

He shakes his head. There might as well be police tape all over the door of this bathroom, that’s how off limits it is. “It’s cold, it’s broken, it smells gross. Maybe some people are using this place to huff paint, but I can guarantee, Wheeler–” and he bends a little to meet her earnest eyes, “--I will bark like a fucking rabid dog to clear ‘em away if I need to.”

Nancy nods shortly. Jerk, jerk. She disappears into the least dilapidated stall with her pee rectangle.

“God, she is so scared,” Eddie murmurs to you, crossing his arms.

You’re still studying the instructions. This shit has droppers and test tubes and color changing strips, oh my. “Pissing shouldn’t be a problem, then.”

Wrong.

“Guys.”

“Yes?” “Yeah, Wheeler?”

“I’m a little, ahem–” Bladder shy. Perfect. Awesome. Not that you guys aren’t going to be shacked up here for thirty minutes anyway, but that’s only after Nancy Wheeler goes number one and you, like, mix up the pregnancy oracle potion.

Shit. “We’ve gotta do something to like, make her chill out–” Eddie half-mouths at you.

“Yeah, but she’s so high strung, that’s like–” a spark hits you. “Wait, have you got anything on you?”

“Fresh out. Waiting on a shipment from Lipton landing.”

You smack him, not even thinking, and he winces. “And all that shit you were smoking the other day, that was–” “That was market research, babe, and I told you that–”

Nancy clears her throat from inside the stall. “Please, don’t quit bickering on my account. I’m only trying to figure out whether or not I need to start rehearsing lullabies.”

Damn Nancy, Eddie mouths and you almost laugh. Wait.

“Nance, what’s your favorite song?”

“Huh?”

You shake your hands. “Like, the song you absolutely cannot go without hearing? The one that makes you feel, just–”

“Ticklish?” Eddie suggests, the paragon of knowledge, the pinnacle of your annoyance. You thump him again. “I need a safe word.”

“Um– uh…”

“C’mon, Wheeler, the song that makes you feel just… awesome and chill and on top of the fucking world, c’mon!” Eddie encourages, kicking detritus around the bathroom floor.

Nancy eventually, eventually mumbles something.

You pivoting around on your heel by the sink. “Louder, Wheeler, I wasn’t born with sonar.”

“It’s– it’s ‘Just What I Needed’.”

What? Eddie mouths to you, arms binding across his chest.

“What, like– The Cars, ‘Just What I Needed’?”

A pause from Nancy’s end. “... yeah.”

You know this song. You know that song, right, it’s like duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DEW-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DEW… Shaking yourself out, you brace up like a boxer heading into the ring.

“Gimme a lead in, Nancy.” Holy fucking shit, you’re really doing this. Nancy hesitates, probably because she can’t believe any of you are really doing this.

A mumble… “I don’t mind you comin’ here…”

“--and wastin’ all my time!” you jump in, “”cause when you’re standin’ oh so near, I kinda lose my mind…”

Visions of a plush lilac bedroom, yours, and a mountain of clothes and makeup and drained wine cooler bottles on the floor. You, standing on your bed in your socks and shorts, vamping– Tina and Carol singing hairbrush backup, Nicole on air guitar and Cass smoking out the window. There were flashes of this, you know, when it wasn’t all boiling vitriol and subtle shivving and one-up-manship. When you and those girls that you wished you weren’t near but knew you needed actually felt like friends.

A memory like that makes you feel empty.

“It’s not the perfume that you wear,” oh my god, “It’s not the ribbons–in–your–hair,” is he really, “And I don’t mind you comin’ here– and wastin’ all my time!”

Why the fuck does Eddie Munson know this song?! Your jaw drops open, your eyes go wide and your feet stamp against the tile like a goddamn kid. Yes! Yes! Amazing! You’re both so fucking out of tune, like there is absolutely a reason he does not sing a single note in Corroded Coffin but by god alive, you’re giving it everything you got in that fucked up boy’s bathroom.

Eddie’s so much better at it than you are, pouring every bit of obnoxious showmanship into it that he possibly can– complete with pulling you in for a fully nonsensical dance number. You spin into him, crashing into his chest with a clumsiness you never thought possible, laughing so hysterically that you can barely get the words out. He’s holding the reins, and holding that falsetto so badly you think the mirrors will shatter.

Your skin is buzzing, your heart is hammering and Eddie is pressed against your back and you are both scream-singing to the door of Nancy’s cubicle– “I guess you’re just what I needed! Just what I needed! I needed someone to feed– I guess you’re just what I needed! Just what I needed I needed someone to–”

“Pee! Pee, you guys, I’m peeing!” Nancy’s voice, bright and high from actually laughing, rings from the busted toilet.

You and Eddie erupt into a triumphant yell, him shaking you like a rag doll against him. The laughter peels away and then it’s just kind of him, looking at you from over your shoulder. His arms wrapped tight around your waist. His lips, a little cracked. Breath a little labored. Lashes still so long. You nearly–

The door flings open and he jumps away from you first. Nancy heads toward the sink and you resume the position, helping her figure out the Chemistry play set that holds the answer to how the rest of her life pans out. Thirty whole minutes, they’ve got to wait.

Nancy notes the time on her watch.

She even suggests that you guys can go at one point, but Eddie reminds her that a) he’s keeping an eye out for paint huffers and b) “... y’know, maybe it’s not so great to…” “Do this on your own,” you finish for him. Nancy nods, silent and grateful and so fucking nervous.

At about the seventeen minute mark, when you and Eddie have smoked four cigarettes each and Nancy has tried a puff of one (“Nope,” she hacks, “still totally vile…”), Eddie tosses this stink bomb between you two. Nancy has excused herself to stand with her head against the cubicle door. Something about calming her nerves. Coming up with a plan. Something to tell Steve, no doubt.

So it’s just you and Eddie, you sitting on the edge of the sink and Eddie rhythmically kicking the wall.

“You ever wanna be a mom?”

“Jesus, what a time to land that one on me.” You almost make a joke like you haven’t even stuck it in me yet, but that’s in bad taste. And implies a yet.

Eddie smiles over his shoulder, fluttering his eyelashes. Stupid. Stupid eyelashes. “Grounds of relevance.”

You pinch your lips between your teeth. “... fine. But, I fully reserve the right to change my answer given the fact that we are eight-shitting-teen years old.”

He points to the cubicle and mutters, “Well, she’s seventeen.”

You, wide-eyed at his dumbassery, mouth I know!

“Okay. Sorry. Go.”

“Fuuuuuck no. No babies pour moi, merci, c’est bon, au revoir!”

Eddie turns to lean against the wall, propping one leg up. God, but he does lean great.

“Why?”

“Genetic fate.”

“Huh?”

A sigh flutters out of you, shoulders slumping forward. “A certain… how do you say, thread of assholery runs through my family, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Eddie nods sagely and you kind of want to punch him for it. “Daddy issues. Right.”

“Uh!” A hand flies up in your defense. “Let who among us here without them cast the first stone.”

From the cubicle, Nancy calls, “Not me.”

Surrendering, Eddie grumbles, “Yeah, not me either.”

“Glad we agree.”

There’s another tick and tock of silence, and you get the distinct feeling of something being pried open in the atmosphere.

“... whatever happened with your dad, anyway?”

Ah. The million dollar question. Whatever happened with your dad, so-called upstanding member of the Hawkins community, poor little poor boy done rich, scaling his way up the ladder of property management in this delightful little Midwestern enclave?

“Not a big fan of the news, are we, Munson?”

He seems to grimace at you tugging on his surname. “Print’s too small.”

“Taking offense to that,” Nancy chimes.

“It was the big ‘E’,” you say, kind of not into bantering about it.

“‘E’... ‘E’... ‘E’...” Eddie kicks the wall on each utterance. Possibly forgetting that he could also be the big ‘E’, if he wanted. You wonder if, just in terms of size…

“Embezzlement, Eddie,” you cut that thought off cold.

His eyes widen, eyebrows shooting under his shaggy bangs. “Shooooot.”

“Score.”

“What all did he, like… embezzle?”

The raising of the hackles is not entirely intentional. “Y’know who’d be able to answer that question, Eddie?”

But he sees it. He calms it. In unison, you both shrug, “Al Munson.”

Boom! Cubicle door flies open again. You’re starting to think that Nancy might just love making an entrance. Lot of flourishing happening here. Not entirely unlike Eddie in that way.

“It’s time.”

Each and every one of you beeline to where the test is set up on one of the sinks. Nancy gingerly plucks the offending strip from the test tube and Eddie, a man with money on his mind, asks another million dollar question. “So how do you know…”

You grab the instruction leaflet that you’d been tearing corners off of, making it look nearly moth-bitten. “Wait, it’s white, right?”

“It’s white,” Nancy whispers.

“It’s not, like… off blue, or…”

“No, that is white,” she’s trembling. “Is white– is that good, or– I can’t remember.”

“Nancy Wheeler…” you breathe, peeking over the paper, “Congratulations. You are nobody’s mother!”

She emits a shriek like nothing you’ve ever heard and barrels straight into you, near knocking you off your feet with a strength you didn’t know this little waif was capable of possessing. Her arms wrap boa constrictor tight around you, her words bubbling over like a shook up can of pop. “Jesus Christ, I’m so relieved, I just– I–!”

“You’re relieved?!” Eddie yells, ringed hands tearing down his face, “I’m way too young to be an uncle! Fuck! Thank god!”

Nancy chokes out a laugh through her tears, tears of relief, thank god and– and you don’t know if it’s selfish and you don’t know if it’s possible but you hope… you hope that’s helped close the chasm. Just a little bit. That she didn’t have to do this all alone in a shithouse bathroom that smells like sulfur and piss.

Breaking away from you (damn, you wish you knew how to hug), Nancy straightens herself up. Not that she needs to. She’s a pretty crier, that bitch.

“Just one more thing, you guys.”

“Anything,” you say before you even know you’ve said it.

“This is… between us, okay?” her eyes dart from you to Eddie, and you both take a step closer to her. Ceremoniously, Nancy holds out her two pinkie fingers. You link. Eddie links. His finger looks comically large compared to hers– and yours, when he reaches and hooks it around your unsuspecting baby finger.

“No one can know. No one needs to know.” There’s that headstrong Wheeler reserve you’d been missing.

“Cross my heart,” you proclaim.

“Hope to d– well, I don’t hope to die, that’s a little dramatic–”

“Eddie!” you both bark, varying degrees of amusement. Yours is on the lower end. “Swear on something real,” you push.

He hesitates a moment, then gives Nancy a look. “Alright. Swear on Hellfire.”

“Swear on Hellfire,” Nancy grins all tight, and kisses her right hand, hooked into Eddie’s finger. “Lacy?”

“Swear on Hellfire…” You mumble, rolling your eyes and kissing your Nancy’d hand. You need to swallow, first, before you tug your hand that’s hooked into Eddie’s toward your mouth.

And he does the worst thing. He leans down to meet your gaze, suckering you right in as his lips pout. They’re hungry. You’ve met those lips. “Swea-aar,” he sing-songs.

“--on Hellfire, okay,” you scoff, half-laughing into the little kiss.

“Ha!” Eddie barks, so fucking loud that it jumps off the walls. “Trick! You just made a deal with the devil, ladies, so I hope you enjoy eternal damnation at the hands of yours truly!”

Dumb as he is, Eddie might be right. If the way you’re looking at him is anything to go by.

author's notes: MERRY CHRISTMAS MOTHERFUCKERS. WE GOT IT WE DID IT WE MADE THEM KISS WE MADE THEM REALIZE SOMETHINGS NOT ALL THE THINGS SURELY BUT IT'S. IT'S SOMETHING. IT'S A START! on to the fun bits, like the jokes in the christmas crackers - absolutely obsessed with the mental image of eddie munson's bangs grown too long and he looking like this - cherry bombs down the john is a reference to the classic prank but mostly to american graffiti my beloved. later in the chapter, eddie says that some kid just threw some sodium down there which is something i read about on this reddit thread when researching cherry bombs. domestic terrorism at hawkins high! - p.t. barnum is that mfer that the greatest showman is based on. horrible man! not a fan! - heather holloway's jayne mansfield titties got me thinking about the jayne mansfield-sophia loren photo which has its own wikipedia page??? anyway, lacy coded! - black christmas is a stunning christmas horror film from 1974, which is loosely in part based on a bunch of murders that happened in the westmount neighborhood in montreal, quebec. fun fact, i just moved back from mtl after living there for a year. anyway black christmas kicks ASS - lipton landing is 100% a juno reference. big up my king elliot page - the thin man is one in a series of fantastic lil films from the 1930s all about nick and nora charles, a married couple that get drunk and SOLVE CRIMES. i'm not doing it justice by describing it that way but myrna loy and william powell are the royals of married banter and i model everything i write after their rhythm, more or less. - you're trying to tell me eddie munson didn't do whippets as a kid fucking wise up - one of my personal precious favourite recurring jokes in this series is 'who died and made you my x' and baby. i love a recurring joke - ronnie saying "oh she'll kill ya. then i'll go to work on ya," is a special reference because a) it's from my favourite film of all time, ocean's eleven and b) ayo edebiri, who i've fancast as ronnie ecker, has an ocean's eleven tattoo. we are sisters and also wives! - meep meep! - all i could think about when writing about how guilty lacy was - another metallica needle drop!!!! - pregnancy tests in the 80s really were that insane and involved! there's a great scene in glow (rest in fucking PEACE! gone but never forgotten) of alison brie's character using one, and here's more of the history - maybe the best needle drop of this whole series imo - finally peeped into those daddy issues. look forward to more of that and with that my hellcats, i wish you the merriest of holiday seasons wherever you find yourself and whatever you're doing. i will be back after the christmas break because i have to fully wreck my bank account and see every single person i have ever known and drink every espresso martini on dry land. sorry if there's typos in this, i have been labouring over it for... ever. reblogs, comments, likes and asks are always appreciated and i love you so much it's bordering on criminal! thank you!!!!

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #stranger things fic #e. munson by powder #in progress #hellfire & ice #published by powder

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sserpente · 1 year

Text

Chasing Nix

Synopsis: You are a mermaid from the Upside Down, stranded in Lover’s Lake after the earthquake hit Hawkins. Dustin finds you and promises to keep you safe. He takes you to the community pool to hide and has Eddie Munson look after you while he searches for a more permanent place for you to stay. You like the gentle metalhead. Quickly overcome with the urge to be with him and protect him rather than feed on him, you panic when a boy named Jason finds him at the pool and starts to hurt him. So you jump out of the water and attack. In the aftermath, you notice that something is different, that your tail… has turned into a pair of legs…

Words: 6206 Warnings: violence, blood, feeding, mermaid!Reader

The water tasted different here. Less… sulphuric and somehow… somehow sweeter too. You were yet to decide whether you liked it. You didn’t know how many days had passed since the earthquake. Since your world and their world bled into each other.

You’d been too slow, too weak to resist the pull of gravity sucking you into a dimension that was not yours. There were trees all around you. Life of all kinds. The grass, the leaves, the bushes, animals with fur… it was all alive. And as long as you were not certain any of those living things posed any threat to your survival… you would remain hidden in these waters.

You were hungry. And you were getting hungrier every day. Every now and then, humans would come to the lake. They’d swim in it for fun, to cool down… and it took all of your willpower not to drag one of them underwater to feast until you were sated, for once you did, your location would be known to them. Humans were social creatures. And if you killed one… others would come to investigate.

The air tasted different too. It was crisp, fresh… there were no particles swirling around, none that you could see. You took a deep breath as you heaved yourself onto a rock. You only did so once it was dark—once the last humans had disappeared from sight.

“Holy shit!” Whoever he was, he shone the light coming from the metal cylinder directly into your face. You squinted your eyes and dove back into the water panicking.

“No, no, no, wait! Are you… can you understand me?” the boy asked. You blinked, hesitating. Then, you nodded. Yes. You understood him.

“What… what are you?”

You tilted your head. The words did not quite want to leave your lips. It was almost like your vocal cords had not yet gotten used to the air in this dimension. Furthermore, you were terrified. Any wrong move could result in your immediate demise, and just because this boy looked innocent, there was no way of knowing if he was a predator.

Finally, he lowered the light and brought his free hand to his chest. “I’m Dustin… don’t worry, you’re safe. Are you… are you from the Upside Down?”

You frowned in response.

“Like… another… the other dimension? Did you end up here after the earthquake?”

You nodded quickly.

“Okay… okay… well, you can’t stay here. There’s other humans who might try to hurt you if they find you. Are you… friendly?”

Friendly? You were selective with your prey, you were very well familiar with the concept of morals, good and bad deeds. You only killed to survive. So you nodded again.

“Alright… I’m gonna believe you.” Dustin didn’t take his eyes off of you when he pulled a metal box from his back pocket and started speaking into it.

“Steve? Steve, do you copy?”

You gasped when a voice, likely belonging to another human, came out of the box. “Yeah? Yeah, what is it?”

“You need to come to Lover’s Lake right now. Do you still have that broken freezer in your trunk? The one Robin asked you to throw away for her?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Bring it. We’re gonna have to fill it up with water.”

“What the hell are you on about, Henderson?”

“Just do it!” Dustin yelled. “Over and out!” Before the other human—Steve—could respond, he tucked the box away again.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you somewhere safe. I have an idea!”

Needless to say, you weren’t particularly fond of the idea of swimming into a white container filled with water. Steve was taller than Dustin and you assumed that meant he was older too. As soon as you realised that he was helping you though, you warmed up to him.

He arrived in a huge metal box on wheels only a short while later and eventually, they attached the white container to a rope they ended up dragging onto a smaller set of wheels attached to the metal box… once Dustin has persuaded you to swim into it. A car, you had heard Steve say. That’s what the big box on wheels was called.

They drove you away from the safety of the lake soon after, leaving you with a sickening feeling in your stomach. Had it been a good idea to trust this human boy? He could have been lying, after all. But… no. You were good at reading people, good at detecting their intentions. Dustin was pure, not depraved, not like Henry Creel.

When the car stopped, you froze. The water you were floating in stilled then, and Steve opened the metal bit that had prevented the container from sliding off onto the road. Together, they pulled you toward a rectangle-shaped body of water. It was a little mucky and dark and it smelled horribly chemical. Your nose was not used to the chlorine. You gagged when they tipped the container over and you tasted the artificial water. There was a rather large broken stone pillar that had fallen into the water, separating the indoor pool right in the middle. And it was dark. Despite the horrible taste of the water, you felt safer here not being surrounded by living things—even if you preferred the lake over this standing collection of chemicals.

“Dustin? Why are we here?” The boy who came barging in only a short while after had dark skin. His eyes widened when he spotted you. Right behind him followed another boy, a really skinny one with light skin and dark hair. You retreated. So many humans… Dustin had brought you to safety. He was kind, a compassionate human. What if those other humans hurt him? Baring your fangs for a moment, you splashed water as you swam away from the edge. Dustin must have called for them inside the car on your way here. Why?

“Holy… shit. Dustin… what is that?”

“That’s, uh… Nix!”

“Nix?” The other two boys said in unison.

“Yeah… you know like Nixies. The mythical creatures? She’s basically a mermaid so… Nix.”

“Let me guess… she’s from the Upside Down.”

“Obviously!” Steve exclaimed, arms akimbo.

Dustin turned to you, noticing your discomfort. “Hey, it’s okay! These are my friends! That’s Lucas,” he pointed at the dark-skinned boy, “and this is Mike.” He pointed at the other boy. “They’re gonna help me keep you safe, okay?”

You hesitated but eventually… you returned to the edge of the pool. Lucas and Mike were equally weary of you.

“What were you thinking? The community pool? They’re gonna start renovations here soon!” Mike said.

Dustin put up his hands. “Yes but I know that they’re not gonna be draining the pool until next week, until then, we’ll figure something out and she can hide here.”

“I guess it’s better than the police finding her,” Steve added. The police? What was a police? And would they hurt you?

“Can she speak?” Lucas asked.

“She hasn’t said a word to us yet but she nods and shakes her head. She understands us.”

“So she’s mute.”

“Kind of like when we first met El, remember?” Mike asked. The boy with the dark skin gave him a glare.

“She’s from the Upside Down. If anything, this is gonna be another Dart situation. What does she… eat?”

“I’m about to find out. I came prepared in case I came across a Demogorgon.” Dustin knelt down and opened his backpack, revealing raw chicken breast in a plastic bag. He poured the contents out before you and then took a step back.

You blinked. It was clear to you he meant to feed you but what was that? You sniffed and recoiled. It was dead. Raw flesh from a dead animal.

“Huh… I thought that would work. If she doesn’t eat meat, that’s a good sign, right?”

“Not… necessarily,” Lucas responded.

You wanted to speak. Let them know what you fed on, how you fed. But even when you opened your mouth, not a single sound escaped your lips. It was like your mind was preventing you from sharing your voice with this dimension.

Dustin sighed. “How’s Eddie?”

“Holding up. I mean, Hopper is working on it but the whole town still thinks he worships the devil.”

“Where is he right now?”

“In my basement,” Mike said. “Holly made him host a tea party with her dolls.”

Lucas snorted—laughing. He was laughing. “I’d give a lot to see that.”

Once again, Dustin pulled out the metal box and started speaking into it.

“Eddie? Do you copy?”

“Henderson?” Your lips parted. You liked that voice.

“Eddie, I need you to come to the community pool.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. It’s urgent. I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

“Alright… copy that. I’m on my way.”

“Is that a good idea?” Lucas asked. “I mean… Jason was released from the hospital today. What’s your plan?”

“Eddie’s gonna stay and hide here, with Nix, looking after her.” You frowned. You didn’t know Eddie. You didn’t want Dustin to leave.

“I don’t think she’s very fond of that plan.” Lucas pointed at you with his chin. “She looks jealous. So what are we gonna do?”

“First of all, we need to tell Hopper and Nancy and then we’re going to the southern edge of town.”

“The southern edge? What for?”

Dustin packed the metal speaking box away. “You remember that old water tank they stopped using a few years ago?”

“Yeah… but how the hell would we get her up there?”

“I don’t know, that’s what we need to find out.”

There was no such thing as pretty in your world. You were covered in grime and slime, there were webs between your fingers to help you swim and your eyes resembled what humans would likely refer to as reptiles in this world and your tail with the spiked smaller fins was of such a dark green it was almost black.

And yet… you wished the older boy who came walking into the roofed building would take as much interest in you as you did in him. You liked his hair. It was long and curly, framing his face perfectly, and on his fingers, he wore pieces of silver. You realised quickly he must have done so for aesthetic purposes, much like the holes in his black trousers.

Was that Eddie? Was that the human boy they wanted to look after you? Dustin seemed to rely on him and you were quite certain you didn’t like that. Dependence was dangerous. It left you vulnerable. Especially a kind soul like Dustin.

You hid when he came closer, diving under the fallen pillar and emerging again on the other side.

“She’s, uh… a mermaid, basically,” you heard Dustin say.

“Jesus H. Christ, she is what now?”

“Yeah… I called her Nix. Nix?” Nix.There it was again.Your lips parted. Oh… he had given you a name. He was calling you. “It’s okay!” you heard Dustin shout. “Eddie is nice! He’s my friend! He’s gonna look after you while we’re gone, trying to find a more permanent place for you to stay, alright?”

“Does she look… human at all?” Eddie asked.

“See for yourself.” You emerged by the edge of the pool, looking at Eddie curiously. He was even prettier up close. Oh. You liked him. He had a good heart, a kind soul, much like Dustin. He was… soft. Your eyes met and somehow… you found yourself being unable to look away.

“Can you… understand me?” Eddie asked.

You nodded. You were almost disappointed when Dustin turned his attention back to him to tell him about their plan in detail.

“So you want me to stay here with her…” Eddie concluded.

“Exactly.”

“Alright… yeah. I can do that.” You could have sworn you heard him mutter “A fucking mermaid” under his breath but you weren’t sure.

You watched him pull up what must have been a chair made from a very light white material from a stack nearby and sat down—within a safe distance of the pool. As if you couldn’t reach him if you wanted to…

“Are you gonna be okay with her?”

“Yeah, man… I’ve been through worse.”

“Alright… call if there’s any problems at all, okay?”

Eddie smiled bitterly. “Will do.”

The remaining boys nodded. They gave you one final glance before they left and Eddie and you were alone.

The silence was loud, it almost hurt your ears. But what irked you even more was this weird feeling that kept spreading in your chest. You wanted him to like you, wanted his approval… and you just couldn’t figure out why.

“Hey… Nix,” Eddie finally said. You nodded at him. Hey. What would you give to be able to speak to him…

“So… so you’re from the Upside Down then?”

You tilted your head and nodded.

“Are there more like you?”

You nodded again.

“Wow… what… what do I call you? I mean, what are you? A mermaid?”

Mermaid… you had heard Dustin use the same term. You shrugged. Why not?

“Alright then… we have mermaids here too.”

Your eyes widened.

“Oh, no, I mean… we have stories about them. Books and movies and shit. And they’re in Dungeons & Dragons, that’s a fantasy game. I play in a club, called it the Hellfire Club. Yeah, we have a band too, we play metal,” he rambled.

You looked at him with intrigue. Music? Metal? Band? Dungeons & Dragons? You only understood half of the things he was telling you about but you could tell that he was passionate about them, tilting your head when he started talking more about the mermaids in this fantasy game, mermaids that looked similar to you.

“They usually live for up to five-hundred years in the game and they can shape-shift into humans.”

Shapeshift into humans? You tilted your head.

“They usually have a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or something like that and they can always choose to take ten on a Swim check, even if they’re distracted. It can use the run action while swimming, provided they swim in a straight line but…” He trailed off as you blinked at him. You did not have a clue what he was talking about and you were certain he had just realised that. Your heart sped up when he smiled. What was going on with you?

You rested your forearms on the edge of the pool, practically glued to his lips as he calmed down a little and then told you about his favourite music groups like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Dio and finally, the music that he was making music himself.

“I play guitar in our band. Gonna play stadium tours with Corroded Coffin one day, you’ll see.” He grinned. You had no doubt whatsoever that he would be successful. Men like him always were. Pure souls received only kindness after initial hardships. Somehow… somehow you knew that.

Your gaze fell to his stomach where a small strip of skin was visible between his ripped trousers and his washed-out band t-shirt. You caught a glimpse of what resembled a scar before you followed your yellow eyes down to where his skin was on display and tugged it down quickly.

He must have been injured before—badly. Scarring only occurred when the human body was unable to heal back to its original state… right? You bit your lower lip. Did it have something to do with your dimension? The Upside Down? None of the boys had been particularly fazed about seeing you. Surprised, yes… but there had been no genuine shock. You liked that more than you would like to admit.

“Maybe I’ll bring my guitar next time. Play you some tunes…” he offered timidly, one of his hands playing with his curly hair. You nodded eagerly. You would love to hear music from this dimension, it sounded wonderful. Perhaps you could also—

“Munson! I know you’re here! Say something, freak!”

You flinched. Whoever this voice belonged to, they were not friendly. Eddie’s eyes widened. He tensed up and jumped up from his chair, his brown gaze darting over to you. “Hide! Quick! He can’t see you!”

You nodded and dove underwater, watching the situation unfold from below the surface. Luckily, it was dark and the water was mucky enough for you to remain unseen.

“Well, well, well… there you are. Fucking knew I saw Harrington’s car in the parking lot.” A blonde boy stepped in sight. He was pale, sweaty—and he had a downright murderous expression on his face.

“Jason, man… hey. Out of the hospital, I heard? Glad to see you’re feeling better, man. Past weeks have been crazy,” you heard Eddie say.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Munson, you’re the reason our town is going to shit in the first place.”

“I’m not…”

“Shut up! Now I know the police won’t lock you up until they have evidence that you killed Chrissy and the others but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep investigating on my own. I’ll give you one chance to come with me.”

The reason? Locked up? Killed? Did this Jason blame Eddie for the earthquakes? How would he be responsible for them? This was Henry, those were his murders that tore at the very fabric of the dimensions…

“Listen, Jason, you got this all wrong, man. I didn’t kill anyone. I just got dragged into this, alright? I promise I didn’t do anything.”

“You turning yourself in or not?”

You couldn’t make out Eddie’s response, perhaps because he didn’t give one. Instead, you watched Jason start at him, pushing him so hard he lost his balance and fell on the wet tiles with a groan. He inched back helplessly but not fast enough. Jason towered above him and grabbed him by the collar before he could even think about escaping, next thing you knew, his fist connected with Eddie’s face. You gasped for air. Again, and again, and again.

Eddie was flailing. He was fighting back of course but Jason looked like one of those humans who were exceptionally strong due to repeated physical activity. Eddie’s orientation bled out with every single punch Jason threw, blood disfiguring his beautiful features. He let go of Eddie’s shirt, knocking him back and then, he kicked him in the stomach—right where you had caught a glimpse of freshly healed scars.

Eddie groaned and moaned, unable to fight back anymore. With his strength fading and the pain taking over, you could only imagine the torture he was enduring. You clenched your fists, anger flowing through your veins like liquid fire. You’d watched this long enough.

With a hiss, you whacked your tail and jumped out of the water, latching onto Jason’s back. You bared your fangs, yanking his neck back to give yourself access, and bit down as hard as you could. It was surprisingly easy to break human skin. His blood gushed into your mouth, fuelling your instincts to drink him dry. He was yelling, of course, screaming in pain. You were not being gentle. There were more discreet ways to go about feeding but Jason, whoever he was and whatever he blamed Eddie for, deserved the pain.

So you kept drinking, sip after sip after sip until somebody yanked your head back and tossed you on the ground, too far away from the pool for you to slip back into the water. Eddie? No, it couldn’t have been Eddie. You glanced over to him, spotting his curled-up form on the wet tiles.

It was Steve. Steve had come back, he’d been the one to drag you off of him. Jason was unconscious. Steve had wrapped Jason’s arm around his neck, barely able to hold him up.

“Shit, are you okay, man?” he called over to Eddie. “Someone’s gonna have to stay with… with her.” You didn’t fail to notice that he did not call you by the name Dustin had given you.

“Yeah…” he grunted. “I’m alright… I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yepp… I just need a moment.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll be back as soon as I can, alright? I’m gonna tell him a wild animal attacked him or something like that…”

Your tail was tingling. You didn’t like the fresh air from this dimension enveloping it. Steve left all the while you wiped the remaining blood from your chin and turned over. You froze. Something was different. Something was… off.

You attempted to whack your tail, desperate to get back into the water. Every instinct, every fibre of your being was screaming for you to get back in, to get back to safety… but you had to make sure that Eddie was okay.

You looked down and… gasped for air. You had… legs. Real legs with knees, calves, feet, and toes… both jerked when you tried to move them like your tail, using your core strength like you normally did. It didn’t get you very far at all.

Eddie groaned again. You took a deep breath, frustrated at your lack of understanding. How were they supposed to work then? How were you supposed to move? You had to get to Eddie, you had to… another groan.

You flipped over again, ignoring your legs completely and inched yourself forward with your hands, crawling and entirely relying on your upper body strength until you reached him. Eddie’s brown eyes widened when he realised how close you were, hovering above him. His breathing quickened, his expression full of horror… scared. He was scared. Scared… of you?

No… no, you had only wanted to help him, to save him! Gently, you lifted your hand and brushed your fingertips over his right cheekbone. His nose was bleeding and his right eye was a little swollen from the punches Jason had landed.

“Oh… oh.” He realised that you did not mean to hurt him quickly, his body relaxing a little. Relief flooded your veins. “I’m okay… t-thanks. You really…” Eddie tried to sit up, moaning once more in the process.

“Shit, you’ve got legs! Jesus H. Christ, you have legs! And… oh… you’re… you’re, uh…” He blushed. You were naked. Without a shadow of a doubt, that was what he was going to say.

You breathed out. Yes… yes, that. Even so, however, you were still covered in grime and the slimy residue your skin produced to keep itself moisturised. It could not have been a pretty sight.

Eddie scrambled to his feet. He almost bent over when another wave of pain hit his stomach—and you wished for nothing more than to stop his suffering. You knew you could. All you had to do, it was… you bit your lower lip as you watched him take off his leather jacket and wrap it around you, covering you. It was warm, soft. It was comfortable, made you feel safe… and it smelled like him. It smelled like smoke.

“Alright, let’s uh… can you stand up? Can you do that for me?” Stand up… he meant… like him? You nodded, trying your best to mimic his movements. You made it to your knees after some initial struggles but then, as soon as you attempted to lift just one leg, you lost your balance. Eddie was by your side before you could even blink.

“Whoa, hey… careful there, I got you… let me, uh…” Your lips parted when he kneeled down himself and hooked his left arm under the back of your knees, the other wrapping around your middle, and then… he scooped you up.

“Would you like to take a shower?”

You tilted your head. A what?

“Oh, uh… a shower. Like… rinse down? Get washed up? You’re probably not familiar with that concept in the water.”

You shook your head. You clearly weren’t. But you did indeed want to wash all that slime off of yourself. You looked down at your hands, spreading your fingers. The webs between them were gone too.

Eddie took you to an adjacent room. Several showerheads lined the wall and when he turned one on, the water came gushing down like a little waterfall. It was almost a little fascinating… turning the flow of water on and off in this dimension, just like that… how did they build that?

Eddie used his foot to pull another one of those light chairs toward the running showerhead and sat you down, removing the leather jacket from your shoulders so it wouldn’t get wet.

“Can you, uh… do you need my help?” he asked. You shook your head. No… you’d manage somehow. As you began to rub your skin under the running water, Eddie pulled out the same little metal box Dustin had used to communicate with his friends.

“Dustin? Dustiiin… DUSTIN! Come on, man!”

The box gave a static noise and then, you could hear Dustin’s voice.

“Eddie? What’s wrong, are you okay?”

“Has Steve been in touch with you yet?”

“No… no, why? He dropped us off at the water tower and left, where is he?”

“I, uh… we might have a situation here, man.”

Silence. “What kind of situation?”

“Jason found me. I’m alright, Steve made it here in time, he got him out but uh… there’s something you’ll need to see.”

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Dustin exclaimed. “Did he see Nix? Did he hurt her?”

“See, I told you it was not a good idea to send Eddie out there!” Lucas exclaimed in the background.

Eddie looked at you and you blinked. No. You did not regret what you had done to Jason.

“She saved me, man, she attacked him. Bit his neck and drank his blood like a fucking vampire.”

“Holy shit! Okay… okay, we’ll… I’m calling Steve, we’ll be right there!”

Eddie covered his face with his free hand. “There’s something else.”

“What? What is it?”

“She has legs.”

“What?”

“She has legs. She jumped out of the water and she didn’t go back in and… now she has legs.”

“Eddie, don’t take your eyes off of her. Don’t let her run!”

Eddie looked at you sitting there on the plastic chair and attempting to move your feet one at a time. You were hardly successful but at least, the running water felt nice on your skin.

“She can’t even walk, man…”

“We’ll be right there, okay? Give us like… ten minutes! Over and out!”

Eddie sighed and put the metal box away. He jumped into action, moved you away from the shower stream, and retrieved a soft piece of fabric from a shelf nearby. He also took one for himself, cleaning up the blood on his face.

“Here… you can dry off with that.” Oh. Of course. You did as you were told and then breathed out in relief when he returned his leather jacket to you. It was so big it almost swallowed you whole. In the meantime, Eddie turned off the shower and then leaned against the wall, his face distorted in pain as he put his palm flat against his stomach.

What if… what if the wounds the creatures in your dimension had inflicted on him had not yet healed off properly? What if Jason had hurt him more than he’d planned? What if… what if you helped?

You opened your mouth, desperate to speak but apart from an audible breath, not a single sound escaped your lips. So you decided to let your body speak instead. You reached for him, leaning forward. Gosh, you couldn’t even walk over to him… this was pathetic. You felt so helpless… so vulnerable. And you’d had no idea your tail could do that, adapt to your environment to let you… walk on land. Well… if only you knew how to use them. Perhaps Eddie could teach you. They all made it look so easy.

Are you okay? you tried to say. You looked at him expectantly, relieved when he caught up.

“I’m alright… I’ve taken worse,” he said with a grin. You wished you could return it. But you were concerned. So you pointed at his stomach.

“That? Yeah… long story. You ever come across those gross bats with those creepy ass tails?”

You raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not that you’re creepy!” he quickly corrected himself. He laughed, clearly a little embarrassed. “They use their tails to choke people, that kind of thing… yeah, they, uh… they got me pretty badly.”

Your lips parted. The bats had done this to him? Had caused those scars? You leaned forward even further at the risk of falling over, a sly attempt to lift his shirt. You couldn’t help with those scars but whatever injuries Jason had caused…

“Eddie! We’re here!” You breathed out, leaning back and clutching the leather jacket when Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Steve came in sight. They all stared at you as if you’d grown a second head instead of a pair of legs.

All of them were out of breath. It was hard to believe they’d hurried this much because of you.

“This day is so messed up…” Lucas muttered.

“Tell me about it,” Eddie gave back. He turned, wincing in pain yet again. Overcome with the urge to hug him, you gasped for air. You decided there and then. You were going to heal him.

“Eddie… are you alright?” Dustin asked. He nodded in response. “Good. Okay. So. The most important question right now is, where do we take Nix?”

Mike took a step back. “I can’t hide her in my basement…”

“What about Rick’s boathouse?” Eddie suggested. “You said the police already searched the place so they’ll have ruled it out. We head back to the lake and hide there.”

“That could work. Nix would be close to water just in case too…” Dustin added. Eddie nodded. It was a good idea. You did prefer the lake over the standing water at the community pool anyway.

“Back to Lover’s Lake? So why did we get her away from there in the first place again?”

“Because, Lucas, she had no idea where she was and if anyone had found her there before us… that could have ended badly considering what she did to Jason.” Oh yeah… you still didn’t feel bad about that one.

“So… you said she can’t walk?” Steve asked. Eddie shook his head.

“Had to carry her,” he said.

“Okay, let’s get her to the car then. At least I don’t have to drag a fucking freezer around anymore now.”

You gasped for air when Steve lifted you up. You didn’t feel unsafe but you would have preferred Eddie to carry you again. But then again… it was probably for the best, given that he was in pain. With a deep breath, you calmed yourself down and let Steve tuck you into the car. Confusion struck your face and you froze when he fastened two straps of leather across your body to keep you from moving. You squirmed. Was he tying you up?

“Oh no, don’t panic, alright? See this?” He pointed at the red piece of the buckle holding you in place. “It’s a seatbelt. If you press down here, you can get out. It’s a safety thing, alright?”

You nodded—relief, however, only washed over you when Eddie got in the car as well and sat down next to you.

“We need to get her some proper clothes,” Steve said as he started the engine and pulled the car out of the parking lot. “I’m gonna give Nancy a call.”

“What about Robin?”

“Visiting family in Iowa. She won’t be back until Friday.”

“Right…” Dustin sighed and then… silence spread in the car as if someone had draped a sheet over you all. You scooted closer to Eddie. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you, right? You’d seen it in those beautiful brown eyes.

You waited, patiently, when Steve finally stopped the car again. Eddie unfastened your seatbelt for you and then, Steve was carrying you again. You clung to his shirt until you reached the boathouse, looking around in awe.

You liked the atmosphere here. It was dark and gloomy and it smelled like water—the water of the lake. Eddie had been right, you did feel comfortable here.

“Put her there.” Steve brought you over to the old and battered sofa Eddie pointed to. You shivered. Ugh, you were not quite sure you liked having legs. One thing was for sure—you did not want to be left alone but now that this Jason was after Eddie for some delusional accusations, what if he left?

You reached for him, holding his hand. Dustin chuckled.

“I think she doesn’t want you to leave, Eddie.”

“Oh. I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m not leaving.”

Sweetheart? That was an endearing term, right? Did that mean he liked you? You nodded, pulling up the corners of your mouth. Smiling.

“She’s smiling!” Mike said. In an instant, all eyes were on you. But yours… yours were on Eddie. You shivered again, unable to control the trembling of your body. You’d never been cold before. It must have had something to do with those stupid legs.

“Hey, hey, are you cold?” Eddie put his other hand on your shoulder and you nodded.

“Alright, let me, uh… get you a blanket or something.”

Reluctantly, you let go of his hand to let him find one. You watched as he frantically started opening the cupboards and drawers in the boathouse.

“She’s from the Upside Down and lives in water, how can she even be cold?” Lucas whispered. “I thought whatever lives there doesn’t like warmth.”

“Maybe it’s because she has legs now? I mean, that must have messed with her somehow,” Dustin answered.

“Right, right…”

It was then Eddie returned with a blanket and wrapped it around you. You practically leaned against him when he sat down on the sofa with you.

Dustin clapped his hands. “Alright… back to work. Steve, are you sure Jason is out of the picture?”

“I dropped him off at the hospital, he was in pretty bad shape.”

“It’s kind of ironic he was only just released today,” Mike added.

“We’ll bring over some food first thing in the morning tomorrow, and clothes for Nix.”

“Sounds good.”

You pressed yourself even further against Eddie as the group said their goodbyes and took their leave. He winced when you accidentally came in contact with the exact spot Jason had been kicking him. Your lips parted. His injuries…

“Jesus H. Christ… you gave me quite the scare back there, you know?”

You smiled apologetically.

“You’re not gonna bite me, are you?”

Quickly, you shook your head. No… of course not. And if you ever did, if he ever let you feed on him… you’d made sure it wouldn’t hurt.

“Those your, uh… gills?”

Eddie’s hand came up to stroke the bump right below your eye, concealed well by your hair. You gave him a quizzical look. Your what?

“I mean, do you breathe underwater with these?” Oh. Yes.

You nodded, opened your mouth, took a deep breath…

“Eddie…” you whispered.

The boy’s eyes widened.

“Did you just… did you just say my name?”

Your smile grew wider. “Eddie…” you croaked again, louder and more confident now.

“Shit, you can speak!”

He grinned—and it truly was the cutest sight to look at. No more delaying now. You leaned forward, cupping his face in your hands and kissed him.

Gently at first, you moved your lips against his, your eyes fluttering shut when a sensation unlike anything you had ever felt before spread throughout your entire body. He froze at first, unsure of how to react, what to do. Perhaps even taken aback or disgusted a creature from the Upside Down would kiss him…

A moan escaped your lips when he started kissing you back instead, his arms wrapping around you. It was your cue—your cue to start humming.

“What… what are you doing?” he whispered against your lips. You couldn’t allow him to break the kiss, not now.

“Healing…” you whispered back. You kept humming, moving your lips against his ferociously.

You could practically feel his frown and yet, he did not pull away. He trusted you—and that felt so empowering you were confident you would be able to walk around now.

“W-what…” Eventually, you allowed him to break the kiss. His lips were swollen and so were yours, both your breathing heavy.

Eddie felt his face first and then his stomach. There was no pain, there were no injuries left, only the scars you were unable to will out of existence.

“You… you actually healed me?”

You nodded. Little did he know that this meant that he was yours now, in a way. You didn’t give this gift freely, not to just anyone but only to the purest of souls. The Upside Down had been pure too once before Henry Creel had polluted it with violence and reckless murder.

“Thank you, Nix.”

You smiled, cuddling up to him. Perhaps ending up in this new dimension had not been so bad after all. Not with Eddie Munson by your side.

A/N: Check out my blog for more Imagines and my original novel(s)! ♥

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