#baking with Gareth

[caer-gai]

Gareth and Gaheris as narrative foils in that Gaheris hangs out in the Orkney echo chamber and has one (1) hero who happens to be his war criminal older brother and is therefore doomed to always be running around trying to be Gawain while Gareth trains under and works and just hangs out with a wide variety of knights which gives him such super powers as situational awareness and ability to converse with normal humans easily and as much as Gareth claims he's just following in Gawain and Lancelot's footsteps he's not he's made his own path he becomes the role model they both deserved by copying the best of everyone he learned from.

BUT they still love and support each other bc I say so

[gaheriskinnie]

I'm so glad I decided to draw Gareth cause I get the hype now. He's done nothing wrong

[sexcaliburs]

Feeling sick again. I can not escape the stomach ache 😔

[lovebugism]

rockstar!eddie x shy!reader , christmas party shenanigans, shes so sweet she made cookies & sweets for everyone but she wasn’t asked to , run ins w celebs 🤭

hope u like it angel!! — a rockstar flirts with eddie munson’s girl minutes before corroded coffin plays a show (shy!reader, established relationship, fluff, 1.4k)

blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

Corroded Coffin’s got their own green room — backstage at one of the biggest music festivals of the year. There’s a team of people dressed in black waiting at their beck and call. Eddie’s pretty sure KISS is in the suite down the hall. As a boy from Middle of Nowhere, Indiana, he doesn’t feel very deserving of any of it.

He feels like he’s dreaming, really. The only thing keeping him from pinching himself is Dustin and Lucas’ roughhousing and Steve’s stupid belly laugh. Having all his childhood friends here is strangely humbling.

Eddie lazes on an expensive leather chair, totally unsure of what to do with himself when he’s not holding you. He’s trying to get comfortable in the foreign leather drab that stylists put him in when the door yawns open. It swings with such ferocity that the metal knob slams against the opposite wall with a low thud. It isn’t any surprise that the culprit is Robin Buckley.

She storms in first, followed more quietly by you some seconds later.

“Woah, woah, woah— what happened?” Eddie wonders aloud, already on edge with anxiety. Robin swooping in like a dark grey storm cloud doesn’t make it any better.

You shrug with a tin of Christmas cookies in your hand. Some are already missing because you wanted to pass them out to the workers. “It’s not like I don’t have enough to go around,” you’d said with a shy chuckle, nodding to the table lined with homemade pastries. You always bake when you’re nervous.

“We bumped into someone on the way back,” you explain in a gentle murmur, mindful of the emotional girl across the room. “I think she might’ve known him…”

“You didn’t recognize him?” Robin blurts from where she’s flopped on the leather couch. Her eyes go wide, the edges of them smudged with brown eyeliner. The look she gives you makes you cower.

“…No?”

“That was Roger Taylor,” she tells you. And then, when it still doesn’t hit you— “From Queen.”

Your doe eyes flood with a similar, more innocent look of shock. “That’s who that was?”

Robin groans and shoves her face into the fluffy throw pillow beneath her. She decides to talk to the only person in the room who could understand her and her wild emotions. Steve, sitting next to her with cookie crumbs all over his mouth, somehow manages to cipher her mumbled, emotional slurs.

“You don’t get it— it was like seeing an angel, Steve. He was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen— and I don’t even like men!”

“Yeah, so that’s definitely saying something,” the boy mumbles through a mouthful of pastry.

Eddie, still wide-eyed with amazement, turns to look up at you. You’re lingering at his side, a sweet thing dressed in pastel pink. He reaches over to smooth a hand over your pale tights. His ringed fingers are almost achingly warm when they curl around the back of your thigh. He tilts his chin to smile at you with all his teeth.

“I thought you loved Queen, babe,” he chuckles, squeezing gently at your leg.

“I do,” you insist, always shy in your way, as you shift your weight on your feet. Your sheepish gaze flits to the tray in your hand — to the hand-made snowmen, trees, and snowflakes. “I just didn’t know that’s what he looked like.”

“Was he pretty?” Eddie teases with a knowing squint in his chocolate eyes.

You shrug, burning with misplaced embarrassment. “I don’t know… I didn’t really look,” you mutter. His chest swells with something short of pride. “They just wanted to try my cookies—”

“That’s what she said,” Gareth quips. Followed by an audible slap when Jeff reaches over to smack him. “—Ow!”

“Was Freddie Mercury there?” Dustin wonders from across the room, smiling wide at the thought. His giggle is boyish and high-pitched. “That’d be insane.”

You shake your head in response. “No— but now that I think about it, that’s probably why they said they needed to take some extra for Fred. There was another guy there, though.”

“Yeah?” Eddie lilts to egg you on.

“Yeah. He kinda looked like a poodle—”

“Brian May!” the room choruses.

“Um…” you mumble under your breath. “Maybe?”

“One of the best guitarists of our time Brian May?” Robin wonders, a tad bit dramatic, and filled with life all over again. “Astrophysicist and super genius Brian May?”

Your smile is innocent and utterly sincere. “Oh, he’s an astrophysicist? That’s so cool!”

Robin groans again, and you flinch.

“…What?”

“Nothing,” Eddie answers for her, squeezing your leg to bring your attention back to him again. His rosy grin widens when your eyes meet his. “You’re just cute.”

Your face heats like it’s the first time he’s ever complimented you. Your warm cheek tilts to your shoulder as you smile quietly back at him. “Well, thank you,” you mutter shyly.

“Why can’t anything good happen to me?” Robin whines.

Steve doesn’t mean to laugh, but it tumbles out before he can stop it. “It did happen to you. You were there.”

“Well, it didn’t feel good at the time!”

The door creaks open again. Nancy and Jonathan walk in together, fashionably late. It wouldn’t be surprising if she stopped a couple of musicians for impromptu interviews and didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer — bound to be on the front page of Hawkins Post come Sunday morning.

Jonathan, however, looks a little bit dazed. “Is that— Is that Queen in the hallway?” he whispers to the group of you, like he’s scared the band might hear him.

“Yep,” Robin deadpans in response, popping the p.

“Ooh. Smells like a bakery in here,” Nancy lilts with a pretty pink smile.

You get all shy because it’s entirely your fault. “Yeah. Sorry. I kinda… went overboard with the cookies.”

“Don’t be sorry. I love when you bake us stuff,” she assures you, then bites the head off of a sugary snowman. She sighs at the heavenly taste and nods with it stuck in her cheek. “Don’t ever, ever be sorry.”

You giggle all pretty in response.

Jonathan reaches into the tray and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “Woah. What’s this?”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry. I meant to throw that away—”

Nancy rips it from his hands. She straightens it out as best she can and squints when she finds writing on the back of it. She grins like she’s found some kind of hidden treasure. 

“Wait, this is someone’s phone number,” she announces to the rest of them room. She reads it out loud for all of you, each of you on the edges of your metaphorical seats. “Thanks for the cookies, but I bet you taste sweeter. I’m free after the show. Call me. Roger.”

The room goes deadly silent.

Eddie is among the gaping mouths of shock, unsure if he should be jealous or amused.

“He wanted to try your cookies, alright,” Gareth chuckles under his breath. Jeff snorts out a laugh, then reaches over to slap him again. The curly-haired boy cowers. “Oh, come on! You thought it was funny, too!”

“Let me see that,” Eddie insists, rising on his feet to take the paper from Nancy’s painted fingertips. 

His brown eyes flit back and forth as he reads it for himself. Once, then twice, then a few more times after that. He’s about to play a show for thousands of people, yet this is somehow harder for him to grasp.

“Roger Taylor wants to fuck my girlfriend,” he murmurs in amazement to himself.

For some reason, feeling the need to defend yourself, you rush to get the words out. “I didn’t know that’s what that was, Eds, I swear— I figured he thought I worked here, and he was just giving me his trash to throw away.”

Eddie turns to you, still silent. His chocolate eyes are slightly glazed over as he blinks at you — the sweetest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on, so polite in her shyness and aloof with it, too. 

Still in a state of subtle disbelief about all of this — the phone number, the looming performance, and the fact he ever landed you in the first place — he shakes his wild head with a dumbfounded smile.

“I love the shit outta you, you know that?” he says with a burst of low, boyish laughter. He doesn’t give you the opportunity to answer before wrapping you up in his leather-clad arms and pressing a smothering kiss to your mouth.

[kennahjune]

No Upside Down steddie AU where Steve gradually meets the members of Hellfire (-Eddie) in and out of school and they all come to befriending him really fast because “Steve Harrington is actually a good dude”

But Eddie fucking hates it.

And this only spurs Hellfire on because they think him getting mad over Steve Harrington is fucking hilarious.

Jeff who takes a foods class in third period and Steve does to and then the teacher pairs them for a baking project and Jeff gets to go to Casa Harrington. And he realizes rather quickly that Steve really likes baking and cooking and actually knows what he’s doing and that he’s not just taking the class for an easy A.

Brian (I’ve named him Brian, yes), meets Steve in Art class. Like Jeff, he thought Steve was taking it for an easy A but when seats are changed and they sit together he realizes that, no, Steve’s actually kind of good at drawing (particularly scenery). They get to talking about one of Steve’s sketches and the rest is history.

Gareth doesn’t officially meet Steve until later, but he does see him out with the kids at the arcade. Gareth works at the arcade and there’s this particular group of kids that just irks him— turns out they’re Steve’s gaggle. He watches in begrudging amusement while Steve rounds them up like a pro.

Then Gareth officially meets him after Hellfire one day. It’s fucking windy and he’s just leaving to school to go home when the papers and sheets he was holding are fucking torn from his hands. Steve grabs the papers— there after some kind of sports practice— and makes sure Gareth has them secured in his bad before leaving with a dorky finger-waggle wave.

And Eddie just downright refuses.

And then the school year ends and Steve graduates. And he’s convinced he doesn’t have to see Steve again.

Until, of course, Mike Dustin and Lucas join.

Jeff, Gareth, and Brian are all ecstatic to share their own run-ins of Steve Harrington to the three boys who so clearly idolize him. Gareth happily recalls how Steve “tamed” them in the arcade every time he came in.

Eddie sits in brooding silence.

And then Lucas joins the basketball team. And sure— Jeff’s on the volleyball team— but basketball jocks are so much worse than volleyball jocks.

Mike and Dustin, however thrown out of orbit they were at first, seem to settle in eventually and learn to plan around it. They think that anything that makes Lucas happy is a good thing (even if it did take a bit of a talk with Will for them to realize).

But Eddie? Eddie can’t stand it.

Which is why he refuses to move the date for the final campaign.

But Eddie doesn’t even get to introduce Vecna before Steve Harrington himself is all but breaking down the fucking door.

Eddie has this whole argument in his head that quickly dwindles when he sees the pure anger in Steve’s eyes (and also because Steve is really fucking pretty holy shit).

Steve tells Dustin Mike and Erica to pack up and get to the game before he drags them and you know what?

They listen.

Including hard ass Erica Sinclair.

And then idk Steve and Eddie get into a whole fight about.

But Steve makes it very clear that he doesn’t appreciate Eddie making Lucas feel like he can’t be happy doing DnD and basketball because that poor boy deserves nice things dammit.

And Eddie sleeps on it over the weekend before hunting Lucas down first thing Monday morning to apologize.

Lucas forgive Eddie (against Eddie’s protest because let the man grovel) but makes Eddie also apologize to Steve.

Which Eddie does by showing up to the Harrington Estate.

Eddie apologizes and they get high together and the rest is history.

.

I might actually make this into something, it’s already pretty fleshed out but eh

[stevieschrodinger]

Baker Steve/Rock Star Eddie wrong number AU

Part One

Part Two

PART THREE

"It's like a TV show, but on YouTube."

"Right," Steve answers, half listening to Dustin's explanation, "so it, like what, has an air time, or whatever?"

"Yeah, like a series."

"And it's just, what, famous people playing dipshits and dickheads?"

"Steeeeeeeeeeeevvvvveeeeeeeeeeee why are you like this?"

"Dunno," Steve shrugs, trying to read a recipe online. Unfortunately that's resulted in his having to scroll past someones entire fucking life story and he's ready to give up and try and work out the dumb Oreo cake recipe himself, "just lucky, I guess."

Dustin drops his head on the kitchen counter like Steve is the greatest difficulty he's ever going to face.

"So why do you need to be here to watch this?"

"Because we all want to watch it together, the guests are Corroded Coffin, they all like, play, the whole band, it's so cool-"

"Corroded Coffin? Playing your nerd game?" Steve's interest leaks through before he can stop it, "I mean, like, I think I've heard of them?" The last thing he needs is the kids finding out he's been kind of friends kind of flirting kind of maybe wants to date the actual Eddie Munson.

Dustin looks at him skeptically, "yeah...so you-"

"You can all watch it here, it's fine...I'll make cookies."

Dustin's completely distracted by his own success, instantly whipping out his phone to inform the other kids. Steve's pretty sure their group chat is called 'No Steve's allowed' but he hasn't actually found out for sure yet.

Steve does bake cookies. All the kids are gathered around his smart TV, absolutely demolishing them while they wait for this thing to start. It's like, an actual channel, with intros and graphics and stuff, a logo that reads 'Final Roll.'

And there's Eddie and the band, sitting around a table with two dudes who must run the channel. They all have the bits of paper and dice and little figures that Steve's used to seeing when the kids commandeer his dining room table.

There's preemptive ramble, and Steve leans forward a little every time Eddie's in shot. He's relieved all the kids are all sitting in front of him and all glued to the TV, so he can ogle in peace. They do introductions, and then everyone introduces their characters.

"May I introduce Sir Steven, the half elf paladin," behind Eddie Gareth rolls his eyes so hard his whole fucking body moves. Steve can see him and Geoff mouthing something to each other. Steve can only assume it's because Eddie has named his character, presumably, after him, "he has a sworn oath to always protect those weaker than himself."

Steve's heart fucking melts.

Steve's phone is buzzing. He's prepared. He knows Eddie's back in the country, they've been talking for months. Steve's kind of done waiting, and he's ready to press his advantage. He's had this set up for a little while, just waiting for the right moment. He presses play, and then answers the phone.

"Hey Stevie how-...are you listening to Corroded Coffin?"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve turns it down, bomb dropped, trap sprung, advantage played, "the kids absolutely love them, they're trying to get me into them even though they're not exactly my thing."

"Right, ah, right, what do you, uhm, think?"

"Yeah. Still not my thing-"

"Oh."

"But I really like it when the lead guy sings."

"...yeah?"

"Yeah, not the like, shouty growly singing, I can't understand a fucking thing he's saying-" Eddie chuckles, "but like, the parts where he properly sings. I think he has a beautiful voice."

"I ah, well, I mean, I bet the, uhm, shouty bits are hard work, you know. I expect that takes a lot of, you know, practice. Hell on the throat. I imagine, I would guess anyway, I don't actually, like know-"

"No no, yeah, well, maybe he should just sing more then, save those vocal chords, or whatever. I'd like that a lot."

"Yeah?" Steve can practically hear Eddie blushing down the phone. Eddie's so cute when he goes shy.

"Yeah." There's a long beat of silence before Steve goes in for the kill, "the kids are trying to get me to go see them. They're in the states now, apparently. Will be playing a gig in Indie."

"Yeah they are- I mean, I assume they are, most bands, uhm, yeah-" And Steve is hardly holding it together, Eddie is such a bad liar, and he's trying so hard not to lie at all. Steve doesn't know how he;s keeping his tone normal and not letting the whole ass cat out of the bag.

"And the kids are absolutely itching to go, you know? But tickets man, they're all doing every chore they can find to get some extra cash, but tickets are pricey, and for eight of us? Because I'll need someone else to help me chaperone and, you know..."

"I. I might...know a guy. Maybe. Like, because of the band I might...know someone who can get you tickets."

"Seriously? Eddie that would be incredible, the kids will absolutely loose their shit."

"Yeah, ah, is your work email cool?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course of course, man, the kids are going to love you for like, forever."

And maybe I will too, Steve just about manages to keep the words inside.

@steves-yellow-cardigin @melodymeddler @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao

@superduckmilkshake @she-collects-smut @paintsplatteredandimperfect @resident-gay-bitch

[aphrogeneias]

𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫, 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 — uniform

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

warnings: ex-cheerleader!reader. handjob. penetrative sex. semi-public sex.

It was always the skirts that did it for him.

Not the ponytails, not the sparkly pom poms, not even the acrobatics. It was the small skirts that had his eyes wandering, following long legs and pretty thighs along the hallways of his former high school. His friends used to make fun of him, tell him how stupid he looked pining over the cheerleaders who would never even look his way.

Eddie used to tell them he wasn't pining, he was merely just… looking, for lack of a better word. He wasn't thinking about them, the little skirts in green and yellow swishing around soft looking thighs, when he was alone later, under the shower. Of course not.

Imagine his surprise, then, when he saw you — his favorite customer, wearing a red, white and black cheerleader uniform. You were in the corner of the room, chatting with your local college friends, sipping on a plastic cup. Hair in a high ponytail tied with a neat red bow, as red as the fake blood sprinkled on your body.

He might have choked a little on his beer, but he didn't pay much attention to it, concentrating it all on you. Not until Jeff elbows him on the ribs, scoffing at his friend. "Man, you're gonna catch flies with that mouth hanging open."

"Shut up." Eddie grumbled, looking away from you and back at his friends. "Do you think she saw?"

"You're not exactly subtle, Ed." Gareth points out. The younger boy turned to your group of friends and waves, and as Eddie did the same, he noticed you waving back.

Burying the urge to smother Gareth in his sleep, he managed a rather strained smile, and a three finger wave in your direction. He saw you hide your giggle behind your hand, and all of his worries faded away for a second. It must have been your pretty smile, barely concealed by a delicate hand, or the mixture of glitter and fake blood on your skin, making you glint in the dark. Either way, he decided that he didn't want to look away, not really.

As his friends engaged back in conversation with each other, and your friends remained entertained with whatever was the subject between them, your eyes met yet again. You gave him a discreet nod of your head, pointing to the glass doors that led to the backyard of the house. Eddie nodded back, and waited for you to go first before following you closely.

Eddie had met you when he decided to expand his side business after he graduated. No longer wanting to associate with the high school kids, no matter how well some of them would pay him with their daddy's money, he went for the college students next. Lingering around their parties, taking a stroll through the campus with his ever trusty lunchbox on days off of work.

It was on one of these strolls that he met you — clumsily sitting in front of him at a picnic table that resembled his old selling spot, dropping your bag on the table and asking him for a rolled joint because you were terrible at rolling, and you'd even pay extra if needed.

He decided that, from that moment on, you wouldn't have to roll your own joints ever again.

There was just something about you, something that Eddie couldn't quite put his finger on. Maybe it was how comfortable you made him feel, how easy the conversation flowed between you. How you would always rant about your day or infodump on the latest subject that caught your interest in class, or the last book you were reading. It was like you didn't mind that Eddie was virtually a stranger, you just accepted him in your life with open arms, and he did the same.

You started walking a thin line between merely a business relationship, and an actual friendship. Eddie started never letting you pay, telling you that your company was more than enough reward. After that, you came up with more creative ways to thank him. A mixtape, freshly baked sprinkle cookies, a new bracelet, black nail polish.

He wondered if he asked for a kiss as payment you'd give it to him.

Through the small crowd in the living room to the small back porch, he couldn't help but let his eyes wander over your form from behind. The way your skirt moved side to side when you walked, in perfect sync with your hips. The bag of your legs, the curve of your neck. It made his heart race, and his hands ache to touch.

Finally, you both passed through the doors, — you first, Eddie making sure to slide the door behind him close — breathing in the cool night air. The outside of the house was empty except for the two of you, and the neighbor's cat waltzing around the top of the fence.

"Got the good stuff, Munson?"

You were smiling as you sat down on an old, beat down couch to the left of the porch. He tried not to make it obvious he was staring at the way your thighs spread out as you sat, looking good enough to bite into. Instead, he looked down and fished out the smokes carton from the pocket of his leather jacket, and smirked right back at you.

"For you? Always."

That night, neither of you spoke much as you shared a spliff between the two of you. The silence was not awkward, nor was it uncomfortable. It was just the two of you and the chill October air, and the shitty music that came from the inside of the party.

While he took the last drag, you scooted closer to him, bringing your arm to the back of the couch. "I noticed you looking, you know."

Holding his breath, he asked, "What?"

"At me, silly. I noticed you looking at me the whole night."

Your voice was pure honey, but there was a malice in your eyes Eddie had never seen before. Swallowing hard, he shifted on his seat, incidentally closing the distance between you. "It's just that, uh… You look really pretty tonight. Not that you don't look pretty any other day," he panics, disgusting it with a flare of his hands, "but you look especially beautiful tonight."

"It's the outfit, isn't it? Never would have thought you had a thing for cheerleaders, Eds. Would have told you I used to be one way sooner if I'd known."

"This was yours?" His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his head.

"Yeah. All the way through high school. It was fun while it lasted."

He hummed, but on the inside, Eddie wanted to scream. "Whoa, sweetheart. Gotta show me your moves one of these days."

"I could show you a few right now."

You got impossibly closer, your face inches from his own. Instead of kissing him like he expected you to do, you took one of his hands and placed it on your waist, not breaking eye contact with him. "You can touch me if you want to, Eddie. It's okay, I want you to."

He sat up straighter, grabbing your waist earnestly now. "Can I kiss you, baby?"

With your nod as confirmation, he did. He kissed you long and deep, stealing the breath away from both of you. He tastes you on his tongue, smoke and cheap vodka lingering there, as you straddled his hips, pretty pleated skirt flaring around your hips.

Hands wandering over layers, mouths wandering over skin. Eddie kissed every spot he could find, from your mouth to your neck, sucking and biting bruises that knew would still be there in the morning. He squeezed your boobs through your tight top, massaging them in his rough hands, making you moan in his mouth. He drank each strangled moan, each sigh, fueling his want for you.

Your hands soon found the buckle of his belt, expertly opening it, and palming him through his boxers. He could almost feel embarrassed over how hard he already was, but he could sense that you were equally as eager, applying pressure on his cock, running your nails through the length of it just to feel him shiver under your ministrations.

You didn't break the kiss as you pulled him out of his underwear, stroking him slowly, pumping his cock with your hand, running your thumb over the head of it, slicking him with his own precum. Eddie bit your bottom lip to stay quiet, making you look at him through hooded eyes. "Feeling good, handsome?"

"Too good. Too fucking good to be true."

You chuckled, low and sexy. "It is true. It's all for you."

As you kept stroking and squeezing him in your hand, moving your thumb from the sensitive underside to the head, and down again, making his hips jerked and thrusted into your grip, he kept kissing you, pouring all of his adoration into it, sucking on your tongue, bruising your lips with his own.

A chill ran down his spine with a particular tug of your hand on his cock. At the feeling of it, Eddie put a hand on your wrist, stopping you. "Angel, I'm not gonna last long if you keep doing this."

"But I wanna make you cum, Eds." You pouted, looking down at him.

"You can make me cum inside of this perfect pussy, how about that?"

"I think I like that more, too."

Without warning, you pulled yourself up, standing in front of him. As if you were putting on a show, you bent down at the waist, and slowly removed your panties from under your skirt, tossing on the couch right next to him, and mounted him again. "You're gonna kill me, aren't you? Was that your plan all along?"

"I don't know. Is it working?"

This time, he grabbed your hips and helped you align yourself above his cock, rubbing his head along your entrance and letting it catch on your clit a couple of times before you sat yourself on him, taking him in slowly, accommodating the stretch inside of you.

It was heaven, right there, under that tiny cheerleader skirt.

"Trust me. It's working really damn well."

You lost yourselves in that moment, moving your hips in sync. Eddie was hypnotized by the way you bounced on him, each slide of your slick, warm pussy went straight through his whole body, making him hold tightly onto you, wrapping his arms around you.

All he could hear was your heavy breathing, your little whimpers better than the music that muffled his own stubborn moans that made their way out of his gaping mouth. He felt you squeeze him with your cunt as you pulled his hair, hips growing more and more reckless with each movement, signaling that you were close.

Eddie started to fuck up into you, making you bounce harder on his lap. He felt the way you lost balance, holding onto his shoulders and shutting your eyes hard.

"It's okay, pretty girl. You can let go. I'm right here with you, you can cum for me." He pleaded, "Please? Cum with me."

You came almost at the same time, squeezing each other's bodies, trying hard not to make too much noise. While you rode out your orgasms, Eddie left kisses all over your shoulder, to your neck, to the side of your face. A last kiss on your cheek, on the side where you were hiding your face on his neck.

"We should get out of here before someone catches us."

Your voice tickled the sensitive skin of his neck, and he ran his hand over your back. You were still joined under your skirt, his cock growing soft inside of you, but still terribly warm. "Your place or mine?"

You raised your face from its hiding place, and pushed a strand of his wild hair behind his ear. "Wherever we don't have to keep quiet like this."

"My place it is."

[munsonson]

𝐇𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐『••✎••』

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘜𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘮, 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴.

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠(𝐬): 𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘔𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘯/𝘍𝘦𝘮!𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯/𝘍𝘦𝘮!𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠(𝐬): 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵, 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3.1 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞

The cookie smell wafted welcomingly into her nose as she pulls open the oven door, The chocolate chips were plentiful, and she could see it was hot enough that it would practically melt over your tastebuds. She smiles, slipping on an oven mitt before taking the pan out.

What was supposed to be a day of tears and emotional eating turned into a productive day of baking and dressing herself nicer than she even had for school, and that was because she had tried to dress to impress Eddie. The thought saddened her a little, but she remembered Steve and the night he had planned for them and it didn’t hurt so much anymore.

While the cookies cooled, she removed her apron and went to grab some tupperware to fit it in before she pulled the phone off the receiver and dialed. It rang for just a minute before someone picked up.

It was the typical pizza joint greeting until, “this is Gareth, what can I get started for you today?”

Her mouth ran dry and she suddenly lost the ability to speak. Gareth was there when Eddie had started talking about her and much like the other Hellfire club members aside from Dustin and Mike, he didn’t jump to her defense. Would he recognize her voice? How embarrassing would that be? Should she just play stupid?

“Hel-” She quickly slams the receiver back down and picks it up, dialing a different number.

“Harrington residence!” Steve sings.

“I need to know if this is progress or not,” she starts, twirling the cord between her fingers. “Say Eddie’s friend works at the only pizza place Hawkins has, is hanging up before saying anything a good or bad thing?”

“Well, it’s not great,” Steve said. “But A for effort, love, no worries! You’ll get better. Comes with time, everything is still a little fresh, I mean it happened just today at lunch.”

She nods in agreement, glad she once again turned to Steve with this.

“Man, does this mean I’m not getting my Sausage Lovers’ Pizza?” he complains jokingly.

“In short of you making the call and requesting only non-Hellfire Club members deliver it, probably not,” she says, stretching the phone as far as it could go so she could start carefully placing the cookies into the tupperware, still hot and soft in her hands.

“I can make it happen, just get over here already,” Steve groans.

“Okay, okay, I’ll only be a minute. See you there,” she huffs, hanging up the phone and placing the plastic top onto the container. With her cookies safe and secure, she turns off the oven and gives her kitchen a once over before retrieving her car keys and leaving.

The night was still very young, the sun hadn’t even disappeared yet, painting Hawkins in a heavenly orange glow. Her car was in its typical place parked at the far end of her lawn. She opens the door and places the cookies down before hoisting herself up into the driver’s seat.

Pulling out of her drive, she takes the familiar route to Steve’s home, one hand on the wheel and the other keeping the tupperware steady.

Things tonight were going pretty good thus far. She’d been trying to keep her mind off of Eddie and all the awful things he’d said at lunch, knowing if she’d dwell on it it’d just make her feel worse. She didn’t wanna focus on that, she wanted to think about the night ahead of her that she’d get to spend with one of her best friends. Eating junk food and watching all the silly movies he liked. That sounded a great deal better.

Her old car sputtered and coughed as she ascended the lean hill that led up to Steve’s house, still perched at the top with the same intimidating hedges, walls, and the glow of his swimming pool he still neglected to properly take care of. Even still, it’s a welcoming sight.

She parks off the driveway, not wanting to block him or his parents from coming in and out, switching off the car and taking the container of cookies up towards the front doors.

She doesn’t get the chance to knock before Steve opens it, grinning down at her.

“My, my, my, what brings you here?” he asks.

“You gonna invite me in or let me freeze on your doorstep?” she sniggers. He clears his throat and holds his hand out expectantly. Rolling her eyes, she shoves the container into his chest and pushes past him. 

“I was actually offering you a hand inside, jerk!” he calls over his shoulder. He shuts the door and follows her into the living room where the fire was already going and he had the movie paused on the TV. Blankets were piled haphazardly on the cushions along with two pillows from his bed from upstairs and the coffee table was pulled suspiciously closer. She can’t help but smile. He knew her legs couldn’t stretch as far as his to reach it, so he’d adjusted it without telling her. 

“Wow, you really go all out for a casual movie night with your friend,” she says, turning back to him. He blushes in embarrassment, but he still smiles. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble, Steve, honestly.”

“Give me a break, I needed the reason to strip my bed. Bed bugs,” he says dramatically, lifting the comforter and holding it threateningly towards her. She yelps and jumps out of the way. He starts laughing. “No, but...look, I wanted you to forget everything that happened earlier today. Show you how you should be treated, even if it’s just by little ‘ol me.” 

Her heart swelled. “Thank you.” 

He shakes his head as if to tell her not to worry about it. He takes the cookie container and places it on the coffee table, walking around and flicking the light switches so the only thing keeping their faces illuminated was his abnormally big television screen his father swung for two Christmases ago. 

“The pizza should be here any minute,” he says conversationally as he goes to finally sit on the couch. He pats the spot beside him invitingly. “I don’t wanna have to pause the movie again, so pop a squat and entertain me for a little, would ya?” 

She nods and goes to sit down, instantly raveling herself up in his comforter. It smelled like him, and she was sure if she accidentally nodded off she’d get a mouthful of Steve Harrington’s glorious hairs plucked off his head from tossing and turning throughout the night.

“What movies you gonna burden me with tonight?”

“Bold talk for someone who didn’t have a hand in sneaking them out under Keith’s careful watch with those nifty security cameras he’s got installed.” Steve said. “Nothin’ special, though. Figured I’d appeal to your frilly girly senses, managed to snag Sixteen Candles and Footloose. But, just to clear my eyes at the end, I also nabbed Gremlins.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, I gave you Molly Ringwald and Kevin Bacon, gimme a little leeway.”

“Fair enough.” 

Steve pats her head, turning so she’d face him. “How you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she says defensively. He shakes his head, throwing an arm over the back of the couch and sneakily sliding his hand over her shoulders to tug her into his side. She doesn’t reject the contact. The closeness actually felt a little nice. He smelled like the video store. That was a strange thing to say, but Family Video did have a pretty distinctive aroma. 

“He’s a dick,” Steve said again. “He doesn’t know great you are. And once he realizes it’s gonna be too late. You’re not boring, otherwise I wouldn’t have you here with me. Understand?” She nods and he kisses the crown of her head. “Stop getting mad over people who don’t have any kind of control over your life, alright? Especially not Eddie Munson.”

“Hard not to. God, it just sounds so pathetic. I want someone to be crazy for me, to want to constantly talk to me or think about me or wondering what I’m doing. And...I really wanted it to be Eddie for some reason. And there’s always wishful thinking, you know? Like you just hope and that’s enough because there’s just certain things you don’t wanna find out. And then...I did. I looked behind the curtain,” she rambled. 

Steve doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Really, she didn’t even know if she wanted him to add his two cents. That was just her flaunting her wounds like she was best at. Unfortunately for Steve, he was really easy to unload on because she knew he’d still be there after. It’s what made him so great. 

“Is it narcissism? Or just loneliness?” 

“Being human,” Steve gives the hidden third answer. “I feel shitty that he made you feel shitty.” 

“Why?”

“Because you shouldn’t be feeling shitty at all. Of all people, you know?” Steve said with a shrug. “It just surprises me someone like him could do this to someone like you.”

“Someone like him?”

“Come on, don’t make me say it,” Steve scoffs. 

“Well no...you brought it up, Steve, just tell me.” 

“Well, Munson’s pretty...out there. I remember when I was in school, he’d just always be makin’ a complete fool of himself or he’d be mixing it up with the wrong crowds because he’s into that drug shit. He sold to me once, you know? But it was just weed.” Steve said. “When you told me you were seeing him I didn’t really believe it at first. That someone like him...could win over someone like you. It just didn’t make any sense. So the fact you’re taking this so hard, it’s...a little daunting.” 

She didn’t know how to take that. Steve was clearly telling her she was way out of Eddie’s league and his words shouldn’t be bringing her as far down as they were. But that thought kind of angered her. She didn’t believe in leagues. She supposed the idea of it was just the remnants of King Steve still clinging to his subconscious, that some people were capable of attracting some people and not others. Or however they worked. 

At the same time it was strangely comforting that he saw her this way, that...she was this unattainable being that someone like Eddie goddamn Munson could possibly think she was less than.

Before she could try to find the words to explain that to Steve, the doorbell rang. The pizza was here. 

“I’ll get it,” Steve says softly. 

For the rest of the night, they didn’t talk about Eddie again. She never got to tell him how she felt about his view on Eddie Munson and how he thought his words should(or, in her case, shouldn’t) affect her. Maybe that was a good thing. It seemed like whatever negative feeling about herself that she had, he had a way to counter it. 

Nevertheless, she did have a really good time. Steve had kept things relatively normal, he made her laugh, he dropped a piece of pizza on the couch and she had to watch while trying not to laugh as he furiously dabbed it with one of his mom’s good towels. 

He really did make her forget. Steve was a friend, a real friend to her tonight. 

By now they were lounging, back to cable TV as she was slowly being lulled to sleep by the repetitive commercials and their incessant ramblings as they tried to get bored housewives to buy their products. Then Steve’s phone rang, startling them both into sudden consciousness. 

“What the hell?” he grunts, stumbling to his feet. He was a little unsteady, having just been asleep. She reaches forward and stands him upright. 

He makes it to the phone and practically rips it off the receiver. 

“Harrington resi...” he trails off into a yawn. “Harrington residence....yeah....yeah, she’s here. Why? ...So? ....Relax, Henderson, I’ll just...Jesus.” He turns to her. “It’s for you!” 

Confused, she gets up. She grabs the phone from him. 

“Hello?” she says cautiously. 

“Jesus, there you are! You realize how hard you are to track down?” Dustin’s voice said, irritated. 

“Dustin? What’s the matter? Is everything okay?” she asks, worried. 

“Yes! Yeah, it’s just....I didn’t see you at lunch, you know? I got worried. I tried to call you as soon as I got out of Hellfire about an hour ago and you didn’t answer, so...kind of called around until I could get ahold of you,” Dustin said. 

Her heart swelled. This kid was a good one. 

“What’re you doing at Steve’s?” he asks. 

“Oh, um...Steve invited me to watch some movies and I fell asleep.” she said. That was technically the truth. She decided not to mention that the purpose of movie night was to help her forget Eddie’s cruel words. 

“Oh, really?” Dustin asked, suddenly sounding like he was grinning. “I didn’t know you and Steve liked to host movie nights without us.”

“I don’t follow,” she said. 

“Don’t let me interrupt you guys. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Lunch was pretty weird without you,” Dustin said. 

“I doubt that,” she said, turning to give Steve an apologetic look. He shakes his head as if to tell her not to worry about it before trailing back towards the couch probably to fall back asleep. 

“No, really. I think I prefer the dynamic with you around. Things get weird...um...Eddie today was weird.” Dustin said. She was tempted to to press on, get Dustin to come out and repeat what Eddie had said but decided against it. “You’ll still sit with us again Monday, won’t you?”

No. She definitely did not want to sit at that table again knowing the truth. What was worse, she couldn’t bare lying to Dustin. She really wanted to avoid talking about this, but it seemed like she didn’t have a choice. 

“Actually, Dustin...I was there...today. You guys just didn’t see me,” she said. Before Dustin could question her now intentional absence, she continued, “I overheard what you guys were talking about.”

There was a long pause on his end. 

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what his problem is. B-But you heard Mike and I, right? How we...”

“You have nothing to prove, Dustin, this isn’t on you. And honestly I can’t even be mad at Eddie. He’s more than welcome to his opinion. I just don’t think I can sit there knowing he doesn’t think much of me. I’ll still be able to see you guys, I’m not gonna completely avoid...that would be childish. I think I’ll just sit with Robin o-or Nancy.” 

“Maybe I can talk to him! Get him to apologize!”

“He has nothing to apologize for, Dustin, don’t do that,” she said sternly. “It’s fine, Dustin! This doesn’t change anything! I just think some space would be good.”

“Okay,” Dustin said, noticeably disappointed. “I gotta go. I have to meet Lucas and Mike tomorrow at the arcade. Maybe you can meet us there?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “Night, Dustin.” He wished her a goodnight and, at last, she hung up the phone. She glances at the clock hung up on the wall, wincing at how late it was. She walks back towards the living area where Steve had made himself very comfortable in the little blanket and pillow fort they’d unintentionally made. 

“Everything good?” he asks sleepily. 

“Perfectly fine. Um...it’s getting late, Steve, I should go.”

“What? Why?” 

“You probably wanna get some shut eye and I don’t need to burden you with my problems any longer. Thanks so much for tonight, though, Steve. It really helped.” 

Steve scoffs, rolling his eyes. He lifts up the comforter he had covering the lower half of his body. 

“Come on,” he said, leaving little room for argument. “It’s too late anyway. Robin crashes here all the time.” She hesitates for a moment, then moves around the couch to curl up beside him, surprised at how warm he was. He covers them both up and shuts his eyes again, as if this was completely normal. And why shouldn’t it be? They were friends. Close friends. Close friends had sleepovers. 

She turned over to politely give him some space and not be all up in his business. She pulls the comforter up to her chin and shuts her eyes, trying to calm all of her swimming thoughts. Tonight was about forgetting Eddie Munson. Tonight was about fun. 

With that, she slowly drifted off to sleep again. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜

Dustin hangs up the phone a little harder than he should have, clearly upset. Eddie, Mike, Lucas, and Jeff remained unburdened by his sudden hostility, all lazily lounging in Dustin’s living room as they watched his Friday the 13th copy he convinced Steve to let him rent despite his age.

“Who the hell was that that kept you so occupied?” Mike asked as he rejoins them, taking back his spot. Dustin doesn’t answer at first, accepting the bowl of popcorn offered to him by Jeff. After swallowing two handfuls, he gives it back and glares pointedly at Eddie. The metalhead doesn’t notice at first, too into the film to notice Dustin had even left in the first place. 

“Steve was hosting a movie night, too,” he says instead, out of nowhere sporting a not-so-nice plot. He loved Eddie, respected him. He considered Eddie to be one of his best friends, but he knew he screwed up big time with her. And Dustin wanted him to get a little taste of his own medicine. “Wasn’t alone though.”

“Buckley keeping him company?” Eddie asked, eyes still not moving from the screen. So he was listening. Good. 

Dustin smirks and looks at Mike. “No, you won’t believe who he’s got spending the night there with him.”

“Not my sister,” Mike said, looking green. 

“What? No, man, she wouldn’t do that to Jonathan! No, it was...” Even Jeff had to look away from the movie. 

“Steve and her? Really?” he asks. 

Eddie, at last, seemed to finally look away from the TV screen. He didn’t look distraught, but he wasn’t exactly too keen on the news either. Good enough, in Dustin’s opinion. 

“I didn’t know she and Steve were going steady,” he said. 

“Eh, they’re not. Figure it’s a first date kinda thing. I actually think I interrupted something when I called,” Dustin said. Eddie’s eye twitches. “Decided to leave them to it. I’ll bug Steve tomorrow on the details when he goes to work.” 

“Good for Steve,” Lucas chuckles from the beanbag, his smile quickly disappearing when Eddie’s head shot towards him. “I mean...wow...pretty surprising stuff. Uh, Jeff! Can I get some popcorn over here?” 

“I guess that’s why she wasn’t there for lunch,” Dustin continued. “Think she wanted to go visit him at the video place.”

Eddie sits back in Dustin’s mother’s armchair, slowly moving his gaze back to the TV screen. He definitely didn’t look as comfortable as he was beforehand. Dustin knew she told him to not punish Eddie for this. But Dustin was notorious for not doing as he was told. 

[piratefishmama]

ooh oooooh oh!

"Celebrity charity Bake Off" with Stobin as the hosts and corroded coffin going against each other in the gladitorial pits of competitive baking.

Gareth's cake is an atrocity that looks more like a lemon flavoured leaning tower of very runny pisa than what he'd been attempting, which was a copy of his parents wedding cake. it falls on the floor midway through judging, much to Eddies delighted yell of "FIVE SECOND RULE!" and mad attempted dive for floor cake that is thwarted by Jeff.

Dougie attempted a chocolate lava cake which unfortunately was more lava than cake.

Jeff did a stunning recreation of the land before time with dino cookies and a strawberry jam volcano, WITH strawberry jam lava flow which won by a landslide.

and Eddie spends half the time flirting with Steve and the other half sat in front of his oven begging his Soufflé to rise. It does not.

at the very least he gets Steve's number out of it, so thats a win in his books.

[sp0o0kylights]

Part One

Hellfire did in fact, have cookies to sell.

More than cookies, which Dustin practically preened over when Eddie dragged himself back to their table. 

The ornaments they had made were still there, but now the centerpiece was an array of baked goods. Spread out in a spiral, it started from the large cake in the center and spun out into miniature cookies held in tiny decorated bags, all while Harrington stood over them like a proud parent. 

It smelled mockingly delicious. 

Eddie glared at the display, resisting the urge to upend the whole thing onto the floor.

Cookies and cakes and (--was that frickin bread pudding?) whatever other treats Harrington had shown up with might look good, but Eddie didn’t trust it. 

Didn’t trust Harrington, even if the bastard had never really done anything himself--but then, he never had to, had he? 

That was the point of all that money, after all. So he could pay other people to do his dirty work while he kept his hands squeaky clean. 

“Inch a bit to the left--there, stop!” Harrington was saying, like the bossy asshole he was.

Like he thought he could just come in and expect everyone to follow his lead. 

“Perfect! Now don’t touch it.” 

God, Eddie had to nip this in the butt, now. Before King Horrorton harassed his sheep all day, and cemented the club's undeserved bad name in the minds of Hawkins.

“Dustin what did I just say--” 

Eddie stepped up to the front of their table, preparing himself for war. Looked over to his friends knowing they'd likely need a nod of reassurance. A show from him that said he had this handled.

There was no cowering. 

No pleading, helpless, 'What do we do Eddie!?' gazes aimed his direction.

Hellfire wasn’t even looking at him, and not because they were all avoiding Harrington's line of sight.

No, the fucking traiters were flanking the King. Like they were buddies with the bastard instead of mortal enemies. 

“Hey, Ed’s, Harrington brought pies. Cakes too!” Gareth said around a mouthful of said cookie when he noticed Eddie standing before him. 

It came out a garbled mess, but years of experience had Eddie understanding him anyway. 

Jeff was busy playing what sounded like twenty fucking questions regarding the setup, and even Grant appeared comfortable, happily letting Harrington order him around as they finished setting up. 

Like this was some kind of cutesy Disney movie where they all held hands and sang songs instead of a hostile takeover situation. 

Eddie’s eye twitched.

Sensing a disturbance in the force, Jeff looked up and immediately interrupted himself to point to a series of red and green cookies placed dead center, delighted. 

“Check it out man, Steve made some shaped like dice!” 

(And he did say ‘Steve.’ 

Not Harrington, or This Asshole, or The Invading Evil Forces of Darkness.

Just Steve, like Steve was someone Jeff hung out with everyday.

Jeff’s cleric was a dead elf walking.) 

Eddie took note of what was in fact, dice cookies. 

He hated how good they looked.

“There’s four flavors.” Steve told him, cocky little grin on his face as he observed his work.  “Chocolate chip, peanut butter, snickerdoodle--and the dice ones are sugar cookies.” 

He licked his lips before finally turning to look at Eddie, hair curling over his face and making him wave a hand to brush them out of his eyes. 

Eddie hated how good he looked too. 

‘Hate, hate, hate, absolutely loathe-’ 

“Great, sure, wonderful.” Eddie managed, though given the look Grant and Jeff both shot him it might have come out as more of a growl. 

Dustin rolled his eyes, and Eddie couldn’t help but notice that Hellfire’s other two youngest hadn’t dared to show their faces yet. 

Likely they knew Eddie was having an absolute meltdown over Steve’s presence and were waiting for his reaction to blow over. 

(Their characters were dead too.) 

“I have two full cakes--one chocolate, on vanilla--and a few individual slices we can sell.” Steve was continuing, as if Eddie wasn’t glaring a hole in his forehead. “Those did really well last year when I made them for the basketball team.” 

Insults fought for space on Eddie’s tongue, but he managed to roll a 20 to pick the best one, opening his mouth to let it fly.

"Harr-" is as far as he got before he was rudely interrupted.

“Steve? Is that you?” A woman Eddie didn’t recognize but was clearly someone's mom came up cautiously to the table, side eyeing the Hellfire banner like a nervous horse. “That can’t be your famous tiramisu, is it?”

Steve beamed at her. “Well hi Miss Carpenter. It is!” 

Eddie was bumped aside by a massive purse, the woman not even glancing in his direction as she stepped up to the table. 

With a sneer, he finally slumped to the back of their little spot as Miss Carpenter looked over all Steve’s (not Hellfire’s and absolutely not Eddie’s) offerings. 

Didn’t care to wipe it off right then, even if he knew he needed to if he wanted to make sales. 

Jeff sent him a look.

The same one he usually aimed Eddie’s way when he thought Eddie’s antics were going to cause problems. 

He ignored it, on grounds that traitors don’t get to be judgy. 

“Oh,” Miss Caprtender tittered, the draw of Harrington’s baked goods clearly overcoming whatever fear she had about Hellfire. “Well I just can’t pass that up. The swim team meets aren’t the same without you!”

Eddie pretended to gag.  

Waited for her to comment on Hellfire--their clothes, their music, hell even the length of Eddie’s hair--and found he was almost disappointed when there wasn't even a single question about Hawkins precious golden child was slumming it with the weirdos. 

Instead, Miss Carpenter's hand went fishing in her purse for her wallet as she loudly called out over her shoulder, to presumably another annoying woman; 

“Terry, Steve’s here! He’s been baking!” 

For two terrifying seconds, there was a notable dip in the conversations around them. 

Grant’s eyes went wide as several women responded to the announcement like dogs hearing food hit the floor, and within seconds their table was absolutely swarmed by the mothers of Hawkins.

Even Eddie’s eyes went wide at the sheer number of them. 

“Hold, men, hold.” Dustin cautioned as Jeff and Grant both took a step back. “Come on, we need to get our gold!” 

“They’re scary though.” Gareth whispered in horror as four women tried to talk at once, jostling each other so hard they shook the table menacingly. 

“Ladies, ladies there’s enough here for everyone!” Steve laughed, showing off his disgustingly cute dimples as he did, getting several of the mom’s to blush at their own behavior in the process. 

The sheer amount of attention of course, drew in even more people, and Dustin quickly took up directing, planting Jeff and Grant at either end of their table while he and Steve fended off the hoard from the front. 

(Given the way he and Steve were equally ordering Hellfire around, Eddie finally knew where the little shit had picked that attitude up from. He was going to have to cure Dustin of it, ASAP.  ) 

“Here you go Miss Harper.” Steve said sweetly, handing over yet another stack of baked goods.

Without turning his head, and in the tone of voice one used to warn a misbehaving dog, he added; “Gareth don’t think I can’t fucking see you, get back up here.” 

Caught trying to sink under the table with another cookie in his mouth, Gareth found himself hauled back to his feet by his collar, putting a snarl on Eddie’s face immediately. 

“Hey--” He started, defensive and more than ready to intercede, except Gareth wasn’t flinching or cursing or doing that thing he did with his mouth when he was desperately trying to hold in his temper. 

Instead he was giving a sheepish grin and a half-assed apology while he hung in Harrington’s grasp, before doing what the guy told him to do. 

(It did not help that Steve patted him on the shoulder when he released him, before handing Gareth a third fucking cookie.)

Eddie’s eye twitched a second time.

(He told it to knock it off.

It didn’t listen.) 

No one acknowledged Eddie or his outburst, which meant he was just skulking behind the boys while they all worked. 

Arms crossed, rings tapping a rhythm on his forearm, far too keyed up to do anything other than glare at the back of Harrington's skull.

The King seemed perfectly happy to ignore him.

Likewise, Gareth and Grant knew better than to bother him when he was in a snit. 

Henderson made the occasional snappy little comment, but the brat had mostly left him alone now that they were well into the swing of selling, chortling over the increasing stack of cash Steve kept trying to get him to put into a “safe place.” 

Eddie was seconds away from walking up and snatching the cash himself when Jeff decided it was on him to attempt the impossible. 

Get him to help Harrington. 

“More hands would be nice, Eddie!” Jeff called, looking more than a little harassed as the mom he was helping changed her order a second time, snaking out the last single slice of chocolate cake from another mom who was eyeing it. “Steve and I could really use your assistance over here!” 

Eddie’s glare, which had been doing its level best to try and vaporize the King’s brain, switched targets instantly. 

“I’m supervising.” 

Jeff made a face like he was about to argue, but the King beat him to it. 

“It must be tough,” Harrington said, tilting his head to look back towards Eddie, “to supervise people who are working so much harder than you.” 

Which promptly set the mood for the next full hour. 

xXx 

Harrington was matching him tit for tat.

Every shitty, sneered word out of Eddie’s mouth was met with an equally mean toned barb, though given the repeated looks everyone kept shooting him, Eddie was very much considered the aggressor here.

A fact he cannot believe is coming from his own friends.

What happened to comradery? To Eddie stepping in and protecting them, from the likes of people just like Harrington? 

But no, Eddie makes one fucking comment about how the cookies are probably half hair-spray and suddenly he’s the bad guy.

(Nevermind that Steve had fired right back, telling Eddie that any hair-spray taste was probably from all the drugs he did.)

Was somewhat, halfway--okay maybe amazing, Eddie might have snuck a cookie himself--food really all it took to get them all to turn on him like this?

Erase the years of Eddie being their shield in high school? 

Act like Harrington wasn’t just as bitchy and awful as he had been in high school (even if he was, admittedly, being nicer about it all right now? Almost--aloof, like he couldn’t figure out why Eddie hated him so much, but likewise wasn’t going to take even one eye roll sitting down--and no, no, Eddie wasn't derailing this by thinking about his stupid eyes, he wasn't!) 

Frankly he would have flipped them all the bird and stormed off, if it weren’t for the increasingly weird little comments people were making. 

‘Oh Steve, it's a shock to see you here.’ 

‘Are you doing someone a favor?’ 

‘You know Pastor Jim said something about this game…’

The last one had put Eddie’s teeth on edge, even if Dustin had brushed it off. It hadn’t been aimed at Steve directly but the women saying it had absolutely been looking at the King, as if waiting for his reaction.

Not that Harrington would take the bait this soon, though. 

There were too many people buying fricken…cupcakes and shit, while the King enjoyed the attention of the masses. 

Eventually this tiny crowd would die down though, and that’s when Harrington would change his tune. Start answering some of the questions he seemed to be dodging as more and more people got braver about coming up to the table.

This whole thing was a ticking time bomb, and Eddie would be ready when it inevitably blew. 

To defend his table, his club, his friends. 

Even Henderson, who absolutely didn’t deserve it just then. 

“Dude perk up would you? You look like you’re going to stab somebody.” Jeff hissed at him ten minutes later, when there was finally a break in the flood. 

Eddie ignored him in place of taking stock of the table. (And maybe, sneaking another cookie.)

“Hope you brought more than this, Harrington.” He said, knowing he sounded like a stuck up ass and not feeling an iota of guilt about it. “Unless you plan to run home and bake more like a good little housewife.”  

“Dude.” Grant said, casting him a look like King Dick might leave and take the cookies with him.

“Oh I brought more.” Harrington dismissed, with a small flick of his fingers. “And I’ll have you know you’d never find a housewife more perfect than I am, Munson.” 

Then he turned to nail Eddie with the most shit eating grin he’d ever seen the King wear. 

Facing flaming a brilliant red, Eddie sputtered for a second before finally getting ahold of himself and spitting; 

“How delightful. I--” 

“Okay.” Jeff cut in, forever the mediator. “Gary, Dustin can you help Steve pull the extra stuff out from under the tables? While I go talk to Eddie?” 

“Can I try the tiramisu?” Gareth asked, inching hopefully towards the treat while keeping an eye on Harrington’s hands, lest he get smacked again. 

“Only if you’re a good boy.” Harrington told him sarcastically and goddammit why did that make Eddie blush harder!? 

Jeff sighed, before grabbing his arm and hauling Eddie back, away from the table, right as a younger man in some stupid sport’s jacket asked questions about one of the dice cookies.

“Look I get it man, I do,” Jeff started, voice talking on the sort of wheelding, pleading tone it did when he really wanted something and knew Eddie was opposed. “but Steve’s actually been super cool. We might actually make money off this, and he’s giving us all of it. Can you just… not antagonize him for five minutes?” 

Eddie stared at his best friend in abject horror. 

“You couldn’t have talked to him for more than twenty minutes total. Half of which he spent bitching that you were bagging a cake wrong! At what point was Harrington "being cool!?"

The asterisks were made by his fingers, which Eddie mockingly framed his face with. 

He got a flat, unimpressed stare in return. 

“It was a very informative twenty minutes and he was right about the cake. Now are you going to help or are you going to glower in the corner?” 

Eddie gaped. 

“I cannot believe you right now--”

Jeff didn’t even wait to hear him out.

 “You’ve chosen to glower. I can’t help you man, but we’d all have a much better day if you weren’t at Harrington’s throat every five seconds.” Jeff turned smoothly on his heel.

Over his shoulder he added; “Seriously, don’t come back until you’ve worked your way out of your snit.” 

Shocked, Eddie watched Jeff float back to the front, inserting himself easily between Grant and Steve and immediately striking up a conversation.

With the enemy. 

“I didn’t know you baked.” Jeff told Steve loudly (and very obviously, for Eddie to see.) 

Steve gave a bashful little smile, then shrugged. “It’s a hobby. Got into it back when the basketball team needed to fundraise a few years ago and Tommy’s mom got it in her head we should sell home baked goods. Turns out its kinda fun.” 

“Please never get out of it.” Gareth insisted, a piece of God knows what crammed in his mouth.

“Dude, how many of those have you gotten into!? Stop eating the merchandise!” Dustin commanded, smacking at Gareth’s shoulder. 

“I physically cannot stop man.” Gareth dodged, reaching out for another cookie. “I’m not sorry.” 

Steve just laughed. All charming and buddy-buddy, like it was natural for him to be here. 

Wearing a Hellfire shirt. Making jokes and teasing the guys. 

In Eddie’s fucking place. 

He seethed, fingers twitching, and envisioned the very unsexy murder of one Steve Harrington.  

Cartoon X’s for eyes and all. 

xXx

Trouble didn't hit the table.

It in fact, seemed to stay away as if on purpose, to shove in Eddie's face that he was the one in the wrong here.

Even the questions toned done, as the second wave of moms showed up, this round prompted by some former teammate of Steve’s Eddie didn’t recognize yelling about his apple pie.

Instead, Eddie’s wayward sheep finally made their appearance Mike and Lucas trying to sneak in as if Eddie wouldn’t notice during the new rush.

(Eddie himself almost caused trouble when he realized Lucas was wearing a Not-A-Hellfire shirt, which solved the mystery of where Harrington had gotten his.

He was inching his way towards them, a snarky word on his tongue when he saw Sinclair said something about how he was “already on Eddie’s shitlist for joining the basketball team,” in relation to what must have been a question about his Hellfire shirt, that caused Eddie to freeze.

With the air of a sad, wet kitten, Lucas followed it with; “I’m sure it won’t be long before he kicks me out of Hellfire anyway.” 

Like he'd been punched in the gut, all the air left Eddie’s lungs.

Because before Lucas had said that, Eddie had been thinking it. 

Not really--he’d never kick anyone out of Hellfire.

It was more that he'd thought about it in the way one does when you know you're right, and are having to resort to underhanded tactics to force the other party to come to their senses.

Like a sort of shitty, angry “I should kick you out, let you see what happens when you don’t have us!” kind of innervation.

The same kind he had heard the jocks sling before, when they were mad at each other and--God he wasn’t--he couldn’t be, like them...could he?

Like fucking Harrington, who oh fuck, was patting Lucas sympathetically on the shoulder and giving him some kind of whispered advice. 

Sonovabitch. 

“I’m going for a smoke.” Eddie bit out, vision tunneling.

He knew he needed to go sit down somewhere, before he fucking lost it in front of Hawkin, Harrington and everyone. 

And wouldn’t that just be a treat for King Steve?

To watch Eddie realize he had turned into the very thing he hated, preached against, even? 

That Steve was, maybe, possibly, doing a better job of following Eddie’s own Munson Doctrine than he was?

Eddie barely saw the room anymore--waived off whatever Grant was trying to say to him as flew past, shaking hands fishing for a desperately needed cigarette.

Maybe a hope and a prayer too, because apparently he needed it.

How long had he been like this? 

Been a douchebag asshole? 

Was it the whole year? More than? Or was it just now, with stupid Steve involved? Could he trace this back to that stupidly cute--no, no, annoying, asshole?

Was this some fucked up way of coping with his growing crush!?

Lost in thought and growing self hatred he nearly careened right into Robin Buckley.

Her slightly bent paper reindeer ears marking her as a member of the band kids who had been absolutely butchering ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ a few minutes earlier. 

Vaguely heard her yell Steve’s name as he ran off (because that’s what he was doing. What he always did.

Run--from himself and his own fucking feelings, like a total cliche.)

--but didn’t take in that she was doing more than saying hi to, oh fuck him sideways--her friend.

Because she and Steve were friends.

Good ones, if the freshmen were to be believed.

Rather than go outside and catastrophize in the cold, Eddie threw himself threw the doors at the end of the hall, then up the stairwell, to the second floor.

Tucked himself right into a corner, right there by the stairs.

Sank down into a crouch, hands scrubbing up his face before tangling in his hair, head dropping between his knees, cigarette shoved into his mouth.

Somehow, Eddie decided, this was Steve’s fault. 

He'd have come up with a reason for that, he was sure. A good one even, except he forgot one of the key features of his life.

He was a Munson, and as a general rule of life, nice neat things did not happen to Munson's--but they did get kicked while they were down.

“Okay, what happened?” Steve fucking Harrington asked, voice loudly echoing up the stairwell from down below, and Eddie threw his head back, nearly slamming it against the wall. 

(Maybe he’d pissed off a witch. His life would make a lot more sense if someone had cursed it.)

“She gave me her number!”

That was Buckley, the shrill timber identifiable even as she whispered the words. 

Eddie can’t really see them without giving himself away--could probably make his escape if he got down and army-crawled past the railing he’s huddled by, but figured this is their fault anyway. 

Not his problem if he overhears a private conversation if they’re both too stupid to check to see if someone was seated literally right up above them.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?" Steve was saying. "That’s what we wanted!” 

“Is it!? What if she’s just, you know, giving it to me?” 

“...I’m not following.” 

“Like in a friend way. Not a--”

“Romantic way?”

Harrington has the smarts to say the words quietly.  So quietly in fact, that had Eddie not been in the exact right position he wouldn’t have heard--but he almost swallowed his unlit (he should have lit it, maybe they'd have smelled the smoke and fucked off) cigarette anyway. 

“Sssshh!” Robin hissed, and Eddie can’t see either of them but he imagined her jamming her hand over Harrington’s big fat mouth. 

“Not so loud, Steve!” 

“Sorry, God.” Sure enough, Harrington’s voice is muffled. “How did she give it to you? Did she say anything?” 

“She asked if I want to hang out after band, but because I have that stupid family thing, I told her I couldn’t today, but I can literally any other day, and she said she’d call me, and I said--” 

“Robs, breathe.” 

“Don’t interrupt me, Dingus!” Robin said, voice shrill again, before she clearly listened to Harrington and took a breath. 

 It was big, and deep, and she blasted it back out loud enough for the fucking birds on the roof to hear. 

In a calmer voice, Robin continued; “I said we never traded phone numbers so I didn’t have hers. She grabbed my arm and wrote her number on it. Look, she added a heart!” 

“Okay, here you go! A hearts a good sign!"  

And Harrington sounded--sounds happy for her, practically ecstatic, which doesn’t make much sense given Robin is talking about a ‘her’ and-

And-and-and--

Eddie’s always been quick to connect the dots. 

It’s something he inherited from his old man. A Munson trait he’s tried to make his own through being an excellent DM (and not by robbing people blind or boosting cars.) 

Here, the dots clearly screamed that Robin Buckley was trying to ask a woman out. 

You know, in a gay way. 

Which Harrington not only knew, but was supportive of. 

Steve Harrington, who famously called Jonathan Byers' a queer before smashing the guy's beloved camera into the ground. 

Eddie’s head exploded. 

Or was in the process of exploding--he’s not entirely sure given the tunnel vision was back and his soul felt like it had exited his body entirely. 

Just knew that his world was being remade for a second time in five minutes, and that he was dealing with it pretty damn poorly.

(Maybe God would be nice for once, and just give him the aneurism he clearly deserved.)

Which was of course, when trouble finally did decide to show face, in the form of Dustin Henderson barging through the doors and into Steve and Robin's little meeting.

Eddie knew, because Eddie could hear him.

“Steve! Steve we have a problem!” 

“I’m busy Dustin--”

“Be busy later, we have an emergency on our hands!” 

“And what, pray tell, do you think is an emergency?” 

Eddie, who had instantly latched onto the conversation by the sheer need to have something distract him from his own thoughts, wondered the very same.

“Jason Carver showed up at the table, with a priest. They’re trying to do some whole kind of crazy sermon--is that a good enough emergency for you!?” 

“Oh shit. ” Steve spat, at the same time Eddie yelled it from up high. 

He sprang up, all thoughts of Robin and Steve knowing he’d eavesdropped vanishing entirely from his head as he lunged for the stairs.

Flew down them, because the thing he'd been waiting all fucking day for had finally happened.

He nearly crashed into Robin once again as he blew through the barely closed doors, Steve and Dustin already far ahead of him.

“Eddie?” Robin asked, voice noticeably nervous. "Were you--"

"Not now Starbuck, but we can talk later." Eddie told her, flying right past.

After he saved Hellfire. 

[lesservillain]

iv. someone like you and all you know and how you speak

summary: old friends and halloween shenanigans cw: we see peen. an: i love joyce byers. also pic of matthew lillard is implied to be reefer rick.

Eddie started having night terrors. 

They didn’t come every night, but their intensity had you concerned.

The first one had you flying over the back of the couch to get to him. His shrieks turned your blood cold, and watching him shake and convulse was terrifying to witness. In your panic, you wrapped your arms around him to try to ground him and ended up getting hit in the face. After that you asked your teacher for advice on what interventions to do when someone has an episode.

But you weren’t the only one to suffer with pain after getting clocked in the jaw. The days after an episode left Eddie’s body sore from the sudden jerking of his muscles in his sleep. It probably didn’t help that he had also started physical therapy twice a week either, leaving him sore even with his pain medication most of the time. 

Needless to say, Eddie was acting like his normal grumpy self most days, even when his friends would come over. Though, he did try and reel it back when he could catch himself or with a subtle nudge from you. By now you’d gotten used to his grumpy attitude and knew it was just coming from a place of hurting. In turn he’s been much more cooperative with you. Progress.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” You ask with a laugh, as you get out of your car. Eddie is sitting on the ground leaning back against his hands with his legs sprawled out. Will and Grant sit on either side of him as Dustin pushes Eddie’s wheelchair on its back wheels, Jeff sitting in it and squealing as Gareth and Mike laugh.

“They’re trying to break Jeff so him and Eddie can get matching chairs,” Grant called, eliciting a laugh from Eddie and Will.

“N’they’re gonna pay for his new one when they break that one,” Wayne calls from the porch, lit cigarette in hand. All around him are pumpkins of all different shapes and sizes, like a little pumpkin patch had grown around him.

“Ah, I see.” You nod.

Grabbing your bag, you walk into the Munson home to get your things settled. Glancing over into the dining room, you expected to see the table already set up for their game night, but were surprised to see it covered in newspaper and knives and spoons. 

“Are you guys carving these pumpkins?” You ask, stepping back out onto the porch and pointing at the Wayne’s posse.

“Yep,” Eddie called back. “My PT said it would be a “fun activity” to work on my hand strength," he said with stiff fingered air quotes.

“Yeah, Eddie’s gonna scoop out all the guts with his bare hands,” Dustin says, setting the wheelchair back down to wiggle his fingers.

“Ew gross,” Mike joins in with Dustin’s antics.

“It’s not gross,” you say with a roll of the eyes. “Save the seeds and I’ll bake them for later.”

“Mmm, some roasted pumpkin seeds sounds real good.” Wayne says, putting his cigarette out and standing from his seat. “Save me some a’them when you make em.”

“Of course!”

“Hey, should we show her what we found earlier?” Your ears twitch when you hear Will lean into Eddie’s side. He looks at you over his shoulder, then back to the group before nodding.

And that’s how you ended up following the boys through the woods around the Munson house. Grant pushed Eddie’s chair through the woods, which wasn’t as terrible of terrain as you had expected. If the slight bounce bothered him, Eddie didn’t say. You stayed steady next to him, only moving to let them go ahead of you when the mostly thinned out trees were too close in some areas. 

After a few minutes and a lot of loud conversation between the boys, you came to a small clearing that dropped off into a cliff. It made you nervous to see the boys get so close to the drop, especially when Grant pushed Eddie almost to the very edge.

“Hey, be careful, please,” you called from behind them. 

“Come on, come see how far down this is!” Jeff called, his toes right on the cliff’s edge. You take a couple steps forward, just enough that you can see the water sloshing at the bottom. 

To see it made you dizzy, so you tried to focus your eyes elsewhere, instead taking in the breathtaking view of the lake below. You could see boats, houses, and even a man fishing off of a dock behind his house. If there was a railing or something to hold on to out here, you could see yourself coming out here to sit with Eddie on a nice day.

“Woah, shit!” Your heart stops beating as you watch Will pull Mike’s stumbling body back from the ledge, and you’re instantly done with this whole adventure.

“Alright, I get the idea. Field trips over,” you say, walking over to Eddie’s chair and pulling him back. “We better go carve those pumpkins before it gets too late and the kids have to go home.”

There’s some groans of protest, but they all follow your lead back to through the woods.

“You have to admit it was pretty cool, though, right?” Eddie says, his head tilting back just a bit to look at you. He was smiling. It was something he started doing more and you couldn’t help the way it made your stomach flip every time he did it.

“Yeah, it was definitely a nice view,” you agreed with a sigh. 

“Maybe when it gets warm out we can try jumping from it.” You hear Gareth say to one of the other boys. You recall the large drop from where you all stood at the top and a shiver went down your spine.

“I wouldn’t...unless you really want to get your own wheelchair to match Eddie's,” you say back. Gareth doesn’t let out another peep for the duration of the walk back.

“Okay, since Eddie is on scooping duty make sure you give him your pumpkins once you’ve got the tops off.”

The boys are sitting in their normal gaming formation, except for where Eddie and Gareth have swapped sides so Eddie can sit next to you. The pumpkin that the boys picked out for Eddie sits in front of you since you offered to carve it for him.

“What are you going to draw on it?” You ask him as you cut into the top of the thick pumpkin with force.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says indecisively. “Something scary for sure.”

“How about Mrs. O’Donnell?” Gareth nudges Eddie’s side, and the boys at the table all grimace.

“Fuck no. As terrifying as she is, I’d rather carve a demoba--”

Eddie catches himself mid sentence, horror written all over his face as he looks directly at Dustin. Mike and Will share similar pale faced expressions as Dustin. The tension at the table could be cut with a knife and you weren’t sure how to defuse the situation.

“Well,” Grant is the first to break the silence, “I think that, whatever we all decide to do, that we could make it into a competition. Let the newbie decide who has the best design.” He was looking straight at you and you were caught off guard by the new label. 

“Oh, come on, that’s not fair,” Gareth chimes in before you can say anything, “Will is like, one of the best artists in the whole town. He’s definitely gonna win.” Will sat up straight in his chair, before shrinking down with a smile.

“Hey, now, let’s not forget who designed these bad ass tee shirts,” Eddie says, gesturing at himself.

“You made those designs?” You ask surprised. Eddie nods with pride.

“Yep, when Hellfire was founded in ‘82. We scrounged up enough money to go to a print shop and have these bad boys made at the beginning of the school year. Wasn’t cheap, so we’ve always tried to be extra careful with them.”

“Awe, that’s so cute,” you giggle.

The table erupts in a defensive roar about how it is apparently not cute that their club has tee shirts that they take very good care of. No one was convincing you otherwise. 

You blew them off and distracted them by having them give Eddie their pumpkins. They all watched with amusement as Eddie reached down into each pumpkin and pulled the slimy, seedy guts out of them. Eddie’s button nose scrunched up with disgust, contrasted by the wide grin that touched his eyes. His tongue poked out in concentration as he swirled around the inside of the pumpkin, plopping the guts into bowls and pots with each one.

By the time he had gutted each pumpkin of their contents, Eddie looked like he was done for the rest of the night. 

“Eddie, do you want to save your pumpkin for another night?” You ask quietly, leaning in so only he could hear. He looks at you, brown orbs darting back and forth between your eyes carefully before smiling at you.

“Yeah, please?”

“Of course.”

“See, I told you that Will was going to win!” Gareth shouted, his hands falling at his side with a huff as the rest of the group laughed at his bitching.

“I’m sorry, it’s really good! That’s the most detailed pumpkin carving of a vampire’s face I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks,” Will said bashfully. 

“Gareth, I don’t know why you’re bitching. Your jack-o-lanturn’s eyes aren’t even the same size.” Eddie razzed, goading Gareth until he flipped him off.

“Awe, I thought the mismatched eyes were cute,” you said teasingly, and Gareth froze, turning away from your eyes to stand by Will, who gave him a pat on the back.

As you all stood around admiring the hard work of everyone’s carved pumpkins, the sound of loud music playing grabbed all of your attention. It progressively got louder, sounding like it was coming from down the driveway.

“What the hell?” Jeff said with a tilt of his head.

Everyone seemed more confused than anything, but you clocked the look on Eddie’s face as he looked between the trees of the winding driveway. There was a fear there that you’d only seen in his face during his night terrors, and everything in your body was telling you that you needed to get him and everyone else inside.

“Come on guys, lets go—”

The loud revving of the engine drowned out the sound of whatever song the driver was playing. The car came over the bump at an alarming pace before slamming on its breaks once it got up to the clearing. Headlights blinded all of you, and your body moved on its own accord to stand directly in front of Eddie.

The engine cut off abruptly, the lights dimming enough to reveal fire engine red sports car with a black stripe down the middle. You could barely see the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror through the heavily tinted windows.

“Holy shit,” you hear Eddie say behind you. The fear had left his features, replaced with an elated shock that left you wanting to ask several questions. But before you could question him, Eddie maneuvered around you and the rest of the guys heading straight toward the mysterious car.

Just as Eddie approached the car, the driver side door swung open. A man  only a few years older than you with blond, spiked hair stepped out. The man had to be at least 6’5, his face covered in piercings and he had an over all aura of trouble.

“How the hell did he get this address?” You hear Jeff question Grant and Gareth.

“Rick!” Eddie shouts excitedly.

“Holy fuck, dude,” Rick says, pushing up his sunglasses and slamming his car door shut. He runs up to Eddie and embraces him tightly, bending down to be at his level. Rick pulled back, looking Eddie up and down before bringing his hand down on his shoulder a few times.

“Damn, that dude really did a number on you, huh?”

Eddie visibly shrinks, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Who the hell is that?” You ask Jeff quietly, taking a few steps back to be standing next to him.

“That’s Reefer Rick,” he says with an annoyed tone. “He’s Eddie’s friend. Got Eddie into dealing in school.” Your neck almost breaks with how quickly you look at Jeff.

“Dealing? Like, drug dealing?”

Jeff looks at you and nods. “Uh, yeah? You didn’t know about that?”

“Um, no. I didn’t.” 

“It was just weed,” Jeff as an attempt to save face, “Aaaaaand sometimes random pills that Rick would give him to sell. But nothing serious.”

“Oh, okay. Just weed and pills. Which are both totally illegal to sell but it’s cool right?” Your blood was starting to boil with this new information. You don’t know why you’re even upset, it’s not like you really cared if people smoked weed or whatever.

Really it’s the idea of Eddie getting in trouble after everything he’s been through. Drug dealers are notorious for being sneaky and conniving, right? What if this guy thinks Eddie got money in the settlement and is here looking for a handout.

“Hi," you say in a clipped tone to the man as you approach him and Eddie. You give him just your first name, extending a hand out to him with faux pleasantry as you settle next to Eddie in his chair. “Who are you?”

“Oh, hey, this is Rick,” Eddie says to you with excitement. “Rick, this is my…caregiver.”

Rick takes your hand, looking you up and down before giving you a loose handshake. “Well, hello nurse,” Rick smiles, maintains eye contact with you as he continues to hold your hand.. 

After a beat Eddie clears his throat, and Rick retracts his hand from yours. You don’t miss the subtle shift in Eddie’s chair, making him close enough you can feel his arm against yours. You took the hint, and stepped back until you were behind his chair. Rick laughed lowly before looking back to Eddie. 

“Well, I’m glad you have someone who can take care of you,” Rick says with a cheshire smile. “Especially since I’m sure Wayne is back at work. Must be expensive to live all the way out here.”

“Eh, we had it built out here as part of the settlement, so it’s paid for. He still has to pay the bills, though.” Eddie’s voice trails off at the end. “Wish I could do something to help…”

“Yeah, I don’t blame ya,” Rick says as he scans the land, nodding his head to the guys as he does. “I’m sure you’re not interested in getting back into the business with me given…well, everything.”

“Ah, yeah…I owe you an apology…” Eddie looks up to Rick with a guilty expression.

“For what? Oh, you mean my house?” Eddie nods and Rick waves him off. “Nah, don’t sweat it man. I took everything with me when I went to Vegas so if anyone went in there snooping they wouldn’t have found anything anyway. It looked like they had sent someone in to clean though. Looked nicer than the day my parents—I mean, the day I bought it.” Eddie nods, letting out a breath that he was holding as Rick talked.

“Well that’s nice that your house that you bought is all clean,” you say, grabbing onto the handles of Eddie’s wheelchair, “And since he’s isn’t interested in your business endeavors, I guess that means you don’t need anything from Eddie then, right?”

Rick looks down at Eddie, then back up to you with a curious look. His tongue rings peaks out from between his lips as he plays with it, before popping it back in his mouth to speak. 

“Well, I was just coming out here to see a dear old friend of mine. But, there is one thing that I want to speak with him about. In private.” He leans down to eye level, eyes squinting with how tightly he smiles at you.

You open your mouth to protest immediately, but you feel Eddie push against the wheels, his chair moving away from you as he motioned Rick to follow him. 

“Give us just a second.”

You stand in the same spot, speechless as they move far enough away that you can’t hear the conversation between them. A hand on your shoulder pulls your attention, and Dustin motions you back over to where the guys are huddled together.

“He’s an idiot,” Grant whisper yells into the huddle.

“Yeah, but he’s obviously lost his best salesmen for the high school territory,” Mike argues. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he was asking if one of us would want to start dealing for him.”

“He better not. You guys better not,” you say with a pointed finger at the boys who were still in high school.

“Trust us, we won’t,” Dustin said with a firm tone.

“Well, whatever he wants, it’s probably not good.”

“Well…”

“Jeff, no.”

“Hey, he’s the whole reason Eddie even stayed in high school. He probably would have dropped out if Rick hadn’t convinced him to keep trying.”

“He only wanted Eddie to keep trying so he could keep selling drugs to high schoolers!”

“That’s a pretty good point.”

“What’s a good point?”

All heads turned to Eddie, who was just behind you with an amused smile on his face. Rick wasn’t with him, still standing back by his car with a lit cigarette in his hand, eyes watching you carefully.

“Oh, we were just…”

“We were saying that you two should decorate her car for the Trunk r Treat festival. And the point was…that you could wear a mask and no one would know it was you?”

Everyone looks at Dustin like he has two heads. Where he even came up with that…you had no idea.

Eddie’s curls bounce as he shakes his head. “What? Trunk r Treat? What are you guys talking about?”

“Oh, the Trunk r Treat is what the town is doing instead of regular trick r treating since the roads are still pretty messed up. Everyone is gonna pull their cars into the fairgrounds and let the kids trick r treat there.”

“That sounds like fun,” you say, looking at Eddie with a hopeful smile. “It would be nice to get out of the house for a little bit. You said Halloween is your favorite holiday, right? I think it would be fun!”

“You guys are serious, aren’t you?” The mood shifts when Eddie speaks. “You seriously think it would be a good idea for me to go out into public? On Halloween night?”

“That’s why I said you could wear a mask!” Dustin seems to be the only one who isn’t affected by Eddie’s tone. “And no one knows you’re missing part of your leg. It would be perfect.” Dustin gestures to you, “And you’ll have your guardian angel with you. If anyone does give you shit she can pack you up in the car real quick and you can say ‘I told you so’ to us at the next Hellfire meeting.’”

Eddie’s jaw rolls in frustration, a heavy sigh leaving him as he leans forward in his chair.

“Hopper will be there,” Will chimes in. “Him and my mom are going to decorate the back of his old police cruiser. I-I could tell him you’re going and I’m sure he’d keep an eye out on you.” The boys look from Will to Eddie as they wait for his response. 

“I…I…Let—let me think about it. Okay? No promises.”

The boys all perk up at Eddie’s potential compliance. Chatter about costumes and getting together at Mike’s parents house has everyone forgetting about the concerns of Rick’s arrival.

You remember though. You hear Rick laugh to himself from where he’s leaning against his car. Looking over your shoulder, you watch as he flicks his cigarette away and opens the door. Stopping about halfway in, he looks at Eddie then to you. He sends you a wink, then gets in without another word.

After about a week of convincing from all the Hellfire boys, you, and even Wayne, Eddie finally caved in and agreed to go to the Hawkins Trunk r Treat. Wayne talked with Hopper about trying to get your cars parked next to each other during the whole event just in case. And Wayne also promised that him and his friend Ben would stay close by in town if anything happened. Eddie didn’t really have much of a reason to say no.

You on the other hand had to come up with an excuse as to why you wouldn’t be spending Halloween with your best friend.

“We ALWAYS have movie night! You can’t just call in sick or something?” Tonya pleads with you as the two of you split each others Chinese take out. You shrug your shoulders, the feeling of guilt creeping up like bile in your throat. 

“I’m sorry Tonnie, I can’t. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t made plans with Charles for the night.”

“He probably would have asked but he knows that we always spend Halloween together.”

“I’m sorry, Tonya, but we’re big girls now. Sometimes things need to change…”

Her lower lip pouts at you, and you can tell by the way her eyes are glassy that she’s genuinely upset. If it were anyone else, you would be spending time with her in a heart beat. Ever since the two of you became friends, Halloween has been your thing. 

You’d always been scared of the holiday after when happened with your parents, but over the years Tonya has been able to slowly tear down your fears and make the holiday enjoyable again. Now that you’ve gotten the chance to potentially to the same with Eddie and his fear of going in public again, you feel obligated to follow in her image. 

“I’m really proud of you, you know?” She miles as you as she dabs the wetness from her eyes. “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. Your parents, your grandparents…they’d be really happy to see you working so hard. With school, work, and still helping me out here…Oh, come here!”

She stands from her seat and rushed to hug you, which you return with equal adoration. For a split moment you want to tell her everything. About Eddie and everything he’s been through. About how you’re starting to prefer being at the Munson house over anywhere else. About how if anyone has come out of their shell, it’ Eddie. About how you’re not really sure about Sam, and how you don’t want to admit that there might be a reason why you’re feeling that way…

“Weren’t kiddin’ about your trunk being big, huh?” Eddie and Wayne peer into the trunk of your car as you pop it open. “I’m sure you won’t have any issue gettin’ it in and outta here. Want me t’help ya get in, son?”

“Can I try first?”

Wayne nods and Eddie maneuvers himself to the passenger side of your car. You’re already standing there waiting with the door open for him, holding it in place. 

The Trunk r Treat was this coming weekend and the Hellfire boys were going to help decorate your trunk before Friday’s game. All you and Eddie had to do was get the materials and the candy. You saw Wayne hand Eddie some cash thinking that you weren’t looking, but you had no intention of letting Eddie pay for anything. This was for him, so why stress him out when you know that money is a touchy subject for him?

Eddie gets his chair in position and locks the wheels. Grabbing the “oh shit” handle and the side of the door, he lifts himself up from his chair and pauses for a moment. His face is scrunched up from pain after already having physical therapy this morning. It was hard not to get him to over do it now that his mobility has started to improve, but you would rather him learn his limits than go back to being bedridden.

A few deep breaths and a quick shift of his foot puts his ass on the edge of the seat of your car. There’s a loud thump where his head bumps the low slope of your cars door, but he just rolls his eyes and laughs it off, much to your joy. You think about how two months ago when you started caring for him that he probably would have thrown a fit and fell in it if he were to go through this exact scenario now.

“Good job, Eddie,” you praise. He looks away from you bashfully, muttering a small thanks under his breath. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, you know deep down Eddie likes to be told he’s doing good. You’ve noticed it in the ways he reacts to you commenting on all of his achievements; the coy smiles and the way he starts to fidget with his rings when you sing his praises. 

Wayne grabs Eddie’s chair and puts it in the trunk. “You gonna be able to get this thing out when ya get there?” 

“Yep! I’m used to lugging wheelchairs around by now. No biggie!”

Wayne nods and rounds the car to Eddie’s side. As the two men talk, you hop into the passenger seat and start the car.

“Now don’t go and give her any trouble, Eds.”

“I know, I know,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “If anything she’s gonna give me trouble. I just know she’s gonna be having me dress up in every costume they have there.”

“That’s not true,” you say defensively. “I actually already know what I want you to go as, so if you don’t fight me on it then you’ll only have to try one costume on.”

“Why does that not make me feel any better?”

Wayne barks out a laugh before closing the car door. He waves the two of you off as you make your way down the driveway until he’s no longer in site.

“Okay, let me make sure I’m understanding you right.” Eddie holds up the large, white, round costume that you handed to him, eyeing it skeptically. “You want me to dress up as…an egg?”

You laugh through your nose involuntarily, trying and failing to keep your composure. In your hand you hold what can only be describe as a “sexy devil” costume that consists of a short red dress, a pair of devil horns, and devil’s spear.

“Yeah, and I’ll be the devil, see? We’d—” you snort again, “We’d be deviled eggs!”

A smile cracks on Eddie’s face, more amused at your inability to contain your own laughter rather than at your poor excuse for a Halloween costume idea. He give you a half serious look as he hands you back the egg costume without another comment.

“Awe, come on,” you say as you take the costume from him, “you have to at least admit it was funny.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What’s the real idea that you have?”

You swap the costumes out from the rack for the ones you really wanted to do. Handing Eddie the long nightgown, you hold up what would be your costume; a long red cape and a plaid blue dress with a ruffle under the skirt. 

“Okay, so obviously that’s red riding hood,” Eddie says pointing to your outfit. “But what exactly is—” You hand him a wolf mask, which he takes from you and examines carefully.

“You’ll be the Big Bad Wolf, disguised as the grandmother,” you explain after a long moment of silence.

“Yeah, I gathered that,” he sasses. He takes a few more moments to think it over, and you watch the way he looks at your costume, then to you. There’s a shift in his demeanor that you can’t quite interpret, and before you can think too much into it he finally speaks.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he says, placing the costume pieces in his lap. “Better than the deviled egg idea.”

“Well, maybe next year I can sway you into the deviled egg. But I guess this works, too.” Eddie straightens in his chair, and you swear you could see a small blush on his cheeks. 

After you gathered everything for your costumes, you and Eddie did a little more shopping around for some stuff to decorate your trunk with. Streamers, hanging bats, fake spider webs, and enough candy to feed a small village fill your arms and Eddie’s lap all the way to the check out counter.

As the girl behind the counter rings out your items, you notice she keeps taking glances at Eddie. He’s too busy looking at the check out candle to notice, but you keep an eye on her just in case.

“Is that all for you?” She asks with a pop of her gum. You nod and she give you your total. As you reach for your wallet in your purse, Eddie shift in his chair, pulling out his own wallet.

“I got it,” he says, taking a $20 bill from the billfold.

“Nope,” you say, pulling out your own money and handing it to the cashier.

“No, please. I want to pay--”

“It’s okay, Eddie. Save it and buy us a pizza or something sometime when I don’t feel like cooking your dinner.”

The girl behind the counter’s gum popped loudly as she held your change in her hand. Eddie shrank back in his chair, stuffing the $20 back into his wallet. You took your bags from the counter and plopped them in Eddie’s lap, much to his surprise.

“Here, if you want to help, you can carry these.”

As you push his him out of the shop, Eddie asks you to stop before going off the curb.

“What’s up?”

“Can we go into the Goodwill over there?” He nods down the strip of stores where the sign to the second hand shop is displayed in the window.

“Sure,” you say without a second thought, “Lets put these bags in my car and then we can go in there.”

The store is a little busier than you expected. Everyone from kids to adults were checking out the shelves for their last minute home made costumes and accessories to wear this weekend. It made you happy to see so many people excited about the event.

The boys told you that Halloween can be a big deal in Hawkins. But after the earthquake, those who still remained wondered if there would even be a Halloween this year. Apparently the mother of one of their friends, Lucas, joined the city counsel and pitched the idea in a city meeting and most everyone was on board.

“The only person who protested was Mary Cunningham,” Dustin told you in a hushed tone. “She said it wasn’t safe to have all of the towns kids in one spot for ‘easy pickings.’” Mary Cunningham was the mother of Chrissy Cunningham, the girl that was murdered by Victor Creel in Eddie’s trailer before he attempted to kill Eddie himself. Wayne never told you this, but, according to the boys, Mary Cunningham is still convinced Eddie was the one who tried to kill Eddie, despite the evidence that supports that it was Creel. You hoped that she wouldn’t show up to the event this weekend.

“No way!” Eddie pulls a tee shirt from one of the racks. You’re standing next to his chair rather than behind it to make room for people to go around you in the tight, over stuffed isles. You turn your body, hand on his shoulder as you try to let a lady and he kid move behind you.

“What is it?”

“It’s a Black Sabbath tour shirt! This one’s from a tour they did in the 70’s though. Like a tour they did in Europe. I wonder how it ended up in this dump of a Goodwill?”

“Sounds like it ended up here so that you could buy it.”

Eddie looked at the shirt solemnly. Most of his attire that he had consisted of plain tee shirts and pajama pants that had come from packs at the store. All of his clothes and other personal belongings had been swallowed up by the earthquake and destroyed. 

“Well…” he said after a few moments, “It is only 50 cents…”

“Perfect!” You pluck the shirt from his hands and fold it over your arm. “Keep looking. Maybe someone’s metal loving uncle passed away and his family brought his clothes here. I’m gonna go look at some pants for you.”

“There’s that beautiful smile that I love to see,” Sam says as you push the door of his office open. You gave him a small smile, setting his coffee down on his desk. He stood up, rounding the desk to embrace you in a tight hug, his lips meeting the top of your head to leave a kiss there. 

“Morning,” you say, taking a step back from him when he loosens his grip. “Sorry I couldn’t bring you one of these before today. Hopefully you made it through the week without.”

“Barely,” he said with a sarcastic huff. “Have to admit I missed seeing you more, though. Been busy with midterms?”

You give him an exhausted nod. Between getting everything together for this weekend, helping Tonya deep clean the house before her trip with Charles, and dealing with your midterms, you’d been properly worn down to a barely functioning human.

“Awe, poor thing,” Sam cooes at you, his hand cupping your face to rub his thumb against your cheek. “Sounds like you deserve a little fun weekend. My buddy is having a get together at his house weekend and I’d really love for you to come.”

“This weekend?” You ask. Sam nods. “Oh, no I-I can’t. It’s Halloween weekend and…I spend it with Tonya every year. It’s been our tradition since we were kids. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve been wanting to meet her and this Charles guy you hate so much. We can do a double date. Maybe some haunted houses or something?”

“No! No—I, um, I don’t do haunted houses.” That wasn’t a lie.

“That’s fine, maybe a movie at the drive in?”

“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s not exactly a tradition where we let other people take part in. Charles wont be there either.”

Sam’s shoulders slump as he sighs, his lips tightening into a straight line. 

“Okay, I get it. I’m not going to step on any toes. But…” Sam looks up at you through his lashes, “make it up to me next weekend?”

You breathe in, then out. It suddenly hits you that…you don’t really want to make it up to him net weekend.

“Sure.”

The Munson household is a busy one this cool, autumn Saturday. Eddie and the guys are in his room getting ready for the night. Their collective laughter and talking over each other is the only thing louder than the volume of the music that they have blaring. Even with the door closed you find it hard to think over the noise.

Wayne and Ben are in the kitchen prepping dinner for everyone before the nights festivities. They were joined by the infamous Hopper and Joyce Byers who brought the food by when they dropped off Will and Jane. The same Jane who was occupying the hall bathroom with you right now.

“They were trying to get you to dress up as one of the guys from Devo?”

Jane nods with an annoyed look. “Yes. They wanted me to wear a stupid red hat. I told them no, and said I wanted to go as Pat Benatar instead. She is my favorite singer.”

“Great choice,” your head bobs in agreement. You take a little more of the blue eye shadow on the tip of your finger and smudge it over her eyelids. “What’s your favorite song?”

“Heartbreaker,” she whispers shyly with a smile. 

“That’s a good one! I think We Belong is mine.”

“That one is a good song, too. It’s a love song.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say I’m a sucker for a good love ballad,” you shrug, washing your hands of the make up that stained your fingers. “Now, where is the wig you said you got?”

Jane helped you zip up the back of your dress just as there was a knock on the bathroom door. You pulled the red cloak over your shoulders as she opened it, her dad standing just on the other side of the doorway.

“Jesus, kid, is that enough make up?” He says, his voice raising a distraught octave. 

“Oh, look at you!” Joyce pushes past the disgruntled Hopper and into the bathroom. She looks Jane up and down, her excitement a clear contrast to Hoppers. 

“You look just like her in those pictures! I’m glad we were able to find this fabric to make this jumper.”

“Joyce, she looks like a—“

“Woah, Pat Benatar!”

Will and Gareth poke their heads around the corner of the door frame, both of them dressed like characters from Star Wars whose names you can’t quite remember. 

“Oh, you boys look adorable!” Joyce squeezes Will's cheeks, much to his dismay. Gareth lets out a snicker at will’s expense, only stopping once he’s caught your eye. Then, like usual, he slinks back out of sight. 

In his place Mike and Dustin pop up. Dustin is dressed like Darth Vader, his helmet in his hand as they barge into the bathroom. “Are you two ladies ready to go yet?”

“I think so,” you say, quickly clearing up the mess that you’ve made in the Munson bathroom. 

“Wow, El, you look badass!” Mike says, putting an arm around her for a side hug. 

“Thank you, Mike. She helped.” Jane says, pointing in your direction. 

“Oooh, I get it,” Dustin suddenly says as if he’s had an epiphany, eyes narrowing as he looks you up and down. 

“Get what?”

“Your’s and Eddie’s couple’s costumes.”

The eye shadow pallet drops from your hands with a loud clutter. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“What do you mean ‘what am I talking about?’ You and Eddie are going as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, right?” 

“Well, yeah, but…”

“That’s, like, a classic couples costume!” 

“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Joyce says, her hand on her heart as she looks up at Hopper. “Didn’t you and Margaret Sanders go as the wolf and Red Riding Hood to John Collins’ Halloween party one year?”

Jim nods with a big, mustached grin. “Yep.” 

“I feel like an asshole.”

Eddie’s voice in the hallway catches your attention. Jim moves out of view, making room for Eddie’s chair as Jeff and Grant follow behind him. 

“You sound like one, too,” Jeff laughs from behind him. 

Eddie was being his normal grumpy self today. Enough that you were worried that he might call the whole thing off and not go. But, he seemed to manage to push through. Although you worried that the amount of people occupying his house was stressing him out a bit. 

As Jeff pushed him past the door, Eddie turned to look inside the overcrowded bathroom. Even with all of the bodies in the way, his eyes were on you in an instant. He didn’t say anything, more so looking at you like a deer caught in headlights until he was completely out of view. 

“Foods ready!” Ben calls from the kitchen. Doesn’t take much more convincing than that for everyone to file out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. You take the opportunity to finish putting everything away before joining in the chaos. 

Loud chattering fills the kitchen as everyone moves around the table to get their food. When you do come out of the bathroom, you see someone’s already put Eddie in the recliner, his tv tray set up in front of him as he patiently waited for everyone to finish getting their plates. 

“Hey stranger,” you say, stealing his attention from whatever daydream he was having.

“Hey,” he said with a tight smile. You eyed him suspiciously. 

“What hurts?”

He’s still for a moment, before he sighs and gives you a more genuine smile. 

“I’m just having those ghost pains or whatever.” His hand rubs over the clothed end of his thigh where his leg was severed.

Ever since he started physical therapy two weeks ago he’s been complaining of pains in his leg where it's not there anymore. You asked your professor about it, and she said it's not uncommon for amputees to have phantom pains. There’s not much you can do about it other than try to distract the person having them. 

“I see. Well, maybe eating something might help. Is anyone getting you a plate?”

Eddie shook his head with a shit eating grin. “I told them that you’d wanna do it.” You rolled your eyes, but he was right.

There was still a weird feeling that resided in you about being there for anything other than being Eddie’s caretaker. Even after two months of Wayne’s warm hospitality, a month of being taken in by the Hellfire boys, and being treated as if you’ve always been around by Joyce and Hopper, you still felt like an outsider looking in.

People on foot walked by as the cars loaded in through the entry gate of the Hawkins fairgrounds. You were sure that just about everyone in this town was showing up tonight. It made you buzz with excitement to see all the costumes and decked out cars. 

“Excited?” Eddie asks you, his eyes darting around at the crowds. There was an indecipherable tone to his voice. 

“Of course,” you say, the car moving up a bit to keep up with Hopper's cruiser in line. “Are you?”

“Is Eddie excited about Halloween?” Dustin’s head pops between yours and Eddie’s from the back seat. He slaps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a little shake. “Eddie is probably the biggest fan of Halloween I know. He made a whole one shot campaign based on our party trying to escape from Michael Meyers.”

“What? No way, that sounds awesome. Halloween is probably my favorite Halloween movie.”

“It is a classic,” Eddie says with a grin. “Although, I will say that Friday the Thirteenth did freak me out for a while after I saw it for the first time. Still can’t believe that it was his mom the whole time—”

“His mom the whole time?” The two of you say it in unison. You look at each other for a moment before laughing. Dustin makes an audible gagging sound from the back seat and Eddie wastes no time reaching back to swat at him. You shush the both of them as Hopper pulls ahead, making your car next in line.

“Hi, folks,” the older gentleman says, shining a flashlight into the car and almost blinding you. “Hop took care of your cover charge and told me to make sure you guys get the spot next to him.” The man hands you a paper with the number 66 printed on it. It looks like it’s cut in a way that lets it hang from your rear view mirror, most likely to keep track of the amount of cars coming in to participate in the event.

As the man gives you instructions on how to find your spot inside, you cant help but you notice the subtle way he glances to Eddie in the passenger seat. You’re not sure if the man recognizes Eddie or if he’s trying to, but you don’t stick around long enough to find out. Eddie slips on his wolf mask once you take off inside of the fair grounds. 

It doesn’t take you long to find your spot. The Hopper-Byers group is all helping out to set everything up for Joyce and Hopper to pass out candy. The back of the cruiser is set up to look like a tent, with a fake fire, a stuffed bear, and a blue blanket meant to be a lake side view. 

Dustin pulls Eddie’s chair out from the back seat of your car, helping him out as you pop open your trunk. The effort they put into their theme almost makes you feel self conscious of your trunk, the ‘theme’ looking more like a Halloween store exploded rather than anything cohesive. But then you remember it was put together by Eddie and his friends, and you decide you love it just the way it is.

 “All right!” Joyce calls out once your cars are all set up. She sets a plastic bowl in Eddie’s lap and starts pouring candy into it. “Let’s get this party started!”

“Joyce don’t start getting to crazy before the kids get here,” Hops says teasingly as he pulls on his trapper hat. To go with their theme Hop and Joyce are dressed up like campers, which, in hind site, was probably a good call considering how cold the nights have been getting in Hawkins. You were already starting to regret your costume choice as the breeze hit your legs where your dress didn’t cover.

“Isn’t that the point?” Jane asks. “Is she not supposed to scare the kids?”

“Not enough that they wont come around to get candy,” Will retorts.

He’s half paying attention to the conversation as he looks around. Suddenly his hand shoots up, waving and shouting to the Hellfire guys as they walk through the cars. They all gather together and migrate to stand around Eddie, bags and pillowcases out towards him.

“Trick r treat!” They say in a sing song unison, laughter breaking out among them. Eddie’s head drops in the mask, his body shaking as he joins in with the guffaws of his friends.

As you watch them interact, you wonder what faces Eddie is making under the mask. Recently, you’ve felt like you’ve been able to see the real Eddie slip through the cracks. By now you can tell when one of his smiles is fake or genuine, as well as when his anger is real or just out of pain. But, with the plastic mask to hide behind, will he still feel the need to keep himself so reserved tonight?

It didn’t take long for the night to get going. Spirits were high as children, teens, and adults all made their ways between the cars to fill their bags with candy and other goodies being passed around. 

You could admit you were a little nervous when Joyce gave the bowl of candy to Eddie earlier. But, either no one could tell it was him under the wolf mask, or no one cared enough to say anything.

Eddie seemed to be enjoying himself, too. After a while he started to compliment the different costumes in a scary wolf voice, which the kids that came by loved. He even went out of the way to put candy into the trick r treater’s bags, not caring about the scars on his hands being seen.

“Gonna need another refill,” he says to you as the last group of kids move on down the line.

“Roger that,” you say, jumping up to grab another bag of candy from your trunk, pushing the fake spider webs to the side. 

Some of the bags slid to the back, so you have to really reach in to get your hands on it. Just as you get a grip on the plastic bag, you feel something pulling on the skirt of your dress. You pinch the plastic of the bag, dragging it out with you as you stand up straight. 

Looking over your shoulder, you see that Eddie’s hand is holding on to the hem, pulling it taut over your ass. You’re about to ask what he’s doing when the chuckling from a group of passing boys reaches your ears.

“Thanks,” you say to Eddie, smoothing out the skirt of your dress. His mask looks up at you, and his hand quickly retracts from where it was holding on to you. 

“Y-you’re welcome,” he says, voice muffled by the mask.

As you pour more candy into his bowl, a group of three young girls approaches Eddie.

“Trick r treat,” the girls say, holding their bags out for Eddie.

Eddie is still for a moment, grabbing the candy wordlessly and placing it into the girls candy bags. When he gets to the last girl, he hesitates before letting the candy drop inside.

“Where’s your brother, Lady Applejack?” Eddie suddenly says, still using his wolf voice.

The girl's eyes go wide, shifting between her two confused friends before nodding to the side. The two girls move on to Joyce and Hoppers truck, leaving Lady Applejack behind.

“Munson?” She whispers with bemusement. “Is that you under that creepy mask?”

“The one and only,” he says, his hands gesturing wildly to himself.

The girl looks up and down at you, then back to Eddie. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

You shuffle in your spot awkwardly. You’d gone the whole night with no one saying anything besides Dustin, and you were hoping that it would stay that way.

“We’re not dating,” Eddie says neutrally. “She’s my caregiver.”

“Caregiver? Is that not the same thing as a girlfriend?”

“Basically.” The words spill out of you like vomit. “It’s all the non fun parts of being a girlfriend without any of the perks.” The girl laughs, but Eddie remains still.

“I like her, Munson. You should keep her around.”

“You know, you never answered my question,” Eddie says, clearly desperate to change the subject.

“Huh? Oh, you mean about Lucas?”

Lucas. That was the friend that the boys bring up a lot. He’s a member of Hellfire but hasn’t been to any of the meetings.

“He’s probably still at the hospital with Max. Our parents tried to get him to come out tonight since my mom was the one who put this whole thing together. But…” The girl trails off, looking down at the ground as her attitude fades away. “You know, he still feels guilty. About…what happened.”

Eddie nods slowly. Max was another victim who got out alive like Eddie, but she’s been in a coma since March. Eddie doesn’t talk about her, even if the boys bring her up when talking about Lucas. 

“Erica, come on!” One of the girls friend’s call, motioning her to join them.

Erica shifts back into her previous demeanor, looking at you and Eddie once again. “I gotta go. Nice seeing you, Munson and Munson’s girlfriend.” Before Eddie could correct her, she was taking off with her friends.

“Sorry,” Eddie says to you, but refusing to look your way.

“It’s fine. If anything I should be apologizing.” You plop back down in your folding chair with a huff. “Dustin said something earlier about our costumes being a couple’s costume and I’ve been cursing myself for over looking that.” 

“Dustin would say something like that,” Eddie grumbles under his breath.

“They’re over here!” Dustin’s voice calls out from a few yards away, his Vader mask in his hand as he motions two people behind him. A guy and a girl dressed as Wham! follow an excited Dustin to your car. 

“Speak of the devil,” Eddie says, slumping down in his chair. “And he’s brought his mommy.” You look at Eddie confused. The pair were definitely not old enough to be Dustin’s parents, maybe older siblings at best.

“Dustin, are you sure we’re at the right car?” The girl asks, shooting you a nervous smile.

“Yes, this is the right car. I literally came here in it,” Dustin shook his head and reached into his bag. After fumbling around a bit, he pulled out a full size milky way and presented it to Eddie. 

“Snagged this for ya from the Martin’s car,” he said with a toothy grin. Eddie grabbed the candy and examined it and you could feel the smile he had from under his mask. 

“Good work, Henderson,” Eddie says, looking up at the boy. Dustin salutes him before standing to the side, looking at the couple behind him with an I told you so expression.

“Holy shit,” the guy says, his law slack.

“Is that really you, M—” The girl cuts herself off before she can finish. The two move closer to Eddie, speaking in hushed tones.

“How’re you doing? Dustin told us that him and Mike have been over to your new place,” the girl asks. You don’t know why, but the way her hand rests on his shoulder irritates you.

“Yeah, he told us the lab set you up with a really nice house. Still not enough after what we all went through in my opinion..”

“Steve,” the girl cuts him off sharply. 

“What? We haven’t seen the guy in six months! Am I not supposed to talk about it?”

“It’s fine, Robin,” Eddie says.

“It’s not fine,” you interject. All eyes are on you now, stunned as if they just noticed you were there.

“S-sorry, we didn’t mean to leave you out,” the girl stutters.

“Yeah, uh…” Steve looks you up and down before straightening his posture. “You must be the caretaker that Dustin’s told us about. Name’s Steve. Steve Harrington.” 

Steve Harrington stands in front of you, offering his hand for you to shake. You take his hand and introduce yourself. Steve Harrington is handsome in a similar way to Sam you think. 

The feeling of eyes on you makes you turn your head. The light catches just right you can sort of make out Eddie’s eyes through the holes of the mask.

“What did you say?” You ask, looking back up to Steve after zoning his question out.

“I just asked if you were free sometime. Maybe we could get a bite to eat before you go over to Eddie’s some time?”

“Oh, sorry,” the words poured out of you again. “But I’m seeing someone.”

You’re not sure if it’s just you, but it suddenly felt like the air got thicker. You could feel Eddie’s eyes bore holes into you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

“Shit, my bad,” Steve says, taking a step back. “I thought Dustin said you two weren’t together.”

“We’re not,” Eddie says in a clipped tone.

“Yeah, we’re not, Eddie and I. I’m, uh, I’m seeing a guy from my school. Sam…”

“Ohhhh, okay,” Steve nods, “Gotcha. Well, if things don’t work out—OW!”

“Take a hint, dingus!” Robin whisper yells at Steve. She looks back to Eddie with an apologetic look. “We should probably go, but call one of us some time and we’ll sneak some movies to you, okay?”

Eddie wordlessly nods, his focus on the bowl of candy in his lap now. Steve and Robin give their goodbyes and move along, bickering between themselves as they go. Dustin lingers with you and Eddie for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself.

“Do, uh…"Dustin clears his throat, attempting to lighten the mood. "Do you guys want to go check out the fair at all?” Dustin points with his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s some pretty cool stuff at the back. A haunted house, some games…you know, fun stuff. I’ll, uh, sit and watch the candy.”

You look over to Eddie waiting for his response. After several moments Eddie finally nods, lifting the plastic bowl and handing it to Dustin. You rise from your seat, moving out of the way so Dustin to take your spot.

When you turn to see if Eddie is ready to go, you find that he’s not there. Instant panic sets in, as you look out to the crowd to find him. For a split second, you can see the furry hair on the back of his mask a few cars away. Bobbing and weaving through the clusters of people, you grab the handles of his chair and stop him, making him jerk forward.

He looks back, body tense until he realizes it’s you, his shoulders slumping forward.

“Where did you think you were going?” Anger evident in your tone.

“What do you mean? I thought you were right behind me.” The cutting tone of his voice hits a nerve.

“Eddie, I…” You can feel a whole lecture on the tip of your tongue. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that Eddie is his own person. As much as you’ve grown to want to protect him, he probably knows more about these fairgrounds and all of these people than you’ll ever know. He was a fully functioning person seven months ago, not needing anyone’s assistance just to get through a crowd of people. 

“Do…do you want me to leave you alone?”

The two of you stand in the middle of the moving bodies without a word. It feels like the two of you are in slow motion as people move past you.

Eddie sits up, shaking his head. “No.”

That’s all you needed to hear. Grabbing onto the handles of his chair, you push him through the crowd at a leisurely pace. It takes a few minutes for hm to say something, but the paper mache ghost from Ghost Busters hanging off of a cars trunk catches his attention.

“Woah, that’s awesome!” Eddie points it out to you.

“Do you think they made that?”

“I bet they got it at a Halloween store.”

Conversation flowed like that between you as you both rated the cars out of 10 as you passed. There were more cars like yours that decorated just enough to be passable, but a good majority of the citizens of Hawkins really do mean business when it comes to Halloween. 

“They made their car look like a dragon!” Eddie shouts over his shoulder to you. “How is that not the best car?!”

“It’s totally an awesome car, but, I’m sorry, the literal hearse with a guy dressed as Dracula in a coffin was hands down the best.”

Eddie slumps back in his chair in frustration, his mask looking up at you dramatically while you push him. You smile down at him, happy to see him having so much fun. He jerks forward and clears his throat, mask moving quickly as if he’s looking for something.

“Oh, look they’re selling popcorn,” Eddie nods to a booth set up off to the side of the cars. It looks like a girl scouts group of some kind, all the girls at the booth wearing patch covered sashes over their costumes. The sign on the booth read “Twenty-five cent popcorn. Proceeds go to Hawkins Rebuild Fund.”

“Hmmm,” you hum curiously. “We should get some. I could use something salty to cleanse my palate from all the candy.”

“Yeah, I think I might puke if I even think about a Reese’s Cup right now.”

You grab a bottle of water and a bag of popcorn to split between the two of you. Not wanting to stop your perusing of the cars, you continued on with Eddie popping a piece under his mask for him and then lifting a few pieces up to your mouth for you to much on.

Continuing on, you finally reach the back end of the fairgrounds. A few fires were going with groups of people gathered around. They talked over cider or roasted marshmallows to shove between graham crackers, adding their favorite candy pieces to complete their sweet treats. 

A few games were set up. Kids and tipsy grown men bobbed for apples in a big trough of water. A partially enclosed area was set up for smaller kids and their exhausted parents to take a break away from the older kids. 

But in the very back was a make shift haunted house, it’s entrance painted to look as if you were walking into a large jack o lantern. Around it were several tarps meant to cover whatever the haunted house was put together with, various paper decorations taped to it to make it look more festive.

“We should go in there,” Eddie says excitedly. “Wonder if it’s dark enough I can take this mask off for a bit.”

“I don’t know Eddie…” you say hesitantly. You weren’t the biggest fan of haunted houses. Being scared from a movie is one thing, but the lack of control you could have in a haunted house made you uncomfortable. 

You also never knew what was going to set you off. The last haunted house you went to with Tonya and some friends in high school was set up to look like an actual house. It didn’t really bother you until one of the actors snuck up behind you, whispering in your ear. It immediately took you back to…

“Awe, come on. Don’t tell me you’re scared?” Eddie teases. “I doubt that Hawkins could make an actually scary haunted house. I bet they have one of those rooms where they make you feel peeled grapes and tell you that it’s eyeballs.”

“I’m not scared,” you say with a level tone, “I’m more worried about you. What if you have a night terror and end up needing me to sit at the end while you sleep tonight?”

Eddie freezes, his eyes wide and looking into yours through the holes in the mask. You feel like you said something wrong, but you’re not sure what.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Eddie starts to laugh, clearly trying to get a rise out of you. It both relieves and pisses you off. 

“Eddie, you’re such an asshole! I thought I hurt your feelings!”

“You did, little red,” he feigns offense, his hands resting over his heart. “I can’t believe you would make fun of me. I’m wounded. How will you ever make it up to me?”

“Oh my god,” you say with exasperation. “I’m so sorry Mr.Wolf. I guess I can be brave and take you through the haunted house if that will suffice.”

Eddie fake sniffled and nods. “Yes, I think I may be able to forgive and forget your offense if you lend me your company inside this estate.”

The two of you get in line, chatting for the few minutes it takes to get to the front. When it’s finally your turn, the lanky teen at the door looked down at Eddie. 

“Uh, be careful with your chair, man. Should be good, but, uh, there might be some bumps between the rooms. That alright?”

Eddie nods and the boy ushers the two of you inside. It looks like the haunted house might be made of several sheds or storage units placed together to make a long string of rooms. A lot of the rooms were more silly than scary, but a few people dressed in costumes were able to get some scares out of you and Eddie.

Well, you more than Eddie.

You hadn’t even realized that you were leaning so close to him. It was a reflex to bury your face against him when you got scared, laughing the whole time as you pushed on to the next room. He didn’t seem to mind, probably too busy laughing at your reactions to care. 

You wondered if the actors were talking with each other, because it felt like more people were trying to scare you the further into the haunt you went. By the end you were practically strangling Eddie, your arms wrapped around his shoulders  with your face against the back of his neck as he guided you both through the exit that exited to the other side of the fairground lot. 

“They were so mean!” The words came out in strained huffs as you tried to catch your breath, still laughing from all the nerves. Eddie probably would have been keeled over with how hard he was cackling. He lifted his mask briefly to wipe the tears from his eyes, his hair sticking to his forehead with how much he was sweating under the plastic.

“Holy shit,” he barks out. “That was sooooo worth it. I want to see how bad you get scared in a haunted house that’s actually scary.”

“I can’t believe you’d want to put me through that after everything I’ve done for you,” you say with faux offense. 

“Can’t help it,” he says with a shrug, “I guess I’m a bit of a sadist.”

“Hmmm why does that not at all surprise me.”

The rest of the night went on without a hitch. The guys showed up again eventually, making base between yours and Hopper’s car to trade candy. Jane told you that she got lots of compliments on her costume and thanked you over and over for helping her with her make up. Joyce took the opportunity to get everyone together to take pictures. Apparently Will’s older brother, Jonathan, left one of his cameras with them to take pictures while he’s off at college and Joyce took that task very seriously. 

“Let me get one with the two of you!” She says to you and Eddie. Eddie looks at you and you shrug.

“Do you want to lean on me?” You ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“So you can have a picture not in your chair. I can hold you up--oh we can make it look like you’re trying to eat me?”

Eddie stands, leaning against you as you have your arms around him in a tight hug. Joyce takes a few steps forward to get his chair out of frame, giving you both the go ahead to make a pose. Eddie lets go of you, posing with his hands as if he was about to grab you, the mouth of his mask about an inch from your face. You hold on to him with one arm, letting him lean into you as you let your other hand fly back with fake terror. 

The bright flash from the camera has you grabbing Eddie fully once again. You were able to feel his leg wobbling, still not used to holding up his whole weight. Eddie plopped back into his chair, letting out the breath he had been holding.

After a while the festivities began to wind down as cars started making their exit. When Eddie’s back started to hurt from being in his chair for so long, you decided to join the rest of the crowd and leave. Dustin helped load Eddie up in the car as you cleaned up any mess that had been made.

“Dustin, why don’t you ride with us?” Joyce calls over from their car. “Eddie’s probably tired and ready to get home. You’re staying at the Wheeler’s anyway, right?”

Dustin looks at Eddie, whose mask was up enough to let his face breathe, to you, who looked like you were ready to climb into bed and pass out. Gears turned under those tight curls. A vision of the two of you “accidentally” falling asleep in each others arms on the couch and waking up all embarrassed, until you inevitably confess your feelings for each other and get married and grow old together was clear as day in his mind. 

“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks Mrs.B.”

“Do you even want to attempt a shower?” You ask Eddie with a yawn, eyeing his devil faced pumpkin that the two of you carved that sits next to the front door.

“I feel gross after sweating in that mask,” he yawns in reaction to your yawn, fumbling to get his keys in the lock. “But, honestly, I’ll probably fall asleep sitting in there.”

Eddie pushed the door open, and wheels inside. You can barely get a foot in the front door when Eddie stops abruptly. You follow his gaze to the couch, and are surprised to see Ben leaning against Wayne. His head rests on Wayne’s shoulder, Wayne’s bald head lays against Ben’s head as the two of them snore intermittently. 

Eddie turns slowly back towards you with wide eyes. You place your finger against your lips, giving him a silent shush as you slowly maneuver his chair to his room. Eddie doesn’t say a word, even after you close the door to his room. He’s as pale as a ghost, still looking as you as if he was waiting for you do to…something.

“What’s wrong?” You ask him, and he flinches. He finally blinks when he realizes that you’re not going to say anything, tension leaving his body until he’s visibly exhausted.

“Nothing, I just…ugh I really need to shower. But I’m so tired.” He sprawls out in his chair, hands running over his face and through his matter hair. The icky feeling of being outside and around people begins to make your skin crawl, too, as you feel a shower calling your name.

“Well, the longer we wait, the more tired you’re going to be. Let’s get you in there so I can go home and take one, too.” Eddie perks up, looking at you with knitted brows.

“You’re not staying the night?” 

“Well, my sleeping spot is currently being occupied,” you say with a cheeky grin, nodding toward the living room. 

Eddie presses his lips together, deep in thought as he tries to come up with an solution so you don’t have to make the 30 minute trek home.

“You could…sleep in my bed? I could sleep in Wayne’s room. If the love birds wake up, they’ll just have to deal with it.”

Thinking about sleeping in Eddie’s bed makes your chest flutter in a way that you hate. Well, rather, you want to hate it. But you really don’t. The idea of being in his bed with him penetrates your mind, and you think of anything else to push it away. Like how you’d finally told him about Sam earlier in the night. You still needed to psycho analyze his reaction to the news, which was how you usually passed the time in the car.

“I’ll think about it.” Eddie nods, accepting that as your answer for now.

You set up the shower for Eddie, hardly a word between the two of you with the combined low energy. You quietly snuck Eddie’s dirty clothes into the laundry room as he showered, taking a few minutes to pick up the kitchen in hopes to lessen the work load for Wayne tomorrow.

When you returned to the shower, Eddie had just turned off the water. He was humming a song to himself, probably to keep himself awake as he went through the motions of his shower. 

He pulled the curtain open, and slowly blinked at you. You understood his message, taking the few steps to stand beside him. You went through your drying routine, getting his back and gently squeezing and scrunching his curls in a towel to dry them. There was no way he would be able to blow dry them tonight so you just took your time getting them as dry as possible. Eddie would start to doze off until the resistance of his hair pulling would wake him again.

The two of you got into position for Eddie to stand and pivot into the chair. You held on to him, and he held onto his towel, waiting for your count to stand. A quiet one, two, three had him pushing off of the shower seat with his leg.

But he was still tired, and he began to lose his balance. One hand shot to hold your arm, and the other grabbed the bar attached to the wall. You felt his body starting to go down and reflexively turned him towards his chair. His grip on the wall threw you off, causing you to fall into him when he finally let go and landed in his chair. 

You braced yourself against the arm rests as the floor was slick under you. The top half of your body was pressed into his, mimicking the closeness of an hug. When you went to pull away, you felt his grip on your arm tighten.

“Don’t move.” He says next to your ear.

“What?”

“My towel fell.”

You snort, resting your forehead against his shoulder, wet curls pressing into your skin. “Why do you have such a hard time keeping a towel on?” 

Ever since the first shower where he almost lost his towel, at least once a week his towel seems to find its way out of Eddie’s hands and onto the floor. 

To Eddie’s defense, it was hard for him to maintain his grip, and you couldn’t hold him up and keep his towel in place, so it was something you’d become accustomed to. If he could feel his towel slipping Eddie would usually give you a heads up so you could keep your eyes above belt level.

After a beat you can feel Eddie’s smile against your cheek. “Only around you,” he says with a sarcastic tone. You suck in a breath, and hope he can’t feel the heat that rises to your cheeks at his playful comment. 

“I’m starting to think you do it on purpose.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “If you close your eyes and move, I can reach the towel myself.”

“Okay,” you say, positioning your feet so you can stand up straight.

As you move your foot back, it bumps against something and catches you off guard. Reflexively, you open your eyes to look back and move your foot accordingly. Once you find your footing again, you shift to face forward once again. But, in your sleepy haze, you forget a crucial move; closing your eyes again.

Still looking down, your eyes manage to land directly where they’re not supposed to. 

It was like a car crash. You knew you shouldn’t gawk, but the site of Eddie’s dick as it lay against his leg had you frozen in place. It was long, reaching half way down his hairy thigh, and thick. What made it worse was that he looked half hard; whether on it’s way to full mast or starting to soften you couldn’t be certain.

Suddenly you became very aware at how revealing your costume was and how close your body had just been against his. Hell, you’d been touching and leaning against each other all night. Was he like this because of you? Surely not. You scold yourself for even thinking about it.

Regaining your composure, you push away from his chair and get your footing. You snap your eyes closed so quickly, hoping that he didn’t notice that you were looking. It felt like you had been staring for an eternity, the image of it seemingly tattooed into your corneas even as your eyes were closed, but in reality it was no more than a second. 

Even if you had seen it, you’d assured him plenty of times before that it wouldn’t be the first dick you’ve ever seen and it wouldn’t be the last with the field of work you were going into. But you also respected his privacy, maybe understanding a little more as to why he didn’t want you to see. If he said anything, you wouldn't make a big deal about it.

“Okay, you’re in the clear,” he says, his voice not giving any hint to if he knows what you saw. You open your eyes as he’s backing away and back into his room to get dressed, leaving you to clean up. Which you do quietly, willing Eddie’s dick out of your mind but failing as you pick up.

By the time you joined him in his bedroom, he was still in his chair, fully dressed and his head nodding forward as he tried to fight off sleep.

“Ready to get in bed?” You ask him in a low voice so not to startle him. 

He looks up at you drowsily, “Are you gonna stay the night?” You shake your head and his pouts up at you. 

“I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ll be okay getting home. I’m…feeling very awake now.”

And you head plenty to think about on the drive home. It didn’t feel long enough to analyze everything, your thoughts spilling over as you stare up at your ceiling fan in bed. 

thank you for reading.

[wynnyfryd]

Eddie

He gets it now. Goddamn does he get it.

Eddie straightens his spine and looks out over the landscape, everything lush and brilliant green; Appalachian hills after morning rain. Eddie is seven again and running through long, dewy grasses behind his grandmother’s house, his fingertips dancing over rich emerald blades. The colors blur together and splinter like facets of fine jewels. He’s hearing all these cosmic sounds: whale calls, bird song. Choirs of elves and men and beasts, and beneath it all the low thrum of deep space.

He takes a deep breath and the universe breathes with him, particles of old stardust filling up his lungs. Rejoicing with him.

Exhale. Om.

Everything is beautiful; everything is one.

And then there’s Steve. Radiant as the rising sun, his smile splays dawn across Eddie’s horizon — casts out the lingering dark, bathes him in pure and holy light.

“Fuck, Steve,” Eddie utters in abject awe. His lips are numb. “This shit is wild.”

——

Steve

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Emerson,” Steve answers, always polite where parents are concerned. “This is Steve Harrington.”

“Oh, hi Steve, sweetheart! How are you?”

Steve bites back the sigh he’s desperate to let out. Bake a woman brownies one time and she’s fucking obsessed with you. He doesn’t have time for this. “Oh, I’m great, thank you. Is Gareth around?”

“Sure! Let me go grab him for you.”

There’s white noise over the line, muffled sounds of movement, thudding footsteps down the stairs, and then Gareth finally answers, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself, you little jackass. What the fuck did you make my boyfriend take?”

“First of all, I didn’t make him take anything. He was practically begging. And secondly, mushroom tea.”

“Oh, goddammit; goddamn you, man.”

Gareth cackles down the line, doesn’t even have the decency to pretend he’s sorry about it. “Has he started dirty talking to his guitar yet?”

“For the last, like, twenty minutes, yeah.”

“Oh, good.”

“How is that good?”

“Means the trip’s almost over. Give it half an hour; he’s gonna doze off and wake up craving mac and cheese like a motherfucker.”

From the bedroom, Steve hears Eddie mumble-singing some unbelievably horny sentiments to his instrument. “I hate you so much.”

“Mom wants more brownies, by the way.”

“So. Much.”

[zamiecmunson]

scooby snacks

eddie x reader

you accidentally eat some of eddie’s very special brownies

i love edibles. i love scooby doo. i love eddie. can you tell. warnings: weed obviously, vomit but no graphic description, wrote this a long long time ago been sitting in my drafts so not too sure what else sorryyyyy 🫶🏻

‘voila!’ eddie whispered to himself, beaming down with pride at his creation. he passed on doing a taste test as he knew the guys would get pissy if they turned up & he was already stoned. plus he didn’t know exactly just how strong they were. that was the purpose after all, stronger than usual. gareth had been complaining for weeks that he was ‘building a tolerance’ and wanted to ‘trip balls’ without taking the hard stuff. eddie scoffed at that of course but came through with some pretty sweet brownies anyway. he left them out to cool on the kitchen counter before jumping in the shower.

after knocking on eddie’s door and getting no answer, you let yourself in.

‘eddie?’ you called out clocking that the weird fuzzy noise was water running.

‘in the shower baby, i’ll be out in a sec’ he called back. both a pro and con of living in a trailer: thin walls.

‘ooh!’ you raised your brows excitedly at the freshly baked batch of brownies on the side. eddie bakes? who knew! you helped yourself to a small corner slice, after taking a bite you sorta understood why he’s never baked for you before. it tasted kinda funny. but the kind of funny where you had to keep taking another bite to figure out if it actually did taste funny or not. two and a half brownies later, eddie surfaced from the bathroom.

‘hey!- oh. oh god, babe!’ his face switched from a sweet smile to deer caught in headlights as soon as he locked in on the face full of brownie.

‘ ‘m sorry they jush looked shoh good and i’m tryna figure out what the shecret ingredient is’ you mumbled through heavy chews.

‘that would be pot’ his eyes stayed at full screen as he gently pressed his hands to the brownie, lowering the rest of it from your lips.

‘oh, i’ve had these before it’s fine! i thought they tasted kinda funky, i should have guessed’ you stayed blissfully unaware and calm, wiping the crumbs off the side of your mouth while eddie’s heart was going at 100 mph. his eyes darted from the tray, to your face, to the tray, to your face then back to the tray.

‘and you’ve had three of these?’ his nervous voice matched his face.

‘two and a half, technically’ you continued to grin innocently.

‘do you, by any chance, perhaps recall gareth complaining about how the usual stuff just wasn’t touching the sides for him anymore?’ eddie did this thing where he used a lot of unnecessary words when he was nervous. you chuckled at his little habit peaking through and answered with a subtle eye roll ‘yes’.

‘well… these were made with him in mind. extra strong. like, should probably just start with a quarter of a slice strong’ he delicately placed his hands on the side of your arms. there was silence for a while. a painfully long while. you focused on the feeling of it sitting in your stomach.

‘well this isn’t good’ you responded with a straight but calm face.

‘no, no it’s not’ you both continued to stand very still. you couldn’t tell if it was kicking in already or if you were just prematurely paranoid.

‘i should probably sit down’ you broke the statuesque silence, eddie guided you to his sofa as if you were his 89 year old grandmother.

‘i’ll get you some water’ he immediately sprung up again after sitting you down.

you probably should have been more nervous than you were. not eddie’s level of panic but somewhere in the middle. weed had only ever given you a slight buzz and the giggles, surely there couldn’t be irredeemably dire consequences. eddie was running around looking for a bucket just in case you were sick and anything else you might need while you stared into space.

after a while, you could hear eddie talking to you… but every other noise in the world appeared just as loud and 10x more important.

‘oh fuck here we go’ eddie caught onto your darkening eyes and droopy muscles. he’d looked after you when you were sick, drunk and stoned. this was about to be his ultimate test.

‘you know,’ you started but got cut off by how dry your mouth was. ‘your place has always smelled good. it smells like boy, but YOU boy. good eddie boy you’ you blinked what felt like 900 times but it really really wasn’t.

‘oh yeah?’ eddie smiled slightly, his panic dying down a smidge as he was amused. he handed you a glass of water recognising the signs all too well.

‘thank you that’s brilliant’ you took the glass and chugged.

‘slow down sailor you don’t wanna make yourself puke’ eddie suppressed a grin, pushing the bucket closer to your feet just in case.

‘do you think sailors get land sick? like, if they’re so used to being at sea would that make them get sick from not wobbling about on a boat?’ your brow knotted with concern as eddie’s shoulders bobbed up and down. ‘wobbling. wobble. wobbly wobbly wobble’ you started to amuse yourself with a slight slur of the pronunciation while eddie’s giggles turned into hearty laughter.

‘that’s an amazing question that i unfortunately don’t have the answer for’ he rubbed a brewing tear of laughter from his face and stared adoringly at your hazed state.

‘since when do you not know everything? you know everything ever, actually. you always have an answer’ you responded with upmost seriousness. on a normal day, that might have come off as condescending. but weirdly, it gave eddie a huge confidence boost as he could tell you were being completely genuine.

‘i know what goes on in your brain, not sailors i’m afraid. i’ll try do better in the future’ he petted your head like a dog and ruffled your hair. god, it felt amazing. like a head massage worthy of 10 million dollars.

‘what am i thinking right now?’ you continued to slur, smiling into his touch.

‘mcdonald’s probably, though it might be a bit early for that stage’ he continued to massage your head, fantasising about how good it probably felt from your perspective. you may as well have been purring like a cat.

‘mcdonald’s…’ you whispered not even almost comprehending what that word meant. until approximately 15 seconds after it sunk in. ‘MCDONALD’S!’ you attempted to spring up but in real time just un-slumped your shoulders and opened your eyes wide. eddie did his biggest grin yet and handed you back the glass of water.

‘i’ll get the guys to pick some up on their way over. stay right here’ he kissed you on the forehead and made his way to the phone.

‘uhhh gareth i’m gonna need you to bring one of everything from mcdonald’s on your way here’ eddie didn’t even wait for gareth to say hello when he picked up the phone.

there was a sigh.

‘…how many did she eat’ gareth’s spidey senses tingled.

‘enough. too much actually, i’m in for a long-‘

‘HIIIIIII GARETHHHHH,’ you appeared out of fucking nowhere. ‘NUGGETS?’ why use a full sentence after all? just saying NUGGETS at the man would obviously do the trick.

‘coming right up scoob’ eddie could hear his smirk through the phone. ‘and what would you like shaggy?’

‘drop dead’ eddie responded through a smile. ‘…cheeseburger and fries please’

by the time the guys reached eddie’s trailer, you were in silent mode. your vision was fuzzy, skin felt like velcro, cotton mouth was in full swing, there was a constant ringing in your ear and blinking was becoming an actual task. eddie was starting to get concerned but found comfort in knowing food was on its way. unfortunately eddie opened the door to an unwelcome surprise.

‘no’ was all he said when he met eyes with dustin & mike.

‘what?’ jeff asked holding 2 bags of mcdonald’s, slurping from a straw sticking out of one.

‘they can’t be here, they’re 12’ eddie spoke about the two as if they couldn’t hear.

‘we’re 15!’ they said in unison.

‘no!’ he said again, using his body to block the doorway.

‘nuggets?’ you attempted to shout from the couch but it came out as a dry whisper. only eddie heard.

‘hand over the food’ he compromised the barricade by putting one arm out.

‘idiot!’ gareth barged through the small opening using his bag of food as a battering ram.

‘nuggets!’ you said just as quietly but with a smile this time.

eddie clambered onto the couch you were sitting on to place the brownies on the top shelf before swiftly turning to dustin & mike, gripping their shoulders tight.

‘i’m not supplying class b’s to a bunch of freshmen. its bad enough that she’s out of action,’ without looking, he pointed behind to your melting body. ‘i actually wanna get out of this town alive and not shot dead by mrs wheeler, okay?’ dustin and mike stared blankly, wide eyed but blankly.

‘you do know i’m taller than you-‘ mike broke his gaze to point to the brownies on the shelf.

‘ARE WE CLEAR?’ eddie interrupted, gripping them tighter.

‘yes eddie!’ they stuttered together.

‘good’ eddie smiled, brushing them down.

‘NUGGETS?’ you actually shouted this time behind them, still slumped on the couch. eddie did an almost balletic 180 turn to face you, face softening immediately.

‘coming right up princess’

dustin & mike got a slap on the back of their heads for giggling at the pet name.

15 nuggets, a large portion of fries and half of eddie’s burger later, everyone was starting to loosen up a bit. gareth & jeff saved their food for later so they could feel the full effect, eddie wouldn’t even consider getting stoned before you’d got through the worst of it and the freshmen were just happy to be there. they thought eddie was soooooo cool, yet here he was. babysitting you. being responsible… he thought his street cred was over. but they admired him more, deep down.

‘feeling better scoob?’ gareth was starting to get giggly and watching you devour a milkshake without breathing definitely fuelled it.

‘who..’ you remembered to breathe. ‘is scoob?’ back to slurping with no remorse.

‘i don’t know lets ask shaggy’ he threw the screwed up bag at eddie.

‘does that make you velma’ eddie threw it back in return.

‘dustin is velma, i’m daphne’ he flipped his imaginary long ginger hair. dustin and mike shared a confused yet amused glance.

‘does… does that make me… fred?….’ jeff skipped giggle phase and landed straight in deep thought mode.

‘aww they’re girlfriend boyfriend!’ dustin and mike teased, making kissy faces at them.

‘OHHHH, SCOOBY DOO!! i get it now…’ you nodded into your milkshake. everyone laughed. you didn’t understand why. ‘dustin is totally velma’

everyone was arguing about lord of the rings when eddie noticed you’d gone quiet. not just staying out of it quiet, but not even going to laugh at how silly the situation was quiet.

‘hey sweet,’ eddie said quietly so only you could hear. you tried to move your head up to look at him but it didn’t work. ‘too many scooby snacks?’ he gestured to all the empty food boxes at your feet.

‘mmh’ was all you could manage. he then noticed you’d gone green. without saying a word he picked you up bridal style and carried you to the bathroom, telling dustin only with his eyes what the situation was. dustin suggested they all go to the park, gareth & jeff too gone to realise eddie had carried you across the room. eddie placed you down in front of the toilet and held your hair in a makeshift ponytail, rubbing your back. you were there for a while. eddie was impressed it took this long, he thought you were hard as fucking nails. when it was all out your system he hooked his arm under your shoulders and propped you up on the sink. taking your special eddie’s trailer tooth brush he cleaned you up with a smile. he always did everything with a smile when it came to you, no matter how gross it may seem from the outside. he knew you’d be mortified when you properly came round but seeing you this vulnerable, being your sole caretaker, was weirdly his happy place. you did it for him all the time, he loved, ADORED returning the favour.

picking you up bridal style once again, he carried you to his bedroom. after placing you down as carefully as possible and moving you onto your side, he ran back to the couch to fetch the bucket & water.

‘ez’ you attempted to call for him for the 0.5 seconds he was out the room. that was “ed’s” in your mind.

‘i’m here, i’m here’ he crouched down to face you after placing everything down.

‘ar ou g wa?’ you weren’t even sure what you tried to say then. but eddie deciphered it.

‘i’m not going anywhere sweetheart,’ he swiped his thumb over your sweaty brow. ‘close your eyes’ he whispered before kicking off his shoes and gently getting in bed behind you, tucking you into his frame.

‘ove ou’

‘love you too’ he kissed your ear and stroked your hair until you fell asleep.

the next morning you woke up to the smell of coffee right under your nose. opening your eyes, you discovered a steaming cup on the bedside table and a distant clatter that can only be eddie getting frustrated in the kitchen. rubbing your eyes you sipped from the mug and shuffled closer to the noise.

‘morning’ you muttered, feeling very groggy.

‘good afternoon!’ eddie popped out from behind a cabinet door, hair in a bun with a wooden spoon in his mouth. ‘do you know how many times i’ve reheated that? i kept having to check you were still alive!’ he giggled to himself, removing the spoon from his mouth to give you a big kiss on the forehead.

‘how long was i out?’ you grabbed eddie’s wrist to check his watch. ‘IT’S FOUR THIRTY?’ you tapped at his watch thinking it would tell you something different if you kept attacking it.

‘gareth woke up in the park today, you should be grateful you had a bed to sleep in!’ eddie tucked your hair behind your ears, laughing. ‘shit!’ he noticed his mac & cheese burning.

‘i’m never eating mystery baked goods ever again’ you thousand yard stared over the brim of your coffee

‘serves you right, doll!’ he winced at the too hot mouthful but continued to shovel more in. ‘anyway,’ placing the saucepan down, he climbed onto the couch to retrieve the brownies. ‘it’s my turn’ he grinned.

[mixsethaddams]

@steddiemicrofic prompt ‘Cake’, 311 words

Rated G, pre-relationship fluff, no warnings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You need to tell me your favourite flavour,”

Eddie’s head whipped around.

“Wha-?” he asked. “Mine?”

“Yeah,” said Steve, his hands in a sink of soapy water. “Your birthdays up next, right? I need to know what you like,”

Eddie stared at the side of Steve’s head, clutching the dishtowel he was using to dry the clean plates.

They were clearing up after a Party-only (and corroded coffin) get together for Dustin’s birthday.

Steve baked the most amazing strawberry cheesecake, and even made a special dairy-free cupcake for Gareth.

“Gonna bake a cake for me, Harrington?” snorted Eddie.

“Yes,” replied Steve easily. “I do it for everyone’s birthday,”

Eddie focused on the mug in his hands. No one ever baked him a cake before.

When Eddie was a kid, birthday cakes were store bought. They were perfect, don’t get Eddie wrong, but he was always curious about the homemade kind. If Wayne could have, he would have, but Eddie also knew his uncle was working every hour god sent to keep them fed and warm, so he never asked.

Steve was watching him closely, leaning sideways against the sink with a bubble-covered hand on his hip.

“You don’t need to do that,” mumbled Eddie, willing the blush he felt across his ears to go down. “Why would you even want to?”

“Because I care about you,” said Steve quickly, before a flush of red lit up his own ears. He cleared his throat and started washing dishes again. “So just tell me what flavour you like,”

Eddie bit his lip. They were both staring straight down at their own hands, the air thick with a tension matched only by middle school dances.

“I like…” Eddie said meekly. “Lemon. I like lemon, please,”

In his peripheral vision, Eddie saw Steve smile.

“That’s my favourite too,” whispered Steve, nudging Eddie with his elbow.

[xoxoskai]

NIKOBRAN HEADCANNONS

to keep you going this last week before God of Fury drops<3

Between all his sons-in-law, Brandon is Kyle's favorite.

Levi's is Mia (cousin-fuckers who stole his son and daughter he'll always beef with)

Brandon and Niko are the type of relatives to wear matching clothes on Christmas because Niko would take up any chance to wear matching anything with Brandon.

If and when Brandon bakes, no one gets a chance to even taste what he made before Niko devours it all.

The only place Niko can fall asleep in at record speed is Brandon's arms.

The only reason Niko teaches Brandon how to drive a bike is so he can put his arms around his boyfriend's slutty waist boyfriend.

Remi is terrified on Brandon's behalf.

"Bran, yes, he's hot but mate, look at that guy! He has some skin on those tattoos!"

Astrid shares Remi's concerns but soon comes to find out that Niko is the biggest goofball of sunshine and almost adopts him.

Surprisingly, the one who takes the longest to accept Brandon is Rai. Because it's not her first time meeting the Kings (hello, she's a far relative) and she's worried that her oldest who is actually tender hearted and plagued by demons of his past, might be crushed beyond repair if Brandon hurt him.

Brandon and Landon think they can get away with tricking their in-laws by dressing as each other but they underestimate the Sokolov-Hunters who told them apart the moment they walked in.

Brandon tried it on Niko once when he first divulged about how Maya and Mia used to do it, but Niko could tell Brandon apart from his "psycho" brother in a heartbeat.

"It's your eyes" He had murmured. "Yours sparkle"

Glyndon is weary of Niko but as long as Brandon's happy, she's happy.

Landon is supremely unhappy.

When Landon first opposes their relationship by threatening Niko, Niko flings back "Remember who you're dating and what I mean to them" back at him.

Niko and Landon almost kill each other multiple times.

If there's someone even more unhappy than Landon, it's Crieghton.

Creighton: "Does this mean I can't fight him anymore?" Elsa: "Why were you fighting him before this?!" Creighton: "Is anyone else hearing this buzzing? I should go check."

Niko goes feral whenever he sees Brandon shirtless and vice-versa but

Niko is always shirtless, so Brandon is always suffering.

Unlike Niko, Brandon doesn't carry him into a dark corner to immediately fuck.

If there's no scene of Brandon asking Niko "Who's fucking you?" Rina, you'll hear from my therapist. And if there's not a single, evil, unhinged Brandon moment where Niko is flabbergasted at the change and is accusing him of being two-faced at which Brandon will laugh, lean in and ask tauntingly "What are you going to do? Tell on me?" I will sue.

Brandon's muse is Niko. (Bitch, I said what I said)

Unlike Landon, Brandon doesn't divulge this piece of information to his boyfriend because he does not want to give Niko even more reasons to walk around with lesser clothes.

Brandon gets a tattoo for Niko on his ribs. (cue feral Nikolai)

After which Niko tries to get Brandon's name tattooed on his favorite organ, but Jeremy literally deadlocks the door to his room to keep him inside after Niko asked for opinions in their group chat about his decision.

Niko: You don't think it's romantic? Jeremy, Killian, Gareth, Landon, Eli, Creighton, Remi:

They've definitely rolled around in paint and fucked on a canvas after it. Niko would display it in the entryway of their house if Brandon let him.

They've also joined the mile high club.

After they get engaged, Brandon calls him by his full-name as in "Nikolai Sokolov-Hunter-King" just to piss him off but Nikolai loves being associated to Brandon in every possible way, so it backfires.

Their wedding bands have each other's name inscribed in them.

As does the underside of their ring fingers in the other's handwriting.

Nikolai tries drawing a heart over the i in his name and almost gets smacked.

[youmakemyhearthowl]

Steve likes to bake brownies for his and Eddie’s daughter for the PTA bake sale.

Eddie likes to bake pot brownies with Gareth when he knows him and Steve will have a weekend alone together.

Eddie comes home with his tray of brownies and sets it on the counter forgetting that Steve has the bake sale tonight, he goes to take his shower and Steve calls out a “bye babe love you!” Running into the bathroom and planting a messy kiss on Eddie’s lips before hurrying off to where ever he’s going.

It takes Eddie 30 minutes to realize that the brownies Steve baked are still in the microwave so they wouldn’t cool to much before the bake sale, and his weed brownies are gone.

He panics. Speeding to the school and bursting through the doors where he spots Steve setting up his table for the bake sale.

“Ed’s hey! What are you doing here?”

“Gimme the brownies Steve.”

“What no, Eddie come on i can make you more when we get home”

“Steve give..” Steve goes to pull the brownies away but Eddie crams his hands into them, just stuffing them into his mouth as fast as he can.

“Jesus Christ Eddie what the hell.” Eddie’s coughing now, having choked on the brownies before he grabs Steve’s hand and pulls him off into an empty class room.

“Those were weed brownies baby.” Steve’s eyes go wide.

“Then why’d you just shove them all down your throat!!!!”

“I don’t know Steve i panicked!!!!” If possible Steve’s eyes go wider

“Eddie I ate like 3 on the way here”

Robin gets a call 2 hours later from 2 VERY high husbands who thought they could ride it out and finish the bake sale by helping everyone else.

She’s not the least bit surprised but she is pissed her bubble bath got interrupted