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powderblueblood · 8 months

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HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER NINE — EDDIE the OBVIOUS and the LADY SPHINX

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summary: a tense dinner at rick lipton's place reveals some part of al munson's reason for returning to hawkins. your saturday morning detention is tense, and you and eddie both get more than you bargained for when you crash hellfire club to profile them for the school newspaper. content warnings: MINORS DNI AS ALWAYS warnings for smut, cunnilingus, dick-fondling, p in v, reference to drug usage, slight perv!eddie, silly teenagers having silly teenage fights that actually aren't so silly (kinda antagonistic ronance version!), reference to childhood physical abuse, al munson jumpscare, lacy's dad jumpscare, both lacy's real first name and surname is used in this chapter. no description of body type. just descriptions of a good time eye emoji eye emoji word count: 16.4k

Dear Lord,

Grant me the serenity to accept the shit I cannot change, the courage to change the shit I can, and the wisdom to seize a damn fine opportunity when I see one.

Amen.

When Al Munson cooks a spaghetti dinner, you know he means business.

Once a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes, always a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes.

He learned to cook on the grill, but perfected it in the joint. During one of his stints, a homecoming tour of the state of Kentucky, he fell in with this web of wiseguys who made him stagiaire in their makeshift kitchen, slicing ghostly slivers of garlic with a razorblade.

Al’s insisted on the method ever since. Even now, hunkered over in Rick Lipton’s kitchen, preparing a meal for which Eddie’s already lost his appetite.

Eddie had already given up on the whole there are a bunch of knives right there suggestion, knowing his father loves few things like he loves performing his whole Kiss the Cook bit. He plays it to the hilt, an exercise in tart, rich, floral smarm that beats out the complex flavoring of his tomato gravy by a country fucking mile. Down to that bullshit Serenity Prayer.

“Courage to change the shit you can? Man, you can barely change your underwear!” Rick heartily chuckles, heaping pasta onto his plate. The way the noodles slide against each other, thick and glistening like worms full of nefarious promise, makes Eddie want to ralph.

He hadn’t had much of an appetite for anything since he’d visited the nurse’s office.

He felt weird. Strung out. Guilty. And angry. Guilty like, what got into me, why’d I do that and angry like, why’d I leave you just standing there like that, and why’d you let me.

“C’mon, kid, you look famished,” Al pulls that anger-inducing Cheshire Cat face, placing a solely ornamental leaf of basil on top of the dish Rick passes. This fucking asshole. These fucking assholes. In cahoots together. “Wayne’s Hungry Man dinners ain’t hittin’ the way they used to, huh?”

Al’s smile doesn’t slice through the tension of the room nearly as clean as he wants it to. Eddie feels Wayne stiffen at his right elbow, sees Rick divert his eyes from across the table.

“Well, Dad,” Eddie says, forcibly stabbing and winding his fork through the spaghetti, “You know what coulda solved that?”

“What’s that, huh?”

“You staying out of lockup for longer than the duration of an MC5 song.”

Al doesn’t falter. Eddie bets he could open-palm slap him and that shiteater of a grin wouldn’t slide from his face.

“I’m here now, ain’t I?” his father clicks his tongue, digging right into his own dish, “You really gotta learn to live in the moment, kid.”

Eddie’s spaghetti-filled mouth starts to form around the indignant words, I’m not a kid! but Al beats him to the punch. Quite literally.

“Though, judgin’ by those scuffs on your knuckles, looks like you did somethin’ without thinkin’ it the whole way through first. Huh?” Al slurps his pasta noisily, and Eddie feels Wayne tense even more, if that’s possible. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

The sense memory of silver flashes colliding with Billy Hargrove’s face in the parking lot, the sense memory of you and your vicelike grip trying to pull him off before he killed him. The sense memory of bile blowing through his veins, stumbling upon those lowlifes talk to you like that. Rage blackout. Yadda yadda.

According to rumor, Hargrove was lucky that Eddie didn’t cave his entire cheek in. He still couldn’t totally see out of his right eye, the swelling was that gathered and insistent.

Eddie lets the question droop in the air, before eventually mumbling, “S’nothing. Just– shit at school.”

Wayne had been the first one to ask him, obviously, catching sight of his bandaged hand when he came upon Eddie staring a hole into–you guessed it–yet another Murder, She Wrote rerun, following your encounter on the examination table.

Eddie had given it the brush off so Wayne had given it the brush off. He was no stranger to his nephew bearing busted knuckles, even if it did make the old man’s blood chill every time he saw it. Those interactions always reeked of you poor kid, like Eddie was the perpetual victim. Got under Eddie’s skin a little.

But Al asks him like he knows something. And Rick won’t look at Eddie.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your lovely new neighbor, would it?” Other shoe, meet short, hard drop.

Eddie’s grip tightens around his fork, and in the back of his mind, he summons the spirit of the sharpest tongue he knows.

“Who?” He’s this close to prank calling people using his Lacy impression, that’s how good it’s gotten.

Al cradles his cheek against his palm. His eyes, the eyes that might as well have been scooped out and shoved into Eddie’s skull, they’re such iris perfect replicas, search his son for cracks in his composure. Al stabs, stabs, stabs aimlessly into his dinner.

“You’re a lot of things, Eddie Munson,” he says, “but you ain’t dumb.”

“Truly do not know what you’re yakkin’ about. Can I eat?”

“Come on, Eddie boy! You out there getting into scuffles over that little gold-plated piece’ah something?”

“Can I eat?”

“A little forbidden flame, maybe, two’ah you?”

“Can I eat?”

“Can’t say I blame ya. If I were… twenty years younger.... Or maybe she likes ‘em a little more mature. Think I got a shot?” Al’s teeth are starting to grit, spittle starting to fly. Frenzied in the way he’s trying to eek a reaction out of his kid. “Huh? Eddie?”

Al’s lecherous suggestion of you toed the line of too much for the Munson men, it seems. Eddie and Wayne’s voices overlap.

“Maybe we leave that girl out of this, Al–” “–can I eat, or what?”

SLAM! Al’s fist comes into direct contact with the hardwood of Rick’s dining room table, plates and cutlery and glasses clattering nervously. Rick jumps a little, groaning under his breath. Wayne drags a hand over his eyes.

“You can answer the goddamn question! Shit!”

Eddie, for his part, should probably feel a little scared, his dad raring up on him like that. Instead, he just lets his wound-up fork sag in a pile of spaghetti and leans back in his seat. The thing with Al Munson is this– his bark has always been way bigger than his bite. Especially when he’s as coked up as he is right now.

Ever since he’d roared into Rick’s driveway in that eyesore of a muscle car (alright, it was a little cool– but in, like, a lame Dukes of Hazzard kinda way), Al had been operating in sharp angles and backed-up nostrils.

Shit, Eddie would be shocked if there wasn’t residue on that razor blade he used to slice the garlic. That stupid, reckless, peacocking-as-a-father motherfucker.

He folds his arms, waiting for Al’s tone to pitch on down, for the tremor in his hand to act up, for him to say–

“Sorry. Sorry,” pressed through a line of grit teeth, “I just… Hmm.” It’s like Al is actively trying to plaster the mask of his charming grin back on his face but it keeps slipping out of his fingers. “She’s a real dime. Smart as hell too, huh? Shame about–”

“Al, what’re you gettin’ at with all this?” Wayne asks, and thank god he does. Eddie doesn’t know how much more dancing around the subject he can take, but he won’t be the one to bend first. “What did you bring us up here for? And don’t–” the eldest of all Munson holds a hand up, “--say you just wanted to get together. I don’t buy it. Eddie sure doesn’t buy it. And if Lipton here buys it, he’s a fool.”

Al shrinks, a snot-nosed kid under the magnifying glass his big brother holds to him. “Wayne–”

“You bring us up here to make us part of that goddamn stupid high school feud with that girl’s father? You really spin out that far?”

It’s not often that Wayne speaks up, but when he does, boy. Can that man dress a situation down.

Al falters. Wayne has that ability to knock him out at the knees, and Eddie makes a mental note to ask him how he does that.

“Listen. Alright. It’s not– alright,” Al clenches his hands in fists, a flex in and a flex out. A gesture Eddie notices, because he does it too. As if he’s trying to grasp the last threads of trust from them. “With that girl’s old man permanently benched so to speak, there’s an opportunity for another batter to step up. Okay? Jail sentences get doled out like Halloween candy–who knows that better than me, right?--but life goes on. There is… an opportunity here. Work still needs to get done. Work that I could’ve– that I can do.”

Eddie knows that his dad doesn’t realize he’s saying a lot of nothing, because Al’s always saying a lot of nothing. Vague promises with no real end to them. What catches him this time around is the glint in his eye, hidden behind the drug-induced one, and the glint of a gaudy ring on his finger. A green gem stamped in the middle, like a cat’s harvested eyeball. Huh.

“... let me make good on this, boys. For once. Let me take care of y’all.” Al huffs a faux-humble breath, glancing toward Rick for some kind of illustrative reassurance. “Y’know, seeing how it screwed up that little girl, seeing her big, upstanding daddy go to jail and all, I really–,” a swallow, for dramatic measure. Gunning for Best Actor here. “--felt it. Made me think, Eddie, of all the times when you were just a squirt… Made me wanna do right by you, is all.”

“How much of that doin’ right have you got up your nose, Dad?” Eddie sneers, putting two and two together. Of course this is what he’s back for; not to sell, couldn’t possibly be that simple in the convoluted world of Al Munson, but to supply. To get a suit fitted, pretend to be the big man. “Try before you buy isn’t exactly the most cost-effective policy.”

“Jesus, why, why have you got to make this so hard on me, kid?” Al is just about wringing his hands right now, scaling the apex of his desperation. “You have an in! You have the in!”

The in, of course, being Eddie’s connection to you, and by proxy, your dad. Al’s like a bloodhound that way, sniffing out the few good things that Eddie has going for him from miles off and tearing them right from his hands and acting like he’s doing Eddie a favor by making him his man on the inside.

“This whole town could be ours if you would just–”

That does it. Eddie leaps from the table, chair clattering to Rick’s warped wooden floor.

“I don’t want this whole town, are you fucking crazy?!” he yells, spittle flying, “And–and I certainly don’t want it if it’s anything to do with you!”

What the hell would make Al think that Eddie would hitch his wagon (which, granted, ain’t in too great a shape–he’s barely passing any classes, thanks to a pickup in business he guesses he can thank his dad for) to the living sunk cost fallacy that his father is? What the hell does Al Munson want with that kind of fantasy, one where he’s king bastard of the Hawkins cockwalk when he can’t even stick within county limits for more than a couple of weeks?

Well, Eddie actually has a pretty good idea, one that occurs to him like a lightning strike as Al struggles to keep his temper level. Let Eddie look like the tantrum-throwing brat.

Yeah. Exactly.

He’d wind Eddie into whatever scheme he was cooking up and ditch it, half-baked, leaving Eddie in a kitchen with all the smoke alarms going off. Elbow deep in an unsalvageable mess, because Al could never follow through on anything.

He’d have Eddie exploit your relationship for a couple of instances of, “That’s my boy.” Because Al still thought that trick worked; making him believe he’s loved, valuable, wringing every last drop of loyalty out of him because a boy needs his father… and a father needs his boy, y’know!

Fuck that.

“We should split.” It’s Wayne who says it, batting away the apologetic glance both the Munson men get from Rick– like he’s Al’s keeper or something, managing his moods. Like he isn’t raking in a cash cow from Al’s great Ray Doevski replacement theory.

“No, c’mon–” Al half-heartedly protests, like he could still save the evening but can’t really be bothered.

Wayne follows Eddie’s furious stalk out the door, tearing a cigarette from a soft pack as he hauls into the passenger side of the van.

Eddie, a tightening ball of rage, whacks the steering wheel with one good thump. He’d been stupid enough to entertain Al these past couple of days– out of confusion more than anything else. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

“The in,” Eddie mockingly mumbles as the van roars to life and he peels out against scattering gravel.

Wayne has his cigarette pinched between his thumb and index and lets that settle for a beat or two.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Fists flexing around the wheel, Eddie knows very well he’s been caught red-handed. There’s no way Wayne had gone this long without suspecting anything, even after he’d specifically warned him. More of a suggestion, actually; Wayne knows that Eddie will do whatever he wants, regardless.

Unfortunately, he’s like his father that way.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Eddie says, a shoulder shrug, a mirthless lilt in his tone. “She…”

Again, Wayne stays silent. Waiting for Eddie to tell on himself, like he always does.

“She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this,” Eddie arrives at, voice a little choked. “Whatever Dad’s planning on doing–”

“Neither do you,” Wayne reminds him. This is where Wayne and his stoicism pulls Eddie up short. Neither do you, and the only way you avoid the blowback is if you two avoid each other. But at that same time, Wayne always knows where Eddie’s heart is at. Knows that his heart is too big not to follow.

Even if Wayne hasn’t seen you two together, laughing ‘til you’re stupid like the kids that you are, can’t he see…

“Why can’t this be easy?” Eddie asks, his voice small. Echoes of a littler him, one that Wayne would pick up in the truck after school. Head hanging, backpack trailing, kicking pebbles and cursing the world.

Instead, through a sage swirl of smoke, Wayne’s hard stare seems to peel back some. He’s always known where Eddie’s heart is at. Eddie’s starting to think he wishes he knew less.

—

Jesus Christ, are you ever sick of learning your lesson. Of reflecting on what you’ve done.

It’s exhausting, and more to the point, pointless, and even more than that, boring.

Truth is, you’re beginning to second-guess your adoration of brilliant thinkers. Those motherfuckers knew too much, and in the past week, you’ve found yourself yearning for the days where you got by on knowing nothing but the good stuff! The juicy gossip, where the best parties were at, what lipstick could not stand up to what nail polish! When intellectualism was a bedtime story you’d read to yourself under the fucking covers and you didn’t have to decode the labyrinth of your own stupid feelings!

Sure, you felt like a husk most of the time, but you’d take that over this graceless stumbling shit!

You should be allowed to smash the windows out of Billy Hargrove’s car and no one should be able to say boo about it! God!

Instead, however, you’ve been caught up in an as-yet-unprecedented display of seething and sulking. People are still whispering about you, natch, glancing at your belly like you would’ve if that heinous spawnous prank was played on anyone else. At the very least, they still have the good sense to flinch when you match their stare.

Billy Hargrove’s two week suspension means you don’t have to worry about seeing his ugly face, but it also comes with the two week guarantee of not seeing Eddie.

And the probable delay of your Hellfire article. Which is paramount. Obviously.

Speaking of Eddie, there’s too much speaking of Eddie to do.

You keep replaying the sneak attack from Al Munson in your head, him sliding his aviators down his nose to get a look at you.

“What are you doing here?”

“Payin’ my respects. Your father, shit. Shame what happened to him. He was– well. I was gonna say he was a ‘good man’, but that sounds kinda funny, don’t it?”

It wasn’t about Eddie, except it was about Eddie, because every stupid thing is about Eddie.

Especially the fact that you’re sitting in your college-going beau’s chariot, about to slink into Saturday detention. If it weren’t for him…

“Lacy?” a voice calls from the driver’s seat. “You alright?”

You snap to, rearranging your face into something definitive and sharp and pleasing to the eye. Because you’re fine! You’d said as much when he snuck you into the basement of his parent’s house–why wasn’t he back in school yet–and said as much when he squirmed against you, asking you if you were okay in that weighted way that really meant can I put it in yet.

You’d gotten on all fours because it allowed you to roll your eyes when he was all, oh, woah! sliding it in from the back.

You’d reached around and teased your clit to attempt a climax. Trying to imitate that clumsy rhythm from the nurse’s office. It didn’t quite stick–paled in comparison, like a Simon and Garfunkel tribute act made up of people that didn’t secretly want to fuck each other.

And then he gave you a ride this morning. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to bore yourself out of misbehavior– but you’d told him that you had newspaper business to attend to.

“I’m fine,” you brightly declare for the fourth and final time, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. It was a weird gesture, but the shine had buffed off. He’s cute and all, but you two had gone to see Paris, Texas at the Hawk and he didn’t get it.

He didn’t get how much you clowned on him for not getting it afterwards either. You hadn’t been able to get it out of your head, the way he shrugged away from you at the diner as you ribbed him for his plodding misunderstanding of Harry Dean Stanton.

Coldly, you thought of the trade-off that you and Eddie had agreed on. Repo Man for Paris, Texas once it came out. You had to pretend you liked Repo Man a lot less than you actually did to swing that one, because Eddie wasn’t keen to lock in to some movie about a dude crying in the desert or whatever unless you angled in the fact that you owe me for making me sit through all that machismo.

“You love machismo. You wanted to nail that sweaty little punker, I saw you squeezin’ your knees together.”

“For Emilio Estevez? Please. I had my eye on the old guy. ‘Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ‘em’--that kind of shit really does it for me, Munson, you know that.”

“That why you’ve been entertaining the pleasure of my company for so long?”

“Down, dog.”

Anyway. Fuck.

“Listen, Lacy, I gotta tell you s–”

“Can’t right now! I’m already late and Fred is gonna have my head,” you chime, all saccharine, climbing out of the car. “Call me!” You pray that he doesn’t.

Slam. What an extraordinary waste of time.

As instructed, you make your way to the gym, which you think is a little weird. Detention usually denotes writing pointless, go-nowhere laments on how sorry you are for being such a bad kid, right? Think on your sins, yadda yadda yadda.

Typically enough, no one’s here on time. Everyone’s late. You’re perched on the bleachers like an asshole, sitting alone like an asshole. That’s the goddamn ticket, isn’t it? You’re alone in all of this. You always have been.

Like, for example. The Al Munson walk-on role into the surrealist tragi-comedy that is your fucking life. You can’t tell that to anybody. Not Eddie, naturally, not your mom, not Nancy because then you’d have to explain the continued and complicated Eddie of it all, not Ronnie because just because. And the ickiness of it hangs off your every move, and you can’t shake it, and no one can share it.

You’re beginning to wonder if that’s true of all the parts of you. The ickiness. It’s all a little heavy, isn’t it?

As if on cue, hearing ickiness called by name on the wind, Mr Kaminsky pushes open the gym’s double doors.

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Had to see it for myself.” Your loathed History teacher says, full of glee.

“Sir, if this is some kind of elaborate courting ritual, I have to say, you’re not my type.”

“Careful up there, Doevski. There’s more detentions where this came from.”

“Freak accident. I can’t be caged.”

“Well, let me enjoy the exception to the rule!” Kaminsky claps, and you jerk at the echo.

You sigh so hard you almost unlatch something. “What elaborate torture have you got planned for me today? Want me to run laps or something? Because these shoes aren’t built for that.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lacy,” the teacher digs, “We’re still waiting on your comrades.”

“I’m late, I’m late, I know I’m late!” a familiar voice comes skidding right up behind Kaminsky, baseball hat askew, mud stains on the knees of her overalls. “Some goddamn lunatic tried to run me and my bike off the road–”

“Ronnie?”

“Hey, Lacy!” she calls brightly and breathlessly, slamming herself down on the bleachers beside you.

“Ron, what’re you–”

An unmistakable heel-click rounds its way into the gym, and in walks Nancy Wheeler with her face all pinched like a porcelain doll. She receives your big ol’ center-piece-missing jigsaw puzzle of a look with a knowingly arched eyebrow.

“You’re late, Wheeler,” Kaminsky tries, but Nancy’s already consulting her wristwatch.

“Detention starts at nine sharp, right?” she says, impenetrable as always. “It’s 8:58.”

“Then can I have my admission of lateness struck from the record, actually?” Ronnie asks and Kaminsky shoots her a withering one, consulting his clipboard.

“Alright, we got one more. Give it the goddamn two minutes, but then I’m bumping her to suspension. You wanna count it, Wheeler?” he scoffs. Wow, so he’s like a round the clock douchebag. To everybody.

At what you only can assume is 8:59, the mismatched gangle of Robin Buckley comes slinking over the waxed floor, looking half-awake and pissed off–more pissed off, you might argue, now that she registers her company. She perches on the furthest end of the bleachers, pointedly away from the loose gaggle of you, Ronnie and Nancy.

You shoot Ronnie a look like, what’s the sitch there? Thought you two were getting all bosomy.

Ronnie just shrugs.

“Alright!” Kaminsky claps the clipboard again, “So, this is a fun group. Bunch of smart girls who got caught doing idiot stuff. We’re gonna make you pay for that today. Sound good?”

The whole bad bunch of you just stare at him, slit-eyed.

Your collective punishment, as it turns out, comes in the form of scraping old, disgusting, errant gum and other mystery sticky bullshit from the bottom of the bleachers.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Kaminsky sagely says, handing you each a tiny chisel from the art room, “And I understand that some of you are violent offenders,” that’s a pointed look at you and Ronnie, by the way, “but please. Don’t use this opportunity to take another girl’s eye out. Your community college acceptance is riding on it.”

Motherfucker. Everyone knows Ronnie Ecker is in the running for valedictorian.

He leaves the four of you to your own devices, promising to check up on you all in a solid forty-five.

“How many times you think he can beat off in forty-five minutes?” Ronnie immediately asks as the teacher disappears through the door.

“Depends. Is he doing it in the shameful privacy of his three-door rust bucket or the clandestine confines of the AV room?” you question.

Nancy makes a gagging sound but adds, “And is he using his imagination or Ms Kelley’s yearbook picture?”

Nasty Wheeler! That girl has truly endeared herself to you.

Robin, however, doesn’t weigh in at all. She just sort of glares and angles herself onto the nearest bleacher rung to start scraping the age-old mastication from the wood. Tension in the air.

“Buckley’s got the right idea,” you say, twirling the chisel in your fingers, “Sooner we get started, sooner we get the grossness over with…”

Ronnie sticks close by you, which is nice. You always like having her in proximity. Nancy, who’s nothing but work ethic in everything she does, starts furiously working on a corner a little ways away from you both– and Robin.

It doesn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes of silent, resigned scraping, for you to get bored. And disgusted.

“At what point do we get to do the whole prison thing of what are you in for?” you say, sitting up and letting the blood rush back to your head.

“Well, yours goes without saying,” Ronnie chuckles, “going all batter on Hargrove’s car like that. Did you actually bust a window?”

“Just swung it around,” you say, driving your heel into the bench, “I may have inherited the felony misdemeanor gene, but I didn’t inherit getting caught. What about you?”

Ronnie flicks another gum wad off with her chisel, “Actually, you might wanna ask Wheeler about that.”

Your brow furrows. “Nance?” your voice rings down to the lower rungs, “Ronnie here says you were implicated in her detention-getting.”

“Yeah, um. Well, I heard about everything when you went–”

“--totally awesome psycho–”

“--in the parking lot and… I just. I wanted to clean up all that shit. From your locker. And then Nicole came by, smacking her stupid gum, and it kind of got ugly.”

Nicole. The irony of it, Nicole, gnashing out shittalk about you and Eddie in order to impress whatever unfortunate member of the wrestling squad she’d dug her press-ons into this week. Nicole, who’d already invaded Eddie’s territory, much to her apparent shame.

What a majorette of a bitch.

You would’ve given anything to be ringside for this, her versus Nancy.

“You toed up to Nicole Summers?” a little pause, your voice goes smaller, “For me?”

Nancy sits up, her perm clouding around her. She points her chisel Ecker-ward.

“Ronnie was the one who smacked all her books out of her hand.”

Ronnie pffts. “Like she hasn’t done that to me a million times. Eye for an eye.”

“Nicole wouldn’t even go near her on account of that one time she bit that one kid for catcalling her.”

“Oh, stop,” Ronnie’s gathering a blush, batting her hand all coquettish.

“Wait, that was real?” you say, eyes darting between them, “I thought that was just some freak rumor we came up with.”

Rabid Ecker was one of the less clever nicknames your group of crown ghouls had come up with, so it obviously didn’t stick too long.

“We?” Nancy scoffs, not mean.

“The royal ‘we’,” Robin Buckley drawls from her prostrate position on the bleachers. That sounds mean, the bite in her voice.

Your hackles can’t help but rise at that cold snap in her tone. Does she have a fucking problem, or something?

“And why are you here, Robin?” you call, hands knitting in your lap.

“I was with these bozos,” she says, a note-faithful mockery of your pointed voice, “For some godforsaken reason… and now I really wish I wasn’t.”

“Why’s that?” you press.

Nancy’s whole upper half tenses. “Robin–”

Robin’s chisel clatters on the bench, a toss made out of frustration. She looks to the three of you with pursed lips before letting loose.

“Steve found out,” Robin says, “About the pregnancy test thing. In like, the worst way he could possibly find out, which is so goddamn unfair, unfair in the first place because of Nancy not telling him–like, I get it, your choice or whatever but you guys have been together for, like, a really significant period of time and you know how he feels about you–”

You and Ronnie can’t even get a breath in before Nancy rises from her seat, fingernails digging into tiny little fists at her side. She’s all spit and fury, she’s on Robin.

“Oh yeah, the worst way he could find out, Robin, the worst way which is that you blabbed to him!” Nancy yells, ricocheting around the gym, “‘Oh, I couldn’t help it, he asked me what was wrong and it all just came out–’ Give me a break! I mean, are you really that co-dependent that no one can tell you anything in confidence without you running to tell Steve?”

Robin’s face seizes in a snarl. “Are you really that stupid that you forgot to use protection with your long term boyfriend?”

“What is your problem?” Nancy’s voice whistles through her teeth, sheer exasperation, “How is this any of your business?”

“Should we stop this?” Ronnie whispers, with no intention of moving.

You shake your head in tiny, tiny increments, gossip monger past getting the best of you. “I kinda wanna see where this goes.”

“He is my friend, Nancy! And you broke his heart, dumping him right after– after–!”

Both your and Ronnie’s mouths drop into an ‘o’. You’re kind of disappointed–a big Wheeler-Harrington bust up and you weren’t first on the call list?!

“Jesus, Robin!” Nancy spits, perm flying, stomping towards Robin, “Get a personality! Sublimating yourself onto Steve Harrington isn’t doing you any favors!”

“Why, Nancy? I thought you loved him.” What confusing wording.

“I–”

Okay, these two girls are walking right into shit you can’t take back territory. You and Ronnie rush the bleachers, breaking the negative space between them both.

“Ladies! Break it up!”

“You heard Kaminsky! We’re all holding chisels, this could get ugly fast!”

You look to Nancy and her eyes are glistening. Reddening with the heat of anger and frustration. Robin’s jaw has hardened into a tough clinch, arms bound around her chest. Ronnie, she just lingers awkwardly, not quite knowing where to look. Your hand goes out to Nancy’s elbow, and she jerks away from you at first.

“Let’s go. Come on.”

“We’re supposed to be chiseling,” Nancy seethes. Your eyes roll, no patience for this go-nowhere brat routine, and you lead her to the other end of the bleachers anyway. Saying something like, we’ll take one end, Ronnie and Robin take the other, we’ll get this shit cleared in no time.

Nancy starts working furiously, but that’s kind of not what you had in mind here.

“You broke up with Steve?” you ask, point blank. Like she’d ask you.

She keeps chiseling for a few heavy, angry seconds. “I wasn’t gonna tell him, you know. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and we were gonna be fine. He could have lived without knowing. And then–fucking Buckley– and he had all these questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why didn’t I tell him. And why was I so put out by the idea. Like, why didn’t I want to have his hypothetical baby at age seventeen… stupid shit like that.”

“He’s sensitive.”

“He’s a moron.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” as if you didn’t have irrefutable proof in her favor. But that was the old Steve Harrington, wasn’t it? He’s meant to be some soft-hearted do-gooder dream boy now, right?

“No, Lacy, he’s a moron,” Nancy hisses, spit flying again; you’ve never seen her like this. Blue eyes bold and frightening with conviction. “Why should I have to tell Steve about something like that if it’s just a big nothing? If I was never even actually pregnant or whatever? Why can’t I just have that to forget about myself? Why do I owe him part of every single goddamn decision I make about my life?”

This is a bigger conversation, isn’t it? What you’d once regarded as poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, boo-fucking-hoo is now poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, stifled by his redemption.

“At least if he was still an asshole, I wouldn’t feel bad about breaking up with him. After all this.”

“Now it’s just like you’ve kicked a puppy.”

“Exactly.”

“What total bullshit.”

Nancy shoots the tiniest smile up at you, a stiff little nod bobbing her neck forward.

There’s a long beat as your focus reframes around Nancy. All the two of you wanted were lives of your own. Existences not indebted to anybody, good or bad. Shit.

“I’m the sublimator, by the way. I know that,” Nancy whispers, great big eyeballs glittering at you, “It’s easy to… fold into someone like Steve when, y’know… you’re not exactly likeable on your own. I just. I wanted to hurt her. She doesn’t deserve it. But I wanted to.”

Her chisel gestures towards Robin, working alongside Ronnie in relative silence that Ronnie awkwardly tries to puncture.

You understand that. Wanting to hurt people after you feel like they’ve breached your trust. Even accidentally. And doing it. And the ugliness of the shame after, you’re familiar with that too.

You reach forward and brush a little lint off her collar. “Thanks for getting in trouble for me, by the way. With that stupid prank and everything.”

“What are you talking about?” she scoffs softly, “You covered for me. And you didn’t have to.”

“Hey,” you hold out your pinkie finger. It’s the least you can do. “Promise is a promise, right?”

—

The members of Hellfire Club gather in an awkward row, standing under the odd, warm glow of the drama room lights like a police lineup of suspects least likely to score a date to homecoming. Sorry, Ronnie.

“What do you think,” you say, swiveling your focus to Jonathan, who’s standing there twice as awkwardly with his camera slung around his neck, “Should we take ‘em outside, make ‘em do Abbey Road?”

In the middle of it all sits the man who can’t help but be of the hour, what with the throne and the glowering and the gravitational pull. Eddie, slumped into that wild set piece left over from god knows what drama club production of, like, Henry VI or Pirates of Penzance or whatever, is so beyond unhappy with what’s unfolding in front of him.

Good.

Ronnie clearly hadn’t even fluffed him into the idea. Which she offered to do, when you’d hitched a ride home on the back of her bike after the tension of Saturday detention dissipated. You’d firmly nixed the idea, the sneak attack being the whole point of this thing.

You’d also learned that a two week suspension was no way no how going to keep Eddie from sneaking in and running this Hellfire session, which meant your article wouldn’t be delayed after all.

So, nah. Good ol’ Ronnie, she just let you stalk in there with your notebook and your pen and your glasses and your Pentax-wielding Jonathan Byers, ready to entirely fuck up Eddie’s day, which gave him no opportunity to protest or call for embargo. Because if he did, it’d raise eyebrows of suspicion and everyone would be like, I thought you two were weird trailer park friends? Is something going on? Something emotionally incoherent and ambiguously erotic? Should we tell everyone? Should we call the Mayor?

“Capital idea,” Eddie says, not exactly to you, but to those in general attendance like he’s playing to the cheap seats, “Maybe I can mow them down in my van and save them from this torture.”

Your smile tightens and Eddie matches your expression, both your mouths straining against your skulls. Wisecracks will not save him. He should know that by now.

“Let’s get a couple of the maestro while I excavate the disciples’ brains,” come the instructions and a swift pat to Jonathan’s shoulder. He flashes you a bewildered kind of look.

“Wh– how do you… want him?”

Incredible phrasing. You glance at Eddie, but not really at him–not enough that he can register and sucker your gaze in. Bathed under the dramatic glow like he was born to sprawl all cock-kneed on a throne like that.

“Exsanguinated and hung on a meat hook, preferably,” you say to Jonathan, “But, I trust you. Do whatever.”

As you gather the rest of the Hellfire denizens at the end of the table to interview them talking head style, Jonathan Byers slinks towards Eddie.

Eddie shifts uncomfortably, less equipped to keep up that fuck you stormcloud persona when he’s at the other end of a focusing lens. Plus, Byers always kind of gave him the creeps. Not to be a dick, but. Here we are.

Byers, to Eddie’s complete and utter horror, clears his throat and attempts to scrounge up some semblance of conversation. But, of course, it’s Jonathan Byers so it’s not fucking small talk. Any other day of the week, Eddie could get behind the notion of eschewing such how about this weather we’ve been having type social norms but Byers decides to jump in with–

“So you guys are…” he trails, leading the witness. Snap goes his little aperture. That’s unfair. Means he caught Eddie’s immediate facial reaction which, hands up, he has never been good at hiding.

“Neighbors,” Eddie supplies in a rush, twisting on his throne again. “She can… hear me yelling about DnD from my trailer. S’why she’s here. To shut me up, I guess.”

Byers adjusts his stance, capturing Eddie from a lower angle– a little more badass looking, he hopes. Frame the fucking curls, for god’s sake.

“Gotcha journalism,” Byers quips. Byers quips.

Eddie’s mouth relaxes and he huffs out a little, “Exactly.”

Byers shifts yet again, clearly covering all wondrous angles with his dinky little thirty-five millimetre whatever the fuck.

It’s not that this whole sneak attack article for the Streak thing is getting under Eddie’s skin– Eddie didn’t even have a chance to acknowledge it getting under his skin. You just breezed in here and started sticking bamboo spikes under his fingernails, like the little warmongtrix you are.

And now you’re sitting at the end of the game table, ruby red end of your fountain pen pointing at Gareth, noting down everything he says without even the slightest hint of condescension. These dorks are looking at you in awe and fear, save for Ronnie who just looks smug, and you’re listening to them. Really listening to them. Your face fixed with that hard little glare that tells him you’re recording the minutiae of their answers.

Eddie digs the pad of his thumb into his lip. Why would you want to do this? Why aren’t you avoiding him at all human cost? What is your angle here?

“She’s cool, y’know.” Click, goes Byer’s camera again. “Lacy.”

Eddie’s voice comes out distant, his focus tugging away from you super, super slowly.

“I heard you blew it with her.”

Byers, caught off guard, lowers his lens. “She told you about that?”

Eddie shrugs, like it’s nothing. It’d be easier to pretend like the idea of you and Byers hanging out was nothing if Byers and Eddie weren’t both classified outsiders.

“Well, uh,” Byers fiddles with something on his camera, shrugging in turn, “It was weird, talking to Lacy back then. You know. She was kind of–”

“She’s different now.” Eddie answers too fast, springing to a defense that didn’t call for him. He sits up a little bit straighter, spine iron-rodding, and tries to recover. “I mean. She’s retired the whole icy Swatch rat bit. She’s not, like– pretending to be something.”

Jonathan gets this look on his face. One last click of the camera.

“I wouldn’t know. I blew it, remember?” But you didn’t, man.

Little does he know.

“Are we done?” Eddie says, launching himself from his chair and slapping palms on the table. His DM screen shakes. Byers steps back with a flared little danger zone! look tossed your way. “We’ve already lost–”

“--fifteen minutes of glorious game time?” you drawl, crossing a final ‘t’ in your notes. “Of course. My apologies. Tight schedule?”

Your eyebrow arches as you flash your eyes up at him. His jaw flares. You– you’re good. You’re vicious and you’re good.

“Theee tightest,” Eddie grits through the falsest of grins and jerks his head, waves flying and the rest of his little Hellfire sheepies following in motion to take their seats.

Ronnie takes her time, mumbling under her breath, “You sure this is a good idea?”

And she was right, with what she’d said before. You are using this as an excuse to get in his face–bolstered only by the fact that he had now gotten in your pants, and you weren’t letting him slink off that easy. Especially with the workplace cameo appearance from Al Munson that you had just been forced to live through.

You’d been looking over your shoulder ever since, expecting to see him leering at you over those sickening aviator sunglasses.

“Oh, I’m positive,” you assure her, turning to Jonathan. “I need, like, one or two shots of them playing then you can take off.”

“Waiwaiwaiwaiwaiwaiwait,” Eddie interrupts, an arm raising over his head to signal halt, “Okay, so first, you storm the castle with your little camera boy without my approval, now you think you’re going to stay for the game?” His ire is genuine. “It’s Hellfire Club, Lacy. Members only. We don’t need bleacher bunnies.”

“Oh, come on, Munson!” you lilt, situating yourself on an abandoned desk, away from the game table. “The people want to know how the Satanic sausage is made.”

“The people being?”

“Your critics and fans. What is this all for, if not to piss off Hawkins’ Presbyterian and garner a whole new legion of Hellfire acolytes, huh?”

“We don’t need any help from the press on that front.”

“Really?” You drag out your single-word answer, using the seconds to count the minimal amount of players in the room. Not even Ronnie could boast 100% attendance, with her marching band obligations clashing with Hellfire sessions. Eddie glares at you. Yeah, yeah.

“A–actually, Eddie… I think it’d be… pretty cool,” Gareth says, waver slowly fading out of his voice. “I mean, if we’re in the school paper, my Mom’ll be less suspicious that we’re like–”

“--doing k-bombs in the drama room…” you mutter, loud enough that only Jonathan can hear.

“--and stuff.”

Eddie exhales so hard his nostrils flare, his shoulders tense, he’s about to shit.

“And who else would like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Gareth the Treacherous here?” he snarls, looking pointedly around the table, “Jeff? Dougie? Cyrus? Ecker?”

The dorks erupt in yapping agreement, totally swinging for Gareth’s angle.

“Shut up!” Eddie barks, throwing himself back onto his throne. Ringed fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fine. But this, in the business, is what they call a mutiny. Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re all gettin’ swirlies with half of the Weekly Streak stuffed in your goddamn mouths.”

That’s creative. He really could have had a fruitful career as a bully if he wasn’t so gooey in the middle.

“Munson, I promise you can ride circles around me on a motorbike on live TV if this all goes to shit.”

You make a fluttering hand motion that reads proceed, which he, naturally, hates. He stares at you, like white light white heat searing through stares at you. And then his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath.

What follows is… exactly what you should have expected, actually.

Eddie Munson transports the present-and-correct party of adventurers back into the eye of their campaign. Their mission? Infiltrate a cult of royal knights that have been bewitched by a high priest who is forcing them to sacrifice the kingdom’s innocents in order to fuel his dastardly arcane magic. The plot is… involved. You’d done a light touch of research on how exactly the dragons and the dungeons all worked, so to speak, but it didn’t really seep into the membrane. It’s something you could only really engage with if you saw it in action– you’d have to rely on Eddie and company to fill in the blanks that the extensive lore left. Like, how exactly did these mythical dice come into play? How does a character sheet set you up for success, or failure? What the fuck is a skill check and why does it read so complicated?

And fill in they… kind of did.

Aside from the technical aspects, you find yourself suckered into the story. Quite literally, gripping your seat as Ronnie’s character–a highly capable bard, from what you understand–attempts to escape the hateful royal sect and find her way back to her party. They’d taken her hostage, and she’s managed to escape her chains but they’re ruthless, on her like dogs. Eddie illustrates every sweaty, panicky movement as they close in on her, and your fine, painted fingernails are dug into every word.

Eddie weaves these stories like gossamer– both in the sense of delicate intricacy and destructive nature of that big red monster thing from Looney Tunes. Each plot twist is created to elicit a sense of true foreboding, embellishing how effective his storytelling is. It forces each and every person at the table to face fear head on, dig deep and use what they were given in order to prevail, even if they’re shaking in their boots while doing it– shit, this is good, you should be writing this down.

Blindly, you sketch the word gossamer into your journal, not tearing your eyes away from the table. You barely notice the flash going off to your immediate right– Jonathan Byers’ lens pointed right at you.

“Uh–” you start, Jonathan reaching to grab his jacket from behind you as the game goes on.

“I’m headin’ out– gotta pick Will up from…” he trails off, but you fill in the blank. Nancy had mentioned that Mike was hosting his friends for a DnD session tonight too, and the party naturally included the most junior Byers. You nod, checking the time– Jesus, where had the last three hours gone?

“Tell Nancy I said hey, if you see her,” you say, “and thank you.”

Jonathan shrinks into himself, bashful. “Don’t worry about it.” A beat. “I still want that Echo & the Bunnymen, though.”

Your face peels into a grin that says don’t worry, I”m good for it! and you wave him off. The Hellfire party don’t even notice his leaving, except for Eddie who, being judge, jury and executioner, notices everything.

“...and on that sweltering note, germies and Eckermen, we must bid each other good eventide. Until next time.”

An operatic groan of disapproval goes up from the players, and you realize this must be a regular thing. Eddie always leaving them wanting more. Tease.

“I know, I know, if you had it your way, you’d be locked in here, pissing in buckets and the show would go on all night,” Eddie jeers, rising from his seat to start collecting his stuff, “but I wouldn’t inflict that on the janitorial staff. ‘kay? Scat. Outta my sight.”

With great indignation that swiftly turns into backslaps of appreciation, the Hellfire Club moves out of the drama room one by one. You stay put, and Eddie avoids your eyes completely.

Folding shit back into that madly overstuffed DM folder, he throws a strained-casual, “Need a ride?” to Ronnie, the last straggler.

She shakes her head, smile barely contained. “Uh-uh! Two wheeled my way here and I’ll two wheel my way back– you, uh, have fun though.”

“Bye, Ronnie,” you call after her, voice properly piercing through the air for the first time in hours. Eddie reacts like he’d completely forgotten you were there. Which, impossible. It’s also impossible for him to keep up the whole punk-ass overlord act when it’s just the two of you. As it is now.

Alone, together. Again.

There’s a charge between you, as if that even needs pointing out. Like the electric fences surrounding McCorkle’s farm.

You and the wagonful of your one-time buddies, Carol and Tommy and Tina et al, used to drive out there more than a little under the influence. Your favorite trespassing activity was reaching out for the electric fence, hooking your fingers around it to feel the darting shock permeating your skin.

“What the fuck are you doing? Can’t that, like, fry your brain?” Carol’d ask you, slugging back the last of her beer as Tommy and Steve Harrington attempted to tip a cow in the background somewhere.

“Try it, Care,” you’d giggled, half drunk and half coursing with adrenaline, half alive and half dead, “It feels weird. It feels good!”

You’d woken up the next morning in your plush bedroom in Loch Nora, two little blisters on your fingers, smarting from all that pleasure seeking. Did you regret it? Or did it just make you want to do it again?

Eddie still doesn’t look at you as he speaks from the opposite end of the table.

“Get everything you need?”

“No,” you answer, short. “Missing my key interview.”

Now he looks. Now he has the nerve to. And irises lock on irises, Eddie frozen in place. He knows he’s not getting out of this.

What’s more, you don’t think he really wants to.

“Pretty controversial subject matter,” he says, tone a whole shade softer than the commanding voice of God he’d used through the duration of the session. A little higher. Nervous. “What with the panic, and all.”

“Me and controversy are bedfellows,” your shoulder darts up, “I’m the big spoon.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod; your tone is as marble-solid as ever, eyes trained and undarting, “Like when I implied the Tigers were straddling a generation-defining line of bold faced failure. I got in a lot of trouble for that.”

The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch a little. “Define ‘a lot of trouble’ by your standards.”

“They made me print a retraction!” You’re genuinely incensed by the memory, hitching forward in your seat, “I mean, how insane? ‘Bad for school spirit,’ they said. Like I’m some kind of pep exorcist.”

Eddie tongue folds in between his teeth and he turns his head a split second too late. You can see him biting back a snicker, or something, and point to Lacy and yadda yadda yadda—but you smile, and the tension feels like it’s waning. Thank god, because it is suffocating you. You take your in and up you get, moving to the seat closest to his right-hand side.

“Can we get started?” The fountain pen is uncapped, the notebook cracked, your legs crossing. Eddie sinks back into the throne, his face warming up under the yellow stage lights.

“Okay. Hit me with your best shot.” Fire away.

You’re quick with it. “Why this?”

“Really? That’s your first question?” Eddie looks bemused.

“It’s the least rudimentary of all the Ws,” you explain nice and plainly, plucking up fingers to illustrate your points, “People know who you are–against their will, mostly. People can glean what the game is–or will, once I put a fine point on the… everything that just happened there. What people don’t get is why. Why indulge yourself in this?”

His fingers knit together in his lap, nearly shy.

“Because it’s fun.”

“Nope, too vague.”

“Vague?”

You physically knock the notion with a waving hand, leaning closer over the table, errant miniatures and spare pencils still scattered there.

“Basketball is fun. Chess club is fun. Throwing rocks into a rusted can of SpaghettiOs is fun if you can make a case for it. Too vague. Didn’t come here for the everyman answer.”

“What did you come here for?” That’s loaded. The way he’s daring himself to look at you is loaded. How soft his voice turns is loaded.

“The Munson answer.” It hangs in the air like someone dropped off the gallows. “Dig for me.”

A long, metastasizing beat. Resistance is futile, as it is and ever will be with you. Eddie hitches his arms across his chest, hiding a smile in the heel of his palm. Flattery works with him. Even if you'd never call this flattery.

“Escape,” he eventually tells you.

“Go on,” you press.

“There is this… insatiability when it comes to fantasy. To stories like this, the kind with big, thriving worldscapes. Reading ‘em, even writing ‘em– it’s good, but it isn’t enough sometimes. Sometimes you want to wrap yourself up in the reality of elsewhere. Travel to a world where things are different.”

“But not idyllic.”

Eddie’s eyebrows pull together.

“No. If these campaigns were just… the bad guys are defeated by a mighty sword that you and you alone always happen to have on you, that’s not a campaign. That’s a circle jerk.”

“The idea is to be challenged. To fight for something.”

“Right. To adventure. Beat the odds.”

“And you can’t do that alone.”

“Well, you can. I think that’s called, like, writing a book.”

“Ohh-kay, Eddie…”

“No, no, no, I mean,” Eddie shakes his head, planting his elbows on the table top, “Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the thrill of the unknown? Of not knowing what the other characters are gonna do, or what sick twist the dastardly, brilliant DM is gonna pull out next?”

He’s on one now, so you don’t stop him. Eddie’s eye takes on that mercurial shine, the same one he had while he was cruise directing the campaign. You wonder when he got like this—got bit by the God complex bug. Here, he could dare people to defy him when he’d been the defiant one his whole life.

You think about a littler him, yearning for escape.

“It also doesn’t work if everyone wants to be a hero. Too many heroes spoil the stew, okay, so you need to find other, y’know, likeminded weirdos who fall into different alignments. Those alignments only work when they’re played off other characters. Your merry band of outlaws or pirates or underdogs or whoever. You work together, or you betray each other, or you come back together because of some mighty sworn oath and you see your mission through. It’s not about winning or losing, y’know? Whatever happens out there,” he gestures to beyond the barricade of the drama room doors, “doesn’t matter. Whether life’s beating the shit out of them or not, my little acolytes, as you call ‘em, sit at this table and they’re part of something bigger. Something thrilling. Magical. Alchemic. They’re part of–”

“--a team.” You think about a littler him, yearning for people to escape with.

Eddie flaps his ever-animated hands. “Not my phrasing. But.”

“That thread runs through it all,” you say, drawing a line down the center of your notes with the inactive end of your pen, “Teamwork. Belonging. Victory– an escape from the mundane to victory, especially when you can’t find it elsewhere.”

Eddie’s chin rests on the back of his hand as he squints at you. “Sounding a little sportsmanlike there, Lacy.”

“And?”

“Thought you weren’t pulling for the everyman answer.”

“A hook’s a hook’s a hook,” you quirk your eyebrows, “–and, when you put it that way—”

“When you put it that way.”

“—what really makes you any different from, say, the Tigers?”

“Besides the cult of personality surrounding all jocks–”

“As if you don’t court your own little cult of personality—“

“—we actually win our campaigns.”

You start to retort, then stop. Letting that sink in.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” you say, sketching it down.

“I foresee letters to the editor in your future,” Eddie says, and he’s smug about it. Anything to aggregate the status quo, no matter what the blowback might be.

No one in their right mind here behaves like him. He just… does whatever he wants.

You find yourself wanting to touch the fence.

And maybe it’s that you stare at him a beat or so too long, but Eddie shifts his gaze down to the wood grain, flexing his hand. Scabs still marring his knuckles and all.

“It wasn’t broken or anything, then?” you ask, gesturing to his hand.

Eddie looks back up with a drag. You can feel what’s coming.

“Oh no, it was shattered,” he tells you, eyes-wide earnest and lying through his teeth, “My bones just heal super fast. My mom, she ate a shit ton of canned spinach when I was in ute.”

“Right, the calcium—”

“Nah. Rare botulism side effect,” he shrugs like, whaddaya gonna do!

Dumbass.

“Rare Botulism Side Effect is a good album title.”

“I’ll tell the guys.”

Silence falls again, and if you reach around, there’s something close to normalcy in there. Among the spikes and confusion.

“Um,” Eddie’s face contorts into a tiny cringe, “I found out what the… what the prank was, by the way. I obviously wasn’t here to witness the whole masterpiece theater of it all but– but Ronnie told me.”

A tight and ugly feeling constricts your chest. You look away, nodding through a grimace. You’d opened your locker with the practiced caution of someone diffusing a bomb since that whole incident, which sucks as someone who derives real joy from slamming metal doors.

“Pretty creative bit, huh?” is all you offer.

“Almost too creative for Hargrove,” Eddie counters, uprighting a fallen miniature with one finger.

“Are you trying to say I was being hysteric, jumping on his car?” It sounds like you’re offended, but.

“No,” Eddie meets you right where you’re at with this sparkle framing his stare, “I’m saying it was probably a collaborative effort. You could go seek even more batshit revenge, if you wanted to.”

“And would you be there to stop me before I cut Carol Perkins’ breaks?”

You can see Eddie biting his tongue between his teeth oh-so-lightly… Saliva catching in the low light. It’s warm in here. Stuffy.

“Prob–”

“I miss you.”

You cut him off in such a harsh, unforgiving way that Eddie feels his words rammed back down his throat. He blinks a couple of times, tempted to shake his head to make sure he heard you right. But there you are, your sight line running clean through him. You couldn’t be talking to anybody else.

“You do?” His voice is so small that his lips barely move. His lips, teased by his tongue, wetting them.

“Don’t act brand new. Everything’s harder without you. You have to know that.”

He gets snagged on the angles in your voice. By without you, he can only imagine you mean since he started giving you the cold shoulder and you started hitching rides in that college dork’s Ford Cortina. And by everything, he can only imagine…

“Lace…”

This is hard. This is horrible. This is uncomfortable and risky and as exposed as you have ever been, but it’s necessary.

“I can’t stand the tension of not being around you,” you say, breath feeling harsher as it speeds past your molars, “And I can’t stand the tension when I’m with you either, with you and wanting to–... so what do I do, Eddie?”

You focus on him, adjusting as if you were looking through the viewfinder of Jonathan’s Pentax. Eddie’s face, bewildered and angelic, with his parted mouth and his honorific glow of the stage lights haloing the frizz in his hair. He looks like something you want to commit to memory, as if to say see?! How could you deny this?

You rise from your seat, ever the investigator, and bear over him with hands on the table. Cards on the table, too. A genuine question smarts in your mouth, too sour candy you have to spit out.

“What do I do, Eddie?”

Eddie inhales with a sharp touch as you stand up, inspecting, demanding. He goes to tell you I don’t know… in the meekest of tones but the arch in your eyebrows says don’t you goddamn dare. You terrify him, and you make him dig.

“Forget it. Forget about all of it,” he breathes, almost tasting your perfume, “We can reset. Blank slate. Pretend like we don’t know each other. Pretend like none of this ever happened. It’d be better. Safer. Easy. Right? We could totally do that. We’ve fooled everybody so far. Even ourselves, into thinking this was… we could...”

“Fuck you,” you say in a soft rush.

Eddie only realizes that you’re both smiling when you kiss him. It’s clumsy at first, teeth knocking and everything, your hands winding around his collar and your frigid fingertips finding his neck. The shock of your skin on his, the matchstick crack of your mouth on his propels Eddie onto his motherfucking feet. He leans over you, knocking you into the table as your tongue works its way deep into his mouth.

You give him an, “Mm,” and if feels like an ascent to heaven.

Sparkles in the static makes the stuffiness evaporate, makes the room come alive. Your legs part to invite him closer to you, your hands faster and more insistent than his are. You pull at the hem of his Hellfire shirt and yank your head back, a string of saliva married between your mouths.

Fingers are more bold than they were in the nurse’s office, weaving the leather out of Eddie’s belt buckle. A deep ridge etches between Eddie’s eyebrows and his hands are propped in a mid-air surrender. Your eyes, your everything fucking eyes, are weighted with want. And challenge. Because you always do have to get one up on him.

“Reset this.” You tug at his zipper. “Tell me to stop.”

“Lacy…” Eddie whispers, watching you pull at the waistband of his boxers with his mouth agape. He’d dreamt about this. Thought about this. His cock about jumps into your hand like you’re Snow White and it’s a goddamned hummingbird. Pen marks on your fingers. “Jesus, y–...”

Eddie’s arms angle up behind his head, like a strung-up marionette, fabric of his shirt ghosting against his nipples in the stretch. This only makes him angle his hips further into you, eyelids flickering and his blood breaking the speed limit on its descent. Fuck, and then you fucking touch him– fingertips along the length of him, featherlight and goading.

Eddie’s groan is broken, half-caught in his nose. You’re looking at him like he’s a bad puppy, like you’re teaching him a lesson in scolding masking adoration. You’re beautiful and he wants to tell you so, but it all comes out in a whimper. Your hand closes around his cock, thumb brushing rii-iii-iight along the ridge of his head.

“Tell me to stop,” you echo yourself, and you’re fascinated that it comes out sounding like you know what you’re doing. You don’t. You’ve never been thrust into a net of feeling like this, never had anyone look at you the way Eddie is now– like he’d throw himself on a bed of open flames for you, so long as you kept touching him. It’s drunkard-making. It’s a full headrush. The gradual glisten of his reddening head looks delicious to you.

“Tell me to s–”

Grip tightens around him and Eddie moans from right in his sternum, his arms dropping to cradle around your head. He can’t believe he’s doing this, he can’t believe he’s fucking doing this but–

“Stop,” he gasps, fingers winding in your hair. His entire spinal cord is begging him to buck into your hand, your mouth, your anything, but he steels himself. “Stopstopstop, Lacy. Fuck– fuck.”

Your eyes widen, cheek in his palm. “Really?” Said in the most painful, the most misread did I do something? lilted tone. Your hand doesn’t exactly go slack right away.

“Yeah. Yes,” Eddie murmurs, eyes screwing closed and opening again, the most manual effort ever put behind a blink. “I c–I didn’t do this right, the first time. This is stupid. This is so stupid.”

And so your hands go, and you feel the anchor of your heart slowly dropping… But Eddie drops his face right down to yours.

“You deserve… so much more than giving me a handy on school property,” he tells you, and feels almost coherent about it. “Hot as it is. Right out of my… nastiest dreams as it is.”

Oh. Oh. The corners of your mouth pick up as Eddie presses his forehead to yours, just about evening out his breathing.

“Had a premonition about this, didja?” The pressure of his face on yours, his breath on yours, his skin on yours. It’s nice.

“Came to me in a vision,” he grins, crooked. Slides his thumbs along your cheeks and kisses you, slowly and noisily. “I’m a prognosticator.” Tongue half in, half out your mouth. Your heartbeat sinks between your legs. In a good way. “Been known to prognosticate.”

“Five dollar vocab word,” you mumble into his mouth, can’t help but push your body against him like a cat begging for attention. Eddie’s lips latch to the space right below your ear, a place where his mouth makes you feel like cymbals are clashing in your stomach.

“Come home with me,” he says, the note of pleading in his voice making your legs go numb. His nose and his lips dragging against the side of your neck, begging you to focus on the details and not the bigger picture. “Please.” A swallow. A beat. A ragged whisper. “... I missed you. Too. Y’know?”

“I do…” you sigh into his curls, readjusting his boxers, “actually need a ride… so.”

—

The van ride back to Forest Hills is tight with a tension that makes you both laugh, your mouth still buzzing from the kiss Eddie’d laid on you right before he’d helped you into the passenger seat. Even after he’d insisted you not touch him from the drama room to the parking lot, insisted because, “This thing,” he’d gestured to his crotch, his hard-on painfully zipped into submission, “this thing is gonna get me hauled over by the cops!”

“Don’t laugh!” you scold, mouth straining around the gleaming smile you’re suppressing, body all giddy. Voice ringing clear and high even over the cranked radio. Sabbath, naturally, Vol. 4. Wheels of Confusion sounds like treacle to you, mixed in with his laugh.

“I’m no-oo-oht!” Eddie says, syllables punctuated with chuckles, “I just– I am expressly escorting you back to my place! To, like, have sex with me!” His hands beat against the wheel, teeth sunk into that pretty bottom lip, giddy-upping so hard he actually does swerve the van a little.

“Woah!” you yelp, “Eddie, the road! You should’ve let me drive, you’re feral!”

Eddie moon eyes at you, reaching over to pinch your chin. “Lace, please don’t get all sore about this, but I will never trust you behind the wheel of this van. She’s a delicate piece of machinery and you would drive her like it’s the demolition derby.”

Narrowed eyes and all, you kind of have to concede. You’ve never been the best behind the wheel, a road rageaholic, and if you were to add feeling as frisky as you do now on top of that sundae… you press Eddie’s DM binder into your lap a little harder. Down, girl. He doesn’t help, thumb stroking your chin and everything.

“This is suh-rreal.”

“Stop zooming out so hard or I’m not gonna have sex with you!” You’re kidding. You’re so completely kidding. If he doesn’t touch you someplace lower than your neck soon, you’re going to disintegrate.

But Eddie pauses. “Like, you don’t. Have to.” Panicky, freezy. Hastily pulling on his good guy hat. “You don’t– by the way. It’s whatever you want. Call timeout at any time. I know I’ve been kinda–”

“Eddie.”

“...you still want to though, right?”

The giggling dies down as you edge closer and closer to your respective trailers, darkness washed over them like a swathe of dark blue paint. The lights in both trailers are out. Nobody home. Wayne, something about the weekend, something about overtime. Your mom… who knew. She’d been moving around in shadows more so than usual lately.

Everything out there is dimmed, except you two. Eddie doesn’t waste a second once the motor shuts off and the radio is silenced; he slams the driver door shut but the teensiest knot of hesitation tightens in your stomach before he reaches the passenger door.

And then he reaches the passenger door, gathering you out of it and pushing you up against the side of the van. Snapping you out of it instantaneously using the bare force of his mouth against yours.

“Eddie…” mumbled, your lips barely unstuck.

“Sorry. Shit, sorry. I just really like kissing you.”

Something pops in your chest; he’s… Jesus, he’s so sweet. Coal-eyed and excitable and lovely, kissing you with nothing left to spare.

“Hey. Redirect,” you shiver, his fingertips pressing into your waist. “Come to my place.”

Eddie casts a wide glance back toward your double-wide. The forbidden castle. “Your… y–are you sure?”

“Sure that my bedsheets are cleaner than yours, yes.”

He murmurs, “Bedsheets,” with a darkened gaze and a grunt. Bedsheets. You wanted him in your bedsheets. “Get your key. Get your key. Get your key before me and my dick have a shared brain hemorrhage.”

That new lock doesn’t stick at all, thank god.

Eddie, ordinarily, would nosily register all of his surroundings– he had an extremely barebones idea of your place, cast mostly in darkness like this, from that first night he’d driven you back from the fallout at Harrington’s. But he’s too busy nosily exploring your throat with his tongue, recording and archiving every breathy sound you make as you tug him toward your bedroom.

Cardboard boxes still trip you up a couple times. Did you ever unpack, or what?

You break from his heady kiss, vision doubling, taking in a lungful of air as you push Eddie through the door. Spine flattens against it as it shuts, the noise drawing a little bit of sobriety into the room. You reach to hit the floor lamp on and your bedroom is illuminated in a soft, orange glow, a scarf thrown over the bulb to diffuse light. A half-effort to make you forget where you were sometimes. It works; the edges of everything softens, which is such a contrast to the definitive presence that he is.

Eddie’s chest is heaving. He attempts to get his bearings but he can barely get his eyes off of you, squirming ever-so-slightly, ever-so-sexily against the door. Like you’d captured him.

Lips swollen, watching you watch him from the door, he turns a little shy and turns to look at the ephemera around him instead.

He’s standing in your bedroom.

You’re far more cluttered than he expected you to be.

He expected pressed sheets and a pristine dressing table, like a prison cell designed by a set dresser from Dynasty.

Well, that’s wrong, actually. He expected that of the Lacy people thought you were.

On the walls are a couple of tear-outs from the Rolling Stones he’d helped you liberate from your porch in Loch Nora, a mission you’d bought him breakfast for but didn’t have to. But mostly, every surface in the room is covered in piles. Piles of books, records, tapes, pens, jewelry, nail polish. And the clothes. They hung from everywhere, bursting out of your tiny closet space like bodies trying to escape.

It’s confused in here; feels like someone who has unearthed parts of herself that she hasn’t been able to organize yet. Eddie wants to comb through it like a collector at a rarities market, he thinks, running a finger along the spine of a porcelain cat that sits on your dresser.

“Place is filthy, cheerleader.”

“You’d know about mess, freak.”

The only really neat, clear space is, fortunate for tonight’s entertainment purposes, the bed.

As he’s sliding his jacket (jackets, plural) off, Eddie’s eye travels to the window.

“Did you fix your blinds?” he asks, pivoting back and forth on his heel.

“My blinds?” you parrot. The blinds that had been broken when you moved in. The ones that sure were shuttered now. You’d made a point to fix them with whatever was left out of your first paycheck from the Bookstore. “How’d you know about my blinds?”

He could’ve lied, if he caught himself quicker. If he didn’t straighten up his back like someone had snapped him to attention. “Uuh.”

It dawns on you like a flashlight in the eyeballs. “Were you… watching me, Munson?”

Not spying, mind. Not peeping. Watching. Eddie sinks down to sit on the edge of your bed, because whether or not he’s ever going to get to be here again kind of hangs in the balance right now.

“That. Dep…ends. What do you,” Please don’t kick him out. Please don’t kick him out. Look at the line of your fucking body as you round on him, staring him down like you want him for dinner. Christ, he hopes you want him for dinner.

Eddie swallows roughly, tone bumpy, face a dime store Halloween mask of nonchalance. Paper thin. “What do you think about that?”

Fact is, he’d subsisted on a couple of very guilty glimpses of you. Catching sight of the lines of your bare back and taught shoulders would keep him in jerk-off material for a week, just thinking about kneading out your knots and undoing your bra clasp with his teeth.

Eddie felt positively Victorian about it. Maybe you’d flash an ankle at him next and he’d be institutionalized for hysterics.

You look at him with the same pinpoint as you did earlier. Like you’re studying him. And then you edge closer, closer, nudging his knees apart. Echoes of the nurse’s office.

But this isn’t the goddamn nurse’s office. You’re not straining to adapt to the element of surprise. You know that the breath Eddie takes, shuddering and wondrous as you tilt his chin up to look at you, is a sound you want on repeat for as long as you can bear to hear sounds.

“They’ve blinded men for that, y’know? Before.”

Eddie can’t answer. Just let out a huh! as your fingers trace his jaw, thumb brushes his lip. His hands squeeze the curve of your ass, fingers beg into your thighs as he watches you, dumbstruck. His tongue unconsciously presses to the tip of your thumb and he hears your breath hitch.

A sustained shock travels up your neck.

“I mean, was it worth it?”

“Was it w… Lacy.” Eddie’s hands have breached the hem of your skirt and with a groan, his face burrows into the silken fabric of your shirt, like he’s trying to nudge it off with his nose or his mouth. Fingers are working mindlessly to loosen some article of clothing from your body and it makes you feel buzzy and trancelike. “Don’t ask stupid questions. I might have fuckin’ carpal tunnel because of you.”

Jesus. He makes you feel so…

Desired. Needed. You’ve never felt that way before, and you don’t quite know how to navigate it. So your buttons start coming undone with the work of one hand, the other shoving Eddie by the shoulder to lean back on your bed.

Eddie, here, among all your things. Disparate in your shabby little dollhouse, looking at you like you just swallowed the sun.

Your shirt comes off, and Eddie, in a game of match point, tugs his off too. Pause comes over the both of you. You’d seen him shirtless before; shower-bare in his trailer when the first security breach happened, a crack in the containment whatever you were pretending your relationship to each other was–affable enemies, irritated acquaintances. He’d looked at you like an animal cornered, tendons tense under his tattooed skin and you’d wanted to drag a finger or two down the center of his chest.

You didn’t, though. You’d sniped, asked where the cigarettes were.

This is all one big case of making up for lost time.

You’ve been looking at him so long, bra strap slipping off your shoulder, that Eddie leans forward. As if to come get you.

Remember me? I’m real. You can touch me. Touch me, please.

His warm arms pull you to him, pull you onto the bed, pull you against his lips. It’s gentler there; not as furtive. It says, hi, I’m here. Your arms, tugging him closer as he eases you beneath him say, good, I’ve been waiting. Eddie brushes his nose against yours, you laid down with your hair fanned out on the plush comforter.

Both your pulses must have stuttered at the same time.

His smile is serene but you can feel his forearms trembling. “I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“Don’t,” you tell him, very quietly while his hand nervously tries to find the zipper on your skirt, “I just got you back.”

Your hips lift to help him and you’re wiggling the thing off and you’re wiggling your tights off and he’s thrashing his jeans off only to land back between your parted legs with bouncing recoil from the mattress. Laughter biting in one another’s mouths. The nerves are teeming off him in waves and it makes you want to kiss him all over.

The feeling housed in your body is different; not jittery, but struck somehow. This doesn’t feel like the way it usually feels, the way it does when you disappear into spare rooms at parties or the shadow of Skull Rock or hitch your leg up against the center console of someone’s shitty car. It doesn’t feel rote, like you’re doing it to stack up experience points– that is a Dungeons and Dragons term you found particularly interesting. How many bad tongue kisses had you accepted just to feel like you’re progressing, instead of waiting for someone who wants to taste you like Eddie does?

Your bodies caged together, you feel the eager, hard, tragically clothed line of him rub against your center. Eddie manages to free your bra clasp on the first try, which you almost goadingly applaud him for–but he cuts you short with a bewitched stare, his lovely, hot mouth laving over your nipple as he slips the fabric away. It tears the first real moan from you, your back arching into his kneading fingers as his tongue curves over your tightening bud.

Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can barely see straight, but he’s trying to commit every second of this to a glorious Technicolor memory, sound and image capturing working overtime. The sound that comes from your beautiful, balmy mouth sounds fresh out the packet–like you’d never made it for anyone before. The look of suppressed surprise on your face confirms as much and Eddie feels like he might explode.

He, too, has no idea what he’s doing but he can’t help his hips from jerking into you as he plays on. Playing with your nipples, remembering that making them glisten with his spit will make you whimper, and so will kissing the center of your sternum. He’s watching wide-eyed and fascinated as your brow furrows and your legs tighten around him. He’s a wonderful student, when he wants to be.

Eddie is throbbing, and there’s too much cotton and lace between you.

There’s also this other thing, and it comes out of him like word upchuck as you try to tease his boxers down around his hips using only your feet.

“I oughta tell you,” Eddie whispers, voice all raspy, all boyish with his hair tickling your collarbone, “I’m, uh. I’m not good at this.”

“At what?” He’s got one hand roaming over your chest, the other making indents in the meat of your thigh. It feels like he’s holding your breath right in his hands.

A new shade of pink rises high in Eddie’s already straining cheeks. He really doesn’t want to have to use his words to spell it out. “Thiii-iiss.”

Oh. A rivulet of cold realization runs through you. Nicole. Cass. Girls daring themselves to get near to him. Experience points. The great freak experiment project.

“This isn’t that.” Your hands hold his chin, perhaps a little roughly, to make sure he’s listening. And Eddie is, breath baited. You press your forehead to his like he pressed his forehead to yours. “It’s not.”

He’s really about to ask you, what is it, then? but that feels like something you can work out later. Eddie lets you tug at his lips and you let him tug at your panties, arching up so you can wiggle them down your legs. His eyes cast to the downy hair at your mound, and it’d usually occur to you to apologize for your unshaven legs, as if it mattered.

But the way he regards you doesn’t call for that; it calls for you to open up for him. Spread.

A rough pad of a finger runs along your slit, feeling the generous drip that’s gathered, and Eddie moans as your breath hitches into an animalistic, “hahh!”-- he’s edging down your body to bury his face there. He wants to feel you, smell you, taste you. You tense at the sudden contact of his palms pressing your thighs open, his nose against your clit and he feels it. A jolt of worry passes through him. Did you not want that? “Sorry–”

“Don’t– no, Eddie, don’t stop,” you strain, laugh a little, “You just… surprised me. Keep– keep surprising me. Please.”

Shockwaves break through you as he gingerly offers his tongue. And more, and more, until he’s lapping at you with a vigor and no real direction. You dig against him, made speechless by the building ache in your core.

In your fantasies, you hadn’t anticipated him being so giving–so eager to please and explore. Like all things, this moment projected itself in your head with the hard edges of some imagined cockiness, Eddie telling you to spread your legs and you, nymphlike and fluid and still somehow holding all the indiscriminate ‘power’, doing so.

But this? This is soft and messy and spitty and real. Eddie is drooling and babbling into your pussy with the uncalculated effect of someone who has improvised his whole life and it’s tearing you at the seams. A satisfying little rip, every keen movement he makes.

You know when you’re close to climax, that familiar feeling of your cunt suckling at nothing, but it doesn’t feel as jagged as the first time he brought you there. Urgently, you tug at his hair, claw at his shoulders, begging for his attention.

“Eddie,” you gasp and his hands flex around your thighs at the sound of his name in your mouth. It’s yours, he wants to tell you, rutting heedlessly into the mattress from his position between your legs, keep it! Please! “Eddie, Eddie– come here, come to me.”

Your velveteen voice summons him, his face glistening from the exploration of you. Embarrassment threatens to ping at you, but it flames into want, seeing how wet and obscene he looks. That’s all from you?

Eddie does as he’s told, heart pounding– and the sensation of fabric dragging against the raw tip of his cock nearly makes him pass out.

“Fuck! Fuck, you–” he stammers as your hand pulls his heavy length free, balls tightening under your firm touch, “N-not fuck you, obvi-ously, but–hunh–okay, kinda fuck you…”

Eddie’s lips fold against yours as he attempts, with shuddering arms, to brace himself over you. He whines at your dexterity, swiping his head against your entrance. The wetness from him, the wetness from you– the sheer impact of sensation slices clean through him. It’s not a tactic, you’re not teasing; you’re angling to get him inside you. You need to get him inside you, your entire body is begging for it.

“Baby, please, please, I’m not gonna last–”

“Who said you had to?” you ask, voice a drop of dark syrup. Just for him. “Who said you had to?”

The earnestness in your eyes gives Eddie pause– for all of a pulsating second.

“I want you… inside. Don’t you want to feel me?” you ask with real conviction, thumb swiping over his moistened head in a way that makes his vision go galactic.

Eddie yanks your hand away, kissing roughly it, nailing it beside your head as he tries to ease into you.

“Want? It’s all I want–fuck, it’s all I fucking think about, Lacy–huhh–”

His first attempt results in a gasp of pain– the sting, the stretch, it’s a little much a little fast. The sharpness has you wincing and has Eddie searching your face with an arrested kind of guilt.

“Y–shit, baby, are you–”

“I’m okay,” you recover, hand steadying on his flushed cheek. “Just–slower. Ease it in. You’re– you’re pretty remarkable, Eddie.”

“Remarkable?” he mumbles against your cheek, focused and slowly lining his head against your entrance. “Really?”

“Prodigiou—ss, uhh–fuck!” Whispered swears come streaming from you as he sinks right into the velvety constraints of your cunt.

Your eyes roll right back, mouth tipping open and the grip of you arresting around him makes him cry out into your chest.

Eddie’s cock is long and heavy and thick, constricted to the point where you can nearly feel every ridge of him. It hurts, the stretch of him aches, but it’s delicious–pinned and sweetly painful.

“Prodigious–is a five dollar–fuckin’--vocab word–” he strains, lifting his hips ever so slightly– you’re clutched onto him so tight that you move with him. Eddie open-mouth groans against your neck. “Lacy, Jesus, you’re so tight–you feel so good–how the fuck do you feel so good? Who invented you?!”

There’s a tinge of a giggle in your moaning, which doesn’t let up. Eddie’s voice rings out like a church bell, making one slow stroke inside you, then another. Then another, then another, picking up speed, groans chorusing into the hollow of your neck around the lewd sound of his flesh slapping against yours. The sound alone brings you close to cumming. “Oh, pleasepleaseplease, fuck, Lace, I’m g– fuck, I’m–”

The way Eddie’s hands are carving permanent marks into your hips, the way his movements are halting, you get the idea that… “You holding out on me?” you ask him, short of breath around your panting but demanding still, “Don’t you dare–don’t you dare.”

“Lacy, uhh– please, ’mgonnafucking–”

“Cum for me? Are you?”

Your fingers tug at his curls so you can look at him as his face tenses. Eddie’s hair is flattened across his head, face glimmering with exertion. You drag your lips against his forehead, the salty flavor of sweat breaking across your tastebuds.

“For you, for you, shit, only for you–only for you, only fucking ever–fuck–”

His dark eyes have been blown out since he pulled you to the mattress, eyelids flickering over his irises as he pistons into you with speed that hurts but you love it.

You barely hear yourself beginning a prayer of dirty little succors, but there it is, easing him through his orgasm as he shudders a load between your legs. “You feel like nothing on this fucking earth, you know that, you’re so good for me...” The tension breaks with one final rasping cry, his expression dissolving into a softness as he exhales a lungful, neck stretching to lean into your touch.

A couple of half-cracked dry sobs escape him.

Looking up at you, cradled against your shoulder, Eddie’s cursing himself for every second he’s wasted not doing this with you.

And you, looking down, are stroking his damp curls from his forehead and cursing yourself. You’re going to burn the world down for this boy.

“Lacy. You–”

And then, y’know, the fucking front door of the trailer clicks.

Little too much deja vu for your liking these days!

Immediately, you seize upwards, jolting a confused Eddie with you– which breaks your heart, in a way, seeing him darty-eyed and shocked out of his bliss so fast.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” These are not like your prior ‘fucks’, he can register through the haze of his post-nut state. These are bad fucks. So he responds in turn, “Fuck?”

“My mom!” You hiss, naked and scrambling. Panic crests on you like a wave, a wave that should have been an orgasm mind fucking you, and your fingernails tear at the comforter beneath you.

“Under, under, gogogo!”

Because if there’s one thing your mother, in all her former-center-of-attention glory, loves to do? It’s enter a room uninvited.

Case in fucking point–

“Lacy?” A perfunctory knuckle rap from the other side of the door, just as you manage to hide Eddie by shoving him behind you and tenting the comforter around you both. You’re praying to anything with a little more gusto than God that it works. And then, enter your mother and her cloud of Shalimar.

Soon as she opens the door, you can tell something is terribly off.

She’s smiling, face as serene as the Virgin Mary. Usually she’s got a sharpened dagger of a glare, just for you. Two of you haven’t been spending much quality time lately, see.

“Lacy! What–” your mom’s brow knits, but it’s a look of amusement. Which freaks you out. She’s looking at your just-fucked-by-Eddie-Munson hair, isn’t she? The mascara that’s surely streaking down your face? Does she know? Can she sense he’s in this very room? “--what are you doing?”

“Napping. Crying. What does it look like?” you snap, hiking the comforter up a little further and begging that she doesn’t notice Eddie’s incriminating clothes strewn across the floor.

Eddie, for his part, is not breathing. He’s crouched behind your bare ass, a position he’s in no rush to get out of, arms caged around your thighs like a petrified child. This is almost funny–or would be, if he wasn’t scared shitless of everything your mom would definitely do to him if she discovered him buck ass naked in your bed.

Dreamily, Eddie reminds himself that he’s buck ass naked, in your bed. He smiles into one of your cheeks and considers how biteable it is.

“Well. Wrap it up,” your mom says, tone still light, and you twinge at the irony. At least you’re on the pill. “I have a surprise.”

Slam. Door shuts. Your lamp wobbles with the force of it and Eddie emerges from behind you, like a freshly-fucked groundhog.

“She sounds happy,” he mumbles, arms sliding up around your waist.

You want to kiss the mirth out his mouth but you have to shove him back behind you first– cue your mom, doubling back through the door. Jesus!

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” you say, shortly and breathily because Eddie nips at your fucking ass cheek back there. “Just–you sound happy, mom!”

She shakes her head at you, a smile curving her tulip colored lips, like a mom from a detergent commercial. Y’know, were it not for the whole Italian widow getup she’s alway sporting.

“Get on with it already.”

You count to a full five before you even let out a breath, snapping your attention back to reality and the fact that Eddie Munson is very naked in your very bed.

“You gotta get out of here,” you tell him, and you want to kill yourself about it.

The both of you balance on your knees. Eddie tugs you into him with shining, begging eyes. Standing almost at full attention again, already.

“Jesus, that thing’s impressive.”

Eddie’s fingers wind around the hair at the nape of your neck. Despite the brief jolt of fear from your little interruption just now, he’s all romance–totally suckered, rose-colored glasses, the whole bit. Thoughts not exactly creating a straight line just yet, but he doesn’t care. He’s had his hands all over you for the better part of an evening now, and he doesn’t want to let up just yet. It might kill him. It might kill him.

There’s no unringing this bell between the two of you, and he knows that.

And you knew it first, because you know everything first.

“You sure?” he hums into your sweet lips, “You absolutely positive? Because I could be real, real quiet…”

Eddie’s also thrilled by the fact that he seems to know instinctively what to do to turn you on.

“What if I don’t want you to be real, real quiet?”

You kiss him back, sighing and sliding a single finger down the length of his cock.

“Lace…” he whimpers to you, his commandant fantasy of being dominant in the bedroom officially, officially escorted out back and shot. He wants to please you too badly. Be the jester in your court that makes you cackle and makes you cum.

“Lacy!” a shrill yell comes from the hall. Your eyes snap open, Eddie’s dancing with amusement and yours heaving with alarm.

“Fuck, okay, go! Window!”

Another scramble, you tossing jeans and socks and the rest of Eddie’s uniform at him while you clean yourself off, try to pull a robe around yourself. A stray thought occurs to you as you watch him trip over himself, ripping the hole in his jeans a little further–you hate what he wears, but you love it on him. And off him. And…

You yank up those blinds and unlatch the window with a faint smile. Nothing about you two makes any conceivable sense–

Eddie starts out the window, shirt barely pulled down his torso and his shoes in his hands, then turns to hook you to him by the elbow. Smiling with the full blush of his mouth, he kisses you. Firm and knowing and whole.

–except that. That makes sense.

The pad of his finger clears a lock of rumpled hair from your forehead.

“To be continued?” Eddie searches your face, with those crazy dark brimming universes of eyes.

Your heart is leaping in your ribcage. You nod sharply, gleaming back at him.

“I’m comin’ back for you, Lacy Doevksi,” he tells you with all the brazen confidence he can muster. “And I am gonna go down on you until I drown. On pain of death, I swear it.”

“Go!” you command, and regret it as soon as he drops out of your bedroom window. Eddie starts a cant toward his trailer across the way.

“Faster!” you hiss, just as an excuse to watch him.

He pivots mid-jog, hair swinging wildly, his hand grabbing at his crotch.

“You try runnin’ with a hard on! Witch!”

It’s far, far, far too quiet once he’s escaped through the front door of his trailer.

It's not fair, you think. You should be basking in some kind of afterglow, sharing a stupid cliché cigarette, you feel like you should be... celebrating this.

You shouldn't have to keep running away from each other.

The warmth the two of you had created, through mere physical friction or just how much you… you like each other, rapidly dissipated into a chill as you advance through your bedroom door, to deal with the other thing.

Surprise, you thought, What kind of goddamn surprise could mother o'mine have for me? Did she boost a bank? Did she win the Indiana Sweepstakes? I don’t want to know about any g–

“Lorelei.”

The universe has a way of shoving you back in place when you get ahead of yourself.

You don’t just stop in your tracks, you’re repelled a half-step backwards. The centrifugal force urging you away, telling you there’s an immediate threat in the heart of your home.

No one uses that name anymore. Not even him. Not since you were fourteen.

“Daddy.”

Your father sits at the shabby dinette that you and your mother don’t even share meals at, sits there in the suit he was sentenced in. A rich navy pinstripe, chosen because gray would have been too flashy and black would admit defeat. “Of course!” your mother had said, marveling at his ingenuity. But the pantomime of his defense was wearing real thin on you; whispering at school had started growing louder and louder and you were finding more and more chips in the porcelain of your father’s worldly facade.

“Why not compromise. Wear charcoal,” you’d said, leaning against the kitchen counter in Loch Nora, drinking orange juice from your parents’ wedding crystal as the movers taped up your boxes, “You can plead guilty and still look smug about it.”

Your father had smacked the flute from your hand and it shattered in forty thousand pieces on the ground. You didn’t move, didn’t breathe, because you knew if you did, you’d be next.

Navy it was. And navy it is. He sits at that dinette like he’s expecting white jacket service. You swear even more gray has started glimmering through his hair. Flashy.

“Should I ask how you’re here?” you say, stiff and scared. Your mother, standing at your father’s shoulder, tuts and sighs. Can’t you just enjoy this? she silently bemoans.

“Good behavior,” Ray smiles, “Can’t say the same for you. Can I, Lorelei?”

“Principal Higgins called,” your mom chimes in, “Or rather, that odious little secretary called. You think you could get a Saturday detention and they just wouldn’t tell us?”

“That’s why he’s here?” You laugh a little, inwardly. “With all due respect, Daddy, that’s a terrible reason to break out of prison.”

To your surprise, your father chuckles too. Makes your blood run cold, obviously.

“Y’know, I really didn’t anticipate this for my homecoming, I gotta tell you,” he says, shifting in his seat and plucking a cigarillo from his jacket pocket. “I mean, honestly. I thought, a nice bottle of Beaujolais–”

“We’re fresh out,” you gesture to your cringing mother.

“--a dinner at, Christ, Enzo’s, since that’s where our budget is at now,” his lighter flicks and ignites the end, “But no. I have to sit here and cross-examine my daughter about… fraternizing with the lowest of criminal elements.”

The lack of self awareness here is off the fucking charts. It makes your blood pressure spike.

“Take a seat, Lacy,” your father so gallantly gestures to the vinyl backed kitchen chair in front of him, “and tell me all about Eddie Munson.”

Chair drags aggressively against the linoleum. You sit, and swear that the next time you’re caught off guard by anyone’s father, it’d better be God himself.

This bit is getting old.

author's notes: so i'm not fucking around when i say i need to hear everyone's thoughts on what just happened immediately. i really do think that happenings-wise, this was my favourite chapter to write thus far. felt cathartic, from the al munson to the hellfire article of it all. anyway. onto the good stuff - like i feel like everyone who reads this series will have clocked this but of course i lifted the garlic slicing right out of goodfellas. i just think it's a perfect al munson attribute to have - al munson kicking out the jams instead of picking up his kid i know that's right - our dukes of hazzard ref is a tribute to my own personal al munson fancast - not that paris, texas but this paris, texas. (and you know when lacy eventually gets eddie to watch it he CRIES. they both cry) - i should probably put the repo man trailer in here as well - speaking of another fancast! the manager of forest hills trailer park is, of course, to me, in my heart, carl rodd. - the best song off of abbey road by the beatles, fight with the wall - SHOULD WE CALL THE MAYOR - lacy promising eddie that he can ride circles around her on a motor bike is a reference to hunter s thompson being ambushed on canadian television by one of the hells angels he wrote about in his book. dude rolls onto set on his hog. it's crazy. - eddie is kinda gossamer coded - cow tipping? at mccorkle's? anybody? our love is god - god wheels of confusion is kinda horny sounding huh i think that this might be the shortest references recap so far in the series?? one of them anyway. probably because i wrote 4k words of FILTH. anyway, thank you all so much for continuing to read this fucking thing. we're almost at the end of this part of the story which is wild to me. now let me get on your ass and remind you that REBLOGGING FICS IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR FIC WRITERS HEALTH. SO ARE COMMENTS AND SO ARE ASKS so send those pls :) love you hellcats. be well, cats

#published by powder #hellfire & ice #in progress #e. munson by powder #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x oc #stranger things fic #eddie munson fic

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Dungeon: The Hole in the Hill

Of all places, a portal to the underdark has opened along a sleepy stretch of country road, drawing amature explorers and lookie-loos who all want to know the origin behind the mysterious purple glow. Those bravest to be first across the threshhold bring stories of glowing mushrooms and caverns full of odd animal life, a few even returning with souveniers in the form of carrot sized fingers of crystal. Naturally the party will be headed below next, going even deeper in search of greater treasures.

Adventure Hooks:

Diverted from his dayjob of selling snakeoil town to town when his cart and campsite fell into the original sinkhole, an enterprising merchant by the name of Canny Farwell has laid claim to the sinkhole and is charging admittance to its uppper levels at three silvers a head. He's got dreams of establishing a mine to exploit the riches of the seeminly bottomless cavern, and while he's more than happy to give the party a tour through the sinkhole's upper reaches ( full of facts he's made up), he's not going to let the party venture deeper and jump his claim without putting up a fuss.

However stubborn Canny might be, he's all to willing to drop his arguments and bolt for the surface when a pack of monsters from the world below show up hounding the party back to the surface. Forced to act quickly to protect the onlookers, the party will have to delve deep into the depths to force these creatures back into their original territory.

Somewhere in the depths the party can find the smashed remannts of the huckster's cart, being picked over by a gnomish waif with leaden skin. She speaks no common and is TERRIFIED of the party, but once they convince her they're no threat (food has a way of briding all cutural divides, especially when the hesitant party has been roughing it in a cavern for a fortnight) she'll use mud-doodles and pantomime to indicate that she was forced to flee her village when they were attacked by... somehing... that has enslaved her people and forced them to mine the great crystals in the cavern depths.. which might've been what set off the sinkhole in the first place.

The girl, Takta, is a svirfneblin, a deepgnome who lives along with her people in a hidden subterranian village, enjoying a humble existance while keeping themselves concieled from the underdark's major predators. That was until a few months ago, when a levitating duergar ironclad loomed its way into the network of caverns their community called home. The vessel known as The Esretnatzar and its crew of grey-dwarves are an exploratory expidition sent off to expand the borders of their autocratic homeland and to seek sites worthy of colonization. After nearly a year and a half evading perils of the world below they're delighted to have found a people to subjugate, useing psionics to expose and subdue Takta's people, forcing the Svirfneblin to act as laborers and servants as they dig themselves in.

Further Adventures

Its hard to oust an occupying army that can read your mind, and while the deepgnomes are no strangers to defending their home they have little defence against mind-censors, a fanatically dogmatic group of telepaths who kept order onboard the Esretnatzar during its long voyage and have now turned their attention to keeping the chattel in line. They've moved the troublemakers (including Takta's older brother) into a makeshift prison and while it doesn't compare to the reducation halls of their homeland it does keep the gnomes working for fear of their loved ones being hurt. Freeing these individuals from lockup is the first step to fighting back.

While the Esretnatzar's captian Fulgite Faultsaw is eager to return home bathed in the glory of expanding the hegemony, many in her crew do not feel the same. They're sick of the ship and sick of skimming dark caverns, and just want to keep their boots on the groud (even if it means pressing them into some deepgnome necks). Some others, careful to guard their thoughts from the ship mind-censors, imagine staying in the village, establishing a new clanhold and living like thanes. Perahaps this division can be exploited, convincing the recalictrant crew to surrender while pushing the hardliner faction back out into the dark.

After the party has done their thing and these cavernous conquistadors are defeated the village will be in rough shape, and while the deepgnomes will galdly put in the years of work to make it funcitonal again perhaps the party can suggest another option: moving the village to the far more defensible mouth of the sinkhole, allowing the svirfneblin to continue their subterranian agriculture in the upper reaches while having the whole of the upper world to fall back to if they need it. It'll be a hard sell, both to the traditionalist gnomes whos' lives have already been disrupted enough, and the authorities on the surface, but should the party succeed they'll get to see a new settlement blossom over the course of their adventures.

#underdark #dungeon #low level #mid level #svirfneblin #duergar #cave #d&d #dungeons and dragons #lowland #highlands #field

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pedrito-friskito · 2 years

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strawberry wine - joel miller x ofc!liv stone/fem!reader

during - part twelve

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

joel finally gets his head out of his ass, with a little push from tess.

a/n: we have BIG CONVERSATIONS IN THIS HOUSE FAM. i want to reiterate: i love the canon joel x tess. i live for it. but the drama/angst/emotion it has allowed me to create but backpedaling them SLIGHTLY? delish. enjoy babes, please scream at me about the ending ��

word count: 5.5k

warnings: MY BLOG IS 18+, MINORS DNI, angst, drinking, lots of emotions, mentions of canon-typical violence and injuries, mentions of death, joel is both an asshole and an Emotional Man, tess and liv are true bffs and god bless last night’s episode for solidifying some of my plans 🤍

✨I do not have a taglist - follow @friskito-library for updates on future chapters/works✨

“You need to talk to her.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, Joel, you—”

“Don’t tell me what I need to fuckin’ do, Tess. Leave it be.”

“Joel—”

“Please.”

You’ve been staying at Deanna’s. Two weeks now, since your stint in lockup, since Angie had beat the literal shit out of you. The couch isn’t comfy, and your ribs are still sore, but it’s fine.

The kids are happy to have you around. Emily especially, once she got past the bruises on your face. You weren’t expecting Henry’s reaction; when you woke up in Deanna’s apartment the next morning, he was sitting vigil beside you, tears on his face, bottom lip jutting out. You told him you fell down the stairs, trying to get a laugh out of him, and he’d just hugged you, buried his face in your chest.

You try to keep things normal, whatever the fuck that means anymore. You take on extra jobs, trying to earn more ration cards for the three living in your apartment. Tess shadows you, follows you around every day, and you tell her your secrets, point out your routes, the soldiers you have dirt on, the ones you know not to fuck with.

“She’s the one that beat you?” she asks one day, jutting her chin towards Angie. You’re standing in the warehouse that serves as the food bank, waiting in line. You’ve had a heartbeat in the bruise on your cheek since you woke up, and standing ten feet from the woman who gave it to you isn’t exactly helping.

You disguise your nod as a stretch, wincing at the pull on your ribs. Deanna was sure you hadn’t broken any, but you sure as hell were bruised. They didn’t look as bad as your cheek, but the pain was deeper, and seemed intent to linger longer. “Yeah, that’s her.”

Tess sneers in her direction, and you have to stifle your laugh. “Fucking bitch.”

You like Tess. You really like her. She’s a hard ass, but rightfully so, given the history. She hasn’t given you much more of her past, and you’re definitely not about to offer up any of yours, but the friendship between you is quick. You’ve skirted the Joel subject so far, despite the fact that they’re literally sleeping in your bed. Most of your conversations have been about the QZ, the inner workings, your smuggling. You have a job coming up, and Tess has already said she’s coming with you.

“I doubt Joel will be thrilled about that.”

“Joel can fucking shove it.”

She hasn’t been shy about her displeasure towards him, but it hasn’t done much to change things between you. You went down to grab some clothes a few days back, and he’d been the only one inside. Tess was out exploring, and Tommy had gone with her.

He didn’t say a goddamned word.

You’d managed to hold back the tears until you were back in the hallway, but you sobbed so hard you thought you actually were going to crack a rib. And on the other side of the door, you heard the radio flick on, assumedly to drown out your noise.

You nearly put your boot through the wall.

You move up a few places in line, and reach into your pocket, pulling out the ration cards you’ve collected. It’s worked out okay; you had some stashed to begin with and you were able to pull a few jobs after you got back on your feet. But Tess is adamant they’ll pay you back, despite your protests.

“First job I take,” she says to you, jutting her chin towards the stack in your hand, “you get half.”

You shake your head. “I told you, it’s fine.“

“It’s not,” she replies, her tone determined. “It’s the least we can do, after what you did for us. Hell, I should give you back double for putting up with the bullshit Joel’s been throwing at you.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she repeats, and grabs your arm, turning you towards her slightly. “I’m not fucking okay with this. I need you to get that. He needs to talk to you. You need to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me, Tess,” you say, toying with a corner of a ration card. “I have to respect that.”

“And he should give you the same courtesy,” she says as you move up again. “You need to talk this out. He can’t keep putting up brick fucking walls; you deserve more respect than that. You put your ass on the line for us, and got the shit kicked out of you. History or not, he owes you. I’ll lock you two in the same room if I have to.”

“Hah,” you scoff, lifting your brows. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

She goes quiet as you reach the front of the line, handing over the cards. The woman working the table slides a crate of food across to you a second later, along with two jugs of water that Tess reaches for. It’s not until you’re back outside that she speaks again.

“I want us to be friends,” she says, and the tone in her voice makes you pause, stopping in your tracks. “I like you, Liv; you’re strong as hell. Brave. Best damn smuggler I’ve ever seen. I just…I need you to understand, me and Joel, it’s nothing close to what I had with Nate, or what he had with you. I know that. I get that. We laid out ground rules from square one. It’s a…” She trails off, searching for the right word.

“A comfort,” you provide.

She nods. “Yes. And I…if I had a second chance with Nate? If I walked down this street tomorrow and saw him walking through that fucking gate, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to—” She stops, clamps her hand over her mouth and you almost jump when you see the tears in her eyes.

“Tess.” She blinks hard, waving a hand at you, and in an instant, the badass demeanour has returned, if not doubly so. You continue, “If he’s a comfort to you, I can’t be the person that takes that away. He’s not mine to take. Especially not if he doesn’t want me back. It’s okay. You can’t force his hand in this.”

She eyes you, chewing at her thumbnail before, “Maybe I can.”

You shake your head, hefting the crate of food higher on your hip. “Let’s take this back.”

The doorknob jiggles, and Joel’s head snaps up. He’s sat on your couch, some book about woodworking in his hands, a mostly abandoned glass of whiskey on the table in front of him. Tommy’s at the kitchen table, bent over a map, trying to figure out the path they’d taken, all the way back to Austin. “I’m just curious,” he’d said when Joel had asked, his voice almost clipped. Joel hadn’t pushed any further.

The door swings open, revealing you and Tess, a crate of food on your hip, Tess carrying jugs of water. Joel gets to his feet, wanders towards the kitchen, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. Tommy gets up immediately, takes one of the jugs from Tess. She starts putting stuff away, and you step closer to the table, digging in the pocket of your coat. “Exciting news,” you say, pulling out a key ring with three keys on it, dropping it onto the table. “Moving day.”

“We’re not going far, are we?” Tess asks over her shoulder.

“No,” you reply, pushing a hand through your hair before shucking off your coat. “One floor up, few units down. Besides, you know where to find me.” Joel catches you glance his way, but it’s short-lived, you turning away a moment later to help Tess put the rest of the food away. “I saw they have a posting for a handyman in the building, one for the apartment across the street too,” you say, putting away a box of instant mashed potatoes. “Unit maintenance and stuff like that, thought you boys might be good for it.”

Tommy nods, enthusiastic. “Sounds good to me.” He glances at Joel over his shoulder. “Gotta get started paying you back what we owe you, Liv.”

You wave a hand, and Joel sees Tess give you a pointed look. “Listen, all of you. We’re square, okay? I mean it. I’m just…I’m glad you’re all here. Safe. That’s all that matters to me.”

Joel can’t hold his tongue. “That soldier beat you half to death.”

“Oh, you noticed?” you throw back, and the guilt simmers in his gut. “We’re square,” you repeat, leaning against the kitchen counter, hip cocked, arms crossed over your chest. A mirror of Joel’s stance. “But there’s something I wanted to bring up to the three of you. Tess and I have already talked it over, and I’ve done okay for myself given the circumstance, but I could use you, all three of you.” Your eyes flick from Tommy to Joel and back again, so quick he nearly misses it. “It’s a risk, I won’t lie, but I’ve got dirt on half the soldiers in this QZ. And I know exactly what to give them to keep their mouths shut.”

“You already know I’m in,” Tess says, bumping her hip into yours. There’s a tiny grin on your face, the bruising along your cheek pinching slightly. “There are still connections from Baltimore we can use. Between the four of us, we could be living like kings, for a change.”

You nod. “Either way, it’s an offer. I trust you all enough that you’ll keep it secret, but if you want in, my door’s always open.” You pause. “But I do want my keys back.”

“I’m game,” Tommy says, leaning back in his chair. “You tell me where and when, Liv, and I’m there.”

“Same,” Tess agrees, “but we’re still paying you back.”

Joel can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Are you out of your damn minds? Both of you?” He stares at Tommy when his brother turns to face him, glances at Tess when she steps forward and plants her hands on the kitchen table. “We just got safe again, and already you want to put that in jeopardy?”

Tess scoffs, and the sound makes Joel blood boil. There’s too much happening. The guilt never leaves, but seeing you, hearing your voice, it makes it that much worse, and Tess looking at him like he’s a fucking idiot doesn’t help matters.

“We pulled a lot of bad shit to stay alive out there, Joel,” she says, her tone stern. “Baltimore was no different. I highly doubt a bit of smuggling is going to fuck with our reputations.”

“Your records are clean,” you offer, your voice placating. It makes the hair on the back of Joel’s neck stand on end. “When Cowan brought you through, he wiped them. Tommy’s is already clean, otherwise they wouldn’t have let him through to start with.” You lift your hands. “It’s just an offer, Joel.”

How have you managed to make his own name feel like a punch to the gut?

“I’ll show you to the apartment,” you say, grabbing the keys off the table, putting a hand on Tess’s shoulder. “You guys can talk it out. There’s no pressure. I’ve got a job in a few days, and—”

“I already told you, I’m going with you,” Tess says, and Joel’s brows raise.

“Tess—”

“Shut up, Joel.” She turns towards the door. “Let’s go.”

You swallow, hard enough that Joel can see your throat bob from where he’s standing. Tess grabs her jacket, gestures at Tommy to do the same, and his brother gets to his feet. You hold open the door, and Joel follows Tess and Tommy out. He tries to catch your eye as he walks past you, but your gaze drops to the floor.

Their unit is one floor up, three down from yours. You unlock the door before handing the keys to Tess, let it swing inwards. It looks about the same as yours, save for the floral wallpaper. It’s a bit bigger, an actual separate bedroom, another bed tucked in one corner, a room divider that’s seen better days blocking it off. He’s surprised, almost, that there’s furniture, even blankets on the beds, and follows his brother inside. Tess wanders, and you hang in the doorway, leaned against the jamb.

“I found some stuff at the donation warehouse,” you say, scratching the back of your neck. “People will leave all kinds of shit down there, stuff they don’t need. The mattresses aren’t great, but I cleaned them best I could, and there’s some clothes too.” Joel turns to look at you, and your eyes move away from his again. “And, if you’re game for smuggling, when knows what else we might find.”

Tommy walks back over to where you’re stood, slings an arm around your neck, pulling you against him. “You’re an angel, Liv. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply, leaning your head against Tommy’s chest, and Joel ignores the zip of…is that jealousy surging through his gut? Fuck.

But it turns into guilt just as quick, makes something mean bubble out of his mouth before he can stop it. “You shouldn’t have done this.” He doesn’t look at you, not directly, but from the corner of his eye, sees you balk, flinching slightly.

“Joel,” Tess chides, walking over to the door, pulling you out of Tommy’s grip and into a hug. “We owe you, I mean it.”

Joel watches, as you hug Tess. Your eyes flutter shut, your hands hooked around her shoulders, your brow pinched slightly. God, how many times had this thought crossed his mind? How many times had he wondered if the two of you would get along?

How many times had he dreamt of merely seeing you again?

Yet here he is, fucking it up harder than anyone ever could have imagined.

“I’m gonna go,” you say, jutting a thumb over your shoulder. “Tess, I’ll see you tomorrow?” She nods. “And Tommy, you can ask Sergeant McCoy about the handyman gig. He’s a decent guy.”

Then your eyes turn to Joel. He meets them, looks back at you, feels the guilt so thickly he’s convinced it’s replacing his blood. He thinks he hears you say his name, but then your wrench your eyes from his, disappearing from the doorway. His feet move of their own accord, propelling him towards the door, but he stops short, hands swinging at his sides.

Tommy claps him on the shoulder. “Brother, I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot.” He turns to Tess. “I’m gonna go check on her.”

Tess just nods, and the door shuts a moment later. It’s just the two of them, and Joel can already tells he’s about to be on the receiving end of Tess’s anger.

“Sit, Miller.” She points to the kitchen table. It’s not much different than yours, though there are no maps spread across the surface. “You can’t keep doing this shit.”

“Tess, don’t—”

“No, shut the fuck up,” she cuts him off, her hand flexing in the air. “You’re gonna sit there and you’re gonna listen, you understand? Please.”

Tess doesn’t often say please.

Joel swallows hard. “Fine.”

“You need to go after Liv,” she says, the words blunt, laying her hand flat on the table. “You can’t keep pushing her away and treating her the way that you are. You can’t keep doing this to her.”

“I have to,” he replies, the words quick, half-hearted. An excuse.

“No, you don’t,” Tess throws back, just as quick.

“You—”

“We’re done,” she says, cutting him off again. “You and I. It was just stress relief, right from the beginning. I know that, you know that. Nate was gone and you were there and I…” She shakes her head, lifts her hand to her mouth and bites her knuckle before continuing. “If I had a second chance like this, a second shot, goddamn, I would have dropped you so fast your head would’ve spun.” She actually laughs. Her eyes are big and wet, but no tears fall. “She loves you, Joel, and you love her. I knew it from the second you saw her at the gas station. It’s not—”

“Tess—”

“Listen to me, Joel. If I turned a corner tomorrow and saw Nate right there in front of me, there’s not a force on this whole fucking planet that could keep me from him. So why are you doing this to her? To yourself?”

He goes quiet, for a long moment. Stares down at the table top, digs his nail into the grain of the wood. “You said it yourself, Tess. We did a lot of bad shit out there to stay alive. I’m not…” He shakes his head. “I’m not who she remembers, who she loved before.”

Tess reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezes his fingers tightly. “Joel, the fucking world ended. I didn’t know her before, but I highly doubt that the Liv I know now was the same before the outbreak. We do what we have to, to survive. She put her life on the line for us, without batting a fucking eye. The least you can do is talk to her.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. What do I have to say to get it though your thick fucking skull, Miller? Second chances like this don’t just happen. If I had one, I sure as hell wouldn’t squander it the way you’re so hellbent on doing. So don’t.”

“Tess—”

“Please.”

Tess doesn’t often say please.

Slowly, Joel gets to his feet, and Tess follows suit. He’s not quite sure what to do next, but then she grabs the front of his jacket, hauls him against her, throws her arms around his neck. He hugs her back, mouth pressed to the curve of her shoulder.

“And I don’t wanna hear any more shit about not joining forces with Liv,” Tess says softly. “We’d be fucking fools not to.” She claps him on the shoulder, pulling away. “I’ll see you around, Joel.”

“Bye, Tess.”

The doorknob is cold when he reaches for it, and Tess doesn’t say another word as he steps out into the hall, pulls the door shut. His feet seem to carry him down the hall on their own. He heads down the stairs, faintly hears Tommy’s voice calling after him as he heads down towards the lobby.

“Joel, where you going?”

It’s still a few hours until curfew, the sky still light, though dark clouds are gathering over the city. The moment he’s out the main door, he’s sprinting, running as fast as his legs will carry him. He’s pushing past people on the street, boots scuffing on the pavement, mumbling apologies when he almost crashes into someone.

He just keeps going, arms pumping once he’s through the crowds of people trying to get home. He has no idea where he’s going, but he just keeps going, on and on and on until he finds himself standing in the same alleyway you’d lead him and Tess through, when you’d smuggled them inside.

What the fuck is he doing?

The rain starts slow, a few drips pelting his shoulders, the back of his neck. He tips his head back, stares up at the ominous dark clouds, hears the rumble of thunder in the distance. Joel lets his eyes slip closed, hands loose at his sides.

In a flash, it’s a downpour. He’s soaked in a matter of seconds, rainwater seeping through his hair, wetting his scalp. It runs down his cheeks, sneaks beneath the collar of his flannel, gathers in the hollow of his throat.

She loves you, Joel, and you love her.

Tess is right. He knows she’s right. It didn’t matter how much time had passed, he always knew in the back of his mind that if he found you again, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself away from you. Everything he’s been doing, everything he’s said since you mentioned Sarah, it’s been…survival. Fear, that if he lets himself have you again, he’ll just lose you, like he lost her. That someone or something will take you from him.

Tommy told me. About Sarah. Joel, I’m so sorry, I just—

It hurts. The memory makes panic and fear surge through him, every single time. Makes his heart beat faster, his hands clench into fists, sweat at his hairline. But you don’t know that. How could you? He hasn’t told you, hasn’t let you in, hasn’t done anything but try and stay as far away from you as possible.

He can’t keep doing this. He knows that. When he closes his eyes, he still sees those tears on your face, at the gas station. The bat in your hand, the bravery in your eyes. You weren’t the same person he’d fallen in love with back in Austin. But you’ve survived just as hard as he has, and you lived. You’re alive.

I’ll find you, baby.

He swore to you.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Joel says the words aloud, towards the sky, to the dark clouds still pouring down on him. “Fuck.”

He turns on his heel and sprints back up the alley. The rain isn’t letting it up, pelting his face, soaking his hair further. He pushes his way back through the crowds, takes the same random path he’d just run in reverse, back to the building.

Back to you.

He takes the stairs two at a time, ignoring the way his knees are shouting in protest. He’s out of breath by the time he skids to a stop in front of your door, bangs his fist on the wood. “Liv!”

“It’s open,” he hears you call from the other side, and twists the handle, pushes the door open. You’re sitting at the kitchen table, rubbing at your forehead, a bottle of whiskey not far from reach. Your gaze lifts slowly, but then your entire expression changes when you see him standing there in the doorway. “Joel? What’re you do—”

“I wanna talk to you,” he says, the words coming out in a rush. His heart is hammering in his chest. He steps through the doorway, shuts it behind him. “Please.”

“Why are you wet?” you ask, your eyes narrowing, but then you shake your head, waving your hands. “Doesn’t matter. What…you wanna talk?”

“I do.”

“About what?”

He heaves a breath. “You. Me. Tess, she—”

You lift a hand, your expression turning defeated, and reach for the whiskey. “It’s fine, Joel. I get it. It’s not like I expected you to wait around for me or anything like that, but just for the record, it’s not reason enough to avoid me like the fucking plague.” You take a swig from the bottle, tearing your eyes from his.

“I’m sorry,” he says instantly, and takes a step towards the table. You lower the bottle, slide your gaze back to his. “About all of it, Liv. Please. I just wanna talk you.”

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, shakes the water from his fingers. You don’t say anything when he shrugs out of his jacket, hangs it on the hook near the door, settles into the seat across from you. He points towards the whiskey, and you slide it across the table to him. The liquor burns on the way down, but the warmth that follows helps with the chill from the rain.

You lean back slightly in your chair, crossing your arms over your chest, staring him down. “You wanna talk, Miller,” you say, and part of him wonders how much you’ve had to drink already. “Then talk.”

He takes another long swig of the whiskey. The noise the bottle makes as he puts it back down seems to echo through the apartment. “I’ve been an asshole,” he says, his gaze dropping to his lap, “since the gas station. I’ve been trying my goddamn best to push you away, and I just…” He lifts his head, lets one hand rest on the table, an olive branch between you. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“Liv, I just…I did some terrible shit out there, to stay alive. I’m not the same. But I know you aren’t either.”

“We all do terrible shit to stay alive, Joel.” You huff a little laugh. “It’s just the way of the world now.” You drag a hand over your face. “Besides, you are the only thing I have left,” you say, and Joel’s heart jumps into his throat, “from before.” You blink hard, and he can see the tears gathering along your lashes. Everything in him wants to vault the table separating you and just hold you. “I was gonna leave Boston. Before they put up the wall, when all that was standing in my way was a fucking chain link fence. I was gonna leave. Then Cowan calls the Austin QZ, asks about my family, and there’s no record of my sister, no record of you, but my parents…”

You trail off, shaking your head, squeezing your eyes shut. You wipe at your cheeks, and lay your hand on the table, inches from his. Joel’s fingers twitch.

“What happened?”

“FEDRA levelled Austin, when it was overrun. My parents were in a shelter, when they dropped the bombs, and no one survived.”

Joel balks. He remembers, that night, the outbreak. He remembers Tommy’s truck barrelling down the road, down the main drag where the hardware store was. He remembers flames pouring out of the storefront, shattered glass and the way the awning had caught fire. He remembers praying to whoever the fuck was even bothering to listen anymore that your family was okay.

“So you stayed.”

You nod, fingers tapping on the table. “I stayed. I got lucky, really. Dean got me good, before I…” You trail off, rubbing at your shoulder. “They were killing anyone who was injured, shooting them point blank in the streets. I just ran, and nearly a week later, when the soldiers stopped me at the fence, I was still me, and Cowan made sure no one saw my injuries, had Deanna treat me. Left a nasty fucking scar.” You squeeze your shoulder, pulling your eyes from Joel’s. “I never stopped wanting to go looking for you, Joel. Not once. I just—”

He shakes his head, flexes his fingers on the tabletop. “It doesn’t matter, Liv. You did what you had to, to stay alive. We all did.” He swallows hard. “When did it happen? With Dean.”

You grab the bottle, turning fully to face him, your other hand still planted inches from his. “Outbreak day. It’s funny, actually, I had just been on the phone, with you, you remember?”

Joel lets himself smile, the conversation rising to the surface of his mind. “We wished each other happy birthday.”

“We did,” you agree, and take a swig. “I just got home, and Dean was…he was just standing there, in the bedroom, staring out the window. He didn’t notice me, not at first.” You shake your head, letting go of the bottle, rubbing your fingers across your forehead. “I shouldn’t have done it, looking back, but I didn’t know, and I…I called his name. He turned, and he looked at me with that…that dead look they have, you know? And then…then he started running at me, and I knew something was wrong. I kept the bat right by the bedroom door, and when he came at me, I just…swung. Until he stopped.”

You grab the bottle again, and Joel flexes his pinky wide, until it grazes yours. Your eyes drop to the table. “You protected yourself, baby.”

It’s like everything in the apartment shifts, as the endearment rolls off his tongue. He doesn’t mean to say it so soon, but everything in him is aching to comfort you, the feeling tenfold after being stuffed down for so long. Why did he put you through this? Why did he put himself through this?

Your eyes are watery when they lift to his again. “I never should have left Austin, Joel,” you say, and slide your hand across the table, settling it on top of his, your palms pressed together. “I never should have left you.”

“I’m here now,” he says, letting his fingers curl around your wrist. His heart races when you do the same. “It doesn’t matter. None of it.”

Your thumb slides across his pulse, and your eyes flutter shut for a moment before they meet his again. There’s fire in your eyes, one he hasn’t seen in a long, long time. “What are we doing here, Joel?”

His brow pinches. “What d’you mean?”

“This is the ultimate second chance,” you say, and he can’t help his chuckle, “and we are royally fucking it up.” He keeps laughing, and you dig your nails into his skin, making him yelp. “It’s not funny, Joel!”

“I know, I know,” he says, his tone going apologetic. “It’s just…you and Tess get on well, don’t you?”

You scoff a little laugh, nodding. “She’s a badass.”

He juts his chin towards you. “So are you.”

“I get it,” you say, pulling your eyes away. Your hand stays where it is. “The two of you, it makes sense. I…I was with Cowan.” You make a face. “Am with Cowan? I don’t know. It’s just…comfort, I guess, but now, it…”

Joel can’t help but bristle slightly. “He’s helped you all these years?”

You nod slowly. “Hasn’t ratted me out, got me out of some pretty deep shit once or twice. But he’s not…” You nail him to the spot with your stare, leaning forward slightly, sliding your hand up his arm until it’s wrapped around his forearm, resting in the crook of his elbow. “He doesn’t come close, Joel. Dean, Cowan, they’re just…” You shake your head. “They’re nothing, compared to you. I could never love anyone else the way I loved you.” You pause, chew your lip. “Love you.”

“Liv—”

“But I won’t get between you and Tess, I promise. I like her, and you and me, it doesn’t—”

“Tess broke things off,” he says, and your eyes go wide. “She was right. I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing, pushing you away, thinking it was easier that way. I don’t want to stay away from you anymore. I can’t stay away from you.”

“So don’t.”

“You just said you and Cowan—”

“It doesn’t fucking matter. None of it matters.”

Joel’s brain stalls, for a moment, seeing the flare in your eyes. He gets up slowly. Your hands move to your lap as he rounds the table, pulls you to your feet. There’s only inches between you, the air turning thick with tension. “Say it again,” he says, his voice hushed, almost a whisper.

You close the distance, stepping into his arms. His hands slip beneath the hem of your sweater, resting on your jean-clad hips, and Joel inhales deeply when your palms slide up his biceps, rest on his shoulders, one hand slipping up the back of his hair, wet curls twisted between your knuckles.

“Don’t stay away from me,” you murmur, tugging lightly at his hair, until his face is angled with yours. He can smell the whiskey on your breath, see the remains of the bruise on your cheek. He can feel your heartbeat, wild against his own, your chest against his. “Be with me, Joel, please.”

Your voice cracks on the please, and that’s what gets him. The tension snaps, and he can’t hold back anymore.

There’s no hesitancy in it. It feels like he’s kissing you for the very first time all over again — feels like he’s seeing you for the first time all over again. The press of your mouth is hot and wet, a tiny mewl falling from your lips to his as you hold him to you, your fingers tightening in his hair. He kisses your bottom lip, then the top, sinking his teeth into your flesh, pulling more tiny noises from you. God, he’s fucking missed you, so goddamned much.

You chase him when he pulls away, grabbing his lower lip between your teeth, making him groan into your mouth, giving you a hungrier kiss the second time round. He pushes you backwards, your boots tangling with his and suddenly you’re a heap of limbs on the ground. You actually laugh and Joel kisses the sound right out of your mouth, licking his tongue along the seam of your lips.

The motion makes you whimper, adjusting yourself beneath him until your thighs are spread either side of his hips, your boots planted on the ground. Everything in him feels white-hot, and he can’t stop kissing you, making up for lost time, pouring his apologies into his kisses, memorizing the way you feel and taste now.

“Joel,” you gasp out when he slides his hand along your jaw, tilts your head back on the wood floor, noses his way down your throat.

“Yeah, baby?” he murmurs into your skin, inhaling you deeply, kissing at your pulse.

“Take me to bed.”

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#my fics #strawberry wine #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #the last of us #the last of us fic #the last of us spoilers #joel miller x oc #joel miller x liv stone

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luvrsbian · 1 year

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𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐔𝐏

A/N: thank you so so SO much for the support on part one. i did not expect that at all!! everyones likes, reblogs, comments, and tags made my whole day (especially the comments and tags, almost cried during class cause i was soft over some of y'alls fic reviews) um, anyway, still fluffy, still 4k words, still a little awkward eddie, and some very minor angst for plot movement. nothing to be scared about, i promise. also, this fic is very much not a slow burn, it's more akin to love-at-first-sight-but-were-both-awkward-idiot-dummys. and as always so much love and praise for mona @enam3l for making sure this fic is coherent and not just me rambling thoughts. please enjoy!

PART ONE ✿ PART THREE

Virginias letter sat heavy in Eddie’s pocket for the remainder of the day. Only being touched again when he took it from the deep, work pockets and folded it up to put in his jean pockets as he left for the day back home. 

Eddie didn’t see you the rest of the day, assuming you left around 2:50 like Virginia would, his own shift not ending till 4. This theory being confirmed when he did finally head out, there were only two cars left in the staff lot. One being his van, his baby that was on her last legs. A few spots down sat the second, Mr. Sinclair’s Honda Accord. Knowing the father of Lucas and Erica, an ex-elementary school teacher turned middle school principal, he probably wouldn’t be heading out till around 5:30 when Ron came in for the night shift and lockup. Mr. Sinclair was a kindly principle with a no-nonsense policy yet, still carefree enough for the kids to like him. He was way better than the principle of Hawkins middle when Eddie attended.  

Eddie parked the Mystery Machine - a name dubbed by Robin the first time he took her and Steve on a drive - in front of the small, blue house. Wayne’s car still parked in the driveway, his shift at the plant not starting till 6; giving Eddie enough time to take a power nap and make dinner for the both of them. Tonight was definitely a soup and grilled cheese kinda night. Maybe some steamed broccoli for a balanced meal or what not. 

Entering the home, he falls into his usual after work ritual of putting any change from his pockets into the coin-jar and his keys next to it. Then, his shoes come off and are placed by the door so he could slip them on easily in the morning. Wayne’s door was closed, presumably still sleeping, so he does his routine quietly. He keeps his shirt on but takes his jeans off to put on some plaid, loose fit pajama bottoms. Before discarding his jeans into the could-be-worn-again pile, he takes out the note. With a sigh, he sits on the edge of the bed with the letter clasped in his fingers.  

Eddie doesn’t even know why the letter was stressing him out so badly. He knew it wouldn’t be anything truly bad. Yeah, he was bummed he wasn’t warned beforehand about her sudden retirement to Florida, but at least she left him something to explain herself. That’s more than the other people in his life who upped and left with no warning could say.  

Man up, dude. It’s just words on some paper. 

With a few more seconds of memorizing all the curves and loops of his name written by Virginia on the back, he bites the bullet and opens the letter. He unfolds the parchment, noting the formal stationary with a huff of laughter, surprised it wasn’t just a loose-leaf lined page. Eddie begins to read the words left for him. 

Dear Eddie M., 

If you’re reading this letter that means I’ve finally left this hellhole and jumped ship. (Jumped on a ship, that is. You know me and my affinity for cruises to tropical locations.) 

Eddie did know this, having heard a small handful of stories from Virgina about the cruises and summer beach vacations she would take with her son, Rick, and her roommate, Caroline. He even remembers a few years back, one of the first times he saw her out and about at the grocery store wearing this graphic t-shirt of a humanoid lady cat in a hot pink one-piece, lounging on a beach towel with the words ‘Bahama Mama’ in matching pink script above her. Eddie had walked up to her in the dairy aisle, Cheshire Cat grin on display, and said with his whole chest, “Hello, Bahama Mama.” To which Virginia promptly ignored him with a side eye glance and headed towards the produce section. 

But that also means you’ve met the lovely nurse who will be taking my place. She also has a great enjoyment of beach vacations, if you’re looking for topic starters. You’ve always been quite dreadful at small talk, but I won’t bore you with the reminiscing of our first meeting, you were there, and I hope you remember it like I do. 

Knowing you, though, you’re either jumping for joy to be rid of this old gal or confused on my sudden departure. I’m truly sorry I couldn’t say goodbye in person and to leave so suddenly. But let’s be honest here, Edward, if anyone could convince me to spend another 65 55 years in Indiana, it would be you. 

Caroline and I decided it was as good as time as any to finally do some traveling, just the two of us. Rick and the kids are in a good place now (but please still keep an eye on him when you can, I don’t trust him to be truthful about things, like you are.) You're in a good place as well, whether you care to admit it or not.  

I would never have left if I thought you truly still needed me. 

Eddie lets out a sardonic laugh at her truthful sentiments. Virginia wasn’t a liar, she had secrets like any normal person, but when she said things, she meant them. He furrows his brows noticing a small wet stain on the next line before another quickly appears. Bringing his free hand up to his face he realizes he’s crying. With a hard sniffle and another chuckle at his own emotions he collects himself and finishes the note.

Enough of the sappy shit crap. You’ll be receiving various postcards in due time through our gorgeous new friend. Play nice and don’t fuck it up, Edward. I believe in you. You need to make friends now before you end up stubborn and old like me. Not everyone gets their own Caroline. 

I better here back from you. My replacement will know what to do with them. 

Love, Virginia Wagner 

Eddie folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope and tucked it in his bedside table drawer. Don’t fuck it up, I believe in you, echoing in his brain. He had no intentions on fucking up anything. Especially with you. You, the woman he just met not even 24 hours ago. He shakes you from his thought, not ready to jump nto that obvious trap set up by a secret hopeless romantic. He needed time. His mind, body, and heart still processing the words he just read before an evil grin spread upon his lips. 

“I fucking knew that old witch was a lesbian.” 

You didn’t come into work for the remainder of prep-week.  

Which was fine. So fine in fact that Eddie 100% didn’t even notice. He had his own work to distract him. How could he have known you weren’t there when he was so busy moving desks, cleaning floors, eating lunch outside with that sad, puppy dog look on his face because he’s never had to find a spot to eat outside of the nurse's office before. Your disappearance hit him like a freight train on Friday.  

With one of those old school paperback books from a second-hand shop in town in one hand and the other preoccupied with feeding himself. His brain simultaneously trying to read the small words whilst not overthinking every possible thing regarding you. 

Did Eddie just fuck everything up with one meeting? Was he so off-putting that the only reasonable response was to quit on your first day in order to prevent the chance of running into him again? Your ability to make people leave will forever astound me, Eddie Munson, he tells himself.

The reasonable part of Eddies brain played quickly to shut down this intense negative thinking. Maybe you were just sick? Even nurses get sick sometimes! Or a family emergency! Or your car broke down! Or something evil that Eddie wasn’t sure he’d ever possibly be able to explain to someone who didn’t experience it first-hand like him and his friends was happening in Hawkins again and you just happened to be the first victim- 

Nope. No. No. We’re shutting this down here, traumatized and overactive brain. Eddie began doing his deep breathing exercises that he learned from his therapist (well, Steve’s, who had promptly told Eddie because mental healthcare was a luxury he could probably never afford.) Reminding himself he was going to be okay he decided that on Monday, if you were still M.I.A, he’d ask someone. Freaking out and thinking the immediate worst, wasn’t gonna help anyone, he needed to just chill. Not let his mind take control of him. Virginia was smart and could sense things about people, she wouldn't have forced the two of you to collide in such a way if she thought you’d up and disappear. 

Besides, even the kindest of people don’t share Swiss Rolls with people they hate, and Hawkins was no longer a literal gateway to hell. 

Eddie’s weekend was uneventful. 

He finished his book. He went grocery shopping. Him and Wayne watched some rom-com film with Julia Roberts as a sex worker. In hindsight, a bizarre movie choice for both of them, next time Eddie thinks he’ll just let Wayne put on his beloved westerns. He worried just a bit about you. He kept his thoughts as realistic as he could this time. Although, he did at one point worry, whilst lying in bed Sunday night, whether you had gone missing and he was the only one to notice, meaning he’s now fucked up any chance of your rediscovery by not informing someone. But this was Hawkins. If you had truly gone missing without a trace, he would’ve heard of it by now. Especially from Pamela in Admin who did the attendance records and didn’t know how to keep things to herself.  

Point is, if you had an unexcused absence for the 4-days you were gone, she would’ve made it everyones business. Which gave Eddie some peace of mind that he’s heard nothing through the grapevine that runs through Hawkins. 

That Monday morning, Eddie was the first to traverse the halls of the first day of another school year at Hawkins middle. Or he thought he was. He wasn’t so sure because as he made his way to the main switch box that turned on all the hallway lights, a fluorescent glow was spilling out of the Nurse’s office. 

He slowed his pace as he approached the door left ajar, his head peeked around the corner of the entry. The lights were all on, there were various storage boxes on the beds, some filled with medical odds and ends, others empty. It was clear someone had been there organizing supplies. 

“Uh,” Eddie cleared his throat, the first use of his voice for the morning, “Hello?” 

“Good morning,” 

He whips around, startled by the cheery voice. 

“Jesus H. Christ, you gotta stop doing that,” his hand rubbed at his chest, face disgruntled and red from the jump scare. 

“Hey, you’re the one who keeps entering my workspace unannounced,” a look of innocence on your face. You step around him, bodies almost touching for just a second, causing Eddie’s heartbeat to increase embarrassingly so. You’ve got a coffee mug held tightly in one hand, the other stuffed deep in your cardigan. The same sunflowers embellishing it, that greeted Eddie last time. Your scrub top today was black with various illustrations of Mickey and Minnie Mouse depicted as nurses.  

“I said hello,” he argues, hand rubbing at his chin. He continues to take in your appearance and any new details he can latch onto. You look the same, of course. It’s only been like what, 6 days since he saw you last. The only glaring difference being a sleepier appearance, even with the bubbly morning aura, your eyelids look heavy. You roll them at his defense, a resting smile never leaving your lips. 

You step over bins on the floor, take a long sip from your mug, and set it on the same table he put his lunch sack on last week. He smiles at the mug; it was off white and in red cartoonish font had the slogan ‘I ♡ my aunt!’. You begin to work on the boxes and talk as he stands in the entryway, not wanting to disturb the systematic mess you have in place. 

“I hope you didn’t miss me too much,” you snort, picking up a closed box and putting it in the storage closet by the office part of the Nurse’s Office, “I normally don’t disappear like that. You know, I just moved in town a few weeks ago, and I’ve been having problems with the house I’m renting,” you sigh after exiting the closet. Now stuffing labelled Ziploc bags with various bandages and over the counter medication into a new bin. You look focused even while speaking sporadically. 

He can’t move his eyes away from your hands as you work diligently on putting content into storage while still explaining about your absence. Vaguely, he catches something about landlords, repair men and having to take cold baths. He was listening but most of his attention was focused on your fingers tackling Ziploc bag openings. Your sleeves rising just enough for him to wonder if shadows were playing tricks on his mind, or there was a wrist tattoo he couldn’t quite make out from this angle.  

“Eddie, ya still with me?” 

He eyes snaps up from your stilled hands to look at the playful gleam in your eye from catching him staring, “hm?” 

“I asked if you’ve read the letter yet,” you decide to step slightly closer, most of the boxes now closed and in the closet. There weren’t that many to begin with but he’s still surprised with how fast you managed to finish the task. 

“Yeah, I did. It was sweet, for Virginia that is,” really sweet. You show your teeth in a wide grin. 

“I’m glad. I was afraid you might hold some resentment towards me for replacing her,” you do that snort laugh thing again, “I am nosey though, did she mention me?” 

Eddie smirks mischievously, hands coming to rest on his hips, allowing himself to incline, further closing the distance between you both. “Wouldn’t ya like to know, Peach.” 

Your stomach did front flips from the use of that silly, little nickname again.

“I would, I really would. That’s why I asked,” you say as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. One of your fingers he’d been watching intensely before, now coming up to give his chest a poke.

Was this flirting? Eddie knew it was something akin to flirting, but was this a playful flirting or a serious flirting? He struggled between the two, often getting told off and read wrong for his natural charm. He’s like pretty sure he’s flirting with the serious intention, but were you? His heart felt like it was gonna fall out of his ass and he might throw up his own brain from all these emotions and thoughts. 

Before he could respond and remind his head and heart to start working again, a familiar voice spoke from behind his back. 

“What is happening here?” 

It was Eddie's turn to roll his eyes, another body squeezing past him to enter the nurse’s office. He takes a step back to let the young intruder have space to do whatever he needs to do here. You put your hand down and smile at the student you’ve yet to meet. 

Matty Sherman had a head of thick dark curls, a mole on his left cheek, and dark green eyes. He was wearing an obviously well-loved and a size too big Pantera t-shirt he had obviously cut the sleeves off himself to make into a muscle tee. He paired this with loose fitted, medium wash jeans, and some relatively new converse. Obviously wanting to make a statement and look his best for his first day of 8th grade. Both of his backpack straps were secured on his shoulder. His eyes looked between Eddie and you before landing securely on you. 

“Sup,” he smiles wide, dimples and braces on display.  

“Hi,” you smile widely yourself, a hitch in your voice from trying to not laugh at the situation. You glance over to Eddie, who’s looking at you with a pout on his pretty lips. Your eyes shift toward yet another, Ziploc bag that was in Matty’s hand. 

“That for me?” You ask, hand gesturing towards the bag holding obvious medication. 

“You the nurse?” The teen boy asks in a playful tone, as if you’re not wearing an outrageously patterned scrub top whilst standing in the nurse’s office. 

“I am the nurse.” 

“Then this is for you. I have asthma,” he hands you the Ziploc bag, curls bouncing when he turns to look at Eddie now, “Munson.” 

“Sherman, how was your summer?”  

“Dude, it was great. My dad felt so bad about not doing crap with us for Christmas that he took Me and Eli to see Megadeth in Chicago,” Matty excitedly responds, hands flailing around as he speaks. Beaded bracelets he had covering his wrist clanking together.  

Eddie couldn’t help but smile slightly at that. As much as he acted like Matty was a thorn in his side, he did genuinely care about him. In some weird turn of events, he had become to Matty what Virginia was to him. A safe haven at school. Even though Matty was far more popular than Eddie was at the same age, he obviously needed some sort of role model or trusted adult to just care. Matty had his mom at home and Eddie at school. Similar to how Eddie had Wayne at home and Virginia at school. 

Matty was waiting for Eddie's response, wanting some sort of confirmation that his ass of a father taking him and his older brother to see a metal concert was actually a cool thing to do. You were clearly taking your time putting Matty’s medication away to give them time to have this moment. Eddie smiles wide at Matty, to which he instantly perks up more. 

“Man, that does sound like a great summer. I spent my whole summer cleaning up after you kids,” he huffs and gives Matty’s shoulder a nudge. 

“You would’ve loved it, Munson, I’m telling you.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees before your make yourself known again.  

“I hate to break this up but class for you,” you gesture towards the youngest metalhead, “starts in about 5 minutes and I’m pretty sure we need to get back to work,” you give Eddie an apologetic smile. It’s probably the closest thing to sad he’s seen you so far and he’s not a fan. At all. 

“Yeah,” he agrees sadly, teeth nipping at his bottom lip, “We good for lunch?”  

“Yes.” You respond, quickly. Agreement coming out before he even got to the final syllable in lunch. Now his lips are being nipped to contain his full smile. 

“Good, I’ll see you then,” he moves his hand to grab the handle of Matty’s bookbag to lead him out. 

“You will! Bye guys,” You wiggle your fingers in goodbye. 

“Bye,” Matty waves to you as he’s being pulled out by Eddie. Your laugh following them out into the hall. 

Eddie keeps his hand secured on Matty’s bag until they’re a good few feet in the opposite direction from your door. He lets go and Matty takes a few steps to the side and adjusts his backpack to sit better on his back. 

“She’s hot.” 

Eddie is positive he gets whiplash from how fast his head turns to glare at the 8th grader. Disgust on his face, even though he said something factual, he shouldn’t be saying things like that at all. He’s like a baby in Eddies eyes. 

“Jesus, Matty, don’t say shit like that.” 

Matty gasps in mock shock, “Woah! Language, Mr.Munson, I have impressionable ears,” he dramatically covers his ears with both hands. Eddie shakes his head and gives his bookbag a gentle shove towards where he knows his home room is. 

“Get to class.” 

Matty laughs loudly as he runs down the hall to his first period. Eddie felt too old for this shit. 

That Monday lunch went swimmingly. Eddie thinks. He hopes. It definitely felt like it went swimmingly? 

You laughed at his jokes. His actual jokes, not just his situational awkwardness. You asked about his week and he asked about yours. He left out the part of being fearful you quit cause of him. Whilst you delved more into your trouble with the handy men and your landlord; your stove still didn’t work but at least you had hot water. He even got to learn more about you pre-Hawkins by finally divulging the info Virginia had written about. 

“Well, she is right. I do love the beach,” You were talking with a grape stuffed into your cheek. It was endearing but Eddie was silently praying you chewed it well and didn’t choke cause he definitely did not know the Heimlich manoeuvre. “I think that’s what I’m gonna miss the most while here. Indiana doesn’t even have a coastline, how sad is that,” You’re shaking your head in disapproval. 

“We have lakes,” he tries to amend, taking a bit of his Swiss Roll that you, again, have shared with him. 

Your eyes shoot up at him in a glare, not amused by his suggestion, “Eat your sandwich.” You say it in a tone that Eddie imagines you would use while scolding a student, it makes him roll his eyes with a huff but he does as you say. Putting the half-eaten Swiss Roll down to actually eat the sandwich he brought, another concoction of various cheeses and deli meat and some lettuce for color. 

You smirk at him following your directions. You’re eyeing both your lunches once again, almost identical to the meals you brought on your first lunch. Two sandwiches, two Swiss Rolls, one bag of pretzels, another bag of grapes. You have a Coke can and he’s got Yoo-hoo in a glass. It kinda makes you sad that you’re both grown adults eating lunches teenagers would prep for themselves. You think, once your stove is fixed you may start bringing some better meals, definitely less peanut butter and more vegetables. Maybe you’ll even bring enough to share. 

And on Thursday that’s exactly what you do. 

Outside of that first Monday morning, nothing eventful really happened for the rest of the week. You had your small group of after lunch medicine takers and a few kids in need of ice packs and Band-Aids. Your lunches were preoccupied with Eddie, getting to know him better.  

Part of your brain wanted to convince you that they were kinda like mini dates.  Unfortunately, your rational side reminded you that you were just two co-workers who didn’t really fit into any of the other staff groups, looking for some companionship during lunch. You were the replacement of his previous lunch partner. But then you remembered all the snippets of info Virginia had written to you once she began to send you letters after your acceptance to take on her job so she could retire. You probably would never tell Eddie you know this slice of information, not wanting to embarrass him, but she had made it very clear that Eddie was lonely. She knew you were lonely too.  

You two can be lonely together. 

When Eddie walked into your office that Thursday he was extremely confused at the second lunch box placed where he would normally sit. It was bulky and plastic like yours, but instead of Snoopy it was the Smurfs. You were writing something down in that nurses journal you had, your own lunchbox sat next to your resting elbow. 

A worried thought started in his mind, Did you find a new lunch buddy? Were his conversational skills not improving? But then you looked up at him, that kind little smile on your lips. 

“You gonna sit down or just keep enjoying the view?”  

He returns the smile and gestures to the blue thing before taking his seat, “What’s this?”  

“Oh, uh…” You’re flustered. It’s obvious and he’s enamored by it - like most things you do. God what’s gotten into him. “I hope it’s not too forward, but I made you a lunch. My stove got fixed and your, well our- please take no offense to this, our lunches were starting to depress me a bit.” You were talking faster the more you went on. Realizing the possible negative consequences of your actions. Eddie was nice but he didn’t have to entertain your too comfortable and too caring too fast behaviors.  

He quickly shut down your increasingly panicked explanation, “I’ve never had a girl make me a lunch before. It’s sweet. You're sweet.” He was honest. He hasn’t had a girl in this context make him any sort of a meal before and you were sweet. Sharing Swiss Rolls and ‘take as many as you like’ candy bowls with the expensive chocolate kind of sweet.

You smile. A wide, closed mouth smile at his understanding. He taps his fingers against the hard plastic shell, right on-top of Smurfette's blue face.  

“I hope you like it and I hope you’re not allergic to anything.” You’re calmer now and anticipating him opening his lunch. 

“I’m not. Except, for like, pollen,” he chuckles and unlatches the box. Inside there was a Tupperware of spirally noodles with a mix of cut up: vegetables, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, a few rogue pieces of broccoli and some halves pepperoni slices, an oil based Italian dressing covering it all. Your aunt’s pasta salad, that was the first recipe you ever learned. Next to it, wrapped in cling wrap was a fudgy looking brownie with peanut butter morsels spread throughout. When he looks back up you had taken out two Coke cans from the stash he knows you keep in the bottom part of your giant metal filing cabinet. A pretty hand holding one out to him. 

“I refuse to buy Pepsi, hope you like Coke.” 

“I love Coke,” he takes it from your hand.  

The food tasted as good as it looked, so good only the sound of chewing, plastic forks on Tupperware, and hums of appreciation being heard. It was similar to the first lunch but instead of the awkward, uncertain air, this moment was comfortable, relaxing. Two friends - because that’s what you two have become in this last week - enjoying a meal together.  

It happened fast, Eddie thinks, this comfort between the two of you. Maybe it’s the kindredness between you two, the various similarities you shared.  

“You know, I can cook too,” Eddie breaks the silence. You’re working on your dessert, always saving it for last. Eddie was impatient and devoured his first thing in the most polite way possible. There’s brownie in the corner of your mouth when you give him your attention, humming for him to continue his thought. 

Eddie’s not sure what possesses him to do it. He could play it off as his role of janitor and having a habit of cleaning messes, but he knows that’s not entirely true. He cups one side of your face with his hand, the rings are a nice cold on your warm face. His thumb swiping the crumbs from corner lip in such a natural way you’d think he would have done this to you often. No matter how hard you try, you'd always been a messy eater. You don’t flinch. You don’t even show any signs of this being unusual or unwelcome aside from a slight widening of your eyes. 

Eddie let's another wave of confidence take over him. “Maybe I can cook for you on Saturday night?” 

You nod, mouth still full of brownie and making the executive decision to not be gross and talk with your mouth full in this situation. He smiles and removes his hand from your cheek. Silently, you both find the skin that had just made contact now tingles. It's hard not to think about when you may steal another touch, but the pair of you hope maybe Saturday.

the clean up crew (taglist): @avobabe87 @bakugouswh0r3 @ms1oftheboys @rosaline-black @haylaansmi @adoringdanvers @wyverntatty @gaysludge @bebe07011 @boltonbritreads @hugdealer @gothvamp1973 @awhoreforeddiemunson @definitionwanderlust @billytalentleaves @aysheashea @pollenallergie @siriuslysmoking @heavymetalbabyy @killerbailey @sidthedollface2 @whenshelanded @hazydespair @mayhemicfordays @inocrazeh @thora-jane @varevaretostuff @vintagehellfire @chaoticgood-munson (strike means it wont tag)

comment or ask to be added to the clean up crew!

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things x reader #stranger things fanfiction #joseph quinn fanfiction #joseph quinn x reader #eddie munson #joseph quinn #school janitor eddie x school nurse reader #tcu #ʚ by gwen ɞ

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violetmuses · 2 months

Text

United - A. Aretas 🖤

Title: United - A. Aretas

Fandom: “Bad Boys” Film Universe 🖤

Character: Armando Aretas

Pairing: Armando Aretas + Female Reader

Main Storyline: Even when joining Armando in prison, you'll always look out for each other. @nelo0wesker

====

2020

This federal transfer took place once you and Armando recovered in the hospital. His mother, Isabel Aretas. died through revenge and burned.

“You okay?” His accented English whispered once Armando checked your locked placement.

“Yeah.” You nodded while shackled during this lockup.

“I love you.” Armando rasped from his placement once more.

“I love you, too.” You offered that promise no matter what happens next.

#movies #bad boys #jacob scipio #armando aretas #bad boys for life #❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹#armando aretas x reader #armando #armando x reader

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silentreigns · 1 year

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Singapore GP 2023 Qualifying Reflection

Max is being investigated for impeding on 3 different occasions. You know how funny it would be if he got a 9 place grid penalty and started P20? 99% sure that nothing will happen to him but that 1%? We will be there regardless

Yuki's Q1 time was faster than Liam's Q3 time 😔. This will be overlooked by journalists though. And I'm pretty sure Checo spinning and causing a yellow flag caused him to abort his lap. I just want him to have 1 weekend where nothing goes wrong 😭

Carlos getting 2 pole positions in a row. I love this song. He's been on fire during free practice and I'm happy to see how consistent he's doing

Charles had a lockup in the final corners and if it wasn't for that, he would be the one on pole position. I hope he doesn't beat himself up too much about it because P3 is a good result

Anyone making Crashgate jokes can eat a bag of dicks. I don't care that you made the joke after we learned that Lance was fine. Nothing about him crashing was funny

Also I still think Aston Martin are sabotaging / making Lance look stupid too often because he was driving funny even before the crash took place. Don't know what is happening on his side of the garage but fix IT

Both Haas in Q3 is even funnier when you remember that they have the 2nd slowest cars on the grid. Hope they can score points tomorrow though

Felt like Lewis was barely even there in quali but he has a decent starting position tomorrow so that is all that matters

Need everyone to keep this momentum going for tomorrow. Let's end that RedBull win streak like now is the time to do that 🙏

#f1 #formula 1 #lewis hamilton #charles leclerc #yuki tsunoda #carlos sainz #max verstappen #liam lawson #lance stroll #kevin magnussen #nico hulkenberg #Singapore gp 2023

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polakina · 1 year

Text

cracks in porcelain

'scars do heal' chapter 6

pairing: captain price x reader

rating: mature

outline: the team was whole again, you were back at base and Hassan was yours. with the missile still in the wind, you would do anything to get the information out of Hassan. anything.

warnings: canon violence, blood, torture, murder, the daddy issues will definitely kick in soon, fluff

requests are open! hope you enjoy, petals <3

masterlist II 'scars do heal' masterlist

The bed felt too comfortable to leave. You laid there much longer than you should have, staring at the familiar ceiling of your room that you had strangely missed. The comforting walls shielding you in from facing the boys outside.

It had been three days since you were allowed to move to your room instead. The team hadn’t seen much of you, and they hadn’t pried for you to join them during meals or in the evening around the fire. They kept their distance, Price advising them to give you some time to adjust and heal. You had appreciated it, not really wanting to be around everyone right now. You knew that they would act differently around you, be quieter and watch what they said, be careful as to not touch you or go near you with any sudden movements.

It felt silly, really. But you understood why they were doing it. They were worried. Even having you back. Alive. They worried for you. They needed you back, and soon. The team had to be whole again to deal with Hassan and the missile.

Stepping into the briefing room, you were happy that your leg was starting to hurt a little less now. The stretches that Gaz had recommended to you after his leg injury had really helped you out, you almost felt yourself again.

The boys all looked to you as you entered, a warm smile appearing on their faces. “Well, well. If it isn’t our phoenix rising from the ashes,” Soap clapped his hands together while walking over to you. You didn’t expect him to hug you, but his arms enveloped you and you embraced it.

“Well, I gotta get in on this,” Gaz grinned, running around the table and making it a three way hug. Ghost just rolled his eyes, but walked over anyway. He didn’t hug you, but he placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. Alejandro and Rodolfo appeared moments later, joining the embrace. You laughed quietly as they hugged you, glad to have you back. Finally separating, you saw Price smiling at you all, his moustache turning up slightly.

“Alright, boys,” Price said, turning everyone’s attention to him. “We got Hassan in lockup and no way of finding this damn missile. If we can get some information out of him, maybe we can get a lead on the missile. Or some way of stopping it before its released.” You all walked to the table, standing around it and listening to the captain. “But it is nice to have you back at the table, Rook.”

“Phoenix,” everyone droned, rolling their eyes playfully.

“You call her what you like,” Price smiled, “She’s Rook to me.” You couldn’t help but smile. “So, let’s figure out what we’re doing, and get it done right this time.”

The shipping container’s dark navy tint shone bright on the side of the sun. Heat and light radiated off it, and you couldn’t imagine how hot it would be once you were inside it. The team walked over to the container, all standing at the closed door, fingers wiggling with anticipation to get this over with.

“You gonna be alright in there rook?” Price asked you quietly, coming up beside you. His arm brushed against yours and you leaned into his comforting touch slightly.

“I’ll be fine,” you responded, your tone firm. “I want to see that son of a bitch again anyway. Might give him a matching scar to mine.”

Price knew you weren’t being serious. Mostly. You had every right to kill that bastard, but you needed that information first. After that, he was ready to look the other way and let you lock that shipping door behind you. “Alright, love.” He trusted you. Entirely.

Price pulled the door open, letting the light seep through to the dimly lit container. “Let’s get this over with.” There was a single flickering lightbulb to illuminate the dingy shipping container. A single metal chair was positioned in the center of the holding container, facing away from the door, and Hassan was sitting in it, cuffed to the seat. Seemed pretty ironic that he had you in this same predicament not one week prior.

The boys walked to where Hassan could see them, standing in a sort of semi circle around him, Price in the center with Alejandro and Ghost flanking him. You hung back for a second, taking a deep breath and clearing your head of the past three months in the prison cell that te very man before you had locked and tortured you in.

“The missile, Hassan,” Price started, crossing his arms as he looked down at the man. “Where is it? What do you know about it?”

Hassan just laughed to himself. Soap kicked the chair leg closest to him hard. “Find something funny, arsehole?”

He nodded, looking up at Soap with a grin on his face. He didn’t even seem to care about the situation he was in right now. “Yeah, I do, soldier. Seems like we’re both in the same boat here. Looking for a missile without a way to track it down.”

Soap leaned down to level eye contact with him. “That’s Sergeant to you. Now tell us what you know before we take turns caving your face in.” Hassan maintained eye contact, his eyes like steel as they stared directly at Soap.

“You can beat me all you want. I cannot tell you what I do not know. Now if you’ve finished wasting your time, I’d like you to leave me in peace. Your stench is like acid to my nostrils,” Hassan jeered, flicking his eyes to the men in front of him. He was taunting them, and he was loving it. Not only did he not care about being captured, but he was looking forward to sending the men into a spiral. He wanted to anger them, to turn them on one another. Then he could drive them apart from the inside.

“You fucking-”

“Soap,” Price warned, as he saw his Sergeant close his and into a tightly clenched fist. He knew Soap had a short temper. If he allowed him to keep speaking to Hassan, he was sure to lose it at some point. Price believed Hassan when he said he didn’t know the location of the missile, and if he didn’t have any useful information, then they wouldn’t need him anymore. They already had a plan in place for when they did locate the missile, and the technology they would use to safely detonate it when acquired. Hassan was just a loose end now. A loose end they could cut off without remorse.

“Where’s the girl?” Everyone looked to Hassan, yourself included from where you were leaning against the inside of the container door, staring at the back of his head. “You boys bore me. I want to speak to someone with a little…fire.”

Ghost stepped forward, fists clenched. “You’re not getting anywhere near her. Not after what you did, you sick piece of shit,” he spat through gritted teeth. Hassan just shook his head, looking to the floor. “I said I didn’t know where the missile was. I never said I didn’t know who took it.” You watched as Ghost fleetingly look to you before back to Hassan. “And you won’t know what I know…” Hassan leaned forward as much as his cuffs would let him. “Until I talk to her. And her alone.” Everyone went silent and you saw them all look past Hassan to where you were standing.

Price gave you a look. The sort of look that said “you up for it?”. You were. You’d been mentally preparing the whole time Soap was speaking. You knew Hassan well enough by now to know he’d want to see you. See the damage he’d done to you. So you nodded, and Price cleared his throat, making the team look his way. He gestured towards the exit with his head, and with looks of confusion spread across their faces they all headed to the door. You stepped aside, pushing the door open with your foot, and Alejando and Rodolfo passed with a swift nod of their heads. Soap and Gaz patted your shoulder before leaving but Ghost stopped before exiting.

“Gonna be alright in there, Nix? You don’t have to do this,” he said solemnly, his pretty eyes looking as though they were staring directly into your soul.

“I got this. Besides, after this, I’ll never have to see him again,” you kept your eyes on Hassan the whole time.

Ghost took a second before he connected all the dots in his head. He just nodded and left to join the others. Price followed lastly. “If he gets too much, leave and we’ll figure something else out, rook.. But if he tells you who took the missile, then we’re golden and we’ll finally have a lead on how to finish this.”

“I’ll get it out of him, Price,” you looked up at him, and he could see the determination in your eyes.

“Okay, rook.” Price went to leave, but stopped, something suddenly springing to mind. “Be careful, okay? Anything goes sideways, let me know, I’ll come in. And…after he tells you, he’s disposable.” That was the best thing you’d heard all day. Your focus was drawn to the cold handle of a handgun being pressed into your hand, and you felt him slip a knife into your belt, the handle pressing against the small of your back. You hadn’t been able to get your own weapons back since being discharged, a psych evaluation was requested before you were able to have your weapons on hand. Price placed his hand over yours comfortingly, his fingers drifting over yours. “Don’t let him get into your head, love.” With that, he left. It was just you and Hassan now.

“I know you’re there, little girl.” Little girl. It’s what he’d called you to diminish your status since you were first taken. You called him out on it the first day, spitting on his shoe as you did. That was what earned you that scar on your face. Thinking back to what you said to Price before coming in, the idea of giving him the same scar was increasingly tempting. It was a long ugly scar, stretching from your jaw up the left side of your cheek and over your eye. It stopped just beneath your hairline. Hassan had personally left that scar there as a reminder to keep your mouth shut, saying every time you stepped out of line he’d leave another one. There was a reason your body was littered with thirty-four scars in total.

“Who took the missile, Hassan? You got what you wanted, it’s just me and you.” Your voice was surprisingly steady, a calm tone hanging in the air.

“I’ll tell you if you come over here. Let me see that face of yours,” his tone disgusted you. Anything he said disgusted you. He talked as though he still had control of the room, authority over people. You had to remind yourself he had none. You had to remind yourself he was in your territory now.

Walking up behind him, you held the blade in your hand, holding it against his throat. With your free hand, you pulled his head back and tilted it up to you. “No, I give the orders around here. Now tell me who took the fucking missile before I spray this container with all of your blood. Don’t fuck around with me Hassan, unless you want to feel more pain than you could ever imagine.”

He just smiled, looking up at you, not even caring about the droplet of blood spilling from the small cut you had bore into his skin from how tightly you were pressing the knife against his skin. “Look at you, thinking you can order me about. It’s adorable really.”

You moved the blade from his throat and slashed across his cheek, causing him to hiss and flinch, trying to pull away from you, but you kept him in place. You were practically shaking with anger at this point.

“What did I say? Don’t. Fuck. Around.”

Hassan stayed quiet for the first time, looking back up at you. If anything, he felt impressed. Impressed that you would dare to hurt him after he knew that you were aware of the power he had. The power he had over you. Even if you weren’t showing it, he knew that he’d left some sort of psychological pain in there somewhere. He was going to exploit it. He wanted you to crack. He had much enjoyed the three months of watching you slowly fall down a hole, the hope leaving your eyes every time he’d opened the door. He enjoyed leaving you to feel nothing but pain, any emotion draining from your body, leaving you as a hollow shell.

“There was a woman,” he started, surprising you that he was actually divulging the information instead of just dodging it as you had expected him to. “She broke into the facility I was holding the missile in and stole it.”

“I need a name,” you ordered. You knew he had it, he was just playing with you. He had no men left, no army to stand by him. The 141 had taken down his main base and drilled down every single soldier within those walls. Hassan had nothing.

“That scar suits you,” he blocked the question, and you just rolled your eyes out of frustration.

“Do you want another scar on your own face?” You held the knife against the inner corner of his eye. “I’m pretty sure you don’t need eyes to tell me what I need to know.”

“Easy, little girl-”

“Officer. Call me little girl again and I will take both of your eyes out of your head, Hassan.”

Hassan just smiled, your new found confidence both amusing and surprising him. He’d always liked that little spark of fire in you. “Valeria. My men said that her team called her Valeria. That’s all I know, officer. If I could tell you more, I would.” You could see on his face that he didn’t know anything more. But you already had a name, you didn’t need anything else from him. Like Price had said, he was disposable now.

“Finally, something useful comes out of your mouth,” you sighed in relief. Hassan relaxed in the chair, assuming you were just about to leave him alone in the shipping container. “Now I don’t have any particular use for you,” you leaned down so your face was inches from his. “I can finally do what I’ve been waiting to do for three months.” His eyes widened as he realised what you meant, and his scream vibrated the hot metal walls of his cell as you slowly dragged the knife deeply across his throat, tearing his artery as you did so. You said you’d make it painful for him if he fucked around, you weren’t kidding about that.

His blood spattered across his clothes, spraying the floor as he suffered. From the position you were in, hovering above him, his blood hit the top of your shirt and painted your neck and your chin bright red. But you didn’t leave after that. You continued to watch, looking into his eyes as you watched the life leave them. You wanted to be the last thing he saw before death.

Outside, the boys all jumped as Hassan’s screaming was muffled by the container doors. Price knew what you’d done, and the boys put pieces together pretty quickly. You didn’t come out for a few more minutes, and they were waiting to jump at the opportunity to go in and check on you.

Soap had only taken one step towards the door before it opened on its own. You appeared and everyone’s eyes except Price’s widened as they saw the blood on your upper body, a knife in your hand, Hassan’s blood still dripping from it. “You good, Nix?” Soap asked, as you wiped the knife on your pants.

“Never better, Soap,” you nodded at him before handing the knife back to Price’s outstretched hand. You looked to Alejandro. “There’s a bit of a mess in there, my bad. But your holding cell is free now.” You handed the gun back to Price as well. Price said nothing the entire time, just looking at you with a small ounce of pride in his eyes. “I got a name,” you said, looking to your captain. “Valeria. That’s all he knew.” You missed the way Alejandro sprung to attention at that name. “But if you don’t mind me, I’m going to shower.”

You walked away. The boys watched as you left before Alejandro spoke about his knowledge of Valeria. You should have felt relieved he was gone, you should have felt something. But you just felt empty. Everyone looked at you as you passed, some even nudging fellow soldiers and pointing at the blood on your body, but you didn’t stop or care.

Making it to your room, you rid yourself of the bloodied clothes and started the shower, feeling the warming comfort of steam hit your naked form as the shower water grew hotter. Scrubbing your face and body of earlier events, you thought back to what you did. Watching Hassan slowly die, and feeling nothing from it. You were glad he was gone. He couldn’t hurt anyone else. He couldn’t hurt you. You sighed. Even dead, he still plagued your thoughts. Shaking him from your thoughts, you finished your shower and wrapped a towel around your body.

After dressing yourself, you dried your hair with a fresh towel, looking at yourself in the mirror. You regretted wearing a tank top now. Your scars were visible to see. Your arms and chest and neck painted with deep red scarring. The ones on your legs and back were still hidden, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away from your arms.

A knock on your door pulled your attention away from the mirror, and you walked to the door, opening it to see Price once again. “Hey, Price,” you smiled, letting him in and going back to the mirror to fix your hair.

“Feeling better?” He asked, sitting on the edge of your bed and watching you.

“I think so. He’s gone and we have a lead. Everything’s looking a little better for us now,” you nodded at him through the mirror.

“Yeah, I saw the state you left him in,” Price sighed. “That’s some heavy shit.”

“You don’t think he deserved it?” Your tone sounded defensive, and Price jumped to ease the defence. He stood from your bed, walking over to stand behind you, leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom.

“No, rook, I think he deserved all of it. If I could, I would have done worse. Knowing what he did to you, for three months. I wouldn’t have left that room until he was begging me to end it for him.” Price looked at you through the mirror and watched you nod back at him. “But he’s gone. We can move on, you can heal and you’ve got everyone here to be there for you.”

His words comforted you, but you didn’t know how long it was going to take you to heal. “I know, but Hassan is always gonna be there.” Price looked confused and you gestured to your arms for the scars visible to see. “I’m gonna have these for the rest of my life. He put those there. Now he just gets to die without even a memory of me.”

Price looked to his feet with a solemn sigh before moving over to you. He could see himself in the mirror, his eyes visible above your head. Price put his hands on your shoulder tentatively, but you didn’t move to stop him. You just watched him through the mirror, his face coming into view on the left side of your head. “These scars only prove that you survived him. You killed him. A piece of shit with no ability to hurt people anymore is gone, and you get to keep on going. I can’t tell you what to do, rook, but you should be proud of those scars.” His hands ran down your arms softly, and your breath shuddered at his touch. His warm hands felt so right on you. You turned to face him, giving him a small smile. His eyes creased as he smiled back, his hands stopping at your wrists.

“Thanks, John,” you said, looking down to your feet. It was the first time you’d used his first name, and Price didn’t know why his heart jumped at the way you said it. You felt his hand leave your wrist, and the cold feeling it left you with, you didn’t have a reason for. But then you saw his hand move to your chin, tilting your head up to face him. Your heart pumped up to high gear, pounding in your chest.

“You should be proud. I know I am, proud of you, I mean. You’ve been through hell and you still came out of it better than the other guys,” he said softly.

“Like I’ve said before,” you practically whispered, leaning forward. “I had a good teacher.”

Price smiled, huffing a laugh quietly and making his shoulders shake slightly. “You’re damn right, you did.” Taking a quick, silent breath, you closed the gap between the two of you. Your lips met his softly and all the thoughts zipping through your head telling you this was a bad idea suddenly melted away. Price leaned into the kiss, his other hand on your wrist moving to grip your waist gently. You felt yourself being pressed against the bathroom counter, and you brought your hands up to run up his chest and landing on his cheeks, pulling him closer.

He knew this was wrong. A captain and a rookie. But he didn’t give a shit. Not when it felt so right being this close to you. Touching you. Feeling you ease into the kiss and feeling your hands on his body. He’d wanted all of this and more. Now that he had it, it felt even better than he’d imagined it would be.

You pulled away to breathe, and Price rested his forehead against yours, his hands now both on your waist, his body pressed against yours. Neither of you could say anything about what just happened before a second knock sounded at your door. Why the fuck was everyone always knocking at your door? Why couldn’t they bother someone else for a change? Price patted your waist with one hand and stepped aside so you could answer the door. Thankfully he wasn’t visible from the door, so you wouldn’t have to awkwardly explain why the Captain was in your bathroom.

“Hey, Nix,” Ghost said as you opened the door and smiled up at him.

“Hi, Ghost, everything okay?” You asked, opening the door properly to speak to him.

“Yeah, it’s fine. We just need you in the briefing room when you’re ready. Alejandro knows the woman who took the missile. Rodolfo’s tracking her now,” Ghost answered as his eyes drifted around your room before back to you.

“Okay, yeah let me just put some shoes on, I’ll be there in a second.”

Ghost nodded, stepping back to walk back down the corridor. You moved to shut the door but stopped yourself as he turned back to you. “Got any idea where Price is? He wasn’t in his room. Can’t find him anywhere.”

You shook your head. You probably could have come up with an explanation but your head was firing blanks at you right now. “No, haven’t seen him. If I catch him on the way, I’ll let him know.” Ghost just squinted his eyes briefly before nodding.

You closed the door and took a deep breath. You looked over as Price chuckled lowly from the bathroom. “Good save,” he laughed.

“Shut up,” you rolled your eyes playfully as he walked out of the bathroom. You put your shoes on quickly and Price held the door open for you, but as you were about to leave, he grabbed your wrist and spun you back around. He kissed one more time before you both made your way to the briefing tent.

“Whatever this is, we can figure out later,” he muttered quietly against your lips after pulling back from the kiss. “Let’s get this mission done, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, stepping out and letting him close your door behind him. You both walked to the briefing tent in comfortable silence. You were kind of glad there was conversation, your head was filled with what just took place in your room.

The boys looked your way as you and Price both entered the room. “Found him pretty quick, didn’t you?” Ghost asked, his tone underlying something you still couldn’t place. Why did he always have to be so sneaky about things?

“Yeah, we ran into each other in the hall,” Price covered, walking to the briefing table and you followed. “What did you find?”

“Valeria,” Alejandro interjected from where he was hovering over Rodolfo at the monitor. He turned to face the table where you were all standing around. “I know her. We trained together. She’s sneaky. Been on my radar for a while but she recently went quiet, most likely since taking the missile.”

Price nodded, looking over to the screen behind him as Rodolfo showed her face on screen for all of you to see. She was pretty, with short and dark hair framing her face. She had a scowl in her photo, the one issued by her training Sergeant to the base. “So she’s good?” Price asked, looking over to Alejandro who nodded in response.

“One of the best they ever trained. She went rogue a couple of years ago, off the grid completely until I found her a few months ago. I always had a suspicion she was up to something, so I kept tabs on her.”

“Well good thing you did,” Price pointed out. “Any idea of her last known location?”

Alejandro looked to Parra and he made a few clicks on the computer until an overhead shot of a mansion was on screen. It wasn’t a very big area, but you could make out a dozen or so men surrounding the compound. Guards there for protection. “We can get in,” Alejandro pointed at a fenced gate on the south section of the mansion’s perimeter. “Go through here, make our way up to the mansion,” his finger dragged to the house and the backdoor on the left hand side. “Quick and easy, in and out. We get Valeria, and if the missile’s there too, we get them both.”

Everyone was nodding, happy with the plan in place. “Sounds good to me,” Price said, his eyes tracing over the routes and blindspots with any cover that they could use to their advantage. “Let’s do this. Wheels up in thirty.” The team dispersed to ready themselves until it was only you, Price, Vargas and Parra left. Alejandro and Rodolfo looked over the monitor screen, conversing their best approach while Price made his way to you, who stood staring at the screen of the mansion and its perimeter. “Ready for your first mission back, Rook?”

“Always, Captain,” you gave Price a small smile, of which he returned immediately. “The sooner we get the missile and finish this, the sooner we can go home.” Home. you couldn’t wait to be back in your own house, your own bed. You’d missed more than you realised since being here.

“Alright then,” Price nodded, looking to the floor. “Gear up then. One last job. Then we’re done with this whole shit.” You couldn’t agree more. Once the missile was taken care of, you could finally move on from this. Or at least try to. You gave Price one last smile before walking out, feeling his eyes on you as you exited the tent. You still had that to figure out. As much as you wanted to, you had to prioritise.

Nothing else could go wrong.

You couldn’t afford for it to.

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