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bizaar · 1 year

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Endless Summer ✧

Part 1: Our Lips Are Sealed

Cruel Summer Masterlist

- Next

pairing: eddie munson x afab!reader

warnings: sexual content (18+ minors dni), virgin!reader, mentions of drug usage, swearing, bullying, self-deprecation, masturbation (f)

word count: 10k

a/n: so I may or may not have been writing a few chapters of a semi-raunchy little prequel to Cruel Summer, this is the same babysitter!reader at the beginning of her relationship w/ Eddie - reader is hopelessly obsessed in a totally uncool, sweaty palms sort of way and Carol Perkins is the meanest girl in school.

Carol Perkins has been talking endlessly about … something, for the better part of the ten minutes it’s been since you sat down with your lunch tray.

You aren’t exactly sure what about, because you’re not listening. You’re just sitting there watching her lips flap.

You might have felt bad about that even as recently as last week, but somehow you can’t seem to muster the feeling today.

Maybe it's because you didn't get any sleep last night and your brain feels like its made of television static.

Maybe it has to do with the recent events that have more or less completely soured your opinion of your so-called best friend.

Maybe it’s just that her conversations these days are not exactly the stuff of edge-of-your-seat intrigue.

You're not listening to what she's saying, but a decent part of you is fairly certain in the knowledge that whatever she is saying is bound to have something to do with her stupid boyfriend.

Tommy Hagan has been Carol’s singular topic of regular conversation for going on two years now, and you have been bored to tears for just as long.

Tommy said this, Tommy did that, oh my god Tommy is so funny, Tommy Tommy Tommy.

Tommy is fine, you guess, if you like snot-nosed bullies who never matured past age twelve.

If you like a guy whose idea of trying to divert attention away from the fact that he’s more into Steve Harrington than he is his own girlfriend is by stirring up drama, and feigning some kind of bullshit interest in you.

If you like a guy who calls you Princess like it's a slur and gives you a hard shove in the back like it's a sign of affection.

Yeah… Tommy is so not your type.

Then again, you never would have thought he was Carol’s type, considering her interests have always swayed more Han Solo than anything else — (see: The Empire Strikes Back poster she secretly has taped to the inside of her closet door) — but you know she would go to her grave denying it if you dared to remind her of it.

She'd probably try to take you with her if you did, so you don't, especially not today when you've left more than half your faculties at home in bed.

All you can manage right now is keeping your mouth shut and moving watery canned green beans around your lunch tray with a plastic spork.

Meanwhile, Carol talks and talks and endlessly talks.

You’re on probation with Carol after last week’s debacle in the quad, anyway, so you are not invited to chime in, even if you were listening.

You’re supposed to just sit there and listen to whatever it is she has to say and nod along dutifully without interrupting.

That’s your whole job here, nothing more, nothing less.

That's fine, you don't currently have the brain capacity for anything else.

Still, a bigger part of you than you are willing to acknowledge has started desperately wishing that Tina Burton or Nicole would show up and implore her to shut the fuck up.

Once upon a time, you might have done so yourself, but you haven’t been brave enough to speak so directly to Carol since the eighth grade.

One too many times getting your head bitten off has conditioned you to wire your jaw shut and tune it out, for self-preservation's sake, which is exactly why you’d just stood there and took every bit of vitriol Carol had to give you that morning last week, like the good dog you are.

Apparently, someone said something about hearing Tommy talking big in homeroom about some other thing that happened over the weekend at a party you didn’t attend.

Logic would tell you that Carol knows you weren't at this party because she gave you such a heinous amount of shit over it when you told her you weren't going, but logic almost never comes into account when it comes to things like this.

Carol doesn't care about the facts, she only cares about the rumor.

It was suggested that you’d tried to cop a feel or something. Worse than that was how it was suggested that Tommy was into it, and she went nuclear.

Not at him, of course.

Never mind that Tommy was the one spreading the rumor in homeroom, all that mattered to Carol was who he was trying so desperately to incriminate.

Literally anyone else, and it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. If somebody had said that it was Vicki Carmichael or Tammy Thompson or Tina, Carol wouldn’t give a shit.

She’d throw her weight around, make a show of girlie dominance, there would be a very public spat, and that would be that.

But no, it had to be you.

Why oh why did it have to be you? You imagine she’s asking herself the same question, and you’re not sure if your ears are ever going to stop ringing after the way she’d shouted at you, in front of God and Tommy and practically everyone in school.

He just stood there watching it happen with that smug little smirk you hate so much plastered across his stupid face.

Everyone just stood there, even you stood there, staring helplessly at your sneakers, waiting for it to end. You were an island unto your own shame... until you noticed a pair of dingy Reeboks appear beside your own.

“Good God!” A voice as familiar as childhood rang out, loud enough to slice through the air and silence Carol mid-stream.

Like so many meerkats, the whole school shifted and turned toward the intrusion, and like a knight in leather and patchy denim, there stood Eddie Munson.

At first, you couldn't believe it was him, or that this was even really happening.

He was just standing there, like it was the most natural thing in the world to butt in like this. Like this wasn’t the first time something like this had ever happened in the history of cool kids and losers interacting at Hawkins High.

Exactly where you fall on that spectrum was yet to be determined, but what was perfectly understood was that Eddie Munson had come riding in to rescue you from the dynamic duo that is Tommy and Carol.

They were speechless — Eddie was not.

“What on God’s green Earth is making that awful racket?” He said loudly – theatrically – and then he turned his blinding attention to you, “Sounds like someone’s skinning a cat out here,”

Then, he gave you a gentle nudge with his elbow, like you were old friends and it was some kind of an inside joke, as if you were supposed to have any idea what that meant.

You stared back at him, wide-eyed and still too stunned to speak, and he winked at you.

You have no idea what you said following that, if you even said anything at all. You're pretty sure you blacked out.

You don’t even remember what Carol said. You know there was some kind of vicious back and forth that occurred between them before a staff member eventually arrived to break up the huddle and cart Eddie off, and you know that Carol was pissed that you didn’t defend her.

Most of all, you know you’re still paying for that imagined slight with a concentrated cold shoulder from most everyone you know a full week later, but you can hardly make yourself care about being so summarily iced out like that.

Because Eddie Munson stood up for you.

You still can’t wrap your head around that. Nobody’s ever stood up for you like that before, nobody over the age of twelve, anyway.

But Eddie did, and you haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. You haven't been able to stop thinking about him.

You really can’t afford to be thinking about him right now, not while you're so sleep deprived and not while Carol is sitting right there. If she could read your mind she'd claw your eyes out.

Thankfully, she hasn't noticed the way your attention has begun to stray. She’s too busy talking, and it's starting to give you a headache.

Deep down, somewhere in your subconscious, you know you ought to try and smooth things over, because for as nasty as she can be (all the time, every day) she’s still your best friend. Even though she regularly puts you on probation like this for imagined slights.

Even though your friendship has conditions and stipulations that only seem to apply to you.

Even though you have nothing in common anymore except for the fact that you’ve been best friends since you were eight years old.

So, perhaps the better phrasing is you know you ought to try a little harder because you used to be best friends.

Nostalgia is the ancient, flaking paste keeping the walls of your friendship standing, but the paper there has long since begun to peel to reveal the rot beneath.

Carol is still going on about who said what and who is dating who and all the latest gossip, talking at you more than talking to you. Talking just to fill the air because there's nothing Carol hates more than an awkward silence, and any silence with you is awkward.

You’re doing your best to at least try to pretend to look interested – really, you are – but with your lack of sleep and your headache, and everything else happening in the room, there’s not much you can do to stop the way your gaze has begun to wander…

Because Eddie Munson has entered your periphery, Eddie Munson is standing on his lunch table – Eddie Munson stood up for you.

Good God, indeed.

You couldn't have listened to what Carol was saying in that moment if you tried, not with Eddie standing there, larger than life and violently demanding your undivided attention.

Well, okay... not yours specifically, rather the attention of anyone who just so happens to be bored enough to tune in to his frenetic display … which is to say, you.

You’re happy enough to let him have your attention, and you tell yourself it's because whatever he’s up to is bound to be vastly more enticing than anything Carol has to say.

No other reason, absolutely not.

You’re not sure you’d be able to resist giving it to him even if you didn’t feel that way, because if you were being honest, you would admit that you’ve been painfully aware of him from the moment you’d stepped into the lunchroom.

Not because you’re minorly obsessed with him or anything as uncool as that. Certainly not because you’re harboring a bizarre gargantuan little crush on him, or that when you tune everything else out and let your brain switch tracks, it’s him your mind shifts to.

No, nothing so embarrassing as that.

He’s a rebel with entirely too much cause, standing tall on the flattop, talking big and proselytizing to his minions about something with all the fire and charisma of a bible belt preacher. You’re hopelessly lost on the context of his sermon, but you’re nothing if not convinced and entirely prepared to convert to the church of Eddie Munson.

Quietly, and so, so carefully, so as not to alert the predators lurking in your circle. Stranded in the lion's den as you are, you're stuck having to worship your false idol from afar, and you're almost content to keep doing so.

Still, your cautious reverence does nothing to ease the shock of chills that wracks your body as Eddie raises his voice.

You can feel it vibrating in the pit of your stomach and you know you must be gawping stupidly at him as the passion of whatever it is that’s got him going today takes him to the edge of euphoria.

It’s absolutely captivating to watch, and almost enough to break Carol’s concentration... almost.

This is not exactly new behavior for Eddie, so most people have learned to tune him out.

Normally you would count yourself in among that group — you know, like a liar — if for nothing more than that good ol' self preservation.

Then again, you aren't normally dead on your feet after spending a night tossing and turning, restlessly caught in the throes of a decidedly raunchy REM cycle, the subject of which just so happens to be standing on a table across the room.

He's the reason you didn't get any sleep last night, and despite your bone tiredness, you're suddenly wide awake.

So what if you had a sex dream about Eddie last night? So what if your skin is buzzing where you can still feel his hands pulling at you, the gentle fanning of his breath on the nape of your neck where it had felt so real...

“Sweet Girl,” he’d whispered on heady exhale in your dreams, voice thick and shot full of holes in the way you can only imagine he might sound in the throes of ecstasy.

Just the thought of it sends a bolt of heat lancing through your core and forces you to shift in your seat and, tragically, avert your gaze.

It's just a little bit too much show for you with tell out of the question, and Eddie, or at least the version of him in your dreams, is driving you nuts.

You are an island to your own fantasies, feeling your heart throbbing between your legs and trying to be as subtle as humanly possible about the way you’re pinching your thighs together for the faintest glimmer of relief.

You stop that right this instant you dirty slut. A snarling voice in your head warns you, and you immediately obey as cooler heads prevail.

The absolute last thing you need is to go to pieces at the lunch table in front of all your peers. In front of Eddie.

Carol would never let you live it down.

Someone shouts something at him from across the room, and you have to fight not to look for his response.

You're just a little too hot under the collar right now to watch Eddie give someone the finger, especially while you're sitting there wishing he would give it to you instead.

Jesus Christ you are so pathetic.

You force yourself to look at Carol and watch her lips move. You don't hear a word she says, but you're grateful for the distraction and the sudden pang of longing in your heart, if only for entirely selfish reasons.

You hate having to suffer in silence like this.

Once upon a time, you might have been free to share the specificities of your dream in bowed heads and hushed tones, but you are entirely certain that were you to try that now, to lean across the table and whisper conspiratorially:

“Oh my God, you’ll never guess who I had the filthiest dream about last night,” you’d be instantly crucified, socially speaking.

Carol doesn’t care about the yearnings of your most secret self. Not anymore. Now she only cares about Tommy and who did what at Tina’s party and how embarrassing it was, and quietly sidling up to Steve Harrington.

She doesn’t care about you, and your secrets are absolutely not safe with her, no matter what the pathetic lingering sense of nostalgia keeps telling you.

You would cut ties if you had a little more self-respect, but high school is hard enough with bad friends, you know for certain it would be next to impossible with no friends.

The concept of starting fresh and trying to make new ones halfway through your sophomore year is a Sisyphean Hurdle you have no idea how to even begin to tackle. So you grin and bear it, and swallow any biblical yearnings you happen to harbor for the town pariah for later.

Besides, if you told her, all she would do is ask you what it is you think you know about anything raunchy before dutifully reminding you that you’re a virgin.

Actually, the technical term would be “still a virgin” and would be followed up with the demand to know “when you’re going to do something about it” — like somehow the untouched state of your being is so embarrassing.

You suppose in the eternal tide pool of the high school diaspora, it’s just one more patently uncool thing about you hampering her.

Carol Perkins and her loser best friend who doesn’t put out, has never had a boyfriend, never even been kissed.

You would remind her that it’s hard to put out when nobody knows you exist.

Who are you but her excessively boring shadow? You don't put out because half the time nobody even notices you're there. But that would feel too much like whining and would only become an agonizing exercise in her rattling off a list of names you’d so much rather eat glass than accompany anywhere socially.

But you tell yourself it's not all bad, because if you're invisible, then at least you don't have to worry about how poor a job you're doing masking the way you're staring at Eddie.

You can't be embarrassed if nobody perceives you right? You're not so sure.

You don’t really know when your stupid little crush began.

He's always been there if you really think about it, a fixture in the background of the swirling miasma that is your social circle, suddenly much larger than it has ever been since High School has became your habitat.

Hawkins is a small town, and Eddie’s lived here his whole life, same as you. He’s a year older, but that wouldn’t be enough distance to remove someone from your orbit under normal circumstances, let alone someone like him in a town like this.

Some part of you has always been mildly obsessed with him from a purely academic standpoint — forbidden knowledge is perhaps the most tantalizing thing to a young mind, and the likes of Eddie Munson has always been completely off-limits to the likes of you.

Eddie's father was always something closer to a Universal Movie Monster than a real person in your mind.

More like Dracula or the Wolfman than a human man with a substance abuse problem.

When you were growing up, the most you knew about it was that Al Munson was the local boogeyman, and was to be feared by school children and good Americans alike.

Eddie didn't even feature in that conversation until much later, not until the notorious Munson patriarch finally went to prison and everyone could breathe a weighted sigh of relief.

With the streets safe again, life went on, and the good people of Hawkins very quickly realized their mistake.

People start to get nervous when there are no local pariahs to blame all their problems on. Hawkins is cursed, after all, but with Al gone, that narrative quickly began to crumble.

Luckily, they had a Munson to spare, and as soon as he was old enough, everyone was happy to force the son into the void the father left in the cultural zeitgeist.

Eddie became bad news over night, "just like his father", your parents still used to say and you were are strictly forbidden from socializing with him.

You remember a time when it wasn’t like that.

You remember when your parents spoke about Eddie with a heavy dose of sympathy, because back then it wasn't his fault his father was a monster.

When you were little, it was “that poor kid,” but as you got older and he started getting into more and more trouble, it became “stay away from that boy – he’s no good,”

Still, there’s nothing so tempting as forbidden fruit – you’ve known that since you were old enough to recognize there was a difference between boys and girls.

And he is nothing if not strictly forbidden to you.

Even now, sitting in the lunchroom so publicly yearning, you can still hear your father’s lecturing voice warning you that if you so much as spoke to Eddie Munson you’d get instantly hooked on drugs, knocked up, and end up living out of a cardboard box by the time you were twenty.

Which is stupid, of course, because you’ve gone to school with Eddie since first grade and you’d seen him talk to plenty of people over the course of that time, none of whom had gone on to suffer such a dismal fate.

Anyway, it's not like he's banging down the door for your attention. You’re fairly certain he doesn’t even know you exist.

There wasn’t much danger in becoming corrupted by someone like Eddie Munson before Carol got popular and dragged you along with her, and that hasn’t changed just because you won a golden ticket to the cool kid’s table… by proxy — you're more of an unwanted plus-one than anything else.

Not Charlie Bucket so much as Grandpa Joe.

But of course, you’ve never personally subscribed to the generalization that Eddie is evil or something.

He isn’t the boogeyman or Dracula or any of those things that go bump in the night, no matter how badly your raunchy little dreams wish he'd come bumping through your night.

As far as you’re concerned, Eddie isn’t even all that mean or scary, and maybe that’s just because he’d treated you so sweetly last autumn at Tina Burton’s Not-Quite-Halloween party….

Except you’re not supposed to be thinking about that, remember? Because last week's dressing down in the quad wasn't actually the first time Eddie came to your rescue.

That memory is not safe within Carol’s proximity, but it is the ambrosia that has been singularly sustaining you for the better part of a year now – a year next week on Halloween, but who’s counting?

It is a shining jewel that you keep tucked safely in the spot behind your lungs, and you just can’t help but pull the curtain back to take a peek at it.

It was your first high school party.

You’d never partaken in anything before that night, never even been offered, but suddenly and unceremoniously finding yourself shoved up against Eddie in a game of puff-puff-pass, you let yourself be pressured into playing.

He must have realized you were nervous — maybe your fingers were trembling when he passed you the blunt, but suddenly, and for perhaps the first time in your life, he was speaking directly to you.

“Have you ever done this before?” Eddie asked you quietly, a heavy dose of concern shadowing the wry quirk of his brow.

It was startling, to realize the curse of your invisibility had so unceremoniously been lifted, leaving you suddenly exposed to the one person you were never meant to speak to.

You had to resist the urge to whip your head around and ask, “Who me?”

Yes, you.

Eddie Munson was looking at you and asking you if you knew what you were doing.

Like something out of one of those anti-drug campaigns, you suddenly felt the unbearable pressure to perform in a situation you’d been preparing for your whole life: if Eddie Munson offers you drugs at a party, just say no kids.

Only you could not help but notice how genuinely concerned he looked, how soft and approachable and incredibly fucking normal.

Not nearly as scary or dangerous as McGruff the Crime Dog had led you to believe. In fact, he was entirely too enticing, and you were suddenly desperate to make a good impression.

You opened your mouth in the fanatical hope of saying something cool and casual — yeah, of course. You’ve done all kinds of shit — and were naturally horrified to hear the truth squeak out.

“No.”

Eddie’s brows crept toward one another forming a deep crease of concern between them, and in a bright burst of suddenly onset clairvoyance, you could read his mind - yeah, that’s what I thought, he seemed to say.

You watched as he stole a quick glance over his shoulder, before leaning in, invading your space almost conspiratorially as the moist pink tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips before he spoke.

Your heart was beating so aggressively in your chest that you were convinced he must have been able to hear it.

“You don’t have to breathe it in if you don’t want to.” He said, “Just puff it and pass — you’ll be fine.”

You still remember the way his lips brushed the shell of your ear when he whispered to you, how the fanning of his breath made you shiver with the tantalizing suggestion of nicotine and spearmint secrets.

But it was the last little bit that really did you in.

Not the overwhelming pressure of your peers insisting that just one hit won’t kill you, but the kind assurance from the person who provided the contraband that you didn’t have to partake if you didn’t want to.

It was the suggestion of having a choice in your fate that ultimately lured you out of your field and into the underworld — sickly sweet pomegranate promises, dripping from his tongue to yours.

You’ll be fine.

Just like your father and McGruff the Crime Dog and all those insufferable after-school specials had promised, Eddie Munson turned his gaze upon you, and you were instantly hooked.

He passed you the blunt, and you tried not to get too caught up on the way his fingers brushed yours when you took it.

You curled your lips inward as you brought it to your mouth, and you puff puff puffed, doing your best to hold your throat closed against any swirling wisps of smoke that might slip through and poison you.

You hoped it would give the subtle impression that you knew what you were doing in order to escape the humiliation of inexperience before you handed the joint off to the next person.

It still burned in a funny sort of way, but nothing really happened.

You didn’t slip down the rabbit hole, you didn’t burst into flames, and perhaps most importantly no one seemed to notice the wool being pulled over their eyes as you dared to steal another cautious glance at Eddie.

His lips twitched in the faintest hint of a satisfied smile, and you bloomed under the approval of someone whose attention you never realized you so desperately craved.

You couldn’t believe you’d pulled it off, and you were so pleased to have evidently made Eddie proud that is physically hurt to watch him turn away from you and take the shining warmth of his attention away, leaving you shrouded in darkness.

Tragically, invisible again, just like that.

If only you could have been so lucky.

Trust Carol to catch you faking when you — a virgin in so many aspects — continued to remain clear eyed and level headed after three rounds of puffing and passing.

“You’re supposed to inhale, Dummy!” She shrieked, causing everyone in the circle to laugh at your blatant inexperience.

Everyone but Eddie, you would have noticed had you been able to look, but shame-faced as you were, you kept your gaze fixed firmly to the floor.

When your next turn came around, you inhaled deeply and felt your lungs ignite.

You coughed, of course, and choked on the musky smoke as it filled your lungs and seared them medium rare.

It only took a handful of minutes before you quickly faded into oblivion, backed by the soundtrack of everyone laughing at you again.

The rest of that night remains a mystery to you to this day.

You don’t remember what happened after the game or how much longer the party lasted or even how you got home, but there are some things that stand out clear as day.

Somewhere, hidden back in the furthest reaches of your subconscious, you swear you can still feel the press of his body as Eddie held you caged in the crook of his arm, with your head resting on his collarbone and tucked neatly beneath his chin.

You don’t know how, but you swear you know what his lips feel like, brushing the highest point of your cheekbone, and the long line of his nose pressed flat against your temple with his breath gently fanning the side of your face.

You’re sure you can feel the deep rumble of his voice filling you with warmth, a low timber in his chest calling you Sweet Girl as he smoothes your hair back.

You don’t know how you know all that, only that you do.

You feel it with every fiber of your being in a way that is so goddamn real it can’t just be an effect of your stupid little crush and unchecked libido.

How else could your dreams be so inexorably vivid?

In a moment of weakness, Eddie promised you everything was going to be okay, and you believe him to this day.

That night at Tina’s party, academic fascination bloomed into something new, fueled entirely by teenage hormones and the need to be seen.

Like a door that, once opened, cannot be shut again, you are always thinking about Eddie, one way or another.

Attention is the high you crave like nothing else, and you desperately want Eddie’s attention, his undivided, unfiltered, unwavering attention, fixed solely on you.

Selfishly, you want him to be as obsessed with you as you are with him, and it makes you feel like at any moment you’re going to implode in on yourself like a dying star.

Your parents would be appalled.

Carol would be appalled.

But Carol hasn’t noticed, because she’s still talking, and you’re still not listening, because Eddie is still going. And going. And going.

Eddie Eddie Eddie.

Eddie is suddenly so much closer than he was a moment before.

At some point, when you weren’t looking, while you were too busy thinking about him to notice the direction his tirade had taken him, he picked his was across the lunch tables and crossed the room.

Your stomach does a cartoon flip-flop, and you hold a wheezy breath in your lungs when he vaults down from the end of his table, furthest from his seat and closest to yours.

Suddenly he's right fucking there, and you forget how to breathe.

Your eyes meet briefly as he straightens up, and you immediately avert your gaze — self preservation, remember? — feeling your face flush hot enough that you’re half surprised it doesn’t melt right off of your skull as you shift your focus back over to Carol.

Carol... what's Carol talking about again? Oh, that's right. Tommy Hagan. Tommy Tommy Tommy.

Tommy is so goddamn boring, but in this instant, with Eddie Munson lurking within enough proximity to feel the pull of his orbit, Tommy is the most interesting person in the world.

You desperately want to know everything about Tommy and Tina and who said what about you and how embarrassing it was.

Because you’ve changed your mind. You don't want Eddie's attention. Eddie’s attention is blinding, like looking into the sun.

It makes you feel exposed, like he’s a spotlight shining straight through to your innermost self — your secret self.

The one that thinks about him in the wee hours of the morning when sleep eludes you and deft fingers creep their way down your body, edging toward the wanting apex of your spread thighs and slipping past creamy slick barriers to pull soft, lilting breaths and his name — his blessed, cursed name — from your parted lips until you’re going hot and cold clamping your jaw shut to stop the sordid cries of your orgasm from escaping your lips…

Jesus Christ –

No, actually, you’re much more comfortable remaining a wallflower and letting someone else get wrapped up in that undivided, unwavering, fixed-solely-on-you attention.

Better to stand aside and make room for somebody built to withstand that kind of heat from someone like Eddie. Someone edgy and cool, who gives the middle finger to the world and dresses the part — not some midwestern babysitter from a town no one has ever heard of.

Yeah... but he’s from that town that no one has ever heard of, too, you think watching Carol’s lips move and hearing nothing but your own heartbeat.

You gaze wanders without your permission, and before you know it, you're looking at him again – your insides seize and cramp, because this time, he’s looking too.

Your heart spasms in your chest and scrambles up into your throat, punching an airy breath out of you and flattening your lungs.

Fuck.

There’s that blinding light, that feeling of indecent exposure — it’s not the sun, it's a solar eclipse burning your retinas out of your skull, and somehow you can’t bring yourself to look away.

You’re painfully aware of how you’re staring again, though this time it is because he has your eyes and he absolutely refuses to let go.

Somehow it doesn’t feel even the slightest bit aggressive, more like an understanding – he sees you.

He sees you.

You’re blushing, you know you’ve got to be bright crimson — beet red even — you can feel it.

You're sweating.

Sweet Girl — hands pulling, lips brushing, wandering fingers, gasping, gasping —Sweet Girl Sweet Girl Sweet—

“Hello? Ground control to Major Tom.”

Carol snaps her perfectly manicured fingers in your face, breaking the spell and bringing the quiet din of the lunchroom rushing back in on you.

It feels like getting swamped at the beach, swept off of your feet by the tide, and rolled in the undercurrent. You crack your head on the reef and your brains come tumbling out as you're washed away into oblivion.

You have to remind yourself to breathe.

“Are you even listening to me?” She snipes, scrunching her nose in aggravation and flattening her bubble gum pink lips into a thin, ugly line.

You blink stupidly at her as she comes back into focus, but you don’t answer, because you very clearly hadn't and your mind is not working well enough to drudge up an excuse.

It feels foolish to try and lie about it because Carol loves to remind you that she always knows when you’re lying, and yet the truth is entirely too dangerous.

Your secrets are not safe with her, and your biggest secret is still standing right there.

You can see him in your peripheral vision, poking and prodding you and just begging to be noticed.

And you can't stop yourself from looking. Of course you can't, who can resist the sun?

When you do, Eddie rewards you with a brief, goofy smile. All crooked lips twisted up to one side, the faintest suggestion of teeth poking out.

It's a startling contrast to the vitriolic injustice of whatever it was that had previously gripped him in such a chokehold, and it’s contagious, that smile.

You can suddenly feel the corners of your mouth twitching in response, threatening to expose you and just daring you to try to resist.

It makes your insides go tight and squirmy, and you have to clench your teeth to keep anything remotely similar to a straight face.

The change in your demeanor is unfortunately not lost on Carol.

She narrows her eyes at you, and you are powerless to stop your own from darting back and forth.

Carol - Eddie - Carol - Eddie - Carol... Eddie always wins.

You feel your heart seize and begin to palpitate as she begins to twist to see what could possibly be so important to hold your rapt attention, and you have to grip the edges of your seat to stop yourself from reaching out across the table.

You could scream stop! and make a scene, but that would only make you look even crazier than you are sure you already do.

There's nothing you can do to stop the collision, and all you can do is brace yourself for the sky to come crashing down on your head.

Unstoppable force? Meet immovable object.

Round two. Fight.

Carol physically recoils when she sees Eddie. Dramatically so - like he'd been waiting there to douse her in a bucket of ice water.

It takes her a moment to recover, but when she does, she has nothing but spitting, poisonous vitriol for him, much to your unbearable dismay.

“Take a picture, Freak, it’ll last longer.” She snaps.

Something indiscernible crosses Eddie’s features as his gaze flicks over to her from you, then back again.

You watch his brows marry in the middle as he pulls a face that is tinged ever so slightly with something that looks a little too much like hurt than you're comfortable with.

The flash of vulnerability makes your stomach go tight, and you’re suddenly possessed with a violent and desperate need to make him understand that you are not with her, despite how stridently untrue that is.

You are Carol's friend, after all, even if lately you've started to feel like little more than an out-of-trend accessory.

With her, is all that you are.

The hurt look is gone before it has time to settle, and Eddie wrinkles his nose in disgust.

For a long moment, they stand staring poisonous daggers at each other and daring the other to be the first to die.

She hates him and he hates her right back — cool kids and losers. Circle of life.

All you can do is desperately hope beyond hope that you’re not lumped into that circle by association. Golden ticket by proxy.

“Seriously, what the fuck are you looking at?” Carol snaps, and strangely, Eddie's features relax.

“Nothing,” he says, rolling his shoulders, “Just wondering how Bulimia Barbie got out of her box.”

Your insides clench and had she been facing you, you’re certain you would have seen Carol turn white as a sheet.

Eddie turns to make the stilted victory lap back to his seat at the head of his table, electing to take the floor this time rather than the tabletop.

You watch him go, because at this point, you're Pavloved — if Eddie is moving, you're watching — and when he gets to his seat, he gives you one last parting glance.

This time, you muster your courage and hold his gaze, pulling a face that you hope looks at least halfway as apologetic as it feels.

That went exactly the way it was meant to, according to the strict social hierarchy of Hawkins High, and you feel terrible about it.

Not nearly as bad as you ought to feel for Carol, however.

There are a lot of ways to get under her skin — she’s never been exactly easygoing, but even you think bringing up the eating disorder she’s been less-than-privately struggling with since the eighth grade is a low blow.

She’d been devastated when word of it got out, and you didn’t have the heart to tell her it was Tommy who’d let that information slip, because they'd only just started dating when that rumor was making the rounds.

Tommy's mean, Carol's mean too, but despite the words still hanging in the air between you, you don't believe that Eddie is mean, not truly.

Carol makes a harsh sound of indignation in the back of her throat.

“Asshole!” She shouts unevenly, then, “—can you believe that guy?”

You don't answer, you're still too busy trying very hard to muster those latent psychic abilities you're still waiting on to tell Eddie you're sorry.

Carol hisses your name and you snap to attention.

"— what the hell are you looking at?"

“Nothing.” You say quickly, doing your best to curl in on yourself so she can't reach across the table to bite your head off.

Only Carol has not believed a word that has come out of your mouth since the summer between eighth and ninth grade. She twists in her seat again just in time to see Eddie looking away, much to your patent dismay,

“…Oh, gross!” she scoffs, whipping back around to face you, “What, are you swapping eyes with the Freak?”

The adrenaline of being caught bursts in your midsection like a firework and sends lightning rocketing down to the tips of your fingers.

"No," You lie.

"Liar," she says.

You turn your attention back to moving the bits of your lunch tray back and forth, but you have completely lost your appetite, especially as she admonishes you with a disappointed utterance of your name.

Your cheeks burn with shame.

“I was just being friendly.” You stress, pressing the plastic tines of your spork into the bottom of the tray until they bend and snap off.

“With Eddie Munson? Ugh — gag me!”

The unchecked disdain in her tone doesn’t sit right with you, because it’s not like she’s ever even said two words to Eddie that weren’t hurled as insults, and you can’t help yourself clicking your tongue.

“...he’s not that bad,” you say, immediately regretting the statement as the mean nickname comes roaring back to slap you upside the head.

Bulemia Barbie snorts out an undainty sound of disgust, you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself from apologizing.

“He’s a freak.” She snarls — so you keep saying, you think — “He worships the Devil or whatever — everybody knows that.”

Horrifically, there is nothing you can do to stifle the bitter snort of laughter that comes bubbling up out of you.

It is a harsh, sardonic snot of a sound that escapes before you can reign it in.

A brief flash of hatred colors her features, and you can’t help but feel that the curtain has been pulled back and you’re suddenly looking at her true self.

"Everybody knows that." She repeats, slowly, forcefully, giving you a hard, cold look as if daring you to disagree.

Evidently, you dare, which is a shock to you.

“How do you know?” you say, narrowing your eyes and wrinkling your nose in a quiet defiance.

She opens her mouth to respond, but nothing comes out, because she doesn't know. That's just what everybody says, but as far as you're concerned, no one has any actual proof that Eddie Munson worships the Devil.

Your stance gives you the upper hand in this verbal joust, and your reluctance to concede is like throwing gas on a fire.

Suddenly, Carol is all but shouting at you as her eyes go bright and her skin flushes a blotchy crimson.

“Oh please, like you know any better, Little Miss Babysitter!”

She hurls it at you like a slur and you flinch as the violent intention strikes you.

You don’t know precisely when Carol became so mean, only that it happened sometime between the transition from seventh to eighth grade, right around the time she’d gotten her first training bra and started to notice how boys were noticing her — right around the time Tommy showed up.

Since that day, everything between the two of you has been a competition that she is determined to win, despite how clearly uninterested you are in participating.

You don't want to fight, and yet you feel the strangest sense of righteous indignation rising in you because she doesn’t know Eddie. She's never even tried to get to know him, and here she is condemning him right alongside everyone else just because it’s what’s currently on trend.

You want to ask her how that’s fair, how she would feel if the shoe were on the other foot, and suddenly she became bad news overnight.

You don't, because you don't want to get your head bitten off as much as you don't want to parrot the condescending tone of your mother asking you if you’d jump off of a cliff the same as everyone.

Mostly though, you don't ask because she's right.

You don’t know Eddie any better than she does, not with all your wishing and hoping and fantasizing, and certainly not after the way he’d looked at you at Tina’s party – Sweet Girl…

“Yeah okay, whatever,” You mumble, because there’s no point in arguing with Carol when she gets like this.

Your submission doesn’t apparently sit any better with Carol than your challenge did. Her face twists into a displeased scowl as she snatches up the can of coke that is the entirety of her lunch and begins to raise it to her bubblegum pink lips before thinking better of it and setting it back down with a harsh sigh.

You don’t know what’s got her so flustered, or what you did to embarrass her so badly. All you did was smile at Eddie, it’s not like you invited him to come and sit at the table with you.

“Why do you care anyway?” She demands then, clearly not done fighting.

“I don’t,” You say flatly, sitting up a little straighter.

“Then how come you’re defending him?”

You cross your arms.

“I’m not.”

“You are though.” She insists, like she’s caught the scent of something she can weild against you, and is trying her best to sniff it out. “You’ve got that stupid look on your face like you’re about to get all self-righteous about something. What’s the deal? Do you like him or something?”

Your heart seizes and suddenly you can feel color bleeding into your cheeks as your armor creaks under the stress of her accusation.

How could she possibly know that?

Because she’s your best friend, she knows everything about you…

“No…” you say, though even you are not convinced by the quavering tone of your voice.

Carol stares at you, briefly uncomprehending before it dawns on her, and suddenly her eyes are blazing with malicious delight.

Shit.

“Oh, nasty!” She shouts, then gasps, mouth falling open in scandal, “You do! You totally do!”

“I don’t – I mean, I don’t even know him.” You stammer, kicking yourself for how your resolve has begun to waver.

“Doesn’t mean you’re not into him! Oh, that’s so gross!” Carol sneers, she is loving this all too much, “Oh, my God, look at you – you’re blushing!”

Your hands fly up reflexively to bracket your face, and you hate yourself for the heat you can feel billowing off you, betraying you.

Carol squeals with malevolent glee and you know you must be sweating again for the way she is looking at you, eyes bright, teeth bared, wet, and shining in a hungry grin like a predator getting ready to make a meal out of you.

“O-okay, that’s enough.” You say unevenly, trying and failing to be firm as you are suddenly unable to keep your voice from shaking as you speak.

She doesn’t hear you – that or she just plain ignores you because she is getting too much of a rise out of your misery.

“What are you, like, in love with him?”

“Carol – stop.”

“You are! Holy shit, you totally are!” She cackles, “You want to marry him and have a hundred of his freak babies!”

She is practically screaming and you are this close to panicking about it, glancing anxiously across the room to the table where Eddie is sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, talking and laughing with his friends about something.

You have to force yourself to believe that they aren’t laughing at you because there’s no way they could possibly be clued into your conversation with Carol … who has started play-acting that she is you, moaning loud and wantonly as you are fucked by what you can only imagine is supposed to be Eddie.

It's shockingly apropos in the worst possible way, almost as if somehow she’d found the time to steal away and read the mad scribblings you’d left smeared across the pages of your diary that morning.

“Oh, God–!” She moans, hands flying up to tangle in her hair and igniting a burst of cold anxiety in the pit of your stomach like a Roman candle, “Oh, Eddie! Don’t stop! Right there – Yes! YES! YES!”

You could die. You could literally die.

People have started to look over at you, stare at you, and all of that would almost be fine if it weren’t for the fact that you are currently imploding like that dying star.

You can’t be certain if its a result of your friend’s whorish display or just the screaming sensation of someone staring at him (because if you weren't watching him like a hawk before, you certainly are now) but Eddie’s attention snaps back over to your table in an instantly, to you, and you nearly pass out.

You’re on your feet with a loud squeak of chair legs on linoleum – much louder than anything Carol had just kicked up. If people weren’t staring before, they’re certainly staring now, watching you frantically attempt to gather your things and make a break for it before your brain can catch up with you.

Carol has started to come down by now, and she's leaning back casually in her chair, watching you panic.

"Seriously?" She snickers, like she didn't just publicly humiliate you, again, "You're leaving?"

“I gotta go,” you say quickly.

“Oh, come on, I was just kidding.” Carol sighs, “Don't be so sensitive. Where are you going?”

You can hardly hear her over the blood rushing in your ears. Your heart is hammering so violently against your ribcage that you can barely catch your breath to try and stammer out an excuse.

“I just remembered,” You begin, your voice hitches and threatens to break, “I have this… thing I have to do for class. Totally forgot. I gotta go work on it.”

You shove the last of your belongings haphazardly into your backpack and slide your lunch tray into the nearest trashcan – the entire tray hits the bottom of the bin with a loud thump that has the lunch lady shouting indignantly at you from the other side of the room.

You don’t linger to rectify your mistake or apologize or do anything of the sort, because your frantic attempts to escape the lunchroom have drawn only more attention.

One cursory glance reveals to you that, devastatingly, Eddie’s entire lunch table has turned to watch you go.

You nearly go stumbling to the ground as you trip over your feet in your frantic attempt to get as far from there as you possibly can, as fast as you can.

“Liar!” Carol shouts after you, “Where are you really going?”

“I’ll see you later!”

You twist at the waist and wave when she calls your name again, and, because you're Pavloved, you can’t help look to see Eddie leaning back dangerously in his chair, craning his neck to watch you go in a way that makes your heart seize against your ribs.

His eyes go wide when he sees you looking, and he lurches forward to right himself again, briefly losing his balance and just about toppling out of the chair as he does.

He saw everything, which means he probably heard everything which means you should probably just go find a corner to curl up and die in.

Like, right now.

You turn and pick up your pace and blow through the double doors before anyone can get the bright idea to follow you.

You move through the halls without really knowing where you intend to go, but before you realize it, you’re in the gymnasium, stalking across the empty floor to tuck yourself back beneath the bleachers.

It’s not the most covert hiding spot, and you're almost surprised to find it empty considering how many people tend toward coming down here to hide and make out.

The braver, hornier couples around campus have even been known to engage in the odd session of heavy petting or dry humping back here where they can get their rocks off more or less removed from prying eyes.

More, being the keyword there. It feels like someone is being busted for that kind of under the bleachers indecency every other week.

You’ve got no such plans to follow suit, despite the ruined state of your panties, as you scramble to slip out of sight with a gentle squeak of Chucks on clear coat.

Your heart is pounding as you pull your knees up to your chest, face absolutely burning over the way Carol’s stupid play acting has left you slick and throbbing with the memory of your stupid, stupid dream.

You bite the inside of your cheek until it hurts and violently will yourself to get a grip, because what are you going to do about it? Nothing, you're gonna wallow in shame and that will be that.

You pull your bag into your lap and begin rifling through its haphazard contents, desperately searching for some kind of a distraction – something to take your mind off of the lingering sensation of full lips and calloused fingertips and hot fanning breath – Jesus motherfucking Christ! Get a hold of yourself.

You need your book. You need to lose yourself in thick text, hard science fiction, and worlds and histories and glossaries of outlandish names… only your book is not here.

Your well-loved, annotated copy of Dune, whose cover is hanging on by a thread with how many times it has been bent backward as you pour over the familiar text. Whose pages are creased and dog-eared and littered with notes and doodles and all the little lines and themes you never want to forget.

It’s not here. Even after you dig and dig and dig, even after you dump your bag on the gymnasium floor and spread all your things out in a neat fan in front of you.

Your book is still missing.

You hardly get the time to stress about it much further than the singular thought before the school bell rings with a shrill, metallic clanging cry. It startles your brain back into an approximation of working action and sends you scrambling to shove all your things back into your bag.

You’re almost relieved.

Without your book, you’d just been sitting there biding your time until Carol eventually sniffed you out and you would have to brace yourself for round two, but your schedules are thankfully far removed from one another.

She’s got Mrs. O’Donnell for fifth period, whose classroom lies mercifully on the other side of the school from your fifth-period chemistry class, and the ringing of the end of lunch bell is a Godsend, solidifying your escape and requisite safety from another bout of humiliation.

Your lab partner is a freshman, Gareth Emerson, who just so happens to be a newer addition to Eddie’s roving gang of minions.

Somehow, that is much less terrifying than you’d half expected it to be when you first noticed him in the lunchroom, sitting tucked neatly into the chair at Eddie’s side and hanging on his every word.

It had just been nice to know that you’re not the only one so affected by his gravitational pull

Still, you’d often wondered how Gareth was lucky enough to win such a coveted spot so early on in his tenure, considering Eddie Munson tends to be a particularly terrifying entity to the newest additions to the Hawkins High student body.

As you’d gotten to know him, you stopped wondering about that.

Gareth’s a sweetheart. He’s nice, funny, and reminds you a lot of your neighbor, Dustin, if he were a little older and just a little bit cooler, that is.

It’s no wonder he’s so quickly found himself at a place of honor at Eddie’s side, how could anyone resist him?

You wish you could hang out with Gareth instead of Carol.

You wish you could sit comfortably at lunch and talk about the things that actually held your interest. That you could make afterschool and weekend plans without a hint of dread, and be safe in the knowledge that a trip to the movies or to the arcade was simply that. No ulterior motives or hidden agendas, no fear of being humiliated or abused for the amusement of the people who were supposed to be your friends.

You wish you could be real friends with Gareth, but Gareth hangs out with Eddie, and the thought of joining them at their lunch table is enough to send your heart into palpitations, so you just have to settle with the friendship you have, limited to the confines of the classroom.

“Hey,” Gareth says, frowning quizzically at you as you unpack your things and hop up onto the metal stool beside him, “What happened to you at lunch? You looked like you were about to pop.”

Your insides clench with shame and for a very brief moment, you're afraid you're about to empty them all over the tabletop.

“You saw that, huh?” You mumble, swallowing hard.

“Everybody saw that.” He scoffs, pulling a face.

Everybody. The word clangs around your ribs and you have to blink back the image of Eddie leaning so far back in his chair, watching you run from the lunchroom.

Literally run. Like some kind of scared little kid fleeing the monster that lives under their bed.

Great.

“What does she think you did this time? Sell her firstborn child for concert tickets or something?”

You sigh, slumping forward to prop your head up on your elbow and level Gareth with an unimpressed look.

“Nothing – I don’t want to talk about it.”

He takes the hint and offers you his hands in a show of surrender before turning back to the blackboard, where Mr. Kapz has stepped up and begun scribbling formulas with a hard squeak of chalk.

You watch without really seeing, trying to keep your mind from drifting too far with all your classmates sitting around you.

There is a cold lump in the pit of your stomach as a hundred different things whisk around your mind, all fighting tooth and nail for the limited real estate left in your brain with so much of Eddie stuffed up in there.

It’s always like that though, and it leaves you feeling particularly pathetic, thinking about yourself, sitting beneath the bleachers on your own, like the loser you are, hiding from your friends, wishing things were different, wishing you could be the person they wanted you to be, wishing you could be free of them.

You suck greedily on a sharp intake of air and shake your head to dislodge that line of thinking before it can take root and pivot to a much more pressing matter, for the sake of your own self-preservation.

“Hey, weird question,” You start, tilting your head down toward your shoulder and speaking in a loud whisper, “But have you seen my book?”

Gareth’s brows are pulled tight over his eyes when you glance at him, and you are quick to elaborate,

“Dune." You clarify, "It’s all beat up and annotated…?”

“Yeah, no— I mean, sure I’ve seen it—”

"Recently?" You posit, hoping he understands that you've lost it and not just trying to small talk about the sorry state of a mass-market paperback.

"Yeah."

You hardly let him finish.

“Really? That’s great! Where?”

“...Eddie’s got it.”

It hits you like a fist to the gut, punching your lungs flat and forcing the air out. Your heart thumps a heavy beat like it always does when someone mentions Eddie and you feel your tongue go fat in your mouth.

“Ed-Eddie Munson?” You splutter, voice an embarrassing octave higher than normal, and barely manage to get the sound out over the way your throat is closing up.

You can feel your cheeks heating just from the sordid act of speaking his name aloud.

If Gareth takes any sort of hint from your bizarre reaction, he doesn’t let on.

“Yeah.” He says again.

You blink back at him, waiting for him to elaborate and feeling your chest go tight when he doesn’t.

“…Why does he have my book?”

“He said you left it in the parking lot after you dumped your stuff last week—”

Oh, for the love of God…

In the wake of everything else that happened that day, you’d almost completely forgotten about that…

You’d been running late for school, having spectacularly slept through your alarm and been so rudely awakened by the thunderous hammering of two little fists, doing their best to bang down your bedroom door – Dustin, shouting at you to get your ass up out of bed.

You’d forgotten you were supposed to be carpooling that morning, and you're sure you must have broken some kind of a land speed record with how you burnt rubber to get the both of you to school on time.

Gas pedal to the floor, music cranked up to eleven, you made the distance in five minutes flat.

After, you’d been too caught up in your sudden prospective future as a Formula One driver to notice how you were headed for disaster. Jogging across the parking lot and trying to stuff your Walkman into your backpack, you weren't prepared for the wall of denim, patches, and studs to come stumbling haphazardly out of the open door of a semi-shitty beat-up panel van and directly into your path.

You barely had time to look up, let alone pivot to try and avoid the sudden six-foot obstacle before you, so naturally you collided.

You managed to keep your feet and even catch your Walkman with an incredible feat of feline grace, but it came at the expense of your bookbag, which went tumbling topsy turvy and upchucked its contents all over the pavement at your feet.

Fantastic.

They stepped into your path, whoever they were. They crashed into you, but still you stammered out an apology, because how could they have been expected to look out for you when you’re running around under a cloak of invisibility?

Then, you dropped to your knees in an attempt to catch your pens and pencils before they could roll away. You fully expected to be ignored, to watch whoever it was that had just knocked your shit into the dirt skip off to class like you didn’t even exist, but when you looked up, there was Eddie Munson, crouched on the asphalt right alongside you with his head bowed toward yours, stacking your books and muttering his own apology.

It just about damn near knocked the wind out of you, suddenly finding yourself so close to him again after spending so long quietly yearning for his proximity.

Once you got your lungs working and inflated again, you couldn’t help but breathe deep, trying to get a sense of him and refresh the waning memory you still clung to. He smelled just the way you remembered, like camels and spearmint gum standing out over the notes of whatever cheap cologne he’d obviously dusted himself in and Old Spice.

It made your mouth water, and then go completely dry when he looked up at you, turning that honey-warm gaze on you and bathing you in his spotlight.

You weren’t invisible anymore, you were blushing, and you’d missed whatever it was he’d said to you – fuck.

You weren’t listening, you were staring into his eyes, at the faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, at the plush spread of his lips, and the pink tip of his tongue darting out to swipe a slick sheen of moisture across them.

Somewhere, distantly, you could hear your Walkman still playing, Ann Wilson imploring you to get a little more lost in him than is rightly wise…

Oh, he’s a magic man, Mama…

And he was waiting for you to answer him.

Fuck. What the fuck did he just say?

“My fault…" Eddie mumbled thickly, "Didn’t see you there,”

Oh, thank God for that.

“Oh – God, are you kidding? It happens all the time.” You scoffed, dismissing the notion with a flippant wave.

It was almost a cool, collected thing to say, but then you just kept talking,

“Like. Way more than you would think,”

And talking.

“It’s actually kind of ridiculous how often people bump into me like that–”

And talking,

“Honestly, at this point, I feel like I should start wearing a bell.”

Shut up shut up shut up already! You screamed, but before you could well and truly condemn yourself for being such a goddamn awkward weirdo, Eddie’s face twisted up in amusement and he laughed out loud.

A little too loud for something that wasn’t even halfway to being a joke – he was obviously high, the whites of his eyes were tinged an angry swollen pink, hooded and nearly closed as he peered over at you with his face split up in that crooked smile of his, but it was still so wildly endearing you couldn’t help but giggle yourself.

You can’t believe you’d nearly forgotten that, that wonderful almost perfect moment of brushing fingers and traded looks and semi-meaningful silences.

If you really think about it, it makes perfect sense that he has your book. You haven’t seen your it since that day, haven’t even thought about it. It had been all but washed away under the bell-clanging effect of what happened later that morning between classes, with Carol jumping down your throat and Eddie riding in to pull you out of her line of fire.

Good God! He shouts in your memory, and you can’t help but agree with him.

“Didn’t he give it back to you?” Gareth asks, brows marrying over his eyes.

You give your lab partner an incredulous look because never mind how this new information is ever so subtly breaking your brain, but why on Earth would you be asking after your copy of Dune if Eddie had already given it back to you?

Why would you even be talking about this?

The lack of logic there seems to dawn on Gareth just a tad too late to save face.

“Guess not, never mind,” he hums, twisting back in his seat to face the blackboard.

You sit, staring at nothing in particular as you try and fail to wrap your head around the concept of Eddie Munson carrying around your book.

There’s something incredibly personal about an annotated book, and you can’t decide if you ought to be embarrassed about that, hoping that he didn’t stop to take the time to read any of the inane things you’d written there.

Suddenly you’re wracking your brain to try and remember if you’d gone and scribbled anything too incriminating in the margins, whether you’d absently scribbled out a dopey “Mrs. – Munson” alongside all your annotations about doomed heroes.

You imagine it written out in loopy script, replete with doodles of hearts and clouds and all the stupid cupid bullshit that is typically kept strictly within the pages of your diary.

You’re suddenly burning with hot, whorish shame as you think back to the pages you’d frantically scribbled on in the aftermath of the wet dream you’d woken from that morning. Your fingers were trembling as you fought to get it down on paper before the vivid images and sensations slipped from your grasp and left you with nothing more than faint memories of calloused hands and full lips, burning your skin with the suggestion of phantom touches.

Yeah, you’re going to have to go back and revisit that when you get home this afternoon, thank God you’re not babysitting tonight.

You realize after a moment that in staring off into space, trying simultaneously to banish the feeling and relieve it, that you’ve actually been sitting, staring at Gareth, watching him wrestle with something like he’s trying to decide whether or not to let more information slip.

Truly, you’re not sure how much more truth you can stomach here in fifth period chemistry, sitting perched on your metal stool and trying oh-so-subtly to shift over to the edge and give yourself a little relief from the way that your heart is throbbing in your panties again.

Your guts seize like you’ve been caught red handed when Gareth twists back around to face you and ducks his head conspiratorially.

For lack of anything better to do, you mirror his movements and hope beyond hope that, if you’re blushing, he doesn’t notice.

“Okay, so…” he begins softly, “You didn’t hear it from me, but... he likes you,”

You do your best not to react as your heart leaps into your throat – you don’t dare to hope to know who he means.

“Who does?” You ask, playing dumb for the sake of your poor, nervous heart, because what if you’re wrong?

You’re probably wrong.

“Eddie does.”

Then again, maybe not… oh, shit.

Gareth continues.

“Like… a lot.”

OH SHIT.

Oh shit oh fuck oh sHIT be cool be cool be fucking cool!

It takes every fiber of your limited willpower not to react, because honestly, you could scream. This is what it feels like to have your wildest dreams come true.

Eddie Munson likes you, Gareth said, like a lot, he said.

Maybe it’s just the wrecked state you’ve been existing in from the moment you snapped into consciousness that morning, but suddenly you’re desperate, giddy, feeling the hard push of the urge to run and go find Eddie.

Find him and seize him by the shoulders and shake him and scream and shout and cheer and... and and and... and do what?

Confess your feelings?

Make some sort of grand declaration then drag him off somewhere to hop on his dick?

That’s what your ovaries are currently imploring you to do. Finally do something about that goddamn virginity of yours so Carol will climb down out of your ass.

But that’s ridiculous, right? And not at all practical, fantasizing about running off and trying to consummate what, as far as you can tell, is only a rumor before it can slip from your grasp.

Where would you even go?

Under the bleachers, where the braver, hornier couples go to rub up against each other and get their rocks off.

No, no that’s stupid… and yet?

You’ve heard the talk about Eddie, how he’s supposed to be easy or something — some part of you is pretty sure he’d be game to take you out to the back of his van if you went over and asked him nicely... just ask him nicely to lift your skirt and help you out with that pesky little virginal problem of yours, Christ, how embarrassing.

He’d probably laugh in your face if you did. How do you know for sure that he even really likes you? What makes you think that there’s even the slightest chance that your stupid crush on him could ever be reciprocated?

You’re not a real person, remember? You don’t put out because you don’t exist.

No, Eddie doesn’t like you, you decide in an instant, how could he? He doesn’t even know you.

Gareth is wrong, and worse still, he’s teasing you – he has to be. It is, after all, the opening line to the oldest joke in the Hawkins High popular kid book: so, Eddie Munson wants to take you to prom…what do you do?

It makes your chest hurt, and you have to pull your lips into a tight line to keep them from wobbling.

Ha-ha, real funny joke, tease the loser virgin for the big stupid crush she has on the local Freak.

“That’s mean, Gareth.” You say quietly.

“What is?”

You shake your head because you almost can’t bear to say it.

“Teasing like that. That’s not nice...”

He gives you a horrified look, like you’ve suddenly got bugs crawling out of your ears.

“What? No, Dude, it’s not like that at all!” Gareth stresses, “I promise I’m being so serious right now. Eddie likes you. He really likes you.”

It feels risky, but you can’t help yourself. Gareth’s a sweetheart, why would he lie to you?

“…Really?” You ask, ever so slightly embarrassed at how small and hopeful your voice suddenly sounds and trying so, so hard to play it cool.

“Yes… and it’s super goddamn annoying — no offense,”

You shake your head, because in the absence of the ability to form rational thought you rely on deep-seeded pleasantries.

“Oh, no, of course.” You say, “None taken … I think.”

You suddenly can’t make your brain work, it just sits there like a fat grey lumpy pile of worms in your skull. Part of you is suddenly so sure that you can smell the smoke wafting up off of it as it overheats in your attempt to jumpstart it again.

Eddie likes you. This is all really happening.

It takes you a moment too long to realize that Gareth is still talking, and a moment even longer to clue yourself back in to what he’s saying.

“— he’s been going around in circles trying to work up the courage to talk to you, but he’s chicken shit, so he won’t do it unless he has some bullshit excuse to make it all casual — giving you your book back was supposed to be his excuse, but that was clearly a bust,”

And then, “Also, he basically threatened to kill me if I said anything so just do me a favor and be cool, alright? Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“…So why tell me?” you ask, almost startled by the sound of your own voice and how far away it sounds.

You’re having an out-of-body experience, that’s what this has got to be, sitting there, floating, watching yourself have this conversation with Gareth.

Eddie Munson has your book, Eddie Munson stood up for you, Eddie Munson likes you...

“Because he freaked when he found out we were lab partners and he’s being a huge creep pressing me for information about you, like he expects me to spy on you or something... Anyway, I figured with how fucking weird he always acts around you that you probably already knew.”

You shake your head and hope to God the movement doesn’t cause your eyeballs to fall out of your sockets. You can’t remember if you’ve blinked over the course of the last five minutes.

“I didn’t.” You squeak.

His eyes go wide and you watch the color drain from his face.

“Oh. Shit,” He says, “— well, like I said, you didn’t hear it from me.”

You didn’t hear it from anybody. As far as you’re concerned, this conversation isn’t actually happening. Any moment now you’re going to snap out of whatever fugue state you’ve obviously just slipped into, and you’re going to find that this is all a dream – only your thigh is going raw from where you’ve been subtly pinching yourself.

Still, you still don’t completely believe Gareth isn’t teasing you – this feels like dangerous ground and suddenly your guts are churning because you don’t know what to do with this information.

You don’t know how to make yourself understand that the one person who has always been wholly off-limits to you could suddenly be within your grasp.

Possibility makes you ravenous and you have to fight to resist the urge to seize Gareth by the front of his torn flannel shirt and shake him, demanding more more more, that he tell you everything there is to know about Eddie and everything he’s ever said about you among the safety of friends.

With a sharp pang, you realize that you’re suddenly violently jealous about the confidence he has to freely speak about the objects of his affections – evidently, you.

The thought has warmth bleeding through your abdomen and filling up your chest cavity. You’re floating again, and you’re suddenly so, wickedly pleased.

Carol would shit her pants if she found out.

The rest of class comes and goes without incident, and you don’t hear a word of the lesson.

You’re far too busy fantasizing about all your wildest dreams coming true, planning your future with Eddie, picturing your wedding and your first home together, growing old together, and all the road trips and holidays and milestones you’ll hit in between.

By the last twenty minutes of the lesson, you’re even toying with naming your children.

You’re disgusting and pathetic and so far gone for him in such a stupid, irresponsible way. Only there’s one tiny little obstacle standing in the way of all of that.

Gareth says he’s not brave enough to talk to you, not without good reason, which is so painfully endearing, but a real problem because that makes two of you – you can barely even look at Eddie, let alone fathom trying to strike up a conversation.

So, therein lies the problem. How on Earth are you supposed to marry him and have a hundred of his babies, as Carol had so eloquently put it, if neither of you can manage to buck up the courage to have a normal conversation?

The bell is ringing before you can decide how to become a human being again, you’re still more cloud than girl when you catch Gareth as he begins packing up.

“Listen, tell Eddie…” You start, feeling suddenly too shy to have his name in your mouth – it feels heavy on your tongue, forbidden, and you chicken out, “Tell him… that I don’t bite. If he wants to talk to me … then he should just come talk to me, right?”

Gareth rolls his eyes,

“I told him that, like, a hundred times… but I’ll tell him again. I’ll say you said so this time.”

The promise pleases you immensely, only there is one glaring issue with that plan. He was never meant to tell you how Eddie supposedly feels about you. You’re not supposed to know he likes you.

You bite your lip and feel your brows creep toward one another, forming a deep crease of worry between them.

“Is that gonna get you in trouble?” You ask.

Gareth opens his mouth to speak, then snaps it shut again as the words fail to come, like he too had very conveniently forgotten that the information he’d just passed to you was decidedly not for you.

He hums thoughtfully, brows furrowed, and face pulled tight into a mask of displeased concentration.

What to do, what to do.

Finally, after a moment that feels like eternity, one you spend fidgeting with your fingers twisting them to the point of pain, holding a breath in your lungs almost like you’re afraid if you breathe he’ll take it all back.

Gareth shrugs.

“...well, I don’t see why he needs to know that I’m the one who told you… people talk.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

A hundred years and a short lifetime ago, you and Carol spent an evening trading secrets and the deepest desires of your heart, and you jumped up and down on her springy mattress, screaming along to the Go-Go's and promising one another that, just like the song said, your lips were sealed.

You can’t help but wonder if she ever really meant it, if she would have laughed and recoiled and teased you mercilessly if you trusted her with your secret feelings about Eddie Munson. Only you had made the same decision and elected not to tell her even back then, even when your secrets were still safe with her.

Can you hear them? They talk about us, telling lies, well, that’s no surprise.

People talk, Gareth said.

“They certainly do.” You hum, shouldering your bag and following him out the door.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x you #eddie munson imagine #joseph quinn eddie munson #stranger things fic #endless summer fic #cruel summer prequel

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