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upsidedownwithsteve · 1 year

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

I want you to want me.

The man in front of you seemed stressed.

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

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

“Michigan? Right?”

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

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

You raised your brows, confused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And besides, you were good with children.

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

Fuck.

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

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

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

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

“Oh shit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You're the new girl, right?”

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

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

His arms flexed and you swallowed hard.

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

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

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

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

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

His answering grin was nothing short of scandalous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh.”

“Or am I?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But instead, you shrugged and told him the truth.

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

“A boy?” Eddie smiled knowingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uh-”

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

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

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

“Oh.”

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

The air felt thicker than it should’ve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No boys.

—————

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

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

“Michigan, right?” He asked you.

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

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

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

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

She felt like a friend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Doing okay there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Someone’s waiting on you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Most?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No one’s really my type, right now.”

“Oh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You swallowed, hard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“—wow, you’re a real romantic, huh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need you to need me.

The kids arrived that Saturday and brought chaos with them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Friend?”

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

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

Besides, he was joking. Wasn’t he?

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

Dustin Henderson.

Mike Wheeler.

Maxine Mayfield.

Erica Sinclair.

Janie Evans.

Adam Johnstone.

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

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

—————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You didn’t.

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

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

“Can I interest you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He grinned, smug.

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

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

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked quietly.

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

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

“I don’t mind cliches, remember?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What about you?”

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

“What about me?” Eddie asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s fair,” you replied quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Didn’t it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fuck you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steve looked perplexed. “Why?”

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

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

“Ow.”

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

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

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

“Eddie!”

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

His two friends levelled him with a stare.

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

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

I’d love you to love me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Which one?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What a coincidence,” he murmured softly.

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

He was too close.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How could I say no to that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You were.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever had been going to happen, was over.

—————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What just happened?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steve started humming the opening bars of REO Speedwagon.

Eddie glared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Gross,” she muttered.

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t call her princess.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Get fucked, Hargrove,” Eddie replied lazily, his voice a soft drawl as he leaned against Chrissy’s desk but you could see the way his eyes narrowed, the way his shoulders were set.

Everyone in the cabin was silent now, eyes on Eddie and Billy as the blonde boy took a step forward and smiled, baring his teeth in a way that could only be taken as a challenge. Your skin prickled.

“Truth or dare, Teddy bear?” Billy whispered.

“I’m not playing,” Eddie grunted back.

“Ooh, forfeit,” Jason laughed from the door, “toilet block duty for a week, Munson, better tie your hair up.”

But neither boy listened, both Eddie and Billy still squaring up to each other, eyes narrowed and jaws set. You looked at Steve, silently asking him to do something but Steve seemed to be waiting for the exact time he needed to jump in.

“Hey now,” Billy murmured to Eddie, all soft condescension and false friendliness. He looked back at you and licked across his bottom lip, glittering eyes giving away his true intentions. “If you don’t wanna play, I’m sure someone else will happily give her a little bit of attention.”

“Grow the fuck up, Billy,” Robin snapped and her hand slid over your wrist, guiding you towards the door. “Let’s just hang out in my cabin,” she told you softly.

“Aw, c’mon!” Billy jeered, holding his arms out like he was surrendering. The majority of the room shook their heads at him, not ready to entertain his antics. “I’m Cupid, remember? Y’gotta trust the process.”

The music stuttered and the tape got stuck, the last few notes of whatever Blondie song fizzing with static before it stopped, just as Eddie slammed down his beer and shouldered past Billy. He walked straight towards you, his eyes on yours for what seemed like only the second time that night.

You saw something wild in them, something new and something different. You realised then that Eddie Munson didn’t do well with being challenged, and with the way Billy was still smirking behind him, it seemed like he knew that too.

So the thudthudthud of Eddie’s boots on the cabin floor matched your heart beat and Robin let go of your wrist as the boy approached. He’d taken his sweater off from earlier but he still smelled like the storm, like leftover rain and pine from the forest, like a burnt out campfire, a little like a new home.

The toes of his boots touched your sneakers and you had to tilt your chin up a little to meet his gaze. He looked torn, kind of panicked, pretty in the way he always did but he’d lost the softness that he’d gazed at you with earlier, with paint on your face and glitter pressed to your palms.

You thought he was going to kiss you.

His eyes dropped to your lips and nobody spoke, but you heard Billy let out a huff of laughter, a dark chuckle that made your stomach dip and you weren’t supposed to let this happen, even if it was just a stupid game, ‘cause fuck — Eddie was never going to be a hangover and a bad decision you’d try to forget the next day.

He was standing too close.

You steeled yourself, wondering if you’d be mad if he kissed you like this. If he kissed you at all. Would you be more angry if he didn’t? This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

You felt yourself closing your eyes, lashes soft on your cheeks, just for a second.

And then he was gone.

—————

Eddie was sitting outside of his cabin.

The party was long over and you’d stayed behind with Robin to help Chrissy tidy up, keeping your head down as Billy swept past, a leftover beer in his hand and a satisfied smirk on his lips as he got into a car with Jason.

And when you walked through the forest, hearing the whispers of the kids in the cabins as you passed, you noticed a tiny light on the porch steps, the orange red dot of the end of a cigarette in the dark. Eddie stood when you approached, stubbed the end of the smoke out on the railing and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Nerves rolled off of him in waves and he took a step forward, old leaves and pine cones crunching under his boots. You shook your head and kept walking, the light from your own cabin a warm glow only a few dozen feet away.

“Hey, hey, listen,” Eddie coaxed softly, “can we talk?”

“I’m tired, Eddie,” you began, still taking slow steps towards your own home.

(And embarrassed and confused and frustrated, but you didn’t say that.)

“We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?” But then you made the mistake of stopping and looking back at the boy and he was all soft curls and softer eyes, sad and glittering.

He caught your wrist, a gentle hand with careful fingers and his touch was warmer than the night. You looked down, watched his thumb rub at the back of your palm and suddenly you weren’t as sleepy as before.

Maybe Eddie could sense the sway in you, maybe he was already a little too in tune with the way your body leaned into his. His hand slipped down, fingers skimming over your own and he wasn’t quite holding your hand but it felt just as nice, just as lovely. Eddie pinched your thumb between two of his fingers, looked up at you through his lashes and smiled, too sweet.

“Can we talk?” Eddie tried again. “Please?”

So you nodded because it was getting harder and harder to say no to the boy, to keep away from the boy - and you knew deep down that you were more angry at yourself than at him. ‘Cause you kept breaking your own rules and you knew fine well that you would’ve let Eddie kiss you. And to be mad at him for doing exactly what you asked him to - to be friends - wasn’t fair in the slightest.

But he was smiling now, soft and lovely, too sweet to seem real and his hand moved to cover your own and it left you wondering for the hundredth time: would it really be that awful to break some rules?

Eddie led you away from the cabins, hand in yours, fingers tangled in a way that made your skin feel too warm and you were both tripping through the trees in the dark until Hop’s office lights lit up the ground and you could see Eddie’s van parked a just away from the edge of the clearing.

He fished out his keys from his pocket, wiggled them in the air and quirked his brows. His hand was still in yours and you wondered if he could feel your heartbeat through your fingertips, if you were looking at him the same way he was looking at you.

Earnest, hopeful, with too much fondness.

“Wanna get out of here?” Eddie asked quietly.

You chanced a look at the cabin behind you, the warm glow from the window letting you both know that Hopper was still up, maybe even Murray and Joyce.

“Are we allowed?”

Eddie smiled, a soft grin that made your stomach flip ‘cause it was full of nothing good, all mischief and trouble. The night seemed so much warmer, like it was filled with more than just summer, more than the linger heat of the sun. You wondered if it was possible for another person to make you feel like this, like teenagers at your high school locker, nerves like the anticipation of a first kiss behind an oak tree, a passed note that you kept in your drawer for years and years and years.

He shrugged, too nonchalant. “No,” came the reply.

You bit your lip to try and hide the grin you gave back, unprepared for the feeling of complete and utter excitement that clawed at your stomach at his words. Eddie’s hand tightened around yours.

“Okay,” you whispered back.

It felt like a daydream when Eddie helped you clamber into the front of the van, the inside still stuffy and warm from the afternoon spent sitting in the sun and it smelled like him. Like coffee and rain and smoke and spice, and you grinned at the mess on the floor. An old sweater, the lanyard that was stitched with the camp's logo that only Nancy wore, wrapped around the stick shift. There was an open box of guitar picks on the console, a couple empty cans of soda, sheet music with footprints on it, one drumstick, too many cassette tapes - none in their cases - to count.

But every inch of the space screamed EddieEddieEddie and it consumed you. You didn’t hesitate to shuffle over to the middle of the bench when the boy sat behind the wheel, close enough that your thigh almost touched his.

You shouldn’t have.

You didn’t need to.

You couldn’t help yourself.

He rolled the windows down as he pulled out of the car park, the headlights off until he reached the main road and neither of you heard Hopper’s truck screeching after you.

Despite the late hour, there was still a pink tint to the sky, barely there and only making the horizon glow, a leftover streak of colour from where the sun had sunk. The rest of the night was dark, inky black and littered with stars and when the van picked up speed, warm air funnelled through the front of the cab and it picked at you and Eddie’s hair.

You didn’t know where you were going. You didn’t ask. God, you found that you didn’t really care.

So you let the wind cool down your sun warmed skin and you smiled when Eddie hit the button for the radio, a song coming on soft and low, an acoustic guitar and lyrics that were much sweeter than you expected. Neither of you said much, but Eddie tapped out a beat on the steering wheel and your gaze went between his profile and the trees that blurred at the side of the road.

You drove until the wilderness became a little more tamed, until the darkness fed into streetlights and the roads got a little bigger. Toy sized towns sprung up from the forests, gas stations with two pumps, sleepy sidewalks and neon signs that flickered in the night.

Eddie pulled up to a diner, one with wrap-around windows and red, leather booths, an aquamarine sign that flashed ‘OPEN 24/7.’ It was easy to follow him into the building, to get swallowed up by the smell of fries and coffee. The floors were a little sticky and the waitresses looked tired, the three other diners barely glancing back at you both as the bell above the door signalled your arrival.

The boy ordered two milkshakes, one chocolate and one strawberry and he batted away your hand as you tried to push some dollar bills into his. There was a smile on his face as he did it, soft lips and soft curls and even softer eyes, and he gave no explanation as he took the large cups from over the counter and headed back outside.

“You not letting me pay seems an awful lot like a date, Eddie,” you called out across the parking lot.

He barely looked back at you as he headed to the van, a soft laugh caught in his throat as stood in front of the driver’s side door and grinned. When he did turn to face you, he looked like trouble, holding up the two shakes as he nodded down to his waist.

“Grab the keys for me, sweetheart?”

It sounded like another dare.

You could’ve taken a milkshake from him. You really could’ve. In fact, all common sense told you that that’s exactly what you should’ve done. But you took a step forward and then another and another, toe to toe with the boy until you were both bathed under the aquamarine light, Eddie’s cheeks shades of pink and blue.

Maybe he didn’t think you’d do it. Maybe he was only joking.

But he held his breath and you could feel the air change when you curled your fingers around his jeans pocket, tugging a little cause the denim was too tight and Christ, you could feel the expanse of his thigh underneath when you fished for the car keys, the metal jingling in the quiet. He stared at you the entire time, sugar and strawberries filling the air and you gazed right back, chin lifted up to meet his eyes almost defiantly.

You weren’t sure what you were trying to prove, but you were pretty sure it was the opposite of what you were supposed to be doing.

The lock clicked and you didn’t look at Eddie as you walked to the other side, climbing back into the van that suddenly felt so much smaller than before. You kept your back to the passenger door this time, further away from the boy who was looking at you like he was scared you might take up cross country in order to get back to camp.

He offered you both shakes, smiling and nodding when you took the strawberry with a quiet thank you. You both drank in silence for a minute or two, the parking lot emptying of what little vehicles remained and when the clock on the dash hit two, you and Eddie were alone.

“Are you mad at me?” Eddie eventually asked, soft and a little apprehensive, looking over at you with worry in his eyes. “For not kissing you?”

Your breath shook as you let it out.

“I mean, I didn’t know if— ‘cause you don’t want to kiss me, right? Or anybody, really, I s’pose— you have your rule and I totally get it but you seem like you’re mad at me and—”

“Eddie,” you tried to shush the boy, but your voice was too soft and too small and Eddie kept rambling.

“—and maybe I’m crazy but in the cabin when it was raining… it seemed like you wanted to kiss me then too, but shit, maybe I’m just being optimistic, ‘cause I know you don’t wanna get involved in anything and I respect that and I’m happy to be your friend- so happy - but I don’t know what I was supposed to do—”

“Eddie.” You’d moved suddenly enough to surprise him, his words falling short as you shuffled to the middle of the bench, sitting on your knees as you gazed at him imploringly.

You smiled around a sigh, a soft, sad noise that made Eddie’s lips turn down and you were gentle when you took his half empty cup from him, sitting it on the dash along with yours.

“I’m not mad at you,” you explained when you turned back to him, your fingers pulling at a thread on the hem of your shirt, stomach tumbling at the thought of telling Eddie too much. “I’m pissed at myself, actually.”

Eddie’s brows shot up and a boyish confusion took over his features. He shook his head softly at you, as if to explain he didn’t understand. But he sat quietly, waiting for you to continue.

“I’m annoyed ‘cause I think I did want you to kiss me,” you closed your eyes briefly at your admission, not wanting to see the way hope flashed across the boy’s face. “And I shouldn’t want that ‘cause I told you I wasn’t getting involved with anyone and that’s not fair to you.”

You sighed again and it sounded even sadder, a huff of breath that hitched in the middle but you kept going, the cadence of your voice pitching higher as you rambled, the same way the boy had.

“It’s so entirely unfair and I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of bitch who’s leading you on, ‘cause I’m not! Or at least, I don’t mean to be - fuck - and I’m sorry if I am and I don’t want this to be confusing or complicated or, or, shit I don’t know.” You took a pause to breathe, blinking at Eddie who just stared back, eyes too pretty to look away from this time round.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” you said sullenly, as if meeting the boy before you was the worst thing in the world. Maybe it was. “And I’m sorry ‘cause I’m being real selfish, ‘cause I don’t wanna stay away from you and I like it when you call me nice things and when you meet me for breakfast and I think about ki—”

You broke off again and squeezed your eyes shut tight, like that would keep your secrets in too. And when that didn’t seem to work, you groaned and brought your hands to your face, fingertips still cold from holding your shake and you pressed them meanly over your lashes.

“M’really sorry, Eddie.”

You heard a soft laugh, barely there and not unkind, an even quieter tsk before two strong hands wrapped themselves around your wrists and tugged gently. You let Eddie guide your palms away from your face and when you opened your eyes, he was a little closer than before.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” he whispered. “And you’re certainly not a bitch.”

You blinked at him, trying to keep the frustrated tears you wanted to let out at bay.

“I like being around you too,” Eddie continued and he was looking at you in that way that made your stomach twist. “And if you only think you wanted to kiss me—”

You let out an embarrassed groan and Eddie grinned.

“—that’s okay. I can wait until you know for certain. And if you don’t, then we can still be friends, like we are right now.”

Nothing about your relationship with Eddie felt friendly. Every look and every touch felt electric, like the air around you both knew more than you did, ‘cause it fizzed and buzzed every time he was around. It felt like something else, something more.

“But for the record,” Eddie whispered conspiratorially, pink in the cheeks

despite the way he tried to act all theatrical for you. “I wanted to kiss you.”

You ducked your chin to your chest to try and hide the way you smiled, an embarrassing scrunch of your nose but Eddie saw and he grinned wider, you could feel it, you could sense the way the space between you turned lighter and heavier all at once.

When you looked back up, Eddie was watching you, head tilted and curls a little messy and wild. He was still holding your wrists, his wide hands covering some of your own and you weren’t sure if he even realised.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for something else yet,” you told him and you hated the way you sounded scared. “My last relationship was so— so shit.”

“That’s okay too, well - the first part is. The second part is definitely shitty,” Eddie said, so soft it hurt and god, you believed him. He licked his lips, nervous and unsure, parting them as if to say something else but he stopped.

“What?” You prompted and you flipped your hands in his, palm to palm, so you were able to touch a thumb to the underside of one ring.

“Would it be so bad?” He asked, almost too quiet to hear. “To try?”

You took a breath, held the question and the answer in your chest until it burned and you wondered if it would be. Logic ceased to exist as you thought about leaning forward and pressing your lips to Eddie’s, the idea of your mouth parting slowly against his own was enough to make heat creep up the back of your neck.

You wondered what he’d taste like, if he’d kiss you soft, if he’d kiss you rough, like all his patience had run out and he just had to have you. You thought about his hands, if he’d be soft with them too, if he’d hold you sweet by the waist or if he’d cup your jaw and pull you closer to him. Maybe he’d make pretty sounds for you, maybe he’d groan and sigh low and sweet when your tongue touched his, maybe he’d pull away to whisper in your ear, run his mouth like you knew he was good at.

You were leaning in.

You didn’t even realise.

Eddie was too.

Hands still tangled and resting on your lap, his breath mixing with your own as his forehead touched yours. A curl tickled your cheek and when the bridge of your nose bumped softly against the boy’s, your lashes fluttered as your eyes closed and your heart was thumpingthumpingthumping.

Your brain was yelling. It sounded like your mother, like your ex and it sounded like you, shouting at them both that you didn’t need a relationship and you didn’t need boys and how this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Maybe you pulled back, maybe you just stopped. Or maybe Eddie just knew you better than you thought, ‘cause it had been three weeks of camp and he knew how you liked to visit the lake at least once a day, how you always woke up early and you liked it best when it rained through the night so you could sleep to the sounds of it.

Eddie sat back in the seat, took his hands with him and left yours feeling colder than they should’ve.

Before you could panic, before you could say sorry again and again, before the tears you felt thicken the back of your throat, Eddie smiled. He handed you back your milkshake, a little more melted than before.

“You don’t have to kiss me,” he said gently, and his words hurt your chest but he kept talking. “You don’t have to prove anything to me - or yourself,” he added.

He took a second to lean back in, just a little, the hand not holding his shake lifting to your face so he could push back a piece of hair that had fallen across your forehead. You think he just wanted a reason to touch you, and you realised then you’d let him do that as much as he wanted.

“I don’t want you to kiss me if you’re not sure,” he explained. “And I don’t want to make you feel rushed or—”

“You don’t,” you interrupted and your voice felt too loud for the front of the van, for the soft quiet, the blue light and strawberry air. “You don’t make me feel like that at all, Eddie. I just— I feel…”

Scared, torn, nervous, hypocritical.

You looked at him, sad, doe eyed and nervous, and if you chewed at your poor bottom lip any longer, Eddie was going to have to save it with gentle fingers.

“How ‘bout this,” Eddie said soft and lovely, like a secret, “if you work out how you feel, and you work out what you want…” he trailed off, felt brave again and took your hand back in his, a thumb running over the back of it. “Come find me, yeah? Let me know.”

You nodded, fingertips pushed to his palm, across the tiny guitar string scars and rough calluses.

“‘Cause I really like you,” he whispered.

“I like you too,” you whispered back and Eddie smiled, wide and bright and adorably shy.

“Good to know,” he nodded but his cheeks were flushed and he let go of your hand for the last time, curling his own back around the steering wheel. “We, uh, we better head back before Steve starts a search party for us.”

“For you, you mean,” you snorted.

“Don’t be jealous,” the boy quipped back but he was smiling. “This is gotta be the part of the script where the van breaks down on us, right?”

You laughed again, a soft huff and sounded so fond that it made Eddie’s chest ache. You were busy clipping your seatbelt back in, your shake almost empty and wedged behind your thighs and Eddie tried not to stare, he really did.

“And then what happens?” You asked, peering over at him, wondering if it was safe to ask, if you wanted to know.

Eddie shrugged, gave a sort of half smile that told you he was already thinking it over. “Depends what horror movie you like best, I guess.”

You scrunched your nose and watched the lights turn Eddie from aquamarine to a too warm orange as he rolled out of the diner’s parking lot. “A horror?”

‘I thought this was supposed to be a romance,’ you wanted to say.

You didn’t.

“Yeah, pick your poison sweetheart,” Eddie laughed, gaining a little more speed as he left the town behind and the only light came from the moon. “Ghostface with a knife? He gets me first when I go look for help,” Eddie wiggled his brows at you theatrically. “Or how ‘bout a good old fashioned zombie mob, huh? They surround the van and I obviously sacrifice myself to save you.”

You snorted, too amused. “Obviously,” you tell him.

“But once I’m all zombified, I turn on you,” Eddie grinned wide when you gasped, overly dramatic, just for him. “Start nibblin’ on that pretty neck like a chicken tender.”

You shake your head at him, still laughing. “You’re horrid.”

The boy shrugged, drove the van slowly through the skinny, dirt roads back into the forest. And when he stopped and killed the engine, silence settled over you both in a way it didn’t in town. Something far away chirped.

“Yeah, I know,” he appeased. His gaze settled on you, wide and bright even in the dark, a lot more hopeful too. “But you like me.”

PART TWO

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson smut #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson oneshot #stranger things fic

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Text

Stitches (Part Two)

(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Medic "Fix" Reader)

Part Three of Snowblind

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 7.2k Tags: Slow Burn, Heavy Angst, Trauma, Found Family, Taskforce 141, Team Dynamics, Major Character Injury, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, Self Esteem Issues, Referenced Familial abuse, Hospitalization, Self Sabotage Warnings: Explicit Injury mention, Forced sedation A/N: I'm in so much pain

Wakefulness comes in small doses, glimpses of another realm you've yet to enter. There's no physical sensation beyond the weight of your body, the effort it takes for your eyes to flutter open only for a mere moment before being forced to close once more. Like dreams, the world slips through your grasp, colors and sounds wavering like dyed mist. You struggle against it, feeling somehow like you're under water, trying desperately to swim to the surface even as you sink further down. Bubbles float up and away, the brilliant shimmering reflection of the waves above a taunt to your fatigue.

There's voices, spoken like they're warbled through water. There's the sound of waves in your ears, distant, churning and rhythmic. They crash against your thoughts, leave you scrubbed raw, bleached by the sun. Every time you try to wake, to stand, the force of the sea breaks over your head, forces you back down.

Between them, you can hear voices speaking, words indiscernible. You can make out the sounds, hear tones dipping soft and low with concern, mumbled conversations you can't make out.

You don't know how long you last like that, because every instance you get close to wakefulness there's pain, deep and unrelenting. Every breath forces a ragged, wet inhale that summons a docile touch, a hushed reassurance, and once more you're lost at sea.

It's unclear what is a dream and what isn't. You think you hear Gaz's voice, talking for some time, and his words are soft, almost sad. There's a distant, forlorn echo of him that curls beside you in the deep, whispers a sempiternal lullaby to you as you float inside the abyss. You think at one point you can make out sentences from one of your novels. You try and reach for Gaz- and find the calloused grip of his palm against yours moments before you're tugged back under into the evanescent depths.

Soap appears, talks with someone quieter, someone that you think you know. He hovers at the edge of your unconsciousness, skims across your thoughts like passing shadows. Yet the touch of him isn't cold. When you hear him stand at your beside, in the absence of others, you feel the presence of him weigh down on you, as if Ghost too, resides within the abyss.

He's gone before you struggle to the surface.

Soap talks to you like he would a conversation partner. His voice is light, cheery, but it contains falsities. You can hear the strain under it, listen to his words as they sometimes waver in his throat. There's a distant drone of a TV flickering with advertisements that pop with cheery tunes and colors as Soap watches. It summons a rare burst of clarity to you, the realization that you're no longer on base with the limited medical staff and rooms absent of much more than a cot and basic medical equipment. They must have taken you to a civilian hospital, but the reason why remains a mystery as once again you succumb to sleep.

You brush against full wakefulness when the lights go dim, and it's Price's voice that manages to bypass the haze of drowsiness. You hear him talking to someone who doesn't seem to be there, tone low, concerned.

"Yeah. Yeah I know...No. Not yet."

"You...just should have seen her, Kate. Scared, terrified, like some injured, sick animal. I...haven't seen anyone with eyes like that since...yes. You know what he was like. Wouldn't let anyone touch him. Can't blame him. Not after that."

"But that was...there's nothing like that on her file. She's never...no."

"Just...Christ, Kate. What happened to her?"

Darkness drowns you once again.

When you do at last wake fully, it's to the steady beep of a heart monitor, the low drone of a TV, and the smell of black tea.

There's something over your face, and when you reach a hand up to touch it you groan at just how heavy you feel, dizzy and weighed down.

"Jumping Jesus!" The person next to you flinches at your noise, clearly unprepared for your wakefulness. There's a moment before the world begins to focus and Kyle's face hovers over you, face in hopeful disbelief.

"Fix!" He breathes, clearly overjoyed, and the reaction seems severe for what you think you're feeling. The pain is muted now, and when you take a deep inhale there's not as much tightness as there was before. Something inside your chest feels different, somehow, clearer.

You try and talk, but your voice is muffled by whatever is strapped to your face, and quickly Kyle vanishes, talks with someone outside the door. There's a flurry of movement, and it only creates a further dizzying world around you, makes you groan as the lights switch on. There's hands, and when you flinch it's Kyle's voice that keeps you steady, holds your hand in both of his.

"Hey, easy. They're just getting you all settled, doll. Focus on me, yeah?"

You try to, even as the nurse tells you to take a deep breath, and then gently unstraps an oxygen mask from your face. She asks a few questions, which you answer with varying degrees of cognizance, until she makes a note and vanishes.

All the while Kyle talks to you in slow, steady murmurs, draws you back to him like an anchor, tethering you from the fear and confusion.

"What happened?" You manage at last when the nurses clear, voice grinding against the back of your throat like gravel. You wince at the horrific scrape there, feeling like someone has forced your mouth far too wide for far too long. The dry walls of your throat, tacky and gypsum, seals itself together like velcro, forcing a sputtering cough that only alerts you to the horrible, bone deep ache in your chest.

"Careful." Kyle warns you once more, as you try and grip a hand to your chest. Your fingers fist into unfamiliar fabric, an IV taped to the back of your wrist. Someone's changed your clothes. You're only in a cotton hospital gown now, and the knowledge of that alone has your heart racing higher in your throat, seeking reason in the midst of confusion and growing panic.

"Where am I?" You try, hating the way your voice wavers with fearful confusion, the warble of your hoarse words.

"St. George's hospital, off base." Gaz tells you gently. He's caught your other hand between his own, smoothes his thumb over the dry back of it in a paltry attempt to distract you. "There weren't medical facilities on base to handle you."

"Handle me?" You ask, and with every word you feel your voice returning. Even so, your senses feel cloudy, cloaked in a fuzzy, uncomfortably haze. The lights are too bright, the TV flickers with advertisements which feel too vibrant for your sleep addled brain. Kyle himself seems to blur strangely as your eyes adjust to your strange new surroundings. You find him in the midst of it- lost, wary, already ready to flee.

Kyle looks distraught then, as he watches the expressions flicker across your face. Then, slowly, he unravels to you the tale of your journey.

"You tore your stitches." He tells you at first, and you fix him with your stare because you know that's not it, nothing as light as that could have landed you in the hospital like this.

"Your...lung got blocked, somehow. Got blood into it. They had to intubate you and drain the fluid. Something got missed and you..." He swallows then, looks a little sick, eyes a little lost, almost frightened. "You developed an infection. They had to put you under so they could intubate you, and even then..."

He looks at you then, and despite the tight draw of his mouth there's something in his gaze that looks less like the steely resolution of a soldier and more of a friend, someone who nearly lost you.

"You nearly died, Fix." He mutters at last, and his eyes fall from yours, his brow scrunching in clear distress, hands tightening over yours. "You were so pale and barely breathing. We thought..."

You blink at him, and your chest feels a different kind of tightness now, a winding anxiety that coils in your chest, makes the outline of you shiver. It takes a moment for the immense weight of his words to sink into you. Yet when they do you can't contain a dry swallow at the whisper of the reaper across your nape, ghosting his skeletal fingers across the exposed flesh of you, tries to coax you into his cold embrace.

"How long?" You ask, voice rusty with disuse. There's a tremor there you've long since forgotten, an anxiety that lays dormant inside of you, a thing to never be shown to those who might glimpse at the fractured interior of you.

Kyle's face falls, he looks away. You feel your stomach sink with despair.

"Six days."

The world stills as you suck in a breath, so deep it hurts your bruised and battered lungs, feels much too like inhaling the cold, biting mix of frost atop the summit of your own failures. The memory of snow blindness, of huddling in the dark and freezing, praying for your body to hold out a little longer, curls around you like a sheet of white, engulfs you into shocked silence.

Six days.

Six weeks.

All of this, for six seconds of not paying attention.

Kyle must see the distress on your face as something else, as a flash of fear at your would-be fate, because he's leaning over you and trying to gently shake you from your thousand-yard stare.

"Hey, hey, you're okay." He murmurs, hands rising up to your shoulders now. "You're a fighter, yeah? You made it. You're okay."

You swallow, and the stickiness of your throat helps prevent you from speaking. You want to tell him, want for a horrifying moment to admit the truth: that you'd rather never wake up than disappoint them again. The realization summons a faint stab of pain, a distant, obscure thing you've nearly forgotten about. Mourning, for the person that the paralysis of fear has transformed you into.

You wonder then, if when you look in the mirror, if it will still be you who looks into your eyes, and not somehow a stranger.

Suddenly there's footsteps echoing down the hallway, and both you and Kyle startle as not one, but three figures hover in the doorway.

"You're awake!"

Soap manages to push his way past Price, and you ignore the grimace on your captain's face in favor of the pure relief that rolls off the sergeant. He's by your side in two large strides, just as Gaz leans back to give you some more space, not willing to crowd you in after such a rude awakening. You look over his shoulder to Price, and then to Ghost, who lingers just beyond the threshold, as if afraid to haunt what should be a joyous occasion.

"Steamin' Jesus it's good to see you." Soap breathes, and leans over you much like a brother would, takes your frail form into his arms with a delicacy you didn't know he possessed. The embrace lingers as he presses a hand to your hair, tucks you into his shoulder.

It's warm. You can smell his clothes, clean laundry and standard military issued bath soap, can just barely feel the dampness of a recent shower cling to his skin. He feels scrubbed clean, anew and fresh, and it feels far too pristine for the grimy things that dwell inside of you.

He leans back after a moment too long, and there's a part of you that feels like it isn't nearly long enough. His hands clasp onto your shoulders as he holds you at arm's length, head tilting as he looks over your face, brow knotting at the exhaustion he finds there.

"How do you feel?" He asks softly, and your expressions changes before you can help it, feeling an asymmetric thump of your heart at just how concerned he is, absent of disappointment, of any indication of frustration.

"I'm okay." You whisper back and blame the lack of conviction in your voice on the soreness of your throat, the fatigue that draws across you like a shroud.

Soap grins, but the smile doesn't meet his eyes. There's something there that lingers like a bitter aftertaste, something you don't yet know, but the gaze of it sets your heart to flutter in panic.

It almost looks like grief.

"Give her some space, Soap." A voice from behind him declares, and Soap twists to reveal both Price and Ghost. You can still smell the smoky, acrid scent of cigars on your captain, and as your eyes dart down you think you see the outline of the case in the pocket of his jacket.

He leans on the wall in front of you, exhales through his nose. You feel your heart murmur in apprehension at the silent, appraising look on his face. The air in your chest feels too tepid, sickly and warm as his gaze slides over to Gaz, and then back to you.

"Garrick gave you the rundown, then?"

You nod, swallow, wince at the hard scrape of your throat. Fortunately, Soap seems to notice instantly, and after a brief murmur to himself and a turn, he supplies you with a bottle full of cool water, which you suck down gratefully. You ignore the shudder inside of you as he soothes a hand over your back as you drink, nearly splutter as you swallow. It feels like he's touching something small, soft, breakable. Something that isn't you.

Yet you take your time, ignoring the tremble of your hands as Price's gaze never leaves you. With each sip you feel your throat restored, and yet the weight of unspoken words hangs heavy over you all. Oppressive. Imminent.

He knows. A voice whispers. He knows now that you aren't who you say you are. That you're nothing more than a pretender, that you don't deserve this.

Your eyes shift under Price's gaze as you hand the bottle back to Soap with a small murmur of thanks. The smile he gives you doesn't reach his eyes. Yet he stays by your side, one arm pressed in a feather-light touch to your back as he looks up at Price. Attentive, watching, guarding.

Price's eyes flick to him for only a moment, but there's silent words there you don't understand- a meaning conveyed between the two of them that lingers like a bitter aftertaste.

Yet Price relents, strangely, under Soap's stare. He heaves a sigh, drags a hand over his face, and it's only then that you notice the heavy bags under his eyes, a telltale lack of sleep coloring his complexion.

"How's your pain?" He asks instead. "We can get a nurse for you, probably get some pills in you if it's too much."

You blink, press a hand to your tender throat, let it drift down to your chest. You poke and prod for a moment, absorbing, noting, checking in with your body to catalogue the aches there, try to discern the physical from the phantom.

"My...chest hurts a bit." You supply after a moment, hesitantly. "And my throat, but it's...manageable."

Your mind summons the memory of agony before you fell unconscious. Of the horrific, clawing pain in your side that seemed to fissure outwards, clinging to your veins, your ribs, your lungs. This now, the pain that occurs only when you breathe too deeply, the lingering ache that you can't separate from your own anxiety...

You've lived with this pain for a while now.

Price nods, but otherwise remains silent, offering little insight into the dark, stormy heaviness of his gaze as it rests on you.

You swallow, feeling suddenly like Price can see you, can see through you, looking through the transparency of your form.

The whole room feels too heavy, too quiet. There's shifting glances between the men around you as they communicate silently through their eyes, have whole conversations you aren’t privy to.

You swallow, force a nervous smile as you turn from Price to Soap, then to Gaz, meeting both of their hard, averted stares.

"Damn, what's the matter with you guys? Thought you'd all be happy to see me wake up." You try, but your voice wavers, and it betrays the nervous energy that sparks inside of you, barely contained.

"O-of course we are!" Soap blurts out beside you and reaches his hand up to tousle your greasy, unkempt hair. "Was tellin' Gaz you’re a cat with nine lives, hard as shite to kill."

The lightness of his voice seems to shake loose the tense atmosphere between you all, drains the grey and ruin from the room and replaces it with something more vibrant.

Gaz smiles then, and even if it's halfhearted you drink in the sight of his expression like warm, honeyed tea.

"You were the one pacing in the hall and muttering to yourself, Soap." He supplies, and Soap scoffs, taking a step back to wave a dismissive hand at his friend.

"Because the Rangers match was going to shite." He declares, spreading his arms dramatically for emphasis. "I wasnae worried. Not for a single second."

"I had to order you to go back to base and shower." Price grumbles, voice low. Yet there's a fondness to his annoyance that tugs your lips into a smile.

Soap manages a look of mock offense. "Yer' callin me stink, now Cap?" He asks, feigning hurt. "I've smelled your ripe scent in the trenches before and lemme tell you-"

"For a bloke named 'Soap' you really do smell sometimes." Gaz pipes up helpfully, and you turn to see the sly grin crawling across his face, eyes dancing with mischief.

"Oh, smell my boggin arse y-"

"Already have, mate, that's why I'm tellin' you."

"I think you smelled nice and clean." You offer up at Soap, and he turns his eyes to you with fondness before turning back to Gaz and Price.

"Fix is the only one who likes me." He complains loudly, and it earns a chuff of laughter from Gaz on your other side.

"Great, then she can bunk with you next time you haven't showered for three days."

"Three?" You ask up at Soap, who's mouth flaps open indignantly.

"Two!" He bites back.

"And a half." Price offers wearily.

You shrug up at Johnny. "That is pretty much three days."

Soap fixes you with a look of betrayal that has a laugh bubbling up your throat before you can stop it.

"Then again-" You offer, raising your arm and giving a preliminary sniff, nose wrinkling. "I probably smell worse. Haven't showered for a week now."

You pause, face drawing aghast as you turn to Gaz. "Oh God, they didn't give me a sponge bath, did they?"

"Aye." Soap crows, a smirk pulling at his lips. "Had to pull Gaz here away when they said he couldnae help. Tried to insist on doing it himself."

"Oh, now you're taking the piss." Gaz complains, sitting back in his chair with a huff.

You turn to Gaz, feigning shyness, crossing your arms over your chest as you teasingly ask him: "You didn't look, did you sergeant? How could you?"

Soap's bark of laughter is nearly deafening when he watches Gaz straighten and splutter, stammering out an indignant "N-no! I-"

"I thought we were friends." You press, pretending to wipe away a tear.

"I didn't look!!"

"Couldnae take his eyes off you, lass." Soap jibes, voice trilling with laughter. "Man looked as if he were restin' his eyes on the birth of Venus herself."

"Soap!!"

You laugh then too, feeling your chest lighten, something inside of it shaking loose and rising up through your voice, dissipating between you all like a gentle breeze.

"Gents." Price suddenly says. "Will you give us a minute?"

And just like that, the oxygen drains from the room.

You feel it suck the air from your chest, Price's words, stale in your throat as the laughter cuts off abruptly. You can still remember the sound of the gunshot, the one that punched a hole in your side, robbed you of your air and sent you spiraling into unconsciousness. Now, Price's voice sounds very much the same. The toll of a funeral bell, a final, imminent sound from which there’s no escape. Only grief.

Soap sees the tight draw of your face, and it feels familiar to you, the way your lips thin, shoulders tense. You remember it, the sensation of waiting outside an office furnished with oakwood, a glossy desk with papers and ornaments meticulously placed, of the squeak of your father's chair as he turns to you, pins you with his untempered stare.

It shows on your face, you realize, and you jolt when Soap's hand lands on your shoulder. He offers you a smile, but behind his gaze you see the trepidation there. A whisper of a warning. Danger.

"I'll see if I can scrounge you a plate of somethin'." He tells you softly, an entreaty. "You like chocolate pudding?"

You nod a little numbly, swallow as his hand drifts from your side as he paces to the door, Gaz trailing close behind. It's only once they pass that you see him, the large, lurking specter that hovers just beyond the door. Ghost's head turns as he watches the two sergeants pass, only for his stare to slowly look back to you.

It's the first time you've seen his face since that moment where he found you, when you had let the ink-dyed threads of you spill into his palms and spoken the words to him that you'd been keeping hidden as an execrable secret.

"I-I didn't-" You hiccup, and the world is in chaos now, with your cries and your secrets exposed, with his gaze raking over your trembling, injured form. "Didn't want you to see, Ghost. I'm sorry-"

Now, Ghost locks eyes with you, holds your gaze captive in his stare.

"I see you."

You can't look away.

"Just you."

When he turns, you fight the urge to call for him, to ask what exactly he has seen in you, if it is enough to lose his faith in you, to leave you behind and march ever onwards, blotting out the light as you're cast in his shadow. You...you want to ask for forgiveness. To atone for the things you aren't, the things you might never be.

"Ghost-" You try, but he's gone, heavy footsteps fading down the hallway as he vanishes, leaving only you behind.

The silence that follows is unbearable.

"Fix."

You turn your eyes to meet the gaze of your captain, of his smoky, laden stare that feels rife with omens, sinister prophecies that press down on your shoulders.

"We need to talk about what happened."

Ah. This is it then. The moment you founder, feet stumbling from the apex of your achievements before tumbling down, down, down int the abyss that haunts your dreams. The one where you're left alone, empty, with only your failures and regrets to provide you with solitary company.

"Ghost said he found you bleeding out in the barracks, on your way to your room instead of the medical station." Price goes on, not bothering to mince words. Ever direct, forthright in a way that is unmistakably him. "Care to explain what that was about?"

You swallow. Your throat feels tacky, dry. You make a point to reach for the water bottle at your bedside, take a gulp. It's a blatantly obvious move to stall, but you are beginning to realize that no matter what you do, these men, your brothers, will be able to discern you like the rising tides under a full moon. It's futile. Maybe it always has been.

"I was on my way to the medical unit." You reply and manage to surprise yourself with how even your voice sounds. "I was on my way to my room to grab the keys to the supply closet."

"Instead of reporting to the medic on duty?" Price questions, nonplussed.

"Yes, Sir."

"Why was that?"

You swallow, feel a tremor in your hands, try to shake the image of your father sitting at his desk before you.

"I believed my injuries were not severe at the time, and that I could tend to them myself." You reply honestly, ignoring the dragging, haunting childhood memory of tall windows and a portrait above the fireplace, of the smell of your father’s cigars.

"Hmm." Price offers, the sound growling low in his chest, eyes unblinking, pinning you to where you sit. "Ghost mentioned something else too. About how you 'didn't want him to see.' Is that right?"

You should have expected this. Should have known Ghost would spare no detail in whatever report he gave Price, would toss you to the wolves like this.

"I don't recall saying that, Sir." You offer instead, lying, trying to keep your voice even, unwavering even as your heart thumps erratically in your chest.

"So, you believe your lieutenant gave a false report?" Price asks sharply, and you nearly flinch at the sudden shift of his voice.

"N-no sir." You falter, and your fingers fist the sheets under your hands. "Only that I don't remember saying that."

Price only ignores you, soldiering on with his questions. "Some of the squaddies said they saw you earlier that night on the training grounds." He states, and you watch as his finger taps on his crossed arm. "Give me a good reason why you were there and not resting and taking care of yourself?"

You try to remember how the breathe, feel the push and pull of you inhales and exhales, stifling the sensation to run. Run.

"What is going on Fix?"

You remember the first time you were caught in a sniper's snare. Seeing the red dot appear on your vest, looking for cover, finding none, trying to flatten yourself and make yourself as small as possible to avoid the hail of bullets that rained down on you.

Now, in the target of Price's scope, pinned beneath his gaze, you feel very much the same.

Your silence is telling. Too much time has passed already, and you know any answer you give now would be futile, instantly seen as the lie that it is. So instead, you stay silent, force yourself to breathe, imbue yourself in the rise and fall of your chest, the ache that oxygen summons as it flows through your lungs.

Price doesn't waver before you, unblinking, unrelenting. Still as a statue, his eyes gazing at you from below his furrowed brow. Face impassive, but his eyes dark, calculating, discerning.

"I know what I saw." He says at last as the silence drags on, voice dragging in his chest. "I saw a young woman who was terrified of being touched, who tore her own stitches by pushing herself too hard and then panicked and lashed out when someone noticed. That's not normal behavior. Not from a soldier who supposedly passed all her psych evals before joining my team."

You swallow, but the air feels stagnant, filled with ash and ruin. The aftermath of an explosion, where the gunpowder flavors across your tongue.

"I-I didn't-" You try, voice finally fracturing. Yet Price ignores you, plowing onwards.

"Fix." He goes on, and his voice sounds tired now. Weary, and it feels too close to disappointment. "You're a good soldier, a damn good one. One of the best medics I've ever met. But I can't have you risking this team by not taking care of yourself."

"I-I was taking care of myself." You manage, voice trembling down, shoulders shivering. "I was trying to recover sooner so you didn't...didn't have to wait for me."

"And where did that get you, hmm?" Price snaps suddenly, voice rising, straightening off the wall and you flinch, hard enough for him to notice. "You know better than that. You're the bloody medic. Do you have any idea how long it took for me to find a suitable candidate for this team? We've had you less than four months, and you've already landed yourself in the ICU twice. Once for not checking your corners, and the second because you were disobeying orders to stay put and heal."

"I'm...sorry, captain." You force yourself to say, and a traitorous sob clings to the back of your throat. You can feel the dam inside you cracking, feel the dark, ichor of you begin to seep out. It makes words choke your throat before you can stop them.

"I-I'll do better. I'll tend to my injuries better. I'll not tear my stitches again-"

"What you are going to do-" Price snaps, and the panic inside you flares brighter, and you swallow down the sob that threatens your voice, trying vainly to reign in your errant emotions. To not let him see, to not let any of them see. Please- "-is take a psych eval while you recover, and you are NOT going to repeat this behavior again or you'll be off my taskforce."

Off the taskforce.

You begin to shake then, trembling as you sit upright in the hospital bed, eyes glassy, unseeing, feeling the gale howl in your thoughts, and the phantasm of failure and inconsolable loneliness wrap her thin, pale fingers around your neck, starving you of air.

Alone, again. Because of the things you couldn't accomplish. Of never, ever being enough, of wearing a body too big for your meagre soul.

"P-Price." You manage, voice trembling as you attempt one last effort to save his faith in you, to cling to this place of yours you've worked so hard for and to never, ever let go.

"I'll do better." You try, and the words come tumbling loose, like an avalanche you can’t prevent. "I can. I can make it up to the team. I-I worked so hard to be here, I can't...can't fail. I just need another chance, so I can prove myself.”

You try and stop your words, but it’s a useless effort. You circle the drain in an imminent vacuum as it sucks you down, down. “I can prove I’m a good soldier, a good medic, and prove that I deserve to be here. I can prove that you don’t need to get rid of me because I fucked up. I can still do it. I can prove myself, can prove I’m not a failure. So please."

You swallow, but all you taste is bile and regret.

"Please."

The room stills.

In the silence, you think you feel your fragile heart begin to shatter.

"Oh Fix." Price murmurs at last, and you watch as the anger from his eyes melts, his shoulders loosening, uncrunching from their tight draw. There's an emotion that passes over his face, makes his eyes seem forlorn, lost at the sight of you. It's as if he's found not a soldier but an injured animal, skittish and afraid. It takes you a moment to name the sorrow in his expression, eyes blinking and threatening tears.

Pity.

It stabs at you sharper than the sound in your side, flays open the cavity of your chest and renders you exposed, vulnerable under his gaze. Sharp and sudden, it chokes the air in your lungs, makes your ribs tighten, seize as you try vainly to curl away from it, with no ground on which to retreat.

Price lowers his head, avoiding your gaze for a moment as if he's grappling with guilt, blaming himself for this instead of you and somehow that feels worse. Like he's shouldering a burden he doesn't trust you with despite the fact that it's your weight to carry.

When Price's eyes meet yours again they're traitorously sad. Not with disappointment, Price regards you as if he would a frail, grieving thing- something to be treated with a care you don't deserve.

"You have nothing to prove." He tells you, and there's a tone to his voice you haven't heard before, something that suffers at finally witnessing the cracked, broken shadows you fail to conceal inside your heart.

It's too much.

You can't...can't do this. They were never supposed to know, never supposed to see the wreck inside you you've been trying to hide so desperately. They were only supposed to see your triumphs, your victories and not the silhouette of devastation that flickered beyond your smiling form. Never were they supposed to glimpse the raw, rotten interior of you, witness the horrific truth of all those years ago that has since fused to your bones and created a horrible, grotesque reflection of you.

They were never supposed to know.

Now Price stands before you, despairing, despondent at what he's seen, and told to you the words you've feared this entire time. That all this effort has been for nothing, that you've suffered for nothing, that your struggle to stay with him, with Ghost, with Soap and Gaz and Laswell was nothing more than a naive fantasy.

It bubbles up inside you before you can stop it- the searing, scorching hurt and white-hot flash of fury. Like an eruption there's no warning as magma courses through your veins and you sit up in your bed, ignoring the sudden, horrible agony that claws into your side and chokes the air in your throat. Instead, you look at Price through a watery, burning gaze and raise your voice to the loudest you've ever allowed it to echo from the hurt of your chest.

"I HAVE EVERYTHING TO PROVE!!"

Your voice rises and cracks like a whip between you both, shatters the remnants of your composure and leaves you trembling, shaken, clinging desperately to whatever shreds of hope remain inside you.

Price looks stunned.

You've never seen that expression on his face before, you realize, and it's enough to make the anger seep from you, coloring with regret as you watch his face transform from shock to a stony, impassive silence.

Your stomach drops through the floor.

"You are suspended." He tells you flatly. "I'm giving you mandatory three months leave so you can heal and figure out whatever you've got going on."

Silence. Then, the fragile sound of your hopes and dreams fracturing, cracks spider-webbing out further, further, until they seem to consume you, mar your spirit into something that appears as only a mockery of yourself.

"Price-" You try breathlessly, unable to find any other words except his name, absent of his title. Trying desperately to appeal to him not as a superior, but as the thing you dare to dream he is- a friend. "Please."

It softens him, that, makes his face briefly scrunch as if he's the one in pain, not you. Yet he doesn't waver, not even as his voice dips softer between you both.

"This is for the best, Fix. Take some time to go home, see your family, get some distance."

No. You think desperately, paralyzed, unable to speak. That's the last thing I want. Don't send me back to them. don't take me further from you all. Let me stay here, even if I can't be useful, even if I don't deserve it. Let me stay.

Instead, all you give him is silence. Wordless, your voice dying in your throat.

Price looks at you then, and that emotion returns to his eyes- sadness. Guilt. He paces towards you, and it takes all your strength to not press yourself away from him, and yet to crowd even closer, seeking an anchor, a semblance of comfort.

He rests a hand on your shoulder, fatherly, reassuring and yet somehow his touch burns against your skin.

"You're a bloody good medic, Fix." He murmurs to you, softer now. "Might be the best one I've ever worked with."

Hope, vibrant and colorful. You look up at him with a wide, watery gaze, daring to dream of the things that could be.

The things that aren't.

"But I can't have a medic who can barely take care of herself." He finishes, and once again the world sucks into colorless monochrome, devoid of anything remotely related to the thing called joy.

A pat to your shoulder, and it feels like goodbye.

"You get yourself sorted." He tells you, turning away. "We will be here when you get back. Understood?"

You barely hear him, barely hear his footsteps fade from the room, barely hear him talk to someone hidden just beyond the doorway as they vanish together.

Silence reigns supreme in the absence that follows, carving deep into your bones, etching prophecies within the cracks, filling them with ash, runes to be discovered by a future you. The air around you is nothing but a frigid vacuum, sucking up the sound of your own heartbeat, tinnitus singing a wry, shrill sound in your ears.

Failure.

Of the highest degree. You feel the earth shake and tremble beneath you, and atop the mountain of bones from which you stand the chasm below yawns with a dark, gaping maw, threatening to swallow you whole. It feels like an inevitability, an imminent destiny from which there is no escape.

Your lungs must be filled with ichor, you think, because when you breath there's a wetness in the back of your throat that feels like a dark, horrid thing. You wonder if you slice back the layers of you if only ink will spill outwards. Perhaps it will drown you, fill the space in which you occupy alone, clinging to you like tar and taking you down, down into oblivion.

There's wetness on your face before you realize it. Hot, fat tears rolling down your cheeks in the absence of sound. They water your gaze, obscure your vision until the world is nothing more than the liquid haze of your own regrets.

I should have known better. You think, in a final, bitter sacrament. Than to think I could belong.

When you cry, it's with a hand clutched to your chest, fingers gripping at the cotton fabric of your hospital gown, threatening to rip it to shreds just like the remainder of your hope. Sobs crack your throat- broken sounds caught in the wet, putrid vile of your lungs. Pain blossoms like a funeral bouquet across your chest, white flowers symbolizing grief.

White. White. White.

White lace napkins, white sheer curtains, pressed white blouses, white pearls at your mother's throat. Unblemished, artificial, holy and yet somehow blasphemous to the fibers of your soul. Things that are a reminder of where you've come from, where you shall return, what you have to lose.

Everything to prove. Everything to lose.

A cry cracks at your dry throat, and you hate it- a broken sound that seems to show who you truly are, something fracturing and barely held together. You bow into your hands, tears spilling through your fingers, slipping away with the remainder of your composure.

There's footsteps, voices at the door, and a voice calls your name.

You don't respond, caught and ensnared within the silvery web of despair, absent from everything except your own self-hatred, the grief and hopelessness that forces shattered cries from your throat.

"Hey, hey, hey." A voice shushes you, and arms wrap around you. Warm, solid, tender. There's a hand in your hair, tucking you into a chest that feels like a comfort you don't deserve it. "It's alright doll, just breathe. Take it easy."

"I'm- I'm sorry." You choke between sobs, fingers clawing into Kyle's shirt. "Gaz, I-I didn't mean, I never thought. I'm...I'm sorry."

Gaz says nothing, only presses you deeper into his chest and you let him, surrendering to the temptation of just being held even though you don't deserve it, even though you know you'll have to say goodbye.

Briefly, you wonder if you should have let go then, in that grimy, dusty cartel hideout, so that way you didn't have to live with the disappointment, the pain, the hurt.

You continue to chant apologies, and Gaz welcomes them into him, never speaks beyond gentle words to try and soothe your cries. There's another hand in between it all, a voice that tries to speak but finds himself absent of the words needed.

"You're going to be okay, Fix." Soap offers at last, and you don't believe him. You want him to say you didn't disappoint them, that you can stay, that somehow they won't forget about you.

You want him to tell you that you can stay.

Yet he doesn't, only offers hollow reassurances that ring empty in your ears between sobs that you pour into Gaz's shirt.

They're finding ways to say goodbye.

You push back from Gaz's front abruptly, suddenly, the movement enough to dizzy you and shock the two men crowded close to your bed.

"Get out."

Gaz and Soap look at each other, brows knotted, words exchanging through their gazes alone.

"Hey, listen-" Gaz tries, echoing your name.

"Don’t. Don't call me that." You spit back, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively, refusing to look at them, to see the worry in their eyes. That wasn't your name. Your name, your callsign is Fix, even if you can never fix the broken things in your own soul.

"Go." You say again, firmer now. Hurt. Angry. "I-I want to be alone."

It's a lie, you know that. You want them, want them to be here with you, to comfort you in the face of your own insurmountable failures. Yet now, on the precipice of farewell, you can't stand the reprieve they offer you to indulge in. Not when you're about to say goodbye.

There's a pause as both sergeants wait for you to say anything more, pray for you to swallow your words and invite them into you once again, but you can't. You don't. You refuse.

So slowly, they pull away, as they all do, until there's nothing left but you and your own shadow that sems to swallow you from all sides.

It's Soap that pauses at the door, and you look up then, see the brokenness in his eyes. The hurt.

"Come back to us." Is all he tells you, voice barely strained, eyes sad. "Soon."

You blink, and his words summon something like the blossoms you saw blooming in the mountains of Nepal- striving against the harsh, unforgiving rocky outcropping. They turn their petals to the thin blue sky in search of a sunrise you can't yet see. Striving, resilient, hopeful, alive. Despite everything. Alive.

When Soap vanishes, you see them, see the blossoms bloom across your thoughts, roots fragile but deep, awaiting the thaw in which they'll stretch once more upwards towards the heavens. They entwine with your stitches like creeping ivy, hold you fast and refuse to let you crumble further as much as you want to shatter.

They march on, the four of them, vanishing into the blizzard atop a mountain of expectations you'll never meet. Yet in the snow where you've fallen, rhododendrons unfurl in the cracked confines of your lonely heart.

Taglist:

@atenceladusiaawfytbwb @nachtcirce @jujubashow @mutuallimbenclosure @kkinky @trash-boi-4-life @scatter-mind001

#simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon 'ghost' riley #mw2 #cod mw22 #Simon ghost riley x oc #reader insert #cod x reader #fic: shadow and bone #oc: fix

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