#sweet and gets there Eddie Munson

[paperbackribs]

Only I push you against that wall. Again, again, and again.

It’s 1987, baby, and the club’s lights flash in a splatter pattern from left to right, right to left, and exploding in the middle. It's fourth of July and these big city people celebrate as roaringly private as well as can be.

The crash and crescendo sparking early in the music subverts usual expectations; fittingly as the dancers break out while the first drag show of the night starts at midnight. It's far from Hawkin's two drinking holes as Steve, Robin and Eddie can manage.

Not so far out for Eddie who'd visited back in the day for a weekend or so when he could afford the gas. Hard hands and insistent lips a highlight of his trips away.

But fuck him so very much to learn that, yeah, Robin is a passionate fan of Dorothy, let alone her beautiful, sun-kissed soulmate who is just as bent as the freak of Forrest Hills.

Said soulmate has Eddie's eyeliner ringing wide, hazel eyes. Making them look bigger, wetter, and more than Eddie can comfortably look at for more than a few seconds at a time. Currently, those ebony framed features are trained beyond Eddie's sight, sitting far above Robin's cropped shirt that rides, what feels, scandalously high. The edges almost above Stevie's tits, bare to Eddie's covetous gaze.

The older of the two leans his arms against the bar, deliberate and casual while watching that patterned crop top tauntingly sway and caress against caramel tanned skin. Against scarred grooves that Steve has apparently forgot, but Eddie can't look away from. Those streaks of white against warm, smooth swathes that seem etched and drawn for the greedy eye to lock onto. To look, to touch, to feel, to taste with a warm tongue wide against a salted body that surely tastes as sweet as it looks.

It's not the first time that Eddie's watched another person trail their fingertips against the ribbed tissue of Steve's battle scars. Men. Women. Steve is pretty to many. Especially in the dark corner of a city club. And it’s definitely not the first time that Eddie has darkly coveted this beautiful man.

His friend.

His unrequited lust.

His love?

Eddie shakes the thought out. Trying to slip away. Away from how consumed he is. Easily obsessed with those large, blunt hands that touch the long-haired, slim-hipped beauty against Steve’s beautiful body.

He swallows thickly. The beer Eddie holds loosely warm and stale and a memory on the back of his tongue. He can't look away. From the peacock daring to glom closer to his Steve. Watching him stretch lips and push forward hips, cornering Steve against a hard wall. A wall that should be Eddie's to own.

It's hours. Minutes. An age later and Steve has shaken off the diverting embrace of the other man. Eddie doesn't understand, he never does. Steve dances, he kisses, but he never leaves with any of the others that he touches in these dark spaces. Always returning to Robin (if she hasn't left with her own reward) and always, always Eddie.

It's not that Eddie is ever alone. It's not that he doesn't have enough men approaching him, looking him up and down from across the room. Eye-fucking him with promise of actual fucking if he just gave a goddamn inch. But no. Steve doesn't do more than kiss. Eddie never leaves the bar. Neither one speaks about it, but the rule is as hard and implacable as the bare red bricks of the original walls.

Steve is by Eddie's side again, leaning over to accept a chilled drink from the bartender. Eddie shakes his stiff fingers from his own stale beer bottle. The bubbling that has built days, months, not yet quite a year, but he doesn't know if he's strong enough to weather more time than he's spent watching Steve be loved and adored by everyone but himself.

"You don't want him?" Eddie leans into the side of his mouth, kicking into a smirk that feels as inauthentic as watching Steve walk away from him. Every, single time towards that fucking dance floor.

"No," Steve's eyes are level, warm yet a hint of stern that riles something deep in Eddie's gut. "No, I learnt my lesson a couple of years ago. Never want someone who doesn't want me."

Eddie's throat clicks with how sharply he swallows. Steve's not talking about some random twink. Some random potential love interest. Eddie has denied his own attraction for the sake of protecting his sanity, but his sanity is only as pristine as the idea that Steve could never love him. But this… what this could be…

Eddie would be lying if he said he could see the dark motes in Steve's eyes, the ring around his pupil or any other physical indicator of a lie or excitement, but he can. He can see it shining in Steve's eyes, waiting for Eddie to understand.

"I learnt my lesson, Eddie. A while back. I won't love someone who doesn't want me, do you want me?” Steve pauses, a hint of uncertainty colouring his words. “Eds?"

The earth shudders. It quakes and breaks open the soft meat that is now and forever for the boy and man that is the whole of his heart and home. It's the only reason for Eddie's hand to tremble as it does while reaching for the man who has held his heart for as long as he kept him sane in an insane, underworld quest. As he fell in love with a sweet and strong man that took in lonely lambs and their lonely shepherd.

Eddie calms that shaking hand to the man he thought was unobtainable, to suddenly and confidently fist at the back of soft, silky locks and pull those plush, candy-sweet lips to his own.

Steve never visits that hard brick wall again. Not unless Eddie is there, pushing him hotly against it, once again. Again, again, and again.

[hairmetal666]

Wayne's used to worrying about Eddie. He should be; he's been doing it since the kid was twelve. First it was Eddie's silence, his permanent frown, the way the bones stood out too prominent on his small wrists. Then it was the kids at school, taunting him and calling him names, the fights and calls from the principal's office. Next came the late nights, the drinking, the dealing, failing his senior year twice. But all of those times, every single one, Wayne had known what to do. Maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe it took a little time, but he'd always figured out exactly what his boy needed.

And now--now Wayne doesn't know if he can help; knows it's not in his power to fix it. 

So, he sits for the second week in a row, watching his nephew--his whole heart--sitting in front of the window, looking out at the forest, nursing the same cup of coffee that he poured six hours ago, and wonders how in the world he can help.

They're cleaning up from dinner, Eddie quiet at his side, when he says, "Gonna need some help with the mugs tomorrow."

After moving to Oregon once Eddie graduated and he retired, he found an affinity for pottery. Never woulda thought it, but he loves it and tourists love his booth at the farmers market.

He can't think of a better way to get his nephew out of the house, but wonders if he doesn't know his boy as well as he thinks after a decade in Los Angeles, that Eddie'll refuse. He just nods, though, goes back to drying the plate in his hands.

And next morning, right at 6:45, Eddie is in the living room in black jeans that are so worn they're nearly grey in places, and the threadbare Metallica tee Wayne thrifted for him nearly a decade back. It's a win. Small, yes--Eddie doesn't even complain once about the country-western station Wayne plays in the truck--but still a step forward.

Wayne wastes no time parking and handing Eddie a box of carefully packed merchandise. He leads the way, trusts that Eddie is right on his heels until he hears Jim Hopper's voice say, "You better keep an eye on those mugs, son. Your uncle will tan your hide."

He turns to see Hopper balancing one end of Eddie's box, Eddie's cheeks flushed pink. "Sorry, I--uh, I've got it now." Hopper lets go and for the briefest instant Eddie's eyes dart to the side and the pink in his cheeks grows deeper.

Wayne tracks the path Eddie's eyes took and finds--he swallows back a chuckle--Steve Harrington just setting one of his Adirondack chairs into place, his t-shirt lifted to show of a stretch of stomach.

Well. Eddie did always like the pretty ones.

They setup the booth in companionable silence, and Hopper pops back over for a proper introduction. Before he departs again, he says to Eddie, "I got some kids who really love that dnd game and your show. They're going to be crazy to meet you. That okay?"

And Eddie, he's a good boy, he smiles and nods but as soon as Hopper is out of earshot, Wayne's saying, "Hop's kids and their friends are big fans and I know you're heartsore about the cancellation, but you better be polite."

Eddie glares. "What do you think, old man, that I'll be mean to children?"

"Well, with how you've been moping around the cabin these last few weeks, hard to know."

He scoffs. "Yeah, well. Netflix putting your hit show on indefinite hiatus without warning or explanation will do that to a guy."

Wayne knows there's nothing he can say to soften this hurt, so he gives Eddie's shoulder a tight squeeze. "I'm proud of you no matter what, son."

His nephew nods, eyes down, but Wayne doesn't miss the small, pleased, lift at the corner of his lips.

The morning passes smoothly and Wayne pretends he doesn't notice every time he finds Eddie's gaze straying to Steve's booth.

The kids come by around noon, Dustin Henderson breaking away from the pack to shriek, "You're Eddie Munson!"

Eddie smiles, stands. "That I am, young adventurer." He bows low, exaggerated and the kids giggle. "Pray tell, what are your names?"

The chatter is fast and easy, Eddie the happiest he's been in weeks, and Wayne relaxes back in his chair, lets out a long, slow breath of relief at the breaking storm. He stretches back in his chair, eyes catching on Steve Harrington across the way. Steve who is watching Eddie and the kids with an expression Wayne can only think of as fond.

Wayne isn't one to play matchmaker, but--he thinks, just maybe, just this once he could nudge.

It happens late in the afternoon, when business has well-slowed, Eddie asking, "Um--that guy over there, who is--what's his deal?"

Wayne thinks he manages to keep all traces of amusement from his face and voice as he answers, "Who? Ohh, Steve Harrington. He's the guidance counselor down at the middle school. Does a bit of carpentry in his free time. Best friends with the woman who owns that little bookstore."

He watches as Eddie processes, as his eyes widen, probably in remembrance of the pride flags and Protect Trans Kids shirts, how the woman in question wore a lesbian flag pin on her apron. "Guidance counselor?" He says eventually. "Kind of a drag."

"You would think, but the kids love him. The ones you met earlier today? He babysat them for years; imprinted on him, Jim and I say."

"Hmm," is the only response he gets, Eddie's attention back on the man in question.

---

The day after the market, Wayne walks into the living room to find Eddie's laptop tucked into the cushions of the window seat. He hasn't seen the thing since Eddie came home, never used to see him without it, and this--well.

He says, "need to run into town for a few things. You up for a trip? You might could stop at that bookstore."

Eddie nods, takes a sip of his coffee--he's actually drinking it-- says, "Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be cool."

The store isn't busy when they arrive, and Wayne drifts towards the magazines to leave Eddie to his own devices.

Wayne loses himself to quiet browsing, wanting to give Eddie space, to maybe chat with Robin Buckley, strike up the beginnings of a friendship. Enough time passes, though, that Wayne is wondering where his boisterous, noticeable nephew could've disappeared to so silently.

He winds around a shelf and sees Eddie and Steve Harrington in deep conversation. He can't hear it, not really, but they're standing close, with pink in their cheeks. As he watches, Steve says something that makes Eddie laugh and pull a few strands of hair over his mouth.

They're almost inseparable after that. Eddie, Steve, Robin, and all those kids. They play dnd, have movie nights, spend hours at the diner. And Eddie, he's writing, sketching, gets down Wayne's acoustic guitar and plays around for a while.

When he asks how things are with "that Harrington boy," Eddie flushes red and says, "none of your business, old man" before giving Wayne a quick, affectionate squeeze. 

---

Two and a half months after Eddie came to stay, Wayne's walking back from the river, the sky the light navy of new dusk. His fishing rod is draped over one shoulder, tackle box held easily in his fist, the walk home pleasant, a perfect end to a good day.

The light from the front porch seeps through the trees, and he's thinking about a cold beer, a warm pizza, if Eddie's found his way home yet, when figures standing on the porch stop him in his tracks.

It takes a second, longer, for his eyes to adjust from the dark of the woods, and the glow of the bulb, but then he sees--

Eddie and Steve locked in a fierce embrace, desperate and very much private.

He turns right back towards the river, doesn't mind giving the boys some time.

He waits a good half hour, just enjoying the forest, before heading back. Steve's car is gone, the porch vacant, but the cabin is lit up, bright and warm and inviting.

Wayne steps inside, and his nephew is there, laptop open, but he isn't working, just smiling to himself, chin resting on his fist.

"Okay?" Wayne asks.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Eddie's smile doesn't fall from his face.

He doesn't want to interfere, ask too much, not when he's sure things are still young. Instead, he asks, "What'd you say to ordering a pizza?"

And Eddie, heedless of Wayne's question, says,"you know. I've been thinking about maybe staying here for a little longer."

And Wayne, his smile grows, and he claps a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "You're welcome here for as long as you want. Already consider it your home anyway."

[solarmorrigan]

Silly idea I talked about ages ago with @azure7539arts, inspired by a similar event my workplace hosts every year. Would minors be allowed to participate in such an event? Probably not! But then again, it was the 80s, who can say for sure. Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll post nonsense if I want to <3

-

“I need you to buy me.”

Eddie looks up from his notebook, effectively jarred from his campaign-plotting fugue state by Steve’s declaration.

Steve is standing at the other end of the dining table, staring at him expectantly.

“Y’know, this is the part where someone usually follows up their completely bonkers demand with an explanation,” Eddie says slowly.

“At the charity auction,” Steve clarifies. “I need you to bid on me, and I need you to win.”

Ah, yes, that weird Rent-an-Athlete charity auction the school runs every year; anyone on any Hawkins High sports team could volunteer to be “auctioned” off in order to raise money for said sports team, to spend a day at the beck and call of the highest bidder (within reason, supposedly). It’s generally restricted to students, but occasionally, prominent alumni are invited to participate – and Steve certainly fits the bill, especially after the story the government spun about his heroism in the face of “serial killer” Henry Creel last spring.

“And what, deny all those pretty girls a chance to get at you?” Eddie asks drily (he’d never turned up at previous auctions himself, but you could hardly avoid gossip in a school their size; it had usually been some cheerleader bidding with daddy’s money who won a date– that is, a day with Steve Harrington).

“It wasn’t always a girl who won,” Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest. “One time it was Mrs. Dalton – you know, the lady on the school board who lives on my block? I just spent the day doing yard work for her. She gave me lemonade. That was pretty cool.”

“Right,” Eddie drawls. “And I’m sure she definitely didn’t sit outside and stare at your ass while you were working.”

“She did not– she– I mean she was on the porch, but, like– she wouldn’t have– she’s, like, seventy, Eddie,” Steve splutters, and it’s all Eddie can do not to laugh.

“Older gals have needs, too, Steve,” Eddie says, giving in to a smirk. “So she was checking you out from the porch, huh?”

Steve goes red. “Shut up, that isn’t the point. I’m trying to ask for your help.”

“Right, right, your absolutely reasonable request for me to buy you at market. Why, again?” Eddie asks.

“The kids are planning to bid on me,” Steve says gravely.

Eddie blinks at him. “Okay?” he says, when no further explanation is forthcoming. “You basically do most of what they ask, anyway, so…?”

“Okay, believe it or not, I actually say no to at least half of what they ask me to do. I would literally never get anything done if I gave in to all their demands.” Steve jabs a finger at Eddie, who holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Anyway, this is all Henderson’s fault.”

“It usually is,” Eddie agrees, nodding sagely.

“He decided that he was going to bid on me and then use that day to finally make me play your nerd game with you–” Eddie snorts, and Steve shoots him a look, “but Wheeler doesn’t want me to play, so he said he was going to bid against Dustin and make me do anything but sit in on a session with you guys.”

“So let Wheeler win.” Eddie shrugs.

“No! I can’t let fuckin’ Mike win, he’ll probably make me do something even more ridiculous!” Steve exclaims. "He’ll make me play chauffeur for him and El on a date, or something, and he’ll probably include the stupid hat.”

“Wait, I thought El broke up with him,” Eddie breaks in.

“No, they’re on again,” Steve says absently, shaking his head. “Which is why Max has been in a bad mood lately.”

Eddie bites back the reflexive need to ask “How can you tell?”, going instead with, “I thought she and Sinclair were on again.”

“No, they are. That’s why no one’s been actively murdered,” Steve says.

“How do you keep track of all of this?” Eddie asks, squinting at Steve.

“It’s a natural skill. And we’re getting off track,” Steve says quickly. “Normally, I wouldn’t be that worried, because Dustin regularly blows his savings on weird science gadgets or whatever, but then Lucas and Will started taking sides.”

“This is getting very involved,” Eddie says.

“So you see why I’m stressed!” Steve insists, smacking a hand to his forehead (personally, Eddie thinks Steve is stressed for many other reasons, but he figures pointing that out just now won’t be appreciated). “Lucas is on Dustin’s side, and that kid does odd jobs like nobody’s goddamn business; he actually has shit saved up. And usually I’d have faith in him being more, like, sensible than to spend it all on this, but the little shit is really fucking competitive.”

“Wonder who he got that from?” Eddie mutters.

“Okay, we do remember that I’m not actually biologically related to any of these idiots, right?” Steve snaps.

“Well now we’re just getting into nature versus nurture–”

“Eddie.”

“Right, sorry, continue.”

“Well, Will took Mike’s side–”

“Shocking.”

“Right? But anyway, I don’t know if the kid has much saved up, but between him and Wheeler, they might be able to win.” Steve sighs, looking far more world-weary than Eddie feels the situation really warrants.

“You know you don’t actually have to do what they ask you to, right?” Eddie points out.

Steve rolls his eyes. “If an auction winner complains to the school that the person they bid on didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain, they can get their money back. It’s a whole…” he waves his hand vaguely, “thing. Happened once when I was a sophomore; Deacon McNab. Lost a good chunk of change for the football team, and they vandalized the shit out of his car.”

“Ah, right. Forgot we went to school with literal psychopaths,” Eddie hums.

“So, I just need you to bid on me and win, so I’m not stuck wasting a Saturday on whatever the hell the kids are going to try to make me do. Or not do. Or– whatever,” Steve says.

“Okay, not that I don’t understand your predicament here, but I think you’re forgetting something kind of important, Steve,” Eddie drawls.

Steve’s brows draw together in question. “What?”

“I’m fucking poor.”

“Oh.” Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t mean– no, I will give you the money, you don’t have to spend a dime, man, I just need you to get me out of this.”

“Why not have Buckley do it?” Eddie asks.

“That was Plan A, but she actually has a date that night, and it’s kind of a big deal, so I don’t want her to cancel,” Steve says. “But I assumed you wouldn’t be busy.”

“Wow, rude,” Eddie scoffs, and Steve sighs.

“Fine, sorry, I just really hoped you wouldn’t be busy.” Steve gives him the most lethal set of puppy dog eyes Eddie has ever seen, as if there had been any chance from the beginning that he’d be able to say no. “Please?”

Just for show, Eddie lets out a long sigh, falling against his chair and letting his head flop over the backrest like he’s deflating.

“Fine.”

“Thank you,” Steve groans, sounding so genuinely relieved that Eddie almost feels bad about how quickly his thoughts dip into the realms of the inappropriate. “Oh my god, I owe you.”

Eddie glances back up at Steve, tongue darting out to wet his lips almost unconsciously. “You know I’m not as easy to appease as a couple of fifteen-year-olds, right?”

Steve’s eyes drop for just a second—maybe down to Eddie’s lips, maybe not; who can say?—before he looks back up, cocking an eyebrow at Eddie. “I think I can handle it.”

Slowly, Eddie grins. “We’ll see.”

[1-8oo-wtfbro]

give me more fics where Eddie runs into Steve and Robin, running around after being drugged (and tortured) by the Russians at Starcourt. Steve, dopy and sweet and acting like dumbest puppy- and did i mention his face was beat in? Robin, flailing all over steve and giggling with him as they sway, more intertwined than humanly possible, eyes unfocused. and Eddie, faking calm as he tries to herd them to a bathroom and planning to kill whoever drugged his these loopy sailors that he’s been annoying all summer.

[steddielations]

We all agree Steve has the biggest praise kink ever, he absolutely does, but in the meantime, Eddie’s just getting off free, walking around openly saying that flattery works on him

Let's talk about how Eddie ‘hides behind his hair and holds back a smile at the smallest compliment’ Munson, would be fighting for his life dating Steve 'holds hands during sex, randomly says you're beautiful, turns on his charm like a secret weapon, confident sweet talker no matter how lame he looks' Harrington.

Eddie's probably used to people being entertained by him, but not being endeared, and now he has Steve fucking Harrington winking at him after Hellfire, looking at him like he’s something special even when he's sweaty and has Mountain Dew sticky fingers, casually saying, "Why did they ever call me the King when you look that good up there on your throne, hm?” It’s a miracle Eddie isn’t constantly falling to his knees. Sometimes Steve’s compliments get Eddie so flustered that he just has to hide his face in Steve's neck and bite him.

[hotluncheddie]

eddie loves the public library, once he moved in with wayne he would regularly bring home a stack of books and devour them. wayne had barely gotten his head around the last lot eddie regaled him with, before eddie was onto talking about the next.

eddie using the school library sometimes, though it had nothing on the public one. would watch as steve harrington slumped in during lunchtimes, face bruised, just looking for somewhere quiet.

eddie in the library, secretly spying on steve harrington on saturday. there with a brown curly haired kid. eddie uses dustin speaking a little too loudly about dnd as an excuse to go talk to them. show them where the best dragon books were kept. heart clenching over secretly catching steves warm smile as dustin gets exited.

the librarians of hawkins being some of his few supporters during that terrible week. having the same learned faith in him as wayne - that hurting someone just wasn't in eddies nature.

librarian eddie - crushing on but always being too embarrassed to talk to the guy who comes in for the audio books.

fantasy writer eddie dedicating his first novel to all public library employees across the country, and steve.

[ghost-proofbaby]

It's summer for you, winter for me. Warm me up with strawberry fluff! As always, my muse, your muse, the one and only, Eddie.

Midsummer's night, because I don't have a lot to inspire you with. I'm thinking something cute but weird? Maybe some human body softness where Eddie is a bit of a freak and we love him for it. And we're told our bodies are lovely, even when they're doing weird shit.

I lalalove youuuuu. xo Rhi

RHI!!!! <3 i adore you. thank you for this prompt - i had far too many ideas for it, but ended up on settling for this one, which coincidentally feels like the most subtle of them all? either way, it definitely turned out being the softest. give me an eddie munson who just wants to sniff me like a dog. this definitely got a bit long but i hope you enjoy, my dear <3

the smell of you

warnings: weirdos in love? idk. i have a skewed sense of what is actually weird i think. mentions of death and coffins jokingly. eddie 'manhandles' reader sort of. not edited.

wc: 2.2k+

come enjoy a sweet summer treat with me <3

“Eddie?”

The entire apartment is quiet – too quiet – as you drop your keys into the old crystal bowl on the counter. The clink resonates through the air, louder than the soft murmur of the stereo static you can hear from down the hall. 

“You dead?” you call out again, slipping off your running shoes and tossing down your headphones onto the counter as well now, “Do I need to call the coroner?” 

Your tone is lilted, teasing with airiness as you continue to wander deeper into the apartment and head straight for the room you know Eddie has to be in. Like the waves pulled by the moon, there’s an incessant string tied around one end of your soul that connects you to his, and you follow it all the way down the hallway. The bedroom door is wide open, and you can hear his mumbled yell of a response without clarity before you even cross the threshold. 

You wouldn’t have even needed him to verbally respond to find him in this tiny apartment. You two could get separated on the streets of a bustling city, of a buzzing New York sidewalk, and you still wouldn’t properly lose him. It’s more than just soul ties and his gravity that keeps you pulled to him. 

Something unspoken. Something homely. 

“Sorry, what was that?” you hum as you spy him face-down in the bed, pillow muting him by the mouthful, “Say it one more time, and this time not into the pillow.” 

When he finally properly turns over, he’s a vision. Sleep lines folded into his skin and a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting in irritation not at you but the sunlight flooding in through the bedroom window. Messy hair, messy shirt, messy everything. A kind of mess you just want to collapse into currently, curling up in all that he is from the day’s exhaustion. 

He’d mentioned wanting to take a nap before you’d left for the gym. Something about the summer heat draining him, trailing off as he’d rambled about how he’d probably thrive as a vampire. 

“I said,” he huffs, sitting up, the frizz of his hair becoming a makeshift halo, “If you call the coroner, request the comfiest coffin possible.”

“Why do you need a comfy coffin if you’re already dead?” 

“You dare deny me of being buried in tempurpedic memory foam? In my hour of need?” 

You roll your eyes as you huff out a little laugh, forcing yourself to turn away from him long enough to strip out of your socks. But just as you reach down for the pieces of clothing, you catch sight of the source of that stereo static flooding the room. 

Your shared record player, spinning a blood red pressing of one of your more recent vinyl purchases. The album has been played through, but the player no longer had an automatic stop mechanism, probably from years of use. 

The center of the record is probably scratched, and Eddie knows it, from how sheepish he looks when you glance over your shoulder at him. 

“Speaking of death,” you walk over quickly, purposefully, before carefully lifting the needle and cutting the static finally, “Care to explain why you’re burning scratches into my Momento Mori vinyl?” 

“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologizes, nearly flinging himself off the bed as he scooches quickly to the end, clearly fully awake now, “I put it on and thought I’d just lay down for a quick second, but then the bed was so comfy, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick nap, and then…” he trails off, looking up at you through his lashes with big eyes already pleading for forgiveness, “I’ll buy you a new one. Swear it.” 

It’s impossible to be mad at him when he’s looking like this, inhumanely soft and easily forgiven, “You’re lucky you’re cute, or you really would be dead.” 

He doesn’t respond with words, but instead the outstretch of his hands, fingers flexing as he beckons to you. The needle rests on its perch, the vinyl left behind to gather dust for a few extra moments, as you go straight to him. 

When his palms slip beneath your old t-shirt and meet your skin, they’re pleasantly warm. 

“You were right,” you admit as his knees spread, delegating even more room for you to stand in front of him as your hand wanders to cradle the side of his face, fingers tangling in sweaty curls from his rest. Your thumb mimics his on your own skin instinctively, tracing a large arch right up over his cheekbone, “It’s hot as balls outside.” 

“Told you so,” he murmurs, smiling softly in satisfaction as he leans lazily into your touch. 

“You did,” you agree quietly, half-entranced by his relaxed face, no sight of pride in the room currently. 

He resembles a cat as he continues to preen under your gentle hand, and you almost expect him to start purring right before you find the strength to pull away, removing his hands from where they'd wandered to your lower back. 

One swipe of his finger along your sweaty spine, and you’d remembered what your original intentions had been immediately upon getting home. 

“Wai- Where are you going?” he’s seemingly brought back down to Earth the moment he loses the pattern your thumb had been tracing, the press of your fingertips into his scalp. When he reaches back out to latch onto you again, you take a step back, “Get back here-”

“I need to shower,” you laugh, shaking your head and smacking his hands away as he continues to barter, “I’m all sweaty and smelly, let me go clean up and then we can nap togeth-” 

“You can shower after we nap,” he nearly whines, finally catching your shirt between his fingers and tugging, uncaring for if he stretches the fabric. A small price to pay to have you close to him, “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you’re just as exhausted as I am.” 

You swear you meant to take another step backwards, but somehow, you end up back between his knees, “Did you not hear me, Munson? I stink.”

“Good.” 

He doesn’t give you any time to react – in an instant, he’s throwing his face forward, burying it against your stomach as you let out a gasp and immediately try to pry him away with far too gentle of hands in his hair. 

“Eddie!”

If it were anyone else, you’d probably be mortified. But Eddie just takes a dramatic deep breath in, nose buried just shy of your belly button, and when his shoulders start to shake with muted laughter, you can’t stop the smile from breaking. Your fingers are still twisted in his hair, still pulling back in an attempt to get him away from you, but he’s resilient. 

And all your faux resistance is weak in comparison. Soon enough, you’re back to melting into him. 

Only once you’re relaxed once more, no sign of trying to pull away again any time soon as his hands once more evade the space beneath your shirt to wander up and down your sticky skin without a care in the world, does he lift his face away from you long enough to breathe and speak, “I’ll have you know – I love your stink.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“I’m your idiot.” 

The game of banter is cut short when he goes back to pressing his nose into your clothes that surely can’t smell good. No amount of deodorant or perfume could erase that underlying stench of sweat. Hell, the shirt is still a bit moist from it all: from the walk to the gym, from your workout itself, from the walk home. It’d been through the ringer, and you’re back to tugging him away from you. 

“I refuse to believe you like how gross I smell right now,” you reinforce, eyes darting towards the bathroom connected to your master bedroom, “I promise I’ll be quick with the shower.” 

“Baby,” he fights back, wrapping his arms around you securely, no intention of losing this battle, “You remember that time we went to the fair, and you were complaining about how you were sweating, so I tried to lick your face?” 

Your nose scrunches quickly at the memory, “I do, unfortunately.”

“You really think I’d be willing to lick the sweat off your body but be afraid of you smelling a little bad while we cuddle?” his shoulders drop as he looks up at you, head tilted, almost as if amused with the conversation, “What kind of man do you take me for?” 

“The kind that gets off on annoying me.” 

His jaw drops, putting on a fake look of offense before he dramatically throws himself back onto the bed, laying flat as he makes a fist to mimic stabbing his chest, “You wound me.”

You’ve heard those words a thousand times in a hundred different ridiculous voices. You’ve seen this scene enough to have it mesmerized at this point, down to the over-exaggerated pout of his lips and the lingering of the fist against his sternum. 

You never grow tired of it. You never will. 

“Need me to kiss it better?” you joke as you prop a knee up on the bed, following the same script as always. 

And he hits his queue perfectly when he lifts his head eagerly at the expected response, wiggling his brows a bit. “Absolutely. Doctor’s orders, in fact.” 

“Great,” you see an opportunity, and take it, “I’ll get right to it, after my showe-” 

You don’t even get the final syllable of the word off your tongue before he’s clenching his thighs around your own, knees pressing hard before he wraps his legs the rest of the way around your waist to pull you in. A squeak of surprise leaves your lips as you begin to fall forward, but Eddie is quick to break the fall with ease. Catching you with his eager hands, maneuvering for you to half drop to the mattress while some of you still lands atop of him. 

He has you right where he wants you, turning his head to be face to face with you, noses nearly brushing, “Unfortunately, the doc said you have to kiss it better now, or else you’ll be comfy coffin shopping.” 

“A fatal wound?” you gasp, nearly mocking him. It doesn’t offend him – if anything, his boyish grin only grows wider, “First, I’m smelly-”

“Again, I like when you’re smelly.”

“-And then I inflict a fatal wound upon my lover? Oh, how dare I.”

Slowly, all your insecurity of how you currently smell is simply fading. The entire ordeal has become an art of childlike, whimsical jokes – and Eddie is an artist. A professional at the dance, locked and loaded with his incomparable skill set equipped for disarming you this way. The ability to make someone feel loved, imperfections and weirdness aside. 

He likes you, even when you claim you don’t smell your best. And you like him, even when his hair is tangled beyond recognition and one of his socks is half-hanging off his foot from a nap.

You like him when he’s embarrassing you in public, tongue chasing after you with the threat of licking your sweat away, and he likes you when all you can do in response is a weak palm to his chest (that isn’t even making an effort to push him away) as you giggle relentlessly. 

You like each other on the good days, the bad days, the weird days. 

Disarmed entirely, you don’t even notice when his face conveniently slots itself far too close to your armpit as you two scooch further up into the bed. You’re more occupied with the way your legs tangle up, toeing each other’s socks off properly as he slings a heavy arm across your torso. 

“We’re gonna have to wash the sheets,” you mumble, exhaustion catching up as the two of you finally settle. 

He hums absentmindedly, nuzzling into your skin a bit further as he makes himself comfortable. “And wash away your sweet, sweet stink? I don’t think so, sweetheart.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, unbothered as your fingers start to trail up and down his back over the t-shirt, smoothing out wrinkles along the way, “I’m serious. We need to change them soon anyways, I think I got crumbs in the bed the other night with those crackers.” 

“Bury me in the crumbs of all your midnight snacks,” he almost slurs, clearly drifting back off. 

You snort in response, relaxing and letting your own eyes shut. Matching all your deep breaths with his own, a million different last words crossing your mind to whisper to the boy you’re sure is once again asleep. 

I love you.

I adore you. 

I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me. 

And maybe some of those unspoken thoughts slip out without you realizing, because he squeezes you just a little bit tighter, presses his face just a little bit deeper into your skin as his scruff tickles you. 

The only actual thought you can know for certain that you say, though, is, “Do you think they actually make coffins with memory foam inside?” 

To your surprise, even despite the almost-snores that had been escaping him, he answers in a heartbeat. 

“Oh, definitely. We’ll order two.”

[plistommy]

Billy: Stop being a fucking pussy and lift it!

Eddie: I can’t! It’s too heavy, man!

Billy: *stomping towards Steve and lifting him up easily while Steve was washing the dishes*

Steve: Billy, what—

Billy: You wanna be able to hold him like this? Right?Then lift the fucking barbell, bitch!

Eddie: Shit, OKAY! *bench presses 50lbs*

Billy: YES!!

Steve: *still carried around by Billy*

Steve: I hate you guys

[afewproblems]

Ooo steddie and #78 could be so good

78. "You weren't supposed to hear that."

Thank you nonny, I hope I've done the prompt justice!

"How did I get so lucky," Steve mumbles tiredly into the planes of Eddie's pale back.

He's fast asleep on his front, passed out with a blissed out smile still pulling at his mouth, his face turned towards Steve on his pillow.

Steve leans down and kisses his naked shoulder, watching the steady rise and fall of Eddie's breathing and the way the moonlight filtering through Steve's bedroom window paints his skin silver.

It's new, this thing between them, but Steve's heart has never cared about things like that.

He's all in already, not that Eddie needs to know.

Steve's not stupid enough to scare him away with something like this, big feelings that happened way too quickly.

Steve absently traces one of the jagged demobat scars, and sighs contentedly.

He can let himself have this, he can let himself say it just this once, no consequences.

"I love you," he whispers, letting the words hang in the quiet room.

"Oh, sweetheart," Eddie mumbles, making Steve freeze.

Fuck.

Eddie rolls over and sits up, swiping a hand over his face and into his hair. He flips a handful of curls out of his eyes and smiles broadly, but it disappears the moment he sees Steve's stricken expression.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," Steve manages to say, his heart in his throat.

He lifts his gaze to the window behind them, briefly calculating the likelihood of breaking his leg by jumping out the window or how quickly the cops would be called for indecent exposure.

He could always lock himself in the bathroom -it's the least outlandish plan and one that won't result in bodily harm or an arrest.

He startles again as a gentle hand caresses his cheek.

"Where did you go?" Eddie murmurs, he still looks concerned, and a bit confused now, his big brown eyes flick back and forth between Steve's own.

"Do I need to radio the party babe? Because I'm not that keen for them to catch us with our pants down".

Eddie's grinning as he says it but his brow is pinched and Steve can't take his big brown eyes staring with such open concern.

"It's okay, Eddie, really," Steve mumbles.

His fingers gather the fabric of the sheets into his fists as he brings them up to further cover himself.

"You don't have to pretend you didn't hear me, we can, you can," he bites his lip and takes a deep breath through his nose.

He can do this, he can do what he should have done for Nancy.

"You don't have to stay here and pretend--"

"Woah, woah, what the fuck are you talking about?" Eddie says sharply, he turns to face Steve fully, letting the sheets pool around his hips.

"Please don't make me say it again," Steve croaks, his voice brittle and wane in the quiet room.

The words, you're bullshit, we're bullshit, echo distantly, again and again.

"Sweetheart," Eddie says gently, "I don't understand what you're talking about".

Steve swallows, feeling as though his chest is about to crack in two with how fast his heart is beating, "I said I love you."

Eddie stares blankly at him, lifting his hands in a go-on, motion.

"I…it's too soon," he picks at a loose thread hanging from the sheet fabric twisted between his fingers, "isn't it?"

At this Eddie softens entirely.

He sucks his teeth and pulls Steve towards him with a long sigh.

"Sweetheart," Eddie murmurs into Steve's hair as he nuzzles his ear, lifting his face to nibble gently on the lobe, "darling, light of my life, oh fairest knight, my honey nut cheerio--"

"Okay, knock it off," Steve groans as he tries to get out from Eddie's arms but they tighten around Steve, holding him in place.

"My love," Eddie hums, making Steve pause, "oh you like that one huh?"

Eddie leans back and lifts his hand to tip up Steve's chin, from this angle Steve can see the barest of freckles dust over his nose and the crinkles at the edges of his eyes.

They're too young for wrinkles but Steve can see where they will eventually make their home, a whole future on Eddie's face.

"Who says it's too soon? Fuck that," he says roughly now, his brown eyes flit between Steve's own, "I love you too, no take backs".

Eddie swipes his thumb over the crest of Steve's cheek, catching a tear he hadn't realized was there.

No, not now.

Steve tries to duck his head, to wipe his eyes and pinch his nose but Eddie beats him to it as he leans in to lay smacking kisses all over, on his closed eyes, Steve's cheeks, his chin -which Eddie pauses to nibble on just like his ears, before finally attempting to place a gentle kiss against his lips which have pulled into a wide giggling grin.

"Be serious Steve," Eddie huffs, tamping down his own smile, "shit, how am I supposed to kiss my boyfriend when he's laughing like a damn loon?"

Steve feels like crying all over again.

"Say it again," Steve murmurs, his eyes still closed, some small part still worried if he opens them this will all disappear.

"My boyfriend," Eddie hums, pressing one last kiss to Steve's nose, "I'll say it as many times as you need me to until you believe it Stevie".

"I love you," Eddie whispers again as he tilts Steve's face up before kissing his lips. It’s chaste but the way he sucks on Steve’s bottom lip as he pulls away and waggles his eyebrows makes Steve sigh.

"What do you say I take my boyfriend to bed?" Eddie says softly against Steve's lips as he climbs over him, bracketing his hands on either side of Steve's head.

"I'd say we're already here you dork--"

The rest of his sentence is lost in a grunt as Eddie let's himself fall into Steve, muttering about how vengeance will be nearly as sweet as him.

[ghosttownwherenoonegoes]

Just imagine looking into Eddie Munson's gorgeous brown eyes, cupping his face in your hands and telling him with every ounce of sincerity that you love him. Imagine those chocolate button eyes melting into pools of galaxies as he looks at you like you've just hung up the sky, and tells you that he loves you too.

To be loved by Eddie Munson is to receive an ethereal gift, and to be able to love the sweetheart of Hawkins back is an even greater privilege.

[bejeweledbaby]

slightly inspired by a post by @estelle-speaks

"come right on me, I mean camaraderie, said you're not in my time zone but you wanna be, where art thou? why not uponeth me? see it in my mind, let's fulfill the prophecy"

Popstar Steve Harrington is on stage after the release of his brand new album, "Short n Sweet". There are thousands of people present in the audience but only one of them is of any significance to Steve. Rockstar Eddie Munson, also known to Steve as his fiancé. He's having fun on stage, occasionally sneaking glances at Eddie, who's jumping around and singing along with those around him. But when he starts singing his personal favorite from the album, a little song called "Bed Chem", he locks his eyes with Eddie and keeps his gaze on him for the entirety of the song. The people in the audience start screaming the second they realize where Steve's line of sight points to. Eddie can only stand there frozen and blushing as his gorgeous, perfect, and slightly unhinged fiancé, performs a song about how good their sex life is.

This is how the world finds out Steve and Eddie are together. The following morning, Steve releases the "Bed Chem" music video starring the one and only, Eddie Munson.

[female-woman-wiffman-lass]

thoughts are being thunk in the think tank...

[hairmetal666]

Steve knows he falls in love too easily. Nancy told him, Robin too.

But falling in love with Eddie Munson is hard.

They're supposed to be friends after Vecna. They're supposed to be friends, but Steve can't get past what Eddie did in the Upside Down; how he put himself in a position to nearly die, how Dustin got hurt. It's not fair. He knows it's not, but it doesn't make the anger go away.

Eddie's part of the group now, though, and Steve won't leave him out, no matter how angry. They're all at movie nights, at pool parties, at Hellfire, at Corroded Coffin gigs. It's just that Steve and Eddie don't speak. And Steve is okay with it. If it's what it takes to make sure that they're all hanging out together, not talking to Eddie is a small thing. He's pretty sure Eddie doesn't mind. At least, he seems as uninterested in hanging out with Steve as Steve is with him.

It doesn't need to be anything more than that, and it isn't, not until Steve goes upstairs to get more sunscreen during one of the pool parties, and walks back downstairs to find Munson waiting for him in his kitchen.

"You need something?" He asks, unable to fully hide the way he jolts with surprise.

Eddie twists the rings on his fingers, something Steve's noticed he does whenever he's nervous. "You have a problem with me, Harrington?

"No, of course not," he answers too fast.

"C'mon, man. You can barely stand to be in the same room with me."

"That's not true! We're in one together right now."

Eddie rolls his eyes so hard that it has to hurt. "Don't do that. Don't pretend like you don't know what I mean. You can't stand to be alone with me for more than thirty seconds."

Steve splutters, searching for a plausible reason.

"Is it cause--" Eddie swallows, hand going back to cup his neck. "Is it cause you heard me tell Robin that I'm gay? Back at the hospital. Is it because--" he cuts himself off.

Something in Steve's chest clenches hard, warmth swooping dangerously in his stomach. "No," Steve says, means it. "I didn't hear. I didn't-- it has nothing to do with that. It's--that's cool. Thanks for--yeah, that's cool."

Eddie's smile is a brittle little thing. "Then, what else?" Eddie pulls a chunk of hair over his mouth. "I can't think of any other reason you'd hate me so much."

"I don't." And Steve hopes it's coming off as genuine. "I promise."

He can't help remember the camaraderie, the understanding, that started to grow between them in the Upside Down. The "don't cha, big boy?" of it all. They could be friends. They should be.

They shouldn't get into it. Not right here, not right now when the kids' splashes and excited screams filter through the sliding door.

"You're a shit liar, Harrington."

"Ed--I'm not--"

"You know what? Don't bother. I'll just--" He jolts in the direction of the front door.

"Don't be stupid, Munson."

"God, I can't believe I didn't see it before. You just fucking loathe me."

"I do not. Grow up."

"Oh, yeah? Then what's your problem?"

"There isn't--"

"Stop lying!"

"You didn't fucking think!" He shouts. Loud enough that the noise outside cuts off. "You pulled that shit in the Upside Down and you almost died! Dustin got hurt!"

Eddie blinks his big brown eyes in stunned surprise.

"I told you, I said, 'dont try to be cute or be a hero or something.' And you know what you said? Do you?"

Eddie won't look at him now. "I had to make a choice, Steve."

"It was the wrong one!"

"I would do it all again. No matter what you say. I would do it to draw the bats away. To protect Dustin."

"But you didn't."

"There was no other way to stop them, Steve! They would've gotten through, into Hawkins."

"It doesn't matter."

"You weren't there! You can't tell me--"

"Yes, I can! I know."

"You don't! You think--"

"I almost lost you!" He screams. "You nearly died in my arms, Eddie. And for what?"

Falling in love with Eddie wasn't easy. It was blood and near death; it was weeks in a cold hospital room while Eddie existed in a drug-induced twilight state; it was agonizing convalescence and physical therapy and changing bandages; it was Eddie leading dnd sessions with bright eyes and contagious enthusiasm, herding the kids to the arcade and video store, theatrically serving snacks at movie night; it was festering, senseless anger at the near loss of something.

Eddie's lips tremble. "Steve, I--"

"It doesn't matter." He turns away to slide a hand down his face in an effort to wipe away the emotion. "You're fine and we're--it doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "Steve, I'm sorry. I wanted--I thought it would help. I thought--"

And Steve has to admit, he does, the whole terrible contradiction of it all. "I know," he whispers back. "I would've--I know."

"I thought I was protecting Dustin. I thought I was buying you guys time with Vecna." Eddie's voice breaks. "I didn't--I--" He squeezes his eyes shut.

In the quiet of the kitchen, they gravitate to one another, foreheads resting together.

"I should have been there, Ed. I shouldn't have left you two alone. You almost died, and I--"

"Sweetheart, I'm right here. We're right here."

They don't kiss, but they're close enough that their mouths brush with each breath they take.

"Don't do that, again." Steve clenches his fists into Eddie's cutoff t-shirt. "Promise you won't ever--"

"I promise, Stevie. I promise. I'll be by your side until the very end, whatever it is."

[armored-angel4798]

kinda how they got into the toxic relationship 🤷

A little bit of the setting:

It’s 2018 Eddie and Steve are both working fast food they are 19 years old and fresh out of high school. Eddie hasn’t come out as anything other than liking boys so they are not being misgendered!!! Steve and Robin do not know!!!! Eddie doesn’t even really know!!!!

Steve ran out of the building and climbed into the passenger seat of Eddie’s van.

“Oh my god, finally. I thought I was gonna have to come get you.”

“Sorry, I had to talk to Robin.” Steve said sheepishly, ducking his head.

They both smelled like greasy fast food but Steve was still more than happy to sit with Eddie all night in his greasy uniform just spend some time with him. Eddie’s hair was tied into a bun at the nape of his neck. His own uniform hat had been tossed somewhere into the backseat as soon as he’d gotten out to the van. Even in the gross uniforms they were required to work in, Steve thought Eddie was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. They had been friends through high school and Steve fell hard and fast, as he always does. He’d never made a move because even in 2018, small town USA had some major prejudice against gay people and while he trusted Eddie, if it wasn’t gonna go anywhere why put a target on himself? Two weeks ago Eddie told them that he might be bi. They had been smoking with Robin after work and lips were getting loose, the few secrets that they had between them slipping out with the rolls of smoke. Steve was sober enough to hold onto his crush, though it was a near thing. It hadn’t felt like the right moment to tell one of your bests friends that you had been ass over tits in love with them for nearly four years. Robin had caught him on his way out the door to convince him to tell Eddie tonight. Robin had the closing shift so they were coming back to get her for a smoke session after the store closed at midnight. They had at least 6 hours before then.

“Hey, Eds?”

“What’s up Stevie?”

“I, uh, I have something I need to tell you.”

“Hmm sounds serious. You wanna ride to my house and get outta these clothes?”

“God, yes. You always know how to treat a guy.”

Steve fluttered his eyelashes in an exaggerated, flirtatious fashion as Eddie threw his head back to laugh.

“You get the shower first when we get there. I’ll dig out your favorite shirt and sweats.”

Steve smiled to himself as Eddie put the car in gear and got them moving. Steve spent a lot of time at Eddie’s house these days, enough they he had sort of claimed a set of soft, worn sleep clothes as his own to wear any time they stay up too late or just want to get out of the nasty work clothes. It was an old oversized Metallica tshirt, black, of course, and a large pair of soft sweatpants that fall off of Eddie any time he tries to put them on. He claims the strings can only make them so tight and that it isn’t enough for him to wear them. Robin tells Steve that it’s just because Eddie wanted to see Steve in his clothes. Steve liked seeing himself in Eddie’s clothes. It made him feel wanted, even if it was all in his head.

Eddie exited the shower not too long after Steve made himself comfortable on the couch, scrolling through the tv channels for something to watch. Eddie took the remote from him at sat beside him.

“You had something you wanted to tell me?”

Eddie’s hair was damp and dripping onto his shirt that was hanging ever so slightly off of his left shoulder. His big brown eyes focused on Steve.

“Uh, yeah, well…. mmm. Now I’m nervous.”

Eddie reached for Steve’s hand.

“Don’t be, it’s just us.”

“Yeah, uhm… well, it’s… about us. I… I kinda have a crush on you.” Steve got it out and then panicked, “I know! I know you just figured out that you like guys and it’s completely okay if it’s not requited! But we’ve been spending a lot of time together and I just, uh, I felt like you needed to know because…”

Eddie kissed him. Steve was frozen. Oh, god Eddie was going to hate kissing him. Shit. Fuck. Steve knows how to do this. He has kissed people before! He can do this! Eddie pulled away before Steve got his thoughts in order.

“Steve, shut up.” oh, oh no, he’s fucked it up. Steve opened his eyes, Eddie was smiling. “I have a crush on you too. It’s kinda how I figured out that I liked guys.”

“Oh”

“Wanna go on a date sometime?” Eddie asked

“Ye… yeah, yes, of course, Eddie. I would love to go on a date with you.”

Steve kissed him again, he wasn’t a statue this time. He was ass over tits in love with Eddie Munson, there is no way this could be bad, right?

2023 realities

[bizaar]

Cruel Summer - Part 7

First - Previous - Next

pairings: Eddie Munson x fem!reader

summary: After breaking up, you and Eddie do your best to soldier on with your lives, but you slowly begin to discover that there is a stronger line of connection keeping you together than just history…

word count: 11k (you guys i'm sorry i tried)

warnings: swearing, mentions of violence/death (get Vecna'd), some angst, some fluff

A.N.: Babysitter!reader part seven! The shit has officially hit the fan ...

You silt bolt up in bed from a dead sleep, screaming and shattering the quiet calm of the morning. 

“Eddie!” you cry out, but there is no one is there to hear you.

The sound of your own voice bounces off the walls of your apartment and echoes back to you, and you sit trembling with residual fear as you do all you can to come back to yourself … It was only a dream. A terrible, terrible dream. 

You had only managed a few hours of sleep in the first place, caught in the quagmire of the dreaded closing shift made that much worse by the Hawkins Intramural Boys Basketball team — now apparent state champions — descending upon the diner to celebrate their victory.

They’d trashed the place, and it had taken you the better part of two hours to get the diner anywhere clean enough to call it a day. To his credit, Lucas Sinclair (ever the sweetheart) had begged you to let him stay and help you clean, but considering the fact that he could barely stand for how drunk he was, you’d sent him away with the rest of the Tigers and promised not to tell his mother. 

It was well past midnight by the time you got home. You hadn’t managed to do more than get out of your shoes before you’d slipped into the vice of Morpheus’s grasp, and you were dreaming by the time your head hit the pillow. 

And then your mind swam with visions of Eddie.

You still dream about him most nights in one way or another, and you imagine you will more than likely continue to do so for years to come if not for the rest of your life, but this had been a nightmare, and it had felt so real.

Something terrible had happened, not to him, but with enough proximity to put him in danger, and there was nothing you could do to save him.

I can’t save him.

Of course, as you eventually come back down, you try to rationalize the feeling by telling yourself that it’s not your job to save him, considering how he’d broken your heart, but it is an intrinsic instinct that has proven very hard to unlearn, putting yourself between Eddie and any sort of threat. 

It’s only natural to want to protect the ones you love, and you do still love him, as much as you hate to admit.

It only sends you into a downward spiral of guilt and anger and all the other nasty little emotions you don’t have the presence of mind to dredge up on some random morning in April, running on maybe three hours of sleep and already late for your next shift.

Spring Break, your mind informs you rather unhelpfully. It’s Spring Break. 

Adrenaline has made you dreadfully nauseous, and you breathe a shaky sigh as you press your hands into your eyes until you see colors. 

You suddenly have to work very hard to ignore the terrible sensation it dredges up as your dream fights to make its way to the front of your mind again. 

Lights winking on and off with enough gusto to be seizure-inducing, illuminating the scene of eyes wrenching back from their sockets and limbs twisting up unnaturally, snapping out of place… 

You’re fine, it’s fine, everything is fine… just breathe. 

Somehow you can’t quite convince yourself it’s true.

It is hard to feel anywhere even remotely in the realm of fine when you wake with the sudden and desperate screaming notion to run! 

The feeling only persists as you rise from your bed and try to go about your morning, jumping at every slightest sound.

Run! Your brain tells you, and you have no idea where it is you ought to be running to, except maybe the Forest Hills trailer park, as your irrational mind tells you that you won’t be fine until you know Eddie is fine, and you’re not about to go banging down the door of the Munson trailer just because you had a bad dream. 

That would be wildly embarrassing, even for you. 

It takes you the better part of an hour to banish the residual fear of your dream, showering away the sweat that has dried tacky on your skin, wolfing down a quick breakfast, getting dressed and ready for the day in your scratchy grease-stained work uniform, all the while trying to deafen yourself to the ubiquitous echoes of cracking bones, silently willing yourself to calm down, calm down, calm down. 

It isn’t working.

Even outside the realm of your dreams, you can’t stop thinking about Eddie. Though perhaps more importantly you can’t stop thinking about the fact that it’s spring break, which means it’s been nearly a year since you’d last seen him.

You’re having a very hard time trying to suppress the nagging feeling that wherever he is, Eddie needs you and you’re borderline obsessing over the thought that if you don’t find him, something very bad is going to happen. 

Of course, that line of thinking puts you in a rather awkward position, because you’re still not quite sure you’re physically capable of handling the concept of seeing Eddie again. This is made all the more evident considering the way you’d thrown your telephone across the room like it had jumped up and tried to bite you after having inadvertently found yourself on the phone with him last month. 

It leaves you feeling hopelessly stuck, so to try and distract yourself from the crushing sense of impending doom, you indulge yourself in a little self-harm, recalling how last year you had planned to spend Spring Break road-tripping...

 It took the two of you weeks to plan the trip, mapping out the route, everywhere you would camp, all the roadside attractions you would hit, budgeting your pooled money down to the penny. You would be flat broke by the time you got home, but you had convinced yourselves it would be worth it. 

It was never meant to be.

Beyond the fact that the heavens had decided to open up and dump what you assumed must have been all the rain for the rest of the entire year in one weeklong downpour, the van’s transmission went out the day before you were meant to leave, stranding Eddie and the band on the highway halfway between Hawkins and the next town over, as is always the way. 

So you drove an hour and a half through the torrential downpour to go and rescue him at the random interstate pay phone he'd called you from. He slid into your passenger seat, soaking wet and positively fuming, ranting and raving about the piece of shit van and his stupid friends and the whole goddamn situation as you went and collected the rest of the band, left to sit huddled in the relative warm but most importantly dry van.

Then, with Gareth, Jeff, and Adam crammed like Sardines into the back of your little Toyota, the heater cranked up and the stereo turned down, you’d all sat shivering in relative silence as you followed the tow truck back to Hawkins, taking with it the van and all the money you’d saved for your trip. 

The guys pooled their money to cover the tow, as they came to figure was only fair (with a little prompting from you). The repairs themselves came out to cost a whopping twelve hundred and sixty-seven dollars and thirty-nine cents, quite conveniently the exact amount of money you and Eddie had saved between the two of you, though that price only came to be after the mechanic overheard your hushed conversation about what you could afford — don’t you hate it when that happens? 

So, road-tripping dreams dashed to oblivion, you’d spent Spring Break sitting on Eddie’s couch. You’d assigned yourself the role of his sick nurse, making sure the cold he’d caught while waiting for you in the rain didn’t develop into pneumonia, all the while tirelessly assuring him it was fine that you didn’t get to go, that there was nothing to be sorry about, the road and all its attractions would still be there next year, and no he absolutely was not allowed to pay you back.

“Consider it back-pay for all the gas money I owe you.” You’d told him, brushing his hair back from his clammy forehead as he lay pressed into your side, coughing and sneezing miserably.

 All things considered, it hadn’t been too terrible a way to spend a week off from your last year of school, building a massive blanket fort in the living room in which to marathon movies, play board games, eat your weight in snacks, and fool around once Eddie felt a little better. 

(Funny how he always seemed to be miraculously healed of whatever ailment held him in its clutches at death’s door when sex was on the table.)

It was one last hurrah of adolescent fun, stretching the Endless Summer just a little further before having to face graduation and the impending threshold of adulthood… well, at least for one of you. 

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since all that. One quick turn around the sun and suddenly it’s Spring Break, and Eddie needs rescuing again – or so insists your subconscious.    

You should go see him, a tiny nagging voice inside of you presses, You should go check on him.

“No, thank you,” you tell the stupid little voice as you snatch up your keys and head out the door of your apartment. 

You’ve got to go to work, and somehow getting verbally abused by the patrons of your shitty waitress job is so much more appealing than the thought of trying to make awkward small talk with Eddie after eight months of nothing. 

You can’t imagine he’d be pleased to see you, considering it all.

You can only just picture yourself standing at the bottom of the steps, trying your best not to look at him while wringing your hands and struggling to explain that you’re standing on his doorstep because of a feeling.

Boy howdy, doesn’t that just sound like the best time a girl could possibly have? 

Still, it feels a little too much like denial, deluding yourself into assuming he’s fine just because you don’t want to go see him. It does nothing to settle your nerves, and by the time you get to work, you’re just about ready to puke for how your insides have twisted themselves into a Gordian knot. 

You bid an absent hello to your co-worker and skirt around the back of the counter to stash your things, ignoring the way she berates you for how she had to finish cleaning up what you had left undone the night before.

She doesn’t like you much anymore since you’d had to tell her you wouldn’t be watching her demonic children, and she is not shy about making it known. 

Normally you would have said something to try and defend yourself, told her to blame the Hawkins Tigers, but you are understandably too preoccupied to consider doing so. 

Maybe Wayne can check on Eddie for you…

“Stop it.” You hiss at no one in particular, biting the inside of your cheek and reminding yourself for the hundredth time in the last half hour that Eddie is still a jerk and that you and Wayne have made a silent agreement not to talk about him.

 It was a very complicated way of simplifying the weird patchwork friendship you’d built up with the elder Munson in the ashes of your relationship with his nephew, but that is how you preferred it remains. 

You are not going to ruin your streak of very successfully avoiding the topic of Eddie by asking Wayne about him just because you had a bad dream. 

A really, really, really bad dream.

Of course, it’s a highly plausible scenario considering Wayne is due in today for your weekly session of catch-up. You could very easily get an indirect report on Eddie’s wellbeing if you really wanted to, but you banish the thought before it can fully form. 

You know if you ask, Wayne is just going to tell you to go see him, and you are not going to go see him. 

You tie your apron tight enough to dig uncomfortably into your sides and clock in and try every mental exercise you can think of to try to stop the constant loop of Eddie Eddie Eddie passing through your brain like a weather report scrolling along the bottom of the television screen during the morning news. 

It is unbearably slow at the diner, just like it is every day, though today there is a patent strangeness to how particularly empty the dining room is. Benny’s has never gotten much traffic to begin with, not even when Benny himself was around, but even the morning regulars seem to be missing today.

It’s wholly bizarre and does nothing to quash your nervous feeling, particularly as the first hour of your shift comes and goes without a single customer.

“Kinda slow, huh?” You hum, hoping a little conversation might aid in distracting you. 

Your coworker stands leaning against the counter, filing her lacquered nails. She gives you an uninterested look. 

“There’s some kinda commotion going on at the trailer park.” She says flatly, “Folks probably all went down to see what’s what. They’ll be here soon enough, don't you worry your pretty little head.” 

You ignore the biting sarcasm dripping from her tone and swallow hard to banish the spike of anxiety that grips your stomach and forces a knot up into your throat. 

Trouble at the trailer park. 

Oh no.

You struggle to keep your voice steady as you speak, almost too afraid to ask yet unable to keep your mouth shut. 

“What kind of commotion?” 

Your coworker shrugs, not bothering to look up from her filing as she answers you. 

“Who knows.” She huffs, and before she can elaborate, the cook, who also happens to be your boss, pipes up from the kitchen.

“Some girl got killed or somethin’,” he calls, and you feel the blood drain from your face.

You dig your nails into your palms to try and ground yourself as you are struck with the hideous feeling of deja-vu. 

Your coworker is apparently less affected by the information. She heaves an angry sigh and throws her hands down, chunky plastic bracelets clacking loudly and sounding much too similar to snapping bones for your liking as she does.

“Now, how in the hell could you possibly know that, Earl?” 

“I got my sources, anyways, I seen them cop cars go roarin’ down the street. They only haul ass like that when there’s a body. Like when they found that Byers kid down in the quarry.” 

You suppress a shudder as once again your dream rushes to the front of your mind. You retreat from it, electing instead to hide in the memory of the night they’d thought they found Will —

—you’d been with Eddie. It was one of the first times you’d really hung out together, not a date, just one on one time in the earliest stages of whatever it was going on between you. More than a friendship, not quite a relationship, back when all you knew was that he was so strangely different than all your friends had warned you, and you had a ridiculous crush on him that you’d hoped beyond hope was mutual.

You’d seen that exact procession of cop cars go whipping past you on the road, and Eddie – who had just been very glad he wasn’t being pulled over – made a flippant comment along the lines of “guess they found that missing kid,”

He hadn’t meant anything by it, and he’d been very chagrined when you called him up later that night after learning they had in fact found Will. You couldn’t have expressly explained why you called Eddie that night, except that your parents weren’t home, it didn’t feel appropriate to be at the Henderson’s right then, and in the mire of your reeling mind, your empty house was suddenly terribly frightening. 

You suppose you called Eddie because he made you feel safe. 

“Do you want me to come over?” He’d asked, quickly and quietly, and when you sheepishly asked if you could go over to his place instead, he’d agreed to come and get you without a moment's hesitation — you could hear his keys in hand before he even hung up, promising to be there in five minutes.

That was how you’d found yourself sitting on your front steps, shivering in your pajamas while you waited for him, making the excuse that it would be easier to lie about where you’d been rather than try to explain what a random boy was doing in your house if your parents happened to come home.

 Of course, that line of thinking suggested that anyone could have stepped in to comfort you that night, and that was just patently untrue.

Even then, you only wanted Eddie, pulling up to your house and driving you back across town to spend the night glued to his side, lying in his bed, whispering back and forth conspiratorially like kids having a sleepover, like you’d known each other for years and were privy to the deepest secrets of each other’s hearts.

You were barely even friends, and yet somehow you knew, from flipping through the yellow pages to find his number to drifting off to the hushed sounds of his voice while he read aloud the first few chapters of some fantasy novel, you would never want anyone else but him.

You are vaguely aware of how you’ve been subtly pinching yourself to try not to think about how, if you were really honest with yourself, that had been the night you’d fallen in love with Eddie — it only makes your chest ache with anxiety as you remember the crushing sense of danger from your dream like suddenly the whole world is bearing down on him. 

I have to find him… 

It is an intrusive thought, new and terrifying as the notion of needing to find Eddie indicates that somehow he is missing. It is enough to move you to panic.

Behind you, your coworkers continue to bicker, but you don’t hear them. You’ve moved to stare out the window, at your car sitting lonely in the lot, watching for any kind of traffic, any sign of things to come … any sign of Eddie… 

The trailer park is not far from here, maybe half a mile at the most, and you rationalize that you could feasibly make the distance in less than five minutes if you ran.

You aren’t sure why your brain decided to deliver that information to you, only that if you were the religious type, you would have been praying to whoever might be listening that whatever trouble is happening down at the trailer park has nothing to do with Eddie. 

I have to find Eddie. Eddie, Eddie Eddie Eddie—

And then, like a part of your brain has clicked off, suddenly all you know is action. 

Somewhere in the very far distance, you think you can hear your boss calling your name, but you don’t hear him, not really. You don’t hear anything but the skipping record of your mind moving you.

You don’t think, you just go.

Out the door and practically sprinting, the hoarse shouting voice of your boss falls on deaf ears as you skirt right past your car and disappear into the woods.

You don’t care about your pride or your hurt feelings, or whether or not Eddie will be happy to see you, all of that nonsense is the furthest thing from your mind as you run. You’ve got to see him, you’ve got to find him, no matter what.

If there are cops at the trailer park, they’re going to be blocking the road, so you convince yourself that you can avoid them by going through the woods, exiting the treeline and making a break for Eddie’s bedroom window. 

Twigs snag the skirt of your dress as you move through the thicket at a pace, the crunching of leaves and detritus is thunderous under your sneakers as you go.

It is only a matter of minutes before you emerge from the first line of trees, flying across the backroad without a second thought for traffic and pushing through the last stretch of the woods until finally, the trailer park opens up before you. 

You pause a moment to catch your breath, doubled over resting on your knees and listening for a hint at whatever lies ahead. 

It’s eerily still, despite how beneath the gentle flapping of laundry on the line and the hum of generators, you can hear the buzz of movement, voices speaking, and crackling radios much closer than you’d accounted for.

You’d never been much for trouble before you met Eddie. Your experience with the Hawkins police begins and ends with distracting them so that he could slip away undetected, and it occurs to you perhaps too late that this could very easily end with you being arrested, which would be at best very inconvenient and at worst?

Your parents don't live in Hawkins anymore, so who would be there to bail you out if that happened? Claudia Henderson? Wayne? How would you make sure Eddie is okay if you’re sitting in a jail cell?   

Still, you can’t let your wariness of trouble stop you now, not after you’ve already come most of the way. 

You would always rather come running to Eddie’s rescue when he doesn’t need you than risk not being there when he does, and it is enough to refill the well of your courage. 

You bite back the same urge to run you’d felt that morning when you woke up and stay low.

Despite having not set foot on these grounds for the better part of a year, you retrace the path through the park with patent expertise, like no time has passed at all. Then again, nothing ever changes down here, and you are sure you could find your way to the Munson trailer in the dark with your eyes closed if you had to, and suddenly there you are.  

The police are there as well, much to your dismay, right on the other side of the trailer, milling about the circular drive at the center of the park, talking amongst themselves and into their radios. 

You know you’ve only got a very brief window of opportunity to slip inside unnoticed, and your heart is hammering in your chest as you rap your knuckles on the glass as sharply as you dare.

The only person you need to hear you is Eddie, though of course that would only be possible if he happens to be in his room, which you’re willing to wager he isn’t, especially with a heavy police presence right on his front step.

If he isn’t the cause of the trouble, you can be damn sure he’s standing on the porch, watching the trouble unfold.

He’s nosy like that.

Disappointingly, your knocking garners no response.

You swallow hard and push up on your toes to grip the windowpane, tugging on it. It takes a few tries before it finally slides open with more than a little resistance. 

You bite your lip against its harsh sound, metal scraping on metal, and quickly brace yourself on the pane to hoist yourself up and over before anyone can investigate and find you there.

Your world briefly goes topsy-turvy as you tumble forward into the room and land with a hard grunt and muffled utterance of “ow – fuck”, sending tapes and other knickknacks tumbling to the ground around you.

In days past when you’d done this exact thing, you would have had the benefit of the bed to break your fall, but of course, in those days you were just as likely to land on top of Eddie as an empty mattress.

As much as he liked it when you snuck over like that, he was not partial to being kicked in the head, and you’d both decided that it was better to knock over a side table and make a mess than it was to risk giving him a concussion, so you’d made the executive decision to move the bed into the position where it rests today, sans Eddie. 

You have to sit for a moment to catch your breath, because beyond the sprinting and the acrobatics you’d just engaged in, it’s been eight months of nothing but memories, and suddenly you’re in his room. 

You hadn’t accounted for how that was going to affect you — strangely it’s like no time has passed. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust against the relative dark, but it’s easy to see that the room remains unchanged since last you were here, all metal posters and discarded clothes and papers, the two guitars, the amps, the unmade bed.

It smells like weed and tobacco and dirty laundry and the pervasive undertone of something that is so wholly Eddie that you suddenly forget why you are here, sitting where you landed beneath the window. 

You look around the room, surveying the familiar mess, and, unable to help yourself, you reach out and pull a t-shirt from the overstuffed dresser drawer, sitting ajar where it had been forced unsuccessfully back into place.

You hug it to your chest and repeat one of Eddie’s five stupid jokes to yourself. 

“When is a drawer not a drawer?” He would have said, grinning ear to ear like he was about to blow your mind with the oldest joke in the book. 

“When it’s ajar…”

You can’t help the disappointment that lances through your midsection not to have found him there, because as much as you try to convince yourself that it doesn’t expressly mean something terrible has happened to him, part of you had hoped it would be that easy.

You turn the shirt over in your hands and trace the faded script spelling out the name of the band you can barely make out – you think at one point in time it must have said “Misfits” – and without really thinking, you bury your face in the fabric, breathing deep and flooding your senses with him.

 Once again, all you can think is Eddie Eddie Eddie, and before you know it you’re drunk on his smell, familiar as childhood and tugging at your heart. Like being wrapped in a security blanket, you feel a strange sense of calm wash over you, not daring to promise that anything will be okay so much as assuring you that you are on the right track.

You heave a sigh and slump back against the wall, kicking your leg out – your foot collides with something.

There is the corner of a box peeking out from beneath the bed.

Were you in your right mind, you might have thought twice about investigating, considering you know all too well what kinds of things teen boys keep stashed under their beds, what Eddie has had under his bed in days past, but you recognize your own handwriting scribbled across the side of the box and very suddenly you’ve surged forward to pull the box free before you even realize you’d moved. 

It’s all pictures, posters, polaroids, band-tees, memories, and other things you don’t expressly remember packing into that box back in late August.

It’s everything that had been Eddie in your life with the addition of everything that had been you in his, carefully tucked away, miraculously still here — not trashed or burned or even remotely destroyed.

Preserved.

You marvel as you pluck at a long polaroid strip of photos with the Starcourt Mall logo splashed across the top and fail to stifle the water laugh that bubbles up from somewhere inside you.

You turn it over in your trembling hands and see the two ticket stubs for Teen Wolf stapled to the top.

You don’t remember a moment of the movie, but you vividly remember the day, sliding into the booth to take photos, laughing and playing, and pulling at each other while the camera flashed away. 

It’s Eddie giving you bunny ears and you sticking your tongue out, followed by Eddie pretending to bite your face while you laughed, followed by Eddie kissing you, and you kissing Eddie, and Eddie kissing you… 

It’s just a little bit too much, suddenly having photographic evidence of the things you had almost convinced yourself had never actually happened after almost a year of wallowing in self-pity and denial and anger and everything in between. 

It makes you feel a little crazy.

You’re just about ready to come apart at the seams when you hear sounds coming from the front room, the screen door swinging open, heavy footsteps thumping across the floor. 

And of course, because you aren’t in your right mind, you make a leap in logic and ignore your better judgment as you decide who you think it is that just walked through the door. 

“Eddie—” you gasp.

You shove the box haphazardly back beneath the bed and scramble to your feet, absently stuffing the photo reel into your apron pocket as you crawl over the bed and throw open the door.

You fly into the living room without a second thought about who or what you are going to find there.

You are woefully unprepared.

Eddie is not there, only a handful of police officers who you have just given what might have perhaps been the worst scare of their lives had it not been for the mutilated, twisted body of what you think must have very recently been a girl, lying on the floor in front of the open door. 

You stagger and stop and freeze, unable to tear your eyes away as you immediately come to recognize her, despite her ruined state.

Red blonde ponytail tied with a green scrunchie, half wrenched out of place, heavy blue eyeshadow stained and shadowed where her lids droop down into empty eye sockets, ever so slightly crooked front teeth on display where her mouth hangs open in a silent scream. 

It's Chrissy Cunningham.

The police react to you with appropriate alarm, considering the way you’d come hurdling out of the back room and the blood-curdling scream that wrenches itself from the depths of your core, like you were some kind of banshee.

The sound tears itself from your lungs without your consent, but you don’t think you could have stopped yourself from screaming at that moment if your life depended on it.

Suddenly you can see it so clearly — the flashing lights illuminating Chrissy’s body as it rises from the ground, trancelike and trembling, her limbs twisting themselves unnaturally, snapping and cracking before her eyes wrenched themselves back into the depths of her skull. 

This is what you’d dreamt — your nightmare.

Chrissy is dead and Eddie is missing. 

+++

Dustin sits perched on the edge of his seat, eyes glued to the television. He barely hears what the reporter is saying for how loudly the blood is pounding in his ears.

There is a cold lump in his stomach.

Beside him, his mother sniffles as the anchorwoman drones on about another dead girl, and he knows what she’s going to say — it’s too much for her poor nerves, she can’t take it. 

He can’t help the way his mind strays to the terrible possibilities of the moment, what could have happened, who it could be laying dead in the Forest Hills trailer park. 

Dustin fights the urge to look out the front window, to the house across the street where you don’t live anymore. In days past he would have run across the street and pounded on your door, just to make sure you were home safe and not dead on the other end of town, but he tells himself that he’s just being paranoid.

He can almost hear you telling him not to worry about you, but how can he not worry about you when he’s made it his full-time job? 

Dustin sits and silently works out the logistics of what going to check on you would look like and very quickly decides there is no cool or casual way to go about doing that.

He’d have to haul ass all the way into town to your apartment, and even if he did there was no guarantee he’d even find you there.

He tells himself there’s no way he’s going to go check on you just because he saw something on the news. 

You're probably at work anyway — he glances reflexively at the clock on the wall — ten-thirty on a Saturday morning? Yeah, you're definitely at work.

Still, he can’t help but imagine the scenario in which he did, how touched you would be if he came riding in like a knight in shining armor. 

He imagines you smiling big and broad, brows turned up with emotion, and clasping your hands together.

“Oh, Dustin,” you would say, “You came all this way for me? You didn't have to do that, you could have just called—”

He should just call you.

Dustin leaps up from his seat, thoroughly startling his mother as he runs for the phone.

“Dusty what on earth?!” She cries, twisting around to try and see what has put a fire under his ass, “Where are you going?” 

He’s already punching in the last digits of your number as he answers.

“I gotta make a call!”

The phone rings and rings and rings. He stands and listens to the droning sound with mounting anxiety, holding his breath as he waits to see if you will answer.

He hopes beyond hope that you’re just at work, that nothing has gone terribly wrong – they said it was a high school student, but nobody ever accused the Hawkins local news of being accurate when it came to the facts. 

Disappointingly, the phone clicks over to play the message on your answering machine. Your sweet voice rings through the receiver to vibrate against Dustin’s ear, telling him to leave a message after the tone, and he heaves a dejected sigh, when…

BANG BANG BANG

Dustin’s head snaps around as suddenly there is a thunderous pounding at his front door. He slams the phone into the box hard enough to make it chime and flies across the room. 

“I’ll get it I'll get it I'll get it!” He says in a rush, fingers closing on the doorknob before his mother can even think to get up.

He wrenches the door open, half expecting to find you there, and can’t deny how summarily disappointed he is to see Max standing there, looking particularly out of breath.

Her face is flushed, eyes wide, chest and shoulders heaving as she openly pants like she’d just run a great distance.

Rode her bike was more likely the case, Dustin surmises as he glances over her shoulder to see where her bike lays on the lawn, wheels still spinning, clearly having just been thrown down.

He hardly has the opportunity to wonder what’s got her so excited before she's pushing past him to force herself inside

“I need to talk to you,” she says, stalking down the hall toward Dustin's bedroom at a pace.

He follows her, having to jog to keep up, then shuts the door, and listens as Max tells him everything — about Chrissy, about Eddie, about what she’d seen and heard last night and this morning.

It paints a terrible picture, and it horrifies Dustin to hear what Max is suggesting, but he can’t help the wave of relief that floods his body to hear the dead girl isn’t you.

He knows he ought to feel bad about it, but all he can think is Thank God it’s not you – that’s when the confusion sets in.

“Chrissy?”

“Yes.” 

“Chrissy Cunningham...”

“Yes.” 

He folds his arms over his chest and tries to make sense of it, because Chrissy and Eddie? 

“...Are you sure?”

Max furrows her brow and gives him a much more intense version of the same look you would have given him when you thought he was condescending or being sexist or a male chauvinist or whatever you would have called it.

On you it would have been mere admonishment, on Max, it warns him that he is very close to getting punched, so Dustin backs off. 

Still though, the arguable Princess of Hawkins High and the Freak? It doesn’t make sense outside of some kind of cliche Hollywood romance, not in real life though.

He can’t get his head around it. Dustin doesn’t think he’s ever even seen them in the same room – then he remembers. 

He has seen them together. Thursday afternoon. Fifth period.

He’d been on his way back from the bathroom and stopped to get a drink at the water fountain to kill a little bit more time when hushed voices drew his attention.

That’s when Dustin saw them standing together at the far end of the hall.

Eddie and Chrissy.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see Chrissy smiling shyly, and he’d been very confused not to see Eddie’s typical manic energy – it’s like he was calm, for once in his life.

If he had to describe it, Dustin would almost say that he thought they were flirting, but that can't be right... because Chrissy Cunningham? And Eddie Munson? How does that math add up?

It had been one of the stranger things Dustin had witnessed in the past few weeks, and he’d fully meant to ask Eddie about it, but with how vicious he’d been over the potentiality of postponing the Cult of Vecna, Dustin had completely forgotten it.

And now Chrissy is dead. 

And Eddie is missing.

His stomach is in knots at the thought. Like the weight of the world is suddenly bearing down on his shoulders, he sinks onto his bed.

He thinks back to the news report, to the trailer sitting in the distance behind the anchorwoman – was that Eddie’s place?

Dustin can’t remember, he’s only been there a handful of times, always in the dark, and he’d never thought to pay much attention to what the facade of the trailer looked like… it could have been Eddie’s place, but it could also have been any number of nearly identical trailers in the park.

Still, he can't shake the sick feeling that is settling in his abdomen.

Christ. Was it Eddie’s though? 

Dustin shakes his head to stop that line of thinking before it can really get going. He can’t go there, he can’t afford to let that seed of doubt plant itself in his mind.  

Everyone is going to blame him, because of course they are – there’s a dead girl in the trailer park and he’s Eddie Munson, the town Freak. 

Dustin can suddenly hear Eddie’s words in his mind, see the persecuted look he’d had on his face that day at the campus phone – I guess that’s enough in this town, huh? 

He has to do something, he has to try and help him. 

“He didn’t do it,” Dustin says immediately. 

Max scoffs.

“We don’t know that…”

It leaves him reeling and suddenly Dustin cannot believe the words coming out of his friend’s mouth. Sure, he supposes Max doesn’t know Eddie like he does, all she has to go on is the facade he puts up, that first day he’d approached them in the lunchroom way back in November.

Even so, he’d never in a million years think she’d just assume he was guilty along with everyone else.

Max should have known better than that. 

"Don't say that!" Dustin gasps.

"Well — we don't."

He’s fully aware of how he is gawping at her, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. It makes her uncomfortable and suddenly Max is fidgeting.

She makes a show of throwing up her hands, shrugging her shoulders.

“Dustin… come on,” She says, “I saw him–”

It’s his turn to cut her off then.

“No, you come on. Come on! You don’t know what you saw!” Dustin surprises himself by snapping.

Max’s eyes widen and she recoils, and he immediately begins to backpedal

“...Look, I know you don’t think much of him, but Eddie is –” He sighs, “When we got to school? He was the only one who was nice to us. He’s the only one who gives a shit about losers like me and Mike. Now he’s in trouble and you want to just let that go because you think you saw something? No way. We can’t just sit back and let this happen. They’re gonna tear him apart, we have to do something.”

For a long moment, nobody says anything.

Max rolls her eyes, but to her credit, she is clearly chagrined enough to hang her head in a way that could almost be construed as sheepish. 

Regardless of what she decides to do, Dustin knows he has to save Eddie, find a way to clear his name, he just doesn’t precisely know how to do that — and then something tiny in the back of his mind pipes up with your name. 

Maybe you will know what to do.

It’s like a lightbulb clicking on, and Dustin leaps up from his bed.

“Holy shit.” He says.

"What?"

He's beaming at Max when he answers.

"Lady Midnight!"

The reference goes right over her head and she stares back at him, uncomprehending. She doesn't play D&D with them, she doesn't know, but Dustin does, and more importantly, you would know.

“What – hey!” Max has to jump out of the way to avoid being trampled as Dustin goes tearing down the hall to the phone.

“Holy shit holy shit!” 

Of course, you'll know what to do, you're the purveyor of secrets and forbidden knowledge. You always had creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems.

You'll help them find Eddie, or at least help them approach the situation from a new angle with a fresh set of eyes.

"Dustin, where are you going?" Max calls, her voice lilting with annoyance as she follows him back down the hall.

He doesn’t answer. He’s already halfway through dialing your number again before he remembers that you aren’t home, and he hangs up with an aggravated growl.

More frustrating, he doesn’t know the number for Benny’s off the top of his head.

Adrenaline surges through his body.

“Mom, where are the yellow pages?” He shouts.

His mother, still glued to the television, twists around and gives him a funny look, then her face brightens as she regards Max, like she hadn’t even realized she was there.

“What– oh, hello Max.” She says wetly. 

Max shuffles on her feet and gives an awkward wave, and Dustin makes a harsh sound of annoyance.

They don’t have time for this. 

“Mom! The yellow pages!”

His mother furrows her brow and immediately gets huffy with him.

“Don’t shout, Dusty! They’re right there in the kitchen drawer, for goodness sake!”

Dustin rounds the corner of the kitchen island and rips the drawer open with enough force to tear it off its slide.

Pens, paperclips, rubber bands, and other pieces of clutter go scattering across the linoleum along with the yellow tome listing every registered number in Roane county.

Dustin drops to his knees and begins flipping through the pages like a man possessed while Max stands looking on in a mix of horror and confusion like she is witnessing him have a complete and total breakdown. 

“Who could you possibly be calling?” She demands.

Dustin looks up at her and says your name incredulously like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

It does nothing but deepen the confusion spread across Max’s face, so Dustin goes on to explain.

“She’s probably already at work, so I need to number for Benny’s–”

Max shakes her head.

“She's not there.”

“Well I already tried her at home, and she didn’t answer–”

“No, Dustin, you don’t understand.” Max insists, “I just saw her, she’s at Eddie’s.”

The gravity of her tone is jarring and Dustin immediately forgets the phonebook as he looks up at Max. Suddenly his mind is spinning at Mach-five trying to process all the information that has been fed into it in the last two minutes.

“...What?” He splutters.

First Eddie and Chrissy, somehow together, now you, apparently at the trailer park, at Eddie's place where by all accounts he should be and you should not? Where Chrissy is dead? He can't make heads or tails of it.

“What’s she doing there?”

Max hesitates and bites her lip like she’s not entirely sure she ought to say – Dustin has to prompt her to get her to finally spit it out, and when she does, he feels like he’s going to faint.   

“Honestly? I’m pretty sure she was getting arrested.”

+++

You’re dragged out of the trailer by your elbow, like a naughty child who needs to be disciplined.

It’s then that you finally see Wayne, standing off to the side being interviewed by a number of officers.

You’re half frantic as you call out to him – for help or just relief that he’s there, you can’t quite be sure, but it does nothing to help the crazed energy of the moment. 

“Wayne!”

His eyes widen in alarm to see you, and he makes like he means to move forward, do something to help you, but the officers stop him before he can start.

“Hey– hey leave her be!” He shouts. 

It’s startling. In all the time you’ve known him, you’ve never once heard Wayne raise his voice. 

Chief Powell follows you out, positively fuming as he crosses the small strip of grass that serves as the front lawn. He thrusts an accusatory finger at you as he addresses Wayne.

“Mr. Munson, I do believe you previously told us that nobody was in the house.” 

Wayne nods.

“Yessir, that’s correct,”  

“Explain to me, then, why this girl just came running out of the back bedroom like a bat out of hell?”

All eyes are on you then. You struggle against the hands that hold you and feel your heart palpitate – it’s a very good question, you hate to admit, one you don’t have a great answer for.

Somehow, it seemed like a good idea at the time, just doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it. 

The Chief is waiting for an answer, and Wayne finally has to just shake his head, because of course, he doesn’t know why you were in Eddie’s room either. 

Powell reels on you then, and your stomach bottoms out. He gives the officers restraining you a harsh look and they release you.

You stagger, struggling to stay upright on your feet and tug on your dress to straighten it. You brush your knuckles across your nose and avert your eyes, shrinking under the Police Chief’s hard gaze.

After what feels like an excruciatingly long time, he finally speaks.

“How long have you been hiding in there?” He demands.

You shrug your shoulders in a way that is perhaps too flippant for the gravity of the situation you have found yourself in.

“Like two minutes.” You sniff, “And I wasn’t hiding, I just came in through the window.”

He gives you an incredulous look. 

“Why?”

“I was looking for…” you trail off and glance over at Wayne, staring at you with his features screwed up in patent confusion.

You begin to fidget with your fingers, twisting at the cheap silver ring you’ve since started wearing to make up for the one you’d packed up with the box of everything else sitting under Eddie's bed.

You clear your throat to try and sound a little less like a whiney child.

“I was looking for Eddie…”

“Eddie Munson?”

You nod.  

Powell stares at you a little longer before he sighs and shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he rocks back on his heels.   

“So you don’t know what happened in there?”

You shake your head and try not to glance at the crumpled figure of Chrissy you can still see lying in the doorway. 

Powell sighs again, rests his hands on his hips, casting his gaze down to his feet before looking back up at you.

"And I don't suppose you would know where Eddie is?"

Again you shake your head.

The police chief levels you with another hard stare, like he’s working something over in his head, trying to decide or understand, you can’t be sure. For a long moment, it is all you can do but focus on trying to remember how to breathe as you wait to see if he’s going to put cuffs on you. 

He doesn’t. 

Instead he turns and stalks back across the grass towards Wayne.

“Do you know this girl?” Powell asks.

“Yessir,” Wayne says quickly, then proceeds to rattle off basic information about you, including but not limited to your name and an explanation about how you’re a friend of his nephew’s who he sort of looks after you since your folks moved away.

For some odd reason, your stomach goes tight and fluttery to hear Wayne refer to you as Eddie’s friend.

That’s how he’d addressed you when you’d first met.

“So, you’re a friend of Ed’s, huh?” He’d said. 

You’re suddenly wracked with guilt – this is not how you imagined this scenario going at all.

You’d imagined you were going to be this big hero, swooping in to pull Eddie out of a trouble you’d only known about through some kind of bizarre clairvoyance.

Instead, turns out you’re a stupid fucking idiot who should have taken a moment to think before you went climbing in through windows.    

You force yourself not to look away this time when Powell looks back at you – he stares, you fidget, and then he returns his attention to Wayne. 

You don’t hear what he says, as he’s dropped his voice to a low tenor and you can’t see his face to try and read his lips. 

You watch as Wayne puts up his hands defensively.  

“Listen to me,” He says quietly, “She’s a good girl. I promise you she didn’t have nothin’ to do with this.” and the guilt you feel becomes all-encompassing. 

Stupid girl, more like.    

It’s another few excruciating minutes of back and forth before the tension finally breaks. You are, however, not turned loose, much like you'd expected to be. 

After it’s established that you’re not an immediate threat, standing there in your torn up sneakers and waitress uniform, you’re set to lean against one of the various cop cars parked on the lawn. 

You know Eddie, so they’ve got to interview you, much to your chagrin. 

This is exactly what you’d been trying to avoid by climbing in through the window. 

Great job. 

It’s Officer Callahan, in all his insipid glory, who comes sauntering up to you shortly after, hands resting on his gun belt in a way you suppose is meant to be intimidating. 

It doesn’t come across.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” He starts, fishing his pad of paper from his belt and making a point to loudly click his pen. He uses it to point at you, “You know, you’re in a lot of trouble, Missy.” 

You stare back at him and hope he feels every bit of disdain you hold for him.

Callahan sucks his teeth. “So, what were you doing hiding in the bedroom like that?”

You heave a frustrated sigh. 

“I already told you, I wasn’t hiding. I climbed in through the window to find Eddie.” 

“Right, so you said.” He huffs, glancing up at you from his pad briefly before doing a halfway comical doubletake.

Something like recognition flashes across his face and you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes because of course this dingus wouldn't recognize you.

You'd always wondered how Clark Kent could get away with disguising himself with a change of clothes, turns out most people are just patently stupid, Officer Callahan included.

“Oh, wait a minute, I know you – you’re Munson’s little girlfriend.”

Bingo. 

Bizarrely, it sets your teeth on edge and your mouth is moving before your brain can catch up.   

“I’m not his girlfriend,” You say perhaps too quickly. 

It draws the attention of everyone within earshot, Chief Powell and Wayne included. 

You shrink under their gaze and kick yourself for how you realize too late that it sounded like a renouncement of Eddie. It was only a knee-jerk reaction, an intrusive thought built up to defend yourself from the random waves of grief that still hit you now and then. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud.   

Officer Callahan side-eyes you and snorts with humorless laughter. 

“Coulda fooled me,” he scoffs. 

You would argue, except suddenly you’re thinking about all the times you’ve been with Eddie when he’s been pulled over and hassled by the Hawkins police. By Officer Callahan and then still Officer Powell specifically.

He’s technically right – just not regarding the current state of affairs – because you had been Eddie’s girlfriend during all those previous incidents.  

Still, you cross your arms over your chest and avert your gaze. 

“Not that it’s any of your business…” You start, confident at first before you second guess yourself and a misplaced sheepishness creeps into your voice, “...but we broke up,”

Officer Callahan scoffs and the reaction leaves you indignant. 

Rude.    

“Okay, so I get it now. You break his heart, and he’s pissed but won’t take it out on you, so he takes it out on poor Chrissy in there, huh?”

Callahan gestures to the open trailer door with his pen, and you can’t help but get a little stuck staring at the body still laying there – you start to wonder why they haven’t covered her up yet, but then he snaps to draw your attention back.

“That sound about right?”

You furrow your brow.  

“…It sounds like you’ve been watching a lot of true crime documentaries.”

He glares at you. 

“It’s motive.”

“It’s bullshit.”

Officer Callahan’s eyebrows jump up from where they’d been previously hidden beneath the thick rim of his glasses.

The brusque nature of your answer seems to stagger him a bit. You’ve never had so much bite behind you in all the times you’ve interacted, electing instead to try and kill them with kindness so as not to get Eddie into any more trouble. 

It leaves him stammering for a response.  

“Hey now—” He begins, thrusting an accusatory finger at you like he means to lecture you.  

“No.” You insist, and when he puts his hands on his hips and glares, you hug your arms tighter around your midsection and double down, “No – he broke up with me, okay? So no motive. Eddie didn’t do this,”

“How do you know?”  

“Because I know him,” 

Callahan rolls his eyes, missing the hateful look you throw his way as he does.

Somehow you know nothing you say is going to matter when it comes to Eddie. They’ve already decided his guilt.   

“Oh, you know him?” Callahan huffs sarcastically, “Okay, fine … since you know him, when’s the last time you saw him?”

Shit. 

You bite the inside of your lip and fidget under his condescending gaze, knowing well enough that your answer is going to do nothing to help your case. 

“… August.” You mumble. 

He chokes a little and shakes his head, blinking rapidly like you’d said something outrageous… and honestly, it was a little outrageous, but you didn’t appreciate the attitude he had about it. 

“Aug- August?” He splutters, “August.”

You breathe out slowly and nod. 

“Yeah…” 

“You’re telling me you haven’t seen him in eight months and you’re trying to — you’ve been broken up … for eight. Months. And you just come running at the first sign of trouble? You expect me to believe that?”

“I do.”

“Why?” 

You stick him to the spot with a dour look. 

“You don’t know much about the human heart do you, Officer Callahan?”

Behind him, you see Chief Powell cough to try and cover the laughter threatening to burst out of him.

He clears his throat when Callahan twists around to glare at him, and you take the opportunity to steal a glance at Wayne. 

He’s like a caged animal, fidgeting, pacing – you assume he must have been the one to put in the 911 call. You can’t even imagine what he must have thought coming home and finding Chrissy like that in his living room, and now he’s got to worry about vouching for you?

Your heart thumps in your chest when your eyes meet and for lack of anything better to do, you offer him a subtle wave. 

He shakes his head – not the time. 

“So, how do I know you’re not just covering for Munson again?” Callahan says, bringing you back to the annoying moment you have found yourself in.

Your eyebrows jump and you feign innocence, gesturing to yourself like you could never imagine doing that two years ago at a party after they’d busted Eddie for possession and you’d made a scene to draw their attention so he could run away. You would never.  

Officer Callahan narrows his eyes and crosses his arms,

“How do I know you’re not involved?”

In spite of yourself, your heart leaps into your throat. It’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, but suddenly your brain is screaming – this is it, this is how we get arrested. 

Luckily, Wayne immediately jumps up from the porch and tries to come to your rescue.

“Hey, no. She’s not—” He begins, but Officer Callahan cuts him off with a wave of his hand and a roll of his eyes. 

“Thank you, Mr. Munson, if we have any further questions for you we will let you know.” He sighs when what he really means is “go away”.

You clench your fist and resist the urge to knock that smug look off his face when he turns back to face you, looking very much like he’s caught you red-handed and is so pleased to have figured it out. 

“So, here’s what I think happened.” Callahan begins,

This should be good.

“You said that Munson kid broke up with you? Okay, fine. So maybe he does, and he gets a new little girlfriend. And you’re jealous. You come to confront him, find her here, things go a little too far, bada-bing-bada-boom, poor Chrissy ends up dead."

You're fully aware of how you're gawping at him.

"I'm sorry, what?"

He continues.

"And since you’re apparently such a good little girl you don’t want to ruin your reputation, so you take steps to make it look like he did it–”

You have to suppress the shudder that threatens to tear through your body at the concept of Officer Callahan referring to you as a “good girl”, even if it is done so under the guise of mocking Wayne.

Luckily your disgust is overwhelmed by the patent hilarity of what he is suggesting: you killed Chrissy and are trying to frame Eddie… yep… way too much true crime in Officer Callahan’s diet.

“Did you even see her?” You ask, “Look at me. How the hell do you suppose I did that?”

Callahan opens his mouth to respond and comes up short. 

“...Forensics will get back to us on the cause of death after the autopsy…” 

“Okay, fine. Riddle me this, Dick Tracy, if I was trying to frame Eddie, why would I be sitting here telling you he didn’t do it?”

Officer Callahan pulls a face.

“How do you know who Dick Tracy is?”

Then it’s your turn to pull a face. You’ve never missed Jim Hopper more than you do at this moment. 

“Can you do me a favor and try to be a little less condescending while you’re accusing me of murder?”

Another cough from the chief of police to cover another laugh, it turns the tips of Officer Callahan’s pink.  

“Alright, smart ass, you got an alibi? Because things aren’t looking so great for you right now. You’ve. Got. Motive,”

Each word is punctuated by his sharp prodding fingers poking you in the shoulder. You breathe out hard through your nose and swallow the rage boiling up from the pit of your stomach.

Trespassing is one thing, mouthing off is another, but you don’t need to be charged with assaulting an officer. 

What follows is a rapid-fire back-and-forth volley of questions and answers, each one more charged than the last as you count the seconds ticking past, time wasted when you could be out there looking for Eddie. 

“Where were you last night?” 

“Benny’s.” 

“Why?” 

“I work there.” You huff, tugging at the skirt of your uniform. 

Officer Callahan gives you a dismissive look, like he wants to argue but expressly cannot because you’re still wearing your nametag and your goddamn apron. He clears his throat and shifts on his feet.    

“Can anyone confirm your presence there?”

It feels incredibly stupid to say, but only because of your crazy stupid luck – yes, there are in fact many people who can confirm your presence at the diner last night.  

“The Hawkins Tigers.”

He gives you an incredulous look.

“The Basketball team?” 

You nod, and very quickly you can feel him losing steam. Every single one of your answers thus far seems to have flummoxed Officer Callahan beyond his ability to comprehend.

He turns from you and crosses the grass to hold a hushed conference with Chief Powell. You watch them, struggling to try and read their lips as you stuff your hands in your apron pocket – you brush the sharp edge of the forgotten polaroid strip stashed there and curl your fingers around it.

You have to find Eddie.    

They make you sit and wait another twenty minutes finally – finally – you hear the words that set you free. 

“She’s just a dumb kid, send her home,” 

You would protest the notion if you weren’t feeling so summarily stupid for this whole endeavor, but you’re just happy that the interrogation is finally ending.

With Powell’s prompting, another officer steps up to escort you out of the trailer park, much to Callahan’s chagrin. You can hear him begin to argue against it.

“Chief, I don’t think it’s such a good idea turning her loose.” He says, “I mean look at her. She probably knows exactly where Munson is hiding.” 

“...No,” Powell says after considering it for a moment, “I don’t think so.” 

Callahan shakes his head, 

“I just think–”

Then the chief cuts him off.  

“Maybe don’t think about it so much. She’s not going anywhere, right?” He says it loud enough for you to hear. 

It’s not a question so much as an order, and he makes a point to stare at you, clearly waiting for your answer. You glance at Wayne, who at this point has moved to sit atop the nearby picnic table, chain-smoking to try and calm his nerves – he glances at you, then looks away.

You don't blame him.

Somehow, this suddenly feels like it’s all your fault, like it all traces back to that terrible night in August. You should have fought a little harder for Eddie, you shouldn’t have stayed away.

You turn your attention back to the officers, then finally you take one last parting glance at what you can see of poor Chrissy, still lying uncovered in the doorway.

There is a cold lump forming in the pit of your stomach, under the hard gaze of so many people, that same sense of impending doom slowly crushing down on you. 

Somehow you manage to shrug. 

“Of course not.” You say, “Where am I gonna go?“

To find Eddie, before anyone else can. 

The officer escorts you off of the trailer park grounds and sends you on your way down the road and around the bend.

You scuff your feet in the dirt as you walk, the sounds from the trailer park steadily fading into the distance. You run your thumb over the sharp edge of the polaroid strip in your pocket until it hurts, using the unpleasant sensation to keep you grounded as your brain spins.

Where in the hell are you meant to start looking? Who might even know where he is? You don't know where Hellfire meets these days, or where the band practices, you don't know even who his friends are anymore. Adam and Gareth maybe? Jeff was always borderline with Eddie, you wouldn't be surprised to hear if they'd had a falling out. Maybe Dustin knows something, he's in Hellfire now, along with Mike and Lucas... but you can't imagine Lucas is even going to know his own name after last night so that rules him out...

It's an insurmountable task, finding Eddie, like trying to find a needle in a haystack that is gunning for said needle, but you don't have the option not to try.

Who else is going to do it if not you? You have to find him first.

A shrill whistle draws your attention and your head snaps up to the person jogging up the path to meet you.

Wayne. 

You slow to a stop to let him catch up with you, half wondering how the cops ever let him follow you – surely that is a conflict of interest, letting witnesses speak to each other, but you barely have the time to give him a proper greeting.  

“You haven't seen him, then?” Wayne asks quickly, his voice is hushed and tight. “You don't know where he is?”

The way he says it makes your chest hurt, like he'd spent a great deal of time and energy hanging all his hopes on the possibility that you might know where Eddie was, that he might even be with you.

Hadn't you been doing the same?

You shake your head, and it breaks your heart a little to have to disappoint him like that.

“No... but I’ll find him.” You say, your insides are knotted and squirming with anxiety — you don’t know how you’re going to find him, you just know that it’s going to be you who does.

It has to be you.

Relief passes over Wayne in a tangible wave as his shoulders drop and he stands a little taller.

You can’t imagine what he must be going through, what it must have been like to come home and discover that waiting for you in your doorway. You suddenly feel very stupid for how precious you’d been all day about having a nightmare while Wayne was living one. 

You know perhaps better than anyone that Eddie is all he has – he can’t afford to lose him any more than you can.  

Wayne sniffs and clears his throat, casting a wary look over his shoulder like he’s worried someone might be listening. 

“Good — good.” He hums, like he’s trying to convince himself that it’s going to be alright, then he leans into you and drops his voice, “When you do, I want you two to go. Just… go. Take him and get out of town.” 

It startles you. You don’t know what you’d expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. You know you must be frowning for the way he doubles down. 

He fishes his wallet from his back pocket and flips it open, pulling a stack of bills from the fold and closing it in your hand. He squeezes your fingers tightly around the money.

“I don’t care where you go,” He says, shaking his head, “California, Timbuktu — it doesn’t matter, send me a postcard when you get there — you just find him and get him as far away from here as possible, you hear?”

It is too much to ask, you know he must know this – he’s asking you to leave your life behind, your apartment, your job, everyone you know.

For all the time you’ve known him, everything he’s ever done for you, Wayne has never asked you for anything, but he’s asking you now — that much you understand – he’s asking you to choose Eddie, in spite of everything. 

It’s an easy decision to make. 

You close your fingers over the money and nod, gritting your teeth to keep yourself steady as you watch Wayne’s eyes shine with tears.

“I will.” 

He breathes a shaky sigh and blinks back the emotion, banishing it as quickly as it arrives.

You’ve never seen him like this — he is so afraid, and whether it is in response to the horror of what has already happened, in his home, to his family, or the uncertainty of what is going to happen, you cannot be sure. 

The Munsons have already lost so much. 

You have to find Eddie, if only so that you never have to see this look on Wayne’s face again.

His hand comes up to grip you by the shoulder then, and your spine stiffens under the directness of his gaze.

“Don’t leave him.” he says quietly. “Promise me you won’t leave him.”

You shake your head in defiance of the thought.

Never, you want to say, you would never leave him.

Why else would you still be here after everything that happened? But of course, he knows this, so you push forward and throw your arms around Wayne’s neck, startling him with the act of hugging him. 

“I promise.” You say against his shoulder. 

He hesitates, tensing ever so slightly. After a moment he pats you awkwardly on the back, and you take it as your signal to let the moment end.  

Eddie always said the Munsons weren’t huggers. 

Wayne sniffs and wipes his knuckles beneath his nose — he coughs.

“Okay,” he says gruffly, “Get going.”

Wayne nods towards the road and you follow his gaze. You know what he means; find Eddie, get out of town, don’t come back, and you can’t decide if the feeling welling up too big in your chest is fear or determination.

Your mind begins to work on its own, drawing a map of all the possible places you might find Eddie.

You can do this, you’re fine, it’s going to be fine.  

When you turn, Wayne has already started back down the road, and you’re hit with the sudden and overwhelming urge to call out, to say something to somehow make things okay.

You wonder briefly if you're ever going to see him again.  

“Wayne —” you call, he turns and glances back at you with big, watery eyes, “…I’m gonna find him.” 

“I know, Sweetheart.” He huffs, “I'm counting on it.” 

So, no pressure, right?

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[greenishghostey]

Even more weirdly specific headcanons that have been rattling around in my head :)

tw: none!

Eddie enjoys olives a lot. Like the cheap, good kind you get in the huge jars that are mostly salt. Eating them like a raccoon at 2 am on a Wednesday. 

Eddie has a collection of “inappropriate” shirts. He just finds them and has accumulated over the years. Some examples are:

A white t-shirt that just has the word “piss” written across the front in black sharpie. 

A shirt from some Bible Camp that a counsellor donated to a thrift store. It’s got something like “Team JESUS!” or “Jesus ROCKS” on it.

A t-shirt that says “World’s Best Grandpa”, I feel like this one would have been a gift.

Eddie can do magic tricks. Wayne got him a magic kit for Christmas when he was 9 or 10 and he’s been committed ever since. Card tricks, making stuff float, sleight of hand, he can do it all. 

Eddie has to fix his bangs every morning. I have bangs, it’s torture and there’s no way he doesn’t have to blow dry them down and fix them.

Eddie has a tramp stamp tattoo that he got on a dare. It’s a kinda big blacked-out star.