lucesthings

[lucesthings]

Feyd Rautha x Reader !You Get Harassed!

𝖲𝗎𝗆𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗒: 𝖸𝗈𝗎 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖥𝖾𝗒𝖽 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝗋𝗋𝖺𝗇𝗀𝖾𝖽 𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗋𝗂𝖺𝗀𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗁𝖾 𝗂𝗌 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗉𝗅𝖾𝗍𝖾𝗅𝗒 𝖾𝗇𝖺𝗆𝗈𝗋𝖾𝖽 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎. 𝖧𝖾 𝗐𝗈𝗎𝗅𝖽 𝖽𝗈 𝖺𝗇𝗒𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂𝗌 𝖾𝗑𝗍𝗋𝖾𝗆𝖾𝗅𝗒 𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗌𝖾𝗌𝗌𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝗈𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎. 𝖡𝗎𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎'𝗋𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗈𝗉𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗂𝗍𝖾. 𝖸𝗈𝗎'𝗋𝖾 𝖺𝖿𝗋𝖺𝗂𝖽 𝗈𝖿 𝗁𝗂𝗆. 𝖧𝖾 𝗌𝖼𝖺𝗋𝖾𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎, 𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝗁𝖾'𝗌 𝗇𝗂𝖼𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝗒𝗈𝗎. 𝖡𝗎𝗍 𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝖽𝖺𝗒 𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗐𝗌 𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝗆𝗎𝖼𝗁 𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎… 𝖡𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝗍'𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝖺 𝗐𝖺𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍'𝗌 𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗎𝗆𝖺𝗍𝗂𝖼.

𝖶𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀: 𝖱𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝗀𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗁𝖺𝗋𝖺𝗌𝗌𝖾𝖽, 𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌 𝗈𝖿 𝗆𝗎𝗋𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾.

He terrified you, to say the least. How could anyone not be terrified of him? He's killed countless people and feels no remorse. But he's never shown that side of him to you. Well, besides in the arena. You went once, saw the gruesome scenes, and never went again.

But he was always kind and gentle towards you. He made sure you were comfortable and taken care of. But he especially...

Made sure nobody messed with you.

You were his property, his prize... You were his and he made everyone know of it.

But... There was one man who believed he could have his way. He was Feyd's right-hand man, Atreus. He believed he could do what he felt like with anyone because of his status in the kingdom. Except to the people of higher rank than him, and he did not consider you to be of higher rank than him.

One day you were sitting at the breakfast table when Feyd entered. The room was empty besides you and him since after you both got together he got rid of all his concubines... So the large table lay empty most mornings and nights. Well, besides you of course. Feyd occasionally joined you but it was rare... And it seems like today was one of those days.

He entered and his eyes were immediately on you. "Good morning, my lord..." You say while standing to your feet and bowing your head. He bowed his head back and walked over to his seat, "How are you, my darling?" He says before sitting down in his seat. "I am well... And you?" You ask while sitting down.

"I am also well." He says, his eyes never leaving yours. You were nervous, that was obvious. "Today Atreus will escort you to the arena. You're going to watch me fight today." He says... Well, more like commands. "And before you ask why, today is an important match." He says. You nod your head, your gaze low. He stands up and walks over to you. You look up at him and he brushes some hair out of your face.

"I know you don't like it... But it's important to me. Just bear with it today, okay?" He says in a soft tone of voice. You nodded.

-------------------------

Later on, you were in your chambers when you heard a knock at your door. You opened your door to see Atreus. You go to walk past him to start walking to the arena but he stops you. "What's the rush?" Atreus says with a smirk.

You stand there confused, "Na-Baron wants me to go to the arena... I thought you were taking me...?" You say in a confused tone of voice. "Yeah but..." He takes a step forward, and you take a step back, "We don't have to go there for another ten minutes..." He says with a disgusting smirk. "I think we could have some fun beforehand..." He says.

Your blood ran cold. He grabbed your hips and pulled you toward him, "W-Wait-!" "Don't deny me, I'm your superior. You'll do as I say, right?" He says before placing a kiss on your neck. A shiver ran down your spine, but not one of pleasure but one of fear and disgust.

"Stop!" You cried out as he forced your hips against yours. "Oh come on... It'll be fine." He smirked while continuing to kiss your neck and rub his hips against yours. Luckily for you, you were taught some self defense.

You kneed him in the crotch and knocked him to the ground. You ran out of the room once he was down and ran down the hall. You didn't know where to go, but you knew you had to get away. Tears spilled down your cheeks, blurring your vision.

As you ran you ran into someone and fell to the ground.

"Oh! My lady! Are you alright?" A handmaiden says while kneeling down to you. She saw your distress and tears and her eyebrows furrowed. "My lady... Are you alright?" She says while helping you to her feet. You were in hysterics. You were sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.

--------------------------

Feyd heard of you being hysterical and dropped everything and came running to you. The handmaiden had brought you to Feyd's chambers because when she mentioned bringing you back to yours you cried hysterically and begged her not to.

Feyd entered his chambers and saw you sitting on his bed and crying while being held by the handmaiden. She looked up at him, "You're dismissed." He says with a nod. She quickly got to your feet and hurried away.

Feyd walked over to you and kneeled in front of you. "What happened?" He says in a soft tone of voice. You sniffled and sobbed and you didn't know how you could explain this to him or if he'd even believe you.

"Y/N. Tell me." He says while brushing some hair out of your face. It took a few minutes but you managed to pull yourself together enough to say, "Atreus h-he-" But then you broke down into a sob again.

Feyd's face fell and he rested his hand on your head. "Did he touch you?" He asks. You managed a nod.

Feyd grew angry.

Furious. Red fury rage flooded through his veins.

He stood up and stormed out of the room, leaving you alone in your mess.

--------------------------------

You were lying in Feyd's bed when you heard the door open. You sat up and saw Feyd entering the room. He looked like he had just been washed. He looked clean... Abnormally clean.

He walked over to you and sat on the edge of the bed. "Are you alright?" He asks. You nodded but you looked terrible. Your eyes were puffy and red, your cheeks were flushed, your lips were chapped and your hair was messy. "Where did you go?" You ask. "I took care of him," Feyd says. "'Took care of him'?" You repeat. "What do you mean?" You ask.

"I mean I pulled out his teeth then slit his throat." You gasped.

"You... You killed him? Why? You've known him a lot longer than me... He was your right-hand man..." You murmured. Feyd rests his hand on your thigh, "No one touches my girl." He says. Your eyes widened and your lips parted.

He did that... All for you. He loved you. He truly did.

Tears welled in your eyes and you leaned forward and hugged him tightly. He was surprised by your actions, you had never gotten this close to him, let alone hug him.

He wrapped his arms around you and held you tightly.

"I won't let anyone harm you... Never again."

[lucesthings]

all i ever knew, only you

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗱𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱. 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗺𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂.

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘇𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗼 𝘅 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁!𝗳𝗲𝗺 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴(𝘀): 𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝘁 | 𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗳𝗳 | 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗲 | 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 | 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 | 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗺𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 | 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 | 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 | 𝗱𝗿𝘂𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗲 | 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 | 𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 | 𝘀𝗲𝗺𝗶-𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 | 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗲 | 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗼𝘀𝗲 | 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗺 | 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿 | 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘀 | 𝗿𝗲𝗵𝗮𝗯 | 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 | 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 | 𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳 | 𝘂𝗻𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺𝘀 | 𝘀𝗺𝘂𝘁 |

wc: 134k

comprehensive timeline

blank/ageless blogs will be blocked

REALIZED EXTREMELY LATE THAT THIS READS MORE AS AN OC BUT PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTINUE INSERTING YOURSELF

𝗼𝗻𝗲 | 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘇𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗮𝘀

𝘁𝘄𝗼 | 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 | 𝗹𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮

𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗼 | 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗺𝘆

𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 | 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲-𝗺𝗼𝗶

𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 | 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘇𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗼

𝗳𝗶𝘃𝗲 | 𝘄𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵

𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗼 | 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟭𝟴 +

𝘀𝗶𝘅 | 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗶 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂?

𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 | 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸

𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 | 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗮 𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁

𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗲 | 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝗯𝘆! [𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲] [𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝘄𝗼]

𝘁𝗲𝗻 | 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗵𝗼𝘄, 𝗶 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲

𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 | 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗲𝘄

𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲 | 𝗮 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲

𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻 | 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂

[lucesthings]

“english isn’t my first langua—“ say no more.

[lucesthings]

celos, celos. - enzo v.

enzo y tú llevan saliendo por unos meses ya, y cuando este te dijo para que lo acompañes a españa para la grabación de la nueva película que iba a grabar para netflix, no pudiste decirle que no.

es de libro de romance la manera en la que llevan su relación, y honestamente se siente muy refrescante estar con alguien como él. no hay duda que ambos están hecho del uno para el otro.

“gorda, me cago de hambre como no tenes idea.” te llegó un texto de él mientras estabas acostada en la sala viendo tu serie favorita. sonreíste al entrar a su chat y comenzaste a escribir.

“pero mor, no les dieron comida hoy en el set?”

“que sí, unos cuantos sanguchitos pero vos sabes la cantidad exagerada de comida que necesito en el cuerpo para seguir existiendo.” negaste con la cabeza riendo al leerlo.

“a qué hora sales hoy?” escribiste.

“8PM :(“ viste la hora y eran las dos y media.

“gorda contestaaaa”

“bueno ignorame chau” reíste de nuevo al leerlo y fuiste a cambiarte de ropa, se te había ocurrido una idea y agradeciste que hoy haya sido tu día libre en el trabajo.

____

“¡corte!” un miembro de la producción gritó y enzo agradeció por lo bajo. estaba bastante cansado, ni hablar del hambre que tenía y lo mucho que te extrañaba.

encima aún no le contestabas y se había puesto medio triste. es todo un adulto y eso nadie lo discute pero contigo siempre se le sale lo nene.

fue a una de las duchas e hizo su rutina después de grabar escenas por muchas horas. justo al terminar de cambiarse y estar tonteando con algunos de los miembros escuchó como gritaban tu nombre.

“pásalo por acá, dame esa salsa, juani.” escuchó a agustín a hablar por lo alto.

enzo volteó a ver a felipe quien estaba cambiándose igualmente con curiosidad y salió de los vestidores. se encontró con la mayoría de chicos en mesas de plástico que al parecer armaron como pudieron, con muchos tapers de comida y bolsas, parecían desesperados con todo el ruido que hacían. los ojos de enzo rápido te encontraron, con matías abrazándote por los hombros mientras este se comía una alita de pollo, muy junto a ti para su gusto, luego vio que este te susurraba cosas al oído mientras ambos reían.

enzo sintió su corazón caerse hacia su estómago y empujó una mejilla con su lengua, no pudiendo evitar mostrar su expresión incómoda.

“amor.” dijo enzo. “¿qué haces acá?” finalmente sonrió.

“eu, enzo, tu señora nos trajo comida. más linda.” dijo matías levantando lo que tenía en la mano, enzo rápidamente le lanzó una mirada desafiante y bajó su brazo de repente.

tú te soltaste suavemente del agarre de matías y corriste a los brazos de enzo, quien te abrazó fuertemente plantando un beso en tu cabeza. “te traje bastante comida, en. de tu restaurante vegano favorito.” sonreíste al separarte y este te devolvió la sonrisa, aunque se fue al rato que matias se volvió a acercar antes que él pudiese responder.

“(y/n), el tarado de blas se agarró la última coca que quedaba, decile algo.” dijo en tono juguetón, volteaste hacia él y luego miraste a blas pero cuando estabas por contestar, enzo te interrumpió.

“ya estamos grandecitos, mati, solucionalo vos. ahora si me permiten.” los chicos comenzaron a hacer ‘uhhh’s’ al unísono y te agarró rápidamente de la cintura junto a la bolsa de comida que le correspondía a él y te llevó a los vestidores. casi todo el set estaba ya vacío porque se iban yendo los de producción.

“enzo, ¿qué pasó?” dijiste sorprendida al llegar a esa habitación, tu novio tenía una cara extraña, nunca había pasado antes. su mandíbula estaba tensa y parecía que trataba de evitar tu mirada.

“no lo sé.” se agarró la barbilla, suspirando.

“¿te enojaste? discúlpame, yo quería sorprenderlos, y sobretodo a ti, estás esforzándote mucho y quería darte el gusto de comer bie-“ los labios de enzo te callaron de la nada, besándote intensamente mientras agarraba tus mejillas entre sus grandes manos.

al separarse, suspiró nuevamente. “no es nada que hayas hecho, amor. muchas gracias por venir y hacer esto, de verdad.” habló suave cerca a ti, te dio otro beso pero esta vez corto. “sólo que, no sé, me sentí incómodo cuando vi a matias tan cerca de ti.” pudiste notar un poco de vergüenza en su rostro.

“pero gordo, matias y yo somos re amigos nada más.” murmuraste, preocupada por él.

“claro, y eso lo sé. pero fue de la nada, me sentí así y ya pero yo sé que nada que ver.” hizo una pausa. “y encima le hablé mal y frente a todos. la puta madre, qué pelotudo.” se tapó la cara y pudiste escuchar su frustración.

“enzo, mírame.” lo tomaste de las mejillas y te obedeció. “estás cansado, no dormiste mucho, llevas horas trabajando y encima tienes hambre, estás irritado y es normal. no estoy justificando pero no sé, eres humano, amor.” le hablaste, bastante suave y pudiste sentir cómo se iba relajando. “lo llamas, le pides perdón y ya, él lo va a entender.” enzo asintió, exhalando otra vez.

“no sé qué haría sin vos.” dijo después de un rato, mirándote fijamente a los ojos, notando el cariño que sentía por ti.

“no durarías ni una semana.” sonreíste y enzo rió, asintiendo. “bueno dale, llama a matias mientras le robo algo de comida a los chicos y luego vamos a casa, ahí comes lo que te traje, ¿te parece? incluso hago que te relajes más allá, ya vamos viendo cómo.” apretaste tus labios, la expresión en tu cara te delataba.

enzo levantó las cejas y sonrió de lado. “me interesa.”

[lucesthings]

Otto Hightower ✶ Masterlist

This masterlist contains works exclusive to Otto Hightower, with both readers and original female characters.

For other HotD characters, refer to my HotD General Masterlist.

Fear is a Corruption

Otto Hightower x Strong!reader || 2,205 words || complete

As Viserys dies and Rhaenyra's first-born daughter is forced to write to her mother begging her to bend the knee, she turns to Ser Otto in desperation. In exchange for her innocence, she pleads for her siblings' lives.

In All The Freshness of her Youth

Otto Hightower x Targaryen!reader || 2,470 words || complete

As the rumors about the Princess and Ser Harwin chase Lord Lyonel away, Otto Hightower is invited back to King's Landing. To thank him for his loyal service, King Viserys offers him the hand of his second daughter, you.

Letters From Oldtown

Otto Hightower x Redwyne!reader || 1,540 words || complete

Cast away, Ser Otto finds refuge in the comforts of home, where he meets the lady in charge of Daeron's education. After years of careful friendship, they start an epistolary romance when he is called back to serve the King once more.

Wine Upon Her Lips sequel to Letters From Oldtown

Otto Hightower x Redwyne!reader || 4,670 words || complete

After some time apart, a wedding brings the widowed Lady Redwyne to King's Landing and reunites her with Ser Otto. The feelings expressed during their correspondance can no longer be restrained.

Dividers by @saradika

Otto Hightower Taglist: @sunphyre @thelittleswanao3 @thedarkwhisperstome

Comment to be added to the taglist.

[lucesthings]

Robb Stark Masterlist

SERIES

DUTY

PART 1: Y/N Myrrton is set to marry the King in the North, Robb Stark. Unfortunately, they’re both in love with other people.

PART 2: Y/N attempts to come to grips with the fact that her husband-to-be has no plans to be faithful to her. Robb tries to make an effort with his bride-to-be. No matter how prissy she seems.

PART 3: The wedding arrives as do guests from all over the North, and one from Castle Black.

PART 4: The day of the wedding arrives, and though Y/N is drowning in dark memories, she forces on a brave face for her new husband.

[lucesthings]

Stay

A/N: As requested by a lovely anon! Hope it lives up to what you had in mind! If you have a request, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Pairing: Khal Drogo x reader

Summary: Whilest traveling back to your home in Quarth, you find a injuered and amnesiac man by the name of Khal Drogo. Being the daughter of a doctor, you took him in to rehibiltate him.

Warnings: Not really

Today was a day like any other. Being the daughter of the best doctor in Quarth, you were constantly called upon to help others with whatever ailes them, be it sickness or physical injury

Continuar lendo

[lucesthings]

Working Through It

Your new job as night janitor of the defunct Hawkins Lab seemed like a soothing task for your social anxiety. At least it was until you started working with Eddie "the Freak" Munson. The combination of his head-banging and the swirl of chemicals in the air provides for one Hell of a work day.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Wordcount: 15,043

Warnings: PTSD, panic attacks, mental institutions, therapy, flashbacks, nightmares, family loss, canon-typical violence, chemicals, slurs, angst, slow burn, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff

No tag list, xo!

Masterlist • Ao3 • Wattpad

---

The swampy air of mid-summer in Indiana hung heavy and damp. Everything dripped with sweat or condensation, adding to the moist air. Adhesive clung on a little tighter, glue melting of the back tape onto metal chairs and concrete walls, and no amount of scrubbing or scraping could peel up the yellow globs of offensive material made of horse hooves and broken dreams. You would know. You’d been hacking away at pasted-on propaganda for hours. 

Hot and sweaty, in a building that hadn’t had air conditioning (or power, for that matter) in years, you found yourself stripping the upper half of your workman’s boiler suit, tying the sleeves around your waist. You’d been told the full body piece was necessary against hazardous material, but at this point, you’d eat the glue if it meant it wouldn’t be on the walls or gumming the edges of all of your razorblades.

If the glue and the heat weren’t enough to drive you insane, you co-worker was. Eddie Munson, hot off the heels of a triple homicide conspiracy, the town Freak, a Satanic cultist, was scraping glue from the wall opposite yours, foam headphones blaring music over his ears, razorblades drumming the walls at rapid rates, mostly off-beat. 

“Munson!’ You growled, throwing your yellow gloves to the ground in a fit of rage. 

He didn’t respond, just kept drumming, glue left discarded, head bobbing up and down, his ponytail thrashing back and forth. 

You took a deep breath and groped your jumpsuit for your pack of cigarettes. You’d been putting off your break, hoping to get out of that hell hole as soon as possible, but it was clear you probably wouldn’t leave before sunrise. 

Your pockets came up clean, just a zippo lighter, and you grit your teeth, hand squeezing around it. Munson’s thrashing built to a crescendo, and he was fully bent at the waist, head banging now, feet leaping from the linoleum in excitement.

You took a deep breath and crossed the room to wait near his rampage. You took a step closer, knowing he’d swing his arms to meet you, and when he did, he jumped back, startled, and pulled his headphones from his head.

“Sorry,” his lips pulled back into that skin-crawling grin. “Did you say something?” 

You clenched back a retort about his stupid headphones and held out your lighter. “Can I bum a smoke?” 

Without responding, he slipped around you and out the door. You closed your eyes, said a prayer for patience, and heard him scream back to you. “You coming or what?” Asshole.

The grey building was no cooler outside than it was in, although the breeze provided better airflow than the stuffy room you’d been cleaning, and the concrete against your back and shoulders felt nice. You inhaled the nicotine, hot in your lungs, and exhaled the satisfying buzz of calm. If only you couldn’t hear the heavy metal from Munson’s headphones right beside you.

“Think you could turn that off for a minute?” You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Shit, sorry,” he fumbled with the device shoved into his pocket, and you sighed at the click of silence. 

You took another drag, kept your eyes closed, tried to block out the smell of him so close to you, sweat and grime and glue. You probably smelled no better, but he had really itched at all of your nerves over the past week, and he was edging toward the last one. “Think you could back up a little?” You snapped, pushing off the building to look at him.

His eyes widened, and he shot smoke through the corner of his mouth, hands up in surrender. “Jesus, princess. What’s got you all riled up tonight?” 

“Don’t call me that,” you ground your teeth, sucking in too deep of a drag. It singed your lungs, the back of your throat. You sputtered your exhale, thumping on your own chest with a fist. 

He made cat noises out of the back of his throat, clawed the air in front of you with an outstretched hand. You shot him a glare, and he leaned back against the wall, taking a long drag. He blew out a large cloud and shook his hair from his eyes before looking back at you. “You were such a sweet kid in high school. What the hell happened?’ 

Your heart started pounding in your chest, that familiar clawing of panic, the lick of flames and the sting of chemicals to your nostrils, the laughter of the inmates surrounding you. You swallowed it back, cancer stick to you lips, hot air in, hot air out. “Don’t you have another teenager to murder?” You seethed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Munson exhaled into the ether and stamped half his cigarette into the wall beside him. “Come back when you’re ready to play nice.” He clicked play and shoved the headphones back over his ears, retreating back into the building with slumped shoulders.

You collapsed back against the cool wall and stared up at the starry sky, hoping the tilt of your head would keep your emotions held in. You made a few loud deep breaths through your teeth, trying to whoosh away the sound of blood vessels popping and bones breaking, the screams echoing through limestone walls. You brought your cigarette to your lips with shaky hands and took a long, labored drag, tip spilling hot ash onto your middle finger and then the ground. 

You found five things you could see. Trees, a fence, grey bricks, the sidewalk, your car just in the distance. Four things you could feel. The roll of pebbles beneath your sneakers, the wiggle of your toes within damp socks, the canvas fabric of your jumpsuit between your fingers, the cool wall at your back. Three things you could hear. The breeze whistling through broken windows floors above, the soft chirp of crickets in the distance, a low hum you pulled from deep in your chest. Two things you could smell. Cigarette smoke, the rubbery talc of yellow gloves left on your index finger. One thing you could taste, the salt of sweaty fingers to your lips. 

You took another deep drag, exhaling with slumped shoulders, relaxed. You were fine. You were doing your job as janitorial night staff at Hawkins Lab, and you were safe. Tossing your cigarette butt to the ground, you crunched it beneath your sneaker.

—

The line at the bank was too long, everyone trying to get their deposits in before the weekend, and you felt choked back the amount of people guarding the entrances and smiling from nearby desks and workspaces. You managed to cash your paycheck under the stares of the teller, and shove your loot into your pocket before too many questions were asked, but you were sure you hadn’t released a breath until you spilled out into the humid parking lot. 

You still had to do grocery shopping and run to the gas station, and you did want to stop by the library or Family Video for a bit of weekend entertainment, but the amount of people had you second guessing all of that, wishing instead for the comfort of your bed and the soft purrs of your cat. Remembering your cat was out of food, you sighed and unlocked your car door, deciding to complete your errands anyway, for her.

The grocery store, luckily, wasn’t overflowing quite the way the bank had been. It was early enough on a Friday to move in and out unscathed and unseen, save the bubblegum popping cashier, Brenda, who patted her very pregnant belly and gave you the same cold-eyed stare she’d offered in the halls of Hawkins High.

Sleepy Kevin at the gas station didn’t trouble you either, as you exchanged a few wadded up bills for gas and a pack of smokes. He just offered that one-eyed smile and reminded you to have a good day. Same ole routine, week after week. It’s what kept you sane. Well, it’s what returned your sanity.

Hawkins was different, after the Earthquake, quieter. Over half the population up-and-moved elsewhere, making the streets quieter. Less kids played in yards. Less men jogged by in short-shorts. Routes were different too, the center of town totally torn up, had yet to be fully restored. Just gaping holes in the sides of abandoned buildings, the remnants of tragedy like the four, fading scars that dissected your home town. 

The library had been shaken to bits, what books made it through the fire had been transplanted to a building across town, closer to the mall, a little newly built strip mall that had barely been touched, renters moved the moment panic struck. You pulled into the parking lot and turned off your ignition, pulling your old books from the passenger’s seat to return. 

A few satisfied customers left the barbershop next door, a few more entered a pet store down the way. The opposite side of the building held a small town pizzeria, and beside that, a comic book shop. You waited patiently for an exiting family before pressing your palm to the warm metal doors. You paused when you heard someone shouting your name.

Panic flooded your chest, and you wheeled around to look at the family that had just left, happy, arms bundled with picture books. The man that left the barber shop was getting into his car. You heard your name again. Swallowing the bile rising in your throat, you turned forty-five degrees to see Eddie Munson quickly approaching from the comic book store, waving violently with something sleeved in plastic.

“Hey,” he breathed when he approached. 

“What?” You sighed, allowing your breath to slow, willing the anxiety to subside.

“Haven’t seen you in the daytime in a while.” He grinned, smacking the side of your arm with his comic book. “You look a little sick.” 

You rolled your eyes. “What do you want, Munson?” 

“Just taking my friend, Dustin, here to the comic book shop, and the library.” He stepped sideways to reveal a small boy with braces and a mess of curly hair shoved under a cap. The boy grinned and waggled his fingertips in a greeting.

“Great,” you grit your teeth and reached for the door again.

“Here,” Munson reached to hold the door open for you, and if your arms weren’t so full, you would have pushed it out of his hands, fully capable of holding a door for yourself. You bit back a remark and slid inside, the cool wave of air conditioning tickling the hairs at the back of your neck.

You slipped your stack into the return bin on the counter, flashing a polite smile at the head librarian, before heading off toward the fantasy section to find something new for the weekend. 

You were about three synopses in before you were interrupted by the shuffle of feet and a whispered, “Hi.” You glanced upward to find Munson’s friend, Dustin, grinning, rocking on the balls of his feet.

“Hi?” You blinked back at the inside cover of the hardback in your hand. 

“So you work with Eddie, huh?” 

“Unfortunately,” you grumbled, closing the book and sliding it back into place on the shelf to search for another. 

“I know he can be a lot, but he means well.” 

“Uh huh.” You tongued your molar, biting back the urge to smack this kid with your library stick. 

“He’s a really good guy, if you just give him a chance-“ 

You rounded on him, patience thinned, stick pointed to the logo in the center of his chest. “Listen, kid, I’m just trying to pick out a library book, so I can go home and get away from people. I don’t need a member of Munson’s nerdy ass club to be worshiping him in my space, okay? I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid, bucko.” 

You spoke loud enough to be shushed by the librarian, and that grated on your nerves worse than the kid himself. The library was a safe space for you, one of the few left, and this interaction was making it increasingly less-so. 

“Whoa, what’s going on over here?” To make matters worse, Munson rounded the corner, carrying the one book you’d been looking for. 

“You’re right, man.” Dustin hissed, pointing to you. “Mental.” 

Well that was the last fucking straw. You slammed your stick into the shelves so hard it snapped in your hands, and when the panic licked flames up your throat, you shoved past Eddie and through the maze of shelves.

“Shit, man, why’d you say that?” You heard from a few aisles down, followed by the ruffle of clothes indicating someone was hot on your heels. 

Clawing your way through the shelves, you shoved open the front doors, gasping into the hot air. You fumbled with your car keys as Eddie barreled through the front doors, librarian yelling at him about the book in his hand. You turned the ignition and he skid to a halt in front of your car, staring, bewildered, as you peeled out of your parking spot and drove away. 

That familiar emotion stung at your eyes, betrayal, embarrassment, fear, confirmation that Eddie went home from his shifts and talked shit about you. Even The Freak thought you were psychotic, a mess, mental. You shifted into a lower gear to drive faster, engine revving down side streets, kicking up dust along the roadside of this sleepy little town.

—

Your weekend consisted of sleeping and cat cuddling and rereading old favorites, and you’d almost forgotten the encounter at the library until, in the dim moments before your shift started, a van rolled past the gates and into the vast parking lot.

You heard it before you saw it, blaring music and the screeching of tires, but you didn’t need to turn around to know that Eddie Munson’s shitstain of a brown van would be pulling up directly beside your car. Occasionally, smoke would pour from the windows, and he’d spend the entirety of his shift giggling to himself. This time, you tried to cross the parking lot before his engine even shut off. 

Your keys were out and unlocking the deadbolt when you heard him calling your name, asking you to wait up. You didn’t. You just sauntered into the tiled front entrance and made a B-line for the janitor’s closet to start pulling on your jumpsuit and gathering supplies for today. The second floor was on your agenda for this week, and you intended to get it done as quietly and as efficiently as possible. 

The gathering of your supplies was interrupted as Munson scrambled into the closet beside you, chains on his garments jiggling as he skid to a halt. “Holy fuck.” He gasped, clutching his side. 

“You good?” You frowned, tipping the sting of bleach into the mop bucket. The smell still stung in your nostrils, reminded you of that night, but you tried to fight it, had to fight it, couldn’t go back there. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, stumbling dramatically to his jumpsuit on its hook. “I’m good.” And he stepped into it clumsily, sneakers through too-tight legs on slippery tile floors.

You rolled your eyes and ascended the dim stairwell, bucket and mop in-hand.

The overhead lighting took moments to flicker on, seizure-inducing blinking across boardroom walls until the entire room was casting in dingy yellow. Only half a bank worked, in most rooms, and you learned to work with shadows. You set your bucket in one corner and started pulling all tables and chairs into another, clearing the widest space of flooring to clean at one time. 

You spent a long time scraping skid marks from the linoleum with the rubber of your shoes, the satisfying squeak like balls on a basketball court. It brought you back to senior year, watching the boys lose their championship game. 

Munson entered, finally, jumpsuit buttoned to cover his graphic t-shirt, with a long broom to sweep away the dust and cobwebs from the floor in concise lines, clearing it to allow you to mop. His walkman hung loose around his neck, mop of hair pulled back with a loose ponytail. 

You drug your bucket to his starting point and slopped bleach water to the ground below, reveling in the satisfying squelch of sopping cotton. 

“Hey, so,” Munson leaned against his broom at the far corner of the room. You glanced up at him and back down at your work. “I just wanted to apologize for Dustin at the library, a couple of days ago.” 

Your fists clenched around the handle, stopping your movement momentarily before you pressed on, scrubs quickened in pace.

“He’s just a shit kid that really wants me to make friends.”

You snorted sourly. “Sick way to make friends.”

“And he knows we work together, so he just figured he’d try to help.” He talked over your comment, taking a few strides toward you. “I promise he didn’t know anything about… I mean, I didn’t tell him about… I don’t even really know what happened, so I couldn’t have told him…” 

You stood then, white-knuckling the mop handle, and waited for him to ramble himself deeper into the hole he’d dug. 

He sighed, shook scrappy bangs from his eyes. “What I mean is, he never would have said that if he knew.” 

And there it was, right there in his deep, brown eyes, veiled in an apology, the one emotion you’d grown too accustomed too, and the one that irritated you the most. Pity. You picked up your mop and shoved it with a splash back into the sudsy water. When you slapped it back to the ground, splatters cascaded clear across the room. 

“So, I’m apologizing for him, I guess,” Munson continued, because of course he couldn’t take a hint and shut the hell up.

“Well, thanks, I guess?” You scoffed, scrubbing hard at a particularly yellowed stain. “I just don’t really need apologies from you or your child friend. You think I can’t handle a word or two thrown around about me? A little small-town gossip?”

“That’s not-“

“No?” You stopped again, leaning toward him against your handle. “Really? You’ve never heard gossip about me, Munson? Tell me then, what do you know?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed into the high button of his blue collar.

“Tell me what you heard.” You tossed your handle to the ground, and you both startled at the smack and bounce of wood to the linoleum. You crossed to him and folded your arms over your chest. “No, really. What do you want to know? Let’s do this right now. Because you’ve clearly been thinking about it the entire time we’ve worked together, and I’m sure you have your questions. So tell me what you know, and I’ll ease your mind. Or you know, for fun, give you a few nightmares.” 

He slumped backwards to rest his rear end on the table behind him, becoming eye level with you, and his brown eyes held that same pity that caused bile to bubble into your esophagus. “I’ve seen shit too, you know.” His voice was soft, not accusatory.

“I don’t think we need to compare traumas here, asshole,” you seethed. 

“No, I wasn’t,” he scrambled, cracking his knuckles. “You can just… trust me, I guess?”

“‘Trust me.’ I’ve heard that one before.” 

“Okay, you know what?” He pushed off from the table, inches in front of you, broad chest and clenched jaw. “I’m just trying to offer a little kindness, from someone who gets it. If you’re not interested in my… whatever, I’m not going to push it. You’re more than welcome to continue to believe the entire world is against you. I’ve just been there, and it’s a dark fucking place, okay?” 

And before you could respond, he’d pulled his broom handle between you and gave your shoulder a little prod with his knuckles. “I’m going to get started on the hallway.”

You moved aside to let him through and tried to let his words roll off of you. You didn’t need his ‘kindness’. You didn’t need anyone’s. You’d taken kindness for years now, in the form of pity and regret and saddened smiles, and what was it worth? You’d never get your family back. You’d never unsee what you had seen.

You knelt to pick up your handle again, cold wetness of the floor staining the wood in dark patches. Your hands tingled and your head spun at the chemical smell, but you took a deep breath, pushed it all back, and scrubbed a little harder at that stain.

—

You picked at a mole on your forearm, feeling stuffy and uncomfortable in that big leather chair, the only air in the office provided by an oscillating fan. 

“And how has work been? Are you still worried about the triggers? How are you responding to the chemical smells?”

You shrugged. “Fine. Bleach is bleach. Haven’t managed to poison myself yet.” 

“Is that something you’d consider doing?” 

You rolled your eyes. “No. I just meant, I’m good at my job.” 

“It’s nice to clean isn’t it? Feels a bit like you have control over something.” 

You scratched a little too hard, your arm started to bleed. You covered it with your sleeve and shoved your hand between your legs. “I guess?” 

“Are you getting along with your co-worker?” 

You shrugged. “Bummed a smoke off of him the other day.” 

Your shrink stared back at you over her legal pad, and the half-rim of her glasses. “You know I don’t approve of smoking.” 

You sighed and rolled your head back, staring up at the joists of the ceiling. Dust gathered at the tops of bookshelves. Their janitor had clearly given up on ladders ages ago. 

“But I’m glad you’re making friends. Can you tell me more about him?” 

“I’d rather not.” You grumbled, but her pointed look seemed to press the matter. You folded your arms over your chest. “He listens to music too loud, talks too much, does stupid voices. He likes… comic books?” You shrugged. You were surprised you could recall that much about the only other person you spent time with, besides your shrink. Hours of your week, not spent here, or with your cat, were holed up in that condemned building, breathing in chemicals and listening to Eddie Munson mutter to himself. You guessed it wasn’t far off from your last social interactions. Plenty of people at Pennhurst mumbled to themselves.

“That’s good. Do you guys talk about your fantasy novels?” 

“No,” you mumbled, but you saw an out in the conversation. “I’m rereading Earthsea.” 

“Again? How many times is that now?” 

You’d lost count. 

“Maybe you could try comic books. You’d have something to talk about with your new friend.” 

“He isn’t my friend,” you snapped back. 

“I think it’d be good for you to let someone in.” 

Your hand flexed against your biceps, itching to do something else, to get out of there. The buzzer went off on the side table, and you leapt from your seat. 

“Wait a moment,” she scribbled a few items onto a corner of her legal pad and tore it off, handing you the yellowed paper with her blue ballpoint chicken scratch. “This is your assignment for the week. Have a good one, dear. Stay safe out there.” 

You didn’t look at her handwriting until you’d reached your car. Find out five things your coworker is interested in. With an eye roll, you crumpled the paper and discarded it on your passenger side floor mat.

—

Fuck. This couldn’t be happening. You grit your teeth and pushed a little harder on the metal cabinet pinning you to a concrete wall. You tried to move it on your own, foolishly, and it’d tumbled toward you with a crash, apparently full of items you hadn’t checked pre-move. You heaved and nothing budged, and you slammed your fists against it in frustration before you conceded. With a deep breath, you called out for your coworker. 

No response. Jesus Christ, he must have been listening to his music too loud. You were going to die under here. The metal doors had begun to slide open, something dark oozing through the crack. You panicked and tried to avoid the sludge, but your movement only pinned you further. 

Another deep breath, and you screamed, “Eddie!!!” It was maybe the only time his first name had escaped your lips, but the panic had clawed its way to your throat. The metal was digging into your collarbone, handle pinching a spot in your ribcage, and the gunk dripping from inside reminded you too much of the burst matter that had splattered your walls, coated your clothes, formed that amorphous blob.

You pitched another scream, slamming your fists into the cabinet until it banged louder than the memories flashing in your mind. You shouted Eddie’s name again and again, straining and struggling to move until a shadow hurried across the ceiling, and you heard your name returned in panicked tones. 

“I need you to push while I pull, okay?” 

“Okay,” you nodded and hunkered your weight to your thighs, as much as you could manage.

“Count of three. One, two.” You both grunted, the metal groaning at the leverage, and soon it was righting itself onto four corners again. 

Only, it was too late, and without your body blocking it, the doors swung fully open, launching several glass jars of liquid to the ground below. Heavy glass smashed and bubbled, and a large dollop of blackish brown flung itself down the entire front of your jumpsuit, coating you in a thick, viscous material that smelled of death. You heaved, but your hands were coated in it and starting to burn.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Munson was frantic, hands in his hair in panic. “Uh… showers! Fourth floor.” And he took off running before you did.

You tripped and skid, shoes sticky as molasses up two full flights, breathless and panicked. You heard the shower sputter on before you reached the room, your coworker allowing a wide berth as you slipped on tile and under the ice-cold spray. Your teeth chattered, but your hands felt instantly relieved. 

“Take your jumpsuit off.” His voice was far-off, garbled from the water cascading through your hair, down your face and neck. 

You began to unbutton, careful to keep your fingers as clean you could. Your heart raced beneath the frigid pulse of water, pressure inconsistent. You slipped the canvas material from your shoulders, exposing a smudge of brown across your white tank top from where it’d already bled through. You stepped out of your shoes, socks, saw mean stains on your jeans from where you’d taken the worst of it. Muscles spasming, you unbuttoned your fly, pulled your pants off too. 

You kicked your sticky clothes to the side and stepped over the drain, scrubbing at the stubble on your legs and ankles, rinsing until well-after the water ran clear, a swirl of brown cycloning into the sewage system from your clothes. You were so cold, but you couldn’t stop scrubbing, not until your skin was raw, and images of blood and bones quit flashing in your mind. 

Your clothes moved, and you startled, backed into the freezing tile. Your back jammed into the dial. 

Munson knelt before you, scooping your clothes with yellow, rubber gloves. He stood and held them at an arm’s length, letting the brown run-off squeeze out between you. “I’ll take these to the washer.” He grumbled, and then his gaze turned toward you. “Are you okay?” 

That same, pitiful brown look stared back you under wispy bangs. You nodded, resolute, but his gaze didn’t leave you, instead his eyes flit down your body, observing your sore spots, double-checking you hadn’t missed. Only, when his eyes returned to yours, his cheeks were pinched red, brown eyes more black, teeth rolling in his plump bottom lip. 

Your heart pounded in your ears, acutely aware of your state of undress. The hair on your legs prickled, your thighs quivered in the cold. You hugged at your middle, nipples pebbling beneath your slick tank top. Your hair clung to the sides of your face, droplets beading down your chest and shoulders. 

You watched him watch you a moment too long. You wanted to snap, call him a perv, but too much time had lapsed, and he had saved your life. Besides, the last time a boy your aged looked at you like this, you were pinned beneath Billy Hargrove, thrust against the leather seats of his Camaro. Although Billy Hargrove’s gaze was never that soft, that timid.

“Thank you,” you whispered, teeth chattering around the starting sound, breaking the spell.

Eddie ducked his head, still holding dripping clothes at arm’s length, and backed slowly out of the room. 

You stepped back under the frigid rush of water, the spray quenching every inch of you that licked with flames. “Eddie,” you gasped out the other side, clutching your hands to your chest to protect what modesty you had left. 

Eddie’s head snapped up, brown eyes locked on yours. 

“Can you f-find me something to wear?” 

His plump, pink lips split into a kind smile. As he wandered down the hallway, feet slapping on wet floors, you wondered if maybe you could add yourself to the list of interests. Your face heated, despite the rush of water, and you garbled the cold against your molars, fanning the flames that broiled through you. 

—

You hung back behind a shelf in the Children’s Section, pretending to take interest in a Sing-Along tape to avoid the notice of a gaggle of your ex-classmates. You’d picked the exact wrong time to try the video store, having slept in far too late on a Saturday. You should have just gone as soon as you’d gotten off work, but you were exhausted from scraping more adhesive from the walls of the third floor, and you slid into bed, still clothed with the lights on and fell asleep. 

So if you wanted to watch a movie this weekend, you were forced to brave the Saturday afternoon foot traffic. Your doctor said it was better to face your fears anyway. But you thought that meant talking to Keith, terrifying enough, not avoiding a bunch of bimbos you might’ve called friends once-upon-a-time. 

You had to duck to miss Carole as she swept around from the register, smacking her gum and making rude comments about the man behind the counter, but the second the bell signaled their disappearance, you popped up and hurried to the counter, eyes darting over your shoulder to make sure they’d gone for good.

“Well, look who it is.” Keith offered a yellowed smile, leaned across the counter at you. “Hey, princess.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled cash from your pocket. “Yeah, yeah. You have a movie on hold for me? Labyrinth.” You pulled a pack of Red Vines from the display. 

He searched under the counter for your tape, taking his sweet time, while he whistled. “You know, this is a pretty damn popular one. Bowie? In those tight, tight pants? It was a bit difficult to keep on hold for you.” 

“Well thanks for doing it.” You pushed your cash across the counter. “I don’t need the change.” 

“Oh, I think you’re going to owe me more than that,” he cocked an eyebrow, so proud of himself, and you held back a gag at the orange dust crusting the corners of his smile. 

A ding signaled a new customer.

“Come on, Keith. Just give me the tape,” you rolled your eyes, heart thudding in your skull.

“Yeah, Keith, give her the tape.” Someone rasped behind you. You spun around to see a young blonde girl, freckled. Her face was familiar, kind eyed. 

“You don’t work for me anymore, Buckley.” Keith snapped.

“You’re right, but I can still protect the innocent from your greasy hands. Give her the tape, and I won’t say what I caught you doing in the warm-up closet in the band room.” 

You shuddered, and Keith hissed, sliding your tape across the counter and into your fingers. He clung on for a moment too long before snapping. “This is a five day rental. No longer, you hear me? This movie is a hot commodity and I can’t afford for you to be grinding and rewinding to Bowie for longer than necessary.” 

You grimaced, and barely wanted to pick it up after he released it, now having the visual of what every renter had done before you burned into your eyelids. 

“God, please tune him out.” The girl beside you winced.

“I try to,” you nodded, and crinkled your Red Vines to your chest.

“Good,” the girl eyed you for a moment before asking, “You work with Eddie right?”

“You work with Munson the Murderer?” Keith chimed in, but the girl quickly cut him off.

“I’m Robin. I’m a friend of Eddie’s. I think we may have had Calc together?” 

Calculus felt so long ago now. It was. But even longer, lifetimes even. Maybe that’s why the freckles and blue eyes felt familiar, a past life reaching back to you through the void. “Oh yeah, hi.” You muttered, heart pounding. This was more social interaction that you would have asked for, more than you wanted, what you usually avoided. 

“Eddie’s told me a lot about you. Sounds like work can get pretty crazy up there.” 

The small talk went a little too deep for you liking, panic clawing at your throat, heart thundering in your ears. You wondered what exactly he’d told her, about your constant scolding of him? Maybe he’d mentioned you were mental. Maybe he talked about that time this week when he’d watched you strip completely naked and you had to drive yourself home in naught but a crusty pair of pajama pants he had balled up in the back of his van. 

“I’ve got to go,” you backed slowly from the counter. 

“Sure, yeah. Um… good to see you again.” Robin offered a polite small, though she seemed taken aback by the change of pace. 

“You too,” you smiled, and waved Keith off when he shrieked “FIVE DAYS, PRINCESS!”

The inside of your car was hot, muggy. You turned the ignition and cranked down one of the windows, clutching the steering wheel as you backed slowly out of the parking lot and made your way home.

—

Neither of you had touched the room in a week, black tar solidifying in one corner. Your superiors, whoever they were, assured you on the phone that it was safe and to just use gloves, but you still felt the gnawing of memories whenever you stared into the abyss and had just left it alone, moving on down the hallway and up the next flight. 

But it needed to be done. So you stood in the doorway, chewing on the inside of you cheek, eyes glazed over with exhaustion, staring at the metal cabinet that had nearly crushed you, and its contents seeping into the cracks in the floor.

“Hey,” Munson’s voice startled your daze, and you leaned back to watch him approach from down the hall. His voice echoed, a little raspier than normal. “Wanna take a smoke break with me, and then we can tackle it together?” He jiggled a pack from his pocket.

You sighed, glancing once more into the dim room before you removed your gloves and discarded them beside a bucket and razorblades in the doorway. You clicked off the light, and Eddie waited for you at the top of the stairs. You descended together, down and out, into the warmth of summer.

The crickets chirped a lazy tune, bullfrog just off-beat, a little farther out in the swampland, where the drainage systems pour from the Lab into the land. You tried not to think of chemical leaks, tried not to delve into the chemistry that led to the breakdown of your life, tried not to focus on much but the cool grey limestone at your back and the buzzing warmth leaving your lungs in a cloud of smoke, out and upwards. 

“Me too,” Eddie released his smoke in agreement with your sigh, and he rested himself beside you, about a yard to your left. “I’m fucking tired.” 

You hummed and sucked in another hot drag. The two of you hadn’t really talked since that day in the showers, decided avoidance on your part, and you hoped ignorance on his. You broke down your tasks and tackled them separate, but efficiently, and never said much else beside the occasional greeting or farewell. You could be professional, but anything beyond that mortified you.

It had all been amplified by the strange dreams plaguing your nights. Mostly you looking for your family, circling a labyrinth that resembled work a little too much, and running into the Bowie-fied version of Eddie Munson, who had you gazing into crystal balls. You often fell into his trance, and into a large bed that looked a little too much like his van. Although every time he made a move, his eyes caught fire, turned into devilish blues, and Billy Hargrove was over you, grunting and groaning. Flames licked the sides of his car. 

“If I have to kill one more spider, I’m going to freak out.” 

You turned your head to look at him, watched his shoulder wrack with a shudder, and you felt yourself smile. “Scared of a little bug, Munson?” 

“First of all, they’re arachnids, not bugs.” His lips split in a grin. “Second, they’re fucking disgusting. I got this tattoo because I thought they were metal as Hell, and I have major regrets.” He pulled the collar of his shirt down to expose black ink on alabaster skin. The pucker of scarring intrigued you, but he released and the material folded back into place.

“That’s probably like a beacon to them.” You inhaled, pointed your cigarette in his direction, exhaled. “They probably think you’re their Mother.” 

He shuddered again, smoke catching in his throat, causing him to hack a little. He thumped at his chest with a fist and croaked, “Shit, stop. That’s disgusting.” 

You felt warm, something like laughter stirring in your chest. For some reason, you thought of your therapist, thought she might be proud of you. That reminded you of your assignment. You tilted your head back against the building, took another drag while he sputtered away beside you. You squeezed your eyes closed, and said like a prayer, “You’re like the Amazing Spider-Man.” 

He went quiet, so quiet you had to turn to look at the shocked expression etched across his stupid features. “You read comics?” His brows creased in the middle, jaw still hung open like you’d told him you killed JFK.

You flicked the ash from your cigarette, crossed on arm over your chest. You shrugged, stared out at the forest. “My brother did.” And it hurt as much as you thought it would, chest tight, bile bubbling up, head dizzy, heart pounding in your skull. 

“Oh,” Munson said, leaning back beside you, though you swore he’d inched closer. “Do you know which ones he liked?” 

You took another shaky inhale, difficult under the tremble of your fingers. Of course you knew. Every day you thought of it, saw flashes of him excitedly ripping open Christmas gifts, pulling them out of the box under his bed, laying at your feet on the living room floor, little head rested in his hands while you painted your toes. They gathered dust in the back of your storage unit now.

You swallowed thickly, hot, upper lip dripping with sweat. “He really liked,” your voice hurt, strained against the lump in your throat. “The X-Men. I think Cyclops was his favorite.” You hadn’t even talked to your shrink about this shit, couldn’t remember the last time those characters’ names passed your lips.

“Cyclops is cool,” Eddie commented from beside you, voice low, careful. You could feel the eggshells beneath his feet, tiptoed steps, dam cracking. 

“What about you?” You took measured breaths. “What do you like?” And it was a lifeline thrown, frantic, a buoy to reel you back in to safety, to take the pressure off of yourself, the words and thoughts from your mouth. 

“Oh, yeah I like the X-Men. I know this girl who’s very Jean Grey.” He took it and ran, offering a slick smile. Your shoulders relaxed. “I’m more of a Conan guy though. I’m really into like… fantasy? Comics, books. Well you know, I play Dungeons and Dragons. Huge nerd.” He pointed at himself with a thumb.

You blinked back at him, your mouth dry, hand shaking ash at your side. “You read fantasy?” 

“Duh,” he collapsed dramatically back into the wall, took another drag, popping smoke rings out with his lips in a round O and fingertip to his cheek.

You bit back a smile. 

“Tolkien is like a God to me.” His brown eyes sparkled, curls thrown back against the wall, and it wasn’t until his gaze found your mouth that you realized how close you’d gotten, both unintentionally gravitated toward one another as you spoke. 

You coughed and took a step back, tossing your cigarette to the ground to smoosh under your rubber sole. “You ready to take a stab at the gunk?” 

“No.” Eddie grumbled, stamping out his own cigarette, but he hurried ahead to hold the door open for you, bowing low as you entered. “Milady.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Cool it with the accents, or I’ll make you eat the goo.” 

He flashed you a grin. “Deal.” 

—

You felt squished between two slides and shoved under a microscope. The air in here tasted stale, and you were certain she’d pulled her chair up closer. She looked at you over those half-rims, a knowing expression across her tight features, like she knew the exact confusion that surrounded your strange comraderie with Eddie Munson more than you’d been able to interpret it yourself. 

“Comic books, you told me that one last week. What else?” 

You pressed your hands tight together, clammy in the humid air, and avoided her gaze, staring instead at the globe on one of her shelves. “He reads fantasy novels. The Hobbit’s his favorite.” 

“So you have that in common? That’s great.” 

“Yep,” you popped the consonant, drummed your fingers to your knees. 

“He’s in a band, or was… his bandmates left during the Earthquake.” 

“That’s too bad. Did you talk to him about that?” 

“No.” The air turned sour. You didn’t want to talk about the earthquake, didn’t want the conversation to delve deeper than surface level. Eddie had done a good job at rambling, running his mouth like he always did, and you enjoyed listening to him as you scooped dried gunk into buckets to be tossed. But you didn’t ask too many questions, didn’t want them rounded on you. 

“Did you talk to him about you at all? About your interests?” 

“No.” Your fingernails picked at rivets in the arm of the chair, cool metal against leather. 

“I think he’d like to know things about you. It sounds like you’d be good friends. You have a lot in common.” 

“We do not have a lot in common.” You shot back. 

She cocked a brow, scribbled some things onto her notepad. 

You chewed on the inside of your cheek, stared sideways at the opened window, hot air spilling in through the fan. It wasn’t oscillating today, instead pointed between you, a breeze barely caught on the tops of your knees. 

“Okay, that’s three. What else?” 

“He did theater in high school.” 

“That’s fun. Did you go to high school together?” 

You nodded, picking a little harder at the rivet. 

“Did you know each other?” 

You shrugged. He was a year older than you until senior year. You remembered him as too loud in the cafeteria, too rowdy in hallways, too good at picking fights with the jocks. You’d seen him dealing at few parties, watched him from across a crowded room. He definitely always had a presence. And more than it fascinated you, it made you sad.

You knew about his parents, of course, Hawkins elite impossible to keep gossip from their mouths. You knew he lived at the trailer court. You knew he struggled through his studies, for truancy matters more than much else, because he was smart. 

“Is he attractive?” 

Your eyes snapped to hers, skin crawling under her smirk, and you scoffed, threw your hands in the air. “What is this? I thought I was here to solve my problems, to fix my fucked up brain, not for you to gain more information about my Freak coworker.”

“Alright,” she set her pen down, leaned back in her chair. “You want to talk about you? Go ahead. Have you been having nightmares again? How about panic attacks? Still hallucinating their deaths?” 

You swallowed, heart thundering in your ears. You crossed your arms over your chest. “I just don’t see how learning about my coworkers interests is relevant.” You whispered, resolve faltering. 

She spoke your name softly, leaning forward again on her knees. “I just worry about you being all alone.” 

“I’m not alone,” the emotion stung in your eyes, clumped inside your throat. 

“You’re not, no.” She agreed, voice too soft, too calm. “You have me, and you have Muffins, and you have this guy.” She glanced down at her paperwork for clarification. “Eddie? You have Eddie. It’s not healthy to close yourself off from everyone.” 

“I know,” you shot, but your voice was shaky. You clenched your fists in your lap for some sort of sturdy ground. 

“You lost everyone that was important to you, tragically. But it’ll be impossible to get over it if you don’t rebuild.”

You felt a tear trickle down your cheek, wet hot, and you swiped at it with a hurried hand. The buzzer went off. You gasped and sniffed and stood up.

“Your assignment for this week is to let him in. Tell him five things that are important to you.” She stood to offer you a tissue.

“Thanks, doc,” you scoffed, shouldering past her to rip open the door. “Really helpful sesh.” And you slammed the door behind you, heavy wood creating a satisfying thud.

—

Eddie jingled when he moved, chains and rings tucked into the pockets of his jumpsuit that clinked against one another like a wind chime with each air-jump and head bang. He had the volume of his Walkman turned all the way up, the crash of symbols heard from across a wide room. He’d ceased his sweeping in favor of pseudo-guitar, slender fingers picking a solo on the fretboard of the wooden handle. 

You admired him from afar, slowing your dusting to watch him work. His hands met on the handle near his pelvis, and he ground into them, stumbling onto the balls of his feet in concentration. You could barely make out the muffled solo on his headphones, but his face remained tight, screwed up in concentration. You caught yourself smiling, felt the corner of your lips turn up, your face warm. 

“NO.” You slammed your duster down, flustered as all Hell.

“Shit,” Munson dropped his broom, fumbled to tear his headphones off. They got caught in his hair, a foamy pad went flying. “Are you okay?” He breathed, staring at you with those wide, baby cow eyes. 

You ground your teeth and took a deep breath. “Fine. Sorry, sorry.” You turned away from him and took a deep breath. 

That was the fourth time you’d caught yourself staring, head tilting to observe the length of his fingers, the strength of his arms when he lifted chairs and buckets, the wide span of his back. When you shared smoke breaks, you watched the way his cheeks dimpled when he talked or laughed, melted into the twinkle in his brown eyes, noticed how plump and pink his lips are. 

It made you sick. It was your God damn therapists fault. Is he attractive? The question haunted you, plagued your dreams, banged around in your head ceaseless. What should have been a quiet and productive workweek suddenly filled with distractions and existential dread. 

Because the answer was yes, resolutely, Eddie “The Freak” Munson, was attractive. And okay, maybe the Metalhead-Drug-Dealing-Air-Guitarist wasn’t exactly your “type”, but you could point out the objective attractive qualities in the young man’s smile, in the way he brushed finger tips with your when he passed you the bleach container, in the meaty column of his throat when he’d thrown his head back in a laugh. 

Besides, just because you recognized his attractiveness, didn’t mean you were required to act on it. He sure as Hell wasn’t a Billy Hargrove. And the point of your shrink’s questions was to gain information on a friend, right? You could consider referring to Eddie Munson as your friend. Acquaintance, co-worker, maybe sometimes friend.

Your fingers trembled around your duster, dust flying every which way, coating the middle of your jumpsuit in a thin, grey layer. You chewed the inside of your cheek raw from days of almost-conversations.

“Hey, can you help me move this desk back?” His soft voice called from just over your shoulder.

You startled back around to face him. He was smiling, all dimpled cheeks and shiny eyes, and you set your duster down to help. The desk was heavier on his end, several drawers lined up on one side, and you stood in place while he swung it around. 

“So, um… I saw your friend, Robin, at Family Video the other day.” 

“She told me,” he grunted, wiped his hands on the front of his jumpsuit. 

“Oh,” you found a button on the front of your suit to fiddle with, brushed the dirt off with your thumb. 

“She said Keith was harassing you?” 

You rolled your eyes. “I can handle Keith. I may have taken a trip to the loony bin and lost my social status, but I’ll always be higher on the food chain than that Loser.” 

Eddie whistled, lips tucked into his teeth in a smile. “Well, look who just pulled out her Princess tiara.” 

“Shut up,” you scoffed, picking up your duster. “Actually, apparently I have Calculus with Robin. I think I was so far up my own ass in high school, I couldn’t physically see anyone beneath me.” 

“I was in that class too.” 

You blinked up at him, Cheshire grin and jazz hands. You tried to remember him, wracked your brain from any garbled memories of him in that class. Maybe once? Or at least, you could envision him at the back of the classroom, notably sleeping through the lecture. “You were?”

“Well, I was enrolled. Didn’t mean I went.” He laughed, drumming his knuckles on the desktop. 

“No wonder you didn’t graduate.” You snorted. 

His shoulders sunk a little, and you were full of instant regret. He rounded to his broom stick and pushed some extra lint silently into the hall before turning to face you again. “Hey, I don’t think you were as holier-than-thou as you think.” 

You shot him a confused look. 

“Do you remember that time you like totally saved my ass?” 

You shook your head slowly. 

“After you graduated, out at Sattler’s Quarry. Remember Tommy Hagan and Harrington got into that huge fight?” He emphasized his story with thrown fists. “Blood everywhere.” 

You weren’t sure that image would ever leave your mind, Tommy pinned under Steve’s thigh, blood seeping into the rocky soil, mixing into a red paste. Billy Hargrove broke it up, ripped Steve off Tommy, threw him into the hood of a car. You nodded. 

“Right, well, I was there for my… goods and services,” he cocked a brow. “And Billy Hargrove was fired up, man. So when he walked past me, I tried to push it. I don’t know why, Hell, I was probably pissed that I didn’t graduate again.”

You ducked your head at his words, guilty to have used them first. 

“But I said something to him, I don’t even know what. Something about a stick up his ass, and this dude, huge dude, remember Hargrove? He just shoved me about ten feet. Called me a fag. Asked if I wanted to look like Hagan.”

You remembered now. It was all filtered through the fuzz of alcohol, the glow of graduation, rough around the edges like a smudge on the lens. You don’t remember what Eddie said, but you remembered the shove. You remembered the steam rolling off Billy’s back all night. You remembered slipping your hand around his sticky bicep and pulling him away, coaxing him with your tongue to the underside of his ear, comforting him with blissful promises fulfilled in the back of his car. 

“He could’ve destroyed me, man.”

Eddie Munson was the antithesis of that, all soft edges past the hardened exterior, alabaster skin and Cheshire smile. He was nimble fingers and melodic laughter. He was smoke rings and flannel pajama pants, and a bit of warmth and light to cold, lonely nights in an abandoned lab. 

You felt your face heat, but you swung out your fist to meet his shoulder. 

He stumbled back dramatically, as though he’d taken a blow ten times the strength, back to the same annoying little shit. 

You rolled your eyes and pushed past him into the hallway. “Maybe I wanted to beat your ass myself, Munson.”

—

Supply closet runs were your least favorite. Cramped quarters that reeked of your worst nightmares. A windowless hole, stacked shelves full of chemicals and toilet paper, shadows cast by a flickering overhead. No, you’d avoided the closet for weeks now, politely sending your coworker up for more bleach, more paper, more buckets. 

But today he’d been busy, all the way across this section of the floor, dusting cobwebs from a room coated in them, and you didn’t want to interrupt his head-bang session just to have him get a new bucket of bleach. So you went, with courage, and a few deep breaths, hands shaking against the aluminum handle.

The light ticked a few times before it came on, bathing everything in soft white. You avoided eye contact with the rat poison in the bottom corner, crude images of rat skulls and crossbones across the fronts of giant cardboard boxes. Your hands shook against metal shelves. You glanced upward and downward, past sponges and buckets, until you found gallons of bleach, heavy pitchers, and even that was enough to set you off.

You pulled it from the shelf, arms aching under the weight, and you paused with the bottle on the floor at your feet, squeezing your eyes tight. 

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie screamed, skidding into view, and you startled, tripping over your bottle to fall to the floor at the back of the closet. 

You scrambled against the linoleum, smacking your head into the metal shelving, and you cursed, holding the smarting base of your skull.

“Shit, shit, shit!’ Eddie crowed, entering the small space to offer you a hand. 

“What is your deal, Munson?” You hissed, taking his hand to help you upright. You head pulsed with a deep thud, just where you’d smacked it, and you could feel the pool of warmth just under your skin. 

“Biggest spider of my life.” He shuddered, and you glanced over his shoulder in time to see the door slide closed. The click of the latch confirmed it.

“Shit,” you shoved past him and reached for the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. “No, no, no.” You pulled at the lever rapidly, so rapidly, in fact, that you heard the unmistakable clatter of aluminum just on the other side. The handle had broken off. “No, no, no!” You slammed your fists to the door and held your face in your hands.

“Well, fuck,” Munson offered from behind you, and you rounded on him.

“This is your fault,” you shoved your finger into his sternum. “It was a spider, Munson. Boo-freaking-hoo.”

“Big spider,” he gulped, holding both hands in the air to exhibit the size. 

The air around you grew staler by the second, the humid warmth of proximity mixed with the tang of chemicals, and your head began to spin. You backed yourself into the corner next to the door and clawed at the top buttons of your jumpsuit, struggling to catch a breath. Hazard symbols on packages stared down at you, grinning, gaping holes where eyes should be. The top of Eddie’s hair blocked the light from this angle, a cascade of shadows set about the room, and you dug your fingers into a toilet paper roll until it burst.

“Whoa, okay,” Eddie put his hands up in surrender, pity floating back into his large brown eyes. “What’s going on? Are you having a stroke?”

Were you having a stroke? You couldn’t smell. The chemicals stung in your nostrils, light flickering overhead, reminding you of the lamps around your living room, the vibrant disco of lightbulbs before the sudden burst, the splatter, the screams you heard but didn’t feel. 

“I’m just…” You gasped, pulling your jumpsuit from your shoulders. “I can’t…” 

“Can’t what? Can’t breathe?” He was too close, hands up like you had a fork pointed to his chest, like you’d escaped and had been caught just in the woods off-grounds, like you were a terrified rabbit and he was luring you back into his trap.

You squeezed your eyes closed, shook your head, sunk to the floor. Your knees pulled up to your chest and you tried to breathe, tried to regulate. What had you been taught? 

Five things you could see. Your eyes slammed open and immediately you came face to face with the rat poison boxes. A small cry escaped past your lips, and you immediately darted your eyesight upwards.

“You’ve gotta work with me here, man. I’m freaking the fuck out.” Eddie pushed his hands into his hair, his own breathing become erratic.

Eddie. Okay good, you could see Eddie. His hair, his jumpsuit, his sneakers. You gulped, pulled your hands in front of your face. Your hands. Toilet paper. Good. Four things you could feel. You felt the cold linoleum under your ass, the canvas of your jumpsuit between pinched fingers, the metal wrung of a shelf digging into your shoulder. Three things you could hear.

“Me. I’m here. You can hear me.” Eddie said, and you hadn’t realized you’d been saying everything out loud until you blinked back up at him. “Me. You can hear me. Uh…” He picked up the bleach container and sloshed it, the whoosh of liquid in plastic. It startled you. He wrapped his knuckles against the locked door. “This. You can hear that. Three things. What’s next?” 

You stared at him for a moment before hearing yourself croak, “Two things I can smell.” 

“Oh, easy,” he pulled open the cap from the bleach and offered it to you.

“No!” You called out, shielding yourself from it.

With watchful hands, he screwed the cap back on and set it on a back shelf. He looked around for a minute before squatting down to your level. He held his hands out to you, a request for permission, and you didn’t stop him, so he pressed on, just into your bubble. 

“I showered this morning.” He muttered, tugging the hair tie from his hair to release the mess from its ponytail. It fell around his face and shoulders, and his face split into a grin as he leaned into you. “Got this new shampoo. Supposed to smell more manly. What do you think?” 

You paused, still stunned at his actions, but you inhaled deeply through your nostrils. He smelled of cedar and maybe sandalwood, something Earthy under the typical stink of marijuana and tobacco, spray of bleach still settled on his hands. 

“Eh?” He sat back on his heels, squat down in front of you like a teacher to a little girl. “What else?” 

You swallowed, stale air swarmed with him. Light filtered between you, barely, but he was warm and the ground against you cool, and you licked the waxy shell of your lips. “One thing to taste.” 

He looked at you, big brown eyes, brows creased in the middle, and you felt your stomach swoop under his gaze. You were drawn back to the showers, the sweep of his eyes across your exposed flesh, lingering on the soft and sensitive bits of you. He pulled his tongue between his teeth, wet his plump lower lip, and your breath stuttered in your lungs. 

He shifted his weight, leaning toward you, and your heart thundered in your chest, different from panic, barely so, but you could feel the warmth tickle your throat, the familiar kick of something deeper in your stomach, something kinder, something you hadn’t felt in a long time. You leaned forward as well, shoulders relieved from the pressure of the metal rack. 

Only Eddie sat back, hand held between you with a little white-wrapped stick, red lettering littered the package. “Doublemint?” He grinned. With warmed cheeks, you plucked it from his hands and unfolded the paper around it. 

—

“Well, the good news is we’re not trapped forever.”

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “What are you talking about?”

“My buddy, Dustin, you remember him,” he offered you an apologetic grimace, posting himself on the floor across from you. “He makes me walkie him every morning when I get home. If he doesn’t get a walkie, he’ll come looking.” 

“What?”

He’d said it all so casual, as though it made perfect sense, and when it didn’t, he sighed and began to unbutton his jumpsuit, air growing heavier and muggier as the sun undoubtedly rose outside. “Dustin and I went through some major shit last year,” he explained with the wave of his hand. “He worries about me. ‘Specially in this shit hole.” He banged a fist into the ground. The metal racks rattled around you, bleach sloshing a few feet over your heads. 

You clung to the one closest in an attempt to stabilize it, shot him a look. 

“Sorry,” he winced, rolling up the sleeves to expose his forearms. An army of bats littered one side, faded and patched. “At least this isn’t new for us. You know. Because we’ve both spent time on the inside.” 

“No.” You argued, picking at the rubber toe of your sneakers.

“What?”

“My time on the inside was voluntary.” 

“What?” He repeated, blinking back at you, all movements stilled.

“I had myself committed,” you hissed through grit teeth. “Bet you heard it other ways, huh? Princess gets thrown into the asylum, kicking and screaming. Men in white coats, puffy walls.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched you with careful eyes. 

“Well it wasn’t like that, okay? Not for me. I walked in, asked the front desk for a room. Lady laughed at me until I told her what I saw, or what I thought…” Your words caught in your throat. You swallowed. “Anyway, they were fairly accommodating.” 

“So tell me about it,” Eddie urged, sliding his foot across the small space to kick at your shin.

“What?” 

“What was it like?” He shrugged. 

“You first.” 

He sighed, shoulders sagging against the metal shelves, jumpsuit open to his waist, exposing an enticing logo of a band you’d never heard of on his black t-shirt. “Well, being arrested for murdering several teenagers is pretty shitty. Cops aren’t exactly friendly to serial killers, fun fact.” His tone was dry, raw, probably the least chipper you’d ever seen him. “They pretty much treated me like dog shit until they found out I didn’t do it. Kicked me in the ribs, barely gave me water. Definitely no smoke breaks. Thought they might have sent me to Pennhurst once they heard my story.” 

“What happened?” You pried, curiosity rolling through you faster than your brain could shut your mouth up.

He offered a half-lipped smile, tight, didn’t reach his eyes. “Didn’t you hear the stories? Major asshole serial killer from the 50s got them. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” His voices lilted the way it often did, but there was cruelty behind it, remorse, something you couldn’t quite reach. 

“Were you scared?” 

He let out a laugh, slid through his teeth like he couldn’t believe your asked. He shook his hair from his eyes, looked at you. “Scared shitless. We’re just kids, man. We’re not supposed to see that shit. We’re not supposed to watch…” He recoiled, eyes slammed closed, and he shook his head. “I still get nightmares, like every night.” 

“Me too,” you let your knees down from your chest, arms sore from holding them up, and the canvas of your pants touched on the tile.

“They ever go away?” He asked, pleading. 

You shrugged. “Sometimes. They aren’t as gruesome as they once were. It’s mostly memories now. Opening Christmas gifts, but I can’t show them what I got because they’re around the corner, in the other room, just out of reach. Or driving down the road and they’re at the shoulder, just waving, but I can’t crank down my window to say anything to them. The crank breaks in my hands. The brakes stop working. I have to drive past.” 

“Jesus,” Eddie mumbled. 

You let out a shaky exhale, stale mint falling in the air, and you shook your shoulders out, cramps forming at the bend in your neck. 

“Why’d you leave?” He asked, voice soft, toe kicking your leg again.

“Didn’t you hear?” You laughed. “I’m cured.” 

He snorted. 

—

Eddie’s humming never ceased. A constant drumming of knuckles to kneecaps and the sweet tune of something you’d never heard of, but somehow had memorized. The air in here was hot and stale, both of you stripped out of the top half of your suits, and the flickering of the light above did your head in. 

“Munson, I swear to God,” you grumbled, jaw tight, shoulders tighter. 

“Huh?” He hadn’t realized he’d been doing it. The incessant barrage of music from his being was entirely instinctual. 

You groaned, cheek pressed against metal rack to stay cool. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to murder you.” 

He sighed, ran a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s stuck in my head.” 

“Well, now it’s stuck in mine too.”

“Okay, so tell me something,” he kicked at your shin. 

“What?” You frowned back at him, all hunched shoulders and mop of hair. 

“Fill my head with something other than this bitchin’ tune.” His lips split in a grin.

You rolled your eyes. “You want a bedtime story?” 

“No, just…” He crossed his legs, like a child, and leaned elbows on his knees toward you. His fingers tugged at the laces of your sneakers. “Did you ever have like… a dream?” 

You sighed, threw your head back, closed your eyes. “A dream? Have you lost it? What are you talking about?” 

He jiggled your ankle, thick fingers against your bare skin. “I mean like, before this. Before all of it.” And when you peeked open an eye to watch him, he sighed. “Okay, like yes, I know Hawkins Lab janitorial staff is the job everyone’s vying over, and don’t get me wrong, you look sexy as Hell in the jumpsuit.” He tugged at the cuff of your pants, and you sucked back a smile, face heating at the comment. “But like, what were you going to do? Like what was your dream?”

“What did I want to be when I grew up?”

He flashed his canines in a grin, nodded his shaggy hair up and down. 

You sighed and pulled yourself upright, tucking one knee up to hold your body weight. You left your other leg out, just below the reach of his hand. He continued to tug absently on your laces. “I wanted to be a teacher.”

God, it’d been years since you thought of that. The idea of teaching young ones pushed far aside, another life, somewhere happy with rainbows on the walls and finger-paint and hand puppets. There was no hurt there, no bloodshed, no exploding family members. 

“Like for little kids?” Eddie’s voice was soft, brown eyes watching, intersted, like a puppy.

You nodded, picking at the rubber of the shoe closest to you. “Kindergarten. They’re just cute at that age. They listen, but they’re just starting to pick up a little sass. They’re all bright-eyed about that world. They sing a lot.” You glanced up at your cellmate, all sparkly-eyed and full of song. You snorted, reaching out to poke the dimple on his left cheek. “Kind of like you.” 

“You think I’m cute?” He waggled his eyebrows.

You bit back another smile, opting for an eye roll. “You wish, Munson.” 

“I’m still waiting for Stockholm syndrome to kick in.” His expression was too smug, tongue poking out to wet his lips, and you shoved at him. 

“You perv.” 

But you both laughed, and a comfortable silence fell over the room. You watched his fingers trail the curves of your shoe, feeling the soft pressure of drawn shapes. You ventured a glance up at him, and he seemed zoned out, tongue between lips again now, but only in concentration. He bobbed his head slowly along to something, and after a few moments, you’d realized it was that damn song again, playing in a ceaseless loop around his empty little head. 

You kicked at his hand until his focused blinked back to you, and you laughed, rolled your eyes. “What about you?” 

He frowned, nodded, matter-of-fact. “I’ve always thought you were cute.” 

You felt your face heat and immediately retreated into the safety of your hands. His gaze was warm on you, waiting for you reaction, and you managed a sputtered, “I meant your dream…” 

“Oh!” He cackled, head thrown back in a laugh, as though his words were weightless, and as though your pulse hadn’t picked up in panic. “I dunno. Thought I’d be touring with my band.” 

Then, you heard a series of crashes from the hallway, the first sounds beside Eddie’s humming in hours. You both scrambled to your feet, Eddie helping you up with a sturdy grasp to the back of your arm. “Told you. We’re saved.” 

“What if it’s not your friend?” You whispered, tucking yourself behind him and pulling the top half of your jumpsuit back on. “Didn’t they warn us of vandals and shit. What if it’s just someone breaking in?” 

“Well aren’t you a ray of fucking sunshine?” He hissed, but you noticed his arm came out to protect you, hold you behind him. Maybe it was just instinct, but your stomach swooped at the gesture, and you fisted the back of his suit. 

“Eddie!? EDDIE!? IT’S DUSTIN! ARE YOU ALIVE!?” 

Eddie’s shoulders relaxed, and he shot you a smirk before walking a few steps forward to bang on the door. “DUSTIN! We’re in here! We got locked in!” 

You heard the scuffling of feet outside, the slap and squeak of sneakers on linoleum, and then a somewhat familiar voice was requesting for you to stand back. Eddie crowded your space, backing you into the corner. He was all leather and shampoo, shoulders broader than you imagined, now that he was all pushed up against you.

You cried out as something began attacking the door. A few hefty swings, and a gust of fresh air pooled in. The door was beaten through with something jagged, and soon there was space enough to climb through. With one foul kick, your rescuer managed to knock it off its hinges, and the whole thing crashed in pieces to the linoleum.

“Our heroes,” Eddie cooed, stepping out into the light hallway and swinging his arms around Dustin’s small frame. You followed shortly after to find Steve Harrington, hand on his hip, leaning his full body weight onto a baseball bat that had been nailed through about a dozen times. Your name slipped from his lips when he saw you, brows furrowed in confusion, as though you were the surprise factor here.

Eddie tried to corral him for a hug, but Steve kept him at arm’s length, dad-stance in full effect with a finger to the other boy’s chest. “I’m fucking tired, Munson. You should know better than to scare Henderson like that. If I get another walkie call this early in the morning, I’m leaving you for dead. Let’s go.”

—

Muffins purred, the rumble of fluff and fur and limbs, all piled atop your chest. Your book was straining your pinky fingers, held aloft and tilted just so to capture the dim light of your bedside table. You’d probably read the same fifteen pages over and over again, distracted by the fading black digits that cursed your left arm. 

That morning, when Steve Harrington saved your asses from dying of starvation in the supply closet, Eddie halted your trip to your car across the lot. He grabbed your wrist, pulled back the sleeve of your denim jacket, and scribbled his phone number onto your skin there, Sharpie cap between his teeth. 

“If you get nightmares, or you know, you just need a friend. I live alone and never sleep.” He said, mouth full, and winked before slowing backing himself to his van.

The numbers taunted you, refusing to budge in the shower, doing the dishes. Even Ponds couldn’t sway the scribbled handwriting of your coworker. You transferred the numbers onto a piece of paper, stuck it to your fridge, but now even that was unnecessary. You’d memorized it. Every curve of a five, every cross through sevens and zeros, as though those numbers needed to be taken down a peg. 

You sighed and tucked your bookmark into your place, wondering if you’d know what the hell was going on when you picked it up tomorrow. You set your book on your nightstand and rolled, dumping Muffin from your lap to her spot on your bed. She didn’t notice. You stretched to click off your lamp, bathing the room in darkness, sunlight poking from under the edges of your curtains on the far side of the room. You could just make out the new tattooed numbers, trailed them with the fingertips of your right hand and slowly, you fell asleep.

—

You kicked yourself up from the deep end, reaching for the soft blue sunlight, surfacing with a gasp. Your hair clung to your face, suit to your breasts, your stomach. Your hand wrapped around the ladder and you pulled yourself upright, into the sun soaked air. The lifeguard station was empty, bright red. You had to hold a hand over your eyes to see it. 

You didn’t bother with a towel, b-lined for the locker room to get out of there before the 4th of July rush. Everyone was headed to the carnival, chatting about the festivities in excitement. Gossip was thrown around about who hooked up with who. Apparently Billy Hargrove was having dinner with Heather Holloway’s family the other night. You snorted, snapped yourself out of your suit, pulled on dry underwear, denim shorts, a pink tank top. 

Big Buy was out of hot dogs, out of ketchup, running low on ice cream. You managed to grab a few other items on your list, a handwritten note from your Mom that you’d crumbled and carried in the inner pocket of your purse. Milk, eggs, barbecue sauce, cole slaw fixings, green beans for casserole. Brenda checked you out, bubblegum smacking. 

An accident blocked the roadway on your way home, people too excited to get to the Ferris wheel and fun house. You were going later, with Tommy and Carole and Tina and Jeff. Tommy promised booze and fireworks, and Tina promised her older brother was in town from college. You’d always found him attractive. 

Finally, you managed to turn down your road, hair frizzing as the pool water dried, dampening the shoulders of your tank top and the leather headrest of your car. You pulled into the driveway behind dad’s car, surprised he’d returned home so soon. They were headed to the carnival too, after dinner.

You balanced handfuls of grocery bags, and toed your front door open, calling for Mom. Something smelled off, chemically. Maybe they’d been cleaning. You crossed to the kitchen and set your haul on the counter, but it only smelled worse in there. You flicked on the light. A pile of pellets led from the kitchen to the garage. You followed it, flicked on the garage light.

A massive bag of rat poison lay open, several other bottles surrounding it, all with puncture marks, spilling, mixing with one another. You gasped into the crook of your elbow, trying to back out of there without tripping on the stuff ground into the linoleum. You coughed, sputtered. 

“Mom! Dad!?” You called their names, racing back into the living room. “What the hell happened in the garage? Mom?!”

Your parents and your little brother stood at the base of the stairs, stick-straight, holes burned through their clothes, blood and burns gathering at their lips, pouring down the fronts of them. 

“Guys? What’s going on?” 

“We’re going home.” The words sunk into you, otherworldly, as though it was the obvious answer.

—

You awoke with a scream, startling Muffins off the bed and into a dark corner. You looked frantically at your surroundings, feeling for blood, brain matter. You sucked in a few deep breaths, smelling for chemicals. You flicked on your lights, eyes darting to and fro, all around the room, only to find Muffins stuffed into your laundry hamper, grumpy that you’d woken her with such gusto. 

Your hands trembled, and you pushed the quilt off your legs. You stepped out of bed, on shaky footing, and stepped out of your room into the darkness of your apartment. You poured yourself a glass of water, and then two, and tried to stabilize your breath. You were alright. You were safe. It was just a nightmare. You ran a hand through your hair and caught something out of the corner of your eye. 

Black digits etched into your wrist. “If you get nightmares, or you know, you just need a friend.”

You stared at the numbers way too long, cold water turned tepid in your right hand, and then something possessed you to do it. Phone off the receiver, numbers jammed violently into the buttons until it connected, rang once, and you slammed the receiver back down in a panic, nearly knocking the entire phone off the wall. 

You chewed on your thumbnail, something you hadn’t done in over a year. Your hand tasted salty and bleachy and you immediately put it down and dumped your water into the sink. You watched it circle the drain and jumped when your phone rang. 

Shrill and demanding, a sound you couldn’t remember the last time you heard. You let it ring three, four times, knowing who it was, terrified to greet them. On the fifth ring, you inched your fingers toward the handle, drew it up to your ear. You took a deep breath, heard the connection, squeezed your eyes closed. “Hello?” 

“Knew it was you, Princess.”

You could hear the tired grin etched to his features, the sleep rasping in his voice. “You know I hate that nickname.” 

And then there was concern laced in his response, a hurriedness, like you sounded as miserable as you felt. “What’s wrong?”

Your breath shucked out of you. “Nightmare.” But it came out a whisper, cord wrapped around you, body hugged into the retaining wall. 

“Want to talk about it?”

You didn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t explain it, not to anyone. You’d sound fucking insane. You were fucking insane. Your heart ramped up, and you squeezed your eyes tighter, clenched your fist, your jaw, everything. “Can you meet me somewhere?” 

You heard the shuffle from his end, like he was struggling with something, maybe hiking into a pair of pants. Your face heated at the idea of him in bed, pantless, probably sleeping when you called. You felt horrible. 

“Yes,” he huffed. “Yes. Where should we meet? I’m leaving right now.” 

Your heart ached suddenly, at his haste, at the gentle change of his voice. “You know Lookout?”

“Weathertop, sure?” You smiled softly at his little fantasy-ism. “See you in ten?” 

“Okay.” And he let you hang up first.

—

Daylight melted to sunset, dipping everything in peachy pinks and tangerines. You almost chickened out three times. Once when your keys didn’t fit in the lock, hands too shaky, keyring too full. Once when you ran a red light, the blare of a horn from beside you. One when you stared at the vast open field, stained brown from too many rainless nights, sun bleached and still.

Eddie’s van was there when you parked, a crusty brown stain to blend in with the landscape, but he wasn’t inside. No, he pockmarked the tip top of the hill, a black silhouette against the clouds, shoulders slumped, smoke billowing upward. 

You climbed toward him with weak thighs, shaking knees, trepidation pounding beneath your ribcage. When you neared the top, legs aching and lungs on fire, Eddie turned on his heels to face you, reached a hand out to help you the rest of the way. 

“Hill’s a bitch if you’re a smoker,” he grinned.

You nodded, resting hand to your thighs to catch your breath. 

“Worth it though.” He gestured upwards and outwards, over Hawkins. 

Cotton candy pink clouds touched down just over the highway, spilling golden light onto dozens of brick buildings, torn asunder from the Earthquake. The roads were rippled and scarred, four corners pulling together at Town Hall, a mess of road construction, neon orange and reflective cones, massive machinery. Everything smelled of tar, rebuild, rebirth. 

You hummed, taking in the warmth of the last bits of sun poking through, the fading lights of summer coming to a close, brewing leaves and pulling autumn on the wind. 

Eddie Munson was uncharacteristically quiet beside you, and when you peeked an eye open, you saw he was watching you, a cautious smile wetting his lips. 

“I’m okay,” you reassured, hugged your denim jacket a little tighter. 

He nodded, pinched his lips together, took his place beside you, a little close, elbows touching. He turned to you again before saying. “You don’t have to like… pretend for me, or whatever. You know that, right?” 

You didn’t look at him, stared ahead at the mess of cars pooling out of Big Buy’s parking lot. 

“I just…” He sighed, shoved his own hands into his pockets, elbow bumping your ribcage. “I just want you to feel safe.” 

The words ached somewhere deep in you, with the burn of your thighs or the emotion caught in your throat. You didn’t respond, just leaned more on your left leg, stared out at Hawkins.

The two of you remained that way for a while, too long, in comfortable silence, sunlight slipping off past the horizon. Your legs grew restless, toes sticky in your shoes. Eddie began to hum.

“I knew it,” you turned to him with a smirk.

“What?” 

“Couldn’t get you to shut up for too long.” 

His lips split that, into that Cheshire grin, and he pulled his hands from his pockets, chains jingling and rings clinking against one another. The frizz of his hair was lit up orange, an ember of something you wanted to run your fingers through. Your heart thundered in your ears. 

“Munson?” You took a deep breath. 

“Yes?” He was warm, leather and cedar and smoke. His head tilted like a puppy dogs, eyes catching your stare of his lips, his throat, the pucker of scarring there, dipping into the collar of his t-shirt.

“I need to tell you five things that are important to me.” You were breathless, trembling, too close, not close enough. 

“Okay,” he laughed, like maybe you told a soft joke, but when he caught the panic on your voice, he cleared his throat. “Okay. Tell me.” 

You swallowed. “My cat, Muffins.”

“Muffins is a cute name,” he nodded, still stone-faced serious, and that helped, drew a little laugh from you. The corners of his lips turned up. “Why is Muffins important to you?” 

You shrugged. “She just is.” 

“Got it, Muffins. What else?” His brows pulled together. 

“Fantasy novels.” You nodded. “I’m rereading Earthsea.”

“Jesus Christ, that book is so good!” He emphasized with fists in the air, and you couldn’t help but laugh at that too. He dropped his hands and grasped the backs of your arms, shaking them excitedly. “Okay, Muffins and Earthsea.” One of his hands came up to expose two fingers. You immediately missed the warmth of him, relieved when he returned his grasp. “What else?” 

“I really like Jim Henson.” 

“Like… the Muppets?”

You cowered under his gaze and shrugged. “More like Dark Crystal. But yeah, I guess.” 

He flashed you a knowing grin, waggling his eyebrows. “Okay. Muffins, Earthsea, Kermit. That’s three.” He shook your shoulders with each word. “Number four?” 

You swallowed, heart racing. Your entire demeanor must have shifted because he released your arms, opened the space between you. You watched to reach out for him, to envelope him around you, as images flashed through your mind of the pool, the grocery store, the garage. We’re going home. You felt yourself well with emotion, and those big, brown eyes stared back at you, glassy, calm, full of pity. 

“My fam…” You croaked. You took a deep breath, inhale. Shaky exhale. You could do this. You stood resolute, a Stone Mountain looking out over your land, your town, your home. “My family is important to me.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie nodded, hair dancing in your periphery. “Of course they are. They’re your family. They always will be.” He inched toward you, voice soft, and said, “I’m really, really sorry for what happened to them.” 

You closed your eyes, felt a tear burst over the damn, trickling down your cheek, and you reached out beside you until you caught his hand. His fingertips were calloused, rough, warm, a stark contrast from the metal rings that were cool beneath your touch. He intertwined your fingers and pulled you in, one easy swoop until you were sunk into the meat of his neck, and his other arm was slunk around your shoulders.

His smoky breath fanned your face and dampened your hair, and you took your hand from his to wrap yourself around his waist. He was slim around the middle, but the wide expanse of his back flexed taught muscles beneath your fingers. His shirt was damp at the base and up his spine from sweat, and the leather jacket and his body heated you like a furnace. He whispered your name into your temple, a sweet well-wish, a beacon calling you back.

You pulled away with a shy laugh, warm, sticky, coaxing away any leftover tears with the back of your hand, and he kicked at the ground with his sneakers, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. 

“Thanks.” You mumbled. Your palms were sweaty. 

“Sure.” There was something in his voice, an underlying rumble. 

You saw something then, in his eyes, the way they swept over your face, your form, soaking in every inch of flesh that was exposed. You thought of your body pressed against his, could still make out the dents of you in the front of his t-shirt. You thought of the shower that day, ice cold, gooseflesh prickled, the careful, watchful stare. He was making sure you were safe, were cared for, were wanted. You licked your lips, looked down at your feet, watched his shadow inch closer. 

You ventured another glance through your eyelashes, and he took another step closer, slow, steady, hands raised in trepidation. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked.

You raised an eyebrow to him. 

He shrugged, running a hand through his mess of hair. “Because you just confessed to me that you’re into The Muppets, and I really don’t know how to handle that situation…”

You sucked in a smile and shook your head. “Munson?” 

“Yeah?” He stared at you, eyebrows raised. He’d fully stepped back into your space, face inches from yours, dimples pulled into those cheeks, pinched pink.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He did, hair cascading around your face, and nose crowding yours. He asked you if you were sure, one more time, before you stepped up on the balls of your feet and crashed your lips together. His hands found gentle space on your waist, pinching the cotton of your t-shirt between his rings, and you placed a soft hand on his neck and pulled him down toward you, taking all of the heat and smoke from his lips. He let out the sweetest, softest sound when you tangled your fingers into his hair, and you couldn’t help but smile when he pulled away and breathed, “Damn.” 

You ran your hands over his chest, felt the rippled of skin beneath the cotton of his t-shirt, and his hands came to tug at the belt loops on the sides of your shorts until you looked up at him again. His lips peeled back to expose canines, Cheshire grin turned smug.

“What’s five?” He asked, nosing at your cheek.

You frowned back at him.

“Muffins, Earthsea, Kermit, family, and…”

You shoved at his shoulder, and he released his hold on you with dramatics, flinging himself backwards like he’d taken an arrow to the chest. You rolled your eyes and started back down the hill, pinched pink sky fading into a royal blue.

“Hey! What’s five?” He called after you. 

You shrugged. “I think I need a cigarette,” you called back. “Got any in your van?” 

He took off after you, and you cried a laugh, turning heel and sprinting down the hill to your vehicles, night air softening. Crickets chirped their lazy song, Eddie’s chains jingled, and the ground was still under your rubber soles. 

[lucesthings]

hi! so i know you haven't written for eddie munson but you've posted about him so i was wondering if you could write a fic where it's about four years after he "dies" (wink wink) and he finds his way back to regular hawkins only to find that you gave birth to his kid that you were pregnant with when he "dies" and y'all have sex 👀

warnings: swearing, alcohol, mentions of pregnancy & birth, mentions of death & blood, descriptive sex, oral sex, mentions of masturbation

word count: 2.3k

masterlist

The sun was setting over Hawkins. The town that’d faced so much heartache had taken a long time to recover from Vecna, but most residents chose to just ignore the events of the last four years the best they could. Many of them were simply trying to start over and try to have a semi-normal life.

But you could never imagine having a normal life after what happened. Losing the love of your life, the person you imagined spending the rest of your life with, almost killed you.

Despite his death, you were immensely proud of him. He gave his life protecting you and his friends, saving countless lives in the process. He died a hero, which is all he’d ever wanted to be since Chrissy’s death. He took her death hard, blaming himself for not being able to help her.

That night when Dustin knocked on your bedroom door, let in by your parents, alone with tears staining his cheeks, you knew what happened. Your knees gave out from under you and you’d dropped to the floor, sobbing so loud that you were sure the neighbors could hear on the other side of the wall.

He couldn’t stop apologizing while he hugged you, crying alongside you.

You lost a piece of you. You didn’t know if you believed in soulmates, but he was yours. You were head over heels for each other the moment you met, and you felt like you could be yourselves with each other.

When you thought that it couldn’t get any worse, the day of his small funeral you found out that you were pregnant. You thought that you were being safe, using condoms every time.

You weren’t sure if one of them was broken or expired, but regardless, it took you about two weeks to come to terms with the fact that you were about to bear the child of your recently-deceased boyfriend.

Alone.

The pregnancy was difficult, although you had some help. Your and Eddie’s friends and his uncle Wayne were great always available when you needed them, bringing you food and everything else you needed when you couldn’t get it yourself.

And then your daughter was born. She had a lot of hair, and it was dark brown and she had a couple of curls, just like Eddie. Her eyes were the same color as his, and her nose was also the same. The older she got, the more she looked like him.

Four years passed rather quickly and smoothly to your relief, and she was a very happy child.

Tonight was one of the only nights you’d been able to get her down to sleep without a bit of a fight, and it felt like a miracle.

You were home alone with her, sipping on a glass of much needed wine. Your parents were working, which they’d been using as an excuse to avoid helping with your daughter, when there was a quick, frantic knock on the door. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, wanting just one night with nothing but relaxation.

But when you opened the door, the gasp that left your mouth was straight out of a film.

There, tired and out of breath, stood Eddie. Your eyes went big at the same time as his, silence heavy between the two of you.

“Eddie?” you asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Hi.” His voice was meek and shaky.

Without another word, he wrapped you in a hug, burying his face in the junction of your neck and shoulder. You instinctively hugged back, your arms squeezing him tighter than you ever had before.

Tears streamed down your cheeks and both of you sobbed, standing in the open doorway. The smell of Irish Spring on his damp hair flooded your nostrils, confusing you a bit.

When you finally pulled apart and looked at him, you studied his face, having not seen it in person in four years.

“Did you shower?” you asked softly with a sniffle.

“I couldn’t wait to see you, but you would’ve hated how I smelled.”

You chuckled. “But... How? How are you alive? And here?”

“I don’t know. I woke up in a different spot still bleeding, but I was alive. I just ran. And I hid. For four years, I searched for a way out, but it was like every exit was sealed.”

“What? But so many gates opened here.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I found my way out eventually, and I came straight here. And, to be completely honest, I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d moved.”

You shook your head. “Me either.”

His gaze was drawn away from your eyes to the toys scattered across the floor behind you. He slowly walked over, then spotting framed photos of your daughter throughout the last four years, then a portrait of the two of you together when she was almost a year old.

You closed the door before following him into the living room.

“Did you... have a kid?”

You didn’t respond at first, you just stared at the photos with him.

“She looks just like you, doesn’t she?”

He looked at you, squinting a bit in confusion. “What?”

You sighed. “The day of your funeral, I found out I was pregnant.”

He genuinely didn’t know what to say, but when he did finally speak, it came out in a soft whisper, almost as if he had to force the words out.

“Am I a dad?”

You nodded, a smile spreading across both of your faces. “You’re a dad.”

Within a few seconds, you were back to being tightly hugged, the crying only picking up, mostly from him. When he pulled back, he cupped your face in his hands, kissing you deeply.

This was a feeling you’d missed with all of your being. Your lips against Eddie’s, nothing but absolute love between the two of you manifesting into one of the most simple yet intimate acts that you’d yearned for.

And that intimate act led to your door shut, him on top of you in your bed, and your thighs wrapped around his waist. His hands ran up your body and guided your shirt off on the way, his lips immediately latching onto your braless chest.

Your hand flew to the back of his head, your fingertips running through his curly hair. He slipped his hand into your shorts and you hummed as his thick, calloused fingers drew circles over your clit.

It only took a moment for you to be completely naked, his mouth now fixed to your pussy, lips creating a seal while his tongue went to work. Your legs were bent over his shoulders, your feet pressing into his still-clothed ribs. His arms wrapped around your thighs, holding them in place.

Hearing you moaning his name for the first time in four years made him rock hard, his jeans becoming tighter by the second.

And since it’d been four years with no sex for you, it didn’t take long for your orgasm to begin building, quickly making your head spin and legs tremble.

When he squeezed your thighs, something he always did when he could tell you were about to explode, you let yourself go. You had to put your hand over your mouth to muffle your cries to keep your daughter from hearing and waking up.

This orgasm was so intense that tears fell from your eyes and dripped down your temples into your hair.

He let you ride it out, slowing his tongue’s pace as you did. When he pulled away to allow you to catch your breath, he pressed a few gentle kisses to the inside of your thighs.

“Fuck, Eddie,” you whispered as he crawled back up to kiss you, his hips grinding into yours.

A moment later, he just looked at you. He wiped your tears with his thumbs, giving you a soft smile.

Before words could be exchanged, he reached down and pulled his shirt off while you unbuckled his belt, then unbuttoned his jeans. They were discarded within just a few seconds, leaving him completely naked as well.

You reached down and slowly stroked him a couple of times and his eyes closed, his fingers gripping the sheets.

“Y/N,” he whispered, grabbing your hand to stop your movements.

“Are you okay?” Your hand moved to his face, cupping it gently. When he didn’t answer, you said, “Eddie, talk to me.”

“I don’t have a condom.”

You shook your head. “I don’t care about that. But that’s not what’s bothering you.”

“It’s just... It’s been a long time since we’ve done anything and I might’ve lost some of my rhythm and shit, and I might not last long, and I don’t want you to be disappointed-”

You pulled him down for a kiss, stopping him before he could be any more self-conscious.

“I’ve been dreaming of you coming back for four years. Four goddamn years. I want you, I need you. Please.”

He nodded, giving you a small smile.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

It only took a few more seconds for him to thrust inside of you, filling you up, filling the hole in your heart.

You sighed of relief, your fingers squeezing his shoulders as his trembling hips buried himself as deep as possible inside of you. He let out a shaky breath as one of your hands returned to its place on his cheek.

“Shit,” he whispered, looking into your eyes. Once he was settled inside of you, he gradually pulled almost all of the way out before thrusting back in.

Eddie was always a slow, gentle lover. He wanted you to know that he loved you with all of his being and he never wanted to hurt you. He loved sensual sex, and you usually found more pleasure in that than if he slammed into you as fast as humanly possible.

That wasn’t always the case, though. You usually reserved the fast, rougher stuff for when you saw each other for the first time in a while.

And tonight was one of those nights.

When he did pick up the pace, your hand found the back of his head and guided his mouth right to your neck, your other arm wrapping upwards around his shoulder.

One of his hands gripped your thigh, pressing it up against your sides a bit to spread you open more.

“Oh, god,” you moaned, him filling you up effortlessly.

The headboard quietly banged against the wall as he thrust, but the sound was masked with the harmony of your moans with his and skin slapping against skin.

Without either of you realizing, your nails were red creating crescent moons in his skin. What were previously kisses pressed to your neck were now bites on your shoulder, Eddie trying his damndest to last longer than thirty seconds.

And you could tell. His hips were faltering, his fingers balling the sheets, and his voice shaky.

“Eddie,” you keened into his ear. “Let go.”

You knew he didn’t want to right away. He wanted this to be good for you just as much as it was for him. But you didn’t want him to hold back. You wanted him to cum, and you wanted him to cum hard.

“Shit,” he mumbled, feeling himself about to go over the edge.

With a moan of your name, he allowed himself to let go, just as you’d encouraged. The sounds that fell from his mouth were close to sobs, causing his entire body to jolt and convulse as webs of cum filled you up, a couple of drops trickling out of you.

Neither of you moved for a few moments, other than your hand gently stroking his back.

When he finally looked at you, you gently smiled at him.

“Good?” you asked, tucking his hair behind his ears.

He nodded. “Good.”

He kissed you gently before whispering, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Once the two of you were cleaned up, you had your panties and shirt on, and he had his boxers on, you lay on your side with your head on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around you, landing on your shoulder. Your arm was draped across his stomach.

“You okay?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

You took in a deep breath, wondering if this would be awkward. “I haven’t even masturbated since you died.”

He furrowed his brows. “Wait, really?”

“I know, it’s... embarrassing. It just... felt wrong. Plus, most of the time I’m too tired so I just don’t.” He slowly nodded. “Have you? I can’t imagine the Upside Down is the most private place to do it.”

“Once. It was one night right after I woke up. I was taking a short nap at what was essentially your house, and I had a dream about you.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I figured it’d be a long time since we’d get to see each other again, so I jerked off. But you’re right when you say it’s not the same.”

“Yeah.”

After a moment, he asked, “What’s her name?”

“Rose.”

“Like Guns N’ Roses?”

“I wanted her name to be reminiscent of you, and I know Guns N’ Roses is one of your favorite bands.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I just wish I could’ve been here. I missed four years. I could’ve helped.”

“Well, tomorrow you can meet her.”

He couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his mouth. The idea of meeting his daughter he didn’t know he had was one that made his heart pound from excitement.

Neither of you were awake much longer than that. Asleep in the arms of your soulmate wasn’t how you expected to end tonight, but you were immensely happy to have him back.

[lucesthings]

Baby Munson | Eddie Munson

Summary: When the reader discovers that she is pregnant with Eddie Munson’s baby, she is thrown out of her own house. She finds refuge with Eddie and his uncle. Though, she must battle the struggles of pregnancy and being slightly ostracized by the town.

Warning: teenage pregnancy, neglectful parents, portrayals of pregnancy, did not include labor scene because it felt too long and detailed

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Pregnant!Reader

Type: maybe mini series idk

Word Count: 4,458 words

It had been raining heavily when it happened. The harsh sound of a wood door slamming shut in front of a seventeen year old girl. She had just been thrown out of her house by her parents since she had committed a unforgivable sin in their eyes. She was being shunned, punished.

Continuar lendo

[lucesthings]

Cauldron of Fire

Eris x Reader - trauma healing with Eris :) fourth Archeron sister style, reader is second born, and accepts Eris’s proposal after a dance - healing ensues

Warnings: angst, illusion to smut

Word Count: 7.6K

“I’ll leave it up to (Y/N), it’s her choice if she wants to go with you.”

Those words echoed in your mind every day; they were all you could think about. Rhysand’s disinterested voice, his monotonous tone - as if your future and state of wellbeing were nothing more interesting than the invisible fleck of dust on his coat. You remembered that evening, the ball you had attended with your sisters and their mates, the look in those dead violet eyes as Rhysand peered down his nose at you.

You missed the days when Nesta hated him, when she used to come to your room late at night to split wine and spent the evening discussing how much she loathed the male, how tight his leash was on her. Then she had to go and mate the other Illyrian brute seemingly out of nowhere. She claimed that did not change her feelings about the High Lord, though you saw the fire fade from her eyes, how he tamed her: no more drinking, fighting; you saw how she held her tongue - but it may have been her mate doing that for her. Elain was fully dissociated, spending her days baking or sitting by the window. She didn’t read or eat or talk, she simply existed; the only times she did open her mouth were to question if she should still consider you family. Nesta had been accepted back into her little circle once she had become shackled to Cassian. And Feyre was simply a lost cause, blinded by the mating bond, dazzled by the control her mate had, drunk on the illusion of power she held. 

Continuar lendo

[lucesthings]

oh, baby.

Summary: You and Eddie raise a baby… however, you’re not a couple and the baby isn’t real. Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader [WC: 7k ] Warnings: takes place at the beginning of season 2, language, maybe part 2? I’m so nervous to post this. Quick Links: Masterlist

"And this," Mr. Allen walked up and down each row with the most serious face. Everyone else, all the students, were plagued with potential trauma at the preface of the assignment; "this is your only priority for the next week—including this weekend and the next."

You felt a cool breeze waft as he walked past your desk, continuing on foward as Steve Harrington audibly protested his instruction. The supposed "King of Hawkins High" wasn't impressed with having to take care of a child… well, a plastic one at that.

"Mr. Allen," he began from his spot in the second row from the door. All you could see was the brown poof of hair that he had become notable for. "I don't see why we can't just start this on Monday. We've got plans… there's a football game tonight!"

There were a few agreeing hums, mostly from the said football players in the room, but it wasn't as though they would be taking part in the assignment when they were on the field. Their partners would be left alone to deal with an unpredictable toy while they tossed pigskin for three hours for fun.

"And besides," Steve continued as Mr. Allen walked back to the front of the room, setting the baby down on his desk and grabbing two plastic bowls he had scavenged from home, "Halloween is next weekend! I bet we all already have plans…"

Steve turned around in his seat and looked around the room. He saw his peers watching him carefully, some in support and others in vague concern that he would get them in further conflict by having the task take up the whole month instead of a week and a half. He glanced over you hoping that being Nancy's childhood friend would spur a call within you to support him but alas, you would not give him the satisfaction.

In the back of the room, Steve's eyes landed squarely on one sole person. He chewed on his lip before turning around.

"Hell, I bet even Munson's got plans. You know we're all busy when he's actually doing something."

At that same moment, Eddie Munson had been sitting with his legs extended through the empty chair in front of him and his arms crossed against his chest. Even if he didn't want to be there in the slightest, Steve Harrington going on a tangent in the middle of senior health class at intrigued him. And when his name slipped past the hair's lips, Eddie's face contorted. Eyes narrow and slightly offended. The new kid, Billy Hargove, laughed as he twirled his pencil. He had been there for two weeks and had swept Eddie’s weed supply clean in a matter of days.

Eddie actually didn't have plans other than Hellfire on Friday, but he couldn't say that out loud. In fact, he didn't say anything. He had an inkling someone would call him to deal at whatever party everyone was going to, but unless it happened, he was staying in and getting stoned himself.

Everyone's head turned toward him and he forgot the real reason he didn't skip that hour. They were all judgemental. He was an oddity to them. You even glanced over your own, three rows in front of him and to the right.

When he caught your gaze, you were the only one to look at him like a real human being, a person, not a freak. Just simple curiosity because everyone else had. You gave him a tiny, empathetic smile before turning back around and he found himself staring at the back of your head after it happened. It made his heart skip a beat.

"Mr. Harrington," Mr. Allen placed one of the bowls he was holding onto Steve's desk, "Nothing's changing. I've conducted this role-play for ten years and it is not changing because you, or anyone else in this class, has plans that don't fit the lifestyle of what it means to be a parent."

He pointed to the bowl before placing the other on a girl named Lisa's desk, "Steve, you pick the boys and Lisa here will pick the girls," he turned his attention back to the room as Steve ran a frustrated hand through his hair. A couple of the girls around you groaned, whispering to one another that the system was rigged because they knew they could no longer pick their partners.

"No picking partners. I'm letting the magic bowls choose them for me. No debating, no arguing. I don't care if you think your partner is bad or not, you will complete this task together. Who knows," he laughed at the looks of the students, "maybe you'll find a new friend through all of this."

“Go ahead, Steve,” he ordered, leaning against his desk with ankles crossed and an amused smile playing at his elderly lips. Glasses perched near the end of his nose, Steve huffed at him and tucked his hand away into the bowl and ruffled the slips of paper.

And like luck, Steve Harrington pulled his own name first. Eddie smiled in satisfaction at that–knowing that there was a chance Steve would most certainly be paired with someone he didn't want after he called him out in class. He hoped Billy would have the same fate too. Hell, everyone who looked at him like he was a fucking Martian from planet Mars.

The irony that Hargrove listened to the same music, smoked the same dope, and drove his car just as recklessly but remained at the top of the food chain at Hawkins High hadn’t escaped Eddie. Girls liked Billy; he played basketball, gave them cheeky smiles, and certainly did not play a fantasy game for fun. He was the antithesis of Eddie’s existence–but a bully and raging asshole too. Billy Hargrove was a piece of shit and it had taken Eddie two days in class to figure that out.

“And Steve will be paired with…” Mr. Allen waited for Lisa to mimic Steve’s draw and she unfolded the paper.

Lisa drew Tammy Thompson's name which could have been worse for Steve. It took 3 minutes for Steve to pull Billy Hargrove's name who was then paired with Kennedy Walker, the school's future valedictorian. The look on the poor girl’s face was sadly hilarious. Hargrove winked at her and she turned such a shade of red that she looked like a balloon. But before Eddie could ponder what an interesting pair that made, Steve sighed and pulled another name from the bowl.

Steve crinckled the thin strip of paper in his hand before tossing it onto his desk, "Munson," he looked at Mr. Allen who nodded as he did with each name.

"And the lucky partner?" Mr. Allen had to have been joking except there wasn't an ounce of teasing in his words. Lisa picked the name out of the bucket and unfolded it with her candy red nails. Then, she laughed. Her eyes crinkled at the side from what you could see as she sat in the first seat beside the door. She looked over her shoulder, directly at you in her line of sight and smiled like a wicked wench.

"Y/n L/n." Shit.

A few of the girls giggled, a couple of the guys whistled which had bristled the compass within you south. You didn't care that you had been paired with Eddie because of what people thought of him–the primary reason they were all bemused with the pairing–but rather at the possibility that he couldn't give two-shits about the assignment. It may have only been October but you had already caught him before two different classes being chastised by teachers for not doing his work. If he kept it up, they said, he wouldn’t graduate with his class.

"Off the hook, ladies," one of the girls on the cheer squad laughed, "Y/n's got him."

Lunch could not have arrived fast enough.

You rushed to the front of the line, grabbed your tray, and made a straight shot for the table you had taken an unassigned assigned seat at. Nancy wasn't there when you arrived so you just picked at your food, rolling the grapes in the small section they had been dumped into and watched the entrance like a hawk. Your leg bounced under the table with a tinge of nervousness, but the aggravation of failure was starting to eat you alive and it had only been an hour since Mr. Allen screwed over your grade. Slowly, the lunch room came to life and Nancy held her calculus book in one hand and purple lunch bag in the other.

Even she had a sour look on her face. Lips pursed and brow furrowed, her hand tightly clenched around the bag as the small gold promise ring from Steve shined in the harsh lighting of the room.

"You'll never believe who Mike gave my number to," Nancy huffed as she sat down; her lunch bag filled scarcely with a peanut butter and jelly and a bag of cheetos. She had four sticks of cut up celery that you gagged at, not understanding how she could enjoy the stringy vegetable for fun.

"You'll never believe who I was partnered with for Allen's baby project," You stopped pushing around your food and she looked at you with heeded interest, her eyebrows drawn together and her wide eyes concerned.

"You first," you pointed a finger at her as she shifted in her seat. The others at the table started to sit down and engage in their own conversations–you had totally forgotten about watching the doorway to the lunchroom. "Keith?"

"From the arcade! The one who always," she scrambled her hands in front of her in frustration before letting out a groan, "he's always got his dirty fingers on the buttons and offers the kids soda way past a normal time."

There was not a day that went by where you did not think that Nancy Wheeler lived with the silver spoon, nay, stick, up her ass.

"All because of someone who broke Dustin's record of Dig Dug. Who does that!?" Nancy unzipped her bag and sure enough, a PB and J with a bag of cheetos as a side with sticks of celery tucked in a plastic baggie.

"Maybe he's just playing matchmaker…" You stabbed a grape and popped into your mouth with a smile. "Steve was being an annoying shit in class today, so maybe, just maybe, you should be searching for someone else."

"When isn't he like that?" She laughed, "He's Steve Harrington for God's sake."

"Well, I think he's to blame for the luck I had in class today."

"Luck? You were just on the verge of complaining," she glanced quizzically at you, looking over your shoulder when a paper ball went flying in the direction of the table. "left," she said and you tilted to the left as the wad went flying past both your heads and ended up by the science club's table. It was a daily occurance. "So, who's your partner?"

"Eddie Munson."

Nancy stopped trying to open the bag of cheetos. "What?"

"Be glad you're not a senior yet, Nance… this project is going to be the death of me, I swear," your head found a home in your hands as you pushed the tray away from you.

"I'm going to fail it! There is no way I can get an A without a capable partner and then what? Will I have to repeat senior year because I failed health? HEALTH?" You exclaimed.

"You won't fail," she conceeded. Placing the snack onto the table, she reached out and patted the side of your arm. "If it really gets bad you can always ask Steve."

"He's partnered with Tammy Thompson. There is no way he'd help me with what Allen said about these babies."

"What did he say? Where is the doll anyway?"

"Eddie's got it. Maybe I'll never see it again if I'm lucky," you removed your hands from the table and folded them in your lap as you told her the assignment requirments and what Mr. Allen had said to expect about the baby. As you talked, she picked at her food and the fruit off your tray as some of the girls from newspaper filled the seats around you.

"At least it doesn't actually, you know, pee or anything."

"But the sensor doesn't know that it isn't real. I don't even know how he got dolls so advanced… I had a flour baby when I was a kid and this is as close to a real baby as possible except it doesn't blink."

"Creepy," she mumbled before picking the bag back up.

"Very," you agreed and took a second to glance around the room. Some of the partners were already facing their first challenges. A few were trying to quell the crying, a couple sat together planning their week out so they could work together and have equal time, but when you looked at the table that normally held Hellfire, Eddie wasn't there.

"They all laughed when my name was called," Nancy's head quirked back up at you, "I don't care that he's my partner; that's not why I'm complaining, but this isn't going to be an easy week."

That was the truth—you didn’t care that Eddie was your partner because as a person, Eddie was not as bad as everyone labeled him to be. He was actually, in an admission that you’d take to your grave instead of tell Nancy, fairly handsome and interested the hell out of you. It was the work ethic and motivation that concerned you.

"People are just mean, Y/n," you nodded in agreement, "you just need to focus on the assignment and if you're lucky, like you always are," she peered into your soul with that jealousy, "everything will go swimmingly."

Nancy Wheeler knew she spoke too soon when the doors to the lunchroom flug open with flair. She jumped and turned around in her seat when she saw your soul escape from your eyes.

"Hey! Mama!"

Jesus Fucking Christ.

He was holding the doll by its back leg, letting it dangle from his hand as if it were that black, metal lunchbox you convinced yourself had drugs tucked away in it. Eddie was looking directly at your table as though he had been searching for you for hours.

“Did he just—“ Nancy cut herself off as she watched him make his way toward the table. A group of preps flipped him off on the way and he gladly returned the bird with glee.

“He just called me ‘mama.’”

You put an arm defensively covering your face, shielding your eyes away from him as the Hellfire table furthered his amusement by cackling at him. Nancy whipped her head back around to you and felt the embarrassment roll off.

“It’s only a week,” she reminded you, “only about a week.”

Eddie’s feet landed at the end of the table and the girls at the end went silent. He was standing there, holding the doll by its hind leg, and quirked his head to the side. His eyes were entertained at the way you had blocked yourself away from him. The call of ‘mama’ making your skin crawl and elating him from far away. He could push a few buttons without feeling bad about it.

“You embarrassed of me, L/n?” He feigned hurt, “what’s our kid gonna think when he learns his parents don’t get along?”

“It’s a doll, Munson,” your hand that had been blocking your face hit the table hard. “It has no memories and will certainly, never, ever, grow up.”

“If Allen heard you say that he’d give us an F,” he walked around the table and took a seat beside you, legs spread as they caged you in from the side and he plopped the baby on the table with a thud. It’s head face down on the table as its poorly drawn on strands of hair faced the ceiling. He was wearing double denim. A jacket filled with pins and patches, a chain hung from one loop of his pants to another and the red flannel he wore underneath it was left open to reveal a t-shirt for a band you had never heard of—holes littered the neckline that sat beneath a silver chain.

Across from you, Nancy sat rigid as she watched the way Eddie’s eyes watched you. A small smile playing on his face as one of his hands found themselves in his lap and the other elbow perched on the table beside the doll.

“We should probably talk about this, huh?” He asked, surprising you by actually wanting to talk about the assignment. You turned your head and looked at him, eyes bemused by his willingness to do so. Eddie recognized that, scoffing and reaching inside of his jean jacket to grab a pack of cigarettes before tapping one out. He slipped them back in and stuck the one he plucked from the pack between his lips.

“You know,” he glanced at you, then Nancy, then back at you, “when a teacher tells us we have to work together, I don’t expect to do all the talking.” He lit the cigarette with a puff and the girls at the end of the table began to complain. No one was allowed to smoke in the cafeteria—only the teachers lounge and well, that was reserved for teachers.

“How do I know you actually want to talk about this?” You countered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you turn in an assignment before.”

“You been takin’ notice of me, L/n?” He smiled wide, grabbing the cig with two fingers and tapping it onto the floor. “If you wanted to talk to me you could just do it, ya know? Don’t need to stare at me.”

“Wheeler,” he looked at Nancy who drew her brows together, the tight contortion of her face judging him without words. “You know your friend has been watching me? Should I put an add in the paper for a bodyguard to protect me from my stalker?” Nancy didn’t reply because she had never held a conversation with Eddie before. She didn’t understand his humor, let alone the levity of his words as he blew smoke in her face and sat next to her best friend like a suave Casanova.

“Eddie,” you sighed, letting your gaze drift around the cafeteria and caught a few interested stares along with way. One teacher, Ms. Kirch–the freshman biology teacher with a hard-on for students willing to press her buttons—was walking around the perimeter on the other side. If she saw Eddie smoking, they’d both make a scene.

“I know you think school’s a joke but I’m not failing this just because you don’t want to do it.”

“Who said I don’t want to do this?” He furrowed his brows, shaking his head at you as he put the cigarette back to his lips. The red burning as he breathed in.

“Oh I don’t know… you’re attendance record, report cards, all previous group projects that I’ve never seen you show up for.”

“Those are all Ms. O’Donnell’s,” he defended, pointing a finger at you, “She’s a bitch and has it out for me.”

“I just want to know for sure that if we do this together, I won’t be left to do all the work at the end.”

Eddie saw the honesty in your eyes as you admitted it. He never truly understood what it meant to be an academic because it felt superficial. The attachment to good grades and praise that he never got, so, naturally, he never comprehended. You were a good student—a good person, rather. When he heard your name called after his and the snickers that followed, Eddie was reminded of the fact that you didn’t treat him like a ‘freak’ but a person. And hell, there was a first time for everything when he wanted to try something new. Completing a project because his partner didn’t treat him like dirt? Eddie could at least try it out.

“Why do you think I’m here?” He tapped the cigarette and the ash fell to the floor again. “If I’m going to graduate, I’ve gotta get this done too.”

You nodded slowly in observation. Eddie did not appear to be lying. That blasé attitude he had walked in with gradually decreasing the more you talked. Glancing again at Ms. Kirch who was directly across the room from you beside the table of jocks, the details of the week would be limited to a few seconds before she came charging over and causing a scene. You turned to the small stack of one notebook and history textbook that laid next to your tray. Ripping a paper out of it, you stole the pencil from Nancy’s stack and wrote down your address on it.

“Here,” you handed it to him and he looked over it with a smirk, “that’s my address and phone number. Kirch is going to bite your head off in a minute and we don’t have time to go over all the details so if you’re free later, stop over after school and we can divide everything out.” He knew where you lived. Three doors down from Gareth—his friend and band mate and also, another one of Hawkins’ finest on their way to repeating their final year of school and he was only a sophomore.

“Your parents aren’t gonna beat my ass or anything when I get there? I know I have a bit of a…” he clicked his tongue, tipping his head to the side, “reputation.”

The shrug you gave did not ease his concerns right away. However, the comment that followed made him realize that actually attempting to complete this project with you was a good thing. Maybe luck was finally giving him a chance.

“Not everyone in this town thinks you’re a freak, Munson,” you gave him a small smile, pointing your own finger to one of the buttons on his jacket, “besides, my dad’s favorite band is WASP. I think he’d like someone to talk about it with—even if just for a second.”

He smiled and Nancy Wheeler was taken aback by the scene in front of her. Seven minutes ago, you were in distress with the idea that Eddie Munson was going to be the worst partner imaginable and the cause of failure in senior health class. Now, you were offering him kind smiles and an invitation to your home with so much as his own words being enough to convince you that he wouldn’t leave you high and dry with an unpredictable doll.

Eddie grabbed the doll by its leg again, ready to escape before Kirch made her way but you could already hear her footsteps coming barreling your direction.

“I’ll take it now and bring it over later,” he nodded, sticking the cigarette between his lips again and letting it dangle there, “we should probably give it name instead of referring it as an ‘it.’”

“Mr. Munson!” That shrill voice made him cringe.

“Think about it. We’ll talk about it later, yeah?” He rose his eyebrows at you as if asking you to agree. You nodded, giving a small ‘yeah’ in response before he shot out of the seat.

“Mr. Munson, smoke outside if you must! Do you not understand the rules of this school?”

Behind you as he stood, Eddie turned toward Ms. Kirch. He let out a puff of smoke between his lips as her hand batted the fumes away from her face. The doll hanging on its one limb and swinging left to right as Eddie taunted her.

“Ms. Kirch,” he swooned, a few amused giggles sound from the tables around you as your head tipped over your shoulder, Eddie’s eyes flashed to yours as he played into her hand. “If you wanted to compliment my ability to break those so-called rules, you could at least sound excited to say it.”

“You put that out right now or you’ll be spending after school in detention and it’s going straight onto your record!”

“On my record!?” He laid his free hand on his chest, slowly backing up from where he was standing. Eddie was going to bolt because the old woman wouldn’t run after him. “Ms. Kirch, you know how much I respect my record,” he shook his head dramatically, hair vibrating with the shake as the bud sizzled again. “But, I have plans tonight so…”

The cigarette fell to the floor from his lips, cooling against the white tile as she went to protest. Eddie’s shoe squished it, extinguishing it, and once his foot lifted from the flattened cig, he ran. Ms. Kirch walked no more than two feet as brief laughter erupted in the area—sure they all made fun of Eddie and ostracized him from normal high school life but hell, if he didn’t bring a bit of joy to them when he pissed off the old lady that watched them all like a hawk in their most free period. A chuckle slipped out of you and she turned to you with a glare.

“Do you find this funny, Ms. L/n?”

She smelt like stale flowers and her lipstick was pearled in some spaces on her lips. Kirch was haggard and growing older every day.

“No, ma’am,” you shook your head at her and turned back around. Nancy was sitting with wide eyes, scared of the woman who lingered for a moment behind you before running off to find a janitor to clean up.

“Shit,” Nancy muttered quietly.

“What?”

“He’s deranged, Y/n. Deranged.”

“It’s only about a week, right, Nance? Only about a week.”

And that week would be the most interesting week of your life.

Eddie came over as he said that afternoon after school. At your kitchen table before your parents got home from work, you both devised a plan on how to go about taking care of the doll—and as Eddie had asked, you tried to think of a name but that was harder than it proved to be. He said the first thing that popped into his head and that was unfortunately, Bilbo.

Bilbo. A doll named after Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit was the baby you had to take care of together.

It did not even matter that the doll was plastically formed with female anatomy because he said: “What’s in a name, anyway? It’s just a doll.”

So, Bilbo it was.

And Eddie offered to take it for the night because he had Hellfire on Friday’s when you had nothing, therefore you could swap in the morning and you’d go about the plan when the weekend arrived. The plan, however, was more than what you had originally believed needed to take place for the assignment. Nancy called you Thursday evening after Eddie had left to complain that Steve would be spending all of his free time helping Tammy with the doll and was blowing her off until Halloween—a whole week later. You hadn’t fully realized that what you and Eddie had planned to ensure that you’d both pass health this semester was essentially spending all of your time together [sans Tuesday when his band played at The Hideout and Friday when he had Hellfire].

You slept well Thursday with those thoughts lingering in the back of your mind. Nancy’s concerns were her concerns. She had confided in you that she and Steve were having issues anyway, so one more nail in the coffin did not appear to be as detrimental as she complained it was. If Steve and Nancy were on their final string, the end was imminent. When you woke on Friday, the first thing on your mind was how the night had gone for Eddie and if what Mr. Allen said was true about the babies, had he had an absolutely awful night being a ‘parent’ for the first time?

That question was answered rather quickly as you entered the hallway at seven-thirty.

“Mary! You can’t just leave me with the thing!”

“I am not taking it tonight!”

“It wants food and there’s no way to feed it!”

There were ‘couples’ fighting at every turn. As you passed Tammy Thompson’s locker, Steve looked like he wanted to pull his hair out.

“I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” He complained to her as he held the baby on his hip. It was a sight. Steve in his tight jeans and blue jacket, striped polo, to have a doll perched on his hip like it was real. Everyone was taking it seriously which made the entire situation feel less awkward and daunting.

You reached your own locker, twisting the combination while trying to snoop on Steve’s conversation five lockers down on your left.

“This thing never shuts up! I got no sleep last night and I don’t think I’ll even be able to go to the game tonight because I’m dragging ass!”

“Steve, come on…” Tammy trailed off because she had to sing the national anthem and could not bring the doll with her. But she should have—the doll could probably sing better than her.

“It’s not fair, Tammy!” Steve’s voice began to dwindle as he looked around and noticed people staring at him. He locked eyes with you over Tammy’s shoulder and sighed heavily.

Suddenly, the textbooks and folders in your locker became interesting—far more interesting than all the arguing going on in the hallway. Mr. Allen had made everything difficult intentionally. Splitting up groups so one person cared for the doll at a time before each group realized they couldn’t do it alone. The tactic was good, great even. The responsibilities of childcare and parenting obvious to those who had terrible nights and to those who hadn’t had realized it yet, the feelings were inbound.

As was Eddie. Charging down the hallway after barely hitting a gaggle of kids heading to the middle school in the parking lot and the doll, Bilbo, once again hanging from its hind leg as it swung. He called out your name so loud that even Steve had shut his mouth and stopped talking to Tammy. Eddie had one of those bad nights too. He strode right up to the side of your locker and had a crazed look on his face.

“What the fuck!?” He exclaimed, bags under his eyes. You couldn’t answer the question because you weren’t sure what had gone on.

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’!? This thing,” he held it up like a captured possum, “kept me up all night with its relentless screaming and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off!”

“I don’t think you can turn it off,” you commented, grabbing your science book and folder as your bag hung from the hook. “That’s not the point of the project. The point is to learn how to care for it, not turn it off.”

“Well,” he laughed cynically, “we were given a devil child. Literally the spawn of goddamn satan because it doesn’t want to be cared for.”

“I thought we weren’t calling it ‘it’ anymore. Bilbo, remember?”

“Bilbo is too kind of name for this thing. It’s Lucifer… fucking… Sauron!”

“I can’t get on-board with Sauron,” you bit back a smile at his suffering, “But your duty is over now, right? Just leave Bilbo with me and we can meet up tomorrow and swap.”

“You’re not going to be able to do it alone,” he said it honestly, like he was terrified of the watermelon sized piece of plastic. You glanced around the hallway and saw all the partners having conversations similar, but all the same different, like the one you were having with Eddie. He was having an internal battle with himself—realizing that he actually had to do this and that when looking back on his own life, if this is what having a child was like, he could not imagine how his parents got through high school having him at sixteen. He had just turned eighteen and could barely keep it together and it was a doll named after a character from a children’s book.

“Do you not believe I can?” You questioned him yet he shook his head, taking note of the things in your locker instead of looking at you.

“That thing is a monster and if it’s not waking you up, it’s eating away all your free time. If it’s not eating away at your free time, it’s taking up all the time spent doing things that matter. It sucks the joy out of life without even taking a real breath.”

“Those are harsh words, Munson,” a sigh left your lips as you gripped your locker door. He was looking at the two Polaroids that were stuck on the door with tape. You and Nancy on the Fourth of July and then you with a group of little kids a few Halloween’s back dressed as character’s from Star Wars. You were hugging a curly haired Han Solo that had no teeth. “But maybe you just don’t have the parental touch that it needs.”

“What are you saying?” He narrowed his eyes, “That I’m neglecting Bilbo’s needs?”

“Maybe,” you shut your locker, “But either way, you have Hellfire and I agreed to take ‘em off your hands today so,” you grabbed Bilbo from him and perched him like Steve had perched his doll. Something stuck inside Eddie in that moment. It was a goddamn doll and he was sleep deprived, so he conflated his bubbling feelings of whatever the hell spurred inside of him to that. You looked cute holding the doll like that.

“We can talk about it tomorrow, alright? If anything needs to change, we have time to discuss it. Don’t get all worried.”

Eddie shook his head, running both of his hands through his hair and over his bangs before bringing them back down.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, mama.”

And then he walked away. You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, but, certainly it couldn’t be as bad as he was making it because sometimes, people could be dramatic—and Eddie Munson was the dictionary definition of the word. Always had been, always would be, and maybe, he was playing with the truth.

For three hours it had gone swimmingly. Bilbo made no noise.

But the minute Mr. Grosso put the Spanish test on your desk, the doll wailed so loud it made a girl scream from the other side of the room and you missed the test because it cried for thirty minutes in the bathroom before you could calm it down.

You swore you could hear the popping of his muffler three miles away. The blinds on the living room window comically split into two by your fingers, you peered out in anticipation you had gone to sleep feeling. Not quite butterflies but a nervous, anxious energy that kept you tossing and turning through the night. Along with Bilbo—the baby had kept you tossing and turning to the point where you felt crazy.

When you got home, you realized that the doll had smelt like weed and cigarettes but the distinct smell of Eddie’s cologne tried to cover it up. He had sprayed that doll with so much liquid that it had become ingrained into its clothes and soft body. You ripped off the onesie it was wearing and dunked it in the laundry immediately. And again, for the first few hours you managed to get your homework done for the weekend without much interruption until your parents got home.

They were utterly amused with the project and kept repeating that it was good for “skill building and responsibility.” You rolled your eyes and told them what Eddie had said about his night, expecting the same for your own and sure enough, it was like walking through the pits of hell.

Bilbo’s journey, Frodo’s journey… neither of them had the same horror of the screaming baby doll sitting on your comforter at two in the morning. Hour after hour, all you wanted to do was cry because it wasn’t responding to any of the tactics you had used when you would babysit. No rocking, no shushing, no gentle strokes, and just as the others complained in the hall, you couldn’t change its diaper or feed it. The solutions to ease it’s complications were non-existent.

Eddie rung you at eleven thirty saying he’d be over ‘in a bit’ and you stood at the window in your living room while your dad watched TV and your mom cooked lunch. The doll laying quietly on the sofa beside him for the first time in a half hour.

“So,” your dad cleared his throat as the program changed at noon, “what’s Eddie Munson like as a partner? I know his uncle Wayne from the plant.”

“He’s fine thus far,” you muttered, not tearing your eyes away from the window.

“You know this doll smells like a skunk.”

“It’s weed, dad,” you said so casually his eyebrows rose, “and it’s Eddie’s, not mine. And no, I don’t smoke.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he laughed but he would have. Not that he cared in the slightest if you did, that was all mom. Mom cared about reputation and manners and whether or not you’d have yellow teeth by the time you’re fifty. “But is he treating you alright?”

“What do you mean?” You looked away from the window and back at him, “We’re not really a couple, you know. It’s just a project,”

“I know, I know,” he clarified, waving you off like you had taken the comment too seriously, “as a partner. Not making you feel uncomfortable or anything?”

He might know Wayne, but the label of ‘freak’ extended beyond school. Eddie Munson flew around town in his beat up van playing his metal music at the highest level, smoked and loitered outside of stores, and very frequently, jested with the people of Hawkins to amuse his merry band of oddities.

“Eddie’s a good guy, dad,” you lamented, “so what if he likes metal and plays D&D.”

“D&D?”

“Yeah,” you furrowed your brows at him, “what did you think he did? He literally named the doll after Bilbo Baggins.”

“I thought Hellfire was…”

“What the mothers at the grocery store say it is?” You scoffed and turned back to the window, Eddie’s van turning the corner at the end of the block. “It’s a D&D club. I told him he’d probably get along with you too so try not to accuse him of worshiping the Devil, ‘Kay? That’s like… the furthest thing from the truth.”

He just nodded as you defended Eddie, a little smile on his face because he knew you so well. You were a good kid, a smart kid, but oblivious sometimes. If Steve Harrington had been your partner and he inquired about Steve’s role as a partner, you would have rolled your eyes and ended the conversation there. Eddie pulled into the driveway and you grabbed the baby off the couch, marching to the door. Opening it wide, he hadn’t even exited the van before you were standing there. Split between the wooden door and the glass one, pumpkins littered the small deck and a wreath rested on the door behind your head.

You had a cute house. It was simple and friendly, something his trailer was not. Eddie saw you standing there with a flat face and Bilbo in your hands and he laughed in his car. You could see his elated face burst with laughter; it irritated you but you couldn’t help thinking the sight was special. How often he had been smiling and laughing in your presence and a little butterfly sprouted in the pit of your stomach.

Eddie tossed the keys between his palms as he lazily approached the door, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Looks like someone had a rough night,” he commented a few feet from you as you unlocked the glass door and propped it open. “Didn’t believe me when I said it was Satan?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you lied, putting on a face for him to prove you could handle the stress of taking care of a plastic doll. “Bilbo was a saint. Slept through the night.”

Eddie reached the door, holding onto the silver handle so you could let go.

“Yeah?” He questioned, “tell that to your face, sweetheart. You got no sleep and you look like you walked through Mordor.”

“Do you always reference Lord of the Rings or is it just to prove you read?” You squinted your eyes at him.

“One, I do read,” Eddie entered your house and stood across from you in the small doorway. The doll separating you, he looked down, you looked up. “And two, Bilbo likes it when I talk about familiar things,” He gave a wide, toothy smile before grabbing the doll out of your hands and moving into the entryway.

“You know, this kind of feels like how I’d imagine kids of divorce feel.”

“Like being pawned off by their parents every other day because rules told them to?” You shut the door behind you, pressing it closed with the thud. You pointed to his shoes and directed him to take them off to where a mat sat beside the wooden table with a mirror hanging above it.

“Mhm,” he hummed as he slipped them off. He was wearing matching socks. “Poor ‘lil Bilbo Munson-L/n… separated by the rules written on the back of Mr. Richard’s history test.”

You scoffed, walking past him and down the hallway as he struggled with his right shoe. In a matter of seconds, his socked feet patted against the wood flooring and caught up with you.

“My parents are home so don’t be weird or anything,” you muttered and he caught himself nodding at the direction instead of responding with the sarcastic remark because of the way you said it. ‘Don’t be weird or anything,’ as if he was not already labeled that way or saw himself as ‘weird.’ Yes, Eddie was unique and full of a million things you weren’t sure fit a narrative of ‘normal,’ but it didn’t mean he was weird. He was just Eddie.

You rounded a small archway that revealed a living room and an older man sitting on the couch watching the tv. His eyes left the screen and met Eddie’s—who was immediately more reserved than he had thought he’d be. He was nervous, suddenly. Standing in your home, with your father in one room and mother in another, with the task of caring for a baby together looming over his head like a cloud. It was ridiculous and confusing but all the same exciting and challenging for him.

“This is, um,” you glanced at Eddie to put him on the spot. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out at first. He was holding the baby like a real baby and moved it to extend his hand to your dad.

“Eddie. Eddie Munson. Thanks for letting us use your house,” he said as cool as he could. Your dad looked at his hand, taking not a second later to grip it strongly and shake it.

You noticed the way Eddie’s eyes lit up at being welcomed. His hesitancy dissipating as your dad asked him a question, yet all you could do was watch him. The feeling was odd. Watching Eddie interact with your father was like watching a significant other be terrified to meet the parents for the first time. It was terrifiying how quickly that idea not only came to your mind, but felt normal.

Conversations between the two of you before being assigned partners had been totaled at three.

And now Eddie Munson was talking to your dad about their shared connection to Wayne Munson in the middle of your living room.

And for some reason, the sight of it was something you wouldn’t be mad about becoming a normal occurrence.

“I hear you play D&D?” He asked Eddie who glanced at you, already looking at him, before nodding and turning back to your dad. He hadn’t expected you to have talked about him at all.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“You know,” Rising from the couch, “She babysits some kids that play it. They’re quite the rambunctious bunch but have nothing on that… what did you say its name was?” He asked you, but Eddie answered at the same time you did.

“Bilbo.”

He laughed, repeating the name as he turned toward another archway that led to the kitchen and tipped his head in that direction.

“We never had to do a project like that but I think it’ll do you both good.”

Your mom was standing in the kitchen making grilled cheeses and stirring tomato soup on the stove. She turned her head over her shoulder and gave Eddie a smile. He returned it as his eyes flicked all over the space. He took in the pictures on the wall, the types of plates your family used, the way the sink had a window overlooking the backyard and there was a dog outside on a leash laying on the brick patio. Eddie didn’t have this life. He walked to the patio door and looked out at the yard.

“You gotta pretty nice house here, L/n,” he mumbled as you came to stand beside him. His fingers digging into the plush body of Bilbo as a bit of his hardened shell began to tell him he was out of place.

“It’s nice, yeah,” you admitted, “but it’s a carbon copy of all the houses in this neighborhood.”

He hadn’t put two and two together and noticed the layout was similar to Gareth’s down the street.

“You con your parents to be nice to me too?” He glanced at you as if looking for a conspiracy. That somehow, nothing in his life was this easy. That there was a superficial reason talking to you came easy; that there was a mysterious reason your parents accepted him even if he wore a leather jacket and Motörhead t-shirt and a spattering of rings on his fingers. You weren’t necessarily friends in any way, but he felt comfortable. He looked into your eyes and felt secure because of what? Kindness? The noticeable attention of a girl finally making him soft?

“No,” you said honestly, “just told them a bit about who you were. That’s all. Are you going to stay?”

“Stay?”

“I just thought,” you felt your mouth go dry with his question. Perhaps you were being too forward or not thinking clearly because the sight of him being domestic with a doll had awakened a sleeping giant inside of you. His big, brown, cow-like eyes scanned over your face as you stuttered. “I just thought it’d be easier for both of us the longer we did it together.”

“Oh,” was the sound that escaped between his lips and you immediately began retracting you words. Your parents watched the two of you from the other side of the counter with knowing looks in their eyes.

“It’s fine!” You laughed nervously. “You don’t have to stay. I was just shooting the shit, you know? I’m not trying to keep you from your plans or anything… my mom makes a real mean gc and—“

“—I’ll stay.” Eddie cut in and you stopped rambling, letting the words fall from your lips as he nodded. “I want to stay.”

“O-Okay, um,” you looked into those brown eyes a second longer than you should have before peaking past him and to your parents who tried to appear occupied with cooking. “Eddie’s gonna stay for a bit, if that’s fine.”

“Yeah, hun,” your mom kept her back turned to you and stirred the pot. “He’s always welcome.”

Always welcome.

He had to have hit the lottery with this one. A good, pretty partner and a space to escape to that welcomed him without judgement? He was either in the first circle of Hell or ascending to peace yet his feet were planted on the ground—not a foot from your own.

Eddie spent the entire afternoon there. When the sun fell and the moon rose high, you yawned on the floor of your basement and he knew that it was far past a normal time to spend sitting around, laughing and trying to sooth the inexplainable outbursts of Bilbo. His face hurt from the stupid smile that he couldn’t wipe from his face once the two of you had figured out that the doll had sensors under its arms and swaddling helped stop the crying until another unexplained outburst required attention.

When he walked to his van with the doll swaddled in his arms like a real baby, he turned back as he opened the door and shot one last look to the house where you were still standing to bid him goodbye. Eddie didn’t want to leave. He felt his heart squeeze when you gave him a small wave, illuminated by the yellow lighting of the hallway behind you. Shit. He got into the van and sped off before pulling into Gareth’s driveway and pounded on the door.

You shut the front door and with a lock, your dad turned off the tv in the living room before walking into the hallway to meet you there. Both headed to bed, he put an arm around your shoulders and squeezed.

“We gonna talk about that or no?” He asked.

“About what?”

“That!” He laughed as you felt your face heat up. Rising on the Kelvin scale, you felt a spotlight shrink itself onto you. “You gotta little crush there, darlin’ and to be frank, I think he might too.”

“Dad!” You complained, jostling out of his grip and walking more quickly toward your bedroom. “I don’t like Eddie!”

“Yeah, sure you don’t,” he chuckled as you pushed opened your bedroom door and slammed it closed in embarrassment. “But really, you do.”

Eddie pounded on Gareth’s door for three minutes but no one was coming to the door. Desperate, he put his ear to the wood and heard the distinct thumping of drums echoing throughout the house and contemplated for a moment. He could keep knocking and draw the attention of the neighbors and get the cops called on him for suspicious behavior, or, he could go around to the back and knock on Gareth’s window in hopes that it was closer and louder.

He jumped off the stoop and made for the window. Inside, Gareth was head banging as he played Iron Maiden on his drums and had a literal lava lamp reflecting off the symbols. Eddie put his fist to the glass and waited for a break in the beats to thump. Gareth jumped, a scream emitting from his mouth as his sticks went flying across his room and Eddie waved a hand at him from the other side.

“What the fuck, man?” Gareth opened the window and nearly shivered at the cool, October air. “Why are you here? The cops after you?”

“I just spent eight hours in Y/n L/n’s basement taking care of a goddamn baby and eating her mother’s food.”

“Shit,” Gareth laughed, “that sounds like a fuckin’ dream if you ask me.”

“It’s a nightmare, Gareth. A fucking nightmare.”

“Why?” The floppy hair Gareth had been sporting fell into his eyes as they contorted in confusion. “She’s a nice girl. Her old man helps mine when the cars busted.”

“Of course he does!” Eddie pushed off the windowsill and put his hands above his head, breathing in deeply.

“What? He threaten you or something?”

“No, they were,” Eddie’s face scrunched as if it pained him to say the word, “perfect.”

“Then…” Gareth motioned with his hand for Eddie to continue.

“That’s it! They were perfect! She’s perfect, man!” Then, he let a slew of curses leave his mouth and disappear into the night sky. Gareth laughed, letting a long ‘ahhhhh’ direct itself toward the guitarist.

“Eddie Munson,” he leaned into the beside table by the window, “in love with the girl next door.”

“FUCK!” Eddie yelled with his hands in his hair.

And he still had a week left to take care of Bilbo with you.

[lucesthings]

eddie with a sweet lil housemaker gf ! one who cooks for him and keeps his fridge stocked with lunchboxes, rolls his joints, does his laundry, braids his hair absentmindedly while they watch movies; she treats him like a king and he loves it ^^

i’m literally in tears over this … how did you target my very specific fantasy ?? like i wanna be eddie’s cute homemaker gf so badly ughhhh … let me share some thoughts on this, reblogs and feedback appreciated lovelies <33 - jj

eddie munson x fem!reader

warnings: 18+ please, eddie and reader are both 18+, soft mushy gushiness obviously, “good girl” “princess”, drug mentions / use, eddie loves being pampered, some spicy stuff, free use kink if you squint, my baby eddie just deserves to be happy and pampered and have his joints rolled and his lunches made forever, here are my thoughts

eddie never in a million years expected to have someone tending to him, to have someone so nurturing in his life. you walked in very unexpectedly, and almost more than you love eddie, you love pampering him.

he loves it, kicking up his feet on the coffee table as you sit next to him and crack open a can of beer for him. he loves opening the paper lunch bags you neatly pack for him, always with little notes inside (sometimes suggestive). you and eddie will spend an hour in family video figuring out which movie to rent just for you to spend the whole film focused on braiding his wild hair, his head resting in your lap. he can’t get over how well you treat him, he really doesn’t understand why you do.

it’s in your nature to pamper people, to dote on people. you’re caring and kind. it makes eddie’s stomach stir. the way you tend to his every desire makes him feel like he’s in heaven. you’re like a wife, he can’t stop thinking about it.

eddie knows he’ll always come home to freshly-rolled joints, home-cooked meals, and ice-cold cans of whatever fizzy drink he’s been craving. he knows that when he lays back on his bed after he’s stripped of his leather jacket, you’ll hold a joint up to his lips and light it for him. he knows if he’s been feeling uptight and needs a release, you’ll be down between his knees before he can ask you. you’re a good girl like that, you know what he wants. you love to treat him like a king.

your behavior never goes unrewarded, eddie is always finding an opportunity to leave you sweet tokens of gratitude. whether it be a new cassette you’ve had your eye on, or his mouth buried in your cunt unexpectedly. you’re his princess.

eddie is always excited to fall asleep next to you after a long day, knowing you’ll rub his back and hold him close as he falls asleep. he feels safe with you, he knows you’ll always take care of him. you bring him so much comfort.

<3

[lucesthings]

Murphy’s Law

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader Summary: What happens when your truck breaks down at your best friend’s house late one cold, rainy night? Rating: 18+ Minors DNI Warnings: smut / oral (both) / cock riding lol / 5.5k words sorry Notes: This has been sitting in my Google Docs for WEEKS and I just had to get it out finally. Constructive feedback welcome!

MURPHY’S LAW: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This is what you’re thinking about as you sit in the chilly cab of your truck, watching the torrential downpour outside the windows. You take a deep breath and turn the key in the ignition one more time, but the same sound persists: click-click-click-click-click. You painfully accept the culprit: a dead battery.

What’s worse is that you’re not at home where you could easily abandon your truck and any ideas you had about driving it. Instead you’re outside your best friend Eddie Munson’s home and it’s a late October night. Just minutes ago, the two of you sat thigh-to-thigh in his living room watching The Thing – a movie you’d both seen too many times to count – as part of a Halloween marathon you’d been having all month in anticipation for the holiday. The whole thing had become routine: Eddie and you would peruse the horror aisle of Family Video, select a blockbuster for the night, and then nestle onto his couch back at his place.

It wasn’t always easy to focus on the films, however. Over the past couple of months, your feelings for Eddie had shifted; you grew to think of him as less than a friend and more of an unrequited love. Sure, you’d never admitted your feelings to Eddie. But you were positive that if you did, the feelings wouldn’t be returned. Why would Eddie want you? Regardless, that didn’t stop you from savoring every small moment your skin touched his. When the movie was over and it was time to go home, you’d cruise to every stoplight in a daze, replaying all of the times you both reached for a handful of popcorn at the same time and how his fingers felt so soft against your own.

But tonight you weren’t able to make that melodramatic drive home pining over your best friend. Tonight you had to do something you’d only fantasized about doing: ask if you could come back inside.

Continuar lendo

[lucesthings]

Eminem x fem!actress!reader

summary: an interview doesn’t go as planned, but Marshall is there to calm the reader down

warnings: interviewer making reader uncomfortable and angry, swearing, accusations of cheating on reader, age gap (reader is in her late 20s, Marshall is in his early 40s)

Just like Marshall hated award shows, she hated interviews. It wasn’t that she didn’t like talking to people, rather the questions that were always being thrown her way regarding her relationship bothered her. Maybe it was because she was 29 and he was 41.

Her and Marshall had been dating for around 3 years, happily, I must add. At first, they wanted to keep their relationship private. However, this didn’t work, since around three months into their relationship, pictures of them in public had been leaked.

She thought Marshall would be angry, but he was really understanding, telling her he didn’t care about the public since she made him happy.

Deeply breathing in again, she waited for the curtain to open. She could feel her hands shaking, her nervousness overwhelming her. Once she walked out, she could feel all eyes on her.

The interviewer welcomed her and she sat down on one of the seats. "So, Y/N, how is your current movie doing?" the male asked. "Very well so far. It‘s great to be part of such a big project and even better to work with amazing people." she answered truthfully.

She was working on the new Marvel movie, Captain America: the Winter soldier. When her casting had been announced around six months ago, some fans immediately spread rumors about how she probably only got the role because of her brother, Sebastian.

However, he didn’t even know that she had auditioned for a role, she was only castes for her skills, not because of her relation to him. "It must be hard for you and your boyfriend to do long distance." the interviewer assumed.

'Here we go again.' she thought.

"Not really, we talk to and call each other every day. I think, the long distance only made our relationship stronger." she answered. "Oh? That‘s surprising." he mumbled, raising his eyebrows.

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Well, after the rumors about Eminem and Rihanna, I assumed the two of you would have broken up." he admitted.

She internally rolled her eyes. "Trust me, we‘re still dating. I know about those rumors and can confidently say that there‘s nothing going on between them." she reassured, trying to smile.

"After the leaked videos and photos, I just assumed that he had found someone else. After all, they recently worked together for 'Monster', didn’t they? Maybe I can show you some pictures." he said.

A photo popped up on the screen in front of them, showing Marshall and RiRi hugging on stage. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but I was there when that happened. She hugged me as well after walking off stage. There‘s nothing going on between them."

After that, she tried changing the subject, the interview going fairly well. When she got home, she slipped out of her shoes, threw her coat on the rack and her keys on one of the cabinets.

"Babe, I‘m home!" she called out, but didn’t receive an answer. Frowning, she walked into the living room, seeing her boyfriend on the couch, his eyes closed and light snores escaping his lips.

She smiled, walking up to the bedroom and changing into one of his shirts and some leggings. She walked downstairs again, slipping onto the couch next to Marshall.

He stirred awake and looked down at her. Upon seeing his girlfriend, he started smiling sleepily, pulling her on top of him. She cuddled into his chest and sighed contentedly.

"How was the interview?" he asked, his voice slightly raspy from sleeping the hours prior. She groaned. "Don‘t remind me, please." she answered, her voice muffled since her face was squashed on his chest.

"What happened?" he asked, rubbing her back soothingly. "He asked me questions about our relationship and accused you of being with RiRi, to sum it up." she explained.

"He what?" Marshall asked, anger evident in his voice. "Yeah. He acted as if he knew you in private. That‘s why I fucking hate interviews." she mumbled. "I‘m sorry, babe." he muttered.

"It‘s fine. I know you’re close with RiRi, but I don’t care about that. She‘s such a sweet person and I don’t mind you being her friend. After all, I get along with her too." she assured him.

"I know. I just want you to know that I don’t have any feelings for her." Marshall mumbled. "I know that." she said. She cuddled closer to him, burying her face in his neck.

He put his arms around her waist, kissing her forehead. Right now, she didn’t care about that interview or all the rumors about them. He made her happy, and that was all that mattered.

[lucesthings]

Please could you write something Eddie with a gf the same height or taller than him (bonus points for him reassuring her that her height doesn’t make her any less adorable) Bcs it’s what I need rn <33333

Also is 🫧 taken for an anon? Love your work!!

aww sure!! also, welcome to the family, 🫧anon!

-> commission me, or leave a tip!

-> join our discord!

cw: cursing

eddie + a reader thats taller than him

absolutely SHOCKED that you're taller than him

he fucking loves it though!!

he loves being the little spoon for once

you can absolutely pick him up and he lives for it. sometimes

sometimes you get insecure about your height, because taller people prefer shorter partners most of the time

eddie ALWAYS reassures you that he loves you even though you're tall, it's honestly one of his favorite things about you

next to your personality, your height is his favorite thing

you always pat his head because he actually loves it

anyone playing with his hair is so fun for him so when you do it it's so much better because you're his partner >>

if he can't reach something he's obviously gonna ask you to do it

calls you his very gentle giant because you're an absolute sweetheart

PLAYFULLY DOES THE "UPPIES??" THING

but when you actually pick him up he's shocked

"PUT ME DOWN PUT ME DOWN!! FUCK!!"

you do not put him down

[lucesthings]

Newbie!

Eddie Munson x fem reader

a/n: thank you guys so much for all the love on my very first fic, Right Next to Me- hope you guys like this new fic

Summary: You’re new to Hawkins High, your first day so happens to be on the day of the club fair. You had no intention of joining clubs, but you didn’t wanna sit alone at lunch and be bored to death. So you decide to go to this club fair, and stumble upon the lovely Eddie Munson.

Eddie was trying to recruit new members to the hellfire club and was failing miserably.

“Why hasn’t anyone walked over to our table yet?” Eddie says

“Because they all think we’re freaks.” A club member says

“Yea, well they’re the freaks.” Eddie responds

You walk into the auditorium where the club fair is being held and it’s pretty chaotic. You remember to breathe and decide to only go up to the tables that weren’t as busy as the rest.

You head to the only club that didn’t seem to be having a lot of luck with gaining new recruits. It was hard to make out the name from were you were standing, but you noticed that all of the members where wearing a black and white shirt with a devil on it.

One of the members noticed you walking towards their table and tells the rest of the group, “hey there’s some girl heading over here.”

“Whoa she’s kinda hot” another member adds.

“Alright, don’t be weird and be respectful guys. We need this win today.” Eddie says

You walk over to the table and say, “hey, cool shirts. Looks like you guys are in desperate need of a new member here.” you say as you pick up the sign up sheet and notice that no one has signed up yet.

“But hey, you guys seem cool enough for me so I’ll join your club.” you add

“Wait.” Eddie says sternly “What’s your level?” Eddie asks

“My level?” You ask in response

“Yes, your level?” Eddie repeats

“Level 42 I guess, maybe?- I’m sorry I’m not even sure what your referring to here.” You say

“Do you even know what we do in this club?” Eddie asks

“No, but I assume you wouldn’t mind telling me.” You respond

“Stewart!” Eddie exclaims

“Please tell miss what’s her name what we do in this club.” He adds while becoming a little frustrated

Stewart kindly explains that the club is basically a DND club where they meet up for various campaigns and things.

“Oh so you guys play board games, how fun!” You say sarcastically with a smile

“It’s not just a board game!- look do you have any experience or not?” Eddie says

“In board games yes, but this particular one- uhh DND is it? Yea no, never played.” You respond

Eddie gets up quickly now becoming aggravated and is now only inches from your face.

“Look new girl, I don’t know who you are or what your deal is. I really don’t have the time to waste on a newbie here.” Eddie states

“Quite the charmer you are.” You add

Which causes Eddie to sigh deeply

“Look, I’m a pretty fast learner. I won’t make any promises, but I’ll try not to waste too much of your time. So how bout that sign up sheet now?” You say extending you hand out for the sheet

Eddie slowly hands over the paper for you to sign, with this unrelenting stare.

After you sign the paper you ask the other members of the club, “is he always this on edge??” Attempting to get another reaction out of Eddie.

They all nod in agreement.

You blow and pop a bubble with your gum, looking directly at Eddie and asks, “so, when do we meet?”

You purposely begin to smirk enjoying this effect you have on Eddie.

Like and reblog for a part 2!!