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preciouslandmermaid · 2 years

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heaven and hell (we’ll make it out alive) - ch.1

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader Tags: Angst/Romance/Fluff/Friends to Lovers (as per usual, this is a story about grief and a story about love.) No beta reader lmao Word Count: 1.7k Also!!! Reader is Femme/Non-Binary and uses they/them pronouns :)

You can also read it on ao3 -> here

1986. The year you were lined up to graduate, top of the class, with tight-knit circle of friends around you. The year of senior prom and you already had a few outfits picked out. The year of college applications and potential internships. The future looked bright and hopeful with the tiny, suburban town of Hawkins in your rearview mirror.

It all changed on January 16th, 1986.

~~~~~~~~~~~

February 1986

You tore your polo shirts, technicolor sweaters, and ruffled blouses from your closet. You shoved them into a dilapidated cardboard box (given to you by your mom) with the word ‘DONATE’ scribbled onto the face of the box in sharpie. The chilled wind scratched the empty, spidering branches against your windowpane. A fine dust of flurries danced down from the dark, clouded sky like a picturesque snow globe.

The speakers of your cassette player vibrated as the drumbeat of “Shot in the Dark” by AC/DC reverberated through your room. You pushed the now-filled box into a corner of the room with some of the others and swiped both of your hands over your sweaty face. Not everything was being donated. You decided to only give away what couldn’t be altered and adjusted.

“Sweetheart?” Your mother shouted over the noise and knocked her knuckles against your door, “are you coming down for dinner, dear?”

“No!” You yelled back, “I’m not hungry!”

“Are you sure?”

Jesus Christ. You rolled your eyes and bit back a frustrated groan. How could she ask you to come and sit at dinner and act like everything was normal? As if you were still a family? You pressed the heels of your palms into your burning eyes and swallowed the tight, prickly lump that built inside your throat. Whatever. It was whatever.

“Yeah!” You replied, voice tight, as the next track on your cassette started to play. You knew you’d find a plate covered with tinfoil in the fridge later. There was no reason to go downstairs. You pushed your hair out of your face and started to remove the stuffed shoeboxes from beneath your bed filled with little art projects and classroom gossip notes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

You clutched your fingers around the blue, plastic lunch tray and scanned the cafeteria. You glanced over to the jocks and cheerleaders. One of the girls, Casey, glared at you over her shoulder and gave a dramatic roll of her eyes. ‘We used to braid each other’s hair in second grade’. Now she looked at you like you were an annoying housefly buzzing around her head and then swimming in her soup.

Chin held high, you stepped forward into the lunchroom that hummed like an angry wasp nest. You knew who you’d be sitting with. You just had to find them among the buzzing bees of Hawkins’ High. You ignored the disdainful and scandalous glances and the trail of thinly hidden whispers that followed you.

“Did you hear…?”

“--right on the bed!”

“—looks like a freak now—”

“I knew something was weird about them. The whole family.”

The Hellfire Club went silent at your confident approach. The freshman Dustin and Mike stared at you with wide eyes. Gareth nudged his elbow into Jeff’s stomach while Eddie Munson, sitting at the head of the table, raised both eyebrows with an almost friendly smile.

“Well, well, well,” he interlaced his fingers in front of him, elbows on the table, “are my eyes deceiving me or is our class valedictorian really about to try and sit with us?”

You tilted your head slightly.

“Considering the fact that I just flunked my AP History test…” You heard Dustin choke on his milk, “I find it unlikely that they’ll award me the title of valedictorian.” You shrugged. Grades didn’t matter to you. Not anymore.

“And now you want to sit with the freaks?” Eddie asked.

“I want to do more than just sit with them.” You moved the leg of a chair with your foot, pulling it out with a screech of metal on linoleum, and sat down next to Mike Wheeler. The boys around the table tensed and seemed to wait for you to complete your statement with a bated breath.

You picked up a limp French fry and used it to point across the table at Gareth toward his chest, “I want to join the club and get a t-shirt.”

The response was mixed. There was a murmuring of alarm, confusion, and disagreement. You let the chatter wash over you and focused on pouring a ketchup packet into the empty tray well.

“We’re a D&D club.” Dustin said almost indignant, “do you even know how to play Dungeons and Dragons?”

“I think they should join.” Jeff followed up with a quick nod, “it wouldn’t hurt to have another player.”

“Wait.” Mike lifted his hands and scanned the table with quick, dark brown eyes. “We have full party already!”

“I think Dustin raises a good point.” Eddie said. “Do you know how to play?”

You kept your face a mask of nonchalance and boredom. It was all you could do to quiet and contain the storm raging inside your chest. I don’t want to spend the rest of year alone. If they won’t take me in, then who will?

You swirled a french fry around the ketchup, making tiny trails, and avoided Eddie’s laughing eyes. You supposed that you could spend the year alone. It wouldn’t be too bad, would it? But, Ms. Kelly was adamant you have some type of positive social interaction. Otherwise, she’d start suggesting things like ‘group counseling’ again.

“I’m sure it’s not hard to learn.” You said, “I mean – it’s a game.”

“A game?!” Dustin threw his hands into the air, clearly affronted.

“We could vote on it.” Gareth suggested with a furtive glance to Eddie.

“Yeah, why not?” Eddie grinned. “Everyone in favor raise your hands.” He raised his arm to demonstrate. Your stomach swooped. Your heart ricocheted around your ribcage. The fate of your social life for the last few months of school hung in the air like thick, humid fog. Your eyes glued to Eddie, and you waited for his arm to drop. You could see Gareth raising his hand out of the corner of your eye and Eddie’s smile brightened his face.

Nervously, you picked at the loose threads of your ripped jeans.

“Everyone not in favor raise your hands.” Eddie’s arm dropped and your heart followed suit.

A part of you, the logical, reasonable part, rationalized that there was no way in Hellfire that the club would accept you. Prior to the start of 1986, you were a teacher favorite and amicable classmate. You weren’t in the popular crowd, but you were adjacent to it. There was no reason as to why a club of nerds and outcasts would accept you.

Yet, the decision was nearly unanimous as Mike and Dustin were the only ones to vote ‘not in favor’. Eddie voted first and he voted yes. You wondered if that meant anything and swiftly pushed the thought away from your mind. He probably had another motive. Everyone always did. Maybe he’d ask you to write a few English papers or something.

“Welcome to Hellfire Club.” Eddie announced with a brilliant, disarming smile before making horns with his fingers and curling them near his forehead. He stuck out his tongue and the table erupted in scattered laughter. You never knew he grinned so damn much and never suspected him to be likeable. You always assumed he’d be gruff or cold at best or angry and scary at worst. You gave them your best smile even though it felt fragile around the edges.

“You don’t get a t-shirt right away, though.” Jeff added helpfully.

“Do I have to slay a dragon first or something?” You asked.

“Something like that.” Mike said quietly and you almost didn’t hear him with the chaotic din of lunchroom background noise.

You silently ate your lunch with the Hellfire Club. No one would describe you as ‘meek’, but you did tamper down on your responses and confined yourself to listening and watching to gather the dynamic of this group. Dustin clearly adored Eddie, but he brought up Steve Harrington. A lot. Mike and Dustin were close friends, but you noticed their glances over to the basketball table where Jason and his buddies sat. Weird, but whatever. You avoided looking around the lunchroom too often. There was always the risk you’d lock eyes with your old friends, and you were never sure what your reaction would be. Sometimes, it was hot, roiling pain in your stomach and other times it was numb, empty echoes inside your skull. So, you simply avoided it when you could. It was the easiest way to survive.

The lunch bell rang, and a chorus of scraping plastic chairs clashed through the noise of conversation. You slung your backpack over your shoulder, prepared to leave and take a slow walk to chemistry class.

“Alright, newbie.” Eddie sidled next to you, “what are you plans for this weekend?”

Your brow furrowed, “why?”

“Why? So, I can teach you how to play dungeons and dragons that’s why.” He chuckled. “Unless you were planning to show up to our game next week with no idea how to play and just bumble your way through it and into a gruesome, gruesome death?”

You couldn’t help it – you cracked a genuine smile.

“It would be a memorable first lesson.” You said with a soft note of humor in your voice.

“It would and it would also throw off my plans for the upcoming fight. Now. What are your plans?”

You had no social life to speak of. No plans, no dates, no parties. You’d rather not spend another Saturday locked in your room to avoid your mom’s beseeching looks. At the memory of her face, wet with tears, you swallowed roughly and focused your attention on one of the pins on Eddie’s jean vest.

“I’m free.” You answered distractedly.

“Then I’ll come pick you up?” He offered and you gave a quick shake of your head. The last thing you needed was someone new visiting the house. Besides, your family would see the name ‘Hellfire’ and likely start calling the church.

“I can drive.” You said.

“Alright, cool.”

You only caught the corner of Eddie’s smile as you averted meeting his gaze just in case he should see something you didn’t want him to. You left with your heart doing an enthusiastic somersault inside your chest.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #stranger things reader fic #stranger things fic #eddie x reader #eddie munson #nb reader

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eievuimultimuse · 6 months

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💭 discovery. (For stockman?)

SEND 💭+ MEMORY + A WORD TO SEE A GLIMPSE INTO MY MUSE'S PAST.

TAP TAP TAP goes the scientist’s pencil as he repeatedly raps it against the table that he’s hunched over, head in one hand, brows knitted together tightly. He’s staring at what appears to be a sheet of paper with a bunch of scribbles, though those scribbles definitely aren’t meaningless. They’re EQUATIONS, very COMPLEX ones at that. So complex, in fact, that even he is struggling with them. Sitting in front of him is a large tube of murky liquid. The OOZE, as he likes to call it. An INCOMPLETE version of it, anyway — a version which doesn’t do what it was intended to do. He’s now trying to figure out what it is he’s done wrong. But he’s been staring at these scribbles for so long that his eyes are starting to ache.

He eventually drops his pencil, rubbing his eyes with a sigh. “ This has to work, “ he mumbles to himself. He’s done a LOT of things to try and get this off the ground, a lot of things he can’t come back from. If he can’t succeed, all of his efforts would have been WASTED.

Now that he’s ceased his tapping, the only sound in the room is the quiet, muffled buzzing of a housefly he has in a container with some holes poked in it. It catches his attention, and he watches as he flies around, tapping against the glass, stopping occasionally to rest before going again. He was fresh out of his pupa; Stockman would know, because he took care to monitor his growth himself. After a thought, he decides to grab the paper and move his chair over to the workbench he has the container resting on, along with the multiple vials of animal embryo he took with him from his old lab. He sits in the chair backwards, resting his arms on the back, holding the paper in front of him.

“ I hope you don’t mind if I read this to you, “ he says to the fly, despite knowing that he can’t talk back. “ I just think it might help me to figure out what I’ve gotten wrong. “

The housefly merely twitched his wings indifferently.

So he began rattling off the equation, going line by line, one letter or number at a time. He got through it once, then — upon still not finding the issue — shook his head, muttered an apology ( as if the fly would care that he had to read it over again ), then went over it more slowly. It was painstaking, even for him, but it was necessary. He’d have stayed there for hours — DAYS, even — if that’s what it took to resolve the issue.

Thankfully, it didn’t take that much longer than a few minutes. The beginning of the end to his long search came when he happened to notice what he initially thought might have just been a slight miswriting. After some thorough inspection, though, he realized it was a part that he forgot to carry over.

He stood up from his chair at once, sending it toppling over. “ You have got to be KIDDING me ! “ he exclaimed to no one but himself. “ Of course you’re supposed to— “ He groaned aloud, frustrated by the amount of time he WASTED because of this error.

And yet, his frustration did not outweigh the sudden surge of his EXCITEMENT he felt at the realization that he could finally complete this concoction.

“ Just hang on, “ he says, feet already moving to run out of the room. “ I know EXACTLY what I need, I just have to— “ He can’t even finish his sentence. He’s already heading out of the door — but BEFORE he does, he grips the doorframe to stop himself. “ Thank you ! “ he tells the fly, before vanishing.

The housefly continued to flick his wings, then continued to flit around the container, as though he shared the man's excitement.

#ASK.#ANON.#BAXTER STOCKMAN. / DRABBLES.#( ft. sf before he was even sentient lol )#BAXTER STOCKMAN. / VERSE 001. SURVIVED.#( the idea of him doin the rubber duck method w/ SF struck me mid-typing this & it was too good to pass up ok KGJHFK )#ask to tag //#long post //

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anissapierce · 8 months

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Ok so extra thoughts on mut mayhem after watching for the second time:

Aprils hair isnt entirely red and there's about two small locs that are actually black one is like there for basically the whole movie the other is mostly hidden by the other locs until near the end. Its possible this is a new version if the movie ...similar to all the 'patches' that went on w across the spidv but idk i think i just missed it while watching at the AMC

The boys get back from watching the movie in Brooklyn bridge park (? Idk where it is could be prospect, marine etc any park lol ) sometime after 2 am bc the clock in leos bunk says 2:22 or sometime similar ?

Ok now for actual more plot related kinda spoilery stuff

I paid attn n the first dude tht reaches out to splinter when he's hurt is Def Eastman. Wait .....lol i missed the line abt him needing a vet or a doctor? Weird idk if it was said by eastmans character or someone else. Ngl this watch felt like it wasnt as long ? But i chalked it up to this being my second viewing i don't think my theater was showing an abridged version n i probably just missed tht line organically

At the amc i totally missed that cynthia had fly in the jar? At the end and i forget tht she was surveiling the turtles? So its good to know that superfly isnt Gone gone but damn him being reduced to a housefly is pretty sad ....esp a housefly thts being held by TCRI.

Again in love the character design as an asymmetrical lady myself. I love cynthia Utroms design esp bc we Nvr see women tht look like tht in animated movies or tbh live action movies but like theres women tht look like tht

I love how basically any sign in a background cant be read bc its scribbles unless its plot relevant like the high school bulletin board...

I paid special attn to aprils pins n scooter + helmet stickers n yeah tht shit is inscrutable on purpose but bc i saw the concept i noticed

The all power tothe people Sticker based on shape n color but nothing else specific.

Ok so april didn't Akira slide exactly but she kinda did ? While everyone is coming back from staten island n doing a cool walk april n her new tcri ride move sideways across the group pretty sure the bike/scooter/motorbike was sideways too idk .... Donnie akira slid w the pizza truck near the end. At the end wingnut was so happy tht donnie had an Akira boxset.

Also i was listening so hard to scutterbugs like three lines of 'dialogue' n like theres no way yall heard tht n thought alex hirsch like thats impossible im p sure if bauza did those 'lines' i wouldn't even know it was him n bauza has a much more distinctive voice

#mm talk tag

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lukestudio · 5 years

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Fly on a wall. . . . . . . #thisdailyscribble #housefly #flyonawall #fly #bugart #bug #scribble #scribblemore #dailydrawings (at Des Moines, Iowa) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Z0OvYAIt-/?igshid=1euzsqd8b702s

#thisdailyscribble #housefly #flyonawall #fly #bugart #bug #scribble #scribblemore #dailydrawings

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dk-thrive · 3 years

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Pessoa's genius, according to this line of thought, might have resulted from an ardent necessity, from a will to genius.

If indigenous Mozambicans had not chosen that moment to take up arms against the Portuguese colonizers, obliging Pessoa's mother to postpone her marriage and departure to Africa, then Fernando Pessoa might have spent the rest of his childhood on the island of Terceira, in which case the rest of this story would be very different, or, more likely, there would be no story to merit a biography. Not only genes but also myriad contributions from one's surroundings all combine to shape one of those rarely occurring specimens known as a genius. But behind a genius's genetic endowments and the accidents of time and place, might there be higher forces at work? Might genius, after all, be a matter of destiny? This was a question that pestered Pessoa when he got older, like a housefly he could neither catch nor shoo away. It famously comes up in the sixth stanza of what many consider to be his greatest poem, "The Tobacco Shop":

Genius? At this moment A hundred thousand brains are dreaming they're geniuses like me, And it may be that history won't remember even one, All of their imagined conquests amounting to so much dung. No, I don't believe in me. Insane asylums are full of lunatics with certainties! Am I, who have no certainties, more right or less right? No, not even in me .. In how many garrets and non-garrets of the world Are self-convinced geniuses at this moment dreaming?

The poem was signed by never inhibited Álvaro de Campos, the heteronym Pessoa resorted to when he had something shocking to say or embarrassing to talk about-in this case, his own feeling of genius. I wonder, however, whether this professed self-doubt applies to anyone but Campos himself. Elsewhere Pessoa, writing under his own name and in English, called genius "the greatest curse that the Gods bless us with," and he obviously considered himself to be one of the blessed. The blessing was a curse because of the responsibility it entailed. "What man of genius is one who is not haunted by a sense of a mission?" the poet rhetorically scribbled, again in English, on the back of an envelope dating from 1910. A man of genius who believes his gift comes from God, or from the gods, might naturally feel himself morally obliged to use it on behalf of others, but it is also possible that Pessoa's missionary zeal contributed to the formation of his genius, without which his mission could not be carried out. In fact, the zeal was already firmly in place in his late teens, when the genius was still maturing. Pessoa's genius, according to this line of thought, might have resulted from an ardent necessity, from a will to genius.

— Richard Zenith, Pessoa: A Biography (Liveright, July 20, 2021)

#Richard Zenith #Fernando pessoa #doubt #genius #curse #purpose

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