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munsons-maiden · 2 years

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𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟐

First of all, thank you so much for all the support on this series so far and your patience; all the lovely comments and reblogs and asks are making my days and I’m so happy about every single one of them🖤 I hope you enjoy this chapter! - Love, Kiki 🖤

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Eddie Munson x female reader

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down. NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil…and love. The story is told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut, it turned into a fix it fic for ST4

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, attempted assault, bullying, canon-typical violence

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 | ~1 hour

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (only read if you’re 18+ years old! virgin!Eddie x virgin!reader), unprotected sex (please stay safe in real life!), oral sex (f! receiving), mentions of attempted assault, canon-typical gore & violence, blood, mentions of spiders

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 & 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝, 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 ♡

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟐

[Tuesday, March 26th, 1986. NOW.]

When you woke up, it was by the first tentative rays of the morning spring sun tickling your cheeks as they fell through a gap in the curtains, and for a beautiful moment, the world was perfect.

Because you’d spent the night in Eddie’s arms.

Memories flitted to the surface of your mind, mirroring the swarm of butterflies in your belly, painting a smile on your lips as happiness, pure, unfiltered happiness, surged through you like liquid sunlight at the thought of everything that had happened between Eddie and you, the faint pleasant ache between your legs testifying that it hadn’t just been a beautiful dream.

I love you, monster slayer.

Eddie’s words, spoken with the gentlest voice, the most radiant warmth in his umber eyes as he’d gazed down on you, unravelling underneath his loving touches, every caress and kiss mirroring those beautiful five words.

He knew. He knew everything, and he still hadn’t left. Not just that – he’d chosen to stay. To be with you.

And for the first time since Starcourt – and when you were being totally honest, the first time ever since Barb had gone missing – you’d had a deep, peaceful sleep void of nightmares, filled only by the steady tune of Eddie’s heartbeat against your ear, his even breaths fanning over the side of your face just as it did now upon waking.

Yes, in these beautiful, ephemeral moments in the twilight zone between sleep and waking, where there was only Eddie, your head resting on his chest, his arms slung around you as if he was scared he’d lose you if he didn’t hold you close, his soft curls tickling your cheek…there were only happiness and peace.

And then, reality came back crashing in, thunderclouds swallowing the sunlight in your heart, replacing it with terror of the storm to come.

Crimson thunderclouds.

Tonight, it would all end – either with Vecna’s death…

You couldn’t finish the thought.

Gently, you untangled yourself from Eddie’s arms, careful not to wake him, and sat up beside him, the duvet slipping from your shoulders and the cool air of Eddie’s bedroom kissing your bare skin, and you looked at Eddie beside you.

He was lying on his back, his dark curls fanned around his head on the pillow like spilled ink, and your heart squeezed in your chest with love, so much love, for this guy who’d stumbled into your life with his tattoos and his worn-leather-and-ripped-denim looks, his sunshine-smiles and chocolate eyes brimming with humour and wit and warmth, with all the kindness in his heart of gold, with music in his voice, who’d chosen to stay soft in a world made of razor-sharp edges ready to cut him. Stumbled into your life when you’d needed him most and had taken the shards of your heart in his gentle hands to put them back together, piece by tiny piece.

Holding the dark thoughts at bay for a few more blissful, calm minutes, you watched him in his slumber. Eddie’s features, framed by those beautiful dark curls, were serene in his sleep, illuminated by the pale light of dawn creeping over the sky outside, a soft pink blush chasing away the night to herald another beautiful spring day. So utterly opposing what lay ahead once the sun dipped below the western sky by the end of day, the horrors nightfall would bring.

If only you could freeze this moment, pause it like a VHS tape. Catch it like fireflies in a jar and keep it forever.

You allowed yourself to admire the way his long, dark lashes rested on his pale cheeks, the softest smile which played on his plush lips, evoking the memory of those lips brushing against your skin, all those kisses you’d shared last night. With a soft smile of your own, you reached out, fingertips gently grazing the side of his face to brush away a few stray curls, tracing the line of his jaw and watching this soft smile on his lips deepen underneath your feathery caress.

Leaning a little closer, your other hand splayed on the mattress to support your weight, you gently swiped a few curls of his bangs aside to inspect the cut on his brow, the surprisingly clean stitches you’d managed to place with that fish hook, before your eyes wandered over the bruise on his temple and the matching one on his jaw, their color having darkened from a deep purple into an almost-black that stood out against Eddie’s pale skin. You swallowed back the rage flaring in your chest at the memory of Eddie, hunched in Andy Warren’s grip, Jason hovering over him with his fists and his crowbar, and your hatred for Jason rose to a tide to sweep you away before you managed to tamp it down again.

Even then, Eddie had thrown away the oar, his only means of fighting back, for the slim chance that Jason would actually let you go.

Pushing the memory aside, you traced the tip of your index finger over Eddie’s brow, the frown of worry which had settled there over the past few days smoothed out by the serenity of sleep, and down the line of his nose, over his lips, still caught in this little smile before you gently rested your hand on the demon tattoo adorning his chest, relishing the strong, steady beat of Eddie’s heart as it fluttered against your palm with every slow rise and fall of his chest.

Watching him, still deep in his sleep, there was a lump in your throat as you fought against your tears – of joy, of love, and of fear. All-consuming fear of the light fading from those beautiful umber eyes, of the music of his voice forever muted and the heart of gold forever stilling.

“And when I’m done with you, taken back what is mine – I’ll take your songbird. I’ll break him, bone by bone. And when I’m done, I’ll shatter his mind the way you shattered his heart, little thief. And maybe then…I’ll put him out of his misery.”

For a heartbeat, you wondered if there was still some Special K hidden somewhere in this room…and whether it would be enough to knock him out for long enough to put him into a car and drive him far, far away from Hawkins and the pulsing gate in the room over and from the human-turned-monster that ruled over life and death like an ancient wrathful god, out for Eddie’s blood. Away, before Eddie would pay the price for what you’d stolen.

A single dose of Special K. You could do it.

You wondered if Eddie would hate you, if you did.

It was a price you’d be willing to pay if it meant the heart fluttering against your palm wouldn’t cease its beating tonight.

But you knew you could never do that to Eddie, take away his choices. That was what monsters did. People like Jason, and people like Henry Creel.

But there were still twelve hours left. Twelve hours until the sun would set and you would all go back to the place of eternal freezing darkness and death to hunt its self-proclaimed god and set an end to all of this.

Twelve hours to learn how to wield the power you’d stolen.

Twelve hours to convince Eddie to leave. To save himself and run.

You had to make them count.

“I’ve been waiting for, like, five whole minutes to be kissed awake and it hasn’t happened yet,” Eddie mumbled, his eyes blinking open, and his smile turned into a wide beam as, with a swift motion, he grabbed your arms and flipped you on your back so he was hovering on top of you, drawing a surprised little giggle from your lips as your fingers carded through his curls to pull him down for a kiss, as sweet as cotton candy, and fireworks burst in your chest as you felt Eddie smile against your lips, before he pulled away, eyes glittering.

“Good morning, monster slayer.” His voice was raspy with sleep.

“Good morning, Eddie,” you whispered back.

He leaned down, nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck and stealing another string of giggles from you as his curls tickled your bare skin – and a surprised little gasp at the sensation of his erection grazing your lower belly. He snickered, “Uh, yeah. Sorry. You made skin contact.”

With a teasing little smirk, you shimmied a little upwards on the mattress, until his tip grazed that sweet spot between your legs just perfectly.

If the sensation of it hadn’t already made need for him blaze in your core, the sweet little moan Eddie was trying hard – and failing – to suppress would have done the job, and you could feel your own arousal starting to coat the inside of your thighs – before Eddie pulled away a little, his smile soft and a little bewildered as he gazed down at you, as if he still had trouble believing this was real.

“First things first. Did you sleep well?”, he whispered.

“Never better,” you murmured. It was the truth.

The morning after, as far as you’d heard from Nancy and other girls whispering about their own experiences, was supposed to be awkward – but it wasn’t. Not at all. On the contrary; it felt as natural as it had felt last night. No awkward silence, no surge of embarrassment. Just that giddy, sparkling happiness in your chest as you gazed up at Eddie, hovering above you, his elbows resting on both sides of your head to support his weight, the two of you still naked with the bedsheets tangled around you. The guitar pick dangling from his neck rested on your collarbone, and you traced the smooth plastic edges with your fingertips.

Eddie’s umber eyes, painted the color of whiskey by the first tentative beams of the rising sun filtering through the window, scanned your face as a soft, timid smile curved his lips, one hand snaking beneath the bedsheets to stroke over your side, making you arch into his touch.

“How…uh. How are you feeling?”

Terrified of what’s to come. You silenced that inner whisper, determined not to let it ruin this perfect moment of happiness you shared with Eddie after so many months of pain and heartbreak, locking yourself in this perfect little bubble for a moment longer.

“Like I fell down from the ceiling yesterday,” you chuckled playfully.

You’d both fallen asleep in a matter of minutes last night, still tangled up with each other and immersed in your afterglow, the sleepless nights prior taking their toll and knocking you out before you could even think about round two.

“That’s not what I meant,” he clarified softly, scanning you closely. “I’m…I didn’t hurt you or something, last night, right? I didn’t do anything wrong, or –“

“Eddie, I’m fine,” you whispered with a smile, heart squeezing in your chest at the worry shining in his eyes, “I’m more than fine. You didn’t hurt me. Promise.” You smile widened into a grin. “Quite the opposite, actually. When this is over, I’m planning to lock you in this very bedroom for the next few months and let you have your way with me.”

“Freaky,” Eddie teased, eyes sparking, before he nuzzled his nose against the side of your neck, teeth gently grazing your skin, “Maybe you’re the perv and I’m the slut.”

You laughed, a soft sound stirring Eddie’s dark curls which tickled your face as shivers raced down your spine at the sensation of his lips grazing your pulse point when he whispered, “I can’t believe this is real. Shit.” He pulled away to give you the most radiant smile. “You know you’ve been the sole star of all of my daydream scenarios ever since I first saw you, right?” There was a soft blush dusting his cheeks as he quickly added, “Jesus Christ I sound like the most deranged perverted debauchee in existence but I swear they were all innocent daydreams.”

You giggled. “Okay, you need to tell me about those.”

“I dunno if that would take away the air of mystery I’ve managed to shroud myself in,” Eddie teased with a grimace, making you giggle even harder.

“You gotta promise not to laugh.”

“Never,” you breathed solemnly, before Eddie pressed another delicate kiss to the corner of your lips, crinkled with your smile.

“I got a feeling you’re absolutely gonna laugh,” Eddie snickered, and you placed your hands on his chest – his very bare chest, you couldn’t get over that for some reason and you were pretty sure you never would, no matter how many times you saw him naked – and pushed him off, gently flipping the two of you so you were straddling him, and his eyes glittered as he said, “It’s hard to focus on anything else right now but the fact that you’re naked and on top of me and it didn’t just accidentally happen.”

You giggled. “How does one accidentally land naked on top of someone else?”

“Dunno,” Eddie grinned, his hands settling on your hips, “But my point is that it’s not accidental.”

Biting your lip, you ground down a little, marvelling at the way Eddie’s soft lips parted and his eyes fluttered close at the sensation, the soft moan tumbling from him, swallowed as you leaned down to kiss him.

“Are you going to tell me now?”, you whispered against his lips, “Because the level of suspension is killing me.”

“Wait, is that your way of pressuring me, monster slayer? ‘Cause if it is, then nope. Gotta try harder.”

You laughed, pulling away from the kiss, your hands raking through his curls, fanned out on the pillow around his head like a dark crown as Eddie gently traced his fingertips up your sides, watching you melt into the touch.

“’Kay, so. Sometime after Jell-O-gate, I think it was somewhere around my second senior year, I started writing you into my D&D campaigns.” He grasped one of your hands, gently placing a kiss on your knuckles as you gaped at him.

“You…wait, what?”

“Yeah,” he let out a nervous little chuckle, “Kinda weird, but there was always some mythical pretty woman my players encountered in times of need to guide them back on the right path of the story…in my mind, that was always you.”

The image of how he’d been sitting on this very bed, his campaign notebook in his lap, scribbling down notes, tongue poking out like always when he focused on something as he wrote you into his treasured campaigns filled you with the warmth of a thousand suns.

“Did your players never notice?”

Eddie laughed. “They did. One day Gareth, that goddamn busybody, asked if she was inspired by someone real.”

“What did you reply?”

“That Gareth The Great shall be called Gareth The Tattletale if he kept asking his Dungeon Master questions outside of the game while in the game.”

At the sudden timidness in Eddie’s gaze, the sweet confession, there were tears pricking your eyes, making Eddie’s umber eyes swim in front of your vision as he murmured, “Hey, what’s wrong, sweetheart?”, letting go of your hand to gently cup your cheek.

“I missed you,” you whispered. “I missed you so fucking much, Eddie. Every day. So much it hurt.”

“I missed you too, monster slayer.” Eddie’s voice was a croak, strained with his own emotions now, and when you blinked back the tears and his umber eyes came into focus again, they were brimming with his own unshed tears.

“I went to our clearing, the week after,” you said, continuing to card your hands through the curls falling around his face, letting the soft strands glide through your fingers. “The Saturday of the meteor shower.”

“You…you did?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get to see a single shooting star because I was just sobbing my heart out but…”

“I watched the shooting stars, too,” Eddie said softly. “On the roof of my trailer. While also, um. Sobbing my heart out.”

“The way I treated you…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Eddie’s thumb brushed over your cheekbone, his gaze far away all of a sudden. “I’m not gonna lie, it…was messed-up.” He chewed his bottom lip, before he said softly, “Part of me always wanted to believe there was another explanation for why you said all this shit. And I was right – but the other part…still believes it. That I’m just the freak good enough for a little adventure until you move on. ‘Cause that’s what I’ve always been scared of, from the moment you stepped into my trailer to buy drugs.”

“Eddie, please –“

“No, let me – I gotta get this off my chest. It broke me. That night I didn’t just lose the girl I love more than anything in this goddamn world, but…I lost my best friend, too.”

You swallowed against the lump constricting your throat. “I was your best friend?”

“You are,” Eddie whispered gently, “Shit, you still are my best friend in the whole world.”

“I meant none of the horrible things I said, Eddie. They were lies. I knew…I knew they’d hurt you enough to keep you away from me. I thought if I could make you hate me…doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is, I wanted do it that night,” you whispered, and Eddie frowned in confusion before you clarified softly, “Go all the way, I mean, with you. And I would have shouted it from the fucking rooftops the Monday after that Eddie Munson is my boyfriend. I wouldn’t have kept being with you a secret, not for a single second. And I wouldn’t have cared what Jason and the rest of the Hawkins High bullies and gossips would have said. I need you to know that. I would have proudly sported a Hellfire Club shirt and joined your table if you’d invited me, and there wouldn’t have been a single moment of being embarrassed to be with you. I would have proudly walked those halls letting everyone know that I’m Eddie Munson’s girl.”

“I never hated you,” Eddie whispered. “I couldn’t.”

You swallowed, fighting your tears once more. “You’re mine, too, you know. Best friend in the world, I mean,” you said softly as Eddie sat up, your hands locking at the nape of his neck.

There was a beat of silence before Eddie gave you a playful smirk. “Please don’t ever tell that to Wheeler and her guns.”

You giggled. “Nance was the one who told me to hold on to you, so I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Wait, she did?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“’Cause your friend Robin gave me a similar pep-talk after she knocked me off my bike in the Upside Down.”

“She did what?”

“Yeah, it was an accident. I, uh, learned pretty quickly that one needs a certain safety radius around her,” Eddie chuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you told me she killed a few Demogorgons simply by accident.”

You laughed. “Okay, yeah, sounds like Robin. Don’t be fooled, though, she’s a genius. She cracked a secret Russian code all by herself.”

Only then did you realize that you’d slept through the night. “Wait, Nance and Steve wanted to take the second shift.”

Eddie cocked an eyebrow. “Come on, we both know there was never supposed to be a second shift. If those gates actually needed guarding, we would’ve split up to guard the other two as well.” His grin widened. “Buckley and Wheeler were playing matchmaker. And I owe those ladies my life now.”

“I guess they weren’t as subtle as they thought they were.”

“It’s…kinda overwhelming to be honest,” Eddie mused, gently taking your hand in his and starting to trace the lines in your palm, his eyes downcast to follow the path of his fingertips. “I guess I’m not used to people not…you know. Assuming I’m the Devil himself. Outside of Hellfire, I mean. That’s kinda…new. Them not judging me.”

“You’re part of the monster hunter family now,” you murmured, your heart squeezing in your chest at the emotions swirling in Eddie’s umber eyes, before you added softly, “I mean, Robin and Nance became presidents of the Eddie-Munson-fan club the moment you jumped onto that table in the cafeteria last year to shut Jason up. And Dustin already worships the ground you walk on. He’d follow you into Mordor. And so would I. But you know that already.”

His voice was strained when he teased, “You don’t even know what Mordor is.”

“Actually, I do. I read the damn books. All three of them.”

Eddie blinked, his mouth falling open in surprise. “You…you read the Lord of The Rings? Wha- when?!”

“Last year,” you breathed. “After…you know. After that night. I knew they were your favorites and…I don’t know. Like I said, I missed you.”

There was a beat of silence as Eddie sniffled, resting his forehead against yours, too overwhelmed to speak.

There was one more thing you needed to ask.

“Eddie?”

“Hm?”

“I was wondering…you never talk about your parents.”

He raised his head, surprised by the sudden change in topic as you chewed the inside of your cheek, waiting for him to come up with a reply.

It had always been evident that, whatever the story behind Eddie living with his uncle…it wasn’t a happy one. The scenarios your mind came up with to fill the blanks were each more horrible than the next, making your heart bleed Eddie.

You’d always wondered whether his commitment to protect all the lost little sheep, take them under his wing and give them a safe place within the community, the family, of Hellfire Club, was rooted in more than the fact that Eddie Munson had been one of those lost sheep, too. Whether he’d become the person he himself would have needed. Whether his drive to protect those who couldn’t protect himself…was rooted in the fact that nobody had been there to protect him for a long time.

When he didn’t reply, caught in his own thoughts, you added softly, “It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me now. I was just…I mean, when – if – you want to talk about your family…I’ll listen. I want to be there for you. And whatever it is…no judgement. Okay?”

“Wayne is my family,” Eddie murmured, his hands coming up to cradle your cheeks. “Those people over at the Mayfield’s trailer you rallied…yeah, I know they first did it for you, but they stayed because they believed in my innocence and wanted to help – they’re more of a family than I ever had, apart from my uncle. You’re my family, monster slayer.”

With the softest smile on his lips, Eddie leaned in for a kiss, before he murmured, “I’ll tell you everything you wanna know when this whole nightmare is over, ‘kay? But right now, I don’t wanna waste a single second I could spend kissing you, sweetheart.”

And kiss you, he did.

As if he were suffocating, and your kisses were the oxygen to keep him alive, as if the world and the monsters within – the human ones as well as the ones from other dimensions – didn’t exist, as if Hawkins wasn’t about to fall and its fate in all your hands.

And you relished his kisses, each and every single one of them; the taste of him as his tongue swirled over yours, the way his hands cradled your face to pull you closer, the way his chest pressed against yours, heartbeat to racing heartbeat as you slowly, lazily, ground your hips against his.

You couldn’t even tell who’d initiated the kiss, because Eddie’s lips on yours, the way he gently let his teeth graze your bottom lip, erased every other thought from your mind but the sensation of his kiss, the way his hardened length slid against your already soaked folds as you moved your hips a little, teasing, both your soft moans tangling in the air as his tip grazed that sweet spot at the apex of your thighs to turn your body into a life wire as your tongue ghosted across Eddie’s bottom lip –

“I AM ENTERING THE TRAILER AND I HOPE YOU GOT YOUR PANTS ON!”, Robin’s shout rang out from the front door, and you jumped away from Eddie as he let out a defeated little sigh.

“ARE YOU DRESSED?!”

“NO!”, you hollered back, cheeks burning.

“Pack your boobies back in, girl, we gotta fight Evil!”, Robin shouted from the door. “Come on!”

You groaned.

“I heard that!”, Robin hollered good-naturedly.

“You were supposed to!”

“You got about two minutes until Steve, Nance and the kids arrive here by the way!”

“Shit,” Eddie muttered, jumping out of bed. And while he rummaged through the mess in his closet, you couldn’t help but shamelessly ogle him a little more from your place on the bed. It was basically a front-row seat.

You watched the muscles of his stomach flex when he pulled on a fresh pair of boxer shorts, and it was testimony of your self-control not to jump him and follow his happy trail with your lips as you watched him shimmy into one of his ripped jeans, already grabbing one of the shirts from the chaos on the floor. It was another Hellfire Club shirt. You were starting to suspect half of his wardrobe consisted of Hellfire Club shirts. He pressed the shirt against his face and sniffled, before giving an absent-minded nod and pulling it over his head, and affection surged through you.

“What are you thinking?”, Eddie asked as he went to the bathroom, re-emerging with your clothes from last night, placing them on the bed in front of you.

“Just that if I wake up to the sight of you sniffing random shirts from your bedroom floor to see if they pass the smelling test for the rest of my days, I’ll be the luckiest girl in existence.” Your voice was as genuine as you meant it, and Eddie grinned.

He looked cute, with random stray curls sticking out around his head because he’d fallen asleep while his hair had still been wet.

“T minus sixty seconds!”, Robin shouted from her place at the Munson trailer’s front door, making you start, jumping out of bed to put on your underwear – but you flinched at the stench lingering in the fabric of the jeans and sweatshirt, rubbing the sticky material between your fingertips.

Seeing your flinch, Eddie called out, “Oh! Gimme a sec,” nearly falling over his feet as he darted towards the chest of drawers in the corner, starting to rummage through the bottom one, before he re-emerged with something that didn’t fit the rest of his clothes because it was, for one, neatly folded, and for another – it was a vibrant green.

“Is that –“

“Yeah,” Eddie said, a little shy all of a sudden, as he placed the neatly folded cheerleader skirt on the bed in front of you.

[Thursday, October 31st, 1985. THEN.]

“So, is it…bad?”

The sound of the rain pelting down on the rusty old van’s roof nearly drowned out Eddie’s voice, low and strangely timid, and your head snapped up from the pages of his biology homework in your lap to meet his gaze.

With the bell ringing for lunchbreak, it had been exactly twenty-four hours since that almost-kiss on the clearing yesterday when he’d twirled you to the tunes of I Remember You. And when you’d found the little note in Eddie’s handwriting in your locker this morning, asking if you could meet for lunchbreak at his van – since your usual spot at the clearing in the patch of woods would be too soaked in the downpour to meet up – there had been a desperate, giddy hope filling your chest that whatever Eddie wanted had something to do with said almost-kiss which had kept you awake all night. A welcome interruption to the nightmares usually doing that job.

As soon as the bell had rung for lunchbreak, you’d raced into the rain outside, giddiness in your chest like a hive of bees buzzing through your nerves – to the point where you’d used the small break between second and third period to already switch your clothes for your cheerleader uniform for the extra training Chrissy had scheduled right after lunch so you’d get to spend another extra five minutes of lunchbreak with Eddie.

And maybe, just maybe, because the cheerleader uniform looked prettier than the plain jeans you’d grabbed from your bedroom floor in your hurry this morning.

The reason for this unscheduled lunchbreak meet-up, though, had been Eddie’s rather atypical anxiety about said biology homework he’d have to hand in tomorrow.

He hadn’t commented on the almost-kiss. And by now, you were half-convinced there had never been an almost kiss. That you’d just imagined his sudden proximity, the way his gaze had flickered down to your lips for the briefest, ephemeral moment before that stupid maple leaf had robbed you of whatever would have happened next.

“I’m not done reading it yet.”

“Sorry.” He glanced away with a nervous chuckle, “I’m so fucking anxious. If it’s at least a C…one step closer to graduation –“

“Eddie.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s good,” you said. “It’s really good, okay?”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Huh?” You followed his gaze down to your bare legs peeking out from your cheerleader skirt. “Oh. It’s warm in here, no worries.”

It really was, with Eddie sitting right beside you, close enough for you to feel the heat radiating from his body. Nearly as close as you’d been yesterday on the clearing.

“So. It’s really…okay?”, Eddie inquired once more, nodding at the biology paper in your lap. It was endearing, his sudden worry about his grades.

Placing your hand over your heart, you solemnly spoke, “Would I ever joke about the importance of algae in maritime ecosystems?”

“Of course not,” Eddie gasped in feigned shock. “How could you?”

You grinned at each other. And when your eyes flitted to the red demon face on the Hellfire Club shirt peeking out from the lapels of his leather jacket, you blurted, “You designed that yourself, did you?”

It took Eddie a heartbeat to catch up with your thought process before he followed your line of sight down to the shirt, a smile curving his lips.

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I’ve seen enough of your doodles on various pages of schoolwork to recognize the style,” you snickered. “I like all your doodles but you’ve outdone yourself with the Hellfire shirt design.”

Something in the way Eddie smiled at you in reply, timid and proud at the same time, reminded you of the day he’d told you about playing guitar, in this very van, as he’d driven you away from Hawkins High and to the woods surrounding Lover’s Lake for a hike when the bullying had mounted in a flood of condoms spilling from your locker a few weeks ago.

“Well, the offer still stands to join us when…the situation has calmed down.”

You huffed. “Do you think it will?”

Eddie’s expression grew stern again. “I dunno, to be honest. Kinda depends on whether they’ll find a new target for their gossip. But…”

“A fallen cheerleader provides the best gossip,” you finished his sentence, and he grimaced.

“I wouldn’t have put it like that, but…yeah.” There was a beat of silence before he quietly added, “They still smear your locker with insults.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yours, too.”

“Yeah, but I’m used to being the target of gossip. As the designated town Freak. And resident cult leader, of course,” he added with a mirthless snort.

“Imagine Jason’s face if I entered the cafeteria in a Hellfire Club shirt,” you said, and Eddie laughed; the sound ringing through the car’s interior like the happy tinkling sound of a wind chime in a summer breeze, making your heart do a weird little somersault in your chest as you watched him, the flash of his teeth, the way his smile lit up the rain-soaked autumn day. One of Eddie Munson’s smiles would have been enough to provide the whole town of Hawkins with energy for a decade.

“You know what,” you chuckled, “I’d totally do it. The week before graduation, when we’re about to be out of here anyway.”

“What – wear a Hellfire Club shirt for school?”

You grinned, and there it was again, this timid spark of…something flashing in Eddie’s beautiful dark eyes.

And the thought of wearing a Hellfire Club shirt felt…good. Openly wearing something associated with Eddie, something that somehow belonged to him. And the thought of wearing anything of his – the guitar pick necklace always dangling around his neck, or the leather jacket you couldn’t imagine him without at this point…the thought made heat bloom in your chest.

With a conspirational grin, you raised your hand, pinkie outstretched, as you announced, “If you graduate with me this year, Eddie Munson, I solemnly swear to wear a Hellfire Club shirt for the entire final week of our High School days. And for graduation.”

Now there was definitely bewilderment in Eddie’s gaze as he held yours. “You’re serious?”

“Hell yeah. Pinkie swear?”

Eddie’s grin softened as he slowly raised his hand, hooking his pinkie with yours as he held your gaze and you had a hard time trying – and failing – to ignore the sensation the fleeting touch sent through you.

“I’ll hold you to it,” he warned with a playful grin. “You’ll be one of the freaks.”

“I’d like that,” you smiled, and something shifted in Eddie’s expression as he looked at you. With bewilderment. With…marvel?

“You know what would cause even more havoc than a cheerleader wearing a Hellfire Club shirt? Eddie The Freak wearing a cheerleader skirt.”

“I could totally pull that off,” Eddie announced, his expression stern. “My ass would look great.”

“Totally.”

“I bet Jason would appreciate the sight of my hairy legs in that skirt.”

“He’ll leave Chrissy for you,” you nodded.

There was a beat of silence, before the two of you burst into laughter – but when you glanced back down at the pages of his homework, forgotten in your lap, a sudden pain jolted through your head like a clap of thunder, an echo of the migraines which had gotten better but were still persistent. It was just in time that you managed to shove the folder from your lap before the first droplets of blood spilled from your nose, right onto the fabric of your cheerleader skirt, and you let out an annoyed hiss.

“Shit,” Eddie muttered as your hands flew up to press over your nose, warm rivulets of blood running between your fingers while there was a soft rustle of fabric as Eddie shifted beside you.

“Here, let me,” he said softly, waving the bandana he usually carried in his pocket in front of your nose, and you obliged, pulling your already blood-coated hands away from your face and squeezing your eyes shut against the blinding pain in your head while Eddie gently pressed the bandana against your nose with one hand, the other tentatively settling on the back of your head.

“Can you lean your head back, monster slayer? It’ll stop faster that way.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Gareth has chronic nosebleeds as soon as it gets cold outside, and he swears on it. The dude keeps bleeding all over his drum kit as soon as the clock strikes October. Looks not as metal as it sounds.”

You chuckled, before leaning your head back, against Eddie’s palm, supporting you as he kept the bandana pressed against your nose to catch the stream of blood.

“I don’t have a good quota with your bandanas,” you winced, and Eddie let out a soft chuckle that filled the interior of the van.

“It’s okay, I got a few of them. And you saved my biology paper. Thought it would have been pretty funny to just hand it in splattered with blood. Would nicely undermine my reputation as a servant of Satan.”

Despite the flood of blood currently spilling from your nose, you let out a little giggle.

“I’m not suffocating you with the bandana, am I?” Eddie added softly.

“It’s fine.” The blood was streaming down your throat now, leaving a biting metallic tang in your mouth and making nausea churn in your guts – but it was already slowing.

For a few moments, you stayed like this, your blood-coated hands folded in your lap while Eddie kept holding the bandana against your nose, his hand on the back of your head to support you, and all your hopes of another almost-kiss with the chance to turn into a real one was dissipated when you righted your head, Eddie’s hands sinking away from you.

Blood was coating your hands, and the green skirt of your cheerleader uniform looked like a crime scene.

“Happy Halloween,” you said drily, and Eddie chuckled.

“You got a Halloween party to attend later? You could go as the murdered cheerleader. Zero effort. It’s perfect.”

“Nope. Only cheer training in…” you threw a glance at Eddie’s wristwatch. “Fuck. Ten minutes.”

You glanced down at your skirt.

“Do you have something to change in that backpack?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, “My jeans. Though I need to scrub this out because if I don’t, the stain will stay.”

“What about that,” Eddie contemplated, tilting his head, “I’m off for today anyways, so. Uh. I’m gonna wait outside, you can stay here and switch clothes and I’m gonna scrub the blood from your skirt as soon as I’m home, ‘kay? You’ll get it back as good as new next week.”

You stared at him. “You – you mean that?”

“It’s just blood,” he shrugged, “No big deal.”

It felt like one.

“Okay,” you whispered, as Eddie jumped out into the rain, gently shutting the van’s back door behind him to give you privacy.

[Tuesday, March 26th, 1986. NOW.]

“I didn’t know how to give it back to you without making it weird to…you know. Hand you the goddamn skirt in public. And I kinda wanted to hold on to it ‘cause it felt like, I dunno, the means to one last chance to talk to you.” Your fingertips brushed over the fabric as Eddie continued, “I got the blood out and I mended the little tear at the side.”

“You mended my skirt?”

“I’m pretty good at sewing, actually. Comes in handy if you gotta save money but still wanna look metal.”

“You’re a human multitool,” you snickered, and Eddie uttered a brief laugh before you added, “So at least I can stay out of the grimy jeans today.” You threw the soot-stained sweater a sideways glance before Eddie cleared his throat, one hand still behind his back.

“Actually, I got something for you.” Eddie smiled, kneeling on the ground in front of you before he placed something in your lap. A shirt, a red demon face grinning back at you from the white fabric.

“You…wait, is that one of yours?”

“Nope,” Eddie grinned, “It’s yours. I made it for you. Your size and –“ he unfolded it, showing you the sleeves, which weren’t black like rest of the Hellfire shirts, but – “My favorite color!”, you squealed.

“Yeah. Took me eternity to find one with sleeves exactly this color,” Eddie grinned, plopping down on the edge of the mattress beside you, “I wanted to give it to you that November night, but…now’s as perfect a time as any.”

“I love it,” you whispered, happiness and love nearly overflowing in your chest, like a warm tide.

This was it. A glimpse of the life you would have if the plan succeeded.

If you defeated Vecna tonight.

Passion-filled nights and lazy mornings in bed, kisses that wouldn’t feel like every single one could be the last one. Shared laughs and companionable silence and everything in between.

Happiness.

“Now you’re the best dressed monster hunter in existence, sweetheart.”

You grinned as you jumped up and pulled the Hellfire Club shirt over your head, doing an exaggerated little twirl as you announced, “Half of Hawkins High would drop dead if they saw me in this combination of clothes.”

Eddie snickered. “Imagine you went into the cafeteria like that.”

“Straight to the Hellfire Club table,” you mused coming to stand in front of him, gently pushing him back onto the mattress as you climbed onto his lap, “Sitting on your lap.”

“Kissing me,” Eddie drawled with the most radiant grin, his hands settling on your rear, the warmth of his palms seeping through the fabric of your cheerleader skirt as he pulled you closer and you murmured, “Kissing you in the most show-stopping, pearl-clutching-inducing way anyone has ever been kissed in public.”

“How, exactly, would that look like? Just, ya know,” Eddie whispered, the tip of his nose brushing yours, as his gaze rested on your lips, “To be sure we mean the same thing.”

You leaned in, your lips not even a hair’s breadth from his –

The door flew open, and Eddie and you jumped apart to come face to face with a very breathless, very distraught Dustin.

“Seriously?! Get your asses in gear, we have a car to steal, a dark wizard to hunt and a town to safe, there’s no time to be hormonal now! Wait – why does she get different sleeves on her Hellfire shirt?”

Dustin crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking decidedly disappointed.

“’Cause she’s the Dungeon Master’s girl,” Eddie grinned, and Dustin’s blue eyes wandered from Eddie to you and back before he announced, “About time you got your shit together.”

With that, he vanished back into the living room, leaving you to cast Eddie a suspicious glance.

“A car to steal?”

“Oh. Yeah. Um, forgot to tell you the rest of the plan we made when you were still knocked out yesterday,” Eddie announced with a smile you’d have described as positively unhinged. “We’re teamed up for step one of the plan.”

***

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“We. We’re doing this,” Eddie corrected, and you could practically feel his smug little smirk beneath Max’s Mike Myers mask on his face as he pried the plastic pane of the window open at the camper’s back.

You chuckled. “You know that mask is useless because you’re wearing a shirt of the exact alleged cult the for triple murder wanted Eddie Munson is the leader of?”

“You’re in on the cult now, sweetheart.”

You looked at the demon face glaring from the Hellfire shirt on your own chest.

“Team Bonnie and Clyde,” Dustin’s whisper sounded from the RT unit in your hand, the device’s soft crackle making you start, “We’re in position. You in already?”

“I don’t know, ask Mike Myers,” you quipped as Eddie gestured for you to climb through the camper’s window.

“We’re in,” Eddie said.

“Hypothetically,” you corrected, eyeing the camper’s window.

“Nearly,” Eddie added. “Stay put, we’re gonna get the sucker right to the meeting point.”

Taking the RT from your hand, Eddie did a theatrical little bow before he sunk down on one knee, hands held out to help you climb in as he drawled, “Ladies first.”

You snickered at the gleam of his eyes beneath the mask, before you stepped onto his waiting hands, hands clamped around the window’s ledge to push yourself up and through the open window, into the camper. You suppressed a little squeal when you fell onto the backseat beneath the windowsill, trying hard to avoid alerting the camper’s owners, an elderly couple currently enjoying their barbecue out front. Not much longer, you figured.

Before you could shuffle away to make room for Eddie on the backseat, he followed suit, landing right on top of you, the impact pressing the air from your lungs before he caught himself on his elbows.

For a split second, you stared at him, hovering above you.

“This needs to go,” you snickered, pulling the mask off Eddie’s head and discarding it on the camper’s floor as his mane of dark curls spilled free, falling around his flushed face, his bangs sticking up from his head as he grinned down at you.

“It’s been half an hour and you’re undressing me again? Already?”

You giggled. “Maybe the job you did last night wasn’t enough to satiate me.”

“Or,” Eddie drawled, “It was so mind-blowingly good that you’ll never get enough of me now.” He paused, worry crossing his expression as he frowned. “Wait, that was a joke, right? It was amazing for you and all? You’d tell me if –“

You silenced him with a greedy kiss, your teeth nipping his bottom lip to draw a little moan from him before you pulled away with a smile. “It was perfect.”

“Jesus Christ, monster slayer, if you keep kissing me like that, I’m gonna hotwire something else than this fucking camper.”

“I’d be much obliged,” you winked. “I was wondering whether that counts as our first date, by the way.”

Eddie snickered. “No way. You deserve something bigger than stealing a camper. For our first date, I’m gonna take you to rob a jeweler’s store.”

You laughed as Eddie rolled off of you, a hand shooting up to comb through the curls of his bangs before he pushed up the sleeves of his leather jacket and cracked his knuckles, tiptoeing towards the camper’s door to lock it.

The smile on his face was nothing short of…devious.

“Edward Munson,” you crooned, cocking an eyebrow as you came to stand beside him, “The fact that this little criminal endeavor makes you as happy as it does leaves me wondering whether there’s a personal reason as to why we’re stealing exactly this camper.”

He snickered, before he plopped down behind the wheel and pulled a pair of pliers from his pocket.

“There is. Pretty long history, but let’s just say they really don’t like me and I really don’t like them.”

With a final wink, he clamped the pliers between his lips and turned around to fumble for something beneath the dashboard, ripping away a knot of cables – and with growing fascination, you watched the focus in his eyes as he used the pliers to cut the cables, his tongue poking out in that cute way it always did when he was focusing on something, his expression stern now as he worked.

He was…skilled, you realized, his movements those of practiced ease when he discarded the pliers on the dashboard before twirling the ends of the cables between his fingertips.

But before you could find the words to inquire about his car-theft-skills, Eddie stilled mid-movement.

When his eyes found yours, all the sparks which had been glittering there only moments prior had dimmed.

“When the other dads were teaching their kids how to catch a fish or a ball or ride a bike, my old man taught me to hotwire cars,” Eddie said quietly. His vouce held a lightheartedness that didn’t reach his eyes. “Now, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wind up like he did. But I’m wanted for triple murder already, and soon, grand theft auto, so…really living up to that Munson name.”

He glanced down at the cables in his grip. “But…I promise I’m not that kind of guy. I’m…I know how it looks. Dealing drugs, stealing cars, but I promise, monster slayer, I’m…not. I’m not like that. I’m not like him.” It sounded desperate all of a sudden. As if he was scared you could see him differently now.

“I know,” you soothed, kneeling on the floor beside the driver’s seat, your hands gently wrapping around Eddie’s trembling ones, still holding the ends of the cables. Your mind was going a mile a minute with the flood of information you’d just gotten, piecing it together like a puzzle as you swallowed against your tears upon seeing the fear in Eddie’s beautiful umber eyes, wide like those of a deer in the headlights.

And you realized that this sudden swing of his mood had been brewing below the surface, gnawing at him probably from the moment he’d put on Max’s Mike Myers mask to disguise himself. Put on that mischievous grin to try and bury those fears now washed to the surface like clams after high tide.

Fear of you thinking he could be like his father, or fear that he actually was…you couldn’t tell.

“Eddie, I know you’re not that kind of guy,” you said softly, linking your fingers with his, the warm, smooth metal of his rings brushing your skin. “I know it just like you know I’m not a monster. That’s…that’s what we do. We trust each other even if we don’t trust ourselves.”

For a heartbeat, Eddie watched you, his eyes scanning yours as if he was searching for a lie.

When he didn’t find one, he whispered, “I love you so fucking much, monster slayer.”

You wanted nothing more but to settle in his lap, kiss him until he forgot all the shit he must’ve gone through before coming to live with Wayne Munson, and even afterwards, as Eddie The Freak – but there was no time.

So instead, you squeezed his hand, giving him the gentlest smile before you said, “You need to tell me the neighbor story as soon as we got this thing on the road.” And with a wink, you added, “And by the way, you’re not special. I stole cars to save Hawkins before you even knew this shithole town needed saving, Munson. You’ve got a long way to go until you reach the – how did you call it? – trespassing-break-and-enter-fraud-and-arson-monster-hunter-thing I got going on.”

Eddie grinned, relief flooding his eyes. “I’ll give my best to keep up. Though…” His smile turned mischievous again, “I gotta say, your list specifically lacks some good ol’ public indecency, monster slayer. I’ll gladly lend a hand or two with that.”

There were still remnants of this darkness in his gaze. You could tell he needed that easy banter to chase it away, the memories and dark thoughts – and you both knew you’d have to talk about what had happened to him. About his parents. But right now, Eddie needed to see you hadn’t changed your mind about him. That nothing had changed.

So you grinned. “You’re a menace.”

“I’m your menace now.”

“We could start calling you Eddie The Sappy instead of Eddie The Banished”, Dustin’s annoyed voice sounded from the RT, making you and Eddie jump apart for the second time as you screeched and Eddie hissed, “Henderson, I swear to god, if you keep interrupting my romantic moments I’m gonna banish you from the D&D table for a whole goddamn fucking year!”

“It’s not my fault none of you know how to handle an RT unit.”

“Yeah, we thought we’d make our radio presence known before you could get going at it,” Steve muttered in the background.

“In a stolen camper?”, Eddie drawled, returning to the task of hotwiring the damn thing, “Some of us have more class than that, Harrington.”

“By the way, who’s going to drive this thing?”, Robin’s voice chimed up. “Because we all remember the threat to humanity Y/N poses as soon as she’s behind a wheel.”

“I can hear you laugh, Max,” you quipped.

“I wasn’t laughing, I was praying for Eddie.”

“Well, good thing is if I’m in the car with her, she can’t run me over with it.”

“You can all walk next time,” you deadpanned, but the reply was cut off when the camper’s engine sprung to life with the roar of an ancient beast – and two faces appeared at the driver’s side window, their expressions morphing from confusion to rage as the four of you stared at each other like cats in an alleyway – before chaos broke lose.

“GO! GOGOGOGO!”, Eddie shouted, throwing himself into the passenger seat while you jumped behind the wheel, your foot finding the gas pedal the moment the two angry ex-camper-owners started slamming their fists against the window, and with screeching tires, the camper shot forwards with so much force you feared it’d catapult you right out of your seat.

“SEATBELT!”, you hollered at Eddie, a group of trashcans flying out of the way with the impact of the camper’s hood, trash flying all around the vehicle like confetti as you pushed the gas pedal – but Eddie didn’t seem fazed at all.

He was having a ball.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie laughed, his fist slamming against the button of the radio to turn it on, and the tunes of Creedence Clearwater’s Up Around The Bend filled the vehicle’s interior with blaring volume as ripped the steering wheel around and Eddie jumped up from his seat to wave at the angry ex-camper-owners, his grin wide as he flipped them the bird.

You really needed him to tell you that story.

***

Eddie didn’t know which one would come first: the grass beneath his feet giving in because he’d worn it out with his continued pacing, or his teeth falling out because he’d been gnashing them so hard for the past hour that he was surprised his jaw hadn’t dislodged by now already.

“Man, will you fucking stop doing that,” Harrington muttered for the umpteenth time in a row now from where he was sitting on a fold-out chair beside the camper’s door, and Eddie threw him a dirty glare.

“No,” he retorted.

Two hours had passed since you’d all returned from the War Zone and Dustin had taken it upon himself to help you train as much of your power as you could in the few hours until nightfall and the probably-suicide mission ahead. The boy had banished Eddie back to the camper parked at the top of the little hill overlooking Hawkins where Harrington and Robin were busy building Molotov Cocktails, because Eddie had been ‘too much of a distraction’.

The town looked tiny from up here. Like the miniature worlds displayed in toy shops.

It almost looked peaceful from the distance. Not like the hate-filled place it actually was.

“I think your dentist won’t be happy about the teeth-gnashing, though” Robin chimed in to dissolve some of the tension.

“I’m poor, I don’t have a dentist,” Eddie quipped, “All I got is a toothbrush and a prayer.”

“You don’t – wow. Your teeth are good. Like, I don’t think I’d have teeth as white if I didn’t have a dentist, my mom always taught me to brush three minutes or else they’d fall out so naturally I doubled the number so I’m at, like, five minutes now and –“

“Robin,” Harrington groaned, and Eddie watched while you buried your face in your hands, shaking your head as Dustin gesticulated wildly.

“I don’t think I can handle this,” Eddie breathed, raking a hand through his curls as he watched you utter something on a suppressed little sob that felt like it reached right into his chest, ripped his heart out, and smashed it on the goddamn floor. “He’s making her cry again.”

“That’s kinda the point, though,” Robin replied with an apologetic little grimace.

“Dude, will you just sit down,” Steve muttered.

“When you’re done chewing off your nails,” Robin commented with a glance at Eddie, “You can go ahead with mine, I lost my manicure set last week.”

“Or you can be of actual help and fill these here with gasoline,” Steve muttered, pushing a cardboard box of empty bottles towards Eddie, the glass tinkling as the box nudged his leg.

“How many of these do we need, anyway?”, Robin interjected, her voice blurring as Eddie tried to understand the snippets of conversation the spring breeze carried up the hill – or rather, the snippets of the heated argument between you and Dustin.

“…told you it’s not working!”

“…gotta try harder, then! El can do it!”

“El was trained since birth! I’ve been prodded and poked by you for an afternoon!” Your voice was trembling.

“That’s good! Use that anger!”

“I swear, Dustin, I’m gonna –“

“Focus!”

“I’M FOCUSING!”

“Yes! That’s it! Shout at me! Let it go!”

“I don’t think it’s going too well,” Robin winced from behind Eddie, who’d resumed his pacing, before she added, “If you keep pacing like that, you’re going to walk a crop circle into the grass, Eddie. And the last thing this town needs is an alien panic on top of the satanic one.”

Steve scoffed. “It’s annoying, man.”

“I think it’s cute,” Robin protested. “Like swans. They have one partner for life, and once they mated, they’ll go absolutely feral for their mate.”

“Don’t say mated,” Steve murmured, “That sounds wrong. Nobody mated.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Eddie turned around, his cheeks burning.

“Look at his face,” Robin quipped with a triumphant sideways glance at Steve, “Of course they mated.”

“What,” Steve muttered at Eddie, “You’re alone with her for five minutes and jump her bones?”

Eddie cocked an eyebrow. “As opposed to Steve ‘Waits Until Marriage’ Harrington?”

Robin snickered, as Eddie added, “You dragged Hawkins’ entire female population between seventeen and thirty to Skull Rock but me enjoying some alone time with my girlfriend before the goddamn apocalypse doesn’t sit right with you? What do you wanna do, fight for her honor?”

“You’d have pretty good chances with that,” Robin grinned at Eddie, “Steve doesn’t tend to win fights.”

“It gets old, Robin, it really gets old,” Steve retorted, rising from his chair to put his hands on his hips like some dad waving off his daughter for prom, before he glared at Eddie. “Are you calling me a whore, Munson?”

“Well, I’m certainly not calling you a nun, Harrington,” Eddie drawled, drawing out the last name with the smuggest smirk he could muster.

Eddie didn’t hear Steve’s reply, though, as his eyes caught on the lonely figure a bit apart from the group, and his heart sank a little in his chest.

Max had always reminded Eddie of you.

So much pain, locked up in her little heart, spilling from her haunted gaze. Shoving away the friends who so desperately wanted to help her deal with whatever shit she’d had to witness that night at Starcourt.

He’d waited for a calm moment to talk to her, and Eddie figured this was it. As calm as it would get in the near foreseeable future.

“Be right back,” he announced over his shoulder, already strolling towards the little redhead.

The trailer parks Eddie had grown up in, Little River as well as Forest Hills, were a world apart from the white picket fence neighborhoods with their perfect green laws, their trimmed rose bushes and homemade lemonade.

The kids living in those pretty houses behind the white picket fences and perfect lawns had arrived at school in shiny cars driven by mothers who spent their mornings cutting apples into neat bites and their weekends baking pies, and even at his first day at elementary school, Eddie had known that those women had never had anything to do with the glittering pixie dust his dad had been selling.

When he’d been in Little River, Louisiana, those white picket fences had always felt like the gateways to paradise. To a world where dads didn’t vanish for days on end or made deals with strange men that looked like pirates, or brought home women whose faces were plastered with paint and who took money out of his dad’s hands when they went away again.

And even after Eddie had been brought to live with Wayne, the uncle who’d done everything in his power to turn his little trailer at the edge of the woods circling Forest Hills like a green coat into a home for his nephew, Eddie had caught himself wondering about life behind these white picket fences from time to time.

Eddie wasn’t stupid.

Growing up, he’d known they were illusions, that the perfect little worlds behind them weren’t as shiny and perfect as they seemed. That no white picket fence in the world could shield you from sadness or violence.

The first time Eddie Munson had met Billy Hargrove in the woods behind the sports field for a drug deal, he hadn’t been surprised by the bruise on the other guy’s jaw. One week in Hawkins had been enough for Billy to prove he wasn’t one to step away from a fight.

He was exactly the kind of person Eddie steered clear of.

Though the second time Billy had ordered Eddie into the clearing for more weed – and this time, even a few of the prescription pills Eddie was selling for Rick from time to time – there had been another set of bruises, not yet fading. A perfect handprint around the guy’s upper arm.

“Watcha staring at, Freak,” Billy had drawled in that bored-yet-threatening low tone that made clear he was always dancing on the edge of snapping; a tone that made Eddie skittish because it reminded him so much of his old man, and Eddie had quickly averted his gaze, taken the guy’s folded fifty-dollar-bill and uttered a long, relieved exhale when he’d vanished back into the woods.

It was the day Eddie had realized that the world behind those white picket fences was probably not as different from that beyond the rusty gates of a trailer park as he’d thought.

It had taken Eddie another year to realize Billy Hargrove had a little sister. He’d been surprised to learn that the Mayfields, a single mother and her daughter, who’d moved into the trailer opposite of the Munsons in the fall of 1985, were the remainder of Billy Hargrove’s family – and that the little redhead had been with her brother, the day of the mall fire. The day he’d died.

His uncle had told him when Eddie had watched them carry the cardboard boxes with their belongings through the rusty door of their new home.

Another thing about Wayne Munson: he was a tattletale.

Eddie hadn’t told Wayne about the reason he was watching the new neighbors so closely the first few weeks after they’d moved in, which had led poor Wayne to believe Eddie was planning to set him up with Susan Hargrove, which, in return, had led to Wayne very awkwardly explaining to an equally confused Eddie that his life was busy enough without a woman making it even busier.

No, the reason Eddie had been watching the Hargrove-Mayfields so closely was that he had seen enough kids sporting patterns of bruises over time – and that he’d always looked away because that was what everyone else had always done.

But he would be damned if the little girl who’d moved in across from him, whose cornflower blue eyes always seemed haunted with whatever it was she’d had to witness in the mall fire that now made her drown out her thoughts with a pair of headphones, and whose friends from Hellfire kept telling Eddie about their friend slipping away from them…Eddie Munson would be damned if the little redhead sported a matching bruise to match those of her late stepbrother and didn’t act.

Eddie was watching her now as he drew closer. Apart from the group of her friends, as always, a lonely figure at the top of the hill, knees tucked against her chest and her hair glinting like his monster slayer’s flames in the quickly fading light beneath the steel-grey skies, her expression as dark as the rainclouds in the distance.

His gaze momentarily flitting to you and Dustin, still caught up in trying to control your powers. Eddie knew how much Max meant to you. If she was half as stubborn as you were, he wouldn’t have any luck talking her out of this stupid self-sacrificial plan, but…he had to try. Or at least, he had to make sure she was doing it for the right reasons.

He knew what guilt could do, how it could eat away at a person like rats in a trash can.

The little redhead didn’t bat an eye when Eddie sat down in the grass next to her, her eyes narrowed and focused at a point in the distance, on the horizon. It was the look of someone who wanted to be far, far away from where they currently were.

And yet, Max was the one who broke the silence before Eddie could grasp the right words to do it.

“I’m sorry I was so convinced you were a killer.”

Eddie snorted. “Shit. Thanks.”

“I went with her because I…the last girl I could have saved if I had looked closer turned into monster-chew because I didn’t look closer.”

Heather Holloway. One of the lifeguards. Dustin and you had told Eddie the whole story, when the party had found him at the boathouse.

Before he could muster a reply, though, Max went on, “I’m happy you’re back together, by the way. You’re a cute couple.”

He blinked in confusion. “Back together?”

Max scoffed. “I live opposite of you. Do you think I didn’t notice anything of whatever you two got going on last fall?”

“Uh. Yeah. Actually.”

Max cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously? First of all, you never had any girls over before, so a girl at your trailer definitely stood out like a flamingo in the middle of Main Street.”

Eddie chuckled. “Remind me not to get on your bad side, red.”

“Plus,” she went on, “She’s my friend. And you live right across from me. By the way, it was funny to see you race around in your pajamas every Saturday morning trying to tidy up while picking out outfits.”

“You watched me dress?!”

“Ew, gross. No. I watched you panic. It was entertaining.” She shrugged, her face growing serious again. “I also saw her run out of your trailer one night. Crying. And she never came back. To be honest, I hated you a little because I thought you’d broken her heart. I know how Billy…” She cut herself off, probably contemplating whether it was okay to talk shit about the dead.

But Eddie had heard the things Billy Hargrove had said about the girls he’d hooked up with. They hadn’t been nice things, and they’d made him resent the guy even more.

It was weird, Eddie thought, how you could loathe someone with all your heart yet still feel sorry for them at the same time.

“Doesn’t matter,” Max finished quietly. Eddie’s heart went out to her.

The girl’s cornflower-blue eyes were focused on something in the distance again, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips, and when Eddie followed her line of sight to the Sinclair siblings sitting in a pair of fold-out chairs at the edge of the meadow, building makeshift-spears – Erica Sinclair uttering something undoubtedly very sarcastic that made Lucas snort – Eddie smiled.

“You know, uh, it’s my sixth goddamn year at this High School and yet I’ve never cracked the code why all the basketball players always got flocks of chicks following in their wake simply for throwing balls through laundry baskets, but witnessing one of said basketball players ignore all the female attention they get was a first even for a triple senior like me.” Eddie paused, watching Max’s absentminded expression, her gaze still trained on Lucas, gauging whether he should continue.

Looks like Eddie The Banished is turning into Eddie The Matchmaker.

He decided he’d give it a go. “Though Sinclair? I don’t even think he noticed a single shred of the new female attention directed at him ‘cause he was always busy looking for someone else.”

It wasn’t a lie. If Lucas Sinclair had noticed the giggling freshman girls suddenly seeking his proximity, he hadn’t cared, because he’d been too busy scanning the crowds for the redhead who’d broken his heart.

And if there was one thig Eddie could relate to after last November, it was a broken heart.

Though if Eddie’s girl had found her way back to him, maybe Lucas’s girl needed only a little nudge to do the same. Eddie wasn’t blind. It had taken him about five seconds to recognize the way Max was looking at Lucas. It was the same way with which Harrington still watched Nancy Wheeler.

The way Eddie had never stopped looking at you.

“Did you make it your mission to bring all the broken-up couples of this party back together while we’re hurtling towards a gruesome death, or something?”, Max quipped, throwing him a sideways glance.

Eddie snickered. “It worked for me. Though that boy’s about one smile from you away to crack and ask you out.”

Max smirked deviously. “Anyways, I’m glad you and your monster slayer are back at happy screams again.”

Eddie raised a brow. “Whoa. What do you know about happy screams, kid? Aren’t you, like, twelve?”

“I’m fifteen. And my mum got a lot of Cosmos laying around. And judging by the fact that it took you half a year to get with the one girl anyone ever saw you with, I probably know more about happy screams than you.”

“You’re kinda mean and scary, you know that, right?”, Eddie teased with a soft laugh, and for a moment, Max grinned. Eddie felt like he was getting a glimpse at the old Max Maxfield, the one from before the monsters took her old life and paid her with guilt.

She reminded Eddie so much of you.

It was weird, how the group of heroes that had taken him into their little monster hunter family were as lost as all the other little sheepies out there. As lost as him.

“You know, ah. Before I came to Hawkins, I lived with my dad,” Eddie began slowly. “In a trailer park pretty much like Forest Hills, just with stuffier temperatures. We had that rusty old camper. I’m still not sure if he stole it.” He scoffed. “My old man wasn’t a nice guy. Or a nice dad, for that matter. I always told myself I wasn’t gonna…” Eddie made a vague gesture. “Wind up like he did.”

“In jail?”

“I was gonna say, cold and uncaring, but yeah. There was one person in his life he loved, and that was himself. He wasn’t exactly the type of dad to hold your hand at the doctor’s. Shit, he never took me to a doctor when I was sick. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, was what he liked to say.” Eddie swallowed. He hated talking about his old man. About Little River, the time before Wayne had taken him in. But he had to, right now, because he needed Max to understand. So he went on, “Sometimes I hated him. Sometimes I wanted something bad to…happen to him. So he’d go away.”

At his words, Max’s head snapped up, and when Eddie ripped a few blades of grass out of the ground, twirling them between his fingertips as he tried to tamp down the tide of emotions, the ugly memories his words were digging up, he could feel her blue gaze resting on him.

He thought about you, the guilt and shame in your beautiful eyes as you’d finally told him about last summer; the way there was nothing Eddie wanted more than to take the pain away from your heart and erase the memories.

The look which had shone in your eyes yesterday when you’d told him was the twin to the expression in the little redhead’s cornflower blue ones now.

He’d always been good at reading people.

It was the look Eddie had carried in his own eyes for a long time.

Fierce protectiveness flooded him for this little girl beside him who should be thinking about boys and movie stars and all the normal High School shit fifteen-year-old girls should be dealing with, instead of the monster that had taken the stepbrother who’d made her life living hell.

“Even with seven years I’d realized that the shit he was doing was bad. And definitely against the law. And sometimes I wanted him to get caught. Or just…I dunno. Disappear.” Eddie cleared his throat, brushing the blades of grass away from his hands. “One day the cops were at the door of our camper, with a search warrant and all. Before letting them in, I remember how my dad turned to me and told me to get rid of his…um.” He threw the girl a nervous sideways glance. Could he say cocaine in front of a fifteen-years-old? “His stash,” he finished. “He wanted me to get rid of his stash and I…didn’t. I was terrified by the whole goddamn situation and I just stood there, watching the cops break open the door to our camper and tackle him to the floor and shouting commands and all that stuff while I was just…standing there. I didn’t do what he told me to. Didn’t get rid of the stuff, and the cops found it, of course.”

Eddie still remembered the look his old man had given him when they’d led him away. Out of the camper, of the Little River trailer park and Eddie’s life for good. The picture sometimes flashed in his mind. It still terrified him, the look that had shone in his old man’s cold eyes. He’d never hit Eddie – but Eddie was sure in that moment, had he been able to…he would have hurt his seven-years-old son.

“I still dunno whether I just stood there ‘cause I was just scared or if I wanted them to find what they were looking for. Let them take him away. Took me a long time to figure out the shit that happened wasn’t my fault, and that standing there and doing nothing to help him didn’t make me a bad person.” He cleared his throat. “Guess what I’m trying to say,” Eddie said quietly, his eyes finding Max’s, shimmering with her unshed tears, “Is that you don’t owe anyone anything. It’s not too late to just blow it off. Make another plan. And they’d all understand it. You know that, right?”

“I can’t just run.”

“Yeah, you can. There’s no shame in running.”

She didn’t reply.

Eddie had said and done what he could.

Whatever Max decided, it would have to be her choice alone. Not Lucas’, not yours, not Eddie’s, as much as he wished to talk her out of it.

The females of this monster hunter family, he reckoned, were definitely way more stubborn and fierce and brave than he would ever be. Nancy Wheeler with her collection of guns and her utter lack of caution. Robin Buckley, who, despite her own fear, never hesitated or asked questions before she followed her friends into what could be certain death. Erica Sinclair, who, with her eleven years of age, would be ready to face Vecna himself and make him cower in the dust with a single witty remark. Max Mayfield, who was ready to face her worst nightmares once again so a stranger wouldn’t have to.

And you, his monster slayer, with the heart of a lioness, so fiercely protecting those you loved – and how lucky Eddie was, to count himself among those people.

“I don’t know about you,” Robin’s voice chimed up from behind before she plopped down into the grass between Eddie and Max, Steve following suit behind her, “But I have this weird, horrible, nausea-inducing feeling that this time…things might not play out well for us.”

“Talk about a positive spin,” Steve quipped, his expression as dark as the rainclouds above. As the feeling spreading in Eddie’s chest no matter how hard he tried to snuff it out.

His gaze wandered back to Dustin and you, further down the hill, sitting on opposite crates, and the wind carried the sound of your voices, snippets of your ongoing argument.

“Okay, that’s it,” Eddie muttered, rising to his feet and brushing lose blades of grass from his ripped jeans. Turning towards the others, he added, “I’m gonna need the camper. We’ll be back by nightfall.”

“Night – wait, what are you gonna do?”, Steve blurted.

“Do you see fire, Steve?”

“No?”

“Exactly,” Eddie replied grimly. “The Henderson-method is flunking. So…we’re gonna try the Munson-method. And as much as I love the little shrimp, I won’t sit around and watch him make my girl cry.”

***

A hurricane of leathery wings, talons tearing into skin. Teeth, sharp like rows of sewing needles piercing deep enough to meet bone, tails strangling and restraining as Eddie’s death screams mingled with the hiss and screech and jeering of these horrid creatures.

Vines, tying him to a pillar, eyes wide and drained of their beautiful umber colour, eternally caught in a horrified, blinded stare at a crimson sky with the low full-moon that wasn’t a moon but a broken clock as tears of blood were drying on his pale cheeks, the melody of his heartbeat silenced forever and his soul eternally bound to this place filled with horrors –

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice trembling and hoarse from the struggle to suppress your tears at the memories, “I can’t do this anymore. I need a break. Please.”

It had been two hours since you’d all returned from the War Zone, laden with all the weaponry and firearms to equip a whole battalion. And while the rest of your friends had taken to build Molotov Cocktails and spears and shields, Dustin had tried to help you get a grip of those stolen powers.

Powers which, as he kept reminding you as much as your frayed nerves kept reminding yourself, could very well tip the scales in your favor.

Powers which could save Eddie.

If only you learned to fucking use them.

It was not going well.

“Just try harder!”

“It doesn’t work,” you protested, voice breaking with the stupid tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

Dustin’s theory had been that, if you channelled enough horrible mental images of Eddie in mortal peril, of all the horrible things Vecna had threatened to do to Eddie in your deepest, darkest nightmares, it would trigger the same reaction Jason’s attack on Eddie and Vecna’s trance had set loose.

You’d sobbed. You’d relived your darkest nightmares, over and over again, Eddie’s death cry playing in your mind over and over and over like a broken record. And still…the wick of the candle in your hands was perfectly unburned.

And Dustin’s patience was running out even quicker than your own.

With an outcry of rage and fear and frustration and despair, you threw the candle into the grass at your feet.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Dustin announced.

“If you quote Star Wars on me one more time, Dustin, I’m going to join the Dark Side.” Your voice was frail as you swiped at the stupid tears running down your cheeks.

“You can’t even use you power, what would they want with you?”

Before you could reply, another voice ran out from behind you, making your heart soar with just his presence.

“How’s it going, Master Yoda?”, Eddie asked, giving Dustin a gentle shove on the head, the boy’s cap slipping over his eyes before he reached up to right it again.

“The Padawan is struggling.”

“I could hear that,” Eddie quipped, his eyes finding yours, scanning the tracks of tears drying on your face. “That bad, huh?”

“You really need to ask?”, Dustin quipped, and you threw him a sideways glance. “Thanks, buddy.”

Eddie snickered, giving Dustin a pat on the shoulder as he said softly, “I’m gonna take it from here.”

You waited for Dustin to utter a clap-back, maybe bash you a little in the process – you loved the boy, but he could be a menace as soon as his inner scientist was activated – but Dustin only threw you a pitiful glance before he gave Eddie a nod and trudged away to join the others.

And somehow, that was worse.

When Dustin was out of earshot, Eddie asked, “Remember the day we snuck out of school to take a hike around the woods?”

“You don’t exactly forget the day a flood wave of condoms spills from your locker in the middle of a crowded hallway.” You sniffled. “Why?”

“’Cause I’m whisking you away again.”

“Whisk – where?”

“Come on,” Eddie said, taking your hand in his, already pulling you up the hill and towards the camper. “We got until sunset to turn you into a Firestarter.”

***

The song, as Eddie used to say, remained the same.

Against your concerns, Eddie had steered the camper back into Hawkins, right into the center of the storm, parking the vehicle on the side of the abandoned road beside the tree line of the small patch of woods behind Hawkins High’s sports field, before he’d grabbed the carton of anti-mosquito candles you’d taken from the War Zone, and together you’d made your way to your little clearing.

You’d watched with growing doubt how Eddie had placed the unlit candles on the picnic table, the bench, the ground and tree stumps around, until the clearing was specked with them, forming a wide circle around the two of you.

“For the satanic cult business, ya know,” he’d snickered as he’d assessed his work, making you laugh softly alongside him, easing the panic which had been growing in your chest like your own little thunder storm with every failed attempt to set the stupid candle aflame, before Eddie had waved off your concerns regarding the stolen vehicle parked at the side of the road (“The cops are too busy hunting me, they won’t care about a rusty old camper that got stolen from to angry hicks.”), the concerns regarding the clearing (“Nobody ever comes out here despite us, anyways.”) and the risk the training of fire powers in the middle of the woods, of all places, posed (“Jesus Christ, you got a worst-case scenario for everything stored in that pretty little head of yours, huh? You’re giving me anxiety, sweetheart. Maybe we should’ve brought weed, not candles.”).

Now, one of the unlit candles clutched firmly in your hands again, you breathed, “Should I try?”

“Wait,” Eddie said softly. As per your own request in fear you’d accidentally set him on fire, he was standing a few feet away from you, arms locked in front of the Hellfire club shirt covering his chest, his attentive dark eyes fixed on yours.

“What for?”

“Close your eyes,” he instructed softly. You complied, eyes fluttering close.

“Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

Eddie sighed. “Deep breaths. Smell the air. Just…gimme a chance here, ‘kay? Tell me what you smell.”

You inhaled deeply, letting the spring air fill your lungs. “Flowers. Peonies, maybe. Or magnolias. In the gardens at the edge of the woods.”

“What else?”

“Leaves. Wood. I don’t know, it just smells…green. It smells like spring. And I smell the citrus of the candles.”

“What do you hear?”

“You.”

“Focus,” he chided softly.

“Birds. Chirping in the trees.”

There was the soft crunch of dead leaves covering the forest floor like a carpet, the remnants of the prior autumn not yet decayed beneath the frosts of winter, as Eddie slowly crossed the space between the two of you, murmuring, “This is stupid. I’m gonna come closer now.”

Your eyes fluttered open again as Eddie came to stand in front of you.

“What was that about?”, you inquired, and Eddie tilted his head.

“To get you to calm down.”

“I don’t have time to calm down.” You squeezed your eyes shut to keep the stupid tears of frustration at bay. “It’s a fucking waste of time and energy. I should be loading guns or building Molotov Cocktails to be of some use. I did that. I fucking let him in and now I can’t even shut him out –“

“You’ve never been one to cut yourself some slack,” Eddie said softly.

You scoffed. “I’ve tried. The whole fucking day, I’ve tried, and there’s not even a stupid spark.”

At this point, anger and frustration were so overpowering that it took all your self-control not to smash the fucking candle on the ground again, the wick untouched even by a single spark. Just like it had been all day.

There was the softest touch of his warm skin on your cheeks when Eddie gently brushed away a stray tear which had started to fall, before he murmured, “Look at me, monster slayer.”

You complied.

The sun was setting already, casting its final golden rays of light through the foliage ahead to paint streaks of caramel into Eddie’s tousled curls, his umber eyes sparking as they held your gaze.

“Beating yourself to it isn’t gonna make it work,” he said softly.

You sniffled. “Didn’t know you were an expert with superpowers.”

“It’s like with every other thing,” he shrugged. “Practice makes perfect. But when I try to learn difficult new chords and it doesn’t work, stressing myself to try harder never does the trick.”

“Then what does?”, you whispered. You sounded pathetic. You sounded as desperate and helpless as you felt.

“Patience.”

“We don’t have enough time for patience.”

“A good thing then that you already played those chords, sweetheart. Two times. Three, actually.”

“Dustin said –“

“Forget what Dustin said, just for a sec, ‘kay? For one, learning to use those powers is neat but, in the end, we don’t need them. We got truckloads of Molotov cocktails and shit. Stop it with the hero complex, will ya?”

“What if those powers are what tips the scales?”

“They already tipped the scales multiple times,” Eddie insisted, “Which brings me to my second point. Henderson is convinced the mental flamethrower is activated by fear. Panic. Whatever. But I think that’s not the only way. I actually think there’s a better way to trigger it.”

You frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Tell me what you feel, monster slayer,” Eddie murmured, his fingertips tracing soothing little circles on your cheek.

“About what?”

With his free hand, he made a vague little gesture at the sea of unlit candles all around you. “About the whole Firestarter business. Your new powers.”

“We don’t have time for therapy and pep-talks, Eddie.” You don’t have time. You didn’t need to say the words. You were pretty sure he was reading them in your eyes right now.

“Then we’ll take the time. ‘Cause I can’t shake the feeling that the worst obstacle in the way here is kinda…yourself.” He scrunched his nose in contemplation as he gently pried the candle from your hands.

There was a pause, a beat of silence filled by the chirping of birds in the trees as Eddie watched you, waiting for you to collect your thoughts.

“I don’t want them. I don’t want those powers,” you finally breathed.

“I know.” It was soft-spoken.

“It doesn’t help to know what it is,” you whispered. “It’s like…like a parasite. Eating away at me and spreading and I’m scared that it’ll…take control again. Because it’s a part of him.”

“Maybe that’s where you should start. Thinking of it less as a parasite more of a...a raccoon. Or a dog, I dunno. A stray that won’t leave your side. What would have happened, hadn’t it…” Eddie chewed his bottom lip, eyes narrowing as he contemplated. “Hadn’t it been activated? At the townhall?”

“The door would have stayed locked,” you said quietly. “I would’ve never made it to the boathouse in time. Jason would have…he would have hurt you.”

Eddie gave you a curt nod. You both knew Jason would have done even worse than that.

“And at the boat house,” Eddie pressed softly, “What would have happened if it hadn’t been activated and set Chance’s ass on fire?”

Your reply was barely a whisper at the horrible memory of Jason, the moonlight falling into the boathouse making the metal of the crowbar in his fist glint like the blade of a sword. The crowbar he’d have used to break Eddie’s fingers, steal the music from him before he’d have stolen the life from Eddie’s eyes as well.

“They…he would have killed you.”

Eddie gave a stern nod. “So, the way I see it…it saved my life twice.”

“That’s –“

“Not a coincidence, sweetheart. I suck at biology, not math. You want to protect me. And that’s what it did. It protected me when you couldn’t.”

“Vecna said it only worked because he allowed it.”

“So we trust the undead psycho-killer now? You’re one of the wittiest, cleverest people I know, monster slayer.” His voice softened. “Those are your weapons as much as fire or guns or knives. Don’t let him succeed in making your fear and intimidation shut them off. ‘Cause,” Eddie gently placed the knuckle of his index finger under your chin, coaxing your head up so you’d meet his gaze, “He needed you to get in. And if he can’t do that shit by himself, he might not be as powerful as he wants us, wants you, believe he is.”

Eddie’s words made sense. Of course they did – and it hit you how far Vecna had already come in dazing your mind with your panic for Eddie, for you to be blind to the facts that were right under your nose.

“You’re right,” you breathed.

Eddie gave you a shit-eating grin. “’Course I am. I’m a fucking Dungeon Master. It’s my job to think like the monsters.” His face turned stern once more. “A knife in itself isn’t a bad thing. It can’t be good or bad, it’s just a weapon. It’s a matter of who wields it and for what cause that determines a weapon’s purpose. In those three times these powers have been activated, it has been to protect. Not once did they flare to life to attack.”

In the twilight of dusk, the sky a canvas filled with all shades of red and blue and pink and orange and the final rays of sunlight which had painted streaks of caramel into Eddie’s curls only moments prior gone now, Eddie’s eyes were dark, and the softness within them made your heart sing as he slowly took your hands in his, placing the candle back in your palms before folding your fingers around it.

“Okay, try again. Reach out. Stray, not parasite. It saved my ass, so try to give it a chance. Can you do that?”, Eddie inquired softly, and you gave him a nod as you watched while Eddie gently folded his own hands over yours, around the candle, and you frowned.

“No,” you said softly, “You should step away. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” He spoke the words without hesitation.

“How do you know?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “I just do. You’re not gonna hurt me, monster slayer. And I got an idea.”

He leaned close, placing the sweetest of kisses on the tip of your nose before he said, “You trust me?”

“With my life.” It came out without a single second of hesitation.

The radiant smile on Eddie’s lips was infectious as he announced, “Then we’ll try it my way now, instead of Henderson’s, ‘kay?”

“Dustin will hate you for diverting from the protocol.”

“Well, the little shrimp isn’t here right now, and so far, his protocol’s been failing miserably. So my way it is.”

“Are you using your boyfriend skills now?”, you teased, and his grin turned playful, dazzling as he mused, “One day I might stop wanting to faint on the spot when you call me your boyfriend, but today’s not that day. But no. Actually, I’m using my skills as long-term Dungeon Master.” His voice turned quiet. “Which memories tore you out of Vecna’s hold?”

You chewed your bottom lip as your mind wandered back. “The…the night we watched the stars on your roof. When you kissed me. Before…” You trailed off, but Eddie’s gaze was soft as he waited for you to go on. “When you came to the balls-and-laundry-baskets-game that night for me. When we danced in the woods and we almost kissed.”

He tilted his head. “Wait, you noticed that?”

“I was thinking about nothing else before you finally actually kissed me.”

“I swear I could have set the whole damn woods on fire because I was so frustrated by that fucking leaf. Took me so goddamn long to muster the courage to make a move and then it was thwarted by a goddamn maple leaf,” Eddie chuckled.

You giggled, before you went on, “The day we went hiking in the woods. When you tripped over that tree root.”

“So the happy memories ripping you from Vecna’s trance were simply a series of my most clumsy moments,” Eddie summed up playfully, “Good to know.” There was a beat of silence, before his expression turned serious again and he added, almost timidly, “So, uh. I’m – I’m in your happiest memories?”

Your own smile widened. “Actually, you’re the reason why they’re my happiest memories. Each and every single one of them.”

For once, Eddie Munson was speechless as he watched you with a mix of awe and bewilderment and love brimming in his eyes alongside a few happy tears as he whispered, “Focus on those, monster slayer. Focus on the happy.”

And when Eddie leaned close to place the softest of butterfly-kisses on your lips, resting his forehead against yours, your eyes fluttered close again.

With Eddie’s curls tickling your face and his palms warm against the back of your hands, wrapped around yours as you kept holding the candle, his scent engulfing you – of leather and sweat and cologne and the faintest trace of cigarettes and chocolate, you focused on all these happy memories. All the smiles, the lingering glances, the touches and kisses and laughs you’d shared with Eddie, gathering these images like pieces of your armor – before you reached out.

Towards that darkness nestled in your chest.

Not a stain, but something stolen.

Something powerful.

Something that now belonged to you. Yours to wield and command.

You could feel it stirring awake upon your beckon, a beast roused from its slumber raising its head, a tingle spreading through your body like the one you’d felt at the townhall, at the boathouse.

But this time, it was different.

This time, there was no danger, nobody threatening to hurt Eddie.

Eddie was right here, his warm, calm breaths prickling on your lips.

This time, you didn’t beg for that sliver of darkness to help you.

You were in control, that thing in your chest leashed and waiting. It was…alive, in its own strange way, you realized.

A stray beast, not a parasite, you reminded yourself, conjuring up the image.

With your mind you reached out, carefully, tentatively, towards that thing.

Are you on my side?, you wanted to ask.

You felt the strange darkness shifting, a shiver running through your entire being, and you felt Eddie’s hands squeezing yours in a gentle gesture of reassurance, as if he were sensing your distress. Telling you that he was right here. By your side.

He wouldn’t be, had it not been for that dark thing you’d stolen. He was right.

You saved him. It swirled, a sensation like ripples across the surface of a lake in the breeze. Will you help me save him again?

It was…waiting. For your command?

In your mind’s eye, you envisioned what you wanted.

Not the inferno of a Hellfire this time, but gentle flames, a soft flicker. Light, to chase away the growing darkness of nightfall, instead of fire to burn and devour.

You reached out for that darkness within, let it tangle around you like wisps of black mist, curious and…playful as it rose within you, ready to be wielded. Ready to heed your commands.

And command it, you did.

With Eddie’s dazzling smile and sparkling eyes, his infectious laughter and crooning voice in your mind, a leash of light holding that darkness within, you tugged.

Your breath hitched at the sensation, an electric tingle in your nerves – and your eyes flew open in time with Eddie’s, gazes locking on the candle in your hands.

On the small, dancing flame clinging to its wick between the two of you, its glow bright in the twilight of dusk.

You opened your mouth, but before you could utter the words of marvel at the tip of your tongue, something at the periphery of your vision caught your attention, a swarm of fireflies – only they weren’t fireflies.

They were flames. Dancing on the wicks of the candles Eddie had placed all around the clearing, a sea of flickering lights casting their golden glow to illuminate the dusk.

Eddie was the first one to break the bewildered silence, awe lacing his voice as he whispered, “Jesus H. Christ.”

Your incredulous smile met Eddie’s proud one, the light of the candle between the two of you dancing in his dark eyes.

“I did it,” you breathed. “I did it!”

“You fucking did it, yeah. Holy shit.” Incredulous laughter bubbled from Eddie as he turned around to face the sea of flickering candles shedding their golden light into the thickening darkness, before Eddie gently took the candle from your hands, blowing out the flame before he discarded it on the carpet of fallen leaves to cradle your cheeks and capture your lips in a kiss, as sweet and addictive as syrup.

The trigger for those powers…it had never been anger or rage or fear, you realized.

It had always been your love for Eddie, your desire to protect him.

Your hands flew up, weaving through his dark curls as you reciprocated the kiss, the fierceness of your touch making Eddie utter the sweetest of sighs as he pressed closer against you.

But the nightfall shrouding the woods like the mourning veil of a widow was the needle to burst this perfect, happy little bubble of Eddie’s kisses.

The twelve hours had almost run out.

There wasn’t much time left to convince Eddie to leave.

“I don’t want to go,” you whispered into the kiss. “I want to stay here in our spot with you forever. Just us. Just this.” Pulling away, just enough to glance at him, you began, “Eddie –“

“Ssshh,” he cut you off softly, before brushing the pad of his thumb across your bottom lip, and the gesture was all it took to set your nerves ablaze with need for him all over again.

And whatever Eddie had seen flashing in your eyes at the touch, it was enough to read you like an open book.

“We still got a bit of time left, ya know,” he mused, his eyes briefly flitting to the skies above, the color of a fresh bruise between the leaves in the crowns of the trees surrounding you, and there was a timid, mischievous smile playing on his lips when he looked back at you. “We could make use of it.”

“We could.”

“Though…I dunno whether it’s a good idea. Here, I mean. Since…” He trailed off, desperate to find the right words for what you already knew he wanted to say.

“Eddie, stop,” you said softly, taking his hands to lead him towards the picnic table, “You need to stop thinking you’ll hurt me. You won’t. You’re not Jason, you’re the guy I love. If I ever feel uncomfortable with anything you do, I’ll just tell you. But I don’t think I ever will, okay? And if you’re wasting another second you could be kissing me –“

Your words morphed into a surprised little giggle as Eddie tugged you towards him with a little twirl before his lips crashed on yours for another one of those kisses you’d happily drown in for the rest of eternity.

“Say that again,” Eddie murmured into the kiss, his tongue flicking out to graze your bottom lip, fingertips travelling along your spine, eliciting shivers even through the barrier of your Hellfire shirt’s fabric.

“You’re the guy I love,” you whispered happily, pressing your chest flush against his as he deepened the kiss, your own hands finding purchase at the lapels of his leather jacket to drag him closer, knowing it would never be close enough.

He let you guide him as you walked backwards, pulling him with you. Putting you in control of the situation once again, you realized. The gesture made love wash through you, warm and giddy like a spring day.

You reached the picnic table, your lower back bumping against the wooden edge of the tabletop – but there was no flashback to that September night with Jason, no panic, no nausea, only blazing need for Eddie building in your core with his feverish kisses, the slow dance of his tongue over yours. He tasted of the Yoo-Hoo he’d drank, of himself; and his scent wrapping around you like a warm blanket to shield you from the cold was as intoxicating as the sensation of his lips moving against yours.

His hands dove underneath the hem of your cheerleader skirt, locking around the back of your thighs to guide you to sit on the tabletop, his lips leaving yours to trace lingering, feverish kisses along your jaw that made you arch into him even further when he came to stand between your legs, one of his knees resting on the bench of the picnic table – before he sat down in front of you.

But before you could pull him back up to continue the kiss, you realized he had other plans – and you happily obliged.

A pleasant chill skittered along your spine when Eddie’s fingertips traced your right ankle, letting his hands stroll higher while he bent to place trails of lingering kisses in the wake of his wandering hands. A trembling groan escaped your lips at the sensations cascading through your body when his slow caresses reached the inside of your thigh.

Eddie’s touches left your skin burning and tingling, making you yearn for more, that familiar ravenous sensation blazing to life in your core when the pad of Eddie’s thumb flicked over your clothed heat, the sodden spot on the fabric of your panties, before he gazed up at you, an incredulous smile on his face.

“That all for me?”, he breathed, and you chuckled, before weaving your fingers through the curls of his bangs, careful not to graze the cut on his brow in the process.

“Of course.” Your smile widening, you murmured, “You’ve no idea what you’re doing to me with a single kiss, Eddie Munson.”

“Well, now I do,” he grinned, placing a kiss on the inside of your thigh, your hips bucking against the pad of his thumb stroking over your clothed heat, desperate for more friction already, your sigh morphing into a little whine as he pulled his hand away to hook his thumbs around the waistband of your panties.

His dark eyes glittered as they met yours in a silent question for permission you happily granted, lifting your hips so he could pull off the panties, the fabric eliciting shivers as if brushed along your skin when he slid them down your legs – and instead of discarding them on the forest floor, Eddie tucked them into the pocket of his ripped jeans, a timid little smile playing on his lips.

The gesture made your walls clench in anticipation, but before you could comment on how hot it was, Eddie let his calloused palms wander over the insides of your thighs to spread them further for him made, stealing your words and making you go crazy with the need to feel him inside of you.

“I love the way I can read in your eyes the exact moment your mind wanders into the gutter,” Eddie murmured with a soft snicker, and your grip in his curls tightened a little as you teased, “It’s not wandering. At this rate, it’s plummeting into a deep-dive, and you’re the one who pushed me.”

“Gonna join you there now,” Eddie smiled up at you, blowing a stray curl away from his face. “You’re always fucking beautiful, but the Hellfire shirt on you holds a special spell over me, sweetheart.”

The low drawl of his dark voice, like velvet on your bare skin, sent another pleasant shiver slithering down your spine. Eddie’s fingertips grazed the sides of your legs as he hiked up the fabric of your cheerleader skirt – but when he leaned in to place a kiss to the spot right above your aching clit, you froze in place with realization of what he was about to do.

Immediately sensing your sudden change in demeanor, Eddie pulled away, his hands leaving their spot on your hips.

“What’s wrong?”, he inquired softly, his dark eyes scanning yours, worry shining within.

Heat flared in your cheeks as you bit your lip and glanced away, focusing on the green-white-orange lines at the hem of your skirt, your fingers fiddling with a loose thread before Eddie gently took your hands in his, lacing your fingers.

“It’s stupid, really,” you said.

“It isn’t,” Eddie murmured, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

He tilted his head, resting his chin on your knee while he glanced up at you, patiently waiting for your reply, the light of the candles dancing in his dark gaze.

You didn’t have any experience, prior to Eddie – but according to the girl talks with Nance and the things you’d overheard from the other cheerleaders, most guys didn’t like to go down on girls.

This was all still so new. And the last thing you wanted was for Eddie to be uncomfortable.

“Are you…I mean, are you sure you want to?”, you asked hesitantly, self-conscious all of a sudden, but Eddie’s gaze softened even more as he said, “Shit, yeah. I wanted to try that last night but…I was too chicken to ask. Believe me, getting you off is the hottest thing ever. Like, I’m probably gonna drop dead if you let me try, but it’ll have been worth it.”

You snickered, his words taking away some of your anxiety.

“You know there’s. Uh. There’s no need to be embarrassed or self-conscious or stuff, right? You’re beautiful, monster slayer. Every part of you. If you don’t wanna try it, say the word and I’ll stop. But if you wanna have a go at it, I’d be more than happy to make you feel good in all the ways I can.”

There were a few seconds of silence as you let his words sink in, gazes locked, the ache in your core growing at the sight of his dilated pupils, the way he was looking at you with so much love and admiration, as if for Eddie, you truly were the most beautiful girl in the world.

“Okay,” you breathed, giving him a slow nod, and he cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay?”, he echoed, “Or yes?”

“Yes,” you smiled.

Upon your words, Eddie’s smile widened, a little timid as his hands found their way back underneath your skirt, pushing the fabric up before he let his hands roam up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, the caress a beautiful symphony of sensations; of the warm, calloused skin of Eddie’s palms, the smooth, warm metal of his rings, the cool brush of the little chain dangling on the sleeve of his leather jacket, leaving goosebumps and searing sparks in their wake.

You shifted a little on the tabletop to inch closer towards him, the rough wooden surface scraping against the back of your thighs where the fabric of your skirt had ridden up, your heart racing wildly in your chest.

Eddie’s umber eyes never leaving yours, scanning you for any sign of unease, Eddie slowly bent down, placing a soft, lingering kiss on the inside of your left thigh, right above your knee, and a second kiss right above that spot, his lips wandering higher, slow enough to give you the chance to stop him.

But despite the residual self-consciousness, you didn’t want him to stop.

You never wanted him to stop.

Each of those lingering, open-mouthed kisses was gasoline to the fire he was building in your core, leaping higher and higher the closer he drew to that aching spot between your legs where you needed him most, your thighs already coated with your arousal and your hips bucking a little as you shuffled closer to the edge of the tabletop, closer to him – and his smile grew wider as, those beautiful umber eyes never leaving yours, Eddie dragged his tongue over your folds.

The sensation of it was setting your every nerve ablaze, sent sparks travelling through your body to collect in your core as a breathless, “Holy shit,” tumbled from your lips.

“You taste so good,” Eddie moaned, the lilting timbre of his voice raspy with his own arousal, vibrating so beautifully through your body, and the sensation of his hot breath ghosting over your soaked folds made your toes curl with need.

“Do that again,” you pleaded, breathless already with the last of your worries momentarily replaced by white-hot bliss, and Eddie gladly heeded the plea, one of your hands clutching the edge of the tabletop for purchase as the other found its way back into Eddie’s soft curls to pull him closer against you as he dragged his tongue over your pussy, so achingly slow, as if he wanted to relish the way your arousal tasted on his tongue while his hands locked around your thighs to pull you closer against him.

The sight of Eddie, settled between your legs, his eyes dark with desire as he watched you with burning intensity, was nearly enough to send you over the edge already.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he whispered, his lips brushing over the swollen nub of your clit to create the softest touch, making your eyes fall shut with the sensation as you begged, “Oh god, please stop teasing.”

Eddie’s low chuckle seemed to vibrate right through you – and you couldn’t bite back the noise lodged at the back of your throat any longer as his lips found the nub of your clit, gently sucking.

Your lewd moan filled the silence of the evening air, spurning him on, and his tongue darted out to swirl around your clit, your hips grinding against his face to chase the sensation. With another soft chuckle, he locked his hands around your knees and pulled, inviting you to hook your legs around his shoulders.

“Fuck, Eddie,” you groaned as he lapped at your arousal, dragging his tongue through your folds for a third time before he let it flick over your clit again, making you cry out with the pleasure blazing through you with the force of a wildfire.

You’d never get enough of this.

Of him.

Eddie’s dark curls tickled the insides of your thighs as he moved his head, making your skin prickle as the swirls of his tongue, still so achingly slow, turned the world into a blur of colors at the edges of your perception as your each and every sense, every cell in your body, zoned in on Eddie like the focus of a camera.

You could feel how close you were already, your climax building with every skilled stroke and flick of his tongue, his own soft moans vibrating through your core to lace with yours in the chill air, and your grip in his curls tightened to pull him closer still as your hips rolled languidly against his mouth.

You could feel him smile when Eddie wrapped his lips around your clit, sucking gently – and the sensation pushed you over the edge, your climax crashing over you as his name left your lips on a cry probably loud enough to be heard throughout the entire woods, but you couldn’t care less right now.

Your head rolled back as your orgasm washed through you, hips grinding against Eddie’s lips to chase that beautiful sensation as he hummed softly, guiding you through your orgasm with soft swirls of his tongue as your pace faltered, and he placed a final kiss on your clit, before he gazed up at you.

His lips glistening with your arousal, his curls a tousled mess beneath your grip as if he’d been caught in a hurricane, and his grin was nothing short of blissed-out to match the dusting of a blush on his pale cheeks and the burning need glittering in his eyes alongside the reflection of the flickering candlelight.

“All good?”, he grinned, watching your chest heave.

“Holy shit, yes,” you laughed breathlessly, your body tingling with the afterglow of your climax, walls clenching around nothing with the sight of him gazing up at you from between your legs, the gentle expression in his beautiful umber eyes never wavering while he entangled himself from your legs to rise to his feet in front of you, lips capturing yours in a feverish kiss that made you go wild all over again at the taste of yourself on his lips.

“Was – was it good for you, too?”, you breathed, but the sudden worry in your chest was chased away by the radiant smile Eddie gave you in response.

“You really need to ask?”, he chuckled, sounding genuinely incredulous, “Fuck, sweetheart, that was the hottest thing ever. When we’re out of there tonight, I’m never gonna do anything else. That’s it. Just making you go off on my tongue for the rest of life.”

The rest of my life.

The words were a needle piercing the happy little soap bubble you’d allowed yourself to be locked in with Eddie for those past few moments, and the realization of what lay ahead tonight, the images Vecna had placed in your mind night after night, in the trance he’d pulled you under…it came pouncing down on you like a swarm of those horrid bats.

And with it came the terror and the tears.

“I’m so fucking scared,” you whispered.

“Sssshh,” Eddie soothed, cupping your cheeks, “I know. Me too. But it’s gonna be okay.”

“How do you know?”, you cried softly.

His dark eyes scanned yours, before a strained little smile tugged at his lips. “’Cause ’86 is gonna be our year, monster slayer. I just know it. It’s all gonna be okay. I can feel it.”

It’s not. It’s not going to work out.

Eddie rested his forehead against yours, his thumb catching more of the tears you’d fought so hard to suppress, falling down your face like rivulets of rain as your insides felt as if you were being torn apart with terror, the overpowering fear to lose him.

That Vecna could take him away from you.

“You can still run,” you whispered. “You can take the camper and leave. It’s not too late.”

“I can’t. I’m gonna help stop him before he hurts you more than he already has. I’m gonna make him pay for the hell he put you through, monster slayer. You gotta let me do this.”

“He wants you, Eddie. Not the others. You.”

“Well, I’m not gonna let him get me.”

“That’s not enough!”, you sobbed, burying your face in the crook of his neck, his curls tickling your tear-stained cheeks as he held you.

“I can,” Eddie murmured. His fingertips were drawing soothing circles on your back. “Look at me. Please.”

You pulled back to heed his plea, your heart squeezing in your chest as you met his gaze.

“I love you, sweetheart. You found me at the boathouse. When I was trapped in the Upside Down. You found your way back to me through Vecna’s curse. That’s what we do, right? We find each other. Again and again. Even if we’re worlds apart from one another. There’s nothing that can keep us apart. I’ll always, always come back to you, monster slayer. I promise.”

His words still floating in the space between the two of you, Eddie reached up to the back of his neck, and you watched as he pulled his necklace over his head, the smooth plastic surface of the guitar pick dangling from the chain shimmering in the dancing light of the candles.

“That was the first guitar pick I ever had, did you know that? With that thing, I learned to play guitar,” Eddie said softly as he looked at the guitar pick nestled in his palm, his expression soft and far away at the memory he was sharing. “It was a shitty old acoustic guitar my uncle got from a yard sale. The guitar pick was part of the package. It’s been my lucky charm ever since and I guess it worked because I’m here, with the girl of my dreams who, for some weird reason, loves me back.”

With a chuckle, Eddie’s eyes met yours, and your own eyes widened as gently placed the necklace over your head, the metal of the chain warm with his own body heat as it came to rest against your skin, and you watched the pattern of dancing shadows the candlelight cast across his handsome face as Eddie’s eyes flitted down while righted the guitar pick around your neck, the light painting the tips of his long dark lashes in hues of gold.

“There,” he whispered, “Keep this safe for me, ‘kay?”

It sounded…sad.

It sounded like a farewell.

Fresh tears were spilling down your face as a frail, broken sob ripped away from you. Right out of your heart, the shards only just mended.

If Vecna took Eddie and broke it again, there would never be a way to put the pieces back together. “Why are you saying goodbye?” It was a broken sob, the words barely piercing the silence of the young spring night.

“I’m not,” Eddie soothed quickly, “I – shit, I’m not saying goodbye. Promise. Just for safekeeping. You’ll give it back as soon as we’re out of that shithole tomorrow. Okay?”

You gave him a frail little nod, the words choked by your tears as a though sparked in your mind. With trembling hands, you reached up, to the silk ribbon holding your hair.

You tucked, pulling it loose.

“Remember the day we met?”, you choked, “In the cafeteria?”

“Jell-O-gate,” Eddie snickered, “’course. You know I do. It was the day I practically fall for you.”

You sniffled, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady your voice. “I fell a little for you, too. That day. You were so…different. I thought you were beautiful.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in disbelief as he watched you, your fingers tracing the soft green silk of the ribbon in your palm.

“You did?”

You smiled at him through the tears. “Still do, but yeah. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, either. I was always scanning the crowds to get a glimpse at you, you know.”

With a trembling exhale, you held the silk ribbon between your hands. The edges were a little frayed, the vibrant color a little faded in places where it had lain on the ground of these very woods until someone, maybe even Jason, had picked it up, used it to deliver the threat for Eddie to you – but you didn’t care. This ribbon had always been a lucky charm, from the moment Nancy and Barb had given it to you that day in the cafeteria right before you’d met Eddie.

Hadn’t it fallen from your hair that day, you’d never have bumped into Eddie. Would never have had those few heartbeats of a shared smile, getting lost in his beautiful eyes.

And just like Eddie, this ribbon had always found its way back to you.

“Is – wait, is that the ribbon you lost that day in the cafeteria?” Eddie asked, watching as you gently tied the silk around his wrist, right above the metal bracelet glittering in the candlelight.

“Yes,” you smiled, tying the ends into a ribbon, “It is. Now you got something from me, too. Don’t lose it, Munson. Else, I’m gonna keep the necklace.” Your face grew serious again when you added on a whisper, “This ribbon always made it back to me. Now that you have it…so will you.”

You could see the tears brimming in Eddie’s own eyes as he nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat as he watched you raise his hand to your lips, turning it to place a delicate kiss on the inside of his wrist, your lips brushing his pulse point, and a second kiss on the silken green fabric of the ribbon, vibrant against Eddie pale skin.

Bring him back to me, you silently pleaded. Be my lucky charm one more time.

You couldn’t remember who crossed the remaining few inches first, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered were Eddie’s lips on yours, gentle and sweet and desperate, laced with so many emotions mirroring those churning in your own heart.

Love. Fear.

Hope.

His hands found their way back to your cheeks, his tongue to yours, and you sunk into the kisses, the tears continuing to stream down your face to mingle with Eddie’s and lace his kisses with the taste of salt.

Your fingers flitted down, working the buckle of his belt open, his own hands shooting out to help free him of his pants, and you pulled away from the kiss to watch him as your hand gently wrapped around his hardened length, your thumb brushing over the underside of his tip, relishing the way his lips parted for the softest groan, his heavy-lidded gaze resting on yours.

“Sweetheart, you’re crying -” he whispered, his breath hitching as you repeated the motion of your thumb.

“I need to feel you,” you breathed. “Please.” Your voice was barely a whisper in the space between the two of you, ragged breaths mingling as Eddie’s hand settled on the back of your head, his forehead still resting against yours.

You wanted to stay in this moment, to feel him, relish every single second you had left before he’d follow you into the darkness of the Upside Down. To catch those final moments, lock them up like the glittering flakes in a snow globe and keep them behind polished glass, frozen in time. Safe and sound, forever.

For Eddie’s kisses to chase away the panic and the terror of what lay ahead, your all-consuming fear to lose him tonight.

You locked your legs around his waist, the fabric of ripped jeans rubbing against the bare skin of your legs as you gyrated your hips against him, and the sensation of his tip grazing against your heat, slick with your arousal, stole the loveliest groan from Eddie’s lips.

And gazes locked and overflowing with so much adoration and love, it felt as if you could feel the threads connecting your soul with his, like strings of silk wrapped around your hearts and binding you to each other, making your paths cross over and over again like twin stars bound in each other’s orbit by their own gravity.

The air was knocked from your lungs with a sharp exhale when Eddie moved his hips and sheathed himself inside you, your velvet walls stretching around him as he filled you, bodies melting together.

You could tell he wanted to wait for you to adjust to him, so careful and gentle with you even in a moment when passion despair ruled out every other thought.

With Eddie’s chest pressed flush against yours, you couldn’t tell where his own heartbeat ended and yours began until they felt like becoming one, their beats were forming a beautiful duet alongside your shared moans tangling in the cool spring air as you moved you dug your heels into his lower back to bring him closer still, bury him deeper inside your walls.

For a few heartbeats, you just stayed like this, with your foreheads pressed together, his curls tickling your face and breathing in each other’s scent, the physical connection matching the one between your hearts, your bodies fitting just as perfectly.

When you angled your head and your lips found Eddie’s, quiet understanding passing between the two of you, he began to move, pushing out slowly before he thrust into you again. You fought for your eyes to stay open, locked on Eddie’s, the light of the candles dancing in the darkness of his dilated pupils, a kaleidoscope of warmth and love and tenderness that could never be fully put into words brimming in those beautiful umber eyes as Eddie held your gaze.

A strangled moan tumbled from your lips as his tip grazed the sweet spot deep within your walls, sending pleasure spreading through your body in glowing hot currents. And as if a scale had been tipped, Eddie’s grasp on your lower back tightened a little more, as he guided your hips against him, his thrusts matching the roll of your hips perfectly. You drew a sharp breath when he sucked at your bottom lip – gently enough so he wouldn’t hurt you, a love bite that made your bliss-addled mind spin like a carousel as your hands wove in his curls, so soft to your touch, tangling around your fingers when you tugged him closer.

“I can’t believe you’re mine,” Eddie breathed between kisses, his hand sliding down between your bodies, fingertips brushing over the swollen bud of your clit to send searing pleasure through your veins and make your body hum with electricity, as if every single nerve in your body to the very tips of your fingers raking through his curls was sizzling with tiny sparks, and you could feel his smile against your lips when you arched further into the touch with a broken moan.

“I can’t believe you came back to me, monster slayer. I can’t believe you love me.”

“I do,” you whispered, voice strained with the moan you were biting back in order for the words to find their way into the air, your own laboured breaths mingling with Eddie’s, his caresses of your clit growing more urgent with the quickening paces of his thrusts, grazing the spot inside of you over and over again to build the glowing sensation in your core. “I love you, Eddie.”

Please don’t let him. Please don’t let him take you away from me.

With his name leaving your parted lips in a broken cry swallowed by his greedy kisses, your climax washed over you. Torrents of pure bliss engulfing you as the glowing feeling which had built in your core cascaded through every last cell of your body like radiant, blinding-white sunlight, and little shooting stars danced in your vision as you could feel Eddie’s pace faltering, toppling over the edge of his own climax alongside you, his voice shattering beneath the blissed-out moan tumbling from his soft lips.

Your head fell on his shoulder as you rode out your orgasm with him, clinging to each other.

“I love you, monster slayer” Eddie whispered on a string of broken moans as he came undone inside of you with a final gentle thrust, his words making your heart sing, “It’s always been you.”

For a few heartbeats the two of you stayed like this, trying to catch your ragged breaths, your legs still hooked around his waist to hold him close against you, to just feel him inside you for a few moments longer, breathing in each other, hearts racing and minds dazed with the remnants of the bliss you’d just shared.

“When this is all over,” Eddie whispered, his thumbs caressing your cheeks. “I’m gonna take you to prom. I mean, if you wanna go, that is. I’d love to be all sappy and cheesy and take you to prom. I’ll give you one of these little flower-bracelets and take you out for dinner first. Or milkshakes. Or both. Gotta treat my girl,” he chuckled softly. “Dance with you all night, twirl you around in whatever dress you’ll pick which doesn’t matter ‘cause you could attend in your pajamas and you’d still be the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“We’d probably create a bit of a commotion,” you smiled, nuzzling your nose against his, your fingers playing with the soft curls at the nape of his neck.

“Would you be okay with that?”, Eddie asked, a little shy of a sudden before the beam you gave him in reply chased the little frown of worry from his beautiful features.

“I told you I’d wear my Hellfire shirt proudly. I wasn’t joking, Eddie. When this is over, I can’t wait to show the world that I’m Eddie Munson’s girl. That you’re the one who stole my heart.”

“Not stole,” Eddie whispered, placing a kiss on the tip of your nose, “Won. Stealing means it doesn’t actually belong to you, but winning means it’s been given freely. That it was a choice. So…you’re gonna go to prom with me?”

There was a beat of silence, filled only by the thudding of Eddie’s heart against your own, entangled with each other, before you murmured, “That sounds like a Go-Directly-To-Jail-Card, Eddie. You’ll still be wanted for murder.”

“We’ll find a way to make the cops believe me.”

“The whole of Hawkins wants to see you burn at the stake.”

Eddie huffed. “I don’t care about them. I’m gonna take my girl to prom.”

“And then?”, you smiled.

He chuckled softly. “Then I’ll very gently rip whatever pretty dress you’re wearing right away from you as soon as we’re alone again and put my tongue to good use. And then…I’m gonna take you wherever you wanna go.”

“But where do you want to go?”, you breathed. “I mean, if you could pick a destination right now?”

“Wherever you are, monster slayer. So…where do you wanna go first? Where did you always want to visit? Hadn’t all the monster shit happened?”

“The beach.” You’d never thought about it – but as soon as the words were out, you realized how much you wanted to go to the beach. “Swim in the ocean, walk through the warm sand. Listen to the waves. I think I’d love to go somewhere where there’s a beach with you.”

Eddie’s smile was radiant. “Then I’ll take you to the beach, monster slayer. I promise.”

***

The moment was over too soon.

You drove the camper back to the little hill to gather the others.

You put on the combat vests and pants and boots you’d grabbed from the War Zone.

You shouldered your makeshift-weapons.

And when you stood underneath the gate in Eddie’s trailer, its angry crimson glow like an infected wound a second pulse alongside your own, the powers which had once belonged to Vecna now nestling against your own soul, watching your friends climb the makeshift rope to the other side, Eddie squeezed your hand in his.

When the two of you were the last ones left to climb through, you whispered, “You can still run, you know. They’ll understand. They know he wants to kill you.”

“I’m gonna make him pay,” Eddie said softly. “I’m gonna make sure this fucker will never be able to lay a single finger on you again, monster slayer.”

He turned to face you, and his umber eyes found yours.

He looked beautiful. He looked like a warrior.

Like the hero he was.

His dark curls peeked out from underneath the fabric of the bandana he’d tied around his head, the crimson glow of the gate casting shadows across his pale features, making his eyes shimmer. Your gaze flitted down to the red demon face of his Hellfire shirt grinning back at you from beneath the combat vest and leather jacket. As an afterthought, you reached out, your fingertips fiddling to zip the combat vest up.

“You’re ruining my look,” Eddie teased, but his grin slipped at the sight of your own stern expression.

“That zipper,” you said vehemently, leaving no room for doubt that you were being serious, “Stays closed. Do you hear me, Edward Munson?”

“Are you two going to join us today?”, Steve called out from the other side of the gate, breaking the moment, the promise still out in the open, and Eddie bent down to pick up the makeshift shield he’d made with rusty nails and the lid of a trashcan, before he grasped your hand, his eyes never leaving yours while he placed a soft kiss to the back of your hand.

“See you on the other side, monster slayer.”

***

At the edge of Hawkins, there was a house.

The once vibrant blue paint was peeling away from its wooden façade, tar-black creepers climbing its walls, wrapping around the pillars framing the front door with its bouquet of crimson stained-glass roses.

It had once been a home.

It still was. The home to a monster – but a home, no less.

It wasn’t far from the Forest Hills trailer park, embedded in a patch of woods, the naked branches of the trees surrounding the little hill reaching towards the clouds in the skies, crimson flashes of lightning making them look like skeletal hands reaching up from graves as flurries of white spores drifted through the icy air.

It was calm, the place frozen in time – until something changed.

It was a small change, a ripple travelling through the air like a breeze stirring the surface of a pond.

The vines curling around the rotting pillars flanking the front door could sense it, vibrating with the sensation as a chorus of shrieks pierced the air, the sea of bats flitting in circles around the house growing restless with the sensation.

Hungry.

And in the old house’s attic, hovering amidst the tangle of his vines like a spider in its web…Vecna woke.

Forget-me-not blue eyes flying open at the ripple travelling to this realm, his realm, so beautifully frozen in time.

It felt like a sigh. A relieved sigh, of a missing part of himself returning home at last.

They were here.

For the first time in decades, his rotten lips curved into a smile.

He couldn’t hurt the girl who’d banished him here.

But he could hurt the girl who’d stolen from him.

And hurt her, he would.

Get back what was his.

And take her songbird away.

Because nobody stole from him and walked away unscathed.