loverboymontgomery·:
xx.
As he walked closer to Eddie, he tried flexing his ankle. It was sore, but the soreness was dull enough that it left Cole wondering if it was all in his head. The last few weeks had Cole questioning his sanity more times than he was comfortable with. Pulling Adam’s flannel around his torso, Cole nodded in agreement with Eddie’s statement. “Yeah… it’s a lot. Kind of too much to try and figure out right now, after that keg stand,” Cole admitted with a grimace. Not his brightest idea.
“Can I bum a smoke?” Cole asked when Eddie brought the cigarette to his lips. Cole glanced down to his ankle and laughed humorlessly. “I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’s all in my head or if that really happened. You’d tell me if you thought I was going crazy, right?” he asked, half-joking. Cole straightened his back and met Eddie’s eyes.
“So, not to be awkward, but… we’re cool, right?” Cole asked, sincerity written on his face. “I just mean… like, to me, we’re good.” They never had a chance to talk about what had happened, and since then, there was Thad and then Adam coming back. He didn’t think it was that deep, really, but wanted to make sure.
With Steve, it had been an unspoken agreement: Steve will bring it up if he wants to. But with Eddie, he wasn’t sure. With the frantic way things ended at the mall, it was impossible to know what Eddie had been thinking, what he could be thinking now. Cole felt drawn to him as a friend, and he hoped what had happened hadn’t ruined that from the start.
Besides, Cole was very curious about what he’d seen between Eddie and Steve. It was glaringly obvious to him at the shore that something had happened, and when it clicked in Cole’s mind, he’d wanted nothing more than to congratulate them. Obviously, that was out of the question, but now that he’d found Eddie alone, he hoped it would come up.
+++
"sure, here ya go.", eddie nodded, fumbled to pull a cigarette from his pack and handed it to cole, along with the lighter. his eyes followed cole's, dropping down to his ankle, brows drawn together in worried concern.
he shook his head. "no, you're not going insane, man. i saw it, too. i mean, like, not what... what exactly dragged you down or anything but, uh, i was there." eddie shrugged, pulled his lips into a polite smile - certainly not his best bid at reassuring someone that they weren't losing their mind but hey, he'd tried.
the question, albeit expected, caught eddie somewhat off-guard. fingers flexing, he nearly dropped the cigarette, straightened his back, searched cole's eyes. "uh, yeah. totally, totally, man. we're, uh, we're cool. yeah." accompanied by eager nods,brows still drawn together.
they hadn't had a chance to talk since the mall disaster, really, eddie had been preoccupied with committing arson, coming to terms with the fact that the supernatural was making a reappearance in town and kissing steve harrington, his schedule was quite busy these days. eddie had stopped by the music centre a couple of times, though he'd either been too nervous to talk to cole or had been roped into long, winding conversations about jazz and being a metalhead. so, yeah, they hadn't talked. and now, apparently, it was time to do just that.
not that eddie hadn't picked up on the fact that cole and adam were seemingly going strong again - the looks the two of them exchanged reminded him of one's that he shared with steve, too, and the thought of it made a faint blush rise to his cheek.
he nodded again. "yeah, we're cool. no worries. i.... saw that adam's back in town. im happy for you, man. really." said with a genuine smile, he patted cole's shoulder. "and also he's like smoking hot, so go you."
stevehharringtcns·:
.
steve thought about the person who he was back in high school and he let out a sigh. he definitely hadn’t been fair to eddie or to anyone, really. he wished he had realized that sooner and maybe things would have been different. “i probably didn’t, i’m sorry…” he said with a sigh, although he knew that king steve was long gone, only the nickname staying behind - even if people didn’t use it as much now. he thought how things could have changed if he had always been the person he was now during high school. but it wasn’t good to dwell on the past, he decided to put his focus on the present, specially when he was kissing eddie munson on his bed. he thought what tommy and carol would think of this for a few moments, but then he shook it off his mind. “i barely slayed the dragon, but i’m glad that… everything’s good now.” he said with a small smile.
he kept kissing the other on the lips, their bodies close together as steve kept his arm around eddie’s waist, pulling him up occasionally to bring him into another kiss. he even dared to break the kiss for a couple of seconds to kiss eddie’s neck momentarily, before pulling away and diving back into the other’s lips, closing his eyes as he took the moment in. he thought he could do this for the rest of the night, but they needed to sleep sooner or later.
feeling the other’s tongue on his bottom lip as he pulled away from the kiss sent a chill down his spine as he stared down at the other and how he looked. just looking at eddie looking like that made steve’s heart skip a beat. he had left him like that.
“i…” he said, before clearing his throat and shaking his head as he looked down at eddie. “i’d love to continue, but…” he said, as he reached up with his hand to move eddie’s hair from his forehead in a loving gesture, as he looked down at him. “i work tomorrow… and you were pretty tired, so… maybe we should get some sleep.” he said as he blushed slightly. he was pretty sure that the two could keep doing this for the rest of the night, but maybe they should stop before anything else happened.
listening to the other say that he wanted to keep kissing him, steve didn’t waste his time as he dove down for another kiss, deepening it instantly before pulling away. “we… can continue this some other time. are you free tomorrow? i get off at 5.” he asked simply.
+++
eddie felt like he was floating, ever sense flooded with steve. the smell of his cologne and his laundry detergent, the feeling of his hair as he softly carded his fingers through that ‘best feature’ of his. he had his arms wrapped tight around the other’s neck, humming into the kiss, a pleased sound. soon replaced by a low whimper caught in the back of his throat as steve focused his attention on his neck for a moment and eddie’s grip on his hair tightened ever so slightly.
yeah, he could do this all night. all day, all week, really. and he suddenly thought to himself that coming back to hawkins for the summer was just about the best decision he could’ve made. did absoultely nothing in terms of getting over his silly little crush on steve - because now that he’d had a taste of what it was like to have him, eddie wasn’t sure if he was able to go without it again. the thought of this just being an experiment on steve’s part, or a sleep-drunken mistake, had his somtach in knots. but then again, whatever it was, he really was simply glad it had happened, no matter how they’d gotten there.
he chased after steve’s lips as they pulled back, eyes wide, just ... staring up at him. up at him - eddie hadn’t even noticed, sometime during their make out session - god, he felt like a teenager again - they must’ve shifted, with steve now towering above him. steve brushed a few strands of hair off his forehead and eddie nearly choked, shivering at the contact. a gesture far too ... caring and loving, not something eddie was used to.
he nodded. “yeah. yeah, sure, i get it.”, he smiled, lop-sided, somewhat content with this being the end of it, maybe the only taste of steve he’d ever get, just as steve pulled down to connect their lips in another kiss. he pulled him down, flush against his chest, fingers clawing into steve’s shirt. his heart jumped at the .. .suggestion ? and he nodded, eagerly, let go of steve and put some distance between them. “i - yeah, that sounds - yeah. perfect.”, he grinned, shifted onto his side, pulling the covers over him. “i’ll see you at family video at five, then. night, stevie.”
I hate how everyone has to make Eddie gay like just stop. He's not.
eddie munson wants to kiss steve harrington so bad. this ask just made him fruitier. he's at his homosexual peak rn.
colemontgomeryx·:
xx.
As redness overtook Eddie’s cheeks, Cole took another drag of his cigarette. “Yes, I’m gay. You can say it,” he confirmed, his voice remaining low. Cole was sure Eddie would never out him, partially because that wasn’t Eddie’s character, and partially because of mutually assured destruction.
It was exhausting to have to keep such a large part of him a secret, and Cole was frustrated by it. Maybe that’s why he told Eddie (other than, obviously, trying to hook up with him). When Cole went to college, he was able to be himself more freely; he wasn’t out, per se, but he was much more comfortable discussing his sexuality. He wondered if Eddie had a similar experience in Chicago, and was now, like Cole, struggling to reconcile all the different parts of himself.
Cole grinned, noting the change in Eddie’s demeanor. Cole finished his cigarette and reached behind Eddie to throw it away. He brushed his arm against Eddie’s and took advantage of proximity this move afforded him. Glancing up into Eddie’s eyes, Cole’s own twinkled mischievously. “Well, that’s too easy. What about foreplay?” his voice was barely above a whisper.
+++
final confirmation, eddie swallowed, blinked nervously as the words fell from cole’s lips. he nodded, a nod that said ‘me too’. as if eithr of them needed to state the face that they were both interested in men again. getting old at this point, eddie finsighed his own cigarette, felt his lips twitch, hands shaking a little.
you got this, munson, you got this. he wasn’t like this, usually, when flirting with guys. antsy and nervous and downright freaking out. he just needed to pull himself together, pretend like this was just any old other encounter in a bar or somewhere back in chicago.
his lips twisted into a smile as he thought about the fact that the last time he’d been this nervous about flirting with someone, he’d gone and called steve harrington ‘big boy’ as they’d hijacked a goddamn rv.
suddenly cole was much, much closer than before and eddie gulped, his eyes flicked down to meet cole’s, momentarily lingering on his lips. for maybe just a tad too long. he swiped his tongue across hi bottom lip, feeling it had suddenly gone extremely dry. eddie discarded his own cigarette, burshing up against cole, bringing them even closer.
“well...”, he breathed, raised a brow. “we’re in the middle of a mall, in the middle of, like, vandalising said mall...what do you have in mind that won’t get our asses kicked?”
zccming:
max narrowed her eyes while eddie showcased his outfit for her. she nodded, hand thoughtfully on her chin. “i don’t know, eddie.” she sighed as if she had bad news, then reached out and smacked her hand onto his shoulder, “you’re looking like the spitting image of callahan these days.” max grinned, then stepped back, crossed her arms, and resumed examining the storefront. max knew it wasn’t going to open if all she did was stand there and before she got the chance to sit on it some more, eddie was running through the inciting events with her. she didn’t deny the way he framed it. in fact, max nodded along, until she just had to interject, “okay? have you ever had karen wheeler look at you funny? it gets brutal after like…” she muttered a couple numbers under her breath, “five times.”
there was an easiness that came in interacting with eddie. most of the time, max had to force herself to listen to and engage with other people. when it came to eddie though, she just did it, like it was built in. if she was inching anywhere near an edge of truly snapping in the face of this inconvenience, eddie’s laugh pushed her about fifty steps back. she gratefully accepted his hair pin, “yeah yeah. so beneath me.” max started for the back of the building. an exit without insult or profanity could be chalked up to a thank you from max. with eddie’s help and the guarantee of a few beers now on her side, she’d consider this outing a score.
max took a grand total of fifteen minutes to round up all she needed to avoid mrs. wheeler’s stare of death before crossing the street back over to eddie’s van. she tossed her bag and then her skateboard inside without much care, then followed in suit. “we got like an hour before we should show up.” max announced, “we could go now but…” she sucked in on her teeth, “i don’t think we want be in the first wave of guests.” it was an annoying truth, but if max arrived to the wheeler household with eddie munson before the droves of people piled in, well, about a quarter of that target audience wouldn’t bother coming at all if they caught word. not needing to explain that, she flatly posed the next step, “so, how are we going to kill an hour?”
+++
he scrunched his nose, grimaced. “callahan?” listen, he’d heard a lot of insults in his life but this? and coming from max? “wow, that’s, - that’s the worst name i’ve ever been called. and isn’t that, like, before your time? aren’t you, like, twelve or something?” at her comment about wheeler he just shrugged with his palms held out. he’d never met the woman, didn’t usually hang about that part of town, but the way max described her - well, eddie wasn’t sure if inviting himself to that cookout was such a good idea after all. but fuck it. “the hell did you do that made mrs wheeler stare at you funny five times, max? that sounds more like a you problem if you ask me.”
and off she went, eddie looked around, made sure that no one around had seen her sneak off before he went back to his van. resisted the urge to turn up the music because they really didn’t need to draw any attention to themselves. he left the doors to the van wide open, sat side-ways in the driver’s seat, legs dangling out the door. then max returned with her secured goods, he lazily turned his head and watched as she climbed into the passenger seat. “sweet haul”, he said and nodded his head towards the stolen yield. “what did you get?”
he blew a raspberry. “an hour.”, he mused, fingers drumming on the dashboard. he’d been ready to slam his keys into the ignition and speed off but now, here they were, in the middle of downtown hawkins, after robbing a store on memorial day, with an hour to kill. eddie shifted so he sat properly in his seat, pulled the door shut and rolled the window down. “i don’t know, man. we could, like, chill in the sun somewhere? or hey, maybe the arcade’s open today?” he shrugged. “anywhere but here, dude. your choice. your wish is my command.”
zccming·:
.
if there were any men that max hated nearly as much as billy and his dad, they were named callahan and powell of hawkins p.d. her interrogation with them in the spring of ‘86 never strayed far from her mind. max recalled how they chose her first, probably thinking she was the weakest link. they must have thought it would be so easy to plop her into a chair and that she would tuck herself away into a corner at the first sign of intimidation, that she was merely some stupid, meek, little girl for them to scare and trick into fessing up. well, they were wrong, and frankly, not very intimidating either. from the moment she exited that room, max vowed to herself that if she made it out of this vecna bullshit alive, she’d make them pay.
she made good on that promise for the years following that, wreaking minor nuisances and unleashing dishonorable displays at any chance she could. and she didn’t do it just for herself, she did it for eddie. while she might have initially bought into the idea that he could’ve been some psycho killer, her opinion of him changed swiftly and drastically. eddie didn’t do it and he didn’t deserve the complications from having it pinned on him either. this rivalry of sorts came to ahead earlier in the summer when callahan pulled one over on her by arresting her at the blue quarry mall. it hadn’t been fun while it was presently happening, but now that hawkins p.d was doing this shit to eddie again, giving them that grief felt worth it.
max sat across from eddie, shoving the bowl of cereal into his hand and clutching her own close to her chest with no intention of eating. instead, she silently watched him, brows furrowed as she looked him over for any signs that she might actually set hawkins p.d ablaze when the dust settled. at the same time he spoke, max did too, “i’m gonna fucking get them.” she said, voice feeling raw and unfamiliar in the back of her throat. max got mad all the time, she’d learned to deal with it, but rarely did her rage scare her or feel out of control like this. she wondered that as she felt the aftershocks of what had happened at the carnival, she skipped ahead to the anger stage of grief, that this was misplaced. maybe she was upset, sure, that was always a possibility. or maybe, it was the best she knew how to show eddie she cared, how sorry she was that this had happened. she didn’t know and didn’t plan on figuring it out.
poking at her cereal with her spoon, max mulled over eddie’s question she had spoken in time with. finally, she answered, “i’m alright, steve made me get stitches.” she said his name warmly, flashing it like a lighthouse, a beacon to eddie to indicate that not only was he alright, but so was steve. that was important to her to convey. “i busted it on some mirrors…” max added, then shrugged as if to say no big deal. it was a big deal, but everything was right now. quietly and flatly, max reminded eddie, “you didn’t answer my question….” a pause, “how fucked are you?” to max, it was her way of wanting to know how he was holding up and what was happening on his end.
+++
eddie stared thoughtlessly into his bowl, tired eyes searching for something, he didn’t know what. something to say, maybe. something to think about other than shock, horror, disaster. life and death. the upside down. vecna. he weakly pushed the bowl a bit further away from him, like a defiant, sulky child. eating was the last thing on his mind. then again, eddie couldn’t even pin point one singular string of thought - it was a mess up there. more so than usual. it felt like the world was spinning. there wasn’t a fibre in his being that wasn’t aching or nauseaous.
he didn’t quite register max’s words, they accompanied the faint beating of his heart and loud rushing and ringing in his ears, but there was ‘alright’ and ‘steve and that’ snapped him out of his momentary trance, drew a shaky, relieved exhale from his lips. “you’re good? you’re okay. you’re - you’re alright.” eddie whispered, more to himself, nodded.
a couple of beats passed, the room silent except for their labored breathing and the sound his knee made as it the coffee table every now and then. he wanted to cry, he desperately needed to, to sob his heart out and draw max into a bone crushing hug. staying in the embrace until one of them would start whispering empty, reasuring promises of how ‘everything was going to be okay’. but eddie was exhausted, and ... god, he felt so... resigned to his fate. he barely managed to muster up the strength to meet her eye.
“i can’t do this.” was what eventually broke the silence. voice barely above a whisper, a fatalistic tone to it. “i can’t ... i can’t have everybody thinking i’m a monster again. hunting me down, i - no. “ he gave a weak shake of his head, drew in a ragged breath. “i’m not - i can’t run anymore. i can’t- i can’t do it. not again.”
stevehharringtcns·:
who: steve harrington & @eddiemcnson·
where: eddie’s place / the trailer park
what: steve gets a haircut (looks like this)
his hair had always been a part of steve and he took it very seriously. after all, it had given him his reputation for all of those years, he couldn’t deny it. he was still steve ‘the hair’ harrington, even if he had been slightly slacking ever since he graduated from high school. after being a couple of days in the hospital, he thought it was for the best if he got it arranged, or at least, a few trims so it could go back to the way it looked when he was in high school. he always thought that it had looked the best back then. what he didn’t expect was for the hairdresser that he would usually go to cut it a little bit too much. it wasn’t terrible to say the least, in fact, steve enjoyed it more than he thought he would. maybe he would keep it like this for quite some time, even though he was sure that people would comment on it, but it wasn’t like he was concerned about people’s opinions on him anymore.
he knew that one of the people that would probably notice it the most would be his boyfriend. steve wanted him to be the first one to see, so he didn’t waste his time in driving down to the trailer park once he was out of the hairdresser. steve knew that eddie would probably be there. he parked his car and quickly got out of it, making his way towards the door, opening it and walking inside. he had been doing this for a couple of weeks now and he knew that eddie wouldn’t mind. wayne was probably working too. “eddie?” he asked out loud. “okay, i know that you love my hair a lot, but… you know, i needed to do something different or i might have just gone crazy with my hair looking like that.” he said right off the bat, only to realize that the other wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “are you here?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked around for a bit.
+++
eddie hadn’t gone out much since what he had dubbed the ‘junkyard incident’. partly due to the fact that he, quite literally, couldn’t go out, seeing as his ankle was wrapped in bandages and he’d been advised by the doctor to let it rest as much as possible. the antibiotics he was on - because doppelganger or not, rabies was still a thing - made him drowsy, too, and so eddie had spent most of his time lounging on the couch in the two or three positions he could comfortably rest in. until, inevitably, his foot would fall asleep and he’d have to get up and move around a bit.
wayne was at work and so eddie couldn’t whine and ask him to do all the tedious stuff, like making snacks or refilling the electric kettle so he could keep himself from sleeping through the day by drinking copious amounts of coffee. so here he was, shuffling into the bathroom since the tap in the kitchen didn’t have a water filter - it had broken and wayne had promised to pick one up after his shift - to refill the kettle. rubbing at his eyes as he let the water run, wobbly on his feet.
eddie turned off the tap, startled by a sudden noise coming from the living room - wondering if there was really someone there or if he was that out of it. sure enough the voice persisted, and a voice he knew all too well, and so, with a stupid wide toothy grin, eddie walked back - and nearly dropped the kettle. in his right mind to put it onto the kitchen counter, all he could do was stare, gape, really, chin dropped, eyes wide.
no, yeah, that was steve, undoubtedly. but ... unlike eddie had ever seen him. not sporting his signature, gravity defying hairdo. eddie never thought he’d live to see the day. he brushed a lock of hair behind his ears and came closer to inspect it, running a hand through steve’s hair, ruffling it. an incredulous chuckle fell from his lips, he softly shook his head in disbelief. “my, my.... well, it’s my pleasure to welcome you back, steve ‘the hair’ harrington.” he gave him a nod, then took his face in his hands, pressing a kiss to the space between steve’s brows. “i love it.”
steve: i...
steve: that's not what i meant, i just don't want... like max to... you know, hear i guess
steve: but not because of you or anything, i just
steve: i just want to talk
eddie: right. because you don't want max to know you've been makin' out with the enemy, yeah, got it.
eddie: don't think there's anything left to talk about.
eddie: also that's real class, doing it over the walkie. you sure do know how to make a girl feel special.
eddie: you don't, like, owe me anything, steve. let's just ... forget it.
steve & company - 001/???
001 - the fruity four @rcbinbvckleys ; @eddiemcnson ; @backtowheeler