Cw: Crack, Fluff, Insecure Bakugou. Izuku And Shoto Have Unnamed Female Partners.

first time for everything…

virgin eddie munson x experienced best friend reader

summary: Eddie has been in love with you since middle school. But he’d never admit it, no way, he’d never ruin what you two have… once he turns 18 he’s unwillingly drafted into the war while you go off to college in New York. Once the war is over Eddie is sent back to his mundane life in Hawkins and you move back when your grandmother gets sick. As fate has it, you and Eddie find your way back to each other.

warnings: smut ahead, mdni 18+, angst, late 60s—mid 70s au, fem reader, no y/n, pet names (princess, sweetheart etc.), mentions of slut shaming, reader is looking for love in all the wrong places, jealous!eddie, mentions of war, mentions of dying, Eddie has ptsd, mentions of a loved one having only months to live, loss of a family member, loss of virginity, unprotected p in v sex, cream pie, fluff fluff fluff.

authors note: thank you so much to the nonnie that requested this, I’m sure it’s so different from what you had in mind but I got very inspired after watching Forrest Gump. (this has a happy ending) Also, the timeline here vs the actual Vietnam war barely coincide… so ignore that please. Thank you to my loves @take-everything-you-can & @corrodedcorpses for beta reading! <3

wc: 8.1k

1966

“Hey, what are you doing sitting over here all alone?” A boyish voice calls out from behind where you’re seated; up against an old oak tree with just enough shade to allow you to read the words in your book.

Middle school was rough and you kept to yourself, being the new kid and all. Making friends in Bumsville, Indiana turns out was way harder than making friends in Phoenix. This town was far too small and with the way you’d dress and carry yourself, well… that was clarification enough that you didn’t belong. But that was okay, you didn’t want to belong in a place like this, anyway.

“Just reading.” Your small bashful voice is such a stark contrast to how you are at home, in a place of comfortability.

“Yeah, I see that… whatcha reading?” The mystery voice now no longer a mystery as he steps out from behind the tree, his worn and tattered converse step closer, causing you to look up, meeting a familiar set of brown doe eyes.

He wasn’t in your class but you had seen him a bunch, throughout the halls and at lunch.

He seemed to be the only interesting person in this hick town.

You pick your pink book up, allowing him to read the title, which he does out loud to himself.

“Valley of the dolls.” He says curiously. “What’s that about?”

The book looked far too girly for his taste, but as long as it gave him more reason to stand here and talk to you, he’d indulge.

“Wait, let me guess… something about dolls?” He smirks, while taking a seat on the fluffy grass, beside you.

“No actually, it’s about three best friends who live in New York, they’re struggling to get by so they decide to make their mark in show business, but shit just kind of spirals for them and well it’s not a very happy ending.” You fix your bookmark in place before closing it and placing it into your backpack.

“Oh, also ‘dolls’ is just another word for drugs.” You say with a shrug of your shoulders.

Eddie stays silent for a moment, before he looks over to you, hands nervously picking at the grass below him.

“Mmm, sounds interesting… guess it’s true what they say, not to judge a book by its cover.” He says with a shy smile.

1968

“Would you scoot over!” You screech, while shoving your elbow into the frizzy haired boy, practically sitting in your lap.

You and Eddie had been inseparable best friends, since that very interaction under the big oak tree. You were both immediately drawn to each other like a moth to a flame. He agreed, you seemed to be the only interesting thing in this hick town.

“It’s my couch, woman!” He screeches back, playfully pushing your head out of the way.

“Fine, I’ll just sit on the floor.” you scoff before scooting your butt down from the couch, plopping onto the scratchy brown carpet. You roll your eyes when Eddie decides to dramatically fling himself across the whole couch, as if he’s been waiting for you to move your ass this whole time, the jerk.

“Hey, did I tell you Billy asked me to go to the drive-in with him?” You say as your eyes remain on the television set, hand mindlessly grabbing for the popcorn bowl placed on the coffee table.

You miss the way Eddie visibly swallows, and the way his fists tighten on the material of his jeans.

“Um, no you didn’t.” He mumbles, as his longing eyes burn holes into the back of your head.

“Yeah, well he did.” You take a sip of your Pepsi, washing down the kernels of popcorn stuck to your tongue. “Do you think he’ll wanna go all the way?” You ask Eddie before taking another sip.

His eyes widen into saucers before he begins wiping his clammy palms against his clothed thighs.

You’d never talked about sex with Eddie, maybe about some girls he thought were cute and vice versa, but never sex.

Ahem, he clears his throat before he speaks. “I don’t know, but he’s a guy so I wouldn’t put it past him.” His doe eyes, usually so full of light now droop like one of those precious moments dolls.

He begs the universe for you not to look back at him, he knows as soon as you do you’ll be able to read him like a book.

You’ll know you’re breaking his heart.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready though.” You say, before grabbing another handful of buttery popcorn.

“Then you shouldn’t do something you’re not ready for.” Eddie says with a deep breath of relief.

“But I mean, I kind of want to just get it over with, I don’t buy into the bullshit of ‘waiting for the right one’ it’s such horse shit, and is only a thing because of the patriarchy.”

Eddie so badly wants to say: I’m the right one, lose it to me.

But he could never put his heart out there like that, to inevitably be stomped on. He knows you’d never purposely break his heart, but he also knows he’s in love with someone that couldn’t possibly feel the same way for him, and that’s just something he has to live with.

Even if that means sitting on the sidelines while boys come and go. He knows he’ll always be your number one…well until you fall for some douchebag after high school and realize Eddie’s just your friend, and is eventually replaced when you decide to get married and have said douchebags, douchebag offspring.

But he’ll place that in a box in his mind to deal with later.

1970

You lost your virginity to Billy the night he took you to the drive in.

Those feelings of being wanted and loved, although just for that night sent you on a high you thought you’d never come down from.

Your freshman year, you went on lots of dates, slept with lots of undeserving guys and although those feelings never followed you home, you felt as though it was worth it to just feel them if even for 5 minutes.

You were playing a dangerous game, especially in a small town where word of your promiscuity would travel faster than a forest fire.

And although Eddie had begrudgingly heard the rumors in the locker room and in some of his classes, he never looked at you differently, never judged you.

He’d stick up for you every time, although that led to plenty instances of him getting the shit kicked out of him. He already had a target on his back, being the freak and all, but he didn’t care, no one was going to disrespect you, not in his presence, anyway.

His feelings never seemed to fade, his heart still beat for you no matter who you gave yourself to.

Of course Eddie wanted to be your first, but you were right, it is a social construct in order to make women more subservient to men, Eddie was a feminist afterall.

“Aw, did you wait here for me?” You ask as your hands clutch your trapper keeper to your chest.

Eddie was leant up against the brick wall of the school, the right sole of his shoe was flush against it, knee bent as his skin protruded from the hole in his jeans. A lit cigarette dangled from between his lips, a habit he had just picked up from an older boy that lived in the trailer across from him.

“Well duh, now that that asshole you were seeing isn’t driving you anymore, I thought we could walk together.” He mumbles before taking a puff of his spliff.

“You’re so sweet to me.” You smile before snatching the cigarette that now blazed between his ringed fingers, you take a quick inexperienced puff before passing it back.

He smirks while taking one last hit of his cigarette before tossing it to the floor and stomping it out for good measure under his beaten and written on converse. He’s glad the action has given him a chance to get a good look at you as you walk ahead of him, it was his favorite thing to do when you’d both go on mindless strolls.

“You look pretty today.” The compliment slipped so easily from his lips.

You turn around to meet his eye, walking backwards rather uncoordinatedly.

“You look pretty, too.” You say with a wink, before turning back around.

Eddie was none the wiser that day, when your face flushed for him the very first time.

1971

“Eddie! Put me down!” You shriek as you kick and flail, the water from the pool splashing around and creating tiny waves for the other swimmers.

“Never!” He says ironically before throwing you into the far end, his maniacal laugh can be heard from under water.

“You’re such a dick sometimes, Munson.” You say as you swim to the steps, hoisting yourself up and out of the community pool.

You’re in a little red bikini and the way your hips sway has Eddie mesmerized.

You sit on one of the lawn chairs, drying off under the beaming sun.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” Your eyes shoot open, falling on two round pools of honey.

“Um no, not at all.” You say as you give the boy a shy smile.

“I’m Steve.” He says as he takes a seat in the chair closest to you.

“Hi, Steve.” His name felt like sex on your tongue.

Eddie watched from the pool as you and Steve got acquainted, he wanted to punch himself for practically pushing you into the arms of another guy.

He couldn’t sit here and watch you laugh at this asshole's jokes, he had to get out of here.

1972

“Why am I so hard to love?” You cry out, mascara running down your face, as your head is placed in your best friend's lap.

“You’re not hard to love!” He says before tucking a piece of stray hair behind your ear, and thumbing a tear off the side of your cheek. “You just keep picking the worst douche canoes available.” He says with a small chuckle.

“I thought Steve was different, he really acted like he cared about me, ya know?” You sniffle as your manicured fingers play with the fringe of Eddie’s jeans.

“Yeah well, those jock assholes will tell you anything to get in your pants.” Eddie says with a tick of his jaw.

“You’re right, I should become celibate or something… I’m just so tired of letting these assholes take from me, without getting anything in return.” You murmur with another sniffle.

Eddie liked that idea, you being celibate.

For your own good, of course.

1973

“Oh my god! Can you believe we’ll be out of this shithole soon?” You eagerly say, as you walk up to your best friend's locker.

The glum look in his eyes does not go unnoticed by you.

“Hey Eddie, what's wrong?” Your eyes examine the slump of his shoulders and the bloodshot red in his eyes, although that could be from him smoking during lunch, but the puffiness underneath tells you otherwise.

He slammed his locker before making his way towards the double door exit, not even stopping to take a second look at your stunned face.

You run after him, launching yourself between Eddie and the door of his van.

“Eddie, talk to me, what happened?” The urgency in your voice makes his eyes begin to water, again.

“I got my draft letter yesterday after school, they’re sending me to fucking Vietnam.” His eyes don’t meet yours, they can’t or it’ll make this all so much worse.

“Eddie, I’m so sorry.” Your lip begins to quiver at the thought of Eddie in a foreign place, getting bombed and shot at. “Ed’s, I-I…” you’re not even sure what to say, how to make him feel better, you couldn’t even if you tried. For the first time since you’ve known him, you were unable to comfort him.

“I gotta go.” He says before smoothly stepping around you and getting into his van, his wheels peel off leaving tire tracks on the tarmac.

You knew Eddie wasn’t mad at you specifically, he was mad at the situation. You and him had talked about running off together and getting out of this podunk town so much it had become a common topic when you two would hang out. You had agreed to get an apartment, you’d go to college while he got a good paying job with his diploma. But that dream quickly went down the drain when he got his draft letter in the mail.

All he wanted was to be with you, wherever you both decided to fuck off to, but now you’d be going alone, and he’d be sent off to a war he could potentially die in.

Class of 73’

“Give it up for the class of 73’!” Principle Higgins shouted into the mic, sat on top of the wooden podium.

You and Eddie's eyes had met a handful of times during the ceremony and every time they did, a lump would form in your throat at the idea of this being it for you two.

Everyone clapped and whistled as you threw your green tasseled hat into the air with Eddie and the rest of your classmates.

You make your way into the crowd of parents and friends ready to congratulate their new graduates.

“Congratulations sweetheart.” Uncle Wayne says, while wrapping you up into a grizzly bear of a hug.

“Thanks Wayne.” You say with a bashful smile. “Where’s eddie?” Your eyes scan the crowd as you look for your favorite curly headed freak.

“Oh he’s around here somewhere.” Wayne softly smiles as he gives your back a small pat. “I'm gonna go talk to Ms. Duvall right over there. I’ll see you later, kid.” He says with one last heartfelt smile.

You nod your head in understanding before you go right back to scanning over the herd of people.

“Hey you.” The same voice from that day under the oak tree, calls out from behind you, well you had to admit it was a little more manly now.

You turn around quickly on your heel, eyes meeting your favorite pair.

“Hey.” You say with a bright smile, your heart begins beating a mile a minute, with feelings settling into your stomach that you weren’t quite ready to assess.

“We did it!” Eddie says before grabbing the back of your head, fingers sliding through your hair as he pulls you into a warm hug. The side of your face resting on his chest makes your stomach flutter so hard you think you might puke from the nervousness he’s is stirring within you.

These feelings were too new and they scared the shit out of you.

“So you ready for New York?” He asks with a melancholy smile.

“Honestly? No, not really.” You say muffled into his chest before you pull away to look at him.

You weren’t ready to start a life without your best friend.

“When do you leave?” His hand continues to slide through your hair, making your stomach flip upside down.

“In a couple days.” You murmur before swallowing hard, now unable to meet his eyes.

“You’ll have a good time, meet some cool people.” He’s trying to pretend his heart isn’t breaking but the look in his eyes is not lost on you, your heart is breaking too.

“I couldn’t ever meet anyone as cool as you.” You whisper as your glassy eyes now meet his.

He smiles albeit a weak one, but he wishes those words were true.

“You staying celibate through college?” He joked, giving your arm a little nudge.

“That’s the plan, but who knows.”

The implications set Eddie’s stomach ablaze in the most painful way.

If I don’t find someone, fall in love and replace you.

Fuck the government for choosing him to fight in a war he didn’t even believe in. He could’ve been getting ready to leave with you, maybe even get the chance to finally tell you how much he’s been in love with you ever since he sparked up a conversation under that big oak tree.

There was no way he could tell you that now, he’d hate himself forever if he knew there was any chance you could’ve been his for all these years. It’s too late for him now.

You had stayed with Eddie that night, your stomach was in absolute knots just thinking about leaving him, you needed one more night with him, if this was the last chance you’d get to ever see each other again, you needed it. Just for tonight.

You spent most of it in each other's arms, crying and replaying your favorite memories and then crying some more.

He had confided in you, told you that if he died while overseas he’d die a virgin.

Eddie was never open with you about girls that he was seeing, you had assumed he’d had sex with at least one. The shock on your face was enough to make him want to cower away in embarrassment.

You’d both thought about making love to each other that night. You so badly wanted to be his first, get to have him in that way before life ran its course, but you just couldn’t. You knew it would make leaving each other that much harder, and fuck was it already so hard.

1974

College in New York was chaotic to say the least, life was so fast paced, it had taken so long to get accustomed.

And with your new fast paced, busy life, it left it close to impossible to sit down and write letters.

You and Eddie hadn’t spoken in almost a year.

Then there was Brendon, a guy you had met in your economics class. He was nice, he treated you better than you’d ever been treated but it just never felt right. It was almost as if there was a wedge, something in between you two making it impossible for you to fall in love. Someone.

August of 75’

You had gotten a rather urgent call from your grandpa, glumly notifying you that your grandma was sick and only had months to live.

You’d taken the first flight out back to Hawkins.

Your grandparents were all you had, you couldn’t stay in New York knowing you’d never get to see your gram gram again.

You had worked so hard these past two years, but in the end you had decided family came first. You would take a year off from college if it was required, just to help your papa after gram passed.

Walking out of the airport and into the warm summer sun of Hawkins was bittersweet.

This is the first time you’d be here while Eddie wasn’t. There wasn’t a moment that passed where you didn’t think about him. You questioned whether he’d be mad that he didn’t hear from you after all this time, or even care at all.

More than anything you hoped he was okay.

You never kept up with the news and what was going on over there. It was too much, too real.

September of 75’

Your gram had passed three weeks after your arrival back in Hawkins, you had done your best to stay by her bedside as your papa got things arranged for her eventual funeral.

You were numb for the first couple days until you had eventually broken down and sobbed for a good hour and a half.

The thought of losing Eddie made the tears fall even harder. You loved your gram but you were in love with Eddie, you knew that now. If he didn’t make it, you didn’t know how you’d handle it. How you’d ever move on.

You could kick yourself for not writing to him, at least to ask if he was okay.

What if he thinks you don’t care about him now? You’d hope he’d understand that college was so busy for you.

21st of September 1975

Grams funeral had been lovely, a celebration of her life with her closest friends and loved ones.

The funeral house was a quaint little tudor style home. Her pictures had been displayed beautifully among a table of red roses.

You cried when the funeral director had closed her casket for good.

25th of September 1975

You had spent your morning and afternoon cleaning your grandparents house. Your papa left on a fishing trip, said he couldn’t be in this house any longer.

You understood how he must be feeling, stuck in a place that holds so many memories of you and the love of your life, that would be hard for anyone.

You decide to order a pizza and watch a movie after your warm shower.

You slip into a pink nightgown that sat just above your knees before making your way towards the bathroom to brush your hair and teeth. Just as you were flipping the light switch off and walking out into the hall the doorbell echoed throughout the house.

They sure do deliver pizza fast

You thought to yourself as you counted the money in your purse that had been sitting on the entry table.

“Wow, I just placed my order ten minutes—” the words die on your tongue as you swing the door open. Standing there on the front porch in a Black Sabbath shirt, blue jeans and shorter hair than you were used to, was Eddie.

Your Eddie.

He looked almost as stunned to see you, as you were to see him.

“Hey, I thought you’d be back in New York by now.” Eddie assumed as his eyes took in the expanse of your body.

“No, I uh I decided to stay.” You utter as you nervously play with the hem of your pink gown.

Your action pulls the dress up higher on your leg, exposing more of your upper thigh.

Eddie’s eyes shoot down to the area before looking back up at you.

“I came by to give my condolences to your grandfather.” He says with a sad smile.

“Oh yeah, he won’t be back for a couple days.” You respond, finally dropping your gown before smoothing it out with nervous hands.

“Well, my condolences to you.” He says with a far off look in his eyes.

This man standing here is so different from the Eddie you once knew. His posture is immaculate, his arm and legs stiff as stone and the brightness of his eyes now dull and almost nonexistent.

“Do you wanna come in? I ordered pizza and I was gonna watch a film.” You say with a hint of desperation.

“I uh, I shouldn’t. I should go.” Eddie says before he begins to walk away, he stops in his tracks and shoots a glance back at you.

“Why didn’t you write to me?” Eddie’s face is so stoic you can’t tell if he’s sad or just curious.

“I wanted to, Eddie. I was just so busy—” you begin but Eddie doesn’t want to hear anymore.

His black boots carry him back to his van. He can’t stand there and listen to how you’ve moved on, or had the time of your life in college and forgot about him.

2 days later

You had been beating yourself up for what felt like days.

He had every right to feel the way he did, to be mad and angry. You couldn’t blame him for that.

But you’d be damned if he didn’t at least know these feelings you’d been harboring for him.

You were both home now, nothing was holding you back from finally confessing to Eddie that he’s who you want.

You decide to bake a cherry pie, before getting ready and heading over to forest hills.

You would get on your knees and grovel if it meant Eddie would forgive you. Just because you didn’t write to him didn’t mean you didn’t think about him everyday. You couldn’t count how many nights you’d lay in bed touching yourself to thoughts of him, you hadn’t even gone all the way with Brendan, you couldn’t. Not with Eddie at the forefront of every thought you had.

You pull up to the familiar trailer, not much has changed aside from far less beer cans littering the ground.

You walk up the steps, pie in hand as you knock one, two, three times on the dingy white door.

“One sec.” A familiar voice calls out from the other side.

The door swings open, Eddie is standing there shirtless. The only article of clothing on his very toned and muscular body were his old Hawkins high gym shorts. You were pretty sure he’d never actually worn them in high school.

His face looks even more stunned than when he showed up on your doorstep a couple days ago.

“What are you doing here?” The look on his face was hard and impossible to read.

“Eddie, please just let me explain myself. Can I please come in and talk?” You held the pie out to him as if some kind of peace offering.

“Is it cherry?” He says with absolutely no emotion.

“It is.” You confirm

There’s a long pause before his voice gruffly retorts

“Fine.” He moves out of the doorway allowing you to walk through, your bodies barely rub together as you pass but shockwaves are sent throughout, you could feel them all the way down to your toes.

You set the pie down on the yellowing countertop.

Eddie digs in the cabinets for a knife, two plates and two forks.

The gesture makes you smile to yourself as you sit in the little two seater kitchenette.

Eddie cuts the pie, setting your plate in front of you, while he takes the seat closest to the telephone hanging on the wall.

“So go ahead…” Eddie says with a mouthful of your cherry pie.

“I’m so sorry Ed… I had almost no time for anything, New York is so fast paced and chaotic, I really had no time… but I thought about you constantly.” You admit as you lightly stab your pie with your fork.

“I thought about you, too.” Eddie whispers, your eyes find eachothers before he looks away, taking another bite of the pie. “This is really good, thank you.” He says with another mouthful.

Usually you would be disgusted by a man talking with his mouth full of food, but with Eddie you couldn’t help but find it endearing and cute.

“Yeah, it’s the least I could do.” You say before finally taking a bite of your own.

“So how have you been?” You were almost afraid to ask such a question, after everything he’s gone through, everything he’s had to see.

“I’ve been good, just getting back into the groove of being home, ya know.” He says with a smile that has yet to reach his eyes.

“Yeah, I do.” You murmur before standing up and walking to the sink to wash your crumb filled dish.

Once it’s dried and put away and you’ve repeatedly gone over the spiel in your head about how you want to confess your undying love to the man seated a couple feet away, you turn around, eyes meeting him as you realize his chocolate browns have been on you this whole time.

“Eddie, I need to tell you something…”

He stands from his seat, bringing his plate to the sink, carelessly dropping it in before he turns back to face you.

It’s like he’d grown a whole foot, he was towering over you now, looking down at you with those doe eyes you’d so often thought about.

“What do you need to tell me?” He whispers as he steps closer to you, his black boots kissing your brown wooden clogs.

The words almost die in your throat at his close proximity and how fast your heart is hammering in your chest. You wonder if it could be heard from his place in front of you, surely if he stepped any closer it would be.

“I’m in love with you, Eddie.” Your eyes dart across his handsome face meanwhile biting at your lip out of nervousness as you wait for him to say something, anything.

He exhales a deep breath as his shoulders drop into a relaxed state.

“Fuck,” he huffs before pulling you into a tight hug. “I’ve been in love with you since I met you, sweetheart.” His voice is muffled by your neck as he rests his head on your shoulder.

You pull away, grabbing his face with your small hands. You look him in the eyes before you begin speaking—

“I’m so sorry Eddie, I’m so sorry for everything. I should’ve known that you were it for me. It just took me a little longer, but I promise I’m here now.” Your foreheads meet as tears run down your cheek, “I’m here now.” You repeat.

“I love you so much, princess.” He whispers before he’s pulling you into a tender kiss, that soon grows more and more needy.

He slips his tongue into your mouth and they simultaneously glide together. You can taste the salt from the tears that have fallen onto both of your lips. It makes the kiss that more meaningful.

“You still celibate?” Eddie asks after breaking the kiss. His smirk tells you he’s joking, but you don’t care, you need him. You’ve waited too long for this.

“I didn’t have sex in college, not even once.” You admitted before kissing his lips again, “I’ve been waiting for you.” The longing look in Eddie’s eyes flash to something that could only be described as hunger.

Without another word, he’s picking you up by the back of your thighs, your legs instinctively wrap around his muscular hips. He’s so strong, the throbbing between your legs gets even worst at the thought of him fucking you just like this.

Eddie made his way down the hall to his old room, you took a glance around noticing most of his things in boxes meanwhile more of Wayne’s things have moved in.

“Are you moving?” You ask curiously.

“Yeah, I got my own place. I’m moving in tomorrow.” He says before softly throwing you on his mattress. “Wayne sorted it out for me while I was…away.” You notice the stiffening of his body immediately, as if even thinking about where he’d been causes such inner turmoil.

“C’mere baby.” You murmur with a saccharine grin, his eyes light up at the pet name, causing your insides to flutter.

He slots himself between your legs, his muscular arms now fisting the bed while your head lays caged between them.

You can feel the way his body slightly trembles.

“It’s okay Ed’s, it’s just me.” You whisper into his ear sending shivers down his spine.

“Just you is a big deal to me, sweetheart.” He smiles before rubbing the tip of his nose against yours.

“I want you to make love to me, Eddie.” You say as you push his shorter hair back to get a better look at the face you've missed for far too long.

He groans before dropping his head to your shoulder.

“Fuck, I want to baby, I really do. But I-I have no idea what I’m doing and you’re you, ya know? I’m gonna make a fool out of myself, and I just can’t do that, not with you.” He lifts his head up to study your face before he begins gently rubbing his nose on your cheek, he places light kisses to the area before he places a sweet kiss to your lips.

“I don’t care, I want you… you don’t even have to do anything, I’ll do it all.” You say before placing kisses of your own across his face. “I need you, Eddie… I’m so wet for you, baby.”

“Jesus, you tryna kill me, woman?” He playfully snarks before blowing a raspberry into the side of your neck making you giggle and squirm away. “Okay yeah, I'm ready.” He admits as his beautiful doe eyes meet yours, he holds your chin between two fingers before sweetly kissing you, again. “I’m so glad it’s with you, sweet girl.” He whispers into your lips.

“I love you.” You whisper back

“I love you.” He feels like he’s in a dream, like one wrong move and you’ll slip through his finger, again.

“Lay on your back.” You bashfully demand, you weren’t used to being the one in charge when having sex, but for Eddie you’d do anything.

Eddie gives you a pointed look as his eyebrows raise high on his half concealed forehead.

Your feet hit the brown scratchy carpet before you’re turning around to give Eddie a little show.

Maybe stripping for him will give him a little more confidence, or it’ll probably just make him really horny… either way was fine with you.

Eddie continues gawking at you in wonder, still a little clueless as to what you were doing.

Such an innocent boy.

You begin to remove your blue jean button up vest, slowly unhooking each one by one.

Eddie catches on after the first button, a devious smirk slowly forms onto his face as he lays back with his head on the pillow. He dramatically swings his hands behind his head and crosses his legs as he enjoys the show.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this, sweetheart.” He beams with a wink.

You finally get down to the fifth button before slowly opening it and exposing your bare breast to him.

His eyes widen with shock and his body stiffens along with the member in his gym shorts.

“Holy shit.” He whispers before sitting up to get a better view. “You weren’t wearing a bra this whole time?” His cheeks burn with excitement and nervousness. He flicks his tongue out to wet his pink plump lips before beckoning you closer to him.

You step between his spread legs and look down as Eddie is now eye level with your tits.

He’s only seen boobs in magazines and movies but yours are by far the best. He had a feeling when he used to watch you in that red bikini when you both would hit the community pool during the scorching summers that they were nice. He remembers the way your nipples would poke through the fabric and the way they’d bounce when you’d run away from him.

“Can I touch you?” Eddie asks as if you didn’t just beg him to fuck you.

“Of course.” You purr back.

Eddie quickly brings both hands to your tits gently massaging them before running a calloused thumb over the hardening bud. The action forces a moan from between your lips making Eddie’s eyes shoot up to yours. He wants to pull that noise from you as much as he can.

“That feel good?” He breathily asks as if he can’t believe you’re letting him touch you like this.

“Feels really good, ed.” you whimper before he’s grazing his other thumb across your peaked nipple making an even more erotic moan leave you.

Your body slightly jerks when you feel Eddie’s wet lips encapsulate your nipple, you look down to see he is already looking at you, looking at your reaction to the way he’s making you feel.

Your eyebrows furrow as you vigorously bite at your lip. The sight in front of you is a scene straight out of your wet dreams, the wet dreams that would play on an instant loop in your twin size bed in your muggy dorm room across from your god fearing roommate.

Eddie continues to lick and suck as his confidence grows, every thrash of his tongue sends a searing shock of electricity to your cunt.

You need him now.

“Lay back for me Eddie baby, let me finish the show.” You whisper as your nails softly scrape against his scalp making him groan with his mouth full, he pulls off with a pop leaving your nipples peaked and cold from the wetness.

“Yes ma’am.” He snickers before scooting back to lay in his previous position.

You completely remove the vest from your body, throwing it towards the end of the bed but it slips off and onto the floor.

You’ll worry about that later.

You begin making work at removing your matching blue jean bell bottoms, slowly inching them down your legs as teasingly as possible for the flustered man who lays just inches from you.

Once your jeans are around your ankles, you make hasty work at removing them before kicking them off somewhere to be dealt with later.

You stand there in your pink cotton panties as Eddie’s eyes travel along your body. He adjusts himself in his shorts before his eyes fall to your last garment of clothing and then back up to meet yours. You know exactly what he’s asking.

So you shove your thumbs in the cotton fabric and remove them albeit much faster than your jeans.

You stand upright before kicking your panties towards where your jeans haphazardly lay.

Once you’re fully exposed to Eddie he darts up on his elbows as his eyes take in every inch; from the patch of hair between your thighs to the soft skin of your legs to the way your hips curve. His aloof disposition is such a stark contrast to the way he’s losing his fucking mind on the inside; he’s on cloud nine, he’s thanking a god he doesn’t even believe in for allowing him to be here and alive for this moment, a moment he’s thought about way too often.

You slowly saunter up to the foot of the bed, ready to straddle Eddie’s lap before he’s placing his hand out to stop you. “There’s no fucking way I’m lasting more than thirty second if you’re on top.” He huffs with a self deprecating smile.

“That’s okay, we can go again later…you’ll eventually learn how to hold it, it’s really not a big deal plus this is about you anyway.” You smile reassuringly before he nods his head for you to continue.

The way you said ‘we can go again later’ alone almost made him cum, so he knows he doesn’t have a fighting chance in hell to last while you're bouncing all pretty on his cock.

Nevertheless, you straddle his waist, the hardness in his shorts already hitting your exposed clit so nicely, you couldn’t help but whine.

“Fuck, this is almost too much.” Eddie whispers before his hands shoot down to your waist as you give his lap an experimental drag of your core, along the soft cotton of his shorts.

“Are you sure about that?” You smirk before your hands fall to his painfully hard cock that is far too clothed for your liking.

You sit back on his thighs, dragging the material down his legs. He begins thrashing around trying to kick them off so desperately, you can’t help but to giggle.

“Oh is that funny?” He says in a stern voice that has you clenching around nothing. You definitely want to dive into that Eddie in the future.

Or right now.

“No, sir. I’m sorry.” You pout with a swift bat of your lashes.

Eddie’s jaw tightens at your words, he doesn’t know why that is turning him on so much but Jesus Christ, is it.

Finally, you look down to where Eddie’s cock lays against his lower stomach. He’s way bigger than you expected and so pretty, the prettiest one you’ve ever seen.

It twitches before your hand slowly moves in to grab it.

“Do you think you could last if I got a little taste of this perfect cock?” You whisper into Eddie’s ear, making the skin there tinge a reddish pink.

“I can barely last with your hand wrapped around me, baby.” He groans in pleasure.

“Okay, we’ll save that for later, too.” You wink, before you spit in the palm of your hand bringing the glob to Eddie’s cock as you stroke him, getting him nice and wet to easily slip inside of you.

“Oh my fuck-” Eddie grits before his eyes snap shut, the skin around them wrinkling as he tries to think of anything but your spit on his dick, as you rub him so expertly.

“I’m gonna put it in now, Ed…you ready?” You ask before he’s rapidly nodding his head, his eyes still held tightly shut.

You lift up, rubbing his wet tip against your already soaked pussy before it begins to breach your hole.

“Oooh fuck.” Eddie whimpers.

You begin to inch your way down slowly so as not to overwhelm him. You’re trying not to go too fast, too soon.

Eddie brings the back of his hand to his mouth and begins biting on the skin as a distraction to what’s going on in his lap. He still can’t look down, or it’ll all be over before it begins.

You finally sink all the way down to the hilt, which has Eddie whimpering and cursing below you.

You study his face and how in pain he looks.

“Hey, do you need me to stop?” His eyes shoot open at your question.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop.” Eddie huffs as if he’s out of breath. “Please baby, please keep going…you just feel so fucking amazing and I’m trying here, I’m really fucking trying.” His eyes quickly shut, again.

“Ed’s, open your eyes for me…you’re doing so good, just look at me please?” You murmur as you move closer to his face, rubbing at his scalp like you know he likes.

“I can’t.” He whispers.

“Yes, you can.. just look at me, wanna see you when you cum.” That pulls a growl from the back of his throat.

His eyes slowly open as he takes in the sight of you stuffed full of his cock. You begin to move, slowly grinding before you’re bouncing your hips up and down on him. Your tits jiggle with every move and now it’s like he can’t take his eyes off of you.

Your movements get even faster as you lean down to capture his lips with yours. It’s so sloppy and spit filled, making you clench around him. He gasps into the kiss before his hands are moving down to grab at the soft flesh of your ass.

He begins snapping his hips up to meet your movements, making him hit that spot so perfectly.

“Oh my god…right there.” You moan as your face falls in between his neck and jaw.

You begin to whimper as your unexpected orgasm washes over your body. Eddie doesn’t quite know what’s happening but he physically cannot hold on any longer.

“Oh shit, shit- I’m gonna cum.” His head falls back into his stain filled pillow, he bites his lip so hard he’s almost positive he’s breaking skin, before a groan so deep it almost scares him, leaves his mouth. He wonders if he should feel embarrassed but the proud look in your eyes tells him otherwise.

He didn’t even get a chance to ask you where he could cum, he just filled you up without even thinking. That thought made his dick twitch even though it was beginning to soften.

“You did so good, baby.” You coo before allowing him to slowly slide out of you.

Some of his cum falls out of you and onto his spent cock, making his cheeks redden in what you could only assume is embarrassment.

“It’s okay, I’m doing this new trial of this birth control pill that just came out. It's supposed to lessen cramps during that time of the month but it also helps to prevent pregnancy… so we should be good.” You say before giving him a peck on his bruised lips.

You make your way to the bathroom to clean yourself up before bringing a wet washcloth to clean Eddie, too.

His hips jerk when the rag touches him, making you giggle as he tries and fails to hide his bashful face from you.

You find it so cute how shy he’s being. You’ve never seen shy Eddie before, so this is a nice contrast.

He scoots over, making room for you to lay next to him, which you do after setting the cum filled rag on his night stand to be disposed of later.

“You’re fucking incredible, did you know that?” He asks before scooping you up in his arms and moving you closer to him. His arms wrap around your waist as his head burrows into your chest.

“Are you sure you're okay, Eddie?” You softly ask, not sure you want to breach the topic after you two have finally consummated your relationship.

“Of course I’m okay, why do you ask?” He looks up at you curiously, as if he’s surprised you’ve been able to read him so well. Although you always have been good at that.

“You just seem…different.” You whisper the last part before you feel him slightly tense.

“I’m-I just seen some shit, ya know? And it’s kind of hard to go back to your everyday life after witnessing some of the most horrific shit imaginable.” He can’t look you in your eyes when he speaks, he doesn’t want to see the pity that so often lies beneath the sympathy people have recently given him.

“I get that baby, I do…and I’m here, every step of the way, okay? Whatever you need, we'll do it.” You purr as your nails gently graze his back.

“I’m not going anywhere.” You whisper into his hair before you’re both falling into a post sex sleep haze.

October 1977

“Eddie, slow down.” You snort as your boyfriend eagerly speeds down Cherry lane, too excited to get to his mystery destination.

“Where are you taking me?” You ask, studying his face for any clues.

“You’ll see, just have some patience, baby.” He knowingly smirks, amused by your uncertainty.

Soon enough, you're pulling up to a light yellow single story house. It’s quite cute, with pink trim on the windows and flower boxes that sit on each window seal.

The grass looks like it’s been very taken care of, it’s almost too green.

Eddie flies to your side, opening your door for you.

You hesitantly step out, your black flats crunching on the orange and brown leaf riddled sidewalk. You’re still wondering where the hell he’s taking you or to who?

“Do you like it?” He asks with a beaming smile as his hand runs through his freshly grown out mane.

“I mean yeah… it’s nice.” You scoff, “who lives here?” You study the house again before looking over to Eddie for an answer.

“We do, sweetheart.” He gleams as he dangles a set of keys in his right hand, a huge satisfied smile adorns his face at your shocked expression.

“This is ours?” You blink at him as if maybe you’ve misunderstood. “Like, you bought it?” Eddie’s face just gets more and more excited with every fleeting moment you stand there in shock.

“Yes, we bought it.” He laughs before throwing the keys towards you. “Go check it out, baby.” You quickly catch the keys and make your way inside, body moving on autopilot as you’re still in shock.

As you look around you notice it’s a charming 1960’s styled, three bedroom house.

You stand in the doorway of the smallest room.

‘It’s perfect’ you whisper to yourself.

“That’ll be the nursery for babygirl.” Eddie says, sauntering up behind you to rub at your growing belly. “Do you like it?” He asks with a proud smile.

“I love it Ed’s, you did so good.” You fervidly muse.

“Let’s check out the backyard, I have another surprise for you out there.” He says before intertwining his fingers with yours and walking you through the house to the beautiful twin doors that lead you to an even more beautiful backyard.

Your eyes take in everything as you stand on the deck, this place is almost too perfect. You’re ready to pinch yourself cause you’re so sure you’re dreaming.

You look around and see a vegetable garden, next to that are gorgeous flower bushes. Whoever lived here before really loved this place as it was treated with the utmost care.

Your eyes continue to scan the yard before it catches on something that causes your eyes to water and your breath to hitch, it’s a big oak tree identical to the one you and Eddie met under.

But that’s not all, Eddie is underneath it on one knee, with a red box in his hand. The tears fall as you walk closer. Yes, this has to be a dream, there is no way this is my life, it’s too perfect.

Once you’re standing in front of your weeping future husband, you realize the ring he’s holding was your gram’s, a beautiful vintage opal.

You remember holding her hand as a kid and playing with it. You’d tell her how much you wanted one just like it, so you could be twins. You sob into your hand at the memory.

“Will you marry me, sweetheart?”

Congrats on 4k!!!! For the blurb requests, I offer you this: fake relationship (that clearly both sides want to be a real one but they’re dumb) dealer’s choice!!

hmmm dealer's choice... i think i'm gonna choose good ole joby for this (also ig lemme put a warning for like. a little stalking. reader is being followed and asks joby to pretend to be your boyfriend)

"There you are!" you exclaimed. "God, baby, I've been looking for you everywhere!"

The man you pulled into a hug could not have been more of a stranger to you. He was just the first guy you saw standing outside the bar, half a cigarette between his fingers, and you decided on a whim that he would help you. Thankfully, accepted the hug you enveloped him in. Your heartbeat was rapid in your chest, though, and, as you embraced him, you settled your mouth next to his ear. "Please just help me," you whispered quickly. "Th-There's a man following me, please just play along."

The man in your arms wasted no time on hugging you back then, and he pressed a gentle kiss into your hair. "I've been here the whole time," he said, a little too loud, making sure your stalker could hear him. You pulled yourself out of the hug, and, in your peripheral vision, you watched the man that had been following you stop in his tracks. "Where were you?"

"I got held up at work," you sighed. You tugged yourself out of the hug and looked up at him, and you found the man that was your savior. He was tall and thin, wearing a leather jacket and jeans that didn't quite fit his slender frame, his hair long and dark. Thankfully, he held up the ruse, and he put his arms around your waist and held you close.

"I keep telling you to quit that stupid job," he said with a roll of his eyes. "You hate it so much, why stay there?"

"Jesus, this again," you giggled, and the man leaned down to swipe a kiss on your cheek. Faintly, you heard him whisper— "Joby"— and you added, "Joby, sweetheart, you know I can't quit, I've told you a million times."

"Make it a million and one," Joby replied with a smile. Joby was handsome, in the kind of way that could be improved with a shower and a change of clothes, but he was as good a choice as any to help you escape. "I just care about you, y'know? Want you to be happy and successful, all that good shit. You deserve it."

As Joby talked, the man who had been following you walked past down the street, throwing a dirty look to Joby, and you sighed as your bottom lip began to tremble. "C'mon, let's go inside," Joby said softly, his hand flat on your back. "I think you need a drink."

The bar wasn't nearly as crowded as you anticipated, and Joby led you to a small table. Your legs felt weak as he helped you sit down, and he said, "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," you sniffled. "J-Just, he had been following me. Every street I turned down, he did the same, and I got scared. I-I'm sorry for dragging you into that—"

"Hey, hey," Joby said quickly, and he pushed your hair out of your face. "It's okay. I'm glad I could help. Do you need someone to drive you home? My car is just out front, I can take you home."

"No, no," you told him. "I'll be fine. Thank you, though."

Joby sat down across from you, taking back up a bottle of beer that had been sitting there. He obviously had only gotten up to smoke, and now he had returned with you. "No problem," he said. "Shit. That's scary. Fuck, I'm sorry."

You shrugged. "That stuff happens, y'know?" you mumbled.

Joby looked at for you for a moment, watched you sniffle, and he said, "Lemme get you that drink, and you can tell me all about that awful job you hate. Yeah?"

You chuckled a little, and Joby smiled. "Alright," you agreed. "One drink, just to say thank you."

Edward: so I don’t know if you celebrate Easter, but I had a fun idea!

You: oh? what is it?

Edward: i’ve hidden 4 detonators around Gotham, and in order to find them all you gotta solve my riddles.

You: what the fuck Edward?!?

Edward: you have 5 hours

Male! Doll X GN Reader

A/N: Ahhh I got many requests both from on here and other sites of which asked for a doll yandere! To be fair, I really had… no idea how to write this one? Even possessed dolls, I genuinely had no idea how to write them to fit the obsessive trait. But it still took me mf dayS to write this so I hope its alright!!

TW: possessed items, violence, touching, open mechanical anatomy, cringe

“Oh and before I forget, don’t leave him alone. He doesn’t like to be left alone.”

“Don’t….leave the doll alone?” You chuckled, looking at the small envelope hole your customer insisted on talking through.

“Yes.” They replied, shutting the small latch. You were left in silence, holding a small box filled with metal parts and porcelain pieces.

The materials clinked against one another as you shifted the box. Your business was open for walk-ins, but this wasn’t your everyday unscheduled fix-up. Customers often walked in leisurely or tripping over themselves, requiring you to fix a machine or child’s doll.

This fellow however, preferred to stay outside of your shop, sliding the box in through the makeshift gap and latch at the bottom of your door. They were ominous, strangely demanding you to fix this, well, nearly lost cause. In the box was the tattered pieces of a doll. One of those life-size, porcelain and silicone models . They don’t make such beautiful creatures anymore, but how mesmerizing it is to see one up close. People in your craft hardly ever got to see a real antique; usually just like yourself, they’d be stuck with the same old machines that were popular at the time. But you have been given the chance to touch a real piece of hand-made craftsmanship!

Afficher davantage

𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 [𝐀 𝐆𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐬]

Summary: Years after Hawkins was saved, Nancy and Steve’s wedding draws everyone back together and with it, you are reminded of the love you lost at the price of fame. [Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader; WC: 17.4k] Warnings: language, exes to lovers, mutual pining/yearning, frightened lil beans in love, heavy angst.

A/N: I worked on this for weeks. I am very nervous to post it, and I hope you enjoy it (excuse any errors, it's time consuming loves).

What is it like to be loved?

There was something in that room that made you question it. The palpable, sudden feeling that permeated around it like a fog; a special dance that so many would be able to feel, yet it seemingly evaded you.

Her dress was beautiful. An ivory lace with sleeves that covered her soft skin. The brown of her hair so vibrant against the spring flowers she held as the chapel’s old stones warmed with the feeling reverberated with the words of the priest.

He was tall and stoic; filled with a slight fear that his true colors would show in his dark suit and dotted tie. He was joyous; he was a radiant boy filling his father’s suit and marrying the girl of his dreams.

Nancy and Steve.

For a moment, while the priest held everyone’s attention in a moment of prayer, it was quiet enough to imagine love physically filled the space before you. Head lightly dipped, the bouquet in your hand distracting you from the eyes of every person in the chapel.

A silence was asked for and responded to with grace. The silence of baseless words washing over the room in a wave of down-turned heads and folded hands. However quiet, however peaceful the room had become, that floating feeling hung from the rafters. You felt your heart sink. That heaviness of sorrow that plagued beautiful moments from a pain buried in your bones that you weren’t even sure really existed. Love. A tragic thing.

All you could ask was:

What is it liked to be loved?

Maybe it was the wedding that made you teary-eyed and soft hearted. You weren’t a hopeless romantic. You weren’t searching constantly for Mr. Right because he didn’t exist. They had shown you that, he had shown you that. Not some Marilyn Monroe waiting for the next man to sweep you off your feet and carry you into a raging bloody sunset in Los Angeles. No. The cards were dealt with precision and meaning; each turned over when the time allowed and burned when the bells tolled.

Love brewed and bubbled; love ached and pained; love existed and diminished; love stood in front of you screaming to break free but the cries fell silent—dead on the cold, stone floor.

Steve’s eyes called to Nancy like a ship lost at sea. The tears that brimmed at the corners whispered to fall after years of trauma and resolution. But they were relieved and elated and somehow, Nancy returned the sentiments with eyes elated. And it hurt to see your closest friends happy when you couldn’t be.

‘And from this day forward they would walk hand and hand into everything that You have destined them to be.’

The words echoed and echoed. The priest as happy to say them as Ted and Karen Wheeler nodded as if it were true from the pews. Steve’s parents had actually shown up too, along with hundreds of other people. Friends, coworkers, and the guests each of them brought.

‘We give our hearts and beings to You now in adoration.’

People like you didn’t give their hearts willingly. Not like Robin, not like Nancy. You weren’t sure about Max or Eleven, but perhaps they gave theirs willingly enough too as they stood beside you up on the alter. And you wanted that. You wanted to give it willingly. As their heads hung and their eyes diverted from above, there was a calling. Probably not from some higher God you weren’t sure even existed, but something—a gut feeling. One that simmered and bristled against negativity and anxiety; the same one that painfully squeezed that arduous organ in your chest. That feeling told you not to bow your head. It told you not to close your eyes and whatever it did, it made you shift your head in the slightest.

The groomsmen were just across the way beside Steve. Dustin helmed them, walking you down the aisle and reminding you that as they embraced adulthood, you were also getting older. Over one age milestone of established adulthood and half of the kids you babysat as a teenager were closer to marriage than you.

Angled perfectly with your shoulder—bare from the design of your green gown. The shape of your nose and chin and the style of your hair falling sleekly into a perfectly haloed outline as though a magician had cast their greatest spell. And when it turned just enough, where the platform was illuminated by the rays of the sun, one other head remained as perfectly crafted as yours, looking back as though the universe said: here it is.

This is what it feels like. 

Those butterflies? Love. The heart bursting panic that set off inside you? Love. The painful realization that you could have it and you could nurture it with passion? Love.

It existed. 

And it did so in the cruelest of forms. 

Because the sheen of your eyes from the beautiful wedding and the widely spoken words of the priest meant more when staring back at the one thing you had always wanted. It was one feeling, one person, and that’s what you swore you couldn’t have.

He had chosen that for you. Six years ago in a tiny apartment on the west side of Chicago, he decided his career was more important.

He was him. He was a brilliant, foul-mouthed metal rock star with impeccable hair and sense of style that made your heart leap for quiet bursts of love. He was complicated and corny and filled with a truth you hadn’t been able to recognize because everyone else clouded life. What life could be and what it could hold.

Eddie Munson was a rock star. Eddie Munson was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Eddie Munson was a friend, a hero, and Eddie Munson was the man who broke your heart and it could never heal itself.

And yet love remained deep down.

It’s regretful nature resurfacing because love was tangible in the chapel in Nantucket.

It was love. It existed. It was real. It was palpable in that room, in his eyes, against the prayer, across the aisle and in all of the pews.

‘And we welcome Your Holy Spirit amongst us. Amen.’

And the chorus filled the room. The pews creaked and heads returned upright. You lost the sight as Steve and the others lifted their heads, but the feeling remained. It sunk to the pit of your stomach where the realization remained.

“Hey,” a hushed whisper sounded near your right ear as your body jolted minutely from the call. Robin’s head tried to follow your direction but couldn’t find the destination. There were hundreds of people in that room. But she should have known. She should have known. 

“Everything alright?”

Her concern was evident. Had you been that rigid the entire time? Was the look of love one of fear? Were the tears in your eyes truly that clear?

“I’m fine, Rob. Really.”

It hadn’t convinced her but you returned your attention to the ceremony instead. Robin waited, glancing over your shoulder again and again to try to find her answer. The sentiment of conflict appearing much faster in times of clear disruption than she remembered. The feeling of the world tilting on its axis for something you couldn’t control.

Her eyes looked for the answer. Searching the crowd with an unfathomable hardened gaze until it landed back to the groomsmen and she felt everything click back into place. You had reassured Nancy and Robin that everything was fine; that you were friends. That there was no animosity nor tension remaining over the years but it had. They just wanted to believe the best, yet all the signs were there. 

The way you stood so still; scared of yourself as emotions took their hold.

Six years of separation meant nothing. Its degrees scorching the earth every moment not together, bound by the universe yet torn apart by wants, not needs.

They had all believed you. They believed Eddie’s lies that he had moved on—the woman looking straight out of a Vanity Fair magazine in the fifth row the one he brought to prove such a tale.

No.

They had all been wrong.

The two of you had imploded the meaning of love because if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, it couldn’t exist at all.

Steve and Nancy wed on a Saturday in March. 

The morning had greeted everyone with golden rays. Sunlight streaming in from the curtains of the Wauwinet’s rooms waking its patron’s with a sprinkle of joy. Early morning glow; warm and intoxicating on a day such as that. 

You couldn’t see the beach from where you laid; the white comforter covering your shoulders high, eyes peeking out from the space between the blankets and your pillow. High above on the second floor, the sky reflected its yellow and pink hues until they faded to blue. Not a cloud in the sky. 

The two days you had spent on the tiny island thus far had been a reflection of that sunrise. An excitable shimmer of beauty and grace only to fade into a familiar blue–a melancholy gloom that you hadn’t expected to feel. You stepped off the plane only to be greeted with every feeling that ran in its opposite direction; Robin and Nancy clung to you with joy, Steve and the boys, who you should probably call young men now, hugged you tightly. 

And then a cloud formed. 

The cloud was ugly, gray, and filled with matter you had buried deep. Years of pretending everything in your life was going smoothly–that you were exactly where you wanted to be–lingering above you like a joke. Laughing, jesting you with the past as happiness was rubbed into a wound like salt. 

He had a smile plastered onto his face the first time you saw him that weekend–the night before the ‘I do’s.’ He was sitting in the wine cellar with Steve, reminiscing about the past as the future was gently placed on Nancy’s finger; sparkling against the shine of the hotel’s lighting as night had long fallen on a Friday evening. 

As the thoughts lingered in your mind as the sun began to rise, it hadn’t been seeing Eddie for the first time in years that had thrown your world off its axis. The woman, clad in the most casual New England fashions, who sat beside him with her arm resting on his, did. 

A petty, jealous feeling at the sight rose within you rapidly. 

You felt there was no right for you to feel that way. 

Six years. Six years had left an open season for both he and you to find new people to love, hate, and screw, but the idea that there was a reality that existed where Eddie no longer loved you was jarring. 

The fear of it became engrained in your bones. Tattooed onto skin that was untouched and permanently stained with words that hurt and stung and ultimately resulted in the reason you had come to that wedding alone.  

Eddie had scarred you–in a beautifully tragic way that you’d never be the person you were at seventeen when he asked you to go see Temple of Doom at a theater two towns over. It was a shame you’d always tie him to that film… because you really fucking liked the movie but all you could think about was how Indy left Marion in the dust and hell, you felt like Marion sometimes. 

He just sat there. A gorgeous woman on his arm and smiling at Steve as though not a day had gone by. He looked older, more sure of himself, and dare you think it, had a bit more style than he did before. Nice, in a ‘formal but not too formal’ kind of way. 

They were all sipping on some hundred-dollar wine. He could afford it now. Red-soled shoes, a jacket with no fringe, and a bottle of wine that cost as much as your monthly rent. 

Nancy had been perched on a stool at the high-top beside Steve. The two had been going over the rehearsal that Eddie conveniently missed as well as the dinner from hours before. From what Robin had divulged, he had a show in Boston and would make his way out to Nantucket after it was over. 

You didn’t think Nancy ringing your suite for drinks would mean he’d be there too. 

The thunder from the cloud above you rumbled when Nancy caught your eye in the entryway. 

Everything, from the clothes you wore to the company of the room, felt out of place. Like you were looking from the outside and into a world that was completely yours but never one you recalled. The people in it–sparingly familiar but strangers all the same. 

Nancy had taken a sip of her wine, swallowing quickly as she perked up and waved at you. The attention drawing each eye away from Steve and to you, unwelcome and afraid of familiarity. Two looked happy, one looked curious, and the other looked like the whole world had stopped. 

A moment in time paused. No calm waiters tending to guests, no heads turning toward him because he was identifiable; it was blank. Two worlds gone completely still because for the first time in six years, you and Eddie had finally converged to one place. 

Some expensive hotel on Nantucket Island for a wedding between two people you both held near and dear to your hearts. It took nothing to imagine that if things had gone right, perhaps it would not be Steve and Nancy meeting at the alter tomorrow afternoon. 

In the stillness, a reunion is not bound by the trivial “it’s good to see you” or “its been too long.” A mind playing funny tricks and sending you back to years before–the way his entire person disappeared beyond the bedroom door only to be followed by the slamming of the front one. An apology sputtered at the end of a fight that had been brewing for weeks. 

The last time you saw Eddie Munson he had come home from a tour with no direction but up. Up to a new place, to a new life, and one that kept the past behind. Questions of love, home, and loyalty tested two people who were holding onto a fine thread before it snapped. 

Now, its lingering shreds brushed together with an easterly wind. 

You don’t know what he was thinking when the words stopped fumbling from his lips. 

“Hey!” Steve cheered happily from his spot as Eddie went quiet. “Come on, join us!” 

You felt like a fool standing there idle. Feet glued to the floor, eyes trained on Eddie a moment too long because as soon as the fifth second passed, the woman by his side asked: 

“Who’s that?” 

Steve said your name, waving at you the same way Nancy had, “She’s Ed–“ 

“My Maid of Honor!” Nancy cut in, giving the woman a smile in reassurance that it was the description most accurate to who you were. Nancy didn’t know why she cut Steve off like that; the side-eyed glance she received from him as Eddie stared back at you should have told her everything. 

Not friend, not best friend, not former classmate, but Eddie’s ex-girlfriend. What a label to have. 

Your planted feet begged you to move. The awkwardness of standing still for lingering seconds in time drawing eye after eye, raising questions as to whether or not you were having a medical emergency or just plain stupid. Your feet took those commands and walked, before your mind could even process that the night had continued to move forward without being truly ready to interact. 

“I told you she’d join us,” Nancy hit Steve’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand, “Can’t spend the last few hours of us together as an unmarried couple without those who brought us back together.” 

Steve gave her a smile, hand squeezing her kneecap under the table because in reality, there wasn’t an ounce of a lie there. Not that any regular person would understand, but Steve had always dreamed of this moment: the night before he went to sleep one last time as an unmarried man, sipping chilled wine in an expensive hotel with his bride-to-be, his closest friends, and the reason he and Nance were at this stage. 

One piece of that puzzle had gone mute, silent as though they never heard him talk. As you approached the high top that was tucked into a corner by the windows that looked out to the Atlantic Ocean, Eddie couldn’t form words. He had prepared himself for this moment for years and yet his mind had gone blank. Emotions barren from his chest like he was an empty, cavernous being and not a person. He felt nothing–like the world had been obliterated and there was only him in space; alone and helpless to save his sanity. 

And if it hadn’t been so long since he last laid eyes on you, perhaps he could have recognized the same emotions bleeding out of you. That the wound had never truly closed and there was much unsaid floating around the two of you that the air was hard to breathe. 

But against it all, it was you who offered the closed smile and a small: 

“Hi.”

Eddie’s relief that the first words weren’t “fuck you,” or “I still hate you.” Just a simple “hi” that replayed in his mind as the seconds transpired and the ball had fallen into his court. 

But those words were hard for you to even muster. 

“It’s good to see you,” he settled on, not leaving his chair to wrap his arms around you or whisk you away to hear how your life has been since he left. He sat there, as still as you had in the entryway, and let you take the spot beside Nancy because it was the furthest away from his own that you could take. 

Eddie had completely forgotten about the woman to his right. 

No one had thought anything of the interaction. In two minds, it played out differently because the truth existed somewhere between two people unwilling to face it. For people like Nancy and Steve, there had been one story that had been told yet no one questioned the absence of the other on specific holidays, birthdays, or more. 

“We broke up,” that was what you had told Nancy and he had told Steve. Word for word, the same story. “Distance was getting too hard and we thought we’d take a break. It’s better this way and we’re still friends–we we’re friends before everything so…” 

For every truth, there were two lies. 

Nancy flagged down the waiter, tapping on her glass and holding up two fingers. You shifted in your seat as one leg crossed over the other and glanced at the woman to Eddie’s right. 

She wasn’t familiar at all. Still hanging on Eddie’s arm and fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. In all of your years together, you had never seen Eddie wear a dinner jacket. 

And against your feelings, you extended your hand over the table toward her. Eddie didn’t know what to think of that. You introduced yourself. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he knew the voice. It was the kind someone would use on the telephone if they were talking to a co-worker or boss, not a friend. 

“Veronica,” she lifted her hand from Eddie’s arm and graciously shook yours over the wine glasses; a tiny set of flickering candles beside a small relish tray beneath it. “I hear you’re the Maid of Honor?” 

“As much as one can be,” you told her, eyes looking over her face and form. Eddie could see it now that you were comparing yourself to her, an unfortunate circumstance of choice. “The other bridesmaids have helped a bit with planning and what not… it’s not easy work,” you scoffed, tipping your head at Nancy and the bride shook her head with a grin. 

“I promise I’m not one of those crazy brides,” Nancy jokingly defended herself to Veronica who admired the friendship before her. She knew you all of two seconds and could see how comfortable the two of you were. 

“Yeah, sure…” you trailed off as the waiter returned with two new glasses of wine. You thanked him and took a long, needed sip as the white wine’s bubbles barely had time to settle. 

Steve cleared his throat as you drank, glancing at Eddie before turning to you. “We were just catching him up on what went down at the rehearsal. Told ‘em that Robin tripped down the aisle so he’s gotta hold onto her tightly.” 

You snickered at the memory. Robin Buckley couldn’t walk in heels even if she tried to. Nodding your head, you didn’t make eye contact with Eddie to reiterate the sentiment. 

“She’ll topple over if you don’t.” 

“Will do,” Eddie replied quietly, differently than he normally would have and Veronica put her hand on his arm again, rubbing it up and down as if she knew. For once, he just wished she would stop. 

“We’re going to–“ Steve’s voice drowned itself out as he rattled on about the plans of tomorrows festivities. 

Every now and again when you’d catch a word of Steve’s, you couldn’t help but look at Eddie. Those eyes still telling of his emotions rather than the words he spoke; wide and pupils blown from both the environment and alcohol. 

You weren’t shameless about it when he caught you looking. He couldn’t help it either; it was as though he was drawn to a magnet that kept pulling him in. Just as you had observed him, everything was familiar yet strangely different. The way you held yourself, the clothes you wore, makeup and hair just enough having changed to make him notice that he didn’t know you now as he had then. 

However, he still felt that hand on his jacket. 

Yet he was looking at you. And he felt like a coward for thinking he’d rather have you cling to him like that then her. She, Veronica, didn’t deserve to have a man think that of her. 

“Are you still in Chicago?” He blurted out over Steve’s talking. Like walking in a path of quicksand, Eddie did not want to drown before his life truly began. Steve stopped and glanced at Eddie as though his friend had a stroke. 

“Mhm,” you murmured over the lip of the glass Nancy had secured for you. “Still in California?” 

“Yeah, near Bell Canyon.” 

“Is that…” Of course you wouldn’t have known exactly where that was. It wasn’t like you had a map inside of your brain or tracked his every movement. Based on the question on whether or not he still lived in California, he wondered if you read anything about him at all. 

“It’s near Los Angeles… like suburbs of it.” 

“Ah, alright,” you met his eyes briefly before taking another long sip of your wine. He could see the way you practically folded in on yourself; anxiety and fears bubbling within you the same way they used to. 

“And you still live…” he trailed off in a veiled hope that the implication went unspoken. ‘At the apartment, our apartment.’

“No,” you shook your head, “I moved a few years ago… have a nice view of the lake,” the thought of it brought a small smile to your face. It was nice. It was nearly perfect. 

“No more of the ‘L’ ruining your sleep?” 

He saw the hint of smile play on your lips. 

“It’s pretty quiet now,” for a multitude of reasons he could think of. 

“That’s good,” Eddie nodded, glancing at Steve and Nancy who provided no support to make the situation any less awkward. 

“So,” Veronica began with a perky voice for eleven-thirty at night, “Eddie said you all went to high school together?” 

The model wore these big, curious eyes. She was kind, in a doxy kind of way but her sentiment’s with her words transcended through each of you. This woman, a date, hadn’t been a steady, familiar thing to Eddie. Anyone who knew him as close as a formal, long-term partner did, would have known about the crew from Hawkins. 

“Yeah,” Steve answered as a savior, “But we weren’t all friends then… that took some time. We were all pretty different.” 

Nancy hit his arm playfully, giving a scowl as Steve quirked his eyes at Eddie. The latter had simply taken the labels he was given and ran with them–a transformative play for the man with a lengthy petty crimes list and could out smoke Pablo Escobar. 

“It doesn’t matter what we were like! We’re all friends now and those three–“ Nancy gestured her hand over Steve, Eddie, and yourself, “were in the same class.” 

“Oh!” She beamed. “How cool! I don’t really talk to anyone from my class so it’s nice to see it works for some people.” 

Everyone just gave her tight smiles. Having friends from childhood didn’t make you less of a person. It meant stronger connections and the fact that no one could say why you were all bonded so closely made things more difficult. 

“And the rest of your friends?” Veronica turned her face toward Eddie who shrugged. 

“In their rooms, I’m guessing. I think we got here a little late,” he chuckled. 

“They know you had a commitment,” Nancy reassured him. “Besides, Dustin and the others will be just as thrilled to see you in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “After the bachelor party, I didn’t think half of us would even make it here so it’ll be a nice surprise.” 

Thank God for Steve and his stupid jokes. It broke some tension, a smile actually cracking Eddie’s face again and one that reached his eyes. The brown, doe-eyed ones that Robin once said made her sad were recalling that party like it was the funniest thing he had ever experienced. 

‘It probably was’, you thought, ‘Steve Harrington always knew how to party.’ 

“So,” Veronica interjected, pointing a finger between you and Nancy, “the bachelorette party wasn’t anything to write home about?” Quick judgement.

“We went wine tasting in the Valley,” Nancy’s eyes lit up at the memory, “and then we went hiking… which in retrospect wasn’t something any of us liked.” 

It was the end of summer when everyone could get together and the heat ate at each of you as the sun rose higher, the drinks flowed more, and the guides took in their amusement of each woman. 

“Went to some museums, ate too much food…” you said additionally. 

“El learned she was allergic to pears and Max got stung by a bee,” Nancy interjected, “and our heroes Lucas and Mike came to save the day when we got stranded in the middle of lake because the engine died on the boat we rented.” 

“I think we’ll stick to spa days and cooking classes next time,” you picked up your glass, a side-eye to Nancy as she quickly agreed. Veronica perked up, still clutching Eddie’s arm. 

“Who’s getting married next? You?” 

She meant nothing by it. Her eyes were friendly and voice high pitched, interested in the conversation to just be a part of something more than a two-person bubble. You choked on the wine, the question startled you because it hadn’t been something you thought of in a long time. 

You put the glass down as your hand went to your mouth, wiping it dry and you, unintentionally, looked from her to Eddie. Steve noticed, Nancy didn’t. 

“No!” You replied a bit too loudly. “Sorry,” shaking the embarrassment from you, “I just–no. Not me. I would put money on Dustin and Suzie once they’re done at MIT… He’s loved her since he was in middle school.” 

She smiled at the idea of everlasting young love. “That’s cute! Sometimes, if you know, you know, right?” And she squeezed Eddie’s arm the same way her hand squeezed your heart at the sight. 

Eddie dropped his arm into his lap after her grip loosened. Her hand fell onto the table and whether she realized it or not, the rejection she felt showed on her face. 

“How did you two meet?” Nancy picked an olive with a toothpick from the small dish on the table. Veronica peered at Eddie to answer but he wasn’t going to. 

“At an event for our agency a couple…three? months back.” 

Three months.

“Cool,” Steve mumbled as he followed Nancy’s lead and took one of the pickles from the tray. “So what are you? An agent? Model...?” 

“I model for magazines, yeah,” she nodded and focused her hands at the base of her wine glass. You watched Veronica tap her white nails on the table cloth before bringing them back to the foot. “Sometimes do commercials or videos and stuff.”

Steve sat back in his chair; a thought pondered in his mind as he watched your eyes divert from the table and out the window to your left. It was dark, you couldn’t see anything beyond ten feet. The arm that had been taken off the table now sat at Eddie’s side with his hand in his lap. He had taken his thumb and twisted at the ring that rested on his ring finger–the one with a dark stone he had worn since forever. 

The groom reflected back to his bachelor party, three weeks ago, and how Eddie made no mention of Veronica but very drunkenly admitted something he didn’t want to see the light of day. 

Buried; six feet deep with the memories he had locked away in Pandora’s box. There was key to unlock them, let them fly away and spread like stars in the sky but it was booze and a little bit of weed that truly let them sing. 

Steve wasn’t sure if Eddie realized what he had told him that night. 

The way he was twisting his rings made him think that if he didn’t, Eddie was at least thinking the same thing now. 

“You know,” Steve crossed his arms as he leaned back, glancing at Veronica first before allowing his eyes to wander to you, then Eddie. “If you asked me a few years ago if I thought that Eddie, Eddie Munson, would be dating a supermodel… I would have laughed.” 

Veronica chuckled, a light blush forming on the balls of her cheeks as Eddie shook his head. It was Steve’s tone that made you turn to him. 

“Not really your type, dude,” Steve said and the woman’s face went flat. The chuckle cease and Nancy forgot how to breathe for a second. Maybe Steve had too much to drink, maybe he was done for the night, and if she whisked him away now, he wouldn’t be hung over for the wedding. 

“Come on, man…” Eddie shifted his head to the side, glaring at Steve to knock-it-off before things crossed a line he wasn’t prepared for. Eddie thought himself a jackass sometimes but he never wanted others to feel uncomfortable. 

“No offense, Veronica,” Steve held out his hand as if saying ‘I don’t mean anything by it.’ “It’s just…” He clicked his tongue, “you want the best for your friends, right? And for the last decade or more I’ve never seen you fawn over the looks of a model.” 

“Steve,” you interjected, providing the same look Eddie had given him because he was trying to open that box. “Stop being an asshole.” 

You turned to Veronica, “he’s just a little drunk, that’s all.” Nancy supported it with a smile and put her hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve laughed at your words like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “That’s kind of rich coming from you.” 

“I think we should–“ Nancy began but Steve leaned forward on his elbows. 

“You like Lord of the Rings, Veronica? Or ever go to a thrift store and absolutely wreck the clothes you bought? Play D and D?” She looked confused so Steve stopped, “Dungeons and Dragons? Like the game? No? How about drugs? Do you do those?” 

“Steve! Fuck man…” Eddie hit Steve’s shoulder, “I think we’re a little past a buzz, huh?” 

“Tell me, Eddie,” Steve took the whack to his shoulder in stride, “You’re not thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” 

“I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about.” 

“Okay,” Steve drug the ‘a’ out of the word, “fine!” He looked to you, “are you thinking what I’m thinking then? And when I said it’s funny, I meant in you defending her when–“ 

“Jesus Christ, Steve!” Eddie said loudly, “would you just shut the fuck up for once! I was so worried about us getting into it,” he threw a hand up and motioned between the two of you, “but you took that and ran right the fuck away with it!” 

As Eddie argued with Steve, you turned to Nancy. 

“I think you better take him to his room,” you saw how mortified she was, “or I can call up Lucas and Dustin to come get him too?” 

“I’ve got him,” she took your hand and held it tightly. “He’s just up-“ 

“—OH!” Steve’s voice cut through hers, “like you’re not giving ‘fuck me eyes’ to each other! Goddammit! It’s like living with divorced parents! No wonder you switch off holidays!” Steve pointed at you, “was that your idea? I bet it was.”

“Wait,” Veronica cut in after Steve’s ‘divorced parents’ comment, “did you two date?” her eyes flicking between Eddie and yourself. Her question went unanswered as Steve continued his tirade. 

“And Dustin reassured me there wouldn’t be an issue!” 

“There wasn’t an issue until you brought it up!” Eddie said pointedly. You downed the rest of your wine in one gulp and Nancy hopped off her chair as people started to go quiet at the surrounding tables. 

“Please!” Steve lamented, “you got fuckin’ plastered in Miami and told me and the boys that you wished it was you gettin’ married not me!” 

“When the hell did I say that?” Eddie furrowed his brows, voice still loud and defensive. Nancy shrugged on her cardigan that was on the back of her chair, Veronica looked befuddled, and you felt like you blanched. Even if they couldn’t see it, you felt it. 

“At the shitty strip club!” Not something he should have shouted in a place like this. “You got all weird and drank yourself to pieces because, and I quote,” Steve said crazed, “the wedding makes you fucking sad and you didn’t know how to handle it.” 

“Oh fuck you, man,” Eddie soured, rolling his eyes at Steve as Nancy grabbed his arm gently.

“Steve, come on,” she coaxed him, “we better get going.” 

“If you want to convince people you don’t still love each other,” Steve chided, “then maybe stop acting like the world will fall apart the moment you walk into a room.” 

“Wait,” Veronica added again, shaking her head in misunderstanding, “still love each other? When did this happen?” 

“We don’t love each other,” Eddie answered for both of you without a second to spare. “And it won’t fall apart! Look! We’re here now!” He motioned his hand between the two of you across the table again but didn’t look at the way you listened to every word like you had when you fought in the kitchen that horrible evening.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded as if he didn’t believe Eddie in the slightest, “Swear on Dustin? On your… shit… I don’t know, guitar!? Say that to her face and tell her like you didn’t just tell me you make a fucking mistake years ago.” 

Mistake. 

There were two paths of a mistake. 

One, where his choice to follow his career without you was a mistake because it wasn’t as it seemed or it wasn’t complete without you; or two, that being with you entirely was a mistake because it clouded his wants for his future. 

Eddie sighed, head bowing as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair before coming up again. 

“Do you really want this to be how you remember the night before you get married?” Eddie asked Steve as the groom sat there with his bride clutching his arm in a pleading motion to exit the wine cellar. 

“Do you want this to be how you remember the day you chickened out on being a man for once?” 

Steve knew it cut deep. The wound open and bleeding for all to see as Eddie’s face scoured into the in-between of pissed off and irate. 

“Go, Steve,” Eddie said flatly, “Big day tomorrow. Don’t want to be late.” 

Nancy gave you a supportive, closed lip smile as Steve finally got off his chair and walked to the door. She let him leave first. 

“I’m sorry about him…” She laughed with embarrassment, “He’s just overwhelmed with everything.” And Nancy wasn’t telling you or Eddie that, but Veronica. 

“It’s alright,” she told her kindly in reply, “wedding’s aren’t wedding’s without a little drama, right?” 

For that, Nancy was grateful. She looked between you and Eddie–still separated by the table yet the string still bristled. 

“Be in the bridal suite by nine, okay?” She told you, “and I think the guys are getting ready at like ten so, don’t sleep in.” 

“Got it,” from Eddie and a “yeah, okay,” from you. 

“Sorry again,” Nancy apologized, leaving to go scold Steve as the table now sat quiet and awkward. 


The flames flickered as the noises from other tables now filled the void of conversation at your own. Veronica tapped her glass, yours sat empty, and Eddie was still facing the empty seat where Steve had been. 

“So,” Veronica pursed her lips, “you two dated then?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. It provided her the answers of why Eddie had been acting the way he had and the conciseness of dialogue that existed amongst you. The way he gazed, the way you diverted it; his own curiosity and knowledge of the sound of the elevated train that impacted your sleeping and the way the admittance that Eddie now lived in a suburb sent you the wrong way. 

Even then, you glanced at Eddie to see if he’d answer. She was his guest, after all. He turned back around in his seat–back flush against the chair, shoulders slouched. 

“Yes,” he treaded carefully, “we did.” 

“For how long?” It may have been worse that she said none of it with malice. 

Eddie flicked his eyes from where they were trained on the table top to you. And fuck, they sucked you right back in and spit you right back out. 

“About eight years…” You told her, ready to flee. 

“That’s a long time,” she nodded to reaffirm her words. “And you lived together?” 

“Mhm,” Eddie hummed as if he didn’t want her to know every detail of his life. He looked down at the table. “For four years of it.” 

“More like three,” you mumbled passively, pushing your wine glass forward on the table. 

“Four,” Eddie said firmly and his eyes shot back up to you. Sensitive subject, you suppose. He remembered every word you had said to him that evening and the comments about his time spent at home stuck. “Four,” he reiterated. 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

You didn’t forget your words either. 

Your expression pinched; eyebrows shooting up for a brief second before your head cocked to the side with silent words. You weren’t going to embarrass yourself or this table any further by getting into a spat with Eddie over something as trivial as years spent in a shabby apartment in Chicago. 

The wine glass was already pushed; two chairs empty as bed appeared to be the best option to end the night. A soft, hotel pillow to help you replay every image your mind could remember from what you had, what you lost, and what had just happened. 

You hated that. But it was better than arguing with someone you didn’t want to argue with. 

Breathing in a deep, sharp breath, you retracted your gaze from Eddie and gave Veronica the softest one you could muster. 

“It was good to meet you,” you told her. It wasn’t her fault Eddie took your heart and ran away with it. “I hope Steve’s little scene didn’t scare you off. He can be a drama queen when he drinks.” 

“All good,” she gave a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Happens to the best of us.” 

“So it does,” you replied, giving her a nod before sliding off your chair and letting the space return to two. Eddie’s sigh was loud; the way he closed his eyes in frustration hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

As you passed on her side exiting the corner table, you put a hand on the table when your feet came to a stop. Veronica looked at you curiously and waited for another ball to drop on her toes but it didn’t. 

“Don’t let him smoke a whole pack, alright? Won’t do any of us good if he does.” 

And then you walked away. 

Veronica had only been romantically linked to Eddie for three months. She hadn’t seen any side of him that resembled the man sat beside her before and from what she knew, Eddie was not a smoker. The only comment that had surprised her more than the outburst from the groom was when Steve admitted Eddie had become hammered from the booze and weed at his bachelor party. 

But before you could escape the wine cellar fully, Eddie turned around in his seat and shouted your name across the restaurant. 

In a full, obnoxious manner that reminded you of the boy you had fallen in love with in high school. 

“I quit. Six years ago.” 

When the sun rose to its blue hue and the reminder of the night before replayed in your mind like a fresh, unadulterated film, there was a conflict brewing within you. 

The idea of love. 

Love was precious; an almost a forgettable thing when the daily grind became too much for simplistic thought yet it was what people craved the most. To love, to be loved. On a day like that–where there was not a raincloud in sight and when two people were joining each other in matrimony bound by the tethers of love–it was hard not to think about how the feeling evaded you. 

It touched you once. 

It gripped its claws into your flesh and left fatal wounds in its wake, yet you desired it so. Love, the splendid little thing that meant mountains but fell to cavernous trenches. 

You don’t know which part of Eddie you had fallen in love with first. Juvenile, childish love was innocent at seventeen. As you grew older and the complications of adulthood and circumstance of living in Hawkins transformed life, the reasons for loving him changed too. 

It wasn’t always about how he could make you laugh or the way his eyes were so expressive; the comfort he brought or the way he helped you love yourself through him loving you in return. 

It was doing the dishes together at the end of a long night. Falling asleep on the couch because making it to the bed after one of his gigs was too exhausting, but he’d wake up in the early hours of the morning and make sure you’d both end up there anyway. How Eddie made time for everyone and everything until life stopped allowing him to do so. 

It was moments where you and Eddie would be waiting for the train at Clinton station and he’d link his finger with yours because winter gloves constricted full hand movements. 

Those times made you hate what love often resolved itself with: pain and bitter resentment that life was cruel. 

And the clock ticked away as you thought of it. 

When Nancy put her veil on, Robin was the first to cry. Then Max, then Eleven, and Karen was close behind them all. You stayed for a few minutes before excusing yourself to the hallway because the sight painted you blue. 

You felt horrid for feeling bitter when Nancy’s fairytale was not an hour away. 

In the hallway, there was a series of doors that led to varying rooms. Ones that held the groomsmen and Steve, one for the flower girl and ring bearer’s families. It was decorated with seaside decor of light yellows, blues, and whites. A table down ten feet and across the way had a mirror hung above it cased in gold. 

The woman in the reflection was one you neglected to see for a long while. The apparent dissatisfaction of your own circumstance on a day filled with joy riddled on every feature. A necklace clutched in your palm feeling the brunt of sweat and aggravation as Eddie filled your thoughts again. 

You wanted to love him, to be loved by him. You tried to hook the clasp. Missed. 

Why couldn’t you just move on and be happy with someone else? Again, the clasp dug into your finger. Missed. 

Could you even remember what it truly felt like to be loved? 

The clasp evaded you. It was mocking, laughing as you struggled in the hallway mirror and began to sweat the idea that you’d never be able to secure it. Heaving a deep sigh in the mirror, you clutched the necklace in your hand and leaned against the table with two fists. 

“Get it fucking together,” you told yourself quietly. 

Regaining your posture, you tried again, ignoring the sounds of a hall door opening and closing down the way. Your fingers trembled as the clasp caught air once more. 

“You need help with that?” 

You stared at your reflection and pretended not to see where he had stopped. Jaw tense, you shook your head and attempted the connection for the tenth time. 

When you missed again, he scoffed. 

“Give it to me,” he held out his hand palm up, ready to take it from your timid fingers and do it for you. “Come on,” Eddie egged on.

“I don’t need help,” you told him.

“Yes, you do,” he said pointedly. He could see the indentations of the small lever on your index finger. “Just let me help you.”

He wasn’t going to leave. Your eyes met in the mirror and he rose his brows expectantly. More hesitantly than he wished, you held out the necklace and let it ring into his palm. A nod from your head gave him the assent he needed.

In the silence of the hallway, you felt squeezed—both your mind and heart. Eddie moved to stand behind you and you could barely breathe; the simple gesture of helping you put on a necklace far more harrowing than previously realized. He was so close. So close. His fingers trailed to the back of your neck, brushing away the hair with his fingertips and letting it fall where it would not infringe the task.

You couldn’t bear to look at him. Focused on the sconces beside the mirror, you tried not to enjoy the feeling of his hands on you for the first time in half a decade. You tried not to remember the way his touch intoxicated you; every stroke and graze intentional as his eyes watched you struggle.

Eddie lifted his arms above your head and let the jewelry fall onto your collarbone. You wondered if his heart was beating as fast as yours.

“How does she look?” Nancy. His voice was low, quiet in the hall to not disturb the others getting ready. You hadn’t even taken him in yet.

The suits Steve chose were all black, form-fitting with ties instead of bow ties. The pocket squares were filled with a white handkerchief, and the shoes were a clean, shiny black. On his lapel, a single rose was pinned.

“She looks beautiful,” you replied but still wouldn’t look at him. You heard the clasp make it. The necklace sat firm but his hands did not move. They lingered, tracing the line of the back of your neck to the tops of your shoulders.

“You look beautiful.”

You didn’t want him to say that.

“Don’t say that,” you replied morosely. 

“Why?” Eddie’s fingers brushed the necklace’s golden chain. “It’s true.”

The bottom of your lip trembled dangerously.

“Because you can’t say that.” 

“But I did,” he sounded hopeful which dug into that wound a bit further. 

“You brought a date.”

“Why won’t you look at me?” He whispered, fingers still gliding. He said your name softly, “look at me, please. Talk to me.”

You felt your heart constrict, sending a shuttered breath through you and your eyes blinked rapidly. There was no way in Hell you would let Eddie see you cry. He had moved on. He brought a date. A goddamn runway model that, in your opinion, ran circles around you in every way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

“I need to go,” you stepped away from him, shaking your head and jetting off down the hall. “I’m sorry.”

He called your name once, twice, but you ignored him. You grasped the golden handle with a heavy hand, breathing unsteady as he stood in the distance in your peripheral. As though the world stood still again, Eddie felt that he had broken through. You would turn, talk to him, and let him relish in the company of you. 

Yet, you grasped that handle tighter. 

But, you did turn. 

And when you opened the door back to the dressing room, it wasn’t only you whose memories transported you back to the night in Chicago that plagued your mind, but Eddie too. Straight back as he made his way to the men’s dressing room in the opposite direction. 

“Stop being such an asshole!” You stood in the kitchen, hands clutching the sink as the anger seethed out of you. Eddie paced in the living space just beyond the island to your right. 

“What do you want me to say, huh?” He threw his arms up in defeat. “For once in my life things are finally looking up and people just don’t get signed to a label and expected not to do—” he fumbled his words, “everything that comes with it!”

“I’m not asking you to give up music, Eddie!“ 

“Then what are you asking me?” He craned his head to the side, hands on his hips and breathing hard. “I can’t work from here. I have to go there and the least you could do is come with me.” 

The least you could do. The least you could do. 

You tossed the dish rag that had been strangled in your grip into the sink, focusing on the window positioned across from it and scoffed. A view of the goddamn ‘L’ train tracks you despised.

“Well I can’t just get up and move,” you said as calmly as you could. “Why is it so easy for you to ask that of me but when I bring up what I want, it becomes a problem for you?” 

Eddie shook his head, hair mused as he ran a hand over it. “I don’t make it a problem, baby.” 

“Yes, you do!” You laughed exasperatedly. “You just fucking said—“ a frustrated groan left your lips and you bounded off the sink and faced him from behind the counter. “It’s not like this is Hawkins; it’s goddamn Chicago and I’ll be dammed if there isn’t a music producer in one of those skyscrapers.” 

“They’re not like they are out there. If we want any chance to make music–actually make music of our own that sells platinum records and wins awards–those producers are out there,” he pointed to the door as if it signified a world beyond this one. 

“What? So, it’s all about money?” 

“No! But hell, if that isn’t a major part of it I’d be lying!” 

“And what about our home here?” You put your hands on the counters ledge and the nails on your fingertips motioned against it with rhythmic clicks. “Everything we’ve built here goes to shit because of one possible record deal?” 

“It’s not just one deal,” Eddie groaned your name in frustration, “It’s the only deal and this… this here,” he motioned around the apartment, “was only ever temporary.” 

News to you. 

“Like Hawkins was. This isn’t really home.” 

“Not home?” You furrowed your brows at him. “Then where the hell do you think it is? You bolted from Hawkins the second you got the chance and as far as I am concerned, this is my home. You see those pictures on the wall?” 

You tipped your head in the direction of the wall that the couch sat up against. Above it was a collage of frames that held so many memories. From Nancy to Max, from Steve to Mike, everyone was on that wall. 

“Those people helped us find this one.” 

“Well,” he shook his head, “they can help us find another in California. There are people out there, baby. Real goddamn people that know just what we need.” 

Not you, Corroded Coffin. What they needed. 

“It’s not going to find us all the way out here.” 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

He had been traveling the world with Corroded Coffin for a year and a half. In all of that time, he had come home for approximately two months. Eight weeks out of seventy-eight. This wasn’t the first fight about it; he had changed. The stronghold fame was suffocating him and was the very thing drawing you apart. 

“Hm?” You hummed as he diverted his eyes to the apartment door. 

“I’m here now.” 

“That wasn’t my question, Eddie,” the ground rumbled beneath you. The way his eyes darted to the door as if it were calling him to leave. Foundation cracked and crumbled, fragmenting as the words threatened to tumble out. “Do you even want to be here?” 

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here, yeah?” He looked annoyed, lips nearly flattened. That’s how you knew he was angry. Angry at life, at you, at the world. 

“Eddie,” you pleaded softly in one last attempt to salvage the broken platform, “stop lying to me.” 

“I’m not lying.” 

“Yes, you are!” You breathed in deeply, thinking of the unthinkable questions that pondered in your mind. “I’m not asking you to stay because I don’t want you to follow your dreams—you twisted my words—but why can’t I be the selfish one and want to stay here? You’ll have more money, you can visit and we— “ 

Can work it out. It was already over when he said he had been signed that godforsaken deal. 

He said your name dejectedly. It hung there in the air as if saying ‘stop trying.’ You felt a lump form in your throat as you looked him, already decided in what he wanted because he was going after his dream. Halfway there, this was his out. 

The tears gathered at the sides of your eyes, “you don’t even try.” 

Eddie always had something to say but he couldn’t form words in that moment. 

“What?” You steeled your wet eyes on him, “can’t even say that you had? Or that you were? Eddie, I’ve been doing this alone for so long that I don’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me and you meant it.” 

That set him off. He pointed a bitter finger at you. “I always mean it when I say it. Don’t play that card.” 

“Card!?” You cried, “I’m not trying to guilt trip you into staying but you don’t mean it! Eight weeks! Eight weeks in a fucking year and a half and you expect me to get up and throw my life away for you?” 

“I was on tour! Halfway across the goddamn world!” 

“Exactly!” You exclaimed, turning away from him and trying to escape to the bedroom but you could hear his heavy feet following. 

“Stop it,” he said your name over and over as you gripped the door and tried to close it. He pressed his palm against it with a hard slap and pushed it against the wall with a deafening thud. “Would you just stop!” 

“For Fuck’s Sake!” You yelled, “I can’t move! I don’t want to move! I have a lease, a good job, and I want to stay here and build my future!” 

“You can have that in California!” He yelled back. 

His eyes were wide, trying to pretend the antithesis of the fracture was anything less than his career. 

“No, I can’t!” 

“Why not!?” 

“Because of you! You don’t want what I do!” You screamed at him, voice breaking as you cried and realized that this was the end. Eddie would move out to California and you’d be left in a tiny apartment in Chicago alone. 

“I want a family, Eddie. I want to raise kids here or in the stupid suburbs, and grow old here. You want to be a—” you swallowed hard, cheeks wet and eyes getting puffy, “—rock star and those lives don’t mix. They just don’t.” 

He was only twenty-five. He didn’t really know what he wanted from life. 

“You don’t want to be here. That’s why you haven’t come home and I get it, I do. The band is growing, you’re popular, you have a million women to choose from, but I can’t keep pretending that my wants have to be ignored for you to succeed.” 

“Are you saying I’ve ignored you?” 

“You tell me, Eddie,” you shrugged, “how would you feel if the person you loved most was gone for months only to be reassured that everything was fine by a phone call every few days?” 

He let his head tip to the floor, eyes closed because although many of the cracks stemmed from his choices, this wasn’t what he wanted. Eddie wanted to be happy, to be in love and be loved. But he was at the precipice of being what he always wanted and decisions had to be made. 

Callous and resentful decisions. 

“Do you hate me?” Eddie’s eyes spurred something in him. A hatred for himself, a despised feeling growing that a part of him that had always been missing—family—was being ripped away for a dream. 

“I don’t hate— “ 

“Yes, you do,” he looked up, giving you a knowing look as his bottom lip trembled. 

“No, I don’t. But I’m hurt and I don’t think you see that.” 

“So,” he cleared his throat, breath hitching in his chest, “this is it then? We’re just going to give up?” 

“I didn’t give up, Eddie,” you needn’t say the rest to indicate that he had. “We just want different things.” 

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” you shook your head, sitting down on the edge of the bed with your face turned away from him. “Right now we do and it’s not doing anything for either of us.” 

It was quiet for a few minutes. Minutes. A thick fog fell over the room; marinating in every picture, the clothes folded away in the dresser, the shampoo in the shower, the two dinner plates half-cleaned in the sink. Domesticity wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough.

You weren’t sure how long it had been, but Eddie’s socked feet moved from the spot he stood in and approached the bed—carefully and freely. He knelt down, hands on the outsides of both your thighs and his thumbs rubbed the tops of them gently, the pressure soothing when it shouldn’t have been through your jeans. 

“I want you to be happy…” he swallowed thickly as he chose his words gently. There was no point in trying to stop you from crying when he couldn’t do so himself. “I want you to have what you want, sweetheart… and if I can do that… someday… we’ll find each other again.” 

“Eddie…” Your heart ached as you shook your head. Hope was the killer of it all. 

Hope that perhaps one day you’ll find each other again; that you’d both be free to choose the paths that crossed while maintaining your own personalities and careers without giving one up. Hope that a future existed when the flame was extinguished on a cold evening in Chicago. 

“I’m sorry,” he rubbed your thighs tenderly. 

“Me too.” 

“I love you,” he said softly as if were one last confession. The tears were quietly flowing when you leaned forward, cupping the back of his head with your hands and resting your forehead on his own. 

Just to hold him one last time. 

“I love you too.” He left the apartment an hour later and it was the last time you had seen him. No contact, no cards, and no one, in the group of friends you shared, brought up the other on purpose.

The reception was noisy. 

Like a zoo full of animals that were awakened by a whistle only they could hear; sounds of song’s you hadn’t heard since high school played from the small band the Wheeler’s had insisted on just beyond the designated space for dancing. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will were losing it on the floor since the second a Michael Jackson song emitted its first few strings. 

Steve and Nancy were hand in hand greeting guests at their tables as others made their way to the bar, dessert table, or chatted with drinks in their hands. 

At the head table, El and Max were positioned at the end talking in whispers about the people in the room and you sat like a lone duck near the center of it. An abundance of flowers in white and yellow flanked the table before you, empty dishes and scattered bags and goods littered its table top. Mike left a pack of cigarettes in his spot while Dustin’s best man speech was crumbled in a quarter-fold beside his sweating glass of coke. 

Time had left you behind; sitting solemn at your best friend’s wedding while everyone else put on their best smiles and grinned their way through the evening. And maybe that’s what observation had led you to believe, that you looked as though you were wallowing in self-pity for an absence of love in your life. Loveless at an event so full of it. 

You fiddled with the necklace absent mindedly. 

The room of excitable tunes slowed. 

Couples–married and not, grabbed their partners for a dance. Robin and Eddie were standing near the center of the room beside the table that all the parents were at when Veronica slid next to Eddie, her hand slinking down his arm and into his palm as she nodded to the growing group on the dance floor. 

Hours ago, you had looked back at him when he pleaded with you to stay. Now, as his hand was gripped by a woman he wasn’t sure why he had even invited, Eddie looked back from the center of the room and to the head table where you sat. 

Veronica pulled him away before he could make a choice. 

Robin leaned against one of the chairs, watching as Eddie trailed behind the woman in orange. She did not realize Joyce and Hopper were still sitting at the table she rested against. 

“What the hell was that?” Hopper voiced, hand pointing in Eddie’s direction like a finger gun. He had a mustache that was perfectly trimmed and highlighted his frown well. Joyce crossed her arms with scrutiny.  

Robin shrugged, sighing as she turned around and pulled out a chair to sit at the table. “Two idiots in love, I think.” 

“Jesus,” Hopper scratched his forehead, “I knew it was a bad idea…” he mumbled as he watched Eddie pretend to be interest in what the woman was telling him as they danced. 

“What?” Robin shook her head, “What was a bad idea?” 

“Them breaking up!” He said as if it were obvious. “I got a call from one of the bartenders at The Hideout that there was a scuffle goin’ on one Friday night a few years ago and when I got there, Eddie was there just fuckin’ bombed on the sidewalk.” 

Joyce nodded along to his words because she had heard the story before. Robin listened intently as Hopper continued. 

“I couldn’t understand a word he was sayin’ so I put him in the truck and offered to drive him to her parents’ house because that’s where they always stayed when they came to town and he just… cried. Drunk and sobbing his goddamn eyes out in the front of my truck.” 

“Was this recent or…?” Robin pondered. 

“No,” Hopper shook his head, “years back but he was goin’ on about how he was a bad boyfriend and they broke up and he was moving to California in a few days… I just thought to myself ‘shit, man, I have never seen someone so bent out of shape from a breakup.’ Those two… If it weren’t Steve and Nancy gettin’ hitched, I would have bet money on it that it was them instead.” 

“Every Tuesday he’d pick her up from Melvald’s and take her out. He had flowers for her every time,” Joyce recalled. “I asked her about it once,” she nodded and looked at how you watched Eddie with the other woman, “she said that he never had a good example of what it meant to be a good boyfriend. I guess his dad was a piece of shit,” Hopper hummed a knowledgeable assurance that she was right. “And he wanted to be the only example he could think of–be that good guy that she deserved.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Robin said quietly. 

“I told him he needed to fly back to Chicago and fix things,” Hopper added, “but I guess he was too beaten up about it; probably thought she’d slam the door in his face.” 

“Doubt it,” Robin snorted, “I don’t think they’re idiots,” she corrected herself, “I think they know exactly what the other one is thinking but are too scared to get hurt again if it doesn’t work out.” 

Hopper scooted his chair back, adjusting his pants and jacket as he stood from the table. “Well, then we’ll just have to make it happen–or,” he clarified, “get them in the same spot.” 

Robin swiveled in her chair as Hopper rubbed Joyce’s shoulder as he passed behind her, heading straight for the head table and directly to you. 

Jim Hopper wasn’t a man that could be missed in a crowd of hundreds. His bulky frame that towered over guests and moved about the room like a boulder in grass drew your eyes to the movement immediately. He passed by Max and Eleven at the end of the table, never missing the opportunity to pat the girl he raised into a wonderful young lady on the head. 

It was a nice distraction from Eddie and Veronica swaying to a melodic tune. 

“Hey kid,” Hopper pulled out the chair beside you labeled with a table marker for ‘Robin Buckley.’ 

You gave him a closed smile. “Hi Chief.” 

“I guess I can’t really call you ‘kid’ anymore,” he groaned, chuckling as he sat down with an ache all older men his age did. “I blink and you all grow up… makes me feel like a real old man,” and then he gave you that sly, side grin that made you wish Hopper was your dad instead of the one you had. 

“You’re not old, Hopper,” he managed to pull a small laugh from your lips. The dejected film washing away for a brief second in time. 

“Well,” he cleared his throat as he put an elbow on the table and adjusted himself in the seat to face you, “that makes me feel a little better about my age. So,” Hopper gave a pointed look that answered the hundreds of questions as to what Robin was chatting to him and Joyce about, “what are you sitting all the way over here for? Don’t want to chat or dance?” 

“Just tired,” you told him, “Nance didn’t pick the most sensible shoes.” 

“Robin took hers off; I’m sure you can do the same.” 

“And walk barefoot on this floor?” You snorted. “Never.” 

He shared the amusement before turning his gaze to the groups of people beyond the tables as they danced. A goddamn direct view. ‘Cruel,’ he thought. And surpassing the stone of the church from hours before, the beach where it trickled rain as photos were snapped for scrapbooks forever, and the smells of delicious food filled his belly before reaching his mouth, Jim Hopper felt the love that filled the room. 

It touched him, as it had you and everyone else on the wedding weekend of Steve and Nancy Harrington. 

Joyce was attempting to occupy Robin in conversation but every time Jim’s eyes met hers, he knew they were both far too curious and nosey to not be gossiping about longstanding drama that befuddled even the most romantically inclined. 

The woman that restored his faith in the prospect of love and devotion had witnessed the earliest of your own. Tuesday’s at the local mart, the way Eddie would hold the door for you and attempt to steal magazine’s off the rack just to get your attention. How Eddie drove you around when your car was in the shop and eventually, would take the little rascals of Hellfire with for soda and snacks before their campaigns began–but also because he wanted to see you if even for a minute. 

Although people often judged the idea of love at a young age, Jim and Joyce both recognized its honesty between Eddie and yourself. It was pure, unadulterated, and basked in a light that only belonged to the longevity of companionship. 

“You know, the moment I knew I loved Joyce, I thought I’d never get her.” 

Hopper could see Eddie and his date having their own conversation, whatever it may have been, because a blank face melted from one of an increasing lack of emotion, to one of strife. 

“And when I did, I thought she’d see a different man than the one I believed I was.”

“She would have been blind not to see the real you, Hopper,” Joyce smiled at you as you caught her eyes. “You always tried to help us be the best versions of ourselves and she did too. If that’s not a perfect match, I don’t know what is.” 

“Are you the best version of yourself now?” He questioned, tapping his finger onto the white tablecloth of the table. “Weddings can be… sobering… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person look as distant as you.” 

“Flattery never was your strong suit, Hopper,” you grimaced, “and I’m fine,” you weren’t fine. “You didn’t have to come save me from myself.” 

“So, there aren’t a million thoughts swimming around in that mind of yours? I know I’m not the most intuitive dad there is but believe me when I say I’ve been trained to know when somethin’ just quite ain’t right.” 

“I have hundreds of thoughts racing through my brain. ‘Why is the cake so far away?’ ‘Rob and Joyce can stop staring at me any second now,’ and perhaps my favorite thought, ‘why does Jim Hopper care about my state of mind?” Combative. He knew the signs. 

“Maybe Jim Hopper knowns that the girl deep down inside of you just needs to heal,” he said honestly. “But there is only one way to heal what’s been lost and let me tell you, it’s not going to come waltzing on down here as you sit and mope.” 

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” You scoffed at yourself, “that this wedding has only made me jealous about what I don’t have.” 

“I don’t think you’re jealous, kid,” Hopper deflated, “I think you’re realizing a mistake was made somewhere along the lines of your own life.” 

Mistake. It was that goddamn word again. 

“There’s been no mistake,” you shook your head at him, “everything has played out the way it was meant to.” 

“And you really believe that?” 

“There had been nothing in my life to prove me otherwise.” 

“And lying was never your strong suit, kid,” he put on his ‘dad’ face. “You don’t have to talk to me, fine, but if I asked to be the first person to ask for a dance tonight, would you say no?”

How could you deny Jim Hopper, Police Chief and hero of Hawkins, Indiana? You couldn’t. Even if you were flailing for support in an ocean of heartache, sparing one dance for the man was cinch. He rose from the chair, holding out his arm in hopes that you would link yours through his and entertain him one dance as Steve and Nancy added themselves to the pairs on the dance floor and swayed gently to a new song. 

His stature would block a view you’d rather not see. 

“You may be the only person to ask me to dance,” you joined him on your feet. “I can’t say no to you, Chief.” 

“That’s the spirit, kid.”

“Why did you bring me here?” 

Veronica’s voice cut through the music as couples and pairs settled onto the dance floor with the melodic hum of a song playing through sets of speakers. Instead of dancing like an adult, she had flung both her arms over Eddie’s shoulders and linked her hands behind his head. He had no choice other than to put his hand at her waist; the fabric of her orange dress was coarse under his fingertips. 

“I asked you to come,” Eddie replied. “I thought I told you that last night.” 

Ah, yes. Last night; where Steve made a scene about Eddie’s lingering feelings of letting another woman go while she sat beside him with the best intentions.

Veronica did not know Eddie Munson–the guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks by fate, the one who had a strange group of friends that shared varying interests and ran in different social circles, or someone who threw everything he had into a career he realized wasn’t as glamorous as the cameras and magazines made it out to be. 

He cursed those Rolling Stone magazines he scoured when he was a bit too early for closing time of Melvald’s. 

“Yeah,” Veronica said as if that hadn’t mattered in the slightest, “and here you are, barely even touching me or sparring me a second look. You know I had to sit by some stoner guy for dinner and they didn’t believe you could bring someone like me.” 

Eddie narrowed his eyes, taken aback by her comment. “What’s that supposed to mean? Those are good people. And I was a huge fuckin’ stoner once too.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” she shook her head, “I mean, they didn’t see me with you. Not because of who I am or who you are, but because it wasn’t right.” 

“You know,” Eddie lowered his voice when he caught the eye of Dustin dancing with Suzie not two feet away from him, “you’re sounding an awful lot like someone who’s about to dump someone else.” 

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Her eyebrows quirked as she tipped her head to the side. “Why waste more time on me?” 

Even if his heart raced in another direction, the sound of someone saying that to Eddie was bothersome. 

“Please don’t say that,” he said, “you’re not a waste of time.” 

“But for someone else’s love, I am,” Veronica’s lips extended into a thin line. “That’s not a bad thing, Eddie… It just means I’m not the one for you.” 

The chords of the music sobered him. 

Across the room, sitting desolate at the dinner table, his heart called. 

“Afford me this dance,” Veronica continued, “and when the time comes, do what makes you happy, however difficult that may be. She may not run into your arms as she once did,” as the motions swayed the pair, she faced the table as Jim Hopper approached. “That doesn’t mean love doesn’t exist.” 

She felt Eddie’s shoulder’s deflate from the tension he had been holding in the entire day–nay, two days–since the prospect of you had become a reality. 

“I abandoned her,” Eddie admitted quietly to her, “like a fucking ragdoll for some dream that really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” 

Veronica did not know every detail. She did not know the exact history, nor did she fully grasp the levity of a near decade of love being tossed to the side for a pipedream. But she did know what it was like to leave an abundance of life behind to chase a want. 

Yet the model had never seen a group so peculiar as the one he belonged to. The tightknit communal that leaned on each other like family even though many were from different corners. She had seen the binds of friendship like never before. She had seen a broken love bonded by pain from across a candlelight tabletop and wondered why she had ever been invited if that would always have been the outcome. It was as though two ships hadn’t sailed passed one another but docked; lengths of a life finally running out of individual ink before relying on two for competition. 

“You both hurt each other,” she settled, “that is what separation does. But…” she chuckled, “I have been in love before and I’ve never witnessed such a feeling when being in the presence of the two of you–and I don’t even know her…” 

“She won’t talk to me,” Eddie confided. “I tried, earlier today because she was on the verge of a breakdown over a necklace and she could barely look at me.” 

“Don’t you think it may be because if she did, she’d fall all over again?” 

The song was coming to a close. 

“There is nothing wrong with pain, Eddie. Feeling pain, wanting to be healed, and being scared of that healing… and maybe she’ll need time. She loves you. I know she does because when women know, they know.” 

Jim Hopper stood from the chair. 

There was a comradery he felt in Veronica. Romance beside itself, the woman was a chakra. She had looked into a future he could barely imagine himself and pulled the heroic card before it was dealt. These cards overturned like quicksand settling between his toes. 

“You know,” Eddie gave her a sly, friendly grin, “you sound an awful lot like those odd fortune tellers that sell their services on the strip.” 

Veronica laughed; whole-heartedly, warmly. “Maybe in a previous life I was,” she played, “but in yours, there has always been one path and I guarantee you, from one romantic to another, loneliness was never an option for you. It’s what kids dream about–that ‘fairytale…’ Even if it is a little bit messy.” 

You linked your arm with Jim’s. 

“I’ve always been a little too messy,” Eddie said sheepishly. 

“I can tell,” Veronica groaned, “You don’t have to be perfect for her. Imperfection seizes our hearts faster than perfection… it’s enough to haunt us when perfection tears that apart.” 

“El isn’t dancing with anyone.” 

Jim Hopper held one hand in his and the other on the upper half of your back. It was as though he was dancing at an elementary father-daughter dance than anything else, stiff in his hulking frame. The music did nothing to silence your rapidly forming thoughts that Eddie and Veronica were feet away; Eddie’s eyes caught yours as Jim helped you to the floor, an anguish in them acted as a puzzle waiting to be pulled apart. 

In the eyes that watched Veronica rip the persona he had gathered for himself in the years past, Eddie could only imagine you. He waited for them to turn into your own, for her laugh to morph into yours, for her hands to run through his hair as yours once did, and the comfort of her presence to become you. Looking for that glimpse, Eddie found it inside of his imagination; searching every corner of it to find a home for his torment–self-inflicted and its mortal consequences bleeding life from him like a sieve. 

“It’s those sensible shoes…” Hopper joked. “Her feet are killing her. A couple blisters later, she’s sworn them off forever.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Lucas and Max joined the pairs beside you. The red-headed girl rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed in the utmost content state she could be in. True love. 

“How many dances do you have in your feet?” 

“Why?” You questioned. “Am I a better partner than Joyce? She was always rather clumsy.” 

“No,” he laughed but could not disagree, “I just think those boys won’t end the evening without asking you. I think Dustin’s always had a little crush on his former babysitter.” 

“I don’t think,” you tipped your head at him, “I know he’s always had a crush on me.” 

Dustin Henderson had always been a cute boy. His pure child-like imagination and motivation had inspired you to explore your own interests without fear. You had watched him from five until his mother decided he didn’t need you anymore, but you were lucky to call him a friend now. 

“But he’s got Suzie,” you could see the two giggling as everyone danced around them. “And I can’t think of a more natural person for him. I think they’re next,” your eyes moved themselves around the room, “to get married.” 

“Too many childhood sweethearts in my opinion,” Hopper’s gruff voice was certain in that. “Not everyone is meant to be with their first loves.” 

“I think they are… just like Steve and Nancy, just like Max and Lucas.” 

“And you and Eddie.” Not a question, a statement. 

It was the scoff that left your lips that made his hopes for you feel weak. “That chapter ended, Chief. He’s moved on, so have I.” 

“No,” he clarified, “you haven’t. You wouldn’t have been moping around your best friend’s wedding if you were.” 

“I wasn’t moping,” you defended, “Jonathan was moping. I’m pretty sure he cried and had decent reason to but I was just… people watching.” 

“Person watching. You were watching Eddie and there’s nothing wrong with it,” he asserted. “You love him. There is no shame in it.” 

“Why is everyone so interested in how I feel?” Your face put on the mask of a scorned lover. Eyes drawn narrow and brows forming a crease in its center. “This is Nance and Steve’s wedding, their only wedding if they’re lucky, and I’ve had person after person question how I feel about something I no longer have.” 

“Maybe it’s because for once we all see the truth of it all…” He had seen the truth as a washed-up Eddie cried in his truck. “That the pain of the past isn’t worth the loneliness of the future.” 

“A true poet,” you mumbled, “but I’m fine. I promise you, I’m fine.” 

“I’ve said it before,” Hopper chuckled, “and I will always say it to you, but you’re a terrible liar.” 

“Lies be lies, Chief. But there’s no point in trying to make me feel better about feelings I can’t control.” 

“No one is asking you to control them,” you turned your head away from Jim’s and clocked Lucas eavesdropping. He gave a strained, tight smile before resting his cheek onto Max’s head. “That isn’t what we’re trying to do… I want the kids I watched grow up to be happy and you’re not happy, he’s not happy. I don’t know if the answer to that equation is the two of you finding each other again but I’ve never been a man capable of understanding the love you had. And that sound ridiculous coming from someone as old as your old man.” 

“I can’t even be in the same room as him without feeling like breaking down,” your voice was quiet, a mere whisper of what it was because the prospect of Eddie still having feelings for you was frightening. You didn’t want to end up becoming a ghost again. 

“It’s like I’m a nobody in a room full of somebody’s and they can’t see me.” 

“Someone will always see you,” his eyes were gentle. “He saw you when he couldn’t see himself.” 

“Then why did he leave?” 

And the way Hopper’s body stood taller, his gaze no longer meeting yours, and turning you cold told you the world was ending. This love, imploded if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, was bubbling to the surface like a volcano. Here, on the island of Nantucket, a tsunami couldn’t save you from emotional ruin. 

“I think that’s a question you’ll have to ask him.” 

Veronica’s hand extended into your peripheral vision. She held it out to Jim like a lifeline. 

“Do you mind if I steal him?” Her body came into view and you needn’t know the conversation the two had to know she had led Eddie back to you. “I need to hear all about this ‘hero of Hawkins!’”

“I’m not the hero,” Jim said rather sheepishly. “That’s all him.” 

You could feel Eddie’s presence in a room of hundreds of a room of one. It enveloped you into a cocoon against your fighting mind. 

“Those are strong words coming from you, Chief.” His voice rung out against the music. Eddie had been on the poor graces of Chief Jim Hopper for many a year before the man had seen Eddie for what he was: a good, kind man with a fierce complex.

Jim looked to you. “You got this, kid. I’ve got another partner now, so do you.” 

He took Veronica’s arm and linked it through his arm like an elderly man who needed help walking. He wasn’t that old. She took him away without a glance back at the one who had asked her to come. 

“Now,” Eddie cleared his throat from behind you, “I could ask you to dance or,” he had put on that voice like there were more options than he had, “we can go outside, sit down, and maybe you’ll talk to me.” 

‘Look at me. Why won’t you look at me,’ his words echoed in your mind. 

When you turned around to face him, he got his wish. 

Eddie looked hopeful, as if it were the permanent face he wore. His eyes were the smallest bit glassy, hands stuffed into his pockets, and the shine of his shoes to the wear of his tie was different than he had ever worn before. He was still him, yet so different all the same. 

“If we talk,” you felt like you swallowed a frog, “no lies. I don’t want to hear any lies.” 

“Wouldn’t think of it.” 

The night was cold. 

Springtime enfolded the shores of Nantucket; cattails and tall grasses billowing, soft sounds of ocean waves lapping muted the music from inside. Adirondack chairs lay vacant, pillows dewed and their wood smooth. 

You couldn’t bear to sit down. 

Allowing the night air to take you, Eddie shut the door behind him and felt the scene before him play at the edge of a cliff; every piece of you blowing away against a yearning to stay. He began shrugging his jacket off and you held out a hand in front of you. 

“I’m fine,” the frost bit at your voice. “Keep it.” 

“You’re freezing,” Eddie continued to remove his piece. “I’m not going to be an asshole and let you freeze to death because you’re stubborn.” 

You scoffed. “I am not stubborn. I don’t need it, end of story.” 

He tugged it off, folding it in his hands before tossing it on one of the chairs that separated the distance between you. His tie was long undone, the two buttons at the top of his shirt undone but the cufflinks remained. You wanted to take the jacket. You wanted to recall his scent and warmth but your stubbornness in protection vexed you. 

“Fine,” he huffed. 

“Fine,” You replied in kind. 

Only the note of waves filled the stillness. You both looked at one another as though a million years had gone by in the blink of an eye. Not unlike the seconds passed in the wine cellar the night before, the world seemed to dissipate to a single existence of two former lovers. Two people, in spite of themselves, who haven’t felt whole since a single moment six years before. 

Goosebumps raised on your skin, the jacket appeared delectable yet an item of fear as it sat, calling to say ‘put it on,’ only to be followed by a whisper of ‘forgive me.’ 

“I can’t imagine that small talk is what you wanted to discuss,” you started. 

“I don’t believe it’s what you would want either,” he countered, “and we both know that would get us nowhere.” 

“So, what?” You lightly shook your head. “You want me to ask how your life has been and catch up on all I’ve missed? There’s a reason I don’t read gossip magazines anymore… I don’t need to see beautiful women rubbed in my face or success showing me that my pain was worth something more.” 

“A lot of those things are lies,” Eddie walked his icy path with steady feet. “You don’t need to read them, no. But I would hope you still cared enough to ask about me when you visit Rob and Nance, not to mention Steve never brings you up to me.” 

“Oh, you mean the literal effort they all put in to never mention you around me?” You gazed at him as though the reason you never asked about him, or they never spoke about him, was obvious. It hurt too much. “It’s not exactly a cake walk, Eddie, to hear about your fantastic life when I could barely hold my own together.” 

“It’s not fantastic and if you asked, you would have known that.” 

“And it’s my responsibility to learn that? Did you want me to reach out, ask how you’ve been, and get lunch like you didn’t fucking break my heart?” You gawked. Eddie took his hands from his pockets and put them on his hips–a Steve move he had taken upon after establishing their friendship. “If I couldn’t talk about you, I don’t know how the hell I would have talked to you.”  

“Then maybe I should have called,” like an easy solution, “and maybe instead of… what was it Steve said? Trading holidays liked a divorced couple, we could have been civil and spent time with our friends together.” 

“Was that when you were traveling the world or recording records?” You pursed. “Or when you moved out to California and visited once a year? Tell me, Eddie, is a hypothetically cordial relationship something you really want with me? I can barely feel the world turn as it is when I’m in your presence, I doubt I would be able to have a good time with our friends.” 

Eddie laughed savagely. “I didn’t know all the fun had been sucked out of you.” 

You took a step back, careening your head out toward the ocean as you bit your cheek. He had gall. He was bold and unflinching, but his eyes told the truth. His own pain and suffering at the consequences of his actions had let the light leave him for so long. When pain overtook a person’s being, anger and callous language followed. 

“If you’re going to be an ass,” you looked back to him, “I don’t want to talk to you.” 

“It isn’t the truth, though? I’ve at least tried to have a halfway, goddamn decent time at this wedding and every time I looked at you, you’ve been nothing but bitter.” 

“No one asked you to look at me, Eddie. You brought a date. You should focus on her.” 

“How could I!?” A dam had broken inside of him. He couldn’t not look at you. “Every time I think I’ll give someone else a chance, it’s like seeing a fucking ghost in my mirror! I have to look at you. I need to look for you.” 

“No, you don’t!” You exclaimed with as much passion. “You lost that when you walked out! I am sorry that I am so shitty for being sad at a beautiful wedding. I am sorry for wishing that this time, maybe it was me walking down that goddamn aisle. And for fuck’s sake, I am so sorry that I am fearful that you’ll finally move on and want to marry someone else! Jesus fuck! It’s been six goddamn years and I still think that you’ll come walking through the door and say you made a mistake but I don’t want to hear that tumbling out of Steve’s mouth. I don’t want it to be based in lies because you feel bad I am sad at my best friend’s wedding.” 

“I love you,” he blurted out without reason. 

“Don’t say that!”

“Why!?”

“Because it isn’t true! IF I was, you never would have left! You wouldn’t have asked me to throw my life away and follow you to the ends of the fucking earth! If I wasn’t just some body, maybe somebody would love me enough to stay,” You argued loudly. 

“I do love you,” He argued back with the same ferocity. 

“You did. You don’t anymore.” 

“I do love you. I do. I haven’t fucking stopped loving you since I was seventeen and I don’t think I ever will stop. I will always love you, I have always loved you, and I know that when I am dying, I will die loving you,” he was breathless. Angered and pent up with emotions he had buried deep where his eyes were fiery and his tone was firm. 

“You can’t say things like that…” Fuck the tears that loved to threaten to fall.

“Why!? Tell me why I can’t tell the truth. You asked me not to lie and I wouldn’t do that to you!”

“Becau–” you stammered the word as your mind racked itself for answers, “because it’s not fair to me! I can’t live another day knowing that someone else out there loves you in a way that I do. I can’t keep waiting around in my shitty, fucking life for someone who walked out of it for something bigger than me.”

“And it was a mistake! I will never forgive myself for it but please, even if it’s the last thing you do, please believe that it was. I never should have asked that of you, I was selfish. I knew what I wanted in life then because it hasn’t changed. It existed deep down but was scared to come to the surface and I needed to be pulled under to see that. I love you. I love you so goddamn much that every day without you has been the most unbearable few years of my life. I want you, and only you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” your lip trembled, face hot. 

“I’m not lying,” his own eyes watery. “Please, I am not lying to you.”

“I don’t think you know how much you hurt me, Eddie,” you shook your head at him. “There are times when I don’t feel like myself because you took that away from me. I don’t depend on anyone; I’d never say that I lost everything when you left but you cracked me open, slaughtered me in the place we shared because of a dream. And believe me, really, that I am so happy you found that life but how can I know that my suffering was worth it? 

“You don’t think I suffered too?” He exclaimed loudly at the sky. “I went to Hawkins, you know, after everything because I didn’t have anywhere to go.” You didn’t know.

“I got so fucking drunk at a bar that Hopper had to come scrape me off the sidewalk and from what I remember, I exploded in the truck when he tried to take me to your parent’s place. Do you know what he did? Let me sleep on the couch and when Eleven got up the next day, she held my hand and told me that I’d be okay and I haven’t been okay. I’ve never been okay without you and I’m not scared to admit that. You are my lifeline, sweetheart. I have tried to replace that feeling but I can’t.”

“Do you know how long I wished for you to walk through that door?” You pointed to the door you walked through as if it could transform itself into the one of the apartment you shared. “I sat there, waiting for you because I barely remembered a life where you weren’t part of it and that was hard enough to imagine when it slammed in my goddamn ears,” you huffed, eyes nearly ablaze as his committed declarations of love echoed through every vacant place inside of you and right back to the moment he left. 

“There is not a day that goes by where I don’t question why you let it go so easily.” 

“It wasn’t easy,” Eddie stressed your name exasperatedly, “nothing about that choice was easy.” 

“You made it seem like it was.” 

Eddie felt the grounding he had built in his mind with his vow of love was strong. He felt the ghosts of the past begin to grip his feet; haunting and pulling him to the depths of his former despair to face a choice chastened by ambition. On the cold, concrete sidewalk and the airy Nantucket patio, it ruptured in spouts. 

Pain, longing, abjection tied to every word; you had tried in obstinate strength to keep the fortress from becoming invaded. That somewhere in your heart there was a knowledge it was stronger than the force of the man that had left you to bleed but it wasn’t. It felt his bullets like bandages. They neither wounded nor massacred its path forward, binding the holes left behind with attestation.

“When I said we wanted different things, why didn’t you tell me what you wanted?” You asked in a voice wavering. “I thought you wanted this life,” a hand painted his figure against the night, “he one with the glitz and glamor and women like Veronica. If you wanted what I did, why toss it to the side?

Eddie shook his head, backing away from you and throwing his hands on top of his head in a connected grasp. He looked out to the water so dark he couldn’t see yet heard. “You remember what I told you about my parents?”

After a second, he returned his gaze to you and in return, you nodded. 

Eddie’s perception of self was deeply rooted in the disjointed childhood he had been forced to experience. Every feeling, every action questioned by himself as to whether the receiving party had viewed it as strange, difficult, or simply heartless. He kept his heart on his sleeve, however, he kept it tethered there. When someone tried to hold it in their own palms, Eddie pulled away. 

It had taken years for him to be comfortable enough with himself to be willing to be someone he liked. 

“It doesn’t just go away with time,” he sighed. “I will always doubt myself. I always fear that I’m one step away from becoming him even if I know I’m nothing like him.” 

For a child of a loveless marriage, a brutal life, the most fearful thing they could imagine was not whether or not they could be loved later in life, it was turning into the people they hated most. 

“It’s not every day that someone comes to your concert and wants to sign you without so much as a demo session… and that overtook me. I know that now, and I knew that the second I walked out the goddamn door. I will apologize for the rest of my life if it means you know how I feel.”

Eddie let that sit. 

“You can hate me forever, I don’t mind. But don’t convince yourself I never cared enough about you.”

“I don’t hate you. I never hated you. And I’m sorry if I made it seem that way.”

Perhaps he would have to convince himself that you never hated him just as you would that he loved you.

“Even when I left?”

“There was not a piece of my body strong enough to feel anything more than empty when that happened.”

“I felt it too, you know,” his eyes shimmered in the lamplight. No joy, no hilarity–just hope that you knew the truth. 

“I do now,” you told him. 

“I’m not asking you to give me a second chance,” Eddie shrugged his shoulders lowly. In a nearly defeated sigh, he took the words he replayed in his mind for two thousand, one hundred and ninety days, “but fuck… I told you I’d find you again if the time was right and the minute I saw you in the archway I knew that was my shot… you’re the same but different… I loved you then and I love the you that you are now. And I’m sorry that it took me that long to realize it.” 

“What did you feel in that church today?” 

A cosmic connection, a fleeting moment he wished to hold onto forever. 

“Eddie,” you took a step forward, closing the distance, “tell me what you felt.” 

“I felt…” He paused. Breathing in deeply, it was not his admissions of love that proved to be most difficult. It was the regret of letting it go that scarred the deepest. “I felt… bitter.” 

“Bitter?”

“Because I don’t have what they do,” he threw a lazy arm toward the door. “Or I did have that and I let it go because of a silly dream.” 

“I don’t think your dream was silly,” you admitted, “it worked out of you in the end.” 

“But at what cost?” Eddie took a step closer to you; the chair with this tuxedo jacket the space that separated you. “Why do those dreams take everything away to make them happen? I didn’t want to do that, this, alone. Not without you.” 

“I felt helpless,” you disclosed. “In that church with the sun streaming in… like a fucking… higher power was saying to me that the way I loved you still existed inside of me. It hasn’t ever truly gone–as much as some moments I wish it was–yet it stays.” 

“Helpless because you love me?” 

“Helpless because I can’t have you.” 

“And why can’t you have me?” Another step closer. “Why do you, the only woman I have ever truly loved, feel you cannot have me?” 

“Because someone else does,” your eyes flashed toward the doors as if Eddie’s proximity and both of your vulnerabilities were forbidden. “Because someone else loves you.” 

“She doesn’t love me,” Eddie’s fingers eclipsed your own. Fanning in a light flutter, it was discovering touch again. “She isn’t mine and I am not hers.” 

He stepped closer again and every one of your senses went spiraling. Eddie leaned his head forward and rested his forehead on your own. Two sets of eyes closed at the sensation. 

“You have all of me. Every part of me since the moment I saw you.” 

“And what do you want?” 

‘I want you to have what you want, sweetheart,’ his words were distant from the past.

“What do you want now?” you asked him, breaking away as your eyes shone to his. His free hand cradled the back of your neck gently, he rubbed his thumb over your cheek. “I know what I want, but I need to hear it from you. No lies.”

“No lies,” he repeated, a quick glanced down at your lips had him soaring. “I want you, baby. I’ll only ever want you.” 

“Good,” you whispered, lips barely tracing his for the first time in six years. “Because we’re not letting this go this time.”

“Never.”

And he pulled your lips to his.

To answer the question the chapel had asked you, ‘what is it like to be loved?’, there is only one answer: 

This is what it feels like. Pain, beauty, and joy. There is no bind without strife, nor is there passion without sacrifice. 

And in the years in between said sacrifice, the tethers of a string brushed together until they found one another again on a little island off a blustery coast for the wedding of Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler.

A/N: As always, comments, reblogs are kindly encouraged :) thank you for reading!

Doodles and Dates (Eddie Munson x Reader)

Masterlist

Eddie Munson x Artist! Reader (She/Her)

Warnings: None

Tag list: @mikinyi DM me if you wanna be on the Eddie tag list!:)

Synopsis: Eddie has fallen for the quiet girl he sits next to in class who’s always drawing.

Afficher davantage

Request: Edward comes home from work to find his goofy little Reader playing around and wearing his Riddler outfit. They're pretending to be him, acting out a "murder" scene where he kills a "corrupt official" (in reality, they're just hitting a teddy bear with the carpet tool).

Incredible embarrassment ensues when they hear Eddie giggling behind them.

a corrupted toy

pairing — dano!edward nashton/reader

warnings — teddy bear violence

a/n — all i could picture while writing this was eddie’s beautiful smile. had me blushin’ n’ gigglinnnn’ ｡•́‿•̀｡ hope you enjoy anon!! (next request will be posted tonight!)

“..And so I said, yknow, you can’t say that to me and—and then..”

A small stuffed toy sat on the couch, positioned to look directly at the bright screen. It’s beady eyes had a glare as it sat so very still. The animal was extremely focused on the reality show built on wealth and fame. It was loved by many.

But the TV was only background noise for what was to come.

“..Ohhh my goshh! That is so terrible..”

From behind the couch stood a figure in green. You had every piece of the Riddler’s outfit on—all except his clear-framed glasses. Those were with Edward, who had gone on a small shopping trip for you. You handed him a short list and gave him a loving kiss on the cheek. He couldn’t have left the apartment any quicker.

It’d been sometime since. You had to go get dressed—properly, cling wrap and triple layered. If you were going to experiment and get the perfect feel of what being the Riddler was like, you had to go all out. You found it more difficult than it seemed, which dwindled the time you had before Edward would return home.

But you couldn’t think about all that now, not with the corrupt teddy bear sitting on your couch. The sight of it made you take a deep breath. It sat there, watching the most obnoxious and meaningless show to ever air. Who paid the bills? You and your Eddie.

Breathing getting heavier with each inhale, you went for the attack.

With a shriek, you grabbed the teddy bears head and flung it to the side. The toy landed snout first, arms and legs spread. As if it’d move and fight back, you quickly slid onto your knees and crawled over. A carpet tucker was in your palm, tightly held so it wouldn’t ever leave your grasp.

“…Ha-haaaa, I would’ve done the same thing. No—I swear!”

The teddy bear was struck with the tool, over and over and over. It was old and the thread was weak, so there wasn’t much surprise when stuffing came flying out. A mess of poly-fil began to surround you.

All you could hear was the ripping and your own breathing. Moving was a hassle and tremendously sweaty. It fueled your anger as you tore the teddy bear to shreds.

“..Has anyone seen her? We’ve been waiting for sooo long, ohmygoshh..”

A snicker comes from afar before it developed into giggles. You could almost hear it over your grunts and the tucker hitting the floor..

Edward’s sweet giggles.

You whip around, startled from the sudden noise. The carpet tucker drops with a clank.

Edward stands at the entrance of the hallway, back towards the end. He held a couple of plastic bags in one hand.

Despite his adoring smile, you were floored with embarrassment.

“What are you doing?” he continues to giggle, eyes fixed on the scene before him.

You were at a loss. You couldn’t move, you refused to even glance away. Every part of you was clammy and warm. Suddenly the uncomfortableness of being in the Riddler’s position hit you.

“I..” your mouth was dry. How could you answer him without sounding like a fool? Even with that thought, you said what immediately came to mind, “..I was tucking in the carpet.”

Edward snorts and takes a step forward. He reaches over to set the bags on the couch before cutting the distance between you. Before another thought could cross your mind, Edward was getting on his knees to meet your level. Your eyes were blown wide but he felt invisible under your gaze.

Carefully, Edward reached to take his mask. Your eyes followed his hands yet you didn’t fight him off. Fingers hooked to the straps, Edward pulled off the green mask to reveal your overheated, damp face. You tilt your head down instantly, knowing you looked ridiculous.

Edward suppressed a lovesick grin at your shyness. He couldn’t take his eyes off you, he was too bewitched.

“You’re gorgeous,” he sighs tenderly, mask forgotten on the ground. Edward ducks, hopeful he can get a good look at you with the positions you’re both in. You saw a hint of a smile on him.

“You make it all look so, so good..”

“Oh, Eddie..”

“Oh, angeleyes,” Edward’s infectious giggle returns, making the corners of your mouth tug, “..what did he do?”

You take a glance up at Edward. A wave of confusion tickled you, until you remembered the mess underneath you.

“Oh, uh…the usual. Corruption, greed. Maybe with a side of pride.”

Edward’s eyes flicker over to the TV, and you felt embarrassment crawl back into your core.

Your head turns towards the TV, “..He enjoyed The Kardashians a little too much.”

“What a menace.”

You can’t help but weakly laugh at Edward’s comment. He was charming, especially when he played the part with you.

Edward took your chin in one hand and leaned in for a kiss. He made a pleasant noise against your lips, making it transparent over how much he loved the contact. All you could do was melt.

When he pulled back, Edward extended his arm to get the cling wrap off of your head. He was gentle, not wanting to make the process uncomfortable in anyway. Once it was off, he set it to the side.

“Do you have the duct tape?” he asks in all seriousness. You nod, a little lost. You dig into his parka and pull out the roll of duct tape.

Edward hums as he picked at the tape and stretched out a long piece.

“We’ll start with the eyes.”

me and the girlies saying hi to each other

No one:

Y/n: *hasn’t showered for the past three days, sitting inside the gas station*

Doe:

This weeks art dump

Characters:Milo(pokemon),Star(svtfoe), and John Doe(John doe video game)😌❤