Summary: All you want is to practice, but Eddie--a fellow musician and a pain in your ass--has other plans in mind.
Word Count: 1.8k
Warnings/Themes: Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers (if I continue this at all), Community College AU, Slight Angst, Slight Fluff, Bickering, that thing when I haven't played in years and I'm making shit up as we go to the best of my ability
Note: Alright so, lore time: back in 2022 at the introduction of Eddie into our lives, I had an idea for an OC that was a violinist and would butt heads then slowly become friends with Eddie in a very "we share our mixtapes and learn things about each others worlds" kind of way. Little by little over the past few months, as @drac-harrington listened to me rant about Rossini, CMR (Classical Musician Reader) came back to life.
I myself haven't played the violin or been on a stage performing in years (there is of course a long story) so if you are a musician and feel this is inaccurate, be kind and keep it to yourself. Not sure if there's gonna be more of this, but I think this at least satisfies a little bit of the itch I've had to write this.
Please do not interact if you are not 18+.
Enjoy!
---
You remember the first day that you held a violin in your hands.
Summer before 3rd grade, there was a "fair" at the middle school. It was a big day with an even bigger choice to make. You didn't even want to play violin at first, to be honest; you wanted to play the saxophone. It was big and shiny and sounded so fun when the band instructor did his demonstration for the kids who'd crowded around.
Unfortunately, your mom was too worried about your asthma to let you play a wind instrument. So violin it was.
There was a little fuss, a tape measure pulled along your forearm, and then your mom (somewhat painfully) wrote a check for the rental. A case was slid across a table to you, and you gasped when you opened it. Clumsy little fingers ran over the polished ochre wood reverently, ignorant of the destiny that this moment would set in motion.
Ok, so destiny was a little dramatic. But in hindsight, that's exactly what it was. Now, almost a decade later, you were still playing, and that little quiet moment of veneration was how you started every practice, every performance. In an even more distant future, you might look back at this moment as the one which led you towards another, more monumental destiny.
There was an eeriness to the auditorium as you pulled your violin--a different one now, sure; one that was yours entirely and not rented--from its case and you tuned it. The sound of your bow being drawn back and forth echoed over empty seats. You could imagine, in that destined future, that they would be filled.
You finished when you were satisfied with the sound and were about to start practicing when applause suddenly erupted from the back of the auditorium. One set of hands clapping and a grating voice hooting and hollering obnoxiously. You squinted to see past the stage lights, only to scowl as you saw a familiar, irritating silhouette.
"What a great performance," your admirer shouted and whistled up to you. "Encore, encore."
"I haven't started playing yet!" You shouted; you used every bit of self-control not to stomp your foot.
The silhouette scooted forward in its seat. You could hear the sarcastic grin as it responded, "well it sounded pretty good to me."
"Figures that you wouldn't know what tuning sounds like, Munson," you bit out. Finally you used your hand to shield your eyes from the stage lights and you saw the cocky smile that stretched across his face. "What are you doing here?"
"I take naps here between classes. You actually woke me up."
"Tough. This is a closed practice. Get out!"
Eddie jumped to his feet, and started strolling towards the stage. His body language was loose, casual, and felt almost mocking in comparison to your rigid, performance-ready stance.
"Come on now." Eddie's voice dropped to a more normal tone as he got closer. "Why the hostility, Strings?" You rolled your eyes at the nickname. "I could be the audience that you so-clearly think you deserve. You should be a little grateful.”
Bitterness burned the back of your throat.
"Have you ever played for a crowd before?" He continued condescendingly. "Outside of Pachelbel's Canon at your little weddings?"
"Have you?" You shot back. "I think I overheard your buddy Jeff mentioning something about someone falling asleep at your last gig?"
"Ouch." He held a hand over his heart and winced. "Those cheap shots do hurt, you know."
"Here I was hoping that they would kill."
He reached the stage and rested his elbows at the edge of it, then set his face in his hands and stared up at you in a way that, in another reality, could be considered a bit romantic.
You did everything you could not to walk over and kick him in the teeth. He was lucky that you’d worn a skirt today.
"You should stick to music, sweetheart," Eddie sighed. "Comedy does not suit you."
You shot him a sarcastic smile, and were about to throw another insult back at him, when he continued.
"So what are you doing here." His eyebrows disappeared into his bangs. "Usually I'm the only one haunting these halls waiting for Jeff to finish up. Barely anyone else take classes on Friday afternoons."
The question made you falter, because surely, it was a trap and he would just use it to lob another insult your way, as was your routine. Somehow, it seemed a lot more innocent than usual. It seemed genuine.
You thought about the risks and benefits of telling him; truly there was nothing to be afraid of but you always believed that if you spoke the truth about something you wanted out loud that you would jinx it. There was a reason that you were here so late on a Friday, that you'd booked the auditorium at the Tri-County Community College when you knew no one else would: you hadn't told anyone about what you were doing. Not your violin instructor, not your friends, no one.
But, standing here, with Eddie of all people, you figured that you had nothing to lose. In fact, he might be one of the few people who actually understood. You had heard him blather on about destiny, after all. Many times, to your extreme annoyance.
So, you took a deep breath and let the truth out in one go, words bunching together unintelligibly as they left your mouth.
His brows knit together now.
"Whats that, Strings?" He huffed a bit of a laugh. "Sorry, I only talk at a hundred miles-per-hour, not listen."
You pursed your lips, and then tried again, slower this time.
"I'mauditioningfortheIndianapolisPhilharmonic."
He blinked up at you once.
Then again.
And then he spoke.
"Does it pay well?"
You laughed at the unexpected response and it echoed throughout the auditorium. Suddenly, there was a weight off your chest that you hadn't realized was there.
"It actually doesn't pay at all," you eventually responded and sighed. "But experience is experience."
"Fuck yeah it is," Eddie smiled up at you. "Shit, what I wouldn't give for...I don't know, a state-wide metal band. Absolutely shredding with a bunch of other guitarists. Bouncing ideas off each other. I have the guys but..."
"...but it isn't the same," you agreed. It was what you sometimes felt about your own group: a ragtag string quartet that you'd strong-armed into existence in the year that you'd been at TCCC. They were good, you all were good. It was hard to get them to have an artistic vision sometimes.
"Good for you," he said sincerely. "What are you gonna play? Hey, no, wait. Let me get a good seat; I'll be your guinea pig."
"You don't know anything about classical music," you scoffed at him, watching incredulously as he backed away from the stage and dropped into a seat a few rows back. "In fact, you've said that you hate classical music."
"Yeah, so?" He shrugged. "I also have a good ear for music in general, plus I can always tell when you get embarrassed. Ergo, even if I hate what I'm hearing, I'm just as likely to be entertained if you fuck it up."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," you deadpanned.
"Anytime!" He grinned. "Now lets get going. What's on deck?"
You went through the pieces that you'd planned for your audition. Mozart's Concerto No. 3 and Dvorak's Songs My Mother Taught Me. Amongst others. But they were favorites. Sentimental things that you'd practiced a thousand times and knew you wouldn't mess up.
Until you did. Until you winced here and there and you saw Eddie's mouth quirk in amusement. Which would throw you off your game, and make you mess up more.
Slowly but surely, you were able to build up a tolerance, were able to look past him and focus on your performance more than him. You'd of course had real performances before, sure; you'd stood on stage many times, from middle school onwards, but you knew that the instructors and conductors that you'd had previously weren't as nearly critical as the Concertmaster at the Philharmonic would be. Not as critical as Eddie was. You felt a sense of gratitude, more than once, that he'd been there to help you find a bit of a flow state to ignore that watchful gaze.
Before you knew it, a half hour went by, and one of custodial staff opened the door to the auditorium to let you know they'd be locking up for the afternoon.
"I guess that means the concert is over," Eddie said, turning back as the custodian left.
"Guess so," you agreed. You quickly packed up your things and Eddie waited until you were ready so you could walk out together. He even held the door for you. Even if he was an ass, he was a bit of a gentlemanly ass.
The two of you walked in silence, through the halls. Eventually, there was a fork where he would turn towards the lit building, where Jeff was finishing up his class, and you would head towards the parking lot. You stared at each other awkwardly, unsure if you should say bye or thanks. Eventually, you swallowed your nerves and asked, "what'd you think?"
"I think you were nervous," he stated after a beat.
"I was," you agreed. "But what did you think?"
"I mean," he shoved his hands into his jean pockets. "We've already established that it's not my cup of tea, but it wasn't bad. Your crescendo's and adagio's and all the o's. Once you stopped looking to see if I noticed where you screwed up..." You groaned and he smirked. "I might even say you were kind of good."
It was a record-scratch moment.
"What?" Your jaw dropped. "What did you say? Did you just say I was good?"
"Don't let it get to your head." He held a hand out to stop your excitement. "You're no Bruce Dickinson, alright?"
"Who's that?"
"God! This!" He threw his arms over his head and screeched. "See, we were having a truce and you went and ruined it. This is why it's better for us not to get along. It's like water and oil, we do not mix. No metal for you, no orchestral compositions for me."
He continued ranting and raving, but you hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder and got him to stop gesticulating into the air wildly.
"Thanks Eddie," you muttered. "For staying. For being my audience."
"Sure. Yeah. It's cool." He reached up, patted your hand with his, and then left it there for a moment or two too long. Then he cleared his throat and backed away; he thumbed over his shoulder. "I gotta go find Jeff."
"Yeah, of course," you nodded.
"Uh..." He sniffed again. "Smell you later, then, I guess."
"Not if I...smell you first," you replied awkwardly.
The two of you turned and went your separate ways.
Until you heard him call out.
"Hey, Strings!"
You glanced back at him.
"Yeah?"
He stared at you for a second, and then continued.
"You're gonna knock 'em dead."
And it might not have been the first time that you'd smiled at Eddie, but it certainly was the biggest.
---
Like I said, not sure if this is gonna go anywhere. Maybe a schwee little bit at a time if the mood strikes. Thank you for reading.
I took a favourite song and ran with it. I see this as an extension of the couple from -Knockin’ on heavens door- sooo enjoy this silly little bubble of toothpaste kisses (and theres a lot) and all 🧡
Word count: 3k
You’re not really sure when this thing between you both officially started. What you do know is that Eddie has proved to be one competitive little shit. No matter how sleep drenched his bones are, clutching the cold sink for leverage on 5 a.m- Wednesday starts, or how dehydrated he is from late night shots and a night of seeing what it takes to make the sheets untuck from the mattress, he will always be the last one to spit.
So now a mundane task, a basic human necessity, has you on high alert twice a day.
It’s Sunday. There is no particular rush to move, but the flecks of gold seeping through the shutters are a clear hint that the sun is lower in the sky and the traditional morning hours have long passed. Eddie and you have managed to fester in the sheets a little too long for your liking. No matter how good bed head Eddie is, everything eventually gets a little too warm and a little too sticky, and the reality of being sloths catches up with you.
Judging by the way he is chewing on the end of a pencil and frowning at his latest campaign, you assume you can escape to the bathroom without much fuss. Following that brilliant plan, you begin to shuffle toward the bottom of the mattress to slip off. It seems far better than the usual routine of climbing over the curly wilder-bed-beast.
What you do not notice is that as soon as you start the little wriggle downward, Eddie abandons his notepad, sneaks a leg out from under his blanket, and is completely ready to run.
“Where are you going, darlin’?” he grins, making you freeze at the foot of the bed.
Too late.
You bolt with a fit of giggles, trying not to trip over the maze of clothing you both created last night.
There is a childish pitter patter thundering through the narrow trailer corridor. The pair of you are racing toward the bathroom, hoping you do not trip over your cat in the process. Bertie has decided that the old bathmat is his chosen nest, making him the regular audience for your ritual.
“Ed’s, come on, I thought you were busy?”
“I am never too busy to miss my daily succession.” He sticks out his tongue as he hands you your toothbrush, the stripey paste dolloped on in true haphazard Munson style.
“All right. Back to back, please, my lady.”
You follow his ridiculous command, spinning around until you are facing away from each other. Eddie glances in the mirror and catches you doing the exact same thing. It earns you a tap to the hip and a muffled, toothbrush filled “cheat,” which makes you whip your head back with a foamy giggle gargle.
Then the competition begins.
And God, it should not be this intimate.
You brush. He brushes. You match his rhythm, his stubborn pace, the quiet huff of his breath, the tap of his foot on the tile. Every small sound he makes seems charged, like it is meant to rile you up. At one point you are fairly certain he is head-banging just to show off
Two minutes have definitely passed, and you are starting to feel extremely unsexy as a glob of toothpaste foam creeps from the corner of your mouth. Your wrist aches from the stubborn pace you are maintaining, competitive adrenaline buzzing through you. Eddie shows no signs of slowing. You can hear him keeping a steady brushing rhythm, foot tapping, head bobbing, acting like he is performing a full concert. It is infuriating.
You really need to spit.
You reach a dangerous point. Foam fills your mouth too much and your throat starts to tighten. Your body is begging you to cough or breathe or do anything at all.
And that is exactly what happens.
You choke. It hits suddenly, your body taking over completely.
You cough violently, toothpaste and water splattering across the floor and narrowly missing Bertie’s tail. You are gagging and spluttering and completely losing the battle.
Eddie reacts fast. He spits, tosses his brush, and moves toward you in one quick, focused motion.
He cups the back of your neck, thumb stroking the line of your jaw. His other hand rubs your back with firm, steady pressure. His eyes are wide and dark, all adrenaline and worry.
“Breathe, sweetheart. In. Out. That’s it. I’ve got you.”
Your coughing eases. Your throat feels raw and your eyes sting. Eddie guides you onto the closed toilet seat, stepping between your knees as if shielding you from the entire world.
He pushes your hair off your face and studies you like you are the most important thing he has ever held. Toothpaste still clings to your lips, and he wipes it gently with his thumb.
“Oh baby,” he murmurs, voice dropping to that low tone that always curls down your spine. He places his thumb against your swollen bottom lip, and you bite down lightly on instinct, grounding yourself on him, tasting a faint mint on his skin.
His breath stutters. Just a little. But enough to make pride spark in your chest.
“I think we might be incredibly stupid,” he says in a softer voice, the room suddenly quiet and ridiculously intimate.
You pout, embarrassed beyond belief. “You still won.” Your voice is shredded and hoarse.
“And you almost died,” he replies, the teasing smile returning slowly. He leans in, nose brushing yours, his fingers curling under your jaw in a way that makes your pulse jump.
His mouth finds yours in a warm, mint flavored kiss. It is soft at first, then deeper when he feels you melt into it. You taste like toothpaste and adrenaline and the kind of affection only two idiots could build out of a bathroom competition.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against yours.
“Next time,” he whispers, “I’m brushing your teeth for you.”
Eddie watches your lips after that kiss, eyes hooded and dark, jaw flexing like he is fighting the urge to kiss you again immediately. Then something in him shifts, a warm protective spark, and he slides his arms beneath your thighs.
You gasp as he lifts you, clinging to him automatically, and he holds you against his chest as if the two of you were meant to fit exactly this way.
“Bed,” he says, voice low and certain.
Your hands slip around his shoulders, fingers curling into the curls at the back of his neck. His skin feels warm from the chase and from worry and from wanting. He walks you down the short hallway with a slow confidence, every step sending heat through your stomach because you know that careful pace all too well.
He lowers you into the messy bed nest with a gentleness that contradicts the look in his eyes. Then he crawls over you, caging you in with his arms, the sunlight falling in thin golden stripes across his face and turning his eyes molten.
He does not kiss you right away.
He looks at you.
Thumb on your cheek.
Breathing you in like he needs the moment.
Then he moves.
His mouth finds your jaw, then your cheek, then the tip of your nose and your forehead. Toothpaste kisses linger everywhere, warm and mint scented, pressed in frantic patterns like he is trying to make up for the scare you gave him. You laugh softly, curling your fingers in his hair and tugging him closer until his lips finally return to yours.
This kiss is different. It is messy and hungry and heated, a slow unraveling of breath and need. You feel him sigh into your mouth, a low sound that shivers through you, and your hands slip deeper into his curls.
His fingers slide beneath your shirt, settling at your waist. His palms warm your skin in slow strokes, steady and sure, exploring just enough to make your heartbeat flutter without pushing anything further. He kisses you harder, then slower, then deeper, each shift sending sparks across your skin.
You and Eddie move together in the sheets, the mattress dipping and rising under your bodies. Every kiss grows heavier. Every breath intertwines. Every brush of his lips pulls another sound from your throat.
He finally pulls back for air, lips pink and a little damp, forehead resting gently against yours.
“See,” he murmurs against your mouth, “this is much better than choking to death over brushing your teeth.”
You tug him back down using his hair -which you know drives him wild- kissing him again, and Eddie melts into you completely, letting out a soft sound that settles deep in your chest.
Eddie settles above you, curls brushing your forehead, lips still warm from all the mint flavored kissing. His thumb strokes your cheek again, but this time the touch lingers, tracing your skin in a way that feels both sweet and full of promise.
You kiss him lightly, a soft press of lips, then pull back with a tiny smile.
He follows you for another kiss, then another, each shorter than the last, almost like he is trying to catch your mouth before you can escape.
You laugh, breath warm against his chin.
“Are you trying to steal all my kisses at once, Munson”
“Not all of them.” He grins as he leans closer. “Just the ones that make your toes curl.”
Your heart jumps.
He knows exactly what he is doing.
You poke his side, and he squirms dramatically, letting out a gasp that is far too exaggerated to be real.
“Eddie, you are impossible.”
“And you love me,” he replies without hesitation, then nips your lower lip in a way that definitely counts as cheating.
Your fingers slide up his shoulders, brushing the warm line of his neck.
“I might love you. I might also be planning my escape from this web-bed.”
He pulls back with a mock gasp, hand pressed to his chest.
“After I carried you like a hero from the bathroom battlefield”
His voice is playful and full of pride.
“All right then. You need to earn your freedom.”
You raise an eyebrow.
“And how exactly am I supposed to do that”
Eddie kisses the corner of your mouth and whispers,
“You can start by kissing me again.”
You do.
Soft at first.
Then deeper when his fingers slide into your hair.
He breaks the kiss only long enough to brush his nose along your jaw and murmur,
“You taste like toothpaste and trouble.”
You giggle, but it dissolves into a quiet breath when he kisses just below your ear, slow and deliberate, a touch that tells you he is teasing you on purpose.
“Eddie,” you whisper, your hands curling into his shirt.
“Yes, sweetheart”
“You are doing that thing.”
“What thing”
His voice is innocent.
But he is very much not innocent.
“The thing where you pretend you are not trying to start something.”
He laughs softly against your skin, warm breath making your stomach flip.
“I am always trying to start something when I have you in my bed.”
He lifts his head, eyes soft and full of affection, fingertips brushing your waist in a way that makes you shiver.
“But only if you want it,” he adds, voice gentle, full of quiet love.
You look at him, at the boy who chased you down the hallway, who rubbed your back when you choked, who is now kissing every inch of you like you are a diamond.
You pull him down for a slow kiss that leaves no room for doubt.
His lips curl into a smile against yours, and his forehead rests on yours as he whispers,
“Good. Then let me take my time.”
He kisses you again, slower and sweeter this time, hands exploring in lazy, affectionate patterns, bodies shifting closer as the sunlight softens around you both. Then begins his trail downwards, a steady path over your chest and down the softness of your tummy,leaving little wet splodges and tiny knips of lust. There is a small star button in the centre of your underwear band that even earns a little peck.
He pauses there for a moment, lips resting lightly against that tiny star as if it were something precious. His breath warms your skin, and when he looks up at you, there’s a softness in his eyes that steals a little more air from your lungs.
“Cute,” he murmurs, almost to himself. You can feel the smile in his voice.
His fingers trace the edge of your waistband, not pushing or pulling-just memorising it, letting the closeness speak for itself. Then he dips his head again, laying another slow kiss just beside the last one. Each touch feels unhurried, deliberate, as though he’s savoring the shape of you, the heat radiating through your skin, the way your breath catches when he lingers.
He trails upward again, mouth brushing over your stomach with featherlight affection, a silent promise in every press of his lips. His hands settle at your hips, thumbs sweeping small, steady circles that seem to sync with the rhythm of your heartbeat.
When he finally rests his cheek against you, there’s a quiet exhale-content, warm, and full of wanting that doesn’t need to speak loudly to be understood.
“Tell me if you want more,” he whispers, voice low, husky and raw.
All it takes is a swift, desperate nod from you, and he’s tugging down your underwear and flinging them to one of the many piles on the bedroom floor.
He's finding your inner thigh, gliding his tongue up in slow little swirls. Then he stops. He’s just at that place he knows gets you all jittery and needy.
Timing it just right, open-mouth kisses are placed right at the centre, a gentle sucking following it, and your hips twitch to his command, eager to let him continue. He hears a small, squeezed yelp and knows he’s got you dipping into that gooey headspace. He breaks his tongue away, leaving the pad of his thumb in its place as his splayed fingertips rest on the base of your tummy, applying light pressure below your belly button.
With his other hand, he dips further into your core, the sweet wetness latching to his fingers, tempting him further so he can reach that sweet spot. The small stretch has you twisting, opening your eyes to see Eddie’s mischievous ones staring right back, silent words being passed between heavy breaths and Eddie's fingers increasing their pace.
He manages to start tapping the thumb that was applying light pressure to your most sensitive spot, the rough, guitar-calloused pad, creating the right amount of friction.
He works in a practised rhythm that makes having a musician boyfriend one of the biggest perks, because shit that boy knows how to work his hands.
The way you start to pant and fidget, applying pressure onto Eddie, relying on him to get you to that final high that is so, so close, just leaves Eddie in complete awe. The curling of your toes and fingers, the added push he adds to your lower stomach and the soft, encouraging whispers of praise that are tumbling from his lips are all mixing up into one big fruit salad of pleasure. It's almost too much; it feels overwhelming, with your ears ringing and your chest panting. But he's there. Guiding you through and adding the right amount of rough and soft, light and dark.
Eddie senses you teetering on the edge, your body trembling beneath his touch. He slows his movements, just enough to keep you begging, his gaze never leaving your face. "That’s it, sweetheart," he murmurs, voice thick with reverence and want. "Let go for me."
Your fingers clutch at the sheets, desperate for something to anchor you as waves of pleasure crest inside you. Eddie keeps his rhythm steady, grounding you with the steady pressure of his hand, coaxing every last drop of sensation from your shaking form. The room feels hazy, the world narrowing to the heat of his mouth, the strength of his arms, and the safety you find in his devotion.
As you come down, breathless and loose-limbed, Eddie presses a gentle kiss to your hip again, grinning up at you, his eyes alight with pride and adoration. “You’re incredible,” he says softly, tracing lazy patterns on your thigh. “Could watch you fall apart for me all night.”
As your breath evens out and the aftershocks ripple through you, you catch Eddie's gaze; it's smug and satisfied. But you’re not about to let him keep the upper hand. With a grin, you leap onto him, pushing his shoulders back and pinning him beneath you before he can react. Your laughter bubbles out, bright and unrestrained, as you straddle his hips. “Your turn, Munson,” you tease, delighting in the way his eyes widen, surprised and thrilled all at once.
"What-?" he starts, but you cut him off with a soft, giggly kiss, your hands already roaming over his chest and feeling him harden beneath you. Eddie’s cheeks flush, his cocky composure dissolving as you take charge, your own confidence fueled by the high he just gave you.
He laughs, a little breathless, his hands coming up to hold your waist, letting you lead. "Didn’t know you were planning a sneak attack," he manages, grinning up at you.
“Gotta keep you on your toes,” you whisper, before leaning in to show him.
So with toothpaste kisses and lines, I’ll be yours and you’ll be…mine
Thank you for reading <3 likes, comments & reblogs are always appreciated
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The year is 1991. You work across the street from Eddie's garage, and the two of you have been flirting for months. Neither one of you make a move, though, but when Eddie sees you out on a date at The Hideout with someone else, he realizes he doesn't want to share you.
Word count: 3.8k
Song Inspo: No One Like You/Scorpions and On Your Knees/W.A.S.P.
You’re finishing up dinner on a date with a guy you don’t even like, and you’re bored as hell, when you realize that the restaurant he took you to is only two blocks away from The Hideout. Your heart grows arms and legs and does a cartwheel as you think about Eddie. Eddie Munson, the one who turns wrenches at the gas station/mechanic shop across from the cafe where you’ve been working to pay off your student loans. Eddie, the one who calls you Princess, and you hate it, but he calls you that anyway. Eddie, the one who sat with you and made you laugh when you found out your parents were getting divorced. Eddie, the one who has a secret crush on you, but keeps his distance because he thinks you’re too good for him.
Eddie, the guy who hasn't dated anyone all summer because he compares everyone to you, and they all fall short.
Tonight, you’re with Troy: he just graduated with a business degree and his dad owns half of Hawkins. He has an Andrew McCarthy look about him, but he spent almost the entire evening bragging about all of the hot women he’s dated, and reminding you what a catch he his. Before Troy drives you home, you tell him you want to see some live music at The Hideout, that a friend of yours has a band that plays there once in a while.
“Have you ever been to that place?” Troy asks, a disgusted look on his face. “It’s a dump. We’ll probably get hepatitis just from sitting on the seats.”
There is a guy at the door on a stool with long blonde hair and a handlebar mustache wearing sunglasses at night taking the $1 cover. He doesn’t check your ID’s but he does look you both up and down with a grunt as Troy passes him the cash. A waft of cigarette smoke billows out as you enter, the old wood plank floors squeaking under your feet. On stage at the end of the room is a band covering No One Like You by Scorpions, and you notice right away that none of them are Eddie. It’s not until you realize how disappointed you are that you finally come to terms with the fact that you do, in deed, have a thing for Eddie. It was always a possibility in the back of your mind, but now you’re not sure why you didn’t realize it sooner.
It would be too obvious to turn around and leave now, so you ask Troy to get you each a beer. Eddie told you that there are never many people at The Hideout, and he was right, but the crowd that chose to be there was plenty enthusiastic. You were able to find two stools at a small, round table against the wall that was sticky to the touch. You watch Troy wipe the top of his beer bottle of with the inside of his polo shirt. You’re facing the stage, sipping your beer, enjoying the crowd, pretending to hear whatever college glory story Troy is telling you. You were putting your beer down to clap at the end of the song, but then…
There he is, in the flesh: Eddie Munson.
You see him sitting three tables away, near the middle of the room, and just as you realize it’s him—his eyes connect with yours. You have a sharp intake of breath at how good he looks sitting there in his leather jacket with his long hair all around him. Normally, you see him during work hours and he wears his coveralls and his hair back in a ponytail, which you also find sexy as hell.
Suddenly, you don’t want him to see you here with Troy. You don’t want him to think that this date means anything to you. You put your head down as if the beer bottle can hide you. But when you lift your eyes to sneak a glance at him again, you see he’s still looking at you; his eyes shifting from you to the back of Troy. He lifts his beer bottle in greeting, his eyebrow up, his face unreadable. You’d always known Eddie to be quick to smile—always joking with you and teasing you; trying to find any reason to touch you or talk to you when he came around before work, on his lunch break, and sometimes after work if he saw you closing up. But, in that moment, his face was anything but pleased.
You curse under your breath.
“What was that?” Troy asks, his face cringing at the next song (On Your Knees – W.A.S.P.)
You smile because you have no idea what he just said.
Troy chuckles, picks up your hand, and puts the back of your fingers to his lips to kiss them. You don’t even need to check and see if Eddie saw that, because you know he did. You force yourself to count to ten before you look in his direction again.
But he’s not looking at you this time, he’s talking to one of the two other guys at his table. A sexy waitress wearing daisy duke shorts to show off her long legs and a low cut shirt to show off her goods, was at his table, probably taking their drink order. To your chagrin, the hot waitress moves behind Eddie’s chair and bends over to wrap her arms around his neck, resting her chin on his head. Eddie sat there and let it happen; he looked like he was enjoying himself, one side of his mouth kicking up in one of those playfully devilish grins. In a follow up bold move, the waitress slides around to sit in his lap, her arm around his shoulders, her mouth only inches from his.
You jerk your head away so fast, it’s almost like you got slapped. You pretend to watch the band over Troy’s shoulder, not sure if you could handle it if you had to watch Eddie kiss someone else. Just as you are internally screaming at yourself not to look over again—you do it anyway.
The waitress is on her feet now, but Eddie has his arm hooked around her legs, her ass close to his face. With an adoring smile, she runs her hand down Eddie’s hair, and then gives him a wink before she walks away.
Eddie’s eyes snap to you.
You look down at your beer and choke, but turn it into a cough, and cover your mouth with your hand. The thought occurs to you that he was egging that waitress on to get back at you for being there with Troy. What did Eddie have to be jealous about? He never asked you out on a date or let you know he had any romantic interest in you. Sure, you suspected that the feelings between the two of you were growing, but for all you knew, you were misinterpreting things. You both graduated from different high schools, and Eddie liked to joke that you never would’ve given him the time of day back then. You were the prom queen, and he was The Freak.
“You okay?” Troy asks, putting his hand on your arm. “You ready to get out of this shithole?” But he only mouths the word shithole, as if anyone could hear him over the music.
You swallow hard and give an enthusiastic, albeit fake, “yes! Absolutely,” but first you needed to use the restroom; you’re not sure what is going on in your gut, but it feels like a swarm of butterflies wielding knives.
You stumble a bit getting off your stool, but then collect yourself, faking a confident smile. Troy lets you know that he would meet you outside in the car. Feeling somehow justified to do so after Eddie’s handsy nature with the waitress, you kiss Troy on the cheek as you head to the bathroom with your head down.
Ducking into the narrow hallway that was off to the back of the stage, you exhale a long-held breath, steadying yourself against the wall. The hallway is painted black brick, plastered in stickers, hand-drawn band posters, and graffiti. There is a payphone separating the two bathrooms, and when you pull open the door with the outline of a stick figure in a dress on it, you’re relieved to find that it was a one-person bathroom; gas station style. The bathroom itself is filled with graffiti tags and stickers as well, and there are peoples names etched into the mirror, along with phone numbers and curse words.
You make sure the door is locked, and then start pacing back and forth. “Damn you, Eddie,” you whisper to the emptiness around you.
You brace your hands on the edge of the white porcelain sink, meeting the eyes of your reflection in the mirror; they are positioned right under a very crudely carved broken heart outline. “Get a hold of yourself,” you’re still talking to yourself---Eddie Munson is slowly but surely making you certifiable. Everything is cool, everything is great. You’ll make a beeline for the exit, and you won’t have to see which girl he has on his lap now.
You shake your hands out, sigh heavily, and then unlock the door on an exhale.
As you come out, another woman who had been waiting gives you a dirty look and then goes in behind you. Once she shuts the door, you realize that you’re standing out in the dark hallway with Eddie.
He’s leaning casually against the opposite wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and then he lifts his chin at you once you realize that it’s him, a bored look on his face. “What are you doing here, Princess?”
“Hi Eddie. I have to go now,” you say in a rush as you move to walk by him. In response, he stretches his arm out, takes a big step, and plants his hand flat on the wall next to you, using his body to block your path, his wallet chain hitting the brick with a clack.
There is a dramatic pause as it takes you a few seconds to find the strength to look up at him, and meanwhile you stare at the tattered metal t-shirt under his leather. There is a tightening in your chest: part confusion, part fear, and part deep, primal need that makes your core throb.
When your eyes slowly climb to his, you see that the pupils in his chocolate brown eyes are blown, and his lips are parted.
“What do you want, Eddie?” You ask, trying to read the hard set of his jaw.
He moves closer and lowers his head so that your eyes are now on the muscles of his neck, his heart beat visible.
“Is that your boyfriend?” His voice is a low murmur.
In a strange burst of frustration, you cock your head at him, pulling back to meet his eyes again. “What do you care?”
The woman comes out of the bathroom and give you both a side-eye as she walks by.
You follow suit and duck to the side to move around Eddie, but he is quick to switch positions---stretching his arm out so that the flat of his palm meets the opposite wall with a smack, his metal rings clinking together. The smell of his cologne mixed with leather and tobacco intoxicating you like a drug about to send you on a high to outer space.
Fuck, I can’t let her leave, Eddie thinks to himself, his mind racing, his heart about to explode out of his chest with the massive crush he has on you. For the past couple weeks, he’s been trying to build up the courage to ask you out, but then he would look down at his dirty hands and drive back to his messy trailer and push the thought out of his mind. But, seeing you on a date with someone else, someone other than him, flipped a switch that turned him into a bit of possessive, jealous asshole, and he didn’t like that side of him. It also set off an alarm deep in his gut letting him know that he was already in deep with you, and he hadn’t even kissed you yet.
“Why was he touching you?” He glances up at his hand on the wall, but then flicks his gaze back down to you, lingering on your mouth, expecting an answer.
“Are you in charge of who gets to touch me now?” You rest your shoulder on the wall, returning his eye contact with a defiance that makes him the first to look away.
Eddie’s jaw muscles tighten, his back teeth grinding—he felt like he was losing control. The need for you to be his—to belong to him—tightened like thorns around his heart more and more every day.
“Listen, Eddie,” you soften, remembering that this is the guy who makes you mix tapes and leaves his tip money in the shape of origami animals. “I went on a date with him because he asked me. And I’ve been really...lonely,” you were a bit ashamed to say that last part, but it was true.
Eddie softens too, hearing your voice tremble.
“If it makes you feel any better,” you continue, shrugging your shoulders. “Being with him only made me realize how much I’d rather be with you.”
The look you give him moves him in a way he could not have predicted. In the time it takes for him to exhale the breath held tight in his chest, Eddie cups your face in his hands, and backs you against the far wall, his mouth covering yours, moaning as you slip your tongue between his lips, meeting his desire with equal force.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispers against your mouth.
You grab him by the belt loop and yank him closer. “You can have it, all of it,” you say, breathlessly. You can tell his hands are hovering, not sure if you want him to touch you in other places, and so you reach down and cup between his legs, a bit taken aback at the size of the cock growing in his jeans.
“Holy shit,” you say as you glance down.
“Yeah, sorry,” he says in regards to his size.
“Don’t be sorry,” you assure him. “I want it inside of me.”
Eddie pauses to make eye contact with you, swallowing hard, the need for you tightening in his balls. You both glance at the empty bathroom and simultaneously start to move, shutting and locking the door as soon as you can. The romantic in Eddie can’t help but think that this isn’t the ideal place for a first time with you, but you’re both too horny—too ready. He can feel how ready you are soaking through your panties as he reaches under your dress to stroke you.
Eddie has you against the door of the bathroom, his tongue searching your mouth, moaning, while his fingers rub you on top of your underwear before slipping them aside to stick one finger in.
Your breath catches, and Eddie groans at your resistance, at how tight you are.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” he mumbles against your mouth. “I want to taste you.”
He drops to his knees, taking your underwear with him as you hold your dress up at your waist. He takes one more look up at you, still not believing this is really happening. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he gushes, just as his mouth buries into your folds, his tongue dipping down to fuck your hole. You put your hand to his hair and cling to it. He brings one finger up inside of you again, finding a little less resistance, as he sucks and flicks his tongue on your nub.
“Oh my god...Eddie...just like that…”
You hear people out in the hallway, but one uses the payphone and another one goes into the men’s restroom. You can feel Eddie’s hand with the chunky rings resting on your thigh, and you reach your hand down to intertwine fingers with his as he ventures to sink a second finger inside of you. You cry out a little, and his eyes snap up to look at you, but then he realizes it was a cry of pleasure as your opening spreads open for him, swelling to meet his needs.
Your leg starts to tremble; you release his hand to pull down the front of your dress and cup your breast, plucking at your nipple.
“Baby..I think I’m about to….oh fuck…”
Eddie takes your core into his mouth and flicks it with his tongue at a rapid speed, filling you with two fingers as your arousal drips down your inner thighs.
“Wait...wait….” you stop him, and reluctantly he tilts his face back to look at you; his mouth and chin glistening with your juices. You grab his chin. “I want to cum with you inside me.”
Eddie’s cock jerks in his jeans at that suggestion, even though he intended to make this all about you.
“Please, baby,” you plead with him, still holding him by the chin, and then he rises to his full height and prepares to wipe his mouth off with the back of his hand before he kisses you, but you stop him.
“I want to taste me on you,” you tell him, as your mouths collide again, murmuring about your mutual need for each other. Eddie feels like the tip of his cock is about to blow off with how turned on he is by you.
Eddie turns you around, reaching around to play with your clit as he does so, your head tilting back to kiss him. You press your cheek against the door and pull your skirt up, your underwear still around your knees, arching your lower back so that your ass lifts up to him.
He spanks you with the flat of his hand, and then rubs it; he opens you up with his thumbs to look at your perfect asshole. He runs a finger from your swollen lips to your backdoor, watching you shiver at the sensation.
He undoes his belt and drops his black jeans and boxers just enough, clutching his throbbing hard cock. You look behind you at the weapon in his hand and start to rock your hips back, begging for it.
Eddie squeezes some precum to the tip and then rubs it along your soft, soaking hole, feeling it grip him and suck him in. Your tight entrance makes him shiver as he clutches your ass with a grunt, his rings slightly pinching your skin. He thrusts it in half way and you toss your head back.
“Oh my god, fuck fuck, oh my goddddd….” you can feel the orgasm mounting again, unfurling like a band of firecrackers at the base of your spine.
Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Out of Order!” Eddie growls back at them.
His hips are rocking now, sending his cock deeper and deeper inside of you, “holy fuck, you feel so good,” he groans with a curse, moving faster now, watching your juices soak his cock.
A few more thrusts and you are bracing yourself against the door, muttering about how good it feels, pushing your ass back into him so that he can bottom out inside of you, cursing and groaning as he does so.
“That’s it,” he tells you, your skin meeting with a satisfying slapping sound. “That’s my good girl.”
You reach down and rub your clit as you reach the brink, your body vibrating, the heavy beat of the music thudding in your chest.
“Eddie...Eddie baby...I’m...I’m…” And then you go momentarily limp and he holds your hips as you stupify for a moment, seeing white behind your eyelids, soaking his cock with your cum, mumbling, as a whip inside of you snaps.
Eddie’s orgasm isn’t far behind, he hisses at the way your walls grip him as you cum, hearing your whimpers of pleasure.
His hips start to pump at twice the pace, pouring into you, his wallet chain slapping his jeans. “Fuck, I’m about to...where do you want me to…”
“Inside of me, oh god, inside of me….”
A few more thrusts and he starts to explode, sending his seed deep inside of you, kneading the skin on your ass as his pelvis curves against you. He trembles as he gushes, his hand traveling up to cup the back of your neck.
Heaving deep breaths, he pulls you back against him, kissing your neck, fondling your breast, his cock not ready to leave the tight grip you have on him. “My cum is so deep inside of you, you belong to me now.”
You turn your head to look up into his eyes and he kisses your mouth and then your nose, holding you there.
Someone bangs on the door again, and this time they rattle the handle.
You both share muffled laughs as you quickly pull yourselves together.
“Sorry, toilet was broken,” you yell, checking your face in the mirror.
When you’re both ready, Eddie reaches back to take your hand in his before he unlocks the door.
On the other side of the door is Troy. He’s frowning, and then his face drops, his mouth going agape as he sees the state of you two and his brain scrambles to register what he is looking at.
“What the hell is going on?” He barks at you, incredulous. You find it amusing that Troy was worried about catching germs from merely sitting on the seats, and here you are getting raw-dogged in one of the bathrooms.
Eddie keeps a firm grip on your hand, pulling you closer to him, as he checks Troy in the shoulder on his way out. “She’s with me now,” Eddie tells him. “Don’t ever touch her again.”
You shrug your shoulders at Troy, and give him an ‘oops’ face as you follow Eddie’s lead back to his van, back to more debauchery.
The very first full-length Eddie fic I ever posted on here. I tend to get so hard on myself about my earlier work, but I re-read this yesterday and thought it was adorable. Very simple and a bit corny but adorable all the same. It's been almost 3 years??? Holy cow what is time even.
I received an ask from @madaboutjoe for option #2 from our Stranger Prompts which is: You mistake him for the man who is supposed to be your blind date, and he goes along with it, with Steve. I put my own spin on it and made it extra weird.
18+ONLY for mention of gore and adult themes, fear of the unknown, she/her pronouns used for reader.
WC: 11.8k
Summary: After being single for a while, a personal ad in the classifieds catches your eye, and the guy who posted it invites you to meet for coffee. There's a tree blocking the road, causing you to detour, and once you get to Hawkins you find it's not at all what you expected. Mention of Robin, and appearances from Hopper, Joyce, and Eddie Munson.
Author's Note: This was inspired by the horror show From (which I highly recommend), but you do not have to be familiar with it to understand/enjoy this. In fact, it might be even better if you don't know anything about it. Also, the Benny's described in this fic is a cross between the original burger joint and the diner in the show.
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It was mostly by accident that Steve and Robin took over Benny’s. One day, they were hunkering down there to hide, scared as hell, trying not to make a sound, and the next thing they knew, they were painting the walls and adding items to the menu.
When caught in a hellscape, it was important to have a place to go to bask in the illusion of safety, even if just for a meal.
Things generally slowed down in the afternoon on Wednesdays, as it was post lunch rush and right before the seniors dropped in for that early bird special. Robin was with Vickie tending to the farm animals across town, and the only customers at the time were Claudia Henderson chatting with a friend over coffee and pie. Steve would bus the table once he made a list of supplies he’d need to go searching for the next day. .
At a booth nearest the front door, in his trusty red and black flannel that was missing two buttons and a pair of jeans, Steve wore a white apron around his waist. He took the blue bandana off his head to let his glossy mane flop free, running a hand through it a few times, sweeping it to one side.
2
“Is this it?” You mumbled from behind the steering wheel of your car, peering ahead through the windshield at the first signs of a town after a long stretch of forest. The pavement was cracked and worn, giving you a passing thought about where their tax dollars were going if not to those improvements. The Welcome to Hawkins sign was just as weathered and also pockmarked with bullet holes.
A certain gloom settled around the town, like those places that exist in the lower valley between two mountains, nestled in a sea of fog. The afternoon had been fairly bright and sunny until you approached the Hawkins border and had to take your sunglasses off in order to see.
He said you’d be able to see it from the road, that burger place Steve said he’d meet you at. You took a right down the first street and craned your neck to read a sign scrawled in black marker on a sandwich board out in front of the post office:
62 Days Without Incident
You didn’t have long to ponder it before you were pulling into the parking spot at the far end of Benny’s. One of the windows had a menacing spider web crack in it that appeared to be mended with duct tape, and if not for the station wagon in the lot and the dim lighting inside, you’d think the building was abandoned.
Hawkins felt like someone's memory of a town, and the memory was fading.
“It’s just coffee,” you whispered, pacing on the other side of the building near your car. “It’s just coffee with a complete stranger.”
A complete stranger you contacted through a personal ad in the paper, to be exact.
You considered having a smoke first, but didn’t want the nicotine smell to cling to you. Maybe he was also an occasional smoker, you’d have to wait and see. You stepped into view of the front window, and then jerked yourself back to lean against the slate gray wall, cringing as if you’d just stubbed your toe.
You hadn’t been on a date in over a year, but there was something about the ad in the classifieds that made him sound so…normal. Unlike the others.
SWM 5’10, brown hair, hazel eyes, 30yr old business owner, hopeful romantic seeks SF for friendship and adventure with the potential for something more. I like to cook and want to make you laugh. UB kind, curious, homebody looking for LTR.
You’d left a message for him in the extension given by the paper, and then he’d messaged you back almost immediately, inviting you to an afternoon coffee date at a diner in Hawkins.
You were 98% certain that he did not have the voice of a serial killer, whatever that meant.
Fairly new to Indiana, you’d never ventured to Hawkins before, and there happened to be a downed tree blocking the exit you would usually take to the highway, forcing you to use the backroads instead.
A glance at your watch let you know you were fifteen minutes early, all things considered.
The interior of the diner was cozy dark wood with cream tile at your feet. Burnt orange nestled here and there as accents, including on the vinyl covers for the booth seats. A cigarette smoldered in a brown glass ashtray nearby, and to your right, two women spoke softly across the table to each other, but paused mid-conversation to nod suspiciously in your direction.
Maybe you’d have a chance to find a seat and order something to drink before he—-
3
Steve had to do a double take when he looked up at the sound of the bell ding. There was a stain on his white Hanes tee the shape of Australia and faint purple moons carved under overly caffeinated, bloodshot eyes.
At first, he assumed you were just another patron, but then you met his casual stare with enthusiasm, and offered a nervous yet generous smile, beelining in his direction as if the two of you were familiar.
You were new, and such a thing was a rare and unsettling thing to see in Hawkins.
He’d asked Robin to put fliers up at the post office and the library announcing that they were looking for waitstaff help, but that was only a few hours ago. Surely, someone wasn’t inquiring already.
It was hard for you not to run in the other direction when you saw how handsome he was. What the hell was a guy that good looking doing paying to post a personal ad? Better question—-what was a person like you doing answering one?
He’d been frowning down at the notepad in front of him before he glanced up, warm maple hair long enough to tuck behind his ears. Brown diner mug near his elbow, confusion tightened around his eyes when you jutted an arm out to shake his hand.
You introduced yourself. “And I thought I was the early one,” your cheeks felt hot, clutching your bag to your side.
“Uh, hi,” was all he could manage at the time, returning the generous hand squeeze. It took him a few seconds, but then he realized what the only possible explanation could be. “You must be here because of the ad?”
You slid into the booth seat across from him. Maybe he was trying to be funny, like it was some type of dry wit.
“Am I not what you were expecting?”
“No, no, that’s not—” he stammered, jerking his arm to the side so fast that he hit the coffee mug, causing liquid to splash out onto the table. He clawed some napkins out of the dispenser to wipe up the spill, a stray curl of hair bobbing over his forehead as he did so. “I just mean, I wasn’t expecting you this early, that’s all.”
You weren’t what he’d been expecting to walk through his door that afternoon in many ways.
First of all, he was attracted to you, so taking you in as an employee might not be the brightest idea, but also, why had he never seen you around before? Even if he didn’t know everyone in Hawkins personally, they’d all for sure crossed his path at one point.
The town was funny like that.
A hard pit in his stomach told him that you weren’t from town at all, and he really hoped that was not the case, for your sake.
A few beats of silence hung in the air, and the bell dinged again to herald the exit of Claudia and her friend, chattering as they went.
“Is the food good here?” You settled back in your seat, eying the display case near the register while shrugging out of your coat. “The pies look yummy.”
Like a trout thrown to the ground, Steve’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and he pushed the sleeves of his flannel up to his elbows, finding his words. “They’re pretty good, yeah, I think. The guy who makes them is a bit of a nut and takes his pastries pretty seriously.”
There were creased paper menus that looked hand-typed tucked in between the ketchup and the tiny, tableside jukebox. You grabbed one and put it in front of you, eyes roaming over the words without really reading a thing.
“I didn’t expect you to be so handsome,” your tongue was often faster than your brain, and you flicked a nervous glance up at him after realizing what you’d said. “Sorry.”
Totally inappropriate for a professional conversation, but why did it make Steve feel all tingly?
“Don’t be sorry,” he muttered. To avoid eye contact, he picked up the nearby pencil and started drawing squiggles on the yellow notepad in front of him.
“Do you have any experience waiting tables?” He cut right to the chase, not that any experience would make a difference. He wasn’t going to be able to pay you, anyway, that wasn’t how it worked around there.
You were not at all thrown off by the question; you figured there’d be a good helping of small talk.
“For a year in high school, yeah,” you were flicking the corner of the menu with your thumb. “It was a 24 hour waffle house. Met a lot of interesting people.”
“I bet.” He tried to sound casual, but the nervous eruption of a laugh bubbled out.
So, there it was: you were definitely not from there.
The idea that you would soon go through the stages of shock and denial and depression that was common for everyone who resided in what they’d once known as Hawkins, made his stomach drop.
He didn’t want to be the one to watch the light drain from your eyes.
4
You straightened up from staring at the menu to search for whoever might be behind the kitchen hatch. “Do we walk up there to give our order? Or will someone come to the table?”
“That’s, um, I can—let me,” Steve stuttered before taking a breath. “Uh, do you know what you want?”
“Just iced tea for now I think,” you were concentrating on the offerings, bottom lip sucked in between your teeth. “I’m not very hungry. Some of those steak fries maybe? Would you eat some with me?”
There were plenty of mysteries about the town that no one had been able to solve yet, including the way vegetable crops and farm animals showed up in various spots out of the blue. People found garbage bags full of packaged, grocery store quality bread in their backyards as if dropped from the sky. A few months ago while scavenging, Jonathan Byers stumbled upon a concrete door in the ground that led to a bunker stocked with endless dry goods. Steve didn’t ask questions much anymore, he was just grateful they had resources.
He figured whatever trapped them all there wanted to toy with them and fattened them up for the kill.
There was something very casual and familiar about your disposition that made him even more curious about what universal tide washed you up onto his shore.
To most people, ending up in their corner of the world felt like a punishment, but one that they’d somewhat adapted to over time. One day, hopefully, you would find your peace with it too. Maybe even share a piece of pie with him and tell him stories about what he’d missed out in the real world.
For now, you’d have iced tea and fries and pretend none of the horrors were real.
Steve got up from the booth, tucking his chin as he spoke. “I’m serious, I’ll make you anything you want. I mean, within reason.”
Your head snapped up. “Wait, you work here?”
He couldn’t help but frown at your genuine display of confusion.
“I kinda run the place, yeah. It’s not much but,” he shrugged. “My best friend and I, we—”
You blinked a few times. “I feel so stupid, I didn’t realize—”
“You’re not stupid,” he interrupted, planting his hands square on his hips. “Gimme…ten minutes, okay? Just need to throw them in the fryer.”
Your head snapped a few quick nods in a row, unable to settle the feelings of embarrassment.
“Oh, wait,” he spun around, snapping his fingers once in the air. “You like lemon in your tea?”
“Sure.” The more you looked around, the more you sensed something was really…off about the place. Not just the diner, but the entire town.
Outside, the grass was either dead or overgrown and there’d been a wrecked car--possibly and old Chrysler LeBaron---sticking out of an empty public pool on the corner when you first drove in. You remembered the way those two women at the other table glared at you, like maybe you were not at all welcome there at all, no matter what the tattered doormat out front said.
Steve returned to set your iced tea in front of you. There were a couple cubes of ice in the glass, a pretty lemon wedge perched on the lip, and a straw sticking out of it with the paper end still on to protect the sanitation of it. The only odd thing was the pint glass that it came in: it said Shiloh Inn Lounge on it.
“Sugar?” At first you thought he was calling you by a pet name and it gave you a heart palpitation, but instead he set a few packets of actual sugar down that were all different brands. “If you like.”
His eyes were kind and weary and you sensed a weight hanging in the air like maybe he wanted to tell you something but didn’t know how.
He hovered there, refusing to sit back down, and you took that as a hint that he just wasn’t feeling a connection. If that was the case, you didn’t want to waste any more of your time.
“If you’re not interested, I understand,” you took the paper off of your red and white striped straw. “That’s what things like this are for, right? To see if you want to get to know someone better.”
He frowned, cocking his head to one side, curling his lip. “Not interested?”
“You know…in me.” You squeezed a bit of the lemon in. A seed shot out and almost got you in the eye.
Steve softened, crossing one arm over his chest to hold onto the other, absently guarding himself. “Okay, but why wouldn’t I be interested in you?”
You snorted a laugh. “You can just say I’m not your type, it’s fine. You don’t have to be weird about it.”
Outside, an avocado green Ford Pinto pulled up to the curb and parked.
5
“Why did you come here?” He asked, massaging the elbow area where he clutched his arm.
You considered the weight of that question and all of the answers you could give. Practically everyone you loved was either dead or no longer a part of your life. You hated your job with the intensity of a thousand suns, but you’d acquired too much debt to up and quit. There was no family money or support to act as a safety net; no savings account to pull from. The last time you were in a committed relationship, you had your heart tramped, and to be honest, your wounds from that were still open and weeping.
All things on the table, you had no business floundering around in the dating world. You were the walking wounded just looking for a distraction from the emptiness.
Why did you come here?
“To meet you, obviously,” you scowled into your drink, trying to mask a hot wave of insecurity. It felt like a hornet was stuck in your throat. “But I can just go back the way I came, it’s no biggie.”
“See, that’s just it,” he wet his lips a few times. “You can’t go back the way you came. No one can.”
His heart stuttered at the idea of having to break the news to you right then, or ever, but it would be dark soon, and he’d need to make sure you were safe. Leaving you out without protection, out there for The Others to find you was not an option.
That made you bark a laugh. “Oh yeah? What is this? Hotel California?”
The accuracy made him feel like someone just dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. “Something like that, yeah.”
The front bell dinged again and in walked a dark haired woman with one of the most likable faces you’d ever seen. The shins of her jeans were dirty like she’d been working in the garden, and there was a tear in the shoulder seam of the hunter green button-down shirt that she’d left untucked. It was about 2 sizes too big for her, sleeves rolled up so that her hands wouldn’t drown in the material.
She looked right at you and a vacant smile quivered at the corners of her mouth, as if she was forcing it in place with all her mite. It felt like she had absolutely nothing to be smiling about, but wanted to put you at ease.
“Hi I’m Joyce,” she held one open palm up in greeting, approaching with the caution of someone trying not to scare off a feral cat.
“Word travels fast,” Steve muttered under his breath, introducing you.
“Hopper saw the car on his way by,” she progressed to wringing her hands in front of her. “And I came over to see if it was true. To see if…see if you needed any help…
…it will be dark in an hour or so.”
They were having a private conversation with their eyes right in front of you and a heady mix of disorientating fear prickled the back of your neck.
“I think I missed something,” you fisted a handful of the material on your jacket, ready to head for the door. “I think this was a bad idea.”
But the two of them were blocking your path at that point, and you sensed they had no intention of moving.
“Hey, listen,” Joyce made a steeple out of her hands as if she were about to pray. “I know this is absolutely not what you want to hear, and believe me, I know it’s bonkers, but we can’t let you get back on that road tonight.”
Your mouth went dry and you turned to Steve thinking he might offer comfort, but his jaw was set, muscles ticking on one side as he ground his back teeth.
“You can’t be serious.” You let out a chuckle that was void of humor.
Joyce vibrated loving mother energy and as much as you wanted to get out of that diner, you also wanted to hear whatever it was she had to say. Maybe even get a hug from her.
“I know this sucks,” she continued. “It sucks and there’s a lot we need to explain to you, but pretty soon…the roads won’t be safe.”
Your breath caught in your chest, tightening there.
“There’s a spare bedroom at my place,” her expression made it seem like she was offering you a trip to Disneyland. “Clean sheets, I’ve got some soup on the stove. I can take you there now and we can have some coffee, you can meet my sons, and I’ll tell you everything, but you can’t drive back into the woods.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll pass,” despite the tough exterior, your voice wavered. “Not to sound ungrateful for the hospitality, but this is crazy.”
You waited for them to burst into laughter and tell you they were kidding. Ha. Ha.
“It is fucking crazy, tell me about it,” Steve mumbled. “We just want to make sure you…” he trailed off, staring up as if trying to remember his lines.
The entire thing was turning out to be some twilight zone shit, and it was no longer amusing. Sure, Steve was hot and you already liked him plenty, but clearly there was lead paint in the water or black mold in the walls because the two people in front of you were off their rockers.
Your steady gaze landed on your blind date. “Is that why you put the ad in the paper? So that you could get me here and abduct me?”
“Paper?” Confused, he frowned at Joyce and then at you. “What paper? What ad?”
Ice and thorns shot through your blood.
“The personal ad, Steve. The one you put in the gazette, the one I answered. You left a message saying to meet you here.”
When they talk about a “pregnant” pause, well that pause gripped the air like it was having quadruplets.
“Personal ad?” Joyce peered at Steve, but he only shrugged and shook his head like he had no idea what was going on. Because he didn’t.
You raised your voice then, practically shouting. “And why do you two keep looking at each other like that? What am I missing? You invited me here for coffee and now you’re telling me I can’t leave? This is bullshit, I’m sorry, I’m going.”
You prepared yourself to fight to get beyond them, but they parted easily and gave no resistance when you bolted from the booth, strapping your bag across your body with a grumbled curse.
“I didn’t put a personal ad in any paper,” Steve said softly, but his words had enough impact to make you freeze in your tracks halfway to the door.
6
Hawkins, as they knew it, didn’t even have a circulating newspaper anymore. Nancy and a few others kept The Post going for as long as possible to keep morale afloat with a sense of normalcy, but after a while started to run out of supplies and purpose for such an endeavor, especially since they had no line to the outside world. She did publish a pamphlet every so often that announced local events, and whenever one of The Others got a hold of a member of the community, she would be the one to break the news to those who weren’t privy to the information.
…62 Days Without Incident….
“Who did I come here to meet then?” You kept your back to them, asking the question more to yourself.
“Sweetheart, I promise I’ll explain everything to you once we—” Joyce hugged herself as she spoke, watching you storm the rest of the way to the door and then jerk it open to the tune of a violent rattling of the bell.
“Please, wait!” Steve jogged to your side.
“I want you to have this,” he tugged down the front of his shirt to pull out a quarter size, oblong chunk of rock attached to some type of cream colored string. He lifted it up over his head, fluffing the back of his hair in the process, and held it out to you.
There was some sort of design on the smoke gray stone, a symbol that itched a part of your brain as being familiar.
He had it dangling in front of your face and your stare narrowed beyond the swinging cord to find the colors in his hazel eyes swirling like some uncharted universe. They made you want to go swimming in the stars.
“If you want to go, I can’t stop you,” he shifted close enough for you to smell the fruity scent of his hair product and coffee on his breath. “But please wear this.”
You winced at the necklace without touching it. “What is that?”
You might as well have been asking him to teach you conversational German in the span of ten minutes, even though he only knew a few letters from their alphabet.
“As long as you have this with you inside wherever you are, They can’t get to you. I’m telling you, I don’t even know how it works. But, if you won’t stay here with me or go with Joyce, I need you to put this on and keep all of the windows up on your car. All of the doors stay locked, got it?”
“Who is They?” You did not receive a verbal answer to your questions, only more clandestine looks.
It hit you like a flying brick just then that they were indeed not being malicious, nor were they trying to drug you to put you in a well and skin you alive. Steve and Joyce truly believed everything they were telling you:
Some unspecified Things come out at nightfall and kill people, but wearing a stone around your neck magically keeps them at bay. Got it.
You didn’t know why they came across as so sheltered and endangered when anyone could hop on the highway and be back in civilization in ten minutes. There were probably wild animals out there in the woods; coyotes and wolves and maybe even bears, and those were the things that showed up to terrorize the locals at nightfall, not some nocturnal horde of zombies.
Your survival instinct won out over curiosity, and you mumbled “bye Steve” over your shoulder, dashing out into the parking lot.
Behind you, Joyce took hold of Steve’s arm to keep him from following in your wake.
“She’ll have to learn this one the hard way, unfortunately,” she whispered to him. “Like most of us did.”
They watched you throw yourself in behind the steering wheel, and then heard your door lock after it slammed shut.
“I’ll fix up the cot in the supply room just in case she—-” he didn’t finish, but Joyce knew what he meant.
You’d be back once you realized there was nowhere else to go, and hopefully your pride wouldn’t keep you out too long after dark. He’d wait up and keep the light on.
Without one of the stones of protection, it wouldn’t matter if you were in a concrete bunker, The Others would still be able to get to you if they wanted to.
Maybe if you got stranded in your car, you’d be smart enough to hide under a blanket and stay quiet until morning.
What if you tried to run from them on foot or, worse yet, tried to physically defend yourself?
As far as Steve knew, those things they called The Others couldn’t be stopped.
7
You literally squealed out of town, tires leaving fishtail skid marks on the pavement.
“What the fuck was that?” You mumbled, breathless, eyeballing the two in your rearview mirror as you got back on the highway and were swallowed up by fog.
The misty forest continued for about a mile, and then it wasn’t long before you were approaching another town. Had you somehow passed through a similar place without realizing on your way in? Seemed impossible, but you rationalized it as first date nerves getting the best of you.
And what a fucking bonkers “first date” that had been. One for the books.
Shame because Steve had one of those faces you’d never get tired of looking at.
All the same, you were grateful to be out of Hawkins, but you needed gas. You’d be able to get home with what you had in the tank, but didn’t want to have to take time to fill up on your way to work in the morning.
On your right, you passed another weathered Welcome to Hawkins sign.
No, that was a mistake. The natural light was fading rapidly but surely you’d misread it without your headlights on.
You slowed to honor the speed limit through to the center of whatever town it was. There was an establishment called Melvald’s, a Radio Shack, and further down was a Family Video, but the streets were deserted. It was barely dusk and not a single soul strolled the sidewalks or drove by in a vehicle.
A church bell rang in the distance, and you spotted a woman hustling three young children up a flight of stairs. The youngest didn’t seem to be taking the steps fast enough, so she picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to a door that slammed shut as once they were all inside.
They were acting as if the moonlight was poison and they couldn’t get any on their skin.
Pink and orange blossomed over the horizon while the sun sank behind the mountains, and the church bell persisted with its haunting tune. A little further and there were cars parked outside of fenced houses, but not a single human or animal to be found. A pair of seats on a swing set swayed back and forth as if occupied by ghosts.
Coming to a halt at a stop sign, there was a very familiar sight:
62 Days Without Incident
The same sandwich board, the same cursive handwriting in black marker in front of the same red brick post office building.
“Nononono..no. This is not right…” you started mumbling to yourself, inching along the pavement.
It wasn't long before you spotted the empty swimming pool with the back end of a wrecked car sticking out of it. If you turned down that first street, you knew you’d find Benny’s Burgers and Steve probably at the front window, waiting with flex cuffs to tie you up in his basement.
You’d missed a turn, that was all. That was the only explanation.
You went extra slow the next time through the forest, making sure to spot whatever exit or turn you’d missed before.
But then the trees opened up to a town and there was the Welcome to Hawkins sign. Melvald’s and Radio Shack. Family Video. 62 Days Without Incident. Wrecked car in an empty pool.
White knuckle grip on the wheel, frustrated tears welled hot at your lash line.
“This can’t be right.”
You tried it again, going no more than 10 mph through the woods, and it didn’t help that the smog was billowing thick as cream.
Why hadn’t you passed any other cars on the road?
On your fourth time back around, after a good cry, you reasoned that maybe you’d taken the wrong way out of town somehow, but you’d have to ask someone in the morning and try again due to the staggering lack of visibility you were currently faced with.
Plus, according to your gas gauge, you’d be coasting on nothing but fumes soon.
Wiping wet cheeks with the back of your hand, you flicked the blinker and coasted in under a metal awning alongside two gas pumps that were connected to a single mechanics garage and a mini mart.
“Please be open,” you said to the glass front door of the service station which, once again, looked like it had been abandoned for the evening, or possibly for the entire year.
When you turned the engine off you realized that the church bell was no longer thumping to the beat of your headache, and the dead calm silence settled around like a veil, much like the ambiance of a horror film.
The type of horror film your character didn’t make it out of.
You shook your head and thought about slapping yourself in the face. This was all just some wild mixup. You’d get gas, get a room at the motel you’d spotted a few blocks back, and find your bearings first thing in the morning.
Deep breaths in and out of your nose a few times while you sat trying to psych yourself up to get out and find someone to pay for the gas, pending the pumps weren’t dry.
Relief blossomed when you spotted a person approaching from the street. With each steady step, they took their time to cross the distance, as if calculating if they should .
“Oh thank god, a person,” you said on an exhale.
8
He was balding, but his dishwater blonde hair was combed over to try and hide it, he wore an oddly formal brown suit jacket and slacks. Polka dot orange and chocolate necktie, his hands relaxed at his sides, he reminded you of a used car salesman thinking he spotted an easy mark.
The smile was wide and plastered to his face, unwavering, as if his teeth were clamped shut and he was gritting through some private pain
“Hey,” you said, stepping out of the car, but keeping the open door in front of you as a barrier. “I was hoping to get some gas. Do you happen to know if anyone works here?”
His pace did not falter, nor did his deranged grin.
You thought maybe he hadn’t heard you clearly at first, so you waited for him to get a few feet closer. Nearly three car lengths away at that point and you made the decision to stay put, ignoring the sharp gut instinct telling you to start the engine and go.
“Sorry, do you work here?” You weren’t sure why that came out of your mouth considering his attire. “I only need a couple gallons. I have cash if—-”
“You shouldn’t be here,” the smiling man said, maintaining a show of teeth.
He also said your name. Somehow, he knew your name.
An alarm went off in your gut. “Do I know you?”
You hadn’t yet had time to process the idea that you’d gone to the wrong place entirely for your date, and Steve wasn’t even the one you were supposed to meet.
The smiling man got closer, only a car length away by then.
With a start, you noticed that a woman in an old fashioned Nurse uniform—like the type one might wear for Halloween—was not far behind the man in the suit, headed toward you at the same pace with her hair done in two platinum blonde braids..
Her smile was not as wide but just as unsettling.
“Hello?” You yelled in the direction of the service station, knowing you should go over and try to knock, but your feet felt like they had concrete shoes on.
“Hello?” A high-pitched voice came from somewhere behind you, and it was clearly mocking, complete with a maniacal giggle at the end.
You spun around to find that the smog was a curtain, and you were unable to see beyond it. It was gathering around you legs too, as if preparing to drag you into the void.
Disoriented and panting, you watched a car come flying up over the curb, gunning the engine so hard that one of the hubcaps flew off.
The avocado green Ford Pinto caught air for a second before the bumper crashed into the smiling man, bending him in half like a rag doll. It pinned him into the stone of the building with a loud, sickening crunch.
You would’ve screamed but your breath caught on a sharp inhale, making you choke.
Clearly broken by the impact, the smiling man’s expression never faultered, and he was still staring pointedly at you while bits from the wall crumbled around him.
Black blood dripped from his lips and eyes like tar.
“Fuckfuckfuckwhatthefuck,” you babbled while Joyce flapped her arms to try and get your attention from the window of the passenger seat.
“Hurry, get in!” She shouted, her voice cracking at the end.
Steve was driving, and he backed up enough so that the body of the smiling man slumped to the ground.
Throwing the vehicle into park, Steve bolted from his seat with what looked like a baseball bat covered in jumbo nails like a medieval mace.
He swung to strike the woman in the nurse uniform with it, but missed, and she hissed at him. Her mouth grew 5 times its original size, crowded full with rows of sharp teeth. Her eyes stretched into empty, cavernous holes with nothing behind them, her fingers were long claws and her…her….
It was then that you realized you were screaming.
9
“Steve watch out!” Joyce had a hold of your hand, dragging you along with all of her mite.
The thing that was once the woman in the nurse uniform let out a shrill cry just before the nail bat made contact with its skull. Its head whacked into the side of the Pinto and bounced off, causing a spray of black blood.
It barely made a difference.
It lunged jerkily and swiped at him; mouth gaping, eyes two spirling tunnels to hell, but before it could make contact, Joyce pulled a tiny firearm out of her sleeve and took aim, cracking the thing in the cheek with a bullet.
“I hate these things,” she muttered under her breath while the tip smoked, and you weren’t sure if she meant guns or the Other thing that tried to take a bite out of Steve; possibly both.
The nurse stumbled back behind the pumps and fell out of view.
“GET. IN.” Joyce was stronger than she looked as she stuffed you into the back seat of the Pinto. In haste, you scraped your knee on a piece of metal behind the passenger seat, but had no idea until you saw the blood running down your leg some time later.
The smiling man shuffled to his feet like he was being tugged up by strings.
His guts were spilling out of him but yet, he was able to stand. Stand and smile. With inky ooze dripping from everywhere like melting wax.
Joyce was in the process of shutting her door as Steve backed up. You felt the jarring bump when the wheels went over the nurse.
You caught Steve’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?” He demanded. “Did any of them touch you?”
On the seat next to you was the nail bat; some of the nurses’ blonde hair was sticking to it.
“No, uh, no, I don’t think so. What are they? Did you just kill that woman? Take me back to my car. Tell me what is going on!”
He was lightning fast on the gears once he’d backed up into the street, just in time for you to see the nurse sit upright; black tar leaking from the hole in the back of her head.
“That’s not a woman,” he grunted, flooring the pedal. “It's not even human.”
“What does that mean?” Shaking, you listened to your own horrified voice as if from a distance.
Joyce swiveled in her seat to give you the best comforting twist of her lips that she could muster. “I’ll do my best to explain, back at the diner.”
“Why aren’t they dead?” You whined, staring back at the nurse one last time before the gas station disappeared in the smog.
Through the window you saw that there were more of those Things that resembled people lining the sidewalk, standing shoulder to shoulder. They swarmed in from the shadows one by one to watch the vehicle pass with vested interest.
Their eyes followed you like the pinto was a one-man parade. Or perhaps a meals-on-wheels.
“Where did they all come from?” You asked, almost certain you wouldn’t get an answer.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Steve sighed.
He was awfully calm considering what you’d just witnessed.
From the rearview mirror dangled a similar stone to the one Steve wore around his neck, suspended by cream string or twine.
There was a crackling noise and then a new voice sounded like it was coming from a radio.
“Joyce, are you there?” A pause and more crackling. “Need you to talk to me Joyce. Harrington? Anyone?”
There was a CB radio attached to the dash. Joyce unhooked the mouthpiece from its metal hinge and put it to her mouth, depressing the side button.
“I’m here, Hop,” Joyce was doing her best not to sound rattled, adjusting her collar. Her glance flicked to the back seat. “We’re safe. We got her.”
The following silence hissed static before Hopper cleared his throat. “Good, that’s good. And Steve?”
“He’s here,” she assured. “Not a scratch.”
Jim was all the way on the other side of town about to take his shoes off and have some of the potato vodka his buddy Scott distilled in his basement when he got word that Joyce and Steve were going after you. He’d begged Joyce to wait for him, but knew she wouldn’t. He’d sped to the scene as fast as he could.
“I’ll be at Benny’s in two,” he said. “Be careful. Over and out.”
10
Gravel crunched under the tires as Steve pulled into the diner. Three of the things with the same posture as the smiling man were slinking out of the woods. Two from the left, and one from around the corner on the right.
They had the same lock-jawed grins, but this time, one was a high school boy in a green letterman’s jacket, one was an elderly woman in a robe with a shower cap on her head, and the third was a boy no older than twelve.
Disarming at first, but then you recognized the dead eyes, assessing you like a shark.
“There’s more,” Joyce gestured behind at the handful that were meandering up from the street. They all had a certain gait to them; like those serial killers in movies to go at a snail pace, but somehow always catch up to the victim.
Steve looked over his shoulder to get a look through the back window, and then his gaze landed on you again.
His scowl was more stern than he meant for it to be. “If you run, I can’t promise I’ll be able to save you again,” he swallowed, softening. “Joyce is going to head into the diner first, you follow her, and I’ll take up the rear, got it?”
You thought you gave a response, but maybe not.
“Nod if you understand,” he rumbled.
“I understand,” you said weakly, noticing that your cheeks were wet.
The things had the gait of zombies, but they were far from brain dead, and their skin suits weren’t composed of rotting flesh. Aliens, maybe? Vampires? How the fuck was this even happening?
“Ready?” Joyce had her fist around the door handle, ready to jump out and push her seat forward for your exit.
The old woman and the little boy with a mop of raven hair were only a few yards away, and you remembered how the nurse’s face had changed into a horrific maw of terror.
“Don’t look at them,” Joyce urged. “You just grab onto the back of my shirt and keep your eyes forward. They’re scary fuckers, but they are also really slow.”
You broke through the wall of fear that had you frozen in place, and tried not to think about how close the old woman was when you bolted from the back seat and tripped.
Of course you would trip.
Your knee caught all of your weight making you gasp in pain, but a surge of adrenaline pushed you through it, snatching Joyce’s hand as you went.
“Good to see you again, Joyce,” the old woman purred. “Who is your friend?”
“Fuck you!” Joyce said from the front door of the diner, yanking a janitor cluster of keys from the crossbody bag she wore.
You kept your gaze glued to the back of her head, but peripheral vision showed that the duo were almost within arms reach. Ice cold breath prickled down your spine.
Steve was behind you then, warm body crushed against yours, shielding you from the Others while Joyce undid the lock. All of you practically landed in a dogpile on the floor inside the diner.
Joyce sank down on the ground right where she was on the tile, panting while the strange Others begin to huddle at the entrance, peering in at you with salacious intent.
“She’s pretty,” the little boy said. “We just want to introduce ourselves.”
“You can’t keep her from us forever,” said the guy in the letterman’s jacket. Now that you had a closer look, you could see that the gums around his pearly white teeth were the color of rot.
Steve rolled his shoulders back, nostrils flaring while he maintained the stand-off with nothing but a single pane of glass between them. .
You took hold of his arm, unnerved by how close he was and how easily the glass could be shattered.
“Steve, get away from—-”
“They can’t do shit,” he snapped, more to them than to you. He pointed to a stone that was ten times the size of the one around his neck and mounted on the wall. “They can’t touch us now.”
How those rough cut rocks with some type of symbol carved into the surface kept anything out was another mystery. Was it like the symbol of the cross for demons and vampires?
Were those things some breed of demon?
Blinded by a sudden white flash, you had to shield your face when a pair of headlights bounced into the lot.
“It’s Hopper,” Joyce sounded relieved, getting to her feet.
The three that had been crowding at the door to leer in at you shuffled off to go and check it out.
The next thing you heard was the discharge of a gun. The jolt of it made you throw your arms around Steve, but then you quickly pushed off, clutching a hand over your heart.
Another gunshot, and then another.
One more for good luck.
A large man in a tan uniform and a substantial mustache squeezed his thick shoulders through the diner door, holstering his gun. He took his hat off once he was inside and swept a large hand through the new haircut Joyce had given him.
Outside, you could see the high school kid face down on the ground, sprawled like a starfish.
“It won’t kill them,” Hopper said, as if he could read your thoughts. “But it does slow them down a bit.”
He fished a toothpick from his front pocket and bit down on it. “We try to keep bullet use to a minimum, but that sure felt good.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Joyce tucked herself under his open arm and hugged him. “I told you Steve and I had it covered.”
“Yeah, well,” he closed his eyes and perched his chin on the top of her head. “It’s not every day we get someone new in town.”
You must’ve looked like you were about to throw up or pass out because Steve started making comforting circles on your back with the flat of his hand.
“You guys are only a few miles off the freeway,” the synapses in your brain were still fighting for a chance to make sense of it all. “How do the authorities not know about this?”
You couldn’t peel your attention away from the sprawled body out on the pavement. In the distance, groups of Others lumbered toward the building.
“I am the authorities,” the man introduced as Jim Hopper said with a glint of humor in his eye.
“She’s with me,” Steve blurted. The comment came so far out of left field that everyone turned to stare at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears.
“I mean,” he stammered, nibbling his bottom lip. “She can stay here with me if she wants, on the pullout in the store room. I’ll be fine in one of the booths.”
There were 7-8 of those things waiting outside the door at that point, including the ones that had been shot by Hopper, but those were all rising like marionettes by then. A busty woman with long red hair joined the stalkers, as well as a balding middle-aged man, and what appeared to be an elderly Priest.
Hopper put his hat down on a nearby table and sank into a chair as if it was just another day. “Coffee if you’ve got it.”
“Um, yeah, sure, I’ll make a fresh pot,” Steve moved around the partition toward the kitchen, grazing your hand with the tips of his fingers to urge you to move with him.
He leaned over to whisper. “We need to wait 15-20 minutes before they can go back out. Those things will get bored and wander off somewhere else. Back to hell or wherever they are from.”
“Sit here,” he tapped the end of the counter and a padded stool so that he could talk to you while he made the brew.
11
He put several scoops of grounds into a filter at the top of the machine and made sure it was filled with water. He’d removed his flannel at some point, and you caught yourself watching his back muscles twitch under the thin material of his white tee. The water he used was not from the sink, but in a plastic gallon jug with a duct taped handle.
You were still standing when he turned and wiped his hands down his denim-clad hips.
“That guy at the gas station,” you started. “The one you…the one in the suit, he…”
Tasting bile, you tried to find your words and Steve did not try to rush you.
“That thing…he knew my name. How could he know that?”
On an exhale, Steve leaned forward to rest his forearms on the counter. He wanted nothing more than to be able to put you at ease and say you had nothing to worry about, but alas.
“Yeah so it’s one of those mysteries I’ve been trying to figure out since I got here,” he opened his hand and ran his thumb over the calluses on the opposite palm. “They know things they shouldn’t know and they survive things no living organism should survive. The only way we know how to kill them is—-”
“Since you got here?” You blurted. “Did you just show up like I did? How long have you been here?”
“Well, I guess you could say I showed up like you did, but not really,” he rolled his head, stretching the sides of his neck so that something popped. “One day I was in a place I refer to as Normal Hawkins, and then I was in this very different version of the same town. We all were.”
“Wait, so,” you frowned, simultaneously comforted by the familiar warm scent of brewing coffee. The machine spit and sputtered. “You mean this isn’t Hawkins?”
“No, it is,” he swiped a tongue over his top teeth. “It’s hard to explain. Robin and I have been reading up on, you know, alternate universes and such. Parallel worlds. We think this might be one of those.”
“Robin?” Your eyebrow shot up.
“My best friend. I mentioned her before.”
“Oh yes, right. Where is she tonight?”
“Safe at home, I hope,” he went over to get a couple mismatched mugs from a light blue drying rack. “We used to live together but she moved in with her girlfriend and—” he stealed himself, realizing he was about to ramble on about his personal life.
“We’re out of cream today, but I have a lot of sugar,” he plucked a few packets from his magic apron pocket: one pink, one white, and one brown.
He loved offering you sugar.
He took the other two steaming mugs over to Joyce and Hopper while you stirred in the white crystals with a tiny spoon. It crossed your mind that maybe never left your apartment, and were actually asleep on the couch, dreaming all of this.
Easing down to take a reluctant seat, you perched on the edge of the stool. The deep orange of the upholstery was worn and split down the middle, exposing the white stuffing.
You took a peek over your shoulder to find that half of those Things were gone; only the redhead, the priest, and the high school kid remained. Where the bullet hole tore through his cheek was almost completely healed, but the weeping black blood remained like tear-soaked mascara.
His evil smile widened when he caught your eye, making you swiftly spin away. You scooted down to the opposite end of the counter so that you wouldn’t be within view.
Steve observed your seat change and did what he should’ve done when they first got there, which was to walk over and pull the shades down to cover the glass on the door. He was so used to ignoring them, he’d forgotten what it was like to comprehend their existence for the first time.
“I promise, you’re safe in here with us,” Steve leaned in to whisper. “I don’t know how the stones work, but they do.”
In a few days, it would be exactly two years since he’d been forced to cohabitate with those…ghouls.
A ghoul was the closest he’d come to describing them. But they weren’t a typical braindead zombie on the ravenous hunt for fresh organs like he’d seen in the old George Romero movies; they were unfortunately intelligent and possessed some type of psychic ability or hive mind.
The only thing that could kill them was decapitation, which also synced up with common zombie lore. If bitten or attacked, the person afflicted did not turn into one of them, which was a small mercy. Steve’s good friend Tommy had been one of the first to meet such a fate; they’d buried all of his mauled body parts out near Skull Rock.
Twenty months later, there were several rows of marked graves to accompany him.
“Steve?” He liked the way you said his name.
“Uh huh,” popping a hip out to rest it on the counter, he took a sip of his coffee from a Star Wars Ewok mug, addressing you over the rim.
“So, you never put a personal ad in the newspaper?” One hand was trembling, so you slotted it between your knees.
He inhaled to speak, but you continued. “The voice message I got sounded just like you, and it told me to meet you here.”
Your mug was beige with brown lettering that said: Accountant’s Never Die, They Just Lose Their Balance.
“It wasn’t me,” he said softly. “Believe me, I would never want to drag anyone into this.”
He continued, frowning. “I wonder if it was Other Steve that put the ad in the paper?
“Other Steve?”
He shrugged. “I mean, if this is a case of parallel worlds, there is a chance that there is another version of me back in that other version of Hawkins. The version that didn’t keep us trapped like rats in a cage.”
Even though it sounded ludacris, you considered it, because even that was quite a bit more comforting than the alternative.
He said your name, making you look up.
“So, you were supposed to go on a date with some other Steve guy?” It had been a while since he felt that particular brand of jealousy. “What a small world.”
“You could say that,” you swallowed, feeling judged. “I should’ve known that the only promising personal ad would lead to more horrors.”
He gave a low chuckle, feeling bad for the other parallel version of him who probably waited at Benny’s for a solid hour, thinking he got ditched.
If only Other Him knew you were absolutely worth waiting for.
“Steve?”
“Mhmhm,” he scratched the stubble on his jaw.
“Are we dead?” It bubbled out of your chest as you stared into your coffee. “Did I die out there on the highway or something?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, tucking his chin. “I’ve wondered that too, like, a lot, but I don’t think this is the end. I think we’ll make it out of here one day. I know we will.”
Something vibrated in the shared silence and you found yourself staring at his parted lips.
“I’m not ready to die.”
Your whisper was interrupted by a sudden, obnoxious noise coming from the back room.
It sounded like the rattling of a doorknob, like someone trying to get in.
12
“Stay here,” Steve instinctively grabbed the closest and biggest knife, held it aloft like Michael Myers, and went to investigate.
He put a hand over the stone under his shirt too, reminding himself that this building was protected. Those things could try to open the door, but even then they’d be powerless to step over the threshold, much like a vampire without a proper invitation.
The ghouls that had been huddling like cattle at the front door were all gone as far as you could see, and you wondered if maybe they’d wandered around to try another way in.
“What’s going on?” Jim scooted his chair out and stood to see why Steve was holding the knife like that.
Without answering, Steve made his way around a metal supply rack, eyes narrowing on the brass knob of the back door.
It was wiggling violently, causing Steve’s heart to explode in his throat.
The jostling stopped only long enough for there to be a loud thud and quake of the door frame while whatever was on the other side rammed itself against the wood.
By then, Hopper had unholstered his gun and was on his way over.
You and Joyce had the same idea at the same time and both started looking for a weapon. Joyce found a pair of scissors, but all you could find was a fork.
“Let me in, motherfuckers!” A voice shouted from the other side of the door.
Another thud, more frantic twisting of the knob.
“Wait,” Steve put his hand up to slow Hopper from going ahead of him.
The possible intruder went still.
“Munson?” Steve asked. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me man. You need a secret code or something? I’ve got one of those freaks on my ass, please open the fuck up!”
Hopper’s shoulders sagged and he lowered his weapon. Out of habit, Steve checked above the door to make sure the protection stone was still mounted there before he searched to see where you were. The ghouls were capable of mimicking voices to trick people into dropping defenses for them, but if there was even a tiny chance it really was Eddie, he had to check it out.
He planned to drill a peephole in that door the first chance he got.
Steve twisted open the lock and stepped way back. “It’s open.”
The guy who blew into the kitchen before slamming the door behind him to lean against it shivering was definitely not one of those things from earlier.
Panting, Eddie clicked the lock. “Fuck me Harrington, that thing almost got me. There were two of them, fuck, maybe ten. I stopped counting once I started running.”
“Eddie, what happened?” Joyce pushed by Hopper. “Where are your shoes?”
It was just then that you realized Eddie’s feet were bare. He wore a pair of tattered jeans and a worn shirt with the faded phrase Hellfire Club on the front. His long hair was wet and if he’d already taken a shower, the looks of his feet said he needed another one.
“Leave it to me to lock myself out of the trailer again,” his teeth were chattering, and without asking for one, Joyce handed him a multicolored, crocheted blanket from the broom closet to put around his shoulders. “I was headed over to find Wayne at Claudia’s, but then I got cornered and well, the rest is history.”
“Why didn’t you use the front door?” Steve crossed his arms with the point of the knife sticking up.
“I don’t know, man,” Eddie pulled the blanket tight around himself like a cocoon and shut his eyes tight. “Why doesn’t anyone do anything? Sorry if I scared you or whatever.”
Joyce introduced you as Eddie shuffled out to the dining area, and all he said was, “hey,” in greeting before he slumped into one of the booths, adjusting so that his back was to the wall and his legs straight along the bench seat.
“You got any shoes I can borrow?” The visitor with the long, wet hair asked Steve.
Steve put the knife back in the slot with the others. “Borrow as in I get them back tomorrow or borrow as in they become yours and I’ll never see them again?”
“Just forget it,” Eddie grunted. It wasn’t long before Steve threw a pair of flip flops at him and brought him a cup of coffee.
“Looks like it’s safe for us to split,” Jim announced a few minutes later, putting his hat back on. The parking lot was quiet, and even if there were any creepy ghouls nearby, they’d be able to get behind the wheel of their cars without making contact.
“You need a ride back to your place, Eddie?” Joyce asked while she walked their coffee mugs over to the back sink. “I still have a spare key from that time you let me and Will stay there.”
“Yeah that’s cool,” Eddie said absently. His attention had shifted and you realized he was staring at you.
“So, wait, you’re new here?” Eddie asked.
“Just came into town a few hours ago,” Steve answered somberly.
You’d been sitting with your back to Eddie, but then turned on your stool to make eye contact across the room.
“Shit, that sucks,” Eddie blurted. “I mean, you don’t suck, but just like, I’m not sure what type of bad luck makes people end up here.”
You didn’t know what to say to that, so you simply nodded a few times in agreement; it did, indeed, feel like bad luck, or something worse.
After a beat, Eddie cleared his throat. “You, um, don’t happen to have any smokes on you by chance?”
“Yeah, I do, actually,” you could almost hear a soft whine of relief come out of him. “Well, not on me. There’s an untouched pack in the glovebox of my car but it’s…”
You trailed off realizing that your bag with all of your ID and personal shit were back in the car, too. You’d left in such a hurry, the keys were probably still in the ignition. Fuck, the last thing you needed was for someone to steal your car and your bag. Could those zombie things drive? You’d almost forgotten about that secret pack of Camel Lights that you’d stuffed in there for emergencies, but you never expected it to be for an actual emergency.
“Yeah? Where’s your car?” He sat up, alert.
“Back at the gas station,” Joyce rolled up one of her oversized cuffs. “There was a run in with a few of those Things earlier and we had to leave in a hurry.”
“I should probably go back there and get my things,” you mused.
“Not a good idea, not tonight,” Steve interrupted, swinging his arm out as if to block you from the rest of the group. “In the morning I’ll take you. Those things usually don’t bother with inanimate objects, unless they are attached to a living-breathing human.”
Eddie mumbled. “Better not catch one of them enjoying a fresh cigarette, or I’m gonna be pissed.”
You stood up, addressing Eddie. “If you want to go by there and take the pack, you are welcome to them. I quit a while ago, so—”
“Yeah, so did I,” Eddie blew a raspberry of a laugh. “But not willingly. They don’t exactly grow on trees here.”
Steve crossed his arms over his chest again, rolling his shoulders back. “I don’t think anyone should be making any unnecessary stops tonight.”
“I agree,” Hopper voiced.
“I’d say it’s necessary,” Eddie countered, knowing that Steve was right. The safety of morning light would come soon enough.
Steve shut off the overhead lights and released the blinds that covered the door to peer out. Eddie shuffled over in Steve’s flip flops and the blanket around him like a little kid leaving for a sleepover.
The three made the decision to take Hopper’s Bronco, and Joyce told Steve to take care. She kissed his cheek while Eddie gave him a fist bump that Steve seemed unsure how to respond to at first.
“See ya later, alligator,” Steve told them before turning the lock to seal the building again.
You stood side by side and watched until they were safely on the road. In their wake, something bolted out of the woods and threw its head back to wail like a beast. It had a bald head and pointed ears and crouched to all fours like an animal.
“Why is that one different than the others?” You asked, clutching onto Steve’s arm.
“We think those are the older ones,” he cleared his throat. “But there are only a few of them that I know of.”
“Why do you think they’re older?” Your gaze was locked on the Thing as it lumbered back out of sight.
Steve shifted on his feet before pulling the blinds back down. “It’s just a hunch really, but they seem to be faster and smarter than the others. Those are the ones that can mimic voices.”
You shrugged away and put your face in your hands. “This can’t be real. This has to be a fucking nightmare.”
“It is a nightmare alright,” Steve agreed with you. “But the thing is, we’re not asleep.”
“How do you know that though? This is probably one of those deep REM dreams that we won’t even remember once we wake up.”
“If this is a dream,” he had his hands on his hips and the sides of his mouth wiggled with a repressed grin. “How can I find you when we wake up? Do you have a phone number I can call or?”
You shifted your gaze to the floor so that you wouldn’t get lost in his eyes. “When you wake up, put another personal ad in the paper for me to find.”
“Deal,” he offered a genuine smile that time. The guy had perfect teeth; it almost made you self-conscious.
13
You had the impression that Steve lived somewhere on the premises, but that was not the case. The “spare room” he’d mentioned was a cot in the pantry. Apparently he lived in the family home he’d grown up in, but crashed at the diner more often than not. He changed the sheets and threw a Sesame Street comforter on that had probably once been on a twin bed for a child while you were in the bathroom. He handed you a spare toothbrush and before you went in, you asked if the toilet worked.
“Why wouldn’t it?” Steve was honestly confused.
“Well,” you gestured around vaguely. “If this is some type of post-apocalyptic wasteland where nothing new comes or goes, where is the electricity and water coming from?”
There was a main generator that powered the town, but he didn’t have a chance to get the words out.
Your throat constricted. “We are dead, we have to be.”
“Because the toilets flush?” He chuckled.
You bristled with annoyance and turned away. Not annoyance with Steve in particular but with your shit show of a life that refused to let you know peace.
“Hey listen, I know—-” Steve reached out for you only to freeze his hand in mid-air.
There was music coming from the dining area.
The sound was shrill static at first but then the chorus bloomed, and it took you a second to recognize that the song was When the Night Comes by Joe Cocker.
“I just wanna be the one you run to
I just wanna be the one you come to
I just wanna be there for someone
When the night comes”
“Steve…what is happening?” With each word you were moving toward the sound, disregarding the protests of your gut.
“Let's put all the cares behind us
And go where they'll never find us”
With the only other light being the moon shining through the slats in the blinds, the neon red and yellow caught your attention.
At a table near the window was a replica of an old jukebox, no taller than a bowling ball. There was a coin slot at the top and white buttons at the bottom to choose from the flipcards with song titles on them. As you approached, you checked out the window above it to see the shadows made by rows of trees and wondered what could possibly be lurking there, observing you.
“It does that sometimes,” Steve was a few steps behind, combing fingers through his hair.
“Two spirits in the night
That can leave before the morning light
When there's nothing left to lose
And nothing left to fear”
You stood at the end of the booth and stared at the machine. “Is it the same song every time?”
“Different ones,” his chest was inches from your back, his warm breath on your neck. “But this one is a favorite.”
“I know there'll be a time for you and I
Just take my hand and run away”
“Do you want to wear this?” He’d picked up the flannel and put it over your shoulders. “I saw you shivering.”
“Think of all the pieces of the shattered dream
We're gonna make it out some day”
Without taking your eyes off of the jukebox, you let him wrap the wool shirt with a quilted lining over you and then, without hesitation, your hand slipped into his and he held it there, interlacing his fingers to step to your side.
A strange weight lifted off of you at the idea of not being able to go home.
“Do you really think we’ll get out of here one day?” You asked in a whisper.
“I just wanna be there beside you
When the night comes”
Steve admired your profile. “I hope so,” his voice was a murmur. “But it doesn’t seem so bad here all of a sudden.”
The jukebox did not run on batteries and it was not plugged into a socket on the wall.
You tipped your chin up slowly to meet his gaze and, just then, out in the street, something inhuman scampered through the parking lot and into the woods.
His thumb gently rubbed along yours and you could smell a touch of cologne on the flannel.
“Steve, I think we should have some pie.”
He was staring at your mouth while he nodded in agreement.
The music cut off before the song was finished, and the jukebox went dark.
-----
My friends, thank you so much for reading. Hope you enjoyed.
(A few more than) Sixteen Candles - Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader
Summary: Nobody told you that your 30s were going to be just as awkward as your teenage years. Maybe even more-so. Then everyone goes and forgets your birthday? Oh! And there's also a hopeless nerd with a crush on you...who you might be crushing on a little bit too.
Word Count: 3.7k
Pairing: Older!Eddie Munson/Fem!Reader
Warnings/Themes: Birthdays, Humor, Friendship, Angst, Romance, Fluff, Coming of Age but that age is your 30s and it's worse, Maybe in the same universe as Eddie Munson's Day Off and The Office parody from CCFest but no need to read either of those before this one.
Note: Originally this was a birthday fic for @fracturedarkness AND @courtingchaos. But what is time; I am sincerely like...6 months late. So I'm going to tack on a few other bdays because that is the kind of fic this is. Birthday fluff for @bettyfrommars @somnambulic-thing @deadboyfriendd @tomtomslongdong I love you guys.
And I know I promised a subscript dedication for getting me to finish this today. But then I did realize we are in Aquarius season so this is a double dedication for you too.
You can find my masterlist here.
Please do not interact if you are not 18+.
Enjoy!
You had always thought your teenage years were the worst of your life. John Hughes seemed to always get it right in the movies, after all. Crying in hallways and learning life lessons. Awkward, didn't fit right in your body, changing emotions, self identity crises left and right, crushes on absolutely unattainable guys.
It turned out that your 30s were much of the same.
Except that instead of growing out of your figurative baby deer legs and blooming into a beautiful flower--according to your high school health teacher, at least--you were hurtling off a cliff towards your inevitable death.
"That's a little bit dramatic, don't you think?" your best friend asked over the phone as you complained to her. "You're not dying. We are not dying. It's just growing pains."
"We're supposed to grow out of growing pains," you huffed right back. "And I'm not growing. If anything, I'm shrinking."
"You're not shrinking! What are you? 60?"
"I might as well be!" You flopped backwards on your bed. "If I want anything to grow, it would be my boobs, but bras are expensive so thank you but I think I'd like to stay right where I am. Slowly rotting with nothing to look forward to."
"Oh-for-the-love..." There was a crinkly pause over the landline. "Listen, your birthday is coming up soon--"
"Don't remind me," you grumbled.
"--so you have that to look forward to, at least. You said they do balloons and cake at the office. Maybe you can suggest drinks with some of your coworkers? And I'll plan something so we can get away for the weekend!"
That did sound nice.
"Something with booze."
That sounded even nicer.
"And then you can forget about all your woes. You just have to make it to the end of next week."
You sighed. "I guess you're right."
"Of course I am."
Except she was wrong. Hugely, terribly wrong.
This, the day marking the anniversary of your birth, started uneventfully.
No, literally.
You lived alone, so it's not like you expected much. No roommates who decorated, which was kind of a bummer sometimes but such was the downside to the desire for your own space. No surprise breakfast in bed from a lover because you were Capital S Single. Shockingly, though, your parents--your mother specifically, who liked to celebrate the momentous occasion of her beloved child coming into the world by being the first to wish you a happy birthday--didn't call.
Even your cat, who liked to bap you awake to demand breakfast most mornings, left you alone.
So you woke up like you would on any other day, to the shrill sounds of your alarm clock. You swiftly threw an arm out and smashed your hands against the top of the wretched object until it shut up, and then you rolled over and tried to smother yourself with your pillow.
It was then, in fact, that you realized what day it was.
You lifted your head again and looked at the glowing red LED lights on the alarm clock. Was it too early? Had the time changed? Was it Daylight Savings? Usually someone called by now.
"Weird," you muttered to yourself. Weird, but not unwelcome. You could stand to be a little less of a diva on your birthday. Maybe your mother just had a little lie in. As a retiree, she was entitled to it, so good for her.
As you went through the motions of your morning, though, it seemed that everyone seemed to be lagging behind. Every thing.
Coworkers bustled in the lobby and one of them even pushed you out of the elevator because they needed to get up to your floor ASAP.
"Sorry," they apologized as the door slid shut. "Emergency meeting, I need to get up there."
And once you did make it to your floor, your cubicle, you were met with a big old nothing. No balloons, no banner, no coworkers to say happy birthday. The girl across the aisle from you, someone you considered your closest friend at work, didn't even say hello. Too busy tapping out some kind of spreadsheet in Excel.
That was weird to you, though. Marcy remembered everyone's birthday. She wasn't a part of the party planning committee but she always put her flair on everyone's special day, especially when it was someone she was close to.
"Hey Marce," you called out to her as you dropped your things on your desk. "Happy Friday."
"Hmm," Marcy barely responded. "Nothing happy about this Friday."
"Nothing?" you goaded her and then stepped to hover at the entrance of her cube. "There's nothing good about today."
"Nope." She popped the "p" and then stopped typing abruptly. She turned her head slightly over her shoulder and you raised your brows expectantly. "Unless you mean the board meeting at 11? Free bagels after they all scram? You love a 2pm bagel."
You did love a 2pm bagel. Sesame with the chivey cream cheese. Mmmmm. But that wasn't what you were getting at, obviously.
"You don't feel like you're forgetting something?" You felt a little guilty for pushing it, especially when she seemed so busy. It was just...there was that little part inside your heart that enjoyed the attention that birthdays brought, even if you were being a bit of a sourpuss about it this year.
"Oh! Fuck!" Marcy's voice echoed across the sea of cubicles. You felt the corners of your mouth quirk but you purposely forced a frown so you wouldn't seem too eager when she started grovelling. "The fucking Johnson report! Sorry, hon, I've gotta go down to records. I'll see you in a little while! I'll bring you a fresh coffee from the break room!"
She pushed past you and you watched, all anticipation draining from your body, as she ran down the endless aisle until she disappeared.
"Is this a remake of Sixteen Candles?" You asked yourself. "Did everyone forget my fucking birthday?"
And it might as well have been.
Because they did.
Change your name to Molly Ringwald and cue the Dragnet theme song, because before you knew it, headed straight for your desk was the biggest Geek in the company.
Ok, that wasn't fair. Mailroom Manager Eddie Munson wasn't the biggest geek in the company and he was actually a pretty nice guy. Always had a smile and was a fan of water cooler talk. He was, honestly, one of your favorite people at work. Pretty cute too. He just had piss poor timing, especially when you were in a bad mood.
You were honestly shocked that you hadn't scared him away yet.
You had just plopped into your desk chair when you saw him out of the corner of your eye. You didn't even giggle as he straightened his shoulders and fluffed his hair; it would usually amuse you to no end but you were just not in the mood for it today.
"Well if it isn't my favorite Senior Coordinator of Spreadsheets and Sales reports," he greeted cheerfully.
"Morning, Eddie," you droned in return. "What have you got for me today?"
His fingers danced along the tops of envelopes in his cart with the dexterity that would even put your keyboard-adept fingers to shame.
"There are proofs for your approval," he listed off and handed you a large manila envelope.
"Great," you deadpanned.
"And, oh, some intra-office mail. Is Jim in accounting sending love letters?"
You let out a laugh then, unable to keep it at bay.
"If anything, I need to start sending him love letters so that my expense reports don't get audited."
"And last but not least..." He made an exaggerated show of looking through the mail cart. "Hang on, I thought that it was here. I know I saw it." He scratched his chin before lifting a finger in the air in a silent eureka, then pulled a pretty, blue envelope from his back pocket. "Ta-Da."
You frowned and hesitantly took it from him; there was no stamp, no postmark, and it wasn't even addressed. No, your name was just scrawled across the front of it with the messiest handwriting you'd ever seen.
You ran your fingers gently over the pen marks that had been pressed too-hard into the paper, and then looked up at Eddie.
"Well?" He rocked back and forth on his toes excitedly. "Open it."
"Who's it from?" you asked, adding an edge of suspicion into your voice.
"Secret admirer? The president? Santa Claus?" He shrugged and grinned cheesily. "Could be from anyone? Can you just open it?"
You delicately peeled the envelope open, careful not to simply rip through the paper. You reached inside, pulled out the folded, heavyweight paper of a greeting card, and were met with a hand-drawn image of a cake. Not just any cake, either. It was the type of cake you vaguely remember mentioning to Eddie as being your favorite on your birthday last year, after Marcy had gotten you some fancy bakery monstrosity.
The drawing was a little cartoonish, a mixture of black ink and watercolor markers, but clearly recognizable as your favorite, with a few little candles atop it. You opened the card and out fell a bunch of hole-puncher confetti made from astro-bright printer paper.
You looked up at Eddie with the biggest smile on your face, and you sprang out of your chair so you could pull him into a hug.
"Happy birthday." He chuckled as you squeezed him tightly. "I guess you like the card."
"I love it!" You pulled away to point at the cake. "You drew this?"
He visibly blushed, then shoved a hand into his hair so he could bashfully rub the back of his neck. "I...I've been known for some artistic talents."
"It's great! I can't believe you remembered what I said about the cake! I can't believe..." You shook your head. "I can't believe you remembered my birthday."
"Well, why wouldn't I?" he asked. "We're..." He paused for a second. "Friends. Right?"
You felt your own cheeks get hot now. You weren't sure how to respond to that. So in the end you chose to focus on the lesser of two evils. "Nobody else remembered my birthday," you confessed. "So I figured...well, I figured I might as well not expect much across the board."
Cue a stereotypical Eddie Munson record-scratch moment. Times like these, you could practically hear it.
"Wait a minute..." He grabbed you by your upper arm as you tried to turn away. "What do you mean that nobody else remembered? Not even Marce? That's your partner in crime!"
"She's busy," you explained, both to yourself and to him. "And she's stressed. I don't blame her."
"Bullshit!" He practically shouted, his voice echoing over the cubicles. You shushed him and slugged him in the arm "That's bullshit. Even if Jeff was in the hospital and bleeding from his eyeballs, I would still expect him to say happy birthday at the very least." You shot him a skeptical look and he shrugged. "Ok maybe not then."
"It's ok," you insisted and slipped back into your chair. "It's fine. Really. She'll remember after she finishes her big report this afternoon, and she'll feel really bad about it and then pay for all my drinks at Happy Hour on Friday."
You tried turning your chair away to dismiss the subject, but Eddie swiveled you back around to face him and then he crouched to you were practically nose-to-nose.
"Who else forgot?" he questioned softly. His eyes darted between yours. "Everyone? Or everyone?" When you didn't respond, he let out a very low whistle. "Damn, well you're having a real Sixteen Candles kinda day, aren't you?"
"That's actually what I was thinking," you shrugged. "Only double the number of candles. Give or take a few...I dunno. Birthdays don't mean much when you get to a certain age but I guess it's still disappointing not to get something." You gestured down to the card. "Well, you know what I mean."
"You have enough problems when you get old." He agreed, then paused nervously. "Not that you're old...just a turn of phrase."
"I know, don't worry."
He stared pensively at you, then popped right back up to his feet and clapped his hands together. "Well, seems like a job for yours truly."
"What do you mean?" He ignored you and simply turned on his heel and zoomed away, pushing the mail cart ahead of him. You rolled out of your cubicle and shouted after him. "Eddie, what are you doing? Eddie!"
Although he was out of your sight, he shouted back.
"When you don't have anything, you don't have anything to lose, right?"
You blinked twice and then shook your head.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
You waited for the other shoe to drop all day.
Either the shoe where your coworkers came to the realization that it was your birthday.
Or the shoe where Eddie reappeared with whatever hare-brained scheme that popped up in his fluffy head.
Unfortunately, you were as shoeless as Cinderella. Actually, no. Less shoeless than her, considering that you were waiting for two shoes.
"Enough with the shoe metaphors," you scolded yourself and shook your head as you poured another cup of bland, office coffee.
You were an anxious wreck. You picked at the sandwich you'd packed for lunch and you even passed up afternoon bagels.
"Seriously?" Marcy waved her own poppyseed-and-chivey-cream-cheese creation under your nose. "No bagel?"
"No," you batted her hand away and sadly kept pressing buttons on your keyboard. "I think I have a stomach ache."
She immediately pulled the bagel out of your vicinity. "Well if you need to puke, please do it over there."
You tried laughing but the sound came out sad and dry.
You had been the kind of person who thought your thirties would change everything. Your teens were abysmal and your twenties were an awkward mess of journeys towards some elusive sense of self-identity. As soon as you hit 30, you thought "this was going to be your time." Romance, travel, adventure. Something out of a Marisa Tomei romcom. But instead it had been more of the same.
Birthdays were those special days that all of the crap life had to throw at you melted away. Celebrations of all sizes with everyone you knew. You should have known better than to expect that to last for very long. This year made something clear; you were worth nothing and your life was going nowhere. No need to expect much.
Then you glanced at the card that you'd tucked under your keyboard, and a smile forced its way to the corner of your mouth. Sure, he might've left you high and dry--he had work to do too, you couldn't blame him--but Eddie had your back when no one else did.
You heard the tell-tale sounds of your coworkers all signing off, clocking out, and closing the little lamps in their cubicles. You said your farewells with a little bit of a better attitude than you'd had all day.
"Next year," you sighed as you finished up a revised expense report, "I'm going to take the whole week off for my birthday. Go someplace nice. Alone." You looked at the card again. "Or maybe it will be with someone else."
You were one of the last ones out of the office at the end of the night, the beautiful glow of the sunset providing something of a bittersweet backdrop to your birthday. You grabbed your bag and coat, then headed towards the elevator; before you hit the button to head down to the lobby, you considered stopping by the mail room. Maybe to offer Eddie one last thank you for remembering your day? Maybe to ask him out for a drink if you were courageous enough?
You were not courageous, though; you simply hit the button and headed down to the lobby. You fumbled with your coat and with your bag as you went through the revolving doors. Almost cinematically, the cars that had been idling at the curb began to pull away, and you got a clear view of him:
Eddie, leaning against the side of his van, in the otherwise empty parking lot, just like Jake Ryan. He had his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, as he stared expectantly at the revolving door, waiting for you.
His smile got bigger and he extracted a hand out of his pocket to wave at you. You felt your cheeks get warm and you looked down at your feet for a second; then you lifted your eyes, somewhat bashfully and pointed at yourself.
"Yeah, you!" Eddie laughed. "Who else?"
"Is this your surprise?" you asked. He closed the distance and took your things from you in a very gentlemanly manner. "I almost missed you."
"No, you wouldn't have. I've been standing out here for a while waiting for you." He gestured back inside. "And no, this is not my surprise. I just figured...well, we're working with a theme. You'll see."
He led you inside and refused to answer your questions. You passed a few straggling coworkers behind as you rode the elevator back up to your floor and followed Eddie to the breakroom.
It was dark. Well, dim would've been a better word. The harsh, cold overhead lights were off and every counter and table was illuminated by a collection of candles that were usually found around the office on various desks and the supply closet. You recognized Marcy's own Sage and Eucalyptus scented therapy candle that she usually had on her desk for post-board-visit-panic-induced headaches; how had he gotten that without anyone noticing?
Most of the tables were pushed to the perimeter of the room, but there was one that remained right in the center, and on it was an overabundance of treats. Snack cakes, candy bars, bags of cookies. All from the visibly-empty vending machine in the corner of the room.
"It's not cake, but...surprise!" Eddie said softly. "A little birthday celebration just for you. With, uh...sixteen candles...doubled...give or take a few." He was right, as you got closer, you noticed them. Cute little birthday candles, unlit and all studded into the sugary feast. The exact number for your age. "I might've begged Deb in HR to sneak a peek at your personnel file. My uncle always said it isn't nice to ask a lady her age."
"It isn't," you immediately agreed, but then melted as you ran your eyes over the scene again. "Eddie...you didn't have to do this."
"But I wanted to," he insisted. "You deserve more than this, actually. You deserve a whole office birthday where everyone remembers you."
You shook your head and fought the smile as you took a few steps closer to get a better look. Before you got too far, though, you turned on your heel and pulled him into the biggest hug.
"You like it?" He laughed and squeezed you back, just as tightly as you were holding onto him. "Did I do alright?"
"You did more than alright." You closed your eyes and luxuriated in being surrounded by him. The feel of him, the sound of his voice, the smell of his cologne and the tinge of sweat from wearing his office attire all day. "This is the best surprise I've ever gotten. Thank you."
He pulled back and looked at you with a serious expression, even though the periodic quirk in his eyebrows and the corner of his mouth gave away his ruse.
"Even better than the card?" he questioned. "Because I think I worked harder on that surprise than this one.
"I'll cherish both surprises forever."
"I'm glad," he muttered. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
The proximity was suddenly very obvious, the heat of his body, his breath fanning over your face. You couldn't help the way your eyes dropped to his pretty pink lips, until his tongue poked out to wet them, then your gaze snapped back up to meet his.
You realized, at that moment, that it was unfair to think of him as Farmer Ted or Jake Ryan; Eddie was someone of his own caliber. Comparable to no one, second to none.
And this wasn't Sixteen Candles.
So you had a choice to make. Because you could just back away, you could enjoy his surprise for what it was. Treats and friendships and a good gesture from an even better coworker. You could let another year pass by and pretend that there might not be something more there.
Or you could take a chance, just like Eddie took a chance.
You inched forward, chicken that you were, then said fuck it. Your arms, of their own accord, pulled back from their place around Eddie's shoulders so you could grab his face and plant one on him. Your heart soared as you felt the sparks dance across your lips as they mashed with his. He inhaled sharply, in shock, and then melted into you. You felt his mouth shift into a smile as he returned the gesture, and then he pulled you closer.
You let yourself get lost in the kiss, so soft and tender and everything that you instinctively knew that Eddie was. It was overwhelming and so perfect and better than any birthday gift that you could've ever gotten. Not the card, not the snack cakes. Hell, not even a bar of gold could beat this.
Your heart swelled, and when you couldn't take it anymore, you pulled away and took joy in the way that Eddie leaned forward to follow your lips.
He hummed, and bit his lips, fighting a smile of his own. "Happy birthday to me."
"It isn't your birthday," you chuckled.
"It might as well be." He beamed. Overwhelmed by the moment, you tried to lean forward for another kiss but Eddie stopped you. "Hey now, wait. We've got the whole night to celebrate. We've got a bunch of snacks. And candles. Aren't you gonna blow out your candles? Make a wish?"
And you couldn't help but quote the movie that had defined the whole day.
Summary: You've come home to your quaint and close-knit small town, tail between your legs after a failed attempt at life, only there's a new handsomely moody resident no one told you about. Staring down the dark abyss of dreams unrealised never looked so good.
Warnings: Eddie is in his thirties, reader is late twenties, reader has a family backstory – brief mention of dead parents, swearing, implied sex, mention of Hawkins but no allusion to ST plot
Word count: 8k
Author's note: Like Gilmore Girls if Rory was a loser. Apologies to the tumblr overlords, this has taken me since June and I cannot tell if it's even any good! And sorry for nicking the title @rosewaterandivy – it's Jess' best quote!
Masterlist
If you had to choose a season to move back to your small hometown in Connecticut and wallow in the grief of failure, it would be Fall.
Spring or Summer would be too hopeful, new beginnings and indisputable reasons to go outside, the nights too hot to sleep. Winter might err on the side of too miserable. The town always looked like a snow globe under a fresh sprinkling of powder, but when the rain came and turned it to slush, it could be just as bleak as a big city. But Fall – with its vibrant red and crispy brown leaves, warm cinnamon doughnuts and hot chocolate from the bakery, comfy sweaters and slow browsing at the bookstore – would be the perfect cocoon for your broken heart.
So, you dared to hope anyway, as you snuck back into town in the middle of the night with the breeze that loosened the first fallen leaves. Avoiding the town's gossip and pitying, prying eyes as you drove through empty streets, shopfronts dark but still twinkling under fairy lights. The news would spread like an uncontained flame by the morning, that you could always count on, but for now it was a quiet homecoming. And you could pretend things were just the same. Like there was still something bigger out there waiting for you.
You drop your shoes at the door and lock it quietly behind you. Leaving your bags until the morning, your tiny bed calling you to disappear under the colourful blankets and freshly washed sheets. Everything is how you left it, stilled by time, and you’ve just willingly slowed right down to join it. The Ivy League pennants, band posters and hardcover bildungsroman would be taunting if you hadn’t immediately shut your eyes to it, burying your face in your pillow and letting your body unclench and feel safe. Sleep is beginning to pull at you when you feel the warmth of a body slide in beside you, the smell of saffron and rose, of summer days at the movies and winter nights on the couch, enveloping you along with her arms that reach across your waist. “Nice try, kiddo.” She whispers, and a sleepy smile pulls at your mouth – the first in a long time.
You were home.
***
“Everyone’s staring.”
“Nobody’s staring.”
You tilt your head to the window, where a small group of the nosiest town residents have gathered, talking animatedly and gesturing towards your table inside the diner.
Your aunt sighs, “Okay, I was trying to be gentle.” She throws a plastic menu at the window. “Get a life!” The gruff diner owner comes over and stands at the window, arms crossed, face stony enough that any of the ogglers that weren’t spooked by the menu throwing now disperse quickly.
He picks up the menu and places it back on the table, pointing at your aunt, “No throwing.” She smiles at him, and you swear you see a hint of a smile in return before he walks away. You always thought he had a crush on her.
Your shoulders slump even further, practically melting into the table when you shove in another mouthful of fluffy pancakes, “Everyone’s staring.”
“It’ll be old news by next week. They’re just excited to have you home.” She pats your arm, her other hand curled around a large mug of coffee.
“It’s pity, not excitement.”
She offers a pout, so sincere and warm it tugs at your chest, “Are you gonna be okay while I’m at work?”
You muster a nod, “Yeah, I was just going to stop by the bookstore and stock up, then begin my life as a shut-in.”
“That’s the spirit.” She swallows the last of her coffee, leaving cash on the table and kissing you on the forehead. “I’ll bring home pizza for dinner.” You’re too busy finishing your pancakes and wallowing in self-pity to notice her make a ‘keep an eye on her’ gesture at Luke, the diner owner and oft-worshipped sustenance provider.
Your aunt was only sixteen years older than you, the same number of years you were when she’d moved into this town and into your house after a basic tale of orphaned tragedy befell you. The whole situation was made slightly less tragic by the colour she brought along with her – movie nights overflowing with popcorn and junk food, a superior taste in music, a loose set of rules regarding your young adolescent social life (mostly to encourage you to actually leave the house and make friends), tales of the world that awaited you, and a fairly inadequate cooking ability (hence the close relationship with the local restauranteur). She was there for all the adolescent milestones. Unrequited crushes, driving exams, college applications, the many rejections in both romance and professional attempts – always with a fresh tub of cookie dough ice cream, a Macy Gray CD and a funky outfit.
She made sure to let you know that home would always catch you, even if you felt like you were too old to still be falling.
With a deep breath you leave the comfort of the diner for the crisp morning, not having to walk too far down the main street to the front door of the bookstore. It jingles when you open it and you’re relieved to find it empty. Andrew, the owner, must be out the back. You lose yourself in the aisles, eventually moving to a seat in the corner with a couple of potential purchases when your neck begins to burn from reading spines.
You’re curled up in this spot, rain pattering quietly against the window, wearing a soft grey sweater that was neither a grab at nostalgia nor comfort, but your only option in clean clothing, when through the smell of paper and the pumpkin spiced candle burning at the counter, something dark and woodsy catches your attention, pulling you out of a trance along with a deep voice.
“Thanks for holding it for me.”
“How’d you like the last one?”
“I read it in a coupla’ days. Pretty good for you know, not Steven King.”
He looks over at the same time your eyes travel up, catching you in his dark stare as Andrew bags up his purchase, brown eyes glinting in the warm light. Your breath hitches and you look back down at your book, quickly, reflexively. There’s a moment when he continues staring, only briefly, but enough to make you hot under your sweater while you pretend to read, then he moves, leaving with the tinkling of the bell on his way out.
“W-who was that?”
Andrew looks up at your voice, “Oh! You wouldn’t have met him yet. That’s Eddie. He moved to town about a year ago. He works a couple of shifts at Gypsy’s during the week and bartends in Woodford on the weekend. Big Fantasy guy.”
You smile at that last remark, but quickly put it away. “Well then.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you don’t come home for a while.”
And there it is. You take your selections to the counter, impatient to get back home and away from probing eyes – even the impossibly dark and pretty ones.
***
Eddie noticed the change as soon as he woke up that morning, there was a crack in his bedroom window he’d been meaning to fix, and it whistled with the wind, beating his alarm to the punch.
The trees were something else in this part of the country. Halloween was big in Hawkins, but here they had a whole festival for Fall before the carved pumpkins even made their way to doorsteps. The road was carpeted in red and brown on his short drive to work, but it seemed the leaves weren’t the only change the town was talking about. He’d heard whispers in the diner when he stopped by for his morning coffee. The town’s golden girl had returned. A small blue car parked in a normally vacant spot outside the house on Peach.
He'd met Lorelai a few times around town, and her niece was apparently a lot like her, just with a slightly tighter grasp on reality. But she’d been away for a while, living in New York, a Joan Didion meets Ann Powers type if he were to make a comparison from what little he knew. Only now she wasn’t, and the talk of the town was she’d moved back in, unemployed. He felt a little bad for her. He couldn’t face returning to Hawkins after his own lost years on the road – hell, he’d moved here instead. It couldn’t be easy, especially with a town this idling. But from what he knew, she was an Ivy League girl, chasing a by-line, going from success to success – maybe she needed to be taken down a peg. He’d tossed that thought away quickly, it didn’t make him any better than the gossip mill.
For the most part, the townspeople were odd but welcoming. It’s not a place he’d thought he’d ever end up, it was even smaller than Hawkins, but it grew on him quickly and he on them. Gypsy, the town’s mechanic found him useful, it was as simple as that. He didn’t go to the To Kill a Mockingbird-like town meetings, but he unwillingly got caught up in all the town’s comings and goings when he worked shifts at the bar.
Eddie was content with his new middling but peaceful existence after all the challenges life had thrown at him.
That was until he’d gone to the bookstore on his morning break, hoping to pick up the latest book in the series he was reading, and saw you. His eyes wandered over to the corner, and he knew who you were straight away, curled up in the chair sporting a Yale sweater, so engrossed in your book you barely even notice him.
So, you were pretty – stop and creepily stare, beautiful really – as well as smart. And they say you’d inherited your aunt’s dry wit. Great. Looks like the Universe wasn’t done throwing spanners his way; thick heavy ones he’d never quite figured out how to dodge in time. He comes to his senses and bolts out the door, paper bag in hand. Fucking, great.
***
“Honey, I’m–oh that’s a lot of laundry.”
Your aunt stops short in the living room, large pizza box balancing in her hand.
“This is the second load.” You place a folded t-shirt on pile number three taking up the sofa. “New York is dirty.”
“Hmm,” She turns towards the kitchen, “Fresh, clean air goes on the pro list for Connecticut. Along with Joe’s pizza.”
“I’m sorry, you think New York doesn’t have better pizza?”
“Joe is from New York,” she yells over the clatter of plates, “plus a Stars Hollow slice is probably like half the price.”
“Can’t argue with that.” You mumble. A flash of wild hair enters your mind out of nowhere, and you take a breath before speaking again. “I saw the new guy in town today. Eddie?”
The clack of her heeled boots echoes through the house as she runs back to you, pizza almost sliding off the plates.
“Wow. That was quicker than I was expecting.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned him. It must’ve been front-page news when he moved in. With that hair.” You gesture around your head, moving your piles of clothes so you can both sit.
“I had a feeling you’d find each other on your own.”
You roll your eyes, “Oh, please.”
She points at you, “Don’t even try it, kid. I’ve been home five seconds and you just had to talk about him. I knew you two would hit it off.”
“We didn’t hit it off. We made exactly zero point three seconds of eye contact in the bookstore, and I asked Andrew who he was after he left.”
She takes a bite of her slice, talking through a mouthful, “Of course you met him in the bookstore. Was there any hint of this happening in your cards?”
“I haven’t done a reading in a long time.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I know what the future holds, and it’s bleak.”
She tuts, “Scaredy cat. We’re doing one right now.” She stands up to look through the drawer under the landline.
“Nooo.”
“Yes!” She holds up a packet of tarot cards with a satisfied and slightly menacing grin.
***
Leaves crunch under your feet as you walk the streets to the diner, Nick Drake blasting through the foam headphones of your old portable CD player. You’d found it the other day during your attempt to clear space for your big city baggage, giving up when you became too nostalgic and your room only got messier – a problem for a future, less burned you.
Fortunately, the one place nostalgia only wrapped you up gently in its warm embrace and didn’t feel like a swift kick to the chest, happened to serve the best coffee and pancakes anywhere in the world (or so you presumed, you weren’t that well-travelled).
You remove your headphones as you take a seat at the counter. Luke offers you a head tilt of acknowledgement and places a hot takeaway cup next to you.
“Oh, I was just going to sit here for a while.”
“It’s not for you.”
A ringed hand places some change next to the cup, and you follow the leather jacket-clad arm up to that head of wild curls. He shifts awkwardly at the attention as you feel the heat crawling up your neck again, like you were a high school girl with a crush on the one boy who didn’t look like the rest of the cookie-cutter teenagers, Sabbath t-shirt and longer hair than the trending style. Instead of greeting him, like a normal human being, you pivot, turning your attention back to Luke.
“You’re serving strangers before me now?” He pours coffee into a dramatically large mug he’s placed in front of you. Your favourite green one with the chip on the saucer.
“Eddie’s lived here for longer than you have in the last five years. If anyone’s the stranger–“
“Alright, alright, I get it!” You drag the mug towards you. “You must all be so pleased it was all for nothing.”
Luke crosses his arms, “All for noth–you want me to get the scrapbook out?”
Your eyes widen, “Please God, no.”
He smirks, “Eddie hasn’t seen the scrapbook.”
You glance at him, the poor guy’s eyes moving quickly between the back-and-forth conversation. “Andrew says he’s a reader. Real readers don’t enjoy my writing. Just let him leave with his coffee unoffended, to go about his day.” Luke walks away with a chuckle, and you’re left with Eddie, who looks lost, unsure of whether he can leave. You take a sip of your coffee. “Sorry, that was a weird way of introducing myself.” You give him your name, opting to not offer your hand as well due to its clamminess.
“Uh, Eddie.” He tips his head.
“I know,” you nod. “This is a very small and very strange town you’ve found yourself in.”
He smiles a little, scratching the back of his neck, drawing your eyes to the prominent vein there. “I’ve gathered as much.” You turn back to your coffee, hands and eyes focused on the ceramic cup. He clears his throat, “I guess I’ll see you around then.”
“More than you’ll want to.”
He opens his mouth, frown lines etched across his forehead briefly before he turns and walks away instead. What kind of thing is that to say to someone you just met? Your bitterness, it seems, will be clinging on like a shadow.
***
After a few days back in town, you’re already starting to feel claustrophobic. Tired of the pitying tuts and arm touches. The questioning of your “next steps”, which, depending on the devotedness of the asker’s conservatism, made you either feel like you were a fresh graduate again or that you were recovering from alcoholism.
Of course, when you try to make a break for it and go for a drive, the universe decides to have a chuckle at your expense once again. Your head finds the steering wheel in exhaustion when the engine gives nothing but a sputter in response to your key, and you find yourself making the short walk to the mechanic in town instead.
“Hey Gypsy.” She beams in dirty coveralls at your appearance.
“I was wondering if I’d be seeing you soon. How’s the little zipper running?”
“Not very zippy. Can’t get her started.” Your arms fold on top of the car separating you. “Would you be able to come take a look?”
She shrugs, “Not today. Flat out. Eddie can go.”
Your back straightens as he appears, in similarly soiled coveralls but his are tied at the waist, a ratty t-shirt fairing no better to the grease, his hair pushed away from his face by a red bandana. You forgot he might be here.
He looks over at Gypsy’s call. “Eddie, go take a look at Ivy’s car.”
You clarify with embarrassment at the look of confusion he gives you. “Terrible nickname. The college acceptance letters arrived at the same time as another town festival. There was a town crier and t-shirts made. It was horrifying–“ you trail off. “Um, I live at the end of Peach, but if you’re busy–“
“I’ll grab some tools.” You wait for him as he does just that. Leading in silence a couple of streets away. The sun was cutting through the chilled air today, bouncing golden off the leaves.
You hand him your key when you get to the car, praying it wasn’t one of those situations that made you look like an idiot when it worked for someone else.
“It just won’t turn over.”
Eddie leans an arm on the top of your car while he tries the ignition, squinting against the sun as it sputters just the same as it had before. He pulls a lever below the steering wheel to pop the hood, clicking the metal arm in place, his hands immediately getting lost in the depths of the engine. He pulls out something that looks like a small metal screw and holds it up.
“Spark plug needs replacing.” You just nod, trusting he knows what he’s talking about. He wouldn’t be working with Gypsy if he didn’t. “When was the last time you had a service?” You open your mouth and close it again as you try to do the math. Eddie licks his bottom lip, “Never mind. I can bring some more tools over and give it a once over while I’m at it.”
“If you find a free parking spot in New York City, you don’t move.” You smile weakly, and it grows genuine when Eddie chuckles in response.
“Yeah, same as Chicago.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
He shakes his head, “No. Just lived there for a while.” He points down the street. “I’ll go get some tools and come back?”
“I’m not going anywhere.” You shrug. “Take your time.”
He taps the spark plug on his palm, and you think he’s about to say something else before he turns and walks off. Why does he keep doing that? God, you want to know what he’s thinking.
Ten minutes later, you’re sitting on the porch swing reading when he pulls up in a pick-up truck. He unloads a few heavy bits of equipment, getting to work without a glance in your direction, so you go back to your book.
You spend half an hour like that, both seemingly concentrating on your own tasks. Eddie unaware that your eyes keep wandering to his arms while he works. You, ignorant to the fact that it’s taking the full strength of Eddie’s willpower to keep his gaze on your car.
You give in when you realise you’ve spent fifteen minutes on one page, brain unable to absorb the words, moving inside instead with the intent of making yourself a snack, but you realise you should probably offer Eddie something. The fridge is empty, in desperate need of a trip to the store, so you end up making two peanut butter jelly sandwiches. He’s underneath the car when you appear again, wedged in on one of those rolly things. You’re about to tap his foot with your own when you have a panicked vision of startling him. You interrupt as softly as you can.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, I’m almost done.”
“Okay, um do you want a sandwich?”
You step back when he rolls out, he squints up at you, eyes softening when he sees the plates in your hand.
He sits up, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s just peanut butter and jelly. We don’t really have anything else edible. Actually, the bread’s questionable.” You wince while he stands.
He holds up his grease covered hands, which you stare at until he speaks, “Can I wash up?”
“Oh yeah, just in the kitchen.” You turn back towards the house, and he follows you, but you turn to find him gone when you place the plates on the kitchen table. You open your mouth to call out before he appears, bootless and in socks. You smile, “You didn’t have to take your shoes off, it’s not that type of house.”
“I didn’t want to track anything in.”
“We play slapsies to figure out whose turn it is to clean, and we’re definitely overdue.” You look down at the crumbs on the floor with a scrunch of your face.
Eddie walks over to the sink and scrubs vigorously up his arms, then takes a seat next to you. He eats his sandwich in four bites.
“I think we have some Pop-Tarts.”
He shakes his head, “I’m okay, thank you.” You expect him to get up and go back to work, but he sits for a moment, tapping his fingers on the table. “Your writing isn’t offensive by the way. It’s good.” Eddie stammers an explanation at the puzzled look on your face. “I googled you at the library.” He rubs his forehead roughly. “That was fuckin’ weird.” Your laugh eases some of the tension in his shoulders and he hopes to god it’s not directed at him, but the idiot routine has worked in his favour before. “I just heard that you’d written for The Times and all these places, and I was curious. You’re really good.”
Something squeezes your chest, grief once again pulling you under.
“Yeah, well, not good enough as it turns out.” He doesn’t know what to say. No one ever does. You interrupt the threatened silence, saving him from having to come up with something pitying and take his plate away, telling him you won’t keep him from finishing up the work. He gets back to it with a nod, working quickly and starting to pack up in another ten minutes. You meet him at his truck, knock-off leather wallet out.
“I’d say don’t worry about it, but I’m not sure Gypsy’d be happy with me coming back with nothin’.”
You laugh, “Too many free of charge jobs for pretty girls then?”
He shakes his head, “No–I don’t–it’s not…”
“I’m just messing Eddie, it’s fine. I don’t expect anything for free. Gypsy works hard. So do you, I’m sure.”
He tries to undercharge you, but you give him a little more, knowing it’s still not enough but accepting his kindness out of necessity. You watch from the porch as he drives off, jumping at the sudden voice coming from your neighbour, shouting across your gardens.
“You hittin’ that yet, sugar?” Babette was turning the last corner of her 50s, living smitten with her husband of ten years and their two cats.
You call back, “No.”
“He’s got some jawline – and a great ass. Better get in there quick, hun. The young divorcees have been circling him since he got here.” Your head tilts in thought as she walks back inside. She was rarely ever wrong, Babette.
***
“You scored the sofa, good job.”
Your aunt plops down next to you, sinking into the worn red fabric. She digs a hand into the large paper bag on her lap and pulls out fries, then a soggy burger, which you take from her.
“Fiesta burger?”
“Of course.”
The bookstore-come-movie theatre starts to fill up as you take the first few bites. The lingering stares had almost completely subsided now that you’d been back a month, and the freshness of failure wasn’t hanging around you like a bright neon aura. Your body relaxing back into familiar spaces and the routine of a quieter pace of life.
You’re eating the last handful of fries when an unmistakable head of hair finds a seat in front of you.
“Oh good Eddie, you can help settle an argument from earlier. Megadeath or Metallica?”
You begin rolling your eyes, but stop when Eddie turns around, softly perplexed at your aunt’s attention.
“Uh, do you mean who do I prefer? They’re not really comparable.”
She chuckles, “God, you’re such a nerd.”
You quickly clarify her tone when you spot a blush spreading across his cheeks, “That’s a good thing in our house. We lo–we like nerds. You should hear her talking about the golden age of Hollywood.”
“What’s your specialist subject?”
Your stomach does a flip, a smile tugging at your lips. It’s been a while since you met someone who was able to keep pace with the two of you.
“She has many.” You shy away from the cheek pinching.
“Do you want to go get the popcorn before the movie starts?”
You try to remove your aunt from the conversation but she just points to the food she’s filled her cheeks with and mumbles, “Why don’t you and Eddie go?”
Eddie follows you to the small snack bar at the front, “Please excuse my aunt. She can be a bit…familiar.”
He leans against the candy cabinet while a teenager scoops the popcorn into a bucket. “I like her,” he smiles, “you two are really close, huh?”
“She’s my best friend,” you admit. “Which sounds a little sad, I know, but she helped raise me. She was there when…she’s always been there.”
Eddie nods, “I get it. My uncle raised me.”
You brighten at this morsel of information on the cryptic metalhead. “Really?”
“Yeah. We’re not exactly best friends; it was more of a Gandalf guiding the hobbits type of relationship, but I’d still do anything for him. He never gave up on me, even when everybody else had already written me off.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
He nods again as you take the bucket of popcorn, “He is.”
You want to ask him if he misses him. Where exactly he is. Where he’s from. But seeing as this is the most Eddie has talked to you since you’d met, you don’t want to spook him, so instead you say, “You can move seats and pretend you don’t know us if you want. We won’t be offended. She provides a lot of commentary during movies and she’s not a very good whisperer.”
He smiles and follows you back to the seating area, “It’s okay.” He doesn’t take his seat in front of you. Instead, he sits beside you on the couch. There’s still plenty of room with the three of you, but you clock the move nonetheless. As does your aunt, who raises her eyebrows as she takes a handful of popcorn.
***
“How ‘bout this one?” Your aunt holds up a white picnic basket.
“Way too big. Have you seen the contents of our fridge?”
“You’re being too honest. You have to falsely advertise and stuff it with napkins to lure them in.”
“What did we do with all the baskets from previous years? Shouldn’t we have some at home?”
“We donated them every time we did a clear out, thinking that we never go on picnics, why would we need picnic baskets, forgetting of course, this quaint annual tradition of our little town.”
“Right,” you nod. “The women get to make a basket of homemade food. The men get to bid on it, and the world gets to rotate backwards on its axis.”
“I think it’s fun,” she claps.
You pick up a smaller basket, just big enough for two containers of leftover takeout. “That’s because you’ve always got someone cute bidding on yours, even if it's full of napkins and stale pizza.”
The town square is full of excitement as you place your baskets amongst the pile, ignoring the mayor’s disapproving look at his watch and finding a place in the crowd, coffees in hand. The bidding begins on baskets decorated with flowers, stuffed with homemade pies, cookies and sandwiches. Partners making their loved ones happy, crushes revealing themselves in Hallmark simplicity.
Then your basket is held up.
“Shall we start the bidding at three dollars?”
“Hey.”
The mayor shrugs, gavel loosely held in his hand.
“Five dollars.”
Your head spins around, looking for a voice in the crowd, “Who was that?”
“Six!”
The quick opposing bid from a face you vaguely recognise, “Is that Peter Cutler from middle school? I thought he was married.”
“Ten.” A different voice altogether has your head spinning around in confusion.
“What’s happening? Who are all these people?”
“Uh, oh.”
You look at your aunt, “What?”
“That’s why Babette was showing your picture to the UPS guy.” She winces as the situation sinks in. You really were being auctioned off. For a mere ten dollars.
“No, no, no.” You shake your head. “What do I do?!”
“Uhh,” she looks around frantically, spotting something in the crowd and making a motion like a plane landing.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping…I think.”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifty dollars.” Now there’s a voice you recognise, though you can’t see where it’s come from. Deep, cool, and liable, you think, to get you on your knees at some point.
“Do you know what’s in this, young man?” You roll your eyes at the mayor’s unhelpful commentary, “Alright, fifty dollars going once…”
Silence from the scattered group apparently vying for your attention – all for under a crumpled twenty. “Well, it’s certainly nice for my pitiful worth to be yelled out for all to hear.”
“Sold. To the leather jacket-clad young man, who plays the loud music.”
You watch Eddie go up the makeshift stage to collect the basket. “What just happened?”
“Think you just scored a date with the sweet metalhead.” Your aunt smirks into her coffee.
You look at her, “Did you plan this?”
“I may have nudged him to swoop in, but it seems your knight didn’t need much of a push.”
Eddie finds you after, the auctioned dispersing with their buyers for a romantic or platonic lunch, your aunt off to negotiate some light fixtures from the electrician she bagged.
“Thank you for saving me.” You smile at him as he approaches.
“You looked uncomfortable. This is supposed to be fun, for charity – I think. I’m not really sure what this was all about.” He holds up the basket, “It feels kinda sexist to me.”
You smile, “One of those traditions it’s hard to criticise without sounding like an asshole because it’s for the benefit of the town.”
Eddie nods, peaking into the basket, “So watchya bring?”
“Oh, it’s not–we should just go for pizza or something, that’s–if you want to.”
He takes a plastic container out and sniffs under the lid, scrunching up his nose, “What is that?”
You laugh, “I don’t even know. Could be Kung Pao, could be Sweet and Sour.”
“You were going to let some poor, innocent guy eat this?”
You shrug through laughter, “I didn’t know what was going to happen! Figured it might be an easy out in case it went horribly wrong, which it almost did!”
Eddie smirks, “Almost. So, this isn’t worst-case scenario?”
“No,” you admit. “Not at all.”
He blushes, putting the container back in the basket, “Seriously though, how do you not have a reputation as the town food poisoner?”
You push his shoulder, “Hey! It’s been a while since I’ve taken part in a town ritual. My friend and I used to bid on each other’s baskets and hang out. She moved away around the same time I did. Currently travelling the country with her band while her mother prays for her soul.”
“She sounds cool.”
“She is. You’d like her. She’d give you a run for your money on encyclopaedic music knowledge.”
“Maybe, I’ll give her a run for her money on picnic hangouts.”
“Are you literally threatening me with a good time, Eddie?”
“I believe I am.” He holds a hand to his chest before gesturing outwards, “After you, fair maiden.”
***
“So aside from giving D&D advice to young friends over the phone, what else do you do with your spare time?”
Eddie throws his crust into the pizza box, leaning back on his hands as his foot taps gently on top of the water underneath the bridge. A swan flaps its wings further down the pond.
“I run music classes at the senior centre on Tuesdays.”
Your face screws up; every new bit of information too much to handle. “What are you a fucking saint?”
His eyebrows raise, a chuckle in disbelief. “I guess the devil worship rumours haven’t followed me from Hawkins.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yeah, about 800 miles that way, Indiana.” He points behind him. “Less quaint, but smaller in minds.”
“So, what brought you here?”
You see the toss up happening in his head, whether or not he wants to divulge that much information, “That one’s a much longer story,” he gestures to the sky that had quickly begun to darken in the last half hour, “we’ll be out here all night.” He clears his throat, then offers to help you up when he stands. You’d been out all day since the basket auction – book shopping, talking.
“Thanks again for saving me from a dreadful lunch.”
Eddie rubs his jaw, “I might’ve stopped you from finding true love or somethin’.”
“Considering none of them were obviously prepared to fork over more than twenty dollars for me–“ you laugh, hiding your face in embarrassment–“god, that’s such a horribly medieval sentence. You’re right, this tradition is terrible.” Eddie smiles. “Anyway, I’m not exactly in the right headspace for dating right now.”
He licks his bottom lip, “Oh?”
You flush, wanting to back track. Wanting to stop your mouth from saying something you don’t even really believe, “I just–don’t know what I’m doing with my life, you know. Everything’s–I’m–it’s all a mess. Dating sucks enough as it is, I’m not about to drag the little self-esteem I have through that minefield.”
“Right.” He shifts, eyes darting around, “Yeah, minefield.”
“What about you?” Why were you still talking.
He looks at you then, head bobbing in question, “What about me–“
“Babette says the divorced mums of Stars Hollow are after you.”
He chuckles, “I don’t know about that.”
“You should be careful.”
His eyebrows shoot up, “I should?”
“Small town, and all that.” You shrug, and Eddie smirks at your stumbling.
“It’s not exactly my style.”
You ignore the drop in your stomach. The glimmer of hope in your chest at the way he looks at you, “No?”
He shakes his head, swallowing his lips, arms crossed over his chest. “More of a bookstore and pizza kinda guy, I guess.”
He’s offering it to you. A subtle acknowledgment. Of this being more than just a favour from an almost friend. His eyes swimming with a sincerity that you can’t pretend to not see.
“Good.”
He smiles bashfully, looking down at his feet. “Good.”
You pick up the pizza box by your feet, and Eddie’s gaze follows you.
“Walk me home?” Another offering. A definitive end-of-date ceremony. He nods in response, letting you lead the way back through town.
***
The rain soaking through your clothes and plastering your hair to your forehead, the cause of that awful squelching sound in your shoes, at least covered up the fact you’d been crying for the last twenty minutes; tears and raindrops mixing to provide the perfect cover.
When you take a seat at the end of the bar, Eddie’s concerned furrow of his brow proved, however, you weren’t really hiding it that well at all.
“What happened?”
You shake your head, throat constricting so you take a second before talking. You don’t want to cry in front of him. “Nothing. Just had a really bad job interview today, like worst I’ve ever had probably.”
“Shit, sorry.” He leans over the bar instantly when your eyes tear up again, holding onto your sodden shoulder.
“It’s not a big deal, like at all,” you try to smile. “I just feel so stupid. It’s such an easy job, writing newsletters and memos for the city council’s office–I could do it in my sleep. How could I tank it?”
“Hey, you don’t want that job anyway.” Your laugh is wet, self-deprecating. A sound Eddie knows all too well.
“I do!” His eyes dart around the crowded bar quickly when your voice rises, before settling back on you. “I want something, anything I can just do, and it doesn’t really matter if I’m good at it. I want a paycheck, I want to be independent again, to have some form of control over my life. I don’t want to think about how much I suck anymore, I just want to get on with life and forget I ever had any stupid dreams!”
“C’mere.” Eddie tugs you up off the barstool and steers you around the bar, out the door with a lit-up exit sign above it. It’s stopped raining outside, but you’re more focused on Eddie’s hands. One is firmly gripping your arm while the other wipes your face and hair with a clean dish towel you hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed.
The softness in his eyes only pulls more tears from you, which you quickly help him wipe away.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise. You had a bad day.”
“It’s more than that–I’m,” you cover your face with your hands, “I’m such a loser.”
Eddie pulls your hands away, “Hey, c’mon.”
“It’s true! I keep failing, I can’t even talk about myself for ten minutes to get a mind-numbing job. Everything that I’ve worked for all these years means nothing because I’m not good enough. I was never good enough. I just studied my ass off, and for what? A few years of stumbling through, barely scraping by, rejection after rejection after rejection. I hated the city, it was so big and everybody’s always in a hurry, but I didn’t want to just come home. I don’t know what to do. What am I going to do? I’m pathet–“
The feeling of Eddie’s lips crushing against yours makes you suddenly aware of the rapid beating of your heart. It slows, with the lowering of your shoulders as he melts your collision into a soft pace of movement. Then he pulls away, leaving only an inch or two between your faces.
“What–I–are you turned on by pathetic losers or something?”
You feel the breeze of his laugh tickle your face, and your body relaxes further into his hold. “You’re not even close to true loserdom, sweetheart, trust me, but yeah, everything about you turns me on. I thought that was obvious.”
“Why would that be obvious?”
“’Cause I can’t even talk around you.”
“I thought you were just quiet.”
A pained laugh escapes him, and his hair brushes your shoulders as he shakes his head, “No. I’m not just quiet.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” He leans in slightly, your head pulling to match like a magnet, before he leans back out again. “Why did you come here?”
You take a breath, “I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want her to know I failed again.”
He nods slowly, knowing who you mean by her. Knowing how it feels to want to hide things from someone who altered their life to raise you. “I get it. But I’m sure she wouldn’t–“
“I wanted to see you too. Didn’t want to talk to anyone else. Just wanted to see you.” He kisses the side of your mouth with a gentle smile when you confess to his shoes. “Is that okay?”
Another peck to your lips. “It’s good.”
“Good,” you whisper in return before he steals your breath with the longest kiss yet.
“I get off in twenty, can you hang around 'till then? I can take you to mine, I think I’ve got…pretzels, maybe. Definitely some beer…Sorry, I didn’t really think that through.”
“I’d like that.”
Kiss. “Fuck.” Kiss. “Just give me.” Kiss. “Twenty.” Kiss. “Minutes.”
Eddie drives you back to his. After pouring you your favourite drink and checking the clock behind the bar in between every customer. And it doesn’t take long for you both to abandon the pretence of beer and pretzels, tossing the salted snack bag on the floor when your lips and hands tug him in another direction. Turns out he does have a lot to say. About you, your body, how it reacts under his sheets. Eddie Munson is a talker after all. He could just never find his words around you.
Until last night.
Which is why your first reaction is confusion when you awake the next morning, a crack in his window and the breeze of the morning raising goosebumps along your skin – the bed empty. The bathroom empty. The kitchen empty. The living room empty.
But then your brain reminds you. Pathetic. Weeks of bashful flirting and one night of sex doesn’t mean, what? A pancake breakfast and your problems solved?
You dress quickly, huffily, as buttons are fumbled and things are dropped repeatedly. Idiot.
***
“And where were you last night young lady?”
“I don’t want to talk about it before coffee.” You brush past your aunt on her way out of the house to work, catching the not-so-subtle scan of the clothes you’d left in yesterday.
“Gypsy called this morning. She said you can pick up your car this afternoon.”
You groan, head hitting the front door in a thud. Your car. The reason why you took the bus to your interview yesterday, because Eddie had warned you that you’d need a new…something to do with your engine anyway, and then he’d ordered it and told you to drop off your car whenever you wanted. Because he was a nice guy. Who did you favours. Who didn’t owe you anything, least of all the kindness he showed you last night.
“Fuck.”
“Okay, well good luck with whatever’s going on there.”
You wave her off as she skips lightly down the front steps.
***
Please be on lunch break, please be on lunch break, please be on lunch break.
“Hey!”
Fuck. “Hi. Is Gypsy around?”
Eddie steps from behind the car he was working on, wiping his hands on his coveralls. “No, but your car’s ready, I’ll grab the keys.” He startles you with a peck on your cheek before he disappears into the back office. Black Sabbath is pouring out of a speaker on the work bench, which he turns down on his way back to you, swinging your key around his finger. He’s grinning, and you frown at his energy.
“Don’t worry about payment this time, alright.”
You scoff, unable to help it, and then his hands find your arms and you stiffen under his touch, “I can pay for it, Eddie. I don’t need your help.”
He steps back at your tone; at the way you don’t melt. Squinting at you.
“What happened? I thought we…I thought last night was good?”
You stare at his scuffed work boots. “It was.”
“Okay, so…I’ll see you around six at the diner?”
“Why would you see me at the diner?”
“Because I–” he pauses, “Did you read the note?”
“What note?” You huff, looking at him now.
His frown deepens for a moment, then he’s grinning again, “You thought I didn’t leave you a note. You’re mad…you like me.”
“Excuse me?!”
“I didn’t want to wake you before I went to work this morning, so I left a note. It must’ve slipped off the pillow. I said I’d meet you at the diner after I was done. To talk,” he traces a finger up and down your arm, “about how we can have a repeat of last night continuously until the day I die, a very lucky and fulfilled man.”
“Oh, well…”
“You were so mad.” He grins.
“No, I wasn’t–I was just–you–you don’t owe me anything. I know that. It’s okay, if it was just a one-night thing, it’s just a little awkward in this town is all–”
His lips press against yours in a smile, and you can feel the light chuckle knocking against his chest, “Sorry, I cut you off again. What were you saying?”
You shake your head, “Nothing intelligent.”
***
Red cellophane crinkles in your grasp, your aunt leaning above you on the ladder, hanging another caramel apple in the tree. The light from inside the house catches on the plastic, making them sparkle like Eve’s forbidden fruit. You can already hear the sugared screams of kids in the street, a big plastic bowl of candy ready for them on your porch steps.
“You’ll get a job kid, I know you will. But I really want to know more about this date tonight.”
You hand her another apple. “How do you know about that?”
“I ran into Eddie at the market, he’s walking around with a smile like he’s just been told a dirty joke.”
“Did he use the word date?”
“It was implied. I can read between the lines.”
“I guess it’s more like a date compared to what we were doing.” You mumble, but she still catches it.
“And what pray-tell were you doing?”
You flush, shifting your feet, “You know–after date stuff.”
She gasps, faux-clutching at pearls, and drawls, “Corrupted by the big city, oh my.” She laughs, “Going to a town event together, guess that means you’re going steady. Do you think he’ll give you his battle vest?”
“Oh my god, I’m not holding this ladder anymore. Make like an apple and fall.”
She shakes with laughter, spooking the kids walking up your drive, watching the witch hang juicy candy apples and cackling.
***
“Ooh, last year they had these amazing cookies.”
“Oh, Andrew’s spiced pumpkin ones? They’re legendary, we’ll get some from the bake sale stall. Just avoid the punch, it’s Ms Patti’s recipe, it could knock down a horse.”
Eddie squeezes your arm, and you melt further into his side, both of you walking around the town square and browsing the Halloween Fair stalls.
“How ‘bout I get us some hot chocolates instead and we tackle that hay maze. Get lost in a dark corner?” He raises his eyebrows, and you giggle.
“Okay, but I’m not kissing you with those vampire teeth in.”
He pats his jacket pocket where he stowed the plastic prop after play attacking your neck with it the moment he saw you. “Don’t knock it ‘till you try it, sweetheart.”
You watch him as he waits in line, standing near the bonfire with stars in your eyes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for your attention to be pulled away by nosey neighbours – the older couple who run Le Chat Club, one of two cat-themed trinket stores in town.
“So, what’s the next adventure?”
“Well, the five-year plan currently looks like paying off my student debt and finally finishing Ulysses.” You smile.
“Not moving away again? They say all the kids are moving to Seattle, must be some housing boom or something.”
“It’s not the housing it’s the music, Mary.”
“No, I’m officially unpacked and planted firmly back home.” You look back over at Eddie, now walking towards you with cookies and a huge smile on his face. “I’ve got a lot more reasons to stay this time.”
Summary- When steve's love life takes a turn for the worst, Dustin points him to the right direction... his lonely sister.
The arcade lights flickered in neon blues and reds as you leaned against the wall, watching Dustin absolutely demolish his high score on Dig Dug. Your little brother had dragged you here after school, insisting he needed "moral support" for some gaming tournament with the Party, but you suspected he just wanted someone to buy him snacks.
"Yes! Did you see that?!" Dustin pumped his fist in the air, his curly hair bouncing with the movement.
"Very impressive," you said with a grin, ruffling his hair as he swatted your hand away.
"Stop it, you're messing up the hair!" He frantically tried to fix his curls, and you couldn't help but laugh. Your brother had been obsessed with his appearance lately, ever since he'd gotten back from that science camp and met Suzie.
The bell above the arcade door chimed, and you glanced over to see Steve Harrington walking in, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. Your heart did that stupid flutter thing it always did when you saw him, and you quickly looked away, pretending to be fascinated by the Pac-Man machine nearby.
"Henderson!" Steve called out, spotting Dustin immediately. His eyes flickered to you for just a moment, and you could have sworn you saw something soften in his expression before he looked back at your brother.
"Steve! You made it!" Dustin abandoned his game immediately, rushing over to greet him. "I thought you had to work."
"Switched shifts with Robin," Steve said, running a hand through his famous hair. "She owed me one anyway."
You tried not to stare as they talked, but it was difficult. Steve Harrington had somehow gotten more attractive since his King Steve days at Hawkins High. Maybe it was the way he'd dropped the popular kid act, or maybe it was how genuinely kind he'd become—especially to your little brother. The way he treated Dustin, like he was actually cool and worth hanging out with, had completely destroyed any defenses you'd tried to build against falling for him.
"Hey," Steve's voice suddenly broke through your thoughts, and you realized he was standing right in front of you. "How's it going?"
"Oh, uh, good. Yeah, good." Real smooth. You mentally kicked yourself.
Steve smiled, that lopsided grin that made your stomach flip. "Cool. That's... that's good."
An awkward silence stretched between you, filled only by the beeping and buzzing of arcade games. Dustin watched from a few feet away, and you could practically see the wheels turning in his head.
"I'm gonna go find Mike and Lucas," Dustin announced suddenly, way too loudly. "Steve, why don't you keep my sister company? She gets lonely."
"Dustin!" You felt your face heat up.
"What? You do!" He was already backing away, that mischievous grin on his face that meant he was up to something. "Be back in twenty minutes!"
And then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd of kids, leaving you alone with Steve Harrington.
"Sorry about him," you said, wanting to sink into the floor. "He's been weird lately."
"It's okay," Steve said, and he actually seemed amused. "Dustin's always weird. It's part of his charm."
You laughed, some of the tension easing from your shoulders. "That's true."
"Want to play something?" Steve gestured to the rows of machines. "Fair warning, I'm terrible at pretty much all of these."
"Somehow I doubt that."
"No, seriously. Ask Dustin. I've got no hand-eye coordination when it comes to video games." He leaned in conspiratorially, and you caught a whiff of his cologne. "Don't tell anyone, but those kids destroy me every time."
You found yourself smiling genuinely now. "Your secret's safe with me."
You ended up at the Galaga machine, feeding quarters into the slot while Steve watched. He stood close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from him, and you tried to focus on the game instead of his presence.
"So," Steve said after a moment, "Dustin tells me you're applying to colleges soon."
"Dustin talks about me?" You glanced at him, surprised.
"Yeah, all the time." Steve's ears turned slightly pink. "I mean, not in a weird way. Just, you know, he mentions stuff. About his family. About you."
"Good things, I hope."
"Always good things." Steve's voice was softer now, and when you looked at him, he was already looking at you. "He really looks up to you, you know. Says you're the smartest person he knows."
Your heart swelled with affection for your dorky little brother. "He's pretty smart himself. Smarter than me, probably."
"Maybe book smart," Steve agreed. "But he says you've got street smarts. And you always know what to say when he's feeling down about stuff."
You died in the game, but you barely noticed. "He said that?"
Steve nodded, and there was something in his eyes—something warm and genuine that made your breath catch. "He also said..." He paused, seeming to wrestle with something. "Never mind."
"What?" You turned to face him fully now, the game forgotten.
"Nothing, it's stupid."
"Steve."
He sighed, running a hand through his hair—a nervous habit you'd noticed. "He said you're always there for everyone else, but nobody ever seems to be there for you the same way. And that you deserve someone who would be."
The arcade noise faded into background static. You stared at Steve, unsure what to say, feeling vulnerable and exposed in a way you hadn't expected.
"Dustin worries too much," you finally managed.
"Does he?" Steve's gaze was intense now, searching your face. "Because I've been thinking... maybe he has a point."
Before you could respond, a group of kids rushed past, jostling you forward. Steve's hands came up instinctively to steady you, landing on your arms, and suddenly you were close enough to count the flecks of gold in his brown eyes.
"Sorry," you breathed.
"Don't be." He didn't let go.
The moment stretched, fragile and electric, and you wondered if he could hear how fast your heart was beating. Steve's thumb traced an absent pattern on your arm, and you were pretty sure you'd forgotten how to breathe.
"Steve, I—"
"There you are!" Dustin's voice shattered the moment like glass. Steve dropped his hands and stepped back, and you tried not to feel disappointed as your brother bounded up to you both. "Mike's mom is here. She's giving everyone rides home." He looked between you and Steve, a knowing smirk on his face. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No," you and Steve said simultaneously, way too quickly.
Dustin's smirk grew. "Uh-huh. Sure."
The next few weeks passed in a blur of school, work, and trying not to think about Steve Harrington's hands on your arms, the way he'd looked at you like you were something precious. You'd seen him a few times when he picked Dustin up for their weird monster-hunting bonding sessions (you still weren't entirely clear on what they actually did together), but there were always other people around. No more moments alone.
You were beginning to think you'd imagined the whole thing.
It was a Friday night when Dustin cornered you in the kitchen. You were making popcorn, planning to spend the evening with a book and some mindless TV, when your brother appeared in the doorway with his arms crossed.
"We need to talk," he announced.
"Okay, that's ominous." You shook the pot on the stove. "What's up?"
"It's about Steve."
Your hand stilled. "What about Steve?"
Dustin came into the kitchen, hopping up to sit on the counter despite your mom's rules about it. "He's been weird lately. Weirder than usual."
"Weird how?"
"Mopey. Distracted. He drove past Skull Rock three times last week because he wasn't paying attention to where we were going." Dustin fixed you with a look that was far too knowing for a fourteen-year-old. "And he keeps asking about you."
Your heart skipped. "He does?"
"Yep. 'How's your sister doing?' 'Is she seeing anyone?' 'Did she mention anything about the arcade?'" Dustin mimicked Steve's voice, badly. "It's getting pathetic, honestly."
You turned back to the popcorn, trying to hide your smile. "Maybe he's just being polite."
"Oh my God." Dustin groaned dramatically. "You're both so stupid."
"Excuse me?"
"You like him. He likes you. Everyone can see it except you two." He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Do you know how painful it is watching you guys dance around each other?"
"Dustin—"
"No, listen." He softened his voice, and suddenly he sounded older than his years. "Steve's my friend. My best friend, actually, even if he is ancient. And you're my sister. I love you both, and I want you both to be happy."
You felt your eyes start to sting. "Dusty..."
"Steve's had terrible luck with love," Dustin continued. "Nancy, then that whole thing with Robin that wasn't actually a thing, all those failed dates. I've been trying to figure out why nothing ever works out for him." He paused dramatically. "And then it hit me."
"What hit you?"
"He's been looking in all the wrong places." Dustin grinned. "Because what he needs—what he's been needing—has been right here the whole time. He needs you."
The popcorn started to burn, and you quickly pulled it off the heat, your hands shaking slightly. "You can't just say stuff like that."
"Why not? It's true." Dustin hopped off the counter. "Steve's different around you. Softer. More himself. And you—you smile more when he's around. Real smiles, not the fake ones you give Mom's friends or those jerks at school."
You wanted to argue, to tell him he was reading too much into things, but the words wouldn't come. Because maybe—probably—he was right.
"Even if that were true," you said carefully, "it doesn't mean he feels the same way."
Dustin gave you a look of pure exasperation. "I literally just told you he keeps asking about you. He drove past Skull Rock three times. Three times! Do you know how hard that is to do? It's a giant rock!"
Despite everything, you laughed. "Okay, okay."
"So you'll talk to him?"
"I don't know, Dustin. It's complicated."
"It's only complicated because you're making it complicated." He started toward the door, then paused. "You know what Steve told me once? He said that when you find someone who makes you want to be better, you don't let them go. You fight for them." Dustin looked back at you, his expression serious. "I think you make him want to be better. And I know he makes you happy. So maybe stop being scared and just... go for it."
He left you standing in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of slightly burnt popcorn, your heart racing and your mind spinning.
You didn't have to wait long.
The next afternoon, there was a knock at the door. Your mom was at work, and Dustin was at Mike's, so you padded to the door in your socks and oversized sweater, expecting a package delivery or maybe a neighbor.
Instead, you found Steve Harrington on your doorstep, looking nervous and holding a bouquet of flowers that looked like he'd picked them from several different gas station buckets.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." You stared at the flowers. "Are those for me?"
"What? Oh. Yeah." He thrust them toward you awkwardly. "They're not great. The flower shop was closed, and I didn't want to wait until Monday, so I just grabbed what I could find. There's a rose, some daisies, I think that's a carnation? And I'm not sure what these purple ones are, but they looked nice."
You took the bouquet, a smile tugging at your lips. They were a chaotic mess of colors and types, wrapped in three different kinds of cellophane, and they were perfect.
"They're beautiful," you said honestly.
Steve's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." You stepped back. "Do you want to come in?"
He followed you inside, and you were acutely aware of how domestic this felt—Steve Harrington in your living room, watching as you filled a vase with water for the flowers. You could feel his eyes on you, and your hands trembled slightly as you arranged the blooms.
"So," you said, keeping your voice light, "what brings you by?"
"I needed to talk to you." Steve moved closer, and you set down the vase, turning to face him. "I've been trying to figure out how to do this for weeks, and Dustin finally told me I was being an idiot and to just come over and say it."
"Dustin has a lot of opinions lately."
"He's a smart kid." Steve smiled, but it was nervous. "Smarter than me, definitely."
"I doubt that."
"No, it's true. Because it took him pointing it out for me to realize what's been wrong." Steve took a breath. "I've had terrible luck with relationships. Like, historically bad. And I kept thinking there was something wrong with me, you know? That I was cursed or just destined to be alone or whatever."
Your heart ached at the vulnerability in his voice. "Steve—"
"But then Dustin said something that made everything click into place." He stepped closer, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to maintain eye contact. "He said that maybe the reason nothing was working out was because I was looking for the right person in all the wrong places. That maybe what I needed was right in front of me."
"Dustin said that?" Your voice came out whisper-soft.
"Well, he said it more like 'you're an idiot, Steve, my sister is perfect for you, stop dating random girls and ask her out already.'" Steve's lips quirked. "But I'm paraphrasing."
You laughed, and some of the tension broke. "That sounds more like him."
"He's right though." Steve reached out slowly, giving you time to pull away, and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. His hand lingered, cupping your cheek, and you leaned into the touch without thinking. "You're what I need. What I've been needing. I just didn't let myself see it because you're Dustin's sister, and you're so far out of my league it's not even funny, and I didn't think I had a shot."
"Out of your league?" You couldn't help but laugh. "Steve, you're Steve Harrington."
"Yeah, washed-up former King Steve who works at a video store and drives around a bunch of fourteen-year-olds." He said it lightly, but you could hear the insecurity underneath.
You reached up and covered his hand with yours, keeping it pressed to your cheek. "You're Steve Harrington who's kind and brave and good with kids. Who treats my little brother like he matters. Who makes me laugh and makes me feel safe and makes me think about the future in a way I never did before."
Steve's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Really." You gathered your courage, thinking about what Dustin had said. About not being scared. About going for it. "I've had a crush on you since the arcade. Maybe before that, if I'm honest. I just didn't think you'd ever see me that way."
"Are you kidding?" Steve's other hand came up to cup your face, and suddenly you were cradled between his palms like something precious. "You're all I see. When I'm at work, I'm thinking about you. When I'm with the kids, I'm wondering what you're doing. When I'm trying to sleep, I'm remembering the way you looked at the arcade, with the neon lights in your hair and that smile on your face."
Your breath caught. "Steve."
"I know I've got a track record of screwing things up," he continued, his voice rough with emotion. "And I know I'm not the guy I used to be, and maybe I'm not the guy you imagined ending up with. But I promise, if you give me a chance, I will do everything I can to make you happy. To be what you need."
"You already are," you whispered.
Something shifted in Steve's expression—relief and joy and want all mixed together. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"So if I kissed you right now, that would be okay?"
You smiled, your heart so full it felt like it might burst. "That would be very okay."
Steve smiled back, that beautiful, genuine smile that transformed his whole face, and then he was kissing you. Soft and sweet at first, his lips gentle against yours, like he was afraid you might disappear. But when you sighed and pressed closer, winding your arms around his neck, the kiss deepened. His hands slid from your face to your waist, pulling you flush against him, and you forgot about everything except the feeling of Steve Harrington holding you like you were the answer to every question he'd ever asked.
When you finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Steve rested his forehead against yours.
"I should probably take you on a date first," he murmured. "Do this properly."
"Probably," you agreed, but you didn't let go.
"Dinner? Movie? Whatever you want."
"Anything but the arcade."
He laughed, the sound vibrating through you. "Deal."
The front door suddenly burst open, and you jumped apart to find Dustin standing in the doorway with the biggest, most smug grin you'd ever seen on his face.
"Finally!" he crowed. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for this? Mike owes me five bucks!"
"You bet on us?" You couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or amused.
"Obviously." Dustin kicked off his shoes. "I said you'd get together before the end of the month. Mike said it would take until Christmas because you're both emotionally constipated."
"Dustin!" you and Steve said simultaneously.
"What? You are!" But he was grinning, looking pleased with himself. "But I'm happy for you. Really." He pointed at Steve. "But if you hurt her, I know where you live. And I have access to Dart's relatives."
"Dustin, Dart is dead," Steve said.
"His relatives don't know that."
Steve looked at you, bewildered, and you just shrugged. "He's protective."
"It's cool," Steve said, addressing Dustin seriously. "I'm not going to hurt her. I promise."
Dustin studied him for a moment, then nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now, can you guys stop being gross? I need Steve to drive me to the comic book store before it closes."
"Right now?" Steve asked.
"Yes, right now. The new X-Men issue comes out today, and if we don't get there soon, they'll be sold out."
Steve looked at you apologetically. "Rain check on that date?"
You kissed his cheek, delighting in the way he flushed. "Go. Take care of my brother. But Steve?" You caught his hand as he started to turn away. "Call me later?"
His smile was radiant. "I'll call you every day if you want."
"Yes please."
As you watched Steve and Dustin head out to the BMW, bickering about the fastest route to the comic store, you couldn't help but smile. Your little brother had been right. Steve had been looking for love in all the wrong places, trying to force connections that weren't meant to be.
But broken hearts had a way of finding their way home. And maybe, just maybe, Steve's heart had been leading him here all along—to your doorstep, with a bouquet of mismatched flowers and a nervous smile.
To you.
Later that night, after Steve had dropped Dustin off and your brother had gone to bed, the phone rang. You picked it up on the second ring, already smiling.
"Hey," Steve's voice came through, warm and a little shy.
"Hey yourself."
"So I was thinking about our date."
"Yeah?"
"There's a new Italian place that opened up downtown. Nothing fancy, but Robin says it's good. And then maybe we could go for a drive? I know a spot with a great view of the stars."
You curled up on the couch, the phone cord stretching across the room. "That sounds perfect."
"Yeah?" You could hear the smile in his voice.
"Yeah."
You talked for hours, about everything and nothing. Steve told you about his day at Family Video, about Robin's latest disaster with a girl she liked, about the kids' newest campaign. You told him about your college applications, your dreams for the future, the book you were reading.
It was easy. Natural. Like you'd been doing this forever.
When you finally hung up, well past midnight, you found Dustin standing in the hallway in his pajamas, looking smug.
"Told you so," he said.
You threw a couch pillow at him, but you were smiling. "Go to bed, dork."
"Gladly. Now that my work here is done." He started toward his room, then paused. "Hey, sis?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm really happy for you. Steve's a good guy. The best, actually. You deserve someone like him."
Your throat tightened with emotion. "Thanks, Dusty. For everything."
He grinned. "That's what little brothers are for. Well, that and being generally annoying."
"You excel at both."
He laughed and disappeared into his room, leaving you alone with your thoughts and a heart so full of hope it felt like it might take flight.
Your phone rang again, and you picked it up, already knowing who it would be.
"Forget something?" you asked, smiling.
"Yeah," Steve said softly. "I forgot to tell you that I'm falling for you. Have been for a while now. And I just wanted you to know."
Your heart soared. "I'm falling for you too, Steve Harrington."
"Good," he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "That's really good."
"Get some sleep," you told him. "You have a date to plan."
"Best date ever," he promised. "I'll pick you up at seven tomorrow?"
"I'll be ready."
After you hung up, you stood in the quiet living room, looking at the mismatched bouquet of flowers on the coffee table. They were wilting slightly already, imperfect and chaotic and absolutely beautiful.
Just like love, you thought. Just like life.
Just like Steve.
And as you headed to bed, you couldn't stop smiling, couldn't stop thinking about tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. Because broken hearts didn't stay broken forever. They healed. They found their way home.
At its peak, it had all the features of a midcentury motel including an eye-catching sign, colorful panels, aluminum umbrellas and an oversized porte cochère.
When I first posted about it in 2021, there were possible plans to save and restore the property. These plans failed. Unfortunately, like many Route 66 motels, it was demolished.
