2025-2026 Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang Round Up - Part Two
The Rose It's Thorn, His Bite A Kiss
Art by @raven-cl | Fic by droolovacoco
Rating: T | WC: 12,760
Warning(s): No Warning
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington's parents, Wayne Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Steve Harrington's survived the Upside Down, the worst breakup of his life, and Billy Hargrove, and all he has to show for it is a grade point average that's not going to let him graduate. What's a boy to do?
Sign up for the school play for some extra credit, of course.
He has no idea what he's doing, and his co-star isn't making his life any easier.
Until he is.
A Suitcase of Memories I Almost Left Behind
Art by @nomadic-wolf | Fic by @caitlincheri
Rating: Explicit | WC: 6546
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler
Summary:
"In an attempt to escape the pain from her past, Nancy Wheeler is living her dream life as a highly respected journalist in Chicago.
That is, until a broken hearted Robin Buckley appears at her door. Now Nancy must confront her past, as well as the rising tension between her and her beautiful freckled face friend that has stolen her bed, and quite possibly her heart."
Robin's Cuckoo Thing
Art by @hellfireloserclub | Fic by @xirayn
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 8,701
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, The Party (Stranger Things)
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Nancy Wheeler
Summary: Robin is happy give Steve and Jonathan the family they always wanted, she's just worried about what Nancy will think.
Robin's Walkman
Art by @hawkinsleather | Fic by @felixir-of-moths
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 18,187
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Vickie Dunne, Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley's parents, background Carol Perkins, background Tammy Thompson
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley/Vickie Dunne, Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley&Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley&Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley&Eddie Munson&Steve Harrington&Chrissy Cunningham, Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Robin doesn't need friends. She has her music and her books — two things you can study in the quiet comfort of your room. People are messy, complicated, and sometimes downright scary. But between the bittersweet ending of childhood and the overwhelming beginning of adulthood, she meets a few people who will eventually change her life.
We'll Be Alright, Sweetheart.
Art by @penny00dreadful | Fic by dadpunsandmisery
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 4,960
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham, Dustin Henderson, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, The Party (Stranger Things), Henry Creel | One | Vecna
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham
Summary:
When Steve and Robin came to Hawkins a few months ago, they'd been looking for a job. Something simple, quick, and that would grant them just enough money to survive another month on the road. Steve should've known that hoping for anything 'simple' at this point in their lives was naive.
Now he's in here; trapped in this prison cell by himself, staring at the stone ceiling and hoping at least Robin and the kids are safe somewhere.
That's when he sees him: a strange man being dragged in by the guards with a manic grin on his lips.
~~~~
OR: a Fantasy/DnD!AU for the Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang
Summerween
Art by @hawkinsleather | Fic by @hellfireloserclub
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 17,252
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington , Eddie Munson , Dustin Henderson, Max Mayfield, Robin Buckley, The Party
Pairing(s): Steve/Eddie
Summary:
Forest Hills Trailer Park, or as Steve now called it - Home.
Listen Steve knows weird, okay? Mind wizards, creatures that came from another dimension, Russians, and space portals. He thought nothing could surprise him anymore.
Yet here was Eddie, in the middle of August dressed in his Michael Myers mask and about to go head to head with the family of raccoons that had taken up home under his trailer.
It's not even 8 am.
He would like to tell you it wasn't the strangest thing that he had seen this week, but he wouldn't like to lie.
Carver Peak
Art by @penny00dreadful | Fic by @hbyrde36
Rating: Mature | WC: 41,086
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Jason Carver
Pairing(s): Chrissy Cunningham/Robin Buckley
Summary:
Chrissy Cunningham had never made a choice that was truly hers. When Jason Carver swept into her life with easy charm, offering her the future she'd come to expect with a man she thought she could actually learn to love, she said yes before the dirt had settled on her father's grave.
But Carver Peak was not what Jason promised, and cracks were already forming in her fairytale ending.
Eddie had warned her it was all too good to be true. She was starting to fear he might have been right.
Now she was trapped in a crumbling house, a thousand miles away from Indiana and everything she had ever known and loved with no one to help her but Steve, the groundskeeper with guarded eyes, and the housemaid Robin, who looked at her in a way that made Chrissy's heart race like never before.
Pairing(s): Steve/Eddie, Robin/Eden Bingham, Dustin/Erica,
Eddie & Jeff, Eddie & Robin
Summary:
When things fall through for Corroded Coffin in NYC, Eddie retreats to New Orleans to lick his wounds and crash at his friend Robin’s home. Her girlfriend Eden and Steve Harrington from high school, of all people, already live there too and, lucky him, he gets stuck with Steve as a roommate. He still doesn’t understand how Robin became such good friends with a rich, pretty boy jock, but he’s determined to make the best of sharing a room with the guy.
It’s only temporary after all.
What he couldn’t have planned for is a little plant, then the city of New Orleans, and finally Steve Harrington to all worm their way into his heart.
Not Like Other Girls
Art by @cxwzkeys | Fic by @dame-zoom-a-lot
Rating: General Audiences | WC: 7,923
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Wayne Munson, Karen Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler, Al Munson
Pairing(s): Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson
Summary:
“Wayne, I… I’m not proud to admit this, but I’ve been a bit of a mess since Lizzie passed away. Haven’t been the kind of daddy Amy needs. A daddy for her to be proud of. This job? This job’s the one time I can make this right. I really wouldn’t be asking you if it weren’t important. I promise you’ll barely notice she’s there, then I’ll have her out of what’s left o’ your hair before you know it. Please? Wayne. You’re the best person I know.”
Wayne sighs. Obviously, he was always going to say yes, but the thought of being the best person Al knows is soothing nonetheless. “Alright. She can stay.”
“Great! Come pick her up on Friday.”
“Friday? Al. Today’s Wednes—” Al hangs up before Wayne can finish his sentence. Wayne looks around his trailer in abject terror. It’s Wednesday evening. He’s going to have to spend all of tomorrow driving if he’s gonna pick up Amy by Friday, and the house is definitely not ready for a little girl. There’s dishes in the sink. Shit. Shit. Shit!
Or, Wayne finds out that his niece is actually his nephew through the power of family beach trips
The Prince and the Dragon
Art by @whoismartianfox | Fic by @kayleeofcamelot
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 7.3k
Warning(s): Graphic Depictions of Violence
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Vecna, Steve's father, Steve's mother, unnamed OCs
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Steve Harrington's parents
Summary:
The harvest festival was in full swing when the kingdom of Hawkins was ambushed and attacked by the Southern Raiders, led by the infamous Vecna. Horrified, Prince Steve had to watch his parents get slaughtered. He managed to get away. Desperate and fueled by the burning desire for revenge, he turned to something they had sworn never to turn to.
A story about revenge, a deal and finding true companionship along the way.
The Death and Life of Edward Munson
Art by @lulalulens | Fic by @fuctacles
Rating: Mature | WC: 10680
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Henry Creel | One | Vecna, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Vickie Dunne, Wayne Munson
Pairing(s): Steve/Eddie, Wayne & Eddie
Summary:
Steven Harrington is a below-average medicine student at the Hawkins Hospital and Laboratory, with no direction other than the one his father pushes him towards.
Until one day, in the cold basement under Dr. Creel's manor, he finds his purpose.
He finds love.
Drunken Words to Lovebirds
Art by ArcadiaWave | Fic by @machtaholic
Rating: Explicit | WC: 5,860
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, The Party (Stranger Things)
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: A drunken email sends Steve and Eddie into a long distance relationship careening down the path to true love.
In The Backseat
Art by @basiatlu | Fic by @lorifragolina
Rating: Explicit | WC: 13,377
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Tommy Hagan
Pairing(s): Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Summary:
Billy Hargrove is struggling with his identity, along with surviving in his familiar enviroment.
Steve Harrington is carefully discovering his own identity, and he is not so worried about it.
One day, Steve surprises Billy in some funny activities with Tommy Hagan. He can't stop thinking about it.
Billy can't ignore the electricity between him and Steve, and they have to sort it out on the Beamer backseat.
Just once. Then another time. Then a kiss. And then...
Shakedown
Art by @penny00dreadful | Fic by @hitlikehammers
Rating: Explicit | WC: 23,908
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Corroded Coffin (Stranger Things), The Party (Stranger Things), Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington's Parents
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Corroded Coffin & Eddie Munson, Corroded Coffin & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & The Party, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Steve Harrington's Parents
Summary:
When he gets the question, among their friends—and maybe someday: for the world—but when he answers that age-old question, he never imagined what his answer was gonna be.
He’s a six-time Grammy winning metal god (a quote, from Metal Hammer directly, so). He was gonna find love in a fellow musician, or the crew, or a weirdly normal groupie. Maybe at a venue bar, if Eddie ever went out to get his own drink.
He never did that, but like: if.
Most likely though was that Eddie Munson would never find love, save that of his guitar, and that was alright, really. He’d kinda always expected that, so it wouldn’t have been, like. A disappointment. Just business as usual.
That’s not how his story plays out, though. Thank fuck.
But it tracks either way that he doesn’t envision that the question of how he met the love of his life would ever, in a million years, be: oh, at a book signing.
A children’s book signing.
Eddie doesn’t even have kids, man.
Which makes it all the wilder still, when the reason for why everyone starts to ask ‘how’d you meet’ spawns from an attempt to fucking blackmail their asses.
Be the Cool Guy
Art by @mission2mars | Fic by @steviewashere
Rating: Mature | WC: 17,981
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Dustin Henderson, Robin Buckley
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Eddie Munson & Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley
Summary:
"Steve Harrington is seriously and more so officially, a dud. A nobody.
Part of him wants to break out in hives at the thought. Another part of him wants to tear out his hair—probably the only thing keeping him steady within recognition around Hawkins. A Harrington that broke away from business, didn’t go to college, couldn’t make a name for himself. What’s he supposed to do?
Everybody around him is all, “Eddie” this and “Eddie” that. When they’re all able to talk or see each other, nobody else has room to breathe, they all take a collective deep breath and sound off like a flock of seagulls about Eddie fucking Munson. Him and his talent, his collection of guitars, his paparazzi photos, his wicked sense of style, his beautifully long hair, his gorgeous picture perfect face and—
It’s infuriating.
OR
A Rivals to Lovers Steddie AU | Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang"
Cocktails and Companions
Art by @alicetallula | Fic by @kallisto-k
Rating: Explicit | WC: 4,965
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Billy Hargrove, Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie Munson, Gareth (Stranger Things), Heather Holloway, Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham, Gareth/Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove/Heather Holloway/Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham & Heather Holloway & Steve Harrington
Summary: Chrissy was eager for a night out with friends but she had no clue that the bartender at their favorite bar might also be up for some fun and maybe something more...
Limping Through Space--A Reflection
Art (x, x, x) by @oh-stars | Fic by @elvendog-blog
Rating: General Audiences | WC: 3226
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson
Summary:
A prequel that's really set midway through the story wherein Eddie isn't the only part of Hawkins gang that's implicated in the murder and attempted kidnapping of minors.
Or,
Eddie's a pretentious little guy with a lot of thoughts and he'll be damned if you won't hear them (you will--you should).
2025-2026 Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang Round Up (1 of 2)
i wrote my heart in a sheet of paper (and i gifted it to you)
Art by @starthecozy | Fic by @ataliagold
Rating: Teens & Up | WC: 8,600
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Background Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham
Summary:
"Eddie shuffles closer to him. Knows he shouldn’t, knows he should steer this somewhere neutral, somewhere more distant, something more akin to just checking in on a friend but he can’t, he can’t. Not when Steve’s looking bashful, not when he’s awkwardly picking up a bit of paper again and folding it anxiously, not when he smells like the sea on a summer’s day and honey-sweet all at once.
“Seriously Steve, this is cool. Maybe you could make something for a campaign? Figurines are expensive, and honestly some of these are better. We could paint them, too.”
Steve looks up at him then. Really looks, and Eddie’s heart gallops in his chest at the sight of those warm brown eyes.
“I made them all for you,” Steve murmurs.
In the wake of Vecna's defeat, with his friends busy with the aftermath, Steve takes up origami, tries to heal his scars in his big empty house , and falls in love with the alpha that comes to visit him daily.
Eddie."
Sweet Like Sugar
Art by @lady-lostmind | Fic by @stevesscoops
Rating: Explicit | WC: 3,015
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: After a fight at a club leads to them getting thrown out, Eddie puts Steve in his place and reminds him he’s not going anywhere.
Robin Red Breast
Art by @little-annie | Fic by @starshideyourfics
Rating: Teens & Up | WC: 4340
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham's Parents
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham
Summary:
Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a beautiful maiden…
Chrissy was born to marry a prince. Her mother prayed daily for a daughter, a babe with rose petal lips and dark lashes, one who would grow up graceful and delicate, lovely enough to catch the eye of the king's son. And when she did, she was locked away in a tower for safekeeping with all she could ever need in her new home.
Everything except companionship.
And she was so lonely until her father brought her a gift.
After This Life, I’ll Find You in the Next
Art by @cxwzkeys| Fic by @anonymustelid
Rating: Mature | WC: 3297
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler
Summary: In which Nancy Wheeler, vampire, keeps seeing a familiar face across time...
Ye Olde Meet-Cute
Art by @penny00dreadful | Fic by @hbyrde36
Rating: Explicit | WC: 7994
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham, Jeff, Gareth, Freak
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Eddie had been planning his Ren Faire outfit for weeks. The thrifted poet shirt, the hand-embellished vest, the leather bracers he'd tooled himself. He looked good and he knew it.
What he hadn't planned for was the blacksmith.
Shirtless, sweat-soaked, and hammering molten steel like it was nothing, the man was, without question, the most devastatingly attractive human being Eddie had ever laid eyes on.
Straight boys don't look like that
Art by @nomadic-wolf | Fic by @medusapelagia
Rating: Mature | WC: 9000
Warning(s): Graphic Depictions of Violence
Character(s): Jason Carver, Eddie Munson, Wayne Munson, Jason Carver's Parents
Pairing(s): Eddie Munson/Jason Carver
Summary:
Eddie hates that, ever since he started high school, Jason has slowly become a bully. He misses the kid who used to play with him in the church backyard. Even more, he misses the shy boy he once fell in love with.
No matter how much it hurts, it’s too late to go back to how things were. Things are different now, and Eddie can’t wait to finally leave Hawkins and all its bigoted inhabitants behind.
But when Jason drunkenly calls him in the middle of the night, all Eddie can do is answer.
Good Intentions
Art by @hellfireloserclub | Fic by @dame-zoom-a-latte
Rating: Explicit | WC: 29046
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): The Party (Stranger Things), Jonathan Byers, Argyle (Stranger Things), El, Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Female OC
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Argyle & Jonathan Byers, Steve Harrington & The Party, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Eddie Munson
Summary:
Jonathan is forced to cast Steve for his capstone project -- a movie that's a loose retelling of their Upside Down misadventures.
But while Steve and Eddie are busy flirting (unknowingly) on set, other plots are brewing.
A Very Reasonable Bargain
Art by @droolovacoco | Fic by @yesdangerpls
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 8871
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Wayne Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson
Summary: The first time newly-minted Knight Harrington attempts to stop the thefts on the southeast road from Loch Nora through Forest Hills, he is… somewhat less successful than he may have hoped, if the dust on his derriere, swollen egg on his forehead, and empty coinpurse on his belt are anything to go by.
Pas de Trois
Art by @mission2mordor | Fic by @beritybaker
Rating: Explicit | WC: 11,867
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Tommy Hagan, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Tommy Hagan/Eddie Munson, Tommy Hagan/Steve Harrington
Summary: Eddie performs his senior capstone, and a certain new stagehand has caught his eye. Things would be less complicated if they didn't both have a history with Tommy Hagan.
Friends Who Kill Together Stay Together
Art by tombfiends | Fic by @neuronary
Rating: Explicit | WC: 5502
Warning(s): Graphic Depictions of Violence
Character(s): Robin Buckley; Steve Harrington; Nancy Wheeler; Robin Buckley's Parents; Keith (Stranger Things); Jason Carver; Steve Harrington's Parents; Background & Cameo Characters
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Summary: Steve and Robin murder some Russians together. And then it spirals. They're having fun, though!
you are that space that's in between
Art by tombfiends | Fic by @turinspeachjam
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 5968
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham, Wayne Munson, Henry Creel
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington & Wayne Munson
Summary:
Steve is awoken to the sounds of someone wandering through his forest. When he tries to send the interloper on their way, he discovers that another human has slipped through right under his nose. Reluctantly, he agrees to help find this missing person, if only so he can get to the bottom of what is hiding in his forest.
---
Eddie doesn't normally go traipsing through the woods, but it was the last place anyone had seen Chrissy, so on he went. He runs into some guy named Steve who insists that there's no way Chrissy could be in the woods. Eddie, not to be deterred by some weirdo with leaves in his hair, insists on completing his mission. Color him surprised when Steve offers to help.
To Keep a Man Awake at Night
Art by @kaspurrcat | Fic by @lovelylittlegrim
Rating: Explicit | WC: 57,843
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham, Wayne Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary:
“Bada-boom!” Dustin smacks a card down on the table in front of Eddie.
Nose wrinkling, Eddie picks up the card. “What is this?”
“The answer to your problems. It’s a paranormal research club here on campus."
Mike groans. “Dustin, no.”
~
Weird things keep happening in Wayne and Eddie’s new place. Fortunately Dustin knows someone that can help. Unfortunately that someone is Steve Harrington.
Eddie doesn’t know who the bigger skeptic is: Steve, the guy who doesn’t believe in ghosts. Or, Eddie, who doesn’t believe in Steve.
Fit
Art by @nomadic-wolf | Fic by @hullosweetpea
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 3,026
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Jonathan Byers, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler
Pairing(s): Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Summary: Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan and their unusual relationship as an omega/alpha/omega triad.
Lux Animae
Art by @kaspurrcat | Fic by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation
Rating: Mature | WC: 26,847
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington; Robin Buckley; Chrissy Cunningham; Jason Carver; Andy Harper; Joyce Byers; Jim Hopper; Principal Higgins; Wayne Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham (background); Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley; Eddie Munson & Chrissy Cunningham
Summary:
They say that, when you meet your match, you feel it.
Sure, a true Lux Animae is a hard-earned thing - a bond that must be forged and shaped and toughened in the fires of battle over and over again, and, if done right, will last a lifetime and longer. Still, many people claim that they sensed it, even long before the ceremony.
It is, after all, the magic that does the choosing, and the magic knows. Knows who is destined to complete you, who will fight and cry and bleed for you and draw out your full potential like no other can. So, when you meet them, you’re supposed to feel it. You just need to know what to look out for.
A tingle, some say. A warm, heavy buzz that fills your veins the moment you lay eyes on each other. An electric spark, zapping through your body like a current upon that first careless touch, letting you know that this is the start of something bigger, something stronger, something more profound than both of you could possibly imagine.
The only thing that Eddie feels when Steve Harrington steps on his foot is pain.
You I Can't Deny
Art by @arelliann | Fic by @ok-peepaw
Rating: Explicit | WC: 42826
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham, Wayne Munson, Jason Carver
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson
Summary: By the time Steve Harrington graduates high school, he and his childhood best friend Eddie have hurt each other beyond repair. All of their good memories have been swept away in one afternoon of screaming, social pressure, and hurt feelings. Years later, when their new best friends start dating, Eddie and Steve reluctantly agree to try to get along for their sake, forced to confront the fact that neither of them are over it. The boys find that being vulnerable is hard, feelings are complicated, and that memory persists longer than they'd like. Can they let go of their pride and acknowledge what they once meant to each other, or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?
Take My Number, Harrington
Art by @hawkinsleather | Fic by @waldos-writing
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 5,709
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Original Characters
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Steve hosted a late night talk show in Chicago in the 90s and on one special evening, they have Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson as one of the guest stars!
In the worship of the night
Art by @waldos-art | Fic by @queensilber
Rating: Explicit | WC: 4,732
Warning(s): No Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Eddie Munson is stuck in group therapy and it might as well be his own personal hell. Little does he expect the young Pastor Steve Harrington to notice his misery and deciding to turn this night into one of the best of Eddies life.
I've never seen you fall so hard
Art by @justtoomuch | Fic by @salamandergoo
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 6,051
Warning(s): Creator Chose Not to Use
Character(s): Jonathan Byers, Joyce Byers, Will Byers, Jim “Chief” Hopper, Steve Harrington
Pairing(s): Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers & Will Byers, Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington
Summary: Jonathan Byers is just trying to get back on his feet after fighting a monster in his own home and recovering his missing brother. Steve Harrington helping with home repairs was not on the agenda
I just wanted to say (I can't get enough of your face)
Art by @lady-lostmind | Fic by @sidekick-hero
Rating: Explicit | WC: 16,070
Warning(s): No Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve, Eddie, Robin, Vickie, Dustin, Jeff, Gareth, Grant
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley/Vickie (minor)
Summary: Steve and Eddie are both famous musicians. They're also madly in love, but they can't let anyone know. At least, not outside of their trusted group of friends. Steve's public persona has to be straight. And single. Available.
It's fine. Until it isn't, so Steve decides to end the charade. Eddie and him just have to finish their parallel cross-America tours first. Then, they can love each other the way they want: loud and proud.
Or: Steve and Eddie count the days before they can make their love public. That doesn't mean they can't be dorks in love in secret and drive their friends (mostly Robin) crazy.
Just A Love Bite
Art by @lady-lostmind | Fic by @beritybaker
Rating: Explicit | WC: 14,334
Warning(s): No Warnings Apply
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Summary: Steve gets dragged along to a Corroded Coffin concert. Eddie Munson becomes obsessed with him.
Ain't going backwards, won't ask for space
Art by @all-tea | Fic by @nomadic-wolf
Rating: Teens and Up | WC: 3212
Warning(s): No Archive Warnings Apply
Character(s): Jonathan Byers, Steve Harrington
Pairing(s): Jonathan Byerse, Steve Harrington
Summary: Jonathan was honest when he told Steve that he didn’t like him. Really he was. But after saving someone’s life… well it was hard to pretend the animosity was there anymore. It was especially hard to be against Steve while they were actively in flux with the military. There were approximately three days between the upside down blowing up and when they were allowed to leave.
--
The time between the final battle and the finale and how Steve and Jonathan grow closer.
My European Summer (A Guide to Surviving an International Roadtrip with two Losers and the most Beautiful Woman in Italy)
Art by @janie-bean | Fic by @cxwzkeys
Rating: G | WC: 22,697
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Original Female Character
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley x OC, Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson
Summary: Robin Buckley's plans are easy; travel to Paris alongside Steve Harrington. Since before taking the plane, the plans change and keep changing until the end. What seems to be a terrible road trip finishes not only as a road trip of their lives but also as a romance for both of them.
Lavender Thread
Art by @hawkinsleather | Fic by @mugloversonly
Rating: T | WC: 3,170
Warning(s): Graphic Depictions of Violence
Character(s): Eddie Munson Eleven | Jane Hopper Wayne Munson Dustin Henderson Steve Harrington Original Female Character(s) Henry Creel | One | Vecna Chrissy Cunningham
Pairing(s): Eleven | Jane Hopper & Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Dustin Henderson & Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Original Female Character(s), Henry Creel | One | Vecna & Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson
Summary: Every tattoo Eleven's ever had have been done by Eddie.
When he doesn't charge her for the newest one, his receptionist questions why.
The answer is simple really, El saved his life. A free tattoo is the least he can do.
To Be Caught Staring
Art by @nomadic-wolf | Fic by @kallisto-k
Rating: G | WC: 5,993
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Jonathan Byers, Steve Harrington, background Joyce Byers - Character, Background Will Byers - Character
Pairing(s): Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler - Relationship, past Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler - Relationship
Summary: Jonathan was just trying to survive a TV appearance with his mom and brother. He didn't expect Steve Harrington to be there, and certainly not for him to be watching Jonathan like a hawk. Who knew a couple awkward interactions and dinner invitations could lead to something more?
Your Voice and Mine
Art by @whataboutthefish | Fic by @kayleeofcamelot
Rating: E | WC: 15k
Warning(s): Chose Not to Use
Character(s): Henry Creel, Eddie Munson, Gareth, Jeff, Unnamed Freak (his name is Doug), Chrissy Cunningham, other characters mentioned
Pairing(s): Henry Creel/Eddie Munson; Gareth & Jeff & Eddie Munson & Unnamed Freak, Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson, Background Chrissy/Gareth
Summary: Eddie hates him. With every fiber of his body and every wavy hair on his head he hates him. Henry fucking Creel. Who’s up at the stage of The American Music Awards, accepting the prize that should have been Corroded Coffin’s. And that’s not enough. The man has the audacity to throw shade at them. And Eddie is not someone to take that lightly, so when the opportunity arises, he quips back.
A routine they have perfected over the years their little feud has already been going. And they would have kept going for many years more, if not for the fans of both bands catching on. When the situation escalates and both band leaders are forced to work on a song together for a publicity stunt, the tension between them lights a spark which, in turn, lights a fire.
between home and somewhere far away.
Art by @kaspurrcat | Fic by @thefreakandthehair
Rating: E | WC: 22.8K
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Chrissy Cunningham, The Party (Stranger Things), Background & Cameo Characters
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Background Chrissy Cunningham/Robin Buckley
Summary: Gym Teacher and Hockey Coach Steve Harrington meets Eddie Munson outside of a Dunkin Donuts. As any New Englander knows, it's the beginning of a beautiful thing.
Just Let Us be Three Tonight
Art by @alicetallula | Fic by @kallisto-k
Rating: G | WC: 4,752
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Jim "Chief" Hopper, Joyce Byers, Wayne Munson Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Throuples | Triad Relationships, Slice of Life, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Not Karen Wheeler Friendly, Brief mention of her, House Shopping, Cuddling & Snuggling
Summary: Hopper loves waking up next to his partners when he can, but he can't help thinking sometimes they should take the next step. Still, they've got enough on their plates until a lack of family meals and a dining table prompts him to voice one of his desires.
Following Your Lead
Art by @monologichno | Fic by @tinytalkingtina
Rating: T | WC: 4.7k
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Murray Bauman
Pairing(s): Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson
Summary: Eddie is forced to choreograph a duet with new troupe member Steve Harrington. He's not pleased at having to share the spotlight, but the universe has a surprise in store for both of them.
Don't Look Back
Art by @artgroves | Fic by @jo-harrington
Rating: M | WC: 20k
Warning(s): Major Character Death
Character(s): Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham, Henry Creel/Vecna
Pairing(s): Eddie Munson x Chrissy Cunningham
Summary: Eddie Munson wakes up alone in the Upside Down is given the chance to save Chrissy Cunningham. There's just one catch. (A contemporary retelling of the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.)
Unsinkable
Art by @alicetallula | Fic by @medusapelagia
Rating: T | WC: 13k
Warning(s): No Warnings
Character(s): Chrissy Cunningham, Billy Hargrove, Gareth (Stranger Things), Heather Holloway, Original Characters
Summary: The Titanic is the most luxurious ship ever to cross the Atlantic, and having a first-class cabin on its maiden voyage isn’t something Christine Cunningham expected when her aunt told her she was to marry William Hargrove and move to New York.
Billy isn’t thrilled either. His preferences don’t include pretty girls, but if he wants to inherit his father’s fortune, he’ll have to marry Chrissy.
Gareth Emerson doesn’t have these kinds of problems. He’s a musician who boards the Titanic after a lucky hand of cards and soon meets the most intriguing couple he has ever encountered.
The journey might have been pleasant, if it weren’t for the massive iceberg waiting in the middle of the ocean.
Based on art by @lulalulens
Beta read by @stevesjockstrap and @hiei-harringtonmunson
Written for @strangerthingsreversebigbang
10680 | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steddie, Wayne & Eddie
Tags: Dark Romance, Obsessive Behavior, Temporary Character Death, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Gothic, Historical Inaccuracy, Medical Inaccuracies, Body Horror, Body Worship, Inspired by Frankenstein, Happy Ending, Getting Together
Summary:
Steven Harrington is a below-average medicine student at the Hawkins Hospital and Laboratory, with no direction other than the one his father pushes him towards.
Until one day, in the cold basement under Dr. Creel's manor, he finds his purpose.
He finds love.
Here's the art I made for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang !!
Team 027!
I worked with the amazing @kayleeofcamelot for
"The Prince and The Dragon"
It was lovely to work on these pieces and even lovelier to work with Kaylee and their ever creative mind 🥰
So creative, this might not be the last you see of The Prince and the Dragon. Some ideas had to be delayed due to time complications (college is no joke, okay) So keep your eyes peeled and stalk Kaylee's socials for what's to come ;)
a @strangerthingsreversebigbang project with @whoismartianfox
Word Count: 7.3k
Rating: Teen & up
Archive Warnings: Graphic depection of violence
Pairings: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington & his parents
Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington's father, Steve Harrington's mother, Vecna
Tags: Medieval AU, Fantasy AU, mystical creatures, Prince Steve, Dragon Eddie, Steve has good parents, Blood and Gore, Violence, Revenge, death of side characters, forced marriage, developing feelings, first kiss, marriage
The harvest festival was in full swing when the kingdom of Hawkins was ambushed and attacked by the Southern Raiders, led by the infamous Vecna. Horrified, Prince Steve had to watch his parents get slaughtered. He managed to get away. Desperate and fueled by the burning desire for revenge, he turned to something they had sworn never to turn to.
A story about revenge, a deal and finding true companionship along the way.
Debated doing this for a while, but @monologichno has been offline since December and hasn't really shown any signs of coming back. So posting the art they drew for our team for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang!
If they ever come back online I'll delete this post since it wasn't really mine to get notifications for though!
Let's go! Another piece for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang this time with the awesome @dame-zoom-a-lot as writer <3 thanks a lot for that beauty you wrote and taking my artwork 🤗
Please go and read "Not like other girls" and give it kudos, comments and the love it deserves!
"Eddie?" Chrissy said again, louder this time, disbelief falling away when his form didn't fade like the mirage she was half-sure he must be.
This time, his head snapped up.
For the span of a heartbeat he only stared at her, as though she were another impossible thing among the impossible things of this night. Then his face crumpled. He bent once more over Steve and pressed a kiss to his forehead—quick and fierce—before he straightened and crossed to her in three long strides, pulling her into his arms.
"Thank God," he said into her hair. "Thank God you're all right."
She clutched at the back of his shirt. He smelled of wood smoke and coal dust, and he was solid and real and here, in this house, and she could not make sense of any of it. A sob broke loose from her before she knew it was coming.
"How are you here?" Her voice came out muffled against his shoulder. "Eddie, what are you—how could you possibly—"
"I came for you." He drew back far enough to hold her face in his hands, his eyes searching hers with a ferocity that bordered on frantic. "To take you away from him, Chrissy. I found out what he is, what he's done. Seems like maybe you did too."
"How?"
"Later. I swear I'll tell you all of it later. But right now he's loose in this house and I have to stop him." His hands gripped her shoulders. "Listen to me. I broke in through a window downstairs. I was going room to room, trying to find you. I came up on Steve in Carver's bedroom. He had a fire poker raised over the bed, about to bring it down, but I startled him, and the movement woke Carver before Steve could strike. Carver got the better of him—it's all my fault. Steve chased him out here, and somewhere between there and here Carver put him into the wall. He's been out cold ever since."
Chrissy's gaze found Steve where he lay, a thin line of blood tracing from his temple into his hair.
"Is he—"
"Alive. Breathing steady. I think he'll be fine once he wakes up."
"How do you know him?" Robin's voice came sharp at Chrissy's elbow. She had materialized at her side at some point Chrissy hadn't registered, her eyes narrowed on Eddie with undisguised suspicion.
Eddie met her stare evenly.
"Another long story for later."
Robin's jaw worked, but she didn't press it.
Chrissy pulled free of Eddie's grip and dropped to her knees beside Steve. Robin knelt opposite her. Chrissy pressed two fingers to the hollow of Steve's throat and found his pulse steady and unhurried beneath her fingertips.
"We have him," Chrissy said. She looked up at Eddie. "Go. Find Jason. Finish this, and then we can all be out of this house before first light."
Eddie hesitated—a reluctance he couldn't quite mask to leave her now that they'd found each other—then he nodded once, and was gone. Down the hall at a loping run, down the main staircase, his footfalls heavy and receding.
Minutes crawled by and Chrissy quickly lost count of how many had passed.
She knelt on the runner with one hand on Steve's wrist, measuring his pulse against the small tick of her own heartbeat. The fallen lamp beside them had nearly burnt through its oil. The shadows along the hallway leaned toward her the longer she held still, thickening at the edges of the light.
Too long. It was taking too long.
From somewhere below came a muffled thud. Then another.
Robin's head came up. "That doesn't sound good."
A crash. Glass breaking. The sharp crack of something heavy striking wood.
Chrissy rose like a shot. Her legs felt distant beneath her, not quite her own, but they held. She looked down at Steve—the steady rise and fall of his chest, the cut at his temple already crusting dry—and then at Robin.
"We can't leave him here in the hall."
"No."
Moving him proved harder than either of them expected. Steve was tall and dead weight, his limbs loose and uncooperative, and between the two of them they only managed a few feet before Robin swore under her breath and they had to regroup. Chrissy gripped him under the arms, Robin took his ankles, and they half-carried, half-dragged him across the hall and through the nearest doorway—Chrissy's own bedroom, because it was closest and because the door had a latch. They eased him down onto the rug beside her bed. Robin pulled a pillow from the covers and slid it beneath his head.
"I'll come back for you," Robin murmured to his still face. She pressed her palm briefly to his cheek. "Don't you dare die while I'm gone. I will never forgive you."
She straightened and met Chrissy's eyes.
"Weapons?"
They moved fast. The fire poker from Jason's room, still lying where Steve had dropped it. Chrissy took it in hand—the iron cold and weighty and right in her grip. Robin found a thick brass candlestick on the hallway table, heavy enough to do real damage, and wrapped both fists around its base. Chrissy left her candelabra behind on the rug beside Steve in case he woke in the dark.
They went.
Down the hall, down the main staircase, Robin's bare feet striking the runner ahead of her now. Chrissy let her lead. Robin knew this house far better than she—by instinct, by muscle memory, by the particular creak of every floorboard. Another crash sounded from somewhere further below and to the left as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Robin's head turned toward it.
"This way."
She caught Chrissy's wrist and pulled her through a doorway Chrissy had never entered—a short corridor that smelled of flour and soap, the servants' passage behind the kitchen. The floor was cool flagstone under her thin slippers. At the end of the corridor a door stood open, and beyond it a staircase plunged down into darkness save for one light glowing at the bottom.
Not steady, wavering. Moving.
"Cellar," Robin breathed.
Another sound from below. Not a crash this time but a groan—low, pained, and unmistakably human.
They rushed down.
The stairs were steep and completely unfinished, rough planks nailed between stone walls, and they took them at speed. The air cooled with each step, the scent of earth and damp rising to meet them, and beneath that something sharper and more immediate. The copper tang of blood.
They came off the last step into a low-ceilinged space walled in brick, lit by a single lantern set on a barrel near the wall. Casks and crates lined the perimeter. A passage at the far end led deeper, into dark.
Slumped against one of the nearest barrels, one hand pressed hard to his left shoulder, was Eddie.
"Eddie—" Chrissy cried out softly.
She was across the room before she knew she'd moved. She dropped to her knees in front of him, and when her hand closed over his she felt the wetness already soaking through his shirt, warm and slick against her fingers.
"Let me see, let me see—"
"It's not as bad as it looks." His voice came through gritted teeth and his face was bloodless, waxy in the lantern light. "My own goddamn knife. He got it off me somehow. Bastard is scrappier than he looks."
"He stabbed you… with your own knife."
"Don't start." A rough laugh broke out of him and he winced against it.
"Where is he now?"
"Chrissy, you can't—"
"We can," she cut in, her hand tight over his on the wound. "Robin and I. We'll stop him. I need you to trust me."
Eddie held her eyes for a long moment. Then he sagged against the barrel and tipped his chin toward the passage at the far end of the cellar.
"He went that way."
"Can you stay awake?" She watched his lids drift heavier with every breath. "Eddie, stay with me."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Don't close your eyes."
"Go."
She pressed his hand more firmly over the wound one last time to make sure he kept the pressure steady, then finally let go. The fire poker was still in her grip. Robin hefted her candlestick and fell in beside her.
They stepped through into the cellar proper.
It was larger than Chrissy had expected—a single long room with a low brick ceiling and shelves lining the walls, casks and crates stacked along them in dusty rows. A lantern burned on a stool near the far wall, throwing its light in a lopsided circle. At the room's end, set at a steep angle, rose a pair of heavy slanted doors, iron-banded and old. An outer entrance—the kind that opened upward out into the yard.
Jason's back was to them. He was stooped over a crate, rifling through its contents with hurried, graceless movements. His shirt was torn at the collar. A dark smear of blood—Eddie's, Chrissy realized with a cold clarity—ran down his forearm and across one knuckle. On the floor beside his boot lay Eddie's pocketknife, the blade open, the handle tacky and dark.
He hadn't heard them approach.
Chrissy took a steadying breath, and the air in front of her mouth bloomed white when she exhaled. Only then did she register that the cellar had grown far colder than it should have been. Her skin prickled with it. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature slid down her spine, almost familiar now.
Not now, she thought—but almost immediately changed her mind.
Yes. Now. Please. Help us.
"Chrissy?" Robin's voice wavered, barely a breath as she tried to keep quiet. Her candlestick had sunk to her side, her free hand curled tight against her own collarbone as though bracing against something she could feel but not see.
"It's all right," Chrissy whispered back. "They're not here to hurt us."
Robin's grip tightened on the candlestick as the two of them stepped forward together.
Jason's head came up at the sound. He straightened fast, turning, and saw them—and for one frozen second, no one moved.
His face cycled through half a dozen masks in the space of a breath. Shock to fury to something calculating and rapid behind his eyes, before it all smoothed away—folded itself into an expression soft and stricken and beseeching, as practiced as any performance Chrissy had ever witnessed in a theater.
"Oh, thank God." His voice came out ragged, laden with manufactured concern. He took a step toward her, both hands outstretched at his sides. "Chrissy. Darling, you're all right—"
"Stay where you are."
"They attacked me, Chrissy. In my own bed. Steve had a poker—he was going to bring it down on me while I slept. Then some stranger, I don't even know how he got into the house—he came at me with a knife, I had to—" Jason's breath hitched, his eyes shining with the precise gloss of unshed tears. "I thought I'd lost you. I thought he was here to hurt you. Come here, darling. We have to get to the sheriff, we have to—"
"I said stay where you are." Chrissy lifted the poker higher between them.
His hands faltered where they hung in the air, fingers spreading, uncertain.
"Darling, what—"
"Don't." The word left her thin and sharp. Darling. He had wielded the endearment three times now, each one weighted with the same gentle tone he had used on their wedding day. She heard the machinery of it now, the gears turning behind every syllable. Even the sound of her own name in his mouth made her stomach turn. "I know what you are."
"Robin." His gaze shifted past Chrissy, and his voice dropped lower, more confidential—the tone of a conspirator, an ally. You and I understand each other. Help me manage this. "Robin, look at her. She's hysterical. She's been through a shock, she doesn't know what she's saying."
"She knows exactly what she's saying," Robin ground out between clenched teeth.
Jason's gaze snapped back to Chrissy, and the stricken mask held but she could see the seams of it straining at the corners of his mouth.
"You've been ill, you haven't been yourself, and with everything that's happened tonight—"
"I know about Heather."
The words dropped into the cellar like stones into still water.
Jason went rigid—his outstretched hands freezing mid-gesture, and for the first time since she had known him, he had nothing to say.
"I know about Eden." Chrissy found that her voice held. It did not shake the way her hands did. It did not catch the way her breath did. It came out of her flat and clear and entirely her own, and she let it carry. "I found their belongings upstairs. I read Eden's letters. I saw Heather's wedding photograph—saw you standing beside her in front of a church, wearing the same smile you wore for me."
"Chrissy—"
"You killed my father."
She hadn't planned to say it. The accusation arrived fully formed, as though it had been assembling itself in the dark corners of her mind, waiting for the moment she was brave enough to let it speak. The Perkins ball. The way Jason had been dragged aside by her father, and the impossible fury in Richard's eyes. Her father had learned something that night. Something that made him try to pay the man off, to banish him, to protect her in the only way he knew how—with money and command.
She watched Jason's face as the truth of it landed, and she saw the moment his performance finally cracked clean through.
His lip curled.
"You stupid girl," he snarled.
Every trace of pretense went out of him at once, shed like a snake's skin, and what remained was something small and vicious and corroded all the way to the core—a petty, grasping cruelty that had been wearing a borrowed face.
"You stupid, vapid, useless girl. Do you have any idea what it costs to keep a house like this? To keep appearances? To live a life fit for a man of my station? I deserve every penny of your father's fortune for the time I spent entertaining your childish thoughts and dreams. And you think I owe you something? Explanations? Honesty?"
"Stop talking."
"Perhaps you think you deserve an apology." He scoffed—a dry, ugly sound. "You've been nothing to me, Christine. A ledger entry. A paycheck. You thought I'd fallen for you? I couldn't pick your face out of a—"
"I said stop!"
She felt it before she saw it—a concentration of force behind her, the air pulling tight and purposeful the way it had in the attic the first time the spirit she now knew was Heather had stood in the shadows and reached for her. The lantern on the stool flickered and dimmed. Beside her, Robin drew a sharp, startled breath and seized Chrissy's arm.
Jason's eyes locked on something over Chrissy's shoulder. Whatever he saw there drained the blood from his face in a single rush.
She turned.
The figure stood just behind them, no more than a few feet back, her spectral form framed against the dark. The crimson dress hung on her the way it had the first night—damp-looking, clinging, as if she'd died soaked in her own fever sweat. Her dark hair fell lank around a face inhumanly pale and gaunt. But she was no longer pleading, no longer desperate. She stood with the terrible stillness of a woman who had waited a very long time for this moment and intended to see it through.
Her eyes were fixed on Jason, and they burned.
Behind her, coalescing out of the shadow of the shelves, a second figure took shape. Eden—the ghost from the library—stepped forward into the lantern's failing light, and her gaze, too, belonged only to Jason. Her jaw was set, her chin lifted, her hands no longer pressing flat against an invisible barrier. They hung loose at her sides, and the fury that radiated from her was quiet and total, and terrifying. The wrath of a woman whose last letter had trailed off mid-sentence because the man before her had stolen even the strength to finish it.
Jason took a stumbling step backward, then another. His foot caught on the edge of the crate and he nearly went down, catching himself against the brick wall with one hand. His head whipped from Chrissy to the ghosts and back, and now she saw it clearly—the brittle, pathetic boy who had been hiding all along behind the mask of a monster.
He was absolutely terrified.
He turned and lunged for the outer doors.
His hands found the iron handles and hauled upward with panicked strength. One door groaned open six inches before the hinges seized, rust and disuse fighting him, and he threw his weight against it with a snarl. The gap widened. Night air poured through—warm and alive, smelling of dust and sage and the open prairie beyond—and for a sickening instant Chrissy thought he'd squeeze through, could imagine him vanishing into the dark, running free across the flat country with her father's blood on his hands and two dead women in his wake and nothing to stop him from doing it all again in some new town to some new girl—
But the doors slammed shut.
Not by wind. Not by any force Jason could have planned for. They crashed closed with a violence that shook dust from the ceiling and knocked the lantern sideways off its stool, the flame guttering wildly before it steadied on the floor. Jason staggered back from the impact, his hands still raised where the handles had been torn from his grip.
The cold deepened. Frost crept across the iron bands of the doors in delicate, crystalline patterns that glittered in the lamplight. The temperature plunged until every breath in the room was a white cloud and Chrissy's fingers ached around the fire poker.
Heather's ghost moved past. Chrissy felt the passage of it—not in movement exactly, but absence, a void where warmth should have been, trailing across her skin like cold water. The spirit crossed the cellar floor without sound, without weight, her bare feet never touching the flagstone. Eden followed. The two of them advanced on Jason in tandem, unhurried, and the light retreated before them as though it too were afraid.
Jason's back struck the cellar doors. With them frozen shut he had nowhere left to go.
"No—" The word ripped from him, high and fractured. He pressed himself flat against the iron-banded wood as though he could push through it by will alone. "No, please—you're not real, you're not—stay back—stay back!"
Heather stopped three feet from him, Eden beside her. They stood shoulder to shoulder, two women who had never known each other in life, united now in death by the man who had killed them both. Their mouths did not move. Their eyes did not waver. They simply looked at him, and the weight of that shared gaze was more terrible than any words could have been.
Jason screamed. It was not the sound of a man in command of anything. It was raw, animal, the sound of prey cornered and stripped of every defense. He broke left, scrambling along the wall, clawing past crates and barrels in a blind, lurching run for the passage back toward the stairs.
Toward escape.
Toward Eddie.
Chrissy stepped right into his path.
She didn't have to think about it. Her body moved the same way it had when she'd reached for Robin's hand in the dark of her bedroom, the way it had when she'd dragged her trunk up a flight of stairs on her own because she was tired of being told which rooms were hers to enter. An instinct older and surer than fear, rooted in every silent day she had spent bowing and smiling and folding her hands and swallowing the word no.
She planted her feet, raised the fire poker above her head, and when Jason barreled toward her—eyes wild, hands reaching—whether to shove her aside or strike her she would never know—she swung.
The iron connected with the side of his head with a sound she would carry for the rest of her life. Dull, thick, final. The impact vibrated through her arms and shoulders and she felt it in her teeth.
Jason's momentum carried him another half step. His eyes found hers again—glassy, uncomprehending—and for a single heartbeat he simply stood there, blood pouring down his face, as though his body had not yet accepted the message his skull had already received.
Then his knees buckled and he went down. He crumpled to the flagstone floor and did not move again.
The fire poker fell from Chrissy's grip and rang against the stone. The echo carried through the cellar like a bell, and in the silence that followed she heard nothing but her own breathing—ragged and loud and much too fast.
The cold lifted.
Not the way morning sun warms a room, but all at once—a release, a held breath finally exhaled for good. The frost on the cellar doors thawed in seconds, condensation tracing down the iron bands. The lantern flame on the floor steadied and grew, pushing warm light back into the corners.
Heather and Eden were gone, and in the space where they had stood the air felt clean and still, as though some wound in the house itself had finally closed.
Chrissy stood over the body of her husband with bruised hands and a heart hammering against her ribs and the first tears she'd shed in hours tracking silently down her face.
Robin was beside her—had been beside her, Chrissy realized, through all of it, close enough to touch, the brass candlestick still white-knuckled in her fist. Her face was wet too and she was shaking.
"Is he—" Robin's voice broke.
Chrissy glanced down at the golden hair matted dark at Jason's temple, noted the stillness of his chest.
"Yes."
Robin threw down the candlestick. She took Chrissy's hand—the one that had gripped the poker, the fingers still curled and aching—and held it between both of her own.
"We need to check on the boys," Chrissy said.
"I know."
Eddie was where they'd left him, slumped against the barrel with his hand covering his shoulder, his face the color of ash and his eyes stubbornly, defiantly open. When Chrissy dropped to her knees before him his cracked lips managed a grin.
"You're alive."
"So are you." She pressed her forehead to his. "Barely."
"Is he?"
She shook her head. "It's over."
His eyes searched hers. She watched him read the truth there—what she had done, what it had cost her, what it meant. He didn't ask her to say it aloud, didn't press for details. He simply reached up with his unbloodied hand, gripped the back of her neck and held her close, his breath unsteady against her cheek.
"That's my girl," he whispered.
Footsteps on the cellar stairs made them all look up.
Steve stood at the bottom step, one hand braced against the wall for balance. The cut at his temple had opened again, a fresh trickle of blood tracing down to his jaw. His gaze swept the room—Chrissy kneeling, Robin standing behind her, the blood on the floor, the rest of the cellar dark and quiet. Finally, his eyes settled on Eddie.
"You," Steve breathed.
Eddie stared up at him from the floor, his grin had fallen clean off, replaced by an expression Chrissy had rarely seen him wear—open, unguarded, stripped bare of every defense he'd ever built. His mouth worked around a word that wouldn't come.
Steve crossed the room in four wobbly strides and dropped to his knees beside him, his hands finding Eddie's face with a tenderness that cracked Chrissy's heart wide open. His thumbs traced Eddie's cheekbones, his jaw, the line of dried blood where a split lip had bled and crusted over during the fight.
"You absolute idiot," Steve said, and his voice broke on the last word. "You reckless, stupid, impossible—what on earth are you even doing here?"
"Bleeding, mostly." Eddie's hand came up and covered Steve's where it rested against his cheek. "Hi, Stevie.”
Steve made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sob. He leaned forward and kissed Eddie—fierce, desperate, graceless—and Eddie kissed him back with the fervor of a man who had expected to die tonight and been granted a reprieve.
"Okay," Robin said slowly, her brow furrowed. "I have questions."
"So do I," Chrissy admitted with an amused huff.
The men broke apart, though Steve's hands remained cradling Eddie's jaw. Eddie tipped his head back against the barrel, wincing as he caught his breath.
"We know each other," Eddie offered.
"I think we gathered that." Robin folded her arms. "How?"
"Chicago." Steve's thumb was still moving absently across Eddie's cheekbone. He didn't seem to realize he was doing it. "Eddie is… well, he's the man I was telling you about."
"The one who broke your heart?" Chrissy asked softly.
"We had a standing date," Steve said, quieter now. The thumb on Eddie's cheek stilled. "Every other Thursday, at the club. Then he stopped showing up. No message, no word. I thought—" He swallowed. "I thought he'd decided I wasn't worth the risk."
Eddie's good hand tightened on Steve's. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I didn't mean to disappear on you. My uncle got sick. Pneumonia. I couldn't leave him."
Chrissy remembered that. Eddie vanishing for weeks one autumn, about three years ago. Wayne Munson's rattling cough audible through the cottage walls, Eddie sleeping in a chair beside his bed every night until the fever broke.
"I never stopped thinking about you," Eddie said "I went back to the club as soon as I could, but you were gone."
"Because Jason brought us here by then." Steve's jaw tightened.
They looked at one another in the lamplight, and the magnitude of the near-miss seemed to settle over both of them at once.
"Harrington, hm?"
"How did you—"
"A telegram you sent Jason. I came across it when I was researching Carver. Had I known S. Harrington was you, well, I might have dressed a little better for the occasion."
"What a frighteningly small world," Robin said.
"Isn't it," Steve agreed without looking at her, and kissed Eddie again—gentler this time, his hand sliding from Eddie's jaw to the back of his neck, the urgency softening just a hair.
Chrissy rose from the floor and stepped back to give them some privacy. Robin followed her a few paces behind, and when Chrissy turned to face her, the expression she found there nearly undid her.
Robin was watching the two men with a look of nearly painful joy—but beneath it, a longing so fierce it seemed to radiate from her very soul. Not for Steve, Chrissy understood that. For what he and Eddie had.
Robin's gaze shifted to Chrissy, and the longing remained.
"Robin."
Chrissy closed the distance between them. She took Robin's face in both her hands and felt Robin tremble beneath her palms.
"You don't have to—"
"I want to," Chrissy said quietly.
Robin's breath caught. Her eyes were bright, her lips parted, and the lopsided smile that Chrissy had loved since the first moment she'd seen it surfaced now through drying tears.
"You're sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
Chrissy leaned in.
It was nothing like kissing Jason. Robin's mouth was warm and soft and tasted of salt from her tears, and when Robin's hands came up to grip the front of Chrissy's dressing gown and pull her closer, the heat that bloomed in Chrissy's chest was so sudden and so fierce she understood, with the force of revelation, that this was what her books had been trying to describe all along.
She had simply been reading about the wrong pairs of lovers.
When they finally drew apart, Eddie was watching from the floor with his good arm slung around Steve's shoulders and the biggest, most insufferably knowing grin she had ever seen on his face.
"Don't," Chrissy warned.
"I didn't say a word."
"You were about to."
"I was going to say," Eddie announced, with the lofty dignity of a man propped against a barrel with a stab wound, "that I am genuinely happy for you both, and also that I might require medical attention."
They bound Eddie's shoulder with strips torn from the cleanest linen Robin could find—a tablecloth from the dining room, sacrificed without regret. The wound was ugly but shallow, the blade having caught more flesh than muscle, and Eddie bore Robin's efforts with theatrical stoicism until Steve told him to quit being an ass and hold still.
While Robin worked, Chrissy climbed the stairs one last time. She changed out of her nightdress and dressing gown and into the forest green silk she'd worn on her first morning in this house. The dress that demanded to be taken seriously. The one that had been her armor.
She laced her own stays without help. Buttoned her own buttons. Pinned her own hair.
Then she opened her wardrobe, pulled out everything she owned, and carried it downstairs.
Dawn was breaking by the time they finished. The sky beyond the kitchen windows flushed from charcoal to rose to the thin, bright gold of a Texas morning. And the house—a vast, rotting, grief-soaked monument to a dead man's entitlement—looked smaller in the light.
Chrissy stood on the front porch with Robin beside her and watched Steve hitch a horse to an old wagon he'd pulled from the carriage house. Eddie lay in the wagon bed already, his back against the sideboards, his bound shoulder held gingerly against his chest. At his feet lay two trunks—not Chrissy's, but Heather's and Eden's, retrieved from the attic and handled with the care of coffins.
They would bring them home if they could.
Chrissy didn't know what home meant for the women those belongings had once served, but she would find out. With Eddie's help she would track down Mary, to whom Eden had written her desperate, unfinished letters. They would find Heather's people in Clarksville if any remained. She would see to it that the relics of their lives reached the hands of someone who loved them.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was something.
She took one last look at Carver Peak—at the peeling clapboard and the broken fence and the sagging porch with its gap-toothed railing—and turned away without ceremony.
Robin helped her up onto the wagon bench, the touch lingering.
"Ready?" Steve asked from the driver's seat.
Chrissy looked to Robin beside her, at Eddie behind her, and Steve gathering the reins. Four people who had found one another in the wreckage of a terrible man's ambition—battered, bloodied, none of them quite whole—all of them free.
"Ready."
The wagon lurched forward.
The wheels soon found the road, and Carver Peak shrank behind them in the morning haze until it was nothing but a dark shape on a low ridge, indistinguishable from the land around it.
Chrissy held Robin's hand the entire way, and did not look back.
Thanks as always to the wonderful @penny00dreadful for your incredible beta work and cheerleading 💜 and @beingmissbatty @sidekick-hero and @vthx for all your help along the way!
My and Nevertheless' submission for @strangerthingsreversebigbang 2025/2026!
We're so excited to share our story and art!
Fic | Art
Rating: M
Word Count: 44,567
Summary:
When things fall through for Corroded Coffin in NYC, Eddie retreats to New Orleans to lick his wounds and crash at his friend Robin’s home. Her girlfriend Eden and Steve Harrington from high school, of all people, already live there too and, lucky him, he gets stuck with Steve as a roommate. He still doesn’t understand how Robin became such good friends with a rich, pretty boy jock, but he’s determined to make the best of sharing a room with the guy.
It’s only temporary after all.
What he couldn’t have planned for is a little plant, then the city of New Orleans, and finally Steve Harrington to all worm their way into his heart.
Chrissy lay in the dark with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling as the minutes ticked by and the grandfather clock in the hall softly chimed the witching hour. The house played its usual symphony of creaks and groans around her, but none of it reall registered above the roar of her own thoughts.
Robin's hand striking out.
The shatter of porcelain.
The wet stain spreading across the floorboards.
Don't drink that. Not tonight, not any night. No matter who brings it to you.
Spoiled chamomile. A thoughtful woman catching a mistake before it could cause a stomachache.
Except Robin's hands had been shaking, her face gone white as bone. And the look in her eyes hadn't been the mild concern of someone who'd noticed a stale tea tin.
Chrissy rolled onto her side, sliding her hand beneath the mattress, fingers searching until they found the cool flat of the butter knife where she'd hidden it hours before. She curled her grip around the handle, the metal warming against her palm.
She should wait until morning. Wait for Jason to leave on whatever business occupied his day this time, then slip upstairs while he was out. That was the sensible course. But the weight of everything she didn't know pressed against her chest, and the thought of lying there until dawn with nothing but her own dread for company was more than she could stand.
She rose from the bed and moved quickly before her better judgment could stop her. The butter knife went into the pocket of her nightdress along with the matchbox from her washstand. From the wardrobe she pulled her dressing gown—white cotton, long and loose, with balloon sleeves and pearl buttons—and wrapped it around herself.
The hallway was a tunnel of shadow. She eased her door shut, holding the latch so it wouldn't click, and stood for a moment to let her eyes adjust. No light showed beneath Jason's door further down the way. No sound from Robin's end of the hall either.
The linen closet held what she needed on the second shelf, a tarnished brass candelabra with four half-spent tapers still fitted in their cups. She struck a match, the sound terribly loud to her straining ears, and touched the flame to each wick in turn. Warm light bloomed outward, pushing the shadows back to the edges of the hall, and she shielded the flames as best she could with a cupped hand as she moved toward the service stairs.
The climb felt longer than ever before, and by the time she reached the top she was short of breath, every nerve ending alight with the fear of being caught.
H.H.'s trunk waited where she'd seen it that first day, the brass corners catching the candlelight, the monogram glinting up at her like something alive and waiting. She knelt beside it, set the candelabra on the floor, and drew the butter knife from her pocket.
The clasp was stiff but not locked. She worked the blade beneath the latch and pressed, leveraging the metal until it gave with a dull pop that carried in the stillness. She held her breath, listening.
Nothing stirred below.
She lifted the lid.
The scent hit her first—cedar and something powdery, a perfume faded to little more than a memory of itself. Inside, nested in tissue paper, lay the folded remnants of a woman's life. Dresses of rich fabric—velvet, silk, fine wool—their cuts fashionable, their quality plain to see. Leather gloves in butter cream and dove gray. A beaded evening bag. A tortoiseshell hair comb with a cracked tooth.
Chrissy lifted the garments gingerly, laying them beside the trunk with the care of an archaeologist unearthing ancient relics. Beneath the clothing, wrapped in a linen handkerchief, she found two framed photographs.
The first showed a young woman posed beside an older gentleman in a photographer's studio. The girl was lovely—dark-haired with a round, open face, full lips, and wide-set eyes that met the camera with quiet confidence. The man beside her was distinguished, silver at his temples, and they shared the same strong nose, the same determined set of jaw. Father and daughter. The resemblance was unmistakable.
Chrissy's fingers tightened on the frame as she turned to the second photograph.
The same dark-haired girl stood on the steps of a church in a modest gown of white, a short veil pinned to her hair. She was smiling—tentative, hopeful—her hand resting in the crook of her companion's arm.
The photograph shook in Chrissy's grasp.
Jason.
Unmistakably, impossibly Jason. The same golden hair, the same easy, confident stance. He wore a dark suit, and his free hand covered hers where it gripped his arm. He was smiling too, that bright, charming smile she knew so well. The one he'd given her on the steps of her own church not two weeks ago.
She turned the frame over without thinking, the way one did with photographs, and found a line of writing on the back.
Heather & Jason, our wedding day.
A young bride's handwriting, neat and hopeful, recording the happiest day of her life.
A first wife? A late wife. That was possible, wasn't it? Perhaps the girl had died young—an illness, any of a thousand quiet tragedies that carried women off before their time. Perhaps the loss had been too painful for Jason to speak of. Perhaps he'd come to Indiana to start fresh, to outrun his grief, and he simply hadn't found the right moment to tell her yet.
Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.
But he looked so similar to how he did now. Not younger by any measure she could find, completely unmarked by the passage of years that would separate one marriage from another by a respectable distance. The man in this photograph and the man sleeping one floor below her were the same, down to the cut of his hair and the precise angle of his smile.
And no one who had loved and lost a wife kept her belongings locked in a trunk gathering dust. They kept a locket, a portrait on the mantle, a pressed flower between the pages of a Bible. They spoke of the departed with tenderness and grief. They didn't hide every trace of her existence in an attic and never breathe her name.
The dread that had been circling for days pounced on Chrissy then, its talons sinking deep. She pressed the photograph flat against her chest and forced herself to breathe.
Move. Keep moving. See what else there is to find.
She repacked the trunk with silent apologies to its owner, closed the lid, and carried the candelabra deeper into the garret. The corridor narrowed as she went, the ceiling sloping, the beams pressing closer overhead. She ducked beneath the last of them and found the far alcove exactly as she'd left it.
The other set of luggage sat against the wall beneath the dormer window. The larger case and its smaller companions, the neat stamp on each one reading Eden B. She knelt and retrieved the knife again, working it beneath the bent clasp she'd failed to open earlier. This time she knew the trick and made quick work of it—angle the blade, press and lever—and the latch surrendered with a metallic pop.
Any hope that there was a reasonable explanation for all this died when she lifted the lid. The contents told a similar story. Dresses, though plainer than the first woman's—one ebony silk, the rest cotton. A single wool shawl. Stockings darned at the heel. A woman of slightly lesser means, or simpler tastes, but the possessions were just as personal. A hairbrush with a few dark strands still caught in its bristles. A bundle of undelivered letters tied with kitchen twine.
Chrissy lifted the letters with unsteady hands and slid the first from its envelope. The handwriting was small and cramped, the ink still dark and crisp on the page.
Dearest Mary,
I write to assure you I am well and that Mr. Carver continues to be the most attentive of husbands. The house has lovely bones and the country here, though dry, has its own wild beauty. I confess I have not been feeling myself as of late. There's a persistent fatigue and some trouble with my stomach that will not relent. Jason thinks it is only the change of climate but has sent for a doctor to be sure. Please do not worry. I am certain it will pass.
Your friend always, Eden
Chrissy's hands had gone cold. She unfolded the next letter, then the next. Each one shorter than the last, the handwriting growing looser, more erratic, the complaints of illness more frequent and more dire. Headaches that blurred her vision. A numbness in her hands and feet. Her hair beginning to thin.
The final letter was barely legible, the pen strokes wavering across the page as if the hand that held it could no longer grip properly.
Mary—
Something is wrong. I am so tired I can barely hold this pen. Jason says it is
The letter stopped there. No signature. No closing. Just the sentence trailing off into nothing, the ink pooling where the nib had rested too long in one spot, as if the woman writing it had simply run out of the strength to finish.
Chrissy sat back on her heels. The candelabra flames flickered in a draft she couldn't feel, sending shadows lurching across the walls, and the alcove seemed to contract around her—the ceiling lower, the air thinner, the dry floral scent suddenly cloying and thick at the back of her throat.
Two women. Two trunks full of belongings hidden in the attic of a house their husband had brought them to. One with a wedding photograph that proved nothing of her fate, only that she had stood smiling on a church step beside the same man Chrissy had married. One whose letters charted the slow, meticulous erosion of her health in terms Chrissy now recognized with sickening clarity.
Fatigue. Nausea. Sallow skin. Dreamless sleep.
The same symptoms she herself had woken with each morning since she arrived.
The butter knife slipped from her fingers and clattered against the floorboards.
The sound seemed thunderous in the silence.
Chrissy sat frozen, her hands empty in her lap, the letters scattered around her like fallen leaves. Somewhere in the house below, a floorboard settled. A draft moved through the eaves with a sigh that sounded almost human.
She pressed her palms flat against the floorboards to steady herself and began, mechanically, to gather the letters. Her fingers didn't seem to belong to her. She folded each page along its original creases, slid them back into their envelopes, bound them with the kitchen twine.
Her mind wouldn't stop circling—
How many cups of tea had she drunk since arriving?
How long would it have taken her to fall as sick as this poor girl? Before the doctor was called, and the concerned husband played his part, and the thing that ended Eden's last trembling sentence happened to her?
"Chrissy?"
The voice was barely more than a breath, but it struck her like a gunshot. She whipped around so fast the candelabra nearly toppled, hot wax splashing onto the floorboards in pale droplets.
Robin.
She held a candle of her own, the flame cupped carefully in one palm, her hair loose around her shoulders. For a long moment she only looked at Chrissy. Then her gaze tracked over the opened trunk, the bundle of letters in Chrissy's grip, and her eyes closed briefly, her throat working around a swallow.
"Oh, Chrissy."
It wasn't shock.
It was resignation.
Cold pressure seized Chrissy's chest. She scrambled backward on her knees, not thinking, just moving, putting distance between them. Her shoulder struck the wall. The letters slid from her hand in a soft flutter.
"You knew."
Robin flinched as if she'd been struck. "Chrissy, please—"
"You did, didn't you?" The words came out hoarse through a tight throat. "Heather. Eden. They're dead, aren't they? And you… you helped him. You've been helping him do this to me too."
"Yes." Robin's candle wavered in her hand. "Yes, I—God, Chrissy, I was going to tell you, I was trying to figure out how to tell you without Jason—"
"How could you?" Chrissy's hands curled into fists at her sides. "How could you do this? How could you watch it happen and do—"
"We were just trying to survive."
Chrissy's head snapped up.
Steve stood just beyond the doorway, his lamp held low. How long he'd been there she didn't know.
"There's a difference," he said quietly. "Not a good one. But there is."
"Please don't be afraid of us." Robin crossed the alcove in three quick steps and dropped to her knees an arm's length from Chrissy, the candle abandoned on the floorboards between them, her eyes wet and wide and pain-filled. "We're not going to hurt you. I couldn't—" Her hand flew to her mouth, catching something that might have been a sob. "The tea. Last night. I couldn't let you drink it again."
Chrissy looked at them both. At Robin's tear-streaked face, at Steve's grim stillness in the doorway. The fear was still there, a cold fist around her heart, but underneath it anger was beginning to build. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to pick up the candelabra and swing it at the nearest wall until something broke.
But none of that would keep her alive.
"Tell me," she said, her voice a lot steadier than she felt. "The truth, please. All of it."
Robin dragged a hand across her face and nodded.
"Chicago," she said. "That's where it started."
Steve eased himself down to sit against the far wall, one knee pulled up. His face was drawn, and when he spoke his voice held more emotion than he had ever shown before.
"Robin and I grew up together. Same street, same miserable town. We both had reasons to leave our families young. We looked after each other. Rented rooms together when we could afford them, slept rough when we couldn't. That was the shape of our lives. Two people nobody else particularly cared for, keeping each other alive."
"You're—" Chrissy hesitated. The question felt absurd given the circumstances, but the thought cropped up suddenly and she couldn't dislodge it. "Are you—"
Robin and Steve looked at each other. Their faces twisted into identical expressions of faint horror.
"Oh, God, no," Robin said.
"Absolutely not," Steve said at the same moment.
"She's not—"
"He's not—"
"My type," they finished together, with the unrehearsed synchrony of two people who'd lived in each other's pockets long enough that their reflexes had synced up. A flicker of warmth passed between them before it dimmed.
Oh.
The truth clicked for Chrissy softly, the way a key turns in a well-oiled lock. She thought of Eddie—the slur Jason had thrown at him, the particular loneliness of him, how he'd built his whole life at the edges of Hawkins because the middle wasn't safe for him.
She looked at Steve's carefully guarded face and understood, without being told, that he'd built his life at similar edges. And Robin, who had looked at her in the bedroom mirror the way no man had ever quite looked at her, who had sat on the edge of her bed and taught her the shape of her own pleasure with hands as unsteady as her own.
Something warm turned over in Chrissy's chest. Something hopeful. Something she absolutely could not afford to feel in this particular moment.
She pulled her attention back to Steve.
"Go on."
He rubbed his palm against his knee. "I was working in a gentleman's club. The kind of place where a person of my persuasion could sometimes make the acquaintance of other men of similar persuasions—quietly. Jason came in one night. He'd been losing at cards and drinking his sorrows away. And he'd been—" His throat bobbed over a hard swallow. "Looking at me. In the way a man looks when he wants something he doesn't want to admit he wants. I misjudged the situation."
"Entrapment," Robin cut in flatly.
"Robin."
"I said it then, and I'll say it now."
Steve closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, regret and embarrassment warring for control of his expression. "I made a… pass at him."
Chrissy's breath caught.
"He threatened to have Steve imprisoned," Robin spat, her voice tight with anger. "Sodomy laws. There was a fight. And it—"
"It spilled," Steve cut back in, "into the coat check room. Where Robin happened to be, ah—"
"Occupied," Robin supplied. "With the coat check girl."
"Oh," Chrissy breathed.
"So then it was the both of us in danger of being exposed," Steve continued. "And Jason—he had what he needed. No one in the world would take our word over his. He made an offer. Come to Texas. Work his estate. Our room and board, and our continued freedom, in exchange for our service and discretion."
"We thought that we were lucky."
The silence that followed was long and heavy. Chrissy's eyes drifted to the open trunk, to Eden's folded dresses, to the letters scattered along the floor.
"How many?"
Robin's voice came very, very small. "You would have been the third."
"And what he does—how, why. Walk me through it."
Steve answered, because Robin had pressed her hand over her mouth.
"He gambled away what was left of his family money after his father passed. As for the how? He courts them. Girls with inheritances, and makes sure there's nobody else to protect them. Marries them quick, brings them here. When they get sick seemingly out of nowhere, he plays the worried husband—he's good at that. He calls on doctors and sits at the bedside. And when he's secured their fortunes, he gives them their last cup of tea himself—"
"Because I refused to," Robin interrupted, her jaw set hard.
"And in the end it looks like just another young woman who didn't survive the move out here." A muscle jumped along Steve's jaw.
“He told us to burn their belongings, but—" Robin’s voice cracked. "We couldn't. It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud, but it seemed like the only thing we could do. To keep something of them somewhere. Like maybe someday—" Tears were running openly down her face now. "I don't know what we thought. That someone would come. That someone would know to look. It was stupid. It was for nothing. It didn't save them."
"It wasn't nothing," Chrissy said softly.
Robin's head came up.
"Someone did come. Someone looked." She gestured to the bundle of Eden's letters. "I told you I saw someone up here. I saw a figure in the library too. I think it was her spirit. She was trying to warn me. Both of them were. And because you kept their things, I—"
A sound broke from Robin that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. She pressed both hands flat against her face.
Chrissy didn't think. She simply reached across the space between them and laid her palm on Robin's knee.
Robin's hand dropped from her face and covered Chrissy's, tight.
"Why couldn't you go on as before?" The question slipped out before Chrissy could decide if now was the time for it, the heat of Robin's palm on hers somehow drawing it into the open.
Steve answered for them both.
"Because Robin grew too fond of you," he said simply. "And with each of them we've told ourselves—next time. Next time we'd do something. Next time we'd be brave and damn the consequences. And each time we weren't." His eyes held hers. "This time we are."
"We're getting you out of here," Robin said, her hand still locked around Chrissy's. "Tonight. Whatever it takes."
"Tonight?"
"Jason has to be dealt with first," Steve said. "If we run, he'll follow. He's got too much to lose to just let you go."
Robin's grip tightened around Chrissy's hand.
"What do we do?"
Steve met their eyes, and in the lamplight his face had settled into steely resolve.
"I have to kill him."
"Steve—"
"Robin." His voice was gentle but held no room for argument. "We don't have any other choice. I'm not letting him near either of you. Never again."
Robin pressed her lips together in a thin line. But after a moment, she nodded.
Steve rose. He drew in a long, steadying breath, and in the candlelight Chrissy saw him brace himself. He reached down and touched Robin's shoulder. She turned her face against his hand for just a moment, and he bent and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head—the gesture of a brother, utterly without romance, full of love nonetheless.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll come find you when it's done."
"Be careful," Robin whispered.
"Always am."
"You can't lie to me, Harrington."
He gave her a sad, lopsided smile, and then he was gone, the glow of his lamp moving away down the corridor, his footsteps quieter than Chrissy would have thought possible on those old boards.
The silence after him felt thick enough to lean against.
Chrissy looked down at her and Robin's hands where they remained interlocked. Robin's fingers were slim and callused, the nails cut short and unpolished. A small white scar crossed the base of her thumb. Chrissy wondered how she'd come by it.
She wanted to know a lot of things about Robin. That was the strangest part. The woman who had fed her poison had also sat on the edge of her bed and taught her how to find pleasure in her own body, and Chrissy could not make those two things cancel each other out. They existed together. They would have to.
"What are you thinking about?" Robin asked.
"You."
Robin's hand paused mid-motion.
"Nothing I can make into a tidy answer," Chrissy explained. "Just—you. Where you came from. What your life was like before all this. I realize I don't know the first thing about you, really."
"There isn't much to tell."
"I'd still like to hear it."
Robin let out a small breath that wasn't quite a laugh. She tipped her head back against the bare studs of the wall, her throat long and pale in the candlelight.
"Ohio," she said. "We were dirt poor. My mother worked in a laundry. My father drank."
"Siblings?"
"Three brothers. All older. All gone, one way or another, by the time I was six." Her thumb resumed its slow motion across Chrissy's knuckles. "I met Steve not long after. His mother and mine shared a clothesline. He caught me pocketing a spool of embroidery thread off the neighbor's windowsill. I thought he was going to tell. Instead he asked if I wanted to split a stolen apple."
Chrissy smiled before she could help it.
"That was the beginning. Thick as thieves, as they say."
"And your parents?"
"I don't know." Robin exhaled, less sad than settled, like someone who had made peace with a hard thing a long time ago. "I left the day I turned sixteen. Steve had already been thrown out by his own old man. He had a room above a tailor's shop. I sent my mother a letter once telling her I was alive. She didn't write back."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
Chrissy thought of her own mother—a woman she had never really gotten to know, who had existed only as a sepia photograph on the mantle for much of her life.
"The scar on your hand," she said. "How did you get it?"
"Boning knife. I was working in a butcher's back room. Got careless." Robin turned her hand over between them so Chrissy could see the small pale line. "Six stitches. Steve did them himself with a sewing needle because we couldn't afford a doctor."
"You're making him sound very impressive."
"He is very impressive." A smile softened Robin's mouth at last. "Don't tell him I said that."
"I wouldn't dare."
They sat quietly for a moment, Robin's thumb tracing the scar of its own accord, as though telling the story had reminded her body of it. Chrissy watched the small repetitive motion and felt the heat in her chest climb somewhere behind her collarbone, warm and inconvenient and growing undeniable.
"Can I—" Robin hesitated. "Can I say something?"
"Of course."
"Last night." Her voice dropped, her eyes fixed on their joined hands. "I shouldn't have done what I did."
Chrissy’s pulse quickened.
"You didn't know what I was," Robin said quietly. "What I am. I came into your room and I guided you through something very personal, and I let you think it was just… kindness. One woman helping another. But it wasn't only that. Not for me."
The space between them had gone very small. The candles had burned low while they talked, their light shrunken to a shivering pool around their knees, everything beyond it receded into dark. Chrissy took in the wet clinging to Robin's lashes, the tender parting of her mouth, the visible pulse at the soft hollow of her throat.
"I think I knew."
Robin's eyes lifted.
"Not in words," Chrissy said. "Not so I could have named it. But I saw the way you looked at me. I felt something too." Her thumb moved across Robin's knuckles. "And I didn't want you to leave."
Robin's free hand rose, slow and uncertain, and rested against Chrissy's cheek. Her palm was warm. Her thumb brushed the corner of Chrissy's mouth.
Chrissy leaned in.
In the split second before their lips could touch, a crash shuddered through the house.
They jerked apart so hard the candelabra rocked on the floorboards, wax slopping over the rim. The sound had come from far below, muffled by wood and plaster, but unmistakable. Something heavy hitting something solid. The drop of a body, perhaps, or furniture upended.
A shout followed. Low, cut off.
Then silence fell again.
Robin's hand was a vice around Chrissy's.
"Chrissy, we have to—"
"I know."
Chrissy was already moving.
She gathered the candelabra in one hand and drew Robin to her feet with the other. Robin went easily, her grip hard, her breath coming quick and shallow at Chrissy's shoulder.
"What if Jason woke up?" Robin's voice strained. "What if he got the upper hand? Steve could be hurt. He could be—"
"Then we find out now, and we help him if we can."
They moved down the long low hallway of the garret with Chrissy leading the way, Robin close at her shoulder, her free hand bunched in the back of Chrissy's dressing gown like a child holding onto a skirt in a crowd. The service stairs were narrower than Chrissy remembered. She took them two at a time, no longer careful about the noise, her feet striking the bare wood in a soft quick rhythm that Robin matched behind her.
They emerged into the second-floor hallway and stopped in their tracks.
The hall that held her bedroom and Jason's ran the length of the house, and at the far end, past Jason's open door, a lamp lay on its side on the floorboards. Its glass chimney had cracked. The wick still burned, low and sputtering, casting a thin pool of unsteady light that stretched and broke across the carpet runner.
In that pool of light, two figures.
One lay motionless on the floor.
The other knelt over him.
Chrissy's heart lurched. She couldn't see their faces from this distance—only a dark silhouette crouched low, the curve of a back, hands moving over the form beneath. Her first thought was Jason. That the crash had been Steve going down, and now Jason was bending over him, choking the life from his body, and she could not make her legs move.
Robin's hold tightened in her dressing gown.
"Steve," Robin breathed.
They moved forward together, slowly, the candelabra held high. Ten paces. Five. The kneeling figure still had not looked up. He was speaking—murmuring—soft low words that Chrissy couldn't make out over the blood rushing in her ears.
One of his hands had cupped the face of the man on the floor, tender as anything Chrissy had ever seen.
Tender.
The word found her before the face did. Whoever knelt there was not Jason. Jason did not touch people like that. The shape of the care in that gesture was so alien to her husband that Chrissy understood, in the second before she saw who it was, that she was looking at something impossible.
Then the candlelight caught his profile.
Dark curls falling forward across his brow. A sharp beloved jaw. The set of shoulders she would have known anywhere, in any life, even here.
"Eddie?"
Chapter 8
Thanks as always to the wonderful @penny00dreadful for your incredible beta work and cheerleading 💜and @beingmissbatty for saving my ass today!
one last @strangerthingsreversebigbang for you! this time with @hellfireloserclub whom i already collaborated with for their lost boys steddie bang fic <3
this was originally something i almost finished for halloween 2024 but i got stuck on the background and the decorations. i saw this photo of some guy standing on their porch in a michael myers mask with a knife (maybe they also had a cup of coffee, i dont fucking know anymore) and i though HEY THAT'S EDDIE MUNSON cos i was thinking about him running around the trailer park in the borrowed mask while his bandana was hanging from him back pocket and would have been less sus.
thank you so much pez for picking my stupid drawing and motivating me to actually finish it, i couldn't have done this without you and chucky the raccoon.
My @strangerthingsreversebigbang with the ever wonderful @hawkinsleather 's art work as the inspiration check it out Here
Rated T 🦇 17k 🦇 Steddie
Crack Treated Seriously Getting Together Dolls improper use of promotional materials Halloween knifes raccoons yes that's a tag pedophobia (fear of dolls) Gaslighting
Steve paused with his toast halfway to his mouth, not quite sure where on his list of weird shit he had seen since he had moved into Forest Hills this new development sat.
Listen, he knows it makes him sound like a spoiled little rich boy, alright? But he was starting to wonder if there was anything that the residents of the trailer park couldn't fix with duct tape, superglue, and sheer moxie. One of the highlights of his week was gossiping with Wayne Munson over a beer and whatever sports the rabbit ears over the man's old TV would tune into that week. And Steve lived for it.
Gossip in the trailer park was not like the gossip in Lake Nora. It wasn't about who was buying cakes rather than making them for the bake sale and trying to pass them off as home-baked. It was more about who was getting out of rehab, whose cars were being used to house the local drunks, and who got arrested for some convoluted reason this time. It was all about who was on the grift and who was getting a beating for sleeping with his best friend's wife. He was under no impression that he hadn't already been a valid source of entertainment for the curtain twitchers when he moved in. Even if the strange alien lawn figures that Murray had been working on at the edge of the woods were the current hot topic, nothing surprised him anymore when it came to Forest Hills.
And then there was this … whatever this was he was currently looking at.
It involved Eddie, in the blazing heat of an early August morning, dressed in his full leathers, battle vest, and for some reason- "Max, is that your Halloween mask?" Steve asked as she sauntered over to his new, to him, Chevy. Skateboard under her arm, her own pop tart hanging from her mouth as she busied herself shoving something into her bag. The poster child for unphased. She squinted over the top of the car as she shoved her things into the back seat.
"No, that's all him. Which reminds me, someone still owes me a new Michael Myers mask," She said, emphasizing with her tone that someone should be Steve. Like he had any spare money to be throwing around on his pitiful teacher's salary.
Hell, if he hadn't managed to rent the trailer next to Max's for an absolute steal, he would probably still be bunking down in Robin's old room at the Buckleys'. He definitely didn't have spare cash to buy her a replacement mask, and he definitely didn't have the inclination to either, especially when the thing creeped him out anyway.
"Should I ask why he's dressed like that?" Steve said as Eddie pulled the mask up, but just enough that he could sip on his coffee. It made it hard to see if Eddie was looking over at them or not. But Steve had a feeling he was being watched all the same.
Not that Steve was interested, or cared that Eddie was watching him. Absolutely not. He wasn't keeping track of the idiosyncrasies of his friend and neighbour Edward Munson, no, not him. That would be ridiculous. Whoever told you that was a liar. It would never stand in a court of law.
"He'll be going under the crawl space to get his Halloween things out," Max said with a shrug. "I think Chucky had kits in the spring, so he will be taking extra precautions so she doesn't rip his face off."
Steve watched as Eddie put down his mug and pulled on his mask. He launched himself at the crawl space with all the over-the-top dramatics that Steve had come to know and love.
No. Not love, who said anything about love? Who was using such ridiculous words to think about Eddie? Certainly not him.
"Chucky?" He asked rather than questioned why Eddie was digging out his Halloween supplies this early in the year.
"The raccoon that lives under his trailer. Keep up, Steve. I would have thought you, of all people, would know about Eddie's firstborn." She said, managing to keep her level of sarcasm down to a bare minimum.
"I didn't know he named it Chucky," Steve said as they drove out of the trailer park and towards the center of town.
All roads lead back to Family Video after all, and just because he and Robin were no longer being kind and rewinding, didn't mean that the sacred halls of the video nasty weren't being manned by someone from there motly group.
Max and Dustin were regulars behind the till, while Mike, Will, and Lucas could be found picking up shifts at the diner and the arcade, all under the watchful eye of Keith. A man who seemed as reluctant to leave Hawkins as Steve was. At least Steve got a staff discount still by way of the brats, and movie nights at Eddie's trailer were never boring. It was something. And right now, Steve was clinging onto something, anything, because he was missing Robin like a lost limb, and it had only been two weeks since she had gone back to college. He was going to compleatly lost when Dustin left next week, and Steve was no longer useful or needed.
"So Eddie thought, the actually quite cute raccoon that lives under the house, looks like that god-awful doll from Child's Play?" Steve asked, not putting it past Eddie for a second, but not really seeing how he got from one to another. He might be starting to get Eddie, but that didn't mean he always understood the man.
"He said that her little hands were made for stabbing, and her eyes follow you around the room, just like Chucky. He isn't wrong." Max reasoned.
"Has he done it to wind me up?"
"You mean after you nearly shit yourself when we went to see Child's Play at the drive-in?" Max asked, her shit-eating grin almost blinding.
"I did not."
"Steve, Eddie had to stop at yours for three nights afterwards, and you wouldn't sleep with the light off for like two weeks. Anyone would think you were a pussy. Yet, I know you stabbed a fucking eldritch monster in its balls, and you slept like a baby afterwards, so we know that's bullshit. Just admit it, the movie freaked you out."
Steve refused to answer. She was right, but somehow admitting that to Max was so much worse than admitting it to Dustin.
Ever since Rob had gone to college, Steve had inevitably gotten closer to the younger party members, especially Max. And Max had the same amazingly astute talent as Robin of seeing right through every last one of Steve's lies.
"I don't like dolls, alright? The eyes creep me out, like, why do they have to be so human-looking?" He answered, eventually buckling to Max's accusing glare. "If Vecna had decided to haunt some dolls, I would have been truly fucked."
Max laughed so hard she was almost crying by the time he dropped her off at work.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖🦇 ݁˖ ݁𖥔 .🦝🦝๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑
"So why are you putting up Halloween decorations in August?" Steve asked as he sipped his beer and watched Eddie hang tiny plastic bats along the edge of the trailer awning.
Eddie's new trailer sat two lots along from his old one, and Wayne's sat in the lot right next door. The lot that had once belonged to the shared Munson abode was never replotted, at least not by a home.
It now had a swing set and a small flower garden that Steve had seen both Wayne and Eddie tend to when they thought nobody was looking.
But Steve was watching; he saw more than he wanted to some days, saw the way Eddie would sit on the swings and talk to someone who wasn't there to listen.
He watched it all from his bedroom window. He wondered if it was Chrissy that Eddie was talking to late at night when the world should be asleep.
He never asked, and he knew Eddie would probably never tell him. Even if they did tell each other almost everything these days, a constant presence in each other's lives.
The kids didn't need them much anymore, so they tended to just hang out together more often than not. Like now, after a full day of coaching, Steve couldn't think of anywhere else he would rather be than on Eddie Munson's front porch drinking beer. Still didn't explain why Eddie was hanging bats in the middle of the summer break.
"I know, I'm late. I normally put them up just after the 4th of July," Eddie said without even looking at him, too fixated on making sure the bats were positioned just so. He was back to his regulation jeans and shirt, the leathers put away for at least another few weeks when the weather would turn, and they would actually be needed.
"You put them up-"
"July 5th or 6th normally."
"But why? Halloween is on October 31st."
"It's as if you have no whimsy, Steven. If people can celebrate Christmas all winter, why can't I enjoy Halloween just as long?" Eddie said, not even looking at him, too invested in his project, "Summerween is a thing, halfway to Halloween is in May, embrace the darkness, Stevie, make it ours." He said with his full DM flair.
Steve got to his feet and inspected the rubber bats that were hanging head height. He had only just moved into the trailer park last November, and he hadn't really encountered Eddie on his own turf much before that, at least not right side up. Their hangouts had always been at his parents' house. Before they sold up and finally made the move to the coast that they had been planning since Steve was old enough to be left on his own.
Consequently, he had never been subject to whatever form of madness this was, but it was on brand for Eddie, so he was willing to go with it.
"Bats seem a little on the nose," he said, subconsciously rubbing at the scar on his neck, long faded but still visible when he had been out in the sun coaching all day.
"Nah, these are cute, and like, don't have a belly full of my insides. So let's not tar all the critters with the same vengeful brush. Chucky likes them, though, and she's the boss."
"The Racoon? Why do I know you really did ask the raccoon's opinion, you weirdo."
"She lives here, too; she gets a say." He said as he duct-taped another bat to the roof. "She's got an army of little assholes under the trailer now; it's their home, too. I would ask the others, I value their input, but Chucky is the only one I'd trust with a knife."
"Eddie, please don't tell me you gave the raccoon a weapon?" Steve asked as he handed off another bat.
"She has a family to defend, a realm of her own to protect, you understand that, don't you? Or do you not still have at least one deadly weapon in the back of the truck?" Eddie asked, leaning into Steve's space.
Steve sucked on his teeth and huffed out in disagreement. "It's not the same."
"What Daddy can protect his little nuggets, but Mama Chucky can't? How very neanderthal of you, Harrington. Man, it's like you don't have a healthy fear of young Maiden Wheeler, and it's starting to show." Eddie said as he walked his hand up Steve's chest and bopped him on the nose. "Self-preservation of someone who's rolling a 1 for initiative and a Nat 20 for everything else."
Steve's heart rate rose to the bait. How couldn't it? Eddie's finger was so close he could bite it, and his brain was stuck on Eddie calling him Daddy. He didn't even think he liked that sort of thing, but apparently nobody had told his stupid crush that. Not that it was a crush, that would be ridiculous.
"You know I feel like I'm being insulted." Steve said, swatting at the finger rather than taking a bite, " But you wouldn't do something like that, would you, Eddie the Banished?"
"It's Eddie the resurrected now, the second coming of Munson was not foretold, but it's a personal best." Eddie said as he wiggled his eyebrows, "Keep it up, Stevie, baby. You talking nerdy does something for me." The blush creeping up Eddie's face made Steve think what he was saying wasn’t all for comedy value.
"Really? Eddie the resurrected, that's what does it for you? " Steve asked before his brain came back to its senses.
"I am but a simple man, a hot guy starts calling a bard by his true name, it's gonna stir something in a man's loins."
"Yeah, yeah, keep it in your pants, some of us are fine upstanding members of the community. " Steve muttered, clutching at straws to try and keep his mind out of the gutter, the friendly back-and-forth flirting always made his mind go a little offline.
"And some of us are cult leaders with nothing to lose," Eddie said, dropping his hands to his belt and fiddling with the stupid buckle. "What's a little dick between friends?"
"You saying you have a little dick?" Steve asked, aware his cheeks were starting to flush too, and hoping that the setting sun might cover his impossible predicament. Deflect deflect deflect. Talking about Eddie's dick only encouraged the bad thoughts.
"Ah, Stevie, I'm sure it's nowhere near as impressive as your prophesied package, but it's far from little," Eddie said, grinning. "But alas, some things are not for us lowly peasants. A king's sword is for the landed gentry and the ladies of his fair kingdom, not the commoners. And very much not his personal fool." Eddie stepped away, turning his attention back to the box of Halloween decorations that had taken over the old couch on the porch.
Steve didn't know how to feel about that; it felt like Eddie had scooped out the weird feeling in Steve's chest and thrown it against the asphalt for everyone and their uncle to stomp the life out of.
He watched Eddie for a moment, the way he moved constantly, even with his entire torso shoved in an old box, so full of life, and something else. something that kept drawing Steve back to him again and again. Something about Eddie saying he wasn’t good enough for Steve irritated him, and the bit of his brain that talked first and reasoned later took the wheel.
"What if it wasn't?" Steve asked, suddenly brave when Eddie was facing the other way.
"What if what wasn't?" Eddie asked, not looking up from the pile of tiny pumpkins he was stacking.
"What if it wasn't just for the ladies of my kingdom?" Steve asked, unsure how he had found even an ounce of courage to broach a subject he hadn't even spoken out loud to Robin.
Eddie didn't turn around. He slowly started pulling out bones, placing them in a pile next to the pumpkins; his shoulders tensed. Steve felt sick. Why had he said something? They were messing about, Eddie was just playing, he was the most playful guy Steve had ever met. Trust him to fuck up a perfectly good thing. Maybe he should just get up and leave? This was a stupid, stupid idea.
"Ed?" He asked instead.
"Give me a second." Eddie snapped back not unkindly.
"Okay," Steve replied, choking back the bile that had started to rise in his throat.
He watched as Eddie pulled out a skull, possibly part of the collection of bones that he had been piling up, and held it out in front of him, turning it around in his hands a few times before putting it carefully on the top of the bundle.
"Me too," Eddie said, fidgeting so much the pile of bones scattered across the deck, a small pair of furry hands grabbing a hipbone where it fell and pulling it under the trailer.
"What?" Steve asked, not sure he had heard correctly.
"I said me too." Eddie dropped to his knees, then to his front across the deck, and reached under to grab the hip bone back from the raccoon. "Not just the ladies… You know, since we're being honest and such." He still didn't look up, his entire head now hanging off the side of the porch, hair trailing the dust bowl that was the dry, crusty patch of lawn. "Figured since you were being all open and stuff, you should know, me too." Eddie tipped his head to the side, glancing through his curtain of hair, as if checking that Steve was still there.
"Oh." Was all Steve could manage. Everything he thought about Eddie was rewriting itself in his mind.
"Did the rumours about me not reach the Royal court ?" Eddie asked, turning his attention back to getting his prop back from the creature that lived under the porch.
Steve knew he should answer, but words were hard, alright? He wasn't exactly known for his grasp of the English language.
"Do you need to go call Robin?" Eddie asked, his voice muffled by the timber of the porch. "I don't mind if you need to go have a Harrington freak out, me and Chucky are going to be here some time with this hip."
"Yeah, I should…" Eddie was giving him an out, and Steve appreciated it.
"Rob knows about me," Eddie said, pulling his head back out of the crawl space. Cobweb hanging on his bangs, as he stared wide-eyed straight into Steve's soul," So, yeah, you aren't like breaking a friendship code or anything." He let out a little self-deprecating sigh, "I'll see you tomorrow for movie night?" He asked hopefully.
Steve nodded. Already halfway down the steps and heading towards his own trailer.
The lock on the Cunningham house's back door was, frankly, an insult.
Not to Eddie, who'd been picking locks since he was old enough to hold a hairpin, but to the late Richard Cunningham, who spent a fortune on fine curtains and silver candlesticks but apparently couldn't be bothered to invest in a decent deadbolt. One pin, two, and the whole mechanism gave up with a soft click.
Eddie slipped inside and eased the door shut behind him.
The kitchen was dark and still, Mrs. Henderson and Mr. Clarke having cleared out the day before. He'd watched them leave from his usual hiding spot behind the elm tree across the street, Mrs. Henderson dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief while Mr. Clarke loaded the last of their belongings into a hired cart. The house had been empty since, waiting for Richard's attorneys to sort through the estate, which in Eddie's experience meant it would sit untouched while men in expensive suits argued over who got what.
Plenty of time for one uninvited guest.
He moved through the kitchen by the thin moonlight that filtered through the windows, past the cold stove and bare countertops, through the servants' corridor and into the main hallway. A grandfather clock stood silent in the shadows, its pendulum stilled, and the quiet was so complete Eddie could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. The Cunningham house had always intimidated him as a child. A looming monument to money and propriety that might as well have had a sign on the gate reading: No Munsons Allowed. But stripped of its master and its staff, it was just a house. A big expensive house full of sadness and paperwork.
The study door was closed but not locked.
Eddie was almost disappointed.
The moonlight there fell in pale slabs across the carpet through half-drawn curtains. Richard's desk dominated the room, a massive thing carved from mahogany and trimmed in leather, that probably cost more than Eddie's uncle's entire house. He struck a match and lit the desk lamp, keeping the flame low, and the rest of the room swam into view around him.
It looked nearly untouched. Someone had tidied up after the body was removed, but the tracks of Richard's last night were still there if you knew where to look. Papers stacked in uneven piles. A crystal decanter of brandy on the sideboard, still a quarter full. And there, on the desk's surface, a dark stain that had seeped into the grain. Brandy that had spilled when Richard Cunningham's heart had, supposedly, given out on him.
Eddie ran his finger across the stain. It was dry, a little tacky, and faintly discolored against the leather. He brought his finger to his nose.
Nothing.
He turned to the decanter.
It sat on its silver tray like a jewel in a crown, the amber liquid catching the lamplight. Eddie pulled the stopper and leaned in. The smell of brandy hit him first—rich, woody, expensive. The kind of liquor Eddie would never taste in his natural life unless he stole it. But beneath that, threading through like a whisper, was something else. Faintly sweet, almost floral.
He wrinkled his nose. Far too sweet for brandy, even the fancy stuff.
A memory surfaced, unbidden and unwelcome. His father, sitting across from him at the kitchen table in the old house before the law caught up with him. Eddie couldn't have been more than eight or nine, and his father had been in one of his teaching moods. The ones where he'd pour himself a drink and lecture on the ways of the world as he understood them. Which was to say the criminal ways, the underside of things, knowledge that polite society pretended didn't exist.
"The thing about poison, boy, is it's a coward's weapon. Any fool can slip something into a man's drink. Arsenic's the favorite. Cheap as dirt, quiet as a mouse. You can buy it anywhere, tell 'em it's for the rats. Dissolves clean in liquor. Might taste a bit sweet going down, then comes a little bite of metal at the back of the throat."
His father had grinned at that, as he grinned at most things, like the world was a joke only he was in on. Six months later he was executed for murder, though not by poison, perish the thought. Rope and a broken neck, the old-fashioned way. The Munson family legacy.
Eddie stared at the decanter. Then, because he'd inherited his father's recklessness along with his dark curls and utter disregard for the law, he poured a measure into a glass.
He swirled it. The liquid moved like any brandy would, smooth and slow along the glass. He held it up to the lamplight and studied it. No cloudiness, no sediment. Clean as a whistle.
He dipped his finger in. Brought it to his tongue. Just a touch, barely a taste.
Sweet. Not unexpectedly so considering this was, no doubt, the best of the best brandy money could buy. But then, a heartbeat later, a faint metallic tang bloomed at the back of his mouth, bitter and sharp, like a coin pressed against his tongue.
Eddie set the glass down very carefully and wiped his finger on his trousers.
"Well," he said to the empty room. "Son of a bitch."
Richard Cunningham's heart hadn't given out. He’d been murdered. Poisoned right here in his own study, drinking his own brandy, from his own crystal glass. The arrogance of it was almost admirable, in a grim sort of way.
And Eddie knew with the bone-deep certainty of someone who'd spent his life reading people as scholars read books, exactly who had done it.
He sank into the chair opposite the desk. Not Richard's chair, he wasn't about to sit in a dead man's seat—he had some standards. And forced himself to think. Jason Carver. Golden boy. Charmer. The man who'd swept into Hawkins with a smile and a handshake and a story about oil money, and managed to sweep out again with Chrissy on his arm, Richard in the ground, and no one the wiser.
No one but Eddie.
But thinking it and proving it were two very different animals.
Eddie began to search.
He went through the desk methodically, which was not his natural state by any estimation, but the situation seemed to demand it. Shelves, drawers, the locked compartment on the right side of the desk that took him all of forty seconds to crack. Richard Cunningham had been a meticulous man, everything filed, labeled, organized with military precision. Bank statements. Business correspondence. Contracts for the textile mills. A thick file labeled ‘Estate’ that Eddie set aside for later.
It was in the bottom drawer, tucked beneath a stack of textile invoices, that he found it.
A check stub. Made out to Jason Carver, personally, in Richard Cunningham's sharp, angular hand. Three hundred dollars. A significant sum by Eddie's standards, more than enough to live on for the better part of a year if you were careful. But for a man like Richard who dealt in thousands?
It was pocket change.
No where near enough for an investment in an oil drilling operation that was supposedly going to make them all rich.
Eddie's eyes dropped to the memo line. Three words written in Richard's precise script:
Settlement of account.
Not investment.
Not drilling operations.
No mention of Carver Industries or whatever the man was calling his little—and likely fake—enterprise.
Settlement of account.
The language of a debt being paid, a ledger being closed. Richard Cunningham's way of saying—Here's your money. Now get out of my town and away from my daughter.
Eddie leaned back in the chair, the receipt in his hand, and let the pieces fall into place.
Richard had found something out. That night at the Perkins party. Chrissy had mentioned a stranger, an argument, the fury in her father's eyes. Richard had learned something about Jason Carver that had turned him from eager investor to enraged patriarch in the span of a single conversation. Something bad enough to make him pay Jason off and demand the man disappear.
And then, conveniently, Richard died.
Did Eddie mourn the man? Not particularly. Richard Cunningham had been a cold, controlling bastard who'd treated his daughter like a possession and the rest of Hawkins like a chess board. Eddie had watched from the margins as Richard had systematically crushed every ounce of joy and independence out of Chrissy, and if he was being honest, there was a part of him that thought the old man had earned his fate.
But Chrissy didn’t deserve hers.
Chrissy, who was right now on her way to Texas, or already there, with the man who had murdered her father in cold blood. Who had charmed and maneuvered and lied his way into her life and who was, almost certainly, after far more than her hand in marriage.
The Cunningham fortune. That was the prize. Richard's textile empire, his properties, his bank accounts—all of it destined for his only heir, his daughter. His married daughter, whose husband would by law control every red cent.
Eddie's stomach turned.
But he forced himself to slow down. He couldn't go to the police. He was, after all, Eddie Munson the town degenerate, son of a hanged murderer. Chief Hopper might be a decent enough man, but no lawman in Indiana was going to take the word of a Munson over a doctor's report and a tidy death certificate. He needed proof to actually tie it all to Carver. Something more than a slip of paper and a gut feeling.
Eddie pocketed the check stub, doused the lamp, and slipped back out into the night the same way he'd come. The lock clicked shut behind him, and the Cunningham house returned to its silent vigil.
It took less than a day to find his first lead, and it only cost him Richard Cunningham's silver letter opener.
Eddie had always been good at trading, well versed in the shadow economy of favors and objects and information that operated beneath Hawkins' polished surface. He knew who to ask, and more importantly, he knew what to offer. The letter opener bought him an hour with a telegraph operator named Lonnie who owed a gambling debt to a man who owed a favor to Eddie's uncle. The chain of obligation was a bit convoluted, but it worked.
"Carver," Lonnie muttered, flipping through his log books with ink-stained fingers. "Carver, Carver... Here. Jason Carver. Sent and received a fair number of telegrams over the past month. Mostly to and from a town called Clarksville, down in Missouri."
"What about before Hawkins? Where was he before he came here?"
Lonnie shrugged. "Can't tell you that from my books. But—" He tapped a line in the ledger. "This one here, received about a week after he arrived. Came from a place called Prosper. That's in Texas."
"What did it say?"
"Can't tell you that either. We don't keep copies of incoming messages, just the origin and sender name." Lonnie squinted at his own handwriting. "Sender listed as... Harrington. S. Harrington."
Eddie filed the name away and moved on.
Two more of Richard's possessions—a gold pen and a pair of cufflinks—bought him information from other sources. A traveling salesman who'd crossed paths with Jason in Missouri and remembered him as "a real smooth talker." A boarding house owner who'd hosted a Jason Carver for two nights before he'd continued on to Hawkins. And, most interestingly, a retired newspaper man named Murray who operated out of a cramped office above the general store and who, for the price of the cufflinks and a bottle of whiskey, agreed to send inquiries to his contacts in Missouri and other points south.
"You think this Carver fellow's a con man?" Murray asked, pouring himself a generous measure.
"I think he's worse than that," Eddie said. "I think he's a killer."
Murray raised an eyebrow but didn't laugh. He'd been a journalist long enough to know that the most outlandish claims were also oftentimes the truest. "I'll see what I can dig up. Give me a bit of time."
It took Murray five excruciating days. Eddie spent them badly—pacing, drinking, lying awake at night staring at the ceiling of his uncle's cramped cottage and trying not to think about Chrissy in a strange house in Texas with a man who kept arsenic in his pocket like other men kept tobacco. He kept the stolen check folded in his breast pocket, pressing his hand against it periodically like a talisman.
When Murray's message came it was in the form of a note slipped under his door.
Come see me. Bring whiskey.
Eddie brought two bottles.
Murray spread his findings across his desk like a general mapping a war campaign. Newspaper clippings. Copied telegraph messages. Notes in his own messy handwriting. He gestured Eddie into the chair opposite and poured them both a drink before he spoke.
"Your boy's been busy."
Eddie leaned forward. "Tell me."
"Jason Carver. Born in Prosper, Texas. Father was a rancher, died about five years back. Left the son a house and not much else. The oil story's real enough, in that there is a house and there is land, but there's no oil. At least nothing that's produced a profit. The drilling operation is a front, or at best a failing venture he uses to hook investors."
"And the investors?"
Murray's eyes darkened. "That's where it gets interesting. Clarksville, Missouri. Carver showed up about two years ago with the same story. The drill design, the oil, the investment opportunity. Ingratiated himself with a wealthy family by the name of Holloway. Married the daughter. Girl named Heather."
Eddie's blood went cold. "Married her?"
"Quick courtship, quicker wedding. Sound familiar?" Murray didn't wait for an answer before plowing forward. "Within three months, old man Holloway was dead. Apoplexy, the doctor said. The daughter inherited everything. And then, about six months after that—" He tapped one of the newspaper clippings. " The house was cleaned out—money, jewelry, everything of value. Carver told the neighbors she'd gone to visit family back east. No one’s heard from her since."
The room tilted slightly. Eddie gripped the edge of the desk.
"It gets worse," Murray said, and his voice had lost all its usual grim amusement. "I sent word further down the line. Carver was in a town called Sayer's Creek in Arkansas before Clarksville. Same story. Wealthy family, only daughter, dead father. Quick marriage. The girl's name was Eden Bingham."
"And?"
"And Eden has not been seen or heard from since she and Jason Carver left Sayer's Creek eighteen months ago." Murray drained his glass. "Two towns, Eddie. Two dead fathers. Two missing wives. Twice could be called a coincidence by less suspicious men, but three times?"
Eddie was on his feet before he'd consciously decided to stand. The chair scraped back against the floorboards. His hands were shaking, not with fear though there was plenty of that, but with a fury so white-hot it felt almost calm, the way the still center of a fire burns the brightest.
Chrissy—brilliant, kind, stubborn, beautiful Chrissy—was alone in that man's house at the end of a railroad line in the middle of godforsaken Texas, with no one who knew what her husband really was.
He thought about wiring Hopper, making the lawman see what he saw, but that would take time he was afraid Chrissy didn’t have.
"I need to get to Texas," Eddie said.
Murray was already reaching for a railway map. "Prosper's about thirty miles north of Dallas. You'll want to take the Missouri-Kansas-Texas line south from—"
"I don't have money for a ticket."
Murray looked at him over the top of the map, one eyebrow raised. "I don't think that's ever stopped you before."
No.
No it had not.
Eddie gathered Murray's notes, every clipping, every telegram, every scrap of evidence, and shoved them into his jacket alongside the check. He was out the door and halfway down the stairs before Murray's voice caught him.
"Eddie."
Eddie paused, one hand on the railing, and glanced back over his shoulder.
Murray stood in his office doorway, his tall frame silhouetted against the lamplight. For once, the wry mask was gone.
"Be careful. A man who's done this twice won't hesitate to do it a third time. And the next body he drops could be yours."
"Wouldn't be the first Munson to die badly," Eddie said, and meant it as a joke, but his voice came out wrong, tight and thin and not funny at all.
He hit the rail yards before dawn.
Eddie had been hopping freight trains since he was fourteen years old, and he was good at it. He was good at all things that respectable society frowned upon—naturally, instinctively, and with a certain feral grace that came from years of practice and a lack of anything to lose.
The trick was timing. You had to wait in the shadows near the switching yard until the train was moving but not yet fast. That narrow window between the first lurch of the couplings and the moment the wheels found their rhythm. Too early and the yard bulls might spot you. Too late and you'd miss your grip and end up under the wheels, which was a poor outcome by anyone's standard.
He caught the southbound freight out of Indianapolis as the sun cleared the tree line, swinging himself up into an empty boxcar with practiced ease. The door was half open, letting in a rush of warm air and the rhythmic clatter of wheels on rail. He settled into the far corner, his back against the splintered wall, Murray's notes spread across his lap.
He read them again and again. Studying the details, memorizing the names, building the case in his mind like bricks. One piece at a time, each bearing the weight of the next.
Heather Holloway of Clarksville, Missouri. Married Jason Carver. ‘Missing.’
Eden Bingham of Sayer's Creek, Arkansas. Married Jason Carver. ‘Missing.’
Christine Cunningham of Hawkins, Indiana. Married Jason Carver. Currently in Prosper, Texas, in a house at the end of a dirt road with a man who collected brides the way hunters collected pelts.
He changed trains twice. Once in St. Louis, crouching in a cattle car that smelled like death and excrement, and once in a yard outside Fort Smith whose name he never learned. Each time, the same routine: watch, wait, run, jump, pray. Each time, the landscape grew drier, flatter, more foreign.
He barely ate. He barely slept. When he closed his eyes he saw Chrissy's face at the cemetery—the way she'd looked at him, that single moment of connection before Jason's hand had pulled her away. He saw the expression on her face in the upstairs room at the Perkins party when he'd told her about Jason's cruelty, how she'd flinched and then rallied, choosing hope over evidence, the pretty lie over the ugly truth.
He didn't blame her for that, not really. He blamed himself for not fighting harder, for letting his hurt feelings get in the way when he should have been dragging her bodily away from Jason Carver and damn the consequences. He'd walked away. He'd climbed out that window and disappeared into the dark like a coward, and now Chrissy was paying for his pride.
Never again.
The freight pulled into a yard outside Dallas in the gray hours before dawn. Eddie dropped from the boxcar before it fully stopped, his legs stiff, his stomach hollow, his clothes filthy and stinking of livestock and coal smoke. He didn't care. Prosper was thirty miles out, and he'd walk every last step if he had to.
He found a road heading north and started walking.
The Texas sun was a different beast than what he was used to. Heavier, meaner, pressing down on his shoulders like a physical weight. The landscape stretched flat and featureless in every direction, broken only by the occasional cluster of scrub oak or the distant shape of a ranch house. His boots raised small clouds of red dust with every step.
By midday, a farmer in a mule-drawn wagon took pity on him and offered a ride for the last ten or so miles. Eddie sat in the back among sacks of feed and watched the road unfurl behind him.
The farmer dropped him at a crossroads with a hand-painted sign: PROSPER — 2 MI.
Eddie thanked him quickly and again got to walking.
He saw the house before he reached the town proper—a huge decrepit Victorian squatting on a ridge like something evil and looming. Even from a distance he could see the rot. The grayed clapboard, the sagging porch, the broken picket fence. It looked like something straight out of gothic literature, and all he could think of was Chrissy and her beloved books. The thought hit him with a pain so sharp it stole his breath.
This wasn’t the storybook life his girl deserved, with its passionate romance and happy endings. This was a horror, and Chrissy was the damsel trapped in its pages with no one coming to save her.
Except, Eddie was coming and he’d get her out of there if it was the last thing he ever did.
He pressed his hand against the documents in his jacket one more time.
Then he left the road, cut through the scrubland, and began circling toward the house.
He could only pray he wasn’t too late.
Chapter 7
Thanks as always to the wonderful @penny00dreadful for your incredible beta work and cheerleading 💜
