The summer of '85 is as hot and sticky as any other, but when Eddie runs into you on his shift at Big Buy, he thinks this year might be his year. Set during season 3.
Pairing: Eddie x female punk!reader
Wordcount: 7325
Warnings: eventual smut [under 18, DNI please!], drug use, underaged drinking, mentions of prison, death, knives, guns, canon typical violence
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Series Masterlist • Masterlist • Library • Ao3
Chapter One
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Friday, June 28th, 1985
Starcourt Mall was a technicolor of tile and neon lights and screaming kids wielding oversized shopping bags. It was a shock to the system compared to the lull of sleepy Hawkins, and much-welcomed. This felt a little more in your comfort zone, much more like home. Gawking middle schoolers in pleated skirts glared at you and Eddie as you squeezed through the front doors and into the air conditioned chaos. The smell of fried food and teriyaki clung in the air, and Eddie scooped you under an arm and out of the way of a gaggle of young boys playing with lightsabers.
You laughed and sunk into him, enjoying the proprietary gait he took, as though he was showing off to the world that you were all his.
And shit, were you.
You’d spent the entire day before smiling. Legs tossed over the back of the couch so Josie could comb your hair like Barbie’s, brush static-ing your hair to the upholstery. You hummed, too, this awful Black Sabbath tune you couldn’t seem to get out of your head, even though you knew none of the words.
“You have it bad.” Kelly chided, poking your side with her claw-like nails.
You tried to hide your smile, ducked into a plate of oven-made chicken nuggets.
“What does she have bad, mommy?” Josie asked, scooting away from you, scandalized, as though you had something she could catch.
“She’s boy crazy.”
“Ewwww!”
The girls laughed. You chased Josie for a lap around the house, her cackled shriek nearly busting your eardrums.
Later, when the little shit was tucked under your arm on the couch, and Mr. Mom played in the background, Kelly toed you with a socked foot. “It’s good to see you happy.” She muttered. “Eddie’s a really good kid.”
You peeled the head off a green gummy bear with your molars and nodded.
“Have you thought about what you’re doing this fall?”
Of course she had to take the high out from under you like that. You had planned on going to school. Hawkins was just a summer thing, just until college. You were going for communications and marketing. You wanted a job in the music scene. Those plans hadn’t changed for years. They didn’t change when your parents kicked you out. They wouldn’t change now.
You shrugged.
“I’m not trying to be an asshole.” She offered, pulling a red bear between her teeth. “I just love you a lot, and I don’t want you to get caught up with a guy like I did.” She gestured to the sweet angel in your lap.
You hugged Josie tighter, pressed your cheek to her forehead.
And then you’d spent the entire night tossing and turning with Eddie-filled nightmares. A Josie-sized kid with a mess of brown hair and an Iron Maiden t-shirt came running at you, calling you mama, chanting about the Devil. You’d woken in a sweat. You dreamt Eddie took you to the movies and proposed while zombies paraded in the background.
But when Eddie finally showed up to pick you up for your date, in a denim jacket and a white t-shirt, homegrown midwest American boy, you couldn’t keep the shy smile off your face, the kicking giddy feeling in your stomach. Your hand was in his, leading him back to the van faster than Kelly could yell, “No weed this time, dip shits!” And you were off for the mall, in utter and total bliss.
“You hungry?” Eddie offered, his thick lips close to the shell of your ear, sending a burst of warmth down your spine.
You shrugged and glanced around. “For popcorn.”
Hot Dog on a Stick didn’t sound particularly delicious, and according to the oversized clock between floors, the movie was starting in under an hour. Not too much time to shop around. Guess that’d have to be another date for another day. You chuckled to yourself, wondering if you could convince Eddie to take glamour shots. He’d probably love that.
“Ice cream?”
He didn’t give you time to response, dragging you across the foodcourt to the sailor-themed ice cream chain. All blue and white stripes and gold hardware and sea shanties over the speakers. A conventionally attractive young man in a dorky ass sailor costume stood up when you entered, although his broad shoulders slumped upon the sight of you two, and he banged on a dividing window. “Robin!” He shouted. “You’re up!”
And as you approached the counter, he swapped places with an unimpressed sailor girl from the back. She retrieved the scooper, dejected, and the good looking kid disappeared into a grey back room. The girl, Robin, apparently, turned to greet you with a half-hearted smile. Although she seemed to relax a bit at recognizing your date. “Oh, hey, Eddie.”
“Hey,” he grinned and waved, and sidled you up beside him to look at the ‘ocean of flavors’ stacked in bins in their cooler.
“Let me know if you want to try anything. USS Butterscotch is a real crowd pleaser.” She offered, and you noticed she was talking directly to Eddie.
Eddie squeezed your hand, but you hadn’t noticed much other than the girl’s smudged eyeliner and stained pink lips. She was beautiful, freckle-faced, sweet. But she had that spunk, the little bit of attitude that you could see attracting someone like Eddie.
“What do you think?” He asked. “Split a banana split?”
You dipped your head from you gawk of the Sailor Girl and picked out the first appealing flavor, taken aback by this sudden burst of jealousy that licked at your neck and heated your cheeks. You tapped chipped black fingernails against the glass. “I’ll just do a small cone of Cherry Cannon Ball.”
“Good choice,” Robin confirmed.
“Make that two. With chocolate sprinkles for me, please.” Eddie grinned and fished out his wallet, chained to the belt loop of his jean shorts.
“You got it.”
You found a seat at center court, near a bubbling water feature, and licked a long stripe of your ice cream. The tart cherry blended nicely with the creaminess, and the chocolate chips provided a decadent finish. Jesus, this ice cream really was like crack. You understood now why it was entirely sold out, why Eddie had to protect you from ice cream theft.
You sat in silence for a while, awkward smiles back and forth, before the thoughts bubbling in your chest burst out of your mouth. “So she was cute.”
Eddie’s eyebrows knit in confusion, and he glanced around for a minute before realizing what you were talking about. His gaze returned to yours, mischievous. “Oh Robin?”
“You know her from school?” You offered, taking another taste of your treat.
He nodded, shaggy hair bouncing in those brown eyes. “Yeah, she’s in theater with me.”
That fun fact stopped you in your tracks. You raised an eyebrow. “You’re a theater nerd?”
His lips split in a wide grin, and he held his arms out wide. “Guilty as charged.”
You snorted. Yeah, that made sense. “So what, was she Juliet to your Romeo?”
Eddie barked a laugh, head tilted back that expose that beautiful throat. He shook his head. “No, sweetheart. I’m Mercutio all the way!”
You chuckled at that, mouth full of melting ice cream. You could see him in all his dramatics, waxing poetic to convince Romeo to cheer up from recent heartache. You rolled your eyes. “Ah, yes. Queen Mab and all that.”
“And all that,” he agreed. “You do theater?”
“No,” you winced around a brain freeze, warming the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Eddie chuckled at that, and after your head felt significantly warmer, you finished your thought. “No, I wasn’t in theater. I was too busy getting laid.”
He barked a laugh, nearly sputtering chocolate sprinkles out his nose, and you helped with a few soft pats to his back. He laughed, wiping at his face with the back of his hand.
You went back to crowd watching while he recovered, bright colors and swinging bags. You noticed a shoe store on the second level, a department store at each end. There was a jewelry store straight ahead that glittered under fluorescents, pulling Suburban mom’s in to gawk. A chorus of laughter pulled your attention back across the quad to the little ice cream shop, wherein a gaggle of girls left with linked elbows.
The handsome boy behind the counter stood with slumped shoulders, face and shirt-front sticky with chocolate syrup. He threw up his hands in defeat and Robin tossed him a damp, yellow rag. You smirked and took a bite into the wafer of cone, softened by tart cream.
“So if we were in your hometown, what would we be doing for fun on a Friday night?” Eddie posited, crunching into the cone of his own. A speck of yellow lined the corner of his broad lips, and you reached a thumb out to brush it off. You cried out when his reaction was to chomp at your appendage. He threw his head back in laughter, all shiny canines and pink stained mouth.
“You freak,” you snorted, smacking at the denim of his jacket.
“Sorry,” he hugged at his stomach, pleased with himself, and he pulled at a few flyaways that had stuck to his lips. “Couldn’t resist.”
“Uh huh…” You shot him a glare, but went back to your cone, thinking about his question. “Fridays are usually house party nights, I’d say? Saturdays are gigs. But in the summer, do you ever feel like time is a mystery and you never know what day it is?” You mused, slurping the last chocolate remnants from the cylinder in your hand.
Eddie pursed his lips in thought for a moment, but the edges turned up in a smile. “Yeah I suppose I know what you mean. Fridays are house party nights though, huh? You a big party girl?”
You rolled your eyes. “No, I just know a lot of people who are.”
He nodded. “Friends with party girls.”
“Right.” You conceded.
“Were they bummed when you told them you were moving to Hawkins for the summer?”
The question was innocent, curious, and yet every word felt like a blow to the gut. You had close friends, best friends even. But maybe it was just the time in your lives. You felt like you’d been drifting apart. You weren’t going to the same schools for university. It just felt like a good time for a break. Most of those party girls had seemed a little too distracted by partying, or their boyfriends, to really try to convince you to stay. And fuck ‘em anyway, you supposed.
You hadn’t realized you didn’t answer his question until you felt a warm hand on the crook of your elbow.
“Hey,” Eddie pulled your attention back to him, and he offered a sad smile. Great, pity was just what you needed from Eddie the Freak. “If it holds any merit, I’m really glad you decided to spend your summer in Hell.”
You offered a smile, that was apparently satisfactory enough, because he stood from his perch and wiped his hands on the denim of his shorts. You noticed a smudge of cherry stain the material and soak into them. Then, he held a hand out to help you up.
“You ready to watch some zombies?”
The theater was packed. A girl sat to your right, rustling a packet of Skittles throughout the previews and glaring at you whenever you stared her down. Eddie was to your left, picking popcorn out of the bucket one kernel at a time, and he’d give you an excited grin whenever you glanced his direction.
Minutes before the film started, a handful of teens hurried in, clambering over fellow viewers for seats near the center of the audience. And as soon as everyone was settled, the buzz of a new film settled among the crowd. There was something so good about a movie theater, something visceral that hung in the air like electricity. Especially when it was a scary movie. You anticipated popcorn to rain from above.
The lights dimmed and music started in with the credits, and you hunkered a little closer to Eddie. You enjoyed a good scare, and gore didn’t particularly bother you, but there was something nice, too, about scooting in close to your date for comfort. There was an energy there too, between the two of you.
You’d felt it at concessions, a lingered hand on your hip, the way he watched you give your order for a Coke. The way he looked at you in general, hungry brown eyes. Even now, as the main character rolled about a wall full of hands, you could feel him staring, heat licking at your throat under his gaze.
And then the tape rolled on its reel and the lights flickered and snuffed. You glanced around as the crowd instantly turned on the screen, standing up to holler and stamp out their frustrations. You were annoyed, but not that tense about a fucking movie. The girl beside you stood up and booed.
With an eye roll, you turned your focus back to Eddie to find him staring at you. The room was pitch black, light coming in from the fire exit in the corner, but you could tell he was watching you, could just make out the tip of his nose, the curves of his lips upturned. You felt it too, that tickle of being watched at the back of your neck, a predator had found his prey.
You felt his hand first, a gentle wisp of fingertips against your jaw, bringing you closer, and you followed. His thumb passed the soft spot on your cheek and found the top of your cupid’s bow, and if the jitters weren’t beating their way into your stomach, you’d have half a mind to chomp at him like he’d done to you earlier. But something about this motion, in the dark, the sounds of angry movie-goers surrounding you, felt too serious, too palpable.
You felt the tickle of his fringe against your forehead, and your eyes fluttered close. Then his nose brushed yours, prominent, intentional. His breath fanned your lips, tangy cherry and buttered popcorn, and he halted.
“Can I?” He whispered. You felt it more than you heard it over the roar of your pulse in your ears. You nodded, noses bonking, and he closed the distance, sealing your mouths in a kiss.
His lips were salty at the corners, and he tasted like Cherry Cannon Ball, sweet and soft and pliable. And both of his strong hands cupped your cheeks, long fingers tangling in your hair and thumbs caressing your cheek bones, and you reached between you to grasp at the chain around his neck, a guitar pick swinging.
He pulled a breathy laugh from you when he pulled away and muttered, “told ya,” in your ear before kissing at your temple.
“Shut up,” you growled and pulled him in for another by the chain on his neck, sinking your teeth into him.
You didn’t pull away for minutes. Not until the lights flickered back on and the theater erupted in cheers. The reel scratched back into place, and the man behind Eddie gave his chair a good kick, and you separated with a laugh, a string of saliva splitting both of your toothy grins. You both faced the screen, hearts racing.
—
“You have a curfew?” Eddie licked at his upper lip and hunched himself over the steering wheel to look both directions before pulling through a red light.
You let out a squawk and clutched at the oh-shit-bar and the center console. “No, I’m not twelve. Where are you taking me?”
He grinned and swerved around another corner. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll take good care of you.”
Truthfully, he was buzzing from the inside. That nervous jitter that starts in his stomach and extends to the very tips of his appendages. The movie was lame, deliciously gory, but he had a hard time pulling his eyes off of you. You were all eyelashes and a curved nose and glossy lips that tasted salty sweet. The screen flashed colors against your features, shadowing the hollows of your cheekbones, your temple, your brow bone. He just wanted to trail a finger from your widow’s peak to your chin and kiss you there too.
When the movie ended, and everyone groaned and stressed and left their popcorn buckets for him to trip over, he grabbed your hand and yanked you back to the van, chasing the high he’d been feeling since you wiped that bit of ice cream cone off his cheek.
“Yeah, my ass,” you yelped as he took a corner a little tighter than anticipated.
The shocks on the van were already shot, but she was his Baby, and he knew how to handle her just fine. Besides, any tire damage would just be covered by Gareth on his shift, so Eddie never worried much about curbs or corners or nails.
It wasn’t until Eddie pulled up the final hill and slammed his brakes to inch under the brass gate did he realize he didn’t actually have a plan. He just knew that this would be the perfect place to shut his lights off and not get caught.
He popped the van in neutral and let it roll toward a collection of abandoned vehicles, scrap metal, tires strewn this way and that. When he was in sufficiently, his van mistaken for a member of the patrol, he pulled the e-brake and turned off the ignition and the lights, engulfing you both in darkness.
“What now, you plan on murdering me?” He caught the waft of a mischievous smile, lit only by the moon.
Eddie swallowed. He wanted to kiss you again. He wanted to know if that spot just under your ear tasted as sweet or as salty as your mouth. He wanted to run his hands over your thighs and have you comment on the coolness of his rings to touch. His mouth went dry.
He hadn’t realized he was sat in stunned silence until your laugh trickled out, heating his face, and then you hitched open the side door and you were gone.
“Shit,” he blinked before scrambling to follow you. He looked around at any of the lookout points, watched for red and blue lights, but it was just you and him and a bunch of beaters. He watched your steady walk away, down a moonlit path, fog swirling at the boots on your feet.
You approached the old bus and turned to smile back at him, a thumb thrown over your shoulder. “Talk about Zombie Apocalypse.” And you were right, the bus had had a face lift or two since he’d be there in his youth. Sure, he and his buddies always used to camp out near the emergency door, peaking through a stash of porn or smoking cigarettes, but now it was outfitted for battle. Kids these days were a little craftier.
All of the windows had been boarded up with steel and wood, the roof stacked with tires, built up like a fort. Eddie rushed to meet you as you pried open the hydraulic door and slipped inside. He followed you with unease settling into his chest, and seeing the pitch black interior made him fumble for the lighter in his pocket. The inside had been gutted, seats pressed against windows, everything a pale grey untouched by the fire’s orange glow.
“You afraid of the dark?” You teased, turning at the base of a rickety ladder. You looked beautiful in the honeyed glow, all glassy eyed and shiny teeth, like a monster waiting for its prey, and he felt his heart start pumping again, heard it in his ear, that smooth rhythm of attraction.
He held the ladder and you climbed, and with each step, his sightline grew more and more mouthwatering until those salacious thighs of your were two inches in front of his nose. He risked a glance upward at you, half-through a hole in the ceiling, and he leant in, let his nose brush the soft skin at the back of your knee.
“You coming?”
Your chuckle startled him, and he swallowed and nodded, positioning himself behind you to follow as soon as your boots lifted onto the roof, your body settling into an audible dent from above him. The last he saw of you was a sliver of that sweet spot where your ass met your thigh, and he had to steady himself by biting down, hard, on his fist.
You were propped against the tires, as though they’d been built up just for you to lean on, and you were admiring the view, arms hugged around your front to keep out the cold. Eddie wished he’d brought his jacket from the car. Instead, he plopped down beside you, legs dangling into the sun roof.
“So what’s the story here?” You asked, and he tongued at a popcorn kernel in his molar, not fully understanding the question. You smiled and shrugged. “Well, hole in the ground - chemical leak. Army outfitted bus in an abandoned junkyard…?” You gestured around you.
Eddie chuckled and shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to go somewhere quiet.”
“Oh really?” You smiled, leaning in. “To murder me?”
He smirked at that, shook his hair from his eyes. “I told you. I’m the protective type, not the murderer type.”
“Shame,” you teased, but then something real fell between the two of you. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt it earlier too, at the mall when he mentioned your friends. This odd disdain. He recognized it in himself.
“Hey,” he tapped at the sole of your boot, pulled your gaze from your lap. “I know we kind of talked about this yesterday, but like why Hawkins?”
You shrugged, looked out at the world. He did the same, caught fog through trees, the flashing lights of radio towers, a sleeping city below. “Because Kelly’s here, I guess. It felt like my only option.”
“No, I know that, but like what were you hoping to gain from it?”
That took you aback, your brows furrowed, your shoulder rode up. “Jesus, I don’t know. Do you do everything with ‘gain’ in mind?”
Eddie thought about that, shrugged, nodded. “I guess so. I mean, okay, so I’m like…” He sighed. How could he word this to sound way cooler than he actually was? “I’m like a writer.” Fancy. Jesus Christ.
“Like books and shit?”
He nodded. Yeah that’ll work. “Yeah, and in order to know how to move forward in a session, you have to understand the character’s motivations. And you like move them along a storyline based on those motivations.”
“Okay,” you nodded.
“And it’s the same in real life. Every action has its own motivations, conscious or not, I guess.”
You seemed unimpressed, but not disinterested, so he leaned in.
“Like tonight, for example. My motivation was to get you somewhere alone. I wanted to kiss you again, and I couldn’t take you home because uh…” He licked his lips, that panic of embarrassment creeping up his neck. He shook the negativity out of his head. “Anyway, I think I realized that my motivations aren’t entirely driven by my dick, excuse my French. But also I think I just wanted an excuse to spend more time with you, to get to know you better.”
You had your cheek sucked in between your cheeks, forcing back a shy smile.
“So like, I have no problem backing off if I ask a question that makes you uncomfortable, but I’m asking because I genuinely want to know. And not just like your motivations, or whatever, but everything about you.”
“Okay, shut up, already,” you swatted at his arm, and he felt a thrill kick into his chest from pulling that laugh out of you again.
He grinned and pretended to zip his lips together, stuffing the invisible key into an invisible pocket on the chest of his t-shirt.
You snorted, rolled your eyes, and he watched your mind work. You were looking out at Hawkins again, all moonlit and soft skinned, and perfect. And finally, with a sigh, you picked at the rubber of your shoe and said, “Don’t you ever feel that need to just get out? To just like try a completely new life where no one knows who you are or what you’re about?”
“Uh… only on a daily basis,” he gestured to the forest line and the smell of cow pastures and the sticky sweet air that was Hawkins, Indiana. He’d love to not be referred to as Eddie the Freak, for people to know him as a musician, a storyteller, just a random kid. He’d love to take off the Munson name and detach himself for the shit his dad pulled.
You coughed a laugh of understanding, nodded. “Yeah, so I guess that’s why I’m here. Grass is greener, and all that. No parents breathing down my neck, no friends expecting me to show up at the bar or drive them home or be their alibi for the weekend. Just the fresh country air and maybe I can figure out who I want to be.”
“So who do you want to be?” Eddie offered. He leaned toward you, meat of his hands sore from the edge of the opening.
A bashful smile played on your lips. “How do you see me?”
He thought for a moment, pulling your ankle until your leg was dangling through the hole beside his. You kicked at his shin, and he allowed his hand to rest on the skin of your knee, prickled and scarred and soft. “Want my honest opinion?”
You nodded, but he watched your throat close around a swallow.
“You’re a breath of fresh air. You’re witty and sarcastic, and even though you carry a knife now, I think your bark is worse than your bite.” He ducked as you swatted for his hair, and he snatched your wrist midair.
“Yeah, you just wait,” you mumbled.
“You’ll get me one of these days,” he agreed, and there was something in the playful way you glared at him, nose scrunched, wrist caught against his chest, that gave him the courage to pull you all the way in. He nudged your nose with his own, watched your lashes flutter close, and let you close the gap.
And Jesus H. Christ, you tasted like fucking heaven.
—
Saturday, June 29th, 1985
Neon orange containers lined a plastic card table against a brick house, and when you peered into the contents, something jostled free and floated to the top of a cough-syrup-color-and-consistency mystery liquid. You grimaced, clutching your red Solo hard enough for the rim to crack. “We know what’s in here?” You asked the girl beside you, all red hair and judging eyes.
“Pure fuel,” she offered with a cackle before taking off on her own. You swore you heard her mumble ‘freak’ as she walked away, and your grip on your cup tightened.
Fuck it. Pure fuel could be the only way you’d survive this party without decking a bitch, so you put your cracked up beneath the spout and pressed the button to pour. Red juice glooped out of the clogged spout and thunked to the bottom of your cup. You took one look around at the party goers, frat boys and skinny bitches, and said a Hail Mary before throwing the thing back.
It actually wasn’t bad. Tropical, citrusy, the sting of clear alcohol at the back of your throat, it tasted familiar, like summers posted up in your friends’ backyards while their parents are on camping trips was a universal experience. You downed it and went for another. And then pulled yourself back into the air conditioning to snoop around.
You’d never partied in a house this nice before. Sure, your house was nice, well-maintained, but your parents weren’t rich by any means. The mansions of the Loch Nora neighborhood awed you as you drove by in Eddie’s van, sticking out like a big, brown eyesore, and you found yourself sinking deeper into the scratchy seats until his van was lost amongst a driveway of BMWs. You further understood the richness of these people when you noticed their furniture had been purchased this decade. And they had art on the walls, above the fresh wall paper, like real art, not kids finger painting shit.
Near the massive, and annoyingly impressive sound system, blaring Queen’s greatest hits - you had to roll your eyes at that - was a God damned display case full of trophies and memorabilia. Clearly the owners of the house, “Thomas Hagan” was reliving the glory days of his Class of ’57. There was a mannequin donning the bright green and orange colors of a Hawkins High Letterman jacket. And tucked into a tiny corner of the display case was a photo of a basketball team Class of ’85.
“Where’s Hargrove?” A chorus of meatheads entered the room during a lull in the soundtrack, startling you.
“He said he wasn’t coming because he was going to meet up with Wheeler’s mom.”
“No shit!”
“Yeah, man, apparently she’s at the pool like everyday just frothing for him.”
“He’s a fucking legend, man. Wheeler’s mom is so hot. Hell, I’d take a pass at the princess herself if I could.”
“Nah, she’s a bitch.”
God, you fucking hated jocks. You rolled your eyes, took another sip of your fuel, and tried to make out familiar faces in the reflection of the display case, not wanting to warrant any eye contact.
“Who’s the weird girl?” Shit.
You took a step to the side, pretending to be interested in the fine collection of Kenny Rodgers vinyls.
“Think the Freak brought her.”
“No way. The Freak doesn’t do chicks, man. Too busy blowing all those kids in his creepy ass little club.”
“So,” the voice from beside you made you jump, and you turned your head to the sweatiest mullet you’ve ever seen. “You banging the freak, babe? Because I promise you his dick isn’t as big as mine.”
“Hey, dickbags,” a thankfully familiar voice stirred attention back on himself, and you all turned to face Eddie the Freak as he went sneaker-first onto the floral upholstering of Mrs. Hagan’s sofa. “This is last call. Anyone with forty bucks can have the last of this, or I’m getting the Hell out of here before one of your hoity toity neighbors calls the cops.” He jiggled a plastic bag in one hand and waited patiently for a series of curses and the fumbling of pockets before two twenties were procured and Eddie exchanged the currency in a ringed hand.
“Thank you, it’s been a pleasure working with you, really.” He stepped off the couch and crossed the room to you, throwing you under his arm.
“Hey, stranger,” you smiled, the buzz finally kicking in under the warmth of him. Tingling cheeks and butter fingers, or at least that’s the excuse you’d use if anyone threatened you from pouring pure fuel onto the lap of the jock that had hit on you.
“What the hell, bitch?” The man protested, but Eddie had swung you out of the way and through a handful of doors faster than the guy or his friends could take action.
You sunk back into the velvety seats of the van, cranking your window to let in the humid evening air, and smiled at Eddie as he put her in reversed and backed out of the long, packed drive. “What took you so long?”
“I’m so sorry,” a genuine expression folded over his soft features. “There were these freshman in the basement, and they’d never packed a bowl, and I really felt like it was my duty to teach them.”
You laughed at that. “How admirable of you.”
“Thank you,” he nodded. “But really, thanks for hanging out.”
You shrugged. “Didn’t bother me.”
“Yeah?” He grinned. “You wanna go back? I can drop you off. Seemed like you and Sam Bailey really hit it off. I can put in a good word for you.”
“He was kind hunky.”
“Yeah, and his dick is way bigger than mine.”
Shit, the way he smiled at you was intoxicating. The corners of his mouth pulled all the way up to show all of those shiny white teeth, and he looked like the Cheshire Cat. Those dimples carved into his cheeks, and the way those big, brown eyes lit up was soul melting. It made your body flutter, made you shy under his gaze.
There was something behind it too, this lingering stare. He liked to watch you when he thought you didn’t notice, but you could feel his eyes trailing your skin. You’d let him, toss your hair over your shoulder, hike up the leg of your skirt a little more. You could catch the rise and fall of his chest, hear the catch in his throat when you did it. It was pure fuel.
You made out in the junkyard the night before, sloppy and sweet, but it didn’t go past teeth and tongues and lips because he ended up falling through the hole and onto the ladder, and you both nearly peed yourself laughing once he bounced upright and confirmed the was alright.
And then there was more kissing in the van before he backed out, and more kissing with the storm door pressed against your sides and the bugs banging against the glass. And you’d spent all day at the local pool with Josie, squeezing your legs together every time you thought about Eddie’s calloused hands against your cheekbone or his nose tucked into that space of your jawline.
“Well, now that my work is done for the day, how do you feel about boats?”
—
Rick was passed out on the couch, and his entire house stunk of bong water, which actually was his preferred state. So Eddie tucked him into the couch and turned up the volume on Cheech and Chong before tiptoeing to the kitchen to snag the last four beers from the fridge. He grabbed a discarded joint from the side table too, and backed out slowly, clicking the lock in place before gesturing for you to follow him down the sloping walk to the boat house.
Once inside, he dumped the haul onto a shop counter and clicked the light on, watching with his breath held as you observed your surroundings. You poked at fishing lures and the oars hanging from the rafters, before turning to him with an approving smile. “This is nice.”
With a sigh of relief, he tossed you a beer and popped the tab on his own, slurping down the foam that sprayed to the top.
“Can I…?” You gestured to the lip where the boathouse met the murky waters below, and Eddie jumped to offer you a hand to help you seat yourself. He watched as you carefully untied the laces of your boots and pulled thick socks from your feet, wiggling your toes in relief before you dunked them under the water. Your soft legs prickled at the cold, but you offered him a smile and patted the slender spot beside you. So he did as he was told.
“This is a… lake?” You slurped your beer, both of your shoes and socks discarded on the dusty wood floor behind you.
Eddie nodded, kicking up a splash of frigid water. It was refreshing on a warm night like this one, the sun dipping low across the lake, dying everything a pale pink. He licked hoppy goodness from his lips. “Lovers Lake.” He confirmed.
“Really?” You cocked a brow, convinced he was offering a line, and he laughed.
“No really. It’s in the shape of a heart. You can kind of see.” He pointed out across from them, where the dip of peninsula jutted out to create the top. Just east of Rick’s was the pull of a river outlet, making the bottom of the heart shape.
“Okaaaay,” you teased, and after you’d taken another sip of beer, the two of you fell into a comfortable silence. Eddie watched you watch the lake, 4th of July weekend boaters heading to shore for the night, music danced across the water from the lakeside bar just over the other crest. He glanced down when he noticed your lithe fingers playing with a tear at his jeans at the knee.
“So,” you mumbled softly. “What were your motivations for bringing me to Lovers Lake?”
There was implication there, something under your tone that was asking too many questions, and it bubbled in his chest. “Well,” he swallowed, looking out at the murky waters again to avoid staring at you, wide-eyed, mouth agape. “There is a lake monster.”
“Oh?” Your fingers trickled to the seam of his inner thigh.
“Uh huh.” He lost his train of thought.
“And how can you protect me if you don’t put me into constant peril, right?”
“Exactly,” he smiled, turning to face you again and Jesus, he was a goner.
You were too close, all big eyes and pink stained lips, and you set your beer down and pushed his hair out of his eyes, and said with a gravel in your voice that curled his toes beneath the water. “You can kiss me now.” And there was no way he wasted another second.
You tasted of something sweet, tropical, familiar, and beer, and your fingernails scraped his scalp and made him moan. He tried adjusting positions and his feet splashed the cuffs of his jeans wet, and he halted you with a firm grip on your shoulder. You broke apart panting and smiling, and he suddenly felt a wave of anxiety.
“Should we go…” You glanced around the tiny shed, and he cursed himself for not predicting this, until you pointed to the work bench at the side of the room. “There.”
With shaky hands, he helped you up and dusted off the butt of his pants. You slung your fingers between his and lazed your way to the bench, turning to back into it and wrap your arms around his neck and bring you back down into a kiss. He melted into you, sinking his fingers into the meat of you until you moaned into his mouth, and he was lifting you onto the bench to wrap your thighs around his waist.
He lay kisses along the tip of your nose and across your cheekbone like he’d planned, pulling that delicious laugh from you. He tucked his nose into the heat of your throat, and you threw your head back for him, fingers gripping his shoulders. Your skin was salty sweet, hair smelling of chlorine and coconut sunscreen. And he’d do absolutely anything to hear that purr fall from your plump lips again and again and again.
“Eddie,” you breathed, hands fisting at his shirt to pull him away, a Come-to-Jesus moment for the two of you to catch your breath.
He wiped the saliva from his lips with the back of his hand, shook the hair from his eyes. “Yeah?” His chest filled with worry. He’d pushed you too far, he’d crossed boundaries. He gulped.
“Do you um…” You fidgeted on the bench, fingers playing with his silver rings, holding his palm to your knee. “Do you work tomorrow?”
He sighed in relief and smiled. “On the Lord’s day!?”
You snorted, but didn’t meet his gaze. That same bashful energy flushed over you, unfamiliar, but something that seeped through the cracks of you.
“Why? You wanna do something?” He offered, tilting his head to catch your eye.
You shrugged. “Would you want to maybe, I don’t know,” you ran a hand through your hair. “Come over? Watch a movie?”
He grinned, nodded. “Sounds like fun. Though you could have asked me if I wanted to jump in front of a train, and I’d be like ‘absolutely I do’.” The admission slipped through his lips before the thought had finished itself in his mind, and you were blushing back at him, cheeks sucked between your teeth to avoid a smile. “We aren’t going to jump in front of a train, right?”
You shook your head. “No trains. Just Barbies and coloring books, maybe some chicken nuggets, if you’re a fan.”
“You kidding me?” He grinned. “I love Barbies and coloring books and chicken nuggets. Although, I didn’t quite peg you,” he poked your waist for emphasis, “as the Barbie-doll type.”
You shrugged. “I like to cut off all their hair and give them Sharpie tattoos.”
“That’s my girl.” Again, the words rolled out of him before he could stop them. There was something about you that he couldn’t control in himself. He was obsessed, all-in, run-through.
You pushed at his chest a little then, harder than he expected, pushing him out of your bubble, and he quickly took a few steps back to relieve you. Christ, he knew he’d said too much.
“My feet are cold.” You explained, hopping down from the bench to cross to your abandoned shoes and socks.
Eddie wavered a minute, a new undisturbed tension in the air. He ran a hand down his face and tried to think of what to say, how to make up for the weird word vomit issue he was having. Sure, he couldn’t think of something to say now, but when he was supposed to shut up, his mouth just kept running. With a frustrated sigh, he met you to start slipping his own sneakers back on.
It wasn’t until you were tiptoeing back up Reefer Rick’s path to the van that you turned on your heel with a sigh and admitted, “I’m really sorry. I think the beer just made me really tired.”
Eddie smiled. “That’s fine. Are we um… are we good though?”
You nodded, but kept walking toward the car. “Of course. You’re coming over tomorrow right?”
He lingered behind for a moment. He could still feel the tension. Something had shifted, and he supposed it was fine for you to keep your feelings from him. Hell, he’d only known you for a handful of days.
“Eddie?” You turned to look at him again.
Sunday? What did have going on Sunday? “Shit. I have band rehearsal tomorrow. We’re uh… we’re trying to learn a new Sabbath song.”
“Oh,” and now he heard disappointment in your voice, and the tension grew. You let yourself into the passenger’s side, lifted up onto the seats.
Jesus Christ, woman. He rubbed at his eyes and pulled himself into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition. “But I can come over after? Or, you can come watch us rehearse, if you want?”
“Would that be okay?” You asked timidly, buckling your seatbelt and ensuring its tightness around you.
“Yeah, of course. I mean, only if you want.”
You looked at him then, right before he pulled out of Rick’s driveway, and you offered a smile. You reached for his hand on the gearshift and gave it a squeeze. “Sounds like fun.”
—
You peeled your socks from your feet and deposited them inside your discarded boots by the front door. The coffee table was littered with arts and crafts supplies and a few pop tart wrappers, and you made about cleaning it up just to preoccupy your hands while your mind raced.
Kelly was right. Your stupid, beautiful, wiser cousin was right. You had fallen too hard and too fast, and now the panic had set in, and this special summer that was supposed to be about finding yourself, about making big exciting life decisions, had been swept away by a boy with big, brown eyes and the taste of cherry.
Cherry Flavored Summer - Eddie x femme punk!Reader - The summer of ‘85 is as hot and sticky as any other, but when Eddie runs into you on his shift at Big Buy, he thinks this year might be his year. (Two chapters are currently up, and I'm working on the final!)
Unnamed Dracula AU - Following Nancy Wheeler's opulent birthday party, a series of strange and grotesque murders start happening in your town. The townsfolk find it easy to point fingers at the vagabond newcomer, Eddie Munson. And maybe there is more to the boy than he initially lets on.
One Shots
Together - Having a best friend like Eddie Munson has its benefits: someone to help clean out a storage unit, someone to talk to about fantasy novels, someone to snuggle your cat through his own obnoxious sneezing... But you're starting to wonder if the kiss you shared meant as much to him as it did to you. A continuation of Working Through It, Eddie helps you heal.
Deux Chocolats - Robin takes her last semester abroad to Paris.
Drabbles
Here I'll list drabbles and baby blurbs I'm working on. If you'd like to send it requests, please check out my Autumn Celebration for prompt lists!
Welcome, curious adventurers! I’m Amanda. I’m 30, and I live in the PNW. I’m a writer and sometimes I watch movies. Come talk to me about Stranger Things and the magic of rain.
Navigation • Ao3
This blog is 18+ only. I do not give permission for any of my fics to be duplicated, reposted, or put into AI. Thank you!
Steve Harrington Masterlist
Eddie Munson Masterlist
One shots
Will’s Day - A modern day look at Will Byers’s life and how his past still affects him.
Self-Isolating Together - When quarantine is mandated, Steve doesn't want to be alone. Who better to self-isolate with than his homegrown best friend, Robin?
Movie Night - Post-Battle of Starcourt, Steve is lamenting on dark times while having a soft movie night with his best friend.
1986 - Steve attends a New Years Eve party at Tommy’s when some unsettling light flickers send him on an unexpected adventure.
Merry Christmas, Max - Max gets a ride home from Steve on Christmas Eve 1985.
Drabbles
Autumn Celebration Drabbles - a collection of tiny oneshots in the autumn mood, various characters x reader
Spooky Celebration Blurbs - a collection of tiny oneshots in the spooky mood, various characters x reader (Oct 2024)
Lovely! Thank you so so so much for your reblogs they mean so much to me! And I just wanted to reach out and let you know how grateful I am! xo -Amanda (@curiositydooropened)
this is so so nice omg<3 very much starstruck rn you're such an inspiration to me everything you write is sooo wonderful thank you so much for reaching outttttttttt
