Underworld Girl // Eddie Munson x OC
The world is still ending, Hawkin’s is still split in half, and Eddie Munson is still a loser. He wants to run away from all the responsibility of The Upside Down and graduate on his fourth attempt at senior year when he meets Franchesca White. She’s his new English tutor who mysteriously reappeared after being missing for almost two years. His friends want him to investigate her disappearance, and he just wants to kiss her.
Warning: Extremely Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Porn with Plot.
Fog hovered above the ground, still and unmoving. The clouds were grey and the air was damp, and Eddie Munson awoke in a sweat.
He woke before his alarm, something that had become a habit only recently. His calloused hands reached up and rubbed his eyes.
Wayne knocked on the door to his room, thundering with his strides and movements that only an old man could do before six in the morning.
“Yeah, yeah,” called out Eddie, only for his uncle to walk in.
Eddie felt that feeling, the one where it seemed as though a pile of stones were settling in his stomach. Wayne had just gotten home from his shift at the plant, and yet here he was, checking in on his nephew before school.
Eddie sat up to look at his uncle properly. There were bags under Wayne’s eyes, his clothes were old and tattered, and yet, year after year, the man never seemed to let his voice go monotone. Despite it all, he held out hope.
“I gotta be,” was all Eddie said, but instead of false smiles and over enthused inflections, he sounded more sure this time. His jaw tightened.
Wayne nodded, his brows furrowed.
“There’s no shame, you know, throwin’ in the towel. I did it. I can even get you a job up at the plant if you want.”
Eddie shook his head. He knew that. He knew he wasn’t destined for greatness anyway.
“I promised her, you know?”
Wayne paused, nodded, and left the room.
Eddie got ready for school. He felt numb and robotic as he brushed his teeth and showered, barely tasting the mint of the toothpaste or smelling the rosemary shampoo.
And yet the day went on as it always did, no matter how many times he thought it wouldn’t. He stepped outside, shivered as he noticed the eerie weather, and got into his van as though it were 1985 all over again. As though it had never happened.
The fog shook him though. At every innocent glance he thought he saw floating spores, and his teeth grinded and his grip on the wheel tightened. It was a trick of the dark, he told himself.
Before he reached the school, he knew what to expect. Glares, whispers of murders and cults and demons. He knew that he wouldn’t be liked this year, more than ever before, and he was only sure that he had to get through it, rather than sure if he could.
Only, when he rounded in his van to park, a gang of familiar gawky teenagers stood proudly at the front entrance. They stood expectantly, grinning as he reversed in to a spot.
This was what got him through the summer. Hearing stories that matched his own, leaning on those who understood, and seeing these kids who had been through more than any other person he knew. He smiled to himself.
Dustin reached him first, patting his back like an old man. Eddie couldn’t help but grin.
“How ya feeling about the new school year? Feeling it this time?”
His tone was jovial, but Eddie understood his intent. He knew he was worried.
“Hey, 22 and ready to graduate. Who said it’s ever too late?”
Dustin practically burst with joy. “That’s it! That’s our Eddie!”
Eddie looked around at the rest of the group.
“Steve? What are you doing here?”
Steve shrugged and half-smiled in that playboy way Eddie always hated.
“Making sure my kids get to school, ya know?”
It was hard to hate him sometimes when he said stuff like that.
Eddie saw the rest of the group, and felt Max’s absence, even now. Instead, a smaller, kinder face replaced hers. Mike’s long gangly arm hung off her shoulder and barely brushed against her short brown hair.
He never exactly clicked with her the way he would have wanted to before the upside down. It felt weird, giving into the wants of learning about someone’s superpowers when they were the exact reason everything happened in the first place. He somehow felt like it was a touchy subject, or that he was the only one that thought that it should be.
Her name, too, he soon realised. Eleven, Elle, or Jane? He felt like even Mike didn’t know. So, Supergirl worked.
“Yes,” she said clearly, properly. “I am good.”
Eddie nodded, mentally putting another little nerd on the roster of people to protect. That girl’s vernacular was going to have every mean girl in a one mile radius on her ass like hot snot.
“Alright, you kids head inside, I wanna talk to Eddie for a bit.”
Eddie raised his eyebrows at Steve as everyone groaned.
“Don’t care, grown man business. Get going.”
They all huffed inside, with the occasional ‘yes, mom,’ that made Steve roll his eyes.
“What grown business we talking here, Stevie? Coz I don’t sell anymore, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Steve rolled his eyes again. “I don’t want your drugs, Munson.”
Eddie grinned. “Oh, you’re looking for something else? Well I don’t usually swing that way, but I could make an exception. Sugar costs more than coke though, I gotta tell ya.”
“Oh shut it, Munson. I’m trying to be serious.”
“Just, take care of those guys, alright? And if anyone gives you trouble, which they will, call me.”
Eddie laughed. “No offense, Harrington, I really don’t wanna see you get your ass beat by high schoolers.”
“Hey, that was like, one time, and I was in high school at the time too, you know.”
Eddie gave him a condescending look. Steve sighed.
“Alright, or Nancy. Give Nancy a call.”
Eddie nodded. “Now that makes more sense.”
Steve often went red in the face talking to Eddie, and that conversation was no exception. He felt like he was about to burst out of his skin and combust into nothing but blood and skin. He couldn’t dance around a conversation the way he knew how, the way men were supposed to. He had to be clear and direct. It made him uncomfortable.
“I just don’t want you only relying on the kids. Not that I think you would, not on purpose, I just want them to be high schoolers, you know? We can deal with the other stuff.”
That made Eddie uncomfortable. He didn’t know when being dragged into a mythical underworld over the age of 18 suddenly made him responsible for armageddon and all the emotional turmoil that came with it, but somehow it did.
He had a responsibility now, more than the kids did. All he wanted to do was run away and never see Hawkins again.
“Hopper and I measured the gap again,” said Steve.
“Oh?” was Eddie’s only response. This conversation made him feel sick.
The gap was what they were calling the gaping split through Hawkins which leads to the upside down. The news had called it a ‘scientific mystery which needs further study,’ but so far only corrupt upside down scientists protected by the CSI had gotten their hands on it. Hopper had gotten special permission to look at it too, and Eddie always wondered what kind of hold he had over those people.
“It hasn’t gotten any bigger in the last month, which makes me feel great, but Hopper’s worried. It’s making him think there’s other plans in the work.”
“Plans better than just splitting the world in half? I can’t think of any,” said Eddie, nauseous.
Steve nodded. “That’s the worry.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“So if you see anything-”
“I did, I think anyway, today.”
Steve looked at him expectantly.
Eddie rushed his words, feeling sweaty and panicked.
“Spores, especially with the fogs, and the weather. I think I keep seeing them but I don’t know - it could be-”
Steve’s shoulders settled down and awkwardly placed his hand on Eddie’s leather-clad shoulder.
“I know, it could be in your head. I know that feeling.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know. We’ll keep an eye on it.”
“You better get to class, Munson.”
“Oh fuck,” was the only response Steve got as Eddie rushed towards the entrance.
“And Eddie?” Steve called out.
Eddie whipped around, narrowly avoiding his long curls from becoming a mid-morning snack.
Eddie grinned and saluted. “You got it, boss.”
Inside, he felt as though his brain was melting, and maths probably wouldn’t make it any better.
