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butterknobsblogs · 2 years

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𝑮𝑨𝑹𝑫𝑬𝑵 𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑮 (𝐀 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐜)

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson

THIS IS PART ONE OF A MULTI PART FIC

‘Garden Song’ will also be available on AO3 here

Synopsis: The year is 1991 and Steve Harrington is getting on with his life- a much quieter life since he finished helping save the world. Little does he know that Eddie Munson is about to come back into his life with the force of a human tornado, years after their last unresolved encounter, and under some of the worst circumstances imaginable.

Warnings: Throw the canon out the window, literally pretend vol 2 didn’t happen, canon-typical violence, sexual references, drug use, a car crash resulting in major character injury, this part isn’t explicit but further parts very much will be, Eddie has one leg lol, angst and major mutual pining, slow-burn

General content: named after the Phoebe Bridgers song bc I saw a Steddie edit to it that destroyed me, Eddie and Steve definitely have some kind of unresolved tension in this, Eddie being lowkey bad at reading social cues, Robin is featured a fair bit in this part, Eddie and Steve are great pseudo parents, lowkey a slow ish start but I promise it picks up in the next party sorry!! This is quite long and not 110% proof read so forgive me pls lol

If you enjoy this pls interact <3

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Someday I’m gonna live in your house

up on the hill

And when your skinhead neighbour goes missing

I’ll plant a garden in the yard then

They’re gluing roses on a flatbed,

You should see it, I mean thousands,

I grew up here til it all went up in flames

Except the notches in the doorframe

|Phoebe Bridgers- Garden Song|

Steve Harrington was always prepared for the worst case scenario.

Always.

Which is why when Robin Buckley called the landline phone of his small rental apartment on a Tuesday afternoon in mid June, he was relatively unphased by the state she was in on the other end of the line.

“It’s Dustin,” he managed to make out through the illegible sobbing mess she’d become, the words like a swift kick to the pit of his stomach.

“What- what d’you mean? What about him?” Though the gravity of the situation was apparent by Robin’s inability to even catch a breath through the noises she was making, there was a jovial undertone to Steve’s words that stripped them bare of the worry he’d been struck by. “Robin what’s happened?” He could hear a female voice in the background of Robin’s end of the call, trying to coach her through her breathing which was now coming ragged through great, heaving sobs. Steve was fairly certain he could hear her fighting the need to blow her nose.

“There was-” a gulp of air in, “God Steve. They cut him out-” a shuddering exhale, “Out of the car but they don’t know if- and he’s, he’s in surgery and- but, you he put you down he wanted you called if anything happened to him Steve”.

While Robin spoke, Steve had woven himself and the phone as far away from the wall as its tether would allow him, hooking the receiver under his jaw and against his shoulder while he patted himself down in search of his car keys. He’d spent the majority of his morning on the hunt for supplies for his first teacher’s assistant gig due to start in a week- life skills, a local high school, nothing overly fancy like his parents would have expected of him- and he was dressed simply in worn light wash denim jeans with a grey and green polo shirt tucked in. He’d cut his hair since growing up, though he wasn’t entirely sure when the growing up had occurred, just that it meant his hair was now slightly tamer than it had been in his late teens and smelled faintly of the much too expensive gel that inhabited his top drawer. A few days worth of a 5 o’clock shadow darkened the angle of his jaw, the swoop of his upper lip.

“Okay Robin- Robin,” Steve swung his keys around a finger by the loop they hung off, trying hard to make himself heard over his friend’s understandable hysteria. “Robin, I'm leaving to drive down now. You got my mobile number if anything changes while I’m in the car yeah? Yeah- okay”.

And so Steve Harrington, prepared for anything, began the 4 hour drive back to his hometown in Indiana with nothing but his shitty Nokia, a tiny collection of underground albums and the half full bottle of Jack Daniels that lived in his back seat for company.

/-/

Nancy had been the first to move away from Hawkins after everything was finally done. Followed swiftly by Jonathan, and then, one by one as they got accepted to college or made other paths for themselves, the kids. Max had been the last of them to fly the coop, but it had taken her longer to figure out the logistics of leaving for herself, switching the locations of numerous kinds of physical and occupational therapy she endured for years. Eventually Robin had gone to college in New York, choosing to pursue arts. “Meet lots of other boobie loving lesbians like yourself doing that” Steve had joked, much to her behest. Hopper and Joyce hadn’t moved far, just to a larger house with land that ran the border between Hawkins and the next town over; a fixer upper Joyce had called it when they’d brought a lonely Steve over to show him.

And then it had just been Steve, because Eddie…

The last time Steve had seen Eddie Munson, it had been 1988. All the Chrissy Cunningham shit hadn’t blown over as smoothly as the government had been hoping, but Eddie had fought hard to stay in Hawkins when they’d been forcing his hand to try and get him and his uncle to relocate under new names. Steve was under no illusion that things had been looking up for Eddie, still branded a killer by much of the town despite being proven innocent, but he hadn’t wanted to leave the kids.

Until one day, late October, Eddie had appeared on the doorstep of Steve’s parents’ house- a monolith up on a hill, much too big and eerily quiet- Sabbath shirt and roughed up black jeans doing little to protect him from the bitey Fall chill, and had told Steve he was leaving. Just like that. Their goodbye had been bristling and brief, to say the least. Neither had kept in touch.

Finally, Steve had pried himself out of the clutches of Hawkins Indiana in ‘89, cutting all contact with his parents and relocating to Michigan where he’d been convinced by Robin to pursue the qualifications to become a teacher’s aid. “And who knows then? Maybe you’ll become a history teacher or a basketball coach- the possibilities are endless Stevie!” She’d spun to him over dinner one night. In the end leaving Hawkins had been like ripping off a bandaid. Momentary stinging, and then, nothing but a phantom itch every now and then to remind you that once upon a time it was there, a part of you. He called Jim Hopper once or twice every other week to check in, and that was as much as he had to do with the town where he’d become a man these days.

Now Steve sat in the front seat of his car, hunched over the wheel in a way that had his back crying out in protest, the Hawkins district hospital looming large in front of him. Robin hadn’t called once on his way down- or if she had she’d been calling the wrong fucking number- and he wasn’t entirely sure whether to take that as a good or bad omen.

Steve wasn’t entirely sure he believed in omens really. Omens, or God, or fate, or luck. Not anymore. Perhaps because he’d spent much of his time in Hawkins misinterpreting them. A “good” omen had more often than not meant someone would end up dead, or close enough to it. Like Eddie-

“Oh thank Christ you’re here.”

The passenger side door opened and Steve jumped a little, knees bumping the underside of the steering wheel. It was dark outside now, and he flicked the interior light on so he could clearly see Robin sitting across from him. She’d dyed the ends of her short, light hair a vibrant shade of red on a whim (during a drunken phone call neither of them could really remember all that much of) and she smelled faintly of weed. Her eyes looked swollen and bloodshot from crying, and she sounded congested.

“He’s still in surgery but we don-”

“Robin what the fuck happened?” He pushed some of his brown hair back from his face.

“Dustin and I, we’re down visiting Joyce-”

“I know why you’re here Ro, I don’t- ugh? No, what happened with Dustin?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and waited for her response.

When Dustin had left to go to college (and what a boozy send off that had been) he’d been accepted into Columbia. It was just his luck that Robin was in her second year by that point, her apartment in prime location and on the search for a flatmate. Hence why the pair had been visiting Hop and Joyce in Hawkins together and Robin had been able to make the call.

“He was on his way to his mom’s and there was a drunk driver in a fuckin Honda- he’s dead so good riddance, but Dustin’s seen better days”

“Yeah no shit”.

Steve rubbed his hands up and down his face in disbelief, not quite feeling real as he sat there trying to process what his best friend had told him. It felt, overwhelmingly so, as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop somehow.

In silence, they sat for a long time. Robin took Steve’s hand in hers, leant across to his seat and rested her head against the rough shoulder of his polo, placed their joined hands on her chest. Steve snaked his free hand up to her head, looping his fingers softly through the back of her hair to try and bring some semblance of comfort to her day. He wasn’t sure how long they stayed there for- a lifetime, an eternity- holding each other in the quiet without moving, but when they finally broke apart and stepped out of the car both their bodies were stiff.

Too fuckin old for this shit, Steve thought to himself, though 24 was not old.

Robin led him through the winding, sterile corridors of the hospital hand in hand, both of them husks of the people they’d been that morning before everything had happened.

Steve was vaguely aware of a niggling, scratching thought at the back of his mind- a memory more than anything. Himself, battered and bandaged, confined to a small section of this same hospital, keeping watch of Max Mayfield’s lifeless body like a dog standing guard, day in and day out. Jim Hopper coming to sit with him, telling him the feds and the government were handling everything with as little grace as they’d all expected, explaining the process to him thoroughly like a father might his own son. The way he would sneak into the small, too cold room they’d shoved Eddie in every waking moment he wasn’t with Max, huddling over his hospital bed and often falling asleep with his head resting against the foot of the hard mattress. Had keeping them all alive really been enough in the end? When it had been his job to keep them all safe. He still couldn’t answer that question.

He found that the feeling of waiting at a hospital hadn’t changed all that much in five years. Just that now, Robin was with him and he was not as afraid as he’d been back then. The plastic chairs were still just as unforgiving on his body though.

Together, Steve and Robin, prepared for everything and nothing always, sat stoic wrapped around each other into the early hours of the next morning, until a doctor came and told them it would be “hours yet at least” before Dustin was out of surgery- if he made it out of surgery- and to go to wherever they were staying and get some rest until a call came through. And for all the times they’d been drunk together since reaching adulthood, they both thought on the winding car trip to the Hopper-Byers residence that there had never been and never would be a time where they were less lucid than now.

/-/

“Oh no Mrs Byers, I’m good thank you”

Slowly, Steve rolled back into the river of consciousness, the living room couch almost swallowing him whole in his attempt to sit up.

“You can call me Joyce, you know? I don’t bite” Joyce was bustling about in the next room- the kitchen- the warm smells of fresh brewed coffee and sizzling bacon wafting through to spark Steve’s senses awake.

“Hmm, reckon I’ll still call ya Mrs Byers though”.

Steve knew that voice. Male and light, never without an antagonistic edge to it. He frowned as he swung his bare feet over the couch edge and stood, a headache pounding violently behind his eyes.

Suddenly laughter erupted from the kitchen, Robin’s husky giggle and Joyce’s full belly laugh- along with the soft, deep chuckling of someone else, getting closer to Steve as he stretched out his arms behind his body and-

“Oh. You’re up.”

Where Steve had changed his appearance to feel more grown up, Eddie Munson had metamorphosed into a 25 year old version of the freshly post-teen man he’d been the last time the world had almost ended in ‘86. The unruly mop of his shaggy hair had remained stagnant, however in the light of the living room it looked a shade or two darker than Steve could recall it being- like seeing someone for the first time in decades and realising the picture you’d painted of them had been wrong all along. Oddly, he found, it stung.

“Coffee?” Eddie’s eyes had always reminded Steve of those of a deer, wide and the kind of dark that made him feel like they might swallow him whole any second. As they held each other’s gaze- Eddie just over the living room threshold, and Steve right by the couch- Steve found they had the same effect on him even now.

“When did you get in?” A small look of defeat played across Eddie’s soft features as Steve pushed straight past him, striding barefoot into the kitchen and ignoring the steaming mug held out in those long, ringed fingers like an olive branch.

“About 4. Hop picked me up. Still in bed now ‘cause of it,” Eddie offered by way of response.

“It was the both of you,” Robin said, staring straight down into her plate of maple doused bacon and golden brown French toast as though it might hold the power to remove all the tension that had cropped up from the room, “Dustin wanted the both of you called, if anything ever happened to him, I forgot to mention yesterday- you know how he always had that joke? You guys were like mom and dad?” She huffed a small laugh, though she didn’t really find any of it amusing.

“More like mom and dad in the middle of a bitter divorce settlement- fuck me” Eddie mumbled to himself more than anyone else as he set Steve’s cup down on the bench in front of him a little too loud and moved a little haphazardly toward the refrigerator.

“Anyway,” Robin always knew how to fill an awkward silence by talking, “The hospital called this morning, Dustin’s surgery went fine but he’s not doing great yet. Reckon he’ll be in for a long haul recovery”

“Not surprising,” Eddie spoke around a mouthful of food as he bumped the fridge shut behind him with his ass.

“And where exactly are you these days Eddie?” It was as if Steve was watching himself speak to Eddie from outside his body, screaming no no no don’t do this shit to no avail as he ploughed on, “Because I don’t recall having heard much from you since you left Hawkins”.

Robin had her head in her hands at the kitchen bench, and Joyce had long since taken her leave and fled presumably to lay back down with Hopper in their room on the other side of the house. It was a cozy dwelling, despite its large size- the first homey house Steve had stepped inside that was bigger than a three bedroom. When he and Robin had arrived last night, bleary eyed, Hop had given them a brief tour, showing off the rooms they’d decorated tailored to each of their ‘kids’. The dedication and love that permeated every surface of the home bore deep into the marrow of Steve’s bones, a reminder that he may have found comfort for himself amongst these people, but he would never erase how unwanted he’d been by his own parents.

“Well Steve,” Eddie’s voice held that same antagonistic edge it always had, “I’ve been writing a lot these days and last night I flew in from LAX so, without further ado I’m gonna take a fuckin’ shower”. He wove out of the kitchen and down the hall to the right, booted footsteps heavy and loud as he went, slightly irregular as they receded. Steve downed his coffee in six quick, large mouthfuls, ignoring the way it burnt his throat on the way down.

Somehow he’d thought seeing Eddie again would be easier. Perhaps it was because he’d never thought it would happen- though he supposed that was ridiculous thinking. Inevitably the kids would get married, start families. There would be birthdays to attend, weddings, funerals- they were fated to cross paths in a bizarre do-se-do this way for the rest of their lives. You cannot delay the inevitable.

Over the years Steve had come to terms with his sexuality like he was unpacking a box of old clothing. Trying pieces of it on one at a time until he’d worked the whole ensemble out together. Robin had been there, of course, to help and to console, and to spend far far too many nights drunk and rambling with, and she’d been the one to ultimately introduce him to the label of bisexuality. Steve had never, however, come to terms with the unresolved attraction he’d had in those last few years in Hawkins for Eddie. He’d told Robin of it only once, which he had little to memory of doing thanks to three quarters of a bottle of tequila and a sizable amount of cocaine someone from the Columbia arts department had gifted him for his 23rd birthday. He still had the Polaroid evidence that the night had ever occurred stuck to his fridge door back home.

“I don’t know what’s wrong between the two of you, but either promptly rectify it, or shove it literally so far up your ass that you can forget about it long enough to actually be there for Dustin when he wakes up, because I’m certain he did not leave strict instructions to call you both only for you to be bickering like this the whole time” Robin, still dressed in last night’s clothing, pushed back from her spot at the bench as she spoke, hands flailing expressively in her annoyance. “Also, I’m seeing Vickie today, so it’ll be up to you two to man the fort at the hospital Steve.” She stormed away down the hall, Converse squeaking on the floorboards.

Steve could count on one hand the amount of times Robin had been mad at him. The time he’d left her stranded at the Family Video Store because he’d forgotten to pick her up for four and a half hours after her shift. The time he’d almost broken her leg in the Upside Down. Potentially the time they’d been stuck in the Russian elevator but he was yet to confirm that with her.

Still bristling, Steve poured himself a second cup of coffee, then a third, and added another notch to the tally of how many times Robin had been mad at him in his lifetime.

/-/

The people of Hawkins, Indiana still looked at Eddie Munson like the town pariah. Chrissy Cunningham’s killer. No matter that the government and Hopper had tried their damned hardest to make all that go away as smoothly as possible- it turned out it was actually a lot harder than anyone had apparently anticipated to make years of predetermined judgement fuelled hatred disappear, regardless of someone’s innocence- people still hated him. Eddie hadn’t really been too surprised at the lingering distaste. He had, however, been surprised when Steve Harrington had intentionally attempted to rile him up over breakfast that morning.

Surprised may be the wrong word, all things considered. When Eddie had left Hawkins he knew he’d been the last in a long line of people Steve had cared for who’d simply up and left him. Knew his parents never called when they weren’t home, and were rarely home as it was. Avoided him like a pathogen when they were. Knew that though the kids had all gone off to college, to have the lives they’d all fought to allow them to have, that their absence remained a festering wound in Steve’s life, like a parent left iced out. And yet he had still left all the same. Standing on that doorstep, a chill biting into his body and his right leg fucking aching from the effort of walking all the way there, Eddie had still told Steve he’d be gone from Hawkins two days later. There had been no trace of the man he’d gotten to know so intimately at the end of the world when he’d searched Steve’s face for a response.

Eddie had kept in touch with all the kids, all the adults too. Dustin and El- surprisingly- spoke to him most frequently, Dustin emailing constantly and texting and calling, organising a small handful of DnD campaigns over the years that the kids, all long since adults now, had all attended. The others would call every now and then, but what he loved most was when they all saw him in an interview or saw his work in a store and called him just to extend their fondness.

It had been six months after leaving Hawkins that Corroded Coffin had made their break into the underground music scene, the other members choosing to follow Eddie out of their hometown when he’d pitched his musical scheme to them drunkenly one night in Jeff’s garage, and what a glorious break it had been. By the time Robin was calling Eddie, hysterical, to fly down to be there for Dustin after his accident, he and the guys were working on their second full studio album and had signed on with a major recording company. He’d put it all on hold the second he’d picked up Robin’s call.

“How’s the leg?” Steve was driving them to the hospital, what Eddie thought might have been his fifth cup of coffee of the morning wedged haphazardly into his dashboard cup holder. The younger man hadn’t even showered before they’d made their way to the car together that morning, and he didn’t appear to have any spare clothes on him- just a half empty bottle of Jack, Eddie had observed in his peripherals as he’d climbed awkwardly into the car.

“Hm?”

“Your leg,” Steve mumbled, “How is it these days?”

“Still gone,” Eddie found himself answering jovially, though his ring clad fingers ghosted softly over the spot under his jeans where flesh met metal, just above where the ball of his knee should’ve been. Once was. “Apparently they don’t grow back, so”

“It doesn’t seem to, yknow… hurt you as much anymore”.

When the demobats had literally torn off the lower segment of Eddie’s leg he’d almost bled to death. Obviously. He still had vague recollections of looking up at Dustin’s face above him as they both cried- the boy hysterically, begging whoever else had been there for help, Eddie softly and quietly as he accepted his fate- that drove him from sleep sometimes. No one had ever described it to him, but the small flashes of memory were enough. Dustin with his hands near black from the amount of Eddie’s blood that coated them, the otherworldly chill that had seeped into his bones as darkness lay under him, arms open and waiting to pull him under. The scream that had tore through him as the others had lifted his body up roughly, hands all over him keeping his insides inside of him and clamping down hard on what was left of his right leg. “Can’t feel my foot” he could remember slurring “s’it gone?”. In the end it had been Robin who’d looked at him, unflinchingly calm and said, “Yeah Ed, it’s gone”.

As it turns out, hospital staff are less likely to suture off your fucked up leg stump neatly when they think you’re a cheerleader killer. Eddie had learnt this the hard way upon waking up. It had taken months for the mangled, raw end of his lower thigh to heal enough that Eddie no longer woke multiple times a night, sweat soaked and vomiting from the pain that burnt through his bones and flesh. The government had paid for and sourced him a brilliant transfemoral prosthetic, the black metallic contraption taking him years to be able to use comfortably thanks to the botched repair job that had been pulled on his body. He still fumbled walking on it even now.

“Yeah it doesn’t,” Eddie confirmed for Steve as they pulled into the hospital parking lot, “Doesn’t hurt so much anymore”.

Hospitals made Eddie feel sick.

“Well let’s hope Dusty Bun is still all in one piece hey? One Party cyborg’s enough” Steve exited the car, cup of coffee in hand, and shut the door a little too hard behind himself. Just like Eddie had placed his cup down a little too aggressively that same morning. Vaguely, Eddie had the sense that he’d been called the Party Cyborg in the same tone people used to call him the freak, stepping out of the car and adjusting his worn leather jacket and well loved Iron Maiden shirt in an attempt to appear neater. It didn’t work, and oddly, what Steve had said stung like scraping the heels of your palms against pavement.

The staff overseeing Dustin’s care gave the two men the basic rundown of what to expect before they were allowed through to see the kid. Completely shattered femur, removed his spleen during surgery last night, extensive but now controlled internal bleeding, minor facial injuries, broken wrist, still waiting for the anaesthesia to wear off, please don’t be alarmed by his appearance- he’s not out of the woods yet but he’s certainly better than when we received him yesterday. It hit Steve worst when they entered the room, left him doubled over in the far corner with his hands braced against his knees, Eddie could see it written all over his face. How did they all almost die only to end up back here? How the fuck was that fair?

“Fuck man,” Steve breathed, straightening and stepping toward Dustin’s bedside, “fuck!”

The kid’s appearance hadn’t changed much since he’d been a teenager, though the throes of puberty had left him looking almost mannish in the same way they did to everyone when they were fresh out of teen hood. He’d been stripped of his clothes, his bottom half covered by a sheet and the rest of him ensnared in the labyrinth of wires and tubing that exited and entered various parts of his body. Butterfly bandages held together a split on his lower lip and another through his eyebrow, sutures woven through a puffy, angry looking slash just below his hairline. A steady and sure beeping from the monitors at the bedside was the only assurance that Dustin Henderson was still alive.

“Fuckin’ Honda drivers man,” Eddie said and instantly knew he shouldn’t have. Steve glanced over at him wide eyed and open mouthed, exasperated.

“Shut up Munson”.

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure when everything with him and Steve had gone so terribly wrong. Not that there had ever truly been anything established about the two of them. For a long time, while the world was ending, they really had cared for the kids like mom and dad, they’d shared clothes and weapons and shifted their sleep schedules to dance around each other’s, and they’d trimmed each other’s hair and shared cigarettes and joints by the fire a lot. They’d touched a lot too, casually, in a weird timid way at first that gained comfortability as it became more common, until it was a daily occurrence. The kids never spoke about it, though they were nosy little fuckers- still were even in their adulthood- and neither had Steve and Eddie. The latter would have been lying had he said he’d never felt anything for Steve Harrington, but then lying had been second nature to Eddie his whole life. Eddie leaving Hawkins had been the final act that unmoored them from their tether. He knew that much.

“I’m gonna go…grab us some chairs,” Eddie said finally, chewing on his fingernail as he spoke before spinning on his heel (the real one) and exiting the room. It was more surreal than anything he’d ever felt, being the one waiting by the hospital bed. Roles inverted from the last time they’d all been here. The feeling curdled sickeningly in the pit of his stomach.

It took Eddie longer than anticipated to find a pair of chairs, though being only a medium sized local district hospital, he supposed that wasn’t necessarily the most surprising thing. When he finally returned, limping a little with the extra weight of the chairs and his still choppy prosthetic skills, he stood by the door just watching through the little window for a moment. Watching Steve knelt at Dustin’s bedside, carefully grasping his cannulated hand in his own and speaking. Eddie couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he didn’t need to. Steve was the mom. Always had been.

When he finally dragged the chairs in with him, they set them up either side of Dustin’s body, taking a hand each- carefully, so carefully because although the kid wasn’t awake they were both all too aware of how much of a bitch the pain of having shit probing in and out of your hands was- and just sitting with him in silence. It was a heavy silence, and Eddie found himself hating it, but he wasn’t like Robin. He couldn’t fill a silence just by talking and have people not hate him for it. So in silence they remained, for so long Eddie thought it might bleed into his bones. All the bones he still had, that is.

There was nothing pleasant about being stuck in a too small hospital room with Steve Harrington, who everything had gone so totally wrong with in ways Eddie couldn’t even remember. Didn’t even understand. But together they endured it, for now at least. When Dustin finally woke up and they could all breathe easier though, Eddie was going to crack Steve open, spilling him wide onto the pretty floors of Joyce and Hopper’s house and find out what made him tick. What made him hate him so wholly these days.

For now though they waited, dutifully, like dogs, at Dustin Henderson’s beside in silence.

#steddie #steve x eddie #eddie munson fics #steve harrington #stranger things fic #eddie x steve #angst with a happy ending #multi part fic #fic writing #butterknobs writes🖤#steddie fic #steddie fix it fic #slow burn #lgbt ships #canon divergence #eddie stranger things

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butterknobsblogs · 2 years

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Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: After a traumatic experience you enlisted the help of no one other than your drug dealer and close friend Eddie Munson to try and warm you back up to a list of physical contact, affection and intimacy related goals you’ve set yourself. Months after the start of this arrangement you’re finally ready to try being kissed again, and Eddie is happy to help.

Warnings: Very brief mentions of SA (reader experiencing), Mentions of drugs and drug buying, Kissing, Pure and utter fluff

General content: Soft!Eddie, Eddie reading LOTR to reader, Titled after the song by Leith Ross of the same name that I had on repeat while writing, as an SA survivor the thought of having someone willing and lovely enough to engage in this kind of “relationship” with me came to me and was so comforting I had to turn it into something, this is pure fluff

Please interact if you enjoy <3

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You’d finally become comfortable with half your list again. It had taken a while, months actually, but the flinching had ultimately stopped a few weeks ago, and though it was a small step he’d celebrated it with you nonetheless, letting you pick a sickly sweet film from the Family Video Store for rent and smoking a joint with you that night while you watched it on the couch together.

Always his place, never yours- it was part of the exposure, you told him, but really you just loved the homey feel of the van- always your terms, never his. You’d made the deal with him over half a year ago, a few months after that guy had…

You knew you could say assault, that it wasn’t a dirty word and that it didn’t make you dirty that it had happened, yet the word always seemed to grate on your teeth as it left your mouth. So you didn’t say much at all about it these days.

Regardless, Eddie had agreed before you’d even finished laying the terms and conditions out to him, and so now the pair of you coexisted as comfortably as your brain would allow in the confines of his trailer a few days a week, more when you needed it. Today was one of those days.

The deal was this: Eddie would help you, slowly, regain comfortability- first with general physical touch, then physical affection. You’d compiled a list of things specifically. The end goal, ultimately, you’d told him, was allowing yourself to engage in full blown physical intimacy again, but he could back out of that part when and if it ever happened if he so wished.

“Like… sex?” He’d asked, a soft pink hue blooming on his cheekbones.

“Eventually, maybe, yeah,” you’d responded before backpedaling with little grace, “but yknow like maybe not ever, and absolutely not with you if you don’t want”.

He really gained nothing from the arrangement, you’d made that incredibly clear when you’d set out to pose it to him, and Eddie didn’t mind. He was happy to be helping a friend, to be helping someone.

“Come,” Eddie Munson tapped his knee with his long, ring clad fingers as he spoke, a book in his opposite hand, “I’ll read to you sweetheart”.

From the kitchen you could just make out it was his very battered- well loved he preferred- copy of Lord of the Rings. Not entirely your thing, but he’d been slowly reading it to you for about two weeks now, his voice mellow and soothing every time. You hadn’t found something about a man, or anyone really, comforting in a long while, but with Eddie you were finding lots of things that put you more and more at ease with each time you saw him. The reading was one of those things.

It was a warm evening, the air outside crackling with humidity, so Eddie was in a fading Iron Maiden t-shirt, his usual ripped black jeans on his bottom half. The silver chain that hung off his hip caught the dull trailer light every now and then if he moved a little, flashing Like a firefly’s call. It caught your eye as you made your way over to him, padding barefoot across the floor, and you were struck for a moment but the simple sweetness of him- so rough yet so gentle.

Your body sunk into the worn fabric of the couch as you sat beside him, curling your bare legs up under yourself and shuffling so you were just close enough to him that you could feel warmth at all the points you were touching- the ball of his knee and your knee, the supple top of your upper thigh where hip met leg and the coarse denim of his pants, the points of your elbows, your shoulders. It was one of the first things you’d gotten him to help with, getting used to sitting in such close proximity to someone without feeling like they were imminently going to violate you, the warmth of another person not leaving you feeling sick to your stomach. Out of everything thus far it had taken the longest. Longer even than hand holding, than hugging.

“You comfortable?” He murmured softly, glancing over at you through his long lashes.

“Mm-hmm” you hummed in response. You reached up to brush back some of his long, dark hair that was tickling the side of your cheek and you saw the ghost of a smile dance over his lips. He flipped open the book to a page in the early hundreds, where he’d been keeping a gold and black guitar pick to mark the spot he’d gotten you to.

“It all depends on what you want,” Eddie began reading and you leaned into him just a fraction more, shutting your eyes as your head came to rest softly against his upper arm. He smelt of weed and cigarettes, and faintly underneath the body spray he’d put on when you’d arrived earlier, of sweat. You didn’t mind.

Eddie had been your drug dealer first, and your friend second- though perhaps friends are always something else first- the two of you forming a close bond one summer when you’d both been left behind in Hawkins by friends who’d made other plans. The only thing left for you to do was smoke weed, and the only thing left for him to do was sell it to you. He’d invited you in one afternoon, embarrassed about the state of his trailer but eager to show you his music collection and guitar, and the two of you had been close ever since.

After what had happened to you he’d been nothing but respectful of any new boundaries you’d set with him, and you’d been eternally thankful for it.

“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours- closer than you keep it yourself”

Trust. It was the reason you’d picked him for your warped form of exposure therapy.

“But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends Frodo. Anyway-”

“Eddie?”

“Hmm?” He tucked the guitar pick back between the pages, not at all phased you’d made him stop mid sentence, and angled his body toward yours slightly. “You okay? It’s pretty fuckin’ hot in here” he scanned your face for any signs of distress with his large brown eyes.

“It is yeah,” you agreed, shifting away from him slightly and pulling uncomfortably at your black tank top and denim cutoffs. You hadn’t realised how sticky you’d gotten in the warmth of the van until he’d brought it up. “I’ve actually been thinking-”

“Wonders never cease,” he teased with a grin and you scoffed at him, rolling your eyes.

“Seriously- been thinking,” you met his gaze and held it, trying your best to convey the earnestness you wanted to be heard with, “I think maybe, if you’re still okay to, I’d like to try kissing”.

He sat up a little straighter, discarded the book completely. You had his full attention now, and you noticed he seemed a little nervous.

“Totally okay,” he confirmed for you, “and you can stop it at any point and I promise sweetheart I’ll stop”

“I know Ed’s, thanks”.

He was playing with his rings anxiously in his lap, twisting them around the base of his knuckles and letting the silver catch the light slightly. You thought, not for the first time in your friendship, that his hands were quite beautiful, the kind of thing you’d want to slow down and look at, to study.

“God it’s going to be like I’ve never been kissed,” you mumbled to yourself more than him, a flushed heat simmering up to your cheeks, “how embarrassing”.

Eddie shrugged, the movement freeing the guitar pick chain around his neck from under his shirt. He turned fully to you, a foreign kind of seriousness about him.

“You sure?”

You knew he wasn’t referring to you being embarrassing.

“Yeah,” you gave a small nod, your hair falling forward with the motion, “Want it to be you kissing me. Don’t trust anyone else”.

The words eased some of the tension he’d had about himself before you’d said them, like releasing a knot, and he gently placed your right hand in his left. His fingers were calloused from years of guitar playing, but the feeling of them was comforting and warm as he brought your hand up to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of your wrist, holding your eyes the whole time with his own.

“This okay?” His hot breath against your skin sent a jolt up your spine.

“Yes,” you managed to whisper in response, nodding ever so slightly. Anxiety had curdled in the pit of your stomach now, though you couldn’t discern whether it was for the experience of the incoming kiss, who was going to be kissing you, or that niggling fear that stayed poised in the back of your mind at all times.

Eddie’s face was closer to yours now than you could ever recall it having been before, the expanse of his deep brown eyes threatening to consume you as the pair of you sat a moment, waiting. Up close you could see the faintest shadow of stubble that had begun growing across his jaw and upper lip, could see the pearly sheen of a scar just above his right eyebrow.

Impossibly, you thought, he shifted closer to you again and allowed you a moment to manoeuvre your legs up and over his so your two bodies overlapped.

“And this?” You were shaking, you knew there was no hiding it with your legs on his.

“S’okay”.

Tentative, respectful fingers worked their way to the back of your head, threading through your hair, his other hand working to gently tilt your face up by your chin. There was a tenderness to his hands, to everything. You felt his nose just slightly ghost against the corner of your cheekbone right before he dipped and pressed his mouth to yours- softly first, like a caress.

It was Eddie that pulled away first, just slightly so he could look at you. The air between you was thrumming.

“Again?” Eddie’s voice came out gravelly, his hands still on you. You softly brushed some curls of dark hair away from his face and gave a nod

The second kiss came unrestrained, but still tender. You felt as though he was pulling you underwater, languid and a bit giddy, the sensation enough to almost make you giggle.

Your mouths moved in perfect tandem, fluidity taking over. For every time your nerves gut punched you, Eddie was there, fingers woven through your hair, brushing across your cheek, down your neck- not to arouse, but to reassure.

When he’d kissed you to the point of near breathlessness, you let your fingers snake their way down to his waist, dipping under the hem of his shirt to touch the soft trail of hair that disappeared under his pa-

“Hey, hey, hey,” he took both your hands in his, bringing them up to his mouth to kiss softly while he looked at you. “Baby steps”.

“Yeah,” you gulped in a breath, shaking your hair away from your face. You felt hotter than ever, like he’d trapped you in a steam room. “Yeah okay”.

As the energy from the kissing began to dissipate, melting away like a wave crashed to the shore, Eddie pulled you in against him, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. He took his copy of The Lord of the Rings back in his hand, once again slipping the pick from where it kept your page, and beginning to read to you again.

He read for what felt like a lifetime, the low hum of his voice in his chest soothing you near to sleep before you finally spoke and broke the trance you were both seemingly in.

“Kiss me again? Later?”

“Course baby. Wouldn’t do the whole ‘exposure therapy’ thing any good if it was a one and done deal would it?”

Baby. That was new.

He began caressing the length of your back, up and down, up and down, up and down, light strokes until you were almost drifting off against him again, a heaviness to your limbs and your eyes that you hadn’t comfortably felt around another person in months. Sleep claimed you, swift and unsuspecting, slowly first and then all at once as Eddie held you.

He was still sitting with you, asleep now himself, book spread open across your back when you awoke hours later in the quiet calm of the van, darkness enveloping the scene.

“Eddie?”

He stirred, pushing his long hair back away from his face and rubbing at his dark eyes, looking around in mild confusion before his gaze finally settled down on you.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for the kiss,” you mumbled. You were still half asleep yourself, grogginess threatening to pull you under again before the words finished escaping, “Was a good kiss. Great kiss even, really”.

A hint of amusement played across his lips, his eyes already shut again and his head dipped back against the couch back.

“Tell me ‘bout it later. In the morning”

You would.

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