#dead!eddie munson | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queenimmadolla · 2 months

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𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

next ┊ 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Summary: After a series of unfortunate events in your life, and lonelier than ever, you often turn to a dead guy and his tombstone for comfort. Never in your wildest, fucked up dreams did you imagine he’d turn to you for the same thing, but you find yourself hiding a living corpse, bringing him further to life, reaping some justice, and cutting off a lot of body parts all while trying to fit in and falling in love.

a/n: Part One is here! Just want to say thank you to my friends for hearing me rant and rave about Lisa Frankenstein for weeks now, though I’ve been unbearable with this concept in my head. This will be the longest chapter, just to establish some stuff, but we’ll get to the slaying! Hope you love Undead!Zombie!Eddie as much as I do. Happy reading! (p.s.,there will be some romantic smut in a later part)

Chapter warnings: a bit steve harrington x reader, some eddie munson x other female, death of a family member, brief description of SA (bordered with RED DIVIDERS if you’d like to skip), mistreatment of Reader, suicidal ideation (reader just has dark humor), implied murder, very campy, very cunty.

THEN, 1986.

“Where you head’n too so in a hurry, boy?” Wayne Munson asked, sat on the couch with a mug of steaming hot coffee in one hand and the television remote in the other as he watched his nephew bounce around the trailer, grabbing all of the the items he let haphazardly around.

Wayne always told him to pick up his things, but like the rambunctious boy he was, there was no breaking out of his messy habits.

“I got people to see, pops. Things to do. Trouble to ‘cause, cops to anger, you know the drill.” Eddie didn’t even need to turn around to know his uncle was scowling but he was proven correct when he turned to throw his father figure a shit eating grin over his shoulder, “Kidding, old man. Mom had me baptized when I was a baby, remember? I can do no wrong, like Achilles.”

“Wha’?”

“Ugh, dad. If I have to explain the joke, it ruins it. I’ll be back by dinner, alright?”

Wayne fixed him with a pointed look, “You best be on your best behavior, you hear me?”

“Always.” Eddie gave a mock salute before dipping out the front door, still grinning as he tossed the keys of the van and caught them midair.

While he wasn’t necessarily going to cause trouble, he certainly would be providing the fun grass, powder and pills that were often behind it. Eddie knew Wayne was aware of what he did, had implied so when talking about how he knew Eddie was a good kid, just living in the wrong circumstances sometimes. Always said he wanted nothing but the best for his boy and for Eddie to realize he was meant for more than what this particular town forced on him.

Made Eddie’s chest tight, but seeing things like the broken patio board—Eddie had accidentally stomped through it after seeing a spider—reinforced Eddie’s belief that he’d much rather help out any way he could than let his uncle bear the financial weight of providing for him.

The van roared to life, after sputtering for a good seven seconds, and Eddie revved the engine a little. As he let her warm up, something in the side mirror caught his attention.

Someone.

Sheila. His neighbor in the trailer across the street. She was hauling a box to a car, looked rather heavy and Eddie would have dropped everything to scramble over and help her, had it not been for Mr.Brawn at her side.

Eddie watched as the guy, who stole the girl he was in love with right out of his arms, grabbed the box. The two lovers exchanged words which ended with them laughing at something as she followed him to the car.

He slid the box into the packed car as she climbed into the passenger seat, and before Eddie knew it, he was watching her drive away, right out of his life forever.

Eddie hadn’t even realized he was clutching his steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were straining against the skin, hot tears pooling at his waterline but he refused to let them fall. He’d shed more than enough tears over her, over what could have been.

They started off so promising; throwing flirty waves from their bedroom windows, occasionally at school, before she approached him for weed. After that, came the whirlwind romance and Eddie hadn’t considered himself a romantic before—hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to make that discovery but he was so fucking romantic. A big sap. And he wasn’t ashamed of it.

Until she’d graduated, and he hadn’t. Again. Turns out, not trying at academics all year and then aiming to ace finals wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, all the bullshit naive plans they had to run away somewhere far from Hawkins weren’t possible. At least, Sheila couldn’t with Eddie.

He lost her to a guy in another band, had made the mistake of taking a piss after he and Corroded Coffin performed to their tiny ass crowd, and had come back to see her talking to the keyboardist of the band that had gone on before them. She looked entranced, leaning forward to hang on to whatever the fuck he was saying. When Eddie had gone over to ask her if she was ready to head out, fully prepared to tuck her under his arm and way from the keyboardist, she’d insisted and told him to his face, in front of his apparent competition, that she was gonna stick around a little longer and he should head out without her.

He’d spent the entire night pacing in front of his window, glancing out of it every five minutes and every time he heard a pair of wheels turn onto the dirt road. Eddie got his confirmation when his car happened to be one of them. He’d watched, heart splintering, as the keyboardist got out of the car and walked around to open her door for her before they disappeared into her trailer. Eddie knew her dad worked nights. Knew what she and that musician were doing and he’d thrown up the entire contents of his stomach at the imagery before passing out.

Eddie woke up to Sheila hovering above him and framed by the glow of the bathroom light like some angel. She’d dumped him right there and left the spare key he’d trusted her with on the table.

And now, she was living her dream with someone else while Eddie got to stick around this shitty town with these people who could barely stand him for no reason (and yeah, okay, maybe he’d poke their buttons). In truth, while he was a little heartbroken over her, it was the fact that she still got her happy ending that hurt the most.

The girls around Hawkins might have been interested in maybe hooking up with him, but they weren’t interested in being Eddie’s girl. Weren’t interested in falling stupid in love with him, making plans to start a life together. Didn’t want him in their plans.

Eddie Munson was lonely. And it sucked.

With a heavy sigh, he cranked on the radio, fingers twisting the volume dial up to the most obnoxious level before shifting the gear to drive.

“It’ll get better, Munson. Love ain’t no stranger.” He mumbled, sucking on his teeth and pulling out on the road.

If he had known then where it would lead him, where the night would take him, he would have at least hugged his uncle. It would be the last time he saw him, and it would be the last time Wayne Munson saw his nephew alive.

Three days later, he’d be identifying and weeping over his boy’s body in the morgue after reporting Eddie missing when he didn’t come home.

NOW, 1989

“Where are you going? It’s almost time for breakfast.” Chrissy called out, head poking out from her bedroom as she watched you race down the hall.

“Not hungry! I’ll be back soon!” You called over your shoulder, the large sheet of craft paper wrinkling in your hand as you took the stairs two at a time before bounding down the short entryway.

You’d almost crossed the foyer and then slammed yourself back against the wall as you saw Laura, Chrissy’s mom, fiddling with something at the table. She had the radio on, some garbage self help tape spewing nonsense to her, and that condescending smile on her face.

Yeah, you’d be avoiding her, lest you wish to be verbally and eloquently belittled. How Chrissy came out of her toxic womb to be such a good person, you’d never understand.

When Laura crossed into the kitchen, you sprinted for the door, fumbling a little with the knob in your urgency, but once you got it open, you were out, running across the walkway and the fencing around the house until you were in the woods behind it.

Only then did you feel safe, the trees a welcome reprieve from your living situation, the magnifying glass this new town had you under, and from the world in general.

You’d come from a small town before Hawkins, so you were used to small town living. But these people were so judgemental. You hadn’t even grabbed a box from the moving van before your neighbors were casting you snide looks, noses turning up and backs to you as they watered their yard and lounged about.

Four months later, nothing had changed. If anything, they were more open with their disdain for you, commenting on your demeanor (and you were a cool fucking person), outfits, hair, body. It was annoying. They were annoying. EVERYTHING was annoying.

You didn’t even want to be there but you had no real choice. You’d graduated high school a couple of years ago and despite the popular teenage notion that you’d simply pack up your things, go to college and be successful at whatever career you wanted, life did not happen like the movies. The freedom you’d been promised by your own delusions never came. That bitch came with a hefty price tag and you weren’t exactly jumping into a safe of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck with your minimum wage job.

You’d gotten into several schools of your choice, but scholarships wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover it, and you’d literally have to sell your entire body to science if you wanted to be able to afford the loans you were being offered, since their interest rates were higher than the standard human beings’ lifespan.

So, living with the ‘rents was checked off on your list of things you didn’t want to continue doing past your high school graduation. And hey—you were only 19 years-old! You were still young! Just save up a few years, and maybe one day you’d be able to think about taking a loan. You had time. What could possibly go wrong to throw your plans off?

Your mother was murdered.

Yeah, that was a bummer. Could’ve been worse, you supposed. You could have died with her, when your home had been broken into, and sometimes you wish you had. Alas, you were still breathing, albeit extremely traumatized. But only good ol’ mom was six feet in the ground, in an entirely different town, because your father had also moved on a mere few months after her death, with the worst woman to leave flaming footprints on the earth’s crust, and they’d eloped after like six dates before moving you to a town where you knew no one.

Thinking about it actually made you sick and feel a little delusional.

The only real good thing about your entire soap opera of a year was the community college you’d been able to enroll in. You had no real idea what you wanted to do in life, had no real drive for career paths, but you were doing something, and that something kept the she-devil that was your stepmother off your back. Most of the time. Some of the time. She couldn’t say you were a deadbeat yet.

Chrissy, your sweet to a definitive and insensitive fault step-sister had pushed you into going with her for registration. Convinced you it was the perfect way to make some friends. It was hard to say no to Chrissy, she had a way with people and could make the meekest soul feel like they were capable of anything and everything. She could always see the best in people, and she was outgoing. Your time in Hawkins had been brief, but you’d easily gathered Chrissy was popular, a former cheerleader (and she’d successfully tried out for the community college team) and beloved by all. While part of you felt a little jealous at her confidence, you admired her more. She was never intentionally mean to you, either. She made the occasional comment, but it seemed like Chrissy had more so a filter problem, rather than spitting anything out with sugar coated hostility like her mother. Chrissy was...nice. After everything you've been through, you could use a little nice in your life.

And sometimes nice was also the woods behind your house, as it led to the Hawkins’ Cemetery.

Morbid, sure, but you couldn’t help yourself. After a particularly nasty encounter with Laura the first week of your Hawkins sentence, and feeling lonelier than you’d ever felt before, you’d gone for a walk, tears decorating your face with wet trails as you tried to physically hold yourself together, arms wrapped around yourself.

You’d arrived at the cemetery, and because you couldn’t pay your mother a visit, you decided the only decent thing to do was visit other lonely souls.

You’d stopped to pay your respects to just about every tombstone and plaque, but one in particular caught your attention.

Tucked away in a corner and separate from the other graves, under a weeping willow, was the most damaged tombstone of them all. Parts of it were broken off, a lot of the information pertaining to the individual underneath it was seemingly grated off. You had no idea who it was, the only remaining legible letters were MUN and you figured it was he simply because you’d taken some paper to the tombstone for etching and ran a black crayon over it. You’d been able to make out the word ‘he’ on the paper and deduced it had once read may he rest in peace.

The state of his tombstone surprised you, given how recent the date of death was. While his birth date had also been worn away, the year of death—1986–had been left. It was 1989. No way his grave should’ve looked like that.

Apparently, even the groundskeeper avoided his part of the cemetery. The grass around his grave was overgrown, and pitiful. So, you’d gone home, grabbed the lawn mower, and pushed it all the way over. You’d ended up disgusting, covered in grass, dirt and sweating like a cheater on a Sunday morning, but his grave was looking better. You’d taken to caring for his grave after that. A bunch of your trinkets and things you'd seen that you immediately thought he’d like surrounded him now and you’d even planted some bluebells.

He also made surprisingly good conversation, even though he never talked to you. His presence, while mostly imaginary to you, was comforting.

So, during any free time you had, you were sat against his tombstone, chatting about your day, life, whatever you wanted. Felt like he was always listening, no matter the subject and it was really lovely to be heard.

When you arrived at the cemetery, it was practically vacant, with just the red headed girl you normally saw. You didn’t see her all the time, she was just one of the faces you saw the most, and that was only a handful of occasions. For the most part, Hawkins didn’t seem keen on remembering the dead.

“Hope you haven’t been lonely without me,” You greeted as you approached his tombstone, ducking under a few low hanging willow branches that still brushed over you anyways. You’d have to ‘borrow’ Laura’s shears soon, the willow tree was hauntingly beautiful around his grave, but you wanted its branches and leaves to frame his grave, not conceal it, “I missed you.”

It was a little odd, but you did.

When you weren’t at his grave, you were thinking about him, trying to put a face to MUN, wondering what his life had been like. Did he have any loved ones? What had his interests been? How had he died? Had he felt as lonely as you did?

“I know, I know.” You settled onto the grass in front of his tombstone, securing the craft paper to his tombstone with some masking tape, “I was just here last night.” You imagined he would say.

“I just can’t stay away from you. You have a very intriguing aura: I can’t see it because you’re dead, and that makes me want to know you more.” You pulled a black crayon from your pocket and went about scribbling on the paper, over where you knew MUN would be etched in stone, “I’ve said it a million times, and you’ve probably turned over in your coffin repeatedly because of it, but you’re the only one who understands me. And you’re the only one here that I care about—probably in the whole world actually, except maybe Chrissy but I know her friends think I’m weird, and I don’t want to drag her down with me.”

Once the letters appeared on the paper, you sprawled out STER and you dropped the crayon to produce a pretty hot pink marker from your pocket instead, signing your name with a little heart to go with it just above the last name you’d crafted for him.

The odds of this dude being a Munster were slim to none, but you thought it was fitting for someone who lived in a cemetery.

You sat back on your haunches to admire it, it was a cute piece. Would look nice on your wall and whenever you missed him and found yourself longing to be near his grave, all you’d have to do is turn on your side and you'd be able to see part of him.

You ripped the paper off his tombstone, and weighed it down on the grass with a rock. With that out of the way, you gave him your full attention, shuffling until your head and shoulder were leaning against the stone, “Would you wanna be dragged down with me? Be seen with me? I’m somewhat of a pariah around here. Did you have better luck when you were still kicking?”

You figured with how fucked up his tombstone had been, probably not. You imagined he’d confirm it, too. Just out right say, ‘Nah, these assholes hated me.’

“Yeah, looks like we’re two peas in a pod.” Then you glanced down, fingers, twirling the blades of grass over his grave, “Or, you know. Casket.”

You let silence fall over you, broken only by the chirping of birds in surrounding trees.

“Goddamit, why do you have to be dead?” Your eyelids fluttered close, and instead of the cold stone, you imagined your head pressed against a warm chest, rising and falling with breaths, and a heartbeat thumping strong below your ear, pushing blood throughout his body. Imagined he was alive, arms slipping around you, firm and strong to hold you together so you didn't have to anymore.

But he wasn’t, and you were reminded when the groundskeeper shouted, “HEY!”

You shot up, glancing around until you saw him by the entrance with a leaf blower, “YOU AWAKE?”

What kind of a dumbass question was that? Sure, it had looked like you were asleep but you were clearly alert now.

“YEAH!” You shrieked back to be heard, and he went back to not caring.

“He can see me leaning against your tombstone, but he can’t see overgrown grass, weeds, rocks, or your grave in general when I’m not here. Men, always so selective, amirite?”

You glanced at the stone, half expecting it to respond. “Eh, what do you know, you’re just a man, too.” You reached your arm back, knuckles trailing over MUN.

“Despite you mouthing off to me most of the time, I brought you something.” You reached into your other pocket and pulled out a necklace, lined with black pearls and a cross pendant. It had been your mother’s. While she had a pension for religion, it wasn’t something you thought about. Dying, sure, but whatever afterlife? Not so much. Felt wrong, sometimes, to carry it around with you—felt like you were disrespecting her a little bit to not believe what she did, even though she had no qualms with it when she was alive. So, you figured why not trust it with the other important person in your life?

“Pretty, huh? It was my mom’s. She’s dead, like you. You wouldn’t happen to have seen her around, would you?” You joked, fingers stroking over the pearls. There was no risk in leaving them with your dead friend, people avoided him and you had a feeling even grave robbers wouldn’t dare step near the willow, so they’d probably be with him for the rest of eternity, “I want you to have them, take care of them for me.”

You placed the necklace over the peak of his tombstone, smiling when they didn’t fall from their place, “Mm, you look good in them. Better than I do, I’m not big on pearls. More of a silver jewelry kind of girl. I could do gold and diamonds, though, only for a wedding ring.”

You held your arm out, admiring your ring hand void of any actual rings, “Nothing too gaudy, of course. That’s what my earrings are for.”

Your eyes trailed from your outstretched fingers, to your wrist, and the watch decorating it. The time made you heave a heavy sigh, “I gotta go. Chrissy’s dragging me to a party tonight, so I’ve got to mentally prepare for that. You’ll think of me while I’m away, won’t you?”

Trailing a finger down the stone, you leaned forward to press your lips to it in a sweet kiss.

“I’ll be back soon, and this time I won’t forget my book of sonnets. I know how much you love the cynical poems I force on you.”

And though you announced your departure, you found it hard to leave him, like you always did. It took all you had to gather your crayon, marker, and your new poster (and you kept dropping all three to have an excuse to linger) and leave the cemetery behind, glancing back impulsively every couple of steps until it was no longer in view, and the moment it wasn’t you wanted to drop everything and run back to him.

You had to remind yourself he was a stranger, who didn’t care for you, rotting in the ground. And it sucked.

“I don’t wanna go.” You announced, staring into the bathroom mirror you shared with Chrissy. You’d just finished your makeup, eyes heavily lined, and lashes coated an electric blue that made your eyes pop. You were always a little heavy handed with your makeup, you figured the whole point of it was to use it as you wanted. Your hair had been manipulated to hell and back, but regardless of what you did, you were unsatisfied with the girl staring back at you, “I’ll just stay home.”

“Not on my watch!” Chrissy declared, reaching in front of you for her pink lipstick. The bathroom counter was littered with your combined beauty products, “This is the first major rager of the year, the perfect social gathering. You need to meet people, sissy.”

You scowled at the idea, “I have met people.”

Chrissy tubed the lipstick bullet, rubbing her lips together as she gave you a concerned side-eye, “People who like you, sissy.”

Ouch, there’s that brutal honesty.

“It’s not good for you to be on your own all the time,” She set the lipstick down so she could place a dainty hand on your shoulder, big blue eyes focused on you, “I worry about you. Daddy and mom worry about you. Your doctor worries about you. You need to get out more.” Chrissy stressed, pink lips pulling into a reassuring smile before she went back to focusing on the mirror and her makeup.

You let out a heavy sigh, mulling her words over. Definitely could have been phrased better, but Chrissy was right. You were currently the town recluse, and occupying your room and the town cemetery wouldn’t change that.

“That blush isn’t the right shade for you, sissy.” Chrissy broke you from your thoughts and your eyes drifted back over to your reflection, the girl looking so unsure and right back at you, “You really have to accentuate your features, compliment them, because you’re already beautiful.”

Didn’t feel like it.

Your expression must have given your inner thoughts away because Chrissy turned to you again, practically bouncing, “Wait a minute, you could use my tanning bed!”

You deadpanned at the mention of the ridiculous full on salon tanning bed that Chrissy owned. There was a dedicated mini garage in the backyard for it, next to the pool, and complete with neon lights, her beauty pageant trophies and sashes as well as her cheer trophies. The PG&E bill was always through the roof for the Tan Shack alone, and you still had no idea how Laura could afford it.

“No, Chrissy I-I don’t think that would work on me. At all.”

Chrissy waved off your concerns, “It’s not about the tan, or even if you can tan. It’s the experience. When I lay in that tanning bed, with those little goggles on my eyes and I can hear the buzzing, I feel myself blooming. Regardless of whether or not my skin actually tans,” It didn’t. Chrissy burned but she somehow still looked good, “I feel amazing about myself.”

“Are you sure that’s not cancer?”

“You’re so funny!” Chrissy laughed even though you were being serious, “Sissy, every girl deserves to feel beautiful. If I can provide you with an experience that might raise those confidence levels that are dragging across a nail-covered floor right now, why wouldn’t I?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, trying to decipher if that was a compliment or not, but you didn’t have long to mull it over before Chrissy was framing your face with her hands.

“And I can. Please, let me do this.”

You groaned, long and drawn out and awkward, before squeezing your eyes shut and slowly nodding your head. She squealed, clapped her hands together and dragged you out of the bathroom.

After explaining how it all worked, Chrissy bid you a cheerful goodbye and left you to your own devices so she could finish getting ready for the night ahead of you both.

You’d selected your tan level, positive you wouldn’t see any real results but maybe the ‘experience’ would benefit you and shed your fuzzy slippers and robe, leaving you in some boy shorts and a tank top as you tried to settle yourself in the tanning bed. The dip was awkward, and you couldn’t get a good grasp on the top of the tanning bed since it was meant to only open and close rather than stay in position so grasping onto it for balance as you lowered yourself in led to you conking yourself on the head with a noticeable bonk.

You hissed in pain, rubbing the sore area as you clambered the rest to the way in. Once you’d stretched your legs out, lowered the top, maneuvered the goggles over your face and waited for the magic to happen as you were surrounded by neon blue lights.

You heard the buzzing as the tanning bed started up. The magic happened alright. The entire tanning bed shocked you, and you shrieked as you felt the intense electric current ripple throughout your body, sparking every single pore in the worst way possible.

“I’m so sorry you got electrocuted, sissy.”

Chrissy broke the silence as you sulked in the passenger seat, your hair a little bigger than normal and not a result of styling. After getting all five senses shocked out of you, you’d come out with a hairdo that would not usually be up to par with you, and some serious case of static electricity. You’d tried to gently press your hair down and when you saw a literal spark in it, you decided to just leave it alone.

Your step-sister had been apologizing since.

“It’s alright. I survived.” And you wanted to forget about it.

You could see Chrissy glancing nervously at you from the corner of your eye as she drove you to the party location.

“So…how are you liking Hawkins Community, so far?” She asked, thankfully changing the subject.

“It’s fine. The campus looks relatively the same as the community college I toured in my old town. Classes are decent.” Pitiful. The classes were so boring and straight out of the book, but it cost you a fraction of a fraction of what you’d have to pay to attend a university.

Chrissy lips turned up in a mischievous smile and you internally groaned, fully expecting her next question.

“See any cute boys?” And then, as an afterthought, “Or…girls?” Then she took her eyes off the road again, squinting at you as if she was trying to assess something, “Or…..anyone?”

You betrayed yourself, eyes darting to the window before they were back on her and she perked up in the driver’s seat.

“Okay, spill.”

Your heart started thumping wildly in your chest as one particular guy came to mind, but you hadn’t thought about him too much. Hadn’t allowed yourself to entertain the idea of a romance with him. That’s how people got their hopes up and letdown.

“Sissy! Sissy, come on. You have to tell me. I’m your only friend!”

This time, you could tell she was joking, even though she did have merit. You bit your lip as she ribbed you a bit more, the corners of your lips tugging up into a smile.

“Okay, okay!” Your hands flew to cover your face, embarrassed, shy and a little giddy all at once to actually be admitting you had a crush.

“Steve Harrington.”

“STEVE HARRINGTON?” She repeated, incredulous and you shushed her even though it was only you two in the car.

“Sissy, that’s so unexpected! I haven’t really seen him since high school but I didn’t think he’d be your type.” Chrissy admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.

“He works in the library.” You sighed out, recalling your brief interactions with him when checking out a couple of books. He’d been kind, made a couple of humorous comments about the titles, and always tried to meet your avoidant gaze, which meant he was being nice to you. Coaxing you out of your shell. You actually didn't have much trouble interacting with people, you were more abrasive than you ever were shy, Steve was just a little too easy on the eyes. Made you forget how to talk, and on occasion, walk. It was embarrassing, “Always makes those cute displays with recommendations.”

“Good for him,” She commented, sounding impressed. “I didn’t really know he was intellectual. Wasn’t, the last I heard. Had a big reputation in high school, seemed kind of mean and everyone called him King Steve.”

You frowned, feeling the need to protect him, “Didn’t they call you the Queen of Hawkins High?”

“Yeah, but only to make me seem pretentious.”

You raised your eyebrows, glancing away. Chrissy was kind, but sometimes, she could be pretentious.

“And anyways, I’m not a student at Hawkins High anymore, so they can’t call me that. Maybe Steve really did change. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much about him since he struck out with a series of girls. Maybe he took a good look at himself and decided a change was needed.” You could feel her eyes on you again.

“Does he flirt with you?”

“No.”

“See him flirt with any girls?”

“Nope.”

“Does he still make his hair all big and poofy?”

“Looks more voluminous than poofy.”

Chrissy hummed, “An improvement. Is he all beret wearing and drinking coffee now?”

You tried to recall ever seeing him in a hat, let alone a beret, “No, I don’t think so. If anything, he’s introspective.”

“He’s on the spectrum?”

Your smile waned when you realized she was asking a legitimate question, “Oh. No. That’s—that’s not what that means. I just meant he’s thinking about what he does; how he acts, how he behaves.”

It got quiet for a few moments.

”Well,” Chrissy broke the silence once more, “He might be there tonight. I’m not sure if they’re still friends, but Tommy Hagan is hosting tonight, and once upon a time, they were inseparable.”

You made a sound of acknowledgment, upper lip twitching in disgust. You knew Tommy, saw him around campus. He was a big jerk, you’d witnessed him throw some guy’s backpack in the trash and pour his drink on it. You wish you’d known it was his party you were going to in advance. Tommy was a nasty piece of work, so his friend group was the same. Out of all of them, though, Carol got on your nerves the most.

She didn’t pay you a whole lot of attention, but when you were walking in with Chrissy—and this is Chrissy, so she acknowledged everyone—and she said hi, Carol would just look you up and down before pursing her big mouth like she’d sucked on something sour. One day, you’d like to give her your fist to suck on.

”Patrick McKinney is bringing three kegs and I heard Reefer Rick is bringing his whole inventory.”

“Reefer Rick?”

“Yeah, he’s the local drug dealer now. I mean, he’s always been but he used to have somebody sell for him while he supplied, but he died.”

Your eyes widened while your pupils dilated, mind conjuring up some image of a poor dude being murdered for drugs and then the supplier just taking over, not fearful at all of meeting the same fate, “He died?”

Chrissy nodded her head, looking thoughtful, “Yeah, Eddie Munson.”

Munson.

You sat up in your seat, fully alert and invested in the conversation now, “Eddie Munson? Is he buried under the willow tree in the cemetery?”

You stared at Chrissy, willing her to think faster as she squinted and pursed her lips, “I think Tina mentioned something about someone peeing on a tree over there, so I think so.”

Your mouth dropped open, expression utterly horrified that someone could do that, “That’s beastly, what the fuck?”

“I know,” Chrissy sighed with a shake of her head. “I didn't know him all that much, bought some weed off of him a couple of times and he seemed a little scary—appearance and mannerism wise—but he seemed nice when you had to interact with him. He didn’t deserve that.”

“How did he die?” You asked, voice small and heart shrinking. You didn’t like where this was going. Didn’t like it one bit.

“Well, the official determination, if I remember right, was like a drug deal gone bad or something, but no one really believes it. He was known to have weed on him, kept the harder stuff somewhere else. Everyone knows he was murdered. They did a number on him, it was all everyone could talk about because Sydney Porter couldn’t even get her dad—he worked at the station—to show her pictures. He told her they messed Eddie up bad. People here really didn’t like him. No one knows who did it though.”

You sunk back into your seat, mind troubled and stomach turning. This whole time, you'd been tending to and caring for the grave of a murdered guy, taken from this world simply because people didn’t like him. He must have been so lonely. So scared. And they killed him.

Chrissy was wrong. People in this town knew who killed him, because one of them, or some of them, had to have been his murderers.

Your fingers curled into tight fists, painted nails digging into the flesh of your palms. Chrissy noticed the change in your demeanor.

“Oh, sissy. You’re such an empath. Don’t be so sad, I know it’s a horrible story, but he’s resting now. In peace.”

“No, he’s not. They fucked up his tombstone. He can’t even be dead in peace.” You huffed, furious on his behalf.

“How do you know?” Chrissy asked, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“I go there a lot, it’s nice. Quiet. A little creepy, but that adds to its charm, makes it relatively peaceful. I’ve been visiting all the graves, but I was drawn to him the most. Etched his tombstone. He’s my favorite.”

Despite the horrors you’d learned, the thought of Mun—Eddie, still brought a wistful smile to your lips. Maybe your presence was enough to settle him, bring him a little bit of peace this town and the people in it refused to give him.

“H-He’s your favorite…?”

“Yeah. I feel this….connection with him. From the very first time I visited. Now, I leave him gifts, flowers, pretty stones, poems I wrote, a book of sonnets I stole from the library.”

“You….should talk to your doctor about this, Sissy. That’s really weird. That’s really weird, sissy.”

You fought to not roll your eyes. As much as you cared about Chrissy, and knew she cared about you, she didn’t understand you.

“Well, since people ruined his grave, I thought it might be nice to clean it up and make sure he’s not forgotten.” You snapped, “It’s not like I call him my boyfriend or anything.”

Chrissy eyed you skeptically, “Well, then that’s nice of you, I guess. Just don’t go around telling everybody about that, or you’ll be known as the Ghost Whisperer.”

“He hasn’t talked back to me yet.”

Chrissy laughed, and freed one hand off the wheel to lightly slap your arm, “See, now that’s funny. If you do tell anyone, end it with that joke. You’ll be a riot.”

You smirked, staring out the front windshield. You’d let her think it was a joke. For now.

You made a sound of displeasure as Chrissy pulled into a clear space on the grass and parked. She jumped out to dance over to her friends, some wine coolers cradled in a plastic bag she clutched.

You allowed yourself a full minute to stew in your misery before getting out of the car and following after her. As you neared her group, you quickly realized that was a bad idea.

“Oh my GOD! Vickie, you fixed your teeth! They look so good. I wasn’t gonna say anything because I thought you were happy with the overcrowding, but now that you fixed it, I can’t look away!”

Yeesh. You beelined away from them and wandered around the crowded front lawn, dodging rowdy friend groups and couples until you spotted a cooler.

Maybe a drink would calm you down.

You squatted down and popped the lid, digging around the ice but all you spotted were Pepsi and Squirt cans.

“The liquid fun is inside.” A guy’s voice came from behind you and you rolled your eyes. You were so not in the mood to be hit on right now.

“What?” You asked, tone bored, but you didn’t want to make him seem helpful so you grabbed a Squirt.

“Alcohol. He keeps it inside.”

You slammed the cooler shut and popped the tab of the can, rising to your feet, “Yeah, I figured that mu—shhhh.”

Oh, shit.

Steve Harrington was standing before you, eyes alight with mirth as he smirked down at you.

You swallowed hard, hoping to god your tongue hadn’t gone down with the movement. See? Here you went getting all stupid around him.

”Funny seeing you here.”

You laughed nervously, “Yeah. I—uh, mhm.” You forced yourself to take a drink of your soda to keep from making an even bigger fool of yourself.

“Sorry if it’s weird of me to just walk up to you. I was chilling on the side of the house and thought I saw you, but I’m a little nearsighted and I didn’t bring my glasses.”

You pulled the can away from your mouth as your brain registered the lack of metal frames on the bridge of his nose. He looked handsome with and without them, that wasn’t fair. It was still throwing you off.

“It’s—It’s okay. Uhm, no harm done.” You shrugged your shoulders, hoping it looked cool and not as stiff as you felt. You even added in a smile with some teeth for a little razzle dazzle.

“I actually came over here to tell you your books are significantly overdue.” Steve deadpanned, tongue playing with his canine tooth as he scrutinized you and you shrunk, smile falling from your face. You had got to get better at following up on your due dates.

“Oh.”

He scoffed, face breaking out into a grin as his shoulders shook with his chuckles “I’m kidding.”

OH, THANK FUCK.

“Oh,” And then, because every god probably hates you, you started snorting with laughter. You cut that shit quick, clearing your throat as you took another sip of your beverage.

“So,” Steve took a step closer to you, “Are you enjoying─”

“Hey!” Carol stepped right up to Steve, practically leaning all over him as her ruby red lips spread into a seductive smile, eyes lidded and no doubt a few drinks in with a drink for Steve in her hand. For the billionth time that night, you rolled your eyes, trying not to gag at how desperate she was. You knew Tommy had recently dumped her, the entire town knew and now she was clearly trying to get into Steve’s pants, “I found the keg.”

She could eat shit, his pants were yours.

“Oh, Thank you.” Came Steve’s bleak reply and part of you thought he might have actually wanted to talk to just you. Now, you were really annoyed she’d interrupted.

“Hey, Carol.”

Carol looked surprised that you’d even dare speak to her, raising her eyebrows, “Hey. Hi— sorry, how do we know each other?”

“You’re my lab partner.” You were unimpressed, you expected her to be a better mean girl.

“Yay me.” The smile she directed at you was anything but friendly, reminding you of the one Laura would make after you did something in public she didn’t like, but she couldn’t yell at you until you were home. Carol swirled the liquid in her cup around, head tilting as she offered it to you, “You wanna sip, partner?”

“Carol.” Steve warned and she tutted, flicking her wrist.

“You’re right, I don’t know why I assumed she partied.”

“I’ll take a beer,” You could handle alcohol, had cleared your mother’s wine cabinet after she was murdered, so this would be no big deal.

Carol looked annoyed but handed you the cup, and to make sure you wouldn’t gag and vomit, you threw it back, throat opening as you swallowed the liquid as fast as you could to refuse it as much time on your taste buds as possible.

When you lowered the cup, you realized you’d made a mistake and glanced into it at the small amount left behind, watching as the ground in your peripheral view began to shift.

Steve seemed to realize something was wrong, quickly taking your cup and ingesting what was left. His suspicions were confirmed and he spat it out on the grass before scowling at Carol, “PCP? Really, Carol? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why the hell would you give that to her!?”

“Oopsie.”

But it was too late for you. You dropped the soda can in your other hand and lifted your hands to your face, watching the lines around your palms and fingers begin to move, swirling around and you backed away from them, watching as everything around you began to come undone.

“Hey!” You heard a voice next to you and someone started rubbing your back, you hadn’t even realized you were crouching. You craned your head up to see Chrissy and you frowned. Her voice was so different, distorted. She sounded more like your dad than Chrissy.

Her face was both far away and right in front of you, you reached a hand out to test the theory, see if it really was close. Chrissy caught your wrist, frowning at the state you were falling into.

Chrissy started asking you questions, about what you’d taken, what you drank but her voice was too loud for you, and the purple behind her head was distracting. Still, you nodded your head.

At your confirmation, Chrissy’s frown intensified and she helped you to the ground before darting over to chew Steve and Carol out.

You couldn’t stay on the grass for long, the blades of it stabbing you and sending pain shooting up your palms and into your bones so you crawled some distance away before you managed to push yourself up and stumble towards the house. It was hard.

Everything was moving. You heard a loud sound and glanced around wildly until you were staring up at the sky, mouth dropping open to see green clouds and lightning.

You had to get away, the need to escape, be safe was urgent but it felt like the closer you got to the front door, the farther away it went. Your breathing was heavy and panicked as you kept stumbling forward, arm outstretched and finally you reached it.

You yanked it open and nearly fell inside, tripping over your feet until you hit the back of the couch and used it to sink to the floor.

You heard your name being called and lifted your head, eyes crazed as you tried to find the source. Fred Benson approached you, the skinny boy squatting to be eye level with you.

“You okay?” He asked and you reached forward, grasping his face in your hand and squeezing to make sure he was a real person.

“You.” Was all you said, booping his nose but still suspicious of him. Was he real?

“Uh, yeah. It’s me. It’s Fred, we sit next to each other in ASL class.”

He looked like Fred. You still didn’t believe he was human, squinting as your hands grasped at the back of the couch.

“You don’t look so good,” Fred pushed the frame of his glasses up his nose, brows furrowed in concern, “Let's find somewhere for you to sit down for a minute. Or maybe a while. Man, what did you drink?”

He stood up, offering you a hand and you took it but didn’t pull yourself up. Fred heaved with all his might and managed to get you on your feet but he realized just walking you wouldn’t be enough, and so did you because you draped yourself over him, one arm over his scrawny shoulders.

Fred cursed under his breath but held your weight, leading you out of the populated living room and you watched a couple furiously make out on the couch cushions as you passed.

“I hate parties. I don’t know why I came—well, actually I do. I never got invited to these in high school, so I guess I’m living out my fantasy now. In all honesty, I’d much rather be watching Weird Science. So far tonight, I’ve seen three cheerleaders throw up and a baby being conceived.”

“Uh huh,” Was all you could get out, watching people swirl past you like shooting stars.

“Would you count that as escaping the teen pregnancy statistic? I know they’re out of high school, but we’re all still pretty young.” He commented as he led you up the stairs. You tripped several times and almost sent him flying down them but the two of you managed to make it.

Fred was heaving by the time you'd shouldered him into the hallway wall, his face and hands clammy.

”Good god, how did I pass P.E.?” The two of you paused there until he regained his breath while you plastered yourself against the wall, cheek pressed to it and hands stroking over the wallpaper. Eventually, Fred peeled you off of it and kept moving until he could find a place to put you.

“You like movies right? Got any favorite directors? Or favorite films?”

“Wall.”

“Huh? Oh, you’re just admiring the wallpaper.”

“Great Wall of China.”

Fred positioned you against the wall, looking a little annoyed. You didn’t care, could only focus on the framed photo of the Great Wall of China directly across from you.

“Oh.” Was all he said when he spotted it. “Stay right here.”

Then he disappeared and you watched as the painting came to life, and the stones of the wall began moving, rippling. You didn’t even know stones could move like that but now it made so much more sense.

Fred appeared again, tugging you along into an empty room. You spotted a trash can and nearly threw Fred into the bedroom wall as you dove for it, retching everything out of your stomach. You could hear Fred gagging, but he was decent enough to make sure your hair stayed out of your way. When you were done, he helped sit you up on the bed, and nearly collapsed next to you.

”We did it,” he cheered with no real gusto. And you sat there, still feeling the earth orbiting. It was the most odd sensation, you could feel a spot on your brain pulsing, like a migraine but it felt so euphoric to close your eyes.

“Here,” They snapped right back open and you glanced to your side to see Fred offering you a handkerchief. Of course Fred Benson carried around a handkerchief. How amusing.

“Thank you,” You gave the three versions of him you could see right then a smile and used the handkerchief to wipe your mouth, eyelids fluttering close just as the sound of thunder filled the room, and a flashing of lightning accompanied it.

“Huh, a rainless thunderstorm, looks like the angels are bowling.” You heard him muse next to you.

And it brought another smile to your face, “My mom used to say that.”

At the mention of her, your brain conjured up all the happy feelings and memories of her, huddled on your couch, in your old home watching black and white horror films. They didn’t scare her, so she could tolerate them. You missed her. She made you feel so light, so seen, so—no.

Something was wrong. Something felt very, very wrong.

Your smile faded and you felt your belly sink as you opened your eyes.

“Does that feel good?”

You didn’t want to, but you looked down to see Fred’s hand on your breast. Your breathing picked up and Fred let go of you to grab your wrist and force you to touch his crotch, “Well don’t just sit there, help me out. Finish what you started.”

Anger filled you and you yanked your hand away, “No.”

Fred opened his mouth as you got up, rushing away from him and stumbling back out the way you remembered while he yelled at you.

You had to get out, had to get away. Had to be safe, feel safe. You banged against walls as you went, desperate to get out of the house, away from Fred, from everyone, and to safety. That was your only concern as the drug really hit you.

All you could remember was seeing colors, hearing and feeling the wind against your sweaty skin, leaves blowing with it and gusting around you.

You had no idea how you escaped the mad house, how long you’d even been walking or how you actually got there, but you found yourself in front of the cemetery, a flash of lightning illuminating the gate.

To anyone else, a cemetery would have been the worst place to find themselves on a night like this, but you’d already been to hell so you trudged forward, feet taking you to him. Even in your drugged state, you were able to find your way to Eddie. Always would be.

Your knees dug into the grass as you collapsed in front of his tombstone, fingers reaching forward to trace over MUN and 1986 before your body curled around the large stone, hugging yourself to it. Electric blue tears slipped down your cheeks, staining them with your mascara.

“I wish I was with you.” You whispered, hating everything, hating this town, hating the people, hating Fred Benson, hating Carol, hating Laura Cunningham, hating how your mom wasn’t alive, hating how the one person you’d unknowingly sought for comfort was someone you’d never met before who was six feet under the ground. And you hated how you weren’t down there.

You laid there, hugging his tombstone for hours under the thunder and lightning as the PCP slowly left your system.

When you were able to stand up on your own, you gave the tombstone another kiss, rested your forehead against it and quietly thanked him for helping you find your way home before you left, following the path you’d made during all of your visits.

The house was quiet when you got in, and Chrissy’s car hadn’t been parked in the driveway when you’d walked up so you figured she was still at the party. Sluggishly, you made your way up the stairs, falling into your shared bathroom. Your hand searched the wall, struggling to find the switch. Once your fingertips made contact with it, you flipped it and squinted as the room was flooded with the warm light. It was still too much for your eyes but you kept it on and walked towards the mirror

The girl looking back at you was not the same one you’d last seen in it. This girl had blue smudged all around her eyes, faint trails of it over her cheeks and a rats nest for hair. Her eyes burned, not from the light, but from a fury within.

She was stuck in a life she didn’t want to live and couldn’t do anything about. As a large strike of lightning flashed from the window positioned at the back of the bathroom, towards the back of the house, you decided to put her out of her misery, picking up a blow dryer and smashing it against your reflection with a yell.

You stood there, chest heaving as you stared at the broken reflection. Then you tossed the blow dryer onto the counter, and went to bed.

Your dreams were much more pleasant than your reality, eyelids fluttering open to the ceiling of your old bedroom. A glance to your side confirmed your mother’s photo was at your bedside, next to your alarm clock on your old bedside table.

“Well?” Her photo asked, shooting you that gorgeous smile of hers, “What are you waiting for? Go get him.”

Your confusion was momentary, your mother raised her chin in a direction and you knew what would happen, you were giddy for it as you looked down to see yourself wrapped in the most beautiful wedding gown you’d ever seen.

You rose from the bed into a sitting position, picking up the bouquet on the pillow next to you. Your dresser mirror was directly across from your bed and you took a moment to admire the beautiful girl staring back at you. Where you last remember seeing trails of tears were diamonds, glittering against your skin. Her eyes sparkled with a joy you’d never known. You bid her one last smile as you turned your head to the figure sitting on the edge of your bed, dark curls cascading down his neck, past broad shoulders with his back to you.

His right arm was out, palm up.

He was waiting for you.

You shifted until you were on the edge of your bed next to him, staring straight forward just as he was.

Without looking, you knew exactly where his hand was, and you placed your left one over it, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours. Slowly, the two of you leaned towards each other, until your head was on his shoulder and his cheek was pressed against the top of your head, his fingers curling around your hand to ground you. You sighed, all the tension and weight of the world leaving you.

“Sissy. . .”

“Sissy…”

“SISSY!”

You groaned as Chrissy shook you awake, eyes prying through all the mascara that had crusted over your eyes. It took a couple of blinks until you regained your clear vision, gaze locking on Chrissy leaning over you. Her face was clean of any makeup, skin glowing and hair wrapped up in rollers.

She’d gotten home later than you and had still been able to look perfect.

What the hell?

“You better get up, sissy. My mom’s losing it over the bathroom mirror.”

You were confused for a second until you remembered smashing it with a blow dryer last night—or this morning. Well, it definitely would have broken at the sight of you now, anyways.

You frowned but made no move to get up so Chrissy tugged your blanket off of you, giggling when the both of you realized you had your hand in your underwear. Hastily, you yanked it out, and threw the blankets back over yourself.

“It’s okay, Sissy. Everyone does it. It’s natural.”

“Oh my god…”

“So, what happened last night to bring this on?” She wiggled her eyebrows and you stared at her for a second. Part of you wanted to yell at her, berate her for letting you stumble around while high on a drug you’d never taken before, the other half knew in Chrissy’s World, it was all rainbows and sunshine—at least, it had been since she’d forced her mother to respect her boundaries. Chrissy didn’t expect the worst in anyone, didn't expect anyone to take advantage of you and certainly didn't expect you to wind up walking to the cemetery and then home on a bad trip. No, in Chrissy’s World, you’d probably spent the night flirting with someone, probably Steve, maybe fooled around in his car before he drove you home.

You didn’t see it necessary to shatter her world so you groaned instead, the full force of your migraine hitting you now that you were out of sleep’s clutches, and covered your hands with your face.

“Ooh, your knees…”

You glanced down to see what she was staring at and sure enough, your knees were scratched up from kneeling at Eddie’s grave, but in Chrissy’s World…

“I fell.” Was the only excuse you could come up with and Chrissy smirked.

“Me, too.” Her eyelid dropped in a wink just as Laura yelled upstairs for you, so, begrudgingly, you wrapped yourself in your robe and headed downstairs to receive your punishment.

Just as you suspected, Laura had attacked you with allegations—that were true for once, you had smashed the bathroom mirror—and your dad looked like he could care less.

“You know,” She stated, fixing you with those unnaturally blue eyes of hers, “Your dad wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. See the good in you, but I knew. I’m an Intuitive Person, you know. An IP. They’ve got seminars for people like me.”

Your mind flashed to How to Handle a Narcissist.

“Laura…” Your dad warned and Laura inhaled sharply, displeased that your dad was sticking up for you. For once.

“Did you know there was a tornado last night? It hailed. Wind blew the fence over. The yard is covered in debris, and now I have to focus on repairing the bathroom, too. I don’t think that’s fair.” She huffed and Chrissy spoke up from her place on the couch.

“It was a tornado watch, mom. Not a real tornado.”

“Actually, Chris, the weather was downright crazy last night. I mean, it was really something, I saw green lightning. Big balls of it in the sky.”

You and Chrissy shared secret smiles at hearing your dad talk about big balls.

“Love muffin, could you swap out being a weatherman for being a father, right now?” Laura gritted out through her chemically whitened teeth.

“It’s a Meteorologist,” You mumbled and her head snapped over to glare at you before she was speaking to your father again.

“Honey, your daughter is a vandal. She’s got a taste for vandalism, and she is deliberately vandalizing and destroying property. First, it was my collection of Precious Moments figurines─”

“That was an accident, you didn’t wrap them in bubble wrap and I dropped the box when I tripped over the front steps.”

“Mother,” Chrissy chided, hands crossing over her robe. “Be. Nice.”

“I am being nice,” Laura hissed, glare never leaving you, “But I refuse to coddle her. She’s headed straight to the nut house with this behavior.”

You frowned, wiping away some of the dried mascara under your eye, “Can you say that if you’re a Psych Nurse?”

Laura had the decency to look embarrassed before whacking your father’s arm. He sighed, putting his newspaper down, “Sweetheart─”

You clocked the twitch in Laura’s eyelid at the affectionate name your father used to refer to you.

“─You’re gonna clean your bathroom, alright? Sweep up all that glass.”

”And?” Laura pushed, still staring at you.

“And…..um. Pay for the mirror, I guess.” Laura turned her nose up, hurmphing.

“That’s fine, can I get ready for work now?”

Your dad nodded and Laura looked like she wanted to protest but you turned your back to her and made your way upstairs, hesitating at the top when your fathered turned the volume of the TV back on and you heard the news reporter reporting from the cemetery, talking about a grave, under a tree, that had been struck by lightning.

You wondered if it had been Eddie’s. There’s no way you’d be able to check today, you’d get home from work too late, so you’d have to check tomorrow.

You tried to stay busy during your shift at the local tailor’s. You didn’t really have a passion for it, but you were relatively good with a needle and thread. With the magnifier headlamp, you were practically unstoppable, altering coats, dresses, blouses, shirts, all with minimal finger injuries—though luminol on some of these clothing items would no doubt reveal traces of your blood.

But hey—you now knew what it meant to work so hard you put your blood into something and you always had band-aids on you, in case anyone needed one.

You were so invested in your work, you hadn’t heard the bell above the door chime when it was pushed open, and didn’t notice Steve leaning against the counter, watching you work until he cleared his throat.

You jumped, head swinging around to see your crush smiling at you and you raised the magnifying glass portion of the head lamp off your face, feeling embarrassed that he’d seen you with the headgear on in the first place.

“Hey! I didn’t know you worked here.”

You let out some nervous laughter, mind racing for ways to make this seem cool but you came up short. “Yeah, I—employed.”

“I can see that,” He chuckled, amused by your lack of verbal sparring.

You didn’t know what to say after that so you stared, fingers twisting and pulling the thread you’d been working with, desperate for him to say something or get out.

“Oh! Uh, I heard you guys also get rid of stains? I’ve got this one on my pan─”

“THAT WE DO!”

You sighed, eyes slipping shut as your moron of a boss came bursting out of the office.

“What can we do for you, Harrington?” Murray asked, leaning against the counter, causing Steve to lean back, smile now less than thrilled.

“Murray…I forgot you worked here.” Steve said it in a voice that made you think he would have avoided the shop had he known who it was that was currently in charge of running it.

“Yup, got me this sweet little gig. And no radios.” He gestured around to the shop, void of any technology save for the cash register—and he made sure it was never him operating it, “Would like to see the government try to control me now.”

“Right, I just came here to drop off my pants, spilled something on—well, it doesn’t really matter, I just spilled something on them.” Steve placed the folded pair of pants on the counter and Murray immediately unfolded them, searching through the fabric until he found the stain by his crotch. To both your horror and Steve’s, he lifted the strained fabric to his nose, sniffing deep.

“Mm. White wine?”

It took Steve a moment to find his voice and close his jaw, “Crush. The soda.��

“Same thing. We’ll get this right out, my man.”

You and Steve shared one more look of disbelief before he slowly backed away, the bell above the door sounding as he left.

“He’s a nice guy,” Murray commented and you shrugged your shoulders, wanting this conversation to be over, “I’m surprised you know him, little loser.”

You shot him a glare.

“Oh, c’mon, lets not pretend you’ve got an active social life—if I call you in for a shift, you’re available. Nothing wrong with being a loser. I was one throughout high school and look at me now. Who got the last laugh?”

You were positive the look of pain on your face should have told Murray that anyone other than him got the last laugh. He was a forty something year old, afraid of technology, convinced the government was watching him, who tried to befriend teenagers.

You’d have to kill yourself if you were anything like him.

When he disappeared back into the office, because of course you’d have to get rid of that stain for Steve, you snatched the pair of pants off the counter. Glancing around to make sure there weren’t any eyes on you, you pressed them to the side of your face, imagining yourself hugging Steve instead of the pants. They smelled like him. It was bliss.

Then your eyes snapped open.

Oh, god. You were a loser.

After your shift, you’d gone straight home. Normally, you’d stop to grab a bite or something, you still had to pay for the mirror you broke so fast food was off the table for a couple of weeks, but on your dining room table when you walked into the house.

A pizza box. Your stomach growled as you imagined the slice of cheese waiting for you.

“Is there any left?” You asked, already making a beeline for it.

“Should be a slice left,” Your dad mused and as you tossed the top of it open, all you wanted to do was maybe beat him with it.

There, on the parchment liner of the pizza box, was the skinniest and tiniest slice of pizza to ever be cut. Not even the width of two of your fingers.

“Want me to order another one, sweetheart?” Your dad asked and Laura immediately inserted herself into the conversation.

“She can eat it, love muffin. Besides, we’ve got vegetables in the fridge if she’s still not full.”

“I said we should have ordered two, but my mom had a coupon she wanted to use.” Chrissy didn’t sound impressed.

“Yes, we got a free soda!”

Chrissy ignored her mom, “Sissy, we’re going to the movies! You could get something there, they sell pizza and nachos, right?”

You knew she was trying to find a solution for you, but your bullshit meter for the day had already been capped. You didn’t want movie theater pizza or concessions, you wanted a reasonable slice of this pizza, not some scrap your step-mother had saved you. It was obvious she was implying that she, your dad and Chrissy were the perfect sized family and you were simply an afterthought. Unwelcome.

“Yeah, I’m passing on the movie.”

Before you could stomp upstairs, Chrissy caught your hand.

“Sissy, please? We’ve got to bond as a family, it’s crucial. If it takes two, how can I do it as one?” She pulled you into her side.

“Really, Chrissy, I’m super tired.”

“You’re tired?” Laura asked, incredulous. Here we go again.

“All you do is work with a sewing machine for hours like some old spinster, I can hardly imagine that being tiring, but my Chrissy just got back from a five hour long cheer practice. They were throwing her around like raggedy ann and she stuck every landing.”

“Mom, stop.” Chrissy blushed, but you could see how proud she was of herself, “I’m sure Sissy pokes herself with those needles all the time, and it hurts, I’ve been prodded myself during all of my custom fittings.”

“I have finger calluses so I don’t even bleed anymore,” You begrudgingly admitted, “I can take it.”

“I bet you can.”

After they’d left for the movies, you’d gone upstairs, showered, put on your comfiest pajamas and fuzziest slippers, you grabbed a bowl of chips and set yourself up in front of the TV to watch Dawn of the Dead. You had to give props to all these zombie actors, you couldn’t imagine having to act out being one of the walking undead, imagined it felt pretty stupid but the paycheck and experience must have been cool.

You popped another chip into your mouth just as someone knocked on the front door. As you placed the bowl of chips on the table to get up, the knocking got louder, more aggressive and you hesitated, fear beginning to swell up inside of you.

Maybe if you ignored it, they’d go away.

You turned your attention back to the tv, picking up the remote to lower the volume and hopefully hide your presence in the house.

Then, much to your horror, you heard the distinct sound of a pained, gurgling groan. It sounded very similar to the ones you’d heard the zombies making on your tv, but this one was louder.

And it was coming from outside your front door.

You crouched, duckwalking to the foyer where one of the house phones was placed. You’d just picked it up from the receiver when a shadow from the living room window caught your eye. You barely had time to turn your head when something came crashing through it, breaking the glass and yanking the curtains from the rod.

Shocked, the phone slipped from your hands, banging against the hardwood floor of the foyer and you let out a scream at the same time as the person on your TV, running away from the figure invading your home.

You made it to the dinning room. Literally scrambling across the table to put an obstacle between you and the stranger—no, creature. Tall, caked in mud, leaves and stems, it resembled the Swamp Thing. It grunted, groans low and reverberating off the walls.

“Uuuhhhnng…”

This couldn’t be happening to you, you couldn’t die like this!!!! It was supposed to be by your hand or nothing!

”STAY AWAY FROM ME!” You shrieked, picking up the decorative plates from the table to throw at the creature. You nailed it a couple of times, watching it stumble as the fine china shattered against it. When you ran out of plates, you bolted from the dinning room, screaming as you scrambled up the stairs, and lost one of your slippers in the process but to hell with it! You had to get out of there. Hopefully, one of your neighbors heard your shrieks of terror and called the police.

You peaked over the railing at the top of the stairs, to see the creature analyzing your slipper. While it was distracted, you locked yourself in your room and made your way to your bedroom window, pulling it open.

“Okay, okay. I can do this, no big deal. Stunt actors do it all the time.” You climbed outside of your window, body nearly convulsing as you almost slipped down the roof, “Nonononono.”

You tried to grip onto a couple of shingles but they gave away, slipping right off the house to shatter against the concrete walkway and you realized Laura had no fucking idea what she was doing when it came to house repairs, the dumb bitch had just laid the shingles out without securing them.

“OH MY GOD-I’M GONNA DIE! HELP!”

Your body slipped further down the roofing, until you were forced to grab the gutter, gagging when your fingers squelched against whatever was in it. You dangled a good six feet off the ground, and while it wasn’t exactly a ten story fall, with your luck, you’d land on your head and break your neck.

Whimpering, you tried to pull yourself back up the roof, but it was no use. You had nothing stable to grab onto as you yanked yet another shingle clean off. You glared at it and muttered a goddammit before tossing it somewhere behind you as you went back to hanging on for dear life.

“Oh, no.” You mumbled, terrified as your fingertips began to lose their grip, wet with the mystery sludge from the gutter. “No, NO!”

You lost your grip, plummeting down but you didn’t meet the concrete. No, the Creature broke your fall and you were now face to face with it. The pressure of you landing on it, made it spit up into your face, green sludge, and you gasped before breaking out into screams again.

Pushing yourself up and off of it as you ran around your front yard, nearly blind. You were not opening your eyes to let that bacteria infested swamp slime, water, whatever the hell it was, into your eyeballs.

You could hear the Creature stomping around behind you as you bobbed and weaved, could feel his presence and you could not believe you were actually gonna die fighting off a swamp monster in your front yard while blinded—in clear and plain view for your neighbors to see, by the way, and unbeknownst to you, an elderly couple was watching you, not even a little concerned about your well being or the creature chasing you around.

“Stop it!”

“Leave me alone!”

“Go away, I’m just a girl!”

The timed sprinklers went off and you were soon assaulted with them as well. With just about all your senses done for, and the sprinklers washing the guck away from your face, you made a run for the house, slamming your back against the door and locking it behind you.

Your chest was heaving, wet body pumping with adrenaline as the back of your head thumped against the door. You weren’t done yet. That creature was still out there!!!

You dove for the phone on the ground, hanging by its springy cord and shouted out hopefully loud enough for it to hear, “I’m calling the police, so if you don’t want your ass riddled with bullets, I’d suggest you leave! They shoot before asking questions!”

You frantically dialed 911 but there was no ringing, instead, you could still hear buttons being pressed on the other line.

Bleak, and accepting your fate, you put the phone back on the receiver, and turned towards the living room, where the other phone was located.

On the chair, next to where the table the phone normaly rested on, was The Creature.

You grabbed one of the lamps, ready to use it as a weapon but it didn’t attack you, just turned the phone receiver this way and that, as if admiring it.

Despite your fear, you took a reluctant step forward, casting the creature in the glow of the lamp you clutched and for like the billionth time that night, you gasped.

The sprinklers had washed some of the filth off of it, too. Before, its head had been caked in a mud helmet, but now, you could actually see it’s head. It had long, disgustingly dirty curls, and wore a leather jacket, jeans and tennis shoes, all covered in grime.

When it craned its head up to look at you, you readied the lamp, poised to throw it at it—him. It was a guy. Big brown eyes, stared up at you and he made no move to attack.

Slowly, you lowered the lamp, and crouched down a few feet away.

His attention returned to the phone—shoe shaped—in his hands and shakily, with stiff limbs, he put it back on the receiver.

“It’s…It’s cool looking, right? The-The shoe phone.”

He glanced over at you and then the phone again as you mumbled out an explanation,

“Our neighbor in our old town cheated on his wife and she threw all his stuff out the window at him and my dad snatched the phone.”

“Merrrruhhhhh.” He moaned out, picking up your slipper and offering it to you. When you just stared, he dropped it and you moved the lamp to the side, crossing your legs.

“I’ve never seen a zombie before.” You marveled, then squinted, “You are a zombie, right? An undead?”

It took him an entire minute to choppily raise his shoulders, you realized he was shrugging. Or trying to. Every movement he made was choppy. Reminded you of how stop motion was made, except his scenes weren’t being played fast enough to have fluid movements.

He tried to get up and promptly slipped, accidentally elbowing the mini sound system at his side. It turned on, Sinead O’Connor’s Drink Before the War playing. You’d been the last to use it.

You watched as his head tilted in interest as Sinead began to croon out lyrics.

“Do you like music? This is Sinead O��Connor. She makes music that heals souls.”

He raised his wrist to his chest and you inhaled sharply as you realized he was missing the hand on it.

“Uhm, no—I don’t think she healed your soul. I meant like, figuratively. Her music makes people feel.” You placed your hands on your own chest, trying to convey your meaning, “She’s one of my favorites.”

A surprisingly comforting silence fell over the two of you—though he sometimes made his quiet dead guy gross sounds—as you stared at him, taking in the green-gray tint of his skin beneath the dirt all over him, cheeks sunken in. You had a feeling if you touched his skin, it’d be hard, maybe waxy and it was a bit unnerving how human his eyes were, but duh! Of course they were, he was a human. Just. A dead one. At least he wasn’t a skeleton.

Man, Hollywood wasn’t too far off with their interpretation.

“C’mon,” You stood up, eyes taking in the state of your home and all the dirt the two of you had dragged in, “I gotta hide you, new dead friend.”

#Eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #Freak like me #lisa frankenstein #lisa frankenstein inspo #Zombie!eddie munson #dead!eddie munson #undead!eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson au #Eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #Eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson #Steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x black!reader

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terry-perry · 2 years

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Y/N: I'm on permanent hiatus in the love department.

Nancy: Really? I find that hard to believe.

Y/N: I guess I'm old-fashioned. I believe that each of us only gets one. And I got mine already.

Robin: Well, if you ask me, you know what comes after the one? The next one.

Y/N: Oh, yeah. Well, I don't really see that happening any time soon.

A/N: Used this incorrect quote before, but thought it was perfect for @ladyfluff and her Strangest Things AU lol sorry girl, had to!

Nancy and Robin giving John’s mom some sound advice

#incorrect quotes #source: how i met your mother #source: himym #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x reader #past!eddie Munson x Reader #strangest things au #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #single mom!reader #mom!reader #dad!eddie munson #dead!eddie Munson

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swiftietartt · 1 year

Text

i don’t really blame you for being dead (but you can’t have your sweater back)

a little dead!eddie fic i wrote in my feels. read on ao3.

roughly 4.1k. future universe. title from straw house, straw dog by richard siken; inspired by the song into the great wide open by tom petty.

March 21st, 1992. Chicago, IL.

“You know,” Robin is saying as she lines her lower lash line in the hotel mirror with a practiced precision and a steady hand, “when I told Keith I was going to change my availability so I could take some classes at RCC in the Fall he laughed at me, like, fully laughed in my face and he said, ‘Why would you want to do that ?’”

“I said, ‘I don’t know, Keith, maybe because I don’t want to work at Family Video for the rest of my life?’ I mean it’s been, like what—” she pauses, working out the math on her fingers, “—like five or six years now; not withholding those two years we spent saving the world, of course, it’s just I think…maybe we’ve overstayed our welcome?”

Halfway through her rant, Robin sighs, shaking her head, and she moves to rifle through her travel bag in pursuit of her mascara. “I don’t know. It’s like I’m finally ready to go back to school, you know,” she continues, waving her mascara wand through the air as she speaks, “and I don’t hate it at Family Video, right? It’s just that I cannot possibly keep entertaining every single self-proclaimed film snob in Hawkins.”

“I mean, Steve, you know better than probably anybody, save, like, Keith—not that he really counts, ‘cause he’s the manager and everything—but…it’s exhausting ,” she laments as she packs her makeup away; and she finds herself toying with the zipper on her travel bag as she delivers her final thoughts, “it really is; and, you know, reasonably I know I shouldn’t say anything about the brat-pack given that Vickie was practically a dead ringer for Molly Ringwald and all—so, it’s like, who am I to judge, really—but if I get trapped in one more conversation about Rob fucking Lowe, I swear to God, Steve, you’re going to see my picture on the evening news.”

There’s an awkward silence; a beat in which Robin is left waiting for one of Steve’s witty and semi-annoyed quips that never comes. Instead, she turns away from the vanity to find Steve staring catatonically at the popcorn ceiling, his legs swung haphazardly over the side of the plush hotel bed—and even despite her innate ability to hold conversations with even the most inanimate of objects, for as long as the two have been friends, it’s always been Steve’s sudden silences that are perhaps the most worrisome.

“Steve?” She tries tentatively as she settles down beside him on the duvet, “I think I’ve lost you?”

“I’m here.” He promises in a whisper and Robin turns to study him in profile; noting the slight kink in the slope of his nose—where he’d broken it one too many times, or perhaps, more aptly, where someone else had—and she takes stock of the two little freckles that sit right at the base of his jaw.

She watches him swallow, can see the gears in his head working overtime as he studies the hotel ceiling with such an intensity that you’d have believed he’d been asked to commit it to memory, and she knows—knows that if the silence that stretches between them is any indication, there’s still some part of Steve, even four years later, that’s frozen in time at Eddie Munson’s funeral.

Eddie Munson, of all people, who’d captured Steve’s heart in the short time they’d known one another, and whose death had fucking destroyed him; whose funeral had been put off for two years until they’d finally bested Vecna, and the one crush Robin doesn’t think Steve will ever quite get over.

“Where’d you go?” Robin presses gently in a whisper, and Steve inhales sharply, almost as if coming back to himself.

He blinks, in a secondary attempt to will away the tears that sit, poised and ready, their pressure mounting behind his eyes, and he promises, again, only more assured this time, “I’m here.” Then, scrubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands he adds, “I was just…thinking.”

“Well,” Robin starts hesitantly, worrying her teeth over her bottom lip, weighing the consequences of joking at a time like this, “don’t think too hard…you might hurt yourself.”

Steve huffs a single laugh in return, shaking his head against the duvet as he rolls his eyes. Still, he can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“I’m serious.” She needles, feeling better now that Steve seems to be grounded to their present reality, “I don’t know how much more ‘ thinking ’ that brain of yours can handle.”

“So, what I’m hearing you say,” Steve hums, his eyes trailing after Robin as she pushes herself away from the bed, “is that you don’t want me to follow you to RCC in the Fall?”

Robin huffs a laugh of her own this time, her hands held out before her in a silent offering, “You say that like there’s anywhere in this world I could go where you wouldn’t follow.”

“What can I say, Buckley?” He teases, taking Robin’s much smaller hands in his own as he allows her to peel him away from the bed, “You’re stuck with me.”

Robin smiles, and she smooths her hands across Steve’s shoulders, reaching to give the side of his face a playful, albeit somewhat patronizing, pat. “You clean up well, Harrington.” She compliments, pinching the fabric of his shirt between her fingers, and well, it’s not his shirt exactly…

It’d been a gift from Mike and Dustin at Eddie’s funeral:

“We managed to salvage this from Wayne’s trailer.” Dustin had said, holding out the neatly folded Damage Inc. shirt in offering, as they’d reconvened with Steve at his BMW following Eddie’s burial, “It was in a box of Eddie’s things and we figured…he’d probably want you to have it.”

“It reminded us of you.” Mike had agreed, twisting his hands anxiously in the pockets of his leather jacket, “...because of the spike-y bats.”

“I think they’re clubs, actually,” Dustin had amended, “but, yeah, it reminded us of you. I know you aren’t super into Metallica, but, you know…”

What the kids didn’t know, however, was that following Eddie’s death, Steve had driven a couple of towns over, to a record store where he’d bought his first Master of Puppets cassette, and then he’d spent the hour’s drive home just trying to decipher the fucking lyrics. His auditory processing disorder had made the entire endeavor an absolute nightmare, but he’d run that tape into the ground anyway.

It’d been roughly two years after that initial purchase, around the time of the burial, just as things had started to ‘get back to normal,’ when the tape had come unraveled in his car’s tape deck on his way into work; and Robin had left the store unattended just long enough to find Steve crying in his car.

“Steve.” She’d said softly, slipping into the passenger seat with every intention of trying to salvage the tape.

“It’s stupid, Rob.” He’d sobbed, “I’m stupid, it’s--”

“Hey.” Robin had interrupted firmly, “Accidents happen, you’re not stupid, Steve.” Then, turning over the sleeve, the ball of tape strewn across her lap, she’d marveled, “Jesus Christ, Eddie, all of these songs are, like, seven minutes long…”

This, of course, had only made Steve sob harder with the realization, “He played the longest song he knew to give us a fighting chance and we still failed him, Rob.”

Eddie’s shirt is faded now, six years after his passing, weathered by time and wear (and perhaps by Steve’s tears), but it’s still arguably one of the most important articles of clothing Steve owns; next to Eddie’s battle vest, of course, and while neither he nor Robin had been able to salvage the tape, Steve had gone out the next day to buy a replacement.

There’s a knocking at the hotel door that rips Steve from his thoughts and puts a momentary pause on Robin’s gentle preening, and it’s she who leaves his side to answer the door with a perfunctory, “I’m coming!”

“Room Service!” Mike Wheeler greets with a shit eating grin, and beside him, his now boyfriend, Will Byers, rolls his eyes.

“Oh,” Robin teases, already edging the door closed, “we didn’t order anything, thank you.”

Mike, however, is quick to wrap his hand around the door before she can fully shut it in their faces, even in jest, and Steve can see Eddie’s ring—the boar’s head—banded around his middle finger.

They’d all taken pieces of Eddie after he’d died, just simple things to remember him by, one way or another.

In fact, the night of Eddie’s funeral, most of them had filed into Hawkins’ sole tattoo parlor and gotten one or two of Eddie’s bats permanently inked into their skin.

“You know,” Gareth had joked, just as Steve had sat down for his tattoo—opting for only two of the bats inked across his inner forearm, “this would be ten times more authentic if we were all high as shit right now in the middle of Reefer Rick’s kitchen.”

“Reefer Rick did Eddie’s tattoos?” Steve had asked, somewhat numbly as he’d tried to distract himself from the pain—both of losing Eddie, and that of the tattoo gun hammering minutely against his skin.

“Nah, Rick and Eddie knew a guy.” Gareth had shaken his head, and then he’d laughed, “I mean, everyone knew the guy was shit, but…”

Jeff had laughed then too, “Eddie never cared. Do you remember how many times that zombie skull thing got infected?”

Then, Dustin had frowned, his arms wrapped around himself in a sort of self soothing hug on one of the parlor’s benches, “And those bats just…bit them all off.”

There’d been a silence then, that had seemed to stretch between all of them for miles and miles as they’d been forced to remember the sudden gravity of losing their friend, and then, Nancy Wheeler, of all people—who’d gotten the smallest bat tattooed on the outside of her ankle where it was easily covered by a sock—had said, a little distantly, “It’s almost Promethean in punishment.”

“I mean, it’s kind of metal if you think about it…” Mike had hummed, but Steve didn’t want to think about it.

Still doesn’t, if he’s being honest.

“You wore the shirt.” Mike’s saying, as he and Will push into the hotel room, and Steve looks down, his tattoo peeking out from beneath his oversized sleeves, and he doesn’t recognize himself.

“I was trying to be on theme.” He says, ignoring the ugly way his stomach twists at the sight of himself—trying so hard to hang onto the memory of a guy he’d barely had the privilege to know, and never had the privilege to love, even despite all of their ill-fated flirting.

“We’ll have to get you a Corroded Coffin shirt.” Mike says, and he’s got his hand on Steve’s shoulder, gently toying with the fabric like he can still feel Eddie in there somewhere, even underneath all of Steve’s detergent and fabric softener.

“I’d like that.” Steve says, and he means it.

Behind them, Robin pipes up, “And what am I, Wheeler?”

“Chopped liver, I guess.” Mike teases with a lopsided shrug, and Will offers a gentle laugh and a second eye roll beside his boyfriend, as he promises, “I’ll make sure he gets you one too.”

“Are you excited?” Steve asks as he stands, and Mike’s smile only wavers for a second.

“Yeah,” he says, with a false air of confidence, “I mean, it’s bittersweet, you know? It’s our first big gig and…he’s not here.” With that, Will reaches to squeeze his boyfriend’s hand, and Mike laughs awkwardly, like it’ll lessen the sting of Eddie’s absence, “I just…feel like a fraud sometimes, right, like, who am I to get on stage in his place?”

“No.” Robin shakes her head, “Are you kidding? Eddie would be so proud.”

“Eddie is proud.” Will promises, and Steve sometimes wonders if he has a supernatural sense about these kinds of things, or if he’s just the party’s unwavering optimist.

“Those guys wouldn’t let just anyone in the band.” Steve agrees, because he’s gotten to know Gareth, Jeff, and Brett in the wake of Eddie’s passing, and they’re all just as passionate about the music as Eddie had been, if only a smidge less intense.

“I know.” Mike concedes, and Steve hopes he knows his worth.

He hopes all the kids do, even if he can’t always recognize his own.

“The guys are really excited to see you two, by the way.” Mike adds, “They’ve been talking about brunch, like, all week.”

~*~

Halfway down Michigan Ave., right before the Art Institute, they’re stopped by a hawker on their way to brunch, trying to push a handmade bracelet on Mike who slows to listen, even despite Steve and Robin’s gentle herding.

“What did I say? Let’s keep moving.” Steve chastises in all of his motherly glory, waving Mike forward as he steps between he and the hawker, ever protective of the kids, grown as they may be.

“I like your shirt,” the hawker says over Steve’s shoulder, “you a big Metallica guy?”

Steve’s jaw clenches.

“Can you name five songs, pretty boy?”

It’s then that Robin grabs Steve’s hand, pulling him away from the conversation as she waves Mike and Will on ahead; and she snipes back over her shoulder as they go, “Can you?”

Steve’s quiet the rest of the way. He’s angry, and he’s upset, and he can name five songs.

He can name more than five.

Amidst everything that had happened with Vecna, when Steve had first heard that Metallica’s tour bus had crashed in Sweden, killing their bassist, just six months after Eddie had passed, he’d broken down on the side of the road in his BMW.

“We weren’t even that close,” he’d cried to Robin one night, after a couple of beers, “but what am I supposed to do with this—this knowing and then the knowing that comes with the realization that I can’t even call him up? I want him to be here and I want him to fucking laugh at me for not knowing that Megadeth was formed after Metallica ousted Mustaine.”

Robin, still, to this day, doesn’t really know what any of that had meant, but she’d held Steve anyways as he’d cried.

And when Metallica had dropped their next album in ‘88, …And Justice for All , Steve, initially, had hated it. He’d hated that Eddie would never hear it, and for a long time, he’d hated that he could never properly articulate that there were just too many lyrics serving as mirrors that had reflected his own grieving.

The first time he’d listened to Dyers Eve in its entirety, he’d taken his bat to the woods behind his house, and he’d just swung. When the nails had finally embedded themselves in one of the trees, he’d given up, a little embarrassed by his temper tantrum, and he’d called Dustin to help dislodge the bat.

They’d had a bonfire that night, and Steve had confided, for the first time, in Dustin just how much Eddie’s death had broken him.

“I think I had a crush on him.” He’d said finally, his eyes glassy with tears as he’d stoked the fire. Then, he’d sniffled, and amended, “I don’t think, I know …and I should have done more.”

“You couldn’t have.” Dustin had replied, his voice broken, “I think about that every night, Steve, there was nothing any of us could have done. He was just…a hero.”

‘ Don’t try to be cute. ’ Steve remembers telling him, and still he wishes he’d said something more, something that would have let Eddie know he’d be waiting for him across the finish line, whatever that was.

~*~

When they get to the restaurant, Steve steals a moment to himself in the bathroom, hoping to set himself straight before the rest of the band arrives.

Gareth, and Jeff, and Brett had all warmed to Steve in their own time, and the last thing he needs is for any of them to accuse him of throwing himself a pity party on one of the biggest (and potentially most pivotal) nights of their lives.

Not that any of them would ever say that, of course, but Steve holds a certain amount of anxiety in matters concerning Eddie’s friends. He can’t possibly compare, in a way, to the time and the years they’d spent with Eddie, so much so that it’s like Mike had said, he feels like a fraud in his own grief.

How should he be allowed to grieve, even six years later, when others had known him better, known him longer, known him more fully than Steve would ever have the privilege? It’s not fair, but then again, death seldom is.

When he returns to the table, a shell of his former self, save his hair, the only remnant of the person he’d been in high school, there’s a waitress taking down drink orders.

“We’re still waiting on three.” Robin says politely, as she looks over the menu.

“Are you guys celebrating anything today?”

Mike opens his mouth; tomorrow is Will’s birthday.

“No.” Will says gently, as he reaches for Mike’s hand under the table, “We’re just…remembering someone today.”

Steve nods quietly, and as the waitress takes her leave, he pretends he isn’t jealous, pretends it doesn’t hurt sometimes that Mike and Will got everything he and Eddie never would.

Sometimes, Steve thinks, he can’t help but be jealous of Mike and Will’s relationship. He’d never openly admit to that though, in fear of hurting their feelings, and so he buries his head in his menu, hoping it’ll dull the pain.

He’s done a lot of that in the past six years, just hoping the pain goes away, and sometimes it does, if even just for a moment.

“I know you guys got in kind of late last night,” Will starts, conversationally, “did you do anything touristy?”

“We got hotdogs.” Robin says with a shrug, “There was a stand right across from the hotel, and…Steve had no idea that ketchup was practically illegal here.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mike laughs, “That’s kind of a big no-no here, but…rookie mistake, you know now you know for next time, right?”

“Right.” Steve hums, settling on a skillet for his breakfast, and hoping that ketchup isn’t illegal for all of Chicago’s food items, but rather just the hotdogs.

“How long are you guys in Chicago?” Robin asks.

“Oh, we’re only here for the weekend.” Mike explains, “We’re gonna do a memorial show in Hawkins later this week and we’re hoping, you know, that maybe Dustin, Lucas, Max, and El can make that one.”

“Don’t worry.” Robin smiles, “If there’s anyone who can rally the troops it’s Steve.”

She reaches to squeeze Steve’s shoulder and he smiles, echoing a second, far away, “Right.”

Then, just as he’s reaching for his water, in an attempt to to ground himself to the present, he hears it, Tom Petty’s voice crooning over the restaurant’s speakers:

“Eddie waited ‘till he finished high school, he went to Hollywood, got a tattoo...”

“Steve?” Will frowns from the opposite side of the table, and that’s when Steve realizes just a moment too late that he’s spilled water down the front of Eddie’s shirt.

“Fuck.” He breathes, and he sets his glass down on the table as he takes to the water spot with a napkin.

“...she had a guitar and she taught him some chords, the sky was the limit…”

“I’m sorry.” Steve frowns, pushing himself away from the table, and he gestures loosely towards the bathroom, “I’m just gonna--”

“Steve?” Robin frowns, trying to catch his wrist as he goes, but he’s in too much of a hurry to put as much space between he and Tom Petty as he possibly can, despite the way the music follows him through the crowded cafe. At the last second, Steve bails on the bathroom, barreling straight through the entrance and onto the city street, and even then, he can still hear Petty sing:

“...the papers said Ed always played from the heart, he got an agent and a roadie named Bart, they made a record and it went in the charts…”

Steve’s chest is tight, and there’s an ugly sob crawling its way up his throat he can’t quite break. He’s pretty sure he’s gathered several onlookers in the past twenty seconds, but his fingers are going numb and he can’t catch his breath.

“Steve?” Gareth asks, appearing seemingly out of nowhere as he steadies the older boy on the unfamiliar sidewalk.

“I’m going to pass out.” Steve returns by way of greeting, and Gareth’s eyebrows knit together in concern as the music rings in Steve’s ears.

“...his leather jacket had chains that would jingle…”

“There’s a bench right over here.” Gareth says, taking a step backwards in the hopes that Steve will follow, and he does, until the dam breaks, and Steve finds himself emptying his stomach into the nearest trash can as all of Eddie’s bandmates look on.

“...into the great wide open, under the skies of blue, out in the great wide open, a rebel without a clue…”

“Why don’t you guys go in?” Gareth says softly, ushering Jeff and Brett towards the cafe as Steve dry heaves over the trash can a second time, Gareth rubbing gentle circles into his back.

“I’m so sorry.” Steve whispers, thoroughly embarrassed, and it feels, for the first time in six years, like all of his grief is coming to an ugly head.

“For what?” Gareth asks, “Being human?”

“For…appropriating your friend.” Steve amends, pulling away from the trash can to survey the damage, hoping the only thing wetting Eddie’s shirt is indeed the water he’d spilled.

Gareth laughs softly then, “Dude, Eddie’s memory doesn’t belong to any one of us, and I can’t claim to know what happened between you two, I still don’t fully understand all of it myself, but…what you’ve done for us, perhaps without even realizing it, Jeff, Brett and I couldn't be more grateful. I mean, Eddie would be floored, probably.”

“I’m serious,” Gareth continues at Steve’s look of confusion, “I mean, Eddie probably wouldn’t have even done half the things you’ve done. All of the rides to gigs, cold-calling venues, we never told you not to do it because…you were keeping Eddie alive, but, man, Eddie and I would get in a tiff over something stupid and he’d make me drive myself , or, before I had a car, he’d make me walk, just for the drama of it all, and we put up with all of the theatrics and the bullshit ‘cause we loved the guy, but…he wasn’t without fault. We might’ve never made it out of Hawkins if it weren’t for you…when the Hideout split in two and Eddie died, we figured, you know, we’d had a good run, and then you—as Eddie would say— shepherded Mike into becoming our front man, and you gave Will a place in Hellfire. You didn’t have to do any of that. I know it’s not your scene, man.”

Steve’s crying again, his lower lip trembling and his shoulders shaking as he tries to keep a full-bodied sob at bay and Gareth’s hugging him, even despite his having just vomited on the streets of Chicago, “You’re a good guy, Steve.”

“I miss him.” Steve admits into Gareth’s shoulder, “And I never really got to know him.”

Gareth pulls away, hands still holding Steve’s arms as he looks him over, “Didn’t you, though? Maybe not in the way you would have liked, but…”

He moves, gesturing loosely towards Steve, “You listen to his music—and not just the music he liked, but the stuff he wanted the world to hear—and you wear his clothes, and you have his shitty tattoos. I mean, that’s how I remember Eddie.”

Steve’s eyes are wet as he sniffles, “I think I had a crush on him.”

“I know.” Gareth admits, and he blinks away tears of his own, “I think everyone who knew Eddie probably did at some point, but…the things the kids say Eddie said about you, those couple days that you guys grew closer, I think he probably did too…the two of you are kind of magnetic like that.”

Steve lets out a wet laugh and Gareth hugs him again, and as they stand there, holding one another on the streets of Chicago, Gareth whispers in his ear, “It was Petty wasn’t it? Song came out a couple months ago and it gets me everytime.”

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington ficlet #eddie munson ficlet #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things ficlet #stranger things fanfic #dead!eddie #dead!eddie munson #dead eddie munson #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steddie #steddie ficlet #will byers #mike wheeler #corroded coffin

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lazylittledragon · 8 months

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something something more alt dads

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #robin buckley #i can't believe we never even CONSIDERED how robin would react to what eddie did to steve #she would calm down eventually but at first #it's execute on sight #that's her BOY #i don't see her as Designated Mean Lesbian UNLESS it's steve #if steve wasn't still so sickeningly in love with him eddie would be dead

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morganbritton132 · 1 month

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Eddie, in the middle of a live-stream: Hey baby, guess what I just remembered?

Steve: What?

Eddie: Remember when you dad heard that you got married to a woman and was going to un-disown you?

Eddie: Then he saw Robin and clocked her immediately. He threw that hissy fit in the parking lot at the Hideout.

Eddie: Now that I think about it, he clocked me as queer immediately, too

Steve: Yeah, he was a pretty shitty dad, but he had excellent gaydar

Eddie: I don’t know about that. He didn’t know about you

Steve: Base on some of the things he called me growing up makes me think he had an inkling.

Eddie: …Well now this conversation isn’t fun anymore

Steve: Sorry.

#Eddie: …anyways I’m glad your dad’s dead #Steve; I know you are #Eddie’s just trying to bring up a funny memory and Steve’s like: have I mentioned that my dad hated me?#eddie munson tiktok saga #steve harrington #eddie munson

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artiststarme · 3 months

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Eddie “had a guy” for everything. He had a music guy, a drug guy, a guy who knew other guys, and another guy that could get a guy for the thing that needed a guy. He had a guy to get the best flannels, a guy to do his homework, finally, and a movie guy to Although his movie guy was just Robin calling his movie taste shitty and recommending all of her favorites to him so she could third-wheel his and Steve’s dates to watch them.

Meanwhile, all of Steve’s “I have a guy” guys are Dustin. Need a guy to complain to over hairspray getting discontinued? Dustin. Need a guy to hang out with you for the day while your boyfriend is out of town for a concert? Dustin. Need to hunt down an otherworldly slimy monster that eats cat and wants to kill people? Dustin.

Except if he needs to hide a dead body. That’s when he calls Robin.

#Robin is the type to help hide a dead body #but Dustin is still offended to learn that that’s where Steve draws the line #stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #dustin henderson

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starrystevie · 3 months

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"what are you doing," eddie mumbles in confusion, hair fanned out on steve's pillow, the moonlight streaming in giving him a hazy halo.

there's a hand on the side of his face and it's cupping his cheek, thumb stroking over his skin. it's soft, so soft, too soft. another hand is trapping his against the mattress, fingers trailing over his forearm before tangling into his own and squeezing tight. it's gentle, so gentle, too gentle.

eddie isn't soft, eddie isn't gentle. eddie isn't making love in a full size bed with wallpaper that matches the drapes. he isn't fluttering kisses in time with fluttering heartbeats and the fluttering wings of butterflies trapped in his stomach like the most lovely cage.

eddie is fucking at 2am when there's enough intoxication to make him look like he's worth it. he's rough and wild, quick and easy. a means to a barely wanted end because he's there and willing and with long enough hair to let people imagine he's someone else.

he should be caged instead of the damn butterflies. he bares his teeth and thrashes his limbs just to fight and see what he can get away with. he laughs loud and brash in the face of sweetness just to see anger, just to see hurt.

he has half a mind to think he's a feral animal that's hardly been trained, performing in some fucked up circus that charges two bucks to see him snarl and hurl insults at anyone who passes by. he bites at the hands that try to touch, try to feed, proving to the onlookers that he's only worth the pocket change they pay to see him.

but steve. he's holding his face like he wants to, holding his hand like it's the most important thing in the world. he's pressing kisses along eddie's jaw without any hurry, without any rush, kissing just to kiss. feeling just to feel. he's like a ray of goddamn sunshine even in the darkness that midnight provides, warming eddie from the inside out.

eddie wants to run. he wants to scream. he wants to feel like he's allowed steve's soft and gentle but he's-

"is this not okay?" and now steve's looking at him with all of whatever he's trying to give him lacing into his face, his eyes and spit slick lips sparkling in the moonlight like a shiny new toy. "do you not like it?"

concern and care are different sides of the same steve shaped coin and if eddie looks hard enough, he can see them blurring together in his frustratingly beautiful sparkling eyes and those damn butterflies start to come back.

"no, it's-" he let's out a sigh, relaxing his tight muscles and sinking into the bed, sinking into whatever steve is willing to give him. "just different, is all. good different, i think."

steve smiles and eddie shakily mirrors it back, before he's ducking his head again and slotting their lips together, fingers still holding tight to eddie's, still cupping his face like it's something precious.

eddie's come to terms with the taste of the metal bars of his cage, teeth wearing down as he tries to bite his way to freedom. maybe this time he'll let himself get used to the taste of soft and gentle smiles if it means loving steve.

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alchemistc · 4 months

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"What's this?" Eddie asks, wide eyed and curious as he shifts the papers on Steve's desk, shuffling past unopened mail and timestamps for the page buried beneath it all, and Steve has just enough time to turn in horror before Eddie unearths it.

It - his shame, his fear, his heart laid out in graphite against a backsplash of fine white paper. He'd splurged on the stack of it hidden in one of his desk drawers, a luxury he couldn't really afford anymore but one he'd decided was worth it now that his parents had made it clear they wouldn't be back any time soon to take it from him.

He knows every line of it, every piece of shading, all the highlights he'd agonized over and the spots where he couldn't be satisfied by the shape of the nose, the angle of the jawline.

Eddie takes it in for long enough that Steve can feel time dilating around them, an infinite gasping maw of nothingness and everything all at once.

And when he's taken his fill of it, his gaze flits up again. Meets Steve's, and holds.

"It's me."

Steve breathes. In, out, two careful measures. He swallows. He contemplates, just for a moment, leaping out the window. He breathes. He swallows, again, his throat tight. He breathes.

Eddie in profile, bottom lip pinched by his teeth. Eddie, with dark shadows tilted across his jaw, his nose, his Adams apple, where a curtain of hair blocks out the light. Eddie, eyes crinkled at the corners, smile lines rushing into the heavy dip of a dimple barely visible beside the fall of his hair.

Eddie.

"But -." Eddie stares. At Steve, for a moment, before his eyes flit back to the stark lines of the portrait Steve had liked just enough not to take out and burn with the rest of them.

"I'm sorry," Steve tells him, and he means it. Sorry, for not saying anything earlier. Sorry, for accepting Eddie's friendship and taking advantage of his easy way with people. Sorry for drinking in the sight of him and squirreling away the details of each moment, hoarding each memory away for the long winter that would come to be when Eddie eventually moved on.

"You..." Eddie swallows. Breathes. In and out, a rattle of bones and teeth and sinew Steve is intimately familiar with. "It's me," he says, again, confusion furling out over his brow.

But it's not - he's not -

"I thought you'd be mad."

Eddie startles. "Mad? Mad for - why would I...?" Eyes dart to Steve, studying him. And he knows - Steve has recounted to him every missed birthday and every cool and quiet dinner with his parents, every detail of his surface level friendships before Robin, every hurt he and Nancy ever doled out to one another in their anger and fear and pain. He knows.

He knows Steve just as surely as Steve knows him.

"Sweetheart," Eddie says, in that soft, sweet voice he has for broken things he means to repair.

Steve swallows, and he breathes.

#steddie ficlet #idk what this is i woke up out of a dead sleep with only one thought:#'steve is a Secret Artist and Eddie finds one of Steves portraits of him'#blame spotify for putting song of achilles up for free on premium i am drowing in pining rn #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie

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babysitterpng · 5 months

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y'all mind if i scream

#i drew once and it fucked me up #steve harrington #billy hargrove #eddie munson #stranger things #hi im not dead #metalsandwich

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queenimmadolla · 1 month

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𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

previous — next part ┊ 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ( + playlist)

Summary: You learn the identity of your new undead friend, get a mini ‘makeover’, catch your crush’s attention and bury a body while Eddie learns throwing up on the girl he’s interested in probably doesn’t display his potential as a boyfriend, but his protective nature might.

Chapter Warnings: a stinky boy, dark humor, unpleasant home life, intense longing (on eddie’s behalf). oh yeah, and murder.

a/n: so i lied, this is actually longer than the first chapter and i accepted my fate. we’re getting to the fun stuff, though. next up: more vigilante justice, eddie lore and emerging feelings for a certain dead man walking. hope you like it!

light dividers ℗ cafekitsune ♡

“C’mon, over here.” You gestured to your open doorway, watching your new zombie pal hobble up the final step and round the staircase. His movements were harsh, stiff as hell and made your bones hurt to watch for whatever reason. Every over limp was accompanied by an inhuman grunt, and you wondered if moving his limbs might actually be painful for him.

You were never particularly skilled in the art of masking your emotions, so your eyebrows were furrowed, mouth parted and upper lip tucked up to clearly display your phantom discomfort.

Once he was close enough, you crossed over the threshold, standing a little in front of your bed as he wandered in, large eyes immediately raking over everything on your walls. After beckoning him further in, you moved around the filthy corpse standing in your room to close the door.

“Despite your deadly good looks, we can’t risk anyone seeing you. No one else can know you’re here.” You informed him, trying to stress the seriousness of the situation without seeming too controlling. While you had waited for The Zombie to struggle up the stairs, you’d determined there were three possible ways this town would react to discovering a member of the dead had risen—that only seemed to be socially acceptable and celebrated in the form of Jesus Christ:

1.) Pitchforks and Torches.

2.) News, Military, and Government attention, which would no doubt mean you’d have to break him out of some lab.

3.) Pitchforks and Torches, News, Military, and Government attention, which would mean you’d have to save him from an angry mob before inevitably losing him once News stations picked the story up, causing subsequent Military and Government interference and the scientific study of your undead friend in some high tech/high defense lab, leaving you to figure out how to break into and get him out of it.

Or, he could just not leave your bedroom. A beautiful alternative.

The Zombie didn’t even pay you any attention, stumbling forward—and banging his foot against the leg of your bed frame—to take a better look at your things. He was grunting and groaning, though this time it seemed to be a little different. It almost sounded like he was talking to himself. Or maybe to you.

Zombies in film seemed to be able to voice their demands for brains. Could he? Did he have the same urge or need to eat brains? How would you even feed a zombie?

“Can you talk?” You asked, leaning back against the door, eyes on him as he had to hop in place in order to turn his body to face you, “Like, speak? With words?”

He seemed to consider your question for a moment, eyes darting to the side.

“Uuuuuuunnnggghhh.”

“So, that’s a no. Do you…do you need brains? Because I’m not sure I can get you any of those—and if you think for one second that you’re gonna eat mine, you should know I fall under fight when it comes to fight or flight responses. I’m like an alley cat, I’ll fuck you up.”

The Zombie stumbled back, rocking from side to side. It took you a moment to realize he was trying to shake his head, no.

Interesting.

“No brains?”

Again, he rocked from side to side, “Uunggh-uunghh.”

“Oh. Okay.” Your defenses dropped immediately as you played with your hair, pulling gently at a section of it, “Well, what do you eat?”

He did the choppy shoulder raise he’d done in the livingroom earlier, “Unnhh unnhh.”

Your lips curled into a small, fascinated smile. Okay, you knew he had been once alive, once a human being existing on this earth with blood pulsing through his veins—and now he was dead.

Yet, he wasn’t dead. He was dead but standing in your bedroom, amongst your girly things and not so girly things, staring at you in his grotesque form, and shrugging I dunno, like some alive person. A full blown, supernatural one-time (to your knowledge) occurrence only depicted in Sci-fi films and horrors.

Why you? What did he want with you?

You hadn’t realized you’d voiced the question until he hobbled back around to your bedroom wall, raising his left hand, and the only one he seemed to have, up to one of the tombstone etchings. His fingers were all sorts of fucked up, frozen in the most uncomfortable looking positions as a result of rigor mortis in whatever position he’d died.

“What? That? It’s just an etching I made of a tombstone.”

He craned his head around, and you tried not to be freaked out with the way his neck hadn’t turned enough with it, tapping his crooked pinky finger against the craft paper and then moved it to his chest.

Your eyes zeroed in on the etching, trying to understand what he was attempting to tell you.

It was MUN’s tombstone—no, Eddie Munson’s tombstone.

Your jaw dropped. Had to be somewhere around your feet, on the floor. Holy. Shit.

“That’s you? You’re Eddie Munson?” It was rude, but you openly pointed at him.

He didn’t grunt in response this time, rather, he began to cough and gag as he jerked his body around to get his hand in his dirty jeans.

While he did whatever it was, you took the time to take him in even further. He wore black jeans, but under his leather jacket he seemed to be wearing a discolored dress shirt that had once probably been white. You had a feeling the sneakers on his feet, while horrendously dirty, weren’t all that worn out. Dress pants were pricey, you knew that much after buying some for your father when your mother would take you to outlets and malls with her. Dress shirts were a little cheaper and new shoes were seen as a staple in big events for peoples’ lives, such as graduations, birthdays, dances, weddings and funerals.

You had a sneaking suspicion this lively carcass hadn’t been from this part of town when he was alive.

“UUUUUUNNNNGGGHHHH!” The Zombie moaned out, almost victoriously as his stiff arm stuck straight up in the air. Dangling from his curled fingers, was your mother’s pearl necklace. You’d seen it last when you’d entrusted MUN with it yesterday.

You gasped, reaching out as he lowered it into your furled palm.

With the proof in your hand and his corpse before you, you knew you were speaking to Eddie Munson. He was, without a doubt, the grave you’d been running to.

“Holy crap, you are Eddie Munson!” You gripped the pearls in your fist, eyes wide and blinking rapidly to try to make sense of it all, “You were murdered and now you’re not—I mean, you were, but you’re back from the dead, standing in my—ooh, standing pretty close actually.”

You tried not to flinch as you became aware of just how close he’d stumbled over to you. Definitely within arms-length. He didn’t exactly stink, his flesh looked much too leathery to actually smell (you weren’t about to lean in and sniff to test the theory), but the scent of wet dirt was strong and the smell of whatever he’d spat on you earlier seemed to be lingering.

Zombie Eddie was in desperate need of a shower.

“So, this is all pretty cool and bizarre—I’m a fan of both—but uhm, why are you here…? Like, in my house.”

He slouched even further into your space, this time you did flinch a little as the most muffled whimper sounded from him. Reminded you of the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz when he couldn’t speak properly because he was all rusted up.

Eddie held eye contact as he struggled to grab hold of your hand and the minute he did, dirt from his skin pressing into yours, you knew what was coming.

Because of course it would. This is something that would only happen to you.

Shakily, Eddie tried lifting your hand and your mouth puckered, brows furrowing before you sucked your lips into your mouth as you watched him prepare to kiss your hand with his filthy, dead, dried out lips that still had bits of that green goop he’d spat up around it.

You were a nice person—a relatively decent human being, but you weren’t that nice and you didn’t wanna have to go to the hospital on the off chance that you caught something from a corpse. Explaining that one would send you straight to the psych ward and probably end in some sort of abuse of a corpse charge, so you quickly pulled your hand out of his grasp, rubbing your fingers together to roll some of the dirt off of them.

“Okay, okay, I see, mhm—alright. You’re here because—when I said I wished I was with you, I didn’t mean like, I wanted to have your dead body…y’know, pressed up against mine. I meant like…in the grave. Next to you. Like buried there because I’d be dead. It was a moment of intense angst—I’m nineteen and my life is in the fucking gutter. I’m surrounded by terrible people in this town and I have the rest of my life to live out this way.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on or something, and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime to do literally anything with a corpse, other than bury it.”

The two of you stood there, just staring at each other. He still hadn’t moved out of your space and you were still kind of leaning back, away from him, so you added, “So. Just a little recap, I wanted to be dead. Did not mean I wanted to be with you. Romantically. Together. Like a couple.”

And then you felt a little guilty because that wasn’t entirely true.

“Well, not with you as a cadaver.” Because you had fantasized about the person in the grave being a source of comfort to you, “Or—or, you in general. ‘Cause…’cause I didn’t know it was you given how fucked up your shit was, and I didn’t know you when you were alive.”

God, you were messing this up. Rather than continuing your ongoing word vomit, you flashed him a tight smile.

Finally, you got a reaction out of him. He creaked back, those little whimpering sounds coming from his lips before that same nasty ass green shit from before started leaking out from behind his eyeballs.

You’d made him cry.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—I just moved here a couple of months ago and you were already dead by then! I’m sure you were a lovely person and I would have liked y—y—yo—ECH!”

You gagged, hand flying up to cover your mouth and nose as you felt the contents of your stomach start to make its way back up. While your hand was in that position, it squeezed the tip of your nose, cutting of the assault currently taking place against it.

Whatever it was Zombie Eddie was secreting instead of his tears, stunk. It was the most putrid scent you’d ever had the misfortune of knowing. Nothing could compare to it, not literal shit, not vomit, not pasta that had been left out to cook in the sun for several weeks, nothing.

You were sure one more sniff of it, and your nostril hairs would either shrink and curl up, or disintegrate.

“MOTHER OF GOD—your tears smell horrendous—I’m gonna throw u—ECH!”

You gagged again, tears flooding your sight and you hurried over to the bathroom, gesturing for him to follow behind you.

Chrissy had left her door to the bathroom open, so you skidded across the tile to shove it closed, desperate to make sure the scent didn’t reach the room and wouldn’t linger in there.

She’d drive you straight to the ER to get checked out, because nothing you could possibly shit out should ever and would ever smell that bad.

You yanked the shower curtain back from the tub, setting Chrissy’s products to the side and out of the way, “You need to bathe like two years ago, my dead guy.”

You stepped to the side, pointing into the tub with a finger as your other hand rested on your hip like you were ordering a misbehaving child in.

Eddie groaned, and you got the feeling that he was unimpressed with your theatrics. Unfortunately for the both of you, you hadn’t been dramatic about it. His stank tears had to be an actual biohazard and you didn’t want to think about the fact that very same biohazard had been projectile vomited onto your face a couple of minutes ago. You were so gonna scrub it raw.

Begrudgingly, he hobbled over to your tub and struggled over the edge until he was in—his upper half slamming into the tile wall.

You didn’t say anything about him being fully clothed, shoes and all, because everything he wore needed a good rinse off. If not, you’d have to hose his clothes down in the yard before subjecting the dryer and washer to them.

“There’s my soap.” You pointed out the pink bottle of pomegranate and berry scented shower gel, “And my shampoo and conditioner—those two are very expensive and a little goes a long way, so don’t waste any.”

You eyed him for a moment, mouth twisting in consideration, “Nevermind, it’ll take half the bottles to get your hair clean, I’ll just have to replace them a little earlier than my budget expected.”

This time, Eddie’s mouth parted rather wide as he moaned out, “UHNNNGGHH.”

He was probably telling you to fuck off already, but you were distracted by whatever insect was currently in his mouth, on his tongue.

“SPIT IT OUT!” You shrieked, and he aimed his head down, the large thing with too many legs falling right out to crawl around on your bathroom floor.

You screamed as you began to stomp around, trying to crush it beneath your remaining slipper but it kept evading it! Finally, your foot flattened it with a satisfying crunch.

The evil had been defeated. You were nearly panting, shoulders rising and falling as you calmed your breathing and another sound registered.

Eddie was croaking now, it sounded almost like the most painful gasps someone would let out on their deathbed. You stared, puzzled for a moment before it dawned on you.

“Are you laughing at me?”

He did it again, stiff body leaning completely back on the shower tiles now.

“Oh my god, you are! YOU DICK!” You slapped the side of his arm and then quickly yanked it back, frowning at the mud now caked to the back of your fingers.

“Ugh,” you tried to shake some of it off over the tub, your head shaking as well—and despite the predicament, you found the corners of your lips twitching but you refused to smile. Wouldn’t let him get that over you, “You’re gross. That better be the last living creature to come out of you, you Zombie Headbanger, take a shower.”

You didn’t give him a chance to moan, groan or croak at you again, yanking the curtains back to shield the tub and it’s undead occupant.

You rolled your eyes, almost fondly, and gathered too much toilet paper to wipe up the remnants of the bug and toss it in the trash. Should’ve been in a different corpse’s mouth if it wanted to live.

“You know how to work a shower, don’t you?” You asked aloud as you approached your bathroom counter, taking notice of the bathroom mirror as you uncapped a room spray and gave your bathroom a good burst of it. The mirror had already been replaced, looked like Laura couldn’t stand to know there was something imperfect in the house—aside from you.

You heard the tub start to run before the shower stream took over. At least he still remembered that much.

“You wanna listen to some music?” You asked over the loud stream of the shower.

“Uunngh.”

You took that as a yes and leaned over the counter to tweak the knob of the radio you and Chrissy always left on it. Immediately, a country station started playing and you quickly switched the station.

“That’s not one of mine! Chrissy listens to Country whenever she misses her ex-boyfriend, I don’t know why.”

You kept twisting the dial through various stations. When you hit a station midway through Disposable Heroes, you turned the knob again only for your companion to voice his outrage.

“UUUUUUNNNGGHHHH!!!”

“What?” You switched the station back, “You like Metallica?”

He grunted from behind the shower curtain, and the scent of your body wash began to fill the bathroom, much to your relief. You could hear him banging around in there, probably not the easiest to wash up with a bad case of rigor mortis.

“They’re alright, I liked Ride the Lightning, but Master of Puppets is good, too. Their last album was good, too, but it felt kind of different. Not the same without Burton.”

Eddie made a sound of confusion, hand with the fucked up fingers reaching out to push the curtain back so he could poke his head out.

You met his gaze through the mirror, “You don’t know?”

He just blinked, almost owlishly.

Shit. He must have died before the fall of ‘86. You’d have to ask Chrissy when exactly Eddie had died.

“The bass player, Cliff Burton? He died in ‘86. Bus accident.”

You watched as Eddie’s gaze dropped, and the groan he let out sounded remarkably sad as he ducked back behind the curtain.

Unsure of what to say to make him feel better, you let the radio play out the rest of the duration of Eddie’s shower and took diligent care in washing your face and brushing your teeth. Once he was done, smelling amazing and just like you, you’d had him shed his clothes for one of your nightgowns and dragged him back to your closet.

You knew he was quite literally stiff, but he seemed extra unenthused with his choice of ensemble, so you were going to let him choose his own.

“Alright, take your pick.” You yanked the doors of your walk-in closet (as in you could take three steps in and that's it) open and he flinched back at the amount of pink seeping out of it. When he made no move to look through his options, you selected one for him.

An even gaudier nightgown you tried to shove in his arms. And he let you, before purposely dropping it to the ground while holding eye contact.

“Well, I thought you would have looked great in it.” You mumbled as he creaked down to pick it up for you. When Eddie hobbled into the closet to hang it up, you shut the doors behind him, “Pick something else and then you can come out!”

Your closet doors didn’t lock though, so you were just banking on him assuming they did and you heard his offended zombie groaning. While you waited, listening to him no doubt bang into the walls as he struggled to dress himself, grunting and groaning, you twirled around on your desk chair.

Eventually, the closet doors parted and you gasped at the sight of him, standing there in your lavender fluffy, oversized sweater and pair of white pajama pants with hearts all over them. He couldn’t really move his face all that much, not very expressive and yet you could somehow tell he was scowling.

“You look like Grimace.” Was all you said, mind conjuring up Ronald McDonald’s purple monster friend.

The closet doors were promptly slammed shut. When he emerged once more, gone was the former ensemble. Eddie was wearing a neon green skirt, a tight off the shoulder black top, and nothing else.

You wolf whistled at his skinny, severely discolored legs.

He stuck one out, modeling it for you and you realized he was humoring you. You laughed, eyes crinkling.

“You tryna knock me dead, too?”

When he nodded, you laughed again and stood up to rummage through your dresser. You found a band tee you used as a pajama top, and some black pants that looked like they might fit him. Then you spotted a red plaid flannel you had hanging on your bedroom door, waiting to be placed in the closet.

The clothing items were shoved into his arms and you pushed him back into the closet.

When he came out (eheheheh) again, you were practically bouncing in your seat. You’d never seen Eddie alive before, had never seen him in clothes that weren’t his burial ones, and he definitely still looked as much of a Zombie as Michael Jackson had looked in the Thriller music video, but he also looked like a young adult, and very much so in his Metal element. He was stretching your baby blue socks to their limit, but they’d have to do until you could steal some from your dad. You’d scrub his shoes tomorrow, before class.

If Eddie were alive, he’d look…hot.

You smiled to yourself, still taking him in as you realized you were looking at Eddie Munson.

To show your admiration, you clapped for him, “That’ll do real well. What do you think?”

Eddie raised his forearm and you tilted your head, confused. He followed your gaze and groaned, rolling his eyes as he realized that was the arm lacking a hand. Then, he held up his other arm, painful looking thumb finger cracking and popping until he was giving you a thumbs up. You ended up tying a scarf around the wrist without a hand, just to hide the gaping wound.

With the matter of his clothing solved, you moved onto his hair, sitting on the bathroom counter while he stood in front of you as you worked on detangling with a spray bottle and a legion of hair products. It took some TLC, and ignoring the hole where his ear should’ve been, but you brought his curls back to life. You were shocked to even see he had bangs, they’d been plastered to the top of his head when he was the Swamp Thing.

They framed his eyes, looked real good on him and he seemed to enjoy the entire process, eyes slipping shut and little moans (not like that) coming from him.

“Well, I think we’ve got you back in good shape.” You put down the comb, placing your hand on his shoulders to turn him towards the mirror, “Is this Eddie Munson?”

You watched his gaze scan his reflection, before those eyes were on yours in the mirror.

“Unnnghhh.” Eddie held up his arm with the missing appendage and you nervously scratched the back of your heard.

“Well, you see, I don’t really have any extra hands on me, at the moment. Just down to these two,” You emphasized the sentence with some jazz hands to display yours, then immediately felt guilty over still having yours so you hid them behind your back.

Eddie groaned low, lifting his wrist to the side of his head, where his ear should have been and you made a displeased sound.

“Oh. Noticed that, did you?”

His eyes narrowed and even though you had no idea what Eddie had sounded like, you could still hear him in your head, Notice my fucking ear is missing? Yeah, I did.

“I don’t have any extras of those, either. If it’s a body part, I’m out of stock. But—who cares? Plenty of people live without them.”

Eddie grunted, eyes narrowing even further at you.

You winced, “Poor choice of words—the point is, no one will even notice. Because no one is going to see you.”

Eddie’s next grunt sounded disappointed and you felt even guiltier. What were you supposed to do? You’d already made him look as relatively normal as you could, there was only so many ways you could disguise a zombie who walked oddly, communicated via moan, groan and grunt, and looked like he had a medical skin condition.

You were about to try to comfort him when you heard the front door open and you gasped.

“WHAT IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?” You heard Laura cry out, and your dad shouted your name.

“I don’t mean to sound homophobic, but back in the closet!” You shoved him out of the bathroom and in the direction of his new hiding place. He hadn’t looked very keen as you shut the closet doors on him, but he’d have to wait for now.

Your dad was probably having one hell of a heart attack, staring at the mess of the house, the broken window, fearful a similar situation as your mother’s assault had taken place with you as the victim.

“I’m alright, daddy!” You reassured as you raced down the stairs to your concerned father. He was concerned alright, but not about you.

He had Laura in one arm, who was openly distraught about the shards of her damn plates, and Chrissy, who was staring at the mess with open confusion, in the other.

“You,” Laura spat at you with venom the moment her chilling gaze locked onto your approaching figure, “What. Did. You. Do?”

Wow. You’d seen an actual Zombie—he was upstairs, in your bedroom closet—and still the most unbelievable thing to happen to you was your ‘family’’s ability to immediately blame you. You hadn’t expected Eddie’s corpse to be the first suspect in their head, still, they’d seen your house ransacked—as you tried to escape your friendly deceased headbanger—with you nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been at all concerned for your wellbeing. God, they sucked.

“Me?! I didn’t do this!”

“Then who did!?” Laura screeched back and you found yourself getting angry.

“The guy who broke in!” You shouted back and Laura immediately rolled her eyes. You could hear your dad say both of your names to calm you down, but you were growing tired of him, too. Like Eddie, he seemed to be missing parts of his body. Noticeably, his goddamn spine.

“Really? You expect us to believe that after last night? The smashing of the mirror, my precious moments figurines? Muffin, your daughter is out of control. She destroyed my house!”

“Do you ever use those creepy eyeballs stuck in your skull?” You found yourself blurting out, “Does it look like any part of my body came crashing through that window?!” You pointed aggressively in the direction of the livingroom, where glass littered the floor. It was too much for just an object to have been thrown through and your body had no cuts, nothing to show from possibly jumping through it.

“Mom, if sissy was attacked─” Chrissy tried, her her mother was having none of it.

“Attacked? Who would want to attack her? She’s invisible, taking up space!” Laura was practically hysterical as she gathered pieces of her broken dishes, “That’s why she’s acting out, can’t you see? She’s recreating the crime scene that got her so much attention and you’re all falling for it!”

The woman was crying, mascara smearing around her eyes as her angry glare was once more directed to you, and you found yourself shrinking and hurt at the accusations, “You need serious help. You’re crazy and a danger to us all!”

“I think you might be mistaking me for your psyche.” You mumbled before turning your attention to your father with pleading eyes, “Daddy, there was a home invasion! I tried to call the police, but as soon as I heard him, I ran up to hide in my room.”

“She needs help, institutional treatment.” Laura hissed into your father’s ear as as though she was the devil on his shoulder.

“Daddy…”

“Mom, sissy’s not a nut, we can’t send her to the looney bin!”

You wanted to scream. All this talk about you being insane, and there was a literal walking corpse upstairs who could disprove that. You just weren’t willing to sacrifice Eddie for yourself.

“Dad, I’m not crazy. Okay? Last night was just a mirror, and tonight someone broke in. There’s a huge difference between the two, I’m not crazy.” You tried to reason, desperate to not get shipped off to some mental ward.

Your dad appeared sympathetic, “No one is calling you crazy, sweetheart.”

”I did.” Laura guffawed at your father siding with you.

“She did, I heard her.” Chrissy confirmed, frowning at her mother.

“No, Chris. Your mother’s just upset, she’d never say something like that and mean it.” You watched with disgust as he pulled Laura into his arms. It was more than you could stomach so you stormed out of the dining room, making a retreat for your room.

You were on your own. Your father had just proved that. Laura could say anything to you, treat you like crap, starve you and he wouldn’t ever step in, just continue being his wishy washy self. If it had been him and not your mother that night, you wouldn’t be suffering like this.

You’d have a loving parent.

You quietly shut your bedroom door once you made it in, leaning your forehead against it as a tear slipped from the corner of your eye. Emotions were something you tried to embrace, but crying because of your family felt…wrong. Like something you shouldn’t have to do.

Wiping your face, you realized more tears would be coming. Tonight was meant for crying. So, you slipped into bed, tears leaking steadily down your temples to seep into your hair and pillows. You were so hurt and you wanted to sob, but you were conscious of the dead guy in your closet. What if he heard you?

With a stuttering breath, you peered over at the closet to see the doors barely open and Eddie peaking out at you.

You rolled onto your side, back facing him to hide your tear stained face and weakness as you thought about how loud you and Laura had been downstairs. He’d probably heard what she said about you.

It was one thing to be treated the way you were, it felt extra pathetic to have someone bear witness to it.

The closet doors closed quietly behind you and just as you did every night, you squeezed your eyes shut, willing sleep to come so you could be done with the day and move onto the next, just solemnly trying to make it through life.

Maybe you and Eddie had more in common than you originally thought. Maybe you were a zombie, too.

When your alarm blared from your nightstand, rousing you from sleep—the only peace you ever seemed to get—you stumbled out of bed almost blindly, eyes heavily lidded with exhaustion as you yanked your closet doors open.

A garment was immediately thrown over your head, covering your face and you remembered your current house guest.

With a sigh, you yanked the clothing off your head, balled it up and threw it back at Eddie, “Dude, I have to get dressed. I have class today.”

Eddie grumbled, un-balling the little black dress and holding it up for you. It was the dress Chrissy had bought on sale and then given to you when she came to the conclusion that black washed her out and she looked much better in pastels.

“I’m not wearing that, not so much my style.” You tried to push past Eddie, but he remained planted where he stood, grunting as he held the dress out to you once more.

“Do I look like Madonna to you?” You asked, pushing the dress back towards him. Eddie groaned and threw the dress at your face again, closing the closet doors while you yanked it off your head, again.

“We’re gonna have to have a conversation about your communication skills later.” You called through the door and fiddled with the dress, “Can I get a sweater or something to go along with this?”

The closet doors were quickly opened and a new article of clothing was flung over your head before they closed. You’d just pulled the sweater off of your head when the doors opened once more and a hat was tossed at you.

“Dang—anything else?”

“Uuunggh.” Eddie moaned through the door, and you tried to pull at them but he must have been holding them shut from the otherside.

Resigned to your fate, you swapped out your pajamas for the outfit Eddie had apparently selected for you. He would navigate to the black clothing. You were unsure of it until you saw yourself in the mirror. Normally, your clothes weren't all that revealing. Form fitting—maybe, but never as attention drawing as this. You just figured you weren’t the type that could pull it off.

You were wrong.

The dress hugged your figure in the most complimentary way. It was short, stopped mid-thigh, but it didn’t look awkward or make you feel like your vagina would be on display if you bent over, thanks to the lace of the bottom hem flaring out.

For once, the girl in the mirror looked stunning. And when you did your makeup, taking your time to smoke a dark blue shadow out along your lash line and eyelids, she looked drop dead gorgeous.

You’d walked onto Campus with your head high, body rocking and a new found confidence that hadn’t quite made it’s way to the surface before. The heads turning in your direction were new and you found you kind of liked it, their gazes weren’t uninterested, scowls or looks of annoyance. They were appreciative, even from the straight girls!

“Okay, am I seeing things or does your sister look drop dead gorgeous?” Tina asked, as Chrissy and her friends stood admiring you from the bench they were occupying.

“You’ve got perfect 20/20 vision. She’d be unstoppable if she kept the confidence. Could probably even win pageants. Do you think she’d join cheer?”

Eddie fiddled with one of your shoes, tugging on a shoestring in boredom. He was sat on the floor of your closet, light from your bedroom windows creeping in through the cracks of the doors.

You’d lectured him before you left for class, told him he had to stay put. Laura wouldn’t be leaving for her nurses’ conference until the afternoon, so she’d be lingering in the house and she’d have a cow if she stumbled upon him.

So you’d pointed and lectured until he was creaking and groaning his compliance.

He’d stayed in the closet while you got dressed and, after you’d made sure Chrissy had already left, watched you do your makeup in the mirror while you chatted about the classes you had to take for the day.

Eddie had listened, to the best of his ability with one ear, and stared at your reflection as the heavy sense of longing settled on his chest, crushing the heart that no longer beat but desperately wished to. For you.

Death was not like he’d ever expected. No heaven, no hell. He was just…dead. Maybe it’d been the way he died. Perhaps, the suddenness of it, his lack of peace in life while living, or the fact that he was murdered, was the reason he saw neither heaven nor hell. He’d just been in a dark place. Literally, no source of light, no out of body experience, just darkness. For a while, it was tolerable, he’d heard Wayne’s voice comforting him. Telling him how much he loved him, how much he missed him. Then, nothing.

Nothing for so long. Quiet. Silence, not at all a peaceful kind. He no longer existed in life and yet the silence was still somehow smothering.

Until one day, he wasn’t alone anymore.

You found him.

Talked to him all the time, laid with him, kept him company and said such wonderful things. Eddie had no idea how much he’d appreciate hearing about current news events as a dead guy.

And while you kept him from feeling lonely, there was always a sadness to your presence. Broke his heart when you told him out of place you felt because he just wanted to claw his way out of his grave and tell you that no, you weren’t odd, you weren’t weird, you weren’t out of place. You were unique. You were the type of person he would have admired if he had been alive, different but not desperate to fit in. Just longed to be accepted.

He understood the sentiment all too well.

Eddie understood you. And you had no idea who he was, had voiced as much to him, couldn’t come up with his identity because some fuckers had defaced his tombstone—of course they would—and yet, you knew exactly who Eddie was. Knew him to his very core.

When you visited him, Eddie felt warm. He had no idea he could even feel things, other than the constant loneliness that had plagued him after Wayne’s presence disappeared, and before you.

With you, it felt like you were right there with him, beside him. A warmth, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him in for some much needed comforting. How ironic that he finally found someone who could finally see him, and he couldn’t do anything about it because he was dead.

And when you had come to Eddie that fateful night, the sadness he always noticed about you was heavier. A new despair attached, one that had him desperate to get to you, comfort you as you’d done for him.

I wish I was with you.

You’d said it. Had said what Eddie had wanted to hear you say for so long, even before he was dead. Before he knew you. It had always been you he was waiting for. He was beginning to understand the universe was bigger than anything he could have imagined (and yeah, maybe universal studios was the first thing that came to mind when he was alive), was positive the heartache he went through was necessary if it led him to you. Eddie could have done without the murder—there was no undoing that. Except, there kind of was. And it happened with a strike of lightning.

Unlike the many times he wanted to before, he’d actually been able to open his eyes, break out of his coffin and dig his way out of his own grave.

Eddie had had a major breakdown, freaking out at just about everything regarding returning from the dead after he’d broken through that final layer of thick terrain, minutely softened by some light rain from the storm. He had first tried to go home, only to find himself face to face with an unfamiliar mobile home set up on Wayne’s lot. A peek into the window revealed a couple.

No sign of his uncle.

It filled him with a sense of panic and he’d needed something—someone to stabilize him, keep him grounded.

Eddie was sure he was tied to you. Not only because of the unique bond you shared, he also felt a pull to you. Just some intense instinct.

He knew where to go after.

Your welcome hadn’t exactly been as warm as the grave hangouts—he didn’t blame you, his vocal chords were useless to him for the time being, meaning he couldn’t explain himself as you shrieked and flung dishes at him (and he was impressed) and fled from him. He could make sounds, so Eddie suspected he had the ability to talk, just lacked the healthy cords due to years of non-use to them, what with him being dead and all.

Eddie’s case was definitely not helped when he’d broken your fall—he was freaking the fuck out about you dangling from the roof like that—and you’d pressed on him stomache when you landed on him.

He hadn’t meant to…y’know…spit all that up on you, it just happened and he immediately wanted to die right after, just roll right back into his grave, he was so fucking embarrassed.

Projectile vomited on the girl you’re tryna romance, Munson. Nice.

Then, you hadn’t been attacking him, tugging him along to your room instead where you immediately told him you were just using dark humor to cope and didn’t actually want to be with him.

Probably something you should have clarified for him before he returned from the dead to be with you, but whatever. He wasn’t mad about it. Just a little bit heartbroken. Definitely didn’t stink up your closet with a little cry sesh while you were at college. Totally didn’t smell like Cherry Bubbles (how is that a scent?) from the bathroom spray he’d had to limp out to grab in an effort to hide the scent of his rotting body tears.

Now, he was just confused. Had no idea what the hell to do. Thinking on it, it had obviously been stupid as fuck to think you’d want him when he was literally a dead body. Couldn’t exactly stroll down the street, holding his one hand without garnering a few odd looks and arrests.

So, what could he do now? Sit in the closet and think about everything. Try to remember everything about his last moments alive—and when it had him wheezing in the closet, cowering in the dark, he’d switched to thinking about his uncle. Concerned. Wondering what had happened to him. When that subject, too, began to promise a panic attack—he switched to thinking about you, and oh how he ached in a different way. You were right there, in reach for him and yet the two of you couldn’t be.

The most frustrating part is how good the two of you could be for each other, and Eddie literally couldn’t talk you into giving it a chance, couldn’t even flirt with you.

He had some mad rizz when given the opportunity, a body that wasn’t stiff as hell and a fucking voice. Eddie knew he’d be able to get you all shy and cute, similar to how you were when you talked about what you thought he was like back at the cemetery.

FUCK. What the hell? Life wasn’t fair to him, death wasn’t fair to him, now life as some zombie wasn’t gonna be fair to him?

What kind of fucked up existance was this?!

All because of some stupid fucking lightning that—

Lightning. Eddie perked up, theories racing through him. If it had brought him back from the dead, maybe it could do more. Before he could think on it further, he heard your door open and froze.

It was too soon for you to be home. You said you’d be back in the afternoon, after Laura had left.

Eddie heard a scoff.

“How has it gotten even worse in here?” Laura mumbled to herself.

Eddie scowled, as he heard her footsteps enter your room, could hear her padding around.

The fuck was she doing in here?

It was a risk, Eddie pushed the closet door open, just enough to give him a crack to peep through.

Your stepmom was in some sort of jazzercise outfit—ugh, of course she did jazzercise. The blonde woman was currently rummaging through your drawers, looking amongst your belongings.

She was invading your privacy.

If Eddie had blood flowing through his veins, it would have been boiling.

He’d heard what she said last night, how she berated you. Accusing you of using your mother’s murder to seek attention.

And the other members of your family weren’t speaking up nearly enough to defend you. He was surprised that Chrissy—small town for Cunningham to be the Chrissy you’d been telling him about—even tried to defend you but she should have been putting her mother in her place. She hadn’t come up to check on you, either.

Eddie had a few things he wished he could say to Laura Cunningham, tell her exactly where she could shove her stupid figurines and verbal abuse.

If she was searching for something, Laura didn’t find it. She slammed one of your drawers shut, eyed your sketches pinned to your wall with disgust before speed walking out of your room. When she passed the closet, Eddie took notice of the headphones over her ears, could hear whatever she was listening to, Walkman probably set to the loudest volume.

Eddie’s mouth chipped up into a smirk that kind of hurt his face. He opened the closet door fully, stumbling out to poked his head out of your bedroom doorway just in time to see your stepmom disappear down the stairs.

Eddie followed, steps loud and uneven. Laura didn’t notice his presence, too engrossed in whatever she was listening to and occupied with her own ego. Looked to be cleaning up the place before her little trip.

Laura disappeared into the kitchen, well out of view of the living room so Eddie stumbled in, eyeing the pristine setting. The place looked impeccable, spotless, antiques everywhere that Eddie just knew the old bat was dying to have people ask about so she could name drop and be as haughty as possible.

Eddie could wreck all of this in no time, and he would if he didn’t know she’d immediately blame you for it. He still felt guilty you’d been chewed out for the mess he made.

Bitch.

Eddie heard her returning, so he hid behind the wall, waiting a few moments before he peered around it and across the foyer, into the dinning room where she was seated after having fixed herself something. Laura still had the headphones on, so Eddie took that as the all clear to continue exploring.

He spotted a family portrait hung over the fireplace, a seemingly picture perfect family was displayed. A man he assumed to be your father loomed over Laura and Chrissy, one hand on each of their shoulders. Eddie barely glanced at them before you pulled all of his attention. You were stunning, light catching the highlights of your face, lips parted just enough to encourage a pout. Your hair was wild in comparison to the other women in the portrait—Eddie loved it. You looked like you belonged on an album cover for some rock band, even with the sorrow swirling around in your eyes. Your unwavering melancholic stare pinned Eddie, and he could feel himself getting protective over you again. You must have been miserable that day.

See, if he had been around, he could have easily cheered you up. Snuck over on the day in question. Laura would have hated his fucking guts—Eddie wouldn’t have minded being the boyfriend your stepmom didn’t approve of. Horsing around behind the little photo shoot set up to get you smiling, get those pretty eyes of yours twinkling before whisking you the hell out of there once they got the money shot.

He rolled his eyes, grumbling to himself as he turned away from the past that never was. Couldn’t have (he’d already been dead), should have (but couldn’t) and would have. In a heartbeat.

His posture worsened under the weight of his own despair, sulking with it until he spotted an acoustic guitar, tucked in the corner and resting on a stand.

“Mm?” Eddie tilted his head in curiosity before making his way over. It was difficult to do, but he managed to settle the neck of it in the crook of the arm lacking a hand, and strummed with his stiff fingers, pleased to find that it was already tuned.

He plucked a couple more chords, stopping once to adjust a peg. Then the doorbell rang and Eddie’s eyes widened. He fumbled to place the guitar back on its stand and plaster himself against the wall as Laura got up to answer it, having apparently been able to hear it ring but not his guitar playing.

“Yes?” Laura asked as she opened the door, impatience soaking through her tone.

“Carpet cleaning.” A man’s voice stated, sounding bored beyond measure.

“Carpet Cleaning? My carpet is so clean you can lick the fibers.” God, was your stepmom ever not insufferable? The carpet cleaner salesman seemed to be thinking the same thing and Eddie figured he had to be annoyed with his work day already to say what he did next.

“I doubt the one downstairs is.” The salesman snorted and Eddie would have snickered if he could as he heard Laura let out an affronted and embarrassed gasp.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

The guy must have turned tail because Laura was stepping out after him, yelling as she closed the front door behind her.

Eddie eyed the bowl she’d been eating from, curiosity getting the better of him as he stumbled over to inspect it. Spaghetti.

He shouldn’t….But what was the point of being a dead corpse if he couldn’t use dead guy powers for good?

It only took a little effort, Eddie successfully gagged and heaved until a warm that had been lurking in his stomach came out, dropping out of his mouth to wiggle around in Laura’s lunch. Eddie watched as it disappeared between the noodles and sauce, satisfaction filling him.

Served the hag right.

With justice served, Eddie made his way back upstairs to your room. He’d just made it to your doorway when he heard Laura return. He waited a few more moments for her to sit down, settle herself, twirl some spaghetti around her fork and put it in her mouth.

Eddie was beginning to think the worm had made its way to the very bottom of the bowl when Laura let out a high pitched scream.

That one was for you.

Eddie smirked and walked back into your room, quietly closing the door behind him.

You had two classes for the day, back to back so as to not have to stay on campus longer than necessary, and both classes were pleasant. There hadn’t been any change in the materials covered or anything, eyes just kept attempting to discreetly take you in, which you caught from your peripheral vision.

While you enjoyed the new attention your attire and the way you carried yourself brought you, you quickly realized it wasn’t something you needed. What you needed was to feel good about yourself and for once in your life, you did.

You were absolutely giddy, and you felt so badass somehow, was this what Chrissy and her friends felt like all the time? Maybe putting effort into your appearance wasn’t just a load of crap dispelled onto ugly people by the conventionally attractive.

Regardless, you were strutting your way to the library, eager to turn in some books, make Steve Harrington’s jaw drop, then run back home to Eddie so you could thank him profusely for not having fugly taste.

Once you made it to the library, you noticed no one was at the front desk. Steve must have been putting some books back on their shelves.

No problem, more time to prepare yourself, maybe run through some possible conversations so you wouldn’t go stupid at the sight of his gorgeous face.

Your bag hit the ground with a thud, thanks to the weight of the hardcovers within it and you bent down at the waist to rummage through it, placing one heavy hardcover book, two heavy hardcover books, three heavy hardco—

“You got the rest of the library in there, Mary Poppins?”

You snapped back up, whipping around just in time to see Steve’s gaze rise from where your ass had been unknowingly on display, to meet your eyes, his honey brown ones swirling with warmth.

Oh, god. Just play it cool.

“Just some tampons and some chips.”

Leave. Walk out. Save face.

“No chocolate for that time of the month?” He asked, leaning up against the desk, rather than going around it to handle your returns. Steve wanted to talk to you. He’d been eyeing your ass and now he was making small talk.

You were going for it.

“Craving a different kind of sweet thing right now.” You leaned in, just as he had at the tailor’s yesterday. You were laying it on thick, sure. It worked though. Steve leaned in, too, and you clocked the tick of his eyebrow. Interest. Holy shit—things were finally looking up for you.

“I’ve got some starbursts in my car,” Chrissy chirped, materializing out of thin air to stand in front of you and Steve.

You almost knocked down the books you’d stacked on the desk, cursing under your breath. “Geez, Chrissy.”

“Hi.” She grinned at you, her darling crooked teeth gleaming before she was fixing Steve with a stern look, “Sorry, I need to talk to my sister. Preferably, alone.”

“I’m not exactly gonna run to the gossip columns about anything.” He mused, exchanging an amused look with you but you couldn’t really hear anything going on around you because Steve Harrington was flashing you smiles around Chrissy, your pretty and practically perfect step-sister, and not her. You’d entered another dimension and you did not want to leave. All you could do was smile back at him, like some infatuated idiot while your fingers reached up to pick at your lower lip.

“That may be so, but I think it’s best if she hangs around a good crowd.” Somehow, Chrissy had wedged herself between you and Steve, standing protectively in front of you with her arms crossed. She was about as intimidating as a pomeranian. Still, it was endearing to have someone act like they cared about you.

“And the library is just full of Neanderthals, is that what you’re implying?” Steve leaned both elbows back on the desk, gesturing out to the few students—most meek in appearance—occupying the area.

“I was thinking more of creepy librarians, high school peakers, and former playboys.” Chrissy shot back and you nudged her, hissing out her name. The protective thing was nice, just not when she was trying to scare away the man you’d be making your boyfriend.

“Golden coming from you, of all people, your royal highness, the Queen of Hawkins High; former head cheerleader and Miss Hawkins of ‘87, but not ‘88 and I’m pretty sure Heather Holloway won again this year, so looks like we both don’t have a lot going on, do we?” Steve was smug, shooting you a wink that made your heart melt and drip down your sternum.

Steam was practically blowing out of Chrissy’s ears, “Shoo fly, don’t bother us.”

Steve rolled his eyes before they fixed on you, past Chrissy’s head, “I’ll see you later okay? Thanks for bringing your books back on time.”

You giggled, still staring at him as Chrissy began to tug you away, “Until the next time, I guess?”

Steve held your stare, smirk softening into a smile, “I’ll be waiting.”

It was easy for Chrissy to guide you out after that. You were floating. Light as a feather and high on life.

“You are the only girl I know who can survive a spiked drink and still want to have anything to do with the guy.” Chrissy sighed in exasperation as the two of you loitered by the drinking fountain, “There’s like at least four other guys here who would date you, sissy! Don’t waste your time on that one.”

Okay. Only four other guys? Ouch. “Steve didn’t spike it. Carol did.”

“And she’s always following him around like some sad little mutt. Better to just stay away.”

You scowled, mood souring. One afternoon. You couldn’t have just one afternoon where you felt good about yourself without someone bringing you down. You knew Chrissy meant well, but in that moment, she was pissing you off.

She seemed to pick up on the shift of your attitude, changing the subject, “After practice, I’m gonna go out tonight. Some of the girls want to go bowling and then have a little kick back. Cover for me?”

How very much like Chrissy to insult you in the name of protectiveness, and then ask you for a favor. She still cared more about you than your own flesh and blood, so, “I thought your mom was gonna be away for a few days in Akron.”

“She is, but daddy’s not. And he’s way too overprotective, I can’t even sneeze without him bursting into my room to ask me what’s wrong. He always wants to know where I’m going, argues with me when I try to go out late—it’s so annoying.”

All you could think about were the many times you’d said goodbye to him as you left the house at whatever hour you wanted while he mumbled a bye and read whatever magazine he was reading or watched TV.

You tried to consider it a good thing that he let you be so independent, yet something in you ached, sure he simply didn't care enough for you. Not like he did Chrissy, and he’d known you longer, all your life.

“Oh. Uhm, I think he works late today, anyway. I’ll cover if he asks, but I’m sure you’re good.”

Chrissy perked up, pulling you into a tight hug, “You are the best! I knew I was gonna love having you as a sister. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Chrissy didn’t wait for your reply, practically bouncing down the hallway and you sighed.

At least you’d have some peace and quiet, maybe you could get Eddie into better shape too, and you’d get to tell him about your day!

With your classes done, you made your way to the parking lot, where Mystery waited for you.

You slid the back door of the Volkswagen open, tossing your bag in before sliding the door shut and climbing into the driver's seat of the bus. Then you started your mantras and manifestations, gripping the key with a sweaty palm before you were sticking it into the ignition and turning it with bated breath.

She roared to life and you sagged back in your seat, bones like jelly knowing you piece of crap bus was still kicking.

It was the biggest lemon of a car you’d ever seen, carried around jugs of coolant in the back because it had to be refilled almost every time you started it.

But it was yours.

When you pulled up to the house to see Laura’s car was gone, you felt yet another weight lifted off your shoulders. You were completely free to be you. Snatching your bag from the back, you made a run for your house, quickly unlocking the door before stampeding up the stairs.

You burst into your bedroom, chest heaving to find it in normal condition and no Eddie around. Frowning, you tossed your bag on the floor, beside your bed, and made your way over to the closet, yanking the doors open.

Eddie peered up at you from his position on the floor, rocking an old feather boa of yours.

“Eddie, I told you you were free to roam once Laura left. You don’t have to stay cramped in there all day when no one is around.” You offered him a hand and helped hoist him when you took it, “You wouldn’t believe the day I had—you’ve got stellar taste, by the way.”

“Uuungh?”

You reached under your bed, snatching an old Easter basket out that you used to hide your snacks. After you settled on the bed, you patted the spot next to you, and Eddie hobbled his way over, grunting as he settled onto the cushy comforter.

“I know I was grumpy this morning. I’m sorry, you were right. The dress was a hit!” You exclaimed, ripping a bag of sour gummy worms open. The pink end was clenched between your teeth as you bit it off, bag of sweet and sour treats held out to Eddie as an offering.

Eddie reached into the bag, attempting to crook his fingers enough to hook one. You watched the leathery skin between his brows pull—if you had blinked, you would have missed it—as he struggled to free his hand from the bag, shaking it a little until you pinched the bottom firmly, allowing him to pull it out.

“Unngh.” He grunted in thanks.

As Eddie moved onto the challenge of getting the gummy worm to his mouth, you went back to telling him about your day, “I mean, god—all I did was put on a little dress and I felt kind of invincible. Not to mention Steve Harrington seemed to like it.”

Eddie froze, gummy worm hanging out of his mouth, “Mm?”

“Steve Harrington, did’ ya know him?” You asked, steamrolling right on as if you hadn’t, “Talk about winning the genetic pool—that man is so fine. We talked a little at that party I told you about, and before I did drugs, he was being so nice to me. And I didn’t look as hot as I do now, so I was hoping for a reaction out of him—BOY did I get it.”

You let out a dreamy sigh, recalling the way Steve had leaned into your straightforward flirting.

“He’s kind, funny, and sometimes he even has good book recommendations. He’s like the total package and I think he might actually like me.”

You paused your ranting to look over at Eddie. If you didn’t already know his face was stuck like that, you would have thought he was scowling.

“You got a little…” Reaching a hand up to cup his jaw, your thumb lifted the gummy worm hanging out of his mouth the rest of the way up. Eddie’s cracked lips parted, just enough for you to press the rest of it in, then he chewed slowly, face not even twitching to clue you in on his emotions.

“There.” Your hand dropped back into your lap as you perked up, “I wanna assume he’s better than the other horndogs who popped woodies just because I wore a dress and flashed some leg.”

You stuck out your leg to demonstrate, the dress slipping even further up your thigh as you held it out, smooth (mostly, she was a little prickly but no one would notice unless they were stroking it) skin on display under some fishnet stockings.

Eddie let out a pained sounding groan, which you figured meant he was agreeing with you about the rest of the male population.

“Yeah. Well, I think everything’s gonna work out perfectly. Even if Chrissy keeps butting into my love life like some fairy chastity-mother. God—I just, I’ve never been close to actually having something I wanted before, you know?”

Eddie whined from behind closed lips, holding up the wrist that lacked his hand.

“What?” You asked, glancing down at the scarf wrapped around it. Eddie reached up with his fucked up fingers to point at where his ear should have been and it clicked for you, “Eddie, I can’t pull an extra hand and ear outta my ass. I wish I could, but I don’t have spare human parts lying around like pieces of a vacuum.”

Eddie whined again and this time you could actually see his lips pulling down, frowning.

“I told you I wish I could, but I can’t! I don't know how to get people parts and I don’t exactly have the black market on speed dial. Besides—you’re fine like this, I mean what are you able to do as walking dead guy anyways?”

“MUUUUNGGGHHHH!” Eddie groaned, loud and obviously upset as he dramatically flung himself back on the bed hard enough to shake it.

“Hey!” You snapped, fearful for your bed frame, “Chill out dude—don’t act all coked out!”

He turned his head, face miserable but before you could continue your scolding, you heard your name called upstairs.

Laura.

“SHIT, hide!” Eddie stumbled up and barely even had the chance to turn around before you shoved him into your closet, shutting the doors.

You’d barely stepped away when Laura burst into your room. She was dressed in her nurse uniform, complete with the stupid hat, yet there was something off with her. Her skin had a grayish tint to it, she looked clammy, eyes and nostrils red with irritation and her mascara was running. Laura Cunningham looked just as terrible on the outside as she was inside.

And for once, she scared you.

“Laura! I thought you were headed out of town for your trip.” Laura’s stare was even colder than you’d ever seen it, unnaturally icy blue eyes both vacant and filled with a deranged sort of rage. You expected her pupils to turn into slits any second, it would be the last physical trait she’d need to resemble a demon.

Stepmother from hell, indeed.

“Mmm, I’m sure you were looking forward to that,” Her voice was soft, almost gentle and nothing about it was kind. It was as if to coax you forward to her, lull you into a sense of ease before striking. You were reminded of the anglerfish, and the glow of their fin ray. They used it to draw unsuspecting prey towards the light before they were devoured.

You took a small step back. She took one forward.

“I suppose I’ll just have to attend next year, I’ll be skipping the conference this year. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do much learning or networking with my head plastered in a toilet bowl. I seem to have come down with something. Do you know what my symptoms are?” She asked, voice so sugary sweet and thick.

“Uhm. I-I’ve been on my period. Maybe we synced?” You hated how small your voice sounded.

Laura’s lips pressed into a thin, cruel smile, “No. I haven’t been throwing up with a cramping stomach because of my period. I’ve been vomiting non-stop because a little slut under my roof is trying to kill me. And do you know who that psychotic little tramp is?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, mouth parting in shock. Did your stepmother just call you a slut?

“ANSWER ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU!” She bellowed, making you jump and gasp. You’d never heard Laura raise her voice like that, it dropped several octaves and she was staring at you with nothing but pure hatred burning in her eyes.

All you could do was shake your head. You were terrified, but you weren’t about to play her game. You were neither a slut nor a tramp and it was clear, regardless of what you’d say or do, she’d be unleashing her wrath upon you.

Laura chuckled without humor, “You really are just a stupid, insignificant bitch, aren’t you? I open up my home to you and you do nothing but cause trouble every time I so much as turn my head. I have been nothing but kind to you, even after you wrecked my home. I’ve been an angel. But putting worms in my food?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I didn’t touch your food, I just got home from classes. An—And I didn’t ask for any of this, I didn’t ask to move here.” You could see tears beginning to blur your vision, welling up and threatening to cascade over your lower lashes. They didn’t. You refused to cry in front of her. Refused to give her that satisfaction.

“Oh, please.” Laura scoffed, looking at you in bewilderment, “Did you want to stay in the house where your mother was sliced and diced? Was that a comfort for you?”

“You know that’s not what I meant, I didn't want to start my life over in some town full of ignorant people.” You gritted out, hand clenching the bag of gummy worms.

“Ignorant people, and yet—you still don’t fit it in. Telling isn’t it?”

Despite your fear, you felt your own rage starting to build within you and before you could stop yourself, you spat out “What do you care? You never wanted me here. You just wanted my dad here in your clutches and you knew that wouldn’t happen if we hadn’t moved. He would have never chosen you over my mom.”

Laura sneered, “It’s not much of a choice when she’s rotting in some coffin, six feet under, is it? I’m sure she’s relieved to be done with you and all the disgusting things you do for attention.”

“Shut up!” You demanded, seething now as the devil incarnate dared to speak about your mother in such a disrespectful manner. Laura was only able to sleep in a bed alongside your father—wear that tacky ring on her finger because your mother had tragically lost her life.

Laura wouldn’t be but a mosquito in the room if your mother were alive.

You hadn’t been expecting the strike that came next, hadn’t been prepared for Laura to pull her arm back and swing it forward, cracking your cheek so hard you almost spun. You yelped, hand reaching up to press against the skin of your cheek, feeling it throb and sting under your touch.

She fucking hit you. You gaped at her in disbelief and Laura didn’t look remotely apologetic.

“I am beyond tired of you and I am not going to wait until some maniac guts me to be rid of you. Especially when you’re already a threat to my life. No. I won’t stand for it, so I took it upon myself to begin your admittance to Hawkins National Psychiatric Center.

Your blood ran cold as images of the unsettling ‘center’ flooded your mind. You’d heard of it before, horror stories told amongst your peers. A psych ward. And Laura Cunningham was going to have you committed.

“No, please. No.” You whispered, voice laced with fear.

“It’s for the good of everyone,” Laura began, leering over you. “You don’t belong here. Your place is locked up, solitary confinement where no one will have to see you ever aga—

THUNK.

Laura let out the smallest of gasps.

You watched the unsettling blue of her eyes give away to whites and red veins as they rolled to the back of her head, her body going limp as she tipped forward and fell face first to the ground. Your mouth dropped open as you watched her collapse, gurgling and twitching on the ground for just a few seconds before she went still. Then your gaze flitted to Eddie, who stood tall with your old sewing machine clutched in his hand, a corner stained red.

Your eyes flashed back down to Laura, and they widened in size when the pink of your carpet began to turn a bright red, blood seeping out of her skull to pool around her head and soak into the floor.

Eddie made a grunt that sounded more so like a noise of satisfaction and tossed the sewing machine back into the closet.

You heard them before you saw them. Eddie had found the small pair of scissors included with your sewing machine and clipped them in the air before he bent down. You could only watch, stunned silent and with morbid curiosity as Eddie snipped your stepmother’s ear off.

“Oh, god…” You finally found your voice, eyes darting anywhere else to avoid seeing the skin severed. You breathing became labored, chest rising and falling rapidly as you staved off a panic attack while your undead friend cut the ear from Laura’s dead body.

Eddie held it up in triumph, like it was some sort of medal rather than a human ear.

“Wha─? Why─?” You couldn’t even finish a sentence and Eddie must have noticed how distraught you were. He rose from the floor, stepping over Laura’s body to pull you into his arms and despite what had just occurred, you returned the embrace; arm slipping under his to clutch at the back of his shoulder, desperate for the comfort he was offering. His hand rubbed circles over your back and you leaned your cheek against Eddie’s shoulder, stare never once leaving Laura’s body as you whimpered.

When he pulled back—just enough to be able to look at your face—he held the ear up, towards you.

You knew exactly what he was asking you to do.

”Eddie…I—I can’t. I can’t do that…We have to bury the body first.” You placed a hand on his chest, leaning into him again as you both turned your heads to stare at someone who was no longer a problem for you. For the first time, in a very long time, you felt safe.

Eddie had rescued you.

Moving the body was surprisingly easy. You’d expected Eddie’s limbs to be fragile for some reason, a foolish thought considering he’d so easily crashed through your window that first night. Eddie actually possessed a great deal of strength, easily lifting Laura’s body—wrapped in sheets—and carrying her downstairs.

Movement seemed to be getting easier for him, limbs that had been out of use for years returning to life and unstiffening just as he had. If his arms could support Laura’s body with no problem, you wondered what had happened to his missing hand in the first place.

You made sure the coast was clear before you pulled your bus up the driveway and Eddie placed the body in the back. It obviously hadn’t been strapped down, so while you drove to the cemetery, Laura’s body was rolling around, banging against the sides of the Volkswagen. Eddie just turned up the music you’d been playing.

The cemetery was vacant, thanks to the relatively early time of the day. Most people still hadn’t gotten off of work yet, which made this easy for you and Eddie. It wasn’t the most respectful thing to do—you were just out of options. A grave had already been dug out, for some poor recently deceased soul (not Laura, she could go to hell), so, the two of you had quite literally dumped Laura’s body into the empty hole and covered her with a layer of dirt so she’d go unnoticed when they’d lower the coffin, of whoever’s grave this was, into it.

After the deed was done, the two of you stood side-by-side, staring into it.

“Is death comforting?” You asked, breaking the silence. Eddie didn’t answer, didn’t even grunt, so you turned your head to the side to find him already staring at you.

He shook his head.

“Good. C’mon.” You gave the burial plot, now and forever housing Laura, an extremely and aggressively disrespectful finger, and tugged Eddie back to the bus. He went willingly after kicking some more dirt into it.

When the two of you returned home—after you briefly stopped for ice cream while Eddie waited in the bus—you’d gotten straight to work; Eddie’s head in your lap as you sewed the ear into place.

While you threaded the needle through the skin, Eddie waited patiently, thumb playing with your fishnets. Once you knotted the string and used your teeth to nip off the excess, you admired your work.

Good stitching, secure and it wouldn’t fall off. The coloring was a bit odd, skin appearing obviously more lively than Eddie’s dull gray-green tint. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Done.” You announced, hands resting on the mattress at your sides. Slowly, Eddie rose to a sitting position, head shifting around to face you, “What’s the survey say? Ear any good? Hear anything?”

Those big, deep brown, baby cow eyes of his looked despondent as he shook his head.

“Mm-mm.”

You sighed, feeling a bit despondent yourself. He’d saved you from a life of medicated compliance and padded walls, and you couldn’t even get the human ear you’d stitched to the side of his head to work. You felt guilty knowing you couldn’t make him whole again, as he so desperately wanted to be. Couldn’t be his blue fairy.

You reached your fingers up, tips brushing alongside the soft outer edge of his ear. How funny that an appendage that had once belonged to the nastiest person you’d ever encountered, a woman who hated your very existence, was now endearing because it was a part of the guy before you. Your friend. Your protector. What had taken place that afternoon would no doubt lead to trouble, but you knew Eddie hadn’t acted out of malice.

He’d simply wanted to help you. And—okay, yes, he got an ear out of it, but it didn’t work. What mattered is that you weren’t alone anymore. You had someone that actually cared about you. Enough to kill for you, even.

It felt…like you mattered to someone.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled in disappointment, “I really did think it was gonna work, too. Guess Laura’s still useless, even when she’s dead.”

Your hand dropped back into your lap as the two of you simultaneously heaved out sighs.

“At least you have something there, you know?” You tried to see the positive side, keep Eddie happy, “Like nipples with boob jobs. The dial doesn’t work but you can still turn the knob.”

He made a humming sound, contemplating the analogy, weighing it as his head tilted this way and that way.

“Maybe it’ll catch up with you later, like the rest of your body. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you getting better at moving around.” You teased, nudging your shoulder playfully against his.

Eddie stiffened and you thought you might have offended him, “I mean—I’m not paying super duper close attention or anything, I just like to watch you—It’s not like I see a living dead guy every day.”

“Unngh.” Eddie seemed to pay no attention to your word vomiting, pointing at a sharpie on your nightstand.

“What? This?” You reached over and snagged it, offering it to him. He carefully took it from your hands, his hardened fingers brushing over your soft ones, and awkwardly popped the cap off with his thumb.

Your eyebrows shot up as Eddie began doodling on the skin of your hand near your thumb and index finger.

“Why did I think you were illiterate?” You mused aloud and Eddie briefly stopped to glare at you and grunted, unamused, “You can’t blame me, you could have picked up a pen and paper this entire time, hell—I have an Etch A Sketch you could have been using instead of making me decipher your ‘uuunnngghhss’.” You did your best impression of his zombie grunting and he put the sharpie between his thighs so he could flick the cap at you.

Like an expert dodger, you lifted your hand just in time for it to bounce off your palm as you giggled and he went back to finishing up his little doodle.

A lightning bolt.

Your lips pulled into a soft smile as you admired it, something warm pooling in your belly. It was cute and there was something very attractive to you about walking around with Eddie’s little sketch on you.

An Eddie Was Here, if you will.

And then it hit you. Lightning.

“OH.”

Eddie grunted, pleased that you’d picked up on what he was trying to convey.

“But how are we gonna…” You trailed off, brows furrowing as a montage of the two of you played in your head; sticking a metal rod in the ground with Eddie holding onto it as you waited for some approaching storm to electrocute him. The only problem was the weather forecast for the week predicted nothing but sunshine and clear, starry nights. No electrocution for the week. Unless…. “Oh my god.”

You turned to Eddie, grinning almost maniacally, “I’m a genius.”

Forty minutes later, you found yourself staring at your reflection in the vanity mirror Chrissy had set up inside the tan shack. It was softly aglow with pink and warm hued fairy lights, and neon blue coming from the tanning bed. One of her beauty pageant crowns was placed on your head, and you had to admit, it did make you feel pretty. It looked good on you, too. Huh. Maybe you should have done pageants, could have won one, even.

Sparks flew from the tanning bed, some feet away, with Eddie inside of it.

It was the next best thing to actually being struck by lightning. Well, it was either the tanning bed or electrocuting him in the small pool with a plugged in radio, but you didn’t want to get wet.

You grabbed a little fairy wand, no doubt part of one of Chrissy’s pageant costumes—probably Galinda—and posed with it, pleased with your reflection. Your hair was frizzy and it somehow added to your allure.

You could rock with this confidence thing for a while if it made you not hate yourself like usual.

The tanning bed’s buzzing whirled down until it was silent, save for a few random sparks, and the bed opened up, top lifting to reveal Eddie laying in a cloud of smoke, wearing those little goggles you’d insisted on to protect those pretty eyes of his.

You got up to check on him, tapping his chest with the end of the wand, “You baked enough?”

He groaned as he sat up and dinged his head on the top of the tanning bed and you flinched, dropping the wand.

“Ooh, yeah, I’ve been there too.”

Grabbing onto his hand, you helped pull him out of the tanning bed to sit on the edge and sat beside him, pushing the goggles up his large forehead and pinning away his bangs.

Eddie didn’t say anything, just blinked sluggishly. He was baked alright, that voltage was no joke.

“Eddie,” You leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Can you hear me in there?”

No reaction.

“EDDIE MUNSON, CAN YOU HEAR ANYTHING I AM SAYING?!”

To your amazement, Eddie flinched away from your shrieking, and with his face turned to you, you noticed he looked different, skin more…skin like. Not the leather you’d noticed before. He still hadn’t answered you, so you kept going, “IS THAT A YES—YEAH?”

Eddie groaned out, face affronted as you continued to scream at him and your shrieking turned into screams of excitement. Eddie joined you in yelling (well, he tried, it was very loud groaning) when it dawned on him.

It worked. Eddie Munsons had two working ears.

“Oh my god!” You flung yourself at him and immediately jolted away when you got shocked. Eddie reached out for you, resting his hand on your shoulder, “No, it’s okay, that was on me. I got too excited, but oh my god! Eddie! It worked! We got you a working ear!”

You were beaming, felt like you’d cracked the secret of life. And it looked like Eddie was trying to smile at you, corners of his lips pulled up just a tad.

The two of you looked ridiculous, you with your frizzy hair, crown and fairy wand, and Eddie with his electrocuted hairdo, tanning goggles making his bangs look insane and a slightly discolored (actually, it was looking more like his skin tone now, bizarre) ear, with one earring and one hand.

You glanced down at your arm; specifically, at Eddie’s arm resting against it. The one that lacked a hand.

Well, you’d already started.

“I think I know someone who can give you a hand.”

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