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#i just support the idea of luca being hugged
bylertruther · 10 months
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yk. the resistance ppl have to so much as considering the idea that mike might not jump to immediately and enthusiastically engaging in obvious n indisputably gay shit with will publicly is kinda funny in a puzzling way when season three and season four, where he does exactly that the entire way through, are literally right there for us all to watch on netflix.com. like. Okay ❤️
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mooseyhischier · 4 months
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Hi! I'm in love with your blog! ❤️🫂
Can I make a request with Adam?! Something between him and the reader are longtime friends and now with his move to Columbus they realize that they are in love 🥰
Thank you in advance 😘
unspoken feelings, Adam Fantilli
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Summary: in which, adam and y/n have been best friends since forever. They’ve both have avoided their feelings for each until y/n visits columbus for Adam’s first nhl game.
warnings: none
a/n: i’m so sorry i’m doing this request a bit late, but i needed a bit inspiration for this fic. all thought it’s short i hope you enjoyed reading this. this was also supposed to come out on adams birthday so i apologize. !! “hi! I’m in love with your blog! ❤️🫂” thank youu that’s so sweet !! 💐💌
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Ever since you can remember, Adam has always been by your side, your partner for everything and your best friend. From playground adventures to late-night talks in both your bedrooms. Everyone around both of you knew that you two were meant to be together.
However, neither of you confessed your feelings even when adam left to chicago and michigan. It made both of you guys lose hope.
“are you nervous?” luca asked you. You were currently in columbus suprising adam on his first nhl game and for his birthday. Something you two always talked about.
“extremely, I don’t know how he’ll react” you replied back. “don’t be dumb y/n you and i both know he’s going to be ecstatic when he see’s you”
as the time flew by you couldn’t help yourself, but just feel nervous and a bit sad. you were extremely happy for adam for making it to the nhl just as he dreamed, but you couldn’t help about feeling sad about the distance between you two. you both kept in touch, but it wasn’t the same as having him around all the time.
“let’s go to the locker room yea? he’s waiting on me we can surprise him there” luca turned to you asking. “yea sure”
seeing adam stepping into the room made you nervous. not because you didn’t know how’d he react, but that fact that you hadn’t seen your best friend in months due to the draft and all his celebrations. To say you were nervous was an understatement
your heart was pounding in your chest as you watched him approach. The crew erupted in cheers, but all you could focus on was the way his eyes lit up when he spotted you.
Adam's face broke into a wide grin as he made his way towards you. He pulled you into a tight hug, lifting you off the ground for a moment. "Y/N! What are you doing here?" he exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine surprise and joy.
You couldn't help but smile back at him, feeling a wave of relief wash over you. "I couldn't miss your first NHL game, Adam. And it's your birthday too, so I wanted to surprise you," you replied, your voice filled with warmth.
Adam's eyes sparkled with gratitude as he looked at you. "You have no idea how much this means to me, Y/N. I've missed you so much," he confessed, his voice filled with a mix of emotions.
"I've missed you too" you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. "But I'm so proud of you. You've worked so hard to get here, and I couldn't be happier for you."
Adam's smile softened, and he reached out to gently brush a strand of hair behind your ear. "Thank you, Y/N. Your support has meant everything to me. And being able to share this moment with you is more than I could have ever asked for."
As the game began, you found yourselves caught up in the excitement of the crowd and the intensity on the ice. The familiar banter and inside jokes between you and Adam flowed effortlessly, as if no time had passed at all.
During intermission, Adam took you to the players' lounge, where you were introduced to his teammates and coaches. They all welcomed you with open arms, instantly making you feel like part of the team.
As the night went on, you couldn't help but steal glances at Adam, admiring the way he moved on the ice with such grace and skill. It was in those moments that you realized just how much you truly cared for him.
All though they lost, you guys still celebrated adams first game and birthday, as the night went by and everyone was still having a good time Adam pulled you aside, away from the chaos for a minute. "hey can you come out with me for a second," he said, his voice filled with a mix of nervousness and determination.
“yea you okay”Your heart skipped a beat as you looked into his eyes, waiting for him to continue.
"i don’t know I've just been avoiding these feeling for far too long, but I just can't deny my feelings for you anymore. Y/N, I like you and i understand if you don’t feel the same way. " he confessed, his voice filled with vulnerability.
Tears welled up in your eyes as you reached out to cup his face. "Adam, I've had feelings for you for as long as I can remember, i lost hope when you left for chicago and then left for michigan, but deep down i knew my feelings for you were still there” you admitted, your voice filled with emotion.
In that moment, everything else faded away, and it was just the two of you, finally acknowledging the love that had always been there. The distance and time apart no longer mattered because you knew that, from that day forward, you would always be by each other's side.
As you walked hand in hand out of the arena, the chilly October air no longer felt cold. It was filled with warmth and the promise of a future filled with love and endless adventures together.
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heyitspersephone · 5 months
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Thinking about stranger things again now that the strikes are over and how, narratively, it would be way, WAY cooler to have Mike get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5
It’s just something about the way Mike’s trauma is never addressed or handled in any way?? Like, he hugs his mom twice and then when he was depressed in season 2 and 4 nobody did anything (his parents scolded him for his behavior in s2 ig but that’s not support). His best friend went missing leaving from his house, he watched his body get pulled from the quarry, watched El (in his eyes) kill herself stopping the demogorgon, watched Will be possessed, saw Bob die, was in Star Court when everything went down, saw Billy die, had his best friend move away, was SHOT AT (and really too few people talk about the shooting in Cali bc omg??), buried a body, and watched the apocalypse start. And that’s just off the top of my head.
(And yes I’m aware that the other characters (especially Will) are traumatized too but I will get to my point in a second just hold on)
The plot is geared towards this idea that Will and Henry have to have some big face off (and they should, in my opinion, but I don’t think it should be in a possession, or at least not the the Vecna kind of possession, yk?) but that makes it all the better, writing wise, to have mike be the one in danger. Will was helpless and hiding in s1, I think Will should get his big strong moments in s5 where he gets to be the hero of the story.
It would just be a lot more fun to work with Mike being Vecna’d than Will, because what are we going to bring up with Will’s visions? His dad? His sexuality? The events of s1 from his perspective? It would be cool to see, for sure, but we already know most of that. Mike, on the other hand, has a number of untapped things, like jumping off the quarry, why he’s so hesitant to tell El he loves her, how someone who was smart and kind enough to take El in in s1 and come up with the spy and sauna plans in s2 and s3 could turn into the oblivious asshole that he was in s3 and s4 (he needs therapy, ik, I still love his character but I want to explore the reasons he went from his s2 characterization to his s3 one)
It would be a very interesting parallel, I think, to explore Mike’s thought processes in this way, especially with all of Mike’s repression business (bc whether you ship byler or milkvan he is repressing his feelings HARD. Like, beyond his inability to say I love you there’s the fact that he doesn’t bring up the apparent many times he called pre-s4 during the Rink O Mania fight?? That literally would’ve absolved him of guilt in that argument since he WAS reaching out to Will the whole time? Hellooooo????).
Anyways, this all brings me to my main point: Vecna targets isolation as much as he targets trauma and guilt. The whole party was traumatized by the events in s1, s2, and s3, but Max was the one targeted. Plus, Henry went for Fred, Chrissy, and Patrick (I think his name was Patrick) instead of going for the perceivably easy targets that the mcs would make (ik narratively that would’ve made it more boring but shhh), so why Max and those three specifically? They were isolated. Lucas and Erica have each other, Dustin goes to Steve and Robin, Will and El have each other and Jonathan and Joyce, Nancy probably goes to Jonathan, and who does Mike go to?
No one. And don’t say Nancy because if those two have heart to hearts then I’m the next coming of Christ. Max separated herself from the Party in the aftermath of her grief and guilt over Billy, and it feels quite obvious that Mike was doing the same (like I said, he has repression issues). So Mike is traumatized, alone, and guilty (be it Will getting taken from Mike’s house, losing El in front of him multiple times, the many deaths he has witnessed, or the internalized homophobia angle), which makes him more of a target than Will, in my opinion (or at least an easier one, especially given his tendency to put himself on the line during fights (quarry, most of s2, s3 mindflayer fight), which would set him up on the suicidal ideation path)
Furthermore, as I’ve seen a few other people point out (and I can’t find the posts but one of them had eight screenshots of the various moments), Mike is always the one getting in the way, so it would be a strategic move for Henry to target him to get him out of the picture. Mike was the one that found El and got her involved in saving Will s1, he was the one who came up with the spy plan and called out the ambush in s2, he was the one to monologue Will out of his possession s2, he was the one with the sauna plan for Billy in s3, he was the one trying to help El get the strength to fight s4 (even if the monologue sucked ass it’s the intention that counts). As much as people like to hate on Mike, he is in the leader position most of the time when the party is grouped up (barring his mental health struggles slowing that down beginning of s3 and throughout s4, but he’s still capable of it). He’s the idea man, and he’s the one whose character’s foundations were built on the desire to keep his friends safe, so it would be a very fun plot line to watch him be the one targeted in s5. Like Will said, as lovestruck and cheesy as he was, Mike is the heart of the party when he’s on his A-game, so Henry should 100% be trying to keep him in the issues he’s been struggling with.
Obviously, Will and El are the Targets with a capital T for Henry since they’re the ones that got away or whatever, but I think Mike is a weakness of Will’s (and El’s tbh but also I think they need to have separate character arcs and I don’t exactly ship milkvan) that should be exploited.
TL;DR: Mike should get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5 because it would make sense in lore and be a very cool way to resolve his character arc
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rosehiroto · 8 months
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Hello hello~ here for another niji ask, thank you so so much for doing my Sonny request <3
Anyway back on topic. May i request luxiem with an extremely flirty s/o? Or maybe just one if you dont wanna do all of them. Once again take your time and make sure to take care of urself
Hello anon! Glad you enjoyed the sonny request ♡︎.
Thank you for the wonderful request, I will do this with all luxiem members since this is an adorable request, and thank you for the kind words I sure will you take care as well ♡︎.
WARNING: Please remember that I am writing about Luxiem based on their characters online and not of the people behind their vtuber avatars, thank you!
Mc is non-binary pronounce is they/them
Fandom: nijisanji en.
Pairing: luxiem x mc.
Category: cute fluff, flirty mc.
Flirty affection.
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Luca Kaneshiro
Luca is the type to be completely oblivious to any flirting directed towards him so he most of the time won't notice.
If he does notice he will respond with a 'pog' and he won't show any sort of reaction.
Unless you sit him down face to face and hit him up with the flirting he will be stunned for a second processing what you just said his face will turn bright red.
He'll be pretty flustered especially since it's his s/o his only respond is a soft 'pog' as he buries his head into Mc's neck.
After a while of being with mc he'll get used to the flirty comments and affection mc gives him but it never fails to bring a shy smile to his face and to make his cheeks a soft red as he chuckles in embarrassment.
He gets so used to it, he might flirt with mc back without realizing hitting them with a 'you too!', which works in most situations.
Mc would to need to find new tricks to make him flustered, like teasing him on stream, pinching his cheeks surprisingly gets him a little shy.
Luca is the type to pout and wait for you to flirt with him when you stop suddenly, or when you'd argue about something, he would just sit there and wait for you to fawn over him with a pout on his lips.
When he does get attention, his face lights up and he wraps his arms around Mc's waist, enjoying their attention with a big grin on his face.
Might test out some pick-up lines he found online and would say them to mc and wait for their response, mc responds most of the time with a laugh or a chuckle than mc tells him a better pick-up line and will kiss his entire face, his cheeks would turn red a huge smile on his face as he chuckles at the small kisses allover his face.
Just compliment and love this man, he loves everything you do anyways.
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Shu Yamino
Shu is rather shy when it comes to flirting not knowing how to react, his face turning red slowly as he looks down and covers his face with his hands.
Would appreciate a warning but it doesn't change anything really so he stops expecting one in the first place.
He's just so shy about it at the begining of the relationship, than slowly gets used to it and warms up to the idea.
Might drop a few pick-up lines here and there but would get super embarrassed after, would definitely ask for cringe pick-up lines from mc to use randomly on twitter or just say them in his streams.
When shu comes up to mc saying he's the 'master rizzler', mc is very confused but supports shu anyways.
They'll help him with pick-up lines, how to deliver them, silly things like that until shu comes up to them one day and just says "I've reached my goal as the master rizzler thank you for your sacrifice".
Mc is still confused but smiles and gives shu a kiss on the cheek anyways than goes back to what they were doing.
Even after a while in the relationship shu is still pretty shy about it, he'll just laugh with the most red cheeks you've ever seen.
They grow even darker in color as mc just coos at him and brings him into their arms for a gentle hug.
He'll just mumble against their shoulder incoherently, mc doesn't have the heart to tell him they don't understand what he's saying, so they'll kiss his head gently over and over again until he calms down.
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Ike Eveland
Ike is the best flirt avoider in this entire world, so when he gets another vox flirting with him left and right he just avoids it like normal.
Except his feelings for mc start to grow so their comments start to affect him just slightly, he still moves on from them not even acknowledging them but you'll see how his cheeks turn slightly pink showing he actually got affected by the comment.
When he and mc get together his reactions grow slightly, except of ignoring their flirting he'll smile gently at mc his cheeks slightly red as he looks at them, then back at whatever he was doing.
At one point something mc said made him so shy he just buried his head into Mc's shoulder with a whine.
Mc don't embarrass him please, he's just so shy about it.
As time goes on he gets used to them and his reactions goes back to normal completely ignoring the flirting except this time he'll have a small smile on his face.
Finds it very endearing and might get the confidence to flirt back with mc if he's drunk.
When he's drunk he finds the comments super cute and would go out of his way to say so to mc everytime.
He will then process to compliment mc and flirt with them for about half an hour.
Teach him pick-up lines and he will be even better than you at flirting it's the best thing ever.
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Mysta Rias
Mysta will play it off awkwardly at first face glowing bright red as he laughs awkwardly "you don't mean that" he would say with an awkward laugh.
His face will turn a deeper shade of red when you tell him you mean it with a straight face.
Will mumble a soft thank you rubbing the back of his head and just sitting there than will mumble a weak "you're awesome too".
As he slowly gets to know mc and gets together with them he'll start to get more comfortable with the flirting and will smile shyly at it now, might even pitch in with a few pick-up lines himself.
After he and mc get together he'll grow more comfortable with it, and will start to flirt with mc on a daily basis learning their tricks and using it against them.
Mysta pulls an uno reverse and starts making mc embarrassed by his flirting, then they both will just giggle like highschool girls and just bask in each other's company.
Mc will definitely try to flirt more with mysta and to make him embarrassed knowing that physical touch is more likely to make him shy.
Just hug him out of no where or kiss his cheeks and face, he'll be putty in your hands.
As time goes on flirting will be the norm in their relationship, they could be just chilling on the couch cuddling and they'll start flirting with each other like they just met in the club.
Mysta finds it very endearing as their bond grows stronger as flirting starts to turn into their very own love language.
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Vox Akuma
When vox first meets mc the first thing they both do is flirt with each other.
It's basically like a second language to them at this point from the amount of time they spend speaking it to each other.
Even before they get together they would flirt with each other all the time, which might annoy some people since it looks kinda cringe when you look at it from afar.
When vox and mc get together their flirting grows stronger, and they don't even take it seriously most of the time giggling after flirting with each other.
Both mc and vox find it a cute personality trait in each other and will tell each other how much they love it.
As they both get closer the flirting wouldn't stop, just growing more chill and turning into more compliments then flirting really.
They just love everything about each other and a day doesn't pass unless both of them tell each other how much they love and care about each other.
Mc and vox are a very affectionate and lovey dovey couple and they never deny it and just tell people about it all the time.
If they argue about something they will both sit on different sides of the room glancing at each other every once in a while with a pout on their face.
It will end up with both of them apologizing, and then cuddling and complementing each other to absolutely no end for the next day or two.
They love each other very much and they'll never grow tired of it or try to hide it.
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Thank you for reading all support is highly appreciated ♡︎.
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skubean · 1 year
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what about luxiem with a bold person?
hi hi, anon! thank you for the idea!! i actually like this idea since it's the opposite of what i wrote bfr for vox and luca. sorry it took a while to do this, i'm a little sick rn T.T anyways, hope you liked this one <3
Luxiem with a Bold! Gender Neutral Reader
characters: luca kaneshiro, shu yamino, mysta rias, ike eveland, vox akuma
notes: gender neutral reader, i wasn't sure if i wanted to make reader be in a romantic or platonic relationship but i guess you can interpret it as you like, i used different interpretations of bold here so some might be slightly suggestive, nothing else enjoy!!
luca kaneshiro
you know how luca's always saying how he's not bullyable and tends to (playfully) bully others instead?
yea so when you counterattacked his teasing, safe to say this guy was absolutely shocked.
like, he knew you were cute and all, but he didn't expect for you to be on the same level as he is when it comes to teasing.
it's like he'd be all brave and kusogaki, and then you counter him, and the next thing he knows is he's a mess, a blushing mess.
you're pretty observant, so you notice the way he reacts, which will only entice more reaction from him.
one time you playfully touched his thigh while he was gaming, and the poor dude started stuttering so bad.
an idiot, for sure.
he's fine with pda, but for some reason, you like teasing him while touching him, so he's wary of it (like he gets really red)
overall, this man is too pure for the world. you'd feel a little bad but how else will you be able to see such a reaction from a mafia boss?
shu yamino
believe me when i say this, but shu definitely is chill as hell when you act all bold around him.
you'd say the most shocking thing, and this guy will just snicker at you.
which is why you get braver around him, just to get that reaction out of him.
if you're lucky, he'd say stuff back to you.
kind of like the type where you flirt and say stupid shit, but he says it back seriously and it just goes haywire.
if you're someone who's bold with the way you talk, i believe shu is like your #1 supporter. he doesn't seem like a man who would say much, but this guy would have your back no matter what. it's you both against the world fr fr.
i believe in bold and flirty shu agenda (real!!)
though shu won't like it if you do bold stuff around other people/in public, because he doesn't want you to get hurt.
to top it off, i believe shu is pretty cool with have a bold person around. don't piss him off though, he's feisty.
mysta rias
mysta's pretty bold, isn't he. so i expect a you + mysta combo to be double the trouble.
the unstoppable duo that just does whatever they want, says whatever's on their mind.
you both just fit right with each other (match made in heaven)
but trust me, if you reciprocate back his words, this guy goes brain dead from it.
kinda like the type that can tease you, but can't handle being teased. sort of like luca in a way, except he's more brazen.
y'all did the pokemon pass or smash thing, and this guy is just dead ass surprised from your play at it bcs what the fuck.
mysta's a sweet boy though, he still gets really shy when you say stuff.
he's gotten used to your affection, so i don't think it bothers him anymore.
but hug him for too long and this guy goes craaazy (because he's shy lmao)
anyways, mysta + you duo is deadly, physically and mentally.
ike eveland
ike is a man who's good with words, you can't fight him, nuh uh.
my lord have you seen eki? exactly.
he'd act like he's tired of your bs or like doesn't really like what you're doing, but you know this guy loves it, he's just tryna mask it.
you being bold either puts a nasty grin on his face, or the loudest sigh ever heard from mankind.
told him your darkest deepest secrets and this guy stares back at you, mouth wide opened tryna process what he just heard.
you just giggle in response.
ike lowkey likes seeing you be bold and defend yourself when people do things against your beliefs. he thinks it's endearing.
though he doesn't ever tell you, he just lets you run free, only holding you back when he deems necessary.
10/10, tsundere. acts like he doesn't like it, likes it like hell.
vox akuma
vox himself is already one hell of a bold guy T.T
some days, it's like a competition to see who's bolder. (you lose)
y'all could be platonic or dating, and this guy still says the sluttiest shit ever, and gets you a blushing mess.
he likes that your energy matches his, so it makes him really happy.
i'd say it's pretty crazy to see two people with such brazen language (ykwim).
he's a sweetheart though, kinda like the type that let's their partner say mean stuff, while they support wholeheartedly.
the first time you did a bold move and pretty much sat on him, this guy had the most shit-eating grin you've ever seen.
he held onto you, which made you panic, and then laughs seeing you get all red.
trust me, it doesn't work. he's too powerful T.T you think you're bold until you face vox akuma.
a/n: hi, sorry this one's pretty short and somewhat really ooc. i wrote this based on what i picture each member would be like! also, i'm getting a lot sicker so i'll probably not be able to write a valentine's fic today, but i'll try tomorrow since it might be valentine's in other places of the world! happy valentine's by the way everyone <3 stay safe! - eden
send requests here and read the rules here!
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the-unforgivenn · 5 months
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CW: Graphic depictions of violence, injury, blood; Steve Harrington's man-sweater, strong language as always — even from Maxine Mayfield, despite your best efforts; The Void, and a bit of soft!dom!Reader Mayfield. You go, girl.
Word Count: 26.3K
Summary: Demobats and SOS and War Zone, oh my!
A/N: I'm proud of this one. Stick with me, I promise -- it'll all be over soon. THE ANGST THE ANGST will all be over soon -- ish.
@morningberriesao3: thank you for being my anchor when my brain tries to act like a rocky little rowboat and tell me things that just aren't true. you have no idea what your support means to me. I love you to the goddamn moon. @rip-quizilla: My shoulder angel. Fuck. My writing gets all the more better all the time because of what you tell me I can do. I love you forever for that. @littlegingerbat Babe. Thank you. When I need that grounding - I know I can count on you. @word-wytch: You too, my sweet friend. Your support means the world.
The Beginning ✨
I’ve come here to kill you
Won’t leave until you’ve died
Murder born of vengeance
I close my brother’s eyes
Tonight
- c h a p t e r   f o u r // a v e n g e d   s e v e n f o l d
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If there is a quota on how many deadpan stares you’re allotted per day, you’re pretty sure you’re at your limit.  
Stubborn arms are crossed tightly around your chest as you try your best to pin Max and Lucas with a hardened glare through your eyebrows – one you can just feel is lacking in ferocity, despite your best efforts.  
“No,” you grit, again; your mouth pressing into a thin line, “I’m staying here.”
Your sister opens her mouth to protest, but Lucas steps in with a murmured hold on and a soothing hand on her arm.  “Max is right,” Lucas intones gently but firmly with a look to the adults settled in the tiny boat, “we will be fine.  We’re just standing here while you guys go investigate.”  
His eyebrows elevate as he regards your expression, which softens as you begin to regrettably relent.  Lucas senses that he’s got you won over, but he takes it cautiously, anyway.  
“Y’know,” he murmurs with a casual shrug of a broad shoulder, “we have been telling you we’re not babies.”  
You’ve been blessed with perfect timing; as soon as he says it, Dustin chuffs indignantly and snaps, “It’s my goddamn theory!”  
Lucas’s head lolls defeated onto his shoulders, his tongue clicking in annoyance. “Well, some of us, anyway,” he states flatly, rolling his eyes as Dustin petulantly hands over his compass to Nancy.
Max takes a more direct approach, spinning you around and guiding you forward with a forceful nudge. “You’re literally gonna be able to see me from the boat.  I’ll stay right here, I swear.”
You know why she’s done it.  She’s knowingly put you face-to-face with Eddie’s bottomless doe-eyes, so warm you feel as if they’re magnetized, drawing you in of their own accord.  You shift uncomfortably on your feet as Eddie tips you a grin from his perch next to Robin.  
You bite the inside of your cheek, willing yourself to at least double-check with Max before you leave her in favor of going with Eddie.  It feels wrong, abandoning her like this… but you can’t deny the tugging in your heart to keep moving forward.
“Kate’s ready to go?”
“Yes,” she sighs, like you’ve asked her this question a billion times instead of just… you know, twice. “Kate’s ready to go.”
You bounce nervously on the balls of your feet, flicking your stare from Eddie to your sister.  “If you’re sure…”
“He needs you, I think.” 
“Yeah?”
Max snickers.  “Hell of a lot needier than me.”
“Oh, my god.  Shut up,” you drop a shoulder into hers and shove, giggling as you both sway.  You quiet your voice so only she hears.  “You’re right, but shut up.”
Your arm wraps around her frame as you pull her in for a quick side-hug, brief enough that she doesn’t get testy with your affection, but enough to convey how much her gesture means to you.  Her hand finds yours, giving it a tight squeeze before nudging you forward to take Steve’s that stretches out over the water, one foot planted in the boat while the other holds fast to the shore.
“I gotcha, Mayfield,” he assures as strong fingers wrap over your hand and wrist, “Ed’s got a seat right there for ya.”
For a moment, you’re tethered to both sides; pulled in two different directions.  If you could split yourself in two, you’d surely do it.  One for Max, one for Eddie.  Your breath seizes in your throat when your shoe contacts the worn wooden hull and the boat rocks precariously as it dips under your weight, listing to the side with the strain.
Maybe that’s a sign, a clear indication as any that your position here without Max is tenuous, a capsizeable offense – but before you get a chance to evaluate further, Steve passes your hand to Eddie and digs his foot into the rocky ground, launching the five of you into inviting waters that shimmer with elegant mystery.   
Eddie balances you, pulling your body close to his side as you plop onto the midship seat with a soft oomph .  “You okay?”
No.   “Yeah,” you breathe, whipping your head around to find your sister smirking at you, still standing tall and unbothered next to Lucas.  “I’m fine.”
Dustin’s griping cracks through the tranquil air.  “Hey – what the shit?!  You said I couldn’t –”
“Sorry,” Steve mouths with no real regret, turning to pass an oar to Eddie as he hides his shit-eating grin.  “I’m not sorry,” he whispers, which makes you and Robin snort a laugh.  
“Oh my god, could you even imagine Dustin in this boat, how insufferable he’d be?” Robin snickers as she balances herself along the bottom boards, using Steve’s shoulder for stability.  “Bedtime at nine, kiddos!” she hollers with a theatrical wave.  “Miss you already!”
“Robin, sit down,” Nancy hisses gruffly.  She purses her lips as she concentrates on the compass, giving gentle but clipped direction as the boys try to navigate the vessel over the smooth, glassy surface.  
There’s a loaded excitement buried beneath the silence, a foreboding told by the gentle sloshing of oars through water still dark as night.  Your eyes sweep in a wide arc in front of you, searching for clues that’ll lead to answers that’ll then, hopefully, lead you back to normalcy.  A small sigh huffs out of your nose as you hone in on the way the tendons in Eddie’s hand tighten over broad, kissable knuckles with every drag of the oar through the lake; thankful and fearful for the way he propels you forward.
Into the vast abyss of the unknown beneath Lover’s Lake, one that becomes exponentially more muddled the farther out you go.  All at once, near the middle of the lake, Nancy sucks in a breath through her teeth and mutters tightly for the boys to stop rowing.
Those tendons snap to attention, whiting out as they pull tight with the effort of stopping forward progress of the boat at Nancy’s fevered instruction.  She’s got her eyes glued to the compass, mouth slightly agape with how it spins about the face in reckless abandon.  
Steve looks over her shoulder and blanches.  “What the hell does that mean?”
It’s like she can’t look away.  Her chin drops to stammer an answer, but the walkie crackles, diverting all attention to the insufferable little freshman boy and how he asks,
“Guys, what’s going on?”
Robin snatches it off the bow seat next to her.  “Uh, Dustin,” her voice shakes with morbid realization, “your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital aghhh!”
Robin’s penchant for such descriptive language has you snickering.  Her lids flare when she shrugs at your smirk, handing over the walkie so you can clarify, “I think Nancy’s found something.”
The gentle ebb and flow of the boat’s rocking distracts you for a moment, enough that you don’t notice the subtle commotion behind you.  Nancy, however, does.
“Steve,” she asks warily, “what are you doing?
Your friend's mouth forms a hard line as he rips off his sock. “Somebody’s gotta go down there and check this thing out,” he gruffs.  Feeling you start to protest, his tone softly elevates to drown yours out with his self-serving logic.  “Unless one of you four can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then… it’s gotta be me.  No complaints.”  Your mouth snaps shut as he pins you with a severe look over his nose.  “All right?
Eddie makes a noise in the back of his throat. “He sounds huffy,” he mumbles through his crooked grin, corners of his eyes crinkling with trepidation instead of his typical humor. “Did that sound huffy to you?”
Part of you is worried Steve’s overheard Eddie and his imperfect need to deflect his nerves with humor.  A subtle glance at him out of the corner of your eye informs you he has; that typical errant strand of glorious hair slips wryly over his eye with the imperceptible shake of his head, pursed lips pinched in a soft, sardonic smile.  
It’s about as near to permission as you’ll get to indulge your boyfriend’s immaturity in front of the man about to risk his life.  
“He sounds a little huffy,” you murmur, allowing the mischief of your grin to spread to your eyes; a hopeful distraction for the metalhead whose hands, you’ve just now noticed, have started to shake. 
Eddie’s expression falters as he watches Steve peel his socks from his feet.  “I’m not complaining, though,” he mutters as he side-eyes the onyx ripples beside him.  “I do not wanna go down there.”
An involuntary snort is forced from Steve’s nose, and he glares at the older boy for a moment before rising on steady legs along the stern.  Steve unceremoniously shucks his sweater, tossing it at Eddie’s feet, revealing the more natural-looking sweater across his chest that’s definitely grown in thicker since the last time you saw him guard at the pool.  Before his abandoned clothing has a chance at getting soiled with whatever grime lies caked along the floorboards, you snatch it from beside Eddie’s boot and fold it carefully, leaning over to hand it to Nancy, who had been dutifully stuffing Steve’s socks in his shoes for safekeeping.  
Your extended hand is ignored, and it takes a moment for you to realize that the reason your offering hangs in limbo is because Nancy's very blatant stare hangs all over Steve.  Her doe-eyes are wider than you’ve ever seen them as they rove and rake over every inch of Steve’s exposed chest, and you lips roll inward to suppress a smirk, made all the more difficult by the way Eddie’s eyes roll practically to the back of his skull as he mutters a very irritated of course under his breath.
Eddie busies himself, averting his eyes from Steve as he furiously wraps the group’s only flashlight in a plastic grocery bag.  “Hey,” Eddie almost sounds sorry when he hands over the torch, “good luck.”
Steve swallows, pushing a strained Thanks, man through his lips, before taking a long inhale through his nose.  He takes at least eight seconds to blow it back out before he’s sucking in a new breath, the depth of it seems to expand his whole chest and even into his belly.  And you realize – 
This is real.  He’s getting his lungs prepped for an underwater dive , for Christ’s sake.  He’s actually going to go looking for trouble at the bottom of a lake, a portal into another dimension where fantastical, terrible beasts lurk around every corner.  Where the Mindflayer likely lies in wait, where Venca hides perhaps in plain sight, just waiting for you to be foolish enough and come calling.
Tearing your eyes away from your friend, you open your mouth to ask for Eddie’s cigarette that he has pinched between his plush pout, lighter at the ready to ignite the end and bring you some relief to your jangled nerves.  The irony of smoking in front of Steve is not lost on you.  
Nor is it lost on Robin.  “Ew, gross,” she grouses as she knocks Eddie’s cigarette right out of his mouth.
He would protest, but there’s such fear laced in Nancy’s tone that it steals the retort right off of Eddie’s tongue.  “Steve?”  You can hear her wobble with sincerity, with fear that only a history like theirs could convey.  “Be careful.”
You can see it as it flits across his face, the poorly-masked affection that lingers for Nancy after almost two years.  It catches in his throat, strangles his exhale, but still he manages a tight nod before turning back to the water and diving right in. 
His feet flutter in powerful strokes under the surface, illuminated by dimming moonlight in a strange, sallow sort of yellow unbefitting to the diver.  They kick once, twice before disappearing from view altogether.  You can feel Eddie as well as Robin still staring at the spot, at the place where Steve’s annoyingly perfectly-executed dive broke the tension and drenched each one of you in it instead, soaking you to your bones.   
Time ticks by in slow, agonizing seconds.  On, and on.  Estimating about thirty seconds in, the nervous tics of the party start to appear; Robin hums, Eddie’s leg bounces, Nancy hyper-focuses on the second hand of her watch while you gnaw little patterns into the plush nailfolds of your thumb.  The tension stretches taut, a tether to your friend who has been underwater for the better part of… you’re not even sure how long, but it feels like forever.  
Eddie breaks the silence first.  “Where are we at, Wheeler?”
“Closing in on a minute.”
His fingers thread with yours.  “Seems like a long time,” you mutter as you give him a squeeze.
Eddie answers with an agreeable hum and a returning squeeze as his knee resumes its nervous bouncing in tandem with your thudding heart.  
The gentle lapping of the water against the hull is a laughable paradox, so tender as it initiates an almost imperceptible rocking of the boat that would be comforting if in any other situation.  It’s thunderous, aggravating; the figurative nails on a chalkboard.  It’s like the water taunts you, spins tales of its placid nature while hiding those terrible secrets beneath.
It’s been at least fifteen seconds since Nancy gave her update.  That’s too long, you know that it is, even for a swim team captain.  You’re not really sure how far that goes, anyway –  it’s not like the Hawkin’s swim team is anything to write home about, and lifeguarding at the community pool is basically just blowing your whistle at kids who make it their mission to break every single fucking rule –
Rambling thoughts are cut off as Steve slices through the surface with a drawn-out gasp; the abrupt influx of sound in the atmosphere basically devoid goes off like a gunshot.  It startles every soul in that boat, each answering Steve’s deep intake of breath with one of your own.  
Not surprisingly, Steve’s reappearance shocks Eddie the most, and your man nearly pulls you overboard with how strongly he grabs your arms, jolting you again with his raspy, high-pitched bark of, “Oh, Christ!”
The diver regains enough of his faculties with one more reedy inhale before announcing, “I found it!”
That gets your attention.  Still off-balance from Eddie’s flailing, you right yourself and shuffle carefully on your seat to peer over the edge.  Steve is grinning wildly, teeth chattering undoubtedly from a dizzying combination of adrenaline and the cold.  
Robin’s jaw drops.  “You found it?!”
He runs his hand through his hair, slicking it back on his head before palming the gunwale for support.  “I found it, yeah,” he affirms as his chest heaves with heavy, open-mouthed pants, “I found it.”  
For once, you let yourself feel it – hope.  Hope for the man sitting next to you, hope for your sister, hope for you all to be free of this massive burden.  It’s like an elixir, running a warm, soothing path through your veins, filling the cracks and fissures and providing you with vital support to coax your aching bones to stand again.
Your vision blurs, hands are shaking as you blubber, “No fucking way, Steve –”
Robin snags the walkie-talkie from beside Nancy, voice shaking as she exclaims, “Dustin, you’re a goddamn Einstein –”
“Jeez, Buckley,” Eddie groans, scrubbing a hand down his face, “don’t tell him that.”
She turns and gives Eddie a lopsided grin, her hand flits in front of her in a genial shoo-ing motion as she states, “Steve found the gate, and it’s right here below us.”
“It’s pretty wild,” Steve wraps his arm along the edge as he regains his breath, “it’s more of a snack-size gate than a momma gate, but still it’s pretty damn big.”
He looks almost boyish, the way his eyes sparkle in accomplished delight.  His sigh of relief, his crooked grin; the man radiates unbridled joy and satisfaction for providing an answer, an all-too-important piece to the puzzle that’s finally got you moving in the right direction.   
Or, not.
You see it; the change in his expression, the way his eyelids flare as triumph melts into surprise before his head dips below the battered edge of the boat.  You see it again when he yanks himself back above water; the confusion, the trepidation, the fear expanding in those amber eyes as they lock with yours –
And in a breath of a moment, they’re gone.
Nancy is the first to shout his name while Robin lurches to lean precariously over the water, so much that the boat rocks dangerously on its keel.  “Oh my god, Steve!”
Eddie’s caught between keeping counterbalance against the three girls desperately clambering to the edge and wanting to look for himself.  “No, no, no!  What the hell was that, man?!”
“Steve!” you shriek reactively, knowing damn well that offers no help and just adds to the mayhem.  The ripples that expand from Steve’s last known position spread in useless arcs, and you tear your gaze away to watch as Nancy’s frantic eyes bore holes into the surface of the water.  
“I don’t know!” she shouts, forearms trembling from the strain of holding herself upright.
Robin’s near tears.  “Nancy – Nancy, what happened?”
“Jesus!” Eddie’s wail is shrill, near hysterical; and though you feel the pull, the need to turn your attention to him, you can’t tear your gaze away from Nancy.
Nancy is quiet, dreadfully so.  It’s like you can hear her thoughts, how badly she wants Steve to burst through the blackened depths like nothing had ever happened.  You know she understands as you do where Steve’s gone – and it’s only a second, but in that instant, she’s made up her mind.  Nancy’s resolute stare locks with yours because she knows he won’t – you know he won’t return.
The boat tilts as she rises, her foot plants on rail for support, but before she thrusts herself into the lake after him, Eddie snatches her hand that hangs at her side.
“Wait, wait, wait!” he snaps, yanking at her arm to try to sit her down.  “You’re not going in there, are you?!”
Nancy looks almost irritated that he’s wasted time to ask.  “Just – wait here!”
“No!”  Robin is pleading, her cries marry with Eddie’s while she begs her friend not to jump in.  “No, no – Nancy!”
A momentary list of the keel as Nancy pushes off the side to dive headfirst after Steve.  The boat rights itself, the bow shifts to face away from her entry point with the force from her jump.  There was no hesitation with her, not an ounce of it – the way Nancy willingly threw herself into danger propels you forward into action.  Finally – something you can fucking do.
“Shit!”  Robin’s hands tangle in her hair, her wild-eyed stare falls on you as you rip at the laces of your shoe.  “Wh – Mayfield, what – ?”
“God damn it!” Eddie wails, gesturing in a grand, frustrated flail of lanky arms to where Nancy stood perched just moments before.  He must register the way Robin warily whispers your name, as his curls whip across his face with how fast he turns his focus back to you.  “No, nononono, baby, no –” 
He tries to cover your trembling fingers that wrap around the heel of your Converse to halt your progress, but your determination undermines his efforts.  “What are you — no!”
You keep your eyes forward, hyperfocused on that goddamn knot that somehow has cinched tighter in the twenty seconds you’ve been trying to tear off your shoes.  If you look – Christ, you know if you raise your eyes and allow yourself to actually see the personification of complete and total frantic terror that is undoubtedly woven into every fiber of Eddie’s being, you’d lose your nerve.  You’d stay cemented to the boat, a deadweight to the party yet again.  You’d serve to pull them under rather than help them survive.  
Eddie senses that he’s lost whatever sense he’d hoped to talk back into you, and he barks a sharp, “Buckley!” who no longer is sitting where he thinks she is, but rather has since situated herself to sit along the slender border of the gunwale.  
“What the shit – Buckley, what are you doing?” he screeches.  “She said wait!”
Robin’s tone is unnervingly even.  “Yeah, I heard her.”  She murmurs your name firmly, and waits for you to look up before stating plainly as she nods to your shoes, “Might wanna leave those on.”
You huff a sardonic breath through your nose – knowing she’s right, you wiggle your foot back in, jamming it into the sole.
Your boyfriend’s incredulous scoff comes out more as a squeak.  “Wheeler’s in charge!”  His wild-eyed stare oscillates between you two as he shrieks, “What are you two doing?!”
“Are you kidding me, Munson?  I made that shit up,” the younger girl rasps, swallowing heavily before asking, “you coming?”
She didn’t need to ask, not really, but you nod your head furiously anyway.  It’s enough for Robin, who pinches her nose and tips herself backwards into the water without another word. 
Eddie’s frenzied swipe at Robin’s form misses grandly.  “God damn it!”  He twists his body, hands flying to your shoulders to anchor you to your seat.  “No, no – you’re not, sweetheart – y-you’re not going in there –”
Your mouth has dried as the reality of what you’re about to do has started to come crashing down. “Eddie, yeah I am,” you croak, hoping you sound more confident than you feel.
He’s shaking so badly that it feels like his hands are vibrating.  “This is so stupid!  This is so fucking stupid!”  He tries jostling you with a fierce shake of your form as he bites, “Why?!”
“He’s dead if we don’t.”  
It comes out clipped.  Matter-of-fact.  Your delivery is so intensely true that Eddie’s hands fall from their vise grip on your shoulders.  The weight is gone, and for a fleeting moment, you truly feel like it’s been lifted.  There’s a certainty in what you know you need to do.
You’re done delaying.  “He’s done the same for us.”    
Without waiting for a reply, you pull your diaphragm as far into your belly as you can to fill your lungs with the chilly evening air, and dive in.
You consider yourself lucky that you were somewhat prepared for the temperature of the water, but admittedly, it doesn’t do much to dull the way the cold slams into you from all sides.  The air in your lungs seizes, threatens to ice the blood in your veins and choke off precious oxygen before you’ve even made a concerted effort to get to the hazy rim of red you can see pulsating not twenty feet in front of you.
The water feels magnetized.  You’re an adept swimmer; California beach days were a dime a dozen, and knowing how has always fared you well.  The way your arms slice through the water covers the distance between you and the sinister, crimson blemish on the murky bottom with such surprising speed that you know you’re being pulled in.  Drawn forward by some unspeakable force.  It’s terrifying, understanding that you’re hurtling towards imminent threats unknown, but you wouldn’t turn around even if you could.  
The stale air in your lungs burns, searing the tiny alveoli begging for fresh oxygen.  Mashing your lips together to ward off the overwhelming urge to open your mouth and lose everything you have, you kick harder, driving your legs behind you in powerful strokes.  The blood-red backlight is brighter now, emanating behind a grayish film that makes it look all the more ominous.  Squinting through your clouded surroundings, you can make out the all-familiar vines that slither and writhe around the edges.  You recognize that Robin is nowhere to be found, and an intrusive thought that surges from your subconscious, making you pause.  
You feel like you have reached her before she went through.  How did she get through?  As your hand skims the filmy membrane across the jaws to the underworld, you can’t help but panic – this is where they went to get to Steve, right?  It’s stupid to even think it, you know it is – you know this is a gate, but making a mistake now could cost Steve his life.  
A slimy, muscular version of what looks strangely like an octopus tentacle snaps from its snug position around the lip of the gate and wraps so tightly around your wrist it makes you scream in pain.  Precious bubbles flow from your mouth in a garbled cry as you're jerked forward so forcefully you feel your shoulder wrench in the joint.  The thick, gauzy material that’s slathered over the entrance envelopes you in a horrifying cocoon of sensations that have you feeling like you’re being squeezed from the inside out.  Your whole world flips, twisting your body upside down as you’re yanked into a realm of death and decay.   Feet fly overhead as you’re plucked from the water, making you feel weightless while you watch your legs kick and thrash against the barren landscape that comes hurtling at your body full speed.  There’s a breath of a moment where you notice your shoes, slicked and caked with grime from your dive, and you silently thank Robin for telling you to keep them on before you’re slammed to the ground.
“Ghh-aahh – !” 
The air that scarcely had time to fill your heaving lungs is knocked out of you violently, your body bowing away from the twisted, hardened ground in a reflexive display of agony.  Sharp waves of electricity rake down your spine, absorbing the majority of the impact, and you barely have time to wheeze a groan before you’re hauled backwards by the arm that is still held fast by the most foul of slithering beasts.  There’s not enough air in your screaming chest yet to yell for help, not that you’d be able to hear yourself anyway with the atrocious ringing in your ears.  
You’re so disoriented; you’re caught in a frenetic race between getting your bearings and getting the fuck away from whatever is dragging you around like a goddamn rag doll.  The sky above you flashes bright hues of red and muted yellow against a charcoal gray-blue backdrop that’s just so blatantly terrifying you almost don’t believe it’s real.  Your back takes the brunt of another strong blow as you’re smacked against the broad side of something unyielding – your mind likens it to a brick wall as your head snaps forward from the power of your trajectory, the vile surroundings steal your breath as it escapes through your lips in a low groan.
The ringing intensifies – a high-pitched whine that makes your vision swim.  It’s so tempting to close your eyes, to give into the heaviness that rests on your head, soft like a halo of summer sun.  The horizon tilts as you blink your weighty lids back open, vaguely aware of a majestic blur of black leather and curls hurtling toward you at alarming speed.
Familiar scuffed high-top shoes skid to a stop near your head, and a garbled stream of obscenities flow with molten rage from plush lips pulled tight across a row of bared teeth in a grimace.  You feel your arm jolt once or twice before Eddie sweeps his arms under your torso and hauls you upright.  He’s speaking to you, you can tell that he is and for the life of you, the fucking ringing in your ears won’t quit long enough for you to comprehend what he’s saying.  He ducks into your line of sight, curls splayed in matted disarray around his cheeks and forehead, emphasizing the pure panic that rounds out those dark chocolate eyes.
His mouth is moving as he taps your cheek to get you to come to.  You can feel yourself blinking rapidly, willing your surroundings with all of your might to come into focus.  
“ – by, baby – Christ, can you hear me?!”
You nod dumbly, tongue still glued to the roof of your mouth but so fucking elated to have one of your senses return, even if he sounds like he’s speaking with a mouth stuffed full of cotton.
“Fuck, fuck!  Are you okay?  Can you get up?”
Again with the nodding, but this time you peel your sandpaper tongue from your hard palate and give him a thick, stale Mnnmhmm before reaching for him and pulling him close.  He drags you to your unsteady feet, and holding you at arms length, opens his mouth to say something else when your attentions jerk to the scene at your right at Nancy’s drawn-out battle cry, grunting loudly as she swings her oar and solidly connects with – what the…?
“Oh, shhhi –” Eddie quickly grabs at something behind you, thrusting a ragged piece of broken hull from your rowboat’s underworldly counterpart while he snatches a moldy-looking oar.  His hand grapples in the air until he wraps his long fingers tightly around your wrist, tugging you forward.  “Come on!”
Crossing the distance over land villainously bound and fissured with writhing, serpentine masses takes Eddie just a handful of strides.  In a display of athleticism that rounds your lids in awe, he delivers such a powerful swing to a blackened, winged creature that it’s sent flying in a heap of wings and teeth.  It wails like a beaten dog, spiraling several feet into the air before landing in a lump with a sickening thud.  
His body tenses, at the ready – whirling around to you, he shoulders the oar and checks your immediate surroundings with a wild-eyed survey of the sky.  “Shit!” he shouts to no one in particular before locking his manic gaze on your trembling form, “hey – you with me?!”
The otherworldly screeching from these flying vermin nearly drowns out your uncertain Yeah!   Determined to be of any help, you run past Eddie to where Nancy and Robin are huddled around a thrashing jumble of denim-clad legs that your sluggish brain finally snaps fully lucid and recognizes them at Steve’s.
Soggy tennis shoes skid to a stop as the horrific scene unfolds in front of you.  Steve is flat on his back, bare heels scraped all to hell as they dig for any sort of purchase along the caustic, dried-up ground.  His hands desperately claw at what appears to be a thick, steely-black cord wrapped around his neck, cinching tighter with each passing second.  A quick assessment reveals that the cord is actually a fucking tail, thicky attached to a lithe body of the most horrible excuse for a bat that you’ve ever seen.  Your hands grip the shard of wood with aggressive intention, the tapered end ready to spear the everloving fuck out of the thing attached to the thing that’s wrapped in a deadly collar around your friend’s neck when you hear it.
Bile rises at the back of your throat as Steve’s gurgling scream assaults your ears, and in an instant, you’re hit with a barrage of terrible memories of Billy – they flash, one right after another, whirring between the Mindflayer and your brother and El and back again – the wet sounds of death that bubbled slow and thick from his mouth sound identical to the ones that are strangled and choked out of Steve.  It’s all so different, and yet – it’s all so much the same.  
The weapon in your hand stills as rapid breaths wheeze in and out of your gaping mouth.  Fear suspends time, it seems – the adrenaline that pumps in waves through your veins push and shove and urge you with every pounding thump of your heart to fucking move – but you stay firmly planted to the ground.  
Watching.  
Watching as Steve’s battered abdomen flexes and spasms around tears and gaping holes in the flesh.  Watching as his once radiant hazel eyes bug out of his head in abject horror and dim, heavy and dark while the oxygen in his system fades.  Watching as his mouth gapes in pained, abbreviated gasps as the breath is stolen from his lungs.  Watching as the blood pulses from his wounds, slower and slower with the sluggish fading of the beat of his heart.  
“No,” you croak, willing yourself out of the trance that has cemented your legs in terror.  “Steve, no!”
In the instant that you lunge forward to deliver a blow to the creature in between the onslaught from Nancy and Robin, Eddie’s warning pierces the lingering fog that shrouds your addled mind.
“Nancy, watch out!!” 
Your head snaps up just as razor-sharp talons sink into the meat of Nancy’s shoulders.  She howls in pain, and Robin wastes not a second before she’s beating the body of the beast senseless with the handle of her flashlight.  
The path of your makeshift spear changes in a flash, and you holler a warning to Robin before driving the sharp end of the plank through its wing, tearing the flesh along a thickened ridge before knocking it completely off of your friend’s back and slamming it to the ground. 
Hysterical screams and cries from your friends are muted, garbled like they’re underwater.  Their flailing limbs and bodies writhe and struggle like they’re played back in slow motion, a terrible dream you can’t jerk yourself out of.  Robin lands a blow to the animal at Steve’s neck, and you spin on your heel to finish it off with a final stab when you see Steve surge forward with a powerful flex of his middle, using the minute slack in the monster’s tail to dip his chin and sink his teeth into the slimy, reptilian skin.  
All things considered, it’s not the most horrifying thing you’ve seen today.
The chittering, screeching creature tries to escape, flapping its leathery wings in a frenzy when Steve rolls to his stomach and captures it by its injured tail midflight.  Behind you, Eddie shoves the broken end of his oar in a sinister, 3-tailed version of the flying beasts’ maw, strangling the ear-splitting squealing and silencing it once and for all with a well-placed heel to its throat.  He wrenches the oar from its gaping jaw, dripping with blackened, tarry remnants of its insides and spins around to watch with you in horrified awe as Steve Harrington rears back with all of his strength and slams the demonic bat to the ground.  Its limp body bounces in the dust with force surged forth from his adrenaline and rage; over and over and over again until its scraggly cries fall silent when Steve plants his bare foot across its wriggling middle and yanks, tearing the beast in two with a sickening squelch.
A loud clap of thunder masks the way the lower half of the animal thunks in the distance, melting with the sounds of Steve’s ragged panting that’s punctuated by a forceful expulsion of blood and tissue from his mouth.  It drips long in thick, unholy beads from his lips, still gaped wide in an effort to return his breathing to normal.  Actually – all of you are in a state of open-mouthed shock, uneven gasps and reedy wheezes flood the air, working hard to slow your respirations and keep you all on this side of consciousness.
Eddie has apparently seen enough.  He chucks his oar to the ground, and in a blaze of irritated limbs and raggedy curls, his ire froths from his lips in an outburst of maniacal passion.
“Jesus Christ,” he grits, turning away from you to scream at the trees in the distance.  “Jesus H. Christ!!”
Dodging Nancy, who gingerly tends to Steve, you hurry to Eddie’s side.  He’s a flurry of heaving breaths, sharp and stinging through flared nostrils, volatile like a bull about to charge.  
“Hey,” your now empty hand reaches out to offer a grounding touch to his bicep.  “Hey, Eddie.  Look at me.”
Thick eyebrows pinch with his poorly-controlled conniption, fingers fisting through listless curls.  “Yeah – I, shit.  Shit.  I don’t know –”
You shake him aware, sinking your nails into the meat of his leather jacket.  “Eddie.  Hey – look at me.”
The brown in his eyes is muddled, already tortured with what he’s seen.  “Y-yeah,” he stammers, nodding furiously like he can shake away the blood and the ash in the atmosphere and make it vanish. 
“Are you okay?”
A high-pitched whine sounds through his nose.  “ Mmmh – yeah, think so.”  Your eyes round, a serious ask again for a better assessment.  He swallows hard.  “Yes,” he affirms.  “You?”
You blink back the brine in your eyes, brought about by stress and the biting sourness that hangs in the air.  “Yeah,” you sigh, leaning into his side.  “I’m okay.”
Robin’s wobbly query shatters what little composure you’ve gathered in the last thirty seconds.  “Uhhh – do you guys think these bats have, like, rabies?”
Steve voices your exact thoughts with a clipped, “What?”
Robin rises on shaky legs from her crouched position.  “It’s just that – rabies is like, my number one greatest fear, and I think we should probably get you to a doctor soon, because once symptoms set in, it’s too late,” she spouts in an ever-increasing frenzy, “y-you’re already dead.”
Your mouth opens to talk her down, to reassure her – but, shit.  Shit.  You know she’s kind of right.  Your teeth clack as you bite back your words, focusing instead on how to get the hell out of there without attracting attention of those all-knowing vines.
The shrill chorus of screeching bats informs you that today is just not your fucking day.  Eddie’s arm whips protectively in front of your body, shielding you from the creatures as he vehemently hisses for Robin to get away from their dead counterpart and subsequently, the gate – where the bats have protectively circled, cutting off your only avenue of escape.
Steve takes a careful step towards the winged threats.  “All right,” he reasons shakily, “there’s not that many.  We can take ‘em… right?”
Off in the distance, suspended high in the air, looms the answer.  The sky looks like it’s rippling waves of black and gray and flashes of red – hundreds of bats have answered the call and are now swarming in ominous clouds of leathery wings and serrated teeth.
Eddie’s grip tightens over your front, gnashing his molars together to suppress the frightened whimper that escapes through his nose.  
“The woods,” Nancy’s even command breaks the spell of terror long enough for legs to start moving, “come on!”
Your hand blindly reaches for Eddie’s, swiftly guiding him forward over rivers of vines that wind and slither, whispering sinister secrets of your whereabouts as your feet slap against the desolate ground.  You run and run for what seems like hours, ducking and yelping in fear when the ominous screech of those terrible things seem to nip at your heels as you race through the woods.  You’re twisting here and turning there at the direction of Eddie and Nancy, leading you through a thicket of naked trees and shrubs back to where it all started  –
Skull Rock.
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There was a time, just hours ago, really – where you would have given anything to quiet that ringing in your ears; have it subside so you could be more present, more of a help, offer anything of substance to the party and not be so goddamned distracted.  
Now?  You wish it back, because the ear-splitting sounds from the demonic creatures above are far and away worse than any stupid tinnitus you’ve ever experienced.  Even with your ears pressed closed from shaking palms, even though Eddie’s got you held fast, tucked into the warmth of his chest – the noises are all-consuming.  Overwhelming.  
You can’t even fucking think, not about anything but the screeching and the shrieking and the perilous circumstances you now find yourself stuck in.  Stuck – in the goddamn Upside Down.
At least you’re all alive, right?
Unfortunately, even that’s tenuous, just like every other aspect of the pickle you’re in.  The blunted indigo light of your surroundings paints Steve’s features as dark, but it’s obvious to even you that his wounds have caused him to lose a lot of his signature olive-toned coloring.  As he slumps against the smoothest portion of the boulder, the severity of his injuries are evident – still leaking and oozing blood in malignant rivulets down his toned abdomen.  It’s worse – so much worse than what you thought, and you turn away as Nancy begins to tend to his injuries that gape and split and tell of your incompetence.
How you froze, again.  A mistake doomed to repeat, despite swearing to yourself late at night as tears matted your lashes that you’d never stand by idly when placed in that situation again.  Somehow, you knew that opportunity – if you could even call it that – was going to come calling.  And it did.  
And then, so very predictably, you froze.  You stood there, feet sutured to the ground, joints locked in a useless adhesion that left your friend – arguably, one of your best friends – to writhe in pain and terror as dulling amber eyes willed you to do something.  There was no bravery, no gallant rescue attempt that you’d promised your future self there would be.  Billy had at least done that.  Hell, he’d done more than that.  
God.  He’d be so fucking disappointed in you.
The time for action is now.  It’s time for you to swallow those hollowed-out feelings of regret and guilt and just fucking do something, already.  Nancy’s got Steve patched up, Robin’s got him laughing… or, laughing- ish , because even in your foggy state of mind, you’re pretty sure Steve quipped something about punching her in the face.  The thought of it makes you smirk – at least his humor is still intact.  
While Eddie busies himself with getting his bearings from the leveled-out slope of one of the shorter rocks, you wrack your brain with what you know.  As much as you’d like to fall back to the lake and try that gate again, something tells you it’s not wise and not even worth suggesting.  No, at this point – you need to move forward.  You just don’t know where forward is, exactly.  
You open your mouth to get the discussion started, but Nancy’s barking warning to Eddie about the hive-minded vines has you clamping it shut.  The irritable twitch in your eyelid amidst your frown draws Eddie’s attention as he gingerly dismounts the rock.
“You okay?”
You nod brusquely.  “Yeah,” you grimace with how dismissive that sounds.  “‘M fine.  Sorry I didn’t tell you about the fucking vines.  I uh, I knew that.”  You flick your chin to one that lies dormant at your feet.  “I knew about the hive mind.”
He bobs his head once as he tiptoes back to your side, planting a tender kiss to your forehead.  “Seems to me there’s a lot about this place to keep straight.”
You huff a laugh that’s devoid of humor.  “Yeah, I guess.  There’s enough on my mind already.”
It’s meant to just speak of how your brain is addled with an all-consuming need to come up with something useful, but Eddie's expression falls; he assumes you mean something else entirely.  “Oh,” he mumbles demurely.  “Sorry.  I thought you wanted to move past that.”
Your stilted groan is a crescendoing wave of irritation as you struggle to block out thoughts of overly-apologetic metalhead guitarists.  “Yeah.  There’s a lot of other shit I’d like to focus on right now, thanks.”
Eddie winces, and it almost makes you feel bad for snapping.  “Right,” he pops his lips as he looks around, “like how in the hell we’re getting past those bats?”
“Uhh, yeah – what Eddie said,” Robin’s nervous tittering begins again.  “E-everything from our world is still here, right?  Except people?  Obviously?”
“As far as I understand it, yeah,” Nancy replies tiredly from her post next to Steve.
Robin’s eyes flare with your friend’s affirmation, her fingers snap and wave excitedly as she reasons in a rush, “So, theoretically, w-we could go to the police station and steal guns and grenades and whatever we need to blow up those bat things that are guarding the gate.”
Your lips purse in surprise.  Maybe you weren’t so far off to wonder how the hell to get past those monsters back at the lake – maybe this is the way you need to go.  You sneak a glance at Eddie, who gives you a wide-eyed shrug.  A small smile tugs at the corner of your mouth – seems as though you both are game for breaking into the Hawkins PD – even if it is the alternate dimension version of it.
“We don’t have to go all the way downtown for guns,” Nancy says slowly.  “I have guns.  In my bedroom.”
Eddie scoffs while his arm lopes heavily around your shoulders.  “You – Nancy Wheeler,” Eddie drawls, elongating the vowel in her first name for effect, “have guns, plural… in your bedroom?”
She directs an unbothered shrug at your boyfriend.  “A Russian Makarov and a revolver.”
Your chin juts out in approval. “That’ll do it.”  Eddie looks completely and adorably flabbergasted, so much so that you have to pinch your bottom lip between your teeth to suppress a grin.  “What?  Billy Hargrove was my brother.  He had a healthy knowledge of firearms that I, ah… absorbed.”
He regards you with a mixture of awe and alarm.  Eddie blinks, his smirk pops the dimple in his left cheek as he sucks in a breath through his teeth.  “Well, let’s get going, then.”  
Something in Eddie’s periphery grabs his gaze.  You follow his massive eye-roll, immediately honing in on how Nancy and Steve are locked in such a heated, sensual stare-down you feel like you’re intruding from ten feet away.  
Eddie, however, does not.  A familiar fire flashes in his umber eyes, his jaw sets with a rigidity reserved only for the rarest of circumstances, and you fear his insecurities are starting to rear their ugly heads.  Again.
With a swift flick of his stare to where you stand, he mutters, “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”  Shrugging off his denim jacket, he grunts and chucks it right at Steve’s unsuspecting face.  
Your man elevates a challenging eyebrow at the shock in Steve’s features before huffing sarcastically, “For your modesty, dude.”  His teeth are still set rather tightly when he notes your unimpressed glare.  “What?”
“Give him a break, Ed.”
Eddie’s scoff is so offended it draws a hand over his wounded heart.  “He’s practically naked,” he sputters under his breath as his hand gestures to his chest, “all that hair is just distracting to – to Wheeler, and… we need her on her A-game.”
“Just distracting to Wheeler, huh?”  Eddie’s mouth clamps down, and you blow an irritated sigh through your nose.  “Y’better watch it, Munson.”  Eddie’s brow lifts as you lean in close, the ice in your tone chills him to his bones.  “The air here is suffocating enough.”
The insult to your surroundings is well-timed.  The underworld beneath you shudders and shakes, throwing you and Robin off-balance.  Eddie reaches out and grabs on to Robin as you cling to him, the quaking of the ground knocks all three of you to your knees.  It’s like the vines are spreading, feeling, reaching onward to locate the group of intruders and swiftly bring in the cavalry of savage, malevolent creatures.  It’s like the forest awakens, the horrible wails and baying of beasts reverberate through the air, making the skin crawl up your arms and along the back of your neck.  It lasts only seconds, but it seems like an eternity.
“Yeah,” Eddie muses over the roaring in your ears, “so guns seem like a pretty good idea to me.”
“Yep,” Robin heartily agrees.  “Me, too.  C’mon Mayfield,” she jumps to her feet and lends you a hand,  “up, up, up.”
“Got it, yeah.”  Careful to avoid the thick tentacle that now rests near your foot, you take an exaggerated step over it and gesture to the dense, deadened wood ahead.  “Nance?  Lead the way.”
+++++
“Ouch,” Steve hisses, drawing his leg reactively off the forest floor to examine the bottom of his bare foot, “shit.”
Your heart sinks for your friend, that’s the second time he’s reacted like that after stepping on god knows what.  “Hey,” you murmur, slowing your strides to match his.  “You okay?”
Steve gives an irritated flick of his chin to toss a loose strand of hair out of his face.  “I’m fine,” he grumbles, seemingly satisfied with his half-hearted scan of his foot.  He flashes you a too-bright smile to overcompensate.  “I know you’re surprised,” he jests, trying hard to sound like he’s unbothered through his discomfort, “but I don’t do a lot of barefoot hiking in real Hawkins.”  
It doesn’t work, not really – but it does coax a soft laugh over your lips.  You’d recognize the deflection anywhere, and in an effort to cut him a bit of a break, you don’t press it further.  It’s not like talking to death the fact that the man has no shoes while wandering through an underworld full of deadly entities is actually going to help.   
The younger man’s sarcasm makes Eddie’s curls bounce around his face as he shakes his head.  You can sense a snarky comment before it’s even spoken into life, and you wish you had the reach to deliver a covert jab to his ribs before Eddie ever got the chance. 
“And here I would have assumed our resident hero, Mr. King Steve himself, excelled at everything.”  
It’s probably meant to be genial, if not a little teasing; but there’s an undercurrent of jealousy and even malice in Eddie’s tone.  You pull a face, your upper lip curled in a snarl that reads plain as day:  you’re getting a little sick of the whole woe is me routine – his faltering confidence is not yours to fix right now, and the way he keeps poking and prodding with these little comments makes you feel that it is.
It’s enough to excuse yourself in a flurry of clenched muttering to go walk with Nancy and Robin, weakly citing something about plans once you get to the Wheeler house before Eddie has a chance to protest.  He wisely doesn’t follow – perhaps at King Steve’s almighty urging – and by the time you’ve hurried ahead to fall in stride with the girls, you’re a little breathless.
“Hey,” you greet Nancy and Robin between puffs of stagnant air, “gonna walk with you guys the rest of the way.”
“Oh,” Robin squeaks with a rather obvious look at Eddie over her shoulder, “yeah, cool.  That’s cool.”  She runs her tongue over her bottom lip once, twice before launching into unfiltered rambling.  “Except, um – why don’t you wanna be barnacled next to Eddie right now?  Not that I don’t want you here.  Of course I want you here.  But…”
Nancy swoops in smoothly, bumping her shoulder affably against yours.  “I think what Robin is trying to say is that we’re glad to have you walk with us.”
“Yeah.  Of course I am,” a flurry of flustered fingers fly around Robin’s face.  “Not curious at all as to why you’d rather be up here with us – ow.”
Unlike you, Nancy’s range reaches Robin, and she delivers a hard nudge to her side.  Nancy gives her a severe look down her nose before turning back to you.  “I actually wanna say thanks.  For following us here.  You didn’t have to do that, especially with Max still…”  Nancy swallows and sets her jaw.  “It’s nice having numbers, I guess.”
An ember of affection flares hot and bright in your chest for your friends, and you return Robin’s genuine smile with a sheepish one of your own.  “Well, in an effort to be a little more positive about these shit circumstances, it’s nice knowing Eddie’s out of the reach of Jason and the cops and… basically every other Hawkins vigilante out there.”  Your candor makes them both huff a sharp laugh.  “But yeah, uh.  Not thrilled Max is… I’m not exactly loving my decision to leave Max alone.”
Robin leans over.  “She’s not alone, though.  And they’re right.  They’re not babies.”
The instinct to argue is incredibly strong; you almost draw blood with how hard you bite the inside of your lip.  “That’s… debatable.”
“They have debated it with us,” Nancy chuckles.  “Thoroughly.”
“Listen,” Robin murmurs, brows pinching with great care laced around her wide blue-green eyes.  She sighs and takes a deep breath.  “Like, I don’t have a sister or anything so I don’t really know much when it comes to that, but what I can relate to is how you’re feeling and how you’re being so astronomically hard on yourself.”  Robin tugs at your arm.  “You’ve got to stop.  I say that with all the love in my heart, but Mayfield.  You’ve got to stop.”
You love her for saying it, you really do, but it does nothing to lighten the load on your shoulders.  “I – I just keep freezing and fucking up… It’s like my stupid brain refuses to work.  I’ve offered nothing to this group, and –”
Nancy barks a boisterous laugh, so oddly jovial in the bleakness of your surroundings that it knocks you off-guard.  “Oh, and what,” she laments with faux contempt, “I have?  Wayne was the one that told me about Victor.  Robin was the one that suggested the Watcher .  Your sister was the one that thought up all that about Miss Kelly and Dustin’s had a shit-ton of hair-brained ideas that have actually panned out and just as many that haven’t.  Though, he’d never admit to it.”
Nancy pauses as a smirk crawls across her face, widening when she sees you bite back a grin. 
“That Watcher thing was just dumb luck,” Robin shrugs as she kicks at some leaves on the ground.  “Seriously.”
“Look, none of us know what we’re doing.  You’re assuming we’re right but in reality we could be going about this all wrong.”
“Plus, you’ve had a tiny bit on your mind, what with the boyfriend getting lost in the woods and wrongly named as a murderer and Max…” Robin is gentle with her reminder, so much that it does help to soothe some of the ache in your chest.  “So, yeah.  Cut yourself some slack.”
“I know.”  It’s temporary, the relief you feel.  You know you can’t change on a dime, but you can at least admit that you know they’re right.  “Easier said than done, but yeah.  I’ll uh, I’ll give it a go.”
“Good.”  Robin is practically vibrating with nervous energy, bouncing on her toes and narrowly avoiding a rather well-camouflaged vine beneath some leaves.  She ignores Nancy’s hissed warning to watch it , the fire in her eyes dances with such impish delight she’s immune to everything else.  “So uh, now can we talk about how you went total ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage on Eddie at Skull Rock?!”  
Your jaw drops, all logical thought evaporates and all you have left is a weak sputtering of:  “I did not –”
“Well, hold on –” Nancy holds up her hand against further questioning from Robin.  “We only wanted to ask because it seemed like you were okay.”  She dips her chin as she questions, “Are you?  Are you guys okay?”
The last thing in the world you wanna do is talk about this, and so you deny.  “Yeah,” you affirm with a tremor in your tone, “things are fine.”
Nancy presses her mouth into a hard line.  “You don’t seem like you’re fine.”
Of course she’s correct – for all that you want to be, you’re not fine with any of it.  It’s like your brain absolutely knows that it’s not the time, but your heart – your whole goddamn body can’t seem to forget how completely humiliated you felt the moment the truth spilled over your ex-friend’s lips.  How Eddie’s eyes went impossibly wide as the first fucking thing out of his mouth was concern about how you found out and not about – literally anything else.  
Saying you’re embarrassed is putting it lightly.  Mortified beyond the realm of the living world is even putting it lightly because here you are, trudging through an alternate dimension with the weight of betrayal of two men you trusted hanging heavily over your heart.  You have a golden opportunity to lighten your load, to likely get some validation for your feelings in these two brave and badass women at your side… but your mouth can’t form around those horrible words that would speak their deception into existence.
You can be vague, though.  Maybe vague will help, even just a little.
“I’m not fine,” you’re a little taken aback at how easily those words, though roughened with shame, roll off your tongue.  “I’m really fucking embarrassed.”
“Oh, sweet lady,” Robin coos, reaching for your arm to lope her own through.  She pulls you into her side, allowing you to revel in her closeness for a moment as you keep walking.  “I’m so sorry.”
“Nah,” your voice is thick, threatening to bubble over with too many unbound emotions, and it takes a couple of ragged breaths to settle them back down.  “I’m sorry.  That was definitely not the way I shoulda brought it up, but –”
Robin tightens her hold on you, her tone soft as she asks, “Brought what up, exactly?”
Nancy holds up her hands in defense when she sees your scowl pull down at the corners of your mouth.  “You don’t have to tell us,” she assures you, rolling her eyes as Robin whines in dissent.  “You don’t ,” Nancy says more firmly, “but please know we wouldn’t judge for a moment… if you did.”
“No, it’s true.  We wouldn’t.  We just wanna help.  If it’ll help, I mean.”
Would it help?  Serious consideration crackles through your veins, an encouraging electrical current that illuminates another possibility to come out of the other side of this mess.  There’s certainly some benefit to spilling your guts to Robin and Nancy, getting it off of your chest may prove helpful, in a way.  You know they’re right, they wouldn’t judge you, but the content of your side of the story is still shocking enough to definitely take them by surprise and possibly think poorly of Eddie.  Or the other boy.  Or both.
Despite feeling cheapened, you’re certain you can’t do that to them.  Glancing over your shoulder at Eddie, you watch as he leans into Steve’s space, goofy grins plastered to their faces as Steve chuckles before shoving your man back into his bubble.  You sigh wistfully through a frown. 
“Boys are just so stupid, sometimes.”
Nancy snickers, a sound you’re not totally accustomed to hearing out of her.  “Yeah, no shit.”
“Like, how stupid?” Robin quirks a grin, and it immediately falters when she sees Nancy’s look of warning over her nose.  
“What?” Robin feigns innocence, and Nancy all but stops walking before the other girl relents.  “Okay, yeah, fine –” her lithe arm snakes out from over yours, hands pleading as they whip through the air, “I am morbidly curious to a fault.  I admit that, but it’s only because I want my friend happy and free of any dumb boy-related burdens while we go and save the world.”
Nancy can’t hide her smile.  “Well, when you put it that way…”
“Yeah,” you grumble with no real malice in your tone, “your offer is definitely tempting.”
And it is, but you know you won’t take it.  You can’t for the same reason Robin states – nothing like this needs to be hanging over anyone’s head as you trample through the underworld.  The silence that stretches is comfortable while you turn this over in your mind, or so you think.  Where you take time to enjoy it, Robin looks like she’s on the verge of imploding with anticipation. 
“Please, please – I’m gonna need more info, Mayfield,” Robin begs unabashedly. “Please, please, please, please – who better than to dish to your girlfriends about really, really stupid boy stuff?!”
God.  She has no idea.  In your mind’s eye, you’ve inserted him in the studio with you and your boyfriend, trying desperately to recreate a reality where you could understand, could forgive – and no matter where he’s situated, no matter how Eddie was able to spot the intrusion, it feels vindictive.  Purposeful.  Unsettling.  
It makes you feel so dirty, and not in the way that makes you feel like a powerful, sensual woman.  In the way that it makes you feel used and cheap — like a whore.
“It’s so stupid, you guys,” the bitterness seeps even into the way you walk as you grouse, “like, you’d never believe how incredibly stupid it is.”
That pulls a noise out of Robin that sounds a lot like she’s choking on a laugh.  “We’re talking about boys, Mayfield.   If my assumptions aren’t wrong, which I really don’t think they are, we’re talking about potentially two boys that have been at each other’s throats so, so much over the last several months that they’ve made it pretty obvious to everyone just how stupid they can be.”  She releases a breath with a huff through her nose.  “And that includes how mean one of them acted toward you at that show in West Lafayette.”
“Jesus, Rob,” your mumble is a healthy mix of irritated and awestruck, running a hand through your matted strands and nervously tucking them behind your reddening ears.  “Observant much?”
Your friend’s lips curl in a wry smile as she carefully clambers over roots and vines.  “It’s what I do.”
“Yeah, I guess.”  You hadn’t realized just how obvious those two idiots had been – the tension clearly overflowed into everyday life, and not just within the four walls of band practice.  It was everywhere – and other people, important people outside of Corroded Coffin had noticed.  In a way, it does perk you up – Robin’s evaluation of how incredibly inane their whole bickering has you feeling less embarrassed and a little more vindicated.  
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to tell them, after all – and maybe, one day, you will.  
“I promise,” you drop your voice low; the crackling and shuffling of Reeboks and bare feet among the leaves seem closer than they did moments ago, “I’ll get it off my chest.  Eventually.  To both of you.”
Nancy bobs her head as she steals a look at you out of the corner of her eye.  “So, after all this is over and done with and Vecna is toast and this whole –” she makes a disgusted noise at the sinister copycat of her neighborhood timber in her throat, “– is gone, will there be a need for Robin and me to help you kick some Munson ass?”  
“Or,” Robin elongates the vowel as she tilts her head comically far to the side, “someone else’s ass?”
It’s enticing, her offer – but when it comes down to it, you’d rather just be done with that particular guitarist altogether.  Your chest clenches with a chill, an icepick reminder that you cut ties with him to his face. 
“I – don’t think so,” you reply flatly.  Robin’s eyebrow elevates, and you wave her off with a forced smile.  “Nah, it’ll be fine.  Given all this, I’d say it’s pretty unimportant.  Will be pretty unimportant.”
The forest floor crunches underfoot as Nancy ponders before voicing her thoughts after several long moments.  “Your feelings, hurt or otherwise, are not unimportant, Mayfield.”  She stops her descent, body angled with the slope of the hill as her blue eyes bore into yours with conviction.  “Okay?” 
“Yeah,” you swallow thickly, “okay.”  Clearing your throat against another stupid ball of emotion, you take it upon yourself to atone for being such an unlively topic of conversation.   “Sorry… I’m being such a lump and I know it.”
That makes Nancy snort as she retakes the lead on the makeshift trail.  “Uh, you’re not.  And it’s kinda nice to have something else to talk about other than this.”  Her delicate fingers made a rude gesture to the trees.
“And the possibility that Steve might have rabies,” Robin quips to twin sets of giggles from you and Nancy.  She reluctantly pauses before launching into a waterfall of fevered requests, “Can you please, please just tell me –”
Robin’s begging is drowned out by the roars and the rumbles that bubble from the belly of the Upside Down, knocking you against the surrounding foliage with a shout.  
“Okay,” she grits as she clings to the slender trunk of a rotted tree, “second on my list of least favorite things – earthquakes!”  You clench your teeth, trying to stay upright as you hear her yelp, “Seriously, I’m unsteady enough as it is!”
Your vision is a blur of washed-out violet and charcoal that tremble and shake, the force of it stronger than before as it drops you to your knees.  “Rob, just hang on – don’t fall –”
She barks a laugh that borders on hysterical.  “Don’t fall?!”
Every fiber of your being wants to run, turn heel and sprint to safety, but the more logical part of your brain is screaming at you to stay still, to dig your nails into the ground and hold fast until the world stops ripping apart at the seams.  That’s why it startles the hell out of you when Nancy does just that – tearing down the rest of the gentle hill, stumbling as much as she’s racing towards a wide expanse of abandoned road.
“What the fuck?” you screech, your heart leaping in your throat when you’re yanked to your feet by the collar of your hoodie.
Steve’s firm grip under your elbow steadies you.  “We’re here,” he hollers over the thundering din, “that’s the Wheeler’s house – let’s go!”
Steve bursts ahead to help a struggling Robin to her feet while Eddie takes his place at your side.  His mouth hangs open, and for a moment you wonder what he’s about to say when the fear that flashes across his face says it all – he knows just as you do that the woods are a danger.  Somehow, your presence has been detected, and your hand finds his as you race after Steve and Nancy, paying less attention to where your feet land and more to where they need to go.
It doesn’t even look like the same place – the same houses that dot the residential road look retracted, like they’ve hidden themselves in the woods because somehow they understand being in the open is a threat.  Nancy’s house seems to be the focal point, the lonely one left standing.  You don’t like it – it feels all wrong.  
It feels far too easy.  
How you’re able to waltz up to the vine-covered house, without a cry or a chitter of creatures unknown from the woods that flank your position on all sides.  Easy.
How the door opens at Nancy’s urging, swings wide and welcoming into the Wheeler’s foyer that’s scattered with dormant otherworldly tentacles that seem unaware of your presence.  Easy.
How nothing lies in wait, ready to pounce on you as intruders; how you’re just able to meander around the bleak carbon copy of Nancy’s home like it’s just another day – like it’s totally fucking fine that you’re gathering here in the realm of monsters to collect your wits and weapons and make a plan.  Too easy.
How you’re just allowed to ascend the stairs with Eddie, following Nancy into her room to retrieve her firearms – only to find that a pair of delicate pumps are packed in the cardboard box along the top shelf of her closet instead of her handgun.  A sardonic grimace twists around the corners of your mouth as Eddie and Robin quell their disappointment in poorly-timed jokes – this level of difficulty feels more on-brand for your party.  
There are no guns, and it rattles Nancy to her core.
“I threw these away years ago,” she mutters more to the shoes than to the rest of you, the deep furrow of her brow conveys the turbulent unease in what is supposed to be familiar.  Her eyes flit around, landing on a dusty set of notecards on her desk.
Her breath catches sharply in her throat before claiming that they’re old – like, sophomore chemistry old.  This makes no sense to you – there’s no way in hell that Nancy would have kept something like that for so long – so what in the fuck is it doing here?
Apparently, that’s not the only thing out of place in Nancy’s room: the wallpaper, the wicker-framed mirror on her dresser, the stuffed animal on her bed that was given away –
“...two years ago.”  Nancy looks crestfallen and confused; defeated that the plan so clearly laid out in her mind has seemingly evaporated into the oppressive atmosphere of the Upside Down.  
Your face scrunches in confusion.  “Two years…?”
Eddie turns to you wide eyed and shrugs, equally bewildered.  His throat bobs as he swallows.  “Hey, Wheeler –”
“Wait.”  She holds up her hand as she spies something next to her bed.  She crosses her room in two hard steps, snatching the booklet from her end table, flipping to the last page before they go blank.  
The three of you advance behind her trembling frame slowly; Eddie carefully inquires, “What is it?”
She doesn’t reply, just stands there, staring at the page, unnervingly still.  “Nancy,” Robin says slowly, “you’re freaking me out.”  
You can’t help but agree with Robin.  It’s a tremendous effort to school your tone against the frenetic thumping of your heart, but you find it in you to ask evenly, “Nance… what does it say?”
It’s a stagnant, stifling beat before she gathers her words.  “I think the reason my guns aren’t here,” her droning monotone is so terrifyingly flat that it snatches the breath from your lungs, “is because they don’t… exist yet.”
Eddie’s lips pull thin over his teeth, like the words on his tongue taste foul as they’re spoken.  “They don’t… exist?”
Nancy Wheeler’s shoulders tense.  “This diary should be full of entries,” she grits, holding the offending notebook by her face as she turns to the three of you.  “It’s not.  The last entry is November 6, 1983.  The day Will went missing.”  Rounded owl-eyes turn to you.  “The day the gate opened.”
You know she’s sure, but you have to ask, anyway.  “There’s no other diary –”  
Her limp ringlets bounce around her face, mouth pressed in a tight, terrified line.  “We’re in the past.”
“What in the actual fuck,” Eddie mutters as he wipes his palm over his chin, slack like he’s going to say more, but a very emphatic Dustin! from Steve on the first floor grabs his attention, his head whips towards the open door.  
Robin leads the charge of the three women down the stairs, not wasting a moment before finding Steve whipping his flashlight about the kitchen that’s very much empty and without a one Dustin Henderson.
“Dus – Dustin!  Hello?” his timbre climbs, almost to a manic state, staring after the beam of light as it dances along the ceiling like it’ll offer him clarity amidst the ash that rains thick in the air around him.  “Hel-hello?” 
Robin leans in to mutter in Nancy’s ear, “Maybe he really does have rabies.”
Nancy calls his name sharply to the Dio patch that spans the back of Eddie’s denim vest.  “What are you doing?”
In a frenzy, Steve whirls around and nearly blinds you three with the beam of his torch.  “He’s here,” he affirms breathlessly with a sweep of a broad palm around his body, “Henderson.   That little shit, he’s here.  He’s like – he’s in the walls or something –”
You cast a nervous glance at Robin, who is staring open-mouthed and dumbfounded at her best friend.  You hear him – you hear how crazed he sounds, how completely out of air he is from yelling – it’s like he’s fucking swam to that gate and back again with the way his breath saws in and out of his chest in an excitable passion that has you more than a little worried.  
“Listen – just… just listen.”  Steve’s wildly rounded eyes are met with silence, and he shouts in pitchy shrieks for the kid again as he turns away to bumble through the kitchen.  
Eddie tramples down the stairs, bumping into your shoulder as he comes to rest at your side.  “Why’s he hollerin’ so loud for Henderson?”
Your jaw drops in shock – you didn’t even know he wasn’t there, right next to you the whole time.  Before you can ask where he’s been, Robin replies with a click of her tongue.
“Apparently because he’s hiding in the walls.”  She tosses Eddie a severe look, gaze dropping to his hands before she follows her friend into the dining room, perhaps (you hope) to try to talk some sense into him.  
You’re hot on Robin’s heels when you pause; it’s like a radio dial has been turned to a station just out of range.  The static, the in-and-out sound is not in the walls, and it’s certainly not next to you… the air in your lungs freezes as you stand stock-still, straining to hear what is certainly impossible.
“That brings us to the question you first raised –”
Turning slowly on the balls of your feet, you see how Nancy and Eddie are held in place as if moving will disrupt whatever balance you’ve inadvertently uncovered to actually hear Dustin Henderson’s voice.  It sounds like he’s gone full-on professor, and a giddy bubbly laugh spills over your lips when you realize your friends have heard him, too.
It’s a race to find him first – you call for him, yell his name over and over again in tandem with your friends.  Eddie shoves back a curtain, you dip your head under the table, Robin screeches his name at the top of her lungs, but still – the kid drones on.
“All right,” Steve intones blithely, “either this kid can’t hear us, or he’s being a total douchebag.”
Eddie seems to jolt at your side; he swipes what looks like a lump of black leather off of the floor and stumbles around Robin, nearly knocking into Steve’s side.  
“Here,” he thrusts the bulk into Steve’s unsuspecting hands.  “I uh, figured baby Wheeler’s feet weren’t big enough.”
Steve’s mouth hangs agape as he turns the workboots over in his hands.  “Uh, thanks Munson.”
“Socks are stuffed down in there,” Eddie discloses softly with a timid bob of his head, stepping away before his docile doe-eyes meet yours.  He presses his lips together and shrugs as if to say, what? before quirking a tiny grin and slowly ambling back to your side.
“That was nice of you,” you whisper, casting a glance at Steve who quickly slips the socks over his tattered heels.  Your heart squeezes fondly at your metalhead’s thoughtfulness, some of the lingering ire from your conversation with Nancy and Robin sloughs away, becomes synonymous with the ash that floats in feathery flakes before falling at your feet.  
Perhaps, you muse to yourself with a long look at Eddie, that’s where it should stay.
Nancy’s sudden lilt in her inflection grabs your attention back from the recesses of your mind.  “Will – he found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights!”  She tears through the kitchen into the family room, and flips the switch to the lamp that’s been practically plastered to the wall by vines.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work, even after Steve directs her to the switch on the wall.  As quickly as hope soars, it falls flat again.
“Ugh,” Nancy gripes through a scowl, “it’s not working.”
The beam of Steve’s flashlight focuses on the brass chandelier, tiny particles that look like dust flutter in iridescent, glittery specks around bulbs that weakly buzz and flare with dull yellow light.  Without the illumination from Steve’s torch, you’re not sure if you would have seen it – so eerily reminiscent of what happened at Creel House but – backwards, almost.
It happens slowly, how Nancy and Steve are pulled into the flickering haze around the fixture, their fingers reaching out to touch the particles.  There’s a small part not shrouded in wonder that worries for a fleeting second about touching things unknown in such a vile place – but something about this seems not of this world.  It’s a comfort, a draw, a lifeline – a gift.  You can feel the warmth radiating from the soft hue around the lights, reminding you of when it was time to turn over and sun your other side before your skin protested those strong California rays.
It’s a tether to your world, and everyone in the semi-circle around that little chandelier knows it.  The tickly, floaty feeling you get as your hand swims through the glittering veil finally sponsors some serenity through your veins.  It’s almost lazy, drunken with the way you train your gaze on Eddie, who matches your grin with a slow and sweet one of his own, crooked in the cutest way.  
“It kinda feels good,” Robin muses absentmindedly, and you snicker as your forehead thunks heavily into Eddie’s shoulder.  She has no idea how right she is.  
The bulbs burn brighter with each hand that joins; experimenting and touching and just feeling – but Nancy’s brain is miles ahead.
“Does anyone know Morse Code?”
Your nah melds with Steve, Eddie, and Robin’s answers to the negative – until a literal lightbulb flares bright above Eddie’s head.
“Wait,” he murmurs, chin dipping to where Nancy stands as his eyebrows pull together in careful contemplation, “does SOS count?”  He hesitates, casting a nervous glance to you before looking back at the younger girl.  “Is that… is that good?”
“That’s um,” Nancy clears her throat over a smirk she fails to bite back, “that’s perfect, Eddie.  Yeah.”  Shuffling to the side, she lets Eddie in closer to the chandelier, and he begins tapping out the rhythm.  
Three short.  Three long.  Three short.  Again, and again.  The bulbs flicker and flare with every pulse of his fingers through the veil, flashing in perfect tandem with the tempo set by his hand.  
“D’you think Dustin’ll notice?” Eddie’s tongue pokes through his lips as he concentrates on the cadence of his message, but he can’t help but wonder when he asks.  “I mean, I’m pretty sure the kid hasn’t stopped talking since we got in this house.”
Steve snorts over Eddie’s shoulder.  “God, that’s so true.”  
“Just keep goin’ babe,” you encourage from his side, and Eddie’s other hand threads through your fingers.  “Someone is bound to notice eventually.”
“Bet it’s Max,” Eddie quips, and though you know it’s just for your benefit, your heart swells at the mere mention of your sister’s name.   
The unintelligible mutterings from the other side cease – and though it makes your stomach swoop dangerously, Robin quells your concern with a quirk of the corner of her mouth.
“It’s working.”
Eddie’s eyes narrow, concentrating harder as his fingers tap out the code; your teeth grit in anticipation as you wait with bated breath for any sign that Dustin and whoever else is with him has seen it and deciphered what it means.  
“Hey, uh – ?”   Dustin’s inquisition comes through loud and clear, and you can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief with the rest of your crew as his voice grows louder.  “Remember when I said they wouldn’t be stupid enough to go through watergate?”
“Hey,” Steve’s upper lip curls in offense, while Nancy and Robin scoff softly under their breath.
“I may have overestimated them.”
“Oh,” Eddie huffs through gritted teeth, “that’s it.”  He balls his hand into a fist as he grimaces at the light, index finger jutting in punctuated jabs as his voice rises loud enough to be heard on the other side, “Hey, you sassy little shit!  It wasn’t like we dove in on fucking purpose –”
Robin ducks her head between her shoulders as she draws out her “Well…”
Eddie looks murderous, espresso eyes flash a warning that Robin blatantly ignores.  “Steve didn’t,” she corrects with a deliberate lift of a shoulder, “but the rest of us definitely did.”
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Lights.  Gates.  Theories.  Murder sites.
Your fingers press firm circles into your temples while the new information swirls like those ominous cinders around your head, trying and failing to make sense of it all.  Dustin’s garbled explanation has not just you, but everyone flummoxed to a point where you’re back to feeling hopeless about an escape from this godforsaken place.  The metallic chill from your steely surroundings is starting to seep into your bones and become embedded to a point that makes you wonder if there’s any way you’ll ever feel warm again.  
Sure, you’re grateful the boy genius on the other side has come up with a plan to get you free – a plan that doesn’t involve roaming more of Upside Down Hawkins and stealing guns and various explosives – but you certainly don’t share in his cocksure attitude.
Eddie’s right – Dustin could use a lesson or two in tact and minimize his condescending tone every once in a while.  Some of you just aren’t as adept when deciphering the mysteries of this underworld, and he’s acting like it’s some sort of inconvenience when you don’t just up and agree with him.  
Sure, you trust Henderson, but that comes at a price.  He’s not the one in the realm of literal monsters and an evil wizard-thing that wants nothing more than to maim and kill at every opportunity.  Dustin oughta cut you all some slack.
It’s a solid seven miles from the Wheeler residence to Eddie’s trailer in Forest Hills, a number that was provided puzzlingly fast by your metalhead; but here, there’s no time to dwell.  Something lurks in these shadows, you can feel it, sense it, taste it.  You feel as if you’re being watched, the uncomfortable spiny sensation prickles along your spine far too often to brush it off to the cold, even when Eddie wraps you in his leather jacket as he straddles Mike Wheeler’s bike.  Grateful as ever for your boyfriend’s chivalry, you attempt to pay some of it back by pressing the warmth of your front into the strong lines of his torso while he pedals through the streets stained menacing shades of indigo.
You keep your eyes trained forward over the top of Eddie’s head, focused on the wobbling beam from the makeshift headlight off the front of Steve’s bike.  Desiccated ruins of familiar places fly by in a blue-gray blur, backlit by the eerie crimson that paints the clouds with every flash of white across the rumbling sky, but still your stare is fixed.   It’s unclear if it’s Vecna or the beasts that do his bidding, but something off to your sides tries mightily to draw your attention, the burning grit it takes to keep from looking, giving whatever it is the attention it craves is otherworldly.  It stings in your eyelids, it sears your insides; but still, you gaze only ahead.
Eddie tenses when your party rounds the soft bend that leads into the gentle downhill slope that spills into the trailer park.  Seeing his home – or the evil carbon-copy of it, anyway – for the first time since that night is quite unsettling to him, you can tell.  You both know why you’re here – Dustin’s brief explanation was enough to understand that deaths, apparently, equal gates – but now that you’re here, there’s no logical part of you that is okay with this.  Eddie doesn’t even bother to lead the way, opting for Steve to throw open the door to the trailer.  He trails behind you, sucking in a breath when an exact replica of the gate at the bottom of Lover’s Lake is found gaping in the ceiling of Eddie’s living room.
A terrible, stark reminder for Eddie.  His trembling fingers find yours, lacing them though to hold hard and fast to his side.  “This is where Chrissy died,” he mumbles, unable to avert his gaze from where the blood-red fissure pulses and writhes.  “Like, right where she died.”
You give his hand a reassuring squeeze, dropping his watery gaze from the ceiling to be grounded in you.  In an effort to offer some comfort, you mouth I’m sorry, and Eddie gives you a curt but grateful nod.
“Oh shit,” Robin sucks in a breath with a careful step forward.  Her eyes narrow at how the thin film tents under strain, forced from the other side.  “I think there’s something in there.”
The three other adults gather closer, straining to see better what prods against the gate.  Their idiocy has you thrown – the last time you got close to a gate, you were snagged by one of those slimy tentacles and manhandled to within an inch of consciousness.  
“Eddie,” you hiss as you jerk at the hand you still hold, “get back – back –”
He peers at it like he’s under a trance.  “What the hell is that?”
“Eddie!” you shriek, yanking him back with a yelp as the membrane crackles and explodes in a frothy mess of alien sludge that slaps cold and wet against the decaying floor of Eddie’s trailer.  The other adults jolt away from the mass that seems to grunt and chitter with the injury.  
Your heart is in your throat, you’re just waiting for another onslaught of horrors unknown to just come barreling through the gate when you see it appear, disappear, and appear again.
A wooden handle.  
A regular, ordinary wooden handle like from a fucking broom is knocking the remnants of the Upside Down’s protective film off of the opening, whipping around with an urgency that can only be described as reckless.  
But there are no creatures.  No bats, no demodogs, no – fucking demo-slugs or spiders or any other random-ass monsters – nothing comes calling.  You’re right behind Steve as he inches forward; slowly, you see the curtains – the clean , untouched curtains along the front window.  Then the door, sans vines; the washed-out yellow walls not tinted charcoal and blue – and the top of Lucas’ head.  Dustin’s hat.  A mop of red hair –
“Max?!”
Her giggling hey melts with Dustin’s giddy laughter, giving you a half-wave from her inverted position on the roof – floor?! – of the real Munson trailer still safely rooted in Hawkins.  
The five of you chuckle heartily at Dustin’s enthusiasm as the younger boy bellows, “Bada bada boom!!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve grins as his hands find his hips.  “What does that ol’ thinking cap you’ve got on suggest to get us out of here?”
How Dustin Henderson has an answer for everything is beyond you – but right now, you’re grateful for it.  His grin widens, and peering at Eddie with a playful lilt in his tone, he asks, “Where d’ya keep your extra sheets, Eddie the Banished?”
“Hall closet,” Eddie drones slowly, casting a troubled look to you before clarifying, “the tiny door next to the bathroom.”
It’s a flurry of knotted sheets and differing commands; Max and Dustin continually talk over one another while barking orders to Lucas and Erica, who follow just to keep the peace, though every eye roll tells of Erica’s growing disdain.  She’s the one that suggests something for the floor to pad your descent from the ceiling, since Dustin isn’t exactly able to predict how that’s going to work.  Lucas initially suggests couch cushions, to which Erica very dramatically rolls her eyes and snarks,
“Eddie has a bed, you knucklehead.  With a perfectly good mattress.”  The sardonic sway of her head gestures down the hall, signaling her brother to get on task.  “That’s way better than a couple of old-ass cushions.”
Max shrugs in agreement, ambling out of view down the hall before Eddie’s sheepish protests reach her ears.  “It’s – wait!” his voice drops to a mutter, “it isn’t that great.”
You shoot him a sly look out of the corner of your eye.  “I’ve got no complaints.”
Steve clocks how Eddie scoffs softly, the tips of his ears pinking with his bashful blush.  “Hey, no pervy shit, you two,” he chides.  “It’s actually a good idea, and –” Steve’s train of thought is abruptly cut off by the loud thump of Eddie’s mattress as it hits the floor, the ugly floral pattern of his fitted sheet proudly displays three rather large stains blotted in darkened, obvious marks on the fabric.
Your jaw swings open in shock as Steve mutters, “Munson, what the hell?”
An inadvertent gasp tumbles over your lips; you don’t know whether you’re more mortified for Eddie or for you with how all eyes seemed to be trained on the two of you for answers.  “I thought you said the towels –” you whisper-shriek into his ear, and Eddie has the foresight to look contrite.
You think you see a flicker of pride cross his features before he schools his smirk into a frown.
“Those stains are…” he trails off, swallowing as he sees Robin’s face twist in abhorrence, “I don’t know what those stains are.” 
As soon as Robin rolls her eyes in the biggest whatever gesture imaginable, his umber eyes find yours, the heat in his devilish smirk sears you from the inside out.
But still, you can’t help but bite your lip and grin.  “God damn it, Eddie.” 
Dustin clears this throat with an exaggerated blink of his eyes.  “Not quite sure how these physics are gonna work, but –” he tosses the tied-up top sheet through the gate, “here goes nothing.”  
It unfurls grandly in a clunky flutter of cheap cotton, securely suspended between the tension of the two worlds.  Dustin tugs on the tether once, and finding that it holds tight on his end, he mutters softly, almost to himself,
“And if my theory is correct…”  Dustin’s face splits into the biggest boyish grin when he lets go and the sheet dangles in place.  “Abracadabra.”
“Holy shit,” Lucas breathes.
“All right, pull on it!” the younger boy calls to you from above (below?).  “See if it holds!”
It seems like it’s too good to be true, but you can’t stop yourself from the hope that swells ripe in your belly.  Robin grabs the sheet, testing its strength by hanging from it, and you all breathe a collective sigh of relief when miraculously, it holds.
“This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life,” Erica’s declaration comes through to your side like she’s speaking through a thick pane of glass, “and I’ve seen some crazy shit.”
You’ve unconsciously inched closer to the sheet, and Robin gives you a nudge.  “I can be the guinea pig, but…” her knowing gaze flicks to Max, “you wanna go first?”
If you could just jump straight up from where you stand to pull your sister into your arms, you would.  It’s killing you, holding back enough to be polite because you really don’t want to seem eager and jump ahead of your friends – everyone deserves to be the first one out.
But since Robin offered, you can’t find it in you to refuse.  “If you’re good with that, yeah.”
Eddie’s curls tickle your cheek, his breath the only bit of warmth on this side of the homemade tether as it fans over your skin.  “C’mon, my strong girl,” he murmurs in your ear, his strong palms helping you brace your body off the ground, “up you go.”
With a grunt and a heave, your feet clamp around the flimsy material, swaying like a pendulum until Eddie’s hands steady you for a smoother ascent.  Silently cursing your lack of activity since track season ended the previous spring, it’s a hard bit of work to bring your knees to your chest, wrap your feet in a position around a knot so you can grab above your head and stretch your body to its full height; closer and closer to the ugly maw that separates this world and yours.  The nearer you come, the more you’re aware of how alive the tendrils that surround the gate actually are – coming ear-level with the fissure has you aware of all sorts of slithery squelches and wispy growls, like they’re talking amongst each other, sniggering as you struggle to hoist yourself over the precipice.  
Your hair quite literally stands on end once your head breaches where the filmy membrane was before Dustin busted through. What’s down now becomes up, and you feel your equilibrium shift, your stomach drops to your knees as you pull hard on the sheet to where your shoulders now cross the threshold.  You’re aware of Max’s encouragement, of Dustin’s awestruck commentary of the moment where The Upside Down’s gravitational pull is less than the one of your world, and the weight of your form against your lacking upper body strength has your arms starting to shake.  He hollers at you to let go, and so you do – slamming your eyes shut and tucking your chin to let your legs flip parallel with your torso as you fall the short distance, flopping to the mattress with a soft oof.
Your breath leaves your lungs in a stunned huff of air, safe and sound on the other side.  It’s darker than expected behind your eyelids, and as they flutter open you have a fleeting moment of confusion – why, or how , has the power gone out in the trailer at the exact moment you landed in your realm?  It worries you, has you lifting your head to find Max when your rapidly blinking eyes adjust to the pitch darkness, darting around to see – nothing.  
There’s no sheet.  No mattress.  No trailer.  No Max or Dustin or gate or anything.  It’s a vast abyss of nothing, familiar and terrifyingly black and rippling beneath your body.  
“Holy fuck,” your whisper chokes over your shock as you scramble to your feet, “n-no, no, no – oh, holy fuck.”
The alarm rises, hitching in each gasping breath that echoes lonely through the ether.  Though there’s nothing, you still sense it – still feel it in the way the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  The way your skin prickles and puckers as if a chilled breeze whispers down your spine.  Like there’s someone there with you in the void, just past the shadows.
Watching.  Waiting.
You don’t yell for him, not this time.  The begging, the pleading, the cries are held frozen on your tongue, crushing realization slams hard into your chest – he’s heard you.  This time, you know he’s here.  Feet stay planted, arms are cast useless at your sides, wild eyes dart back and forth across an lonely plane – an empty void of nothing – and all the while, you know he sees.  
You’re so very aware that you’re not alone.
The fear grips with otherworldly strength, cinching your insides tight.  Rendering you immobile while your brain pleads with you to move: do something, anything – run, kick, scream, fight, right, left – 
And then, a sinister rumble.  A deathly rattle of a gravelly inhale that reverberates through the vast surroundings, so loud and close it feels like it’s drawn from your own throat.  The jarring depth of the baritone rasp vibrates your teeth with how loudly it sounds, the rancid smell of death trickles over your shoulder as the voice affirms,
It’ll all be over soon.
A hot slash swipes clean over your shoulder, the sting makes you cry out in pain.  Your hand reflexively claps over the burn, and in a flash, the void dissolves into the dirty drop ceiling of your room.  The abrupt change makes you gasp, jolting the concern in Eddie’s furrowed brow into surprise that’s bright and manic.  
“Sh – fuck, fuck!” he wheezes as he gasps over a sharply aspirated breath, “Harrington!  She’s awake!”
“What?” you ask groggily, your voice is not your own.  It’s thick and rough from disuse, like you’ve just roused from a deep sleep.  “What d’you mean?”
Once Eddie’s certain Steve is on his way down the hall, he wastes no time in peppering your cheeks and lips and every inch of available skin with kisses.  “You were out for a long time, sweetheart,” he mutters between tight, dry pursing of his lips, “you and Nancy scared us to fucking death.”
“Nancy?”  You shift your weight to your forearms, shuffling up your bed to sit more upright.  “What’s wrong with Nancy?”
The light of the early dawn washes over the worry etched deep into the lines of his face set so close to yours.  “She, uh –”
“She’s okay,” Steve sighs while stocky forearms cross over his chest.  He’s leaning against the doorjamb of your room, and you raise your eyebrows in a wordless ask to continue.  “Vecna sucked her into a trance as a message to El.”
A mess of legs kick out from under Eddie’s hold as you try to wiggle off the bed.  “What?!”
“Woah, baby,” Eddie coaxes gently.  “No, just – just stay here for a minute, please.”  
Steve’s cinnamon-flecked eyes bore into yours.  “I promise, she’s okay.  Shaken up, but okay.”  
He sees how you relax, but just barely.  Your temples throb with how hard your heart pounds in your chest.  “What the fuck happened?”
Eddie takes it upon himself to answer, clearing his throat.  “Well, you got through the gate fine.  We thought you knocked the wind out of yourself or something when you landed because you just looked –”
“Like you were asleep.”  Max finishes Eddie’s retelling as she slinks past Steve and settles at the end of your bed.  “How are you?” she asks in rapid succession.  “What did Vecna show you?”
“What makes you think Vecna showed me something?”
“He did with Nancy,” Max explains, “she got a glimpse of what he’s planning.”  
You chuff a troubled scoff.  Of course he’s got a plan.  It’s always seemed logical that there was a method to his madness, but actual knowledge is damning when compared to conjecture.  There’s ignorance in speculation, so much that you could actually feign a little bit of faith.  As your gaze travels over the somber faces of your friends, it’s clear what Nancy was told offers little hope, if any at all.  
“But you feel okay?” Max questions again, snapping you out of your reverie.  “You were out for a long time, sis.”
You almost feel guilty for making them worry like this, their obvious concern pangs deep and aching in your chest.  “It wasn’t exactly the same as Max or Nancy,” Steve clarifies.  “You just looked like you were asleep.  Nancy looked more like…” he nods to your sister .  
“She didn’t go up in the air, did she?”  Relief floods your being when you see everyone shake their head in unison.  
Silence descends again for a long moment, the only sounds to reach your ears are the nervous crinkle of worn leather over Eddie’s fidgety frame.  “Sweetheart,” his fingers are cold, you note, as they slip in between yours, “if Vecna didn’t show you anything, what happened?”
“Oh,” you speak before you think, eager to ease his anxious mind as well as those around him, “I was just in the void again.”
Eddie’s face scrunches in confusion while Steve’s chin dips in surprise when he asks, “Again?”  His tone raises an anxious pitch.  “What do you mean again?”
“I didn’t say that,” you try to deny swiftly as your heart leaps in your throat.  “I said –”
“No,” Lucas pins you in a severe stare through his eyebrows, one so hardened that it makes you regret ever thinking of him as a child.  The way he directs your attention, the way he informs you of your lie is every bit as grown-up as he claimed to be.  “You definitely said again .  Was this when you had your little bathroom adventure in the dark at Wheelers?”   
He doesn't miss how your eyes round in shock – there’s no way he knew about that, there’s no way anyone knew about that, and yet here it is, thrown back in your face like it’s common knowledge.   
Lucas’s body twists as he snips at Steve, “Dude, I told you something happened!”
Max is furious, her cheeks flushed as red as her hair as she shouts, “What did you do?!” 
“Nothing!!  I did absolutely nothing!”  Voice cracking with emotion, with the sheer volume in which you yell, your shoulders slump under the weight of your idiocy and the ghost of hopelessness that wracked your mind that morning.  “I – I was desperate, okay?  Nance and Robin had a plan and I was freaking out about you being alone,” you gesture to Eddie with a shaky hand, “and I was scared to fucking death that you were gonna die, Max!  I did – I did what I had to!”
“What, did you think you guys would just have a nice little chat?!” Steve snaps, the bite in his voice rising near a shriek.  “How did you even get in there?!”  His tirade continues without regard for your half-assed answers, ones that wouldn’t placate his anger if he heard them, anyway.  “God damn it, for being so incredibly smart, you really, really know how to act stupid!”
“Hey,” Eddie is on his feet, rising to his full height as he shouts, “don’t call her stupid, man!”
If looks could kill, the one you’re currently receiving from Max would have you dead where you stand.  “I’ll call her stupid,” she growls through gritted teeth.  “What the fuck is up with that self-sacrifical bullshit?!” 
“It wasn’t – “
“Oh, no?” her jeer rises loudly above your voice, drawing in the other members of your party to the door of your tiny bedroom.  “Then what was it, huh?  Cause it sounds pretty fucking stupid to me!”
“Fine!” you roar as your arms wave in a defeated arc around your head.  “It was stupid!  But I have his attention!”  
“You think you want it?” 
It’s spoken so softly, but those words deliver the hardest blow.  Nancy looks almost hurt at the way you’d ever defend willingly putting yourself in Vecna’s path and it shrinks you, making you feel so small.
Because you are.  Your actions were really fucking selfish and you see it now, you know it – for the first time, it has you realizing how stupid you actually were.  The last several days have made you so weary of apologies, but here you are, again.
“I’m sorry,” you say more to her than anyone, “I just wanted to help.  I swear I had nothing to do with – with how I ended up there again this time and he showed me nothing.”  You swing your bumbling contrition to Max.  “Okay?  It was just black.  He just… he just said…” 
“What did he say?” Nancy doesn’t ask so much as she demands to know; there’s a gentle command in her tone despite how hollowed-out she appears.  
You swallow down the bile that rises thick and sour in your throat.  “He told me it would all be over soon.” 
Everyone goes quiet.  There’s nothing to say, nothing more to decode.  It’s very clear what Vecna has planned, but where to go from here is still shrouded in uncertainty.  
Uncertainty is a dirty word, a dangerous word.  It’s not good enough, not for any of you. If there’s any sense to be made, the kid with the literal thinking cap resting snug on his curls will make it. 
“Dustin.”  The younger boy perks up at the sound of his name.  “Do you think we can use this to our advantage?  Can we like, go looking for him in there and weaken him that way or something?”
There’s no confidence in the way his mouth opens to reply, and he closes it with a crestfallen sigh.  “I – I really don’t know,” he answers dejectedly, “I feel that’s like, more of an El thing.”
Your face falls enough that Eddie notices.  His hand runs a comforting path over your low back, sweet and gentle as his tone when he asks the group, “So, what are we gonna do now?”
“We were just talking about that,” Steve mumbles, gaze flicking to Nancy before settling back on you.  “We need to act now.”  You blanche, stomach swooping dangerously low with how urgent this has all become.  “I don’t like it either, but…”
“We’re dead if we don’t,” Nancy affirms flatly.  “I have my guns, but I think we all agree we’re going to need more.”
“More,” Erica scoffs.  “Uh, in case no one’s noticed, we’re not exactly rolling in weaponry, here.”
“Shit.  Wait –” Eddie mumbles, his gangly limbs propel his body around the bed in a blur of surprising coordination.  “Do you have a phonebook?” he directs his question to both you and Max, fingers snapping in the air near his head as he arrives at his words.  “There’s a – a place we can –”
“Yeah,” you slide off your rumpled comforter to follow Eddie out of your room.  “We’ve got one on top of the fridge.”
Eddie barrels down the hall, grimy curls streaming behind his head as he rounds the corner into your tiny kitchen.  The gears in his mind are turning fast, you can tell – the light behind his eyes brightens when he finds what he’s looking for and wordlessly directs you all to the table, flipping through the pages until he arrives on the page and slaps the flimsy book down.
“Check this out,” his finger taps a small corner ad that boasts a very overdone mulleted vigilante with a machine gun, “The War Zone.  I’ve been there once – it’s huge.  They’ve got everything you need for, uh… killing things?  Basically?”
The warehouse is vaguely familiar to you, but only because of Billy.  You wouldn’t have thought The War Zone was your boyfriend’s scene.  “What in the hell were you doing there in the first place, Ed?”
Eddie snorts, the ratty chestnut tendrils around his boyish grin bounce with the buoyancy of his tone as he cracks, “Different story for a different day, princess.”
“Jesus, you think fake Rambo’s got enough guns there?” Robin quips beside you, her head tilts as she gets a closer look.  “Is that a grenade?!  How is any of this legal?”
“Well – lucky for us it is,” Eddie retorts with a slight contempt in his tone.  “This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins.”  A brief scan of the address has your heart rate slowing closer to normal – he’s right, it’s in a town at least an hour away.  “As long as we steer clear of the main roads, we outghta be able to avoid cops and uh… angry hicks.”
What in the fuck does he mean by we?   You nudge at his shoulder, determined to be the voice of reason and prevent him from actually believing he can tag along on this trip.  “You are not going anywhere,” you intone seriously, “you have to stay here.  What if you’re seen?”
“Your girlfriend is right.”  Erica enunciates every word as if she’s explaining herself to a five-year-old, and the way Eddie’s eyebrows shoot off his forehead makes it tough to bite back your grin.  “If we’re trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn’t go to some store called War Zone.”
You gesture a grateful hand in her direction.  “Thank you.”  
She holds up a finger to you.  “Not done.”  Directing her attention back to Lucas, she barrels on.  “We know all your basketball buddies are gunning for Dustin and the rest of Hellfire – safe to say they’d mark you all too, just from association.”  She shrugs as the lot of you fall silent, considering her logic.  “Just the facts.”
“Normally, I’d agree,” Nancy says gently, “but we need the weapons.  So, I think it’s worth the risk.”
Erica stares daggers at her brother as he agrees with Nancy.  “Me too.”
“But is it worth the time?” Dustin asks before stating with a frown, “it’ll take all day to bike there and back.” 
Eddie’s grin is positively villainous.  “Who said anything about bikes?” 
Oh, you know that grin.  That grin is troubling, full of bad ideas and potential for bad outcomes.  He ignores the fire in your stare, however the pink tinge that flushes across his cheeks tells you that he feels the heat.
“Okay, Munson,” Steve scoffs with a mouthful of doubt, “you got some car we don’t know about?”
Eddie pushes off from the table with both hands, standing up to his full height next to the younger boy, who – from this particular vantage point, does actually look about an inch taller.  “Not exactly a car, Steve,” Eddie murmurs conspiratorially, reducing the distance between their faces in dramatic flair, “and it’s not exactly mine.”  
You belt a groan, shoving a hand through your hair in frustration as he purses his lips with insufferable allure that makes you want to just scream.  “But… it’ll do.”
“Eddie,” it’s decided; you need to get a handle on him before he spirals out of control and does something reckless.  “What are you suggesting?”
He turns purposefully away from your inquiry to find your sister.  “Hey, Red – you got a ski mask or a bandana?”
“Eddie.”  
“Something like that?”
“Eddie!”
He addresses you, infuriatingly unaffected.  “Yeah, babe.”
“What,” you grit through clenched teeth, “are you suggesting?”
Eddie’s sly grin widens.  “The Hunts are assholes,” he justifies, jolting slightly as Max chucks a floppy white mask into his hands.  “Their Winnebego is just beggin’ to take a ride to Plymouth, don’tcha think?”
Your eyes nearly bug out of your head.  “S-stealing their –?!”
“I’m done standing around,” Erica declares with a flash of sass that rivals your sister’s.  “Let’s just go already.”  For the second time in less than five minutes, the middle-schooler’s defiant little mouth puts you in your place.  “Unless you have a better plan to get us all there and back?”
Well, it’s clear there’s no bargaining with Erica Sinclair.  You appeal to Steve and Robin, who avert their rounded eyes to anywhere but you.  There’s no way this is happening – you’re being left stranded on your own island with no reasonable adult in sight.  
“This is so –” you sound almost petulant as you whine, “you can’t get caught, Eddie.”
He lifts his hand, showcasing Max’s old Halloween mask like it’s the answer to all of your problems.  “I won’t.  And hey, extra precaution?  Harrington’s gonna go get my tools for me before we bolt.”  He tosses a look at Steve.  “Right?”
Steve’s only mildly stunned he’s been called upon to help in this way, but recovers fast.  A few stray strands of mussed-up hair falls over his brow that bounces in an agreeable nod.  
“Right,” he affirms, like he was expecting it all along. 
“Oh, good.”  You give Eddie a sardonic roll of your eyes.  “Because that makes everything better.” 
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You’d never laid eyes on the Hunt’s trailer before – but if you had?  If you had known that their RV was on the other end of the goddamn trailer park and that you’d nearly have an anxiety attack as your very poorly disguised boyfriend – the one with the bounty on his head for fucking murder – would lead the charge between boxy little homes that were waking, bright and ready for the day?  You never, ever would have gone along with it.
The park had come alive in the ten minutes that had passed since Eddie concocted his hair-brained idea to steal the Hunt’s home-on-wheels – and while yes, you could admit that the Winnebego was practical in its size and mobility; doubling as a home base for your crew while you sorted out the details of the attack on Vecna was infinitely helpful – it also meant that it left Eddie vulnerable and exposed and most likely seenas he raced through the uneven lawns of Forest Hills.  Though footfalls were all but muted thumps over dead grass, they sounded like a fucking stampede to you; trampling louder as you neared Eddie’s target, hissing in his ear about staying low and out of the line of sight of his neighbors with every trailer you passed.   The very same neighbors that just so happen to know him quite well after nearly a decade of debauchery and troublemaking and just being Eddie Munson.  These people likely wouldn’t think twice about calling in a sighting to the Hawkins PD.
On top of it all?  It’s not like your group is inconspicuous.  Not by a long shot.  The mere sight of four adolescents and five adults barreling by at top speed, led by a leather-jacket clad Michael Myers should have been more than enough to attract some kind of attention, but it didn’t.  Eddie not only breaks into the RV with spectacular ease, but he strips the wires beneath the steering column like he’s done it a thousand times before.
His hands shake as he works; you can tell he’s really amped up.  Those fingers are attached to a lanky body that’s running on the fumes from well-used adrenaline that’s been chugging along in his veins for days now.  The crash is evident – but Eddie draws his brows together, a tight fixation over the task at hand to keep the inevitable at bay.
Steve is in awe of how your boyfriend swifty works through the intricacies of the electrical, and you’re sure his question regarding Eddie’s particular skills wasn’t even meant to be voiced out loud.  Eddie doesn’t miss a beat.
“While the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my old man was teaching me how to hotwire.”  Eddie glances at you, the smile he flashes is insincere and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.  “Now, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wind up like he did, but now I’m wanted for murder – and soon?  Grand theft auto.”
He grunts through his nose with a rather forceful pull of his wire strippers.  “I’m really living up to the Munson name.”
You know he’s just nervous, the anxiety ripples off of him in waves; the typical Eddie swagger of confidence and wit falters with how flatly he delivers his quips.  Even though you’re aware, it’s still hard not to roll your eyes – in your mind, he didn’t have to do this.  He could have stayed back with you, lying in wait until the group safely returned.  
But he’s not, and so you default to bolster him and his efforts.  “This is different,” you mutter plainly, ignoring how he scoffs as he bites down on his bottom lip with renewed concentration, “the Upside Down kinda forced your hand.  Blame it on a bit of supernatural necessity.”
“A bit,” Eddie snorts.  “That’s one way to put it, sweetheart.”
Robin interrupts your would-be bickering and the snipped assurance that he is, in fact, not his father as she bumps into Steve’s shoulder.  “Eddie, I’m not sure I love the idea of you driving.”
Finally – someone with some sense.  “Yes – yes, god damn it, thank you, Robin.”
“Oh, no worries, ladies,” Eddie croons with over-the-top charm, his toothy grin appears wide over his shoulder as he looks back at the three of you.  “I’m just startin’ the sucker.  Harrington’s got her.”  He leans into Steve’s space, much farther than the younger boy expects.  You can practically taste the charisma that drips from his canines as he intones lowly through his eyebrows,
“Dontcha, big boy?”
A flick of his wrist, a tap of two frayed coppery ends and a whiff of ozone later, the Winnebego chugs to life.  There’s a moment of giddy pride that’s suspended in time, where you all look at each other with delight before the Hunts ultimately fucking notice that their home is in the process of being stolen.  
A resounding bang and jangle at the door jostles the four of you back to the present, and Eddie grabs you and with a whoop and a cackle, leaping out of the driver’s seat and yanking you into the tiny bench seat at the dinette.  
“I got ya, baby,” he whispers lowly in your ear, and in spite of all your concern for your man, your cheeks heat, mirroring the desire that flashes dark in his espresso eyes.  “Hold on tight.”
Steve takes Dustin’s screeching demands to heart as he slams his foot on the gas.  The RV rocks precariously on her axle as her driver whips around a sharp curve, through a set of trash cans, and finally, safely onto the open road.
It’s then, it’s that moment where you finally feel like you’re getting a hold on reality, when you’re finally finding your footing on solid ground, snuggled into the warmth of Eddie’s chest under the protection of his arm that’s loped around your shoulders and the earth crumbles beneath you.  It pulls you into completely opposite directions with such force that it splits you in two.
You knew the plans were going to come together, eventually.  It had to be discussed, and the hour-long drive to Plymouth before spending all of your hard-earned cash on various weaponry provides your crew with the perfect opportunity to do so.  Nancy and Dustin lead the discussions, and soon you find that roles between the members of the group are parceled out for everyone except for you.
Nancy wouldn't dare make that decision for you.  Lucas is swift in his assurances that he and Max can handle a creepy old house on their own, and Max voices her concern that if you were to be stationed with them, you would be tempted to pull the plug and call in Kate Bush too early.  It’s hard to argue with that, and so you don’t – nearly drawing blood with how hard you bite at your tongue.  
You’re grateful for Erica, who suggests that standing guard and at the ready outside the attic door could be helpful, but Max is quick to shoot that down.  Though she doesn’t admit it, Robin’s expression all but confirms she resolutely believes there is strength in numbers when it comes to the Upside Down, especially when dealing with an omnipotent mind-flaying monster set on destroying the world.  But she never truly says it, never even suggests it; Robin understands just as well as Nancy that your head and your heart would be occupying two different places at once, no matter where you end up. 
In a place where you’d need your entire head screwed tight, just being a little preoccupied could thwart even the best of intentions.
Eddie, wisely, says nothing.  Dustin, unsurprisingly, offers his opinion.  
“It would be extraneous to have you with Eddie and me.  You would be a distraction to the distraction.”  His candor borders on rude, and Nancy’s lithe reach connects with the back of his head, displacing his hat.  “What?!” 
Steve speaks up from the driver’s seat for the first time in almost a half an hour.  “We can figure it out later, Mayfield.”  His honeyed-hazel eyes flick to yours in the rearview mirror, the understanding that runs deep in his gaze makes your throat lock up tight.  “No need to decide right now.”
All you can muster is a tiny nod, your watery stare drops to the table, refusing to meet any of the pairs of eyes that feel like they’re boring judgemental holes into your chest.  It may not be obvious to the group, or hell – even to Max, but it’s obvious to you.
You know exactly where you intend to go.
And you realize, beyond a shadow of a doubt as you sink back into the comfort under Eddie’s shoulders that sag just a little under the weight of his inner revelation…
…he knows, too.
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Not much is said the rest of the way to the warehouse, even less when the crew busts into the camper after only being in the store for less than a half an hour.  Steve is at least dressed in battle-appropriate gear now, you note as he jumps into the driver’s seat and swiftly guides the RV through the parking lot that’s even more packed than it was when you all arrived.  Over the next forty miles, Dustin, Erica and Nancy retell the events of what happened inside, and it’s like another leaden weight settles on your chest when you hear of Jason Carver and his overly-crazed interest in purchasing a handgun.  It isn’t until Dustin suggests parking the RV on the outskirts of town that you realize you haven’t really talked with Eddie about your role in the upcoming raid on the Upside Down.
Robin gives your hand a squeeze before barking orders to Lucas and Dustin about hightailing it out of the camper with supplies in hand, assuring you in whispered tones that she and Steve will guard the door so you and Eddie can talk.  
Talk.
You try to ignore the way her eyebrows wiggle, a suggestive punctuation at the end of her promise, but it’s hard, and Robin is just so goddamn endearing – especially with the way a tiny snort escapes through her nose at your expression when she pulls the door closed behind her.  
“Uhh…” Eddie trails off when he sees you flip the latch to lock the RV door, “what’s up?”  His lids flare with alarm when he registers your downturned expression, the way you pick at the sides of your thumbs as you stand before him.  “Are we not going outside?”
The absence of a lovingly sarcastic retort to the obvious is all the proof Eddie needs.  You know he’s nervous as hell and it’s your body language that’s driving it, but no part of you is able to muster anything to the contrary.  This is killing you, having to choose between being with him and being with Max.  It kills you even more that you have to deliver the news to his face, right now.  
Taking his hand, you lead him to the back bench in the rear of the trailer.  “Eddie,” his name comes out as a thick, warbly mess as the tears gather along your lashes, “I don’t think I can leave Max alone.”  
“Oh!”  About a thousand different expressions fly across Eddie’s face, and the one that sticks is of immense relief.  “Christ – you scared me.”
“What?”
“I thought –” he cuts himself off with a brisk shake of his head.  Gathering you into his arms, his warmth envelopes your body.  “Sweetheart,” he nearly chuckles, “the sister trumps the boyfriend.”  Eddie punctuates this sentiment with a wet smack to your forehead.  “Every time.”
Eyebrows matted with day-old dirt pinch in relative skepticism above your nose.  “You’re really okay with this?”  
He waves away your doubt.  “There isn’t an adult with the children at Creel House.”  He pauses as his nostrils flare in disgust.  “Hawkins Creel House.  Of course you need to be there.”  
This doesn’t make sense – you thought for sure he wouldn’t be so understanding.  There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that he’d beg you to be with him, to not leave his side as he finds himself face-to-face with that sinister underworld, again.  The fact that he’s not?  It doesn’t feel right.  
“I don’t want to leave you, though.”
A strong hand splays across your hair and guides you to rest under his chin.  “Oh, I know you don’t.  I know.  You’re not,” his soft affirmations hum in a comfortable rumble through his chest.  “I’m gonna shred in the Upside Down with Henderson and make sure that you and your sister are safe.  Draw those demofucks away from the goof troop out there and make sure they torch him.  I’ve got this, you know I gotta be there with him.  I gotta do this.  So do you.”
He sounds so sure.  How is it he sounds so sure when you’re fraying at the seams?  “Eddie,” you bury your face past his jacket, into the Hellfire shirt that is caked in days worth of grime, and now your tears as well.  “Promise me?  Promise me you’ll be okay and you’ll come back to me.”
“Baby,” he scoffs into your hair, “I have the easiest job out of all of you, come on.”
“Eddie.”
“You don’t even need me to promise!”  You lift your head, attempting to pin him with a firm look over your nose, and he scoffs again, higher this time.  “I – I’m hardly in the danger zone of that hellhole.”  He waves you off with a strained smile.  “I think it’s them that needs all our luck.” 
“I think they do too,” your whisper reasons with him softly, but it’s not enough to squash the fear and trepidation that roll heavy in your belly.  “But – I don’t want to fuckin’ move to the dunes with Nancy,” fresh tears spill over your eyelids and Eddie’s face crumples as he sees you start to cry.  “I – I don’t wanna marry Steve or have babies with Robin.  I want all of this with you. ”
Eddie cocks his head to the side, mashing his lips together in a thin line, he jests, “I think little Buckfield babies would be adorable.”
“Eddie,” your wispy giggles are more air than they are sincere, the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth is the same, not quite reaching the corners of his eyes.
“I know what you’re saying –”
This hedging – this isn’t right.  He’s barely meeting your gaze, his smile is forced, his tone is all wrong.  You fear there’s something he’s not telling you and though you’re terrified to ask what it is, you can’t help yourself.  
“Why aren’t you promising me, then?”
Mercifully, he relents, but it barely soothes the ache in your chest.  “I'll come back to you, okay?  Shh, I’ll come back.  Don’t worry.”  Desperate hands find your cheeks; cupping your face, Eddie plants kiss after kiss on your tearstained lips.  “I got you.  I got you, I’m gonna make you feel so good.”  “Gonna let me make you feel good, sweetheart?”
That natural pull to give in, to slip into his arms and let him worship every inch of your body is so strong, a force to be reckoned with.  It’s what you’ve always done; it’s the routine you’ve comfortably and willingly made over the course of your relationship.  You’ve never had any problem relinquishing control until now.  Until you feel it wither away, flake and tall into tattered ruins at your feet despite your fevered attempts to sew it to your skin.
No – you can’t let him have it.  You’re the one that needs it, now.  Your hands palm his chest, the hesitancy in their touch stalls his affections.  
“No,” you whisper into a mess of midnight curls, “I’m – I’m gonna take exactly what I want.”
Eddie slowly raises his head, struck by how your tone bites at his skin.  There’s a need, powerful and demanding for you to command what you can’t, daring you to take control.  In this moment, while your eyes dart between the awe that rounds out the mahogany in his slackened stare, you find exactly that want buried within you, summoning to the surface with a defiant curl of your upper lip.
“You got what you wanted,” your tenacity falters just slightly when the drop of his chin challenges your tone, making you stumble over words that so surely rolled through your head just moments before. “Y-you got to stake your claim in the studio and – and yeah.  Yeah. ”  Blunted nails scrape against his scalp, and fisting a handful of matted, days-old strands, you tighten your grip until he gasps. 
Eddie obliges the pressure on the crown of his head as you lower him from over your body to the floor.  “You’re gonna get on your knees and give me no choice but to come.  Again, and again.”
Brown pools of lust nearly bug out of his head before his head lists forward on his neck, dropping against the flesh of your thigh.  “Oh, Christ –” 
He groans, a rumbling bit of thunder in the back of his throat as plush lips mouth over your jeans.  The heat from his tongue has your head tipping back against the tattered cushion of the fold-out couch, already trembling for his touch.  Deft fingers work their magic at your fly, tugging the band forcefully down your legs.  He can’t get the denim to the floor fast enough, and helping him kick it aside, he fumbles with making swift work of your underwear.
The bumbling bit of nervousness makes you snicker softly.  “Hurry up, pretty boy,” you coo as confidence courses through your veins, “we don’t have much time – need your mouth on me.”  The next words are more than what you bargained for so soon, and taking a deep breath, you let them loose with a shaky exhale.  “Gonna ride that gorgeous face of yours.”
“Jesus,” Eddie groans, palming his cock through his jeans before yanking your legs forward by your knees and shoves his nose into your sex.  His broad hands splay firmly under your thighs, holding you to him as he inhales your heady scent.   
You don’t miss how his hips cant again towards the delicious friction between denim and firm, calloused fingers.  “Don’t,” the subtle bite in your tone lashes against his chest, making him jolt as he withdraws his hand away from his fly.  “I better not see you do that again.”  
His mouth opens in surprise.  Taking the opportunity of his stunned silence while you have it, your fingers cinch at his scalp again, wrenching his face to peer up at you.  “You don’t get to come until I’ve had my fill.”
Eddie’s throat clicks loudly as he swallows.  “I’ll make you come,” he whispers, a solemn vow to you while his fingers hook around the elastic band of your underwear.  “As many times as you want.”
Your mouth ticks up in a sardonic grin, his purposeful docility intrigues you.  “Yeah?  As many times as I want?”
He nods eagerly, coaxing your bottom to rise as he drags your panties off your legs.  “Fuck yeah, sweetheart.” Casting you a nervous glance as he pockets the soaked bundle of cotton, he licks his lips before promising, “Gonna show you just how sorry I am.”
Eddie immediately buries his face between your thighs, his lips latch a heavenly pressure around your clit so divine that it has you clapping your hand over your mouth to muffle your reedy inhale.  The way that you’ve missed this, missed him – is evident in how your body bows into his touch.  His tongue is on a mission, his fingers flex with purpose as they find that sweet spot inside of you.  He knows all of your buttons, intent on pushing them with expert precision as he words you toward release.  
There’s no slow build today, no taking the time to make it last.  His ministrations are fast and firm, well-intentioned and perfectly placed with only your pleasure in mind.  No words convey exactly the euphoric bliss that courses through your veins, the molten pressure builds low in your belly, rising exponentially with every wide and wet swipe of his agile tongue over your clit, every plunge and press of his deft fingers over your front wall.  All you have to offer him are sweet little staccato whines, muted by your free hand while your other holds his sinful mouth against your undulating hips.  
“Eddie,” you breathe into your palm, “fu – yes, baby, I’m gonna –”
Straining to quiet the feminine moan that’s wrenched deep from your toes, you press your lips together, willing the sound to lodge in the back of your throat.  Your orgasm rips through your body, tearing away the foreboding and the guilt and the anger, but it’s not enough.  Eddie’s cadence slows when he feels you shudder around his fingers, but your hold against his head never weakens.
“Don’t you stop,” you gasp, gritting your teeth through overstimulation as plush lips tingle with a moan against your sex, “keep fucking going – yes –!”
Your whole body tries to deny him and the tidal wave of pleasure that rocks you off balance; your form slides from your seated position to lie on your back.  Eddie adjusts automatically, tongue and fingers never falter for a second as he yanks you closer to the edge of the bench, throwing your thighs over his shoulders and latches his lips over your pussy to eat you like a man starved.
“Mmhhh,” you croon, pinching your bottom lip between your teeth as you look down your form at the reverent way Eddie laps your release, “that’s it, that’s all for you.”  His nose brushes along your seam, sending fiery shocks of pleasure to your core as it bumps your swollen clit, “Yes, Eddie – oh, just like – wait –”
Your hand pushes against his forehead; he blinks in a daze as he separates himself from your honeyed center.  “Wait,” you command again, stronger this time.  “Lie down on the floor.”
Eddie obeys without hesitation.  He’s an eager heap of lean limbs and agile fingers that guide you up his body to hover over his waiting mouth.  Gone is the sultry confidence in his tone that washed over you in waves while he coaxed you into this same position in the hotel; what remains is the reverence, those rounded doe-eyes that wait for your direction, for your next move.  
Remembering what he instructed not so long ago, you’re proud how you settle your weight over his mouth and full-on sit on his face.
It thrills him, you can tell.  The way his tongue delves deep inside you makes your toes curl, both hands now hold his head in place as you demand more, searching for friction against the blunt end of his nose.  After several long, hungry moments, he shifts slightly, hands maneuvering with slight pressure against your legs, lips seeking the top part of your mound to inhale much-needed air in his lungs.  
A patronizing puff of air huffs through your mouth that hangs softly ajar in pleasure.  “I thought it was kind of the point, suffocating between my thighs?”  The subtle grind of your body slows so his eyes open, heavy-lidded and blown wide with his carnal desire.  “You don’t need oxygen, baby.  All you need is this pussy.”  
Thick brows furrow as he hears you, undoubtedly muffled but still clear enough to elicit a pitchy groan, erotic enough that he redoubles his efforts against your cunt.  You fist a handful of his hair, the swivel in your hips hitches and drags in short strokes as you chase your release.  Eddie’s fingers are encouraging, pressing divots into your curves, blunted tips digging into your flesh to help you move along his face.  
You’ve set your rhythm, aided by his hands, his tongue, his lips as they guide you along.  Your forward momentum is notably stronger after several more blissful moments, notable enough to where you peel your lids open to find ones of Eddie’s hands has left your hip to clench and tear at his thigh, his bulge searching for friction against the zipper of his jeans.
Even in the waning light of the early evening, you can appreciate the impressive mound under the thick denim.  “God, look at how hard you are, just from eating pussy.”  The bit of sardonic reverence in your tone surprises him, his eyes open wide and then wider still when you cup your palm over his cock.  “My pussy is that good, huh Eddie?  The taste of my sweet little cunt’s gonna make you come in your pants?”
Erotically sinful vibrations from his moans buzz over your sensitive core, tossing you close to the edge with every rock and thrust of your hips.  Eddie’s own buck into your hand, chasing whatever divine friction you’re kind enough to bestow against his cock, and it all feels so perfect until you sense him, sense a wandering hand that goes to cover yours to force your ministrations harder against his bulge that throbs and aches behind his fly.
No.  He doesn’t get to call the fucking shots.
Your fingers lash out, striking in a sharp smack against his palm.  “Hands to yourself,” you bite, lofty and snide.  “Didja forget, Ed?” you grip his hair tighter, grinding harder onto his mouth as his rounded eyes flare wild.  “You don’t get to come until I say so.”
He belts a mammoth groan into your pussy, and for a moment, you think he’s coming – actually coming, hardly touched in his jeans until he latches his mouth over your clit and sucks, focusing all attention on you and sending more vibrations straight to your center that pulses with need.
“Ohh, fuck – god, that’s so good,” you keen, snatching at a handful of curls at the crown of his head, pulling and tugging that delicious sting deep into his scalp.  “Y’like this, Eds?  Gonna come just from me using your face?”  
It almost sounds like he whimpers a pitiful yes into the sultry heat of your pussy, but you can’t be sure – you’re shaking over trembling thighs, tempo stuttering as an unforgiving onslaught of blissful sensations  bubble and broil over as your release crests and crashes through your form, rippling wave after wave of pleasure that’s punctuated by a muted bawl of his name.
Supporting your weight on your arms, you lift yourself off of his face.  Eddie is too far gone to help, his hands lie limply at his side.  You look down at him and chortle softly – he’s an absolute wreck.  His ratty waves splay out in chaotic disarray around his head, lips and chin pink and slick with your arousal, lids sitting heavily over pupils blown wide. 
You run a finger under his bottom lip that still shines with your essence.  “So hot like this,” you murmur sweetly. “You’re so pussy drunk, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he husks, swallowing heavily as his eyes rove over your form.  “Think so.”
You lift a dubious eyebrow.  “You come in your pants?”
“N-no,” he stammers, shifting on to his forearms, “close, though.”
“Hmmm.  Too bad.”  You put on an exaggerated pout before sitting back on your knees and zeroing in on his belt.  He grunts, eyelids fluttering shut as your fingers make quick work of his fly, not even trying to spare him from brushing against his erection that strains the fabric of his boxers.  “Sit there,” you command, shimmying his jeans down his thighs, “I wanna ride your pretty cock until I come again.”
And pretty it is.  Eddie’s dick slaps against his belly once freed from his cotton confines, blushing a needy cherry-red so deep at his thick, flared head that it looks almost purple.  He’s leaking a mess of precum over his happy trail, and you have to fight the urge not to run your tongue through the coarse line of hair and clean him up.  Bulging veins pulse and throb with his desire along the shaft that jerks when you straddle his slender hips. 
He sucks in a shaky breath through his teeth.  “I might not last long, ‘m so sorry –”
“No worries,” you murmur too sweetly, lips curling in a devilish smile.  Pressing against his mouth in a hard, unrelenting kiss, you regain all control that threatened to melt away with that earth-shattering orgasm.  “You’ll be a good boy and take it.”
“Fuuck – baby, what in the actual –”
Your nails dig crescent moons into the worn leather around his shoulders, biting deep little divots as you sink down, slow and steady on his length.  Feverish kisses swallow twin moans from the heat and the stretch as he fills you up, and you don’t waste a second before you start fucking yourself on his cock.
Eddie pushes a whine through his nose with every measured roll of your hips along his cock.  “C’mon.  I wanna hear you,” you murmur, the condescension in your tone fans hotly across the thick cord in his neck.  “Am I yours, Ed?  Hm?” your timbre drops to a rasp, and gripping his chin, you jerk his face to within a breath of yours.  
Eddie’s eyelids flare, endless pools of dilated onyx drink in the sensual jut of your jaw.  “Tell me, baby,” you growl, “is this pussy yours?”   
A snicker bubbles over your lips as Eddie chokes over a reply, and you cut him off as the curve of your hand pinches his cheeks, pursing his kiss-swollen lips in a sloppy pout.  “I can’t hear you –” it’s wicked, the way you taunt him as you bounce on his cock, “y’had no problem claiming my pussy in the studio right in front of your friend, why’re you holdin’ back now?”
Your man groans long and low, long lashes flutter as his eyes roll back behind his lids.  He’s a trembling mess beneath you, his own release just moments away with how he whimpers into lips pressed tight.
You deliver the crushing blow, knowing this thought, this idea that rattles unbound in your mind will surely be his undoing.  
“Y’want Gareth here, is that it?” you don’t bother biting back the sinister grin that snakes across your features as you ask, “want him to stand right over there, listen to the way I make you moan?”
Eddie’s eyes snap open in wild, desperate denial.  “N-no, no –”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” you sneer as your hand drops from his chin to wrap around the thick column of his throat. “Don’t.”  
Your cadence slows, a languid swivel of your hips that bumps your clit against the coarse hairs gathered at the base of his cock.  Fingers grip just a little tighter, Eddie’s gaze droops to half-mast as the pads of your slender digits dig into the alabaster flesh at his neck, using your grip as leverage while you work yourself in short, grinding thrusts over his length. 
“I wanna know…” the breathy sigh trails off as your head tips back, nipples puckering behind your tee as your pleasure climbs, “did that turn you on?  Fucking me while your friend watched?”
Your man is beside himself, the heat in his shame paints his cheeks red.  “Nono, I — sh–shiit,” he folds under the intensity of your stare, “I – I don’t know, I don’t know –”
“I think you do,” you singsong while your hips drag over his length in sinfully slow waves, so wet and tight that it makes Eddie whimper.  “I think you liked that he was there.”  
Leaning forward nudges him against your sweet spot, pulling a throaty, sensual groan from your chest; has you brushing your lips against the shell of his ear.  “God, I can remember how hard you got,” your jeer is syrupy sweet, but the venom is unmistakable as it drips from your fangs.  “This cock was so fucking hard, so big – pounding my pussy full on that soundboard.”
“Fu–uuckk,” Eddie’s fingers press marks into the plush curve of your thighs, his torso trembles on the cusp of his release, “sweetheart –”
“C’mon, daddy ,” your sultry whisper tickles the hair near his ear, “fuck me like you own me.”  
“Ohh –” Eddie buries his face into the crook of your neck, the way he moans your name is a reverent song. 
You feel how his cock twitches deep inside your cunt.  “Yeah, there it is,” the smirk that crawls over your lips is unholy, growing wider while he crumbles between your thighs.  “Be a good boy and fill me up.”
Eddie’s hands paw at your back, holding you close to his body as a tight whine escapes from his nose, hips stuttering to a stop when his orgasm slams into his form.  He trembles beneath you, panting as he fills you with thick ropes of his hot release.  The sway in your hips never falters, languidly dragging your heat along his cock again and again, pushing past his pleasure to the point where he gasps, grappling at your waist to get you to stop. 
But you don’t.
“G’ah – baby –” he chokes out, the heels of his palms digging into your sides to try to stop your ministrations.  He sobs your name as he lifts his head, blinking back the tears that line his lids.  
He never says it, never outright asks you, even as he stares at you with those wide and wet owl-eyes of his – so you don’t.  You refuse to stop.  He didn’t stop when he should have, he didn’t tell you what he needed to, he wasn’t there to shield you from the shame and humiliation –
He made you lose control.  And now he gets to bask in the heavenly suffering with the way you take it back.  
Tentative cries huff over his gaping mouth that hangs open in shock, breathy little high-pitched pants punctuate each roll of your hips over his length that twitches and jerks with overstimulation.  
“God, you sound so sweet,” you coo as you peck him over limp, slackened lips. “So, so fucking sweet.”
“Baby, I – ah, ah, ahhh –”
“That’s what I usually say, princess,” you taunt, hitching your body on your knees to ride him harder.  He bites back a bawling sob with the change of pace; you’re lifting and slamming on his cock with abandon, swallowing his pornographic moans when your mouth mashes and melds against his.  “C’mon baby,” you whisper in the fractional distance between kiss-swollen lips, “bounce me on this cock.  I need to come, c’mon – give it to me, Ed –”
“I can’t,” he chokes over a grunt that borders the line of pain and pleasure, “I can’t – s’too much –”
A snicker rolls off your tongue, deep and coarse against his sweat-slicked skin. “Yeah, you can and you will, sweetheart.”  
You almost expect him to quit, to give in and explicitly tell you to stop; there was no rhythm to how he met your hips where you’re joined until you turned his favorite nickname on him and used it for your own pleasure.  The constant stimulation has him still hard, but now?  After taunting him with a fierce, fiery sweetheart ?  
He’s velvet and steel, just as he was in the studio.  Twin ebony pools of lust narrow, shifting his heels beneath legs bent at the knees to fuck his cock harder into your heat.   
“Ahh, yeah – mmnhh , just like that –”  
Your body betrays you, nearly going boneless over his change in tempo that winds that coil heavy and tight in your belly.  That familiar and now welcome pressure rises, and your body rocks in tandem with his, dutifully succumbing to the euphoria that sings in your veins.  
“Give me your hand,” you gasp, “play with my clit.” Eddie immediately obliges, his thumb finds a sloppy cadence over your crackling bundle of nerves that has you throwing your head back in bliss.  “Oh, good fuckin’ boy –”
The praise is too much for Eddie.  A whimper strangles deep in his throat as his thrusts get harder.  “I – shit, shit, shit – oh shhiiitt!”  His head hits the displaced cushion as it tips back on his shoulders, chest heaving with the strain of his efforts that have married with the overwhelming surge toward climax.  “Baby, m’gonna come again –”
Lightning flashes in the whites of your eyes.  “No – fuck, no you’re not – not until I do.”  Debased instruction singes your lips, white-hot and sultry against his ear.  “Better spout off the filthiest shit imaginable, Ed – need you to talk to me to get me to come again –”
Eddie’s breath hitches.  “That’s whatcha need?” 
You’re on the precipice of release, just a nudge in the right direction will get you to fall over the edge into oblivion.  A pitchy mmhmmm is pushed through your nose, louder when Eddie affirms, “Are you sure?”
Lost in the quest for your climax, you’re suddenly agreeable.  So agreeable.  It doesn’t matter how he gets you there, just as long as he does.  “Yeah, please – jus’ wanna come on your cock – please.”
Eddie’s tone rolls like thunder.  “Oh, my fucking pleasure, sweetheart.” 
In one fluid motion, he gently flips you to your back, taking care not to jostle the trailer and alert your crew of the depravity that defiles the already dirty carpet beneath the back window.  He hooks his arms under your knees, bringing your pelvis off the floor to better reach the deepest parts of you with every snap of his hips.  Your jaw drops, lips forming a silent O as his cock brushes over your sweet spot, again and again and again.
Eddie grits his teeth, you can feel how your silken walls of your cunt squeeze and suck him in each time he plunges his cock deep into your heat.  “So goddamn hot, fuckin’ me like this – god you have no idea what a slut you’ve made me.”  He inhales a grounding breath, sharp and carnal through his nose, growling as he admits, “ Ahhh – ‘m such a slut for you.  Can’t get over it, can’t get over you, baby.”
His words are kindling, the flames catch and roar in your low belly, enveloping you in a haze that is just Eddie, Eddie, Eddie –  
“More, please –”
“Got me so fucking hard, telling me what to do,” the timbre in his tone is gravelly and coarse, hot and heavy like how his body drapes over your form.  “Fuck me, Christ, fuck me,” he grits, driving his hips harder against your thighs, “that’s so goddamn sexy, y’ve no idea.”
The lustful fog clears, just for a moment.  “Yeah?” you preen, “you like when I fuck you?”
Eddie scoffs, punctuating the incredulous sound in his chest with a pointed undulation of his hips.  “I do.  Jesus baby, yeah I do.  Pullin’ my hair, bringing me to my knees,” he snickers into the heated skin of your neck, “I’ll get on my knees for you, always.”   
This wanton heat, this lewd and filthy exchange is as powerful as it is passive.  You’re caught between two erotically beautiful worlds fraught with the carnal desire to mold and to be molded.  It has you seeing stars behind your lids, desperate fingers cinch and grab him closer still as he brings you nearer to release. 
“Christ, you taunting me,” he groans through a series of breathy pants, the desire in his tone hitching higher as he admits, “you can do that all you want…”
The very thought of that makes you walls clench around his cock that glides over that sweet spot with every roll of your hips.  “Ohh –”
“Oh, you like that?  You like using me like that?  You like bein’ a little mean?” His sandpaper rasp in your ear sends a shiver raking down your spine.  “Fuckin’ usin’ my face to come like I’m nothing more than a toy to you –”
You sigh as you guide his thumb back over your clit.  “So close…”
“Oh, good girl.”  Wicked digits wind in an agile ring around your throat, pressing a delicious tension into the delicate skin.  Your jaw drops open as feminine little huffs of pleasure are forced out in tandem with the push and pull of Eddie’s cock inside of you.  He’s hardly moving, a fevered rhythm of pounding hips that drags his cock a couple of inches back and forth over your sweet spot, shallow thrusts driving in perfect cadence with your impending release.  His umber eyes narrow as he watches you climb, and he can’t help himself – his fingers curl around your jaw, the middle and ring breach your kiss-bitten skin to tease over your tongue.
There’s a salty, sweet tang left on the pads of his fingers; the fact that your own flavor is still hinted in the crevices of his calloused skin has you belting a groan as your lips close around his two longest digits.
Eddie grins, a slithery thing that makes the fire in your belly burst into a dense, untamed inferno.  “You wanna be stuffed full of my fingers?” he jeers as he pumps them over pursed lips slicked with spit, “wanna taste yourself on them, is that it?”  
Your tongue laps and licks over his fingers that work their way deeper into your mouth.  One plunge of his longest fingers tests your limits, and the next activates it – a wanton sound seizes the muscles of your throat around the delectable intrusion, making your eyes roll back when he does it again, and again.
“Y’like the way your pussy tastes, baby?  Fuck, that’s hot – that’s so fucking hot.”  One particularly forceful gag has you pleading mercy through wide watery eyes, and he relents to return his fingers to their position at your throat.  
Eddie squeezes.  “Harder?  More?” A devilish hum rumbles through his chest as he watches you nod dumbly.  “I’ll always give you more.”
Free arm hiking under your knee, he brings your leg with his body, smothering you in his animalistic lust before whispering in your ear, “And you’ll take it, too – you’re my good, sweet, dirty girl that can’t get enough of daddy’s cock.”  
He knows you, knows your body and how this position angles you perfectly against his to toss you over the edge.  Fueled by your whimpering, the clenching of your pussy over his length, he rolls his hips to grind against your clit at the apex of every thrust.  “C’mon,” he grits your name as he feels you begin to shake, “daddy needs you to come all over his cock, sweetheart, let me feel this tight little cunt grip my dick, baby yes –”
Your orgasm is a new extreme, a cosmic level of electric pleasure that shocks the air right from your lungs, and thankfully so – it softens the coarse edges of Eddie’s name that tumbles into the nest of curls held fast by your face.  Every other sound is swallowed by Eddie’s lips as they devour you, keeping you both relatively quiet as you ride out the aftershocks of simultaneous release.  You keep your stare locked on his, an intensity unmatched while he continues to fuck his spend into the depths of your core that still flutters and ripples with lingering need.  Coming down from your highs takes several long moments; mouths remain open, lips bump; feathersoft and loving while you share your exhales in breathy little pants.
You arrive back to yourself slowly but surely, and the impending reality of what comes next burns, sears tiny holes in your chest and steals what little breath you’ve regained.
A delicate wobble to your chin alerts him while shaky fingers trace the delicate pattern of his freckles over his cheek.  “Eddie…” 
He senses your need; the hardened lines of lust soften back into a loving reverence that he holds just for you.  “I got you, sweetheart,” he promises while planting honey-sweet kisses along your jaw.  “Did so good, god, I love you – fucking love you so much.”
It’s not only a physical release, but an emotional one; evidenced by every fat tear that slides down the curve of your cheeks.  “I love you, Eddie – love you, love you…”
Wet kisses, loving little smacks and smooches and touches; bodies that convey all of the passion and fear and adoration consume the two of you as you lie still tangled on the floor of the Winnebego.  It feels too much and yet not enough, making up for lost time but somehow also saving for the future.  In your heart, it still feels so wrong and it drives the desperation for more – to finally, somehow, make it feel right.
And then, reality.  Three brisk knocks on the aluminum door snap you both back to where you are.  
“Fuck –” Eddie hisses, grumbling as he slides out of you.  “Just a minute!” he hollers at the door, frantically looking around for anything to offer you to wipe down the stickiness that clings to your thighs.   
There’s not much around, or at least – not in your immediate vicinity.  You tip him a wry smile as you tug your jeans on over the mess, shrugging as he looks upon you with incredulity.  He dresses himself in silence, looping his belt through the buckle with more care than it deserves.  He’s stalling, you know.  
You can see it how he secures the worn leather through the denim, hesitantly fixing his baleful stare back to you.  His tone is drenched in so much regret.  
“I think we better get outside.”
Knowing it is one thing.  Hearing it out loud – well, that’s another thing entirely.  “I’m not ready,” you readily admit, voice cracking with shame.
“I know, baby.  I know.”  He pulls you into his arms, settling his weight against the cushion of the bench seat.  “I’m not ready, either.”
Reality comes calling again with three impatient knocks, more urgent this time.  There’s a notable scuffling just outside the door; Steve’s rattling direction in feverish undertones to Dustin, who has no regard for anything of what the older boy is saying.  
“Are you guys done talking yet?” Dustin’s animated gripe is loud enough to be heard from where you’re huddled on the floor.  “Jesus.  Just kiss and make up, already.”
Eddie reflexively snorts, a louder sound than anticipated in the relative quiet of the RV.  You both can hear Steve and Robin cackling at the expense of the undoubtedly perplexed younger boy, and you can’t help but giggle, and then chuckle, and then laugh, too.  Catharsis comes swiftly, pinching your cheeks and squeezing the already fatigued muscles in your abdomen so tightly that it’s hard to breathe through the wheezing and the reedy, whiny guffaws – but it feels good.  It feels oh, so good to have this sort of release.
The tears of your laughter may blur your vision, Eddie’s pitchy cackles may crowd in your ears, but there’s a thought that remains clear as ever.
It’s a feeling, a notion – a knowing in your gut that informs you with terrible certainty that this might be the last time you ever laugh like this again.
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dwobbitfromtheshire · 8 months
Text
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
@estrellami-1
Version 2: Bat Baby
Today was the day of Steve’s c-section. Steve woke up early and slipped on his large night shirt before wandering outside. He fixed himself a large glass of iced water and sat outside in one of the lawn chairs. It was colder now, which Steve always used to hate. He always preferred the warmth of summer. Since he was bitten and gotten pregnant, it's been the opposite now, more so since he's been experiencing hot flashes. He now loved the way the cool air felt against his naked legs.
"Today's the day, baby girl," Steve whispered. "Are you ready? Because I don't think that I am. Can't you stay inside me forever? I promise to keep you safe. Of course, I don't really mean that. I know you need to come out. I don't think I'll ever be ready for you to face the world. Me and Daddy will do our best, but you know, we're not perfect. I hope you know how much we love you."
"I love you too, Daddy," a squeaky voice said.
Steve looked over to find Eddie peering out of the sliding glass door with a grin and a blanket over his head. Eddie came all the way, closing the door behind him before patting his way over to Steve. He pushed the other lawn up against Steve’s and plopped down. He had his own cup, but it was just filled with crushed ice. Eddie shook a handful and poured into his mouth, crunching it with his teeth.
"I don't think I'm ready either," Eddie said.
"Scared?"
"Terrified," Eddie said, pausing. "But at least we're scared together."
Steve took his free hand in his, and they watched the sun rise together. Eddie stroked his hand and began to sing. Steve grinned when he started to sing the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. It was one of his favorite Beatles songs. Steve chuckled when he got the idea. He opened his mouth and began to sing Master of Puppets. Eddie giggled with delight.
Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings
We all live in a yellow submarine
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
We all live in a yellow submarine
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
We all live in a yellow submarine
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
We all live in a yellow submarine
Master, master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master, master
"That's a scary mashup," Eddie giggled.
"It shouldn't make sense," Steve said.
"But I love it," Eddie and Steve laughed.
"You're going to be okay, Stevie."
"I know."
When they arrived at the hospital, they were surprised to find that everyone was waiting for them there.
"Like we would miss this," Joyce said.
"As if I would miss my best friend having a baby," Robin said.
Everyone gave him supportive hugs, the moms lasting longer than anyone else. Claudia wouldn't stop crying.
"Come on, Claud," Wayne said in amusement. "Let the boy go."
"I'm going to be a Grammy," Claudia cried.
"Damn, I didn't think to bring any tissues," Sue said, sniffling.
"Oh, I got plenty in my purse," Claudia said.
"I think Max might need some of those," Mike said.
"I will push you in the quarry," Max snapped and walked over to hug Steve. "You're going to be a great dad."
As she walked back over, she flipped Mike off. She sat down in the waiting room and pulled out some knitting supplies.
"Are you knitting?" Mike asked.
"What did I just say?" Max asked.
Erica sat beside her and pulled out her own supplies.
"I'm competing with Max to see who can make the better baby blanket," Erica said.
"Did you know about this?" Mike asked Lucas.
"Yeah."
Eddie and Steve laughed as they were guided off to the operating room by Dr. Owens. Hopper and El followed behind them. El had Jonathan's old camera strapped to her neck. They were joining them in the room just in case anything happened. Although, El had insisted that she hadn't felt anything bad coming from the baby. As they prepared him, Steve laid on the table he stared up at the ceiling.
"I'm going to miss being pregnant," Steve said.
"Is it because it's made your hair look really good?" Eddie asked.
"No. . .well, not just that," Steve said. "I just - what if I turn into my dad?"
"Not possible. I haven't seen you turn into your dad with any of the kids we babysit," Eddie said. "You've been really great with the kids, and you're going to be really great with ours."
"What if she is part bat? What if she starts climbing the walls?!" Steve asked.
"Then we'll get a ladder. That was going to happen anyway. She's part of me too," Eddie said.
"We both work during the day. What if she ends up sleeping during the day and awake at night?" Steve said.
"Then we'll figure that out too," Eddie said. "We'll figure it all out together."
"You have all the answers, don't you?" Steve muttered.
"Only when it comes to you, sweetheart," Eddie replied and paused. "Do I need to get a mom?"
"I'll get Joyce. She's had a c-section," Hopper said and left the room.
Joyce came in a moment later and knelt at Steve's side.
"You a little nervous?" Joyce asked.
"A little," Steve admitted.
"I was just as scared when I was in your situation. I had no clue what was going on. My biggest fear was that they would cut into Jonathan. It's been 18 years now, and medicine has gotten somewhat better. These doctors, they know what they're doing. The doctors I had knew what they're doing, and Jonathan turned out fine," Joyce said. "But if you need me, then I'll be with you and make sure they don't hurt the baby too. That's also what El is here for. We won't let them take her, either. You've got an entire army out there prepared to do the same."
Steve looked at her with watery eyes, knowing how hard she fought for Will, and he knew she would do the same for their baby.
"Thanks," Steve croaked. "You can stay."
Joyce stood on Steve’s other side and took his hand. Eddie smiled at her, his own eyes filled with tears.
"Thank you."
It was weird not being able to feel or see what they're doing, but judging by the looks on El and Hopper's face, they saw the entire thing. Eddie could clearly see what they were doing, and he watched his face turn into a look of awe, then they all heard it. The cry. It sounded weirder than he thought it would. It sounded more like a screech than a cry. Then, the nurse was bringing her over and putting her in Eddie's arms. Eddie was sobbing.
"Oh, fuck, Steve, look at her, she's beautiful," Eddie sobbed.
He held her close to Steve’s face, and Steve started crying with Eddie. She was so perfect. Her skin was slightly gray, but they apparently weren't worried about that. Eddie leaned his forehead against Steve’s. El smiled as she took their picture.
"We're parents, Steve, we're goddamn parents," Eddie said.
A little while later, Steve laid in his hospital bed while their daughter laid against his chest. Eddie sat next to him while everyone filled the room. She wasn't wrapped up in the blanket. She preferred the cold. Steve smiled as he rubbed a hand over her back.
"Oh, look at her little wings," Dustin cooed softly, tears filling his eyes. "Oh, man. I am so not ready for this."
"Is she - is she going to have a tail?" Robin asked.
"Looks like she's going to have three," Eddie grinned.
Just above the diaper was a small cluster of bumps.
"You gonna tell us the little stinker's name?" Wayne asked.
"Alice," Steve said.
"That's my mama's name," Eddie said softly.
"I know," Steve said softly. "I know how much you loved her, and I know how much you want her to be here. In a way, she is. I also love Alice in Wonderland, so there's something in it for me, too."
Eddie cried as he kissed Steve and placed a gentle hand on Alice's back.
"Everyone," Eddie sniffled. "This is Alice Wynonna Munson. It's the closet we could get to the girl version of Wayne."
"Oh, hell," Wayne said and burst into tears.
"I thought you were going to be cool about this, honey," Claudia teased.
"They named the damned baby after me," Wayne said.
Wayne was the first to hold the baby, followed by Robin and Dustin. Steve thought for sure Robin was going to fight Wayne when he was hogging the baby. There wasn't a dry eye in the hospital room as everyone cooed and passed the baby around. Erica was the last one to hold the baby before passing her off to Steve.
"She doesn't like being warm?" Erica asked. "Our baby blankets are just going to be decorative, aren't they?"
"Yeah, sorry," Steve laughed. "Oh, I think she's hungry."
Everyone began clearing the room, offering their congratulations as they left. Steve smiled at his daughter as she suckled at his breast. It felt weird and wonderful at the same time. It was definitely strange to feel his breasts to be so swollen with milk. Eddie smiled softly as he stroked Alice's head.
"We're a family," Eddie said. "Tied together forever through her. There's no going back."
"I never want to go back," Steve said.
Eddie kissed him.
A/N: one more chapter to go!
Part Nine
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groovinrightalong · 7 months
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Do u have any trans masc Max Mayfield headcanons?
I haven’t thought much about it but now I have so MANY thoughts!
-Max hasn’t had a lot of positive relationships with the men in his life, so it takes a long while for the “hm I don’t feel quite right” to click. He doesn’t feel super comfortable as a girl, but he looks at his step-dad and Billy and is like “well I don’t want to be anything like that, so this has to be okay.”
-He definitely knows more about gender/sexuality stuff than the others because of growing up in California. So he’s thought a lot about it over the years, but just kept coming to the conclusion that he’s a tomboy (again, no positive relationships with men.)
-It’s actually because of Lucas (and the rest of the Party, by extension) that he really starts to get more comfortable with the idea. Because Lucas is sweet, and he’s gentle, and so unlike any of the other men he’s been around. Lucas is the first person that kind of cracks his view on gender roles and what exactly defines a man.
-He butts heads with Mike a lot at first just because of how insistent Mike is about him being a girl, how he’s different and unwelcome because of it, but (if this is also transmasc Mike) they realize they’re actually really similar and grow closer because of it, or (if this isn’t transmasc Mike) Max realizes that it isn’t the “girl” thing that bothers him, it’s the fear of replacing El.
-If it’s both transmasc Max and transmasc Mike, Mike comes out WAY earlier than he would’ve on his own.
-The boys are all really supportive when he comes out (which would probably be around the season 3 era). They don’t really get it at first, but he’s their friend, and they’ve always been very vocal about how they’d kill for a friend if needed. And really, seeing Max as a boy isn’t all that different from what they were doing already, so it’s an easy adjustment.
-In a similar fashion to Max teaching El about being a girl in the show, the guys take him out on a “boys only” night. It isn’t really any different than their usual hangouts- they go to the movies, play video games, eat way too much junk food, but the boys only title makes Max feel all fuzzy and warm inside.
-He comes out to Billy while he’s dying. He didn’t ever really plan on doing it at all, but his step-brother is dying in his arms and he needs to get it off his chest before it’s too late. Billy is a lot of the reason it took so long for him to feel comfortable as himself, and he thinks Billy knows that once it’s out in the air. Unfortunately, Billy’s dead before he can really give much of a reaction, just a weak little “I’m sorry.” And that’s nowhere near enough to make up for everything.
-He comes out to his family that night in a screaming match with his step-dad. Neil is an asshole about it, but it doesn’t really matter because the whole argument starts because he’s gonna leave them. Susan is incredibly supportive, and she turns around and kicks Neil out even though she’d been begging him to stay moments before. Gives Max one of those big, therapeutic hugs where Max just sobs into her shirt.
-Max cuts his hair off after Billy’s death. He’s never had a problem with his hair, he actually likes it long, but he’s messed up over everything that happened. He leans a lot more into the stereotypes he hated as a kid, acts rougher and more stand-offish. He breaks up with Lucas, stops hanging out with the rest of his friends. He feels awful, because this is the first time in his life that he’s only surrounded by people that support and love him, but he feels like he doesn’t deserve it.
-(Vecna has a field day with all that)
-Post canon, he does grow his hair back out again. Lucas dramatically informs him that men with long hair are hot (bi king), to which Max shoots back that that would mean Mike was hot. Lucas gives Mike a quick once over and is like I mean, yeah.
-Lucas likes to greet people and go hi, yes, this is my boyfriend Max. He’s so cool. He pretty much single-handedly saved Hawkins that one time. And Max stands there with his face bright red in his hands like oh my god shut up
-Lumax and Byler double dates with an obnoxious amount of homo, striking fear into the hearts of conservative smalltown Indiana
YES I love this sorry for making it angst near the end but yes yes transmasc Max I love him💞
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yumeleta · 2 years
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do you have any hcs on how lxm boys would act around a crush? like if theyre a gentleman around them, express their love or dont etc! You dont have to make this into an actual fic i would love to hear your ideas though ❤️
hey anon! thanks for dropping by my inbox <3.
as for the headcanons, i definitely have some in mind for the boys.
after realizing he had fallen for you, luca would be shy, sometimes clumsily fumbling with his words whenever he converses with you through voice chat. he notices that he finds himself staring at your discord dms a bit too frequently nowadays. despite being extroverted, he starts to enjoy it more when its only the two of you in a collab, or in a game playing together. he finds more ways to mention you in his livestreams even if it has nothing to do with you.
shu, however, is a different case, except he is going to be more bold with his actions. he drops little flirtatious remarks here and there, but at the same time he would treat you in a gentlemanly manner. he'll make time to hang out with you, whether it's playing on a separate minecraft realm or just chatting together during ungodly hours. he sends you pictures of baby penguins hugging together with a message attached to it, reading, 'us? nah i'm kidding. unless..?'.
i think we can agree that ike will be the sweetest one out of all of them. he would willingly be all ears for you to talk for hours, listening intently to how soothing your voice sounds to him. he'd write letters to you, describing how much he thinks you're amazing, but he keeps them away in a place you won't find them for now. if you complain about your broken gaming mouse, you'll suddenly find one right by your doorstep. hm, i wonder where (or who) that came from?
as concerning as it sounds, mysta would be greatly anxious around you the minute he finds out about his ever growing crush. he notices that he never seems to stop talking whenever he's with you. he subconsciously filters his words during collaborations with you, and not a single dirty joke slips through his mouth (which pleasantly surprises the mystakes). the detective's heart runs a million miles a second when you start complimenting him. he also shares random conversations you had with him with his chat. he sees you like an angel in disguise, so kind to him even if he thinks he doesn't deserve such grace. please tell him he deserves it.
vox would be the most open about his affection for you. i highly doubt that he'd even deny those feelings! he will become your number one supporter, immediately promoting your projects whenever they go live or dropping by your streams with an akasupa bomb. the demon is always the first to greet you in anything, whether it's staying up until midnight for your birthday or being with you during your first subscriber milestone. he never stops flirting with you on twitter, goofily teasing you just to elicit a flustered reaction. he loves how you accept him for him, and that was the selling point to why he even fell for you in the first place.
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thestobingirlie · 1 year
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I think Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Max’s plotlines in S4 would’ve been a lot better if there was a focus on the relationships between the four of them.
For one, Lucas taking up basketball is an excellent opportunity for Steve-bonding and then Dustin getting jealous and latching onto not only the only other older dude in his life, but one interested in the same hobbies as him and therefore in no danger of ‘abandoning’ him. And if Dustin was just some kid in his club to Eddie before things went to shit? The drama. If Eddie was supposed to just be another version of Steve to Dustin they could’ve at least not been lazy about it.
For two, Dustin and Lucas were Max’s first friends in Hawkins and the love and support they give her should’ve been shown and explored just as much as her romantic one with Lucas.
As a side note, I think having Erica be noticeably upset when she learns about Max would’ve added a lot to both of their characters. Partially because the duffers don’t give Erica much of anything (as interesting as she is, she’s one of the worst written characters in my opinion) and partially because Max has been in Lucas’s life for almost two years by this point, which means Erica would have been somewhat close to her as well. Everyone got a reaction to Max being cursed except her. That’s her brother’s girlfriend on the chopping block! She’s going to care!
And finally, Billy was specifically written to be Steve’s foil so having Steve there successfully older brothering Max while she grapples with the grief of her actual brother’s death, what their relationship should have been vs what it actually was, would’ve and could’ve been an absolute sucker punch of emotional turmoil. Just the idea of Max feeling guilty over viewing Steve as more of a brother than Billy and wishing Billy could’ve been more like Steve when Billy did nothing to earn her care before dying in front of her is the kind of lost potential that keeps me up at night.
i will always fight for more time for my junkyard four, regardless of their arcs. but also, i totally agree, i think a lot of their plot lines were actually involved with each other, but for some reason we just didn’t get to actually see the relationships.
yeah, the whole jealousy thing is really underused and kinda weird, it would’ve been really cool if it went two ways! dustin jealous of lucas and steve’s bond, and then steve jealous of dustin and eddie, as both boys think the other two have more in common. and then the resolution. eddie telling steve that dustin worships him, and lucas telling dustin that steve talks about him all the time. and then we can get a conversation between dustin and steve where they hug and tell each other that they’re brothers and they love each other <3
dustin and max have really been forgotten about and it’s pretty sad. i get that dustin had a little crush on her, but he’s not the type to hold it against her. they’ve had so few scenes since s2, it’s tragic. just another example of the duffers prioritising romance over friendship.
i wish we’d gotten erica and max this season instead of nancy and robin. like, imagine that girl power team. it would’ve been fun to get any erica and max interaction, even maybe erica being a bit standoffish to max, because of all the lumax drama.
steve literally is max’s big brother, and the duffers don’t give him enough credit. like, max confiding in steve and opening up about her guilt, and steve reassuring her. ugh, that would’ve killed me.
it’s interesting because even though max has such a big role this season, i still feel like she got kinda tossed aside. i guess because we have such a huge cast now, it’s hard to focus on anyone. that’s why they need to start killing off characters. but not any of my favourites
but yeah, the junkyard four and erica, i would kill for them.
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anniebibananie · 2 years
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I am absolutely racoon feral for the way you write Steve and Eddie, (and the kids) in your story's.
Do you have any fun head cannons or thought in general about them? You portray their voices so well!!!! And the way you can write from either of their pov!!!! ❤️❤️❤️ thank you so much for sharing your work with us, I love it so much! I hope you have a wonderful day!
ok this is SO FUCKING NICE!! thank you so much <3
most of what i feel i know about them kinda comes up organically in my fics dependent on the au/setting, but here are a few things that come to mind:
i just love thinking steve has a special and unique relationship with all the kids. like helps lucas practice for the basketball season, shit talks with Max over milkshakes, goes to the comic shop with will. he can adapt to what the kids are comfortable with but is still totally genuine with all of them—he finds doing those things fun and gets to chat with them and whatnot
eddie really likes to distract steve when he's cooking/cleaning in the kitchen—hugging him from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder, grasping his hips; while steve likes to distract eddie while he's planning campaigns—laying out in front of him, crop tops, twirling his hair.
i think an eddie & nancy friendship would be super interesting, and i actually really want to write it more in a fic maybe. cause they seem so different on the surface, but i genuinely could see them somehow just ending up like ride or dies for each other. they have this weird friendship that no one else understands, but they're like both really passionate, a little jokey but no beating around the bush, care for the kids and so they're Tight.
side note of that one: charades with robin and steve being a team and nancy & eddie being a team is Lethal. add in argyle and jonathan as a team cause i said so, and someone Will almost be murdered.
i'm really into the idea of like coach or guidance counselor steve, who can help support kids and make them know they're worthwhile and can do whatever they want with their lives (like imagine future au and steve is a guidance counselor and his rockstar boyfriend just rolls up and everyone is like ... that guy??? is dating mr. harrington?? how did harrington land him??)
eddie's rings and bracelets are actually steve's personal fidget toys. when he's antsy and they're somewhere, steve grabs eddie's hand and twists his rings or twirls the bracelets, it settles him
dustin has such a permanent hold on steve's passenger seat, that if eddie is in the car he is required to sit in the back
that's what i got rn, but feel free to shoot another request through for au's, specific thoughts, etc. etc.
thanks again for reading my stuff :)
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twiixr4kidz · 2 years
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Hey!! love ur fics!! Wondering if i'm not bothering you but, Scott and the league of exes (minus Roxie) Find out your pregnant and there reactions!
you're not bothering me at all!! i've never gotten a request like this before so here you go!! >:))
scott and the evil exes (minus roxie) find out you're pregnant!!
scott pilgrim:
"oh fuck"
he panics
he's scott, of course he's gonna freak out a little
he immediately worries that he's gonna be a shit dad, that he's too young, that he doesn't know what he's doing
and then the joy sets in
"i'm gonna be a dad :)) that's so cool :)) i love you :))"
he won't cry in front of you but he sobs violently behind closed doors; yeah he's worried, but he doesn't think he's been this happy in forever
matthew patel:
"HOLY SHIT"
literally freaks out he is ECSTATIC
"IM GONNA BE A DAD FUCK YEAH THAT'S SO AWESOME"
immediately tries to communicate with the baby (you're going to have to explain to him that it is not yet a baby)
"what do you mean the baby isn't fully formed yet........" he's a little confused at first but he means well
he asks for your permission first, but he wants to tell literally everyone because he's really excited
lucas lee:
yeah he's a super famous actor, but he's also a sucker for domesticity
he tears up on the spot and hugs you tightly
he's wanted to start a family with you for so long, and now that it was finally happening, he couldn't be happier
"thank you so much for being mine"
todd ingram:
doesn't know how to react
yeah he's happy, but he's also really anxious
similarly to scott, he's worried that he isn't going to be a great dad
he just wants to support you and his kid and balance his career
he gets overwhelmed, but he's excited
his whole world is about to change, but he's glad that you're sticking around for the ride
kyle katayanagi:
"CAN I TAKE THEM TO A RAVE" "since when do you go to raves, dummy"
yeah no he is freaking the fuck out
HE'S GONNA HAVE A MINI ME!! A LITTLE HIM RUNNING AROUND THE HOUSE!! A BABY!! A KID!! WITH YOU!!
he gets really giggly and smiley over it
"i'm gonna dress him up just like his daddy and we're gonna have matching outfits and i'm gonna show him all of my cool stuff and it's gonna be so awesome!" "and what if they're a girl?" "she's gonna be a daddy's girl, that's for sure"
needless to say, he is ECSTATIC
ken katayanagi:
he just smiles
unlike his brother, he gets excited on the inside
he smiles a warm, wide smile and hugs you
he runs his fingers through your hair and he tells you how good of a mother you're going to be
and of course, he promises to take care of you the whole time
he's going to be by your side regardless
gideon graves:
he doesn't react at first
he's always so busy with work, and he can barely balance it with you, so the idea of having a kid never really crossed his mind
he's going to have to sit on it. whether you choose to keep it is your choice, and he's going to respect it. but he's going to have to take some time to think.
after a little while (whether it be a few hours or a few days), he'll have his answer
he wants the kid. he doesn't know how he's gonna do it, but he's going to try his best to be the best dad ever
he's still working on treating you better than any of his exes. and now's his chance to prove that he's truly changed.
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sandinmybed · 1 year
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Passive vs Active Mike analysis: El is going to have to be the one who dumps Mike.
I’ve been having a discussion with some twitter mutuals and we’ve drawn this conclusion, I thought i’d share it with you guys
Mike is very passive in their relationship. In s1, he calls El pretty and kisses her, but that’s the only times he advances their relationship intentionally himself. In s3 they spend a lot of time kissing, but think about that awkward makeout scene - Mike pulls away to sing at her. Mike keeps pulling her hands down away from his face. When they ditch the Party at weathertop, El is the one who says they have to go home.  Later in s3, El is the one who dumps him, and he’s pissed off, but he just takes it. He shows no clear desire to get her to take him back (unlike Lucas, who’s pretty concerned with getting the olive branch from Max.) And then the contrast to his fight with Will that we’re all so familiar with - Mike fights with El, gets dumped, he takes it. Mike fights with Will, Will runs off, Mike actively chases after him through pouring rain to apologise and beg him for forgiveness. 
In the S3 end scene where El comes up and kisses him, he just stands there. They don’t talk about getting back together. Mike doesn’t visibly reciprocate in any way, doesn’t even smile. He is passive, he just sort of lets it happen. He even sort of blocks her from kissing him when they’re all hugging as the Byers leave. When Will comes up to him to dump his DnD books, Mike is active, he asks the question to confirm their standing with one another - "What if you wanna join another party?" - and is happy with Will's response.
Another example of Mike's passivity in their relationship is the way Mike takes very little responsibility for their problems. For example, treating El “like garbage/like a pet” in her words, during their relationship in s3. When he lies to her and tries to apologise, he has no idea what he's doing and lets Lucas lead him. The few efforts he does make towards getting her back are supported heavily by Lucas, in fact. When she dumps him at the mall, he's like okay, whatever, no girlfriend then. But when he’s a dick to Will? Instant regret as soon as he realises he's gone too far, he doesn't wait around trying to analyse the situation, he's right out the door and he goes full on grovelling hands-and-knees begging to apologise.
In S4 the same thing happens - he pisses off El, can’t say her loves her, but instead of accepting that responsibility, he denies it and says he does say it (clear lie) and that El’s being ridiculous. When he pisses off Will, he’s straight in there to take responsibility for ignoring Will, he says Will didn’t deserve the bad treatment (and honestly, Will’s not even fully innocent either if you wanna get into that lol). He even apologises going back months and months. He’s passive with El, allowing her to yell at him and makes no real effort to defend himself or fix it. With Will, he’s active - he makes the move to apologise and reconnect.
Excluding their kiss in s1, every time Mike takes initiative and is active in their relationship, it’s never a romantic action. When he’s giving her shelter and food, when he’s calling her every day trying to find her (after she vanished in front of him) and when he and the Byers go on the road trip to find her, none of that is inherently romantic. The one time he says he loves her, she isn't even present, but Mike is desperate not to lose her/for El not to get hurt by their plan. Mike is active when it comes to protecting her.
The one active step he does take in their relationship is the monologue, but is that actually active? He's pretty much constantly being told by other people that being with El is the "right" thing to do - Nancy in s1/2 assumes he's into her, Lucas in s3 tries to help fix their relationship, just like Will in s4. Mike has been led to believe by Will that this will save their relationship, and he has an immense amount of trust in Will, so he follows what he thinks is right and tells her he loves her, because he's afraid she will literally die if he doesn't.
This is why I think El is going to have to be the one who officially dumps him. Mike never takes the initiative in their relationship. He didn't want to talk to her about getting back together in s3, and he didn't want to acknowledge their issues in s4 either. I've seen plenty of people (myself included) who believe that during the scene in Surfer Boy Pizza, El was going to officially break up with him. They got interrupted, and then it was too late.
But starting with s5, we've got the painting lie, and we've got Hopper back, and Mike is back on good terms with Will. El isn't talking to him, and they're dealing with the apocalypse, and it's strongly implied that El knows he was lying to her. I think El's going to dump him in s5, and he's going to ask about the painting, which she knows nothing about. I think that's going to happen fairly early on in the season, maybe even before the time skip, and be the catalyst for a lot of changes (and hopefully some more personal growth for both of them!) But Mike will not take that step himself.
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byersbootyshorts · 2 years
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Their Reaction To Reader Coming Out
A/N: In honour of pride month I wrote these headcanons of how the characters would react to you coming out to them. As a bisexual this was incredibly comforting to write. Happy Pride Month xx
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Steve:
I think if you told him you're anything other than gay or a lesbian he'd have no idea what it actually was and you'd have to explain it to him
Because he's from a rich white family in the 80's so got like zero exposure to gay culture growing up
But when you told him what it meant he wouldn't judge you
'Wait, so you like boobies and dick? Cool!'
He'd just be happy you felt comfortable enough to tell him
Robin:
I mean, something tells me she's not gonna be homophobic about it
I feel like she'd ask you who your crush is and get really excited when she sees you talking to them
She'd say you could always come to her for advice about stuff like that
She'd make you a pin with your flag on it
But it would be subtle so only you two know what it really means
Dustin:
He'd probably congratulate you
'Wow, dude, that's so brave of you to say.'
And he'd want to reassure you that he supports you so every so often he would just look over at you and smile
(And flash those pearly whites, ggggrrrr)
Lucas:
He'd be so chill
Like to the point where he wouldn't even react because it's that little of a deal to him
Until he sees you waiting for a response with a concerned expression
Then he'd just break into song:
'Be who you are for your priiiidddeee'
Mike:
He'd just lose all his brain cells
He'd just stand there, mouth agape
Not in a homophobic way
Just in an 'I have no idea how to react to this because I'm socially awkward' way
But after he gets over the initial shock he'd be completely fine and support you in his own awkward way
Will:
He'd just stare you dead in the eyes
And say so bluntly:
'Same'
Because you're the only other gay person he's ever met and he's in major need of someone to relate to
So you get really close after that
Eleven:
Honestly I don't think she'd know enough about LGBTQ+ to care
She was brought up in a place where no kind of love was shown
So she wouldn't really see why it's such a big deal to love whoever you want
She'd just be happy you have love in your life in the first place
But if she saw anyone mess with you because of it she'd definitely use her powers on them
Max:
Why does she give me the vibe that she has incredibly good gaydar
Like she just wouldn't be surprised at all
And obviously she'd reassure you and tell you she's proud of you and stand up to anyone who was mean to you about it
But she'd also tell you that she's been suspicious of it all along
Nancy:
I think she would just give you the biggest hug ever
And ask you to talk her through how you realised because she'd want to be able to understand you better
She'd definitely speak up if people were being homophobic
And she'd try to write some stuff for the Hawkins Post to make people more aware of the LGBTQ+ community
Jonathan:
I'm not gonna lie I think he'd be too high to care
He wouldn't actually know if what you told him was real or not
And then he'd ask you later
But be completely fine with it
'Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure my brother's gay.'
'Do whatever you want, man.'
And then he'd proceed to get high again
Eddie:
He'd tell you if anyone ever bullied you because of it he'd fuck them up
And say if you ever needed anything you could come over to his trailer
(As long as you didn't mind the mess)
When you're walking anywhere with him he'd randomly just shout:
'GAY RIGHTS!'
And wouldn't care when people gave him dirty looks
Hopper:
He'd be all stuttery like he usually is when anyone talks about their feelings to him
I think he'd care less about the gay part
And go straight to asking you if you had a partner
Because he couldn't care less who you date
As long as they're a good person and treat you right
Joyce:
Omg she'd be the biggest ally
She'd ask you to stay for dinner all the time
And research a bunch of different sexualities on her chunky 80's computer
When she learned about pride parades she'd ask you if you wanted her to take you to one
She'd basically become a second mom
Murray:
He literally would not give a single shit
He couldn't care less if you told him you totalled his car, or he won the lottery, or you came out
He'd just want to know WHY THE HELL THIS CHILD IS TALKING TO HIM
And then he's just walk away
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smaoineamhsalach · 2 years
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Do you ever think any of SWAT would get it on in the locker room (especially Luca)? Just I keep getting thoughts of him lifting up against the lockers, feeling the heat from him and the coldness of the metal 🍸😁
i think i've written at least one fic for all of them where they've fucked somewhere in the workplace - so my answer is yes, definitely! 😂
here's a few little headcanons about how/why i think each of them would do it!! xx
chris
will literally fuck you six ways from sunday anywhere in the building. locker room, showers, armoury, anywhere private
rough, slow, angry, post-workout, sad, overjoyous, "i thought i lost you" sex - aaaaaaaaaaall of it is good with her. if you feel comfortable and trusting enough to be vulnerable with her there, she's more than on board
given that it's a paperwork day, a slow overtime shift or just a time where you won't need to roll out halfway through, all you've gotta do is give her the eyes or she'll grab you by the hand and lead you away under the guise of needing your help with something, only for her to be between your legs in a matter of minute's time
luca
probably a little more restrained? it's definitely not a common occurrence, but when it does happen it goes HARD
it's definitely him pinning you against the lockers and yanking down both of your clothes just enough so that he can fuck you real good. lots of hickies and nail marks and bruises on hips, and neither of your would have it any other way
maybe it's just his sweet side coming out but since you're in a situation where he can't really give you conventional aftercare, he always makes an effort to be super gentle with you in the time afterwards. makes sure you're all cleaned up before you head back out, being that bit more affectionate with you by way of little side-hugs and forehead kisses, little things like that
street
this kinky little fuck oh my god
100% has a thing for eating you out against the lockers. watching you try not to mess your clothes up even though you want him touching you as much as possible, stopping yourself from tussling his hair to make it too obvious as to what you've just been up do, clamping a hand over your mouth to try an quiet yourself - it sends him into ORBIT oh lord
he feeds off the control and the public aspect of it sooooo much - and he just really like making you feel good? making you relax and feel important and devoted to in the middle of a really rough case just makes him so happy. if cunnilingus was a love language, it's this man in a nutshell
hondo
punishment kink go BRRRR
dear lord the potential here - dragging you into the bathrooms to edge you for mouthing off to him? fucking you in a shower cubicle and cumming inside of you so you'll feel him inside of you for the rest of the day? bending you over the sinks and spanking you hard enough to leave marks? bruh
he'd also probably have the forethought to keep an extra set of underwear and clothes for you in his locker in case you get too wild. he'd always end it with a little kiss on the cheek and an, "i love you", just cause he's classy like that xx
tan
i have an oddly specific idea in my head for tan and this
it's that he's really into shower sex with you?? especially that post-injury, very sweet and gentle kind of sex where you're both just clinging to each other and just couldn't wait till you were home
you're both just kind of supporting each other (both physically and otherwise), and being very wary of cuts and bruises so being very light with your touches and if someone starts crying it's never to be discussed because it's just you and him being together, in whatever way that looks like
deacon
he'd never really initiate it, but he's always down for it when you are
it's never full-on sex, that's too vulnerable for him to get where ye work - but a blowjob on the locker room benches when he's done a really good job on something, him fingering you in the showers and telling you who you belong to after you've been flirting with tan or chris? *chef's kiss*
WILL blush like fuck and get all shy if the reason you dragged him in his because you saw him working out and thought he looked, and bonus points if you tell him he's making you feel good or if you leave marks <33
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drowning-lessonz · 2 years
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stranger things headcannons bc I'm bored (cannon doesn't matter)
Eddie and Argyle are best friends and get high together all the time
Robin absolutely sucks at cooking and isn't allowed to use the stove
Eddie is a burnt out gifted kid and used to be a science and math prodigy
El isn't the best artist but will draw with Will sometimes as a sibling bonding type thing
Will secretly loves painting his nails and he and El with do "makeovers" together where they steal Joyce's makeup and nail polish and try to do each other's makeup
Jonathan has been aware of Will being gay for his entire life, but doesn't really know how to bring it up even though he 100% accepts and supports him
Eddie loves wearing skirts and owns a few but mainly just wears them around the house
Mike secretly writes poetry but doesn't let anybody read it. Most of them are about Will
Max and Erica get along really well and see each other as sisters
Steve helps Lucas practice basketball
Dustin really wants to learn guitar and wants to ask Eddie to teach him but he knows absolutely nothing about playing and he's scared he'll turn him down
Robin and Steve cuddle but platonically and have sleepovers all the time
Mike and Holly have tea parties together all the time
Robin and Eddie definitely get high together and do the absolute dumbest shit. Nancy and Steve have joined in a few times but usually just try to make sure they don't do anything stupid.
El was on her school's debate team and absolutely crushed Angela once
Joyce and Hopper get married and Hopper adopts Will and Jonathan (duh)
When Will came out to Hopper he was really scared that Hopper wouldn't accept him but instead he gave him the biggest hug and said, "You're my son and I love you, nothing will ever, ever change that"
Hopper has a hard time telling Joyce and the kids he loves them because toxic masculinity and whatnot but they absolutely know he does
Joyce and El will have movie nights where they stay up late watching movies and eating popcorn. Will sometimes joins
El goes to Jonathan for advice a lot
Everyone treats Murray like their weird uncle. Everyone
El will tear anyone who bullies any of her friends asunder. Especially anyone who picks on Will
El and Will found one of Jonathan's joints one time and tried smoking it but they immediately hated it and were coughing and gagging for an hour
Argyle is actually incredibly smart and wise, but it's mostly drowned out by him being high all the time
Argyle sees Will and El as cousins. He just does
Argyle let's El braid his hair
Nancy and Argyle get along so well and no one can figure out why
Max and Dustin bicker about stupid things all the time and usually use Mike as a mediator. Lucas refuses to give an opinion because he doesn't want either of them mad at him
Dustin loves karaoke and sometimes will get El to do it with him
Will, Mike, Lucas, and Max go on double dates all the time
if you read all of this I love you
Also feel free to add on! I love hearing other people's ideas <3
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