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#mmb!eddie
lesservillain · 4 months
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Growing up, you've always been known as a people pleaser. Ever the altruist, you take joy in helping others, even if it's at your own expense. So when you decided to pursue a degree in nursing after high school the people in your life were less than surprised. As you enter your second year of schooling, you decide to enroll in a program to assist those affected by the earthquakes in Hawkin's that happened back in the spring. But, when you volunteered to take on a case of someone who had been turned down by everyone else, you had no idea that you were signing up for your life to change forever.
content warnings: canon divergent, eddie lives, grumpy!eddie disabled!eddie, nurse!reader, medical talks, violence and all that comes with it, major character death, suicidal ideation and all that comes with it, eventual smut. each chapter will have its own warnings.
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the playlist
chapter list:
i. did you get what you deserve?
ii. gotta promise not to stop when i say "when"
iii. the smoke and who's still standing when it clears
iv. someone like you and all you know and how you speak
v. i want to hold the hand inside you
vi. i run the risk of losing you, and that’s worse
vii. when you lay alone, i ache
viii. love is not a victory march
ix. i’m inside out, you’re underneath
x. in some sad way, I already know
xi. and the reason is you
misc:
moodboard
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Not me about to blow up my baby inbox with all my Rick theories.....@lesservillain
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rafikecoyote · 4 years
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Daddy, did you see that? Guy got me on the ground, he tried to fuck me. You sick bastard, Vic. You tried to fuck me in my father's office.
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kpopsunbaes · 5 years
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Mid Month Wrap-up April
Welcome to the MMB of April! Here are the stats up until March 15th!
The Leaders:
Who are all tied at 3 notes!
Jang Jane with Early Days!
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Rania with Teddy Riley, The First Expansion In Asia!
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AKMU with Play!
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Block B - Baztarz with Zero For Conduct!
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The Two Note Duo:
Mamamoo - AHH OOP!
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Park Jung Min - The, Park Jung Min!
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The One Note Gang:
Secret - Secret Time |||  K Will - Love Blossom Pt.2 Park Jimin - Hopeless Love |||  Pure - I Still Love You Rainbow - So Girls |||  Rain - Back To The Basic Eric Nam - Ooh Ooh |||  N.CA - Scent Of NC.A 2BiC - Soulmate ||| Lee Hyo Ri - H-Logic Younha - Peave Love And Ice Cream |||  MC Sniper - Full Time DALSHABET - Pink Rocket
The Cheer Leaders, With 0 Notes:
Turtles - Aigoo GI - Beatles Pocket Girls - Bbang Bbang Eddy Kim - The Manual Seo In Guk - Perfect Fit
The Bottom Posts That Shook The Admins The Most!
Gain & Hyungwoo - Romantic Spring 
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Zion T. - Red Light
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Indie Highlight:
3rd Line Butterfly - Ice Cube!
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More Indie Groups: Electroboyz, Urban Zakapa, LUNAFLY, Soran, No Brain, Autumn Vacation, Standing EGG, Eniac, Handsome People
We’re halfway trough the month and Easter is here! There are still may more releases coming on @kpopotd2 this month, and maybe your ult will get a post~ The post with the most notes form this month will of course be the Top Post of the Month, and they will be our theme for the upcoming month!
Last months top post was: Nu’est with Face!!!
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lesservillain · 3 months
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—iii. the smoke, and who's still standing when it clears
cw: some slight implied sexual thoughts?
an: i had to cut a part from this or else it was going to be way too long. see ya in the next one, reefer rick.
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“So, how did it go?”
Tonya sits across from you looking perfect as always, such a beautiful light in your life. Even when she’s antagonizing you.
“It was…really nice actually.” A small, shy smile tugs at the corner of your lips as your mind recalls the night before.
Your date with Sam went way smoother than you had anticipated. He picked you up on time, even coming to the door to get you which you knew Tonya was going to bring up today. He did everything right; held open all of the doors, pulled your seat out for you, paid for your food, actually listened to what you had to say and didn’t interrupt you. He was extremely charming and funny, and the two of you had a lot more in common than you expected.
“Sam sounds pretty perfect, doesn’t he?” Tonya says with a teasing tone, eyebrows raising suggestively. 
“Yeah, I guess I’m making him sound that way, huh? It makes me wonder how bad his faults are going to be.” 
“Unless he’s got bodies in his basement I’d say keep him around.” Tonya raises her hand to count on her fingers, “He’s hot, he’s got a good job, good manners—I’d say baby trap his ass.”
“TONYA!” You lean in, whisper yelling at your friend’s suggestion, the two of you breaking out into a fit of giggles. “I am absolutely not doing that. But…I did agree to a second date.”
“I guess I can take that for now,” Tonya shrugs, taking a sip of her mimosa. “Oh, speaking of dates, I almost forgot. Charlie and I are going out of town for our anniversary. He’s taking me to Chicago!” Her giddiness warms you. Even if you aren’t a fan of him, you have to admit seeing your best friend happy brings you your own kind of happiness. 
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The sharp sound of the phone ringing makes you jump, almost dropping the plate you were cleaning into the soapy water. You look at the stove clock reading just a little past 8 pm. In the few weeks that you’ve been here not once has the phone ever rang. Walking over to it, your hand hovers over the plastic as you debate on if you should answer it. It’s not like it's your house, but who else is going to answer the phone? 
A sigh of relief comes from you as the phone ceases it’s ringing on its own. The quiet takes over again, and you think you’re in the clear until the ringing starts again. 
Grabbing the phone, you quickly bring it to your ear with a, “Hello?” 
There’s a pause, and you repeat your greeting into the receiver. Suddenly you can pick up some whispering, at least two voices talking to each other on the other line. 
“Sorry, wrong number.” Click. Dial tone.
You look down at the phone before shaking your head and placing it back in place. But only a single step is taken before the phone begins to ring again. Annoyed now, you pick up the phone once more.
“Hello?” You say again, tone reflecting your temperament.
“Ugh, not again,” you hear the voice from the other end groan. “Sorry, miss.” Click. Dial tone again.
‘What the fuck?’ you think, putting the phone back on the hook again. You hover around it for a moment, and sure enough it begins to ring again.
“Listen, kid,” your start, tone firm, “If you keep calling here to bother this family I will call Chief Hopper.”
“You know Hopper?” The younger boy's voice says from the other line. No, you don’t know him. But Wayne told you to say that in case this exact scenario was to arise.
“Yes, I actually have his personal number right here—”
“So do I,” the boy quips back, striking a nerve. You’re about to give this kid an earful before he continues on. “I just saw him earlier today, actually. But that’s not the point. I’m just trying to get a hold of my friend and this is the number his uncle gave me to call and—”
“Uncle?”
“Yes, uncle. I don’t see how out of all the information I gave you that him having an uncle is what caught your attention.”
“Oh, my god, you are so annoying. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Maybe once or twice.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Is your friend’s name Eddie?”
“YES! Yes! His name is Eddie—”
“Dude, don’t tell her his name—”
“Chill out, Mike, it’s fine—How do you know Eddie?”
“Well,” you draw out, returning some of the attitude back to the other end of the call, “I think me telling you that depends on who is asking?”
There’s a bit of muffled deliberation between the boy on the phone and whoever Mike. You wait patiently, foot tapping against the kitchen tile. After a moment you hear a sigh come from the other line, followed by a throat clearing.
“Okay, fine. My name is Dustin Henderson,” the boy starts. “I’m calling looking for Eddie Munson. He is my friend, and myself and some of his other friends are worried about him. I’m assuming you’re in his house for some reason, and I am asking you if we could talk to him. Please.”
“Dustin Henderson, huh?” You repeat, attempting to keep a bit of sass in your tone. In reality, the name instantly rings a bell. Wayne told you a little about Eddie’s friends, and along with the guys that Eddie was in a band with, the name Dustin came up a lot. Wayne said Eddie looked at Dustin like a little brother he never had. 
It takes everything in you to keep your composure right now. Eddie’s been feeling much better these last couple days, so you’re sure he’ll be delighted to talk to his friends. “Okay, Dustin Henderson. Let me go ask him if he’s up to taking a phone call. Hold on.”
You set the phone down on the kitchen table and jog down the hall to Eddie’s room. Knocking on his door, you push it open slightly before calling into the room.
“Eddie? Are you up?”
“Hmmm…I am now,” the groggy, sleepy voice from the other side of the door sends an unwanted chill down your back. Quickly shaking it off, you enter the room to Eddie sitting up in his bed, hair in every which direction and arms outstretched as he lets out the most unnecessarily loud yawn you’ve ever heard. You give him an unimpressed look to which he returns mockingly.
“Can I help you? Or did you just come in here to stare?”
You roll your eyes, “You have a phone call. From a Dustin Henderson, who seems like he very much would like to speak with you.”
Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up, an excited expression on his face. Though, it’s a fleeting one, as his features become downtrodden and he starts to sink down into himself.
“Tell him I’m asleep.”
“What? Why?”
He huffs. “I don’t want to talk to him…”
“Eddie, he’s called the house at least four times. Can you just—“
“No.”
You watch him sink under the covers again, back into the safety net of his comforter. You stand there for a moment, dumbstruck. Eddie’s can definitely be an ass, but Wayne told you before that Eddie’s friends mean a lot to him.
Leaving Eddie behind in his room, you make your way back to the kitchen. Bringing the phone to your ear, you can hear the boys on the other end having a conversation between them.
“—aybe it’s his girlfriend,” the other boy says teasingly.
“Eddie? With a girl? I’ll believe it when I see it,” Dustin scoffs.
“Hello?” You say into the receiver with a giggle.
“Yes, hi, we’re still here,” Dustin says with urgency.
“Hi, um, so I went to check on him and he says he’s not really feeling up to talking today.”
“Oh, okay…” Your heart aches hearing the disappointment in the boy’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “Try again tomorrow, okay? Maybe a little earlier. I think his medicine makes him sleepy.”
“Alright, will do,” Dustin perks up. “Thank you ma’am.” 
You give him your name before giving your goodbyes.
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Dustin and Mike call every day for the next 4 days. One time with their friend Will, who apparently has never met Eddie but wants to meet him so they can all talk about dungeons and dragons. 
You see, Eddie was their dungeon master in their high school club, which also includes the guys in Eddie’s band. All of them have been playing a new campaign, and they want to give Eddie all the details of their first get together without him.
All of this you have learned against your will, mostly because every time Eddie turns down their phone call, you can’ help but lend an ear when they get going. And, boy, do they get going.
“So we told Will to cast a fireball, but he wanted to save his spell slot and—”
“What's a spell slot?” You sit at the dining room table, flipping through a car magazine Wayne left sitting out.
“It’s, like, the amount of spells you’re allowed to use per day in the game.”
“Ooooh, so he only gets so many?”
“Correct.”
“Well, then yeah it would make sense that he would want to conserve them.”
“See,” Mike stresses from the other end of the line, “She doesn’t even play and she gets it! Quit picking on Will! It’s not like we lost anyway.”
“Yeah, but we would have gotten through the hoard a lot quicker if he had at least tried.”
The sound of Eddie’s bell pulls you from the boys’ banter. “Hey, I’ll be right back,” you say, placing the phone down on the table. 
Sprinting down the hall, you knock quickly before entering the room. Eddie still doesn’t call for you often, so when he does you can't help but worry a bit. “Everything okay—oh shit!” 
Instead of hiding under his covers, Eddie sits back against the headboard of the hospital bed. His covers have all been kicked to the floor and the middle of his bed sheet is drenched. Upon further inspection, you see that his shirt and boxers are soaked as well. 
“Eddie, what happened?”
“What does it look like?!” His tone is full of frustration. “I dropped my fucking cup and the lid popped off and spilled all over the place!”
“Okay, okay,” you say calmly, “I can fix this. Why don’t you get in your chair and I’ll strip the bed?”
“Fine,” Eddie grumbled, face wincing in pain as he slowly moved his body to sit on the edge of the bed. You moved to the side of the bed and offered a helping hand, which he ignored but at least you tried. Once he was properly sitting on the edge, you grabbed his chair and positioned it before raising the bed. 
“Okay, just put your hands on my shoulders…” you start, instructing him like you would one of your patients. “And I’ll just—“ 
Your hands hover for a moment as you fully process that he is only wearing boxers. Wet boxers that, when in close proximity, don’t leave much to the imagination when left wet and sticking to his body.
Not wanting to let your eyes wander, you preoccupy yourself by placing your hands on his hips and grabbing the hem of his undergarment. 
“On the count of three, we’ll pivot. Ready?”
Eddie gives you a nod, placing his hands on your shoulders and holding tightly. You keep your eyes on his foot as you count down, shifting him into his chair in one swift motion. He grunts as he gets adjusted in the chair, a little winded from all the movement. 
“You good?” You ask, taking a step back. 
“I’ll live,” he says with cynicism. 
“You better. Won't look good on me if you die on my watch.
It’s fleeting, but you swear that you see the corner of his lips curl up into a smile before he turns away from you. 
“Whatever,” he mumbles, “I’m gonna get in the shower.”
You perk up at his declaration. “Really? Okay! Let me go hang up with Dustin and the guys and I’ll get my stuff for you.”
Eddie’s hair flies everywhere with the way his head snaps in your direction. His head bows, eyes squinting as he speaks, “What do you mean hang up with Dustin and the guys…?”
“Oh, they called again so I was talking to them.”
“So, you’re saying you’ve been talking to my friends on my phone…?”
“Well you’re not doing it,” you shrug. “They were just telling me about the game you guys play, I guess Will didn’t cast a flameball because he wanted to save one of his slots or something—“
“Okay, first of all, it’s fireball, not flameball. And second, why the hell are they telling you about this stuff? Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Sorry, fireball,” you apologize with sarcasm. “And, they would be telling you all of this if you would just talk to them.”
His face scrunches up, head shaking before he turns away from you completely. You notice for the first time that he pushes the wheels with the palms of his hands rather than using his fingers to grip them. Having helped set up his dinner for him a few times, you’ve seen that with the tissue damage to his right hand that he doesn’t have much mobility in it. 
The temptation to offer some physical therapy for it sits in your mind. But, you’re not sure how he would react to your offer, so you’ll hold off until you can chip away at him a little more. He pushes himself slowly into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. With a sigh you leave him be and go to hang up the call with the boys. 
After grabbing new bed sheets, you reenter Eddie’s room and begin to strip his bed, piling everything onto the floor. You're about to take off the pillow cases when a sudden clatter has you rushing to the bathroom door. 
Pushing it open, you peer inside to see Eddie sitting at the sink. From what you can see of his reflection, it looks like he’s trying to shave the scruffy, uneven hair that's grown on the non scarred parts of his face. 
“You’re quick, huh?” He comments as he reaches into the sink for his electric razor. 
“Well, can’t blame me after the other day, can you?” You tease, referring to his fall last week. He doesn’t respond and turns the razor back on to continue shaving. 
As you stand there and watch him, your words come out like word vomit. “You look good like that.”
His eyes flick to meet yours in the reflection in the mirror. “What's that supposed to mean?” He asks with a clipped tone.
“It means what I said.” 
And you could leave it at that. You often wonder if he had been bullied even before his scarring with how often he questions any praise you throw at him. But, instead you decide that doubling down and talking more is the proper thing to do. “You look very nice clean shaven. Very handsome.”
Big, brown eyes blink slowly at you. “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t clean up for you before now. I’ll do my best to make myself easier to look at from here on out.” He gives you that same tight lipped smile that you’ve begun to notice whenever he gets an attitude like this.
Your jaw drops and you scoff. “Eddie, that is not what I meant and you know—” He cuts you off by turning on the razor again, the loud buzz muffling your words as it echoes off the bathroom walls. 
Your shoulders slump in defeat. You want to just turn tail and take care of his bed, but decide to get the bathroom set up for him while you’re in there. You place towels on the floor and on his shower chair, leave a couple of washcloths on the built-in handrail, and set the shower head down so that everything is within reach for him. 
“Oh, I almost forgot—“ You were expecting Eddie to still be fidgeting at the sink, too preoccupied with setting things up for him to notice that he was watching you run around his bathroom with amusement. 
“I, um…” his unmoving glare was tense, making you feel like you were being evaluated. “I brought some stuff for your hair to, uh, help with the knots and stuff. Let me go grab them for you.”
The first step you take is slow, expecting some form of protest from him. But, when he remains silent you rush through the door and across the hall to grab the supplies you’ve stowed away in it. Detangler, a pick comb, and some shampoo and conditioner that should help with the curls. 
With full arms you reenter Eddie’s bathroom. He’s moved closer to the shower’s edge and looks to be in the process of removing his shirt on his own. The limited mobility along with the tightness of his scars make it difficult for him to move his arms up above his head, but his stubborn ass seems to be a glutton for punishment.
“Here,” you say, setting everything on the shower shelf. Tugging his shirt up for him, his head disappears inside of the shirt and his fluff of hair reappears as you pull it off completely. You still can't get over how his back is almost completely void of scars when compared to the rest of body. 
“Thanks,” he says without much thought. You hum in return, tossing the shirt on top of his bed.
“Anything else I can help you with?” 
No response. You look back at him and see that he’s completely still. “Everything okay?” You ask, noticing the troubled look on his face as you round his chair. 
“I…” he says quietly, eyes concentrated on the tiles on the floor, “I can’t stand up on my own and take my underwear off…”
Oh.
At this point in your schooling, seeing someone naked wouldn’t normally bother you after all of the saggy boobs and flat butts you’ve washed during your nursing assistant training. It’s a necessary skill to be able to detach the naked body from inherent sexuality in the medical field. 
And Eddie’s body shouldn’t be any different. Just because he’s close to you in age doesn’t make him any different from your previous patients. So why is your face heating up thinking about it?
“I-I see,” you say, trying to not sound as flustered as you are. “Let me think…Oh! Why don't we get you on the seat, we’ll lay a towel across your lap, and then you can shimmy your boxers off under them?”
Eddie mulls it over for a moment before reluctantly shaking his head. You move in front of him to get into position and make another quick transfer onto the shower chair. Eddie hisses in pain next to your ear, most likely due to the stiff plastic of the seat that he’s not used to pushing into his back and butt. 
Placing a towel over his lap, you stand by as he wordlessly slips his hands under it and begins rocking back and forth. You keep your eyes above chest level, not wanting to look away in case he were to start to fall. 
“Shit!” Eddie says, making you look down instinctively. The towel must have caught on his boxers as he was pulling them down, and you watched in slow motion as the towel slipped lower, getting dangerously close to exposing him. 
Thinking quickly, you grab for the towel and hold it up against his skin. Eddie’s hands flail as he tries to get them out from under it as fast as he can. His boxers fall unceremoniously off his thigh and pool around his single ankle. The two of you stare at them, then at your hand that is pressed firmly into his lower abdomen. You have a firm hold on the towel, your hand the only thing keeping it from joining the dark blue boxers on the shower tile as it’s fully fallen off of his lap, draped down to cover his…
…is that his…against the heel of your palm?
Pushing back the inappropriate thoughts starting to form in your mind, you grab the ends of the towel and lay them on Eddie’s lap again. He doesn’t say anything as his hands do their best to hold the fabric in place as you adjust it. You’re almost afraid to look up at him, not wanting to acknowledge that you may or may not have accidentally grabbed your patient by the dick.
“Okay,” you say with as steady of a voice as you can muster, “I think you should be good now. You grab his boxers from around his ankle and quickly make your exit from the shower, pulling the curtain behind you. “Just shout if you need me!”
The hard spray of the shower turning on is the only response you get.
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“Ow!”
“Eddie, if you want me to comb out these knots you’re going to have to complain less.”
“I can’t help I have a tender scalp now.”
“Now?”
You can see Eddie’s scrunched up expression in the mirror’s reflection as you spray detangler into his curls. The conditioner had done quite a bit of loosening of his tangles and mats, but there was still a fair bit that needed to be combed out.
“Yes, now. I used to be able to just take a brush through it at the end of the day and be fine. But no one really took care of it when I was in the hospital.”
“Wayne never tried to do anything with it?”
Eddie gives you an annoyed look in the mirror. “You’ve seen my uncle, right? He’s not exactly the person I would go to for my hair care advice.” The shine that comes from the head of the older Munson is definitely prominent. 
“What about the nurses?” You ask as you comb through another successfully detangled section of his hair. He doesn’t respond right away, a distant look in his eyes as he stares at his own reflection.
“No, they couldn’t help me either.”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t mind doing your hair for you. My best friend is a hair stylist and can give me some tips to help you keep it manageable after my time with you is done, too.”
“What do you mean after your time is done?” He asks after a moment.
You tilt your head at him. “Like when my volunteering program is done? I think it goes until the end of the semester. So like the first or second week of December.”
“You’re a volunteer?” There was an angry lit to his tone.
“Y-yeah? I’m sorry I thought you knew—”
“No, I thought…I thought my uncle was paying you to be here.”
You shake your head, “No, no, I’m doing this as part of my schooling. My class is working with the VisitingAngels to get more help in Hawkins. It’s totally free and I don’t make any money, just some extra credit for school.”
Eddie’s face changes as he processes your words, before visibility softening as he looks at you. “Well, I guess you must have pulled the short straw to get stuck with me then.”
There was a complete change in his attitude all of the sudden. The normal agitation in his voice was gone, making his statement sound lighter than anything he’s ever said to you before.
“I picked you.”
His eyes meet yours, dumbfounded. 
“Well, kind of,” you start. “Sa—I mean, they told me that you were a…special case. A lot of information was redacted in your sheet, and, well, you know, with everything else…”
“I’m sure I wasn’t anyone else’s first choice.”
“But, I didn’t think that was fair, so I said I would take care of you. Glad I did, even if you give me more trouble than you’re worth sometimes.”
He rolls his eyes at your teasing and you laugh as you continue to work through his hair. 
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Your lower back ached as you climbed out of your car. School was out for teacher’s meetings so you switched with a coworker to have all of Saturday off. Sam asked to take you to the movies for your second date and you both decided to do ice cream after so you wanted to be able to sleep in and lessen the chance of falling asleep during the movie. But you paid the price today, forgetting that your coworker is normally the one who puts inventory away. 
“Hey there, little lady,” Wayne says as he walks out from the backyard. It’s not as hot as it had been, colder weather on the horizon as September was coming to a close, but the older man had a dark gray ring of sweat around the collar of his shirt.
“Hey, Wayne,” you waved to him with a smile. “Getting some last minute yard work done before the rain comes in?”
“Yeah, wanna get this grass seed down so come spring it’ll start to grow. Tired of havin’ta clean mud off m’truck all the damn time.”
“Do you need any help? I used to work all summer in the garden with my grandma as a kid. I’m sure I still have a little bit of green left in these thumbs.”
Wayne’s eyes crinkle when he laughs, the lines looking deep with age. “That’s alright darlin’, I’m done for the day. Preciate ya askin’. Better get inside and get ready fer work.”
You follow him into the house where you’re met with the sound of heavy metal all throughout. You look at Wayne confused, but he just shakes his head and starts heading down the hallway. He pushes Eddie’s door open and your hands fly to your ears with how much louder the music gets before it abruptly stops. 
“What the hell, Wayne!” You hear Eddie whine. 
“Look, I get you’re excited kid but I don’t think your Uncle Ben would appreciate you using his gift to make yourself go deaf.”
“Uncle Ben?” 
Both pairs of Munson eyes land on where you stand in the doorway. They look as if they’ve been caught and you wonder if you should have stayed in the living room. 
“Sorry, I—“
“No, it’s fine,” Wayne says, giving Eddie a look. “Ben is a friend of mine. S’known Eddie since I got custody of em and Eddie’s just always called em Uncle ever since.”
“Oh okay,” is all you said. It seemed like such a normal thing, but the sketchy way they were acting made you not want to press further. “I guess you must have gotten a new toy then, huh?”
Sitting where Eddie’s nightstand was is a cabinet stereo system, decked out with a record player on top and shelves to put cassettes and records underneath. You couldn’t say for sure but it looked brand new, either way it would have cost Uncle Ben a pretty penny to buy it. 
“Yeah,” he says with an airy giggle, the empty cassette in his hands. It catches you off guard to hear him so excited, and when you look up at him, you have to do a double take. 
He’s smiling. 
For the first time in the two months that you’ve been taking care of him, he’s genuinely smiling. 
“Who are you listening to?” You ask, leaning in to get a better look at the case. 
“Megadeth,” he says with a grizzly voice, nodding his head to a song in his mind. 
“Ooohhh cool,” you say with genuine fascination. “I’ve heard of them but I’ve not actually sat and listened to them.”
Eddie’s hair flies as he looks up at you with a quirked brow. “You’ve heard of them?”
You nod, “Yeah, I think the record store where I live has been playing them though. They’re putting a new album out or something.”
“Yes! This!” He says, shaking the cassette in his hands. “It came out two weeks ago. I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to hear it.”
  “And you better give Uncle Ben a nice thank you card for it. I wondered what he’d been picking up so much over time for.”
Eddie is quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, do my best to do that.”
“So, Eddie, what other music do you like?” You ask, wanting to give him a distraction before he slips into a bad place. His ears perk up at your question and the look he gives you makes you feel like you’re going to be standing there with him for a while. 
And you did. Long enough that Wayne was able to take a shower and get his lunch ready for work. By the time he came in to let you know he was leaving, he figured he’d find you looking bored to death and shuffling awkwardly as his nephew droned on about his music knowledge. 
But, what he found instead was you sitting in Eddie’s chair, leaning into him intently as he animatedly speaks about whatever band he’s gotten started on. Wayne knows how Eddie can get once he gets started. But you don’t look bored at all like he probably has at times. 
In fact, Wayne would dare to say you have a bit of a sparkle in your eyes as you gaze up at his nephew. 
“Hey, kids, I’m heading out,” he calls into the room, grabbing both of your attentions instantly.
“What?” You ask, turning to look back at the clock on the dresser. “Oh my god, it’s been an hour and a half already? Eddie, you still need to eat dinner.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wayne waves a hand, “I have a pizza on its way.”
“Wait, what?” Eddie looks at Wayne with a pinched brow. “You gave someone our address?”
“Boy, just trust me, okay? You know I wouldn't let just anybody bring a pizza to this house.”
Your mind instantly goes to Hopper. You’ve heard Wayne and Eddie talk about him before a handful of times but you’ve never actually seen him. He’s brought things to the house for Eddie before when you’ve not been there, leaving you very curious about him.
“Okay, if you say so.” Eddie says with a roll of his eyes. 
Right on que, a knock raps against the door with a rapid urgency. It makes you jump, something the younger Munson notices but doesn’t comment on.
“That must be the delivery boys,” Wayne says with a sly smile before leaving the room. Eddie looks at you with a quirked brow, wording ‘boys?’ at you with confusion. 
As you go to inspect what Wayne is up to, you hear the loud voices of boys as they begin to file into the house. The entryway fills with 6 or 7 bodies of all different ages and sizes, all of them wearing the same baseball style tee shirt with a red devil face on the front. 
“Hellfire…” you say to yourself, reading the shirts before letting out a gasp. Your feet carry you down the hall where you look amongst the group.
“Bring the pizza in here boys,” hear Wayne say from the kitchen, “Jeff and Grant, come n’help me get this table setup for ya.”
You watch as two of the older boys go into the kitchen followed by the one still carrying the pizza, leaving the younger ones to finish kicking off their shoes. One of them finally notices you and straightens before turning to grab the shirt of a taller boy behind him. 
“Oh shit, it’s you!” You recognize his voice. Mike Wheeler shoves another boy with curly hair next to him, who curses and turns to face you as well. He says your name like it’s a question, sussing you out before getting excited.
“In the flesh,” you say, gesturing towards yourself. 
“Hell yeah,” he says in his giggly voice. “We didn’t know if you were gonna be here or not.”
“I didn’t know you guys were gonna be here at all!”
“What really?” Mike says with a scrunched nose.
“That would be cause’a me.” Wayne leans through the threshold, that sly smile still on his face. “I didn’t tell ya in case ya told Ed. Sorry, hope this is alright. Dustin told me he’d been callin’ and that Eddie wouldn’t talk to em, so I figured he couldn’t ignore em if they was already here.”
Eddie’s bell rings from his room, and Eddie and Mike visibly perk up.
“Is that him?” Dustin asks excitedly.
“Yeah, he’s back in his room. Come on,” you say as you turn on your heel. Giddy with excitement, you couldn’t wait to see Eddie’s face when he got to see his friends. Them being here on top of getting his stereo system? It’s almost like it’s…his…
“Is today Eddie’s birthday?” You quickly stop to face the boys that had followed you down the hall, causing them to almost run into you. 
“What, no?” Dustin says confused, “His birthday’s not til May.”
You let out a sigh of relief. “Okay good. Sorry, he’s right in here—”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Eddie’s slightly strained voice called from the other side of the door. You could hear a tinge of panic in his tone, and it hit you that all he could hear was loud noise with no context while he’s stuck in his bed.
“Wait right—”
“EDDIEEEEEEEE!” Dustin shouts, stepping past you and pushing the bedroom door open. Mike follows behind and the quiet boy with him gives a soft sorry as he files in behind him.
“Wait, where’s that bastard at?!” The older boys come running out of the kitchen, pushing each other until they stumble into Eddie’s room as well. 
Eddie’s bed has a living wall around it, bodies blocking your ability to see his face. Before you can go in to check on him, Wayne calls for you from down the hall, a pizza crust in his hand. 
“Hey, he didn’t get his pain meds for the night yet. Figured he would be too tired and end up being grumpy by the time they got here, so I held off on it. Obviously if he needs em he can have him, but he seemed pretty distracted with his cassette to notice any pain.”
“That’s good to hear,” you say with a nod. “I’ll probably have him take them after they eat with his other meds.” You pause for a moment, putting a hand on Wayne’s arm. “If I had to take a guess, he’s probably going to be grumpy anyway, but…he’ll thank you for it eventually.” 
He gives you a nod before gathering his lunch and heading out for the night. A chorus of guffaws from down the hall had your interest piqued. But, as you made it to the doorway, you felt like your stomach was in your throat as you watched the boys trying to get Eddie into his wheelchair, one arm around the shoulders of two of his friends while another was holding onto his ankle.
“Woah, woah, pump the brakes there guys,” you say running to them. The boys all look at you collectively, then look to Eddie. 
“It’s okay, I’m fine!” Eddie laughs. His eyes were creased from how hard he was smiling and his laugh filled you with a fluffy feeling. 
“I can tell you’re fine, but I don’t want you to get hurt and have to send these guys home.” Just as quickly as they had tried to lift him, they sat him gently back down so he was sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Sorry to be the party pooper, but once he’s in the chair he’s free game.”
“So, are you gonna introduce us or what, dude?” One of the boys finally asks as you get Eddie situated to put in his chair. He lets out a sigh, avoiding your eyes, saying your name to the group of boys. “She’s my…caretaker.” There was a bit of hesitation in that last word, but you ignored it. 
He said your name again as if speaking to you this time, “This is the Hellfire Club. I guess you know Dustin, Mike, and Will already,” he says gesturing to the three younger boys who all wave and smile in their own way. “And these boneheads double as my old band members; Jeff, Grant, and Gareth.” The older guys nod and give their hellos, still giving Eddie a knowing look.
“It’s nice to meet you all. Finally.” Eddie gives you a deadpanned look before you lift him to pivot in his chair, making you almost fall into him as you do. He plops in his chair and unlocks it, and you step aside so that he can back away from the bed. 
“Oh, let me push you!”
“No, I wanna push him!”
You roll your eyes, and watch as the boys file out of Eddie’s room and into the hallway.
“Man, we really need to get you some decorations for your room,” the last boy calls as he looks around. That gives you an idea, and you grab the one named Gareth by the arm. He looks at you with wild eyes, standing nervously in front of you. “W-whats up?” He attempts to ask with a slight shake in his voice.
“What kind of things does he like?” You ask the nervous boy, looking him straight in the eye.
“W-what?”
“For his room. I want to get him some things but don’t know what to be looking for when I’m out.”
“Oh, um…He likes metal music. And he used to have a bunch of band shirts. Mostly Black Sabbath, Dio, Metallica…But he also likes Dungeons and Dragons. But I guess that’s obvious. Oh, and The Hobbit series.”
“Like Lord of the Rings?” You ask. 
He nods, “Yeah. He carried a copy of The Hobbit with him everywhere. It was practically falling apart, b-but he loved it.”
You shake your head, biting your lip as you think. “Thank you, Gareth,” you say, and he takes that as the OK for him to go, sprinting out the bedroom door.
“Oh, man, dude,” Dustin says from the table, mouth full of pizza “Wait until you see what Jeff’s got planned.”
“Yeah,” Will chimes in, “Jeff has been keeping us on our toes. We’ll definitely need your help to get through this session.”
“I don’t know,” Jeff says, loading his plate with pizza and cheesy bread, “what I have on the agenda for tonight might be the end for this group of folly.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Jeff. Just because I’ve been out of commission doesn’t mean that I don’t know all the tricks in the book.” Eddie says from his spot on the table. 
You maneuver around the boys as they get their plates and drinks. Someone had already gotten Eddie a plate and a cup full of a fizzy drink, which, thankfully, was way too dark to be one of the beers that you see sitting on the counter. It was in a regular solo cup though.
“Eddie,” you call from across the counter, and he looks up at you carefully. “Do you want a straw?” You ask, opening the counter above you. Looking out of the corner of your eyes, you see the boys have stopped talking, eyes looking everywhere except for Eddie as if trying to gauge his reaction but not make it obvious.
It takes him a moment to respond. “Um, yes, please.” He says quietly, hands in his lap as he leans in to look at the paper sitting in front of him. Grant sits on one side of him, leaning in and pointing out something about his character sheet which in turn breaks the silence among the table. 
When you round the table to bring his straw, you place it in his cup and he gives you a quiet thanks again. You nod, but can’t help to notice that he hasn’t eaten any of his pizza. 
Not wanting to draw too much attention to him again, you lean into his ear with a low voice. “Do you need me to cut up your pizza?” He doesn’t move at first, but subtly shakes his head enough for you to notice. You take your lip between your teeth and nod, backing away.
Once their game gets going, you grab your pizza and head into the living room, putting on your headphones and cracking open your textbook. You can’t help but look over at the table for every loud noise that they made, which was a lot, but you didn’t want to be too distracted in case Eddie needed you.
Things seemed like they were going well, until out of the corner of your eye you saw Grant jump up from his seat looking down between him and Eddie. The paper plate and Eddie’s pizza slice were both face down on the floor. You pulled your headphones off quickly, scrambling to your feet to clean the mess.
“Woah,” Grant says when you appear from behind him. “I can get it. It’s no biggie.”
Eddie’s face looked forlorn, still staring down at the place where Grant was wiping the red sauce with a paper towel. 
“Let me get you another slice,” Dustin said, rising from his seat.
“No,” Eddie said, voice almost panicked. “It’s fine, I don’t—I don’t need any.” 
“You barely even got to eat this piece,” Grant said with a questioning tone as he tossed the dirty piece away. 
“I’m getting you another piece.”
“Eddie.”
His panicked eyes met yours, and you could see the breakdown bubbling inside of him. His head was shaking, mouth opening and closing but the words weren’t coming out. Tears rolled down his cheeks. You’d never seen him get this upset before. 
You put a hand on either cheek and made him focus on you. “Eddie, it’s fine. No one here is upset with you. It’s just a slice of pizza. There’s, like, two more whole pizza’s over there. Dustin is going to get you another piece. Do you want me to cut it up for you? You should be able to pick up the smaller pieces.” He looks between your eyes before nodding finally. You give him a reassuring smile and take your hands from his face. 
“I’ll get you a refill, too,” you say, ignoring the tension in the room and continuing on like nothing happened. Dustin handed you the new plate when you walked by, trading it for the cup you had to refill. Grant took his place back next to Eddie and the table started to talk again. 
“Here you go,” Dustin says, reaching across the table to set Eddie’s drink back in front of him. “And here is an extra cup to roll your dice in.” You watch Eddie eye the cup before pinching it between his fingers. He gives a small thanks and the table moves on, becoming so engrossed in the game once again that no one even notices when you place the new plate on the table. Eddie mindlessly picks at the cut pieces as Jeff gives a speech about a cave having a hoard of something inside of it.
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A hand waves in front of your face, pulling your attention from the textbook. When you look up, you see Dustin, Mike and Will peering over you. And out of the corner of your eye you see Jeff, Grant, and Gareth pushing Eddie’s chair down the hall.
“Hey, what’s going on?” You ask, pulling your headphones down and around your neck. 
“Bathroom break!” Gareth shouts.
“Do you need my help?” You call back.
“Nope!”
These boys are going to kill you.
“What are you studying for?” Will turns his head to try and see the contents of your book.
“Oh, this is my medical terminology book. I’m in nursing school.” The three boys give a collective ‘ooooohh’ that makes you laugh. “It’s pretty interesting, but I don’t think you guys would like it all that much.”
“Hey, we like science stuff,” Dustin says.
“Yeah, he goes to a science camp every summer.”
“To see my girlfriend!”
“Yeah that’s totally the only reason,” Will chimes in with a roll of his eyes.
“Wow, Dustin has a science camp girlfriend, huh?” You say teasingly.
“She’s not just my science camp girlfriend. I talk to her on my ham radio, too. She lives in a different state.”
“And she’s Mormon.”
“Yeah, her dad doesn’t like us talking so we have to be sneaky. Mike has a girlfriend, too.”
“Does she also live in another state where she can only be accessed via radio?”
“No, she lives with Will just a little bit away from here,” Mike says, jutting his thumb back at Will. You tilt your head at the boys, confused as to what they mean.
“How far is a little bit?” You ask.
“Like, I don’t know, five—ten minutes by car?” Mike says looking at Will and Dustin who nod in agreement. “El—I mean Jane’s dad is Chief Hopper. And he’s dating Will’s mom. They live in a house that they built out here.”
Every sentence was like whiplash. That would explain why Wayne asks the chief to come out here. It would be easier if he’s so close by to come and check on Eddie. But, obviously he has a family so he can’t be here all the time. 
“Back from the bathroom! No one died!” Gareth shouts as Grant and Jeff push Eddie back into the dining room. The three younger boys rush back into the dinning room as well taking their places at the table once again.
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It was almost pitch black dark when you opened your eyes, the only light coming from the clock on the stove. You hadn’t meant to fall asleep. When did you fall asleep? And who put this blanket on you?
You could make out your textbook on the coffee table, and when you looked around, it seemed like the boys had cleaned up and put the table back against the wall. You jumped up from your seat suddenly, about to take off down the hall to check on Eddie when a voice from beside you made you scream.
“Jesus Christ!” Eddie shouted in reaction to your shriek. You pulled the lamp cord on the table next to you and the room was lit with a low light. Eddie’s form came into focus where he sat in the recliner, eyes squinting from the brightness.
“What the hell, Eddie!” You whisper shout. “Why are you out here and not in bed?”
“I…” he stuttered, “I didn’t know if you’d hear me if I needed you. So, I just had the guys put me here. That’s all.”
You blink at him, not awake enough to fully understand, but also not fully awake enough to argue. Rubbing the sleepies from your eyes, you look at him better. He looked like he had gotten a clean set of clothes on and even had his drinking cup next to him in the chair. 
“Guess they got you set up pretty good, huh?”
He nods, shimmying in the chair as he gets settled again.
“Eddie?” He looks over at you, puzzled. “Why were you so against seeing them? Or even just talking to them? They seemed really happy to see you.” Eddie turned away from you and was quiet for several moments. He took a deep breath in and sighed.
“I was…Some of them…Some of them haven’t…seen me since…since before…” His voice was shaky. You were about to tell him that he didn’t have to explain himself, but he kept going, voice leveling out a bit when he cleared it.
“Dustin, he was there. One of the ones who…found me. But the rest of them, they haven’t seen me since before break. Since before…everything happened. And none of them have seen me like this. I’ve changed so much that…I was worried they would see me and freak out. I don’t think I could have handled that.”
“Well, they certainly didn’t seem too bothered by any of your changes. They’re a good group of friends.” Eddie nods in agreement. “Did you guys have a good time?” A big, cheesy smile spreads across Eddie's face.
“Yeah, we did. Totally kicked Jeff’s monster hoard’s asses,” he said with a laugh.
“What time did everyone leave?” You ask, looking at the clock where it reads 3am. Thank god you switched shifts.
“Dustin, Mike, and Will all left around 10:30 or 11. Hopper came and picked them up. Guess they’re all staying at Mike’s.”
You let out an exasperated grunt, throwing your head back onto the couch.
“What was that?” Eddie laughs at your dramatics.
“I missed Hopper, again! I’ve been hearing about this guy but haven’t seen him yet!”
Eddie snorts, “You’re not really missing much. He’s just this really tall dude with a bunch of scars now from being imprisoned by the Russians.”
You look at him with shock. “He was what?”
Eddie shakes his head, “After they left, my other friends stayed until like one. We talked outside for a bit. They said they want to start coming here to do Hellfire meetings every other Friday, but I told them I’d have to ask you first.”
“Why do you have to ask me?” You look at him with a furrowed brow. “If you have to ask anyone it would be Wayne.”
“I know you like to study and stuff, and I don’t want them to be a distraction for you while they’re here. Or for you to have to worry about me or whatever.”
“Oh, well, that’s really thoughtful of you Eddie. But I’m okay. If I really need to study, I’ll just go sit in your room or something.”
He nods his head, a small smile tugging on his lips.
“Did you guys talk about anything else?”
Your words caught him off guard, you can tell by the blanched look on his face.
“Nope. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
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“I thought it was pretty boring,” Sam said, taking a bite from the sundae he’d ordered for the two of you to split. You couldn’t decide what you wanted, so he ordered it as a way to get a little bit of everything. It was huge, and you were thankful that you didn’t have to eat it alone.
“I wouldn’t know considering you had my attention most of the movie,” you said, referring to all the stolen kisses and brief make out sessions that kept you pulled from paying attention to what you were watching. The movie was kind of boring, though, so you really couldn’t complain.
“That was my way of saving your sanity,” he says with a smirk.
“My hero,” you say with a roll of your eyes. 
“Oh, hey you got something—”
“Oh, what—”
“It’s right there,” he says pointing at your lip, “like a little hot fudge or something.”
“Did I get it?” You ask, licking your lips where he pointed.
“No, no. Here let me—” His hand cradles your face and he plants another kiss on your lips, making you squeal and giggle at his antics.
“Ha, ha, you’re so funny,” you say when you pull away. He looks at you with a sparkle in his eyes for a moment, before looking down with a bashful smile.
“Sorry, I just really like doing that.”
“What, being a dork?”
“No, kissing you,” he says seriously, “It’s nice. You’re nice.”
Heat hits your cheeks at his words. Sam has been nothing but a gentleman to you since you met. Sometimes he comes out to your car and will walk with you to your class, carrying your books for you the whole way. Other days you’ll bring him a coffee to his office when you’ve had time to stop in the mornings. 
He’s always asking questions about you, and he genuinely seems interested when you talk about yourself, not tuning out like some guys do when a girl talks about themselves. 
And when you ask questions about him he always seems to have an interesting answer. Whether it’s about his well off parents who have a summer home in Scottsdale or how he played varsity football for his high school, there was always a story within a story for him to tell you all the details about. 
You did have to admit though, that, yes, he was really nice and interesting, but maybe he really wasn’t your type? Tonya told you that it’s just your brain’s way of telling you that you can’t have anything nice. But, you just…can’t quite put a finger on it.
Still, it wasn’t enough to turn down a third date.
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thank you for reading.
396 notes · View notes
lesservillain · 3 months
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iv. someone like you and all you know and how you speak
summary: old friends and halloween shenanigans cw: we see peen. an: i love joyce byers. also pic of matthew lillard is implied to be reefer rick.
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Eddie started having night terrors. 
They didn’t come every night, but their intensity had you concerned.
The first one had you flying over the back of the couch to get to him. His shrieks turned your blood cold, and watching him shake and convulse was terrifying to witness. In your panic, you wrapped your arms around him to try to ground him and ended up getting hit in the face. After that you asked your teacher for advice on what interventions to do when someone has an episode.
But you weren’t the only one to suffer with pain after getting clocked in the jaw. The days after an episode left Eddie’s body sore from the sudden jerking of his muscles in his sleep. It probably didn’t help that he had also started physical therapy twice a week either, leaving him sore even with his pain medication most of the time. 
Needless to say, Eddie was acting like his normal grumpy self most days, even when his friends would come over. Though, he did try and reel it back when he could catch himself or with a subtle nudge from you. By now you’d gotten used to his grumpy attitude and knew it was just coming from a place of hurting. In turn he’s been much more cooperative with you. Progress.
“What the hell are you guys doing?” You ask with a laugh, as you get out of your car. Eddie is sitting on the ground leaning back against his hands with his legs sprawled out. Will and Grant sit on either side of him as Dustin pushes Eddie’s wheelchair on its back wheels, Jeff sitting in it and squealing as Gareth and Mike laugh.
“They’re trying to break Jeff so him and Eddie can get matching chairs,” Grant called, eliciting a laugh from Eddie and Will.
“N’they’re gonna pay for his new one when they break that one,” Wayne calls from the porch, lit cigarette in hand. All around him are pumpkins of all different shapes and sizes, like a little pumpkin patch had grown around him.
“Ah, I see.” You nod.
Grabbing your bag, you walk into the Munson home to get your things settled. Glancing over into the dining room, you expected to see the table already set up for their game night, but were surprised to see it covered in newspaper and knives and spoons. 
“Are you guys carving these pumpkins?” You ask, stepping back out onto the porch and pointing at the Wayne’s posse.
“Yep,” Eddie called back. “My PT said it would be a “fun activity” to work on my hand strength," he said with stiff fingered air quotes.
“Yeah, Eddie’s gonna scoop out all the guts with his bare hands,” Dustin says, setting the wheelchair back down to wiggle his fingers.
“Ew gross,” Mike joins in with Dustin’s antics.
“It’s not gross,” you say with a roll of the eyes. “Save the seeds and I’ll bake them for later.”
“Mmm, some roasted pumpkin seeds sounds real good.” Wayne says, putting his cigarette out and standing from his seat. “Save me some a’them when you make em.”
“Of course!”
“Hey, should we show her what we found earlier?” Your ears twitch when you hear Will lean into Eddie’s side. He looks at you over his shoulder, then back to the group before nodding.
And that’s how you ended up following the boys through the woods around the Munson house. Grant pushed Eddie’s chair through the woods, which wasn’t as terrible of terrain as you had expected. If the slight bounce bothered him, Eddie didn’t say. You stayed steady next to him, only moving to let them go ahead of you when the mostly thinned out trees were too close in some areas. 
After a few minutes and a lot of loud conversation between the boys, you came to a small clearing that dropped off into a cliff. It made you nervous to see the boys get so close to the drop, especially when Grant pushed Eddie almost to the very edge.
“Hey, be careful, please,” you called from behind them. 
“Come on, come see how far down this is!” Jeff called, his toes right on the cliff’s edge. You take a couple steps forward, just enough that you can see the water sloshing at the bottom. 
To see it made you dizzy, so you tried to focus your eyes elsewhere, instead taking in the breathtaking view of the lake below. You could see boats, houses, and even a man fishing off of a dock behind his house. If there was a railing or something to hold on to out here, you could see yourself coming out here to sit with Eddie on a nice day.
“Woah, shit!” Your heart stops beating as you watch Will pull Mike’s stumbling body back from the ledge, and you’re instantly done with this whole adventure.
“Alright, I get the idea. Field trips over,” you say, walking over to Eddie’s chair and pulling him back. “We better go carve those pumpkins before it gets too late and the kids have to go home.”
There’s some groans of protest, but they all follow your lead back to through the woods.
“You have to admit it was pretty cool, though, right?” Eddie says, his head tilting back just a bit to look at you. He was smiling. It was something he started doing more and you couldn’t help the way it made your stomach flip every time he did it.
“Yeah, it was definitely a nice view,” you agreed with a sigh. 
“Maybe when it gets warm out we can try jumping from it.” You hear Gareth say to one of the other boys. You recall the large drop from where you all stood at the top and a shiver went down your spine.
“I wouldn’t...unless you really want to get your own wheelchair to match Eddie's,” you say back. Gareth doesn’t let out another peep for the duration of the walk back.
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“Okay, since Eddie is on scooping duty make sure you give him your pumpkins once you’ve got the tops off.”
The boys are sitting in their normal gaming formation, except for where Eddie and Gareth have swapped sides so Eddie can sit next to you. The pumpkin that the boys picked out for Eddie sits in front of you since you offered to carve it for him.
“What are you going to draw on it?” You ask him as you cut into the top of the thick pumpkin with force.
“I’m not sure yet,” he says indecisively. “Something scary for sure.”
“How about Mrs. O’Donnell?” Gareth nudges Eddie’s side, and the boys at the table all grimace.
“Fuck no. As terrifying as she is, I’d rather carve a demoba--”
Eddie catches himself mid sentence, horror written all over his face as he looks directly at Dustin. Mike and Will share similar pale faced expressions as Dustin. The tension at the table could be cut with a knife and you weren’t sure how to defuse the situation.
“Well,” Grant is the first to break the silence, “I think that, whatever we all decide to do, that we could make it into a competition. Let the newbie decide who has the best design.” He was looking straight at you and you were caught off guard by the new label. 
“Oh, come on, that’s not fair,” Gareth chimes in before you can say anything, “Will is like, one of the best artists in the whole town. He’s definitely gonna win.” Will sat up straight in his chair, before shrinking down with a smile.
“Hey, now, let’s not forget who designed these bad ass tee shirts,” Eddie says, gesturing at himself.
“You made those designs?” You ask surprised. Eddie nods with pride.
“Yep, when Hellfire was founded in ‘82. We scrounged up enough money to go to a print shop and have these bad boys made at the beginning of the school year. Wasn’t cheap, so we’ve always tried to be extra careful with them.”
“Awe, that’s so cute,” you giggle.
The table erupts in a defensive roar about how it is apparently not cute that their club has tee shirts that they take very good care of. No one was convincing you otherwise. 
You blew them off and distracted them by having them give Eddie their pumpkins. They all watched with amusement as Eddie reached down into each pumpkin and pulled the slimy, seedy guts out of them. Eddie’s button nose scrunched up with disgust, contrasted by the wide grin that touched his eyes. His tongue poked out in concentration as he swirled around the inside of the pumpkin, plopping the guts into bowls and pots with each one.
By the time he had gutted each pumpkin of their contents, Eddie looked like he was done for the rest of the night. 
“Eddie, do you want to save your pumpkin for another night?” You ask quietly, leaning in so only he could hear. He looks at you, brown orbs darting back and forth between your eyes carefully before smiling at you.
“Yeah, please?”
“Of course.”
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“See, I told you that Will was going to win!” Gareth shouted, his hands falling at his side with a huff as the rest of the group laughed at his bitching.
“I’m sorry, it’s really good! That’s the most detailed pumpkin carving of a vampire’s face I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks,” Will said bashfully. 
“Gareth, I don’t know why you’re bitching. Your jack-o-lanturn’s eyes aren’t even the same size.” Eddie razzed, goading Gareth until he flipped him off.
“Awe, I thought the mismatched eyes were cute,” you said teasingly, and Gareth froze, turning away from your eyes to stand by Will, who gave him a pat on the back.
As you all stood around admiring the hard work of everyone’s carved pumpkins, the sound of loud music playing grabbed all of your attention. It progressively got louder, sounding like it was coming from down the driveway.
“What the hell?” Jeff said with a tilt of his head.
Everyone seemed more confused than anything, but you clocked the look on Eddie’s face as he looked between the trees of the winding driveway. There was a fear there that you’d only seen in his face during his night terrors, and everything in your body was telling you that you needed to get him and everyone else inside.
“Come on guys, lets go—”
The loud revving of the engine drowned out the sound of whatever song the driver was playing. The car came over the bump at an alarming pace before slamming on its breaks once it got up to the clearing. Headlights blinded all of you, and your body moved on its own accord to stand directly in front of Eddie.
The engine cut off abruptly, the lights dimming enough to reveal fire engine red sports car with a black stripe down the middle. You could barely see the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror through the heavily tinted windows.
“Holy shit,” you hear Eddie say behind you. The fear had left his features, replaced with an elated shock that left you wanting to ask several questions. But before you could question him, Eddie maneuvered around you and the rest of the guys heading straight toward the mysterious car.
Just as Eddie approached the car, the driver side door swung open. A man  only a few years older than you with blond, spiked hair stepped out. The man had to be at least 6’5, his face covered in piercings and he had an over all aura of trouble.
“How the hell did he get this address?” You hear Jeff question Grant and Gareth.
“Rick!” Eddie shouts excitedly.
“Holy fuck, dude,” Rick says, pushing up his sunglasses and slamming his car door shut. He runs up to Eddie and embraces him tightly, bending down to be at his level. Rick pulled back, looking Eddie up and down before bringing his hand down on his shoulder a few times.
“Damn, that dude really did a number on you, huh?”
Eddie visibly shrinks, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Who the hell is that?” You ask Jeff quietly, taking a few steps back to be standing next to him.
“That’s Reefer Rick,” he says with an annoyed tone. “He’s Eddie’s friend. Got Eddie into dealing in school.” Your neck almost breaks with how quickly you look at Jeff.
“Dealing? Like, drug dealing?”
Jeff looks at you and nods. “Uh, yeah? You didn’t know about that?”
“Um, no. I didn’t.” 
“It was just weed,” Jeff as an attempt to save face, “Aaaaaand sometimes random pills that Rick would give him to sell. But nothing serious.”
“Oh, okay. Just weed and pills. Which are both totally illegal to sell but it’s cool right?” Your blood was starting to boil with this new information. You don’t know why you’re even upset, it’s not like you really cared if people smoked weed or whatever.
Really it’s the idea of Eddie getting in trouble after everything he’s been through. Drug dealers are notorious for being sneaky and conniving, right? What if this guy thinks Eddie got money in the settlement and is here looking for a handout.
“Hi," you say in a clipped tone to the man as you approach him and Eddie. You give him just your first name, extending a hand out to him with faux pleasantry as you settle next to Eddie in his chair. “Who are you?”
“Oh, hey, this is Rick,” Eddie says to you with excitement. “Rick, this is my…caregiver.”
Rick takes your hand, looking you up and down before giving you a loose handshake. “Well, hello nurse,” Rick smiles, maintains eye contact with you as he continues to hold your hand.. 
After a beat Eddie clears his throat, and Rick retracts his hand from yours. You don’t miss the subtle shift in Eddie’s chair, making him close enough you can feel his arm against yours. You took the hint, and stepped back until you were behind his chair. Rick laughed lowly before looking back to Eddie. 
“Well, I’m glad you have someone who can take care of you,” Rick says with a cheshire smile. “Especially since I’m sure Wayne is back at work. Must be expensive to live all the way out here.”
“Eh, we had it built out here as part of the settlement, so it’s paid for. He still has to pay the bills, though.” Eddie’s voice trails off at the end. “Wish I could do something to help…”
“Yeah, I don’t blame ya,” Rick says as he scans the land, nodding his head to the guys as he does. “I’m sure you’re not interested in getting back into the business with me given…well, everything.”
“Ah, yeah…I owe you an apology…” Eddie looks up to Rick with a guilty expression.
“For what? Oh, you mean my house?” Eddie nods and Rick waves him off. “Nah, don’t sweat it man. I took everything with me when I went to Vegas so if anyone went in there snooping they wouldn’t have found anything anyway. It looked like they had sent someone in to clean though. Looked nicer than the day my parents—I mean, the day I bought it.” Eddie nods, letting out a breath that he was holding as Rick talked.
“Well that’s nice that your house that you bought is all clean,” you say, grabbing onto the handles of Eddie’s wheelchair, “And since he’s isn’t interested in your business endeavors, I guess that means you don’t need anything from Eddie then, right?”
Rick looks down at Eddie, then back up to you with a curious look. His tongue rings peaks out from between his lips as he plays with it, before popping it back in his mouth to speak. 
“Well, I was just coming out here to see a dear old friend of mine. But, there is one thing that I want to speak with him about. In private.” He leans down to eye level, eyes squinting with how tightly he smiles at you.
You open your mouth to protest immediately, but you feel Eddie push against the wheels, his chair moving away from you as he motioned Rick to follow him. 
“Give us just a second.”
You stand in the same spot, speechless as they move far enough away that you can’t hear the conversation between them. A hand on your shoulder pulls your attention, and Dustin motions you back over to where the guys are huddled together.
“He’s an idiot,” Grant whisper yells into the huddle.
“Yeah, but he’s obviously lost his best salesmen for the high school territory,” Mike argues. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he was asking if one of us would want to start dealing for him.”
“He better not. You guys better not,” you say with a pointed finger at the boys who were still in high school.
“Trust us, we won’t,” Dustin said with a firm tone.
“Well, whatever he wants, it’s probably not good.”
“Well…”
“Jeff, no.”
“Hey, he’s the whole reason Eddie even stayed in high school. He probably would have dropped out if Rick hadn’t convinced him to keep trying.”
“He only wanted Eddie to keep trying so he could keep selling drugs to high schoolers!”
“That’s a pretty good point.”
“What’s a good point?”
All heads turned to Eddie, who was just behind you with an amused smile on his face. Rick wasn’t with him, still standing back by his car with a lit cigarette in his hand, eyes watching you carefully.
“Oh, we were just…”
“We were saying that you two should decorate her car for the Trunk r Treat festival. And the point was…that you could wear a mask and no one would know it was you?”
Everyone looks at Dustin like he has two heads. Where he even came up with that…you had no idea.
Eddie’s curls bounce as he shakes his head. “What? Trunk r Treat? What are you guys talking about?”
“Oh, the Trunk r Treat is what the town is doing instead of regular trick r treating since the roads are still pretty messed up. Everyone is gonna pull their cars into the fairgrounds and let the kids trick r treat there.”
“That sounds like fun,” you say, looking at Eddie with a hopeful smile. “It would be nice to get out of the house for a little bit. You said Halloween is your favorite holiday, right? I think it would be fun!”
“You guys are serious, aren’t you?” The mood shifts when Eddie speaks. “You seriously think it would be a good idea for me to go out into public? On Halloween night?”
“That’s why I said you could wear a mask!” Dustin seems to be the only one who isn’t affected by Eddie’s tone. “And no one knows you’re missing part of your leg. It would be perfect.” Dustin gestures to you, “And you’ll have your guardian angel with you. If anyone does give you shit she can pack you up in the car real quick and you can say ‘I told you so’ to us at the next Hellfire meeting.’”
Eddie’s jaw rolls in frustration, a heavy sigh leaving him as he leans forward in his chair.
“Hopper will be there,” Will chimes in. “Him and my mom are going to decorate the back of his old police cruiser. I-I could tell him you’re going and I’m sure he’d keep an eye out on you.” The boys look from Will to Eddie as they wait for his response. 
“I…I…Let—let me think about it. Okay? No promises.”
The boys all perk up at Eddie’s potential compliance. Chatter about costumes and getting together at Mike’s parents house has everyone forgetting about the concerns of Rick’s arrival.
You remember though. You hear Rick laugh to himself from where he’s leaning against his car. Looking over your shoulder, you watch as he flicks his cigarette away and opens the door. Stopping about halfway in, he looks at Eddie then to you. He sends you a wink, then gets in without another word.
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After about a week of convincing from all the Hellfire boys, you, and even Wayne, Eddie finally caved in and agreed to go to the Hawkins Trunk r Treat. Wayne talked with Hopper about trying to get your cars parked next to each other during the whole event just in case. And Wayne also promised that him and his friend Ben would stay close by in town if anything happened. Eddie didn’t really have much of a reason to say no.
You on the other hand had to come up with an excuse as to why you wouldn’t be spending Halloween with your best friend.
“We ALWAYS have movie night! You can’t just call in sick or something?” Tonya pleads with you as the two of you split each others Chinese take out. You shrug your shoulders, the feeling of guilt creeping up like bile in your throat. 
“I’m sorry Tonnie, I can’t. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t made plans with Charles for the night.”
“He probably would have asked but he knows that we always spend Halloween together.”
“I’m sorry, Tonya, but we’re big girls now. Sometimes things need to change…”
Her lower lip pouts at you, and you can tell by the way her eyes are glassy that she’s genuinely upset. If it were anyone else, you would be spending time with her in a heart beat. Ever since the two of you became friends, Halloween has been your thing. 
You’d always been scared of the holiday after when happened with your parents, but over the years Tonya has been able to slowly tear down your fears and make the holiday enjoyable again. Now that you’ve gotten the chance to potentially to the same with Eddie and his fear of going in public again, you feel obligated to follow in her image. 
“I’m really proud of you, you know?” She miles as you as she dabs the wetness from her eyes. “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. Your parents, your grandparents…they’d be really happy to see you working so hard. With school, work, and still helping me out here…Oh, come here!”
She stands from her seat and rushed to hug you, which you return with equal adoration. For a split moment you want to tell her everything. About Eddie and everything he’s been through. About how you’re starting to prefer being at the Munson house over anywhere else. About how if anyone has come out of their shell, it’ Eddie. About how you’re not really sure about Sam, and how you don’t want to admit that there might be a reason why you’re feeling that way…
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“Weren’t kiddin’ about your trunk being big, huh?” Eddie and Wayne peer into the trunk of your car as you pop it open. “I’m sure you won’t have any issue gettin’ it in and outta here. Want me t’help ya get in, son?”
“Can I try first?”
Wayne nods and Eddie maneuvers himself to the passenger side of your car. You’re already standing there waiting with the door open for him, holding it in place. 
The Trunk r Treat was this coming weekend and the Hellfire boys were going to help decorate your trunk before Friday’s game. All you and Eddie had to do was get the materials and the candy. You saw Wayne hand Eddie some cash thinking that you weren’t looking, but you had no intention of letting Eddie pay for anything. This was for him, so why stress him out when you know that money is a touchy subject for him?
Eddie gets his chair in position and locks the wheels. Grabbing the “oh shit” handle and the side of the door, he lifts himself up from his chair and pauses for a moment. His face is scrunched up from pain after already having physical therapy this morning. It was hard not to get him to over do it now that his mobility has started to improve, but you would rather him learn his limits than go back to being bedridden.
A few deep breaths and a quick shift of his foot puts his ass on the edge of the seat of your car. There’s a loud thump where his head bumps the low slope of your cars door, but he just rolls his eyes and laughs it off, much to your joy. You think about how two months ago when you started caring for him that he probably would have thrown a fit and fell in it if he were to go through this exact scenario now.
“Good job, Eddie,” you praise. He looks away from you bashfully, muttering a small thanks under his breath. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, you know deep down Eddie likes to be told he’s doing good. You’ve noticed it in the ways he reacts to you commenting on all of his achievements; the coy smiles and the way he starts to fidget with his rings when you sing his praises. 
Wayne grabs Eddie’s chair and puts it in the trunk. “You gonna be able to get this thing out when ya get there?” 
“Yep! I’m used to lugging wheelchairs around by now. No biggie!”
Wayne nods and rounds the car to Eddie’s side. As the two men talk, you hop into the passenger seat and start the car.
“Now don’t go and give her any trouble, Eds.”
“I know, I know,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “If anything she’s gonna give me trouble. I just know she’s gonna be having me dress up in every costume they have there.”
“That’s not true,” you say defensively. “I actually already know what I want you to go as, so if you don’t fight me on it then you’ll only have to try one costume on.”
“Why does that not make me feel any better?”
Wayne barks out a laugh before closing the car door. He waves the two of you off as you make your way down the driveway until he’s no longer in site.
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“Okay, let me make sure I’m understanding you right.” Eddie holds up the large, white, round costume that you handed to him, eyeing it skeptically. “You want me to dress up as…an egg?”
You laugh through your nose involuntarily, trying and failing to keep your composure. In your hand you hold what can only be describe as a “sexy devil” costume that consists of a short red dress, a pair of devil horns, and devil’s spear.
“Yeah, and I’ll be the devil, see? We’d—” you snort again, “We’d be deviled eggs!”
A smile cracks on Eddie’s face, more amused at your inability to contain your own laughter rather than at your poor excuse for a Halloween costume idea. He give you a half serious look as he hands you back the egg costume without another comment.
“Awe, come on,” you say as you take the costume from him, “you have to at least admit it was funny.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What’s the real idea that you have?”
You swap the costumes out from the rack for the ones you really wanted to do. Handing Eddie the long nightgown, you hold up what would be your costume; a long red cape and a plaid blue dress with a ruffle under the skirt. 
“Okay, so obviously that’s red riding hood,” Eddie says pointing to your outfit. “But what exactly is—” You hand him a wolf mask, which he takes from you and examines carefully.
“You’ll be the Big Bad Wolf, disguised as the grandmother,” you explain after a long moment of silence.
“Yeah, I gathered that,” he sasses. He takes a few more moments to think it over, and you watch the way he looks at your costume, then to you. There’s a shift in his demeanor that you can’t quite interpret, and before you can think too much into it he finally speaks.
“Alright, I’ll do it,” he says, placing the costume pieces in his lap. “Better than the deviled egg idea.”
“Well, maybe next year I can sway you into the deviled egg. But I guess this works, too.” Eddie straightens in his chair, and you swear you could see a small blush on his cheeks. 
After you gathered everything for your costumes, you and Eddie did a little more shopping around for some stuff to decorate your trunk with. Streamers, hanging bats, fake spider webs, and enough candy to feed a small village fill your arms and Eddie’s lap all the way to the check out counter.
As the girl behind the counter rings out your items, you notice she keeps taking glances at Eddie. He’s too busy looking at the check out candle to notice, but you keep an eye on her just in case.
“Is that all for you?” She asks with a pop of her gum. You nod and she give you your total. As you reach for your wallet in your purse, Eddie shift in his chair, pulling out his own wallet.
“I got it,” he says, taking a $20 bill from the billfold.
“Nope,” you say, pulling out your own money and handing it to the cashier.
“No, please. I want to pay--”
“It’s okay, Eddie. Save it and buy us a pizza or something sometime when I don’t feel like cooking your dinner.”
The girl behind the counter’s gum popped loudly as she held your change in her hand. Eddie shrank back in his chair, stuffing the $20 back into his wallet. You took your bags from the counter and plopped them in Eddie’s lap, much to his surprise.
“Here, if you want to help, you can carry these.”
As you push his him out of the shop, Eddie asks you to stop before going off the curb.
“What’s up?”
“Can we go into the Goodwill over there?” He nods down the strip of stores where the sign to the second hand shop is displayed in the window.
“Sure,” you say without a second thought, “Lets put these bags in my car and then we can go in there.”
The store is a little busier than you expected. Everyone from kids to adults were checking out the shelves for their last minute home made costumes and accessories to wear this weekend. It made you happy to see so many people excited about the event.
The boys told you that Halloween can be a big deal in Hawkins. But after the earthquake, those who still remained wondered if there would even be a Halloween this year. Apparently the mother of one of their friends, Lucas, joined the city counsel and pitched the idea in a city meeting and most everyone was on board.
“The only person who protested was Mary Cunningham,” Dustin told you in a hushed tone. “She said it wasn’t safe to have all of the towns kids in one spot for ‘easy pickings.’” Mary Cunningham was the mother of Chrissy Cunningham, the girl that was murdered by Victor Creel in Eddie’s trailer before he attempted to kill Eddie himself. Wayne never told you this, but, according to the boys, Mary Cunningham is still convinced Eddie was the one who tried to kill Eddie, despite the evidence that supports that it was Creel. You hoped that she wouldn’t show up to the event this weekend.
“No way!” Eddie pulls a tee shirt from one of the racks. You’re standing next to his chair rather than behind it to make room for people to go around you in the tight, over stuffed isles. You turn your body, hand on his shoulder as you try to let a lady and he kid move behind you.
“What is it?”
“It’s a Black Sabbath tour shirt! This one’s from a tour they did in the 70’s though. Like a tour they did in Europe. I wonder how it ended up in this dump of a Goodwill?”
“Sounds like it ended up here so that you could buy it.”
Eddie looked at the shirt solemnly. Most of his attire that he had consisted of plain tee shirts and pajama pants that had come from packs at the store. All of his clothes and other personal belongings had been swallowed up by the earthquake and destroyed. 
“Well…” he said after a few moments, “It is only 50 cents…”
“Perfect!” You pluck the shirt from his hands and fold it over your arm. “Keep looking. Maybe someone’s metal loving uncle passed away and his family brought his clothes here. I’m gonna go look at some pants for you.”
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“There’s that beautiful smile that I love to see,” Sam says as you push the door of his office open. You gave him a small smile, setting his coffee down on his desk. He stood up, rounding the desk to embrace you in a tight hug, his lips meeting the top of your head to leave a kiss there. 
“Morning,” you say, taking a step back from him when he loosens his grip. “Sorry I couldn’t bring you one of these before today. Hopefully you made it through the week without.”
“Barely,” he said with a sarcastic huff. “Have to admit I missed seeing you more, though. Been busy with midterms?”
You give him an exhausted nod. Between getting everything together for this weekend, helping Tonya deep clean the house before her trip with Charles, and dealing with your midterms, you’d been properly worn down to a barely functioning human.
“Awe, poor thing,” Sam cooes at you, his hand cupping your face to rub his thumb against your cheek. “Sounds like you deserve a little fun weekend. My buddy is having a get together at his house weekend and I’d really love for you to come.”
“This weekend?” You ask. Sam nods. “Oh, no I-I can’t. It’s Halloween weekend and…I spend it with Tonya every year. It’s been our tradition since we were kids. Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve been wanting to meet her and this Charles guy you hate so much. We can do a double date. Maybe some haunted houses or something?”
“No! No—I, um, I don’t do haunted houses.” That wasn’t a lie.
“That’s fine, maybe a movie at the drive in?”
“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s not exactly a tradition where we let other people take part in. Charles wont be there either.”
Sam’s shoulders slump as he sighs, his lips tightening into a straight line. 
“Okay, I get it. I’m not going to step on any toes. But…” Sam looks up at you through his lashes, “make it up to me next weekend?”
You breathe in, then out. It suddenly hits you that…you don’t really want to make it up to him net weekend.
“Sure.”
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The Munson household is a busy one this cool, autumn Saturday. Eddie and the guys are in his room getting ready for the night. Their collective laughter and talking over each other is the only thing louder than the volume of the music that they have blaring. Even with the door closed you find it hard to think over the noise.
Wayne and Ben are in the kitchen prepping dinner for everyone before the nights festivities. They were joined by the infamous Hopper and Joyce Byers who brought the food by when they dropped off Will and Jane. The same Jane who was occupying the hall bathroom with you right now.
“They were trying to get you to dress up as one of the guys from Devo?”
Jane nods with an annoyed look. “Yes. They wanted me to wear a stupid red hat. I told them no, and said I wanted to go as Pat Benatar instead. She is my favorite singer.”
“Great choice,” your head bobs in agreement. You take a little more of the blue eye shadow on the tip of your finger and smudge it over her eyelids. “What’s your favorite song?”
“Heartbreaker,” she whispers shyly with a smile. 
“That’s a good one! I think We Belong is mine.”
“That one is a good song, too. It’s a love song.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say I’m a sucker for a good love ballad,” you shrug, washing your hands of the make up that stained your fingers. “Now, where is the wig you said you got?”
Jane helped you zip up the back of your dress just as there was a knock on the bathroom door. You pulled the red cloak over your shoulders as she opened it, her dad standing just on the other side of the doorway.
“Jesus, kid, is that enough make up?” He says, his voice raising a distraught octave. 
“Oh, look at you!” Joyce pushes past the disgruntled Hopper and into the bathroom. She looks Jane up and down, her excitement a clear contrast to Hoppers. 
“You look just like her in those pictures! I’m glad we were able to find this fabric to make this jumper.”
“Joyce, she looks like a—“
“Woah, Pat Benatar!”
Will and Gareth poke their heads around the corner of the door frame, both of them dressed like characters from Star Wars whose names you can’t quite remember. 
“Oh, you boys look adorable!” Joyce squeezes Will's cheeks, much to his dismay. Gareth lets out a snicker at will’s expense, only stopping once he’s caught your eye. Then, like usual, he slinks back out of sight. 
In his place Mike and Dustin pop up. Dustin is dressed like Darth Vader, his helmet in his hand as they barge into the bathroom. “Are you two ladies ready to go yet?”
“I think so,” you say, quickly clearing up the mess that you’ve made in the Munson bathroom. 
“Wow, El, you look badass!” Mike says, putting an arm around her for a side hug. 
“Thank you, Mike. She helped.” Jane says, pointing in your direction. 
“Oooh, I get it,” Dustin suddenly says as if he’s had an epiphany, eyes narrowing as he looks you up and down. 
“Get what?”
“Your’s and Eddie’s couple’s costumes.”
The eye shadow pallet drops from your hands with a loud clutter. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
“What do you mean ‘what am I talking about?’ You and Eddie are going as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, right?” 
“Well, yeah, but…”
“That’s, like, a classic couples costume!” 
“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Joyce says, her hand on her heart as she looks up at Hopper. “Didn’t you and Margaret Sanders go as the wolf and Red Riding Hood to John Collins’ Halloween party one year?”
Jim nods with a big, mustached grin. “Yep.” 
“I feel like an asshole.”
Eddie’s voice in the hallway catches your attention. Jim moves out of view, making room for Eddie’s chair as Jeff and Grant follow behind him. 
“You sound like one, too,” Jeff laughs from behind him. 
Eddie was being his normal grumpy self today. Enough that you were worried that he might call the whole thing off and not go. But, he seemed to manage to push through. Although you worried that the amount of people occupying his house was stressing him out a bit. 
As Jeff pushed him past the door, Eddie turned to look inside the overcrowded bathroom. Even with all of the bodies in the way, his eyes were on you in an instant. He didn’t say anything, more so looking at you like a deer caught in headlights until he was completely out of view. 
“Foods ready!” Ben calls from the kitchen. Doesn’t take much more convincing than that for everyone to file out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. You take the opportunity to finish putting everything away before joining in the chaos. 
Loud chattering fills the kitchen as everyone moves around the table to get their food. When you do come out of the bathroom, you see someone’s already put Eddie in the recliner, his tv tray set up in front of him as he patiently waited for everyone to finish getting their plates. 
“Hey stranger,” you say, stealing his attention from whatever daydream he was having.
“Hey,” he said with a tight smile. You eyed him suspiciously. 
“What hurts?”
He’s still for a moment, before he sighs and gives you a more genuine smile. 
“I’m just having those ghost pains or whatever.” His hand rubs over the clothed end of his thigh where his leg was severed.
Ever since he started physical therapy two weeks ago he’s been complaining of pains in his leg where it's not there anymore. You asked your professor about it, and she said it's not uncommon for amputees to have phantom pains. There’s not much you can do about it other than try to distract the person having them. 
“I see. Well, maybe eating something might help. Is anyone getting you a plate?”
Eddie shook his head with a shit eating grin. “I told them that you’d wanna do it.” You rolled your eyes, but he was right.
There was still a weird feeling that resided in you about being there for anything other than being Eddie’s caretaker. Even after two months of Wayne’s warm hospitality, a month of being taken in by the Hellfire boys, and being treated as if you’ve always been around by Joyce and Hopper, you still felt like an outsider looking in.
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People on foot walked by as the cars loaded in through the entry gate of the Hawkins fairgrounds. You were sure that just about everyone in this town was showing up tonight. It made you buzz with excitement to see all the costumes and decked out cars. 
“Excited?” Eddie asks you, his eyes darting around at the crowds. There was an indecipherable tone to his voice. 
“Of course,” you say, the car moving up a bit to keep up with Hopper's cruiser in line. “Are you?”
“Is Eddie excited about Halloween?” Dustin’s head pops between yours and Eddie’s from the back seat. He slaps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a little shake. “Eddie is probably the biggest fan of Halloween I know. He made a whole one shot campaign based on our party trying to escape from Michael Meyers.”
“What? No way, that sounds awesome. Halloween is probably my favorite Halloween movie.”
“It is a classic,” Eddie says with a grin. “Although, I will say that Friday the Thirteenth did freak me out for a while after I saw it for the first time. Still can’t believe that it was his mom the whole time—”
“His mom the whole time?” The two of you say it in unison. You look at each other for a moment before laughing. Dustin makes an audible gagging sound from the back seat and Eddie wastes no time reaching back to swat at him. You shush the both of them as Hopper pulls ahead, making your car next in line.
“Hi, folks,” the older gentleman says, shining a flashlight into the car and almost blinding you. “Hop took care of your cover charge and told me to make sure you guys get the spot next to him.” The man hands you a paper with the number 66 printed on it. It looks like it’s cut in a way that lets it hang from your rear view mirror, most likely to keep track of the amount of cars coming in to participate in the event.
As the man gives you instructions on how to find your spot inside, you cant help but you notice the subtle way he glances to Eddie in the passenger seat. You’re not sure if the man recognizes Eddie or if he’s trying to, but you don’t stick around long enough to find out. Eddie slips on his wolf mask once you take off inside of the fair grounds. 
It doesn’t take you long to find your spot. The Hopper-Byers group is all helping out to set everything up for Joyce and Hopper to pass out candy. The back of the cruiser is set up to look like a tent, with a fake fire, a stuffed bear, and a blue blanket meant to be a lake side view. 
Dustin pulls Eddie’s chair out from the back seat of your car, helping him out as you pop open your trunk. The effort they put into their theme almost makes you feel self conscious of your trunk, the ‘theme’ looking more like a Halloween store exploded rather than anything cohesive. But then you remember it was put together by Eddie and his friends, and you decide you love it just the way it is.
 “All right!” Joyce calls out once your cars are all set up. She sets a plastic bowl in Eddie’s lap and starts pouring candy into it. “Let’s get this party started!”
“Joyce don’t start getting to crazy before the kids get here,” Hops says teasingly as he pulls on his trapper hat. To go with their theme Hop and Joyce are dressed up like campers, which, in hind site, was probably a good call considering how cold the nights have been getting in Hawkins. You were already starting to regret your costume choice as the breeze hit your legs where your dress didn’t cover.
“Isn’t that the point?” Jane asks. “Is she not supposed to scare the kids?”
“Not enough that they wont come around to get candy,” Will retorts.
He’s half paying attention to the conversation as he looks around. Suddenly his hand shoots up, waving and shouting to the Hellfire guys as they walk through the cars. They all gather together and migrate to stand around Eddie, bags and pillowcases out towards him.
“Trick r treat!” They say in a sing song unison, laughter breaking out among them. Eddie’s head drops in the mask, his body shaking as he joins in with the guffaws of his friends.
As you watch them interact, you wonder what faces Eddie is making under the mask. Recently, you’ve felt like you’ve been able to see the real Eddie slip through the cracks. By now you can tell when one of his smiles is fake or genuine, as well as when his anger is real or just out of pain. But, with the plastic mask to hide behind, will he still feel the need to keep himself so reserved tonight?
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It didn’t take long for the night to get going. Spirits were high as children, teens, and adults all made their ways between the cars to fill their bags with candy and other goodies being passed around. 
You could admit you were a little nervous when Joyce gave the bowl of candy to Eddie earlier. But, either no one could tell it was him under the wolf mask, or no one cared enough to say anything.
Eddie seemed to be enjoying himself, too. After a while he started to compliment the different costumes in a scary wolf voice, which the kids that came by loved. He even went out of the way to put candy into the trick r treater’s bags, not caring about the scars on his hands being seen.
“Gonna need another refill,” he says to you as the last group of kids move on down the line.
“Roger that,” you say, jumping up to grab another bag of candy from your trunk, pushing the fake spider webs to the side. 
Some of the bags slid to the back, so you have to really reach in to get your hands on it. Just as you get a grip on the plastic bag, you feel something pulling on the skirt of your dress. You pinch the plastic of the bag, dragging it out with you as you stand up straight. 
Looking over your shoulder, you see that Eddie’s hand is holding on to the hem, pulling it taut over your ass. You’re about to ask what he’s doing when the chuckling from a group of passing boys reaches your ears.
“Thanks,” you say to Eddie, smoothing out the skirt of your dress. His mask looks up at you, and his hand quickly retracts from where it was holding on to you. 
“Y-you’re welcome,” he says, voice muffled by the mask.
As you pour more candy into his bowl, a group of three young girls approaches Eddie.
“Trick r treat,” the girls say, holding their bags out for Eddie.
Eddie is still for a moment, grabbing the candy wordlessly and placing it into the girls candy bags. When he gets to the last girl, he hesitates before letting the candy drop inside.
“Where’s your brother, Lady Applejack?” Eddie suddenly says, still using his wolf voice.
The girl's eyes go wide, shifting between her two confused friends before nodding to the side. The two girls move on to Joyce and Hoppers truck, leaving Lady Applejack behind.
“Munson?” She whispers with bemusement. “Is that you under that creepy mask?”
“The one and only,” he says, his hands gesturing wildly to himself.
The girl looks up and down at you, then back to Eddie. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
You shuffle in your spot awkwardly. You’d gone the whole night with no one saying anything besides Dustin, and you were hoping that it would stay that way.
“We’re not dating,” Eddie says neutrally. “She’s my caregiver.”
“Caregiver? Is that not the same thing as a girlfriend?”
“Basically.” The words spill out of you like vomit. “It’s all the non fun parts of being a girlfriend without any of the perks.” The girl laughs, but Eddie remains still.
“I like her, Munson. You should keep her around.”
“You know, you never answered my question,” Eddie says, clearly desperate to change the subject.
“Huh? Oh, you mean about Lucas?”
Lucas. That was the friend that the boys bring up a lot. He’s a member of Hellfire but hasn’t been to any of the meetings.
“He’s probably still at the hospital with Max. Our parents tried to get him to come out tonight since my mom was the one who put this whole thing together. But…” The girl trails off, looking down at the ground as her attitude fades away. “You know, he still feels guilty. About…what happened.”
Eddie nods slowly. Max was another victim who got out alive like Eddie, but she’s been in a coma since March. Eddie doesn’t talk about her, even if the boys bring her up when talking about Lucas. 
“Erica, come on!” One of the girls friend’s call, motioning her to join them.
Erica shifts back into her previous demeanor, looking at you and Eddie once again. “I gotta go. Nice seeing you, Munson and Munson’s girlfriend.” Before Eddie could correct her, she was taking off with her friends.
“Sorry,” Eddie says to you, but refusing to look your way.
“It’s fine. If anything I should be apologizing.” You plop back down in your folding chair with a huff. “Dustin said something earlier about our costumes being a couple’s costume and I’ve been cursing myself for over looking that.” 
“Dustin would say something like that,” Eddie grumbles under his breath.
“They’re over here!” Dustin’s voice calls out from a few yards away, his Vader mask in his hand as he motions two people behind him. A guy and a girl dressed as Wham! follow an excited Dustin to your car. 
“Speak of the devil,” Eddie says, slumping down in his chair. “And he’s brought his mommy.” You look at Eddie confused. The pair were definitely not old enough to be Dustin’s parents, maybe older siblings at best.
“Dustin, are you sure we’re at the right car?” The girl asks, shooting you a nervous smile.
“Yes, this is the right car. I literally came here in it,” Dustin shook his head and reached into his bag. After fumbling around a bit, he pulled out a full size milky way and presented it to Eddie. 
“Snagged this for ya from the Martin’s car,” he said with a toothy grin. Eddie grabbed the candy and examined it and you could feel the smile he had from under his mask. 
“Good work, Henderson,” Eddie says, looking up at the boy. Dustin salutes him before standing to the side, looking at the couple behind him with an I told you so expression.
“Holy shit,” the guy says, his law slack.
“Is that really you, M—” The girl cuts herself off before she can finish. The two move closer to Eddie, speaking in hushed tones.
“How’re you doing? Dustin told us that him and Mike have been over to your new place,” the girl asks. You don’t know why, but the way her hand rests on his shoulder irritates you.
“Yeah, he told us the lab set you up with a really nice house. Still not enough after what we all went through in my opinion..”
“Steve,” the girl cuts him off sharply. 
“What? We haven’t seen the guy in six months! Am I not supposed to talk about it?”
“It’s fine, Robin,” Eddie says.
“It’s not fine,” you interject. All eyes are on you now, stunned as if they just noticed you were there.
“S-sorry, we didn’t mean to leave you out,” the girl stutters.
“Yeah, uh…” Steve looks you up and down before straightening his posture. “You must be the caretaker that Dustin’s told us about. Name’s Steve. Steve Harrington.” 
Steve Harrington stands in front of you, offering his hand for you to shake. You take his hand and introduce yourself. Steve Harrington is handsome in a similar way to Sam you think. 
The feeling of eyes on you makes you turn your head. The light catches just right you can sort of make out Eddie’s eyes through the holes of the mask.
“What did you say?” You ask, looking back up to Steve after zoning his question out.
“I just asked if you were free sometime. Maybe we could get a bite to eat before you go over to Eddie’s some time?”
“Oh, sorry,” the words poured out of you again. “But I’m seeing someone.”
You’re not sure if it’s just you, but it suddenly felt like the air got thicker. You could feel Eddie’s eyes bore holes into you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.
“Shit, my bad,” Steve says, taking a step back. “I thought Dustin said you two weren’t together.”
“We’re not,” Eddie says in a clipped tone.
“Yeah, we’re not, Eddie and I. I’m, uh, I’m seeing a guy from my school. Sam…”
“Ohhhh, okay,” Steve nods, “Gotcha. Well, if things don’t work out—OW!”
“Take a hint, dingus!” Robin whisper yells at Steve. She looks back to Eddie with an apologetic look. “We should probably go, but call one of us some time and we’ll sneak some movies to you, okay?”
Eddie wordlessly nods, his focus on the bowl of candy in his lap now. Steve and Robin give their goodbyes and move along, bickering between themselves as they go. Dustin lingers with you and Eddie for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself.
“Do, uh…"Dustin clears his throat, attempting to lighten the mood. "Do you guys want to go check out the fair at all?” Dustin points with his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s some pretty cool stuff at the back. A haunted house, some games…you know, fun stuff. I’ll, uh, sit and watch the candy.”
You look over to Eddie waiting for his response. After several moments Eddie finally nods, lifting the plastic bowl and handing it to Dustin. You rise from your seat, moving out of the way so Dustin to take your spot.
When you turn to see if Eddie is ready to go, you find that he’s not there. Instant panic sets in, as you look out to the crowd to find him. For a split second, you can see the furry hair on the back of his mask a few cars away. Bobbing and weaving through the clusters of people, you grab the handles of his chair and stop him, making him jerk forward.
He looks back, body tense until he realizes it’s you, his shoulders slumping forward.
“Where did you think you were going?” Anger evident in your tone.
“What do you mean? I thought you were right behind me.” The cutting tone of his voice hits a nerve.
“Eddie, I…” You can feel a whole lecture on the tip of your tongue. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that Eddie is his own person. As much as you’ve grown to want to protect him, he probably knows more about these fairgrounds and all of these people than you’ll ever know. He was a fully functioning person seven months ago, not needing anyone’s assistance just to get through a crowd of people. 
“Do…do you want me to leave you alone?”
The two of you stand in the middle of the moving bodies without a word. It feels like the two of you are in slow motion as people move past you.
Eddie sits up, shaking his head. “No.”
That’s all you needed to hear. Grabbing onto the handles of his chair, you push him through the crowd at a leisurely pace. It takes a few minutes for hm to say something, but the paper mache ghost from Ghost Busters hanging off of a cars trunk catches his attention.
“Woah, that’s awesome!” Eddie points it out to you.
“Do you think they made that?”
“I bet they got it at a Halloween store.”
Conversation flowed like that between you as you both rated the cars out of 10 as you passed. There were more cars like yours that decorated just enough to be passable, but a good majority of the citizens of Hawkins really do mean business when it comes to Halloween. 
“They made their car look like a dragon!” Eddie shouts over his shoulder to you. “How is that not the best car?!”
“It’s totally an awesome car, but, I’m sorry, the literal hearse with a guy dressed as Dracula in a coffin was hands down the best.”
Eddie slumps back in his chair in frustration, his mask looking up at you dramatically while you push him. You smile down at him, happy to see him having so much fun. He jerks forward and clears his throat, mask moving quickly as if he’s looking for something.
“Oh, look they’re selling popcorn,” Eddie nods to a booth set up off to the side of the cars. It looks like a girl scouts group of some kind, all the girls at the booth wearing patch covered sashes over their costumes. The sign on the booth read “Twenty-five cent popcorn. Proceeds go to Hawkins Rebuild Fund.”
“Hmmm,” you hum curiously. “We should get some. I could use something salty to cleanse my palate from all the candy.”
“Yeah, I think I might puke if I even think about a Reese’s Cup right now.”
You grab a bottle of water and a bag of popcorn to split between the two of you. Not wanting to stop your perusing of the cars, you continued on with Eddie popping a piece under his mask for him and then lifting a few pieces up to your mouth for you to much on.
Continuing on, you finally reach the back end of the fairgrounds. A few fires were going with groups of people gathered around. They talked over cider or roasted marshmallows to shove between graham crackers, adding their favorite candy pieces to complete their sweet treats. 
A few games were set up. Kids and tipsy grown men bobbed for apples in a big trough of water. A partially enclosed area was set up for smaller kids and their exhausted parents to take a break away from the older kids. 
But in the very back was a make shift haunted house, it’s entrance painted to look as if you were walking into a large jack o lantern. Around it were several tarps meant to cover whatever the haunted house was put together with, various paper decorations taped to it to make it look more festive.
“We should go in there,” Eddie says excitedly. “Wonder if it’s dark enough I can take this mask off for a bit.”
“I don’t know Eddie…” you say hesitantly. You weren’t the biggest fan of haunted houses. Being scared from a movie is one thing, but the lack of control you could have in a haunted house made you uncomfortable. 
You also never knew what was going to set you off. The last haunted house you went to with Tonya and some friends in high school was set up to look like an actual house. It didn’t really bother you until one of the actors snuck up behind you, whispering in your ear. It immediately took you back to…
“Awe, come on. Don’t tell me you’re scared?” Eddie teases. “I doubt that Hawkins could make an actually scary haunted house. I bet they have one of those rooms where they make you feel peeled grapes and tell you that it’s eyeballs.”
“I’m not scared,” you say with a level tone, “I’m more worried about you. What if you have a night terror and end up needing me to sit at the end while you sleep tonight?”
Eddie freezes, his eyes wide and looking into yours through the holes in the mask. You feel like you said something wrong, but you’re not sure what.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
Eddie starts to laugh, clearly trying to get a rise out of you. It both relieves and pisses you off. 
“Eddie, you’re such an asshole! I thought I hurt your feelings!”
“You did, little red,” he feigns offense, his hands resting over his heart. “I can’t believe you would make fun of me. I’m wounded. How will you ever make it up to me?”
“Oh my god,” you say with exasperation. “I’m so sorry Mr.Wolf. I guess I can be brave and take you through the haunted house if that will suffice.”
Eddie fake sniffled and nods. “Yes, I think I may be able to forgive and forget your offense if you lend me your company inside this estate.”
The two of you get in line, chatting for the few minutes it takes to get to the front. When it’s finally your turn, the lanky teen at the door looked down at Eddie. 
“Uh, be careful with your chair, man. Should be good, but, uh, there might be some bumps between the rooms. That alright?”
Eddie nods and the boy ushers the two of you inside. It looks like the haunted house might be made of several sheds or storage units placed together to make a long string of rooms. A lot of the rooms were more silly than scary, but a few people dressed in costumes were able to get some scares out of you and Eddie.
Well, you more than Eddie.
You hadn’t even realized that you were leaning so close to him. It was a reflex to bury your face against him when you got scared, laughing the whole time as you pushed on to the next room. He didn’t seem to mind, probably too busy laughing at your reactions to care. 
You wondered if the actors were talking with each other, because it felt like more people were trying to scare you the further into the haunt you went. By the end you were practically strangling Eddie, your arms wrapped around his shoulders  with your face against the back of his neck as he guided you both through the exit that exited to the other side of the fairground lot. 
“They were so mean!” The words came out in strained huffs as you tried to catch your breath, still laughing from all the nerves. Eddie probably would have been keeled over with how hard he was cackling. He lifted his mask briefly to wipe the tears from his eyes, his hair sticking to his forehead with how much he was sweating under the plastic.
“Holy shit,” he barks out. “That was sooooo worth it. I want to see how bad you get scared in a haunted house that’s actually scary.”
“I can’t believe you’d want to put me through that after everything I’ve done for you,” you say with faux offense. 
“Can’t help it,” he says with a shrug, “I guess I’m a bit of a sadist.”
“Hmmm why does that not at all surprise me.”
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The rest of the night went on without a hitch. The guys showed up again eventually, making base between yours and Hopper’s car to trade candy. Jane told you that she got lots of compliments on her costume and thanked you over and over for helping her with her make up. Joyce took the opportunity to get everyone together to take pictures. Apparently Will’s older brother, Jonathan, left one of his cameras with them to take pictures while he’s off at college and Joyce took that task very seriously. 
“Let me get one with the two of you!” She says to you and Eddie. Eddie looks at you and you shrug.
“Do you want to lean on me?” You ask him.
“What do you mean?”
“So you can have a picture not in your chair. I can hold you up--oh we can make it look like you’re trying to eat me?”
Eddie stands, leaning against you as you have your arms around him in a tight hug. Joyce takes a few steps forward to get his chair out of frame, giving you both the go ahead to make a pose. Eddie lets go of you, posing with his hands as if he was about to grab you, the mouth of his mask about an inch from your face. You hold on to him with one arm, letting him lean into you as you let your other hand fly back with fake terror. 
The bright flash from the camera has you grabbing Eddie fully once again. You were able to feel his leg wobbling, still not used to holding up his whole weight. Eddie plopped back into his chair, letting out the breath he had been holding.
After a while the festivities began to wind down as cars started making their exit. When Eddie’s back started to hurt from being in his chair for so long, you decided to join the rest of the crowd and leave. Dustin helped load Eddie up in the car as you cleaned up any mess that had been made.
“Dustin, why don’t you ride with us?” Joyce calls over from their car. “Eddie’s probably tired and ready to get home. You’re staying at the Wheeler’s anyway, right?”
Dustin looks at Eddie, whose mask was up enough to let his face breathe, to you, who looked like you were ready to climb into bed and pass out. Gears turned under those tight curls. A vision of the two of you “accidentally” falling asleep in each others arms on the couch and waking up all embarrassed, until you inevitably confess your feelings for each other and get married and grow old together was clear as day in his mind. 
“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks Mrs.B.”
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“Do you even want to attempt a shower?” You ask Eddie with a yawn, eyeing his devil faced pumpkin that the two of you carved that sits next to the front door.
“I feel gross after sweating in that mask,” he yawns in reaction to your yawn, fumbling to get his keys in the lock. “But, honestly, I’ll probably fall asleep sitting in there.”
Eddie pushed the door open, and wheels inside. You can barely get a foot in the front door when Eddie stops abruptly. You follow his gaze to the couch, and are surprised to see Ben leaning against Wayne. His head rests on Wayne’s shoulder, Wayne’s bald head lays against Ben’s head as the two of them snore intermittently. 
Eddie turns slowly back towards you with wide eyes. You place your finger against your lips, giving him a silent shush as you slowly maneuver his chair to his room. Eddie doesn’t say a word, even after you close the door to his room. He’s as pale as a ghost, still looking as you as if he was waiting for you do to…something.
“What’s wrong?” You ask him, and he flinches. He finally blinks when he realizes that you’re not going to say anything, tension leaving his body until he’s visibly exhausted.
“Nothing, I just…ugh I really need to shower. But I’m so tired.” He sprawls out in his chair, hands running over his face and through his matter hair. The icky feeling of being outside and around people begins to make your skin crawl, too, as you feel a shower calling your name.
“Well, the longer we wait, the more tired you’re going to be. Let’s get you in there so I can go home and take one, too.” Eddie perks up, looking at you with knitted brows.
“You’re not staying the night?” 
“Well, my sleeping spot is currently being occupied,” you say with a cheeky grin, nodding toward the living room. 
Eddie presses his lips together, deep in thought as he tries to come up with an solution so you don’t have to make the 30 minute trek home.
“You could…sleep in my bed? I could sleep in Wayne’s room. If the love birds wake up, they’ll just have to deal with it.”
Thinking about sleeping in Eddie’s bed makes your chest flutter in a way that you hate. Well, rather, you want to hate it. But you really don’t. The idea of being in his bed with him penetrates your mind, and you think of anything else to push it away. Like how you’d finally told him about Sam earlier in the night. You still needed to psycho analyze his reaction to the news, which was how you usually passed the time in the car.
“I’ll think about it.” Eddie nods, accepting that as your answer for now.
You set up the shower for Eddie, hardly a word between the two of you with the combined low energy. You quietly snuck Eddie’s dirty clothes into the laundry room as he showered, taking a few minutes to pick up the kitchen in hopes to lessen the work load for Wayne tomorrow.
When you returned to the shower, Eddie had just turned off the water. He was humming a song to himself, probably to keep himself awake as he went through the motions of his shower. 
He pulled the curtain open, and slowly blinked at you. You understood his message, taking the few steps to stand beside him. You went through your drying routine, getting his back and gently squeezing and scrunching his curls in a towel to dry them. There was no way he would be able to blow dry them tonight so you just took your time getting them as dry as possible. Eddie would start to doze off until the resistance of his hair pulling would wake him again.
The two of you got into position for Eddie to stand and pivot into the chair. You held on to him, and he held onto his towel, waiting for your count to stand. A quiet one, two, three had him pushing off of the shower seat with his leg.
But he was still tired, and he began to lose his balance. One hand shot to hold your arm, and the other grabbed the bar attached to the wall. You felt his body starting to go down and reflexively turned him towards his chair. His grip on the wall threw you off, causing you to fall into him when he finally let go and landed in his chair. 
You braced yourself against the arm rests as the floor was slick under you. The top half of your body was pressed into his, mimicking the closeness of an hug. When you went to pull away, you felt his grip on your arm tighten.
“Don’t move.” He says next to your ear.
“What?”
“My towel fell.”
You snort, resting your forehead against his shoulder, wet curls pressing into your skin. “Why do you have such a hard time keeping a towel on?” 
Ever since the first shower where he almost lost his towel, at least once a week his towel seems to find its way out of Eddie’s hands and onto the floor. 
To Eddie’s defense, it was hard for him to maintain his grip, and you couldn’t hold him up and keep his towel in place, so it was something you’d become accustomed to. If he could feel his towel slipping Eddie would usually give you a heads up so you could keep your eyes above belt level.
After a beat you can feel Eddie’s smile against your cheek. “Only around you,” he says with a sarcastic tone. You suck in a breath, and hope he can’t feel the heat that rises to your cheeks at his playful comment. 
“I’m starting to think you do it on purpose.” 
Eddie shakes his head. “If you close your eyes and move, I can reach the towel myself.”
“Okay,” you say, positioning your feet so you can stand up straight.
As you move your foot back, it bumps against something and catches you off guard. Reflexively, you open your eyes to look back and move your foot accordingly. Once you find your footing again, you shift to face forward once again. But, in your sleepy haze, you forget a crucial move; closing your eyes again.
Still looking down, your eyes manage to land directly where they’re not supposed to. 
It was like a car crash. You knew you shouldn’t gawk, but the site of Eddie’s dick as it lay against his leg had you frozen in place. It was long, reaching half way down his hairy thigh, and thick. What made it worse was that he looked half hard; whether on it’s way to full mast or starting to soften you couldn’t be certain.
Suddenly you became very aware at how revealing your costume was and how close your body had just been against his. Hell, you’d been touching and leaning against each other all night. Was he like this because of you? Surely not. You scold yourself for even thinking about it.
Regaining your composure, you push away from his chair and get your footing. You snap your eyes closed so quickly, hoping that he didn’t notice that you were looking. It felt like you had been staring for an eternity, the image of it seemingly tattooed into your corneas even as your eyes were closed, but in reality it was no more than a second. 
Even if you had seen it, you’d assured him plenty of times before that it wouldn’t be the first dick you’ve ever seen and it wouldn’t be the last with the field of work you were going into. But you also respected his privacy, maybe understanding a little more as to why he didn’t want you to see. If he said anything, you wouldn't make a big deal about it.
“Okay, you’re in the clear,” he says, his voice not giving any hint to if he knows what you saw. You open your eyes as he’s backing away and back into his room to get dressed, leaving you to clean up. Which you do quietly, willing Eddie’s dick out of your mind but failing as you pick up.
By the time you joined him in his bedroom, he was still in his chair, fully dressed and his head nodding forward as he tried to fight off sleep.
“Ready to get in bed?” You ask him in a low voice so not to startle him. 
He looks up at you drowsily, “Are you gonna stay the night?” You shake your head and his pouts up at you. 
“I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ll be okay getting home. I’m…feeling very awake now.”
And you head plenty to think about on the drive home. It didn’t feel long enough to analyze everything, your thoughts spilling over as you stare up at your ceiling fan in bed. 
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thank you for reading.
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lesservillain · 3 months
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Literally just read through every part of Make Me Better on a whim and I absolutely adored it! I loved the little Hellfire reunion but I missed Lucas being there with the guys
Ah I’m so happy you enjoyed it! It felt really good to have Eddie see all his friends again. With everything he’s going through in his head, sometimes he needs that push from the people around him to know he’s okay.
Im also glad you noticed my favorite boy was missing. I really hate not including him, but his absence will be elaborated on in the next part. Though it’s probably not hard to guess why he might not be there with them 😔
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lesservillain · 3 months
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just started reading “make me better” yesterday and let me tell you that i love the story 😭😭 i literally binge read everything because i couldn’t stop reading. can’t wait to read the next chapter 🥹!! also sam we are watching you 😑 he is so sus omg
ANYWAY thank you for sharing this story with us!! 🫶🏼 hope you have an amazing day/night :)
LOL everyone is so sus of Sam and it makes me laugh. poor guy can't catch a break !!!!
but I'm so happy you like it! I have a lot planned for this story that I can't wait to share with you all
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lesservillain · 4 months
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I keep checking your page for Make Me Better. It’s so amazing .
AH IM SO SO SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT!!! I am still working on part 3 at the moment, currently at 2.6k of most likely 10k total words. I’m writing when i get the time but I am on day 2 of week and a half long family vacation so it’s going to be a little slow to finish it. I do have my laptop with me so if I do manage to finish it while I’m on vacation I can totally post it for y’all 🩷
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lesservillain · 3 months
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Hi! this is my first time in your asks but I just wanted to say something that's been on my mind for a while:
I think it was since last year that I've had this story idea in my mind about reader taking care of a sick Eddie (or vice versa) and for the longest time I was thinking if I should request it to a write but low and behold! by chance I saw your fic Make Me Better and I'm just so happy that there's such a story now! (I feel like it was fated for me to find your series) so thank you for writing it even if you've only posted a few chapters! ✨
not to mention that you're keeping it real with the disabilities and hardships of being a nurse (im not a nurse but you get what I mean haha) so again THANK YOU! I'm definitely SEATED waiting for each chapter to come out no matter how long it will take! 🥰 Hope you have a good day/night! - @/daisymunson (cant we just message with our side blogs already? 😔)
Ah I am happy to be able to provide an itch to the scratch that you might have been looking for! It’s a combination of things I’ve experienced in the medical field mixed with my own personal want to take of Eddie (I just want him to know he’s loved!!!) while also challenging myself to write angst lol
I’m still finishing up part 3 now but I’m hoping to have it finished for next week!
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lesservillain · 3 months
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MMB Eddie chapter 2, angrily await for his piss jug to be emptied.
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every time i see his lil grumpy face it makes me so happy lol
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lesservillain · 3 months
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Came here to say I love ur make me better fic ( I hope that's what's it called 😕) your storytelling is amazing and I love the way u made grumpy Eddie feel so authentic. I LOVE IT SO MUCH AHHHHHH. I'm definitely looking forward to the next part. Rest a lot and get well soon 🫶
Thank you so much for this!!! Im glad you like make me better and grumpy butt eddie. I’ve slowly been getting better and writing when i have the energy, but I think I’m about half way done for part 3 ☺️
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lesservillain · 2 months
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as much as i love writing the series, i can't wait to get to the end of mmb so that i can finally write this idea for like an epilogue type thing that has been swimming around in my head for like a month now lol
it takes place about 25 years in the future and I'll tell you what, eddie is PISSED.
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lesservillain · 2 months
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I beg you watch this then tell me what you think, i am hollering tell me this isn’t Eddie x MMB Reader😂💗
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3NXJdhMdDE/?igsh=MzY1NDJmNzMyNQ==
HAHAHAHHAHAHA MARY PLZ 😂
This is giving me some ideas for a future blurb 🤔
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