#this is actually why i had eddie wake up before julie | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

Note

For the requests! I present to you...

Eddie reacting to Steve in a crop top and super short shorts for the very first time ever as Steve's just minding his own business and doing the most mundane things ever 👀

Oh what FUN. I needed this prompt SO bad and I had fun with it. Honestly I relate to Eddie so much here: just completely feral over Steve in a crop top and shorts. Hope you enjoy! - Mickala ❤️

—————————————————————

Hawkins was hot during the summer, but that was nothing to the Florida heat.

Florida wasn’t Eddie’s idea, to be clear.

His idea was anywhere not south.

July was hot enough everywhere, why make it worse?

Apparently, he was the only one with common fucking sense.

But Steve insisted on a beach trip, and apparently the only beach that was sufficient for the kids was in Florida.

Eddie wasn’t built for this. He was pale, only owned long black jeans, and his hair stuck to his face and neck the moment he started to break a sweat.

But Steve was so excited and the kids were so excited and so Eddie was tolerating it.

Steve bought an actual RV.

When Max got out of the hospital, basically adopted her when her mom was nowhere to be found, he bought one, not too big, but big enough for everyone to have a space.

Robin took the couch, insisted on it, not sharing with anyone, not even Steve. El and Max took a bottom bunk, Dustin the other bottom bunk. Steve didn’t let Mike and Will share a bunk because he went full parent mode the second he saw them holding hands, so Will took one top bunk with Lucas and Mike took the other. Which left Steve obviously taking the queen bed in the back, and Eddie the bed with him or the floor.

So Eddie argues with himself for a week leading up to the whole long two day ride to Florida about sleeping on the floor, about maybe trying to bunk with Dustin, who kicks and snores like a grown man fighting in a boxing ring. Considered begging Mike to suck it up and share so he wouldn’t have to face what he’d been ignoring for six months now: that he was ass over head, disgustingly, write songs about him, in love with Steve Harrington.

He barely even talks to Steve, probably coming across as an asshole, but Robin covers for him, makes sure he’s given the space he needs to come to terms with the fact he has to share a bed with Steve on this journey.

By the end of the first day, he’d managed to come to terms with sharing a bed with him. A queen bed was big enough for space between them, he could wake up first so there’d be no chance of Steve seeing how hard he would be. He could make it work.

Making it work apparently meant not sleeping at all.

He didn’t even close his eyes. He felt every movement next to him, heard every breath Steve let out, every groan when he moved in a way that caused his healed but still sore bat bites to twinge.

He felt every twinge in his heart knowing that Steve was turned towards him, getting closer with every movement, and he had to ignore it.

He had to ignore it because if he didn’t, he’d turn around and pull Steve against him, play with his stupid, soft hair, and run his hand up and down his stupid, muscular, naked back.

So he was a bit tired on day two of their travels. Steve asked if he could drive for a couple hours so he could braid the girls’ hair. What was he supposed to say? No?

Not fucking likely.

So he drove, even though he was exhausted, and hadn’t drive an RV before in his life, and probably shouldn’t have been allowed near a real map for any reason other than passing it to someone else.

Robin, luckily, saw him struggling, and quickly made her way to the passenger seat to be navigator.

She didn’t say anything about it, she didn’t ask about his night, and she didn’t offer to trade sleeping spots with him. He tried not to be a little bitchy about it, but honestly, she was supposed to be Steve’s best friend, why couldn’t she sleep with him?

When Steve finally yelled to him to pull off the next exit to switch, he felt like he could breathe again.

Maybe he could take a nap in the bed since Steve was driving now.

But then Dustin wanted to talk about the campaign they’d do when they got to the campsite and Will got involved and then Mike had to add his (wrong) opinion about a trap that he was convinced Eddie would throw in. Eddie’s head was starting to hurt and they still had six hours to go.

Eddie managed to sneak away to the bedroom after they stopped for gas and lunch, slept for maybe 30 minutes, then got woken up by El, who wanted her nails painted to match her bathing suit and he couldn’t say no.

Of course, Max decided she wanted her nails painted too, and then Robin said she needed a touch up and didn’t trust herself to do it so Eddie got wrangled into painting everyone’s nails.

He barely even realized when they arrived.

But suddenly, Steve was standing next to him, smiling down at him, making Eddie want to die and also propose marriage at the same time.

“The kids are already running to the water. Wanna help me set up?”

Steve could have asked him to murder someone and he would, so he said yes.

“Cool, I’ll just change. Can you get the awning out and the chairs set up?”

“Yep, don’t take too long and make me do all the work.”

Steve laughed. Eddie laughed.

Eddie was serious, but if anyone could get away with making him do all the work, it was Steve.

So he got started on it all.

He watched Robin walking slowly towards where the kids were running along the water’s edge to keep an eye on them, all of them just a little nervous to let them out of their sights still.

He started turning the crank of the awning, already sweating from the heat and humidity, the breeze just blowing more hot air and sand at him.

He’d never been to the beach before, and he was quickly realizing why he didn’t mind that.

Once the awning was set, he opened the side compartment to pull out some of the camping chairs Steve bought for the occasion.

“Everything going okay?”

Eddie looked up to answer Steve and froze.

Steve had changed.

He’d changed into the shortest crop top Eddie had ever seen and a pair of shorts that his ass was going to pop out of the moment he bent over.

He couldn’t breathe.

Steve’s skin was just. There.

His scars, the scars that matched Eddie’s, were there.

Out in the open.

So much skin just happening right in front of Eddie’s eyes.

“Eddie? You okay? Need help?”

Eddie coughed, trying to hide the fact he was practically choking on his own spit.

“Good. I’m good. So good. Great.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised, but he nodded.

“Okay, well I’m gonna hook up the plumbing and electric. Think you can get the hot dogs and buns out and start the fire for when the kids come back super hungry?”

Eddie knew he was asking him something, possibly something important, but he didn’t understand any of it. He nodded, though.

He watched Steve walk around to the other side of the RV.

So much skin.

Holy shit.

Eddie wanted to rip those clothes off of him. He wanted to taste the sweat that was dripping down his neck. He wanted to carry him back into the RV, lock the door, and fuck him into the mattress of the bed they had to share later.

He could do it. Robin would keep the kids busy. She’d understand.

But no. There was a reason he hadn’t acted on his feelings. There was a reason he’d been keeping his distance, making sure he was never alone with Steve.

He was so lost in his thoughts he almost didn’t notice when Steve came back around the corner, sweatier than before, his skin glistening in the sun.

God, this had to be illegal. This was a war crime. This was torture.

Survived almost being eaten alive by demon bats just to die in Florida watching Steve hook up an RV.

Sounds like a sick joke by the universe, but not that hard to believe considering his history.

“Eds? You good? You look like you need some water.”

Steve was walking up to him now, using the crop top to wipe his forehead, showing off even more skin. Jesus Christ.

“Maybe I do need to cool off. Um. Let me go inside and get some water. Great idea.”

Eddie was somehow making his legs work, rushing into the RV so he could get some space before he did something stupid like kiss Steve and tell him that he loves him.

But Steve was concerned, he should’ve known he would follow him inside.

“Eddie. Hey, just relax. The heat is a lot, maybe you should get your bathing suit on and just cool off a bit. I can handle the rest of this stuff,” Steve said as he grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the sink.

Must’ve got the water working then.

Steve, to Eddie’s horror and delight, sat down next to him and put his arm around him, handing him the glass of water with a worried look.

Eddie took it, ignoring the way his hands were shaking, hoping Steve would ignore it too.

He didn’t.

“Eddie, shit. You overdid it. I shouldn’t have had you helping out in that heat like that. You’re still technically healing.” Steve’s hand ghosted over where Eddie’s worst scars were on his sides. “I’m sorry. Just stay in here, I’ll get the AC going so it’s cool. You can change, maybe you’ll cool off faster.”

Eddie knew the problem wasn’t really the heat. And Steve wasn’t going to stop this.

Eddie was watching the way the crop top rode up the more Steve fretted over him, the way his thighs were fighting their way out of the shorts.

He had to tell him.

Eddie pulled away from him for a moment, took a really long look at the scar on Steve’s thigh that wasn’t Upside Down related, and then sighed.

“You’re killing me. The heat sucks, but it’s nothing compared to what you’re doing to me.”

That should’ve been where he stopped. But he didn’t.

“Stevie, you’re like, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Like, hotter than Ozzy and James Hetfield combined. Which is crazy because you are nothing like them. You’re you. And like I’m me. And I’m really gay. If that wasn’t clear yet then now it is. I’m super gay. I’m also super into you. I know you’re not into guys, even if you were, you wouldn’t be into me. So like, I get that this is weird and you don’t even have to look at me for the rest of the trip. I’ll sleep on the floor or something. It’s just this outfit is sending me over the edge. I didn’t even know they made shorts that short. And that top? It’s breaking my brain. It’s leaking out of my ears.”

Steve was laughing by the end, which isn’t the worst thing that could be happening, but it certainly wasn’t the best.

“And I mean, when I say super into you, I don’t just mean stupid little high school crush. I mean like I’m in love with you. I love you entirely too much. Like, probably enough where I would be creeped out if someone loved me this much. So I think you should go back outside and let me just wallow in my self pity for a bit in here and then I’ll come back outside and pretend I didn’t just tell you the biggest secret I’ve been keeping for months.”

“Are you done?” Steve asked, no longer laughing, but smiling fondly at him.

Eddie nodded, worried that his outburst probably ruined everything.

But then Steve’s lips were on his, and his hands were in his hair, and his thighs were straddling his lap.

Eddie’s brain shut off and his body took over.

It wasn’t his first kiss by any means, but it was the first kiss with Steve Harrington, which made it more special by default.

He let his hands fall to Steve’s naked thighs, moaning into the kiss when he felt his muscles shift under his palms as he adjusted to a more comfortable position.

Steve pulled away and looked at him with droopy eyes.

“What were you thinking about out there? You were lost in your own world.”

“I was thinking about fucking you into the mattress of that bed while Robin distracts the kids.”

Steve groaned and kissed him again.

“Can we do that?”

Jesus. Steve was something else.

“Sweetheart, as much as I know you’d far surpass any fantasy I’ve had, the kids could be back any minute and we won’t have an explanation for them.”

“We don’t need an explanation if we just tell them the truth,” Steve pouted, trailing soft kisses down Eddie’s neck.

“So you wanna sit them all down and tell them their dad was fucking their mom into the mattress?”

Steve pulled away and smacked Eddie’s chest.

“No! I just figured we could say you needed a nap. Since you didn’t sleep last night.”

Eddie paled. How the fuck did Steve know that?

“Relax. I was asleep last night, it’s not like I was watching you struggle to keep distance between us. But I saw how tired you were this morning and Robin let it slip that you couldn’t get comfortable and made my assumptions.”

Eddie shook his head.

“Well then you’ll know I am actually tired. I probably could use that nap.”

Steve placed a quick kiss to his lips.

“Then you should take one. I’ll finish up outside.”

“Kinda want you with me though.”

“One of us has to be the responsible parent who sets everything up and gives the kids dinner.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie smirked. “This is like your ultimate fantasy isn’t it? Road trip with your kids and your partner?”

Steve blushed.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“But I’m right! That’s why I love you, Stevie,” Eddie said before kissing his forehead. “I’ll come start the fire for the hot dogs. You stay away from me so I can focus.”

“Damn. I was gonna take off the shirt, though.”

Eddie closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I am begging you to keep it on.”

“Oh. Is this like a thing for you?” Steve teased.

“So what if it is?”

“Then I’ll keep it on and you can fuck me into the mattress with it on later. How’s that sound, big boy?”

Eddie’s jaw dropped.

“Using my own words against me? Unbelievable.”

Steve shrugged and got off his lap, much to Eddie’s dismay.

“I’ll have Robin bring the kids on a night walk along the beach later. Sound okay?”

“Sweetheart, nothing’s ever sounded better.”

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #robin buckley #the party #ficlet #request #steve in a crop top and short shorts #it broke me picturing it and Eddie is long gone

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cambria-writes · 10 months

Text

i did it. it's finally done. it's over, and i finished it.

thank you so much to everyone who's followed me and this story, who's commented, liked and reblogged. you've all helped give me back something i had lost a long time ago: the ability to write.

i'm so thankful to have found this fandom and the people in it, and i wouldn't change a single thing about the journey that was writing Ravenloft.

some things to know about this chapter:

i only discovered literally two days ago that july 1st is not, in fact, universal moving day. that's apparently something very unique to my part of canada lol, so that's why i had the moving take place that day. might not have even registered for anyone else but me but i felt like i should explain that just in case.

additionally, i don't know fuckall about indiana, never been. the market place arena is no longer there, either, so it took a bit of guesswork to figure out what to do. thank you to @bramblequill for answering my very strange questions. ♥

lastly, i have no idea how school works in the states. i just went with september 2nd as back to school since it was the tuesday right after labour day, and the internet told me that 8:30am as a starting time for classes was reasonable so there we go.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: E, 18+ warnings: SMUT, female anatomy used but otherwise no real physical description, fingering, masturbation (m and f), cum swallowing, so much swearing, Wayne calls Eddie son and reader calls Wayne his father, smoking (cigarettes and weed), alcohol consumption, vague reference to choking, mention of flagging/the hanky code, Eddie doesn't whip out the sadism though, mention of using handcuffs, i guess this is semi-public sex actually, Eddie's a gentleman though, mention of an alternate timeline where Eddie does die, mention of death broadly, reader has anxious responses to shit sometimes, Good Girl is said a few times, god I'm running out of brain RAM please let me know if I should tag anything else! word count: 7,512

thank you again!!

Previous Masterlist

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕹𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔓𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯𝔰 ℌ𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨

July 2nd, 19863:27AM

You don’t know where you are when you first wake up. There are no lights on, there’s a familiar but distant sound, and it’s too fucking warm. After a few seconds of tensely paying attention, you realize that the familiar sound is the compressor in the fridge.

Right. You moved yesterday.

When you bother to open your eyes and look around, you realize why it’s so dark. You never bothered to plug in your alarm clock and you can’t see the time on the stove from here, but it’s definitely still night. Quiet enough that it’s probably not even 4am yet.

You roll to turn around, but promptly end up yelping and falling right on your ass. The vague but bitter thought crosses your mind that you’ve somehow developed a habit of falling and injuring yourself in whatever bedroom you occupy.

Said bedroom door cracks open slowly. From your spot on the floor, you get to see a very tired Eddie—is he even actually awake?—slowly emerge from the opening door.

“Fuck was that,” he mutters, right before unhinging his jaw to yawn. You sigh and let yourself fall back on the floor, limp, staring up at a ceiling fan that refuses to work.

“Forgot where I was,” you say quietly, throwing an arm over your eyes. “Go back to bed dude.”

Eddie grunts, but you don’t hear the tell-tale squeaking and creaking of floorboards. Instead, when you move your arm out of the way just enough to see, you catch Eddie scratching the back of his head and looking back to the hallway. He clears his throat, and you cover your eyes again before he catches you staring.

He probably caught you staring way too much yesterday, so you’re not sure why it matters. It’s not like he’d make a big deal out of it anyways—not the way Steve and Robin did when they were helping you carry the sectional couch Mrs Henderson insisted you take from her basement.

(It’s fine, she had said, I can’t really look at that old thing anymore, she said. You didn’t ask, but you’d assumed that it was the same as everyone in Hawkins; just trying to get rid of all the leftovers from The Earthquake and what had preceded it.)

You’re jostled out of your thoughts when you feel Eddie’s shoulder—bare, from the cut-out Black Sabbath shirt he’s warning—against yours. He feels cool and clammy, like he’d been tossing and turning around in the heat, too.

“Ahh,” he sighs, folding his hands over his chest. “You had the right idea. Floor’s cold. Fuck this heat.”

You hum in agreement, and turn your head to properly look at Eddie.

“You could go back home,” you say quietly. When you don’t get an answer after a few seconds, you scoff lightly and turn to stare back at the ceiling. “At least he wouldn’t be boiling alive.”

You nearly squawk when you feel a hand taping on your hip. When you turn to look at Eddie again, his eyes are closed, still, but he’s very clearly frowning.

“Y’r being stupid,” he mutters, taking a deep breath before forcing himself to sit up, leaning back on his hands. He rotates his shoulders and—and he’s saying something else, you know he is. But there’s... there’s something about his shoulders.

Have they always been that wide?

You know your mouth is hanging open when Eddie turns to look back at you, and you only snap it shut with a click when you see him grinning.

“Didn’t catch a word I just said, huh.”

You try to speak a first time, but your voice cracks on the first syllable. Clear your throat and cough once or twice before trying again. This time you get yourself up on your feet and head for the door.

“Not a word. Too tired. Want a beer?”

Eddie blinks at you owlishly for a second before letting himself fall back to the floor. You’re about to take that as a silent refusal when he grumbles.

“Do you even know what time it is? Beer?”

You scoff again and cross your arms from your place at the door.

“What, like you do?”

Eddie simply raises an arm in response. You frown, open your mouth to ask why the fuck he’s raising his hand in your damn house, when you notice the watch still on his wrist.

(You try not to remember a very different, broken watch keeping time for the dead.)

“Right, well,” you dither, clearing your throat again. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Do you want a beer or not?”

Eddie sighs, putting on a show about being put out and disappointed and too tired, but the hand he rests low on your back to herd you out of the room is gentle. The quiet ‘sure’ he whispers also sounds far too caring and indulgent.

You practically inhale half of the first beer you pull from the fridge. If Eddie’s got any thoughts about that, he keeps them to himself. You sit down at the table—square, angular, nothing like the one that was in your hideout—and lean back in a chair that still smells like sawdust and campfire.

Leaning back in his own chair across from you, Eddie takes a slow look around. You see him pause to look at what you’ve already put up on the fridge. There’s a character sheet, a small pebble that’s been glued to a magnet, a note from your parents and a small magnetic photo frame. You can already feel your face heat up when Eddie points at it.

“That wasn’t there when we had pizza,” he says, slowly and a bit incredulously. You can only hold his gaze for a second or two when he turns to you for answers.

“I, uh,” you stutter, biting your lip and picking at the label of the bottle in your hands. “That’s—my mom, uh.”

It’s a polaroid.

By any other metric, completely unremarkable. Unnoticeable, probably, to anyone whose face isn’t actually on the damn thing. And if your mother hadn’t taken you aside yesterday morning to hand you a small, old and beaten-up looking shoebox, you probably wouldn’t ever have remembered that photo exists.

It’s Eddie, surrounded by trees, and wearing a cloak that had definitely been about twelve sizes too big. The hood swallows most of his head; the only thing that’s really visible is his smile. Honestly, most people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell that that’s Eddie Munson, in that photo.

But you remember taking that. Remember flapping the polaroid around madly while running away.

You shake your head against the memory. Those times are long gone, now. So why...

“Yeah,” you end up whispering, before taking a deep breath and letting out a deeper sigh. “I’unno. When my mom gave me an old box of pictures from middle school, I kind of...” You look over at the fridge and take another, albeit significantly more moderate, drag of your beer. “Dunno. Felt like it.”

Eddie slowly stands and walks over to the fridge. Takes a sip of his beer while he looks at the photo. Takes a quick look at you before taking a step back from the fridge to look at what all else you’ve put up there so far.

“You still got that box?” And bless him, you know he’s trying to be nonchalant about it, but there’s an anxious tone undercutting his voice clear as day. You chuckle and make your way back to your room and to your closet.

It’s only when you pull the small shoebox out and you’ve got it cradled in your arms do you realize the significance of this.

Almost everything that was in the trailer was lost; it’s honestly a miracle anything survived at all. But among the losses, you remember Wayne bemoaning the loss of the few pictures that he’d been able to take of Eddie over the years.

You look down at the box a bit more misty-eyed. You hope that there’s something helpful in here. Something nicer.

When you make it back to the living room, Eddie’s still standing in front of the fridge. His brows are pulled together and the sip he takes of his beer nearly dribbles down his chin. You hold the box a bit closer to your stomach when you move to stand next to him.

“What are we looking at?” you ask, and Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin. You put a hand on his arm and laugh. “Hey there, have a nice time up in the clouds?”

Eddie laughs a bit thinly, points up at the fridge. “I was just. You kept the—the lyrics. From middle school?”

You stare up at the piece of turns, crumpled up ruled paper. You remember carrying that everywhere with you, in middle school and high school. Carried it in your wallet for a while, too, though...

You turn back to the table to gently put the shoebox down. “I didn’t think you’d remember writing that,” you say quietly, pulling up one small stack of photos neatly held together with a rubber band.

Eddie scoffs. “Are you kidding me? You basically whined at me for weeks to come up with a love song for... what was—”

“Shanon,” you add quickly, blindly reaching for your beer bottle while sorting through photos. “Blonde, grey eyes. You were infatuated.”

You don’t see the sad, self-deprecating grin on Eddie’s face.

“Shanon... yeah, no, didn’t write that for her.”

You take a second to bring the bottle down from your mouth. Turn around to look at Eddie, but he’s still resolutely looking at the paper haphazardly stuck to the fridge. It’s at an angle. It’s starting to drive you crazy. Eddie chugs the rest of his beer, puts the empty bottle on the counter by the fridge, and turns around.

“Woah there pal,” you start, chugging your own beer with a wince. You put the bottle back on the table behind you. “What’s that look for?”

You feel like your heart’s beating a frenzy in your throat. You’re pretty sure you just felt a heart palpitation. The look on Eddie’s face is intense in a way you don’t recognize. Not like when he's DMing and he’s about to throw a real wrench in everyone’s plans, and not like in the Upside Down.

No, it feels a lot like how he looks at you out in the fields by the junkyard.

You would take a step back when Eddie starts walking toward you, but you’re already leaning against the table behind you. You try to straighten up to maybe attempt to look less frazzled than you feel.

The beer’s already making your head feel fuzzy and your lips feel numb.

Eddie stops about a foot away from you, and you’re not sure how to feel about the fact that you have to crane your neck up to actually look at him. He opens his mouth, looking down at your with a frown. He tries a few times like this, before sighing and just.

Letting himself slump over to rest his head on your right shoulder.

You stay like that for a bit. You can hear the hitch in Eddie’s breath when he tries, again, to say something. After the third or fourth time, it feels like something’s squeezing your chest. He’s clearly got something on his chest he wants to get off—something heavy—and you know how that feels. How that goes.

Your left hand comes up to brace the back of his head before you can think of the implications.

Whatever. Fuck the implications.

“You can take your time, y’know,” you whisper, slowly slumping back to lean against the table behind you, forcing Eddie to take a step forward if he wants to stay in his spot.

“I can’t, I really can’t.” His voice sounds strained, and you flounder. You’ve never really had to struggle to get people to talk to you—not the people who actually give a fuck about you, anyways. And you can’t think of a single time, barring the obvious fuckery of the Upside Down, when Eddie was hesitant to talk to you.

He gently grabs the hand in his hair and pulls it away to straight himself out again. His eyes are closed when you can see his face again. He takes a deep breath and squeezes your hand.

“Listen—“

The phone rings.

You haven’t even put it up on the wall by the doorway yet. It’s still on the counter, where you’ve left it, right by the fridge.

The shock of it in the quiet of the dining room makes you trip over yourself. Eddie catches you and, practically in the same motion, spins to direct you to the phone. Out of breath, you pick up.

“Ye—hello?”

“Hey, hon,” comes Wayne’s tired greeting. “Sorry if I woke you up, but is Eddie still with you?”

You blink a few times, staring out into nothing. You only wonder for a second why he’d call so late when you’d likely be out cold, but when you turn to face Eddie—now leaning back against the table—the realization comes all at once.

“Ed—yes, oh my god, Wayne, I’m so sorry,” you rush to say, turning back to the counter and cradling the receiver. “Yeah, he helped me unpack and we kind of crashed, I should have had him call—”

“Hey, hey,” Wayne chuckles, and the lightness of the tone helps you breathe a bit easier. “It’s fine. Sorry I woke ya up.”

“Please don’t worry about it,” you reply quickly. “We’ve been up for a bit going through some stuff.”

“I won’t keep you then. Just tell that idiot son of mine to call next time.”

You let out a quiet bark of laughter and promise you will. You don’t think you’ve ever referred to Eddie as his son before. Guess the whole town going to shit changed a few things. Said idiot son has the decency to look a bit ashamed when you turn around and lean back against the counter.

“Probably shoulda called before we called it a night, huh,” Eddie says with a wince.

There’s a beat of silence that’s almost awkward before you clear your throat to speak.

“You uh, you were going to tell me something?”

Eddie stands there, expression not unlike shock on his face. He opens his mouth two or three times but eventually settles on a shrug.

“Don’t worry about it, I can’t even remember what I was going to say.” The end of his sentence almost trails off its so quiet. It’s clearly a lie, but you’re too fuzzy from the beer and fatigue from moving to push the issue any further.

You push yourself off the kitchen counter and brush your hands off on your thighs.

“Well,” you start, feeling a bit awkward while you amble toward the hallway. “I need to go back to bed. Let me know if...” It’s your turn to trail off, because you’re not sure how to end that sentence. Let you know if what, a demodog comes bursting in through the window?

You look anxiously over your shoulder at the window over the sink. It’s fine. It’s nothing, nothing’s there, you’re good. You clear your throat.

“Right, so. I’ll just.”

Eddie nods but doesn’t look at you. Your room is bright with birdsong and the rising sun by the time you fall asleep.

17 July 19861:37AM

You’re not entirely sure what motivated you to get out of bed, climb into your car, and make it to the Munsons’. It’s not like you couldn’t have just grabbed the phone and dialed Eddie’s shiny separate number. (You’re beginning to think the hush money bit was real.) You’ve called each other at the worst times of night and day for dumber shit.

This time, though, the nightmare felt a little too real to ignore and sleep off. Like you usually would have done.

It was like you had never existed; like everyone had gone into the Upside Down without you, without an extraction team, without a backup plan. And you had to watch while Eddie sliced the blanket rope. Horrified, you watched Dustin sprain his ankle in his rush to get back.

Eddie, gasping and choking on his own blood, saying he hadn’t run away this time. Eddie, glassy-eyed and gone, torn to shreds by bats left motionless by what you now know to have been Chief Hopper’s own attack all the way in Russia.

You take a second to control your breathing once you’re at the squat triplex. Eventually you uncurl your stiff and sore fingers from the steering wheel and force yourself out of the car. Your legs feel like jello and your head like lead.

You consider trying to climb up to the third floor, somehow, if only for a second. You know Wayne’s likely to be up so you shouldn’t worry too much about either ringing or knocking but... Shake your head and hit the button for the third floor before you can think more about it and chicken out.

You’re let in surprisingly quickly. When you make it up to door number 3, Wayne’s leaning against the doorway.

“Bit early,” he says, uncrossing his arms once you’re near. Puts a hand on your shoulder and squeezes. “Everything okay?”

“Nightmares,” you answer quietly. You curl and uncurl your fists at your sides.

“Come on,” Wayne says after a beat of silence. “He’s in his room. Coffee?”

You shake your head. With one last squeeze of your shoulder. Wayne wanders back inside, and you aim straight for Eddie’s bedroom door. Your fist is up to knock when Eddie opens the door, looking disheveled but extremely awake.

“Hey,” he says airily, out of breath as he pulls his hair back into a low ponytail. “I was about to head out—you weren’t answering your phone so.”

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything or explain before pulling you in and shutting the door behind you. He throws his jacket—leather only, sans denim, as it has been for a few months now—over the back of the chair as his desk.

Nothing much else is said, which is how these nights usually go. Neither of you need to be rehashing what happened in the Upside Down, the earthquake, your constant passing out. Tonight, though, there is one thing that eats at you. Eddie has to nudge you, sitting next to him on his bed beneath the window, to pass the joint over. When you take it, he makes a point to lean forward to try and get a good look at your face.

“Did... did something happen? Before you got here?” he asks, and the concern in his voice twists your gut unpleasantly.

“It’s just—it’s nightmares. You know how it is.” You make a point not to take too deep of a toke of the joint before passing it back over, turning your head to blow the smoke out through the open window.

You can just barely see Eddie narrowing his eyes at you in your periphery. For a second, when he straightens up and leans back against the wall next to you, you think he’s dropped it.

“If it was just nightmares, you would’ve called.”

You snort and look the other way. Again, though, Eddie nudges you to turn around and take the joint. Carefully and, thankfully, not too quickly, he grabs your wrist as you grab the joint.

“Hey. Come on. Talk to me, please.”

Your eyes burn and you can already feel your nose getting red and itchy. Your whole face feels warm. Either to spare you the embarrassment of it or a second, secret reason, Eddie pulls you into his chest and you just start crying.

You’ve dreamt of people dying before. Tons of times. Even before El tore a massive hole through reality in Hawkins. But that—feeling powerless in a situation you know could’ve happened if you hadn’t just been around and stuck your nose where it arguably shouldn’t have been—and seeing Eddie die in a way you just couldn’t help?

That was brutal.

17 July 19869:12AM

You have no idea when you fell asleep. Your eyes feel sore and dry, your throat feels strange and your neck hurts. You’re cursorily aware that you’re in Eddie’s room—the smell of weed, incense and whatever cologne he wears usually gives it away.

Very quickly, you realize that you’ve fallen asleep on Eddie’s chest at an awkward angle. You’re both barely sitting up, still leaning back against the wall underneath the window. God, you drool on him. Fuck.

Okay, this is fine. You’ve literally had worse.

You take a deep breath and, as smoothly and quickly as you can, roll off the bed and onto your knees. It’s not graceful, but when you look back, Eddie still seems to be sound asleep. You pray to whatever’s out there that he stays that way until his shirt’s dry.

You tiptoe out of the room and turn the knob before shutting the door behind you. The rest of the apartment is empty, and with how late you heard Wayne ambling about, you’re sure he’s not ready to get up any time soon, either.

By the time you leave, there’s breakfast ready to be reheated in the oven and you’ve left a note on the coffee maker saying to just turn it on.

When you walk outside to your car, though the sun’s been up for a while, the fog still clings to the ground. You sit in your car for a few minutes, staring at the water droplets slowly evaporating on the windshield. When your heart rate has gone back down to something human and manageable, you start the car and head home.

13 August 198612:07AM

If you were bubbling with excitement before the concert, now you feel like soda that’s been left out for a few hours. Flat, maybe, but still just as sweet as it was before, if not moreso. You still feel all the enthrallment that you did before and during the concert, but now you feel...

Well, post-concert blues. That satisfied feeling of having witnessed something amazing, but the accompanying sadness and mourning knowing that you’ll never be able to relive this same experience again. It’s come and gone and now all you can do is remember it.

You slap your thighs to bring you out of your own head. This is going to be a good fucking night. Eddie literally bought you tickets to see Judas Priest and drove you both all the way out here. Refused to let you drive for a singular second, too.

“You still that hyped?” Eddie asks, laughing, holding his lighter out to you. You light up your own smoke and laugh.

“Nah, just trying to get my head back in the game. Too much shit rattling around in here.” You tap your head with the lighter before handing it back. Eddie takes a second before grabbing it, though, and you have to wave your other hand in front of him to snap him out of it.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s out of it,” you laugh, bumping his shoulder with yours when he finally takes the damn lighter back.

Quietly, from inside the van, you can hear the opening bars for Wild Nights.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie grunts, crouching down to tie the messy laces of his right shoe. “I’m the one who drove three hours to get here, and had to convince your parents that I wouldn’t murder you and dump your body in the river.”

You can’t help but cackle. You know for a fact that neither of your parents called the Munson household, but you also know that it’s something that they very easily could have done. Looking out at the White river from your little spot at the state park, you open your mouth to say something about how overprotective Wayne can be, but then something catches your eye.

“They literally,” you start, reaching over to pluck the scarf from Eddie’s back pocket. “Did not do that.” You twist the scarf around in your hands a bit before trying to whip it at his ass. You miss horribly and end up snapping the tip of the scarf on his thigh.

You burst out in laughter, full bellied and unrestrained, when Eddie yelps and topples over to the right. You try to apologize and ask if he’s okay, but you doubt that anything intelligible makes it past you wheezing, squeaking laughter.

“Alright, that’s it,” Eddie grumbles, tossing his half-smoke cigarette into the gravel before stalking towards you. He’s clearly not upset, but you make a mad dash for the riverbank anyways.

The toes of your shoes have just barely touched water before Eddie’s arms wrap around your torso and pull you back. You shriek and kick once or twice before letting yourself go limp.

Half an hour later finds you in some park along the 36, hair and clothes still damp and cheeks sore. You’re both sitting in the back of the van, doors open, passing a joint between you and looking out onto the park.

“I like what you’ve done with this old bitch,” you comment, tapping the plush—carpeting? blanket?—that Eddie’s laid down in the back. “Is there a camping mat under this or something?”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, been going out in the woods after work sometimes just to like... relax, y’know?” You nod; you ran to the woods a lot as a kid, too. “Right, so I kinda made it more comfy to get high in. That’s it.”

When he passes you the joint, you look back at the front where you’d left the scarf. Handkerchief? You’ve had the question in mind ever since March: is he the S or is he the M?

“Seriously?” Eddie balks. “That’s what’s been on your mind this whole time?”

You turn to look at him and blink owlishly.

“Oh. Oh god, please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”

Eddie laughs, and it almost sounds a little mean. You can feel the heat creeping up your neck and making its way to your face. Your cheeks itch with it.

“Right, you’re too baked and tired for this,” Eddie declares, and even to your ears he sounds way too composed and, frankly, sober. Though you guess he’s maybe had a bit more time to get used to smoking weed than you have.

“What, no!” You whine, trying to reach across him to snag the joint out of his left hand. Unfortunately, the best that’s done for you is get you splayed across Eddie’s lap once you inevitably lose your balance. “Fuck you.”

Eddie’s almost unnaturally still beneath you. And you’d look up at him, if you could, but even fucking cooked, you’re very aware that you’re laid across a man’s lap.

Your throat feels too tight when you swallow. You move to brace an arm on Eddie’s thigh to prop yourself up, but his hand on the back of your head has you freezing in place. When the hand starts petting down your head, your neck and your spine, only to start again at the top, you start to go limp. This isn’t so bad.

“Yeah,” Eddie scoffs, and you get the feeling you’ve spoken out loud again. “You would think that.” The embarrassment is enough to make your eyes sting. There’s a beat of silence, and then Eddie leans over to whisper in your ear, “Good girl.”

You swallow thickly. You had intended to follow-up by asking whether or not Eddie was even interested in the opposite gender. But you suppose that answers that.

There’s a tension in your gut and shoulders that makes you second guess yourself. You get the words out before you can think too much about it.

“What do I have to do for you to say that again?”

The hand petting you takes its time reaching the bottom of your spine, and then stays there. Warm against your lower back, and just high enough to say he’s not actually touching your ass. Awfully cordial.

“Depends,” Eddie hums, and you hear him take another toke of the joint before crushing the tip of it between his fingers and chucking the extinguished butt somewhere you can’t see. “Why?”

This time, you do prop yourself up, both hands on Eddie’s thigh. If it had been anyone else, the distance between your faces would have been the epitome of discomfort.

“I want you to say it again,” you answer quietly. It’s getting harder to keep your eyes on his and not let them drift down.

“Say what again?” Eddie asks, and you don’t know if you love or hate the shit eating grin on his face. You should have expected this, though; putting you on the spot was part of the whole point, wasn’t it?

“I-I want you to...” you start, but your throat feels too small for the words that are trying to come out. Eddie’s hand at your lower back comes up to rub comforting circles between your shoulder blades. Your face and neck are on fire and everything feels itchy.

“Come on,” Eddie whispers. You realize that you’ve been staring at his mouth, and when you look, he is very much looking down at your mouth. “Won’t laugh. Promise.”

The sigh that leaves you almost surprises you.

“I-I want you to—I want you to call me a good girl. Again. Please.”

The hand between your shoulders makes its way forward to cup your jaw.

“Good girl,” Eddie breathes, and it’s like your whole body vibrates, shudders with the satisfaction of it. “Fuck,” he chuckles, swiping his thumb across your cheekbone. “You’re really into that.”

You want to say that you shrugged, but the reality is that the sound that comes out of your mouth couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a whimper.

“Can I—” Eddie starts asking, but you cut him off nearly right away.

“Yes.”

You would think kissing your childhood best friend, whom you’d lost touch with for several years and had recently gone through several traumatic events with, would be somewhat awkward and clumsy. But, unlike when you were teenagers, you and Eddie both, clearly, had the advantage of some gained experience in the meanwhile.

There’s no chastity in the kiss; from the moment his mouth locks with yours, it’s open-mouthed and breathless. Eddie pulls you closer, helps you sit across his lap properly, and you fist your hands in his shirt. In his brand new Judas Priest shirt. You know he doesn’t even particularly like Turbo, as an album. Almost none of it is his preferred style.

You whine into the kiss, and you chase Eddie’s lips when he pulls away. He helps shift you off his lap and quickly instructs you to move back and lie down. The van is plunged into near pitch-black. You move back until you feel what you think is the back of the driver’s seat. You don’t lie back yet, instead reaching out for Eddie.

Your hand knocks into what’s apparently his arm. His mouth finds your again in the dark as your fingers find their way into his hair. You gasp when Eddie roughly pulls you down, firmly gripping your hips one second and cradling your head to make sure you don’t hit it the next.

“You sure this is fine?” Eddie asks, though his lips are moving down to your neck, teeth nipping at the skin.

“It’s fine, this is fine,” you rush to say, letting your hands wander up under Eddie’s shirt. You’re sure to keep your touch light when you come across the scars. “This is so fucking fine,” you breathe.

Eddie’s shirt rises with your wandering hands, and he gives you a second to pull it over his head. You have no idea where you toss it and you honestly couldn’t care less. His hands, in return, take the opportunity to make their way under your shirt, and you want to scream. Your entire body feels like a coil being wound tighter.

It’s unfamiliar, how intense it is. You don’t think you mind.

Eddie knocks your knees open to settle between your legs rather than straddling you, though you’re more preoccupied by your shirt—identical to Eddie’s, because you couldn’t help yourself—being peeled off and thrown into an equally unknowable direction. His hands on your ribs feel like irons smoothing out the trembling wrinkles of them, and the shuddering sigh that you let out makes Eddie chuckle.

“Poor thing,” he laments, one hand at your waist prompting you to arch your back, the other sliding up your back to somehow expertly undo the clasp of your bra. “Been holding out for a while, huh.”

It’s not a question. You twitch, about to bring your hands up to hide your face, but—there’s no real point, is there? In this kind of darkness, it’s not like he’d be able to see how red your face is. You have a feeling he’d reprimand you for trying to hide, anyways.

“Didn’t think you’d wanna look at me,” you breathe into his mouth. Saying it out loud makes it feel silly, especially here and now. You don’t hold it against him when Eddie laughs. You can hear the shock in it.

“We’re both idiots,” he mutters, trailing kisses from the corner of your mouth, down your neck, nipping at the collarbone on the way. He presses his lips to your sternum, hands gliding up your sides to palm at your breasts. Nothing like the fumbling messes of your first adult years; Eddie’s hands are slow and deliberate. He’s not feeling you up for his own sake—though you don’t doubt that it in no small way contributes to the hardening length you feel growing at the junction of your thigh—but for yours. This feels entirely like a massage for your benefit.

To his credit, it’s working. Whatever tension you were holding in your shoulders is slowly melting away under his hands.

His mouth continues its trail down, licking a stripe up your navel before he stops at the button of your shorts. You don’t let him ask, you just unbutton them for him. He doesn’t move until he hears you start to pull at the zipper. He doesn’t leave you time to pull it down all the way before he’s tugging your shorts off like they’ve personally offended him.

The cold air makes you realize he’s taken your underwear with them. He lightly rests his forehead on your stomach and breathes in. It almost makes you choke.

“God you smell good,” he growls against your skin. While his mouth trails kisses back up your torso, you feel one hand sliding gently up your chest to rest at the base of your throat. The other slides two fingers through your slit.

Eddie groans like he’s in pain.

“I won’t—not here, fuck,” Eddie mutters, nuzzling between your breasts, and you buck your hips into his hands when one of his slicked fingers finds your clit. “First time we gotta do it right but this, we can—I can give you this,” he whispers, so low you figure he must be talking to himself more than he is to you.

One finger prods at your entrance, and then he’s got two fingers inside of you. The first few pumps, though heaven, don’t do much. But then Eddie curls his fingers, and it’s like he’s a puppeteer who’s pulled on all of your strings all at once. He exhales sharply and sounds entirely too pleased with himself when he speaks.

“There she is,” he whispers, mouthing at the spot on your neck just below your ear. The warmth makes you shiver and clamp down on his finger. “Fuck, that’s it.”

Eddie’s hand practically turns into a machine. You don’t think you’ve ever been able to get yourself so close to cumming in less than a minute. The hand at the base of your neck creeps just a little bit higher. When you gasp at the pressure his fingers apply, you have to grab at Eddie’s wrist to keep his hand there.

“You’re perfect,” Eddie sighs, and you can feel more than see him toss his head back. “Fuck, wish I could see your face right now.”

“Next time,” you reply quickly. “Please, fuck, I’m so close, please please please,” you whine, reaching your other hand down to rub at your clit.

“Holy shit that’s so fucking hot,” Eddie groans, and bites down on your neck, just above where his hand collars it nicely.

The sting is what sends you careening over the edge, cumming with a drawn-out moan. Your hips jerk erratically in spite of yourself, chasing Eddie’s fingers as he fucks you through your orgasm. When your arms go limp, you distantly register the sound of his belt coming undone and the distinct sound of him spitting. There’s a slick sound and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that.

That Eddie Munson is jerking off over your naked body.

“Fucking christ,” you whisper, out of breath, and force yourself to sit up.

“Fuck,” Eddie moans, and you blindly reach out for him. He grabs one of your hands on his chest, laces his fingers tightly through yours. Your other hand, however, makes it down to his, wrapped around and pump his cock.

You shimmy back just enough to be able to lean down to lick the tip.

“Jesus f—I’m gonna,” Eddie chokes out. He doesn’t finish his sentence when you bat his hand away and wrap your lips around the tip of his cock and suck.

You swallow more of him down as he cums, swallowing around him once or twice before he brushes a hand up your forehead and lightly pushes you back and away. You kiss his navel, instead, then his sternum, until he pulls you up with two hands cupping your face, and makes you kiss him, instead.

You didn’t think you’d be turned on by a guy kissing you after you’ve just swallowed his load, but there are apparently a lot of things you’ve yet to discover about yourself.

Carefully, mouths still touching but not quite kissing, Eddie maneuvers you both so that he can lie down on his back, and you can lay your head on his chest.

You throw a leg over his for good measure.

“I’m not moving anymore,” you groan, burrowing your face into his chest.

“Can’t blame ya,” Eddie says, breathless, and you can’t help but laugh.

There’s a moment of silence, and then both of you start laughing. The bouncing of his chest makes it hard to stop laughing. Your gut hurts, your cheeks hurt, and you are entirely too sweaty. You could not care less.

“So,” Eddie starts, once you’ve both been able to calm down and breathe like normal people again. “You mentioned a next time?”

You hum and close your eyes against the darkness in the back of the van.

“Mm, it did not escape my notice that the handcuffs were something you managed to rescue from the trailer,” you mumble, throwing an arm over Eddie’s chest and squeezing.

“...I don’t think I hate the idea of you in chains, actually.”

September 2nd, 19867:58AM

You’re woken up entirely too early by your phone ringing. You don’t need to look at the time to know it’s too early; if you can’t hear cars driving around yet, it’s too fucking early.

“Mmn, gmorning, what,” you slur, wedging the phone between your chin and shoulder and rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“Morning to you too, sunshine,” Eddie greets you brightly, and the warmth that bubbles up in your chest at the sound of his voice feels almost euphoric.

“You’re a weapon,” you say fondly, moving from where you’ve finally wall-mounted the phone to the wall by the fridge and making your way to the kitchen counter, which you promptly hop up on. “Wait,” you whisper, leaning forward to look at the calendar you’ve stuck to the fridge. “It’s September 2nd.”

“Mhm, congratulations, you can correctly identify the date.”

You ignore the snark.

You have entirely forgotten to ask Eddie whether or not he’d been made to repeat his senior year—again—despite everything that had happened over spring break. It felt awkward to ask now, though.

“You, uh,” you stutter instead, trying to find the least offensive way to go about finding out. “You’re calling, uh, early. Special occasion?”

“Of course,” Eddie says haughtily, and you can almost imagine the expression on his face. The kind that says ‘I know something you don’t and I know you’re too much of a coward to ask about it’.

“Come on just say it man,” you plead, letting your head fall back and reaching up to keep the receiver in place.

“My lady, I’m sure I don’t know what you speak of.”

“Fucking dick,” you say under your breath. Take a deep breath, bring your head back up and square your shoulder. “Edward Munson, did they or did they not let you graduate?”

Eddie lets out a bark of laughter so loud you have to pull the receiver away from your ear for a second. His tone and demeanor make you want to believe that he’s finally been cut some slack, but...

You manage to get a single sound out before there’s a knock at your door. You hold the phone away from yourself again, narrow your eyes at it like it’s Eddie in your hands instead of the receiver, and put it back to your ear. You cut off whatever he was saying when you speak again.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why there’s someone knocking on my door at,” you pause, turning to look at the time on the stove. “One past eight in the fucking morning?”

“Dunno, sounds important if it’s this early though,” Eddie replies, a bit too easily, and you sigh.

“Whatever, I’m putting the phone down. Don’t hang up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You huff and put the phone down on the counter, making sure it won’t fall off. By the time you make it to your front door, whoever’s there has decided that knocking nonstop is clearly the best way to get your attention.

You honestly should have expected Dustin Henderson at your doorstep at eight in the morning on back to school day. He’s suspiciously got an arm behind his back. You sigh, again, and unlock the deadbolt and undo the latch before opening the door.

“Alright,” you say, one hand on your hip and the other hand held out. “Fork it over.”

“I have no idea—” Dustin starts to say, but the deadpan stare you level at him makes him clear his throat instead. “Right! Here you go.”

��Thank you kindly, now hold up,” you say, holding a finger up and quickly walking over to your fridge to pull a bottle of water out. When you’re halfway back to the door, you call out, “Heads up!” and toss the bottle over.

Dustin barely manages to catch the thing, but doesn’t do so without a comical amount of fumbling.

“Awesome, now that you’ve done your Dungeon Master’s bidding, go the fuck to school, nerd,” you chastise, flicking the bill of Dustin’s cap.

“Man, you’re mean, you know that?”

“Sure, that’s why I’m making sure you’re staying hydrated on that damn bike,” you retort, crossing your arms and leaning against the doorframe. “Go on now, shoo. Go get an education.”

You wait until you can’t see Dustin down the road anymore before closing and locking the door, and wandering back over to the phone.

“Alright,” you say, wedging the receiver under your chin again and tearing open the envelope you’d been handed. “This better be worth it. I was up until 3am and I’m fucking beat.”

Eddie stays quiet, but you can practically feel the frantic energy of him through the phone. You pull the paper—papers, it’s a whole damn stack of them—and then promptly drop them all on the kitchen floor when you catch the title on the first page.

“Edward,” you start, tone harsh.

“Hey, woah, okay,” Eddie rushes to start. “Okay, I graduated, right? Like, everyone was let through because of all the bullshit. That’s not really important right now though?”

“Ed,” you start again, lower and calmer. “That thing said ‘Thrasher Records’. I don’t fucking know who they are but there’s fucking record in the name, babe.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. You can hear the face-splitting smile. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, and you know he can hear the smile splitting your face, too.

You don’t change out of your sleep shorts and Judas Priest shirt. You’re at the Munsons’ in just under five minutes—which, yes, is probably a little bit criminally fast, but it’s not like Hopper’s gonna care—only to find out that Edward fucking Munson hadn’t even told his own damn father.

You give your boyfriend just enough shit for him to want to make up for it.

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@bramblequill @storiesbyrhi @averagestudent03 @alovesongtheywrote @doratheignora @fnlyroe

#ravenloft #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson fanfiction #slow burn #smut #THIS ONE HAS SMUT #NINETEEN CHAPTER SLOW BURN BABY LETS FUCKING GO #nineteen fucking chapters man #anyways #mild d/s if you squint #this is my baby man #my magnum opus #until i make another one anyways

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take-everything-you-can · 1 year

Text

Caught in the middle

Ok y'all this is the first time I've written something and wanted you to actually maybe see it for some feedback .... I'm very new to this so be kind this is a chapter from a slowburn Eddie and oc fic I've been writing mainly a flashback to what sent them in their ways to be enemies

T.W - there is a smack across the face, mutual jealousy, loss of parents

Ps. Thank you again guys 🖤🖤 {2k wc}

Eddies gaze begins to burn and you know you've done it; you have caught him off guard. He never thought you would be like this again with him. Not after he told you that you were all the things he knew you weren't. It makes his stomach drop every time he thought about it but his mind flashed to the day he let you walk away from him, the day he pushed you over the edge.

You had lost your father to illness and when Eddie was nine he lost his mother to addiction, knowing that you tried to find solace in him. Eddie had been your person, the one who knew everything, the one who you cried to, the one who made you laugh until you couldnt breathe. Eddie filled your void and you filled his. When his dad went to prison you spent a week on his couch so he wasnt alone while he got use to it being just him and Wayne. You spent hours perfecting the vocals of countless songs, you made each other mix tapes and spent weekends at the lake or at the movies, and you had even helped him create Hellfire. He was in love with you before he had even known who you were. You had sat and spoken to him at lunch your first day in Hawkins, the weirdo in the corner of the room, He could never understand why but he knew from that moment, he knew it could only be you.

You became inseparable, so when you turned up at his trailer in the rain, with tears in your eyes on that day he just knew in his bones he was going to be whatever you needed him to be.

You had come in from the rain as he ran to the end of the hall to grab you a towel from a small closet. you grabbed it with a smile tugging at your lips as you wrapped it around yourself trying to keep warm , you both made it to the couch and as you sat in comfortable silence he waited until you were ready to talk , he gave you some space but with a thought he jumped up and turned to the kitchen as he grabbed you a glass of water.

"Thank you Eds "

"Always." He let his eyes wander your face as he cursed himself because even in this state your features let his breathing catch .

"I'm sorry for just showing up I didn't know what to do, dads gone and I –" the tears cut you off and you began to sob. You hated the man, why were you crying ? You always felt so badly anytime you thought of him just completely empty with no real knowing if you were mad at him or if a small part of you missed him which made you hate yourself a bit more , the feelings always ended up blending together as one when you let yourself grieve.

Eddie closed the space between you as he took you into his arms , as they tightened around you , you became soft in his grip , comfortable, letting all the pent up emotion fall from your eyes . He lightly runs his hand across your spine and down your arms in waves, sometimes taking strands of your hair and brushing them behind your ear , as his motions soothe you , you end up falling asleep in his lap not knowing just how truly exhausted you had been letting his scent of soft musk and smoke fill your dreams .

He just watched over you as he held you, He knew this hurt well, the loss of a parent you loved with no intention of getting it back and hatred for the same reason. Nothing he could say was going to make your pain go away, and all he could do was be there.

You wake up to the sound of gravel being kicked up Even though the rain was coming down , now at a drizzle, Wayne had opened the windows of the trailer to find some small relief from the July heat . Not wanting to wake Eddie ,who himself had fallen asleep ,you slide from under his arm and looked out to see Billy Hargrove getting out of his front seat . He glanced up to find you and as your eyes meet he throws his hand up in a wave that ends with a motion for you to come over . Turning your head to Eddie he lets out a small sigh of restfulness and you grab his leather jacket off the hook by the door and find yourself walking the small path to Billy's

"Well, Well, well if it isn't Rosie. " You roll your eyes at the name he had given to you when you first met at one of Steves parties

"Hargrove . "

"What's going on with the freak these days ? "

"Dont call him that , Don't be a dick , oh shit that's right I forgot who I was talking to." He laughs for a second but his features drop and you know what's coming you've seen it in everyone for the last month .

"Look I'm truly sorry to hear about your dad Rosie , he was a good person blah blah blah . " The ending made your brows furrow in confusion .

"That's what you've been hearing right? Yeah that stops about a year in but around the two year mark people start to forget and things get better socially, I mean like people stop giving that puppy dog eye look whenever they see you and people start to remember you can actually laugh at things and joke about life." You smile up at him as he has some height on you but so does Eddie so your use to looking through your lashes. You had never stopped to think that maybe he had lost a parent too , all you knew was max and her mother and him and his father were their own little dysfunction .

"Thank you I really hope your right, I don't think I can take another neighbor bringing a casserole or pie or whatever the fuck they think food is. "

"Well if you ever need anything you know you can always find me across from Munson ." he winked as he drew you into a small hug as he rested his head on the top of your head he laughed.

"What's funny?"

"This jacket you have on has damn near swallowed you whole." you look down and he was right the jacket was broad and you were far from it , felt like you were swimming in the thing but something about it just felt right ,something you weren't taking off without a fight.

When he woke up you were gone but he could still hear your voice and when he saw you laughing with Hargrove, he felt gutted. Not even two hours ago you had tears in your eyes unable to speak and now youre getting comfort from Hargrove? Betrayal was beyond what he felt, jealousy , envy , heartbreak that it wasn't him instantly made him bite back bile. He sees a linger in Billy's hand on your waist as you release him from a hug and make your way back to the trailer.

"Oh Christ . " your hand covers your heart as you jump thinking Eddie was still going to be asleep on the couch yet instead he is standing in front of you with a stone cold look in his eyes that he had never given you.

"Hargrove? Really? " His tone past pissed,more accusing.

"What are you talking about ? We were just having a conversation. " He laughed to himself in a manner you knew was deflection .

"Right, And him grabbing your ass is just what ? His way of saying sorry for your loss? " You had pain in your face not understanding why he felt so harshly about a conversation, something he didnt even let you explain before going on his rant .

"Oh don't do that nikki , don't look at me like that. You let him .I saw no protest on your part ." Your heart was beating too fast , as he spoke your view started to tunnel "your gonna just let him use you like he uses every other girl in Hawkins just to numb some pain ? Don't you know what that says about you ? Hmm ? Do you ? It says the milk is free nikki , It says your easy and you'll just have everything your dad said about you come true , maybe it already is Hell-" and in the middle of the word your palm hits his cheek with so much force it ends up splitting his lip and tears continue to stain your face .you hadn't meant to , you didn't even know you had until his eyes found yours . He touches the side of his lip as blood begins to bead and looks at the damage on his hand with wide eyes he looks to you .

"Yeah Eddie ? you really think so ? thats really what you think of me ? Damn, you know I never thought you would ever see so much potential in me Munson . What about what people say about me when I'm with you huh ? " You mind wanders to whispering from the hall to flat out comments and questions from the small minded people around town .

"Oh you must sleep with anyone for k if your with Munson , meet me in the clearing I'm sure I can show you a better time than the freak ever could , I think I have a joint or two in my bag I wouldn't mind sharing if you wouldn't mind blowing me, what just gonna let Munson have all the fun?" Sarcasm slipping harshly as you tried to gather your words .

"But you have a point Eddie maybe I will go fuck Hargrove Prove you all right . Maybe sleep with the whole town huh? Or maybe Ill start here . " he raises his brow in confusion and anger, he never knew the awful things people had said to you , you had never told him and here he was saying them too.

"Come on Eddie , You know you want to so just go ahead fuck me already ." As much as he wanted to just throw you over his shoulder and take you to his bed and show you exactly what you were asking for , have you choke on your words with his cock he wouldn't not like this no matter the cost of what he would say next .

"Get out . " He was quiet but firm , eyes set and arms crossed into each other . in the many years you had known him he'd never once kicked you out , no matter how bratty and harsh you had gotten he had never turned you away.

"Get the fuck out Nikki " He and you had also somehow managed to never fight , yeah little tisk here and there about who was the better guitarist or who had better hair but never anything serious and now when the going got tough he acted as if he was running away with just telling you to leave it broke your heart this was uncharted territory .

"I leave here and I don't want to hear from you , I don't want to see you and If you ever so much as breathe in my direction , so help me god Munson you will be a ghost to me , understand that . "

You walked to the door hoping he would just say something , anything but with the look you gave him before turning the handle broke your heart as his head hung as he starred at the floor and as he hear the door shut his body dropped to the couch as his knees gave .

"Class dismissed ."

Eddie looks around not sure as to how long he had zoned out but his eyes found yours and suddenly drop again after reminiscing the worst day of his life . As you get up to leave he reaches out for your wrist.

"wait "

"Yes eds" A name you hadn't used since that day and a name he hadn't heard .

"I'm. . ."

Looking into his eyes you see him soften and you can tell he needs you to understand even if he can't string his thoughts into words .

"I know . " and with those words he drops your wrist. the walk to the gym takes what feels forever but you are happy to hit the wooden floors as it seems to be your only stress relief these past few days that and well the other thing you think to yourself as your core begins to tingle and your cheeks begin to flush .

#eddie munson #wattpad #eddie munson x fem reader #eddie stranger things #hellfire club #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x y/n #eddie smut #eddie x oc #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie fanfic

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florenceandthemachine · 4 years

Note

Hi ❤️ if you’re still talking prompts could you write Buck temporarily going blind and Eddie helping him cope till he gets better? Only if you want, no pressure and thx 😘

COMBINED WITH BUDDIEWEEK2020 PROMPT

July 8th - Day 3: “We can do this.” + hurt

also I want you to know it was very difficult for me not to turn it into a permanently blind emotional rollercoaster that you definitely did not ask for.

(xoxo to @buckleydiazs for giving it a once over before posting!)

Every time Eddie closes his eyes, he relives his mistake.

He can see Buck taking the stairs two at a time, clearing the last floor of the burning apartment building. He can see the ladder at the end of the hallway, the light at the end of a burning tunnel. He can see part of the ceiling give way as he turns, reaching for Buck, too slow, too fucking slow, and Buck—

—is gone, pushed through the floor by the caving-in ceiling, what Eddie was sure was a scream drowned out by the roar of the flames.

They find him, of course they do, half buried beneath rubble three floors down with a cracked helmet, broken mask, and blood leaking sluggishly around the temples. Buck is out cold—which is probably for the best, because when Eddie peels his helmet off as Chim speeds through the Los Angeles streets to the nearest trauma hospital all he can see is blue, and black, and red, splashed over the bridge of Buck’s nose, his lids, from ear to ear.

Retinal detachment.

Orbital fracture.

Extreme ocular trauma.

“It’s too soon to tell. The surgery went well, but the healing is where... well, where the healing happens. The gauze needs to be changed daily, and the tape on your lids needs to be removed in two weeks time—by that time, the nerves in your...”

Eddie started to zone out while the doctor was talking, his hand nearly numb from how hard Buck was squeezing it, not that he was going to complain. He had only left the hospital twice in the 60 hours Buck had been admitted—once during Buck’s surgery to drive home, take a well needed shower and a change of clothes, and once to pick up some coffee because he felt about as dead on his feet as Buck looked, and that was saying a lot.

Buck, who had thrashed around and nearly punched Eddie in the face when he came to after the surgery, because he couldn’t fucking see. Buck, who had stitches in his fucking eyeball and two metal rods in the bone around his nose to keep the cartilage from sinking back and puncturing his brain. Buck, who had his eyelids taped shut—which was barbaric in a way Eddie couldn’t properly describe.

“Do I look like a mummy?” Buck had asked after he woke up, near monotonous, and Eddie had to stop himself from near hysterical laughter—he just had two circles of gauze packed toward his eye sockets, another layer of tape beneath the fluff to keep his lids shut.

“Now, Mr. Buckley, who will you be staying with?”

And god, after less than three days, Buck was being discharged.

Eddie blinked, bringing himself back to the present as he heard the question, giving a small gesture with his hand—and remembering Buck couldn’t see it. Off to a great start. “Me. I’ll be taking him back to our home, the only hard part will be convincing my kid that it’s not a two week sleepover vacation.”

If Eddie didn’t already know how low Buck was feeling, the fact that he didn’t even try to argue said more than enough.

Eddie had immediately cashed in three weeks of his paid time off—he had racked plenty up with all the overtime he had worked his first few months on the team, before Carla, the patron saint of financial aid had swooped into his life. He wasn’t about to leave Buck alone, not for a minute if he could help it, but Eddie knew better than anyone that sometimes, things didn’t happen as planned.

The first few days of Buck staying with them had gone... alright. Tensions were sky high, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why, but thankfully Chris was in the house more often than not on the weekend, and it was impossible to be tense or angry when Chris was in the room, even if you couldn’t see him.

At night, though, everything changed. Tension turned to despair, and Eddie had never been more thankful that the guest room was next to his own, on the opposite side of the hall from Chris’ room—he knew the nightmares would be coming hard and fast, and he knew Buck would have never forgiven himself if he scared Christopher with them.

The past two nights, all Buck had needed to anchor himself was a firm touch, a loud enough noise, something to anchor him to the situation, but Eddie could tell that wasn’t going to be enough when he opened Buck’s door a few nights into his stay.

Partially because of his own guilt, maybe, but mostly because Buck sounded like he was fighting for his life.

“Buck, come on, wake up—you’re safe, you’re home with me and Chris, you’re okay, fuck, Buck—“

He finally pulled Buck upright, hands on his shoulders, and Buck gasped, head snapping side to side. “Eddie, what’s going on, where—where the fuck am I, Eddie, what—I can’t see, Eds, I can’t fucking see, I—“

It was only years of Army training that had Eddie’s reflexes moving fast enough to grab Buck’s hands as he moved to claw at his eyes, to rip the gauze and tape off of his lids.

“Listen to me, you’re safe. You’re okay. Come on, Buck. We can do this. I got you.” Keeping his voice as low as possible, Eddie pulled Buck’s wrists toward his own chest, and to his complete dismay, he could feel the moment that Buck’s mind caught up with him. He fell forward, limply pushing his forehead into Eddie’s shoulder, body wracking with sobs as Eddie let go of his wrists and just held his friend, his Buck, who had become completely undone in his arms.

He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, too afraid that the wrong thing would come spilling out, so he just held onto Buck and let him cry, only loosening his grip when he felt Buck’s breath start to even out again, only interrupted by the occasional hiccuping sob or hitch of emotional aftermath. He didn’t realize that Buck had passed out again until it was too late; it was hard to tell in the first place, not being able to see if Buck’s eyes were open or shut, but by the time he realized Buck had literally cried himself asleep he couldn’t even imagine waking him back up just so Eddie could leave.

Also… he didn’t really want to leave.

Slowly pulling the sheet up around Buck’s shoulders, Eddie wiggled himself back down against the headboard, his own eyes closing. He had certainly had worse sleeps—anywhere overseas came to mind—but that was an afterthought. If this is what it took to help Buck feel safe, so be it.

It was the best night of sleep he had gotten in weeks.

The next night, after he had read to Chris and wished Buck a good night, Eddie only needed to pick up on the smallest of hesitations from Buck before he took Buck’s hand and led him into his own bedroom. Buck’s shoulders sagged in relief as Eddie helped steer him into his bed, laying close enough that their legs were touching, but far enough that they still had plenty of their own space, the small contact hopefully enough to ground Buck into the present.

And if Eddie secretly loved the mornings where he would be lucky enough to wake up with Buck any degree closer, well, that was his own business.

Staying together in the same bed didn’t stop Buck’s nightmares, of course, not that Eddie expected it to. What it did was give them both the ability to stop them before it got too bad—with the solid resistance of another body beside you, it was harder to let a dream spiral down too far. He wish he didn’t know this from experience, but... well, he was far from perfect, and that was becoming more and more obvious every day.

The hardest part of it all was that Buck was a morning person, which, who would even have thought that were a thing? Eddie took advantage of sleeping in whenever possible—he had been known to drop Christopher off at school on his days off and get another hour or so of shut eye—but by the time his first alarm went off, Buck had almost always untangled himself from Eddie’s form and retreated to his own side of the bed, and that wouldn’t do.

(When had Eddie started to think of it as Buck’s side of the bed? He really didn’t want to look into that too deeply.)

Eddie started to push himself—waking up ten, fifteen minutes before his alarm, just to enjoy Buck’s closeness, his warmth.

He was getting used to it too quickly, forgetting that this wasn’t actually his, even as he dreamed of spending a sleepy Saturday in bed with Buck, looping an arm around his waist.

“Eddie?”

Fuck. He was awake, and apparently, so was Buck.

His mind immediately kicked into overdrive, not sure if he should pretend that he was still asleep or snap his hand back and apologize, but thankfully, Buck made up his mind before Eddie could. He felt Buck’s arm move atop of his own—not pushing off, just resting alongside, the limb a line of heat along Eddie’s arms as their fingertips brushed. “…this is okay with you?” Buck asked, and Eddie let out a rush of air, nodding, nose tickling the back of Buck’s head. “Yeah Buck, it’s, um. I like it. And if you like it, that’s even better. It’s great! I mean, it’s the least I could do, I guess.” God, Eddie, shut the fuck up.

“… the least you could do.”

Eddie swallowed as he heard the frown in Buck’s voice, knowing instinctively that he was in trouble as Buck moved himself, rolling to face Eddie—probably more out of force of habit than anything, considering they couldn’t exactly meet eye to eye.

“Edmundo Diaz.” Yup, he was in trouble. “You don’t actually think that this is your fault, do you?” Buck said, his tone uncertain, brows furled even with the little bit of motion they had.

“… it’s just… you were right there, Buck. You were right in front of me, and then you were gone. I couldn’t catch you, couldn’t do anything. I was too slow to act, even when you were in arms reach of me, and now you might be blind.” His voice was thick with emotion as he looked over Buck’s face, hating now more than ever that he couldn’t see the others eyes, see how upset or disappointed Buck must be in him. He felt his own throat tighten as he looked down, his arm burning where it was on Buck’s hip. He didn’t even deserve to be in the same room as Buck, let alone touch him, and—

“Eddie, shut the fuck up.”

His jaw snapped shut with an audible click, Buck’s tone like concrete, heavy and unyielding as he jabbed a finger into Eddie’s chest. “You don’t get to apologize because you haven’t done anything wrong. Hell, you’re the only one doing anything right. You’re here, you stepped up, you’re helping me, you’re... hell, where is anyone else? You don’t get to apologize for stepping up, for making sure that I had... well, don’t think I didn’t notice you calling this our home.”

Buck was getting more and more animated as he spoke, and Eddie found himself floundering a little bit, trying to keep up with what Buck was saying (and fuck, had he really said that?). “Buck, I just—”

“Eddie, this is not your fucking fault and I won’t hear you say that ever again.”

...well. Eddie might have disagreed, but he wasn’t stupid enough to argue, not when he had an angry Buck in his bed. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry about it anyway.” he grumbled, aware that he sounded like a petulant child—and if anything, the small smile that Buck had on his face meant Buck thought so too.

“Well, fine. I’m sorry too.”

“What? Buck, what do you have to be--”

“Sorry it took me having a major accident to get you to cuddle with me.”

“What! We aren’t—I didn’t—this isn’t—”

“Eddie, shut up.”

Eddie would have protest when he felt Buck’s shoulders start to shake, worried he had said the wrong thing again—but Buck was laughing, the sound muted under his breath, and Eddie let out a dramatic puff of air as he collapsed back to the bed, his arm back at Buck’s hips.

But, he did shut up.

Eddie almost slammed his head on the hood of his car when he heard a crash coming from the kitchen. He bolted out of the garage, hands stained with oil, swearing as he stumbled in to the main house, almost tripping up the stairs.

“Wait, Eddie, stop!”

Buck’s face was angled toward Eddie’s direction, hand out, obviously having heard him stumble down the hall. Eddie froze in place, eyes huge as he took in the scene—everything looked fine, Buck was upright, he wasn’t bleeding, but the ground around him was glittering with broken glass; nothing more than a broken dish, but Buck was barefoot.

Buck was okay. Eddie hadn’t failed him again. He hadn’t let him get hurt again.

Taking a few steps loser, he let the wrecked look on Buck’s face register for only a moment, wishing for nothing more than to make it go the fuck away. “Hey, okay, you’re good, it was just a plate.”

“And a glass.”

“I’ll pay for it, I promise.”

“Buck, if you think I own any nice dishes after having a kid, you have another thing coming.” Eddie laughed in spite of himself, only encouraged when Buck let out a wet sounding chuff. “Are you okay with me just lifting you out of here? It’ll be the easiest way to get you out of glass before I sweep everything up.”

Buck lifted his arms in response and Eddie had to bite down another laugh as he lifted the other male easily, his hands latched beneath his rear end, Buck’s chest right against his face. He brought Buck easily to the couch and deposited him there, getting a little hasty with the broom as he cleaned up—but Buck looked so miserable, he couldn’t stand to leave the other alone for any longer than he absolutely had to.

It made Eddie want to scream—not because of the situation, but because of everything leading up to it. The day before, Buck had tried to start cleaning the dishes, and had nearly impaled himself with one of Eddie’s pairing knives. The night before that, he had almost started a kitchen fire, cleaning the stove with cooking spray instead of Lysol. Buck passed both of these off as just trying to be helpful, but Eddie was about to pull out his hair—not because the situations were stressful, but because Buck kept coming closer and closer to hurting himself, and Eddie couldn’t accept that.

Tossing the glass into the garbage, he grabbed two beers and cracked them both open, making his way over to the couch with a sigh. “Alright, Buck, what’s up? Why are you pushing yourself so hard, when you only have a few days with the tape left?”

Eddie knew the answer before he even asked, the emotion on Buck’s face more clear than ever as he looked down. “Because I have to. What if I don’t get my vision back? All I want in the entire world is to rip this tape off, to—not even to see, just to know. I can’t stand not knowing, Eddie, I can’t. If I’m blind, I can’t be dependent on you forever, I can’t—”

“Hey, hey, take a breath.” Eddie easily took Buck’s hands in his own, squeezing them reassuringly, eyes studying the visible portions of Buck’s face, his thumb stroking over the pulse point in Buck’s wrist. “You know that whatever happens, we’ll be here for you, right? Chris and I aren’t going to let you face this on your own.

Buck let out another wet sounding laugh, sniffing as he shook his head. “Eddie, I told you, this wasn’t your fault—”

“I’m serious, Buck. We’re not letting you go. I’m not letting you go.”

Any protests that Buck had died in his throat as Eddie shrugged, his hands stilling beneath Eddie’s, suddenly painfully aware of their proximity. Eddie had to bite his lip to avoid laughing as Buck started to lean up, head moving on its own accord, because of course it would take Buck going blind to finally pick up on the signals Eddie had been broadcasting since forever—

“Eddie, I’m blind, you have to tell me if I’m misreading this, because I can’t see your stupid handsome face at all, and—mmphs!”

Eddie swallowed a laugh as he leaned in and claimed Buck’s lips with his own, feeling the quick moment of shock melt into something better, easier. His mouth was warm against Buck’s as he tilted his head, hand coming up to cup his jaw, only encouraged by Buck’s little moans as he melted into Eddie’s side.

The smile on his face was so bright when he pulled back that Eddie felt like he could feel the warmth from it sink into his skin, the heat from Buck’s breath dancing over his face, and nothing could bring him down from this high, not even Buck’s moment of insecurity as he squeezed Eddie’s arms.

“...you’re smiling, right?” Buck asked, his voice low, his own face cut into a shy smile that Eddie would have paid hard cash money to look at for the rest of his life.

Rather than answer, Eddie took Buck’s hands in his own, letting Buck’s fingers trace over his face, his smile, taking every moment he could to kiss the fingers that traced over his lips. Buck couldn’t help but laugh as he swatted Eddie’s shoulder, the sound warming Eddie to his very core—it was the first time in weeks that he had heard Buck laugh, he realized. Letting his arms slide back around Buck’s waist, he had to sigh as they fit back into one another’s space.

Chris didn’t even question finding the two of them like that when Carla brought home, because bless that kid. He just let his backpack fall to the floor, grabbed a blanket, and curled into Buck’s side. Buck, to his credit, let out a happy hum, wrapped an arm around Chris, and that was that.

(Two days later, Carla spent an absurd amount of time peeling the tape off of Buck’s eyelids, but Eddie couldn’t even complain about the laborious process when Buck’s eyes opened slowly, squinting as he started to re-focus.

Eddie held his breath as Buck’s eyes flickered over to him—not knowing if Buck could see was killing him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask, biting his lips as a smile bloomed over Buck’s face.

“God, you’re cute.”

Eddie wasn't sure if he was laughing or crying as Buck spoke, pulling his teammate—his Buck—into his arms, but he didn’t care. All that mattered right now was Buck, tight in his arms.)

#911week2020 #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #hurt/comfort #buddiefic #911 #911fic #flospeaks #mutually assured devotion #buckleyevan

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

Text

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nine

Frank spent a good five minutes down the decoration aisle, the last time that he was at the store. Most of the time, it was easy. He got whatever kind of sprinkles went with the season. Or he’d get something that was color coded to match the season. Reds and greens for the winter time, pine trees and snowflakes. Pastels for the spring, easter eggs and flowers. Browns and yellows for the fall, pumpkins and leaves.

It was the summer now. He didn’t need anything holiday specific. Bright, primary colors were what he focused on. They didn’t do the Fourth of July out here, it wasn’t like he needed red, white and blue.

But that didn’t stop him from spending minutes of his life standing in front of canisters of sprinkles, trying to find the one he wanted to use for Matt’s donut. Because it’s become a Thing, now. A way for him to say something he was too chickenshit to say out loud. And it’s not like Matt was looking at the sprinkles.

It was the easiest way to air his feelings out, the way the therapist said he was supposed to, without having to actually do anything about it. Frank got lucky when he fell ass over teakettle for a blind guy, though he was smart enough not to say any of that shit out loud.

In the end, Frank comes back with four containers of sprinkles, and a half assed idea about what to try next. There were mermaid sprinkles, all done up in shades of pink, purple and seafoam green. Those would sell well, especially this close to the ocean. Tourists like shit like that, and Frank had a feeling Aerith would get a kick out of it too.

Two others were basic summer colors, one in bright reds and yellows and blues that looked like shattered sea glass, and the other an old school mix that reminded Frank briefly of the way his ma used to decorate cakes back in the seventies, a wild mix of jimmies, nonpareils, and quins in about every color under the sun.

The last bottle, the one Frank was currently holding in his hand, was the one he bought for Matt, and Matt alone. “You’re a damn idiot.” It’s a murmur to himself, but it doesn’t stop Frank from putting the bottle down so that he can start working on the small batch of donuts that have been on his mind all day.

The cabinet out front was ready to go, bright lights and variety. There was usually something new in there every few weeks, but Frank knew what sold. Blueberry cake donuts for the boys in the bookshop, old school chocolate glazed for Peter and Eddie down at the bar. The kids at the florist shop were always down to try anything he made, the more wild the better. (He’d candied tulip petals once and put them on iced yeast donuts, and the two of them bought a dozen just for themselves.)

A little bit of each of those things meant he rarely had stuff go to waste. And when he did have a little bit of leftover, he could usually get Stark to buy them, because he liked to throw bread pudding on the menu at his place now and then.

The shop wouldn’t open for another few hours. It was still dark outside. That would hopefully give Frank enough time to get this damn thing figured out and fully frosted, so that by the time that Matt came in, Foggy under his feet and morning coffee from Magnus’ place in tow, he could actually like the damn things were out on display for everyone, and not just a sad sack’s attempt to put a little love in his baking.

Frank wasn’t stupid. Yeah, Matt was a looker, and yeah Frank had spent more than a few showers thinking about him. But it wasn’t that pretty mouth or those long fingered hands or the column of his throat that kept Frank up at night. It was the smokey glass sound of his laughter, and how quick he always was with a comeback. It was the way he said Frank’s name like he knew a secret.

This wasn’t lust that was making him dumb enough to buy special sprinkles just for a six pack batch of donuts. It was longing. And guys like Frank, they didn’t get happy endings. Not after what he did overseas. (Funny how he still thinks of it as ‘overseas’, like he was sitting back home in the city and not on a pretty little street corner near a beach somewhere in paradise.)

But damned if Matt didn’t make him think about it. What it’d be like to wake up in bed next to somebody that you cared about. And who didn’t fuck your next door neighbor when you were doing a tour of duty in the desert.

Sharing dinner with somebody. Sharing your silence with somebody.

The metal mixing bowl comes down from it’s spot on the shelf, and Frank starts with the dry ingredients. He sifts the flower, watching it float down into the bowl like a hard winter’s snow, coating the reflective surface inside. Next comes the baking powder and the salt, through the same sifter.

Then comes the eggs. The milk. The butter. The dough comes together easy, even with the flat whisk in hand instead of using the stand mixer. Frank wanted these to come out perfect, and he wasn’t fucking that up with a machine. Last is the bloomed yeast in warm water.

He turns the dough out to rise, and looks down at Misty, where she’s curled up on her bed by the back door. “You ready to go out?” Her ears shoot up, and by the time Frank has the leash in his hand, Misty is dancing from foot to foot. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

They take their walk nice and slow. The streets are quiet, in that time between when the bars close down and the breakfast places open up. The streetlights are globes of gold between pockets of darkness, and the only sound is Misty’s nails on the cobblestones.

Once Misty is back snuggled up in her bed, Frank turns his attention back to the dough. He rolls it out, getting his biscuit cutter out to get them to the right size, and leaves them to rise again while he works on the fillings.

See, this is where he got hung up. Frank wanted to do something special for Matt, without it being obvious he was doing something special. And Matt, God bless him, didn’t have the most refined palette. He’d eat Boston cream donuts every day if Frank let him.

So Berliners it was. Six fried yeast donuts, with six different fillings, because Frank was a glutton for punishment. Two sweet cream, because that was what Matt liked best. Two lemon cream, because the lemons were fresh and in season and you couldn’t throw a stone without somebody trying to sell them to you on a street corner and two with a dark chocolate ganache.

It was too damn rich, and real Berliners called for a jam filling, but this was Frank’s dumbass idea and he was going to do it his way.

Three bowls of filling lined up on the counter, with taste tests from him and Misty, and Frank gets his donuts in the oil. He’d do the rest of this morning’s batch once these were done. He wanted these done in fresh oil.

It gives the Berliners time to cool while he gets the rest of the morning’s display set up, and then Frank takes the six smaller donuts and cuts into them with a paring knife, filling them each to the brim with their filling. When they’re done, he dusts them with powdered sugar and moves them into a cardboard pastry box.

It’s only then that he stops, looks to the shelf, looks to the box, and then looks to Misty, who’s watching him with one eye open. “Misty.” Her tail thuds against the wall in a slow rhythm. “Why the hell did you let me buy sprinkles for a goddamn donut that isn’t iced, and you don’t put sprinkles on?”

The dog doesn’t lift her head. Frank is pretty sure she’s calling him a dumbass in her head, but she’s too polite to make it obvious.

Well there it was, the definition of how damn stupid he was for Matt Murdock. Stupid enough to spend ten dollars on sprinkles in pinks and yellows and blues, that he wasn’t even going to use on these donuts.

The bell over the door tinkles, and Frank looks up to see Matt, backlit by the soft pinks, yellows and blues of the rising sun that looked an awful damn lot like the sprinkles sitting useless in Frank’s kitchen right now.

“Black coffee. Two sugars.” Matt shifts the cardboard container holding both of their drinks to his other hand so that he can feel out the counter before he runs his fingers along the sleeve on the cups. Magnus must have done something to tell them apart, because Matt feels something and offers the cup over to Frank, smiling.

“Thanks, Red. Have a seat, I’ll get you something out.” He hears a wry ‘sir, yes sir’ behind him, though how the hell he hears it over the beating of his heart is beyond him. Just like he knows that the pain in his ass is flipping a sarcastic little salute behind his back. A bad one, too. He’s shown the son of a bitch how to do it right before, now Matt was just doing it to get on his nerves. “I saw that!” He calls behind him, not bothering to fight his smile. Frank flips his judgemental dog the bird where she lays, watching him and grabs the small pastry box. Now or never. And he put hours into these damn things. It was now.

“I’m trying something new.” The swinging door to the kitchen catches him on the ass on the way out. Frank puts the pastry box down on the table he’s come to think of as Matt’s, and drops to a crouch so that he can offer a leftover piece of fried dough to Foggy. Even working dogs needed breakfast.

“Berliners. They’re real popular in…” Berlin, you damn fool. The name got the point across pretty clearly. “Chile.” They were, actually. But it’s pretty fucking obvious by the quirk of Matt’s mouth that he knows that Frank wasn’t thinking about Chile when he started talking. “Thought you might give them a try and see if they’re worth putting on the menu.”

They’re not actually that much work, compared to the hours he already puts in during the early morning. But it’s not about that. It’s about getting some kind of reaction out of Matt, and Frank is man enough to admit it.

“The two on the right are sweet cream filled. Two in the middle are lemon cream. The two on the right are a dark chocolate ganache.” Frank has to resist the itch in his legs to squirm, or move foot to foot. Matt makes a pleased sound low in his throat just at the mention of what was in the donuts and Frank feels it all the way down into his marrow. And other places a man didn’t talk about in polite company.

“And I want your honest damn opinion, Red. Not what you’d say to a friend who you’re trying to salvage their feelings. I want the review you’d give to somebody else if you never had to face me again. I wanna know if the filling is too sweet, or not sweet enough. If I cooked the damn things too long. I want ‘em to be perfect.”

I want them to be perfect for you, Matty. That’s the words he doesn’t say.

I want them to be perfect for you.

#ch: frank #polyfacetious | matt #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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eddisfargo · 4 years

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CoMC Chapter 117--THE LAST CHAPTER

CHAPTER 117

The Fifth of October

38 minutes

THIS IS IT, YOU GUYS! The LAST chapter!! And look at that name--we’re closing it off with just one last Dumas Countdown™, because this is the deadline at which our sad little son is supposed to kill himself. And/or discover Juliet.

And I am off to listen! Wish me luck!!

OK I’M BACK, and I listened to it last night, and posted my “FIN” interlude, and now I’m finishing this! So bittersweet!!

So…… I don’t know what I was expecting. Hahaha I mean I guess I do, and in some ways it was spot on, but I was kind of expecting Val to pop in and stop Morrel from killing himself, not for MC to just… give him fake poison. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Time to do the thing I’ve been doing where I put the book on doublespeed and skip around!

Also I didn’t do that and it’s days later because I procrastinated this for some reason wanted to give the story some time to marinate so I’m doing something unprecedented and I’m going to post this immediately after I write it. If I’d queued it like normal it would’ve gone up at like 4am today but it’s 10:30am and I still haven’t written it. (11:30am by the time I’m posting it! lol) Every other chapter went up by last night! But hey, LONG ONE INCOMING.

Getting this out of the way in advance so I don’t have to end on this note: Albert is not, after all, ever mentioned again.

So Morrell is sailed into Monte Cristo (the island not the d00d) by a guy who turns out to be Yucky Jacopo. He is a very sad guy because this is the last day of his life (no it isn’t), but he gets all happy when he sees his bff MC. And MC is happy too--he’s all laughy, which Morrel notes as him basically being a different person. But MC’s like “OH YEAH I FORGOT THAT HAPPINESS IS FLEETING” like okaaaaay. And Morrel’s like “well glad that you’re either feigning happiness for my comfort or you’re totally OK with my death which is in like 3 hours.” and MC’s like “I chose c) none of the above.”

And MC’s like “wait you’re not feeling better? Weird!” And he does this WEIRD interrogation of exactly what kind of sad Morrel is and whether he’s “consoled” or not (“consoled” apparently includes being basically heart-dead). Morrel’s happy because MC’s going to give him a nice easy death and he can die in a friend’s arms. And it turns out Max has been kind of hoping for a miracle which is clearly not coming after all (yes it is).

So Max is like “OK you know how you know literally everything and are basically from a higher plane and I trust you absolutely?” and MC’s like “yes that’s correct, go on?” (the higher plane is called “grief” btw).

So it turns out MC’s concerned that Max is… not unhappy enough to be saved, and that would be horrible, because it wouldn’t be proper repentance for his sins. So MC’s like “here have $100 million and now you don’t have to die!” and Max is like “frist of all how DARE yo u” and MC’s like “OK phew just making sure”

So MC hands him the poison and goes “hey I’ll do it too!” and Max is like “but you love people and people love you!” (umm, don’t you have an adorable sister??) “in YOUR case it’d be a crime! No doing that, but I’ll give Valentine your regards. Toodles!” And he just… drinks it. And starts to fade out. Now obviously at this point it’s not real poison, haha. It’s definitely a drug though, because he can’t move or speak and is feeling all wonky. But then VALENTINE WALKS IN!!! Oh my god, she wasn’t dead???? This whole time??? I had NO IDEA!!!

Now I was a bit worried at this point that he’d just… never believe he didn’t die. Like that this was heaven and no one could prove it wasn’t, haha. But that didn’t quite end up happening. So anyway they’re together now, and that’s MC’s atonement. And now MC goes “GIVE ME YOUR GRATITUDE. I NEED IT TO LIIIIIIIVE. POUR YOUR THANKS INTO MY EAR IT IS MY NOURISHMENT.” And Val totally does. But also she calls Haydee her sister, and MC’s like “oh good you love her that’s great because she’s yours now. I’m setting her free and making her a princess again.”

And Haydee’s like “Yeah that’s fine, whatever you say. No I mean that literally. I will do WHATEVER YOU SAY ALWAYS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. IF YOU YOU WANT TO [dramatic swoon motion, I assume] CAST ME OFF, I WILL GO! AND DIE! BECAUSE YOU SAY SO!”

And MC’s like “wait wait wait wait wait are you saying you like… like me or something?”

And Haydee’s like “I’ve literally been telling you that the entire book. I love you like an immediate family member! Where ‘immediate family member’ is a set containing ‘husband’!”

And MC’s like “Oh I guess I can be happy then. Like I said in that one chapter that made Eddis so mad. FYI she’s still not cool with this at all, but it’s whatever.” (What a weird thing for Dumas to write in, amirite?)

So they go off to have their happily ever after or whatever and then Max wakes up and is like “wtf I’m not dead! That traitor!” and picks up a knife to finish the job and Valentine goes “I mean or maybe not do that?” And Max is like whaaaaat? Except also he just accepts it instantly. So they go off into the sunset.

They get a note from MC who, it turns out, just… left. Without saying anything. Off to go marry Haydee, one assumes. And speaking of what he left… his houses and stuff to Morrelentine, for starters. Which should be interesting. They’re actually going back to Paris? The city in which she’s supposed to be buried right now? That won’t be a scandal or anything, haha. But whatever, I guess there’s plenty of scandals in Paris. People will get over it eventually. Maybe. Anyway we did need to get Max back to Julie and Emmanuel. That’ll be a nice little family for Valentine, who’s never known love like they have just all the time.

Also Noirtier’s totally waiting for them in Foghorn Leghorn, where he wants to bless the marriage and presumably live with them forever. MC suggests that Val give her whole fortune to charity and also drops in “oh hey literally everyone else in your family is either dead or lost their damn mind, fyi.” But anyway she won’t really need the fortune now they’ve got Monte Cristo bux--because he’s leaving them the grotto treasure.

So MC suddenly feels humility and remorse and realizes he’s not God, only God is God and he’s just some guy. And why did he let Max suffer so much when Valentine was liTERALLY ALIVE THE WHOLE TIME OMG? Because happy and sad only exist in their contrast to each other, and he needed to be vairy vairy sad before he could properly be vairy vairy happy. You have to die to appreciate life. And apparently all human wisdom is summed up in two words: Wait and hope.

That seemed it should be the last line of the book, but it keeps going with their reactions. Except spoiler, it totally IS the last line of the book when Valentine repeats it. After the two of them wonder if ever see their father/sister again.

WAIT AND HOPE. Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program!

AND SO IT ENDS. (Also that Audible message sounded SO FAST after how slow our narrator talks--I really don’t think this book would be 53 hours read by anyone else, haha. But he did a great job though! Especially at 45% increased speed)

I still can’t believe it’s over! I’m already like halfway through my next audiobook, haha, because it’s actually a reasonably-lengthed book.

EDDISFARGO HOPES YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS PROGRAM.

#Eddis Reads Monte Cristo #count of monte cristo #spoilers #IT ENDED OMG #Thanks so much for following along through all of this #it's been a really really good time #off to check out some memes!

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

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“The rest of your life” Are you independent or dependent? Both, but definitely more dependent. Even more so these past few years.

If you could put your life into a category, where would it go? I feel like this would be easier to answer if you gave a list of categories. I don’t know what kind of insight you’re looking for. <<< Yeah, I have no idea how to answer this.

How many animals do you have? I have one doggo. <3

Are you popular? Nope. Never was and that’s perfectly fine.

What time were you born? Around 430PM.

Have you had any candy this week? Nope.

Are you more afraid of tornadoes or hurricanes? I’ve never experienced either one, but they both sound terrifying.

Do you like those nerd glasses? I don’t know what “nerd glasses” you’re referring to.

Have you ever been in a fist fight? Nope. Or any kind of physical fight.

What color is your house? Beige.

When was the last time you saw a rainbow? Hmm. I don’t remember.

Have you ever ate a crayon? Nope.

Ever rode in a helicopter? Yes, after my accident I had to be flown to another hospital.

Do you like rabbits? Sure.

Do you like mushrooms? Nope.

“It’s like you step into the room and just press play” What was the last movie you cried at? On Halloween I rewatched It Chapter 2 and the ending always gets me in the feels with what happens to Eddie, when it shows the loser’s club as kids and then adults, and the letter from Stanley.

What ice cream flavor best describes your personality? Vanilla cause I’m plain and simple and “innocent”, ha.

Would you rather work for a small or large company? I don’t know.

Where's your favorite place to buy clothes? Boxlunch and Hot Topic.

How many languages do you speak? Just one fluently. I can speak some Spanish, though.

What was the worst movie you've ever seen? Hm. There’s been several wtf movies, but I don’t know what I’d say was the worst. I don’t feel like thinking much about it.

What video game have you played the most? Mario bro games and most recently Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’ve been playing that just about everyday for a lot of this year.

What was your favorite TV show as a child? Nick Jr shows, Playhouse Disney shows, Arthur, The Big Comfy Couch, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Bobby’s World, some Cartoon Network cartoons, and Saturday morning cartoons like Recess and Pepperann.

What's your favorite sport? None.

If you were given a brand new yacht, what would you name it? I have no idea.

Do you believe there’s life on other planets? Not in the form of ugly green creatures with odd shaped heads.

What was the worst place you ever traveled to? Hm. I haven’t been anywhere I didn’t really like.

What is one thing you’re really bad at? Life.

Do you believe in angels? Yes.

Would you rather be a famous actor or musician? Neither.

“where have you been all my life?” If you could have invented one thing, what would it have been? I don’t know.

What's your favorite exercise workout? I don’t have one. I don’t exercise :X

What's your favorite thing to do? Some things I like to do include surveys, reading, watching YouTube, scrolling through Tumblr, and checking my social medias.

What did you do for your 17th birthday? I’m sure dinner with family. Probably invited my aunts and cousins over.

Does your local Wal Mart have benches in them to rest? Yeah.

Was your favorite stuffed animal really a teddy bear growing up? I got more into stuffed animals as I got older to be honest when I started collecting giraffe stuffed animals.

If your house was haunted, what would you do? Uhh I don’t know.

Are you crazy in love currently? No.

Are you good at swimming? No, I can’t swim.

What's worse: Slow internet or slow walkers? Slow internet is suuuuper frustrating.

What is the rudest thing a guy has ever done to you? Use me and play me.

Do you sleep with the sheets tucked in or out? Out.

What do you do to fall asleep faster? I don’t have much say when I fall asleep, but to try and help with that I listen to ASMR.

Do you carry a bottle of water wherever you go? No.

Ae you afraid that one day you might get cancer? It is something I’m afraid of. I’m someone who tends to think it’s always a possibility whenever something is wrong or I’m really sick.

“Letters to Juliet” Are you a fast or slow walker? I’m a fast wheeler.

Do you usually have to wear a belt with your pants? I never wear a belt.

Does it bother you when people's underwear hangs out? Kinda cause as someone in a wheelchair I’m at the level of a lot of people’s behinds lol and yeah, I don’t particularly want to see their underwear. Even worse if their ass is hanging out.

Are you usually the person to try new things with your hair? No.

When's your birthday? July 28th.

Do you own a bobble-head toy? Yes.

What color was the towel you used to dry off with today after a shower? I haven’t showered yet today.

Has anyone ever walked you home? Yeah.

Have you ever liked someone and they were taken? Yes.

When was the last time you went fishing? I’ve only tried it once, briefly. It wasn’t my thing.

True or false: You've read the book Lord of the Flies? True.

Have you heard of the band Yellowcard? Yep.

Have you ever seen the show Teen Wolf? I never got into it.

Do you have any quotes, lyrics etc on your walls? No. Are you a fan of Star Wars? Yes. I finally caught up on season 2 of The Mandalorian so far last night.

“Our parents never let us cross the street, but we did it anyway” Has anyone ever told you that you have nice hair? Yes.

What brand of camera do you own? I use my iPhone XR.

Is there something you're not looking forward to? My next doctor appointment.

Have you ever read the book Thirteen Reasons Why? Yep, back when I was in high school.

Do you wear white pants? No. I avoid wearing white cause I’m a slob haha.

When was the last time you were really angry? My doctor pisses me off. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get a call back regarding some lab results. I call and they say they’re waiting for the doctor to look over them and they’ll call me back to let me know but ugh it’s been taking days.

Have you ever made a 3 pointer in a basketball game? I’ve never participated in a basketball game.

Do you think you look better with your hair up or down? Down, but I always throw it up because it’s easier to deal with. I don’t have the energy or motivation to style or do anything with it.

Do you warm up before you hardcore exercise? I don’t hardcore exercise. Or exercise at all.

Do you want a pair of Converse shoes? Not currently.

Are you more of a studs or hoops type of person when it comes to earrings? Studs.

How many shirts do you have of your favorite band? Two.

Turn on the TV. What channel are you on? It’s already on, it’s currently on The Hallmark Channel.

Have you ever wore a tie before? No.

What did you have for breakfast this morning? I haven’t ate anything yet today, it’s only 5:28AM.

“For the Krusty Krab” Are you good at art? Nope, not at all.

How many times have you read your favorite book? I don’t reread books, actually.

Name one thing that you really hate. My health.

Have you ever tried walking on stilts? No. That would be impossible for me.

Is there a war that you find interesting? I’ve read the most about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. Especially for one of my community college history classes because the professor was a big Lincoln buff and I did a paper on Lincoln and the war.

Would you rather live in the city or country? City.

Do you think $7 is too much for a movie ticket? $7 is okay, but our movie tickets are more than that.

Would you like to be a newscast person? No. Fun fact: I was one of the newscasters on my elementary school’s news program when I was in the 7th grade, though. I enjoyed it, it was fun. It was nerve wracking, too, cause I went to a k-8th grade school and the news program played in every single grade/classroom.

Do you like word searches, coloring or crosswords better? I enjoy word searches and coloring.

Close your eyes and press a random key on the keyboard. j

How many William’s do you know? I don’t know any.

What time did you wake up this morning? It’s 5:34AM, I haven’t gone to bed yet.

Do you enjoy crutches? I’ve never used them, but does anyone actually enjoy them? They’re beneficial and necessary for some, so it’s great that they exist, but I don’t know if anyone actually enjoys them.

What's better: Snapple or Arizona tea? I used to love Arizona teas when I was a teenager. The green tea and the watermelon flavors were my favorite.

Make a word out of the word: Dinosaur. Sound.

“she said I love this song, I’ve heard it before” When you were younger, did you play with legos? Yeah.

Do you like Trix cereal? Yes. I haven’t had it in several years, though.

Do you get nervous easily? Yesss.

How long is your Facebook password? Uh, I’m not sharing that.

Do you like the movie Mean Girls? Yes.

How do you want your wedding to be? I don’t plan on getting married.

Have you seen the movie or show Catfish? Both. I love the tv show.

Do you hate it when you arrive to something early? No, I hate when I arrive to something late.

Have you ever been on Omegle? Yes.

Are you still in love with one of your exes? Nope. I moved on years ago.

Do you think it's attractive when guys wear beanies? It can be, sure.

What's something that makes you feel shy in public? Being in crowded places is one.

Do you like the shows on MTV? I like Catfish and the Teen Mom shows.

If you could go back and relive one day, what day? Hm. I’d have to really think about that if it was just one day.

What's one word you hate to be called? Sensitive. I know I am, but I hate being told “I’m too sensitive.” Plus sometimes it’s like, “no, maybe you’re just mean?”

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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demiromance · 4 years

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“Thankful” (happy ending AU Reddiefic, Secret Santa gift!)

Hi there @pawprinterfanfic! I’m your secret santa for the @itfandompromptssecret santa gift exchange! I’m sorry its almost midnight, I was at a holiday event with my family, but I had such a wonderful time writing this for you and I hope you have an absolutely blessed holiday season! With all of my love and warm wishes, enjoy! Summary: The Thanksgiving after Pennywise finally goes to wherever evil killer clowns go, The Losers have a lot to be thankful for, Richie and Eddie most of all. (Happy ending AU where Stan went back to Derry, and because of that, they all lived.) Rating: T, because Richie has a mouth on him.

It snows on Thanksgiving in Derry. Richie Tozier forgot how much he hated that shit. He’s sulking around Mike’s (admittedly incredible and way more spacious than he’d realized at first,) apartment over the library, and he can feel two pairs of eyes on him - Eddie, from his now customary, since coming home, finally, from the hospital, place on the window seat by the round window that looked out over the town square, and Sprinkles, the cat that Richie was unsure if Beverly had actually adopted from the shelter in town for Mike, or had merely found on the street and claimed as theirs. Ben would be the first to tell you, she definitely had a way of taking in strays.

“What exactly are you two doing to that poor thing?” Eddie calls, book long forgotten, and Sprinkles, who has made herself comfortable in his lap, makes a quiet little mrrrr noise of curiosity of her own.

Still squinting at the cookbook open in front of him, one hand menacingly clutching an entire stick of butter that’s melting rapidly in the heat of his hands over the turkey, resting on a bed of potatoes and carrots in what he’s been told is called a ‘roasting pan.’ Richie is not, nor has he ever been a great cook, but he and Bill will be damned if they can’t figure out what Martha Stewart called the “idiot proof” turkey earlier that day on television while the others are rushing about doing the rest of the things required for the day to be perfect. And the day would be perfect, damn it, if it was the last thing Richie did: they had so much to be thankful for. He felt the familiar flood of emotion in his chest when it hit him again, just how grateful he was. Pennywise was gone, for good, and Eddie’d lived. He thought he’d known fear before they went into that cistern, or when he saw those massive spider legs, or what he saw in the deadlights, but he had never known fear like the blur of minutes of carrying Eddie from that awful place, turned to the hours of sitting on the floor in a hospital hallway, Eddie’s blood darkening on the front of his shirt, turned to the days of waiting for him to wake up. He also thought he’d, at least at some point in his life, known happiness, and relief, but he hadn’t, until finally he was roused from sleep by the hand he’d held for so long, wishing and hoping and even praying, curling around his.

That’d been July, it was the end of November now and everything between that was a blur. That first night, everyone slept on chairs in the hospital, but eventually bags were collected from the Townhouse and migrated to Mike’s. “No friends of mine are going to keep living in that shithole for god knows how long,” the librarian had harrumphed at them, making up his sole guest room (never used,) pulling out his couch, and sending Ben to buy air mattresses. If Richie was smuggled there, ‘home,’ to sleep in those early weeks, he doesn’t remember. He remembers being absolutely unwilling to let Eddie out of his sight, lest he disappear, lest this not actually all be real, lest this be some fever dream in the deadlights, but then eventually he remembers waking up with the golden light of a late summer sunset falling over him, bundled under a pile of blankets in that guest room, Beverly sitting next to him, watching tv.

“I need to get back to the hospital,” he’d rasped at her, reaching for his glasses.

“You need to go back to sleep,” she’d murmured, brushing his hair out of his eyes with sisterly affection. He had.

The weather grew cold, and the leaves turned the brilliant colors of fall in Maine, something else Richie had forgotten, and forgotten that he’d loved. One day, between the hospital and home, when Stan’s wife, Patty, who he’d begun to think of as the group’s tiny little blonde guardian angel, ushered him into a Halloween store to find Eddie “something seasonal to brighten that room up!” Richie realized that…none of them had gone home.

“Wait!” he surprised Patty by how quickly he sort of…grabbed her. She responded by turning and giving him a tight hug, to which he replied, feeling like a dunce, with “Don’t you all have lives?”

She blinked up at him, “Hm?”

“You flew all the way up here the second Stan called you. Audra came out. None of you have gone home. What about your jobs? Your houses? Your lives?”

“You’re family. Eddie’s family. You all need us.”

“Yes, Patty, and we love you very much, but the logistics-”

“We all figured, we’re…established, enough,” she shrugged, “We’ve all done well, Trashmouth. We’re in a position to be here, so we are. And besides,” she giggled brightly, “Ben is loaded.”

He laughed. She laughed. They left with a stuffed monkey dressed up as a mummy. Eddie would hate it.

The week before Thanksgiving, they sprung him. Until you really got to know Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie explained, he was a charming son of a bitch and had somehow convinced the nurses that that was his true nature.

Eddie, seated on the edge of his hospital bed as Richie stooped to tie his shoes for him, groaned, “Yes, Richie. I love you, too.”

Eddie got the guest room after that, which meant that Richie, who’d insisted on an air mattress and that someone else take that bed, was back in that cozy room, and for the first time since that awful day on Neibolt Street, since the nights before, hiding, sneaking from one room to another, Richie slept with Eddie in his arms, the cold sweating of nightmares gone, beaten back by the warmth, the solidity of the other man. Eddie was there, Eddie was real, and Eddie was alive.

So yes, even as he stood there, holding a half melting stick of butter that he was pretty sure that he was about to unceremoniously shove up a turkey’s ass, Richie Tozier was grateful.

“Rich? Hellllloooooooooo. Earth to Richie,” Bill waved a hand in his face, “Psst. You in there?”

Richie shook his thoughts clear, “Yeah, uh..yeah. I’m here. Sorry. Shit. What do I do with this?”

Bill looked back at the cookbook, then at the butter, then back to the cookbook, and sighed with relief, “Thank fuck. We rub it under the skin-”

“It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again!” Richie couldn’t help himself, voice and all.

“Jesus Christ, Richie.”

“It’s so the turkey doesn’t get dry!” Eddie called from the window seat, “Please don’t make me get up and come over there.”

“The turkey is not going to be dry, Eduardo!” Richie called back, and passed the now slippery stick of what surely was not butter but felt like pure grease, and was probably, in all actuality, the margarine that Eddie tried to convince them caused cancer if eaten literally ever at all, unceremoniously to a very confused Bill. “Here, you handle this, Big Bill,” he said, and wandered off to entertain Eddie and the cat before the former could offer any more unsolicited advice. Bill blinked at him, and sighed - some people never change, not even almost three decades and a murdered clown later. He was definitely going to need a drink.

+++

It was margarine and the turkey was dry (due, however, more to Bill getting a little tipsy and not setting his timer for the right amount of time after he stuffed the turkey into the apartment’s small-ish oven, than to any lack of comprehension from two grown men of at least above average intelligence but very little usable kitchen skill about what to do with butter on Thanksgiving when cooking,) but they were all too wrapped up in the warm glow of the occasion to notice once they all finally sat down to eat, Mike doing the honors of carving the bird expertly for someone who, the night before, had confessed that he not only hadn’t done a real Thanksgiving in twenty seven years but was also a vegetarian. Patty led the table in a round of applause as he took a small bow before sitting down, his grin wide and bright.

Everyone looked expectantly to Bill, at the head of the table, always their leader, who looked, lost to his wife. Audra chuckled and gave his hand a squeeze under the table, “Should we say grace?”

“I will! I will!” Richie offered, to only mild protest, “Everybody hold hands, c’mon, pretend like we like each other, c’mon, c’mon.” The Losers, and their now honorary members, Audra and Patty, obliged, and Richie cleared his throat, bowing his head, “Dear Lord, we uh…thank you for…this day and these people and stuff and for that time that Jesus kid was…in Turkey and he…did some stuff-”

“Richie we’re Jewish why are you talking about Jesus,” Stan muttered.

Richie, unfazed continued, “Or maybe today we just have turkey, maybe he wasn’t in turkey, wait…is that why we have turkey, is it-”

“Heeeeeeeey, I have an idea,” Ben interjected, “Instead of…whatever that was, why don’t we all just say something we’re thankful for? It’s been one hell of a year, and I have a lot I’m thankful for now.”

“Great idea!” Bev lit up, smiling up at him, “I’ll go first. This year, I’m thankful for all of you, and I’m thankful for Ben, and,” she peeked under the table at Ben’s large German Shepherd, his bowl already emptied between his paws, waiting for table scraps, “Scout down there, and Sprinkles, wherever she got to.”

“Same,” Ben seconded, “All of you and Bev and…our freedom.”

Patty raised her water glass, “I think that’s worth toasting. No more clowns!”

To the clink of glasses, they echoed, “No more clowns.”

“I’m thankful for Mike!” Bill went next, “I mean, yes, I’m thankful for all of you. Audra, Stan, all of you, I mean that. But Mikey…dude, you st-stayed here f-f-for us. You remembered.”

“And then you took us all in!” Beverly added. Mike ducked his head, “Thank you. I’d do it again. I’m thankful you all came back.”

“I’m thankful that Bill called me, after Mike did,” Stan said softly, “I was in a bad place and…about to do something drastic,” his voice was barely audible at the other end of the table, “And I would have never gotten to see us all this happy.”

Patty wrapped her arm around his and kissed his shoulder, “I’m thankful for that, too. And that you’ve all let me be a part of this family.”

“Same here,” Audra offered. A chorus of ‘we love you’s and ‘of course you’re part of this family’ went up to the both of them.

“I’m thankful to be alive,” said Eddie, “I’m thankful that I get to…actually live my life now. I feel like I went from my mother to Myra and-”

“I’m thankful for divorce attornies,” Richie muttered.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Beverly muttered.

Eddie continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “Like, yeah, I almost died which is extremely fucking weird to say or even…think about…but…I get to live now. I’m not under mom’s thumb. I’m not under Myra’s thumb-”

“You just have me wrapped around your little finger,” Richie’s smile, for once, wasn’t wry or sardonic, but warm, and gentle and his eyes were so soft as he looked at the other man.

Under the table, Eddie slipped his hand into Richie’s and squeezed it three times: I love you. “You love it.”

“I do.”

“And what about you, Rich?” Stan asked, beaming, “What are you thankful for? Besides Eddie’s divorce attorney, I mean.”

“A lot,” Richie was surprisingly quiet, and reverent, “Everything? All of you? That…I finally get to spend the rest of my life next to this weird little gremlin-”

“Hey-”

“Who I love more than anything in the world. Who I never stopped loving, not for a second. Who my heart always remembered.”

Their eyes met, Eddie’s filling with tears.

Ding, ding, ding! Patty tapped her spoon on her glass, and soon the others joined her, “Kiss! Kiss!”

That cold, snowy Thanksgiving night, in a warm apartment in Derry, Maine, filled with love and friendship, Richie Tozier kissed Eddie Kaspbrak, and everything was absolutely golden.

66 notes · View notes

talesfromthesnogbox · 4 years

Text

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Summary: Richie and his fiance Eddie rush to get to the hospital because their very good friend, and surrogate mother, Beverly, is in labour, and Oh my god it's happening quickly!

Rating: T (for language and mentions of medical procedures)

Word Count: 4235

Notes: Is this a repost of my own work? Yes. Do I care? No :)

Alright guys, so this is totally self-indulgent, and it basically goes like "Crying Richie and Eddie doing skin to skin with their newborn baby." So here it is. Please note, I know barely anything about pregnancy or birth or surrogacy so I guessed a lot and nothing is accurate, but does anyone really care?

aO3

***

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Eddie was a light sleeper. He had no problem waking up when Richie got home from late night gigs, and he was always up within the first chime of his alarm in the morning. But recently, Eddie had taken to sleeping like a baby.

A sharp ring pulled him out of his gentle slumber. He’d been having a pleasant dream, one he was annoyed to be woken up from by what was probably a wrong number. Eddie grumbled looking at his phone, startled by how bright it was momentarily, but soon his annoyance turned to panic.

10 Missed Calls from Ben Hanscom

“Shit…” Eddie mumbled, quickly calling him back. “Dude—”

“Eddie I’ e been calling you for an hour, what the fuck man?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I just… I fell asleep.”

“Richie isn’t picking up either, is he with you?”

Eddie sat up in bed, Richie’s side still empty. “No man, he’s doing some radio show thing tonight, he probably doesn’t have his phone on him. Is everything okay?”

“No… not really. I mean yes, everything’s fine technically, but… but Bev…”

“Shit, what happened, is she okay? How’s her vitals?”

“No, no, nothing bad, it’s just… Eddie, it’s go time.”

“Alright listeners, it’s almost time for Richie Trashmouth Tozier to sign off for the night. We’ve got time for one last call.”

Richie drummed his fingers on the table, adjusting his headphones.

“And it sounds like we’ve got Eddie calling in from Newport Beach.” Rocky, the host shot Richie a look, eyebrows raised. “Eddie, what’s your question for Trashmouth?”

“Hey Rich—”

“Is that Eddie Spaghetti I hear? Hey man, what’s up?” A smile overtook Richie’s face quickly at the sound of his fiancé. He was out publicly now, but he hadn’t quite introduced Eddie to the world. They’d talked about it, but Richie was hesitant to drag Eddie out and open into his world.

“Ben’s been trying to get a hold of yo—a hold of us.”

“Ben? What’s handsome Hanscom want with us?” Richie’s heart was racing.

“It’s Bev… babe, it’s go time.”

“Go time? It’s… oh my god it’s time? I didn’t think that was supposed to happen for another few weeks?”

“Her water just broke, they got to the hospital half an hour ago.” The room was silent for a moment. “Rich, this is happening now!”

Richie’s heart still pounded, but his nerves were hidden behind the giant giddy smile he sported.

“Oh my god Eds, it’s happening. I—I’ve just gotta sign off, but I’ll meet you at the hospital in 20?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the bags, I’ll meet you there.”

“I love you, drive safe.” Richie slipped out, missing the obvious shock on Rocky’s face.

“I love you too babe, I’ll see you soon.”

Richie’s expression was half nervous, half ecstatic.

“Well, well, well, Richie, I think before you actually sign off, you have some explaining to do.” Rocky smiled and looked towards Richie knowingly.

He chuckled nervously, a blush rising in his cheeks. “Umm, yeah. Th-that was Eddie. He’s a friend from back home that moved out here because we’re… well, he’s my um… he’s my fiancé.”

“Trashmouth Tozier is gonna be tying the knot? Good for you man, that’s incredible!” Rocky clapped Richie on the back.

“Thanks Rocky, means a lot. But um, I really do have to sign off. Our good friend Bev is in labour, and um… well… we’re gonna be dads!”

“Woah! Dude, what are you still doing here? Go get your man! But you should come back and tell us all about Eddie and all about fatherhood when you’ve settled in a bit. We’d all love to hear how it’s going.”

“Yeah, for sure! Well, thanks for having me on the show Rocky, I’m gonna go have a baby now.”

Rocky chuckled. “You heard it here first folks, Richie Tozier is ditching the Trashmouth to be a daddy.”

Richie ran into the hospital waiting room and immediately stormed the nurses’ station. “Hi, I’m Ri—”

“Richie!” Eddie ran in moments after him, arms full with an overnight bag, nursing pillow, diaper bag and a bouquet for Bev.

“Hey babe, let me grab that.” He took the pillow and diaper bag from his fiancé’s hands and kissed him lightly.

“You both must be here for Beverly. She’s down the hall in 407.”

“Thank you!” Richie called after the nurse as Eddie pulled him towards the room.

They quickly find room 407, and enter to find Bev moaning, gripping Ben tightly as he stroked her hair back and whispered sweet words in her ear. The two stopped dead in the doorway, watching as their friend rode out the contraction.

“Finally, you guys made it.” Ben said as the pained look on Bev’s face melted into a smile with the end of her contraction.

“Fuck both of you, I hope you’re happy with one kid, cause I’m done after this.” Bev hugged both Eddie and Richie, careful that he IV drip didn’t tangle.

“When do they give you the juice?”

“Yeah, you’ve got to be far enough along for the epidural by now.” Eddie walked around to check Bev’s charts, having no clue what any of it actually meant.

“That’s the problem, she’s too far along for a full epidural. They gave her a little something for the pain, but they think it’ll be over before the full thing even takes.”

“Shit, how far along are you?” Richie took Bev’s hand and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Seven and a half centimeters. It all moved way faster than I thought it would.” Beverly rubbed her belly lovingly.

Richie smiled and pressed a kiss to her head. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee, could be a long night.”

His mind wandered as he looked for the cafeteria, back to that first conversation all those years ago.

July 1993

“I always wondered what it would be like to be pregnant.” Bev pulled her shirt up a little and rubbed her flat tummy. “Bill wants kids… but I don’t think I want them.” She said taking the joint from Richie. The two of them had gotten rather close since she’d started really dating Bill, close in a way that neither of them had ever been with anyone else.

“I think I want kids. My mom is always going on about how good I am with my baby cousin, and the neighbor’s kids love me.”

Beverly giggled. “Well I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl to settle down and procreate with.” Richie’s smile faltered. “What?”

“N-nothing.” He took the joint back and took a long drag from it. “I-it’s just…” He felt Bev’s hand lovingly stroking his back, calming his shuddering breath. “I know I’m a math nerd not a science nerd, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get a dude pregnant.” His cheeks went red as the silence between them increased. “Bev, I’m gay.”

Richie closed his eyes as he felt Bev’s arms wrap around him. “Rich, you can still have kids if you’re gay.”

He looked to his friend, tears shining in his eyes. “You think?”

“Of course.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “I just said I wanted to be pregnant but not a mother. You can turkey baste me if you want, I’ll have your kids.”

Richie smiled and kissed her cheek. “I love you Bev.”

“Love you too, Trashmouth.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “So… would I be wrong to say you have a crush on Eddie then?”

His cheeks heat up. “Don’t wanna talk about it Ringwald.”

When Richie arrived back at the room, Eddie was waiting outside. “The OB/GYN is in with Bev now, wanted to give them some privacy.”

Richie nodded, pulling Eddie into his side. “You ready for this, spaghetti?”

“Y-yeah.”

Richie’s head spun quickly to stare at his husband to be skeptically. Eddie’s eyes were trained on the ground. “You didn’t even fight me on the name. What’s wrong Eds? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

“No! No, I’m excited, but… what if I’m not a good dad? What if I can’t give her what she needs? What if I turn out to be just like my mother?”

“Eddie, that’s not gonna happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“It won’t, trust me. You’ll always have your feisty little teenage self, fighting for her on the inside. While your mom was a great lover, she was a real asshole, and I know you remember how shitty that was.”

“Fuck you, the wedding’s off.” Eddie flipped him off, but with a smile.

Richie kissed his cheek tenderly. “I love you too.”

November 2002

“I can’t go home. I don’t think I can face her.”

“Eds, chill out. So what, your mom knows you and Myra broke up, not a big deal.” Richie and Eddie had started renting a spacious 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn just a few months earlier.

“But what if she told my mom the reason why we broke up?”

“Long distance? Eds, a lot of people break up because they can’t handle distance. You got a job in New York, she didn’t want to move down here. That’s not something you’ll get criticized for at Thanksgiving dinner.”

“We didn’t break up because of distance you fuckwit, we broke up because I’m gay.”

Richie’s words died on his tongue. “Wait… what?” Eddie slumped onto the couch with his head in his hands. “Eddie, are you serious?”

Eddie nodded. He just wanted to curl in a ball and die, not have this conversation.

“Hey man, it’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Easy for you to say, your parents threw a fucking party for you when you came out. My mother’s going to disown me.”

“Would that really be such a bad thing?” Eddie looked up and shot Richie a look of fury. “Okay, okay, sorry, that was in bad taste. Look Eds, your mom is an asshole, you don’t need her.”

“But she’s the only family I’ve got.”

“Eddie, you know that’s not true. You’ve got the Losers, and you know Maggie and Went love you. And… and you’ve got me.”

“Thanks Rich.”

“I’m serious Eds, I’ll always be here. You don’t need her if she won’t accept who you are.”

“I love you Richie.”

Richie smiled and pulled Eddie in close. “I love you too Eds.”

“No, Richie…” He pulled away so he could look at him properly. “I love you.”

Bev’s contractions slowed to a halt, and Richie was grateful for his coffee break as he looked over Ben and Eddie’s sleeping forms.

“Can you believe this is happening?” Bev asked Richie, lacing her fingers with his.

“It’s kinda surreal to tell you the truth. I was thinking about when I came out to you all those years ago, and if you would have told me then what we’re living through right now, I would have laughed in your face.”

She smiled. “I was so head over heels for Bill, I can’t believe I never even looked at Ben.”

“Dude you hit the jackpot. Who knew Ben would be the hot one, I always thought it would be me.” Beverly giggled as she chewed on her bits of ice. “I… Bev, you know I love Ben and all, but is he… god, is he okay with all this?”

1 Year Earlier

Richie’s jaw dropped. “Bev… you don’t…”

Tears sprung to her eyes. “Sweetie, I know I don’t have to, but you want a baby, and I want to help you two.”

Richie and Eddie had just announced their engagement a few months prior, and had dropped on their friends that they’d started looking into adoption. Beverly couldn’t help but think back to the conversation they’d had all those years earlier.

“But… but what about you two. I-I can’t help but feel like we’re taking something away from you.”

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. We decided years ago that we don’t want a family, and we’re very much at peace with that.” Ben put his arm around Bev and continued. “Richie, I know how close you and Beverly are, and when she brought up that she wanted to do this, I knew that this was the right thing to do.”

“Only if you want to. Think it over; I’d be honored to carry your child, but only if you’re both comfortable with it.”

“He’s more than okay with it Richie. Trust me, he’s really excited for you. I’m really excited for you.” He knew she was telling him the truth. Bev and Ben went crazy helping Richie and Eddie set up a nursery, baby-proofing their house, buying toys and outfits for their new arrival.

“You’re just excited you won’t have to change diapers.”

She giggled. “Shut up.” Her heart monitor sped up as she felt another contraction come on. “Oh fuck, fuck here it is again.”

Richie clammed up, but took her hand like he saw Ben do before, rubbing her shoulder lightly with his free hand. “You got this girl. You’re doing great Ringwald, I love you.”

Beverly giggled, coming away from her contraction, letting her grip on Richie’s hand loosen.

“Ahh, I see daddy finally made it.” Dr. Burke, Bev’s OB/GYN came in with a myriad of supplies.

“Yeah, both of them are here this time! The other one’s passed out unfortunately.” Richie gestured towards Eddie.

“That’s okay. Figured we’d need some of this stuff in another little bit.” The chipper woman smoothed her lab coat after placing some blankets in a hospital-grade bassinette. “Just came to take a little looksee at how mom’s doing.”

Richie sat up beside Bev again, anxiously awaiting Dr. Burke’s verdict.

“Well, all is looking pretty good. You’re just at 10 centimeters; you’ll probably feel ready to push any minute now.”

A shiver ran through Richie. They were so close to holding their baby in their arms. Eddie stirred from where he was asleep in his chair. “Eds, I’m gonna go call my parents real quick, I’ll be right back.”

He nodded, and Richie ducked out of the room.

It only took two rings for Richie’s mom to pick up. “Hey sweetie, is everything okay? It must be what, five in the morning down where you are?”

“Yeah, I know it’s early. I just—Bev’s in labour.”

Maggie gasped, and Richie could hear a muffled “what?” in the background from his father.

“Oh my goodness! How far along is she? Never mind, we’ve got everything packed, we’ll be on the next flight out to California.”

“Rich!” He turned around to see Eddie’s panicked face peering through the doorway. “They’re gonna have her start pushing soon, Bev wants you with her.”

Maggie gasped through the phone again. “Is that Eds? Give him my love, tell him I’ll see him this afternoon. Richie, I’d better let you go, if she’s pushing soon, then it won’t be long now. I’ll call you when we land. We’ll come straight to the hospital.”

Richie chuckled. “Okay, love you mom. Got any last minute tips?”

“No matter how many times the doctor says it, don’t look between her legs. You’ll never look at a vagina the same again.” Richie’s dad pipes up.

“Well it’s a good think I don’t make a habit of looking at vaginas anyways dad, but thanks, I’ll refrain from staring at my best friend pushing my child out of her bits. Love you guys, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Richie rushed back into the delivery room and took his place beside Bev again.

“How’s grandma and grandpa Tozier?”

“Oh you know, giving me advice that I really didn’t need.” He laughed and patted her hand.

“Went warned you not to look down there, didn’t he.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what he did.”

Bev giggled and laced her fingers with Ben’s.

“Jesus Marsh, never thought I’d see a woman in labour so happy.”

Eddie chimed in, joining Richie at her side. “Drugs finally kicked in, I think she’s a little loopy.”

“Hey, I’m about to push a watermelon out of my body, I think I’m allowed to be a bit loopy.” She huffed out with some difficulty, adjusting her position. “Shit, it’s definitely time.”

Suddenly, it was like the room sprung to action. Dr. Burke’s playful demeanor became slightly more serious as she and the nurses helped prop Bev up into a more comfortable position. Richie was handed a foot, Ben was handed the other, and Eddie took his spot near her head, a damp cloth in hand.

It was all a blur if Richie was being honest. A lot of yelling: words of encouragement from Dr. Burke, sweet nothings from Ben, shouts of effort and pain from Bev. And then suddenly, “Alright, here comes the head!”

Richie’s own curiosity got the better of him, and against his dad’s advice, he looked.

And promptly fainted.

“Richie!” Both Eddie and Bev screamed as they watched him go down. A nurse joined Eddie on the floor, cold towel in hand, helping him up as he was revived.

“Dude, what the fuck!” Eddie felt Richie’s neck, looking for a pulse as he blinked against the bright lights. His face was filled with worry and annoyance, but his tone had no bite to it.

“Why am I on the floor?”

“You’re okay, we see a lot of fathers fainting in the delivery room, nothing we haven’t already dealt with.” The nurse chuckled as she helped Richie up and into a chair, handing him a juice box.

He quickly chugged the juice and motioned to stand back up, but the nurse pushed him down. “It’s probably best you stay seated, just for a few more minutes.”

“B-but, the baby, Bev…”

“Don’t worry, you won’t miss much. The last baby I delivered, mom pushed for a full hour.”

“Jesus.” Richie sat back and swiped a hand over his face, tearing up. “Bev you’re a fucking superstar.”

“Love you too Rich, but I’ll love you more when I get this kid out of me.”

He chuckled, lacing his shaking fingers with Eddie’s.

“Babe, you okay? You went down pretty hard.” Eddie carded his fingers through Richie’s hair with his free hand.

“Don’t I always go down pretty hard?”

“I fucking hate you.” Eddie kissed the crown of his head. “I’m serious, how are you feeling? Do you feel light headed? Do you need something to eat? Does your head hurt?”

“I’m okay. I just saw something that no human being should ever have to see. I think I became more of a feminist today, fuck.” Eddie chuckled. “Dr. Burke, top marks to you and your iron stomach.”

She giggled and gave him a thumbs up.

Eddie took Richie’s spot, taking Bev’s foot in hand, while Richie scooted forward in his chair to take her hand.

It seemed to go on forever, each minute stretched out longer than they’d ever experienced, but before long, a gentle cry was heard from the end of the table.

Bev’s face melted, a cry of relief left her lips as she slumped back against the bed. Richie wanted to support his friend, but couldn’t help but look towards the small screaming human in Dr. Burke’s arms. Once he laid eyes on her, he couldn’t tear them away.

His eyes misted over, and he couldn’t even bother to move his glasses away from his face to wipe them.

“She’s beautiful.” He heard Eddie sigh beside him, his voice sounding watery.

“Would you like to cut the cord?” A nurse pointed a pair of scissors towards the two of them, and Eddie nodded, taking them in hand. Richie’s hands shook as one of his covered both of Eddie’s, and the cord was cut.

Eddie pulled Richie into a tight hug as their daughter was brought away to get cleaned up. “I can’t believe she’s here.”

The nurse hesitated between the two couples before heading over to Eddie and Richie. Richie stepped aside so Eddie could take their daughter first, his hands still shaking ever so slightly.

“Richie, why don’t you pop your shirt off?” Dr. Burke approached him.

“Why doc, you trying to get a piece of this?” The joke was weak, but she laughed anyways.

“Skin to skin contact Richie, so you can properly bond with her.”

“Right, we talked about this at one of Bev’s appointments.” He nodded, pulling his t-shirt over his head. “The tossing a baseball around and letting her eat ice cream for dinner when Papa’s not around doesn’t come till later. See, I remember shit.”

She and Eddie giggled as Eddie passed their baby over to Richie. She was warm in his arms, her small breaths hitting his chest, rustling the tufts of hair there, and she was so, so tiny. For the millionth time that day, Richie was crying.

“Hi there, I’m your daddy. Holy shit you’re so tiny!” His hand covered most of her little back, it was nothing for him to rub the soft, pink skin, worried his rough fingers would hurt her.

Bev was giggling through her tears, and ben snapped photos of the tender moment. “Do you guys have a name for her?”

Eddie nodded. “We talked about it a lot, shockingly the one thing we actually easily agreed on.” Ben thought back to their fight about the nursery colour and chuckled. “We decided on Margaret Hannah Tozier. Maggie for short, after Richie’s mom, and Hannah because it kind of sounded like Hanscom… we wanted as much Marsh and Hanscom in her name as we could.” His voice cracked, seeing Ben tear up. “Ben, I know she’s not yours, but—”

Ben rushed forwards to hug him, cutting Eddie’s speech off. “Thanks man, that means a lot.”

“It’s beautiful.” Bev said as the nurses attended to her.

“We—we were actually hoping you guys would be her godparents.” Eddie asked them meekly.

“Of course, we’d be honored.”

Eventually, the nurses had to take Maggie away from Richie to take her measurements, but he’d made them promise to bring her right back. They all watched as Bev nursed her, whispering sweetly and pushing her beautiful dark hair back.

“Shit, can you believe this?” Eddie sat down beside his fiancé and took his hand. “Who would have thought out of everyone in the Losers club, us and Stan would have babies first?”

“I mean, Stan will always be the most responsible Loser. Even as teenagers I could have told you he’d be the first one to knock someone up on purpose.”

“What do you mean knock someone up on purpose, like plan for a child?” All four of them turned around to see Stan standing in the doorway, gift bag and flowers in hand. “Hey guys!”

“Hey, it’s Stan the Man!” Richie stood up and hugged his first friend, getting choked up at the sight of the little pink bag.

“This is for you guys, well more for the little lady, but she’s stuck relying on you two assholes until she can fend for herself.”

Eddie chuckled, carefully taking the tissue paper out of the bag and showing Richie the adorable little onesie in there.

“Patty knit her some stuff in there too. She’s been knitting sweaters for Sam like crazy, he’s growing like a weed, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re a year and a half old.”

“Aww, thanks dude, this is great.” Eddie clapped him on the back. “You’re officially our first visitor.”

“I knew I would be.”

The group laughed, unfortunately waking Maggie from where she’d fallen asleep against Bev.

“Hold on, I’ve got this great little trick, watch.” Richie stood and whipped off his t-shirt, careening towards the bed.

“Dude, I don’t know what your trick is, but I’m not so sure I want to see it.” Stan said, a smile overtaking his face.

Richie took Maggie in his arms, opening her tight swaddle and put her up to his chest. The feeling of his skin on hers immediately calmed her down.

“Shit, not even Sam was that responsive to skin to skin.”

“Yeah, it’s shocking, but he’s got a gift.” Eddie came up beside Richie and adjusted Maggie’s little hat. “She’s really taken with her daddy.” He stroked her little cheek with his finger, watching her fall asleep against Richie’s chest. Eddie’s eyes were drawn upwards at the sound of a loud sniff from his fiancé. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Richie shook his head, letting his tears fall.

Ben chuckled. “As you can see, Richie just has a lot of feelings.”

“Hey man, it’s been a long day. Trust me, I’ve been there.” Stan smiled, taking a seat beside Bev. “Good to see Richie’s still the emotional one.”

“Dude, let me take her, go blow your nose. You’re gonna get snot all over her.”

“Aaaand Eddie’s still neurotic.” Stan chuckled, shaking his head.

“Fuck man, you’re such a good dad.” Richie handed Maggie over to Eddie and ran to grab a tissue. “I love you so much, I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Can’t wait either dipshit.” Eddie turned to his friends as Richie left for the bathroom. “Oh my god, he’s gonna cry at her kindergarten graduation, isn’t he?”

Stan clapped him on the back. “Couple more months and he’s yours forever.”

“Fuck me.” He replied, sending his friends into a fit of laughter. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Cool, well thanks for sticking around for this complete and utter disaster. Drop a comment or a message or whatever if you liked it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Just to clear a few things up, in my head, Richie was the "donor" because Eddie didn't want to pass on any potential illnesses.

I was also gonna add a line about Ben setting up Maggie and Sam in the future, but it didn't really fit anywhere, BUT it's a cute thought and also Stan and Richie being reluctant fathers of the groom/bride because that would mean they were actual family would kind of be hilarious? Anyways I'm kind of into that idea so stay tuned for a sequel? Drop a comment maybe and tell me if you'd want that?

#reddie #reddie fic #richie x eddie #it fix it fic #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrack #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #my writing

35 notes · View notes

vanxcks · 5 years

Text

how delicate

Three things happen before Eddie Kaspbrak shows up, hair dripping, in day-old clothes, nothing on him but a dead walkie-talkie, on Richie Tozier’s doorstep. His fanny pack—his mom had replaced the “lost” one quickly enough—lays abandoned in his room; the walkie-talkie is clenched tightly in his fist.

For the second time in his life, Eddie runs away from home.

Word Count: 4839

Richie is shocked to see him.

“Eds,” he says, uncharacteristically succinct. “What’re you doing here?”

“Can I just come in, please?” Eddie asks, rubbing his arms. They’re covered in goosebumps. “I can’t be at that house any longer.” He’s itching to head inside, wrap up in a blanket. The summer’s finally ending, autumn showing itself in brown leaves and occasional brisk air, and that on top of being in the rain is a sure enough way to get hypothermia. He feels the panic setting in, and he takes a deep breath.

You’re strong, Eddie. (Fragile.) You can do this. (Delicate). Fuck.

“Are you okay?” Richie asks. He doesn’t invite Eddie in, which from anyone else Eddie would find rude, but Eddie stopped being offended by Richie years ago.

“Yeah, if you could hurry the fuck up?” Eddie prompts, words quick. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“Yeah, of course, Eds,” Richie says, a little crease between his eyebrows. Uncharacteristic again. He turns around and walks inside, letting Eddie follow him. “Sorry, my sister’s not free right now. She got crabs, like I told her she would, and I said you probably got it from your mom, but she didn’t believe me. Actually, she told me to get the fuck out of her room, but anyway, I thought you should know, since you always seem so interested—”

“Can I have a towel?”

Richie pauses, mouth open, but only for a moment. “What’d you do, jump in a lake? I knew you were an idiot, but you do know that you’re not supposed to jump in the water fully clothed, right? Or did you run into Belch Huggins again? Eddie, you’re a fuckin’ twig, I don’t know how you can keep standing up to them. What’d you say to make them so mad? Did you tell them they were going to contract chlamydia or something? I’m not sure their pea brains would even be able to understand—”

Eddie lets him talk, not bothering to yell over him like he might have two months ago. Not because he’s anymore willing to tolerate Richie’s idiocy than he was. He’s just too tired to open his mouth right now.

That said, it really is getting cold. “Pea brain? You’re one to talk, trashmouth.” Richie’s face splits in a grin, and Eddie can’t help but half-smile back. “If you won’t get me a towel, I’d be happy to get one from your sister’s room. I know my way around.”

“Hey, I already told you she has crabs, right? Probably from you.”

“Shut up, Richie.”

“Just checking,” Richie says, grinning good-naturedly. Eddie shivers.

[March, 1989]

Eddie is eleven when he gets his first panic attack. It’s after they find Richie’s backpack, still in his locker, the door on the linoleum floor and warped from where Bowers tore it off its hinges.

Eddie is the one that finds it.

“I swear to god, guys,” he’s saying, one hand on the strap of Richie’s backpack and the other ushering Bill along, “if we’re late again Mr Reynolds is gonna kill me—”

“Y-y-you haven’t been l-late in weeks,” Bill says.

“I swear he hates me, though. Last time I was one measly minute late and he held me back. I swear when he dies and they do an autopsy, they’ll find a stick up his ass. I bet you a million dollars.”

“I’d want to hear the story behind that,” Richie says, flailing away under Richie’s hand.

“Of course you do,” Stanley says as they round the corner.

“No, I’m serious! I mean, how did it get up there? I bet it was some freaky sex thing, you know?”

He chatters on as they reach their lockers. Eddie grabs his own bag, then, after waiting a moment to see if Richie will pause in order to get his own, reaches into Richie’s locker.

And then he screams.

“Eddie?” Richie asks, spinning. Then, “Oh, my god,” as he looks at his backpack. “Holy shit! Bowers took a shit in my bag! He actually fucking did!” Richie cries. “I really didn’t think he was the sort of person that would keep his promises! Look, he tore the door off and everything.”

“That seems unnecessary,” Stanley says, looking down at it, “you always leave it unlocked.”

“Do you see this shit?” Richie goes on. “I can’t believe this. Eddie, do you see this shit? Eddie?”

Eddie’s fumbling for his inhaler, unzipping his fanny pack, trying to keep taking deep breaths. “That’s.” He gasps. “That’s so fucking disgusting, oh my god. Oh my god.” He takes a puff, holds his breath, counts to five. Then another. He wipes his hand off on his pants. How many different types of bacteria are there in feces? It’ll probably have gotten in his fingernails, all over his skin—how long will that take to wash off? What if he has a paper cut? God, then it’ll get infected. Is his heart supposed to be beating so loud? So fast?

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, but his voice sounds far away. It’s almost quiet behind the jackhammering that is Eddie’s chest. He reaches out to touch Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie flinches away. “Eds, are you okay?”

“I’m having a fucking...I’m having a fucking heart attack and you ask if I’m fucking okay?” Eddie gasps. What are the symptoms again? Pain in your arm, and in your chest, too. He’s got that. Pain in his chest. That’s one off the checklist. And fuck, if he could hear himself think over that thump, thump, thump—”Holy shit. Holy fucking...fucking shit. I am not dying in the school hallway,” he gets out, hand clutching at his own chest.

“E-Eddie, what’s going on?” Bill asks, gripping his backpack strap tight.

Richie grabs Eddie’s heaving shoulder. “Hey, are you serious? Is this real? Should I call 911?”

“You think I’m fucking faking a heart attack?” Eddie snaps, and then he bends double, gagging.

“I’ll d-d-do it,” Bill says, and runs off to find a phone.

Eddie falls a little; Stanley catches and steadies him, lowering him so that he’s sitting on the ground. Richie puts a hand on his back, rubbing little circles there, telling him again and again that it’s gonna be okay, that an ambulance is coming, that they won’t let anything happen to him. And Eddie really, truly, completely believe that this is it. He keeps his eyes open, etches his friends’ faces into his mind. If he’s going to go, he’s not going to forget them. If there is an afterlife, Eddie is bringing that memory, of all of them, with him. His best friends holding him.

It isn’t a heart attack, in the end. The doctor call it a panic attack. Eddie is diagnosed with anxiety on March twenty-fourth, nineteen-eighty-nine. Now, he supposes, it’s the only one of the diagnoses that isn't bullshit. Of course, his mom doesn’t let him go home just yet. She’s terrified, absolutely scared shitless. She leaves Eddie alone in the hotel room for some hours, and when she comes back, she tells him that he’s going to have to stay in the hospital for several days.

“I thought it wasn’t that serious,” Eddie says quietly. He always speaks quietly with his ma. He knows that he’s the delicate one, of the two, but sometimes it seems like she’s the one that’s going to break at any moment. Fragile, like one touch could shatter her.

“I know, honey,” she says comfortingly, even though that’s not what he needs or what he was asking. “They just want to monitor you, make sure it’s not something more serious.”

“Okay, mommy.”

“Now go to sleep. You’ve been very badly frightened, I’m sure, so make sure to get some rest.”

He nods, and she sits down in the little chair in the corner of the room, pulling out a magazine.

It’s a long two weeks.

Soon, Eddie is sitting wrapped up by Richie's heater in the basement. They've talked about the basement before—about all of it. About how they can't go into dark rooms on their own, about how sometimes they wake up in the night to learn that they've been crying out in their sleep. They've talked about how they can't even see a yellow raincoat on the street without having it all come crashing back, without suddenly not being able to breathe.

Eddie can't help but think how much easier that July would have been if he'd had his friends. Maybe it wouldn't have made him less afraid, but at least he would have been afraid with them.

"You still haven't said why you're all wet. Unless it's sweat, in which case you were either having really amazing sex—and if I’m right, I want all the details, like who found your scrawny ass attractive and their address so I can go beat them up for taking your viginity before I could—or you actually had to lift something heavy for once in your life—"

"Hey, I didn't ask to be fucking taken out of PE." Eddie didn’t. He really, really didn’t.

"I didn't say you asked, but now that you’ve mentioned it, maybe if you'd been there it wouldn't have been quite so fucking torturous. I swear to you, Mr. Kravitz kept staring at my ass," Richie says, warming up. "I mean, I don't blame him, but jesus fuck, he's a teacher and I'm but a helpless—"

"It's not sweat, okay? It's fucking rain. Are you happy now?"

Richie doesn’t slow down. “It hasn’t rained since morning, why the fuck—”

“You know, believe it or not, I didn’t actually come here to hear you talk my ear off for an hour, and I’m having a bit of a crisis at the moment, so maybe if you could shut the fuck up, that would be perfect,” Eddie snaps, and Richie goes quiet for a moment.

“Well, out with it!” he yells suddenly in a terrible British accent, loud enough to make Eddie jump. “The doctor’s in, come on, what’s wrong?”

“Jesus, really? The british guy?”

“I said out with it! No use coopin’ it up, better just get it over with!” He’s still yelling, brash and obnoxious.

“You know,” Eddie snaps, grabbing his walkie-talkie and stuffing it into his pocket, “I thought this was a good idea, to come here, but clearly—”

“Wait,” Richie cries, standing up a little. Eddie looks at him expectantly. Richie quiets. “I’m sorry, I—please. I’m an idiot. You don’t have to tell me.”

Eddie stands there for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you have any music?” he asks.

“Oh, absolutely,” Richie says, jumping up. Eddie follows him upstairs to his room, not mentioning the fact that Richie isn’t really allowed to play music after nine pm, thankful that Richie doesn’t mention it either.

[July, 1989]

July that year is the longest month of his life. It’s a stifling cycle of taking a shower, taking his pills, reading and rereading and rereading, and then pills and shower and sleep. Rinse and repeat. If he’s lucky, he’ll get his hands on a newspaper. Everytime he does, he skims through it in a frenzy. He always pinches the paper too tight, turns the pages a little too wildly, and he knows it could worry his ma, but he’s always terrified he’ll see something new. A new Local Girl Missing headline. A body found.

Every day there’s nothing, but every day Eddie checks.

They’d beaten it. They’d chased the monster back into the sewers, where it belonged. And Eddie had come back safe, to a loving mother and a clean and healthy household, and he should be okay. He should be free. He is free.

But It still has a hold on him, too strong for comfort.

It’s not just the newspapers, either. It’s the things he sees in the shadows at night. The way he’s taken to sleeping with a light on. It’s easy to explain to his mom; she probably wouldn’t question it anyway. Anything for her little boy.

The lights don’t reach everywhere, though. And he’s convinced that there’s something behind the desk, in the closet, waiting to pounce on him from behind a door. Yellow eyes, glowing in the dark. A gleeful, burbling laugh.

A torn face. Blood, dripping in the wrong direction. A leper, sores oozing, rotted fingers resting on his shoulder. That day in the house shows up again and again in his dreams, every night. And every night Pennywise tells him something different. “Poor Eddie. Poor pathetic, delicate thing.” And “Your friends left you, didn’t they? Left you all alone.” Some nights, it’s “Did you think that by locking yourself inside your little house you can escape me? Oh, no, Eddie Spaghetti. That just makes it easier for me.”

He wakes shaking, sweating, covers kicked onto the floor. And then he picks them up, lays them over him, and lies there, eyes shut, awake and aware, until the sun comes through the curtains and he can hear his ma walking down the stairs.

Eddie knows it’s not her fault. He knows she just wants to protect him. He knows that he’s sick and that this is all for his own good. But he can’t help but entertain the idea, once or twice, that he could find some way out. He wants someone to talk to about all of this. He needs someone to talk to about all of this. And it’s not like he can just tell his mom that he and his friends got attacked by a killer clown. No, they’re the only ones. And they’re impossibly far away.

Instead, he thrashes at night. He leaves the lights on, keeps a wary eye on the shadows, and doesn’t even look in the direction of the sewer. He clenches his fists until there are little bloody half-moons in them...and then scrubs them clean, over and over and over again, wincing as the disinfectant touches the cut.

The Loser’s club survived the clown, but did Eddie? Is he alive after all? He’s not always sure.

They end up curled up on top of the covers, Eddie scooched over until he’s practically in Richie’s lap. The music is almost as quiet as it can get, but Richie makes up for it by yelling along to the lyrics, holding up a pen to his mouth like a microphone.

His voice is godawful, and it must show on Eddie’s face, because Richie pokes him in the cheek and says, “Oh, is there something wrong with my singing? Is there?”

“Stop fucking—get off of me!” Eddie cries, with is a fun joke, because he’s the one almost on top of Richie.

“Is it not good enough for your highness?” Richie shouts, adn then belts out one of the riffs. “Huh?” He pokes Eddie in the cheek, and Eddie laughs, pushing him.

“You’re so fucking ridiculous.”

Richie doesn’t reply to that, just keeps on singing, wild and drunken. Eddie joins in, and then they’re both giggling like idiots.

It’s such a sweetly familiar scene that Eddie almost feels alright, for a moment.

After a couple songs, the music switches to something quieter, more relaxed, and Eddie and Richie quiet down.

“Don’t your parents have an issue with you playing music while they’re asleep?” Eddie asks, because of fucking course he has to bring up parents. And now he’s fidgeting again, antsy and stressed out and he can’t get the image of his ma crying in his absence out of his head. Of her shutting the door on him gently every time she left the house, locking it.

But Richie seems totally oblivious to that. “Nah, they’re not home.”

It occurs to Eddie that it hadn’t seemed strange for Richie’s parents not to come downstairs, for them not to greet him or check up on him. “You’re so lucky they let you stay home alone,” Eddie says, resting his head on Richie’s shoulder. He can feel Richie’s breathing, can feel him glance toward Eddie and then away.

“Yeah,” Richie says, smiling a little. “Can’t imagine your mom would let up on her reign of terror for one second and let you actually have fun.”

Eddie hms. “Reign of terror? For some reason I thought you liked my mom.” Not seriously, but.

“Oh, I do, Eddie Spaghetti, I do.”

[August, 1989, and after]

The seven kids stand in the fading light, outside the house on Neibolt street for the final time. Or what they hope is the final time. Twenty-seven years—so much can happen. Will they still be friends? Will they have long split? Will Eddie have raised a family, or will he still be alone?

Future. He might have a future. They all might.

He’d thought so many times that they would die, this summer. Seeing the rotting, sore-ridden fingers connected to the rotting-sore-ridden person in front of him. Pennywise, inches from his face. Richie’s hand on his cheek—a pathetic, last ditch effort at comfort. (It didn’t work as a comfort, strictly, but it stuck in Eddie’s mind for the whole month he was at home. He hadn’t wanted Pennywise’s face to be the last thing I saw. For some reason it makes him feel warm inside.)

Suddenly, things don’t seem so bleak.

Then Eddie gets home, and things go back to the way they were. The way they were, except that everything’s tinted by the fact that Eddie knows. Eddie knows his meds are fake, that he isn’t sick, that his childhood was taken by nothing more than an overprotective mother.

God, he was a fucking idiot. He didn’t even know what his sickness was—his ma hadn’t told him anything more than careful, sweetie, and you know how delicate you are. Did he play along with it because he believed her? Because he was just as terrified of his dying as she was? Or just because it was easier to do that than face facts.

After Neibolt, after Georgie and the clown and all of the horror that Eddie can’t share, his mom stops keeping him inside. He leaves the house quietly with a note on the kitchen table. When he comes home, there’s no more evidence of his ma’s worry than her pursed lips and the worried divot between her brows—he’d inherited it—and they speak nothing of it.

Eddie finds himself spending more and more time with Richie, as things progress. Richie never comes to Eddie’s house—Eddie’s willing to push his luck a little, but shoving the fact that he’s meeting Richie in his mom’s face would be too far. Not that his meeting up with Richie is a capital-t Thing. Of course it’s not. Because even though Eddie looks at Richie sometimes and can’t look away, even though Richie pulled Eddie close when they thought they were about to die, even though Eddie secretly loves it when Richie pinches his cheeks and calls him cute, doesn’t mean Richie likes Eddie. Because Richie isn’t like that. No, fuck that—because they’re both boys, and that’s not how it works.

If any of his friends had to show their faces at his house, Richie would probably be the worst choice. Eddie’s ma hates Richie with a passion—”dirty boy,” she calls him. When they were little, Richie had come over to Eddie’s house for sleepovers almost every week, at least until they tried to climb out the window one night and sneak into the playground. It had all gone fine—or the climbing out the window part had, at least. But Eddie tripped on the sidewalk and skinned his knee, and the cut ended up getting infected. He was sick at home for weeks.

(Now, after everything that has happened, Eddie has to wonder if any of his sicknesses were real. Did he ever hear the diagnosis from the doctor themself? Eddie can’t even remember.)

So Eddie bikes to Richie’s house, or he finds him waiting outside the arcade for him. They buy ice cream, wander through the park. Eddie brings comic books to Richie’s house and they blast music and eat a frankly disgusting amount of chocolate. Richie seems to have an endless supply of peanut butter cups in in his bedroom.

Eddie has been friends with Richie for years—he’d call them best friends, if he didn’t know that Richie would tease him mercilessly for it. (Or he’d pinch his cheeks and call him adorable, which is just as bad, really.) But something about hanging out with him, separate from the group, has felt different, lately. Slightly charged. Electric in their slight touches, in the way Richie grabs Eddie’s hand, in the way Eddie catches Richie looking at him over his Batman. Eddie thinks he likes it.

Things go on as they would. Considering how their summer had gone, considering that he’s Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, things are good. Happy. Peaceful.

Eddie feels alive, for the first time in years. Not delicate, alive.

And then, one day, Eddie wakes up in the morning, and his mom is sitting at the foot of his bed, watching him.

Okay.

"Good morning, Eddie," his ma says softly, placing a hand on his leg.

"Good morning," Eddie replies, fucking confused but trying his best to keep it out of his voice.

"Eddie," she says, using his name again, which is usually a bad sign, "I went into the bathroom this morning, and I noticed your fanny pack hanging from the door."

"Yeah, that's where I always leave it."

"I know, and I opened it, just to check to see if your meds needed to be topped up."

Technically, the meds never need to be topped up. They never needed to exist in the first place. But Eddie keeps his mouth shut.

"I noticed," she continues, and it occurs to Eddie that the flatness of her voice seems to be wavering, like she's forcing something down, "that there were more pills in the jar than there should be. Haven't you been taking your pills, Eddie?"

Fuck. He hadn't been taking the pills since Neibolt, but he'd been careful to do away with them anyway. Flush them down the toilet, or let them go down the drain. He'd thought it had been a slightly silly precaution, but apparently his ma really was paying attention.

It makes his stomach hurt a little, and he tells his fingers not to itch for his inhaler.

"You were counting my pills?" he asks, voice a little hoarse.

"I'm only looking out for you, Eddie," she says, and his stomach definitely hurts.

"I don't need those meds, ma," he replies, voice edging up a couple decibels. "I'm not sick."

"You are, Eddie. You are sick. You know that. The doctors said it, remember? Remember that?"

Eddie tries to stand, tries to get out of his bed, but his ma puts a hand on his leg. His head knows that she really is just trying to help him, that she's his mother, that she knows what's best. But something else says that only one of those things is really true. "Doctors? All I remember is you coming into my hospital room and saying that I need to stay overnight for a scrape on the knee!"

"Sweetie," she says, her tone saying loud and clear that you're being unreasonable, "you could have gotten an infection."

"It was a scrape on the knee, ma!" he cries, wrestling his leg away and scrambling out of his bed. He's not sure, all of a sudden, why his heart is beating so fast. "Keeping me in the hospital, it—it was irrational."

"I was only looking out for you, Eddie," she says tenderly.

"Stop saying that!" he yells. "I'm not fucking sick, and I just want to have a normal life and—and not have to take fucking meds with me everywhere I go—"

He hears it first. It takes a moment for the pain to come, for him to realize that she's slapped him. Shit.

Eddie's ma brings a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and frightened. "Eddie," she gasps, "Eddie, I'm so sorry."

Eddie just stands there dumbstruck, staring at her. He's never been hit in his life—not by anyone other than fucking It.

"I didn't mean to, I love you, you know I didn't mean to—" she says, reaching out for what looks like a hug.

And suddenly he's in that house on Neibolt street again. There's a painted and awful face jeering at him, and he's cornered, and he can't fucking breathe, and he just turns and opens the door and leaves. Just fucking leaves. He's not even running, at first. There is no noble rescue. There is no Beverly, in the sewers. No heroic deed ahead of him. He just walks down the stairs, and then speeds into a jog, and then opens the door and fucking sprints down the street.

He can't hear his ma calling after him. He can't hear anything.

It rains. He wanders the city for hours, not keeping track of time, panicking and then convincing himself he’s going to be fine and then panicking again. Where can he go? What can he do? He doesn’t want to go back, but should he?

Who is someone he trusts? Who he knows isn’t going to send him home, who will listen to him, no matter what?

So he ends up at Richie’s house.

They sit there in silence for a little while, the only sound Freddie Mercury crooning through the radio speakers.

“I’m not sick,” Eddie says quietly, eyes directed unfocusedly at the comics lining the bookshelf across the small bedroom.

“What?”

“I’m not fucking sick, Richie,” Eddie says, and he’s too tired to snap at him.

“So did you make all of that up just so you couldn’t hang out with us? I thought you were deathly athsmatic or some shit,” Richie says. There’s laughter in his voice. He doesn’t get it.

“No—” Eddie says, and he sits up, widening the distance between them so he can look Richie in the eyes. Richie’s eyes widen slightly. “I’m not sick. I—all my meds were, were—placebos. Fakes.”

“Wait, what the fuck? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, Richie, I—I don’t fucking know! I don’t know what to think. All my life my ma has told me one thing, and then the girl at the pharmacy, she—she said something else.”

“Hey,” Richie says softly, putting a hand on Eddie’s knee.

Eddie ignores him. “And then I confronted my ma about it right before, before Neibolt, but she seems so—goddam she seems so vulnerable, and I just—I don’t know what to do, I really dont—”

“Eds, Eds,” Richie says, moving his hand to Eddie cheek and making him meet his eyes. “Slow down.” Eddie stares at him, chest heaving, and he reaches for his fanny pack, for his inhaler.

“Fuck, oh, fuck,” he gasps, wringing his hands, “oh, god, I need my inhaler, oh shit—”

“Eddie, Eddie, stop!” Richie shouts, grabbing Eddie’s hands and holding them still. “You’re spiraling, and when you do that you need your inhaler, and you clearly don’t have it right now, and apparently you don’t even fucking need it, whatever that means, so just—just shut up and tell me what happened!” Richie lets out a breath, quiets down. “Maybe I can help.”

“I think…” Eddie says, and he takes a breath, trying to calm his roiling insides, “I think my mom has been keeping me. Like a prisoner, or something.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie breathes.

“I mean. Not a prisoner. But she’s so...so hyper-anxious about me getting sick that she’s been telling me I’m sick so that I don’t go outside, I guess. Like when I had to stop taking P.E. class, because she said I was too delicate. I guess I wasn’t as delicate as she thought, but she did everything in her power to protect me.”

“Shit, Eddie, are you okay?” Richie asks, and his voice has none of its normal teasing spark.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, honestly.

“Is there...anything I can do?”

Eddie shuts his eyes, feeling the tears coming. He feels Richie’s hand take his, squeeze it. “No, but can I stay here tonight?”

“Fine, but stay the fuck away from my sister. We have really thin walls here, and if you two keep me awake I’m going to throw you out, I hope you know.” And it’s an awful thing to say, but it’s the perfect thing, too.

Eddie grins. “I make no promises,” he says, and he follows Richie into the hallway.

Richie doesn’t let go of his hands.

#reddie #richie/eddie #fic #eddie kaspbrak #it 2017 #sonia kaspbrak #eddie's mom deserves jail time i've never hated a fictional character more #hurt/comfort #angst #fluff #fluff and angst #my writing

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twilightvolt · 5 years

Photo

I kinda was saving this for when i had the time to type everything out in one go, so let’s just get this over with before Smash drags me back into the depths of hell. XD

So, like, things happened back in 2017. a lot of things. graduated highschool, felt the winds of freedom as i stepped into the world of adulting and.....fell into a deep abyss of crippling depression as my life took a rather....wild turn to say the least. these feelings would linger and continue to haunt me throughout the majority of 2018. if you’d like to hear them or just need a refresher, my 2017 summary WITH that in depth description is on my DA that i no longer use cuz all i can think of when i go there is that year as a whole.

That’s not to say the year was cruddy, though. it really looked up by the end and it’s been one of the better years of my life as an artist. i’m about to go into that, so sit tight if you wanna actually read everything.

January: Arcus ~Collab with KLou

Things got heated at grandma’s after the holidays and we left in a huff cuz yeah, big fight the night before. it wasn’t something i ever wanna remember, but i gotta acknowledge it happened. thus began the struggles of living life as a nomad basically. From this point on until May, i won’t say much about our situation cuz honestly, time grinded to a halt after hotel life began.

February: Let’s Save the World

Believe it or not, this was a mobile drawing. i still didn’t have my tablet or my computer, so i tried using my phone for awhile. this was, of course, after i got Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory for PS4, so this right here was my Dracomon babu Takumi, named after the former wearer of the goggles i equipped to him.

March: Let’s Kick It!

A brief moment of light as i fINALLY GOT MY TABLET BACK ONLINE! i felt like things were going to be different, we’d finally get somewhere and i felt like i could do anything again! this drawing, while super simple since it was just me around most of my current OCs at the time, was meant to represent me being back in business after around 4 or 5 months of being restricted to traditional work, a medium i, at the time, didn’t have much development in. (although, those months sure did help me learn how to draw that way in more than just sketching. so i’m actually kinda grateful i was stripped of the tools that i realize i may or may not have taken for granted.)

April: Spyro the Dragon

The Reignited Trilogy was announced and that’s why i drew that cuz literally everyone was doing Spyro fanart. i remember also doing a bunch of little doodles of other people’s characters in this same coloring style since some of the drawings i did before like the mobile drawing and my traditional work gave me inspiration on how to go about doing this new watercolor/marker like style that i started to experiment with throughout 2016 and ‘17.

May: Memories in Pieces

Remember how i said time grinded to a halt after hotel life began? yeah, this is where it reeeeaaally started to effect me. the days dragged on and blended together, we STILL could secure a home to house all of us and it just felt like my life was just....over. like, all the important stuff happened and now my story’s just done. it didn’t help that memories from the year before decided to come back and hang over me like an undying demon cloud. my anxiety and depression couldn’t have been higher. and yet i still managed to wake up. in fact, i woke up bright and early every day somehow. it felt like there wasn’t anything to believe in and yet....i still had hope that we could get through this. i knew deep down we weren’t gonna be completely out of luck.....but i still hurt at the same time.

I never uploaded this drawing anywhere, but this was, to put it simply, partly a new direction for a future project but also a vent art of sorts, representing the negative thoughts and regrets that never seemed to leave me alone no matter how much time has passed.

June: Digimon Atlas Adventures Ultima Vocal Collection

My second commission ever made since i opened that month. it was also the first time i really cel shaded along with made a logo since the year before. this day marked the turning point along with the end of my depression for the most part as the parents finally gave up and took...some of us down to Florida. a couple of siblings had jobs to keep up with, so they had to stay back in NY with.....eghh....grandma. to this day, i’m still hearing stories even if some of them eventually found their own place. i swear, the more i hear about what’s going on, the less i wanna go back to NY. >_>’

July: Drake ~Art Fight 2018

Oh yeah, we moved down to FL, but we were still in hotels IN FL, so there was change, but still pretty similar circumstances. we quickly found a place at some point, though. a cozy apartment complex that i’m happy to live in.

This is when Art Fight began....or rather when it was supposed to begin cuz they had technical difficulties for the first week or so. the day i revamped Drake for it was like i was saying hi to an old friend after parting ways years prior. it was a really fun experience that i’d gladly partake in again next year if i’ve got the time.

August: Gathers Under Night...

A very ambitious looking piece i did as an attack against a friend during Art Fight. it was my favorite attack i ever did and could quite easily be my favorite drawing from this year. after leaving hotel life behind me, i rarely, if ever, had war flashbacks or anxiety over the past. i felt like my life was finally getting somewhere again. for real this time. and that it did, thankfully.

September: Lost in Thought

A gift i made for a longtime friend and art senpai to try and cheer them up. i still look back at this and think “yeah....this is the style i’ve been longing to emulate. and i’ve finally achieved it.” granted, it took a lot from Kingdom Hearts II’s title screen, but where do you think i got my love of watercolor from?

At this point, i started to become a new person. i mean i already was considering the summer also involved me trying to become a little less total weeb at least in terms of music taste and also leaving my hoodie lifestyle for a good few months, but yeah. in fact, i think this was the month i buzzed off all my emo hair and really ended up resembling how i looked like back when i was little, anime cowlick and all.

October: The Lethal Protector

Oh yeah, Venom happened. i should’ve disliked that movie with all it’s flaws and unused potential, but instead i wholeheartedly stan it and i luv the portrayal of Eddie and Venom to the point where i forgive where it went wrong.

Yeah, i completely moved on from everything that tied me down at this point. i yeeted the past into the stratosphere and focused solely on what i wanted to do now. what my next move was. and i can thank these two losers for helping me stay focused on my craft. i also kept branching outside of Digimon. i wanted to be more than what i used to be.

November: My Favorite Ninja Frog

Didn’t do much this month, so all i had was a doodle of my starter partner for Pokemon Y. i never evolved him past Frogadier cuz i preferred him over Greninja. it was the tongue scarf, dude.

Why? ehh, it was most likely Warframe. i got into that game at some point cuz a friend persuaded me to do it. i don’t regret anything. i luv this game when i’m playing with friends.

December: Draw Your Roster Ultimate: The Winds of Reunion + Holiday Arcus

The Winds of Reunion cuz Wind Waker and the fact that everyone including Wolf, Young Link and even Pichu returned to Smash Bros. when Ultimate happened. this game cured my depression, cleared my skin and reignited my love for Starfox oddly enough since Starfox Zero AKA 64 with a new coat of paint and motion controls that weren’t as bad as you think didn’t exactly do it for me. i haven’t been so content with the way things are in a long time and i’m happy i finally got my hands on this treasure of a game. now, to wait for Kingdom Hearts III. ;w;

And now we finally get to the end of this long as heck recap. thank god Tumblr gives you unlimited characters, amirite? XD

Overall, this was a year of recovery and rebirth. it was a long and rough winding road, but in the end i think i’ve healed enough to finally get on with my life.

I’m not the same kid i used to be when i graduated highschool, and i’m definitely not the same kid i was when i was first starting out as an artist. my journey has been full of ups, downs and all arounds and it was all a much needed learning experience. even if i felt like i was suffering at times.

My future is mine to decide, and i’m not letting anything stand in my way again.

For the future i want to believe in.

#digital art #summary of art #2018 summary of art #digimon #Spyro the Dragon #venom 2018 #super smash bros ultimate #pokemon #year end reflections

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analogscum · 6 years

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THE BURNING (1981, d. Tony Maylam)

Welcome to Camp Analog Scum! Now that summer is in full effect, we’ll be devoting this week to discussing two entries into one of the most hallowed subgenres in all of horror: the summer camp slasher flick! Following the massive success of Friday the 13th in 1980, small studios realized they had an easy formula to print some quick dough: find an idyllic summer camp somewhere in the Northeastern U.S., fill it up with hard-partying horny teenagers, and unleash a bloodthirsty psychopath with some kind of score to settle on them. It’s not hard to understand the universal appeal of the summer camp slasher flick: who doesn’t remember long July days running around in the woods, swimming in the lake, or the white-knuckled terror of a ghost story told ‘round the campfire? After all, a story can’t hurt you…unless it’s real.

Our first entry into this double feature, 1981’s The Burning, was somewhat lost to time for awhile. It was perhaps the first film to try and capitalize on Friday the 13th’s boffo box office, and while it got a more positive critical response than the film it was aping, audiences greeted the film lukewarmly, and it quickly faded from public consciousness thereafter. These days, thanks to re-releases from the likes of Scream Factory and Arrow, The Burning has finally found an adoring audience. I won’t lie, part of the reason I even did this summer camp-themed week in the first place was so that I could finally stop making excuses and watch this movie. And now, time for a controversial opinion: in terms of pure slasher bonafides, I think that this may be a better movie than the original Friday the 13th. Yeah, I said it!

If you grew up around New York and New Jersey, like yours truly, then you probably heard some variation on the legend of Cropsy, the madman who stalked the woods, looking for children to kill. The Burning takes this campfire classic and runs with it: we begin at Camp Blackfoot, sometime in the late 1970s. It’s after lights out, but a few of the older campers are plotting a prank on Cropsy, the groundskeeper of the camp. Quickly it becomes apparent that these kids fuckin’ hate Cropsy’s guts, but we never really get a clear answer as to why. Hey, sometimes kids just decide that a person sucks. The gang slowly make their way into Cropsy’s creepy-ass bunk, set something next to his bed, light that something on fire, then go knock on his window, stifling their laughter. Cropsy wakes up, and to his horror, sees what is burning next to his bed: a worm-ridden human skull! Wait, how did these pimple-faced little shits get their hands on a human skull?! Doesn’t matter, because Cropsy knocks over the skull and sets himself on fire! Oh fuck! Then he knocks over a canister of gasoline that is by his bed for some reason, and now he’s even more on fire! Oh fuuuuuuuuck! He runs out of the cabin, and he’s totally for real super duper on fire, and throws himself into the lake. The kids run off, their prank having turned into a crime scene.

Cut to five years later. Cropsy is getting wheeled out of the hospital or whatever. As he’s being rolled down this hallway, we hear all sorts of ADR voiceover recapping his stint in the burn ward: the skin grafts won’t take, there’s nothing we can do for you, try and forgive those kids, it was just an accident, etc. Suddenly, Cropsy is in Time’s Square, picking up a prostitute. Wait, I thought that this was a summer camp slasher flick? Anyway, she leads our giallo-ed out crispy critter up into her bedroom, understandably freaks out when she sees what he looks like, and then gets stabbed to death with a pair of scissors. If you look up “gratuitous” in the dictionary, its just a picture of this scene.

Now we’re back at camp, but this time it’s a different camp: Camp Stonewater. We meet our cast of characters: there’s Todd and Michelle, the head counselors; there’s Dave, the prankster; Eddie, the lothario; Karen, the virginal shy girl; Sally, the blonde bombshell; Glazer, the asshole bully; Alfred, the misanthropic nerd, and a few more. We get to spend quite awhile with these characters before the bloodshed happens, and we grow to like quite a few of them, so when the bloodshed actually begins, we’re more invested in the story, and more likely to get scared. I don’t know why this concept is so often lost on other filmmakers, but this is the main thing that this movie gets totally right. It’s also fun because these kids are played by some future notable faces: if you’ve seen a mob movie made after 1980, then you’ve seen Ned Eisenberg, who plays Eddie. A shockingly young Fisher Stevens plays a scrawny kid named Woodstock. We get to see future Oscar winner Holly Hunter in a small role as Sophie. And most notable of all is Dave, who is played by none other than Jason Alexander, when he still had a full head of hair! Talk about the Summer of George!

Some shenanigans happen. Alfred spies on Sally in the shower, and he’s a whiny dork about it. Glazer roughs him up a bit and throws him in the lake, because he’s decided that Sally is his girl, which is news to Sally. Dave and Woodstock help Alfred get revenge on Glazer by shooting him in the butt with a BB gun and mooning him. Constanza ass alert! These kids smoke cigarettes and read Playboys and talk openly about sex and jerking off, just like real teenagers do, and it’s very refreshing. At one point Alfred catches a glimpse of a weird, burnt up face in the window, but no one believes him, because he’s a total wet blanket about everything. There’s a really good fake-out scare involving Woodstock in a dark empty cabin which totally got me because even in my thirties I’m still freaked out by the dark. You don’t judge me, I judge you!

The next day, our gang jumps into some canoes and sets off on an overnight camping trip, somewhere near the former sight of Camp Blackfoot. What could go wrong?! That night, around a roaring campfire, Todd recounts the legend of Cropsy, who jumps out and tries to kill everyone! Aaaaaaaah! No, wait, it’s just Eddie in a rubber mask! Oh, Eddie! Speaking of Eddie, he convinces Karen, whom he has the hots for, to go skinny dipping with him in the lake. Karen is apprehensive, but she does have feelings for him, so she strips down and hops in. However, she gets uncomfortable when Eddie starts putting some moves on her, and keeps telling him to stop. Finally, Eddie gets super mad and tells her to leave him alone. In exchange for standing up for herself and refusing to be just another one of Eddie’s sexual conquests, Cropsy shows up and violently slits Karen’s throat with his trusty garden shears. Umm?

Now it’s morning, and Todd and Michelle are freaking out. Not only is Karen missing, but the canoes have disappeared. Eddie tells them what happened the night before with the skinny dipping and the blue balls and the anger, but Michelle is suspicious of him, despite telling Karen in an earlier scene that she should just let Eddie fuck her and get it over with. Whatever, Michelle. Todd gets the bright idea to build a raft out of twigs and branches and shit, which sounds hella stupid, but somehow actually works. They send a bunch of the kids, including Eddie and Woodstock, to row back to the camp and see if Karen or the missing canoes have turned up. Meanwhile, Glazer will not stop getting handsy with Sally, who keeps telling him no, which of course gets him super mad, and so finally to get him off her case, Sally is like, fine whatever meet me in the woods later and we’ll totally clown on each other in the nude, which is good enough to make Glazer stop pawing at her for awhile.

Back on the raft, everyone is tired and miserable. But look! There’s one of the missing canoes! Just floating there ominously in the middle of the river! Let’s row towards it! And so they row towards it, for what feels like 8 hours. Even though you can probably figure out what’s coming, they draw it out for such a ridiculously long time that you can’t help but hyperventilate a little bit. Just when they finally get right next to the canoe, who jumps out but our old pal Cropsy and them garden shears of his! In roughly twenty seconds he disposes of all of these kids in a very gory, graphic manner, and it’s awesome. So, so, so, so awesome. The amount of carnage that they manage to squeeze into these twenty seconds is awe inspiring. Well done, The Burning. Well done.

Meanwhile, Glazer and Sally are finally doing the horizontal polka, but of course Glazer blasts his sauce after like five pumps. Sad. But for some reason, Sally is kinda impressed? And she’s like, how long until you can drum up a new supply, because I’ve got a totally inexplicable case of the hornies. So Glazer is like, holy shit, ok, this truly never happens, sit tight, I’m going to head back to the campground and grab some matches so that we can make a fire. Good thing that Glazer wasn’t sleeping with Missy Elliot, because we all know how she feels about one minute men.

So of course as soon as Glazer leaves, Cropsy leaps out from behind the camera and turns Sally into his own personal shrubbery. Back at camp, Glazer grabs the matches, and for some reason, Alfred wakes up and decides to follow him. Dude, Alfred, what are you doing?! Being a voyeur has already gotten you in trouble once, and you know that Glazer is praying for any excuse he can find to shred you into pulled pork. Ill-advised, this plan is. As Alfred looks on, Glazer very, very, veeeeery slowly pulls back his and Sally’s sleeping back, which Cropsy was somehow hiding in? It’s confusing, but oh shit, Cropsy stabs the shit out of Glazer, and there’s so much blood. Peace out, Glazer.

Alfred runs back to the campground and wakes up Todd, who is understandably not super thrilled to be awoken by this neurotic dork at 4am or whatever, but Alfred runs one of his classic guilt trips on him, so they head into the woods, where Todd is shocked to find that yes, Glazer and Sally are both super duper dead. Oh no, Cropsy jumps up and smacks Todd on the side of the head, knocking him unconscious! Alfred runs around the woods for what feels like the entire first season of Cheers. The makeshift raft drifts back over to the campground, and to Michelle and the others’ chagrin, it’s full of the mutilated corpses of their friends.

Todd follows Alfred’s screams to a shack in the middle of the woods. We’re treated a suitably tense game of Cropsy and mouse as the creep stalks Todd through his lair. All of a sudden, there’s a flashback to the first scene: turns out, Todd was one of the kids who pulled the prank that turned Cropsy into fried chicken! Cropsy is brandishing a flame thrower, because this time, it’s…well, you know. We finally get a good look at the guy, and, well, he looks like if someone took an action figure of Sloth from the Goonies and put it in the microwave. Todd is about to get totally murderized by fire, but at the last moment, Alfred breaks free and stabs Cropsy with his own garden shears! Oh, the irony! Our two heroes are walking away, but oh crap, Cropsy is still alive! He grabs Alfred, but he breaks free and Todd smashes his head in with an axe before Alfred finishes the job with the flame thrower. Oh, the double irony!

As the police chopper in, we fade in on another campfire, and another set of campers. A counselor once again tells his rapt charges about the legend of Cropsy. The man himself may be dead, but he lives on in nightmares, just like Roger Ailes.

There are many reasons to recommend The Burning, and many of them are up on the screen. The acting is good, the cinematography is surprisingly artful, the story is well-paced, and the kills are fantastic. But The Burning is also an intriguing film due to some of the faces behind the camera. Weirdly enough, the film’s soundtrack was composed and performed by Rick Wakeman, the Arthurian legend-obsessed synth wizard from Yes. Though he occasionally dips into his typical ornate, switched on Bach territory, Wakeman also does deep, guttural digital terror surprisingly well. The film’s excellent, gory kills got their bite courtesy of the legendary Tom Savini. As the story goes, the makeup master was less than thrilled with the reveal of the undead Jason Voorhees at the end of his previous project, so he passed on the sequel in order to work on The Burning instead. Savini set out to outdo his work on Friday the 13th, and I personally think he succeeded. These kills are nasty and visceral and stock full of Grand Guignol madness. The only demerit is Cropsy’s burnt face, but in his defense, Savini only had three days to make it.

And then there’s the elephant in the room, in more ways than none: Harvey Weinstein. The film has the distinction of being one of Miramax’s first productions; Harvey and his brother Bob helped write the screenplay, alongside future Sopranos producer Brad Grey, and Harvey gave himself a “Created and Produced by” credit, whatever that means. Sadly, for as much as I enjoyed the movie as an 80s slasher, I found it to be nearly impossible to watch The Burning today without it being colored by what we now know about Weinstein. There’s been plenty of ink, digital or otherwise, spilled on how the Friday the 13th franchise punishes its characters with death for their sexual transgressions, but that trope is somewhat murkily applied to The Burning. Karen is punished with death for REFUSING to have sex with Eddie, whereas Sally is punished with death for giving in to Glazer’s sexual advances despite not wanting to. No matter if you’re the Madonna or the Whore, you’re still just gristle for the slaughter in the end. Given that this film’s “creator” may end this year as a convicted sex offender, could this film be a glimpse into his poisonous views on women? Turns out there were multiple monsters on the set of The Burning, but only one of them showed up onscreen.

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danysghost-archive · 6 years

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1, 2, 3 pt two

A/N: hey there! i’m hastily posting this before i go to work, so this’ll be short. thank you to everyone who read part one, and those who encouraged me to continue it. special thanks to @80srichie for shouting at me to write, even when i didn’t want to. i hope you enjoy!

word count: 3,175 (longer than part one!)

they are aged up, in case you couldn’t tell

warnings: boy being stupid but idk nothing else

“Incoming, Eds!” Images of swimming on a summer day - a crowded diner… the feeling of hitting the ground - his lips… Everything blended together in a swirl of dreams, all of his love. Until-

“Eddie!” a voice jolted him awake.

He blinked his eyes open, letting them adjust to the sunlight coming in through the window. Groaning, he turned his head to the side, letting his forehead softly bump against something soft - a shoulder.

“Hey there, sleepy head,” the voice cooed. A hand came down and scratched Eddie’s scalp, rousing him even more. “I don’t mean to disturb you - actually, yes I do, that’s why I woke you up-”

“What?” Eddie cut him off, laughing at Richie’s rambling. “Why, pray tell, did you wake me up at,” he rolled over the other way to look at the alarm clock, “ugh, 8:35 on a Sunday morning?” He flopped back onto Richie’s chest and flicked his eyes up to look at him.

Richie made a pouty face at him. “Aw, poor thing.” His lips curled into a sweet grin. “Actually, I, uh… just wanted to tell you that you were laughing in your sleep. Like, full on giggling.” His eyes were wide, amazed at what he had witnessed. “What were you dreaming about?”

He furrowed his eyebrows, thinking back on the images he could remember. With no explanation, he shot up out of the bed, nearly freezing his bare legs off in the autumn air coming in through the open window. “Get up!” His voice was more authoritative than it had ever been, as he yanked on a pair of jeans.

His trashmouth boyfriend, still laying in the bed, threw his arms up in question. “Sorry, what?”

“Up, I said!” Eddie continued to get dressed, digging a red polo out of his dresser and pulling it over his head. “Come on, we’re taking a trip.”

Sure enough, with pushing from Eddie and a significant curiosity, Richie was dressed and starting his truck within 10 minutes. “You wanna tell me exactly where we’re going?” He pulled out of the driveway before getting a response. Eddie directed him into town, excitedly hollering for him to park in front of the diner that their friend group frequented. They both hopped out of the cab, and while Richie was staring at the logo printed on the window, Eddie was staring at Richie. He was close enough to count the freckles on his face, as close as he was that one Friday night.

six years ago

The diner was full with all types of people, as it was a Friday night in July. One booth that was situated underneath a window seated Derry’s own losers club. They had managed to pack themselves in just before the rush started. They were going over the menu, each thinking out loud about what they might want. Bev was in the middle of her boy’s, pointing out items as if she was their mom. Stan was draped over Bill’s left shoulder, and Bill had his right arm looped through MIke’s. Eddie and Richie had their heads close together as they shared a menu. Ben had his hand pressed into Beverly’s.

“Okay gang, we better place our order before this place becomes a madhouse,” MIke announced. He was one of the better decision makers in the group.

Stan nodded, closing the menu he had previously been reading. “Who’s taking the orders up?”

The young trashmouth raised his hand. “It’s my turn,” he answered. “Alright ya punks, shoot me the deal and I’ll make em an offer they can’t refuse.” His British accent hadn’t gotten any better since the last time he’d done it. Still, he listened as they each rattled off their orders. They included milkshakes, fries, and a variation of burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches. Richie walked off to the counter across the room, remembering everyone’s orders word for word.

Eddie watched as he left the table, staring after him a little longer than intended. For some reason, he felt the urge to tell Richie to stay, to not leave him. Another part of him wanted to go give the orders with him - as long as he was by his side. It was a weird feeling that he didn’t understand, and so, he tried to ignore it.

When Richie came back, he waved his hands in Eddie’s direction. “Scooch over, sunshine. Make way for everyone’s favorite person!” He spoke his words with an incredible smirk.

‘Sunshine’ did as he was told, however grudgingly,giving his friend’s smile a questioning look. The others noticed it too. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“What d-did you d-d-do, Rich?” Bill croaked out. While everyone loved Richie, it was rare that he was ever a favorite. He usually swore too much or got the group in unnecessary and easily avoidable trouble.

A hand went over his heart. “Why Bill! You wound me!” No one responded; they all just stared back, each with raised brows. “Ugh, fine,” he dropped the holy saint act, “our milkshakes are free.”

They immediately broke into cheer, whopping and thanking their friend, passing high fives. Beverly flipped Richie off, which he returned, as their special sign of affection.

Eddie leaned over the boy’s side. “Thanks, Rich,” he whispered into his ear, trying to ensure that he heard his gratitude in the rowdy diner.

“There is one catch.” He paused and looked to Eddie, with an interesting expression. “We’ll have to share.” The words came slowly and unsure, like he was scared to say them, scared to present the situation.

Blush flooded the young asthmatic’s face “Oh, uh, wh-why-why?” He cursed himself, as he sounded like Bill getting nervous about a speech.

Richie’s smile immediately fell as he saw what he interpreted as concern on Eddie’s face. “J-Just because we have the same kind! Candy didn’t want to give out too many of one flavor, she says she’ll get in trouble, but she said we’ll have our own straws. If you really want your own, I guess that’s okay, I can go up and pay for mi-”

Eddie slapped his hand over Richie’s mouth, silencing his rambling. “It’s fine, Tozier. It’s totally fine. There was a soft smile on his lips, and his eyes were locked onto Richie’s.

Neither of them noticed the rest of the losers go silent, or the five pairs of eyes on how little distance there was between them.

When the milkshakes came, the two boys plopped in their straws and drank giddily. It was just what Eddie had wanted - despite anything he may have said - to be close to Richie, to be next to him, to talk to him. He now knew he never wanted Richie out of his life.

They now had a chocolate shake in front of them, two straws dunked in so they could share. They basked in the sun that had finally come out, now sitting on a bench outside the gate to the city pool. It closed at the end of summer, giving Richie even more reason to be confused after when Eddie told him to bring them there. Nonetheless, he did as his love asked, however weird it may have seemed to him. Once they had chugged the drink, Richie finally shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay, I get the diner. We do spend a lot of time there together.” He rested his head on Eddie’s shoulder, relaxing his body. “But I give up. Why are we here?”

Eds scoffed, nudging Richie lightly in the ribs. “Do you really not remember? It was basically our first double date with Bev and Ben!” He took the milkshake cup out of Richie’s hand and tossed it in the garbage, simultaneously kissing the boys hair.

four years ago

“Look out below!” the daring redhead bellowed, as she leapt off the diving board and into the deepest end of the city pool. Three boys watched her resurface, as she gasped for air and parted the strands of hair in her eyes. “You guys have got to do that! Whoo!” She pumped her arms in the air triumphantly.

Ben, Eddie, and Richie all scoffed and shook their heads, none of them having the courage to climb the 15 foot ladder.

Bev shrugged and swam closer to them. “Guess I win, then, if none of you have the courage to challenge a girl.” She smirked playfully, knowing they couldn’t resist. She knew them all too well.

As expected, all three groaned and crawled out of the pool, each mumbling some variation of their declarations of bravery. Mentions of some past minor shoplifting were thrown around.

Ben went first, wanting to show off for Beverly - even though there was no need. Before jumping, he called down, “If I go, promise to come to a museum with me?” He waited until after she had promised, even going so far as to make her do an ‘air pinky promise’. Once he knew she was serious, he took a long running started and cannonballed off the end of the board.

Next was Eddie, who for some reason volunteered to go second, even though he knew he would chicken out. As he stepped up onto the ladder, he turned behind him to Richie. “Sure you don’t wanna go?” he asked hopefully.

Richie pushed Eddie’s shoulder. “No way. I’d rather have a one night stand with your mom everyday for the rest of the month.” The quip came fast and rolled off Richie’s tongue like everything else he said.

Eds groaned reluctantly, pulling himself all the way up the ladder and onto the board. He shook Richie’s disgusting words out of his head, but for some reason he still laughed. The coarse material of the board dug into the bottoms of his feet uncomfortably. Each step he took felt like he was walking to his death on a carpet of sandpaper. The voices of his friends were drowned out by a ringing in his ears. Why was he so nervous? He’d jumped off the quarry cliff plenty of times before, which was higher than the stupid city diving board. But then, as he listened to the words of encouragement and reassurance from his friends, he pinpointed what was affecting him - Richie. He wanted to look brave in front of him; not that he needed to, what with having eaten a cricket that one time. There was more to it, though. He was nervous just to be in Richie’s company, like he constantly had something stuck in his teeth that he was unaware of. It confused him everyday, and-

“Incoming, Eds!”

Eddie’s head snapped around just in time to see Richie barreling down the diving board towards him. With hardly a chance to move, his friend tackled him off the board, both boys tumbling and crashing into the water.

Ignoring the burn of the chlorine, Eddie opened his eyes to look at Richie. The trashmouth was already gazing at him, smiling happily. They both surfaced, laughing with their whole bodies. “Why’d you do that/” Eddie wheezed out. It felt like his asthma might’ve been acting up, but he didn’t want to interrupt this moment.

“You were taking too long!” Richie chuckled his reply. “Plus, I… I wanted to give you a hug.” The excited smile he had turned into a sweet one. He had dove in with his glasses on, for some fucking rean, so they were dripping, as was his hair. The sun was in the perfect position to highlight his freckles dancing on his face

Eddie couldn’t help but notice every one of the details in front of him. “Richie-” he started.

“Hey, nice jump, guys,” Bev cut him off. She and Ben had swum over to join them at their end of the pool.

“Yeah Richie,” Ben concurred, “that was epic! Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

The three of them swam ahead, while Eddie took his time behind them. He watched Richie throw his head back at something Ben said. That was when his crush on Richie fucking Tozier made itself known.

“That was definitely when I realized I liked you,” Eddie admitted. His hand was limp as Richie played with his fingers, bending and crossing them as he listened. They stayed that way for a while, eyes closed and breathing in sync. One could have assumed they were actually asleep. But eventually, Richie’s curiosity and talkativeness got the better of him.

“Okay, I have to know,” he blurted into Eddie’s ear. As his boyfriend recovered from the sudden loud noise, Richie had an expression of pure intrigue. “When were you in love with me? I think I know, but I’m not sure. I’m probably wrong, knowing me, but I’m pretty sure I’m rig-”

Eddie stopped him with a kiss, pulling his face in and rubbing his thumbs over his cheeks. They kissed furiously, the air around them reflecting their passion. When they pulled apart, eventually needing to breathe, they rested their foreheads together. “You know when.”

one year, nine months ago

Eddie and Richie had decided to take advantage of the dewy spring morning the town had been blessed with, to spend some time alone in the park. Eddie had rushed out before his mother woke, excited to be out with the trashmouth. The two of them had been dating for the past three months, though they’d agreed to keep it from their friends. They knew they’d be happy for them, but the boys enjoyed having something for themselves.

Richie was propelling his legs back and forth, swinging up high above Eddie, who sat on the ground in front of the swing set. They were both laughing and smiling joyously, their voices the only noise that filled the air. They were both mesmerized by the sight of each other.

“Why don’t you come join me?” he called from high up. His long, floppy curls were swept across his face in the wind.

Eddie shook his head stubbornly. “Nuh-uh. You’re gonna get me in trouble; I’m already gonna be in deep shit for not leaving my mom a note!” His worrywart behavior could never be quelled, no matter how much he was enjoying himself.

Richie dug his heels into the ground as he came down, pulling himself to a stop. “Oh, come on! If you’re already out of the house, what more harm could I do?” He smirked devilishly, knowing the answer.

“A lot!” his boyfriend chuckled.

After a long, loving look, though, Eddie couldn’t resist plopping himself into the swing next to Rich.

“There,” Tozier said, “isn’t that better?”

Eds leaned in, knocking his forehead against Richie’s. “Much.” He pecked the boy’s lips, intending for it to be a short moment. But the trashmouth had other ideas. He wove his fingers into his boyfriend's hair, keeping his face close. He kissed him longer, savoring the taste of his strawberry chapstick.

Reluctantly they pulled apart, and Richie readjusted himself in his seat. He wrapped his fists around the chains of his swing. “Wanna race?” he challenges with a flick of his eyebrows.

Eddie considers saying no, being his obstinate self. But then he thought about how much fun he was having, and how in love he was, so he nodded and began pumping his legs.

The boys chattered mindlessly, mostly trying to focus on the task of outdoing the other. Soon, they were as high as they could get, swinging so hard that the chain could have busted.

“What now?” Eddie asked. He was nearly shouting over the wind in their ears and the creaking of the set. He immediately regretted asking, however, when he saw and idea come across Richie’s face. “What?”

Carefully, Richie extended his hand to Eddie, clamping his fingers around his boyfriend's wrist. “Do you trust me?” His face was sincere and hopeful.

Without hesitation, Eddie nodded. He held onto Richie, and replied, “Completely.”

“Good.” He swung his legs harder, making the both of them move forward at a faster pace. “One… two…” He looked at Eddie, to ensure that he knew what was about to happen. When he was convinced they were both prepared, he finished. “Three.”

They leapt off their swings, hand in hand, and in what felt like slow motion, pulled themselves together in a hug. They held on tightly as they hit the ground, thankfully landing in the park’s soft fake sawdust. After rolling for a moment, they stopped, with Eddie ending on top of Richie. Their voices were once again filling the air, giving a soundtrack to the rising sun. They groaned in discomfort and slight pain, but for the most part, they just laughed.

Richie gave their position a once-over and smiled. “Well, Eds, this is the first time you’ve ever been on top!” his words came out through a cacophony of cackles.

Eddie slapped his hand over Richie’s mouth half-heartedly, resting his head on the boy’s chest. “Yeah, you wouldn’t know what hit you if I was, Tozier.” He shook his head in embarrassment and adoration.

Tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, his boyfriend couldn’t take his eyes off the asthmatic. “Do you wanna know something?” Richie held Eddie’s face in his hands, more gently than he’d ever held anything. His calloused fingertips scratched his ears, but in a nice way. “You’re so fucking cute.”

Eds set his hands over Richie’s, getting those nervous knots in his stomach that he hadn’t felt since they started dating. This time, though, he knew what they meant. And he wasn’t going to ignore it. “I love you, Richie,” he said softly, only loud enough so that he could hear.

They laid like that for another half hour, finding comfort in the silence. Every now and then, they would mumble an “I love you” back and forth, reminding the other that they were still there and not going away.

The young adults made it back to that same swing set, with Eddie sitting on Richie’s lap and their hands linked together. This time, there were several children running around, and a few parents sitting quietly on the nearby picnic tables. The two swayed ever so slightly.

“Were you right?” the shorter one asked.

Richie nodded, looking up at Eddie with a small smile. “Yeah. I know you too well.”

Eddie snorted at that, but Richie was right. He brought his hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it lightly. “I still love you, Rich.”

The trashmouth rubbed Eddie’s back, biting back a smile that was never off his face when he heard those words. “And I still love you, Eds.” He squeezed him in a hug, and they stood up to leave. “Do you ever think about it?”

“About what?”

Richie gestured in the direction of the kids playing around the rest of the park. “Having one or two of those? Could be fun, right?”

He shrugged in response. “Yeah… yeah, it could be. Maybe one day.” Eddie looped his arm through Richie’s, and the two of them walked off, with an evening sun setting behind them.

tag list: @80srichie @kaspbraket @b-bill-is-my-son @wintersember @vapememikey @wilding-throught-thehallways

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auskultu · 6 years

Text

“I Read the News Today, Oh Boy”

Nat Hentoff, Ramparts, November 1967

You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination. There is musical infinity as well. We’ve only just discovered what we can do as musicians. What threshold we can cross. It doesn't matter so much anymore if we’re No. 1 or on the chart. It's all right if the people dislike us. Just don't deny us. — George Harrison

As the rush to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band confirmed, the Beatles are now Art. Jack Kroll, Newsweek’s analyst of Now Culture, proclaimed “A Day in the Life” to be “the Beatles’ ‘Waste Land.’” In the New Statesman, composer-critic-musicologist Wilfred Metiers devoted an entire column to an exegesis of the themes of loneliness that make the album “art of an increasingly subtle kind.”

The Beatles, moreover, are Functional Art. Said the Times Educational Supplement (of London): “Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics represent an important barometer to our society—sentiments which are shared by pupils in every classroom in Britain ... If the record’s understanding were to be reflected in Britain’s teachers, our schools might be more sympathetic institutions than some are now.” In echo, a school superintendent this past July told a conference of music educators in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, how to start their journey across that alarmingly widening generational gap: “If you want to know what youths are thinking and feeling, you cannot find anyone who speaks for them or to them more clearly than the Beatles.” Said Beatles even speak for and to the dead. At the funeral in August of murdered British playwright Joe Orton, the Beatles’ recording of “A Day in the Life” started the decidedly secular service.

And yet three years ago, Paul McCartney insisted, “We have no message and aren’t trying to deliver one.” What is the message now? On one level, it’s not quite clear, even within the company of the four gurus. Tim Leary announces: “The Beatles have taken my place. That latest album—a complete celebration of LSD.” And Paul McCartney, who has indeed taken LSD, says: “After I took it, it opened my eyes. We only use one tenth of our brain. Just think what all we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world. If the politicians would take LSD, there wouldn’t be any more war, or poverty.”

But George Harrison, once a trip-taker, tells the Los Angeles Free Press: “Acid is not the answer, definitely not the answer. It’s enabled people to see a little bit more, but when you really get hip you don’t need it.” And John Lennon, who has also journeyed somewhere into himself through acid, laughs when told that hippies, actual and acolyte, take the initials of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” as a hortatory message. “No,” he says, “my son, Julian, brought a painting home from school and said it was a picture of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” So what is the message? Look up in the sky—and live.

On another level, however, the message is clear and Beatles-consensual enough. Writing of the Sgt. Pepper implosion, Paul Williams, editor of Crawdaddy, the higher critic of the new sounds and feelings, asserts: “If there’s a message, it’s ‘Dig Yourself.’ ” With a little help from your friends. It’s getting better all the time, and it doesn’t really matter if you’re wrong or right.

But that’s not all. There is also death. The Beatles are, up to a point, hip to death, more so than any other popular music group has ever been. Eleanor Rigby is dead long before the obsequies. And death grins in “A Day in the Life” of the man who blew his mind out in a car. In the same song, the deaths of miners in Lancaster become “four thousand holes ... and though the holes were rather small they had to count them all.”

The man in the car is bloody well dead, the crowd of people who stood and stared has turned away, the miners are in holes, but “though the news was rather sad / Well I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.” Thus the auto-anesthesia of us all, who will not see pain, who will not believe in death, and who are disappointed when the news is not of pain and death. But could the song also show the Beatles’ own auto-anesthesia? Having seen pain and having thought of death, do they turn to save themselves—and their friends—through magic?

Magic? Wilfred Mellers finds one common bond in the music of Boulez, Cage, Bob Dylan and the Beatles—“an attempt to return to magic, possibly as a substitute for belief.” In an interview with Miles in the International Times, Paul McCartney says: “With any kind of thing, my aim seems to be to distort it, distort it from what we know it as, even with music and visual things and to change it from what it is to see what it could be. To see the potential in it all. To take a note and wreck it and see in that note what else there is in it, that a simple act like distorting it has caused. To take a film and to superimpose on top of it so you can’t quite tell what it is anymore, it’s all trying to create magic, it’s all trying to make things happen so that you don’t know why they’ve happened.”

And George Harrison, anxious for serenity, talks about being only 24 “in this incarnation,” and goes on: “We’re Beatles, and it’s a little scene and we’re playing and we’re pretending to be Beatles, like Harold Wilson’s pretending to be Prime Minister . . . They’re all playing. The Queen is the Queen. The idea that you could wake up and it happens that you’re Queen, it’s amazing but you could all be Queens if you imagine it. . . they’ll have a war quickly if it gets too good, they’ll just pick on the nearest person to save us from our doom. That’s it, soon as you freak out and have a good time, it’s dangerous, but they don’t think of the danger of going into some other country in a tank with a machine-gun and shooting someone. That’s all legal and aboveboard, but you can’t freak out—that’s stupid.”

Magic is dangerous to the world, but the world is more dangerous to the Beatles—and to their friends. And so, there is the leap into the magic of the loving community. We all live in our yellow submarine and our friends are all on board. With our love—we could save the world—if they only knew. [But since they don’t know] “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying.” In this, the Beatles and the hippies are together in a search for peace.

And so the Beatles no longer speak to the very young who do not yet know how dangerous the world is, how efficiently numbing, how full of little boxes for them. The very young have turned to the plastic Monkees; but the older teens and many in their twenties and beyond are listening. On the other hand, the Revolver disc was dismissed by a class in a large industrially-centered English school with the words: “Aw no, sir, we don’t like that: it’s all Chinky.”

Beatles records are not on the jukeboxes in the black ghettos nor, I expect, are they the food of magic for those in the lower tracks of any of our schools. Those young abandoned magic with Santa Claus. The Beatles are increasingly for the comfortable and afraid—afraid to be lonely, afraid to be Eleanor Rigby. It is true, as Frank Kofsky writes in the National Guardian, “There are millions of devout followers of Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, and all the rest, who are in opposition to the society that spawned them and are, in the words of a Jefferson Airplane song, ‘trying to revolutionize tomorrow.’ In hippie communities like San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, they strive to realize the new socialist man (my label, not theirs) who will be capable of fulfilling to the limit the creative potential of the human race, especially in the arts.”

But, even with a little help from their friends, will these revolutionizers of tomorrow-through love, through consciousness-expansion, through digging themselves on their yellow submarine-change what’s happening out there? Even if you could spike LBJ’s root beer with LSD, what then?

However, as for expanding creative potential among those in the beloved community, the Beatles are indeed among the liberators. They started nibbling at Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. (In that incarnation, George Harrison also picked up on Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy.) They were less black-inflected than the Animals and the Rolling Stones; but along with them and other young British rockers brushed by the blues, the Beatles turned millions of American adolescents onto what had been here all the hurting time. But the young here never did want it raw so they absorbed it through the British filter. Oh yes, some later found Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and now they’re into their own kind of greyboating with Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield and Big Brother and the Holding Company, but that’s a trip, as it has to be, with a return ticket. I mean, Shankar is beloved, but if he put an evening raga on you at high noon, would you know?

Anyway, the Beatles went on—into and through Buddy Holly, the Nashville communion, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Beach Boys. They were getting to where, as Paul McCartney put it, they could be influenced by themselves. And in their wake they left behind the fake imperatives of the 32-bar tune, “consonant” changes, steady tempos. Harmonies shifted vertiginously, their early modalities grew strange branches, voicings continually surprised themselves, and uncommonly ecumenical textures appeared —the sitar in “Norwegian Wood,” guitar tracks running backwards on “I’m Only Sleeping,” sitar and electronic sounds in “Love You Too,” more electronics in “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Writing of the latter, Mellers discovered “a new sonorous experience in amalgamating avant-garde jazz (Mingus-like jungle noises, Cage-like electronics, folk penta-tonicism, Indian sitars).” And in the Mellotron overlay in “Penny Lane,” he wondered if Lennon and McCartney had been digging Charles Ives.

Sgt. Pepper has further disintegrated paper categories and boundaries to get to where the Beatles could hear where they belong at the moment. Their first album had been recorded in one day. This one, with four to six sessions a week, evolved through more than three months, and is the most heterogeneous, heady mix of possibilities in pop music history. Combs and paper over a string octet and harp on “Lovely Rita”; multiple tracks of percussion and strings into which sitar, tamboura and swor-mandel are imbedded, swirling between 4/4 and 5/4 on “Within You Without You.” Three tambouras, a dilruba, a tabla, an Indian table-harp, a sitar (Harrison), three cellos, and eight violins on “She’s Leaving Home”; Lennon on Hammond organ, recorded at different speeds and then overlaid with electronic echoes, while four harmonicas disport in Being for the “Benefit of Mr. Kite.” And on and on to the 41-piece orchestra in “A Day in the Life” with, as Jack Kroll exults, “a growling, bone-grinding crescendo that drones up like a giant crippled turbine struggling to spin new power into a foundered civilization.”

Where now? The next move, says Paul McCartney, “seems to be things like electronics because it’s a complete new field and there’s a lot of good new sounds to be listened to in it. But if the music itself is just going to jump about five miles ahead, then everyone’s going to be left standing with this gap of five miles that they’ve got to all cross before they can even see what scene these people are on ... That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to look into that gap a bit.”

As George Harrison says, “You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination.” The Beatles are absolutely fre-e-e. “The competition among the best—Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, among them—is no longer for money,” observes pop chronicler Al Aronowitz in the Saturday Evening Post. “They already have enough of that. The competition is in music . . . The best artists in the business—the aristocracy—are moving into positions of power. They’re making fewer and fewer compromises with commercialism. There’s hardly anything interesting happening outside this exclusive circle.”

Meanwhile Rap Brown tries to find the revolution and the strategists of the New Politics scour the new class for their constituency. But to the Beatles, are they for real? Why be up-tight about anything? “At the back of my brain somewhere,” Paul McCartney says, “there is something telling me now that ... it tells me in a cliche too, it tells me that everything is beautiful.” And so it may be. Who can put down magic that works for the magician?

Must everything be related constantly to the non-psychedelic world? I keep thinking about the Beatles as “an important barometer to our society,” and I remember Donald Michael predicting in The Next Generation that the control centers “will be able to tolerate groups living at different paces and styles, if they show no deliberate intent to alter significantly the drive or direction of the prevailing social processes . . . Isolated and insulated from major and majority preoccupations of the society, and thereby offering no threat to the status quo, these enclaves will provide opportunities for more whimsical, personally paced styles of life.”

But what the hell, like the rest of us with stereo, the Beatles get by with a little help from their friends and they do live up to their promise: “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.” The music’s getting better all the time as the indignant desert birds hover about the shape with a lion body and the head of a man.

#ramparts magazine #sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band #the beatles #paul mccartney #George harrison #album review #psychedelic rock #counterculture #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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reginaldbelchhuggins-blog · 6 years

Text

The Short and Miserable Romance of Victor Criss

Chapter 6: Last Meeting

Pairings: Henry x Victor, with some side Butch x Mrs Criss Rating: M Warnings: Domestic abuse, noncon elements, major character death, canon-standard content, bullying, racist slurs, violence, strong language Chapters: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], 6, [7]

Ao3: [x] Summary: The end...

July 1989

“Get the fuck up and talk to Burp!” Victor didn’t open his eyes, moaning in protest when he felt the warm, cozy blanket disappear. Ice cold air conditioning stung against his skin, and forced him to curl up, his legs breaking out in gooseflesh. “I am tired of him calling!”

Not content with just stealing his comforter, his Mama grabbed the corners of his pillow, and pulled hard. His head struck against the lumpy mattress, jolting him wide awake. He rolled to try and grab it, but it was already too far out of reach.

Mama’s face was an emotionless mask – her eyes permanently fixed in a droopy, tired gaze. But Victor knew it was hiding a sadness that had been wrapped up inside bitterness and buried so deep, it was practically Mumm-Ra. He knew it had been his actions that had summoned the Ancient Spirits of Evil to create those feelings, and he was sorry, but his one attempt to apologize had been thwarted by Butch. Butch stood in the hallway with his back turned, telling Mama that some boys needed stronger discipline.

“Andy always was too soft,” Butch said, ominously. “Spare the rod, spoil the lamb, as the good Lord commanded.”

Victor hadn’t quite drawn up the strength to try again.

His Mama walked out the door, bedding in her arms, and Victor was glad to see her go. He glanced around the room. It was empty, but he still felt his skin crawling – leftover feelings from his nightmare. He wished he could pull his blanket in tight, and roll his face into his pillow. But it was time to wake up, apparently. Then again, maybe, if he turned just right, he could sleep without them.

After a few moments of mental debate, Victor rolled out of bed. The walk down the hall was slow, due in part to the swollen knee that Bill Denbrough left him with. In his ninja turtle boxers, he could very clearly see the yellow and purple decorating the skin around it. It was like someone had dipped his knee in watercolor, like an Easter egg. At least it wasn’t black anymore, or bleeding.

The other part was due to the headache throbbing away on the right side of his face. That, too, was because of a well-aimed rock. But while the swelling around the gash had lessened, the pain beneath it grew, and shifted, until every flash of light made him want to vomit.

When he turned the corner into the kitchen, he winced as the sunlight struck him dead on from the window. His Mama turned to look at him, and then gestured to the counter, where she had set the phone down. Without a word to him, she went back to making herself, and only herself, lunch.

Vic wasn’t hungry anyway.

“Hey Belch,” Victor said as soon as the phone was to his ear. He pressed his fingers into his head and turned away from the window. It soothed it a little, but the headache was persistent.

Henry’s voice came through the line on the other side, aggravating it even more, “Hey asshole, why are you avoiding me?”

“Megatron,” Victor said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was not in the mood to deal with this.

“That doesn’t work on conversations,” Henry stated, sounding more than a little annoyed. “Now, answer the question. Why. Are you. Avoiding me?”

“Fuck off, Henry. I’m not feeling well,” Victor lied. Well, only half lied. “I have a concussion, remember? Doctor says take it easy.”

“It’s been a week—”

“You know more than my doctor, do you?” Victor asked. He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but it crept out all the same.

“No, but I know you were feeling good enough to go to the movies with Peter Gordon last night,” Henry said. “He was getting awful chummy from what I saw.”

Victor’s nose flared as he took a deep breath, and suffocated that anger before it could break out and get him in trouble.

“What, you wanna say something about that?” Victor paused for a moment, wanting to say more, but his Mama was still within five feet. So instead, he said, “Marcia accused him of cheating, which is a bitch thing to do because Peter’s head over heels for her skanky ass. So we went out to get his mind off it.”

Victor paused again as his Mama passed. She carried a small thing of soup and a diet coke into the living room, where she was watching her Dallas VHS tapes. Lowering his voice, Victor added: “You know his girl, right? Marcia Fadden? She had a pregnancy scare last Christmas? Didn’t know whether it would be you or Peter was going to stand at the end of her daddy’s shotgun on her wedding day. Funny thing is, weren’t you seeing someone else around that time?”

“I didn’t…” Henry sighed. It was deep, and weighted. Victor could almost see Henry on the other end of the line, clutching the phone as he curled over it. It was the same way Henrietta had stood when talking on the phone. “Vic, I never had sex with her, or any of them.”

That was genuinely surprising. The tables flipped for a moment, Victor wasn’t sure if he believed Henry. Instead of looking at that deeper, he shook it off.

“Look, whatever, alright. I don’t care,” Victor said. “I’m just taking a breather. The last two times we hung out, we got hurt. So unless we’re talking Dairy Queen and a new Nintendo game, I’m out.”

Victor didn’t need to mention that Henry had promised they’d talk last time. It had been the selling point of his pitch, even.

“I’ll explain everything,” Henry had said, his tongue dripping silver and honey. But if it wasn’t Belch hovering around like he was the mother hen making sure his idiot chicks didn’t hurt themselves, it was Henry shutting down whenever Victor even started talking about it. His eyes would fall to the ground, his hands between his knees, and his mouth stubbornly silent until a distraction came along.

Trying to spell out his fear, and his needs, without accusing Henry of anything directly was trickier than anything Victor had ever done. But it was impossible when Henry refused to listen. So Victor resorted to the age old tradition amongst Criss men, which was avoiding the problem. He was a little young to drop a paycheck on some whiskey – and maybe he would’ve never done that anyway – so instead, it was kitten-napping.

That’s what Mrs Huggins called it when someone had a series of proper hour to two-hour long naps sandwiching a large snack – kitten-napping.

They couldn’t carry on as they were. Victor’s heart couldn’t take it. He loved Henry – loved him. But he also hated Henry so much more than he ever hated anyone in his life. Because Henry knew him better than anyone else on the planet, and still had the audacity to peg him for something he would never do.

“You weren’t exactly complaining,” Henry said, with a dangerous tone. “I mean, ain’t you the one that crushed that little Pickaninny’s fingers with your boot?”

That was true, and Victor regretted it. He regretted it long before Bill Denbrough and five other kids showed up armed to the teeth with large, jagged rocks. Victor regretted it the minute he got out of the car. By the time he actually put hands on the Hanlon boy, his mind had detached itself, and his emotions had become a void.

But once he was in it, he was in it. It was as always – every kick, every thrown rock, each one represented something he wanted to scream.

The rock that smacked Trashmouth between the eyes was Andy Criss leaving for Bangor after dragging his family to live some poor ass hick life on a farm. The one that hit Tits on the chest was stupid Henry, and stupid Henry’s stupid paranoia. The one that got Eddie was Butch Bowers playing with his hair, like a fucking creepazoid pervert.

Victor was almost feeling better when Bill Denbrough locked eyes with him. He knew it was over then, but he went down swinging. He got Bill so many times before that final blow took out his knee and Vic was out of the game. Even worse than the pain, though, was watching the kid let blow after blow fall off him, like he didn’t even feel it.

If you had told Vic a week ago that he’d be frightened of Stuttering Bill, he would’ve laughed. But that kid was the terminator, and Victor neverwanted to fuck with him again.

“That was him,” Victor finally said. “I said we got hurt. I got a concussion, man. Patrick’s dead. You couldn’t even stand up for like an hour. So how about I stay home today, okay?”

There was silence as both boys waited for the other to say something. Almost too quietly, Henry started filling it with what took Victor a moment to realize was song lyrics.

“Maybe I didn’t love you quite as often as I could,” he said, his voice tender. “And maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should. If I made you feel second best, Vic I’m sorry I was blind. But you are always on my mind.”

Victor had to cover his face, physically trying to keep the smile from breaking out. It was such a stupid little thing, but it was everything. To hear him say things like that, even borrowed from someone else, it created that glow beneath Victor’s skin, warming his cheeks into a red splotchy blush. He didn’t want to let go of his anger, but it was slipping.

“Pretty ballsy using Elvis to try and apologize,” Victor commented. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure his Mama still wasn’t listening. She wasn’t. She couldn’t care less. “Wasn’t he the one who said ‘we can’t go on together with suspicious minds?’”

“Shut up. And I wasn’t quoting Elvis, that’s the Pet Shop Boys… isn’t it?” Henry asked. The smile on Victor’s face couldn’t have gotten any larger. He bit into his bottom lip to keep a laugh from escaping. Henry chuckled a little himself; it was low and throaty, and tickled Victor’s ear pleasantly. He felt himself leaning towards Henry’s charm, the trap closing in around him. He could almost feel the teeth of it digging right into his heart.

It was the same as last time, and Victor was aware of this. He still couldn’t stop it happening.

“It was Elvis first,” Victor said, the smile creeping into his voice. He twirled the phone cord around his finger, listening as Henry took several deep breaths, preparing for some kind of speech. Vic expected something cheesy, maybe something trashy. He didn’t expect anything close to what came next.

“Look, I don’t have a… suspicious mind,” Henry started, his words chosen carefully. “I know you aren’t like that. But Patrick…” Henry was speaking slowly, as he did when he didn’t want to say what he was about to. It immediately drew all of Victor’s attention. “He’s smarter than me. He dresses better. He has better hair, and all his teeth… and he wouldn’t ask you do weird shit during… you know…”

The silence was thick. The phone cord uncurled and fell free of Vic’s hands. He heard Henry sniffling, like he’d been crying. “Henry—”

“And I was afraid that you were getting tired of my shit,” Henry said, his voice cracking. “I know now it was a stupid thing to say. I wasn’t thinking when I said it. I was just scared because I’ve got nothing to give you.”

Victor knew he should’ve been angry still. After all, Henry wasn’t really saying anything different. The accusation was still there, only the narrative around it changed. But at the same time, hearing it in those words, Victor found some feelings of guilt surfacing.

Sure, he’d spent years soothing away all the shit Butch put in Henry, things like feeling stupid, or weak, or cruel. But who put it in his head that he was a bad boyfriend? Or that he, Henry fucking Bowers, whose hair was soft hay and skin was the sun itself, whose eyes were painted by the Gods, was anything less than desirable?

Victor would trade owning the world with anyone else for one private moment with Henry, and the idea that he had failed to somehow make that clear was both horrifying and heart-wrenching.

“I’m pretty sure Patrick was into weirder shit than hair pulling, first of all,” Victor said. Henry laughed, but the sound of it made Victor certain that Henry had been crying. “Second, I don’t want anything from you but you, and that’s something nobody else can ever give me.”

Mama was still not paying attention. Victor did a quick check when he realized what he said. On Henry’s line, he could hear noise in the background as someone moved around. Henry’s voice changed immediately, becoming louder, colder, “Anyway, my dad left his gun with me and he won’t be back until late. It’s just me, Belch, and some cold beers. Come on and let’s destroy some shit.”

Victor rubbed at his dull headache, knowing that loud noises were only going to make it worse. But the siren song of unsupervised target practice was hard to ignore by itself, let alone in the shadow of what Henry said. It dulled the warning bells telling Vic not to fall for it again.

Before he could say anything, Henry already knew his decision. He heard Henry’s hand close over the mouthpiece as he whispered very clearly to Belch, “he’s gonna say yes. Go! Now!”

“Tell him not to wait outside,” Belch said. He sounded far too excited, and Vic’s resolve was gone. He could practically see Belch’s face, all bright and happy, like a puppy waiting for his master to come home. It was that final thing needed to seal his fate. The trap closed completely, and Victor was a dead man walking.

“Alright,” Victor said, knowing he’d regret it later. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“Cool,” Henry said. “Belch will come get you.” Then, taking Vic completely by surprise: “I love you.”

The line went dead. Once the phone was back on the cradle, Victor walked back to his room to get dressed. He had to take a moment to lean against the door, his heart coming alive.

You’re such a fucking idiot, his brain supplied. Victor didn’t disagree. Still, he threw on that sleeveless shirt Henry liked, and fixed his hair.

His emotions were a roller coaster – soaring high when he remembered how it sounded to hear Henry say he loved him – and falling low when he thought of how many times he had overlooked some important clue to Henry’s insecurities.

When he heard Amy, Vic decided not to think about it, but just to continue forward with a better understanding of things.

He tried to say goodbye as he walked by his Mama for the last time, but she barely even looked up at him. She would remember it later – his little wave and quiet bye, mama. The way his face was young, and full of hope. It would be about the only thing she remembered, for as soon as the door was closed, she pulled out the vodka and rum Vic had brought her nearly a year ago.

She would still be sitting there, drunk and crying, when she got the call later from Officer Conley.

~~~

There was a power in holding a gun that just couldn’t be matched with anything else in the world. Not fucking someone so hard they forgot how to be human; not getting off a good comeback and shattering someone’s ego; not diving off a cliff or screaming at tornadoes. Being on the right side of a firearm felt like what Victor imagined He-Man felt like as he thrust the Power Sword to the sky.

For those few seconds before you pulled that trigger, you were immortal.

He couldn’t imagine being on the wrong side of one. Staring into an endless dark barrel, knowing that death was one quick burst away, could make a man crumble – not a man made of paper, as Butch so eloquently put it, but even the ones made of stone and steel and leather. It made men who hated life remember what was worth living for, and it could make men who lived it to the fullest realize that they just want it all to end.

But Butch wasn’t God, and he wasn’t Superman. He might’ve felt like it when he held up that gun, the same as Victor had. But he was the paper man, not Henry. He was a paper man with a powerful toy, and he needed to prove something to someone, though Victor didn’t know who. Maybe it was himself.

Regardless, he casually aimed that gun, and then he pulled the trigger.

Don’t show him you’re afraid…

As Vic leaned back and tried to block the light with his bangs, his headache having taken over the back side of his head completely, he glanced over to where Henry had been sitting. The older boy was no longer there, but was coming down the driveway. Victor hadn’t seen him move, but judging by the stiff way he was walking, he still hadn’t quite recovered.

They’d all been sure Butch was going to actually hit Henry – none more than the target himself. But instead of Henry’s chest, it was the ground at his feet that exploded. Three shots, each one getting closer and closer to Henry’s boot, until one left a scuff mark, and a dark, dampness spread across Henry’s lap.

Victor watched Henry shuffle past them, heading towards his house. Victor started to walk towards him, but Henry just gave him a look, silently commanding Victor to stay put. He stood outside on his porch for a few moments, and then disappeared behind the front door. Victor did not follow, but he didn’t like it.

“Maybe he’s just getting some clean pants,” Belch said, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Look, when he comes back, let’s just go straight to ma’s house. My mom can take in my old clothes to fit him, and we can figure out the sleeping arrangements later, but the basement ain’t that cold right now. It ain’t the best solution, but there won’t be no fuckin’ crazies tryin’ to put holes in him neither.”

“Butch knows that trick now,” Vic said, crossing his arms. He rolled a rock around with the toe of his boot, thinking. “What if we just… kept driving? How long you think before we reach Canada?”

“I can’t leave my mom. I’m the only one she’s got,” he said. Vic turned around, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against Amy’s roof. All he needed was one good idea— “What the fuck?”

Victor looked up at his friend. Belch was slowly leaning away from Amy, his fists clenching. Vic spun around to see whatever it was, preparing to punch someone.

Henry was back on the porch, the screen door slamming shut behind him. He turned to face them, slow, stiff, like he was thinking. Vic’s eyes fixated on the red spots on Henry’s face, watching as they slowly ran down his face, becoming red streaks. As soon as Vic realized that it was blood decorating his boyfriend, the panic was immediate.

“Vic, no…”

He forgot Belch was even there as he moved towards Henry, a singular train of thought taking over the whole station: Henry’s hurt.

He was going to cup Henry’s face, push back his hair, and find out where the wounds were – find out how to fix them. Vic didn’t see the knife in Henry’s hand, at first. Belch did, but he might as well have been shouting at a wall, because Vic didn’t hear him over the sound of his own anger rising. Just as soon as he realized what Henry’s intentions were, it was already done. The blade moved left to right, leaving a red smile in its wake.

Victor felt nothing worse than the prick of a mosquito bite. It was the heat in his throat as he desperately tried to pull another breath through it that told him something was wrong.

Belch was screaming, but it was far away. Blood crept between Vic’s fingers as he tried to push it back in. He felt it moving through his throat, rushing to the newly created opening, trying to escape. It flew out of his mouth as he choked on it, speckling Henry’s face even worse than before.

Victor stepped away from Henry, landing on his hurt leg wrong. His knee buckled, and his ankle twisted. His headache was screaming when his skull collided with firm soil, but then numbed itself to nothing. Lying there face down in the warm grass, it occurred to Victor that he was dying, and it had been Henry that killed him.

It just didn’t feel real. His body was working a wonderful magic, trying to lull him to sleep. Everything felt dull, and dreamlike. Even Butch looked like some child’s nightmarish take on himself. His skin sallow and eyes sunken, looking more Frankenstein than police officer, with orange pom poms instead of buttons on his uniform. If Victor could’ve felt anything, he might’ve felt fear. But even that was lost.

“That Hank. Always did like putting his little sword in the throats of pretty boys. Just like his old man,” Butch said, his voice sounding off with its playful tone. He crept closer, moving in large, slow jerks. “I know what you think about me, you disgusting, dirty little thing. You tease and taunt, but you always run away. Now you can’t run, can you?”

He smiled a hideous grin, teeth as sharp as a shark’s beneath the layers of rot. Victor’s scream was as much blood as it was air. The Butchenstein would’ve lunged for him if Belch hadn’t hit the ground between them, Henry following after. Vic realized that he had to have tripped over Victor’s body, but he didn’t feel anything at all.

Henry threw a punch, and Belch caught it, and then twisted Henry’s wrist. Henry let out a feral cry, and brought his other hand down. There was an odd squelch – the same sound a cantaloupe made when being cut open. When his hand came back up, it was covered in blood, the glint of the knife barely visible beneath it. Henry was bringing his knife down again, and again, and again, but Victor could only hear it.

His eyes were fixed on Butch, who was leaning over him, pulling his hands away from his neck.

“Now it’s my turn to eat you, pretty boy.”

But the world had already turned a bright white for a few seconds, and then, it went black.

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