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"Oh come on, one more, one more!”
You listened to Phoebe chant, her hand hitting the table in perfect time with the AC/DC song coming through the speakers as she waved an empty shot glass in your face. It was only eleven p.m., the “big night out” really hadn’t even kicked off yet, but you were already ready to shove your drunk friends in the backseat of a car and go home to sleep the predestined hangover away.
When your other friends around the table jumped in, chanting your name, garnering the unwanted attention of other patrons around, you caved in; “Fine! One more,” you said, hands thrown in the air as the others cheered in celebration. The blonde jumped up and rushed to the bar where she ordered another round, the second for the table since you all arrived a short time ago.
In all fairness, this had been the plan for spring break the entire time.
Spring break had rolled around quicker than you expected. One minute you were pulling all-nighters in the campus library for midterm exams, the next you were in a packed car on the way to your hometown, to meet your old high school friends and take part in the inevitable night out that would end up with someone throwing up in the backseat of your car. That was partially the reason why you decided to talk them into getting a cab there. At least the vomit or spilled beer in the backseat wouldn’t be your problem in the morning.
Phoebe rushed back from the bar with a platter of four shots, sitting one in front of everyone at the table, and then held up her own. “Who or what should we toast to?” She asked as the others instinctively held up their glasses, you included.
“To the rest of the semester?” Charlotte asked and Phoebe curled her lip.
“No, fuck that, I’m not even thinking about the semester right now.”
“To AC/DC?”
“Jude-” Phoebe tsked, her tone enough to dismiss the idea.
You looked up, eyes following the neon blue lights of the venue to the bar where the owner, their friend Rosemary, served another patron a mug filled to the rim with hoppy beer and then wiped her hands off with a towel slung over her apron. You turned back to your friends with a smile.
“To Rosie,” you held your shot glass higher and grins spread around the table, everyone bringing their glasses in to clink.
Rosemary had been good to you, to the entire friend group. You all first came to The Hideout as sophomores in high school, sneaking in to watch bands play and sneak shots away from unsuspecting patrons, and when one of you eventually got caught by an angry biker who wanted to know who stole his mixed drink off the bar, it was Rosemary who came to the rescue. She didn’t turn you all in or throw you all out, instead she shoved everyone in the back and gave you shots of the strongest vodka to kill the curiosity in your eyes, and then laughed in your faces before letting you back in.
She was cool, a lot cooler than the other bars or venues in Hawkins who threw anyone who looked under the age of 40 right back out the door. So The Hideout had become the group hang-out spot almost every weekend in high school, and it didn’t stop when everyone graduated and went off to college. Every break – fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, the group wound back up at Rosemary’s ordering the same drinks and playing the same songs on the jukebox.
“To Rosie,” they all repeated after you, clinking their glasses, dropping the bottoms to the table, and then bringing them back up to their mouths to throw the tequila back in one quick go.
You threw the shot back quickly, barely tasting the spice but feeling the burn as it hit the back of your throat and sank all the way down to your stomach. Mouth twisting at the taste, you hummed and sat the glass back down on the table, pushing it far away from your reach. God, you really hated tequila, and college didn’t change that.
Behind the bar, Rosemary had heard the group toast to her and she cooed while telling them their next drink would be on the house, and while you sighed, hand dragging down your face, the others cheered. Jude reached over and grabbed your shoulder, giving you an excited shake, and you agreed for the sake of group morale. You didn’t want to be the one to bring the mood down.
So you ordered a vodka cranberry and then made a line to the jukebox when the song playing began to fade out. Trying to find something to fill the void, you flipped through popular songs and artists – Careless Whisper, flip, something by Madonna, flip, Springsteen, flip, Mellencamp, flip. At the end of the page, you found a song by Heart and decided it was good enough, you didn’t want to stand there all night trying to find the perfect one.
You took a sip of your drink and eyed the number to punch in, but before you hit the last number, a band took the stage across the room. The lights in the room lowered again and you rolled your eyes. You were sure it would be another band of old men with a dying dream to become rockstars or an old man with a harmonica pulling his best Bob Dylan to bring back the 60s. When the band started to play, mid-sip from your glass, you turned to face the stage and see what surprise was in store for the night, and then you tried not to choke on your drink as you snorted.
Corroded Coffin, their banner hung on the back wall of the stage above the drums.
“Holy shit,” you whispered behind the rim of your glass with a smirk.
The last time the band Corroded Coffin even came to mind was seven months ago. You had stared at the same banner, at the time laying crumpled in the back of Eddie’s van while you laid on the plush carpet, joint in hand, giving your final farewell.
You couldn’t believe he was still in town.
People were moving around the floor, going to the bar, moving closer to the stage, and you found yourself in the mix. Unable to see anything besides the banner above heads, you instinctively found yourself drawing closer to the stage, sliding through the throngs of drunk people and around tables to the side of the floor-level stage, but you weren’t able to see anything beyond the shoulders and heads of others around.
With a small huff, you turned and looked behind you to find a table with empty chairs. The table was still full of half-drank pints and packs of unsmoked cigarettes but no one was around. An idea popped into mind – you grabbed the back of one of the chairs and pulled it from the table to step up on the seat, standing on the cushion to get the best view of the stage in the house.
And there he was, standing stage center, in the same denim vest he always wore, the same red crackled B.C. Rich Warlock slung at his hips. Seven months and nothing had changed in the slightest.
You didn’t recognize the rest of the band, assuming it was some naïve underclassmen he had recruited through the association of his D&D club, and while they did play like overly excited teenagers, it still sounded good. Or maybe it was just the drinks talking. When the bass player started to lean back into a bass solo during a drum solo, you realized it was just the drinks, but you stuck around for the end of the song. You weren’t paying attention to the song or the lyrics, your sights were set only on Eddie.
It had been so long since you watched him play, even though you had a million times before, it was mesmerizing each time. He was so passionate about music, so in tune with his abilities, that it was attractive – his movements, his fingers, his talents. It had been a part of why you were so initially interested in him in the first place. Even though it had been years, that clearly never went away either.
And when it came to a very dramatic, sizzling end, you raised your hand to your mouth and used your fingers to whistle and yell loudly over the general crowd reaction,
“Munson!”
Your whistle and call of the name perked the ears of the guitarist on stage right. His head turned and he looked up, gaze meeting yours above the heads of the crowd right in front of the stage, and you saw the realization on his face when he noticed it was you. You gave him a nod of recognition and he grinned, biting his bottom lip.
When the rest of the band jumped into their next song immediately, Eddie was a second behind, but caught up with ease. All of his attention back to the band, you step off the chair and back to your original height, scooting the chair back to the table where a woman is awaiting for you to step down. A quick apology later, you whisked away with your drink, back to the table where your friends had been waiting for your return.
Walking up to the table, you watched Phoebe sit her drink down and then point to the part of the room you had just come from. “Is that Munson up there?” She asked.
“No, just felt like shouting his name.” You snorted and she threw a napkin from the table at you, which you caught with ease. “Yeah, it’s his band – Corroded Coffin, remember that?”
“How could we ever forget that name?” Jude shot back, equally as sassy, and you playfully slapped at his arm.
“Holy, I forgot about him, you know.” Charlotte said between downing another shot and taking a drink of her chaser. “But I did forget a lot of people as soon as we graduated.”
You nodded. “I did too, but Eddie was the only reason we enjoyed our senior year, remember? We owe him like a thousand bucks and a shit ton of drinks to make it up to him.”
“Do you think he could score us an eighth while we’re home for the week?”
Everyone turned and looked at Jude with blank stares, and he just mumbled something about a good time, picked up his drink, and took a swig.
You thought about it for a second, hitting him back up for an eighth, or maybe something stronger. It was spring break after all, you all didn’t go on nice and expensive trips like everyone else, you were forced back to your insufferably small hometown, a joint would be the greatest thing to happen to the group. But at the same time, you two hadn’t talked in so long, you didn’t know how he would react besides being excited at the cash rolling in from college students paying way too much.
“None of us have seen him, let alone talked to him in almost a year, so yeah, let’s hit him up for weed while we’re back in town.”
“You say it like he won’t remember you,” Phoebe said, eyes narrowed at you, and a beat later, maybe less than that if someone counted, the song on stage tuned out into its end and then a voice replaced the silence.
“We want to change it up a little bit for you folks out there who like the sound of seventies rock a little too much,” it was Eddie. You didn’t even have to look at the stage to know, ears already perked at his distinct voice. “(Y/N), I’m talking about you, if you’re still in the room and not on your ass somewhere already. Welcome home,”
Your friends all looked at you, and you rolled your lips to keep from laughing at the seemingly perfect timing.
Turning away from the table and their gaze to look back towards the stage, you could see slivers of the band around people lingering on the floor. You saw their drummer and then you saw Eddie’s guitar in a flash of red and black before the oh-so familiar guitar introduction started to your favorite song.
“Home in the valley, home in the city, home isn’t pretty, ain’t no home for me,” and there it was, “home in the darkness, home on the highway, home isn’t my way, home I’ll never be,”
You watched through the crowd, unable to wipe the smile off your face.
“Burn out the day, burn out the night, I can’t see no reason to put up a fight,”
Then there was your favorite part – the guitar, the kick of the song leading with the drums. It was like heaven to your ears, and you saw a glimpse of Eddie’s guitar in the voided space, his fingers manipulating the chords.
“I’m livin’ for givin’ the devil his due, and I’m burnin’, I’m burnin’, I’m burnin’ for you,”
Across the table, Phoebe turned her lips up in amusement. “Seems like someone remembers you a lot better than you think,”
And she didn’t even know the half of it, none of them at the table did.
You chewed on the inside of your cheek and thought of the mixtape – the cassette cover marked with sloppy handwriting, the tape shoved in a stereo across the room with the volume turned so loud no one could hear you. Burnin' For You had been one of the first songs on the mixtape you spent hours working on, strategically placing each song on the tracklist to fit perfectly, just for his ears.
The fucker remembered it, too.
When the song ended, you took the last gulp of your drink, letting the vodka flow, and you whistled the same as you did earlier, and you swore you could hear Eddie chuckle over all the noise in the room before they started their next song.
“Come on! Let’s go get more drinks.” Charlotte said, pulling Phoebe up to her feet, and then Jude hooked his arms under yours. You happily let him lift you from your seat and lead you to the bar where Rosemary poured with a heavy hand.
You ordered another vodka cranberry, sipping this one lightly as the effects of the other drinks began to settle. Your face felt warm and flush, the room starting to feel a little spinny, but you felt content. It was a good tipsy. All of the tension and stress from the semester so far was off your shoulders, and you allowed yourself to relax, but not as much as Phoebe, Charlotte, and Jude.
You watched them drink more and more, growing from spinny to tipsy and beyond. They were becoming intolerable, which said a lot since the venue was known for their rowdy patrons. Phoebe kept trying to get you to drink more, Charlotte wanted to dance on tables, and Jude was hitting on everyone at the bar. You eventually grew tired of corralling them and let them do as they please, opting to watch and laugh at them from the table in the center of the room.
When one a.m. hit, more people began to slide out the door into awaiting cars and cabs out front. The room shrunk. You took the last sip of the coke you ordered, what Phoebe believed was a whiskey and coke, but Rosemary had caught your wink from the table when Phoebe ordered them, and you got to play the end of the night safe while simultaneously trying to keep your friends safe, too.
Yawning, you eyed the front door, looking out the glass to see a couple making out against a motorcycle in the front parking spot, and beyond that, you could see a band loading equipment into the back of a van, a van that you recognized immediately. You don’t know how you missed it earlier.
Eddie was sitting down in the back of his van, talking with the rest of the band, and you felt a kick in your system to go talk to him. He had dedicated a song to you, your favorite song. And it had been so long, you wondered if you two still got on like you used to. It was worth finding out.
Grabbing your purse off the floor and swinging it on your shoulder, you walked by the bar on the way to the door, calling out to Rosemary as you did so, asking her to watch the three working the room, and she nodded in agreement while you slid out the door into the warmer Spring night.
The gravel crunched under your sneakers as you stepped off the sidewalk and out into the parking lot, crossing the distance to the van where those loitering heard steps approaching and spun around to look at you. You smiled warmly, looking between all of them, “hi,” you said before looking over at Eddie and you tilted your head, “it took a while, but I think I finally made you like seventies rock, how about that Munson?”
Eddie snorted, toying with the amp chord in his hand. “It was a good try, didn’t work though.”
“I don’t know, it seemed like you really enjoyed yourself up there.”
He finally lifted his head to meet your gaze, and then grinned, pushing himself up and off the van and walking over to you. The lights on top of the building shined down onto them, and then you could finally see him perfectly. His frizzy but tamed hair, his brown eyes, pink lips. When he stretched his arms open wide and wrapped his arms around your shoulders, you couldn’t help but feel some relief. His vest pins pressed against your neck, you caught a waft of cigarettes and old aftershave, and his hands were warm on your back through the material of your sweatshirt. Your senses were overwhelmed by him, and it felt so familiar.
“Still fuckin’ annoying as always, right, (Y/L/N),”
“Nothing’s changed,” you chuckled into the material of his vest, wrapping an arm around his torso to hug him. You rubbed at his side and pulled back to look at him and start a conversation. “I didn’t know you guys played Friday nights here.”
“Yeah, yeah, it was a real quick change of plans,” he said while you pulled apart.
“We usually do Tuesdays but the band they had scheduled for tonight canceled, so Rosie called us up to replace them.” One of the other band members said.
You turned to him in acknowledgement and nodded, arms crossing over your chest. When you moved, you caught a whiff of the aftershave on the collar of your sweatshirt. He was lingering on you. “So are you guys on spring break yet?”
“Yeah, uh, all next week,” Eddie said, hands tucked into his back pockets, “you got back in today?”
“Yeah, got back in a few hours ago. Barely made it into city lines before everyone started calling me asking where I was.”
“Big city, Purdue girl now,” Eddie teased, pointing to your sweatshirt, the college name across your chest. You shot him a look with narrowed eyes but couldn’t help but smirk. There was the playful bickering again. “How can we be of your importance, miss college educated? Care to fit us into your mighty busy schedule?”
You played along, humming, finger to chin as if thinking deeply. “Hmm, can one of you be a dear and show me around to all the great changes made to this small town in the last seven months?”
Eddie immediately broke character. “Didn’t you come back for Christmas break?”
“Doesn’t count. My parents picked me up because of the snow and I was stuck with them for two weeks in my childhood bedroom. The only time I escaped was to come here.” You motioned back towards the building behind you.
Eddie pulled a hand from his back pocket, holding his hand out to you, palm laying flat up in an offer. He resumed character, like a knight in shining armor. “Then I would be honored,”
Behind you, one of the boys spoke up with a voice crack, “hey, man, what about us?”
Eddie looked away to his friends and you glanced at the measly underclassmen before turning back to Eddie who now looked stuck. Looking at his friends, he clicked his tongue, obviously trying to mentally come up with a plan. Did he want to take you with him on a joy ride? Yes. Did he initially agree to take everyone home after the show? Also yes.
You stepped over to Eddie and reached up to pat his chest. “Play chaperone and take them home, I’ll get my friends situated. Meet me back here in twenty?”
“Uh, I, uh- I live all the way across town.” One of the boys said, his voice wavering in no confidence of Eddie dropping the others off and then going all the way across town and back in twenty minutes.
You raised a brow and Eddie looked at the guys and then nodded slowly, swallowing hard. “I’ll be back in twenty,” he assured you before jogging off to his van, yelling at his friends to jump in and jump in fast.
Shaking your head at his excitement, almost a little too eager, you listened to his tires squeal on the road once the van left the parking lot and you stepped back inside. Phoebe was sitting on the bar next to a very sleepy Charlotte, and Jude was on the dance floor, swaying with a woman who looked double his age to Careless Whisper. All in all, it turned out better than you imagined it would have.
Rosemary walked back up to the bar from a back room and spotted you grabbing your drink from the now empty table. “They took care of themselves, really.” She said nodding in the direction of your friends.
You laughed and walked over. “Good, I was worried you would have to kick them out again.”
“As long as no one touches the beer rack again, we’re good,” the sign on the beer rack with a circle and line through it over a hand reaching to touch them was still there. Thanks Jude.
Drinking the rest of the coke, you sat the cup down on the mahogany, letting Rosemary take it and place it down to clean later. You licked your lips and tried to mentally plan for how you wanted to spend your last night that didn't include taking care of your friends. “Hey, does Rob still pick people from the bar when needed?”
Rosemary paused for a second then nodded. “I think so, yeah, but the cabs are still running now.”
“I know, but Rob already knows where they live, just so you don’t have to fight to get their addresses.”
“Why? You heading out without them?”
“Yeah, here in a few minutes, but they’re behaving it seems, so that’s good.” You chuckled gently and pulled out your wallet, sliding bills across the bar. “That’s for the tab and a tip. I don’t trust any of them to do math right now, they’re not even good at it sober.”
Rosemary chuckled and thanked you, taking the cash and tucking it in her apron. You stood at the bar a little longer, making small talk about the other patrons from the night until Eddie showed back up. He rolled the van right up to the front door, honking to get your attention as he watched you through the glass door. You turned away from Rosemary and looked out the door to see him smiling in the driver's seat, wiggling his fingers in your direction, and you could already hear the bass from the music he was playing rattle the van.
You looked at the clock, noting the time, and then said goodbye to Rosemary, also giving her a tip for Rob later on when he came to pick up the three drunks and take them back home. Walking out of the building, you stepped up to the van and threw open the passenger door, the music now audible and just as loud as you thought it would be.
“Twenty-one minutes, sorry, you lost your chance.” You faked a serious tone. His smile fell, his brown eyes batting before you beamed. “Fucking with you,” and you tossed your purse in first before hopping in, watching him lick his lips in a smile.
“Always the fuckin’ worst,” he said playfully, pulling the van out of the parking lot, taking a turn to head back towards Hawkins.
“Oh come on,” you leaned your head back against the seat, looking at him, “you missed me.”
He glanced away from the road to look at you, “maybe, just a little,” he held up his pointer finger and thumb, showcasing to you just how little he had thought about you in the months apart, which you didn’t believe.
“That drunk phone call to my apartment said differently Munson,”
“Here we go, using my own words against me-”
“What was it again? You watched Fright Night without me and felt bad?”
“Fine, fine,” Eddie admitted with a chuckle as you kept going on, “maybe more than a little,”
“That’s better,” you said with a soft smile before finally looking away from him and out the windshield.
He drove you through the outskirts of town, the winding roads so familiar like the back of your hand. You zoomed past houses and streets you remembered driving down just for fun, just to make the night last a little longer while out with friends.
In the slivers of light pouring in from the streetlights, you made yourself familiar with the black interior, the stickers on the dash, the keychains and bandana hanging from the rearview mirror. When you shifted in your seat, your foot pressed up against something in the floorboard, and you looked down to see a flash of light flicker over a shoebox.
“No way, you still have this thing?” Your lips turned into a smile as you gasped in excitement, reaching down on the floorboard to pick up the cardboard box.
Eddie glanced away from the road for a second to watch you pull the shoebox out of the floor, and then he returned his sight to the road to take a sharp corner. “Did you think I would get rid of it?”
“I don’t know, figured you might be a Walkman guy when I got back to town.” You said, causing him to roll his eyes, and you laughed. “Joking, Munson,”
You placed the shoebox on your lap and flipped open the top, revealing the stacks of tapes inside – Dio’s Holy Diver, a couple Black Sabbath tapes, Talking Heads, The Last Command by W.A.S.P., Judas Priest’s Turbo, everything he used to play after he picked you up down the street from your parent’s house. And then tucked between two stacks was an unlabeled tape, one you picked up and flipped over to see your own handwriting on the inside of the sleeve. FOR YOUR EARS was scribbled in red pen across the paper, poorly drawn stars along the edges. You popped open the plastic case and saw the tape still inside and your heart grew in your chest. With a smile, you shut the case back and held it in your palm while placing the lid back on the box.
“So Hawkins is still pretty much the same as I left it, yeah?” You said lowering the shoebox back onto the floor, looking out the window to see the high school, the football field that looked as if it went untouched since you graduated.
“Unless you count the carcass of the mall left behind from the fire, which isn’t as cool as it sounds.”
“Are you going to take me?”
“Do you want to go?”
Your nose scrunched. “No, not really,”
“Then what would you like to see while you’re in town, princess?”
“Eddie, shut the fuck up,” you said, listening to him laugh at your reaction. The van filled with light the closer he drove into town, street lights flickering in and out with each one passed. “I don’t know," you paused, "I just don’t want to go home.”
“Do you want to go back to my place?” He offered. “I mean, I don’t know what kind of good shit college has, but whatever Rick sent me has to be better.”
“Reefer Rick? That guy’s still living?”
“Alive and well baby,” Eddie grinned, head tilting as he glanced at you, “you down? I won’t make you pay for it, consider it a welcome home gift.”
It was a no brainer.
“God is it good to be back,” you said and Eddie chuckled, taking it as a yes, flipping on his signal to turn down Mulberry and head to the other side of town to Forest Hills.
You could still remember the first time Eddie drove you to Forest Hills Trailer Park. It was right after the first day of your senior year. Steve Harrington was throwing a back-to-school bash at his place and his regular drug dealer was out of commission for the week, so he had you hit up the next best person – repeating senior, the guy in your history class, Eddie the Freak Munson. He was happy to help, mostly because you played it so naively, and he offered you a ride back to his place, which you happily agreed, letting him drive and introduce you to Black Sabbath on the ride there, which he told you he couldn’t wrap his mind around.
And while you did get your supply out of the deal, you also found yourself fond of Eddie. You saw him outside of school for the first time, a little more relaxed, a little less insane compared to the others you hung out with even though you could never admit that to any of them. A part of you wanted to see him in that different light a little more often.
After the party, Steve went back to his regular dealer, but you never told Eddie that, and you continued to hit him up after school or on the weekends, purely for yourself.
The following weekend you sat on his sofa as he rummaged through boxes tucked away in his room to get your ounce. Two weeks later you followed him to his room, standing in his doorway and talking as he rolled a joint, and then you both shared it while sitting in your car outside of The Hideout before sneaking in to introduce him to Rosemary, get his band on the schedule, and then listen into shitty seventies cover bands.
From the outside looking in, it didn’t make sense at all.
Eddie was the freak to others – he failed senior year once already, ran an after-school club for Dungeons and Dragons, was the guitarist in a heavy metal band and listened to music way too loud in his old van when he pulled into the school parking lot in the mornings, and had a few (bad) tattoos. And then there was you – in the inner circle of the most popular seniors, the leader and founder of the Hawkins Pep Club, voted Miss Hawkins High with a college scholarship and a bright future. It didn’t make sense to anyone else when they saw you two together, and it didn’t make sense to the both of you, either.
But as time progressed, the idea of you two making sense didn’t matter.
At first you thought it was the excitement, the secrecy that you liked the most. Eddie would always pick you up down the street from your house so your parents wouldn’t catch you. You never told Steve or any of your friends about who you were sneaking off from parties to go see. You enjoyed the sly smiles at each other when you and Eddie caught eyes in the hallway and then would pass without a word. But then you realized you actually enjoyed hanging out with him past the drugs and excitement – he was fun, his music taste was wild, his sense of humor and adventure even more so.
You always hoped that he liked hanging out with you, too, that you didn’t annoy him, but he didn’t let you ponder about it for too long.
He saw you walking out of school one day with tense shoulders and an annoyed expression on your face, and he immediately broke away from his friends, catching up with you at your car. You rolled your window down, his hands pressed against the roof as he ducked his head down to talk to you, and he invited you over, saying that it looked like you needed a break. It was an offer you gladly accepted, because he couldn’t have been more right.
You went over to Eddie’s house that night after the game and halved a special brownie with him, ending up draped across his bed, shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at the ceiling as you both talked about everything under the sun. It was the first time you dropped your façade around Eddie. You always hoped he saw past it. You weren’t always the happiest, the most cheerful, or the smartest in the room. As close as you were to your life-long friends, you never dropped the armor around anyone else until you became close to Eddie, and he noticed it that night as you ranted about how stressed you were about midterms and scholarship papers, but after his brilliant idea of a sweet treat, ten minutes later you were laughing and teasing him about the handcuffs on his wall, how boy-ish his room was.
“I am a teenager, you know,”
You turned your head to the left, looking at him – he was lying opposite of you, his hair disheveled across his sheets, eyes locked on his ceiling. “Aren’t you pushing twenty?”
“Oh fuck off,” Eddie said through a contagious chuckle, “nineteen still ends in teen right, smart ass?”
You giggled, shifting down a little further on his bed to rest your head against his shoulder, cheek against the material of his t-shirt. “Whatever makes you sleep better at night, Munson,”
It was obvious that you two were growing closer.
You stayed late after school to watch on to a Dungeons & Dragons campaign (which you didn’t quite understand but you had the spirit). Eddie helped you paint banners for the pep rally to much of his chagrin. You two planned out Halloween costumes for Tina’s party – you as Rosemary Woodhouse and him as Freddy Krueger – and then ditched to get a burger.
But then after a Corroded Coffin show at The Hideout over Christmas break, you two became more than friends. In a rush of excitement from the semester break and adrenaline from the show, you two got a little too flirty and wound up making out against the side of his van before he drove you back to his place where you two hooked up – clumsily helping each other tear off layers of clothes, laughing when you accidentally elbowed him in the face, knocking the lamp off his bedside table, but there was still so much attraction between you two as he fucked you into his mattress.
All that adrenaline, all that emotion poured out and you two realized you had been holding back that entire time. Realizing that maybe you two should have been doing this all along.
So you two were on each other every time there was a chance – any minute you two had a free minute away from friends, between 3:00 p.m. on the dot and the start of his semester-long D&D campaign, after sneaking away from outings to drive to Skull Rock, when your parents were away on work trips and your house was empty, anytime his uncle was at work, when there was a second between lunch periods… at every possibility, you were either straddling his lap in the back of his van or he was standing between your legs with you perched on the picnic table in the woods behind the school. The teenage hormones were too much to bear alone so you both let them out together, in the best way.
But it was nothing but just fun. When you left for college, you two had one last intimate goodbye, it was the end of it, or at least you both thought.
As he drove you to his trailer that night, you couldn’t help but think about all those times.
You didn’t know if the spark would still be there when you came back, it had been so long since you two were in the same room, but now you realized that the spark never dulled.
Eddie pulled his van into the driveway outside the trailer and shut off the engine, the loud music finally coming to a halt, the rumbling engine quieting, too. You jumped out, tucking the tape in your purse before following him up onto the small porch where he held the door open for you, allowing you in first.
You walked in, sneakers sinking into the plush carpet with each step, eyes gazing over the wall – the abundance of mugs and hats hanging off rack hooks, that hadn’t changed. Eddie always said it was something about his uncle being a collector rather than anything else. You always joked that Wayne could fix everyone in Hawkins a cup of morning coffee.
“Once again, mi casa es su casa,” Eddie said as he walked in further, dropping the keys on the table by the door.
You turned and watched him walk down the hallway towards his bedroom, you instinctively followed. “Is that a hint that you finally passed Spanish?”
“Nope, flunked it, had to take Latin instead.”
Eddie shrugged off his vest and jacket and fell back onto his small bed, the mattress bouncing under his weight, and looked up to you standing in his doorway, leaning against the frame.
“Can you teach me something in Latin?” You asked, raising your foot up to nudge his foot dangling off the bed.
Eddie laid back, resting his head in his palms, humming as his eyes searched the ceiling. “Estne volumen… wait, hold on-” he paused, grinning, and you didn’t trust it, “estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?”
“And what does that mean?”
“Is that a scroll in your toga or are you just happy to see me?” He wiggled his eyebrows, sticking his tongue out suggestively.
And then you kicked his foot again, this time in amusement. “You’re the worst,” you dropped your bag and plopped down next to him, “do you know how to say let’s smoke?”
“No, but I’m fluent in enough English to get the hint.”
He rolled off the bed, feet hitting the floor, and walked over to his dresser, grabbing a small metal box sitting by his stereo. He tossed the box onto the bed and popped open the small latch, revealing a baggie inside, a makeshift grinder, rolling papers, and a wad of cash.
Eddie pulled out the baggie and rolling papers and you picked out the grinder, and like a team, you two worked on getting the joint rolled. But also like a team, you two bickered – Eddie said it would be easier to just get his bong, you complained that his fingers were too fat to roll the papers properly.
“Just shut up and light it, (Y/L/N),” he said lightly, holding out a (slightly wonky) joint.
“Gladly,” you snatched it from him and fished a lighter out of your purse. As you grabbed it, your hand grazed the tape you had thrown in your purse earlier, and you grinned, pulling it out, too. “Here, play this,” you said, tossing it onto the bed.
Eddie clicked the latch back on the box and then spotted the tape laying on his bed. He tilted his head to the side in curiosity. “You found this?”
“You kept it?” You shot back at him and Eddie pursed his lips, picking up the cassette, holding it like a precious jewel in his hands.
“Yeah, I mean, why not?"
You leaned back against his wall, holding the joint in your mouth and sparking the end of it.
“I thought you weren’t into seventies rock,”
Eddie turned and walked over to his dresser, popping open the door and sliding the cassette inside the slot. When he closed it, Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin started playing and you grinned, taking your first hit from the joint.
“Maybe some things have changed after all,” he said, pressing a knee to the bed and reaching over to take the joint from your outstretched hand.
Your eyes followed him as he brought the joint to his lips and took a hit, head tilting back to blow the smoke from his mouth and to the ceiling. You admired the curve of his jaw, his cheeks, the way his bangs fell into his eyes as he dropped his chin and looked back at you.
“I wouldn’t listen to it for anyone else,”
“Good to know,” you mused and he laid back down on the bed, head resting on your thigh. He passed the joint back to you. “I haven’t smoked with anyone else since I’ve been gone.”
“How sweet,” Eddie cooed and you reached down, palming his face and pushing his head away but he just laughed and grabbed your hand, holding onto your wrist, “you waited for little old me.”
“Yes, little old you,” you said after taking another hit, holding back a cough that tickled in the back of your throat.
Eddie dropped your wrist and rolled onto his side, cheek pressed on the space just above your knee. You handed the joint back to him and he took another hit. You felt the heat on your skin as a Rolling Stones song filled the brief silence between tracks. Your eyes begin to get heavy and you smirked. The weed was starting to kick in. It was a feeling you didn’t realize you had missed, but after so many stressful months of papers and exams, you had craved a different sense of relaxation that only smoking brought you.
Head back against the wall, you listened to the song, feeling the drums in your chest. Eddie moved again and you hummed, eyes closed,
“I missed you, Eds,”
He turned his head, kissing your leg, “I missed you too,”
The room was hazy, the music was loud, you two were stoned.
Opening your eyes, you looked down and met his gaze. His brown eyes were so round, staring up at you in awe. You reached down and touched his hair, running your fingers through the hair above his ear, the curls soft to the touch. Your thumb dragging along the skin on the side of his neck and then to his ear, you heard Eddie’s breath shutter, his eyes closed, and you watched him adjust the crotch of his pants, palm pressing down against the material.
Your mouth fell open just slightly, and then you grinned when you noticed what was happening. “Oh my god, you’re fucking hard from me playing with your hair?” You asked, amused, a little turned on.
“Seeing you again made me fucking crazy,” Eddie admitted, turning his head into your leg, kissing the space above your knee. You knew he was stoned – he wouldn’t admit it sober.
Heat grew in your lower stomach and you felt it spread across your body. The idea that you made Eddie hard, just from being there, went straight to your head. You missed hooking up with him, you missed his body. And then the rush of need grew for you, too.
You retracted your hand from Eddie and brought it to the button of your jeans, popping open the button and sliding down the zipper. Eyes on Eddie, you watched him watch you as you slid your hand into your pants, under your underwear, to touch yourself.
“Oh fuck sweetheart,” Eddie whispered, his hand going back to his crotch, grazing his cock through the material of his pants.
“I want to see you jerk off,” you told him, lip tucked between your teeth.
“Fuck,” he whispered again.
With eyes glazed over with lust, you watched as he put the joint out in an ashtray and then undone his belt and undone his pants with a single hand. The shirt he was wearing had ridden up to his stomach and you saw the trail of hair leading under his boxers as he slid his hand under his pants. You felt your mouth water at the idea of blowing him.
Eddie’s breathing was slow and deep as you watched his hand move under his jeans, his eyes locked on your crotch where he saw the movement of your hand under your pants. You rubbed at your clit harder, imagining him, imagining you.
“I thought about you while I was gone,” you told him, feeling yourself become more wet.
“Did you get off to me?”
“Yes,” you whispered, swallowing hard. You slid your hand further into your pants, dragging your fingers down to your entrance, and you slid a finger into your walls. “Fuck, I got off to you so many times - thinkin’ about how good you made me feel.” You decided to play with him more, to make Eddie just as desperate for you just as you were for him. “Do you remember the time you fucked me in the van at Skull Rock? Had me bent over the amp, making me scream your name…”
“God dammit,”
You watched as Eddie’s eyes fluttered shut, his hand moving faster under the material of his pants. You knew his cock was hard, the tip probably a pretty pink, leaking, all for you, because of you.
Toes curling in your socks, you moved your hips gently.
“I need to fuck you, need to feel you,” Eddie told you, voice muffled by your pants, and you hastily nodded in agreement.
“Please,”
You two scrambled apart, the tension too much to bear, you were both so needy, desperate to feel the other.
Eddie fumbled off the bed and to his feet, pulling his shirt over his head and to the floor, and you sat up on his mattress, pulling off your sneakers and tossing them among the ever-growing pile of clothes.
You caught a glimpse of Eddie, at the more prominent tattoos that now covered his pale skin. You thought he was hot before, but now you didn’t want to stop looking at him – his hair, his rings, his tattoos – but as he caught you staring, you quickly made yourself busy with your layers.
“You got more tattoos,” you said bluntly, sitting on the edge of the mattress to pull your jeans off, kicking them from your feet.
Eddie dropped his pants and then glanced down at his tattoos – a spider, a demon on his chest, realizing that they were new additions since you left. “Yeah, I uh- a lot of drugs were involved. We were all at Ricks, his friend offered, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Wait, Dudley?” Eddie nodded with a grin, already knowing how you would react. You threw your jeans at him and he let out a laugh at your shock of his own stupidity. “You let a guy whose nickname is The Chef tattoo you, are you insane?”
“Ah, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, sweetheart,” he cooed before helping you out of your last layer.
You giggled as you pulled the sweatshirt over your head and he grabbed at the sleeves, helping yank it off your body to toss somewhere in the room. He looked at you as you raised up to your knees on the mattress in front of him, and his hands raised to grab your face and finally kiss you. It was a timid, shy kiss at first, even though you two were normally anything but. Usually you two made out rabidly, unable to get enough of the other, but you two wanted to enjoy it for a second. You were back together for the first time in months.
You let your lips linger against his for a second longer as if giving him permission to kiss you harder, kiss you like he always did. And he knew your body so well that he caught your drift, hand gripping your jaw tighter as his lips met yours again, this time a little harsher, a little more intimate. You had missed his mouth, how he touched you, how he made you feel. You felt like a puddle for him.
Lips dragging across lips, the room felt like it grew smaller, the world spinning on without you two. You both knew you wanted to spend the night with each other, no one else, lost in the feeling of the other.
You slid a hand down between you to play with the band of his boxers and Eddie’s breath shuddered against your lips. You smirked at your effect on him and Eddie grinned at the rush of excitement pumping through his veins. He couldn’t believe you were back and this is how you wanted to spend your time. He figured you would have brought home some college asshole boyfriend, but this was much, much better.
He slid a slender arm around your waist as you laid back on the mattress, pulling him with you, body bouncing a top of his pillows and bunched up blankets. Your bodies always moved so well together, like you knew each other's next move. Eddie hovered above you, weight supported by his hands pressed into the mattress at your shoulders, but he dropped his head to place open-mouthed kisses along your neck and chest.
He knew all of your sweetest spots and your body curved into his as he kissed the space along your jaw, a small whimper leaving your mouth. His mouth was so warm on your skin, trailing from your jaw down to your collarbone, licking the tender skin there before continuing down to your chest, kissing between the valley of your breast, sucking at your chest like he had a mark to leave. The secrecy of the marks left behind drove you both crazy. The first time he left one on your hip while hooking up in the back of his van, he was so scared you would hate it, but after that you only asked him to leave more. There was something so erotic about having a mark on you from him that no one else knew about, and when he did get too eager and leave one just below your ear, you tried your best to cover it up but Steve noticed during breakfast and wouldn't stop teasing you and asking you who your latest lay was. You only shot Eddie a grin from across the lunch room.
And time told a tale, and this time that tale was that you longed to have Eddie back between your legs. Your body craved his and you wanted to feel him as close as possible, as soon as possible.
Bringing a hand up, you roughly grabbed his chin and brought his lips back to yours, kissing him hard, growing into a mess of tongues and moans into mouths.
He blindly slithered a hand between your bodies, cold rings against your warm skin until he settled between your legs, cupping your cunt, fingers pressing against the material of your underwear. He rubbed sloppy circles and watched your eyes fluttered shut in pleasure, “Eddie, fuck-,” you cursed in a whisper.
No college boy, not even yourself could get you off the way Eddie could. In the long after-school days and among the countless hours you two had spent hooking up, Eddie had taken his time to learn your body, how it reacted to everything he did, watching your movements and reactions every single time. It was like he had made it his damned job to get you off in the best way possible every time. And he always did.
You reached down to toy with the band of his briefs but Eddie stopped you, leaning back and grabbing your hand with his other free hand. Long eyelashes batting open, you stared up at him, feeling his fingers press harder against your aching center, head shaking with a teasing grin. Your jaw fell open as he rubbed harder, the material of your panties grazing your clit in such a way that tingles ran up and down your legs. It made you want him even more, hips jolting up off the bed, pressing closer to his hand.
“Hold on sweet girl, be patient for me,” he grinned, knowing exactly what he was doing. He dropped your hand to grab your leg behind the bend of your knee, bringing it up so he could slide between your legs. "You're going to have to wait for it,”
“You bastard,” your laugh was cut off abruptly as Eddie dove between your legs, his mouth replacing the work that his fingers had done, a moan replacing your words.
He mouthed at your cunt, licking at the wet patch forming before hooking a finger around the lace and pulling it to the side and pressing his tongue flat against you.
It felt like the room was on fire, your body running hot with adrenaline and lust as you were sent into overdrive. The pure eroticism of laying in his bed with his head between your legs was enough to get you off, forget all of the teasing and excitement leading up to it, you were ready to come just from the idea of it. Your body was telling you that it had been thinking about it since the moment you left city limits even when you didn't know it.
You whined as his tongue darted between your folds, moving your hips just slightly before Eddie's large and calloused hands pressed flat against your stomach, pinning you to the mattress. You needed to feel him closer, deeper. Whining, you stared at the ceiling, so in tune with your body as your core pulsed, your toes curling.
"Fuck, I missed your fucking mouth,"
Lifting your leg just slightly, Eddie pressed his shoulders forward, flush against your thighs as he devoured you, nose against you as he wrapped his lips around your clit. He felt you jolt, back arching off the bed. "Did you miss me or miss fucking me?" His breath was hot against your core before he dropped his head back down, tongue teasing at your entrance.
You choked on air as you sucked in a deep breath, "both,"
Pleasure began to build and build in your lower stomach, flames of heating licking across your body. A hand shot down and you touched the back of Eddie's head before sinking your fingers into his untamed curls, holding his head closer to you as you fought the urge to press your hips down against his mouth. Stars danced across your eyes. You pulled at his hair and his hips rutted against the bed, moaning into the wetness he helped create. You were both so lost in each other, in the moment.
One of his hands slid up from your stomach to play with your chest, thumb rubbing over your nipple and palming at your breast. You placed your hand over his and felt adrenaline shoot through you.
"God, fuck," you cursed. Nothing said would actually do justice to how you felt, overflowing with pleasure.
You were about to say something – moan his name, tell him how much you missed this, tell him that you were almost there, when the next song on the tape played. It was the same one from the Hideout, the same one he had dedicated to you earlier, and you swore you heard him laugh, because you did, too.
"Are you fucking laughing?" Eddie asked through another laugh.
"You are too!" You gasped playfully, completely forgetting the edge you were just teetering on. "Shut up,"
"You shut up," Eddie shot back.
You tugged gently at his hair, hearing him hum in response, and you grinned, "get up here, I need you,"
Eddie shifted, pressing a kiss to your hip before crawling back up, meeting you in the middle for another kiss as you guided him to lay on top of you.
"Just need you," your words slurred against his mouth before kissing him harder and then muttered, "missed you on top of me," he pressed himself closer to you, finally allowing you to feel his weight, and your body grew needier.
You reached down and this time Eddie allowed you to slide your hand into his briefs, to wrap your hand around his cock. It made your head spin. You had hoped that he knew exactly just how wound up the sight of him made you. Wrapping your fingers around him, you jerked him off, feeling him grow harder and harder in your palm. He closed his eyes, forehead dropping to yours, and moved his hips languidly with your hand;
“Fuck, oh god,”
"Yeah?" You asked through a whisper, nose nestling against his. You watched his reactions, the way his jaw slacked with pleasure, how his stomach flexed, you knew he was already holding back on you.
"Yeah," he nodded, tone stained, trying not to tumble over his own approaching edge that he felt coming. "I need to fuck you, driving me insane,"
"Please," you whispered quickly.
Eddie immediately pulled back from you, knowing that if he didn't, he was going to come right then and there. Reaching down, he tugged down his briefs and you pulled your hands back, unhooking your bra, and then untangled your legs from his, bringing your knees up to pull off your last layer. You tossed your bra and underwear to the side of the bed, eventually joining the others on the floor.
“My purse-” you motioned off the bed and Eddie looked at you quizzically for a beat, “I have condoms in my purse.”
He didn’t even question it, leaning over the edge of the bed and fishing out a condom from inside. He tore open the corner of the package with his teeth and rolled it on, tossing the rest of the wrapper on his bedside table. You watched him move over to you, you raised a knee and let him back between your thighs, your legs winding around his hips.
You looked down at Eddie as he grabbed the base of his cock and lined his hips up with yours before sinking into your cunt, drawing out pleased hums as you both thought the same thing – finally. So many sleepless nights, moments daydreaming about the feeling for the both of you. He pressed his hips in further and you felt your body grow full of him, feeling him to the hilt.
“Yes, god, yes,” you whispered.
Eddie raised his head, looking down at you with a particular smirk that you knew was wicked. He knew exactly what he was doing. Placing all his weight into his knees, he withdrew his hips before rolling forward again, your head lolling back against the bed in pleasure as he began to thrust in and out of you.
“Just like that,”
“Yeah?” He teased, throwing it back at you. You dug your nails into his arm almost like a warning of his tone.
“Yeah,” you replied through a shaky breath. He felt good, too good.
You focused on your body and its reactions, how it jolted every time his hips met yours, how your walls clenched around him. He picked up the rhythm of his hips, pumping in and out of you. You felt the tip of his cock rub perfectly in the sweet spot in your walls, causing your legs to tremble around him.
You listened to the noises he was making, too. He was a guitarist but fuck was he vocal.
“You feel so fucking good,” he said, eyes locked on yours before pressing a kiss hotly to your lips, tongue delving into your mouth. You reached up and held his face, body moving with his as he continued to thrust deeply into you like he was desperate to feel more of you. His jaw flexed in your hand as he kissed you, and with your other hand holding onto his side, you could feel every muscle in his back as he moved, rippling under your palms.
Eddie reached down and hooked an arm under your knee, bringing it up to your chest, emitting a sharp moan from you as you felt him even deeper, his pelvis flush against yours, his cock filling you entirely. You felt yourself almost purr at the sensations, feeling like your entire body was tingling as he began to move his hips in shorter, harder thrusts.
“Look at me,” he told you. You quickly batted your eyes open more to look up at him, his big brown eyes, his guitar pick necklace dangling in your face. He looked down at you as if he was studying you, your reactions, and he knew exactly how you felt. “I fucking missed this,” he chuckled as if he wasn’t buried inside of you.
You nodded in agreement, nose dragging against his, “I did too, god, I need to come home more often,” you made out through whimpers as your body moved with his.
His thrusts became shallower, faster, the pressure in your lower stomach growing as he rutted against you, his pelvis hitting your clit at such a perfect pace. It felt like there was a coil in your body winding tighter and tighter, tempting to burst from the tension. The metal bed frame rattled against the wall.
You dropped your hands to the bed, clutching the sheets in fists, nails still digging into your palms as you gripped the material tight.
“Fuck Eddie,” you moaned just under the music as the tape changed tracks, "don't stop,"
At your curse, he pressed his hips against yours, grinding up into you, the tip of his cock pressing against that sweet spot that had you squirming under him. Your heart was pounding against your chest, the tension in your stomach on the skirts of exploding.
“So good, so good,” he repeated, breath fanning across your face.
“I’m gonna cum,” you told him bluntly, raising your other knee up, body drawing together in tension, running alight, "please, Eddie,"
“Fuck,” Eddie dropped his forehead to press against your shoulder, and you knew he was close, too. “Be good for me, sweetheart, cum for me,”
His body pressed flat against yours, his hips snapped forward once more and white heat flashed over your body, head to toe, as you came around him with a cry. Your body clung to his, arms wrapping around his shoulder, thighs quaking around his hips. The tension in your stomach released and pleasure crashed over you like a wave.
Eddie withdrew his hips just slightly before thrusting languidly into you again, again, and then again before he came, too, spilling into the condom while still inside of you. His body relaxed and caved against yours. You kissed at his neck, leaving slight traces of what remained of your lipstick on his skin as he hummed into your shoulder between stammered words of relief.
Led Zeppelin played loudly, the walls rattling, but you and Eddie laid in silence, sweaty, chests heaving as you both panted, on the come down.
You felt like your body was on fire, lungs burning as you held your breath when he tilted his chin up to kiss you again. You tasted nicotine, the faint smoke on his mouth, head spinning with all the sensations that wracked your body. The kiss was slow, sweet, the type of kiss that usually came before the fuck instead of right after.
Nestling your nose against his, you hummed, pressing your head up, kissing him harder. There had been a lot of pent up tension, emotions in the last few months that were now spilling out once you two were back together. He pecked your lips again before pulling away.
“How was that welcome back gift?” Eddie teased, crawling back.
“Very well received, if I must say,” you laughed, looking up at him as he leaned to sit on his calves, “are you free tomorrow?"
He patted your thigh. “My schedule is empty as long as you’re in town, sweetheart,"