Stevehharringtcns·:

zccming​:

max narrowed her eyes while eddie showcased his outfit for her. she nodded, hand thoughtfully on her chin. “i don’t know, eddie.” she sighed as if she had bad news, then reached out and smacked her hand onto his shoulder, “you’re looking like the spitting image of callahan these days.” max grinned, then stepped back, crossed her arms, and resumed examining the storefront. max knew it wasn’t going to open if all she did was stand there and before she got the chance to sit on it some more, eddie was running through the inciting events with her. she didn’t deny the way he framed it. in fact, max nodded along, until she just had to interject, “okay? have you ever had karen wheeler look at you funny? it gets brutal after like…” she muttered a couple numbers under her breath, “five times.” 

there was an easiness that came in interacting with eddie. most of the time, max had to force herself to listen to and engage with other people. when it came to eddie though, she just did it, like it was built in. if she was inching anywhere near an edge of truly snapping in the face of this inconvenience, eddie’s laugh pushed her about fifty steps back. she gratefully accepted his hair pin, “yeah yeah. so beneath me.” max started for the back of the building. an exit without insult or profanity could be chalked up to a thank you from max. with eddie’s help and the guarantee of a few beers now on her side, she’d consider this outing a score. 

max took a grand total of fifteen minutes to round up all she needed to avoid mrs. wheeler’s stare of death before crossing the street back over to eddie’s van. she tossed her bag and then her skateboard inside without much care, then followed in suit. “we got like an hour before we should show up.” max announced, “we could go now but…” she sucked in on her teeth, “i don’t think we want be in the first wave of guests.” it was an annoying truth, but if max arrived to the wheeler household with eddie munson before the droves of people piled in, well, about a quarter of that target audience wouldn’t bother coming at all if they caught word. not needing to explain that, she flatly posed the next step, “so, how are we going to kill an hour?”

+++

he scrunched his nose, grimaced. “callahan?” listen, he’d heard a lot of insults in his life but this? and coming from max? “wow, that’s, - that’s the worst name i’ve ever been called. and isn’t that, like, before your time? aren’t you, like, twelve or something?” at her comment about wheeler he just shrugged with his palms held out. he’d never met the woman, didn’t usually hang about that part of town, but the way max described her - well, eddie wasn’t sure if inviting himself to that cookout was such a good idea after all. but fuck it. “the hell did you do that made mrs wheeler stare at you funny five times, max? that sounds more like a you problem if you ask me.”

and off she went, eddie looked around, made sure that no one around had seen her sneak off before he went back to his van. resisted the urge to turn up the music because they really didn’t need to draw any attention to themselves. he left the doors to the van wide open, sat side-ways in the driver’s seat, legs dangling out the door. then max returned with her secured goods, he lazily turned his head and watched as she climbed into the passenger seat. “sweet haul”, he said and nodded his head towards the stolen yield. “what did you get?”

he blew a raspberry. “an hour.”, he mused, fingers drumming on the dashboard. he’d been ready to slam his keys into the ignition and speed off but now, here they were, in the middle of downtown hawkins, after robbing a store on memorial day, with an hour to kill. eddie shifted so he sat properly in his seat, pulled the door shut and rolled the window down. “i don’t know, man. we could, like, chill in the sun somewhere? or hey, maybe the arcade’s open today?” he shrugged. “anywhere but here, dude. your choice. your wish is my command.”

stevehharringtcns·:

.

steve thought about the person who he was back in high school and he let out a sigh. he definitely hadn’t been fair to eddie or to anyone, really. he wished he had realized that sooner and maybe things would have been different. “i probably didn’t, i’m sorry…” he said with a sigh, although he knew that king steve was long gone, only the nickname staying behind - even if people didn’t use it as much now. he thought how things could have changed if he had always been the person he was now during high school. but it wasn’t good to dwell on the past, he decided to put his focus on the present, specially when he was kissing eddie munson on his bed. he thought what tommy and carol would think of this for a few moments, but then he shook it off his mind. “i barely slayed the dragon, but i’m glad that… everything’s good now.” he said with a small smile.

he kept kissing the other on the lips, their bodies close together as steve kept his arm around eddie’s waist, pulling him up occasionally to bring him into another kiss. he even dared to break the kiss for a couple of seconds to kiss eddie’s neck momentarily, before pulling away and diving back into the other’s lips, closing his eyes as he took the moment in. he thought he could do this for the rest of the night, but they needed to sleep sooner or later.

feeling the other’s tongue on his bottom lip as he pulled away from the kiss sent a chill down his spine as he stared down at the other and how he looked. just looking at eddie looking like that made steve’s heart skip a beat. he had left him like that.

“i…” he said, before clearing his throat and shaking his head as he looked down at eddie. “i’d love to continue, but…” he said, as he reached up with his hand to move eddie’s hair from his forehead in a loving gesture, as he looked down at him. “i work tomorrow… and you were pretty tired, so… maybe we should get some sleep.” he said as he blushed slightly. he was pretty sure that the two could keep doing this for the rest of the night, but maybe they should stop before anything else happened.

listening to the other say that he wanted to keep kissing him, steve didn’t waste his time as he dove down for another kiss, deepening it instantly before pulling away. “we… can continue this some other time. are you free tomorrow? i get off at 5.” he asked simply.

+++

eddie felt like he was floating, ever sense flooded with steve. the smell of his cologne and his laundry detergent, the feeling of his hair as he softly carded his fingers through that ‘best feature’ of his. he had his arms wrapped tight around the other’s neck, humming into the kiss, a pleased sound. soon replaced by a low whimper caught in the back of his throat as steve focused his attention on his neck for a moment and eddie’s grip on his hair tightened ever so slightly.

yeah, he could do this all night. all day, all week, really. and he suddenly thought to himself that coming back to hawkins for the summer was just about the best decision he could’ve made. did absoultely nothing in terms of getting over his silly little crush on steve - because now that he’d had a taste of what it was like to have him, eddie wasn’t sure if he was able to go without it again. the thought of this just being an experiment on steve’s part, or a sleep-drunken mistake, had his somtach in knots. but then again, whatever it was, he really was simply glad it had happened, no matter how they’d gotten there.

he chased after steve’s lips as they pulled back, eyes wide, just ... staring up at him. up at him - eddie hadn’t even noticed, sometime during their make out session - god, he felt like a teenager again - they must’ve shifted, with steve now towering above him. steve brushed a few strands of hair off his forehead and eddie nearly choked, shivering at the contact. a gesture far too ... caring and loving, not something eddie was used to. 

he nodded. “yeah. yeah, sure, i get it.”, he smiled, lop-sided, somewhat content with this being the end of it, maybe the only taste of steve he’d ever get, just as steve pulled down to connect their lips in another kiss. he pulled him down, flush against his chest, fingers clawing into steve’s shirt. his heart jumped at the .. .suggestion ? and he nodded, eagerly, let go of steve and put some distance between them. “i - yeah, that sounds - yeah. perfect.”, he grinned, shifted onto his side, pulling the covers over him. “i’ll  see you at family video at five, then. night, stevie.”

murray-baumans·:

who: murray & @eddiemcnson·

where: the music center

After the semi-successful investigation at the border, Murray decided to treat himself to a relaxing night in– he’d cook a lasagna, pour some wine, and unwind to some jazz. In particular, he was looking to replace his George Benson record; he’d discovered earlier that day that he’d left it in Illinois. So, Murray found himself a the Music Center, which must have been run by a middle schooler because the organization was completely senseless.

Approaching who he assumed to be an employee, Murray cleared his throat to make his presence known. “Excuse me, could you point me in the direction of your jazz collection?” he asked, investigating the button’s on the young man’s jacket. “You a metalhead?” he wondered aloud.

+++

the music center was one of his more frequented places, eddie made sure to stop by at least once when he came back to hawkins. though vastly different from the record store he worked at in chicago - which was more specialised on alternative music and the sort - he enjoyed browsing through the stacks of vinyls and tapes, spending time rummaging through the bargain bin. it reminded him of his childhood and early adolescence. really, eddie had spent hours on end in the store, some days only leaving if he was explicitly asked to do so.

today, however, he’d simply come in to take his mind off things. off the ‘tragedy at benny’s diner’, more specifically. he wanted to browse through some new releases, see if they got any heavy stuff at all. drop by to make sure that cole was okay, too - they’d left things on a rather....awkward note, too, having had their encounter in the mall cut short by max’s arrest. 

“sorry?”, eddie’s head popped up from behind the shelf, he threw the other a puzzled look. eyes narrowing as the man in front of him mentioned the words ‘jazz’ and ‘collection’. “uh, i don’t....work here, man. sorry.”

eddie stared at him for a moment, wondering if his question was, perhaps, a trap of sorts. and because, quite frankly, he was an odd looking fella. “uh, yeah. sure am. what gave it away?”, he asked jokingly and laughed, gesturing down at his buttons.

zccming·:

.

if there were any men that max hated nearly as much as billy and his dad, they were named callahan and powell of hawkins p.d. her interrogation with them in the spring of ‘86 never strayed far from her mind. max recalled how they chose her first, probably thinking she was the weakest link. they must have thought it would be so easy to plop her into a chair and that she would tuck herself away into a corner at the first sign of intimidation, that she was merely some stupid, meek, little girl for them to scare and trick into fessing up. well, they were wrong, and frankly, not very intimidating either. from the moment she exited that room, max vowed to herself that if she made it out of this vecna bullshit alive, she’d make them pay. 

she made good on that promise for the years following that, wreaking minor nuisances and unleashing dishonorable displays at any chance she could. and she didn’t do it just for herself, she did it for eddie. while she might have initially bought into the idea that he could’ve been some psycho killer, her opinion of him changed swiftly and drastically. eddie didn’t do it and he didn’t deserve the complications from having it pinned on him either. this rivalry of sorts came to ahead earlier in the summer when callahan pulled one over on her by arresting her at the blue quarry mall. it hadn’t been fun while it was presently happening, but now that hawkins p.d was doing this shit to eddie again, giving them that grief felt worth it. 

max sat across from eddie, shoving the bowl of cereal into his hand and clutching her own close to her chest with no intention of eating. instead, she silently watched him, brows furrowed as she looked him over for any signs that she might actually set hawkins p.d ablaze when the dust settled. at the same time he spoke, max did too, “i’m gonna fucking get them.” she said, voice feeling raw and unfamiliar in the back of her throat. max got mad all the time, she’d learned to deal with it, but rarely did her rage scare her or feel out of control like this. she wondered that as she felt the aftershocks of what had happened at the carnival, she skipped ahead to the anger stage of grief, that this was misplaced. maybe she was upset, sure, that was always a possibility. or maybe, it was the best she knew how to show eddie she cared, how sorry she was that this had happened. she didn’t know and didn’t plan on figuring it out. 

poking at her cereal with her spoon, max mulled over eddie’s question she had spoken in time with. finally, she answered, “i’m alright, steve made me get stitches.” she said his name warmly, flashing it like a lighthouse, a beacon to eddie to indicate that not only was he alright, but so was steve. that was important to her to convey. “i busted it on some mirrors…” max added, then shrugged as if to say no big deal. it was a big deal, but everything was right now. quietly and flatly, max reminded eddie, “you didn’t answer my question….” a pause, “how fucked are you?” to max, it was her way of wanting to know how he was holding up and what was happening on his end. 

+++

eddie stared thoughtlessly into his bowl, tired eyes searching for something, he didn’t know what. something to say, maybe. something to think about other than shock, horror, disaster. life and death. the upside down. vecna. he weakly pushed the bowl a bit further away from him, like a defiant, sulky child. eating was the last thing on his mind. then again, eddie couldn’t even pin point one singular string of thought - it was a mess up there. more so than usual. it felt like the world was spinning. there wasn’t a fibre in his being that wasn’t aching or nauseaous.

he didn’t quite register max’s words, they accompanied the faint beating of his heart and loud rushing and ringing in his ears,  but there was ‘alright’ and ‘steve and that’ snapped him out of his momentary trance, drew a shaky, relieved exhale from his lips. “you’re good? you’re okay. you’re - you’re alright.” eddie whispered, more to himself, nodded. 

a couple of beats passed, the room silent except for their labored breathing and the sound his knee made as it the coffee table every now and then. he wanted to cry, he desperately needed to, to sob his heart out and draw max into a bone crushing hug. staying in the embrace until one of them would start whispering empty, reasuring promises of how ‘everything was going to be okay’. but eddie was exhausted, and ... god, he felt so... resigned to his fate. he barely managed to muster up the strength to meet her eye.

“i can’t do this.” was what eventually broke the silence. voice barely above a whisper, a fatalistic tone to it. “i can’t ... i can’t have everybody thinking i’m a monster again. hunting me down, i - no. “ he gave a weak shake of his head, drew in a ragged breath. “i’m not - i can’t run anymore. i can’t- i can’t do it. not again.”

zccming·:

WHO: max mayfield & @eddiemcnson· WHAT: eddie is worried and max is suspicious!!! WHERE: the hawk movie theater (june 19th-ish)

having a summer job was maybe one of the most mind numbing things max mayfield ever had to endure, and that was saying something considering she’d tried to sit through the boys’ campaigns once or twice. it wasn’t so bad though, when she didn’t have any customers at the ticket counter, she could usually get away with reading a magazine or two, and if it was really slow, she’d even pop on her walkman, then kick back and relax. 

this afternoon just so happened to be one of those days where max mayfield looked like an extra from any high school movie set ever. she chewed gum and blew bubbles until they popped while she feasted her eyes on the february edition of Right On! magazine, and listened to iggy pop’s Lust for Life album on her walkman. every second she spent overstimulating herself to avoid remembering what happened at the border the other night was a heavenly illusion that life right now was good. 

her dreamscape was shattered at the sight of eddie approaching the ticket counter. minorly confused, max slid her feet off the ticket counter, set her magazine down, and slipped her headphones down around her neck, “eddie?” she squinted, “the fuck are you doing here?” max reached for her magazine again, then rolled her eyes, “if there was anything good out, i would have told you.”

+++

nearly two days since hanging out with nancy wheeler had turned into a supernatural investigation followed by arson and eddie had not known a moments peace since. had barely slept, aside from passing out from exhaustion for a couple of hours, the events of the night kept replaying in his head. and while he wasn’t exactly sure just what it was they’d stumbled across, eddie knew one thing.

it was back. that weird, creepy alien-y part of hawkins was back, the impending doom looming threatingly over the town, turning the air sour. it was back and eddie wished desperately that he was anywhere but hawkins, indiana. anywhere but the epicentre of evil. he couldn’t do it again, fuck now. his need to not run away had nearly gotten him killed last time around, so this time eddie was going to fucking book it if push came to shove.

last time. vecna. the name still sent icy shivers down his spine, his stomach dropped at the thought of someone else who nearly hadn’t made it out alive. and without a second thought eddie went and grabbed his keys, hopped into the van and drove. he knew max wasn’t home, he basically knew her schedule by heart. and as much as he didn’t want to bother her at work this couldn’t wait.

 overwhelmed with a desperate need to make sure the other was safe, a feeling usually only reserved for siblings, he jumped out of the car, approached the ticket counter fast. a wave of relief rushed through him - she was there, safe. she was okay, by the looks of it.

“shut up.”, eddie snapped, brows drawn together, he leaned forward on the counter. “i know this might seem, like, .... weird but where were you, like, two days ago? notice anything weird since? “

where: the hospital

what: a sleep-deprived, traumatized eddie visits an unconcious steve

who: @stevehharringtcns​ + eddie

despite max’s insistence to wait until the morning, get some shut eye and straighten himself out, eddie found himself wandering the hall so hawkins’ hospital. the circles under his eyes darker then his messy, tangled and frizzy hair, a worry wrinkle on his forehead that hadn’t gone away since he’d seen jack foreman knocking steve out. it was tempting to say that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this awful, but that would be an outright lie. oh, eddie remembered. only then, the roles were reversed - with him waking up in a hospital bed, though chained to it, and steve probably wandering the halls, pacing up and down the corridors. 

he blinked rapidly, his eyes felt weirdly dry and strained from the harsh led lights above him him. max had told him what room steve was in, and so far eddie had managed to successfully sneak by various nurses and guards unnoticed. finding the room was another question, eddie could barely make out the numbers on the doors clearly, and in his sleep-deprived states, all corridors looked the same to him. like an endless maze.

another left turn, then a right, eddie was right back where he started and every step was nauseating, he felt heavy, every inhale getting more and more difficult. so when he finally reached steve’s room he didn’t even bother looking left and right to see if he was beinf watched, eddie bursted through the door,  letting it fall shut with a semi-loud ‘bang’. 

lips trembling as his eyes settled on steve. laying in his bed, his hospital bed, with all sorts of monitors hooked up, beeping deafeningly loud. eddie exhaled shakily, drew his brows together tightly, he swallowed as he approached the other’s bedside. fingers absent-mindedly ghosting over the bruises - burns, more like - that officer callahan’s handcuffs had left on his wrist. “.....steve?” voice meek, eddie nearly choked on a sob. there was time to cry about all of this later, he scolded himself. first he had to make sure that steve was ok. “can you hear me?”

steve & company - 001/???

001 - the fruity four @rcbinbvckleys ; @eddiemcnson ; @backtowheeler

zccming·:

WHO: max mayfield & @eddiemcnson· WHAT: max checks in with eddie. WHERE: forest hills trailer park.

if max had to guess, she’d say she got a solid half hour of sleep in her twenty-four hours at the hospital. and that had been when she was waiting to get her hands stitched up per steve’s request. eventually, she checked on everyone one last time for the night, then peeled out of the hospital and straight for the trailer park. she was banking on eddie having been released and if he hadn’t yet? she was fully prepared to burn hawkins p.d to the fucking ground. it was like as soon as max ticked one concern off her post-disaster checklist, five more got added to the bottom. she didn’t have enough sleep on her side to keep up with it all, but she was trying. and in all fairness? it got infinitely easier to do when she ran out of tears to cry at around five o’clock in the evening that same day. 

skating from the hospital to the trailer park was a fucking trip and a half. max had learned that the hard way back in ‘86 when she stubbornly insisted she could still skateboard home with a broken arm. luckily for her, a car full of her friends who knew she was being stupid about the whole thing followed close behind to pick her up when she gave up less than halfway into the journey. max’s hands might have been bandaged, and her mind might’ve been a little broken following the warped record of what happened in the past twenty-four hours, but this time, she made it the whole way. it was the one place it made sense to go to first, share the news about steve.

carelessly, she chucked her board somewhere in the yard on her arrival, and willed her tired body to sprint up the steps and bang on the door. when eddie opened it, relief washed over her as she hugged him and refused to let go for a long minute, a minute where she didn’t think about how bad it was out there, and live in the space where she was happy she hadn’t lost another brother. when max stepped back she croaked up at him, “how fucked are you?” then she nodded a little, “don’t sugar coat it, munson.” she demanded. standing still, max suddenly felt jittery and couldn’t wait for his answer before interrupting him again, “wait, first, sit down.” she started barking orders the moment she got out of the house of mirrors, and hadn’t stopped since. figuring eddie hadn’t had the sense to eat, because she hadn’t, she beelined for the kitchen and got to fixing them…bowls of cereal. while she was digging in the fridge for milk, she called out to him, “you can answer now.” it took her about five minutes after that to sit down with their bowls that were most likely going to remain untouched. 

+++

despite his various run ins with the law over the years, eddie had only ever been arrested once before, when some nosy nelly had caught him with a joint in gareth's garage freshman year, and had promptly reported them. moving to chicago had made him clean up his act, or rather hide his act more proficiently. he wasn't dealing anymore, hadn't been since graduation, and when the cops once again raided one of the bars he frequented he was the first to pluck that bandana from his back pocket and book it.

returning to hawkins for the summer, eddie had been prepared for lots of things. dirty looks burning into his back, sneers, maybe even a couple pushes and shoves here and there. but he'd expected to be relatively safe, seeing as he'd planned to lay low, anyway. and now? now it was like '86 all over again. the upside down had undeniably snuck its way back into their lives, eddie felt the effects weigh heavy on his mind as he absentmindedly rubbed the burns that officer callahan's handcuffs had left on his wrists.

just like 86, when he'd woken up chained to a hospital bed until hopper and some dubious government agents had come through with a cover story, clearing him of all charges. just like 86, when he'd looked up from where he'd been pushed to the ground by callahan, he'd caught the curious bystander's looks. accusatory glances as he was manhandled to the back of the police car. 'that's him', they seemed to whisper among themselves, 'that's that deadbeat satan worshipper that killed all those kids' 86. no wonder he's responsible for this, too. '

he'd been home for approximately an hour or two when max had come knocking at his door. eddie hadn't slept a wink and it showed, lids threatening to flutter shut at any given moment, palms nearly bloody from how he'd nervously scratched at them for hours. when max had come knocking he'd simply opened the door, no 'hello', no 'thank fuck you're okay', not even a nod, he'd stepped aside to let her in. closed the door, then followed her order to sit down, the sofa felt weird underneath him, a sharp contrast to the rough, hard bench in the prison cell.

his eyes focused on nothing in particular, eddie coughed, mouth feeling awfully dry. when was the last time he'd had a sip of water? max's hands carrying the bowls came into view, he frowned. "what happened to your hand? are you hurt?"