Switching Bodies - Tumblr Posts
Freaky Friday - A Stranger Things Story (Part 1)
Part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Word Count: 3.5k
Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader, Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader, Eddie and Steve (Enemies to Friends)
Summary: Eddie thinks that Steve has everything in life handed to him on a silver platter (including his new girlfriend who Eddie has a crush on). And Steve just can't believe that the kids look up to Eddie the Freak, or that he lives his life without giving a single fuck.
Must be nice. But you know what they say, the grass is always greener.
Warnings/Themes: AU with no Upside Down. Body swapping, dark magic/alchemy, unrequited love--some crushes at least, Babysitter Steve, No Upside Down means slightly still King Steve, unresolved feelings, manipulation/deception, Reader gets a nickname (Honey), no Y/N if I can help it, no smut in Part 1 but liable to be in other chapters
Note: After a very hot and fast suggestion by @shiftingtherain, this mini-series was born. And instead of working on Store Manager Verse like I wanted to, here we are. This part is a little shorter...it's the intro, sue me. Next few parts will be a tad longer.
Credit for the header partially goes to me for the design and the logistics but I was tired, so I may have borrowed gifs from @emziess and Netflix itself as a jumping off point (with permission from Emzies and Netflix is a corporation so they can rot). I can only do so much guys, I also had to write this thing too.
You can find my masterlist here.
Please do not interact if you are not 18+.
Enjoy!
If Eddie never saw Steve Harrington again in his life, it would still be too soon.
He didn't always indulge in rentals from Family Video—if it was too cold and wet to have band practice in Gareth's garage, or if he was having an especially bad week at school, or if he needed something a little more realistic than the illustrations of Heavy Metal magazine to help him satisfy his needs—but today just had that special feel to it.
He'd gotten a B on his math test, Rick had been feeling a little under the weather and let Eddie make the rounds to his usuals for a sweet little cut, and he had found a dusty old book about alchemy and occultism at the library that was going to help him put the finishing touches on tomorrow night's Hellfire session.
For all of that, Eddie thought a little reward was in order.
A little Dark Crystal, a little pizza from Lou's, a little weed...he'd be having the best Thursday night.
Except...
For the past twenty minutes, he'd pretended to hem and haw over the selection of movies just so he could glare across the store at the counter, where Steve stood, flirting and making grandiose promises, with you.
He burned with jealousy, and God, it took almost everything in him not to gag as Steve reached across the counter to slyly hold your hand. And everything else for his heart not to break as you just let it happen.
Eddie didn't know how or when or why this started—when Harrington had gotten his claws into you and how he had managed to charm his way into your heart—when it should have been Eddie instead.
Eddie'd had a crush on you for years but had always been too nervous to do anything about it.
You were a year younger than him, and friends with his pal Mickey's younger sister, so he'd seen you around quite a bit. Smart and funny and pretty; maybe not as unpopular as Eddie was, but certainly not in the running for homecoming court or whatever other social hierarchies were in place at Hawkins High either. He figured...you know, maybe once he got to senior year he'd get the courage. Maybe take you to prom or something; who wouldn't want to go out with a senior?
But he'd gotten the notice from Higgins that he wouldn't be graduating with the rest of the Class of '84 and it really put a damper on his plans.
He had been hopeful again the following year, actually had a few classes with you and sat with you for partner work when no one else wanted to work with him, when they laughed at him. You weren't even afraid to go up to him in the cafeteria to ask a question, or walk with him in the hall if you had to go in the same direction for your next class. You'd talk about assignments mostly, but he savored every little fact he could learn about you. What books you'd been reading, the fact that you watched Svengoolie on Saturday nights—just like he did—or that you'd had some squabble with Mickey's sister over a scrunchie of all things and were no longer speaking.
But Eddie knew how bad his grades were—somehow even worse than the year before—and aside from the work you did with him, he knew it wasn't gonna be enough for him to graduate. So he wasn't gonna put himself in the position for you to laugh in his face—not that you would but...just in case you did—by asking you out.
He thought you would disappear from his life after you graduated. Get the hell out of Hawkins the way everyone else wanted to. But no. You took a few classes at the community college and worked the dinner shift at Benny's a few nights a week. You'd been there every Tuesday night, when he and the guys grabbed food after their gig at the Hideout. The usual booth reserved, drinks already poured by the time they sat down, and their usual orders already written in your little order pad.
You usually gave him extra whipped cream on his slice of cherry pie too.
The guys always urged him to ask for your number...but he never did. How could he? Even if you were stuck in this town the same way he was...he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
And now...here you were, listening to Harrington talk about some great surprise he had planned for your third date the next day.
Eddie wondered why you hadn't screamed in outrage when Steve mentioned how much Nancy Wheeler had liked it when he took her to this mystery place. He would have definitely expected you to at least flinch at the mention of his ex-girlfriend's name.
"It sounds really great," you said instead, smiling and nodding. "I get out of class at 3 on Fridays...should I be here around 4?"
"4 is perfect, honey," Steve grinned.
Eddie couldn't stand to hear whatever sickeningly sweet goodbye you both would come up with so he just grabbed whatever tape was in front of him and approached the counter. You and Steve both flinched when Eddie slammed his selections down on the counter to be checked out.
“Uh…I’ll see you tomorrow then. Bye Steve,” you muttered, eyeing Eddie with a half-smile that felt a bit sad. “Bye Eddie.”
"Bye honey."
“Bye honey,” Eddie mocked once you were out the door, then turned back to Steve. “You gonna try and make goo goo eyes at me next Harrington? I don’t have all day.”
“Jesus Munson. What’s up your ass?” Steve scoffed, grabbing the tapes.
“I’m just trying to get my videos and go.” Eddie rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Not really interested in the kind of customer service you're trying to provide."
Steve wondered what the likelihood of getting fired would be, if he just punched that smug look right off of Munson's face.
Keith hated the guy too, he always left the Adult section looking like a mess. Maybe Steve would get a promotion instead.
For years Eddie roamed around Hawkins being a general menace with his gaggle of friends. Causing trouble, shouting at people, making faces at old ladies. He’d gotten “taken in” to the police station one too many times but always seemed to make it out without actually being arrested. Which baffled Steve; Eddie was a drug dealer for crying out loud.
And yeah, Steve had even asked him to come and deal at a party or two but…people like that were bad. Simple as that.
Even after all of that, after you got past the “bad boy” persona….he was a fucking nerd. He wasn’t even cool like the bad boys in movies were. Steve felt like someone was tricking him the first time he had walked past the Hellfire Club’s table in the cafeteria. For all the leather and chains and band tees—all the talk of satanic rituals and blood sacrifices—there was sure a lot of talk about elves and…and bards and Star Wars.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Steve that the kids would flock to Eddie by the time they made it to Hawkins High.
But it had been. A huge shock.
His unexpected little gaggle of morons…weren’t really his anymore.
Steve had dropped Dustin off on the first day of school and said “don’t get into any trouble.” Even made Robin promise to keep an eye out for him. He expected the kid to…join the mathletes or something. Get roped in with the science nerds.
But by the end of the week, the kids were all clamoring about how they would need to reschedule movie nights with Steve so they could go to Hellfire club with Eddie.
Steve couldn’t understand it. Eddie was a freak, a punk, some good for nothing…and now the kids were suddenly following him like he was some sort of prophet. Spreading the word of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
See? Steve could do the nerd talk too when he wanted...thanks to Dustin.
Who, much to Steve's annoyance, was apparently Eddie's biggest fan. The guy could do no wrong in Dustin's eyes, and it really irked Steve.
Will and Lucas were spending Saturdays at the library—not for homework, but for research because apparently Eddie really liked incorporating mythology into his campaigns. (Whatever that meant.) Mike was growing his hair out because "Eddie's hair was cool.” What about Steve, whose literal nickname was The Hair? Shit, he'd even seen Eddie give Max a ride to school on a few occasions when he was late dropping Robin off. And he knew Max and her mom had been having a hard time since her step-dad skipped town and Billy...
Steve knew some of the town gossip about Eddie was just a bunch of bullshit...but if Max Mayfield was cool with him?
Yeah, he just couldn't help but be suspicious of the guy.
Regardless, the sooner Steve could get him out of the store, the better his night was gonna get.
...actually...
"That's gonna be $10." Steve announced dryly.
"Woah, $10?!" Eddie scoffed. "I have a membership."
"Since when?" Steve asked, hands immediately landing on his hips.
"I use one every time I'm in here."
"Yeah you use Reefer Rick's."
"So?"
"New policy," Steve lied, hoping it would get Eddie out of his hair for a good while. "No sharing memberships outside of your family. Last I checked, your last name isn't Lipton. So you either cough up the $25 for a new membership Munson, or the $10 for your rental. What's it gonna be?"
Eddie grumbled and dug his wallet out of his pocket, slamming the money on the counter.
"Any candy?" Steve asked mockingly before grabbing the cash.
Eddie grabbed the tape and grumbled under his breath as he exited the store.
Yeah, Steve wasn't gonna be dealing with him any time soon.
For a second though, as he went to start processing returns, he wondered...
If Eddie was in some ritualistic cult...what kind of curse could he possibly put on me?
But that was a dumb thought to have.
Eddie's night just went down hill from the minute he left Family Video.
He didn't notice that they'd given him the wrong pizza at Lou's so now he was stuck with some specialty veggie pie with broccoli on it, the tape he had grabbed indiscriminately had been some artsy foreign romance crap, and just now he'd just spilled Dr. Pepper all over his Hellfire notebook.
"Fuck," he shouted as it spilled over the side of the coffee table and onto his sock-clad feet. He couldn't give a shit about the carpet, he could even ignore his wet socks, but his notebook. Weeks of work, planning and toiling over the most sadistic campaign.
He liked to keep all of the notes of Hellfire's completed campaigns, a sort of...record for future kids to look back on and reference. And now this specific masterpiece would be lost to memory.
He cleaned everything up as best he could before making a quick trip back to his room for an extra notebook or something he could use to salvage his plans for tomorrow's session. He had always been really bad at...keeping spare notebooks on hand. Even the ones he'd used for class always ended up covered in his drawings or notes, little bits and ideas of dialogue he could use for speeches or NPCs.
The best he could find was his math notebook from last year which, surprisingly, sat relatively untouched.
Eddie knew why: that was a class he shared with you. And as he opened to some random mostly-empty page, he saw his little scribbles in the margins surrounding half-faded, penciled-in algebraic equations. Daggers and hearts and his and your initials intertwined together.
It was the one class where he would never encounter partner work with you, so he felt compelled to fill the pages with his daydreams instead of fantasies and lore. You would never see it.
"Well," he huffed as he dropped back down onto the floor and slapped the notebook onto the coffee table. He grabbed his pen and scribbled over the drawings on the page. "Now that she's with Harrington, no use living in this fantasy. Fuck, I was stupid, so stupid to ever think she would want anything to do with me."
He grabbed the dusty old alchemical book from the library and found his place, staring at old sigils and runes and text indiscriminately until he came upon one that looked too perfect for the campaign. Concentric circles, arcane lettering, angular lines...
While Eddie would usually use a clean page for something like this—something he would hand off to his players—he drew a copy of the sigil onto the page and planned to rip the edges off, maybe singe them with his lighter to make it look more authentic.
He kept staring at the still-noticeable doodles beneath the pen scribbles and his heart ached a little in his chest.
Yeah, he would definitely want to burn those too.
By the time he was done copying the sigil, a wave of exhaustion overtook him and he glanced down at his watch.
It wasn't much later than he usually went to bed on a weeknight...
He stared at the half-ruined notes for tomorrow's session that he still needed to rewrite and sighed.
"Fuck it, I'll just redo them in the morning." He got up and stretched his arms over his head. "I can just sleep in tomorrow. Skip class. Show up for Hellfire. Who cares anymore.”
He put the rest of the pizza in the fridge for Wayne and then headed to bed, only to be plagued with dreams of scribbled out love hearts, movie theater candy, guitar solos, and big red gum.
When Eddie woke up the next morning, he felt...honestly felt like he was floating on a cloud. Every muscle in his body felt looser, yet somehow tighter at the same time. His skin felt tighter, like it wasn't right, like it didn't fit somehow, it was suffocating him.
He must have died but he wasn't quite sure if this was heaven or hell.
His eyes burned and blurred slightly as he opened them and what he saw was...unexpected.
Gone were the off-white walls, his posters, the piles of his crap, and that concerning patch of probably-mold in the corner of the ceiling. Instead there was a sturdy ceiling, plaid-papered walls, and matching curtains?
Eddie groaned and rolled over.
What the fuck was this place?
There was a slam of a door somewhere that practically shook the walls surrounding Eddie and as he sat up, he found himself only wearing...briefs? He didn't wear briefs.
This wasn’t his bed, wasn’t his room…wasn’t his… body?
He looked down at his chest, his arms, his hands…his fingers weren’t right, he didn’t have this many freckles and moles, he didn’t have…abs, if that’s what you could call the slight definition on his torso. Still it was more than his body had ever had. His skin…was itchy and mostly hairless.
Eddie reached up and touches his hair—shorter than he was used to, not curly…at all—then his face, as if that was any indicator to what he—
“A mirror!” He exclaimed. His voice…sounded familiar, but different. Fuck what kind of dream was this?
Because it had to be a dream right? It had to be. How else did he wake up in someone else’s body?
He pushed himself out of the bed, walking slightly off-cadence, which…yeah probably came with the territory of your brain needing to get used to a new body. Fuck…was his brain even his brain or did his mind just get transported what was happening?
Ugh it was too early to think about that.
Eddie slowly cracked the bedroom door open and peaked into the rest of the house. He spotted a bathroom just across the way, otherwise…shit, this place actually looked a little familiar. Where the fuck was he? Who the fuck was he?
He quickly crossed the landing into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He heaved a breath and leaned back against the door for a moment to calm himself; his hands were shaking and felt cold. Could he even feel his fingers? Nice to know the occasional nervousness that snuck up on him at his lowest moments hadn’t been left behind in his old body, that they’d followed him to this one.
His body…would it still be in his bed? What if he really had died and…had jumped into his new body? Was this reincarnation?
Fuck, if he was dead…Wayne would find him. Could he even…see his uncle again? How could he ever explain who he was?
Eddie felt the tears prick his eyes and his throat tighten and he slapped his face a few times.
“Come on man, come on,” he muttered. “It’s not that bad. It’s only…mildly awful. Fuck, ok. Just go, just look, just…rip it off like a bandaid.”
Eddie took a deep breath and nodded, then crossed the short distance to stand in front of the sink. He stared at his new feet, wiggled his new toes. You never…appreciated the toes you had until you have new ones.
That was awful and you’re an idiot. Just look.
Eddie closed his eyes again and turned his face up towards the mirror. He could do it. He would do it.
He opened his eyes.
“Jesus H. Christ!”
Steve woke up feeling like absolute shit. Everything ached—like he had pulled a muscle or something by sleeping crookedly—he had awful cottonmouth, and he had inhaled…some yarn or something because he woke up coughing and gagging until he got the intrusive strands out of his mouth.
“Gahh, shit, shit,” he said and scratched at his throat. He sounded hoarse. Ugh was he getting sick? He’d have to ask his mom to bring home some soup or something.
Could he call out of work? Shit he had to take Robin to school. She could walk today, he felt awful.
Steve blinked his eyes open and took in the unfamiliar popcorn ceiling with growing concern.
He looked around at the…piles of garbage and the cracks in the plaster walls partially covered by band posters...and felt the rise of panic grow within him. He tried to recall the night before.
He’d wrapped up his shift at Family Video, gone home and had a rare dinner with both of his parents, then…felt extremely tired and went to bed.
So how did he end up here…wherever here was?
This was a kidnapping; it had to be. He was…drugged—explained the cottonmouth—and kidnapped. And now someone was holding him for ransom or something to…blackmail his father? Thomas Harrington was kind of a dick sometimes, sure, but still…he was a pretty decent guy. Who would want to blackmail him?
“H-hello?” Steve called out. “Anyone there? C-can anyone hear me?”
There was some shuffling outside of the door of the room.
Thankfully Steve wasn’t tied up or anything. God, what kind of kidnappers were these? He quickly glanced around the room for a weapon of some sort and he immediately spotted...
A guitar? A few guitars actually. Man these kidnappers really liked music huh?
One was a weird shape--he'd seen some hair metal bands use guitars like that in magazines, but he'd never seen one in person--and was a mottled red color. One was just what you'd expect when someone said "electric guitar." And one was acoustic and looked like it could pack a real wallop.
Bingo.
Steve pushed himself out of the bed and immediately jumped because whatever had been in his mouth was on his shoulders now. He reached up to grab it: hair. Long, wavy, messy...knotty and frizzy. Like it hadn't been brushed for days, maybe weeks?
And his arm, sticking out from whatever t-shirt he'd been put in...was lithe and weak and there were tattoos. On both arms. A creepy claw hand and a bunch of bats.
What was this? How long had they held him hostage for? No wonder they didn't feel the need to tie him up! He'd been knocked out cold.
He needed to get out of here. Now. He needed to get home.
Steve crossed the room to grab the guitar when he noticed it. At first he thought it was another person. But no, it was just a mirror...and in the mirror...his reflection.
Only it wasn't...his reflection.
It had startled him and he had jumped. Then he moved his arms a little and watched the figure in the mirror mimic him. Over and over.
A wave, a turn, a funny face.
He couldn’t believe it. This had to be a joke. A dream. A nightmare.
Because it was him, his reflection. But it was not his—Steve Harrington’s—reflection.
It was Eddie Munson's.