"So what's going on with you and Eddie?" Robin asked, startling Cynthia who was knelt down tidying up the displays in between the rainy, Saturday rushes.
"Christ." Cynthia grumbled, losing her balance and grabbing the shelving to re-steady herself.
Robin held out a warm, almost clammy hand and her co-worker caught it and stood up.
"Same old, same old."
"School?"
"Drugs?" Cameron chimed in, peeking around the corner.
"Shut up." She addressed her friend while dusting herself off. "Since when are you two attached at the hip?"
Cameron tutted in reply, shaking her head, "since you ditched me for Eddie Munson."
"It's three days a week, Cam."
"Four." Robin butted in, "and you've been taking off during lunch most days."
"Okay, stalker." Cynthia laughed, pushing past the pair.
Robin and her new friend followed the bothered girl to the front counter, hands brushing against each other as they moved almost in sync.
"It's nothing." She finally answered their lingering question, unsure of what to really say.
Eddie and Cynthia never actually talked about what they actually were in terms of labels.
"You guys getting caught making out in Miss Click's classroom during your free period doesn't really seem like 'nothing' to me. How about you, Cam?"
Cam nodded in agreement and added on, "So much nothing that they got detention for it? What exactly were you two doing in there?"
"Shut. Up!" Cynthia's face was almost beet-red as she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat. "We just kissed a little bit, it's nothing. Well-"
The pair opposite her laughed at her outburst and subsequent second guessing. But Cynthia just gave a chuckle and went to the back room, mulling over her and Eddie's relationship as the past few weeks rushed through her mind.
A part of her wondered if her tipsy confession scared him off, yeah he said that he reciprocated, but they were both drunk. What if he just said that to calm her down? What if he was just acting cool with it so he could-
"Earth to Cynthia." Cameron interrupted the older girl's mini-spiral with a wad of paper to the back of the head as she absentmindedly sorted through movies.
"What?"
Her friend closed the distance getting up in Cynthia's space with her strawberry scented perfume, "Lover boy is here."
Eddie leaned over the counter, tapping away on the wood as he watched Moose walk out of the back closet slowly, a smile washing over her features when she locked eyes with him.
"You have time for a late lunch?" He asked, standing up straight and jingling his clunky key chain.
She barely turned to her friends before Robin responded, "I can hold the fort down for a bit."
"Okay," Cynthia exhaled as she checked her watch, 3:17 pm, "thirty minutes."
Their legs hung out of the van and in the cold, Indiana air as they finished their meals that they picked up from a local bar before parking at the river.
Eddie broke the silence by asking, "What are you doing after graduation?"
Cynthia shrugged, "I wanted to go to Seattle or Portland. But realistically, probably Bloomington or Evanston. Why? You wanna tag along?"
With a chuckle, he responded, "I don't even know if I'm gonna graduate."
"Don't say that." She nudged his shoulder, "we fuckin' pinky promised. You're gonna finish your sixth year of high school and then we can run off to Chicago and just stay the fuck away from this town."
"You really don't like it here."
"Nope." Cynthia shook her head with a hum, "this place eats every thing good and just spits it back up."
"Then I'll drink to that, Moose." Eddie held up his drink and with a remorseful laugh Cynthia brought her own drink up and they clanged their strawberry sodas together. "To graduating and getting out of this town."
"Hell yeah, Munson."
After finishing up their drinks, they checked the time and decided to head back to Family Video with not a lot of conversation, but Dio's Holy Diver filling the van. It was moments like this that Eddie loved: just the two of them, hanging out and listening to music, not worrying about school or what other people would think. Just them.
The content moment was cut short when they pulled into the wet parking lot and Cynthia kissed Eddie on the cheek before reaching for the handle, "thanks for lunch. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah." He confirmed, dragging himself out of his own head, eyebrows almost knotted together. "Hold on," he grabbed her hand before she could get out into the cold air.
He took a deep breath and massaged her hand absentmindedly as he thought of how to ask his next question, "do you- would you want to go on a date with me?"
Cynthia couldn't help the smile that bloomed on her face and she nodded, intertwining their fingers, "Yeah, when do you think?"
"How about Tuesday?" Eddie asked, a weight coming off of his shoulders.
She could just crumble into a million pieces as she was about to say yes, but then remembered that she had a whole host of plans for the next week. Dropping her head to the console in front of her, Cynthia laughed at her own bad luck, "I'm so sorry."
"That doesn't work for you?"
"We're heading out to South Dakota for break and we leave Tuesday. I'll be back Sunday though."
"Shit." Eddie laughed, "How 'bout this? We go watch White Nights tonight then when you get back, we can go on a date."
"That works for me."
Cynthia drove down the road, white-knuckling the steering wheel due to the snowy conditions. Granted, it wasn't supposed to snow until the next night, yet here it was.
Five more minutes, she reminded herself as she turned her music up after rounding a corner carefully. Letting Pat Benatar's In the Heat of the Night play her way to the Forest Hills Trailer Park.
Rounding a couple of corners, she only met one other car before she finally saw the faint lights from the trailer park. Letting out a sigh, she followed the snow-dusted road to the Munson's place.
Turning the car off, Cynthia shook her hands out, trying to make the tense feeling go away before stepping out of the blue station wagon.
Almost slipping up the steps, she steadied herself before knocking on the door with her gloved hand.
An older man answered the door, stunning the girl on the porch, "hi, is- uh- is Eddie home? I called yesterday."
"Should be," he nodded his head, holding open the door wider, "come on in. I'll go grab him."
She entered the trailer and slipped off her boots. Eddie's bedroom door opened and a smile washed over his face, "hey, you're back." His uncle passed by and went to the living room before Eddie scooped Cynthia into his arms and squeezed her into his chest and muttered into her snow-dusted hair, "I've missed you."
"Missed you too."
A cough sounded from behind the pair and then Eddie's uncle spoke up, "Is this who you were telling me about?"
"Yeah, uh," Eddie pulled away from the hug and left an arm around Cynthia's shoulder as he led her to the edge of the kitchen, "Cynthia this is my uncle Wayne. Wayne, this is Cynthia. She's my, uh, my tutor."
She felt her face heat up, keeping a small smile on her face, "Nice to meet you."
"You too." Wayne nodded, "I've heard a lot about you."
Eddie was burning in embarrassment, tapping away at Cynthia's shoulder lightly with his right hand and playing with the ends of his hair with the other.
"Okay, we're gonna go hang out now." Eddie blurted out, gesturing behind him to the hall and pulling Cynthia with him to the room.
The door shut behind them and she let out a laugh while slipping off her jacket, "Are you tellin' people about us, Eddie?"
"Oh don't get a big head, Moose." Eddie dramatically groaned, watching her sit down in his swivel chair as he clicked the lock on the bedroom door. "So, how was the trip?"
"Alright," She replied, "I actually have a couple things I wanted to talk to you about."
"Oh shit."
"It's not bad. Well," she rolled her eyes, "depends on how you react I guess."
He took a sip of the beer that was on his nightstand, "I'm intrigued."
"God, how do I even start? I don't–" She huffed as Eddie watched intently from his bed. "Y'know how you fumbled introducing me to your uncle? You almost said 'my something', but said 'oh, she's tutoring me'. One of my cousins found that polaroid I took of you last week." Cynthia laughed, a smug smile washing over Eddie's features.
"She asked if you were my boyfriend and I said no, because we never– Then she asked if we were dating and I said maybe because we've been on one technically. Y'know what I mean?" She watched him nod with an almost unreadable expression on his face. "We hang out at my house and we tell our friends it's because I'm your tutor, which I think for the both of us is easier, somehow, so we don't have to confront the prospect of 'dating' or whatever stage we've been idling at in terms of relationships."
It was silent for a few moments as she watched Eddie for a reaction. He was clearly getting nervous as she talked, she saw his leg bouncing and heard his rings clang against the can in his hand more than a few times.
"And I know that you must think I'm out of my mind right now, because I never talk like this unless I'm off my shits drunk but, Christ, the drive home has been miserable. It's been on my mind since Thanksgiving! What if you're not interested in me? What if we haven't labeled this because you don't want to? What if– fuck, I know I'm just in my own head too much, because I know you like me, that we have feelings for each other, but it's just... I don't know." Cynthia buried her head in her hands, she didn't even notice Eddie get up and kneel in front of her.
"Moose." He laid a hand on either side of her, "Cynthia, look at me."
At the mention of her name, she ran her hands up her face and through her hair before sucking in a breath and looking at the boy in front of her.
"Can I say something now?"
"I wasn't done yet, but go right ahead."
Holding back a laugh, Eddie shook his head. "I like you. A whole-fuckin'-lot; I will repeat that whenever you want me to. And I'll be totally real here, I put off having this talk because we were having fun and I thought that if we slowed down and thought about it, that you'd be the one leaving me sulking all the way here," he explained, patting her legs for dramatic effect.
Cynthia gave him a loving smile and took his chin in her cold hand, "Eddie, you're-"
"Patience, Cynthia," he laughed, pushing her hand away, not because he didn't appreciate the affection, he just didn't like cold hands on his face. "How about this: I'm your boyfriend now and we can go on as many dates as we can to make up for the last month or however long this has been. Hmm?"
"Are you serious? I mean, I don't really care about the- actually do you wanna go see Rocky with me?" She proposed with a laugh, resting her hands on his.
Eddie nodded "whatever works for you, Moose."
He leaned forward, cutting off anything else she had to say.
Getting to his feet, he deepened the kiss and his hands went to either side of her face. She let out a small laugh against his lips and her hands intertwined in the belt loops of his jeans.
˚✩ ⋆｡˚ ✩˚ ｡⋆✩ ˚
and then they lived happily ever after. they graduated and moved to chicago together where cynthia started college and eddie and his bandmates started playing gigs at a local bar. no upside down nonsense, no bats. no murder accusations.
im kidding. i'm planning on writing a ST4 fic titled Dirty Deeds.
Sorry for the long wait, July was not great for me personally or in terms of writing progress. Also sorry for the deletion of the original chapter four, it didn't mesh well with what I originally had planned and I wrote most of it while overcome with emotions in the hours after I finished Volume 2.
I hope you enjoyed, this has been fun to write. It made me fall back in love with writing and I'm happy to have an OC like Cynthia Moose that gives me so much ideas and inspiration to continue writing. Also I haven't loved a character like I love Eddie Munson in so, so long and it feels great.
Thank you so much for reading, I am planning on writing a one-shot or two for Cynthia and Eddie that's completely separate from this and the main storyline of Stranger Things, but those will be uploaded on AO3 whenever I finish them.