Chapter Text
Hate would have been too strong of a word, and love was at the other end of the spectrum.
Eddie Munson found you…annoying. You were the younger sister to King Steve, the Hair, Harrington. Eddie never really cared for your older brother and made fun of him & your mutual friends for being popular. At the same time, quite a few of your brother’s friends would make fun of Eddie and his Hellfire club.
From the moment you walked into the doors of Hawkins High, you had the school at your feet by association to the King of Hawkins. You fell into the role, being well liked, smart and extremely attractive. As soon as Eddie realized who you were related to, he figured you’d be a clone of your brother. Eddie found it irritating that you were constantly kind and welcoming, thinking your genuineness would be a trick and he’d be the butt of the joke once again. For this reason, Eddie would treat you with coldness to keep his distance from you.
Some of the tension between the popular kids and Hellfire simmered down since your brother told the remaining friends of your mutual friend group to be nicer to Hellfire since his kiddos were now in the club. Steve had done his best to make peace with Eddie. Still, Eddie would occasionally call you ‘Princess’, when you walked by, or make comments about how your royalty stood the test of time even without your big brother.
Eddie Munson was…irritating. Mostly for the reasons mentioned above. You had never been mean to Eddie or Hellfire. You found it best early on to just avoid Hellfire. The first half of your senior year had been tumultuous without Steve, you usually had him to lean on. When you went to register for the school year, you ran directly into Eddie by mistake. All you could do was think to apologize and he huffed, "Watch out Princess." In your apology, you told him it wouldn't happen again. But as fate had it, you would run into him over and over again. As the year progressed, you had been picking up the freshman from Hellfire, now that Steve had graduated and was working.
Hellfire nights, you would have these tense exchanges with Eddie. You & Eddie did your best to be nice in front of the kiddos, but he always had something to say about the way you looked. It would come off as a false compliment. It wasn't always what he said, but how he said it and got under your skin. Then there was Halloween, you and Steve invited the kiddos and Hellfire to a party at your house. Eddie scared you senseless when you ran into him wearing the Michael Meyers mask he had borrowed from Max. You had stumbled due to the scare, but Eddie managed to catch you. It was the first time he apologized and it sounded sincere for messing with you. Something about that interaction hit you right in the chest. You tried to keep your distance but fate, once again, wouldn’t allow that.
Now the holidays had just ended, you were preparing for your spring semester- ‘86 baby! You had just hung up the phone with Nancy, the two of you were able to keep a strong friendship regardless of what happened between her and Steve. You were planning the first party of the new year. Determining the guestlist, food, and of course who would be in charge of drinks- Steve.
Once Steve got home from Family Video, he came to your room and flopped on the floor. You let out a laugh, “Dramatic much?” “Y/N, if one more person asks if we have Clue on video yet, I’m going to move to Alaska”, Steve groaned from the floor. You chirped, “How about a party instead?” Steve perked up, “I’m listening.” “Well mom & dad are leaving Thursday night. So Nancy and I were thinking about a party on Friday.” Steve nodded, “I like where this is going.” You smirked, “Will you handle getting the booze?” Steve laughed, “You know I will. As long as you make your famous punch.” You agreed, “Can do. But one more thing, do we have to invite Hellfire this time?”
Steve’s brow knit, “What’d Munson do now?” You sighed, “Nothing, but he doesn’t like us anyway.” He got up to sit next to you on your bed, “Y/N, you know that isn’t true. I did a lot of smoothing over before I graduated. I thought you said things had been okay? And we have to invite all of Hellfire if we invite the kiddos.” You flopped on your back on your bed, “Things are okay, but it’s always the same with Eddie. He has me so associated with who you were before.” “Hey”, Steve started, “I really am sorry about that. You know how it is. Peer pressure to do and say things to keep friends. Munson and I are fine. So why can’t you and him be?” You scoffed, “I didn’t DO anything to him. There’s nothing for me to do, Steve. I’m civil with him for the sake of your children.” You and Steve busted out laughing, you two always laughed anytime you thought about how Steve suddenly obtained children of his own. It was a lighter way to end the conversation, and you agreed, you’d invite Hellfire to the party.
The first day back from holiday break was a mix of chaos, catching up with friends, seeing who had which classes with who. You met up with Nancy and Robin to compare schedules, finding that you and Robin would share Art in the morning and you and Nancy would have Ms. O'Donnell's English class in the afternoons. It would make your days go by a little quicker.
Lunch had finally arrived, Eddie watched you walk to a table of your friends, and scoffed. His scoff caught the attention of the rest of Hellfire. Eddie went on a rant about how 1986 would be his year, he could feel it. Jeff chirped, “Didn’t you say that last year?” Eddie whipped his attention to Jeff, “I might have to army crawl my way towards a D in Ms. O'Donnell's. If I don't blow her final, I'm gonna walk that stage this Spring.”
You flickered your attention to the Hellfire table as they cheered, Eddie was standing on the table doing some form of dramatic monologue no doubt. You groaned knowing you had to go over there and invite them all to the party this weekend. Nancy giggled, “Y/N, you’ve invited them before, you can do it again.” “But he hates me, Nancy. No matter how nice I try to be, it’s just never enough”, you replied. She gave you a confused look, “I don’t think he hates you-” “Yeah, just that you’re a Harrington and everything your idiot brother used to stand for”, Robin interrupted. Nancy looked at Robin disapproving, then back to you, “Again, I don’t think he hates you. I think he just doesn’t know you.” You groaned again, “Well I’d better go do it now.”
Eddie had been full of laughter and smiles, until he spotted you walking over. His face turned into a smirk as he called out loudly to the entire lunchroom, “Well well well, looks like the Princess is lost.” You made it to the table, ignoring Eddie, and turned your focus to the freshman you had known forever, “Hi.” Dustin and Mike looked at each other, then back to you. Dustin questioned, “What’s up?” You smiled, “Your babysitter has invited you and all of Hellfire to another Harrington party this Friday. You in?”
The freshmen erupted with, “Hell yes!” “Whoa whoa whoa”, Eddie interrupted, “The new semester hasn’t started and you can’t wait to have a party Harrington?” You rolled your eyes, “Well when we have a free house, we like to use that time wisely. Is that okay with you Dungeon Master?” “Oh, the Princess is feisty today”, Eddie spoke with a devious smile, “I like it.” That made you laugh, you quickly cleared your throat to try and hide it, “Great. I’ll see you all Friday night.” You turned to walk away, and Dustin called out to you, “Are you picking us up Wednesday from Hellfire?” “You know it”, you called back from over your shoulder.
Having made it back to your own table of friends, Nancy was quick to comment, “See, it wasn’t even that bad.” You sighed, “You know you could have offered to invite them Nance- not like Mike and the kids don’t know you.” Nancy sucked in some air, “Yeah about that- I mean it’s your party right? So shouldn’t you be the ones to invite them?” You, Nancy and Robin all laughed before returning to the discussion of your classes.
You made it to the last class of the day, English. It wasn’t your favorite subject, but Ms. O’ Donnell had liked you because of Steve. He had been one of her favorite students previously. How was it that even though he was gone, you were still living in his shadow? It was nice for the teachers that liked your brother, but for other things- like dealing with Eddie, it was always an uphill battle.
Nancy had taken the seat next to you quickly before anyone else could, “Y/N, I just found out O’Donnell isn’t doing the Shakespeare project.” You whipped your eyes to her, “What? No. O’Donnell has done that project the last 3 years. Why would she change it now? Did we study Shakespeare over break for nothing?” It’s true, you and Nancy had always been ahead of the game for most academic assignments, and you had heard through good sources that O’Donnell’s Spring English classes tended to do Shakespearian works. Over winter break, you and Nancy had read through so much Shakespeare in preparation.
Before you could ask Nancy what she heard it would be, Ms. O’Donnell called the class to her attention. “Welcome to English. As I’m sure many of you have heard from the students who had me earlier in the day, we will not be doing the great works of Shakespeare this year. Instead our focus is going to be reading quite a few others.” She began to hand out The Odyssey by Homer & the books that would be read throughout the semester as she continued, “Coinciding with the novels you will read this semester, I will be assigning a semester-long project.” The class groaned in unison. She cleared her throat, “Let me finish- your participation in this project will excuse you from taking a final exam.”
Now you were all ears, reading something other than Shakespeare was going to be inspiring, but a project to excuse you from taking an exam sounded great. She continued, “We will be doing a semester-long pen-pal program.” Groans again arose from the class.
Ms. O’Donnell began explaining the rules and expectations of the pen-pal assignment. Everyone would have their first letter due next Monday. In your first letter, you would vaguely introduce yourself, the things you were interested in, and what you hoped to achieve this semester. She was clear that you should not be describing yourself in any physical form nor have your actual name written in these letters. She would collect your letters one by one to affirm you did the project, assign you a number, and then pick a number of whom you would correspond with. She wanted to provide people these first few days back to practice handwriting, coming up with things to talk about in these letters, and of course some time to be able to start reading their first assigned novel of her class.
As Ms. O’Donnell moved on and started the class reading the Odyssey, you thought about who your penpal would be. Would it be someone in this class? Or would other classes be involved? You thought about if you and your penpal would end up becoming friends and meeting up somewhere, assuming you both got along through these letters. The possibilities seemed endless.