HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers
CHAPTER THREE — EDDIE MUNSON COMMITS TREASON (BREAKS UP a CAT FIGHT)
PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT
summary: you deal with the fallout of your fight at steve harrington's party... in the passenger seat of eddie munson's van. so much for pretending you didn't exist to one another, huh?
content warnings: as always, MINORS FUCK OFF, because we have *deep breath* implied fantasy smut, lots of swearing, confused yearning, themes of threat, heavy snark, another mention of the drink tab which i feel like is/was gross
word count: 7.2k
Dear Dio, Tommy Iommi, Gary Gygax, Pee-wee Herman, Ronnie Ecker — forgive me for what I’m about to do.
I know I’ve done a lot of stupid shit in my life. Like the time I lit all my hair on fire and spent middle school with a buzz cut. Or the time I almost trapped myself in a spread eagle with my own handcuffs. Or the time I got my arm stuck in a wall for an entire afternoon when I was trying to rescue a feral cat.
I’ve done a lot of stupid shit. But the stupidest among it all has got to be saving this girl from the bare knuckle wrath of Carol Whatsername. You know the one.
Tonight, for whatever reason, this insane ex-rich chick has decided to teeter on the edge of a pool of boiling hot lava and for whatever reason, I feel like it’s my responsibility to yank her back.
Which sucks, because she’s a total bitch to me.
Even if she just told everybody Tommy Hagan had crabs and has been cheating on his girlfriend in such a deranged way that it almost made me pop a semi.
Anyway. Tell my guitar I love her.
The world around Eddie slows to the tick of a football game replay as you let the last incendiary word you speak to Carol bounce around the goddamn Roman amphitheater Harrington’s back yard has become.
This is insane. What he’s watching is insane. Like, he knew you and your dumb little court of Hawkinsites bickered back and forth, but you’re the last person he’d ever expect to air their dirty laundry like this.
It’s incredible to watch the fascist leadership that he and the rest of the social nobodies have suffered under for so long rupture in real time.
What’s even more incredible is how little hesitation there is on his part, shoving through the crowd when he sees Carol leaping for you. Eddie’s nearly jostled backwards by some slobbering roid heads— they’ve already called CAT FIGHT! and a crowd is clamoring. But Eddie’s got years of thankless equipment lugging behind him, giving him deceptively strong arms.
And thank god, because you are not an easy girl to hold onto.
Carol lands a decent punch to your face, slamming with a dull knuckle-on-cheekbone crunch that makes all the onlookers, including him, go ooof! You stagger back in a state of shock (though, c’mon, you heard what you said just now, right?) and Eddie takes his shot just as you dive forward to retaliate.
He grabs you under the arms so you can’t like, elbow him in the fucking nose, a pale imitation of an illegal wresting move that Al Munson had forced him to learn at the tender age of seven. His dad had fancied himself a wrestling manager at the time— you can imagine how that worked out.
But Jesus, can you ever squirm! Your body writhes against him—stop—hips bucking—don’t go there—as you try to get free. He doesn’t even think you realize who’s dragging you away from the screaming harpy, otherwise you’d probably turn your fury on him.
He takes full advantage of the rage blackout and manhandles you through the party, earning a baffled look from Steve Harrington, who’s finally graced his own party with his presence. A pinch-faced Nancy Wheeler lingers behind him, but then again, Wheeler’s always all pinch-faced.
“What the fuck?!” Harrington breathes, exasperated.
Eddie struggles against you struggling, just about dragging you over the front doorstep. Trust this guy to be upstairs in a domestic dispute, missing all the action while getting no action.
Even in the chaos, Eddie will never pass up an opportunity to fuck with Harrington.
“You gotta start hidin’ your bath salts, man! Chicks are going crazy in there–Evil Dead type shit!”
—
“You’re dead, Lacy! Monday morning, you are fucking dead!” Carol screams down the hallway.
“It’s a date, bitch!” you screech, Munson’s nelson hold on you stronger than your thrashing. With a lot of work, he manages to haul you as far as Harrington’s front yard before you wriggle out of his grasp. You shove him, hard, all white hot and punch drunk and regular drunk on top of that.
He yelps, high and frightened. You weren’t expecting a noise like that to come out of a surly-looking dude like him.
So you do it again.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” you spit, and Munson flinches.
“Cutting you off!” he exclaims, this half-yell, half-laugh. It stings, the way he’s looking at you– like your anger isn’t anger, like it’s just amusing to him.
“Well, who gave you the right? Who died and made you my parole officer, Munson?!”
“Oh, I’m not– but I also didn’t feel like being woken up at home when the cops come looking for you after you go all Raging Bull on Carol. You haven’t been around the park long enough to hear ‘em, but those sirens really perforate the eardrums!”
Your jaw sets itself stiffly and you bind your arms over your chest. Unfuckingbelievable. “I would’ve, you know,” you breathe, seething, “Beat her up.”
Munson’s dark eyes glide over you, like he’s checking you for concealed weapons or signs of a zombie bite— you avoid his gaze entirely, staring square into the middle distance.
You promised that he didn’t exist to you, yet here he is. Driving you off the road. Breaking up your fights. Existing.
“Yeah, I know you woulda. You’re scary,” he says. You shrug, and he reaches to massage his shoulder. “And strong. Shit.”
Your eyes flick over to him, but you don’t feel bad. You don’t feel bad because he’s grinning at you now and despite yourself, despite everything that’s transpired and the everything about him, you’re trying your hardest not to grin back. Adrenaline and vodka are still burning a hole in your chest.
“Stay out of my way, then.”
“Noted, but,” a couple of steps from Munson’s end closes some space between you. He’s peering at your face, right where Carol clocked you. A hand reaches out, angling your chin closer to the Harrington’s glaring porch light with his fingertips. You stiffen and squint, performatively wary, but you don’t stop him. You just let his eyes pan over you, looking anywhere but into them. “You might need a little first aid first. And a ride home.”
“I was actually planning on carjacking Hagan,” you say coolly, the smile you were trying to beat away edging its way across your face. Munson releases your chin and the spot where his fingers were buzzes. It’s just the cold. It’s just your slutty librarian outfit, you tell yourself. You have to swallow in order to speak again. “Seems like fitting payback.”
“Jesus, sweetheart, what did I just say about cops?”
—
Eddie tolerates your eyes rolling back in your head when he props the passenger door open for you, helping you into the cluttered van with an outstretched had.
See, I’m not the kind of asshole who doesn’t open doors for girls wearing stilts for shoes.
Those things were not made for clambering into a vehicle like this, sure, but they’re– nice. For what he knows about shoes, which is nothing. They make your legs look more… leggy, and for whatever reason this is making his brain soft.
In your other hand is a cold can of High Life, which is the closest thing to an ice pack he could nab. That bruise blooming under your eye is going to be nasty, and he’s a little curious how you’re gonna look with it. You, with nary a hair out of place on a bad day, with a big ol’ purple shiner in a place that’s hard to hide.
Gunning out of Harrington’s hood, a silence settles between Eddie and you. The radio hums in the background– a mainstream station for once. He thoughtfully figured that an aural assault by Sabbath would kinda rub salt in your wound.
He’s thoughtful, but he’s not not nosy. So, of course he’s gonna ask–
“That whole… verbal smackdown back there,” Munson starts after clearing his throat. “With Tommy H and everybody.”
On your end, the adrenaline has worn off and the numbing effects of the booze have amped up. You feel loose and warm, apart from the beer can cooling your bruise. There are twice as many streetlights streaming past you as usual. This is going to blow later– if you don’t blow chunks first.
“All that about your dad pimping me out?” God, I mean, Hagan couldn’t compose a written sentence to save his life but maybe he had a future in speculative fiction. Did he just come up with that on the fly? “Take a wild guess, Munson.”
Eddie recoils in his seat– gross. Gross. “Not the– the shit with Tina and Carol and–”
“Oh, the crabs? Yeaaaah, that’s true,” you slur, “But I rejected Tommy waaay before I knew that. Call it my brilliant instinct. And then he has the nerve to call me frigid, which– trust me, I’m anything… anything but.”
Munson seems a little surprised at this. You can see it in the way his eyebrows dart under his curly bangs.
But you’ve had your share of disappointing experiences with the blandly acceptable boys in your circle– it’s par for the course, it’s part of advancing in the field. You can’t throw your cat into the street completely, but god forbid you be choosy about the boys you want to copulate with. The ones you’ve hooked up with, all unremarkable and perfunctory, always seemed so smug afterwards. Like they’d conquered something.
But from Eddie’s purview, you always held yourself like you were above everyone else; not just the underclassmen and the social rejects, but even your own friends. He’d watch you sometimes, because it’s hard not to watch you. He’d wait for the few flickering moments you let your guard down, when you thought no one was paying attention as you sat at the lunch table or walked the hallways. So achingly unamused by the guffawing, the backslapping, the forced camaraderie of your forced high school persona and your forced high school friends. Then, one of them would say something like, Right, Lacy? and your brow would unarch and you’d be right back in the groove with the rest of them, giggling dumbly and glossing your lips.
He always wondered how you did it, tolerated it. And why.
“Now, far be it from me to agree with a shithead like Hagan–and I don’t, before you get scary–but I kinda get where he’s picking that up,” Eddie winces, throwing a glance to you, glassy-eyed with your head against the window. You’re looking at him with narrowed eyes, eyeliner smudged. Even that look could cut down a man with twice his ego. “You’re a little bit frosty. Cold shock in the middle of a summer’s day– which, y’know, could be–”
You absolutely do not let him finish the thought.
“It’s caaaalled being aloof, Munson,” you drawl, shuffling your shoulders against the passenger door and pulling a stray thread from your skirt with a sharp snap. “Playing hard to get, duh? Leave them wanting more? You wouldn’t get it because you’re so goddamn big and obvious all the time…”
“Obvious!” he brays, letting his jaw hang open with theatrical flair, “Obvious! Lacy, you wound me, I–”
“Obvious,” you bark back, “Obvious like a neon sign, obvious like a circus tent, obvious like– like– look at me, look at me, I’m a weirdo!” Your Munson impression, complete with devil horns, is a little dorkified but it shuts him right up. That loose little tongue of yours has trasmuted your mood from wrath to barbed silliness. “So obvious you wouldn’t know that kind of subtlety. Not if it hit you in the face.”
A familiar tune whistles from the radio, distracting you. “… or cause you’re a virgin.”
“Okay—!“ Eddie starts, immediately assuming the position of point guard. His hackles are raised, but to be honest, he’s so willing to let you ramble on. It’s the first time he’s heard you talk this much, ever, save your little tête-à-tête by the lockers the other day.
Eddie doesn’t want to stem the flow just yet. He’s not thinking about it too hard.
“Oh shit, do you hear that?” Like a Virgin pumps from the tinny speakers and you reach to turn it up, your head drunkenly bobbling on your neck. Eddie winces; it’s so weird, watching you like this. It’s like dream logic. It’s like opposite day. “Munson’s a virgin! I’m gonna touch him for the very first tiii-iime! Munson’s a vii-iir-gin—“
“First off, no I am not and no,” he audibly swallows, positive you didn’t realize what you just sang, “no, you are not, ‘cause— well.” He clears his throat. A flare of heat burns around his collar. “I’m not the type to bone and tell.”
“Bone and tell.” You guffaw, a sound so unbecoming yet so endearing coming from you, and slump back in your seat. That tight little skirt you’re wearing rides up about an inch and a half. “Sounds like something a virgin would say.”
Eddie huffs; no way around this. You’re fucking with him, and it’s the indefatiguable male ego that’s not going to let him let you win.
He fucks, okay? Or has fucked, prior to this.
Not that there’s anything wrong with not fucking.
But he’s done it.
Eddie’s eyes dart between you and the road, and you’ve got him like a stuck pig with that expectant glare. His eyes linger on your exposed upper legs for a half a second.
Christ, you’re annoying. It occurs to him that wants to bite the soft flesh of your thigh and hear you squeal about it, but you are annoying as hell.
“Fine. Fine. You wanna know?”
Your head lolls against the rough upholstery of the seat and you bat your lashes at him. “I really wanna know.”
And Munson will tell you, you know, because you’re the kind of person people tell things to.
“Nicole Summers.”
“Bullshit. Nicole Nicole? My Nicole?”
“Nicole Nicole. Nicole, formerly yours. The only-girl-meaner-than-you Nicole. It was tenth grade,” he snorts bitterly. “Most unforgettable thirty seconds of my life.”
“Nicole told us she got her v-card stamped by a board waxer in Maui.”
“I’ve got a lot of side gigs. You don’t know about me.”
You snort too, despite yourself. That’s a lot of despite-ing tonight, Lacy. You sit up in the seat a little, interest catching. Flame to a candle wick.
“How was it?” you press.
Munson furrows his brow, like duh. “Most unforgettable thirty seconds of my life, I just told you.” A beat. “Until— …Cass Finnigan.”
Now, an encounter like that is less surprising, but still you holler, “Bullshit!”
“I’d say the same shit if it hadn’t, y’know, happened to me,” he stage whispers, “In this van.”
Your eyes widen, a flicker of a grimace sailing across your face. You wonder how he pulled that off, but all that comes to mind is the start of a bad porno– Cass meets him at that dingy little bench out back of the school to pick up and he’s, I don’t know, test driving some of his new supply and offers her a toke. She’s all, why the free samples, Munson? and he’s all, I only let the prettiest girls test the product. And because Cass is notoriously insecure–who among us, girl–she’s all, who, me? and he’s all, come back to my van, and she’s all, but I’m going steady with Mikey B, and he’s all, I won’t tell if you won’t and then he fucks her in the ass.
Because Cass is saving the first hole for marriage and you know that. You’re the kind of person people tell things to.
What you don’t expect is a weird pull of… envy. Why, in this imaginary scenario, had he never invited you back to his van? Well. You know why. But you’re drunk, so logic begone. “When did all this go down?”
“Uh, right before school got back,” Munson answers, kind of apprehensively. He could be lying, you figure.
“Well, Cass has been having a weird year,” you mumble, meaning to think that rather than say it. You know, because you’re the kind of person people tell things to.
“What’s that supposed to imply exactly?” Eddie says, an edge in his voice. He can’t help the way something in his chest flares; like he forgot to wait for the other shoe to drop with you, and now it’s dropping.
“It stands to reason that she’d wanna, like, do something stupid,” you explain, and you know how it sounds. It’s mean. But honestly, you’re so drunk, and so past the point of attempting to spare people’s feelings.
“Like hook up with the local freak,” Eddie finishes for you, tone flat. You couldn’t not put him in his place, could you? Not that he thought Cass liked him or anything, he could feel her (literally feel her) going through the motions like a social experiment but– God, a little delusion doesn’t hurt now and again.
“Exactly!” and even in your inebriated state, you can feel the tension in the air, hanging between you like a balloon full of noxious gas. Rather than cut it, you want to poke at it, unfeeling as to whether that’ll make it worse or better between you and the boy in the driver’s seat. You hike yourself up further, leaning toward him, pulling the can of High Life from your face.
Munson’s profile is this beguiling mix of hurt and irritation, lit by the scuzzy orange hue of the passing streetlights.
“What, did you want me to act impressed? Did you want me to lie to you?”
“What? No– look, I know what girls like that– think of me, but,” Eddie’s voice shrinks in his throat, making him sound completely pre-pubescent. He notices you lean forward in his peripheral vision, like you have to strain to hear it, “that doesn’t make it any less shitty.”
Oof. He did not need to unleash that little piss-shake of earnestness right now. He mentally steels himself for a ribbing from you, a cackling, piercing laugh like you let out before Carol punched you.
“Of course it doesn’t!” you froth, “Just like it doesn’t make it any less shitty when guys act like they’re settling a bet with their buddies when they hook up with me.” You cross your arms to your chest with a quickness, slamming back into the seat. “Bet you couldn’t make it with Lacy, she’s got a combination lock on her pussy. Fuck you, dude.”
That coaxes a bark of a laugh from Munson, which makes you giggle a little in turn. It’s a weird feeling. It’s not quite relief; more like satisfaction. One point to Lacy, you made him laugh.
“Combination lock, huh?”
“Allegedly.”
“Bet none of those losers even know how to crack a lock.”
Your head tilts in his direction, forward this time. “And you do?”
Munson’s eyes flash at you, a dangerous orange glint sparkling in the darkness of his irises. “My criminal skillset is pretty diverse.”
He pins you down with this look from the driver’s seat and for a heartbeat or two, and you let him. Just long enough that a stab of sobriety sneaks in– and you can’t deny it, but you wish it didn’t.
You’re drunk.
If you can stay drunk, all bets are off.
If you can stay drunk, whatever you do doesn’t matter, because you were drunk.
You could reach over and press your fingers into the soft denim between his legs, make something hard there. You could squeeze the thickness of him over his zipper and kiss the shock of alabaster skin on his neck, where his pulse goes all jackrabbity under your touch. You could make him forget he ever heard the name Cass Finnigan.
And it would mean nothing.
And you wouldn’t have to justify it, because you were drunk. That’s what you’ve always been taught.
But you uncross your arms and you pull at the hem of your skirt and look to the road, just as the van swerves into the trailer park. Munson doesn’t take such a hard turn at the corner this time, probably wary of your risk of ralphing all over the van if he does. He pulls into that negative space between your trailer and his and instructs you to wait in your seat.
“Trust me, the descent out of this baby is much trickier than it looks,” he assures you, jogging to the passenger door, a jingle of keys and pocket chains and belts on leather, “and you’re way too gone to make it in one piece, princess.”
So he holds his hand out again (“M’shitfacedlady,”) and gingerly you take it, and it becomes very apparent very quickly that your legs have turned to rubber on the drive home.
“Oh, shit!”
Your attempt at gracefully exiting the van is ruined by an unsteady ankle, sending your weight right into Eddie Munson’s chest. Luckily, he was braced for it– just about.
“Told you you couldn’t make it without me,” he breathes as you clutch a handful of his Metallica shirt, vision quadrupling. He’s warm, and you suddenly realize that you’re freezing.
Trembling.
“Stop flirting with me,” you hiss to one out of the four Munsons in front of you. “I need to go to bed.”
Eddie forces himself to bite back another double entendre, which is a shame, because they’re doing an awesome job of covering up how goddamn nervous he suddenly is. He moves his arm to your waist, helping you haul ass to your front door. He’s got to keep one arm outstretched behind you in case you lose your balance again– which you almost do, a couple of times, wavering around like a dashboard Jesus.
He watches you like he’s trying to commit this to memory, the rare case of you being so beyond your usual composure. He’s even got to intervene after the first five minutes, making unlocking your front door a two idiot job.
Eddie’s about to wave you off and disappear to scream and something else into his pillow when he sees you take a dangerous lunge into the darkness of the trailer. “Woah, girl–”
But you recover, in a kind of brainless way, taking a measured Bambi-like step forward. One after the other.
Fuck. He can’t leave you like this.
You’re gonna trip and brain yourself on a Fabergé egg or whatever the fuck it is you and your mom have in there.
“Uh– Lacy?”
The trailer is eerily quiet. You feel like you’re trespassing in your own place. Boxes of out-of-place, too-expensive ephemera are still strewn everywhere, but you navigate the maze of them like it’s nothing. Sense memory. You don’t even entirely register that Munson is following you inside, that he’s frantically whispering after you, until you reach your bedroom door.
A coldness shoots up your spine as you turn on him. You didn’t invite him in here, did you?
“What do you think you’re doing?” you ask for the second time tonight. This time, it comes out a little fearful.
Eddie picks this up, right where you’ve erroneously dropped it. His chest gets a little tight. You didn’t think he was trying to–?
“Making sure you lie down in the recovery position, that’s all,” he throws his hands up in total surrender, Scout’s honor, all that shit. “I’m not tryin’ to pick any locks tonight. I swear.”
“I don’t need your help, Munson,” but just as you twist the doorknob, you keel over through the door, hitting the floor like a lead balloon.
“Yeah, you keep telling me that,” he blearily smirks down at you, “And yet.”
But Munson’s not such an asshole about it that he just leaves you there. He hauls you up, again, and you stagger towards your bed, flopping face down on top of the comforter. He says some variation of okay, well, that’s how you choke to death on your own vomit, Jimi Hendrix and bullies you into the recovery position.
“Don’t freak out, I’m just–” and Munson sits gingerly on the edge of your bed, taking one of your high heeled feet in his hands.
What the fuck, you mumble, either aloud or in your head. But he’s fiddling with the tiny buckle at your ankle, gently undoing it. Another chill runs through your body but you don’t move, not an iota. You just… let him do it. His hands on your aching feet aren’t a totally unwelcome touch. He’s being featherlight about it, almost afraid to touch you even though he had no problem sheepdogging you into bed.
“You could do anything to me right now,” you hear yourself saying. “No one would even know. No one would even care, I bet.”
It’s meant to sound like you’re goading him, or even flirting with him, but it comes out sounding pitiful. You cringe, your hands creeping up to cover your face.
“I’d care.” Munson’s voice is a tiny mumble– you know he’s just defending himself, but it kind of sounds like something else. He slips your right shoe off and sets it on the floor next to your left one. He hesitates for a moment before getting off your bed.
“Alright, well– we can forget this ever happened. Resume being assholes to each other on Monday. Don’t, like, die in the meantime.”
“You say resume like we ever stopped being assholes to each other.”
“Have a fun hangover, Lacy.”
–
You do not have a fun hangover. You wake up late Saturday afternoon after Friday’s bacchanal and don’t emerge from your room save from the occasional bathroom trip to puke up what little dignity you’ve got left. Sunday morning is when your mom hammers on the door and drags you to the kitchenette after confirming that you’re still, y’know, alive.
“This is your game face, hm?” she says, pulling at your chin to examine your violet bruise that seems to have developed its own heartbeat. She doesn’t hold your face the way Munson did, gentle and searching, just tugs into the sparse light streaming into the dingy kitchenette.
You attempt to steel your jaw, but your bottom lip is starting to waver.
“What happened?” your mother asks, and beneath all the jagged broken glass, there’s a tiny sliver of tenderness.
Call it your pride, but you don’t reach for it.
“I went out,” you say tightly, “and I made a fool of us.”
She hacks up a scoff through her smoker’s cough and disappears into her bedroom, leaving you alone to pick at a cold waffle. The few moments of consciousness you’ve had since Friday night have been spent trying to piece the party together– you remember clearing the better part of a bottle of cheap, cheap, shitty vodka with Robin Buckley’s help (weird), you remember getting into it with Hagan and Carol and getting wailed on. You remember getting a ride home with Munson, but the finer details of that are fuzzy.
You think, and this is a thought that turns your already 180’d stomach, you let him into your bedroom, but you can’t be one hundred percent sure. All you know for an absolute is that your shoes came off that night, and you would never bother to take your shoes off after a night like that.
So somebody must have.
Meanwhile, Eddie’s been having a hell of a meanwhile.
Fact of the matter is that you managed to detonate a nuclear bomb at Harrington’s party just under an hour after your arrival, which has got to be some kind of world record. It was also a world record for how little product he’d managed to sell during one of those parties, because he was preventing the manslaughter of a teenage girl– could’ve been you, could’ve been Carol. He nearly wishes he let that fight play out, as he stares into his empty wallet.
Eddie’s gotta busy himself somehow, gotta do something– weirdly, he’s not in the mood to make a whole lot of noise. It’s not such a terrible day for working on his van, so he slams his toolbox on the ground and gives a couple dozen casual glances toward your bedroom window.
Your blinds still aren’t fixed. That’s got to have been shitty when you woke up with a splitting vodka headache and a shiner the size of Canada.
Eddie keeps finding excuses to pace back and forth in perfect view of your window. Not in a peeping Tom sort of way, but in a way where he’d kind of like to see any sign of life from you. Even if you just rose from your bed like Nosferatu and gave him the finger. Then, he could relax.
“Ed,” a gruff voice comes from the makeshift trailer porch, “fuck’re you doin’.”
Those dulcet tones would belong to his beloved Uncle Wayne, who, ever since his hours got cut at the plant, has become unbearably observant of Eddie’s every movement. Wayne’s not a neglectful kind of father figure, not like his blinders-wearing real dad is, so he actually gets concerned when Eddie’s acting out of sorts.
“Engine,” Eddie mumbles, pivoting fast like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t, “Engine’s making hinky noises.”
“Sounded alright last night,” Wayne levels him instantly, “when you came home.”
“Didn’t mean to wake ya,” he twists an oily rag in his hands, avoiding Wayne’s stony stare.
“I was up.” He crosses his arms, leaning against the doorframe. God, whenever Wayne susses him out, it’s like drip torture. He’s slow as molasses with the confrontation on purpose, making Eddie sweat and out himself on every little fuck up he’s ever made. “You go in there?”
Chin jerks towards your trailer. Eddie’s shoulders shrug towards his ears, head tilting back. “Wayne, it’s not– she was real drunk, like blotto, I just–”
“You steer clear of that one.” It’s the definite nature with which Wayne says it that makes Eddie’s stomach drop. No prelude to it, no I know, kid, you were just tryin’ to do right by her. Nothing.
“Wayne–”
“She ain’t what you think she is. Not if she’s anything like her bloodline.”
He says this like the realization hasn’t hit Eddie like Carol hit you on Friday fight night.
He says this like people haven’t been saying the same thing about Eddie for years.
–
Monday morning comes and you’re still somewhat suffering. A headache nags at your temple, but you pin that down to anxiety rather than an extended play of your hangover.
It occurs to you that you should dress as down as possible today– realistically, of course, as you’d never be caught dead in sweatpants. You need comfort, you need something that feels like a well-worn blanket so you opt for a deep burgundy sweater dress that actually belonged to your mom in the 60s.
You’d found it in the back of her closet when searching for a belt you knew she’d stolen from you and pulled it out. Mom! you chirped, How cute! How come you never wear this?
Oh, God, she’d cringed, batting the garment out of her way as she passed you in a cloud of Shalimar, Just throw that ratty thing out for me, would you?
But you didn’t. You kept it tucked away in the back of your closet and took it out when you needed it. When you needed to bury your face in it. Substitute it for a comfort she refused to give you. Which you realize is terrifically sad, but so’s life.
The warm red is a distant cousin in the color family to the bruise under your eye. That bruise, it’s a glaring reminder of what a fucking loser you’ve become. The old you, the real you would never have stooped to that level– never had let them drag her down like that. But now you’re the kind of girl that screams and starts fights at parties, you guess.
Your rage feels ugly in the cold light of day.
You’re locking the door of the trailer behind you just as Munson emerges from his humble abode and it’s nothing short of awkward. Like you’d both seen each other naked or something.
You both stand there, in your relative doorways. His mouth gapes like he’s about to say hi, say something, and a memory comes back to you. Cold shock in the middle of a summer’s day. No one likes that. No one wants that.
Regret stabs at you.
“Can you see it from there?” It’s the only thing you can think of to say, because you’re sure as fuck not saying hi.
“What?”
“The bruise. Can– can you see it from over there?”
Munson sort of half-snorts. “Not from here–”
“Ugh, thank god.”
“--but this is like, over fifteen feet away.”
You roll your eyes, which hurts a lot, thanks guy, and walk toward his van.
“Now?” you say, waving a hand under your eye, right where you’ve applied and blended and applied and blended a criminal amount of concealer. Munson leaves about a foot of space between you, on purpose, and you crane your neck back, on purpose. Reinstating the forcefield between you.
“Oh yeah, you can barely even see that you got your ass kicked.”
“It’s not even eight in the morning, Munson. Do you really want to start your day with a knee to the balls?”
“You’re right. That’s usually an after-dinner activity,” he grins and jerks his head toward the van. “Need a ride?”
Need a ride? Like it’s the most ordinary, everyday thing in the world, Eddie Munson offering you a ride to school in his deathtrap of a van. Your stomach pulls at the sense memory of being in there on Friday night, and what you’ll look like getting out of it in the parking lot of Hawkins High.
“No,” you say, shaking your head, definite and resolute. “I’m walking.”
He scoffs. “C’mon. It’s too late to start walking now. You’ll be late for first period.”
You scoff back, imitating him. “So what?”
“You’re never late for first period.”
“I can be late– how the hell do you know I’m never late for first period?”
“Because, dummy, I’m always late for first period,” he tells you, yanking open the passenger door, “And I sit behind you in History, and you’re always there when I come in, leaning back with your nose in some dumb book and your stupid hair all over my desk.”
It’s true– you are always reading in history, because Kaminsky can’t teach for shit and you’ve already read ahead on the coursework anyway. You liked to rub that in his face by pulling out some unprescribed literature during class. Plus, no one you really care about is in your class, so you don’t have to worry about getting made fun of for having your nose in some dumb book. Illiterate jocks would never try that shit with you– nobody there would.
Until now.
And it’s true that Eddie Munson sits behind you, and barrels in like an idiotic excuse for a hurricane with some idiotic excuse for being late that you always scoff at, because does he ever get tired of his own bullshit. But after that brief cameo appearance in your day, you really do forget about him.
Until now.
“So?” he says, all expectant.
And you consider it for a second, you really do– but you don’t think you can handle the blowback of leaving a party with Eddie Munson on Friday then turning up with him on Monday. Going to the same class. Where he sits behind you. It’s just… overexposure.
The same realization must hit him, because all of a sudden he’s slamming the door shut with a roll of his eyes. “Whatever. Your tardy slip, babe.” You can’t help but think he sounds a little wounded.
But fuck it. Fuck it! Since when do you stand around feeling sorry for Eddie Munson?
Before you know it, the van roars out and leaves you in the dust.
You don’t make it to school until after second period, because that so-called bus route a fifteen minute walk from the trailer park must not even exist, so you forge a note from your mom in the parking lot.
As your fountain pen hovers over the paper, brainstorming an excuse, you consider pulling out the big guns– say you had to attend visitation day at the penitentiary. Use this disaster to your advantage for once; but you pull back. Scribble something about a doctor’s appointment and dot your mother’s ‘i’s with eerie precision.
You make quick work of dropping the note off in reception– the uptick of being the kid of the town’s gossip beacon is some people still feel sorry for you. Some people weirdly include Janice, Principal Higgins’ secretary, who snatches the note from you before you can even reach the actual receptionist’s desk.
“I’ll file that for you, dear,” she says, all coo-cooey with an unwelcome hand on your shoulder, “How are you and your poor mother doing these days? And your,” her croaky voice drops to a whisper, “dad? How is… he being treated?”
You blink at her, gripping the fountain pen in your hand. “Do you know what a shiv is, Janice?”
Just then, the bell trills and you take your leave, stepping out into the linoleum.
Someone calls your name from down the hall. You crane your neck to see Ronnie Ecker jogging toward you, paper in hand.
Now look, you’ve never had a problem with Ronnie Ecker. You can’t say you’re particularly fond of her but she’s smart; she keeps to herself and she was a decent lab partner during your junior year of dissecting frogs together. Squeamish, but that’s why you were there, to handle the scalpel. As much of a social outcast as she is, she’s not nearly as odious as the rest of them. That’s pretty goddamn remarkable amongst the Hawkins student body.
She is also, you’ve come to notice, a resident of Forest Hills trailer park.
“Hey!” she says, “Um, I noticed you missed first period and Kaminsky was handing our papers back so I figured you’d want yours…”
“Why is everyone so obsessed with me missing first period?”
“Huh?”
“No– nothing,” you huff, taking the paper from her. A solid B on A+ material– told you Kaminsky couldn’t teach for shit. He’d be hearing from you about this. “Thanks for this, Ronnie.”
You start down the hall but notice Ronnie’s keeping in step with you. “I also just wanted to say– I heard about what happened Friday. And I think it’s sick, you standing up to Hagan like that. Asshole needed to be put in his place.”
Well, there’s only one person she could have heard the nitty gritty of that news from. You know she’s trying to flatter you, but all you feel is a flame of embarrassment, plus a touch of anger– even though the news has easily circulated the school hallways by now.
Along with the rumors of you taking Hargrove, Buckley and Munson, and not in a fight.
“Well. Y’know. I was pretty wasted,” you attempt to brush it off and you see Ronnie deflate a little.
Like you’re not the blazing hero someone made you out to be.
“Okay, but is it true you had a threesome with Billy Hargrove and Robin Buckley and Robin was wearing the Tigers mascot suit?”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
–
Classes pass in a monotonous blur, like most Mondays, but worse. That would be thanks to the extra shot of dread that’s served with your cafeteria meal of a wilted salad and soda. Last week at lunchtime, you at least had a tenuous standing with your former circle– you could still sit between Tina and Nancy Wheeler and suffer Tina’s thinly veiled jabs at you with a semi-placid look on your face. Nancy would look at you with eyes full of pity, and you’d want to punch her face in, but you’d be fine.
But now, as you stand in the cafeteria swirling with people and catch the death glares from your old table (save for Nancy and Steve Harrington, who just straight up refuse to make eye contact with you), you’re just about ready to snap.
Your flight instinct tells you to toss the tray out of your clammy hands and run, and keep running, until you disappear into the woods behind the school, never to be found. Your body becomes mulch before anyone remembers to look for you. Maybe you make really good fertilizer and a couple of pretty weeds sprout up from where you die.
Your bruise, under its flaking layers of concealer, throbs twice– as if to say, don’t you fucking dare.
You make a confident beeline for the table, chin tilted and eyes set in a stare that could be categorized as withering, if only it was trained on anybody in particular. You grab a chair that some dumb underclassman is about to sit in and drag it with you, legs screeeeeching across the waxed floor.
Who gives a shit who you were on Friday night.
“I can sit here, right?” you say, and place your tray on the table next to Ronnie Ecker.
She just stares at you for a hot second. That’s too long to stay standing in uncertainty, so you settle your stolen chair at the table and sit next to her.
Ronnie isn’t the only one staring, however– the rest of these dorks, all in their matching t-shirts with Satan’s fiery head emblazoned across them, are watching you with their mouths agape.
“Is this a prank or something?” one of them, a curly-haired freshman, says.
This question is directed toward their fearless leader, decked out in denim and leather at the head of the table. That is to say, the direct opposite end of the table that you’re sitting at.
“That’s no way to greet a lady, Gareth,” Munson says, feigning coolness but you can tell he’s a little flustered. The dead giveaway is in the way he misses his mac and cheese with his fork, the way his solid gaze double-blinks. You’ve thrown him off game– and because he’s impossible not to overhear sometimes, you know that game is all he’s got going on at this table.
There’s that feeling again– point to Lacy.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?”
This is Munson’s version of what the hell do you think you’re doing, but you choose to ignore him. It’ll drive him insane, and you know that, glaring red warning sign that he is. Instead, you flash a smile at the freshman that almost makes him pass out, Cupid’s arrow struck straight through the heart.
You cross your legs and angle your body toward Ronnie– and by extension, in the direction of your old table. You can see Carol burying her face in Tommy’s shoulder, the both of them on the verge of losing bowel control with laughter. Laughter at you.
Who gives a shit who you were before Friday night.
“So, Ronnie,” you say, taking a sip of your Tab, “You get up to anything fun this weekend?”
author's notes: let me get ahead of everything and say yes, i am absolutely fucking with the timeline. suspend your disbelief, my beautiful babies, and enjoy steve, carol, tommy and ronnie ecker still being in high school because I SURE WILL. but on an absolutely serious note, thank you so much for all the support and each and every note you’ve put on the chapters so far. i seriously, seriously appreciate it. now, the notes:
- you think eddie munson doesn’t fuck with pee-wee herman heavy? you think he didn’t watch this movie in reefer rick’s, high out of his gourd, and think oh yeah i love this freak? get REAL! RIP paul reubens, this one’s for you. specially every time i mention a handjob
- eddie munson also has charlie kelly disease
- speaking of iterations of always sunny characters, much like frank reynolds, there’s not a get rich quick scheme al munson hasn’t tried. we’ll get into that a little more… later
- admittedly, the whole ‘face eating on bath salts’ thing didn’t gain traction until the 00s, but if hawkins is going to be ahead of its time in anything, it’s fucked up shit happening to people!
- did you notice how i blended eddie and lacy’s povs in the van? i’m going to continue doing that in moments where they’re on a similar ~wavelength~
- jimi hendrix did unfortunately die of asphixiation, but instead of thinking about that, watch this sick video of him playing guitar that eddie definitely has committed to memory
- RONNIE ECKER KLAXON. i know that in flight of icarus she’s described as tall, but that hasn’t stopped me fancasting her as ayo edebiri in an eddie munson wig
- at this point, you might be thinking damn, everyone sure seems to hate each other in this story. like, why is nancy wheeler catching strays? i’m here to remind you it’s the 1980s and teenagers kind of suck. play the track
- thanks again for all the love! you can keep this crazy train going by liking, commenting, reblogging and generally showing me the same kindness you’ve shown me so far. love u my little hellcats
273 notes
·
View notes