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thefreakandthehair · 6 months

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@eddiemonth prompt, oct 30th: Costumes | Children of the Grave - Black Sabbath | Loyal [1.9k, rated T] read on ao3 + masterpost | tumblr masterlist

“No, no, no, no—” Gareth protests, ducking the Donkey costume mask that Eddie tosses his way backstage. “Not again! Dude, that thing smells like having a condom over your face and it’s impossible to drum in. I’m not doing it this year. No way. Someone else is taking one for the team this time.”

Eddie cackles, trying not to cry with laughter and smudge his green face paint. “Decide amongst yourselves then, but someone is wearing it. We’ve gotta commit.”

Jeff snorts and shakes his head. “No chance, why can’t someone be like, Fiona or something?”

“We need Donkey! He’s crucial to the story!” Eddie rolls his eyes and walks over to grab the mask. “Okay, circle up. We’re gonna Rock, Paper, Scissors this. On my count.”

The rest of the band huddles around and Eddie counts to three. Gareth throws rock and celebrates as Frank and Jeff both throw scissors.

“Redemption!” He celebrates as Eddie counts Frank and Jeff in for three.

In the end, Frank gets stuck with the Donkey costume, Jeff reprises his Pinocchio costume, and Gareth steals Farquaad out from under Frank in the Rock, Paper, Scissors coup. No one is particularly happy, but Eddie doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care because Shrek Night is his favorite show of the year. Since its inception a few years earlier, entirely by accident when Eddie was forced to perform as Shrek as a dare, it’s become something of a cult classic among Corroded Coffin fans. The last show they play before Halloween is a costume night, and the fans have taken to the theme like, well, like an ogre to mud.

There’s something incredibly special about screaming the lyrics to their latest hit while a sea of Shreks and Gingys and Fionas scream along with him.

And tonight is no different.

—

“Shreddie! Shreddie! Shreddie!”

The crowd roars to life as the group takes the stage, waddling in costumes and maybe a little itchy from body paint and latex masks.

“Give it up for Donkey on the bass!” Eddie shouts, pointing to Frank. He gives his best, saddest wave.

“Give it up for Pinocchio on the guitar!” He yells again as Jeff hammers a riff in response and grins in his fedora and suspenders.

“And last but certainly not least, give it up for Lord Farquaad on the drums!” Gareth drums a little rimshot as the hat pokes out over the top of his high hat. How he plans on drumming the whole night crouched on his knees is beyond Eddie, but ultimately not up to him.

The crowd goes insane, as usual, and Eddie takes a second to soak it all in, to glance over the various costumes before everyone melds into one collective unit of chaos. Fairy Godmothers, and Donkeys, and Fionas as far as the eye can see. He even spots a Puss in Boots in the front of the pit, standing next to a very attractive Gingy.

He doesn’t have time to assess the life choices that lead him to have that particular thought though, because Gareth starts counting them in.

—

Their originals are hits, of course, as are the covers. After all, it wouldn’t be a true Shrek Night without at least a couple of songs from the famed movies.

“And then I saw her face!” He shrieks, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the crowd. “Now I’m a believer!”

He runs around the stage, careful not to lose the microphone (again) as Jeff, Gareth, and Frank pound away at the melody. As the song comes to a close, Eddie slides on his knees, hardly protected by the cheap beige pants from Walmart, to the edge of the stage.

“Not a trace! Of doubt in my mind! I’m a believer!” He sings, drawing out the final note.

Chants and applause follow him up and he falls to his back, guitar over his chest, pounding his feet and fists on the stage as he catches his breath. Green paint melts from his forehead and when he brushes his hair back, he pulls his fingers away to see shades of ogre paint that’s surely made its way into his hairline.

Before he can stand, Gareth shouts into his microphone, presumably to give Eddie another second or two. It’s no secret that I’m A Believer is high octane.

“Do you know…” Gareth pauses for effect before shouting. “The muffin man?”

Before the crowd yells out together, jumbled and out of sync, a faux high-pitched voice rings out surprisingly close to Eddie’s feet.

“The muffin man!”

He sits up and spots him: the hot Gingy he’d noticed earlier, laughing with a scrunched up nose, leaning on his friend’s shoulder.

Oh, fuck me, Eddie thinks. He’s adorable.

It’s usually the other way around: Eddie being ogled by a fan in the front row, staring up at him like he’s something to eat, like he’s prey. Ignoring them is easy enough, typically appeased with just a smile or a wink to carry with them forever, but this guy? The one with the fuzzy brown onesie with purple button and white, pretend icing lining the legs and waist? Well, Eddie’s never actually wanted a fan in the front row to look at him until now.

So he scoots to the end of the stage, legs dangling over the edge, and steals Gareth’s line. Grinning down at the guy pressed to the railing, he screeches. “The muffin man!”

Gingy’s friend, known only to him at this point as Puss in Boots, elbows him hard in the ribs and he looks up to see Eddie staring right at him, crooked grin, and in hindsight, probably a bit more unhinged than planned.

His friend looks back and forth between them, disbelief in the shape of her mouth and furrowed forehead, but it seems to work because Gingy returns the smile and has the audacity to wink at him.

Eddie raises his green brows towards his hairline and nods appreciatively. The barricade isn’t far from the edge of the stage, close enough for Eddie to leave the microphone to the side and ask Gingy and his friend to hang back after the show.

—

After one crowdsurfing escapade from Jeff, one quip into the microphone from Gareth about how he now understands why Farquaad is always so cranky, and few more of the originals peppered with All Star and Bad Reputation covers, Corroded Coffin takes an awkward but well-deserved bow. The crowd cheers for more, even after their encore, but eventually filter out through the venue’s exit doors, flooding the parking lots and nearby streets with Shrek characters.

Eddie’s sure the local bars are having a blast.

The only fans left are Gingy and Puss in Boots, who Eddie desperately needs the real names of before his thoughts turn into a troubling Shrek fanfiction. With a quick word to their manager, Chrissy, he makes sure they won’t leave before he comes back with a plan— a very weird, very niche plan that he hopes works on the presumably dorky, albeit confident, man in the fuzzy onesie.

Her wings bump him in the shoulder and remind him that she truly is his Fairy Godmother.

“Eddie,” Jeff deadpans as he plops his prop fedora on the backstage table and unfastens the buttons of his suspenders. “Are you really about to go hit on a fan? Dressed as Shrek? With an onion?”

“Do you have a better idea?” He whirls on him, a lone onion from a backstage fridge somewhere in one hand and a sponge trying to at least clean up his face paint in the other. He’s sure he looks insane. And he may as well be at this point.

“Uh, don’t? That’s the better idea?” Frank offers in the corner, his face red and sweaty from the suffocating Donkey mask.

“Not an option, so Operation Onion is on. I’ll be back. Or not. Hopefully not, actually.” Eddie shakes his head and sets down the makeup sponge, places the onion in his prop burlap bag. “Wish me luck!”

Gareth sighs with ice packs on his knees. “Nope.”

—

Eddie approaches the open backstage area, the spare lounge where Chrissy’s talking with Gingy and Puss in Boots. Maybe talking a little more intently to Puss in Boots, but he can’t begrudge her. After all, Eddie’s doing the same thing, isn’t he?

He catches a bit of the conversation before opening the door, overhearing Chrissy refer to them as Steve and Robin.

Thank God, he thinks to himself. Better than the placeholders.

By no means does Eddie consider himself a rockstar— not yet, anyways. He enjoys the mid-level shows he gets to do with his friends, especially on nights like this, but he’s yet to harness that rockstar swagger. At his core, he’s still the marginally insecure, frantic kid from Bumfuck Nowhere, Indiana who paints D&D miniatures and speaks Elvish. And dresses up as Shrek, apparently.

All of that to say, his heart pounds in his chest and his tongue feels twisted around itself when he knocks on the door.

“Oh, hey, Eddie! Come on in! Great show tonight!” Chrissy smiles, wide and bright, as she introduces Steve and Robin. “This is Steve, and this is Robin. Steve, Robin, you all know Eddie. Or, should I say, Shreddie?”

All three groan and shake their heads in good nature.

“To be fair, man, you are still in the get-up. I thought you were going backstage to change or something.” Steve teases, eyes full of mirth and challenge.

Exactly Eddie’s type.

“And leave the three of you dressed up and feel out of place? Not a fucking chance.” Eddie takes a breath and goes for it, channeling his years of drama and general theatrics.

He goes to take his seat on the sofa and pretends to trip, his burlap bag tipping over in time for his onion to fall to the floor at Steve’s feet.

“Shit, sorry, that’s my onion,” Eddie shrugs. “Happens sometimes. Ogre and all, y’know? By the way, you’re gorgeous.”

“Oh my God,” Chrissy mutters under her breath and ducks her head, leaning an elbow on Robin’s shoulder and covering her eyes.

Steve’s mouth falls open into a little O and sits quietly for a few beats, nothing but the girls chuckling off to the side and an onion between them. Eddie’s about to swallow his tongue and see himself out when Steve leans forward and picks it up, tossing it up in the air above his head and catching it like a baseball.

“Looks like you dropped this. And uh, thanks. I could say the same to you.”

Robin wheezes and doubles over. “Jesus Christ, Steve. I know I’m a lesbian and all but this? This is what works on you?”

Eddie likes her already, and a quick glance to Chrissy tells him Chrissy does, too.

“Is this Ogre discrimination? Do I have to explain that we have—”

“Layers!” Steve finishes for him, nudging her in the ribs. “Ogres have layers, Rob. Don’t be so close-minded, God. Besides, he’s half melted and just ransacked backstage for an onion. Don’t judge our mating rituals.”

Mating rituals? Eddie grins with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. “Yeah, what he said.”

Robin just shakes her head and gestures with one hand at the air between the two men, speechless.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go see if this sweaty, half-melted, babbling Onion Man wants to make out or something.” Steve slaps his hands on his thighs, still covered in fuzzy material, and stands. “What do you say?”

When he shows up backstage to introduce Steve to the rest of Corroded Coffin, both of their faces are now smeared with green paint and Steve sports painted handprints in some telling places.

Eddie gives them a bright smile and jazz hands, his friends’ expressions are as impressed as they are confused.

Shrek Night really is his favorite show of the year.

tagging people who expressed interest <3: @cuips-not-cute @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @useless-nb-bisexual @kkpwnall@cuoredimuschio @doublecherrypiediscosuperfly@ohmagicalunicornlord @hellion-child @bxnsheeslxdia @pomegranatebb @vampeddie @horsegirleddiemunson @stobinesque @sidekick-hero @medusapelagia @slipperygiraff @epiclazershark @bayouteche thank you to @nostalgicbones for beta-reading and inspiring this!