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ghost-proofbaby · 1 year ago

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twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY TWO

in which eddie is honest. for real, this time.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, discussion of/allusions to smut from last chapter, angst, not edited (what's new though), upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 11.1k+

→ a/n: welp. this... yeah, this is a lot. i truly hope it's worth it. in the waiting, anticipation, and length. if it isn't... my bad. i'm sorry in advance. also, please note, pov change only applies to the memory.

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

22:00 ──────────────ㅇ─ 24:00

His regret turns to pain as you whisper, “What did you just say?”

—

HOUR TWENTY TWO – 1:00 PM

You can’t speak. It’s as if you’re frozen; every muscle, including your tongue, has gone rigid. Every racing thought escapes just beyond your reach. Every single one of the last twenty two hours pound behind your rib cage, and you think you might just faint. Right here, right now. The blood rushes your ears as your body goes ice cold, and even the railing cutting into your palm seems to drift away from you.

“I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t even try to deny it. He knows you heard what he said – he can’t take it back. It’s written plainly on his face that if he could, he would swallow back down those disastrous words. He’d grab that destruction four letter word right out of the air, no doubt, and set it aflame. He’d blow away the ash if he could guarantee you would have never heard it.

But he can’t. You heard him.

I’ve loved you for so long.

Everything is heavy. The air, your limbs, your godforsaken tongue.

“Say something,” he suddenly begs. You’ve never seen Eddie look so desperate, eyes wet and voice cracking, “Anything.”

You want to answer him. Your bones ache with the need – the need to reply, the need to question, the need to do anything but stare at him with what he must surely mistake for horror.

Were you horrified? Were you?

You don’t know.

It’s why you can’t answer him.

“I-” he starts up again, breaking down even further right before your eyes. You want to reach out, to coddle him, to tell him it’s fine. But it’s not fine.

You don’t even get the chance to ruminate on just how not fine it is, or that heat beginning to come to a boil in the pit of your stomach, because the sound of one of the neighbors exiting out onto their own balcony interrupts the infinitely delicate moment.

“Hey there, Eds-” You don’t know what actually interrupts the gruff man that steps out, who exudes familiarity with Eddie until he takes in the scene before him.

Eddie, completely fucking naked. You, with only a shirt on. If it weren’t for the moment at hand and the trembling emotions coming to fruition inside of you, you’d probably find it comical. You’d probably find a way to join in the old man’s single guffaw before the two of you meet each other’s gaze and become aware of what exactly is happening.

But it’s not funny. You’re both fucking naked — physically and emotionally — and it’s not funny.

You’re mortified as both of you are scrambling across the balcony, a whirlwind of discarded clothes fisted and nearly tripping over each other to shove back into Eddie’s living room. That embarrassment now trickles down into the start of a boil, everything in you becoming red-hot from how flustered you’ve become and the way you can’t have a second to just process it all.

When you turn to face Eddie once the sliding door has slammed shut, his cheeks are the brightest pink imaginable.

“What the fuck,” you whisper out, trying to steady your breathing, trying to take it all in.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Your adrenaline is almost making you sick.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he catches your whisper amongst your stoic silence and seems to forget the moment that his neighbor had just shattered, voice clear as day as he pulls his curtains shut. You swear you catch the old man still staring, still laughing, and you’re just grateful that you’re not the one completely nude, “I had no idea Mr. Jenkins would come outside, usually none of those fuckers see the light of day before sundow-”

“Your neighbor just saw us naked,” you almost scream. You want to shout, want to throw everything in sight. You crave to flip that coffee table in the center of the room and throw a fit that outdoes even the most petulant of toddlers.

“I know, I-“

“If you say sorry again, I’m walking back out there,” you take a deep breath, but it does nothing to calm you’re shaking body, “And I’m throwing myself off the fucking balcony.”

Maybe you’ll be able to laugh about it in five years. A year, even. Hell, a month or as soon as next week. But you can’t right now; all you want to do is cry.

Some random man just saw you naked. Eddie apparently fucking loves you.

It might be the sleep deprivation and it might be the fact that it feels like the Universe is laughing in your face at every turn right now. Whatever higher power exists seems to be waiting around every corner for the chance to kick you repeatedly as you stumble to this finish line. And you can’t fucking take it.

So you give in. You give in to that childish need to stomp your feet and scream until you’re blue in your lips.

“I just- Fuck!” Eddie jumps a bit at your exclamation, he’s still naked, “I can’t catch a break! I can’t catch a fucking break. First, I’m showing up here, and I’m stuck with you for twenty four hours. I’m stuck with the man I hate for a whole fucking day,” you’re full on pacing, not caring how ridiculous this scene would appear to anyone. Your hands wave erratically in the space around you, and all Eddie can do is stare, tense with wide eyes, “And I cry in front of you, have full breakdowns in front of you. I listen to you remind me over and over how much you truly despise only to now suddenly find out that, hey! I actually love you! And do I get to process that? No. Because now, some fucking old man that lives next door to you has seen my goddamn vag-“

Eddie’s entire demeanor collapses. “Oh, so now I’m back to being the man you hate?”

You pause your ranting, realizing what you’ve said.

You’re just angry. You should have thought before you spoke, before you opened your mouth and began to spew your venom, because you can see the way the words have struck Eddie. Not your intention.

“I didn’t mean that.”

“But you said that,” he flatly argues back.

Your stomach twists.

“I’m just-“ your tongue is back to being heavy as the two of you face one another. Feet apart, worlds apart. “I’m fucking embarrassed, Eddie.”

“You think I’m not?” he scowls, and you try to tell your racing heart it’s a good sign. But it’s not. You almost preferred his walls dividing the two of you, “Shit fucking happens. We got caught — we fucking dirty talked about getting caught! Big fucking deal! Karmic justice or whatever bullshit people spew. It doesn’t mean I’m going to- It doesn’t change-“ he’s stuttering now, matching that exasperation that had you pacing just moments before. He huffs, a hand reaching up and dragging his bangs upward, harsh at the root as he finally drops his hands in his own defeat, palms slapping his sides, “Everything changes. You said that, not me. You said everything changes, and all it takes is a little bit of fucking embarrassment to go back on your word?”

He’s still fucking naked. You still can’t think.

“I’m not having this conversation with you naked,” you whisper, almost in disbelief as you shake your head, “I’m- Put your fucking clothes on. Please.”

“Put my clothes on?” he scoffs, taking a step closer to you, “Put my clothes on? Do you mean the same clothes you just insisted I take off not even ten minutes ago?”

“We were having sex!” you yell. You’re sure if the old man is no longer on his balcony, he can hear you through the walls. Hell, even if he is still outside, it’s likely he hears the screaming match beginning, “Why- Why are you turning this on me right now? You just said you fucking love me! The least of our issues right now is me telling you to get fucking dressed!”

“Why are you lashing out at me right now?” Eddie’s voice is louder than yours, something more broken inside of it, “I-“

“Clothes,” you grit out, avoiding his eyes as you start to yank your panties on violently, “Now.”

You can still feel him. His essence is dripping between your thighs. And you don’t find any sense of enjoyment in it, you don’t savor that quick-fading warmth nor the reminder of the pleasure he’d just brought you. It just reminds you of the words he had said all while not even looking you in the eyes. He couldn’t even face you as he had admitted it.

One thing at a time, you try to remind yourself. One fucking thing at a time.

Eddie’s own redressing is another sight that maybe, hopefully, one day you’ll look back on and laugh at. But right now, it can’t spark any amusement in you. Not as all your emotions slam back into you at full force.

You’re embarrassed. You’re confused. You’re angry.

“Happy?” he spits out once his boxers are on, shirt tugged back on so hard over his head that his curls frizz up.

“No,” your eyes are burning, and you feel it again. All those desperate emotions. Like a wild animal inside of you has begun to claw at your insides, making you bleed from the inside out.

Eddie loves you — and he has, for a long time, apparently.

Eddie’s neighbor has seen you naked. Saw your full bottom half exposed.

You’ve managed to hurt Eddie’s feelings, again.

Eddie fucking loves you and never thought to mention it. He has for a long time.

All your tempered strings snap, that wild and stricken thing inside of you finally cutting loose.

You don’t know what you’re angry at. You’re angry at him, and yet you’re not. You’re angry at the situation, and yet you’re not. You are bitter from words withheld and you are sour from every moment that paves the road that brought you two to this very moment.

You’re just angry.

“What did you mean?” the question comes out sharply enough to make his own defiant anger fade ever so slightly as he physically flinches, “I- I need to know what the Hell you meant, Eddie.”

Anger is metallic on your tongue. It seeps from your skin, floods the air, only further dampens everything already so heavy.

The longer he doesn’t answer you, the more smothering the entirety of the apartment becomes.

“Just tell me. Make it make sense, because right now?” you pause for a deep and shaky breath. Your eyesight is blurry now. Eyes red rimmed with tears that will surely sear your cheeks if they find the nerve to be shed, “Right now, I don’t get it. Over and over and over again, you have reminded me that you hate me. Prior to tonight, it was safe to assume that scorning my existence was one of your favorite pastimes. And I know, I get it — everything has changed. But- But-“

How can anything change if you weren’t honest to begin with?

Did anything change for him? While you were discovering and tending to sore feelings that had been festering for a while but had never seen the light of day, was he only nursing an old wound?

“But what?” his voice drops low. His entire demeanor has dropped, cowering down before you. His head dips down, his shoulders droop with prepared rejection, you watch the man before you, the man you had just let defile you and the man you had just worshiped on your goddamn knees, turn to dust.

A shaky gasp. Wobbly knees. The blood rushes through your ears again, flushing out any noise except the two of you breathing out of sync. His deep breaths, accepting and welcoming a rejection he was so sure he was receiving. Your shallow breaths, panting and rapid and trying to just get everything to slow the fuck down.

You were right. Once the tears shed, they burn a trail of Hellish fury right down the center of each cheek. “When I say everything has changed between us, what does that mean to you?”

He’s undressing an old wound, an open slash that seems to be unable to form a scab. You’re pressing on bruises, aching parts of you that had purpled from his neglect long ago. It’s clear as day now — the difference.

You no longer care about the embarrassment of being caught.

“What do you want it to mean?”

“Don’t do that,” the tears fall faster now. You can’t even begin to dig into this chasm of emotions. Are you angry at him? Are you disappointed by the circumstances? Do you love him? “I want an answer — I need your answer. You promised me your honesty, so give me it. Now.”

His eyes meet yours, and your entire world seems to fold into itself, “It… doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t change much.”

Everything has only changed for you.

“So it means nothing, then? You have me at your disposal, you have me on my fucking knees for you, you tell me you fucking love me, and it all means nothing?”

You’re twisting his words and you know it. But you can’t help it, can’t stop it.

“I never said that!” his voice is no longer low and quiet. Sudden worry creases beside his eyes as his mouth goes slack in shock, “I never said it meant nothing.”

“But it doesn’t mean much, right?” You hate your wet cheeks. You hate the way everything in you is somehow slow-breaking, yet suddenly shattering. An unnerving juxtaposition that is drowning you and sending you reeling over and over again, “It doesn’t change much, right? Because when I said that, Eddie, I meant it – everything fucking changed for me. It wasn’t- It’s not- This isn’t just some throwaway thing to me. Not even a day ago, I thought I had to hate you with everything I had. I thought I had to hate you.”

And I don’t. Not even a little bit. Even right now, when I should.

“Is that what you think I’m saying?” his voice is low where your voice has risen, his face calm where yours has gone stormy.

Where you’re on fire, he’s treading still waters. The opposite dilemma that has always existed, and the one you had the nerve to see as poetic. But water meeting flames is never poetic. It never ends well. You should have seen that coming from a mile away.

“What am I supposed to think?” you also quiet your tone to match his. You wonder if the neighbors really had heard a thing. You almost hope they had, that this argument is affecting someone else’s day the way it’s affecting you, “You’re standing here, and you’re telling me it doesn’t mean much, and-“

“It doesn’t change much,” he corrects, and you’re now the one flinching at the crack in his voice. “Not for me. Not when I-“

Not when I’ve loved you for so long.

He can’t even finish his own sentence.

“So what does it change?” you throw your hands out in exasperation, “If it doesn’t change much, what has it changed?”

There it is again — his silence, your anger.

“Is it not enough to just know it changes something?”

If you were stupid, you’d take his tone as pleading. You’d mistake it for begging. But you can’t. For all your fury, you can’t believe that he’s actually stooped so low as to beg for you, especially after what he’s just said. Time and time again, you had repeatedly cracked yourself wide open for him, and he’d managed to rip your heart right out of your chest with such a simply yet damning statement. The most casually cruel bit of honesty he had offered you yet tonight: that nothing changes.

“We’re back to square one,” you choke out in realization, “I- Fuck. This entire time, you weren’t honest with me.”

He opens his mouth quickly, and for a second you believe he’ll offer an explanation that can soothe over the ache. He’ll come up with an excuse that you can buy, he’ll explain himself in a way that proves you wrong, and the sweet oblivious bliss can return.

“No,” he says instead after careful consideration, “I wasn’t honest with you.”

Your tears are running rampant as you only nod slowly, pressing your lips together in defeat, “Awesome. Great,” you reach up, sniffling as you swipe at your nose, still silently quiet but no longer awarding him with any display of your rage, of your hurt, of anything but your acceptance, “No, really, that’s- Cool. Nothing changes. I get it.”

I’ve loved you for so long.

It didn’t make sense, but you don’t have it in you to dissect it any further. He had loved you the entire time, and still set out to make you bleed. His grand admission doesn’t change a single fucking thing.

You don’t say another word as you grab your pair of jeans up into your fist, being sure to move slowly and not in the haste every nerve in your body calls for. You need to leave – you need out of this apartment, and you need to never see Eddie Munson again. It wouldn’t be a far leap from what your friends already deal with. If the friendships take blows of damage from it, so be it-

“Where are you going?” he asks, standing stiller than a statue as he watches you.

You grab your bag, “I’m leaving. The deal’s off. Or- I don’t know. Tell them the bet’s off-”

“The bet is not off-”

“It is,” you turn to him, absolutely frozen in your resolution, “It really, really is. You can even fucking lie to them if you want, I don’t care. Figure out a way to get the money but I don’t want it. I’m done.”

“So that’s it?” he scoffs in disbelief. When you pull on your jeans, when you sling your bag back over your shoulder and begin to walk to the counter where your phone was left, he realizes that it’s really happening. He realizes you’re truly done, “No questions? I just told you I wasn’t fucking honest, and you’re just going to walk away, not even demand I tell the tru-”

“I’m tired of pulling the truth from you,” you finally move with some of the aggression you felt, hand smacking the counter beside your phone, “If you care so much, if you love me, I shouldn’t have to beg until my knees bleed for you to actually be honest with me,” you take your phone, shoving it into your back pocket before you look at him, “I can’t keep doing this. You were always right. They’re your friends. Congratulations, you got what you always said you wanted. You won’t have to deal with me anymore – consider this a farewell from your life. I’ll make sure no one invites you to my fucking funeral.”

You assume he grabs you due to your cruel reference to his insult from the very beginning of the night, that he’s going to fight you for that bit of your oddly calm speech. But when his hands wrap around your bicep, and you face him with those silent tears still racing, what comes out of his mouth stuns you.

“I’ll be honest,” he is pleading, he is begging, “Stay, and I’ll tell you everything. I don’t even fucking care about the bet — we can call off, everyone else can go to Hell. I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about the bet, I just-” he pauses, and you watch the desperation building taller and taller within him, “Stay and let me explain.”

You should tell him no. You should tell him to go to Hell. If you stay and hear him out, it will only end in pain for you. You should leave.

Instead, your bag begins to slip off your shoulder.

“You have ten minutes,” you whisper as his hand finally releases its grip, “Explain.”

—

SIX MONTHS EARLIER - EDDIE’S POV

If he were smart, Eddie would’ve kept his word.

He’d told them he wasn’t showing up. He’d told them he had work (not a complete lie), and that he wouldn’t make it tonight. He just hadn’t felt like drinking anymore — not since two weeks prior, when he’d gotten black out drunk while hanging out with Nancy, throwing his own personal pity party.

Pathetic.

It wasn’t just that killer headache that had been haunting Eddie since that night. It was much more than that; it was solid and palpable regret. He’d thrown back too many beers, mixed it with some sort of wine coolers that Nancy offered him once he started to feel the buzz. All it took was just a bit too much alcohol in his system, and suddenly, his rant that Nancy had agreed to indulge him in became so much more. One moment, he was just complaining about you. And the next, he was rambling, letting less harsh words slip between the complaints, more compliments than things he wanted you to change. One wine cooler in, and he was no longer complaining about the way everyone had been fawning over you after a full six months of friendship, but instead the way that your sad eyes and pouting lips following him around a room was cosmically unfair.

He didn’t remember much of the rest of the night, and he was glad when Nancy had given him a pitiful look over the cups of coffee she offered.

He’d told her. He knew he’d admitted his stupid, annoying, despicable crush on you to her. Probably whined about the way you and Harrington had clearly had something going on. Definitely spoke too much about how badly he wanted to experience your gentle hand in his calloused one, or to feel your arms wrap around his neck in greeting rather than daggers from your glare every time he entered a room. Hell, he’s sure there was a good thirty minute period amongst the fuzzy memories where he’d sat on the edge of tears as he continued to mumble about how he wasn’t good enough for you.

Nancy Wheeler, his best friend, finally knew. Six fucking months of keeping it under wraps, and Eddie Munson had finally slipped up.

And she clearly hasn’t forgotten as Eddie had prayed she would every single night as she’s the one to answer his knocks on Steve’s door, grinning with the hidden knowledge.

She’d texted him with one last plea for him to show up. Insisted everyone was here. Went so far as to make him a list, and made sure to add your name at the end. It had been phrased like an afterthought on the screen, but he knew her too well. He knew Nancy purposefully mentioned you.

“Munson! Finally! It took you long enough,” she squeals, clearly already halfway to drunk before she quiets down, “And you said you weren’t coming. Wonder what, or who, changed your mind.”

“Fuck off.”

It had been a bad day. Work, classes, a phone call with Wayne that had just left Eddie disheartened and terribly homesick. It was selfish, but the thought of seeing you in passing tonight, even if you did seem to dislike him just as he had intended, made it all a bit more bearable.

Coming home. Seeing you felt like coming home, even if you’d slammed the front door on his face.

He follows Nancy down the hall, a pit growing in the bottom of his stomach, heavy as ever. He shouldn’t have even wanted to see you. The last time he had seen you, you’d been out for blood, blatantly ruining a date he’d managed to bag with Chrissy Cunningham. Chrissy, who never gave him the time of day in high school. Chrissy, who was clearly set on using him as a rebound during yet another break from Jason. Chrissy, who’s only flaw wasn't just the fact that she wasn’t you.

“Eddie, my man!” Argyle greets Eddie the moment he enters the living room. He’s lounging on the couch, Jonathan to his right and a space where Nancy clearly had occupied now empty.

Eddie nods, still feeling the week weighing him down. No sight of you yet, “Hey, man.”

He just wanted to see you. One glimpse, preferably before you’ve caught sight of him, and he’d be fine. He’d learned to live with those fleeting moments the last six months, he could keep it up for just a bit longer.

He’d get over you eventually. Even if it killed him.

He had to give his plan time to work. So far, he’d done well, easily offering you a cold shoulder and nothing more after that first night. It wasn’t easy — he doesn’t think anyone would find the task of being cool towards someone as radiant as you easy — but he’d done it. Brick by brick, his wall of invincibility was standing tall and strong between you two. It was safer this way, he had to remind himself. It was better to run off of brief glances of your smiles and laughter never directed at him than to risk anything more. He’d only disappoint you, or you’d magically disappoint him, and it would end in bloodshed. Someone like you, someone so good and kind and easy to gravitate towards, would leave Eddie broken beyond damage.

You didn’t go for guys like Eddie. Steve had made that clear since day one.

Eddie takes the loveseat as Nancy returns to Jonathan’s side. He tries to make it subtle, the way he twists his head to glance around the room as he removes his jacket, eyes roaming until he finds you. In the kitchen, with Steve and Robin, tense back telling him you’d already noticed his arrival.

So much for seeing you smile.

He tries to keep up with the conversation going on. Argyle and Jonathan are having some sort of debate about aliens, nothing short of heated and passionate, and he’d normally be jumping in without hesitation. But his eyes can’t stop flickering to the kitchen and each time, he can see you downing even more alcohol. He knows you don’t like him, but did you hate him that much?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Nancy leans over to whisper as Jonathan grows in volume about another branch of a conspiracy theory.

“Just tired,” he flatly replies. He’s suddenly itching to get his hands onto some alcohol of his own. Fuck the lessons he should’ve learned a few weeks ago. Fuck his regret in confiding in Nancy.

“Was work rough?”

He hums pathetically in response, eyes glued to the kitchen still. To you.

Nancy’s eyes finally follow his focus, “Have you… I don’t know, ever tried just talking to her?”

He snaps from his daze at that, head turning quickly to Nancy, “I talk to her all the time.”

“You do not.”

“I do too.”

“Never nicely,” she points out, narrowing her eyes, “You’re like a little boy on the playground, tugging on her pigtails until she figures it ou-“

“I don’t want her to figure it out,” he cuts off the assumption, eyes widening in horror at the thought, “Christ, Nance. I thought I made that clear when I ended up shitfaced on your couch.”

Nancy softens. She can see what’s happening here, see every dampening thought that weighs Eddie down. He might not remember his drunken rambles, but she does.

“The only thing you made clear is what a spectacular ass you’re making out of yourself,” her words hold no bite, only truth, “Who cares what Steve said that night? He was drunk.”

“So was I,” Eddie’s eyes are back on you, palms running up his outer thighs until he curls them to fists by his hips, “I was drunk when I talked to you about her. Forget about it.”

Surprisingly, his stubborn best friend leaves it be. Puts the pointless argument to rest.

Eddie’s feelings can’t rest, though.

Every night, he tells himself it’ll all go away. The distance will make his heart grow harder, and he’ll eventually be able to wash himself of you one of these days. And every night, all the feelings you’ve sprouted inside of him only teem their way higher, up into his throat and choking him with every last breath before he falls asleep. He can’t forget those first few weeks, the way you seemed to think his coldness was a phase. You’d tried so desperately to seek him out at every function, sparked so many failed conversations with him that left him to burn. Every smile you’d offered him during that time, he’d taken for granted.

Even last week, when you’d interrupted his date, he’d let himself relish in the memory of your attention. Pathetic.

Had you been jealous? Had you just been spiteful, finally giving him a taste of his own medicine? He couldn’t decide, wouldn’t let himself linger on the reasoning. But he’d remembered your touch, could still feel it scarring his skin wherever your palm of fingertips had rested as you’d scared off Chrissy. He’d even hesitated in the shower that night, pausing for a moment before washing over the shoulder you’d gripped when you’d first approached their table and embarrassed him without care.

He deserved your spite.

And he deserves to have to overhear the conversation you’re currently having in the kitchen. You’re going on and on about all the men you’ve had dates with, detailing out every one night stand for Steve and Robin who listen with eager ears.

It makes his stomach churn and twist sharply. Each new man you bring to your roster makes his throat burn with jealousy, plain and simple. And he knows it written all over his face when Nancy leans over and puts a hand on his knee, giving him a concerned look.

Even the change of topic between Argyle and Jonathan on goddamn Bigfoot can’t overtake the sharp cut of your bragging.

“I’ve never seen your eyes so green, Eddie.”

He’s about to snipe back that his eyes are brown, and be unnecessarily cruel from his sour mood, when he realizes what she means.

“I’m not jealous,” he lies through his teeth.

“You very much are.”

He doesn’t have it in him to bicker back and forth about this again. Not about you, and not with Nancy, “What does it matter? Like I said, me and her? Never gonna happen.”

He had said that. He remembers that, at least, from his drunken confession. He’s sure he reiterated that point several times once he’d made it past the point of coherency.

“She’s lying,” Nancy casually whispers, pulling her hand back, “She- Us girls talk, you know? Just… she’s lying.”

“I went on a date with Chrissy. It doesn’t matter.”

And she has no clue how fucking hung up on her I am. She’ll never know if I have anything to do with it.

“You can keep saying that,” Nancy glances, making sure their other two friends on the couch are still too deep in conversation to listen in, “But we both know that’s not true.”

Unsurprising. Even if Nancy hadn’t listened to him cry that night about all his miserable yearning, all his unrequited feelings born out of a mess he got himself into, she would have known. Eddie has tried to guard himself when it comes to you, but there’s some times his leashed affection can’t help but seep out.

Whenever you stumble on sidewalks beside him, his arms and hands are the first to fly out. Whenever the group has gone out to bars altogether, he watches you like a hawk, almost daring the men surrounding you to disrespect you. Whenever your birthday came around, he’d bought that damn gift card to his favorite coffee shop, all because he saw you frequent it twice. Although, to be fair, he’d made Harrington be the messenger there. He wouldn’t have been able to look you in your eye, wouldn’t have been able to put up the bitter persona on a day that should be special to you. He didn’t want to ruin your birthday, so he’d simply sat on the sidelines. Let everyone else go out and celebrate with you. Let everyone else pour enough affection into your cup, even when he wishes his own could have been the final drops to cause it to overfill.

He had to tread carefully. It’d be too easy — to let himself pour out all these silly feelings and meaningless attraction. One wrong move, and he’d cause his own undoing. His own destruction. It doesn’t matter if it would be by your hand; he’d only have himself to blame at the end of the day.

He’s lost in thought, still itching for a drink, when Nancy is suddenly standing over him. “We’re going out for a smoke, you in?”

He shakes his head numbly. His mind is far away now, getting lost in all that he’s done wrong, all that he can’t have.

He’s homesick. He’s watched the way you’ve interacted with Robin and Steve the entire night, and he’s goddamn homesick for a home that he’ll never hold the keys to.

“You sure, man?” Argyle asks him, wiggling his brows, “I brought the good shit.”

Numbing his mind with drugs. It’s tempting.

“I’m good,” he reaffirms, still speaking in monotone. He doesn’t have the energy to put up a brave face, too focused on his heavy chest and that miserable pit in his gut still.

And everyone leaves. He’s sure there’s something poetic for his stormy mind to pick up on there, as he watches his friends gather without him and exit to the outside, but he’s more focused on a miniscule detail.

You’re not with them.

Meaning you’re still in the kitchen.

And God, he really should know better. He should stay planted in his seat and he should sit in his misery until they all return. Only trouble can come from not doing so. But then his body moves to its own accord, fueled by something wickedly cruel and terribly homesick as he grabs one of the bottles of beer off the coffee table. It’s Nancy’s, he’s sure of it. Her lipstick stains the opposite side of the rim he takes a swig from. The beer has long since gone lukewarm, but beggars can’t be choosers. He clears his throat as the bitter lingers on his tongue.

He should know better.

But he doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t as he enters the kitchen. You’re on your phone as he stands in the doorway, and there’s no time to hide what you’d been glancing over.

A dating app.

You spin to face him, and he imagines a world where your eyes land on him and light up. Something akin to that first night, to those first few weeks. Where you look at him with purpose, and he sees relief flood your irises rather than irritation or fear.

No such luck. He only has himself to blame.

He can’t think of anything else to say, so like an idiot, he gestures vaguely with the bottle of beer towards your phone, “Those apps fucking suck.”

That jealousy is still gnawing at him. Hateful, painful, reckless.

You look down at your phone for a second, and click to exit whatever messages you’d been on. And then you look back up at him.

“You’ve used them in the past?” you question him, but he’s still stuck on all the recounts of your escapades he’d overheard tonight. Whether or not they were true didn’t matter. All he sees when he closes his eyes is you, with other men. You, looking at someone else with purpose, relieved eyes awarded to someone more worthy.

He’s lucky he can choke out a short, “Nope,” and make it not sound strangled.

“Okay,” your attention returns to your phone screen, and Eddie’s returns to his internal battle.

He’s jealous. So goddamn jealous it’s insufferable. It’s not your fault – he chose to push you away, he chose to lash out like a child for his own sanity and his own safety. You’d ruin him; you’ve already ruined him without even trying. If he gave up on the act, on this carefully thought out plan, he’d be beyond leftover rubble of a man. He’d be gone beyond recognition, reduced to ash and smoke. A nameless, forgotten whisper of dust that people would only point to and say, see? Look at that. That’s what becomes of you when you never learn.

He’s pined enough in his lifetime after girls like you. Girls who were too good for him. He’d done it with Chrissy, and it was still causing him nothing but trouble.

That burden didn’t hang over Chrissy, or over you. It was all Eddie’s own fault. Neither of you could help that he wasn’t good enough; it wasn’t either of your jobs to fix him or lower your standards for him. You’d even been kind, you’d even nearly fallen into that trap.

It was for the better. All of it was for the better this way.

And yet the jealousy remains. The anger still thrives between his ribs, and begs for release.

“Why are you even still on them?” he should think over his words more carefully as they begin to roll off his tongues. He knows he’s in the wrong before he even continues, “I heard you’ve been having a shit time with the guys on there – quite the opposite of what you’ve been telling Harrington tonight, might I point out.”

Each word is sharpened so intentionally, glinting from raking against that anger inside of him. You don’t deserve their prick. Really, he should just be comforting you the way the others do – how Robin surely was, how Steve must be.

But it’s part of the plan. So he tampers down the jealousy and he feeds into the anger, lets it consume him. Because making you hate him is easier than letting you like him. It’s easier to watch the one you can’t have sneer at you like the enemy than let them smile at you like you’re just a friend.

“I-” you falter in your words, and he decides to straighten his back, takes a deep breath as he slips the mask on effortlessly. He hates how easy it’s become. He hates how quickly he turns everything with you into a fight, “You win some, you lose some. It’s the nature of the app.”

Sometimes, it’s like a game. And he can pretend that your hatred, your distaste, is also all a facade. Like the both of you are two sides of the same coin. A playful banter rather than an actual argument between two people who can’t even call themselves friends. When he looks at it like that, blinded by his delusion, it makes the ache dull. Sends it away for a few fleeting seconds, convinces himself he really can carry on this way.

“You haven’t made it sound like you’re losing at all, tonight. I nearly started a drinking game with Nance where we took a swig every time you said you managed to pull another ‘fuck ‘em and leave ‘em’. Quite the boy count you’ve got there, player,” he forces a grin as he leans on the counter, watching his words get under your skin exactly as he had intended.

You’re cute like this. Clearly drunk, getting flustered. He revels in the way your face physically scrunches in annoyance, the way he can watch you gear up to fight fire with fire. A sick, twisted game of cat and mouse that always can entertain him in the moment and haunt him at night.

“You’re bluffing. You couldn’t hear me from all the way over there.”

He wonders, for a second, if you’d caught him staring at any point. He wonders if you’d even care.

“We could.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Yes, we could.”

“You’re lying.”

You cross your arms, and he can’t help but watch the way they push your chest up. He can’t help but ponder on how much better it would all feel if this were really playful banter.

He has to refrain from physically shaking the thought from his mind.

It’s for the better.

He narrows his eyes, he grips onto the anger again, that hidden jealousy. He should know better. He should stop it. The words even feel heavy on his tongue, terribly forced. Because his anger isn’t at you.

“I’m lying? You’re the one who’s been telling Stevie nothing but lies tonight,” and oh, how ironic, for the liar to be calling out someone’s little white lies, “Why do you need to even lie about all that, anyways? It’s not like the truth would be any more pathetic than the act you’re putting up,” the words come out a bit easier when imagines the barrel of the gun pointed at himself, as if he were speaking so casually cruelly into a mirror rather than at you, “Everyone strikes ou-”

He’s clearly struck a nerve. And it aches, but he reminds himself that that’s the point. That’s his goal.

“I’m pathetic? Just last week, you lied to the group. You were trying to avoid being where I’d be and told them you had to walk your neighbor’s dog.”

He wasn’t trying to avoid you. He was trying to avoid Nancy after his entire drunken confession fiasco.

“I did!” he continues to lie. Even with no one to show for, he piles up his lies high. Buries himself beneath them, beneath his pathetic act and worthless reasons. It’s probably for the best that you had assumed that he was avoiding you.

“Your apartment has a strict no pet policy, Eddie.”

The act cracks for a moment as he freezes. Why did you know about his apartment’s pet policy?

“How do you know that?”

It can’t be because you care, or even get curious about him. He’s done everything in his power to cause the exact opposite, to make you be repulsed by him and to run the other way if you can help it.

“I didn’t, but Nancy did,” He doesn’t even react to the roll of your eyes, unable to get riled up as he usually would at that. It clicks for him; it makes sense, because Nancy had stormed down his door not even a day later, “It’s all I had to hear about the entire night. How she wishes we could get along, how she hates when you lie to her. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Eddie does feel guilty about that. He doesn’t mean for his own self-destructive behavior to leach out to his friends, or even you. His goal has always been to make it so that when he’s not around, he’s not even an afterthought to you. But selfishly, part of him preens at the idea of you being reminded of him, of you thinking of him when he’s not in the room with you. It’s a conundrum. It’s almost deadlier than his other option.

“It’s not my fuckin’ fault you go out with my friends,” he grumbles like a damn child, almost pouting in his guilt. There’s another selfish sliver of him that’s also upset at that – upset at the fact everyone else gets to bloom with your friendship and positive attention, but not him. Once again, it’s his own doing. He really shouldn’t be angry at you about it.

“And it’s not my fault that you don’t.”

Times like these make him want to give it all up. He has to physically tense his body, tick his jaw and bite his tongue to avoid throwing the entire act to the side. He wants nothing more than to grab you by your shoulders and shake you, scream that sometimes it is your fault. But you don’t know it – you can’t read his mind, see past his intentions.

You don’t know what Steve had so generously reminded him of that very first night.

“Whatever. Why are you lying to Steve?” his voice is devoid of all emotion despite the storm brewing inside of him. He can’t even blame it on alcohol – he wishes he could, but his tolerance to beer can handle the single sip he’s taken. He crosses his arms, wrapping them around his body, trying to protect that terrible vulnerability only he’s aware of. When your position mirrors his, he wonders for a moment if you’re also feeling it.

But you’ve been drinking. This entire conversation, every emotion, can be blamed on that. You’re luckier than Eddie.

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. With Steve, and with me at this very moment.”

He lets a reaction at his own irony slip through for a brief second, eyebrows furrowing as the voice inside him screams hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite!

He wishes he could pretend to be oblivious to why he can’t stop bringing Steve up, but he knows better. He can bury the jealousy alive, but it still bites all the same.

“How the fuck do you even know how my dating life is going? We aren’t exactly friends. Did Robin tell you? Did Steve tell you?”

We aren’t exactly friends.

He should relish that confirmation that his plan is working, that you truly don’t see him as a friend, but it just fucking stings. He swallows hard physically, as if it can help him swallow down the truth any better, but it does nothing for him. The truth only continues to choke him up. His tongue has momentarily frozen over in his mouth as he tries to push past the painful reminder and wrap up this conversation. He feels it, that sharp burn of an unattended wound, and he realizes at the wrong moment that whether or not he keeps you at an arm's length, bloodshed will always occur.

At least this way, he tells himself it’s protecting himself. This way, the knife isn’t pointed at his own heart.

“You’re right. We aren’t friends,” the words are poison on his tongue. They taste of dirt and rust, like a grave that screams to be dug up but he has no shovel. He’d tossed it once he’d sealed the tomb, like a fool, “But Rob and Nance are, and Nance and me are. See where I’m going with that one?”

At least he wasn’t lying to you for a brief moment. Nance had told him. He’d throw you that bone, at least.

“Well-” and with your own pause, you seemingly return the favor. You’re handing him yet another opportunity on a silver platter; exposing an insecurity that he should let live and let die, but he won’t for the sake of the wall he has bled to put up between you two, “You say that as if Nancy and I aren’t friends.”

“Are you?”

He’ll regret that taunt for the rest of his days. Two simple words, and he’s damned himself. The conversation that follows, about Instagram and followers and social standards of friendship, doesn’t even matter to him. It’s just a routine. Constant knives, clashing swords of words, lie after lie piling up with the bile in his throat as he shoots for kills. He hands over reason after reason for you to resent him, and makes sure that each punch lands. Ignores the ache, the one billowing in his knuckles as if each subtle insult he tosses your way doesn’t bruise his innards all the same way. By the end of the back and forth, it should be enough, for both of you. He’s accomplished the same thing he always sets out to do with every conversation: he pisses you off, putting another inch in that stretch between you two.

But then you turn your back on him. And he deserves it. God, he deserves it. But he’s still full of bad ideas tonight, the awfulness of the last few days still suffocating him, and so he makes another decision to regret. He walks up behind you.

You open your phone, and he sees it. You’re on the dating app again, and the screen flashes with the face of your latest contender.

He knows that face. He schools his face to remain even, but he fucking knows that face.

The bartender at his local haunt. The only other person besides Nancy who had ever seen Eddie so miserable over you. He had been drinking alone that night, and the whiskey had him pouring out his guts to the poor guy. Slurred words of the girl who had slipped between his fingers, of the one who got away, of you.

And that same bartender had been the one to sympathize with Eddie, claiming he understood. That he knew that feeling – dating around and doing anything in your power to get the girl you truly want off your mind. He said he had one of his own. He’d told Eddie that his pain-riddled speeches helped him make up his mind, that he was going to go after the girl he really wanted, that Eddie should do the same.

Was this bartender your ex-boyfriend? Had the two of them been discussing the exact same girl?

Bad decisions. Over, and over, and over. It all comes to a rise within Eddie – not just the anger, but the jealousy and the hurt and the goddamn envy of the man on the screen. He hates the bartender, he hates himself, he hates the world at this point.

He tells himself he should add you to that list. But he doesn’t. He can’t.

And it all spirals out of control before he can prove that to himself. Words grow sharper, small kindles of tension between the two of you finally explode to full blown flames, and he’s suddenly saying things he doesn’t mean. Things he’ll linger on for the days and weeks, the months to come.

“You’re so dense, you never realize that you’re not wanted, Not by those assholes, not here-”

He’s mid-lie, one finger on the trigger of the gun he assumed was aimed at his own chest, when it finally happens. A snap within both of you. Timed perfectly with the glass that shatters against the wall beside his head.

Eddie learns two things that night.

One, half of his plan worked. He’s succeeded. You hated Eddie Munson’s guts, and instead of him being content in his success, he’s sick to his stomach. It doesn’t bandage the wound inside of him, doesn’t pack away cotton nor cauterize the bleeding. It only worsens it. Widens it, impossibly so. He swears shards of that broken glass fly right into his unsuspecting chest, even if Nancy doesn’t find a trace on him when she comes back inside to see the aftermath. You hate him, he’s proven his point. He has proven himself to be the worst possible version of himself, the most unlovable man he had always seen in the mirror now residing in him staunchly enough that every single one of his friends sees it.

He’d done it. He’d diminished any chance he had ever held of being friends with you. And he thought that, without a doubt, that meant he’d diminished any disastrous chance of letting you close enough to risk the chance of any more of his feelings getting involved. He thought it would have meant that he’d done it – he’d protected himself, and in some sick twisted way you, from inevitable bloodshed.

But blood had still been shed. Even if his friends were only cleaning up broken glass in the kitchen, he could still see the stain of red across the floor and walls from you and him. He was bleeding out for you, but he had just driven the knife in deep enough that you would never return the feeling. There was no world where you would be bleeding out for him, only because of him.

The second revelation comes a bit later in the night.

Closer to midnight, hours after the fight, when Eddie finds himself alone as per usual. He stumbles to his usual bar, thankful for the late hours, fully prepared to get so fucking wasted he can’t remember his own name. He’d wish to not remember your face, especially when he had spewed such hateful intent your way, but he knows there’s not a single brand or amount of whiskey out there that can cleanse him of that. Your name is just another ghost to add to the lineup. You’ll haunt him until his dying day. And he deserves that.

But then, when he walks into the bar, he sees the bartender.

The same man who had stood you up just the night before. The same man Eddie simply couldn’t understand. He was clearly on a date, a nice girl sat at the table across from him, laughing at every word he said. Eddie remembers their conversation, although a bit hazy.

“I think you’re onto something, man. Some girls are just… irreplaceable. I’ve got a girl like that of my own – prettiest eyes you’ll ever see, a smile that could cure cancer – and… you know what? I think we should both go for it. Give up on the girls who could never compare.”

He wants to vomit. The bastard had even poured a round of shots on the house, had fucking cheered with Eddie before throwing back the alcohol with him in the promise of moving onto the girls who matter.

He had said cheers to discarding you. Brushing off you. To you being one of the girls who could never compare.

Eddie’s vision goes red, and he knows half of the blame falls on himself. He’d been the reason this asshole stood you up. He had already been the reason for your pain tonight before he’d even said a word to you. His self hatred has never burned so deeply, so viciously.

But you can’t punch yourself. And so instead, Eddie doesn’t hold back when he approaches the table and lands his right knuckles right on the bastard’s cheek bone. Even goes in for a second punch. He would have gotten in a third punch, but the bartender hits back. Not as hard as Eddie, fists fueled by self-defense rather than ravaging guilt and crippling self-hatred, but enough to get deter him until security could gather both men up.

It’s in the alleyway that he has his second revelation. At the hands of the man who had just hurt you. It was like looking in a mirror. Eddie nearly does finally vomit as he leans against the brickwall, security a few paces away, ready to file a police report. But then, the bastard still manages to somehow be better than Eddie, throwing up a hand to stop them from dialing for the cops.

“Don’t,” is all he says, leveling a stare when Eddie’s eyes fill with tears.

“Really?” Eddie cocks an eyebrow, pushing his luck. He needs someone to punish him. He needs to be thrown in a cell for the night, to be treated as the degenerate he truly was, “I just rearranged your fucking face and-”

“Why’d you punch me?” the bartender spits out some blood, nose crooked, “You- You’re a fucking regular, dude. How’d I piss in your cheerios?”

Eddie’s feeling vulnerable. All his actual feelings boiling and burning in the back of his throat, begging to be released. He doesn’t need a drop of whiskey this time to be honest.

“The girl,” Eddie rasps, tears threatening to spill as he pictures your face again, “I told you about the girl. The one no one else compared to.”

The bartender’s eyes widen, “Jesus, fuc- are you telling me that we were talking about the same fucking girl? I- Vanessa told me she wasn’t seeing anyone else, I can’t believe she fucking lie-”

“Not her,” Fuck Vanessa, Eddie thinks bitterly, almost laughing. He has no right to say his next words, but he does, and they cause a pain worse than even the most nightmarish hangovers he’s ever experienced, “My girl is the one you stood up for her.”

You weren’t his girl. You never would be his girl.

The bartender only looks more confused, and Eddie’s anger flares a bit more at the thought of him talking to more girls beyond you. The man before him had had everything Eddie wanted: he had had you. And just like Eddie, he had fucked it all up. It was easy to misdirect his anger in the moment.

He says your name out loud, a searing iron in his throat that makes it come out garbled and strangled. Some recognition falls upon the man’s face.

“Oh… her.”

Eddie doesn’t hold back, “Her? That’s all you have to fucking say? You stood her up, you fucking- Jesus Christ, go burn in Hell,” He’s being irrational. He doesn’t care, “Call the cops on me. Tell them to let me rot in a fucking cell. I deserve it – but so do you. That girl… that… her. She’s one in a fucking million, she’s a thousand times better than whatever girl you have waiting on you inside, and you couldn’t see that. You’re a goddamn dick.”

No one makes the move for the call. The bartender just shakes his head again, being far too patient. Eddie opens his mouth, ready to scream now as he demands they punish him. Make him pay for his crimes. Not just the punches, but everything he had broken tonight.

He broke you tonight. He deserves to burn in Hell far more than the man before him.

“I knew you were in love with her, but-”

Eddie cuts him off, “I’m not in love with her.”

He hates the look he receives. It’s the same pity that Nancy now looks at him with. That same hidden judgment, like everyone else knows something that he doesn’t.

“You may hate to hear it,” the bartender is choosing his words very carefully as he swipes in a contrasting carelessness at the blood pouring out of one of his nostrils, “But you don’t throw punches like that for a girl you’re not in love with. So I suggest you mind your business, and if she is as valuable as you keep going on about, you tell her rather than punching the dude he just serves you fucking alcohol.”

He doesn’t even have to close his eyes to see you anymore. The image of you is clear as day, even with his eyes open. You, broken and vulnerable and full of hatred for him. Just as he had intended.

Success tastes metallic and bitter. Eddie finally empties what little he had in his stomach onto that concrete alleyway.

He doesn’t leave the wall. Not when the bartender goes back inside with one of the bar’s bouncers, not when the remaining bouncer eyes him and nervously steps forward, not when they return with a paper declaring him banned from the bar.

He can’t move. All he sees is you. He hasn’t drank more than that one pitiful swig of beer at Steve’s, but he feels like his world has gone incoherent all the same.

He fucked up.

He crinkles that piece of paper harshly once he’s properly left alone in the alleyway, angry enough that it tears a bit from his force. It doesn’t phase him; he didn’t intend on returning anyways. He carries it with him the entire way home, regardless, rolls it between his palms until it’s gone soft with the sweat of his hands.

It’s for the better. He fucked up, but it’s for the better.

He tosses the wadded ball into the trash when he gets home. Goes through the numb motions of taking off his shoes, tossing his jacket on the counter rather than the hook he’d put up for it, and leaves his bike’s keys beside it. Eventually, he makes his way to the bathroom, brushing his teeth but never once glancing up in the mirror. As a matter of fact, he avoided every single reflective surface in his apartment that night.

He still sees your face, broken and teary, as he turns off his bedroom light and lays on his mattress that night. It doesn’t matter how many times he repeats it to himself, reminds himself over and over, the mantra of it being for the better doesn’t work. It can’t break through. All because of a pathetic revelation.

Eddie learns that night that he is, in fact, in love with you. And it doesn’t matter, because you hate his fucking guts, just as he had intended.

—

You don’t make a single move once Eddie breathlessly finishes his explanation. Not even to breathe.

He’s been in love with you since that night at Steve’s.

You’d known that he had punched the bartender that night. You’d known that he had been banned from his usual bar that night. But you hadn’t known the entire truth. You couldn’t have ever imagined it, ever pieced it together, until now.

And you don’t know if that speaks more on you and how dense you’ve been this entire time, or on Eddie and how dishonest he’s been this entire time.

“God, I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ll never be fucking worthy.”

It suddenly makes sense. At a sickening and sudden pace, it clicks into place.

“Eddie, I-”

“Don’t,” he stops you, looking you directly in your eyes. You nearly shrink under his attention. Your fury is gone; you just feel empty, “You… You don’t need to say it back. You don’t need to say anything – the bet’s off. I’m not being honest to stop you from leaving,” he admits, every single wall crumbling at both of your feet, “I’m just being honest because you deserve it. I should have told you that night. I should- I actually should have never done any of this. Any of it.”

You remember the girl you once were. In a bar, surrounded by strangers and new friends, with tunnel vision for the boy in front of you. You remember that feeling of coming home, the way you ached for him to let you in and had been fooled for one night that it was possible.

A year later, and he was letting you in, too late.

“Why?” your voice cracks. You should just pick up your bag and go, but you can’t. Not until you stick the final stitches into the wound, seal up this hurt once and for all. For you and for Eddie. “Why would you… Why would you do that? Why would you set out to make me hate you?”

“Because I didn’t deserve you,” he says it like a simple fact, like it doesn’t shatter you apart, “Because I knew if I didn’t create the rift and kept letting you in, I’d fall in love with you. At first, I thought I needed you to hate me to prevent it. Figured you’d be stronger than me about it. If I made you hate me, I was… Honestly, I was saving myself. I’d tell myself it was about saving you, but it wasn’t. I was being fucking selfish.”

You nod silently, swallowing down tears. Tears for what could have been, tears for what you still want so badly that it aches.

“All because of Steve making…” you trail off, head trying to wrap around all the honesty he had just presented you with, “Making some off-handed, drunk comment.”

It was Eddie’s turn to silently nod. To swallow hard and flutter his eyes shut so you couldn’t see the hurt lit within them.

“You said you hated me,” you’re thinking out loud more than you’re properly speaking to him at this point, voice broken and soft, hands fighting the urge to reach out for him. Even after it all. Every reminder of what he had done for you, and now having the pitiful reason behind it all, still couldn’t break what had formed here tonight. Everything has still changed for you, “When I said everything changes, I meant the hate – I didn’t want to hate you anymore.”

“I know,” he bites his lip, as if he’s trying to hold back any careless words. Words that might hurt you, but not for the same reasons as they used to, “That’s why… not much has changed. I never hated you. God knows I wanted to. I told myself I had to hate you, because if I didn’t hate you, I’d love you. And I couldn’t do that again – I couldn’t handle falling in love with someone I couldn’t have. I knew I wouldn’t survive loving you when you’d never love me back. It wouldn’t be fair… to either of us.”

“But you did it anyway,” you almost laugh at the awfulness of it all, terribly irony stacking up between you, “You fell in love with me, you said it yourself. You… you loved me.”

“Love,” he corrects, eyes now wide open, “I love you. It’s not- It’s not some feeling in the past tense. You should still hate me, because I still love you.”

He’s right, you finally realize. You should hate him for all of this.

“And all of this counted on the first part of your plan working,” he has to take a step closer, whether it be subconscious or due to how low your voice has dropped. The physical distance erased aches. Splinters each of your bones and all of your emotions, “Which you never even asked me if it worked, even now. You just assumed.”

He takes a deep, brave breath before he quietly asks you, “Did it work?”

You both already know the answer now, “No.”

But it changes nothing. You know that, he knows that. It’s just as he said – the point of saying it out loud no longer has anything to do with repairing what’s been damaged just tonight. You’re both being honest only because you both deserve it. You both deserve to finally close this tomb.

You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to close it, though. Not truly. Not properly.

“I can’t stay,” you whisper, “I still… I still need to leave.”

Especially now.

“I know you do,” he responds. He’s gentle, understanding.

It doesn’t stop the tear you see break from his lower lashes. He doesn’t draw any attention to it, doesn’t so much as move to clear it from his cheek. As if he’s scared if he does, you’ll notice it if you hadn’t already.

“The bet’s still off,” you continue, unable to meet his gaze as you pick up your bag once more.

“I know it is.”

He doesn’t try to stop you this time. And part of you, this time, wishes he would have as you slip back out the front door of apartment 2C and let the door shut with a quiet click behind you.

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#my writing #twenty four hours #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #my bad #surprise drop because... i am actually sleeping so peacefully right now haha #also might be more mindful of answering asks with spoilers for this round <3 just to give people a fighting chance to read first!!!#eddie pov truthers please rise because my GOD have i been excited to do this

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possamble · 7 months ago

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Like take for example how she treats healing Laios leg!! We *never* see someone who was healed have lasting symptoms from a heal. It *itches* terribly — Laios looks like he will scratch it raw. The itching implies an incomplete heal — you only itch that bad when something is being regrown or scabbing like when you get tattoos. There’s something that needs to finish healing. This scene always stood out to me— because Falin notices and *heals* it. And that brought up a ton of questions for me (We see her cast magic, was it to soothe the itching? A phantom pain? Why was it itching in the first place? Didn’t Marcille finish the job? Why was he having after effects we never see someone have any before?) and i’m breaking my brain over it because is this an sign of Marcille’s engagement with healing in general? Perfunctory—a means to an end? Morals? I feel like there is something there for us because that scene wasn’t necessary to the plot so why did Ryoko Kui add this interaction? I think how Marcille engages with healing was telling us a lot more than I previously realized because she was in a medical researcher position before coming into the dungeon however when we see how this was practically applied by her was really interesting!! She’s so divorced from feeling empathy for the pain of healing and i think that’s some sort of self-preservation instinct. Idk i just feel like her engagement with healing is so fucking fascinating when juxtaposed with her beliefs on death pls share thots if any

I think what gets hidden in the details about Marcille’s healing is that no, she’s not a talented cleric and healer in the way that Falin is. But Fantasy settings tend to relegate healing towards “holy” and “good” magic that never causes harm—

and Marcille is what you’d get if you put a doctor and a surgeon with a modern, more realistic approach towards medicine in a genre that doesn’t usually allow for that.

Like, you’ll see surgeons or doctors secretly being incredibly efficient serial killers in TV thrillers everywhere—but a fantasy series with a cleric or healer that’s secretly great at killing is a bit more rare to find(though not nonexistent, admittedly). Healing magic tends to be painted as either a religious discipline that’s not accessible to those who don’t have a tie to a deity or some ineffable force in the universe, or a matter of accessing some natural “life force” that exists in all living beings.

Dungeon Meshi, of course, loves bending fantasy conventions in the most incredible ways, so that’s not how it works here. The series allows itself to contend with the fact that healing a human body requires extensive and painstakingly detailed knowledge of that body.

The reason that Falin might appear to be a much more talented healer than Marcille is because Kui dresses her up in all the archetypal traits of a Caring Cleric, and that immediately clicks with readers expecting fantasy conventions in ways that Marcille's expertise doesn't.

This isn’t to discredit Falin, obviously. She is a talented healer, as attested to by Marcille herself:

But the interesting thing is that she does it all on instinct, so it’s not an exact knowledge. Furthermore, she uses the gnomish system of healing, which is implied to rely more on the judgment and knowledge of natural spirits (and therefore takes less mana). So it’s not hard to imagine that she would have less exact knowledge of how the human body operates than Marcille does as a medical researcher.

And that in and of itself raises questions: In a world where magic can immediately re-attach a limb, why would medical research be necessary? But Dungeon Meshi makes it clear that healing magic isn’t perfect, nor “holy” magic—it’s simply magic, like any other, carefully tailored to operate within the confines of what a human body needs in order to keep living. It’s not able to cure everything, and it especially seems to have gaps in terms of being able to treat illnesses that aren’t immediately solvable injuries.

And that all ties into Marcille's attitude towards it: It's a scientific and magical discipline like any other that requires careful study. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it—it was made by people, for people, and what matters is how you use it.

So, Marcille was at the academy, studying the ways that illness happens in a body, and carefully writing new magic to counteract or at least mitigate it.

(How I interpreted this was that she was likely part of research teams dealing with complicated things like autoimmune diseases, cancer, and other things where the body isn’t technically injured by a foreign element, but erroneously harming itself due to internal reasons.)

For me, this kind of explains her approach to pain in healing:

Honestly, what this immediately reminded me of was that a friend of mine had to have surgery on their throat when they were younger, and part of the procedure was waking them up without anaesthesia right after the surgery to make sure that they could still feel everything. They told me it was the worst pain they’d ever felt in their entire life—but from a medical perspective, it was necessary to make sure that none of the critical nerves in the neck had been affected.

Sometimes in medicine, pain is necessary because it’s not some uncomplicated and bad thing—it’s a response of your nervous system, and sometimes the only indicator that your body is still working the way it should. And I think this is the mindset that Marcille has, which is why she seems so blase about it—she doesn’t think that she’s actually hurting people, it’s just a necessary part of the healing process.

And in some ways, she just sees it as a realistic downside of the fact that you have to recover quickly in dungeon situations:

Normal recovery would take months. Healing magic shortens that to a few seconds. The pain is a result/tradeoff of forcing something that would naturally take a long time into such a short timespan. This all makes sense and is Right and Correct and Normal in Marcille's mind. It's not that she lacks empathy and doesn't care enough about not harming her patients: she doesn't think that it's "harm" at all.

Not a shred of guilt in that face before causing extreme pain. Contrast this to her constant fussing over Izutsumi on the smallest things—it's hard to believe she wouldn't even be a little apologetic if she actually believed this would be hurtful in a way that matters.

I think this is overall, less indicative of any lack of empathy so much as her incredibly stubborn and sometimes ridiculous way of compartmentalizing things to her own internal rules. I’d even argue that this mindset is preferable in surface situations, where people have the luxury of time. Dungeon healing hurts because it has to be fast and instantaneous—but if you're just treating a broken bone that can be put in a cast with slower healing magic to help, wouldn't you prefer that over an instant heal with the chance to cause brain damage, no matter how minuscule the chance is? Shouldn’t your long-term health matter more than short-term recovery and some pain?

To touch on Laios’s leg injury—we actually do see this kind of reaction to healing magic later on in the manga. When Marcille is teaching Laios how to heal, she ends up bowling him over because her cut gets super itchy:

but then she reacts positively and tells him that it's supposed to happen, before trusting him enough to try it on Senshi.

So while yes, it was an “incomplete” heal, I don’t think it was particularly telling about her approach to healing. And honestly, judging by the fact that it only distracted him when he was relaxed enough to be cleaning his armour before bed, it looks like she connected all the major muscles and nerves enough not to cause pain or risk re-injury by moving, but just left superficial stuff for Laios’s body to naturally heal.

Her mindset makes sense in context: She also had to heal Chilchuck and Senshi, while conserving enough energy to immediately start digging for Falin’s body and potentially do a very taxing resurrection spell as soon as possible.

After that, Falin healed the rest of Laios’s leg injury in a situation where it wasn’t needed, but there were no other high stakes to discourage it. Also, she can’t bear to see others in pain. ambrosiagourmet already did an incredible analysis of how this empathy doesn't really signify perfect altruism so much as Falin's deep discomfort with having to witness pain, so I won't go into that too much—but the important part is, Falin isn't inherently a more caring healer than Marcille. They are both making decisions for the patient based on their own approaches to healing—it's just that Falin's approach is preferable for dungeoneering overall.

(In Marcille's defense, it seems that dungeons are an incredibly specific environment that falls way outside the realm of what's actually taught to mages in most schools. Being a combat-oriented mage actually seems pretty frowned upon.)

So, in a lot of ways, Marcille is both realistic about dungeon healing (mana conservation by not doing full heals when not necessary, thinking about pain as the condensation of the time it would have taken to naturally heal, etc.) and very unrealistic about it. What she doesn’t realize is that the pain matters: In a dungeon, people have to be up and ready to continue right away, over and over. If it hurts every time, that makes them very averse to being healed, stressed out about getting injured, and affects their performance as dungeoneers.

All that to say… I personally believe that Marcille is very passionate about healing people. Not healing magic necessarily, but medicine as a whole. It’s not just a means to an end—it’s her main area of study only second to her research into ancient magic. And sure, she might have gotten into it because of her fear of death—but what I think people don’t give enough credit to is that her motivations changed from when she was a child.

You see it here, when she’s laying her dream outright to the Winged Lion:

She might be kinda racist herself, hypocritical, and short-sighted (mostly out of ignorance, I’d argue), but at heart, she hates that people hurt each other. She hates that long-lived races look down on everyone else just because of lifespan. She has—arguably very correctly—identified the disparity in lifespans as one of the main causes of interracial strife, and she wants to get rid of it so that everyone can fully understand and relate to each other as equals.

And in some ways, it’s not even that insane of a dream.

Knowing that people used to live as long as she’ll have to, and something changed in the eons since, is it really that weird for her to want to change it back somehow?

But all that aside—the most important part of this to me is that… originally, she wasn’t actually that hung up on completely equalizing lifespans. She got into medicine because she wanted to, at the very least, close the gap as much as she could in her very long life.

She was realistic about it at first. She thought that, by studying ancient magic’s ability to pull from the infinite, she could harness that infinite energy in tandem with medical knowledge to give more life to the short-lived races.

But as she says it herself, it changed when she realized that she doesn’t have time to gradually unravel it on her own.

So, yes. She got desperate. She got crazy. In light of all she did as dungeon lord, it’s easy to assume that she never cared much about healing as a profession, and is just a self-obsessed little girl caged by her trauma and trying to change the entire world to make sure she doesn’t have to be hurt.

And… she is all that. She's my blorbo supreme but I'll be the first to insist that she is very much a complete hot mess. But my point is that these were very extreme circumstances, and Ryoko Kui has given us all the understated evidence we need to know that she’s actually a very passionate doctor otherwise. This is the girl who freaks out if she’s not useful to other people and not allowed to help:

Did actually get excited about making safe dungeons for helpful purposes beyond just learning more about ancient magic to fulfill her dream:

And in tandem with her own personal trauma—not in opposition to it or to obscure it—cared about making life more peaceful and equal for everyone in the world. Not to mention, she had to have done some insane work to be acknowledged as the most talented researcher at the academy and be allowed onto teams that were researching new healing magics.

TL:DR, I think she has a lot of empathy for people and passion for helping them, it’s just expressed in a way you wouldn’t expect in a fantasy because Ryoko Kui doesn’t fuck around with her storytelling and genre subversion. She might not be a good archetypal healer, but she's an extremely knowledgeable doctor with a point-blank and intense attitude towards healing and medical treatment (see: her strictness about physical touch when teaching Laios about healing).

For me, all evidence points towards her going back to what she was doing before the story on top of her duties as Court Mage, kind of becoming a sort of Surgeon General for Melini as the head of health and safety for the country and whatnot.

PS. I will admit that there's explicit evidence she's not good at healing here:

But this was also like... chapter 3. Written years ago. I personally feel that everything Kui has said about Marcille's background since is enough evidence that it was just a one-off joke before she had an airtight idea about who Marcille was and would be, but I'll concede that it's mostly conjecture.

But again, as I said, I believe that while she might not be the best at the heal spell that's used in Dungeons, she's passionate about being a medical researcher and the field of medicine as a whole.

#asks #marcille donato #marcilleposting #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #dungeon meshi meta #i guess #this is kinda long under the cut im sorry #also i guess. keep in mind that im very biased towards healers in games and a marcille apologist so #that may have colored the way i view things #i just... yes marcille is great at explosions but that's because she's kind of an insane all-rounder.#like sure she may not know how to do everything but she *understands* every school of magic #she straight up mentally overwrote cithis's illusion on the spot bc she knew how it was cast #i wish people leaned into her having primarily been a medical researcher more!!#sure falin's great at healing on the spot but #marcille is who you want as the head of a hospital when you've there for a chronic condition that needs long term treatment #yknow???#her trauma forms so much of who she is yes #but she's also still more than just her trauma and being outside of the dungeon would bring that to the surface again

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