#eddie was gifted kid who skipped grades early on

[the-angst-chronicles-fanworks]

A very unstructured idea, brought to you by Eddie being 17 on his missing poster

Eddie who is *always* pulling the age card. “As the oldest, I’m in charge”, “Respect your elders”, “you’ll understand when you’re my age” etc. But the whole time he’s 17, and the youngest of the fruity four.

The others eventually learning his real age (from Wayne, by accident. Wayne didn’t realize his hooligan nephew was pretending to be 20 to all his friends)

Steve never letting him live it down after leaving the truth. On finding out he dramatically laments that they have to break up because he can’t be a cradle robber. He starts doing the “as the adult in the room” bit back at Eddie and teasing asking if Eddie needs him to cut the crusts off his sandwiches, etc.

(Eddie don’t take long to start making daddy jokes back at Steve, which works to shut him up because he gets very flustered)

Corroded coffin also teasing Eddie about being young once they find out. Gareth is still younger than him. It doesn’t stop the teasing in the slightest

For the rest of their lives whenever he has disagreements with any of his older friends Eddie still grumbles “I miss when I was older than you”

[30somethingontumbler]

Even though Wayne is only in two scenes he really shows how much he loves and understands who Eddie is and I love that so I wrote a little thing About how Wayne learned to understand his nephew.

The first thing Wayne Munson learned about his nephew was that Eddie spoke a different language then most kids. When he picked him up from social services in Philadelphia he had picked up a box of old tapes from a second hand store, thinking they would need something to listen to on the 6 hour drive back to Hawkins. The way Eddie’s eyes had lit up at the sight of the tapes had been the only bright spot to that day and Wayne had learned by the time they hit the Indiana border that Eddie spoke in the language of song.

Wayne stared to learn how to speak to Eddie based on the songs he play, starting when they went to register for school, and found out that Eddie would be going into school a grade above where he left in Philly. Eddie was labeled as a gifted student and had already started school early due to his parents needing free daycare causing him to go into kindergarten at 4 and now he would be skipping another grade and going right into 6th grade at 10. Eddie had played ‘Don’t Look Back’ by Boston as soon as they got in the car, and every time he felt nervous about a big change the song would reappear over the years.

Journeys ‘When Your Alone’ made an appearance when Tony got his life sentence, Eddie had swore that he didn’t care, his dad hadn’t been much of a parent anyway but Wayne new when he heard the stereo turn on in Eddie’s room that the kid was taking it harder then he let on.

‘Let There Be Rock’ came at the start of 8th grade with that first talent show. Also showing up that day was ‘More Then a Feeling’ being played loudly and repeatedly every time sweet little Chrissy Cunningham gave Eddie even a glance, even though he would refuse to admit it every time Wayne mention it.

‘Back in Black’ was played loudly first thing in the morning on the first day of a school starting freshman year. ‘Highway to Hell’ was played on repeat when he failed his senior year both times.

‘Open Arms’ was played endlessly for a month when Chrissy had started dating the Carver boy. Fallowed by Pat Benatars ‘Heart breaker’ for a month after.

Hearts ‘Barracuda’ would make an occasional appearance his junior year and the first senior year as he tried to cope with the realization that he could never get the girl he had a crush on since the 8th grade.

Then that first day of spring break of 1986 brought something Wayne had never expected from his metal head nephew. ‘Uptown Girl’ was playing as he walked in the door from work early in the morning. Billy Joel was not an artist Eddie had ever listened to before and had Wayne stumped as to what his nephew might be feeling, and the fact that it was playing every morning for all of spring break had Him concerned. That is until Saturday night before school started back, he was getting ready for work and a familiar Boston tune he hadn’t heard in a while was playing from Eddie’s room. If ‘More Then a Feeling’ hadn’t been enough, opening his front door and finding a smiling Chrissy Cunningham was sure fire proof of what Billy Joel meant.

Wayne got worried When Chrissy left for college and Eddie played ‘Send Her My Love’ ‘Separate Ways’ and ‘Ask the lonely’ daily for four months until an Angry Chrissy showed up on their door step two days before thanksgiving demanding to know why he decided that it would be best to “let her go” via letter snuck into her book bag without even talking to her first. Wayne had decided to go check in on the Mayfields next door for an hour or two and let them work that out. ‘Faithfully’ was playing when he came home the two young adults snuggled up on the couch Reading side by side. Three years later it would be the song that Chrissy walked down the isle to at their wedding.

A year after the wedding Eddie and Chrissy sat him down and told him he was going to be a grandfather, Wayne immediately went to the old stereo and played ‘Father to Son’ by Phil Collins. Wayne spoke a different language these days, and it was one he learned from Eddie. And as pulled his boy into a hug they both knew what this song meant.

Thanks for reading, it goes without say that in my world everyone lives and has happy ever afters and I would like to personally invite the Duffer brothers to physically fight me in a Dennys Parking Lot. These sweet kids deserve happiness!!!