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myosotisa · 2 years ago

Text

m,y daddy issues are literally fucking choking me to death right now

Eddie is the first man in your life to have ever defended you so vehemently.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

“Just one reason,” he presses, palm impossibly warm against the back of your hand, tone finally wavering, “For or against me going back out there. Say the word, and I’ll put him six feet under.”

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

“If a man ever acts otherwise,” he continues, “If a man ever lays his hands on you, if he ever does take it as convince me, you call me. You call me, and I’ll show him just what convincing means.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Eddie Munson carries an air of safety.

protective, scary dog privilege Eddie ready to knock a bitch out just for touching you and being so strongly protective and the idea of feeling safe with him even when you've been nothing but horrible to each other.

i am literally in ruin. no one talk to me for the next 6 hours i need to recover.

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

in which eddie munson and you absolutely hate each other's guts. what happens when your friends make a bet that you can't spend more than twenty four hours consecutively together?

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

→ warnings: strong language, eventual smut, upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ pairings: modern!college!eddie x college!fem!reader

→ wc: 4.8k+

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

6:00 ───ㅇ─────────────── 24:00

HOUR SIX - 9:00 PM

Eddie holds the front door to apartment 2C open for you, finally letting go of your hand for the first time since you’d plead with him to leave the drunken men at the bar. You can’t look him in the eyes, head tilted downwards as you brush past him and don’t even stop to overthink the smell of his cologne taking over you when your sore shoulder bumps his chest.

The adrenaline is wearing off. The fear is settling like a heavy knot in your abdomen.

It was a part of the experience of being a woman, they’d always told you. Men would gawk, boys would be boys, and it was always something you’re supposed to laugh off. You’ve felt wandering hands of strange men during night outs with your friends, you’d been on the receiving end of one too many attempts at flattery that crossed a line. You’d never done anything about them; you were always taught to smile and move past it. Don’t engage them. Don’t give them reason to lash out.

And the men you had chosen to trust and surround yourself also did nothing.

You don’t blame them. Steve, a brilliant example, was usually oblivious. But he did what he could, throwing a casual arm over your shoulder and somehow blinding these men with charisma and charm as he subtly would pull you away from them in the midst of lighthearted laughter.

Eddie is the first man in your life to have ever defended you so vehemently. He’s the first to not smile and nod it off, to not reduce himself to a simple bystander. Not only did he do something about it, but he had lashed out as you normally craved to.

If you hadn’t interfered, he would have punched the guy, Jason. You’re sure of it.

He’s still angry, footsteps heavy as he yanks off his jacket once the front door is locked, and you can’t quite decipher if his irritation is at you or the situation. If he’s still fuming about the fight, or if he’s still not quite cooled off from the entire interaction that had taken place outside.

When he gently grazes at your throbbing shoulder, fingertips hovering over your skin as he pushes the collar of your shirt out of his line of sight to see the handprint, you start to find your answer - it’s the latter.

“C’mere,” he murmurs gently, walking towards the kitchen and grabbing a stool from his breakfast bar to drag behind him. He settles it near the counter across from his fridge, flicking on the fluorescent overhead lights of his kitchen.

When he nods to the stool, you sit wordlessly.

You’re shaking, still trying to let your brain catch up as you grapple with what exactly happened.

Jason had grabbed you, roughly. He’d been trying to get you to go home with him. He was drunk. He had just been resorting to his instincts, he was just a boy being a boy.

Eddie’s actions are beginning to soften now that he stands before you. You can see him flexing his hand that had held yours, tightening it before stretching it back out. He does it a few times. Tightening and stretching, tightening and stretching. You don’t comment on it.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” his brown eyes are staring into yours as he asks you, full of something resembling care, cautious as he gages you.

The simple act of him asking for permission cracks something in your chest. It’s not a bone, it’s not a shard of glass, it’s not a vine of hope.

But it’s something, and certainly not something bad, so you nod.

When he pulls on your shirt this time, he allows his skin to come in contact with yours. You feel the chill of his rings sweep over your hot shoulder, and your eyes flutter shut in an effort to ignore the electricity that begins to pulsate down your spine. It shocks from the base of your neck into your lower back, leaving a trail of rippling tingles in its wake.

Had his palm against yours elicited this same reaction? Had he felt this when your hand clutched his bicep?

You remember the last time you were in this kitchen, the way the two of you had been fighting and that aching to see him bleed as you once did. The ache is long gone.

Because all it takes is one look at his face when you finally find the bravery to open your eyes again, and you can see his scarlet written plainly in his expression. You’ve been bruised, but he’s been pricked. Your hurt and his hurt are one in the same in this moment as he takes in the shape of a handprint, plain as day, red and angry despite the layer of clothing that had attempted to separate you from the drunken stranger.

“I should go back down there and kill him,” he says under his breath, his eyes never leaving your shoulder.

“No,” you whisper with a small shake of your head, “You shouldn’t.”

The sound of your voice has his head snapping up, eyes locking with yours once more. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t.”

Because he’s not worth it, because he was nothing more than a drunk boy. Because if you go down there, I’m scared you’ll get hurt.

You don’t say a single thought that comes to mind, especially the last one. You just shrug.

“I should have punched the fucker when I had the chance,” he grits out, his eyes landing back on the soon-to-be bruise, “I should have knocked his teeth out for laying his hands on you. If I ever see him again, he’s a dead-man walking.”

You can see his anger building once more with every shaky breath, eyes glazing over and shoulders tensing. You don’t even think before you’re bringing a shaking hand back up to his shoulder, landing without much hesitancy, delicate in its weight against him.

He glances down at it in shock. It’s as if he didn’t expect your touch, or maybe he does feel those same shockwaves set his system off balance from something as simple as your hand on him. Either way, you don’t see his shiver as he brings his free hand to cup over yours.

“Don’t,” you’re insisting now, and when you squeeze his shoulder, he returns it against your hand, “He’s just some guy. He was drunk, and he probably didn’t know any be-”

“If you say he didn’t know any better, I might actually get mad at you.”

Eddie’s a man. He hasn’t learned the art of letting go like you have. He has the privilege of being angry like this right now.

You don’t respond, and he sighs, taking a step back as your hand falls back to your lap, “You should ice that. I’ll grab an ice pack.”

You watch his tense back as he turns to his freezer, the way his shoulder blades flex against his t-shirt as he digs for the promised ice pack. It's a wide, unfamiliar terrain, an expanse that you can picture yourself running the very tips of your fingers over.

In a moment of weakness, you imagine what’s beneath the shirt. You imagine your fingertips tracing over bare skin and freckles, possible scars that have stories for another night.

As quickly as you think it, you push the image away.

Once he brings the ice pack to you, wrapped in a paper towel, he’s moving back across the kitchen and leaning on the counter opposite of you beside the fridge. He crosses his arms and legs alike, simply staring as you press the cool material onto the injured space.

“Why are you defending him?” Eddie asks suddenly, brows furrowing, “He… He was an asshole. There was no excuse for how he was treating you, someone he doesn’t know. Why didn’t you just tell him no?”

“Easier said than done,” you hum as you focus on treating your shoulder rather than looking at Eddie again. You’re coming to learn that looking at him is a dangerous game, always risking to find another feature of his to learn.

Dimples, cologne, shoulder blades - if the list grows too long, it’ll only be harder to discard the new information after tonight.

“You’ve never had a problem saying no to me,” he points out with a cock of his eyebrow. You’re grateful that his tension is lightening up, falling back into an easy rhythm between the two of you rather than being furious.

But you can’t stop thinking of that scarlet across his face. A red to match the own beneath your skin. And you didn’t even have to crack open his chest to see it - it was presented to you in a moment of weakness, a moment of grudges forgotten and protectiveness fierce.

You step out on a limb once more with Eddie. Something tells you that you won’t regret it.

“Because you don’t scare me.”

Five simple words, but their weight is not lost on him. His face falls, and before you can mentally prepare yourself, you’re looking into his honey brown eyes.

They’re doe-like. They aren’t hard like Jason’s had been, full of whiskey and righteousness, but sincerity. Your words affect him.

And so you continue on, “If I say no to you, I’m not scared you’ll lash out. Not physically, at least. You’ve been mean to me, don’t get me wrong, but… but no meaner than I’ve been to you,” you take pause, you let your words settle onto his shoulders as your hand had, “You’re a lot of things, Eddie, but you’re not one of the guys who hears convince me when I tell you no.”

“Because no means no,” he quickly says, tilting his head, “You shouldn’t take that shit from anyone.”

He pushes off the counter, still looking at you as he crosses the space he’d placed between you two.

You could freeze up, but you don’t. You’re not scared of him. You never have been, and you don’t think you ever will be.

He’s standing in front of you now, and you hadn’t even noticed your knees spreading, leaving a space between your thighs for him to easily occupy. He stops short of it though, not pressing into your space, not yet.

“Is this that scary dog privilege Nancy is always going on about?” the corners of your mouth quirk, looking up at Eddie through heavier lids.

The fear is gone. And all that’s replaced is exhaustion. It tugs on your limbs and mind alike, catching right up with the alcohol from the night.

“Scary dog privilege?” he echos, starting to grin as well. He takes another step forward, and the spice of his cologne is back.

It’s stronger here, outside of the bar and in his own space.

“She’s always saying we should invite you out to bars and stuff,” you explain, smile splitting wider, “Says guys would bother us less with you around.”

His smile falls, and he grows serious again, “Do guys bother you a lot?”

“It’s the bars in a college town, it’s norm-”

“Jesus Christ,” he interrupts, “Okay, yeah. From now on, tell Nance to invite me,” he groans running a hand over his face, “I can’t believe you’re trying to tell me that shit is normal. What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

“It’s not always so scary,” you try to convince him through feeble laughter, “Most nights don’t end in bruised shoulders, you know. It’s just… I don’t know. It is normal.”

“Fuck that.”

“Yeah,” you agree, “Fuck that, but that’s just the way it is.”

He isn’t convinced, it’s written all over his face. His head is tilting again, and he’s looking with those warm brown doe eyes, and you know he isn’t convinced.

There’s a tension in the air that you can’t handle. You have to break it.

“What if I don’t want you to join girls’ night?” you ask him, keeping a teasing tone.

“Too fuckin’ bad.”

“Maybe I don’t want to utilize your scary dog privilege.”

He takes a final step, and now, he is standing in the space your thighs had allotted for him, “Sweetheart, let me make myself very clear. It doesn’t matter how pissed you make me, how crazy you drive me. I don’t care if we’re being civil or not, if you’re my…. My enemy or whatever the fuck you think I should call you – I meant it. If a guy like that asshole tonight ever bothers you, I’m kicking his ass.”

You know he means it. For the same reason that you know that you’re not scared of him.

He’s infuriating. He gets under your nerves and he will argue with you at every chance he gets, and yet, Eddie Munson carries an air of safety. It’s never been clearer to you than now, after spending so many hours with him, after seeing so many different sides to him that you hadn’t been privy to before.

“What if it’s not me? Guys flirt with Nancy too, you know.”

“Byers can handle his own, and so can Nance.”

“And Robin?”

“I’ve seen her slap Steve on a dare. I have faith in her.”

“You don’t have faith in me?”

His eyes widen at your question, nearly at a loss for words, “I-I didn’t… I didn’t mean… It’s not that.”

“Then why does your protection only extend to me?”

Your knees fall closed the slightest amount, and they bump his hips. He doesn’t move - he doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Fine. If you don’t like it, I can also protect Nance and Buckley.”

“I never said I don’t like it,” you breathlessly correct.

You’re going too far. You don’t understand how the two of you ended up here; the shards of civility still linger in your chest and gut, but they might as well have vanished. It’s easy to forget about his cruel words when he’s this close, when he’s making promises like that.

Cruel words. The two of you need to discuss earlier. You need to know why he said what he did. Because now he stands before you with promises of protection and molten eyes, and you no longer believe him.

If he truly hated you, if he truly believed the answer he’d given you, he wouldn’t be saying these things. He wouldn’t care this much.

“Can we talk about what you said?” you whisper, and like that, the moment shatters. Once soft eyes turn hard, and he takes several steps back until your knees’ feather light touch disconnects from him.

“There’s nothing else to say,” you’re surprised he doesn’t play dumb. He knows you’re talking about him hating you.

“Nothing else to say?” you scoff, trying to bite back any of your own cruelty, “Eddie, you said you hated me before you even met me.”

“I know what I said-”

“And I don’t believe a damn word you said now. So, why the cop out answer?”

His eyes narrow, “You obviously believed me, or you wouldn’t have stormed off.”

You swallow hard, nodding, thinking over your next words carefully, “Because it hurt. Because it felt like we were… we were making some sort of progress, and all of a sudden, you’re telling me I never stood a chance at being your friend.”

“You asked me, and I was honest.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“How would you know if I was being honest or not?”

The back and forth is suddenly making you want to scream. Because you know - you know he was lying, or he wouldn’t be so suddenly defensive.

“Why can’t you admit it?” you finally break, sighing hard as you look at him, shaking your head softly, “Why can’t you just admit it was a cop out answer, and tell me the truth?”

The ice pack that had been reduced to being long forgotten slips from your shoulder, landing on the floor with a riveting smack. Eddie is quick to bend over and grab it, as if he was fleeing your stern look before he stands up straight, hand stuck out in your direction with the offering of the pack.

“Just because it wasn’t what you wanted to hear doesn’t mean I was lying,” he says, waiting for you to take the ice pack.

You take the pack roughly, and your fingers make contact with his palm. The same palm that had pressed to yours, the same palm that had guided you down the dark street and kept you close until you were back in his apartment.

You know he was lying.

“It’s not a matter of it not being the answer I wanted,” you snap, temper growing thin, “It’s a matter of you lying to me, and I don’t understand why. It’s a matter of you saying shit about how you’d protect me, no matter the circumstances, and yet also saying shit like that. It doesn’t fucking add up, and it doesn’t take a genius to see through your bullshit.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You did.”

You’re back to square one – just like that. Two stubborn idiots, both two headstrong to back down.

You’re tired. You’re exhausted of this, of one step forward and three steps back. It was never a dance you were fond of, and your desire for it doesn’t suddenly grow as you sit here in Eddie’s kitchen, arguing and pushing his buttons for answers.

“What do you want me to say?” he bites, honey eyes now a dark and stormy shade with the clouds hanging over them heavily, “Do you want me to say there was just some magical moment it clicked? That there’s something you can fix, you can change, to make me not hate you?”

“Yes!” you finally shout, throwing your hands up, still clutching that damn ice pack, “Yes, I actually do want you to say that. What is so wrong with us being friends? What is so wrong with us, at the very least, not being enemies?”

“Everything!” his volume raises right along with yours, “Everything is wrong with that?”

“Why? Tell me what’s so fucking wrong with it, and I’ll let it go. Hell, I’ll leave you alone the rest of this night, the rest of your life, if it means you being honest for once.”

“When else have I lied to you?” he seethes, and you immediately miss the moment his anger wasn’t directed at you. You miss when the two of you toed the line of being on each other’s side and not opposing forces. For a brief moment of false serendipity, it hadn’t been you versus Eddie, and it killed you to admit that it had been nice.

It kills you to admit you want that, not whatever this is. You don’t want to scream at each other anymore. After tonight, you’re done. You don’t want this back and forth, you don’t want the constant bickering, you don’t want to play this game anymore. The dance is over for you. Really, it should have ended in Steve Harrington’s apartment, the night you’d thrown a glass at Eddie. The night you decided you actually hated him, not for the sake of hating him because he hated you, but because he had truly cut you.

“If you’re lying about why you hate me, how am I supposed to believe a word you say to me tonight?” you finally ask in a quiet, even, resentful tone.

If he can’t tell you the truth about this, then his words mean nothing to you. All the talk of protection, all the promise of defending you, means nothing.

The crack in your chest this time is not pleasant.

“Ask me anything. Ask me, and I’ll be honest,” he suddenly demands.

Even in his anger with you, he doesn’t crowd you. There are still boundaries.

I’m not scared of you.

Even now, as he glares down at you, you’re not. Eddie Munson doesn’t scare you, but the pounding of your heart, how badly you need to hear him tell you the truth, does.

You could ask him the same question from the bar: Why do you hate me?

You could get your answer of crystal clear honesty right here, right now. You could ask him what you ever did to get under his nerves like this. You could ask him why he’d been kind at all the first night if all he ever planned to do was throw brutal punch after metaphorical punch for the rest of your relationship. You could ask him anything, and he would answer you honestly at this moment.

So, of course, you fuck it all up.

“Yeah? Okay, fine. Let’s start with why you have porn magazines with marked pages of models that look like me.”

Wrong question. The moment for honesty slips from your grasps.

He laughs bitterly, throwing his head back as he finally turns from you, “Fuck you. Truly, fuck you.”

He starts to walk away, and you discard the ice pack onto the counter before standing from the stool and following him, “You said ask you anything, and you’d answer honestly. I want an honest answer.”

He stops suddenly and turns to face you, making you nearly collide with his chest. There are no hesitant hands to land on your bicep, not outreach from him to steady you. All he does is stare, hard and hateful, as his chest heaves.

“It’s all a fucking game to you, isn’t it? This entire thing is just one giant joke. I try to give you what you want, I try to offer honesty, and you throw it in my face.”

“It’s not,” you correct with venom, “I want the answer to that question. You owe me that much. After everything you’ve said tonight, about hating me before we met, about celebrating my death, I think I’ve earned that answer.”

There’s a flash in his eyes. For a moment, the hatefulness breaks, and you see Eddie for who he is – a guy who can’t say what he means. Maybe his dishonesty isn’t from a place of getting under your nerves, but because he can’t even be honest with himself. A part of you must have known it, must have known you wouldn’t be getting any honesty from him, and that’s why you went with that question. You couldn’t handle another lie or excuse as to why things had to go as they did.

“Sweetheart, I think we both know why.”

Honesty is a bitch. Hand in hand with karma, you realize now, it is capable of stunning you into silence.

What the fuck does that mean?

“I obviously don’t,” you wave your hands between the two of you animatedly, growing frustrated, “If I knew the answer to any of the questions I have for you, this argument wouldn’t be happening.”

A chuckle of disbelief. A streak of crimson that bleeds from your wounds of civility.

You see it clearly now; even if Eddie has let you believe he also bleeds, the two of you will never share the same shade of scarlet. Your hurt and his hurt do not go hand in hand. It never has, and it never will. The two of you are not stars that align once every hundred years, you are not a rare phenomenon to witness.

You’re two people who hate each other. Who hate without reason, apparently.

“Fine,” you gasp out, now being the one to take steps back, “Fine. You don’t like that question, Munson? I have hundreds more. Why do you hate me? If what you said wasn’t a lie, why were you ever nice to me when we first met? Why would you give me that false hope? Why do you pull stunts like that in the kitchen, promising things you can’t do? Why do you seem to enjoy hurting me?”

Like a tired candle, his anger immediately flickers out.

It’s not from the breath he lets out, it’s from your gust of your own honesty.

Why would you give me that false hope?

Now that you’ve broken the dam, it’s flooding out. There will be no answers, so you don’t worry about what spills from your mouth now. He’s made it clear that honesty is an illusion, just like civility, and you’ll always have to watch it slip between your fingers. The buds of hopefulness on your vine will never be nurtured to bloom, and are doomed to wither before they reach potential.

“Why were you so cruel that night at Steve’s?” your voice breaks, “Why did you say those things you said that night? Why do you avoid me? Why can’t you stand me? I’m tired of it, Eddie. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“I…” the syllable is the only noise he makes. The rest of his sentence dies on his tongue.

The air of safety has left the room. There’s no safety, no friendliness, in the air you two share. Suddenly, you’re back to six months earlier, standing and looking at him with wide eyes as shattered glass crunches beneath both your feet, nothing but hurt to take the place of what once was wrath. It’s just you and him, bystanders forgotten, moments of hope bursting into flames as they eat away at your stomach and heart alike.

“This is why,” he whispers, no longer meeting your heavy gaze.

“What?” you snap, “This is why, what?”

“Why we can’t be friends.”

You know what the cracks in your chest are now. Vines, decaying and breaking of fragility until they’re nothing more than dust.

“You’re right, we can’t be friends,” you choke out, trying to not cough on the vines’ dust, “Because you can’t be honest with me. Honesty was never an option, was it?”

“It wasn’t,” he looks impossibly small. It’s no longer a fair fight with his sagging shoulders and shining eyes, “How can I give you honesty when all I’ve ever done is hurt you?” he pauses for only a moment, before he’s starting back up, whispering your name before continuing on, “All I’ve ever done is hurt you. I have only given you reason after reason to hate me. And you just- you kept giving me a million second chances. You want honesty? Fine – I don’t deserve your second chances.”

“No, you don’t,” you say before you can think it over, before a small voice in your brain can say but I will still give them, “But is it really a second chance if you never let me give the first chance to begin with?”

Your words have a certain finality to them that you immediately wish to take back. You want to grab the words from the air between you and tuck them back into your chest, hide them away from him. Because you’re admitting to him once more that you always wanted something more than this, something better than this with him. You wanted friendship. You wanted civility. You wanted him to like you, to laugh with you like he had that first night, even if it had only been once. Part of you even wanted to go back in time and take back ever joining his friend group, invading his life, so you never would have had to endure that sudden departure into cold shoulders that eventually transformed into brutal words and harsh insults.

You should have never taken that 8 AM math class. You should have never let hope flower in your chest.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can say, “I regret it.”

You don’t know what exactly he regrets, don’t ask him for any more honesty, as he turns heel and walks down the hall. He walks away from you, into his room, shutting the door. Both on you and the conversation.

And yet, you still follow him down the hall. You still press your back to the wall across from the door, and you still slide down onto the floor across the room he’s now locked himself away from you into. You could leave. You could tell your friends that the deal is off. But you don’t.

You sit and you wait and you let your own sentiment of regret rest on your tongue.

You regret it, too. You regret everything that led to this moment. You regret whatever you did to Eddie Munson to make him hate your guts.

But mostly, you just regret pushing him so far. Somehow, you still let the blame fall on yourself as you stare at the closed door, wondering what could have been if you just stopped asking questions you couldn’t handle the answers to.

When the groupchat texts you for the photo proof of the hour, you don’t reply. Instead, you click onto your individual text thread with Steve, and type your answer there.

YOU: i fucked up.

taglist: @catherinnn @haylaansmi @gaysludge @paprikaquinn @manda-panda-monium @audhd-dragonaut @amira0303 @blushingquincy @hellkaisersangel @eddieslittlewh0re @ajkamins @prettyboy200 @munsonzzgf @blue-eyed-lion @digwhatudug @madaboutjoe @wickedslashdivine @sweet-villain @somespicystuff @big-ope-vibes @jadequeen88 @sylviin @emma77645 @notbeforelong @lolalanaie @lo-siento-ama @happy-and-alone @micheledawn1975 @aysheashea @moon-huny @munsonswrld @bambipowerblueaddition @averagestudent03 @bakugouswh0r3 @mattefic @mxcheese @bietchz @nativity-in-black @tlclick73 @stezzil @vngelis @coley0823 @folklorebau @luvmunson86 @theherothesavior @keene200213 @hargrovesswifee @m-chmcl-rmnc @cherrymedicine13 @iunaelumen777

taglist is now closed. <3

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #ghostproofbaby is my new god #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #24 hours #stranger things fanfic #fic rec

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myosotisa · 2 years ago

Text

i was very

and then i was very

and now i am

felt many emotions, thank you for your service. love this fic so much so far!!!!!!

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

in which eddie munson and you absolutely hate each other's guts. what happens when your friends make a bet that you can't spend more than twenty four hours consecutively together?

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

→ warnings: strong language, eventual smut, upside down does not exist, minors dni, eddie is especially mean in this one (be warned), mentions of blood (in metaphors, not literal)

→ pairings: modern!college!eddie x college!fem!reader

→ a/n: i just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for all the love on the first chapter of this!! i appreciate it beyond words <3

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

2:00 ─ㅇ───────────────── 24:00

HOUR TWO - 5:00 PM (wc: 4k)

It’s a miracle. Eddie is surprisingly quiet for the first hour after your small kitchen dispute.

He resides reading a book on one end of his couch as you sit awkwardly on the other end, fiddling with your hands before finally caving and deciding to scroll mindlessly on your phone. You exhaust every social media app you have downloaded – Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr – before finally turning to Tik Tok. Adjusting your volume doesn’t even cross your mind.

That’s all it takes to finally set Eddie off.

It starts small; he shifts around after the first video, a prolonged sigh after the second video, a quick side-eye after the third video. Finally, after the fourth video and no sign of you turning down the volume, he huffs and snaps his book shut.

“Do you have to watch that shit so loudly?”

His tone is laden with utter annoyance. You’re caught off guard initially, having blatantly ignored his previous signs of being irritated by the noise, and your head whips up in his direction with wide eyes. The shocked look on your face quickly contorts when you catch his stare, full of hatred and vexation.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you scoff, “Let me just die of boredom I guess.”

“I didn’t say you had to do that,” he narrows his gaze and matches your attitude with ease, “Just… solve the boredom quietly. Like I did.”

“You were quiet because you had a book. I don’t have a book.”

He waves an exasperated hand towards the coffee table where you catch sight of a few magazines, “Please, take your pick.”

You lock your phone reluctantly, tucking it beneath your thigh as you lean forward to glance over your options. There’s one about cars, obvious by the shiny vehicle that sits pretty on the cover, and a few hidden beneath it. You reach out and shift the laminated papers about and catch sight of a Rolling Stone cover.

That one piques your interest, but stubborn as ever, you won’t admit it.

“Those are the most boring fucking magazines I’ve ever seen. Who the hell likes to read about cars?” you deadpan, holding the car magazine up with a scowl.

“Me.”

“Predictable. What’s next, a Playboy?”

“You’re hilarious,” he says without a hint of amusement, “Truly a comedian. Can’t you just see the tears streaming out of my eyes from how hard I’m laughing? Incredible.”

You decide to not entertain him any further. Your hand grabs the Rolling Stone magazine, ignoring his burning gaze before you settle back into the couch.

If he wanted to be a dick, that was fine. You were used to it by now; you’d spent the last year growing accustomed to his cold shoulders and his bitter moods around you. At this point, you expected nothing less from him. Spending a little extra time together didn’t magically change it – at both your cores, you harbored a disdain like no other. You fundamentally hated Eddie, and Eddie fundamentally hated you. The confined space, forced proximity, ticking doomsday clock, and promise of cash did nothing to put any notches in those feelings.

“Interesting choice,” he murmurs under his breath, beginning to relax back into the cushions as well.

“What? Is it a crime for me to like-” you pause, flipping the magazine shut to check the slick cover for what the specific issue was even about, “-The Ramones?”

So maybe saying you liked The Ramones was an overstatement. But at this point, you’re only picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight. Because you don’t know how else to communicate with Eddie aside from with a sharp tongue and turbulent sense of sarcasm. Because when it came to the two of you, there was no such thing as small talk.

Everything was always big. Loud. Screaming matches, bold assumptions, critical insults.

“Pump the bitch breaks,” his eyebrows furrow, as they always do when he glances your way, “I was trying to be civil.”

“I didn’t think civil was in your vocabulary when it came to me.”

He exhales deeply, letting his head fall back in contempt for a moment before he lifts it and looks at you, “Is this really how you want it to be?”

You don’t reply, and he takes it as his cue to continue.

“Do you really want to keep up the miserable act the entire twenty four hours? Won’t it get exhausting acting like a spoiled brat for that long?”

“I’m not acting like a spoiled brat,” you snap, the magazine now discarded and draped across your knee, open to a random spread, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not an act. Make no mistake, Munson, I am only doing this for the cash.”

His book lays to gather dust on the coffee table as he leans his elbows onto his knees, twisting his body ever so slightly to face you more fully, “Really? There’s gotta be easier ways to make cash. I’m sure if you asked Stevie boy real nicely, he would have let you put that mouth to use for a quick buc-”

You cut him off, because you know how this sentence ends, and it’s too far. He’s crossed a line. You had expected it, should have seen it coming sooner, but it’s crossing a line all the same.

“Stop,” you firmly instruct, holding up a finger, “Not that it’s any of your miserable business, but me and Steve are not like that. At all. So you can fuck right off with that comment,” you only pause briefly, and you’re glad when he doesn’t interrupt you, “And, may I remind you, you’re also getting payment out of this. I could say the same thing to you, dickwad.”

It had been a curious itch beneath your skin – you knew why you needed the extra cash so badly, but you had no idea why Eddie did. Beneath all the hate, all the irritation, the question had come to mind briefly. But it had been pushed down by disinterest in all things regarding the man before you. At the end of the day, you didn’t care what motivated him. You didn’t care about what he did for work, you didn’t care about what magazines he read, and you definitely didn’t care to know if the five hundred was as necessary for him as it was for you.

This was a means to an end – nothing more, nothing less.

“Dickwad?” His nose crinkles as he parrots your words back to you, “Jesus, did you ever learn any new insults past middle school?”

You’re ignoring him once more, picking the magazine up off of your knee and burying your nose in an article about the greatest punk albums of all time rather than letting yourself be dragged into further conversation with him, trying to send the message that this discussion was over.

The message isn’t received. It flies right over his head.

“Pardon me for the assumption,” you can see him hold his hands up in mock surrender in your peripherals, “You and Harrington just seem close.”

You should just keep ignoring him. You should actually read the words inches from your face. You shouldn’t say another word; your gut is screaming at you to not say another word.

But you ignore your gut, just as he’d ignore your disinterest in talking to him.

“What happened to being quiet? I think I liked it better when you weren’t speaking to me,” you try to say casually, keeping an air of indifference. You should have known better. As your mother always said, once you start feeding a stray, they continue to come back.

“Sounds like it’s a sore spot. Are you and Harrington that close?”

“Not in that way,” you grit out behind the pages, “We’re close, but not like that.”

Your answer doesn’t satisfy him like you’d hoped, “Oh, it is so a sore spot.”

When you finally drop the magazine to properly look at him again, it only fans the anger. He looks smug as he crosses his ankle atop his knee, leaning back and looking you over as if he can read you like cellophane.

“It’s not,” you stress, “Seriously. Drop it.”

In all truthfulness, it wasn’t a sore spot – not when it came to Steve. You’d always been strictly platonic, fitting fairly effortlessly into his and Robin’s friendship.

“You definitely want to fuck Steve.”

“You know what I actually want right now?”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“To knock your teeth in.”

The magazine is tossed back onto the table, nearly sliding off the edge from the force behind your throw. He’s relishing the way you’re continuing to get more upset, the way he’s still inching beneath your skin in a grating motion. To him, this is all just a joke.

“I’d love to see you try, sweetheart,” he mocks, smiling with his teeth as if to taunt you.

“Why did you even agree to this?” you finally turn your body towards his and mirror his position, “Is it fun to you? Is that what it is?”

The smile widens, “You know what? Yeah. It is fun to piss you off.”

“Yeah?” you imitate him, putting on a forced smile in an attempt to look as ridiculous as he did right now. You fold your hands and prop your elbows onto your knees, continuing to mock mercilessly as you balance your chin atop them and bat your lashes dramatically, “Please, tell me more. Tell me all about how fun it is.”

In an instant, you drop the smile and begin to return to your previous position. It was rhetorical – you don’t expect a response, and yet he offers one nonetheless.

“Well,” he begins, “First of all, the way you go red in the face is fucking hilarious. Seriously, it’s just like the cartoons. Absolutely ridiculous. I think by the end of this, I’ll get to see steam come out of your ears,” you’re already reaching for your phone, tuning him out, as he continues on, “And then it’s the way you’re just so damn easy. I mean, come on. Sometimes, all I have to do is breathe, and it sends you on a tirade. You just make it too simple, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. The nickname is prickly and as uncomfortable as ever, lodging into your ears against your better judgment. It creeps across your brain, travels down your spine, numbs your fingertips. You hate the shockwaves it’s capable of sending down your nerves.

He’s right, at the end of the day. These days, you hardly put up a fight in expressing all your negative emotions towards him. If necessary, you could pinpoint a time where he really did simply breathe and you had proceeded to curse him out for it. Sometimes, just the sight of him can sour your entire mood. He’s an ever-present, persistent, irritating rain-cloud that looms on the edges of your life by circumstance. You can’t get rid of him. You can’t get rid of your hatred for him; you’ve always had a preference for sunny weather.

“Careful,” you hum, not looking his way as you glance down at the time that glows from your lock screen: 5:46 PM. “It almost sounds like you enjoy my presence, Munson.”

Indifference. You needed to practice indifference to survive the next twenty three hours.

“Oh, that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” he says, “You are the worst part of my days. You’re like bad leftovers – everytime I see you, the bile immediately rises in my throat. Whenever Steve mentions you’ll be somewhere, I cancel plans. Whenever you show up without warning, I start counting down the minutes till I can get away from you.”

The indifference begins to break. You finally look at him, keeping a steady expression.

“You could go missing, you could vanish off the face of this earth, and I wouldn't blink an eye. As a matter of fact, I’d probably celebrate. Why my friends are so enamored with you, I will never understand.”

It hurts. It might be Eddie, and you might be used to his spiteful words he uses as weapons against you, but it still hurts. The sting resembles a slap as you process each of his words. Each deliberate syllable – the specific referencing to the group as his friends and not your friends, the unblinking glare of his dark eyes, the insinuation that your death could bring him joy – drives deeper into your chest. It’s a human reaction; it doesn’t matter if the boy before you is the enemy, it still bruises to hear anyone say such things about you. The human need to be accepted, to be liked, to at least be tolerated, still twists in your gut.

And he only presses forth. He doesn’t catch the pain spreading in your limbs because you don’t let the hurt raging in your chest spread across your face. You don’t let him see you bleed.

“I’d attend your funeral with a party hat and sparklers. Confetti, even. The whole nine yards along with my finest bottle of champagne,” he hammers the final nail into a coffin, one that you’re not sure of whom it belongs to. Maybe it’s yours, sealing you six feet under with your cursed emotions. Maybe it’s his, locking him into the tomb to dwell in his ability to always take things too far.

You won’t let him see you bleed.

You stand abruptly, making him flinch in the slightest. You keep your face turned from him as you take your phone and storm off into the hallway wordlessly.

“Hey! Where are you going?” he calls after you.

But he’s not following you. No footsteps echo your own as you turn into the only other doorway aside from the bathroom.

He has a clear line of sight of you from the couch, and he can see you disappear into his room.

The door slams shut behind you with a riveting bang. Your nimble fingertips fumble with twisting the lock into place, chest heaving as you finally let your eyes burn.

He can’t see you. You finally bleed.

The tears are feverish as they roll down your cheeks one by one, taking slow steps backward as you squeeze them shut and will them away. There are no accompanying whimpers, or sobs, or hiccups. It’s just you, the salty streams, and the now overwhelming scent of him.

He’s only managed to make you cry, make you bleed this way, once before. The night of Steve’s party, the night you had attempted to make him bleed in retaliation. You’d harbored the need to cut him open desperately that night, to crack open his chest and assure yourself he could bleed the same scarlet as you, that there was still a weathered heart behind his calloused ribs that could beat the same as yours.

But you never did. At the end of that night, you had been the only one left bloodied and bandaged, aside from Steve’s glass as collateral damage. He remained unscathed.

The door knob shakes suddenly, and your eyes flash back open. Another shake, and you hear him huffing.

“Seriously? Did you just lock me out of my own room?” His voice comes from the other side of the door.

The bleeding stops. The wound seals. Even if he can’t see you through the door, just to know that his presence resides on the other side of it is enough to put an end to your trembling breaths.

“Fuck off,” you call out hoarsely.

“Let me in. It’s my room.”

“No.”

He sighs, and a thump sounds that you assume is his forehead falling against the wood in defeat, “Why do you insist on acting like a child?”

“You’re the one with a collection of action figures!” you fight back with your weakest insult of the night. He twists the doorknob without fruition a few more times, a couple sharp knocks sound as you turn to get a better look at the room you’d run into without observation.

It’s nothing extravagant, which makes sense. He has an entire apartment to spill his wretched personality across, which means there’s no need to condense it into the decor of his bedroom. He doesn’t have to express himself in a limited space as you do with your dorm. There’s a few posters of various bands hung crookedly on the wall, a dresser with a few of the drawers half open with assortments of clothes peeking out before they overflow onto the carpeted flooring, and a bed left unmade. His jersey sheets are plaid, worn and clearly well-loved. Despite the expected mess trailing about the rest of the floor, the space beside the bed is left cleared, and you decide to settle yourself down onto the patch.

Your phone buzzes in your tight fist as your back settles up against the side of the bed.

“Unlock the door,” his voice persists impatiently again.

“Go to Hell.”

“I’m already there. Stuck with you.”

Maybe the wound isn’t quite sealed, because the words fall like salt into your chest.

“Why my friends are so enamored with you, I will never understand.”

There’s more to say, but the chiming of a phone cuts off your thoughts. You glance down to your cell phone – not yours.

The ringing is more muted, behind the door. With Eddie.

It’s Eddie’s phone.

You’re about to call out a snarky remark about him getting that, but the ringing cuts off before you have the chance. It’s clear he’s walked away from the door as the echoes of his voice fades, the conversation inaudible to you through the walls.

Your fingers dig into the carpet beside your thighs as you pull at individual strands that stick out, finally discarding your phone on the opposite side. Eventually, your touch trails closer to the edge of the bed, plucking, plucking, plucking until you collide with laminated paper sticking out from beneath the bed.

What’s this?

Just as you’re about to pull what you assume is a magazine from beneath the bed, your phone begins to buzz violently, this time the ringtone being your own.

The screen lights up with Steve’s contact photo. It can’t be good.

“Hello?” you answer once you pick the phone up after a few moments of pause.

“You can’t lock him out of his own room.”

“Oh, hey, Steve. I’m great, thanks for asking. Really living the drea-”

“You can’t lock him out of his own room,” Steve repeats with more emphasis, disregarding your sarcastic tone completely.

You stare across the room at an acoustic guitar resting on a stand. This machine slays dragons, it reads in bold, white lettering.

“So you were the one who called him,” you mumble.

Steve sighs over the line, “No. Nance called him, because you haven’t sent the proof to the chat yet. We were trying to give you guys a grace period, but-”

“But you assumed we’d already murdered each other,” you finish his sentence.

“Can you blame us? What did he even say to make you board yourself up in his room?”

You scoff softly, “He didn’t tell Nancy?”

The moment Steve mentioned Nancy was the one calling Eddie, you’d simply assumed he’d filled her in.

Before you’d weaseled your way into the friend group, there had been clear, strong bonds already set in place: Robin & Steve, Jonathan & Argyle, and Nancy & Eddie. Three sets of best friends who all wove together to form their large friend group with ease.

You were the odd man out. They never treated you as such, except for Eddie, but it was an insecurity that could eat you alive if you ever gave it the time of day. And maybe that was why Eddie’s earlier words had cut so deeply. He was voicing a fear you always tried to bury deep down.

“No,” Steve says as if it were obvious, “He just started going off about how you had locked him out of his room amongst…. Um, amongst other things.”

Other things. You could guess what those other things had been; no doubt, he’d spent his time on the phone bitching about you. He’d probably called you every crude name in his rolodex of hatefulness.

“Right,” you drawl, eyes flickering around the room to seek out another distraction to mindlessly stare at. Suddenly, you remember the magazine you had discovered just as Steve called, “Well, nothing surprising. The usual, really. Just how he hates my guts, he finds me annoying, he wouldn’t care if I died-”

“-What?”

You ignore Steve’s gasp of disbelief and carry on, “-All the classic insults you would say to your arch nemesis.”

Steve says your name softly, still carrying an air of shock, “He didn’t mean that. I- Listen, he’s an asshole sometimes, but I guarantee he would care-”

“Who cares?” you interrupt, “I don’t blame him. It’s fine. He doesn’t have to care if I meet my untimely demise. I kind of figured he was going to murder me anyways, remember?”

“Yeah, but that was… that was joking around, he…” Steve trails off, because you both know he’s full of shit.

There was no joking around between you and Eddie. A painful truth, considering when you first joined the friend group, you had such high hopes of getting along with him.

“It’s whatever. Do you still need me to send proof?” you ask, fingers now playing with the crumpled edges of the magazine. Even half-hidden, you could see there were pages that had been dog-eared.

You almost don’t hear Steve as he tells you that it’s fine, that now they know the two of you are definitely together. It’s already nearly time for the next check in anyways.

“Alright, in that case…” your tongue peaks out as you begin to tug the magazine out of hiding. The moment the magazine's title comes into sight, you gasp, frozen as the phone nearly slips out of your hand.

Fucking jackpot.

“You good?” Steve asks.

Playboy. A goddamn Playboy magazine.

“Never better,” you rush out, eager to hang up so you can utilize this ammunition against Eddie, “Talk later, Steve-O.”

You don’t give him a chance to echo a goodbye before you hang up, tossing your phone off to the side with a muted thump. Your focus is entirely on the magazine before you, crinkling as you hold it in your hands and bite back laughter.

Against your better judgment, you open the cover, mouth falling open as you flip through page after page of nude women and cigarette ads. Some pages stick together, and you don’t dare to peel them apart, cringing at the thought of just why they’re sticky. You come to the first page that had been dog-earred, and your jaw clicks as your mouth falls agape.

Fucking pervert. He’s a goddamn pervert.

A well-timed knock sounds at the door once more, Eddie’s knuckles sharp in their three strikes, “Can you let me in now?”

It’s the closest to a please you’re going to get.

“Sorry, busy!” you call out in response, still staring at the spread.

The nude woman eerily resembles you. Same hair, same skin tone, similar noses. The Universe has dropped the most loving of gifts in your laps in the form of this magazine, something you know you can use to get under Eddie’s skin as severely as he had done to you.

“Busy?” he protests, knocking on the door again before you hear the shaking of the doorknob again, “What the fuck are you doing in there? I told you, don’t touch my shit.”

You bite your lip, smile curling the corners of your mouth as you finally stand from the floor, knees cracking as you keep the magazine open to the photo. Eddie has gone scarily quiet, and you can’t even make out his breathing. His shadow has stilled completely as it peaks in from under the doorway.

He’s never living this down.

You’re still grinning with ill-intent as you shout, “Wow. Who knew I was right about the Playboy?”

Those words are all it takes for the frantic pounding on the door to begin.

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