#i have possibly shared this part already? I can't keep track anymore ahahahahahahahaha

[sparklyslug]

POST DATE UPDATE! CHAPTER ONE DROPS DECEMBER 29!! And boost of this playlist in case ya need a break from Christmas jams. Another excerpt below, also from the record store scene because I love it there. This fic draws from several sources as inspiration, and High Fidelity is a not insignificant one when it comes to Steve’s part time job:

Steve grins, like a shark. “Oh, Eddie. Did I hurt your feelings?”

The expression that crosses Eddie’s face then is one that Steve knows perfectly, as it was part of the more annoying background noise of his high school career: the look of The Freak. It starts with a manic gleam in the eye and grows into a wide grin, picking up the challenge or answering to some internal logic all his own, incensed and about to make a scene. 

Part of Steve is a little meanly gratified about it. That’s the guy he used to know. 

Before he can start throwing things or climbing on the shelves though, Eddie is pulled up short by the jingle of the door bell. Which wouldn’t have drawn that much notice, maybe, if not for the accompanying roar of “what is this, what is this? PB, DO YOU HAVE AN ACTUAL FRIEND?”

They both turn to look at the front, where slender Lilith is trying to entirely block the sight of a short, kind of chubby guy around their age, who is pointing an accusatory finger across the shop at Steve. A finger he keeps moving, as Lilith tries to dart in front of it again and again. 

Steve sighs. “I have friends, Ned.”

“Ned,” Lilith hisses. And then says something Steve can’t quite make out, but it sounds suspiciously like “–it was just getting good!”

“You do not have friends, PB,” Ned says, tossing the plastic bag over the side of the counter and not reacting noticeably at the ensuing crash as his lunch spills, presumably everywhere. “You’ve got your shrimpy roommate and maybe a stream of sycophants and sociopaths who seem to think your ability to tolerate their appetite for Wall of Sound pop makes you a god, but friends? Buddies? Pals? No way.”

“Yeah, so he was just telling me,” Eddie says, with a totally different gleam in his eye now, though not one that bodes any better for Steve’s peace of mind. “PB? What’s PB?”

“He’s PB,” Lilith interjects, a little breathlessly, possibly even blushing a little under her ghostly foundation when Eddie looks at her. She points at Steve. “Ned called him that his first week working here. It’s short for Peanut Butter.”

Eddie turns slowly on his heel. It looks like Christmas morning all over his face, and Steve briefly considers trying to barrel roll out of the section, out of the store, out of the city of Chicago maybe even. “Peanut?” Eddie croons, delighted. “Butter?”

“The choice was clear,” Ned says, preening under all this attention from what is clearly a kindred spirit. “By the end of my first shift working with this disturbingly symmetrically-faced yuppy I knew exactly what he was: a little tasteless. A little bland, you could even say. But undeniably smooth, even a bit crunchy at times on certain mornings, and most disturbingly: pairs well with even the most bizarre customer request. And we have to keep him around, because the people do keep coming back for more.”

“That’s why?” Lilith asks, a little thrown. “I thought it was because he likes that easy listening crap.”

“Well, that too,” Ned allows. “If we ever let him control the shop music, it would be all aural Jiffy, all the time.”

“Except for his weird metal moments,” Lilith says. 

“I did say he was occasionally crunchy,” Ned confides in Eddie, who has gone utterly still, and has turned back to Steve. 

“Very occasionally,” Steve says through gritted teeth. “Don’t read into it.”

“Read into it,” Ned says solemnly, even though he can’t possibly have any idea what they’re talking about. Not that that, of course, stops him ever. “Dive into the thousand-page epic, the hidden pages of our dear, boring, bland PB’s heart.”

“It’s a picture book,” Lilith says. “Small words, big font.”

“See Steve sell,” Ned agrees. “Sell, Steve, sell.”

“Someone has to,” Steve sighs, shouldering past the three of them and making for the door. “Not like you assholes are so great with the customers. I’m taking my break.”

“We don’t get breaks,” Ned calls after him. 

“You’re an hour and a half late,” is all Steve hears Lilith says to Ned, as the door jangles shut behind him. 

THE MONSTER-HUNTING SHOP AROUND THE CORNER: FIC PLAYLIST

(Listen on Spotify)

@steddiebang fic by @sparklyslug With illustrations by @ahhrenata & @boiiko

Posting starts December 29!

Music for 1998, Chicago in the fall, something special waiting for you in your inbox, unexpected reappearances, untraceable IP addresses, a mystery man who knows your heart even if he doesn’t know your name, and knifing up an extra-dimensional monster or two.

SOMEWHAT THEMATICALLY-RELATED EXCERPT BELOW!

Steve is alphabetizing the discount records pile. It’s Thursday, and Steve is alphabetizing the discount records pile, and Lilith has her Angry Piano Lady record of the day at a suitably loud wail. Steve would never say this to her, because any such confession would have her reeling back and clutching her four (or five, depending on the day) rosaries to her chest in horror, but: he fucking loves her Angry Piano Lady days. 

Somedays, especially on grimly gloomy Thursdays, especially when he’s alphabetizing the discount records, especially when Dustin has been weird and squirrely– somedays Steve suspects he is, at heart, an Angry Piano Lady. 

“Permission to come aboard?” a now familiar-for-all-its-strangeness voice comes from behind him. He turns to see Eddie, leaning against the banister of the four-step stairs that connect the secondhand section to the new music section. Lilith is leaning out over the counter, almost fully horizontal in her attempts to get a look at Eddie. Which is more interest than he thought her shriveled and cynical teenaged heart could manage in anything, but–it was a long time ago, sure, but he remembers the effect Eddie Munson could have on a shriveled, cynical teen heart. 

He wonders for a second if the effect would be lessened if she could see Eddie as he was then. Not so suave and in his all-black business ghoul getup, dark curls carefully maintained and pushed back off his forehead. The gleam of sunglasses tucked into his collar, dragging the fabric of his black t-shirt down, exposing collarbone and what might be a tendril of tattoo ink. 

Steve personally finds this glossy, reserved, polished version of the kid he used to know a hell of a fucking turnoff, but. Maybe it works for angry record store goth chicks. He wouldn’t know. 

“Granted,” Steve says finally. 

“Oh,” Eddie grins, faking a little shudder at Steve’s tone. “Maybe I won’t. Might be a little too chilly for me up there.”

“Don’t come up, then,” Steve turns back to his records. 

He hears the squeak of the top step, and Eddie’s voice comes a little closer.

“Come on, Steve,” Eddie says plaintively. “Play ball. At least a little.”

More sincere, though who can trust that. He had sounded sincere in that creepy theater closet too. 

“Ball, huh?” Steve addresses the Ds, runs his finger over the top of a Sunshine Superman, where it’s been torn a little. He loves shit like that. Devalues the record, sure, but he likes to think it’s because someone was once too excited to get the album out of its sleeve and into their ears to bother being careful about it. Loved it too much, and wasn't afraid of that love leaving a mark. “So we’re playing a game?”

There’s a pause. “Uh. We could be,” Eddie says slowly, and Steve can feel his ears going a little pink before he’s even consciously processed Eddie’s actual words, reacting purely to that shift in his tone. The way, when Eddie speaks again, it sounds like he’s even closer, close enough for Steve to imagine he can feel the warmth of him at his back. “What’s my prize?”