#teach english in vietnam | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dadsbongos · 2 years

Text

freak's church

7.1 K words

warnings - you have mommy issues!!! (absent mother things), failcringe poetry, this whole fic is just eddie munson exhibiting "love as religion", niche 80s death metal band is referenced numerous times, takes place in 1984 (eddie's first senior year), fem reader

summary - Eddie Munson has been trying to court you in his own special way since kindergarten and now he may finally get a chance thanks to Mrs. O'Donnell's stupid poetry contest.

“The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is - at its core - an extended metaphor about the bravery it takes to be authentic to one’s self. To traverse your own path even if other people may not agree or even support you.”

Nancy Wheeler is abundantly smart, and it surprises you that she decided to analyze the most played-out poem since ‘roses are red, violets are blue’. Luckily for her, you - and the rest of Mrs. O’Donnell’s senior English class - aren’t paying much attention to her exhaustive speech. You’re drumming a pencil against your hand and Eddie is watching from the seat over, trying to copy the motion and determine what song is on your mind.

Nothing he’s listened to, apparently.

Nancy slides into her seat behind you and despite not listening, you pause your drumming to celebrate her lack of stuttering and embarrassment.

Mrs. O’Donnell cuts you off quickly, “Munson, you’re up.”

Eddie’s gaze snaps from you to where the woman is standing, hands on her hips and glasses crashed to the button bump of her nose. He prefers looking at you - by far.

“About that,” he leans forward, hands linking across the chipped, scratched desk wood, “I didn’t do it.”

O’Donnell removes her glasses, brows to her hairline, “Youdidn’tdo it?”

“I got busy,” he defends weakly, sitting up a little straighter, neck burning a little hotter, “Didn’t have time.”

He was caught up teaching his neighbor kid how to drive, not that anybody else needed to know that. O’Donnell isn’t known for believing sob stories anyway, and he doubts that her least favorite student is going to change any of that.

“Munson, meet me after class,” she replaces the thick round frames over her eyes and scans her roster for a new victim to present.

Kids in chunky sweaters and letterman jackets and silky skirts “oooh” at the callout, but you don’t. You don’t seem to care at all, but that isn’t a surprise.

At the end of an hour-long Hellfest called English 7-8, Eddie slips out from his seat and clambers up to the metal desk of Mrs. O’Donnell. He turns to watch people hurry free for their next class. They giggle at him and with each other and he imagines it’d hurt more if it were the first time this had happened.

Then he turns to watch you. Slinging the threadbare straps of your backpack over your shoulders, you reach for the walkman he remembers you first wearing on the second Thursday of junior year. He feels weird for remembering that, but it wasn’t intentional - that just happened to be the same day Wayne sprained a wrist on the job. Like how everybody knows where they were when the United States officially withdrew from Vietnam, he can recall that entire day up to the hospital phone call.

“Oh,” O’Donnell calls your name and you look at her like she just put a cigarette out against your arm, “Mind coming here, dear?”

You do, he can see it in your clenching jaw and squaring shoulders. You mind quite a bit, but you string the headphones around your neck and cup the player to your stomach. You nudge your forehead towards O’Donnell, prompting an explanation.

Eddie and you lock eyes briefly and he loves the way your lashes bat sweetly into a minor glare. People think you’re mean, but he thinks you’re like sunshine. And daisies. With soft little petals that cup rainwater for fairies.

“Plainly speaking,” O’Donnell takes her glasses off again to card them behind her bangs, and if Eddie had a shot every time she took off her glasses just to replace them later he’d be wasted, “Eddie isn’t viable for his English credit this year. And I want him to graduate as much as he does.”

Maybe if he paid as much attention to her words as he did her mannerisms, he’d have his credit.

Your nails dig into the flesh of your bag’s strap like the Mayfield’s dog he saw eating cold cuts behind their chain link fence. Your face pinches, lips screwing unpleasantly as you ask, “And what doIneed to do with that?”

“Well, since I already know you’d entered the school’s poetry contest- “

Eddie’s jaw drops almost like a rubber hose animation, eyes nearly popping from his skull and you glare at him before he can even think of something to say.

“Shut up.”

He raises his hands defensively at your venomous tone, “I didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t have to, I can feel it,” you squeeze the strap of your backpack tighter as if Eddie might suddenly wrangle it off of you.

But he would never - not even in a nightmare. Despite your accusatory tone, he grins big and sweet and utterly stupid under your stare, “You’re not feeling anything.”

You go to call him a liar - claim he’s being mean - cry wolf, but Mrs. O’Donnell interrupts you, “Eddie can get extra credit by entering the contest with you. I’ll give half credit to the poetry analysis he’s already missing just for entering. Depending on where he finishes in place value, I’ll add points in the grade book.”

“Not to be rude, but - again - what do I have to do with this?”

“I want you to go with him to sign up so I know he actually did, and I want you to report back with what rank he finishes at in the contest,” she slips her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and Eddie considers those shots again, “Can you do that for me, dear?”

You almost find it endearing that she uses such sugary names for you - in the band tees and torn stockings and apparently Satanic interests - as she would for the cheerleaders and band geeks. As if you don’t find evils scrawled on your locker and hate tossed at you throughout the halls.

“Sure,” you press your lips and tug your headphones on, “See you tomorrow, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

“See you tomorrow!” she slips her glasses back over her head and Eddie can nearly feel the burn of his favorite peanut butter whiskey down his throat. He gives that up in favor of following you in puppylike glee down the corridor to your seventh period.

You and Eddie met in kindergarten when you were put in the same class with Mr. Peters and you’ve been in the same classes ever since. Lawson’s first grade. Tilinsky’s second grade. Peters -again- in third grade. Paur’s fourth grade. And so on and so forth until the present. You’ve always hated loud, obnoxious people and that certainly didn’t stop at Eddie Munson.

Eddie’s always wanted attention, but he’s always especially wanted your attention.

“Hey,” he jabs you in the arm, and just by the frayed, tangled hair that swings into the corner of your eye you know he’s giving that cheap, crinkle-eyed, cherry-lipped smile, “Hey.”

Your eyes roll almost on their own, something hefty that twists from one corner to the other, “Don’t you have a class to go to, Munson?”

“Just physics,” he waves you off, “practically optional.”

“You need science credits to graduate, brainiac,” you push back your headphones to rest around your neck again, clicking pause.

“Not me, I took AP bio over the summer - Higgins just won’t let me drop it.”

“I’m sorry,” you step off to the side of the hallway, away from the trampling crowd and glare heavily, “Howis thatmyproblem?”

Eddie smiles at you so simply that an outsider could think you’d told him his hair looked nice today. People think you’re a bitch, Eddie thinks you’re intoxicating.

“You’re a library TA,” the minute bell rings and you would wonder how he knew that if the annoying tyke didn’t skip his physics class so often, “so just help me enter now, and we can start my little poem.”

In kindergarten, Eddie had a missing front tooth that he said was from a fight with a first grader. Now, that tooth has grown back and you hate the fact that such big teeth are even somewhat charming. And those stupid baby cow eyes and disagreeably kissable lips.

You huff and snag him by the leather jacket sleeve as the final bell for seventh-hour rings. You hate to admit that the scraggly, bruised little boy that used to smell like pennies after recess and make himself an ass for a speedy laugh may actually be attractive. That’s more disturbing than any parentally disadvised music could possibly be.

“Hey, Ms. Banks!” you call to the kindly woman standing behind the front desk, “I’ll be helping Eddie for most of the hour, is that okay?”

She nods slowly and logs the book of a wiry-framed girl with thick glasses as ‘checked in’, the girl stares wide-eyed and horrified at Eddie as she scampers out.

“Sure thing, sweetheart, I can hold the fort for today.”

The nickname, again, is so different from you and your tastes and he might love it. He might want to call you that, too.

You shove a sign-up sheet into Eddie’s chest and bring him to one of the less dusty tables littered through the stained, grimy library carpet. He stumbles a moment as you slam him down into a chair that creaks more than his own bedroom door.

“The theme is flesh and blood,” and maybe it’s the way you twist the Slayer shirt slung over your bones or the way you never mention your parents, but Eddie’s bambi eyes slick wide in an assumption of gore.

“I didn’t think Ms. Banks was into that.”

You purse your lips and jab him in the side, “Kin, dumbass.”

It’s then that the wispy hair of Ms. Banks enters frame, loosely knotted in a gentle bun, she smiles and sets the log of books in front of you with a soft literature stack easily resting in a single hand, “However students take it, is their own way. Nobody should limit their creativity.”

Eddie sets his face cocky as Ms. Banks takes his contest application and flutters back behind her desk, tone snarky as he says, “Didn’t see that.”

“She was one of the original rock and rollers,” you kick your feet up onto the bottom rungs of his chair, “Pot smoking, not praying, all that.”

‘Hmph’ing and pulling a corner-torn, wrinkled loose leaf paper from his bag, Eddie pats himself down for the pencil heknowshe had in O’Donnell’s, “Didn’t seethateither.”

“Right?” you turn to the short stack of books before you and adjust the log closer, “Can you manage a little poem without me, Munson?”

“No.”

You groan, rolling your eyes at him once again, not that his answer stops you from moving on and beginning to catalog the books handed over.

And once again, Eddie can’t help but think about every single time he’s heard your name and ‘bitch’ so much as muttered under the same breath. Every time a boy has pointed at you with shrewd stares and crooked, shaking fingers. Each scoff and quirked brow and grimace - he could just about scream. He’s been drop-dead smitten since kindergarten and he’s always wanted you to justlook at him- here you finally are and he’d rather repeat senior year than have you look away now.

“You should be able to,” you check a copy ofTo Kill a Mockingbirdwith a coffee stain on the cover into the log and Eddie watches how your tongue pokes through your lips when you concentrate. His does that too and he wonders, briefly, if you picked it up from one another, “You write songs.”

A mock gasp that displays his freshman theater actor chops slips from Eddie’s lips, “And how would you know that?”

You raise a brow and grin unevenly, “We’ve been in the same class since we were five,obviouslyI know about Corroded Coffin.”

And he decides to tease just because that’s how he’s comfortable bantering with you. He wonders if that’s the way to go about his infatuation, he doesn’t get to ponder for too long before you typically respond, “Yeah? Ever been to a show?”

This time, however, you’re so bizarrely silent that it earnestly hurts his ears.

But he decides to store it for later.

“Can I see yours?” you jump back from his sudden question, Eddie grins, “Promise to show you mine.”

“No way, poetry is something deeply personal, and I don’t want to,” your back straightens, purely defensive, and he watches you stack bricks to keep him at bay.

It never really has, though. Your bricks are never bonded with mortar and Eddie likes plucking them away.

“You’ll have to read it out loud eventually.”

“And ‘eventually’ isn’t today. Or right now, so shut it and start writing.”

He doesn’t start writing, instead, he continues to prod, “What’s it about? Do I have permission to knowthat, at least?” when you fail to return his eagerness, he clears his throat and flicks his gaze to the blank paper before him, “For an idea?”

“My mom,” you bite, smacking the eraser end of your pencil into the paper book log.

“Huh?”

“Mymom.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

You glare, pencil pausing before you can smack it into the log, “No. She’s not dead or anything, just…” you kick him in the ankle, “Write.”

She just chooses to not be around.

Eddie leans closer, just a bit, enough for his hair - soft and freshly washed, you hate to notice - to brush against your arm. He smiles and you’re reminded of how lopsided his little grins have always been, “It’ll never get better if you don’t talk about it.”

“Mhm,” you check and tick and ‘x’ your way through the remaining boxes on the library log. Once finished, you finally turn to face Eddie fully and he’s suddenly struck by the upset that you hadn’t been looking at him like this the entire time, “And you’re the master of healing, huh?”

“Well, I’m not antisocial,” he rests his chin on the meat of his palm, brows raised.

You match the motions, but with narrowed eyes. More cynical, more angry than his, “No, but you are overly desperate for attention.”

Passing notes just to get caught. Calling jokes in the middle of lectures. Poking the jocks. Animating himself completely, just for you to watch the colors and frames flicker - just for you to giggle and point and fluster over. You do, sometimes, and it feels like a honeyed glaze straight to his ego.

“I only do that stuff around you.”

At lunch, when you’re across the room, he keeps to himself and his group - bizarrely enough. It’s only when you walk by for the lunch line or to see a friend that he decides to get up and prance like your little show pony.

“Of course.”

Because while you assume he likes to piss you off, he’s praying that you realize he’s in love with you. Has been since you were the only person paying attention while he showed off a moldy, missing-eared, ratty teddy bear his mom gave him for Mr. Peters’ kindergarten show and tell.

Instead of a sudden realization, you turn back towards the table and run the pad of your thumb into the engraved grooves on your walkman’s body. Your brows pinch like you sat in ice water and shake your head, “Just start writing something about your dad.”

You’re blunt to an aged knife’s point, your words could slice straight through each layer of skin should you wish them to. You say what’s on your mind until it comes to your own life and that interests him as much as it frightens others. Maybe more. He loves that about you.

Adjusting the headphones from around your neck to your ears, you hit the apricot play button and Eddie can only vaguely hear what plays. Something strong - intense drums, he knows that - but he can’t pinpoint it exactly. He tries matching the rhythm again.

Then a voice like grit and grime leaks out.

Arise from the dead and attack from the grave

Eddie leans closer into your vision, “The killing won’t stop until first light.”

“Huh?” you remove one of the stuffed muffs, scowling.

He can hear the lyrics clearer than before.

We’ll bring you to hell because we want to enslave

Eddie giggles, pure shock and glee, he drags curls in front of his mouth just to hide the overexcited pull of his lips, “Nofuckingway.”

In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t be all that shocked you’re listening to death metal.

“You, uh- “ you remove the headphones entirely and hit pause, “you know the band?”

“Fucking yeah!” he’s practically hopping in his seat, vibrating with excitement that his dreamgirl somehow got dreamier, “They rock shit!”

You chuckle, genuinely chuckle, covering your mouth at the sound, “Didn’t know Possessed could actually reach the surfaces of metal,” you lift the player a little off the table, “Death Metalis actually my favorite song off their album. I’m waiting for the next one.”

“Where’d you even find Seven Churches?” Eddie delights when you turn to face him fully again, “I looked everywhere and couldn’t even find a place that’d heard of the damn thing.”

You nudge his boot with yours, no longer covering your mouth as you simper, “I have my sources, maybe I’ll share them if you can write two stanzas in the next…” you whirl around to the hanging clock above Ms. Banks’ suddenly barren desk, “half hour.”

He does end up writing two stanzas, and you still don’t share your apparent sources. You’re terrible, he adores you.

That next day, during your TA period and his typically skipped chemistry class, he bounces into the library as you print out late book notices. He pinches your arm as he approaches, and you jab him with your elbow on instinct.

“Hell’re you doing, Munson?”

Eddie pulls out a piece of paper with lead marks and a new water stain, waving it straight in front of your bored face, “I got another stanza at home.”

“Congrats, how many more are you gonna do?”

“Depends,” he shrugs and leans against one of the dustier printers, poem haphazardly tucked into the corner of his crossed arms, “Can I hear yours yet, loner?”

“Depends, do you plan on actually getting anything from it or just teasing me?” he gets no chance to tell you he would never so much as dream of making fun of you before you’re pulling the printed notices out and walking behind the main desk, “Either way, keep dreaming.”

“Then will you at least tell me where you got the Seven Churches album if I complete my poem today?”

Sparing him the slightest glance, your lips quirk up and you shrug, “Maybe.”

Eddie thinks his poem is overtly dismal - about the lack of love and affection he ever felt before moving in with Wayne, who was brash but patient and kindly in his own way.

But he wants it to be happier, hefeelslike it should be happier - like some literary equivalent to the Hays Code. He thinks he should write about the girl in kindergarten who was the only one to listen to his show and tell - who then shared her crayons with him even though she brought them special from home. The girl in third grade who said he should sign up for the talent show because she knew he was learning guitar. The girl in fifth grade that was so kind and willing to listen after his mom died even though he knew she was struggling with her mom, too, and everyone thought she was terribly mean. And the girl that always glares at him for being loud in class, but he loves the way her brows scrunch and how her eyes always search for him during attendance.

You’re visibly fatigued, head laid against the library desk as you draw lazy shapes into the dark wood.

He thinks everyone should hear about how wonderful you really are.

“Is poetry easy? ‘Cuz it's like songwriting or whatever,” your gaze bounces up to him briefly, cheek squished against the table.

Eddie shrugs, folding his poem nervously in place of wringing his hands and dragging over a stray chair from one of the abandoned tables, “I feel like I should be trying harder, like it should be more heartfelt.”

In the margin of his paper, he scrawls a quick note to his future self “the girl that pays attention to useless details like I do”.

You huff and sit straight, back arching until it pops, “What’re your songs about? The original ones.”

“Boobs and blood, mostly.”

“Sounds awesome.”

“It totally is.”

He thinks he should write about how the girl has never changed, and it makes him wonder if he’s being stupid. But he wants herbad- his friend, his girlfriend, his wife, doesn’t matter as long as it's her,you- because she,you, is the only person to ever understand or ever take the time to begin understanding him.

In middle school, when he actually did decide to perform in the school talent show with his band, he got booed off stage by the other students. When he ran out and sat on the curb just to avoid their scowls and pointed stares and hatred, you followed.

The Hawkins air was practically tearing flesh from Eddie's nose with its freezing temperature, he just knew it was candied red by how numb it felt. But he’d rather be on the curb outside school, under blinking stars that he swears are moving, than back in there with the jeers and points. He hates them more than they could ever hope to hate him, he hates their twisted faces and he hates their forked tongues and prodding horns that twist like goats’. They terrify him more than any ear-rupturing music or D&D foe.

And as he sits under that frozen sky, the cold melts with golden sunlight when another person sits beside him on that hard, slightly slick curbside. Not just any person, when he finally looks over he realizes where the warmth comes from.

You nudge his shoulder with yours as you ask, “Where’d you learn to play?”

Eddie ran a hand over the spiky texture of his buzz cut and briefly considered if he’d be warmer with longer hair, “Taught myself.”

You nod slowly, following his eyes up to the stars that hang lonely in purple-black sheets, “How’s your uncle doing?”

“Busy,” Eddie hooked his arms around his bent knees, tucked close to his chest, still dodging your stare, “Fine.”

You scare him in a different way. You feel like an untouchable relic among the long, listless rows of empty plastic and cardboard boxes in Hawkins. Too precious to taint with hands that have been bloodied and bruised and cracked, hands that once belonged to his father, hands that know how to fight and steal. But you are also the only person to know what he feels. To have no friends your own age and be dodged by people in the hallways. To have the heavy rejection of your own parents be shot straight through the meat of your face and rot your insides.

He finally decided to look at you then, his big bambi eyes shy and barely meeting yours, “You ever feel alone in a room full of people?”

You lean down, head tilting, “Is that how you felt in there?”

Eddie nods, plucking up the courage to slide closer to you on the pavement, “Yeah… Do you?”

“Yeah,” it’s quiet for a moment, you lean into Eddie and find warmth like the sun’s in his body, “I know we’re not friends, but if you feel alone and I’m in the room with you - then you’re not.”

His head bumps yours gently before settling onto the junction of your shoulder, your head rests on his as he asks, “What if you don’t remember this?”

“I will - it isn’t every day that the boy who makes himself an ass all the time almost cries in front of you.”

He shoots straight at that and you laugh at his wide eyes, your head throws back. Eddie giggles at how your nose scrunches before wiping his, admittedly wet, eyes with the sleeves of his patchy, rough sweater, “I wasn’t gonna cry.”

“Yeah, right,” you scooch closer to him yet again, internally reasoning it as your desire for his warmth, “You’ll have to play something for me. Just me, though, ‘cuz nobody else would understand it.”

Leaning back into you, Eddie grins big and bright and you try not to stare, “I will. Promise.”

Eddie taps the band of his rings against the wood, “Do you remember that day in middle school? During the talent show?”

You blink once, twice, and nod curtly, “Yeah.”

Without it being said, you both know exactly what he means. Because you’re the only two that could understand.

“I still have to play something for you.”

“Whatwouldyou play?”

He straightens up, palms splaying flat on the wood and you hate how your eyes linger there for a moment. He grins, tone fluttering up and you can tell that he’s excited. Something about that feelsnice, making the showman giddy.

“I learnedFade to Blackby Metallica - you listen to Metallica? I’m obsessed with them,” he raises his brows, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

You pick up your walkman and gently rattle it, “Duh.”

Eddie’s hands nervously fiddle with one another, no longer satisfied with his paper. He scratches at the flat of his nails, swallowing the nerves settling in his throat, “Wanna come over sometime?”

You shrug, forehead tipping to where he’s got his poem scrunched in one hand, “You done?”

“I will be tonight,” he settles on one elbow, chin in his hand and he winks - you find it charming in a bizarre way, “Sorry, got caught up talking to averypretty girl.”

“Hm, and I bet she’s just stoked to be the apple of your eye,” you tease.

“I hope she is,” but he is nothing if not genuine.

The air is stiff and you’ve never been good at admitting what the problem is, so you move on, “Can I read what you have so far?”

Suddenly shy, Eddie’s eyes briefly find the various notes he scrawled about you, “That isn’t a very good idea.”

‘Hmph’ing, you shrug and lean down on your elbows, “And I was gonna let you read mine.”

“Really?”

“Fuck no.”

You snicker and pick up your bag, the late book notices, and a pink hall pass for various classrooms. Eddie watches as you look between the students and their class as you come around the main desk, headphones coming around your neck.

Folding your arms, you nudge Eddie’s sneaker, “I’m free Saturday. If you want me over, you can pick me up at noon,” he ignites at that, wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked like that night back in middle school, “Same house.”

Little fireworks splatter like Jackson Pollock hues of anticipation inside Eddie’s stomach and he’s reminded, once again by you, why people call it butterflies. He only realizes he hasn’t responded when you’re already about to step out of the library,

“I’ll be on time!” you look over your shoulder at him when he shouts, he swears he sees you smiling, and he continues, “Promise!”

Eddie was two minutes late.

And you told him that as soon as you were standing outside his van, the passenger side window rolled down.

“Well, I was cleaning,” Eddie leans over to unlock the door when his console button fails, “So that’s why I was running late.”

You roll your eyes but settle in nonetheless, appreciating the stark lack of trash you hear about from his flock of underclassmen.

“Sorry,” he scratches at his arm despite it being smothered by that leather jacket he huffs around everywhere.

Dropping the facade for just a moment, you decide to pat his shoulder as he pulls away from your house, “Don’t worry about it, Eds.”

And he’ll be holding onto that memory and that brief contact for the rest of his life.

And when you’re in his trailer, surrounded by the band posters and dusty wardrobes, you finally decide to let go.

“If I let you read my poem, will you let me read yours?”

“You’re hilarious,” he tosses stray pajamas on his rustled bed into the laundry basket but turns to watch you as silence pervades the room. You’re nottryingto be funny. Not at all, and Eddie drops the shirt in his hands, “What?!”

You pull out a nearly folded piece of paper from your waistband and flip it against your clammy palm before handing it over. It shakes in your hand. Eddie takes it and looks at you as if asking for permission before floundering for his own paper and flinging it towards you.

“You can only read it if you won’t make fun of me,” he flops back onto his bed, hair spreading silky against the bedspread and pillows.

You sit on the mattress by his legs, “Even thoughyoubrought up that day in middle school, you seem to forget that promise I made. Understanding and whatnot.”

“You actually promised I wouldn’t feel alone,” he nudges you with his thigh.

“Same damn thing, Munson.”

“Not at all.”

You lay back with him and pinch his arm, “Promise I won’t make fun of you.”

He’s trying to be casual - really, earnestly trying - but it feels like trying to single-handedly take down the Great Wall of China when you’re laying beside him and about to be reading his admission on how he’s been head over heels for you since kindergarten. So he buries his nose in your poem and pretends to not be staring when you glance back at him. And he feels ridiculous for being so focused on himself when you’ve got your heart on a lined loose leaf right in front of his eyes.

Eddie, like most, knew vaguely about your situation with your mother. He, like most, knew she wasn’t in the picture - and he, like most, knew better than to bring her up. What he didn’t know was that you called her number every day after school three times and would wait through all the useless, racketing ringing for her to answer (she never did). He didn’t know you felt stupid for wanting her back when she practically ripped the veins out around your heart like faulty cords. He didn’t know you wished you were a kid just so she could find it easier to love you again.

And Eddie, most of all, didn’t know you actually wanted to talk about it.

But who will talk to you When you’re alone When you’re the local shrew When they think I’m digging bone

And he always knew you were stranded like he is - adrift in the raging societal ocean with a thin, deflating life ring. That’s why he believed you when you claimed to understand him.

Your very last two lines - though - are something that catch his attention.

A boy annoying and sweet and persistent I think I want him around

You think you want him around. He hopes you’re not lying and he hopes you have the capacity to adore him as he does you. He hopes this means his own secret won’t terrify you.

Eddie, as he usually does, goes off-topic halfway through his writing. He says that with puberty came an interest in girls - one girl, specifically. You have a feeling, from the memories you share with him and how fondly he describes them, that the one girl - specifically - is you.

People think she’s mean But I’ve seen her before

He’s seen you - helping underclassmen and pushing jocks off nerds and listening to all of Eddie’s recruitment speeches for Hellfire even though you both know you’re disinterested.

Eddie knows people say teenagers don’t know shit about love, but he swears to God he’s absolutely taken with you.

You let the water-speckled paper flutter to your tummy and you press it down, both hands falling atop it. He watches you stare at the ceiling as you ask, “Is it about me?”

Eddie’s head tilts against the mattress so he’s looking at you, eyes gentle against your face, “Is your line about me?”

Sighing, you crook your gaze to him for just a moment before grabbing your paper from him and placing both poems on his cluttered bedside table. You sit up, back against the wall, and thumbs fiddling in your lap, “Do you think I’m mean?”

Eddie’s face drops into something purely genuine for the first time in a long time. His brows knit towards the center of his eyes and his lashes flutter, gaze soft and gentle in a fashion you don’t know if you deserve. His head shakes almost automatically, far before his brain can even form a proper response. All he manages to spit out as he sits up is the most asinine,

“Never did,” you nod slowly and he rests a hand over your fidgeting ones. He squeezes and it feels bizarrely sweet, “Do you think I’m a freak?”

“Never,” you say.

“No?”

“No,” you promise. Finally, you grant Eddie the sugar of your eyes on his.

He likes the way you look at him - whether you’re bored or irritated or intrigued or upset or excited, he wants it all and he’d sit there through hell if it meant you’d just keep looking at him like you are now. So tender and considerate. He’s been captured since you first gave him this dedicated stare in Mr. Peters, he continues to obsess as you lay your head on his shoulder.

Heart in his throat, Eddie hears the blood throbbing through his ears in such buzzing silence. He feels you nuzzle ever closer and he’s been dreaming of this since he knew two people could even get this close and have it mean something.

The flowers he left in your locker throughout middle school and never owned up to, the notes on your desk in sophomore year’s shared classes that Higgins lectured him about every day, the music recommendations you never needed because he knew you already knew all the same bands he did. Everything was a reason to see you bright up - to have you see him as someone more than the boy that used to come in after recess smelling like pennies with an apple-red face. To be the boy you might want to go to movies with and sneak under bleaches with and hold hands in the hallway with. To be the boy you want just like you’re the girl he’s always prayed for (even though he was never particularly religious).

The silence will kill him if this close proximity to you doesn’t do it first, so Eddie ends it quickly.

“Wanna hear me playFade to Black?”

You don’t peel away completely, but your head knocks forward, one hand flying out from under his to clap over your mouth. You laugh, full-bodied and pure and he hasn’t seen you laugh like this since Corey Stiffmen sprained his wrist trying to show off in sixth-grade P.E.

Shaking your head, your lips are high and wide as you beam, hand smacking against your thigh and eyes narrowing in a tease, “You’re such a dork, Munson. Suggestingthatwhen we basically just admitted to being in love with each other.”

“Ah- !” his eyes spark, curls flailing as he shakes his head, other hand waving dismissively, “There was nothing about love in yours! Don’t try and trick me, princess, I know what I read.”

You sigh and kiss his cheek like it’s just that easy. He wishes he knew it was that easy. His cheeks flame rosy and you giggle louder at that, he takes it all in like you’re about to disappear.

“You really just wanna sit here and play guitar while you have a girl in your room?” you lean forward, knee bending up for you to rest your chin on. Eyes alight and beaming and he wants more because he’s always been greedy.

“I dunno,” he shrugs, overexaggerated and heavy, eyes rolling up to his water-stained ceiling before gracing your face again. The open window behind you casts one of those cartoony halos around your head - as if he didn’t already know you were the most divine thing in Indiana (perhaps the world), “I have vinegar and Coke, if you wanna put eggs in them like we did in seventh grade.”

It takes a second, and that second drags like glass over Eddie’s face, but as soon as it’s over you’re there with alcohol and gauze and sweet peels of laughter to make everything better. He joins your chuckling when the joke clicks, he squeezes the hand you still lay beneath his and moves his face closer.

Slow for you to back away if you wish to, but also absolutely praying that you don’t.

And you don’t.

Eddie takes the leap this time and he’s drunk on strawberry-flavored chapstick like every lovestruck romance novel character he swore he’d never be like. You smile into the kiss and he returns the gesture in kind - dimples and all. You always thought his dimples were cute, even when he had that dreaded buzzcut and stunk of his father’s cigars.

Now he stinks like his own cigarettes, and you almost hate how addicted you’ve become to the scent in such a short time. He tastes like cheap beer and pineapple juice.

You pull back, moving to sit up on your knees in front of Eddie, brows furrowed, “Pineapple?”

“Shut up,” he tosses his head back and scruffs his already tousled bangs, “I don’t think I’m gonna graduate this year,” he squeezes your hand again and this time, you squeeze back, “but at least I got a girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” your voice drags high, brow quirking. All faux, and you hope he knows that.

“Yeah, okay,” he huffs, gentle as he cups the length of your neck and brings you down for another fruit-smacked peck, hand slowly moving up to take your cheek in his palm.

He holds you like you’re precious and maybe for the first time in a long time, you actually feel that way.

You break the kiss again and he pouts, you speak before he can, “Don’t say that.”

“Say what? I was kissing you that whole time,” he smiles so big it's like one of those cheesy romance movies you always said you’d never fall for (and now you’re both suckers). Soft chocolate eyes solely on you, Eddie cheeses like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, “Don’t tell me we need to get you checked for head injury - I’d like to think everything here was a conscious choice of yours.”

“No, don’t say you won’t graduate,” you turn and twist to settle back into the curve of Eddie’s body against the wall. Your head against his and you spinning the chunky rings he’s collected on his thick fingers, “Because youwill. I believe in you, Munson, so don’t go wasting it.”

“Never,” he kisses your head, looks out the open window to spot a man standing on his porch in only his boxers, just a mere couple of trailers away, “But what if I don’t? What if I repeat?”

Shrugging, you look up at him now like he’s planted every sweet daisy that cups water for the fairies, “I’ll just keep believing in you.”

In a way, you’ve always believed in him. Even if you never said it - the insistence he plays in talent shows and consistently inquiring about his guitarist exploits, the belief was always there. You know Eddie has what it takes to be a star. The hair, the showmanship, the creativity, the skill, the x-factor. You’ve been to his shows - not that you’d really admit it to stroke his ego, but you’ve been and you justknow. He’s something special.

“You’re something special, Eddie Munson,” your eyes skim out to the man on his trailer porch and watch as he turns to his wife in the window. She laughs at him and beckons him inside and he listens without hesitation. They kiss in the doorway and he holds her like she’s the most expensive, most fragile, most perfect diamond in human history, “I don’t care if you don’t graduate at all - let alone later than me.”

“I want to graduate.”

For Wayne, most of all. The man worked hard to keep Eddie fed and clothed and safe and schooled, he wants to be able to display that diploma Wayne fought so hard for Eddie to have. Even if his uncle insists Eddie doesn’t owe him anything, Eddiewantsto give back. Not to get even or be out of some strange debt, but because giving back is the only way he knows how to really show Wayne he loves him. Words are easy, his uncle appreciates dedication and actions and Eddie knows that.

“Then you will,” you kiss his cheek and Eddie’s never smudging off the chapstick dew that lingers there, “And I’ll be there.”

“I haven’t even taken you on a date yet, pretty girl,” he hums, “We’ve got things all backward.”

“Well, I’m sure that after - what? - twelve years, you know my favorite spot,” and he does, “Take me there.”

“Your wish is my command, princess,” he kisses your forehead, already knowing that when Wayne got back home - he was going to chew his uncle’s ear off about this entire afternoon.

Eddie ended up getting 30th place in the poetry competition. Not nearly enough to pass English and graduate in the spring of 1984, and when he returned to Hawkins High as a senior that fall you were there in the morning at his trailer. Sending him off with a packed lunch and a kiss that never could’ve been long enough for him.

And when he doesn’t graduate in ‘85, you’re ready to take back every compliment you ever gave Mrs. O’Donnell and offering to take him to Starcourt and make fun of that new John Hughes movie together. You’re there consistently, and Eddie couldn’t care less about his GPA when he’s finally yours after twelve years of pining.

And only when he was returning for his third try at senior year, did you finally reveal that the private dick nutjob, Murray Bauman, sold you Possessed’s Seven Churches album for five bucks.

You’re terrible, he adores you.

~~ people i kiss on the forehead in hopes they enjoy this and if not, i apologize <3 @kitmon @chainsaw-man-inserts @indouloureux @latenightsimping @mantorokk-writes

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fic #eddie munson #eddie x y/n #stranger things x you #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader #eddie.🍓

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redgoldsparks · 1 year

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June Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

A First Time For Everything by Dan Santat

A beautifully illustrated memoir of a shy, Asian American thirteen year old's first trip to Europe, in 1989. Dan is a painfully self-conscious kid, bullied at school despite his best efforts to slip invisibly through the school halls. But on a three week summer trips with a dozen other kids his age, some from his school and some from other states, he begins to find himself. This story is framed through a series of "firsts"- first time traveling without his parents, first time tasting Fanta, first cigarette, first alcoholic drink, first time navigating a city alone, first kiss, first time sharing his art with someone. The main narrative of the trip is woven through with flashbacks to particularly emotional past moments- asking a girl out, being romantically rejected, rejecting someone else, helping a girl out who had gotten her period unexpectedly. It captures the wretchedness of junior high, and the way traveling can teach people both about the world and themselves.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

An impactful series of essays that circles around the meaning of "Asian American" sometimes in very broad strokes, sometimes narrowing to the author's specific experience as a bilingual Korean American writer who grew up in the Los Angeles area in the 80s and 90s. I really appreciated the mix of memoir and history, research and cultural critique. Topics range from therapy, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, racism in academia, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, stand up comedy, the 1992 LA riots, the way childhood is not allowed equally to white and POC kids, the film Moonrise Kingdom and the 1965 Civil Rights movement, shame, deconstructing the English language in poetry, the 2012 documentary Wildness about a trans bar scene in LA, intense female friendships in art school, the poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's life and death, activist Yuri Kochiyama, and what debt, if any, an Asian American writer and thinker owes to America. This is a book I can see myself re-reading in a couple years, and getting more from it on a second read; it's rich with quotes and references to other writers, artists and thinkers who have informed Hong's thoughts. Definitely recommend.

In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee

I'm not going to give this book a star rating, because it deals with some extremely heavy topics I have no experience with (multiple suicide attempts, physical abuse of a child by a parent). This memoir covers four years of the main character's life, all of high school. Korean American Jung Jin, who goes by Deborah or Deb at school, made most of her friends in orchestra in junior high. But in high school she falls out of love with violin and quits music to focus more time and energy into drawing. She floats through school, feeling disconnected from peers and family, especially her mother, who swings from supportive to volatile. Another main theme is friendship- a solid, long-term friendship which Deb neglects, and a shorter, intense friendship that consumes Deb's emotional world until it falls apart. This is a story of quiet survival, of incremental steps towards healing, balance, and self actualization. Like life, it is somewhat loose in structure, but the illustrations are stunning.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings read by Angel Pean

Set in a world similar to but one step sideways from our current world, this story follows Jo, a creative, biracial, bisexual woman trapped by the restrictions of her society. In this US, women are under constant suspicion of witchcraft, a crime that can still be punish by public burnings. Women who aren't married by 30 are especially suspected, and have to check in with a counselor bi-weekly, and risk losing their jobs, freedom, and ability to have their own bank accounts or own property. Jo is 28, and while she is causally dating, she has no interest in marriage. She has a hard time believing that love can even exist under the pressures placed on women. It doesn't help that her mother disappeared when Jo was 14, and during the investigation, she was questioned by witch hunters. It's been 7 years and Jo's father decides it's finally time to declare Jo's mom officially dead. This ends up opening up a clause in her will that requests Jo travel to a island in the middle of one of the Great Lakes on a very specific day in autumn and collect a certain fruit that only grows there... This book is so skillfully written, for the first half I was left wondering if magic really did or did not exist; it could just be the excuse that men used to oppress women, queer people, and people of color. But then the book takes a really Kelly Link or Octavia Butler-like twist in the middle and gets weirder and wilder. Highly recommend, especially the audiobook.

How A Mountain Was Made: Stories by Greg Sarris

A collection of short stories by long time Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Greg Sarris; a writer I've been hearing about for years and am finally sitting down to read! These stories are all set around the Sonoma Mountain and Cotati, very close to where I grew up, and I loved being able to picture the foggy mornings, the many oaks, the quail, poppies, lupine, hawks, coyotes, and creeks in these stories. The book has a frame narrative of two crow sisters, Question Woman and Answer Woman, who introduce each story and also appear as characters in one. The stories are interwoven, nearly all set in the village by Copeland Creek where Coyote lives as headman with his wife Frog, his cousin Chicken Hawk, and his many neighbors. The stories use a lot of the kind of repetitive language that lends itself to memorization; I honestly didn't feel like sitting down and reading the book cover to cover wasn't the best way to experience them. It might have been better to flip the book open to a random story and read whichever one caught my eye, especially to read it out loud, either to myself or to a young listener. Maybe I'll get an opportunity to read it that way sometime to a nibling.

The Two Doctors Gorski by Isaac Fellman read by Helen Laser

Annae is a PhD student, a brilliant researcher, and a survivor of academic abuse. She is forced to leave the US when her former mentor claims her research and ruins her name (after sleeping with her). They work in a small field, advanced magic so complex it feels almost more like science, so Annae transfers to a university in the UK to complete her degree. There she finds herself in a cohort of entirely male graduate students under a famous but cruel teacher. Her main defense mechanism and invasive habit is reading minds, a kind of compulsive act that lets her see how her peers view her, and themselves. Unsurprisingly, these insights bring her no peace; Annae tries to rebuild her research, but urge to fall into the same traps as her role models is strong. This is a novella, only about 4 hours as an audiobook, and fairly open ended but I'm still thinking about it.

The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara read by Erik Bloomquist

In this contemporary murder mystery/romance novel, werewolves exist and have always lived in small numbers around the world. A few years before this story starts werewolves outed themselves to the US government in order to better liaison with law enforcement to address werewolf-human crimes, but the general public still does not know werewolves exist. Cooper Dayton survived a werewolf attack, and is subsequently transferred from his former job at the FBI into the BSI, the Bureau of Special Investigation. When two bodies turn up in the woods in rural Maine, Agent Dayton is chosen for a trial program, and he is paired up with an agent from The Trust, the werewolf government. Dayton is attracted to his new partner, Agent Park, immediately- but when it turns out Park's family is active in the area of the murder, Dayton realizes he can't rule out the possibility that his co-worker might be actively covering for the criminal. This book starts an enjoyable paranormal romance series complete with plenty of spice but also very solid procedural mysteries. I was glad to be able to guess some parts of, but not all of, the mystery as it unfolded and I also thought the romance novel beats hit well!

The Wolf at Bay by Charlie Adhara read by Erik Bloomquist

At the start of this second installment in my new favorite paranormal romance/murder mystery series, Agent Cooper Dayton and Agent Oliver Park of the Bureau of Special Investigations have been sleeping together for 4 months but still have not defined their relationship. Some of their miscommunications stem from cultural misunderstandings, but more of it comes from them both being too gun shy to be the first one to say "I love you." Meanwhile, Cooper takes Oliver to meet his family in the small town of coastal Maryland where he grew up- introducing Oliver only as his partner at work, because Cooper's family don't know he is gay and also don't know werewolves exist. Then a 25 year old skeleton is uncovered on the Dayton family property, and Cooper and Oliver have to set aside their other issues to solve the cold case, which might implicate one or both of Cooper's parents. A very enjoyable second book which manages to avoid a lot of the things that often bug me in romance novels and develops the relationship in satisfying ways.

The Mermaid, The Witch and The Sea by Megan Tokuda-Hall

Evelyn, the closeted lesbian teen daughter of nobles in an oppressive and strict empire, sets to sea aboard the Dove on a six month voyage to meet the husband her parents have chosen for her. On the Dove she meets Florian, a sailor her own age she who she befriends despite his lack of education and rough manners. But what Evelyn doesn't know is that Florian is also Flora, an orphan who joined the crew out of desperation and killed a man in cold blood to earn her place. And also- the ship is crewed by pirates, who plan to take all of the passengers as slaves. They have also committed a crime against the very sea itself: the capture of a mermaid with intent to sell it's blood, which men drink to forget. This is a dangerous and violent world, but the connection between Evelyn, Florian/Flora and the mermaid might be enough to save them all, with the help of some cleverness, bravery, magic, and love. This book had some tonal shifts that I struggled with, but I deeply appreciated the multifaceted queer rep.

Thrown to The Wolves by Charlie Adhara read by Erik Bloomquist

The third book in the werewolf/detective romance series I've been wolfing down on audiobook. In this installment, Cooper Dayton, human BSI agent, is still heaving from the wounds of his previous case when Oliver Park, werewolf BSI agent, learns that his grandfather and head of the pack he abandoned several years ago died. Oliver asks Cooper to come with him to the funeral, and Cooper agrees, having no idea what he's getting into. The couple narrowly avoids a deadly car-crash on the way up to the family mansion in Canada, where Cooper learns that even though Oliver's family is fine with him being gay they are not really fine with him dating a human. Several of Oliver's relatives very explicitly try to scare Cooper off, then he's shot with a tranquilizer in what may or may not be an accident, then it turns out that Oliver's grandfather might not have died of natural causes. Amongst all this chaos, will Cooper decide the wolf world is just too much and that he needs to back away from it? Or will be just dive in even deeper? Even though I could easily guess the answer, I am still very hooked and will definitely read more!

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Seraphina is the assistant composer to the royal family of Goredd, which means she lives in the castle and spends her days auditioning new musicians, leading rehearsals, performing at state functions and giving the vivacious, whip smart, slightly spoiled princess her weekly harpsichord lessons. In two weeks, the most important dragon general will be visiting the capital city to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of the peace treaty between humans and dragons which he negotiated with the current human queen. But then one of the members of the royal family is killed, and some people start pointing the finger at dragons; tensions begin to rise in the city as anti-dragon mobs attack a young dragon traveling the city in his human form. Amidst this tension, Seraphina is even more desperate to keep her longest and darkest secret: that she is half dragon, and carries hidden scales, maternal dragon memories, and a mental link with other powerful beings. This was such an original take on a dragon fantasy, with a rich and complex world, characters that I immediately cared for and rooted for. I'm definitely going to keep reading this series!

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by Charlie Adhara read by Erik Bloomquist

Human boyfriend Cooper Dayton and his werewolf boyfriend Oliver Park are trying to buy a house together; but their aesthetic sense of what makes an inviting home is vastly different, and neither of them are communicating their needs well to the other. How convenient that their next case for The Trust, the werewolf government, involves them going undercover to a couple's retreat where they will investigate a missing person report while also doing bonding exercises and couple's therapy. Will Cooper finally acknowledge that he was PTSD? Will Park admit their massive family wealth disparity could be a source of tension between them? Will they manage to figure out the link between a threatening park ranger, a local lumber mill owner who wants to buy the land the wolf retreat is built on, not one but two missing employees, the mysterious research of a wolf scientist (who may have experimented on his own children), a wolf pack leader showing up at the retreat unexpectedly? This installment continues the development of the central relationship while also fleshing out the lore and intricacies of the wolf world.

#book reviews #reading #comics #reading reviews #audiobooks

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