#thebabysittertm / 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯. — 01

[hellmartyr]

𝐎𝐇, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓 people got up to when they were convinced no one was looking. especially middle school people. slouched against the counter, eddie was on prime real estate to witness all the shenanigans customers got up to in the aisles of a family video. especially the aforementioned midlings. three of them, hunched over the ( once ) sparkly new copy of extremities, muttering to each other as the kid with the vhs in his hands tilted it this way and that as if he’d discover a mystical angle to reveal farrah fawcett’s 2d tits.

      chin cradled in his palm, eddie slid his elbow across the counter, knocking into steve’s. dark locks shifted like a curtain as the metalhead used the whole leather-clad perch to directed his friend with a subtle tilt to the three sméagols salivating over their laminated precious.

      ❝ cleanup on aisle drama. ❞

@thebabysittertm

[hellmartyr]

𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐏 𝐁𝐘 on a molasses afternoon really snuck up on eddie’s guard. reality really was more fucked than fiction, and the extra-dimensional hellspawn weren’t the weirdest part.

      eddie managed a relatively straight face through most of steve’s spiel. it didn’t stretch the imagination to picture buckley’s dry ice delivery of her branded harrington humbling. surreal to witness when his idea of steve was still the gloryhound jock that life served to him on a diamond-encrusted platter of mithril. but as hawkins returned to the twilight zone’s approximation of “normal”, the truth eddie was so sure of before crumbled like an inner city facade.

      when hell literally broke loose, hawkin’s outcast thought he was inches from uncovering the sociopolitical mystery behind the buckley-harrington alliance. it defied the laws of nature, like a parakeet being best friends with a shark. an existential crisis and ichor-soaked resurrection later and now steve even looked different to him. the smugness once a key ingredient in every harrington look, now a jocular smirk equipped with rebuttal with a pointed aim only a true friend could muster.

      eddie tossed his hands up in submission at the drop of sherri’s name. no need to mention that staring off into space while a one-hit blunder chattered in white noise wasn’t the same as a girlfriend. but whatever his friend needed to stave off the sad, sad surrender that was renting frisky material in the middle of the day from blunt judgement in a green vest.

                              ❝ man, the lollipop guild has you whipped, glinda. ❞

ㅤIt was incredibly unfortunate that Steve had missed their comments, though he squinted at the lip-reading that he wasn't particularly exceptional at, even if he was pretty damn sure what had been said at the end. Eddie didn't drop his attitude and the kids were gone before Steve would have been able to kick up a fuss even if he could have found a decent angle to do so, but he nudged his elbow back just for the point of it and pulled a face at going back to the cassette he was trying to rescue.

ㅤ"Uh, no, don't you dare lump me in with you on that imagination shit. I had a date two days ago with Sherri Hall," he offered up with a laugh and a good measure of faux indignance. He didn't mention the fact that he also didn't have Eddie's level of imagination, even if they both knew it. Steve had never considered how that might apply in an 18+ way given all of the Dungeons & Dragons talk all the time, but now.... he really didn't need that, goddamnit.

ㅤHe reconsidered ribbing Eddie about the date thing, because he knew Eddie was getting even worse than usual on the 'Freak' line in town, given everything, and he flicked his gaze sideways to gauge as he took a left with the conversation.

ㅤ"You know I can't ever rent anything from that section on my own account. Robin checks it regularly to make fun of my movie tastes and how much the kids rent on it, so she'd clock it instantly. I'm not setting myself up for that, man," he explained, giving an easy shrug. The 'over 18' section was all Eddie's.

[hellmartyr]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐒 had enough grace to look embarrassed as they filed out of the aisle. dejected sneakers dragged to the tune of eddie’s chortle as the youngsters beat a hasty retreat to the door. a trio of glares fired at him, but only one had the audacity to open his chapstick-needing mouth. the kid grumbled something to his fellows as they funneled through the exit. eddie was too far to overhear what the filthy hobbit said, but he was certain he saw the tail end of murderer.

      eddie’s smarm didn’t budge, but the corner of his mouth suffered an imperceptible flinch. overall, hawkinites weren’t big fans of the jason carver explanation. it mucked around too much with the natural order of things ( and ever since the byers’ situation, hawkins was rapidly losing its grip of its small town cliché ). carvers were pedigree champions destined for ivy leagues and greatness. munsons were boogeymen who ruined an otherwise perfect town. or at least, eddie’s branch of the family tree was branded with that description. where eddie and his father got ire, wayne received pity for his relations. a sad man with only misfortune to his name.

      alas, hawkins’ dribbling echelons had to call off their witch hunt. there were no sticks to build their pyre after chrissy cunningham’s late easter resurrection. what hawkins’ second undead said, powell had little choice other than to believe, and she said eddie was innocent.

      the town was never gonna forgive him for that.

      untamed brows crumpled at the mention of their younger compatriots. ❝ heh, well, something’s working for them. jesus, they’ve got girlfriends and we have — ❞ suede eyes reflexively snapped to the “over 18” section then reset as a side-long shrug at steve.

                  ❝ healthy imaginations. ❞

ㅤEddie was quickly learning about the shenanigans of a Family Video, but Steve had learned long ago that some people (read: Eddie Munson) didn't care if people were looking or not. After Eddie, Steve wasn't surprised enough by most of the weird stuff, and if Eddie hadn't desensitized him to it, the Party and all of their messes probably would have. Middle schoolers getting over-excited over Farrah Fawcett in some lingerie on a movie case was definitely unwanted, but he'd driven a car with a concussion after being tortured by Russians listening to a kid and his 'girlfriend' sing the Neverending Story in the middle of a monster crisis. Kids made absolutely zero sense and they had basically no shame.

ㅤAt least Eddie was watching that side of the store. Steve was leaning on the counter, wiping and chipping something off of a tape that he really didn't want to know the source of and he'd finally stopped complaining about it to concentrate when Eddie knocked elbows with him. The nudge made him miss and almost catch his finger, which he wasn't thrilled about, but he snapped his head sideways to look at Eddie, caught the tilt and direction he was watching and then zeroed in on the kids.

ㅤCleanup, no thank you.

ㅤ"Hey! Pretty sure that's not ET you're drooling over, put it back!" he snapped, pointing to stress that he wanted them out of that aisle. He was pleased to note that, unlike Dustin and most of the Party, these kids flinched and got moving when they were caught. He couldn't even entirely blame them when only the display box for Extremities was even on the shelf because it had been oogled by grown men before both of their two copies had been rented. At least the kids had the excuse of being young and dumb. "Wish that worked on Henderson and Wheeler."