#trying to do appalachian eddie and hoping it's not too cringy

[loudsnapdragon]

thank you to @dreamwatch for tagging me a in a little WIP Wednesday!🧡

some angsty Eddie pov, from a possible b-side to my Juno fic here.

His mama always sends him a handknitted toboggan for his birthday, or close abouts. It was November by the time it arrived this year, only two months late, wrapped up in brown paper and twine. Wayne called it handsome when Eddie pulled it over his head, the blue wool a little harsh against his dark hair but still charming in its way. He remembers her always being nimble with her fingers, whether it was knitting needles or the fine papers of rollie or the strings of that little old guitar painted silly colors.

It was a pretty thing, that guitar. A Rickenbacker acoustic with pink and blue daisies around the pick guard. It got her into a lot of trouble, that guitar.

There’s this old boozer off Main St. It’s where the plant workers go; Wayne and his buddies. Eddie only set foot inside once, twelve years old and fucking terrified cos’ he’d lost his keys, and the frozen trailer door wasn’t budging like it usually did when he shimmied the handle. Dragging his feet through the snow and biting his lip blue. Expecting the complete stranger he’d only recently been informed was his uncle, and the only living relative fit to care for him, to slap him backwards for losing the keys to the trailer Eddie’d no doubt already tarnished with his mere presence.

He remembers the shock of warmth when he walked out the cold of his first Hawkins’ winter and into the red carpeted bar. The way the glowing neons behind the counter were blocked out by the bartender towering over him, asking if he knew where he was. Eddie wasn’t one for biting his tongue, never has been, but he didn’t answer. Too distracted by the guitarist in the corner, twanging strings waving under his fat fingers. Odd music, not quite like home. Wherever that was. But it got the liquored up oldies at the bar waving their beers, cheerily mumbling along to the too-fast words.

Wayne spotted him soon enough. And cos’ he’s an old sweetheart, he barely bat an eyelid at his night ending early. Walked Eddie home and showed him the spare hidden in a knot in the punk wood under the doormat. Eddie sat up on the kitchen counter, cos’ he was small enough to do that back then, chewing on a fresh grilled cheese as Wayne pottered around the stove, making himself a black coffee to sober up before bed. With a decisive swing of his feet against the cabinets, Eddie decided the curiosity beat out the constant low-lying fear that he was impeding on Wayne’s everything, and asked after the music. It sounded like mama’s songs, he said. Back when she still played.

And Wayne sighed like a tire wheezing out the last of its air, the car crashing into the side of the highway. Made Eddie freeze his short legs, hanging perpendicular off the counter.

'Sorry,' he said.

'It’s alright,' Wayne said, putting down his coffee and helping Eddie jump down. ;Get to bed, and I’ll tell ya.'

He’d never had his own bed before. Always slept in his mama’s bed back in Virginia, and then, when he was with Teddy, it was the loveseat under the apartment window. Never any curtains, so the streetlights would bother him all night, morning sun waking him up early enough so he could dust down the living room, make Teddy a coffee, and then go about pretending he didn't exist. As was best to do when he was staying there.

But Wayne gave up the bedroom when Eddie moved in, telling Eddie to make it his own. He hasn’t got much décor to show for it; a snapshot of his mama above the bedside lamp; some rocks he’d found in the creek back home; the leather jacket Teddy had given him as way of an apology, too big for a child and falling apart at the seams.

Wayne pulled up the rickety chair to sit by the bed, like he’d be telling Eddie a fairy tale. But Wayne’s never been that fanciful, who’s got time for that, so it was a real story. More truth than Eddie had ever heard before.

A very pretty lady came rolling down the mountains to stay with her auntie and get her high school diploma. Hawkins’ High didn’t know how to comprehend her, this skinny girl with straw hair and strange words and a face that got Ted Wheeler nearly giving it all up just to take her to Prom. But Ted didn’t win her hand, cos’ the pretty lady had her eyes set on a life beyond the better-to-do suburbs. She wanted to travel to the real city, see the big wide world and where she fit into it. Poor as pieces she was, made ends meet with a job cleaning at the luxury motel off the highway, and on occasion singing a tune around town. Wayne always wondered after her, how safe she was playing her silly guitar in those smoky bars. He was ought to be graduating the same year as her, couldn’t deny he’d blush when she smiled so earnest in the hallways, like she’d never learnt the high-mindedness that Karen Childress got her kicks from. But where Wayne kept his distance, his big brother crept forwards.

Edward Munson has four years over Wayne, four years more than Eliza too.

When he’s older, Eddie will hear the odd story about Teddy around town. How he was a charmer, a crook, a cheat, but more often than not, how he was the handsomest man his dear mama ever saw. He found her playing guitar in that old boozer, watched her intently as he sipped on a whiskey he didn’t pay for, tipped her mighty with cash he won fair and square in a pool game against Lonnie Byers, or so he claimed. Teddy told that girl she had a voice made for the West, how her yellow hair would light up like golden sand under the sun.

Three months later and she was expecting, one month more and they were married, and she’d dropped out of high school. Another month after, and Teddy ran off solo to the coast, leaving Eliza on the Munson’s family’s doorstep, begging her mother-in-law to lend a helping hand. Wayne put in a good word for he, he swore he did. Told his mom that Eliza was a good girl who been screwed over by the slimiest Munson there was. But his mom had a soft spot for her eldest, and the besotted kindness didn’t extend to the witch who’d stolen him away.

So, Eliza went hitchhiking back to Virginia, her aunt having lost her wits and screeching that there was no hope for her left in Hawkins, and Edward Munson Jr. was born by a woodstove on the brick floor of his nana’s house in the mountains.