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bizaar · 5 months ago

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Endless Summer ✧

Part 3: Band on the Run

Cruel Summer Masterlist

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pairing: eddie munson x afab!reader

warnings: sexual content (18+ minors dni), horny-loser!reader, brief descriptions of sexual fantasies, swearing, and so much pining

word count: 19k

a/n: we're back baybeee! also, if anyone knows the original creator of the gif below, please let me know so I can tag them, I've had these on my laptop for over a year and I've lost all my credits!!

In the three hours it has been since you got home from school, the floor of your bedroom has become almost totally obscured by what is essentially every article of clothing you own. You’d made the mess in a frantic attempt at putting together an outfit out of thin air because you don’t actually own anything cool enough for how you’re planning to spend your night.

You’re supposed to be babysitting, just like every other Tuesday night you’ve spent since you were thirteen years old, but this week, for the first time in history, you did everything in your power to get out of that duty. You’d pulled out all the stops to convince everyone that, despite the perfect health of your earlier day, you’d somehow managed to contract a sudden onset, highly contagious illness sometime between fifth-period chemistry and now (one you intend on making a swift and miraculous recovery from) and for the safety of everyone around you, you should not be disturbed under any circumstances.

You blame it on how you’d spent four hours out in the cold, taking Dustin and his friends around to trick-or-treat last night, though all that does is get your mother on your case about how she ��told you to wear a coat”, but would you listen? No.

It took almost a full hour of debate, all the tricks you’d ever seen employed in movies to fake sickness, and what you like to think of as an Oscar-worthy performance on your part, but your parents eventually gave in and called across the street to deliver the news. Part of you feels like it was only because they didn’t want to argue with you anymore, but in any case you got what you wanted.

Dustin was going to the Wheelers, your parents were going to their weekly Tuesday night extracurriculars, and (unbeknownst to everyone else) you were going to see a band play at the Hideout.

Though not just any band.

The only reason you’ve gone to such lengths to get out of all your previous plans is because you’ve been personally invited to go and see Corroded Coffin play — Eddie’s band.

Of course, you didn't know that at the time of the initial invitation, which came through Gareth, just as the school bell was finishing its cacophonous ringing to signify the end of fifth-period chemistry.

“Hey, so, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, leaning less than casually on his elbow to peer down the length of his nose at you.

You remember thinking that the way he was twisting at the waist looked terribly uncomfortable, but you were only half conscious of anything going on around you as you began the arduous task of orienting yourself toward your original plans for the night.

“Homework.” You replied in an absent monotone, trying for the millionth time not to get sucked back into the memory of the lunch period spent “swapping eyes” with Eddie Munson.

It’s been five days since then, but who’s counting?

Certainly not you and all the assignments piling up in your locker, waiting on the promise of “later” you’ve been making since the moment you finally managed to drag yourself out of those woods.

You were vaguely aware of Gareth answering with some kind of a droll response – which was entirely on brand for the likes of him – but you hardly heard him say it.

You had a lot of other things on your mind, all of which seemed much more important than divulging your wholly uninteresting after-school plans to your lab partner.

Tonight, you’ll be sitting at the Henderson’s kitchen table doing all your overdue assignments while your prepubescent charge plays Atari, nothing more, nothing less.

Talk about a rip-roaring good time, right?

Still, it beats the “casual hangout” in Steve Harrington’s backyard Carol had tried to coerce you into attending under threat of major bodily harm. Not that being forced to sit around a pool in early November, fifth wheeling while everyone around you sucks face doesn’t sound like just the most fun a girl could have, but you told Carol the same thing you told Gareth about your plans for that night – you’ve got to do your homework, and it’s not even a lie.

Normally, you like to think you’re a much better student, and while you’re not entirely sure that line of thinking is warranted (as is evidenced by your last report card, which saw you pulling straight C’s) you know for a fact that any and all thoughts of academia flew right out the window the moment Eddie put himself in the seat across from you in the lunchroom.

And aren’t you so incandescently glad he did?

It is a sentiment your teachers do not share. That morning (the first day back after a long weekend spent miserably pining) you’d even received the dreaded summons from your guidance counselor, who sat you down and asked if “everything was fine at home”.

Why? You’d wanted to ask – because you were seen slinking off to the woods with Eddie Munson or because he wasn’t in school the next day and you haven’t turned in a single assignment since? You might remind them that with the long weekend, there are only technically two days of work missing, but you know they don’t want to hear that because this isn’t really about the homework.

This is about you following Eddie out into the woods.

How are you supposed to think about things like formulas and essays when you can still see him gazing back at you from across the picnic bench every time you close your eyes? With that dreamy look on his face?

And more to the point, how are you meant to explain to an adult that everything is fine, it’s only just you haven’t seen him in nearly a week and, not to be dramatic or hideously cliche, but you can’t seem to eat, sleep, or concentrate on anything so banal as homework when you’re fairly certain he was getting ready to kiss you out in those woods before the bell rang?

You’re not positive that’s where things were headed, but you’re pretty damn sure, and it's enough to get your girlish libido ringing the warning bells of your imminent demise with every day that passes out of Eddie’s presence.

No, you can’t explain that to an educational professional or Carol, or anyone else without raising some serious alarms. Because you’re not even supposed to be talking to Eddie Munson, let alone sneaking off to the woods to become as completely captivated by him as you are.

And he didn’t even kiss you…

God, how you wish he would have just kissed you, especially after the way he seemed to make himself scarce the moment you took your eyes off him.

You’d put quite a lot of time and energy after you got home that Thursday evening into wondering what it would have taken to get Eddie to lean over that table, and quite a bit more into wondering whether you ought to have bucked up and done it yourself.

Not that it mattered, because he didn’t kiss you and you didn’t kiss him, and there you remain, unkissed and suddenly the topic of everyone’s conversation.

Because on top of everything else, there is that side of it.

Like somehow a spell had been broken that afternoon you followed Eddie out of the lunchroom, everybody and their mother is suddenly keenly interested in you. People who have never given you the time of day suddenly know your name, and they want to know all the intimate details of what you did with Eddie Munson out in the woods, or rather, what he did to you.

You probably should have known that was coming.

Still, you hate to indulge them with any kind of answer, even if it happens to be a big fat nothing. They only want to know so they can wrinkle their noses and sneer and shout about how “fucking nasty” that is — shacking up with the Freak King — just like Carol did in the lunchroom the day before all your dreams came true.

You would spare yourself that humiliation if you could, but more than that, you’re struck by how you don’t want them talking about Eddie that way.

You have become inordinately fond of him since that afternoon, more than you already were, and in a very specific way. Somehow, you can’t help but feel that, even though your conversation lasted less than twenty minutes altogether, you understand each other now.

You’re simpatico.

You might even venture to say that you’re almost friends.

Strange how a little quiet intimacy was all you needed to curb the rabid edge of your obsession. Eddie is still all you think about, but in a decidedly calmer way, because he thinks you’re nice and approachable, and you think the same about him.

Still, in the five agonizing days it’s been since that big fat nothing happened, the questions have not stopped. Part of you wants to give them an answer if only to shut them up, but somehow you don’t think “he captivated me” is going to satisfy the people’s ravenous appetite for gossip.

You’re certain everyone has already made up their mind about what they think happened, anyway. In the food chain of high school social constructs, it doesn’t matter what did or didn’t happen, it only matters what people say happened. and you’re absolutely certain that you’re going to hear all about it sooner or later.

You realize now that’s probably why Carol was so desperate to get you to come out and fifth wheel tonight when she knows you have to babysit. She keeps telling you that you owe her because you didn’t go to Tina’s Halloween party, but somehow you’re not convinced she was that upset to have missed you.

Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t trust you not to lie to her about where you’re going to be and who you’ll be with, who will see you with them, and how that will come back to reflect on her. Guilty by association is the law of the land at Hawkins High, after all.

With all that weighing heavy on your mind, you ignored any further questions Gareth had about your after-school plans and shoved your books into your bag, ready to submit yourself to the quiet death of study hall.

Ugh… study hall… you’d rather eat glass. Then again, you’d also rather not have to spend your summer watching the sweat beading on Mrs. O’Donnell’s upper lip in summer school, so down the hall you went, headed against the flow of traffic in the busy hallway.

Somehow, it feels like overt symbolism bashing you over the head – you’ve always hated a cliché.

Lucky for you and your impending academic doom, Gareth was not so easily deterred and scrambled to follow you out the door.

“Why don’t you come out tonight instead?” He asked innocently, like it was the most casual thing in the world and he wasn’t struggling to keep pace with you as all your classmates shoved past.

The question hit you square in the back, punching your lungs flat and wrenching you out of your thoughts with enough force to make your head spin.

“Excuse me?” You gasped, pulling to a stop and whipping around so suddenly that Gareth, who you hadn’t realized was skirting along at your elbow, nearly took a blow to the solar plexus in his attempt to keep up.

Your insides clenched and forced your heart up into your throat, but before you had the time to decide whether or not Gareth had just asked you out, his eyes went comically wide, and he began to backpedal as if his life depended upon it.

Then again, it might have, if what he said was true and word got back around to Eddie.

“Not like a date!” He yelped, throwing his hands up and showing you his palms in a way that flooded you with a strange and instant relief, “Just as friends—”

Oh, thank God for that.

You could barely wrap your head around the concept that Eddie feels any sort of intimate way about you —and you’re still not entirely convinced about that — but to suddenly learn that you are the object of two affections? That’s too much revelation for one week, and you can only thank that dim lucky star that so infrequently passes you over that it had been nothing but a misunderstanding.

Not like a date, Gareth said, Just as friends, and you’re fine with that.

From there, he had your full attention as he went on to explain that his band was doing a set down at the Hideout, and he was extending you a personal invitation to come and see them play. You had no idea Gareth was in a band, though that was perhaps stupid on your part based solely on the boy’s appearance – of course, Gareth is in a band, and of course, that band’s name is Corroded Coffin (which you’re only slightly ashamed about giggle-snorting over when he told you) Between that and the location, your gut reaction was to refuse.

Gareth is great, especially when he’s playing the herald to all your hopes and dreams, and especially when he isn’t asking you out, but no.

Absolutely not.

You would not be going to see Corroded Coffin tonight.

Lucky for you, you’ve had the perfect excuse to get out of anything and everything that sounds like a colossal bore since you were thirteen years old, and you were all too happy to trot it out.

“Oh man, I wish I could,” you began, trying to mask the faintest hint of smug satisfaction in your tone with an apologetic scrunch of your features, “...but I’m babysitting tonight.”

And you would have been content for the conversation to end there, but you didn’t count on Gareth having an ace in the hole, one he was all too happy to knock you upside the head with and send your brains splattering all over the crusty school linoleum.

“Aw, really? Damn, that’s a bummer,” he hummed, “I know Eddie would’ve been stoked to see you.”

Your heart skipped a beat and you had to fight to stop yourself from seizing Gareth by the front of his shirt.

If you had, you would have shaken him like a ragdoll and demanded he tell you everything he knows. Instead, you did your best to remain calm as you stared back at him and the look of smug self-satisfaction he suddenly had plastered across his face.

For some reason, it made you think of the message you’d promised to take back out of the woods last week.

“Tell the smug bastard to mind his own business,” Eddie said, and you didn’t, because Gareth never asked you how it went. He just gave you a sly smug look, the same one he was currently giving you right there in the hallway five days later.

“Oh,” You said, feeling about as casual as a heart attack, “Is Eddie going to be there?”

Your voice hitched and wavered as you did your best to casually skip over his name. You were cool, calm, collected, and definitely not internally shrieking with the sudden potential of a “part two” of last Thursday…

The potent spike of desperation that thought sent rocketing through your midsection was enough to drive color bleeding up into your cheeks and a cold sweat beading across your brow.

It is a reaction you are certain Gareth was not unwise to as he continued without missing a beat.

“Yeah, he’s our frontman,” He explained, knowing full well what he was doing dropping that kind of information, “Technically it’s his band – he started it back when he was in Middle School or something,”

Well, put me in a fucking chokehold why don’t you? Something inside of you screamed to have had such a treasure trove of lore opened up to you.

Like the blessed hand of deus-ex-machina — cheap bitch that she is — opportunity comes a-knocking.

A personal invitation has been extended to you and you’ve never been more anxious, because you?

At a rock show?

At the Hideout?

Who the hell do you think you are? You’ve never been to a concert – which is not an astounding statement to make in and of itself considering your inclination toward introversion – so you have no idea what to expect.

There are a great many things you’ve never done. For instance: you’ve never lied to your parents to get out of babysitting, so you can sneak off and go to a rock concert in a dingy dive bar you’re not legally old enough to get into, to see a boy you are strictly forbidden from speaking to.

You’ve got no business being involved with any of that and as the school day came to a close and the final pieces of your plan steadily fell into place, you had to ask yourself whether you were seriously going to go to such lengths, just to see Eddie?

The answer was a resounding yes.

You’re going to see Corroded Coffin perform tonight if it kills you.

As you stand there looking back at yourself in the mirror, dressed in the fifth outfit you’ve tried on in as many minutes, you begin to wonder if it might just do that.

Your parents have been gone less than five minutes, and you’re already getting cold feet.

Yet another thing you’ve never done is try to approximate dressing to impress someone, let alone the boy you regularly spend your nights and mornings fantasizing over with all the ravenous fervor of a pack of hungry wolves.

You have no idea where to start.

What are you supposed to wear to a rock show in a dingy dive bar? Jeans and a band-tee, maybe? And if so, what kind of jeans, and which band-tee?

It occurs to you that you ought to try and match the vibe of the band, but you have no idea whether they skew toward Credence Clearwater Revival or Judas Priest.

Then again, with a name like Corroded Coffin, you can’t help but feel it is probably the latter, but you’ve been wrong before.

So, maybe jeans and a t-shirt is too casual and you ought to try something a little more risqué.

Maybe a little denim skirt and the pair of ripped nylons you haven’t gotten around to throwing out… or is that too risqué? How exactly does one strike the right balance between sultry and slutty without outright screaming “I want to feel you in my guts?”

You remember then how you once skimmed an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine about the prospective power of underwear, so you go digging through your top dresser drawer and are very quickly dismayed to find that you don’t have a hidden stash of lacy panties carefully concealed beneath your days-of-the-week underwear.

Of course, the fact that you’re even considering what kind of underwear you ought to be wearing tonight on the very far-off chance that someone is going to see them is enough to send you into a fit of hot-faced embarrassment.

No, not just anyone – the fact that you’re considering the far-off chance that Eddie Munson is going to see what kind of underwear you’re wearing is almost enough to give you heart palpitations.

Christ on a fucking bike.

And then just like that, you’re imagining how gentle he’d be.

Laying you back on a tufted leather couch as he kneels before you and reaches up with long, dexterous fingers to unbutton your jeans — should you wear jeans tonight? — and carefully, oh so gently, peels them down your legs at an agonizing pace while puffs of warm breath fan the bare skin at the top of your thighs.

Then again maybe not, maybe he’ll be fast and rough with you. Maybe he’ll manhandle you and throw you around like a doll, and you’ll like it.

Crowding you against the cold brick of a wall and holding you there, his body pressed flush against your back as stone bites your palms and the side of your face. You gasp when he tears at the back seam of your skirt — oh, okay so you are wearing the skirt — ripping both it and your nylons in half, exposing you to the cold air and the hard strike of his palm as he brings it down on the tender skin of your—

You’re blushing so violently that you have to go to your hall bath and splash cold water on your face. Even after you’ve calmed enough to wander back to the black hole of mess that is your bedroom, you still have no idea what to wear.

It’s times like this that you curse Carol for shirking her duties as your best friend. Between the two of you, she’s the expert at dressing to attract male attention, she ought to be here helping you with something like this.

But she’s not here, she’s sitting out at the pool at Steve Harrington’s playing tonsil hockey with Tommy. That’s where you ought to be, too – sitting at the pool, trying to look anywhere but at them, going at it.

That’s where you belong, in Carol’s shadow or perched on the plush sofa at the Henderson’s with your knees up and Speed Racer reruns steadily turning your brain into soup.

It occurs to you that you might be a bad person, or at least a very selfish one – if you’re going to skip out on Dustin like this, you might as well do it to hang out with your friends, not to try and carve out a brand-new cherry-flavored personality for yourself in a crowd you don’t belong to.

You’re not equipped for something like this. You have no business with rock shows and dive bars and people like Eddie Munson – you’re just a boring, midwestern babysitter from a town no one has ever heard of, and you would do well to remember that there is no changing lanes in a place like Hawkins.

You’re just about ready to admit defeat and march yourself across the street with your tail tucked firmly between your legs when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

Plain-Jane, boring little you, with the same haircut you’ve always had, same silhouette, same clothes, same as it ever was, and suddenly you can’t stop thinking about what Eddie said to you out in the woods…

“You’re not what I expected…” He’d said, twisting the rings on his thick fingers and looking at you so wistfully, in a way you’d convinced yourself was full of hope and an expectation you desperately wanted to meet.

You still want it. You want so badly to be the girl he expects to see at the show tonight, not some trussed-up idealized version of what you imagine might impress him.

He likes you for you, after all, just the way you are, and it’s enough to stoke the fires of your courage, even if it doesn’t help you decide between the jeans and the skirt.

By the time you finally throw something on that you’re halfway happy with, you’ve spent too much time wondering about hypotheticals and outfits and whether– in the event of an intimate collision – you would actually like to be spanked. Before you know it, you’re running late.

You’ve almost convinced yourself that it’s fashionably so as you snatch up your keys, fly out of the house, and down your front steps. All the coolest people are fashionably late … at least that’s what Cosmopolitan Magazine says.

It’s only a short jaunt down Cornwallis to the Hideout, and when you get there, there is a semi-shitty Chevrolet van parked crooked across two spaces with the back doors flung open wide.

It’s vaguely familiar, the way all vans of its type are, though perhaps you only think you’ve seen it before because of the posse of boys meandering around it, moving gear between the vehicle and the curb.

Your headlights briefly illuminate the familiar faces of the group before passing them over as you pull into the first parking spot you see.

There is Gareth, of course, alongside Adam and Jeff, who you only actually know by reputation and the quick debriefing of the band he’d given you earlier that afternoon, but you cannot help but notice that there is conspicuously no sign of Eddie among them.

You try not to be too immediately disappointed by that as you kill the engine and unbuckle your seatbelt.

Oh, will you relax already? A voice chides you from somewhere in the back of your mind. Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not here.

Across the tiny lot, Gareth drops the end of the amp he’s got propped between himself and Adam (you think) and skips over to meet you as you steal one final look at yourself in the inset mirror of your sun visor.

You’re not a natural when it comes to applying makeup — yet another thing you could have used Carol’s help with tonight — but you did your best to look presentable.

You imagine if there is anything glaringly clownish about the way you look, it will be easily obscured by the dark and dingy atmosphere of the venue. Bar. Whatever.

And then the crisp November evening air comes rushing in to flash freeze you with goosebumps as Gareth opens your driver's side door and stands practically bouncing on his toes with excitement.

You brace yourself against the cold and suddenly cannot imagine trying to endure sitting out at the Harrington’s pool on a night like this.

“You made it!” Gareth cries as you slide out of your trusty little Toyota Corolla and it strikes you with just how nice it is to have someone glad to see you show up for once.

Your friends are typically less enthusiastic about that.

Still, you don’t want to appear overly eager, so you can’t help but try and mask it by pulling a face – you’d told him you’d be there, after all.

“Was that ever in doubt?” You ask, shouldering your bag.

You shut the door and twist your keys in the lock before quickly stashing them.

“Well, you never know.” Gareth says, shrugging, “People get busy.”

Yeah, and people also bend over backward to get out of prior obligations to keep their word.

And then, you find yourself wondering if it’s totally weird that you jumped through so many hoops just to make sure you could keep yours.

Lying to your parents, lying to Mrs. Henderson, lying to Carol (who called you ten minutes before you left and demanded once more that you come out before cursing you when you declined again).

Somehow you can’t help but get the sense that if anyone knew, if anyone could have been a fly on the wall of your life this afternoon, you might come across as desperate, especially considering you could take or leave the band.

You’d gone through all that effort just to see Eddie, who so far as you can tell is not even here.

Shit — you’re starting to wonder if tonight is going to be a huge bummer when Gareth brings you back.

“Come over and meet the guys,” he says eagerly with a hand at your elbow to guide you across the darkened pavement.

Every step leads you closer to the van, to the band, to the impending night, and you find yourself second-guessing your outfit for the umpteenth time that day. You wonder if you’re underdressed, and whether you should have cowboyed up and opted for the skirt, which you’d decided was a bit much for the occasion.

Was it the skirt or the fantasy that went with it?

The world may never know.

“Guys!” Gareth calls once you get within distance, “You know–” when he says your name, their heads snap to tandem attention in a way that reminds you of meerkats.

It might have been funny if it wasn’t for the way they stand there gawping at you, eyes big as dinner plates and out on stalks.

The silence that hangs between you is deafening, and standing there under such intense scrutiny you can’t help but feel suddenly like you’ve made a terrible mistake.

You twist your fingers out of nervous habit and shift from foot to foot, wondering if you’re allowed to be here, or whether Gareth remembered to mention that he’d invited you out tonight.

“Well, say something, for Christ’s sake,” Gareth says through his teeth.

“Oh, r-right… hi–” Jeff stammers, tripping over your name like it’s a hot coal sitting on his tongue.

Adam is not so smooth.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, like he absolutely cannot fathom that you, of all people would coincidentally be here at the same time as them, and certainly not for their benefit.

It makes you feel frighteningly out of place and you have to force yourself to put down roots to stop yourself from turning right around and going back to your car.

Before Gareth can finish telling him to shut the fuck up, a figure appears from the shadowy depths of the van and your lungs go flat.

Lo and behold — Eddie Munson, in the flesh.

Just the sight of him makes every part of your brain light up like a cathedral and chant his name as if it were singing Hallelujah.

Eddie Eddie Eddie!

He’s halfway through some tirade and stumbling over a thick black cord that he has somehow become hopelessly tangled in.

“Hey – you assholes are doing a lot of standing around and yapping for–” he is saying before he looks up, sees you, and cuts himself off with a startled yelp of your name.

Despite the semi-comical octave to which he speaks your name, your insides flood with warmth as he practically falls out of the van. He skips over, dragging what you quickly come to realize is a microphone with him in his simultaneous attempt to free himself and close the distance between you.

It goes about as well as anyone could expect.

Before you know it, you’re standing toe to toe in the span of a heartbeat, and like a balm to your worries, you forget that you were ever nervous about being here tonight. You forget the awkwardness of Gareth’s friends, your stress over your outfit, and the lengths you went to be here, because here he is, staring back at you like everything else has melted away.

All is once again right in the world.

“Hi!” He says, quickly wiping his grimy hands down the front of the ridiculously tight jeans he’s wearing, the ones you’re desperately trying not to notice or wonder just how he’d managed to get into.

“Hi, Eddie,” You purr, feeling the muscles in your cheeks already beginning to pull for how wide you’re smiling at him.

Eddie Eddie Eddie.

Had you been looking, you might have noticed the way the rest of the band was watching you, exchanging looks of varying degrees, throwing elbows and shushing each other, but you’re not looking, not at anything but the beautiful boy standing before you.

His hair is wild, like always, but tonight Eddie’s got what looks like dark kohl liner smudged messily around his eyes and half rubbed off, like he’d tried something new and immediately second guessed it. It’s so incredibly endearing that it makes your heart throb in the stupid cupid fashion you’ve been chasing ever since that Thursday in the woods.

Your veins flood with ecstasy and just like that, you’ve got the fix you’ve been itching for all week.

With his tight jeans, the thick studded belt bursting out of its loops, all his chains and rings, steel-toed boots, and the faded band tee cropped at the waist and shoulders you can see him wearing underneath his jacket, he looks like something off the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.

He’s dressed like the guy who would push you up against the wall and rip your skirt off, and you’ve never felt more like a stupid girl with a silly little crush than you do now.

It might almost be intimidating if it weren’t for the way that he’s looking right back at you, as if you hung the moon and the stars and were personally responsible for the shining magic of the cosmos.

Like the guy who would take his time unbuttoning your jeans.

You look at him, and he looks right back at you, and you feel something begin to flutter in the space behind your lungs — something warm and frantic, like the beating of a tiny bird’s wings.

Right now, standing in this parking lot, you could be the only two people in the world, and you’d be just fine with it.

And then, there is a cough, a conspicuously cleared throat, and the spell is broken.

Eddie shakes his head, like waking from a trance and simultaneously pulling you from yours.

“What - uh- what are you doing here?” He asks – it hits you like a fist to the gut. “Not that it isn’t great to see you… it’s just— I didn't expect to see you.”

Oh.

You can feel the corners of your mouth twitch where your smile begins to falter.

“I came to see your show,” You say quietly, fighting a losing battle against the tide of your nerves as they come rushing back in with enough force to sweep you under.

Eddie’s dark ringed eyes go wide and his mouth falls open, and you feel a cold lump drop into the pit of your stomach with a hollow thump.

“You did?” he gasps, voice lilting up into that comical octave again, “Really?”

Oh, great. So, nobody knew you were coming.

For as mortifying as that is, it doesn’t sting half as badly as the disappointment battering you over how you’d spent your afternoon thinking Eddie was as excited to see you as you were to see him.

He didn’t even know you were coming — stupid Gareth.

Suddenly, your subconscious is whispering horrible things to you: maybe he doesn’t like you as much as he’d originally let on. Maybe that moment you shared out in the woods was all in your head, maybe you’d misread the signs and he was just being nice for the sake of the loser virgin, tripping over herself to try and win the affections of the local drug dealer.

It makes you feel particularly stupid about how you’d sat there at a soggy picnic bench out in the woods, desperately waiting for Eddie to kiss you – why the fuck would he kiss you? He doesn’t even know you.

You can’t even touch how embarrassed you are about how much time you’d spent fantasizing about him undressing you.

Christ, you’re pathetic. But you’re also here, and you ought to at least try to make an effort to appear like you’re not the socially inept loser everybody seems to think you are.

“Oh, y-yeah… I mean, it’s no big deal.” you fumble to explain, gesturing vaguely like it’s going to help smooth over the growing awkwardness of this moment

Maybe if you keep talking, nobody will get the chance to say anything that sounds too much like a rejection.

You give your best approximation of a casual shrug and continue.

“Gareth invited me.” You say, and somehow it feels oddly accusatory, “He said it was cool… unless…”

Uncertainty makes you strangely brave, brave enough to lean into the awkwardness of the moment at least – if there’s one thing you’ve learned after years of being Carol’s punching bag, it’s that if you can’t beat the joke, join in.

“…Unless?” Eddie prompts.

You furrow your brow.

“Unless he conveniently failed to mention that I was coming?”

Of course, the moment your gaze snaps over to regard him with a harsh, unforgiving glare is when Gareth conveniently decides it’s time to get back to hauling gear.

With a fistful of each of their shirts, he drags the others away, spouting some bullshit about “call times” and “sound check” and leaves you standing there with Eddie in the chasm of the awkward silence fighting tooth and nail to settle snugly between you.

You refuse to give it the satisfaction as you watch them retreat, and you make a displeased sound.

Bastard coward sons of bitches. A pox on all their houses.

“Well,” you start, “This is awkward, I don’t mind saying…”

Once the rest of the band has circled around to disappear beyond the far side of the van, you begin to feel the faintest hint of that same warmth from the woods settling over you, and you take a chance to lean into Eddie’s space.

“Hey, listen,” you say dropping your tone, “It was great seeing you — really, it was … but if it’s totally weird that I’m here I can take off—”

“Oh, no!” Eddie says a tad too loud. His voice rings out and echoes across the empty spaces before he reigns his enthusiasm in, “No – it’s not weird! You should totally stay!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, for sure. You should definitely stay, right guys?” You look just in time to see a nondescript door set into a wall of the bar slamming shut, leaving the two of you alone in the cold, “…Whatever, forget those assholes — I’m glad you’re here.”

And there you go grinning your face off again.

“You are?”

“Yeah, are you kidding? It’s awesome to see you. Also, nobody’s ever actually come to see us play, so that makes you the closest thing to a fan we’ve got.”

“Oh, good.” You say.

“Great.”

“Excellent.”

“Fan-tastic.” He says, stretching the word lyrically and moving to shut the back doors of the van with a hard THUNK, “Only you gotta do something for me if you’re gonna stick around,”

You move quickly to fall into step as Eddie starts toward the side door set in between a stack of pallets and a dumpster. The same one the others had only just slipped through.

“What’s that?” You ask, doing your best to pretend that you don’t smell the toxic waste that is bar trash permeating the air.

He yanks the door open and reveals the murky interior of the Hideout, waiting just beyond like the portal to another world.

The smell of wet trash is quickly overwhelmed by the strong tang of smoke and alcohol, hitting you in a wave of thick, roiling air. You grit your teeth as it washes over you, accompanied by the tinny din of a Jimmy Buffett song playing over the jukebox.

“You have to promise you’re gonna cheer super loud to balance out all the booing,” he says, holding the door open for you, “We aren’t exactly what you’d call popular with the local wildlife.”

You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from telling him that Gareth already warned you of that during his earlier sales pitch.

Something along the lines of “we’re terrible, please come see us play,” had been uttered as a backdrop to your giggling over learning the name of the band, back when it was only a silly anecdote and you knew nothing of the gravity of the invitation.

You banish the thought to the back of your mind and bite down harder on your cheek to try and distract from the way you can feel your heart beating against your ribs as Eddie’s hand comes up to hover at the small of your back, ushering you inside.

“I can do that.” You say with a quick nod.

“Perfect – after you, M’lady.”

You almost don’t remember to be worried about getting into the bar when Eddie guides you over the threshold with a short, sweeping gesture.

The side door deposits you at the far end of the bar, and despite only the slightest change in atmosphere, it takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the neon signage and overhead bulbs.

All your fears of bouncers and fake IDs dissipate when you arrive and there is no one waiting to card you on the other side.

You do your best to breathe as subtle a sigh of relief as you can, because you made it, you’re in, whatever that means for the rest of your night.

The Hideout is a full-on hick dive, as much as you expected. Booth seating, pool tables, and the vaguest suggestion of a bandstand in the far back corner next to the jukebox where you finally see Gareth and the others again. They’re busying themselves with the task of setting up amps and instruments beneath a slapdash Corroded Coffin banner hung crookedly over the drumkit.

It’s clearly homemade and looks very much like it has been spray painted, black over red on a stained white bed sheet. It’s incredibly tacky in the most endearing way.

The bar is not too terribly full for seven-forty-five on a Tuesday night, though in taking in the faces of the blue-collar working-class patrons, the general décor, and the type of music shuffling through the jukebox as the track turns over to play Loretta Lynn, you can’t help but feel that this is not really their crowd.

Not really your crowd, you tell yourself, not that you have the experience to know such a thing.

If you thought you felt out of place before, standing among the band, the feeling is amplified tenfold as you begin to notice the way half a dozen people have turned around to gawp curiously at you.

Of course, it doesn’t occur to you that the reason they’re staring is that you’re standing there tucked in against Eddie Munson, who you also had not realized was standing so close to you.

You erupt into a fever of goosebumps as you rock back on your heels and feel the contours of his chest graze your shoulder blades. Eddie’s hand comes up to grip you kindly by the shoulder as he guides you further into the dingy building and starts to give you the rundown.

You do your best to focus on his words to keep yourself grounded, trying to assure yourself that you’re allowed to be here.

If he’s not nervous, you’re not nervous.

“We’re gonna go on soonish,” he says, depositing you at an empty barstool, separated from where a handful of patrons sit nursing their drinks, “– we’ll probably play for like half an hour, maybe longer depending on how many songs they let us play.”

“How many songs do they usually let you play?” You ask, having to project your voice to be heard over the din of the bar.

You do your best to hop up onto the stool in a way that is cool and elegant as you have almost perfected with your squat metal seat back in Mr. Kapz’s class. This one is taller than you’d estimated, however, and you immediately find yourself struggling to get up over the lip of the polished wood.

Eddie, ever the gentleman, doesn’t hesitate to help you up and steady you.

“Three or four,” He hums without missing a beat. “Our record is six, but that was only one time, so I wouldn’t hold my breath for that many with this crowd. Also, don’t be surprised if they pull the plug on us — like, literally kill the power.”

“You’re kidding…”

“It’s no big deal, it’s just something they like to do in this fine establishment.”

He says it like it's funny, but suddenly you can’t help but think back to Gareth’s plea that you come and watch them play. For the first time since he’d invited you that afternoon, you are suddenly struck wondering just what you have really gotten yourself into – you have no idea what kind of music they play, whether they’re halfway decent or as terrible as Gareth let on.

You have to work to remind yourself that, regardless of the quality of Corroded Coffin, you’re here to support your friends.

Which is only really half true – you’re here for Eddie.

You’re watching him closely when another body appears at his side and claps a loud, forceful hand down on his shoulder. Your heart spasms in tandem with the way Eddie jumps under the sudden contact, and you brace yourself for whatever is coming as his head whips around to address his assailant.

Then, much to your patent relief, his features light up and his face splits into a wide grin.

“Oh, hey! Wayne!” He yelps with a rush of boyish excitement, “What’re you doing here? Are you gonna watch us play?”

The man – evidently Wayne – wheezes out a chuckle that is a little too sarcastic to be kind before answering, speaking in a thick Appalachian drawl that is bizarrely out of place in this town.

“I get enough of y’all’s music at home, thanks very much. Just sayin’ hi on my way out,” he rasps, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder with an unmistakable affection before turning his bright blue eyes on you, “Who’s yer friend?”

Eddie makes quick introductions, and once names have been traded back and forth, Wayne touches the brim of his faded ballcap.

“Pleased to meet you,”

“Oh – sure. I mean, likewise,” you stammer, stiffening your spine to keep yourself from wilting under the intensity of the man’s gaze.

It’s almost intrusive, and makes you feel like you need to go home and put on another layer of clothing just to keep him from seeing your deepest, darkest, inner most thoughts and feelings.

X-ray specs got nothing on this man’s penatrative gaze, and when it's just about enough to send you crawling out of your skin, then there goes Eddie saving your life again.

“Isn’t it bad luck to wear a hat indoors?” He asks with a mischievous smirk.

Wayne catches him expertly by the wrist as he reaches for the hat, like he’s a certified expert at avoiding such a motion, and guides Eddie’s ring-bedecked digits safely away from his headwear.

“Bad luck to put a hat on a bed.” Wayne corrects, “Bad luck to open an umbrella indoors.”

Eddie snorts as he takes his hand back and nudges you with his elbow, gentlemanly letting you in on the joke.

“Wayne’s a nut for that kinda stuff.” He says, gesturing to the older man with no small amount of humor, like it’s simply the goofiest thing anyone has ever heard. “Real superstitious,”

It doesn’t feel mean, so much as a deep set rapport built over a lifetime of back and forth like this.

Wayne makes a thick, gravelly sound in the back of his throat which you recognize as the beginning rattle of a smoker’s cough.

“Least I know where the bad luck’s comin’ from when it shows up,” The man hums, “Anyways. What time are y’all goin’ on?”

“In a few minutes. Why?”

In lieu of answering, Wayne just hums again, thoughtfully so this time. Then that bright gaze slides back over to you.

“They got earplugs behind the bar if you ask for ‘em,” Wayne says with a clipped gesture, “Just so’s you know.”

“Hey—!” Eddie begins with all the moody indignance of a child.

Wayne cuts him off with raised hands, begging no offense.

“Just tryin’ to be neighborly in case yer friend don’t know what she’s gettin’ into,” He stresses, “Y’ever heard these fellers play?”

“Uh, well— no, actually, I—” you start,

Wayne’s brows jump.

“Like skinnin’ a cat,”

It sends you right back to the incident in the quad the week before, to what Eddie had said about Carol’s screeching tirade, and suddenly the look Wayne is giving you is so familiar it’s almost eerie.

You realize with a start that it’s the exact same look Eddie gave you out in the quad.

The resemblance is uncanny. The joke, however, does not land.

“Well, it was nice seeing you, Wayne,” Eddie fumes, clapping the man on the shoulder in a stilted mirror image of the way he’d done a moment before and maneuvering him past you.

If you didn’t know better, you might have said that the faintest flush of color had bled into Eddie’s cheeks, but you tell yourself you don’t as he pushes Wayne past you and attempts to maneuver him out.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Wayne stops short then, turns, and gives Eddie a very stern look, thrusting a finger up at him in a way that feels oddly paternal as he warns him with a low utterance of, “Hey now,”.

You know that look well enough from having seen it on your father. It means “watch your tone”, and it does the job it’s meant to.

You watch as Eddie puts his hands up and retreats a step, and the tension dissipates before it’s even had the chance to settle.

Suddenly, they’re friends again and your brain is crawling out of your skull with curiosity over who this man is to Eddie – what a strange dynamic they have, decidedly charged with something but clearly softened by a kind of underlying affection.

Almost like family – exactly like family, you realize.

If you didn’t know better, you might almost guess that this man was Eddie’s father, but of course that couldn’t be true, because you know exactly where Al Munson is meant to be, and it’s not here at the Hideout.

After a quick back and forth that you only catch bits and pieces of, Wayne gives you one last parting look, brows jumping.

“I’m serious about them earplugs.” He says, then claps Eddie on the back as he takes his leave. “See you at home, Bud,”

“Yeah, okay… later.” He mutters – he gestures after the man once he’s gone, “My uncle.” Eddie explains, and suddenly everything makes a little more sense.

You just had the pleasure of meeting the elusive other Munson, who you’d heard talk of around town, but whose reputation (or lack thereof) has been vastly overshadowed by the likes of his brother and nephew.

“He seems nice.” You offer for lack of anything better to say.

“Yeah, he thinks he’s real funny with those earplugs – weird seeing him here though, he usually drinks out at The Attic on — hey, what’s the matter?” Eddie asks suddenly, brows creeping toward one another to form a deep crease of concern between them, “You’re not scared are you?”

You swallow hard and try not to stare at him, suddenly backed in a multicolor glow as the stage lights come on, leaving him looking like some kind of ethereal rock god.

“No.” You lie.

Eddie grins at you like he knows you’re fibbing, and he reaches up to touch your arm.

You do your best to suppress a shiver under the way he gently squeezes you there.

“Hey, you showing up like this? Biggest thing anybody’s ever done for me. Y’think I’d let anything happen to you after that?”

He barely gives you time to read into the sentiment before something over your head draws his attention and the moment ends.

“Anyway, you’re perfectly safe. Laverne here’s gonna look after you,” He gestures to the space behind you, “Right Laverne?”

You turn to see the woman behind the bar that he is speaking to, face split into that big, winning smile of his — a little sleazier than it was a moment before — and are suddenly struck by the knowledge that this is the second person Eddie has introduced you to in this place in less than two minutes.

You catch yourself wondering just how much time he spends skulking around this bar as a tall, middle-aged woman with a big cloud of frizzy hair dyed a red so deep it’s nearly purple comes into view.

Laverne — the bartender, evidently.

She’s got a blown-out tattoo on her bicep that you think must have been a snake at one point in time, and her massive, freckled breasts are just about spilling out of the top of her too-tight tank top, stretching the name of the bar until it’s almost illegible. She looks entirely too rock and roll for this place, like some kind of a transplant from a seedy biker joint on the Sunset Strip.

By the way she’s glaring at Eddie, you can tell that she is immune to his attempts at charm.

“I don’t pay you to stand around flirting.” Laverne drawls, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward what you can only imagine is the back of house, “An’ you left a whole pile’a dishes stacked up back there when you ran out to put yer makeup on.”

Eddie’s grin wavers under the impromptu lecture and you can’t help but feel your insides squirm on his behalf.

“Gee, Laverne, I never knew you liked me so much,” he tries, but she is not done.

“Don’t you think for one second I’m gonna cover yer ass so’s you can cut out early an’ go diddle yourself or whatever it is you do on your own time. When yer here, yer on my time, an’ I don’t appreciate my time bein’ wasted, so, who d’you reckon is gonna do them dishes, Junior?”

All the sleazy charm ekes right out of him and you watch as Eddie goes white as a sheet.

“Green around the gills” is what a distant relative of yours would have called the look on his face, and you can’t say you disagree.

You have to resist the urge to reach out and put a steadying hand on him, purely on babysitting instinct, because if you didn’t know any better – which you don’t – you’d think he was about to keel over, and it’s almost startling.

Based on his schooltime bravado, part of you imagines Eddie would be made of stronger stuff in the face of such ire, but you’re quickly beginning to understand that the Eddie you know from school is not an accurate depiction of the man behind the mask. Then again, you’re not certain you know anyone who would be able to stand there and take a dressing down like that, so maybe Eddie is made of that elusive “stronger stuff” after all.

Suddenly, you can’t help but imagine what would have happened in the alternate universe where Carol found herself here with you, standing in his place. You’d like to see her try running her mouth then, face to face with the likes of Madam Hideout.

Back in the real world, Eddie casts a wary gaze in your direction before answering the woman who you have quickly come to realize is his boss.

“I’ll do ‘em after,” he mumbles, suddenly much less an ethereal rock god and more a sullen child.

The muscle in Laverne’s jaw flexes as she grits her teeth, and you can suddenly see her right at home standing behind a great oak bar in a saloon, eyes shaded in a big Stetson, spitting a fat gob of dark, rotten chaw to the sawdust floor as she chews through her thick Texan drawl.

“They shoulda been done b’fore you punched out.” She spits in the tobacco-less, non-Old West version of herself.

“I’ll do them after, Laverne.” Eddie insists, sliding back into the boyish indignance from before.

She rolls her eyes and stalks off, muttering something unintelligibly rude as she goes, and an indiscernible emotion wells painfully in your chest. It is deeply offended on Eddie’s behalf, whatever it is, and moves you to want to protect him, though you don’t know how you would manage to do that.

You don’t typically feel this way about anyone over the age of twelve, and don’t know whether to try and pick a fight with Laverne or to drag Eddie out to the parking lot where you’ll be safe from the ire of rude bartenders – that’s what you would have done with Dustin had you encountered a bully somewhere out in the wild, but somehow you can’t imagine either scenario going over well with Eddie swapped for Dustin.

The lack of options leaves you paralyzed, and by the time Eddie is talking again, you’ve gone and said nothing in his defense.

The indignant emotion deflates and leaves you feeling cold and guilty.

“Yeah, that Laverne…” he says, “She’s a real peach.”

You watch the woman saunter to lean over the end of the bar furthest from you, and once you are almost certain she is out of earshot, you lean in close.

“Do you work here?” You ask in a stage whisper, if only to be heard over the din of the music and murmuring conversations.

Eddie’s gaze snaps back down to you and you watch as he grows suddenly and strangely shy. You can see his guard cautiously slipping into place as he reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck and offers you a lopsided shrug.

“Few nights a week, yeah.” He admits, almost like he’s embarrassed to have been caught in the conundrum of playing a set in the place where he works, “Pays the bills, y’know?”

You wonder how much of the interaction with Wayne followed directly by the one with Laverne is coloring this moment, and you’re mortified to have put him in this situation.

If you weren’t here, he would be up on the bandstand with the rest of the guys instead of looking after you, and both interactions may very well have been avoided entirely. Suddenly, you’re desperate to take responsibility for your presence and put him at ease.

“That’s cool.” You tell him, and for once, it is exactly the right thing to say.

Eddie immediately brightens.

“You think so?” He asks.

You nod, because if you’re not nervous, then he doesn’t have to be, right? Suddenly, this interaction feels a lot like babysitting, and you take no small amount of comfort in the familiarity of it, even if Eddie is most certainly the one babysitting you here at the bar.

“Totally! You’re basically getting paid to play a gig every week – do you know how many bands would kill for that?”

Eddie’s face splits up into that big, toothy grin.

“Yeah, exactly!” He starts before second-guessing his tone and attempting to reign in his enthusiasm, “I mean – hey, it’s not Saturday night at the Garden, but a gig’s a gig. At least until we can get the band off the ground and get a record–”

Over the rumble of the bar, you hear somebody shouting from the direction of the bandstand – Jeff, you think. His voice is laced with annoyance as if this is the third or fourth time he’s called Eddie, and he is quickly losing his patience.

“MUNSON!” He shouts, “LET’S GO!”

Eddie twists at the sound of his name and you watch as he pulls a face, almost like he’d forgotten there was a greater purpose to being here other than standing around chatting you up at the bar.

“Whoopsie – guess that’s my cue.” He says, shrugging out of his jacket as he turns back to you, “Hold on to this for me, will you?”

Your heart rockets up into your throat and you hope that Eddie can’t see how your fingers are trembling as you accept his jacket and hold it against you.

You clench your teeth to keep something cheesy from floating up past your lips like you’ll guard it with your life.

You think you must be making a face, then, one Eddie mistakes for anxiety as he gives you a soft look and his voice turns gentle.

“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.” He assures you, “You’re with the band, remember? Fan numero uno.”

He raises a finger to emphasize the notion, and you nod, watching him turn and trying to beat back the spike of fear that surges in you when he leaves you sitting at the bar.

He’s fine if you’re fine, and you’re fine if he’s fine, but only so long as you’re enveloped in the safety blanket of his presence – but you remind yourself that you’re a big girl.

If you can lie to everyone you know and sneak out of the house to slip into a bar to see a band, you can sit alone in a room full of strangers for a few minutes before the band starts to play.

And yet, sitting there, watching Eddie move into the crowd, you’re suddenly struck with the sensation of how stridently you don’t want to be left alone in this place where you so clearly don’t belong. But you don’t have to be so overt about it, so you shout at Eddie’s back in the far-off hope that it will make him turn around and look at you once more.

“Y’know, you keep saying that,” you start, “But I haven’t even heard you play!”

He turns on his heel and shoots you full of holes with that big, goofy grin of his.

“Oh man, you’re gonna love us!” He calls back, and you can’t help but snort out an undainty laughter.

“That’s not what Gareth said!”

Eddie pulls a face and cups a hand at his ear like he didn’t hear you before throwing a shrug and disappearing into the throng of people milling about the pool tables.

You take great comfort in the fact that for as cool as you think he is, you are starting to understand that he is an incredible dork. That makes things so much easier, especially with how you want so desperately for him to like you as much as you like him.

And you like him so, so much.

Too much – it doesn’t feel like just a schoolyard crush anymore, not since the moment you shared out in the woods, and again back in the parking lot, and just now, here at the bar.

Sitting here, with a big dopey look on your face and hearts in your eyes, you think you could very easily fall for Eddie as you watch him jump up onto the bandstand and exchange an indiscernible something with Gareth, grinning wolfishly as he does.

You’re almost too busy sifting for gems through the last five minutes of conversation to realize what you just told yourself – you think you could fall pretty hard for Eddie Munson.

The thought startles you enough that you have to move to try and escape the way it makes you feel, twisting on the stool to face the bar. You sit there, letting the din of the environment wash over you in sickly waves of overstimulation, and you remind yourself of what Gareth originally assured you about this outing.

Not like a date. He said. Just as friends.

In the wake of your most recent revelation, the idea stings just a little bit more than you are prepared to endure.

Then, there is the abrasive sound of a throat being cleared. It’s only then that you look up and find yourself face-to-face with Madam Hideout herself.

Laverne gives you a hard side eye from where she stands at the tap directly to your right, pouring a tall pint of foamy beer.

If you’re blushing, you hope she can’t tell under the deep, colored lighting.

You try to smile at her, but it’s little more than a flattening of your lips as your mouth stretches horizontally, and somehow you know it isn’t coming across as polite as you’d intended. She doesn’t reciprocate.

Behind you, an amp flares with staticky feedback that makes your hair stand on end as someone plugs in a guitar.

The sound of a dozen disgruntled barflies rumbles through the room as the band finishes setting up, and you find yourself witness to a sudden mass exodus. You twist in your seat again and watch as at least half of the patrons very quickly make their way out into the parking lot, following Wayne Munson’s lead after the fact.

By the time the herd has been thinned, the room is not empty by any means, but you can suddenly see the bandstand at the far end of the room where you couldn’t before. It gives you the perfect vantage of Eddie.

Corroded Coffin has similarly noticed how the room has cleared out, much to their own varying degrees of chagrin. Eddie is fumbling with the strap on his guitar, adjusting the length as he scans the room with a furrowed brow – then, as he finds you, right where he left you, his face splits into that same wide grin.

Suddenly shy under the cast of his attention, you gesture to the state of the room – get a load of these guys – and give an overexaggerated shrug. He responds in kind by sticking his tongue out at you and you feel your insides go tight and squirmy.

You don’t even realize how you’ve been grinning back at him until your face starts to hurt, and as quickly as the spotlight finds you, it’s gone again when Jeff leans over to say something to Eddie, snatching his attention away and leaving you sitting there alone on your stool again.

Brimming with what you would argue is too many feelings to process all at once, you reach around to grip the bar and spin yourself in a tight circle, hoping that maybe a little gravity will help sort out those big scary emotions.

“Quit that spinnin’.” Laverne snaps. “I ain’t moppin’ your little brains up off this floor if you fall.”

“Sorry.” You say immediately, bracing yourself on the bar to stop from going around once more – tragically, it leaves you facing her and the apparent disdain she holds for you, simply by way of association.

You avert your gaze.

Somewhere, you can hear the theme to Cheers playing distantly over the muted rumbling of half a dozen conversations.

…sometimes you wanna go, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came…

Some less than others.

When you work up the courage to chance a look, you find that Laverne is still staring daggers at you. More than that, a cursory glance reveals that most of the people still sitting down the length of the bar are stealing curious looks at you.

You can feel your throat going dry under the attention of so many strange eyes. It’s not that you’re necessarily an inherently shy person, only that without Eddie to bolster you, the feeling of being somewhere you clearly do not belong is attempting to crush you flat.

You do your best to make yourself as small as humanly possible as the beginning of a beat gets thumped out on the drum set before abruptly stopping.

Soundcheck.

Your mouth is suddenly full of cobwebs, and you muster your courage to steal one more look at Laverne, whose eyes you can still feel burning holes into the top of your skull.

You peek up at her, hoping her ire will have eased, as if miraculously in the last thirty-seconds you’d done something to earn her respect.

No dice.

“Do you think I could get a coke?” You ask, cringing inwardly as your voice wavers and cracks.

You don’t really want the overpriced, watered-down soda she’s bound to give you, but you’re willing to do anything to distract from how much you stick out among the half-drunk onlookers pressing their faces in on you like kids at the zoo.

Thank God for the shield of Eddie’s jacket, you are once again so thankful you’d foregone the tight little skirt and boots combo.

Laverne gives you a hard look, and you feel a twinge of sudden bravery begin worming its way through your midsection. This time, you stare back at her.

Then, she throws a dish towel over her shoulder as she makes her way to you, chunky Doc Marten’s thumping hard on the spongy mat behind the bar.

As uncomfortable as you are to be sitting there under her gaze, some nagging part of you at the back of your tongue meets the annoyed twinge steadily rising in you, and together, they wish she would climb down out of your ass already.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, she pulls the trigger on the soda nozzle and fills a dark red, textured glass to the brim – no ice.

She sets the drink on the bar in front of you with a hard thump and you watch the foam leap up over the brim of the cup and spill down the side before dissipating with a soft hissing.

Laverne pops a straw into the cup and somehow it feels like an insult, like something Carol would have done.

You’re supposed to inhale, Dummy! pared down to a simple gesture with that same patent disdain.

Still, you’re nothing if not fatally imbued with unflinching manners, and the words are tumbling out over your lips before you can stop them.

“Thank you,” you mumble, and the nagging little voice on the back of your tongue cries out at your treachery.

Laverne grunts out a response and quirks a thin, penciled brow at you.

It takes her forever to speak, and you wish the band would just start playing already so that you would have an excuse to turn your back to her.

“The Chief’s been known to frequent this place,” she begins, and in a brief moment of deep confusion, all you can do is stare at her, waiting for her to clarify, “Of Police.”

You have no idea what to do with that information.

“Oh,” you say dumbly, “You don’t say,”

She nods.

“Might even be inclined to call him a regular customer,”

Somehow, you can’t help but get the sense that it’s less a statement of fact than it is a threat, and if that is the case, you can’t deny that it’s more or less effective.

The last thing you need right now is to find yourself sitting, wilting under the gaze of Chief Hopper while he reads you the riot act and lists in detail everything you’ve ever done to make you such a terrible person — faking sickness and sneaking out to go and see a boy you’re sweet on in a bar you’re not old enough to be sitting in when by all rights you should be sitting on the Henderson’s couch watching He-Man.

For lack of a better response, you twist idly on your chair, nice and slow so Laverne can see you do it and come all the way back around to the other side.

The phrase, “if looks could kill” passes through your mind for a brief, yet terrifying second – something in the back of your mind is inexorably calm as it assures you that you haven’t done anything wrong.

You’re supposed to be here. You’re with the band, no matter how anyone may happen to feel about that.

Leaning over the bar and taking a long, innocent sip from your straw, you make a show of swallowing, smack your lips, and shrug.

“Funny. I don’t see him.”

In spite of all your affected cool, you feel your guts twinge with anxiety when Laverne levels you with a hard look and crosses her thick, tattooed arms over her generous bosom. Suddenly you’re half worried you’re about to be “bounced” or whatever the official term for being forcibly ejected from a bar is – one more for the list in your long night of firsts.

Then, in a shocking turn of events, the corner of the woman’s lip twitches in the faintest hint of a smile, violently suppressed, of course.

You’re oddly pleased, in the way only a goody-two-shoes like yourself can be under the attention of anyone who could even remotely be perceived as a figure of authority.

“How old are you?” Laverne demands.

Just like that, the twinge blossoms to a nagging feeling of angry defiance, lurking far in the back of your throat.

Stupid question. You think, biting the inside of your cheek, because it’s not like you’d tried to order a beer.

“Forty-five.” You say, matter-of-factly, suddenly unable to adjust your tone as you remember how rudely she’d spoken to Eddie before.

She holds you in that hard, deadpan gaze.

“That’s funny,” She sniffs, “Bet your rock star boyfriend thinks you’re real funny too.” She hurls it at you like a slur and your heart spasms and lurches up into your throat.

“Oh, he’s not my—” but the bartender is already walking away, so you clamp your mouth shut and hum out your annoyance.

You swallow hard.

Boyfriend.

The word clangs around in your ribcage, and you wonder if that’s what people assume when they see you and Eddie together.

Just like that, you’re feeling breathless again.

No wonder your teachers are all so freaked out – you don’t get the time to worry about that before Eddie’s voice cuts through the room and strikes you square in the back.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight–” he says smoothly into the microphone, “Before we start the show, we’d just like to say one thing…”

You turn in your seat and find yourself immediately locked in his gaze. Even across the room, it sends a chill up your spine and goosebumps flashing across the expanse of your body.

You’re gripped in the feeling that suddenly, you’re the only two people in this room, that no matter what happens next, it will be for your eyes only, and you’ll cherish that to the end of time.

Eddie leans in, grips the microphone and looks you dead in the eye.

“This one goes out to all the ladies.”

Oh. Nevermind.

“Oh, my God,” You say under your breath.

Boo. Hiss.

He’s so uncool, you can’t stand how much you like him.

The strike of sticks on cymbals masks the agonized groan that rumbles throughout the bar and with the first few hard chords, the show begins.

Corroded Coffin is not the greatest band in the world, but they’re also far from the worst.

It was an over-exaggeration on Gareth’s part to say that they’re terrible; they can carry a tune, they’re mostly on key and in sync, and that’s more than you can say you expected from how you’d been prepared.

You find that they mostly play covers of metal songs – the likes of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath – which garners a general disinterest from the bar, save for one sloppy drunk biker who just about loses his mind when they go into a crunchy rendition of War Pigs.

You’re certainly losing your mind and falling a little bit harder than you’d expected you would be when you woke up that morning.

Eddie Munson in front of a cafeteria audience is one thing, but Eddie Munson on stage, a real-life honest-to-God stage is another animal entirely. As far as you are concerned, he was born and bred for the stage, and you’re enraptured, watching him move under the lights. The way he grips the neck of his guitar as he teases a melody out of the taught strings and growls into the microphone settles in your bones in a way you know is going to linger for months if not years to come.

It is mesmerizing in the most intoxicating way. If you thought tearing your eyes from him at school was difficult, you’re fairly certain you don’t blink from the start of their set to their less-than-grand finish.

They play a whopping five songs before someone unceremoniously kills the power, just as Eddie had prophesized.

“Bummer.” You hear someone groan out of the dark from the direction of the stage.

Luckily, it’s a total blackout to the whole bar, and not just the stage, saving the band any overt embarrassment in the face of their less-than-adoring public.

Your ears are ringing in the sudden absence of sound and the darkness lingers only a moment before the power comes back on again.

Loggins and Messina are back on the jukebox in an instant, the patrons turn back to their drinks, and just like that, your introduction to Corroded Coffin is cut short, one song shy of their record.

With the lights on and free from the cloying miasma that can only come from standing in the crowd at a rock show, you manage to claw your way back to your senses enough to remember your parking lot promise.

You surprise even yourself by erupting into a cacophony of thunderous applause, whooping, and hollering just like any self respecting number one fan would do. Then again, if you’re being completely honest, and if the drunk biker hollering unevenly doesn’t put up too much of a fight, you might happily accept the title.

It doesn’t take much effort to shoulder your way through the meager crowd, particularly with the way it is steadily thinning. Evidently, the end to the show was enough to call for an end to the night for a good number of people here at the Hideout.

You cross the room in a hop, skip, and a jump that deposits you at the foot of the bandstand, where you stand craning your head back nearly to the point of pain just to look up at the object of your affection.

You hold Eddie’s jacket clutched reverently against your chest and imagine your steadily beating heart imbuing it with all kinds of emotion — super-charging it with what Huey Lewis and the News is now telling you must be the power of love.

“You didn’t tell me you were good!” You cry, and are almost immediately chagrined.

You’re half deaf from the set and even through your screaming ears, you know you must be shouting. Worse than that is how you would dare to say something so incredibly awkward.

Why can’t you be cool for once in your stupid life?

Eddie is positively slick with sweat, pushing his hair back from his face and grinning again as he comes down to your level.

He drops into a squat you’re half surprised he can manage with just how tight his jeans are — the other half of you is too busy noticing how now that he’s down here, you’re almost nose to nose.

You try not to stare at his jeans, or the sweat dripping down from his hairline to grace the curve of his cheekbones and drip off the sharp line of his jaw. His shirt has gone semi-translucent and is clinging to his chest like a lover as you force yourself to meet his honey-warm gaze.

“You guys are great.” You try again, hoping it comes out sounding a little cooler this time around.

No such luck.

“Yeah? Well, what’d you expect, Sweetheart?” Eddie drawls, showing you his teeth in a way that makes your insides go tight — he tilts his head over to press his ear to his shoulder, “They don’t let just anyone up on this stage, you know.”

“Yes, they do.” Jeff counters from somewhere behind him, and you watch Eddie’s brows come down in aggravation, “Remember when they let that guy do forty minutes of close-up magic?”

Somewhere, very far away, Gareth is shrugging his shoulders from where he still sits, comfortably perched behind his drumkit.

“That guy wasn’t half bad.” he posits, much to the chagrin of his bandmates.

“That dude was wearing a cape.” Eddie scoffs.

“And you’re saying you wouldn’t?” Jeff snorts.

You’re too caught up in the way your heart is beating itself senseless against your ribs to hear the back and forth continue between them because Eddie called you Sweetheart.

Normally, you like to think such a pet name would leave you roiling in disgust, but nothing about the way you feel about Eddie is normal.

And you’re not being any shade of normal about this. Forget whatever bullshit it says on your birth certificate, forget all the little pet names anyone has ever given you — Eddie Munson reached down and christened you Sweetheart, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s your name now.

You feel like your head is going to crack open and burst with electric light as the name rattles around and around in your skull until it finds a tight little corner to wedge itself into and stay forever.

Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart.

Sweetheart and Eddie.

Sweetheart Munson.

It’s so goddamn saccharine you’re almost surprised when your teeth don’t come tumbling out of your head.

As you get lost further down the road of delusional fancy, the band’s bickering carries on without you.

“I dunno… d’you guys think we should invest in capes?” Adam posits, and it’s almost enough to send Eddie into apoplectic shock.

“Corroded Coffin does not wear capes!” He snarls, and an intrusive little voice can’t help but beg to differ, because to you, Corroded Coffin sounds exactly like the type of band who would come out on stage wearing capes.

“At least he had style.” Gareth huffs, “And the crowd liked him a whole lot better than they like us, maybe we can learn something from Magical Marve.”

“Jesus Christ, you guys — you’re blowing it in front of our number one fan!” Eddie gestures to you as he says it and you blush bright red, suddenly terrified that you’ve been caught with hearts in your eyes as the rest of the band’s attention snaps over to you — their apparent number one fan.

In a few years, when you would read Misery, you would spend a full week brimming with resentment that Stephen King would dare to suggest that it could be anything but a term of endearment. But that was a thought for the future, and only because he wasn’t there to see Eddie Munson dub you Sweetheart.

Right here and now, you are just happy to be included. Because it’s like Eddie said before, you're with the band… who is still bickering as they go about the quick and dirty business of breaking down their equipment.

It takes a solid twenty minutes, even with you fumbling to try and help anyway you can. Your vision goes briefly spotty when Eddie hands you his guitar and asks you to “hold her a sec”, briefly — accidentally — hooking his pinky finger with yours in the exchange. A promise of something yet untold — his jacket, his guitar, anything he gives you, you’ll guard with your life.

It sounds just as stupid as you feared when you can’t stop yourself from saying it this time, but the way he laughs eases the sting of your embarrassment, if only a little.

When everything is more or less put away, moods have not yet recovered from the previous moment’s tiff, but Gareth is never one to be deterred.

“Come on, you guys. Why the long faces? That’s the longest set we’ve played in a while!” he says, nudging you with his elbow, “I’d say that’s reason enough to celebrate.”

It’s perhaps the first suggestion that night which isn’t immediately met with a dissenting chorus of booing and hissing.

“Yeah, what do you say, fellas?” Jeff throws a neighborly arm over Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a shake for good measure, “The Palace’ll still be open for a few hours, how’s about we order a couple pizzas, get a six pack and go for a few rounds of Dragon’s Lair? Quarters are on me.”

It sounds about as fun as any average Tuesday with Dustin and his friends, not nearly as special as anything you would do to celebrate such a monumental night as this, but being the guest here, you defer to the group. You look to their leader to gauge the appropriate reaction to Jeff’s suggestion, and you notice with a start that he does not share his friend’s enthusiasm.

Call it babysitter’s intuition, but you seem to be the only one who has noticed that Eddie’s mood has taken a sudden and immediate nosedive into the creaky laminate flooring.

Everyone else is too busy listening to Gareth get his feathers ruffled over the plan to notice Eddie’s exchanged look with Laverne, still tucked in at the back of the bar with her arms crossed.

You watch all of this happen with the privilege of blessed invisibility, preserving both the excitement of the moment and Eddie’s dignity as a decision is quietly made.

He’s not going.

Your heart sinks.

“Oh, so you’re just gonna oh-so-graciously offer to pay for the cheapest part of that plan?” Gareth snaps.

Jeff fishes a ring of keys from the front pocket of his jeans and jingles it in the other boy’s face.

If Eddie’s not going, you don’t want to go either, but you don’t dare embarrass yourself by saying that out loud, so you keep your mouth shut.

“I’m also gonna drive. You can be a cheap prick too when you get your license, Freshman.” Jeff says with no small amount of smugness, “What d’you say, Eddie? You in?”

He does his best to approximate an apologetic smile, then shakes his head, sweat damp curls bouncing as he does.

“Not tonight, I’ve got some stuff I gotta finish up here.”

He does his best not to look directly at you as he says it, but you’re starting to learn that if there is one thing Eddie has a hard time doing, it’s not looking at you. You aren’t sure how to process that information and for a brief yet terrifying moment, it swells inside you to the point of pain.

“You sure?” Gareth presses, glancing less than subtly between you and stretching his words past the point of pain, “Big night. Worth celebrating.”

You level him with an unimpressed look.

Real smooth Gareth, why not just spell it out for him?

Still, you suppose you have to give him Brownie points for trying because you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him.

Eddie is already retreating when he gives his final answer, waving you off in a way that feels almost painfully casual.

“Yeah, no, you guys go ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

You watch him go, and he watches you watching him. You can’t tell for certain, but it feels almost as if something significant is passing you by, a moment you’ll never be able to get back if you don’t snatch it out of the air before it’s gone.

It fills you with a stinging burst of panic, especially when Eddie turns and lets you out of his sight.

You came here tonight to see him. You’re only here for him.

You’re almost shocked to hear your name being spoken then, and when you snap back over to reality, Jeff and Gareth are looking expectantly at you — Adam, who could evidently not care less who comes or stays, is already halfway to the door.

They had him at pizzas and a six-pack.

“—how ‘bout it?”

You blink back at them stupidly.

“Me?”

Jeff shrugs.

“Sure, it’s like the man said, you’re our biggest fan, you ought to share in the glory too.”

Strange how you had assumed that invitation would not be extended to you, stranger still is how you’re suddenly considering it.

Pizza and beer at the arcade is not the worst way you’ve ever spent a Tuesday night, but there is something nagging at you, stopping you from immediately accepting. It’s that same feeling as before, opportunity slipping past you and an incredibly powerful pull asking you whether you ought to stay as you turn back to watch Laverne step aside to make room for Eddie as he rounds the bar.

Stay? At a bar?

Where you have been so summarily informed that the chief of police is likely to pop up at any moment like a cheap jump scare in a bad horror movie?

It’s certainly not the worst idea you’ve ever had.

It’s not even the worst idea you’ve had all day.

“I think…” you start, “Actually, I think I’m gonna pass… it’s been a lot of excitement ...and my curfew is coming up soon.”

It’s not expressly untrue, but you feel a sharp pang of regret when Jeff shrugs and so willingly accepts your polite decline.

Part of you wishes that they would have fought a little harder to get you to come out – even Carol won’t take no for an answer the first time around – but that part of you is very quickly whipped back into shape.

You’re not here to hang out with Adam and Jeff and Gareth.

“Suit yourself,” he says flippantly, then claps Gareth on the back, “C’mon G.”

He doesn’t follow right away. Gareth, never one to miss a quiet exchange, remains, giving you a pointed look.

“What’s up?” He asks quietly, “You good?”

You wait for Jeff to get out of earshot, then lean in.

“...Do you think I should stay?” You ask.

Gareth’s brows furrow in a confusion that you can only imagine must be the mirrored echo of your own previous thoughts. You can almost hear him warning you that Chief Hopper hangs around here, and then something like realization flashes across his features as he glances past you.

You follow his gaze over to where Eddie is disappearing into the back, tying a dingy apron around his waist.

“Yes,” He says quickly, with a wide stretch of his mouth, “I think that’s exactly what you should do.”

“You do?”

“Yes, absolutely – you stay, and I’ll see you tomorrow,”

You watch Gareth disappear out the front doors and linger a moment beneath the multi-colored lights.

The jukebox has since flipped over to play Dusty Springfield, and she is warning you that being good isn’t always easy, no matter how hard you try, and it gives you courage enough to slink back to the bar, where your soda sits long empty.

“You’re not getting a refill, so don’t even ask.” Laverne snaps, startling you.

“I just wanted to pay for it.”

She makes a gruff sound in the hollow of her throat and begins wiping down the bar.

“It’s paid for.” She says reluctantly.

Before you can ask what that could possibly mean, she continues.

“So, I reckon you’re stayin’ behind.” It’s not exactly a question, so you don’t feel pressed to answer, and when you don’t, she hefts a tub of dishes up onto the flattop. “Why don’t you take this back to Junior, since you’re so keen on hangin’ around. Save me the trip.”

You look from Laverne to the dishes, and back again, feeling the wheels of your brain creaking under the duress of trying to see the invisible pitfall ahead of you.

“...Am I allowed to do that?” you finally manage to ask, and for half a moment Laverne stares back at you like it was the dumbest thing she's ever heard anyone say.

“I don’t give a shit” She finally huffs, “You do what you want, I’m goin’ out for a smoke.”

She’s gone out the side door in a flash, and it takes you far too long to work out the pieces – Eddie paid for your drink, and she’s giving you an excuse to go back and see him.

Boy, are you dense sometimes.

Still, you can’t help but wonder if it’s all some clunky ploy to get you thrown out of the bar. You also can’t help but wonder who is going to watch the bar while Laverne is gone, but you decide that isn’t your problem as you seize the plastic tub and heft it down to brace against your hip.

When you slip behind the bar and into the back, Eddie’s standing at the sink, elbow deep in suds and glaring at them like they’d personally wronged him.

You linger in the doorway, selfishly taking in as much of this candid moment as you can steal, and scrounging around for what is left of your courage.

“Hiya.” You say, once you find your voice.

It startles him bad enough to send him leaping back from the sink.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says, stumbling over your name in a way that makes your insides go tight, “I – uh – I thought you left with the guys.”

“Nope.”

“What are you–?”

You tilt the dishtub toward him and jostle it in a way that is less tantalizing than you mean for it to be with the way the dishware shifts dangerously.

“Special delivery.”

Eddie’s brows come down over his eyes and his shoulders sag.

“...Oh, great. Thanks,” he says, then gestures to the metal surface piled high with dishes. “Just put ‘em wherever you can.”

The task is daunting. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen as many dishes in your life – it’s going to take him hours to get through them.

You tentatively shove the plastic bin in where you can fit it, careful not to disturb the topsyturvy stacking method that has been employed here, and linger idly as Eddie wipes his soapy hands on his jeans.

A measured silence settles between you, through which you can still hear the muted sounds of the bar trilling distantly on.

“What happened?” Eddie finally asks, “How come you didn’t go with the guys?”

“Oh, well…” you start, electing to fib a little rather than do something so embarrassing as tell him the only reason you’re here tonight, “You know, as thrilling as sitting around in a parking lot drinking cheap beer sounds, I figured somebody ought to stay behind and keep you company. And I figured since you bought me a drink and all, it ought to be me.”

He huffs out a humorless laugh.

“Lucky me.”

You try not to let the biting sarcasm of the response dig its teeth in as you continue.

“...That was sneaky, by the way. You didn’t have to do that.”

Eddie shrugs, and rests a hand on the curved metal lip of the three-basin sink.

“Least I could do for our biggest fan.”

He sounds less enthusiastic about that this time around and it is enough to make your stomach clench.

“...You guys were great, by the way.” You try again, for lack of anything better to say.

Eddie shakes his head.

“Nah, we weren’t. We were actually pretty rough, I’m surprised they let us play as long as they did … but thanks for making the effort, though.”

“Well… you were great.” You press, folding your hands behind your back and taking a step closer, “I mean, you were pretty much the best part of the show.”

Distantly, you see his eyebrows jump beneath the sweaty fringe drying tacky to his forehead. The corner of his mouth twitches.

“You keep stroking my ego like that and I’m gonna have to buy you dinner to go with that drink,” Eddie warns you, and something inside of you shrieks with unabashed hormonal joy.

You cannot think of anything more tantalizing than that … except for maybe one of your two fantasies from earlier in the evening, but neither of those scenarios is on the table for tonight.

At least, you’re fairly certain they aren’t.

You thank your lucky stars he’s so fixated on washing dishes that he can’t see the way you turn bright crimson.

“I’m serious. You were great, Eddie.”

It’s enough to finally make him look at you again.

“You think so?”

And of course, now that you have his attention, you can’t help but go embarrassing yourself.

“Yeah, absolutely. You’re a goddamn rockstar…”

He grins.

“D’you kiss your mother with that mouth, Sailor?”

You curl your lips in past your teeth on instinct and drop your gaze to your sneakers as the suggestion sends you hurtling back to the picnic bench in the woods behind school.

You’re so sure Eddie was going to kiss you out there – you watched his eyes go heavy and lidded as his gaze slid down to your lips. You saw the shift in his posture, the oh-so-subtle way he tilted forward, curling his hands into fists, moist pink tongue darting out to wet the plush spread of his lips.

He’s not looking at you like that now, and it’s the worst goddamn thing in the world. You have to force yourself to think of something – anything else to stop it from completely destroying you as you stand there, listening to Eddie washing the dishes.

Oddly, there is only one thing that comes to mind.

“...Can I ask you a question?”

The lewd soapy sounds of suds on ceramic sends a chill up your spine.

“Sure, hit me.”

“Before you went on, when we were standing at the bar... why did Laverne call you Junior?” You ask, and the question seems to catch him off guard, so you elaborate to fill the awkward silence before it can settle between you, “She did it again just outside when she told me to bring these back to you… I was just wondering about it…”

Eddie doesn’t answer right away, and you’re just about ready to tell him to forget it by the time he opens his mouth to speak.

“Ah… hmm,” he hesitates, “… it’s a … it’s a little inside joke some folks around town like to roll out.” Eddie explains, then after a beat of silence, he gestures vaguely, “Munson Junior.”

“...Oh.” You say lamely – the subtext is not lost on you, and suddenly you’re sorry you asked.

A heavy silence settled between you, and then Eddie clears his throat in the prelude to what you'd feared was coming all night long.

“Hey, listen … it was real nice of you to stay behind…”

Uh oh. Here comes that dreaded rejection.

It was nice of you to stay but it’s actually super weird that you’re here at all and you should probably go home before you embarrass yourself more than you already have.

You do your best to stamp that line of thinking out before it can settle and elect to fold your hands behind your back, rocking on your heels and doing your utmost to look carefree.

“But…?”

You don’t care if he’s about to ask you to leave, but you hope to any God out there listening that he doesn’t.

“But… you should probably head out.” Eddie sighs.

Okay, so you lied. You care so much, and you can feel the corners of your mouth tremble as your smile begins to waver.

Eddie continues.

“This is gonna take a while, Sweetheart… and I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than stand around watching me play in dish water.”

Sweetheart. The nickname fills you with foolish courage, and suddenly you’re taking another step closer.

“Not really,” You admit, “I actually cancelled some plans to be here tonight…”

He breathes a halfhearted laugh out through his nose.

“Betcha wish you hadn’t.”

Oh, how wrong he is. If only he knew just how far you’d gone to make sure you could be here tonight.

“...Can I help?” You ask tentatively, forcing yourself not to look away when Eddie’s gaze snaps up and he clocks your sudden proximity with a soft, strangled sound in the hollow of his throat.

You pretend not to hear it for both your sake, “...it’ll speed things up. And... and then you can buy me dinner, right?”

You watch him stare back at you and can practically see the cogs turning in his brain, as if he absolutely cannot fathom the request you’d just made of him. When he continues to fail to answer, you try again.

“Here, let me help.”

You reach for the rumpled dish rag, but Eddie catches your hand.

Your lungs spasm and go flat and for the brief moment you exist under his touch, you forget how to breathe.

He shakes his head and tries to lead you away from the sink, releasing you entirely too soon for your liking.

“No, you don’t have to do that.” he says, and for half a moment you’re afraid that nothing you say is going to convince him to let you stay.

Then again, it’s not exactly like you’re asking for his permission.

“I know…” You hum, feeling your tongue go fat in your mouth and taking another step toward him, “But I want to.”

Eddie doesn’t retreat from your advance, but he calls your bluff with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

“You wanna waste your night doing dishes in the back of a bar?” he deadpans.

Of course you do.

You want to tell him that you want to do every trivial task under the sun if it means you get to do it with him. You’d happily sit and watch paint dry if Eddie was going to be there with you, but somehow you’re not certain that is going to do anything to make you sound cool and attractive.

“Sure, why not?” you shrug, rolling your sleeves up as far past your elbows as they will go and sidling up so you’re standing nearly hip to hip.

Your heart is hammering behind your ribs when you dare to steal a cautious, casual glance up at him, “I don’t have anything better to do right now.”

Eddie stares back at you, brows furrowed quizzically before he shakes his head, mutters something unintelligible to himself, then reaches into a milk crate sitting beneath the sink that you hadn’t noticed until he fishes out a pair of oversized yellow dish gloves and hands them to you.

“Yeah, okay – since you’ve got nothing better to do – put these on. We don’t want those fingers going prune.”

It takes you much longer to get through the dishes than you anticipated when you originally offered your services.

Two hours later, your sweater is soaked down the front, you’ve got suds in your sleeves, and you can smell the faintest hint of budding mildew wafting off of you, but you finish the dishes in half the time you imagine it would have taken Eddie to do them on his own.

When you’re done, you bid Laverne a cheerful farewell, one she does not acknowledge, and you leave the bar together.

Eddie has been talking animatedly about a hundred different subjects the whole time, though the last five minutes of conversation have been allotted to his guitar – which he tells you is an N.J. Warlock series, and you have no idea what that means.

You don’t mind though, you’ve been listening quietly without interjection because your newest revelation is just how much you like to listen to Eddie talk when he gets going. Not the heated preaching you’ve witnessed a hundred times in the lunchroom, but an excitable deep dive into something he is clearly very passionate about.

In your deepest flights of fancy, you imagine him talking to someone about you like this, and as you cross the parking lot and arrive at the back of his van, it makes your insides flutter with a girlish excitement.

Unfortunately, he mistakes your silence over the past few minutes for disinterest and grows sheepish.

“...Anyway, I didn’t mean to talk your ear off like that,” Eddie says, rolling his shoulders. “When I get going it’s hard to shut me up sometimes … sorry.”

You shake your head.

“No, not at all! I didn’t want to interrupt your flow, I just don’t really know anything about guitars.”

A look of patent relief flashes across Eddie’s face and is very quickly replaced with something sly as he pops open the back doors to the van. Inside sits half a dozen pieces of Gareth’s drum kit, two amps, and a sleek, black, rectangular case.

Eddie rests a hand on the hood of the case with a thump and you watch his gaze slide over to you.

“You wanna meet her?” he asks.

You don’t respond right away, if only because you don’t know who he could possibly mean, here in this deserted parking lot, but he doesn’t give you the opportunity to linger in the limbo of that unknowing.

He pops open the hinges and flips the lid up, revealing the angular crimson body of the guitar. Eddie lifts the instrument carefully from its crushed velvet bed and presents it to you with all the reverence of a lover.

You reach out tentatively to trace the smooth resin of her body with your finger pads and suddenly the moment feels supercharged with something heavy. The air is thick with it, whatever it is, and it settles in your lungs with a cloying film. You can’t be certain as to why, but you can suddenly feel your heart beating in your stomach.

“This is Sweetheart,” Eddie says, voice dripping with an admiration that makes your insides clench.

The heady atmosphere dissipates almost immediately, and you drop your hand back to your side to try and mask the way it makes you flinch to hear him call the guitar that.

Sweetheart?! No, it most certainly is not.

You’re Sweetheart. That’s your name now, remember? He only went and gave you the goddamn thing, now here he is telling you it’s just some random term of endearment he slaps on anything shiny and new that happens to catch his eye?

Fucking lame.

“Oh. Wow. It’s pretty.” You force yourself to say, because it’s not untrue, even if you are suddenly gripped in a ridiculous burning jealousy over his relationship toward an instrument. “Really pretty.”

And then Eddie pulls a face of sheer and total mock offense.

“Hey now,” he warns you gently, “Show a little respect for the love of my life here, will ya?”

You glance up at him and for half a moment aren't entirely sure you’re in the mood to meet him there. But it’s stupid to be jealous of an inanimate object. That would be like finding out Eddie was jealous of your vibrator or something stupid … which also suggests he’s fucking his guitar, so no, maybe it’s not like that at all.

Still, the thought manifests an image, which immediately sears itself into your frontal lobe and sends the blood rushing to your head so quickly you’re half surprised it doesn’t pop.

“...she’s pretty?” you hum, feeling suddenly like you’re about to faint.

Eddie gives you a satisfied smile – one you don’t see for how your vision has briefly gone spotty – and nods.

“Damn right she is," he says, laying her back in her case and snapping the lid shut.

If you’d been looking, and not feeling a stupid sense of satisfaction to see her get so summarily shut away, you would have seen Eddie go suddenly shy as his eyes slide over to peek at you from his peripheral.

“...Second prettiest girl in the room tonight.”

It hits you like a slap in the face and is oddly grounding. Your vision clears, your ears stop roaring, and just like that everything goes back to normal. Just you and Eddie standing in an empty parking lot with the echo of his attempt at a smooth line lingering between you.

Your mouth falls open and you choke on a loud bark of startled laughter.

Ha! Take that, Sweetheart.

Eddie wrinkles his nose and pulls a face like he immediately wishes he could take it back, not knowing that you’d strike him dead before he would even dare. He’s a total fucking dork, and that’s yours now. There will be no takebacks. Not now, not ever.

“Damn,” he mutters, squeezing an eye shut and reaching up to scratch at his brow, “That was super fucking corny, wasn’t it? Not my best effort – sorry.”

You press your lips together in a tight seal in a desperate attempt to keep a hideously giddy sound of animalistic joy from bleating up out of you, and you shake your head.

“That’s okay.” You start, dismissing the thick layer of cheese with a flippant wave, “I’m sure Laverne would be flattered to hear you say that about her.”

It takes him a moment to catch on, but when he does he snorts and rolls his eyes, mumbling something under his breath about Laverne. He doesn’t correct you, and you let the moment die with dignity because you know what matters.

Eddie Munson thinks you’re pretty, and that will forever be etched on the front of your brain, whether he likes it or not.

“So,” Eddie begins, shutting the van up again and leaning back against the door. He fishes a rumpled pack of camels from his jacket pocket, and you elect not to say anything about that, “It’s a little late for dinner… but how would you feel about a midnight snack?”

You know the muscles in your face are going to be sore in the morning for how widely you’ve been grinning back at him all night, and you nod, hoping you don’t look too overeager, but also not giving a damn if you do.

“What did you have in mind?”

He pops a cigarette between his teeth and goes looking for his lighter.

“Let’s see. I think Fosters might still be open. You could get a milkshake, chili dog, banana split, – whatever your heart desires, Sweet Thing. Your wish is my command.”

The thought of riding out to Foster’s Freeze on the far end of town with Eddie Munson is tantalizing in the best possible way. You’re beaming as you bring your wrist up to glance at your watch and try to visualize what you can stomach so late.

All thoughts of your growling stomach sail right out of your head as your heart rockets up into your throat before dropping into a free fall because it’s nearly midnight.

“Jesus Christ!” You gasp, head snapping up to share your horrified look with the class.

Eddie blinks back at you.

“Nope, just me–”

“Can I see your watch?” You’re taking hold of his wrist and pulling it up to stare into the digital face of his Casio before he can answer, “Oh, God – it’s so late.”

“What’s the matter, you turning into a pumpkin or something?” He teases, lighting his cigarette with his free hand.

“My curfew was like half an hour ago,” You say quickly, dropping his wrist and nearly upending your bag in the frantic search for your keys.

“Oh… shit,” Eddie mumbles, “Well, d’you need a ride? I’ll get you home lickety-split–”

You elect to ignore any intended innuendo there in lieu of your mounting panic.

“No, thanks, I’ve got my car – listen, I really gotta go,” You say, “But let’s do a raincheck, okay?”

You don’t wait for him to answer before you turn and bolt for your car shouting back to him as you go.

“I mean it, Munson! You owe me that midnight snack!”

You’re fumbling with your keys in the lock and whipping your door open with a harsh creak before you remember yourself and spin on your heel.

“Oh— Eddie, wait!” He’s circled around to the driver’s side and is standing on the runner, already half way up into his seat when his head snaps up, and you grow suddenly shy, “Thank you for this, it was – I mean, you’re – I had fun tonight. More fun than I would have had sitting at home, anyway.”

He gives you a strange look.

“...you really mean that, don’t you?” He asks after a moment, “Truly. Dishes and all?”

You nod, and you watch him shaking his head in a way you imagine must be accompanied by a good-humored chuckle as he takes a final drag on his cigarette and tosses it.

“Well, bless you for saying so.” He says, “Let’s do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely. I’ll do the dishes with you anytime.” Oh my God, why the fuck did you just say that? You’re cheesy and boring and stupid – just a stupid girl with a stupid crush.

And Eddie is laughing.

“Get home safe, Sweetheart.” he calls, “Wear your seatbelt.”

“Yeah, you too… goodnight, Eddie.”

Despite the traded goodbyes, you both linger a moment longer, looking back at one another halfway into your respective cars and so reluctant to part despite the ticking time bomb hurtling toward you at breakneck speed.

You need to get home, and yet…?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie calls, and you feel yourself flush.

“It’s just… you know … what Shakespeare said…”

Across the lot, he steps down from the van and nods.

“Sure. Good ol’ Willy Shakes.” and when you don’t elaborate, he gently prompts you, “What’s Shakespeare say, Sweetness?”

The saccharine twist on your new nickname has a lump forming in your throat, one you almost don’t get the words around as it swells and threatens to strangle you.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” you sigh.

It’s perhaps the uncoolest thing you’ve said all night, and you don’t even have the good sense to be embarrassed about it, because it’s also the truest thing you’ve said all night, and suddenly your heart is pounding in your chest.

You really, really have to go, but you don’t want to.

Eddie crosses his arms and leans back against the van.

“Yeah… it sure is.”

The silence endures, and as the seconds tick by, you continue to fail to tear yourself away. The last time you left him like this, you didn’t see him again for five days, and after tonight you’re not sure you can survive another five days without Eddie in your life.

Maybe you can stand to miss your curfew. Maybe your parents won’t notice your car is gone and won’t come to check in on you. Maybe you can sneak in after midnight or stay out all night … maybe you can just stand here saying goodnight over and over until the sun comes up and never have to get to the parting part.

“Go home, Sweetheart.” Eddie says then, “I don’t wanna get you in trouble.”

The sentiment causes the lump in your throat to swell, and you have to force yourself to breathe out slowly to ease the pressure it puts on you.

You watch him climb up into the van and feel your heart thumping again. One of you had to go first, you suppose. Last time it was you, this time it’s only fair it’s him.

“Bye Eddie.” You call, and when you still fail to get into your car, he heaves a long-suffering sigh, which is a little too fond to be just that.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” He asks, “It’s like I told you – lickety split.”

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. You want to warn him, but all you can manage is a smile.

Then you slide in behind the wheel of your car and shut the door behind you. You linger a moment longer and when you feel that lump threatening to return – one you quickly realize is the prelude to melancholy – you can’t help but steal one last look out your window, back at the van.

Eddie is still there, and better still, he seems to have had the same thought as you, because when you look, there he is looking at you again.

It fills you with a bright and warming sense of satisfaction. It's not so easy to tear yourself away, is it?

Then, as if to answer, Eddie waves.

You grin, return the gesture, and start your cars at the same time. It only takes a short dosey-do around each other to exit the parking lot side by side. You turn left, he turns right, and you watch in your rearview mirror until his taillights fade into the dark.

Yeah, you think you might have fallen pretty hard tonight, and you’re going to have a very hard time getting up again.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #cruel summer prequel #endless summer fic #stranger things #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #joseph quinn eddie munson

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