#spoon writes

── .✦

You are trying very hard to concentrate on the mission reports that Jin has tasked you with, but you keep finding yourself nodding off - eyelids sliding shut and head drooping down on their own accord. You don’t even realize that you were stuck in this position, quietly snoozing, until you hear an irritated tch coming from across the room.

The small sound is enough to startle you awake - your head shooting back into an upright position so quickly you almost make yourself dizzy. You steal a peak in Jin's direction to find him watching you from his desk, his icy blue eyes boring into you intensely. 

“Just what do you think you are doing over there?” he chides, sending a wave of apprehension down your spine, effectively waking you up all the way.

“Sorry, I have been so busy helping the other houses recently. I guess all of that work and lack of sleep has finally caught up with me.”

He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. The room is silent while he considers you and the longer he takes to respond, the more nervous you become. You steal another peak in his direction and catch a flash of…concern? cross his face. It was gone so quickly that you thought you had imagined it, that is until he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Then go home. I have no use for a servant who can’t even keep their eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time.” You couldn’t help the corners of your mouth quirking up into a small smile at that - you know this is Jin’s way of telling you to get some rest, and you can’t help but feel appreciative.

You stand, giving up a stiff, but unserious, salute, “Sir, yes sir!” You let out a small giggle to yourself and gather your things. As you bow and turn to leave you hear him again - “But know that I am going to need repayment for this. Be back at my room tomorrow right after classes end.”

Your shoulders droop a bit at that, and you pause to give him another, much less enthusiastic “Sir, yes sir” before exiting his room. You let out a little sigh after quietly shutting his door, chiding yourself for getting your hopes up too quickly. Of course this is just a temporary courtesy - if you could even go as far as calling it that. At least you have the remainder of the day to catch up on rest before facing whatever Jin may have in store for you tomorrow.

── .✦

Unbeknownst to you, Jin had immediately clocked your drowsy state as soon as you had entered his bedroom, and he had been carefully watching you while you worked. Annoyance flared in his chest seeing you struggle to stay awake - but it wasn’t directed towards you. He was sure that your current physical state was due to the other houses running you ragged, and once you confirmed that to him, the annoyance quickly turned to anger. The other houses take up too much of your time, demand way too much from you, and you are too kind to put your foot down and make boundaries. Just as that thought crossed his mind, he was hit with a revelation - if you would not make your own boundaries, he would just have to make them for you.

“Then go home. I have no use for a servant who can’t even keep their eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time.”

The immediate look of relief on your face made his heart stutter and threatened to curl his signature scowl into a little smile. But it also confirmed to him just how badly you needed a break, and gave him more confidence in his little plan. To make sure you didn’t have any suspicions, he demanded your presence the next day in the same manner he would normally, almost breaking character when he saw your shoulders dip in disappointment. Once you shut the door to his room, he pulled his phone out and began making preparations.

── .✦

It was the next day, and you found yourself standing in front of Jin’s door, yet again. Internally you yearned for another afternoon of rest, but you can’t deny that the sleep you had yesterday was immensely helpful. Though you still felt groggy, you were actually able to pay attention and take notes in your classes today - and it was all thanks to Jin dismissing you early. Your heart feels warm at the thought, and you square your shoulders with a little more determination to help him with whatever he needed today. You knock on his door, and wait for his text before entering.

The first thing you notice is how dark his room is. You have seen his black-out drapes drawn over the windows in the morning before, but you have never seen them drawn like this in the afternoon. There was low lighting illuminating the room, giving it a much cozier atmosphere than you are used to.

You tentatively step further into the room, calling for him, “Jin?”

His head lifts up from the paperwork he was reviewing at his desk under a small lamp, and you see the quickest hint of relief flicker over his face before disappearing. He uses the pen he is holding to gesture over to his chaise and coffee table, “Take a seat.”

You obey, walking over to the sitting area and noting the afternoon tea spread laid out on the table as you take a seat. Normally Jin already has a stack of paperwork waiting for you on the small desk you use in his room, but from where you are sitting on the chaise, you can see that there is nothing there today. Your mind starts to work overtime trying to understand the situation you are in - it is rare for Jin to deviate from his normal routine so now you aren’t sure what to expect from him.

You hear him set the paperwork down and make his way over to you, sitting down on the chaise opposite you. He leans over the coffee table to pick up the small teapot sitting there and pours a cup of tea, which he then holds out for you.

You blink. “This is for me?”

“Why else would I be handing it to you?”

You reach forward and accept the teacup with both hands, your fingers lightly brushing over Jin’s in the exchange. He sets the teapot down, and begins to pick out several different biscuits and a little sandwich from the spread, arranging them all on a small plate. You watch him as he makes his selections, appreciating the warmth from the teacup you were holding, but not taking a sip yet. Once he seems pleased with his arrangement, he holds out the little plate piled with goodies to you. 

Your eyebrows shoot up in astonishment. Did Jin just pick out an arrangement of snacks for you? You reach out and tentatively accept the plate from him, setting it down on your lap. He gives himself a small nod and leans back against the chaise, widely crossing one of his legs over the other. You both sit and look at each other for a beat before you speak up.

“Jin, what is all of this?”

“It’s for you,” he replies, simply.

“Oh.” You look back down to the spread on the table in front of you, to the teacup in your hand, and to the plate on your lap. You feel very appreciative, but.. confused. “What is all of this for, though?”

He crosses his arms and looks off to the side, “Those morons in the other houses push you too far, make you give too much.” You open your mouth to interject that you are always happy to help, but his eyes snap back to you and give you a look that tells you to not interrupt him. “And you are incapable of saying no. So, if you won't make time for yourself to rest, then I will.” He looks away again, the faintest of pink dusting his cheeks - though you are not able to see in the low lighting of his room.

In contrast, the deep pink hue of your cheeks are easily noticeable. Your heart swells at his admission, and you can’t stop the blush from covering your face or the look of fondness that fills your eyes. You can hardly believe it - not only did he notice your exhaustion, but he worked to make sure you had the space and time to really rest. You feel so comforted, so cared for.

“Drink your tea before it gets cold.” His voice snaps you back to the present, and you find him watching you again. You bring the teacup to your lips and take a big sip. “Mmmm, is this chamomile?” He nods, a small smile forming on his face, “You need to rest and relax, so I thought chamomile would be the most appropriate.” 

“Thank you Jin, this is.. wonderful. I really appreciate it.” Your eyes sparkle as you say this, and Jin feels his heart stutter again. He abruptly stands up, as if to flee from the feeling. “Don’t let it go to waste,” he says before glancing at you one more time and making his way back to his desk.

You smile again, and drink more of your tea. While digging into the snacks Jin picked out for you, you do a little happy dance, feeling so lucky to have him in your life.

── .✦

It has been some time since Jin returned to his desk. He quickly became absorbed in his work and only noticed how quiet the room had become after pausing to stretch his neck. He no longer saw you sitting on the chaise, and after doing a quick scan of the room, he realized he didn’t see you at all.

Did they leave? He quickly stands up, allowing a little sense of worry to settle in his chest. No, surely I would have heard the door if they did.

He walks forward, continuing to scan the room, only to find you curled into a little ball, snoozing on his chaise. He lets out a little breath of relief, followed by a small snort at your position. He may have underestimated just how much rest you needed if you were able to easily fall asleep like that.

Turning around, Jin makes his way over to his bed and pulls the covers back. He returns to your side and gently picks you up, bridal style, careful not to disturb your sleep. You snuggle into his chest and continue lightly snoring, and he prays that his thumping heartbeat doesn’t wake you. He gets you settled onto his bed, removing your shoes and blazer, and placing them neatly on the side table next to you. You seem to relax more in this new setting, nuzzling into his pillows, pulling the blankets tightly around you, and giving a little hum of satisfaction. He lets out a quiet chuckle and reaches over to you, tucking a stray hair back where it belongs on your head.

“Rest well, Inspector.”

“You can fit this into half as many pages,” you tell Candace, doing your best to hide the bored irritation in your voice. You'd really only listened to about a third of her impassioned defense of the basketball team and cheer squad both respectively having roughly three times the yearbook pages devoted to them as any of the rest of the school’s extracurricular organizations, too busy cycling through the list of seniors without pictures or quotes that you would need to hunt down this week so they could at least have something in their own yearbook. You already knew what it came down to anyway. “You've already got way more pages than anyone else, and we're running out of space.”

Candace scoffs, clearly miffed that you haven't acknowledged the clear supremacy of the popular crowd to give them favoritism. “Nobody even cares about those stupid clubs.” Her voice comes out almost as obnoxious as the eye roll she gives as she says it.

“They matter to the kids who are in them - kids who are also buying these yearbooks. It's their senior yearbook, too, you know. In fact, we'd probably sell more of them and have better funding to get the embossed covers like you wanted if we actually include everyone. Look at this,” you flip through the copy you have written, looking for an example. Finding one, you point to the page in question. “Like these guys. I mean, hell, they barely even have a sentence written about them. There's not even a picture. It's just a list of names of people who are in it. It doesn't even say what the club is about. Would you buy a yearbook, if this was all you got in the whole thing?”

Candace grumbles something derogatory in reply, the words ‘bunch of freaks’ coming out of a mouth far too pretty to be so mean. You don't really care. This was why Mrs. Rychnovsky had sought you out, anyway - the only student she knew would give the less popular groups their proper dues and actually write something to make sure they were included. It's not like the lack of consideration for others is a surprise.

Something about a few of the names on that list stick in your mind, though, and you realize after racking your brain for a moment that they're also on the list of people who don't yet have photos for the yearbook. Candace is still blustering about why the cheerleading squad needs more pages and how nobody wants to read about a bunch of freaks anyway, and you've had about enough. There's a million better things for you to do, including the idea you've just had. “Candace, cut the content down to under two pages or I will simply cut it off where you run out of room on the second page,” you declare as you stand, bringing the page you'd been staring at with you as you walk to the shelves in the back of the room to find the previous yearbooks - though something tells you that you won't find what you're looking for.

Eddie Munson should have a senior photo. It's his third try, after all. Someone should have at least taken a half-assed photo of him in the hallway, or the cafeteria or, ideally, during whatever it is the Hellfire Club does one of those years.

He doesn't.

You have to go all the way back to the yearbook for his freshman year to find a single photo of him in the entirety of the yearbook, and it's only because he was in Mr. Clarke’s last shop class before he retired. You can barely even tell it's Eddie, only realizing he's even in the photo at all because he's listed in the caption. He's in the background, half turned away from the camera, working on something that's too blurry to make out. His hair is shorter than you've ever seen it. The Hellfire Club doesn't really fare much better, mostly looking about the same as the copy in your hand does right now - just a list of names. Some years there's a picture of the club’s logo, if there's a picture at all. They're not even mentioned at all in last year's yearbook, even though you knew for a fact that they should have been, another blurb about how the basketball team is just so great where the page containing Hellfire Club should be.

‘Fuck that’, you think to yourself. It's the senior yearbook, not the basketball team yearbook, and people like Eddie Munson deserve to have more than just their name in a list crammed in beneath yet another picture of Jason Carver making a basket, barely even enough to be considered an afterthought. Especially this year. His last year, his last chance to have someone acknowledge his name and that he was here. Snapping the old yearbook shut, you slide it back into its spot on the shelf, your mind already made up. This year, the Hellfire Club is getting its full page allotment. Even if you have to do the whole damn thing yourself. Two entire pages, with photographs, whether Candace and the others like it or not.

They were probably going to regret letting you be this year's editor.

No longer paying any attention at all to Candace's incessant complaints that she's now attempting to lob at the teacher, you check out a camera from the storage room and grab your notebook, shoving it in your bag. Mrs. Rychnovsky looks up at you, pulling herself out of the politely blank stare she'd put on to suffer through the cheerleader’s whining. “Can I get a hall pass? There's some seniors who still need photos taken. I was going to go grab them and get a few of them done in the hall while it's quiet.”

She writes you a hall pass remarkably easily, not even asking which seniors or what classes you needed to pull them from. Teachers were often like that with you. You kept your head down, did your schoolwork, didn't cause troublesome disruptions, so they were typically pretty willing to give you what you wanted. It's probably a good thing you only use this power for good. Mostly. Sometimes. So what if you used it to go to the record store sometimes? A little truancy wouldn't kill you. Your mom might, though, if she ever found out.

The office administrator was a little more skeptical when you asked her what class Eddie Munson had this period, but your hall pass and the camera with the ‘property of Hawkins High’ sticker on it seemed to assuage her concerns and she directed you to first period Algebra. Expecting either more or less resistance from Mr. Thompson based on whether he wanted to punish Eddie by keeping him in class or if he wanted him gone, you slip into the room quietly.

There's a moment in which you wonder if he's skipping, or if maybe you're in the wrong classroom, before you spot his signature curly brown hair and denim battle vest. It's probably the quietest you've ever seen Eddie Munson. He's just…sitting there, reading a book. You've never seen him so undisruptive.

A blush colors your cheeks when you look at Mr. Thompson and realize that he's staring at you questioningly, waiting for a response to whatever he’d said to you while you were busy staring at the resident metalhead. Had Eddie Munson always been that pretty? You wouldn’t know, because there’s no prior pictures of him to reference and compare and contrast. “Um, sorry,” shaking your head, you collect yourself, putting on your best ‘professional journalist’ face. “I'm looking for Eddie Munson?” Holding up the camera and your interview notebook to lend yourself some credibility, you look expectantly at the teacher. “I need to borrow him for a little bit. For the yearbook.”

There's less of a reaction than you'd expected. Usually, teachers were frustrated at the very mention of Eddie's name. But there's no annoyance as Mr. Thompson turns his head to where Eddie is still seated, lost in his book and scribbling something down in a notebook beside him. “Munson,” the teacher calls out, gesturing to you with his head.

Eddie looks up, a little miffed that he's been interrupted in his task while he was actually being good. Thompson usually left him alone, and he had been taking advantage of that to really delve into this idea he'd had for his next campaign. But then he sees you, camera and notebook in hand, and his irritation turns to confusion. What could you possibly want from him? He's seen you talking to the cheerleaders and the jocks at lunch. Is this the lead-up to some kind of prank? Are you taking him to a secondary location just so you can get a picture while the jocks beat him senseless? That seems…unlikely, actually. Well, not the prank - he's actually surprised the jocks on the yearbook committee haven't thought of that yet. They'd probably give it a full page feature to memorialize it. You wouldn't do something like that, though. He wasn't sure why he was so certain of that fact, but he'd always been keyed into people, always been a good judge of character. Whatever your intentions were, they weren't that. “Alright, I'll bite,” he mutters to himself before setting down his book and heading to the front of the class where you were waiting, following you warily into the hall. “Uh, what's up?”

You almost make a ‘need your mugshot’ joke, falling back on the usual tricks to try and put him at ease, but something tells you that he might not think you're joking and you snap your mouth shut before the words can come out. You're trying to make sure he's included, the last thing you want is to hurt his feelings in the process. Alas, the silence has gone on too long and now it's awkward. “I need your picture for the yearbook.”

Visibly, this confuses Eddie further. “Why?”

“Because there isn't a picture of you, and you're graduating.” You explain simply.

“I didn't think I was important enough to take up space. Gotta make sure you get in a photo of Carver from every single game, right? I’d hate to take away from all of the basketball team’s accolades.” Eddie's voice is sarcastic as he eyes you with skepticism and maybe a hint of curiosity.

“They get two pages. Just like everybody else.” Your reply is firm and simple.

“Good luck with that, princess,” Eddie snorts. “The rest of your little committee will never settle for that.”

“Well, they aren't the editor. I am,” you answer him. “So they get two pages, and you,” holding up the camera, you give him a pointed look, “are getting a senior photo.”

Eddie is still a little skeptical, but you manage to wrangle him into letting you take a photo. “Uh, what pose do you want me in?” He asks a little awkwardly, trying out a pose and looking a bit like a wet cardboard cutout of his usual self.

“Whatever you want,” you tell him lightly. This was your first mistake.

You shouldn't be surprised when he flips the bird with both hands, a nearly feral glint in his eyes as he grins wide. Your teachers would tell you not to encourage this behavior, but you're pretty sure that Eddie Munson is well past the point of reinforcement - positive or otherwise - so you take the picture. It's a good picture of him, even if it's unusable. “You know I can't use that,” you admonish him in a deadpan, hiding your amusement at his antics surprisingly well.

“Alright, alright,” he responds, the mischief in his voice making you instantly wary. He strikes a surprisingly professional looking pose, and you just know he's about to pull some more bullshit. Sure enough, just before you click the shutter, he throws his hands up beside his face to make devil horns, his tongue sticking out and his eyes wide and crazed. Despite the demon-inspired face, his joy is palpable. You are going to get so much shit for wasting school resources on unprintable photos of Eddie Munson, but you kind of don't actually care. The shutter snaps two or three times while he's busy making weird little imp sounds, earning a small laugh from you despite your best effort. “I don't know if I can slip that one past the advisor.”

“Yeah, fine.” Eddie agrees surprisingly easily now that you've let him have his fun. This picture is definitely teacher-approved, certainly a better technical portrait of him, though it doesn't quite feel like a representation of him as much as the others had. You hope you can convince Mrs. Rychnovsky to let you use the devil one. Eddie deserves to be seen.

“Okay, on to the senior quote. Anything you want to say?” Swapping the camera for your interview notebook and a pen, you look at him expectantly.

“Uhhh, I don't know, ‘fuck you, Higgins, and fuck this place’?” He offers unhelpfully with a shrug.

“Pretty sure they won't let me print that,” you reply with dry humor. What could you print, though, that would really encapsulate Eddie Munson? “What's your favorite song lyric?” You ask him after a moment of consideration, thinking up everything you know about him to try and find something that might actually speak to him. He eyes you suspiciously, like the question is a trap but he hasn't quite figured out what the angle is yet, how you'll use this information to mock him.

He waves dismissively at you. “Nah, sweetheart. Just put in whatever lame generic shit you usually use. It's not like I care.” His voice is cautious, careful not to give you anything you could use against him.

Chewing your lip, you study him for a moment. He's not going to give you anything else, and ‘generic’ definitely doesn't suit Eddie Munson, so you'll just have to figure something out on your own. “I'll find something that suits you.”

The nonchalance with which he shrugs again is meticulously crafted to hide the way your seemingly genuine consideration made him feel. It was too good to be true. Pretty girls like you wanted one thing from Eddie Munson: a good time. Whether that was in the form of drugs, a quick fuck, or a laugh at his expense, girls like you didn't really concern yourselves with whether or not Eddie Munson was also having a good time when you took what you wanted from him. What did it matter to you if his feelings got hurt, as long as you got a laugh out of it? Or whatever else it was you were looking for.

In truth, your persistent will to ensure he was actually included- represented, even - in this, his last ever senior yearbook, had shaken something loose inside him. Your determination to make sure that you could use the picture you took and not just settling for something you know won't get printed is an anomaly - even more so when paired with the fact that you’re seemingly actually invested in finding a quote that encapsulates him. Most people preferred to pretend he didn't even exist at all, and the yearbook committee typically tried to actively write him out of their history like he was some kind of stain to be removed. They definitely didn’t try to accurately represent him in their precious book of highschool memories. It's a little thing, the fact that you thought to ask him for a quote that would actually mean something to him, but it’s more than he'd gotten from anyone outside of his small circle in a very long time. Part of him is still convinced it's some sort of trick, a prank to make him think you actually wanted to commemorate his existence at this shitty school. A joke played on the freak to make him think a pretty girl had even a passing interest in the real him.

It’s going to crush him when the punchline finally lands, he's sure of it. He always had been too soft for his own good, never did learn how to keep his too-big heart from getting wounded.

“Hey, um, you wouldn't happen to know what class Gareth Emerson has this period, would you?” You ask, shoving your notebook back into your bag, the camera dangling around your neck. “He doesn't have a picture either, and I don't really want to use his sophomore photo from last year. He kind of looks like a dork. I didn't even recognize him.”

So it's not just Eddie. You're determined to make sure all of his little band of outcasts gets a fair shot at representation this year, are you? If this is some kind of prank, it's an awful lot of work for very minimal payoff. What's your angle? “Uh, yeah, I think he's got Chemistry.”

Nodding, you make a mental note of how much time you have left this period and whether you'll be able to grab Gareth before the bell rings. Deciding to at least see if you can catch him in the hallway between periods, you ask Eddie one more series of questions before releasing him back to Algebra. “You're in charge of Hellfire Club, right? You're like the president or something?”

Eddie fights off the desire to correct you, certain you don't actually care about his nerd shit. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

Wiggling the camera in your hand a little as explanation, you look at him expectantly. “I'm taking over the piece on you guys this year. Would it be okay if I sat in on one of your meetings? Maybe ask a few questions, take some photos? I won't be too disruptive, I promise. I can save my questions for the end or something.”

“Yeah, sure, I guess. We've got a big session this Friday, but you'll probably be too busy covering the championship game. Gotta get that perfect shot of the game-winning basket. Can't miss a chance to stroke Carver's ego, right?” His voice drips with sarcasm as he mentions the school’s general obsession with Jason. “Next session won’t be until after spring break.” His little freshman sheepies all have driver’s ed three days a week after school for the next four weeks, making Fridays out of the question. The yearbook will have to be finalized and sent to print before spring break. He shrugs nonchalantly, looking away but still watching you out of the corner of his eye. What will you choose? Forgo the championship game, or do the bare minimum on Hellfire Club like everyone else has for the past five years?

You're starting to think that maybe shrugging might actually be his tell, because this is definitely some kind of test. “I’d rather not stroke anything of Carver’s, personally,” you reply before you’ve really even thought it through. Luckily for you, Eddie barks out a laugh despite his attempts at nonchalance. “Where do you usually meet?”

“Drama room. We usually meet at six, but I'll have the guys show up at five so you can get some basic information before we start.” He's still a little wary, but if you're actually going to miss the championship game to watch a bunch of outcasts play a tabletop game, then maybe you do actually care. It'll hurt if you don't show up, so he refuses to get his hopes up. None of this should be that big of a deal to him anyway. He plans on leaving Hawkins High in the dust the second he gets that diploma, and never looking back. He didn’t even order a yearbook. He’ll probably never see you again after graduation. You’ll probably go off to bigger and better things and never think of him again. It doesn’t matter.

Jotting down the time and place in your interview notebook and circling it twice, you release Eddie back to class and go on your way. You do find Gareth before the bell rings, and you're glad he's a junior so you don't have to pry a quote out of him. Trying to take a half-decent photo of Gareth Emerson feels like trying to give a cat a bath. If he's not looking irritated and grumpy, he's looking at you with dead serial killer eyes. You know he smiles - you've seen it. Something about pointing a camera at him just gives him a complex. After a while, you manage to get him talking about being a drummer. It's as he's telling you about the band he plays in with Eddie, Corroded Coffin, that you manage to snap a candid shot of him leaning against the wall. He's grinning, and he looks relaxed, and that's good enough for you. You let him talk some more about their band and the gigs they play on Tuesday nights at the Hideout even though you already have what you need. He's nice when you get to know him, in the way that teenage boys can be nice, and you talk to him until the bell rings and you part ways.

Second period is your free period, and you manage to round up the few remaining photos you needed. There’s just enough time to get some of the negatives developed in the dark room and start working on prints of the photos you’d taken before the bell rings. You hope no one notices the number of unprintable photos of Eddie Munson you were developing - you’d definitely be in trouble for using school resources on those.

The remaining time until lunch goes by surprisingly quickly. When lunch does finally roll around, you spend it in the dark room working on the rest of your photographs and contemplating what you want to do for Eddie’s senior quote. Pretty much every generic quote known to man is thrown out on the face of it. Nothing generic could ever sum up Eddie Munson. You've seen him reading worn, well-loved copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings over and over again, but somehow that doesn’t seem right either. You think about the impassioned speeches he himself has given from atop cafeteria tabletops now and again and consider using some of his own words - ‘it’s forced conformity, that’s what’s killing the kids’ - but somehow even that doesn’t seem right. No, you think maybe you had it right on the first try. Music. The problem is that you don’t really know Eddie’s kind of music.

You spend the next class period racking your memory for every band name you can recall from his battle vest and the handful of conversations you’ve overheard him having with his friends. Not that you were eavesdropping, he’s just loud when he’s excited - and he’s very excited about music. Opinionated, too. There’s Dio, obviously. That one takes up the entire back panel of his vest in a prominent place of honor. There’s also a band called W.A.S.P… Judas Priest, and Megadeth, among others you can recall. You remember him having a conversation about a musician named Ozzy Osbourne. The details are hazy, but if you recall correctly his stance was pro-Ozzy’s music, so you add that to the list too. There's a few others you've heard him discuss positively as well - Scorpions, Metallica, Slayer. You’ve seen him wear an Iron Maiden shirt, too. There’s also his own band that you now know plays at The Hideout every Tuesday, thanks to your conversation with Gareth. You consider asking him for some of their song lyrics, but that seems maybe too personal. Gareth had said that Eddie writes those himself, and if he wanted to use one then he would have given it to you when you initially asked. No, you’ll find something somewhere else. The list is a decent start, anyway, and you jot the names down so you can scour the record store for them later. You could probably get a hall pass for your Sociology class. You're already about four chapters ahead on the reading anyway, and the teacher gave you the homework in advance, so it's not like you'll be missing anything. You'll just say you have yearbook stuff to work on - which technically is not actually a lie. This time.

Finally, sixth period rolls around and, as expected, Mr. Robertson frees you from your educational prison with the requested hall pass when you turn in your homework. Fleeing school grounds before you can be caught and forced to come up with some fake thing you needed to grab from your car for the yearbook, you drive yourself to the local record store to begin your search. Armed with the list of band names you’d managed to remember, you get to work scouring the used cassettes section. There’s not as many as you had hoped, which shouldn’t be surprising given the town’s general disposition towards everything Eddie Munson likes, but you grab what you can find and even shell out the cash for a few new ones, too. It doesn’t even occur to you that you’re spending actual money to do research for something that will be at most under 200 characters and not even yours. This has become your mission. Your quest, as it were - finding Eddie Munson's perfect senior quote.

Heading out of the record store, you load the first cassette into your car’s tape deck and drive. The first thing you notice about Eddie's favorite music is that it is loud. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's not really a surprise. You understand why people like to sneer and say music like this is just noise. That's what happens when you don't listen to someone for their entire lives - they make themselves heard however it takes.

The second thing you notice is that Eddie's taste in music is emotional. Sure, there's some rowdy rebellious rockstar songs about sex and drugs and parties, but quite a lot of it is raw. Songs about feeling alone, about struggling, about fighting to be who you are when everyone wants to make you hide yourself away. There's a surprising number of love songs, too. Sure, some of those are also mostly about sex, but there's a depth of emotion even there, too. Sex as an expression of connection. A longing that takes a physical form.

The third thing is that, to your surprise, you like quite a lot of it. You only make it through a small number of your new collection before you have to head back for your last class, but what you've heard so far has been good. This quest to find Eddie’s perfect senior quote in the lyrics of the music he loves so much will be far more enjoyable than you'd anticipated. You're actually looking forward to listening to more of it on your drive home.

Technically, seventh period is your drop period, but you want to finish those prints you were working on before the teacher finds them and scolds you for using school resources to print unusable yearbook photos of the resident town freak. You also want to mock up a rough draft of what you want the spread for the Hellfire Club piece to look like. As you work on drying the photos, you think about how you wish you'd thought to check up on the progress of the other clubs sooner - or even just assigned Hellfire to yourself to start with. You should have known that Tommy wasn't going to take anything seriously unless it was about him in the first place. There’s only a few weeks to get everything done now, and you hope you can do Eddie’s club justice. The photos are finished by the time school is out, and you slip the unusable ones into your interview notebook where they'll be safe. Deciding to hope for the best, you place the devil horn photo in the Folder of Judgement for your advisor to approve or deny tomorrow.

Taglist: @yorshie @luckycharms1701 @turtlecleric @thepinkpanther83 @losingmygrasponreality @the-cauldron-witch @sheneedsrocknroll92 @totallysocially @v1per1ne @the-rowanoke @s1mp-4-ga11y

Also extremely special thanks to yorshie, lucky, cleric, and pinky without whom this fic would straight up never have seen the light of day. Y'all are the MVPs and I appreciate you so much.

Elias – though he had been James Wright at the time, if Peter remembered right – had called Peter for the first time ever when that couple cheated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, gloating over how they’d worked together to snatch the top prize from ITVs helpless hands. It took all the fun out of it, really, working together. It robbed the shows of that intoxicating isolation that populated so many of them, the terrifying knowledge that there would be no help given, that everything had to be done alone. That was quite wonderful.

Peter allowed himself to sprawl over their shared sofa. For once in his overlong life, Elias had decided to be pleasant, only complaining twice when Peter commandeered the remote to put on a rerun of The Weakest Link. And he’d kept quiet during the best bits, when the contestants nominated the contestant to leave the show that round.

“You are being kind tonight.” Peter remarked, when the second-rate replay channel shoehorned in yet another ad break.

“Am I?” Elias asked, swinging his long legs into Peter’s lap. Peter shuffled away to the tune of Elias’ laugh. The last thing he needed was Elias ruining the delicious pain of second-hand isolation by forcing Peter to remember his presence. He regretted talking at all when Elias began prodding his toes into the worn jean of Peter’s thigh. His socks were covered with eyes, tessellated together into some sickening collage of sight.

“Can you see from those?” Peter asked without thinking. On the television, some pointless celebrity offered up a brand of washing power in a variety of scenarios, her face never losing a bland smile, her eyes clinging to hollow vacancy. Peter’s heart rose. There was nothing more enjoyable than the knowledge that this woman, whoever she may be, would have left the recording studio for a flat far too big for her in the centre of a bustling city, the open plan forcing her voice to echo and rebound from the stock-photo walls should she try to call any of the fake friends she had. But there were still millions of women across the country watching her vacant face and wishing with all their lonely little hearts that they could be her, convinced that if they just had her hair or her face, her money or her family, they could wash the loneliness from their lives for good. They were wrong.

Peter hoped no one told them.

“Can I see through my socks?” Elias mused, closing his eyes. Seconds, minutes later, he blinked them open again, “Your trousers are terribly frayed.”

“I don’t need to see through my socks to know that.”

“You should fix them.” Elias suggested, in the voice that meant he wanted Peter to do no such thing. Elias fed from making sure Peter always felt his Eye on one of his flaws or another and Peter, in turn, fed from never listening to Elias’ opinion when he chose to give it. It made Elias feel terrifically, terrifyingly lonely, when people didn’t care what he thought about them.

A five second clip of the introduction music signalled the end of the nauseating ad break. Peter was very conflicted about ad breaks. On one hand, it didn’t really seem fair to exchange five minutes of mediocre television for five minutes of mind-numbing adverts displaying things no one person could possibly need, even if they lived as long as Elias had. On the other hand, advertisements were built around the need to make the viewer feel inferior, a gateway drug to loneliness if there ever was one. Where there was inferiority there was insecurity, the fear of being left out or left behind, and both of those were fears The Lonely found delicious.  

Yes, Peter would adore ad breaks, if he didn’t have to see them too.

“How could they cancel this?” Peter sighed, as onscreen Anne Robinson belittled a contestant for enjoying wrestling.

“It’s possibly the only good thing the BBC has ever done,” Elias said, purely to provoke a reaction, “I mean it. I’m not antagonising you.”

“I didn’t think antagonising, I thought provoking,” Peter said pleasantly, “I would prefer it if you stayed out of my head, though.”

The thought of Elias watching his thoughts, taking a personalised tour through his brain like a tourist at an isolated art gallery, sent Peter’s skin crawling. It was the worst thing about spending time with Elias, the knowledge that he, should he feel inclined, could dip into Peter’s head and watch to his heart’s content, dig up every little secret and throw them back into Peter’s face just to see how he’d react. And the knowledge that any reaction Peter gave would feed Elias’ patron.

“What a shame.” Elias remarked, tugging Peter’s attention back to The Weakest Link.

“What happened?”

“She didn’t bank. Lost them almost all of the money.” Elias clicked his tongue in a sham of sympathy.

Peter groaned, “You made me miss it.” The frustrated looks of the other contestants weren’t nearly as satisfying without the memory of the woman’s mortification to back them up.

“What a shame.” Elias repeated. His feet were still pressed against Peter’s thigh, a constant, bony reminder that Peter wasn’t alone anymore, would never be alone again should he ask. He wondered if he should be happy about it.

“You think,” Elias said, “far too much. What does it matter if you’re not always lonely? I’m not always Watching.”

“You had your Eye on that archivist of yours not ten minutes ago.” Peter said, taking Elias’s sudden frown as confirmation of his hunch. But that was all wrong too. Surely normal people wouldn’t be joking if their partner had spent a night with them watching one of their co-workers. Surely they’d be upset about it.

“We’re not partners.” Elias reminded him.

There were two contestants left, vying for the money that hadn’t been lost by their idiotic competitor. Peter tried to focus on them, and not on the way Elias was looking at him, on the half-smile playing across the lips Peter liked so much. When they were together, of course. When they were apart, Peter thought, Elias’s mouth was just another mouth.

“Liar.” Elias hissed. The bolt of insecurity that darted through him was honeysuckle sweet. In retaliation, Elias dug his heel into Peter’s leg as he stretched out over as much of the sofa as he could, crowding Peter against the arm. Peter didn’t look away from the television.

“The man on the left wins,” Elias snapped, “It’s a question about Hadrian’s wall and he snatches it right out from under the other man’s nose. He spends his pathetic gains gambling himself into worse debt then he started with.”

“Oh,” Peter complained. Anxiety swelled in his gut at the show of Elias’s power. He didn’t know Elias could dip into the minds of people on television too. Was there anything he couldn’t See, any secret he couldn’t Know as soon as he wished to?

“I can’t. I’ve just seen this one before.” Elias said, observing Peter’s wide eyes with barely-concealed delight. What did Elias care if the power he’d hinted at didn’t exist? Peter’s original rush of fear had been enough to make them even.

“You,” Peter said, “are a bad boyfriend.”

“I don’t care, as long as I’m not yours.”

Careful, Peter closed a hand around Elias’ ankle, covering some of the eyes that danced and winked along it. Elias’s smile widened.

Peter tugged, and Elias let himself be moved.

Peter lifted, and Elias let himself be raised.

When he sunk his fingers into Peter’s hair and pushed his nails into Peter’s scalp, Peter didn’t protest. Instead, he placed Elias in his lap and let himself be kissed.

Kissing Elias was a little like breathing in a burning building. It was a little like Christmas, or existing on a crowded ship. In other words, it was unbearable, but Peter wanted, needed it anyway. It was choking and over-hot and crowded and pushy and Peter wanted it more and more and more and more, until he couldn’t breathe without Elias pressed firm against his chest.

Elias pulled his mouth away, because it wasn’t enough for Peter to just feel his smirk apparently.

“Your metaphors are ridiculous.” He wiped his mouth with one hand and smoothed his hair with the other.

“I never was fond of words.”

“That much is clear.” Elias said, as if they hadn’t had this conversation a thousand times before, as if they wouldn’t have it a thousand times again before they were finally done with each other. Peter caught his breath as Elias rolled his shoulders, blazer slipping down from the movement, before craning his neck to glance at the television. Peter watched the credits reflect in his shiny, dark eyes.

“Can we put Big Brother on? After all,” He patted Peter’s cheek, “You’ve had your fun.”

“If you want.”

All those people trapped together but encouraged to hate, to isolate even when there was nowhere to go, to say one thing when they thought and felt another, to not trust anyone they were confined with. It was lonely enough for Peter.

“Everything’s lonely enough for you,” Elias said, rubbing at the faint red of beard rash decorating his cheeks, “You’re very simple to please.”

The familiar panic washed over Peter again, the fear encapsulated in the knowledge that Elias would always, somehow, Know Peter better than Peter knew himself. The fear that, whatever Peter was, Elias could See it and take it and keep it for himself.

Peter pushed Elias from his lap.

They split a pack of biscuits, though they were both hungry for something more sustaining, and Peter wondered if he could never get used to having all his secrets laid out in a glass cabinet, for Elias to view as he pleased.

── .✦

Rui paced back and forth across his room, nervously wringing his hands. You were on your way to Obscuary to see him, and the nerves were setting him on fire. He wasn’t just nervous to see you - though, how could he not be when you effortlessly make his heart do somersaults every time he saw you?

No, today he is nervous because it would be the first day he could touch you. Just this morning his curse was finally broken - by Haku, of all people. The ritual flew by in a blur, and when it was over, he wondered if it had really worked. There were no immediate changes that he could sense, so he left, feeling confused. But when he returned to Obscuary, Lyca and Ed bombarded him with lung-crushing hugs, proving that the ritual did work - his curse really was broken. He really can touch people without killing them.

Before he really processed this miracle, he was already pulling out his phone and texting you that he had big news and needed you to come to Obscuary right away. His subconscious was desperate to share the news with you, the person he loved more than anything or anyone else in the world - so he contacted you as automatically as he breathed.

It hadn’t been very long since you replied that you were on your way, but it was enough time for reality to settle in a little bit more, allowing Rui to spiral. Am I really doing this? I know I touched Lyca and Ed, but.. they’re not the Honor Student, he thought. What if something still goes wrong? Am I really willing to take the chance? Is my selfish desire really worth their safety?

Rui’s chest tightened and he stopped pacing to bury his face in his hands. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should wait until he was completely sure that nothing would happen to you. Maybe-

His train of thought was cut off by the sound of three gentle knocks on his bedroom door.

“Rui?” His heart melted at the sound of your voice calling out to him. “Are you in there?”

He took a big breath. “Y-Yeah. Just one second, cutie!” Cringing at the shakiness of his voice, Rui brought his hands up and slapped both sides of his face to center himself, and opened the door.

You stood there in your uniform, looking at him with big, round eyes filled with happiness and curiosity, and his brain completely short-circuited. The reality of what was about to happen hit him much harder with you standing right there in front of him. His palms started to sweat, causing him to wring his hands again.

Your eyes flicked down to the motion and when they looked back up to him, the happiness and curiosity were replaced with worry. “Rui, are you okay? What is happening?”

He let out a shaky breath, “Yeah, I-I’m okay. Everything is okay. Everything is actually more than okay, everything is great! Today is great! Yeah, everything is-”

“Rui.”

“Right, sorry.” He cleared his throat and gestured for you to enter his room. He closed the door behind you, and you quirked an eyebrow up at him, but otherwise said nothing, giving him the space he needed to process what he wanted to say.

“So, um, Honor Student, I- uh. I honestly don’t know how to tell you this without just..saying it, so I’m just going to say it.” You nodded encouragingly, so Rui took a deep breath, and all at once said, 

“HakubrokemycursethismorningandnowIcantouchpeople.”

── .✦

You blinked at him owlishly, trying to process his words. But your mind had gone completely blank - all of your worries vanished and were replaced by this once phrase now bouncing around in your skull like an echo in a cave.

“I’m sorry, Haku did what?”

You watched Rui let out another shaky breath before he responded, slower, “Haku broke my curse this morning. A-And now, I can..I can touch people..”

You felt a sense of understanding wash over you all at once. His text, his tense behavior, the way he kept wringing his hands - which you now realized were glove-free - it all made sense.

“Rui,” you breathed, excitement apparent in your voice.

“But maybe it’s still too soon for us to try. I mean Ed and Lyca both have touched me already and they were okay,” he quickly rambled.

“Rui.” You tried to get his attention, to break him out of his spiraling thoughts.

“But this is you we are talking about! I want to hold your hand and hug you more than anything in the world, but I will never ever forgive myself if-”

“Rui!”

His eyes snapped to yours, worry etched deeply into his features. You took a deep breath and held up your hand, palm facing him.

“Please.”

You watched him gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, before he began to raise his shaky hand to yours. He moved so slowly, making you want to reach out and grab him, but you held completely still and allowed him to move at his own speed. Though you felt so excited at this moment that you were practically giddy, Rui clearly still held strong reservations. For so long he had to live such a careful and lonely life in fear of hurting anyone, but especially you. His devotion to you has been his strongest source of motivation these past months, and his love only grew stronger each day that passed. You understood why he would be cautious - after living as he did for so long, how could he easily trust that everything was okay now? Just like that? This was a very big moment for him, and you knew he had to be processing so many feelings, so it is only right to let him set the pace.

Finally, the very tips of his fingers brushed lightly against yours and you gasped in unison. He jumped back slightly, eyes flicking from you to his shaking hand, waiting for..something to happen.

You held still to the best of your ability. Your heart was racing, pounding in your ears, and thrumming through your whole body. 

You just touched Rui. The sweetest and kindest ghoul you have come to know, the one who has brought your comfort and joy in so many more ways than you can express with words, the one who you fell in love with but could not confess to because of his condition, his curse. But now.. that was gone. There was no barrier between you. Your body buzzed with excitement.

After waiting a bit, Rui reached for your hand once more. But this time, once his shaky palm made contact with yours, you quickly laced your fingers between his and held on tight.

Rui gasped, his eyes widening in shock and his body going completely rigid. You watched as realization washed over him, and he gently closed his fingers around your hand in turn. You beamed at him, completely elated. But when he looked back to you, you realized the worry had been replaced by a swarm of emotions that Rui himself couldn’t name. His eyes welled with fat tears, and his lip began to wobble.

“Oh, Rui,” you started - but this was enough to break the dam. He choked on a sob as his knees gave out, dragging you down to the floor with him. His body shook and heaved as he released the weight of everything he had carried since being cursed - the memories, the loneliness, everything. You scooted closer to him and held him with your free hand - as he still held on tightly to the other. He buried his head in the crook of your neck and continued to cry and shake, wetting your shirt in the process.

You nuzzled your face into the top of his head and rocked your bodies back and forth in a soothing motion. You didn’t say anything, you just allowed him to cry and process in the intense and raw manner which he needed and allowed your physical presence to be a reminder that you were there and that this was real.

Over time, his sobs turned into gasps, which then turned into normal breaths. You just kept rocking him back and forth until he lifted his head to look at you. You paused, and looked down at him, with love and adoration in your eyes.

“Honor Student?” he croaked.

“Yes?”

“I think I’m.. tired. It’s been so long since I felt like this, I’m not sure..”

You remembered that his curse not only kept him from touching other living things, but also prevented him from getting tired and sleeping. It had been so long since he truly rested, and after all of that crying, you are sure he had to be completely tuckered out.

“I think that makes sense,” you said gently. “Do you want to take a nap?”

He nodded, then looked away, his cheeks and ears tinted red. “Would.. Would you stay with me?”

You smiled, “Of course.”

You helped him up off the floor of his room, finally unlatching your hands from one another, and guided him to his bed. He got in first and settled on his side, and you scooched in behind him. You slung an arm over his waist and buried your face up against his back and the back of his neck, and you felt him relax into your touch. Soon, you heard his breathing deepen and even out, and as you dozed off yourself, you couldn’t help but think about how your reaper can finally just be your love.

Tuesday morning finds you with that jittery trapped bat feeling again. All things considered, you're starting to wonder if maybe that's just the effect that knowing you're spending an evening dipping your toes into Eddie's world has on you. Corroded Coffin’s show is tonight, and you have an official Eddie Munson invitation. You put a little more effort into your appearance this morning - not the kind of effort you'd go to for a date, but the sort of effort you used to put in every day. As you fumble with your shoes again, you briefly debate the wisdom of simply leaving them undone before you finally do manage to get them tied. For the best, really - the only statement you'd be making with that particular non-conformist choice is a sharp yelp when you inevitably face-planted later. 

Today's cassette is the new-to-you Dio tape you'd picked up yesterday. It helps calm that jittery feeling, freeing the bats trapped in the attic of your chest so you can breathe easy. You take a moment in the parking lot, letting the music wash over you in peace before the day really begins.

It's nice.

Until it's not.

You can feel them, the eyes of your former friends as they watch you from across the parking lot. No doubt your change in music taste and newfound status as one of Eddie's little sheepies is the cause of their staring.

Well, let them stare. They lost the right to worry when they took the wrong side last year.

A loud smack against the driver's side door of your vehicle draws your attention with a jolt. Eddie Munson’s delighted face appears in your truck window, tongue wagging as he makes that devil face at you, his little gremlin sounds interrupting your moment of peace and causing you to nearly leap out of your own skin. Ah, the bats have returned. You stare at Eddie, wide-eyed with your hand over chest. “Jesus Christ, Munson. You scared me half to death!”

Eddie's grin only widens at that, his hands falling away from where they'd been miming devil horns, and you're starting to get the impression that being your own personal nuisance is his way of drawing you into the flock.

His mouth is moving but all you hear are vague Eddie sounds over the music playing through your speakers, so you turn the truck off and open the door carefully so as not to smack him in the chest with it.

“I said ‘my first name is Edward, actually, but I understand the confusion’.” He tugs at one of his curls, grinning like an idiot. “Same hair.”

It's such a stupid joke. It shouldn't work. But it's Eddie - heart on his sleeve, sincere even in this dumb moment of levity - and it doesn't matter that the joke is stupid or that you see through him to the distraction he's trying to provide. It works like a charm. Suddenly, your old friends don't matter. The fact that you only have their attention when you're outside of their expectations doesn't matter. Not with Eddie here, watching over you like a sheepdog tending his flock, bringing the stray little sheepies back home where they belong.

You laugh, and the smile it earns you could blind an angel. That stupid little phoenix in his chest preens, and he lets himself believe for just a moment that he has an actual chance with you. Because here you are, listening to his kind of music and laughing at his stupid jokes and smiling at him when he flirts at you like a twelve-year-old boy who's never so much as seen a pretty girl before.

“You get that mistake a lot?”

You joke back and, oh, Eddie's done for. Absolutely ruined. There's no pretending he'd burned that crush out of his system anymore, because that phoenix is burning. Bright and beautiful inside of him like his own personal sun.

His face lights up like some kind of biblically accurate angel, and for half a second you expect him to tell you ‘be not afraid’.

“Oh, totally.” He grins, playing along as he holds your truck door open for you like a gentleman while you grab your backpack and hop out.

You wonder again if Eddie Munson has always been this pretty, because that easy smile that's settled over his face has your breath held hostage.

Closing your truck door with more care than he's ever shown his old Beauville, he gestures dramatically for you to lead the way before falling in step at your shoulder. “So, was I hallucinating just then or were you listening to a second Dio tape? Because ‘Mystery’ is definitely not on Holy Diver, and I seem to recall you jamming out to ‘Stand Up And Shout’ the last time I caught you in the parking lot. Confess your sins, little sheepie - have you converted to the dark side of virgin sacrifices and constant premarital sex?” His voice dips into a lower register for dramatic gravitas as he feigns a priestly demeanor.

“As it turns out, I have it on good authority that the risk of constant premarital sex is pretty low, actually,” you tease back with a grin, and Eddie barks out a laugh - delighted that you even remembered that stupid conversation from days ago.

“Yeah, I'm starting to think it's all empty promises and propaganda.” He grins back at you as you walk into the school together. You can tell he's not quite ready to part ways, but his locker is in the opposite direction of yours and he really can't afford detention on a Tuesday evening for being late to his first class of the day. He's waffling, eking out just a few more seconds with you until you'll turn the other way and depart from him to go about your own day. 

“Probably,” you reply, not really wanting to cut your time with him short either. “I hear the jackets are pretty cool, though.” 

“Yeah?” There's something soft and warm in his expression as his body language curls towards you like a sunflower chasing the sun.

The warning bell rings before you have the chance to examine what exactly that look on his face is doing to your heart. “Shit,” Eddie curses under his breath, already pulling away. The moment is broken, the spell shattered. Whatever complicated thing might have been beginning in your chest is put on hold as he sprints a few steps down the hall. “I'll see you at lunch!” he calls to you, turning just enough to throw the words over his shoulder before he's gone.

Making your way to the journalism room, you pull on your headphones and get to work. The first draft of your Hellfire Club piece is returned with a few edits, so you tackle those first. It's mostly minor changes, so it doesn't take you long. Sifting through the photos you'd gotten Friday night, you begin the process of selecting which ones are going to make it into the yearbook. The main one, of course, will be the shot you'd taken in the hall afterwards - the chaotic one. There's an excellent shot of Erica’s game-winning natural twenty with the players reacting in the background, and a few of Eddie being delightfully dramatic. You decide to include the ‘nicer’ photo from the hallway, too, just so their parents will have something to show for the money they'd spent. Your favorite, though, is the shot you'd taken of Eddie bowing to his players in congratulations, a proud little grin on his face. It's dramatic, obviously, but it's also warm. Welcoming. An invitation. Arms wide open as if to say ‘you too can be a part of this’.

Once you're satisfied with your choices and certain that each member has at least one decent candid outside of the group shot, you turn in your layout and second draft for approval. Mrs. Rychnovsky is working with Candace on her edits for the basketball team's pages, so you grab another section that needs editing and a red pen and make yourself busy.

You're a little disappointed when your latest Dio cassette doesn't have the song on it. You'd hoped, since he had the album art on his jacket, that this would be the one. The yearbook is due soon, and you have to submit a quote for Eddie before the end of the week in order to get it approved by the deadline. You pop in another cassette and continue editing.

The rest of the morning is largely uneventful. Your morning classes are always easy - most of your senior year classes are easy, actually. When lunch rolls around, you feel a sense of anticipation you weren't expecting. You have friends again. Friends who sit with you. 

When you walk into the cafeteria, bagged lunch in hand, and see your usual spot just as empty as always, your heart sinks for a moment. But then, movement catches your eye, and you see Dustin standing and waving wildly at you like he's trying to hail a cab.

“Star Wars or Star Trek?” the freshman asks you when you approach the table, a little out of breath from his strenuous waving routine.

“What?” you ask with a confused little laugh.

“Settle the debate. It's a tie. Star Wars or Star Trek - which one's better?” Dustin repeats, explaining it with the same tone you'd use on a five-year-old. You understand now why Eddie weaponizes condescension against him - he's kind of a shit.

“I mean - that's kind of a bad comparison, don't you think? Other than the fact that they're both science fiction, they're wildly different concepts,” you reply, standing there awkwardly with your lunch in your hand and a confused look on your face.

Dustin considers you for a long moment before narrowing his eyes. “Elaborate,” he requests, finally sitting back down like you've passed some sort of test only to begin a newer, more complicated one. Eddie shoves Gareth farther down the bench so you can take the spot beside him across the table from Dustin.

“Okay, so, they're both space adventures. I'll grant you that.” You begin your defense as you sit down, feeling a little like you're defending your master’s thesis or something. “But they might as well be in different genres. Star Wars is more like an epic fantasy, the story of good prevailing over evil and the sacrifices that are made. Star Trek is more like… a philosophical exploration of ethics. They take a question of ethics and extrapolate it out to the most ridiculous extreme they can, and then explore the nature of humanity with it. Is war more humane if it's all a computer simulation, no destruction of civilization or radiation from bombs, and the people who would die in the conflicts are simply vaporized - or is it just more palatable? It’s apples and oranges.”

Dustin sits with that for a moment, mulling over your point like he’s passing judgement. “I’ll allow it,” he says finally with a nod before returning to debating about it with Mike instead.

You blink, but it seems your explanation was satisfactory, the conversation continuing on to the next pedantic thing.

Eddie bumps your shoulder with his, offering you a pretzel and a grin. “Nice job surviving the Henderson Inquisition. Many a lesser nerd have been slayed by semantics. Was worried we’d lost you for a moment.”

Grinning back, you take the pretzel and pop it in your mouth as you open your bagged lunch and pull out a sandwich. “I took a debate class. Henderson’s got nothing on having to oppose Carver's position to a teacher who thinks he's God's gift to Indiana. I did fail that one.”

An easy sense of camaraderie settles over you as you eat your lunch, the antics of the group adapting easily around the newest addition as if you'd always been a part of this. Eddie continues funneling pretzels into your hand, quietly taking care of you with a level of subtlety you hadn't actually realized he was capable of - not overbearing, not drawing attention to it, just little things that let you know he's watching out for you just like you'd looked out for him during the pep rally.

Gareth asks Jeff a question about their setlist for tonight, and that reminds you that you'd never actually finalized any plans with them for their show. Finishing your sandwich, you turn to Eddie as he's gleefully antagonizing Mike about something or other.

“Hey, Eddie.” He half-turns towards you so you know you have his ear, his ornery grin still pointed at Mike as he fires off one last jab before turning his head to look at you properly.

“What's up, sweetheart?”

You're surprised at the little flutter that causes in your chest. It's far from the first time he's ever called you that - heck, you're pretty sure it's his default. But it is the first time you've heard him say it quite like that - softer, kinder, like he means it. “Um, your gig tonight - what time do those five drunks usually show up? Wanna beat the crowd, make sure I get a good seat and all,” you ask teasingly.

“I'm pretty sure you'd have to show up at opening time to beat them there,” Eddie replies with a bright grin, delighted that you're really coming, and that you care enough to show up on time. “But - if you wanted - I could, um, pick you up on my way. Make sure you get the real VIP treatment.” It's a little too much like asking you out, and he suddenly feels far more vulnerable than he's comfortable with, so he takes the pressure off with a joke. “Though I gotta warn you, the backstage pass experience mostly includes sticky floors with questionable stains and the great honor of helping the band set up and break down.”

He shrugs when he asks, and you can immediately tell this means something to him - giving you a ride to the show. You're not absolutely certain what it means, but you find yourself not exactly opposed to it meaning more than a friendly offer to save you some gas. “Yeah. Okay,” you agree with a shy little grin that tugs at the corners of your mouth. “I'll be your roadie for tonight.”

Eddie has to consciously tell himself it's not a date. His smile betrays him, though, with that full-body sunflower curl towards you. “Pick you up at seven?”

“Works for me,” you answer.

It sure feels like a date. Especially when Eddie's shoulder suddenly seems to settle a lot closer to yours, his arm brushing against yours as he talks, his forearm resting flush with yours as he offers you more pretzels.

The bell rings as you're laughing at some dig that Jeff lobbed Eddie's way like a grenade, and once again you can tell Eddie isn't quite ready to part ways with you. But alas, you have a test next period and Eddie can't afford to get detention tonight - especially when he's picking you up before the show.

Your afternoon somehow manages to drag by at a snail’s pace, and yet you absorb nothing from it. You're reasonably confident you didn't bomb that test, but you hardly remember taking it. Instead, all you seem to be able to think about is Eddie and that angel-blinding smile of his, the way his body angles towards you when you do something that makes him happy, the way he's definitely been flirting with you on and off these past few days. How he gets a little more tactile with you every time you bond about something. You don't get a lot of editing done in your drop period, instead writing down some more song options for Eddie's senior quote. By the time the final bell rings, you've barely made it through the copy you were trying to edit. You leave it in your workspace for tomorrow and make your way out to the parking lot.

Eddie's van is already gone, and you ignore the tiny pang of disappointment you feel. You're going to see him in a couple of hours anyway, and you need to get going yourself. You've never been on a not-date to the Hideout before, and you're not completely certain what the expected dress code is. Do you try and dress up to impress Eddie, running the risk of making it weird by trying too hard? Do you dress casual and risk making it weird by not trying hard enough, giving Eddie the impression that you don't want whatever this is to be a date - or for it to be a date at some point in the future? Is there a secret third option you haven't yet figured out?

That trapped bat feeling comes back with a vengeance as you work yourself up about what is, realistically, nothing. You are not going on a date - it's a group outing if anything, with all of the guys old enough to have their own driver's licenses. It's fine.

Except it's not fine. It's not nothing. It's… something. Something you haven't figured out yet. And that makes you nervous. Because you like Eddie. You like being one of his little sheepies. You like being part of his world.

And you don't want to fuck it up.

So here you are, a bat trapped in the attic just flying into walls, stressed and nervous as you search blindly. Most of the clothes you'd wear for a date just remind you of your ex, and your usual clothes feel too casual. You've never even been to the Hideout before. Deciding that maybe you need to just get in the right headspace, you put in a cassette of one of the bands you know Eddie likes and turn back to your closet with a fresh perspective.

It's exactly what you needed. The music soothes you, opens a window and lets the bats out into the night sky - leaving only you and the music. With the help of an epic guitar riff, you pull together an outfit that is both casual and flattering - the secret third thing you'd been searching for. Not too much, not too little, just you putting your best foot forward in a way that feels complimentary to the music. You're grateful that your parents are out of town for their anniversary this week so you don't have to worry about explaining whatever this not-a-date is with Eddie Munson. You're free to finish getting ready in peace.

By the time Eddie's van pulls into your driveway, you're sitting on the porch ready to go. His eyes pass over you in what was supposed to be a subtle move but has failed spectacularly. Eddie Munson is rarely subtle, and with the way he looks like he's lit up from a fire inside his chest at the sight of you, he's not about to start now.

If he hadn't been an idiot, he would have picked you up first so he could tell you how pretty you are. He half considers doing it anyway as he hops out of the van and ushers you to the passenger seat - but the guys would not be cool about it, and he's not about to ruin his shot before he's even really taken it. So instead he opens the van door for you like a gentleman, helping you into the passenger seat and closing the door before making a mad dash back to the driver's seat. He is not about to leave you alone in his van with those hooligans he calls friends. Not when they know his best-kept secrets. Especially not when you look like that to go watch their shitty band - his shitty band - play at a shitty dive bar in fucking Hawkins of all places. If he's gone too long, one of them is bound to bring up one of his many, many, many regrettable decisions that led to even more regrettable stories.

Luckily, he slides into place behind the steering wheel right as Gareth opens his mouth. “Shut up.” He points a finger at his friend's face, glaring at him over the back of the bench seat in the front.

“What?” Gareth responds, offended. “I was just gonna tell her hi. She's my friend, too.”

“Hi, Gareth,” you laugh, turning to wave over your shoulder at the younger guy. Eddie casts Gareth one last suspicious glare before turning around so he can drive.

To his great and mildly dubious surprise, there are no retellings of his greatest disasters. He'd half-expected the conversation to center around the great and infamous Eddie Munson Collection of Mistakes, but his assorted heathens are being surprisingly amicable tonight. The drive goes smoothly, with Eddie only having to defend himself from dumb stories that make him seem endearing rather than the grand fuckups he usually gets teased about.

When you get to the Hideout, the boys unload out the back and Eddie races around the front of the van to open the door for you - he might be a lot of things, but Wayne made sure one of those things was gentlemanly. Not in the fancy ways - he's too poor for that shit - but in the ways that count. His hands hover at your waist as you step out of the van, just enough contact to stay this side of chivalrous. The curve of your hip has been haunting him ever since the pep rally when he'd pretended to steady you and gotten acquainted with it, but he restrains himself. This is not a date.

You help them unload, carrying equipment in and setting up microphones under the guys’ instructions. Eddie wasn't kidding about the crowd - their five drunks are already here, and already drunk. One of them wolf whistles at you as you're adjusting Gareth’s mic stand, kneeled down to angle it towards the kick drum, and you feel Eddie's eyes on you before you see him. Watching. Waiting. Gauging your reaction to temper his own. He's not your boyfriend. He's not even your date, that little voice in the back of his mind reminds him oh so helpfully. He's not about to ruin whatever this is between you by being an overbearing caveman when some other guy looks at you.

But if you do want him to play the hero?

Well, Eddie Munson has been playing understudy for the role of Knight In Shining Armor his entire life, and he'll be damned if he misses his chance to take the spotlight.

The set of your shoulders tells him it's time to take the stage - literally and figuratively. He hops up onto the little platformed area that's set up for live performances, guitar in hand, making his way to you. You turn to face him from where you're kneeled in front of the drums, standing when he approaches.

“Hey, sweetheart. Want me to get that for you?” Eddie grins, his free hand landing casually on the curve of your hip like it belongs there as he gently repositions you where he wants you - out of the way of the mic, and partially obscured from sight by the drum kit. He holds out his guitar with an air of overdramatic gravitas. “The original Sweetheart, sweetheart. Keep her safe for me for a sec?” The grin he gives you is softer than usual, a silent ‘are you okay?’ in his eyes. Gareth freezes from where he's setting up one of his cymbals, staring at Eddie like he'd just done something unfathomable. Eddie Munson does not let other people touch his guitar. The only people who have ever held his Sweetheart are Eddie himself and his uncle Wayne - the man who'd bought it for Eddie's sixteenth birthday after working overtime and saving every penny for an entire year straight just to give Eddie the one thing he knew the kid wanted.

Eddie's got it bad.

You don't notice the look on Gareth's face, too busy giving Eddie a grateful smile and taking his guitar with careful, reverent hands. You don't need to see Gareth's expression to know this is important. It's evident in the way Eddie's fingers touch the guitar like it’s something sacred. “I'll defend her with my life.”

Eddie makes quick work of the mic, his hand immediately finding your hip again as he takes the guitar back from you and puts it in the stand as you pass by. He herds you gently off the stage with him and over to a table like an overprotective Border Collie, pulling out a chair with a dramatic flourish. “Milady,” he says as he bows. “The best seat in the house. Great view of the band, and no questionable stains on the upholstery.”

You laugh warmly as you sit, a grin tugging at one side of your mouth like you can't help it. There's a faint breeze from the AC vent above, and you shiver slightly. Eddie notices instantly, taking his jacket off with the fluidity of a man dressed up as a cop at a bachelorette party. It settles around your shoulders, weighty and warm.

“Keep this safe for me? Gets hot up there under the lights,” he explains, voice casual despite the way he feels like his entire body is on fire from that phoenix in his chest. The sight of you sitting there with his jacket around your shoulders is not helping the whole this-is-not-a-date thing - because it feels like a date. Or at least, it feels like it could be a date. Especially when you slip your arms into the sleeves without hesitation.

Eddie hurries back to the stage before he does something stupid like kiss you on the mouth.

The band does a quick sound check, and you go to the bar to order yourself a pop. All they have is Coke for making mixed drinks, so you take it and pay the bartender. He's grinning at you like an older sibling gearing up to tease their little brother's first girlfriend. “You're awful polite to be hanging around that crowd.” He gestures at Corroded Coffin as they bicker about something on stage. The bartender’s eyes settle pointedly on Eddie's jacket around your shoulders. “Good for him. About time that kid got himself a catch.” There's a smirk on his lips, like he's daring you to correct him. To distance yourself from Eddie Munson.

You don't.

“Thanks for the Coke,” you tell him instead, dropping your change into the tip jar and making your way back to the table. You might not be Eddie Munson’s girl, but you're sure as hell not ashamed to be associated with him either.

As you sit back down at your table, the boys seem to sort out whatever their argument had been about and scurry to their appropriate places on stage to begin their set. If you didn't know any better, you'd think Corroded Coffin was playing at Madison Square Garden to a thousand adoring fans from the way Eddie introduces the band. Gareth counts them in, Jeff hits the first few notes, and then Eddie screams in with a power chord on Sweetheart that captures your attention immediately.

They're better than you expected. Eddie especially. You shouldn't really be surprised - the lean muscle of his forearms and the dexterity of his hands tells you that he's spent years practicing, and you've seen the way he can command a room with showmanship when you attended the Hellfire Club's session last Friday. 

It's more the fact that they only draw a crowd of five drunks.

Eddie Munson has always worn his too-big heart on his sleeve, but this? This is him open and exposed in a way you've never seen before, the very heart of him on display as he sings about the ache of loneliness. You don't recognize the song, can't tell if it's a cover or an original, but it doesn't matter. Eddie owns it like every note was torn from his very soul. And maybe it was. You think about that moment at the pep rally, when you'd noticed for the first time just how much people went out of their way to avoid him. When you'd seen his loneliness beneath all that bravado he wears like armor. You think about how he'd seen your loneliness, too - even before you yourself had noticed it for what it was. How he'd seen the loneliness in each of his little sheepies, how he'd herded them together, built a flock for them and become the sheepdog that keeps them safe.

Eddie Munson is quite a lot of things, and you're starting to understand just how many of them are deeply misunderstood.

By the time the set ends, you realize that Eddie wasn't just being chivalrous in giving you his jacket - the man is absolutely dripping with sweat. The bartender brings you four bottles of water, leaving them at the table with a wink that gives you the impression he's trying to be your wingman before disappearing to tend to his drunks. Your boys are already tearing down when you hop onto the stage with their waters, Eddie's jacket still adorning your shoulders.

“That was really good,” you gush as you hand Eddie his water. Your eyes wander a little, just for a moment as he wipes sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt.

“Yeah?” His whole body leans in towards you as he takes the water bottle, all sunflower behavior and smiles.

The others descend upon you before you can reply properly, eager to hydrate. You answer their questions about what you thought, praising them each in turn and offering your opinions about the set.

Eddie can't take his eyes off of you. Standing there in his jacket, talking to his friends that are now your friends too, discussing his band.

God, he wants to kiss you.

“What?” you ask, a puzzled little grin on your face as you notice him staring.

“Nothing,” he replies softly, shaking his head and smiling. “Just riding the high of a good show.”

You furrow your brow skeptically at him but don't press.

“Not to be a buzzkill or whatever, but my mom wasn't kidding about that whole ‘10:30 on a school night’ thing,” Gareth interjects, checking his watch anxiously.

“We're fine, man. Chill out,” Eddie replies casually.

“Yeah, well, keep saying that when she doesn't let us practice in the garage anymore, man,” Gareth practically whines.

“Alright. Alright!” Eddie replies good-naturedly, rolling his eyes playfully at you before moving to help tear everything down. You don't really know how to disassemble any of the equipment, so you simply grab what's already packed in the appropriate cases or tied in a bundle with an extension cord and carry it out to the van. With the added help of you loading equipment, the van is packed in record time and the boys are piling into the back. Eddie opens the van door for you with another little flourish, hands finding your hips again as he helps you in.

“See? I told you we were fine. We've got enough time to stop for burgers,” Eddie taunts Gareth with a grin.

“Just get me home on time, Munson, or I'm telling Wayne you got me grounded.”

Eddie cackles.

Gareth’s place is the first stop, and the boys quickly hop out to help unload everything into his garage.

“Hang tight, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you, leaving the van running so you can listen to the stereo.

You do as you're told, taking the time to study the contents of his van. There's an open pack of cigarettes on the dash, a Market Square Arena ticket stub from last year stuck to the dashboard with a Triumph sticker in one corner and a Mountain sticker in the other. A surprisingly clean ashtray. There's that campfire smell again, beneath the warm leather and cigarettes. Eddie's cassette collection is in a milk crate on the floorboard, and you rifle through it idly as you wait. There's a few that take you by surprise - Tennessee bluegrass and country most specifically. Not that Eddie has ever come across as particularly uncomplicated, but for as passionate as he is about the music he connects with, these cassettes seem well-loved for music you've never heard him talk about before.

Unloading goes quicker here than it did at the Hideout, and the remaining guys are piling back into the van before you can be any nosier.

“Miss me?” Eddie grins mischievously as he slides into the driver's seat with a chaotic sort of grace.

“Oh, terribly,” you reply sarcastically, settling back into your seat as Eddie pulls back onto the road.

He plans it out better this time. Since Gareth needed to be home early, it only made sense to drop him off first. After that, well, it only made sense to drop off the other guys one by one until, at last, it was just you and him.

“Hey, are you hungry?” he asks you, glancing at you as he pulls away from the curb outside Jeff's house. “I was messing with Gareth earlier, but burgers actually sound really good and Benny's is only like a five minute drive out of the way.” His voice is carefully neutral, but his expression is not as finely controlled and you can see the hopefulness in the question as he asks it. Eddie always had worn his heart on his sleeve.

This is not a date.

“Want to split an order of fries?” you ask, and you'd think you'd just turned on the sun with the way Eddie lights up.

You can tell when you walk into the diner that Eddie is a late-night regular here. The waitress waves at him and hollers at the pair of you to take his usual booth. You slide in across from him, the leather of the seat beneath you and the leather of his jacket around your shoulders squeaking and creaking in a sort of call and response as you make yourself comfortable. The place smells like beef tallow and apple pie.

Eddie raises his eyebrows when you ask the waitress for a milkshake with your family size basket of fries. “What?” you ask.

“You sure about that?” he asks in a tone that seems out of place for a question about milkshakes.

“I like milkshakes!” you reply defensively.

“Okay,” he replies, holding his hands up placatingly. There's a moment where things feel tense and awkward, and you don't like it.

And then the food comes, and you understand his question.

“Oh my god,” you whisper as you stare at the milkshake in front of you. It's massive, all sugary dairy goodness in what has to be a 40 ounce glass.

Eddie laughs, and the tension is broken. “You, uh, want some help with that?” He grins, placing his elbows on the table and idly playing with his curls, running his fingers through a section at the front by his face and twisting it around his knuckle.

“Please.” You answer a little desperately, looking at him with a shy little grin and an embarrassed laugh.

He plucks a fry from your shared basket, grinning like he's never been happier. Maybe he hasn't. 

The waitress comes by and you ask for a second straw. She hands it to you with a comment about ‘lovebirds’, and your face turns the faintest, prettiest shade of pink Eddie's ever seen.

This is not a date.

Eddie houses his burger like a starving man, having worked up an appetite while performing earlier and needing to do something with his mouth other than tell you how much he wishes he'd just asked you out properly. “So, you find that elusive senior quote yet?” he asks between bites, choosing something slightly safer. He's fully abandoned the pretense that he doesn't care about it at all. In truth, he doesn't care about the quote itself - he cares what it tells him about how you see him. Part of him wonders if you'll choose one of his song lyrics, and part of him hopes you don't. It's too easy. You're just regurgitating his words back to him, and while that means you heard him, he wants to know what you think. What you see when you look at him.

You shake your head, mouth full of french fries, taking a sip of the milkshake before answering. “I don't think so. I thought about asking Gareth that first day for some of your lyrics to try and find something, but… I don't know. It seemed too personal. If you wanted to put them down as your senior quote, you would have given them to me yourself.” You shrug, picking at the fries and popping a few in your mouth, the chain on the sleeve of Eddie's jacket clinking against the tabletop as you move your arm around. “There's a few solid lyrics in the running, but nothing that really jumps out at me yet. I've got two more days, so if I don't find the song by Friday I'll pick one of those.”

The way you talk about it, like this really matters to you, might actually burn him alive in phoenix fire.

“I was hoping that Dio album from this morning would have been the one since it's on your vest,” you hook your thumb over your shoulder, gesturing at the back panel of his battle vest, “ but alas, it didn't provide the great insight into your inner machinations that I was hoping it would.”

At the mention of this morning, Eddie remembers the way you'd said you liked his jacket, the very one you're wearing now. His hand winds its way into his hair again, twisting and untwisting his curls and dragging them across his face like a shield that can hide how gone he is for you. He also recalls how you laughed at his stupid joke when he was trying to distract you from the way those girls were looking at you. They'd seemed familiar, and he's pretty sure he'd seen you with them your sophomore year. “Hey, speaking of this morning, what was up with those girls?”

You dip a french fry in your milkshake and stare at it pensively for a second before eating it. “We used to be friends.” It feels good to talk about it with him, so you elaborate. “They probably don't approve of my recently expanding horizons, or that I'm friends with you.” You shrug, glancing up at him. “They're the ones who ditched me last year. I think they're just mad that I've got better friends now.” The words come out before you've really thought about them, but they're true - Eddie and the rest of the Hellfire Club have gone out of their way to draw you into the fold, to include you and look after you. Eddie especially.

“They sound like they suck.” Eddie responds easily, his voice hiding how deeply touched he is by that sentiment. Not a lot of people would consider being part of his little band of outcasts an upgrade. There's a grin on his face, lighthearted and playful, and you laugh.

A moment of peace settles between you before you speak again. “They liked my ex better than me. Took his side when we broke up, even when they knew he hurt me. Tried to tell me I should have apologized to him for making him so angry, that he's a really great guy and I was lucky to have him.” Your tone is light, calm, and you're surprised to find the ache in your chest that's been a constant companion for the last year is quieter, less sharp than before.

“Let me guess - letterman jacket, very punchable face?” Eddie replies jokingly - not making light, just noticing that you're not drowning in it and doing his part to keep you buoyed above it. “Those types are always inexplicably beloved, even when they're assholes. Like daddy’s money and being good at sports makes up for not having a worthwhile personality.” He's not bitter about it, just commiserating. Eddie Munson is far too familiar with people taking everyone's side but his.

The fact that Eddie neither pities you nor blames you heals something deep in your chest that you hadn't realized was hurting. “I wish I'd figured out how cool you are years ago.”

His fingers twist in his curls again, pulling them over his face like armor. “What made you finally take notice?”

“Spite, mostly,” you laugh, thinking about Candace and dipping another fry in the milkshake. The leather of Eddie's jacket creaks quietly as you bring the fry to your mouth. “Candace was complaining about having to actually stick to the two page limit for the basketball team for the umpteenth time, so I pointed out that some clubs haven't even gotten that much. Hellfire happened to be the first example when I opened last year's yearbook. There wasn't even a picture of you guys.”

You pick at the fries for a moment, remembering how the blatant annulment of the club’s very existence by the previous yearbook committees had sat wrong with you. An injustice that no one cared about, if they even noticed it at all. “And then I noticed there wasn't a picture of you anywhere - not in any of the yearbooks you should have been in, other than the one shitty picture you're in the background of from shop class. Maybe you'd slipped through the cracks one year, but five? It felt like you'd been erased - like you didn't matter. Like you weren't even here. You've been here for five years and they barely even say your name, but god forbid the basketball team be restricted to two pages.” 

Crossing your arms on the table, you fidget with the sleeves of Eddie's jacket around your hands and make your way back to the original point. “I think what really made me start paying attention was seeing you in your Algebra class. Every other time I've seen you, you're always putting on a performance - but that was just you. You've always been this larger-than-life presence, and I think it was the first time I'd ever really seen just Eddie.”

Eddie leans across the table, an expression on his face you've never seen before as he comes closer, and for a brief moment he nearly forgets himself.

This is not a date.

He takes a long sip of the milkshake instead.

“Most people like ‘just Eddie Munson’ even less than they like the performance,” he admits, his own defenses cracking open to meet you where you're at.

“Well, I think he's pretty cool,” you tell him casually, though the nervous way you pick at the shared basket of fries tells a different story.

He'd been worried that this was all a prank and that it would crush his too-soft heart when it all came crashing down around him. He's still worried it's going to crush him, because now he knows it's not. Because you do see him, or at least you've started to. Not the performance, not the spectacle he'd had to become to keep the wolves at bay, just Eddie. The outspoken rebel, certainly, but also the lonely little boy he used to be. The too-big, too-soft heart that beats in his chest, that he'd been unable to hide away beneath his armor despite his very best efforts.

Because if Eddie Munson is one thing, it's all heart.

And it's all yours.

He carefully collects a handful of fries, deft fingers gathering french fries like they're flowers with far more care than is required, his hand brushing yours in the process. You recognize it for the test that it is - is this allowed?

Eddie's touched you a handful of times by now, but always under some kind of pretense - steadying you, the general proximity of the lunch table, dissuading drunk creeps twice your age - but never just because he wanted to.

Is he allowed to want to?

You don't pull away, don't react like he's got some kind of infectious disease. Your own fingers brush his as you go in for another fry.

“Guess I should thank Candace for being such a petty bitch.” The joke lands exactly as intended, earning him a bright laugh.

“I'll write her a thank-you card from the both of us,” You reply playfully.

Your fingers dance between his, almost lacing together but not quite as you dig for the last of the fries with a smile on your lips.

This is not a date.

But it feels like one.

Especially when you both take a drink out of the milkshake from your respective straws.

You let Eddie finish it off, laughing as he slurps the last of it as obnoxiously as possible. Your hands have shifted away from the now-empty fry basket, settled on the countertop instead where your fingers can lazily interlace with his. Casual, like the fact that you're sitting there in his jacket, holding his hand, laughing at his stupid antics isn't absolutely rocking his world.

Eddie pays for your fries and your milkshake, practically giddy when your fingers find his again on the way back to the van. Ever a gentleman, he opens the door for you and helps you in. His palms linger on your hips a little more purposefully this time, as if he's trying out letting himself touch you for reasons other than practicality. You watch as he scurries around to the driver's seat and slides in behind the wheel again.

Every moment of the drive that his hand isn't on the gear shift, your hands find each other to tangle your fingers together again. The drive is far too short, all shy smiles and giddy hearts like a couple of lovesick kids. The van pulls up to your driveway, and Eddie scrambles to get out and open your door before you can do it for yourself. You wait patiently, having figured out by now that Eddie will insist on being chivalrous whenever the opportunity presents itself. Offering you his hand, he helps you out of the old Beauville like always.

This feels like a date.

“I had a really nice time tonight, Eddie,” you tell him, voice soft and almost shy as you lean in to hug him goodbye. For a brief moment, Eddie lets himself fantasize about kissing you - pulling you in, leaning close, your breath fanning across his face before his lips meet yours.

But then you lean in, and Eddie doesn't know what to do with himself. He freezes, completely still as your lips find their way to his cheek to press a soft, sweet little kiss there. Eddie hasn't been kissed on the cheek since he was six years old and his mom was patching up his knee after he took a spill on his bicycle.

It takes a full 30 seconds for his brain to reboot, and by then you're already pulling away. He wants to reach out and stop you, to pull you back in and kiss you properly, but his body simply won't cooperate. All he can do is stand there like an idiot, blushing furiously from a kiss to the cheek, and watch as you go inside.

After a moment, Eddie manages to regain control of himself and return to his van. He sits in your driveway for a long moment, replaying that kiss over and over in his mind’s eye before he finally pulls back out onto the road. His fingers twitch, missing the feel of yours resting between them, and he rolls down his window so he can light a cigarette. The chill of the late Indiana spring night hits his skin, making him shiver - and that's when it hits him.

You're still wearing his jacket.

This was a date.

Eddie doesn't get a lot of sleep when he gets home.

You on the other hand sleep perfectly fine cuddled up with Eddie's jacket.

Taglist: @yorshie @luckycharms1701 @turtlecleric @thepinkpanther83 @losingmygrasponreality @the-cauldron-witch @sheneedsrocknroll92 @totallysocially @v1per1ne @the-rowanoke @s1mp-4-ga11y @thedoubleexposurephotography @eris-rose-86 @sihtricswife @lemon-sm00thie @mikuley @dwtshq @lucydixon @love-anonymous-writer @kaita @melvin333 @xemmjx @awkward00noodle @wyverntatty @sweetpeapod @keltea7

Also extremely special thanks to yorshie, lucky, cleric, and pinky without whom this fic would straight up never have seen the light of day. Y'all are the MVPs and I appreciate you so much.

When you pull into the school parking lot the following morning playing Dio loud enough that Eddie can hear it from where he's smoking in his van with the windows rolled down two spaces over, he has to do a double take before he's practically falling out of his van and scrambling after you as you walk toward the building.

“Do mine ears deceive me?” he asks a little breathlessly as he jogs up behind you, slinging an arm around your shoulders as you walk into the school like you've been co-conspirators for years. “Was that ‘Stand Up and Shout’? How did I not know you were a fellow acolyte of metal?” All suspicions from yesterday are gone in this moment, replaced by puppy dog excitement on his face as he talks about one of his favorite things.

You've never been up close and personal with Eddie Munson before. He smells better than you would have expected, had you ever thought about that before. Like leather and cigarettes, sure, but also far less of armpit stink than the average high school boy. There's a hint of something that reminds you of warm nights around a campfire with people you love, too, an undercurrent that seems to just come purely from him.

He's grinning at you, expression playful and one dimple taunting you on the far side of his face. The heat that radiates off of him makes you want to lean closer to ward away the crisp spring morning air, but you don't. His puppy-like enthusiasm is contagious, though, and you're grinning back at him a little shyly. “It's kind of a new development, actually,” you admit easily.

Eddie raises his eyebrows at you, leaning back a little from where his arm is settled on your shoulders so that he can get a better look at you. “Oh? And what, pray tell, brought such a pretty lady to the doorstep of debauchery? Listening to my kind of music leads to premarital sex, you know. Or so they keep telling me, anyway.” The look on his face is nearly a pout, and you can't help the little laugh that escapes at the self-deprecating jab about not getting nearly as much sex as he'd been promised.

“You did, actually. I was looking for a line to use for your senior quote, so I picked up some used tapes of bands that I know you like to try and find something that fits.”

The breath nearly punches out of Eddie's chest, and he just looks at you for a long moment. If his arm hadn't been wrapped around your shoulders, keeping him tethered to you as you continue on, he probably would have stopped walking entirely. “No shit?” There's wonder in his voice when he asks, like you've said something magical.

You smile awkwardly, nodding, not quite sure what to make of his response. “As it turns out, I like your taste in music quite a bit.”

Eddie is still flabbergasted that you went to the trouble, especially now that he knows you spent money, and doesn't quite know what to do with himself. It's such a little, stupid thing, but you were really putting in the effort to go the extra mile. You had even paid enough attention to him to know which bands to try. He wants to tell you that it isn't worth the trouble, but he's always been a little selfish and he's never really had anybody go out of their way to try and understand him the way you are now. He wants to bask in it a little longer, even though he still doesn't trust that you aren't playing a joke on him - something he shouldn't have to keep reminding himself of. “What's the verdict?” Eddie asks, something dangerously close to hope on his face. He wants to know what you've picked, what you think encapsulates Eddie Munson. It's probably just something about his bad boy image. The disappointment he feels at the thought of you not picking something deeper than that takes him by surprise. Maybe that little crush he'd had on you during his first attempt at senior year isn't as dead and burned out as he thought it was.

You shrug, jostling his arm a little, deliberately ignoring the way that look on his face makes your stomach try to take flight. Hell, maybe shrugging is your tell. “Haven't decided yet. I'll know it when I hear it.”

“Yeah? Well, let me know what you come up with.” His voice is just a touch softer than usual, and you feel like something between you is shifting. ‘It's not like I care,’ he'd said before, and the words bounce around your mind - a direct contradiction to his overtly piqued interest now.

“You could always get a yearbook,” you tease him lightly. Eddie scoffs, rolling his eyes at the thought.

“Awful lot of money to spend on the Hawkins High basketball team's memoir.”

“Yeah, but Hellfire Club will actually be in it this year,” you rebut. It's your personal goal this year as yearbook editor to make sure that everyone gets at least something worth shelling out the money on a yearbook for.

Eddie's voice is still light, but you feel the weight of his arm around your shoulders grow heavier for a moment. “We'll see,” is all he says before you part ways and that weight is gone, leaving you feeling colder than you'd been before. You wonder if he meant him buying a yearbook, or Hellfire Club actually getting a feature.

First period is spent helping Candace trim down the spread on the basketball team. She genuinely had been trying, and you can see it in the new copy she shows you, so you take a little pity on her. The suggestion to take out a few of the multitude of photos she'd wanted to use is met with resistance, but you gently explain that she can use that space for more text. Seeing her still looking skeptical, you decide to help her combine some of them into a collage, replacing one of the photos she'd intended to use in a larger space and freeing up at least three areas that had been laid out for photographs.

Speaking of photographs, when you make it to your own workspace you see the photo of Eddie you'd submitted for use in the yearbook sitting there on your desk with a sticky note attached. You're almost nervous to see what the verdict is, and your stomach drops a little when you see neither an ‘approved' nor a ‘denied’ but a ‘come see me’ written on the note. Careful hands peel away the note and pick up the photo like it's something precious before you head to Mrs. Rychnovsky’s desk.

“Yes?” she asks as you approach.

Holding the note up, you hand it to her to throw in the little trash can by her desk. “You wanted to see me?”

Mrs. Rychnovsky heaves a long-suffering sigh. You're her favorite, always have been, though she's careful not to make that fact apparent in the way she treats you or the other students. Eddie Munson, on the other hand, was decidedly not one of her favorites. He was loud, and chaotic, and gave her a headache even though she'd never had him in her class. Sometimes, the part of her that likes to suffer wishes he had taken her Journalism class. At the very least, he'd be great at the editorial assignments everyone groaned at. Maybe then she'd have something that at least challenged the common view of things and posed an interesting argument. Maybe it would have given the Munson boy a more constructive outlet for all of those opinions he has than scuffing cafeteria tabletops with his Reeboks. She'd probably have less headaches if he wrote his arguments instead of delivering them at the top of his lungs. “Is that photo really the best you could get?”

It's uncharacteristic for you to waffle on a yes or no answer, but you do. “It's… the most Eddie photo I could get?” You offer hopefully. “Well, the most Eddie one that's printable, anyway.”

The look she gives you is unamused, and unconvinced.

“Okay, fine, I got an actual respectable one,” you relent with distaste, “but it doesn't have any of his personality in it.” You can see she's about to shoot you down, but you're not done yet. Eddie deserves something, and you're going to fight for it. “Come on, Mrs. R.,” you plead his case fervently, “This is his third year and it's the first time he's had a senior photo at all. Did you know he's not even in any of the other yearbooks? Nowhere. I had to go all the way back to his freshman year to find a single photo of him anywhere, and it's from the piece on Mr. Clarke's retirement. You can barely even tell it's him. He's in the background and he's not even facing the camera. He doesn't even show up in the piece on the Hellfire Club, because there isn't one. Nobody has done an actual piece on his club since he started highschool, they just phone it in with a list of the member's names. Last year they weren't even in the yearbook at all.” You let out a huff, realizing you'd gotten a little more worked up about this than you'd meant to. “He’s not even doing anything against school policy in this one, technically. Let him have this. Please?” You're not above a little begging when it suits you.

Okay, so maybe her favoritism shows a little bit sometimes.

She relents, and you can't help the victorious smile that surges across your face at winning this small battle on Eddie's behalf. Going back to your workspace to help Candace reconfigure her photo spread and edit the basketball copy down to fit onto two pages, you pull your walkman out and continue your quest for Eddie's senior quote until the bell rings. Candace leaves, and you spend some time starting the long process of developing the rest of the photos you'd taken yesterday as well as a few that one of the jocks who you don't trust with expensive chemicals took before busying yourself with editing copy and photo spreads. All the while, your headphones are blaring the sweet sounds of epic guitar riffs as you work your way through the cassettes you'd purchased. Several sections of the yearbook are ready for their final edits and approval already, and you place their page mockups and copy into the binder for finalizing before heading off to your next class.

Lunch rolls around, and you can see Eddie giving one of his impassioned speeches and playfully startling the school counselor who's disdain for and fear of him has never been a secret. Her, he scares on purpose. The cheerleaders making their way past his little display, he waves by with a far tamer gentleman's bow. That's something you've noticed about Eddie before but never actually consciously realized. Eddie only intentionally frightens people who have already determined him to be a threat or targeted his little band of misfits as being beneath them. Jocks like Jason Carver - who's currently glaring at Eddie for a derogatory ‘balls in laundry baskets’ comment about basketball - who view the outcasts as easy prey, and Eddie himself as the wolf at their door. In reality, he's far more a sheepdog than a wolf, you think to yourself. Really only a threat to those who would do his sheepies harm. The jocks - the real wolves - look at Eddie and see a predator, but the prey know better.

The sheep still have their verdict out about whether or not you're one of the wolves. Well, some of them, anyway. Gareth at least returns your smile and wave, if somewhat uncertain about your approach to their table. Eddie looks surprised at first, something almost vulnerable in his expression, but then a smug grin spreads across his face and he leans back in his chair and sprawls his long limbs like a king on the throne. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence, fair maiden?”

Digging in your bag, you grab your interview notebook and pull out the photograph you'd taken of him yesterday, handing it to him with an excited grin. “I got your senior photo approved,” you tell him, a hint of mischief mixed in with the victory in your voice.

Eddie's eyebrows raise as he takes the photo, eager to see which one made the cut, and he's genuinely surprised to see the devil-horn photo. “Wait, seriously?”

“I had to put up a good argument for it, but at least one of the senior photos won't be totally lame this year.” Grinning proudly at him, you wait for his response.

He doesn't know why it matters to him. It's just the stupid yearbook. He didn't even buy a yearbook. He’s not going to buy a yearbook. But something warm and eager surges in his chest nonetheless.

It's not the yearbook. It's you. It's the fact that you fought for him. Even in this stupid little thing that doesn't matter, you fought to make sure that Eddie Munson was not just included but represented. You thought of him as someone who deserved to be seen, and apparently you went to bat for him to have that right.

He thinks again that if this is some kind of elaborate, fucked-up joke, it really will destroy him when the punchline lands. His stupid, too-big heart is too soft to take it.

You've never seen Eddie Munson look vulnerable. Not like this. He's always worn his heart on his sleeve, but this is… different. He doesn't look like the outspoken rebel you know. Underneath it all, for just a moment, you get a glimpse of the lonely little boy who's lived his whole life as an outcast when all he wanted was to be loved. To be seen and understood and valued as himself.

When he looks up at you, the breath punches out of his chest again at the look on your face. It's a feeling he's beginning to get used to, one that he's starting to associate with you. You've never looked at him like that before. Hell, he's never seen you look at anyone like that before. He wouldn't particularly mind if you looked at him like that more often. Or if you just looked at him more often in general. That stupid burned-out crush of his was coming back from the ashes like a phoenix.

“Oh,” you say, shaken from your reverie and blushing ever so faintly after having been caught staring at Eddie Munson a second time. You pull out the other two photos you'd taken of him. “These are for you, too. I thought maybe your uncle might like the ‘nice’ one.”

He stares at the photos in your hand for a moment, uncharacteristically still. You'd thought of his uncle. His hand snatches the photos from your grip like a precious treasure that would be ripped away if he didn't grab them fast enough and hoard them like a dragon.

What a pathetic hoard. Three measly photos. Of himself.

He'd guard them with his life.

The faintest hint of a blush colors Eddie's face, but it's quickly hidden behind a lock of his hair as his ringed fingers drag it across his face to hide away, his eyes fixed on yours and his other hand still holding the photos like holy relics. “Thanks. The old man will appreciate having a picture of me he can show his coworkers at the plant,” Eddie says finally, voice playful to cover the way your thoughtfulness had wrecked him.

Jason Carver calls your name from across the cafeteria, and a dead-eyed look crosses your face briefly as you stare into the middle distance over Eddie's shoulder before collecting yourself. “That's probably about the yearbook,” you say tiredly, knowing exactly what you're about to walk into. You'd seen Candace talking to him moments ago with that pout she uses when she wants someone else to do her dirty work for her. “I'll see you later, Eddie. I'll see all of you tomorrow night, actually,” you announce to the rest of the table, remembering that today is Thursday, and your voice seems a little brighter than it did in response to Carver's summons. Like the realization you'll be spending time with them brightened your day.

Making your way over to the table, you prepare yourself for being on the receiving end of what Jason Carver likes to think is ‘charm’. Really, it's more like a weasel trying to talk his way into the chicken coop, you think, but you smile politely and stare at his eyebrows with dead eyes anyway. It's easier to just let him get it out. Sure enough, Candace had been telling Jason about how she'd had to cut photos out of the basketball team spread to accommodate their newly enforced page limit. You don't actually blame her this time, you wouldn't want to bear the responsibility of telling Jason that his precious photo spread was dropping from 20 photos of him to 10, either. Alas, it is in fact your responsibility, so you grin and bear it as he attempts to smooth-talk you into getting the usual spread.

“Jason,” you interrupt him after a moment, deciding that actually you're not interested in playing nice anymore, “the basketball team gets two pages, just like everybody else. The championship game gets a full page of its own, so technically you get three pages altogether. We're not stealing space from other clubs for the basketball team this year, alright? Everybody gets an actual piece this year. I'm sorry that there's less photos of you than you wanted, but there's already more pictures of you in this yearbook than there are of Eddie Munson in all of the yearbooks he should have showed up in combined. You're supposed to be a team player, Jason - that's like half the point of team sports. So you're just going to have to learn to share the spotlight.”

The mention of Eddie may have been a mistake, because Carver's face visibly darkens when he hears it and you briefly question your decision-making abilities. “Let me get this straight,” Jason begins in a poor facsimile of diplomacy. “You're cutting copy on the basketball team to give that freak more pages?”

It takes a Herculean effort not to roll your eyes so hard you sprain something. “No, Jason, I am limiting the spread on the basketball team to the allotted number of pages, so that everyone gets a fair shake. You've gotten remarkably lucky in past years that the editor let the basketball team’s egregious dominance of the yearbook slide, but you are only supposed to have the same number of pages as everyone else. I apologize that this is upsetting for you, but you'll still be more than fairly represented and this way other people get to shine too.”

Eddie watches you bicker back and forth with Jason in rapt fascination. You’d seemed brighter while talking to Eddie, and he’d noticed. Noticed the way you'd had a moment where it looked as if you were re-evaluating your entire life when Jason had called you over, the dead-eyed stare of boredom you'd cast over his shoulder into the middle distance had persisted since the moment you'd gotten close enough for the jock to try to charm you into getting whatever it is he wants. All of it is filed away in the little folder he's been building on you in his mind ever since you took his photo for the yearbook, evidence either for or against this all being a prank.

If it is, you are a remarkable actress. Still, though. Eddie isn't willing to let himself believe it, to get his hopes up, until you actually show up to Hellfire tomorrow. Hell, he's not even truly certain he'll believe it until the yearbook comes out. But missing the championship game to watch his little band of misfits play America's Most Maligned Fantasy Game is a pretty good place to start.

Eddie is vaguely aware of his friends attempting to give him the third degree about what the hell just happened with you and him and the photos and the blatant flirting he'd been attempting, but he ignores them. He's got a phoenix to wrangle before tomorrow rolls around and that previously dead crush really burns down his heart. Whatever it is Jason wanted to discuss, it would appear that you won based on the scowl on the jock's face and the confident way you walk away from the table filled with popular kids and out the door.

The fact that you didn't even get to eat your sandwich grates at you, but the satisfaction of getting to walk away from Carver and slam the cafeteria doors in his face was pretty good compensation. Making your way to the library, you quickly scarf down your lunch and complete the homework for your next class period that you'd forgotten about last night. Typically you were more on top of things than this, but you'd gotten a little consumed by your quest to find Eddie's perfect senior quote, and by the time you had realized you'd gotten lost in the music it was already well past lights out at your house.

You don't finish all the homework questions before the bell rings, but you're pretty sure you did enough to still get a passing grade on it if the rest of them are correct.

There's a test today in Sociology, so no record store excursions for you this time around. That's okay, you'll save it as a reward for getting the rough draft of the Hellfire Club piece outlined this weekend. Breezing through the final questions, you find yourself actually excited to sit in on tomorrow night's meeting. Whatever it is, it's sure to be entertaining with Eddie at the helm. You hope you can do them justice and write something that will make Eddie proud. The thought of his dimpled grin appearing because of something you'd written makes your chest feel warm.

Part of you wants to let the other members of the yearbook committee put in the extra hours today but you know that they won't, and if they don't it will be the less-than-popular kids who will suffer for it, so you suck it up and spend your drop period editing copy with Mrs. Rychnovsky in companionable silence. More of Eddie's music pours from your headphones as you play yet another cassette in your walkman, and you toss around a few Dio lyrics that could work. Writing them down to remember for later, you continue your quest hoping for the discovery of something so perfect that there will be no question in your mind when you hear it.

If the perfect song is out there, you don't find it today. Still, you enjoy the little glimpse into his world. You find yourself smiling more and more when you think about Eddie, every interaction giving you something new to like about him. That brief moment of vulnerability you'd witnessed earlier haunts the back of your mind, shedding new light on the suspicious skepticism he'd met you with that first day. Of course he’d been wary of you. You can see it now, plain as day. A young boy who wanted to be loved, who wore his heart on his sleeve. Weird. Overeager. Excitable. Sweet. Soft.

He’d made a perfect target.

Eddie Munson was a lot of things, and at least half of them were born of necessity. He’d become what he’d had to to survive, to be heard, to protect his sheepies. Loud. Off-putting. Abrasive. And you? You were an unknown factor as of yet. Sheep, shepherd, or wolf? He’d had no way of knowing. So he’d bared his teeth and growled, the sheepdog keeping his flock safe. Keeping out the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Donning his armor, showing you what the wolves have made him become. But underneath all of that, he was still that boy who wanted not to fit in but to belong. To be loved the way that he was.

You don’t get as much editing done as you would have liked, your mind distracted with your analysis of Eddie Munson. The final bell of the day rings, and you finish the copy you were working on before packing up and heading to the parking lot. Eddie’s van is gone from where it had been parked just a couple of spaces over from your truck, and you feel a tiny pang of disappointment. It’s not like you’d been expecting to stand around and shoot the shit with him or anything, so you’re not sure what you’re even disappointed about. Sliding into the driver’s seat, you turn your stereo up and listen to the same Dio cassette you’d been playing when you’d pulled in this morning, mulling the lyrics over in your head. If the memory of Eddie’s excitement upon hearing you play that particular cassette and the ensuing conversation and proximity to him and his dimpled smile played a factor in your listening choices, well. That’s between you and Ronnie James Dio.

Taglist: @yorshie @luckycharms1701 @turtlecleric @thepinkpanther83 @losingmygrasponreality @the-cauldron-witch @sheneedsrocknroll92 @totallysocially @v1per1ne @the-rowanoke @s1mp-4-ga11y @thedoubleexposurephotography @eris-rose-86 @sihtricswife @lemon-sm00thie @mikuley @dwtshq

Also extremely special thanks to yorshie, lucky, cleric, and pinky without whom this fic would straight up never have seen the light of day. Y'all are the MVPs and I appreciate you so much.