#x goth!reader

The version of Friday night's events that Eddie grudgingly recounted was, naturally, heavily abridged. Even if it wouldn't be a huge breach of trust and act of general assholishness to detail the extent of your suffering and the blushing, mind-altering closeness that came from it, every fiber in his body compels him to guard it like a new toy in the hand of a spoiled child. Tight-fisted, blindly possessive, not far from neurotic—for no one else to tarnish with their grubby hands or even fucking look at. He couldn't even bring himself to mention the kiss.

“You mean, she invited you upstairs—into her bedroom—and you said no?”

Lips sucked between his teeth, Eddie gives one decisive nod.

Gareth's entire face crumples—the horror of confirmation evidently too much to bear. “You’re out of your mind. She hates your guts every other day. What if that was your only chance?”

Eddie's entire face tightens. “My only chance to do what, man?”

That gets him an eye-roll. “To—”

“Don’t answer that,” Val advises sharply—or it might’ve been more of a threat.

“...I mean, he kinda has a point,” Doug chimes in, and goes pale as every pair of eyes lands on him.

Jeff's eyes narrow in a squint. “Does he?”

Dougie balks and throws a nervous glance towards Eddie as he finally sets his soda down. “Not— Well— It’s just, I thought you really liked her.”

Eddie can't admit to him that he really, really does; the roiling guilt in his stomach flares up again and blocks his throat.

“Why the hell do I even hang out with you dweebs?” Val groans. “She was drunk. Maybe he was trying not to be a total dickhead asshole.”

Eddie knew he was doing the right thing—which is why it sucked so incredibly bad to do it—but hearing Val corroborate the fact definitely helps him breathe a little deeper.

“He said she sobered up!”

“Sober and sobered-up are two different things."

"Yeah, but she invited him."

"Exactly," Val drones, gesturing broadly towards Eddie; speaking a little louder than he would prefer. "She only barely tolerates him for weeks on end, and suddenly, she wants him in her bedroom? She clearly wasn't thinking straight." And, with an apologetic glance: "No offense."

Only a little bit taken; Eddie has a hard time believing it himself.

"Maybe it was a test," Doug suggests.

“Well, how did she react?” Jeff interjects, addressing Eddie directly enough to catch him off guard.

"Huh?"

"When you declined."

I don't know is what first comes to mind, misleading though it may be. It's not like he saw your face as he said it. But the regrettable truth of your feelings on the matter is clear as day; if not from the way you hissed at him and slammed two doors as you went, then certainly from the treatment he received bright and early this morning. Waiting at your locker felt like a step too far, so he didn't—instead, he ran into you by accident, walking down the hall in opposite directions. He startled at the sight of you, peeping out your name on instinct, but the encounter didn't faze you in the slightest, nor did you spare him a glance. Far beyond the silent treatment, it was like he simply didn't exist, and his heart sinks a few inches in his chest at the memory.

Eddie sighs. “…She’s, uh— she’s pissed again.”

Gareth’s head falls mournfully into his hands. Across the table, Val's keen eyes press into a squint, like she's put together on her own that he isn't telling the full story. At least she seems to be the only one.

"What are you gonna…?"

Dougie's question trails off, and it takes Eddie a moment to process that everyone's eyes have drifted pointedly over his shoulder with an array of baffled expressions. As soon as it does, a beam of wishful thinking his him right between the eyes, and he whips his head around to find—

Jason Carver. Looming murderously over him.

For what feels like a full minute, Eddie can only gape at him, heart pounding, projecting telepathically the burning question, What the fuck is fucking wrong with you, you demented asshole? on a never-ending loop. Thankfully, in the continued stubborn dormancy of his psionic powers, this remains a screeching inside thought until Carver deigns to break the menacing silence.

"We need to talk."

…He's going to beat his ass. This is the instinctual assumption, but Eddie brushes it away just as quick. Not here and now, with an entire cafeteria full of witnesses, in perfect view of all the lunch ladies. Now, he's going to escort him somewhere else to beat his ass—that's a much more rational thought, but his logical mind has a hard time believing that, either. There are plenty of opportunities throughout the school day to isolate and bludgeon him more discreetly and avoid the half-hearted reprimand that might come with being caught doing so, and right here and now might be the least ideal of them all.

Plus, technically speaking, he's outnumbered. Jason came alone (though his fellow sportsmen across the room aren't exactly out of reach), and Eddie's got every warrior of blazing spirit and questionable prowess in Hellfire right here beside him. So, no, Carver isn't here to hurt him. He's here—personally, unexplainably, and wildly incriminatingly—to piss him off and psych him out.

Eddie takes a deep, deep breath and stands up from his seat.

"Eddie?"

"What the—?"

"Can it," Eddie blurts out on instinct, loud enough to cut short the uproar. He attempts to show with his eyes that there's no cause for concern, but it's anyone's guess how it lands. His face isn't quite as good at lying as his mouth is. "…It's fine. Just…give me a minute."

Another little outcry begins as Eddie turns to follow, and the last thing he hears before the angry throbbing of his head drowns out all other noise is the firm deescalation of Jeff's steady voice.

"Hey, it's cool. Ed can handle himself."

It sort of works on Eddie, too. He can handle himself; whatever bullshit Carver's cooked up for him today is nothing he hasn't learned to deal with.

He leads him straight outside, along the brick-faced exterior to a lower-traffic end of the school, on the far side from the parking lot out front. Eddie can't keep his head from twitching around the same way it always does when he's keeping this unsavory company out in broad daylight. Your lunchtime whereabouts aren't nearly as consistent and predictable as his own—you could be fucking anywhere.

When the distance or location has satisfied Jason's incoherent needs, he stops in place, turns around, and stares. It isn't an angry look, or at least not any more so than the typical sneer that he wears in Eddie's presence. More than anything, it strikes him as analytical; combing through Eddie's intense yet fiercely suppressed discomfort in search of…something.

Eddie swallows thickly. He considers asking how things are going with Chrissy, just to pop the disturbing tension bubble building in pressure around them, but whether or not it serves the proper function probably depends on the answer to that question, and after the abrupt and careless parting that Eddie all but fostered on Friday night, he figures it's probably best not to risk it. Instead, he waits; chewing on his cheek, staring right back at him with the steadiest eyes he can manage.

"…I'm taking Chrissy to prom."

Eddie blinks. "…That's uh— That's great, man," he offers blandly, hoping to God this isn't leading where it almost certainly is.

Carver's eyes turn shifty. "…She doesn't know it yet," he goes on pointedly. "But I'm gonna ask her, and I already know what she's gonna say."

Eddie's head falls forward; he ducks his chin in a reluctant nod. Jesus fucking Christ. If he couldn’t even sell you on the party, how the hell is he going to make prom seem like a remotely attractive proposition? Let alone a convincing desire of his own in the first place. Evidently reading his mind, Carver lets out a harsh breath through his nose and takes a generous step forward that whips Eddie's head right back up in alarm.

"I don't want the two of you there spreading your disease any more than you do. But I'm taking her to prom. …Stand in the corner all night for all I care, but you're gonna convince her cousin to go with you, and you're gonna stay the hell away from us."

He barely stifles a scoff—as if Eddie's the one prone to stalking and bothering him.

But there's something odd about this; about Carver. This doesn't feel like the same raging, superior asshole who waved his inexhaustible cash in his face and taunted him for trying to cling to some semblance of morality. He seems…strained. Too plainly desperate to entertain his usual power trip.

"…Prom is gonna be a hard sell," Eddie dares to nudge back.

"Obviously."

"And, I mean, you and Chrissy are juniors. …I'm just saying, there's always next year. Her cousin probably won't be much of an obstacle once she's graduated."

Jason squints his eyes at him like that's the dumbest shit he's heard all week. "We're going this year to plant the seeds for homecoming court in the fall, which'll give us a good shot at king and queen for next year's prom," he lays out irritably. "But I don't expect you to comprehend this sort of thing." He's right not to; he really fucking doesn't.

Eddie didn't realize that Carver's plot to date Chrissy was such a serious, multi-year endeavor. He figured he'd be off the hook come graduation—assuming he manages to graduate, a question he's been avoiding like the plague lately—but the thought of getting dragged around by the nose by this maniac indefinitely spills a cold, concentrated drop of panic into his guts. If it didn't end when he started dating Chrissy, nor will it when he takes her to prom, and maybe not even when you and him cease to attend the goddamn school, then when the hell will it?

He's so caught up in pondering this dark, depressing spiral, that he doesn't even notice Jason taking out his wallet until he's waving a sickly green wad of cash in his face.

"Take it."

Eddie's stomach, churning and quivering, finds room to drop even lower. He glances around and over his shoulder on instinct and rapidly shakes his head. "No, man, I don't— I still have—"

"It'll cover the cost of tickets," he speaks over him. "More than that. A…tux rental, corsage—"

"Seriously, Carver, I don't need it, I don't—"

He just speaks louder, drowning him out. "You're not gonna try and tell me that you can't afford it, or that you—"

"I can afford it," Eddie insists with building stress, "and I don't—"

"I don't care!" Jason shouts—the sound of it seems to echo off the wall, and Eddie hopes it wasn't audible from the inside. "I'm sure you have more than enough drug money stuffed under your filthy goddamn mattress to take that basket case to prom. I don't care. I'm not giving this to you out of the kindness of my heart. This is a contract, Munson. You accept it, and you do what I say."

For a moment, Eddie can only focus on his breathing, in and out and in and out, doing everything in his power not to blow a gasket of his own in retaliation. He can barely open his mouth before Jason cuts back in—seeing right through him.

"There's no backing out of it," he mocks. "…You're in too deep, and you know it. You think I don't know how you feel about her?"

And then Carver reaches out, grabs a fistful of his shirt collar to yank him in closer, and spits the words right in his face.

"You're taking her to prom. So take. The goddamn. Money."

Pulse pounding at his temples, Eddie snatches up the hateful cash and crushes it in his fist. As soon as Jason lets go of him, he scuttles back a few steps to regain some breathing room and stuffs the contract into his right pocket.

"You've got…serious fucking issues, man," he mutters through is teeth, and it's a verifiable miracle that that's all he says.

Carver's scoff almost sounds like a laugh. "Coming from you, that's goddamn hilarious."

Then, Eddie makes the silly mistake of taking that as the natural conclusion of this hellish interaction and tries to swiftly escape. He should know by now that he isn't free to go until he's been dismissed.

"I'm not done," Jason snaps. Eddie stops in place; tips his head back in disbelief and turns back halfway. "…I want you to stay the hell away from Chrissy."

He squints his eyes shut to mask the way they roll—like he hasn't heard this one before.

"Don't look at her. Don't speak to her. I know you aren't stupid enough to touch her. If she steps into a room, you leave that room. You understand?"

His teeth grit so hard that they slip, and his mouth drops idiotically open. "Might be kinda fuckin' hard, y'know, dating her cousin."

"I'm not joking with you, Munson. You don't get it."

Whatever that means. "Maybe you don't get it."

Abruptly as a trigger pull, Jason snaps. He lunges at him, grabs two violent handfuls of his vest collar, and, as Eddie cries out in shock, he shoves him up against the brick wall hard enough to bounce his head off of it; sharp knuckles digging in beneath his collarbones, keeping him pinned down.

"Fuck!" Eddie's hands fly up as if to cradle his head, but he can't. They wrap tight around Carver's wrists instead, his rings clinking against the face of his watch, but as hard as he pulls, they won't budge.

"Listen to me," Jason snarls, wide-eyed. "…Chrissy isn't like you. Chrissy isn't even like her. I don't care what…perverted, satanistic bullshit you and your girlfriend do behind closed doors, but if either of you…taint a single goddamn hair on her innocent head, it'll be the last thing you ever do."

Eddie's eyes blow wide open. He's made sense of the ridiculous situation he's found himself in largely by referring to its perpetrator as a lunatic, a madman, a psychopath, and a nutjob, among other colorful names, but the truth is, Eddie never really thought he was anything more than an entitled, thick-headed, power-hungry asshole—the kind that this school (and Hawkins at large) is absolutely swimming in. But right now, in this moment, lightly concussed or not, he starts to wonder for the first time if Jason Carver really is every bit as deranged as he seems.

"I got it, man," Eddie hisses through the pounding of his head. "Fucking—Christ, I got it!"

Frigid eyes sweeping over his face, Jason rips his hands away from him and, once again, stares. With pure, sick disdain, he stares and stares until Eddie knows he won't be able to fend off the urge to shout at him for much longer, and finally, with both hands stuffed into his letterman's pockets, Carver turns and leaves like he was never there at all.

What Eddie should probably do is go back to the cafeteria to make sure his friends can see definitively that he's made it out of his abduction alive and well, but as wound up and nauseated as he already is, with this stabbing pain in his (thankfully not split-open) head, nothing in the world sounds more aggravating than trying to explain why Jason Carver felt so comfortable ominously demanding his presence in the first place.

Instead, he heads back to his van; fishes Piece of Mind out of the glove box and sets the stereo as loud as he can without risk of some meddling staff or faculty member banging on the door and shouting at him to turn it down; spreads himself out in the back of his van with his face stuffed in a scratchy old blanket, and waits for the buzzing and pulsating and the piercing goddamn bomb sirens in his brain to calm down. Or, for the lunch bell to ring. Whichever comes first.

…

Eddie spends the entire last ten minutes of sixth period halfway out of his chair, primed and poised to eject himself out of it as soon as the last bells cuts through Mrs. Howell's sleepy monotone. Restless as he is, he manages to anticipate it—he's already standing when the bell rings, and he makes it most of the way to your desk before anyone else has even left their seat.

You know he's there, obviously—there's no subtle way to throw your entire body across the room with the speed and urgency that he just did—but as he stands before your front-row desk, you don't even look up from it, taking your sweet time to pack your things back into your bag. When he says your name, you don't even twitch.

"…I'm sorry," he tries. "For treating you like that, being an asshole, but…I guess you know that already."

You ignore him entirely. Eddie nods to himself.

"Yeah, I kinda figured you'd, um…not wanna talk to me. Deserved, totally, I get it. It's, um… I mean, fuck me, right? You don't have to talk to me. But I can…explain myself, when you're ready. If you actually wanna…hear it. Or, y'know, I could just…skip ahead to the groveling, if that would— If you'd— If you want that. Sorry, my head's a little…" He gestures vaguely at himself, and doesn't bother to explain beyond that.

Still nothing whatsoever, but you are waiting for him to finish, he notes. Eddie purses his lips and sighs and sets a piece of ripped paper, folded in half, onto the desk in front of you. Your downcast eyes drag towards it without enthusiasm.

"…That's my number," he explains. "In case you ever…wanna talk, outside of school, or if you…need anything. Seriously. I work on Tuesday, Thursday, and…Saturday nights, and, uh— Hellfire meets on Fridays. But if you call after, like…ten-thirty, eleven on any night, I'll be there."

Your moody stare flits a little higher; nowhere near his face, but maybe enough to meet eyes with the undead Eddie on his Iron Maiden tee. Then, without a word, you slap your palm down onto the desk, crumple the piece of paper in your fist, and slip out of your chair to join all the other students filtering out of the room. The closest thing he gets to a goodbye is the swift brush of your arm against his as you go.

And despite it all, Eddie smiles. He really wasn't sure you'd actually take it.

This time, when Eddie spots Jeff leaning against his van from across the parking lot, it’s a sight for sore eyes—his entire body sags in relief. Keeping all of this bullshit swirling around in his mind alone has had it on the verge of caving in.

He doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

“I’m fucked, Jeff,” he announces as he unlocks the van.

Jeff cocks his head aside with a thin smile. “Yeah, I…kinda figured.”

Inside, Eddie turns the music off for once. His tired eyes flicker compulsively around, catching on any flashes of green that streak through his line of sight; watching out, probably needlessly, for anyone approaching, sneaking up on him. Just in case Jason decides to teach him even more of a lesson than he already did—to make sure this week's "request" really hits home. He even watches for you, in the near-impossible event that you've changed your mind on your vow of silence and decided to roll in like a storm cloud and verbally (maybe physically?) rip him a new one, but that's probably more in the realm of romantic fantasy than vigilant self-preservation.

"What'd Jason want?"

Eddie forces a tense exhale through his nose. "…Prom."

"Shit," Jeff breathes.

"Yeah."

“What you said at lunch,” he goes on. “About the party, and everything. ...Is that really what happened, or…?”

“Mostly,” Eddie sighs. “I mean, she was— It isn’t— Christ, it doesn’t matter. But this shit is getting…serious, Jeff. Like really fucking serious.”

“What do you mean?”

“She likes me," he drops, one finger tapping against the wheel like a woodpecker's beak. "A lot, I think, for some fucking reason, and I like her—a lot. I’m not pretending with her, not in the slightest. And I…don’t know what the fuck to do about it.”

He doesn't seem overly concerned. “Well, this isn’t the first time you’ve pissed her off. And if she really likes you so much—”

“No, it’s not that.” Eddie feels awful for treating you like that, sure, and yeah, you're pretty mad at him, but after everything else that happened that night, he isn’t especially worried he’ll lose you entirely over it. “It’s…Carver.”

“What about him? Is he still paying you?”

Eddie winces at the reminder—the cash in his pocket is singeing his thigh. “…He got what he wanted, y’know? What this was supposed to be about. He’s dating Chrissy Cunningham. But it’s…not enough for him, I guess, and he's out of his fucking mind, and he won’t— He’s not gonna cut me loose until he’s satisfied, but I don’t even know if that’s possible, and I just want it to end. More than…fucking anything, I want it to be over. I mean, fuck, Jeff, if I…piss him off badly enough, and he says 'fuck it all' and decides to tell her…”

Jeff's face drops into a deep frown. “You haven’t told her yet?”

A pang of startled irritation whips Eddie right in the side of his battered head. “...No, I haven’t told her," he spits, shoulders tensing up. "Jesus, how the fuck would I even—?”

“If you’re worried about Carver telling her your business, you already know what you gotta do, man,” Jeff reasons—he makes it sound so simple. “He can’t hold that over you if you tell her yourself."

On a few separate occasions now, Eddie has wanted desperately and tried and failed to tell Wayne about the situation and solicit some older and wiser advice to put it all into perspective. What always trips him up is the deep, stomach-churning terror of sparking one simple thought in his uncle's head: he really is his father's son. He wouldn't say it aloud; it wouldn't even show on his face, but Eddie would know that it's there, and once it's taken root, there's no pruning it. Jeff's ear is helpful and does a lot in maintaining his sanity, but he isn't living through it all the way that Eddie is—he doesn't know you the way that Eddie is growing to. And because of that, because no one but him can see every piece of this nightmarish puzzle, he's pretty much resigned himself to figuring it out on his own.

So Eddie doesn't have to think about it; he drives himself crazy trying and failing to talk himself out of it every night, and not even Jason's unhinged extortion can do much to change his mind—it only digs his grave all the deeper. What's really hard is psyching himself up to expose this private shame of his to the light of day.

“...I don’t think I can.”

“What do you mean?”

“...It’s too late. If I was ever going to tell her, I should’ve done it— I should’ve done it fucking weeks ago, man.”

Jeff only stares at him, puzzled. Eddie braves a quick glance before staring firmly out the window.

“I mean, Chrissy is her cousin, and— and she cares about her,” he goes on; eyes glazing over, head spinning as words fly off his tongue like tape reel. “A lot. Enough to suffer that…miserable fucking party just so she could go. If I had told her upfront about Jason’s batshit fucking plan, maybe she would’ve gone along with it—for Chrissy’s sake—and we would’ve laughed about how fucking stupid it all was and split the fucking money and maybe we still could’ve hung out and shit, but instead I was a stupid, selfish fucking dirtbag, and I—”

“Eddie, man,” Jeff interrupts. “I get it. Shit could’ve gone way differently, but it is what it is. The best thing you can do now is just tell her the truth. …The deal, the way you feel about her, everything. Cause if you don’t come clean and she finds out on her own, it’s gonna look a hell of a lot worse for you.”

It's not what he wants to hear, not at all. He just doesn't get it.

“...She trusts me,” Eddie gasps. “Do you realize how…fucking insane it is that she trusts me? If I tell her, that’s it. It’s not— She’s never gonna— I’m fucked, Jeff. If I tell her, it’ll be over, and I can’t…do that.”

Jeff just gives him a look. Sympathetic, skin-crawling.

“I mean, I wouldn’t fucking forgive me, man." It rings out low and thick, caught halfway in his throat; he tries to subtly clear it out, worried Jeff would mistake him for choked up. "…How the hell could I expect her to?”

“You can’t. But you can give her the chance to.”

"…And even if Carver did try to tell her, why the hell would she believe him?" Eddie goes on. "It's not like we signed an actual goddamn contract. He doesn't have any more proof than I do."

Unless Chrissy is in on it, it occurs to him, and his blood runs instantly cold. But she couldn't be, right? There's no way that sweet Chrissy could be involved in deceiving you like this, not just to date Jason fucking Carver, and why the hell would he take such a risk by telling her? But Eddie doesn't know her, and if there's one person who's testimony you'd implicitly trust, it has to be hers. If you really are the only one that doesn't know, then Eddie has…utterly no leg to stand on. No insurance, no leverage. He's well and truly fucked.

"…Sure," Jeff grants. "Fine. Maybe she doesn't believe him. Maybe he never even tells her.

“But, I mean…are you really gonna be able to just…hide that from her, forever? You’re gonna look at her face every day, remember how the hell it all started, and wish to God you had just told her, man.”

Eddie's hands wrap tight around the steering wheel. He bites down hard on his lip; the only thing restraining him from asking his dear friend to please get the fuck out of his van right now. Jeff goes mercilessly on.

“You don’t think she’ll realize at some point that you’re keeping something from her? Sorry to say, but…it’s pretty goddamn obvious when you’re brooding over something, Ed.”

Eddie rolls the fuck out of his eyes. He gets the sense that Jeff has to fight back a snicker.

“...I mean, subtlety just isn't your thing.”

“Got it, Jeff," he grits out. "I got it.”

"I'm just saying, man," punctuates his irritating case.

"…Whatever," Eddie decides. His brain is in no state to reassess right now either way. All he can think about is laying face-down on his bed, passing out for a few hours, and then waiting like a sucker for a phone call that isn't coming. "…Maybe. But I can't tell her shit until I convince her to speak to me again, anyway."

"Alright," Jeff relents with a laugh. "And how are you gonna do that?"

Eddie heaves out a sigh and rubs the heel of his palm against his pounding temple. "…I've got a few ideas."

-

thanks for reading! feedback is always welcome 💞 if you liked my story, please like/comment/reblog!

Well, she wasn’t preppy, after all. But she wasn’t some ordinary plain-Jane type either (not that there’s nothing wrong with that, of course). See, most girls at his school, they were all pastels and blue jeans and florals. Some girls even wore black on black and broke it up with a pop of colour, or nicely styled a dark band shirt with the cover of an album they’d never heard of. But her style was something else.

Now, let’s not get all she’s not like other girls here. Those styles look great on some and less so on others – hell, Rodrick was sure she would rock pastel pink if she tried it. Either way, her unique taste was something he adored and admired about her; something that made her incomparable to any other girl he’d showed any interest in. He figured it was a good thing anyway – if none of those other girls liked him, then maybe he just wasn’t meant to be with someone like them.

The first time they officially met was at the park on a dewy Saturday evening, after Rodrick’s parents had been heckling him about their new favourite topic: college. So what if he didn’t want to do the whole college thing? Was it really worth it? Some days he wasn’t even sure if he was going to finish high school, and they wanted to talk college? It had been a long day, and he’d barely started his dinner when he decided to take a walk. He’d deal with it when he got back.

It wasn’t quite sunset, but the wintry skies were cloudy and the ground was wet from recent rain. It was so quiet and eerily peaceful, with everyone hiding from the chill in their warm homes, and he’d made it all the way to the park without a single person to disturb his already sour mood. All he could hear was the cawing of birds around the trees.

He’d been so stuck in his own head, that something as a simple ‘hey’ had nearly scared him out of his skin.

He didn’t recognise her at first. For a second he thought, in his distracted mind, that he’d encountered a banshee or a witch… a beautiful, monochromatic witch. She was sat on a bench under a thick evergreen tree that shielded it from the weather, draped in an elegant black coat which covered a black tee, black knitted cardigan, and black cuffed jeans – the boots, however, were polished brown with a short heel; she had eyeliner that would fill Ozzy Osborne with envy, and eyeshadow that was the perfect middle-ground between too much and casual. But her lips – deep blackberry red and shiny with gloss – were what caught his attention most. They caught the pale grey light of winter so beautifully as they moved, and he wondered how long they had taken to perfect.

Rodrick blinked. What did she say?

To his relief, she didn’t seem bothered by his unresponsiveness, and spared him some embarrassment by repeating herself. “I’ve seen you at school. We have English and chemistry together.”

He nodded, though he didn’t know why; he was sure if he’d seen her around he would’ve noticed. Words, Rodrick, use your words. “We… we do?”

She nodded without a hint of doubt (he would later discover that this was because she’d found him to be an excellent distraction to let her eyes follow and chase away the boredom). “I’m (Y/N).”

“I-I’m Roderick.” He replied, and tried not to wince over the fumble in his words. But he figured he was doing good so far… well, he was doing okay, given that he’d barely said anything. But give him a break, he didn’t get to talk to pretty, mysterious girls often – he was caught off guard. “Um… how come we- we’ve never met?” Did that sound right? Or did it come across as rude? He really hoped not.

“I’m new.” She answered, and Rodrick mentally sighed in relief. Then his eyes lit up in recognition.

“Oh! Yeah you- um- you look… different.” He said, then stumbled to change his answer when she raised a brow. “NO-- I mean, not bad different – good different! I mean, I mean you look good but I-I just, I didn’t recognise you.” Rodrick winced. Smooth.

(Y/N) had looked down at her casual attire with an amused smile. “I tone it down for school. You should see me when I’m really done up.”

Man, would Rodrick love to.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

It was their six month anniversary, and (Y/N) had decided on a date. Rodrick had been eager all morning to find out what they would be doing; he’d already planned out their evening date: he’d ‘borrowed’ an old projector from the AV department and bought Beetlejuice and Labyrinth DVDs, and almost twenty dollars of snacks and sodas. But he had no idea what his girlfriend had in mind for the day.

He was sat on her bed, staring at the skirt of her new black dress and wishing he could brush his fingers along the smooth fabric of her nylon tights, like he always did when she wore them. There was nothing particularly… sensual… about the act (usually), he just loved the feel of them. (Y/N) pretended she didn’t notice his staring as she leaned close to her vanity mirror, focusing on applying her signature blackberry red lipgloss as flawlessly as possible and humming along to the Cramps CD that played in the background.

Rather than ask about her plans for the fourth (eleventh) time, Rodrick instead decided to study the various things in front of her. The eyeliner pencils and eyeshadows he understood, but some things left him more confused than ever. “How much longer?” He asked as he saw her dusting her eyelids (using three different brushes for reasons he couldn’t understand).

(Y/N) hummed in thought, amused by his impatience. Usually he would go through her things while he waited, or change her music a dozen times, but his obvious excitement made him much more impatient than usual. “I just gotta do my eyeliner, babe.”

Rodrick groaned and threw his head back in defiance. “Will it be faster if I help?”

“Probably not. I can do it.”

Squinting at her with a look of suspicion, Rodrick seemed to be trying to decide if he should find offence at that. “What d’you mean? I can do eyeliner.”

(Y/N) continued blackening her waterline with a freshly sharpened pencil. “Sure, but mine’s just more complicated than yours.”

Okay, yeah, Rodrick decided that this was an insult. “Is not. Look around, babe, I’ve got the best guy-liner in town. Punks everywhere wish they have what I’ve got.”

“Without a doubt.” (Y/N) laughed as she pencilled the next eye. “But mine is different.”

The challenge (Rodrick’s words, not hers) was set, and after some convincing the boy finally had his way. (Y/N) sat on the cleared surface of her vanity as Rodrick made himself comfortable on the chair – he took advantage of the position to rub his thumb on the nylon of her calf like he’d been dying to do.

He wasn’t doing so bad. At least, that’s what he thought. He’d tried to do the wings how she explained and thought they looked alright, but any girl would know that one was longer than the other, and the left was pointing higher than the right; the lines were a little wobbly, and the gradient went from thick to thin in all the wrong places. But for the moment, (Y/N) ignored all of this mess he made just to watch his concentration and the pink of his tongue sticking out between his lips subconsciously. Man was he so cute when he did that – her face went hot every time, and he didn’t even notice.

“Ugh! This is stupid – why is it even a liquid?” He grumbled under his breath as he dipped the thin brush again, angling his head in a not-not­puppylike way. Soon, after maybe another ten minutes, Rodrick finally decided that he was done. He grabbed (Y/N)’s arm and pulled her back towards her vanity, where she could finally get a good look at his work.

She did a pretty impressive job at masking her horror. “Wow… it’s…” She tried, seeing his proud face reflected in the surface. “...I’m speechless.”

“Told you I could do it.” He grinned, then checked his watch. “Okay c’mon, can we go now?”

Dragging her eyes away from the banshee (derogatory this time) in her mirror, she forced a smile and an excuse. “Yeah um… just give me one second. Can you put that bag that’s in the kitchen in your van?”

Roderick rolled his eyes but complied anyway. “Okay~ but don’t take ages.”

The second the door closed, (Y/N) grabbed a pack of wipes from her draw. This would have to be the fastest fix of her life.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

Thanks for the request! Roderick is so cute <3 but pencil eyeliner is his makeup limits fr

• Alice likes when things are a little different, a little odd to typical standards. So when her coven moves back to Forks and she’s enrolled back into high school and she sees you, she’s a little bit smitten.

• Her visions hadn’t ever glimpsed you, not even when she purposely tried to focus on Forks and anything it had to throw at them, not even when Bella and Edward frolicked through them.

• She didn’t approach you because of it. Surely, if you were actually meant to be in their lives — her life — you’d have made a reoccurring appearance in her prophetic sight, right?

• But you didn’t. And she still couldn’t stop thinking about you.

• You were so different from her, with your dark makeup and thick boots. Where you liked to linger in the darker, more abandoned corners of Forks, she liked the mall. Where you carried around a weathered copy of gothic literature, she browsed fashion magazines — old and new alike. Where you enjoyed older horror movies, she liked the newer, sweeter films.

Yet she wanted to know you either way.

• But as Edward liked to remind her, you couldn’t be brought into their world. Especially when she hasn’t had any visions foretelling your involvement with them.

• That doesn’t mean she couldn’t pine though, and if she drove Edward mad in the process, good.

• When Bella came along, Alice felt as jealous as she did excited. Finally, Edward would stop moping about being alone and something new would be thrown into their too consistent lives. On the other hand, a human would join them along the line and it wasn’t the human she wanted.

• Bella made odd friends with you. And with Edward and her finally together, Alice had a way in of sorts. She extended all invites she made to Bella to you, all trips to the mall had a bag of clothes she thought you’d have picked dropped off at your door. Laces and leathers and silks in that same black shade that you loved so much.

• Edward ignored her running thoughts of you, you, you as much as he could in turn for her not telling their family about every last thing him and Bella did together. Visions could be a bitch, and good blackmail material.

•You finally began to take notice of the lithe, pixie-like teen with her newfound attention. Smiling at her between classes, following Bella over to their table during lunch when you felt like it, getting her number from Bella to thank her for the pretty gifts — promising to pick up anything you thought she might like, purposely partnering up with her for a science project.

•And finally, finally, she’s struck with a vision.

• You, thick black trench coat and tall platform boots, stood beside her with a sharp-toothed, bloodied grin and an arm looped through hers. Maybe the dripping red would have been off-putting in another life but in this one, god in this one, it’s simultaneously the most attractive and most relieving thing she’s ever seen. Because no, she’s not damned to eternal hell, knowing she could’ve had you and never allowed to; always reaching, reaching, reaching, and never quite grasping — slipping between her fingers like silky water. And yes, you do become immortal, by her side for what’s hopefully eternities to come, never changing, never ageing, stuck in a live stasis.

• Your clothes are still the same, your face hasn’t changed. Your teeth are sharper, cutting through the air as you laugh so hard your head tilts back, but it’s good. A clear show of the vampirism bestowed upon you.

• When she comes to, Edward is glowering at her from across the room. Esme’s by her side, gripping her arm with a deep frown that only loosens when Alice grins.

“You can’t.” Edward scowls. “It’s wrong. You’ll damn them, you’ll ruin them. It’s not fair of you.”

Alice pursues her lips, grin tucked away for later, when she plans to take up your invite to visit the cemetery as the sky darkens. “You don’t get to make these decisions, Edward. It’s not fair of you to judge me for loving a human, especially when you love one too. They’re destined to join us, join me.”

“Your visions aren’t destiny,” He snarls. “They aren’t concise. They change with choices. Make your choice, Alice, don’t turn them into this.”

“Stop projecting!” She defends, shoulders taught. “I wouldn’t do it to them unless they agreed. It’s their choice, not mine and definitely not yours!”

Carlisle steps forward from where he lingered under the arch of the door, his golden eyes flitting between them cautiously, like he was ready for them to surge forward with venom dripping fangs. “Woah, woah,” He placates, hands raised with his palms facing the two of them. “What’s going on? There’s no turning of anyone happening.”

Edward looks at her like she’s the mind reader, and honestly, she does know what he’s thinking. Either you tell him or I do.

“Y/n.” She utters, almost sheepish. “They turn.”

Carlisle smiles. “Destined?” He asks.

Alice takes an unnecessary breath. “To me.” She confirms. Edward storms out, through to the looming woods and doesn’t come back ‘till morning.

• Alice pulled into the parking lot, the loose gravel crunching under the weight of the wheels.

There’s only a hint of day left in the sky, smattering a wave of deep orange through the blanketing dark and weaving through the lowest line of stars.

She listens out for any signs of you — a breath, a rhythmic beat of a heart, and beneath the chittering of a flock of birds, the buzz of a bees nest somewhere close, the low whistle of a light breeze and the hum of electricity from the nearby town, she hears you.

You’re on the far left corner of the building, waiting beside a caved wall with even breaths and she spots you through sharp eyes as she closes the car door behind her and makes her way over.

“Y/n.” She greets happily, voice as soft and whimsy as always.

You smile, nodding politely back. “Alice. Are you ready?”

“As ever.” She nods, grabbing your hand softly to pull you through the jagged wall, ducking under and out. You flinch at the ice of her touch, fingers twitching against hers before your attention is taken by her twinkling giggle, echoing through the emptiness of the hollow church.

She walks straight through the church like the moonlight was bright enough to light the way and you stumble behind her, trying your best to avoid smacking a limb against misplaced furniture. Alice pauses when she reaches the sanctuary, running a pale hand over a rotting podium, collecting dust and cobwebs on the tips of her fingers as she did.

“How many people do you think married in here, right where we’re standing?” She turns to you, too yellow eyes gleaming.

You stop before her. “Thousands,” You swallow, shrugging. “How many do you think stayed together until ‘death due them part’?”

Alice snorts, an ungraceful mannerisms in everyone but her it seems. “You’re a pessimist.” She concludes before answering. “Hundreds, I’d hope.”

“A realist,” You correct, grinning. “But I’d hope so, too.”

• Alice ponders on two questions that night after driving you home, both of your hair painted a silvery grey with cobwebs and dust and your smiles so wide she was sure your cheeks were sore.

What if you didn’t want to turn, her vision an ending to a tragedy? Edward’s words haunt her, planting thoughts of damning you to something much worse in any afterlife you might possibly have. If there was even a possibility that your turning was because she wasn’t cautious enough, too caught up in the fever dream of your eyeliner and your candour, then she doesn’t know she could forgive herself.

And the much sweeter: Did you ever want to marry? A portrayal of her physical stasis, a hint of the nineteen-year-old she really was.

• The answer to her worries comes a week later, when you’ve finally agreed to accompany her to the thrift stores lining the upcoming streets to the main mall.

It’s just you and her, the indirect invite through Bella no longer needed as a guise. You’re acting a grump as you follow behind her, looming like a stalking cat waiting to pounce and glaring at anyone taking a too long look. Alice catches the grin you try to smother as she wraps a black, lacy scarf around your neck and shimmies lightly with it, and decides you secretly like shopping with her.

Her hand brushes yours once, as she passes you the bags from previous buys, and she freezes, thrown into the dissociation of another possible future.

You know in the vision, that things you previously thought to only exist in novels exist in life too, proven by the way you bare your neck to her. Her contacts are out, irises bleeding into a deeper, inhuman golden and fake breaths no longer racking her chest.

Your eyes are hard, darkened with nerves and determined finality as she’s sure Jasper would say you felt, and she gazes back at you softly, like she understands. You nod even as your throat bobs with a gulp, your stuttering heartbeats ringing loud. The venom begins to pool in her mouth, glistening clear against her lips as she licks them, smelling pungent with a bleach-like tang.

She moves closer, her mouth just barely against your throat and stops short just there, waiting. Your hands find her hips, twitching and clenching. You heave an exhale like it’s your last — and really, she thinks, it’s not far off. “Okay,” You mutter, the words holding more weight on your tongue than you ever thought they could. “For forever.” You nod, squeezing her hips one last time.

Her fangs sink into you.

When she comes to, your voice still a fading comfort, you’re shaking her shoulder with wide, worried eyes. There’s a phantom feel of venom watering her tongue and a hint of that same thick smell that she gulps to feel clear of.

“Alice? Alice, are you alright?” You ask, watching her closely.

She hums. There’s a relief she didn’t know she needed loosing her chest and throat, clearing airways she didn’t need to use. You were afraid as you were about to turn — naturally, but you turn willingly and that’s about all that matters. You find out, you don’t run, you’re with her and she turns you and anything after and between that will be done with you together.

Alice grins. “I’m great!”

~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~

I really hope you all enjoyed this! It’s my first attempt at writing for twilight, so I’m not sure how to feel. Likes, comments and reblogs are extremely appreciated and very encouraging!!

But you can’t. There’s no fucking way. There are two people on planet Earth that know about the deal—well, maybe a few more than that, ‘cause if he’s told Sean, he could’ve told any other of his brainless lackeys, and then there’s Jeff, of course, but Jeff would never betray him by coming clean to you on Eddie’s behalf, he’s pretty sure—and letting you find out about it would be fucking things up for both of them. He attempts another mental scan of basically every word he’s ever spoken to you, trying to figure out if he accidentally left some moronic trail of breadcrumbs hinting towards the reality of this sorry situation, but it’s pretty hard to focus when he’s getting stopped every few minutes by another tipsy peer trying to score.

Looking for you is made similarly difficult. He can’t seem to enter a new room without hearing a boisterous exclamation of his name by someone who, under literally any other circumstances, would gladly, exuberantly take a piss in his sneakers. 

Last he saw, you turned and sped down the hallway past the dining room, so he makes his way in that direction but he doesn’t find you there or in any of the attached rooms. Looped around to the front entrance, there isn’t a glimpse of you to be found in any direction. Eddie pauses, scratching the back of his head, thinking. It finally occurs to him that, given your apparent disinterest in being found by him, calling your name as he goes is probably as good as playing Marco Polo in reverse.

…Whatever. He’ll try upstairs.

It’s much quieter on the second floor and darker too, only a few huddled groups and pairs spread around the loft, chatting in low voices. Most of the rooms he checks are empty. One is locked and occupied, but the voice that shouts through to indicate as much definitely doesn’t belong to you. 

Behind one door at the end of the hall seems to be a home theater—the concept alone more than enough to piss him off—with plush leather seats staged around the biggest TV Eddie’s ever seen. It isn’t currently playing anything, but some of the seats are occupied by a trio of girls, and when they turn towards his intrusion, one face jumps out at him.

“Chrissy?” For a moment, he thinks it means he’s found you, but it only takes a split second to realize neither of the other two are shrouded in moody black.

He isn’t sure he’ll ever get used to how easily she smiles at him—none of the other girls care to look at him at all. “Oh, hi,” she says. Then, she asks where you are.

His stomach sinks in disappointment. “That’s, uh… That’s what I was gonna ask you, actually.”

“You haven’t seen her?”

“I have, but she, um…” He decides that “she keeps running away from me” isn’t a great look. “...I lost track of her.”

Chrissy frowns in thought. “That’s weird. She totally disappeared on me. I figured she saw you somewhere, or went looking for you on her own.”

Eddie just shakes his head. 

“Maybe she’s hiding somewhere?” she suggests. “From…people, or from the noise.”

Like you are? he wants to ask. But if that were the case, you’d probably have stepped outside where he was. He’s almost certain that the only thing you’re hiding from is him. 

“...Yeah, probably.” He nods, scratching his jaw. “I’ll just…keep looking, I guess.”

Apparently, he isn’t subtle enough. “...You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?” she asks, and her brow furrows in that special way that’s very hard for him to look at.

“No, no, I’m sure she’s fine,” he insists. “Probably just—hiding from the noise, like you said. I’ll find her.”

Chrissy nods, but still looks troubled. Eddie does his best to smile reassuringly as he exits the room, but as soon as the door closes behind him, he lets his head fall forward and exhales a weary breath. Back to the drawing board.

Eddie retraces his steps.

Back down the stairs, he peeks out the front door, but doesn’t find you on the porch or front lawn. If he really can’t find you, he’ll look down the street for your car.

There’s a line for the bathroom he passed, now. You aren’t in it, but he joins the back of it anyway, waiting until whoever’s currently occupying it comes out—not you, either. Damnit.

You aren’t in the dining room, but a junior from his Algebra class who really, really wants to get high is. Eddie waves him off with such incoherent, vehement refusal that he probably comes off like he could stand to take a few hits himself.

He snakes his way back through the living room, getting bumped and jostled egregiously as he goes, and one girl he accidentally nudges into jumps back from him in disgust, with the loudest, most unambiguous “ew!” that he’s heard in… well, at least a couple days.

But then, he sees you stumbling out of the kitchen. Freezing in place, his entire abdomen seizes up, and he comes about a hair’s breadth from instinctively shouting your name again before remembering to stop himself. Instead he just watches, eagle-eyed and deeply puzzled as you wobble this way and that and abruptly catch yourself against the wall, sloshing some of the drink in your hand over the side of the cup. The host and his entourage, posted just outside the kitchen, swell up and snicker at the sight of you.

“Holy shit!” Tommy cackles, more than loud enough to be heard over the music. “What’d I tell you about the punch?”

“Jesus, she can’t even walk straight.”

Eddie can’t figure out what he’s looking at. You whip your head around to face your hecklers and stick your tongue all the way out as a childish rebuff, and he’d probably find it pretty funny and charming if he wasn’t so furiously, dread-inducingly confused. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about any given teenager getting inadvisably drunk at a house party, but…you really, really don’t seem the type, and after the game of hide and seek you’ve been playing with him this evening, watching you struggle so obviously to negotiate your relationship to gravity is setting off every alarm bell in his head. 

“You puke on the carpet, you’re paying for it, you crazy bitch!”

You ignore Tommy’s warning and continue on wherever you’re headed, clumsily raising your drink back up to your lips as you go, and once you disappear down the hall, Eddie starts pushing himself fervently in the same direction. Like hell he’s gonna let you out of his sight again in the state you’re in.

Finally escaping the thick of it, Eddie nearly trips in his urgency to swing himself around the corner, and as soon as he does, he…finds you. 

…Pressed bodily up against Billy fucking Hargrove of all people, your hand on his chest, his own curled around your wrist to keep it there. Every thought vacates his mind beyond three glimmering words: what the fuck?

There’s a split second where Eddie feels his heart weaken, turning brittle at the edges. Then, as he realizes that you aren’t leaning into him of your own accord—he’s holding you there, anchoring you to him—it abruptly begins to pound, and Eddie’s face hardens to stone. Billy’s lips are moving, murmuring something to you with a smirk that oozes slime, and when Eddie notices the way you try and fail to reclaim your arm, shoving haphazardly at his chest in an attempt to dislodge yourself, a fire ignites under his feet, pushing him forward and lighting a fuse that burns rapidly in the direction of his rushing head. 

As he draws nearer, a snippet of your conversation reaches him through the fog of music and chatter. “I’m ugly?” he pretends to gasp, raising his eyebrows at you. “...Well, then, what does that make you, precious?”

It isn't until he gets close enough to catch Hargrove’s attention that it occurs to him; this could go badly, very badly, but so long as it might present an opportunity for you to get the hell away from him, he doesn’t really care at all.

“...Uh oh,” Billy jeers, his nasty smile stretching even wider as he looks Eddie up and down. “...This your boyfriend? Looks like he’s mad at you.”

Your head jerks over to investigate and you still yourself instantly to gawk at him, just the same as you have the last two times you caught his eye; only now, even unmoving, your balance sways precariously. One look at you from this close, and it’s clear that you’re pretty far gone; even as you stare straight at him, you aren’t all there, and it’s enough to send a chill down his spine.

“I didn't know you had a thing for druggies,” Billy continues to taunt as though only you can hear him, but Eddie hardly processes it—too busy staring right back at you, wondering why the hell you seem more distressed by the mere sight of him than you do by Hargrove’s bullying. Whatever Eddie planned on saying when he got here is long gone, if it ever existed at all. “...Then again, maybe you were made for each other. You two meet in rehab, or what?”

Eddie says your name—the only thing that comes to mind—and all at once you start to struggle, pushing more insistently against Billy, grunting your frustration. When your other hand reels back, the one holding whatever you’ve been drinking, Eddie panics and jumps forward to wrestle it out of your weak grasp, spilling some of the reeking liquid over his fingers in the process. As satisfying as it might’ve been to see you drench that smug, malicious grin in sticky red, he has no clue whether Billy Hargrove has any particular hangups when it comes to hitting girls, and Eddie is not remotely willing to let you find out.

“Nice save,” Hargrove spits. He has such a funny way of making every word out of his mouth sound like a heinous insult.

Eddie flashes a tense, unamused grin, bursting at the seams. “Let her go.”

Billy just stares—it makes him feel like his skin has thinned down to tissue paper. The red cup crinkles in his hand.

Hargrove doesn’t say anything, ignoring the command, ignoring your frantic need to escape, and the tension in Eddie’s face travels down to his shoulders as the fuse burns to its end. “...You can see she doesn’t fuckin’ want you touching her, man, just let her—!”

“Oh, if you insist,” Hargrove barks over him, twice as loud, and his pale eyes seem to darken.

You’re in the middle of another full-body attempt, your free hand planted against his collarbone in search of greater leverage, so when Billy releases your wrist, you go flying. Eddie reaches out instinctively, a clipped little “fuck!” bursting out of his throat in panic, but he isn’t close enough to catch you or alter your trajectory. You catch yourself, mostly, but with a distressed yelp, your shoulder bashes into the other side of the hallway hard enough to make Eddie flinch. You were already making enough of a ruckus to attract attention, but the thud of your impact triggers a momentary hush and catches the eye of pretty much everyone in viewing distance. Hargrove only smiles at the sight, boiling his blood even hotter.

You recover faster than he expects, and almost immediately you’re off again, dragging awkward feet down the hall, wobbling past sneering and snickering onlookers. Before Eddie can follow, Hargrove catches him by his jacket sleeve and startles him out of his boots.

“Better keep an eye on your girl,” he warns. Low, raspy, and absurdly fucking ominous. “...She could get herself into real trouble.”

“...Thanks, man,” Eddie spits back through five layers of bitter sarcasm. If looks could kill, that meticulously styled mullet would’ve just blown a hole straight through the ceiling. 

Ripping his arm back, he hurries after you, but pauses briefly, glancing down at the inconvenient cup in his hand. To his right is a random underclassman, geeky-looking enough that he might succeed in making a casual demand without getting laughed out of the room. Edgy and impulsive, Eddie holds the cup out towards him. 

“Take it,” he says.  The kid just stares at him blankly. He extends the cup further, shakes it insistently. “...Take it!”

Reluctant and puzzled, he accepts, and no sooner does Eddie tear off after you—not that you’ve made it very far. Both hands clinging onto the bannister, you drag yourself awkwardly up the stairs. 

Eddie calls your name. You look down at him over your shoulder and startle again, climbing faster and nearly tripping over yourself as you do. “Jesus, you’re— Slow down!” 

He starts bounding up the staircase two at a time, largely to put himself where he can catch you, if it comes to that, but his rapid approach just agitates you further—with a reluctant groan, you swing one leg out precariously behind you, and Eddie has to cling to the bannister himself to avoid getting hit. He stares up at you with wide eyes.

“I… Did you just try to kick me?”

Down the stairs, no less. Your only response is incomprehensible, whiny grumbling as you continue trying to throw yourself up the stairs faster than your limbs can reliably carry you. Eddie clicks his tongue and keeps following. 

“I’m sorry,” he assures you, helpless. “I don’t want to be chasing you right now, but you’re making me have to chase you. Please slow down, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

At the top of the stairs, your leg slips out from under you, and it gives him about a third of a heart attack. Thankfully, you still have the wherewithal to prevent yourself from faceplanting straight into a ninety-degree angle.

“Oh, Christ,” he breathes, dragging one hand down his face. “You okay?”

You ignore the question. He can’t tell if the frustrated grunt you let out as you reach for the bannister again and stiffly begin to pull yourself back to your feet is directed more at him or at the unwieldy meat suit you’re being forced to navigate at the moment.

“...Did something happen?” he asks as discreetly as he thinks you’ll hear, not overly expecting to get a response. The handful of loiterers still hanging around the second floor are all staring at you—he does his best to communicate the sentiment of “fuck off and die” with his eyes without taking them off of you for too long. “Y’wanna talk about it?”

“No,” you spit. Well, there’s your first coherent response.

Eddie thinks to try and bring you to Chrissy, maybe, or to call for her if she’s still up here, but with the audience you’ve already amassed, something in his stomach starts to squirm at the thought of deliberately embarrassing you in front of your popular cousin and her popular friends. He’d much rather just…wait it out, get you somewhere safe and private and let you sober up enough to decide for yourself. 

Unfortunately, this entails getting you into one of these rooms and keeping you there for an extended amount of time, and he can’t picture you being particularly cooperative about either of those things at the moment.

Back on your feet, you set off again, and Eddie follows from as much of a distance as he’s willing to give you, which essentially amounts to hovering just outside your bubble with both hands readily prepared to adjust your course.

He tries the first door you pass, but it’s still locked—someone shouts drunken nonsense at him from the other side. The next door opens, dark and empty, but the second and a half that he took his eyes off of you to check was evidently too long. You start tipping sideways and, his heart skipping a beat or two at the sight, Eddie hooks a hand around your elbow to tug you back upright. He releases you as quickly as he can, hating the thought of yanking you around after the ordeal that Hargrove just put you through, but the gesture doesn’t mean much to you right now. It’s almost like you didn’t even realize he was still there; you startle and raise your hackles at him all at once.

“Go away!” you groan, loud and slurred, and before he knows it, you’ve whipped around and started swinging your arms at him, trying to fend him off. “Jus’ stop! Leave me alone!”

It isn’t very hard to defend himself and stand his ground during your clumsy attacks, but he feels bad for upsetting you nonetheless. “Sorry– I'm sorry, I just don't want you to hurt yourself, okay?”

You’re mad at him for sure. The next time you swing, you aim for his face, and he only narrowly avoids getting a cheekful of awkward fist. “Fuck, did I—do something to you, or—?”

“Jus’ go somewhere and die,” you slur out elegantly.

“Alright, I got it,” he groans, carefully holding one of your wrists at bay, “but can’t you just—? Don’t you wanna lay down for a while, and—?”

“No!”

Yanking both hands back to yourself, you spin around to speed off again and almost immediately trip over your own feet, leaning into the wall for stability. Eddie’s shoulders jump in stress. 

He really, truly wants to give you the space you’re asking for, but he can’t really bring himself to let you wander out of his reach like this. “...I promise I’ll leave you alone if you just do me one huge favor and sit down. Can you do that for me?”

Grumbling something that probably constitutes a refusal, you start flailing one arm behind you to keep him at bay. Compromise is a hard sell when you’re stone cold sober—as wasted as you are right now, it’s probably no more than a pipe dream, but Eddie doesn’t really know what else to do. At this rate, he’ll be following you around pleading for your cooperation until the sun comes up. He says your name again, experimenting with a sterner tone.

“Listen, I’m begging you to just—”

Another swing of your arm nearly whacks him in the head—he catches your wrist and immediately regrets it for the way it distresses you, twisting around in frustration, pulling and shoving at him in equal measure while still, to his horror, stumbling backwards, leaning into it even harder in your fight to get away. 

“Shit,” he curses, calling your name out in warning, but you’re clearly too worried about him to worry about yourself. “Watch where you’re—!”

A split second later and his fear comes to pass—you trip over yourself, prepared to go hurtling down and possibly bust your head against the door behind you in the process, but Eddie moves faster, scoops his arm around your waist and tugs you back towards him, and then forces out a harsh breath of relief. “...Jesus Christ,” he mutters, “you’re killing me here.”

Struggling to support yourself on tangled legs, you slump into him at first, grabbing random handfuls of his clothes to regain your footing. Then, presumably, your sluggish brain catches up to the position you’re in and you start to use your grip to push away from him, whining and mumbling your many objections, but after multiple failed attempts at rudimentary balance and coordination, he’s pretty reluctant to let you take another unassisted shot at it. Something compels him to look over his shoulder, and his stomach turns to find the mouth of the hallway crowded with amused onlookers. 

…Okay, no, fuck this. If he had to follow you around like this all night, he’d do it, but what he’s not willing to put up with right now is either of you being reduced to some…glaring, dysfunctional spectacle for sheltered party kids to point and titter at. There’s no way to relocate you manually that doesn’t feel like crossing a multitude of lines, so Eddie decides to suck it up and make it as quick as he can.

“...Alright, c’mon,” he decides, wrapping one arm fully around your midsection to keep you stable. The door you nearly crashed into is unlocked, someone’s bedroom—thank God. “You can beat me up as much as you want to, okay? Just not out here.” 

“Stop, stop it,” you mumble, pushing, wriggling, turning in his grasp like a fish out of water, and Eddie’s jaw tightens. He really fucking hates this. 

Eddie has to half-drag you across the threshold, and he can feel you overheating, sweating down your sides. The lightswitch beside the doorway is a dial; he turns it about halfway and then goes to shut the two of you in, blissfully cut off from prying and ridiculing eyes, but as soon as he maneuvers you around to reach for the door, you start struggling even worse, grunting loudly in complaint. 

“Sorry, hold on, I just—” Dropping you on your face becomes another concern; he wraps his arm a little tighter, your back pressed to his front. Somehow, you’ve pulled off a complete one-eighty in his arms. “I need to—”

He manages to get the door closed behind you but his other hand slips in doing so and he struggles to correct it, cringing as his hold lands higher than he intended, but the moment it does, your reluctant squirming turns to thrashing with an abrupt, wild intensity that Eddie has no idea how to react to. 

“Off— No, get off!” you insist, your voice pitching higher than he's ever heard it. “Don't—fucking touch me!”

If he lets go of you, you’ll fall, but, fearful that he’s hurting you somehow, he does it anyway. He winces at the sight of you hitting the carpet, twisting and yelping as you crumple, but your face whips back up to look at him in an instant, and—

Eddie's heart stops. For one infinite, heartbreaking, blood-curdling moment, you look…terrified. Completely and unequivocally fucking terrified of him. 

It fades fast, shrinking down into a defiant glare, still shaken enough to leave him paralyzed. Then, the tears start to fall. His mind tumbles down a jagged hill, catching painfully on each awful half-conception of what the hell you could’ve thought he was trying to do, and lands bruised and nauseated at your feet, sending panicked chills up and down his spine. 

“I…” As it often does in times of stress, his tongue fails him. He blinks at you in shock, disoriented on every level, his mouth hung open uselessly.

Your lips tremble before you rein them in to speak. “...I know what you’re doing,” you accuse, thick and slurred in your constricted throat. 

Glass shatters somewhere nearby—maybe on the inside. His chest crushes in so tight that his lungs forget to function and his mind spills mortifyingly blank; no meager self-defense, no questions of why or when or how you could’ve possibly found out, just pure, white-hot dread.

“Just…fucking admit it,” you spit. Louder, unwieldy. “You…fffucking creep. You’re a pig!”

Any fear left over submerges itself in anger, and the chemical reaction of it hisses and boils and finally detonates into wrath. You bare your teeth at him like a guard dog encroached upon, dark grey tear trails streaming down your cheeks. A painful, sympathetic sting manifests behind Eddie’s gaping eyes and his heartbeat echoes in his ears, drowning out any thoughts before they can begin to form. 

“Stop…fucking staring at me!” 

Eddie cuts his eyes away in an instant. His pathetic mouth quavers but he still can’t move, or say anything at all for himself as a sweltering, mortified heat rises to the skin of his face. It feels like his body has gained a thousand pounds of pure shame, rooting him in place, too dense to lift a finger.

…Is that it? He really thought he’d have more time. More than just one date, hardly long enough to measure the fine little cracks in your shell, to see how many more he might get away with forming; to touch and tease and smile without the flinching disgust that naturally follows. But somehow, unknowingly, he’s fucked himself already.

It’s probably more than he deserves, but the child in him could care less. It’s not fair. He never even got to kiss you. You’re going to leave him alone and unwanted all over again when he’d only just started to put together what being wanted could really mean, what it might feel like, to set aside the cynicism and dare to imagine it for himself, and now, all that races through his mind is how not to let you. To…leave first and never come back, never have to suffer the sight of it (graduating never meant much to him, anyway) or to put everything else aside, the pride that, for some reason, you can batter to your heart’s content without ever bruising, and beg, beg you not to go, to abandon him down here where he belongs, to rip the quiet wound back open and drag your feet through the blood as you go. 

He hasn’t been brave enough to lift the hood on it yet—to take a proper look and sully his hands in the undercarriage—but ever since the night you came to his show, for the first time in years, he’s been dreaming about his mom again. Only in short bursts, made softer by diluted memory, but her nonetheless. If you really do go and he can't find some way to stop you, a part of him is terrified you’ll take her with you.

You try to get up. Graceless, apathetic limbs fight to locate your balance, but you don’t make it far before you scowl and clutch your head, the floor beneath you made unstable by the whirling in your mind. 

It’s no use. You give up just as quick, falling flat and limp, staring at him with eyes so dim and teary that it hurts his teeth to meet them. A deep, shuddering breath and they flick vacantly up to the ceiling.

“...Whatever,” you mumble, your voice barely there. “...Jus’ do it, then. I don't care.”

Eddie’s brow furrows tight. “...What?”

“S’what you want, isn’t it?” you jeer with a sniffle. An uncoordinated hand floats precariously up to your face, rubbing harshly, smearing your watery makeup into an inkblot. “...This whooole fuckin’ time, being…fuckin’ annoying… Following me. ...Fuckin’ creep. Get it over with ‘n leave me th’fuck alone.”

It feels like a hole opens up at the bottom of Eddie’s stomach and every organ in his chest falls through, filling all the space inside of him with cold, empty shock. He doesn’t know exactly what you mean, but what it sounds like—that you’d expect that from him, from anyone—is enough to have his dinner crawling back up his digestive tract.

“...What are you talking about?” he dares to ask. Hoping, maybe stupidly, that he's wildly off the mark.

You don't say anything. After a moment, you meet his eye again, but you don't even look angry anymore, just…tired. Resigned in a way that makes his skin crawl.

“...I’m not gonna touch you,” he says. Slow, measured, and pale-faced. He raises his hands, open and emphatically harmless, but even that makes you twitch. He freezes again, trying to turn himself inanimate for you. “I’m not gonna— Jesus, I swear to fucking God, I’m not trying to…” 

He doesn’t know what to say, or if there is anything he can say that would help. Maybe saying anything at all is making it worse, and he should just leave you the hell alone like you’ve been begging him to all night, but…how the fuck could he walk away from you like this?

“I don’t want…anything,” he tries to assure you, projecting every ounce of sincerity he’s capable of through wide-stretched eyes. “I shouldn’t have— I’m sorry I…grabbed you like that, I didn’t mean to— I was scared. I didn’t want you to…hurt yourself, or… Fuck, I just…I want you to be okay. That’s it. I promise.”

But you aren’t. He’s had his suspicions, of course, but right now it’s in focus, spilling out of you like the rivulets of sweat and tears against your skin. Practically every moment you’ve shared together flashes before his eyes—the way it probably should've a couple minutes ago, when he thought it was all coming to an abrupt and violent end. He feels like a self-obsessed moron, assuming that all of this must be his doing, his pain inflicted on you. You haven’t been okay for as long as he’s known you. You wouldn't act the way you do if you were. 

And as it clicks into place, his blood boils over—he can feel it throbbing in his head. His doing or not, seeing you like this makes him want to beat himself bloody; him, and Tommy Hagan, and fucking Hargrove; every snickering, unfeeling bystander at this shitty fucking party and anyone else who could’ve contributed even the slightest bit to making you feel like this.

His hands are starting to shake. From the moment he found you, he assumed you must've, for whatever alarming reason, decided to drink yourself dumb on purpose, but now his thoughts spiral somewhere darker. Eddie doesn't sell shit like that—once nearly surrendered to the urge to suckerpunch some dirtbag square in the teeth for even asking—but it's not like he's the only dealer in Hawkins. His eyes flit around as faces start to flash behind them, rotating through potential culprits, where he last saw them, how much damage he might be able to do before they get the better of him, but just before the pressure mounts enough to burst, Eddie clamps down on it, releases as much as he can in hissing streams through his teeth. Because blowing his lid on your behalf won't fix this, or make anything about this moment less awful for you. 

The way you look up at him, this shrunken, extinguished mess on the spotless peach carpet, can only be described as mournful. Like you want to believe him, but something inside of you just can’t.

Eddie blinks, and all of the sudden his eyes catch on your dress. It has the same patchwork look as your signature slouch bag—multiple garments cut up and sewn back together to make something new and distinctly yours. He noticed it before, but didn’t process the information until just now.

“...Did you make that dress?” he asks. 

You glance down at yourself and then back to him with a frown; your monumental suspicion is almost relieving next to the sorrow it replaces. “...You don't care.”

“Yeah, I do,” he scoffs, barely suppressing a startled laugh. “...Of course I do. Why wouldn't I care?”

He gets a long, doubtful glare. “...You don't care about me,” you insist harder.

“Yes, I do!” he argues with gentle outrage. “I care about you…” 

With your eyes on him like this, it isn’t very hard to come out with it—he’d read out every mushy thought he’s ever had back to back if he thought it might make you feel better. 

“...I care about you a lot, actually. …Maybe too much, I dunno.” He shrugs, smiles compulsively, and it takes real effort not to duck his face in embarrassment. “I'm…not really used to this shit, if I'm being honest.”

You’re still just staring at him, but softer now; with rounder eyes. He decides to take the plunge.

“...Can I sit with you?” 

Just asking makes his heart skip a beat or two, and the wary, wet-eyed pout you give him in response strums harsh against his heartstrings. Eventually, you nod.

“Yeah?” he checks. “You sure?”

Another sullen dip of your chin. Eddie has to wield his flesh against his own skeleton to content himself with merely inching slightly closer and lowering himself to sit criss-cross a couple feet away from you, rather than throwing himself headfirst into the hug it really fucking looks like you need.

Settled down on the floor, hands entwined in his lap, he gnaws on his lip indecisively. Your eyes are glued to the carpet between you.

“What…” What happened? Does it fucking matter? “...What can I do?”

…Nothing. Stupid question, probably. He searches his internal archive for any sort of protocol he might have on hand for a situation even vaguely resembling the here and now, and all that comes to mind is something Wayne used to do when he was a kid—to rein him in when he was bouncing off the walls or derail a meltdown before he could fully commit to it, to focus his scattered brain when it started to overwhelm him. It feels a little like a revelation; he isn’t sure how he forgot about it.

“You, uh… You wanna play a game?”

You look up at him and blink. He’ll take it as a maybe.

“Y’know hot hands?” he asks. Your brow furrows—that’s a no. “...Don’t worry, it’s super easy. Um, can you come a little closer?”

With little hesitation, you scoot yourself towards him, nearly close enough for your legs to rest against each other. Eddie has to shake his head to set it back on track.

“Alright, uh— Hold your hands out like this.” He demonstrates with both hands palm-up, and you do the same. “Perfect. Now, mine go here—” He gently rests his palm-down on top of yours. “—and what you’re gonna do is try to slap your hands on top of mine before I move them away. You got that?”

Staring down at his hands, you nod with full confidence.

“You wanna try it first before we start?” he offers. He isn’t one-hundred-percent sure how present you are. Even sitting down, you’re still swaying around a bit. 

“I know how to slap,” you assure him, like the mere implication offends you.

He thinks of the welt you once bestowed upon him—Christ, it feels like a month ago. “You’re right,” he agrees. “You really do. That’s my bad. Go for it, then. Ready when you are.”

Eddie doesn’t go easy on you the first time. He slips his hands away the moment he feels you move yours, and you miss the window by about a mile. 

“That’s okay, the first time’s always tricky. Again?”

You nod. Eddie goes slower this time; you graze his fingertips, sort of, and then grunt at him in complaint. 

“Sorry,” he offers. “One more try, you got this.”

Since the point of this is to cheer you up (rather than teach you a valuable lesson about the unfairness of life and inevitability of failure), Eddie lets you win pretty blatantly on the third go, but thankfully, you aren’t quite cognizant enough to realize. He hisses as your palms strike down on the back of his hands with full uninhibited force, but it morphs into a laugh at the sight of your big, evil, satisfied grin. 

“Owww, fuck,” he complains as he shakes his hands out, playing it up in hopes of lighting your eyes even brighter. “...Jesus, you get way too much pleasure out of doing that.”

“I got you,” you rub in happily.

He might be smiling even wider than you are. “Yeah, you got me good. Now it’s your turn.”

Reversing the positions, Eddie…hesitates.

“...You gotta move your hands outta the way before I can smack ‘em, alright?” he reminds you pointedly.

You nod and nod and nod while he speaks like you’re trying to hurry him up.

“...Both of them,” he stresses harder. “As soon as I move, you gotta pull ‘em back.”

“I know, you told me."

“Okay, okay,” he sighs, studying you a moment longer. “Just making sure. You ready?” 

“Yeah.”

Eddie moves half as quickly as he’s capable of and effortlessly taps the backs of your hands on the first try. You click your tongue at him belatedly.

“That’s alright,” he rushes to say. “Let’s try again.”

On your second attempt, Eddie goes slow enough that it looks a little ridiculous to his own eyes, and you do react this time, but the pressure must short circuit your brain; he gets you anyway.

“Oops,” he says. He really thought you had that one. “You gotta move ‘em away.”

“I know, Eddie!”

He bites down hard on his cheek to keep his smile down. “Okay, I’m sorry. Wanna try again?”

You consider it and nod. Eddie tries, really tries to make it easy for you, but something about the opposite role just doesn’t compute in your brain. 

“Ah, shit,” he laments as he wins again. “Okay, um... How about we—whuh?!”

He doesn’t see your frustration get the better of you—one second you’re scowling, and the next, you’re rising to your knees and trying to whack him in the head again. He raises his arms to shield himself on instinct, but it quickly becomes apparent that you aren’t really trying to hurt him. You are, a little bit, because you’re drunk and oblivious and wailing on him, but it’s a far cry from the genuine self-defense of your earlier attacks. 

“You’re doing it on purpose!” you accuse.

“No, I’m— Doing what? Winning? That's how games work!”

One hand planted on his shoulder for stability, you smack him and grab him and shake him around while Eddie grunts and groans like you’re ripping him to shreds, and he could swear he hears you laughing under one of his louder cries. Eventually, he lets you topple him over completely, falling spread eagle onto the carpet with one last, theatrical grunt. Then, he plays dead. You don’t suffer it for very long.

“...You’re sooo dramatic,” you gripe.

“I’m dramatic?” He whips his head up to address you with a ridiculously severe expression that makes you snort. “You totally just tried to kill me over a hand game.”

You roll your eyes at him, and even that seems lazier than usual. “If I was gonna kill you, then I would just stab you.”

Eddie throws your eye-roll right back at you, blown way out of proportion. “Right, of course, how could I forget? What’d I do to deserve this abuse, anyhow?”

“You’re so annoying,” you remind him, fighting endearingly hard against a smile. “And I don’t like you.”

He sits back up and grins at you. “I kinda think you do, though.” You shake your head, insistent, and Eddie wants to pinch you. He raises two pinched fingers instead. “Just a little bit?”

“Ugh,” you grunt, and your head falls limp to pout at your lap. You raise a clumsy hand to scratch your cheek. “...I do.” 

Eddie never knew what butterflies really felt like until he went and caught some for you. He's pretty sure there are fireworks bursting in his chest.

Very abruptly, you attempt to stand up again—possibly fleeing from the scene of your confession—and Eddie’s eyes pop open wide.

“Where, uh— Where ya goin’?” 

“I need to pee,” you announce.

“Ah,” he notes. “Nature calls.”

Eddie leads you out into the hall with your hand curled in a death grip around his sleeve. Part of him was mildly terrified that leaving the room would reveal the presence of some shameless eavesdropper, lingering around with an ear pressed to the crack in the door in hopes of hearing something juicy, but the coast is reassuringly clear; the entire second floor seems to be deserted. The music is much, much quieter now too—he has to strain his ears to catch the faint wisp of it that floats upstairs, muddled together with distant voices.

He remembers where the bathroom is from earlier and takes you to it without a hitch, pushing the door in and flicking the light on for you.

“There ya go,” he says with a bow, inviting your entry. “Your porcelain throne awaits.”

You walk past him only slightly off-kilter and ignore his theatrics exactly the same as you do sober. Only, you’re still holding onto his sleeve. At first he assumes that, in your drunken state, you simply forgot to let go of him, but when he plants his feet to stay in place and you tug on him even harder with a little grunt, he jolts in realization.

“Oh, uh— you need me?” On your third tug (more of a yank, really) he relents, letting you drag him cluelessly into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him with an endeared little grin. “What are we, um…?” 

You head straight for the toilet as planned, and Eddie’s stomach does a flip as you start to pull up the hem of your dress without a care. “Okay, that’s—” He spins all the way around, possibly the fastest he ever has in his life, and squints his eyes shut, letting his forehead thunk lightly against the door—probably singing it black with the way his face catches fire. “A little warning would be nice, next time. Christ.”

“I told you I need to pee.”

“Well—shit, yeah, you did tell me that.” He tips his head back towards the ceiling, but still dares not open his eyes. “That’s… yeah. Silly me.”

He waits until the toilet flushes and the water turns on to brave a glance and finds you leaning deep into the mirror, frowning at your reflection and wiping at your waterlogged makeup with wet hands.

“Still the prettiest girl in town,” he throws out.

You cut your eyes at him in the mirror. “You’re the stupidest.”

Eddie can’t help himself. “I’m the stupidest girl in town?”

You hang your head in defeat, eyes squinting shut. “Please be quiet.”

Shit, right—you may very well have a headache. Eddie nods, exaggerated enough that you might process the gesture in your peripheral vision. He mimes zipping his lips closed for added emphasis, but you probably don’t catch that part.

Grasping the counter tightly with one hand, you continue awkwardly scrubbing at your makeup, staring and grimacing at yourself in the mirror, then rubbing at your eyes, your temples, pinching the bridge of your nose. A shudder hits you so hard that Eddie can see it travel down your spine, and you let out a low, throaty, unhappy groan in response. 

Another full-body shudder and Eddie recognizes it for what it really is at the same time that you scramble back to the toilet and start purging your stomach contents with an awful retch. He sucks his teeth in sympathy as he comes over to kneel beside you, making sure no hair or jewelry gets in your way and rubbing your back in encouragement.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Get it all out. I promise, you’re gonna feel so much better.”

It doesn’t take too long—the only thing you seem to have ingested recently is that godforsaken punch. A couple dry heaves confirm your tank is empty, and you finally lift your head again, wiping the water from your eyes.

“Great job,” he tells you with a gentle pat. “Want some water?”

You nod. Eddie helps you back to the sink so you can rinse out your mouth and flushes the toilet on your behalf, grimacing as neon red swirls down the drain.

When you’re finished, you plop yourself back down on the floor, and Eddie swiftly joins you—he figures you’ve earned a rest.

You’re carrying a smaller bag this evening, simple black leather slung across your torso. You wrestle it over your head, struggling for a moment as the strap catches in your hair, and clumsily yank it open to dump its contents onto the floor in front of you. 

“Oh,” Eddie notes. Your keys tumble out, an eyeliner pencil, the lipstick you’re wearing, a pack of cigarettes, and… “Uh… Wh— Is that a knife?”

“No,” you mumble, like he’s a huge idiot. “It’s a dagger.”

“Right, sorry,” he corrects with a grin. “Dunno what I was thinking.”

Either way, it’s kind of awesome—a small, double sided blade with an ornate handle, just loose in your fucking purse, no sheath or anything. Your hands skips over it entirely, snatching up your Djarums and a stray lighter instead. 

“S’that what you were gonna stab me with?” he jokes.

“Probably,” you mumble around your cigarette.

Eddie’s hands are twitching. “...Can I touch it?”

You click the lighter thrice before it ignites, and then take a long inhale. “...I don’t care.”

Given permission, he snatches it up for a closer look, running his thumb over the carved metal on the handle, but his attention is cut short by the feeling of your head thunking onto his shoulder. He blinks a few times, processing, and then carefully sets your dagger back down. You curl yourself in and lean against him more fully, and Eddie tries to focus on breathing, relaxing—willing himself a more comfortable pillow. 

Clove-scented smoke curls and effuses, making the air a little thicker. It isn’t long before the first sniffle. As much as you try to hold it back, minimize it, he can feel the shaking in your breath, the way you tilt your face to let your tears soak into his vest. He really wants to wrap his arm around you, pull you in closer, but if you wanted that, you’d probably put it there yourself. 

Eddie stays quiet, giving you room to let go of whatever else needs to spill out of you, until eventually, you hold out the cigarette in offering, burnt most of the way down. He accepts it with a smile and takes a quick puff, humming at the flavor of it. 

“...Wow,” he mutters. “These things taste…way better when you smoke ‘em with your mouth.”

Rather than your gentle sobbing, the way you shake against him now is unambiguously silent laughter. You snatch it back from him to finish it off.

All cried out, you snuff the filter on the bathroom tile and sigh. Eddie’s pretty antsy for a change in scenery.

“Ready to get the fuck out of here?” he asks. You nod against him, and then, regrettably, lift your head off of his shoulder.  “...Yeah, me too.”

He carefully refills your purse for you and then hurries to his feet, holding both hands out to pull you up. You spring up pretty fast and it gives Eddie a fright, thinking he accidentally yanked you up too hard or something, but when you collide with the front of him, you stay there; face nestled into his collar, clutching onto his jacket like a lifeline.

Eddie’s face screws up—every inch of him scrunched tight with fondness, his heart stuttering and cracking open in his chest. His palm rests automatically against your back.

“...Oh, sweetheart,” he breathes.

…

Eddie keeps you close as he guides you back to the first floor, as quickly as he can while taking your still-clumsy limbs into account. The party still goes on though it’s shrunken considerably in size, seemingly centered around the living room area. At first, it’s relieving—maybe he can slip the both of you out unseen—but of course, nothing’s ever that easy for him. 

You’ve barely stepped away from the stairs when you catch a couple pairs of eyes. Colin and Danny; your garden variety brainless jocks in two different shades. 

“What the hell?” Colin squints at the sight. Just a couple hours ago, he’d clapped Eddie on the shoulder after buying an eighth off of him.

“Told you he was still around,” says Danny, starting towards him. He eyes the pair of you up and down and scoffs. “...Looks like the freak’s trying to get lucky tonight.”

In the absence of demand for his mercantile services, “Eddie” has devolved back down to “the freak.” On the bright side, it signals definitively that this shitty night is finally fucking over.

“We’re leaving,” is all Eddie can be bothered to say, holding onto you a little tighter.

“What’s the rush?” Danny asks; either genuinely suspicious or just looking to fuck with him. The last thing he needs right now is an unprovoked interrogation.

Colin, a step or two behind, squints even harder before bumping Danny with his elbow. “...Wait, isn’t that her cousin?”

“...Shit, it is, isn’t it?”

Eddie feels the tone shift, the damning verdict closing around his neck, and his hackles raise to the ceiling. “Listen, man, I’m really not in the fucking mood to play ‘hammer down the nail’ with you right now—”

“What’d you just say?”

“You really think we’d let you sneak out of here with—?”

The commotion summons an audience, and Chrissy all but wailing your name at the sight of you cuts out every other agitated voice. The sound of it makes you twitch and press into him even harder. She bounds down the hall in an instant, face twisted up with worry.

“Chrissy,” Danny notes, jerking a thumb at Eddie. “This fuckin’ pervert is trying to—”

“Oh, leave him alone,” she groans, shoving him aside. Like a real, two-handed shove that has him stumbling out of her way. Eddie’s eyebrows jump to the ceiling. 

In front of you, Chrissy pauses with a thousand questions in her eyes, but only one of them makes it out. “...Is she okay?”

“She’ll be alright,” Eddie assures her quietly. “I gotta get her home.”

She nods, firmly in agreement. “I’m coming, too.”

The wrecking ball of Chrissy’s arrival distracted Eddie from the sight of Carver, lingering a few paces behind with his eyes glued to the back of her head. “Chrissy?”

“Sorry, I gotta go now!” she calls behind her urgently—barely throwing him a final glance. “...Thanks, Tommy!” 

Chrissy leads the way, practically bursting through the front door like she might be even more eager to get you out of there than Eddie is. But because of it, she doesn’t see the look on Jason’s face as she goes—or hear what Tommy steps up to taunt him with.

“Jesus, Carver, you really let your girl hang out with that freak?”

Eddie’s jaw sets tight. The glare Jason levels at him is…worse than usual. Less of an apathetic blizzard, more of a smoldering, seething fury, and Eddie hates the way it jolts his spine, sets his nerves on fire. He can’t close the door behind him fast enough. 

…

In the car, Eddie’s ears perk up as the stereo comes on, a couple minutes into The Figurehead—he recognizes it instantly. The ride is otherwise silent. 

It’s clear that Chrissy wants to say something, her concerns resting on the tip of her tongue, but she knows you, knows you aren’t ready yet. 

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she promises as Eddie pulls up in front of her house. You don’t say anything; you’ve been staring out the passenger side window since he helped you into your seat.

On the way to your place, the stereo onto A Strange Day, your voice quietly returns.

“...Do you actually listen to The Cure?”

Eddie sighs. He can’t bring himself to lie to you any more than he has to at the moment. “I…do now,” he admits.

You scoff, and it’s probably the weakest he’s ever heard from you. “Fuckin’ knew it.”

Eddie tries not to wince. “Sorry.”

“You're a poser.”

“Fuck, I know,” he groans with a regretful chuckle. “...Goddamnit.”

Eddie cuts the engine in front of the psychic’s parlor again—fuzzy purple lighting you from behind, giving him deja vu. You stare down at your lap for a long time.

“...I’m sorry,” you mutter.

He winces harder—he can’t suppress it. “What for?”

“I know you aren’t…like that.” You speak slowly, deliberately, taking time to consider each word. “You wouldn’t… You’re not a creep.”

Eddie wishes that were true. “No, don’t— don’t apologize, alright?” he insists, bursting out with stilted horror. “Not to me. You didn’t…do anything wrong.”

“I know,” you say. “I just…wanted to. I was…angry, and I—”

“I get it,” he says. “Seriously, sweetheart, I get it. You don’t need to explain yourself. I mean—at all.” 

As for himself, on the other hand…

His blood runs cold at the thought of it. He should’ve told you ages ago, he knows that, but now—with that violent look on Carver’s face still fresh in his memory—he has a terrible fucking feeling that this exact moment might be his last chance, and his mind freezes over with anxiety. 

“...Are you okay?”

The question startles him, wrenching his zoned-out gaze back in your direction. You always notice, and it always makes him feel funny.

…He can’t do it—can’t even picture it. Your still-puffy face contorting with misery all over again; the gushing wound of betrayal cauterizing with righteous fire, scarring over into irrevocable, piercing hatred. You should hate him, but the child in him resurfaces. After everything—after all he’s seen of you tonight, all you’ve shared with him—he just can’t bring himself to let you. 

“Yeah, I just… I meant what I said, alright?” He cringes furiously on the inside—the cop out of the fucking century. “I care about you, and it…matters to me that you're okay. I really mean it.”

His eyes wander back to his lap in shame, his brow furrowing as he bears it. You shift around in your seat to face him and one of your hands crosses the invisible boundary, planting itself atop the center console.

“...Eddie.”

Reluctantly, he lifts his head, and the look in your eyes makes every hair on the back of his neck stand up, dread flooding into his stomach all over again. His eyes blow open wide, disbelieving. 

“I— You don’t have to—”

“Shut up for once.”

Eddie’s mouth drops open a second time but it falters, useless, his heart sent racing into overdrive. Don’t let her kiss you, he begs himself. Do not let her kiss you, you stupid, spineless fucking asshole, whatever you do, you can't—

There's nothing slow or tentative about it. You're sure of yourself, wholly decided as you grab him by his collar and tug him in, and it's as easy as that. Eddie doesn't stand a chance. 

You kiss him, and a second later, he gives in; cups his hand around the back of your neck to keep you there, gentle and desperate.

It wasn’t until he thought he was losing you that he realized just how fucking thrilled he is that he hasn’t yet, that there’s still time; how badly he wants to hold on to you, to bother you, to make you laugh and glare and roll your eyes as many times as humanly possible before it runs out. 

But kissing you… it almost hurts. The moment your lips touch, he knows he’s a goner. One simple, lightheaded kiss and every bone in his body starts to ache, oozing premature grief and pure delight into his veins in equal measure. He didn’t know it could feel like this, so far beyond wet spit and puckered lips that the physical sensation hardly even registers—he can feel himself, all of himself spilling into you, and any empty space left behind is sated instantly by your eager acceptance. Your palm unmoving against his cheek, the other clutched tight around his vest collar; every urgent press of his lips met with mind-boggling reciprocation.

When you finally manage what Eddie cannot and begin to pull away, he whines, low and shameful in the back of his throat, smushing one last peck into your upper lip before he pulls his sorry ass together and leans back into his seat. A heavy hand wipes down his face, dragging his skin down as he catches his breath—he might’ve forgotten to exhale even once in the heat of it.

“...Fuck,” he breathes, split slightly down the middle, and you giggle at him. His eyes squint shut at the sound. God fucking damnit. 

He’s on top of the world, and drowning in heartache—the blood-pumping high of it dulled by how painfully aware he is that he may never get another, that he didn't even deserve this one. Sitting heavy like a block of lead in his gut. 

At some point, you reach over and steal one of his hands from his lap; squeezing and pinching, carefully scratching and digging your nails in, and he’d probably let you keep at it until the sun comes up. He has no clue how much time passes before you break the pleasant silence.

“...Um,” you begin, unusually tentative. “...Do you wanna come upstairs?”

Like the plunge of a guillotine, the rosy haze between you dissolves, and Eddie is dropped right back into the gruesome, colorless reality where none of this is real and he’s doing something awful to you. 

It could be real. Clearly, it could’ve been real from the start if the two of you have made it this far, but because of him, it isn’t, and that’s why he can’t come upstairs. Because, as much as it makes him feel like a total scumbag to even consider the idea that, after the night you’ve had, you could possibly be thinking about sleeping with him, he just doesn’t know. He can’t be certain. And if he goes up there with you, he’s going to give you, without exaggeration, any fucking thing that you could ever want from him, and potentially come out the other end as the biggest piece of shit on planet Earth. He’s done a lot to you already, as oblivious as you may be to it, but one thing he refuses to do to you is that. 

And by the look you’re giving him, the alternative isn’t going to be much easier.

“I just…don’t wanna be alone,” you go on when he hesitates. He’s never seen you shy like this before.

Fuck. Eddie’s heart twists in on itself, seizing up until pain and tension warms his chest and pressure builds at the joints of his ribcage.  He opens his mouth thrice before he can force a single word out. 

“I…don’t think that’s a good idea.”

A silence passes. A terrible fucking silence where he can't even do you the courtesy of looking you in the eye as he pulls the rug out from under you, because if he catches the slightest hint of disappointment on your face, he'll cave—carry you straight up those stairs himself. He decides it’s for the best to take his hand back.

“...Why?” you ask. “...If it’s because I was drunk—”

“It’s not.” 

He sort of regrets it as soon as it flies out—it makes more sense than whatever other lie he might come up with, but the last thing he wants is for you to think he was put off or disgusted by what he saw of you tonight.

“Then why?” Your voice is small and thick—only barely squeezing through the awful constriction of his hands around your throat. 

“...It's getting late, and—”

“Bullshit,” you accuse. “...What is it? What changed?”

Eddie blinks in shock. “I… Nothing changed, I just—”

“Bullshit!” He can sense you leaning closer, trying to make him look at you. “Why are you—?”

“I don’t want to, alright?” he grits out in stress, ripping a hand through his hair. “I just…don’t want to.”

It hangs in the air like a noose. He could throttle himself. The harsh, incredulous scoff you let out makes his face twitch in regret. 

“...I’m sorry,” he tries to correct, “I didn’t mean—”

“Save it,” you spit at him. You reach over to rip the keys out of the ignition, and Eddie wants to rip his own hair out by the handful.

“...See you at—” 

The door slams behind you. Now that he’s out of the frying pan, he watches you go until the parlor door slams behind you as well, the bead curtain in front of it jittering wildly beyond the glass. 

“Fuck.” He rams his forehead into the top of the steering wheel, squeezes it with both hands until his arms shudder with exertion. “God…fucking damnit.” 

A minute or two to ride out the frustration, and Eddie steps out of the car.

It’s starting to drive him crazy. Why does it keep ending like this? Why can’t you ever say goodbye to each other on a high note? 

It’s his fault, he knows that. But how the hell he’s going to make it up to you this time, he isn’t sure. You might as well be a sickly kitten this evening, and Eddie’s just punted you into the Eno River to save his own skin. 

At the very least, he’ll have the entire walk across town to stew it over. 

-

thanks for reading! feedback is always welcome 💞 likes, comments, + reblogs would be much appreciated!

Because today, all he has to worry about is you. Everything else—shady dealings and schoolyard extortion, work and school and graduation, the nebulous future and whether he even has one—is mercifully shoved into a tight box and kicked down the stairs to concern himself with later. Despite his poor sleep quality as of late, this morning, Eddie woke up bright and early at eleven a.m. flat and rolled out of bed with an unheard of degree of enthusiasm. He was caught red-handed practically the moment he stepped out of his room, Wayne’s razor-sharp eyes honing in on his failed nonchalance within seconds, watching him slam down a bowl of instant oatmeal with a perceptive squint that made his ears burn.  

After spending twice as long as usual wrangling his hair, slipping one of his good shirts over his head (a Thin Lizzy tee that is neither worn and faded nor hacked to pieces—a verifiable unicorn as far as his wardrobe is concerned), mildly over-accessorizing, lacing up his boots, and applying a few indulgent spritzes of a nice cologne he’d nicked from his dad the last time they’d been troubled with his presence, Wayne finally addressed the elephant. A gruff and amused “what’s her name, son?” followed by a very pointed “watch yourself,” and Eddie made his red-faced escape.

Out of what he assumes to be pure spitefulness, it isn’t until three thirty-five that you emerge from the front door of the psychic’s parlor. 

Eddie watches you cross the street with a beaming smile that only grows wider as you hesitate briefly outside the passenger side door, the probable glare on your face hidden behind a pair of circle frame sunglasses. 

“Aw, look at us,” Eddie says when you finally summon the will to open the door, bouncing his own aviator glasses on his nose a couple times for emphasis. “Aren’t we adorable?”

“You look stupid,” is your lovely and generous greeting.

“Exactly how you like me, right?” he jokes. “...You look even prettier than the last time I saw you.”

In contrast to the higher-than-usual effort that Eddie put into getting ready, you seem a little dressed down by your own standards—not that he’s remotely complaining. He’s seen you in some pretty fancy blouses, skirts, and dresses, (at least by his penniless metric,) often with plenty of layering and accessorizing, but today, you’re in a fairly simple black t-shirt with the words “Alien Sex Fiend” stenciled across the chest, tucked into a flowy black skirt, with a studded leather belt across your middle. You’re wearing less jewelry than he’s used to and less makeup as well, your typical eyeliner atypically light with nothing but maybe chapstick on your lips. You’re dressed for comfort; to actually enjoy a trip that’ll eat up an entire day, and honestly, Eddie finds that more flattering than if you had, for whatever improbable reason, pulled out all the stops and tried to impress him. 

In your arms are your typical patchwork bag and a black knit sweater, both of which you hug sullenly to your chest as you slump into the passenger seat and kick your feet up onto the dashboard, clad in all-black hightop Converse. It makes your skirt fall higher on your legs, almost above your knees, which really shouldn’t catch his attention as wholly as it does, but, shit, he can’t even remember seeing your bare ankles before. Moreover, there’s a tattoo of a skeletal hand on your left ankle and something else he can’t quite make out on the inside of your right, but he figures you probably aren’t in the mood for show and tell at the moment. Hopefully his sunglasses do a decent job at obscuring the stare he was a little too sluggish in diverting.

His compliment goes completely unacknowledged. “Are we going, or what?” you drone with impatience. 

Eddie clicks his tongue at you. “C’mon, no feet on the dash. Have a little respect.”

You turn to him and raise your sunglasses to the top of your head, probably just to show him how much you do not care at all. 

Eddie pushes his own glasses further down his nose, giving you a look over the top of them. “You wanna hit the road, or you wanna sit here in a stalemate all day? ‘Cause I can do either.”

With an exaggerated huff, you curl your legs back into yourself, and as soon as you do, Eddie hits the ignition. The music that starts playing—about a minute into For Whom The Bell Tolls—makes your face scrunch up with distaste, and you instantly start rifling through your bag, digging out a cassette of your own. As soon as he realizes what you’re trying to do, Eddie’s hand whips out to cover the eject button, about a half-second before your attempt to smash it in. Your face snaps towards him in annoyance. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” Eddie says. “Driver picks the music, everyone knows that.”

“I’m not listening to four hours of this shit, Munson.”

Eddie just shrugs, like there’s no helping it. “Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. You probably shoulda thought of that before asking me out.”

Your brow furrows heavily. “I did not ask you out.”

“Yeah, you did, and don’t you forget it,” he tells you with a grin. The outlandish claim seems to distract you enough to forget about usurping the stereo, so he takes the opportunity to pull out of his parking spot and start driving. “Every glorious minute of this outing was one-hundred percent your idea.”

That gets a scoff out of you. “I was going either way.”

“Seriously?” He shoots you an alarmed look. “...You were gonna drive all the way to the city by yourself?”

“I’ve done it before,” you grumble.

“Well, shit,” he says, flaring his eyes to himself. “Then it’s a good thing I chased you down when I did.”

All you do is sit there with your arms crossed. He doesn’t let the conversation end for very long.

“...So, what’s this movie we’re seeing?” he tries asking.

Your sigh is almost theatrical. “Ms. 45.”

“What’s it about?”

“You’ll find out when you watch it.”

“Fine, we’ll keep it a surprise,” he relents. “…What’d you do yesterday?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees your head fall into your hands.

“Are you gonna keep talking the entire drive?” you ask, gravely.

Eddie grins and throws you a glance, amused to have you this tortured already. “Duh. How else are we gonna get to know each other?”

“I changed my mind,” you mutter. “Turn the car around.”

He hits a turn with a little too much enthusiasm, and you make an adorable little noise in complaint. “Nope. No way. Too little, too late. You’re stuck with me, pretty girl.”

“Stop that,” you groan.

“Stop what?”

“Calling me that.”

“What, pretty girl?” Your scowl looks like it could burn a hole through the windshield. “I’m just laying out the facts. What do you want me to call you?”

“Nothing.” 

“I could call you beautiful.” 

“No.”

“Or, like… Gorgeous. Gorgeous girl. S’that better?”

“It’s worse.”

“Is it the ‘girl’ that’s the problem, then? How about pretty woman?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, shit, I picked up some snacks, by the way,” Eddie remembers suddenly, making you jump in your seat. He reaches wildly behind him until his hand catches on the plastic bag, and drops it haphazardly in your lap. “In case we get hungry on the ride.” 

Somehow, the snacks seem to placate you. You take your time looking through the options, and eventually pop open a bag of nacho cheese Bugles. Eddie discreetly watches, endeared, as you line four of them up on each fingertip and start biting them off, one at a time. This time, it’s you who rekindles the chatting.

“...How’s it feel, Munson?”

He gives you a curious glance. “What’s that?”

“Being on the first date of your life.”

Eddie gives you a longer look and puffs out something between a scoff and a laugh, unsure if you’re serious or not. “...This is not my first date ever.”

Your face twists into a ridiculous, incredulous frown. “Who the hell went out with you?”

Eddie just shakes his head. “You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” he drawls. “...Are you sure this isn’t yours? You’re not actually supposed to pelt insults at the guy you’re on a date with, y’know. That’s like, the kindergarten approach to flirting.”

You don’t say anything—dissatisfied, probably, by your failed first attempt to get under his skin. Good thing he’s kind enough to offer a consolation prize. 

“...Cassie Finnigan,” Eddie deigns to reveal.

“What?”

“Cassie Finnigan went out with me,” he says. “Last year.”

She was in the grade above you, the class Eddie should’ve graduated with. A sense of vague recognition passes over your face, but mostly, you just gawk at him. 

“...Why?”

This time, he really does laugh. “...Yeah, I kinda wondered that too. I mean, she asked me out. In broad fucking daylight and everything. She had to kiss me on the cheek to convince me that it wasn’t a prank, and even then, I still ran back to my van afterwards to make sure she hadn’t stamped a dick on my face with her mouth, or something.”

Eddie doesn’t continue at first, but he can feel you staring at him in the corner of his eye. Waiting for the end of the story but too stubborn to prompt it outright—God forbid he mistakes you as interested. Pausing at an empty intersection, he stares right back at you for a moment, basking in the petulant look on your face. Like, get on with it. The best part is, you probably think your dark makeup and general gloomy aura make it not stupidly adorable, rather than infinitely more so.  

Eddie sighs and keeps on driving. “...Turns out, all she really wanted was to find out what ‘the freak’ was like in the sack. We only went out the one time.”

When your silence only continues, he tries to flash a grin at you, but you’re staring straight ahead again. “...What, no rib? No…derisive scoff, nothing?” 

You can hear him, obviously, but you act like you don’t.

“...What’s a matter?” he teases, more amused by the second. “Feel bad for me?”

You slump even further down in your seat. “...I’m trying to listen to your shitty music.”

Yeah, right. Eddie burns his stare into you long enough to make it obvious, and then shrugs and decides to let you win. In less than a minute, your curiosity must get the better of you.

“...Did you sleep with her?”

The impulse to waggle his eyebrows at you and ask why you wanna know perks up fiercely inside of him, but it’s quickly shoved back down by how oddly quiet the mumbled question comes out of your mouth, only barely audible above the music—that, and the castigating voice of Val booming in his mind. Don’t be a fucking creep.

“Do I seem that desperate to you?” he asks lightly instead. The look you snap onto his face, firm and inscrutable, kind of makes his stomach gurgle. He suppresses most of his grimace. “...On second thought, don’t answer that.”

Eventually, the siren song of nacho cheese powder starts to become a distraction. Eddie glances over at you twice, and then holds his hand out between you, flicking his fingers in demand. 

“Gimme one,” he asks.

“No way.” 

He tries to get one himself, but you hold the bag out of reach. “C’mon, I’m starving over here. You’re making them look so tasty.”

“You get the music, I get the snacks,” you declare.

Eddie scoffs at you theatrically. “...Goddamnit, fine. On the way back, we can listen to your music. How’s that?”

Crunching on another bugle, you think it over for a while and then tentatively hold the bag out to him. As soon as he goes for it, you snatch it back out of reach, smiling to yourself as you bite another one off your finger. 

“You’re a child,” Eddie accuses, unable to suppress his own smile. “I’m on a date with a badly-behaved toddler.”

“Careful what you wish for,” you jeer, looking quite proud of yourself as you do so.

“Well, I never said I wasn’t enjoying it.”

You shoot him a displeased side-eye. Eddie responds with a wink.

It isn’t long before you’re cruising on the highway, but your snack embargo is still firmly in place. When the Metallica tape closes out, it gives Eddie an idea—an olive branch to extend that may alleviate his growling stomach.

“Why don’t you pick the next one?” he offers with a glance.

You jolt in your seat and instantly bend forward, reaching for your bag under the dashboard. Eddie tuts at you.

“Not one of yours,” he corrects, and you lean back in your seat with a groan that makes him smile. “I meant from my collection.”

He pats the center console a couple times before opening it up for you, and, while clearly bitter about it, you do at least take the opportunity to inspect it.

“...Ugh.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You can’t hate all of it. There’s gotta be something you kinda like in there.”

It takes a good few minutes for you to choose one, throughout which he shoots you plenty of glances to check on your progress and make sure you’re still on task. Every time he looks, you’re holding a different tape in your hands, taking a closer look with varying amounts of reluctance. Eventually, you change the tape yourself (with Eddie relieved to observe that you have enough baseline respect for the hardware to secure Ride the Lightning back in its proper case) and as soon as the low, chugging intro to Barracuda starts playing, Eddie snaps his face towards you, blown wide open in joy.

“Yes!” he nearly shouts, almost giddy, patting along to the rhythm on the steering wheel. It sort of makes you flinch. “Fuck yes. Excellent choice.”

You click your tongue at him. “It’s the only thing I could find that won’t make my ears bleed,” you try to goad, but Eddie processes none of it. 

As soon as the vocals come in, he’s fiercely concentrated, singing along and performing his own miniature choreographies in his seat as if you aren’t even there—partially to see if he can get a reaction out of you, and partially because the song fucking rules. 

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter to yourself, but he can tell you’re watching him anyway. 

He gets loud. He has no choice but to get loud if he wants to hit all the proper notes, flipping up into an obnoxious falsetto that has you grumbling some other complaint he genuinely cannot hear under his own voice, but when he swings his arm over to snap his hand in your face a couple times like the titular fish—now, wouldn’t you, barracuda?—he catches an eyeful of an irrefutable smile that you fail to wrestle down fast enough.

“Keep your eyes on the road, moron,” you spit at him as you smack his hand away, harsher now for having been caught enjoying yourself. “Cut it out.”

Well, now that he’s eked out a smile, he can’t cut it out until he gets a laugh out of you. “Uh, do you mind?” Eddie jokes flatly, forcing his face straight. “I’m trying to hear the song.”

He glances for your reaction, and finds an incensed glare. “Are you fucking ki—?”

He cuts you off by bursting right back into song, and you instantly throw your head back in misery, pressing your hands over your face. While you’re distracted, Eddie snatches the bag of bugles off of your lap and cuts himself off to cackle about it. Whipping your hands down, you flare your eyes at him in rage, instantly trying to grab it back, but Eddie stuffs it on the other side of his seat, firmly beyond your wingspan.

“Stop it, stop it,” he scolds with a grin, squirming, lightly batting at your hands as you try to lean over the console and reach around him to get it back. “Jesus, you’re gonna make me crash!”

That only seems to make you more determined to retrieve your stolen goods, and when you lean even further and your hand lands smack dab in the middle of his thigh for stability, his whole body jolts so hard that he accidentally taps the break and jerks you both in your seats.

“Alright, alright, alright!” he surrenders, letting out a relieved exhale as you retreat back into your own space. “I’ll give them back, okay?”

You wait. Eddie smiles.

“...But first, I’m gonna restart the song. And you’re gonna let me sing it through—the whole thing, beginning to end—and when I’m done, you’re gonna clap. Then you’ll get your bugles back.”

“And which one of us is the toddler here, Munson?” you ask, gawking at him.

“Both of us, I think. That’s why we’re so compatible.”

He glimpses the tail end of your eye-roll, and then clears his throat dramatically.

“Okay, now quiet,” he instructs, skipping back to the start of the song. “I’m trying to channel the essence of Ann Wilson.”

“You’re a fucking dork.”

“Shh!”

Surprisingly, you actually do as he asked you to, watching him in silent judgment as he restarts his performance, laying it on even heavier than the first time. Throughout most of it, you wear a vague impression of a smirk, his very own gothic Mona Lisa, occasionally snorting or making some other mildly amused noise when he hits a high note with the force of a nuclear missile, but finally, at the last chorus, when he holds an imaginary microphone in your face to try and get you to finish the song with him, a real, honest-to-God giggle bursts out of you as you smack his hand away, and Eddie pumps his fist in victory.

“There you go, finally!” he says, shaking his head. “Shit. You really know how to make a guy work for it, don’t you?” He returns the promised bugles to you, and you snatch them out of his hand about halfway there. “Go ahead. Eat ‘em all, if you want. You’ve earned it.”

“I didn’t clap,” you point out, already crunching again.

“Yeah, that’s okay,” he assures you with a sigh. “...We’re not at that stage yet. That’s like, second base, and we’ve barely even made it to first.”

He can feel you staring at him weird, so he flashes you a smile. “First base is laughing at my jokes,” he explains. 

“I was laughing at you, not your jokes.”

Eddie feels a tap on the side of his head—you threw one at him, and he didn’t hear it land, so it must be caught in his hair. He fishes it out and happily tosses it into his mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says. “Same thing.”

…

From then on, Eddie, quite benevolently, continues to allow you to choose the soundtrack from his van’s scattered collection, Little Queen turning into The Cramps’ Songs The Lord Taught Us, which you actually seem impressed to find, and later Blue Öyster Cult’s Fire of Unknown Origin. The rest of the drive is packed with just as much childish bickering, snack-bag warfare, impromptu performances, and reluctant conversation that seems, as time goes on, to become less and less reluctant on your part, albeit only marginally. By the time you make it to the limits of Indianapolis, your deliberate, frowny annoyance has receded entirely into quiet boredom, gradually more attentive as you enter the city properly. 

“Alright, now, help me out here,” Eddie asks once you’ve made it into the vicinity of downtown. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” you say, like it’s ridiculous to assume that you would.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve never been there.” You’re not only clueless but thoroughly unconcerned about it, watching the city go by through the window. “It’s in north-east downtown. …St. Clair Street, I think.”

“You think,” Eddie repeats, nodding to himself. “Awesome. Okay.”

Given the state of traffic, Eddie figures your best bet is to search on foot. He locates a parking garage that is broadly in the area you described, and you can hardly wait for him to cut the engine before throwing yourself out of the vehicle. He clicks his tongue, scrambling to follow in fear of being left behind entirely, but realizes pretty soon that you are, in fact, waiting up for him at the back of the van.

As he emerges beside you, stretching his back, you’re already staring at him. He pops a smile compulsively.

“Ready to—?”

Turning towards him, you pitch forward and take a distinct, passionless inhale in the realm of his collar. Eddie tenses up mildly in alarm, and when he interprets the sudden gesture, his jaw falls open.

“...Did you just sniff me?”

“You smell different,” you explain, a simple matter of fact, not even looking at him anymore.

Well, there’s no way you didn’t already notice that during the two-hour drive. “...Okay,” he says with a grin. Eddie has no idea if you’re trying to flirt with him or you’re really just this weird, and he can’t decide which option he likes better. “Good-different or bad-different?”

Flicking your sunglasses back down to your nose, you give a noncommittal grunt and start walking. He takes it to mean, at the very least, fine-different. He’ll have to add thanking his father to his list of things he might consider doing one day, in the event that he takes a hit to the dome and forgets everything about his entire life. 

The bustle and liveliness of the most populated district in a major city is, after months stuck in Hawkins, about as refreshing as diving headfirst into a cold shower in the midst of a relentless heat wave. Everywhere you look is practically gleaming with signs of life, from the litter on the sidewalk to the soaring heights of buildings that dare to have more than three stories, flanked on all sides by noisy intersections and the purposeful strides of locals. Next to the drowsy, soul-sucking purgatory that is your hometown, you might as well be on an alien planet. No one even spares the two of you a second glance, and that alone is both uncanny and oddly liberating.

Pretty soon, it becomes clear that neither of you have any idea where you’re going. Eddie stops the least irritable-seeming local he can find for directions, and soon, you’re on your way with intention.

“Wanna hold hands?” Eddie inclines himself towards you to ask.

“No.”

Figured as much. He puts on a balmy grin, cocking his head at you. “Wanna do it anyway?”

You only glance at him for long enough to reach up and give his cheek a shove, pushing his face straight ahead. He snickers and whips it right back towards you.

“Scared everyone’s gonna know we’re on a date?” Eddie draws out the last word with pearl-clutching drama that doesn’t provoke you in the slightest.

“You’re the one that’s scared,” you accuse with boredom. “Why would I wanna hold your sweaty hand?”

“Am not,” he argues, wiping his hands on his jeans just in case. “You’re probably scared we’re gonna have way too much fun today, and it’ll blow your mind, and you’re gonna end up totally, disgustingly obsessed with me.”

“As if you aren’t already ‘disgustingly obsessed’ with me,” you snark right back. You both turn a corner, and the Miranda’s flashy marquee greets you from about halfway down the block. “...If you talk during this movie, you’re dead, Munson.”

“You think I’m a barn animal, and it’s fucking outrageous,” Eddie laments, shaking his head. “Christ. I do have some home-training, for your information.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Alright, you.” 

He tries to steal your hand as punishment, but you’re soft and wiggly and very determined to evade his searching grasp, delivering your own punitive backhand to his arm instead. 

“Damnit,” he curses. He leans into your space again just to wag a nefarious finger at you. “...I’ll get you eventually, my pretty.”

“Shut up and buy the tickets,” you instruct, deliberately bumping your shoulder into him as you come to a stop outside the box office. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, and wishes his annoyance was even slightly real. 

You made it to the theater with about fifteen minutes to spare. Eddie purchases the tickets as requested, and then drags you into the concession line for an extra-large popcorn and some Raisinets, because he really is goddamn starving, and he didn’t quite have the heart to strong-arm his way through your monopoly on the road snacks, given where exactly he sourced the funds used to purchase them.

In the dim lighting of the theater, you open up more than Eddie’s even seen. Despite his earlier protestation, he does, in fact, lean over to whisper a well-meaning question or two that makes you snap at him with your standard narrow-eyed acidity, but once he learns his lesson and busies his mouth with hoggish snacking, every covert glance he throws your way finds you lighter and brighter than the last. Eyes wide and fully engrossed, catching on every detail; your posture slackens, your hands fidget constantly and mindlessly, your tongue worries over the ring in your lip; you rock now and then, front and back or side to side. It’s nothing at all like the reserved, guarded manner you usually keep up—or at least around him, you do. You’re utterly carefree. Spellbound and contagious with it. Eddie can’t look away. 

… 

The film was everything you hoped for. 

An aggrieved woman on a beautiful rampage, sawing rapists to bits and giving practically every other man with the misfortune of crossing her path a simple, satisfying, blood-soaked death. Part of you feared that Munson would find some way to ruin it for you, but luckily for him, after the first ten minutes or so, he found the decency to keep his mouth shut and watch. At least, it seemed like he was watching, the one or two times you remembered he existed for long enough to throw him a glance. 

The diner you’re in now is just across the street from the theater, its marquee lighting up the street through the window. You look up from your menu and find Munson already staring at you.

“...How’d you like it?” you ask. 

He gives you a smile. “I…thought it was pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool,” you echo blandly. 

“Yeah,” he says. “...Pretty fuckin’ brutal, but cool. I kinda expected more, though.”

“More what?” you snap, insulted on the film’s behalf.

He gives a shrug. “I dunno, I just thought she’d go…further with it. Do a little more than just…blam blam, over and done with.” He shoots one finger gun a couple times in emphasis.

“It’s called Ms. 45.”

“I know that, I’m just saying,” he says with a laugh. “I mean, innocent or not, you sure as shit couldn’t blame her. …Twice in one day. Jesus. Poor fuckin’ girl.”

“No such thing,” you say, eyes falling back down to the menu.

“Huh?”

 “No men are ‘innocent,’” you elaborate pointedly.

Eddie scoffs, but it sounds more amused than offended. “Shit. You should talk to Val.”

You glance back up at him, and he blinks at you.

“...Valerie Wong? She’s a senior, too. She was at our show, actually.”

“I know who she is.”

“You might like her, that's all,” Eddie says with a shrug. “Your, uh…life philosophies seem pretty aligned. …She’s cool.”

When you fail to respond, he sighs, perusing his own menu again for all of twenty seconds before his head snaps back up.

“...Wait, did she kill the dog or not, though?” he adds on, face pinching in confusion. “I didn’t get that.”

“Was it alive at the end?”

“...Well, yeah, but—”

“Then no.”

He’s glaring at you, probably, but you don’t look up to make sure. “You’re kinda hard to talk to, you know that?”

He should know damn well by now that it’s intentional. You’re trying to decide between all-day breakfast and a simple cheeseburger.

“...Hey,” he calls a moment later, apparently dying from lack of attention.

You flick your eyes up as sharply as you can.

“That wasn’t, uh…supposed to be a warning or something, right?” he asks, conversationally light, amused by his own question. “Like, ‘try anything smart and here’s what’ll happen to ya.’”

You roll your eyes. “Because everything’s about you, right?”

Eddie smiles till his eyes crinkle, and then tries to tone it down. “...Point taken.” 

But that may have been a strategic bait-and-switch, because now that your eyes are on him, his real question is:

“Wanna share a milkshake?”

…You wouldn’t hate it, probably. “No.”

“What’s your flavor pick?” he asks, ignoring you completely. He rests his chin on his palm, his other hand fiddling aimlessly with a pack of sweet‘n low he swiped from the sugar holder, trying to roll it through his fingers like a guitar pick.

You don’t reply, so he gives you a long, contemplative squint.

“...My guess is chocolate,” he decides. “...Now, I’m more of a strawberry guy myself, but I can make an exception for you.”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” you mutter.

Eddie blinks, cartoonishly startled. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

You shrug. 

“Are you saying I come off as a strawberry guy?”

You curl your lips steadily into a smile and Eddie’s face contracts in even more exaggerated disbelief, but his next words are cut short by the waitress stepping up to take your order. She’s a stout, freckled woman probably in her forties with flaming, synthetic red hair. Her nametag says Debbie.

“Good evenin’,” she says, smiling ear to ear. “...You two make quite the pair. What can I get y’all started with?”

“We’re on our first date,” Eddie provides needlessly with a gushing smile. For some horrific reason, it makes your face hot. You kick him in the shin beneath the table, but he suppresses a reaction.

“Well that’s just adorable,” Debbie gushes right back, then shifts her gaze to you. “How’s it goin’?” 

“Really great, actually,” he answers in your stead. “I think we’re—”

“I’ll have a cheeseburger,” you nearly shout to stop him short, fists almost painfully tight in your lap.  “...No toppings, just…mustard.”

As if cut from the same horrible, shameless cloth, Eddie and Debbie share a brief, knowing look at your expense. 

“...Alright,” she says. “And for you?”

“I’ll have a double cheeseburger with all the fixings, and…a chocolate milkshake to share, please.”

“Sounds good. We’ll have that out for ya real soon.”

“Thanks a ton, Debbie.”

Debbie walks off, but you still haven’t come up with anything strong enough to lacerate him with after what he just attempted to put you through. His smile is utterly unashamed. Just as you’re considering kicking him again, he leans back in his seat and crosses his arms, a thoughtful look crossing his face.

“So,” he begins. “...Is your mom really psychic?”

You slump down into your seat, averse from head to toe. Of all the things he could ask you about on a goddamn date, it has to be that. It must be cosmic payback for making him think you fucked his dad.

“What do you think?” you offer blandly. 

Eddie pops a grin. “Well, if you’re still in business, she must be doing something right,” he decides with a shrug. “...Maybe I should come on down and get my fortune told, see what’s in store for the rest of ‘85.”

All you do is grunt, displeased by the topic, which he seems to be more than aware of.

“What about you?” he asks.

You frown at him. 

“Are you psychic, too?” he elaborates. “Can you read my future?”

“I don’t need to be psychic to read your future, Munson,” you assure him, picking at your fingernails. “It’s a total shitshow.”

“Damnit,” he pretends to curse, drooping his head and then snapping it right back up with a smile. “...Well, I coulda told you that much. How about…my love life?”

There’s a little twinkle in his eyes as he asks, and the eye-roll it triggers in you seems to give him too much pleasure. You’ll have to start suppressing the instinct. 

“Even worse,” you tell him. “You’re gonna crash and burn, and probably die alone.”

Your dark omen doesn’t faze him. “I dunno, are you sure? ‘Cause I’ve been seeing this girl—”

“No, you have not.”

“—and I think it’s going pretty well. She even laughs at my jokes, sometimes. I mean, shit, who knows? We might even get married.”

“What’s her name?” you ask in your best monotone. “Cassie Finnigan?”

Eddie’s eyebrows pop up, and he only smiles wider. “...Y’know, I would’ve told you that story way sooner if I knew it’d make you jealous.”

You know he’s just saying it to piss you off, so you smother a reaction. He keeps on staring at you, expectant.

“...Not even gonna deny it? Wow. You’re going easy on me today, aren’t you?”

“I’m really not. You’re just a masochist.”

The food arrives a little faster than you expected, and you’re happy to see it largely for its potential to busy his mouth and give you a few minutes of peace. Your own appetite has been… sort of wonky. You should be starving, given that the majority of what you’ve eaten today has been Eddie’s road snacks and a couple pinches of raisinets, but the longer this date drags on, the more your stomach seems to wander. Turning this way and that, squeezing its way around other organs. It’s not sickness so much as tension; like your body is waiting for something to happen, and suppressing your hunger signals to give you focus when it does.

So, you nibble on some fries, take a few unhurried bites of your burger, and watch with mild distaste as Eddie attacks his own plate like he hasn’t eaten in days. He notices you watching him and smiles as he chokes down a bite.

“What?” he complains, licking some mustard off of his top lip. “I’m starving.”

“I thought you weren’t a barn animal.”

“Yeah, and what are you, a humming bird?”

You lean forward, aiming for the bendy straw on your side of the milkshake, and Eddie drops everything to do the same. You pause. He does, too. Then, he pretends to retreat, disarming you enough to lean a little further, only to surge back forward just as your lips are about to close around it, and he giggles at you when your frustration boils over and you yank the glass out of his reach to take a risk-free sip.  

Eddie stuffs his face back into his burger with a satisfied grunt. “...I told ya, I’ll get you eventually,” he reminds you, and you cringe at the eyeful of half-chewed food it gives you.

“Ugh. Didn’t your mommy ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”

He gives you a weird look as he finishes chewing and swallows. At first, you interpret it as shamefaced or awkward, but really, it looks like half of his attention split off and started pointing inwards. 

“...Probably tried to, yeah,” he says with a smile that takes effort to keep up, still partially caught up in some other place. “...I don’t really remember.”

Unperturbed by the shift in tone, you give him an open look, unblinking and passively curious. He puts down his food and stares at it for a while, and he must find it comfortable enough to relax his tongue a little further.

“She’s, um— She died,” he explains, and instantly scrunches his face up in regret, almost laughing at himself. “...Sorry, this really isn’t—”

“My dad is dead,” you drop even lighter.

Eddie blinks at you in alarm. “...Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” You can feel yourself smiling, just barely. “We’re even.”

His mouth drops open, but all he does is scoff, baffled and amused all at once.

“How’d your mom die?” you ask.

“...Cancer,” he says. It takes him a little longer to mirror the question. “...How’d your dad die?”

“Killed himself,” you say with a shrug, tossing a fry in your mouth. Eddie gapes at you, horror-struck, until your face finally breaks and you snicker at his expression. “...Kidding, loser. Car accident.”

Even more aghast, he drops his face into his hands. “...What is wrong with you?” 

“For starters, my dad died.” 

His shoulders shake with a laugh, and he drops his hands to reveal a bright, dimpled smile. “I guess that’ll do it, huh?”

You hum in agreement. “...Why do you think I had to borrow yours?”

His face plummets into a glare so fast that it makes you giggle in delight, cheeks pulling tight from ear to ear. 

“Alright, that’s enough out of you,” he says, using one of his own french fries to point sternly at your plate. “Eat your food.”

“Or what?”

Eddie gives you a squint. You glance down to pick out the largest fry on your plate.

“...What’re you gonna do if I don’t?” you repeat, sucking the salt off of it.

Eddie’s face twitches a few times before he averts his eyes and breaks out in a smile, the apples of his cheeks turning satisfyingly pink.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, rubbing a hand down his face. “...Okay, you win. Cut it out.”

“Cut what out? I’m eating my food.”

Jaw clenched in stress, Eddie reaches over to snatch the milkshake to his side of the table and takes a long, indulgent sip.

“...Take some proper bites, and I’ll think about giving this back to you,” he declares. 

With a scowl, you pick up your burger and take a bite excessive enough for him to respect. It puts a ridiculously wide smile on his face. 

“Perfect,” he praises, watching you swallow. “Now, we’re talking. Here, let’s—”

He picks up and raises a fry with a deliberate stare, waiting until you do the same, and then slowly guides it to his own mouth, like he’s trying to show a baby how to feed itself. When you bite down on your own, he fucking claps, basking all the while in your glare. It should legitimately piss you off, maybe even enough to launch the contents of your plate into his stupid, condescending face, but all it really does is make your face uncomfortably warm. 

He lays off of you for the most part after that, quickly finishing his own food and then watching contentedly as you inch towards the conclusion of yours, doling out sips of the milkshake like rewards when you make a satisfactory dent in it and still trying and failing to trick you into drinking from it at the same time as him. But without any food to keep himself busy, his mind starts wandering again.

“...I’ve got a question for you,” he says.

“You can ask it,” you offer without commitment. 

He seems to be trying to stifle a smirk. “What’s your issue with heavy metal?”

You sigh, chewing on a french fry. “...It’s gratuitous.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, intrigued. “...Go on.”

What else is there to say? “...Hyper-masculine, hyper-sexual, hyper-violent, and fucking soulless.”

He snorts. “You sound like the 6 o’clock news. What’s wrong with sex and violence?”

“Nothing,” you say with a shrug, “but there’s no…self-awareness, or…sensitivity. It feels…completely insincere, and just…”

“Schlocky?” Eddie provides, smiling even wider.

You nod. 

“Well, that movie we just watched was pretty damn schlocky, and you seemed to be fine with that,” he argues, raising his eyebrows at you.

“It’s different,” you insist.

“How?”

You purse your lips as you think about it, and Eddie shifts forwards, resting his elbows on the table as he waits. 

“There’s…fragility,” you decide. “Metal is all…power fantasies and self-glorification, just for its own sake. For spectacle. It’s shallow. The only substance is in…technical skill, sometimes. Even the pop radio sellouts aren’t afraid of emotional vulnerability.”

“I…see where you’re coming from, sort of,” he says with a couple nods, rubbing his chin in thought. “I mean, you aren’t completely wrong, but it…isn’t all like that, not by a long shot. I think you just haven’t heard enough.”

You’re heard more than enough just since he started bothering you. “What’s it like, then?” you drone, unconvinced.

“It’s…fucking cool,” he says with a laugh. “I mean, there’s….epic storytelling about dark fantasy worlds and sci-fi futures. It’ll take you on a fucking journey. And shit, there is…plenty of goddamn emotion in metal. Just because it can be…big, and loud, and in your face doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Why do you think the church is so goddamn convinced that Black Sabbath is turning kids into suicidal depressives? ‘Cause they’re writing songs about the deep, dark, messed up shit that people deal with. Plus, y’know—fuck war, fuck society, fuck the government and all the slimy goddamn bastards that run it. There’re a lotta things out there worth being spectacularly angry about. Nothing gratuitous about it.”

His eyes light up as he talks about it, bouncing back and forth between you and some glorious vision playing out behind them, burning passionately enough that you very nearly forget to actually listen to what he’s saying. You process probably half of it, and have to take a minute to catch up on the rest.

“...Fine,” is all you can think to say. The only other word swirling around in your mind at the sight of him is a little too frustrating to admit.

Eddie eyes squint at you, amused. “...I mean, I could just as easily call your music a bunch of moody Brits whining…pretentious, overly poetic gibberish over gloomy dance beats.”

“That’s—”

“Reductive, huh?” His self-satisfied grin makes your nose twitch.

Your instinct is to spit out some acidic retort, but that’s probably what he wants from you, so instead, you throw one of your dwindling fries at his face. Eddie watches your hand and sees it coming, but when he tries to catch it in his mouth, it bounces off his cheek and falls into his lap. 

“Fuck,” he says. “...Try again, I wasn’t ready.”

“I wasn’t trying to feed you.”

“I can catch it, just throw another one.” 

With only minor hesitation, you sacrifice another french fry. This one, he catches between his teeth perfectly, then straightens his back in victory, smiling wide and pointing at it with pride, clearly waiting to be commended. 

“Eh? Ehhh?” 

“That isn’t remotely as impressive as you think it is,” you say, failing to entirely suppress a laugh.

“Don’t lie,” Eddie scolds before swallowing. “...I can see it in your eyes. This is totally doing it for you.”

“You’re so stupid.”

“Yeah, I know, c’mon,” he says, gesturing impatiently, smacking one hand on the counter repeatedly. “Hit me again.”

…

After dinner, your mind is elsewhere. The way that the city shines at nighttime makes your heart ache, and you try to take in as much as you can of all of it, savoring vivid snapshots in your mind to fuel your daydreams and tide you over until every other day in your life gets to look like this, too.

You’re hardly even paying attention to your direct surroundings, trusting subconsciously that Eddie will maneuver the both of you around any obstacles and stop you when you need to stop, and that’s exactly how he manages to take what he’s been trying to steal from you all day. You’re still zoning out as his fingers lace through yours, so by the time you crash back down on earth and try to tug your hand away, it’s too late.  

“Gotcha,” he teases, smiling down at you. His pinched eyes are too warm to look at for very long. “This isn’t so awful, now, is it?”

He gives your entwined hands a swing, and you just grunt at him in displeasure. The weight of his scorching hand in yours is impossible to ignore, holding you hostage in the present moment, an entire corner of your brain dedicated to screeching imprecisely at the feeling.  

“...Don’t worry, we’re not technically holding hands,” he goes on. “I’m just warming up your corpse-like fingers for you.” He brings his other hand around to cup the back of yours, and makes a show out of shuddering at the feeling. “…Jesus Christ, are you sure you’re alive?”

“You’re just burning up,” you bite back. “How are your palms still sweaty?”

“I dunno,” he says with a chuckle. “...I guess you must make me nervous, pretty girl.”

The ride back to Hawkins feels only half as long as the drive away from it did. Partially because it is faster. There are much fewer cars sharing the road, allowing for a smooth, endless glide that would probably be enough to lull you to sleep if you were a little less aware of whose company you’re keeping. The soundtrack you provide only makes it worse—Cocteau Twins’ Treasure, Strawberry Switchblade’s self titled LP, and Xmal Deutschland’s Tocsin creating a distant, dreamy, almost hypnotic atmosphere. Eddie must feel it too, because he hardly finds any reasons at all to break the silence. 

You’re comfortable, and that’s what might be the hardest thing to accept about today. Although you waited for it, ached for it all day, there wasn’t even a moment where you could wholeheartedly say that you wished he hadn’t been there. That you would’ve had a better time without him. Part of the reason you agreed to this date in the first place was because you thought it would vindicate you—that, at some point, you would be miserable, and the tolerance you’ve built up for him would drain itself dry, and you’d end the day blissfully assured that the ridiculous proposition that you might actually like this annoying, relentless geek was nothing more than a delusion, easily shattered by more than ten minutes in each others’ company. You didn’t remotely plan for any other option.

At one point, Eddie takes one hand off of the wheel to dig in his back pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He pops one in his mouth, and throws you a wink as he goes digging somewhere else for a lighter. Once the end of it burns cherry red, he cranks his window down partway, noisy wind whipping into the cabin immediately, blowing his wispy hair all over the place. You turn the music up a little louder.

After a couple drags, without a word, he holds it out to you. You hesitate for no real reason; only because, in the quiet ride with your music playing, in this pleasant, shared silence that you would never have guessed Eddie was even capable of, it feels more intimate than you know how to handle.

“...Dont be shy,” he mutters in encouragement, dimples popping out in a gentle smile.

Nearly pouting, you take the cigarette from him and force yourself not to think about how you’re wrapping your lips around paper slightly darkened by the moisture from his own as you take a drag.

…

Within minutes of re-entering Hawkins, on a long, empty road flanked by trees on either side, you’re startled out of a daydream by the shrill blip of a police siren. It must’ve been hidden part way down a side road into the forest, because Eddie didn’t notice it either.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters under his breath—not the way he’d normally say it. There’s no humor or exaggeration. It’s sharp, and frustrated so acutely that the sound of it ruffles your stomach.

He kills the music with a harsh finger and pulls grudgingly onto the shoulder of the road, putting on the brakes and leaning back in his seat with a look on his face that must be twice as severe as the one and only time you managed to sincerely piss him off. When you try to say something, he speaks over you.

“It’s fine,” he says, but he won't meet your eyes. “Just…don’t say anything.”

The officer steps in front of his window, and Eddie gives him a look you can’t see before rolling it down.

“Well, well,” he says as he peers in, taking a good look at both of you. “...I knew I recognized this van. What decent business could you possibly have out here at this time of night?”

“Can we just get this shit over with?” Eddie spits at him, venomous enough to make your eyes widen. Not even you would speak that rude to a man with a loaded gun and practical impunity. 

The officer just scoffs, and then shifts his eyes to you. “Who’s the girl?”

Eddie says nothing, and you grit your teeth in stress.

“...She legal?” the officer asks with a smirk that makes your skin crawl. “...Cause, shit, if I’m the lucky bastard who gets to bust the Munson kid, and for goddamn statutory, of all things—”

“I’m just trying to take her home, man,” Eddie grits out.

“I’m not your ‘man’, kid. License and registration.” 

Your heart pounds in your chest as Eddie wrestles his license out of his wallet and leans over to yank open the glove compartment, rifling around wildly until he finds his registration card. The officer examines them, and, despite likely having seen them before, he looks back and forth between Eddie and his picture with fabricated doubt. 

“...I dunno,” he says, humming in uncertainty. He turns the license around like he’s showing it to you. “Doesn’t quite look right, does it?”

Whenever the picture was taken, it looks identical to how he looks right now. Eddie’s hands are wrapped so tight around the steering wheel, it looks like the skin over his knuckles could burst open.

The officer smiles. “Step out of the vehicle.”

He curses under his breath, but does as requested.

“Hands on the side of the van.” 

It’s mostly outside of your view, but you know what’s happening. The cop, by the sound of it, is making a very excessive show of patting him down head to toe, possibly more than once. It goes quiet for a moment.

“...Now, where the hell did you get this much cash, kid?” 

“What, is that illegal now?”

The officer tuts at him. “Smart mouth. …Come to think of it, is that liquor I smell on your breath? Why don’t you walk in a straight line for me?” There’s a sound like shoes scuffing on pavement, and Eddie grunts. “Nope, other way. Give your lady a good show, maybe she’ll reward you for it.”

You watch in horror as Eddie walks a slow, straight line past the window, his face dim and pulled taut in stress, dark eyes far away. The officer chuckles.

“Alright, now come back.”

He does. There’s a pause, the officer hums in thought.

“Mmm… Inconclusive, I’d say. Let’s go again.”

None of this makes any sense at all, your hands tremble terribly in your lap, and as he passes by again, the sight of that awful fucking look on his face pushes you over the edge.

“He didn’t do anything wrong!” It bursts out of your aching throat like buckshot, abrupt and irrepressible as your confusion erupts into outrage. “He’s not—!”

Eddie shouts your name, louder and coarser than you’ve ever heard it, and your blood freezes in your veins, stilling you down to your bones. His stare pierces through you, but only for a moment. “...Not helping.”

Your head dips in a stilted nod, your best apology. The officer laughs again.

It goes on for a little longer after that, but none of it penetrates the static of your mind—disoriented, furious, lost, ashamed. When Eddie gets back in the car, he sits there in silence for a while, his hands wrapping tighter and tighter around the steering wheel. Trying to mask their shaking.

“...Sorry,” he breathes through the quiet. All you do is nod.

Eddie doesn’t turn the music back on as he drives you the rest of the way home. The purple light from the neon sign glows strong enough to light up both of you, making his grim expression seem a little lighter. 

He presses the eject and hands you your tape. You take it from him with clumsy hands, struggling just slightly to stuff it back in its case.

You don’t know what to say, so you just stare at him. A few hesitant flicks in your direction, and then he stares right back at you. His face is still strained, brown eyes pressed unusually hard, but you can tell he’s trying to let it go, to soften himself as he looks at you. 

“...Are you okay?” you ask in a small voice.

A little smile breaks through the tension on his face. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“Does that…happen a lot?”

He sticks his tongue in his cheek and nods. It makes your hands twitch; packed tight with more resentment than they know what to do with. You take a breath.

“...Thanks for taking me.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” he says. “...See you at school?”

“Yeah.”

Securing your bag on your shoulder, you shift around to open the door, and then hesitate. This is just…wrong. It shouldn’t end like this, not after…all of that. 

You turn back around to look at him again and find him quietly expectant, like he thinks you’re going to ask him something else. 

…Just do it, you remind yourself, or it won’t get done.

Before you can think better of it, or listen to the hissing, nauseous snakes of your intestines, you shift yourself in the seat, plant one hand on the console, and lean over it to press your lips to his cheek. A split second of slack-jawed, almost childlike wonder on his face is all that you can tolerate. You throw yourself out of his van with blazing urgency and slam the door closed behind you, bursting into your mother’s shop like you’re being pursued, and stomping your way up the stairs with hot-faced embarrassment. 

…

It’s almost two in the morning, and Eddie can’t sleep.

His brain is still sort of hot and bothered from the run-in with Officer Shitbag—the overt humiliation that was made twice as egregious as usual by virtue of your presence, no doubt—but in all honesty, that ordeal probably wouldn’t even make the top five reasons for his current insomnia.

All he’s really thinking about is you. 

Eddie likes you. He knew that already, of course, but he’s starting to think (that is, accept) that he likes you a lot, in a way that he’s never really liked anyone else before, and it’s kind of scaring the shit out of him. Because that wasn’t supposed to happen, yes, but also because you really, really weren’t supposed to like him too, and now he’s pretty certain that you do. Meaning, probably, that you aren’t going to want to end things with him after a mere date or two like he figured, and he sure as shit won’t be ending things with you for anything less than a gun to his head. …Metaphorically speaking.

This means that his options are either to come clean with you and hope you possess the infinite mercy and compassion of a nun, or to take the unfortunate reason he started chasing you in the first place to his grave, and hope for the best outside of that. One of these options is much, much less terrifying than the other, and it just so happens to be the one that also makes him feel like the scum of the earth.  

But this dilemma, although he’s thinking about it, isn’t really the problem at hand, either. What’s actually keeping him awake is a very simple predicament that is very, very hard to ignore.

It’s a bad idea. It’s too soon. It may very well be his own personal point of no return, and if there’s any line he shouldn’t cross in this situation, it’s this one. He knows that. 

But what little blood is typically reserved for the good-decision-making part of his brain flew south for the winter about twenty minutes ago, and seems pretty goddamn determined not to come back.

Eddie groans, threading his fingers through his hair and tugging at the roots, screwing his eyes shut, trying to will his brain to move in the direction of literally anything other than you, and your legs, and your soft hand in his; your plump, pretty lips lifting into a smirk, curling around his cigarette, pressed warm and wet against his rattled cheek, wrapped tight around a french fry like an actual demon from Hell. 

…It’s no use. It’s not like it’s his fault, right? The heart wants what the heart wants, and so does every other part of him, and if he doesn’t get to sleep soon, he’ll be shambling through the halls like a useless zombie tomorrow. 

And if it makes him a creep, or a scumbag, or a freak, then, well… What’s another scrap in the dumpster fire? His conscience has taken much worse blows than this.

With a deep, resigned breath, Eddie tugs loose the knot in the drawstring of his pants.

-

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Normally, you’d just take the car as payback—if she can’t be assed to get out of bed and drive you to school herself, then too fucking bad—but a pink sticky note stuck to the front door stops you. Need the car! House call at noon. Probably left there in the vicinity of two in the morning. It isn’t worth the sanctimonious, hypocritical talking-to you’d almost definitely suffer through when you get home.

When you step into the school building, you bring the storm in with you. Mentally, yes, but also literally. You’re dripping. Not down to your underwear, you don’t think, but you draped your raincoat over your bag to keep your books and papers dry, so your hair is soaked through and dripping down your face and neck, your long skirt heavy and clinging uncomfortably to your legs. Dewy little raindrops cling to the fuzz on your sweater. You feel about as aggrieved and murderous as a cat forced into a lukewarm bath as you tread a soggy path down the hallway, receiving even more blatant stares than usual from all sides, and your only comfort is the knowledge that one of them might slip and bust their ass in your wake.

This is why, when you turn the corner and find Munson waiting for you at your locker, you stop in place. Take a long, shivery breath. And accept that you might actually, genuinely kill him dead this morning, and spend the rest of your life in jail. 

You continue walking. He’s too distracted by the composition notebook in his hands to see you coming, but as you approach your locker, he snaps it closed and looks up with a grin.

“There’s my—” His face goes blank and twitches backwards as he looks at you properly. “Oh, shit. You’re drenched. What happened?”

You ignore him and go to open your combination lock. The first attempt fails.

“...Did you walk in the rain?” 

“What do you think?” you spit. The second attempt also fails. Your fingers are almost numb. 

He stays quiet then, watching you with big, troubled eyes that make you want to reach out blindly and scratch them out of his face. When a third attempt fails and the frustration makes you spasm, yanking furiously at the stupid lock as overwhelmed tears nearly well up in your eyes, Munson decides to swoop in, jamming the notebook under his armpit and reaching out to ease your hands away from it.

“Whoa there, okay, hold on,” he says. As soon as his hand touches yours, you snatch them both back to yourself, and Munson blinks at you. “...I got it, alright? What’s the combo?”

All you give him is a defiant glare, and he has the nerve to put on a smile.

“I promise I won’t start leaving corny love letters in your locker, okay? Scout’s honor.”

…Whatever. What fucking ever.

“Six, thirteen, thirty-two,” you mumble. 

Munson nods, goes to unlock, but then stops. He reaches back to grab the black bandana from his back pocket and uses it to wipe off the water left behind by your hands. Then, in one smooth try, he puts in the combination and tugs the traitor of a lock open.

“There you go,” he says, plucking it out so you can tear the door open. “Just needed a gentle touch, s’all.”

As you get to work forcing textbooks into your locker, Munson slips the lock into one of the button holes of his vest. He's doing something with the bandana, maybe, but you try your best to tune him out until he suddenly reaches towards you again and gives you no choice. When you jerk back on reflex, his eyes pop open wide.

“Sorry,” he says, a little stiff. He's holding up the unfolded bandana like he was going to press it into your head. “It's just—you're dripping. Can I…?”

Your brain is a little too fried from the pure misery of your morning to even process what he means, just staring and frowning in silence, so he tries again, moving very slowly to raise the bandana to your hair and start scrunching the excess water out to the best of his ability. It's so wholly baffling to you that you just stand there, stock still and thoughtless, letting him do it. He makes an odd face in concentration, sucking his top lip into his mouth and sticking the tip of his tongue out at the same time, and it's so absurd, you can't look away until he drops it.

“...There,” he says once he's satisfied. “Can't help ya if it decides to frizz up later, but at least you're not leaking down your back anymore.”

He wrings his bandana out onto the floor and gets to work folding it again, glancing up at you a few too many times as he does. Once he stuffs it back into his pocket, he raises his hand to his face and taps under his eye.

“You've got a little…”

You blink. He reaches out again, as if to take care of it himself, but this time, you have the presence of mind to slap his hand away. It's very loud, probably because of the moisture, and he jerks his hand back like you shocked him.

“Ow,” he complains, shaking it out with a smile. “Okay, that’s my bad. You got it.”

Grasping the locker door, you peer into the taped-in mirror and rub away the watery eyeliner that has trickled down your cheeks as much as you can be bothered to. Munson grabs the edge of the door as well, stepping slightly around it to keep watching you. 

“...If you want, I could take you back home at lunch to change,” he offers. “Or, shit, we could go right now. Don't want you miserable in wet clothes all day.”

Freed of the weight of school books, you start looking through your other belongings, checking for damage. Your box of Djarums is sort of damp, but doesn’t seem soaked through. “...I don't need anything from you, Munson.”

“Trust me, I know,” he says. “I'm just trying to be nice.”

Frankenstein is safe. Interview is a little puffy in one corner, and you frown. The pages might warp. “...Plenty of other girls around to ‘be nice’ to,” you mutter distractedly.

“...Yeah, there are,” he says, in that meandering way of his, tilting his head aside, “but they wouldn't be you.”

You freeze and cut your eyes at him. Munson grins wide, eyes scrunching up in the corners like he thinks he’s won, somehow. It sets you on edge.

“...Hang out with me after school,” he asks, your attention seeming to wring the words out of him like the water from his bandana. “We don't have to see a movie. We could go to the arcade, or the bowling alley. I'll buy you a milkshake. Don't make me beg. …But I can, if you want me to. Just to be—”

“What do you want, Munson?” 

It tears out of your throat with a sudden, guttural frustration that makes his eyebrows pop up, the obnoxious grin dropping in surprise, and something inside of you is satisfied to see his stupid mask slip. He blinks at you a couple times, brow pinching with uncertainty as he opens his mouth again.

“I…”

“What?” you spit, wide eyes blazing at him, wanting nothing more at the moment than to see him cower and flee with his tail between his legs. “What the hell do you need from me so bad that you won’t take no for an answer?”

His mouth closes. As the shock fades, he looks away, eyes flickering around as he thinks—calculates. When they snap back to your glowering face he just stares at you, tracing your features, chewing idly at his thumbnail. 

“...I dunno,” he says, dropping his hand and blowing out a sigh. “I don’t ‘need’ anything. I just figured…everyone knows who you are, but…they don’t know you. …Like, they don’t even try to, ‘cause they’ve already decided who you are in their heads.

“...Obviously, I can relate,” he continues, suppressing an awkward smile as he gestures to himself. “So, I just kinda thought that…maybe I wanna be someone who tries.” He shrugs like that’s all there is to it. “...And you don’t owe me shit, I know that. But you can't tell me I haven't been trying.”

You stare at him hard. Shearing back layers with your eyes, looking for the crack, the tell, anything at all to contradict what just came out of his mouth. He doesn't wither in the slightest, soaking up your surgical glare with an effortless, relaxed warmth you have no clue what to do with. He stoops slightly closer and lets his smile grow, dropping his voice down to a raspy murmur.

“...And yeah, it also helps that you’re…really fucking pretty, and like, the coolest girl in town. I mean, I’m only human.”

…You squint your eyes as you continue to scan his face, still waiting for some fissure to reveal itself, or at least to find an exposed nerve to grate on, but the longer you look at him and the unadulterated…interest in his eyes, the weirder you start to feel. Just as it becomes unbearable, you remember that you don’t have to bear it—your gaze flutters awkwardly back into your locker, and finally, you can exhale. 

“...You’re annoying,” is the only response that comes to mind.

Eddie’s quiet for long enough that the cold you feel on the outside starts to seep in, icy little tendrils wriggling around in your intestines. If you’d had time to eat anything this morning, it’d probably be trying to crawl its way out of your stomach by now.

“...Yeah, I know,” he eventually responds. “How else am I supposed to get you to pay me any attention?”

For that alone, he’ll get none. You shove one last book into your locker and almost frantically slam it closed, sparing him no further glance as you march off towards your first class. He can lock it up himself. 

“Hey, uh—wait a second,” he calls as you pass by him, stiltedly urgent.

You don’t know why you listen. You don’t know why, but you’ve already done it, so you grudgingly turn around and shoot him the coldest look you can muster. 

Eddie’s just as shocked as you are. His mouth hangs open dumbly, and he can’t figure out if he wants to smile or not.

“Spit it out or drop dead,” you grumble. It’s a little too harsh—too far from your typical monotone. Eddie decides to smile.

“I’m, uh…” He licks his lips excessively, and you stare at his ugly Motörhead shirt until he’s done. “I’m actually in a band.”

Is that supposed to impress you? “...So?” 

He crosses his arms over his chest, shifts his weight. “So, we’re playing a show on Thursday night,” he says with a shrug. “You should come.”

The sneer on your face makes Eddie grin wider and roll his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says, “‘shock rock schlock,’ but…that’s not all we play. You might be surprised.”

You don’t say anything. Eddie’s fine with that.

“We play at The Hideout,” he goes on, clearing his throat. “It’s down by—”

“I know where it is.”

His eyebrows pop up. “Great,” he says, flaring his fucking dimples at you again. “Our set's at eight o’clock sharp. Will I…see you there?”

He's out of his mind. “Hold your breath, Munson.”

“Is that a yes?”

His face is too goddamn bright. You roll your eyes, turning on your heels to continue on your way.

“...Then it’s a no?” he calls after you, surely loud enough to draw attention.

You raise your middle finger over your shoulder. His pleased little laugh springs the distance and jabs you right in the curve of your spine. 

… 

Something…happened back there, in front of your locker. 

Eddie isn’t sure what, exactly, or whether it’s a good or bad thing as far as your opinion of him is concerned, but something happened, and it knocked him so far off-kilter that he did something completely ridiculous.

Eddie’s not an idiot. He knows the likelihood of you actually showing up to a Corroded Coffin gig is somewhere up there with him winning the lottery, or getting plowed through by Metallica’s tour bus on Cornwallis. He knows that, and he knew it even as the words were still tumbling out of his mouth.

But for some reason, his heart has been close to pounding ever since he spoke to you this morning. There’s a little pit of nausea in his stomach that seems to grow larger by the hour and he can’t even pretend to pay attention to any of his classes, too busy creating frantic setlists in his head. Sorting through the band’s back catalogue, every song they’ve covered at some point, ranking them based on how recently they’ve practiced them, how much you—based on his limited knowledge of your tastes—might like them. You, who won’t even be there.

It’s stressing him the fuck out. He tries to create a secondary list of songs they don’t know but are similar enough to ones that they do that they might be able to grind one out before Thursday night, but that list is even less satisfying. If it all sounds the same to you anyway, it’s not like “different but similar” would impress you. And if you’re going to be there—which you aren't—he's going to impress you. Anything else isn't even an option.

Eddie can’t sit still at the best of times, but today, he’s a terror. In fourth period, it gets so bad that Mrs. Baxter starts to look at him like she genuinely, sincerely wants him to die, and he can’t even blame her. He tried to go to the bathroom mid-lecture six times. 

At the lunch bell, Eddie burns a trail straight to the Hellfire table. He’s early today, given the crisis state he can’t get himself out of, so he paces and mutters to himself like a madman until everyone is sat down with their lunches and doesn’t even bother with a greeting. 

“Emergency band practice after school,” he half-yells. “Non-negotiable.”

About three attempts at argument (or, if he’s being charitable, very reasonable questioning) sound out immediately, and Eddie swings his arms in absolute refusal.

“No excuses!” he insists. “Just fucking be there. Sophomore?”

Gareth flounders. “Uh… my mom’ll be pissed, but—”

“Perfect.” Eddie slaps one hand on the table. “See you then. Or else.”

Then he goes home. No point in torturing himself by sitting through two more periods he won’t derive a single piece of information from anyway.

He feels like a burglar breaking into his own home as he does his best to creep in without alerting Wayne, who, by his calculations, should probably be asleep for about two more hours. He knows every creaky spot like the back of his hand, so his goal of near-perfect silence in tip-toeing down the hall to his room isn’t too hard to achieve.

Once the door is securely closed behind him, though, it's a different story.

It feels like he tears his room apart from floor to ceiling looking for this goddamn tape. He’s only had it for a few months, a hand-me-down from Rick after he decided he couldn’t find much use for it, and yeah, it’s not quite a favorite of Eddie’s either, but not to such a degree to warrant it being this lost. Someone is fucking with him for sure. God, most plausibly.

It's on his third hysterical attempt at shoving half of his body under the bed in search of it that he finds the damn thing, materialized in a spot he could swear he already fucking looked. First and Last and Always. Chest heaving in exertion, he puts his headphones on, throws himself on the bed, and slots the tape into his Walkman. Eyes shut in focus, he listens to the entire thing four times back to back, just to make sure. He knows which song he wants from the first time he hears it again, and each consecutive listen just reinforces the choice, helps him separate and focus on each layer of the song. On the fourth listen, he pulls out his notebook and writes out the lyrics.

By the time he makes it to Gareth’s, the garage is open and the rest of the band already present, which is good, because only Eddie is allowed to be late today. He jerks the wheel and sends the van careening halfway up the driveway, killing the engine and practically kicking the door open in his urgency to get out. Barreling through his band members like a bowling ball, he all but lunges for the shelf where Gareth’s boombox resides, fighting for his life to replace the tape it houses with his own and skip to the right track with a level of haste he finds acceptable.

“Fuck, Eddie.”

“Dude, what is with you today?” 

“Yeah, why are you being an asshole?”

“Shhh, shut up, just fucking listen, alright?” Eddie hisses, smashing in the play button.

He sets it down and takes a breath as the song’s defining riff plays out on a loop, clear and resonant and very unlike Corroded Coffin’s typically preferred distorted shredding.  Three faces scrunch up in various shades of perplexity.

“...What the hell is this?” Gareth dares to ask.

“We’re learning this,” Eddie says with no room for argument. “Today. And we’re gonna keep learning it tomorrow, and Wednesday, and then we’re gonna end our set with it on Thursday night.”

“...What the fuck?”

“In three days?”

“Why?”

Eddie grits his teeth. “Because I’m the leader and I said so.”

“What the hell are you—?”

“Since when are you the leader?”

“—control freak—”

“Wait,” Gareth calls out, and there’s that goddamn smile again. “...Is it because of the goth chick? Is she gonna be there?”

Eddie wishes, very briefly, that he was cruel enough to strangle him. “She has a name, Gare.”

His face lights up, in an evil way. “Holy shit. She is, isn’t she?”

“You want us to learn a whole new song when a girl is gonna be there?” Doug asks, appalled.

“She’s not!” Eddie insists. “Just—relax. No one’s gonna be there.”

Gareth raises an eyebrow. “So you just want us to grind through this lame shit for fun?”

Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose in stress. “It’s not lame.”

“Yeah it is,” he insists. “Isn’t it, Jeff?”

Jeff clearly wants no part of this. “It’s…different,” he says with a sigh.

“See? It sucks shit,” Gareth concludes, “so if we’re not doing it to impress a hot girl, what’s the fucking point?” 

Neither Doug nor Jeff seem eager to jump in in the song’s defense, but Eddie can’t truly be mad about it. He’d definitely react in the exact same way if one of them came barrelling in like a lunatic, making the same demands. If he has to explain himself in order to scratch this nigh-unbearable itch in his brain, then so be it. 

In his reluctance to disclose, Eddie’s mumbled confession is entirely incomprehensible.

“Uh...what?” Doug asks.

“She might be there, okay?” he huffs. “I mean, I…really fucking doubt it, but if she is…”

Doug and Gareth share a funny look that sets Eddie’s ears on fire. Jeff crosses his arms, but his face is disturbingly neutral. 

“Just…help me out here, alright?” Eddie asks in a sullen mumble, clenching his jaw to stave off his growing embarrassment.

It’s Gareth who steps over to him, clapping him on the shoulder a couple times in a way that clearly gives him too much satisfaction. “We got you, man.”

Dougie doesn’t look too sure, but he signals his willingness with a nod. Jeff just sighs, but a lack of outright protest is enough of an assent for him. Eddie returns to the boombox, skipping back to the beginning of the track.

“...Alright,” he says, smashing in the play button again. “From the top. And listen this time.” 

...

For the next three days, Eddie lives and breathes this song. 

He keeps the tape so close at hand, it might as well be his first born child. Every moment he can spend listening to it, memorizing it, he does. From the morning drive to school to the afternoon drive to practice, Eddie has his headphones on, muttering under his breath, running his fingers along a phantom fretboard, and anytime the song isn’t playing, he’s combing through it from memory.

Other than a daily compulsive smile and goofy wave, he doesn’t say much to you, either—too concerned with the look on a future, unfeasible you’s face to be able to hold a conversation with the present you. He offers to carry your books for you once in the morning, and to drive you home in an afternoon, but both are instantly rejected with typical snippyness, which, given the state he’s in, is kind of a relief. When Carver seeks another update on Tuesday (yanking him by the back of his collar into the men’s bathroom, which pissed him off more for the interruption of his 37th listen than the now-predictable manhandling itself) his delusionally optimistic report of your willingness to attend his band’s show and the bold-faced lie that you’d even gone so far as to smile at him seemed to actually please him for once. Or at least relieve him of a couple inches of that gargantuan stick up his ass.  

Eddie practices with a monk’s diligence. It’s not unusual for him to spend entire evenings with his sweetheart on his knee, labbing chunks of songs and connecting riffs and words to rhythm until he’s on the verge of passing out, but it’s been a while since he’s been this intensely consumed by focus, especially for a song he isn’t particularly fond of in the first place. It’s like he’s under a spell, compelled by some unseen, malicious force to make a fool of himself by investing so much time and energy into perfecting a performance that you won’t see—that he probably shouldn’t want you to see this badly in the first place. 

He wonders what the hell he’s even trying to prove; and to who, for that matter. It’s not like there’s any real technical difficulty to the song, something that would bring him the satisfaction of expanding his range or skill, whether in guitar or his voice. Once he’s memorized it, he could play it in his sleep.

And on Wednesday night, he does.

The rain is fucking pouring, whipping around in the wind like a hurricane, thunder groaning and cracking overhead. Eddie can barely see through the water pouring down his face, but even as the torrent drenches him, up on that creaky stage that looks a lot more like a gallows, he doesn’t miss a single note. 

And there you are, his only audience, miraculously untouched by a raging storm that apparently only has it out for him. There’s a green string in your hands, looped between your fingers, and you weave it idly into different shapes. Cat’s cradle. You’re watching him, but cold or curious, apathetic or enraptured, kind or crucifying, he can’t for the life of him tell. 

The floor beneath him feels unsteady, the spaces between rotting wooden planks way too wide for comfort. Every time he shifts his weight, he can feel them start to bend beneath his feet. A phone is ringing somewhere, emanating quite possibly from the sky itself, so painfully shrill that it makes him flinch and shiver each time. One of them breaks his resolve and he snaps, shouting at the sky, or the storm, or the waterlogged planks beneath his feet in frustration, and ever so slightly, the irritants relent, but when he looks for you again, you’re gone.

Eddie wakes up sweating through his t-shirt. He can’t fucking wait to get this over with. 

… 

The band’s been ready to go for about ten minutes now. Another ten and Bev will likely get pissed off and shut the whole thing down. 

It’s 8:08 according to his watch, and he can’t keep his eyes off the front door. Eddie knows you’re not coming, he’s known that from the moment the impulse to invite you grew a mind of its own and seized control of his hyperactive tongue, and even if you were considering it for some reason, he’s definitely jinxed it about twenty times over by acting completely insane. Chewing his nails until they’re on the verge of bleeding, waiting and staring at the door like a shelter dog with separation anxiety. 

He feels a little bit like he’s going to throw up. If you do show up, which you won't, it’ll mean that it’s working, right? That he’s getting through to you on some level, that you’re at least considering giving him a chance? And the sooner you give him a chance, the sooner you’ll let him take you out, and you’ll hang out together, and you’ll talk about… What will you even talk about? He likes reading, too, but your tastes seem to differ. Could you even broach the topic of music without ending up wanting to kill each other? Is that…a good thing? If Jeff is right, and he needs to pull the plug himself someday—

Shut up. You’re insane. It’s 8:11, and she doesn’t like you.

Eddie tugs the cable out of his Warlock and squeezes his way to the back of the stage to set her down in her case. He ignores the questions he gets from his band on the way back out and makes a B-line for the men’s bathroom. Val looks up and raises an eyebrow at him as he passes by her table, spread with papers she’s been scribbling on since she got here.

Eddie stops at the cracked mirror above the sink, and he looks so fucking wired that it startles him. Why is he breathing so fast? It feels like, no matter how deep and wide he tries to push it, he can’t quite take in as much air as he wants to. He raises his thumb to swipe under his right eye (“I thought she wasn’t gonna be there,” Gareth had teased with a knowing look, watching him line his eyes the way he only does on special occasions,) wiping away a stray smudge, and realizes, with absolute disbelief, that his fingers are very lightly shaking. 

Why the fuck is he nervous? He hasn’t been genuinely nervous before a show—especially not a barren fucking Hideout show—in years. No drinking before a gig has been a steadfast rule of his for as long as Corroded Coffin has existed, one that he tirelessly enforced against every iteration of the line up, but now, the urge to throw himself behind the bar and shotgun a beer as fast as humanly possible is so intense, he has to grip the edge of the sink to keep his legs from running off on their own. He thinks to splash cold water on his face like in the movies, try to reset his whacked-out brain with a shock of cold, but all that’ll do is fuck up his eyeliner; stained tear trails running down his face just like yours on Monday morning, when you were drenched and pitiful and so angry you almost cried, and Eddie was sort of angry, too. Angry that the universe would conspire to let something like that happen to you, knowing full well the nuisance that he’s been tasked to become in your life. Talk about kicking a girl while she’s down.

He’ll make it up to you. Somehow, at some point, probably, even if it boils down to the simple favor of never speaking to you again for the rest of your life, but right now, it’s…8:16, and he has to stand on a tiny stage and play music for a scattering of alcoholics who don’t particularly care, and hopefully escape the stranglehold of disgusting anticipation that’s been leading him around by the nose all week.  

Eddie shoots out of the men’s bathroom with less manic velocity than he carried in entering, but not by much. The rest of the band has been idly warming up in his absence, playing riffs and fills at random, practicing bits of songs, creating a disjointed mess of sound that definitely isn’t doing much to win over their reluctant audience. Returning to the back of the stage to retrieve his sweetheart, he lets the comfortable weight settle on his shoulder like it has so many times before as he plants himself front and center. 

One last pointless scan. He counts eight familiar faces spread throughout the bar, all Hideout regulars; four who couldn’t care less, one that tends to be actively hostile, two who might, on occasion, nod their head along to a song or two, and Marlon, the wonderful bastard who always watches their set, and frequently doles out high fives upon completion. And Val, obviously, the only one sitting at one of the tables in front of the stage, but exuberant, noisy support isn’t exactly her style, either.

“Are we ready to go?” Jeff asks, in a tone that implies a couple other questions as well. 

Eddie takes a long breath—still not deep enough. 

“Yeah, man, just let me—” He taps the mic a couple times, then leans in close. “...Testing, testing, one two three.”

Yeah, seems loud enough. He crouches down to pick up the cable and plugs it back into his guitar, strumming the open strings to test the tone. Now that could use some work. Eddie steps over to his amp and kneels, fiddling with knobs, turning them just a hair to the left or right and testing the sound on whatever riff comes to mind until he’s satisfied. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers that the rest of the band has gone quiet. 

Eddie returns to his feet and squeezes back to the front, digging in his pocket for his ear plugs. He only gets one in place before his distracted gaze flickers automatically to the sight of the front door falling closed, and—

…You’re here.

…

…Why the fuck are you here?

Eddie’s staring at you. He knows that he’s staring at you, about as subtle as a baby in a grocery store, but he can’t stop because it doesn’t make any sense. You, the minor deity of staring that you are, look straight back at him, unperturbed. Almost like he’s the one that shouldn’t be here. 

You aren’t alone, either. Standing with you, smiling and muttering something to you as her eyes flicker over the stage, is a girl who looks much more like a direct relative of yours than Chrissy ever could. Dressed in all black, with short, teased hair, similarly dark-ringed eyes and a leather jacket, is a girl that Eddie’s pretty sure is in the grade below, but he’s a little too thunderstruck to remember her name at the moment. 

Blinking like an owl, he whips around to face his band. They’re all similarly (if less grievously) surprised, so he probably hasn’t succumbed to psychosis. 

“Holy shit,” Doug says under his breath.

“She actually showed,” Gareth calls past the drumset, loud enough that Eddie would normally be inclined to smack him in the head.

He blinks between each of them, and even Jeff’s more disapproving gaze bounces right the fuck off of him right now. A real life bullet from a gun probably would, too. 

Eddie grins so hard that it hurts.

“...She fuckin’ likes me, dude.”

His entire body flushes hot, heart racing with a vigor it usually wouldn’t reach until the midpoint of a set, and he only barely suppresses the urge to pump his fist or fall to his knees or do something similarly spastic and giddy to temper the sudden burst of fucking euphoria running through his system. Save it till the music starts, Munson. He fights like hell to wrestle his giant cheesy smile into a cooler, more collected smirk as he turns back around and wraps his hand tight around the microphone.

“Good evening, Hideout,” he drawls, low and gravelly enough that he’s certain none of the men behind him are gonna let him hear the end of it anytime soon. 

You and your friend have migrated over to the bar, but while she orders, you’re still staring straight at Eddie with your arms crossed, excessively unimpressed. Trying to make him nervous, he assumes. Yeah, you fucking wish. 

“...Thanks for being patient,” he continues. “We are Corroded Coffin, and we’re gonna do our best to rock your fuckin’ world tonight. …Yeah, that means you, Clarence. Hope you’re fuckin’ ready.” 

The addressed regular in his back corner booth doesn’t so much as glance up from his newspaper. Figures. 

Eddie gives the signal and Gareth starts the count-in, drumsticks clacking together above his head, one, two, three, four.

At the first strum of his guitar, Eddie bursts at the seams. Every ounce of jittery anticipation purged itself from his body the moment he laid eyes on you, and now, he’s been possessed by something else entirely as the band erupts into Judas Priest’s Hell Bent for Leather.

He always feels like a bolt of lightning on stage, no amount of disgruntled looks, sparse attention, or nonexistent applause ever able to dull the high he gets from performing—because they’re good, and Eddie knows they’re good, and fuck the miserable, tasteless hicks in this shitty town anyway—but knowing you’re here, seeing you here, leaning against the back wall with a drink in your hand and watching him in his element makes him feel like his blood has been replaced with gasoline. Sparks flying off of his strings as his fingers glide the fretboard, holy fucking flames blazing from his tongue with every word he sings. 

And you do watch him. As one song leads into the next, as Eddie throws out some breathless crowd-work that goes largely ignored to give the band a break now and then; from ol’ reliable Paranoid to Tyranny of Blood, the most macabre Corroded Coffin original; from the eerie ambience of Black Sabbath to Hallowed Be Thy Name (because, okay, he has to show off at least a little bit,) the addictive feeling of your eyes on him never seems to go away. He’s a little too absorbed in performing to gauge your feelings from across the bar, but even if you happen to fucking hate every single song, he’s still on top of the world.   

Then, finally, what he’s been waiting for.

Chest heaving in exertion, Eddie turns to check on his band. They’re all clearly exhausted, as anyone would be after seven straight minutes of Iron Maiden, but his searching look gets a nod from each of them. Rounding it off with one of his own, he stoops in front of his amp again to turn the gain and low end way down and the presence and reverb way up, tweaking each knob until he finds the closest possible approximation of the First and Last and Always guitar tone now engraved in the wrinkles of his brain. Jeff and Doug make similar adjustments on their own instruments, and Eddie returns to the mic.

He runs a hand through his sweat-drenched hair a couple times, unsticking little strands from his face and neck as he takes stock of the inattentive room, and decides there’s no point in restraining himself from looking you straight in the eye while he introduces the song.

“We’ve got one more for you tonight,” he says, lips curling up at the ends. “This one’s, uh…a little different from—”

“Get on with it, kid!” comes Bev’s booming, disgruntled voice from behind the bar, somehow nearly as loud as his even without a mic.

Eddie sighs, smile pulling sarcastic. “Thanks, Bev. …Sure, whatever, let’s get fuckin’ on with it.” 

With a light eye-roll, Eddie gives the signal. One, two, three, four.

Halfway through the intro riff, your eyes go wide as saucers. Eddie’s face twitches, the only external sign of the pure and complete vindication soaring in his chest. He fucking knew it. 

Your friend reacts as well, less paralyzed shock and more delighted recognition. As the bass joins in, she steps side to side to the rhythm, bumping you with her shoulder or hip, clearly trying to get you to move with her, and it kinda looks like you have to stifle a smile as you bump her back even harder in rejection.  

Eddie has to restrain himself from excessively mimicking the melodramatic vocal stylings of Andrew Eldritch, not wanting to come off like he’s mocking the song or anything, but it’s genuinely kind of hard. At the end of the first chorus—first and last and always, mine—he can’t resist the urge to throw you a wink. The exaggerated eye-roll he gets for it, everything he could’ve hoped for, briefly convinces him that this might actually be the greatest fucking song ever written.

When the song is over and their set with it, he can’t even be bothered to throw out a half-hearted goodnight to their “audience.” He takes maybe ten seconds, probably five seconds to catch his breath and then yanks the cable out of his Warlock.

“Doug, do me a huge fucking favor, would you?”

Doug doesn’t get so much as a word out before Eddie is shoving his sweet, precious baby into one of his hands, and as soon as he’s sure that she isn’t in danger of falling, he flicks his head back around to make sure you haven’t moved, sweaty strands of hair slapping him in the face. Chest still heaving lightly with exertion, Eddie steps down from the stage and makes his way towards you in a half-jog, slowing only for the resounding clap of one of Marlon’s meaty high fives in transit. You keep your eyes on him the whole way over, squinting as he approaches. He hopes he doesn’t have anything stuck in his teeth, because he’s pretty sure every single one of them is visible right now.

“You made it,” he breathes, coming to a stop in front of you.

You look him up and down as if you haven’t just been staring at him for the past thirty minutes. “...Nothing better to do on a Thursday night,” you say with a shrug, which gets you a look from your smiley friend. 

“Top of your list, huh?” he teases. “I’m flattered.” He really, really, really fucking is. Then, not wanting to seem like a jerk-off with tunnel vision, he turns to your friend. “Hey, I’m—”

“She knows who you are,” you interject flatly. Eddie does his best to give you a withering look, but it’s a little hard to act annoyed when you’re making his fucking week right now. Maybe his month.

“I’m Regina,” she introduces herself with amusement.

“Right,” he says with a nod, then gestures to himself. “Eddie, which you already know, apparently. Thanks for coming.” 

“No problem,” she says. “Cool show.”

Cool show. And coming from a girl, no less. The guys are gonna freak. “Shit, thanks.”

Eddie turns back to you, intending to needlessly point out that her cool friend thought the show was cool just to see what mild abuse you spit back in response, but he gets cut off as soon as his mouth opens.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Regina jumps in to say, giving you a big and all too deliberate smile before slipping away. You roll your eyes heinously as she goes, and it’s a little funny to see it directed at someone else for a change. 

Eddie’s eyebrows fly to the ceiling. He glances after Regina, then back at you, feeling sort of like he might be glowing. 

Arms crossed over his chest, he leans in as close as he can without risk of sweating on you. “I think she thinks you like me,” he stage-whispers.

You don’t seem as repulsed as he expected you to be, but even as the bathroom door closes behind her, you refuse to look back at him. “Well, she’s wrong.”

Eddie’s not so sure about that anymore. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.”

You still don’t look at him. You don’t do anything, really. 

“...So,” he prompts with fiercely repressed impatience. “How’d you like the show?”

You finally drag your gaze back to him, mirroring his crossed arms. He thinks to himself that your eyes look bigger right now, for some reason, but he realizes it’s just that they aren’t squinted in some degree of a dirty look like they usually are. 

“I was hoping you would bomb,” you say.

He shakes his head regretfully. “Shit, sorry. If I had known, I would’ve fucked it all up, just for you.”

You don’t speak again. Eddie lets the silence stretch out, hoping it’ll coax something honest out of you.

“...I didn’t hate it,” you admit. 

“No?” he confirms, voice pitching higher in glee. “Not even a little bit?”

You look away again, and Eddie blinks in shock as the corner of your mouth twitches upwards. 

“...You’re better than I thought you’d be,” you say. “That’s all.”

“Yeah?” He cocks his head, trying to lean back into your line of sight. “Told ya you might be surprised.”

Slowly, you give him back the attention he’s looking for, and then your eyes…travel. Down his face and neck, maybe through his hair; across his shoulder and down his arm, then looping slowly back up. A wicked chill goes up his spine, and a current of goosebumps follow.

“...What are you looking at?” he gasps, delightedly scandalized.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you say. “You’re sweating buckets.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a huge part of being in a rock band.”

He shakes one hand through his hair without thinking, accidentally flinging drops of sweat all around, but before the mortified regret can bloom in his chest, you dip your head to cringe away from it with a grunt of complaint that morphs into a short, breathy laugh, and it wipes his mind completely blank. 

…You thought it was funny. Funny and, by some miracle, not completely disgusting. 

Eddie has—legitimately—no idea what is happening right now. His heart is pounding in his chest like he’s still on stage. 

“...You like that last song?” he asks. His voice goes warm and quiet of its own accord, scratchy from singing his heart out. “...That was for you, y’know.”

“Not like you made it obvious, or anything.”

He hardly even processes your rib. “You look pretty,” he says, thoroughly distracted.

Black velvet and lace, leather belts at your hips and silver jewelry stacked on your chest, still wearing that perfume that kind of drives him crazy with your dark red painted lips, and—  

“I know,” you say, and you raise your hand up to his face. Eddie goes stock still as you smear your cold, soft thumb beneath his eye a couple times, then pull it back and rub the stray makeup between your fingers. “...You stole my look.”

As the warm, thoughtless mush of his brain gradually returns to working order, Eddie’s face burns hotter than it ever has before. Your eyes light up as you notice, and a cruel, mean, terrible grin stretches across your face. 

“You’re blushing like a fucking schoolgirl, Munson.” 

His hands fly up to cover his face. “No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

Eddie groans, splitting the fingers on his right hand to peek one eye at you, failing to even pretend to be unhappy. “Goddamnit. You caught me off guard, okay? The last time you touched me, you put a welt on the back of my hand.”

You hum at that, reaching up again to take one wrist and pull his hand down towards you, and what the fuck is he gonna do, stop you? You examine it like you’re looking for traces of said welt, and then flick your eyes back up to his.

“You want another one?”

Eddie screws his eyes shut and lets his head fall forward, utterly vanquished. “You’re fucking evil, you know that?”

You release his wrist with a giggle that makes his stomach flip.

You’re awful. You came to his show and watched his band play and didn’t even hate it, and you absolutely checked him out a little bit, and then you laughed at something silly he did and fixed his stupid eyeliner for him, and now you’re kind of flirting with him and he’s going to fucking die.  Is anyone seeing this? Is anyone else fucking seeing this? 

He whips around to check and discovers that Regina is standing at Val’s table, talking with an ease that probably means they know each other in some capacity. His bandmates are still packing and carrying equipment out the back door, which does make him feel a pinch of guilt, but it fades pretty quickly. He turns back to you.

“...I work here, y’know,” Eddie tells you, and you blink at him. “...I’m kinda supposed to be on the clock right now, actually. When Bev gets back from her smoke break, she’ll probably kick my ass.”

You don’t know what to do with that, obviously. He clears his throat and continues.

“...But I get off at ten. Maybe nine-thirty, if I give her the puppy dog eyes. And I know that’s kinda late for a school night and all, but…we could hang out for a while, if you want. You seem pretty nocturnal, anyway.”

You give him an ambiguous stare. “...You want me to wait here an hour for you to get off work?”

“You could sit at the bar,” he says. “Keep me company while I clean glassware and get periodically yelled at by an old woman that hates me even more than you do.”

“I don’t hate you, Munson,” you say, which nearly makes him keel over. “...If I did, I’d have to care about you either way.”

He grabs at his chest. “Ouch. See, you’re just as bad as she is. Why don’t you team up and give me a real hard time?” 

You look like you’re actually fucking considering it. Seemingly on the fence, you throw a glance towards your date, and Eddie follows your line of sight. 

“...I don’t know your, uh…ride situation,” he adds, “but Val could take Regina home if you drove her. She never stays long after our shows, anyway.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek as you think it over. “...I don’t know.”

“C’mon,” he nudges, shamelessly giving you the same sweet-little-boy face he weaponized against Bev earlier to push back their start time. “It’ll be fun. For you, not for me, obviously. Look at me, I’m wide open. I’m a piñata. You can take swings at me until the cows come home.”

You snort a little, that tiny little smile back on your face, and Eddie must be vibrating. He feels like that needy fucking shelter dog again—right now, he’d say or do anything if it would just make this insane fucking night last a little longer. Trying to keep his mouth shut would be an exercise in futility.

He leans a little closer and you let him, eyeing him with subdued amusement. “...Plus, y’know—and I don’t usually stoop to bribery, for the record—I can probably sneak you a free drink or two when Bev isn’t looking. But only if you promise not to tell on me.”

Your face falls. It happens so suddenly that Eddie’s heart drops into his stomach before his mind even registers the change. Every hint of unbelievable warmth, or ease, or pull between you is retracted with a brutal immediacy that sends his head reeling and freezes the blood in his veins. 

His mouth falls open, desperate to fix it somehow, but nothing comes out. His mind is scrambled. The only thought running through it is fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, racing at a million miles per hour.

You shove your half-finished drink into his stomach, sloshing some of it onto his shirt, and Eddie accepts it mindlessly. You won’t even look at him.

“Forget about it,” is all you can be bothered to say, spat at his feet like a curse. 

He watches, trapped in his own body, staring dumbly as you stalk over to Regina, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her cluelessly towards the door while she struggles through an impromptu goodbye. She gives Eddie a wave and then the door shuts behind her, nowhere near a slam but still enough to make him flinch.

Eddie looks around in a daze. No one else seems to have witnessed his abrupt rejection other than Jeff, paused on his way back to the stage for the last piece of gear, his stare teetering on the edge of concern. For him or for you, Eddie has no clue.

The nausea that had been scared off by your presence makes a grand reappearance. His stomach seethes in discomfort, the force of it enough to make him shudder. Sick and dark and crushing.  

…What the fuck just happened?

-

He takes a deep breath through his nose. “You said that when she starts dating, Chrissy can start dating,” he mutters, jaw set with resolve. The clouds overhead really compliment the dreary fucking vibe of the interaction. “I took her out, alright? We started. That should be more than enough to fulfill this…insane goddamn restriction she’s under.” 

Carver couldn’t be less impressed. “Dating isn’t the only thing Chrissy’s parents are strict about,” he spits. Then he shakes his head, eyes flitting off to the side in thought; almost like he’s just as frustrated with the whole endeavor as Eddie is. “I swear, it’s like— She can’t do anything unless that freak is chaperoning her. We’re done when I say we’re done.”

The f-word sounds a thousand times dirtier directed at you than it ever has at himself, but Eddie bites his tongue—almost to the point of bleeding. Carver isn’t fucking worth it. 

“...I assume you’re gonna be at Hagan’s party Friday night,” he goes on flatly, tense arms crossed over his chest. “Get your girlfriend to come with you.” 

Eddie’s known about the party for a few days now, through no desire of his own. One of the few occasions on which he’s liable to be willingly approached by peers who would otherwise prefer to ignore his existence or add to its misery is to solicit or demand his availability at the next big rager—a good excuse, it occurs to him, if anyone does happen to witness this particular exchange. As unpleasant as it is to be the only stone cold sober person at a high school house party where everybody seems to mistake you for a living, breathing vending machine, the payout is generally well worth it. Eddie was, in fact, already planning on being there. 

“You really think I’d be able to sell her on that? I don’t even wanna be there.”

“If you managed to sell her on giving you the time of day at all, then yeah, I do,” Carver scoffs, dryly amused by his own jab. “Chrissy can’t go unless she does too. Make it happen.”

As ridiculous as this proposition is, all Eddie cares about at the moment is ending this conversation as soon as possible. Obviously, he wouldn’t mind having you as company while he clocks in for an evening of loud, unpleasant, soul-draining commerce, but not so much that he’d go out of his way to beg you for it just so that the lunatic in front of him can keep up his trend of getting whatever the hell he wants, all the time. 

“...I’ll invite her,” Eddie concedes. “But I told you before, I can’t force her to do anything.” 

Carver rolls his frigid eyes. “I don’t care what you do, just get her there,” he spits with the same flippant tyranny as usual, inclining his head in a glare that, after three goddamn weeks of this absurdity, has entirely lost its menace. “It’s only your ass on the line if you don’t.” 

As he stalks off back to whichever wretched bog he crawled out of, Eddie releases the passive tension from his limbs with a long exhale.

There’s not a chance in hell that he’s getting you at this party, but that’s alright. He can’t for the life of him remember a time when his ass reliably wasn’t on the line.

…

“So? How’d it go?”

The eyeliner pencil pauses halfway along your waterline as you glance at Chrissy’s poorly restrained anticipation in the mirror. You managed to avoid spilling the beans on Monday by preventing any encounters in person and hanging up on her when she called that evening, but today, she caught you on your way to the bathroom between third and fourth periods and practically shoved you past the threshold to give you the relative privacy to talk about it. 

“...Fine,” you say.

The product transfer leaves much to be desired. You lower the pencil and start rifling through your bag in search of a lighter.

“Just fine?” Chrissy spits in outrage, leaning against the wall beside the sink. 

“Yeah. Just fine.”

You flick on the flame and hold it beside the end of your pencil until the dull black tip turns glassy, and then drop the lighter back inside to try again. After a half-hearted blow to cool it off, the smooth black glides on easily, replacing the pigment blinked away during your first three classes.

“Seriously? The first first-date of your life, and all you have to say about it is that it was fine?”

You roll your eyes. “Why don’t you open the door and yell that down the hall?”

“Oh, like you actually care,” she groans. “...Well, what did you do? Where did he take you?”

“We saw a movie,” you say, moving to the other eye. 

“Which movie?”

“You don’t know it.” 

“Oh my God, you’re ridiculous.” She covers her face with both hands in theatrical frustration and shakes her head at you, curly ponytail bouncing to and fro. “What was he like, then? Can you at least tell me that?”

You pause to give her a side-eye. “What do you mean, ‘what was he like?’”

“Did he put his arm around you?” 

“No.”

“No?”

You furrow your brow at her potent disbelief as you pop the cap back on your liner and drop it into the cavern of your bag, pivoting around to lean against the sink. She crosses her arms over her chest and scoffs, but you can’t tell if she’s offended on your behalf, or offended by the fact that you aren’t.

“...He took you to see a movie and he didn’t even try to put his arm around you?”

“He probably wanted to keep it attached, so no.” It failed to occur to you until now that he might’ve considered it or wanted to, but if he did, he clearly knew better. 

“Well, did he—” Her eyes widen just slightly—she cuts herself off and glances around as if being overheard by the two girls occupying bathroom stalls is suddenly a major concern, then inclines herself towards you to ask in a lower voice: “...Did he kiss you?”

Your entire face shrivels up into a sneer. “No.”

Chrissy sags in disappointment. “Did you do anything interesting at all?”

Your mind summons a clipped siren piercing through the evening air; red and blue lights flashing, swirling together, softening into a sheer purple vapor. “...Not really, no.”

She sighs and surrenders to your stubborn nondisclosure. “...I guess ‘fine’ is pretty good by your standards. Are you gonna go out again?”

Probably. It comes to mind with shocking, subliminal ease, natural in the same sense as thunder after lightning, but that’s kind of fucking gross, so you frown and shrug and strain your voice as flat as it’ll go. 

“...I don’t know,” you mutter.

Chrissy smiles, but by the look in her eyes, not nearly as wide as she wants to. “Do you like him?”

You couldn’t work out a more aggravating question if you tried. Before you can rebuff or redirect the offensive line of interrogation, another voice jumps out in your direction. 

“Like who?”

One of the girls in the stalls was Laurie, also of the cheer squad. She steps up to the sink beside you to wash her hands, and the way that she tries to stroll right into the conversation despite how fiercely she avoids interacting with you most of the time would be perplexing—paradoxical, even—if you weren’t already used to it.

Normally, you’re ignored. It’s only in relation to Chrissy that anyone possessing an ounce of social credit pays you even the slightest bit of voluntary attention. It’s almost like the sheepish customers that loiter outside your mother’s shop—only when Chrissy acknowledges you do any of them find it natural to do the same. 

You wish they’d just save both of you the displeasure.

“Mr. Greenwalt,” you spit out on instinct, flaring your lined eyes at the unwelcome eavesdropper. “The comb-over really does it for me, and I hear he always offers the girls extra credit.”

Laurie’s upper lip curls in disgust, pleasing enough to stretch yours into a nasty grin. She quickly dries her hands and throws a puzzled glance at her teammate before making her exit.

“...Why do you always do that?” Chrissy asks quietly once the door closes behind her, wearing a less intense frown of her own.

“It’s funny,” you insist.

“It’s gross.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s why it’s funny.”

“...Whatever,” she relents. You adjust your bag on your shoulder, clearly good and ready to leave, and that must be why Chrissy scrambles to spit something else out. “...Um, I have my first date with Jason this week, by the way.”

Now, it’s your turn to sneer. “He asked you out?”

“He’s been asking me out.”

“Why the hell did you say yes?”

Chrissy blinks at you a few times, and your brow furrows. Something in her posture looks close to guilty—similar to when she accidentally breaks curfew (or any other of her mother’s authoritarian rules) at your place and knows you’ll be getting a disparaging call from Judith the next day for being a malignant influence and corrupting her wayward daughter and what not because of it—but you have no clue why she would be. Even if you regard Jason Carver as little more than the useless hunk of sculpted plastic on toy store shelves that he was no doubt modeled after with an even more egregious staring problem than yours, Chrissy should know full well that you’d never actually look down on her for doing whatever the hell she wants.

“...I already told you,” she mutters, “he’s—”

“Nice, I know.”

Chrissy huffs at you. “He likes me a lot, and he’s always…well, a gentleman. So, I figured…why not?” Her head falls forward, staring at the toes of her white sneakers. “…And besides, I…don’t really have a good reason to turn him down anymore.”

The scoff you let out could bust through plywood. “You don’t need a reason to turn him down.”

“I know that, I just…” She rubs at her temples and groans. “It’s complicated, alright?”

“Complicated how?”

“Plus, it’s just one date,” she goes on, slapping her hands down on her thighs and murmuring to herself. “It can’t hurt. I’ll…get to know him more. Kathy said we’ll look really good together, too.”

“Kathy also thinks her abysmal fucking side-pony looks good, so I wouldn’t take her word for it.”

“You’re being mean again,” she sighs, but without much outrage. The side-pony really is abysmal. 

Your stare hones in on her even sharper. “...I’m hoping it’ll rub off.” 

If she really wanted to give Jason a chance, she wouldn’t have to convince herself of it. You don’t think you could stomach her dating him just because, for whatever horrific reason, she thinks that lunkheaded creep deserves it.

Chrissy doesn’t say anything else, just keeps flicking that weird, vaguely guilty expression at you, so with a pointed sigh, you turn and head on your way. 

When she’s ready to explain herself properly, she will. 

…

You’re starting to wonder if Eddie moonlights as a heat-seeking missile.

When the lunch bell goes off, you have no intentions of seeking him out or spending the period with him. If you did, you’d know exactly where to go looking—the few times you’ve set foot in the cafeteria in the past couple years, you’re pretty sure you’ve always seen him in the exact same spot; seated at the head of the far-middle table by the windows like the outcast overlord that he apparently is. Your headphones are up as soon as you leave the classroom, about a third of the way through In the Flat Field as you debate which of your rolling lunch spots to go for today, and you don’t even make it halfway to the perpetually empty corner near the library before Eddie apparates at your side and makes you leap out of your boots.

Yanking your headphones down to your neck, you elbow him in the side as hard as you can in retaliation. 

“Ow!” he screeches, gripping the wound site with wide, insulted eyes. “What the hell did I—?! Oh, shit, you didn’t hear me, did you?” He’s snickering by the end of it.

“No.” If not for the headphones, you definitely would have. He jingles a lot when he walks.

“Alright, then I’ll give you a pass this time, but only cause you’re so pretty,” he says, rubbing his injury a little more before letting his hand fall back to his side. Someone speeding in the opposite direction clips him on the shoulder as they pass, but it doesn’t seem to register to him at all. He points a warning finger at you. “Next time, we’re gonna tussle. And you should know, I’m a feminist.”

He pauses, audibly waiting to be asked about it. Your unimpressed glance will have to do.

“...Which means,” he continues deliberately, leaning over into your space, “don’t expect me to go easy on you just cause you’re a girl. We’re gonna have it out. I’m talking all-out warfare.”

As usual, he’s amusing himself much more than he’s amusing you. “Is biting allowed?”

He jerks away like you startled him. “Uh, sure. Yeah. No holds barred.”

“How hard?”

Eddie’s sneakers scuff awkwardly against the linoleum; he has to speed up to keep in step with you. “Uh… Are you trying to say that you wanna bite me?”

“I’m saying what you’re saying,” you correct. “Fucking anything. Why are you following me?”

“Following you? We’re walking together.”

“Where are we going, then?” you drone.

“Uh…” He looks around like he only just remembered where he was and then shakes his head, rumbling with a little laugh. “...Okay, fine, I’m following you. Thought we’d eat lunch together.”

“Why?” 

Eddie’s smile turns awful. “Well, since we’re kind of an item now—”

“Keep thinking that,” you stop him short, straight-faced. He only smiles wider. “Won’t your little nerds miss you?”

“Yeah, they will, actually,” he says, brows raised proudly to his hairline. “Which is exactly why you should appreciate the fact that I’m hanging out with you.” 

Arriving at your destination, you press your back against one wall of the corner, sliding down to sit with your knees bent, and Eddie settles against the perpendicular wall, criss-cross with his metal lunchbox in his lap. When you go to pull Frankenstein out of your bag, he does a double-take in your direction.

“You aren’t actually gonna read, are you?” he complains.

You open the book without sympathy. “No, I’m just gonna stare at the cover for fun.”

“If I knew it was gonna be silent reading time, I would’ve brought my own.”

“That’s what happens when you hijack other peoples’ lunch plans.”

His shoulders slump in the corner of your eye. “Can you read it to me?”

“No.”

“Can we read it together?”

“No.”

“Can we at least eat together first?” he asks. One brief glance confirms he’s shameless enough to stoop to puppy dog eyes. “It’s not much of a lunch date if we don’t eat together.”

You forget to suppress your eye-roll. “It’s not a date at all if we’re legally required to be here.”

“Good point,” he says, cutting the reins on his smile. “...In that case, we should probably start planning the next one, huh?”

You set down your book with disgruntled negligence, and Eddie smiles even wider. 

Your lunches look pretty close to identical. Two white-bread sandwiches wrapped in plastic, yours with a pack of cheese sandwich crackers, his with a slim jim and a can of ginger ale from one of the vending machines. You’ve barely taken a bite of your sandwich before you notice Eddie’s too focused on your food to dig into his.

“...Whatcha got?” he asks, staring at you as little kids often do—with big, wanting eyes, enticed in all situations by whatever they don’t have.

It takes you a moment to swallow. “...Bologna.”

“Goddamnit,” he grumbles in envy. Then he raises his eyebrows, unsubtly hopeful. “...Trade ya?”

You sigh. “What’s yours?”

“Peanut butter and jelly.”

“Like a five year old.”

He snorts. “Exactly like a five year old.”

You consider it. You’re nearly as sick of peanut butter as you are of bologna, but you haven’t had jelly to compliment it in a while. After a long squint, you hold out your sandwich, and Eddie’s face brightens like it’s made of solid gold. 

“Fuck yes,” he exclaims, eagerly completing the transfer. He immediately takes a giant bite, throws his head back, and groans with indefensible abandon, so loud it nearly makes you spit. He waits until he swallows to speak again. “...Infinitely better. You’re a doll.”

You don’t admit it outright, but you prefer his sandwich, too. He went pretty heavy-handed with the jelly. Before his next bite, he pops the tab on his ginger ale, takes a quick sip, and sets it at a very deliberate midpoint between you.

“We’ll go halfies on the soda,” he announces, flashing you a smile. You glance at it and take another bite.

Though you eat together largely in silence—Eddie perhaps more aware of speaking with his mouth full after your date, or maybe just too hungry to stop once he’s started—he still, expectedly, throws back his food much faster than you do. You’re pretty sure he turned your entire sandwich into three and a half bites.  

Once he’s finished, he sits there looking conspicuously like he has something on his mind, but seems to think he’s being successfully nonchalant about it. His eyes flit around in constant thought, pausing now and then on you, glancing away instantly when he gets caught, and beneath his crossed legs, one of his feet shakes unendingly. You finish off the last bite of his sandwich and ball up the saran wrap that encased it.

“What?” you prompt with exasperation.

His wide eyes snap up to your face. “Huh?”

You bounce the saran wrap off of his chest, and one of his hands raises thoughtlessly to clutch the wound, still staring at you expectantly. “What do you wanna say?”

He acts surprised that you noticed, but you aren’t sure it’s fully authentic. An awkward smile stretches his lips and a faint smudge of color rises to his cheeks. “Oh, uh… Shit. It’s nothing, really, I just…” He blows out an exhale and pauses to scratch at his scalp, the side of his neck. “You know, Tommy Hagan’s throwing a party Friday night.” 

You stare at him for a while, wondering how the hell that could possibly be relevant to either of you. The words from his mouth alone make your insides unsettle.

“...Didn’t he stuff you in a locker, once?” 

It’s way too easy—he puffs up and prickles on reflex. “I— What? No, he did not— I mean, come on, he’s like, five-eight!”

You blink at him a couple times, unconvinced. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Well—okay, yeah, he tried to, but obviously, it didn’t work. I don’t fit in a goddamn locker, I haven’t since I was…” He trails off and shuts his mouth like he suddenly caught a glimpse of himself from the third person.

So he says. You narrow your eyes, graphing it out in your mind; you’re pretty sure you could fit him in one if you were determined enough.

“...Whatever,” Eddie spits, pink-faced. He waves one flustered hand to shoo away the tangent. “That’s not even— I’m talking about the party.”

“What about it?” 

“Do you…” He stretches it out, flicks his eyes around noncommittally and shrugs his denim-draped shoulders. “...wanna go?”

You look at him as hard as you can. “...Is that a joke?”

“Unfortunately not, no,” he says with a sheepish laugh.

Your laser-bright stare rips away from him, focusing even hotter on burning imaginary holes into a row of lockers down the hall. “Why the hell would I want to go to Tommy Hagan’s fucking party?”

“Believe me, I hear ya,” he says. “I wouldn’t be going either if it wasn’t, um… A prime business opportunity. But, since I am, I…woudn’t mind having someone actually cool to talk to while we’re stuck at…pretty much the worst place in town. Y’know…misery loves company, and shit.”

It makes sense, but it doesn’t quell your upset. There’s nothing to think about. The only answer twists itself into a vibrant neon sign, blinking urgently behind your eyes.

“...I don’t think so,” you mutter.

When you glance at him again, Eddie’s smile seems a little forced—disappointed, maybe, but trying not to let it show. “...Yeah, I figured. Still worth a shot, though.” 

A little breath of relief passes over you, tightening the lid on your escaping agitation. You finally pick up Frankenstein again, shifting around for greater comfort as you flip to your dog-eared page. Eddie watches you, unperturbed, with that same deliberate smile.

“...God, it’s gonna suck,” he sighs. He scrubs his eyes in exhaustion, then flashes you an even wider grin. “‘Least I can think about you to get me through it.”

You roll your eyes and privately savor the ring of his stupid chuckle.

…

On Thursday, Chrissy asks for a ride home after practice.

Normally, in your understanding, she gets a ride from her dad or from someone else on the team, but you figure for whatever reason no one else was available. She caught you at your locker this morning to ask (interrupting one of Eddie’s painfully, consciously unfunny jokes that he stubbornly doubled down on until the pure absurdity of his dedication finally forced you to crack a smile) and seemed greatly relieved to hear you accept.

You wait for her in the now-barren parking lot, working on homework and catching up on reading as the sun droops in the sky. Mask keeps your ears busy—you’ve found yourself on a Bauhaus kick. 

It’s around five-thirty when you see her coming; the first cheerleader to leave the building by a large margin, bounding across the asphalt like she thinks she’s being chased. She rips open the passenger side door and practically slams it behind her, taking a breath as she settles in her seat and yanks the seatbelt across her torso.

“...Hey,” you say. There’s definitely something going on with her lately. 

“Hi,” she responds, partially out of breath. She brought a cloud of ambient heat into the cabin, suppressed frantic energy radiating off of her. “Thanks again, you’re a total lifesaver.”

You blink at her and wait for her to settle down further. After a moment or two, she notices you staring and does a double take.

“...Gina’s been begging me every single day to let her come over and raid my closet for an outfit to wear to Tommy Hagan’s party tomorrow night, and it’s driving me crazy,” she explains. “If I let her give me a ride again today, I swear, she’d try to bust down the front door.”   

“Ugh.” You spark the engine and start to pull out of the parking spot. 

“Was that an ‘ugh’ at Gina, or at Tommy?” she asks, smiling at you in your peripheral.

“It was at your closet, actually.”

She gasps so hard, it drags the air pressure down. “You’re so mean!”

“That’s the price of making me wait at school for two and a half hours to drive you home,” you joke flatly, and Chrissy pouts. “...Doesn’t Jason have a car?” He probably has two.

Your jab was meant to fluster her further, but she goes sullen instead, staring down at her lap. “...I wanted you to drive me,” she mumbles.

You eye her for a while—as much as you can while making your way out of the parking lot. “Did you have your date yet?”

“...Um, yeah,” she says. “Yesterday, after practice.”

…That’s all she says. It throws you for a loop.

“...And?” you prompt. Chrissy just blinks at you, clueless. “How’d it go?”

“Oh, um—it went fine.”

A jolt of self-awareness goes through her belatedly; your eyes lock in mutual disbelief.

“Just fine?” you say, stretching out both words to really rub it in.

“No, well— It went great, actually,” she corrects on principle, holding her head up higher. “We…got a soda together, and it was…super great.”

“Super great.”

She dips her head in an exaggerated nod. “Mm-hm.” 

It’s so phony, you have to scoff. “Well, did he kiss you?” 

Chrissy stiffens up beside you. The dumbfounded look you throw her way finds her staring out the windshield, ignoring you vigorously with her arms crossed over her chest. Jesus. You hope, at the very least, that he asked her permission first, but something tells you that the nicest guy in Hawkins wouldn’t be quite so considerate in stealing undeserved affection from the girl he’s shallowly obsessed with.  It strikes a match against your nerves, but more immediately, you grimace and wince at the image it conjures in your mind—smarmy lips puckered in her direction. 

“...Ew.”

Her shoulders jump; she holds herself tighter. “Oh, cut it out,” she spits, harsh in a way she pretends she isn’t capable of. “Don’t you ever get tired of making fun of me? You’re lucky I even bother speaking to you.”

You pause for a moment at an empty intersection.

“...Sorry,” she says with a start. You don’t look at her, but you imagine the way she always cringes at herself when her discipline slips and lets something unpolished escape. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that at all. I don’t know why I—”

“It’s fine,” you cut her off. You’d probably act out too if Jason Carver had gone and put his slimy lips on you, and it’s not like she’s wrong, anyway.

For a minute or two, neither of you say anything. Your nails dig deeper and deeper into the leather of the steering wheel.

“...Are you going?” you ask.

“What?”

“To Hagan’s rager.”

Chrissy takes a long breath. “I…haven’t decided yet.”

About a hundred vehement discouragements come to mind, but you can only get out two words: “You shouldn’t.”

She just hums. You gnaw on the skin of your bottom lip in stress, probing around for something more emphatic that doesn’t plug up your throat.

“...What about you?” she asks, angling towards you in her seat.

It takes a moment to process, but when you do, you just scoff.

“I know you hate parties and all that,” she goes on lightly, “but, y’know… Eddie shows up to a lot of them. To, um…sell stuff.”

“...I know,” you grit out. “...He invited me.”

Her eyebrows pop up. “He did?”

You don’t say anything, but you can feel Chrissy winding herself up beside you, swirling again with her usual enthusiasm.

“Well, that’s perfect,” she says, clapping her hands together, “cause I just remembered that I really, really wanna go, but I need someone to drive me.”

Dread implants a more comforting image in your mind—the car ramming headfirst into a telephone pole, knocking you into a peaceful coma for the next week or two. “...I’m sure Gina would take you,” you grumble.

“Gina’s boyfriend is taking her, and all their seats are already filled. C’mon, you’re my only hope.”

She’s probably lying, but it’s working on you anyway. Goddamnit. There’s only one person you can actually trust to look out for Chrissy at a sleazy suburban house party, and it sure as fuck isn’t Gina. 

A dormant pit of stress inside you rouses with a shudder; unfolding its limbs, reaching out, making itself at home again. 

…

You’re a little late on purpose, because Chrissy’s never quite on time. When you honk the horn, you’re still stuck alone with your thoughts for a couple minutes, tapping your foot, gritting your teeth, and then there she is, a whirlwind.

After nearly sprinting out of the front door and down the porch steps, Chrissy yanks the door open and throws herself inside. You turn Pornography down low enough to hear her greeting.

“Hi,” she says, and, giving you a once over: “Wow, you look cool.”

All you do is grunt. Taking your time and putting much more effort into getting ready than the rotten occasion deserves seemed like the only way to stave off the horrible feeling that’s been stalking you ever since you agreed to this stupidity—the thicker the eyeliner, the sturdier your shield.

You start driving and at the same time, with a wholly unnecessary level of impatience, Chrissy wrestles herself out of her long-sleeved purple blouse, squirming and yanking so wildly that she nearly elbows you in the side of your head in the process.

“Jesus, is it killing you, or what?” you snap.

She finally rips the shirt off of her head, mussing up her fresh curls and smearing part of her lip gloss as she does. “Sorry,” she giggles.

Chrissy tosses the decoy shirt carelessly into the back seat and you reach over to flip down the visor in front of her. She catches on, sliding the mirror cover aside and grunting her annoyance as she wipes away the mess, while you take a couple glances at the carnation pink tube top you’ve never seen her in.

“Where’d you get that?” you ask. 

Judith Cunningham won’t have her only daughter gallivanting around town dressed “like a whore,” and her parenting style is invasive and distrustful enough that hiding a top like that from her would be a sizeable feat, but then again, her definition of what exactly constitutes whorish dressing is ill-defined at best. You’ve been accused of such by her on more than one occasion, and between your extensive layering and accessorization, you tend to show only slightly more skin than your average nun.

“Oh, do you like it?” Chrissy flips up the visor and smiles like a little devil. “I borrowed it from Gina.”

You roll your eyes and refocus on the road.

The last vestiges of sunlight are still clinging to the horizon by the time you and Chrissy arrive, draining slowly from the sky and taking with it what little reassurance you’d managed to muster up while getting ready.

You flip down the visor to check your makeup. Chrissy does the same again, albeit more haphazardly, smudging out eyeshadow and daubing on more lip gloss with little regard for neat lines or symmetry. You’re stalling for sure; you can’t tell if she is.

As you get out of the car, way down the street, your eyes catch on a familiar van—a massive eyesore in a neighborhood like this. Your stomach does a flip, and even when you squint your eyes and confirm that he isn’t still inside of it—that he hasn’t seen you yet—it doesn’t settle back in quite the right place.

You haven’t been to anything remotely constituting a party since your sophomore year, and upon entering the gargantuan Hagan residence, you’re immediately reminded of why. The air inside feels thick, dripping with the excess sleaze of its artificial inhabitants; the music shaking the walls is somehow both irritatingly loud and entirely indiscernible under the mass of voices chattering and whooping and squealing, and rowdy, amped up bodies are packed in tight enough to create an immediately noticeable, deeply repugnant increase in temperature as soon as you step through the front door. It smells like sweat and smoke and a nauseating cocktail of at least twenty different over-used perfumes, and it clings to every inch of you.  

No more than a few seconds of squeezing past familiar yet unenthused faces pass by before Chrissy runs into someone exciting. The shrill, mutual cry of two teenage girls recognizing each other briefly peaks above all other noise pollution, and, most likely assuming that you’re still right behind her, Chrissy pushes her way deeper into the crowd with vigor.

But you aren’t right behind her, because, while being related to Chrissy might afford you a pinch more consideration than you’d typically earn, it doesn’t mean much at all when she isn’t glued to your side. The same ocean of bodies that parts seamlessly to let her by—sprinkling her with eager greetings and partly-sincere compliments—freezes over instantly in her wake. Any sunny delight conjured up by Chrissy Cunningham’s unexpected appearance shrivels up and dies at the sight of you, contorting into baffled gawking, acidic side-eyes, poorly-concealed snickering, and plenty of other shameless staring that falls somewhere in between. 

The only people that voluntarily move out of your way are those who seem to be concerned about contracting something lethal from the brush of your sleeve. Everyone else is a deliberate obstacle, uncaringly so or in petty provocation, leaving you no choice but to wedge and force your way through.

And when you finally make your way into an air pocket, none other than the freckled moron himself shoots out into your path, cutting you off with an outstretched arm against the wall. The group he ejected himself out of watches on in amusement.

“Oh, shit,” Tommy snickers, looking you up and down. “If it isn’t the wicked witch of the west. Here to get trashed?”

Your eyes are glued to Chrissy’s blonde head, bobbing and receding ever deeper into the blur of denser bodies. “...Move.”

He scoffs at you. “I don’t think that’s any way to speak to the host,” he says, leaning far enough into your space that you almost surrender to the urge to cringe back. You aren’t sure if he in particular reeks of booze, or the whole house just smells that way. “You’re lucky I don’t charge a fee to get in.”

“I’m already in,” you spit. She’s moving pretty fast and this house is huge—you’ll lose her entirely at this rate.

“Yeah, well, if you want past this point, you’re gonna have to pay the freaky bitch toll.” He pauses, drawing it out, glancing at his friends before letting his greasy smile pull even sharper. “...Flash your tits real quick and I’ll let you go anywhere you want.”

He wins, in a sense. You finally put your eyes on him and leave them there for more than a split second, staring long and hard and stubbornly unreactive. You know he’s just fucking with you in the way that hopeless shitheads like him are wont to do, but your heart picks up in stress anyway. 

“Leave her alone, Tommy,” Carol insists superficially—it’s more than obvious that she finds it just as funny as he does.

Tommy rolls his eyes theatrically and steps aside, stretching his arm out in sarcastic welcome. “Mi casa es su casa,” he declares as you walk past. “...Careful with the punch, Vampira. Wouldn’t want ya to start taking your clothes off, or anything.”

One of his broodmates pipes up behind you. “Are you crazy, man?”

“Oh, relax. You don’t actually believe that shit, do you?”

You might’ve lost sight of Chrissy—you aren’t sure the blonde, curly head you spot making its way towards the kitchen is really hers, but you steer yourself in the same direction anyway. Barely five steps in, someone else sees it fit to make a nuisance of themselves. You squeeze past Tyler, or Terry maybe, the incurable stoner with the crooked nose, and no sooner than you do, he calls out your name with completely unearned familiarity. 

“Holy shit, didn’t think you’d be here,” he notes, evidently convinced that the single reluctant conversation you’ve shared in the past year makes you friends—optimistically speaking. You keep moving without a glance in his direction. “...Hold on a second, y’wanna hang out?”

“Drop it, dude,” a friend beside him laughs.

“No, hold on,” T-name insists. He reaches out, grabs at your sleeve to hold you up. “You smoke? Cause we just scored some—”

The feeling of resistance—of restraint—sends panicked thorns bursting through your skin. You turn around without thinking, hardly seeing through the veil of vengeful red, and bash his solo cup straight up into his nose.

He snorts and chokes and cries out in regret, his face and most of his t-shirt drenched in pungent booze, and some of the splashback hits your face, soaks into your sleeve. You wipe it off and keep walking.

“What the fuck?!” he sputters behind you. “That’s—so not cool!”

“I told ya, man, she’s fuckin’ psycho.”

You walk faster now, a hit of adrenaline making your pulse speed up, cold sweat starting to drip down your sides. Completely fucking over it already, you start shoving your way past people, ramming shoulders and elbows into oblivious partygoers without remorse.

Chrissy isn’t in the kitchen—only a crowd of preppy undesirables congregated around the ginormous punch bowl on the island. Open and unopened beer cans are scattered across every surface, bags and bowls of cheap snacks placed here and there. No one spares you a glance as you squeeze past. 

On the other side, the patio door hangs wide open to reveal a few handfuls of people spread around the expansive backyard. The smell of cigarettes, weed, and warm evening air filters in through it, and, kicked back in one of the patio chairs, speaking indiscernibly but unmistakably to a couple of presumable customers who couldn’t be more his visual opposite, is Eddie.

You freeze. Mind blank, ears screaming, you stand there and stare at him for so long that he notices, trailing off as he does a double take at you, stood like a rigid specter in the doorway.

Immediately, Eddie’s face lights up, his bright eyes glinting in the dark like lightning bugs, but his smile doesn’t even finish stretching across his face before you whip around to snap the connection, your heart bludgeoning your ribcage in panic. You knew he’d be here, you knew he was here, but even still, you hoped that he wouldn’t be. That he’d keep to some secluded, easily missed corner of the house, none the wiser of your own presence, or that business would dry up early and he’d take his leave without catching so much as a glance of you.

The combination of Eddie—dorky, bungling, total geek Eddie—and this vile, skin-crawling fucking environment unsettles you much deeper than you expected it to. A cringeworthy little piece of you told yourself that it might be easier to swallow with him around, that he’d function as the unlikely, aggravating exemption from the cloud of misery around you that he’s unfortunately starting to become, a pocket of clear air amid the suffocation, but the mortifying naivety of that thought revealed itself the moment you laid eyes on him; the moment he brightened in recognition.

He’s happy to see you here—why wouldn’t he be?—and the stress of it tenses every muscle in your body, straining inwards, urging you to curl up tighter and tighter until no one at all can see you anymore. Especially not him.

You’re off again. Cutting violently through the living room (where the music blasts the loudest, rattling every bone in your body), you barely even remember to glance around for Chrissy in your clawing need to put as much space as possible between you and the boy you like. 

Just focus on Chrissy. Finding her, making sure nothing happens. That’s the only reason you’re here, isn’t it?

The song changes. You still can’t make it out for the life of you, but it ignites a wave of excitement, tides shifting as people crowd towards the epicenter, dancing and bumping along the way. The path you were on abruptly closes up, and more than that, it spits you out—two careless collisions, and you’re all but shoved into the dining room—probably the tenth circle of hell, given that the table’s been repurposed for beer pong. 

With a deep, shuddering breath, you step in further just to give the room a proper scan, but as soon as you do, a couple faces from the far end of the table react. The attention draws the eyes of a few more people in the room, and only then, when he turns his body towards you, do you recognize the man you’ve wedged yourself next to in your search.

Billy Hargrove. If anyone could ever shut up about ocean waves and palm trees and Hollywood stars when it came to him, you’d probably assume he transferred straight from an even deeper circle of hell. He was put in your American government class, and while he’s so far been courteous enough to spare you from any direct interactions, you’ve caught him staring on more than one occasion—the kind that’s hard to tell whether he’s trying to work out what’s wrong with you, or peeling away layers of black with his eyes.

He’s smoking a cigarette, and it doesn’t surprise you in the slightest that Tommy might afford the privilege of doing so indoors to him alone. When your eyes instinctively meet his, he takes it out of his mouth and flicks his eyes down to your chest.

“...Wanna play?” he asks, jerking his head towards the table. The invitation isn’t remotely sincere.

It takes you longer than it should to summon a characteristic response—your brain feels like electrified mush. “...I’d rather eat a bullet.”

Billy grins, and the aura of doom he gives off is suffocating. There’s no Chrissy so there’s no point in staying, but as soon as you turn to leave, his hand catches your elbow. It feels like fire, burning through your layers to singe his mark against your skin. Your jaw clenches painfully hard—you nearly bite your tongue. 

“Wait a second,” he mutters. “Got a question for ya.”

He holds the filter to his lips for long enough to piss you off, his big, lazy, California blue eyes smearing themselves all over your tense face. Once he’s gotten his fill of leering at you, he blows the smoke out of the corner of his mouth and coils it up into a smirk.

“...Is it true?” he finally asks. “What they say about you.”

“They” say much more about you than you’ve ever cared to keep track of, but it isn’t hard to guess the realm of what he’s referring to. Your spine’s been crawling since the moment you arrived, but it’s still enough to trigger an especially icy jolt. “What the hell do you think?”

Billy chuckles as he takes another drag. “...You’re pretty feisty,” he notes. “Thought you might be. …I like that. You wouldn’t make it easy for me, huh?”

Coming from him, it sounds like a threat. You aren’t his type at all, so you don’t know why he’s pretending.

He shakes his head, admiring; frustratingly immune to your meanest glare. “...Nah, I bet you like to put up a fight.”

Your hackles raise, your face pulls taut—you’d claw his face off if you thought you could manage it. “Eat shit, Hargrove.”

You almost, almost feel a pinch of regret as it leaves your lips—you know what he’s like, after all, and you’ve seen his temper in action at school on more than one occasion—but when all he does is snicker at you and half of the onlookers do the same, that’s when it clicks. He’s just poking the bear for fun, making a spectacle out of you. When you try again to rip your arm out of his grasp, he lets you, and you whip around to leave with a vengeance.

“Don’t be like that, baby!” he calls after you, winning even more ass-kissing laughter from the mindless crowd around him.

The blood rushes to your head and stays there, pounding in your ears, boiling beneath the skin of your face. 

You feel like you’re in a demented fucking funhouse—each room presenting you with some sadistic new hurdle to jump over, tailor-made to upset you as viscerally as possible. It’s like they can smell it on you. Time seems to be caught between two here-and-nows, ripping you back and forth between them with enough brutality to snap your neck. You’re too caught in your mind to think clearly, and the many distressing sights and sounds and smells of the party overwhelm you from every angle. 

There was a staircase near the front door. You should probably make your way back through the living room to look upstairs, and it’ll probably be less intolerable up there anyway, but just as you’re about to re-enter the fray, you spot him again, shaggy brown hair at the edge of the kitchen. He saw you first this time—his hand is raised in an awkward wave to get your attention, and even across the room, you can see the frown on his face. Confused, concerned, whatever. 

Your stomach surges so abruptly it gives you a stitch in your side. Without even thinking, you spin on your heels and start off in the opposite direction, turning down a less populated hallway. Somehow, over all the layers of agitating noise, you can just barely make out the sound of him calling your name—assuming anyone else could hear it in the first place. 

Rushing down the hall, you have no luck. You pull open a door here and there, finding three girls snorting something in a home office, a couple making out in a bathroom, but still no Chrissy.

The hallway loops around to the front of the house, and when you get there, you pause, caught between the staircase and the front door. 

Since you haven’t found a trace of her, she’s probably upstairs, but every fucking ounce of you is screaming at the top of its lungs, begging you to just leave. It’d be so easy to escape it all, wait in the car and pray that nothing happens to her in the meantime, but…you can’t. Not until you’ve at least seen her. It’s too close to you right now, fresh and sharp and nauseating all over again.

Even still, your legs don’t move like they should. Standing there, staring up the steps into the dimly lit second floor, you only feel dread. If you go up there, there’s only one way out, and who knows if there’d be anywhere to hide. If Eddie decides to come up there too, or sees you going up— If he catches up to you, and there’s nowhere to run, and you can’t get around him—

Sudden enough to make you gasp, Jason Carver drops his hand on your shoulder and turns you forcefully in his direction. Your nerves are too shot for this—the shock makes you lightheaded.

“Where’s Chrissy?” he asks predictably, hardly willing to even look at you directly. He drops it with such passive entitlement, it makes you want to strangle him.

As if you’d ever help him find her. “She’s here,” you offer unhelpfully, shoving his arm away from you.

He looks about as pleased with your answer as you are with his existence. “Isn’t it your job to look after her?”

There’s an acid to his voice that throws you off; bitter, like you’ve personally wronged him in some way. You don’t know where the hell he got that idea from, but you wouldn’t argue against it. “...Yeah, it is,” you drone. “So do me a favor and leave her the fuck alone.”

His ken-doll face twitches in annoyance; he squints at you in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

Just then, you hear your name echoing down the hall and panic stiffens your spine. That goddamn heat-seeking missile. If he’s that close, you aren’t sure you can make it up the stairs without being seen, and even if you do—no. 

Turning your back on Jason’s surly face, you move on instinct. There’s a coat closet beneath the stairs. You throw yourself into it and nearly slam the door behind you. Wading through thick fabric, you push your way to the back of it and slide to the floor, hugging your knees like a little girl hiding from the boogeyman. 

Just for a couple minutes, just until he moves on and goes looking elsewhere. It’s quieter in here, dark and insulated from the sensory hell of the party, and it should give you some reprieve, but instead, it just thrusts all your internal stressors to the forefront.

You squeeze yourself with painful intensity, smacking urgently to ward off the awful feeling of being touched and grabbed and yanked and groped when it manifests against your skin, but the lack of anything else to focus on only makes the onslaught inescapable. Eyes squinted shut, muffled music and voices beat you down from every direction, and your heart beats so rapidly in your chest that a whisper against your ear drum wonders if you’re close to dying. Your mind tries desperately to flee, sprinting from place to place, looking for anything at all to grab hold of and keep your head above water, but everything slips through your fingers within seconds. Making Chrissy watch Halloween with you on your birthday; taking two forks to the haphazard, brutalized cake she surprised you with until neither of you could fit another bite. When you were kids, and your dad took both of you to the county fair, let you go on as many rides as you wanted until Chrissy threw up in your lap—you laughed so hard you cried—she still has the stuffed dolphin Dad won for her—God, you miss your dad. Eddie’s stupid, ridiculous performance of Barracuda—no, fuck, not him. Chrissy…

Chrissy…

You’re lucky I even bother speaking to you.

She’s never cut you like that before, but it’s been a long time coming. She’s so tolerant, especially of people who don’t deserve it, you more than anyone. Of course she’d have to snap sometime. You’ve been waiting for it for years.

If not even your own mother cares to deal with you, why should she? Why should she care about what happens to you at all?

You, the angry fucking bitch that you are, lashing out against anyone in arm’s reach, biting every hand that so much as considers feeding you, unable to do anyone the basic courtesy of ever admitting why. It’s too late now—the damage is well past done.

Maybe it’s all some terrible, well-deserved joke that they’re all in on, everyone but you—payback for years of casual spite. How did Chrissy know that Eddie had been talking to you? Why did both of them invite you to this stupid fucking party they both know damn well you’d never, ever want to be at without them, both of them?

Why did she leave you behind?

There are hands all over you, squeezing and pulling; closer now, ripping, punishing you for being stupid enough to let it happen, again, again; and it hurts, blood in your palm, dripping down your wrist; screaming, praying, Daddy, why’d you leave me? You deserve it, you stupid, prude-whore— ice-cold— mental case— loveless fucking bitch!

The door slams into someone as you burst out of it. You don’t know who, you don’t care, and big, white splotches block out the corners of your vision anyway. You blink and you’re in the kitchen, shoving aside some girl with a side ponytail to grab the first cup you see and sink it deep into translucent red.

It’s borderline undrinkable. Your face screws up in disgust, almost gagging at the taste, the strength of it making your weak stomach shudder. Too many cups of this could definitely put someone in the hospital—even that would be preferable to being here right now. You can feel it streaming from the corners of your mouth but you ignore it, forcing yourself to swallow every last drop.

Turn it down, turn it off, just turn everything off. 

The less you remember, the better.

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