any time that white old lady in the tumblr ads changes position I get scared I feel like the next ad is going to be a picture of the couch empty and I'm going to start seeing her around town
Favourite vegetable?? Pls vote. trying to prove smth!!
1105 votes • Poll ends in 5 days 9 hours
🥕 carrotjesus Follow
OP clearly yuor followers are biased. Carrots are objectively better than broccoli of all things and i think it's problematic that you called carrots stinky it's really manipulative. also tomatos aren't technically a vegetable. maybe try thinking before posting passive agressive polls next time
🤡 jizzardtower Follow
shgdfdsg these tags. yes. chicken wings my favourite vegetable
✴ cadylady2002 Follow
Haha. I just realized the #eggplant looks a little like a d***. That is so #funny !!
👁 shreksbellybutton Follow
🦷 pigeonsarecool Follow
CHICKEM WIMGS
🍵 souperdouper Follow
shoutout to soup. won't stop making shoutouts for soup until one hears me and comes walkig over. i want soup.
january is one of those months where you experience every feeling on the human spectrum and you just have to go about your day like that isn't happening
Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.
Tags/cw: forbidden romance, slow burn, perv!eddie, smut (18+ mdni), true love, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)
Chapter warnings: drinking mention
“Happy Monday!” chimed Ms. Click, fixing her coffee on the counter in the teacher’s lounge. “How was your weekend, sweetie?”
You turned to her as you nestled the glass coffee pot back onto the warmer. “Oh, you know. Just catching up on errands and chores. Same old, same old.” Oh, and wrestling with thoughts I really shouldn’t be having about my student. You figured it was best to leave that part out. Though if you were being totally honest you had done more of that than anything else this weekend. You couldn’t believe yourself.
“Oh I hear ya, it’s real easy for things like that to just take over. Pretty soon you feel like you’re just living the same week over and over again and then whoops! 20 years go by!” she said with a loud and slightly pained laugh.
You smiled weakly. “Yeah, time really does fly.”
“It does if you’re not careful! You’ve got to treasure every precious moment while you can,” she said, giving a gentle pat on your forearm before turning to leave.
“I try to,” you said, turning to open a new carton of milk for your coffee. You watched it swirl as you poured it in and thought about Eddie Munson again. You wondered what a what a weekend was like for him, what sort of trouble he might get into. You thought about him cruising down the road in his van at night, blasting his music and driving way over the speed limit — not a care in the world. You thought about being a passenger, about laughing with him as he took his hands off the wheel to play air guitar to a song you didn’t recognize.
“Hey!” she said Diane in a little whisper, waving her hand between you and your coffee.
You jolted upward and turned to her. “Oh hey! Sorry, I’m a total space cadet today apparently.”
“It’s Monday, you’re allowed,” she said with a warm chuckle. She leaned back against the coffee station. “Sooo, your birthday is on Friday. It’s the big 3-0 right? Have any plans?”
Yes, that. You hadn’t forgotten, though you secretly wished you had. “I’m shocked you remembered!”
“Well, birthdays are circled on the office calendar,” she said, folding her arms with a little smirk, “I can’t give myself that much credit, but we should really do something. It’s a big one.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Honestly I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“There’s always Pal Joey’s. At the very least I can bake you a cake and we can just get drunk together, right?” she said with a playful chuckle.
You laughed, “Yeah, I don’t need anything extravagant. Just something low key would be nice. Actually, I have a friend I haven’t seen since I moved back over the summer. She’s been busy with her small kids, I bet she’d appreciate getting out for a night.”
“That’s the spirit! Ok, got any preference for cake flavors?”
You thought for a moment, a smile playing on your lips as you brought a curved finger to them, “Surprise me.”
______
You set off down the main hallway like you did every morning, careful not to slosh the remainder of your coffee too hard as you walked. You dodged the usual obstacles — kids with headphones on not paying attention, couples leaning against their lockers, jocks giving a football a few passes before another teacher reprimanded them.
You were about halfway there when you smelled it — cigarette smoke. Not the sort of smoke left over on clothing, but actual active smoke coming from someone nearby. You glanced around to see if you could catch a plume and that was when you saw him.
You didn’t know his name but he must have been a junior at least. He was more than six feet tall, an athlete, as you could tell from varsity jacket he had on.
“Hey! No smoking in the hallway,” you said firmly as you approached him at the lockers.
He looked at you like you were a small child threatening to tattle on him. “Or what?”
“Or I’m giving you detention. Put it out, now.”
He rolled his eyes at you, “Ooh, so scary.” His friends around him chuckled.
You swallowed, feeling small all of a sudden. “I’m serious, put it out right now.”
“Jeez, calm down, bitch.” His friends erupted in laughter, practically tripping over themselves now.
Your eyes narrowed, heart beating into your throat.
“The fuck did you just call her?” a voice cut through from behind you.
You recognized it before you whipped your head around to see him. “Eddie —”
He marched up to the athlete in front of you. “Here, let me make it easier for you.” He snatched the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the ground to stomp it out. There were daggers in his eyes. “Say it again.”
He looked at Eddie with a mixture of shock and confusion. “Jeez since when are you a goody two-shoes, Munson?”
“Principal’s office, now,” you said, pointing at the athlete.
He rolled his eyes again. “You gonna have your pet escort me?”
You glanced over at Eddie, you could practically feel the heat coming off of him as he glowered behind you like a shadow. “No, I can do that myself, unless you’d rather have security escort you. Your choice.”
He sighed. “Fine, Jesus.”
“I can take it from here, Eddie. Thank you.”
He glanced back and forth between the two of you, looking hesitant. “If you say so,” he conceded softly.
You smiled at him with gracious eyes, then turned to the athlete. “Come on.”
Eddie bent down to grab the cigarette off the floor, his eyes did not leave you.
“I can take that,” you said, extending your hand.
He placed the flattened cigarette into your palm, slow enough for you to feel the calluses on his fingers as they lingered for a short moment. Yours curled around them just enough to brush the back of his knuckles as his hand left yours, as if they had a mind of their own. Your heart skipped a beat and you found the courage to meet his gaze again.
“Thank you.”
He bowed his head slightly, “Sure thing.” His eyes were dark and intense, like there was something more he wanted to say.
You swallowed and broke his gaze. “Alright, let’s get going before I’m late for my own class.”
You walked swiftly toward the principal’s office, the two of you silent in the noisy din of the hallway as the athlete kept pace reluctantly beside you. You were halfway down the hall when you felt the urge to glance over your shoulder.
Eddie was still standing where you left him, still as a statue amidst the chaos of the hallway, watching you with careful eyes.
______
Eddie watched you from the back of your fourth period English class, as he did every day.
He watched as you as you paced about, the way you leaned against the desk as you sifted through your notes. He noticed how thoughtfully you chose your words, how eloquently you spoke.
He wondered what you were like outside of school — what you would be like at a concert, a bar, a restaurant, a movie. He wondered what sort of observations you would make about the world around you. What sort of things you would want to talk about outside the strict confines of this building, outside your role in it. You were always so good at keeping the face you’d put on that morning. He wanted to see you without it.
Wanted to see you first thing in the morning, the sleep still in your eyes. Wanted to see you in pajamas making coffee. Wanted to feel the warmth of your skin still heated from your bed, to peer over your shoulder as you cooked your eggs, to tickle you until you turned around to kiss him.
“In chapters 13 though 15 we can see that he’s both too scared to call Jane and too scared to sleep with Sunny, even though deep down it seems he wants to. Holden alienates himself as a form of self-protection, which is a motif in the novel,” you explained. “A motif,” you scratched the word onto the board, “— is a recurring structure, contrast, or literary device that can help to inform the reader of the text’s major themes.”
You turned toward the board to finish writing the definition. It was then that Eddie saw Patrick’s arm extend behind him with a folded piece of paper that Jason promptly snatched.
You paused, glancing toward the back of the classroom at the movement.
Jason and Patrick froze like statues.
Your gaze lingered a moment, then you continued, turning toward the board again.
Eddie watched out of the corner of his eye as Jason opened the note slowly, trying to minimize the crinkle of the paper. He stifled a snicker and took his pen to it, scribbling in haste.
“Now, what are some other motifs that you may have noticed so far?” you asked, turning toward the class.
Jason froze again, sliding his notebook over the paper slowly, leaving some space to continue writing discreetly at the bottom.
Eddie felt his pulse rise and shot Jason a threatening glare.
Since when are you a goody two-shoes, Munson? The words rolled around in his head. As much as he hated to admit it, there was some truth to them.
The truth was that he had smoked in school before. More than once. The difference was he never got caught. He had been disrespectful on more than one occasion toward the faculty. He’d never called anyone names, but he’d certainly rolled his eyes, certainly given them a hard time. He’d sneak out, skip class, pass notes, run down the hallway — he even shot a spit ball at Gareth once, but only because he deserved it after flaking out on Hellfire because some girl invited him over to work on a project.
Jason caught Eddie’s glare and made a face at him, passing the note forward to Patrick who snickered when he opened it.
You whipped your head toward the back corner of the room and locked eyes with Patrick. “Excuse me, is something funny?”
Eddie’s eyes bored into his desk. He could feel the heat creeping up his neck.
“No ma’am, sorry,” said Patrick, straightening up.
Your eyes lingered a moment suspiciously but you let it go, sighing in annoyance as you turned back toward the board.
The note passing ceased after that.
It wasn’t until after the bell rang that both Jason and Patrick made eye contact with Eddie again. This time it was in the midst of laughter as they were leaving.
______
By the time Eddie Munson had plunked himself down in his usual spot on the other side of your desk, you were admittedly exhausted. You hated to be one of those pedestrian I hate Mondays people, but today really took it out of you for some reason.
Maybe it had something to do with the war you were waging in your mind over the man sitting across from you, but when you saw his sweet oval face again you felt the energy suddenly return to you, like a second wind. Like a breath of fresh air.
“Thank you for… intervening earlier today,” you said graciously as you filed away the papers on your desk, clearing the space.
Eddie gave a single nod. “I wanted to put it out on his face, but uh, pretty sure that’s also against the rules, so…” he said with a little chuckle.
Even behind his joking you could tell that he meant it. It stirred something in you, like a growling in the pit of your stomach. Something dormant and primal. You looked at his strong hands as he fidgeted with the pen in front of him, then your eyes traveled up to his forearms. He was wearing that flannel again with the sleeves rolled up and you wished you could ignore it, but instead you imagined what they would feel like wrapped protectively around your waist.
You cleared your throat and tucked your hair behind your ear. “Yeah, I’m afraid so,” you said with a little smile. “You know, you would think that after eight years of teaching I would be used to that sort of treatment but it still catches me off guard sometimes.”
Eddie raised his eyebrows curiously, “Eight years?” he asked. You could almost see him doing the math in his head.
Your stomach dropped. “Yeah, um, I actually turn 30 on Friday,” you said with a nervous chuckle.
Eddie balked, “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
He smirked, his eyes narrowing, “No way. I mean — sorry, it’s not a bad thing! It’s just hard to believe is all.”
“You want to see my drivers license?”
Eddie laughed, “No, no. It’s just that… you don’t seem like it to me. Not looks wise anyway. Maturity wise you’re probably closer to uh, 500 — you know, like an elf.”
You snorted. “Thanks. That’s so much better.”
“No, I mean like Arwen old, not Galadriel old,” he said, stumbling over himself. “Sorry I’ll stop, I’m a dumbass. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a number anyway.”
There was a strange relief that came over you when he said that, more than you wanted to admit to yourself.
You had to laugh. “Arwen old, now that’s something you don’t hear every day.”
“Well, take it as a compliment. I mean you’re —” he gestured to you, up and down with his hand, his eyes widening.
You knew what he was going to say. No, you wanted to think you knew, but did you really know? You knew you shouldn’t press but you wanted to hear it. Your mouth betrayed you. “I’m what?” you asked softly.
Eddie swallowed. “You’re…” he blinked, his dark eyes darting back and forth between yours. You could see the gears turning in his head, weighing the options of what to say next. “You’re timeless.”
Timeless. Now that was a word you were not expecting. Not too bold like beautiful, or cheap like pretty. You were tempted to commend him on his vocabulary choice.
“Timeless,” you said in quiet awe as a smile crept across your face. “I’ll take that.”
Eddie relaxed into his chair, seeming pleased with himself.
“Alright, what’s on the agenda for today?” There was a guilt that nagged at you for prompting such an intimate moment with your student, but then again, was he not the one who prompted it with his gesture? Still, it was your responsibility to be the bigger person, you knew that. And yet…
Eddie was doing well enough in your class. He was turning in his homework and did well on the last quiz. Today you decided to focus on History again since that seemed to be his biggest challenge, which meant that Eddie was now seated beside you — and that was another challenge.
Eddie Munson had a way of being around you that was hard to ignore. It was the way he looked at you from beneath his lashes, the way he almost put his shoulder behind yours as you both crowded over the textbook. You swore you weren’t imagining it.
It was when you pointed at a line in the text, the way he inched closer to it, turned his head toward you ever so slightly, his face inches from yours.
You could smell him again. The sweet musk of his skin, the soft scent of whatever he put in his hair. He was so close you could feel the gentle puff of his breath against your face. Your curious eyes dropped to his lips — so incredibly plush with a perfect cupid’s bow. Your animal brain betrayed you and you imagined, for just a split second, what they would feel like against yours. What he would taste like.
You cleared your throat, face flushing as you broke the tension. “So, did you do anything fun this weekend?”
There was a gleam in Eddie’s eyes. “Yeah, actually. Mercyful Fate was playing in Indianapolis on Saturday. Really good show.”
You nodded curiously, “Hmm, I’ve never heard of them.”
Eddie smirked, “Yeah, I figured not. I mean — most people haven’t unless they’re into metal. Which, I don’t want to make any assumptions, but…” he chuckled.
“You’re correct,” you said with a little laugh.
His eyes were tender, “What kind of music are you into?”
You hummed and glanced down at the textbook again thoughtfully, “Let’s see… I like all sorts of stuff. Older stuff like Van Morrison and Simon and Garfunkel, newer stuff like The Police and Tears for Fears. Oh and I love Joni Mitchell, especially Joni Mitchell. Her music is poetry, truly.”
Eddie hummed thoughtfully, “All good artists.”
“I mean I’m not opposed to metal. I just haven’t heard enough of it I guess. I do really like rock music, actually I love Led Zeppelin. I mean that’s not metal but,” you said in jest making the rock horn symbol with your hand.
Eddie laughed, eyes crinkling, looking at you like you were an adorable child who just said something funny. His hands came around yours impulsively, tucking your extended thumb in across your two middle fingers. “Like this,” he said sweetly.
You swallowed, face flushing. His hands were so warm, the softness of his palms surprised you. They lingered for a moment, clutching your hand before letting go to demonstrate.
“This,” he formed the symbol with his hand, “Means rock. This?” extended his thumb, “Means ‘I love you’ in sign language.”
You chuckled, tucking your hair behind your ear. “Rookie mistake I guess.”
“It’s ok, it’s a common one. It’s not exactly been around for that long. Dio was actually the one who started doing it like five or so years ago. See, he’s super Italian and his grandma would do it like this as a sort of… spell, I guess, to keep the evil eye away.” He demonstrated, pointing his horns at you. “But then Dio kept doing it on stage, sort of adapted it into a symbol for rock.”
You nodded curiously, “See, you’re teaching me something now.”
He smiled, “I do know a few things, might not exactly be useful things, but…”
“All knowledge is useful. In fact I think it’s a shame that we place so much value on grades. I mean honestly, most of this stuff you’re not even going to need to know to get through life. I can tell you that for a fact. I mean I know I’m not supposed to be saying that, but…”
Eddie nodded, his eyes were soft and distant. “I wish more people thought like you.”
You could feel the heat rushing to your face again. You met his eyes and smiled softly.
You turned your attention back to the history textbook. After another twenty minutes, when it was clear that your attention spans were starting to wane, you called it for the evening.
You and Eddie left together again, out to the parking lot through the shortcut by the gym. Not a soul in sight in the hallway. He held the door open for you as you left.
Eddie was parked next to you this time.
“See you tomorrow,” you said, waving at him over the top of your little car as you unlocked it. The autumn wind kicked up, tousling your hair and scattering leaves across the parking lot.
“See ya,” he said, throwing open the door to his van.
He flashed you the rock horns again — thumb extended.
______
A/N: I just wanted to take this moment to thank every single one of my incredible readers — you guys. Every person who comments and shares each week, even the people who don't. I see your little hearts and it fills me with such joy. I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful audience that I can engage with and gush about my story with in real time. You make me feel like Charles Dickens.
My hope for this story is that it can reach as large an audience as possible, so if you can help me do that by sharing it, I would be endlessly grateful. I love you guys. 💚
Quick side note — if you don't see your name listed here but asked to be tagged it's because it would not let me tag you and I wanted to make room for the tags that are working!! tumblr only lets me tag a certain number of people so the list will be continued in the comments!
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