barbie ♡ @icriedwhenyouleft - Tumblr Blog

fate, up against your will (unwillingly mine) | chapter 7

eddie munson x goth!reader.

based on the plot of 10 things i hate about you. in his desperation to go out with chrissy cunningham, jason carver makes the freak of hawkins an offer he can't refuse.

summary: tommy hagan throws a party; part 2 of 2. 10k words.

warnings: pretty much the same warnings as last time! heavy emphasis on the implied past sa + related trauma and also binge drinking, reader is very much wasted and not having a good time. the billy hargrove warning remains as well 💔

a/n: now we have eddie's side of the party! 😱😱 as of this chapter, the tumblr version of this story is "caught up" to ao3—future chapters will be posted to both websites simultaneously. there will be 10 chapters total, so let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist for future parts!

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You’re avoiding him.

Eddie wracks his brain, filtering through the past week’s interactions, trying to pinpoint the moment he put his foot in his mouth badly enough to have you loathing him again, but nothing at all comes to mind.

Unless, of course, you know.

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.

-

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