#corroded coffin

[corrodedcoffinfest]

Prompt #17 - Answering Machine

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[corrodedcoffinfest]

Prompt #16 - Hypercolor

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[axelllll65753e]

I feel like Eddie Munson would do like spiky eyeliner for performing at the hide out. Like I feel like he'd definitely learn how to do some bad ass eyeliner

[corrodedcoffinfest]

Prompt #15 - "Calgon, Take Me Away!"

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[corrodedcoffinfest]

Prompt #14 - Garfield

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And be sure to tag us here @corrodedcoffinfest so we'll see your entry.

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[jo-harrington]

Corroded Coffin Fest 2026 - Day 13 - Atari

Summary: Late nights and even later deadlines.

Word Count: 953

Rating: T

Warnings/Themes: Frustration, Slight Angst, Teenage Procrastination, Humor

Check Out the Main Post for @corrodedcoffinfest here! Even if you don’t start on Day 1, you can still join! <3

Credit to King of Queens, which the Great Gatsby magician joke is from. Guys I'm fucking tired. I'm tapping this out in bed. I should be asleep. OH WELL. Not seen as a part of this fic but Dave's parents for sure are going through a rough patch and don't know how to tell the poor guy that they're getting a divorce. PLEASE ENJOY!

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Dave was, admittedly, bad at deadlines.

Historically, even. He'd been late to his own due date, or so his mother never failed to tell him every year on his birthday.

"How many weeks late?" She laughed, as though this was not the most mortifying tidbit to share over cake and pizza to friends and family. "And then how many hours in labor?"

On a less unsavory note, homework was always a struggle for him. Something as simple as a worksheet was hard to commit to, in order to turn in. It always got done, maybe a day late, maybe a week if it was an essay.

He found, when he met the other members of Corroded Coffin, that he wasn't alone.

"I get all of my homework done on time," Jeff would argue. But they'd all seen him panic scribble on notebook paper enough mornings to know that it was all bullshit.

For Dave, there were just more things that he enjoyed doing than...well, anything that was expected of him. And that was never more obvious than when his parents presented him with his own Atari.

"You've been asking for a video game for a while," his dad said. "And its not that ENS one you asked for..."

"NES," Dave muttered under his breath.

"...but it's pretty spiffy if you ask us."

"And it was on sale at Kmart," his mom winked.

"But I didn't do anything to earn it...and my birthday isn't for a few months."

"We're allowed to spoil you sometimes, Davey," Mom reached over and ran her fingers over the curls at the front of his face, scooching them away from his eyes. "Now go and enjoy."

He wasn't one to argue with that.

It was unfortunate that they had given him this great and glorious gift on the eve of an English essay being due.

He couldn't be late for this one. Seriously. Spring break started the following afternoon, and there was no way he was gonna be spending his week off writing about The Great Gatsby. He had things to do, places to be, and pranks to commit with his friends.

And now, he had a shiny new video game system to play.

He looked into the gift bag his parents had handed him. They'd gotten him so many game cartridges. Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man. It was like a whole arcade right at his fingertips.

"Shit, this is gonna be so cool!"

But he'd already committed to no tv, no phone calls, until he got his essay done.

Right?

"Maybe...maybe I just set it up..." He contemplated.

Yeah, that was a good plan. Get the anticipation out of the way. All of the excitement was opening something new.

It took a while for him to figure out the AV cords, and to line up the game cartridges on the little TV stand in his room. In order of how he wanted to play them. Pac-Man first. No, Millipede!

"Alright, there..." He nodded, happy with his handy work, and went to his desk.

With his back turned to the TV set, it was out of sight and out of mind. He cracked open his notebook and started writing.

"The Great Gatsby was..." He said aloud as he wrote, voice tapering off. "Well, he was great! That's a pretty good start."

But you know what else was great? Seeing if his new Atari worked. What if it was on sale because it was defective. Obviously he needed to turn it on. See if it worked.

Yeah, that was a great idea. How could his poor parents get swindled by such a scam. At KMart of all places!

He hauled himself out of the desk chair and sat right in front of the television. He turned the tv on, flicked the switches, and carefully inserted a game cartridge into the slot. He was in awe at the technicolor logo flashing on his screen.

"It works!" He nodded. "Great!"

He glanced over at his desk, and then back at the tv. Actually, he looked down at the joystick, just itching to take it into his hands. To play.

"I can't," he huffed. "I can play after school tomorrow."

But he had Hellfire Club after school tomorrow, there wouldn't be an after school.

"I have the whole weekend," he continued to fight himself. "The whole of spring break."

But his parents got him this cool thing because they loved him. Because he was their cool son. What a slap in the face if he chose The Great Gatsby instead of their gift. He could take a few hours each day of spring break and write about a stupid magician, deadline be damned.

"No!" He shook his head and got up. "I have to do this."

He was about to settle back into his homework when there was a knock on the door.

His mom poked her head in, and her usual smile fell when she saw the joystick abandoned on the floor.

"Did you not like the games, Davey?" she asked, voice so dejected.

And his heart broke. He hated seeing his mom upset.

"N-No mom!" He shouted. He looked from her, to his essay, and back. "I just needed to finish up my homework first. I'm gonna play now! Right now!"

She broke into the biggest smile.

"Oh good! I'm glad. You want me to bring you a soda or anything? You've been working so hard on your homework all night."

"Y-yeah, sure," he nodded. "Thanks mom!"

She patted the door twice, then left, closing it behind her.

He stared at the flashing atari symbol on the television and then sighed.

Well...there was no use in procrastinating; those video games weren't gonna play themselves...

[dreamwatch]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Prompt: Day 13 - Atari | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse | POV: Eddie | Relationships: Eddie & Jeff | Minor angst, friendship, growing up, disapproving mothers

This is stand alone but if you're interested the prequel to this can be found here.

Jeff’s room is already in disarray when Eddie arrives; boxes and packaging litter the floor, while Gareth reads the manual and Matty scrabbles behind the TV set with a pair of cables.

Jeff steps over the mess, slapping Matty on the back of the head as he passes.

“Make sure you get that in the right hole.”

Gareth snorts. “If we’re counting on Matty getting anything in a hole it’s going to be a long night.”

Theres a yelp and a flurry of hands, and a “fuck you” before Jeff pushes everyone out of the way and Eddie finally manages to get a seat on the bed.

Eddie's spent a lot of time hanging out in this room over the years. Jeff’s been there through most of the roughest spots of Eddie’s life and never once joked about jail bird dads or dropped him for new friends. They're like brothers at this point.

In a couple of months Jeff will be on his way to college doing his thing and Eddie will be in Hawkins doing his, and he’s just going to have to deal with that. So far dealing with it has meant not thinking about it.

A cheer goes up and the screen comes to life, a blue cursor blinking at them all.

“Where do the cartridges go?” Gareth asks.

“They don’t,” answers Jeff, “the games are on cassettes.”

“Well how does that work?”

“If you shut up for five minutes I’ll show you!”

It works slow, is the answer. Minutes of nothing before flickering coloured bars appear, and for a horrible second Eddie thinks he might have a seizure.

“What are you doing with your Atari?” Eddie asks.

Jeff shrugs. “Might sell it. I don’t really have room for both.”

And for some stupid reason the thought of that dusty old Atari sitting in some other kids bedroom really gets under his skin. That was their thing, when they were kids, back when Eddie was hiding from the world. It’s part of something bigger. It’s growing up and growing together, talking non stop and saying nothing, of being angry and laughing till you cry, of needing space and never being alone. It’s a plastic box filled with their secrets and Eddie’s not letting it go.

“How much?”

“Do you really want it?”

Jeff stares at him like he’s gone a little senile, probably because they all know he’s got a few dollars in the bank these days and Eddie doesn’t need to buy second hand anything. But you can’t buy memories at Kmart.

They spend the afternoon staring at interminable load screens and playing games, but Eddie's going out tonight so he picks up his new old Atari and says his goodbyes.

He’s nearly at the front door when Jeff’s mom steps out in front of him. They stare at each other for a moment.

“I didn’t steal it,” Eddie blurts out.

Mrs Williams looks at him, baffled.

Eddie shakes the box. “Jeff’s Atari? Well, mine now, because I bought it, but yeah.”

“I didn’t think you had.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She makes him so nervous.

He should just go now, but these last few months have given him nothing but time to reflect on his life, and all the horrible shit that’s happened to him.

He’s been reflecting on the good, too.

“I know you don’t like me much.”

“Eddie—”

“No, it’s okay. Jeff’s a good kid and you want the best for him.” He smiles self deprecatingly. “I know you don’t hate me, just you know, dissaprove of me? I guess.”

Mrs Williams looks away for a second barely containing her own begrudging smile.

“I don’t know if you remember the night my dad, um…” Eddie gestures vaguely at his face, and he can tell from the resigned look on hers that she knows what he’s talking about. The night he ran to Wayne’s, the night Wayne dropped Eddie here while he ‘ran errands’ and then returned hours later with split knuckles and all of Eddie’s shit in the back of his truck.

“I do,” she answer softly, and she actually looks sad.

Eddie nods, the box getting heavier in his arms.

“I just wanted you to know…I didn’t have very many safe spaces when I was a kid. Don’t have that many now either, I guess,” he tries to laugh that one off but he has a pain right in the middle of his chest and his eyes hurt and she doesn’t find it funny anyway. “But I always felt safe here. And I wanted to thank you for that. Because I know you’d rather I wasn’t here—”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s okay.”

“And stop saying that because it’s not okay. Not a goddamn thing about how you have ever been treated is okay!”

They both flinch, and Eddie waits for the sounds of voices from upstairs but all he can hear is his own heartbeat whooshing in his ears and the sound of Mrs Williams breathing.

“I’m worried about Jeff going off to college and not having you around. That boy is whip smart but he’s naive. You’re not.”

Eddie shakes his head. He’s not and they both know why, and it would be lovely to have lived a life in a solid home with good parents but maybe that’s why he’s so good at looking after his little sheepies, because he didn’t have those things. Has learned all the ways a person can hurt you so he’s better armed for warfare. Uses those powers for good. Protects his friends.

“You are always welcome here, Eddie. No matter what. Understand?”

Eddie doesn’t know why kindness makes him cry now, it didn’t used to, but it’s embarrassing. He shucks the box under one arm and wipes his eyes furiously with his sleeve.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright then.”

She helps him with the front door, and gives him a quick squeeze on the wrist.

“You’re a good boy, Eddie.”

Sometime that’s all a kid needs to hear.

Jeff's new computer is a Commodore 64.

These were our Playstations. I still have mine, with tape deck, minus joystick - if you owned Daley Thompson's Decathlon then you'll know why, and there's a fun article about it here for anyone deep into 80s nerdery.

Yes, the games came on cassettes, it could take anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes for a game to load and you better pray nothing went wrong or you'll have to start over from scratch.

So many great adverts for this, but I particularly like this Canadian one from 1984.