Prompt 1 or 2 with Eddie and mechanic please :)
ೀ "don't leave." + eddie munson/f!reader (mechanic) [listen along.]
Eddie doesn’t know you’re there at first.
You realise that about two seconds after you step onto his crooked porch and hear it—soft guitar through thin trailer walls, the kind of gentle picking he usually makes fun of on other people’s records. No screaming solos, no thundering riffs. Just careful fingers and a melody that feels like it might break if anyone breathes too loud.
You pause with your hand on the door, half in the shadow of the awning. The evening’s starting to cool, but the metal rail is still warm under your hand, paint flaking against your palm. Forest Hills hums around you, interrupted only by the soft rasp of Eddie's voice.
“Wise men say…”
You’ve heard his voice a thousand times—too loud in the hallway at school, ragged over a mic in the garage, pitched high and ridiculous when he’s mocking something. This isn’t any of those. This is smaller. Turned inward, careful in a way that roots you in your spot.
“…only fools rush in…”
The sound threads out of his open window, trailing into the blue-grey air. You recognise the song halfway through the line, your mouth tugging up despite yourself. Elvis. Of all the things you expect Eddie Munson to be practising alone in his trailer, this ranks dead last.
You lean your shoulder against the siding, feeling it give slightly with your weight.
“...but I can’t help…”
There’s a hitch in his breath, a tiny stutter in the way he lands on the next chord.
“…falling in love with you…”
Heat prickles up the back of your neck for absolutely no reasonable reason. Stupid song. Stupid voice. Stupid way he sounds like he’s aiming it straight at the floor, not wanting anyone to hear and somehow making it worse. Inside, something creaks—a couch spring, maybe. You imagine him there: hunched over his guitar, socked foot tapping an uneven rhythm on ugly linoleum, curtains half-drawn against the world. Bolt necklace resting against his collarbone, metal warmed by his skin.
“Shall I stay…”
The question hangs there, vibrating in the quiet.
“…would it be a sin…”
He drags the word sin out a fraction, just enough that your stomach does something unpleasant and syrupy.
“If I can’t help…”
His voice softens further, rough around the edges in a way that feels too intimate to be eavesdropping on.
“…falling in love with you.”
That’s about as much as you can take. You are not going to lurk outside your best friend’s trailer like some kind of creep while he accidentally auditions for a wedding reception. You kick the door with your boot and push it open in one smooth move.
“Edward Munson,” you announce, voice too bright in the small space, “are you practicing a love song?”
He nearly falls off the couch.
The guitar jerks; for a heart-stopping half-second it looks like it’s going to slide right off his lap. He lurches after it, elbows and hair and sheer panic, catching the neck just in time.
“You— how long have you been—” He’s all wide eyes and pink ears, curls frizzed around his face like he got electrocuted.
“Long enough,” you say, nudging the door shut behind you with your heel. It rattles in the frame like it always does. “To hear about you not being able to help yourself.”
His ears go darker red. “It’s for… a thing.”
“A thing,” you echo, stepping over the pile of cassette tapes by the door. The trailer smells like dust and old carpet and whatever cheap incense he’s been using to cover the scent of weed. “Wow. Romantic.”
He clutches the guitar closer to his chest like a shield. The bolt at his throat flashes when he moves—your bolt, swinging a little on worn leather, a promise of a lifetime, always against his skin, like a part of you is branded there.
“It’s for the talent show, okay?” he grumbles.
“You hate the talent show,” you remind him, dropping your bag by the counter. The laminate sticks a little to your palm; the fan on top of the fridge rattles, barely pushing the air.
“I hate authority,” he corrects, jabbing a finger vaguely ceiling-ward. “I’m fine with a captive audience.”
You snort, toeing your boots off and kicking them into their usual corner. “So why Elvis? Thought you were above all that mainstream schlock.”
You throw his word back at him with enough of his cadence that he winces.
“First of all, don’t do that,” he says. “Second of all, it’s a classic, and also…”
He trails off, mouth flattening. His fingers fuss with the tuning pegs just to have something to do, metal clicking softly. You watch him, track the way his throat works, his ringed fingers fidgeting. Eddie speaks his mind, it's the one thing you can always count on, so for him to hesitate now, tells you more than he likely realises.
“And also?” you prompt, moving closer across the trailer.
The couch sags under his weight when he shifts, cushions permanently dented to his shape. He stares at his hands on the fretboard. “And also it… fits.”
“Fits what?” you ask, already hearing the answer in the way his shoulders hunch.
He drags in a breath like he’s about to jump off something high and stupid. Looks up, too quickly.
“You,” he blurts out.
The word lands between you with the weight of a dropped wrench.
You roll your eyes too fast. “Oh my God. You’re gonna make me hurl.”
It comes out thinner than you mean it to because your heart bangs against your ribs, trying to climb out. He hears it anyway. Must catch something in the way your features soften, and he knows how rare that is.
“Shut up,” he mutters, but it’s soft, fond in a way that's all Eddie. “You asked.”
You let gravity take you, dropping onto the opposite end of the couch. The cushion dips; the whole thing lists toward the middle, dragging your knee into his.
“So let me get this straight,” you begin, angling your body to face him. The fabric under your palm is scratchy and warm from his body. “You’re playing love songs in your trailer. Alone. Thinking about me.”
“When you say it like that it sounds pathetic,” he says, horrified, eyes bulging.
“That’s because it is.”
He clutches his heart with his free hand. “Cruel woman.”
You’re grinning, but your chest feels tight. Eddie's curls are a halo of mess around his familiar face, damp at the temples. His fingers—usually so sure on his guitar—are fidgeting along the neck like they’ve forgotten where to go.
“Play it again,” you say.
He blinks, features creasing with soft surprise. “What?”
“Play it. Properly. You bailed on the last verse.”
“I did not—”
“Yes, you did,” you cut him off with a flat stare. “C’mon, rockstar. Lemme hear you serenade… whoever this is for.”
His gaze catches yours and holds. It’s like being pinned to the upholstery. There's a moment in which Eddie simply gazes at you, stripping something back, his expression folded into something almost sad.
“Don’t do that,” he says quietly.
“Do what.”
“Act like we both don’t know who it’s for,” he mutters, eyes dropping back to the strings.
Your throat goes tight. You reach for sarcasm because it's the familiar tool between you, a way to sidestep around each other when things begin to tip in a direction neither of you knows how to navigate.
“That’s a big assumption, Munson,” you say lightly, forcefully so. “Maybe I think you’re secretly pining for Steve Harrington.”
Eddie snorts loudly, mouth tugging up in spite of everything. “King Steve wishes he was this lucky.”
“Oh, absolutely,” you say dryly.
He shifts suddenly, like the springs under him suddenly got sharper, then draws himself up, shoulders squared like he’s facing an audience instead of just you in his dim little living room.
“Just— just don’t leave, okay?” he blurts out, avoiding your eyes. “If I mess up. Or if it’s dumb. Just… stay.”
The word hits harder than the rest. Don’t leave. You think of doors closing. Of people who said they’d stay and didn’t. Of long nights in trailers that felt too quiet. Of a boy on a bike, running too hot, deciding you were the exact kind of weird for him. You wonder if he realises how far you would go for him, how there's nothing on this Earth that could ever make you leave him, not ever. Because every part of you is tied to him in a way you don't understand or care to define.
Something in you flinches, then settles.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you say, and it’s steely in its delivery, curled in a way that makes it clear you mean it. “Play.”
He nods once, quick and jerky, then drops his gaze. His fingers find the opening progression again. The sound is a little brighter this time, strings ringing clearer as he settles into the shape of the song.
“Wise men say…”
Eddie looks at you when he sings it now. Really looks. The room’s small enough that you can see every fleck in his irises, the way they go soft at the edges the longer he looks.
“…only fools rush in…”
The trailer seems to hold its breath. The TV is off for once; the only other sound is the fridge kicking on in the kitchen and the faint hum of someone’s lawnmower a few streets over. Even so, all you can hear for once isn't the world, or even your own sharp-edged mind, just Eddie.
“But I can’t help…”
His mouth curves around the words, lips chapped and a little chewed at the corner.
“…falling in love with you.”
Your knee is still touching his. At some point you must have leaned in, because the distance between you feels smaller, the air thicker.
“Like a river flows…” He rolls through the next verse, voice low and roughened in places, the way it always gets when he cares too much, feels too much about the lyrics he's singing. One chord buzzes wrong; he winces, corrects himself promptly, doesn’t stop.
“Take my hand…”
He lifts his fingers from the strings just long enough to flick his gaze down at where your hand is, resting uselessly on the cushion between you. For a second you think he might reach for it. He doesn’t. He just looks like he wants to. Bad enough to make you ache where you sit.
“Take my whole life too…”
He lands the line with a little self-deprecating huff, like he’s mocking his own sincerity even as he leans into it. By the time he hits the last chorus, you’re pretty sure your heart’s going to kick a hole through your ribs.
“For I can’t help…”
He lets the chord hang, vibrating in the narrow room. His voice drops to almost a whisper on the final line.
“...falling in love with you.”
Silence stretches out, fragile and humming. You could laugh. You could make a joke sharp enough to cut the moment in half the way you've both done for years. You could say this is stupid and watch him fold up around it, safe again behind the noise.
Instead you hear yourself say, a little too calmly, “That was disgustingly sweet.”
His face falls for a split second—bare, unguarded—before he slaps the theatre back on, hand to his chest. “I pour my soul out and this is the thanks I get.”
“Relax." Your hand moves of its own accord, reaching out to flick the bolt at his throat. It chimes, a tiny metallic note between the two of you. “I loved it.”
His eyes go very wide, mouth forming a small, startled shape. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you confirm softly. “You’re not half bad when you’re not screaming about devils.”
Relief washes over Eddie's features so fast it’s almost dizzying to watch. His shoulders drop; something tight in his jaw unclenches, the uncertainty melting away. He laughs, a little shaky, tipping his head back against the couch.
“Good,” he says, breath leaving him in a rush. “Great. Because, uh…” He looks at you again, all bright and terrified and hopeful. “I was kinda planning on playing it again. Y’know. Until it sticks.”
You lean back too, letting your shoulder brush his deliberately this time. The contact is small, but it anchors you both, heat melting together.
“Then I guess I better not leave."
His fingers curl back around the neck of the guitar, finding the first chord like muscle memory. His mouth curves, slow and stunned, gentle with wonder and hope, like he can’t quite believe he got away with this.
“Yeah,” he says softly, looking at you from under his lashes. “Guess you better not.”
⋆.˚ micro prompts .ᐟ
