Dial Drunk
Munver • 4.8k • T • ao3
Relationship: Jason Carver/Eddie Munson
Characters: Jason CarverEddie MunsonJim "Chief" Hopper
Additional Tags: Angst, Getting Together, Getting Back Together, Drunken Confessions, Fluff and Angst, Eddie Munson’s got a big filthy mouth but who can blame him, He’s drunk and in love
for Munversummer, angst week; prompt: exes to lovers
insp: Dial Drunk - Noah Kahan, Post Malone
“You’ve gotta be kidding, Munson. Again?”
“Hop! Thank god, I thought for sure they were gonna send Doug and Bob McKenzie my way—“
“I don’t know what that means. Get in the damn car.”
“You didn’t even read me my rights!”
“Get in the car, Munson,” he growls, shoving him a step toward the frame of the cruiser.
Eddie flips his hands around dramatically, because that’s fucking dramatic, and then winces as the skin pulls around his bruised and bleeding knuckles. “Ah, fucker,” he grumbles, falling into the seat just a split second before the door slams shut. Hopper gets into the drivers seat. “If you’d decapitated me just now it would’ve been real bad for your image, Mr. Town Safety Officer.”
“Pity. It woulda been great for my sanity. A guy can dream,” he laments gruffly, backing out of the bar lot and onto the road. “What the hell are you doing swingin’ on regulars at the Hideout, Munson? You’re a regular. You’ll have to see them in four days when you’re back at it, barfly.”
Rude.
“Violence is never the answer. It’s a code I live by. But I also live by the gentleman’s code of defending honor, so sometimes I don’t like the answer. You comprehend my struggle?”
“Yeah, I sure am well-versed in your monumentous task of being a gentleman.”
He’s right, of course. Infuriatingly enough. Eddie’s been in, found himself in, and put himself in this situation far too many times to not talk Hop’s ear off about his mental and emotional turmoil. He’s a talker, he’s a sharer. He’s pretty sure the cranky cop wasn’t listening anyway, though the look on his face now tells him otherwise.
“You can’t go ‘round punching people in the face ‘cause they tell you what pisses them off. We’re all constipated on self-importance and loud about it, that’s our god-given right as Americans.”
“He called him a fag, Hop.”
“Did he call you a fag?”
“No but I’m not talking about me—“
“And neither was he, Munson. Maybe don’t assault people who are insulting someone who’s not even there.”
Eddie just shakes his head a bit and turns to watch the streets pass.
He doesn’t get it. No one gets it. Eddie can shake off shit people say about him; he’s been doing that for a score plus two years. The point is, dickbag at the bar was taking a swing at him by way of taking a swing at Jason’s reputation. And he didn’t even know if Jason was gay, no one did. No one but Eddie. And he wasn’t even Eddie’s anymore— not for the past few months. But the two years before those few months were fantastic, just phenomenal.
He’s not even sorry.
As the car stalls for a moment in the glow of a stoplight, he’s not sure if he’d prefer to think about those two years or the sick cracking sound dickbag’s face made against his knuckles. It hurt like a bitch and was completely worth it. The deep red light filling the cab is reminiscent of the blood that spewed from his nose. What a time to be alive.
He presses his temple to the cool of the window when the car lurches forward. Hop grumbles under his breath, shaking his head. Sometimes Eddie thinks it must be his own personal variation of a chronic twitch. He’ll be struck with arthritis of the neck before the year’s up.
*Check in, Hop. Takin’ the kid to the drunk tank again?
Eddie rolls his eyes at the sound of the transmitter, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, Powell. Headed back.”
*Was it about the boyfriend again?
The police suck. Always in his business. Keeping him from kicking snide, soused homophobes in the head.
“Not his boyfriend.”
Fuck this.
“Alright kid, you know the drill. When you get to the station you get one call—“
“I always get one call, that’s the law—“
“Yeah. You know the drill. I just said that. Who’re you calling?”
“Jason.”
The quiet that ensues feels unbearably heavy. ‘Why the hell did he just say that?’ is not a question he even asks himself anymore. Because, why does he always say it— he just can’t help himself.
Hopper glances at him from the rearview, only a half-second of a thing, and it’s still full of far too much fatigue. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, kid?”
“Who else do I have to call?” he shrugs.
“I just talked to Wayne at the diner on Wednes—“
“Well it’s been two days then, Hop, when are you gonna call him?”
His glare could cut through stone. Good thing Eddie’s made of tougher shit than that, right?
For sure.
That is, until he’s being escorted out of the car. Definitely a far too frilly term for the fact that he’s being ushered out a cop cruiser into the station. Not glamorous at all.
Hop, predictably, shoves him past the cell toward the phone with all the measure of a man resigned to his next ten-max-minutes of another man pleading his case into a phone line. He checks the phone book as if it’s necessary, having housed a single solitary Munson far more often than he’d prefer in the past five months.
When Hop dials the number, Eddie doesn’t even pretend to be aloof. He watches. With bated breath, even. He couldn’t take his eye away if he tried.
Hopper glances to him sidelong from the phone book as it rings, a quick look that flashes back to the white pages even as it rings. And rings. And rings.
And then in picks up.
“What?”
He sounds terse. That should be a bit warrying, but Eddie’s far too distracted by the fact that he hasn’t heard his voice since the last time.
Hop doesn’t proceed with the obligatory is-this-fill-in-the-blank that would be customary to the situation. He already knows by this point what Jason Carver sounds like through a phone; Eddie’s facilitated the situation a few too many times over for him to know immediately. “You’ve got a collect. Here’s Munson.” It’s a far more brief run of the statements, being as practiced in it as he is.
Eddie’s hand wraps around the plastic like an old friend.
“Heyyy,” he says smoothly. Totally. Like he doesn’t wait days just to be here again.
“‘Hey’? Are you fucking serious, Munson?”
Eddie can’t really find any remorse within him, and that’s his own deeply-rooted issue. He can be sorry for continuing to put the other man in this situation, albeit briefly. He’s much too selfish to let it linger too long, though.
He sighs heavily through the speaker when Eddie doesn’t answer, hung up on the sound of his voice as he is. Fuck, he’s still so whipped.
“What is it this time? It better be good. You better not’ve smashed the bar’s stools just to get the cops called on you again.”
That was a fun one.
“No, I didn’t start it—“
“Was it a fight?”
“I think it fails to meet the criteria by technicality; to be a fight the other person has to hit you back, I’m pretty sure.”
He makes a frustrated, angry sound. He’s adorable. Eddie wishes he could see the pissed off expression on his face.
“That’s not funny. Is this always some kind of goddamn joke to you?”
“It shouldn’t even be called assault— it’s hardly worse than disturbing the peace. And my peace was the one disturbed first, I just got in a little spot of trouble making it even—“
“You’re always in trouble, I hate it—“
“That’s weird, you always order extra pickles on your sandwiches,” he smiles, his tone unfittingly teasing for Jason’s measure of anger. He can actually hear the other man’s taxed sigh on the other end. “Get it? ‘Cause I’m in a pickle? Top tier comedy you can’t get nowhere else—“
“Munson.” Well. That’s not a happy tone. “It’s late. I’m tired. I’m pissed off that when it’s late and I’m tired and the phone rings I already know it’s gonna be Hopper on my line giving you your one phone call. I shouldn’t be used to shit like this—“
“Shit like me?”
“—I shouldn’t have to be used to shit like this. You shouldn’t want me to be used to shit like this.”
His whiskey-waltzing blood feels like it sours in his veins. His eyes flick to Hop, where he leans against the wall down the hall looking all pitying and a little disappointed and a little too knowing. That concoction just upends all the sourness into his stomach, sending signal flares tightening warningly through his body. He twists his head along the wall to turn away from Hop’s unfortunate gaze.
“You shouldn’t have to be used to it,” he agrees softly. Maybe if he lowers his voice he can pretend it’s a private conversation. “It’s the last time, I swear.”
“You always say it’s the last time, Munson; it’s the only swear you always conveniently forget—“
“Then I promise, this time. Guarantee. I vow it. I assure you. You have my word.”
“Your word means nothing.”
“It means everything,” he corrects. Feels like it pleads. Feels like he’s maybe not talking about his oath, not anymore. Not when he’s suddenly thinking about what he was thinking about before the first beer again. About standing in Jason’s apartment and telling him I’ll wait however long it takes, it doesn’t matter. If you’re never ready, if you never want people to find out, I don’t mind. I love you, not whether or not people know about it.
It was too much for him, that honesty. Instead of coming out, they’d broken up. Instead of moving in, he’d come back three days later to pick up a box of his things. That was the night of his first phone call.
Jason’s end of the line is quiet.
Eddie peeks out from the curtain of his hair at Hopper, taking off his hat and rubbing his forehead over the back of his wrist with a heavy sigh. “Just give ‘im a rest, kid.”
Eddie shakes his head once. Not a chance. His booze-brain has just enough confidence to know there’s not rest being given ‘til the sun’s risen on that holding cell.
Something shuffles, and he tilts his ear closer to the phone. Presses into it. “You can’t keep doing this, Eddie.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I won’t—“
“You will, Eddie—“
“You know I won’t. You’re just too scared to find out I’m not lying. I never lied, about any of it. Just about the not doing this again, ‘cause I get to see you. But I mean it now. This is the last time, and you won’t have to save my sorry ass anymore. You won’t have to see me. I can do that for you, I promise.”
The line is quiet again.
And then it’s dead.
Eddie listens to the continuous tone of it for a second. He turns it over to dig into his forehead before hovering over the rest and dropping it. Feels fitting, being a dropped thing that drops things.
“Jeez,” he hears, breathed through a heavy exhale. “That was harsh.”
“Oh shit, did he hang up? That’s cold.”
“Callahan—“
“Did ya hear him? Those were some grade-A lines. We’ve heard far worse—“
“Shouldn’t you be speed-trapping the highway?” Hopper grouses, annoyed.
The officer waves him off as he stands, swiping a shitty foam cup of coffee off his desk. “Well, if I was your boyfriend I’d come get you.”
Hopper pinches the bridge of his nose.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Eddie grumbles as the door slams shut.
Eddie knows it’s pathetic. Knows he should maybe be embarrassed, just how pathetic it must look from the outside. But he can’t really care.
He doesn’t care what people think, he doesn’t care about his sky-scraping record, he doesn’t even care that it’s obviously starting to finally push Jason to his breaking point. He cares that it’s the thing that gets him close, one more time. He cares that Jason shows up, that he can look at him again, no matter how pitiful or upset the expression. He’s not a good person; it’s not like he’s proud of it. He said it before, he’s selfish. He wants to hear him, to see him, to talk to him. Doesn’t care how, just that he can.
But it feels different this time, loitering by the phone. He’s used to a defeated ‘on my way’, a terse ‘gimme ten’, an aggravated ‘fine’. But he hung up.
That could be it.
This could be it.
He played a hand too far. He didn’t care one time too many. His luck’s been pushed past its limit.
The way he sounded, like he’s not just tired of it, he’s exhausted. And Eddie means it; after tonight, he won’t do it again. He gave his word, this time. But that doesn’t mean Jason’ll show up. Doesn’t mean he believes him— why would he?
Eddie feels like a horse kicks him straight in the chest, ramps his pulse into high-gear.
He takes the phone off the hook quickly.
“You get one call, Munson—“
“I have to catch ‘im, Hop,” he answers frantically, fingers flying over the dial.
The other man’s massive hand slams down on the hook. “You got your call. Now you wait. That’s the rules.”
“You gotta let me tell him he doesn’t have to come,” he rushes. If he’d ever pleaded for anything before, it can’t even compare. “I can’t let him come here. Please, I have to call back—“
“It won’t change anything, kid. You made a deal,” he says pointedly, a bit softer. As soft as the guy can be, Eddie’s pretty sure, while still looking pissed off by an issue that’s lasted a quarter century and weighed down by a fatigue older than the sun.
“I have to try,” he urges. “I’ll let you note my BAC, I don’t care. I’ll stay in the tank all night— rot in it for days ‘til Wayne starts to look for me— I don’t care—“
“It won’t change anything, Munson. You’ve never lied in the bed you made, have you?”
No, he fucking hasn’t, and he’s not about to start.
“What do you want me to do, Hop? Want me to become devout? Recite a creed? The pledge of allegiance? Sure, just gimme a shot at this—“
“You took your shot.”
“Then give me another! If I can tell him not to then I can at least pretend he’d still come when this happens for real! If he hung up and he— he doesn’t then, that’s it! Game over! And I’ll be here next week and I’m not calling anyone!”
“Jesus, kid,” Hop growls, at the end of his rope. He points the phone threateningly at Eddie’s neck. “You’re a danger to yourself, you know that?”
“Fuck that!” he yells, and at the withering power of his glare he tacks a weak ‘sir’ at the end. “Just... Please.”
“I need you to hear something,” he says slowly, enunciating and far too close. Eddie nods just as slowly. The hard lines of his face relax just a little, and it’s almost unnerving to watch it happen in real time. “It won’t change anything. Got that?”
Eddie does not got that. It’ll change everything, even just for him. That’s all he needs. He needs to believe there would still be a chance that Jason would come if he really needed him. Needs to believe he didn’t push it too far, too many; isn’t past the limit. He’d do anything to make that happen. He’ll take up Jason’s faith. He’ll kiss Hop’s badge. He’ll become a rule-follower, a law-abiding citizen. He’ll wipe his history of Hop’s backseat. He’ll scrub his fond memories of criminality.
“Got it.”
His hand lifts.
And Eddie dials.
And Jason’s line rings. And rings.
And rings.
He gets the machine. He wonders if that means he’s on his way, to pick him up for the last time and that’s it. Or if it means he went to bed, left Eddie to his own and hung him up for good.
He wonders which is worse.
He wonders why this was the solution; why wondering and knowing for sure both seem like they can do the same amount of damage.
“Jason, don’t… I… nevermind, I don’t need you to come get me. Just. Get some rest, I know you’re tired. And I meant it,” he adds quickly, more so because of the tightness in his throat. “I won’t call anymore.”
The sound of it being placed back on the hook feels deafening. Louder than earlier, when he’d dropped it. Louder than in the past, when he’d slammed it. Thrown it.
Hopper shakes his head. Again. That personalized tick. As if he’d really hoped Eddie would be smart enough not to try.
He’s never smart enough not to try.
"God, kid, why do you do this to yourself?"
The door flies open.
Jason rushes in faster than Eddie’s pulse can pick up at just the sight of him— which is saying something— tense shoulders under a dark green t-shirt and quick-moving legs in his worn out jeans. Hopper gapes at him as he flies across the room, like he’s stuck in the same trance as Eddie is until his palms land on his chest and shove his back into the phone.
“You’re just fucking with me by this point,” he manages to yell while still keeping his voice low and dangerous.
Eddie’s spine objects to the harsh collision with the phone box, but he can only focus on the hard set of his tight jaw, how pretty it looks even under his rage. All of him is pretty, even under his rage; his angry, piercing blue stare and his button nose and his slow-curling petal-pink lips and his cheekbones, tan skin, frustration-wrinkled brow, windswept blonde hair—
“What the hell are you doing to me? Is this fun for you, huh? You like being able to call me up because you know I’ll come and get you every time? That’s not ok, Munson, I’m trying to forget this happened, not hang onto it!”
Ow. He knew that, but it still hurts to hear it.
“I know, I shouldn’t be— I’m sorry, I won’t call anymore—“
“I can’t hang onto this anymore, it’s driving me insane! I get it, I fucked up!”
“You?”
“I convinced myself that even as a last resort maybe you still need me. Every time you say it’s the last time, and every time I’m worried that you’re right— and then you say you’ll mean it this time, just because I asked? I can’t get over losing you every single week, and every time wondering if you’ll finally call without a cop forcing you to—“
“I didn’t think you wanted me to—“
“Of course I did! Two years Munson, we were gonna move in together, you told me you loved me and I got scared and broke it off, of fucking course I’d be too scared to call you up again and say— what? ‘Hey, I broke your heart but mine’s broke worse, you want it back?”
Eddie stares, wide-eyed and mouth slightly agape in his shock.
“Yeah, that sounds like the perfect thing to say. Can I still have it?”
His brain feels like it’s still ringing on his landline, not ready to perceive him standing here and definitely not fully capable of understanding everything he’s just said.
Jason blinks at that question, his mouth moving before it finds the right words. His brow tightens a bit. “What?”
“The last time you called, you left a message.”
He’s definitely only more confused. “What?”
“And you said my machine was a piece of shit, and I shouldn’t bother packing it.”
“Um… yeah. I said we’d just use mine—“
“Yeah. So I’m still in love with you.”
The thoughts connected in his brain, but given the look on his pretty, shocked face, that line was not as direct as it had seemed in his head.
“I think about you all the time— all the time. And I hate that remembering’s all I have but I’ll stick with it if it means I just get to do this. Make a fucking fool of myself every weekend and pretend it’s fine that you taking me home is all I get when really I miss your random searching around my place when you’d lose your glasses but wouldn’t ask for help even though you literally couldn’t see, and the way you’d try to conserve tin foil by cutting it exactly the right size but it was never the right size so you’d always use way more than necessary and be so mad about it when it literally costs like a buck eighty, and how you hate double conjunctions, never finish your sudoku puzzles, and always opened the blinds in the morning. I miss stubbing my toes on your huge fucking study Bible and making your coffee for you and the way your hand felt in mine and the way you looked at me like you never had to say it, but I knew—“
“I did,” he says. Heavy, and damp. “I did, and I didn’t say it, but I still do—“
“You do?”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, yes, of course I love you, I though that was pretty damn obvious.” It ends with a laugh that sounds caught between despondent and resigned. “Why else would I put up with all of this?” he asks, waving around the station.
“With me?” Eddie clarifies, stepping closer. There’s an overwhelming joy bubbling up in him from the absolutely fantastic turnout of this high-potential-for-heartache kinda night.
Jason rolls his eyes. Those beautiful big blue awesome still-in-love-with-Eddie eyes— fan-tastic turnout, this night. Really, just the best. Who knew he just had to keep being a drunken asshole to solve all his problems?
“Yes. Most definitely you,” he prods.
His smirk is evil, and teasing. So lovely, the way it looks just like no time has passed at all. Like they can’t be in the middle of the Hawkins Police Station, because they’ve never been here before. Like it’s four months ago, and he’s looking at him like that, and Eddie’s fine with being a secret. He’s fine with a lot of things, long as it means he gets to keep Jason.
He’s so close, now. Eddie could reach out and wrap his hands around his waist, pull him right against him. He could reach out and put his hands on his jaw and drag him in. He could reach out and take his hand. He’s one reach away from endless possibility.
That look in Jason’s eye is dirty and promising. He remembers it well. It makes him take that step closer— why reach when he can just get there himself? And Jason tilts his chin up to look at him, licking over his lip slowly, watching Eddie watch it. He knows what he’s doing.
Hopper had apparently left to give them privacy. Or, more likely, left because he just isn’t installed with the bandwidth to be in the same room as their situation. Either way, it’s obvious when he returns, as he’s immediately yelling, “You are not fucking in my station!”
Which they really shouldn’t test. Eddie’s surprised enough that Hop’s as tolerant as he has been to listen to Eddie’s bitching and moaning about another boy when he’s about as man’s man as they come in Midwest Indiana. He shouldn’t push his luck.
Except that’s kind of all he’s been doing all night.
So when he says, “There’s only one cell and I can fuck ‘im with my hands tied, you should see it,” it’s really not a warning. It’s just a fact.
And Jason— he doesn’t even look embarrassed. He doesn’t give a fuck. Couldn’t give a fuck away if it weighed a thousand pounds or was worth a tenth of a penny. He just stares at Eddie as he tells a law enforcement officer that he’s fucking him whether he likes it or not, eyes growing heavy and dilated and lips parting and Eddie wants to crawl in there and die.
“I don’t think I said anything about letting you fuck me,” Jason says, but the way he practically purrs it makes it far too obvious to Eddie that it should be inferred.
“Jesus, go home—“
“What if I said please? A lot? I’ll even throw in some ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘please, I’m so, so sorry’—“
“You just wanna fuck me ‘cause you’re drunk and horny.”
“Neither of those are even in the top twenty reasons why I wanna fuck you.”
“Lord have mercy I will throw you both outside.”
“Oh, yeah? Lay ‘em on me, then.”
A door slams. Hop’s backup is speed trapping the highway. And he definitely does not want to hear Eddie laying it on ‘im.”
“Because you’ve got the best ass in town. I could bounce a quarter off that thing.”
“You have—“
“I know. It was awesome.”
He laughs. What a fantastic sound.
“Because your mouth drives me fucking crazy. The things you’d say, tell me to do, tell me you want. Think I’ve come more than a handful of times just hearing your pretty sounds with my fingers working you open—“
“Okay, that’s enough—“
“No, it’s not. Because on New Years, you fucked me three times—“
“Eddie—“
“—and then you rode me ‘til I was an incoherent wreck and I’m pretty sure I was legally dead for a minute just from the way you looked, fucked out coming across my chest.”
“Oh my god, Munson,” he sighs as if exasperated, but he sounds a little winded, a pretty blush blooming on his cheeks.
“Because I can still remember every gasp from the first time I touched you. And I still remember how it felt to wake up and slip back in so easy, like you wanted it, and were just waiting for it. And I still remember how you taste, every part of you, and I hate that remembering is all I have—”
“It’s not,” he says, his blush dented by his smile, so close.
“It’s not. Because I still—“
“I still do, too,” he breathes, the air of it hitting Eddie’s skin just before his mouth does.
And this must’ve been it.
That thing he was waiting for. That thing he was doing everything for. It couldn’t have just been to see him, to hear him; he’s spent a long time running from shit to know what it looks like when he’s trying to run toward something, and he’s been running toward Jason for too long. Even before the split, he’s been running head-first, headlong, head-crushingly hard straight for him. No wonder he’s the thing that made Jason run instead, and no wonder running has always been something he’s good at. Because whether it’s toward or away, it doesn’t matter. This innate thing in him takes him where he needs to be.
He’s been chasing him, he realizes. And this is what it all was for. To hear him say it back, backed by the reverberating echoes of every drive home and awaited phone call. This must be it. It can’t be anything else.
So Eddie’s going to keep running for it. When the it he’s running for is this, there’s no way he’s stopping now.
With Jason’s mouth pressed to his, and his body just the same, his hands pulling him in like he’s been longing for for months, he’s finally got what he’s been running for.
He’s just glad he doesn’t have to dial drunk anymore to get it.
