Chapter Text
“You’re a lifesaver; you know that, right?”
Eddie opens his door, kisses you on the cheek, and quickly takes your backpack, storming inside his trailer again. You are startled by his reaction - you know that today is campaign day, and he was worried about his DnD notebook left at his locker… and how happy he was when you offered to get it for him. Still, he was way more agitated than you expected.
His head appeared at the door frame again, with furrowed brows. “Hey, you are coming inside, or what?”. His eyes seemed worried, enough to bring you back to your senses. “Sure, I’m coming.”
As you enter the trailer, you notice that Eddie is nowhere to be seen. You assume that he is already in his bedroom. “Give me back the backpack, will you? I’ll cook you dinner, but I need the ingredients I brought.”, you ask him.
The trailer was a bit of a mess, and by seeing the blue mug at the kitchen sink, you knew that Wayne had already left for his shift at the plant - you wanted to cook him something before he left, but it seemed that you’d have to put his portion on the refrigerator.
“I hope you haven’t peeked at it! This new campaign is great, you will all love it. I’ve put a lot of research into it…”. Eddie took out the bags from your backpack, leaving them in the kitchen for you while speaking about tonight’s campaign. As much as you wanted to read it, you knew that this would upset him, and you would find out later today at Hellfire anyway.
This was your Friday routine: you would stop by Eddie’s trailer to cook him something, have dinner together and later leave for Hellfire club to spend most of the night at the DnD campaign with him and the other boys. It was always contagious to see how excited Eddie was. His face always brights up when speaking about something he loves, such as the DnD club.
“We should get going, or we are going to be late. Would you help me bring this to the car?” he said while packing all the notebooks, dice, and maps; simultaneously, you widened your eyes and replied, “Edward Munson, please tell me that you are not hot-wiring cars again!”
His laugh echoed by the trailer. “So that’s what you think about me, sweetheart?” You feel that he is trying to change the subject. “You’ve done it before, Eds.”
“And you loved those rides as far as I remember…” Then, just as you opened your mouth to reply, he gently put his finger on it to make you stop talking.
“Don’t worry, I’m clean - I’ve fixed Finnegan’s car, and he agreed to borrow the car a few times, including today. So would you give me the extreme honor of your company, m`lady?” And he put up that large sweet smile that you love so much. So how could you argue with him this way?
It was a quick ride, and you both were able to get the room ready before the others joined. Everyone was just excited about the campaign as Eddie was. He then activated Dungeon Master mode, and you and the boys started the campaign.
Hours passed, and everyone was tense. Eddie was ruthless, and there was a new challenge at every corner, a new twist that would put your characters to the knees. Everyone was with low health points and on the verge of giving up. But you did not want to flee.
You could see in Eddie’s eyes that he loved that his campaign was merciless to all of you. He was ready to call it a night to continue next week when you announced that you would like to make a frontal attack with the sword.
“You would need to roll a 20 for that”, Eddie said. The chances were minimal, and your character would die with a miss. “I know; let’s proceed.” The other boys started complaining, trying to make you change your mind.
“Look, I’m out of health potions, and you are all busy healing yourselves, no one will be able to heal me for additional turns. So our best bet is me trying to get a hit here… in the worst-case scenario, I bought you all more time. But it will work.” Eddie gave you a sided-smile, handing you the dice and saying, “Bold move.”.
You throw the dice with all your hopes… and see that it lands with the big eight at the top. So far away from what you needed. Eddie gets up and screams, “THAT’S A MISS!”.
Some pats on your back cannot change the fact that the new campaign was brutal, and you tried your best but failed. However, it was fun anyways, so even though you lost the battle, everyone was smiling while packing and rethinking strategies for next week.
—-
You two happily discussed the campaign in the car on your way back, mentioning your favorite parts and even thinking about some improvements. Eddie was proud of your overall performance; you were giving him a hard time; thankfully, he was well prepared and had options for many of your out-of-the-box ideas.
“Ok, I admit it. You were very creative today”. You could feel the pride in his voice, and he had a smile from ear to ear while saying that.
“More than you?” you risk saying.
“Know your limits.”, he replied, and you both started laughing. You love the sound of his laugh and how it seems to hug your heart and make all your worries disappear.
He then parks the car. You live at the trailer right in front of his, such a short distance, but he still sees you at your door.
“Today was fun, Eds, thank you.” Of course, every day you spend with him is always great, but you always thank him anyway; you are not sure if he realizes how much you enjoy spending time with him.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Morning shift tomorrow?” You are happy to see that he remembers your work schedule at Arcade.
“Yes… let’s meet at 2 pm?” You were working a lot recently, doing overtime whenever you could to get more money - but you still did your best to ensure you always had time to see him.
“Sure, I have only a couple of deals to do in the morning, and I’ll still be with the car. I’ll pick you up there. See you tomorrow!”. You watched him turn around and go back to his trailer. You had to admit that you would have liked it if he gave you another kiss on the cheek like earlier today... But, hey, where had this thought come from? You brushed off that thought and prepared to enter your home.
Your father was snoring on the couch. You could smell the cigarettes and see all the beer cans spread across the floor. The good news was that, as he was sleeping, he could not scream or fight with you for arriving late. You tried to clean as much as possible before taking a shower, and as you were getting ready to sleep, you quickly looked out the window, seeing that Eddie's room lamp was still on. You wondered what he was doing but were too tired to give much thought. “Good night, Eds,” you murmured while returning to bed.
—
It was another morning at The Palace Arcade. You had already cleaned the space, checked if everything was working correctly, and updated the lost and found item list, so now you just had to keep an eye on the kids playing. Suddenly, a drawing of a knight appeared in front of you, with a smiley Will behind it.
“Hey, Happy to see you! Let me see this…” You picked up the drawing to look closer. This time he drew the knight of Dragon’s lair, one of the arcade games. “This looks amazing, Will! You are giving me a hard time, aren’t you? Challenge accepted!” You have this little agreement with Will. Each week one of you will draw something and challenge the other to a new version of it, and then compare drawings.
“I’m sure yours will be amazing too! Jonathan wants to know if you are still stopping by tomorrow to help with his photos. I’ll ask him to get cookies for you if you do” - You and Jonathan were friends for a while, but after Will went missing, you got closer to Will and his friends too.
“Sure, I’ll be there! Where are the boys?” you ask, already handing him the arcade coins Jonathan had already paid for him yesterday. “They are coming. I’ll play a bit while waiting for them.” he then smiled and waved at you while going to check the machines.
“Hello, sunshine, spoiling our customers again?” said Ben in a cheerful voice. He will pick the afternoon shift, so you didn’t expect to see him there yet.
“Doing great! But I guess you have around 20 minutes of freedom before coming here…” you replied with a smile. Ben was always gentle with you, not only at work but also at school. He has moved to the city recently, and even though he usually hangs out with the basketball guys, he never bullies you as they do.
He leans on the counter, saying, “But I’m not coming to work early. I just thought that maybe you would like having someone to talk to… I mean, someone that is not a child, you know?”. You wanted to reply that you didn’t mind - The kids were always lovely to you, you have fun with them, of course not much as fun as you usually have with Eddie... You headshake your head, trying to take the thought about Eddie out of your head.
“I’m sorry, I guess you don’t want me here.”. Ben thought that when you headshaked, you were signaling that you didn’t want to talk with him.
“That’s not what I meant. Stay, let’s talk”, you say, touching his hand to stop him from leaving. He turns to you with a smile and something in his eyes…. Hope? You don’t know, but he doesn’t let you hold on to that for long as he starts talking, and the conversation flows.
“Yeah, and that’s why I was wondering if you would like to go out with me sometime…” You didn’t see it coming. You were not even sure you heard it right. “Sorry, you what?” You feared it might sound rude, but you needed him to repeat that.
“I-I asked you a question… do you want to go out sometime?”.
“Like a date?” - you had to clarify that.
“Y-yeah, like a date. What do you say?”
You hope your mouth is not wide open while trying to process everything. No boy has ever asked you out before. No boy has ever even looked at you as a potential date; Nancy had told you that it was just a matter of time or maybe a case of you paying more attention to your surroundings… you wondered what she would say when you told her about it.
“Sure, I’d love to!” You noticed you sounded a little too excited. Of course, you are not in love with Ben or anything… but he is a nice guy, so why not enjoy his company? And upon seeing how happy Ben was, it seemed the right thing.
“Friday night, at the diner, I need to close the arcade, but then I can pick you up at your house…” and you froze.
Ben didn’t know you lived at the trailer park, but you knew that he lived near the wealthiest side of the city. He probably wouldn’t like going to the trailer park… and your father would freak out when he sees you going out with a boy… and you don’t want to scare Ben with that.
“I’ll meet you here, I’ll help you close, and we can go together,” you quickly said, and Ben was happy with that.
The last minutes of your shift went by fast, and you were already on the sidewalk when Eddie pulled over. As you were walking towards the car, you heard him saying, “No, no, no…” while he was walking in your direction and opened the passenger door for you. “Please allow me to help you, m’lady” - you giggled and entered the car, waiting for him to join.
“Are you hungry? I made you a sandwich. Here, take it. There are more waiting for you back home. You won’t believe the wild dream I had last night…” and the ride home was mainly you eating while he told you about his dreams of slaying beasts, how his morning was and how much he had made from today’s deals.
Weekends and parties were always the best times for his business - you were not a big fan of him selling weed. Still, you also knew that there were not many opportunities for those from the trailer park, and his father's reputation also did not help Eddie in his attempts to find a job.
He opened the car door for you and quickly opened the trailer door, inviting you to enter. You noticed that things were organized and clean - he had a busy morning cleaning the trailer, as he mentioned in the car.
“I’m back home, sweetheart,” he said, taking his guitar when he entered his bedroom. You smiled, thinking how funny it was that the only two things he uses this pet name for are you and his guitar—two essential items in his life… or that’s what you would like to believe.
“I can’t wait to show you what I learned to play,” This was how your afternoon together started. You love to see him playing. He is really in his element, and, as always, he is performing as if he was live to millions of people… but it is a private show for you. And you would bang your head and sing along to the songs. It was always priceless - These were perfectly happy moments of your life, and you did not take them for granted.
He then puts his guitar back in place and picks up your drawing notebook and his dungeon master notes, lending them to you. “Would you please help me draw some new creatures? I’ll get us something to drink, be right back.”
Eddie could draw, but he always said that you were far better at it than him, and he used to explain to you what he wanted, then you did your best to translate it into the paper. You love to draw and paint; it is your form of expression - you would never be able to be theatrical as Eddie was, but if someone handed you a piece of paper and a pencil, you could draw the world.
He comes back into the bedroom, puts Iron Maiden to play, and starts telling you what he has in mind. Then, once you start drawing, he begins his campaign preparations, both of you working on your stuff but still stopping now and then, giggling when looking at each other, drinking a little before getting back to work.
“This is gonna be great; if you guys thought yesterday was hard, next Friday would be awesome”. Your heart dropped. Friday night. Hellfire. Your date. You completely forgot about it.
“I’m sure the guys will be prepared too… but they will love whatever is coming; they always do.” You were still thinking about how you were going to tell Eddie that you wouldn’t be there.
“And you too, I hope. Come on, sweetheart, I know your character was knocked out yesterday, but we can work this out.” Eddie senses that something is off, but he thinks you are still frustrated about how it ended yesterday.
“No need to worry about it. I won’t be there, one less person for you to torture” you try hard to sound playful, but your nervousness is apparent.
“What do you mean? Is your father trying to ground you again? We can handle this, you know, right?” He is looking straight at you with a worried look.
“No, that’s not it…” You don’t know what to say and can’t look Eddie in the eye. He is visibly anxious, raising his eyebrows, his way of asking, “What?”
“I-I c-can’t go… I have… a date” - the last word said no louder than a whisper. You are still not looking into Eddie’s eye, but you can feel him getting up when he yells, “YOU WHAT?”
“Don’t be so mad, Eds… It’s just one night, and my character is already dead anyway.” you imagined that he would be upset, but he seems to be overreacting.
“So you killed yourself on purpose to skip Hellfire? To go on a date?”. Eddie felt betrayed. Everything was perfect, and now you were trying to prank him. It just didn’t make sense to him.
“I know it’s hard for you to think someone could see me as a girl worth taking on a date, Eddie, but it happened. And for the record, I didn’t kill my character on purpose, and you should know better than that.”, you scolded him. You wish he could feel how angry you are. You know how important Hellfire is for him, but you can’t understand why he is reacting that way.
“Who is him?” - He asked, curiosity pinching his brain.
“Ben, he works with me at the Arcade…” and before you could continue, Eddie interrupted you again, “He already spends hours with you there, and now here he is trying to take Fridays from us!!”
“Nobody is taking anyone from anything, Eds. It’s just a date. I thought you’d be happy for me!” - you were both still yelling, but now you also stand up and try to hold his hand in hopes that it would help him calm down, but he takes a step back… and it hurts you.
“I can’t be happy if you are so stupid and don’t see you making a big mistake. He doesn’t care about you, and he knows nothing about you. Does he know that you are part of the trailer park scum? Do you think that he will stick around? They don’t understand us, and they don’t want to be with us. He won’t want you.”
You could feel the tears bubbling inside you. Eddie’s words are hurting more than you thought was possible. So this is what he feels about you? If your best friend thinks that way, what chances do you have with the rest of the world?
“Y-you are wrong” Your head was spinning. It all seemed like a nightmare. You didn’t think that things would get as bad as they were getting.
“No, you are!! He is going to break your heart. Mark my words.” Finally, you just couldn’t bottle your emotions anymore, which was too much. “YOU ARE THE ONE BREAKING MY HEART RIGHT NOW” you yelled at him, tears flowing out of your eyes.
“Is that so?” He gasped and changed to a blank facial expression. “As I’m no good for you, I’ll keep my distance. Just don’t come back to me when he does break your heart, ok? I tried to warn you, but you just won’t listen. You made your choice. Deal with it… without me.”
It was too much to take in. Just a couple of minutes ago, you were smiling and having fun. How did it come to this? It just doesn’t make any sense. “Eddie, please…” you tried to say, still sobbing.
“You should go now.” Eddie said, looking down and pointing the way out. He doesn’t want to look at you anymore.
You pack your things and leave his bedroom. Then, holding the doorknob of his trailer front door, you look back - You still have a small hope that he would come and apologize, but he is still in his bedroom.
You go out, dizzy, concentrating on putting one step after another. You feel your trailer is miles away from his instead of just a couple of steps. When you enter your home and see that your father is not there, a wave of relief crosses your body. You just don’t have the strength to face your father today, not after that.
“Just a bad day, just a bad dream. Tomorrow, everything will be fine.” You say to yourself, hoping that it will come true.
Meanwhile, Eddie is looking out the window, seeing if you got home safely. When you closed your front door and were out of his eyesight, he turned around and punched the wall, making the knuckles on his hand hurt.
He sits at his bed, fingers passing on his hair as he tries to hold his head down when a scream leaves his mouth: “FUCK!”