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moonmunson · 22 days

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either way / no doubt

a/n: either way and no doubt by Odie Leigh have been on repeat currently and I relate to them so heavily so I word vomited on a Google docs. its a little rushed but oh well LMAO (I'm also always writing with a plus sized reader in mind)

cw: over thinker fem!reader, autistic coded reader, not knowing how to enter into a first serious relationship, kind lover boy!Eddie, no use of y/n

wc: 2.1k

It is the beginning of Spring when she meets Eddie Munson. Genuinely meets him, not just sees him around town and wonders what it’s like to be in his orbit. Working at the local diner, she sees him and his group of friends often. She’s served them a couple times, and they’re always respectful - albeit rambunctious. They tip well, stack their dishes for the busboys to clear, wave to her on the way out.

It’s the day Eddie comes in by himself that marks it as different, new. He sits in her section of the diner, glances her way and then averts his gaze when she meets it. That’s odd, but she doesn’t think much else of it. Not until the end of his meal - consisting of a solitary cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie - does he stop her when she checks to see if he needs anything.

He asks if she’d want to hang out sometime, and she laughs - a forced exhale of nerves. He asks why she’s laughing, and she doesn’t know what to say. After a few moments of awkward silence, she relents and shrugs. What would we do? He says anything she wants. What if she doesn’t know what she wants to do? He says they’ll figure it out together.

They end up sitting in the back of Eddie’s van, the open doors facing Lover’s Lake. She’s fidgety, and stumbling over her words. He keeps staring at her when she talks and she’s not used to anybody doing this much work to stay focused on her and what she has to say, especially because she’s not saying much of substance. He asks her so many questions, and mundane ones at that. How are classes at the community college? What’s your major? She answers as best she can.

The feeling of someone looking at her makes her skin crawl. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, she’s uncomfortably aware of the position of her nose on her face, which seems incredibly silly, and then she’s thinking about just how silly that is when he asks her if she’s alright.

“Sorry?”

“I was just asking if you felt alright. It looked like you went away for a second there,” Eddie ducks his head down to catch her line of sight. Eye contact has always been difficult for her, but this is different - warm - like sunshine. “I know I’m not the most exciting person to talk to, but I hope you’re having a good time. I enjoy talking to you.”

“I’m here, sorry. I like talking to you too.”

“You don’t have to apologize, it’s okay.”

“Sorry. Oh-” She sucks in a breath and places her hand over her mouth, eyes wide at the realization of her mistake. He giggles, a sweet boyish sound, and it warms his face. She thinks she could love that face, if he let her. If she knew how. She laughs too, despite herself. “It’s a bad habit. I really have to stop apologizing so much.”

He’s still smiling when he says it’s okay, he understands.

Later, when he drops her off at her apartment, the sun has gone down. The ride he’d offered her is relatively quiet. It’s a strange thing, to see the way someone adjusts themself around you. The usual loud heavy metal is absent here. The fast driving and sharp turns are traded in for complying with the speed limit, graceful steering and soft brakes. When he looks at her, she directs her gaze out the window - when she looks at him, he is focused on the road.

He stops her as she takes off her seatbelt and goes to open the door, jumping out of his own and running around the front of the van to open it for her. She leads him to her front door, and he asks if he can see her again, if he can have her number. She nods, and rummages around her purse for a few frantic seconds before finding her waitress notepad and pen. When she rips the page out that she’s written her number on and hands it to him, he clutches it to his chest and smiles.

“I’ll call you when I get home, if that’s okay. Just to let you know I made it back safely.”

“And if I want to keep talking to you?”

“We can talk for as long as you want to.”

“Okay.”

Eddie walks backwards for a few seconds, keeping his eyes locked on hers, paper still against his heart. By the time he’s made it back to his van, he lifts a hand up for a short wave goodbye, and turns to face the vehicle.

Now or never.

“Eddie?” In true Munson fashion, he whips around completely at the sound of her calling out to him.

“Yeah, sweets?”

“I just wanted to tell you I had a really nice time with you today. I can’t wait for you to call me later.” She tucks her hair behind her ears, needing to do something with her hands to offset the nausea brought about by her impulsive vulnerability. He smiles wider, if that’s even possible.

“I’m glad you had a good time. I’ve been wanting to ask you out forever, Gareth and the guys kept busting my balls about it. I promise I’ll call when I get home.”

She nods, her eyes tracking his steps as he makes it to his car. She watches him drive off. It feels so strange, this immediate wanting him to come back, wanting him to come inside and crawl into her brain. To know her fully. It scares her in a way she’s incredibly unused to. When she can’t hear the music blasting from his speakers anymore, she makes her way inside and slumps against the door for a few seconds.

He does call when he gets home, and they talk until the sun rises.

They spend the next few days talking on the phone. It’s easier like this, she thinks. She doesn’t have to worry about the way she looks when she’s thinking of something to say. She doesn’t have to avoid his white hot gaze, the way she can feel it trail over her face when she’s speaking. If he notices how much more she opens up to him when they’re not actively sitting next to each other, he doesn’t mention it.

When they’re not on the phone, he clings to her brainspace like moss on a tree. She can’t stop thinking about him, to the point she’s worried she’s obsessing over something that isn’t there. He’d said he had a good time, he said he enjoyed talking to her, so why does it keep bothering her so much? He feels safe. He does feel safe, but she’s not used to conversations with no expectations. No guise, no hidden agenda. If he notices the way she starts to pull away due to her overthinking, her sentences shorter and stunted, he doesn’t mention it. He carries on as usual, calling her to talk about what he’d done that day. It makes her smile.

When he asks, unprompted, if he can see her again, she says yes.

They go to the lake again. It is an early March morning, the last tendrils of Winter still grasping desperately for some kind of recognition against early Spring. He brings a blanket and hot cocoa for both of them, and she feels it in her chest - warm and sweet and chocolatey, like his eyes. It’s easier this time, talking to him. She spends less time worried about her posture and cadence - more time really listening to him speak and trying her hardest to maintain eye contact.

The early morning breeze makes ripples on the otherwise still surface of the water. It’s so beautiful. He’s so beautiful. He’s so expressive when he speaks. She used to think he was careless, jumping on tables and riling up the people he knew didn’t like him. Seeing him up close like this, she realizes it’s kind of the opposite. It’s careful, planned, the way he uses his hands, his eyes. Even when he’s talking about a book he's read a million times, she feels like she's there among the scenery and characters he describes. It’s entirely captivating. She wants to be more like him. Carefully carefree.

She’s never done this kind of thing - the relationship kind of thing. If that’s what this is, she has no idea how to traverse this new terrain. She can’t find her footing, she doesn’t know what the formula is, what the proper way to go about it looks like. She doesn’t think about sounding weird when she asks:

“What are we doing?”

Eddie pauses mid sip, brings the cup back down to his lap.

“Currently? Or like, with our lives?” He chuffs out a little laugh. Not in a teasing way, though it's hard for her to differentiate. “Because currently, from my perspective at least, I’m sitting in my van with a pretty girl talking about our favorite books. What I’m doing with my life is something a lot of people, including me, would really like to know.”

Levity, she recognizes.

“Sorry if it's a weird question, I just…” She trails off, breaking eye contact, looking at her hands in her lap. He scoots forward a bit, the side of his thigh touching hers as their legs dangle off the back of the van. He doesn’t push her to say anything, doesn’t acknowledge the unneeded apology, doesn’t fill the silence with his own voice. He just waits, patiently. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him sit this still.

“I really like you, and I really like talking to you. I’ve never done anything like this,” She uses her pointer finger to gesture between the two of them, drawing a connecting line between their bodies, “I don’t know how to, if that makes sense. I’m not really a lot of people’s type, I guess.”

“Hey, look at me,” Eddie sets the cup down next to him and very gently takes her hand, locks their fingers together. When she raises her eyes to meet his, he continues. “There’s no rush, I mean it. You set the pace here, okay? I like you, like a lot. If all you wanna do is sit here and talk, I’m totally fine with that. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, sweets.”

“What if you find out how weird I am and decide you don’t want to talk to me anymore?”

At this, Eddie relinquishes his grip on her hand, hops down from the lip of the back of the van, and stands in front of her.

“Y’know who you’re talking to?” two thumbs pointed towards himself - eyebrows raised, mouth quirked in a goofy grin, “King of the freaks, misfits, and ne'er do wells. I don’t think you could scare me off, but you’re certainly welcome to try.”

“So just… be myself?” She scrunches her face up - the idea of being genuine is almost totally foreign to her.

“Be yourself!”

“Ew. Yeah, alright, fine.” She sighs in resignation and shrugs a shoulder. Doesn’t think about how convincing he is, or how willing she was to drop some of her defenses. Carefully carefree. She can do it.

They share a laugh, finishing their luke-warm cocoa together and talking until the sun is high in the sky and the temperature rises too high for them to ignore any longer. This time, the drive home is less quiet. She meets his gaze when he looks over at her from the driver’s seat, she hums along to the sound of the radio, it's nice. Comfortable.

Just like last time, Eddie hastens to run around the van and open her door for her. He extends a hand to help her down and out, and they stay connected on the short journey to her apartment’s front door. Eddie watches while she digs the keys out of her purse, unlocking the door and leading the both of them inside for a drink. He kicks his shoes off by the welcome mat, and they look like they belong there.

It is the beginning of Spring when Eddie Munson permanently plants himself in her life, a steadfast source of comfort and nourishment. It is hard for her, and it takes longer than most for her to truly open up. To show him all the nooks and crannies of her mind. He takes it all in stride - her overthinking, her quirks and neuroses. He shows her that it is entirely impossible to trust someone enough to take part in the watering and flowering - that it's not a weight she has to hold alone. She can bloom.

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#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson my beloved #eddie munson imagine #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #it is possible to be mentally ill and be in a healthy relationship #it's rotten work #not to me #not if its you #sio writes

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