#omg i can't believe i did that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ghost-proofbaby · 1 year

Text

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWO

in which eddie munson and you absolutely hate each other's guts. what happens when your friends make a bet that you can't spend more than twenty four hours consecutively together?

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, eventual smut, upside down does not exist, minors dni, eddie is especially mean in this one (be warned), mentions of blood (in metaphors, not literal)

→ pairings: modern!college!eddie x college!fem!reader

→ wc: 4k+

→ a/n: i just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for all the love on the first chapter of this!! i appreciate it beyond words <3

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

2:00 ─ㅇ───────────────── 24:00

HOUR TWO - 5:00 PM

It’s a miracle. Eddie is surprisingly quiet for the first hour after your small kitchen dispute.

He resides reading a book on one end of his couch as you sit awkwardly on the other end, fiddling with your hands before finally caving and deciding to scroll mindlessly on your phone. You exhaust every social media app you have downloaded – Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr – before finally turning to Tik Tok. Adjusting your volume doesn’t even cross your mind.

That’s all it takes to finally set Eddie off.

It starts small; he shifts around after the first video, a prolonged sigh after the second video, a quick side-eye after the third video. Finally, after the fourth video and no sign of you turning down the volume, he huffs and snaps his book shut.

“Do you have to watch that shit so loudly?”

His tone is laden with utter annoyance. You’re caught off guard initially, having blatantly ignored his previous signs of being irritated by the noise, and your head whips up in his direction with wide eyes. The shocked look on your face quickly contorts when you catch his stare, full of hatred and vexation.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you scoff, “Let me just die of boredom I guess.”

“I didn’t say you had to do that,” he narrows his gaze and matches your attitude with ease, “Just… solve the boredom quietly. Like I did.”

“You were quiet because you had a book. I don’t have a book.”

He waves an exasperated hand towards the coffee table where you catch sight of a few magazines, “Please, take your pick.”

You lock your phone reluctantly, tucking it beneath your thigh as you lean forward to glance over your options. There’s one about cars, obvious by the shiny vehicle that sits pretty on the cover, and a few hidden beneath it. You reach out and shift the laminated papers about and catch sight of a Rolling Stone cover.

That one piques your interest, but stubborn as ever, you won’t admit it.

“Those are the most boring fucking magazines I’ve ever seen. Who the hell likes to read about cars?” you deadpan, holding the car magazine up with a scowl.

“Me.”

“Predictable. What’s next, a Playboy?”

“You’re hilarious,” he says without a hint of amusement, “Truly a comedian. Can’t you just see the tears streaming out of my eyes from how hard I’m laughing? Incredible.”

You decide to not entertain him any further. Your hand grabs the Rolling Stone magazine, ignoring his burning gaze before you settle back into the couch.

If he wanted to be a dick, that was fine. You were used to it by now; you’d spent the last year growing accustomed to his cold shoulders and his bitter moods around you. At this point, you expected nothing less from him. Spending a little extra time together didn’t magically change it – at both your cores, you harbored a disdain like no other. You fundamentally hated Eddie, and Eddie fundamentally hated you. The confined space, forced proximity, ticking doomsday clock, and promise of cash did nothing to put any notches in those feelings.

“Interesting choice,” he murmurs under his breath, beginning to relax back into the cushions as well.

“What? Is it a crime for me to like-” you pause, flipping the magazine shut to check the slick cover for what the specific issue was even about, “-The Ramones?”

So maybe saying you liked The Ramones was an overstatement. But at this point, you’re only picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight. Because you don’t know how else to communicate with Eddie aside from with a sharp tongue and turbulent sense of sarcasm. Because when it came to the two of you, there was no such thing as small talk.

Everything was always big. Loud. Screaming matches, bold assumptions, critical insults.

“Pump the bitch breaks,” his eyebrows furrow, as they always do when he glances your way, “I was trying to be civil.”

“I didn’t think civil was in your vocabulary when it came to me.”

He exhales deeply, letting his head fall back in contempt for a moment before he lifts it and looks at you, “Is this really how you want it to be?”

You don’t reply, and he takes it as his cue to continue.

“Do you really want to keep up the miserable act the entire twenty four hours? Won’t it get exhausting acting like a spoiled brat for that long?”

“I’m not acting like a spoiled brat,” you snap, the magazine now discarded and draped across your knee, open to a random spread, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not an act. Make no mistake, Munson, I am only doing this for the cash.”

His book lays to gather dust on the coffee table as he leans his elbows onto his knees, twisting his body ever so slightly to face you more fully, “Really? There’s gotta be easier ways to make cash. I’m sure if you asked Stevie boy real nicely, he would have let you put that mouth to use for a quick buc-”

You cut him off, because you know how this sentence ends, and it’s too far. He’s crossed a line. You had expected it, should have seen it coming sooner, but it’s crossing a line all the same.

“Stop,” you firmly instruct, holding up a finger, “Not that it’s any of your miserable business, but me and Steve are not like that. At all. So you can fuck right off with that comment,” you only pause briefly, and you’re glad when he doesn’t interrupt you, “And, may I remind you, you’re also getting payment out of this. I could say the same thing to you, dickwad.”

It had been a curious itch beneath your skin – you knew why you needed the extra cash so badly, but you had no idea why Eddie did. Beneath all the hate, all the irritation, the question had come to mind briefly. But it had been pushed down by disinterest in all things regarding the man before you. At the end of the day, you didn’t care what motivated him. You didn’t care about what he did for work, you didn’t care about what magazines he read, and you definitely didn’t care to know if the five hundred was as necessary for him as it was for you.

This was a means to an end – nothing more, nothing less.

“Dickwad?” His nose crinkles as he parrots your words back to you, “Jesus, did you ever learn any new insults past middle school?”

You’re ignoring him once more, picking the magazine up off of your knee and burying your nose in an article about the greatest punk albums of all time rather than letting yourself be dragged into further conversation with him, trying to send the message that this discussion was over.

The message isn’t received. It flies right over his head.

“Pardon me for the assumption,” you can see him hold his hands up in mock surrender in your peripherals, “You and Harrington just seem close.”

You should just keep ignoring him. You should actually read the words inches from your face. You shouldn’t say another word; your gut is screaming at you to not say another word.

But you ignore your gut, just as he’d ignore your disinterest in talking to him.

“What happened to being quiet? I think I liked it better when you weren’t speaking to me,” you try to say casually, keeping an air of indifference. You should have known better. As your mother always said, once you start feeding a stray, they continue to come back.

“Sounds like it’s a sore spot. Are you and Harrington that close?”

“Not in that way,” you grit out behind the pages, “We’re close, but not like that.”

Your answer doesn’t satisfy him like you’d hoped, “Oh, it is so a sore spot.”

When you finally drop the magazine to properly look at him again, it only fans the anger. He looks smug as he crosses his ankle atop his knee, leaning back and looking you over as if he can read you like cellophane.

“It’s not,” you stress, “Seriously. Drop it.”

In all truthfulness, it wasn’t a sore spot – not when it came to Steve. You’d always been strictly platonic, fitting fairly effortlessly into his and Robin’s friendship.

“You definitely want to fuck Steve.”

“You know what I actually want right now?”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“To knock your teeth in.”

The magazine is tossed back onto the table, nearly sliding off the edge from the force behind your throw. He’s relishing the way you’re continuing to get more upset, the way he’s still inching beneath your skin in a grating motion. To him, this is all just a joke.

“I’d love to see you try, sweetheart,” he mocks, smiling with his teeth as if to taunt you.

“Why did you even agree to this?” you finally turn your body towards his and mirror his position, “Is it fun to you? Is that what it is?”

The smile widens, “You know what? Yeah. It is fun to piss you off.”

“Yeah?” you imitate him, putting on a forced smile in an attempt to look as ridiculous as he did right now. You fold your hands and prop your elbows onto your knees, continuing to mock mercilessly as you balance your chin atop them and bat your lashes dramatically, “Please, tell me more. Tell me all about how fun it is.”

In an instant, you drop the smile and begin to return to your previous position. It was rhetorical – you don’t expect a response, and yet he offers one nonetheless.

“Well,” he begins, “First of all, the way you go red in the face is fucking hilarious. Seriously, it’s just like the cartoons. Absolutely ridiculous. I think by the end of this, I’ll get to see steam come out of your ears,” you’re already reaching for your phone, tuning him out, as he continues on, “And then it’s the way you’re just so damn easy. I mean, come on. Sometimes, all I have to do is breathe, and it sends you on a tirade. You just make it too simple, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. The nickname is prickly and as uncomfortable as ever, lodging into your ears against your better judgment. It creeps across your brain, travels down your spine, numbs your fingertips. You hate the shockwaves it’s capable of sending down your nerves.

He’s right, at the end of the day. These days, you hardly put up a fight in expressing all your negative emotions towards him. If necessary, you could pinpoint a time where he really did simply breathe and you had proceeded to curse him out for it. Sometimes, just the sight of him can sour your entire mood. He’s an ever-present, persistent, irritating rain-cloud that looms on the edges of your life by circumstance. You can’t get rid of him. You can’t get rid of your hatred for him; you’ve always had a preference for sunny weather.

“Careful,” you hum, not looking his way as you glance down at the time that glows from your lock screen: 5:46 PM. “It almost sounds like you enjoy my presence, Munson.”

Indifference. You needed to practice indifference to survive the next twenty three hours.

“Oh, that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” he says, “You are the worst part of my days. You’re like bad leftovers – everytime I see you, the bile immediately rises in my throat. Whenever Steve mentions you’ll be somewhere, I cancel plans. Whenever you show up without warning, I start counting down the minutes till I can get away from you.”

The indifference begins to break. You finally look at him, keeping a steady expression.

“You could go missing, you could vanish off the face of this earth, and I wouldn't blink an eye. As a matter of fact, I’d probably celebrate. Why my friends are so enamored with you, I will never understand.”

It hurts. It might be Eddie, and you might be used to his spiteful words he uses as weapons against you, but it still hurts. The sting resembles a slap as you process each of his words. Each deliberate syllable – the specific referencing to the group as his friends and not your friends, the unblinking glare of his dark eyes, the insinuation that your death could bring him joy – drives deeper into your chest. It’s a human reaction; it doesn’t matter if the boy before you is the enemy, it still bruises to hear anyone say such things about you. The human need to be accepted, to be liked, to at least be tolerated, still twists in your gut.

And he only presses forth. He doesn’t catch the pain spreading in your limbs because you don’t let the hurt raging in your chest spread across your face. You don’t let him see you bleed.

“I’d attend your funeral with a party hat and sparklers. Confetti, even. The whole nine yards along with my finest bottle of champagne,” he hammers the final nail into a coffin, one that you’re not sure of whom it belongs to. Maybe it’s yours, sealing you six feet under with your cursed emotions. Maybe it’s his, locking him into the tomb to dwell in his ability to always take things too far.

You won’t let him see you bleed.

You stand abruptly, making him flinch in the slightest. You keep your face turned from him as you take your phone and storm off into the hallway wordlessly.

“Hey! Where are you going?” he calls after you.

But he’s not following you. No footsteps echo your own as you turn into the only other doorway aside from the bathroom.

He has a clear line of sight of you from the couch, and he can see you disappear into his room.

The door slams shut behind you with a riveting bang. Your nimble fingertips fumble with twisting the lock into place, chest heaving as you finally let your eyes burn.

He can’t see you. You finally bleed.

The tears are feverish as they roll down your cheeks one by one, taking slow steps backward as you squeeze them shut and will them away. There are no accompanying whimpers, or sobs, or hiccups. It’s just you, the salty streams, and the now overwhelming scent of him.

He’s only managed to make you cry, make you bleed this way, once before. The night of Steve’s party, the night you had attempted to make him bleed in retaliation. You’d harbored the need to cut him open desperately that night, to crack open his chest and assure yourself he could bleed the same scarlet as you, that there was still a weathered heart behind his calloused ribs that could beat the same as yours.

But you never did. At the end of that night, you had been the only one left bloodied and bandaged, aside from Steve’s glass as collateral damage. He remained unscathed.

The door knob shakes suddenly, and your eyes flash back open. Another shake, and you hear him huffing.

“Seriously? Did you just lock me out of my own room?” His voice comes from the other side of the door.

The bleeding stops. The wound seals. Even if he can’t see you through the door, just to know that his presence resides on the other side of it is enough to put an end to your trembling breaths.

“Fuck off,” you call out hoarsely.

“Let me in. It’s my room.”

“No.”

He sighs, and a thump sounds that you assume is his forehead falling against the wood in defeat, “Why do you insist on acting like a child?”

“You’re the one with a collection of action figures!” you fight back with your weakest insult of the night. He twists the doorknob without fruition a few more times, a couple sharp knocks sound as you turn to get a better look at the room you’d run into without observation.

It’s nothing extravagant, which makes sense. He has an entire apartment to spill his wretched personality across, which means there’s no need to condense it into the decor of his bedroom. He doesn’t have to express himself in a limited space as you do with your dorm. There’s a few posters of various bands hung crookedly on the wall, a dresser with a few of the drawers half open with assortments of clothes peeking out before they overflow onto the carpeted flooring, and a bed left unmade. His jersey sheets are plaid, worn and clearly well-loved. Despite the expected mess trailing about the rest of the floor, the space beside the bed is left cleared, and you decide to settle yourself down onto the patch.

Your phone buzzes in your tight fist as your back settles up against the side of the bed.

“Unlock the door,” his voice persists impatiently again.

“Go to Hell.”

“I’m already there. Stuck with you.”

Maybe the wound isn’t quite sealed, because the words fall like salt into your chest.

“Why my friends are so enamored with you, I will never understand.”

There’s more to say, but the chiming of a phone cuts off your thoughts. You glance down to your cell phone – not yours.

The ringing is more muted, behind the door. With Eddie.

It’s Eddie’s phone.

You’re about to call out a snarky remark about him getting that, but the ringing cuts off before you have the chance. It’s clear he’s walked away from the door as the echoes of his voice fades, the conversation inaudible to you through the walls.

Your fingers dig into the carpet beside your thighs as you pull at individual strands that stick out, finally discarding your phone on the opposite side. Eventually, your touch trails closer to the edge of the bed, plucking, plucking, plucking until you collide with laminated paper sticking out from beneath the bed.

What’s this?

Just as you’re about to pull what you assume is a magazine from beneath the bed, your phone begins to buzz violently, this time the ringtone being your own.

The screen lights up with Steve’s contact photo. It can’t be good.

“Hello?” you answer once you pick the phone up after a few moments of pause.

“You can’t lock him out of his own room.”

“Oh, hey, Steve. I’m great, thanks for asking. Really living the drea-”

“You can’t lock him out of his own room,” Steve repeats with more emphasis, disregarding your sarcastic tone completely.

You stare across the room at an acoustic guitar resting on a stand. This machine slays dragons, it reads in bold, white lettering.

“So you were the one who called him,” you mumble.

Steve sighs over the line, “No. Nance called him, because you haven’t sent the proof to the chat yet. We were trying to give you guys a grace period, but-”

“But you assumed we’d already murdered each other,” you finish his sentence.

“Can you blame us? What did he even say to make you board yourself up in his room?”

You scoff softly, “He didn’t tell Nancy?”

The moment Steve mentioned Nancy was the one calling Eddie, you’d simply assumed he’d filled her in.

Before you’d weaseled your way into the friend group, there had been clear, strong bonds already set in place: Robin & Steve, Jonathan & Argyle, and Nancy & Eddie. Three sets of best friends who all wove together to form their large friend group with ease.

You were the odd man out. They never treated you as such, except for Eddie, but it was an insecurity that could eat you alive if you ever gave it the time of day. And maybe that was why Eddie’s earlier words had cut so deeply. He was voicing a fear you always tried to bury deep down.

“No,” Steve says as if it were obvious, “He just started going off about how you had locked him out of his room amongst…. Um, amongst other things.”

Other things. You could guess what those other things had been; no doubt, he’d spent his time on the phone bitching about you. He’d probably called you every crude name in his rolodex of hatefulness.

“Right,” you drawl, eyes flickering around the room to seek out another distraction to mindlessly stare at. Suddenly, you remember the magazine you had discovered just as Steve called, “Well, nothing surprising. The usual, really. Just how he hates my guts, he finds me annoying, he wouldn’t care if I died-”

“-What?”

You ignore Steve’s gasp of disbelief and carry on, “-All the classic insults you would say to your arch nemesis.”

Steve says your name softly, still carrying an air of shock, “He didn’t mean that. I- Listen, he’s an asshole sometimes, but I guarantee he would care-”

“Who cares?” you interrupt, “I don’t blame him. It’s fine. He doesn’t have to care if I meet my untimely demise. I kind of figured he was going to murder me anyways, remember?”

“Yeah, but that was… that was joking around, he…” Steve trails off, because you both know he’s full of shit.

There was no joking around between you and Eddie. A painful truth, considering when you first joined the friend group, you had such high hopes of getting along with him.

“It’s whatever. Do you still need me to send proof?” you ask, fingers now playing with the crumpled edges of the magazine. Even half-hidden, you could see there were pages that had been dog-eared.

You almost don’t hear Steve as he tells you that it’s fine, that now they know the two of you are definitely together. It’s already nearly time for the next check in anyways.

“Alright, in that case…” your tongue peaks out as you begin to tug the magazine out of hiding. The moment the magazine's title comes into sight, you gasp, frozen as the phone nearly slips out of your hand.

Fucking jackpot.

“You good?” Steve asks.

Playboy. A goddamn Playboy magazine.

“Never better,” you rush out, eager to hang up so you can utilize this ammunition against Eddie, “Talk later, Steve-O.”

You don’t give him a chance to echo a goodbye before you hang up, tossing your phone off to the side with a muted thump. Your focus is entirely on the magazine before you, crinkling as you hold it in your hands and bite back laughter.

Against your better judgment, you open the cover, mouth falling open as you flip through page after page of nude women and cigarette ads. Some pages stick together, and you don’t dare to peel them apart, cringing at the thought of just why they’re sticky. You come to the first page that had been dog-earred, and your jaw clicks as your mouth falls agape.

Fucking pervert. He’s a goddamn pervert.

A well-timed knock sounds at the door once more, Eddie’s knuckles sharp in their three strikes, “Can you let me in now?”

It’s the closest to a please you’re going to get.

“Sorry, busy!” you call out in response, still staring at the spread.

The nude woman eerily resembles you. Same hair, same skin tone, similar noses. The Universe has dropped the most loving of gifts in your laps in the form of this magazine, something you know you can use to get under Eddie’s skin as severely as he had done to you.

“Busy?” he protests, knocking on the door again before you hear the shaking of the doorknob again, “What the fuck are you doing in there? I told you, don’t touch my shit.”

You bite your lip, smile curling the corners of your mouth as you finally stand from the floor, knees cracking as you keep the magazine open to the photo. Eddie has gone scarily quiet, and you can’t even make out his breathing. His shadow has stilled completely as it peaks in from under the doorway.

He’s never living this down.

You’re still grinning with ill-intent as you shout, “Wow. Who knew I was right about the Playboy?”

Those words are all it takes for the frantic pounding on the door to begin.

taglist: @catherinnn @haylaansmi @gaysludge @paprikaquinn @manda-panda-monium @audhd-dragonaut @amira0303 @blushingquincy @imtryingahh @hellkaisersangel @eddieslittlewh0re @liv0679 @ajkamins @prettyboy200 @munsonzzgf @blue-eyed-lion @digwhatudug @eddiemunxson @ohmeg @madaboutjoe @wickedslashdivine @sweet-villain @somespicystuff @whosbettysstuff

(if your name is crossed out like so, it means i am unable to tag you)

taglist is now closed. <3

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #twenty four hours #i still can't believe this got as much attention as it did omg thank y'all

2K notes · View notes