Chapter Text
Eddie never anticipated how lonely the road would be. How is it that you can be surrounded by your bandmates, and play in crowded areas, day after day, and still feel alone?
But it was true. He missed Wayne. He missed the girlfriend he’d met and left in Chicago. He missed feeling like a person instead of a tiny figurine stuck inside a music box.
He was jonesing for a familiar face, and he certainly didn’t expect to find it in the fancy hair salon his manager had booked him an appointment at.
The receptionist was a tall twenty-something with flame-red hair. She snapped her gum loudly and then called toward the back, “Chris, your eleven-thirty is here!”
He also didn’t expect the familiar face to belong to Chrissy Cunningham.
She looked almost the same as she had five years ago when he saw her last. Hair still raked back in a ponytail, still rail-thin and wide-eyed. He tried to nonchalantly look at her hands, noticing she had no ring on her finger. Had he not been short-circuiting he probably would have attempted to flirt or something. But his brain couldn’t do much more than stare at her.
Chrissy looked at him for a moment before raising an eyebrow, “Eddie Munson?”
“In the flesh,” he sputtered.
“How are you?”
He shrugged, “I can’t complain.”
She chewed her lip and nodded, and her gaze made his stomach flipflop. Why did it feel like she was on to him? Like she could see the exhaustion and loneliness seeping from him?
“Come on back,” she said motioning for him to follow her.
Once they were out of earshot of the receptionist she stopped abruptly and stared at him, “Ok, why are you here, Eddie?”
“Uh, my manager booked me an appointment? Something about starting to look like Fozzie-”
“No, I mean, why are you here to see me?”
She looked annoyed, which he wasn’t sure why, “My manager made the appointment, Chrissy, I didn’t know it was with you until I got here.”
“This can’t be happening,” she huffed.
“Clearly I missed something,” Eddie mumbled, “Do you want me to just go?”
“Yes!” she whisper-shouted, “Well, no, but… I don’t think I can do this.”
“Isn’t it kinda your job? Or like, did you lie on your resume and this is your first day?”
She scowled at him, “You’re not funny. Listen, no one here knows anything about my past, and I want it to stay that way, ok?”
“I can do that,” he nods, “Is that all you want? Is just me to keep my mouth shut about knowing you?”
She crosses her arms over her chest, chewing her lip again, “I just know they’re going to grill me after you leave, and I don’t want to have to answer all their questions.”
“We’re not that well known, Chrissy. I don’t think your receptionist had any idea who I was-”
“I’m not talking about Corroded Coffin,” Chrissy sighed, “Nevermind, let’s just get this over with.”
She dragged him by the hand toward the row of sinks and he sat in the cushioned chair in front of the one she stopped by.
“So, how long have you worked here?” Eddie asked as she tipped his feet up and his head back.
“Two years,” Chrissy said.
Wordlessly she wet his hair and started scrubbing it with some really strongly scented shampoo. It was probably the nicest shampoo his hair had ever experienced, since up until last year he’d done all of his personal grooming himself. And he hadn’t had the budget for anything other than drugstore supplies.
She had an expression plastered on her face that he couldn’t read, and he wasn’t really sure what to talk about if not for their shared past. So instead he opted to just enjoy the free head massage and stare at the overly ornate lamp hanging from the ceiling.
When she was satisfied with his wash, she wrapped his hair in a towel, and put his feet down.
She walked him over to her station and he sat in her salon chair. This was always his least favorite part, ever since he was a kid. He hadn’t had too many salon or barbershop appointments, but when he did, he was always so anxious. It didn’t help that his earliest barbershop memory was being held down in a stiff chair by his father while an old man (who was smoking a cigar the whole time) buzzed his head down to almost nothing. Before that he’d always had short curls that his mother fawned over, and after that he had a buzzcut until he was thirteen. Once he moved in with Wayne, his uncle let him do whatever he wanted, and Eddie never set foot in a proper hair salon again until now.
“I’m assuming you just want me to tidy it up?” Chrissy asked flatly, combing his hair out.
“I don’t know, I was thinking of maybe trying a mohawk or something,” when he got nervous he made dumb remarks, and he was nervous.
“You would never,” Chrissy scoffed, “I would never.”
“Got a thing for dudes with long hair do you?” it came out a bit more flirtatious than he’d meant it to, and he quickly wished he was able to just shut up.
Chrissy didn’t answer, but he thought her face went a tiny bit pink.
“I guess just chop the front a bit. It's getting to the point I can’t see, and my manager said I can’t just take craft scissors to it anymore.”
She pulled his bangs down straight in front of his eyes and they landed, dripping, at his chin. With no hesitation she picked up her shears and began slicing through them. He noticed she was cutting them diagonally, so that the middle was shorter than the sides, forming a sort of obtuse triangle shape. Usually he just hacked them off straight across, so he wasn’t sure what the point of this method was, but he hoped she knew what she was doing.
“It’ll help them blend with the sides, plus it's more face-framing,” she said, as if she could read his mind.
“Oh,” he mumbled, for lack of anything intelligent to reply.
“Have you really never had anyone cut your bangs properly?”
“I guess not,” he shrugged.
She sighed, tousling the cut strands, before moving to stand behind him.
“I can’t tell you how jealous half the cheer team would be right now,” she muttered under her breath, probably thinking he wouldn’t hear her over the hum of the blow dryer at the neighboring station.
“I think the word you’re looking for is frightened,” he laughed.
Their eyes met in the mirror briefly.
“I know people called you “The Freak”,” she said softly, “But you do realize that a lot of it was jealously, right?”
Eddie swallowed hard, “Nothing to be jealous of.”
“Half of the cheer squad wanted to date you, and as a result their boyfriends hated you. You were edgy, cool, older. All the girls I’m still friends with from back then have gone to see you play at least once since you guys started touring.”
“But not you?” he asks.
“Can’t afford it,” she shrugs.
She didn’t say anymore as she started combing and snipping at various places around his head. His mind wandered, zoning out to the overly peppy music playing in the background. He thought about what Chrissy had said, was it possible that people had been jealous of him? Surely not. Even now Eddie felt he was largely unremarkable.
His silent musings were interrupted by the splat of wet hair falling on the plasticy cape surrounding him. He felt his eyes go wide, “You’re not scalping me, are you Cunningham?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” to prove there was still hair on his head she ruffled it playfully. “It was getting really long, you know,” she sighs, “Like, even for you it was too much.”
“Gee, thanks,” he sighs.
Chrissy resumes snipping, though only for a few more moments, before she spins him back toward the mirror, “There, how’s that look?”
Somehow she has the magic touch because even though his hair is considerably shorter, it looks way fuller and crazy healthy. His curls are still pretty damp, but they look fucking fantastic.
“It looks fucking amazing,” Eddie says earnestly.
Chrissy’s cheeks blush ever so slightly, and she uncapes him, “I’m glad you’re happy with it.”
They don’t say anything to each other as Chrissy walks him back to the front desk, and she leaves him there with nothing more than a shy smile.
When the receptionist hands him his receipt she's stapled a business card to it:
Chris Carver is scrawled on it in fancy rose gold script, along with her phone number and direct extension at the salon.
Eddie’s brain short circuits again as he walks out of the salon.