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Heather Holloway would drop dead before showing up to prom dateless. Even if her date is Eddie Munson.
It isn’t the craziest idea in the world. They had been best friends since they were in diapers and inseparable when they were young. Though they fell into completely different crowds, crowds which didn’t like each other, they never stopped hanging out completely. Heather didn’t spend the night at home very often, almost always sleeping over at a friend's house just to get away from her family. As annoying and insufferable as he was, Eddie was usually one of her first choices on such an occasion. He understood family issues more than the other girls on the cheer squad did. At least the ones she liked the most.
All that said, Eddie was far from her first choice as a date. Hell, he hadn’t even been a choice at all until the day before. She’d had everything planned around going with this guy Eric she’d been seeing on and off for a few months. But at the last possible second he dumped her for Tammy Thompson. Heather was fuming.
“You sure you want me to take you?” Eddie asked, skeptisism blatant, when she told him she needed him to fill the begrudgingly free position as her date.
“No, I’m here instead of prepping my hair for tomorrow cause I missed you,” she said with deadpan sarcasm before she reached over and smacked his arm. “Yes, idiot. I’m not going alone.”
“I thought you were too embarrassed to be seen with me in public like that.”
“It’s more embarrassing to go alone.”
She really should be nicer to him. But he makes that hard by being so unaffected by her harsh tongue.
Now they’re sitting in his van in the school parking lot, Heather checking her hair and makeup from the small mirror for probably the millionth time. “So how much of a fake date is this?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” she manages to say while applying a last layer of lip gloss for good luck.
“Like, did you just want to walk in together and then I fuck off, or are you gonna, like, use me to make this guy jealous? I’ll do either, I just wanna know first.”
She opens her mouth to tease and berate him for his ulterior motives and that she’s not going to kiss him even if he paid her, but stops when something occurs to her before she makes any sound. Truthfully she’d been planning on something closer to the former option. But then she thinks about Eric wanting Tammy over her. And how jealous he had been the first time they cooled off at the mere rumor of Heather going on a date with someone else.
She imagines steam coming out of his ears while he watches her draped over Eddie, and suddenly the thought of doing so doesn’t sound so gross.
“I’ll let you know. Just stick by me for now, and don’t be weird,” she says. It’s clear he hadn’t expected this as an answer by how he doesn’t really say anything until they’re inside.
It’s not exactly a secret that the two of them are friends, but it feels like every head is turned towards them as they make their way through the gym to find her friends- who would happily offer a truce to Eddie for the night for helping Heather out. She expected to be mortified by it, anxiously wondering what everyone thought of her. What they thought of her with him.
But no, she kind of loves it. All eyes are on her, and she knows she looks great, and she can’t say Eddie doesn’t clean up well. He even managed to find a red tie to match her dress.
She can still feel eyes on her skin when they finally find her friends, who all fawn over each other's dresses and talk shit about Eric to Eddie before he offers to get Heather a drink to escape. She can tell he isn’t thrilled to be there, even if he’s doing an alright job at pretending like he’s having a good time. It’s not a mystery what people think of him, even her friends. Even if she gave them hell for it- only she’s allowed to bully Eddie.
Still, she feels a little nervous when he leaves her with her friends. What they’ll say about him, what they’ll asume she thinks about him. Of course he had to put his own Eddie twist on a suit, and she worries they’ll pick him apart. Especially since she had helped him decide on a few pieces.
“Surprised he came,” her friend Judy says, her and Katie’s eyes following him through the crowd. Heather looks for scrutiny in their gaze.
“Same. I didn’t have to bribe him or anything. Though he’ll probably try and use it as blackmail for something later,” she says. “I think the idea that him coming would piss someone off helped persuade him.”
Judy snorts while Katie rolls her eyes and pulls her pink painted lips into a smirk. “You know, Heather; he’s a lot of things, but not hard to look at.”
Heather’s neck practically breaks from the double take she does, and just about dislocates her jaw when Judy gives a little nod of agreement. Surely the only way her friends would call her stinky gross Eddie hot is if she were in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Truly. “Are you serious?”
“I mean the fact that he never shuts the fuck up is an insane turn off, but if he weren’t so irritating then he could be an option,” Judy says. “But no, once he opens his mouth I’m over it.”
“You’re joking,” Heather deadpans.
Katie laughs and rolls her eyes. “Come on, you spend the night with the guy once a week and you’re gonna tell me you never even thought about it? Hell, I thought maybe you would have tried it by now.”
“No!” she says it with disgust, flinching from the accusation. An absolute bombshell like her with her freaky little friend? No way. “Absolutely not.”
Katie shrugs. “What’s your damage? I’m not being mean. Like, after a few drinks with him in that suit I might change my mind.”
“Stop. I’m begging you,” Heather says. Is God playing a prank on her? Her boy toy thinks Tammy Thompson is prettier than her and her best friends are talking about fucking her gross nasty Eddie. Something has to be off somewhere out in the planets and stars.
By the time Eddie comes back from a drink for them both she’s glaring holes into his head trying to telepathically tell him to get his scrawny ass back. The drink he gives her is definetly spiked and she wonders if this is because of him or if someone else had done the honor. “Just so you know, Eric looks like my grandma’s tablecloth.”
“Really?” she asks, eyes and smile both wide with excitement. “What about Tammy?”
“Like Willy Wonka threw up on her.”
“Fuck yes.”
“He just might keel over when he see’s that you came with someone else. Not to mention who you came with ,” Katie says with a laugh and shake of her head. She spares a pointed, not unkind, glance in Eddie’s direction upon referencing him. “Jackass probably dumped you the day before hoping you wouldn’t be able to find someone. Like you couldn’t pull any guy you wanted.”
Eddie snorts a little, nudging his elbow into her side. “I don’t know about that. If that were true I don’t think I’d be here.”
If Heather’s being honest she would have never considered going on anything even resembling a date with Eddie if it weren’t an absolute emergency- like it is right now. But after Eric dumped her, Eddie had been the first, and only guy she thought about asking. “Well good for you I felt like doing charity work tonight.”
Judy’s eyes go a little wide as she looks over to see Eddie’s reaction, but she seems almost surprised when he just laughs and takes another sip from his drink. “It’s a little surprising you let her rope you into this.”
Not really. Eddie is just easy going enough to have him wrapped around her finger. But Heather sips on her drink to leave Eddie with the responsibility of replying. Which he shrugs before doing. “My personal nightmare, something like prom, sounds a little more fun if it’s doing it to spite someone. Especially some douche jock that fucked over one of my friends.”
“Cute,” Katie says, and it’s nowhere near as patronizing or sarcastic as Heather would have expected. “Did you have to go out and rent the tux, or did you already have it?”
“Uh, I already had it,” Eddie says, picking up the tie between two fingers and flapping it around a little. “But it’s old. Too short for me. That’s why I picked black socks.” It’s true, the hem of his pants only comes halfway down his shins.
Heather remembers when Eddie got the tux. It was for his moms funeral back when he was in seventh grade and Heather was in fifth. She’s pretty sure it hasn’t been touched since his dads trial, before he got locked up and yet to be let out. Hence why she’s eager to change the topic, since Eddie hardly ever talks about her parents to her- who had been there for all of it.
“You look like a clown. That thing barely fits you, and you ruined it with all,” she waves her hand over him to indicate all the pins and chains and rips and studs he’d added, “this.”
“It’s kind of cool,” Katie says with a shrug before she, to Heather’s horror, reaches over and momentarily hooks her finger into the chain hanging across half of Eddie’s chest.
Heather feels like when Eric dumped her he unknowingly sent her into an alternate dimension. One where Tammy Thompson is a better catch than her, and her best friends flirt with her Eddie right in front of her. Her only consolation prize is that Eddie looks just as surprised as she feels, looking down at Katie’s finger like it’s some kind of bug he’s deciding if he wants to swat away or not.
She brings her cup to her lips and downs the spiked punch in three gulps before tossing it empty onto a nearby table. “Let’s get this show on the road,” Heather says, wrapping her fingers around Eddie’s tie and yanking him towards her like a dog on a leash as she marches towards the center of the room where everyone is dancing.
She’s starting to wonder if it had been worth all the trouble of finding a last minute date at all, since everything is so fucking weird.
They find a spot on the dance floor that’s directly in front of Eric and Tammy’s table without making it too obvious that they’re trying to shove artificial affection in their faces. It’s not like Heather’s not used to being close to Eddie, they squeeze together to fit into his bed together all the time since she wouldn’t dream of kicking Wayne off the couch.
But this is different. His hands are on her waist holding her close and hers are hanging off his neck. He tied his hair up and the short soft ones at the base of his neck tickle her hands. He’s undeniably a little awkward in his movements, not used to dancing outside of a mosh pit, but he’s doing a pretty good job at copying what he observes around them. Wide dark brown eyes search the gym and remind her of a younger verion of himself.
“Your friends are weird.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m never letting you near them again.”
He frowns a little at her. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. It’s just weird.”
His gaze goes back to searching the gym- for what, she doesn’t know- and she thinks about how if this were any other guy she’d want him to look at her and only her. Heather Holloway is Hawkins’ darling. A teenage cherry bomb incarnate. Too good for all the guys in school, and only ever messing around with them to pass the time. She demands attention, both by drawing it in naturally and actively ensuring it.
But this is Eddie. She doesn’t need him to look at her like she’s the moon and the stars because she’d never want that from someone she’s known as long and well as Eddie.
Still, he’s taking a really long time looking for… whatever he’s looking for. Is he looking for someone? Some girl he’s hoping to see?
“I thought about it,” she blurts out, the words tumbling from her cherry red lips before she even really thinks about them. Eddie looks back at her and recognition is missing from his face. “Making Eric jealous.”
“Oh. Yeah? What do you want?”
“What do you think?” she asks with a scoff. “I want him crying into his pillow tonight.”
He laughs a little bit. “I mean, yeah, I figured that. But you sure you wanna use me to do that? You aren’t scared of me dirtying your pristine reputation?”
He’s teasing her. But honestly no, she isn’t affraid. It would take a lot more than one night being seen with him to demote her from school royalty. If anything, being seen with him will only add to her mistique.
She surprises herself with the thought. Mostly because she’s thought about it before. Back in her freshman year, when Eddie started dressing differently and her friends asked her if she was still hanging out with him. And if she was because she was dating him.
She’d delivered a disgusted “No!” as a response, and yet now she’s telling him he can kiss her so long as he makes it look good and Eric sees.
Unfortunately for her, Heather knows Eddie isn’t the touch starved virgin everyone thinks of him as. For as much as everyone in Hawkins avoids him like the plague, he’s like a God when he goes to that stupid fucking divebar. Yes, she went to a gig. One time. And she hated it. Every second of it. Especially when she was stuck at the bar for half an hour praying Eddie would stop fucking some guy in the bathroom so he could drive her home.
She tried to think about Eddie’s love life as little as possible, but now she can’t stop thinking about it. Was he seeing someone? They never really talked about boyfriends or girlfriends or something less than that. Or at least not Eddie’s. But Heather isn’t enough of a cold hard bitch to not worry that he’s loyal to someone else who would only be hurt if they saw him now. She might despise him but he’s still like a brother to her. She doesn’t want to make his already difficult life any harder.
Heather reminds herself that he doesn’t really seem like the cheating type just as his lips start touching hers and, well, she isn’t very concerned with some mystery partner of his anymore.
Because she hates herself instantly for the way she finds herself reacting. She can’t hear the music blaring on the speakers over the sound of blood rushing past her ears. Eddie isn’t a gentle person, it’s one of the reasons why their friendship still works. But he’s gentle now. One of his hands has left her waist and is lost in her hair, cradling her head at just the right angle for him to reach at his taller height. He tastes like he smells; cigarettes and beer and something a little sweet. It’s something she never minded. And she certainly doesn’t now.
So he’s a good kisser. She’ll give him that. For better or for worse he’s putting on a good show of it. She thinks it’s for the worse, cause no one’s ever kissed her like this. It’s the careful, needy, hungry kind of kiss she’s seen in dozens of movies. He’s pulling her close like an inch of space between them is too much and she briefly wonders if he’s ever wanted to do this before.
But then she’s kissing him back and standing on her toes and holding either side of his stubbly face, more concerned about how it all feels rather than how it looks. It reminds her of everything she likes about their friendship. That he’s the only one who knows not only how to match her energy but give it right back to her. While he’s more indulgent in picking his battles, he can serve up ruthful bithciness just as harsh as she can. And while it’s not a mystery he keeps the same sort of energy in bed (half the time he doesn’t bother putting away any of his acessories when she comes over until she starts berating him for it) this is the most she’s gotten a glimpse of what it feels like to be on the receiving end.
She catches herself melting into him. If he were to suddenly pull away and let go of her she’d fall beautiful face first on the waxed gymnasium floor, but she trusts him implicitly and lays her full weight on his chest while his tongue ravages the inside of her mouth. Her arms are locked around his neck so tight she’s practically hanging off him.
It could have been hours before Eddie pulls away, and when he doesn his gaze falls somewhere past Heather. On Eric, she can tell by how he looks equal parts satisfied and pissed off. Red lipstick is smeared across his pouty lips but she can’t think of any insulting jabs when all she wants is for him to kiss her like that again.
Fuck.