Work Text:
Mushroom stir-fry. Mushroom stir-fry. Must find table to eat mushroom stir-fry.
“Dear, stop smiling like that, it’s creeping me out,” Grace tells you gently as the three of you enter the cafeteria.
“What? No, I’m not smiling,” you walk at a brisker pace, urging her to keep up.
Dottie says from beside you,“I get that you’re excited to eat your lunch -”
“Our lunch,” you interject.
“Yes, but you know, whenever we get too excited about things we tend to jinx them.”
Okay. Admittedly Dottie had a point. Such was the case for many people who announced their plans for the future prematurely and everything. But this was also just a really good lunch. What could possibly go wrong?
“Found us a table,” Grace announces, gently pulling you to your seat. She then sits adjacent to you.
Dottie plops down on your right and casts a nervous glance at the company on the other end of the table.
This goes over your head as you address her earlier comment. “You do have a point, but what’s the harm in celebrating over something so mundane?”
Dottie seems content with your answer and you almost let it go. Almost.
Grace sighs and looks at you in anticipation.
“Actually, it’s not so mundane! Shiitake mushrooms. Enoki mushrooms. And oyster sauce. I finally found them on a grocery shelf here in Hawkins. I used to pray for times like this. May this Asian dish be the first of many we can make here in Hawkins.”
“Amen,” Grace says, not unkindly.
Dottie smiles. “Let’s dig in!”
“Okay!” You reach into your lunch box and place your packed lunch on the table.
“You used your mom’s glass container?” asked Dottie.
You shrug. “Special occassion.” The container was still hot, thanks to whoever invented insulated lunchbags. After placing the stir-fry in the middle of the table, you took out the other container with rice, as well as your utensils. Dottie was already doing the same but Grace was looking to the side. Huh, weird.
You open the glass container and you hear a gasp. “Okay guys calm down, it’s not that good.” Turning to your friends, you see both of them looking at the other end of the table.
Your table-mates, who turned out to be Eddie Munson and Co., seemed to be engrossed in the animated pep talk of their leader.
Eddie was already on the table when you saw him. It was too late.
“As long as you’re into band….. or science,” he leers, punctuating each word with a harsh step forward.
You spare a glance at your mushroom stir-fry a few inches away from his left foot. He’s stopped talking, but he also tends to talk in long pauses during speeches like that. Will he take a step forward? Is he done speaking? As long as you’re into band or science, that’s a dependent clause. So he’d follow it up. Naturally. But he’s failing Ms. O’Donnell’s class so maybe he doesn’t know how to speak in full sentence-
“Or parties,” Eddie continues, walking forward and stepping into your mushrooms. The glass container cracks under his heavy boot. Fucking metalheads, man.
He must have felt the crack under his shoe or the soft texture he’d stepped in because he looked down and then immediately spotted your face. Eddie winces at the sight and okay was your face really that creepy?
His lips purse and he looks genuinely sorry, but at that point everyone at the cafeteria had been listening to his strange ramble. He must’ve felt the need to prove that he could articulate himself well because he continued speaking even after that.
Not that it mattered. Even as he stood right in front of you and hollered at the whole room you could only see your mushrooms, stepped on and ruined. A distant dream, a ray of hope fractured and broken, just like your mom’s nice glass container.
Grace frowns, peeking at you from between Eddie Munson’s legs. “I’ll go get something for you,” she says, and then heads for the lunch line.
Dottie pats your shoulder. “We can go shopping for nice pyrex later.”
You can only nod, forlorn and hungry.
Daring to look at Eddie’s face, you find him making an obscene devil gesture. How fitting.
-
After class, you found yourself speed walking through an empty hall. Dottie had followed through on her promise to take you pyrex shopping, which was amazing, but you had to leave as soon as class ended. Amazing, still, but you did have to pee.
The girl’s bathroom closest to the exit had bad energy written all over it. You heard someone hurling and frankly you couldn’t handle any of that. Not now. You were already about to burst from one hole and okay honestly not the best thought to chew on right now.
That’s how you ended up walking to the bathroom near the drama club room with a bladder like a dam about to overflow. Any sort of shock and, well. Hopefully it doesn’t happen. You know, maybe you can jinx it by being excited for it. Yes, you are very excited to go and pee yourself.
Someone emerges from the Drama room, but you want to pee so bad you can’t make out who they are. God, are you excited to pee your pants and not make it in time. You pass him, shoulder checking him in the process. Sorry. But you really had to pee.
“Hey wait!” He calls out. The person grabs your shoulders urgently and turns you around. The first crack in your dam.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH”
“Hey, I’m not even trying to be scary anymore,” says Eddie, looking a little hurt.
“Pleasegivemeaminuteihavetopee.”
“Oh, uhm. Okay. I’ll be here.”
You made it. It’s the men’s bathroom. It was this or the floor.
Sighing in relief, you emerge from the stall. Steve Harrington is washing his hands - good man - and he nods at you out of grudging respect. He looks to the stall, presumably to see who you’ve been making out with. The stall is empty.
He looks at you confused, but continues to scrub his hands with soap for another whole minute. Good man.
You wash your hands in half the time and run out of the bathroom, wiping your hands on your shirt. Eddie is in front of the room - his clubroom, you recognize now - pacing back and forth.
“Hey,” he says upon seeing you. It surprises you sometimes how softly he can speak. “Listen, I’m sorry for a while ago.”
Your expression falls, remembering the ruined lunch. Truthfully, your spirits had lifted at the prospect of shopping, but it genuinely still hurt to be reminded. “Oh. Well, it’s all in the past, so..”
“No, it was really shitty of me. I should have watched my step,” he shakes his head, putting his hands in his pockets.
What was there to say to that? You weren’t in the mood to argue but you weren’t also about to say it’s fine just to make this man feel better.
“I wanted to make it up to you, so…” he pauses to take a quick sweep of the surroundings. When the coast is clear, he takes something out of his pocket and puts it in your hand. “It’s from my own stash so it’s good quality. We’re even now, okay?”
In your right hand is a small piece of folded paper. You open it and inside you find… mushrooms? They were white, with yellowy markings. A thin stalk - maybe a variety of Shimeji mushroom? You feel your mouth stretch into a grin but you school your expression, remembering you look a little creepy.
“Mushrooms? Really?” you chirp.
Eddie looks at you like you’ve grown a second head. His eyes are wide and angry. “What the - keep it down, will you? What, are you gonna tell the whole school?”
You scowl. Of course, out of all his atrocious deeds, this one kind gesture is the one he chooses to hide. God forbid he gets humanized to the school community. “God, calm down, Eddie. I’m not gonna tell the school if you don’t want to. Maybe I can give this to my family tonight.”
At that he pales, and shakes his head frantically. “No, no, no. What, are you crazy?? Why would you even do that? Do you want to get me arrested? You’re gonna get in trouble, too. And don’t you live with your grandparents?”
Wow, dramatic much? He was taking this acting like a freak thing too seriously. “In trouble for what? Giving us dinner for tonight?”
Eddie stops his nervous twitching. “Wait, dinner?”
You nod vigorously. “Yes! Don’t you know they taste the best stir-fried?”
He squints at you like you’re a passage from Ms. O’Donnell’s class for a few seconds until his eyebrows shoot up. He seems to have realized something. Eddie sighs, deflating. “Did you just say taste?”
Blinking at him, you reply dumbly, “Yeah.”
“Okay,” his voice is clipped as he gently takes the mushrooms from your hand. “What kind was the mushroom I stepped on?”
Ah, he must have been embarrassed to have given you the wrong one. It actually doesn’t look like the kind people eat. Doesn’t he know that mushrooms can make you hallucinate? “Enoki mushrooms and Shiitake mushrooms.”
He nods tersely. “Right, okay. And you buy them where?”
“Just the regular grocery store…”
Eddie’s still closed off, but he seems to have listened. “I’ll replace them tomorrow.”
It takes you a few moments to respond, in shock of his change in demeanor. “Uh, thanks. Hey, what are these mushrooms then-”
“I’ll replace them tomorrow!” He exclaims, running to the club room.