revivalproject | [CALIBRATIONS] But the memory remains

Entry tags:

[CALIBRATIONS] But the memory remains

Who: Eddie Munson & Open
What: Calibrations
When: June 10th to July 10th
Where: Eddie’s mind
Warnings: Violence, Bullying, Murder, Horror, Parental Abuse, Parental Death, Drugs, Drug Abuse, Bat Like Monsters, Graphic Injury

The trailer you find yourself walking into might appear dated depending on when and where you’re from. Its styling is out of date even for its own period, a bit strange and chaotic. The walls are lined with a collection of random mugs and hats, a fold out cot stashed in a corner near the door. It’s cluttered, and very lived in.

There’s an odd…stain on the ceiling of the living room. Almost a crack? The longer you look the more it seems to spread, and are those strange particles falling from it just dust? Maybe it’s best to look away.

The television is on, playing some news story, but a voice calls from the other end of the trailer, and Eddie leans out from his bedroom, encouraging you to join him in there.

There’s only one bedroom in the place, those it’s easy to tell this is Eddie space. The walls are covered in various posters, metal concerts, drawings, and a large spray-painted banner that reads- Corroded Coffin hanging a bit haphazardly. A sheet’s been pinned up to act as a curtain, and the floor is littered with clothes.

"So...this is weird," Eddie greets.

[ooc: Cheated the ‘room’ a bit, it’s fiiiine, shhh. Playing it a bit more fast and loose with memories, no bolding this time for Eddie at least, sorry if that makes it difficult for anyone. Please do look at the warnings above and let me know if there are any themes you especially don’t or…do want.

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"You were really young, Eddie. You were the young one, here. I'm...I'm so sorry..."

When small Eddie starts chattering about his adventures, Steve can't help but smile. He walks closer so he can see the child's face as he regales his high-as-a-kite mother with his imagination. So young and already so vibrant and alive. So Eddie, even in this dark place.

"You made her happy," he notices. "Your stories are just incredible for everyone. It's a superpower."

"I tried," Eddie smiles at the scene, clearly remembering it more as a good memory than a bad one, and he watches his mother's face. Somewhere the door slams violently, and both mother and son start- the memory abruptly ending.

"She always listened to me."

Steve nods, frowning at the way the memory ended. He looks at Eddie with concern but then just immediately reaches for his hand once more. Not just to hold it but to also slip his ring back on.

"Did...she...?"

He smiles at the ring and rubs it absently with his thumb, glad to have it back in place.

"Mm?" It takes Eddie a moment, but then he nods, "Oh um...yeah, yeah, she uh...she OD'd."

Steve squeezes Eddie's hand. "I'm... God, I am so sorry, Eddie. I'm so fucking sorry." He moves forward to pull his friend in for a small hug. "How old were you? You were so young there..." There's two options based on the answer to that for the question that comes to his mind next:

"Did you go to live with Wayne then? Or..."

"It's okay, really-" Eddie insists, but he smiles, accepting the hug, "I was around...eight? I think? And nah. I wish. It was a few years just the old man and me. Didn't get to go to Wayne's until he got put away."

"What did he get put away for?" He knows the guy taught Eddie to hotwire cars and the whole drug dealing job probably wasn't something Eddie pulled out of nowhere. Still, being put away for a long time meant he did something pretty egregious. Steve wonders, idly, if that memory is around here too.

"Less than he should've," Eddie snorts, making light, but then he answers properly, "Grand Theft Auto. That time at least. He's been in and out a few times, kind of lose track- he's got his hands in a lot of different cookie jars."

There's plenty of memories that deal with his father, though Eddie's a little less forth coming in handing one over. But that's what this is supposed to be about. "I can probably find you something that's not too bad-"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't need you to filter through your life for my comfort, dude. I want to see anything you want to show me. Seriously."

He looks out of the room and into the living room with the crack on the ceiling and, probably, the memory of Eddie's death. He feels like a coward for trying to stay away from it. Eddie doesn't have the luxury of just not knowing what that was like.

"Good, bad, and ugly, man. I'm here for it."

Following that gaze, Eddie glances away again. He wishes he could seal that damn thing up so no one else had to see them.

And possibly to help distract Steve from worrying about that crack, Eddie fumbles around under his mattress for a minute before retrieving an old flashlight. "Sorta told you part of this one," he says, handing it over.

Eddie's a little older than the last memory but still pretty young. Perched on the open hood of the car, Eddie holds a flashlight for his father, his foot swinging absently, gaze unfocused as he daydreamed.

“Ed. Ed,” Al snaps his fingers, drawing Eddie’s focus with a start. “Pay attention boy.”

Eddie frowns, but adjusts the light, and Al rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re still sore about last night?” he accused.

He glances up and shrugs a shoulder. There’s a fresh looking bruise on the boy’s jaw, and a split lip he keeps worrying, opening it up again and tasting that metallic tang of blood. “Man up, Ed. You gonna sulk all day? Mmm?” His father prompts, as though Eddie’s being unreasonable. Lowering his gaze, Eddie looks almost guilty and he shakes his head. “…No Sir,” he mutters.

A few minutes pass in silence, and Al sighs. “…you wanna learn how to start one of these?” he offers, flashing the kid a lopsided grin, “’Bout time you started learning more of the family business.” Eddie lifts his head, a cautiously eager smile on his face. “Yeah? I can do it?”

The kid hops down, and they move to the front seat, Al ripping the wires free and teaching Eddie how to get it going.

Repeating the motion, it takes a few tries before the engine rumbles to life, and Eddie’s eyes light up. Al laughs and give him a proud look, ruffling his hair. “That’s my boy,” he praises.

Steve watches the memory and feels anger claw up his throat. Eddie's father is a scumbag but that is nothing new to either of them. The family business. Jesus Christ. The fact that Eddie ended up as a good person is despite this man, not because of him. It makes Eddie seem just all the more incredible to him.

When the memory ends, Steve can't help but smile alongside Eddie, not because of what happened here, but because of how happy the kid looks. Even back then and with a bruise on his face, he's adorable. Glows like the sun when he's happy. Steve wants to hold him so badly. Wants to just kidnap him and take him away.

"You are the cutest kid," he says, finally. "I wish I could push your dad into a fucking ditch, but you're adorable."

"I know, what happened right?" Eddie laughs, and then gives a more serious smile of thanks.

"Eh- that was prooooobably one of his better moments honestly. And you're just forgetting how dumb I look once my head's shaved. Though I guess I was older, I dunno how much attention you would have paid to me at that point."

"You're still pretty fucking cute," Steve allows, pinching Eddie's cheek. "I wasn't paying attention to anything really if I missed you then." And that is probably more truth than he admits to himself normally. He's making progress.

"I just. I can't believe he was so excited to get you involved with crime... Definitely didn't care about making things better for you at all."

Eddie grins, and takes a moment to steal a kiss. "Flatter-er. Keep going though, I like it."

He shrugs a shoulder. It was normal to him, but he gets that it's not how a dad should act. "He thought it might toughen me up. Or uh, at least have me contributing, you know?"

"Misery loves company in the jail cell?"

Steve frowns, shaking his head. "You're plenty tough and I don't think he had anything to do with it. What you lived through even when you were just a kid? That makes you tough. Tougher than you need to be at that age..."

Steve strokes at Eddie's hair.

"I'm glad you had Wayne. Someone had to treat you right."

He shrugs. Growing up like that it obviously didn't seem that strange at the time. Sure that's not how the families were on the TV, but it wasn't until he was a bit older that he really understood how different his life was.

"Wayne's the best," Eddie agrees, a thoughtful look on his face, and he pulls Steve out from his room. He still carefully avoids the ceiling, but he nods towards the pull out cot. "You should try that one."

Steve follows quietly and then looks over at the cot in the corner. He's seen it before. Wayne still uses it to sleep on when he's in the trailer. He isn't all the time. Sometimes he stays with Steve, sometimes with Dustin. The government money will buy him a small place like Hopper has but there isn't a rush for that, what with the ground still split open and belching nightmares.

Steve looks over at Eddie and then walks toward the cot. For all the time in the trailer, he's never really touched anything that didn't belong to Eddie. It's about time he learned about someone else, he figures, as he presses his palm against it.

The trailer shifts, though much of it stays the same. The mug collection's not quite as filled out, everything's a little newer, a little less cluttered.

Eddie- maybe 11- is standing there with a sullen look, a duffle bag in hand. His hair's been shorn off, and there's a fading bruise on his face. Wayne- younger, a little more hair- is giving the boy a tour. The both of them seem a bit unsure of each other.

"I uh- I got this cot, here," Wayne notes, and gesturing back towards the bedroom, "Figure you can sleep in the bed for now. I'll work something out eventually."

Eddie looks back towards his Uncle's bedroom and then to the cot, brows twisting, and he's clearly about to protest when Wayne continues-

"Works better for me anyways. I can go 'bout my business without worrying 'bout wakin' you."

Steve steps forward as the memory starts, wanting to see the bruise on Eddie's cheek. He can't though and stops himself. Instead he just watches Eddie and Wayne settling into their lives together for what is clearly the first time. He can't help but smile as he sees Wayne immediately give up his room and Eddie's instinct to fight back against it.

God, what it must have been like for them, here.

"You have less hair and Wayne has more. Weird trade off..."

Adult Eddie snickers softly, watching the exchange fondly. "I know, right? ...He gave up his whole life for me. Who does that?"

Within the memory Eddie agrees and Wayne takes his duffel from him to go put in the bedroom. The curious preteen looks about the trailer, approaching an old guitar and brushing the strings when his uncle returns and he quickly withdraws his hand.

"Nah, s'all right. You can touch her," Wayne encourages.

"...do you play?" Eddie asks, plucking at the strings, and Wayne nods.
"Could teach you if you like?"

Steve's eyes burst wide and he spins to look at Eddie before focusing back at the scene. The guitars in Eddie's room had seemed so holy to Steve because he knew how loved they'd been. To know that Eddie had learned from Wayne? There are now a million things he wants to ask Wayne, now. Was he proud of how good Eddie was? Would he be happy to know that talent had saved their lives? Would he be miserable that it had cost Eddie his?

"Wayne taught you..." Steve feels strangely like he might cry and it's such a basic piece of information. It just slots into the hole in the puzzle of the Munsons and makes the whole image something new. "You two... God. He is the best dad outside of Hopper. Maybe even including Hopper, shit."

He's practically beaming at the memory and nods, the trailer reverting back to normal.
"Wait Hopper was a Dad?" Eddie asks in surprise. And a good dad? Eddie mostly remembers riding in the back of the cruiser getting lectures or getting told to shut his god damn mouth. Occasionally supplying the man...

"It's a long story with Hopper, man." He exhales long and slow, not sure if he really wants to get in on that whole mess right now. "He had a kid who died and then later he adopted that magic girl I was telling you about from before. It's a whole thing because then he died but he wasn't dead, just in Russia. So. Yeah, he's a dad again, now, I guess.

"But Wayne is just hands over fists better. Just don't tell Hopper I said that."

"He's alive??" Shit, Eddie's missed a lot in the however long he's been dead. He laughs and gives Steve a pointed look, "Yeah, I can probably manage that," he agrees.

"What else...cute kid, Wayne, avoiding the bad shit, probably avoiding the school shit...lot of avoiding..." Eddie laughs as he looks around for anything to suggest, folding his arms. "Gimmie a...genre or something."

Steve's face fell when he heard 'school shit'. He doesn't want to ask this question, but he also needs to know the answer.

"Am...I in here? Somewhere?" He rubs his hands nervously against his thighs and then buries them into his pockets just so he stops fidgeting. He does want to know this. He has to sell it. "Like me being an asshole or whatever? Outside of seeing you die, you don't have to avoid anything, man. I wanna see it all. I can handle it."

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