When You’re Strange (Eddie Munson X Gothic!Reader Meet-Cute)

could you do an eddie x reader where reader is a loud mouth 80s goth and a freak like eddie, and he’s so happy to find someone like him

SO. I actually have about 5 asks in my inbox for a gothic reader x Eddie, so consider this drabble a response to all of them!!

I’ve been dying to write for my fellow alternative girls (punk culture represent) because so much Eddie x reader content is from the POV of hyper-feminine women. Wait no longer my friends! Have an adorable first meeting, written while listening to “After Dark”.

When You’re Strange (Eddie Munson x Gothic!Reader Meet-Cute)

Word Count: 820

Summary: There’s a new girl in town. So new that the local meatheads haven’t even started gossiping about her. Maybe she blew in on the storm. Maybe she’s a figment of his imagination. Either way, Eddie can’t manage to keep his fucking eyes off her.

The perfect weather, in Eddie’s opinion. Very dramatic.

The perfect weather, in Eddie’s opinion. Very dramatic.

He’s browsing the library stacks again, long legs roving the near empty carpeted halls, the only cathedral he’s ever known. The librarian always turns her nose up at him, his visage and endless jingle jingle jingle of bracelets and clothing studs and buckles, but she lets him work in the back for as long as he wants. A mutual respect for the sacred space that was a public utility building.

Eddie runs fingers over the spines of books, footfalls soft, half of his mind lost in the thrashing rain wailing against the high windows, the other half absorbed in his “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” game master guide. Reading as he walks, burning idle energy.

His accessories go jingle jingle jingle.

Then, above it, he hears a different jingle. Fabric and metal shifting against itself: a small song of sounds that weren’t his own. And then, after moment, an actual song: tinny, muted, and distant. Robert Smith’s familiar, angsty wailing vocals. Eddie looks up from his book.

And then he’s pretty sure his entire fucking world changes because he sees you. 

Your face peeking through the gap between books, on the other side of the aisle. Eyes- epic fucking eyes, he thinks to himself, staggered- turned down to inspect something. He freezes in place: a man made of ice at the sight of the khol-dark liner and severe, arching, painted eyebrows lost in the teased waterfalls of black-dyed tresses. 

Those damned black-stained lips and silver snakebites have him rooted.

People weren’t... cool, in Hawkins. They didn’t stick their heads out of their rabbit holes, stayed very firmly inside their little boxes. They didn’t experiment, or seek out, or try anything. But you... he was looking at you and it was like getting electrocuted with fucking shock pads, like being forced to take a great big breathe of ice-cold air with burned lungs. Life and interest getting injected, acid-sharp, into his veins.

You move down the aisle, myriad of silver pendants clinking against one-another as they sway. He follows, hypnotized, almost without his own volition. Fascinated in the way an archer in a fairytale is fascinated by a unicorn.

Christ, she must have scared the shit out of the librarian. He can’t help thinking to himself, an awed smile threatening to creep onto his oval face and wipe any lingering semblance of coolness he retained when faced with you. What I would have paid to see that.

You pause to pull the spine of a book out, whisper-soft in the quiet building air, storm still raging overhead. Black-nailed fingers carefully whispering through the paper. The Cure still wails desperately in your walkman headphones.

Eddie watches you flip the pages, softly opening and closing his mouth, stalling out. All that was whirling around in his head, fast as a cyclone, were scattered thoughts of she’s pretty and why have I never seen her before and I should really turn around and go now before I start looking like a fucking creep.

“You’re staring.” You say. Not even bothering to look up from your book at the guy who had been gawking at you like a circus event.

Eddie fumbles with- and nearly drops- his heft paper-cover D&D guide. “Uh... sorry. Shit. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m used to it.” You snap the book shut matter-of-factly, the clap ringing through the endless warren of high shelves, and jam a finger down on the cassette pause. And then you pause when you catch the gaze of the man on the other side of the shelf.

Wide chocolate-black eyes. Dry, wild hair. A black leather jacket, still speckled in drying rain... and a moth-bitten band shirt sporting Kiss’s famous “Destroyer” album art. 

He’s pretty. Very pretty. 

It was cliche. It was stupid. You and him, looking at one another, falling completely silent. Like some sort of wild spark had coursed between you in a fraction of a second, startling you into muteness. You had both felt it. 

And now, like some sort of cheap romance movie, you were both quietly rounding the end of the stack, finally coming face to face, unobstructed by the dusty shelves. You clear your throat delicately as the silence stretches out, and he blinks rapidly, shoving his book under an arm and sticking out a ring-covered hand like someone had demanded he do it. 

“Eddie.” He says with a crooked, nervous grin. “Uh, Munson. Hi.”

His hand is soft. Warm, when you shake it. There’s that spark again, jumping skin to skin. His throat bobs as he swallows when the spark races up his arm, settling into his chest. Settling into yours. 

You can’t keep the slow, warm, smile from creeping onto your face. A goth, grinning. Who knew it was possible? Eddie’s lips followed suit. Seeming to take permission from your own relaxation.

“Hi, Eddie.” You say softly. Voice like thunder in the quiet, only inches from him. “Nice to meet you.”