&&. Max + Eddie 001 - Blog Posts

zccming​:

max narrowed her eyes while eddie showcased his outfit for her. she nodded, hand thoughtfully on her chin. “i don’t know, eddie.” she sighed as if she had bad news, then reached out and smacked her hand onto his shoulder, “you’re looking like the spitting image of callahan these days.” max grinned, then stepped back, crossed her arms, and resumed examining the storefront. max knew it wasn’t going to open if all she did was stand there and before she got the chance to sit on it some more, eddie was running through the inciting events with her. she didn’t deny the way he framed it. in fact, max nodded along, until she just had to interject, “okay? have you ever had karen wheeler look at you funny? it gets brutal after like…” she muttered a couple numbers under her breath, “five times.” 

there was an easiness that came in interacting with eddie. most of the time, max had to force herself to listen to and engage with other people. when it came to eddie though, she just did it, like it was built in. if she was inching anywhere near an edge of truly snapping in the face of this inconvenience, eddie’s laugh pushed her about fifty steps back. she gratefully accepted his hair pin, “yeah yeah. so beneath me.” max started for the back of the building. an exit without insult or profanity could be chalked up to a thank you from max. with eddie’s help and the guarantee of a few beers now on her side, she’d consider this outing a score. 

max took a grand total of fifteen minutes to round up all she needed to avoid mrs. wheeler’s stare of death before crossing the street back over to eddie’s van. she tossed her bag and then her skateboard inside without much care, then followed in suit. “we got like an hour before we should show up.” max announced, “we could go now but…” she sucked in on her teeth, “i don’t think we want be in the first wave of guests.” it was an annoying truth, but if max arrived to the wheeler household with eddie munson before the droves of people piled in, well, about a quarter of that target audience wouldn’t bother coming at all if they caught word. not needing to explain that, she flatly posed the next step, “so, how are we going to kill an hour?”

+++

he scrunched his nose, grimaced. “callahan?” listen, he’d heard a lot of insults in his life but this? and coming from max? “wow, that’s, - that’s the worst name i’ve ever been called. and isn’t that, like, before your time? aren’t you, like, twelve or something?” at her comment about wheeler he just shrugged with his palms held out. he’d never met the woman, didn’t usually hang about that part of town, but the way max described her - well, eddie wasn’t sure if inviting himself to that cookout was such a good idea after all. but fuck it. “the hell did you do that made mrs wheeler stare at you funny five times, max? that sounds more like a you problem if you ask me.”

and off she went, eddie looked around, made sure that no one around had seen her sneak off before he went back to his van. resisted the urge to turn up the music because they really didn’t need to draw any attention to themselves. he left the doors to the van wide open, sat side-ways in the driver’s seat, legs dangling out the door. then max returned with her secured goods, he lazily turned his head and watched as she climbed into the passenger seat. “sweet haul”, he said and nodded his head towards the stolen yield. “what did you get?”

he blew a raspberry. “an hour.”, he mused, fingers drumming on the dashboard. he’d been ready to slam his keys into the ignition and speed off but now, here they were, in the middle of downtown hawkins, after robbing a store on memorial day, with an hour to kill. eddie shifted so he sat properly in his seat, pulled the door shut and rolled the window down. “i don’t know, man. we could, like, chill in the sun somewhere? or hey, maybe the arcade’s open today?” he shrugged. “anywhere but here, dude. your choice. your wish is my command.”

zccming·:

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before max could even get mad, she was grateful. eddie came to visit often, but it wasn’t often enough by max’s standards. after the dust settled, eddie and herself struck up an odd little friendship in those last few weeks before he finally managed to hop into that cap and gown then leave. it consisted of meals spent together, regular check-ins, and generally good, quality time. with her mom still out of it, it was the closest semblance to family max had in a long time. so of course, it sucked when he left. but it was an even better feeling when eddie eventually made his rounds back. she didn’t like to clue anyone into how much either meant to her, though. same as now, she stifled her reaction and took the hug in stride. 

“i thought you were the cops.” max lied, pulling away. there was no time to be wasted with the when did you get in?s or the how long are you in town?s. “there’s a barbecue at the wheeler’s. you can come if you want.” she explained with a hefty sigh, as if she wouldn’t eat up every second of suburban normalcy. “i’m trying to get something to bring.” she gestured to the store, “didn’t have anything at home, don’t want to show up empty handed, here i am.” max glanced back to the road where she had discarded her rock, then looked up at eddie with a faint smirk, “i mean, how bad would it really be if i smashed through the front? nobody would know.” then she added, as if it were a perfectly good point, “and it’d be pretty cool if i were maybe able to…i don’t know…snag a couple of beers and bring them to my friends?”

+++

eddie was an only child, didn’t really have any family except for his uncle, but if you were to catch him in a vulnerable moment, there was a seventy percent chance he’d list max as a family member. he returned to hawkins semi-regularly,but if it weren’t for max he surely wouldn’t come back just as often. his uncle was fine, after all, got on great on his own, eddie wasn’t too worried there. but, jesus, with all the shit max had gone through ever since moving to hawkins - well, he just liked to make sure she was ok.

“do i look like a cop to you? be honest.” eddie gave her a ltitle tiwrl, showing off his outfit - black ripped jeans, worn out converse - not docs like he usually wore but how was he expected to survive in boots in this weather ? - black muscle shirt and his denim vest. and, of course, that ever present black bandana dangling from his back pocket. “‘cause if there are cops in hawkins looking like this well, shit, i might just have to go an join the force.”

eddie clicked his tongue, narrowed his eyes as he looked back and forth between max and the store. “ok, so, let me get this straight, yeah - you’re invited to a barbecue at the wheelers” - he emphasized the name, paused afterwards - “and instead of showing up there and going ‘oh sorry! i spaced, my bad, all store’s are closed’  your next immediate thought is ‘oh, you know what, let me fucking .... break into melvald’s and smash in the front’. just so karen wheeler won’t look at me funny.” 

he stared at her for a moment, feigning outrage before he erupted into loud laughter. eddie softly shook his head, dug into the pocket of his jeans to produce a hairpin. “thought i taught you better than that. take this -”, he thrust it into her hand, looking at her intently - “ and pick the lock in the back, and, like, grab some... i don’t know, some barbecue-y stuff.” he shrugged. “my van’s parked across the street, meet me back there once you’ve secured the good. i got a couple of six-pack’s in the back, so at least you don’t have to steal alcohol. ‘cause that’s like so beneath you, maxine.”

he grinned. truthfully, eddie could think of a about a thousand better ways to spend his afternoon that lounging in karen wheeler’s backyard, getting dirty looks from hawkins’ good society. but whatever, it was gonna be worth it if it meant he got to spend some time with max.

zccming·:

WHO: max mayfield && open.

WHERE: outside of melvald’s general store.

this wasn’t max’s most…well-thought-out plan, but she had ransacked the trailer for anything she could bring to the wheeler’s barbecue. and she was pretty sure cereal or swanson’s tv dinners wouldn’t cut it.  as she skated her way downtown in hopes of a miracle, she brainstormed what she could bring that wouldn’t be too complicated. she came up with the likes of doritos or boxed pasta salad. of course, when max pulled up to melvald’s and tugged at the doors, they were locked. melvald’s, like the hawk, and every other godforsaken business in this town just had to be closed. “shit…” she breathed out, scanning her surroundings. not a car in sight…not a person … but there was a rock. maybe if she just…she could get away with it…

max scooped it up from the ground and raised her arm to chuck it through the window, but she felt these eyes on her.  turning around, max initially jumped at the sight of another person. hadn’t she checked for people? in a swift recovery, max rolled her eyes and frowned, “asshole. you can’t just sneak up on people like that.” as if to explain herself, she stepped forward and gripped the handles once more, “it’s locked.”  after chucking the rock out into the road, max placed her hands on her hips, then eyed the other, “i need in, like now.” then as a hint to help or get lost she asked, “got any better ideas?” 

+++

well, wasn’t this one hell of a way to say ‘welcome back’? eddie raised his brows, sighed heavily and over-dramatically as he buried his hands in his pockets, lazily crossing the road to make his way over to max. “’hello’.”, he said, pursed his lips. “’welcome’. ‘hi’. ‘how’s it going, man’. ‘sup’ . even ‘good day’”, said with a bow of sorts. he came to a halt before her, brows pulled together to a frown. “out of all the phrases and greetings to choose from she settles on ‘asshole’. classic max mayfield.”

his stern expression quickly fades into a wide smile, eddie’s face practically lit up, as he surged forward, scooping max up into a tight hug. he’d only just gotten back into town yesterday, hadn’t had a chance to say hello yet, and out of all the people he wanted to check in with - which didn’t consist of a lot of people, seeing as he was still shunned by most of the population of hawkins - her name was at the top of his list. “so, what’s up, you little shit?”, he asked once he’s set her down again. “getting yourself into trouble again, same old, same old. what ever could be so pressing you need to break into melvald’s for ?”