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beholdthemem · 11 days

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This is so absolutely correct that I had to write a pre-Freshman Year fic about it. Fantasy High AU be upon ye.

One of many annoying things about Fig Not-A-Faeth that Eddie's discovered since the day she showed up at Sullivan's- demanding, with an expression somewhere between a challenge and a plea, to learn bass- is that she picks shit up a lot faster than he ever has.

There is a very short list of things that Eddie can truthfully claim to be good at, but he can say with zero exaggeration that he's a damn good musician. That's just a fact.

Getting as good as he is now, though, took WORK. When it comes to shit he actually cares about, he's been blessed (or cursed. Which it is really seems to depend on the day) with the ability to do nothing but that for hours on end. He has more than one memory of trying to teach himself the solo from We're Not Gonna Take It as a kid, and only realizing how long he'd been at it when the sun had gone down and left his room dark. Every skill he has today has been earned through blood, sweat, and the kind of stubborn, single minded obsession that his fingertips still ache remembering.

And while Fig definitely takes learning seriously enough to put in the effort, it doesn't take her anywhere near as much time. He's watching her figure shit out in a week that he remembers taking him at least two.

He can't decide if that's impressive or infuriating.

At this point, their lessons involve a lot less teaching and a lot more practicing. Much as Eddie hates to admit it, in a year or so he's not sure there'll be anything left that he CAN teach her.

Then again, they both know that's not actually what this is about.

Not really.

"Those still bugging you?" Eddie asks as Fig walks in. She stops, momentarily confused, and Eddie jerks his chin up, indicating her horns.

It's a little hard to judge inflammation on fuck-off-red skin, but the base of the left one looks like it might still be kind of tender. That'd definitely track with what he remembers in his own experience, at least- they come in all at once and then spend the next several months hurting on and off like a bitch.

Fig's expression tightens a little, the way it still tends to whenever some reminder that she's very much not the wood elf she'd apparently always thought she was comes up. She shrugs.

"It's fine. The painkillers help."

"Go easy on those, they'll fuck up your stomach," Eddie advises, then hears himself and spends a minute wondering just who the fuck he is now. Zarael's star-spangled cosmic titties, he's WAY too young to be sounding this much like Wayne.

"Yes, DAD," Fig drawls, seeming to come to the same conclusion, and rolls her eyes. Scowling, Eddie reaches over the counter and flicks the horn that looks less sore.

"Ow! That's assault on a minor, I could sue-"

"Like any lawyer in Solace would take you as a client," Eddie retorts. "Get your bass and sit your ass down."

Fig's eyes light up as she spots her favorite of the displayed instruments, all complaints forgotten as she practically bounces over to grab it. It's not her bass, really, but it's the one she always picks to practice with. Eddie's probably not supposed to be letting her use actual merchandise, but he figures what Seth doesn't know won't kill him. She treats the thing with more reverence than half of the paying customers do, anyway.

"Hello, gorgeous," she croons, pulling the strap over her shoulder and cradling the bass to her torso. "Did you miss me?"

The mark of a true bard, Eddie thinks, amused and unexpectedly nostalgic for the first time he'd laid hands on his guitar, is the instinct to treat your instrument with more love than some people treat their actual partners. He's starting to debate hiding that bass during normal store hours, because at this point if he had to sell it to someone else he'd feel like a homewrecker.

"You two need a minute?" He calls, because relatable or not, this cannot go unmocked. "Some mood music, or something?"

Fig makes a gesture in his direction that he would've sworn she didn't know two months ago.

Eddie snorts, moving around the counter to grab a practice bass of his own, and then wanders over to the corner where he and Fig usually set up. They sit, and simultaneously begin tuning.

(She didn't even need the reminder this time. Excellent.)

Eddie moves slower than usual, giving Fig just enough time to get well and truly absorbed in her instrument before looking up to give her a proper once over without her getting defensive.

She seems... okay. That's good.

The colors she wears are a lot more muted than the brief example he got of her pre-horns days. The first couple of weeks afterwards, she'd dressed way more plain and conservatively than he would've expected from a kid with her personality. Probably trying- to the extent it was now possible- to draw less attention to herself.

He'd never bothered- but then, pre world-shattering-revelation Eddie had probably been pretty different from pre world-shattering-revelation Figueroth.

See, the thing is, there's not a lot of tieflings in Elmville. And Eddie would know, because he'd looked.

There's Johnny Spells, who he'd idolized for all of three days back in ninth grade before it had occurred to him that a man approaching thirty who exclusively dated high schoolers was kind of pathetic, that one tenth grader in the theater department who'd transferred over from Mumple in the hopes of a better drama program...

And that's pretty much it.

Eddie's old enough now to find Johnny's taste less something to laugh at, and more something to punch him for. It's been almost a year since he last saw the guy cruising around Basrar's on his stupid fucking bike, and with any luck, it'll stay that way. Cary, meanwhile, seems decent enough, if a touch too willing to buy into the concept of school spirit for Eddie's tolerance. They nod to each other in the hallway on occasion, but they don't really talk. Eddie's got nothing in common with him, and Cary's not desperate enough for companionship to befriend somebody based on nothing more than 'We're both part demon!' It was probably just as well that by the time they'd met, Eddie was well out of that phase.

For better or for worse, he'd ended up figuring shit out on his own.

So when he'd first seen Fig come into Sullivan's, roughly two weeks out from her horns coming through and apparently completely oblivious, despite every instinct screaming at him not to make whatever the fuck was going on here his problem he'd been unable to NOT reach out, handing over his contact info with some bullshit about being available for music lessons or... advice.

He'd spent the next three days praying to any deity unlikely to smite him that there was literally any other explanation for her parents seemingly trying to pass off her skin changing color as sunburn than the obvious one, and that he wouldn't end up having to get involved after all.

As usual, he'd been ignored.

“Oh!” Fig jolts upwards suddenly, startling Eddie out of his train of thought. “I totally forgot, I wanted to show you something I've been working on!”

“Is it Longview?”

“Better. Check this shit out…” Fig furrows her brow in concentration, tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, and then casts what Eddie wagers might be her first Disguise Self.

It's not bad. She's cheated a little by going fire genasi, so she won't have to change her skin tone- it takes practice to do that convincingly when you're starting from a noticeable shade like red- but the result is convincing nevertheless. She's added several inches of height and at least six years of age, and bears a distinct resemblance to the singer on one of the framed posters Seth’s left to gather dust by the break room.

(Well, it's easier to do if you've got a starting point. Eddie's not going to pretend he has enough patience to design a brand new face every time he needs a disguise either.)

“Not bad,” he says with a grin as the genasi gives a haughty nod at his applause and turns back into Fig. “Not bad at all!”

“So, now that I can look like I belong,” Fig says triumphantly, looking enormously pleased with herself. “When’re you gonna take me to the Dune Fort?”

“How bout on the fifth of Still-Not-Fucking-Happening?” Eddie offers generously.

“Oh, come ON!” If Fig was standing, he thinks she'd have stomped her foot to accompany the look of outraged frustration she's giving him now. He'd categorize it as roughly two degrees more indignant than the one she'd given him the week before last, when they'd had this exact same fucking discussion. “Did you not just see that Disguise Self? Nobody's even gonna ASK to see my ID, I've been practicing-”

“Practicing doing what?”

“I won't even bother you while I'm there, all I need is a ride and then I can do my own thing while you guys do yours-”

“I'm rescheduling to the twenty first of Not-A-Goddamn-Chance.”

“Ugh!” Fig drags her hands down her face, bass still nestled in her lap. “How am I supposed to learn if I can't watch the professionals?”

“The fuck do you think I am?” Eddie gestures at the bass he's holding with his free hand, now feeling a little indignant himself.

“Do you actually get paid to play?” Fig asks with a shrewdness that Eddie frankly does not appreciate. “Or are you just getting paid to sell merch?”

Figueroth Faeth has no idea how lucky she is that he's choosing to pretend he didn't hear that. Somewhere in town, Eddie's sheepies- who would've been falling over each other in a panic to apologize for such presumption long before this point- have undoubtedly just been struck by an unexplained sense of distinct unfairness.

“A real bard plays just to play. It's supposed to be about MUSIC, not money,” he says instead, and can hear the phantom screech Jeff and the guys would be giving if they were around to hear this abrupt hypocrisy.

“It can't be about both?” Fig asks, raising an eyebrow, and Eddie has no counter for that.

“All right, look,” he says finally. “Compromise. I'm not driving you out to Bastion City- do not fucking argue with me, let me FINISH- I'm not making that kinda commitment, BUT, if you quit getting on my ass about this, what I will do… is get you into the Black Pit for a Battle of the Bands next month.”

Fig freezes, staring at him suspiciously while she tries to work out whether or not this is a trick.

“There's gonna be rules,” Eddie continues, realizing to internal embarrassment that he's actually copying Wayne's Don't-Argue-With-Me inflection and vowing that Wayne and Fig will never meet. “You stay where I can see you at all times. You wander off, and I will hunt you down and lock your ass in the van until it's time to go. If anybody asks why you're there, you tell them you're helping me play roadie for The Banished, if someone tries to buy you a drink you say no, if you try that Disguise Self crap to buy yourself a drink, I'm not just locking you in the van, I'm straight up driving you home. AND you're gonna pay me back for what I spent on a show I didn't get to see. We clear?”

“...I want that all in writing,” Fig says finally, eyes glinting hungrily at a previously impossible goal coming just within her reach. “Every single word, right now, “I, Eddie Munson, do solemnly swear to take Fig-”

“I, Figueroth, do solemnly swear to do everything Eddie tells me while NOT being a huge pain in his ass-” Eddie snarks back, unhooking the bass from around his neck and going to find some paper. Seth's gotta have something *somewhere…*

“To the Black Pit for her first show, and help her sneak back home so Mo- so no one can bitch at her about being out on a school night-”

“I am NOT promising that, that's your problem.” There's a pile of crumpled receipts in the line filing cabinet for reasons Eddie can't decipher, but no blank paper. He shuts the drawer and moves on to the counter. “I'll get you there and I'll take you back, but getting in and out is on you. I don't need anybody giving me shit about you falling asleep in class the next day.”

“Barely a deal then, huh?” Fig retorts so cheerfully that he knows she's just arguing on principle. Eddie probably doesn't even need to find a paper for their terms, she's already agreed. He keeps looking, anyway.

He wonders, deep down, if this is the right thing to be doing. Yeah, smuggling Fig into a club she'd never normally be allowed in for her first live show will make her happy- deliriously happy, based on her pleased humming as she noodles away to Green Day- but at the same time, he knows it's not exactly… responsible.

That's never mattered to him before, but he wonders if it should, now. He's no stranger to having someone look up to him (Though he knows Fig would loudly tell him that this is in NO WAY what's happening here) but he's uncomfortably aware that this is different from mentoring his freshmen. With those four, he's just trying to get them through high school with both souls and sanity intact. He doesn't want the next generation carving away everything that makes them remotely interesting just to satisfy people who hate them anyway. The only example he's trying to provide is that they don't have to.

With Fig, though, the stakes go beyond fighting high school’s brand of forced conformity. They're not alike because of shared interests (Although he has noticed Fig’s purchases of bubblegum pop slowly but surely turning to bands a little rougher and more rebellious, suggesting a slight convergence of tastes) they're alike because they share the same fucked up genetic circumstances. The example he's trying to set, the reason they both know she keeps coming here- bass or no bass- is to prove that being like them doesn't have to fuck up her life.

No pressure.

“How IS school, anyway?” Eddie asks, now actively trying to think about what Wayne would ask in this scenario. He still can't bring himself to actually make eye contact as he does, though, busying himself with unearthing a stack of ads.

The music stops. “...fine,” Fig says after a moment. Her tone indicates she doesn't appreciate him asking. Eddie can't blame her.

“Cool,” he says, turning his attention to finding a pen. There. He did the Wayne thing. He asked. He hears the music start again, and figures he's probably good to turn around.

“I quit the cheer squad," Fig says, still hunched over the bass she's practicing on.

"Attagirl," Eddie says for probably the first time in his life, because fuck uniforms, fuck forced conformity, and fuck anything related to team sports in general.

It's not until he notices how Fig's knuckles have gone pale-pink-burgeoning-on-white from how hard she's clenching the bass's neck that he realizes that might not have been the right response.

"Uh," he says, knowing that it's a minute too late but trying anyway. "Why, though?"

"Because it's stupid," Fig scoffs with far, far too much artistically applied contempt to be real, and Eddie gets that familiar sinking feeling in his stomach that he's starting to recognize might be guilt when he realizes how much her inflection sounds like his.

This is how he'd respond, and it's fine when he does it, but hearing it from an eighth grader who very clearly doesn't actually feel that way and who is burying herself in the same bad habits he does more and more by the day to try and avoid shit doesn't feel great.

'You're fucking her up,' a voice hisses in the back of his head, and Eddie does his best to ignore it.

"What's stupid about it?" He asks, and feels gratified when Fig looks up for the first time to stare at him in disbelief.

"Uh, I dunno," she scoffs again. She's cultivated a very good scoff in the time he's known her, and he's pretty sure THAT isn't from him because hers is a lot better. "Maybe just, uh, everything?"

"Yeah?" He asks, more as a subtle prompt for her to continue than anything else. He's got no clue how to ask what's wrong in a way she'll actually respond to, but she likes to talk. He can relate to that. With any luck, another habit she's either absorbed or has always had is that if left uninterrupted long enough, she'll accidentally admit more than she intends.

"First of all, they've got us all wearing these dumb little outfits in WHITE, which means from the second you put them on you gotta worry about accidentally getting them dirty. Cuz if you get them smudged even a little, everyone will see it, and coach will lose her goddamn mind because even though you're sweating your ass off trying to get each cheer right you can't let people know you're sweating for it because everything's supposed to look PRETTY and EFFORTLESS," Fig spits the words like they personally offend her, turning back down to focus her attention on the chord she's attacking. "And then there's the whole stupid matchy-matchy thing, where you and your cheer sisters all have to look exactly the same, right down to the hairstyles-"

Eddie thinks back to the matching pigtails Fig and the other Oakshield Middle girls had been wearing the first day they'd met. She hadn't looked like she'd minded then.

"It's so stupid, they want us to look like cute little cheer clones or something. As if we don't have any personalities of our own! And then there's the whole deal about how we're all supposed to get along and trust each other, because if we're not all on the same wavelength 'It all falls apart'-" she takes one hand off her bass to add air quotes, but refuses to release the neck from the death grip she has it in with the other. "Like Ananiel and Caitlyn aren't constantly bitching at each other for getting too close to that aracokra guy they both like but are too chickenshit to end their stupid cold war over and make an actual move on, or Lisa and Raquel aren't refusing to speak to each other for weeks on end before making up and then refusing to be separated for even a damn minute, or some people aren't suddenly too scared to look at someone else-"

Oh.

"Which kind of makes it hard to get through an actual routine, considering that if someone's supposed to get thrown up in the air, you kind of need to make eye contact with her before she comes back down so she knows you're ready to catch her,-”

Oh.

"Which would be bad enough on its own even if your flyer WASN'T trying to work with new people that she doesn't have an established dynamic with, because she's spent three years working with Kendall and Kyla but they suddenly don't want to touch her."

Eddie feels his eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Like they're worried she'll... she'll rub off on them, or whatever." Fig's hands are shaking, but her voice is steady. "That if they touch her one time too many, they could wake up looking like she does, now, too."

The ad Eddie was holding is crushed as he reflexively balls his hands into fists.

People said a lot of shitty things when his horns had first grown in. More than one neighbor had insisted they'd known all along That Boy Wasn't Right- and after years of saying so, now there was proof. The religious freaks who took turns using the non-denominational building a few blocks from the trailer park had begun stuffing pamphlets in the mailbox, all containing quotes from varying holy books about casting out evil. Mrs. Peterson, who had never approved of Wayne taking Eddie in to begin with, had started having her children actively cross the street to avoid him.

But all of those people had already hated him

Never once had it come from anyone he'd considered a friend.

"Shit," he says at last, with a half laugh as though what Fig just shared is ridiculous instead of soul shattering- because if there's one thing that he remembers always sent him flying off the handle back when he'd been in her shoes, it had been pity. "What are they, Helioics?"

"Church of Sol," Fig says quietly, plucking a string.

Fuck, he'd been joking.

“I was supposed to go to their confirmation next month," she continues, sounding far away as she plucks at it again. "We went shopping for the dresses together."

"They took back your invitation?" It slips out before he can stop it, the shock and anger on her behalf out in the open with nothing to disguise it. Fig's walls rise back up immediately.

"Like I'd even wanna go!" She snorts, rolling her eyes as though the mere suggestion is absurd. "I threw it out. Like hell I'm gonna waste my weekend standing around in some creepy old church with a bunch of people I don't know, watching Kyla and Kendall promise to devote their lives to some dumb god and uphold his will like they don't break at least three of his stupid rules every day. FUCK that. The dress was ugly, too- we were all supposed to wear green, cuz it's like, good luck in their religion or something. I'd look like a fucking Yulenear decoration.”

She probably would, but that's beside the point.

Pinned to the wall behind the register at the front is a faded cardboard sign with the words 'We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone' carefully printed on it in all caps. In the year and a half that Eddie's been working at Sullivan's, he's been sorely tempted invoke that right many times, but has never quite dared. He's fully aware that his resume was never looked at before he got hired- Seth heard him play a few times at the Black Pit and decided that between that and the times Eddie had sold him weed in the past, he'd be willing to give him a shot working at the store. It's worked out okay, but he'd rather not test the boundaries of what nepotism will allow.

If the dark haired twins that Fig had been joined at the hip with before... everything... show up again, though, Eddie will be refusing fucking service. If they want their boy band crap, then from now on they can go to the store across town, and he doesn't give a shit WHAT Seth says about it.

"Stupid," Fig says again, all spikes and devil-may-care attitude that Eddie knows from years of personal experience is HARD, and whether she means confirmations, or cheerleading, or her former friends, or even herself, he doesn't know.

She's got the act down pretty convincingly, but she hasn't had a tail long enough to know she needs to concentrate on controlling it. The slow, subconscious lashes across the floor as she easily adjusts her posture tell Eddie everything that her disinterested expression doesn't.

"Hey," he says, changing the subject abruptly. "Wanna see something cool?"

Fig looks up again, curiosity tempered by the desire to come off as aloof and detached. "...maybe."

"Check this out," Tossing the wadded up ad somewhere in the direction of the trash, Eddie sets his right hand down on the counter where Fig can see it, and pulls his lighter out of his jacket with his left. Fig watches, her expression unimpressed but her eyes intrigued as she waits to see where this is going.

Presenting the silver lighter with a slight flourish, (because any bard worth his salt knows that presentation matters) Eddie holds the body between the index and middle finger of his left hand, and begins to flip it first over, then under, each finger.

The metal catches the light coming in through the display window and flashes like lightning.

Eddie picks up the pace, sending the lighter spinning faster and faster until all that can be seen is a small silver blur in one hand while the other rests easily on the counter. Fig, for all her bluster, is still a kid, and has abandoned her posturing to watch with the same fascination Eddie'd had when Rick had first shown him. He feels himself grin.

The lighter spins even faster still, reaching top speed as Eddie approaches the finale.

In one swift movement he flicks it open, bringing it to his mouth just in time for the flame to spark to life beneath his extended tongue.

Fig gasps, scrambling towards him in a panic, then stops, eyes narrowing in confusion before widening in disbelief.

"No fucking way."

"Hellish Resistance, baby!" Unburned, Eddie snaps the lighter shut again and flings out his arms like the ringmaster of a one-tiefling-circus, grinning as Fig gapes. "Can't be burned! Perks of being like us."

"Teach me that!" Fig demands, shitty day and shitty friends forgotten at the realization that she can do this too.

"When you're fuckin' done," Eddie stuffs the lighter back in his pocket, and points with his free hand at the bass Fig slung over her back while trying to check on him.

"I am done!" She insists, indignant. "Lesson's over, dude. I've got this shit on lock, it's EASY."

"Yeah?" Eddie crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow at her. "Let's hear you play it, then. Show me."

And she does.

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