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powderblueblood · 4 months

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bethy on beale street

eddie tells lacy the story of how al munson and elizabeth franklin met in memphis, tennessee. or, love is a grilled cheese sandwich. (2k) cw: sickening fluff, me making shit up about beale street, al munson is a junior sleaze but is no match for elizabeth franklin and her sunshine smile. taggin @dieaverage & @fracturedarkness x

part of the hellfire & ice universe

"oh, this is pathetic."

you push your lower lip out a little further, gesturing to the blackened thing of jiffy pop with the pitiful enthusiasm of a door-to-door salesman that needs to make one last sale or else she's giving her exhaust pipe a blow job. "eddie."

"was that your dinner?" he asks, gesturing to the failed science experiment in your hand with the cigarette in his.

a couple of incinerated kernels fall out the bottom. you nod, eyes shiny. he rolls his head around on his neck, groaning with a fervor. he's such a fucking sucker.

"fine! get in here-- you're so goddamn lucky wayne's doing overtime--"

"oh, otherwise i'd starve!" you say, brightening up immediately as you hop through the door of the munson trailer.

"otherwise you'd starve."

"emaciated!"

"a dessicated corpse come monday."

and come a few moments later, you're biting into the most heavenly grilled cheese you've ever had. like, really. the cheese is plastic and gooey and dripping and a string of it clings to your chin. eddie, the chef de cuisine, points for you to clear that up. you'd really underestimated what this boy could do with a pan-- you didn't even think he owned a pan.

watching him whip up this little number with the cigarette still dangling from his mouth was... mystifying. if entirely unhygienic. but if that's what you're putting up with for how this thing tastes...

"s's very good," you say with your mouth full.

"don't they teach you not to talk with your mouth full at miss porter's finishing school for prisses?"

you pinch your brow and give him the finger.

"better be careful," eddie says, tone sauteing in warning as he reaches forward and nudges that offending finger back into your little fist, "this is exactly how my parents got together."

your eyes flare as you wipe some grease off your lower lip. eddie rarely talks about his parents, just like you rarely talk about yours-- for a bouquet of reasons. bonding over your shared daddy issues is difficult when they're criminal accomplices-turned-enemies or whatever.

or maybe it's easier. you two just hadn't tried it yet.

"really?"

"tale as old as time," eddie sighs, sitting backwards on one of the two kitchen chairs and picking up the salt and pepper shakers.

"he was a line cook." shake shake. "she was a waitress." shake shake. "he could not leave the state of tennessee. they used no discernible form of birth control and figured that was a good enough reason to say 'i do'."

"how did they end up here?"

"well, soon as i was let loose upon the world, dad decided he was a little homesick--" eddie's eyelids sag sardonically, "--read, he had to go somewhere and cool off. hawkins is as good a place as any for that, unless you're al munson and trouble draws you in like a fucking electromagnetic force."

there's a beat.

"what part of tennessee?"

he doesn't expect you to ask that. knocks him out of his facetious narration. makes him twist his ring a little, like he's debating whether to tell you or not.

"um. memphis."

you smile, all knowingly. "beale street."

he smiles back, warming back up.

because of course you wouldn't say graceland first.

because you're pretentious and you're psychic, or something, because you're the goddamn oracle of delphi and you'd know to say beale street because...

franklin's diner was on beale street. still could be, eddie doesn't know, because they left memphis when he was still a baby. what he did remember, from what he could remember of his mom and what al rarely trickled into conversation, was that franklin's diner was an institution.

franklin's was beloved. it was the kind of place that slung hash and sausage to people twenty-four hours a day. those people ranged from civilians to cops to politicians to musicians to poets to drunks to degenerates. the hierarchy broke down at franklin's-- everyone was the same. everyone took their hat off at the door and said their pleases and thank yous and ate together. and laughed together. and told stories together.

whoever you were outside of that didn't matter.

so it stood to reason that a man on probation could get a job there.

al munson avoided a stay in the federal correctional institution in good ol' shelby county by the skin of his dazzling midwestern teeth. friends (because friends come by easy for al-- look in any dark, shady corner and there's a friend) had told him to make for franklin's, because not only is there work, but there's work.

and women.

seemed as if back of house was staffed by nothing but a pirate crew of ex-(and soon-to-be)-cons (which ain't a bad transition out of the big house, if you think about it), but front of house?

some of the most dee-vine fading beauties that memphis had to offer. one-time contenders for miss tennessee, each and every one of them, were it not for... the missing teeth, the bum eye, the drinking, the swearing, the smoking, the cussing out the customers.

al, as you can imagine, flourished in this environment. plucky little upstart sleazeball who handled women like don juan by way of some shitstain in indiana no one'd ever heard of? they loved him. cherished him.

and al, a lover of women of any shape, size or moral decrepitude, cherished them right back. in every imaginable way.

("gross." "i know, but stick with me.")

that turned south one sweltering august day when poppy franklin (which is what they called the big man who owned the place) came huffing in after a five-foot-nothing spitfire with a fried blonde dye job.

"y'know what, poppy, fine!" she yelled, her accent ringing through the diner like high, fine crystal tainted by smoke. "you want me as part of the family business, then i am more than happy to oblige-- but i got conditions! if i'm workin' my shift, we are listenin' to my music!"

she grabbed each side of the jukebox like the wheels of a high powered rally car, tongue peeking out the side of her sugar pink lips, eye squinting.

"c'mon, girl," poppy gasped, clutching at the counter. "goddamn ernie ford ain't music?"

"no!" she barked, and she swung around with this megawatt smile that filled her whole face-- filled the whole diner.

"this is music!"

and that first lick of hoodoo man blues rips through the jukebox speakers and the place goes up.

("hoodoo man blues? i don't think i know that." a beat. "what? but you know everything." a lingering kind of look. "i don't know everything! only most of everything." "i'll play it for you." "i'd like that. anyway. as you were.")

so, this little chickie dipped around the back to grab an apron and ran smack bang into al, who'd been ignoring his darla-of-the-week to watch this whole flurry play out via the service window.

she knocked the wind out of him. like, clean deflation.

"he- hey." first time al munson has ever stuttered, ever, on record.

"indiana, right?" she kept on smiling, like it'd hurt to stop, and dug this prefixed name tag out of the apron. "yeah, they said you was pretty."

all al could muster was this huff, like 'heh!' because she was looking at him with these eyes, just picking him apart and putting him back together with this look on her face that felt like the first blast of sunshine out of the joint.

which he knew about, right. so that mattered.

"bethy?" he pointed to the nametag.

"holy crow, and he's literate! you're a real diamond in the rough, there, indiana!"

and she threw her head back and cackled like a hyena and al munson knew he was done for. lights out. game over. see y'all next time! y'all come back soon now!

elizabeth 'bethy' franklin had landed back in memphis after an ill-guided attempt to rebel in nashville. she made it about a month until she became incredibly homesick, because bethy franklin was raised around love and family and music and nashville had the music part and some of the love part, and as much as she wanted to do something completely independent of her family, she missed her people. wasn't her time. so she came back, with a shitty blonde dye job that made a mess of her natural red curls.

and she was as effervescent as she was when she was a kid; always had a smile for everybody, and a dirty joke for everybody she liked. and she insisted on pumping that chicago blues out of the jukebox during every shift, dancing her way around that diner. the customers didn't even give a shit when she messed up their orders-- she was that magnetic.

al spent the next three weeks trying everything he could to take her out.

"bethy, you like ribs?" "you know i do, al, and you know i know every rib joint in town." "bethy, you wanna go for a drive?" "last i saw, i was the only one of us with a car!" "bethy, i just got this record by these dudes, uh, the aces--" "you better not be tryin' to impress me with things i already know, indiana!"

she made him work harder than he'd ever worked in his life-- much to the chagrin of every other waitress in the joint, who he'd tossed by the wayside in pursuit of the heiress to the finest, dirtiest diner on beale street.

the only day that franklin's closed was new year's day. poppy had even made it a longstanding rule that they could finish up early on new year's eve, around eight o'clock, to get at least some of the night's dancin' in.

as if they weren't already sick of each other's company, the diner staff stuck together like a pack of rats, descending on downtown memphis and causing a ruckus in the bars. one favored spot of the franklin family, this little tin roof bar that dealt mostly in country music, even called on bethy by name from the stage.

"well, let's see now-- looks like the prodigal daughter has returned safe and sound from the armpit of our national nudie suit, nashville, tennessee! you goin' git up and give us a tune, miss bethy franklin?"

and again, that voice rung clear but raspy, clean through the room and al’s aching heart, "well, i would, john, but your guitar player's just been kicked out the bar!"

"i can play." and al munson stepped up to the plate, to the stage, and he held that gibson like it was excalibur and he'd just yanked the sword out of that goddamned stone.

"you can play?"

"anything you want."

bethy covered the microphone and stared al down with a challenge. "long-legged guitar pickin' man."

which sounded like an insult, but he ripped them first couple chords off like it was nothing.

("and the crowd went up?" "and the crowd went up.")

she could sing, that girl. al too, but she had a voice like a nightingale. and she had him singing that same stupid song as midnight approached, sucking down cigarettes outside the bar. then, twenty minutes to go-time, bethy materialized in front of al and said--

"i could eat."

which is a terrific thing to say to a line cook, especially one that has since decided he would sacrifice the world and its riches just for a minute alone with you.

"bethy franklin, i'm gonna make you a grilled cheese so good, you're gonna ask my father for my hand in marriage."

so they high-tailed in back to their diner, down the street, breaking in with bethy's spare set of keys. al fired up the grill with white bread and all-american cheese on hand and bethy fired up the jukebox and danced herself around the kitchen to where do you go to, my lovely.

("oh, wow." "yeah, thought that might tickle your sensibilities.")

in about ten minutes flat, al was watching bethy insistently pick her sandwich up from his spatula, even though he was insisting she'd burn those pretty hands.

"these hands are fireproof, indiana. they can survive anythin'."

"they gonna survive how good that grilled cheese is, bethy?"

and bethy didn't hold back. she let her eyes roll right back in her head, humming out her mm-mm-mm! credit where credit's due. ate the whole thing in three bites.

"it's elizabeth, by the way."

al looked confused, but something on her face told him to remember this. the eyes that were usually sparkling with light had dimmed a touch; a more intimate setting of her gaze, if you will.

"that nickname. been drivin' me crazy my whole life. kinda... whassa word, diminutive, y'know? i like my name-- it's big and solid and important, don't you think?"

al shook his head and took elizabeth in. the whole big shining beacon of her, the one he'd let himself be burned right up in. singed, to a crisp. moth, meet flame. you get the idea.

and he said, "only one way we could make that name sound better."

"how'zat?" she asked.

and he said, "if we made it elizabeth munson."

and elizabeth smiled again, because she was always goddamn smiling, and said, "what's your daddy's number?"

back in the room.

you exhale big, and eddie's watching your reaction for... he doesn't really know what. he digs around for a cigarette and offers you one.

"this what you're like in hellfire club?" you ask, leaning back in your chair and crossing your legs. "because that was a hell of a story."

"good point. not enough grilled cheese motifs in my campaigns, lacy, i really oughta write that down somewhere..."

"no, i mean it. you're good."

the compliment sort of hangs between you. eddie's not quite sure how to handle it-- he doesn't have asbestos fingers like his mom did.

you look at him for what feels like an excruciatingly long time.

"i think you're like her," is what you finally say, and it feels like when you do that thing where you play with the tension of a situation like a cat with a mouse.

eddie's chest immediately tightens. eyelids stutter. he tries his damnedest to brush it off, but he's leaning in, the way he always does with you. he can't not give. he can't resist, not when it's you.

"i think it's the smile." you say, biting at the tip of your little finger. "provided what you told me is not complete unverified bullshit."

"hold on." and he's up and out of his chair, searching around for his jeans that he'd discarded earlier (yeah, he's walking around in his own damn boxers, it's his damn trailer, grow up (you're being very grown up about it)).

he slides a photo that he keeps in his wallet toward you, leaning over you.

it's a young woman, can't be more than 21, with a little baby that has a shock of dark curly hair. her dark roots are growing out a little. she's beaming toward the camera like her life depends on it.

eddie watches you as you study it, all considered and pouty like you get when you study anything. you hold the photo up right next to his face.

"now smile."

he smiles.

"bigger."

he stretches the corners of his mouth way out.

"just as i thought. identical."

pink colors his cheeks, just a little.

"a couple of all-american cheesers."

#e. munson by powder #blurbs #hai brainrot #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #al munson #elizabeth munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #ish??? i guess??? i'm running out of relevant tags #published by powder #l. doevski by powder

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word-wytch · 4 months

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warm vanilla sugar.

Little Eddie and his mom, Elizabeth, bake Christmas cookies together. [2k]

CW: tooth-rotting fluff, depictions of poverty, angst over paternal absence

December 24th 1971

Philadelphia Street was quiet on Christmas Eve. It was always pretty quiet in the dead of winter, especially once the sun went down. Nothing but the wind rustling through the glittering branches under the street lamps.

But if you listened closely just outside the smallest house—the Munson’s house—there was music. There almost always was. Crackling and popping, the spinning record warmed the house with carols sung by Ella Fitzgerald this time. Tinsel glittered in the light of the colored bulbs on the little fake tree by the large front window. Behind the house there was a light as well, glowing warmly from the small kitchen window in front of the sink.

Perched on a chair at the counter with hands barely as big as the plastic cookie cutter, Eddie made his first big impression, stamping the dough in the shape of a snowman. He peeled it back with wondrous satisfaction, eagerly stamping another in the middle of the flour-dusted canvass, and another above it in frantic succession.

“Easy there, big guy,” came a voice from beside him; warm and sweet like honey on toast. A pale hand blotched with green food coloring intercepted, lifting the plastic from the dough before Eddie could get his grips on it again. “Gotta keep ‘em close together, we’ll get more cookies that way,” Elizabeth said with a wink. “Like this.” Gingerly, she lined the snowman up beside one of its kin, upside down so that the large bottom tessellated snugly beside the top hat of the other.

Sudden laughter erupted out of her son: bright, bubbling, and contagious.

“What’re you gigglin’ about?” She punctuated the question with a teasing poke at his ribs.

Eddie pointed a trembling little finger at the scene, biting back his snicker enough for words to make it out. “His butt’s in his faaace!” He doubled over at his own joke, as if saying it out loud made it twice as funny.

Elizabeth shook her head with a soft smirk at her son—the comedian—whose laughter was sweeter than any song she’d ever heard. His cheeks were pink from it, dimpled and squishy like the dough under her rolling pin. Tempting enough to take a bite.

“What, like this?” She dove in, blowing raspberries against his chubby cheeks as he squirmed in her arms. His laughter erupted in squeals. “MmmooO—HAHA—mmmm!” Eddiesqueaked in a few gasps between laughs. It was a merciless onslaught; locked in a bear hug while fingers tickled his ribs. When Elizabeth was finally satisfied, she loosened her grip, pulling him into a hug with a soothing hand at his back to calm him down.

Sucking in deep, ragged breaths, his chin nestled into her shoulder, into her long, strawberry blonde hair. She’d styled it extra today; half-up in a clip with those swooping curtain bangs framing her face. It was rare she had anywhere to be but at home, but that wouldn’t stop her from feeling like Bridgette Bardot on Christmas Eve. Hairspray was her secret weapon. It was cheap and always on hand. With it, she could transform into whoever she wanted.

The scent of hairspray—of her—enveloped Eddie just like her arms. Warm like sheets freshly dried in the sun. More comforting than anything on Earth. Her hand rubbed loving circles into his green sweater while his own sticky fingers tangled into the oatmeal knit of hers. Finally Eddie let go, hands trailing the belt of her belled blue jeans as he steadied his stocking feet on the chair.

All calmed down, she nodded toward the cookie cutter. “Ok, go on and press it now.”

White plastic sunk into the dough, and Eddie beamed up at his mom with a smile that could outshine the moon, even with a few missing teeth.

“Good job! See it’s cold out there so they’ve gotta snuggle up real close to stay warm,” she said with a giggle, giving Eddie a side-squeeze. Before his hands could press another cookie, hers found the cuffs of his sleeves, rolling the flour and crumbs of dough caught in the knit up and away until they sat snugly below his elbows. “There you go, much better. Think you can handle it, big guy?” Elizabeth asked, turning back to her bowl of frosting on the counter.

“Okay Mommy,” he said, gripping the back of the chair for balance before finding the cookie cutter again. With careful precision, he hovered the snowman over the dough close enough to touch mittens with the one beside it before pressing down. “Good job!” He heard her coo, and that was all he needed.

It was good to see him like this, so preoccupied with the project in front of him that he hadn’t even glanced at the front door. He’d been watching it a lot lately. Even more as the days grew closer to the big one. Green blotches of food coloring stretched into trails beneath Elizabeth’s spatula as she blended the dye into the crisco and margarine mixture, tucking the metal bowl against her chest for leverage. When blended to a smooth, pale green, she set it beside the red and white ones. Sighing sharply, she glanced over her shoulder at the porch light shining through the glass. Still no shadow, no sound of heavy boots. Only the crooning of Ella Fitzgerald, swinging along with her band to “Sleigh Ride” in the living room.

“I goooot it!” Eddie chirped proudly, holding up a snowman by the hat in his small fist as its doughy body drooped towards the floor.

“Oh sweetie! Here, let’s get a pan.” Rushing to the oven, she snatched a well-loved baking sheet from atop the burners, pivoting to bring it under Eddie’s outstretched arm just in time. The dough hit the pan with a dull thud. The snowballs had stretched to droopy ovals, twice as long as all the others. Tiny grip marks dented the hat. Eddie—proud creator—beamed down upon its gooey form.

“Oh wow, he’s—he’s a very tall snowman now!” Elizabeth exclaimed, sealing her snicker behind her twitching pink lips. She set the pan down in front of her mixing bowls. “Here, let me show you a trick, watch this.” Coming up behind him, she reached around his shoulder to pinch a corner of the dough. With a slow, upward pull, it became lace, leaving only the snowmen scattered on the large wooden cutting board. “See, like magic!”

And it was. Magic to see those umber saucers filled with wonder, to see her own eyes reflected back. But it wasn’t long before his tiny hands grew eager again, grabbing at a doughy body. “Woah—woah,” she clasped his wrist and his clutch slowly released. “We’re gonna use a spatula this time ok? It’ll be safer that way.” For the snowmen.

The oven was already warm. It had been for an hour now, just warming up the kitchen. Cookies were a great excuse for that. Sometimes in the dead of winter, when cold crept in through the single pane windows, Elizabeth would light up the old Magic Chef and leave the thick, enamel door hanging open. It would warm the whole kitchen, living room too. Sometimes she and Eddie would pull up chairs, wrap themselves in blankets, and pretend like they were roasting marshmallows. Cranking the thermostat was too expensive, but they could afford a fantasy.

Snowman cookies went in the oven this time, and by the time they came out, Eddie had a whole batch of Christmas trees ready to go. Steam rose from the snowmen as they cooled on the rack, and Elizabeth rolled out the dough for the Santa ones next. Even in the warmer-than-usual kitchen, it didn’t take long before the snowmen were cool enough to frost.

Eddie was ready, holding the loaded butterknife tight in his grip. It descended with a plop on a snowman, and a haphazard jerking of the knife left it thick on the bottom and thin on the top. Eddie picked it up, poking out his tongue in concentration as he tried his best to spread it, but the pressure from the knife snapped the head clean off. It fell to the cutting board with a clatter of crumbs. “Noooo!” he wailed.

Elizabeth tossed her head back with a chuckle as sweet as molasses. “Some must be sacrificed,” she said with a wink, picking up the head. Gently, she took the butterknife out of his grip, grabbing a dollop of frosting from the bowl before giving it a generous smear. She handed it to Eddie. “Guess we’re gonna have to eat ‘im, huh?”

He didn’t waste a beat, stuffing it into his mouth in one eager bite. His crumb-dusted smile was enough to warm the whole house. Leaning against the counter with a soft chuckle, Elizabeth took a bite of the body. It was still a little warm, the dough flaking ever so slightly beneath the glob of sweet vanilla that her teeth left marks in. Grabbing her half-full coffee mug from beside a dirty mixing bowl, she chased it with a cold sip. “How ‘bout I frost and you decorate, big guy?”

Eddie was happy to do anything that involved sugar. Happy to lick it off his fingers, happy to bury his hands in the sprinkles—transferred to bowls for more accurate decorating after the plastic shakers left more on the tray than the cookies. Still, Eddie was more than generous, grabbing handfuls and releasing them in hills atop the frosting.

“Mommy you think Santa’s gonna see my list?” Santa and list were challenging words without front teeth, but he managed.

She paused as a sinking feeling crept into her stomach. Staring down at the long, half-frosted snowman in her hands—darker than the others and fragile due to its thinness—she took a deep breath before answering. “Yes baby, it’s right on the coffee table.”

Rainbow sprinkles clung to his fingers as he released another pile, leaving behind colored dots on his palms. “We’re gonna have to give him extra cookies so he brings everything.”

Twinging, she glanced at the door. “Baby, you know sometimes Santa and his elves get real busy and gotta make sure they have enough presents for everybody. Means he can only pick one or two things from each person’s list, you see.” Let alone a whole dang person.

Eddie frowned, gnawing his lip as he stared down at all his hard work. “But he’s magic.”

Elizabeth set down the cookie, folding her arms across her well-worn floral apron with a heavy sigh. “I know, baby.” But he don’t work miracles. Staring into the bowl of frosting, her mind drifted back to the bedroom closet where two wrapped gifts lay tucked away. On the shelf above the coat rack was a dwindling bundle of cash in a brown paper bag. It was all Al had left behind three months ago when he said he’d be gone only one. She’d made it stretch, but barely. Elizabeth Munson wasn’t going to let that dampen the occasion though. Not today, not ever. Brightening her eyes, she turned to face her son. “But you know what? Christmas is really ‘bout appreciating what you got already.”

Eddie looked down at the snowmen, at their white bellies full of rainbow sprinkles. A few sprinkles dropped from his sticky palms as his shoulders began to slump, but suddenly a finger lifted his chin; soft as a peach and blotted with green food coloring. Suddenly he was staring into his favorite set of eyes, warmer than Tennessee whiskey.

Elizabeth cupped his sweet face, rubbing her thumbs along the apples of his cheeks. “You know what I appreciate?”

“Wha-?” was all he could mumble from between her palms.

“You.” She planted a big kiss on his forehead.

Her smile was infectious, and before Eddie knew it, one was cracking across his face too—crooked and toothless. His sticky fingers found her wrists, lowering them softly to free his cheeks. He had something important to say. “I ‘preciate you too Mommy.”

Elizabeth Munson had a smile like the sun; radiant and warm even on the coldest days. Because when Elizabeth Munson was happy, the whole entire world was happy.

And Eddie was no exception.

______

A/N: I might have gone through half a box of tissues to bring you this.

I might do more little vignettes like this. I just love Elizabeth Munson so much and it was really fun to develop her character more and give her a sweet moment with her boy.

✨ If you enjoyed this, please let me know! Your feedback keeps me writing and sharing helps others find it too! ✨

📖 MASTERLIST 🖋️AO3 ☕️ KO-FI

#eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #elizabeth munson #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #flight of icarus #eddie and elizabeth

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