Summary: To Eddie, His Birthday Had Never Been Something Out Of The Ordinary. Until The Big 4-0, When

Summary: To Eddie, his birthday had never been something out of the ordinary. Until the big 4-0, when a little heart-related incident lands him in the hospital, where he receives an unlikely birthday gift in the form of his high school crush being his nurse. / This is my entry to @corrodedcoffinfest's pop-up birthday boy event! Prompts: Age 40; “Seriously? Age is just a number.” | Word Count: 3k | Rating: General audiences | POV: Eddie | Relationships: Eddie Munson x reader/female!reader | CW: Eddie is hospitalized but there’s nothing tragic or graphic going on, it’s described that he has a heart condition, 40 year old!Eddie, nurse!reader, she/her pronouns used to describe the reader, reader is in her late thirties, friends to lovers, mutual pining, sorta meet-cute, meeting again after high school, mentions of Eddie drinking and doing drugs, mentions of his childhood. / HUGE HUGE shoutout to @eddiemunson-reader-shame for beta-reading, an actual lifesaver!!!

“Age?” 

Eddie is barely lucid. His sight is still a white, blurry blob that makes his eyes sting. Lighting in hospitals has always been dreadful to him; way too fucking bright if you ask him – making him feel like he’s in that one scene from Jacob’s Ladder. Now that was a good movie, he thinks. Good one to watch when you’re high; sorta like how he’s feeling at the moment. The doctors must have hooked him up real good. 

This train of thought makes him realize he’s slowly returning to earth, little by little, though he has to squint and loll his head to the side trying to follow the distant sound of a nurse with a pretty voice trying to poke him for info. 

That soft, melodic murmur is soothing the erratic beating of his heart. Earlier the pain felt as if he’d had an iron fist twisting up his heart again and again until he couldn’t breathe. Although the paramedics in the ambulance assured him that his vitals were fine upon their arrival, he swears that if they had taken a second longer, he might have been walking up those steps that Led Zeppelin was talking about. If he was lucky, that is – ‘cause, boy, he’d be pretty bummed if he was sent over to AC/DC’s highway. 

It no longer feels as though his heart has turned to stone, but it still aches when his chest rises and falls with every strained breath; his voice is barely above a whisper as he rasps, “Come again?” 

“Your age, Eddie…” 

The faintest smile tugs at the corner of his lips. 

“The big 4-0, baby,” he croaks; the irony of the situation makes him shake his head with amusement. 

“Turned 40 today and my body decided to give me a little surprise…” 

It was just another day. It was supposed to be just another day. 

Ever since Eddie was a boy, he had never felt like his birthday was something out of the ordinary – never thought it to be special at all. His father certainly never cared, and his childhood is so cloudy from the early years of abuse that he barely remembers how his mother celebrated with him. There was always a homemade cake that was never really as sweet as he would’ve liked. No presents. Only a photograph survives, faded with time, of his mother embracing him from behind while he blows on his three birthday candles; a crooked, iridescent party hat sitting amongst wild curls, with the tip of it poking his mother’s eye and making her laugh.  

Birthdays with Wayne were infinitely better, but he still didn’t think much of the date until Wayne reminded him either during breakfast or on those special occasions when he’d pick him up from school. He’d ask Eddie about what he wanted, and Eddie always replied in the same way: I don’t care for my birthday, I just wanna spend some time with you. Wayne delivered each time. Although he made an effort to have presents despite Eddie’s insistence  – just one – each more meaningful than the last, every year. He knew Wayne slaved away at work for months in advance to be able to afford them, but truly, Eddie was just grateful for his uncle to be there. The cake was still homemade, straight from a box, but a little bit sweeter. Or maybe it just tasted better accompanied by a beer. 

Perhaps it was those little indulgences that started far too early in his teens that brought him here – the drinks and drugs passing his body the bill after all these years. 

“You oughta be careful, son. Your body is keeping up the score,” Wayne would say. 

And it’s not that Eddie was an alcoholic or an addict, not in the least. He swore to himself that he would never ever be like his deadbeat dad, even when he saw more traces of Al Munson each time he looked in the mirror as he got older. Especially now that his curls only grew above his shoulders, sprinkled in with those few pesky little silver hairs.

But he never abused like his dad did. If he had an extra beer bottle on nights he worked late at The Hideout, it was just to numb his aching muscles. If he finished a whole pack of cigarettes by noon it was to ease his anxiety whenever he was contacted for drugs, hoping it wasn’t a set-up by a cop. If he stole some samples from Rick’s stash, it was just to try out the goods, to be a good salesman, know what kind of product he was working with… Sometimes it was just a little hit to drown out the echoes of his mother’s cries that still haunted him from time to time. 

Those habits eased when he was finally able to get out of Hawkins, shoot toward the other end of the country, and land himself a job as a radio host at Rock 105.3 in San Diego. The joyous laughter of his co-workers was a far better dose against those haunting cries swirling through his memories. He could say he was happy now, but his birthday remained just another day.  

Except for his big forty, it seems. He can’t help but chuckle weakly to himself. Wayne was right about the body-keeping-score thing and all that. 

He was going over the set for tomorrow’s Sunday program when, out of nowhere, he started to feel dizzy and short of breath. The cd’s in his hands fell with a loud clank that got the attention of his co-workers rushing just in time to catch him doubled over his desk, face contorted in pain as he gasped for air while desperately pointing to his heart. 

The paramedics quickly stabilized him; he was doing better in the ambulance, and the episode didn’t last as long as he had thought, but it had been terrifying. Spending his fortieth birthday at the hospital was not on his bingo card this year. 

“...Seriously?” the mellow voice of the nurse pulls him away from his reveries. They really must be giving him the good stuff through that goddamn IV. 

“Thought you were supposed to be eternally eighteen.” 

His eyesight is still a bit fucked up but he can hear the smile on his nurse’s voice, which makes his chest feel a little bit fuzzy – and not in the annoying way it had felt earlier before his incident. He blinks a few times to be able to properly look at the nurse with the pretty voice. 

“Well they say age is just a number don’t they?” 

“That, they do…” 

He smirks, feeling some of his charm coming back to him when he notices how pretty his nurse is. So, so pretty it makes him feel a little mesmerized – it’s either that or the haze from the meds. 

“– Wait, what d’ya mean by that? Eternally eighteen?” 

“You don’t recognize me?” 

He frowns and blinks even faster to will his eyesight to goddamn work – he shouldn’t keep putting off that overdue visit to the ophthalmologist, resisting the fact that he needs glasses now. 

“I was a senior at Hawkins High in ‘86.” 

Eddie tilts his head; his grin widens when he spots an Iron Maiden pin on her pale pink scrubs, and when his pretty nurse smiles coyly, that’s when the lightbulb goes off in his brain.

“Wait, wait, wait…I do remember!” he snaps his fingers excitedly. 

Visions of a mysterious girl– sitting all alone on the other side of the cafeteria– flood through his memories all at once. Always alone, with a chunky pair of headphones tuning out the world. Either reading the latest issue of Fangoria magazine or drawing. A strange, alluring halo always seemed to surround her, or so Eddie always thought when he gazed at her shape, bathed by the sunlight filtering in from the cafeteria windows.

One of his biggest regrets is that he never got the balls to approach her. He has never, ever been all that smooth, but he didn’t think himself shy when approaching someone he was interested in. She was the exception. It could have been so easy though, his opening was right there, in the form of the band pins and patches that adorned her backpack, similar to the ones on his battle vest. 

She was intimidating. Yeah, she was a solitary figure, but she seemed to have it all going on: good grades, hanging out with Nancy Wheeler, writing the art columns for the school newspaper… It was probably the only bit of it that Eddie ever read. Her articles were always so eloquently written and intriguing – they’re the reason he searched high and low for a copy of Eraserhead to watch. It makes him more than a little giddy for their paths to cross after all this time, but he’s sorta sad to see her here. 

“Weren’t you all geared up for like – a fancy art school or somethin’?” 

“Being a nurse isn’t fancy?” She giggles softly but tries to downplay her smile by looking down at Eddie’s incomplete file. 

“M’not saying that, it’s just…” He licks his chapped lips, aching for some hydration. Maybe he could play up his illness to get her to give him a sip of water like some bratty king. His heart bailing on him today might just have worked in his favor – a birthday gift in disguise. 

He clears his throat and shakes those mischievous thoughts away, gaze locked on hers.

“I do remember you. My brain had all the lost sheepies in Hawkins mapped out as potential recruits. But you struck me as too fancy to be playing DnD with us nerds,” he chuckles. “You were a Nancy Wheeler-type a nerd.” 

“Well…art school was my goal, yeah…” She uses Eddie’s file as a lifeboat again, but this time, a flash of melancholy passes through her bright eyes. She might be quite schooled in shielding herself, as Eddie recalls from his high school days of pining for her from a distance, but if there’s one thing he’s always been good at is his x-ray vision when it comes to invisible shields. He had enough experience building his own. 

 “But then I guess life just happened,” she shrugs, quickly changing the subject to avoid revealing more. 

She takes a moment, accidentally creating a little dog ear in the corner of Eddie’s file while fiddling with the paper, before smiling.

“But hey! You’re doing well, huh? –  generally, I mean, not, you know…” She laughs and rolls her eyes at herself, gesturing over at Eddie lying down on the hospital bed, to which he snorts and lets out a hearty laugh. He rests his palm atop his chest because it aches a bit, but he doesn’t mind. 

“I listen to the show every morning when I’m getting ready for work.” 

“Yeah? You like it?” He sits up, grinning from ear to ear. The constant beeping of the monitor charts his heartbeat, accelerating just the tiniest bit because of his eagerness. 

“I love it! It’s the highlight of my mornings!” Whatever she was going to say gets abruptly interrupted by the doctor stepping in. She steps to the side, quickly going back to finishing Eddie’s file. 

“ – Edward Munson?” 

Eddie groans at the use of his full name – one of the many reminders that he’s an old man now, even if he maintains that age is just a number. He might have more pronounced crow’s feet on the corners of his eyes and his tattoos need an urgent refresh to keep them from disappearing into his skin, but, his pretty nurse might have been onto something. He still feels eighteen years old. 

Maybe not literally though. So his doctor says, from the few bits and pieces that catch his attention. He’s mostly tuning out the man’s voice, far too distracted with the sight of his long-lost crush handling tools and equipment in the corner of the room before stepping out into the hallway. 

To his relief, Eddie’s condition is not dire; he was instructed to follow-up with a cardiologist, but he’ll be fine as long as he rests and drinks plenty of fluids. They’re just keeping him in for a little while longer as a precaution, but if the heart rate monitor doesn’t present any more irregularities, he’ll be good to go. 

The doctor had already turned off the light and disappeared before Eddie could even protest it. It was his birthday, damnit. Sure, he didn’t care for it, but he didn’t want to spend it stuck in this hell-hole either.

If there was one thing he loathed more than the blinding white hospital light, it was being left there to rest in the sullen, darkened room. 

Among the shadows, his mind could easily whirl around thoughts that were rather left untouched, like the empty memories of his mother’s embrace on his third birthday. Flashes of his father in and out of his life. The scent of cigarette smoke, clinging to the worn cotton of his uncle Wayne’s uniform, filing his nose each time he hugged him with gratitude for taking the time to be with him each year; how he misses his uncle now that he’s playing at being an adult here in California. Sometimes he thinks that deep inside, he’ll always be that three year old with a crooked birthday hat. Yearning to be cared for, to feel special, if only for one day. 

Thankfully his thoughts halt when his pretty nurse comes into the room, holding a plate with a tiny dome of Jell-O and a lit birthday candle atop it. 

“So, you can’t have any cake right now, doctor’s orders. But I thought this would do.” 

“Awww, you didn’t have to!” He’s got a huge ass grin on his face as he scoots a little to the side so she can sit on the edge of his bed. “I’m not that big on birthdays.” 

“Well, I am. I love birthdays. Make a wish!” 

Eddie leans in when she holds the Jell-O close to his face, grinning so hard that he can’t even properly blow on his candles, only managing after a couple of tries. 

“I wished for a date with a hot nurse I just met,” he wiggles his eyebrows playfully. Not his smoothest line, but what the hell. What’s he got left to lose? Besides, it seemed to work wonders when she laughed and tenderly squeezed his hand. 

“You’re not supposed to say it aloud!” 

“What? The wish? Or the hot nurse bit? Cause it’s true!” 

“You know which bit.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head; her hand nearly slips away from Eddie’s but he quickly squeezes it more snuggly, keeping her hand in his grip. “I’m so sorry but your wish won’t come true now.” 

“Who says? I might have just turned forty, but a little birdie told me I still maintain my boyish charm.” 

His nurse laughs and looks at their joint hands in a bashful manner, not letting go either.

Eddie’s mentally kicking himself for having let the opportunity to talk to her escape him when they were in high school, now that he realizes that it’s so easy. It feels as though they’d always been friends, and he can’t help but ponder over the whole ‘past lives’ shit he’s read about in some novels. 

“I like your pin…I’ve been waiting like twenty years to say that.” He murmurs, his eyes focusing on her age-worn pin with Iron Maiden’s mascot all wrapped up as a mummy – the one from the Powerslave album. 

“You have?” 

“Yeah…” He leans his head, seeking out her coy, downward gaze. “I always wanted to talk to you in high school, but never had the balls to do so.” 

“Better late than never, huh? What were the odds of us meeting again like this?” 

Eddie nods with a little snort, cause it’s like she read his mind for real. Like past lives, he’s telling ya. 

“Whattaya say, when I get out of here, d’ya wanna maybe go out for a drink or something? I wanna know all about how life got in the way of your fancy art dreams.” 

“Patients with arrhythmia aren’t supposed to be drinking alcohol.” She’s beaming with a little impish twinkle in her eye that reveals more than what she lets on. 

“Coffee, maybe?” 

“Much less caffeine!” she emphasizes with another tender squeeze of his palm. “But I can come by and make you some tea? It’s nothing extraordinary, but…” 

“I’ve never wanted extraordinary for a birthday. To be honest, I’ve only ever wanted good company.” 

“Well, I think it’s been pretty extraordinary to me…” Her gaze is unwavering now, as if she wants to reassure him that he’s special, someone worth celebrating. “I reunited with my high school crush on it, after all.”  

She’s gonna make his heart go haywire again, holy shit. 

"If you do that again, they're gonna keep me here forever..."

The heart monitor starts to beep a little more rapidly again, making the both of them laugh and smile so hard that Eddie’s cheeks hurt most delightfully.

And at the end of the day, his pretty nurse might have been right after all – this turned out to be pretty goddamn extraordinary. Especially when she leans in to give him a tender kiss on his forehead to calm down his heartbeat, only for it to have the opposite effect. 

For the first time in forty years, and from there on out, his birthday was never just another regular day for him.

dividers by the lovely @strangergraphics