Eddie Munson - A Collection of One-Shots!

001. There really is no place like Home.

And so I'd paid him back with interest and he'd had an unfortunate 3 day hospital stay.

Me? I'd been charged with assault and sentenced to 8 weeks in county jail. And now here I was, under strict instructions to report to the release address on my file, which was my mothers residence in Hawkins.

In fucking Hawkins.

The assault would be on my record for the next 12 months as I suspected that the judge hadn't wanted to give me much more, considering it was self defence. But I had to remember that in her eyes, I'd taken the law into my own hands.

I wasn't denying it, I knew that I had; I had wanted him to know that there was not going to be a second time. There would never be another time.

And now I was technically a criminal.
Something I was having a hard time accepting.
Something that still felt like an injustice.

A domestic, mental and verbal abuse victim, labelled a criminal. It was unfair but that was the proverbial neon sign that I now carried on my back, everywhere I went.

And in this small town, word sure travelled fast.
The whispers followed closely behind, the stares not long after.

Vecna had nearly destroyed us as a human race but that was suddenly old news. I was the fresh news, and that was buzzing excitement in some people's lives.

Whilst I attempted to rebuild the shattered pieces of my own.

I had hoped for a lot more than I had presently, and it felt almost unfair that this was what I was left with, when I had simply defended myself and delivered a message to my partner of 4 years that under no circumstance was he ever going to lay a finger or fist on me again.

Had he deserved it? Absolutely.
Had I deserved it? That was proving to be more inconclusive the longer I thought about it.

And as I stood outside of my mothers home, with a single brown box in my arms, I sighed loudly.

The box contained everything on my person before I went to jail.

Everything else was still back at my old house, where I wasn't allowed to go.

Maybe the then 20 year old Eddie would have liked this version of me. He'd always called me badass, would he say the same thing now if he knew?

Eddie wasn't a bad person, he'd just had a bad life.
People had been afraid of him, and blamed him for the deaths.
At the end, he'd been exonerated and I'd been there to witness an innocent young man get the justice he deserved.

I wasn't getting the justice I felt I deserved though, and maybe I never would.

Either way, I was here. Back in my hometown and already hating it. I stared down into the box again with my sparse belongings and sighed with frustration.

"What the fuck am I doing back here?" I asked myself.

"I have an idea, jailbird...."

I smiled to myself as my mother sat on her veranda, on the porch swing beaming at me.

"You must be so proud." I said, jokingly as she raised an eyebrow.

"You know something kiddo, I actually am. He put his hands on you and you put him down on his ass, good style. I'm very proud of you. Is that all you have?" She asked me.

"It is. I can't get anything else, I'm not allowed near the house." I said.

"Good thing I went out earlier and got everything you'd need. I didn't get clothes, but I've enough money put aside for you to go and pick yourself some." My mother said.