"W-wait, Eddie are you-."
Eddie turned around sharply, his hair flipping into his face from the force of his turn, and stalked back over to Joan fiercely. Joan tried to step away, but there was a stupid wall keeping her from escaping the inexplicable wraith of Eddie Munson.
"Are you here to buy stuff?" His voice was soft, but it provided a false sense of security because what was underneath the soft tone was dangerous.
"I-I mean, yeah." Joan stuttered out looking anywhere but the angry dark eyes in front of her. Why would she come to the mall if it wasn't to go shopping? She guessed she could have came just to hang out, but even then she would have bought food or at least ice cream to laugh at Steve again. "I came here didn't I?"
The DM nodded his head, looking away and licking his lips in thought. He didn't look at her, instead find some crack in the wall particularly interesting. "What are you looking for then?"
Lots of things, Joan supposed, trying to figure out just one maybe two things so she didn't sound like a material girl. Well, good denim for one and graphic t-shirts that didn't look straight out of the 80s.
Which was, to be fair, rather difficult to find.
"S-some good stuff, I suppose." Joan settled on eventually, cringing in on herself at how lame that sounded. What happened to her naturally talkative-self, her crazy attitude and inability to be still?! Joan frowned, a new question to be answered in this already inexplicable experience. "Quality. Not too expensive, not too cheap. Something that will last for a while."
"Do you have cash?"
Oh, did he need to break a bill or something?
"I-I don't have a lot of ones, but I have a twenty and I think about three fives." Joan said honestly, reaching into her purse to check her wallet and to count out her money. "How much?"
Eddie grabbed the wallet from the girls hand and Joan frowned, trying to grab it back but only watched as the increasingly-more annoying teen rifled through her cash and pulled out a few bills.
"I can do...this."
"O-oh okay." In retrospect, that really should have been the moment everything clicked together that no she was not helping out Eddie Munson break a bigger bill, but Joan never claimed to be good at social cues. It's why she was the captain of the fucking DnD club for god-sake.
Eddie grabbed Joan's purse and shoved her wallet back in it almost like he had a vendetta against the wretched thing, before grabbing Joan's wrist and making her open her hand up wide. She didn't even realize what was going on when instead of a bill Eddie dropped a small baggie in her hand and stepped back briskly.
Here is what you need to know about Joan Destiny Henderson.
She dressed in dark clothes and had a few piercings, listened to modern day Rock, Punk, and Metal, and a little bit of country - she actually listened to everything, she didn't care - and acted like a rebel, but in reality Joan Henderson was the goodest girl in possibly the entire school.
Joan loved her parents, always the daddy's girl, and got great grades. Sure, she was a little depressed, but she had loving friends and family. She never skipped class, snuck out, or even got a little tipsy. In fact, her uncle Steve had asked her what was wrong with her last New Years because she said no to champagne.
So with this knowledge in mind, you must understand that Joan had never done - much less seen - drugs of any kind besides the prescription type before this moment.
She inspected the small green - leaves?- in the bag in front of her closely, eyes furrowed as she tried to make out what she had in her fingers. "Uh, what is it?"
"About an ounce."
"Ah, okay." Joan nodded as if that answered her question before rolling her eyes and looking over at Eddie Munson playing with his rings. "I didn't mean the weight, dingus. I meant what the hell is the green stuff."
Eddie Munson paused his hands and looked back at the girl with narrowed eyes. "What do you mean what the hell is the green stuff? It's what you asked for, what you wanted."
It was almost tragic to watch the gears struggle to turn in her brain before the shock settled in and Joan's eyes went from the bag to Eddie, back to the bag, then back to Eddie before settling on Eddie and holding up her now shaking bag of green stuff.
"Is this fucking weed?!"
This was when both parties realized they had messed up and Eddie's mean demeanor turned to one of awkward panic, eyes wide and fidgety as he dug his hands in his pockets to grab the cash out.
"Y-you didn't come to buy drugs."
"N-no." Joan squeaked out with red cheeks and unsure what to do with it. "Oh sweet Jesus I'm going to jail."
Eddie paused his search for the cash - why did he have so many pockets?! - and looked at the girl incredulously. "Are you a narc or something?!"
"A what?!"
"Not a narc then." Eddie seemed to mumble to himself, fingers playing with his hair with narrowed eyes, before pointing at the girl and making her flinch. "What did you think we were talking about?"
"I don't know, shopping! I-I thought you needed to break a bill or something!"
"So you just let me take what I wanted from your wallet?!" Eddie asked with disbelief and a teensy bit of concern in his voice. He turned around and walked a few feet, shaking his body out, before stalking back over and throwing his hands up almost comically. "Who lets strangers just take money out of their wallet?!"
"S-shit, I guess I do." Joan spluttered out before her eyes went back to the bag once again and her eyes widened. She took a step forward and grabbed onto Eddie's jacket, pulling him towards her with a woah! and stuffing the bag in his pocket. "Y-you can have that, keep the change, holy shit, just don't tell anyone I had weed!"
Joan started to walk away, but was tugged back towards Eddie by her wrist and she squeaked again! He was going to kill her now wasn't he?! Oh god it all makes sense now!
Her dad's mentor, her hero, and Hellfire legend Eddie Munson was the reason no one talked about Joan Agatha Henderson because Eddie Munson killed her for knowing too much and Eddie ran away to hide from the truth.
His hands were on her and he grunted, "H-hold still-!"
Joan to say the least, did not stay still to be the starring act in the murder of Joan Agatha Henderson. Instead a shriek of fear left her lips and he still did not let her wrist go.
"S-shit! J-just stop moving for five seconds!"
"P-please don't kill me, I promise I won't say anything. I didn't see anything o-or have a bag of weed in my hand or my a transaction w-with you, I swear! Just oh my god, please don't kill me!"
Joan covered her face and there was a small jingle from around her wrist as she froze up in fear before the tugging ceased, and her wrist was bare from her bracelet. Slowly, Joan opened one eye to watch Eddie intently weave his jacket's zipper from her bracelet, his tongue stuck out of lips in heavy concentration.
O-oh.
It only took a second before Eddie raised the bracelet away from his jacket with eyes bright in victory and a blinding grin. "A-ha!" Perhaps he forgot that he was angry with her, but the grin remained on Eddie's face even when he turned back towards Joan and presented the jewelry over to her. "M'lady."
She blinked for a moment, still frozen but this time in humiliation at just how badly she freaked out and then accused Eddie of trying to murder her. Eddie rolled his eyes at the lack of movement and for the second time that night grabbed her wrist, but this time hooked the circular metal back on its original spot.
"There." Eddie grinned, holding onto her wrist with both hands and shaking her arm to help loosen her up. Joan had to fight back the laughter the tried to escape her lips as her body started to move along with Eddie and smile bashfully over at him. "Like nothing ever happen-!"
"Hey, let go of her you freak!"
His grin and happiness dropped just as fast as his hands did from her hand, taking a step back in shock. Joan watched as his once mirthful eyes - the eyes from all of the photos - turned into ones of distrust, pain, and anger.
"W-wait hold on-!" Joan tried to reach out and stop anyone from what was going down, but the scene was the definition of chaos as Eddie spun around on his heel and faced the cheerleaders and basketball players. "It's not-!"
"Step away from, Joan, freak." Jason snapped out, stepping forward like he was the hero of a movie and the boys followed him. Eddie rolled his eyes and made a big show of taking a giant hop away from the brunette, a big fake smile on his face as he used his arms and hands to gesture to himself like a carny.
"Is that big enough of, for ya, Jasoroni?" Eddie's smile turned into a dead frown as he stalked away and hit his shoulder against the basketball players own. Without another word, Eddie Munson left the premise with his hands in his pockets and did not look back.
"Oh my God, Joan, are you, like, okay?!" Heather asked quickly, her hands grabbing Joan's cheeks and then her arms to look her friend over. Joan shut her eyes and shook her head, a pounding starting to form between her temples as what just happened just started to process. "Did he... did he hurt you?"
"What? No!" Joan insisted, rubbing her forehead with the palms of her hands. "I-I just, I don't, he grabbed me and-."
"I'm so going to make that trailer trash freak pay for touching you." Jason snapped out and pointed over at the direction that Eddie had just walked away in. "That waste of space is a danger to our society."
"I-it's fine Jason." Joan stuttered out with a shake of her head and allowed Chrissy and Heather grab each of her arms on either side in concern. "Let's just go do something else, okay? Forget about everything."
And somehow that worked.
The details shed later was that Chrissy had gone to a different bathroom and when she came back without Joan, the girls got worried. At some point Jason and the other boys had just been hanging out on their own and joined the group, but the shriek interrupted the union and sent the boys on a war path.
A lot had happened in that day, Joan thought quietly to herself that night. When she looked down at the sleep Heather beside her sighed.
The girls were not who she thought they were, but there was something so addictive with fitting in with the popular crowd for once. She didn't have to actively bully someone and as long as she wasn't calling people names, or pushing nerds down in the hallways, or sending a spitball at someone's head... she was good, right?
And maybe her dad was wrong about this Eddie Munson or the world just didn't know who he really was.
The guy walked around with drugs in his pockets and sold them to teenagers without a care in the world! The only kind of person who would do such a thing obviously would be the bad guy in the story, so Joan honestly felt relieved Jason chased Eddie Munson away.
Who knows what could have happened to her if he hadn't have come to her rescue!
Yes, Joan decided that night next to her best friend that Chrissy, Nicole, Burnett, and Stephanie were the best friends she could have - they looked out for her! - and that the legend Eddie Munson was not what he seemed.
So why couldn't she sleep that night?