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[satanicpanics]

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[thoughts]

[ whatever else they may feel about what did or didn't happen, at least she can agree that she's glad they have this now too. a piece of the dream, a good one; something river built that eddie made better just by being himself.

it's whys he sought him out on this sleepless night in the saferoom. she welcomes the segue into better things and sits up, immediately intrigued. ]

Your electric guitar? Is it for Goat Destroyers or the classics?

[ all of his favorite songs are six hundred year old classics by now, y'know. ]

[satanicpanics]

Classics? River, I am a modern man.

[ His eyes are enormous as he clutches his hand to his chest and pretends to look deeply offended…but he has to admit that the Back to the Future metaphor he used to explain the Henry situation to Steve kind of goes both ways. Eddie hasn’t met a whole lot of other people from the mid-80s here. Most are either from significantly further in the past or significantly further in the future—in which his beloved Metallica are both apparently classics and sell-outs, a fact, by the way, that he is very conflicted about.

He’s never asked where or when River is from. He’s never thought to do so. It’s such an easy assumption for him to make by this point and he tends to just roll with it. So he rolls his eyes dramatically and grins as he relents: ]

Okay, yeah, maybe they’re classics.

[ Nothing wrong with that, really. ]

I don’t really have anything new for the band right now, but I’ll probably get Nanaue to help me out when I actually get the time to, you know, relax enough to work something out. I mean…he couldn’t even keep a beat a few months ago and now he’s a regular John Bonham.

[ Which brings them right back to the “does it count or doesn’t it?” question of that 800 years. Because Nanaue has actual skill now, and songs that Eddie struggled with before are suddenly a breeze. Like he’s had a very long time to practice. He almost wishes he were back home, just so he could finally nab that record deal.

But it doesn’t matter right now. He’s clearly excited by the prospect of playing because he doesn’t wait for River to confirm that she even wants to hear him play. He focuses his racing mind for all of two seconds, and he beams as a red and black electric appears right in his hands. ]

Now, she’s not the real deal, but she works well enough to get the job done. What do you say? Wanna hear a classic?

[thoughts]

[ river can't help but smile at eddie's usual theatrics. over the course of that false lifetime, he never changed much. his powers grew and his memories faded the same as everyone else, but he never lost his penchant for loud music and terrible jokes and all the other things that quintessentially define eddie munson. so it's not like it's been a long time since she last saw his goofy expressions or heard one of his niche pop culture references. 

but it feels like it's been a thousand years since she could properly appreciate them. eddie might not have changed much but river did, and she knows how much losing his friends like that hurt him.

it's why she built this place as her domain, why they're here now, why she thought of him when she needed to escape the fear and anxiety that's brewing deep beneath castle thorne.

it's why she eagerly turns to face him as he summons his guitar too, happy to see his enthusiasm to share something that is so important to him - relieved to know that he still wants to share it, that whatever happened in the dream didn't ruin their friendship that is so important to her. he needs no invitation; she will always be happy to hear him play. ]

Many artists are credited with their finest works during times of strife or inner turmoil. I'll be there when you go on tour again.

[ unlike the way she supported them from afar for hundreds of years. either way, she's still goat destroyer's number one fan! river folds her feet beneath her and gives eddie her full attention with a smile. ]

Ready when you are, maestro.

[ y'know, purveyor of fine classical music! ]

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie’s theatrics honestly only got more intense in that false lifetime. He’d really stopped holding himself back and brought every single one of his already-thin walls down, and there was something kind of nice and freeing about that, sort of like being a wild, rambunctious kid again. But at the same time, it is sort of exhausting for a normal, mortal Eddie to be turned up to eleven at all times. It’s true that he thrives on loud music and chaos, but he thrives equally as much in quieter moments like this.

Which is why he doesn’t choose a loud, wild song for River. Despite everything going on in the real world, he’s enjoying just…being, just existing beside the falls with someone he cares about and considers to be a good friend. ]

You better be. It would be sort of embarrassing if Goat Destroyer can’t draw in their biggest fan, so, uh…I will be holding you to that.

[ He puts on his most serious look, but fails to hold it and breaks out into a grin. He truly missed her so much in that span of false time, it still sort of aches as much as it would if it was real. And he would say he isn’t expecting any real strife or inner turmoil anytime soon but…yeah, he’s been dealing with a level of that since they got back to their real lives. But he doesn’t need to address that right now, not when he’s playing someone else’s song. So he takes a few moments to puts on a big show of pretending to agonize over which song to choose, despite already knowing exactly what he wants to play.

When he begins, it’s with a somewhat surreal tune, and sure, it’s probably technically about drugs, but it has a killer solo halfway through and he thinks River is probably just the right type of person to appreciate the bizarre picture being painted by the lyrics. And with lyrics like "asked us if we were happy, we said we don’t know" and "we thought we were lost but no matter how we tried, everyone was in peace of mind", Eddie may just be viewing it as an interesting reflection of what they recently went through.

When he closes out, he grins like a jackal and still manages to dip into a deep bow, despite being seated this entire time. ]

What says my captive audience?