Through A Glass Darkly | Eddie Munson x Reader

Chapter Thirteen

They paused their conversation as Gareth hurtled down the stairs to Jeff's basement. At the top, Jeff's mother closed the door after him. He whipped a folded sheet of copy paper from his back pocket and popped it open.

"Guys, check out this shit," he said, and slapped the paper on the coffee table next to the open bag of potato chips.

Eddie leaned in from his gargoyled position in the corner armchair while Jeff and Dougie bent to read the paper from the couch.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS headed the flyer. An angled Flying V guitar silhouette underlined it.

Dougie said, "We've done that before."

"Before I joined," said Gareth.

"In Gary," Jeff said as he reclined. "That was an expensive weekend, and-" He threw a hand up. "We lost."

Eddie continued reading. The competition was set for mid-April in Indianapolis. Rock and metal bands preferred. At least two band members had to be eighteen or older. That was no issue, since he was nineteen and Jeff turned eighteen next month. Grand prize was $3000 cash and professional studio time to record a demo.

Just reading about the grand prize made him want to leap out of the armchair and do laps around the basement. They could give the judges horror, blood, obsession, and sex. God, so much sex now. The original songs he was writing were full of that dark, heady cadence.

He tuned into the conversation to hear Gareth proclaim his drum prowess. He was good, that was true. He was better than their previous drummer, Rich, who'd ditched them for Purdue. Rich had kept a steady beat, but had no pizzazz.

Despite wanting to, he couldn't blame everything on Rich.

They'd had no stage presence in Gary, nothing to call their own. They'd worn other bands' t-shirts and dirty sneakers. The only original song they'd had was a complete ripoff of Dio's "Evil Eyes."

Looking back, it was no surprise they'd lost.

"Dude," Jeff said. "We need to practice more if we're doing this."

Eddie said, "And I need to finish some songs."

Dougie groaned around a potato chip. "Those songs about your girlfriend?"

Jeff rummaged in the potato-chip bag as Eddie asked:

"What's wrong with that?"

"We all agree your girl is hot," said Gareth. "But come on, your new stuff sounds nothing like us."

"And what, pray tell, do we sound like?" he asked.

"Like..." Gareth waved his arms around. "Like metal, man!"

He squinted at Gareth.

"That's what I'm writing."

"No, you're writing something else. It's all... moody."

"It's still dark," Jeff said.

Dougie added, "But it's not thrashing."

Eddie sighed and said, "Not every song we put out should go like a bat out of hell."

"But they shouldn't all be about witches in the night," Gareth said.

"Fine, but 'Ride the Night' can't change."

"I like that one," said Jeff.

Gareth said, "'Sabbath Smoke' needs major rewrites."

Eddie glowered around the room. He liked where that one was going. It was dark in a different way than "Ride the Night." It was still about you, but not so overtly sexual. He hadn't thought the rest of the band noticed his latest attempts centered around you.