To Heal All Wounds

Eddie Munson vs His Fucking Anxiety

Stupid.

Hopeful something else within him supplied.

Eddie nearly choked on the bitter tang of the word.

The thing was, Billy wasn't stupid either. He couldn't have afforded to be. No one else at Hawkins High was able to put two and two together, but Eddie had been given enough soft tissue bruising by his own old man and had spent enough time posturing to know a battered kid when he saw one. And as a battered kid, Billy knew how to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. He knew when someone was feeding him bullshit lip service and when it was genuine. He knew better than to accept anything at face value and he knew that he had to analyze everything to absolute death before he made any moves or choices. That was how kids like them survived.

Maybe that was why Eddie trusted him as a source. Because Billy had eyes. Gorgeous eyes. Sharp eyes. If Steve was feeding him lines, Hargrove would know it.

But he'd forgotten to factor in the changes that he'd seen in Billy since he'd been back. He was different now. He was... softer. Still scared as hell, but slower to fight than Eddie had ever seen him. Maybe he'd gotten soft, his sharp edges dulled to something less threatening. Maybe he'd come back from a place where he'd never been sharpened at all. And maybe all that softness had made room for Billy to let himself be hopeful too. Maybe he was hopeful because Billy had been such a lonely boy, even surrounded as he was by lackeys and admirers. Hopeful because when Billy thought no one else was watching, Eddie was, and he would watch the other boy put down that heavy stone mask and Eddie could see how lonely he was.

And he was still lonely. That didn't just magically go away the same way things like scars and broken bones seemed to have vanished. It was just that Billy used to crumple all that loneliness into a ball and overhand chucked it around like a rock through a window. He used to smear it all over himself like warpaint and rub it in the eyes of anyone who got too close. But this time around he wasn't doing that. He was holding all that loneliness in the palm of his hand and just... staring at it. And then, when Billy slunk over to Wayne's trailer after work, lukewarm coffee in his hand, and flopped down on Eddie's couch or his bed or the floor next to him he would hold out that open palm for Eddie to see. And he'd let Eddie push that tangle of feelings around in his palm, let him poke at it and turn it over without question. Without hesitation. Like he was coming to Eddie and asking what do you make of all this? And when Eddie could only shrug because he had a very similar tangled mess in the palm of his own hand, Billy just... just shrugged back like alright then and went back to his investigations.

So, maybe Billy really did believe himself when he said that Steve kept meeting him pass for pass. Word for word. Touch for touch. Maybe he had believed himself when he said that Steve gave just as good as he got. And boy, had Eddie reveled in Hargrove's descriptions of Steve's generosity. Of course, Billy would believe that Steve was just as taken with him as he was with Steve. That was what hope did. It made people into believers, even when every survival instinct was screaming at them to run. And of course, Eddie took everything Billy was saying at face value, even though he knew better. There was that same bubble of hope living inside Eddie's chest as there was in Billy's. Hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a way to untangle that horrible mess that they both carried around.

And Eddie you won't believe this, but because my hands were so covered in grease from the shop, Steve took that little chunk of muffin and put it on my tongue himself. I honestly didn't think he'd do it but... god damn.

Eddie could feel his ears heating up as he remembered that morning again. Remembered touching Steve's chest again. Remembered rolling against his hips.