How do you explain the unexplainable?
Chief Powell looked at Anthony Carter as he floated off the ground. It happened right before his and half the Hawkins' station eyes. A couple of feet separated him from a scene which should have stayed on magician stages, where strings were an option and the horrifying tales of a deranged kid weren't being validated out of the blue.
What use do people like him have in front of what they cannot possibly begin to understand?
Chief Powell could have grabbed his gun, but who would the bullets be for? For Anthony? His head had leant back, by the tension shaking in his body, even without sounds, it was obvious he was already in pain. Or should the bullet be for him? Because finally, he saw clarity, that the world is filled with terrors against which he's but a tiny man, in a uniform, doing the bare minimum.
No. The gun wasn't going to help.
Perhaps nothing was.
Dozens of eyes looked up in utter loss, but once the Chief did a quick cross, at least half of the people there took his example and cowered. Jason started praying, mumbling to himself and shivering to close his eyes.
"Dad!" A voice stood out over the silence.
Sweating from head to toe, red in the face and about to add tears to the dust clogging the sight he should have bettered through his glasses, Barry fell off his stolen bicycle and walked the nasty fall off within the second. He scrambled to his feet, grappled the ground with his hands to help himself up then looked up, not for a second stopping from running.
"Leave my dad, alone!" He shouted towards the sky.
Chief Powell didn't understand the half of it. Perhaps he was starting to familiarize himself with the idea that he never will.
Then Barry's menacing eyes, filled with tears he was crying just to get them out of his way, met him with strength, with determination, bordering those badlands of maniac passion. The boy, as any son about to lose their father, was desperate. "Don't just stand there!" Barry shouted, tone throwing blame and seeding guilt.
Anthony's son dug both his hands into every pocket of his until he brought out another thing he had stolen, this time not from a yard, but from his dad's office: a cassette. He threw it at Chief Powell who almost didn't catch it.
Too stunned to even form words, he gaped his mouth at the boy and with an exasperated frown, Barry shouted, "Play the cassette, as loud as you can, fast!"
Perhaps Powell didn't have to understand what was happening in order to be able to help.
He stole another glance up at Mr. Carter.
"Now!" Barry's shout, filled with urgency, snapped him out of the terror trapped in his stare. Chief Powell turned around, disregarded the hat which fell off his head as a consequence of his running and scrammed to his car. He had a cassette player and an audio system making every drumstick hit the brain, every guitar chord strike near the heartstrings.
"Help me bring him down!" Barry delegated a few people by looking them in the eyes. Ultimately, his own gaze had to return to his father. It didn't help knowing he was probably seeing and feeling Hell creep up in his mind at that very moment.
Suspended several feet in the air, not even one on the shoulders of the other could the police officers reach for Anthony's legs to bring him down. Powell saw them struggling to grab his ankles so he entered his car keys in contact and hit the honk. His car dashed and with a creak he stopped his hood right under Mr. Carter, then pressed the button to play the cassette he had already smashed into the player prior to taking the initiative to help his colleagues get taller.
"We got this, kid," an officer stopped Barry from climbing on the hood. One look at Barry Carter solidified what most of them already thought: he was in a fragile state.
"Okay, we're recording," Anthony's voice sounded from the speakers of Chief's car.
"Louder!" Barry demanded, coming through the open window of Calvin to turn up the volume himself.
"Dad...," Billie's voice followed on the recording, a certain nuance of a defeated frown accompanying her before her sigh crept through and finally, the sound of the piano boomed out of the open windows. Powell recognized the song. This was supposed to be Moonlight Sonata, performed on the piano, but every so often, a missed note stumbled the otherwise ethereal piece by Beethoven into being an utter mess, bleeding through one's ears.
"What the heck is this?" he exclaimed, not noticing what was inscribed on the cassette's case: Billie's Best.
"Billie," Powell read quietly, remembering vaguely that Anthony definitely had a daughter as well.
"Shut up and let the song play," Barry leant out of the car and started opening the doors, so the sound may get out easier and perhaps clearer. He didn't know how much his father may be hearing of the noise they created down there and he certainly had no idea what this tape really was when he fished it from his office. All he could think about was that he had to get to him fast and that even though his sister never felt this, their father loved to hear her play an instrument, loved to hear her sing.
But this piano piece was being butchered by Billie on the recording.
Barry opened the last door of the car and looked up at his dad who was still in the air, still showing no signs of recovering. "Come on," he whimpered.
Powell exited his vehicle, half to get away from the annoying song and half to watch what was supposed to happen to Anthony. He hoped this madness would stop, that Mr. Carter would not end up like the boy they had to fish from the lake only to discover he's been contorted into an inhumane position, with his eyes blown out of orbits, leaving behind just holes.
"It's not working," Barry mumbled. His whole world collapsed on him and no matter how much he wanted to look away, he couldn't take his eyes off of what he knew would be his father's last seconds.
The two police officers on the hood of Chief Powell's car fell over for the fifth try, unable to reach the ankles of the man.
Then the bloody awful recording stopped abruptly. Barry threw a glance at the car. Was that all the cassette held? An unfinished performance riddled with mistakes?
The snap of a bone filled the silence and turned all eyes back up at Anthony. His left leg bent and broke at an unnatural angle. Screams weren't even heard, because the whole ground under him was rendered speechless in horror. It was one thing to simply see someone float, but to see their bones break on their own...
"Is it recording now?" The cassette played Billie's quiet voice. She sounded excited.
Anthony was a mess of shortness of breath, his eyes threatening to roll back as they stared into the palm of that monster's clawed hand. He said he'd be showing him mercy, saving him from his suffering, but a vine wrapped around his leg, twisted upwards and Anthony was consciously aware of the fact that it tightened so much on his leg that his bones were giving in.
There was so much pain that he wanted to cave in and just give up staying awake. This was the end.
But then he heard his Billie's voice and his eyes opened one last time, surprised to see a change from the scenery of their living room, devastated by decay and by the death he had been stupidly lucky to not witness himself the night his wife died. He should have been there.
Vecna didn't understand -perhaps he never will- why all of a sudden, the illusion of the living room cracked and the house collapsed. Through those fissures in the walls, a different setting tried to creep through, that of a memory which Vecna knew, saw, but never wanted to bring out.
It was Anthony's old office, some time in 1982. He returned late from work the previous night. He barely got any sleep, but first thing in the morning, with her brand new acoustic, Billie, fourteen at the time, cornered him about playing a song she learnt. She insisted that he tried recording her again, to prove that she can do better than the piano sonata which caused them to fight last month.
Anthony heard the echo of his own voice on that recording, tired and impatient to give his daughter that second chance. He didn't like the idea of her playing guitar, but he had started the recording anyway. Not caring enough about it, he just continued recording onto the same tape he stopped last month. "Come on. Let's hear it. What did you learn?"
He remembered the excited smile, wrinkling her freckled nose, and he saw it, right over Vecna's shoulder, through the cracks between his claws, into the fissures in the walls of his terrorizing illusion. She struck the pick against the chords of her guitar energetically, she bounced her head with the rhythmic beat of John Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane" and her whole being came alive before Anthony that day, casting his tiredness away in a heartbeat. Not that he showed it.
"You never told her you liked her performance," Vecna spoke into his face, hoping to turn him around, to keep him under his control for as long as it took for the vines to kill him. His whole left leg was wrapped and his bones broke twice. "You let your own daughter think you were blind to her talent..."
Anthony knew this monster was right. He saw the memory play through the song he heard from God knows where and he recalled every speck of emotion his daughter managed to bring out. Note after note, beat after beat, he didn't just see flashes of Billie being happy, but he was returned to the absolute joy of hanging out Devin's drawings on the fridge, of playing football in the back of the house with little Sam... He remembered the day he became the happiest man alive, holding little Barry in his arms for the first time.
"I will never let anything bad happen to you," he recalled his own whisper into the ears of a newborn after the other.
What was he doing there, giving up because of a little pain? Letting his children alone when monsters like this one existed in the world? He may have failed them in ways he will never be able to repent for, neglecting Sam, burdening Barry, ignoring Devin and judging Billie all the time... He had known his mistakes long before Vecna poisoned his mind with clarity, but this promise he made to each of them, on that first day they came into this world...
Anthony was not going to break those vows, he was not going to let his wife down.
On the cheerful notes of a guitar, he remembered the moment he fell in love with her, the day they got married, the one in which they bought the house, the first time they felt safe after her parents had kicked her out for marrying him despite their own plans for her.
"No!" Vecna shouted in frustration when the vine suddenly caved in and Anthony fell down, laid on the floor which turned sticky, musky. Right ahead of him, he saw a crack in the wall through which a bright light came through. Somehow, that bright light seemed far more comforting than staying in the dust filled red atmosphere of this monstrous place from the nightmares of his soul.
Billie's hand hit the woodwork of the guitar to keep the beat while the only lyrics she learnt had to be sung now.
"Oh, let it rock, let it roll!"
Anthony started crawling towards the light, like those rainy three days he actually had to stay in the army, before they realized he wasn't cut to be a soldier, but rather fit to be the one living with the guilt of inventing the weapons thousands will find their end to.
"Let the bible belt come and save my soul," Billie's voice rang clearly.
Anthony let her voice bring him back memories. The voice of an angel gave him strength to crawl towards the light, even as the vines were snaking on the ground after him and he felt them tangle on his ankles. The tip of a third one wrapped around his right wrist and pulled back. He refused to let it hold him back and even if his left elbow was the only one helping him, Anthony kept crawling.
"Holdin' on to sixteen as long as you can."
Vecna got desperate. The floor tilted and Anthony's left hand grabbed onto the broken floors of his old living room; the crawl became a climb and even if the vines pulled him, he didn't look back, or down, just ahead, at the bright light.
"Change is coming 'round real soon."
The day his wife told him he was going to be a father flashed before his eyes. It was the first time he couldn't care less about his rockets, about his studies. All he saw was her.
"Make us women and men."
"Being parents," Anthony heard her voice again, from the depths of his memory, making Vecna's screams fade to the background. The music got louder still. "It's a big responsibility, love. We're going to have to be there for little Barry."
"It's a boy?!" he exclaimed in return. He wasn't straining himself to escape to save himself anymore. He was climbing, crawling to get back to that feeling of being important to someone's life, to meaning something in this world and having a duty higher than just building bombs.
"Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone," Billie's song continued, the guitar joining in.
Bittersweet memories slipped through: Sam refusing to sleep in his own bed alone, days after his mother died.
"Oh yeah, he's saying life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone."
Anthony had such a good feeling about Hawkins when they moved there. For those months in which his family was safe again, for them, it was worth biting back the scream when the vine broke his right arm: around the wrist, on the forearm, and close to the shoulder.
"A little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane," the song slowed again.
Anthony's broken right hand reached for the light, his fingertips were a few millimeters away from actually grasping it, grasping salvation.
"Two American kids doin' the best they can."
His hand reached a little further, even vines tangled between his fingers and started snapping his bones.
The song ended.
Barry held his breath. He dreaded the moment of silence, but expected it anyhow. The cassette was bound to end and their attempt to save him was bound to fail.
Anthony's left leg, his right arm... If there was, at any point any hope of saving him, Barry considered it lost once bones started breaking.
His father dropped on the ground and he heard his cry, followed by a throaty groan of pain. It electrocuted Barry half to feel like fainting, half to react on instinct and rush past the car on whose hood Anthony collapsed, only to slide off, weakly.
"Call an ambulance!"
Barry's hand caught his father's left; he was as cold as the door handle to her room as Billie pushed it open. Without a single creak, it slid open and revealed the room to her and Eddie, standing right behind her. She sneaked her hand inside the room, to the right side of the door and flipped the switch to turn on the lights.
Night settled fast outside and now, the Carter home surely started standing out because both of them made sure to turn on the lights wherever they were. A precaution.
"Any ideas where we should start looking?" he inquired quietly. There was no need to get loud, especially since he could lower his head down just slightly and his lips would already be too close to her ear.
Billie could think of several places at once: her pillow, the posters, her guitar, the guitar case, her teddy bear... The list extended to every single item in that room that she had an attachment to before she noticed the mirror was, once again, on the wall, facing her bed. She spun around to not look at it and grabbed Eddie by his vest.
"Please tell me you see that mirror too."
Though a bit spooked by how fast she turned around, he looked over her head and then leant back to try and catch a glimpse at her face hidden in the shadow of her bowed head. "I see it. Why?"
"It was supposed to be facing the wall."
"Oh," Eddie's voice thinned out and looked up again. That mirror couldn't possibly be harmless and he had this unspeakable urge to just run the other way from it, however... He had Billie there and all of a sudden, it felt more natural to place his hands on her shoulders, give them a little pat and smile, "I got this then."
No sooner had he said that, Eddie started panicking.
His hands felt stuck, especially sticky from a heatwave purging him in the weirdest of sensation while he actively disliked anything other than clinging to Billie a little longer. Not strong enough just yet, his fear did not stop Eddie from guiding her to step aside and let him enter her room instead.
"Be careful," Billie hurried to say, the exact moment at which Eddie took that step past her. He's been in her room a thousand times, but it was the first time in which he felt like wasn't welcome there.
"What was it that you said?" he inquired, rather sarcastically, and not particularly wanting an answer from her. He threaded his steps as if at any point the floor might creak under the weight of him and the hardness of his boots, awakening some monster. "Mirror Man might try to stop us?"
"Just don't look into the mirror, babe," Billie's jaw tightened. She hugged herself in hopes of suffocating out the feeling of guilt, snuffing out the flame burning her from the inside with the sting of knowing she should have been there with him, not with her back at her room, watching the hallway like some sort of coward. "Try...," she coughed shortly, "try to look behind the mirror. Pull it apart if you have to, just don't break it."
"You believe it brings bad luck?"
"I believe we don't need any more misfortune than we've already had," Billie retorted his question just a nuance closer to plain teasing.
Eddie chuckled in agreement, averting his eyes from looking directly into the mirror once he got closer and grabbing off the wall. Only once he had in his hands, turned around, he looked back down and started studying how to get that frame off.
It hasn't been more than three seconds since his hands grasped the mirror when Billie's voice shivered. "Eddie...," she called his name.
"Yes, babe, I am hurrying up," he confirmed, not thinking much into the town she used, and only concentrating on pulling the frame off the mirror to see if anything is behind it. The camera -Steve fished it out of his car's trunk for them, to keep the video equipment for Austin's- was attached safely to his belt, since his pants were far more sturdy than Billie's, or so they looked. He stuck his tongue out in the process of quitting strategy and immediately getting to mindlessly just pulling on anything he could stick a nail under.
Billie was still outside of the room, close to the doorframe, looking outside, into the hallway, towards the stairs. She had only lifted her gaze a moment ago, when a static noise turned off a light downstairs. There was no sound of the front door opening, no sound of steps... There was no one there but her and Eddie, but the light over the stairs turned off too and that was when she flinched and called Eddie.
She wasn't even sure what he answered, just that he wasn't close to her yet and that disturbed her deeply.
Eddie heard a muffled cry with the next attempt she made at calling him. Now, she barely whimpered his name, and he spun around in terror of seeing Billie visibly shivering. Her back was facing him and he saw the tightness with which her hands gripped her opposite arms. What scared Eddie more was that there was no more light in the house apart from the one inside her room. She was standing in darkness, hiccuping tears.
"Can't you see it...?" Billie sobbed her whisper.
"Billie," Eddie reached his hand out to her before even trying to take a step forward. The light in the room started flickering too, as a warning to him. He couldn't care less about the danger itself, he only worried about that distance between them. "Billie, step inside the room."
Eddie's voice was but a distant echo for her though. Intelligible and too far away to even consider it was worth risking moving for her. If she moved, it would see her... Mirror Man would see her.
Billie's eyes stopped from blinking and tears bubbled to keep them humid through the stings. They refused to turn away from the stairs, from that creak coming from them. She watched as a decayed hand's pitch black fingers unhooked from the railing, bit by bit.
"Billie," Eddie called her name more urgently. "Billie, shit, say something, baby-" He made a single step forward and that's what set it all off.
Something grabbed the camera and pulled Eddie back by it. He turned around from the inertia of it, meeting the yellow eyes of an otherwise formless shadow. The door slammed behind him and the light in the room flickered out. Billie backed one step and met the closed door, to which she stuck her palms to now. Her sweating and rapid breathing were rendering her useless in front of the hand which disappeared and now, steps creaked, one after the other until she saw the Mirror Man appear.
Through the railing bars, she saw it, in whole, climbing up the stairs, only the Mirror Man was no longer the haunting image of her dead mother. Now, its face was unfamiliar to her from afar, its sickly yellowed eyes were the only ones she still recognized.
"Eddie...," Billie forced words out of her mouth again, barely managing to turn her head to the side and hope he could hear her through the closed door. "Find the curse pouch and throw it out...," she wanted to think her solution was reasonable, if only it reached him in time.
Just when the Mirror Man had one more step to make and it would be able to turn and face Billie directly, the demon disappeared and the light on the upstairs hallway flickered back on. She's been holding her breath and the sudden return of the light made an exhale happen. Even if just barely, Billie let her hands distance themselves from the door of her room.
The phone downstairs started ringing through the absolute silence.
Billie's breath hitched again but she made a single step forward, actually considering going down to see if it's Barry finally giving updates on how it went on stopping their dad from doing anything too reckless. One step was all it took really.
The light in the hallway started pulsing rapidly. The darkness revealed the pair of yellow eyes right at the top of the stairs, turning towards Billie. The brightness revealed the Mirror Man had moved to the ceiling and on each flash, it made at least three steps forward, crawling them on all fours towards Billie who no longer held in her scream.
Eddie screamed too at first, but what he couldn't see, couldn't hurt him. With the lights off, his hands acted much faster and he woke up with two pieces, the frame and the mirror. Billie's scream echoed from outside, motivating him to kneel faster and pat the carpet to try and find the pouch if it fell out.
It did.
Eddie felt the thing under his palm and he touched it directly, with only one second of hesitation. "Fuck it," he cursed quickly and squeezed the thing in his fist until he felt, disgusted, the spider inside it squish.
The light in the room flickered on again and the door audibly unlocked. Hardly adjusted to the brightness yet, he still turned around and squinted to force himself to look for Billie. Only she wasn't there. The door creaked opening and it revealed gigantic claw marks all over it.
"No," Eddie puffed out. Without unclenching his fist from the curse pouch, he ran to the door and that was just about close enough to see the drops of blood amongst the claw marks too. "No, no, no..."
He looked out onto the hallway. The lights were slowly turning on everywhere in the house again. "Billie!" Eddie called her, hoping for an answer, since everything else apart from the door looked absolutely normal in the house. He stepped out of her room, slowly, listening for the silence of the house. "Billie."
Being helpless in such a situation was torturous. Eddie's brain was firing ideas far too slow for them to satisfy in calmness the anxiety suddenly tremoring his veins. If he lost her...
"No," he shook his head firmly. "Think, think, Eddie!" he hit his free hand to his forehead and then it clicked. "Don't look into the mirror," he recalled her warning to him and immediately used that free hand to take Devin's pocket mirror out and flick it open. He watched what happened behind him through the reflection and at first, everything seemed completely normal.
Then he started turning and the walls in the reflection were scarred by demonic claws too. The lights started flickering inside the reflection, while for him they all remained lit. Eddie's fist tightened on the curse pouch until he feared it would crumble through his fingers.
"Come on, come on...," he chanted desperately, moving around a bit faster.
His heart stopped altogether when he saw the Mirror Man on the ceiling above the stairs and Billie about to be pulled up by its extending hand, far longer than how arms are supposed to be in size.
"Billie!" Eddie spun around and finally saw her in flesh and bone too. It broke the trance of the Mirror Man and his scream left behind cracks on the ceiling, mold... Nothing Eddie Munson would care about because all he could think of was running as fast as he could to Billie Carter and embracing her warmly to his chest.
"Eddie," she gasped. "Eddie, the Mirror Man was-"
"I know, I saw it," he stuttered out. "But it's over now." He leant back from her just enough to put the crumble curse pouch between them.
Billie was a mess. Her breathing hasn't calmed down, her hair was a mess and her eyes gave away just how haunted she was. Eddie may have seen the Mirror Man, but he did not hear what had been scratching the inside of her ears for the eternity it felt being trapped in darkness, all alone. "We should take it out of the house for the pictures," she still forced herself with a cough to anchor herself back to reality.
The only giveaway was how tightly she held onto him all the way through going outside, through taking the pictures, to making sure the curse pouch remains out there. If he had to use both his hands, Billie clung to his jacket, holding onto his pocket, anything just to make sure she won't be left alone again.
Once the work was done though, Eddie turned around to her and gently touched his hands on both sides of her face, turning her head ever so lightly to check if the demon hurt her in any physical way. "What happened in that hallway?"
"I...," Billie's eyes were unfocused. "I don't even know how to explain it, honestly. Or rather... I don't think I want to remember the details of it."
No matter how much it hurt to think this way, both Eddie and Billie knew they should have figured out sooner that if Eddie goes to extract the curse pouch, then the demon will attack her, because her being in danger was far more likely to distract him than anything that would have happened to him personally.
"It's okay," Eddie just wrapped his arms around her, letting her hide her face into his shirt as much as she needed. "You don't have to say anything. In fact, forget it if that's what you need right now, Billie Jean." It was comforting on both sides to know her hands clung to him and with his chin resting on top of her head, his head kicked back just the right amount to see the stars for the first time in a while.
Did they stay like that for a few minutes? Or has it been an hour since they moved? The bliss of not being separated and being instead accompanied by the calming presence of soft insects singing in the night now properly covering Hawkins, turned this moment into a small eternity.
Billie listened to his heartbeat get louder than the words the demon screamed into her ear. She allowed her feelings to slowly tune back in, starting with how intoxicating it felt to be in love with him.
The tension in her hands dissipated after a while and Billie's side of the embrace relaxed. Her head turned to the side and her ear pressed to his chest. "Eddie?" she inquired.
He hummed in response and that vibration tickled right into her. One hell of a long hug calmed both their spirits down that it was silly to think back at the power of what they had could hold.
"It's getting quite chilly."
Eddie suddenly became aware that she was, indeed, wearing a T-Shirt and the spring nights were not quite the friendliest. "Shit, I can give you my jacket, hold on-"
Billie stopped him right after he broke the hug by placing her hands over his. Just beside them, in the grass, the curse pouch was deserted so she gestured with her head towards it, "Since this is out of the house, the Mirror Man shouldn't be able to return for a while. Especially not in my room, so how about we go back there now?"
Despite his uncertainty to follow Billie back to her room, once they got there, Eddie had to admit, it was noticeable in the air that all maliciousness was gone from between those four walls. Her room felt just as welcoming as ever. Just as a precaution though, Billie grabbed the mirror facing down in the middle of the room and placed it outside of it, still facing down.
"Should we catch some sleep before Barry or Steve get back home?" Eddie offered an idea of his own. "We could take turns...," he sat comfortably down on the edge of Billie's and for this moment, he sighed relieved because it felt as if the demons and the alternate dimensions were just a bad dream, that they were still just high schoolers enjoying their last spring break. He remembered the plans they made for this spring break, all that scheming to get to see each other as often as possible without drawing attention. They wanted to go see those dunes together, take a picture of their own out there, perhaps sleep on the sand for a night, though they never quite figured out what lie they should have said in order to get away.
And now... Eddie looked at Billie with a dreamy smile. Now, they weren't even a secret anymore. The thought of that gave him butterflies, because every memory he shared with Billie was as clear as daylight in his mind. He was grateful with the idea that he will always remember every single detail that had to do with her.
Billie let herself throw a reluctant gaze at the claw marks on the outside of her door. She remembered feeling the very tips of those claws graze her skin, mocking her by not hurting her yet, by not killing her there and then. "You're next," Mirror Man had whispered to her, manically laughing.
It reminded her, for yet another time, that she was there on borrowed time and if Dustin's theory was as correct as she felt it would turn out to be, then... She had to take advantage of every second air still flowed through her lungs.
Seeing the claw marks again solidified those thoughts for her and made her take the last sigh in grasping the door and closing it behind her as she entered the room. She locked the door and turned towards Eddie, pushing away all her shyness to look him in the eyes. The silence made his trailing off gaze fix on her, a bit confused by why he had just heard the door lock.
"Now," Billie tilted her head slightly.
Eddie straightened his posture and he couldn't help but let his mouth hang lightly open, while his eyebrows raised. "Now?" He got a nod as an answer from her and it got him to sit up as if electrocuted. Goosebumps over his skin made him do a little spin, walk a few steps around the room, before turning towards Billie again, arms crossed at his chest anxious. He leant forward, "Right now? Right here?"
"Mhmm," Billie confirmed in a hum, joining in on her lips colored by a sheepish little smile. She needed this. They needed this. For this moment of peace to be theirs and theirs alone. They earned their moment of stupid high school lovers and if not now... Billie feared there will never be a better time in their near future.
So Eddie watched her extend her hands towards him as an invitation which he'd simply be a madman not to smile at and answer immediately, by even skipping his steps to get closer to her. He slowed down when there was only one more step and their chests would be pressed against one another. "Are you sure?" he had stopped to ask again.
At the back of his mind played the first time this could have been. He had just performed "I Was Made For Loving You" with his band on stage as a love declaration to her and in the heat of a moment, he took that love letter being written between them backstage. She was their only audience who mattered that night anyway and if not for her, then for who would a break be worth it in their program?
Eddie had never felt a kiss as deeply as that night. The lewd sound of lips bruising against each other, of their groans collapsing into the breaths they shared, turning into soft moans, estranged and curious on her side and needy on his. He had her pinned against the wall with his left hand, behind her head, entangled in her hair, so as to soften the surface on which she could lean back on.
His rings, all four of them, were deserted on the first free surface he had spotted briefly when they claimed the backstage room for themselves.
Billie held onto the back of his neck and every time she tangled a finger into his hair, Eddie knew chills stripped him of yet another marble of control he barely even held onto anyway. The drumming of his heartbeat was dictating the rhythm of their sloppy kiss, the urgency and naturality with which their bodies rubbed together or how his right hand fell on the small of her back and dragged itself to the side of her waist in a looped motion of massage that at some point, managed to get her shirt to lift and for his rough fingers to touch her bare skin.
There, Billie's eyes opened and she flinched. Eddie's hands drew away from her in an instant and fear stabbed through him, impaled him in shame and a frightened gulp to open his eyes and look at her. "Shit," he recalled cursing then. "Shit! I'm sorry, did you not like that? Was I...?"
"No," Billie hurried to reassure him, but Eddie took a step back already. "It's just," words were hard for her to muster, but seeing him already fidgeting with his hands, she gathered her scattered thoughts in cohesion and bowed her head. "It's just," she repeated, her hands, now empty, joining behind her back, "I've never actually..."
"Shit," Eddie cursed again, with far more accent on the word. He closed his eyes in regret, scrunched his nose in guilt and grimaced, at last, "I should have asked, shit, I am so sorry, I got carried away and I know that's no fucking excuse, please just don't be mad. I swear, I want this to work between us, I didn't just want to get in your pants or some shit-"
"Hey," while he crammed a dozen words per second, Billie had taken a step forward and her right hand touched the side of his face. "It's okay. I'm not mad and I know you didn't mean it... But maybe we should just... take it a bit slower?"
"Of course!" Eddie had immediately taken her hand in his and held it tightly. "Of course," he repeated quieter. "When you're ready too. Just tell me when and I'll be there to go your tempo."
"What if...," Billie shyly looked down, "it took me a month-?"
"Billie Jean," Eddie interrupted, "I've waited my entire life for someone like you. Do you really think I care if I have to go celibate for a couple of years for you?"
"We could still kiss though."
As innocently as she looked at him back then, saying that, Billie looked up at Eddie now too, smiling softly with the answer to his final permission inquiry dancing on her lips. "I'm sure."
If there was a Heaven, Eddie Munson was pretty sure that was exactly how it was supposed to sound like.
He couldn't help the goofy smile spreading across his lips, erasing completely any and all tension which bore its marks right on the other side of the door Billie was pressed against by his body coming closer to hers. Unlike the first time this happened, now she was familiar with his heat, with his heartbeat and she had the desire-riddle experience of properly realizing Eddie was all she's ever needed, all she'll ever want, from their first night to the end of time.
His lips drew nearer hers, slowly, remembering all the patience he had learnt through this relationship, how Billie Jean taught him to slow down and appreciate beauty even in the smallest gestures. Intimacy had been discovered in sharing cassettes, in trading pins, in leaning their heads against each other while they hide in his car, or in holding each other's hands hungrily after long dies of pretending they weren't stupidly infatuated with one another.
As a homage to that patience, his lips only ghosted hers. Their breaths met like old friends between their faces, being the only inch separating that kiss they ached for, keepin it from happening.
"I don't really know how to...," Billie barely exhaled, melted under the towering presence of Eddie, right in front of her. His bangs tickled her nose and in the passion of it, her mind couldn't help but bring up the sensation that she missed feeling his hands on her body, feeling that added pressure, that calculated touch or the goofy one, poking her and teasing every so often. On purpose, Eddie hadn't touched her yet.
"Shh," he hushed her, peppering one soft breeze of a peck right on her lips. "I'll guide you every step of the way," he vowed. "The only thing I need you to do tonight is to look me in the eyes and tell me if you need me to slow down, alright?"
And Billie found safety in his composed nature, in his certainty. Six months made her look at Eddie and know she could trust him with her life. This nod she gave him faithfully was nothing but a crumb of the trust between them.
Eddie leant closer again, this time, his lips touching her cheek and brushing to her ear. She inhaled his scent and he drank hers in. However, off his lips exhaled whispers, "I would also prefer if you used words, babe."
"Oh, alright," Billie couldn't help but feel a little heat in her face as finally, she felt a touch. Eddie moved his right hand across the side of her neck. It was brief, but anticipation was getting both of them flustered in the most beautiful way frustration could ever be painted between lovers.
However, Eddie leant back, that goofy smile of his returning in a heartbeat. "How about we start by taking this off?" Irrationally excited all of a sudden, to narrate such a thing for Billie, Eddie reached out for the margins of his vest, to shrug it off.
"No." Billie's voice immediately made him freeze. He had bowed his head to try and avoid seeing her reaction to him actually stripping down in front of her, something he wanted to do first to perhaps make it a bit more comfortable for her to do so too. It would be a lie for him not to admit to himself that he had thought about this moment one too many times to not be prepared to make it the best time of their lives.
Eddie looked up and to his surprise, Billie's hands grabbed his vest instead, sneakily pushing his own grip away. "I want to take it off," she looked up at him and oh, this was dangerous.
With that look, with that tone, Eddie suddenly realized Billie Jean could make him do anything she pleased, were she to ask the way she just did. Anything, just to please her. What a dangerous hold she had on him to make him realize he'd have to remind himself how to be in control from time to time.
For now, he didn't want anything more than to see this play out so with sparks dancing in the brown of his eyes, wrinkles of a wide, sincere smile shining on his face, Eddie lowered his hands back down and let Billie take over.
"I've wanted to do this for a while," she admitted in a whisper and Eddie couldn't believe his ears anymore. Perhaps they've grown so red they weren't hearing well. Either way, he watched with a gulp how her hands slid under his vest and up to his shoulder, hooking the sleeves on her arms and pushing the thing off. Then, her gaze returned to his and he almost forgot he asked for this eye contact a moment ago.
Her hands did the same for his leather jacket, only she stepped much closer. Damn, she was moving excruciatingly slow, but the promise at the end of it all made every second of waiting worth it. Only the second the jacket fell on the ground too and Eddie felt the chill of her hand sliding under his shirt, his own palms itched to get a hold of her.
"I don't know about you," Eddie tilted his head in a low chuckle when he caught Billie's gaze traveling down his body, "but I'm feeling sort of naked already."
Billie looked up, just in the slightest concerned that she was the one moving too fast now. "Should I wait to take your shirt off then?"
"Please don't."
To prove his own words, Eddie placed his hands over hers, down at the base of his shirt and slowly guided her to move them upwards, so he could get that over his head. One hand finished the job by dropping his shirt to the side, but his right was skillful enough to be left behind and keep Billie's wrists together, up about her head. His chest drew nearer to hers, her back pressed with a gentle, inaudible thud against the door again and if Billie wanted to gauge at him now, it would have been very obvious to do so too.
So after this little tease, Eddie put some distance between their fast beating hearts. Without letting her hands go, he moved his left to her stomach, trailed a single finger up the middle of her body until he hooked it on her collar and pulled ever so slightly. That brought their lips together and the hungry kiss began, spinning out of control. Every time they brushed together and grazed each other, it felt like the first time they ever felt the need to do this was upon them all over again.
Only, paradoxically, the need got stronger with each shortness of breath, with each desperate bump of their noses and each sound they've swallowed out of each other. Though it wasn't the first time Eddie had heard Billie moan, it was a sound he could never get enough of and frankly, whenever she happened to do so, this close to him, something his mind tried to shout out that his only goal ever would be to make sure she feels so good that the sound gets only louder.
But he leant back and his forehead touched hers. "Can I take off your shirt now?" he basically whispered, slowly moving his right hand down her arm, then to the surface of the door, next to her head, where if only he moved it slightly to the left, he'd be able to touch her hair, which looked remarkably soft just then.
"You can do whatever you want with me."
"Careful," Eddie's smile was closer to a grin this time. "Don't say things like that yet, babe."
"Why not?" Billie teased him with an innocent smile and frankly, all Eddie could do was laugh a little, making his curls bounce with the shake of his head.
Her hands were free now, so Billie mirrored his laugh and placed her hands on both sides of his face, trailing that touch until her fingers got tangled in his hair and she managed to bring him closer for yet another kiss. Eddie did not hesitate to let the pressure of his hands find its way under her shirt, tenderly massaging up her back. He hummed pleased against her tongue to feel goosebumps on her skin from the faintest of touches.
Billie stepped forward and Eddie took advantage of the space put between them and the door to finally grab hold of her shirt. It felt beyond surreal to get that polo shirt off of her already and see, up-close, the softness of her skin, the freckled spots here and there and know that he could love every single inch of her until she understood the amount of passion he has been nurturing for her.
Though she could look at his bare skin too and get mesmerized by those little tattoos here and there, Billie felt odd without her shirt on. "Don't you want me to turn off the lights?" she asked while already reaching her left hand back to the wall.
Eddie took her hand and brought it back between them before she could do what she wanted to do with it. He placed a kiss on her knuckles and pouted, "How would I be able to admire you if I cannot see you? And you promised you'd look me in the eyes, didn't you?"
Billie opened her mouth to argue, but truly, what did she even want to say? Eddie dropped her hand and pulled her close again, only this time, the continuation of his actions had an overwhelming effect. He had left soft marks on her neck before, in that shed next to Lover's Lake, but this time, he nibbled a little harder, bit and licked a little more confidently than the tender kisses he got her used to in those fifteen minutes they managed to steal for themselves.
Time dilated for them now, so generously, and Eddie was ready to give his all to her.
At first, Billie gasped, her back arching back, her shoulders rising a bit at the unfamiliar feeling of pleasure raising her blood pressure in places she didn't know she was going to feel it. Eddie licked over the news love bite and immediately, the tension in her shoulders dropped. The second one raised the volume of her moan and made him groan against her skin.
It was a blur, how his hands reached into her hair, how her eyes fluttered shut and her knees seemed to have weakened. Was she pulling his hair in return? When did her hand draw lustful patterns down his back, onto his chest. Their pace quickened and while her world spun from the sudden height of emotion and feeling they both put into this grind of their bodies, Eddie spun her around and guided a safe little stumble to her bed.
There, she sneezed from his hair getting all over her face and giggles burst between them, closer to each other on another plane. Horizontally, Eddie made sure to lean back for a second and give her the room to breathe under his curls. There, in a pause for air, he looked down and his left hand moved on its own to caress the side of her face. "You're beautiful," he breathed out. "And I don't think I say that enough."
"And you look better than I thought you would on top of me," Billie retorted proudly, rubbing her nose.
Eddie's left hand immediately moved to her ribs and tickled, "How much have you thought about doing this with me exactly, Billie Jean?"
"That," she barely mumbled through another fit of giggles, "is none of your business, baby."
"I am pretty sure it is my business though," he argued, though far more interested in kneeling between her legs and, one by one, removing his rings.
"Why are you taking those off?" Billie inquired, her eyes following his every move while her body was rejoicing in this little break after the absolute whiplash of shock their previous pace change brought her.
"It's your first time," Eddie explained. "I just want you to feel the best of it. We'll have time to experiment later on."
Was it the deep undertone of his voice or rather the insinuation of his words that suddenly made Billie squirm.
Eddie noticed, and chuckled, not about to hold back any such remarks, "There, there, I hope you're not getting impatient now."
Billie didn't know how to answer and by the time she considered a couple of replies, Eddie just leant over her again, his right hand planted down beside her head and his left dropped his rings off her bed. He kicked off his shoes while his lips danced another wet kiss on hers. A curtain of pleasure drew itself over them and behind it, their breaths waltzed on the borderline of getting used to synchronization.
Only the kiss did not last where she could get used to it. With his rings issue out of the way, he drew the kiss out and trailed it down. Billie felt first the guitar pick he wore around his neck ticking down her chest, onto her stomach, then, following his movement down, she realized Eddie bit on the middle her bra, between her breasts. He looked up at her and the eroticism of the gaze they've kept made her gulp a little harder than usual, a reaction which satisfied him enough to continue his trail of kisses down.
Eddie was trying to learn as fast as he could where Billie liked to be touched. There was only so much their make-out session could reveal and he had only recently learnt her neck was a sensitive area.
She sucked in a breath when he kissed above her belly button. It felt odd, but not in the way in which she would have wanted him to stop. God, no. She didn't want him to stop.
He wasn't going to stop, after all, he had just undone the button of her pants. Looking up, he realized she was biting her lip, holding in those beautiful songs he wanted to hear, so, before continuing any further, Eddie called, "Billie, eye contact, remember?"
She looked down, flustered, "Yeah. I got a little lost there, sorry."
"It's alright," Eddie mumbled, only too smug about it not to grin. He made her look down just in time to witness him pull down her pants' zipper with his teeth.
"Fuck," Billie cursed under her breath, which anyhow, was utterly lost.
"I'm getting there, babe," Eddie teased. "No need to rush now."
Under his batting eyelashes, his own eyes were riddled with desires which he barely motivated himself to hold back in order to prolong the good they were having. He got her pants off, not before grabbing and squeezing her ass, even just a little, but after that, just as she was about to call his name, a kiss laid on her inner thigh, now bare, turned the volume on her unexpected moan.
A love bite in a place only they could know and see was the equivalent of the passion and frivolous need building up between them to a point of no return. They were neck deep intoxicated with each other, but Billie did not expect to feel his kisses against her underwear, did not expect him to use his tongue or hum along. It was a little welcomed surprise.
Her legs squeezed together just a little and after a second too long, Eddie raised his head from between them, out of breath but smiling like a drunk man happy to be dazed with it all. "How about you don't suffocate me though?"
"Sorry, I-" Billie hesitated, looking down at him. To describe how she felt while he was down there was a puerile try equivalent to mathematicians aiming to explain how many numbers are in infinity really or rather why the stars are where they are.
"It felt good?" Eddie tried to guess, unable to hold back that little urge of licking his lips. "Go on, you can say it, baby."
"It felt really good," Billie admitted with a short little nod.
"Then how about I do it again, but with these off?"
He dreamt about this moment, fantasized it in the privacy of his own room, tasting Billie and proving all his metaphors right that she was the most addictive drug he ever had the privilege to hold. His tongue parted her fold and he sucked in from her every drop of her articulated sounds, followed by those intelligible, vibrating whimpers. She squirmed and he smiled against her tender skin.
Billie had no idea what this was, what sort of manifestation of love Eddie was drawing out between them, but it clouded her mind with the singular sensation that it was just the two of them against the world and all they had was their love for one another. Her entire body flashed a wave of heat and her pulse quickened until she felt it. It was just then that Eddie decided to lean back and get his lips on level with hers.
"Kiss me," he demanded.
How could she ever say no to him? How could she ever deny him anything when asked like that? When his voice was like a prayer and he made her feel like she was worth every gesture of worship. He did just love her, Eddie Munson made Billie feel loved.
So if it was a kiss he wanted, then she kissed him breathless, tasting herself off his lips and sharing the beads of sweat they've both gathered on their skin, long before his pants slid off, her bra came undone and she helped him put the condom he insisted about on. By then, it wasn't about guiding and being guided anymore, they were both just lovers, wanting to be whole together.
Though Billie couldn't possibly detail every second of how she got into his lap and they moaned into each other mouths and the sudden relief of having consumed the very first glorious product of their love, this moment was slowly being tattooed on her memory, along with the flashes of pleasure, the clear images of seeing that bliss on Eddie's features, while his hair lost volume from the humidity in her room.
And he'll forever be a thoughtless victim of how Billie Jean made him feel like he was a virgin once more.
"Look at me," Eddie demanded in a groan once his hands guided her a little quicker in the bounce he mainly had allowed her to be in charge of this once. If they found intimacy defined in the most innocent of things, then this bridge of connection between their eyes at the moment of their release was the filthy, personal crown over it all.
What a beautiful way to come undone.
What a beautiful way to die in someone's arms and be reborn.
author's note: I kinda just won "Best Eddie Munson Fic" award with this book, so HERE'S A 10K CHAPTER TO CELEBRATE I GUESSS
nothing quite like the range these characters can hold and well, honestly, i feel like this chapter right here, is up there amongst my best written pieces ever.
think it was worth ruining my sleep schedule over this, idk???
THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE FOR ME AND SUPPORTING THIS 💖💕