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Assistant: Title: better by you, better than me
        Author: palmviolet undefined 
        Chapter: 2/67 
        Summary: November 1983. Between unpaid bills, the supposedly straight jock he’s seeing, and letters from his convict dad, seventeen year old Eddie Munson’s got enough to worry about. But when Will Byers goes missing, it sparks a chain of events that will show there are more depths to Hawkins — and to certain people in it, like infamous Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington — than he realizes.
  / or, the excessively long slow-burn in which Eddie is involved in the Upside Down from the very beginning.
        Contents: Chapter 2: The Weirdo on Maple Street
    

    

        
          
          
            “So, what brings King Steve to my neck of the woods?” Eddie says, after ten minutes of silence, when Mr. Ryan’s left the room. Because he’s had detention a hell of a lot in his school career, and he’s shared it with Harrington only a handful of times. Stupid stuff, like cutting class to make out with his girlfriend or drink a couple beers, thinking he’s rebelling, is what Eddie imagines. He’s not unconvinced that under that pretty head of hair, Harrington’s got nothing but All the Right Moves playing on loop inside his brain.
          
        

      
        
          warnings for homophobic language, classism, referenced drug use, and referenced suicide.
            
            (See the end of the chapter for  more notes.)
            
      
  

  
  
    
      
  

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8TH 1983
 “–an assembly on the football field in support of Will Byers and his family. All are encouraged to attend. Volunteer assignments for search parties are still–”Eddie is only half listening; he still doesn’t enjoy the sound of the name Byers, even in other people’s mouths. He shoves his books into his locker and then rests his forehead against the cool metal surface, feeling the effects of his sleepless night — sleepless not because of drugs or the drunk tank, not this time, but because of the letter, because of tossing and turning with The Shining staring at him from his nightstand, the envelope poking out from inside it–Someone knocks into him from behind, shoving him into the lockers, and when he turns he sees Tommy H. disappearing down the hallway along with Carol and Harrington and also the girl Jeff pointed out yesterday, the redhead, Barb, with a shorter brunette he works out is probably Wheeler, which, hey. Seems like a good call not to tap her for Hellfire after all.There’s a missing poster on the noticeboard, he sees, as he passes on his way to English. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? and a cute little photo of Will Byers, this tiny kid, a thought that makes Eddie’s stomach turn, because what the hell can have happened to him? Where the f@ck can he have gone? In Hawkins, of all places?Still, he has bigger things to worry about, right now, like the way Miss O’Donnell frowns up at him — she’s tiny, scarcely more than five foot one (makes up for it in spite) — when he doesn’t have any homework to give her, passing her desk on his way into her classroom. F@ck. He didn’t even forget it this time, is the thing. Got two paragraphs into a paper about The Grapes of Wrath before something else caught his attention and that was it, the paper abandoned. Still lying there on top of the pile of sheets on his desk, he’s sure, which is one better than the piles of sheets on the floor. “What, no excuses this time, Mr. Munson?” she says, arching an eyebrow, tapping her foot on the floor. “Did the trailer park dog eat your homework?”He hears several people snicker. He doesn’t let his face heat up; he says instead, coolly, “Maybe it tasted good.” She pinches her lips together. “Detention, Mr. Munson. Today after school.”Eddie shrugs and slopes off to his seat near the back of the class, though the pronouncement makes his skin crawl. He doesn’t want to be in this godforsaken building a second longer than he has to be. F@ck@ng sh@t. And he can’t get himself to concentrate, as class goes on, each word he reads sort of bouncing off his brain like there’s a protection spell cast on it — protecting it from John f@ck@ng Steinbeck, is the problem, when there are worse things that protection spell doesn’t seem to give a sh@t about. Near the end of class he’s startled out of a reverie by something hitting the back of his head — a paper airplane. He follows its trajectory back to Tommy C., in the last row, whose cruel-edged smirk has something else underneath it, even as his friends laugh around him. Eddie holds his gaze as he bends to pick up the airplane. Written on it, in a slanting scrawl that isn’t Tommy’s, Eddie doesn’t think, is TRAILER TRASH. Cute. Imaginative. “Must’ve taken you hours to think of that one,” he says, leaning back, and watches Tommy as he says it, the way his eyes twitch over Eddie’s face, something truly f@ck@d up in this guy’s head, Eddie thinks, but hey. Gay in a small town? He’ll take what he can get. “Almost as long as it took you to land in detention again. What is that, the third time this month?” Another of Tommy’s friends — Nicole, maybe, not that Eddie really cares — says, and Tommy laughs.“And it’s only November 8th.”Eddie wonders what the consequences would be, then, of telling the truth. Standing up and telling the world that yesterday Tommy C. kissed him in the school bathrooms; that the day before that, he gave Tommy C. a handjob in the woods, got one of those rare crooked smiles from him that everyone thinks are reserved for girls and game wins — but they wouldn’t believe him. Of course they wouldn’t. Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson? And Tommy C.?The freak wishes, he imagines Tommy saying, standing up and laughing. He can’t even tell the difference between fantasy and reality anymore, Jesus. Got them all mixed up in his sick queer head.“Sounds like someone’s keeping tabs,” Eddie says. Sees Tommy’s face tighten with anger. “Maybe someone likes this trailer trash a little too much, huh?”He jumps out of his seat before Tommy can lunge for him, though he doesn’t, actually, why was that what Eddie was expecting? But he’s standing up now, and he’s already got detention, so he may as well just walk the f@ck out. “Where are you going, may I ask?” Miss O’Donnell says pointedly, when he’s already halfway to the door. He smiles broadly at her. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my date with detention. Just thought I’d make you feel like I really deserve it, y’know?”“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Munson, I’m sure you deserve it.” There’s something cold and vaguely foreboding in her stare, but what the hell. He’s got less than a year and then he’s out of here, baby, so where’s the harm in provoking her a little? He flips Tommy C. the bird as he exits the classroom; behind him, he hears Miss O’Donnell saying under her breath (but not really under her breath), “That boy’s never going to get anywhere.”But he is going to get somewhere; and that’s somewhere’s anywhere but here. Somewhere his dad doesn’t know his address.On his way to his smoking spot, he hears the hissed whispers of two younger voices — freshmen cutting class, probably — from under the steps, laughter of a malicious kind. “Byers totally killed him,” one of them says. “Perverted freak.”“Someone definitely killed him. I heard the kid’s a queer, too.”Eddie surrenders to the impulse to lean over the railings and stare down at them, making his scariest face: “Boo!”Both freshmen, two boys, shriek. “What do you want, freak?” one of them says, an arrogant-looking blond kid in a Tigers uniform. “I want you to stop talking about sh@t you don’t understand, ‘kay? Why don’t you babies run off to class. I heard there are kids going missing out there.”The other boy’s frightened squeak has him maybe feeling a little bad, for threatening two fourteen-year-olds, even @ssh@l@ fourteen-year-olds, but then the first kid points a finger at him (a real I’m telling my father type) and says, “If you threaten us again, I’m calling the cops.”“Let’s go, Jason,” the other one hisses, tugging on his arm. “Go ahead,” Eddie says airily. Jason scoffs at him, but they scramble to their feet, heading in a direction that’s definitely not back to class but hey, Eddie couldn’t give a sh@t, really. He proceeds to his and Janie’s spot and smokes three cigarettes in quick succession, trying not to think about Will and Jonathan Byers, trying not to think about Tommy C. Maybe he’s making a horrible mistake, here. Maybe there’s nothing harmless about kisses in the dark in a haze of smoke outside Reefer Rick’s; maybe there’s nothing harmless about the heavy way Tommy C. looks at him, the peculiar malice in his lips as he says the things everyone else says, lips that Eddie knows the taste of. What’s that expression about playing with fire?At lunch, he slings himself down next to Jeff, who’s saying something earnest about “...should show our support, y’know? Poor kid,” and Eddie gathers he’s talking about the assembly tonight, which, more time at this f@ck@ng school? Jesus. He may as well live here. “Yeah, but what the hell’s an assembly going to do for him, really?” Janie, opposite, has raised her eyebrows. “It’s all just for show.”She looks at Eddie like she’s expecting him to agree with her. Someone on another table is playing music loud on a radio, which, really? That Prince song that’s everywhere right now, Delirious. He tries to ignore it, though it’s sending his brain scattering across the cafeteria, never very good at isolating a distraction. “Yeah, f@ck the man, right?” Gareth says.“Well, yes, f@ck the man, but this isn’t the man, this is just some poor kid who could be dead for all we know–”“So if he’s dead,” Janie interrupts, and Jeff frowns, “then to be totally honest, he’s not gonna know any different, is he? It’s just all those @ssh@l@s who probably treated him like sh@t, trying to feel better about themselves.”“Probably,” Eddie echoes, and Jeff nods resignedly, like that’s the end of it, which makes Eddie feel all strange and queasy inside, actually, because is the kid’s mistreatment a reason not to show up for him? “We should go anyway.”Janie’s eyebrows climb. “Seriously?”He thinks about I heard the kid’s a queer, too. “Seriously. We freaks have got to stick together, right? Even if that happens to be beyond the grave.”Her lips part like she’s about to object; then she closes them again. There’s a silent little apology in her eyes, actually, when she looks at him, which he’s going to try not to unpack right now. The song changes to something new and horribly Duran Duran. He resists a groan and thinks longingly of the safety of his van, where he might blast Dio to his heart’s content, and then realizes he’s signed himself up for another few hours at least before he can get to that bit. But still, all in a good cause, right?He makes it through the remainder of his classes without any further incident, and then he’s slouching down in his seat in detention as Mr. Ryan stands at the front and says in a monotone, “You both know the drill, I presume, get on with your work, no talking, I got a lot of Xeroxing to do so I’m gonna be in and out but there’s only two of you so that won’t be a problem, will it?” Mr. Ryan looks between them skeptically, like he finds it hard to believe they could get into mischief together. Which, Eddie realizes, looking over at his fellow detention-haver, is pretty accurate, because it’s Steve f@ck@ng Harrington.“So, what brings King Steve to my neck of the woods?” Eddie says, after ten minutes of silence, when Mr. Ryan’s left the room. Because he’s had detention a hell of a lot in his school career, and he’s shared it with Harrington only a handful of times. Stupid stuff, like cutting class to make out with his girlfriend or drink a couple beers, thinking he’s rebelling, is what Eddie imagines. He’s not unconvinced that under that pretty head of hair, Harrington’s got nothing but All the Right Moves playing on loop inside his brain. “He told us to be quiet, man.”“Oh, come on, old Ryan doesn’t give a sh@t. As long as he gets his Xeroxing done in peace, we’re good. So tell me. I’m curious.”Harrington looks at him finally. “Why the hell are you talking to me?” It’s not the accusatory, don’t look at me, freak type tone that Tommy H. likes to use. It’s just a little curious, really, a little bewildered. “Humor me,” Eddie says, leaning across the desk, propping his chin on his hand. (F@ck the Steinbeck essay he’s supposed to be finishing — starting — this is more interesting. For some reason. Harrington’s stupid big hair, a swoop of it above his forehead, his faintly stupid eyes.)“Jesus, man, I just cut class, okay, is that what you wanna hear?”“Not really. Where’s the panache? The pizazz? You’re a cliché of yourself, Harrington.”“Oh? And why are you here?”Eddie pinches his lips together. F@ck@ng smartass. “Skipped one paper too many.”“Original. Not a cliché at all.” Harrington shakes his head like he’s disbelieving, bending his head over his homework. “Why don’t you get on with your work, man, since that doesn’t seem to be your strong suit?”His cruelty is sort of instinctual, softened, like shoes that have been worn over and over. Eddie lets it wash over him. “I don’t know, close quarters with King Steve, can’t you forgive my curiosity?”“You really are weird,” Harrington says. Eddie imagines Tommy C. saying that to him, Isn’t Munson a f@ck@ng freak?. And earlier, And it’s only November 8th. Them laughing, Harrington and Tommy, and Tommy H. and Carol and all the f@ck@ng rest. Janie saying it would be funny, fond. You’re so f@ck@ng weird, dude. Tommy C. saying it, that weird mixed tone of his, half desire and half contempt: You’re a weird f@ck@ng guy. But Steve just– says it. Like it’s a fact. Like he has no interest in and no capacity for challenging it.Eddie looks back down at his paper. He’s written seven words: In Steinbeck’s seminal novel, the sense ofSeminal. No doubt Harrington would find that amusing.Mr. Ryan comes back in, looks between them resignedly, and then leaves again. When he’s gone, Eddie leans over to Harrington’s desk again and says, “Shouldn’t you be at basketball practice?”“Shouldn’t you be minding your own g@dd@mn business?” Harrington looks at him, eyebrows raised emphatically, but really he’s wearing a polo shirt so how is Eddie supposed to take that seriously? “How do you know when practice is, anyway?”Coach Benson is gonna kick my ass on Tuesday, I know it, Tommy C. said on Sunday, Eddie remembers in a sudden flash. But what’s he gonna say, oh, yeah, the basketball guy I’m scr@w@ng told me? Not that they’re scr@w@ng, really, just scr@w@ng with the idea of scr@w@ng, messing with it. Messing around. Eddie’s only ever had real s@x a couple times in his life, thus far.“Whatever,” Harrington says, when Eddie doesn’t answer quick enough. They lapse into silence. As Harrington works on his homework, Eddie kicks back in his chair and watches him openly, because f@ck it. What’s he got to lose? So he stares at Harrington, at his fine, roman profile (you can tell the guy’s rich, Christ, practically shaped by the gods to look like an aristocrat) and the way he keeps looking at the clock.“You got somewhere to be, Harrington? Can’t get away from me fast enough?”“Yeah, well, I don’t know what you’re expecting, Munson. I figured you’d be used to it by now.” Harrington lets this out as a sort of muttered rush, even-toned, not exactly flooded with vitriol but not a nice thing to say either, not that Eddie was expecting nice, because hey. Harrington’s right. He’s used to it by now. He lets the silence stretch on, this time. Can’t really summon the effort to break it again — not quite sure what he’s hoping for in doing so. Harrington is an @ssh@l@. And it’s just the two of them, no one to impress, no one to protect. Just detention. Just their homework. (And yet something about Harrington gets under his skin–)He’s been here enough times to measure the schedule of Mr. Ryan’s Xeroxing. He returns twice throughout, Eddie knows, and the third absence lasts the longest, usually more than half an hour. So right after Mr. Ryan disappears the third time, Eddie gets out of his seat and takes his pack of Camels over to the window, hoisting himself up to sit on the sill and pulling one knee up as he lights it. “You’re a f@ck@ng moron,” Harrington says from his desk, pausing in his work and propping his chin on his hand as he looks at Eddie. “You know someone’s gonna smell that sh@t on you, right?”“They’d have to get pretty near to me for that. Wanna come up here and find out exactly how close you gotta get?”He says it to watch the curl of disgust across Harrington’s lips; he’s not sure why that appeals to him. But there’s no such curl. Harrington just looks back down at his desk, a lock of hair falling across his forehead, and his expression is hidden from view. Eddie smokes his cigarette out the window in silence after that, idly watching the basketball team running a frigid circuit around the track under harsh floodlights, dusk falling over them. Tommy C.’s ass looks good in those shorts. “Y’know, I can’t believe you don’t want to be out there, freezing your b@tt off with the rest of them,” Eddie says after a while, not taking his eyes off Tommy C. “Don’t you listen? It’s not up to me. Didn’t g@dd@mn choose this. Jesus, man, do you ever do any work? I’m gonna graduate before you do at this rate.”“Aw, anyone would think you cared.” Eddie finishes his cigarette and stubs it out through the window, sliding back into his seat to confront the looming blank page of his essay. The thing is, Harrington’s g@dd@mn f@ck@ng right. Because of course he is. If he doesn’t get his brain to knuckle down and actually do something — anything — then he’s not gonna pass the year. Not gonna graduate. Not gonna get out of Hawkins, and f@ck that. He cranks out an eighth word on his paper, and a ninth. When the clock reaches six p.m. and Mr. Ryan waves them off with a hand full of copied papers, they sort of walk out to the parking lot together. Sort of. Harrington a few paces ahead of Eddie, Eddie dropping back behind, hands slung in his pockets, not in the mood for a confrontation with the basketball team, who send outraged calls over to Harrington from the track where they’re finishing the last of their drills — “Harrington, what the hell, man, you missed practice!” Tommy C. says, as Tommy H. ditches the drills entirely and jogs over to Harrington with a towel around his neck. “You ready for tonight?” Tommy H. says with a grin, slinging an arm around Harrington’s shoulders, and somehow Eddie doesn’t think he’s talking about the assembly for Will Byers.Cold in the icy November air, Eddie shivers and slopes off to find his van. When he turns the engine over, his Holy Diver cassette blares to life and for the first time all day he allows some of the tension to deflate out of him. Something about loud music, the right music, reaches some antsy, frantic part of his brain that nothing else can reach and tells it to calm down, and it works. (He thinks that’s maybe why Wayne forgives him the metal played at hours most reasonable people don’t think metal should be played, even though it probably keeps him awake, when he’s not working nights — because it helps. For some reason. Somehow.)He drums his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the beats of Rainbow in the Dark as he drives downtown, to Benny’s, where he’s supposed to be meeting Janie and Gareth and Jeff for food before the assembly. It’s dark, mist creeping over the road and coiling under the streetlamps, dark enough that the red and blue siren lights are visible from way off down the road.He slows the van to a crawl. For once, he hasn’t done anything wrong; but there’s a lick of foreboding curling in his gut. A feeling like the feeling he got walking past Hopper and the cops in the woods, calling emptily for Will Byers, like the feeling he got in the dark on Sunday night, so high out of his mind he saw a monster. Turns out it’s not his lucky day, because the lights are coming from the parking lot at Benny’s. He turns in and hovers in the van — maybe this is a sign, maybe he should just go the f@ck home — but then he spots Janie, leaning against her car with a blank, sullen look as she talks to a cop. Anyone else, he would have made himself scarce, but it’s Janie, so he cuts the engine and goes out to join her.“They’re closed,” she says when he gets near enough, cutting through whatever the cop’s saying — Callahan, Eddie recognizes, and f@ck@ng hates that he recognizes, because why does he know the g@dd@mn cops’ names? “What happened?” “Suicide, it looks like,” Callahan says. “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to find someplace else to eat.”“Sh@t, suicide?” Eddie looks furtively at the diner’s darkened windows. He’s been to Benny’s quite a few times, a favorite of Wayne’s, Wayne who was a friend of Benny’s — greasy fries, greasy burgers, food that’s more about comfort and distraction from the cold world outside than tasting the food itself — Benny who’s killed himself. Benny who–“C’mon, I’ve got Gareth and Jeff in the car. We’ll have to go somewhere else.” Janie thumbs back at her car, a beaten up Ford Pinto. Eddie pinches his lips together and nods; and together they walk away from Callahan, and Jeff opens the passenger door to talk to them, and Gareth leans in and says something along the lines of “My mom can make us dinner,” which is how come Eddie ends up tailing Janie’s Cortina back uptown into buttf@ck-suburbia where the houses are pretty and small and full of annoying little sophomores like Gareth and Jeff. Why the f@ck is he doing this, again?“Who are your friends, Gareth?” is what Gareth’s mom says, when they’re awkwardly hovering in the kitchen, the kitschy cute kitchen plus Janie in her leather and tattoos, plus Eddie in his leather and tattoos —“Eddie and Janie, mom. Mom, Eddie and Janie. And you know Jeff.” “Ooh, are they gonna be in your band? That’s exciting.” Gareth’s mom leans her hip against the counter and crosses her arms over her apron-clad chest; she’s got intricately curled brown hair and doesn’t really look like she knows anything about bands. Which, band? Since when did Gareth have a band?“I told you, I don’t have a band, it’s just me and Jeff. They’re just– friends from school.” Gareth scuffs his socked toes on the carpet — a shoeless household, Eddie had to shed his Docs at the door — and then looks at his mom with an easy grin, and f@ck, that easy grin makes Eddie’s stomach turn. “Are you maybe making mac and cheese for dinner?”“Yep. We got plenty for your friends. Why don’t you go and show them the garage while you wait?”So Gareth leads them to the garage. While Eddie’s skin itches, walking down this carefully-decorated hallway, family photographs, all the evidence of a perfectly nice life going on. Perfectly happy. Mother and father and son. Suburbia. F@ck. He wonders if Gareth’s mom would be so accommodating if she knew Eddie’s dad was in prison; he wonders if she wouldn’t be more accommodating, and the way that would just make it worse. The garage is some amateur practice space, a drumkit and a couple amps and little else, save for a couple posters on the walls, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath and Dio, and hey, maybe Eddie can work with this. Maybe he can. “So, you’re a drummer?” he says to Gareth, who’s twitching by the door like he’s regretting showing them this. The big scary seniors. Sure. “Yep.” “Who’d ya wanna be? Ringo Starr?”Gareth shakes his head emphatically. “John Bonham, man. Of course.” Eddie lets a smile grow on his face, because okay. That’s cool. That is cool. “I sing,” Jeff interjects suddenly, and Eddie looks over at him. “And sometimes play guitar. Jimmy Page is cool. Jimi Hendrix too. But I kinda– I don’t know, I wanna be Ronnie James Dio.”“You’re d@mn right,” Eddie says, allowing the smile to broaden. “So all we need’s a bassist, and we got ourselves a band.”“Wait, seriously?” Jeff’s eyes have gone big. And yeah, maybe Eddie’s surprising even himself in this moment. Investing in something. He hasn’t felt able to invest himself in something in a while. But, like, what the hell. What the f@ck. Why not? People are going missing and killing themselves out there. No time like the present.“So I gotta find you guys a bassist, then?” Janie’s leaning against the wall, raising an eyebrow. Her socks are pink, a fact rather at odds with the rest of her dark leather, ripped denim outfit. It’s kind of a nice touch. Throws the rest of it into sharper relief. “Because I’ve had so much luck finding people for Hellfire.”“Killjoy,” Eddie says, and she sticks her tongue out at him, but it lacks its usual bite and wait, she’s got her shoulders hunched, something uncomfortable in her face. Like she’s regretting this, bringing these two sophomores in. Like she’s feeling left out. But before he can step closer and say something — no idea what, Janie rarely lets any sort of emotion show and even rarer is the occasion she needs reassurance — Gareth’s mom is poking her head around the door, calling them in for dinner all domestic-like, all Norman f@ck@ng Rockwell and Eddie could scream. He really could.Gareth’s mom (Andy, she tells them, Andrea but really it’s Andy) spoons out homemade mac and cheese into bowls and directs them to a cute yellow dining room, where she hovers in the doorway and says something to the extent of, “It’s really good of you kids to go to that assembly, you know, for that poor missing boy. My friend Karen, she knows the boy’s mom, it’s just horrible–”Eddie wonders at that. At how many people are gonna start saying oh, yeah, I was friends with Will, oh, yeah, him, I had Chemistry with him, oh, he was a sweet kid– when they don’t have any right to. And the more tenuous connections, this friend of a friend of his mom. Maybe Eddie should stand up and say my dad was friends with his dad, before my dad went to prison. How would that go down, he wonders? How entitled to the homemade mac and cheese would he be then?“You dread to think of it happening to your own kid, of course.” Do you? “I remember once we lost Gareth in a Kroger. It was like the floor dropped out from under me, you know, I just felt like I was falling… of course, we found him trying to lick up spilled milk in aisle five, but you never forget that fear, do you?”“Mom,” Gareth mumbles, cheeks red. “I was four.”She smiles fondly, ruffles his hair. “Oh, Jeff, how’s your dad doing, by the way? I dropped off some flowers with your mom the other day but I didn’t have the time to stop in.”Jeff shifts in his seat. “He’s about the same. It’s–” an uneasy look at Eddie and Janie, like he’s afraid of being judged, which, seriously? “–it’s a lot on my mom, y’know, looking after him, but we’re doing okay.”“Good, good, I’m glad. You just let us know if you ever need anything, okay?” She smiles at him and then goes back into the kitchen, leaving Jeff studying his bowl with a concentrated, awkward expression, until finally he seems to pluck the courage to look up and say, “My dad, he’s got leukemia.”“Sh@t,” Eddie says. Janie echoes it. He resists the tired platitudes — a dad in prison is different from a dad dying of cancer, but he gets the sense that the feeling is the same, of hearing I’m sorry once and never wanting to hear it ever again — and draws the kid into a conversation about Led Zep instead. And Led Zep leads to Ramble On, leads to Tolkien and The Silmarillion and stuff Janie likes too, and it’s a palpable shift in the air, actually, the moment Jeff and Gareth relax. Remember that oh, yeah, these two seniors may be seniors but they’re no more cool than we are. And f@ck coolness anyway.After dinner, they drive back over to the school, where a surprisingly large number of people are gathering in the parking lot, funneling through to the field, talking and laughing, sure, but here for Will Byers nonetheless. Some undefeatably cynical part of Eddie can’t help but believe they just want a piece of the action — the inexorable pull of notoriety. How cool is this, a kid went missing from our town! Our little town! Maybe we’ll make the Big Three!No Harrington. No Tommy H. or Carol either, though he does spot Tommy C. over on the bleachers with a few cheerleaders. He’s not sure what that makes him feel; whatever it is, he pushes it down. Just stands with Janie and Gareth and Jeff in the cold night air, under full white floodlights, watching some teacher from the middle school light some candles and say some sh@t about God bringing Will Byers home safe, mostly snatched away on the wind, thankfully, really, because what the hell is God gonna do? But people around him are nodding gravely, closing their eyes to pray, including the arrogant freshman, Jason, from earlier, Eddie sees, holding the hand of some strawberry-blonde girl with a vaguely familiar face.He closes his eyes too, but not to pray. It’s more so he doesn’t let out a f@ck@ng scream at the kid, for being here, for having the g@dd@mn audacity. Someone definitely killed him. I heard the kid’s a queer, too. Where the f@ck do they get off? Saying sh@t like that? And then wanting a piece of the grieving pie?Will Byers, Eddie thinks. If you’re out there, you’d better come the f@ck home, if only to shove it in these @ssh@l@s’ faces. When the assembly’s over, the crowd begins to disperse. Eddie’s walking alone back to his van when he hears running footsteps catch up with him, and he spins around with his keys in his hand (not the first time he’s been jumped) to see some nondescript senior he doesn’t really know, Jack, maybe? And Jack leans against the van with a twitchy smile and says, “How much?”Eddie stares at him, uncomprehending. “What?”Jack leans closer, dropping his voice. “Y’know, how much? For, like, I don’t know, half an ounce?”Holy f@ck@ng sh@t. Eddie drops his eyes and runs a hand over his face, unable to resist the urge to laugh. “Yeah, uh, no. I don’t know where you got the impression I sell from, but, uh, I don’t. So.”“You sure? ‘Cause Tommy was talking about it, and, like–”“Tommy?” Eddie wheels around, looks at him sharply. “Which Tommy?”“...Tommy C.?”He slumps back against the van, all the righteous tension going out of him. Tommy C.’s been spreading that sh@t about him? When– when Tommy C. knows about his dad. When Eddie’s been so out of it it’s just come spilling out, the arrest, the remand, the court case and the verdict and the years he was sentenced to, not that Eddie was around for any of that but he had to hear about it anyway–Saying it drunkenly, slurring into Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy listening and not saying much and giving him a handjob afterwards, Eddie’s face pushed tearily into the side of Tommy’s neck. Tommy should f@ck@ng know better.“For f@ck’s sake,” he lets out softly, pressing the tips of his fingers into his eyes. “I don’t g@dd@mn sell, okay? So fuck off.”Jack raises his hands, backing off defensively. “Hey, just asking. Jesus. Woulda thought you’d need the cash, anyway, but hey.”“Wanna pay me to suck your d@ck, too? You like that? F@ck’s sake.” Jack shoots him a disgusted look and slopes off into the dark, leaving Eddie alone by his van, staring into the night and feeling the urge to hit Tommy C., hard, closed-fist. But he’s not that sort of person. Never has been.Maybe if he was, things would be easier. But he’s not. And they aren’t.   
  
  

    
      
        
        
          — the grapes of wrath is a common set text, written by john steinbeck, 1939 - it explores class struggle and rural poverty in the great depression— 'the dog ate my homework' was popularised as an expression in the 1970s— delirious by prince was no. 8 in the us top 40 singles chart for this week in november 1983.— the duran duran song is union of the snake, released 17th october 1983— 'xeroxing' is photocopying, commercially introduced by xerox in 1959.— all the right moves is a sports movie released october 21st 1983— the ford pinto was on the market 1971-1980; it's the same model as joyce's car.— ringo starr was the drummer for the beatles.— john bonham was the drummer for led zeppelin; jimmy page was their guitarist.— jimi hendrix has been deemed arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived; he was active in the late 60s, until his death in 1970.— ronnie james dio was a metal vocalist of elf, rainbow, black sabbath, and dio fame.— ramble on is a led zep song released 1969, with lyrics referencing tolkien— the big three are cbs, nbc, and abc, the dominating networks until 1990phew, a lot of notes there. let me say i've been blown away by the response to this fic already, and i'm so excited to see what you think of the ongoing chapters. let me know if you enjoyed this one below, and, as always, find me on twitter (ohtobeinlove) or tumblr (palmviolet).'
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