Chapter Text
October, 1985
The day of the power outage is the day Eddie Munson officially meets Billy Hargrove.
Frankly, it’s a shitty ass day to begin with. He wakes up with a bad taste in his mouth, like a nightmare and the deep knowledge that he’s going fucking nowhere in life. The coffee can is completely empty.
It only gets worse from there. Eddie is of a mind that, 20 years of age is two years too many for one to find oneself in the position of sitting in a high school chair while your math teacher belittles and patronizes the fucking hell out of you. Of course, practice makes perfect, so he endures soundlessly, picking at his black nail polish diligently until it looks like absolute crap.
The subsequent hour of English is even worse because he knows this shit, he likes literary analysis, like the big nerd he is. But surrounded by prim sweaters and perfectly coiffed hair and letterman jackets that have never had to work a day in their lives, and are also judging his every goddamn breath, he really doesn’t want to engage. He’s got his polish to fix after all. Of course, Ms Sharpe doesn’t agree with this sentiment, and ignores Nancy Wheeler’s raised hand again, and ‘Mr Munson’s him about The Great Gatsby. This, even though on a regular day he quite likes Ms Sharpe and he manages to mumble half-answers back, sends him on a verbal spiral about Fitzgerald, which leads to the usage of the word dick in class. Obviously he gets detention. As if he’s not a half-grown adult person.
Like every second Tuesday, he drives out to the cornfields, and waits for his regular client. Eddie doesn’t know his name, but what he does know is that he’s a huge fucking asshole, and that he’s never late to get the meagre amount of coke Eddie can get his hands on. Eddie hates selling to him, simply because of how unsafe he feels out here with this man that thinks he’s the biggest toughest guy out there. Today, against all previous signs, tough guy is late by half an hour, and he doesn’t have enough to buy the entire baggy. Which leaves Eddie with less money than he needs for the month, and half a thing of cocaine, which he hates driving around with.
By the time he gets home, the sun is far enough behind the trees that it’s freezing. He gets this sinking feeling, like every late October, with the realisation that they’ll need to get more gas the more they’ll need to turn the heating on. And he needs to get some new chords. And fucking coffee. Eddie knows if he looked how he feels sometimes, he’d look the size of a cigarette butt, of an unused ticket stub, of nothing at all.
The entire trailer creaks and groans as he closes the door. It’s freezing in there too, but he’s in a bit of a punishing mood, so he just changes his leather jacket for two sweaters and doesn’t turn the heating on. Instead, he dumps his whole self on his bed and puts on Fade to Black because he’s committing to the maudlin. Eddie picks up his second-hand nearly-ripped-in-two copy of the Silmarillion, opens it at a random page, and reads until his knuckles are too cold to be holding up a book.
It’s as he’s rummaging about for a can of soup that the power goes out. It’s soundless, really, but the darkness is so sudden and tangible that Eddie’s mind supplies a whoosh to fill the quiet. Eddie’s never been bothered by power outages. He finds it’s a good opportunity to be even more of a fire hazard and light a candle or two. But today, today hasn’t been a good day, and it must be a fucking joke, because he’s starving and he can’t cook if he can’t fucking see.
That’s when he hears it. The slam of a door. And then the other thing. He thinks at first, that can’t be a human sound. It’s a whine, grating and small. It builds though, to a scream, and Eddie freezes when he realizes there’s words in the sound, something like ‘not again, not again’ over and over. It’s terrifying, and awful, and Eddie never wants to know what can make a person sound like that. He edges closer to the window, and he isn’t sure what he was expecting but it’s not this: Billy Hargrove, on his knees in the distance between their trailers, scrambling to light his zippo. The little fire lights his face, as he passes his fingers through it, as if to feel the heat better. He’s terrified.
The thing is, Eddie noticed Billy Hargrove right away when he came to Hawkins. Because it looked like Hargrove had a good taste in music and Eddie had a shit taste in boys. Of course, after the first moment of cataloguing him, Eddie decided he should pay attention to him because he was dangerous. Billy Hargrove was a dangerous boy, pretty as anything, whose favourite curse was ‘faggot’, whose fists Eddie could imagine painted with his own freak queer blood. And then Billy Hargrove died and he came back from that a broken weirdo loner that lives across from Eddie, and has his sister over every weekend, and ties his hair in a bun to put his clothes up on the lines. Seemingly, he is softer. Eddie shan’t be fooled of course, who’s to say pretty zombies can’t beat him to death in a fit of prejudice? And so, Eddie and Billy have never spoken, not once.
When Eddie opens his door, and it bangs all over the place like the piece of shit it is, both Hargrove and himself jump, and look at each other like startled rabbits. Eddie stands there like a douche, while Hargrove stumbles up from the ground. He’s holding his lighter like the most precious thing in the world. “The fuck do you want?” he croaks at Eddie, who’s just going with this madness at this point.
He pulls a crooked Marlboro out of his back pocket and says “Hey man, got a light?”. Because he’s an idiot.
Hargrove’s lighter instantly goes out. In the darkness, Eddie can see on his outline as his shoulders go down. He clears his throat, like he has a bit of a cough, and not a major case of the terrified screams. He huffs then, and with all the softness Eddie’s seen him feed the stray dogs of the trailer park, he says “Yeah man, always do.”
Eddie stumbles down the stairs, and sticks his cigarette in his mouth. Billy doesn’t move a single step, not until Eddie’s feet reach the ground, and he’s standing there fidgeting and playing with his hair like a middle school girl. Billy moves through the shadows soundlessly then, and lights Eddie’s cigarette himself. This makes sense because, Eddie thinks, Billy Hargrove doesn’t look like he’s letting this tiny flame-making box out of his hand.
Eddie takes a grateful drag of smoke and mumbles his thanks. Billy shrugs. The cherry of the cigarette is blindingly red in the dark, and Eddie tries not to look at it for too long. He’s sure Billy will turn around and go back to his house. But he doesn’t.
“Don’t suppose I could bum you one of those, huh?”
This is how Eddie ends up sitting on the steps of his trailer, chain-smoking next to Billy Hargrove, until the power comes back on. It’s a startling change, after the quiet quality the darkness lent them, to see Billy under the yellow lights of the park. Eddie is delighted to find that Billy’s hair is in a loose braid trailing down his back. He can’t help himself “Nice hair” he says, and he hopes it sounds sarcastic enough to not come off as the actual compliment it is.
“Yeah yeah, thanks, asshole. My sister fixed it.” He doesn’t sound murderous, and that’s more of an answer than Eddie was expecting.
“Max, right?”
Billy scowls at this. “How the fuck do you know Maxine?”
Eddie raises his hands in the universal signal of don’t shoot me. “I don’t, not really. She’s uh. Friends with some uh. Kids I play DnD with.” Wow, that sounds pretty pathetic, put like that. It’s like he’s asking to get bullied, really.
“Man, that’s rough. And here I thought I was pathetic.”
“Oh no, hey you still look plenty pathetic.”
Billy snorts, gets up, and stomps on his cigarette. “Okay, funny guy. I’m Billy.” He cocks his head to the side. And Eddie really didn’t want to get fooled, but it does look like dying changes a guy.
He extends his hand and says “Eddie”. It’s an anxious second before Hargrove shakes his hand. His palms are gnarly with scars, but his hands are warmer than the weather would suggest, and his grip firm. He pulls away after two seconds, and turns to amble towards his house. Without looking back he says “See ya around, Eddie”.
.
After that, Billy’s presence becomes a bit of a constant. They nod at each other from across the way. Billy bums cigarettes off him at least once a week. Eddie learns that Billy works at the same construction site as his uncle two towns over, hauling metal beams and some such. When he’s not working, he’s fixing his car. By mid-November it doesn’t look absolutely totaled.
Thing is, Billy Hargrove is effortlessly cool, in the way that he is an absolute oddity, but he doesn’t seem to care. Granted, that’s probably because he nearly died and he’s seen some shit. Nonetheless, his strangeness is a fact, and this fact has Eddie in a bit of tizzy. Once, when Eddie bangs out of the trailer, guitar and cables and shitty amp in tow, Billy is sitting in a folding chair across the way. He’s usually at work at this hour. Eddie hopes he didn’t bother him practising this new song he’s got stuck in his head. This anxiety is resolved quickly, when Billy says “Nice riff, Munson.” Eddie ducks his head and, stuffing his guitar in the van, shouts back his thanks. His voice only breaks a little at the end.
Eddie continues army-crawling his way through school, as though he’s planning on doing something after. As though, even if he was planning, he’d have enough money to actually do it. And yet, possibly in a last ditch effort to extend the lackadaisical existence of a student, he keeps on keeping on. He writes yet another essay about The Great Gatsby, and even with the amount of inflammatory phlegm he sticks in there about the Great American Novel as a concept, he still gets an A. At the end of November he gets a job at a Christmas tree lot, because that heating isn’t gonna pay itself. And good thing too, because his Tuesday dickhead client wanted to go December clean. Which meant he had to make ends meet with teenagers wanting to smoke weed. And while a worthy enterprise, that wasn’t always the most steady income.
In short, he’s having a jolly winter, potent with self-pity. Whenever he tries writing lyrics, some really gay-ass shit appears on paper, and it’s not helping at all that Billy Hargrove can listen to him practice the tunes that go with said lyrics.
First week of December, Henderson needs a ride to Family Video. Eddie doesn’t think it’s much of a hassle, except he decides to put a whole production on, just for the sake of being a bitch. He has to hold on to his DM authority somehow. Henderson, delightfully predictable as ever, bitches back.
“Duuude, come ooon, you’re not even working today. Have I ever asked for any other favour?” Dustin’s pitch when he’s whining is honestly kinda impressive.
“And what assures me, that you, Dustin Henderson, won’t just exploit my goodwill from now on? Who’s to say this isn’t the first stepping stone for you to turn another adult human into your personal chauffeur? Also, that’s a short memory, you’ve asked for three favours in the span of two days.”
“And in that span I have received, like, negative points of goodwill? What the hell, I just asked you not to chop off my arm!”
“Man, don’t be butt-hurt, that was just the dice. Your shitty hit point count isn’t on me.”
Dustin twists his whole face up like that’s the worst affront to his person ever. He says “I will not stand for this treatment, you arm-stealing villainous asshole! Just drop me off in front of the store!”
Eddie’s had his fill of screeching freshman for now, and pushes open the passenger door from inside the car. “Hop in, you fucking goblin. I wanted to rent a movie anyway.” He cranks Judas Priest to full blast, and relishes in Henderson indignant squawking.
When they walk in the video store, Eddie rescinds the idea that this isn’t much of a hassle.
“Welcome to Family Video, how may I- oh Henderson!” Steve Harrington looks the same as he did last year in Algebra, minus the glazed over eyes as a response to maths. Dustin leans on the counter so they can do a whole intricate handshake thing. It’s quite embarrassing. Eddie must make some kind of sound of disgust, because Steve turns to look at him, eyes narrowed.
“And you are-”
“Eddie Munson, at your service.” Eddie puts both his hands behind his back and bows a little. He knows he’s being an asshole, but this is Steve Harrington, for Pete’s sake.
And it’s fine anyway, because Harrington is an asshole right back. He screws up his stupid pretty face and says “Yeah, no thanks” in the bitchiest fucking voice.
Henderson says “Steve, what the fuck!” and Harrington says, all long-suffering, “Go find your movie Dustin.” He even has his hands at his waist like a Little League coach or something. Dustin predictably huffs and grumbles but he goes.
Eddie takes the opportunity to slide into the now unoccupied space, and rest his forearms on the counter. “What did I ever do to ya huh? Why so tight-strung?” He cocks his head to the side and looks up at Steve, who’s looking at his arms on the counter like it’s dogshit.
“Look, I don’t know you. I’ve been taking care of these kids for some time now. They’re very impressionable. And I know both times I’ve tripped balls with Tommy H, he got that shit from you.”
Eddie feels a headache building, and he grinds his teeth. It’s like an allergic reaction he gets when rich dicknozzles decide it’s judgement day for one Eddie “the freak” Munson. He stops leaning, and stands now with his palms flat on the counter. “Listen here asshole. I’m not giving freshmen any fucking drugs. Actually hey, what if I stop doing that in general? Are ya gonna pay for my heating and electricity and my food? If you can do that then sure, I’ll turn a new page. I’ll turn legal mr dad, mr officer, sir.”
Steve rears back, and Eddie thinks that maybe he looks a bit guilty. He pushes away from the counter, raises his voice and says “See ya later Henderson” and gets out of there before Steve can think up a response, or, god forbid, apologise.
.
For some reason, this exchange ruins his whole week. He keeps obsessing over his response, and his righteous anger. And also Steve Harrington’s face. Eddie’s only human, and it feels particularly bad when pretty people think he’s trash. Eddie is mature enough to admit that Steve is attractive, but that’s only because he has eyes. They shared one class last year, that mathematical cesspool of a hellscape, where they both suffered, but Steve managed to get his D and graduate. In that class sometimes, when Eddie couldn’t for the life of him pay attention, he’d look at Harrington. He wouldn’t be paying attention either, and he’d be pulling at his bottom lip until it looked red and sore. He had a particularly sad air about him, and while Eddie likes to talk like he’s cuckoo and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything, he’s a pathological sympathizer. So Eddie makes like Eddie does and sympathizes.
The exchange at the video place feels, stupidly enough, like some sort of betrayal. Eddie knows people aren’t always what he casts them as, how he builds them in his head. The bleakness of life has lent itself to inform the making of a pessimistic worldview, one that Eddie has to persuade himself he believes most days. As such, most of the time, people turn out to be better than he thought. In the case of Steve Harrington, Eddie failed to follow his own decree, and fell in the worst trap of all: Hope. This hope is exacerbated when he meets Dustin Henderson, who’s a big nerd, and insists that Harrington is great and magical and cool and the bee’s fucking knees.
Eddie knew he shouldn’t have sold that shit to that fuckwart Tommy H and that it’d get back to him. Selling ecstasy in Hawkins is dumb, but he’d been 18 and his uncle had just gotten laid off, and food costs money. He tries to stop obsessing. He tries to do some covers of some sad British shit he’s been secretly listening to. What Difference Does It Make helps him get over the whole thing not at fucking all.
Actually, that’s a bit unfair. After the third time he manages to get all the chords, he goes deep into a song binge. This means he can barely thinks about anything else. It also means he loops that Smiths tape 25 times a day for 3 days to listen to it again and again. He fucks around on his guitar until he finds a tone more compatible to his own sad gay aesthetic. That riff right at the beginning is doing something to his gut.
As luck would have it, Billy Hargrove decides to bang on his door while he’s in the middle of this madness. It must be 11.30 at night when he hears the knock.
Eddie tumbles out of bed, stubs his toe on the amp, and opens the door with a mouthful of hair. He’s barefoot, and it’s really fucking cold out there. Billy is standing there, looking perplexed and maybe a little amused. He’s got his curls in a bun. Eddie spits out his own hair and says, very eloquently mind you, “Uuh, hey.”
Billy arches an eyebrow and says “Got a smoke?”.
At this point this is expected behaviour, but Eddie is really fucking cold, so he says “Yeah man, come on in, it’s freezing out there.” He kinda ushers Billy to sit on the couch without actually touching him, and goes inside to get his Marlboros from his jacket.
As he’s coming out of his room, Billy is stretching both his arms on the back of the couch, getting comfortable.
“Who hurt ya man? You been playing that record non-stop for two days.”
Eddie ducks his head, with the excuse that he’s fishing for a cigarette. Really, he’s trying to hide a blush. He doesn’t know why it feels so personal that Billy Hargrove can hear him singing the goddamn Smiths from his house. But he feels seen, and a bit uncomfortable.
“Sorry dude. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
Billy accepts the cigarette Eddie gives him, and scrunches up his nose. “Nah, I don’t mind. You got a good voice. But seriously. That’s some sad shit.”
Eddie shrugs and does this dumb fluttery thing with his hands that he hates, and then he puts his hands on his waist, and then that’s reminds him of Harrington, so he crossed his arms in front of his chest, gripping his fraying sweater. “Dunno, I like all the allegorical lyrics, it’s all metaphor, ya know? And the riff is sick as hell. People in England are good at writing about sad shit I think. I like the concept of unapologetic sadness, like. I’m not sorry that my mood is shit, right?”
Billy puffs on his cigarette, squinting a little as a bit of smoke goes in his eye. He makes a very charming picture on Eddie’s ratty couch. “That’s cool,” he says. “What’s your favourite record?”
Eddie leans back on the kitchen counter. “Like, in the world? That’s so. Difficult.”
Billy huffs in amusement. “Not like it’s a test or anything.”
“Uh, Ride the Lightning?” He cringes, because he doesn’t feel super good about that answer. In truth, this is a question that pesters Eddie every day. He goes into these obsessive bouts of taking apart a song completely, and for a blissful week or so, he knows his favourite song, it can’t be anything but this one, he knows it in his bones. But then he’ll hear another one, and he’ll be in love anew.
Billy laughs outright at this. “I don’t think that’s your final answer, Eddie. Because that would’ve been my answer a year ago. It’s gotta be at least a little revealing. Here, an exchange. Mine’s The Chain, Fleetwood Mac.” That’s. Eddie hates that he finds sincerity so attractive. Ugh.
He raises a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I wanna say Cosmic Dancer then. Revealing enough for you?” Eddie doesn’t know what pushes him into this bout of bravery.
Billy laughs again. He leans forward to stub out his smoke. “Revealing, and yet sensible. That’s the game.” He gets up and opens the door by himself. “Nice talking to ya. See you later Eddie.”
.
Tuesdays are cursed days, Eddie decides, after he finds his locker scratched and painted on. Some real inspired dickface decided to write ‘satan freak’ on there, which was great, really. Even better, the aspiring artist, Eddie imagines because of the adrenaline of their crime, has fucked up, so the second ‘a’ looks like an ‘i’ from a distance. Satin freak then. Students pass by, pointing and giggling. Eddie has a bit of a breakdown then. “What are you looking at you fucks?” He bangs his hand on his locker. “Says right here! I might be crazy, but at least I’m soft and expensive!” Admittedly, not his best moment.
Henderson, Wheeler and Sinclair find him at the parking lot, in the process of chain smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. He knows it’s gonna fuck up his voice, but he’s at a bit of a limit. There’s still an hour until Hellfire. The boys have Max with them, to whom Eddie has never spoken, but her judgy look is very familiar, and so is her blue sweater. He’s sure he’s seen Billy wear that.
“Everyone’s saying you went cuckoo in the hallway” says Mike Wheeler, who somehow manages to sound like a dickhead twerp whatever he might be saying.
“Well if everyone’s saying it, Wheeler, then it must be true” he sneers back, affecting his voice with the most mocking quality he can.
Max snorts. “I was there, it looked like you were having a psychotic break. It was pretty amazing.”
Eddie looked at her. She didn’t actually look like Billy, like they weren’t related at all, but someone had cast them as brother and sister in a show. “Why am I sitting here, letting some children pick on me?”
“Come on, man, we were just worried. I mean I was worried, I’m pretty sure Max is just amused” Henderson yaps, and he’s such a loyal dog sometimes, it’s astounding.
“I’m fine Henderson. I’m just real tired of high schoolers, and their idea that this” he gestures at the school “is the real world. Cause it’s not. Whatever.” He throws away his seventh cigarette and stands up to crack his back. “You gonna join Hellfire or something?” he asks Max.
Her eyeroll is also familiar. “Like I got nothing better to do with my time.”
Sinclair says “She’s just waiting with us. Her brother’s picking her up.” Eddie shamefully admits his first reaction to this is to check if his hair is sitting kinda okay.
He then notices Wheeler’s and Dustin’s grimaces at these news. “Oh great, the murder car is back on the road. So it can murder us” Dustin grumbles.
Max’s eyebrows are looking more thunderous by the second. “Shut up, asshole. I told you we’re good now. He’s good now.”
This looks like an argument they’ve had a thousand times, and they will continue having. But not right now, because Billy’s very impressive car pulls up. It’s still a bit dinged up. But it’s running. Eddie amusedly notes that Billy has Ride the Lightning on.
The kids are making a whole production of faces at each other, that Eddie decides to ignore, and go lean a bit on the Camaro. “Hey Hargrove. Nice car.”
Billy’s hair is down today, and he looks more like Billy Before Dying. And then his face twists in kind of an awkward smile, and he’s Eddie’s weirdo neighbour again. “I’d like to say likewise, but how could I ever.”
“Hey, don’t badmouth my princely carriage. Perfectly serviceable.”
“Yeah, all it’s missing is a donkey to drag it about.” He raises his voice “Hey shitbird, you coming or what?” Max appears out of nowhere and Eddie has to move or he’ll get slammed by the car door. “See ya, Eddie.”
“Yeah, yeah. Later, funny guy.” Billy flashes him a grin that’s 95% teeth and 5% freckles and speeds away.
He turns back to the boys. They're all staring at him with various expressions of disbelief and/or horror. Dustin shakes his head. “I can't believe this man. You are friends with Billy Hargrove?”
Eddie shrugs helplessly. “He's my next door neighbour. We uh, talk sometimes.”
Wheeler screws up his face again and says “But Billy is so freaking mean!”
Eddie rolls his eyes so hard he strains a nerve. “So am I, Wheeler. According to reputable sources, I'm actually Satan.”
“You're not mean.”
“I am too!”
“You just think you're mean because you're like 30 and still go to school.”
“Okay you little fuck weasels. Okay. First of all. Fuck you. Secondly, if this is the attitude we're going with, just wait and see if any of you makes it alive out of Hellfire today. I'm going to wear a necklace out of your bones.” This seems to appease them and they all settle down to wait for the seniors.
.
After Hellfire Club, everyone is dejected and whiney. Eddie did promise them a massacre after all. Eddie is feeling strangely energized, after grinding them into dust. He is laughing at some particularly on point impressions of himself Sinclair is putting on when they open the doors. But it's Tuesday after all, so.
A beemer is parked right outside, and Steve Harrington in all his cashmere sweatered glory is leaning against it. His face is doing a very constipated thing. "Heya gremlins. Hop on in."
Henderson abandons the group, sprinting for the car and shouting "Shotgun! I call shotgun!" The other two stuff themselves in the backseat only with minor whinging. Harrington doesn't immediately get in the car though.
"Hey Munson. Um." He does a bit of shuffling on the spot, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. Eddie feels the beginnings of an oncoming headache.
"Out with it Harrington, I don't have all night." And he actually doesn't, he has a shift in half an hour, and the pressing need to not be talking to Steve.
"Right, right, yeah, I just." He pauses again and Eddie is winding himself up to tell him to fuck off. Steve shakes his head. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry man. I was uh, rude. That's it. You're uh. Free to go now I guess."
The whole picture is a conundrum. Steve looks anxious, and he looks awkward, and he's nothing like The Steve Harrington of yore. Eddie can feel himself getting right back on his bullshit, with the hoping and the having space for people. "Uh. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, man."
Steve just nods and gets in the car to the sound of three teenagers' jibes, and Bruce Springsteen.
Eddie stands there, watching the lights of the beemer disappear. Gareth comes up behind him. “What was that about?” He shrugs. Yeah, he would also really like to know what that was about.