Everlong // Part Six

Everlong // part six 

Warnings: 18+, angst, mentions of death, nightmares, mentions of anxiety and depression, smut, unprotected sex

Pairings: Eddie Munson x fem!reader / Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: As Steve remembers the night of the party, he suffers through the guilt and the aftermath while you and Eddie get even closer. 

Author’s note: Don’t really like with the way it turned out but I struggled with this part and kept going back to change things. Definitely not my favorite part but I hope that you’ll like it though! 

Series masterlist

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Steve woke up with a pounding head the next morning.

Groaning in pain, he keeps his eyes shut as he puts his hand on his forehead. His nose is aching and so is his jaw, his mouth feels dry, like he hasn’t had any water in days.

The noises downstairs startle him and he opens his eyes, groaning again as he accidentally looks directly into the sun that is shining through his open window.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, closing his eyes, he runs his hand over his face as he sits up on the bed, placing his feet on the carpeted floor, he leans his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands as the nausea rushes through him.

Continua a leggere

I’m sick of modern celebrity drama. i want that vintage beef. famous people had plenty of drama that we don’t spend enough time exposing. I’m start starting a rag mag dedicated to digging up buried (literally) grudges. someone spill more tea about how harry houdini & arthur conan doyle went from besties to worsties bc one of them believed in ghosts and the other went around disproving them

👀👀👀... that last line...

Everlong / part seven

Warnings: 18+, angst, physical fight, blood, sexual harassment (someone touches readers thigh without permission but she stands up for herself and Steve defends her), reader uses a gun, smut, breeding kink, jealous!Eddie, daddy kink, mentions of pregnancy 

Pairings: Eddie Munson x fem!reader / Steve Harrington x fem!reader / implied Steddie x fem!reader (?) 

Summary: After weeks of avoiding you, Steve finally finds the courage to face you and apologize to you which may or may not end with a broken heart. 

Series masterlist 

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The hideout was never really crowded, only a few town residents occupied the tables and the chairs at the bar, though the group of men that would always sit at the biggest table by the windows were loud enough to for you to think that half of the town were in here, no one ever minded them though, they are kind and never start any fights.

There’s five of them– the five drunks, Eddie always jokes about.

Tonight, the bar is more crowded, you don’t see many women around and it makes you a little uneasy. Usually, Robin and the rest of your friends would be here to watch Eddie play but Robin and Nancy left for college again. 

Continua a leggere

Can't wait to see what's next! Loving your writing <3<3

BASIC BIOLOGY - BILLY HARGROVE X READER (PART TWO) | PART ONE

word count: 7396 // masterlist | inbox (please request) | WIP list

Summary: you're paired with billy for a biology project. you only visit his house once, but it's enough for you to understand why he doesn't want you to come over again. when he starts showing up more and more in your life, you realize that it's basic biology: you were made for him, and he was made for you.

Contents: graphic descriptions of violence, mentions of injuries, angst, fluff, happy ending

A/N: i hope you like this chapter! Billy and his love starvation seem like they’d latch onto the first real love they get, and I tried to establish that here. Please let me know what you think! 💞

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! your feedback motivates me to write more, so thank you for your support :-)

You don’t expect to see Billy again for a while. Even though he’d thanked you, sincerely, awestruck, you hadn’t suffered through the tense car ride for nothing. He clearly didn’t want to talk to you about it, and he assumes you’ll pry.

You don’t really blame him, either. Because you want to pry. You want to beg for information, plead with him to give you a rundown of what hurts and where, so that you can fix it all. And then you want to pry about any particular allergies of his father’s, so that you can serve him shellfish pasta and make his death look like an accident.

It turns out, though, that you see him the very next day.

You don’t have your own car, nor can you even drive. You’re scared of it, of the thought of that much mechanical power granted to a simple human being, and you’d much rather walk or take the bus anyways. Your bike has a flat tire, or you’d be using it to ride back from the store.

All you’d picked up was a bottle of coke and a pack of gum - juicy fruit. The coke sweats a stain through the pocket of your jeans, but it’s secure, and not grating callouses against your fingertips with its puckered cap. All you hear is the thundering roar of cars speeding down the street next to you, your feet slamming against the pavement as you power walk home.

You’re only ten minutes out, in the final stretch, when you hear a particularly loud engine. It’s gotta be from a muscle car, and you wait for it to pass so that you can look without being obvious. But it doesn’t pass, the engine revs and then chugs once more, slowing to a stop right beside you.

You’re not in the practice of looking over at cars that stop next to you on the road, something eerie about the situation. But when you hear a newly-familiar voice say your name, you stop in your tracks.

“Y/N,” Billy calls, leaning over the empty passenger’s seat to brace his hand on the open window, “Hey, you need a ride?”

His face is red. It’s subtle, and you think that maybe there’s- is that makeup over it? Either way, you know there’s a mark, and you know why there’s a mark.

“Uh,” You stammer, glancing ahead at the sidewalk, “I’m okay. Thank you, though.”

“Where are you going?” He raises an eyebrow, “Aren’t you hot?”

“A little,” You become hyper aware of the sweat sticking to your forehead, the stickiness of your socks against your feet, “It’s fine, though. It’s only, like, ten minutes home.”

“Just get in,” He squints up at you, the sun in his eyes, “I’m heading that way anyways.”

“Okay..” You comply, ducking down to step off of the curb and fit yourself into his camaro, “Are you sure it’s not a problem?”

“Not at all,” He straightens up from where he’d been leaning out the window so that you can sit down, but he braces his hand on the back of your headrest. He uses it as leverage to look behind him to make sure he’s not pulling out into traffic, and when it’s safe, he peels away from the curb in what you now know is typical Billy fashion. Tires squealing, engine revving, confidence in his eyes.

“So,” You hum, digging the coke bottle out of your pocket so that you don’t smash it, “Why are you gonna be over by my place?”

“Oh,” he laughs, shaking his head, “I’m not. I just lied, knew you wouldn’t get in unless I said that.”

You let out an incredulous laugh, “Billy! You lied!”

“And,” He grins, nodding and readjusting his hands on the wheel as he turns you around a corner, “It worked, didn’t it? And now you’ve got a ride.”

“Thank you, Billy,” At your words you remember his own from the night prior, stiffening slightly in your seat, “Um, are you.. okay? Last night was.. Intense.”

“Yeah,” He takes a moment to answer, but when he does his voice is stronger than it was last night. He keeps himself preoccupied with ducking slightly to check his blind spot, “It’s nothing. I’m, uh- I’m used to it.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re okay, though.” You mumble, “Does it hurt?”

“Seriously,” He shakes his head, his curls flying around his shoulders, “Doesn’t matter. Just.. forget about it, okay?”

“Billy,” You gush, wanting so badly to respect his wishes for the sake of not starting an argument. But how were you supposed to forget possibly the scariest experience of your life?

“I’m not going to go around town blabbing,” You swear, “But don’t you think we should tell someone?”

“No,” He insists, voice sharp, “Because if he doesn’t get hauled in, then I get my ass beat, maybe even killed. And if he does get hauled in, then I’m the man of the house. And my summer job barely pays for the gas money it takes to get there, and Max is too young to work, and Susan probably doesn’t even want me, so then I’d be out on my ass, and- just.. No. It wouldn’t work.”

He’s heated now, cheeks flushed and eyes wild. His chest heaves with the breaths he wasn’t taking when he was rambling, and you let him catch up before you talk again.

“Okay,” You take care to keep your voice calm and soothing, “Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I won’t tell anyone, Billy, not if you don’t want me to. But.. but something has to give, y’know? I meant what I said last night,” You fiddle with the ridges on the cap of your coke bottle, “Come over anytime.”

He meets your eye in the rear view mirror, and no words are needed. There’s a tenderness in your eyes that’s reflected in his own, and beneath the cockiness that he slathers over himself, you see sincerity peeking through. He nods and it’s grateful, hopeful, even.

“You want a burger?” He sniffs, scrunching his nose and changing the subject. His hands are prying at the wheel, turning the car down a road before you can respond, but you’ve got leftover cash from the convenience store, so you nod.

“Sure,” You nod, “Uh, I guess I don’t owe you pizza money anymore.”

“No,” You’re glad that he takes it as a joke, instead of a painful reminder of the night before, “Max should be the one paying me, Jesus, I mean she ate half the box.”

“She’s a growing girl,” You scold him, “She needs her nutrients.”

“Oh, yeah, melted cheese and greasy pepperoni, real nutritious.” He scoffs, but there’s a smile on his face, “What’s your order, Doctor Nutrient?”

You’re tempted to order a salad just to fuck with him. But you don’t, you let out a breathy laugh and recite your burger preference. He nods, pulling up to the window of the only drive-thru fast food restaurant in town.

Part of you is that glad that you don’t go inside, and part of you is crushed.

On one hand, you’re sweaty from walking, and you probably don’t look your best because of it. You don’t feel like being in the public eye right now, you feel like curling up on your couch and relaxing for the rest of the day. 

But on the other hand, what is Billy feeling? Part of you, deep inside, a horrid little piece that wants to make you sad, tells you that he’s not going to go into a burger place with you because he’s embarrassed to be seen with you. That you do look sweaty and gross, and that he’s not going to risk his reputation for some girl in his biology class. You thought you’d had a sort of breakthrough with him, unlocked some part of him that no one else had, because of those minutes stuck hiding in his closet. You’d thought you were maybe even friends, not just partners for class.

But he orders and pays for a meal to-go, and you’re silent as his wheels screech against the asphalt as he pulls into a parking space.

“Here,” He hands you the tray that they’d given you, spreading a meager, flimsy napkin over his lap in its absence, “You take that, and just keep my fries in there while I eat this.”

“We can share it,” You offer, scrambling to balance the tray on the divider between your seats, but he pushes it back into your lap with a shake of his head and a large, strong hand, “No, no, don’t worry about it. One of us should have an easy lunch.”

“Thanks,” You murmur, choosing to stuff your mouth with burger instead of voice any of your internal monologue out loud. You eat in silence for a few bites, blaming it on your mouthful of food instead of your awkward reservations. But he glances over to get a fry, and sees you staring out the windshield, lost in space.

“Is yours drugged or something?” He teases, elbowing you gently in the side, “You’re zoning out, hard.”

“Oh,” You take a deep breath, chewing the last of your burger and swallowing it, picking at your fries, “No, I think I’m just tired from walking.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s good I picked you up, then. Where were you even walking?”

“Corner store,” You mumble around a mouthful of burger, “I wanted a coke. Oh,” You remember, sticking a hopefully-clean hand into your pocket to retrieve your cash, “Here, for the burger.”

“‘S fine,” He waves you off, “It was, like, two bucks. Don’t sweat it.”

“Billy,” You huff, “Just let me pay you back!”

“No,” He drawls, sipping from his fountain drink, “Stop arguing, or I’ll kick you out of the car.”

You fall silent, neglecting to remind him that you weren’t in his car to begin with.

“So,” His eyes flash over the stereo, and he breaks the momentary lull in conversation, “What kind of music are you into?”

“Anything, really,” You shrug, “I like it all.”

“Even pop?” His nose wrinkles, and he stares accusatorily at you from his seat.

“Pop’s fine,” You nod, “Classical is only nice when I’m trying to study.”

“Classi- Like, piano and shit? Jesus,” He laughs incredulously, “Are you ninety?”

“Hey,” Your mouth falls open, and you fall easily into teasing banter with him, “Classical music is not for old people! It’s for people who need music on to study but get distracted by lyrics.”

“Metal’s good for that, too,” He reaches across the center divider to snatch a fry from the tray, “It’s, like, 90% guitar, and half the lyrics don’t even make sense, anyways. Nothing to pay attention to.”

“I’m not surprised you like metal,” You hum, “Did a Mötley Crüe tape come with this car?”

“No,” He insists, and you catch the flash of his grin from the side of your eye, “I bought it on the way back from the dealership.”

He doesn’t want to drown out your giggles with music, so he waits until you take another bite to pop a tape in. 

“That’s real music,” He boasts as the sound blares to life, “None of that violin shit.”

“I like metal,” You promise him, foot tempted to tap to the beat of the drums, “It’s just not all I listen to.”

“Yeah, well it’s gonna be all you listen to in here,” He assures you, “I’m gonna turn you into a diehard.”

“You have all of, what, twenty minutes?” You laugh, “Billy, how often do you think I’m gonna be in your car?”

“Whenever you want,” He shrugs, “You think I’m gonna let you haul your ass around town without a car?”

“Billy,” You frown, swallowing roughly to stare suspiciously at him, “What are you talking about? You barely even know me, why are you acting like my chauffeur all of a sudden?”

“Barely even know you-” He scoffs, jamming a fry into the ketchup that’s pooled on your tray, “We’re friends, dumbass. That’s how friendship works, right? We do shit for each other?”

Your heart thuds to your stomach. Friends? An hour ago you wouldn’t have even called Billy Hargrove your acquaintance. Sure, you knew each other. Hell, you probably knew more about him than anyone else in school. But not because he told you, because you found out. It was an accident, a fluke, a mistake. He didn’t tell you on purpose, so it didn’t mean you were close. But maybe you were, maybe his borderline kidnapping of you was because he cared, because he liked you.

“Yeah,” You decide, “Yeah, we’re friends. And that’s what friends do. I just.. I can’t offer you much, can I? I mean, shit, you won’t even let me give you a $5 for lunch.”

His eyes narrow, and you’re nervous you said something wrong. He huffs out a sigh, jaw tightening, “Jesus, Y/N, are you gonna make me spell it out?”

“What?”

“You offered me a place to stay,” He mumbles, glaring daggers at his keys in the ignition, “That’s.. A lot, okay? And I appreciate it.” He says it almost angrily, and if you weren’t so taken aback, you might have laughed.

“So I don’t mind dumping you where you need to be. Or spotting you for lunch.”

“Thank you,” You echo his sentiment from last night, hoping that even though they’re about a burger and not a home, they’re just as sincere, “Thanks, Billy.”

“Don’t mention it,” He grumbles, stuffing the rest of his burger into his mouth so that he doesn’t have to speak.

Being friends with Billy Hargrove is interesting. He’s brash, abrasive, but he cares in his own way, you find out, when he stops hard at a red light and throws his arm out over your chest.

“Sorry,” He mumbles, gruff and stiff, “You okay?”

“Fine,” You nod, a little breathless from how the seat belt had rubbed against your skin, “You can pull over here, if you want. I can run around the back, it’s unlocked already.”

“I’m not dropping you off at the curb,” He scoffs, “I think I can manage your driveway.”

“Fine,” You tease, “I was just trying to make it easier for you.”

A small smile curves over his lips at your tone, and you know he’s not upset. You’re starting to realize that being friends with Billy is easy, as soon as you accept that he can be harsh. He’s not the type of friend to gush about feelings, you don’t think, preferring to quip back and forth, and you can handle that.

He pulls into your driveway, and spots a familiar red car parked three houses down.

“You’re neighbors with Harrington?” His eyes shade over with something that can’t be good, considering his well-known feelings towards the other boy.

“No,” You shake your head, “No, that’s his friend’s house. He just drives him around sometimes, I think. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

You shoot him a grin as your head rests against the headrest of your seat, and he can’t argue with that. He rolls his eyes despite the growing grin on his lips, and he reaches over to shove you.

“Get out of my car,” He groans, “And- here,” He tears a shred of napkin off of the leftover stash from lunch, digging for a pen to scrawl his number, “Call me whenever you need a ride. Or good music to listen to.”

“I’m gonna go study to Chopin,” You leer at him from your front steps, and he lunges, reaching out the driver’s side window to reach for you. You shriek, jumping out of the way before he can grab you, and it pulls a long, hearty laugh from his chest.

“Take it,” He reaches into his glove compartment to pull out a tape, red-and-black designs etched over the front, “I’m not driving away until I hear it blasting from your window,”

“My parents are home,” You gush, fingers curling around the plastic case, “I can’t!”

“Headphones, then,” He insists, eyes alight with amusement, “I’m expecting you to know the words the next time I see you.”

It’s a hefty promise to make, but you do so with a smile on your face.

You don’t get much studying done amongst Metallica. It’s hard to focus on finishing your biology project when you recognize a song you’d heard earlier in Billy’s car, and you hum the familiar tune, thinking of the way he’d tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the drums.

You think you’ve figured him out. He’s vibrant when he knows he’s alone, when he knows he’s safe. He’d panicked hearing that car door, those voices outside. He’d been rough, jagged, hurtful. But in his element, flying down the road with music blaring from his speakers, he’d been happy. All he needs is a safe place, and you’re glad he has one, even if it isn’t his home.

Biology is easy to finish, because you only have to cover half of the slack from being sent home early last night. Billy knows which of the last two drawings to complete, and you tuck your finished ones away in your folder, pulling out a sheet of math work to tackle next. Unfortunately, it’s less simple.

Dinner comes and goes, and you’re still working by the time the sky bleeds black. You’d been using the light from the window to aid you in your homework, so when it finally covers you in enough shadow to make you squint, you give up and make for your light switch.

It flicks on with a click, and when you whirl around to settle back on your bed, there’s a face in your window. You scream, backing yourself up against the door in the split second before you recognize the features.

Billy is staring at you from the window, hand up to the glass. You hear commotion from downstairs, a quick shout of ‘Are you okay up there?’ and thundering feet towards the hallway.

“I’m fine!” You shout at the gap in the door, praying no one comes to investigate, “I’m fine, I thought I saw a spider.”

You stand there, petrified, staring at him as you wait for your parents to go away. The commotion dies down in seconds, but they feel like hours as they tick away, leaving Billy pressed to your window. When you hear the soft wheeze of a couch cushion, then the creak of bedsprings, accounting for them both, you relax, breathe out a sigh and step forwards.

Even through the glass, you can tell something is wrong. Billy’s right eye is starting to shut, and you don’t think he’s doing it on purpose. It looks swollen, and there’s a purple hue blooming over it.

You work on unlatching the window, and in doing so you press your hand flat against the glass. It lays inches north of his own print, and he shifts his hand up to meet yours on the other side of the window. It’s touching, but you don't’ have time to evaluate it when your fingers snap the latch out of place.

“Billy,” You breathe, gripping his forearm to offer him leverage while he hauls himself up and over your windowsill, “Are you okay?”

He lands on the floor in a heap, and your heart sinks.

“No.” He groans, voice soft and wheezy. When he moves he rolls to clutch his stomach, and the only solace you find is that there’s no bloodstain on his t-shirt.

“I ran,” He groans, keeping his voice just quiet enough to be inaudible from another room, “I- I didn’t have time to get in my car, I just-”

“Okay,” You watch his chest heave with the effort of speaking, bracing a hand on it gently, to stop him, “Okay, save your energy. I’m going to go get you water, and an ice pack. Then I’ll fix your face.”

He manages a weak nod, then a raspy, ‘Okay.’

You slip into the kitchen with only a sheepish grin towards the couch at your spider cover-up. Luckily for you, you’re jumpy around bugs, so it doesn’t look out of the ordinary.

You tuck the ice-pack into your pocket, and you’re wearing such a baggy sweatshirt that it’s covered up. The glass of water isn’t suspicious on its own, and you make it back to your room without any problems.

Billy has hauled himself up to sit against your bed, head tipped against the mattress. There’s still no blood, but his face is tilted towards the light now, and you see copious amounts of bruising that definitely hadn’t been there before.

“Jesus,” You breathe, reaching for his cheek. He tenses as your hand approaches, and you pull back before you can reach him. You stand there, arm outstretched, waiting. Your fingers are only inches from his face, a blotchy purple mark over his eye that spreads down his cheek like poison. You wait, for a sign, a sound, anything to let you know that it’s okay to touch him, and what you get is almost more shocking than the sight of him.

He tilts his head to the side, nudging his cheek into your hand.

“You can touch,” He croaks, breath short and hot against your palm, “I don’t bite.”

If you’ve learned anything about Billy in the past 24 hours, it’s that he doesn’t like the mushy stuff. So instead of gushing, instead of promising him that he’s safe now, that his father can’t hurt him, you say it with your touch, and shift your tone to teasing.

“Oh yeah?” You kneel beside him, brushing your thumb against the underside of his lip and smearing away wet blood there, “Melissa MacDonald says you do.”

He laughs, a short, wheezing sound, and his cheek presses further into your palm as it apples with his smile,  “Yeah? Well, she asked me to.”

”Freaky girl,” You hum, eyes glued to his lip. You use the towel that you’ve wrapped around the ice pack, bunching a corner of it up and wiping it over the split skin. It morphs into a grimace when you touch it and he hisses, hand reaching up to grip your side hard.

“Sorry,” You breathe, your exhale fanning over his face, “Sorry, just- give me a second.”

When you’ve managed to get the blood off of his lip you shift your focus to his abdomen, and suddenly realize what you’re about to ask is very suggestive.

“Okay, um.. What happened to your stomach?”

“He kicked me,” Billy groans, “Boots on and all.”

“Okay,” You see a dark purple bruise spreading over his stomach from where his shirt has ridden up, and you toy with the edge of the ice pack, “Can I-? I need to see it..”

“Strip me, baby,” He chuckles weakly, “You can take it off.”

It’s a button-up, once tucked in and now rumpled from the commotion. The top buttons are undone, so it’s not hard to slip the last two out, spreading each side apart to showcase a truly horrific amalgamation of cuts and bruises.

“Ok-ay,” You hum, eyes wide in terror, “Um, this is.. A lot. Should we go to the hospital?”

“No!” His eyes flash with fear, and he grabs your wrist, “No hospitals.”

“”But-”

“But I can’t tell anyone,” He reminds you, gaze now sad and defeated, “No hospitals.”

All you can manage is a nod, tears gathering in your eyes as you stare down at his bare torso.

“Like what you see?” He drawls, and you glance up to see his lip bleeding again from how he’d smirked and torn the cut open.

“Not at all,” You admit sheepishly, reaching a hand up to press and hold the towel there, “Billy, this looks like you escaped a warzone.”

“I did,” He mumbles around the towel, “He’s the enemy.”

“What did you even do?” You ask, prodding gently at a patch of skin and apologizing profusely when his stomach tenses because of it.

“Someone.. One of our stupid neighbors,” He recalls, “Saw you last night. Said my old man must be proud I've got girls sneaking out of my window at night.”

“And… he wasn’t proud.” You grimace, pressing the ice pack to the largest bruise. It spans over most of his lower stomach, and it looks more painful than you can imagine.

“No,” Billy groans, writhing against your bed, “He was not. Didn’t even wait to get inside,” He squeezes his eyes shut, which you’re sure hurts his right one, “Just grabbed my arm and smacked me right there on the driveway. No one cared. The neighbor, he- he laughed. Thought it was all some big joke, I guess. When we got inside he pushed me over in the doorway and pummeled me. He kicked my stomach, and he-” Billy cuts himself off with a hiss of pain when you start dabbing at a scrape on his chest, “Stomped on my face. He used a fucking fireplace poker, that’s the gashes.”

“You can’t go back,” You cry, barely withholding yourself from a long, loud sob, “Please, Billy, you can’t go back there. He’ll kill you!”

“No, he won’t.” Billy heaves, shaking his head, “He wants to, I’m sure. But he knows he can’t hurt me too bad, or people’ll notice. This was a mistake, he’s gonna be more careful from now on. He might be a monster, but he’s smart.”

“But- but what if this happens again, Billy? He gets angry, real angry, and he lashes out, and he uses a fireplace poker-!” Your chest heaves with sobs that you’re barely able to withhold, tears streaming down your cheeks and dripping onto his chest.

“Hey,” He shushes you, a hand over your mouth, then uses the other to wipe your tears away, “Hey! Don’t think about that,” he scolds, but you’re sure it’s meant to sound reassuring, “He’s probably freaked right now. He thinks I’m ratting him out to the cops, or something. So when I come back, he’ll be more careful. He won’t be sorry, but I don’t care about sorry anymore, I know he won’t ever be. He won’t kill me,” Billy promises you, finally dropping the hand that’s covering your mouth, “He can’t afford a body on his hands.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, blink away the tears in your eyes, and nod. He seems satisfied at your silence, watching with droopy eyes as you clean off his chest.

“I’m gonna get bandages,” You murmur, leaving the ice pack on his stomach and padding to the door, “Move it if you need to, okay?”

He manages a weak nod in return, and you make sure to shut the door behind you when you leave.

Gathering adequate medical supplies isn’t the problem, concealing them is. You have to fumble your way through tucking bandages and gauze under your shirt, and the bottle of antiseptic doesn’t fit anywhere but in your hands. You keep it tucked against your side when you rush to your room, though, and you hope no one notices.

Billy doesn’t even ask what you’re doing when you press a wet cotton ball to his injuries, and you shudder to think of all the times he’s had to patch himself up. Does he sit in his room against his own bed, drink in hand? Does he stand in the shower, soap cleaning out his wounds? Does he sneak to the freezer, pressing frozen peas to his eyes?

You sniffle, and BIlly’s thumb rubs under your nose.

You frown, ‘Gross,’ And he chuckles weakly.

“I’m covered in blood, sweat, and-” He glances down at the droplets on his chest, “Tears. You think snot crosses a line?”

“My snot does,” You grumble, laying a bandage over a scrape on his chest and biting the inside of your cheek in concentration.

“Fine,” He huffs, smearing his thumb over your cheek, “Have it back.”

“Billy-!” You gasp, hand flying off of his chest and rubbing furiously at your cheek, “Gross!”

You’d be more upset but he laughs, really, truly, genuinely, and you think that maybe you can live with it.

“Snotface,” He cracks, and if you think for a second too long about the heartfelt lilt to his voice, it sounds like a term of endearment.

It’s hard to maneuver him in order to wrap his more serious injuries in gauze, but with a little cooperation, he’s wrapped like a mummy. It’s probably a sloppy nurse job, but you’re all he’s got, and you won’t give up on him because things are hard.

It’s his face that you have the real trouble with. You squint as you scan his features, looking at bumps and bruises and scrapes and trying to assess how deep they are. Your fingers turn his face this way and that, prodding, prying, pushing, pulling, until you decide that the light from above isn’t enough to see his smaller injuries.

“I need to move you,” You speak softly, “Up onto the bed. Can you do that?”

“Help me,” He bargains, and you’re happy to lift him to his feet.

He slumps against you while upright, but it’s not long before you can push him back onto your bed. He practically melts against the mattress, letting out a guttural sigh that’s almost too loud.

With a flick of your bedside lamp he’s bathed in a soft yellow glow, face now illuminated for all its abrasions to be seen.

His split lip is the least of it, you recognize with a sinking feeling.

Leaning over his face is awkward,and it hurts him when you turn his head. You suppose his neck is sore too, and it leaves you at a standstill.

“I can’t see that side of your face,” You huff, “Could you- I mean, it hurts really bad to turn your head?”

“Sorry,” He grimaces, testing the movement out again, “Yeah. Just- sit on the bed.”

“There’s no room,” You protest weakly, his broad form filling out your twin bed, “I’ll have to turn you around, we’ll put your feet at the headboard and your head down below, but that’ll take a lot of energy, so we should just-”

“Stop talking,” He pleads, eyes heavy, “Just- get on the bed, Y/N.”

“There’s no room!” You insist once more, and he groans, sitting himself upright despite your protests.

His arm slings around your waist, surprisingly strong for the state of the rest of his body. You scramble to fight his embrace but he hauls you up and onto the mattress, your knees digging into his thigh.

“Sit on my stomach,” He instructs you, then remembers it’s bandaged, “Or- or my waist. Just- sit down.”

It feels wrong. A boy in your bed, your legs over his waist, your hand on his chest as you lean over his face. You’re careful not to press anywhere that hurts, and you dab carefully at a cut near his eye.

“I think this earns you the title of best friend,” He mumbles, his breath hitting your face and warming your nose.

“Oh, yeah? Who was my competition?” You bite your lip to stop from grinning, shifting your waist against his own so that you can reach higher on his face.

“I dunno.” He’d shrug if he wasn’t lying down, “My car, maybe? There’s a cat that hangs out behind our house.”

“I’m not as cute as a cat,” You hum absentmindedly, picturing poor Billy with a car for a best friend, “I think it’s got me beat.”

“I dunno,” Billy murmurs, reaching up to thumb at the space between your brows. It knocks your concentrated frown loose, and he chuckles at your dazed expression as you peer down at him, “I’ll call it a tie to keep the peace.”

You busy yourself putting a bandaid over the bridge of his nose so that you don’t have to look into his eyes. You’re worried about what you’ll find there, if it’ll be the scared little boy you’d seen in them last night, or a charming young man. You’re not sure how to handle either, but you smooth the sticky patches of the bandaid out over his cheeks to try and aid the former.

“Done,” You whisper, and brace your hands on his face.

“Thank you,” He hums, sincere and sweet, “Really, I appreciate it.”

“Anytime,” You promise, “But for your sake I hope you don’t have to come over here like this again.”

“Me too,” He laughs, a short, breathy sound, “So.. uh, you got a car?”

“No,” You shake your head, “That’s why I was walking earlier.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” He cringes, hoisting himself up onto his elbows, “I’ll have to walk back.”

“Not now!” You push a hand against his chest, gently landing him on his back again, “You- you can’t! You need rest,” You reason with him, “Please, Billy, just stay here tonight.”

“Usually the girls kick me out when their parents get home,” He jokes, his tongue poking out to run over his lips, which you’re sure are sore from the cut. You giggle breathlessly, only then realizing that you’re still straddling him.

“Uh-” You rush to slide off of his hips, landing with a thump on the floor, “Sorry. I’ll go… um, do you need a change of clothes?”

“If you’ve got something,” He tilts his head up to watch as you fumble through your closet, “If nothing fits it’s fine.”

Luckily, you find a pair of sweatpants that are cinched with a tie, as well as a particularly average sweatshirt he’ll fit into. You step out of the room so that he can change, and thankfully he doesn’t seem to need any help. You use the time to change your own clothes, and when you emerge from the bathroom, you push your bedroom door open to find him on your mattress again.

“Bed’s comfy,” He marvels, turned onto his side. He’s pressed against the wall, staring at you where you’re frozen in the doorway.

“It is,” You nod, “Enjoy it.”

“You, too.” He prompts, patting the sheets, “Get up here, Y/N.”

“No, I-”

“You just stuck your fingers in my bloody cuts,” He groans, scooting even further back against the wall with a strangled groan, “I’m not making you sleep on the fucking floor.”

Logically, you know you should argue. He’s proclaimed you as his best friend but you’ve really only known him for a day. But he’s made up his mind, closing his eyes so that he can’t even see you disagreeing. His arms are crossed, and his face is set in a stubborn frown, brows tugged together beneath a bandage on his forehead.

Though his eyes are screwed shut, he pops them open when he feels the mattress dip beside him. His frown morphs quick and easy into a grin, his arm slinging around your waist to tug you closer from where you’re practically sliding off of the bed.

“I told you,” He drawls, “I don’t bite.”

“I’m not worried about you biting, Billy.” You mumble, stiff where he’s holding you. He notices, grin dimming as he lifts his hand away.

He looks almost annoyed, “So? What is it? Are you an insomniac, or something?”

“No, Billy,” you frown, biting the inside of your cheek, “I’m not an insomniac, I’m worried. Are you okay? I’m not a nurse. And- and I’m not tired, either,” You spring out of bed, standing beside it instead of laying with him, “I’m not going to sleep.”

He lays there staring, eyes hardening over from where they’d cracked open to ooze happiness. You watch it happen, watch him change until he’s the boy you know from school, deep, cutting glares and harsh movements.

“Fine,” He huffs, fighting to keep his face straight as he presses himself up off of the mattress with his palms, “I’m gonna go. Clearly- just.. Bye.”

“No, Billy..” You rush to stop him from reaching the window but he sticks out an arm, shoving you away with the side of it. He keeps his hands off of you, and you’re grateful, but it still sends you stumbling slightly.

He hears the sound of your feet thumping clumsily. He tenses up for a moment, shoulders drawn closer to his ears and legs locking. But he feels your hand against his back, soft and slow and smooth, and with each brush of your fingers there a muscle in his body relaxes.

“Please don’t go,” You finally beg, your voice a sweet whisper. It seems to have been the wrong thing to say, because his limbs lock up again, back stiffening against your palm.

“I shouldn’t be here,” He grumbles, gruff and weak.

“Yes you should,” You assure him, “Because you got hurt, and I told you you were safe here. We’re friends, remember, Billy? That’s what friends do.”

“We’re not friends.” He scoffs, and you can feel him slipping away. Every second that you stand there, hand on his back, soothingly brushing over his tense muscles, he seems to drift away, until you’re not even sure he’s with you anymore, just a foggy silhouette on the horizon.

“You said we were friends,” You remind him, lips nearly brushing his back, “What changed? Why aren’t we friends now?”

“Because..” He starts, and you wait patiently for him to continue, rubbing lines into his back over and over again.

“Because I want.. Because- Because friends-”

“You can tell me, Billy,” You promise, testing the waters as you creep forward. Inch by inch you snake your hand around his waist, carefully avoiding the injuries you know are lurking beneath his unbuttoned shirt. When your palms meet over his stomach you lean your cheek against his back, hoping that if you can squeeze enough love into him, he’ll come back.

“This,” He hovers a hand over your own, glancing down at your touch on his skin, “This is what… friends do, right?”

“Friends hug,” You confirm, “Is that what you want?”

“Yeah,” He chokes out, raising a hand to his face to smear away a tear that you’re sure has slid down his cheek, “Yeah I want that. But- but you got up, so I- I didn’t want to freak you out. You obviously didn’t want to, so-”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” You brush your thumb over his toned stomach, thinking about the way he’d stared at you from your bed, eyes sparkling and arms outstretched, “It’s just that… I want to do right by you, Billy. And I don’t think you get that a lot, do you?”

“No,” He rasps, and he starts to relax, back no longer tense as you practically whisper against it.

“Right, so..” You reason, biting your tongue before speaking out of nerves, “I think that you live like you drive, Billy. You blow past stop signs and you nearly run people over, you speed. You go so fast that you can’t slow down anymore, and you need someone to tell you to do that, or else you’ll crash.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I want to make sure you’re not rushing things,” You can feel his heated skin beneath your cheek, only the fabric of his shirt separating you, “You just got beat up by your dad, because of me, and I’m glad that you came here, but don’t you think that sleeping together is going pretty fast? I know we’re not like- sleeping together,” You mumble, cheeks aflame, “I just don’t want you to get ahead of yourself. You can.. You can have a hug anytime you want, and… we can sleep next to each other, too, but I need to know that you want that. That you’re doing it because you want to, and not because you think this is the only chance you’ll ever get. I’m telling you to slow down, Billy, you don’t have to rush if you don’t want to. I won’t kick you out if you don’t sleep in my bed, you don’t owe me anything for helping you, and I want to make sure that’s really what you want, and not just something you think you have to do. I… I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow with a clear head and regret it.”

By now your lips have reached his back, brushing softly against the material of his shirt as he stands by your window. It’s shut now, no one can see you from the outside, but his face is turned towards it like he’s examining the neighborhood. He’s not tense anymore, but he’s not moving either, and for a moment you’re nervous about having said the wrong thing.

“I’m not going to regret anything.” He murmurs, fingers ghosting over your own as he sets his hand over yours, “I.. I’m doing it because I want to, not because you’re the only person that’s nice to me. I’m doing it because… because I want to be-”

“You want to be…?”

“I want to be… held.” He whispers it like a curse, like he thinks the roof will cave and the floor will crack open to hell if he admits it. Your heart aches for the lonely boy, the battered son, the scared child, and you squeeze him gently in a hug.

“Okay,” You nod, and you know he feels it against his back, “I’ll hold you, Billy. Get back in bed, I’ll hold you.”

This time he’s less confident; not as suave. He turns towards you with a trepidatious expression, eyes tracking your every move like he thinks you’re going to give up the joke, turn, point, and laugh at him. But you don’t, of course, instead you hoist a leg up onto your bed and lay down clumsily beside him.

The mattress isn’t big enough for the both of you, so it’s a good thing you’ve agreed to hold him. You’re not really sure how to initiate it, you just simply leave yourself open, uncovered, waiting.

“Where can I touch you?” He glances up at your face, expression clouded with nerves.

“Anywhere,” You say without thinking, then stammer to fix your mistake, “I mean- I mean not like anywhere, just- anywhere.. PG.”

“Okay,” He chuckles, eyes once more heavy with sleep, “I won’t feel you up, I promise.”

When he braces a hand at your waist, cautious, unsure, you wonder if he’s ever not felt anyone up. Has he ever laid beside anyone before, just for love? Not for sex, not for lust, but for calm?

He looks nervous to continue, so you lean into it. You roll yourself onto your side, slinging his arm that’s on your hip to lay over your back. He scoots forward to meet you in the middle, and with a hand on the back of his head, you guide his face to press against your neck. His chin bumps your shoulder, and he nestles it there snugly. It means that his eyelashes brush your neck, that his lips part to release a shaky breath against your collarbones, and his curls tickle your chin.

“Is this good?” You ask, your voice a murmur into the crown of his head. He nods, and the action knocks his head into your cheek. He mumbles out a hasty, ‘Sorry’, and you laugh it off.

“It’s okay,” You drag your hands up his back, fingertips barely grazing his skin that his shirt has twisted up to expose, “It’s okay, Billy. This is okay. You’re allowed to want this, you know? You’re allowed to like this. You deserve this.”

Billy thinks he deserves a lot of things. A kick in the teeth, a tight pair of handcuffs and a drab cell, maybe even the fireplace poker. But he doesn’t think he deserves kindness, which is why he’s so confused why you’re gushing it like a fountain. 

He’s the type of person to make himself unhappy so that no one else can do it for him. He shuts out love and light and life so that no one can steal it away, no one can send him reeling when they leave. But tonight - he’s not sure why, maybe it’s the stinging wounds on his torso or the tickle of your fingers against his back - he’ll love.

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! your feedback motivates me to write more, so thank you for your support :-)

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Disjointed: Twenty-Seven

Summary: Eddie faces his demons

Word count: 8.4k

What to expect: Violence, PTSD, Mentions of child abuse

A/N: this took like 800 tries and 2 hours to post because the drafts is being an asshole! Let me know what you think! Didn’t wanna keep y’all hanging for too long.

In order to stand to his feet, Eddie yanked himself out of you, muttering a quick “Sorry!” when you hissed at the sudden loss of him.

There was undoubtedly a person riffling around the kitchen, no more than four feet outside the bedroom door. Eddie quickly threw on some clothes, and you copied him, not bothering with a bra or underwear.

You missed the hole of your pant leg a few times, too scared and trembling to focus on the task at hand. Though you knew the answer, you still had to ask. “Do you think it’s Wayne?” you whispered quietly.

Eddie shook his head as he buttoned his jeans. “No,” he breathed. “Wayne would never just come in without knocking.”

With your clothes finally on, you stood behind Eddie and clutched his forearm harshly. As if he just realized you were out of bed, he frowned at you. “What are you doing? You’re not going out there with me. You stay in here.”

“What if it’s a burglar? What if they have a gun?” you muttered sharply. “Do we have a gun?”

Eddie shook his head no. “Wayne took the shotties when he left.”

The sound of glass clinking together was a tell-tale sign that the intruder was scavenging through the fridge. The thought occurred to you that maybe it was one of the freshmen, but the idea flew out of your mind when the sound of the intruder slamming the door shut made you jump a mile high.

“Maybe we should just let them take what they want,” you suggested frantically. “They’ll go away when they’re done and we don’t have to know who it is.”

“We don’t have anything worth stealing,” he replied. “Our TV isn’t even in color.” Eddie tried to pry your hands off of him and take them into his own, but you refused to let him go.

“Y/N,” he hissed. “You have to let go. I’m going to see who it is. If I start yelling, you jump out of the window and run to Max’s house, okay?”

You shook your head vigorously. “No. I’m going with you.”

“No! We don’t know who’s out there. Or how many. Please, just listen—“

“No!” you snapped. “I’m going with you!” You scanned the room for something you could use as a weapon. There wasn’t much unless Eddie was willing to sacrifice one his guitars in order to crack a skull or two. Your eyes fell to the auxiliary cord for his amp and you quickly scrambled to grab it and held it like a tripwire in your hand.

“The hell are you gonna do with that?” he questioned with nothing but confusion written on his face. “Whip them with it?”

You glanced at the cord in your hand and then back at Eddie. “Garrote. You don’t need much to strangle someone.”

Eddie’s furrowed brows suddenly shot up so high on his forehead that they disappeared behind his bangs. “Jesus Christ, I suppose you don’t.” Eddie pulled the pocket knife he carried around with him from the back of his jeans and flicked it open. It hardly qualified as a knife—a three inch blade too dull to pierce the tape on a cardboard box. When you first saw him playing with it, you asked Eddie why he had that rinky-dink piece of crap to begin with, he said it was a gift from Wayne on his twelfth birthday that once displayed a snow dog on the handle that had now since chipped away.

Eyes as large as dinner plates, Eddie gazed at you. “Ready?” he asked uneasily.

You weren’t. Not at all. Who or whatever was on the other side of that door was a trespasser. They broke in, disregarded the clear physical boundary that prevented their entry and had the gall to peek into your fridge. Violating law and privacy was of no consequence to them, and that made you wonder what else they were capable of.

But you nodded anyway, wanting to chase away whoever the hell was in your house. Unless, you hoped, it was one of Eddie’s friends that was just desperate for a place to stay. Then they’d get a very harsh scolding and some roast that was surely still warm on the stove.

Eddie turned the handle of the brass knob slowly, pulling the door open ever so slightly to peek through the crack undetected.

His face contorted into a confused grimace. “What the fuck?” Eddie breathed, suddenly swinging the door open all the way and lowering his pocket knife.

You grabbed his wrist and held onto it tightly while you interrogated him. “Who is it? What is it? Can you see them?” You whispered frantically.

If he heard you, Eddie made no acknowledgement of it. He walked out of the bedroom and took a few steps down the short hall with you sticking to him like a feasting leech until he came face to face with the invader. You peered around his shoulder to see who was sitting at the tiny two person table attached to the wall of the kitchen.

The man was wearing a faded brown fishing hat that covered his face as he bowed his head over the plate before him, hosting what looked like the roast you made Eddie for dinner. He had the wedding album opened on the other side of his plate, pointing to the picture of you and Eddie showing off your rings at the courthouse.

“Isn’t that nice?” the man cooed. When he looked up to give Eddie a grin, your stomach dropped to the floor.

He might have been a handsome man once, with the dimple denting his scruffy left cheek. The other side was maimed with a deep, angry scar tracing from the corner of his lip to his cheekbone, making it seem like he had a permanent smirk that looked all too familiar. The color of his dark eyes matched Eddie’s, but the shape was all wrong. He had Eddie’s chin and head shape, but his thin lips and upturned nose wasn’t right, and there certainly wasn’t any softness present across the man’s face.

Even so, there was no doubt in your mind that this was Wyatt Munson.

A burning fury started to bubble in your chest. The man who used his son as an accomplice for his crimes, who left him to bleed in the dirt alone and take the fall for him, the bastard who consistently rang the house for weeks until Wayne left, was sitting at your kitchen table like he was at Sunday brunch.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie blurted.

Wyatt clutched his hand over his heart with an exaggerated pout. It was unnerving to see the mannerisms you loved about Eddie show up on a man you wished the earth would swallow whole.

“Is that how you treat your ol’ man, Skip?” He stood to his feet and walked over to Eddie to pull him into a tight embrace. The twin lightning bolts and number 88 tattooed on the back of his hands made you nauseous. He patted Eddie’s back heartily and whispered about how much he missed his son, commented on how he wasn’t sure which one was the bride in the wedding photos since Eddie’s hair made him look like a woman, and how he was so happy to be back.

Eddie, on the other hand, looked petrified. His muscles beneath your arms were trembling, and though Wyatt wasn’t as tall as Eddie, you could see your husband fold in on himself as he pulled away from his dad.

Face blanched, eyes still wide in shock, and his once puffy lips pressed into a firm line, Eddie never appeared smaller as he lowered his head to avoid Wyatt’s piercing gaze.

You could see it clear as day Eddie was slipping back into a place that you couldn’t pull him out of as long as his father was near. All of his accomplishments, pride, love, mirth, and everything that made Eddie who he was started to fizzle out as his shoulders slumped and chest deflated.

Hearing horror stories about him should have clued you in on how enraged you would be if you ever laid eyes on him, but seeing Wyatt Munson in the flesh and watch him revert Eddie back into a terrified ten year old pushed you to a whole new level of livid.

With a vicious glare, you snapped at the outsider. “You broke into my fucking house!”

Whatever Wyatt Munson thought you were gonna say, clearly that was not it. He veered back a bit and scoffed. “Well I’ll be! Nice way to treat your new father-in-law!”

“Wayne is my father-in-law,” you spat venomously. “You are an intruder that needs to leave!” You looked at Eddie for backup, hoping he would jump in and make it clear to his unfortunate relation that he was not welcome. However, Eddie only flickered his eyes back and forth between the two opponents and remained silent.

“Okay, okay. Let’s take a step back.” Wyatt held his hands up in mock surrender and put on his best mask of sincerity. “I apologize,” he said sadly. “It was rude of me to come in uninvited, that I’ll admit. But you sounded a little busy when I was out there knocking.” His mouth twisted into a sick grin, showing numerous gaps where teeth should be, and the ones you could see hadn’t had a date with a toothbrush in decades. “It’s a little chilly out there. Didn’t think my boy would take too kindly to finding his ol’ man froze over on the steps cause he took too long to get off. ”

Your blood was boiling. This conniving son of a bitch was really trying to pull a fast one. Not only did he break in, help himself to food that didn’t belong to him, put his nazi-loving hands on your prized possessions, now he was trying to gain sympathy by blaming both you and the weather for his intrusion.

“You’re lying,” you replied hotly. “We would have heard you if you knocked.”

Wyatt’s pout twitched into a sneer before he caught himself. “Well, if that’s what you’d like to believe, I can’t stop you.” He turned his attention back to Eddie. “Mind if I finish my meal—“

“Our meal the you stole,” you seethed.

Wyatt ignored you. “—got some things I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Get the hell out of my house!” you screamed, moving out from behind Eddie and stepping towards the fork-tongued devil.

Finally showing signs of life, Eddie grabbed your elbow and pulled you back behind him. You huffed at him, ready to tell him to make Wyatt leave, but Eddie stared you down with a gaze laced in so much fear it killed the reply on your tongue. With two quick ticks of his head, he was silently telling you to stop.

You didn't want to let it go. You didn’t want to allow this asshole to sit at your table—the table you shared with Eddie and Wayne. He didn’t belong here, and neither did whatever trouble came along with him. You hoped Eddie could interpret all of this from the murderous look your eyes surely displayed, but it wasn’t easy to tell if he understood you.

Wyatt grinned devilishly at the mute conversation happening before him. “The spicy ones are always a lot of fun once you train them right. Looks like you got your work cut out for you, Skip.”

Anger flashed across Eddie’s face at his father’s words, but it was replaced by anxiousness when he realized who was speaking. You, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to turn the auxiliary cord in your hand into a necktie.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie asked feebly.

Wyatt extended his hand towards the empty chair s an invitation for Eddie to sit, as if it were his chair to offer up in the first place. He settled back in front of his plate and pointed his index finger at you. “Get your man something to eat. And I’ll have another beer, too.”

You scoffed at his nerve, making no effort to hide your disgust at being talked to in such a way. On a normal evening, yes, you would have made Eddie a plate and gave him something to drink—though probably not beer—without being asked. While some women like Nancy may have found the practice humiliating and prehistoric, you really didn’t mind. You did it because you enjoyed taking care of him, not because it was your ‘job as a wife’. Besides, Eddie usually made your pate too and you traded at the table. It was just something you did for each other.

But to be commanded to do so by a man who likely couldn’t even spell beer was insulting enough, and for him to do it under your own roof? You wanted nothing more than to take the heavy ceramic lid of your pot and beat his face with it.

The only thing that saved Wyatt Munson’s skull from being bashed in was the pleading look in Eddie’s glassy eyes. Seeing him so pitiful was only adding to your anger, and you didn’t understand why he wouldn’t let you get this guy out of here, but you complied with his silent request anyway.

Muttering a slew of curses under your breath, you made your displeasure known by making as much noise as possible. Bagning the cabinets closed, slamming the wet hunks of beef onto the patterned plate not at all caring that the juice was splattering everywhere, flinging the door of the fridge open hard enough to crack against the counter behind it, and kicking it closed again.

With a nauseating sticky sweet smile that probably looked more like an expression of pain directed at the vessel of evil across from you, you placed the cans of beer in front of each of them and put Eddie’s plate before him as if it were some delicate treasure.

“See? Just need a little training s’all,” Wyatt said smugly.

It took every bit of strength in you to keep your mouth shut, having to physically bite your lip. You stood behind Eddie’s chair in order to be close to the phone. Wyatt seemed proud of himself for soliciting such a reaction from you judging by the glint in his eyes, but he quickly adjusted his mask to put on the next scene of his performance.

Brow furrowed, Wyatt cleared his throat and began. “Times have been real hard since I came back to town. Had a little run in with the pigs in county.” He paused to shove tender slivers of roast into his mouth using only his hands like an animal. “I tried calling for some help—see if Wayne could spring me or put some money on my books, but I think someone was intercepting my phone calls.”

“What?” Eddie questioned. “Why would you think that?”

Wyatt’s hardened stare bore into you with nothing but contempt. Though the sudden glimpse into his true nature made the hair on your arms stand up, you hoped your glare was equally frightful.

Wyatt slipped back into character, looking like a wounded puppy left in the rain. “No one answered the phone for weeks. I called every morning hoping I could talk to you, but I only got an answer once.” Pretending to be unsure, Wyatt sighed heavily. “I think it may have been you, darlin’. You told me I’d have my phone privileges taken away if I called again.”

Eddie turned around in his chair, his brow furrowed and mouth agape. “Y/N?”

You knew exactly what Wyatt was trying to do. “You’re forgetting the part where I asked you what your name was and you refused to answer. And you never asked for Eddie. By the way, you owe me a dollar for that phone call.”

Eddie looked back at his dad, giving you the opportunity to slide a few steps back to get closer to the phone.

“What’d they slap you with?” Eddie asked.

Wyatt shrugged. “They thought I was stripping copper off the side of some buildings. Tried to connect me to some armed robberies too. I told them I only came back to see you for my birthday. I hadn’t been in town on the days they were trying to peg me for. But you know how it is. They see ‘Munson’ and blame everything under the sun on us.”

You rolled your eyes at his evasion of the truth. “Really? Decided to come visit out of the blue after being gone for over ten years?”

Wyatt’s patience was wavering. You could see it in the way his eye twitched. “You a lawyer or somethin?”

“No,” you spat.

“Hmm,” Wyatt nodded, pretending to stroke his stubbled chin in thought. “Feels like I’m on trial for something, darlin’, and to be honest, I don’t know what’s got your panties in a twist—“

“Dad!” Eddie said loudly. His sudden outburst earned him a menacing glare from his father, reminding Eddie of his place. In a much quieter voice, eddie once again asked, “What are you doing here?”

Wyatt rubbed his nose with the back of his tattooed hand and sat up straighter in his seat. “I need to stay here.” He answered simply. “I need to stay here for a while to recuperate some funds. Lay low from the laws. Then I’ll be on my way.”

Unable to believe what you were hearing, you fumed. “Excuse me?” You shrieked. “Do you actually believe we would let you stay here? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m his father and he owes me!” Wyatt shouted back, the pretense of innocence evaporated with the last of his patience.

Eddie jumped a mile high at the sudden boom of his dad’s voice, and you saw him recoil in his seat when Wyatt stood up and leaned over the table to tower over his son.

“You owe me,” he growled. “I kept you with me instead of sending you to that boys’ home when your momma died. I coulda left you on the steps of St. Mary’s and lived my life. Folk in there woulda tore your lily white ass up. But I saved you from that.”

A jolt of panic shot down your arms at the familiarity of his statement. Your mother often used the same line to intimidate you into being quiet about her husband’s slap happy tendencies towards you. She’d leave very little to the imagination when recalling her own horror stories about being a ward of the state, rolling through foster families and girls’ homes like a tumbleweed. Her reasoning was that Martin’s temper didn’t hold a candle to what would happen to you in those places if you let slip what was going on at home.

By the way Eddie sunk further and further down into his chair to cower away from his father, it seemed Wyatt used a similar technique while Eddie was in his care. “I know,” he croaked. “I know you did.”

Wyatt seemed soothed by Eddie’s submission. He sat back down and wiped his greasy fingers on his pants. “Made you my Skipper, didn’t I? My little buddy. Took you everywhere with me. Taught you how to drive, how to fix cars, how to survive. Even gave you some of your own money.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, staring at his untouched food. “I remember.”

Triumphantly, the eldest Munson in the room smiled and slapped his hand against the tabletop, making both of you jump. Somehow his genuine smile was much more frightening than his sneer. “Knew you’d pull through your ol’ man. Always was a good kid, Skip.”

Eddie did nothing. Said nothing. He didn’t correct his father or tell him to go to hell. Instead, he hung his head and tore at the skin around his fingernails, not at all caring that blood started to leak from the newly forged wounds.

Clearly Eddie was too deep in his own head to wake up from this nightmare and set things straight. With a final inhale to keep your nerves in check, you waited for your moment.

Relishing his victory, the middle aged man began to launch into stories about the old days in order to keep his talons in Eddie. “Remember that time I took you to Holiday World? Rode that damn seahorse thing till the kid working it kicked you off. Then I took you to get some Denny’s and you swore you were hungry enough to eat a full meal. Begged and begged to not make you eat the kid’s meal cause you wanted to impress my girl. Tried to make her think you was some big man.” Wyatt stuffed more food into his mouth and didn’t bother to pause long enough to finish chewing before speaking again. “Got you what you wanted and sho’nuff, halfway through the meal you started whining and cryin’. ‘I’m full, Dad. Can’t eat no more.’” He barked out a sinister laugh, sending chills of disgust through your body. “Told you you better eat all of it or I’d leave your ass there just like I did at the store. You almost made it. Had only the eggs left ‘fore you puked all over the floor.” He laughed harder at the memory, showing the few stained teeth he had left in all their rotted glory.

Your heart fell to pieces for Eddie. He was obviously ten or younger when that occurred. Probably with short hair, lanky limbs, shiny brown eyes taking up half of his face. How anyone could humiliate a child, much less their own, was impossible to grasp. Threatening to leave him behind if he didn’t comply? Something that seemed to be a repeating theme with Wyatt. Forcing him to eat to the point of sickness? It wasn’t the lighthearted tea-time story Wyatt considered it to be. It was cruel and disgusting. Eddie didn’t deserve any of it, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve to be held hostage to his father’s malice in his own home.

When Wyatt drummed his dirty fingers happily against the top of his beer can, you moved slowly to avoid drawing attention to yourself. Heart in your throat and fingers trembling, you reached for the phone. Hand poised tightly on the receiver, you waited until he tipped his head back for a sip to make your move.

Unfortunately, the loud beep of the buttons alerted the other two Munson’s that you were dialing out.

Wyatt slammed down his beer sending a splash through the air as it crashed against the table. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

You held the receiver to your ear for the operator. “9-1-1, please state the nature of your emergency,” the feminine voice recited.

With a trembling voice, you answered breathlessly. “2121 Holland road unit eleven—“

Wyatt jumped to his feet with such a force that he knocked the chair backwards.

“—A break in! There’s a man in my home that won’t leave! He’s threatened us—“

It only took him four steps before you were in arm’s reach. You let out a blood curdling scream into the phone in hopes that the police or neighbors would make it over faster. Wyatt slammed his fingers onto the hook, making the line go dead.

Eddie being nicknamed the ‘Son of Satan’ suddenly wasn't far from the truth.

With brown eyes bulging and scarred mouth twisted in an almost animalistic snarl, Wyatt drew his hand back to strike, but suddenly stumbled when Eddie wrapped the crook of his elbow round Wyatt’s neck and flung him into the table.

It was then that things started to blur from the adrenaline slowing your comprehension. One second you were preparing for a crack across the cheek, and the next Eddie was forcefully shoving you into the tiny bathroom and slamming the door.

Realizing you were no longer able to see him, you quickly wrenched it back open to go back out there, but Eddie grabbed the knob from the other side, only allowing a silver of his face visible.

Only then did you see Eddie lose his composure completely. Wild eyes, face burning as hot as the sun, and the vein in his forehead pounding like a hammer, He screamed in your face in a voice so harsh that it made your whole body freeze.

“DON’T FUCKING MOVE!”

With that, he pulled the door closed hard enough to crack the cheap sheetrock adjacent to the frame.

Blood pulsed in icy shockwaves through your body as you heard Wyatt’s bone chilling cackle boom through the trailer, pulling you from your stupor.

Despite Eddie’s instruction, you opened it anyway just enough to peek your head out to see what was going on. You wouldn’t dare interfere unless things looked bad enough for Eddie to try and at least save him from being choked out. While Eddie was taller than his father, Wyatt was certainly stockier and far more dangerous—seemingly unbothered to hurt his own son.

—-

Until he started school, Eddie thought his life was relatively normal. It wasn’t until he heard about other kids’ home lives did he realize he was deficient.

They had whole rooms to themselves, while Eddie was either couch or floor bound in the living room of wherever they were staying, thinking only adults were allowed to sleep on beds. Zach Baker didn’t hide food in his underwear for later because his mom would made him food whenever he wanted, and he thought Eddie was disgusting for sticking half of his cheese Sandwich into his crotch after lunch. Eddie asked him what he did to hide his food so his dad wouldn’t eat it all, but he only called Eddie names. Mary Meyers had a tantrum when Eddie took her glitter pen. It was baby blue with silver sparkles inside the gel, and he liked it. Dad always said to take what he wanted and make sure no one could take it back. When Mary reached for it, he bit her hand as hard as he could. He didn’t understand why he was sent home for three days, or why his dad whacked him with the buckle side of his belt until dad told him it was because he didn’t want to keep after him. He took Eddie to the steps of St. Mary’s Home for Boys and posed his hand to knock. Eddie screamed, cried, begged, pleaded—he didn’t want to be left there, especially not after dad told him what they do to little boys like him.

When he didn’t listen, dad would kick his ass and drop him off somewhere for a few hours. Once it was a whole day. Sometimes at a store, sometimes at a gas station he just held up so he’d be scared the laws would get him, sometimes close enough to St. Mary’s just to get the point across.

It wasn’t all bad Eddie did what he was told. If dad said he wasn’t going to school that day because he wanted Eddie to be a lookout instead, that’s what was done. He didn’t blink when his dad tossed him over fences of backyards that didn’t belong to him, or hoist him into windows of the unsuspecting homeowners. It was fun, and a lot of times Eddie got to keep at least one thing he liked from each house. He learned how to take things apart and put them back together again. What other eight year old could say they knew how to drive? He thought being told he was grown for his age was a good thing, and all these things dad let him do made him special.

Then he came to live with Wayne, and he thought it was the worst thing to ever happen to him in his whole life. Wayne tried to tell him what to do, when to eat, what time to go to sleep, what he could or couldn’t watch on TV. He made Eddie eat with a fork, throw away his stash of food, and he got madder than hell when Eddie took a sip out of his beer bottle. Eddie had to brush his teeth twice a day even though it hurt and made his mouth bleed, and he was forced to bathe with soap every night. He hated it. All of it. And what he hated most was when Wayne told him to ‘just be a kid.’

It got better, though. Eddie started to realize he was getting food every day, that he had a bed to sleep on, and Wayne made sure he had clothes for every day of the week instead of leaving him in the same outfit for three days at a time. He was behind in school since he didn’t go a lot of the time when he was with his dad, and he was beyond embarrassed when it was discovered everyone else could do pretty much everything he couldn’t. But Wayne helped there, too, along with his teacher Mrs. Knight. He’d get rewarded with candy, trips to the dollar store so he could buy things he liked if he got a good grade on a test, and one very special day at Holiday World when he passed fifth grade and officially made it to middle school.

Seeing Wyatt Munson’s face again erased everything he had ever experienced since after 1976. All sounds were muffled as if he were underwater, growing more and more distant as his father uprooted memories that Eddie had long since buried. Suddenly the night he got his leg stitched up was only yesterday, and the bite to Mary Meyer’s hand was just the day before that.

Until he heard your shrill scream ring through the trailer. Then he realized where he was, when he was, and that his father was no longer sitting across from him.

When it came to fight or flight, Eddie was almost always in favor of flight—both in his tabletop game and in life. He’d been smacked around before and did not take kindly to the opportunity ever presenting itself again, whether it made him look like a coward or not. Already being called loser, freak, ugly, and demonic, adding pussy or chicken shit really didn’t make much difference on the long list of unfavorable names.

But when he turned to see his dad’s open palm pulled back, flight wasn’t even considered to be an option.

He should have known you would have tried to follow him back out, but he needed you to understand that he’d rather have his bones rearranged than to lose another woman to the hands of his father. One blow in the wrong place…

As soon as he turned from the door, Wyatt swung but missed when Eddie ducked. Unfortunately that seemed to have been the plan since as soon as Eddie pulled back to dodge, he was struck hard in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of him.

Wyatt cackled wildly at the sight of his son doubled over. “Look like a bitch, fight like a bitch, fall like a bitch! You forget all I taught you, Skip?” He struck Eddie across the face with the back of his hand. “Put your hands up! C’mon now, block!”

Gasping for air and trying to center himself from the blow to both his stomach and face, Eddie straightened up enough to block the right hook headed his way, but failed to protect himself from the left.

“Pathetic,” Wyatt spat as he watched Eddie blink his way back to reality. “Shoulda known Wayne’s pussy ass wouldn’t’ve taught you a goddamn—“

Eddie wished he had his rings on for this. The jab that landed against Wyatt’s mouth would have likely knocked loose some of the last few teeth if he did.

Wyat stumbled back against the stove and pressed his fingertips to his busted lip. Upon seeing blood, he wiped and nodded slowly. “I’m impressed,” he mocked. “But now I’m not gonna take it easy on you.”

One of the life lessons instilled into Eddie at an early age by his fathers was to fight dirty. Not everyone abided by the unwritten rules of a fair fight, and it wasn’t ever clear on who did. With that in mind, be the one to win by any means necessary. So Eddie felt no guilt in reading for the plate on the table and shattering it against the side of Wyatt’s head.

He didn’t stumble or throw his hands up to cradle the pain. Instead, the oldest Munson grabbed the younger by the hair and pulled it back enough to land a few hits in before Eddie let the grip on his hair hold him up just enough to kick his dad in the leg that never really healed right after he was stabbed there.

He yelped in agony and released his son, who then took the opportunity to land a couple of his own punches to wherever he could reach—stomach, chest, nose, forehead, ear, center of the throat—until Wyatt staggered and tumbled to the ground.

Eddie had seen it before—the possum trick—and he wasn’t going to fall for it. He kicked Wyatt in the gut until he rolled onto his back. Hurting and gasping for air, Wyatt put up very little struggle when Eddie sat on the man’s chest with his knees pinning down his dad’s arms. Grabbing his father’s jaw with one hand, he reached into the back of his pants to retrieve his pocket knife.

Eddie’s heart was hammering so loud within his chest he could hear very little else—not Wyatt’s pathetic whines of protest, the gurgling of him choking on the blood pooling in the back of this throat, or the sound of Eddie’s own ragged breathing. He had him. He had him right here to do what he wanted with him. The man who took away his mother, who took his childhood, who beat him, starved him, scarred both his body and mind, who broke into the only place he felt was his true home and tried to lay hands on his wife…

“Wayne told you what would happen if you came back here,” Eddie seethed through gritted teeth. He flipped the dull knife open and slipped it past Wyatt’s lips, the blade digging into the flesh at the corner of his mouth.”But he’s not here to finish it. So I’ll have to.”

Wyatt narrowed his hateful eyes, silently challenging him to do it. Eddie pressed the blade down harder until he felt it start to separate the tissue of the man’s cheek. With the knife being so dull, he would have to resort to sawing motions instead. But before he could execute the technique, a voice broke his focus.

“Eddie,” you said softly.

He didn’t want to hear you. This was his chance to get back at his old man for all he’d done. Eddie tried to ignore you and readjusted his grip as Wyatt tried to thrash loose.

“Eddie,” you repeated louder. “Look at me.”

He didn’t want to do that either. So instead he glared down at the man trapped beneath his knees.

Wyatt Munson had aged quite rapidly, likely due to a lifetime of meth, crime, and hard time. The skin around his blackening eyes was saggy and wrinkled. His eyebrows were flecked with more gray than brown, just like the thinning hair on his head. More teeth had been lost since the last time Eddie saw him, and the flesh of his face was gaunt.

He was an old man. An old man that could still pack a punch, but aged nonetheless. Soon enough he wouldn’t even be able to chew his own food.

Eddie’s grasp tightened around the man’s face. “You have two choices,” he warned dangerously. “I finish this Glasgow smile and hand you over to the cops, adding breaking, entering, assault, and battery to the time you’d get for probation violation. Or you crawl out that window over there and I never see you again. YOU HEAR ME, OLD MAN?!” Eddie shouted, shaking Wyatt’s face roughly. “NEVER AGAIN.”

Eddie wasn’t sure what the outcome would be the longer the man took to answer. But after Eddie dug the knife deeper, a choice was made. Through his crushed lips, Wyatt repeated, “Never,” as best he could.

Eddie quickly pulled the knife out of his dad’s mouth, noticing that a bleeding knick was left behind. He could live with that more than he could a three inch slice.

Blue and red lights danced across the walls of the trailer as the sound of wailing sirens grew louder.

“They’re coming,” you announced from the hall.

Begrudgingly, Eddie stumbled to his feet and let Wyatt get up.

With faulty coordination, Wyatt sprinted to the other side of the home. He opened the window in the living room, likely the same one he jimmied open to break in to begin with, and pushed his leg out of the sill.

He paused halfway out and gave Eddie a lopsided smile. “Proud of you, Edward,” he said, before dropping out of the window completely.

Disgust—That’s all that Eddie could feel deep within his bones at his father’s final words. But at least they were that: final.

——

When you tried to stop Eddie from slicing Wyatt’s face open, you hadn’t exactly meant for him to let the asshole go completely. As soon as Eddie proposed the options, you wanted to ask him what the fuck, but getting him to get the knife out of Wyatt’s mouth was more important at that moment.

It still wasn’t the time to bring it up as you threaded the needle through the gash above his eyebrow while he held a frozen sirloin against his other one.

His face started to swell immediately, so much so that his left eye was completely closed and a terrible shape of purple. At first you thought his nose was broken, but after further palpating you determined it wasn’t—only bleeding rather profusely. The pouty lips you loved so much had seen better days, where they weren’t busted open. His knuckles were just as marred—inflamed with split skin and bruising.

The two policemen didn’t seem to care much about what was going on, remarking that they’d like hot coffee since the thermos they brought with them had chilled since they’d been there. When you pointed out that you were busy patching up your husband that had been assaulted by the intruder, the older one scoffed.

The biggest mistake you made was telling them Wyatt’s identity. Though you didn’t start with his name, by the description you gave the idiots had enough to put the pieces together.

“So a family dispute? Not a break in,” the younger cop droned.

You scowled at him. “A man who doesn’t live in this house—“

“—Trailer,” the older one corrected.

You were ready to pull Eddie’s knife on them yourself at the comment. Nevertheless, you continued. “—crawled through the window, then threatened and attacked us! It doesn’t matter if he’s family—in the loosest sense possible, might I add—he had no permission or right to be here! And definitely not to beat the shit out of anyone!”

The older cop sighed as he scribbled on his notepad, clearly bored and agitated. “Okay. We’ll put out a BOLO on him. If he’s found he’ll be put away for a while since he’s out on bond anyway.”

His tone only further infuriated you. “Why do I get the feeling you aren’t gonna do a damn thing about this?” you sneered, accidentally jabbing Eddie a little too hard with the needle.

The older cop clicked his pen closed and cleared his throat. “Ma’am, we’ll do everything we can to find him and bring him to Justice,” he recited flatly. He headed towards the front door with his junior filling close behind. He turned and pointed at the shattered plate and the food that once set atop it scattered across the floor. “Shouldn’t let that sit there. Don’t want ants,” and with that he left.

You stared incredulously at the closed door for a moment before going off into a tizzy about why the hell they’d think you’d just leave food on the floor like that for an extended period of time as if you weren’t sewing Eddie’s face back together, their disinterest for what had to be the scariest moments of your life, and a long list of profanities.

When he was mostly doctored up, you kneeled down and got started on cleaning the floor. The big chunks were easy enough to discard, but the floor would need to be wiped down to clean up the specks of blood and remnants of the beef roast that neither of you got to taste.

With the pathetic excuse for policemen gone, the house was eerily quiet as you wiped the floor down with cleaner. Eddie hadn’t said a word since Wyatt departed, once again retreating into himself. The occasional creak of the roof caused by the wind startled you every time it happened. You instantly thought that bastard was lurking around somewhere, waiting to come back for a rematch or worse.

The once comfy, isolated bubble exclusively for you and Eddie had now been violated. Where you rested your head at the end of the day, relaxed, bathed, slept, and relished in the love that radiated through the very walls was no longer impregnable. Fear, hate, and violence tarnished this place now, and the loss of sacred comfort and ease within your own home brought you to tears.

Eddie called your name softly with an unspoken question.

Throwing the soapy rag onto the faux hardwood with a squelching plop, you gripped the counter in order to pull yourself to stand. “I don’t wanna stay here tonight,” you wept. “I can’t.”

Lowering the makeshift ice pack of frozen meet, Eddie muttered an agreement and went into the room to pack. You wanted to tell him to forget it—forget everything and just get away from here, but the words couldn’t make it past your lips as you tried to calm yourself down.

Eddie didn’t protest when you took the keys to your car, nor did he attempt to make an excuse for him to drive like he normally did.

You didn’t take a second to glance back at what was once your safe haven before backing out and exiting the trailer park.

You weren’t sure where you were going in the dark of night. Wayne didn’t have enough room for the three of you and you didn’t want to lay all of this on him the second he finished a long graveyard shift. The two motels in town were too dirty (if the accounts of bedbug infestations were to be believed) or no longer open for the night. You and Eddie needed somewhere safe, familiar, and free of anything that could further fuel the anxiety coursing through you. Only one place came to mind, and just like the rest of the trip, Eddie made no acknowledgement of the world around him when the destination came into view.

You could see movement through the glass pane on the center of the door and the blue glow of the TV, the norm for a Saturday night in the Harrington home. You knocked louder than you intended to but couldn’t find the room to care as the icy wind burned your skin.

Steve poked his head from around the corner of the foyer and came to the entrance. Clearly confused, Steve started to ramble. “What are you guys—Jesus CHRIST!” he exclaimed once he took in Eddie’s appearance. He stepped closer to Eddie and tried to assess the damage by what little light the porch provided. “What the hell happened to you?!”

Not wanting to go through the story again and not entirely sure Eddie wanted it known who exactly was the perpetrator, you kept it brief. “Home invasion. Can we stay here tonight?”

Steve looked like he wanted to ask a million more questions as his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, but he seemed to realize you asked him a question and turned to you instead. “Y-yeah, of course. My parents are back, though. So you guys will need to stay in the guest room this time.”

He moved out of the way and ushered you both in. Once Eddie’s condition was fully visible, Steve started to look nauseous.

“Are you okay? I mean—obviously you’re not okay but Jesus!” he exclaimed.

Eddie stood silently, staring blankly at nothing while Steve ogled him like a marble statue.

Even though you were certain dinner was the farthest thing from Eddie’s mind, it didn’t stop his belly from announcing its desire for food with a loud rumble.

“I just made a smoothie,” Steve announced. “Strawberry banana. Do you guys want some? I mean, you can have whatever you want but I don’t think you’ll be up for chewing any time soon.” He didn’t wait for you to answer before heading toward the kitchen.

The thought of consuming a thing left the bitter taste of ash in your mouth. You looked at Eddie for a second opinion, but he didn’t do anything but blink the only eye able to do so.

You took his hand in yours, careful to not brush against any wounds, and led him toward the kitchen. “Should probably eat something,” you mumbled more to yourself than him, not at all expecting a reply back.

Steve whipped together two more smoothies complete with bendy straws and set them on the glass table, taking his own seat across from you.

Drinking an icy smoothie while it was below freezing outside didn’t sound appealing, but your stomach gnawed in desperation for nourishment as you drank the pink liquid anyway. Surprisingly, Eddie didn’t silently refuse like you thought he would. Instead, he slurped it fast enough to give himself a brain freeze more than once.

Steve clearly was eager for an explanation as he sucked down his own semi frozen treat, but did not vocalize his curiosity. Instead, he waited until after you and Eddie slowly made your way through the smoothies before speaking again.

“You guys can shower, eat, come watch Bad News Bears with me, whatever you want, okay?” he offered kindly.

You thanked him for everything when he took the empty glasses away and once again led Eddie by the hand up the familiar staircase.

The guest room was comfortably warm with a neatly made bed and an oak dresser. You put the overnight bag on top of the dresser and removed your winter gear before claiming a side of the bed.

Eddie slowly did the same. Stripped down to his boxers as fast as Yurtle the Turtle probably would. It gave you time to look over his chest to make sure there wasn’t any sign of his ribs being reinjured. He looked mostly fine, save for his face and hands, and mimicked your position—on his back with his shoulder pressing against yours.

You couldn’t pinpoint what you were feeling right now. Terrified now that you could take a step back and analyze that your home was so easily invaded, shocked that you had the balls to mouth off to a known lunatic without even thinking of what could have happened to you, frightened over how Eddie could have gotten hurt more than he already was, furious that he let Wyatt slither away to go destroy someone else’s life, and guilty for making the call that set everything off in the first place.

Eddie’s sudden speech made you jump as he pulled you from your thoughts. “Are you scared of me?” he croaked.

You sighed and shook your head before realizing he probably couldn’t see you in the dark. “Never.”

He cleared his throat and gulped loudly. “Then can you—I don’t know—can you—“

You didn’t let him finish before rolling on to your side to wrap yourself around him—Legs tangled between his, arms clutching his toro with all the strength you had. “I’d kiss you but I don’t know where I can without hurting you.”

“It’s fine,” he said, quickly followed by “Ow! Wait—okay—no it’s not,” when you gently pressed your lips against the lesser bruised part of his cheek.

“That’s what I thought,” you replied before nuzzling your face in the crook of his neck.

It wasn’t very late at night, maybe half past nine or so, but it felt as if you lived three days in the span of a few hours. Your body was screaming for sleep, but your mind was a hornet’s nest full of worry and anger.

When you felt a cold splat of water oh the side of your nose, your first thought was maybe the roof was leaking. Until you realized it wasn’t raining, and your nose was tucked away carefully into Eddie’s warm neck. You waited for a few minutes for it to happen again, and when it hit the exact same spot, you figured out what it was.

You didn’t think it possible for your heart to crumble anymore than it already had until you realized the sudden droplets were tears leaking from the corner of Eddie’s eye and felt a new pang of despair within your chest.

Clinging to him tighter and lightly kissing the skin of his neck to avoid hurting him again, you loudly reminded him that you loved him.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

If either of you got any sleep that night, it was impossible to tell.

————————————————————

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