Chapter Text
“You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you're fucked forever!”
– Blue Velvet (1986)
Night after lonely night, we meet in dreams
As I run to your side
You wait with open arms, open arms
That now are closed to me
Through a veil of tears
Your vision disappears
And I'm as blue as I can be
— “Blue on Blue” by Bobby Vinton
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Light streams in through the blinds of Eddie’s room.
It heats his eyelids, an offensive reminder that it is, in fact, morning.
Eddie keeps his eyes shut, unwilling to allow the day to start until he’s ready.
His body feels strange, as if it hasn’t fully materialized, caught in between worlds—
The gooey, sleepy, place between dreams and reality.
The first thing he notices is the taste in his mouth—
an acrid mix of morning breath laced with stale booze and dirt.
He lets his eyes open enough to see he’s definitely in his room. He’s lying fully clothed on top of his bed, the navy blue sheets coming in and out of focus as his eyes adjust.
He slowly drags himself out of bed and over to the bathroom.
He’s about to wash his face when he notices his hands—
dirt under his nails, dried blood on his thumb.
He looks up at himself in the bathroom mirror and studies his disheveled reflection. He’s wearing his usual black jeans and a cropped muscle tee. His hair is wrapped in the remnants of a messy bun, stray tendrils of frizzy hair falling loosely around his face.
He looks exhausted, bags under his eyes, smeared purple like makeup.
And then he sees it—a dark patch of skin where neck meets collarbone.
He sucks in a sharp breath as he leans closer to the mirror, confirming his suspicions.
It’s a hickey.
He’s had them before, it’s not like he’s a blushing goddamn virgin.
But this one is thorough. A marbled mess of color.
Like wine mixed with berry juice. A stain. The skin around it puffy.
Eddie can already feel the bruise that lies beneath.
He remembers a scrape of teeth and shudders at the thought.
What the fuck was he doing last night?
Who was he with?
He presses his fingers into the mark, taking in the odd sensation of painful pleasure. His eyes shut, willing himself to make himself remember something, anything.
A name comes to mind, only for Eddie to push it away out of habit.
He remembers a patch of sky—
bits of bluish-gray peaking through the sprawling branches of a tree.
Like the network of roots beneath the ground, ripped out and thrown into the atmosphere.
The world turned on its orbit, and Eddie turning with it.
But even that feels like some bastardization of the truth.
He wills himself to find a detail. One thing he knows to be true.
The name comes back, and this time Eddie lets it.
Not even the whole picture, it’s all just pieces—
a broad hand wrapped around a beer bottle, deep hazel eyes, the shadowy scene of a party, an overwhelming feeling of a night gone horribly wrong.
Come on Eddie, one thing you know to be true.
He opens his eyes and lets the name out like a long held breath— Steve Harrington.
If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
I'd put you in the mirror
I put in front of me
I put in front of me
Linger on your pale blue eyes
— “Pale Blue Eyes” by The Velvet Underground
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Throwing up comes first—mostly bile, the aftermath of something tropical, a sucker punch to the gut.
Steve’s on his knees.
Not in any way that suits him.
Not in the gruesome way that leaves Tommy pathetically moaning and ordering him to swallow, even though his cum tastes like a boiled vat of battery acid and canned tuna.
Tommy—
Shit. What the fuck happened to Tommy last night?
He didn’t sleep over like he usually would after a night of drinking and debauchery.
When he’s mostly certain that his body’s done torturing him, Steve brings himself to stand. Bones aching, head spinning out of control like a carnival ride gone wrong, the whole room smells of death and decay.
Wobbly on his feet and shaking uncontrollably, he grips the marble counter. Searches for a corpse in the mirror and finds only himself.
The lone wolf.
The last survivor.
The final act of a tragic comedy—
No.
Someone else was there.
Someone else held his hand in an iron grip as they fled the scene—
Contrary to popular belief, Steve Harrington is not the biggest fan of his own reflection.
He’s grown used to avoiding the distorted monster that yearns to stare back at him with its bug eyes, girlish pout, and leopard spots. It urges him to come closer. To give in. To let the creature consume him.
The hatred runs deep. Guts him. Spoils his appetite. Gnaws at him through the glass and says matter-of-factly, “This is who you are. This is who you’ve always been. There’s no use in playing pretend.”
It’s Tommy’s voice he hears.
It’s Tommy’s spit spraying onto his unwilling tongue and forcing him to drink it down like expensive liquor.
It’s Tommy’s nails digging into his spine like a million little sadistic knives.
Steve has to get out of this fucking bathroom or he’s certain he’ll die here.
But, before he can tear his bloodshot eyes away and reach for the golden doorknob—his ticket to freedom, he notices it—
A sapphire gemstone lodged in the center of his earlobe.
Swollen and bloodied and similar in size to the gritty tonsil stone he once choked on at the age of seven. The doctor gave him sympathy, a box of tissues to dry his tears, and a blue raspberry lollipop to reward his fickle bravery.
He’d been awestruck. Touched by Heaven or some ethereal being.
No one had ever told him raspberries grew in the color blue.
To a seven year-old, it was life-altering.
His ear throbs. Threatens to capsize his skull and toss him off the deck. It’s impossible to hide. Nothing like a hickey he can rub out with a silver spoon or bury under layers of his mother’s department store makeup.
There’s a moment of consideration in which he debates removing the problem. Playing it like a game of Operator and hoping the noisy red alarm doesn’t blare. But, much like the heart thrumming maniacally in his chest, it’s too tender.
More than that, it’s beautiful. It catches the sunlight creeping in through the narrow window and distracts from the monster. The creeping thing that speaks in cruel tongues.
It’s quite possibly the only beautiful thing about him.
Someone thought he was beautiful enough to put it there—
Drunk and afraid.
The name comes back to him as his knees buckle and bring him down, down, down to the unforgiving floor—
Eddie Munson.
“ 1. Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in
love with a color. Suppose I were to speak this as though
it were a confession…”
— Maggie Nelson
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Hawkins, Indiana
September 1st, 1986—First day of Senior Year
