Chapter Text
Eddie Munson sells drugs to a lot of people. He advertises a no-questions-asked sort of confidentiality, and half the time he doesn’t even know his customers’ names, even though they all know his. The nameless faces of the monster that is the high school student body scoff slurs and insults to his face in the halls, whisper rumors and tall tales about him behind his back, and then show up to his trailer or the picnic table in the woods and try to sweet talk him into discounted dope. He charges them extra for their efforts. There’s nothing he hates more than the ingenuine.
Billy Hargrove, when he blows into town like he already owns the place, is no exception. Eddie thinks they hate each other on sight; the first time they cross paths in the hallway they both give each other a sort of sneering once over. It’s not long before Billy assimilates to the status quo and starts calling Eddie ‘freak’ like everyone else. It’s also not long before he seeks out Eddie’s drug dealing service.
He saunters up to that picnic table all superficial charm and “I hear you’ve got the best weed in town” and this arrogant, entitled smirk like he’s used to people doing whatever he wants them to just because he’s attractive and cool. Eddie takes his crumpled up $20 and gives him the smallest baggie in his lunchbox. It’s all exactly as he expected.
What isn’t expected is Billy standing on his porch the first time they meet for a deal at the trailer about a month later, patting down his pockets and muttering, “Shit, I forgot my wallet,” and then asking, with a less sneering and more suggestive once over, “Are you sure I can’t pay you some other way?” when Eddie tries to tell him to just come back another time.
Eddie snuffs out the joint he’d lit just before there’d been a knock at the door, now fearing the single hit he’d taken is making him hear things. He drops it in the ashtray on the nearby table and turns back to face Billy with raised eyebrows. “Some other way? ”
Billy raises his eyebrows back, challenging. “Don’t be naive, Munson,” he scoffs at him, “it’s not cute.”
“Sorry,” Eddie laughs incredulously, “are you seriously implying you want to pay for weed with sexual favors?”
“Are you seriously pretending like no one’s offered that before?” Billy counters.
The thing is, people have offered before—mostly girls, which he’s not into, and a few guys, who Eddie still tends to turn down because he has things like bills to help pay for and he needs the money long-term more than he needs to get off for just that one moment. Plus, accepting sex acts as payment is kind of skeezy, even for him, borders too much on taking advantage. Not to mention, considering who he’s talking to right now, it’s highly likely this is some sort of sadistic trap or something.
“Forgive me for making sure this isn’t some kind of trick,” Eddie retorts, crossing his arms. “I find it hard to believe that Billy Hargrove, newest crowned King of Hawkins High who took the throne by merciless force, is actually willing to suck off The Freak for some weed.”
Billy rolls his eyes, impatient. “It’s not a trick, Munson. And I haven’t got all day, so are we doing this or what?” He strides into the trailer and closes the door shut behind him with all the confidence of a man who already knows the answer, and Eddie hates him for that.
He hates even more that he’s actually considering it.
Objectively, Billy is hot (like, anyone with eyes, regardless of attraction, can recognize that he was blessed with conventionally good looks), even if there is always this unnerving edge to his smiles and something unsettlingly sinister simmering behind his eyes: something angry and manic and deadly calm all at once. Still, Eddie would be lying to admit he isn’t curious, and he thinks he’d get some sick satisfaction from seeing Billy—who tends to walk like he’s crushing all the rest of the world beneath his feet—on his knees.
“Fine.” Eddie grabs his joint back out of the ashtray, relights it, and takes a lengthy hit, just to take the edge off of this completely bonkers conversation. “And if it’s good enough, I’ll even let you split the rest of this joint with me too.”
Billy accepts the challenge with a wordless, dangerous smirk, and then he’s sinking to the ground and undoing Eddie’s belt and button and zipper. Eddie’s expecting something mediocre and inexperienced. What he definitely does not expect is the single best blowjob of his entire goddamn life (not that he’s got a whole lot to compare it to, but still). He has to snuff out the joint again and grip onto the back of the chair behind him with both hands, biting his lip hard to keep himself from making any truly pathetic noises.
“Holy shit,” Eddie breathes out after it’s done, tries to catch his breath while his entire body still buzzes with aftershocks of pleasure.
Billy spits on the floor (rude) as he stands, and he plucks the joint from the table with an infuriatingly arrogant expression, like he knows damn well it was good enough.
“Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” Eddie zips his pants back up and stares at Billy—who has already built up a hell of a reputation as a total ladykiller, who has also now just sucked dick like a fucking professional—with utter disbelief.
Billy lights the joint, takes a drag. “I have a boyfriend,” he says through a lazy exhalation of smoke, but his eyes are sharp and cold as his gaze meets Eddie’s. “And if you tell anyone about any of this, I swear to god, Munson, I will make your life a living hell.”
Eddie is reeling. He’s so stuck on the boyfriend admission that it takes him a moment to realize he’s also being threatened. “Yeah, okay, jeez. Relax, Hargrove.” He takes the joint back for a second, decides to test his boundaries a little bit. “How about this—I’ll keep your name out of my mouth if you keep mine out of yours, huh? No more shit-talking the freak unless you want the rumor to spread that you’re just as fag as I am. Deal?”
A dull red flush of anger simmers beneath the skin of Billy’s cheeks, muscles in his jaw jumping as he grits his teeth, but he nods and says, “Deal,” before snatching the joint out of Eddie’s hands.
To say a friendship blooms between them after this would be wholly inaccurate. It’s far uglier than that; the way it grows and develops is less like a flower and far more like a rot, this festering black hole of time that they spend together. It is a relationship built on secrets and blackmail and blowjobs and drugs and total mutual contempt, but the nature of that is there are just some things they can only talk about to each other. There are some things you can only tell an enemy; a horrible comfort in knowing they already see the worst in you, a perverted safety in knowing they hold your secrets like a weapon just as you do theirs.
Billy has taken to complaining about his boyfriend most times they hang out, fully sinking into the security of the animosity between them and sharing with Eddie every annoying detail of dating Steve Harrington. (That name also sent Eddie reeling, and it wasn’t until about the third time he’d heard it in this context that he finally believed it).
“He’s so fucking clingy,” sneers Billy now as he lounges on the couch in a way that takes up half the sofa space, joint dangling precariously from his fingers. “It’s like he needs my physical affection all the time. He’s always trying to hold my hand or press up close or put his arm around me. It’s constant.”
Eddie, banished to the corner of his own couch, sits cross-legged and takes a pull from his own joint. “That sounds kind of sweet, actually,” he says. He thinks he’d quite like for someone to love him like that, to want to be near him, to want to show it.
Billy’s lip curls scornfully. “Not in public. That airheaded idiot is gonna get us caught if he keeps that shit up.” He sighs, huffing out a cloud of smoke. “He’s lucky he’s so pretty.”
“Yeah, he’s lucky,” Eddie mutters, thinking just the opposite and feeling something rather like pity for poor Steve for getting himself saddled with this douchebag.
Eddie starts finding himself keeping an eye out for Steve at school. He watches the way Billy and Steve play up this jock rivalry facade between them, trading shoulder-checks and snarky insults every so often when they pass each other in the halls. He observes the way Steve’s hand always brushes gently against Billy’s as they shove past each other, but also the way Steve sometimes flinches at a particularly harsh jibe from Billy, as if that time maybe it wasn’t all just an act. Eddie gives him a sympathetic smile once after witnessing one of these instances, and Steve gives a confused sort of half-smile in response. They’ve never even spoken.
“Does Steve know you’re cheating on him?” Eddie asks on one of those days where Billy had ‘forgotten’ his wallet, the two of them on Eddie’s bed this time, as he lights up and pulls from the post-‘payment’ joint they always share.
“What, with you?” Billy scoffs. He takes his turn with the joint and looks at Eddie like he’s being ridiculous. “This isn’t cheating. We’ve never kissed and we’ve never even actually fucked. It doesn’t count.”
“So he doesn’t know,” Eddie confirms.
“Of course he doesn’t. And he never will.” Billy’s smile is cold and doesn’t reach his eyes which hold behind them an unmistakable threat: or else. His humorless laugh is even colder. “He doesn’t even know I buy from you, Munson. I keep your filthy name as far away from mine as possible. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”
“Right, yeah.” Eddie takes the joint back. That’s not even what he asked, not really, Billy just had to go and make it personal. “Fuck you.”
Billy smirks at him, shameless. “In your dreams, freak.”
“Yeah, you wish,” Eddie retorts, his words met with a sneer and an eye roll and the joint being snatched from his hands. It’s not a denial, but then again, neither was his. That’s the nature of this too.
The joint burns down to nothing with little more conversation between them. Eddie flicks the stub into the ashtray on his nightstand while Billy glances at the clock and groans. “Ugh, I have to go, Steve’s waiting for me,” he says, and his mouth curls with disdain around his boyfriend’s name.
It’s starting to get on Eddie’s nerves. He snaps, “If you really don’t like him that much, why don’t you just break up with him?”
Billy’s disdain shifts to Eddie now as he stands and looks down at him with a truly unsettling glare, head tilted as if Eddie’s suggestion was offensive and he’s shocked at his audacity. “I like him just fine.” A vile smirk distorts Billy’s features. “He’s like my mindless, devoted little puppy, why would I ever give that up?”
Eddie’s skin crawls with utter revulsion, but under Billy’s deadly stare he cannot find the voice to let him know just how detestable he finds him. Instead, he just mumbles in dull agreement, “Right, of course, why would you?”
“Knew you’d get it.” Billy’s smirk stretches into a passably good-natured smile, a jarring shift in expression. He plucks his well-earned baggie of drugs off the nightstand and heads for the door. “‘Til next time, Munson.”
The door closes shut behind Billy and Eddie flops back on his bed and stares numbly at the ceiling, turning up the volume of the music that’d been on in the background until it reverberates through his ribcage like a second heartbeat in hopes that it might drown out everything else that’s begun to settle there. He never feels good after spending time with Billy. Once the dopamine and drugs start to fade from his system he’s left feeling hollow and rotten, like each second with Billy has shaved off slivers of his soul. He’s leadened with guilty jealous disgusted regret, emotions which twist into an ugly snake in his gut that slithers through the hollow of his bones and feeds off the rot, growing bigger and bigger each time until Eddie fears one day it might become just as wretched a creature as Billy is.
If Eddie feels all this just from the tiny little pockets of Billy’s presence he subjects himself to, he wonders how Steve is coping with the weight of knowing Billy. He can see that it’s heavy for him too, notices it in the hunch of Steve’s shoulders and the sunken despondency in his eyes, each becoming more pronounced and more profound with every passing day.
Turns out, Steve’s not coping.
A little before spring break, Eddie gets a note in his locker asking to set up a meeting for a deal. It’s a very polite note, almost childish in the way it’s structured like they’d been given a template to follow: “Hi. Can we meet? I’d like to buy from you. Please let me know when and where. Thanks.” It’s signed with only a locker number and not any sort of name, which isn’t all that uncommon. He drops a note back telling whoever it is to meet him at the picnic table in the woods during 5th period, after lunch.
He thinks it’s probably some freshman, a good kid looking to try out a little teenage rebellion now that they’re in high school. He is thoroughly taken aback when that is not at all who emerges cautiously from the trees to meet Eddie.
“Harrington.” Eddie blinks away his surprise and puts on a spirited grin instead, spreading his arms wide in a theatrically welcoming gesture. “Welcome, fallen king. What can I do for ya?”
Steve cracks a tired smile at that. He sits at the table opposite Eddie. “Weed, please, or- or maybe something stronger too.”
“Okay, let’s just start with the weed.” Eddie flips open his metal lunchbox of goodies. “How much do you want?”
“I don’t know.” Steve shrugs. “A lot? Enough to last me through the break, at least. I don’t care how much it costs, I can pay for it.” To prove his point, he pulls a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and sets it on the table, so casually, like he just had that lying around in that jacket anyways.
“Alright, yeah, uh- that’ll get you about an ounce and a half, which doesn’t sound like much but it’ll last you well over a month, maybe even two, depending how often you use it,” Eddie says, deciding not to over-inflate his prices too wickedly this time. Rich though he is, Steve seems like he’s been through enough.
“Okay.” Steve nods, mostly to himself. His eyes follow the movement of Eddie’s hands as Eddie pulls a couple baggies from the lunchbox, and then he looks back up with that haunted gaze and asks, “And what about something stronger?”
“Steve.” Eddie pauses, his growing concern making him falter in this deal. “...Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Steve says immediately, guarded. “I thought you didn’t ask questions.”
“Well, no, I usually don’t,” Eddie says, “but, uh- good sob stories get discounts, so, if you wanna throw your hat in the ring… I won’t tell anyone.”
Steve sighs and sets his jaw, staring intently at the wood of the table in consideration for a few moments. “I don’t think I’m in a good relationship,” he admits finally, “and I don’t think I can get out of it, so I just- I need something to take the edge off when I’m around him.”
“Him,” Eddie echoes, as if he doesn’t know exactly who Steve is talking about.
Steve must not have realized he’d let that pronoun slip because a flash of fear flickers in his eyes before he steels it over with a defensive glare. “That’s not a problem, is it? I mean, considering the rumors about you -”
“Whoa,” Eddie cuts him off, putting his hands up in a back off sort of gesture. “No need to get nasty. Of course it’s not a problem.”
“Good. You can’t tell anyone.”
“I already told you I wouldn’t.”
“Good,” Steve says again, and this time he lets himself relax with it. “Sorry, it’s just- if any of this got back to him…”
“You’re scared of him,” Eddie realizes.
Steve sighs. “Yeah, a little bit,” he admits, then adds quickly, “But I mean, it’s not like he hits me or anything. Like, it’s fine, he’s just- he’s just unpredictable, you know, I never know what’s gonna make him snap.”
“Okay.” Eddie takes one of the baggies back and replaces it with a slightly bigger one before sliding both across the table to Steve and sliding Steve’s $100 towards himself. “There, two ounces for a hundred. And uh-” He reaches into his backpack beneath the table, pulls out a pen and slip of paper, and scribbles down his address and phone number, sliding that towards Steve as well and hoping he doesn’t take it the wrong way. “Feel free to come by my place if you want that something stronger…or if you just need to talk.”
“Oh.” Steve picks up the slip of paper first and stares at it for a second. When he looks back up at Eddie, his eyes have gone soft and a trace of a real smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “Thanks. That’s sweet of you.”
“Yeah.” Eddie gives a small smile of his own in return, and then quickly stands and packs up his stuff before his heart can start aching with anything more than pity for Steve. “Take care of yourself, Harrington. I’ll see you around.”