Dear You Pt 2
Part One Link to ao3
As per usual thank you to @hbyrde36 for betaing and @artbean for giving me the best idea everrrrr I love this chapter so much
Back in Black
Ride the Lightning
A few originals? Maybe the new one Jeff is writing?
Back in Black
Ride the Lightning Run to the Hills
A few originals? Maybe the new one Jeff is writing?
Back in Black Start with the originals
Ride the Lightning Run to the Hills Back in Black
A few originals? Maybe the new one Jeff is writing? Crazy
Eddie growled in disgust, burying one hand in his hair and pulling as he savagely dragged his pen over the complete failure of a set list, hiding his frustrations under a thick layer of dark black ink. When that wasn’t enough to satisfy the angry beast in his chest, he ripped the page out of his notebook entirely, balling it up and throwing it across the clearing, leaving behind a jagged ripped up strip of paper that stuck out, awkward and grating on his nerves.
The second the paper hit the ground Eddie felt the anger begin to leak out of him, leaving behind a hollow place at the bottom of his stomach, and the beginnings of a headache behind his eyes.
Wayne had once told him that his anger was like a summer squall- it started as just a few drops, picked up in intensity until it was everywhere, whirled around like a tornado for a few moments, and then disappeared just as quickly as it had come.
His uncle had said it like a good thing, as if Eddie’s inability to hold onto anger said something about him. What it said, Eddie wasn’t exactly sure, all he knew was right now he kind of wished he could stay angry for just a little while longer.
With a short quiet sigh, Eddie hauled himself up, walking to the other side of the clearing and grabbing the crumpled up paper, tossing it idly to himself as he walked back towards the picnic table, his mind fuzzy and distracted as he thought about everything that had happened today to cause this little meltdown.
It wasn’t like today was the worst day he had ever gone through, but it was still pretty frickin bad. The transmission on his van was starting to go out for like the fiftieth time this month alone, stupid Mrs. Clickity-Clack had accused him of cheating just because he wrote a good essay, and the cafeteria had served up Tuna Surprise for lunch. All things that would sour his mood on their own, but the worst thing had happened just as the final bell rang.
On the extremely short walk from their lockers to the parking lot, some freshman basketball idiots who weren’t aware of the rules decided to try and cause problems for Gareth. As a rule the jocks knew to stay all bark and no bite when it came to Hellfire, or they would have to drive all the way to Plainfield to buy their weed, but apparently Carver and his cronies hadn’t initiated these two dumbasses yet. Eddie had been forced to step in just as the principal walked by and of course Higgins took their side.
Of course.
After a lengthy and frankly ridiculous speech about Eddie needing to apply himself, Higgins had sighed and handed over a detention slip. All of that would have been just another Tuesday, but the underhanded comment he had made as Eddie stormed out of his office was the thing that had really twisted the knife.
It’s pointless to try and get you to be a normal boy, Mr. Munson. No matter what I do, you’ll always be your father’s son.
“My father’s son,” Eddie scoffed, bitterness flooding his mouth and pouring from every pore, “Better Al Munson, than Charlie Higgins. As if I’d want to end up like that pompous, arrogant, small minded prick.”
A vicious delight spread through his body and Eddie chuckled to himself, taking a big step to stand on top of one of the benches, straightening himself up and turning his nose high in the air.
“Edward Munson, you simply must learn to apply yourself,” He said in an over the top British accent, staring down his nose at the invisible Eddie below, “I, Principal Charles Higgins, have told you time and time again that these… asinine hobbies of yours are only going to lead you astray. Be more normal! How else will you learn to be a perfect cog in the machine?”
“But- but- but- Mr. Higgins!” Eddie stammered out, jumping down and falling to one knee, clasping his hands and staring up into the trees, “I just want to play a game with my friends and sing in a band? What’s so wrong with that?”
Nothing. The answer was nothing. There was nothing wrong with who Eddie wanted to be, and that person sure as hell was not his father.
“Fuck that,” Eddie ground out, taking a running leap to the top of the picnic table and staring out in the trees, “You think you’re the first person to try and change me?! HA! Fuck Normal!”
The forest, as always, did not answer him back. Eddie was alone, nothing but the wind through the leaves and an aching longing to be understood gnawing away at his heart.
Alone.
Where the hell was Byers?!
Eddie was used to having to wait, because while he didn’t really care that everyone saw him stroll into the woods behind the football field every day to do deals, his clientele usually wanted a little more subtlety. But the longest it had ever taken someone to walk into the clearing was twenty minutes, and it had been at least a half hour.
He turned to face the direction of the school watching and waiting as if he would magically hear the sound of footsteps crashing through the woods in his direction.
Birds. Wind. Nothing to indicate a loner senior was slinking up to make a deal.
“Maybe he got detention,” He said to himself, the excuses coming out frail and thin as he plopped down in his seat again, fiddling with the handle of his lunch box of goodies, “Or his siblings needed something and he had to take care of that, or he picked up an extra shift or he just forgot.”
Or maybe…
Or maybe Jonathan actually wasn’t coming at all.
Eddie’s expression soured and his mouth thinned to a tight line as the thought began to take root and bloom into poisonous red flowers.
That had to be it. Harrington had been jerking his chain, coming up with some big story to get Eddie sitting out here on his ass for no good reason. His numbskull friends were probably keying his van right now, slashing the tires up, having a real good laugh at the freak.
And he really only had himself to blame. He knew that Harrington was no good, and he had let those kids make him think differently. Well, this is what happened. This is what he got for thinking people could change.
“Stupid jackass with his stupid hair and his stupid kids,” Eddie muttered in disgust, slamming the lid of his lunchbox closed and locking it with an equally harsh movement, “Gonna key his Beemer, slash his stupid perfect tires and wipe that stupid smug look off his stupid-”
“Are you okay?”
Eddie screamed.
Not a manly shocked yell or a little shout. He full on girl-in-a-horror-movie-about-to-get-eaten-by-a-werewolf shrieked. Jonathan let out his own scream, taking a few steps back and putting his hands out in front of him, staring at Eddie with wide eyes.
After a beat of silence Eddie broke out into giggles, leaning against the picnic table as he tried to pull himself back together.
“Guess I scared you?” Jonathan asked, his shoulders relaxing as a tiny smile graced his lips.
“Yeah, sorry,” Eddie said, still laughing. It was just too ridiculous. Him, Eddie Munson, getting scared by Byers of all people.
“And I thought I was the one who was gonna be nervous,” Jonathan replied, jamming his hands into his pockets and hiking his shoulders up. A classic awkward Jonathan Byers move that settled out any last bad feelings Eddie was having.
He didn’t know Jonathan, not beyond sharing a few classes and the occasional stint in detention, but Will and Jane had become some of his favorite people in a short time, and they had given Eddie enough descriptions that he had a pretty good idea of who Jonathan was.
“No need to fret,” Eddie said, making a wide sweeping arc with one arm towards the picnic table, “Step into my office, taste my wares,”
Jonathan crept closer, each step taking much longer than it should have. It was like watching a stray dog walk towards a treat- hungry, but still unsure if the hand was going to feed or hurt.
“Thanks for this,” Jonathan said absentmindedly, looking around the clearing with his shoulders still tight around his ears.
“No need to thank me, this is a business transaction,” Eddie shot back, opening his lunchbox back up and getting into Professional Drug Dealer Mode.
Doing deals was part sales, part psychology. It was easier to get the job done if he made himself what the other person needed him to be. Some people wanted a buddy, someone to joke around with as they purchased their pills, others wanted not a word between them, the shame of needing an illegal substance to get through the day was too much to bear.
Eddie would bet that Jonathan, like most first-timers, would be easiest to work with if Eddie gave him the basic rundown of how this worked.
“Cash only, no receipts. You give me what I need, I give you what you need,” Eddie rattled off as Jonathan sat, pointing first at himself, and then at Byers and then smiling wide, “Everyone walks away happy.”
“It’s thirty, right?” Jonathan asked, pulling out his wallet.
“Fifteen,” Eddie corrected. Byers paused, raising a brow, and Eddie snorted, continuing to snicker as he explained.
“I charge Harrington asshole tax which usually means it’s thirty for a half ounce, and it’s twenty for everyone else,”
Eddie watched with a smirk as Jonathan mouthed the words ‘asshole tax’ to himself while shaking his head. He pulled a twenty out, handing it over and taking the five Eddie gave him in exchange.
“So why are you charging me fifteen?” Jonathan asked, obviously suspicious. It was almost cute, how hesitant he was. Eddie was instantly reminded of how Will had acted the first time they met. Another stray, but this one a puppy. On guard, but somehow willing to hear him out. He must’ve learned that from his brother.
“Cause you get the friends and family discount, Elder Byers. Besides, given how much weed Steve was buying from me I have a feeling you are going to become my number one customer soon,” Eddie said with jazz hands, holding out the baggie with a flourish.
This was where they ended. Jonathan would take his bag and go, Eddie would pack up, and they would part ways. They would not make eye contact in the hallways, and that suited Eddie just fine. It wasn’t like drug dealing was his ultimate career goal or anything. He did it to keep the lights in the trailer on and keep his uncle from working himself to an early grave, and he didn’t need to act like he was some big wheeler dealer that ran Hawkins.
Did he know pretty much everyone’s dirty secrets? Yeah, but that was just because Rick was back in prison and that meant Eddie was the only person in town you could get cocaine from. He didn’t have any power beyond charging some people more than others for their dickish tendencies. He played his part when he had to, and this was a moment where he had to.
Only…Jonathan was not playing his predestined role.
“What is that?” Jonathan asked, tilting his head ever so slightly as he stared at the full baggie with wide eyes.
“MJ?” Eddie said slowly, wondering if it was a hypothetical. Rather than lighting up in recognition, Jonathan’s brow furrowed even further, turning his eyes from the bag to Eddie.
“Mary Jane? Also known as grass, skunk, pot, dope, reefer, herb, and its Christian name of Cannabis Sativa.” Eddie continued, lowering his voice to a whisper and extending the baggie again, hoping that a little dramatic flair might get Byers to stop acting so damn weird.
Jonathan only looked even more hopelessly lost, and now Eddie was starting to get uncomfortable. It made absolutely zero sense for Jonathan to be acting so weird, and Eddie was only just now starting to remember that Jonathan’s mom had been doing some weird will they/won't they with Hopper for the last few years.
Was this some sort of ploy? Was Jonathan wearing a wire or some shit? Powell had tried to come around to put a stop to Eddie’s ‘business’. Eddie had sent him off with a laugh, seeing as half of Powell’s department were some of his top regulars, but the guy seemed desperate to prove that he could be just as good of a chief as Hop was.
Maybe he had somehow gotten Harrington and Byers to work with him to get Eddie arrested?
No. That made no sense. Eddie was being paranoid. Jonathan was just acting completely out of it for some normal reason that he couldn’t fathom.
Yeah. Because that made more sense.
Every instinct in Eddie was telling him to run, take his lunch box and book it and never even think about going near any of the Byers again.
But…
But he knew Will and he knew Jane, and he couldn’t ever see the big brother they described pulling a move like this. Threatening Eddie to stay away from his little siblings, sure, but not a snake move like trying to get him thrown in jail.
“It’s weed, Byers. Supposedly you’ve been smoking a shit ton of it since August.” Eddie said, taking the leap and hoping that he wasn’t about to get the silver bracelets slapped on his wrists.
“Oh! Um, Steve just always gives me cigarettes,” Jonathan mumbled, blushing and looking down at the picnic table.
Not a sting then. Just a delightfully naive Jonathan Byers.
“Did you just call a joint a cigarette?” Eddie asked, biting the inside of his lip as the nerves washed away. The mirth that Eddie couldn’t completely hide in his tone only made Jonathan shrink even more, so Eddie forced himself to sober up.
A guy like Jonathan would not take being laughed at well. Eddie was sure of that much.
“I don’t do pre-rolls, sorry. But for an extra fiver, I’ll give you rolling papers or a shitty bong I have in the back of my car,” Eddie offered, having to keep from laughing as he thought about Jonathan trying to figure out how to use a bong on his own. Given how clueless he seemed to be, there was a very likely chance that Jonathan would end up burning himself more than the weed.
“Maybe we should just forget it then,” Jonathan murmured, already sliding his body back away from Eddie and the weed.
Normally, Eddie wouldn’t care. Baggie back in the lunchbox, whatever, see you next tuesday. He wasn’t a charity, and this wasn’t a favor between friends. He was a businessman first and foremost.
But Steve’s words were echoing in his mind, combining with Jonathan’s kicked puppy dog demeanor to form a deadly weapon against Eddie’s far too vulnerable emotions.
“Curse my bleeding heart.” Eddie groaned, unsure of when he had become such a softie, “Fine, I’ll show you how to roll, but I’m taking that extra five for doing this for you,”
Jonathan sighed in relief, immediately handing back Eddie’s five dollars and giving him a soft grateful smile that almost made the extra work worth the trouble. An unexpected stab shot through Eddie’s chest because of that little smile, and he pushed it down far where it couldn’t bother him, rooting around in his box for the things he needed and making himself look more busy than he was.
“You better be watching closely, Byers, I’m not doing this for you next time,” Eddie warned, wagging a finger at Jonathan as he pulled out the supplies he would need. Luckily for the other boy, Eddie always carried rolling papers on him.
Truthfully, Eddie didn’t mind rolling joints. He didn’t want to become a housewife to the idiots on the basketball team who couldn’t be bothered to do their own dirty work, but that wasn’t what was happening here. Besides, rolling a joint had a meditative joy to it in some ways. Like painting a mini-figure or designing a tattoo, there was a calm delight in the act of creating something small but special.
“Am I allowed to thank you for this?” Jonathan asked with his normal amount of dry wit.
“Well, flattery works on me so yeah, you can thank me,” Eddie replied, looking up briefly from the paper he was lying flat and wagging his eyebrows before getting back to the task at hand, “And you can answer my questions.”
“I thought I was paying you an extra five dollars,” Jonathan countered, sitting back and crossing his arms.
“Five dollars,” Eddie agreed, placing the filter and crumbling the dried flower between his thumb and forefinger oh so carefully, ensuring that the line of marijuana was perfectly equal all across the paper, “And answers. I get paid in knowledge first, dear Elder Byers.”
“What exactly do you want to know?” Jonathan asked, his expression carefully blank.
“When did Harrington introduce you to our dear Aunt Mary?” Eddie asked, holding up the bag just so he didn’t confuse Jonathan again.
“Oh Steve didn’t- I mean I knew he knew you so I asked him to buy for me, but he’s not like my- we’re not-” Jonathan stammered, his ears turning red as he tried to flounder for an explanation.
“Easy Byers. I didn’t think you turned our precious little King queer,” Eddie laughed, carefully tucking one side of the papers underneath the line.
That was the way Rick had taught him many many years ago. Filter, flower, tuck it into bed, and then you roll. Apparently it was just like swaddling a baby.
“You know you can just call me Jonathan, right?” Byers pointed out, still fiddling with his fingers.
“Alright then, Jonathan,” Eddie agreed, slowly saying the other boy’s name, letting the word acquaint itself with his mouth and feeling it out. It felt good, at least it felt more right than his last name. “I guess I’m just a little confused as to why you and Harrington are suddenly best buddies. Last I heard that little girlfriend of yours skipped straight from his arms to yours.”
Wrong thing to mention. It was like Eddie could feel the misstep, almost able to hear the broken twig that had alerted his prey to his presence, and now they were both on alert.
“That was complicated,” Jonathan immediately snapped before blowing all of his breath out in one big gust, placing his palms flat on the picnic table and letting his eyes slip shut, “But Nancy and I broke up anyways so…”
Jonathan and Nancy had broken up a little less than a month ago. They had done their best to have a very low-key break up, not even telling their siblings at the start, all in an effort to make sure that it didn’t become gossip for everyone to chew on.
So naturally the entire school knew by the end of that first week.
“Oh wow I uh I didn’t-” Eddie tried, cutting his little charade off when Jonathan shot him a look and readjusting his approach.
“I knew. Like five different people told me,” Eddie admitted, licking the stripe of the glue and sealing the first joint, setting it aside before he realized Jonathan was still staring at him. “Sorry, by the way. I bet that wasn’t easy?”
“It’s fine. We’re better off as friends,” Jonathan shrugged, acting far too casual for a guy who had just broken up with a girl that he had been dating for over a year. A girl that, by all accounts, he had very much loved.
A girl he still spent all of his time with.
“What happened?”
“We just weren’t right for each other,” Jonathan answered, obviously toeing the party line.
That was the reason Eddie had heard over and over from Will and Mike and Jane- that they just weren’t right for each other. There was a mountain of rumors that had cropped up from the Hawkins High Gossip Mongers, of course. People who thought she had left him to go back to Steve, some who assumed Nancy had cheated again with someone new, one person was convinced it was because the college she wanted to attend didn’t allow boyfriends, even a few wild loonies who thought that they had had ended it because of an unplanned pregnancy.
But, rather than offer up any of those rumors as explanations, Eddie hummed and waited, watching Jonathan and wondering how long it would take him to break.
Not very long it turned out.
“She doesn’t have to worry about anything, you know?” Jonathan said after only half a minute of patient waiting.
Bingo.
Eddie hummed again, readying the next joint as Jonathan slid out of his seat to pace around the clearing and rant.
“Everything always works out exactly like she wants it to. Everything! She doesn’t have to think about the things I think about. She doesn’t have to worry about the bills, or her brother, or anything except for what she wants. And anytime I reminded her that I have to worry about more than myself, she acted like I wanted her to feel sorry for me, when that was never what I wanted. Ever.”
Whatever Eddie had expected, it certainly wasn’t that. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard Jonathan talk so much in one sitting, but he wasn’t going to interrupt the other boy. It was obvious that Jonathan hadn’t really talked to anyone about this yet, and he definitely needed to get it off of his chest.
Eddie was being given something precious here, and even though he didn’t really understand why, he wasn’t going to ruin it.
“And when she finally ended it, it was just this huge…relief. Like I could finally stop pretending to be something I wasn’t.” Jonathan concluded, his shoulders loosening as he tipped his head back towards the treetops for a second before turning towards Eddie, a challenge in his eyes.
“That’s a lot,” Eddie said, immediately wincing at how dumb that statement was, “I mean… maybe you could use some extra space from her?”
“Extra space?” Jonathan asked, walking back towards the table.
“Come sit with us at lunch instead of eating with her in the- um- newspaper dungeon,” Eddie blurted out, the offer escaping his mouth before he had even really thought about it. Once he had said it though, it didn’t sound like a bad idea, “I mean, your brother and his friends already do and-”
“No thanks,” Jonathan said, immediately cutting Eddie off as he sat back down.
He wanted to pretend it didn’t, but it hurt.
Eddie was very very used to rejection, but it always cut him down to the quick anyway. He knew how the world saw him. Trailer park trash, metal head, satanist, drug dealing, Eddie Munson. He wasn’t a person to them, not really. They didn’t care about trying to figure out who he was beyond what they expected.
Eddie had stupidly assumed Jonathan to be different. After that entire speech, he had thought Jonathan could understand.
“I just want to let Will have his own thing, you know?” Jonathan said, cutting Eddie’s thoughts right in half.
Oh.
This was about Will?
“He’s- it’s hard for him. With everything that happened, everyone has this idea of who he is too, and it’s been good for him to have Hellfire,” Jonathan continued, completely unaware of the circles Eddie’s head was spinning in, “You’ve been good for him.”
Eddie had been called a lot of things in his life, but the last person that had told him he was good was his mother. Even Wayne, for all the ways he built Eddie up, had never thought to call him good.
“And his friends are great- they’re amazing, actually- but it’s been really nice for him to have something…” Jonathan’s eyes darted around as he trailed off, looking for the right word. Then he stopped, laughing quietly and shaking his head.
“What?” Eddie asked, unable to keep himself from catching Jonathan’s smile.
“Normal,” Jonathan said, still chuckling, “You guys give him something normal.”
Normal?!
Eddie scoffed in disbelief, following Jonathan as they both laughed about the ridiculousness of Eddie being normal.
“I’m sorry. I really couldn’t think of a better word,” Jonathan tried to say when he finally put himself back together, “I know you have a uh- thing- about that one.”
Eddie’s cheeks immediately lit on fire as he took in the connotation of Jonathan’s words.
“Before when I was…did you…” Eddie asked, unable to say the words and hoping he was wrong. Unfortunately for him, Jonathan was already nodding, having the decency to at least look slightly contrite as he watched Eddie die of embarrassment.
“Yeah. The whole thing.” He admitted. Eddie let out a deranged sound, covering his face with his hands and tipping to the side, curling up on the bench and grumbling to himself in completely unintelligible words.
How fucking humiliating.
Eddie was the guy who gave huge speeches about conformity on the regular, jumping up on tables and making a spectacle of himself, but that was when he knew people were watching. He knew he was putting on a show, and that was fine. Having his own internal crisis shown off when he wasn’t expecting it was completely different, especially when it was to someone who didn’t know him all that well.
“Hey I get it. I mean, Higgins can be a total asshole,” Jonathan offered, trying to pull Eddie out of his shame spiral.
“Preachin’ to the choir,” Eddie muttered, hauling himself back up to a sitting position and avoiding making eye contact.
He would just finish rolling out this second joint and send Jonathan packing, regardless of the fact that he had barely used a quarter of the bag. The last thing he needed was someone mocking him for what he said when he thought he was alone.
“You’re right, though,” Jonathan said out of the blue, startling Eddie into raising his head, “You shouldn’t change. You’re fine the way you are,”
Huh.
“You think so?” Eddie asked softly, shocking himself with how genuine that question came out. He had never really considered himself a self conscious person, there was no way a boy like him would have survived in a place like Hawkins if he was, but the fleshy vulnerable parts of his heart had already been hurt today, and hearing someone else think he was just fine the way he was…
It was doing things Eddie hadn’t expected he would ever need.
“Yeah, I mean you’re not the same as everyone else, but everyone else sucks.” Jonathan shrugged, waving a hand back towards where the school was, “I mean you took Will and the guys in. And El too- oh shit. Jane, I mean. She says you guys are really nice to her and explain stuff, which I really appreciate. She’s…”
Jonathan didn’t say it, but Eddie already knew well enough what he was referring to.
“I know that our little mage is dealing with some hostility from her peers,” Eddie said, placing the second joint next to the first and grabbing another paper.
Eddie had no idea where Jane had come from, but it was obvious from even a minute long conversation that she was different. Sweet, so so sweet, but different in a way that would make high school almost an impossible task to accomplish. The boys flanked her like a protective detail, and her best friend was a firecracker that even Eddie wouldn’t want to cross, but they could only do so much.
“She’s been through worse,” Jonathan said vaguely, his brow furrowing as he thought about it, “I just wish it was easier for her, but she has Max and the rest of them so,”
“And Hellfire,” Eddie added. Jonathan looked up at him with a far too grateful smile.
“And Hellfire,” Jonathan repeated.
“So, I’m not the mean, scary, drug dealing, satanist you thought I’d be?” Eddie asked, wetting his lips before he sealed the third joint closed. The question had been mostly a joke, but Jonathan shook his head anyway.
“Not even a little bit.”
“That’s disappointing. I was kind of looking forward to scaring local creep, Jonathan Byers,” Eddie said, heaving a huge dramatic sigh, putting his elbows on the picnic table and plopping his face into his hands. Jonathan copied the motion, linking his fingers and resting his chin on top of them.
“I’ve gotta tell ya it’s a little hard to be scared of the guy that slipped on spaghetti sauce and wiped out in the middle of his latest speech on conformity and The Man,” Jonathan said, leaning forward and whispering the words in a way that sent an unexpected shiver down Eddie’s spine.
“Oh, fuck you,” Eddie laughed, leaning back and breaking the moment, a blush returning as he threw the baggie back in his lunchbox and shut it, holding out the twenty and the joints out to Jonathan, “Here, take your spoils and leave, weary traveler. My shop is closed.”
“But-”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie said, flapping one hand as he pressed the money and drugs into Jonathan’s hand, his heart humming in his chest in an unfamiliar way, “I only gave you three joints anyway, and you’ll be back on Friday anyway, right?”
Jonathan looked between the money and Eddie with suspicion for a moment, before it faded, leaving behind only a slight smile and something in his eyes that Eddie couldn’t quite identify.
“Friday it is,” Jonathan agreed, his voice going soft and warm as he held Eddie’s gaze for a moment longer before turning and getting up, disappearing just as silently as he had come, completely unaware of how he had just rocked Eddie’s world.
Eddie packed up without another word, escaping the clearing the second he could and rushing back to his van. He managed to get all the way through turning it on and driving out of the parking lot of the school before he realized that the five in his lunchbox was his own money, and he had just broken the cardinal rule of drug dealing.
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