Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three

 ‘Toxic’

 Baby, can't you see I'm calling?
A guy like you should wear a warning
It's dangerous, I'm falling
There's no escape, I can't wait
I need a hit, baby, give me it
You're dangerous, I'm loving it
Too high, can't come down
Losing my head, spinnin' 'round and 'round
Do you feel me now?
With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride
You're toxic, I'm slippin' under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you
Don't you know that you're toxic?
And I love what you do
Don't you know that you're toxic?

-Britney Spears

‘Hello, Daydream.’

She takes a measured breath to steel herself but says nothing for now. He takes his time pushing off the wall to come closer. His bare chest has new ink she’s not seen before. Thick octopus tentacles wrap around his hips from beneath the line of his jeans, the tip of one is curled lovingly around his belly button. A dagger with a snake around the blade sits over his heart. Sigils and runes, bats and spiders, skulls and roses. She sees scars too.

He must feel her looking because when he finally moves closer, he shrugs gracefully out of the leather jacket. Eddie Munson is taller than she is, and even though he’s not tall, he towers over her in the moment without her boots on. He lifts his arms, showcasing his ink, letting her see all of it.

The back of her legs hit the bed, but she doesn’t stumble. 

‘That better?’ he murmurs. ‘You wanted to see, didn’t you?’ When she stays quiet, he continues to walk into her, pushing her down on the bed and pinning her by the wrists, back flat atop the gun that’s digging into her spine. His damp hair falls around him like a dark willow tree. His eyes study her raptly. ‘Is that why you came to the house?’

She stays quiet. Keeps still.

There’s a high possibility he’s going to rape her and if it happens, she’ll be loose and pliable, won’t rise to it no matter what he does. He hasn’t come for that, she suspects. He came to dominate and punish.

He wants satisfaction.

And that, at least, she can deprive him of.  

‘What’s wrong?’ Eddie intones. ‘You’re not happy to see me?’ He draws back to look her over thoroughly. ‘Who gave you the new ones?’

No answer.

Nothing.

The gun is wedged.

She can’t reach it.

‘Do you think playing dead is gonna make me lose interest?’ he whispers, face creasing with mock concern. ‘You must have forgotten all the times I made you sleepy and played with you like a doll.’ His nose brushes hers. ‘When you’d whimper and moan, so confused. If you started to wake, I’d use chloroform to put you back to sleep.’ He smiles to himself, like he’s describing a beautiful day at the beach. ‘I used to dab it on myself, right on my neck like cologne sometimes while we fucked. I wanted the smell of it to make you wet. I wanted you to get addicted to it, to being my good little dolly. I wonder if it’d work now.’ He cocks his head, sacrificing one half of his grip to lower his hand between her legs. ‘What do you think?’

She snatches the opportunity, drives her knee sharply up before he can touch her and slams it between his legs, nails him good, and shifts to roll enough to get the gun out from under herself.

Eddie grabs her by the hair, but she swings the gun around and aims it at him. The knee to his dick hurt, she can tell by the way he’s laughing that dangerous, shallow hyena laugh, nothing ever does what it’s supposed to with him.

She jams the barrel against his neck, breathing fast. He lets his hair spill to the side when his head tips, watching her, waiting to see what she’ll do, something patronising about it, like he knows she won’t.

‘You gonna kill me? Put a hole in my neck?’ he asks, arrogantly sweet. ‘Come on, I don’t have all—’

She squeezes the trigger.

The trigger snaps.

Nothing happens.

Nothing fucking happens.

Her heart sinks all the way down.

Eddie’s gaze darkens with something unreadable, but she dares think he didn’t actually expect her to do it and that’s bright fury she sees there.

‘Well,’ he says, smile long gone. ‘I guess you’re all grown up now, Christiana.’

He punches her in the face.

She can take a hit, more than one, but he has this way of doing it that just blindsides her every time, like he knows her bones. She falls back onto the bed, hand over her mouth, pain screaming in every nerve ending like a tree struck by lightning.

He takes the gun, flips open the cylinder and says, ‘I switched out your bullets for duds, but let’s put a real one in there, shall we?’ He snaps it shut and she hears the fizzy click of the cylinder being spun. ‘I’m impressed you pulled the trigger. You always had potential.’

‘Fuck you,’ she groans, forcing herself to disconnect from the pain because lying here naked and bleeding while Eddie is angry is not ideal. She tastes salt and copper. Her jawbone is lit up with agony.

‘I don’t fuck whores.’

‘Then how’d you get your cock in Harrington?’ she sneers before she can catch that it was a lure to see how much she knows. She sits up, cursing herself for forgetting his ways.

‘Why are you back?’ he asks her, holding the gun as he knee-walks onto the bed and she scrambles to get off of it. He doesn’t follow, takes her place instead, touching the blood on the cheap bedspread and then tasting it the way a child might taste mud.

She has to regather herself, regroup.

‘I’m putting clothes on.’ Not asking, telling. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

‘You smell like another man.’

She ignores that, dressing efficiently.

‘I could be wrong, but you smell almost like my boy Billy Hargrove. Same cologne. I’d love to see that,’ Eddie sighs, voice pitched pleasantly, familiarly low. ‘You two coming together in a burst of tragic, broken passion, fuelled by your hatred for me. You should peg him, Daydream. It’d heal something in him I think. What a good little soft dom you’d make. I always thought so.’

When she’s dressed, boots on, she finally turns to face him.

He asks, ‘Who gave you the new scars?’

‘Men who paid.’

Those eyes rake over her, lazily intense and typically unhurried. ‘You covered mine with ink.’

‘All but one.’

‘Didn’t you like them? I thought they were special.’ Eddie performs a cute little mock pout that could have made her laugh in any other circumstances. He’s evolved in numerous ways, and he seems more self-aware. It’s neither good nor bad, just dangerous. His existence is dangerous; evolving, devolving, no matter what, he’s just an apex predator to her. ‘Wanna play a game?’

‘No.’

‘Sure you do.’ He spins the cylinder again. ‘You love games.’

‘Not anymore.’

‘You played a game with Steve.’

‘It wasn’t a game.’

‘Oh, honey, where’s your sense of fun? Did bad men drain the life right out of you?’

‘I came to town because Hargrove’s legal team are kicking over rocks.’

‘And you were burrowed in the ground like a dirty little worm, weren’t you?’

She takes a risk. ‘I know you, Eddie.’

Eight years apart but she is still deeply attuned to his incremental displeasure as it forms, her stomach twisting miserably, anticipating punishment for upsetting him.

‘Do you?’

‘I know you’d consider me a loose end.’

‘Christiana,’ he says, tone somewhat sharp. ‘You and I shared time. You’re a person. I loved…’ He trails off, shakes his head, a small frown dented between his eyes, ‘who you were,’ he says, as if that’s the only way he knows how to voice such a thing. ‘You are not a loose end. I know what you think of me, and some of it’s justified, but I wouldn’t hunt you down to kill you. Your existence is necessary. I want you to live.’

None of that is any comfort to her. ‘Why?’

‘Come sit with me.’

‘No.’

‘Come sit or I’ll play the game on my own.’

‘Eddie—’

He puts the gun to his left temple and pulls the trigger.

Snap.

He’s watching her the entire time, reading her like she’s Braille. And she knows he saw that tiny flinch she hates herself for.

‘Come sit with me.’

She looks away, jaw tight. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘Look, I’ll move up here. You sit there.’ Eddie shifts back to knock the pillows onto the floor, leaving ample space for her at the end of the bed. ‘I meant what I said. I want you to live.’

‘If I sit, tell me why.’

He nods.

Slowly, she climbs onto the lower end of the bed and then sits kneeling, waiting. Eddie is studying every part of her openly.

‘I hate your hair that colour.’

‘I know.’

His smirk is subtle, but it tells her a lot. She knows he loves the thought that even though she ran, she never truly got away from him. Let him think it.

Let him swallow it.

Let him choke on it.  

‘I want you to live because you have a piece of me inside you. A collection of those days, hours and minutes that were all for you, and I’m not that boy anymore, so I like that he gets to live on in you and go where you go.’

Like a fucking parasite.

His answer sickens her.

Worse still, there’s some degree of romance in it.

That’s how he’d see it, anyway.

‘OK.’

‘Why do you think I’d want to kill you?’

He spins the cylinder again while he waits for her answer.

She has to tread carefully here, knows her answer will determine how this night ends. A knife’s edge to walk and either way she falls will be the death of her, so can’t afford to wobble, not even for a moment.

‘You’re not like other people, Eddie,’ she says, holding his gaze. ‘You take action.’

He cocks his head at her, eyes narrowing a fraction as he assesses her answer. ‘You got smart, huh?’

‘I’m not smart.’

He lifts the gun and points it at her.

She forces herself not to wince when he pulls the trigger. Wouldn’t feel it anyway, no point in going out scared.

Snap.

‘No, but you’re brave,’ he tells her a few moments later, spinning the cylinder again, the whizz-click is like an angry insect in her ear. ‘I fucking hate guns.’

‘I know.’

The look he gives her is warm, dripping with playful affection like honey under heat. ‘I know you know, Daydream. And that’s the answer you deliberated about but ultimately didn’t give. You do know me and that’s why you think I’d want to kill you. Because you know me and therefore, know too much.’

‘You know me too.’

‘Eight years is a long time.’

He hasn’t blinked in a while.

She almost forgot that about him.

‘It is.’

‘Shall we be nice?’

‘Nice is the grey death of passion,’ she recites dutifully and her reward is that fucking smile that used to make the earth tilt off its axis, when he was once the universe personified to her, and his good graces were worth earning by any means.

‘There’s my girl. Do you remember what I told you about stars? The old ones?’

She remembers everything he ever told her, but especially about stars, the oldest ones, the first ones. Population III stars, back when it was nothing but hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium. These great behemoths that made the sun look like a match in the dark, the creators of all.

The calcium in your bones, the oxygen in your lungs, the gold on your chain, and the iron in your blood… they made it all for you.

He said they burned too bright, divine monsters, they only lasted three million years, which, for a star, is barely time to stretch and shine.

And she remembers what he told her about how they died.

Some exploded as pair-instability supernovae, a death so violent it didn’t even cast a black hole or a neutron star, just utter annihilation and every precious atom scattered across the universe. Some were so massive their collapse formed the seeds of the supermassive black holes that sit in the centre of our galaxies.

But before that, he would whisper, fucking her slow, endlessly, sex didn’t end when he came, far from it, there were no stars at all, Daydream. Two hundred million years of nothing. They called it the Cosmic Dark Age, and there was nothing until those unstable, primordial monsters came and made a riot of life from violent death.

She drank in every word he was telling her, she felt it, like his education was reshaping her molecules, altering her DNA. She read about stars for days after that, hiding away in the library, wanting to impress him with what she knew but she never got the chance, because he’d rarely repeat himself and, she would come to learn, he had an endless selection of detailed monologues to give while he fucked her till she had to weakly plead with him to stop, she’d be peeing blood otherwise, in agony for weeks, inflamed and sore and unable to ask her mom for help or go to a doctor because everybody knows what causes a UTI. She was his girl back then. His Daydream.

But she’s not anymore.

‘I remember.’

‘Do you think I was your star or you were mine?’

‘I think,’ she tells him, digging deep for some scrap of honesty she can offer instead of playing into his delusions, ‘that you and I were kids and we made a lot of mistakes.’

The answer has him cocking his head the other way like a dog hearing some frequency that humans can’t. ‘Shall we be civil, then?’ he offers, affably serpentine.

She nods. ‘Civil.’

‘If you thought I was going to kill you, why are you here?’

‘I didn’t want to run from you.’

‘You already did.’

Another wobble of the blade, careful.

‘You were sent away for that thing in the city,’ she reminds him, makes no mention of his last words to her on that awful day she found something she wasn’t supposed to. ‘I had no reason to stay.’

‘Did you think,’ he asks slowly, still has yet to blink, the fucking reptile, ‘that it would hurt me when you left?’

‘No.’

‘It did,’ he tells her. ‘It hurt me.’

She gambles.

Spins the wheel.

Black or red.

‘No, it didn’t.’

He grins.

Gun to his temple.

Snap.

‘You still know me,’ he grants generously, lowering the gun when it didn’t blow his brains out.

‘I have no intention of talking to the cops.’

‘Just Steve.’

‘I came to find you.’

‘Careful now,’ he warns lightly. ‘Remember I can smell a lie on you, just like I could always smell your moon blood before it came in.’

He’s so fucking gross for still calling it that. Romanticising her body in ways that reduced her to a clockwork doll.

Moon blood instead of period.

His envy is painfully obvious, always was.

She wants to spit in his face and laugh at him, laugh at him until his bulletproof body armour dissolves and he has no choice but to kill her because there are things he cannot feel and things he cannot bear to feel, and embarrassment, for all he pretends immunity, is the single most dangerous emotion for a man like him to experience.

‘Why else would I come?’

‘To do what you perceive to be right.’ Her insides draw together, waiting, waiting to see if he knows that she knows. This will be make or break, and if it’s the latter, it’ll be her neck. ‘To warn Steve about me.’

‘He loves you,’ she tells him, exuding nothing.

‘I’m not who I was back then. It’s different. I’m different. He makes me different.’

‘How does he make you different?’

He points the gun at her.

She waits.

Makes peace with what she can.  

This is his game and she has to play it.

Snap.

He spins again, resetting the odds with a spin.  

‘Steve makes me different because he loves me, and I love him. I was arrogant and indulgent with you. I had no love to temper myself with. It’s not the same. You’ve come to warn him about a version of me that doesn’t exist.’

He’s almost bargaining with her.

Asking her to see that he’s different.

He doesn’t know that she knows.

It might be all that saves her.

‘I came to see how you wanted me to handle those lawyers that are trying to track me down.’

‘Is that why you bought a gun?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want him to leave me.’

‘I wanted him to know the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘You’re dangerous.’

‘So are you.’

‘Not like you, Eddie.’

‘Don’t suck my dick, princess.’

‘I’m really not. I know you. I know how dangerous you are. Steve was just a kid. See it from my point of view.’

‘I’m trying.’

She inclines her head. ‘It was never your strong suit.’

His smile is softer that time, little flicker of something akin to humanity she won’t dare believe is real. ‘Do you think if you save him it saves you too a little bit?’

‘No, but it’s the right thing to do.’

‘He didn’t listen to what you said.’

‘He heard it, though.’

‘What did you want him to hear?’

‘That loving you is all consuming.’

‘No, say it how you want to. Don’t pretty it up.’

She hates that he knows her well enough to catch the silent rephrase. ‘That loving you is like having a disease you don’t realise you can cure until the fever breaks.’

‘There it is. Be honest with me always.’

‘OK.’

‘Do you think I’m a monster?’

‘I think,’ she says slowly, ‘you are the monster.’

‘You’re small,’ he tells her quietly. ‘You cast no shadow. Everything bigger than you is a monster.’

‘If you’re angry I left—’

‘Why would I be angry you left? You were dead to me the moment you touched that box,’ he says in a tone she used to associate with honesty, something plain and rushed about it. He’ll savour a lie on his tongue and wrap a pretty voice around it, loves how it sounds coming out of his mouth but sometimes, the truth would come out in an impatient way, like it irritated him to have to tell her things she should already know. ‘I was angry at myself, mostly.’

‘We were never going to work out,’ she says, still walking the knife’s edge, will not fall, won’t survive it.

He makes a thoughtful sound.

‘I don’t think working out is on the cards for you, Daydream. I can’t see you with anyone in that way. A boyfriend. A husband. Do you?’

She endures his cruelty with a level head. ‘Who knows?’

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I made you like this, so you’d never have that life with Sebastian Miller or Jason Carver or any of those milquetoast losers who’d lock you down behind a white picket fence and fuck you slow on a Sunday, and smile across the barbecue while your brats run around in the sprinklers.’

A rare twist of bitter injustice stings somewhere in her lower abdomen where rage is prone to burn. ‘You changed me, yeah.’

‘I saved you.’

He watches to see if she’ll passively accept it.

She swings her arm wide and slaps him as hard as she can.

Whatever comes next is worth it, even just for him mentioning Jason Carver.

Her hand stings and his cheek turns red.

‘You got stronger too. You could never hit worth shit before.’

‘I can now.’

‘What upset you there, Daydream? Was it Miller? You went to such lengths to protect him, but that didn’t help him in the end, did it? Or was it Carver?’ She doesn’t hide it, no point. He sees the reaction, his expression melting into something sweetly sympathetic. ‘Oh, it’s him? Bless your heart,’ he croons, hideous southern drawl exaggerated, reminds her of how he used to speak for people back when he’d cultivate a persona.

‘I don’t wanna talk about him.’

‘Are you trying to set a boundary with me?’

‘I’m not trying anything.’

‘Oh,’ he utters, dark eyes flashing with delight. ‘Was it love or pity, or both?’

She stays silent, never even lets herself think about Jason Carver and what happened between the three of them that night. Jason didn’t remember any part of it, but she’ll never forget it. There’s a scar on the underside of her knee that she put there herself, his initials. J.C. Her useless apology to him for something she hopes to god never surfaces in a flashback.

‘Guilt.’

‘Silly girl. Guilt is a brick. Set it down and leave it behind.’

‘I’m not talking about this.’

‘What shall we talk about then?’

‘Steve. Me. The cops.’

‘Just tell me one thing,’ he whispers, leaning in. ‘Tell me the truth, too. I’ll know if it’s a lie.’ She waits, has no choice. ‘Do you ever make yourself come and think about the noises he made while I fucked him and you sat on his face, and he was so out of it he couldn’t even speak?’ It goes right to her heart, rattling the stones she built around it. ‘Do you rub that pretty little clit and think about how trusting he was when you gave him that drink? When you told him I was a nice guy and he believed it because why wouldn’t he? You were Chrissy Cunningham, the angel of Mawthorne. He trusted you and you drugged him for me. The next day he apologised for getting so drunk and begged you not to tell anyone because he thought he’d fucked up, and I listened to you promise you’d never tell a soul. Do you make yourself come thinking about that? Yes or no.’

Throat thick, tears in her eyes, she breathes through her nose, wishing more than anything she had the courage to grab the gun and fire until something went bang.

Instead, she opens her mouth, tears falling.

‘Yes.’

He stares at her for a long while before he says, ‘Good girl.’

Then he pulls something out of his jeans pocket, a bullet, opens the cylinder and replaces a dud with a live one, snapping it shut and giving it a spin. She doesn’t pray, knows there is no god, but she wishes it’d blow his fucking brains out when he points the gun at his temple and pulls the trigger.

Snap.

‘This is fun, huh?’

‘Yeah, really fun.’

‘Sarcasm’s ugly on you, Daydream. I won’t mention Carver again, don’t worry. We’re being civil. I respect your boundary.’

She bites back the sour laugh that might have been.

‘Are we gonna sit here and play all night?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You came to me, Eddie.’

‘You came to my town, Christiana.’

‘Lawyers were on me.’

‘You could have run anywhere.’

‘No place you wouldn’t find me.’

‘Why would I want to find you?’

‘I’m a loose end.’

‘You’re a person. We talked about this, didn’t we?’

He’s playing with her.

This is all a web.

A game.

He’s playing.

‘It’s gonna get tiring one day, you know. When you’re older and you don’t have the same energy for making chaos you do now. You might wish someone actually knew you.’

‘Someone will.’

‘Steve Harrington?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know you.’

‘You knew a version of me.’

‘I know you more than he does.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I can only imagine the lies you told him about me to explain away all the crazy shit I said.’

‘Is it a lie? You’re a junkie, I can smell it on you.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk.’

‘I don’t do the shit you do.’

‘Are you afraid to love him without building a prison around him first? Does it scare you to lose control and let him decide? Yes or no?’

The corner of his mouth turns down.

He doesn’t like that.

‘Yes,’ he answers softly, aiming the gun at her heart and pulling the trigger with no hesitation.

Snap.

She’s starting to think what he put in there were duds too.

That he’s just fucking with her.

Even so, his honesty surprises her.

‘When did you realise things had gotten bad between us?’ he asks, and they’re playing some horrible version of quid pro quo now, but it’s giving her time to think, at least.

‘The baby,’ she answers without hesitation.

‘Not raping Jason Carver as a couple?’ he whispers, clearly can’t help himself.

‘No, I…’ She closes her eyes, sourcing strength from a dark pool within. ‘I told myself he enjoyed it because he came four times. It wasn’t until I got away from you that I was able to see some things clearly.’

‘So it was the baby, then?’

‘You know it was.’

‘Did you go back to the trailer? Look at the stain?’

‘Billy Hargrove is living there.’

‘Answer me.’

‘I did.’

‘Y’know, I could never bring myself to clean it. All the blood spilled in that place, and I bleached it all but never that. I couldn’t bear to. It was ours. Tell me about your moment of realisation.’

‘You know exactly what it was.’

‘I don’t. For me, that night was a moment of genuine compromise between us. A gift for you, even. I was rational. I didn’t get angry. I helped you.’

Even knowing this deep down, it’s astounding to hear how he frames it, sees it, remembers it. Briefly at a loss for how to try and explain, she speaks slowly, plainly, no art to it.

‘It was a Monday morning, and you were out, and I was on the floor of your trailer,’ she tells him like he wasn’t there, didn’t come inside and find her. ‘And I had m-my mom’s knitting needle in my hand, my legs open and you walked in and saw me and I was crying so much and my hand was shaking and I saw how upset you were by what I was trying to do, and I realised then that if you asked me to, I’d have kept the baby.’

‘That was the moment?’

‘No.’ She wipes her eyes again, forcing herself to look at him while she speaks. ‘No, it was later.’

‘Go on.’

‘You fell to your knees, and I felt like I saw a sliver of the real you for just a moment because you looked sad and uncertain and you said, “You don’t want it, do you?” and I felt sick to my stomach for that. For making you think about me in that way, for anticipating something about me that wasn’t beneficial to you. I felt so guilty I could have hurled, but it was just the first time you’d ever showed me any genuine consideration. That still wasn’t the moment though.’ She exhales slowly, calming herself. ‘It was when you took the needle and pushed it inside me and you… you kissed me while you did it and I expected you to fuck me right after and felt rejected when you didn’t.’

She remembers it like it was yesterday.

He’d pulled the knitting needle out, shook blood off of it and the motion sent a splat-strike onto the ceiling above.

Cells. Blood.

Theirs.

What if.

No wonder he kept it.

‘I realised then,’ she says, ‘that there was no happy ending for you and me, even if you did somehow become the boy I fell in love with again. I was different. I was broken.’

He’s frowning when he asks, ‘That was the moment you fell out of love?’

‘It started there.’ Not really wanting to know the answer, she asks, ‘Did you ever love me? Was there ever a time?’

His gaze cuts away, strangely blank. ‘No.’

She shakes her head, will never know if that’s true.

‘You have Steve now. You got him.’

The frown vanishes. ‘He came to me.’

‘You built the board.’

‘It was fate.’

‘I don’t want to die. I came to ask you what you wanted me to do. How to handle the lawyers.’

True, true, it’s true if you believe it.

‘You don’t know anything that could hurt me, Christiana.’ A brief droplet of relief hits her watery heart, but before it can ripple, he cocks his head, those dark eyes gone sharp. ‘Right?’

She doesn’t swallow.

Gives nothing away.

‘I gave Steve fair warning, same way I gave that piece of shit Hargrove a warning. You’re dangerous. But I said what I needed to so now I’m done. I knew you’d come, it’s why I bought the gun, but I’m here to stay alive and do what you say. That’s the fucking truth, much as I hate it.’

Believe it, buy it, real, real, it’s so real.

If he does buy it, it’ll be his ego that fails him. The belief of his own superiority intricately built into how he views her.

After a few beats he lifts that fucking gun and aims it right between her eyes. Dark and unreadable, he smiles.

‘Shall we let God decide?’ he utters.

He pulls the trigger.

BANG.

*

It’s raining when Steve wakes.

He stares at the French doors, currently closed, and listens to the rain, alone in bed. Hand spreads to reach through satin-soft covers and quilts, but they’re cold. Eddie’s not home or if he is, he’s been to bed. Steve’s chest tightens like someone’s pressing on his ribcage and the desire to cry comes and goes.

Instead, he gets up and strokes Loki’s ears absently when the dog wakes with him, was sleeping on the floor.

He goes down the hallway and quietly goes into Robin’s room. She’s fast asleep in bed, lying on her side like always, quilts raised up to her ears.

Steve closes his eyes, sits on the bed.

‘Remember when we met,’ he whispers, ‘and you told me, You’re a lot nicer than you pretend to be. You remember that, Robs? I do. I remember it because it wasn’t true but I wanted it to be. I was a bitch at that age. Jaded and cruel and disconnected. Being your friend brought me to life. I babysat for the kids, and it woke something but… it wasn’t until I met you I really wanted to live again. You made me better. A better person. You made me feel safe to do dumb, silly shit I never thought of. You showed me how to get a job. How to laugh without it being at something or someone. Ritz crackers in your mom’s car and sharing secrets and I knew you were always a better person than me, but just being around you made me feel so… good. But I think maybe you… well, I don’t know if you ever felt good when you were around me and that needs to change. I want it to change.’

He looks at her.

Nothing.

Desperate, he places a hand on her shoulder and shakes.

‘Robs, please. Can’t be Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee if there’s just one of us.’ He shakes her harder, makes her roll over onto her back. ‘Robin, please, just talk to—’

Her face is a pool of blood.

Only bone, torn flesh and quivering muscle.

Steve screams, but his throat is gone.

His mouth is sewed up.

   Robin is reaching for him.

       The floor opens up.

Brightdark flames of hell yawn to swallow him.

And from behind, Tommy Hagan’s arms wrap around his middle and he whispers, ‘You daydreaming again, Harrington?’

Steve wakes in a cold sweat, heart beating so fast it’s painful.

Someone’s there.

‘E-Eddie?’ he croaks, dizzy.

‘No, sorry. It’s me. Will.’

‘Oh.’ Steve sits all the way up, leaning back, trying to breathe slow. ‘Will, sweetie. You OK? Did I wake you?’

‘I was up anyway. You were kinda yelling.’

‘God, I’m so sorry.’

‘No, I was up.’ Will is wearing his pyjamas, sits on the bed. ‘Were you having a nightmare?’ Steve nods, trying to smile but he keeps seeing Robin’s face, or lack thereof. ‘I have them too,’ the kid tells him. ‘It’s why I can’t sleep sometimes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. I just want you to know that I understand.’

Steve looks closely at the boy, puts his hand atop Will’s. ‘You miss Jonathan?’

‘Kinda, yeah. I’ve always had bad dreams though. When I sleepwalk.’ Will bites his bottom lip. ‘I can’t tell dreams from reality when I wake. I guess I really am a freak.’

‘No, you’re not. Will, look at me.’ Steve waits until he has those dark eyes on him. ‘You’re not a freak because we’re all weird here, OK? You can always come to me and Eddie about anything.’

Will sighs, looking around the beautiful room that Eddie made for him. ‘He didn’t come home yet.’

Steve knows instantly who he means, stomach sinking hard. ‘Oh. Well. We uh, had sort of a fight.’

‘About what?’

‘Just. Things.’ Steve lifts a shaky hand to his face, swipes at his eyes. He tries not to think about where Eddie is, who he’s with, what he’s doing. ‘Sometimes you both want something in a different way, y’know?’

‘I think so. Can I… um. Stay in here with you?’

‘Of course you can,’ Steve sighs, relieved in all honesty. He opens his arms, snuggles back down into the pillows. ‘C’mere.’

Will burrows into the offered embrace. He’s so skinny, so little. Steve lets himself feel glad those fuckers are gone for one terrible, indulgent moment.

Just one.

‘I’ve got you,’ he promises.

‘Steve?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, go on. It’s OK,’ Steve encourages.

‘Can I…’ Will is shaking. ‘Can I pretend you’re my mom sometimes? Just in my head?’

Steve holds him tighter, a painful lump in his throat.

It’s not right. It’s wrong on multiple levels, in fact, borderline insulting from anyone else because Steve isn’t a girl, he’s a boy, a man, but it’s probably one of the most beautiful things anyone ever asked him.

‘Of course you can,’ he tells Will, kissing his hair.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ Steve closes his eyes. ‘Really.’

‘I never had it,’ Will whispers, sniffling a little.

‘I know. I’m so sorry you didn’t. You can call me that sometimes if you want, can’t be in front of anyone else, y’know but…’ Steve Harrington’s heart is a wide-open meadow under sunny skies for these kids, Max and Will especially, and there is perhaps nothing he wouldn’t do for them. ‘You can call me mom if you want when it’s just us.’

Will cries silently in his arms.

Steve holds him tighter.

He can’t imagine what it was like growing up without a mom, and yet he also knows that exact feeling of loss so intricately it guts him. His own mom stopped being his mom the day he found Flop and everything changed and he became their little star, their meal-ticket. But he did have her for the first handful of years of his young life.

Will doesn’t even have that.

Raised by men, gruff men at that.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Will utters, and Steve doesn’t know what it’s for, doesn’t need to know, he only needs to be there.

‘Love you so much,’ he tells Will. ‘It’s all gonna be OK.’

*

Her blood tastes like dirty pennies, the ones made before the eighties, pure copper, the good kind.

It’s dripping into his mouth.

Christiana.

Eddie swallows it.

He loved swallowing her blood before when she was still pure and fresh, the first time she let him go down on her while she bled was so fucking beautiful because she was so nervous, so embarrassed and ashamed, taught all her life it was wrong, so wrong, evil, bad and gross, girls bleed because Eve ate the apple, when to Eddie it’s divinity incarnate, and he never met a god he didn’t want to eat, so he spent hours between her legs, worshipping and consuming and remaking her in his image.

Pleasure was her undoing, her addiction, her destruction.

Now it’s pain, blood and anger. She had no gold to make kintsugi of the breaks he put in her, only dirt.

Above him, she stares down, panting harshly.

It was a blank bullet, not a dud.

Blanks go bang.

Duds go snap.

She didn’t like his little trick and after she realised what it was, she threw herself at him with surprising strength and elbowed him in the face, and for a few minutes, they fought on the bed and though he hit her a few times, drew blood, Eddie let her win, even when she picked up the gun and hit him with it. The pain is bliss in his blood, his wires are well and truly fried at this point, and pain is all he craves, punishment births equilibrium to make the world briefly bearable.

And now she’s on top, and they’re both breathless and bleeding and her nose blood drips into his mouth and he remembers with crystalline clarity the first time he put his tongue inside her while she bled and she’d whined, ‘You don’t have to,’ like he wasn’t dying for it, like he wasn’t starving for her liquid shame, transformation by consumption, true alchemy. He ate her up and swallowed her down and her blood cannot mingle with his own, never stood a chance, but the passage of time they shared was still real, and despite what he knows she thinks of him, well earned in every respect, he really would be sad to kill her. There is such beauty in her walking the earth and carrying the weight of his destruction in her once creamy, untouched skin.

She hates him.

She would kill him if she could.

She tried earlier.

It makes him so hard.

He swallows her blood that could never hope to assimilate with his own and smiles up at her.

‘God loves you,’ he whispers.

Her eyes darken. ‘Not enough.’

From above, she spits on his face, and he swallows that too before he punches her in the solar plexus and shoves her easily off, laughing softly to himself. She falls to the floor in a heap, but recovers fast, considering. He loves to imagine all the terrible disgusting things men have paid her to do over the last eight years and how she saw a little piece of him in all of it.

‘I told you, I want you to live. Sorry if it scared you though.’

‘What do you want, Eddie?’ she asks after a minute on the floor while he tosses her gun aside and gets off the bed, thinking of home, of Steve, always Steve, even in the worst of himself, there’s his boy.

‘I want you to go away.’

It’s not really true. There are dozens of things he wants from her, want to do to her, wants to play, wants to innovate, keep her here in town, push her towards Billy, let her spiral, let her taste the sunshine above the cloudy dome he kept her in for years and then drag her back down to drink that hope right out of her blood and then he’s done, into the earth she goes, daughter to mother, he’ll plant such beautiful things over her and feed them to Steve in the summertime.

But if he does that… if he lets loose in this way, he’ll lose everything he’s worked for the last year, and while it would be so very fun, it’s ultimately not worth it.

Nothing is worth risking losing Steve, not even close.

‘And the lawyers?’

‘Let ‘em find you and be a big, dull dead end,’ he stares down at her, impassively adoring of the wreck she’s become. ‘Won’t be much of a stretch, will it? Look at you. Black hair, scarred skin, ugly tattoos. You’re a whore, and no one believes whores.’ She climbs up onto the bed, breathing shallow. She’s so weak he wants to crush her like a baby bird, throttle and strangle until he sees that extinction burst in her eyes like a dying firework and then fuck her after, just the body, see? No love, no love, it’s only the body and he is immune to the soul.

There’s only one person in the world who isn’t just a body to him, and he could prove it by fucking her body without her inside it, but it’s an impulse born of something fragmented and brittle inside, just like Lee said, she’s always fucking right. Common decency takes over, and he settles into a milder version of himself, the middle version who makes smart choices and identifies his own thoughts like strands of hair, catches and studies each one.

He wants to destroy her because she did hurt him long ago, she injured him in a way he didn’t expect, exposed something, taught him a lesson he did not care to learn, but he’s not like Steve. Eddie can’t just box up what he doesn’t like and lock it away in the attic. Each lesson becomes a part of him, albeit split into snakes.

Hers is the pale white snake with milky pink eyes.

She brought his desire to be infected by the power of women to a sharp, ugly understanding. She demonstrated where curiosity about these things leads.

‘We’re both whores,’ she says quietly. ‘But only one of us does it for money.’

He can’t argue that. ‘Do you want money?’

‘Of course I want money, like every other person who doesn’t have it.’

‘Good. That’s good. How much?’

‘Thirty thousand and I’ll be a good little dead end, waste their time, give ‘em less than nothing.’ She spits blood onto the carpet, wipes her mouth. ‘Do you want me to turn it around onto Hargrove?’

‘No. I need him.’

She frowns. ‘What do you need him for?’

Oxygen.

‘That’s not your concern.’ Eddie sits on the bed, looks up at her. ‘Why’d you tell Steve I nailed you to the tree?’

‘Just because I used the hammer doesn’t mean—’

‘You know you just made him jealous, right?’

She sits beside him on the bed, both staring ahead.

‘I know. I remember how it feels to love you.’

‘He’s naturally jealous anyway.’

‘I could tell.’

Not looking at her, Eddie gently laces his fingers between hers and lowers his voice to a whisper, eyes closed. ‘I need you to be alive because then I didn’t kill you.’

She says nothing for a long time. Her thumb rubs his knuckles almost idly. His words were childlike and senseless, but he thinks she’ll understand, he hopes.

‘OK,’ she says at length.

‘Don’t come back.’

He means it.

If she does, he won’t be able to show this degree of restraint again. There won’t be an open dialogue.

He won’t allow it.

‘Heard.’

Eyes still closed, he turns towards her and rests his forehead against her temple, not real if he can’t see it.

‘I did love you,’ he whispers so quiet it’s barely there, silent confession he can’t let his own mind see, hear or feel, afraid of the weakness it exposes him to. ‘That’s why.’  

It’s real in the moment.

It’s the wholehearted truth of a man whose fixed position can only be captured by camera obscura. Take a picture of the river and it will seem static forever, but outside the momentary capture of a sulphuric flash, he is ever changing, ever evolving and shifting and growing, so it might never be true again, but it’s true now. She doesn’t ask, “Why what?”, either doesn’t care or understands already that it was him loving her that raped her, loving her that broke her, loving her that infected her purity to corrupt and tarnish and erode the goodness in her bones. It’s love that gets in through the cracks, and no matter what he’s denied to himself over the last few years in an attempt to become cold master of his own dark universe, he really did love her and much of her ruin was his own determination never to fall prey to the slavery that loving someone inferior engenders. He made love into a whip and a blade and a violation rather than let it weaken him.

She was his first love.

And in the moment, he can accept it.

‘Please don’t come back.’

He’s not begging, but it’s as close as he would ever get to it with someone who isn’t Steve.

‘I won’t.’

Eddie opens his eyes, moves away and lets go of her hand.

He doesn’t want to look at her, better not to.

‘I’ll bring you the money tomorrow.’

‘I’ll be here.’

He leaves the jacket in her motel room and walks home through the rain bare from the waist up, oddly unmade. Nothing about that went how he thought it would. The whole way home, it’s just in the rain, no Tommy, no guilt, no sickness, no noise. His jaw aches. Bruises form. Blood was shed.

Eddie Munson can finally breathe.

*

Steve is making breakfast with his guts in a fucking knot when the phone rings before nine and he answers so fast he almost rips it off the wall. ‘Hello? Eddie?’

‘It’s Hopper. We’ve got Munson in the drunk tank, which is to say a cell.’

Steve grips the phone hard. ‘What? Is he OK?’

‘He’s fine. A little banged up from a bar fight. I brought him here to cool down. He was passed out till an hour ago,’ Hopper tells Steve, tone dry. ‘He left your truck at the bar, but he’s in no condition to drive so do you mind coming down here and I’ll drive you both there?’

‘No, no, of course,’ Steve says, shaking his head at Robin who frowns questioningly. ‘I’ll come now, don’t worry. Thank you, Hop. I’m sorry for the trouble.’

‘See you soon.’

Steve hangs up.

‘What’s wrong?’ Robin asks while Will listens silently. Steve was making breakfast for them both when the call came in.

‘Eddie’s at the station. He got into a bar fight, and Hopper locked him up, god.’ Sick with guilt over how mad he was this morning when Eddie didn’t come home, Steve can barely look at Robin who had told him earlier that if Eddie didn’t come home, there was probably a good reason.

She was right.

Steve had thought terrible things. Jealous, insecure, pathetic bullshit while Eddie was suffering.

‘A bar fight?’ she echoes. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ Steve lies, helplessly defensive, keeps seeing the pain in Eddie’s face when Steve begged him to rape him. ‘Let’s just go get him out.’

‘I’ll drive,’ Robin offers, grabbing her jacket. ‘Will, grab a pop-tart. We’ll have to drop you off at school on the way.’

‘I can walk, it’s fine.’

‘Nuh uh,’ Robin chides, finishing her coffee. ‘It’s pissing rain. Come on. Steve, you ready?’

‘Yeah.’

She drives well in the downpour, slow and careful. Steve looks out the window the whole way, dares not look at Robin and see barely restrained judgement for what went down last night. They drop Will at school who thanks Steve for letting him stay over. Steve gives him a warm smile and a wink.

It’s significantly more awkward when he’s gone, and though the drive to the station is barely two minutes, Steve has been dreading it after last night.

Robin says, ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you think it’s appropriate to let Will sleep in your bed?’

Her question is so unexpected, so wildly out of the blue it has Steve scrunching his nose and wondering what that has to do with anything, lost.

‘What?’

‘He slept in your bed last night.’

‘So?’

‘He’s practically a teenager.’

‘What’s your point? He’s a kid.’ The implication cuts deeper than he can let himself feel, helplessly protective over something she can’t possibly understand, just like he’s sure she can’t know how hurtful it is to even loosely suggest what she’s circling. ‘He had a bad dream.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘What? What are you saying? That I’d hurt him?’

‘Come on, you know that’s not what I mean,’ she sighs.

‘I can’t believe you’d even think—’

‘Babe, I’m telling you Will has a crush on you and letting him sleep in your bed might be confusing. It’s nothing to do with you. You’re the sweetest, most adoring person on earth with the kids, all kids. It’s Will I’m talking about.’

The assurance soothes what flared up a little.

Still frowning, Steve says, ‘Will doesn’t have a crush on me.’

‘I think he does, but it’s just my opinion.’

‘You and me used to cuddle in bed.’

‘I’m gay.’

‘So?’

‘So that makes it not sexual,’ she points out.

‘If you were straight it’d still not be sexual. It’s just cuddling.’

‘OK, but can you see what I’m saying. You and me know it’s platonic, plus we’re both adults. There’s trust and consent.’

‘Right, so?’

‘You don’t know where Will’s coming from, and I see how he looks at you.’

Steve watches the road unfurl, thinks of last night.

Can I pretend you’re my mom sometimes?

Will is like a little brother to him.

A child who needs love and kindness and care. He can’t imagine any scenario close to what Robin’s suggesting, and it makes him angry at her for even suggesting it.

‘He doesn’t have a crush on me,’ he states, flatly confident after what Will told him, knows Robin is misreading things because she wasn’t involved in the conversation last night.

‘OK.’

She pulls into the station, and they get out in silence.

Steve is afraid of what state Eddie’s going to be in, not to mention nervous in new ways because the entire time he’s known Eddie, he’s never been in anything so pedestrian as a bar fight. It’s unusual and new and Steve hopes to god it’s not his fault but knows deep down it is. Inside the station, it’s busier than usual. Steve’s lips part around a silent gasp when he sees another familiar face he wasn’t expecting.

Jacob is talking to Hopper in the waiting area in full uniform.

Cop uniform.

It’s briefly astounding to see this person for only the second time in Steve’s life wearing a starched shirt with a neat haircut when the first time Steve met him he was wearing a Kermit the Frog tee in tropical shorts with snow boots and knee-high socks. His nose piercing is gone.

He looks… exactly like a cop.

Robin doesn’t notice him staring, she’s scanning around for Eddie. Hopper glances over at Steve, gives a small wink that means, in a sec, and Jacob is nodding while listening attentively.

‘Steve,’ Hopper calls out after a beat. ‘C’mere.’

Robin is speaking with the new person on the desk, the new Agatha, asking quietly about Eddie while Steve comes over and joins Hopper and Jacob, who gave him a bottle of tequila and a high five the first time they met.

Steve recalls what Sergio told him last night.

I need you to know that you’re going to see me around, Lee and the others too.

Even so, it’s a shock.

‘Jake, this is my Operations Coordinator, Steve Harrington.’ Steve’s mouth drops open but there’s no time to protest the incorrect title. ‘Steve, this is Jacob Sadler.’

Jake offers his hand. ‘Great to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you already.’

Do I have to pretend I don’t know you?

In front of anyone who isn’t our family, yes.

‘Um.’ Steve shakes himself and then takes the offered hand. ‘Hi. Hello. G-good to meet you.’

‘Jake is borrowed boots from Redmere.’

‘Oh, great. The uh, more the merrier. Hop, where’s Eddie?’

‘In my office. Jake, we’ll talk later, yeah?’ He claps the boy on the shoulder. ‘I wanna hear the rest of that story.’

‘You got it, Chief,’ Jake says, giving precisely nothing away.

Steve follows Hopper and Robin, who joins the older man when he calls her name, into his office. Eddie is in a chair, sunk down in the seat, facing the ceiling, eyes closed.

‘Up,’ Hopper says, kicking the chair as he walks by to sit in his own, lighting a cigarette as soon as he’s sat. ‘Steve’s here.’

‘Holy crap, Old Man,’ Robin says, kneeling beside him when Eddie sits up with a groan. ‘You got beat to shit, huh?’

Eddie cracks a grin. ‘Should see th’other—’

‘Can the horseshit, Munson, you were pissing blood this morning,’ Hopper barks, but it’s fairly robust in terms of snark. Less anger, more banter. Steve thinks Hopper looks a little refreshed, hopefully got some decent rest.

More than he can say for Eddie, who wears a black eye and several bruises scattered around with a clotted split lip. He sits up with a groan, then stands, swaying. Robin steadies him.

‘Baby, what happened?’ Steve asks softly when Eddie turns to face him. He has tears in his eyes, can’t bear to see him hurt like this, the last time was when Billy almost killed him after the cocaine night. Eddie’s got no shirt on, is covered in bruises and even a few cuts. He smells strongly of alcohol, bourbon by the twang. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘Mmkay, went to a bar,’ Eddie explains, still drunk. ‘Some asshole was being… well, an asshole and I was making him less… assholey.’

He’s drunk but he’s not.

Steve can tell.

Not once has he seen him like this, exactly how someone would expect Eddie Munson to act when drunk, goofy and idiotic, troublemaker with a good heart.

That’s not how he is.

Steve reads it like a second language.

But he runs with it in front of Hopper, tuts like a housewife and shrugs out of his jacket to give to Eddie. ‘Moron,’ he chides with forced affection.

‘Is he in trouble?’ Robin asks.

‘Nah, nobody else was anywhere near this level of banged up. Sad to say your husband’s not worth much in a fight, Steve.’

Steve thinks of Sergio in the FBI, Jake out there in uniform. They’re Eddie’s six and they’re infiltrating the rule of law in Mawthorne directly under Hopper’s nose. ‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Let’s get him back,’ Robin says. ‘Thanks, Hop.’

‘No problem. Did Will get to school OK?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ Steve says, intentionally not meeting the Chief’s gaze, remembering Will is Hopper’s son. ‘Dropped him off on the way.’

‘I appreciate it. We’ve got a bunch of new people in so if you wanna take the day, we can manage for now.’

‘If you can spare your Operations Coordinator,’ Steve intones, looping an arm through Eddie’s to help him out, although Steve suspects he doesn’t need it. ‘Thanks, though. I’ll be in tomorrow.’

‘Munson, no more starting fights you can’t finish,’ Hopper calls out as Robin and Steve navigate Eddie out to Robin’s car.

Steve opens the back passenger door, but Robin puts Eddie in the front, belts him up and mutters something wryly affectionate to him that Steve can’t hear, to which Eddie says, ‘You know me, Kiddo,’ and she laughs warmly, closing the door.

Undeniable jealousy stirs in Steve but also a degree of resentment. Robin isn’t tired or angry at Eddie for getting into trouble. She’s happy to come collect him.

Whatever reasonable parts of Steve point out that she doesn’t love Eddie like she loves Steve, and therefore it’s not the same, are silenced by the injury of being made to sit in the back.

The ride back is quick and silent but for the radio.

Robin drops them both off when they arrive at the house, stays in the car. ‘I’m going to the church,’ she says when Steve asks when she’s not coming inside.

‘For group?’ he asks, and then to prove he does listen adds, ‘Phoenix Group, I mean? I didn’t think it ran every day.’

‘It doesn’t. It’s just a nice quiet place to study,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back for dinner at around five.’

‘OK, um.’ He moves closer, puts a hand on the rolled down window to stop her driving away. ‘Are we good? You and me?’

‘Yeah, of course. I’ll see you later.’

Eddie’s already gone inside the house, so Steve has no choice but to force a smile for her and then head into the house too when Robin drives away.

Steve closes the door, dripping wet, standing where they were last night. The gross, terrible things he said, begged for… and how good it felt.

‘We need to talk,’ he says without even looking at Eddie. Loki was patiently awaiting his return, is happily greeting him with licks. Steve manages a thin smile and then casts around for Eddie who isn’t anywhere in sight, but a trail leads upstairs.

Steve follows.

Eddie’s taking a shower.

Water’s running, steam curling around the edge of the half-open door of their en-suite bathroom.

‘Eddie,’ he says, loud enough to be heard.

‘Yeah?’

‘We need to talk. Can I come in?’

‘You don’t need to ask, baby.’

He sounds so normal.

Steve goes inside where it’s warm and light and he can smell the soap his husband uses. He looks down at his ring finger. Scars instead of a ring. Eddie carved his skin to leave a mark, and it was romantic then, still is now, but Steve wishes there was something wrapped around his skin for once, a thin band of armour, something to hold.

He thinks of before New Year’s.

How perfect everything was.

‘I’m sorry about the fight. I didn’t even realise—’

‘What happened on New Year’s?’ Steve asks, closes his eyes, has to force it to come out. Eddie falls quiet. He doesn’t stop cleaning himself behind the curtain, but Steve can tell his movements slow. ‘Something happened, didn’t it? Something…’ Steve’s chest hitches and his voice fails him, his own throat strangling it. ‘Bad.’

The water shuts off.

Eddie was done anyway.

He opens the shower curtain, looks right at Steve, unreadable yet reading. Scanning, seeking. To be loved is to be seen, and to be with Eddie is to be pried open like a book fresh from the printing press and he won’t stop until he cracks the spine.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Why are you asking that?’

‘Tell me,’ Steve says again, shaking his head, knows it’s something. There’s too much he’s ignored, too much he’s tried to lock away but there’s no box big enough on earth for whatever this is, and Eddie knows but he just won’t tell him. ‘Tell me right now, on all that you and I have between us, on all we hold dear, Eddie, you tell me what happened. I’m asking. No, I’m demanding.’

Naked and beaten, Eddie Munson is the man Steve loves more than any other in the world entire. There’s no one like him, never will be because he is so much, contains universes, complicated beyond what most minds could ever comprehend, and it’s love that sews it all together.

Steve waits for honesty. To learn what his mind needs.

The missing piece.

Eddie’s eyes narrow a touch. ‘Who spoke to you?’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Answer me.’

‘Who was it, Steve? Was it Lee?’

‘Eddie, don’t turn this around.’

‘Sergio?’ He takes Steve’s silence for an answer. ‘What did he say to you?’

‘He asked me, the same way I’m asking you.’

‘What did he say to you?’

‘Don’t make this about other people! I can see what you’re doing. Do you think I don’t know you? That fucking mask you wear for everyone else.’

‘If someone’s pouring poison in your ear—’

‘You’re the only person close enough to do that!’

It’s a harsh blow.

Eddie’s mouth closes with a snap, lips thin.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. ‘I… I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant it’s you and me. Just us, and no one else could ever convince me of something that wasn’t real.’

‘But I could?’

Steve stares at him, waits for Eddie to look at him again but he won’t. ‘I trust you more than anyone on earth. I’ve never seen you get drunk. This isn’t you and what part of me is tempted to bury my head and believe that you went out and got drunk because of last night isn’t big enough to overrule what I’m starting to feel.’

‘What are you starting to feel?’

‘That I’m out of control,’ Steve whispers, heart twisting hard. ‘I… I don’t wanna see it, it’s like a spider in the corner of the room, if I ignore it, I can pretend it’s not there, but I…’ Eddie closes his eyes and Steve watches a set of twin tears roll down his otherwise expressionless face. ‘I can feel it, Eddie. I’m losing time, I’m losing myself and I just… I know you know what it is because you know everything about me. Nothing could happen to me without you knowing. So please… please just tell me.’

Eddie opens his eyes, still won’t look at his husband.

‘I don’t know where to—’

‘I killed them, didn’t I?’

Steve’s words, tremulous and terrified, briefly silence Eddie, who finally brings those darkbright eyes to stare.

‘What?’

‘Those boys,’ Steve utters, so fucking terrified of the answer but he has to be brave, has to say his fear, speak it aloud. ‘I think… when I lose time, I think I d-did it to protect Will. And I…’ His breath gives out, whole body shaking, going into a cold, sweaty panic as he puts breath behind words that he’s so afraid to speak his throat physically squeezes around them. ‘I think I hurt Tommy too. I… I think that’s why he left. I lost time and hurt him. I k-keep having these weird memories that aren’t mine but it’s his voice and I think…’ Christ, he can’t breathe, shaking so bad his teeth are chattering. ‘I think he um, tried it on with me and I hurt him.’

Hurting anyone frightens Steve, it sickens him, but killing three kids, even nasty little fuckers like they were… it’s evil. He has to know. Can’t let Eddie protect him from it, which he would. Eddie just stares, eyes wide.

‘Did I?’ Steve persists, wrapping arms around himself, so cold, he’s so fucking cold. ‘Is that… what happened on New Year’s? I went out with Tommy and he tried something?’ When he gets nothing, Steve moves closer but Eddie, still naked and dripping, steps away. ‘Answer me.’

‘I…’ Eddie swallows like it was that or throw up. ‘I need to get dressed.’

‘No, no, no, tell me now.’

‘Steve, just let me get dressed.’

‘Tell me first. Did I do this?’

After several beats that drag on and on, Eddie closes his eyes and gives a sharp nod. Steve’s heart sinks all the way down into his guts, and what tiny scrap of relief there is to be had from knowing the truth now is destroyed by self-hatred.

He killed children.

Three fucking kids are dead because of him.

Hurt Tommy.

Made him go away.

It was him.

It was—

Oh no.

Not now.

Please not now.

‘Eddie,’ he croaks, reaching for him, knees giving out almost entirely. ‘I… it’s happening, I can’t…’

‘You have to stay to protect the kids,’ Eddie tells him, taking his weight and lowering them both carefully to the tiled floor. ‘Max needs you because Billy is back and he might hurt her. Stay for Max. Stay for Will. All the kids need you. Stay for them, baby. Stay where it’s safe. Stay where I love you.’

Steve clings as hard as he can to the present moment, so hard his insides scream in protest, ears ringing, but then… the ice-cold nausea passes, his muscles unlock.

He stayed.

Eddie’s holding him in his arms, clinging tight.

‘I’m… me,’ Steve manages, moving a little. ‘I stayed.’ Eddie strokes his face when he draws back to look at him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Steve says, tone barren. ‘I m-made this mess. All of it. I’ve been hurting you.’

‘You could shoot me in the heart and I’d still love you.’

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Yeah, well, tough shit, baby boy. You’re my world,’ Eddie says, voice shaking in a fine vibration, thumb stroking Steve’s cheek. ‘My whole wide world.’

‘Do you still love me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘But I…’ Tears fall, sobs wrack Steve’s chest, his throat, everywhere he’s soft inside. ‘How could I do that? How… how did I do it? I don’t—’

‘Listen, I don’t know for sure if you killed those kids,’ Eddie tells him, kissing his temple. ‘I think I know what they died of, but it’s possible they dug it up themselves and thought they might get high on it.’

God, but Steve is desperate to believe it.

‘Really?’

‘You would have had to prepare the root, get it into their drinks. I don’t know how you’d have done that without me seeing it.’

‘But the… the Tommy thing is right, isn’t it?’

‘Mm.’

‘Tell me about that night?’

‘You probably know more than me. What do you remember?’

Steve sighs, fingers moving over Eddie’s hips, helpless but to touch and love in tactile fashion. ‘I don’t know. I… I remember something where we were arguing maybe? It’s so blurry. I keep hearing this song.’

‘What song?’

‘I think it was Bad Moon Rising, but I can’t… like… no, I can’t. I’m sorry. This is so fucking annoying,’ Steve bites out, frustrated tears in his eyes. ‘It’s right there I just can’t… touch it and you… baby, I love you but I know you’re not telling me things. Where did you go last night?’

‘OK, look at me. I’m gonna be as honest with you as I can.’

Steve waits, wide open for anything, everything, all of it.

‘Please.’

‘I went to see Christiana last night.’

Steve quietly despairs. ‘What?’

‘I went to the greenhouse, saw that the hemlock was disturbed and then I went by the motel and she was there. I confronted her about talking to you. She wants thirty grand and I’m gonna give it to her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I owe her that at least,’ Eddie says.

‘That’s why she came here? Money?’ Eddie nods. ‘Fuck. So all the lies she told me were just so she could extort you?’

‘I’m happy to give her the money.’

‘Thirty grand is a lot.’

‘It’s fine.’

Steve eyes Eddie carefully.

‘How much money do you have?’

‘I don’t know. Enough.’

‘How much is enough? Sixty grand? Seventy?’

‘Baby, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters. I want to know. This is our life and our money she’s taking. How much do you have? What account is it in?’

‘It’s all spread out in various accounts, different names.’

‘But you have an account in your name. Eddie Munson.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Whose name, then?’ Steve utters quietly. ‘Jack Ward?’

‘No.’

‘Why is Hopper searching for that name?’

‘Due diligence, I guess.’

‘I know you use it.’

‘I’d never be stupid enough to put money behind it. It’s just a fake name, like a shell company.’

‘I saw Jacob at the station. He’s gonna be working there.’

‘Town could use more help.’

‘And Sergio is FBI.’

Eddie darkens somewhat. ‘He had no right to talk to you.’

‘They’re your family.’

‘I’m your family.’

‘What are you afraid of me finding out from them?’

‘I’m not afraid of anything.’

‘Don’t lie to my fucking face. I know you,’ Steve tells him, trembling a little but has to say it, has to reach Eddie because sometimes he shuts down so hard you can’t even get your fingers in the cracks. ‘You feel fear, Eddie, maybe not like everyone else does but you do.’

‘I’m not lying.’

‘This again,’ Steve sighs impatiently. ‘You can lie to me without lying, we both know you’re clever enough to do that. You’re sly with the truth. Be honest. Please. Whatever you tell me now, I’ll love you anyway. Didn’t I already prove it when I thought you… y’know, those kids?’

‘It would have eaten you alive,’ Eddie points out quietly.

And that’s true, definitely.

Because it’s one thing to be so fully in the moment with the man he loves and make grand promises that build bridges between distant shores to bring them together, to make everything OK again, and it’d have been another thing entirely to wake the next day and know concretely that Eddie killed three children.

‘There are things you’re keeping from me. I can feel it.’

‘I…’ Eddie’s expression crumples. ‘I think you hurt Tommy that night,’ he says slowly. ‘I think you hit him with a rock.’

Steve’s insides go tight.

           Please.

                       Please.

                         Please.

                    Please.

                                    Please.

                                       Please.

                     Please.

                                         Please.

                                           Please.

                                        P L E A S E

C  R  A  C  K!

‘I…’ he utters breathlessly. ‘I hit him with a rock.’

…sorry, sorry, don’t want you to pass out…

‘I hit him because he was… trying it on?’

Kiss me once. Just one time, Steve.

‘He left because I hit him?’

‘You were um.’ Eddie closes his eyes, tone normal, but for the tension in it, ‘pretty distraught when you got back that night and it was my fault because I stayed out later than I should have. You were in a different headspace.’

‘It…’ Steve licks his lips, trying desperately to make out truth from what little Eddie is giving him. ‘This is why you don’t wanna fuck me, isn’t it? Not because of the headspace thing, but Tommy trying to kiss me. Him trying to do something I didn’t want.’

‘No it’s…’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know how to say it.’

‘Just say it. I speak Eddie Munson pretty well.’

But Eddie stays silent, disappointingly closed off.

Steve has the bigger picture now. Pieces at least.

He hit Tommy, who tried it on and Steve said no.

Something in him accepts that to a point.

He’s not completely certain about the three boys but them making their own concoction from Eddie’s herb garden at the church and it backfiring makes sense too.

Chrissy coming for money makes sense.

But a lot still doesn’t add up.

‘If you saw Chrissy last night, why did you go to a bar?’

‘I was riled up.’

‘Like turned on?’

‘No, more like furious.’

‘Why?’

‘Seeing her is hard.’

‘Hopper said you were pissing blood. Is that true?’

‘She nailed me in the balls.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she hates me.’

Steve switches it up the moment it starts to feel circular.

‘What happened with Amy?’

Eddie sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. ‘I need tea.’

‘Tea can wait. Tell me.’

‘She tried to kiss you. You lost it. I think… maybe it triggered something in you about the shit with Tommy.’

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to cause a mental break.’

‘A mental break?’

‘You’re switching more than you realise. Sometimes you’re violent.’

Steve’s heart plummets.

‘I’m not violent,’ he whispers. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘You’re not violent.’

‘So, what? You’re saying I have a fucking split personality?’

‘I think you’re traumatised.’

‘You should have told me.’

Eddie nods, gaze downcast. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I need time to think.’

Steve moves away and stands, leaving Eddie naked on the bathroom floor. He wants so much to comfort him, tell him it’s fine, it’s all OK, they’ll be all right, they always are, but if he starts speaking he’s going to cry, sob and maybe scream.

He’s scared of how badly he wants to scream.

*

Billy can’t sleep in anymore.

It’s long gone.

Drilled out of him by months in prison, he doesn’t miss it, but it might have been nice. His body wakes him, up and at’em in this shitty tin can trailer that’s freezing to sleep in. Today, Billy needs to figure out a bunch of shit like heating and food and how to destroy Eddie fuck-face Munson so Billy can get this thing off his ankle and be free for real.

But mostly today he needs to see Steve.

Breakfast is a black coffee on an empty stomach.

He needs money.

Maybe Steve will give him some.

What is nice is that he gets to wear his own clothes again, even if a couple of the shirts are a little big on the shoulders. Good boots that give him that extra inch, his chain around his neck, styled hair, clean shaven. He drenches himself in cologne.

He’s Billy fucking Hargrove.

Outside, last night’s rain has made a muddy mess of the ground, and he tuts under his breath, glancing around.

No wheels.

His baby got mangled in the crash.

Fuck, he really needs money.

He’ll get it. He always found ways to make money before.

Headed into town, he glances over at Susan’s trailer and sees Max headed out, a fierce scowl on her dork-ass face as she slings a backpack on. Arguing with Susan, he’d bet.

Billy doesn’t want to see her, not really, but it’s better to get it over and done with. Plus, he can get information from her.

So he deviates, headed leisurely towards her.

Her scowl enormously intensifies when she spots him, yelling ‘Mom!’ as if it’s Susan’s fault that he’s here, which… it kinda is because she chose to live here in this shithole.

Susan comes outside.

Billy hasn’t seen her for a while.

She looks way worse.

Pale as shit, lost weight.

‘Billy,’ Susan says as he walks over. No smile, but it’s a nice enough tone. ‘Come inside, I’ll make you a sandwich.’

A sandwich sounds fucking fantastic.

Max doesn’t take the offer well.

‘You’re making this piece of shit a sandwich?!’

‘Hello to you too, Maxine,’ he drawls, helplessly falling back into old habits, was always so easy to rile her.

‘Fuck off, loser,’ Max spits, eyes flashing. ‘I can’t believe they let you back here!’

‘I’m helping with an—’

‘If you go near Steve, I’ll crush your nuts with a baseball bat!’

Billy sighs.

It’s way too early for this kind of bullshit.

He gives a lazy two-fingered salute, chooses the sandwich over information, for now, and walks into Susan’s trailer without a second thought.

Susan and Max argue outside for a minute, during which time Billy scopes the trailer out for anything of value he could slip into his pocket, but there’s less than nothing.

Susan comes inside without Max. ‘Well, let me look at you.’

Billy endures it, all butter wouldn’t melt, wants that sandwich.

She nods to herself, gaze lingering a beat on his ankle.

Then she stands in the small kitchen, fixes him up a plate.

Idle conversation was never his strong suit, so Billy sits and waits, silence hanging between them. She was always quiet, never stood up to Neil.

Mousy little thing.

Not like Billy’s momma.

Confident and beautiful and adventurous.

‘Here you go,’ she says, setting the plate down at the tiny dining table and sitting opposite. ‘So.’

Billy starts in on the sandwich. ‘So?’

‘I hope you don’t mind about the trailer. It was the only one free and I knew you wouldn’t want to stay with us in here.’

‘’S’fine,’ he says through a mouthful.

‘All your stuff is in there. You’re as set as I can make you.’

‘Can I borrow fifty bucks?’

‘I don’t have it going spare and even if I did, whatever I have is for Max. You’ll need to pay rent on the trailer. Pay the bills. Take care of yourself.’

‘Ten?’

‘Billy, I want to talk to you about Cody.’

His insides give a sour pinch, hates to think about the kid who has his curls and his face. ‘Nothin’ to talk about,’ he says, finishing the sandwich, crusts and all. ‘It’s her problem.’

‘Katie is putting him up for adoption in March.’

Billy easily cuts the string, no weight, no guilt.

‘Probably the best thing for him. Some rich family’ll snap him up and he’ll be eating bonbons on a boat for the rest of his life.’

He expects her to argue, but she doesn’t.

‘You need to meet with Katie and sign the release papers.’

‘What?’

‘So it can be a closed adoption. Sign over full custody. Release your parental rights. It’s the right thing to do.’

‘She gonna want money from me?’

‘Not now she’s giving him up.’

‘Could be, like, some bullshit trap to drag me to court for child support or something. I’m not falling for that.’

‘For god’s sake, do this one thing for her.’

Billy rolls his eyes, goes to her fridge and opens it up, helping himself to a soda. ‘Christ, woman, aren’t you done with this shit? You can’t help me unless you’re gonna do me a solid and loan me some cash. You and I aren’t anything. Get off my ass.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I was hungry.’

‘In town, I mean.’

He shrugs, sits back down. ‘I’m helping the cops.’

She stares hard at him in a soft way. ‘So, you’re a snitch?’

His cheeks burn red in a way that not even cold soda can soothe. ‘The fuck did you say?’

‘A snitch. You’re ratting on people to shorten a sentence you deserve for what you did to that boy.’

‘Steve is—’

‘I mean Liam, and Neil, and every other blood trail under the California sun that leads back to your neanderthal temper and lack of empathy. You didn’t do some of what you went down for last year, but you did far worse unseen.’

Jaw tight, Billy says, ‘You helped me bury Neil.’

‘I did, because I wanted a fresh start for me and Max and I knew you’d help us. Maybe I even felt like I owed it to you after what I watched him do to you all those years. But I don’t owe you a thing now, Billy, and in the time I have left—’

‘You’re dying?’

Susan sighs. ‘You’re not getting a dime.’

He shrugs, expression neutral, brain working fast.

‘I just didn’t know. How long you got?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Sipping from the cold, glass bottle, Billy strings beads of what he knows together on a thin string of new information. Steve loves those kids. He loves Max. Susan has no living relatives.

Billy is Max’s only blood kin and he’s an adult.

‘Huh. Well, I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘I’m sure you are. Meet with Katie and I’ll give you five dollars.’

‘Ten.’

‘Five.’

‘Five and those wings in the fridge.’

‘Deal. I suggest you get a job or else you’ll break terms and be back in prison.’

‘I’m not going back there.’

‘What help do they really think you’ll be?’

He ignores that, switches the subject.

‘You heard anything about Tommy Hagan? He was here over Christmas.’

‘Oh.’ Her expression falls. ‘Yes, he’s still missing.’

‘Missing?’

‘They won’t label him missing officially but his mother’s convinced.’

‘When did he go missing?’

‘After New Year’s.’

‘Munson probably killed him,’ Billy says, brows raised, nodding to himself.

‘Eddie’s a good person.’

‘He’s a fucking monster,’ he tells her flatly. ‘You have no idea the shit he’s done.’

‘Worse than you?’

You raped me.

That’s what Steve had said the last time Billy saw him.

When he came to break up.

It’s still not what Billy would consider rape, but he knows it was cruel sometimes, rough, Steve wasn’t prepped or… maybe didn’t enjoy it as much as he could.

‘Eddie Munson is a psychopath.’

‘It takes one to know one I suppose,’ she says, sliding five dollars across the table. ‘I already gave Katie your address. She’ll be by later this afternoon.’

‘I don’t want her here.’

‘Tough shit.’

Billy gives her a cold smile. ‘Well look at you, Suzie Q. Grew some balls in the last legs of your life, huh? Shame you never had ‘em when I was being beaten black and fuckin’ blue by your darling husband. Not so brave then, huh?’

He gets up, takes the wings and the five dollars.

He’s at the door when she says, ‘Find a reason to live that isn’t misery or pain, Billy. Find just one good thing that you didn’t steal, or tie down, or beat into submission and let that be your guiding star.’

Billy rolls his eyes, slams the door and walks away.

‘Will do, Jimmy Cricket.’

And the fucking wings are expired.

*

Robin is bored.

She’s bored off her ass.

Doesn’t want to go “home” because Steve and Eddie are probably screaming at each other or fucking somewhere that’s not a bedroom, likely both. She’d rather perish than go to her parents’ house. No money to go shopping. No friends, not really. Jon left. Nancy’s AWOL. The kids are in school and on curfew. Amy’s office is cramped and small and it still smells of bleach from where Eddie spilled that coffee.

It’s so quiet in here she could scream.

Robin has already been through a bunch of shit she wasn’t supposed to, nothing else to do in here and she was very careful about how she put the files back.

There was really only one mission in mind when she opened Amy’s filing cabinets, going right to the H section.

Steve’s file was a handful of pages.

Most of it was Amy’s notes about Steve’s domestic violence screening back when he was in hospital. The week Robin and Hopper lied to him about Hargrove to keep him there.

Mr H presented as anxious throughout the DV screening. Eye contact was inconsistent, and he appeared visibly apprehensive when questions relating to the mechanism of injury or his home circumstances were explored. History provided was inconsistent with observed injuries on several occasions. Responses frequently changed following further clarification, and explanations appeared rehearsed or minimised. Mr H repeatedly redirected responsibility away from his partner despite multiple opportunities to disclose concerns.

Overall presentation raises concern for possible coercion, fear of repercussions, and deliberate minimisation of interpersonal violence. No disclosure made during assessment. Recommend revisiting domestic abuse screening at future contact if clinically appropriate.

Chief of Police informally expressed concern that Mr H may meet the threshold of a vulnerable adult and suggested consideration be given to safeguarding referral on that basis. This was considered; however, in the absence of disclosure or objective evidence demonstrating a lack of capacity or statutory vulnerability, I do not believe such a referral would be supported or prove beneficial at this stage. My concern remains that pursuing this route without Mr H's engagement may further reduce the likelihood of future disclosure.

It’s a sad read, but it makes Robin appreciate how far Steve has come even if she is feeling impatient with him lately.

Alone. Bored. Nothing going on.

Robin decides to go explore the church.

She’s already made lunch for Greta, who happily tells tall tales about Eddie taking on burglars and giving them “what for”. Robin likes her a lot, but she also mildly despairs that she’s relegated to this corner of life.

God, but she wants to go out.

Dancing, music, new people.

Maybe even a gay club.

Heading outside to explore the cemetery, she imagines making new friends, meeting hot girls, talking to them as the person she wants to be. Wouldn’t that be something?

Outside it’s cold and damp but not raining at least.

February isn’t far off.

The snow is completely gone.

Robin’s thinking about applying for that job in town at the local diner, waiting tables wouldn’t be so bad for a while, at least it’d be noisy and busy, when she hears someone coming up behind her. A female voice, laughing pleasantly.

Maybe it’s Amy come to take her office back.

Robin’s ashamed of herself when she sees that it’s not Amy and is weirdly relieved.

The first thing Robin notices about this new woman is her hair. It’s so pretty, so unusual. A deep shade of plum and cut so sharp it moves like bar chimes. She’s wearing a long charcoal jacket over a fitted black mock-neck, tailored dark green pants tucked into leather boots, a dark burgundy scarf wound loosely around her neck. Small silver hoops catch the light at her ears, matching the rings scattered across her fingers. Her lipstick matches her hair.

She has a delicate eel tattoo around her wrist.

‘Hello,’ the woman says to Robin, and behind her a man is standing in a cop’s uniform, looking around. ‘I’m Lee.’

The cop throws Robin immediately.

‘Uh, Robin… is me. What’s going on?’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry,’ Lee says, giving Robin a stunning white smile before gesturing without looking at the young man. ‘This is my brother, Jake. We’re new in town.’

‘You’re new?’

‘Yes, we just arrived today,’ Lee explains, good mood untouched by Robin’s confused frown which still has yet to ebb. ‘We wanted to check out the local church. Are you the Pastor?’

‘Me? N-no, no.’ Robin laughs, a little too forced. ‘No, I’m not… good with god, y’know.’ Fucking hell. ‘I just uh.’

Come on, lean in, be cool, what would Eddie do, how would he be?

She clears her throat.

Resets the energy.

‘I’m helping with a group that meets here in the church basement,’ she explains, voice a little lower, less shrill. ‘I don’t think this church has had a proper Pastor for a long time.’

‘I see, well. It’s a beautiful space.’

‘You seriously moved here?’

‘We did.’

‘On purpose?’

Jake and Lee’s laugh is the same, softly amused, no doubt that they’re siblings, except for the faint accent Lee has that Robin can’t place. ‘We’ve been craving some small-town peace, haven’t we, Jake?’

‘We sure have.’

‘Wow. OK, I’m sorry.’ Robin laughs. ‘Let me start again.’ She offers her hand. ‘Robin Buckley.’

‘Leliana Floquet,’ the pretty girl says, shaking Robin’s hand with surprisingly rough skin. ‘My brother Jacob Sadler.’

‘Oh, are you married?’

Jake grins. ‘To each other?’

‘No, sorry, I mean… different last names.’

‘We are adopted siblings,’ Lee explains smoothly. ‘I think you know our brother.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, he’s told us all about you,’ Lee says, smiling (it really is quite dazzling, especially for Mawthorne) as she slips out of her jacket. The scent of her perfume is the most delicious thing Robin’s ever smelled, she can’t even identify what it is, but it makes her long for late nights by the sea in some place they don’t speak any English. ‘His dear friend.’

‘Who?’

‘Eddie Munson.’

*

Eddie drives back from the warehouse he owns, has thirty grand from one of several stashes. Small bills, neatly packed into an old backpack. Steve was still in the house when he left, but he wanted space, so Eddie is giving it to him, but he feels weird, everything feels foggy and disconnected.

He really needs to sleep soon.

The road is unwinding before him, writhing side to side like a waking snake who seeks to stretch. Tommy is in the front seat like always, humming that fucking song Steve told him about, but otherwise quiet. Maybe it’s because he told Steve a tiny fragment of something true. Eddie pulls into the motel lot and grabs the pack. Tommy stays inside, silent, yet Eddie always feels those eyes on him, has done ever since they closed.

He goes to her room but she’s already on her way out, stops when she catches sight of him. Different outfit today. Black skintight pants with ripped knees, band tee torn off above the navel. It irritates him on a level he knows instinctively not to analyse, suspects there’s something murky in it.

He nods towards the room and she rolls her eyes, but goes back inside. He kicks the door shut behind him and dumps the bag on the bed. Anger pumps fast through his blood, clears the fog enough for him to make one smart decision.

‘If you ever come near him again,’ he tells her, walking into her and grabbing her unceremoniously by the throat, slamming her violently against the nearest wall, grip tight, ‘I’ll strangle you to death and leave your body in the underpass for men to fuck until you rot.’

She scrabbles at his hand, his wrist, trying to kick but he flattens her with his own body, endures her flimsy clawing attempts to get free by hurting him.

Her panic is tantalising.

The noises she makes trying to breathe or scream are exquisitely arousing. He could fuck her and no one would ever know. He could kill her. He has all the power because this time he didn’t let love slow him down.

Eddie shoves away, cracking the flimsy plaster as he does and she falls to the ground, choking desperately for air. He resists the urge to kick her in the face, to kick her over and over, let loose this infectious hellfire inside him and know a moment of peace from righteous violence.

He stares down at her, fingers twitching.

‘Do you understand?’ he repeats softly.

She nods, eyes tight shut.

‘Say it then.’

‘I… un-understand,’ she chokes out, gasping, tears streaming. ‘I got it.’

‘You and I are done now. This was as good as it gets.’

He leaves her there.

One thing taken care of without making yet another mess.

It feels good, clean cut.

Pleasing.

Satisfying.

‘Had your spinach?’ Tommy asks him once he’s back in Loup. ‘Yeah, you look much perkier now. Beating women really suits you.’

Eddie cranks the music as high as it goes.

Focus, focus, focus.

He can do this.

He can do anything.

But he knows now that he has to tell Steve the truth. He has to tell him everything about Tommy, all of it.

‘You can do this,’ he says to himself, while Tommy Hagan laughs, and his heart pumps blood around his body and his mind, ever moving like a shark, makes tendrils of ideas that stretch and reach, offering fruit. ‘It’s all gonna be OK.’

He just has to get things under control again.

Eddie swings by the school in time for pickup, but due to the deaths, all but Will are collected by their parents, scooped up and snatched away before he can get them in Loup. Even Max is picked up by Susan, probably wary of Billy going near her.

God, Eddie cannot wait to see him again.

Will gets in the front with a smile.

‘Hey.’ He then winces. ‘Ooh, that looks painful,’ he says, fastening his seatbelt. ‘You get in a fight?’

‘Kinda, yeah. How was school?’

‘Everyone’s going crazy about the Last Light thing.’

‘Mm.’ Eddie drives away, taking his time. ‘I bet. Dustin got a theory yet?’

‘He’s positive they mixed drugs and drink, fell off the edge.’

‘Sounds reasonable. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

Eddie turns the wheel into a quiet, dark stretch of road that leads to where he parked the truck when he came to deal with Tommy. He kills the engine, gaze fixed ahead into the wet, dark of the woods.

‘Never say you don’t know,’ he tells Will quietly.

‘What?’

‘It’s a dead giveaway. Innocent people love to speculate, gossip, theorise.’ Eddie looks at him. ‘Did you know it’d kill ‘em?’

‘I…’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

Will’s cheeks darken, brow rumpling.

He nods.

‘Say it.’

‘I knew it would kill them.’

‘Tell me about the concoction you made.’

‘I used the hemlock root, put it in Travis’s flask during gym. But I also put a bunch of other stuff in his pack too.’

‘Like what?’

‘Wild hops because they looked like weed. Mullein leaves. Some mushrooms I found in the woods. I made it seem like they were trying anything to get high, and it backfired.’

‘The kind you stole doesn’t grow in the woods.’

‘Hemlock grows in lots of places.’

‘You used my cicuta.’

‘Toxicology can’t differentiate and even if they could, plant toxins degrade fast. I was careful.’

‘You were sloppy,’ Eddie tells him.

Will looks down at his hands. ‘Are you mad? I wanted to deal with it myself. I thought you’d be proud.’

‘Initiative versus execution, the latter is always the more important element. A sloppy kill can level your world.’

‘It wasn’t sloppy,’ Will counters, frowning. ‘I used gloves. The ratio was exact. Far as everyone knows, they died from their own stupidity and greed. They got high and fell off the edge. The town will use this as a cautionary tale against drugs for years to come. No one will think it’s murder once they realise they can judge the parents and blame upbringing.’

Eddie looks at him. ‘Watch that ego, Will.’

‘You can only be treated like a freak for so long before you start to believe it too,’ the kid says, voice trembling. ‘You told me that. I… I gave it a lot of thought. I was careful. Please don’t be mad.’

Eddie sighs. ‘I’m not.’

‘Disappointed?’

‘I want you to understand that taking a life is easy, but getting away with it requires real work.’

‘So… you’re good at it?’

Eddie chuckles dryly. ‘Not especially, but good enough to avoid rookie mistakes.’

Will is quiet for a while, seems to be holding his breath.

‘I saw you that night,’ he whispers at length.

Eddie looks at him. 

Pale skin, wide dark eyes.

This boy is ripe to take root in Eddie’s garden, already has.

‘What night?’

‘Day before New Year’s Eve. I…’ The kid swallows reflexively. ‘I sleepwalked, I think. I don’t know. But I saw you covered in blood in the yard. Your yard. I know it was real because you had tear tracks down your face and I would never have dreamed about you crying.’

It’s not a decision, it’s not even a choice, but the thought comes and goes, even so. It’d take nothing whatsoever to kill this child. Eddie could kill him right now, snap his neck, burn him, write the note in his handwriting. It’s why he brought him here, just in case, better to be near.

Will Byers is a reasonable candidate for a runaway.

He doesn’t want that, however.

This one’s special.

Has potential.

Eddie likes that Will saw it.

Likes that he knows, can use what intimacy it will foster.

‘Well,’ Eddie whispers, giving the kid a fraction of the approving smile he’s so desperate for, ‘I guess that makes us secret keepers.’

‘I’d never tell anyone.’

‘I know. I trust you.’

‘Can I ask… who did you kill?’

Eddie sighs, debates lying but the truth often pays off with this one. ‘Tommy Hagan.’

‘Why?’

‘He hurt Steve.’

‘How?’

‘The worst way.’

‘Oh.’ Will takes a slow, deep breath. ‘I’m glad you killed him, then. Did you get rid of him, like, cleverly?’

‘Scattered the meat.’

‘Smart.’

‘Your way was smart too, but your old man is a dog with a bone sometimes. Never underestimate cops.’

‘I understand.’

‘I am proud of you,’ Eddie utters softly, watching every inch of what those four words do to this reclusive child, the invisible boy who longs to be seen. ‘I just want to protect you. You’re family, you know that.’

‘You and Steve are everything to me. He uh, he doesn’t know, does he?’

‘No.’

‘He forgot?’

‘Boxed it up and locked it away.’

‘Is that why he’s losing time?’

‘It’s part of it. I’m going to tell him.’

‘Everything?’

‘About Tommy.’

‘Are you scared?’

Eddie frowns. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Should never say you don’t know,’ Will echoes from minutes ago.

Eddie starts the engine. ‘Good advice. You hungry?’

‘I could eat.’

‘You want pancakes? I’ll take you home, make ‘em at yours.’

Will smiles, finally relaxes as they leave the woods. Eddie wonders if he knows how close it came, even if only for a moment. ‘Pancakes sound perfect.’

*

Billy is debating jerking off when someone knocks.

Annoyed, but knowing who to expect, he goes and answers the door, freezing when he’s met with a sight he didn’t anticipate.

‘What the fuck?’ he snaps at Katie, who is holding the little boy.

She sniffs at him, unimpressed and walks inside just like that weirdo bitch did last night.

‘Hello to you too, William.’

‘Don’t call me that and I say again, what the fuck, Katie? Why’d you bring him here?’

‘Because you’re his father.’

‘We don’t know that. He could be—’

‘Cody, you wanna run around?’ she offers, setting the kid down from her hip immediately. He doesn’t answer, is immediately off exploring. Billy watches, didn’t know he could even walk yet. What can kids his age even do? Do they still drink titty milk? Wear diapers? He has no fucking clue.

Freed from the child, Katie sighs. ‘You got a beer?’

‘No.’

‘Loser,’ she intones, checking his fridge anyway. ‘Your stepmom said you’d sign the papers today.’

The kid is rifling around in the bedroom.

Billy watches with a frown. ‘Can’t believe you’re just abandoning him.’

Katie slams his fridge shut and hits him with a scathing look.

‘That’s real rich coming from you, huh?’

‘You’re his mother.’

‘And you’re the convicted rapist who happens to be the father. I don’t want him anymore than you do, but I want to make sure he’s OK and that the adoption is air-tight. My parents won’t let me surrender him until it’s all set up properly so,’ she says, arms crossed, eyeing him sharply, ‘Are you gonna sign or what?’

Billy stares at the child. It’s disorienting if he lets himself think about it, which he won’t.

‘Your parents do OK for money, right?’

‘They’re too old to take care of him and I don’t want him in my—’

‘I mean they can pay me,’ he says, looking away from the kid and at her, this bitch he fucked and knocked up, stupid fucking slut, it’s her fault anyway. ‘To sign these papers or whatever. I got rights, don’t I? Parental rights and shit.’ He shrugs. ‘I could make it hard.’

Katie looks at him, no reaction, just staring until she says, ‘I don’t know how I ever convinced myself you were beautiful.’

Billy sneers. ‘Came on my dick like a whore.’

‘I faked it every time. You’re shit at sex.’ She unfolds her arms and walks towards the door. ‘My parents don’t want to put Cody up for adoption. They’re only helping me because I begged. So you know what, Billy? You want him?’

‘No, no, wait, I didn’t mean that.’

‘You got him. I could use a day to myself.’

‘No, you can’t leave.’

‘Watch me.’

‘Don’t you dare leave!’

But she does.

Katie storms out of the trailer, headed right for her car.

Billy chases her. ‘I don’t want the money, I’ll sign whatever,’ he tells her, voice raised. ‘You can’t just—’

‘He’s your son,’ she flings at him, getting into her car. ‘You see how much fucking fun it is dealing with a kid!’

She’s already driving away before he can even touch the car to try and stop her. Horrified, he stands there like a fucking idiot, watching her drive away. Billy shakes himself, throwing an eventual glance towards Susan’s trailer.

No car, she’s out. 

He can’t dump the kid there.

‘Fuck me,’ he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face as he reluctantly heads back inside. The child is still wandering around, hasn’t started crying for its mother at least. Billy watches warily. The fuck is he supposed to do with a kid?

What does he even need to do?

Maybe nothing.

Billy goes to his fridge and opens it just to see if the movement and noise will attract attention, but it doesn’t. The kid seems happy exploring. Maybe Billy can swing this. Take care of the kid, act natural, real casual when she gets back, act like it’s not hard and Katie’s just a piece of shit mother so yeah, he should definitely get a few grand for signing over the papers.

It’s pretty thin but has a chance to—

Something is touching his leg.

Billy looks down.

The face staring up jolts his insides like a poorly thrown sucker punch. It’s his face, or it was once, long ago captured in photographs. Back when his curls were much brighter and his eyes were wide with innocence.

The kid is staring at him, curious.

‘Uh.’ Billy clears his throat. ‘What’s up?’

No answer.

The kid puts hands on the fridge, watching Billy.

‘You hungry?’ Billy asks hesitantly. ‘I don’t got milk or whatever.’

Still nothing.

The kid loses interest in the fridge, wanders away. Billy watches, helplessly fascinated despite pretending not to be. He’s in dungarees over a little sweater; red, green and yellow. Little boots with real laces. He goes to the window, can’t reach to see out of it, but gives one of the curtains a yank.

‘OK, well. Cool,’ Billy says. ‘I’m just gonna take a nap and you’re gonna explore. Awesome.’ No sooner has he sat down than little feet follow him into the bedroom. ‘What? I got nothing for you, kid. Not my fault your slut mother just dumped you here.’

The child doesn’t react to his mean words.

Neutral. Curious. Innocent.

Billy frowns. ‘You don’t seem so bad.’ When the kid mumbles something, Billy squints and repeats what he thinks he heard. ‘Assy birds?’ Chubby fingers point to the window. ‘There some assy birds out there, kid?’

‘Ah see birds.’

‘Oh, I see birds. You see birds, OK. Cool, so you can talk?’ Fuck, when did Max start talking and stop screaming? He can’t remember what age but knows it was early. ‘I’m gonna take a nap now.’

‘Birds.’

‘Yeah, birds. Go watch the birds.’

The kid wanders away again.

Billy feels almost smug.

This shit is so easy.

And sure, maybe if it was a baby, screaming like Max used to, that was hard or whatever, but this… this shit’s piddly. Fucking useless slutbag whore Katie just abandoning the kid so she can get out there opening her legs again. Billy settles on his bed, arm over his eyes to block out the sun.

He just needs, like, an hour.

Only just sinking into that soft, soothing headspace of near sleep, a soft bang and the immediate loud whine of a child crying ruins it instantly.

Billy sighs, removes his arm and says, ‘You good, kid?’

More crying.

It sounds kind of far away.

Irritated, Billy goes to find him and his stomach sinks hard and fast when he sees that the kid not only got out the front fucking door but has fallen headfirst off the rickety wooden step leading up.

‘Oh shit, shit, shit,’ he says, grabbing the kid by the dungarees and pulling him up. ‘What the fuck?’

The child is crying so hard his cheeks are red, face all screwed up like a dumpling, wailing like a banshee.

‘OK, you’re all good, it’s all good,’ Billy says, taking him back inside and setting him down on the only chair. ‘There you go, no more fall down.’

The kid won’t stop crying.

It’s surprisingly loud.

‘Come on, you’re fine, no blood.’

More wailing.

Billy looks around. ‘Uh, what do I got? Um, here. You want this?’ He waves an old sock in front of the kid, who starts screaming instead. ‘OK, no you don’t. Shit. All right, uh, you want soda? Let’s get you a soda.’ He grabs one from the fridge and considers cracking it so the kid can drink it but ultimately doesn’t want to waste one, so he just gives him the bottle, cap on tight. It’s cold. ‘Here, look. Ooh, pretty.’

At first, it works.

The kid grabs the bottle, brings it right up to his mouth and starts weirdly gnawing on it, but before Billy can breathe a sigh of relief at the silence, the idiot thing bites too hard on the bottle cap, and the sharp edge cuts his lip and now… oh now he’s really screaming.

‘Fuck.’ Billy reels, both hands in his hair. ‘Fuck.’

Kid’s bleeding.

That noise is like nails on a fucking chalkboard, reminds him of Max that summer, that bad fucking summer, fuck.

Nothing he tries over the next few minutes works, not boxes, not expired wings, not his necklace, not Billy yell-singing songs, not even Billy shouting in his face to shut the fuck up.

Everything he tries only makes it worse.

So he does the only thing he can think of and grabs the kid by the back of his dungarees and hauls ass over the Harrington house.

*

Time to think has just led to Steve replaying every awful thing Eddie told him, and every gaping chasm of what he needed to know but still fucking doesn’t because Eddie is holding the truth at arm’s length, refusing.

Steve has been walking around outside for a while with Loki on a leash. Steve has always liked walking, not really going anywhere, just going. It’s cold but he has his good jacket on, and it helps soothe what’s fractious and raw inside his heart.

The more he walks, the more he trusts what Eddie said, that it wasn’t him who killed those boys. Hitting Tommy, that makes sense and even more so why Tommy didn’t say goodbye, was likely mad and embarrassed. But the dead kids… that could never be Steve. He’d die before he did that, even if they were nasty little shits. Will didn’t deserve the evil shit they were saying and doing, but no kid deserves to die, either.

The fresh air helps, even though he hasn’t gone far.

Eddie’s not back yet. No car on the driveway when he walks past the house. The realisation makes him sad, lonely, a little abandoned. Yes, he wanted space to think, but Eddie didn’t even fight him on it. Just left like last night.

Steve spots Delilah across the street, climbing a tree. She never comes around anymore. Loki probably saw to that.

They walk a little further until Steve starts to hear a very specific kind of wailing. There’s no mistaking the sounds of a child crying. He casts around, realises it’s coming from up ahead. He moves faster towards it.

What if it’s a lost child, crying for their mother?

Loki barks.

Steve’s entire body gives a violent, alarming jolt.

Billy Hargrove is walking right at Steve, holding what looks like a toddler by the dungaree straps rather than just holding him. Billy looks extremely frazzled.

The kid has blood running his chin.

‘Oh my god, what the fuck did you do?’ Steve asks, tightening Loki’s leash because the dog is barking warning barks at Billy. Even so, Steve moves towards him too because he needs to get the baby and help.

‘I didn’t do anything, he fell!’ Billy blurts out. ‘Then he caught his lip on the soda bottle.’

‘You gave him soda?’ Steve snaps, taking hold of the child he knows just from the curls is Cody, Billy’s son. ‘The hell is wrong with you?’

‘Just to chew on!’

Steve hugs the baby to his chest, rubbing his back in soothing circles. ‘You gave him glass and metal? You fucking idiot, Billy.’

Newly freed of his burden, Billy shakes his arm which must ache. ‘How the fuck am I supposed to know what babies can or can’t have?’

‘Where’s his mom?’

‘She dumped him with me.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘OK, it’s OK. Shhh, shhh, shh.’ Steve kisses sweat-damp curls. Poor thing is so stressed.

‘You can’t shush him. Believe me, I tried.’

‘It’s a soothing sound, you fucking asshole.’ Steve looks around. ‘I’m taking him inside.’

‘Do you need me to—?’

‘He’s your son, Billy. Get your ass inside!’

‘OK, OK, Jeez.’

The situation is surreal, but urgency trumps almost everything. Inside the house, Steve lets Loki off the lead, who snarls at Billy until Steve says, ‘Down, boy,’ and the wolfy dog throws Billy a mistrustful look before quietening down.

Steve sits Cody beside the kitchen sink and runs the cold water onto a clean washcloth he grabbed from the laundry basket, part of a matching set he got from Robin for Christmas. ‘Here we go sweetie, it’s OK. Oh, I know, it’s OK, you’re so brave. Here we go, nice and cool.’ He dabs the cold, wet material onto Cody’s lip, stroking his hair. The little boy doesn’t settle fast, it takes a while, hiccups well and truly set in, but after a while, he starts chewing on the cloth and the bleeding has stopped. Steve carefully cleans the blood. ‘There we go, angel. Look at you. What a beautiful boy you are, hmm?’

The child seems exhausted. Still clinging to and chewing on the wet washcloth, he sways a little. Steve scoops him up, same position as before, letting Cody’s head rest on his shoulder, the wet cloth soaking through his shirt, but he doesn’t care.

Finally settled and feeling safe, Cody falls asleep almost immediately. Steve holds him fast, rubbing his back as he turns to throw Billy a furious look. It’s the first time he realises that this is Billy Hargrove, his fucking ex, hasn’t felt like that until now. There was only the urgency of care.

Billy is watching Steve with a weird expression.

Steve can’t read it.

‘He’s teething,’ Steve says.

Billy nods shakily. ‘Right.’

Steve rolls his eyes. ‘That was one way to say hello, I guess.’

‘Wasn’t exactly how I wanted you to see me after last time.’

‘When you attacked me, you mean?’

‘I…’ Billy wisely falls silent, nodding.

‘I can’t believe you have a child,’ Steve says quietly.

‘Me neither.’ Billy looks around. ‘Wow. Place looks amazing.’

‘Everything in my life is amazing now that you’re not in it.’

‘OK, I probably deserved that.’

‘Probably?’

‘Look, I didn’t come to argue.’

‘No, you just came because your own son was bleeding and you didn’t even think to hug him.’

‘I don’t know about babies and shit.’

‘That’s because you’re so self-involved.’

‘Can I get something from your fridge? I’m starving.’

‘Are you actually out of your fucking mind right now?’

‘I’m woozy from all the carrying.’

‘No. And you can’t be here,’ Steve adds, thinking of Eddie for the first time since he saw the baby.

‘I got nothing for him at the trailer.’

‘Susan will—’

‘I’m not staying with her, and she made it clear I’m on my own.’

‘Where are you staying?’

Billy’s jaw tightens. ‘In Munson’s old trailer.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘It was the only one free. Look, this kid’s gonna starve to death unless I can get him some food.’

‘You’re not touching anything in this house, Billy.’ Steve grabs his wallet and then heads for the coat stand, pulling out a soft rain jacket that El left here. He wraps it around Cody like a blanket. ‘But I’ll take him to that nice place downtown, the one near the bakery.’

‘The one you liked?’

‘Yeah. They’ll make him some mushy carrots if I ask.’

‘Babies can eat that shit?’

‘He’s a toddler,’ Steve corrects.

‘Right, yeah. You were always good with kids,’ Billy says quietly. Steve tells Loki to stay, leaves the house and once they’re outside, Billy asks, ‘So, did you ever get any insurance payoff for the Camaro?’

Steve starts walking towards one of the nicer places he knows to eat in this town, not far down from the bakery he loves. It’s barely a twenty-minute walk from his house.

‘I know you’re not asking me for money, Billy.’

‘No, just. Y’know, it was my car.’

‘Yeah, and it was my money you wasted on drugs and god only knows what else when we moved in together.’

Billy exhales roughly. ‘Whatever.’

‘Yeah, whatever, Billy. What-fucking-ever.’

‘Jesus, what the hell happened to you?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did you expect me to just bend over the moment I saw you?’ Steve snaps quietly, determinedly not thinking about where he was headed last night when Sergio interrupted his journey. ‘Everything’s different now. I don’t know why you came back to Mawthorne, but if it was for me, you need a reality check.’

Billy says nothing while they walk in silence. Steve’s heart beats stronger than it has for weeks with this little boy in his arms. He feels clear, focused, oddly bulletproof.

When they arrive in the small, tasteful restaurant, it’s quiet. No one’s coming for dinner this early and it’s too late for lunch, but Steve asks politely if they can get a table in the back and the server is kind, says he can sit anywhere he likes.

Steve sits on a comfortable chair, Cody still fast asleep in his arms. He did the right thing getting Billy out of his house, but now he’s forced to sit opposite him, likely have some kind of fucking conversation.

They order drinks and food, and the server tells Steve they’ll whip up something special for Cody, says he’s a beautiful baby and then does a poor job of concealing his curiosity about whose baby that is, because he knows Steve and he doubtlessly recognises Billy too. It’s a small town.

Steve dodges the questions artfully, but Billy outright says, ‘That’s my kid. Steve’s real good with him,’ and Steve knows he did that just to piss Eddie off in the future.

The server leaves.

Steve glares.

‘What? It’s all true?’ Billy says with a shrug.

‘What are you gonna do with Cody?’

‘Katie will be back later.’

‘What if she’s not?’

‘She will be.’

‘Whatever,’ Steve says again, remembers how little point there is in pushing something when Billy digs in. ‘I don’t want you coming by the house again, do you understand?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘No, we don’t. I said what I needed to the last time.’

‘OK, I hear that,’ Billy says, raising hands in supplication, ‘but I fucked up massively and I didn’t get to say what I wanted, so… can I?’

‘Can you what?’

‘Say what I should have.’

‘If you lunge across this table, I’ll press charges.’

‘I won’t. I need to stay out. I’m not gonna fuck up.’

‘You always fuck up, Billy, sooner or later.’

‘I wanted to say that you’re the best thing I ever had, and I know I ruined it, like you said, I fuck everything up.’

Cody stirs until Steve rubs his back, nuzzling his delicate silky curls and wishing so much that this was his baby, sour resentment in his guts that Billy gets to be the father of this beautiful little thing and he hasn’t the first fucking clue how to love or care for him.

‘OK, well. I appreciate it.’

‘I don’t really know how to love like other people do.’

‘You don’t need to do this, OK?’

‘No, I know just…’ Billy softens, his throat bobs. ‘I know I’m shit at this, just let me try? I don’t want anything in return, I just wanna say it to you and then… then it’s whatever.’

‘Fine.’

Billy takes a breath.

‘I didn’t know how to be your boyfriend, but when I met you that night, I knew I wanted it. I didn’t know how to be, so I was just…’ He frowns, looking down. ‘I was like him. How he treated Susan, y’know. And look, I do actually know,’ he says, softer than Steve’s ever heard, ‘that you don’t love me anymore, and there’s no chance of me getting you back, but you’re the only person who might care that I do want to change. Hurting someone I love made me sick inside, like cancer, and I don’t ever wanna be that way again.’

The drinks come first.

Two sodas and a glass of water with a straw.

Billy waits until they’re alone again before he says, ‘You’re the person I loved the most my whole life, and you’re the person I hurt the worst and it might mean nothing now, but I really am sorry, Steve. I’m sorry for what I did to you.’

Steve stares for a while until he looks away.

‘This doesn’t change anything.’

‘I know. I just wanted to say it.’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Every word.’

He doesn’t trust Billy enough to believe it, but what comfort there is to be had from it, Steve takes. ‘Thanks.’

Billy nods. ‘Least I can do.’

They don’t talk anymore until their food arrives.

As if smelling it, Cody wakes, looks up at Steve with wide, curious eyes and then after a beat or so, he smiles and makes a happy noise. Steve smiles, pretty much head over heels at this point. ‘Hey there, cutie,’ he says, reaching for the blended puree of steamed veggies and a small plate of crackers. ‘I got some nice lunchies for you.’

There’s no highchair, but Steve wouldn’t put him in one anyway. He turns Cody halfway on his lap so he can feel him and gives him crackers to eat himself. Poor thing seems starving, devours the crackers and almost cleans the entire bowl. Across the table, Billy does the same with his steak and fries, even nibbles on the side salad.

‘What are you doing for money?’ Steve asks, giving Cody a breadstick to gnaw on.

‘Eh, I’ll figure it out. I’m gonna focus on Susan for a bit.’

Steve frowns. ‘Why?’

‘She’s dying,’ Billy answers plainly. ‘I wanna help out, plus I’m Max’s next of kin, so.’

Steve thinks of Susan telling him and Eddie very clearly that Max isn’t Neil’s and Billy is no blood relation to her, that Billy is the last person she wants raising Max.

‘Mm. Why did Katie bring Cody to you?’

‘She wants me to sign release papers or something, so she can give him up for adoption. I sort of…’ Billy shrugs. ‘Mouthed off, said raising a baby can’t be that hard and she left him with me.’

‘You thoroughly deserved that,’ Steve tells Billy, letting Cody chew on his thumb, poor thing is really teething. ‘But he didn’t.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You want mine?’ he offers, pushing his leftover sandwich and fries towards Billy, can’t eat much the last few days.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thanks.’ Billy absolutely devours it. Steve asks, ‘What investigation are you helping with?’

‘I’m not allowed to—’

‘I know you’re trying to take Eddie down.’

Billy pauses eating, takes a sip of his drink. ‘It’s a big investigation,’ he says slowly. ‘Lotta moving parts.’

‘Yeah, but they only want you because you think you know shit about Eddie.’

Billy’s brow lifts in an otherwise neutral expression. ‘I do.’

‘Like what?’

‘That cult he was in has ties to some big financial shit, important people in ovals and stuff.’

‘Eddie wasn’t in a cult,’ Steve lies.

‘He was,’ Billy counters with confidence. ‘Homebough. Him and a bunch of other kids got out of there before it burned down. He’s a person of interest now.’

‘Because of you?’

‘They were circling him anyway.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Believe whatever you want,’ Billy says, shrugs, mumbles, ‘You were always good at that. I know he’s got hooks in you real deep, but that night we were all together, all three of us,’ Billy adds, cheeks a little pink, ‘he told me shit. I know you won’t even really hear it if I say it—’

‘No, say it. I’m listening.’

‘I don’t wanna upset you.’

‘You can’t upset me anymore, Billy. Go on.’

‘He told me,’ Billy says, level and earnest, ‘that he read my files. He knew all the shit I’d said about… about what those guys did to me in the bar. He knew details. I know he read the files because he knew about the…’ Billy winces, gaze stuck somewhere unseeingly. ‘The dress and the lipstick.’

Steve’s heart lurches.

He’s never heard that part before, has always known a version of what happened to Billy and, in more details, how Billy coped with it by killing them all after, but not that. Billy is a violent, abusive criminal and he nearly killed Steve but Steve’s heart will always find space to pity people who suffered.

Billy shakes himself and goes on.

‘I remember every word of it. I can’t make it go away. Sometimes I hear him whispering when I’m asleep,’ Billy says, wincing. ‘He told me he should thank me for what I did to you. That he admired my “methods” and how I set it up for him.’

‘Set what up?’

‘You. That I broke you for him. That so many times when you were younger, you were close enough for him to touch but the universe said he had to be patient. He said he used to watch you back then. That you were so pure. He told me he killed the only other drug dealer in town so I’d have to go to him.’

Steve’s lips part. ‘Tony Amato.’

‘Yeah.’ Billy jaws works side to side, eyes shiny. ‘He said that, uh. That he was being really honest with me and that I was a part of his story, yours and his. He said he knows the song your cells sing. Steve, please listen now, OK? I don’t expect anything from this. I just need you to hear it.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘All right. He said that the fact that you loved me was the only reason he didn’t gut me that first night we traded, because he knew you’d panic. So he was patient instead, training you for months to respond to him like…’ Billy closes his eyes, hand reaching through air. ‘What the word, like, something’s planted in your brain?’

‘Subliminally?’ Steve utters, lips numb.

‘Yeah. That. He was training you to come on his cock, to come untouched, to get hard when you hear his voice, his smell even. All of it.’

Steve’s blood turns cold. ‘Go on.’

He uh… he put his finger inside me, and he said to me what I said to you that night at Tommy T’s party.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean he heard it, he knew.’

‘Like what?’

Billy drops his gaze. ‘Bet it looks like a cherry, all that shit.’

‘He said that to you?’

‘All of it, word for word. He said, every step of the way, I played into what he wanted, which was you.’

‘What else?’

‘I was passing out at that point, so I don’t know what he did after, but uh. He came to visit me in prison not so long ago.’

Confusion pulls tight inside. ‘What?’

‘New Year’s Eve, he visited me.’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Why?’

‘He looked like shit, was quieter than I expected. I thought he’d taunt me, throw it in my face but he was weirdly off balance. I knew something was wrong. He wouldn’t tell me what, but he said for the first time he thought that you would have been better off with me.’

‘What?’

‘He looked right at me and said, “You wouldn’t have let it happen” and I started losing it, asking what was wrong, if you were OK, but he just laughed and said he chose not to have me killed inside like he planned because I’m a part of his story and you love me, so he loves me too.’

Billy’s fingers are trembling when he reaches for his drink, drains the whole thing. Cody is playing with an ice cube.

Steve feels physically sick.

‘What then?’

‘I said I’d gut him in a heartbeat, and he said that’s why he loves me and that when I get out, he hopes he’s the one I go to first. He gave me a picture of you. A polaroid. I asked what the fuck was going on and he said again, it wouldn’t have happened if you were with me. Then he said, “Come find me when you’re out” and I lost it. Never saw the picture again, guards took it when they threw me in SHU. My lawyers looked into whether you were OK, but I’ve known for a long time something went down so…’ Billy takes a huge breath, oddly vulnerable. ‘Did… something bad happen around New Year’s?’

Cody stands in Steve’s lap, happily pressing the ice cube into Steve’s cheek who manages a shaky smile for the little boy and wipes away his own confused tears. The desire to dismiss every word as Billy meddling, lying, doing whatever he can to ruin Eddie and Steve’s relationship comes second to the undeniable truth some parts of that story held.

‘If Eddie visited you in jail, there’d be a record of it.’

‘He probably used a fake name. Steve, did something happen?’

‘It’s not your business anymore, Billy.’

‘You’ll always be—’ Billy cuts himself off with a wince. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Look. She told me last night that he uses a name sometimes. Jack Ward.’

‘Who told you that?’

Billy seems to be visibly debating whether or not to tell Steve.

‘Chrissy Cunningham.’

‘How the fuck do you know Chrissy?’

‘I had my lawyers look for her. She came to me last night and told me it was my fault she’s in town because I had ‘em searching and she knows it’ll make Munson tie up loose ends now.’

‘No, she’s a drug addict who came to get money from Eddie.’

Billy rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’m sure that’s what he told you.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Look, whatever. I’m not interested in her. I only had my lawyers scoping for her because I thought he killed her, like he did Amato.’

‘Eddie didn’t kill Tony.’

‘What about Tommy Hagan, then? He’s missing.’

‘He left town.’

‘One of my lawyers was fucking him,’ Billy says bluntly. ‘Told me he hasn’t seen Hagan for weeks, that he’s overdue at work. Told me to keep an eye out.’

‘Tommy wasn’t gay,’ Steve hisses, but something in the back of his mind niggles.

I’m gay. Like. Gay gay.

I never liked girls even when I did.

‘I’m just telling you what I know, Steve.’

‘You could be lying about all of this.’

‘Then why does it make sense?’ Billy whispers, California blues locked with Steve’s. ‘Why does it make sense, huh? He killed Amato so I’d go to him.’

‘Tony Amato skipped town. He was on bail when we went there together, he told us that,’ Steve says, remembering Tony offering Steve noodles, his shithole of a place, the ashtray overflowing, the—

The ashtray. 

It was a Garfield ashtray. 

The same one he noticed in Eddie’s trailer that night he went there to make Eddie hurt him, to get what he needed because he was suffering, spiralling and nothing brings him back down to earth like being used. 

Billy takes Steve’s silence and runs with it. 

‘I think something bad happened to you and Hagan did it and Eddie killed him.’

Steve’s mind returns to what he knows.

                                       Please.

                     Please.

                                         Please.

                                           Please.

                                        P L E A S E

C  R  A  C  K!

He hit Tommy with the rock.

He knows that now, it’s there inside him. Can remember tiny vague details around it if he doesn’t focus, like teddy-bear walking his fingers to get hold of the rock.

Eddie didn’t do that, it was Steve.

‘No, I…’ He exhales in a weak shudder. ‘Tommy tried it on with me and I hit him with a rock. He left town after that, but I think maybe he’s lying low after what he tried or… I don’t know, it’s not my problem.’

‘How hard did you hit him?’

‘What does that matter?’

‘Just, y’know, if it was really hard he could have had a brain bleed or something and died later,’ Billy says the way he says everything, heedless of feelings.

‘OK, I need you to take the kid now,’ Steve says, fishing money from his wallet and leaving it on the table, plus ten dollars for a tip which he pretends not to see Billy swipe. He stands with Cody in his arms. ‘I’ve done what I can for you.’

‘Steve,’ Billy says haltingly. ‘Please believe what I said. I know I can’t get you back, but you have to know the truth about what Munson really is.’

‘Coming from you it doesn’t mean much.’

They leave the little place together and Steve tries to be strong when he hands Cody over to Billy. His ex-boyfriend takes Cody under the arms, holding him outstretched like he’s a slimy rock. Something terrible flares inside, and Steve gently takes Cody back before he backhands Billy across the face.

It’s sharp, not hard.

‘Hold him like he needs to be held,’ Steve intones, voice trembling. Billy’s eyes are wide with shock, mouth in a ridiculous O of astonishment. ‘He’s your child, Billy. He deserves to be held kindly, even if it’s you who’s holding him. Be a man for once in your fucking life.’

Steve isn’t sure what to expect, never is from Billy, but he doesn’t let slip even a fraction of the surprise he feels when Billy gives a subdued nod and takes Cody the way Steve did, finally holding him like a human, not something heavy and gross.

‘Sorry.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Steve looks away. It’s starting to get dark. He wipes his eyes, throat thick. ‘It’ll never be enough. Go back to Susan’s trailer, wait for Cody’s mom and sign whatever the fuck she wants.’

‘I will.’

Steve looks at him.

There was a time he was obsessed with Billy Hargrove. Followed him around, hid where he could see him, bought whatever drink Billy got from the store and tried to like it.

There was a time he was Billy’s ride or die.

But the summer of that love has ended.

And Steve, in his winter wisdom, knows better now, even if some small, desperate part of him will always want the pain only Billy Hargrove gave him.  

‘Did you love me?’

Billy blinks, expression oddly young. ‘Yes.’

‘I loved you more, way more, but I did always believe that you loved me in your own way.’

‘I did. Steve, I do.’

‘Being around you hurts too much and I can’t risk the stability that I worked so hard for.’ Steve’s voice trembles as he says it. ‘So if you ever did love me, and maybe even if you do still love me now, you’ll do this one good thing and stay away from me. Eddie’s right, part of me will always love you and I don’t know if I trust myself when things are bad not to come to you and let you love me the way you always did, with bruises and blood and bad days that lasted weeks.’

Billy says nothing.

Steve wraps El’s jacket around Cody and kisses his hair. ‘It was so lovely to meet you, little guy,’ he whispers, tears falling. He looks at Billy, backing away. Cody starts to cry, reaching for Steve, but Steve keeps going much as it breaks his heart. ‘I hope things get better for you.’

*

Eddie’s never alone anymore.

It’s never just him.

Usually has to be someone else there to make Tommy shut up, but he always comes back the second Eddie’s alone again, usually worse than before, picking hole in everything, teasing him, mocking him.

After spending a few hours with Will, Eddie almost felt level. Being around the kid is pleasant, and he especially enjoyed quietly discussing various methods of murder and body disposal while making pancakes in James Hopper’s kitchen.

But now that he’s back in Loup, dreading going home again, Tommy has returned full force.

‘Man, what a cute kid Will is,’ Tommy comments while Eddie starts the engine. ‘Adorable.’

‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘How come?’ Eddie ignores him, grips the wheel so hard his knuckles white out. ‘What’s gonna get you in the mood, do we think? The shit you had to think about so you could come on Steve’s face last night barely even worked. I think you’re running dry, man. Maybe it’s time to embrace asexuality after all.’

Eddie turns onto the highway, headed out town, headed nowhere, just away. He speeds up.

‘Trying to run from your past won’t work, babe. How about we go back and beat up Chrissy some more? I bet it’d feel good to rape her, considering how much she looks like you now. Loved the part where you called her a whore when she’s just a mirror for all your poison.’

Eddie blinks hard, vision a little blurry.

‘It’s not nothing…’

‘Oh, but it is, sweet-cheeks. It really is everything,’ Tommy promises. ‘You’re cracking apart at the seams, look at you. Fucked up, ugly, gross, dead inside, you have nothing left to offer and now Hargrove’s back, Steve will look between you and him and choose the lesser of two evils.’ Tommy cackles, bare bloody feet up on the dash like he owns the world he’s no longer a part of. ‘You’ve made Billy Hargrove look good, silly boy. Undone all your progress because you can’t face up to what you did and what he doesn’t remember.’

Eddie presses the pedal down as far as it’ll go.

Loup gathers speed, eating distance, swallowing it like that Milky Way ad, greedy and gluttonous, faster, faster, going nowhere, get there faster.

‘No.’

‘Beg to differ, bitch, and when he does leave you—’

‘He’s not going to leave me.’

‘—and gets free, he’s gonna see everything that you hid from him including the dirt road, you sick fuck.’

Eddie's hand jerks on the wheel and he wrenches it right, but he's carrying too much speed. Loup slews into a violent spin, tears across the grassy shoulder and digs into the embankment. The impact trips the car into a brutal roll, hurling Eddie through a storm of twisting metal and exploding glass until, with one final bone-rattling slam, it comes to rest half-upright in the drainage ditch.

Aggressively winded, he opens his eyes that reel against the sting of salty blood, jagged glass on his lips and eyelashes. His left arm might be broken, hurts too much to flex it, and a deep inhale makes him dry heave with bone-deep agony, ribs undeniably folded. Clumsy and dizzy, Eddie stumbles out of the wreck, landing hard on soft grass where he throws up reflexively, barely anything in there, and then starts to laugh. Eddie lies with his back on the cold, wet grass, sees nine of everything, staring up at the emerging stars, laughing breathlessly.

‘Look at all that blood,’ Tommy murmurs, climbing on top to straddle. He touches Eddie’s face just like he did before he died. Gentle, strangely kind. ‘What a mess.’

Eddie stares up at him.

He wants to say so many things, wishes he had the words, but none exist and it would weaken him immeasurably to say, You’re my karma, you’re my balance, my destruction, my justice, my Eden destroyed, my punishment, my god, myself, me. Instead of saying any of that, Eddie pushes up on what is probably a broken arm to kiss him.

Tommy is real and solid, no phantom touch, he kisses Eddie back without hesitation, sinks strong hands in his hair and grips tight, makes the shards dig in, spilling fresh blood, tiny rivers. The taste of his tongue against Eddie’s own instantly drives him deeper into madness, fever wild and desperate. Teeth take his bottom lip and bite down, more blood, Tommy drinks it like it might bring him back to life, wrestling Eddie’s hands down into the dirt, pinning wrists and taking control, taking all the control and Eddie wants it gone, but he fights anyway, it’s just his nature.

‘You’re so sick,’ Tommy whispers, grinding down, biting his neck hard enough break the skin. ‘Fucking psychopath, look at you.’ He spits Eddie’s own blood into his mouth and laughs when Eddie swallows it. ‘Nothing but a killer.’ He rips Eddie’s jeans down, roughly palming his cock, open mouth pressed to Eddie’s, sharing breath even though Eddie watched him take his last one weeks ago, months, years, minutes, it’s Jack, it’s God, it’s Robert, shadows and death and earth and sky, knives, come, tears, ink and money, blood, blood, blood, blood and milk, nothing can fill the echoing chasm inside, the dead halls of abandoned hell, no fire, no vivid torments but isolation.

The kiss deepens

Tommy fucks into him, whispering secrets, loving him to death, too deep, hurts, he’ll tear and bleed, and it’s not Tommy anymore, it’s Billy fucking Hargrove.

‘Good slut,’ Billy intones, that California twang makes everything better and worse, his kisses are poison that Eddie’s immune to. ‘Fucking take it, bitch. Yeah, you like that?’

‘Choke me out,’ Eddie pleads, spine arching, ribs broken, stars burning up in the sky. Billy’s fucks rough, rape by default, doesn’t know any other way to be, just a fucking animal.

Billy backhands him, slaps a hand over his mouth.

‘No, whore. I like watching you struggle.’

Eddie is so close, but can’t get there, he can’t reach it, doesn’t know what he’s reaching for anyway, absolution, death, orgasm, sleep, love, war. He’s greedy under strain, he’s controlling when stressed, he’s broken and sad and small, small and useless, screaming himself hoarse but no one hears, and there’s blood on the road, and it clots with the dirt, and his daddy has a hand over his mouth to make him stop, but nothing on earth could when screams are his song and sorrow is his natural state and rage will become his marrow and anger will make his bones strong and the flesh that wraps him is iridophore cells that shimmer only for the moon and stars, and he’ll learn everything and ignore anything that weakens him and a wish upon a star will be his path whenever he remembers to look up at the sky and know himself again without the ego, without the cruelty’s armour, without knives and ink and tears and come and money and the deaths he still counts and the victories he builds his house atop, all glaring, polluting.

Only then can he see the stars.

The kiss breaks.

It’s him.

Long hair falls around them both, dark curls.

‘This is what you want,’ Eddie whispers, fucking him, pinning him, raping him, loving him. ‘This is what you’ve always wanted,’ Eddie tells Eddie, smiling dark and strange.

He pushes his hand down over Eddie’s heart, pressure forming, broken ribs cracking, blood in his mouth, blood in his nose, his ribs give out, the hand scours, grasping and grabbing through the mess of broken bone until Eddie pulls Eddie’s heart out, snaps the connections, holds it up.

It’s just a heart.

Meat. Muscle. Man.

‘See?’ Eddie tells him, licking into his mouth with his snake tongue, sending it deep inside to nestle and nest, burrow, make home in the decay and lay eggs, make new life from this rotten failure, failure, you total fucking failure. ‘Nothing special.’

Eddie knows.

He knows.

His heart isn’t like Steve’s, not that dark crystal, raw and iridescent, flaws in the centre that only make more beauty.

Eddie isn’t special. He isn’t new. Men like him have walked the earth before, they will again after he’s gone.

But Steve?

He is special.

And Eddie is drowning him.

Burying him alive to hide his shine.

Eddie fucks Eddie so deep it goes into his middle, shoves his lungs up high, and Eddie laughs while Eddie chokes, slaps his face and says, ‘Kinda how it feels to be pregnant. You like that?’

Eyes rolling back, Eddie can only nod dumbly, tears falling.

‘All that jealousy, all that envy just eating away at you,’ Eddie says, tossing Eddie’s useless heart aside and filling the cavity of his chest with dirt instead, pushes a seed inside. ‘Maybe we can make something grow in you after all.’

‘Please.’

He’s a child under the West Virginia sun.

He’s a small boy standing before Jack.

He’s a killer under dark skies.

He’s a loser. He’s a failure.

A child. A boy. A man. Human.

Monster. Demon. Murderer.

It’s Tommy Hagan again.

He caresses Eddie’s face and Eddie comes so hard he screams louder than he has since he was little, since he was weak and helpless and the dirt was bloody and his daddy was stronger and his momma didn’t listen to his screams and god wasn’t real anymore because if he was, he would have answered Eddie’s prayers back when he wasn’t even Eddie, the other name, the one he was born with, and when they walked into Homebough, his Momma had said, ‘Your name is Eddie now, understand? Edward Munson,’ and he didn’t care, because one name is as good as the other and he was already tired of life, curious about death, no reasons, no reasons on this planet to want to live until Homebough, and Jack, and break work, and that fucking tattoo he needed because he’s a boy and boys crave the gatekept validation of other men like nicotine.

God didn’t answer his prayers, so Eddie ate him.

But really, all he ate was himself.

Because he’s a sad little ouroboros, telling himself he’s strong for biting, for killing until he found others to consume because if he’s eating someone else then he’s not eating himself, is he?

Eddie Munson comes all over himself under the sky.

His heart is still in his chest.

He’s not naked. Not defiled.

But he is alone.

‘Tommy?’ he whispers, blinking like a frog.

Nothing.

He’s completely alone.

Tommy is gone.

Tommy is dead.

He’s dead. He won’t ever answer for what he did to Steve. He can’t ever give Steve answers or closure. He’s just meat, like Eddie, only difference is the heart pumping blood.

Strange milky pink pain bubbles in his chest, crushing into his throat, burning his eyes as a C minor of injustice chokes him, and it’s either cry or die, he might have chosen death, but his body will never allow that, so he cries, and he doesn’t really know how, fumbling like a virgin who talked the talk and can’t walk the walk, fronting through it, trying to just let it happen and deny how bad it hurts, hurts, it hurts because he failed and he let Steve get hurt, he wasn’t there, he didn’t protect him, love didn’t make him stronger, it made him weak, it made him love life, it made him happy to be alive and it made him into that boy he once was, maybe, before he knew how blood bonds to dry dirt, and how you lose your voice for days after screaming like that, no voice to scream or cry or ask why, silenced by pain, eclipsed.

Eddie cries under the dark, unforgiving scars and digs his fingers into damp yielding earth and lets the horror of his own weakness wash over him, until he’s drained, and the world is quiet and he’s alone, and sleep comes for him the way a parent might, had he ever known a kind one.

*

Billy has Cody on his lap, jogging his knee while the kid chomps on a corner of Billy’s shirt.

They’ve been alone in the trailer for a while.

Susan is back, her car was there, but Billy didn’t go there.

He brought Cody here. Sat with him.

Looking.

Just looking at this little person.

Nose, eyes, hair, ears. He makes weird noises. His hands are oddly strong when they grip. Billy remembers when Max tried to hold his hand and he yanked it away hard, didn’t ever want her to reach for him.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have this one hold his hand. It’d look pretty fucking stupid, he would look stupid with a kid. It’s not his way, not what he ever wanted to cultivate. Kids are embarrassing, ugly and loud. They need shit. They ruin your life. Take up space.

Billy takes up space.

He needs all the space.

But he might have made a small corner for this kid in some other life. Packed up some of his own boxes and got a crib or whatever. Mushy carrots and holding hands.

It’s not on the cards.

Billy’s not kind or patient. His instinct while Cody was screaming was to scare him quiet. Steve’s was the opposite.

But still, the fact that there’s a little scribble of maybe inside Billy Hargrove where there wasn’t any before has to mean something, even if only to him.

It’s early evening when Katie comes to pick him up.

She comes inside and tongues her cheek when she sees Cody playing quietly on Billy’s lap. Before she can speak, Billy says, ‘It was really hard. I was talking shit. I don’t know how you managed for as long as you did.’ He hands Cody over, has to pry strong little fingers off his shirt and swallow down what’s weak when Cody whines. ‘I’ll sign whatever you want, but uh…’

Katie takes her son, sullen with suspicion. ‘What?’

‘Can you, like, give them my name? In case he ever wants to look me up when he’s grown.’

‘Are you that dumb you don’t know what closed adoption it?’

‘Just my name.’

‘Your name is a curse, and he deserves a fresh start.’ That hurts worse than it should. ‘My lawyer will be in touch.’

She goes to the door.

Cody’s blue eyes are on Billy.

‘Katie.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry that I—’

‘Oh my god, you know what? I don’t want your self-serving apology that’ll bring you peace and plague me for the rest of my life, Billy. I don’t want your half step towards decency because we both know you lied about the condom and you finished inside me on purpose. It wasn’t just a kink, it wasn’t that you couldn’t help it,’ she says, eyes flashing, staring him down. ‘It was that you hate women and you loved the thought of ruining me with your fucking come. You infected me, you forced something in me I didn’t want and you got to walk away with your balls lighter. I want you to suffer every single day in any way imaginable and if you think telling me you’re sorry for squirting your come inside me will make up for anything, then you really are the stupidest man I ever met and once those looks wear off, pretty boy, you’re gonna be chasing older women in bars and eating them out just to feel a hand in your hair, you fucking loser!’

He smacks her right across the face.

She stumbles back into the doorframe, jolts Cody, who cries and she almost drops him but doesn’t. Katie gathers herself, cheek pink from the force of his blow. When she lifts her eyes to his, there’s such knowing hatred in her boring browns that Billy has to look away.

‘He’ll never know your name,’ she hisses while the kid screams, ‘It’ll die young with you, Billy.’

She leaves.

Billy hears the kid crying every step of the way to her car, and then it’s silence, silence that’s screaming in his ears and burning in his tendons until he leaves the trailer, walks to that shitty trucker bar, ten bucks he stole from Steve clutched in his fist and he can’t think straight until the second whiskey goes down and he’s breathing so he must be alive, but when he closes his eyes, all he sees are Cody’s own.

Well whiskey is fucking rotten, but it’s what’ll give him seven dollars back from ten.

‘Another, and a beer.’

The third levels him out, but it makes him itch for something stronger. For weed, for K, for E, for H, anything to make this stop, he would take anything offered to him right now and it’s sort of heartbreaking how much he built himself up over the last few months, getting strong and clean, new man, but he’d snap like a twig just to make it stop.

The beer is nicer on his tongue.

Billy looks around.

It’s quiet in here, too early for it to be anything else, but he sees that’s not alone at the bar, because on the far side is that girl from that other night.

Chrissy Cunningham.

She nursing a beer too, looks over to meet him stare, gives a small nod. The label’s picked off, she’s had it for a while.

Whores never have money.

He goes to her, sits beside her.

She doesn’t object.

‘Buy you one?’ he offers, deep voice, the good voice, the one no girl could ever resist, including Katie “don’t come inside me” Calhoon.

‘Sure.’

Billy spends his last dollars on a beer for this slut, reckons it’ll pay off real good.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Come into some money?’ she asks, deceptively casual but Billy is smart, he knows when bitches are interested in something.

‘Got five grand from a payout settlement,’ he lies, shrugging like it’s nothing. ‘Was gonna sink a chunk of it in here tonight but uh,’ he says, glancing at her. ‘I’d rather spend it on something better.’

Thick black eyeliner and heavy mascara, she looks like a slut and he wants to treat her like one.

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah. Wanna hang out?’

‘Maybe. What’s it worth?’

‘Two grand.’

‘Three.’

Billy chuckles, selling it. ‘You’re not worth three.’

‘Two point five.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll let you do anything,’ she adds, just a touch desperate and that’s what he wants, more than her legs spread wide, more than that pained look, more than the loud slap of his inner thighs against hers, he wants her desperate for the money and therefore him.

‘Anything?’ he asks quietly.

She nods, eyes wide like cherry pies. ‘No limits.’

Billy pretends to consider it. ‘Maybe.’

‘Come on, I’ll make it so good for you,’ she whispers, arm sliding around his middle. ‘Take me home?’

Billy is not fucking her in that tin can.

‘Let’s go back to yours.’

‘I’m in a motel.’

‘Fine by me.’

‘I actually had a place in mind,’ she adds under her breath. ‘I got a van. I can drive us?’

Oh, she’s begging for it.

‘Sure thing, babycake,’ he says, hook, line and sinker, what a dumb bitch. ‘Sounds fun.’

‘I just gotta use the ladies’ room,’ she whispers, slipping off the seat and headed across the bar. Billy glances around, finishes her beer for her and his own, before downing a handful of peanuts and then following her casually inside. The bar tender either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Inside, she’s doing a line.

Billy knew it.

He grips her from behind, slipping his hand down the front of her tight pants, finds her pussy, pushes his fingers inside and sucks a bruise into her neck, shoving her into the sink, moaning. She’s not wet, but girls are sort of always wet enough.

‘Fuck, you’re so pretty,’ he lies.

‘You are too.’

He grins, rubs over her hole, girls love that.

‘Yeah?’

‘Mm-hm. You want some?’

‘What is it?’ he asks, loves her cheap, nasty perfume, only sluts smell like this and he’s gonna treat her like one.

‘Coke,’ she says. ‘Got it for letting some guy choke me while he fucked my ass.’

Somehow that makes it even more irresistible.

‘Bend over,’ he tells her, pressing her lower, right beside the lines she cut for herself, cheek down, he holds her there and then lowers himself to inhale the line.

It’s bliss, it soothes and sings to his agitation.

‘Fuck,’ he murmurs. ‘That’s nice.’

He kisses her.

She kisses him back.

‘Need you to put it inside me, Daddy,’ she begs.

That shit goes right to his ego, and his ego lives in the base of his cock, always has. ‘Yeah?’ he grunts, hips rolling against her ass through the clothes. ‘You wanna get fucked up by Daddy?’

She makes the nasal, porn-star whine, helpless and dumb.

Billy takes the last line for himself, pulls away and looks at himself in the mirror.

He’s Billy fucking Hargrove.

‘Yeah you do, babycake.’ He’s looking at himself which he says it. ‘You want this dick. You need it, don’t you?’

‘Please.’

He smirks, head spinning like he’s on a fairground ride and got cotton candy in his blood. ‘You drive, princess.’

*

Nancy’s had a nap after she arrived in Bracken, West Virginia late that morning. She’s staying in a basic motel, but it’ll do for what she needs. Shower, bed and walls, she’s not fussy, not when she’s pursuing something real.

In the afternoon she'd walked the town, getting a feel for it. Bracken was little more than a handful of streets pressed into an Appalachian hollow, boxed in by wooded ridges that stole the sun hours before dusk. Bare oaks and maples stood black against the winter sky, broken only by the dark green of the hemlocks. Woodsmoke drifted lazily from chimneys, hanging in the cold air alongside the damp, earthy smell of leaf litter and the creek that ran beside the road. Weathered porches held neat stacks of split firewood. Rust-speckled pickup trucks outnumbered cars. The volunteer fire station sat opposite a squat brick church with a white steeple, while a faded diner, post office and family-run grocery made up most of what passed for the town centre. The place felt forgotten, not abandoned exactly, just bypassed, as though the rest of the country had quietly carried on without it.

Switchback Road had taken a while to locate. Half the roads out here didn't seem to exist on any map, but eventually she found it. The second floor sat above a weathered sign for Turner's Clock & Watch Repair, still hanging over the darkened storefront. The windows were boarded up, the business long since closed. There was no sign of Septem Trust. A narrow side door appeared to lead into a hallway and a staircase above. When she peered through the letterbox, the interior was almost pitch-black, carrying the stale smell of damp and rotting paper.

Nancy ducked into a local diner, ordered more food than she wanted and tried to strike up a conversation with the waitress, who was neither friendly nor rude, simply uninterested.

She left a generous tip despite barely touching half her meal. The grocery store proved no better. The same quiet, detached indifference met every question she asked. Nobody seemed openly hostile, they simply didn't want to talk.

She knows better than to go to a bar in a place like this, so she goes to the local church at the edge of Bracken beneath the shadow of the ridgeline, its white clapboards weathered almost grey, the steeple bowing beneath a century of Appalachian winters. Moss has swallowed the stone foundations and the cemetery spills down the hillside behind it, generations of the same family names sinking beneath dead leaves and lichen.

Inside, she goes right to the front.

Candles and warmth and the stink of aged wood and stone.

Nancy Wheeler fakes a prayer and then goes to the front. There’s only three people in here. Two sitting apart from one another in the pews and one Pastor up front lighting candles slowly. He looks at her, offers a faint smile, first she’s gotten in Bracken since she arrived earlier today.

‘Hi.’

‘Passing through?’

‘Uh, kinda.’ She matches his smile. ‘This place is beautiful.’

The Pastor shrugs. ‘It’s falling down but they won’t let me change a thing. One day it’ll fall around them, and they’ll blame me before they ever blame God almighty. What brings a lady like you to Bracken?’

‘I’m actually looking for family,’ she says, voice pitched low.

‘You have family here?’

‘I think so. I’ve been uh,’ he glances around but there’s only one person left now and it’s an old man right at the back on his knees. ‘Trying to map out my family tree as well as find any blood relatives I have, but so far no one will talk to me.’

‘Forgive me for saying this, but you come off like a reporter,’ he tells her, friendly enough but unsurprised about her complaint. ‘Maybe I can help?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate it.’

‘Not at all. What’s the name?’

‘Munson.’

‘No one living here by that name, but there’s a few headstones out there with the Munson name,’ he says.

‘So they lived here?’

‘Must have.’

‘I know it’s dark, but could you show me?’

He does. They’re fairly old, the most recent death date is thirty years back. She writes the names of all four gravestones, but none are familiar.

When they’re back inside, she thanks him and asks, ‘Sorry, one more thing, do you know of a company called Septum Trust?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘They’re registered here.’

‘Lot of people use places like this as their mailing address.’

‘Know of a Jack Ward?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Not a problem. Thank you so much for your time.’

She goes to the County Clerk’s Office which is, of course, closed by now so she sneaks around the back and makes her own way inside by jamming a window open and slipping in through the gap.

Nancy uses her flashlight to read the files she pulls out, ignoring spiders and the bite of icy cold winter nipping at the back of her neck.

Clarence Munson, one of the names she saw in the cemetery had two sons in the early forties and a girl five years later. Alan and Wayne. ‘Wayne,’ she whispers, scribbling the details. ‘Wayne Munson.’

This is it.

Wayne is Eddie’s uncle, so Alan Munson is Eddie’s father.

She delves deeper, but there’s no record of Alan having a child. Alan didn’t marry, either, at least not in Bracken.

Nancy settles in and goes through all birth records around the year Eddie was theoretically born. He’s twenty-seven now, his birthday is October thirty-first, but there’s nothing matching that date. She checks a year before, a year after but there’s nothing.

‘Fuck me,’ she mutters, pinching between her eyes.

All this for what?

The fucking Mawthorne Crier?

It’s not even worth it.

Even so, she searches the other names she saw out in the cemetery. Faye Munson was Clarence’s sister. Their parents were Della and Earl. Faye was never married, but she had a daughter. Ruby Munson, born five years after Alan.

Neither Alan nor Ruby died here.

It’s not exactly a dead end, but it’s disappointing.

Nancy feels stupid.

After stuffing the files back, and sneaking out again, she’s about ready to drive back and forget this mortifying excursion when someone speaks from the shadows and she flinches hard.

‘Find what you were looking for?’

‘Jesus Christ!’ she yells, hand on her heart and then, when she sees who it is, can’t help laughing. ‘In the flesh, I see.’

It’s the Pastor.

He doesn’t seem angry at all.

‘Just his servant. So, what did you find?’

‘Nothing. Literally. I didn’t damage anything. I just needed information.’

‘Most people don’t like talking about the Munsons,’ he says, falling into step with her as she walks to her car at the end of the alley. Nancy looks at him.

‘Oh?’

‘Some places love gossip like that, others bury it. Bracken’s not got a lot going for it, but the church means a lot to folks.’

‘I’m not gonna print a word of this. It’s for my own curiosity, OK? I swear.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I need to know if a boy was born here circa sixty-eight?’

‘To the Munson’s?’

‘Involving Alan.’

The Pastor sighs. ‘Far as I know, he ran away.’

‘Why?’

‘This is off the record,’ he warns her.

‘Scout’s honour.’

‘Alan and Ruby were cousins.’

‘Right?’

‘They ran away together.’

‘They… oh shit,’ Nancy says, grinning helplessly. ‘Like, cousins cousins?’

‘First cousins, and despite what you might think about small towns way out here, people was glad they left. That kind of sin has no place here.’

‘Did they have a kid?’

‘If they did, they had him somewhere else. I know they lived in Fayette for a while. Alan’s brother, Wayne, tried to track him down but far as I know, never could. Alan had himself an RV.’

‘Do you know what kind?’

‘No. And I wouldn’t go breaking into the DMV. That place is alarmed.’

‘I won’t. Thank you for this.’

‘You’re leaving now?’

‘Yes, I’m leaving.’

‘Good. Curiosity in excess is a sin, you know.’

‘Didn’t think it was one of the seven, but thanks for your help.’ She gets in her car, writes Fayette County on her pad plus RV – Alan Munson. The Pastor taps on the window, so she rolls it down. ‘Yeah?’

‘I heard they found a body out in Logan County, Colorado some years back that they believed might’ve been Ruby. They said it was maybe her, but she was too burned up to tell for certain. Without dental records, it was just a maybe.’

Fuck.

What had Tommy said to her about Eddie?

Colorado. A cult. Something.

‘How many years back?’

‘At least ten, but I can’t quite recall, forgive me.’

‘No, that’s actually really helpful.’ Nancy adds Logan County, CO to her pad, circling it viciously, and smiles sweet for the Pastor. ‘You’ve helped a lot.’

‘Go with God.’

‘And you.’

Nancy pulls out her map once he’s gone, and flips all the way to Colorado, plotting her next drive.

*

Billy’s rolling.

All the yellow streetlamps are dancing, making little wriggly tails as they go by in this fuck-ass van of hers, her, what’s her name? Chrissy. That’s it. Eddie Munson’s ex.

He’s really fucking rolling.

‘W’s good shit,’ he tells her, sweaty and warm.

‘Yeah, you liked it? I got plenty more.’

‘S…mm. Have to be smart,’ Billy says, frowning. ‘Gonna fuck you so good, princess.’

‘You sure are.’

He giggles.

His hands itch.

‘Did you always wanna be a whore?’ he asks, grinning, head back against the seat, eyes closed. ‘Or were you just real good at taking dick?’

‘No little girl ever wants to be a whore.’

Billy snorts. ‘Don’t want little girls, gross.’

She pulls over somewhere dark, and it’s familiar but he can’t place it. Looks almost like Wisteria. God, he misses that house.

He misses Steve in his arms, in that bed, kisses and warm skin and pillow talk and Steve never, ever tried to leave him no matter how hard Billy kicked him, fucked him, hit him.

He loved Billy enough to stay.

It’s making him hard right now.

‘You’re still gonna pay me right?’

‘Huh?’

‘You said you’d give me two and a half grand if I fuck you.’

‘Oh, right. Yeah, sure, baby. Where are we?’

They’re far from the houses, but Billy can still see them.

It’s dark. Quiet. His head is spinning.

‘Don’t… uh, feel so good.’

‘Lemme drop the seat down.’

‘No, I need air.’

The back of his chair vanishes, it doesn’t roll, it collapsed hard and jolts him in a way where he’s briefly seeing stars. He hears her get out, and then another slam. She pulls him under the arms just like how he held Cody earlier, his son, his little boy. He’s in the back of her shitty van now.

‘There we go,’ Chrissy says.

‘Need air.’

‘I thought you were gonna fuck me?’

‘No, I…’ He tries to sit up, but it’s really fucking hard. ‘Feel sick.’

‘Come on, Hargrove, I want my money.’

‘You’ll get your money, bitch, just let me get some air first!’ he snaps, has to roll onto all fours to get even remotely upright and his stomach clenches tight, skin breaking out in a cold sweat. ‘That wasn’t coke.’

‘Smart boy, huh?’

‘What was it?’

‘Little Georgia Home Boy atop the coke.’

‘Georgia… what?’

‘GHB, you dumb fuck.’

Billy tries to focus as primal fear grips him from the inside out, claws in his soft organs. ‘What?’

‘You don’t have a penny to your name, dipshit. I know the kind of lies silly little boys like you spin to get a free fuck.’ She takes a drink of something and then pushes him over with her boot against his ribs. ‘You’re gonna be rolling for hours, babycake.’

In a pathetic crumpled heap, he asks, ‘Why?’

‘Let me ask you a question. Do you really hate Eddie?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘More’n anything.’

‘If that’s real, then I might have a use for you.’

‘Did—didn’t have to drug me, you slut.’

‘Oh, puppy. You’d have done the same to me if only you were smart enough to think of it.’

The pet name makes shame and anger swirl low in his gut. ‘Fuck you, you ugly cunt.’

‘Yeah, that’s what you really wanted, wasn’t it? Take all that anger out on me and not even pay me for it.’ She pulls something out. Billy looks, tries to focus, sees a thick wad of bills. ‘The difference is, I’m actually good for it.’ Chrissy plays with the money like it’s a stack of cards, letting the notes cascade. ‘What do you think, puppy? You wanna make five grand?’

‘What?’ he croaks. ‘I don’t… what the fuck are you…?’

‘You’re real pretty, and you’re dumb as a rock,’ she sighs, lighting a cigarette. ‘I like that in a man.’

‘I’m not d-dumb.’

‘Do you want five thousand dollars, Billy?’

‘I need to get back to the… the trailer,’ he says, thinking of his ankle thing.

‘Your jewellery there is the EM90 type. A paperclip can short out the distance trigger if you know what you’re doing which I do. It defaults to widest distance possible. You’re good unless you leave town, I’d say.’

‘I can’t g-go back to jail,’ he slurs, mind swimming through cherry coloured treacle, his pulse gone wild.

‘Look, no beeps, no flashing light. Trust me, I’ve had enough to johns who wore these like a wristwatch. They knew all the tricks, and you got an old model. Easy to fuck with.’

Billy frowns to himself, can’t imagine the FBI giving out old models, but then what the fuck does he know?

‘Don’t feel good.’

‘Yeah? Poor thing,’ she croons, fingers slipping into his hair.

‘Wanna go home.’

‘You don’t have a home. You’re living in his discarded shell.’ He tastes her second-hand smoke, blinking hard. ‘He rape you?’

Billy shakes his head, but the lie won’t come out.

‘He always did like blondes,’ she says quietly. ‘So, you wanna earn five grand or not?’

‘The fuck you talking about?’

‘You were all flashy swagger before, offering to fuck me real good. I’m sweetening the deal, puppy. I’ll pay you, how’s that?’

He falls halfway to the side, slumped against the cold wall of this shitty van, spits his own saliva because it’s fizzy. ‘Take me back.’

‘You wanna go, walk away.’

Billy breathes slow and deep.

He tries to look at her, but there’s two extra Chrissy’s swirling around the real one. The money is real, flopping thickly like a soft dick in her hand.

‘You just want me to fuck you?’

‘I want to give you all the shit you wanted. All the bad, nasty shit you were gonna do to me and then not pay me after.’

Billy frowns, looks away. ‘Wasn’t gonna do bad shit.’

‘Liar. Do you want it or not? I got time to burn, but not limitless.’

‘Are we in Wisteria?’

‘Yes or no, puppy.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ he snarls but it comes out more like a whimper, a whine. A cold sweat threatens to make him shiver. He hasn’t felt like this since that night when Eddie put fingers inside him and Billy knew the devil was real.

But he does need the money.

And it’s right there. He could beat her up and take it once he’s not rolling anymore.

‘Fine, whatever.’

‘You’re gonna do what I say.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Then you’re not getting a dime.’

Billy’s mouth twists. ‘Fine.’

Just fucking wait till he can see straight.

He’ll put her fucking lights out, rob her blind.

‘Good boy.’ She pinches the cigarette with her fingers, kills it without flinching. ‘Come here, puppy.’

He bites back his temper, can suck it up for twenty minutes of sloppy girl sex or whatever. Billy crawls across the van to her, pulls his jacket off and undoes his belt.

‘No, no,’ she corrects, tone gentle, eyes sharp. ‘You’re not gonna need that. Puppies don’t fuck, they lick.’

Billy barely holds back what would have been a sound of disgust. He hates going down on girls.

But whatever.

He wants—no, needs that money.

‘Fine.’ He moves closer, confused, a little hesitant. ‘You wanna lay down?’

‘No.’ Fingers press into his chest, pushing him backwards. ‘You lay down.’

‘I thought—’

‘I’m not paying you to think, puppy. Lie back. Be good.’

Cheeks red with shame but there’s not enough light in here for it to show, so he does as he’s told, lies back and waits for… whatever. She must wanna bounce on his dick, maybe lick means her nipples or some shit. Girls go wild for that, Billy thinks. Chrissy undresses efficiently and fast. He can’t stop the mean thought that she must be used to it. She keeps her bra and top on but removes everything else.

When she straddles him, he’s half-hard but she doesn’t stay there atop his dick, she moves higher. Knees on either side of his head, she grabs him by the hair. The world is still spinning.

‘You wanna back out, puppy?’

Billy swallows. Shakes his head.

‘No.’

‘Open your mouth. Good. Now show me that tongue. Pretty, look at that,’ she praises, pressing smoky fingers into his tongue, lightly pinching the tip. ‘I can tell you never did this properly in your whole life, so I’m gonna walk you through it. Let your mind go quiet. Just be good for me. You’ll like it a lot more that way, I can tell.’

Chrissy shifts higher and then her thighs encase his cheeks and her pussy lips brush his nose, moving a little lower, adjusting until she finds his mouth.

The smell is intoxicating, overwhelming and weird.

‘Now use your tongue. I’ll tell you when it feels good.’

Shame is searing his blood, but he tells himself no one will ever know, ever see, ever hear and even if they did, no one would believe a slut like her, so he uses his tongue to lick her pussy. Unenthusiastic but obedient, he does the bare minimum, up and down between the lips, hopes she comes soon.

But after barely twenty seconds of this, she pulls off with a sigh and slaps his face, reaching back to grope his cock in a punishing grip. Billy is still gasping from the shock of his second slap today when her fingers find his balls through denim.

‘Ow, what the—?’

‘That’s not good enough, puppy,’ she tells him, low with warning. ‘You’re being bad.’

Billy winces, jaw gritted tight. ‘I don’t know how to do it the way you want.’

‘Use your tongue like a cock, put it inside me, in and out, then I’ll show you where my clit is and what to do, but whatever you’re doing, if your tongue’s not aching then it’s not good enough. Understand?’

Billy nods.

She lets go.

Descends upon his mouth once more.

He tries hard, difficult to breathe.

His tongue slips inside her hole, the taste of fresh wetness bathes his taste buds. Her hips roll.

‘Good boy.’

His brain makes flower fireworks.

Billy grunts, eyes briefly crossing before he gets hold of himself. He doubles his efforts, telling himself he’s just trying to move it along, get his money, get done, get her off, get away.

‘That’s my good boy,’ she whispers, playing with his hair. ‘Such a pretty mouth. There we go.’ Her voice is achingly soft, teasing, controlling. ‘Love that tongue when it’s not making words.’

Billy’s fully hard by now, the tip bleeding precome.

He reaches up to hold her hips, but she smacks his hands away. ‘Nuh uh, puppy. You just lie there and be a good boy. That’s it. That’s how I like you. Now, use your tongue to find my clit. It’s a little bump.’ She shifts her hips and Billy’s tongue makes a sensory map between her legs, and when he finds the nub she’s guiding him towards, she moans.

That sound makes more dizzy fireworks that fizzle and tickle his blood, his brain, his balls.

He moans too.

‘Oh, good puppy. You found it. Now, use the tip of your tongue to rub it back and forth, up and down, circles, all of it. Pretend it’s your big clumsy hand rubbing hard to get me off.’

Billy whines, tongue cramping already and drool is sliding down the corners of his own mouth but he does what she says, wants the praise.

The noises she makes now are deeper, more guttural.

‘Harder, that’s it. Hard as you can.’

Chrissy rides his face.

Billy can’t breathe.

‘Good boy, you’re being so good,’ she tells him, reaching back with one hand to unbuckle his belt and free his cock, gripping and jacking and rubbing it, and he whines like an actual dog, like a puppy, like a good fucking boy. ‘That’s it, make me come all over your face. You don’t need to breathe, do you?’

He’s dizzy, ears ringing.

Cock hard. Tongue hurts.

Can’t stop, cannot stop.

‘That’s it.’ She grinds harder, doesn’t seem to mind that his tongue isn’t doing what it did before, she’s just using his face for friction. ‘Be my little toy. My good little plushie puppy.’

Billy moans like a slut, his closed eyes stinging as she slips wet fingers into his ass and locates with terrifying precision some weirdly sensitive spot inside him that makes his whole body jolt violently. He screams into her pussy, smothered and trapped and helplessly blissing the fuck out as he comes, comes, coming like a whore on cock except no, she’s the whore, she’s…

She hasn’t stopped.

Still riding his face.

He genuinely can’t breathe now, still spasming in the aftershocks of that painful pleasure that lit up his cells.

‘Pretty boy,’ she praises, achingly breathless, her thighs trembling. ‘My good boy, Jason. You’re so fucking good for me. I love you. I promise I love you.’

Black, inky bliss is a water grave and he’s sinking deep.

‘Let go for me,’ she says, so sweet. ‘It’s OK. I like it.’

Billy is wet, he’s soaking wet, oh… fuck, no, god…

‘That’s it, make a mess, puppy. You just couldn’t control it, could you?’ She lightly slaps his dick and Billy actually sobs, eyes rolling all the way back. ‘My good, perfect boy.’

She grips his hair so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t wrench free from his skull, and she grinds down so hard his nose hurts and the noise she makes is beautiful and he’s drowning in her, wet like the waters of Santa Monica, salt and sea on his tongue.

When he comes to, the pressure and weight is gone.

He feels cold air on his face.

Hands on his shoulders.

‘Get out,’ she says, shoving him towards the wide-open doors of the back of this van. He can hardly think straight, still rolling, his pants are wet, jeans too, he’s just wet all over.

He needs to… to rob her, fuck how he is gonna…?

Billy tries to look.

At first he thinks it’s Eddie, and some traitorous part of him reaches for the man who hurt him, who fucked him over, who ruined him, Billy’s arms are outstretched to touch and say thank you and ask for more, but then he remembers this is a girl. It’s Chrissy Cunningham and she just used him like a sex toy, and he pissed himself after he came like an honest to god puppy.  

And he’s still rolling on that… fucking… GBH or whatever, so he can’t beat her, can’t do anything except pull his pants up and lick his lips. Clumsy and slow, he’s barely dressed when she pushes him out of the van and he lands on the road with a painful smack. It’s lightly raining.

God, let it wash away his liquid sin.

Billy claws to stand, gripping the van.

She gets out too, closes the doors.

He feels small.

‘You…’ he says, hates how weak it sounds.

‘Here.’

She thrusts something into his chest.

He takes it with numb fingers.

Paper. Money.

‘You missed your calling, pretty boy. I won’t see you around, but thanks. I really needed that.’

Chrissy kisses him on the mouth.

It’s so gentle.

So sweet.

Billy wants to cry. Beg. Cling.

Offer to be good some more. Be a puppy.

Be Jason, whoever the fuck that is.

But she just claps his cheek when she breaks the kiss and walks away, headed around to the front of the van, where she gets inside and leaves him on the road clutching what he hopes to god is actual money.

It’s raining, but Billy is already soaked.

He stows the money on the inside of his jacket, trying to breathe, to figure out where he is and how to get… elsewhere.

Shortcut through the woods in this state will likely be suicide, so he follows the streetlights back to the trailer, never having known himself less.

*

Steve has been cleaning for what feels like forever, pretty much blitzed the entire house by now, arms aching, but it helps to have something to focus on. He’s doing everything he can not to think of that beautiful baby Cody. How it felt seeing Billy again. How it made him feel, all the shit Billy told him.

Some Steve has been able to think about. Some not.

The tiles are pristine.

The windows are gleaming.

Surfaces sparkling.

Only Steve’s mind feels grimy.

Tainted, dirty, messy.

The house smells of bleach and lemons.

His hands are stinging and sore, lower back aches.

But the house, at least, is beautiful.

Under his control.

Around nine, Robin comes in.

Steve was cleaning the floor when she opened the door with her keys, walked in and paused.

‘Hey, you,’ she greeted, friendly enough but time hasn’t erased the disconnect, the distance. ‘Spill something.’

Steve had just shrugged, scrubbed harder, silently begging her to ask what’s wrong, what’s up with the cleaning, did something happen?

‘Do you need help?’

‘No.’

‘Do you, uh, wanna talk?’

Steve frowned, should have said yes, but would it kill her to offer it like she actually wants that instead of sounding like she was praying he’d say no?

‘Nah.’

‘OK, well. I’m headed back out anyway.’

‘You are?’

‘Just need to get changed.’

‘Are you going with Eddie someplace?’

Robin politely sidestepped his already clean portion of floor to reach the stairs. ‘Met some people. They asked if I wanted to go out for drinks.’

Steve’s frown deepened. ‘Who?’

‘New people. Do you wanna come too?’

Too.

An afterthought.

‘No thanks,’ he muttered, sullen, tears in his eyes, scrubbing the floor like fucking Cinderella, felt her eyes on him, needed her to ask what’s wrong, needed it.

But she didn’t.

She got changed and left, said she hoped he had a good night. Now he’s alone, and the house is spotless and he is a fucking mess.

Tears running down his face, he takes the cleaning supplies back into the kitchen and stores them under the sink, kneeling to ensure nothing spills. It smells bad under here, more so than just bleach and cleaning solution.

Steve wonders if something is leaking, doesn’t really know about shit like that but it’s way too strong for a standard cleaning chemical. It’s like super glue, stale vanilla and acetone, but impossible to ignore. He must have knocked something over when he grabbed the supplies.

So he pulls things out one by one, examining the bottles to check they didn’t leak. Most of the old stuff he finds has a thick layer of dust on it, or a grimy film, not been used for years. None of what he finds is leaking.

His fingers hit something damp when he reaches further back into the bottom shelf that’s out of sight, obscured by the structure of the sink pipes. Steve brings his hand back and smells it, senses reeling instantly as a wave of dizziness hits him like a cloud, instantly blurring his vision around the edges. The smell is cloying in his lungs, thickly overpowering.

‘Fuck.’

Worried it’s something caustic, he rises, swaying slightly, to rinse his fingers beneath the cold faucet, washing both hands.

It fades fast and he’s able to kneel again, senses restored, wary this time. Steve holds his breath as he reaches into the damp spill and finds a glass bottle behind some sodden cloths. He pulls them all out, lets the rags soak up what they can. That odour is insanely strong, he can smell it without breathing, it’s so invasive. He dumps the cloths in the sink, steps away to take a few clean breaths. He runs the faucet once more, letting water dilute and clean the cloths while he studies the dark glass bottle that must have spilled when it tipped over, no cap. The bottle has no layer of dust, no aged grime. It seems new, yet it was right at the back.

Steve has to rinse the bottle too and clean his hands a second time. The fumes are making him dizzy.

‘Fuck me, what is this shit,’ he mutters when it’s clean. He holds the bottle carefully to examine it. The label was peeled off, only plain dark glass remains but when he feels the underside, small, ridged letters remain.

Steve lifts the bottle, peering intently.

C-FORM 514.C-32

His breath locks tight in his lungs and he glances at the cloths in the sink, realisation making his guts lurch like a missed step in the dark. They’re his hand towels; the same ones Robin got him for Christmas. They’re new. The bottle is new.

Denial comes in fast, but not fast enough.

Steve can deny a lot of things, but not this.

He sets the bottle down, determinedly calm, forcing himself to consider the possibility that C-FORM means something else, anything else, that this is… acetone or antifreeze or anti-rust shit or fucking rat poison, anything but what it actually is.

The worst part about it is that the smell… is familiar.

It’s not brand new. His brain isn’t mapping it the way it did earlier, when he cuddled Cody and scented something new.

Steve steps back, locked between a sob and a scream, but neither come, neither can, he’d need breath to do that, and he’s scared to draw one.

Chloroform.

The urge to deny, look away, make excuses… none of that can override what’s coming to life inside Steve now, the instinct to survive, to live, to not be blinded by love a second more because some of what Billy said was undeniably true, and Hopper would only be looking for Jack Ward if he did something bad, and that Garfield ashtray was handmade, not store-bought, and Eddie has secrets just like Steve does, they’re all inside him, but Eddie’s are unreachable, unknowable and Steve has prided himself on not pressing, not being the pushy boyfriend, not making demands, being “chill”.

But that’s fucking chloroform there and it’s not old, it’s new, just like the washcloths and it’s in his house.

What had Eddie said?

You’re switching more than you realise.

Sometimes you’re violent.

Is he… chloroforming Steve to control him?

Steve turns away, stumbling blindly but making it to the phone on the wall. He dials blindly but Loki has started barking like crazy, such a loud bark.

‘It’s OK, boy,’ he tells him, voice shaking as he dials Sergio’s number from memory, but his shaky fingers fuck up so he has to start again. ‘Loki, shush!’

The dog goes running upstairs.

There’s some kind of a scuffle.

Then a tiny whine.

Steve drops the phone, leaves it dangling, and runs upstairs, heart in his throat. He’s barely to the top when a sleek, black gun with what looks like a silencer on the end is pointed right in his face and the arm holding it is attached to Chrissy Cunningham.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says calmly. ‘I tranquilised your dog, he’ll be fine. I’d never hurt an animal.’

‘What the fuck are you doing? How did you—?’

‘I climbed your drainpipe, Romeo,’ she explains, scoping around, hair tied back, gloves on.

She’s wearing Eddie’s jacket.  

‘Is Loki really OK?’

She pulls out another gun, smaller, a little plasticky looking.

‘This is the tranq gun. I’d demonstrate, but you’ll be out for hours and that’s pretty counterintuitive.’

‘Why are you—?’

‘Downstairs, Harrington. Nice and slow.’

‘You won’t hurt me.’

‘I will,’ she corrects. ‘You’re a man. That’s less to me than an animal. Less than bacteria. Now back up and keep your hands raised.’ She has a length of thick rope around her shoulder. ‘We’re gonna try this again, but this time, you’re gonna hear it from the man himself.’

*

Eddie Munson is a wreck.

That’s kinda funny.

He spits blood a final time, can feel it’s finally clotted where he bit through his own tongue, and tries to roll the bones of his neck, met with sharp resistance. He sways, almost falling as he walks to the house, shaking himself, laughing softly.

Wreck, wreck, wreck like Loup.

Like his life.

His love.

Him.

Steve is going to flip, but Eddie’s not going to lie anymore. He’s going to take him to the woods, show him where it happened, tell him everything and then… then they’ll be able to fix this together, come clean, fresh start, begin again.

Robin’s car isn’t there.

She must be out.

Maybe she’s out with Steve somewhere and Eddie has time to get cleaned up, fix what looks the worst.

Inside the house, it’s instantly too quiet.

He pauses, looking around.

No trails.

No Loki, either.

‘Steve?’

Something is wrong.

The silence is loaded, dense like a breath held inside lungs too long. He slips into Focus Mode, applying what very little he has left, and goes into the kitchen first. His stomach drops when he sees the chloroform out on the side, cloths in the sink, only one was ever used, but fuck. Steve’s found it.

Eddie looks around, no signs of a scuffle but the phone is hanging off the wall, dial tone raging quietly.

He leaves it off, goes seeking.

He detects the faint scent of Hargrove, would know that fucking cologne anywhere.

Rage fills in the gaps and makes useful strength as he follows it into the den, kicking the door open but freezing instantly when he sees who is inside.

Christiana is holding a different gun to Steve’s neck.

It’s a far better model, fixed with a silencer on the end.

She probably bought that with his fucking money.

And Steve is tied to a dining chair naked.

Completely naked, not even socks.

The rope is thick and solidly applied.

Ankles, legs, middle and upper chest. He’s gagged too.

She’s chosen the room he soundproofed a little so the kids could watch their movies as loud as they liked, rows and rows of movies on the walls. It’s dark inside but for the neon on the wall, yet he sees the flat, eerie determination in her eyes and deems her an unacceptable threat, moving towards her with full intent of ending this now, no time for monologues, no letting it play out to sate his curiosity, but for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, she surprises him by lifting the gun and pulling the trigger.

The difference is this time they’re not blanks.

A vicious bullet rips through Eddie’s shoulder, tearing muscle and scraping bone. The force of the blow sends him slamming into a nearby shelf, knocking videos down, the shelf itself falling atop him as he grips his shoulder, teeth grit hard.

Steve makes a muffled sound of distress. Eddie puts pressure on the wound, not fatal, but far from a scratch and he was already not in great condition.

Christiana demonstrated her resolve.

The same gun that just put a hole in Eddie is newly jammed against Steve’s bare shoulder. She cocks her head, daring Eddie to will the symmetry into existence. Eddie catches his breath when he stands, doesn’t waste it speaking, can’t.

He’s a fucking wreck.

He is not what he could be.

There’s a crack in everything.

Everything.

Him.

‘Hello again,’ she says, softly patient, ‘Bad Friend.’