Chapter Text
Hawkins was much easier to stomach at night. When the freaks came out. Eddie always found comfort in that word. It offered him a sure-fire way to piss people off. If rebelling against society made him a freak, then that’s what he was. What was so bad about not wanting to fit in? Not that he would know anything but.
Normal was a curse, and a prime example of it was Indiana.
He can tie his hair into a messy ponytail without catching flack now. Which also meant he could light up a smoke without singeing off a few inches. Eddie learned from experience, and that particular one was not something he wanted to reenact.
He lets his feet take him wherever slinking along with the company of his shadow. He supposed he should be more cautious, lest someone call the police on him in fear of being robbed or whatever.
Hawkins was as shallow as the community pool, where a fellow metalhead worked. Despite not knowing how to swim, and never remembering to apply sunblock, the hunky lifeguard was what drew Eddie to the fossil display this past summer.
One look at that mullet, and Eddie was… intrigued, to say the least. He had lived in this shit hole long enough to know boys should never be intrigued by other boys. Not even pretty ones.
His name was Billy Hargrove, and fuck, was he the prettiest thing Eddie had ever laid eyes on? The loneliest, too. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. A part of him resented Billy for his gift of effortlessly seaming his way through the conformity, and still holding onto himself. Or so he thought. Thinking never worked out well for Eddie. Smart didn’t suit him.
Billy Hargrove’s smiles, as charming as they were, seemed almost too good to be true. Eddie wondered how many of those were real, because as soon as people stopped staring at Billy, the smile vanished, a ghost only to return when the next eye fell on him.
It was too bad. Happiness suited him.