it's all adrenaline. sweat sticking to his face, hair unruly, he can still feel the energy of the crowd. it's like getting goddamn zapped. lightning in his veins, his head tilts to look at eddie. a little red on the cheeks, the tip of his nose. jason is doing some sort of math. trying to see where it ended up like this for them. his fingers hurt from playing, there's gotta be a blister waiting somewhere for him. but he meets brown eyes and he's saying so much and they haven't even made it to the hall. he reaches out, skin on skin when eddie's shirt is that short. sparks flying, unplugged in the middle of the hallway where no one can really see.

jason smiles. the lingering feeling of eddie's breath on his, so close. in front of everyone, the type of shit they get away with because they are playing. because they are on stage. his heart beats so loud in his ears. it's like eddie is physically tripping, stepping around with two left feet. it's cute.

"stop it. you can't wait to the van?" jason's a double faced bitch because he can't wait either, leaning into eddie. he's looking from one side to the other trying to see if anyone. eddie crowding him, and his hands land on his cheeks. enamoured. "-dude you're like absolutely going to get us in trouble." it's not a complaint, it's an observation. it's buying himself some time. to look at eddie, to calm down. to not let himself run on just pure rush. this is the things that they write songs about. "-you're like so warm. i think you do got it bad. you're getting sick or something." he's playing it up, shaking his hand, holding onto eddie for dear life.

jason puts both hands around eddie's face. he grins, all teeth, and jason's doing the hard work of making sure no one sees. eddie doesn't really care let them, he thinks but really, there is not enough blood flow pumping to his brain to make him think about the consequences. instead, he's getting distracted by a slow trickle of sweat running down jason's neck. he would do just about anything to lick off. eddie twists his head, presses a light kiss into jason's palm. "c'mon. you love trouble." his hands find jason's elbows, wrap around them.

the bell rings as the door is opened. eddie is always like that, chivalrous. it's always a hassle, a new place, she can never quite decipher the type of thinking she can encounter in a new place. but everyone seems neatly distracted, the walls in this place are covered in worn out paper, floor to ceiling. jean looks around, a small sparkle in her eye. she doesn't like looking new, or out of place. but she has no choice. fire ginger hair with a soft smile, she is bound to stand out in a place like this.

green eyes turn to eddie, waiting for him before she walks further in. rows and rows of everything, from casettes to cds to vinyls somewhere off in the corner. she puts her hair over her ear. bites her lip. "-so, this is different." jean mumbles, leans into eddie's side. holds onto his jacket. not scared, never scared. wary, it's the way she moves about the world. pretending as if she cannot hear most people's thoughts in the background of her mind. pretending to be, mundane. regular girl jean grey.

"it's been ages since i've been to...you know, somewhere like this..." a pause, before she looks back into the see of aisles. "what are you looking for again?" making this about him, rather than her. a nice tactic she can buy some time with. it's only some time, eddie's nice to her in ways she sometimes wishes she could be annoyed at. meaning, he cares and asks. makes it about her. it makes her all melty, gooey at the center.

"alice in chains, the dog album." eddie puts his hand in between jean's shoulder blades, rests his palm over her back and gently pushes, guides her towards the familiar back half of the store. he told her what he was looking for on the way there, on the subway, but he'd gotten the impression she hadn't been listening then. was that loud too? "rereleased for their thirtieth anniversary. . ." he pulls away as they get closer to his beloved, much visited, well stocked metal section. a ring covered hand trails over the tops of the surrounding vinyls. "special edition. the vinyl is this nasty radioactive yellow. it's pretty cool." eddie comes to a full and complete stop, planted right in front of the first sign that reads 'metal.'

dialogue prompts from the first season of marvel's daredevil.

i want to make sure the right person pays for what happened.

let's leave on a note slightly higher than 'deeply depressing'.

admittedly, i'm a work in progress.

you just gonna lie there all night?

nobody feels sorry for you and nobody ever will.

smart is making the right decision at the right time.

i'm gone five minutes and you turn this place into a shit show.

well, you're just a little ray of sunshine.

there are no heroes, no villains. just people with different agendas.

you got a warped perspective on the whole good/bad thing, you know that?

do you have friends? people you care about?

relationships are a luxury we can't afford.

you don't know what's going on in your own backyard.

i swear i will not kill anybody.

try not to get stabbed.

maybe there's hope for you yet.

what part of 'don't tell anyone about this' don't you understand?

you're one of the good ones.

on occasion, some dickery may leak out. doesn't mean i'm wrong.

remind me not to put you on the witness stand.

i know what i'm doing. i am not some kid.

threats are clear in any language.

never trust the quiet ones.

respect: you gotta give it, if you want it.

we should be out on the streets, cracking names and taking skulls.

i'll go, if that's what you really want.

you made a promise to always be honest with me.

you believe what you're saying about me?

the hebrew word 'satan' actually means 'adversary'.

nobody can totally erase their past.

most people dance around me like i'm made of glass. i hate that.

man cannot be both savior and oppressor.

it's not a job. it's who you are.

if you weren't half dead, i would kick your ass.

was anything ever real with us?

say what you need to say.

why didn't you tell me it was that serious?

saying it means it's true.

there's nothing you can do but swim in shit and hope you don't get too much in your mouth.

we all have things we hold onto for ourselves. that we don't want anyone to know.

we don't live in a world that's fair. we live in this one.

i only ever needed my friend.

at least i got to see you with your shirt off again.

this isn't a story. this is people's lives.

how do you know the angels and devils inside me aren't the same thing?

what do i look like, a public damn library?

you're not supposed to be in here.

if you say 'it's complicated', i will punch you in the face.

i don't know how to pray.

i know things are weird, but i'm still around.

the world fell apart. didn't you notice?

someone tried to kill you and you're the one apologizing?

they could never take you away from me.

the wind blows harder the closer you get to the mountaintop.

you want to run away together, or just run away?

is this what we are now? people who don't even talk to each other?

i can't do this alone. i can't take another step.

you're not alone. you never were.

people seek the truth, no matter where they find it.

you look like you're having some anger issues. you want to talk about it?

you are my heart. you're everything.

god bless your designer pumps.

i know i haven't earned it, but i'm asking you to trust me.

go be a hero. just don't get killed doing it, okay?

it's not the end. it's just an inconvenience.

this city doesn't deserve a better tomorrow.

what am i supposed to call you?

" ... Do you think I fuck around? "

" There is no corner of my heart that I would not turn over to the world for five points. "

" I consider you a friend, which makes the fact that you are fucking with me all the more a betrayal. "

" It is completely unacceptable to ask someone to pre-promise their emotional response to information that they don't know what the content of it is. " 

" I'm going to have the reaction that is appropriate to whatever you tell me. " 

"You're trying to atone me... and I didn't do anything wrong."

" You're not getting a fucking joke out me until I'm out of this room. " 

" Everyone is laughin' it up, and I am fuckin' deadly serious, okay? " 

" I will die on any hill. I will die on ANY hill! "

" Don't give me the eyeroll. I stand by it. "

" To reach a hand down to somebody, they need to be beneath you. And I am beneath nobody. "

"You know what I always hated about you? You were so.. damn.. lucky."

" Nobody in the whole world is normal. That's an idea made up by clothing companies to sell t-shirts. "

" Some of our bodies are betraying us constantly. " 

sure enough, eddie munson is waiting for her. she’d half expected him to disappear, like a vampire fleeing from the summer sun.

"if anything this would be date number two. i believe, someone took me out to the forest to sit on the grass and watch the trees or whatever y'people do for fun here." billy walks, his mood faltering for a moment. this place brings back memories, some good ones, some not so great ones. it feels like a fucking eternity ago, he shakes off the sensation in the pit of his stomach. his eyes trace eddie's movements. the ghost of an almost kiss on his cheek.

billy then is all motion he walks past the usual walkway, his eyes lingering on the set of beach chairs laid neatly in a line. it makes him giggle. it's so stupid now, but he finds the switch behind the brick line that turns the night lights on the pool, they don't need it. but they'll need it later. "funny i never caught you around here. that summer. when i worked here. not a pool guy?" he tries to be somewhat more casual about this whole thing. it helps that it's hot and he's not uncomfortable. it's fine now. his eyes linger on the water, how still it is. he kicks his shoes off. then he stops, waits a beat or two. looks at eddie, trying to see if he's looking back. between lashes billy gets somewhat nervous. it's not like it's the first time but under the light of the fleating day he feels exposed, but he sheds the hoodie hair falling down with it he shakes his head. pendant pressed into his chest. he rolls with it. whatever feeling he's got in his chest about the whole thing. "don't just stare, start stripping." it's not mean the way he says it, just soft maybe a little wanting. a little hungry. with a little curl of the lip.

the eddie of last summer would've had to be bribed to spend any time at the hawkins public pool but he doesn't say that. maybe, if he had known there was someone there worth ogling at, he would've shown up, but last summer he hadn't known he was quite so interested in... well. lifeguards. clearly, eddie hadn't known a lot. "this place isn't really my, um, thing. a little too family friendly for my tastes."

billy's gone a little pale, but he's covering it up, saying something sleazy to smooth it over. henderson loves to whine and moan about how scary max's crazy big brother is but eddie doesn't see it. can't align the kid's bitching with the billy that stayed by eddie's bedside for months, taking whatever shit eddie threw at him. billy's just not that hard of a read. scar tissue glimmers across his chest, his back. the scars paint a gruesome picture, clue eddie in on the events no one has been able to describe to him in full detail. even scarred, billy looks pretty, right in his little shorts, like he's supposed to be playing volleyball on the beach in some god awful mtv music video. eddie's caught redhanded, openly staring at miles and miles of newly exposed skin. he grins, wolfish.

oh – this isn't going to go down well. ❝ t-tonight?! you mean this night? and not tomorrow night? ❞ he tried to get out of dnd for the evening after realizing the time of the month it had been. a full moon will be in bloom. and while scott has his werewolf side a lot more in control than before, he's still kinda grouchy the day of. (just today alone he's snapped teeth at another classmate and he'd heard some mumblings about fractured ribs – his doing. he'd gone a little too hard during practice.) ❝ can't we just reschedule … again? ❞ this would make the second time this week alone that he's requested a raincheck date. it's not exactly his fault there's hunters running amok and every other tuesday the world is coming to an end! his world to be exact. brows furrow, he can see he's not getting out of this so easily. (even stiles had made an attempt with some weird excuse and that didn't flow over well.) ❝ it's a ‘no’, isn't it? ❞ 

if — she were doing that. which, she isn’t. just dogs and cats, like she promised brigitte. it’s just not fair that she’s here and he’s pissing her off and she’s starving. focus.

it's summer. it's summer and billy's doing an effort and a half to get out of this stupid, stupid town. that means overtime, working any chance he gets picking up every shift. school's over, curtain call. two minute warning. ten seconds on the clock and the finger close to the buzzer. it's agony. except.

the past few weeks billy's had the pleasure of working with eddie munson, nothing good has ever been said about the guy and his work ethic leaves a lot to be desired. the guy didn't even want the job in the first place but here he is. it all started with a bit of back and forth and now billy knows what the back of his throat tastes like. and it's been like. a little more bearable than usual.

then.

then. they had it, the wonderful idea of sneaking into the backrooms of the mall for their break. to fuck around, smoke, play footsies or whatever two lowlife dumbasses get up to. school and it's stupid hierachy is haunting some other bitches. not billy. and so they are sitting down, the ac blasting, making everything so damn cold. and billy's smoking in doors...eddie's playing with the lighter.

"do you think he's coming?" billy asks, casual, teasing. taps the end of his converse to eddie's outer thigh. to rile him up, to ask for some well deserved attention. "-or is he leaving us high and dry?" he's talking about steve harrington who also finds himself in a stupid job with an even stupider uniform. (a little pornographic, if you ask billy, the way the shorts are long but hugs his ass, the way the shirt rises up and leaves a trail and billy cannot help but let his mind wonder. and wonder he does.) eyes on eddie, because eddie is facing the door, gets first dibs on staring. on harrasing but this is where they find themselves lately. and billy isn't complaining.

"who? steve?" eddie asks, as though he has thought about anything else other than billystevebillystevebillysteve his whole break. his whole day. his whole summer. it's fucking ridiculous. billy hargrove calling he and eddie an us. them waiting in a freezing mall alleyway for steve harrington to come grace them with their presence. he's letting a couple of jocks loiter in his precious brain space. get a grip.