#author au

~

Murray didn’t like the idea of Eddie going back to Rick Lipton’s. The last thing Eddie needed was being caught with a known drug dealer, especially after what Melissa Buckley said to get him off the drug charges.

But Rick owed Eddie a favor and Eddie figured it was better to cash early so he didn’t hold it over the guy’s head for longer than necessary. Those type of guys weren’t a fan of owing anyone favors, but especially former low level drug dealers.

When Eddie showed up on his door with a six pack of beers and winning smile, Rick sighed, but let him in anyway.

“What the fuck do you want that you need me drunk for first?” Rick growled, popping open the first of the beers.

Eddie laughed and opened another of the beers. “If I wanted to get you drunk, man, I wouldn’t have brought cheap beer.”

Rick snorted, but didn’t disagree. They shot the breeze and just caught up for a moment before Eddie dived in.

“You know the favor you owe me for the thing that one time,” Eddie hedged. “This me calling that in.”

Rick lifted his chin and regarded Eddie thoughtfully. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“I need to know who sold Billy Hargrove his performance enhancers,” Eddie said bluntly. “Not turn him in or anything. This is strictly off the books. But he’s done disappeared, his behavior has to be drug related.”

Rick scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Me.”

Eddie raised a surprised eyebrow. “Wait, really?”

Rick nodded. “I don’t like putting any of the kids I have deal for me in that kind of trouble, so I do it myself. Plus I think I’m a pretty good judge of when to cut these assholes off. And Billy never quite got to that point.”

“Dude had too much rage to not be ‘rioded up,” Eddie said cocking his head to the side skeptically. “Especially with both the step mom and step sis saying he’d changed recently.”

Rick snorted. “Your daddy never bring another woman around after your mama died?”

Eddie blinked at him for a moment. “Not that I recall. Like he always had low level whores, pushers, and petty criminals around. It would be hard to say if he was fucking any of them.”

“Yeah, well,” Rick said with a huff, “you’ll just have to trust me on this one then. Billy was pissed that Neil had moved Sue and Max in before that side of the bed was cold. Because when assholes like Neil Hargrove make accusations of cheating you can bet that the call is coming from inside the house.”

Eddie licked his lips slowly as he took in that tidbit of information. “So his mom leaves him with cheating asshole, moves in his side piece and her kid and what? Neil starts smacking him around because he won’t fall in line?”

“If Neil wasn’t knocking him around already,” Rick agreed.

Eddie rubbed chin thoughtfully. The knocking around shit was something Eddie knew a little too well.

“You think Neil could have something to do with why he vanished?” Because it was starting to look like a distinct possibility.

“You askin’ if his daddy did him in?” Rick asked out right. “Because if you are, this conversation is over with. I don’t deal in the dead.”

Eddie shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be murder. Like maybe Billy took one hit too many and blew out of Dodge.”

Rick sat back and regarded Eddie through heavy eyelids. “Could do I suppose, but despite what people thought, he really liked his step sister. It must have been something pretty fucked up to make him leave her behind.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, frowning. Max had been freaked out by Billy’s violence toward her friend, but a boy putting his arm around a girl’s shoulders at the tender age of thirteen would make most older brothers see red. The way he broke the kid’s arm said a lot. But then again, being raised with violence? That did things to a person’s brain chemistry.

He rose to his feet. “Thanks for the info. I’ll lean more into Neil’s background and see what I can dig up there.”

Rick stood up with him and shook his hand. “You find that kid, and I’ll still owe you one, okay? Billy Hargrove may have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but I liked him.”

Eddie grinned. “You got it!”

~

“Sure I can do a background check on Neil Hargrove,” Murray said when Eddie told him his theory. “Probably should have been the first thing we did on both Sue and Neil, if I’m honest. It’s usually someone the victim knows in murder cases, but also in like theft and assault and shit like that.”

Eddie nodded. “I know Sue said she called all the hospitals and shit, but I’m going to take his yearbook picture and flash it around, see if anyone recognizes him.”

“Sounds good. Just don’t push yourself to the bone. Eat, sleep, and take a shit once in a while, yeah?”

Eddie laughed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Between you, Hopper, and Uncle Wayne, I’ll be sure to wipe my ass, ya worry warts!”

Murray just grinned at him. “Hop is just trying to make sure the state’s money is put to good use.”

Eddie snorted. Wayne had sued the state for not taking on any other inquires with the serial killer business. Especially when he found out Eddie had an alibi for the third murder, but because the police wouldn’t believe a bunch of drunks that Eddie had been on stage all night he was still their suspect.

Wayne had been against it as had Eddie. He was free and that’s all that mattered. But then Wayne had an accident at the plant and couldn’t work anymore. So they decided to sue the state. It turned out quite nicely Eddie thought.

“Serves him right,” he muttered darkly. “He could have pushed for more suspects but he was content to let me hang for something I didn’t do.”

Murray cocked his head to the side with a half shrug. “Yeah, he should have, but he was getting a lot of pressure to wrap it up as soon as possible and they didn’t care how.”

“Yeah,” Eddie hissed. “And what would have happened if I was in jail and there was another murder, what would have they done then?”

“I don’t know, kid,” Murray said shaking his head. “I didn’t say it was right. Hell, even I was telling him he need to check out Chrissy’s circle a little closer. Granted I thought it was her mother, but the issue still stands. He should have looked at the first victim more especially after you alibied out for the third murder.”

“Yeah.”

Eddie grabbed his gear and went out to his truck. It wasn’t new. He wouldn’t buy new. New attracted the wrong kind of attention, especially in a small town like Hawkins.

He first hit up the three hospitals in town, but none of them had seen him. The receptionist at the second hospital offered to give Eddie her number so he could call her to see if Billy wanted to go out sometime.

Then he went to the surrounding cities. And yes, Murray, he did stop to eat and sleep and all that shit. But at the end of the week, no one had seen him.

It was time to pump the kid for information.

~

Eddie pulled up to the middle school in his truck and waited for the bell to ring. He knew which door she was liking to come out of because he had talked to Susan about picking her up and got the info from her.

Once it rang, Eddie slipped out of the truck to lean against the hood, hands shoved in his pockets as he waited.

He didn’t have to wait long because soon the bright red pigtails were bobbing through the crowd. He gave her a little wave and immediately she made her excuses to her friends before she ran up to him.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed. “The principal is going to flip out if he finds out you’ve been seen talking to me.”

“I needed to get you away from Mommy Dearest,” Eddie huffed, “so I can actually find Big Brother. So wha’cha say, kid? You coming with me or are you going to make a scene like a punk ass bitch?”

Max’s jaw dropped in gleeful surprise. “Get in loser,” she said brightly as she came around to the other side of his truck, “you’re taking me MacDonald’s.”

Eddie burst out laughing and then got into the truck, unlocking her door from the inside. She set her skateboard on the floor at her feet and held on to her backpack. They drove the way to the burger joint in silence, Eddie bobbing his head to the music as Max just looked out the window.

He got her what she wanted and carried their food over to a table. She was about halfway through her fries when she spoke up.

“So wha’cha want?”

Eddie looked up from his own burger and blinked at her for a moment. He pulled out his note pad and pen. “Your mom didn’t want to admit Billy could be doping and I could tell there were other things you wanted to say, but just not in front of her.”

Max picked at the bun of her hamburger, peeling off the sesame seeds. “Neil had two modes drunk angry and sober angry. At first he would just hit Billy who could take it. But then he started going after me. Not Mom. Or at least not while I was around. It didn’t start with fists though.”

Eddie nodded. “He’d grip your arm too tight when he was yelling at you or he’d pull out of bed if you overslept.”

Her head snapped up and her eyes went wide. “Oh!”

He wagged his eyebrows at her and then cleared his throat. “So Neil was ramping up the violence against you, do you think he had something to do with Billy’s disappearance?”

“Billy is not dead,” she growled, leaping to her feet.

“I didn’t say he was,” Eddie said calmly, looking up at her. “There could have been a fight and Billy decided it was one fight too many, got the hell out of Dodge. But I need to know if I need to start looking at Neil a hell of a lot closer.”

Max sat back down again, hard. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Then she went back to picking at her food. “I mean, I guess. Neil was already pushing it pretty hard. One bad remark, one more punch to the gut, never the face. That was what Neil always said about Billy was that his only redeeming feature was how pretty he was.”

Eddie frowned for a moment. Billy was well liked, captain of the basketball team, a lifeguard at the rec center, popular with the girls. Didn’t do bad in his classes either. “Is Neil mental?”

Max had a laugh startled out of her at that. “Yeah, yeah. I really think he was.”

Eddie wrote in his note pad ‘NEIL HARGROVE IS CERTIFIABLE’. Max leaned over to the table to see what he wrote and snorted.

“Where do you think he would go?” he asked. “Like honestly. If Billy was going to cut out of town, where would he go?”

Max shoved a couple of fries in her mouth and chewed as she thought about it. “Some place with a beach. He loved surfing. It was his favorite thing. But he hated how cold it was here.” She paused for a moment. “He wouldn’t go back to California.”

That brought Eddie up short. “Why not? Doesn’t he have friends out there that would take him in?”

“Not really,” Max said shaking head. “Anyone he might know out there would be too friendly with Neil and rat on him.”

“Huh.” Eddie sat back and regarded her for a moment. “So we’re talking Southeast coast or Hawaii, then?”

“Considering I doubt he would have had the money to buy a plane ticket,” she said finally taking a bite of the burger she insisted Eddie buy for her, “I’d go with Miami and shit.”

Eddie wrote it down and then put it away to finish his meal.

“It just sucks because first Steve gets kicked out by his parents and had to leave,” she groused, “and then Billy disappears. It’s not fair.”

Eddie blinked at her for a moment. “Steve who?”

Max squirmed in her seat a moment as Eddie regarded her. They locked eyes.

She broke first, tearing her eyes away and looking down. “Steve Harrington. He used to look out for me when my mom was drunk or Billy and Neil were going at it.”

His eyes went wide. “And where the hell would you have come in contact with the king of Hawkins High?”

“My off and on again boyfriend is Lucas Sinclair,” she murmured, picking at her bun again. “Somehow, his parents trusted Steve to babysit him when he was younger. Once when I was trying to skateboard to Lucas’s house, Steve spotted me and offered me a ride. And since then he’s be annoyingly persistent about staying in my life and making sure I’m okay.”

“And you say he left town because his parents kicked him out?” Eddie wasn’t sure he was hearing this right. What would good ole golden boy do to get his parents to kick him to the curb?

Max leaned in close. “I think he left town not just because his parents kicked him out, but because he was afraid the killer might go after him next if it came out why he was kicked out.”

Eddie took that in for a moment. Jason had been targeting queer kids, and liking the boys would definitely be something Steve’s parents would not approve of. Ergo, Steve was some flavor of queer.

“Well shit.”

Max leaned back and nodded. “So yeah, it all just sucks.”

Eddie could only agree.

~

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Epilogue

Tag List: 3 SLOTS REMAINING

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It was just supposed to be a sweet little romance between a sweet, smart woman and a handsome prince. A short little wish-fulfillment shojo thing, maybe a couple of volumes, something to keep food on the table while he finished the pitch for the story that was supposed to be his real job. He was going to get his ninja drama established in a major shonen magazine and it would run for at least ten years. It would make his career.

It would have. He has to believe that. Because someday people are going to realize he has no idea how romance works beyond the most basic of fairy tales, and they’re going to metaphorically ride him out of town on a rail. He is not qualified for shojo.

He’s lost without a map, writing by the seat of his pants. And yet right now even that is not his most pressing concern. That would be the fact that his heart is beating out of his chest. He didn’t know you could even have a panic attack inside a hallucination, or a dream, or whatever he’s been stuck in. He’s a side character in his own story, they’ve passed up all the plot he already wrote and have moved on into the unknown, and he can’t deny any longer that he’s fallen in love with his own protagonist.

He’s such a cliche, and it hurts too much to even be offended about it.

The balcony scene could have been perfect. Out in the beautiful moonlit scenery, she would pine for her distant royal love. Her prince, of course, would be pining under the moon for her as well. A symbol of love, binding them together from miles apart- the symbolism would have been fantastic. And the shading, the delicate outline of her profile backlit by the moon- But no, every beautiful image has been wasted on an upstart nobody who wasn’t even supposed to be there. He had to have his existential crisis on the same balcony, and instead of pining for the one far away, she reached out her hand to the one who was there.

She’s supposed to be in love. She’s supposed to be focused on that. She’s not supposed to be so caring, and thoughtful, and earnest- He’s never even thought about what his ideal woman would be like, and only now does he realize he’s been writing her all along.

So he’s the one who needs to focus, to keep his eye on the prize and not let himself be distracted by impossibilities. As long as the prince keeps his hand on the leash, they can keep this plot on track. And maybe when he wakes up from this long, long dream, he’ll have another arc or two to keep it running.