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Eddie would be lying if he said that he wanted this living arrangement.
He can't say he hates Jason, not entirely. He can get why a grief-stricken, terrified teenager would immediately want to bludgeon the first name he had mentally categorized under "girlfriend murderer", especially when that name was someone that he had been terrorizing since middle school. He can also understand how having your dad as the figurehead of the Hawkins' Church would instill some kind of holy, oracle-style duty upon one's shoulders, making them believe they had to kill their local metalhead to avenge their cute little cheerleader chick. All of that, Eddie could understand. Hell, he could even empathize with it. What he couldn't empathize with, however, was having this little meltdown be the sole reason he nearly lost a handful of limbs.
Again, Eddie didn't put all of that blame onto Jason's back, since it wasn't his burden to bare. Not entirely, anyway; while Jason's satanic panic absolutely caused Eddie to go into hiding, resulting in him following Henderson's merry group of whatever he calls them and learning all about the alternate reality just under his nose, eventually following them into it and nearly getting torn apart by some particularly disgusting looking bats, it wasn't because of him that Eddie did what he did.
He wanted Dustin to get out of there, alive, by any means necessary. It's not like they were blood brothers or anything like that, but he saw a lot of himself in Dustin; just another nerd, some other so-called freak, that deserved to find people who were just as excited about his interests and terrible music taste as he was. After all, he knew that even if he didn't make it, Dustin wouldn't end up alone. He had his own Party of friends, Wheeler and Sinclair included, as well as motherfucking Steve Harrington, who may as well be his mom at this point. He wasn't as pathetically alone as Eddie was, no matter how much it stung him to admit that. He would be fine, just as long as Eddie could finally stop being a coward and save somebody.
So, you could imagine his shock when he managed to wake up in Hawkins General, Dustin wailing hysterically into what looked like a blurry version of his leather jacket, creasing the edges with how hard he was grappling onto it. Had he had the strength to do so at the time, he would have yanked it right back out of Dustin's hands and told him to be careful with his baby, but he couldn't. For a while, he couldn't.
While bumming around in recovery, being acutely aware of the fact that none of the nurses liked him, even though he remained cooperative the entire time; it was obvious they still saw the Antichrist whenever he'd jokingly stick his tongue out or laugh absentmindedly at something his uncle was telling him about, he would occasionally hear bits and pieces about some of the other people there, mostly through eavesdropping on nurse gossip. A few people who had lost arms trying to pull themselves up from the 'earthquake', others who had crippled themselves from trying to squirm out of the cracks left behind, hundreds upon hundreds being treated for the mysterious burns caused by the sheer heat that erupted from the cavern. Nothing really interested him all that much, all but one person.
Jason Carver.
If he wasn't enough of a golden boy at school, he was certainly one here, much to Eddie's chagrin; he had been caught directly between the earthquake, his body almost being split in two, resulting in various organ failures and thousands of stitches being checked each and every day to make sure he was alright. The nurses would lament about how he sounded like he was in just so much pain, how they had to replace his bandages every hour or so, how he had to use a feeding tube due to his intestines basically hanging out whenever they tried to check if they were healing. Though, those laments would quickly vanish when some other nurse mentioned they were getting huge bonuses from Jason's parents, who were making some big public fuss about their son being harmed and donating all they could to the hospital to make sure he would recover safely.
To Eddie, all that meant is that his smear campaign was only going to get worse, even though Dustin claimed it wasn't too bad. He wasn't a moron, though, and once he was cleared to go back home, he was barely surprised at his trailer having been wrecked by the Hawkins' Tigers and his neighbors alike; the windows were shattered with bricks, each of them branding the same old insults Eddie had heard all his life, with "devil worshipper" and "murderer" being a new colorful addition to that long, long cast. The walls looked like they'd been clawed at, and the area where Chrissy's body once lay was scattered in debris from the roof of his trailer, broken glass, blood, and just about anything else Eddie could list off the top of his head.
He tried his best to clean this up in private, naturally. Wasn't gonna clean itself. He grabbed a few spare shirts to board up the windows, making sure nobody knew he was home, while he winced and bled his way through fixing up his trailer back to how it used to be. His uncle offered to help more than once, but Eddie only requested that he get him whatever painkillers he needed, and groceries, since he couldn't go showing his face around town anymore without potentially being executed right there near where Starcourt Mall used to be.
After a few grueling weeks, he could comfortably say he'd gotten a routine down in his newly made home; wake up, work on some music, occasionally check outside to make sure Chance or Andy aren't coming around to break his nose again, wait for Uncle Wayne to ship him his groceries, write some lyrics, go to sleep. While it was boring, it was doable, just until he was able to cough up the money to move out of here and never look back. He was gunning for San Francisco next, or New York, somewhere that wouldn't give a shit what Hawkins' latest drama was. Even if it was potentially world-ending.
Though, even though he had always relished in being an isolated freak, the isolation was driving him mental. He could pretend, sure, act up a storm in front of his uncle and over the phone with Dustin, dramatically announcing that Eddie the Banished was always doomed for a life amongst the outskirts of society, he couldn't handle it anymore. And it made the pain near unbearable to live with, even though he knows he got off way easier than a lot of other people.
He missed his band, for one. He had found out through a few nurses that Gareth, Jeff and Doug had moved away, their parents wanting to protect them from the humiliation and danger that being willingly associated with Eddie Munson would bring. He understands, obviously, but he only wishes he could've said goodbye. He still has their character cards on his kitchen countertop, something he kept as a souvenir from Hellfire. At least he's got a vague reminder of their voices, all courtesy of Dustin's Bard Box, but it didn't matter in the face of the overwhelming dread that came from the fact that he was beginning to forget their faces.
He also missed his guitar, which was starting to become far too obvious now that he was running out of shit to do, music-wise. He could use the shitty acoustic guitar he got as a gift from his mom at some point, sure, but it didn't create the sound he was looking for. He hates the fact that everyone else seemed to get their belongings but him, which the police chalked up to 'poor investigation work'. Yeah, no shit.
All in all, while he was slowly starting to feel like he was being housed in a torture dungeon, something that he only used to write about for campaigns, he was living a pretty peaceful life. About as peaceful as someone like him could get amidst the apocalypse, anyway.
So imagine his surprise when Jason Carver rolls up to his doorstep, holding a limp, trembling hand over his torso, tears welled up in his eyes. If Eddie wasn't aware of the fact that there is, in fact, a Hell now, he would've assumed this was some high-ranking demon coming in to tempt him into sinfulness. Or an oasis. Whatever makes the metaphor sound cooler.
Once Eddie had managed to hold back his desire to break Jason's nose for even thinking of showing up here, especially when he could get shot square between the eyes for opening the door to his trailer at all, he noticed that he was sobbing too loudly to even hear whatever protest he was giving him. That, and he was bleeding through his banged-up Letterman jacket, the green beginning to pool with the red, creating an ugly, muddled brown.
The crying wouldn't have been enough to get Eddie to cave, but the bleeding certainly did, against his better judgment. With his increased strength (thank god for pills!), he was able to get Jason inside and settle him into a moderately comfortable position on his couch, even though it was pretty dirty by this point. Sue him for not cleaning up the stains on the couch only he used.
Though, he did feel pretty guilty about the fact he only had a few miserable comforters for Jason to pick from, something that proved pretty impossible from how loudly he kept fucking wailing. Eddie eventually decided on slipping him a dose of painkillers, something he noticed Jason brought with him in his miserable little backpack, and tucking him into his couch with some random quilt he had from some aunt or grandma, he wasn't super sure. All he knew in that moment was that Jason was able to settle down, other than a few whimpers and barely hidden complaints about the pain. This is where Eddie simply leaned forward, facing Jason directly in the eye, and asked the most comprehensive question he had heard in a couple of months;
"What the fuck, Carver?"
Jason's tense expression quickly deflated back into a droopy, sad dog looking affair, as he bumbled through an explanation of what had happened to him. His parents had immediately ditched him once he was allowed to go home, not even bothering to find some sort of caretaker that would be able to help Jason through the very plausible concept of his stomach ripping open again. Their reasoning, which Eddie had to partially fill in the blanks for, since this is where Jason really started to crack, was that their son was now tainted with the devil's influence, and would prove to be the downfall of their entire family lineage, or some bullshit. He wanted to protest, even quip, about the fact he had written that backstory for a cleric character back in the day, but seeing Jason wrap his arms around himself in some pitiful attempt at comfort quickly shut him up.
He could do nothing more but sit there and listen as Jason continued to explain that he had nowhere else to go, that nobody was willing to take him in, not even Chrissy's parents (who he had been surprisingly close to, who could've guessed?), and that had he had the choice, he would've gone anywhere else. He seemed to place a special emphasis on mentioning that he could've gone with just about 'anyone else', because, if Eddie hadn't gone entirely delirious by this point, he could've sworn there was an apology somewhere in there.
He would've sworn that, of course, had it not been for the fact that whatever string of supposed apologies left Jason's lips was quickly followed by the extremely unfamiliar sound of soft snores, something that Eddie wouldn't have expected to hear from Jason in this lifetime, or the next. Despite his innate rage at Jason for dropping in like this, there was nothing more that Eddie could do except bring the quilt higher over Jason's shoulders, awkwardly tucking him into Eddie's couch, which had, admittedly, not been prepared for any guests.
Once he was sure that Jason was actually asleep, and not plotting on killing Eddie during his own sleep, which he considered was a very reasonable concern, Eddie made his way back onto his cold, lonely mattress, finally settling in for the night.
From that fateful day onward, what was now Eddie's meticulously crafted routine had also become Jason's, despite how utterly absurd the situation seemed to him. The mere concept of living with Jason Carver already seemed like something out of a lame little middle school nightmare for Eddie, like when you dream about showing up somewhere with no pants on, or your teeth falling out, but he couldn't quite decide what this sort of nightmare meant for him.
For one, Eddie had found it extremely offputting that the Jason that he was living with currently, mostly against his own will, wasn't the Jason he had been able to deflect insults from left and right for years, finally learning how to avoid taking anything he said to heart and stand against him. No, Jason wouldn't ever allow him the satisfaction of having felt like he won, and a small part of him hoped that, on the inside, Jason was gloating about this small victory.
But every time Eddie looked at Jason, he couldn't bare to capture more than a glance. While he could generally say that Jason looked upset, there was no describing just how... weak he looked, how small he seemed, curled up under Eddie's quilt. This was only further exacerbated by how little he spoke, how he lacked any reaction towards anything Eddie threw at him, whether positive or negative. This Jason Carver was a husk of the man that once was, now only serving to carry his likeness around Eddie's house, taunting him for not having been able to forget about him entirely.
It didn't help that Jason also wasn't able to do much of anything on his own, something that was clearly starting to get to him. However, for Eddie's own peace of mind, he had decided that he was going to ignore that, having to actually focus on how they were going to make this living situation work.
The reality of the situation was that, while Eddie didn't have as big a problem making Jason an extra portion of his meals and making sure he didn't bleed through his couch, he did have an issue with not being able to read Jason the way he used to. Back at school, Jason was the most transparent person Eddie knew; a fraud that wore his ire on his sleeve, whose sheer hatred against Eddie shone through even when he wanted to seem civil. In a way, Eddie was Jason's greatest weakness, and he had always revelled in it.
"Doesn't matter. Just hand over lunch, Munson." That was Jason's response the last time Eddie had tried to broach this conversation. However, Eddie wasn't one to stand down in the face of resistence, not when it couldn't hurt him. Lifting Jason's food just out of reach, right in the range where reaching upwards could potentially rip out his stitches, was usually the way to forcefully pull a response out of him.
"I wanna know what the hell you think this is. What's the plan here, huh? You gonna use me to get all better, then beat the shit out of me and rat me out to the cops? Don't think I won't kick you out onto the street if you even think about trying it. I'll let the mob outside deal with you, burn you at the stake for witchcraft." Eddie didn't actually mean that last threat. He never did, no matter how many times he had used it, because he wouldn't actually let Jason go through that. He did, however, believe he had more than enough reason to legitmately fear being found by the Hawkins' Tigers, and put on death row by the police for murder, because if that was Jason's actual plan, he was more than ready to start selling his belongings and hopping on the first ride to the next continent over.
That final comment wasn't meant to be serious, either. Nothing more than a jab at their current situation, a reflection on how they had even gotten here in the first place. But Eddie was immediately hit with an unfamiliar pang of regret, something he rarely felt around Jason Carver of all people, when Jason ducked his head down, forecast eyes looking anywhere but up. He wouldn't even spare a glance at the beam of sunlight that he so often retreated to, choosing to recoil back into the couch and drag the quilt over his body, the movement heavy, as if he was layering himself in dirt.
There wasn't much Eddie could do to remedy the situation, anyway. He had decided, then, that he wouldn't keep trying to surge any form of conversation, since it was more than obvious that Eddie Munson and Jason Carver were never meant to get along to begin with. It was some benign, alien concept, which Eddie once supposed could be possible; if Hell was real, and directly under Hawkins, why couldn't this be real, too?
He chose not to linger on it for too long, preferring to awkwardly hobble back into his room and pretend to work on a new song, forcing himself to ignore the quiet sobs coming from his couch.
Now, Eddie was well aware of conspiracy theories. He understood there was a certain thrill in trying to uncover the impossible, to prove that it could walk among the human race, being hidden just out of sight where nobody could see it. He'd heard Dustin babble on about it more than once, showing him all his graphs and charts and whatever to prove Bigfoot was hiding out in the basement of one of the rich pricks from Loch Nora. That, he understood.
But Eddie had always had one foot in reality, whether he liked it or not. Being a Dungeon Master quickly teaches a person that being too immersed in your own stories only serves to hinder the whole party, as it can cloud your vision sooner rather than later. There's no way to escape a dungeon if you're too caught up on the texture of the boulders that impede the exit, or if you keep focusing on the color of the enemies' fur. It won't matter in the long run.
So, naturally, he never got super hung up on UFO sightings, or Mothman, or the Chupacabra. All popular, but all equally wrong.
He was, however, starting to think that Jason Carver being gay was up there with them.
Well, maybe not completely gay. Even though he believed that their relationship was some primal, genetic ritual leftover from the homosapien days, where the male has to flaunt his superior female mate to all the other backwards monkeys, Eddie could tell that Jason really did love Chrissy. Even the fakest people at Hawkins' High couldn't fake that kinda love. He always mentally separated them from the other jocks and their stereotypical cheerleader girlfriends, all based on the way he looked at her, or how he held her hand.
And sure, it was clear they had their problems. That much was obvious when Chrissy came running to Eddie for drugs, twitching violently, eyes glazed over as if she was somewhere else. The fact that she hadn't gone to her own boyfriend about this months ago spelled it all out for him, especially since he had dedicated such a cheesy, romcom-style speech to her that very same day. She seemed so lost, so untethered, that Eddie sometimes supposes that he shouldn't have been so shocked by what happened to her. Even though he wishes he could've helped.
Jason grieved like a lover scorned, that much was true. It would be impossible for Eddie to deny that, given he had been on the receiving end of his rampage, all for trying to get Chrissy to finally drop the act for a few hours and relax. While it pissed him off that Jason was pinning his obvious lack of interest in his girlfriend's problems on him, resulting in her only getting worse up until she died, he could tell that the pain he was feeling was real, tangible in a way that made the whole situation seem that much more intense, at least from Jason's perspective.
Therefore, you'd have to sue Eddie for starting to wonder if he was really seeing Jason Carver checking him out, or if being this socially isolated was starting to drive him up a wall.
It wasn't like Jason wasn't trying to be subtle, which is why, the first few times he noticed this, Eddie was wondering if he was really just making this up in his mind. At the time, he was wondering if he was only assuming this because he hadn't gotten checked out in over a year by this point, and he was seriously starting to miss those shreds of attention he'd get at bars back in the day. Back before this went down.
Eddie wouldn't say he was extremely subtle about his sexuality, anyway. When he still had the freedom to do so, he'd frequent bars a few miles out from Hawkins, making sure that he didn't accidentally sleep with anyone that he could potentially be passing by at the supermarket come Monday morning. When that started to grow unsustainable, mostly due to the amount of gas he was wasting on pretty mediocre hookups, he decided to make himself into a walking calling card for Hawkins' finest repressed gay men; the little red bandana in his back pocket signaled him out well enough, most of the time.
He'd purposefully stuffed it where he would've wanted these potential suitors to be looking, obviously, and that's why he was so keen to the sensation of having eyes on him. That, and being bullied for years, of course. Ironically, he could probably say that the man whose eyes bore the most holes into the back of his head was Jason, which only made noticing his secret attempts at watching his every move that much easier.
Again, the first handful of times Eddie noticed, his mind immediately ventured off into the realm of scrutiny. Whenever Jason would be looking at him from the couch, whether that be his hair, his back, his legs, whatever, he had this sour expression on his face, as if he was trying to find mistakes where there were none. He almost looked like he was trying to convince himself that something was wrong with whatever he was staring at, only to grow frustrated that he couldn't find anything and promptly slamming his face back onto his pillow.
Eddie should've known that this wasn't going to last long, not for someone as outwardly emotional as Jason. If Eddie's mere existence already angered him to the point it had for years, the existence of feelings this confusing was probably going to lead to him burning down the entire trailer.
It had been one entirely unassuming night, one of the few where Eddie decided to risk calling up Dustin. More accurately, it was one of the few times Eddie picked up Dustin's hundreds of phone calls, shame always creeping up his throat before he could get any real words out, let alone start a conversation. It didn't help that Dustin always promised he'd stop by to visit him, vaguely alluding to the rest of his little gang coming by, something that Eddie knew wouldn't happen. He always tried not to sound too unenthused, all while his mind went to the most obvious conclusion that none of Dustin's friends wanted to be caught dead with Eddie, and were just pandering to this silly dream of his.
Once he'd finally hung up, he decided to get started on dinner, which was basically whatever he could scrounge up from the fridge. His uncle had been kind enough to buy him some instant soup cubes, which he guessed made a fine enough meal, if a little boring. As long as it didn't require he chop anything up, he was fine with setting out some water to boil and waiting idly by, magazine in hand.
The only thing about Jason's condition that Eddie could say he was grateful for, is that he was ridiculously easy to make food for. He wasn't a doctor, but he managed to interpret, through Jason's delirious sobbing, that he couldn't really eat anything too solid or too hot without his intestine potentially melting out of his chest, bringing all his other important organs down with it. Fair enough, Eddie guessed, as he upgraded from beer and peanuts every night to average tasting soup and mushy instant noodles.
Most of these foods took some waiting, though, which Eddie had been using to catch up on whatever entertainment his uncle got for him. If it wasn't television, which only really had basic broadcasting channels on it, anyway, he would flip through music magazines like there was no tomorrow, occasionally letting himself dream about buying one of the snazzy guitars showcased on them, knowing he was far too poor for that.
A habit born out of this new routine was that Eddie tended to lean over the kitchen counter as he did so, letting his arms limply hang over the other side as he aimlessly glossed over articles about yet another rockstar overdosing on coke, something that he hadn't realized could lead to more... suggestive positions than he intended on performing.
Something important to note was that, even though Jason was standing up more frequently now, he was still essentially couchbound for the time being. Since Eddie's trailer didn't have separate rooms, this meant that his direct field of vision would almost always be facing the kitchen, which was just behind him. This used to be convenient, since Eddie could just push his plate to the end of the counter and let him grab it himself, but with this new development, it also meant that he got a particularly focused view of Eddie's ass whenever he'd be waiting for their food to be ready.
Still, though, Eddie wasn't paying attention to that. During some point in his idle waiting, he'd been embarassed to realize that whatever pot he halfhazardly got out of the cabinet was pretty damn dirty, meaning he had to throw out the water that was already boiling out of fear it would taste like god knows what.
Grabbing a new pot proved to be a little challenging, as his arm wobbled back and forth from the sudden weight he was lifting, but he eventually managed to set it back down onto the stove and begin a new batch of plain old boiling water. Just a mundane act, nothing crazy.
This was, of course, until he realized that the lump from his couch had magically disappeared while he performed said mundane act, and was now limping towards the kitchen counter, hands outstretched like he was looking to strangle something.
While it may have been muscle memory by that point, Eddie instinctively flinched, expecting his prior theory to be correct and waiting for Jason to snap his neck for his misguided delusions about the Devil having possessed Eddie and using his body to kill his girlfriend, or whatever it was he believed. Thankfully, this didn't seem to be the case once Eddie felt two firm hands wrap around his forearm, one of them tracing lines up and down the barely noticeable outline of his muscles, analyzing them deeply.
"You're weak. You were really struggling with that pot, earlier." Jason's voice, in the short time he'd actually started speaking regularly again, had a very wispy characteristic that never failed to mesmerize Eddie. It sounded like he was talking from another room, vocal cords strained from trying to communicate for so long. It was so distracting that he hadn't even begun to realize Jason was clearly struggling to keep himself up.
"Carver, dude, sit down, dumbass." This didn't even seem to reach Jason, who had started allowing a hand to explore further down Eddie's torso, beginning with his left breast and moving down to the bony lining of his hip, as he carefully watched the increasingly quickening rise and fall of his chest, matching it with his own. Jason's breathing hitched as he let his hand fall lower, lightly squeezing through the front of Eddie's jeans, resulting in Eddie sucking a quick breath through his teeth.
During this entire ordeal, Eddie didn't utter a word, solely letting his own hands wrap around Jason's waist, the excuse between them naturally being that he was trying to keep him from falling down and bashing his head on the tile. For Eddie, however, he was just savoring the opportunity to watch Jason squirm as much as possible. His eyebrows were pinched together, back in that pouty, frustrated manner he always seemed to adopt when staring at Eddie, evidently confused by whatever he was feeling in that moment. Above all else, he seemed to be confused with the fact that he was liking it, as revealed by the familiar stiffness Eddie felt rut against him through his pants.
Before Jason got the chance to grow flustered, to even dare to begin deflecting what was happening, Eddie took the chance to bash both of their mouths together, nails cutting into the tender flesh of Jason's waist in order to keep him in place.
Eddie couldn't deny how addicting it was to watch Jason strive for control, to dominate this silent conversation between them, as he always had. He could feel how Jason tried desperately to grab onto his hair, push and pull him forward, only to find himself completely pliable to Eddie's touch, to the point he was letting himself be partially raised onto the kitchen counter and boxed in, still held in place by Eddie's grasp.
Even with this loss of control, Jason still wasn't backing down, complaints and frustrated groans melting on his tongue the second they tried to escape the lock Eddie had him in, devolving down to pathetic sounding whines and whimpers, especially when blood began to be drawn from his bottom lip. Every few seconds, Eddie would open one eye, only to find Jason flushed and demolished above him, trying to make his way off the counter to get as close as possible.
And god, if this wasn't what Eddie had been waiting for this whole time. This entire situation had felt like such a dizzying dream, something straight out of a campaign, that he needed something to drag him back down to reality. The silence between them only served to made Eddie feel like he was losing his mind even more, like Jason wasn't really there, and this was all some fucked up purgatory, a punishment crafted by Hawkins itself to punish him for the crime of wanting to be an individual. Having something to hold, someone to grab and tug at as he pleased, soothed his nerves more than any drug ever could. Having it be Jason Carver allowed that relief to fall over him in waves, knowing that they were both alive and here and together, regardless of everything that had happened between them.
Naturally, when you've been deprived of something for so long, one tends to grow greedy. And Eddie couldn't let this moment go, not when he was finally able to experience this overwhelming freedom so intimately. He hadn't parted from the kiss for a second, drinking up Jason's exhausted pants like they were water in a desert, all while he decided to allow himself to do some exploring of his own. His hands began to reach upwards through Jason's shirt, feeling across his newly exposed ribcage, up until he reached the halfway point of his chest.
He hadn't seen Jason shirtless all this time, as he always seemed to lock himself in the bathroom whenever he painfully chose to shower on his own, but he was well aware of where the scars from the incident were placed on his body. The pads of his fingers ran over the jagged edges of the wound, feeling the raw, peeling layer of skin that enveloped what was once a gaping wound, bloodied and singed from the flames nipping at its edges. Had he had the chance, Eddie would've wanted to admire it directly, feel the burning reminder of how they had both been changed forever, by forces entirely outside of their own control. If nothing else, he would almost call the agony of the scar beautiful, the same way scraping your knee would be beautiful. A memory etched into the surface of your skin, present forever.
This was, until, he noticed Jason grow tense beneath him, the painful need for this desire being replaced by something closer to disgust, evidenced by how he was pushed off of Jason, nearly hitting his back against the fridge. Jason's breathing had begun to grow ragged, the mystified panting from earlier screeching to a halt, all while he made his way back over onto the couch, looking dazed from what they had both just experienced.
Once again, Eddie knew to leave the conversation there. He knew that judgment was something Jason feared fervently, more than the fear of being forgotten in this dingy trailer, and that he would never accept what had just happened as reality. Which only brought Eddie back to square one, something he replayed over and over again as he left Jason's bowl of lukewarm soup by the end of the counter, taking his own to eat in his room, back turned to the unfamiliar silence that plagued the room.
Silence should've been normal between them, by now. They both knew there was no real way of saving their situation, or trying to have an honest conversation about it, even after a whole year of living together. And yet, regardless of that obvious conclusion, they spoke much more often than either wanted to admit.
It wasn't anything serious, just a way of passing the time. It started off mostly as petty, cruel comments, most of which would devolve into screaming matches over who deserved what and who was to blame for either of them even being in this situation in the first place, but they slowly evened out into idle chatter once Jason was more willing to actually accept he was wrong, and Eddie becoming more willing to actually forgive him, if only a little bit.
Hell, Eddie was even willing to admit that Jason was pretty fun to be around once he cut loose and stopped worrying so much about what his friends or parents would think of him, no matter how many times Eddie wanted to remind him they essentially left him for dead with the town murderer. Sure, it wasn't often where he stopped fretting about the fact he would never see his family again, namely because they wanted nothing to do with him once he had been proven wrong, but when he did, Eddie felt like they were finally making some progress.
There was one time where, for the two of them, the pain of their injuries had grown too much to stand; Eddie was able to steal some morphine off a nurse while he was in the hospital, all with the intent to sell it later down the road, but they ended up taking most of it and completely collapsing onto Eddie's bed, partially high. Half of what they said was a blur, with the other half probably being some joint hallucination they were both experiencing, but Eddie considers it was the most honest they'd ever really be with each other.
"You ever think of moving?" Jason was splayed out on the mattress, blanket thrown over his legs in a way that provided zero warmth or comfort. He was staring at one of the posters on Eddie's wall, unblinking.
"Used to. Turns out you can't move when everyone in town wants you dead."
A little 'tsk' sound left Jason's lips, his eyes rolling like he was personally offended. "Don't be a-- pussy, Munson. We can go somewhere."
That got Eddie's attention, even through the haze of the morphine. "We?"
"Sure. Why not, right? Not like anyone wants us around here anymore." Jason's expression shifted, for just a second, into something more melancholic.
"And of all the people you could run away with, you'd wanna go with me? Just grab Andy or Chase or whoever the fuck."
"Chance."
"Yeah, yeah." They both laughed at that, a proud thing. It felt nice to settle into their old dynamic sometimes.
"But yeah, man, both of us. We can drive your trailer out somewhere nice, like, uh... Florida." Jason had let his hands rest over his chest this time around, not wincing from the pain as much as he usually does.
Eddie watched him do so, lingering on the image for longer than he intended. "You just wanna keep your tan up. Keep looking like Ralph from Lord of the Flies."
That got a very genuine laugh out of Jason, something that neither of them were expecting. This sparked a laugh out of Eddie, leading to the two of them laughing together like complete morons.
"Shit, I did kinda act like him, huh? You could've been my-- Piggy." His laughter died down, but not enough to stop him from pausing halfway through to breathe.
"As long as you aren't gonna kill me in Florida, alright. We'll both get tans."
Jason didn't respond to that, not for a while. Just when Eddie thought he'd done something to offend him, he felt Jason's head slowly fall onto his shoulder, both of them sat in silence. They both fell asleep a bit after that, but chose not to talk about it.
Even if those bits of conversation didn't count as a friendship, or even as tolerance, Eddie was still admittedly perturbed by how silent the last few days had been. Jason had gone entirely quiet since their last interaction, and he hadn't eaten all day, choosing to ignore Eddie's attempts to goad him into actually having lunch, mostly with a few lighthearted comments about how he may as well eat his toddler mush or starve trying. That didn't even earn him a glare, let alone a response, so he'd given up by the time dinner rolled around.
He was laying down on his desolate bed, as had been the norm for nearly a year and a half by this point, simply looking up at the ceiling. It's not like he expected Jason to date him or anything, he wasn't stupid, but he at least expected some level of lashing out, another argument prompted by Jason being unable to accept reality yet again. It was those arguments that brought Eddie back down to Earth, reminded him that he was still here, and not some ruthless dimension that he could only remember as streaks of red and black and blue.
He was just about ready to actually attempt falling asleep, when he heard a limp knock at his door. Had this been a few years back, he would've never believed that that pathetic knocking could come from Jason Carver, the so-called king of Hawkins High once Harrington had graduated, but he knew better than to take him at face value anymore. He got up, a bit too enthusiastically, and opened the door.
The sight he was met with certainly wasn't something he was familiar with, even in comparison to the first night Jason had stayed over. This Jason wasn't frustrated, he was vulnerable, miserable under Eddie's gaze, told to him by the fact his jaw was shaking to match the pitiful quivering of his bottom lip. His eyes were rapidly welling up with tears, as he was barely able to get his words out, choking on his own sobs the entire time.
"I-I'm not me, anymore. Don't fucking think that I am, n-not for a second, because I'm not. I-I never w-would've done what we-- what you--" It was obvious he was heaving by now, breaths coming in short and quick, before he could even think what to say next. "Y-you can't like this. You c-can't want me, this isn't w-who I am. I'm a complete fraud, I've b-been lying this whole time. This can't be me." He broke off into something closer to a guttural scream by that point, the walls seemingly shaking beside them.
With no idea what to do, Eddie couldn't move when Jason collapsed onto his shoulder, heavy sobs beginning to wet the material of his shirt. "Carver. Carver."
Any attempt at talking to him wasn't going to work, so Eddie decided to cross yet another line. As if he hadn't done that enough lately. "Jason."
While Jason didn't move, his breath caught, reducing his screams into something closer to regular crying, which Eddie took as a win. He continued, tentatively making sure Jason was actually listening every few minutes, "I get it. Neither of us want to be here. Believe me, I know that if I had been given a choice about any of this, I would've kept us as far away from each other as possible, like we've always been."
Another deep breath. Eddie kept going. "But we don't get a say in this. What's happening is real, we are actually in this situation, and there's nothing we can do about it. So, we've got two choices here; we can continue to live, and change something about this, or we can let ourselves be remembered in a way we can't control. And that's terrifying to me, so I'm sure as shit that it's terrifying to you."
Jason had stopped crying by this point, lifting his head to face Eddie directly. His eyes were puffy, face streaked with copious remnants of tears, but his expression remained pained, scared. "I can't look at myself, anymore. N-not when I'm like this."
"Then don't. Look anywhere else." Eddie drew closer, inching slowly, as if he was approaching a wild animal. When Jason's brows drew together in confusion, he clarified, "You don't have to be anybody anymore. It doesn't matter if you can't live up to expectactions, there aren't any anymore."
Eddie supposes that he still couldn't read Jason as well as he'd hoped, because once he went entirely silent, he was worried he had fucked up. Said the wrong thing, pushed him out again with his idea of freedom. Maybe, for some people, they wanted to be caught up in their little cage, believing that they could leave whenever they wanted. A glorified pigeon, always scratching at the bars, believing it could fly away, but never being able to, because it was never taught. Maybe that's what Jason actually wanted.
He was proven wrong as soon as he felt Jason's lips reach his own, slowly pressing forwards, as if trying to ask, "am I really doing this?". He could feel Jason press his entire body against his own, hands falling uselessly against his sides, left there for Eddie to guide wherever he wanted. He was giving himself up, the identity of Jason Carver melting away into whoever this new person could potentially be. And Eddie wasn't going to deny meeting him there.
He brought both hands up to cup Jason's face, furthering the kiss as slowly as he could. He waited until Jason stopped fidgeting, until he was finally able to exhale and understand what was going on, stop resisting like he had been taught to do his entire life. Gently, he began to walk forwards, bumping Jason's knee in a way to signal that they were moving in tandem, that he was going to have to follow Eddie to wherever they were headed.
Eddie could feel the kiss part for a second, as he began going further down Jason's neck, scratching his teeth at the sensitive skin there, when Jason grew tense once again. It was obvious that once he noticed they were heading for Eddie's bed, he got nervous, ready to bite, to run, anything to escape what he thinks is going to happen to him. Eddie quickly shut that down, pressing his palm against Jason's collarbone to stop their movement. "Relax. It's just the two of us here."
That seemed to calm Jason down just enough to allow himself to be held, a hand on his lower back slowly guiding him down onto the mattress they'd been on so many times before, just never like this. Eddie could feel as Jason's arms wrapped around his shoulders, nails digging into the back of his neck, as if he was terrified he was going to fall if he didn't have something to hold onto. He didn't react, latched onto Jason's collarbone, already leaving ample bruises across the flayed skin. If his teeth caught onto a leftover scratch from the incident, he would hush Jason's whining, kissing over it instead.
Eddie began to push his luck a little further, as he began to slowly slip Jason's shirt off over his head, something that caused him to immediately protest. "You can't, you won't--"
He didn't respond, somewhat forcefully stripping Jason of his final layer of protection against really doing this, something that Eddie knew he was never going to get over if it wasn't done for him. He positioned himself between Jason's thighs, lowering him onto his back against the comforter in order to get a clearer look at him. Jason's arms had long since abandoned his shoulders, now propping Jason up on his elbows as he looked upwards at Eddie, fear spiking through him at being so exposed.
As for Eddie, he was left in awe at the sight beneath him. He hadn't looked at Jason much over the years, only having a superficial understanding that he was objectively attractive. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have been so popular at school, or so the social hierarchy decrees. He was always aware of girls tripping over themselves for him, guys wanting to be him, everyone admiring him for something he hadn't even accomplished. Eddie had personally never liked how doll-like Jason appeared to him, with his overly slick hair done up with gel, his gaudy letterman jacket, his obnoxious toothy grin.
But here? He was something else, something Eddie could have never considered would be so beautiful.
Jason's eyes were glossy with tears, still red and swollen from the amount of crying he'd done, but they made his entire face glow in a way Eddie would've, ironically, compared to an angel bathed in light. His cheeks were completely flushed from the sudden contact, lips now puffy from the kissing. And, of course, his once pristine skin was littered in quickly darkening bruises that Eddie had left there on purpose, wanting his mark to be left on Jason for as long as possible. Just so they could both remember this.
The most notable aspect of Jason, though, was the one he intended to hide the most; hands rushed to rapidly cover the angry, red split that separated Jason's chest in two, pasty white marks signifying where the healed burns lay, covering up the once black, muddled marks of pure hellfire, or so Jason believed. Where Jason saw a flaw, a chip in his carefully created mask, Eddie saw something to be worshipped, to cherish. He had never been a religious man, but he'd lay down his life for such gorgeous proof that Jason was just like him. That, in some horrible way, they were connected, forced to bleed by the very being that had damned them both.
Instinctively, as if he had been born to do this, Eddie let his hands trace down the sides of Jason's chest, as he ducked down to press his lips against each and every layer of the precious wound before him. It wasn't long until the scent of iron filled the air, Eddie now being aware of the taste of copper coating the inside of his mouth, but he did nothing more than lick his lips and remain steadfast, greedily taking in every time Jason tried to stop him, prevent him from admiring further.
Once Eddie had gotten low enough, however, is when he began slowly pulling down Jason's sweatpants, tongue running over the delicate scarring that was etched onto his hip, only protruded outwards further by how thin he'd gotten over the last few months. This is where he was able to feel a hand tug at his hair, pulling his view away from the skin beneath him.
"Eddie--" Had it been any other day, Eddie would've been shocked. He doesn't think Jason had ever called him by his name before, most likely thinking that it was too vulnerable, too personal for either of them. But he wasn't going to be listening to Jason much tonight. That could be until after this was finished.
He signalled this to Jason in the way most of their conversations had gone; through bloodshed. Ignoring his pleas, he brought his pants down just far enough to wear he could wrap his palm around Jason's inner thigh, marking it with a particularly rough bite. Jason's following yelp didn't hide just how much he seemed to enjoy it, given how his legs were already trembling from anticipation.
Once his pants were fully off, Jason couldn't help but look confused. Through his strained breaths, he managed to wordlessly ask, "Aren't you supposed to-- take yours off, too?"
Eddie did nothing more but flex his fingers, slowly removing his rings. "Not this time. We can take it slow." Before Jason could even question what was going on, Eddie was splitting his legs open, positioning himself in between them. He began angling his knuckle towards Jason, watching as his eyes grew wider, anxious for what was coming.
"Eddie, hold on, I've never--" He was cut off with another kiss, as Eddie opened his legs further, making sure this wouldn't actually hurt.
"I know. You'll have to trust me, here." That seemed to shut Jason up, as he let out yet another pant, letting Eddie take the lead. He didn't let himself be seen doing this, however, as he quickly brought himself up into Eddie's shoulder, already rutting directly on his knuckle.
Eddie couldn't say he wasn't shocked, but he was sorely disappointed. He grabbed Jason's wrist and brought him back down onto the mattress, partially inserting a few fingers just to coax him into it. He wanted to look at him, to know for a fact that this was Jason Carver he was doing this with, and nobody else. He wanted to look directly at him as Jason began to become entirely undone, slick blonde hair sticking to his forehead as his mouth hung agape, being unable to do anything more but try and stifle his own moans.
He was quiet, Eddie noted; he didn't seem to want to make any sort of mistake, as if he was being schooled on getting fingered, somehow. He kept trying to cover his mouth, something that Eddie was denying him by keeping one hand pinned down with his free hand. He couldn't handle being boxed into anything anymore, it was starting to drive him fucking insane.
And so, before he let Jason reach his own peak, he made entry for his final few fingers, essentially forcing him to scream once he finally came, which ended up getting all over Eddie's clothes. Just like when they'd first met, Jason tried to babble out some semblance of an apology, but it came out as nothing more than a few detached words muffled by how violently he was gasping for air. For a while, Eddie didn't give him a response, only licking each and every one of his fingers until his hand seemed clean.
"Calm down, Jace, this shirt's a piece of shit anyway. You wanna take a shower?" He wasn't kidding, either. He didn't want this first time to be complete torture for Jason, considering his own mind seemed torture enough. When Jason mumbled some half-assed response and vaguely nodded, he helped him up towards the bathroom, handing him some spare clothes.
He was trying not to linger on what they had done too much, while he waited for Jason to clean himself up. He wouldn't deny that it felt incredible to hold that level of power over someone that essentially tormented him, but at the same time, his chest was feeling too tight for it to be considered gratification. When he wanted to think of blood, of purple and yellow bruises, soft blue eyes came into focus instead, along with sunkissed skin and dirty blonde hair, splayed out against his pillowcase. Any attempt to recall old arguments and cruel words came with laughter and a timid voice calling out his name, gripping onto his shoulder for dear life.
Those were the last things Eddie thought of before he drifted off to sleep, with that same person leaning against his shoulder right beside him.