the devil in disguise

【♔ • love is a basis • ♔】【Silco Simp, Ghouls enjoyer】【she/they】 honey-tongued.bsky.social 【23】

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞My Masterlists↠

Since I’m approaching multiple fandoms and I hate having things scattered around, I decided to make several masterlists so I can better organize all my writing and make my blog easier to navigate. I hope you like this change!

| INPRNT | | TWITTER | | KO-FI |

▶ Arcane

▶ Stranger Things

[honey-tongued-devil]

Toxic yuri

You will find the finished pieces on my Twitter (trying to gain interaction lol), so if you want to like/follow and reach click HERE

[honey-tongued-devil]

[Me and my illness]

The worst part of being sick is watching people decide for themselves what is true and what is not.

You will say everything, including the fact that during the illness you will be impossible to handle, that the illness wants to serve its own agenda and prove to itself that it is right, and that it will do everything it can to make other people stop seeing me as a human being and stop worrying about me, that it will do everything it can to make itself heard.

And other people? They will believe whatever is convenient for them. “Don’t worry about me, don’t show interest in me, if I’m unwell just ignore me,” I will tell you in the middle of a full and explicit crisis, and you will stop feeling sympathy for me. Even when I ask you for help and tell you I’m not okay, you will answer in monosyllables and ignore my suffering.

My illness gives people permission to hurt me. It wants people to be indifferent to me, uninterested, or to actively wound me, just so it can look me in the face at night when it’s only me and it, and say, “See? What would you do without me?”

And people, when you tell them “you don’t care if you hurt me” or “you don’t care about how I’m doing,” will ignore you, won’t answer, or will feel justified in saying “it’s what you asked for,” as if the help you just asked for and got ignored was not also a request, as if your explicit request for change that went unheard was not also a request, as if it were truly possible for them to simply stop caring about someone on command, and not just something they wanted an excuse for.

And my illness watches me from the dark corner of my room, maybe smiling, maybe expressionless, and tells me, “What did I tell you? If you make people feel justified in not giving a fuck about you, they will do it. Because nobody loves difficult things.”

And I thank a god I do not believe in that throughout my life I have always had at least one person beside me who never felt justified by anything or anyone, who answered my “haha I’m vomiting blood, it’s probably nothing” by getting in the car and coming to my house even knowing they might have had to drag me to the hospital by force, someone who has experienced grief and is scared enough of losing you to get up from their chair and love you actively even when you are difficult, even when the illness whispers instructions to them on how to dehumanize you.

Realizing that people choose who to listen to, when to listen above all, and who to believe, is the worst part of being sick, because out of nowhere you understand that you were never really a person to the people standing in front of you, and that your illness is right: it is better to be alone with it than accompanied by someone that can easily stop fearing for your health and your life to the point to completely ignore your symptoms.

I want to thank my best friend, who lost his mother and his sister, and felt grief enough to not let my illness speak to him. Thank you, K. For seeing me as an human being who can need help and shouldn't be hurted and ignored on purpose. Thank you for caring enough to check on me, to get alarmed when I feel bad and try to dismiss it, to have your car keys ready because its better to fight with me and save me than lose me.

[honey-tongued-devil]

Sadly I have to take back my schedule for ff, I cut off both my betas today and, beside the fact I'm not doing well, I will need to find new betas before posting, both for arcane and stranger things.

[honey-tongued-devil]

I’m alive. I took a long break partly because the fandoms for the media I used to draw and write for were a bit inactive, so posting and seeing that no one was engaging with things I had put a lot of effort and time into was discouraging; and partly because writing and drawing take up so much of my time that I have no time left for anything else, and I wanted to step away for a bit.

Right now I’m writing the second chapter of “Why Do You Cry,” [click here] the Stranger Things fix-it fanfiction that aims to use the show’s own science to bring Eddie and Billy back to life, entirely from the medical and somewhat unethical perspective of the Hawkins labs. Right after that, I’ll pick back up the abandoned chapter of Close to Midnight [click here], the fanfiction based on the band Ghost.

For those who don’t know me (or especially don’t know my writing method) I should say that I’m not the Duffer Brothers. I have a separate doc where I’ve written down all the show’s dates, some of them even calculated (like Eddie’s date of death), so that everything makes chronological sense and actually connects to exact moments in the seasons. The lab was written using the map, the frames, and Suspicious Minds as references. The price for this is an extremely medical ff.

Ps. Don’t worry if you see this post and then a week goes by without an update: writing long chapters in a language that isn’t my own (and not using AI, cough cough) means I always need several days for drafting and a first grammar check before sending everything to the betas. In the meantime, feel free to say hi, either here, in Tumblr messages, or with a review if you see the chapters posted, even just to show me there are still people in the fandoms.

A big kiss,

From the writer who is now going to bed

[honey-tongued-devil]

The reason I hate interacting with the Stranger Things fandom is that it’s downright radioactive.

I got blocked by a bunch of artists just for drawing Chrissy during s4, I see takes about Nikki from TF85 and they’re people who hate her passionately without ever having seen her even once. 90% of the comments about a series that hasn’t even come out yet are “mileven propaganda”. This fandom oozes misogyny the way fries ooze oil.

it’s rare to see any serious discussion about the series itself, the worldbuilding, mechanics, and dynamics, because most of the fandom is made up of people who just scream and are only here for one ship and nothing else. Duffer brothers killed the story and the fandom ruined the rest of it.

[honey-tongued-devil]

"Punk is not dead!"

Lately I’ve realized there’s very little content for my favorite Pokémon characters. I tried making a couple of drawings of Adaman but I wasn’t satisfied (in my defense, I was experimenting with styles different from my usual one), and then out of nowhere it occurred to me to try Nezu / Piers in my style. I’ve got two hundred WIPs going on, but this one was really something I made with no prior plan or intention, and it ended up satisfying me a lot.

Prints available on my INPRNT.

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞Late night ride with [Stranger things preference]↠

▶ Late night ride with [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan]

NdA: my betas asked me whether I’ll ever write headcanons with the characters in established relationships, and the answer is yes. The thing is, keeping them in the early stages keeps them more true to themselves, even if some of them (Billy) become less pleasant the more organic they are. If you have requests, feel free to specify whether you want a stable relationship or not, if you feel it’s necessary. If you’d like to read more of my work, I’ve published the first chapter of Why Do You Cry on AO3, a fix-it fic with Billy and Eddie. [Click here to read.]

↠If you have any requests, ask the devil.↞

Billy Hargrove

 You feel guilty when you stop at a phone booth to call him and ask if he can come pick you up, and honestly you didn’t even expect him to answer the landline. That feels like the kind of hour when William Hargrove is drunk somewhere.

 He doesn’t arrive right away. It takes him about twenty minutes more than needed, and when he does, you hear him before you see him. The music comes first.

 When you get in, he doesn’t turn to look at you. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from who knows where, pinches one between his index finger and thumb, brings it to his lips, and lights it. It looks natural, but at the same time, there is something nervous in that gesture.

 The engine growls, too loud for the hour, and he pulls away fast, one hand on the wheel, the other low near the gearshift. The streetlights sliding across the windshield create an almost romantic contrast between the inside of the car and the outside, the calm of the night and the chaotic smell of cologne and hairspray.

 At first, he’s silent. He doesn’t ask what you were doing, doesn’t ask how you ended up there without a way home, doesn’t ask why you called him.

 After less than a minute he turns the radio down a little without inviting conversation, as if he also wants to enjoy the night, just without letting it take over. The rock playing in the background is less aggressive than usual, softer than what he saves for daytime.

 You’re aware of how long the drive to your place is. He is too. Thirty minutes is too long to pretend you’re just acquaintances, but his gaze seems so far away that it honestly doesn’t feel right to interrupt whatever he’s thinking about.

 He looks at you once, quick and sharp. Checks that you’re there. Then his eyes go back to the road, as if he surprised himself doing something stupid. He doesn’t ask stupid questions, maybe because he doesn’t want to receive an answer he won’t like, maybe because he doesn’t care.

 If you try to thank him, he cuts you off immediately. “Yeah, okay.” The tone isn’t annoyed or mean, just closed. You can’t say if he had some troubles at home or if you interrupted something.

 He drives fast, but slower than usual, enough to make you wonder if he’s trying to stretch the moment or if something’s wrong with the car. Every now and then his knuckles tighten around the wheel, like he’s holding something back. If you shift in your seat, he notices. If you sigh, he notices. He comments on neither.

 Halfway there, there’s a moment when the silence stretches too long, when it stops being casual and turns strained. You feel it. He feels it too. He clears his throat, shifts gears harder than necessary.

 If you speak first, maybe about something small and neutral, he listens without turning his head. Short answers, their level of interest hard to read. He doesn’t invite you to continue, but he doesn’t shut you out either. It’s as much as he gives to meet you halfway.

 If you look at him for too long, he feels it. His jaw tightens. “What?” There is a contrast in the way he ran without even asking for a reason and the almost cold way he decides to appear right after.

 As you get closer to your place, his posture changes almost imperceptibly, like he’s bracing himself. Endings are worse than beginnings. They ask for acknowledgment.

 He stops outside, parks cleanly, the engine still running. He doesn’t turn toward you. He doesn’t announce that you’ve arrived. He just waits.

 It’s only then that he finally looks at you, really lets himself set both eyes on you. “You okay?” It’s the closest he allows himself to get to concern, even if the tone isn’t exactly gentle. He doesn’t allow himself to show too much of what he feels, thinks, or want, and that moment seems something too vulnerable, one of those moments where, if you speak, words will act like ink, staining your skin, the tip of your fingers, in a way you will not able to forget.

 If you say yes, he nods once, as if accepting the answer exactly as it is, without details or interrogation. If you say no, he will wait a bit, ask just a “so… ‘r you gonna tell me what?” and listen to whatever you have to say, without interrupting you.

 If you try to thank him again, he exhales, this time softly, like something is thawing inside him. “I told you, if you needed a ride you could call me. Stop thanking me.”

 He doesn’t lean in, doesn’t move closer like you might expect, like on other nights, as if in his head there’s a clear divide between planned nights and accidental ones. But he always seems on the verge of saying something he ultimately keeps to himself.

 He doesn’t drive off the moment you get out. He waits until you’re inside, and only when your front door closes, then the tires bite into the asphalt.

 Despite the coldness he shows, he’s the one who asks more often in the following days if you need a ride, as if for him there’s a certain intimacy in just being together at night in a car with the scenery sliding past, and once you realize how much those moments matter to him, the silence become lighter and more intimate.

Eddie Munson

 When you call Eddie, he shows up in less time than it should physically take to get from the trailer park to the phone booth you’re at.

 Eddie drives like he has something to prove and nothing to lose.

 One hand on the wheel, the other drumming against his leg in time with the music blasting too loud. The lights of the houses streak past the windows so fast you can’t catch a clear image of any of them.

 After a few minutes he shoots you a quick glance. “You good?” he asks almost automatically, like he wants to prove he hasn’t forgotten you’re there even though he hasn’t said much yet.

 If you shift in your seat, if you look a bit too nervous, he notices immediately. “Hey, relax. I’m not gonna kill us. At least not tonight.” Pause. “Probably.” Another pause, he laughs a bit. “Hopefully.”

 There’s always a note of cheer in his voice, in his expression, in those dark eyes that, when they meet yours, always anticipate the strangest, most amusing smile you’ve ever seen.

 The drive stretches out in that way where neither of you is in a hurry, but neither wants to admit it. He fiddles with the cassette, rewinds the same song twice, then turns the radio off. He doesn’t know what he should do with his fingers and it shows.

 When a roadbump jolts the car or he makes a risky maneuver, he instinctively brings an arm across you, like he’s trying to keep you from getting hurt.

 He talks more as the miles pass. Not about anything important, that would ruin the mood. He talks about whatever pops into his head: the Hideout, upcoming music releases, this song he’s trying to work out on the guitar but can’t quite get yet. It’s noise, and you both know it, but he keeps going because silence at night feels too much like a question.

 At a red light that seems to last forever, he drums his fingers, jaw tight. “You don’t have to come to my place tomorrow,” he says suddenly, eyes fixed straight ahead. “I mean, if you’re tired or don’t feel like it, there’s no need… unless you want to. I mean, it’s not like… an obligation.”

 He doesn’t ask what you were doing there, doesn’t ask if you were at a party or seeing someone. Eddie isn’t stupid enough to ask questions he knows he doesn’t really want the answers to. If it were important, if it were something that mattered, you’d tell him. Or you will.

 As he gets closer to your place, he slows down without realizing it. Misses a turn. Swears, corrects, then pretends it was intentional, offering you an idiot grin paired with a “all planned, don’t worry.”

 He finally really looks at you, expression unreadable, the familiar street stretching out ahead of you. “This is where you ditch me, huh,” he says lightly, but there’s a thread of tension underneath. “Tragic. Why don’t.. we do this more often?”

 When he pulls up in front of your place, he stops and turns the engine off. The van ticks as it cools.

 If you hesitate, if you say his name, if you try to thank him, he exhales sharply and looks at you with a smile so kind it makes your words die in your mouth. “Hey,” he says more quietly. “I had fun. I like driving at night. It’s okay.”

 He’s torn about whether or not to walk you to the door. He wants to, wants to get out and steal those last few minutes, but at the same time it feels like risking too much, like taking liberties he shouldn’t.

 He waits until you’re inside anyway, until the first light comes on and illuminates a window, before starting the van again, just to make sure everything’s okay, that there’s nothing more he can do.

 He always drives too fast, and he always regrets it when it no longer matters.

Steve Harrington

 When you call Steve from the phone booth, he immediately asks what happened and if you’re okay. When you tell him everything’s fine, that you just needed a ride and didn’t know who else to call, he stays silent for a few seconds before telling you that you did the right thing and to give him a moment.

 The drive is quiet in that way that isn’t comfortable, but isn’t wrong either.

 Steve’s hands are tense on the steering wheel, his knuckles paling every time he shifts gears. The radio is off. Streetlights flicker across his face in intervals, catching the tension in his jaw, the way he keeps swallowing like something’s stuck in his throat. He drives a little too fast, then slows down again, like he’s arguing with himself.

 “You okay?” He asks at some point, maybe out of responsibility, but his eyes stay on the road like he might be afraid to see your reaction.

 When you answer, he nods once. He doesn’t say anything else. From his point of view, you were clearly doing something exciting, interesting, or worrying, if you had to call from a phone booth at that hour, and his best guess is that you don’t want to talk about it.

 And he doesn’t want to ask, not because he isn’t curious, but because he’s afraid it’s not his place. Maybe if it were daytime he’d push a little, but he has this feeling that if something happened at night and you’re not telling him, it’s probably better that he doesn’t know.

 Halfway there, he reaches out without looking at you and adjusts the air vent toward you, like he suddenly remembered you were there and wanted to make you comfortable despite the silence. A second later he adjusts it again, frowning. “Too much?”

 He doesn’t wait for an answer before fixing it.

 At a red light, he drums his fingers on the steering wheel, then sighs. “You don’t have to hesitate to call me if you need help, no matter the reason,” he says out of nowhere. The words come out crooked, maybe too direct, too rushed, too out of the blue, making it clear that even if his lips were still, his mind had been racing the whole drive. “I mean, even if you think it’s not a big deal, I’d rather know you’re safe than alone on the street at midnight.”

 There’s always a note of near resignation when he speaks, like part of him thinks he knows what happened, paired with a gentleness in his words, like he wants you to know it doesn’t matter, that his availability to you isn’t directly proportional to whatever you are to each other.

 The light turns green and he drives off, his jaw tightening suddenly, like he regrets having said it. Steve isn’t the kind of person who would make you feel guilty for going out with someone else while the two of you are seeing each other, you know that and he knows it. His fear is that by telling you you can rely on him even if you’re coming back from a date with someone else, he might make it feel like he’s pushing things.

 Not that he has proof that’s what happened, he just suspects if you aren’t sharing with him, it could be something related to your love life. And as they say, it takes a thief to catch a thief.

 When he pulls up outside your place, he doesn’t park right away. He keeps the engine idling, hands on the wheel. He stares straight ahead, shoulders tense, then finally turns it off with a relieved sigh. “Here we are,” he says, clearing his throat.

 If you don’t open the door immediately, he doesn’t move an inch.

 If you want to talk to him, he listens. If you’ve picked up on what he thinks might have happened and want to deny it or confirm it, he never puts himself in a position to judge. If something serious happened, he looks at you, hesitates, asks if you want him to stay with you for a bit, if there’s anything he can do.

 Regardless of what was said in the car, he asks you if you want him to walk you inside.

 He doesn’t move closer and he doesn’t touch you, not out of coldness but because this isn’t one of your dates, and if you don’t initiate contact he assumes it’s neither the mood nor the moment. He just watches as you open the door.

 Only then does he start the car again and drive off, like staying any longer might make him say something he couldn’t take back.

Jonathan Byers

 As soon as you call, he answers. As soon as you tell him you need a ride, he swallows, listening closely for any hint in your voice to understand whether the situation is serious or not, then gets in the car and drives faster than he probably should.

 The car hums louder than usual, maybe trying to convince him to ease off the accelerator. But Jonathan doesn’t have time for mechanical pleas. He keeps both hands on the wheel, thumbs hooked tight, eyes fixed on the road like even a second of distraction could make everything fall apart, like your life depends on it.

 When he pulls up in front of you, he leans across from his seat to open the passenger door, an awkward kind of gallantry.

 The radio is off. You don’t know if it’s to avoid bothering you or if it simply never crossed his mind, too caught up in the drive and in imagining every possible scenario.

 Every so often he shoots you a quick, indirect glance, like he’s checking that you’re still there, or that you haven’t somehow vanished from the car without him noticing.

 “So…” you see him hesitate, shape his mouth around the word, shake his head as if to downplay the casualness of the question. “Everything okay? You alright?”

 There’s always something endearing about the way Jonathan talks and moves when he’s clearly worried but trying not to show it.

 He turns up the heat if he thinks you might be cold, switches to cooler air if he thinks you might be warm, lowers the window just enough to catch your reaction and figure out whether fresh air helps you feel more comfortable. He probably gets it wrong. It would be easier to just ask what you prefer, but he doesn’t know how to offer things gently without feeling intrusive.

 When you speak first, it catches him off guard. Not visibly, just a brief tightening on the steering wheel, an involuntary movement of his lips. His replies are short but not cold, honest. He chooses his words carefully, like the wrong one might make you stop talking and regret opening up.

 Regardless of whether you were coming from a party, a sick relative’s house, or being with someone else, he treats whatever you say with care.

 He’s genuinely happy to get those unexpected thirty minutes together, and once he knows everything is okay, that nothing is weighing on you, his replies are paired with his familiar tight-lipped smile.

 The more you talk, the more the curves stretch out and the speedometer needle drops.

 The drive lengthens just enough, not enough for you to notice or for it to feel heavy, only enough to share a small laugh, to lighten the night, to leave you with a good memory.

 When he finally pulls up in front of your house, he doesn’t put the car in park right away. The engine stays on. He looks at the house instead of at you, like he’s giving himself time to decide what this moment means.

 “If you want,” he adds quietly, “I can walk you in. Or wait a bit. Make sure you get inside.” He offers it awkwardly.

 He doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t take your arm or your hand. But when you open the door, he leans forward slightly, like he wants to say something else but doesn’t trust himself to finish it.

 He waits. Longer than necessary. Longer than someone who doesn’t care would.

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞[Stranger things preference] taking care of you after an accident↠

▶ [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan] taking care of you after an accident

I was a bit torn about posting both this and the one about EDS because, in my opinion, they’re quite similar, but my betas said “you already wrote them anyway,” which is hard to argue with. If you’d like to read more of my work, I’ve published the first chapter of Why Do You Cry on AO3, a fix-it fic with Billy and Eddie. [Click here to read.]

↠If you have any requests, ask the devil.↞

Billy Hargrove

You warn him over the phone by calling the Hargrove house, and he stays silent for a few seconds on the other end of the line, frowning, a little confused by how random it sounds. It comes across as something extremely serious, and the fact that you can’t walk sounds even worse, which is why he doesn’t understand your casual tone. That irritates him, because he thinks you’re messing with him, but there’s no overreaction, just a “…okay.” after a long pause.

When you suggest that he comes by, he agrees with some hesitation, mostly because he isn’t convinced. But when he arrives and realizes it wasn’t a last second excuse to avoid seeing him, he doesn’t hold back. His concern comes out sharp and rough around the edges. He presses you about what happened, who was there, whether you’ve already seen a doctor, all while keeping that oddly indifferent expression on his face.

He talks over you a bit, not because he doesn’t care, but because this is a situation he doesn’t fully understand and fear makes him controlling. In his head there’s also the idea that someone might have done this to you and that you’re covering for them, so the constant interruptions are also driven by the chaos of his thoughts.

Billy stays longer than he planned. He’ll smugly throw out some excuse for why he’s still there. If it’s raining, he’s waiting for it to stop. If it’s too sunny, he’s waiting for the heat to die down, as if you don’t know that Indiana sun doesn’t even compare to California’s. If it’s late, he’ll say it’s rush hour and he doesn’t want some idiot wrecking his car.

Like a cat, he’s absolutely not there for you. It’s just a coincidence that you happen to be in the same room.

He’s terrible at practical caregiving. He helps move things, grabs what you need, but if you actually need help moving yourself, he’s more likely to do more harm than good. Not out of malice, just because of his lack of delicacy. He doesn’t think ahead, doesn’t ask the right questions, and gets irritated when things aren’t simple or fast. If you need long term help, he isn’t reliable.

Emotionally, he shuts down more than he opens up. You won’t get soft reassurance or long talks about how scared he was. What you do get is him hovering, checking on you more than usual, showing up without warning because he was “just passing by,” getting visibly irritated when you’re around and try to do something that clearly causes you pain instead of asking him for help. It’s care disguised as annoyance.

Billy has a lot of issues, and your undefined relationship is one of them. Part of him wants to pull back because this feels like too much, too serious, too frequent, and he’s not built for that. Another part of him, the one that feels the need to not leave you alone, justifies it by telling himself that he doesn’t want to be at home anyway, that it’s just an excuse, that it doesn’t mean anything. That tension makes him unpredictable, warm one day and distant the next.

Billy doesn’t become a saint because of this. He doesn’t magically turn into a responsible caregiver or an emotionally available partner. But the injury leaves a mark on him, proof that he cares more than he wanted to, and walking away would make him feel exactly like the kind of person he hates being.

Eddie Munson

Eddie finds out in the most “Eddie” way possible: someone blurts it out without thinking in one of the places you usually hang out, from the bar to the grocery store, or Dustin mentions it like it’s just a curiosity, like “hey, isn’t that your friend who got hurt?” Because Hawkins is small and everyone loves gossip.

His first reaction is loud, dramatic panic, hands in his hair, keys of the van already in his hand, ready to come to you. “Holy shit, are you in one piece or what?” before he even really understands that it’s not life threatening.

When he realizes you’re not paralyzed or about to die, the panic turns into nervous humor. Bad jokes, exaggerated stories about how you’ll have an epic scar to impress the bards (him), all to mask the fact that injuries scare him more than he wants to admit.

He comes to see you, but he’s awkward about it. He shows up with snacks of every kind because he didn’t know what to get and picked everything, a badly chosen cassette tape, maybe a comic he thinks you might like. At first he lingers in the doorway, unsure if all of this is “too much” for something that isn’t serious serious.

Eddie is not good with responsibility. He forgets appointment times, mixes up what the doctor said, and absolutely cannot be trusted to help you stand up or move without overdoing it and risking making you fall. The intentions are good, but he’s chaotic.

When he’s nervous, he talks nonstop. He fills the room with rambling about Hellfire, music, Hawkins bullshit, Wayne’s last decent meals, partly to distract you and partly to avoid sitting with the feeling that he’s treating you like a sick person.

He feels guilty, even though it isn’t his fault. He doesn’t really know what to do except try to keep your spirits up.

Eddie is inconsistent. Some days he stays with you for hours, stretched out on the floor just keeping you company. Other days he disappears, swallowed by his own chaos, and he hates himself a little for it, but not enough to suddenly become reliable.

He never treats you like you’re fragile. He teases you, swears in front of you, complains about his life like always. It’s his way of telling you he still sees you as you, not as a problem to manage.

He asks if you want to go for a drive, and before you can complain about your condition he finds a way to get you into the van without hurting you. He thinks you’d go crazy being stuck at home for that long.

Steve Harrington

“Sure, yeah, of course. Listen, if you didn’t feel like going out tonight anymore, you could’ve just said so instead of making up excuses.”

He feels ashamed like a kicked dog when you tell him that if he doesn’t believe you, he can come check for himself, and he realizes you weren’t lying.

To his credit, you got hurt in such a stupid way that it was hard to believe it wasn’t a joke.

He wants to be the one who shows up, genuinely. He wants to be Steve “the good guy” Harrington, to prove to you that he’s serious about his intentions, that he’s reliable. He shows up with a rental movie he picked by asking the guy working there for advice, and some flowers with a little “get well soon” card. The good intentions are all there, the execution less so, but it’s the thought that counts.

He’s awkward in the face of how serious the situation is. He cracks jokes at the wrong moment, then immediately apologizes when he realizes you’re not laughing. He jumps up to help you even when you just lean forward to grab a glass, watching you for a second in confusion before asking a simple “No?”

When it comes to responsibility, he’s very overprotective. I mean, hey, no one has taken as many hits as he has in that town. He knows a thing or two about dealing with pain.

He doesn’t really grasp how long recovery takes. After a few days he promptly comes to see you and the first thing he asks is “So… is it a bit better now?” and he doesn’t mean it badly, he’s just naive.

You said it wasn’t serious, after all. How is he supposed to know it’s going to take a long time.

When silence falls, he still stays with you. He doesn’t try to fill it, assuming you might need some mental rest too. No big speeches. Just him flipping through channels, his leg bouncing, making sure you’re not alone even if he isn’t great at taking care of someone.

Since you’re not anything serious, there’s a limit to how much he commits. He won’t completely rearrange his life for this, but he’ll come by more often than he’s expected to.

In the end, it messes with the image he has of himself. He wants to be the one who protects, who fixes things, and realizing that he can’t just “fix” this frustrates him more than he lets on. But at least he can be there.

Jonathan Byers

When Jonathan finds out that, on top of the injury, you can’t walk, he is visibly worried. His face stills, his jaw tightens, that quiet panic he hates to show settling just under his skin. He doesn’t spiral out loud, but you can tell he’s already running through every possible scenario where you’re alone and struggling. He starts with practical questions: “Can you feel your legs?” “Have you been to the hospital yet?” “Is there someone with you?”

He doesn’t suddenly turn into an overbearing caregiver, but he rearranges his priorities without announcing it. His schedule bends around you without complaints. If he was supposed to help Joyce or be with Will, he carefully adjusts things so no one feels neglected.

The space he makes for you is flexible. He sits on the floor near you, leaning against furniture, present without hovering, close enough to help if needed.

Jonathan doesn’t romanticize the situation at all. He doesn’t joke about it, doesn’t tell you “it’s no big deal,” and definitely doesn’t force positivity. He treats the injury for what it is: uncomfortable, painful, and quietly frustrating. He respects your frustration and doesn’t try to fix your mood, he just listens when you complain.

Since you’re not anything official, he’s careful not to cross certain boundaries, but that doesn’t mean he’s distant. He asks before helping you move, before touching your back, your hips, or your shoulders. He even asks before sitting down next to you on the couch. He doesn’t want to unsettle you or give the impression that he’s taking too many liberties.

He brings you things without making a show of it. Tapes you like, books he genuinely thinks you’ll read rather than the ones he pretends to like himself, fresh food you can cook easily so you can have proper meals without too much effort. He remembers small preferences you didn’t think he’d noticed, and that’s what gives him away more than anything else.

Jonathan struggles with a sense of guilt he doesn’t really deserve. Part of him feels like he should have been there, even though the accident was minor and had nothing to do with him. That old Byers reflex kicks in: if something went wrong, I should have stopped it. He won’t say it outright, but you’ll notice it in the way he tries to do more than necessary, as if he’s making amends.

If you ask him to stay, he stays. If you ask him to leave, he doesn’t take it personally. He knows everyone needs space sometimes and that you’ll call if you need him. He’s steady, grounded, and doesn’t let anxiety consume him.

[honey-tongued-devil]

Aaaaah don't worry! I actually sent that ask just a few hours before you answered it! I actually did know about your Ehlers-Danlos because I've been following since your Arcane days but i definitely forgot until you mentioned it. I actually sent it because I broke my back* pretty recently and I've been craving a good bit of heart/comfort <333 however the fact that I gave you an excuse to be self-indulgent is a bonus!!!!! ^^ self-indulgent writing is the best kind of writing!!! Don’t feel like you have to rush finishing my request, please take your time and have fun with it!! I'm super pleased that it inspired you!!

(*not too too bad, don't worry, it'll heal pretty quickly!! But it is giving me a chance to catch up on my reading and i somehow missed that you have an ao3????? This is like accidentally tripping over a treasure chest <3 I now will be spending my next few days reading through all your writing, very excited 😌🥰)

Every time someone tells me they’ve already read something of mine, I suddenly realize that I do, in fact, write, and that someone actually reads it. It sounds trivial, but I get hit with that realization a lot. Hope you will like my writing in this new fandom too <3<3

It took me a while because I decided to finish what I was already working on first, then write one about my condition and one about yours. Now one is posted and the others are all scheduled. I’m sorry because they feel similar to me, but I did try :")

I hope you like the what you saw on ao3, because I’ve opened five new pages with the intention of writing some shorts too... lighter than what I usually write, though knowing myself they won’t be short at all (so I’m basically self-condemning). Bonus, just for you: both my two beta readers and I are worried about you,, get better soon!!

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞[Stranger things preference] reacting to a reader with EDS/legs problems↠

▶ [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan] reacting to a reader with EDS/legs problems

NdA. I want to emphasize that I’m a person with EDS mainly affecting my legs, and what you’re reading is written by someone who knows the condition firsthand, I'm sorry if your experience is different, I still hope I was able to bring a bit of rep. If you’d like to read more of my work, I’ve published the first chapter of Why Do You Cry on AO3, a fix-it fic with Billy and Eddie. [Click here to read.]

↠If you have any requests, ask the devil.↞

Billy Hargrove

 Billy’s first reaction to the call is irritation, and he doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t know exactly who or what he’s annoyed at, he’s just irritated. He was already dressed, already amped for the night, had already spent a solid half hour giving his curls some definition, and hearing “my legs aren’t working today” makes him let out a sharp breath and run a hand over his face.

 If he hasn’t seen you struggle or limp recently, there’s a moment where he almost thinks you’re blowing him off. His tone turns a little sharp, a little defensive. You can hear him sigh, sniff, ask if you’re sure you can’t go out, if you’re not just tired.

 To be fair, what the hell does “my legs aren’t working” even mean.

 The moment he understands that you’re actually unwell and that it’s not an excuse, something shifts. He doesn’t apologize, but his voice drops. He asks what kind of pain it is, how long it’s been going on, whether you’re alone, whether he should come by. Short, clipped questions, as if he doesn’t trust himself to linger on them for too long.

 He still asks if you can’t just “push through it.” From his point of view it’s a reasonable question, but when you say your legs genuinely won’t hold you up, he doesn’t press it.

 He doesn’t suggest rescheduling with any enthusiasm. No “it’s okay, we’ll do it another time.” It’s more of a gruff “yeah, okay,” followed by an awkward silence where you can tell he’s thinking.

 Sometimes he shows concern sideways. He might offer to come by anyway, just a casual “I could swing by, if you want,” like it’s no big deal, definitely not him changing his plans for you. If you say no, he doesn’t insist, but you can hear that he takes it personally.

 On days when you didn’t even have plans to see each other, he might still show up without a real reason, with a flimsy excuse. Dropping something off. Checking if you need anything else. Claiming he was “already in the area,” even though it’s obviously a lie.

 He isn’t consistent. Some days he handles it better than others. If he’s already in a bad mood, the cancellation piles on top of everything else and after the call he can seem cold or distant. And the fact that you can’t do anything exciting, over the top, or entertaining annoys him.

 A great opportunity for Billy giver, just to keep morale up.

 Billy doesn’t soften because of this, but unconsciously he files it away. The next time you go out together, obviously when your legs remember they have a purpose, he pays more attention to whether your steps start to falter. He doesn’t comment unless you do, but he subtly redirects things, sitting instead of standing, driving instead of walking.

 A ride in the Camaro isn’t exactly a downgrade.ù

Eddie Munson

 Eddie answers the phone already halfway through a joke, then cuts himself off when you explain. There’s a moment of silence, not exactly disappointment, more like recalculating. “Your legs… aren’t working today?” said gently but with obvious confusion, still a little awkward.

 His first instinct is to minimize the date part. I mean, hey, if half your body has decided to go on vacation, there are definitely bigger problems than your stupid date. He rushes to say that it’s all fine, really, no pressure, as if he’s afraid you might think he’d get mad or upset if you cancel. He doesn’t want to be the kind of guy who makes you feel guilty.

 Eddie isn’t great at reacting “the right way” in the moment. He cracks a joke, something stupid about your legs being on strike or cursed by Vecna, then immediately backtracks with a quieter “sorry, that was stupid” when he realizes you might actually be in pain.

 He doesn’t ask a lot of medical questions. Not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t trust himself not to say the wrong thing. He sticks to the basics: “Does it hurt a lot?”, “are you okay right now?”

 After hanging up, he paces. You can almost picture it. He feels useless sitting at home knowing you might need help, but he also doesn’t want to show up uninvited and make things awkward, especially since you’re still in that undefined almost-something stage.

 Sometimes he comes by anyway, saying something like “so, is the curse still lingering?” and if you laugh or even just smile at him, he lights up, knowing his presence is welcome.

 If he doesn’t come over, he still finds a way to let you know he hasn’t forgotten about you. He calls again that evening “just to check in,” pretends it’s casual, but keeps you on the phone longer than usual.

 Eddie never frames your legs as a burden. He doesn’t pity you, he doesn’t get overly soft. But it’s clear he’s learning. He asks ahead of time how you’re feeling that day, and if your answer is hesitant or not particularly upbeat, he quietly changes the plans without making a big deal out of it. He suggests a movie, Hellfire at your place or his so you can be comfortable, grabbing ice cream or pizza or whatever the plan was and eating it on the couch.

 Sometimes, if he’s distracted, he doesn’t immediately notice when you start hurting again or limping, and when you point it out he looks absolutely mortified. If you’re close enough, he’ll ask, theatrically, to make it up to you, assure you he’s got an 18 in strength, and if you agree, he’ll carry you. The alternative is sitting you down and bringing the van around.

 Canceling dates stings his ego a little at first, not because of you, but because rejection is a sore spot for him. Once he understands it’s not personal, he becomes quietly protective. Anyone who makes you feel guilty for canceling is dead to him. If someone in the group says something, he’ll tell them to watch their mouth, with irony, but not too much.

 Eddie doesn’t suddenly become reliable or perfect. But he keeps choosing to adapt instead of disappearing.

Steve Harrington

 Steve answers the phone and the first thing he says is a nervous “Wait… what happened? Are you okay?”

 When you tell him you can’t see each other because your legs aren’t working that day, he pauses, trying to understand. You can practically hear him making a series of confused faces on the other end, rubbing his forehead as he tries to process what you’re saying and whether it’s a joke, though he doesn’t ask.

 He’s fairly used to it, being friends with Dustin, to dealing with illnesses that aren’t immediately visible and can cause all kinds of issues. Because of that, he’s not particularly shaken and quickly convinces himself that you’re not just blowing him off.

 “You know, it’s nothing weird. I’ve got a friend who doesn’t have collarbones. I mean, yeah, okay, it’s not the same thing, you do have legs, but you get what I mean.” It’s his way of letting you know it’s not a big deal, that there’s no problem.

 He asks if you need him to bring you anything, if there’s someone with you, and then, if he realizes you’re alone and seem in a decent mood, he goes straight to asking what movie you want to watch and what food you want him to pick up.

 He wants to help, but precisely because he’s used to the idea that you shouldn’t focus entirely on the problem and forget the person, he keeps it simple. If you mention you need to do something, he asks “Do you want me to do it?” and if something is new to him, “How does it work?”

 If you use mobility aids, Steve is both the one who asks before any outing if you’ve brought them and the one who, if you answer “I don’t need them today,” replies almost irritably that you should bring them anyway, just in case your legs decide out of nowhere that it would be funny to bend the wrong way and you’re caught unprepared.

 He talks about it with his friends when the opportunity comes up, mostly to stop them from saying something stupid, making awkward comments, or planning things that would force you to explain yourself. He does it in the only way he knows how: no sugarcoating, no hushed voices or treating it like a taboo, not as a problem but the way you’d talk about a mole.

 Sometimes, when you’re in a group, he’ll simply try to plan hangouts that don’t require much walking, so there’s no need for explanations or making things harder for either of you. Not just movie nights, but bowling, the mall with strategic bench breaks, arcades, or anything that keeps the others busy enough to give you two a bit of time alone.

 He likes knowing he can spend time with you without turning your condition into a big deal.

 If someone makes an unpleasant comment, he doesn’t snap back immediately. He tells you not to give a shit, that they’re an idiot, and not to let it get to you.

Jonathan Byers

 When Jonathan answers the phone and hears you explain that your legs aren’t working or hurt too much for you to make it to the date, he doesn’t take it personally at all. If anything, his first reaction is quietly practical. “Are you okay? Can you get to a chair or lie down? Is there someone with you?” He doesn’t dramatize it, but the concern is clear in his tone.

 He doesn’t push you to come anyway. If you start apologizing, he gently cuts you off, and it’s obvious from his voice that he truly doesn’t take it personally or blame you, and he doesn’t want you to think that for a second.

 Jonathan doesn’t rush over immediately, not wanting to smother you. Instead, he makes himself fully available. “I can stop by with something to eat if you want,” he offers in a casual way, careful not to make you feel obligated to say yes.

 He’s dealt with plenty of complicated situations in his life, between his father, the family’s reputation, and taking care of his brother. That’s why his reaction isn’t panicked. Not because he’s minimizing it, but because when you’re used to handling stressful, delicate situations, you learn to stay mentally steady.

 If you need food or bottled water, he’ll go grocery shopping himself and even put everything away. If he just wants to stop by to see how you’re doing, he brings tapes instead. Either way, he always calls first, both to make sure you’re up for it and to ask if there’s anything specific you need.

 He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He acknowledges that it’s frustrating, that he wishes you were feeling better, that he misses seeing you as often as when you’re well. But he never loads you with guilt or pressure. He’s honest, grounded, and attentively present in the way only Jonathan knows how to be.

 When you’re together, he lets you rest your legs across his lap, whether you’re talking or watching a movie. He absentmindedly strokes them, massages them, tucks a blanket over them if they’re cold, continuing to give them attention even through the fabric.

 He doesn’t know if it actually helps with the pain, but it’s a kind of care he enjoys giving you.

 If even a single word slips to Joyce, you suddenly find yourself with a fridge full of home-cooked meals in aluminum containers. First courses, mains, sides, desserts.

 There’s also a real risk that sometimes, when you open the door, behind Jonathan you’ll find his petite mother, having invited herself along to help with cleaning, laundry, or whatever else she decides might be useful.

[honey-tongued-devil]

EDS (leg disability- some personal stories)

I’m writing a couple of headcanons, and one of them has the reader with leg problems. So here’s a moment of sharing about my condition and about how the people around me react to it. In case some of you are curious, need reassurance, or have a diabled OC

I dated someone who, while we were still “together” (it was a situationship), saw nothing wrong with calling me dead weight because of my disability because “it’s the truth.” The context was that they decided to go on vacation to an extremely old and steep town, and every day I was the one walking to get food, but then I didn’t particularly feel like going out for walks in such a hostile place, especially because I knew, since it had already happened, that if my legs stopped working no one cared. A week earlier they had made me walk over four kilometers (about two point four miles) after I had complained that my legs had been starting to buckle for more than half an hour. I hope they all will shit themselves and their life will be miserable, Amen.

My friends, not the shitty ones from my ex situationship, on the other hand, are absolute gems. None of them makes a big deal out of it, but some ask me how my legs are doing if we’ve been standing for a while, and they all always give me their seat. I went to a Ghost concert and my friend’s cousin, not even directly my friend, was standing and immediately said “first thing, we take care of her, she has priority,” and the rest of my group bent over backwards. No one complained that I was driven by car, they encouraged me to sit down and wait for the girl with the car to get closer, and they went back to the subway.

Regarding the... dirty stuff, I do it with the sleeve under the knee brace. I’m not ashamed of aids, and I know that if I’m particularly engaged and caught up in it, the risk of pushing my legs past their limit is very high, so I just put on what I need without making it a problem. I assure you no one has ever complained, in case some of you need to know it.

Over the years I’ve always walked with my knees a bit bent to avoid making my legs go saber shaped, even before I knew what condition I had. The two doctors who saw me had opposing opinions about it. One said I had reduced the damage, the other said I had simply created different damage.

My orthopedist didn’t have legs. It has nothing to do with my condition, but it’s still a fun fact.

I wear heels. Always. Never under ten centimeters. For me they’re the most comfortable shoe ever and the one I’m most stable in. My go to is the Dr. Martens Eviee sandal with a heel.

The leg that’s worse is the left one. There are days when it completely stops cooperating for no reason and I genuinely struggle in an inhuman way to move it. It’s happened rarely enough, but I’ve learned it’s a possibility.

I’m not ashamed of my condition. I very often joke on my own calling myself “lame”(??) precisely because I don’t particularly care about the pity of the person in front of me. It’s a genetic condition, it’s chronic. If I turned it into a tragedy every day, I wouldn’t have a single day of peace. I’m not ashamed of aids either. It happens that I’m dressed in lace clothes, a corset, embroidered white tights, and then I have the dark knee brace and the sleeve underneath, clearly visible. Not my problem, personally.

On Reddit, people who wanted to write a very accurate Jayvik asked me for guidance on how I do the dirty stuff, and I still laugh today at the questions I was asked. I love you all

In reality, those questions made me realize how impossible it is for a person with perfectly functioning legs to understand what it means to have leg problems, but not in a negative way. It was an interesting exchange, and for me it’s not a problem at all.

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞Stranger Things Masterlist↠

I only started writing Stranger Things headcanons after it was over, but if you’re new here, know that this kind of timing is completely normal for me. If you have requests, feel free to send them in; if I don’t reply, it’s not personal. English isn’t my first language and I do a lot of revisions before posting, so I’m very slow. Enjoy.

▶ Ongoing Stranger Things fanfiction

↠ Why do you cry? (fix it)

▶ All you need know on:

↠ Billy Hargrove

↠ Eddie Munson

▶ Headcanons

↠ Party Kiss [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan]

↠ After a street fight [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan]

↠ Reacting to receiving an handmade scarf [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan]

↠ [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan] reacting to a reader with EDS/legs problems

[honey-tongued-devil]

All you need to know on:

[Eddie / Edward Munson]

It contains a breakdown of his character that includes all the context provided by the book Flight of Icarus, a contextualization of what’s shown in the episodes, and his relationships. If you have any questions, feel free to ask; if they’re addressed in the book or in another canonical source, I’ll let you know!

| Eddie | Billy |

I liked Flight of Icarus. When I finished it, I went on Tumblr to look for opinions and reactions, and I found much less hype than I expected. Since I’m writing a fanfiction where both Eddie and Billy “survive” their stories, and where I treat them in a more introspective way, I decided to make these two posts to contextualize, for those who didn’t want to or couldn’t read the books, everything there is to know about the characters. [Click here to read "Why do you cry?"]

From the book Flight of Icarus:

In terms of family, his mother was named Elizabeth, she loved the blues, and she was the person who made Eddie fall in love with music. She died of illness when her son was six. His father is Alan “Al” Munson, Wayne’s brother, a selfish man who goes in and out of prison.

His best friend is “Ronnie” Veronica Ecker. She also lives in the trailer park with her grandmother. She and Eddie go to school together, and he drives her in the van.

Eddie and Ronnie are the ones who kept Hellfire going, but unlike Eddie, Ronnie was not seen as a hopeless outcast and managed to get a scholarship to NYU, which is why Eddie is the only one who stays in Hawkins.

The other reason why Ronnie and him are not close anymore is that Eddie and Higgins, the principal, have more than simple mutual dislike. Higgins blames Eddie for the constant beatings, because the Tigers are “useful” as part of the sports team, while Eddie is just “a stain on the history of that school.” He often drags him into his office, threatens to expel him, which he can’t actually do because Eddie is always the only one who leaves covered in bruises, and gives him disgusting speeches about how he should just drop out since no Munson has ever graduated anyway, and about how he is a rotten apple that risks rotting all the others.

A very violent fight happens. Tommy H breaks Gareth’s wrist, and Ronnie steps in before Tommy can hit the boy again while he’s already on the ground. Gareth ends up in the hospital and needs surgery, Higgins pulls Eddie aside and tells him that this time it’s serious and that if he files a report Ronnie will lose all her chances. Eddie, not wanting to destroy his best friend’s future, drops out of school and lets the principal win.

This leads to the collapse of their relationship, because Eddie stops showing up without explaining anything to anyone. When Ronnie goes to ask for explanations, he snaps but doesn’t talk, because he knows she would cause trouble and he doesn’t want her to risk her future. They end up not speaking anymore.

Al is the reason Eddie knows how to steal a car. He’s also the reason Eddie has had a gun pointed at him a couple of times, and above all the reason Eddie could never be anything other than “the town fuckup.”

When Al gets out of prison yet again, he goes straight to Eddie and involves him in a plan to rob one of the major dealers who supplied several states.

Eddie doesn’t want to accept, because he has no intention of ending up as human trash like his father.

Paige should be introduced here, but I’ll keep all relationships for later. Eddie gets a chance to pursue music. Paige pays his first expenses, including studio recording costs, but he’s soon told that the opportunity only includes him and excludes Corroded Coffin, and that he would have to move to California or go back and forth. In short, money he doesn’t have.

He accepts to take part in the robbery to scrape together about five thousand dollars. He thinks his life might finally change direction, that he’ll be able to go somewhere where he’s actually a person and not just the shadow of his last name.

The robbery happens in two parts. He almost takes a bullet to the head in the first part. The second part seems to go smoothly, until it doesn’t.

It’s Al who introduces Eddie to Reefer Rick.

Reefer Rick is a friendly guy, lives in the woods, fairly tidy, very helpful. He’s also the one they plan to sell the stolen drugs to, to get the money.

Eddie has his own small, independent house, like the one Max and her mother have in season four.

In the second part of the plan, they manage to steal drugs from the container that transports them. But, the two men they stole the drugs from, Jack and CJ, quickly trace everything back to Al. They go to Eddie’s house, point a gun at him, and it comes out that Al went to Eddie because he was the only one stupid enough to trust him, and that the reason Eddie was the face of the plan, despite Al being more experienced, was that Al was robbing the man he worked for because he “thought his piece of cake was too small.”

CJ and Al recover part of the money and set Eddie’s house on fire, burning all of his mother’s memories with it. A police officer approaches them, armed. The two criminals shoot him and run. Al tells Eddie to be grateful they put the bullet in the cop and not in one of them, and tells him to get in the van and run to California like they had planned.

Eddie goes to press his hands on the officer’s wound and tries to convince his father to stay. His father tells him he’s out of his mind and leaves. The police arrive and, without much investigation, decide that Eddie shot the officer, so they throw him in jail.

End of the flight of Icarus, figuratively. He no longer has the money for California, he no longer has a house, he no longer has friends, he no longer has his van, he has nothing left. When the officer wakes up, he says Eddie wasn’t the one who shot him. Hopper goes to see Eddie, gives him water, and takes him to make a phone call. Eddie calls Paige and tells her he won’t be able to go to California.

Paige pays his bail and cuts ties with Eddie.

Eddie restarts his life by going to live with Wayne. He asks Reefer Rick for a job because Wayne can’t keep up with expenses, and he reenrolls in school by threatening Higgins with exposing his drug use, drugs Eddie discovered at Reefer Rick’s place.

Eddie as a character:

I loved seeing people complain that Eddie is badly written in FOI, because Caitlin Schneider is the author of the book, a staff writer and director’s assistant, she wrote a couple of episodes and helped write the entirety of season four in particular. Eddie’s authorship is completely hers. People just have a totally skewed image of Eddie that doesn’t line up with canon Eddie. So I’m adding this section on Eddie’s character.

Eddie is insufferable.

Every time someone tries to have a conversation with Eddie where they’re worried about him, trying to help him, or wanting to clear things up, Eddie takes it as a personal offense. He does it with Ronnie when she asks for explanations, he does it with Paige when she asks “what did you do?” after he calls her from jail, and he does it countless times with Wayne, who worries about him. He immediately jumps to “I’m not a child” and “I do what I think is right,” aggressively.

He always regrets it within ten minutes, but he never stops.

He calms down only after hitting rock bottom and watching his life fall apart, but overall Eddie is not a guy with good communication skills and he’s a bit emotionally constipated.

Eddie does not beg. He worked at the Hideout as a bartender and occasionally performed. When he needed money, he picked up extra shifts and did the math, but he never asked anyone for anything.

He does not use drugs. He drinks and smokes cigarettes, but the stuff he sells, he just sells it, he doesn’t consume it.

He comes in hot, expecting his last name to precede him. He starts from the assumption that everything will go wrong because he’s a Munson, that he’ll never be anything or anyone because of the family he comes from. Wayne is the one who shakes him out of that mindset.

Eddie and his relationships:

He was in love with Ronnie, but Ronnie rejected him and they stayed friends (he got over it).

After confessing to Ronnie, Eddie dated two other girls, Nicole Summers in tenth grade and Cass Finnigan between ’83 and ’84. In both cases, Eddie felt that they weren’t really interested in him or in getting to know him, but were more curious about what it was like to date the freak.

Paige (his girlfriend in ’84) was a ray of sunshine in his life. She went to school with him, then moved to California, and now works for WR, a music label. She gets him the recording session, convinces the studio guy, pays for the session, sends the record out, believes in him. They were deeply in love with each other. They were supposed to go live together in California.

Eddie tried to call Paige many times after getting out of jail, but she never answered. Not because Eddie had been locked up, especially since he was innocent, but because he gave no explanations for anything and snapped at her, abandoning her without a reason.

Chrissy Cunningham: the book expands on how they met. Eddie recognizes her while she’s trying to convince Tommy, Jason, and another guy not to beat up Gareth, but she doesn’t notice him. He never expected her to be a likeable person, neither when they were kids nor when they grew up. The book only mentions that, when they were younger, he sees her mother scolding her and listing all the things she messed up on stage, and he mouths “sorry” to her. Joseph Quinn has admitted several times that Eddie had a crush on her, and the Duffers said they regretted killing her because there was potential there, but nothing is explored in depth in FOI, where Chrissy was already with Jason.

Scenes from season four that FOI adds context to:

The satanic panic in Hawkins was already rampant. One family had pulled their son out of school and sent him to a religious camp after discovering he took part in Hellfire. People were already talking about a satanic cult in town. Eddie reading about it in the magazine, looking smug and amused, is because he knows that half of Hawkins’ satanic panic comes directly from him.

Eddie staring at Jason and Jason yelling “you want something, freak?” isn’t random. Jason had been part of the group of bullies who picked fights with the Hellfire kids for years, and they were always excused because they were important to the school’s reputation.

Eddie talking about how he’ll graduate and flipping off Higgins is his personal revenge against Higgins, who believes Eddie will never make it, both because he’s an outcast and because no Munson has ever succeeded. That moment is personal too.

“You are the future of Hellfire,” said to Mike and Dustin, is because Eddie and Ronnie inherited Hellfire from older kids who eventually graduated. And they will do the same.

Eddie and Chrissy knew each other from the talent show. Every year the school held a talent show, and at least once in three years students had to participate. The year Eddie takes part, he forms Corroded Coffin in a couple of days, they rehearse barely twice before going on stage. Eddie takes a catwalk to circle the school and look through the upper windows to see if his father came to watch him, but he doesn’t find him. A few seconds later he realizes he’s not alone. There’s a cute, well put together girl next to him who asks who he’s looking for. Eddie assumes she can’t really be talking to him, and when he realizes she is, he also realizes how approachable Chrissy is, and how much she hates her mother.

Eddie’s guitar was saved by Wayne from the house that was set on fire by the two criminals, along with very few other things.

Reefer Rick had already offered Eddie a place to stay after his house was burned down. Eddie knew where he lived and knew he could take refuge there.

What Eddie eats while he’s hiding out isn’t that different from what he eats with Wayne. Wayne basically lives on cereal and beer, but he tries to make sure Eddie eats properly after he moves in with him in the trailer. Still, it’s nothing new for Eddie.

Eddie learns how to hotwire cars around the age of ten. His father considered it a useful skill. He does it for the first time during the robbery they plan together, but he already feels disgust toward himself.

In that scene, Eddie mentions his last name and its weight for the first time, when he says that now he’ll be wanted for murder and car theft, bringing honor to the Munson name.

[honey-tongued-devil]

All you need to know on:

[Billy / William Hargrove]

It contains a breakdown of his character that includes all the context provided by the book Runaway Max, a contextualization of what’s shown in the episodes, and a couple of personal inferences. If you have any questions, feel free to ask; if they’re addressed in the book or in another canonical source, I’ll let you know!

I should note that Billy is a bit more complicated than Eddie (I will post tomorrow), both because the book is not entirely about him or from his POV, and because chronologically events are referenced in a more scattered way.

This may be useful if you want to read "Why do you cry?", my fanfiction on Billy and Eddie "surviving" the canon event. [click here to read]

| Eddie | Billy |

From the book Runaway Max:

Max didn’t know Neil had a son; Neil vaguely mentioned Billy without even saying his name. Susan, on the other hand, not only knew about Billy but was aware of the violent, abusive dynamic even before agreeing to marry Neil. While they were still in California, Billy gave Max a cigarette to try; they were laughing and were relaxed. Susan caught them and intervened by yelling, but as soon as Neil stepped in the garage she threw the cigarette into her coffee and reassured him it was nothing. This happened before Max ever saw her stepfather raise his hands to Billy for the first time. Later in the book, Max says she would come to understand that Susan wasn’t afraid of him, but afraid for him. + The first time Max witnessed one of Neil’s beatings, even before it started, both Billy and Susan were frozen because they both knew what was about to happen, and there Max realized that Susan was not surprised because she was already aware.

At first Max adored Billy; the moment she saw him, her impression was that he looked like a movie star, and that he resembled his car, fast and hard-edged. Max even asked if he wanted to go to the bumper cars; Billy replied that he didn’t see why he should when he had a car, and then took Max for a “bitchin’ ride.”

The nickname “Mad Max” was given to her by Billy as a joke (not a mean one).

Neil started asserting himself as Max’s father almost immediately. Susan said she was thinking of signing Max up for summer camp; Max didn’t respond, and Neil told her to answer her mother when she spoke to her. Long story short, while they were still eating at a restaurant, Neil sent Max to wait in the car. Billy made an excuse to leave and went to the car as well, kept her company, and then told her that that man was horrible and definitely couldn’t be a father to her, let alone to him.

Billy’s psychological state worsened day by day. There was strong emphasis on his gaze being constantly blank, sleepy and absent, but alongside the dissociative state there was the fact that every instance of abuse clearly made him worse, to the point where even Susan and Neil were no longer sure they could contain him.

The break between Billy and Max happened because of Neil. The first time Max witnessed a beating, Susan eventually left the kitchen without urgency and without saying anything. Max didn’t know how to stop what was happening, so after the first two blows and a strike with the belt she screamed to stop it. Neil looked at Billy and told him he didn’t know he had raised a loser who needed a little girl to fight his battles for him, then went back to beating him with the belt until he was left on the floor, bruised and bleeding. That was when the idea formed in Billy’s mind that Max was an enemy.

Billy was constantly dissociated, but during physical abuse he became completely absent. When Neil hit him he did nothing; he didn’t speak, step back, scream, cry, or try to dodge. He stayed still, hoping it would end as quickly as possible.

Max tried to offer him help while he was on the ground, checking how he was and offering to get him some ice, but in that moment she saw only hatred in Billy’s eyes. Billy, unsurprisingly, refused the help and told her to go away.

My personal interpretation was that, beyond Neil’s words changing his perception of Max, there was also shame. Max had seen him in that state and had come to feel pity for him; for Billy, that represented a tear in his dignity. Part of that hatred came from the fact that Neil made it impossible for him to tolerate the idea of being seen as fragile, so the only method of self-defense was to show that he was not weak, fragile, or emotional.

One way he tried to erase that image from Max’s mind, in my opinion, was what became the reason they left California. While Max and one of her friends, Nate, were trying to build a ramp, a project they’d had in mind for a while, things escalated without becoming outright violent, until Nate stepped in and Billy, looking Max in the eyes, slowly broke his arm just to make a statement.

Because of this, as an aside, Neil didn’t beat him. They didn’t even talk about it, probably because Neil saw violence as virile and normal, something he considered healthier than, say, a man styling his hair with all the hairspray that Billy used.

Billy’s beatings were so normalized that they were treated almost casually. Another one that was mentioned, happened on the night of the season two party: he came home late and drunk, staggering. Max went to her room before things escalated, but she heard the noises, heard Neil yelling, and then Billy on the floor.

When these incidents were mentioned casually, they were referred to as “disciplining him.”

Girls and parties were his way of avoiding being at home, but Hawkins had few parties and the girls had curfews, which was why, as he spent more time at home, the abuse increased.

Billy was completely broken, and this wasn’t my wording, it was Max’s during a moment of reflection. He had been psychologically shattered to the point that in his head there was no longer himself, only Neil. Whatever Neil said became law for Billy; he acted directly in response to every comment, to the few words addressed to him, usually while he was being beaten. After the last abuse we were shown, the one in season two, Billy completely snapped.

From season two/three, with the context of Runaway:

Billy driving Max around to the arcades wasn’t because the family asked him to. Ever since they had arrived in Indiana, he had been the one taking her everywhere, and he had even been asked to stop by her school to make sure the paperwork was in order (like, five minutes before his classes started). As a bonus detail, Susan didn’t like Max going to the arcades, it was a thing between her and his father.

This started because Billy broke her skateboard, but it turned into a habit because theirs was the most dysfunctional household in the show, and Neil and Susan stopped acting as parents.

Billy didn’t hate Indiana on principle, but because it was gray, small, far from the ocean, static, and there was little to do, which, as mentioned in the book section, meant more time at home.

On the night of the Halloween party, they dumped Max on Billy and told him to take her trick-or-treating. He dropped her off after she asked to be let out, but didn’t stay with her, he went to Tina’s Halloween party instead. He was late picking her up, Max thought he wasn’t going to pick her up anymore and ended up going home alone. A few minutes later he came back too, completely drunk, lied about a flat tire and Neil, who was not having it, beat him.

“Plant your feet” was, even if it didn’t seem like it, genuine advice from Billy. That was how he usually endured a couple of blows before being thrown to the ground by his father. The scene with Steve in season two, before the fight, was meant to be an exact mirror of Billy behaving exactly like Neil.

For the scene with Lucas, where Billy saw him in the parking lot, Max provided the context that Neil had both forbidden talking about politics and forced the whole family to align with the conservative party, and that he had drilled into Billy the idea that there were people who didn’t belong to “our world,” referring to Black people and anyone who wasn’t Lutheran. It was one of many scenes showing that Billy had Neil in his head instead of himself, along with the season three flashbacks, the fight with Steve, and the other elements from the book mentioned above.

The equipment and weights used to be in the garage in California; in Indiana the garage was awful and small, so everything was kept inside the house. Since there was little to do, Billy spent part of his time at home, when Neil wasn’t around, lifting weights.

The day we saw him lifting weights while Max was fixing her skateboard was because Billy had run over it with his car. Max was trying to repair it with her backpack already packed and money taken from her mother, because she was preparing to run away and go live with her father.

The open shirt and cologne in his underwear were a Dacre thing, not something from the writers or from Brenna. It wasn’t related to Runaway, but I was looking at a file with all of Billy’s scenes while writing and didn’t want to forget it.

The moment Neil put his hands on him in season two was one of the very few times in Billy’s life when he tried to defend himself verbally, attempting to argue instead of just dissociating and mentally preparing for what came next. The first time this happened was when he came home drunk from the party.

It was also the only moment where we knew that, when he was alone, he cried. From Max’s point of view we never saw what happened afterward, and he seemed to remain completely dissociated until he was safe in his room. In the season two scene, for a brief instant, we saw him throw his keys and start crying while rubbing his face, and those were the only moments where he wasn’t absent.

As mentioned before, after that scene came Billy’s final psychological break. That was why, when Harrington gave him the signal that he could fight back, Max saw something snap in him that felt completely dangerous, as if she knew Billy wouldn’t have stopped that night until he killed him.

After the fight with Steve, Billy completely stopped talking at home. He and Max rarely even ran into each other, but he didn’t speak to anyone anymore. He hadn’t been speaking to Neil even before, same with Susan, and with Max, once the conflict reached its peak and stabilized, he stopped talking as well.

Things that weren’t explicit but could be inferred with some context:

Billy’s abuse was so normalized that no one was shocked by it anymore, and no one seemed to treat it as a shocking factor. Max herself started dissociating like her mother, even if she didn’t want to watch so she always made sure to not be in the same room. Making things worse was the fact that, beyond not knowing how to stop it, Billy refused help.

As already said but worth repeating, the break with Max happened in part because his father drilled into him the idea that weakness was a problem, that needing help was for the weak, that he had to be a man. The moment a thirteen-year-old girl reached out to him with pity, he felt completely humiliated and stripped of his masculinity.

The need to always appear virile and never weak, combined with being constantly dissociated and never fully lucid, was what made him unstable. He did things like burning the carcass of a cat just to show he was manly enough.

His friends, Sid and Wayne, seemed to be metaphors for the two sides of Billy’s character. Sid was chubby, decent, kinder, more caring, and stable, while Wayne was skinny with a weasel-like face, who not only encouraged chaos but did so by shouting things like “at least he’s man enough to do it.” Sid, unsurprisingly, eventually left.

The sauna scene was brutal because Billy wasn’t flayed yet. This was made clear because the moment the Mind Flayer was about to take possession of him, Will felt the tingling in his neck. There was so much going on that Billy’s mind could no longer create shields, and dissociation wasn’t enough. When he cried and said “I’ve done bad things” that was really him, or rather, the Billy who hadn’t existed for a long time. That was when he asked for help, and Max clung to the door trying to reassure him, because for the first time he wasn’t clouded by how he was supposed to appear or by Neil’s words, and he was genuinely asking for help.

That was why, in season four, Max remembered that scene during Vecna’s ‘nightmares’. Max hated him in part, but she was also angry at Susan for choosing that fate both for herself and for her daughter. Max knew and admitted that Billy was dangerous and had become a monster because he was an extension of his father.

When Max saw him in the sauna, it was as if she was back in that kitchen, seeing something ugly and wrong but not knowing how to stop it or how to actively help Billy. This would haunt her forever, because she would always feel guilty for not having been able to intervene.

The final scene where El stroked his face and he cried was even more devastating with the added context that, between a father who only looked at him to beat him, Billy spending his days either alone in his room with music blasting or in near-total silence, and Neil (again) destroying his emotional sphere by filling his head with ideas about fragility, vulnerability, and how wrong emotions were, making for him impossible to have a healthy relationship, Billy hadn’t been touched with affection for roughly ten years.

[honey-tongued-devil]

"Why do you cry?"

[...] Pale, blue eyes flew open, the sclera red from burst capillaries quickly becoming glossy with tears, a direct consequence of the coughing that was twisting his body on the bed while the people in uniform tried to keep him upright and still. “We did it,” a nurse shouted, her fingers trembling, her dark eyes free of any wrinkles shined as they reflected in the paler ones of the older woman in front of her, her face hidden as well. “We made it.” she replied, with a steady, proud tone that only heightened the colleague's enthusiasm. She was clearly smiling, even if it was not visible. In the midst of several military operations, government research teams come across two different bodies at two different times. At first glance, they were nothing more than corpses, but they soon realized that they might be a resource, something to study and examinate. They could become useful. And driven by the desire to do the impossible, to strengthen the breath of life within the lifeless bodies so they could study them, they change the course of two lives.

Tumblr doesn't let me link it, so [CLICK HERE] to read it on ao3

[honey-tongued-devil]

In every fandom I end up writing a long fic full of medical procedures and an endless list of tags like “graphic description of…”, and in every fandom I have several devoted readers (whom I love, I need you to know that I never forget you). What you don’t know is that my betas never change, so every time I start a story with twenty-page chapters and incredibly detailed descriptions of every procedure, medication, and experiment, they’re always the ones who have to sit through it. And they never tell me to fuck off.

heroes.