here's a little controversy: eddie laying across bev's lap while she plays with his hair
eddie is not used to his hair being touched like this
he’s on the couch in bill’s basement, feet on bill’s lap and his head in bev’s
they’re watching some horror movie richie picked, a dumb flick with too much corn syrupy blood and not enough common sense
the room is warm from body heat and bill’s got his hand resting on eddie’s calf, warm and with his thumb rubbing absently at eddie’s bare skin
and eddie’s halfway to falling asleep when he feels fingers slide into his hair
bev’s fingernails are short, bitten and a little uneven, and she scratches lightly over his scalp
he shivers the faintest bit and bev stills for a moment
he wants to shy away, to roll off the couch and onto the floor and maybe out the door and away forever
no one’s ever touched his head with such care before?
cause like, consider this:
eddie’s ma cuts his hair bimonthly
she sits him on a stool in the kitchen, feet kicking out in front of him, and wraps a big cloth around his neck
she spritzes his hair down with water thats too cold and then grabs her cutting scissors out of the drawer in the bathroom
eddie’s been scared of hair cutting day since before he can remember
ma’s hands are rough when she pushes down and commands him to stay still
she jerks his head to the side, scissors ice cold as they slide across his wet scalp
and eddie’s scared she’s gonna cut him bc hes a KID so he shys away from the scissors which only makes ma frustrated
“if you move, i’m going to cut your ear and then you’re going to bleed out before we can get to the hospital!” she threatens once when he’s no older than six
and it puts the fear of god into eddie because his ma is deathly serious and also why would she lie about something like that?
eddie doesn’t know much about ears or blood or doctors but he trusts his mom so he stays still as possible
it’s not just when it’s hair cutting time
it’s only been a few years now since eddie started brushing his hair himself, his ma having deemed him old enough to do it
before, he used to have to sit down cross-legged on the floor in front of ma’s recliner and let her tug a comb through the tangles
his hair is naturally curly and she yanks through every last wave until it lays flat and eddie doesn’t know why his momma doesn’t like his hair when it’s naturally curly and fluffy but she just doesn’t
she sticks his hair to his forehead with gel for church and swipes at it with a spit-slick thumb when it gets mussed during sunday school
she yanks him by the ear to the bathroom when he comes home from playing at richie’s house with grass stained knees
she ruffles his hair and laughs fakely to the other moms when she drops eddie at his first day of kindergarten and her fingernails press hard into his scalp when he doesn’t smile politely at the moms
she presses her hand to his forehead hard to check for a temperature and eddie feels just fine but his forehead must be hot because ma clucks her tongue and makes him crawl into bed with a warm compress
basically there’s no such thing as casual calm affection in the kaspbrak house
it’s rough and suffocating and back-handed and overbearing and so eddie starts to equate affection with aggression and overprotectiveness
so when bev slides her fingers into eddie’s hair to pet, he freezes
there’s no moment where she pushes him to go further, to give into it, no guilt-trip about him being a “good boy, aren’t you eddie?” and letting her do what she pleases
it’s a soft sigh, a exhalation of held breath and fear, an invitation
her fingers continue, mapping so softly over the curve of his ear and along the side of his face
she loops a curl around her finger and smoothes it down against his head
and eddie starts crying, there on bill’s couch
nobody’s paying attention, too focused on the movie, and eddie tries to sniffle as quietly as he can
his tears soak into bev’s jeans and he knows she can feel them, can tell he’s crying over the slightest bit of casual affection
but bev doesn’t say anything
just keeps petting his hair
send me requests/headcanons/prompts!
