Trigger Warnings: grooming and references to underage/dubious matters of consent ahead.

X

Eddie

It was one of those parties that everyone heard about, but rarely got the chance to attend: an upper echelon affair reminiscent of the Great Gatsby festivities. No one knew who threw it - hell, no one even knew who lived at the beachside mansion where it was held every weekend. According to the gossip, it was either hosted by a retired opera diva or an LSD-favoring musician who also owned several big-name restaurants in the city. Eddie Munson was seventeen at the time: bereft of any tattoos, pale and pasty as society's soft white underbelly, and not quite settled into his tuft of gravity-defying curls. He had taken the arduous journey from Indiana to San Francisco, sometimes hitchhiking and sometimes catching a ride on freight trains - anything to get him away from his father and the stuffy atmosphere of his hometown.

It was fun until he ran out of the cash that he had stolen from his father's safe. The odd jobs that he worked around the cities only ever provided him with so much. After all, no one felt particularly inclined to pay a grimy runaway a fair wage, no matter how much he reiterated that he was 'eighteen, actually.' But work was work, the various auto shops and cafes needed spare hands, and Eddie was a damn good worker. Easy on the eyes, according to the elderly women whose groceries he bagged on the weekend before his shifts at the theaters.

Somehow, he had ended up at a seedy after-hours bar in SF, rubbing shoulders with anarchists, bikers, and skinheads. Word had spread that Eddie was unemployed and far away from home - an easy target for quick, underground jobs. Not to mention he gave off the impression of being an iota more intelligent than the bar patrons who ended their nights with their heads thrust in dumpsters. A man named 'Big Mike' had approached him and cut him a quick deal: return a 'lost purse' to an unnamed woman, follow the instructions for delivery, and receive cash once the job was done. If all went well, according to Big Mike, Eddie had a future in UPS: Underground Postal Service.

That was how Eddie found himself at the edge of a pool, backpack strap clutched against his shoulder as he stared up at the palm trees strangled in fairy lights. The mansion was too big to fathom: multi-level, floor-to-ceiling windows, and decadent pale gold hues that sapped into the surroundings. It wasn't his scene, but at least the alcohol was free and drugs were spread across every glass table - pills, powder, even little blue porcelain cups of tea that turned the partygoers bleary-eyed and incoherent. Women splashed each other in the pools and gradually shed their clothing as the hours passed. Men in suits struggled through slurred conversation as an all-black band played a rolling, thrashing blues number with trumpets that could be heard from miles away. Eddie plucked small paper cups from the plate of a passing waiter and wondered what the hell he was even eating: strange concoctions with claws and swatches of sauce and sparkling fizzers.

"It's called an hors d'oevre, sweetheart," a woman called from the crowd. "Go on. You can eat it. It won't bite you back."

Eddie choked and spun around with a single, dejected crawfish claw hanging from between his lips. A woman lounging upon a floatie raised her large sunglasses and winked at him. That was another theme of the party: sunglasses at night to hide dilated pupils and reddened eyes. He sucked the tiny, red claw back into his mouth as she paddled towards the edge of the pool and climbed out. God, she was beautiful - platinum blonde hair, lithe as a sprig, and bedecked in so much gold jewelry that she seemed to emit an aura of her own. Everything about her screamed I am filthy fucking rich.

"This isn't really your scene, is it, sweetie," she said to him, her voice high and loud as she struggled to be heard over the sound of the band. Now that she was face-to-face with him, it was easier to tell her age: late forties, but wearing a crème-colored one-piece that left little to the imagination. She raked her salmon-pink nails across his shoulder and leaned in close enough to whisper in his ear. "It's not really my scene, either. How about I give you ten dollars, and you go get us a pizza from Lorenzos?"

"Can't, ma'am, sorry," Eddie said back, ever the purveyor of chivalrous manners. "I - I'm here on a job. I'm looking for a friend of Mike's-"

"Bike Mike? He has a lot of friends, sweetie. You'll have to be more specific."

"S-she left her purse at his place and I, uh-"

"Oh!" The woman grinned and put a hand to her chest. "That would be me! Tell Mikey I'll let him borrow my green Chevrolet for his trouble."

Eddie's ears perked up. 'Green Chevrolet' was the code that his target would say to make her identity known. Big Mike hadn't been specific when it came to the details of his client. He had only made an odd comment: "Trust me, kid, you'll know her when you see her." There had been a way that Big Mike had said the word 'her,' a brief glaze-over of the eyes as if the very thought of the woman had dissipated all other thoughts. Now, Eddie understood why. Andrea radiated glamor and self-assurance, her posture straight-backed and gaze unflinching. She reminded Eddie of an Elven Queen straight from a Tolkien novel. Movie-star perfect, bordering on unreal. He slipped the strap of the backpack over his shoulder and held it out to her. Her eyes flickered towards it and then she shook her head slightly.

"Hold on to it for me," she said, then turned away. "I'll be right back."

Eddie's heart pounded as he watched her wriggle through the crowd and disappear into the mansion. A sense of wild panic was rising in him and he had no idea why. Something about the woman made his blood course and his stomach coil. There had been no reason for her to tell him to wait, for a strange sense of paralysis would have kept him rooted to his spot forever. She returned wearing a thin, white robe and sandals. Eddie wasn't a makeup expert - aside from the occasional dabble in eyeliner - but he could tell that she had added an extra layer of lip gloss and touched up the arch in her brows.

She walked past him and fluttered her hand, beckoning for him to follow. He lumbered close behind her as they wound their way through the crowd towards a staircase leading down to the beach. Each step was flanked by a candle with a shy flame. Her flip-flops smacked the worn, sandy slats of wood as she trailed her hand along the rope rail. As she walked, she sang beneath her breath in a foreign language.

"Russian?" Eddie asked, struggling to keep his voice from sounding breathless. She tossed her head back and laughed as if he had said the funniest thing in the world.

"Oh! No, no! I'm in no rush to go anywhere."

He couldn't help but chuckle at that. Funny, hot, and rich -bingo he thought to himself. She stepped off of the staircase and onto the moonlit sand. His eyes remained riveted on her ass as she bent down to wiggle her sandals from her feet. Women of her caliber usually crossed the sidewalk when they saw him approach, or yelled at him to stop smoking beneath their balconies. She slipped a large beach bag from her shoulders and untucked a quilt from inside. Eddie shifted nervously from foot to foot as she flushed the blanket over the sand and beckoned for him to take a seat. He hesitated until he saw her retrieve two large bottles of white wine from the beach bag. Suddenly, he felt very inspired.

X

"I do this thing where I run away. A lot." Eddie suddenly remembered that he was not really on the beach. He was sitting in the bathroom of the Hideout with Tony. She toyed with a frayed thread on her boot as she listened to him. He wondered if his memory of Andrea was just as painful for her, too.

"I ran away from home," he continued. "I ran away from my mom's funeral. Hell, I even ran away from middle school the first time that I got into a fight. I remember I was standing there staring at her and those two bottles of wine, and I had that feeling, you know? Like I needed to run - that something was wrong and it was all some elaborate trap set by my dad to bring me back home. But she just made me feel like-"

"You owed her something," Tony finished for him. He nodded, dry swallowed.

"Yeah, yeah. That. Uh - I felt like I had to repay her for having to deal with me, you know? Like I just had to do what she said. It's just so fucking crazy, man, how she doesn't have to say a single word to make you feel-"

"Small-"

"And giant-"

"At the same time."

Eddie rolled his tongue along his back teeth, shivered a little. Tony glanced at him with a smile, rubbed her hands together until they were warm, and then slid them against his bare arms. She asked if he wanted to stop there and he shook his head.

"I should have run," he continued slowly. "I should have thrown that fucking bag at her and hightailed it back to Hawkins. But I didn't. I sat there. 'She prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies, she anointed my head with oil, and sure as hell - my cup ran over.''"

Tony sighed. "'And you dwelled in the House of Andrea forever.'"

X

The woman hadn't brought any cups. She squeezed her eyes shut, turned her face away with a pinched smile, and popped open the bottle of white wine. Froth splattered Eddie right as he dropped down onto the cushy quilt. She glanced back at him and widened her eyes at his drenched shirt.

"Oh, no! I'm so sorry, honey. You can go ahead and just take that off."

"Thanks but uh, I-"

"No, it's fine. Look, I'll do the same if it makes you more comfortable." She slid the robe from her shoulders and wiggled her wrists free of the sleeves. It would have been awkward to let her sit there without her robe on, so Eddie cleared his throat and yanked his shirt off in solidarity. The woman grinned, showing off all of her pearly white veneers, and leaned back with the bottle of wine tucked between her bare thighs.

"So you're - what - around sixteen? Seventeen?"

"Eighteen," Eddie lied. "I mean I - I will be in several months, give or take-"

"Eighteen! Look at you, already a full-grown man and you don't even know it yet. I remember when I was eighteen, give or take a few years back." She laughed at a joke that he didn't quite catch. "Unfortunately, the men my age at that time weren't nearly as handsome as you, sweetie. My name is Andrea, by the way."

She held her slender hand out and he gripped it nervously. "Uh, Edward," he stuttered. Fuck. Somehow he had managed to forget his own name. "I mean - you can call me Eddie. All my friends do. I mean, you know, I don't really have many friends in these parts - not for lack of trying but, I kind of moved out here in a rush and my dad, well, he-"

She leaned forward suddenly and poked his chest with the tip of her finger - actually muttered 'boop' as she did it. The words dried up suddenly on his tongue as she leaned back with a giggle and took a swig of wine. Then, cheeks slightly full, she held the bottle out to him.

"You're not going to get me in trouble, right?" He asked as he accepted the bottle. "I mean, since I'm underage and all-"

"It's okay, honey," she leaned forward and whispered beneath her palm. "We'll just pretend that you're twenty-one tonight. Okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, rad."

He threw his head back and took a long pull from the bottle as she reached for Big Mike's bag. She pulled a silver tool from her beach bag and leveraged it against a white contraption hanging from the zipper. It was one of those theft prevention tools, the ones that splattered a thief with ink when they tried to remove it. Andrea unlocked it and cast the gadget behind her, into the sand. Huh, Eddie thought to himself as he watched Andrea lift a small, green box from the bag. So Big Mike had been testing him. If Eddie had broken the stainer lock and opened the bag to peek at the goods inside, then Big Mike would have known by the red stain on his fingers. Andrea untucked the flaps of the box. Eddie turned his head away. He had absolutely no desire to know what sort of drugs he had just delivered. When it came to police searches, the less he knew the better.

"Don't be a pussy, sweetie," Andrea said. "Open your eyes. It's really not a big deal. Here, look-"

Eddie pressed his lips together and opened one eye to a mere squint. There, sitting in Andrea's palm, was a bunch of striped seeds. He wondered if they were something like the seeds of a Jimsonweed, so ridiculously powerful in its hallucinogenic properties that grown men had gone crazy fucking around with them.

"They're seeds of a Russian Olive tree," Andrea said. "Technically, Russian Olive trees are illegal to grow in California. But that doesn't mean that I can't grow my own - you know the whole 'my property, my business' thing. I have a farm out near the Coast. We grow lots of stuff there but," Andrea closed her fingers around the seeds, slid them back into their packet. "I really wanted Russian Olives."

"Must be one hell of an olive if you're willing to grow it illegally."

"Legalities are technicalities," she said. He loved the way she said it, sweet and musical with the slightest hint of a foreign accent. "Sometimes I like breaking little laws, just because I like the way it feels. It's sort of," she tucked her hands between her thighs and wiggled her shoulders. "It's sort of exhilarating."

"Scouts honor that I won't tell a single soul, ma'am."

Her expression darkened. Something flared in her eyes as she dropped a hand on his knee and squeezed it tight. "Of course, you're not going to tell, sweetie. I'm sure the police would love to know that a little boy is running around delivering strange packages - and drinking, no less!"

"Woah, lady!" Eddie stood up quickly and stumbled back. The alcohol in his stomach churned nauseatingly, and his vision careened. She stood up just as quickly and marched towards him.

"J-just take it easy, alright?" He said. "Because a second ago you called me a grown man. Now you're sayin' I'm a little boy. Y-you know," Eddie tucked his arms around his bare chest, suddenly feeling so awkward and exposed beneath her harsh gaze. "I'm just going to come out and say it: this whole thing is weird. Don't you have a husband or a party or a fucking shaved Pomeranian to get back to?"

She pressed her ringed finger against her lips and chuckled deep in her throat. "You're so funny, Mr. Edward. And no - no, I'm not married. Men my age become boring after a while, all wrinkled and soft. I've actually been looking for a younger man to help with a few of my side projects and," the corner of her lip lifted slightly. "Keep me company. You seem mature for your age, which is both unfortunate and…." She pressed the tip of her nail against his chest again. "Interesting."

Eddie was confused and nauseous. He wondered if the alcohol was laced, or if Andrea was waging some type of weird psychological warfare against him. One second she was threatening to expose him as a little law-breaking child, and in the next, she was referring to him as a man matured beyond his age. Eddie had heard about her type before, in the pulp fiction novels that he had read in the storage containers of freight trains. She was one of those older women who latched on to younger men and then used their age as both a threat and a point of praise. Run, said every bone in his alcohol-drenched body, run hard, run far, run fast. Run now.

But he didn't, of course. The one fucking time in his life where it would have made sense to run, he didn't. He stood there both terrified and shocked as she unlatched his belt, murmuring her praises of his body, asking again and again if 'this was okay?' She was beautiful, he reminded himself as she pulled him back onto the quilt, and he would probably never get a chance to be with a woman like her. He was lucky, he told himself as she ran her hands all over him - staking him out, marking her territory, making him sweat. Out of all the people at the party, she had chosen him.

But he didn't feel lucky. Not. One. Bit.

X

"And that's when she started calling me 'Thumper.'"

Eddie stood up, grabbed his lighter, and threw it as hard as he could against the opposite wall. God, that felt good. Really good. He would have broken every damn thing in the bathroom if Tony wasn't there. Hell, he would have broken his own knuckles punching the walls again. But he didn't want to scare her, and he had long ago promised himself that the thought of Andrea wouldn't scare him anymore. But maybe he was a lot like Tony - maybe he was still learning to live again.

"I don't understand," Tony said quietly from behind him. Eddie smiled mirthlessly as he bent down and began to scratch a devil's face into the wall with his key.

"Y'ever see a rabbit thump its back leg, sweetheart," he asked, unable to keep the gruffness from his voice.

"Yeah but…oh. Oh. Shit, man, I'm sorry-"

"Let's just skip this part, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. You good, though?"

Eddie shrugged, clenched his teeth a little. Cement dust sprinkled along his knees as he continued to carve the horn of the devil. "She convinced me to move out to the Farm on the Coast. I stayed there for two whole fuggin' years."

"Nineteen eighty-three," Tony said distractedly. "Marsh and I had gone to Italy so he could do a job. God damn, Eddie, you joined the Farm right when we left!"

"Barely missed each other," Eddie grumbled. "I wonder what would've happened if we had met there instead of Hawkins…."

X

The Farm was gorgeous: sprawling acres of forests, crops, and yurts spread across a slice of the San Francisco coast. The inhabitants wore overalls and drop-crotch pants, bandannas wrapped around the forehead, and work boots stiff with mud. They were spiritual practitioners who lived off of the land and Buddhist teachings, sprinkled in with some of the more liberal words of Christ. They made their money catering to business execs in desperate need of a retreat. When business with businessmen was slow, the Farm cleaned house and opened its doors to schools and private parties at half-price.

The business had been in Andrea's family for decades. It wasn't the business that she wanted to join, but it was a business that she had been trained to run since she was a little girl. She went to school to obtain a business major and returned to San Francisco just in time for her father to die and pass the beacon of burden to her.

That was where she had gotten the name 'Beacons of Righteousness.' It was the title that she allotted to the hundreds of workers who lived and worked on the Farm - some of them underage kids in need of a place to stay, some of them convicts seeking uninterrupted reform, some of them sycophantic followers of Siddharta Gautama. She unified her workers with religion, paid them very little, dined at the Ritz as they clawed through dumpsters for food, and stole their clothes from the Salvation Army. But nobody dared to challenge Andrea. To them, she was a savior, a regular ol' Mother Teresa who had provided them with a beautiful place to stay with no questions asked.

Eddie soon became the star of the show. She quickly integrated him: made it clear that he was her right-hand man, fitted him in hippy attire, and set him up with special side jobs. Eddie soon came to realize that the business execs only came to the Farm for one thing: drugs, and a lot of them. It was Eddie's job to procure the stash from a man named Reefer Rick in the city, then deliver it to the appropriate yurts when the time was right. The job paid ridiculously well - he got to take home every penny that he made from the deals. And why not? Andrea was rich - she didn't need to take his money. Soon, he was trained well enough to cut out the middleman (Andrea) completely and work exclusively with Rick.

The only catch was that Andrea held his money for him. Her explanations made sense: he was young and stupid and would have spent it all if he had the chance. She would act as his 'savings accountant' until he was ready to withdraw his money. With every deal, he forked over the cash that he had acquired and watched her lock it away in a safe. Finally - fucking finally - he felt like his future was being secured. He didn't need the money anyway - he was fed, clothed, and housed at the Farm at no charge. But still, with every deal, he kept a mental count of how much money he had saved in total: one thousand, two thousand, four thousand - five fucking grand in the span of a few years,

Then came the promises. Andrea promised Eddie that she would send him to the best college in California. She promised to put down a deposit for when he opened his record shop - a lifelong dream of his. She promised to support him financially until he was able to support himself. She promised to put him as sole owner of the Farm in her will if she was ever to pass away. She buzzed his hair short, had one of her colleagues tattoo him with a lamp to symbolize his loyalty to the Beacons, and continued to fuck him at night when all of the workers were asleep. His money grew alongside his confidence. He fell in love with Andrea - hell, he even attended their makeshift church and prayed on his knees right alongside her. He was going to get baptized, take a portion of his money and buy her a wedding ring, build them a house on the Coast with his own two hands.

And then-

And then-

X

Eddie paused to survey his work. His etching of the devil's face was easily eclipsed by the junk graffiti surrounding it. He pulled a Sharpie from his back pocket, popped the cap off, and then wrote the name 'Andrea' underneath the devil's face.

"And then what happened," Tony asked from behind him. He had completely forgotten that she was even there. He sighed, dropped his hand onto his knee, and pushed himself up with a groan. Tony's gaze followed his arms as he stretched them high towards the ceiling, feeling every pop and creak of his tendons.

"And then one day, I asked her if I could see all of the money that I had saved up. I was ready to leave. You know, take her offer and have her put that deposit down so I could set up that record shop in San Francisco. I already had the spot picked out and everything." Eddie swept his hands through the air. "Eddie's Records - has a nice ring to it, right?"

"Right."

"Right, well. I asked her if I could see the money. And I remember she gave me this look like I was stupid or something. And I remember she said, 'What fucking money?' T, I tell you, I felt something in my chest go cold, you know? Because by that point I had saved up over five thousand dollars - and it was all supposed to be in that safe. She promised me that she would keep it there. I asked her again, 'Where's my money?' And then she just started fucking laughing."

God, he wished that they hadn't finished the joint so quickly. He patted his hands against his pocket in a fluster but there was nothing. He would have taken a bump of coke if he had it. He crossed his arms across his chest and began to scratch so aggressively at his shoulders that Tony hopped off the sink and pressed his hands flat against his chest.

"Yeah, so," he continued with some difficulty. "She told me that she had spent all the money on the Farm - every last penny. She said that it was what I owed - that because I was one of her loyal followers, all of my money belonged to the Beacons. But you want to know the crazy thing, T? She didn't spend that money on us. S-she was still allowing us to raid dumpsters and steal clothes so that we'd have something on our backs as we worked in her fucking fields. Two days - two fucking god damn days - before I asked her for my money, she drove onto the farm in a brand new red-"

"Corvette," Tony gasped. "Yeah, yeah! I saw it when Marshall and I came back from Italy. I thought it was a gift from one of her clients-"

"Uh-uh, no, sweetheart. She stole my money and bought a fucking Corvette. So I asked her if she was going to repay me and she got all red in the face, right? And she did that age thing - she told me that I was a little boy and I had no respect for the value of money. All of those promises that she made? Yeah, she went back on 'em - said that I would have to prove myself before she ever floated me a single fucking dollar. The deposit for the record shop? Sending me to college? Putting me in her will? No, I wasn't worth it." Eddie chuckled in disbelief. "And according to her, I wasn't even a man because I didn't know how to-"

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah. I was still her little, baby Thumper. And I realized that I always would be. So I packed my shit and ran. I ran all the way back to Hawkins , to the trailer park where my uncle lives. Reefer Rick - you know him? No? - well, he helped me get back on my feet, floated me a couple of bucks here and there to make the trip. That's why I work for 'im. That's why I'm still fucking here, man."

Silence descended upon them. Tony gnawed nervously at her lip as Eddie massaged his fingers along his cheeks. He felt so, absolutely filled to the brim with residual loathing. Some people enjoyed drugs, some used them to escape the reality of their history. Eddie had long ago realized that he was stuck in the latter category.

"People think I'm stupid because I keep getting held back," he murmured. "Maybe I am stupid. But it's not my fault. I guess I never got a chance at an education because I spent all those years working under her-"

"You're not stupid," Tony interrupted him. She hesitated then braced her palms against his cheeks. He reached up and clutched her fingers in his own. Her hands were so small and warm against his skin. "Resourcefulness requires intelligence, and you've been resourceful ever since you left that Farm on your own two feet. Look at you, Eddie! Look at us! We're getting our education! We're proving ourselves as more than Andrea's toys every single day."

"You really think so?" Eddie opened his eyes and held her gaze. God, he could have kissed her. "It just…this whole 'taking back independence' thing doesn't feel as good as I thought it would, you know?"

"That's because we're starting from the bottom - the fucking trenches, man. But one day, you'll be fine. It's just that-" Tony dropped his hands and shrugged her shoulders high. "Everything is wack."

"Everything is wack," he repeated. "Nice name for a song title, sweetheart."

"I call dibs. You can have 'Flesh of a Scapegoat.'"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Alright-y then,"

He leaned forward a little, held her gaze with a question in his eyes. She bit her lip again, closed her eyes as if deep in thought, and then opened them with a nod. The bathroom felt so small and silent. His heart thudded in his chest as he kissed her, slowly at first, testing the waters. Then he groaned and laced her fingers in his, holding his hands against his thighs as she rose on her toes to kiss him back. He had never been kissed like that before - so lovingly, so free of tension and expectation. He didn't feel like he was pressured to tear his clothes off and dive head-first into sex. He was kissing a friend goodbye or hello or something in between. She pulled away and smiled shyly, her eyes averted and cheeks a shade darker. There was nothing more to say. She looped her arm through his and together they walked out of the bathroom. They ordered sodas at the bar, sat close together on the barstools, and chatted about music, school, life - tepid, awkward shit that gained depth as the night went on. After several hours, they parted ways at the doorstep with another kiss. Eddie wrapped her coat around her shoulders and waved as she walked towards the bus stop. Of course, she didn't want a ride home. She needed 'space to think.'

Everything is wack, he thought to himself as she climbed into the bus and yelled at the driver for looking at her funny. Everything except for us