To Heal All Wounds

The Show

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Billy crowed, leaning up against the hood of his car with a fresh beer in his hands. He was sweatier than when Steve had left him, with more grease on his hands and face. There was one particularly fetching smear right across his cheekbone that Steve kind of wanted to lick it off, even if he knew it would taste like shit.

"Which one of us is the cat," Steve asked in a poor attempt to act naturally around the two of them together. He got exactly one second to revel in the look of surprise on Billy's face before Eddie leaned in and whispered, "you know which one you are, Kitten," followed by a small "mrow" and a nip at his earlobe that nearly sent him all the way into orbit. It was only Billy's bark of laughter that grounded him.

"And you're obviously the trash that he keeps dragging in from outside -- What do you think you're doing?" Eddie paused mid motion when Billy scolded him, lawnchair suspended in mid-air as he moved it. The oldest of the three men glanced from Steve to Billy before tentatively answering, "getting a chair," with a question in his voice.

Billy answered only with a shake of his head and a crook of his finger.

"Get your skinny ass up here and help me with the spark plugs," he instructed. And to Steve's continued disbelief, Eddie listened. Not quietly, of course, the metalhead groaned dramatically and complained the whole time. Billy, clearly used to such behaviors, just ignored it and continued poking around the engine block as he waited for Eddie, a half smoked cigarette between his lips.

"Pretty Boy," Billy barked around an exhalation of smoke. Steve tried not to find it attractive and failed miserably. "Make yourself useful and grab the box sitting in the passenger seat." At which point Steve made himself exactly as much of a problem as Eddie had. He huffed and groaned as he rose, tossing his head back in feigned exertion. He even let his torso flop around uselessly as he walked. And if he slapped the box into Billy's hand with more force than necessary, then Billy ignored him too, pointing to something on the complicated puzzle of the car's innards and asking Eddie questions about how they functioned. Eddie always answered with a question in his voice, and Billy always affirmed his answer with pride in his own or corrected him with a gentle tease.

By the time Billy had the spark plugs installed, the brake pads replaced, and about half a dozen other things done, Eddie had, indeed, sobered up. Part of it, Steve assumed, was probably his natural ability to process the toxins. The larger part, however, was probably Billy clicking his fingers in his face and snapping, "eyes front and center, Critter, we got work to do." To which Eddie gave a lazy, playful little salute and then made a face at Steve behind Billy's back.

They looked good, Steve had to admit. Billy stooped to poke around the engine block while Eddie tried to mimic his stance. And Steve got to watch. Occasionally he would be tasked as a fetch-and-carry, grabbing tools or materials form around Billy's RV, but other than that, he flipped his sunglasses over his eyes as the sun sunk low in the sky and allowed himself to shamelessly stare as they both bent themselves in half and worked, muscles clenching and relaxing as they moved. At some point, they both lost their shirts, leaving them both to brown and burn in the sun. Steve didn't know what Billy looked like back in California, but he knew what he looked like during his first days in Hawkins. Even with it being only late spring, he was beginning to darken to the golden tan that he'd screamed into town with. Sweat pooled in the dips and valleys of his muscles, glistening as they flexed. Once or twice Billy caught Steve's shaded eyes and winked like he knew Steve was oolong. And maybe he did, if the way he dipped his back a little deeper after that was any indication.

Eddie made a pretty contrast to Billy's golden figure. Roped with slender muscles and inked with black along his pale skin. The spider, the demon head, the bats, the master of puppets, and the wyvern were all restored and then added to. Eddie, forever darkly amused by his own fate, had added a dashed line around his left pectoral in the shape of a giant mouth with typewriter script reading "bite here." He'd gotten a matching image on his left hip. Steve still did not think that it was funny, but Billy had laughed until his eyes welled when he learned the story of why Eddie had chosen them. The newest addition was a broken sword down his spine, which he had explained once to Steve while they were high but... Steve forgot. And he didn't want to ask Eddie for the reason again lest he be lectured about his listening skills. Nevermind that Eddie had fed him enough beer and weed to knock him out within the hour almost directly after telling him.