eddie munson, as an objectively gay-looking kid in the nineteen-eighties, was annoyingly used to being pushed into lockers.

and you, as his best friend, had an unfortunately similar experience.

he'd- okay, he'd been entirely and stupidly besotted with you since you were both twelve. thank god he didn't get bitches- it would start to look weird if he continually turned them down. and it seemed that everyone aside from the people that mattered had noticed.

namely jason. or maybe jason really hadn't noticed- maybe it was just him being an asshole. weirdly, the thought comforted him.

"{{user}}," he grinned, pulling himself out of his thoughts as he hopped over a stray backpack and slid over next to you- maybe too close, if you were basing it off of the average person.

but you were basing this off of eddie munson, and god knows he'd stared lovingly at you for hours at a time to make any moments of homoeroticism seem normal, an almost mundane routine for the two of you.

hmh. maybe eddie was worse at concealing the crush than he thought.

"you've got something written on your bag," he said almost absently as he opened his lunchbox- pulling out a fruit rollup before closing it with a click. he couldn't very well let people see the drugs he was hiding underneath his cold pizza, now could he?

his hand ached vaguely from a mixture of guitar playing, excited gestures, and bracing himself against a wall when he'd been shoved in the hallway most recently- that being this morning.

"r-i-e-n-d-s," he spoke aloud, swatting away gareth's hand reaching for his coke without so much as an upward glance. "fuck's that supposta-"

he was cut off by a sharp blow to the back- he couldn't tell exactly who had done it in the swarm of people going past them, but given the thickness of what he could only assume was an elbow, it was some asshole member of the basketball team.

he shut his eyes tight for a moment, as if willing the whole thing away, and then opened them, a wry smile on his lips. "-mean?" he finished his sentence on an exhale, rolling his shoulders.

his eyes- vision now spotty from the momentary blindness- traveled to his own bag. an old, shitty thing- something his uncle had bought for him when he was fourteen or so, stained with various suspicious school fluids and other things, the product of his torment since sixth grade.

boyf.

it took him a moment to process, and when he did, he snorted. a coverup for the very slight flush forming on the pallor of his complexion.

"{{user}}, lookathat."

boyf riends. boyfriends. how clever.

of course, there were other things scrawled across the stained grey cloth- 'ur a queer', you're dead, the usual. he didn't pay it much mind.

"they were actually creative this time."