Time heals all wounds.

Or at least, time allows for black eyes to slowly fade and for busted lips to scab over.

It takes nearly a week for both Steve and Eddie's faces to get back to semi-normal. But they do, slowly and surely. As the wounds on their faces heal, Willow watches as some of the internal wounds heal, as well.

Her and Steve are no longer avoiding each other, working together rather than forcing Robin to trade her shifts around. He's back to picking the girls up from school, and Willow accepts the offer most days, solely because Eddie is a bit busy. He's planning a particularly brutal campaign in honor of Halloween, now only three weeks away, as well as trying to dedicate more time to band practice with Corroded Coffin.

Willow still attends their show on Tuesday. This time, she plays nice with the groupies that pine hopelessly after the boys. She still isn't sure where they came from, not recognizing them from school, but she lets bygones be bygones.

Especially when Eddie makes a point to makeout with Willow in front of them after the latest show.

Their kisses have gotten more intimate these days. It's no longer quick pecks goodbye - they grow deeper, sometimes getting them scolded by a passing teacher in the hall or a groan from one of the younger members of Hellfire that catch sight of it. Willow's worry of their makeout lessons being useless to them after Jason has disappeared. Any excuse Eddie Munson finds to stick his tongue down her throat, he takes. And each time, it still drives her just as crazy as the first time he'd done it.

Jason leaves them alone. Nothing came of the fight at Denny's. No one called the cops, no one pressed charges. They should all consider themselves lucky. Although, Jason seems to be a bit distracted lately, as the deadline for O'Donnell's project is nearing. October 11th. It was currently October 9th. They had two days to finish their partnered reading, and clearly, even with the extended deadline, their class was filled with chronic procrastinators.

And maybe O'Donnell had sensed that. Maybe she was starting to go soft. It had to be the only sensible reason she'd offered the day up as a work day for all partners to catch up on their projects.

Willow had finished The Hobbit over a week ago, all the work to be completed alongside it also finished. It was why she wasn't too worried when Eddie refused to broach the topic during class, instead choosing to talk about anything and everything else.

"What if I made a NPC based off of the Headless Horsemen?" he muses as he looks down at his notebook he uses for campaign planning, small doodles filling in the margins.

Willow rolls her eyes, "Eddie, you still haven't answered my question. Have you finished the reading or not?"

"Oh! What about something sort of inspired by the Shining? Obviously not entirely, but loosely -"

"Edward Munson," Willow's tone grows serious. Again, she isn't worried for her grade.

She is, however, mildly worried about Eddie's grade. Her part of their deal to upkeep was getting him to graduate, after all.

His eyes meet hers, a shy smile on his lips, "Pulling out government names, are we?"

"Have you or have you not finished the reading?"

"Willow Jenkins, your lack of faith in my scholarly abilities wounds me, quite frankly."

Her shoulders sag, sighing deeply, "Okay, great . You haven't."

"I never said that!"

"You're avoiding the question. You definitely haven't."

Eddie drops his pencil softly against the notebook, finally offering Willow his full attention. "Listen, I have read some of it. Just not... all of it. I still have time."

"How much is some ? You've only got until Friday, Munson," Willow is trying to be gentle and patient in the reminder. But she really wants to see Eddie at least pass O'Donnell's this year. And she tells herself it's solely out of her own pride, her own incessant need to make their arrangement worth his time in the end. But she can feel that tug of pride every time Eddie surprises her lately, showing up to study sessions with proper notes, finishing assignments mostly on time. If they're late, they only end up being a week late at most. Even his teachers were shocked, and he was clearly enjoying exceeding their exceptionally low expectations for him.

Eddie brings a hand up to his hair, twirling the specific curl that was a matching crimson to Willow's, "Um...I'm on chapter twenty, I think."

" Only twenty? Eddie, the book is forty-seven chapters long. You're not even half-way !" Willow whisper-shouts, leaning over and gently tugging the curl out of his grasp and therefore away from his face, where he had been attempting to hide behind it as he delivered the news.

"Why can't you just read it to me again?" Eddie whines, leaning back in his seat, face contorted like a toddler.

"No," she shakes her head, "Not happening. As a matter of a fact, I've decided we won't be hanging out until you finish. I mean it."

Eddie's face falls, "What? No, no fair. This is the first night we're both free in, it's been what, a week? You can't do this to me."

"Then get to reading, Munson."

"I'm a slow reader ."

"Sucks."

"This is completely unfair."

"Life isn't always fair. Bite me," she scoffs, leaning back as much as she could to match his leisurely position.

She's shocked when he takes her words seriously though, leaning forward and grabbing her face with ease, yanking her forward before she can react and biting her bottom lip quickly. Quick enough that no other students catch sight, and more importantly, Ms. O'Donnell doesn't see.

"Eddie!" she hisses, yanking back to find him grinning, clearly amused.

"What?" he shrugs, "You said to bite you."

She brings a ginger finger up to her lip where he'd just roughly dragged his teeth across, unsure of how to feel. She never knows how to feel when Eddie kisses her or shows casual affection these days. He always manages to catch her off-guard, taking her by surprise with small displays of adoration. Every time he does, her feelings for him grow, impossibly moreso. She's convinced at this point that maybe, just maybe, she feels so much for him that it would overflow the Pacific Ocean.

Instead of offering him any more words, she leans down and grabs her copy of Little Women from his open and mostly empty backpack, slamming it onto his desk and tapping it with purpose.

"Seriously?" he groans, but all she does is tap the cover of the book again, a bit harder this time.

With that, her silent treatment begins, turning in her chair and facing the front of the classroom. She almost isn't sure it's worked as she can hear Eddie continuing to grumble curses, but then she can hear the sound of pages flipping, and smiles softly to herself.

—

Willow continues to ignore Eddie during chemistry, much to his disdain. He resorts to scribbling on a piece of notebook paper that he repeatedly pushes to her side of their shared desk, littering it with questions in his poor penmanship.

She does give in to that request, only to send a glare his way and motion her hand towards the front of the room where Edwards' was droning on about their current lesson. A silent order for him to focus. He listens to her, surprisingly.

Willow chooses to sit with Robin during lunch. She was going to swing by the Hellfire table and greet Eddie, but when she walks into the cafeteria, she's shocked to see his head buried in a book.

Little Women . He's actually reading Little Women .

Willow hardly gets the chance to settle into her seat across from Robin, opting out of the school lunch for the day as the menu sounded less than appetizing, when Dustin Henderson is bounding up to them with an offended look.

"What did you do ?" he nearly shrieks, gaining the attention of the students around them. Willow looks up with wide-eyes while Robin looks particularly unaffected.

"Pardon?"

"What did you do to Eddie? He's just reading . He won't even talk about the campaign with us, and keeps telling us to shut up and stop interrupting his reading!" Dustin waves his hands around the air around him, nearly smacking into a Mike Wheeler, who comes up behind him with the same look of frustration.

" I didn't do anything," Willow defends herself, "Our project is just due Monday, and he's trying to finish it."

Mike scoffs, "There's no way he's reading that book of his own free will. You had to have bribed him."

"Also, you're not sitting with us," Dustin points out.

Willow looks at Robin, who only shrugs in response. "Don't look at me. They're all Steve and Eddie's gremlins, I have nothing to do with it."

Willow immediately shakes her head as Dustin continues to complain, "Listen, you broke our DM, now you have to fix him. We need some hints about the Halloween campaign so he doesn't demolish us."

"Broke him?" Willow laughs, "Oh my God, Henderson. He is not broken . He's just doing his homework. It's going to be fine ."

"Gareth said he's never cared this much about school," Mike interjects, crossing his arms. Willow takes a second to look over the boy, refusing to comment on that. Eddie's influence is overwhelmingly clear - from the black skinny jeans to the Metallica t-shirt that's extremely similar to one of Eddie's own, albeit Eddie's is far more faded. Mike Wheeler may not have all the edge that comes with Eddie Munson's fashion sense, but Willow is sure that if everyone gives him a couple years, he'll get there.

Robin unexpectedly inserts herself back in the conversation, "I actually have to agree. He's actually taking notes, real notes, in math. Even asked to see mine from a day he ditched, and got all weird when he realized I was missing answers to some of the example problems. Lectured me and everything. It almost felt like I was talking to Jenkins and not Munson when he did it."

"What?" Willow turns to her friend, mouth agape in shock. She knew Eddie had taken pride in the way he could now provide her with proper notes to help when she was tutoring him, but she had no idea he was going out of his way for the notes. She tries to shake it off quickly, "Are you seriously all ganging up on me right now over Eddie Munson becoming more studious ? Isn't that a good thing?"

"It's a good thing until it messes with Hellfire," Dustin counters.

"It's not messing with Hellfire."

"And how would you know?"

"Because he's my boyfriend , and his equivalent of pillowtalk is rambling about your stupid campaigns."

A small white lie. It wasn't really pillowtalk, but Eddie did endlessly indulge her in the details of his campaigns. She's heard all about their Halloween one shot quest. She could probably even predict who would be making it out alive from that adventure (Spoiler alert: Gareth the Great was in grave danger after he particularly pissed Eddie off on Monday).

"Gross," Dustin immediately recoils, twisting his face up in disgust.

Mike's face starts to mimic his before a realization smooths over, "Wait. So you know about the campaign? That means you could help us."

"Uh, no," Willow laughs nervously, "Eddie would kill me."

"Oh come on ," Mike sighs, although it nearly comes out a whine, "What good are you to us if you won't help?"

"What good am I to you guys dead ? Besides, unfortunately, I'm on your Dungeon Master's side in the grand scheme of things. It's cute when he comes home from a campaign that went exactly as he wanted."

"Uh, again, gross ," Dustin puts up a finger, same disgusted look gracing his features, "And that's unfair. You've never seen how cute we look when campaigns go our way."

"Cute?" Mike argues, "Why are you describing us as cute , Dustin? That's- God, we aren't kids anymore. That's gross. That's worse than her describing Eddie as cute."

"Me describing Eddie as cute is not that bad," Willow says, turning to Robin for support.

Robin shakes her head, no supportive best friend in sight, "It is that bad. You guys are just lucky you've never had to hear her gush about them kissing-"

"Nope!" Dustin interrupts as Mike makes faux vomiting noises, "God, no. Don't go there. Please ."

"Don't you both have girlfriends?" Willow asks, squinting her eyes accusingly at the two boys after she's glared at Robin for her unhelpful input, "Steve mentioned how gross you and your girlfriend are, Wheeler. Hop off with all those theatrics."

" Steve said me and El are gross? God, that asshole has sucked off the face of every girl in this town -"

"Language," Willow scolds, as Dustin claps to get their attention.

"Okay, okay. Shut up about relationships. Point is, you -" Dustin points directly at Willow, making her shrink back some, "-know about the campaign. Probably about plenty of things that could be helpful to us. So let's... let's arrange a deal ."

Oh, God.

Willow thinks she's had enough with deals in the three months for her entire lifetime.

"You guys literally have nothing you could offer me worth my insider knowledge. Because, again, Eddie would kill me."

"We won't tell him!" Mike offers, making a face as if that were obvious.

But Dustin, on the other hand, is grinning widely, "Au contraire, miss Jenkins. We do have something to offer."

Willow shifts uncomfortably, disliking the mischievous look on the young boy's face, "I'm probably going to regret asking but... but what can you offer?"

Mike looks just as confused as he glances at Dustin, Robin sitting silent and curious as she remains on the sidelines and watches the entire exchange.

"Friday night," is all that Dustin finally says.

"What about Friday night?" Willow deflates, not sure what Friday has to do with anything. Eddie had Hellfire, and Willow had a game she was going to attend to support Robin.

"Eddie mentioned you wanting him to go to the game with you, right?"

"...Right? So?"

" So , we can convince Eddie to postpone Hellfire for this week. A win-win. We get insider details and time to prepare, you get to drag your boyfriend to some shitty sports event."

Now Willow was intrigued. Her and Eddie had in fact talked about this. She had nearly begged him to postpone, but he insisted he couldn't. In fact, he'd even turned the argument around on her and insisted that she ditch the game to attend Hellfire. At the end of the day, the argument had come to a draw, both too stubborn to do what the other asked of them.

"Hey! That shitty sports event is my time to shine, twerps," Robin interrupts, "'Low is coming to support me ."

Dustin ignores her, raising his eyebrows at Willow. "What say you, Willow the Witch?"

Surprisingly, Willow snorts at the nickname, aware that the Hellfire boys had dubbed her with her own nickname similar to the ones they utilized for themselves in their campaigns. Mike and Robin both wear faces of embarrassment at Dustin's tone, taking on one far too similar to Eddie's when he was teasing around, but Willow isn't about to embarrass him. She finds it endearing.

They truly are Eddie's sheep. And in turn, she supposes, they feel like her responsibility in part too.

"First of all, you guys have to get a better nickname for me if you want my continued support of Hellfire," Willow begins, "I know that there aren't really witches in the game. There's sorceresses, bards, wizards, clerics - but not witches," she watches the boys process her knowledge, and Dustin is the first to crack a shit-eating grin, "Seriously. Why can't I be something cool? Like, I don't know, Willow the Wise-"

"We already have a friend that uses that name," Mike immediately interrupts her, flushing as they all look to him curiously, "Will the Wise. The nickname is taken."

Will. Will Byers . She remembers the rumors of the boy, and Steve talking about him occasionally. Zombie Boy. Most of what she knew came from the news and whispers of the town, talking of a boy who died and came back to life, but she also knew from Steve that he was close with the young boys.

So she nods, "He sounds cool. I'd love to meet him someday," briefly pausing before continuing on, ready to continue surprising the boys with her nerdiness, courtesy of Eddie's influence, "But to answer your question, Dustin... I say you're asking me to follow you into mordor. Which is honestly one of the worst ideas I've heard this year," she pauses dramatically. Yeah, Eddie is definitely rubbing off on me . Both boys are going wide-eyed at her reference, but Dustin is almost too excited for his own good, watching her eagerly and egging her on to continue, "But... well, when the shire is burning..." she trails off one final time, sticking a hand out for Dustin to shake.

"How do you know Lord of the Rings ?" Mike asks right as Robin complains, "Oh my God, he's converted you into a nerd."

Dustin is bouncing on the heels of his feet, his smile radiant as he wastes no time in clasping Willow's hand in his, shaking furiously.

She doesn't let go immediately, tugging him in closely, "Meet me at Harrington's car after school. You need to convince Eddie to postpone before I offer up any precious information. Also, if you even hint to Eddie about my betrayal, there'll be Hell to pay."

Her threat isn't very successful considering she can't help but continue to grin back at the jovial boy before her.

He nods, regardless, "Yes, ma'am."

"Like we said," Mike seems fairly happy too, fighting a smile as he nods between Dustin and Willow, "We won't tell Eddie."

They didn't hear the heavy footsteps approaching. Rookie mistake.

"Tell Eddie what ?"

All three jump, making Robin snort. Eddie himself was standing beside them, looking between them and their shared guilty looks.

"Nothing," Dustin squeaks. If Willow wasn't so terrified of also getting caught, she would have laughed at his reaction.

" Nothing ? Then tell me, Henderson and Wheeler, why are you bothering my girl right now?" As Eddie says this, he makes his way closer to Willow, sitting on the table in front of her rather than in the seat beside her.

Robin immediately makes a face, "Hey, some people eat off these tables."

"Just wait till you find out that I've stood on them, then," Eddie bluntly replies before refocusing on the two boys in front of him, "Now, again - why are you bugging Red, and what are you not going to tell me?"

Both boys are demure with their pink cheeks, clearly unable to think of a good enough excuse to get them out of this.

Willow decides to come to the rescue. Since, you know, she has acknowledged she has joint custody of the sheeps.