#angsty stranger things
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that’s not how you pray | eddie munson
summary: eddie wants you to know he’s not guilty
content warning: cursing, crying obvi, mentions of blood, angst
songs that inspired this: hey lover by the daughter of eve + do you want to die together by stars
you hadn’t seen your boyfriend in weeks and it was tearing you apart for more than one reason. you so desperately needed to talk to him and you know he needed you too. it was hard dating a high schooler who flunked more than once and attend college a couple hours away from the sleepy little town of hawkins. arriving in hawkins made your stomach churn in all the wrong ways. there wasn’t kids riding their bikes around town and even a curfew had been implemented. you didn’t even attempt to visit his trailer in fear the police would question you and slow you down in your search for your “murderer satanic” boyfriend. you really needed to talk to him. to sort things out.
you knew he was chicken hearted and wouldn’t hurt a fly. literally, he asked you to step on spiders and those furry worms that stung you if you touched them. he learned his lesson and visited the hospital convinced he was dying. from then on you became designated bug killer. gripping your steering wheel and clenching your jaw you made your way from house to house of eddie’s known friends and associates. they were all dead ends completely fucking useless. his so called band members had no idea where he was and you just wanted to hear his voice to make you feel better. you hoped he wasn’t alone somewhere by himself. when three days went by you decided to risk going to visit his trailer.
it was late and you were speeding but the police, if you could even call them that, were far too understaffed and useless. you sped into the trailer park past the police tape and swerved into an bad parking job not even bothering to turn the engine off. the lights were on! they were on! you threw the door of his trailer open to see one of the little lost lambs dirty and scared. he turned to you in pure shock and you never felt more relieved.
“it’s eddie! he… hee stayed! we need to get him!” it was then you noticed the unmissable massive fucking hole in the ceiling. you didn’t even know what to say you couldn’t stop smiling that you were so close to seeing eddie. you were massively freaked as you watched dustin dash and jump up a chair and onto the roof and you followed him. you didn’t know why his friends were so weird dressed in a homemade medieval knight outfit but you’d make sure to question him. “we don’t have time hurry up, (y/n)!”
you grunted and pulled yourself halfway up the hole before dustin lifted you up and you both were sprinting out the trailer door. unfortunately for you dustin was limping behind and you couldn’t even begin to process what you were seeing. it looked like pure hell and it scared you oh god did it scare you. you didn’t think the crazy conspiracy theorists were right when they said there was hell in hawkins. you laughed it off but holy shit you’d never seen more red in your lifetime. hawkins looked like a deserted town filled with ugly thick vines and dead trees and the hoard of crazy killer bats?
oh my god. it’s eddie. it’s eddie! “eddie! dustin i see him!” your screamed was terribly loud. he’s hurt. you hurried over to him as fast as your legs could take you. they felt crazy numb as your knees skidded on the ground and hurt terribly. “eddie baby my love! you’re okay you’re okay.” you cooed and ran your hand through his tangled hair. eddie gave a gigantic smile,”you’re here… i’m so glad i can see you.” he said weekly and with his cute little laugh he did when he was nervous. you put your hands on his wound. you knew that in all the movies it was best to keep pressure on wounds you knew that. “i wanted you to know i’m sorry for running away i didn’t kill chrissy… i didn’t.” you shook your head tears in your eyes. “eddie shut up i believe you! i never doubted you for a second babe.” you cried out as he placed his hand in yours.
he weakly slipped one of his rings on your finger and you shook your head,”keep it you’ll thinking you lost it babe..” you dug your face into his neck and sobbed as you tried to pull him or pick him up with dustin’s help. eddie started slipping off as he spoke to dustin and you couldn’t let him, no you couldn’t. you two had a life ahead of you. he’d finally graduate. he would you knew it. you slapped his face gently, “baby! seriously baby! you can’t slip off right now you’re gonna be fine!” eddie looked at the curly haired boy sitting on his other side and they both had sympathetic looks. you hated it. he said i love you to his underling and supposed acolyte.
his eyes began to be swallowed by darkness and you couldn’t take it any longer. “please baby! eddie.. edward baby i’m pregnant.. i’m pregnant! it’s our baby..” eddie’s tears began to flow as he grabbed your stomach weakly. “you need to be here for the baby!” you sobbed hitting his chest. he smiled this big fucking shit eating grin that you loved so much. being raised in a religious house you felt like this was punishment how dare the lord how dare god take the love of your life. how dare he. you did all your hail marys and all your confessions on sundays every week since you were young. “stay alive… if not for me for the baby!” you pleaded your sobs deafening.
your throat was raw and burning painfully,“i love you and our unborn baby. i know you’ll be the best mom i love you. find steve okay?” you shook your head as you watched the love of your life take his last few breaths. you kissed his face erratically. “i don’t want steve i want you baby..” you sobbed uncontrollably as dustin tried to pull you away from the munson boy. you wanted to die there and then you wanted to go with him so bad, so fucking bad. you cried into your cold lovers chest for what seemed like hours. you left the body of the man you loved behind. your unconditional love in a place you didn’t understand could exist. you knew he’d never want to be alone ever.
you knew him better than anybody and you had planned a joking little argument for when you’d find him but you’d never play fight with him again and it killed you to see him bloody and surrounded by fucking hideous demon bats. you knew no one would ever know his innocence or his personality and how he was heaven on earth. how your baby would never know how good their daddy was at guitar or hear his band preform live or teach them how to play dungeons and dragons. you knew he wanted a baby girl. you talked about it when you’d get high in his van when you’d meet each other half way from your college on nights he didn’t have his club. you knew he’d want to take care of his baby.
you felt like the earth swallowed him silently the day he died.
#eddie munson#eddie munson x reader#eddie stranger things#stranger things 4#stranger things spoilers#angsty stranger things#dustin henderson#eddie munson fanfic#eddie munson drabble#i’m sorry for this#steve stranger things#steve harrington#steve step dad#joseph quinn#rip eddie#eddie munson x you#stranger things x reader#eddie munson death#eddie munson angst#heartspiked
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don't you forget about me (part two)
(part one)
Steve doesn’t know how long they sit there in silence, waiting. It’s making him insane. The seconds pass too slow; the seconds pass too fast. His mind is a storm; his mind is empty. He’s feeling too much; he’s not feeling at all. He paces the room; he sits catatonically against a wall. He needs to get out of here; he needs to stay.
He’s been here before, just barely over a week ago, tense and anxious and despairing and waiting for news. But waiting to hear if Eddie will ever remember him again really should not feel this much worse than waiting to hear if Eddie will ever fucking breathe again. Steve thinks there must be something wrong with him. He’s being selfish and stupid. His pathological fucking need to be loved is not what’s important right now. Eddie is alive and awake and okay and that’s the only thing that really matters. That’s the only thing he should really care about.
Steve’s pacing again now, yanking his hands through his hair as he does laps around the room until Eddie finally appears in the doorway.
Eddie must’ve just cracked a joke or something because the nurse is laughing as she pushes his bed into the room and he’s got this adorable grin on his face. Steve’s heart twists in his chest and he nearly bursts into tears all over again because god does he want nothing more than to press a kiss to those dimpled cheeks.
“Good news, boys,” Eddie announces. “My brain is fully intact.”
“There’s no physical permanent damage to his brain,” the nurse elaborates. “His amnesia is likely a result of psychological trauma and the temporary disruption of brain function from blood loss and lack of oxygen that occurred at the time of his injury. But there is no obvious reason why he shouldn’t regain his full memory, given time.”
So there’s hope. Steve breathes a sigh of relief.
“That is good news,” Wayne agrees.
Steve asks, “How much time?”
The nurse gives an unhelpful shrug. “Impossible to say. It could be anywhere from days to months, or even years. I’m sorry, there’s no way for us to know.”
Years. “Okay.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He can keep it together. He can. “Thanks,” he tells the nurse. “I, uh-” He makes the mistake of looking at Eddie who looks right through him, and Steve can’t keep it together anymore actually. “I gotta update the kids,” he mutters, backing his way towards the door. Wayne nods in acknowledgment; no protests this time at Steve’s excuse to leave.
“See ya, Harrington,” Eddie calls after him, casual, impersonal, like they're nothing more than acquaintances passing by each other in a high school hallway.
Steve can’t get out of that hospital fast enough.
He makes it to his car in record time, slamming the door shut and sinking heavily into the driver’s seat. A ragged sob tries to claw its way up his throat now that he’s finally alone, but he forces it back, staving off his breakdown for just a little bit longer. As much as it was an excuse, he really does have to update the kids.
Steve fishes his walkie out of the glove box. “Code - whatever, I don’t know. Code Eddie,” he says. He doesn’t remember the kids’ system of codes, nor would he be sure which one this news falls under even if he did.
“Is he okay? Is he awake?” comes an immediate, eager response from Dustin. “Over.”
“Yeah, he’s awake, and he’s fine, except he’s got pretty bad amnesia. The doctors say it should be temporary, but right now he doesn’t remember anything since May of ‘85,” Steve explains, trying his best to keep his voice even.
“Steve, come pick me up and take me to see him,” Dustin demands, “right now. Over.”
“Me too. Over,” Mike chimes in before Steve can respond.
“And us,” Erica adds as well.
Steve pauses for a second, both to steady his own breath and to make sure no one else wants to jump in on this too, before he reminds them, “He won’t know you, any of you.”
“I don’t care,” Dustin says, bossy as ever. “Just come get me. Over.”
“Jesus Christ, kid,” Steve mutters to himself. He sucks in another breath; it wobbles dangerously. He’s just about reached his limit on how long he can keep himself from falling apart. “I- I need a minute, alright?” he manages through the walkie. “Can you just give me, like, an hour? And then I’ll take you guys to visit Eddie.”
Steve doesn’t wait for a response before he slams the antenna closed, tosses the walkie aside, and finally, finally lets himself shatter. That sob rips free from his throat, followed by another and another and another. Tears flood from his eyes; his nose runs. It’s an ugly, gross, visceral cry that leaves him exhausted and raw and aching to be held by the time the last sob shudders out of him. Drained and hollow, he craves the embrace of someone who knows him, someone who loves him.
He sweeps up his broken pieces, wipes the mess of tears and snot off his face, and drives to Robin’s house.
“Steve, oh my god.” Robin pulls him into a hug the second she opens the door and sees the look on his face. Steve clings to her. “What happened?”
“Eddie’s awake,” he mutters dismally.
“Oh! Not the tone I’d expect you to deliver that news in, but okay.” Robin pulls back, looking at him with narrow-eyed concern and confusion as she analyzes his puffy eyes and red nose and swollen lips. “And you look like you’ve just been crying because…?”
“Because he doesn’t remember me, Rob,” Steve sighs. “He doesn’t remember anything from the past 11 months.”
Robin’s eyes go wide now. “Shit,” she says, so plainly it startles a short laugh out of Steve.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Shit.”
She asks him more questions as she walks down the hallway so they can talk in her room. Steve once again reiterates what was said at the hospital.
“So you didn’t tell him you two were a thing?” Robin asks, closing her door behind them.
“Of course I didn’t.” Steve flops back onto her bed. “I didn’t want to spook him.”
She sits beside him. “You didn’t want to spook him,” she repeats, looking down at him with raised eyebrows, “but you told him about Vecna.”
“Well, yeah. I just-” He lifts his arms to gesture vaguely into the air as he tries to explain himself. “I mean, imagine how you would feel if you woke up in a hospital and some random guy you’ve spoken to maybe twice was by your bedside telling you you’ve been in a relationship with him for the past 9 months.”
“Uh, I don’t know, dingus, probably about the same as I’d feel if said guy told me I’d nearly died fighting some evil twisted creature from a hell dimension,” Robin retorts.
Steve drops his hands onto his chest with a huff, shaking his head. “No, trust me. He seemed far less surprised by that than he did to hear that we were even just friends,” he says, a bit bitterly. Tears are pricking at his eyes again as he looks up at his best friend. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me, Robin. All he saw was King Steve.”
Robin softens, snark replaced with sympathy. “That sucks, Steve. I’m so sorry.”
Steve sighs in agreement that yes this really fucking sucks. He sits up and scoots back so that he’s slumped against the wall, hitting the back of his head against it. “I think I’m a horrible person,” he admits, just venting now, “because of course I’m glad Eddie’s alive and all I really want is for him to be okay, and I know the nurse said he should remember eventually, but there’s still some sick part of me that thinks maybe it would’ve hurt less if he had just died.”
“I don’t think that makes you a horrible person,” Robin assures him as she settles next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I think you’re just grieving, and grief is weird sometimes.”
“It was one of the worst things I’ve ever felt,” he mutters, “when he looked at me without recognition. To see it on his face, just the- the absence of everything that we’d built. I’ve never felt so- so- I don’t know, it was like I couldn’t breathe. He just- he doesn’t know that I love him. He…he doesn’t know that he loved me...”
Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s not that he’s lost someone that he loves, it’s that he’s lost someone who loves him. Because Eddie’s not gone, just his love for Steve is, and that’s what’s tearing him apart. It’s the fact that there’s one less person in the world who loves him. It’s the fact that Steve’s got this big gaping hole inside of him that’s always made him so desperate to be loved, liked, wanted, needed; and his biggest fucking fear is becoming obsolete. He could probably trace it back to his parents, the first to forget him, the first to stop loving him, but the fact remains that now Eddie has fulfilled that fear too. Now Eddie has carved that pit a little deeper, a little darker, validating the voice that whispers within it and tells Steve that he is forgettable, unlovable, so easy to abandon and erase.
“Well, I love you,” Robin tells him, like she can read his mind (which, at this point, she probably can). She slides an arm around his shoulders, hugs him close. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Fragile as he is right now, Steve falls apart again in her arms, and she holds him together. Because she knows him, because she loves him.
It’s a quieter cry this time, soft and sniffly. Whereas the last one wracked through his body and left him fatigued, this one flows from him almost gently, and when his tears finally subside and he lifts his head from where it had been buried in his friend’s shoulder, Steve actually feels a little bit better, a little bit stronger. Which is good, because he’s gonna have to face Eddie again soon.
“Thank you,” he says quietly as he pulls away from Robin, wiping at his eyes and glancing at the clock on her nightstand. It’s definitely been an hour by now, probably more. He stands. “I have to go, I promised the kids I’d take them to see Eddie.”
“Then I’m coming too.” Robin stands with him. “For moral support.”
Steve gives her a grateful smile. “I love you so fucking much, you know that?”
“Yeah.” She grins at him. “I know.”
~
The nurses have changed his bandages and upped his morphine, so Eddie’s considerably hazy now but at least he can raise his headrest and prop himself up a bit without nearly blacking out from pain. He’s boredly flicking through channels on the shitty TV in front of him, alone since Wayne had to leave for work, when Harrington returns followed by a very unexpected group consisting of Robin Buckley and four strange children.
“Sorry,” Harrington announces their presence with an apologetic shrug, “I know you don’t know them anymore, but they insisted.”
“Eddie!” a pudgy, curly-haired kid shouts before Eddie can even react, coming barrelling towards him and trying to hug him.
“Ow!” Eddie yelps, pain flaring even through the extra morphine. “Fucking Christ, kid! Be careful!”
The kid jumps back immediately, eyes wide. “Shit. Sorry.”
“S’fine,” Eddie grumbles.
The kid looks at him expectantly for a moment before seeming to realize, “Oh, right, you don’t remember me. I’m Dustin.”
“Ah, so you’re the guy I sacrificed myself for,” Eddie mutters, and Dustin looks a little sheepish. That means these must be ‘the kids’ Harrington had been talking about earlier. He surveys the group for a second. “Actually, I think we have met before,” he tells Dustin. “And you too.” He glances at a pale, dark-haired kid. The other two - a Black boy with a flat-top and a younger Black girl - look less familiar, though. “There was this, uh, open day thing at the high school for next year’s incoming freshmen; I talked to you about Hellfire.”
“Yeah!” Dustin’s whole face lights up, so bright and infectious it makes Eddie grin too. “Yeah, you did!”
“So you guys joined the club, then?”
This sparks a very animated conversation about D&D, the rest of the kids (Mike, Lucas, and Erica, as they soon reintroduce themselves) gathering around his bed now too to join in. It makes him feel a bit more like himself again, familiar, normal. Except, of course, for the fact that they’re not only talking about how they defeated Vecna in Eddie’s “totally epic” and “sadistic” campaign (adjectives courtesy of Dustin and Mike respectively), but also filling in more pieces of the story of how they defeated him in real life too. Still, it’s nice, fun. He totally understands how he could’ve gotten attached to these kids.
At some point, Eddie glances over to find Harrington hanging back and just watching them talk, fondly, wistfully. Robin whispers something to him and he sort of smiles, just a trace, and whispers something back. They seem close, intimate. Eddie wonders if they’re dating, and then he wonders why that thought makes him feel a bit sick. He waves them over. Harrington looks like he’s about to protest, but Robin gives him a Look and he allows her to grab his hand and drag him to join the crowd around Eddie’s bed.
“So, what’s your deal, Buckley?” Eddie asks her. He doesn’t know her very well, they’ve only crossed paths a few times in the bandroom, but right now that makes her the most familiar person in the room to him. “Are you and Harrington a thing now? Is that how you’re involved in all this?”
Robin wrinkles her nose and drops Harrington’s hand. “Ew, no. Definitely not.”
“She’s my best friend,” Harrington says.
Eddie snorts, doesn’t know why he finds that so comical. (He’s starting to get tired and it’s making him loopy. Or maybe it’s just the morphine.) “You've got a funny choice of friends nowadays, don’t you? Me and band geek Buckley and a bunch of nerdy freshmen.” He looks at Harrington with incredulous amusement. “Who would've thought, huh? Steve Harrington, collector of geeks and freaks.”
Harrington doesn’t seem to find it as funny. He shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s better than King Steve, collector of asshole bullies and shallow one-night stands.”
“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Eddie agrees through another huff of laughter that breaks off into a yawn. “Didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Stevie. Was a compliment.”
“Alright.” The barest hint of a smile flickers across Harrington’s face now, but then he’s looking away and corralling the kids and saying, “We should head out, let you get some rest.”
And Eddie kind of wishes he’d stay.
(part three!)
taglist: @romanticdestruction @daydreamsandcrashingwaves @paintsplatteredandimperfect @hallucinatedjosten @mugloversonly @estrellami-1 @alongcomesaspider @thatonebadideapanda @tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one @dragonmama76 @wxrmland @nuggies4life @sirsnacksalot @myguiltyartpleasure @marklee-blackmore @vinteraltus @sebastiansstanswhore @0happyeverafter0 @scarlet-malfoy (only tagged people who explicitly asked to be tagged; if you would like to be added or removed from this list please lmk!)
#still angsty sorry#we're getting there tho! this will have a happy ending eventually! i promise!#i finally get what ppl mean when they talk abt setting out to write a oneshot and ending up with a longfic bc it's happening to me rn#steddie#steddie angst#steddie fic#steddie fanfiction#steve harrington#eddie munson#stranger things#fanfic#mine#1k#dyfamsteddiefic#<- specific tag for this fic
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I saw a video today that said, “It’s very uncomfortable as an adult when your friend starts to date somebody who sucks, and you’re all looking at each other going ‘Guys, if this is the person who makes them happy…I think collectively as a unit we can agree that we would rather see them sad. So what's the plan?’”
And immediately went: modern Steddie AU were Steve dates his high school friend Tommy and everyone is tearing their hair out over how awful he’s being treated.
Ft. the Party, led by Dustin, hounding Eddie “I could get a man in a SECOND, I just CHOOSE not to date” Munson for help
However:
Eddie is mostly thinking the entire thing is a joke (King Steve and Tommy Hagan? Gay? Together?? Nice try Henderson.) until he runs into Robin. She laments that yeah, they’re bi, but more importantly, Tommy is fucking awful and Steve refuses to see it.
2. Eddie, maybe, kind of, still has a crush on Steve ("Stop laughing Gareth, everyone has--had! Had a crush on him!") and the guy was never THAT bad in high school---but Tommy Hagan definitely was and a little revenge would be fun.
and finally;
3. Instead of going with the kids' well intentioned but very misguided “Let’s get Eddie to Steal Steve” plan, Eddie meets up with the Robin/Nancy/Jonathan/Argyle/Chrissy dream team to figure out how to prove to Steve that Tommy is horrible.
Bonus: Robin and Nancy come up with a full proof multi step plan that involves Eddie pissing off Tommy in ways that look completely innocent. The hope is that Steve will see how controlling and unreasonable Tommy is, and break it off.
This hurts no one and just highlights to Steve Tommy's behavior.
Of course, Eddie goes off the rails immediately upon meeting Steve.
Instead of following The Plan, he, with the kids permission and help, gets Tommy to get blow up about THEM.
This is far more successful.
Bonus x2: A large amount of shenanigan's with the kids vs Tommy are involved. As is a scene were Steve breaks down and admits he knows Tommy is terrible, but Tommy puts up with him and Steve "knows how he is."
Eddie goes home, prints out a picture of Tommy and throws cheap ren fair daggers at it for at least three solid hours while he tries to think up ways to prove to Steve Harrington that his parents are wrong, hes very lovable actually.
In fact Eddie would very much like a shot at trying it out, thanks!
(It is also, inevitably, successful.)
#steddie#modern meet cute#SOMEONE TAKE IT FROM ME I CANT HAVE ANOTHER WIP#also I personally am very picky about fake dating tropes or “stealing” tropes#cause you cant steal a person#but also#the trope is naturally exploitative and thats hard to do right#not to say I havent seen people do it WELL cause I have#just that its a hard one for me personally#anyway#Eddie munson#steve harrington#tommy hagan#stranger things#Eddie is a gremlin whose been on all of two dates and had three hookups but hes never telling the children that#angsty#so desperate for love Ill take any scraps I can get Steve Harrington#is a personal favorite of mine#and not in that whiny way#I mean in a realistic way#homeboy out here knowing that half of what he says is stupid but he believes it anyway and has a lot of issues from his parents#so you have to DRAG this shit out of him#or if youre Robin you dont HAVE too but Steves excellent at dodging#excuse making#and generally making everyone think hes making sane decisions#he is not#eddie clocks this instantly lol
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new semester new saga of ari class doodles
#i keep having visions of troy being a jackass in s5#bc of hellfire and will being back#i want to pull my hair out#maybe he’ll d word giggles#would be a good segway for mean angsty mike tho#although hes like that normally anyways…#GET HIM FOR ME WHEELER!#three waterfalls#local village gate#byler#byler fanart#stranger things#will byers#mike wheeler#stranger things fanart#will byers fanart#fanart#mike wheeler fanart#stranger things 5#irisart!!!
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Disposable Heroes
Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four AO3 link
A/N: hi yes so sorry for how late this is, it turned into a huge monster of a fic that I’m still working on but I figured posting the first part wouldn’t hurt. This is based on this post by @liightsnow, @acowardinmordor, and @00biscuit while back and I decided to expand that concept a bit and here we are. I'll be tagging anyone that seemed interested in the concept at the end of the fic! Warnings are below but I just wanna say that Steve is struggling with his sexuality in this one so most of it comes from that. This will absolutely have a happy ending, just not right now. Enjoy the angst!
Tw: internalized homophobia, homophobic language, mentions of canon violence, dissociation, panic attacks
———
It’s a Sunday afternoon when he realizes it. Steve is sitting on his couch, eating a shitty frozen meal and watching a random movie on TV when it hits him. The kids haven’t asked him for a ride in two weeks. Two Saturdays have passed and there was not one call— either on the phone or over the walkie— from any of the kids. Not even Dustin, who has seemed to make it his life’s mission in the past couple years to annoy Steve into an early grave.
It’s not like he hasn’t seen them at all. He still practices basketball with Lucas on Thursdays, even though the season is long over. His weekly dinners with Claudia and Dustin are still going strong every Wednesday. Joyce seems to invite him over for dinners every couple weeks. From the outside, everything seems fine. And maybe it is, but Steve’s noticed things.
See, he’s not as stupid as people think he is. He may not be academically smart but he can read. However, instead of books, it’s people. He can read their micro-expressions, notice little signs in their body language that help him understand the person. He can tell when people are nervous when they avoid eye contact, can tell how anxious they are when they distract themselves by picking at their fingers. It’s how he’s so good with the kids. They’re in the stubborn stage of their teenage years, the time in which the only answer you’ll get is ‘I’m fine. Leave me alone’. But he can tell if there’s something on their minds, if there’s something eating away at them.
He can tell that Mike’s anger and pointed barbs are directed towards himself, how he’s struggling with something he can’t quite admit to himself yet. How Max is frustrated with her body, with accepting help, because she’s always had to rely on herself and putting that much trust in someone else has never been an option for her until now. How Lucas is trying to find joy in doing something he loves again, because his love for basketball has been ruined by Carver and his trusty band of assholes. How Dustin is trying to deal with almost losing Eddie, how he’s processing the feelings of almost losing a brotherly figure along with one of his friends. How Will is hiding part of himself, struggling to accept it in the same way Mike is. How El is trying so hard to find her new normal, to adjust to getting her life— her father— back.
There’s another thing he’s noticed, however. It’s that the kids are obsessed with Eddie. Steve from a couple years ago would feel jealous of Eddie, and would try to hold it against him. Now, though, Steve just feels… sad. The kids constantly talk about how cool and badass Eddie is for still being himself despite all the shit Hawkins has thrown at him. They talk about how Eddie takes them places, gets them little trinkets for their nerd game, and takes them fun places. Eddie does all these little things for the kids, lets them just be kids, and really, Steve can’t be mad at him for it. He tries to let them have fun, but his constant worrying overwhelms them. It brings them down. Eddie doesn’t do that. He joins right in with them, basking in the fun and letting himself go. Steve… can’t. Not with all the shit he’s seen. Letting his guard down is something he can’t afford to do anymore.
He sighs down at his meal, chucking it on the coffee table as he loses his appetite. His glasses land next to the disposable plastic tray, sliding across the finished wood surface from the force of his throw. He rubs harshly over his face, hands digging into his eyes until he sees stars.
Steve knows he’s not perfect. Hell, it took an interdimensional monster trying to kill him in order for him to realize that he could be a better person. That the only person truly able to change his life is himself. He used to think he had no choice in his life— whether it was his parents' high expectations of him or his friends trying to mold him into their perfect little plaything— but he knows better now. He knows that he shouldn’t have become King Steve, that he shouldn’t have hurled all his hate and anger towards other people who didn’t deserve it. He knows he shouldn’t have called people names or slurs, that he shouldn’t have spray painted lockers or ripped up books or shoved people against hard asphalt. He knows that, but knowing it was wrong doesn’t erase the fact that it happened. That Steve did those things and hurt people.
Part of him knows that his past is what made the kids turn towards Eddie. Why wouldn’t they? Steve was a bully, thought he was hot shit in school and made it everyone’s problem. Eddie was simply himself. His unabashed, unashamed self. He stood on cafeteria tables, made dramatic speeches, and shared his opinions to anyone and everyone who would listen. He’s so genuine and so, so much better for the kids. He teaches them how to be themselves, how to shove off the hate and embrace their weird side. He’s perfect for them, and Steve knows deep down that this is good for them. The kids need a good role model, one they can rely on, and Eddie has his herd of little sheep to teach and protect. It’s perfect. They’re perfect.
Steve remembers the time last week at the Byers-Hopper house when their little obsession truly became real. They were waiting for the bread to finish baking in the oven, and Steve saw that Will was seated alone in the living room. Joyce and Hopper were in the kitchen, talking and keeping a lookout so the bread wouldn’t burn. Jonathan and El were listening to music in his room, the synth and guitars echoing down the hallway. So, Steve decided to finally talk to Will. It’s not like they don’t talk ever, just… not much. Will is quiet, blends into the background, and Steve never felt like the kid would be comfortable with him trying to get in his business. However, he needed to ask the question that had been on his mind for a while.
Steve sat down on the couch next to him, keeping a fair amount of distance between them, and rested his elbows on his knees. Will was reading a comic, the cover full of bright colors and words, not paying attention. Steve sighed, pushed his glasses up, and ran a hand through his own hair.
“Hey, um… can we talk for a sec?”
Will startled a little, like he didn’t realize Steve was there, and closed his comic. He nodded, and Steve tried not to feel bad about the hesitation in his eyes.
“Is there something going on that I don’t know about? Like with the others?” Will’s eyebrows furrowed, a confused expression taking over his face.
“Um.. what do you mean?”
“Just… have I done anything to them to make them mad? I just… I don’t know, I feel like I’ve done something but I don’t know what,” Steve confessed. He must have looked as distraught as he felt, because Will seemed to soften at his explanation a bit.
“Why do you think that, Steve?” Will asked softly, and Steve had a moment of realization that Will seemed years older than he looked. Steve sighed, and explained that the kids haven’t really been hanging around him much and instead like to spend time with Eddie. He’s quick to clarify that he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, just wants to know what happened. It was Will’s turn to sigh, and he looked at Steve with something akin to sympathy.
“Steve, I don’t say this to be mean but… Eddie just relates to us more, you know? He shares more interests with us, and he seems to get us better,” Will expressed. His eyes widened and he hastily added, “it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you! Just… it’s nice to have somewhere else to go, you know?”
The rest of the evening was spent with Steve silently eating his dinner, Will’s words echoing through his head as he munched on half-burnt bread.
Steve decides then, TV dinner half-eaten and work vest still on his shoulders, that he’s going to make this better.
The next day, Eddie comes into Family Video to pick up some movies, definitely for a movie night judging by the titles— he seriously doubts a metalhead would willingly watch The Goonies, The Dark Crystal, and Ghostbusters by himself on a Saturday night. Eddie bounds up to the register, movies in hand, and does a dramatic bow as he presents them to Steve.
“I wish to borrow these, my liege,” Eddie declares, his voice deep and in a horrible mockery of an English accent. Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide the small grin on his face at the other man's theatrics.
Eddie looks so effortlessly pretty, his hair tied back in a ponytail and his tattoos exposed through the large arm holes in his homemade tank top. Steve shakes his head to get rid of those thoughts and takes the movies to check them out, ignoring the late fee balance on Eddie's account. A glance at the man in front of him, who is bouncing on his toes and looking around the store, gives Steve an idea.
“Hey, is Hellfire still going on?”
Eddie snaps his attention back to Steve, looking a little startled to be asked such a thing.
“Uh… yeah, it's still going on. We have to play in Gareth’s hot ass garage since school is out but we’re making it work. Why d’you ask?”
“Oh, uh… the kids complained awhile back that they didn’t have a good spot to play anymore and I was just wondering,” Steve explains. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, and Steve can feel him staring. Can feel him looking at him closely. Too closely. He clears his throat and looks back down at the counter, pushing his gold, wire-framed glasses further up his nose. “I uh… I actually wanted to offer up my place? My parents aren’t home much”— more like never— “and I’ve got plenty of space for the gremlins and the other guys. Plus, my A/C works and I’ve got a shit ton of snacks. I’ll stay out of your hair and-“
“Actually uh…” Eddie cuts him off with a strained voice. Steve looks up to find his face contorted like he ate something sour, and he knows what his response is going to be before he opens his mouth. Eddie wipes a hand over his mouth before shoving it in his pocket. “Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”
Steve nods— tries not to let the denial sting— and looks down at the movies in his hands. Ignoring how they shake, he sets them on the counter and slides them towards Eddie.
“That’s okay man, I get it. I need a break from the little horrors anyway,” he huffs out, the words digging their way into the pit in his stomach. He puts on his best customer service smile and looks up at Eddie, finding him looking a little wary. Eddie hesitates, as if debating with himself on whether or not to say anything, before rapping his knuckles on the counter in a little rhythm and picking up his movies. An awkward smile finds its way to his face, and Steve thinks it strange and out of place. It’s so.. un-Eddie-like. The pit grows deeper.
Walking backwards towards the entrance, Eddie throws a little salute his way before turning and swinging out the door. A belated “see ya, Harrington” drifts through the closing door in his wake.
Steve slumps over the counter when he’s gone, holding his head in his hands and feeling the childish urge to cry make its way up to his eyes. Even after everything— after walking through hell together, dragging his lifeless body out of the Upside Down as his blood dripped down his back and soaked through his clothes, standing vigil at his side until he woke up two weeks later— Eddie still seems to hate him.
But Steve… he feels the opposite. He has this overwhelming desire to be with Eddie. To hang out with him in the back of his van, drinking sodas and eating snacks as they look out over Lover’s Lake while the sun sets. To talk to him until the early hours of the morning until there’s nothing left to say. To go for drives late at night and listen to his loud music on the radio while holding hands over the center console. He has feelings for Eddie he’s never had before. Not for any past romantic conquests nor any girl. Hell, not even for Nancy. He’s never felt this intense need to be near someone before, and it scares him. It truly terrifies him.
He’s not homophobic— his platonic soulmate is a lesbian, for Christ's sake— but the fact that he feels this way is just… wrong to him. How is Steve Harrington, ladies’ man and charmer extraordinaire, into dudes? What is he, like, half gay? It just doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem right, for him to feel like this. He sighs into his hands, digging his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. He can’t be thinking about this now, he can’t be thinking about this at all. He needs to shove it in the box in the back of his head where all the hard feelings go, waiting and festering to be dealt with later. He needs to, but he doesn’t know if he can.
Fuck, he needs to talk to Robin. Shit- can he though? What if what he’s feeling is a fluke or something? What if it’s just in his head because he’s desperate? What if Robin thinks he’s making fun of her and won’t take him seriously? It’s not fair of him to throw all his problems on her, even if he thinks she could help. It’s not her job to look after him, to take care of him. He can do that himself. He can figure this out himself.
Distantly, the words of Richard Harrington play in his ears. About how being gay is wrong, how it’s a disease. How it’s a sickness that slowly takes over until there’s nothing left. How it’s a disgrace.
He remembers sitting in the living room with his parents on a rare occasion in which they were home, watching the news channel as it talked about an epidemic spreading through young men. His father scoffed at the screen when they started talking about potential cures.
“Cures? They should just let those fags die. They brought this on themselves, you know. Typical of them to complain about the fucking consequences,” Richard had spat out at the block TV, standing to refill his bourbon. Steve had clenched his fists at his side, his already stiff posture straightening still. He felt angry at his fathers words, something pure and burning in his gut.
He didn’t know what it was at the time, but maybe he should’ve known. Maybe him being queer shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it feels. Maybe he’s always known and just couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Maybe that anger he felt at his father’s words was partly on behalf of himself, too.
A wince shudders through him as he remembers how that night ended.
Steve had stood up from the couch, watching the dark liquid flow into the crystal glass in his father’s hand.
“What’s so wrong with being gay? I don’t understand how you could just.. hate people like that. Hate them for just existing,” Steve countered. His father had frozen at his words, slowly setting down the decanter with a solid ‘thunk’ against the metal tray where it belonged and turned to face him. His face was slowly gaining a reddish hue, a sign of the anger rising within him.
“What did you just say?” He demanded, voice scarily calm but laced with an icy rage. Steve swallowed.
“What… What's wrong with being gay, sir?” Steve hesitated, voice failing him. Richard had downed the glass of bourbon before throwing it at Steve, the crystal shattering on the mantelpiece behind him and sending shards flying.
“What’s wrong, Steven, is that you think it’s okay. No son of mine will think like that, not on my watch,” his father boomed, taking long strides towards him. Steve didn’t dare move, only watched his fist grow nearer as he punched him high on his cheek. He fell to the floor, arms trying to protect his head but it was no use. Richard had ripped his arms away, gripping the front of his shirt and making Steve hover above the ground.
“I didn’t raise a fucking fairy, Steven,” he spat. “A faggot.” Steve recoiled, physically feeling the vitriol his father aimed at his face. Richard had sneered, pulled him close and whispered, “Never forget that, Steven,” before shoving him harshly onto the ground and walking away. Black had clouded the edges of his vision, and he laid on the plush rug until it cleared up. He looked over, found his mother silently watching the TV and sipping her wine, and begged with his eyes for her to help him. To say something. Anything. She didn’t, and Steve had to haul himself off the floor, grasping the couch when his vision swam, and stumbled his way to his room.
The rest of that weekend was spent in his room, gingerly cleaning his face and the couple places where glass had cut him on his arms with a wet washcloth and soap. It was the first time he had ever gotten a concussion. He was fifteen.
He remembers replaying the fight over and over again, feeling like those barbs were directed towards him, too. In hindsight, maybe they were. Maybe his father just knew. Knew he was queer long before Steve ever did. Maybe that’s why he’s always so angry with him, so… disappointed. A groan escapes him and he runs a hand through his hair. He’s been thinking way too damn much for it to be this early in the day.
God, he really wishes Robin was here. He knows he can’t talk to her, but it would be nice just to have someone here to keep him from spiraling and drowning in his thoughts. He pushes himself off the counter and goes over to the cart where the returns sit, hoping that busying himself will occupy his thoughts. He sets a few on the shelves when what Eddie said earlier barrels into him full-force.
“Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”
Jesus fucking Christ, he’s stupid. Of course the other Hellfire guys wouldn’t want to be at his house, they probably still see him as King Steve. Most people do, nowadays. Only the ones he went through hell with know he’s different now, that he’s changed. So really, he can’t fault them for being against the idea of Hellfire at his house. He wouldn’t believe it either if he was in their shoes.
Then again, wouldn’t Eddie or the kids try to convince them he’s different? That he’s not a dick? Shit, he’s been through four apocalypses, three concussions, and survived Russian torture— surely they would give him the benefit of the doubt, right? He’s dropped the bad influences out of his life, found better friends, better family— or can he even say that anymore?— to be with. Wouldn’t they try to stick up for him? Or... is he just not worth it?
Steve clenches his eyes shut, willing his bubbling emotions back down, and grips the movie in his hands so hard the plastic begins to creak. The little voice in his head, one that sounds suspiciously like Robin, tells him to breathe. He does. Deep inhale, hold, long exhale. Over and over and over again until he’s calm, until his head is clear.
He knows what he needs to do now: apologize. If it's one thing Steve Harrington knows, it’s how to apologize. Hell, he’s done it more times than he can count. He knows how to repair burnt bridges and how to get past the tough exterior of a person to pull at their heartstrings for sympathy. He knows the key; he just has to make himself useful. If he can provide things for the kids, for Eddie and the Hellfire crew, then they’ll want him around. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it is with his parents, with school, with his past friends, and now his current ones. He vaguely recalls his junior year art teacher saying that, "once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but thrice is a pattern." Which means this, this is something he has to make right.
With a plan solidified in his mind, he goes back to work refilling the shelves with movies, brainstorming ideas to get his family back.
Over the next week, Steve becomes a one man show. He offers up more rides, more movie nights, more free reign of his house and his pool and his car and his money and himself just to make the kids happy. He picks up extra shifts at work just to get extra spending money for them, knowing that they go through twenty bucks in no time.
But… it doesn’t work. Because bit by bit, ride by ride, movie marathon by family dinner by game night by post-nightmare phone call, it becomes painfully clear. Everyone puts on a mask around him. One that says they’re happy to see him, that they’re glad he’s here, but he knows it’s a lie. This, really, shouldn’t be much of a surprise. People don’t stick around him much, so why did he think this was any different?
Maybe it’s because he was finally himself around them, he finally opened up and showed a bit of his true self, and was still rejected. Still pushed away. He wasn’t cowering behind a mask this time, he was just Steve. But it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough.
To their credit, it starts off slow. Casual comments that are cut off quickly, kicks under dinner tables and pointed throat clearing. It’s one instance during game night where it all clicks.
The Monopoly board is spread out before them in the Byers-Hopper living room. Steve, of course, is losing. He’s not good with investments and savings and he keeps landing on the goddamn ‘jail’ space but he doesn’t really care, not when he’s finally having fun with the kids. He groans when the dice make him land on one of Mike’s properties, shuffling his fake cash to pull out the tax money.
“C’mon this game is totally rigged. How the hell am I losing to a bunch of teens?” He grumbles as Mike proudly snatches the money from his hand. Max snickers from her place beside him, her pale blue eyes rolling as she looks at him.
“You know, if you actually used your brain then maybe you wouldn’t be losing. Ever think of that?” She quips, and Steve huffs. Leave it to him to be called out by a fifteen year old.
“I’m surprised there’s even a brain in there to begin with,” Dustin states. He’s seated across from Steve. “I mean, why else would he have-“
His comment is cut off by Lucas smacking his arm. Dustin looks at him like he’s about to protest when Lucas raises his eyebrows, looking pointedly from Dustin to Steve and back again. Steve can’t hear from his position so far away, but he swears Dustin mutters “shit” before crossing his arms and looking down at the board. Steve looks around at the rest of the group, noticing how none of them seem to want to look at him, choosing to focus rather intently on the cardboard before them.
The rest of the game is filled with awkward silences. Steve can feel them looking at him when he’s occupied, and it makes him feel like shit inside.
It’s on the drive home when it hits him. He is the one that doesn’t fit into their group, into their family. They’re slowly but surely removing him and replacing him with Eddie. With someone who fits. With someone better. It hits him so hard, so fully, that he has to pull over on a quiet street to sob in his empty car.
The first time it's fully solidified in his mind is at a barbecue at the Byers-Hoppers house. Robin can’t come, her aunt from up north is visiting for the weekend and she has to stay home. Steve walks through the house, planning on saying hello to Joyce before joining the party outside. He finds Joyce talking low to Eddie in the kitchen and he pauses in the doorway, watches how Joyce laughs at something Eddie says. How she places her hand on his arm as her eyes crinkle with the weight of her laugh. Eddie is smiling, open and wide, with a flush high on his cheeks that stains his skin pink. His dimples are on full display and it takes pure willpower for Steve not to go and poke at them, to settle his thumb in the divot of his skin.
Joyce leans close to Eddie and says something under her breath, making him blush purely red now and shush her, causing another wave of laughter to ripple through the both of them. The kitchen is filled with warmth, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sheer cream-colored curtains that line the two windows as laughter fills the room. It’s light, it’s happiness, it’s love. It’s something Steve hasn’t felt in years.
Steve knocks on the doorframe, waggling his fingers in greeting. They both turn to look at him, and all that warmth from before flees the room. If he hadn’t just seen the thin rays with his own two eyes, he could have sworn even the sun went down as well. He feels a stab of pain in his heart, so sharp it makes his breath stutter. He fights to put a smile on his face, briefly clearing his throat and praying his voice doesn’t sound as faint as he feels.
“Hey, Ms. Byers. Eddie,” he greets. Steve runs a hand through his hair, just to give himself something to do. “Just wanted to say hi before I go outside.”
Eddie’s face has gone completely slack, the only thing convincing Steve he didn’t hallucinate the entire exchange earlier is the flush that had yet to leave his cheeks. In fact, Eddie looks even more red now that he’s made his presence known. Joyce, to her credit, has a small polite smile on her face.
“Thank you, Steve, that's very kind of you,” she replies. She casts a glance at Eddie out of the corner of her eye, something Steve has noticed a lot of people do to each other when he’s around. “You go on outside now, okay? I’m sure the kids are missing you.”
Steve holds back his remark of “yeah, I actually doubt that” and nods, leaving the two of them in the kitchen as he continues down the hallway. He tries hard not to let the harshness of their quick whispers dig further into his already injured heart.
Once outside, he’s greeted by no one. Dustin and Lucas are discussing something rapidly to one another, Dustin gesturing wildly with his hands as Lucas nods along and adds details. Max and El are sitting on a lawn chair together, Max seemingly teaching El how to braid her hair. Mike and Will are sitting in the grass a bit away from the group, shoulders touching and heads bowed together as they talk quietly to one another. Steve smiles softly at them, knowing.
He makes his way over to Hopper, who is manning the grill with a beer in one hand and a spatula in the other. Steve waves and gives him an awkward little smile, and Hopper nods his head, pointing towards a cooler with his beer. Steve grabs one, popping it open and taking an, admittedly, big first swig. Hopper doesn’t notice, or at least doesn’t comment, and Steve looks out over the people he still considers his family. He catches Dustin’s eyes, hoping to have someone to talk to, but the kid only looks away and continues his conversation.
So now Steve is here by himself, slowly nursing a beer, and trying to keep his emotions in check.
It’s just that… he doesn’t know what he did. Was he too overbearing or did he not care enough? Was he too pushy or too distant? Was he just annoying them? Was he just an inconvenience? Did they ever really like him or did they just put up with them out of necessity? Or because they felt bad?
He takes another sip of beer, hating the way it tastes on his tongue but it’s better than the bile slowly rising in his throat. All he wants is for someone to see him, to see who he truly is and like it. To stick around. To stay.
And it’s true, he does have Robin, but sometimes she can’t give him what he needs. Call him a romantic but Steve wants that love, that connection, that intense feeling you get with a partner. He craves it more than anything. He wants to touch, to taste, to feel someone else.
Eddie. He wants Eddie.
A voice interrupts his thoughts.
“Kid, will you go get me a plate for the burgers?” Hopper asks, his gruff voice shoving all of his mushy thoughts aside. Steve nods, sets his beer on top of the cooler, and makes his way inside. He silently dreads ever walking in that room again, dreads having to feel the chill from before. However, the scene in the kitchen is drastically different this time. Joyce is by herself, Eddie nowhere to be seen, and is mixing together slaw in a big tupperware bowl.
Steve knocks on the frame again and is met with a small smile from the older woman. It’s infinitely more warm than the one he was met with when he got there, and he thinks it’s partly due to the lack of a certain metalhead in the room. Joyce sets down her spoon, wiping her hands on a nearby towel, and holds her arms out.
“C’mere, honey,” she murmurs, and Steve tries not to let her soft tone get to him. The last thing he needs is to cry in front of everyone. He walks forwards into her hug, leaning down a little to wrap his arms around her properly, and sighs when she rubs her hands up and down his back. Steve clenches his eyes shut, taking in stuttering breaths that he knows she can hear but thanks every god out there that she doesn’t comment on it. She taps her hands twice on his back and pulls away, reaching up to push some of his hair off his forehead and Steve wills himself to not lean into the touch too much.
“Sorry for not saying a proper hello earlier, I was a bit preoccupied. Eddie- well, that’s not my thing to tell but he needed some help with something and… well, you get it,” she smiles, laughs a little, and Steve smiles back.
This. This is what he wishes he could have with his parents. This lightness, this love. He never will, he knows that, but the little moments like this with Joyce, the way she hugs him and cares for him, are ones he treasures. Ones he wishes he could have everyday. Joyce is a wonderful mother, and part of him wishes he could have her as his own. Hell, she’s been more of a mother to him in the four years he’s known her than his mother ever has. But he knows that isn’t fair. It isn’t fair of him to put his parental issues on her or anyone else. So he doesn’t, and shoves his hands in his pockets instead.
“It’s okay, Ms. Byers, I get it. Sorry to interrupt you two, though,” he apologizes. She waves her hands in a shooing motion.
“Oh don’t apologize for that, honey, it’s okay,” she smiles, then hesitates. “I do want you to promise me something, okay?” Steve nods, and Joyce places her hands on either side of his face. “Promise me you’ll be careful with people, be gentle. Not everyone can be treated the same, some people… they’re special.
“Sometimes, it’s better to listen. Promise me, Steve, that you’ll always listen, okay?” She asks, and Steve has to swallow before he responds.
“I promise, Ms. Byers,” he replies, and she pats his cheek. Her smile has grown, and her eyes have softened.
“I love you, Steve, you know that, right?” Joyce asks, and it’s like the world has stopped moving. He didn’t know that, not really. Sure, he knew she liked him but he didn’t know she…
He doesn’t realize he’s tearing up until Joyce coos at him, wiping away a few stray tears that have escaped with her thumbs.
“I-I didn’t know you- I’m sorry, I don’t-“ Steve stutters out, but Joyce shushes him.
“You don’t have to apologize, Steve, it’s alright,” she insists. Her thin arms pull him into another hug and he buries his face in her shoulder. The angle is a little awkward, but it’s a comfort Steve hasn’t had in ages so he stays. “It’s gonna be alright.”
Her small hands rub up and down his back as he holds back tears. He regulates his breathing, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly, until he’s sure he won’t cry. He pulls back from the hug and wipes at his eyes, sure that they're red-rimmed and a little puffy, but Joyce only smiles that warm smile and pats his cheek again. Steve smiles at her, the first genuine smile he thinks he’s had in awhile, and it feels good. To smile and know it's real.
Joyce turns to the counter behind her and picks up a plate, handing it to Steve. His brows furrow, and he hesitantly takes the offered crockery.
“How did you-“
“I had a feeling,” she interrupts him with a wink. “Now go on before Hop burns the yard down.”
Steve smiles and goes back outside, handing the plate to Hop and ignoring his grumble of “took ya long enough”, before picking his beer back up and taking a much needed swig. A few minutes later, they’re all eating. Eddie has joined Dustin and Lucas in their rambling, all three of them loudly talking over one another. Steve watches them; wishing, wanting, yearning. Joyce bumps her shoulder into his, making him swivel his head to look down at her. She smiles, almost knowingly, and Steve blushes. He clears his throat and looks away, focusing on fixing his burger rather than whatever the fuck that was.
He sits alone away from the group, catching occasional glances from Joyce, Dustin, and Hopper. Joyce is concerned, he can tell that much, and part of her almost looks sad. Dustin looks conflicted, like he can’t decide if he wants to be mad from a distance or just come right up to Steve and say it to his face. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if he did the latter. Hopper, to Steve’s complete unsurprise, looks uninterested and, frankly, fed up with this whole situation. Steve doesn’t blame him, he is too.
After the food is gone, and dessert is served, Steve heads inside to help clean up. He washes dishes quietly with Joyce, while she dries them and puts them away. As he finishes up the last plate, Will comes into the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom? The party wanted to play some board games, is that okay?” He requests, and Steve can feel Joyce soften beside him. She smiles.
“Of course, honey. Make sure you ask the girls what they want to play, too, okay?” Will rolls his eyes and smiles, a mannerism Steve notes he definitely got from Mike.
“Got it, Mom,” he replies, and runs off. Steve turns back to the sink, realizing he’s been scrubbing the plate well past the point of clean, and rinses it off.
“I um.. I think I’m going to head out, Ms. Byers,” he begins. He hands the plate to her. “I’ve got a shift tomorrow and uh… I don’t want to intrude or anything.”
He doesn’t mention that he doesn’t want to repeat the last game night, where everyone kept glancing at him like he was a bomb set to explode at any moment. He doesn’t say that he can’t handle their stares for any longer than he already has.
“Oh, are you sure? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want to,” Joyce offers, but Steve shakes his head.
“I really should be going, sorry.”
“Alright, dear. Let me walk you out,” she insists, moving to take off her apron.
“I’ll walk him out, Joyce, don’t worry about it,” Hopper's gruff voice interrupts from the doorway. Steve swallows and nods, drying his hands off on a towel. He looks at Joyce, seeing her share a glance and a smile with Hopper before looking back at him. He smiles, finally beginning to think that maybe… maybe things will be okay.
“Thank you, Ms. Byers. For everything,” he expresses. He leans down to give her a hug, her arms quickly hugging him back.
“It’s alright, dear. You come to me if you ever want to talk, you hear?” Steve pulls away from the hug.
“I will, promise,” he hesitates. Steve looks down at his hands, shaking from where they’re clutching each other, and takes a breath. “I… I love you too.”
He looks up right as Joyce pulls him into another hug. He laughs a little, and she pats his back before pulling away with a “be safe”. Hopper clears his throat from the door and Steve takes a step back, nods to Joyce, and follows the other man outside.
They step out on the front porch together, and Steve is prepared to continue walking to his car when Hop places a hand on his shoulder. He stops, and turns to find the man looking at him seriously.
“Son, I want you to promise me something,” he grumbles, and Steve begins to feel a strange sense of deja vu. While Joyce’s tone was soft, Hopper’s is deep and leaves no room for hesitation. He vaguely has a thought that this is what his father would have been like if things were different. If he were different. Steve nods.
“Promise me you’ll fix our shit, alright? I don’t wanna get in the middle of… whatever the hell this is but promise you’ll be better, okay?” He commands, and all the thoughts Steve had earlier about thinking things would be okay fly out the window.
“Y-yes, sir,” he stutters out. Hop claps his shoulder, mumbles a “get home safe”, before pulling a pack of smokes out his pocket and lighting one up. Steve turns, shoves his shaking hands in his pockets, and walks to his car.
Getting in his car is a blur of unconscious actions. He’s driving down a barely lit backroad when he registers that his eyes are stinging, and something warm and wet is dripping down his cheeks. He pulls over on the side of the road, shifting his car into park, and he sits there. He reaches up with a shaky hand and wipes his cheek, his hand coming back wet and shining in the faint glow of the moon. The sight breaks him, and an ugly sob rips its way out his throat. He chokes on an inhale as tears fight their way out, and he hugs his arms around himself as a sad semblance of comfort. His forehead finds purchase on the steering wheel, and his tears stain the leather before dripping on his lap.
He cries because he knows he’s the problem, that he’s the one fucking up. He cries because everyone thinks so, everyone knows. The kids know. Eddie knows. Joyce knows, but she’s just too kind to say it to his face. Hell, even Hopper knows. He cries because he doesn’t know what he did wrong. He cries because he doesn’t think anyone really wants him to fix it.
It’s the second time on a drive home from the Byers-Hopper house that he has to pull over and cry.
He struggles to inhale a deep breath and sits up, harshly wiping his tears away with his hand, uncaring that it rubs his skin raw and red. Sniffling, he puts his car in drive and goes home. Toeing his shoes off at the door is the only thing he thinks to do before he stumbles his way upstairs and collapses on his bed, snuggling into the thin comforter and falling into a fitful sleep.
After a slow shift at Family Video the next day, Steve returns to the darkness of his home with a plan. He can still be useful. They may not have to know, but he can still do something to help. To try and save them before they need to be saved. He can be a preventative measure for them, can stop them from getting hurt before they even know they’re in danger.
He shrugs off his work vest, throwing it on his desk chair as he searches his closet for an old sweatshirt. He finds one, the front adorned with white block letters that read ‘Tigers Swim Team’ and tugs it on. His nail bat finds purchase in his hand as he tucks a flashlight in his back pocket. The walkie Dustin gave him is hooked in his belt loop, just in case. He leaves all the lights on in the house and shuts the door, skirting around his house to begin his walk in the woods.
After four bouts with the Upside Down, he doubts that they’re in the clear, that it’s finally over. He thought it was the first time, then the second, and by the third he was skeptical. Now, though, he doesn’t know what to think. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a round five, or six, or seven. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if it never stopped. But each and every time, they were unprepared. They were surprised, and it nearly cost them every time. But if Steve could prevent that surprise, give them all a heads up before it becomes a big problem, then maybe— just maybe— it’ll come in handy. He’ll come in handy. He’ll be useful again.
So, he walks the woods of Hawkins. His feet crunch the dead leaves piled underneath trees as he trudges through the woods. The flashlight shines long shadows on the ground in front of him, lighting up the pale gray bark of trees and making the eyes of rodents and raccoons shine amber and red.
A rustle sounds a few feet away and he jumps at the noise. He pauses and stands still, listening for the shrill chittering of demodogs or the heavy, thudding footsteps of a demogorgon. He waits, and his flashlight reveals a small fox walking out from behind a tree. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and continues walking.
His feet carry him to Lover’s Lake, the water lapping lazily at the shore with the warm summer breeze. Out here, the lights from town are distant, making the stars shine brightly and reflect in the water. Steve stands there, watches as the artificial light of his flashlight reveals the small ripples on the surface of the water, and waits.
He waits for a lumbering figure to emerge out of the murky depths, to claw its way onto the shore and stalk off into the woods. He waits for chirps muffled by water and splashing to sound in his ears as four-legged creatures swim to the beaches. He waits for the screeches of demonic bats to echo off the trees around him as they fly out of the water and take to the sky. He waits, but it never comes. The lake stays silent.
So he walks.
He follows the road leading to the lake out, letting it take him to the highway that leads out of town. His feet stop as they come across a crack in the road, the crack he took in the other world to get Eddie home safely. The crack that is closed over with black tar, leaving a dark line on the ashen gray asphalt. He remembers clawing his way out of that crack, Eddie’s lifeless body over his shoulders as he slowly bled out.
Nancy had driven her station wagon over, opening the back so he could lay Eddie down as they rode to the hospital. She had asked Steve to drive so she could patch him up, but he refused. He couldn’t leave Eddie, not when he finally got him out. Not when he was barely hanging on. So she threw the first aid kit she had stashed in her car at him and drove to the hospital. Steve had done his best to stop the bleeding, the stark white cloth immediately turning red when he pressed it to Eddie’s skin. They almost lost him. But they didn’t. He’s alive.
Eddie. Eddie.
His head swivels to the forest next to him, the one that leads straight to the trailer park, and he runs. He jumps over fallen trees, feet thudding against the dry earth and leaves as his breath picks up. Orange street lights shine through branches as he draws nearer, and he only slows his pace when he breaks out from the line of trees. His feet swiftly take him to the sight of Eddie’s old trailer, the vacant lot standing out against the fullness of the park. The wooden front steps are still there, partially broken and shifted. The grass has yet to grow in fully, bare spots of dirt showing through the green. His shoes crunch on the gravel as he takes a step closer, inspecting the ground and poking at it with his bat as if it would move. As if the gate would open up just by him being here.
It doesn’t. Steve steps back.
He turns to leave the park, eyes wandering and finding a familiar cream-colored van parked at a trailer a few rows away. Eddie and his Uncle were granted a new trailer for their trouble, really the bare minimum they deserve after all the shit they went through, but they took it in stride. Eddie and Wayne spent the first few weeks after spring break making it into their new home once Eddie was released from the hospital, and Steve had done his best to help them out. But he knew they needed time alone, time to heal, so he let them be. He hasn’t been back there since then.
He kicks a stray piece of gravel, watching as it tumbles a few feet away and disappears into the grass, as he makes his way out of Forest Hills. Houses blur by as he walks the residential streets, only stopping when his own comes into view. Steve sighs, and walks up the concrete driveway, through the large wooden doors, and into the silence of his house. He doesn’t bother taking off his shoes, reveling a little in the dirty footprints he leaves behind on his mothers’ ornate runner that covers the length of the hallway. The analog on the stove tells him it's a little past three in the morning, and he sighs. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, he fills it up with water before shuffling out of the kitchen. He flops on the couch, sips his water, and waits.
He waits for the sun to peek over the trees in the backyard, casting long shadows on the curtains that cover the windows and glass doors. He waits for the warm rays to shine through the large window in the living room, the one that faces the road, and light up the rug that rests under the coffee table in soft hues of yellow. He sits his empty glass on the table. He waits. And he gets up.
He goes upstairs, changes his shirt, and grabs his vest. Steve slips the walkie off his belt loop and places it on his desk, the flashlight landing right beside it. He props the bat next to his chair, and Steve looks at it, looks at the bent nails sticking haphazardly out of the wood and how it splintered in places from too much force. How some of the nails are covered in dried, blackened goop and dirt. How it's sharp and dangerous, a weapon. How it’s chosen to protect.
At this moment, Steve feels like the bat. The rough wood is his exterior, the splinters through it are the cracks. The holes in his facade. The places where people got too close, where people hurt him. The nails are what makes him strong. They’re the kids, Joyce and Hop, Eddie and Robin. They’re his family. They mold him into a weapon meant to protect, to keep them safe.
But just like Steve, the bat isn’t needed until it’s necessary. Until the world is ending. But until that time comes, the bat is left out of sight. It’s hidden away, moved from place to place just in case, but never used. Never wanted.
Steve walks out the door.
His shift at Family Video passes by like every other day, slow and full of know-it-all customers that never seem to understand that he can’t magically summon movies out of his ass whenever they ask. Robin comes in around lunchtime, and they spend the rest of their joint shift making fun of the ridiculous movie covers that adorn various romcoms. He goes home alone, sheds his vest, and once again walks the town of Hawkins.
He does it again the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Until it’s been a week and Steve hasn’t slept for more than a couple hours a night. He doesn’t mind, just means there’s less nightmares to wake him up before sunrise.
Less nights where chittering and the thuds of heavy footsteps strike fear down to his core. Less nights where the chill of fog and night air pierce his skin, warring with his senses against the hot breath hitting the back of his neck from deadly flower-shaped mouths. Less nights where the harsh scraping of monstrous nails against rusted metal and the echoey bangs of heavy, meaty bodies against solid bus walls fill his ears. Less nights where he can feel the thick, choking air of the tunnels, can feel the wispy particles filling his lungs and coating the inside of his mouth.
Less nights filled with muffled Russian echoing in his ears, the harsh texture of rope around his wrists, arms, and chest. Less nights where the sickening crunch of fists against bone and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth linger for hours after he’s awoken, shallowly breathing and pleading to be let go. Less nights where he can feel the blood in his teeth, coating his tongue and dripping down the back of his throat, and he has to run to the bathroom to puke the phantom feeling away.
Less nights he wakes up alone, empty house hollow around him. Less nights he cries to himself in the silence of his room, wishing, hoping, yearning for something. For something to happen, to change. For something to get better. For him to get better.
On the eighth night, he finds his feet have taken him to the edge of Hawkins. The brown road sign reads ‘Leaving Hawkins! Come Again Soon!’, and it stares at him from a few feet away. He looks past the sign at the stretch of road that disappears around a curve, trees following the line of asphalt and distant street lights lighting up their leaves with an orange glow.
He thinks about what it would be like to leave Hawkins, to pack up his clothes in his car and leave town. To follow the road and go around that curve, to not worry about ever coming back. No one needs him here, not anymore, so what’s holding him back?
Maybe this will fix him.
Robin might miss him for a bit, probably curse him and his whole family when she figures it out, but she’ll move on. She’ll find someone better. Hell, she’ll probably go to Eddie too. They already have some sort of secret friendship thing going on between them anyway. Really, he wouldn’t blame her.
Eddie probably wouldn’t care. Shit, he might even throw a party celebrating the fact that he’s gone. Steve snorts at the thought, closing his eyes and taking a breath.
Would it really be so bad if he just disappeared?
But then there’s the kids, left behind with no one to protect them. Sure, Robin and Eddie and Nancy are here, but Nancy is off to Emerson in the fall, Robin surely bound to follow in similar footsteps, and Eddie has made it well-known that he’s getting the hell out of here. If everyone is gone, who will be here to protect them when it comes back?
He rakes a hand harshly through his hair, pulling a bit at the ends and hating how greasy it feels on his fingertips. He can’t think like that, he’ll just worry himself into a panic and that’s the last thing he needs right now; a panic attack on the side of the road. He turns around, walking back towards town as the sky fades into light. He gets home right when sunlight begins burning the tops of the trees and collapses on the couch, sleeping until his noon shift.
He’s exhausted when he gets home, having to close up Family Video after a ten hour shift by himself, but he knows he can’t sleep. Not now. So he does what he usually does now when he gets home and grabs his essentials for his rounds, something that’s become routine for him.
He shrugs off his work clothes, replacing it with what has become his patrol outfit; the old swim team sweatshirt and a faded, ripped pair of light blue jeans. The sweatshirt is filled with holes, the baggy sleeves having caught on briars and branches alike, that allow the white of his shirt to show through. The jeans share a similar fate, the knees scraped up and the denim fraying from the unhemmed edges.
His white Nikes are stained a gray-ish brown from the nightly treks through the woods, small bits of leaves and debris sticking to the laces and in the grooves of the tread. The flashlight finds its place in his back left pocket, an extra pair of batteries landing in his front pocket after an incident a few nights ago where his flashlight died on him out in the middle of nowhere— he was forced to stumble through the woods until the sun began to rise and he was able to find his way back home. He didn’t sleep that night.
The nail bat is crusted with dried bits of mud sticking to the slowly rusting metal, shredded bits of leaves and undergrowth tangled in a green and brown mass. Clumps of dirt litter the floor under the bat, and likely mark a line in the hallway from his room down to the front door. Steve hopes it's still there if his parents come home.
It’s dark outside, only the street light at the end of the driveway illuminates the concrete and stepping stone pathway to the front door. Steve steps out on the front stoop, taking a deep breath of cool summer night air, and starts walking.
He walks out onto the street, uncaring at this point if anyone sees him or not. What does he have to lose? Hopper would probably tell him he’s stupid— something he’s well aware of at this point— and tell him to go inside. Or maybe he would drive him home, take the bat, and leave.
A small, traitorous part of Steve wants Hop to find him. Wants him to ask what the hell he’s doing walking around at night alone in the dark. Wants him to coax him in his old beat up truck and take him back to the Byers’ house. Wants some of Joyce’s hot chocolate as he sits on the couch and explains what he’s been doing, what’s been going on. Ask, desperately, why everyone hates him. Wants them to tell him he’s wrong, that no one hates him. That it’s just a misunderstanding.
But it doesn’t happen. All of that is a lie.
It’s a lie Steve has secretly been telling himself under the cover of darkness alone in his bed, lying awake and exhausted but unable to sleep. It’s a lie he tells himself when he sees any of the kids so he can act normal, act okay. It’s a lie he tells himself when Eddie grins at him, wide and gleaming, eyes sparkling with the afternoon sun beaming in from the storefront windows.
It’s those grins, those looks Eddie gives him sometimes that almost convinces him the lie is fake. Like Eddie is sharing an inside joke with him, only Steve doesn’t know what it is. Eddie doesn’t come around often but when he does… god, it’s like he’s the only one in the room.
Eddie looks at him with his whole body, always focusing on him so wholly and touching in some way. A hand on his bicep, an arm slung around his shoulder, even his arms wrapped around his waist one time. He was friendly, they were friends, until he wasn’t. Until Steve did something stupid that he still can’t figure out and Eddie is avoiding him.
The crunch of gravel under his sole brings him back into his head a little. He looks up, finding the pale orange glow of a lamp through a trailer window, and curses. His feet have brought him to where his mind always seems to go these days: Eddie.
He stands outside of the trailer, watching the way the little bits of weeds around the base shift and sway in the wind. The sky is filled with patches of clouds, light gray ripples standing out against the black sky from the glow of the moon. Steve isn’t completely sure how he got here, only that he started walking and didn’t really… stop.
Wayne’s truck is gone, leaving only Eddie’s cream-colored van among the gravel and grass. Which means Eddie is home and, judging by the light in the window, awake. Steve has a fleeting thought that he should turn around, walk back home, and try to forget he ever came here. Try to forget that he didn’t mean to, that his head and his heart are traitorous beings that have conspired against him to bring his body to the one place— one person— where he isn’t welcome. He tries to move, to will his legs and his feet to catch up with his brain and the urge to run. But they don’t. They stay frozen to the ground, rooted in place as if they belong here. As if he belongs here.
A voice cuts his thoughts off, one that he could pick out in a crowd full of people. His eyes snap to the front door of the trailer, now open and spilling warm light onto the wooden steps that lead down to the gravel drive. A figure grows near, tall and lanky and Steve feels like he’s trapped. His thoughts get louder, yelling and screaming at him to run run ruN RUN RUN-
Hands on his shoulders. Eddie’s face in front of him.
Eddie looks panicked, his dark eyes wide and dancing around as if searching Steve's face for… something. He must not find it, because the two little lines between his brows appear and his mouth starts moving. It’s all muffled, like he’s trying to talk through glass. Steve blinks.
“-ington? Steve,” Eddie’s pleading voice finds his ears as he shakes his shoulders, the fog in his head dissipating as the strained way his name falls from his lips. Steve hums. He blinks again.
“Oh,” he breathes out, voice barely louder than a whisper. Eddie is here. He’s in front of him. He can see him. He’s here and he can see and Steve shouldn’t be here he needs to go-
“Stevie, are you okay?” The fear in Eddie’s voice cuts off his train of thought— something that seems to happen a lot nowadays— and Steve feels every sensation return to his body. The heavy hands on his shoulders, soft and warm and missing their signature rings. The distant chill of the night air on his exposed bits of skin seeping away at the small amount of space between them. The faint puff of air on his face from the man before him. The fact that all of those things are from Eddie.
Steve clears his throat, swallows. Tries to focus his eyes on Eddie’s face.
“I’m fine, Eddie. I um.. sorry,” he trails off. He tries to smile, at least give something to reassure him, to keep him from asking questions. Steve doesn’t think he could answer them.
To his surprise, Eddie lets out a breath of relief, the fear dissipating from his eyes as they clench shut and his head drops. His shoulders move with his lungs as he takes a breath before looking back up at him.
“Jesus H. Christ, you scared the shit outta me, Steve. Thought…” he trails off. His voice wavers. “Thought you were gone. Like… like her.”
Oh. Chrissy. Fuck.
“Shit- sorry, Eds, I didn’t even realize- fuck, I’m so sorry,” Steve pleads. He takes in his surroundings, realizes he’s been standing out here, alone, for who knows how long. He needs to leave. “I-I should go.”
Eddie’s brows furrow, and he tilts his head. “You don’t have to leave, Stevie, it’s fi-“ he cuts himself off.
Steve looks up at that, unsure of when he stopped looking at Eddie, and takes in his pinched expression. The one that’s trained to the ground. The one that’s trained towards-
“What the fuck is this?”
Shit.
“I-it’s not what it looks like, I swear!” He begs, voice sounding unfamiliar even to his own ears. It’s raspy and breaks after a few words. When was the last time he really spoke to anyone today?
“I don’t wanna hurt you, Eds, I really don’t- please, believe me,” he pleads. “It’s just for protection! I don’t-“
“Why are you covered in mud, Steve?” Eddie cuts him off, voice strange and cautious and his hands tighten their grip on his shoulders. Steve knows he doesn’t look the best, knows that his clothes are dirty, but he looks down at himself anyway. His eyes focus on a leaf stuck to his shoelace. He shrugs.
Eddie moves in front of him, a quick thing that Steve suspects is him shaking his head. He mumbles something he can’t hear, voice only a rumble in his throat but Steve knows enough to know that people only talk under their breath when they’re mad. When he’s done something wrong.
He pulls away. Eddie’s hands drop off his shoulders.
“I-I should go. Sorry for bothering you, an-… and keeping you awake,” Steve stutters out, clearing his throat when his voice breaks. He chances a look at him, finding concern written on Eddie’s face. It softens when they make eye contact, and Eddie shakes his head.
“I wasn’t asleep, Stevie. Don’t really, uh.. sleep much, these days. I usually just wait around for Wayne to get home to catch a couple hours. Doesn’t feel safe here by myself, you know?” Eddie confesses, mouth turned upwards in a small, sardonic smile. Steve nods. He does know, he’s never felt safe in his home. With or without people. He’s been going through it for years, long before the events of ‘83. He doesn’t say any of that though, doesn’t think he has the right to.
Eddie steps towards him, closing the bit of distance Steve made between the two, and rests his hand on the arm holding the bat.
“Come inside, Steve,” Eddie requests, voice low and soft. Eddie’s smiling at him. It’s that soft, small, Eddie smile. One that Steve has only seen a handful of times. It’s asking him to say yes, and Steve… he’s weak. So, so weak.
“Okay.”
Eddie’s smile grows.
His hand wraps further around his arm, tugging him towards the open trailer door and Steve feels betrayed that now is when his feet decide to move. He follows Eddie, watching the way he’s glancing at him the entire time. Eddie pauses at the doorway.
“Steve,” he whispers, and Steve looks at him. His hand travels down his arm, causing goosebumps in its wake despite the layer of fabric between their skin. It pauses over the hand still gripping the bat, thumb brushing along his knuckles. “Let it go.”
Steve looks at him, searches those dark brown eyes for fear or hate or anger but finds none. He only finds care. Concern. Love.
It’s terrifying.
He loosens his grip and Eddie takes it from him, the comforting weight of the bat replaced with the warmth of Eddie’s hand. He props it just inside the door to the trailer and leads him over the threshold by the grip on his hand. He’s led over to the couch where a hand on his back urges him to sit down. Steve does, and instantly sinks into the well-worn cushions.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Just gonna get you some water,” Eddie informs him, squeezing his hand briefly before releasing his grip and turning the corner to venture into the kitchen. Steve watches him go, the way the baggy and worn band shirt hangs off his frame. The way his sweatpants are bunched up at the ankle as if they’re too big for him. The way his hair is pulled into a messy bun at the back of his head that swings a little when he walks away. Even now, he’s beautiful.
Shit. He’s so gone for this man.
Eddie returns with a glass of water and flops down on the couch beside him, pressing the cool surface of the cup into his palm. He takes it with a shaky hand, his other joining it to help stabilize the glass. It doesn’t work.
He takes a small sip of water, the liquid feeling like heaven against his dry throat. They sit in silence until Steve finishes half the glass. Then, Eddie speaks.
“Why were you outside at two in the morning, Stevie?” His voice is gentle, and it makes Steve want to cry. He swallows.
“I- I don’t know,” he deflects, lies. Anything to not talk about it.
The harsh sound of a mock game show buzzer startles him, and he turns to find Eddie with his hands cupped around his mouth. Steve grins and lets his head drop, and Eddie nudges his shoulder. He takes a deep breath, focusing on the surface of the water in his hands.
“I have to keep them safe, Eddie,” he confesses. Eddie stays silent, hand gently rubbing his forearm. “It’s what I need to do. What I have to do.”
Silence stretches between them, then, “who, Steve? Who do you have to keep safe?”
‘You,’ he wants to say. ‘You almost died. It’s never been that close before, not in the four years this shit has been going on. You and Max almost died, and I wasn’t there to protect you. I wasn’t with you and Dustin to keep you both safe, to help fight off the bats and urge you through the gate. I wasn’t with Max and Lucas and Erica, wasn’t there to fight off Carver and save Max just a little bit earlier. I wasn’t there, but I should have been. Carver should have beat me to pieces, not Lucas. It should have been me the bats got to, not you. It should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me.’
Hands fall over his as Eddie takes the glass from him. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking that bad in his revere, causing the water to spill over the sides and onto the brown carpet below them. The glass thunks on the coffee table before Eddie rests his hands over Steve’s, stills their shaking.
“Hey, talk to me, Stevie,” he practically begs. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Steve looks at him, sees the worry in his eyes, and wets his lips with his tongue. Doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s eyes flicker down at the movement. He clenches his fists.
“Please don’t tell Robin,” he pleads. If she found out about this, if she knew, he wouldn’t be allowed outside alone ever again. She would worry about him, keep him under lock and key to make sure he wouldn’t do anything stupid. She would stay with him during the night, insert herself firmly by his side until she was sure he was okay. She would make him sleep in his own bed, trapped between his own walls. Trapped in his own house. He can’t stand that place, can’t handle the echoey walls and empty rooms. Can’t stand not being able to do anything for anyone. Can’t stand to be useless.
He’s just wasting time right now. He shouldn’t be here, talking to Eddie, when he could be checking the gates. He should be out there trying to save people, not himself. He should be trying to save his family. He could already be too late. It might have already come back while he was distracted and they could all be gone. It could have been waiting until he was occupied, waiting for an opening to strike. They could be in danger right now. They could be dead.
“Alright, I can do that. I won’t tell her but… Steve, why-“ Steve cuts him off by standing up on shaky legs, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Steve?”
“I need to go, Eddie, I need to- they could- I need to go,” the words tumble out of his mouth, words he isn’t quite sure even make sense but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out.
Steve walks over to the door, eyes locking on the bat propped there, before he hears Eddie stand up behind him. He turns to find Eddie holding his hands out in front of him like he’s trying to placate a wild animal and, at this moment, he kinda feels like one. His heart is beating too fast and he can feel his breathing quicken. His throat closes up as panic claws its way upwards and clouds his vision, muffling his hearing. Eddie’s mouth moves but Steve can’t hear it through the cotton in his ears. He backs towards the door, hating the fear in Eddie’s eyes as he does so.
His back hits the wall next to the door and he turns, hand finding the rough wood of the bat almost instantly, before he runs out the door. The small “sorry” he lets out is an afterthought, thrown over his shoulder right before the trailer door slams shut behind him and his feet crunch on gravel as he runs towards town.
His blind panic takes him to Dustin’s house first, finding all the lights turned off save for the faint glow of the hall night light through sheer curtains. He stays there for a minute or two, waiting for the sign of flickering lights. Nothing comes.
A couple streets over, he stops in front of Lucas’s house, finds the same thing. Dark. He stands there and waits. No flickering. He runs.
The Wheelers. Dark. He waits, no flickering. He runs.
The Byers-Hoppers. Dark. Waits. No flickering. Runs.
Max. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.
Robin. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.
His house. Light.
They’re safe. He collapses.
He sits heavily on the front stoop, bat falling to the ground and knocking against the concrete with a thud. His knees come up to his chest and his arms wrap tightly around them as he rasps for breath, the air coming in short, quick bursts. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of his calves, hard enough to leave bruises. His forehead rests heavily on his knees and his eyes sting, welling with tears as the fear slowly fades away.
He sits outside, struggling for breath until the sun begins to rise, and waits. When the sun finds its way over the trees, he makes his way inside to get ready for his opening shift.
The bat finds a new home in his trunk.
Taglist: @tea-beloved @starry-eyedlune @hyperfixationgoddess @zerokrox-blog @nicovania @invisibleflame812 @chaoticvictorianspirit @justforthedead89 @dacremontgomeryay @vhelt @adhdsummer @nerd-and-nervous @i-have-three-feelings @mimicori @remuslupinisthevoiceofgod @solliesolesito @romanticdestruction @vanillatwist @bowl-o-queerios @grimmfitzz
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#steddie#stranger things#pre steddie#eddie munson#steve harrington#stranger things fillet#stranger things drabble#stranger things fanfiction#stranger things fic#things get better for Steve i promise#hes just having his angsty time right now#robins part is next tho so stay tuned for that#disposable heroes
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eddie figures out that he likes steve all because of nancy fucking wheeler.
it isn't often that they find themselves hanging out just the two of them, quite the opposite. this is the first time they've ever done it and the only reason nancy is even stepping foot inside the munson's new government-provided trailer is because she's having a crisis.
"but what does it mean," she asks, voice muffled as her lips wrap around the opening of her beer bottle before taking a swig. her cheeks hollow and her eyes shut against the feeling of the carbonation bubbling up before she fixes eddie with a glare that he doesn't think is for him. "it didn't... feel this way with barb."
and eddie's just sitting there on the couch, rolling a much needed joint for both of them, trying to follow along with what nancy is saying. she's pacing a hole in the carpet and her hands are flying around in a way that eddie himself does when the wheels in his brain are spinning too fast.
"... what didn't feel what way?"
nancy glares at him again and he gets the feeling that it's directed at him this time. he feels himself shrink under her eyes and wants to raise his hands up in surrender (he gives in and does indeed raise his hands in surrender).
"i think i'm in love with robin, please try and keep up."
eddie stills, his hands in the air and mouth open in shock. nancy's still muttering about something but his brain is stuck on the being-in-love-with-robin part of her tirade. it's not an issue, not in the slightest, and sure he's heard of people who... but he's never met someone who actually-
"are you even listening?" nancy asks, her tone firm. she has a hand on her hip while the other is clenched tightly around the neck of her beer. "what am i supposed to do?! am i just supposed to kiss her and tell her that her eyes are my favorite color and that i miss her when she leaves a room even for just a minute?"
"how should i know?! i'm not in love with robin!" eddie responds and he knows it's the wrong answer by how nancy's whole face falls in the span of .02 seconds. she looks like she's on the brink of tears, frustrated or hopeless or sad, and eddie doesn't know what to do with that either.
"but... you know. what about steve?" nancy's voice is soft now, and paired with her puppy dog eyes, eddie almost doesn't process what she says. "how'd you know with him?"
and if eddie thought he was stunned before, this takes the cake. a nervous laugh bubbles out of him, his face hot and heart pounding. his arms feel a bit like liquid and he doesn't know if he's even breathing anymore.
"nancy, i'm sorry but i think we're on two different wave lengths here." he needs to do something with his hands so he starts to fiddle with his lighter, flicking the zippo open and shut until the clink of the metal sounds too loud in the quiet room. "i don't.... love steve."
tears start to roll down her cheeks and yeah, eddie definitely messed up somewhere. she's wiping the drops away furiously like she's surprised they even dared to show up and she's biting her lip in a way that looks like it hurts.
"what are you talking about? of course you do." her eyebrows furrow which makes her look even angrier or disgusted and eddie feels like they're on a tightrope in his living room that's about to snap away from underneath them.
"well yeah, i... love him," he stutters over the words, "like i love you and rob and everyone. but not like... love love."
nancy's laugh sounds way too harsh for it to have come out of her. "are you sure? you stare at his ass more than i stare at robin's." she takes a deep breath, ignores the gasp of indignation that her statement gets out of eddie, and tilts her chin up like she's taking the high ground.
"i do not!"
"do too! and you're always looking for him when you walk into a room, like it doesn't matter if we're there, you only look for him. and you sit right next to him even if there's an open seat that's more comfortable. and you have this little, i don't know, tic when he smiles that makes you wiggle your fingers and you-"
"wheeler, you gotta stop."
"-always listen to him and he does all of that back for you and it's so obvious. i can't believe you didn't know you were in love with steve! you do everything that i do for robin and i'm in love with her so it must mean you're in love with steve and- holy shit i'm in love with robin."
the silence after nancy stops rings loud in his ears. honestly, he hadn't really given it any thought before but it makes sense.
the very idea of steve has his heart feeling a way it hasn't since he was nine and tracy nichols gave him a shiny rock on valentine's day. he does always look for steve when he enters a room, his very presence calming and dependable. he does sit next to him no matter what, their sides pressed together, heat radiating between them like a blanket. and god, when steve smiles, he does have to move his fingers, something to get out these jolts of energy that he feels licking through his veins.
steve is good and steve is a bit of an asshole but eddie likes that and suddenly the line between platonic and romantic seems to have vanished because holy shit, how did he live for the past year without spending every day loving steve harrington?
eddie reaches for the half rolled joint, licks at the paper to close it and lights up quickly. he holds the smoke in his lungs for probably too long but couldn't care less because he's now having a crisis of his own thanks to nancy.
"goddamnit," eddie hisses out as he exhales. "i'm in love with steve."
nancy looks smug, her arm extended as she waits for eddie to pass the joint to her before taking a hit. "that's what i'm saying."
"but i'm not... you know."
nancy rolls her eyes. "it's not going to bite you if you say it, eddie."
"i'm not gay."
the silence seems louder now as the paper on the joint sizzles. there's a dog somewhere in the park barking and he can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
"neither am i." nancy responds quietly with a shrug of her shoulders. "but i am for robin. and you are for steve."
she passes the joint back over to eddie and stands up from the couch, wipes off imaginary crumbs from her pants like she didn't just turn eddie's world upside down.
"i think i'm gonna go. i have a lady to woo." nancy looks happy. it's a good look on her, one he doesn't see all that often what with everything that's happened to them in the past year. she deserves it, he thinks, happiness.
"let me know how it goes," he calls to her as she stops at the trailer door.
"i will." with a tilt of her head and a with a gleam in her eye, she gives eddie yet another look that he doesn't know if he wants to try and decipher. "you should call him."
eddie snorts and takes a hit, rolling his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling so he doesn't have to look at nancy's all knowing eyes. it isn't that he's scared to call steve, it's that he's terrified. petrified. what would he say? what would steve say? he just figured out that he loves him, he hasn't had time to prepare a whole speech to declare it and-
"eddie." nancy's voice is sharp but certain and part of him thinks that robin is a lucky woman to have nancy wheeler falling in love with her. "trust me. call him."
after she's gone, he finishes the joint. he sits in the silence of his trailer and pulls hit after hit of sticky smoke until it's down the end and burning his fingertips. he stares at the ceiling some more, contemplates what to say, how to say it, how to do anything without throwing up.
he wonders if wayne knows, if he saw what nancy saw, what he thinks of eddie falling in with a guy. he wonders if this will change everything. wonders if it'll change for better or worse. wonders if he'll have to skip town and change his name like he imagined doing after he was cleared of murder.
picking up the phone is easy, dialing is easier when he has steve's number memorized like the back of his hand.
"hello?" steve mutters like he's been roused out of sleep. his voice is scruffy and somehow soft and eddie knows he's going to throw up.
"steve."
"hey, man. is everything okay?"
and it makes eddie's heart flutter in a way that a generic question shouldn't but damn it, he's in love. he's allowed.
"yeah, yeah. everything's good i just-" eddie sighs, scrubs a hand down his face to stop from twirling the phone cord in his fingers. "do you wanna maybe come over? watch a movie or something?"
eddie can almost hear the smile in his voice when he breathes out a yes, thanking whatever higher powers there may be for nancy wheeler.
#yikes i had way too much to do at work today but didn't do anything of it until i wrote this down oops#honestly the only place i write stranger things headcanons is at work apparently#steddie#steddie headcanon#but also a mini bit of#ronance#steve harrington#eddie munson#nancy wheeler#robin buckley#my writing#the next fic i write has to be ronance because i've yet to write anything angsty for them and i NEED to#please excuse the gratuitous overuse of italics in this#1k#2k
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Sharing some snippets I felt compelled to draw after reading @howtobecomeadragon ’s wonderful fic “Come Back to Me and Forgive Everything”.
If you’re in the mood to read something soft, funny and heart-rendingly sweet, go check it out!
And since we’re at it, happy Pride Month! 🌈 ✨
#byler#stranger things#as i said 'one day i will draw angsty byler but today is not that day'#there can always be more love put into the world.#mike wheeler#will byers#byler fanart#fanart
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Trailer park Steve AU part 27
part 1 | part 26 | ao3
cw: recreational drug use. short, fluffy update today to round out ch. 6; be back after the weekend to start ch. 7
In hindsight, accidentally hot boxing Eddie’s van while they were all already drunk was… maybe not the best idea.
Steve has no idea how they got here; blinked and time did the thing again, but now it’s three in the morning and Gareth’s conked out with a black eye in the front passenger seat and the rest of them are sprawled on top of each other like puppies in the back of the van — Eddie with his head in Robin’s lap so she can braid his hair, Steve using Eddie’s chest as a pillow, Max curled up like a sleeping cat in the crook of Steve’s bent knees.
With his eyes closed, Steve feels like he’s fallen into some dark, glittering void, purple-blue-black swirls of light dancing behind his eyelids to the syrupy beat of a metal ballad Eddie’s playing at the lowest volume. Eddie hums along in a low, soft rasp, and Steve’s head moves with the swell of each breath; gentle rocking rise and fall, luring Steve away from shore. Somewhere curious and strange. Deep ocean, dark waters. His thoughts float by like jellyfish.
Eddie’s warm through his t-shirt.
“Still alive down there, Sneeze?” Eddie asks. He’s carding his fingers idly through Steve’s hair, rings catching on the strands, tugging a little on his scalp.
“Feels good,” Steve hums. Wait a minute. “Did’you jus’ call me Sneeze?”
“No?” Eddie snorts. “Just called you Steve, sweetheart.”
“I’m absolutely gonna start calling you Sneeze, though,” Robin chimes in, pitching her voice all low and stupid. “‘Yes, hello, I’m Robin and this is my very best friend, Sneeze Handkerchief.’”
Eddie lets out a cackle and immediately joins in on her game of royally fucking up Steve’s name.
Steve closes his eyes again, lets himself drift out into the weird purple-blue-black-glitter magic slime swirl situation. Sloshy and dark and warm and nice. It’s just nice: Eddie’s breathing, full and slow; Robin’s laugh like cracked church bells. He likes hearing them get along even when he can’t make out the words.
He likes it less when he can make out the words. He wades back to himself for a moment, cracks one eye open and finds them red-faced and crying laughing over “Edgy Mustard and his neighbor, Sven Hamburger” and mumbles, “You’re both such fuckin’ dorks.”
“You’re a fuckin’ dork, you fuckin’ dork,” Max mutters in response, turning over with a soft snore.
“Oh, my god,” Eddie whispers, “did that kid just shit talk you in her sleep?”
“She’s incredible,” Robin coos. “Sven, we may have to reassess your status as my best friend; I’m obsessed with her.”
Steve rolls over and faceplants into Eddie’s stomach with a pouty harrumph. “Leamme alone, you bullies, ’m sleepin’.”
—
part 28
tag lists in separate reblogs with the tag "#trailer park steve au taglist" if you'd like to filter that content, comment if you want to be added (21+ only, please confirm your age if you're asking to be tagged; if you’re already on the list you’re good you can ignore this message lol)
#trailer park steve au#steddie#steddie fic#steve harrington#eddie munson#robin buckley#max mayfield#gareth stranger things#this was supposed to be a little cut content bonus scene but i like it too much it’s staying lol#we’ll get angsty and struggly again in ch 7 don’t worry just let sven hamburger have this#my writing#my fic
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eddie’s annoyed with you when you’re not on time for hellfire.
you know he’s sensitive about starting on time, but still you were running late again. even though this time you promised.
but the mood slowly shifts to something else as time ticks on. you’re always a couple minutes late but nearly an hour? eddie is really frustrated, and his feelings are hurt. he decides to leave your character behind, the party left you alone, sleeping in a cave.
when they return to the cave later, theyre unable to save you from a bandit situation, and your character dies. eddie kinda feels bad, but you know what time the club starts.
what he doesnt expect is steve harrington bursting into the room, looking frenzied. the whole party stared at him, but he was locked on eddie. eddie approached his friend, worried about the look in steve’s eyes.
steve stood up straight, and cleared his throat. weakly he says, “something terrible happened.”
and when steve tells him about your car accident, eddie feels sick. his knees buckle, and steve has to hold him up. he’s totally disoriented by this news. his felt his heart beat pounding behind his eyes, and his ears rang loudly, barely registering the panicked talking going on around him
“theyre alive,” steve was shouting, but people weren’t letting him talk, so he had to keep shouting it over the hundred questions. they wouldnt be able to handle it. not again. not when max still hasnt woken up. “eddie? can you hear me buddy?”
but eddie was in shock. he was trying to blame himself. he was looking for the moment he somehow caused this.
“can you walk? ill drive you,” steve says, as gareth searches eddies pockets for the keys to the van. “dustin, get over here, help me get eddie to the car.”
as soon as they moving, the adrenaline starts moving through eddie’s body. he was able to break free of his friend’s aid and pick up his pace, and the three of them ran through the school and into the parking lot. the dim light steve parked by was flickering, putting a weak spotlight on eddie as he tugged the door handle on the passenger seat
“let me unlock it,” steve snapped, fumbling the keys in his hand. he dropped them, the pressure of eddie’s stare was kinda terrifying.
when they were in the car, eddie was finally alert.
“what the fuck is going on?” he snapped.
no one said anything. there was nothing they could say that would make eddie feel better, or calm down. steve sped out of the parking lot, blowing the stop sign. he shouldnt have, given the reason you were in the hospital.
eddie squeezed his eyes shut. he was wrong. he was petty and hurt and he thought you were being a dick but you were - he was gunna throw up - you were somewhere bleeding. you were laying on the asphalt after a violent car crash and he was thinking youre an asshole
“their character died,” eddie said. “we killed them.”
“its not gunna happen,” steve said, gripping the steering wheel. a statement he couldnt back up.
at the hospital, eddie barely waited for the car the stop before he was running inside, tripping over his own feet as he rushed to get to you. dustin was hot on his trail and steve was parking the car.
eddie saw nancy with her boyfriend, and when nancy saw him, she came over, putting her hands on eddies arms. dustin spoke with jonathan in the background.
“relax,” she said, “please breath. they’re okay right now. they’re in surgery, and its going well, okay?”
“wheeler?” eddie asked, eyes filling with tears he had no control over.
“it has to be fine,” nancy said. “sit with me.”
and with no other options he listened, following nancy to an uncomfortable plastic chair that squeaked when he sat. nancy held his hand over the stiff arm rests, but he didnt find any comfort. he didnt think he would until he was with you again.
jonathan sat beside nancy, giving her a sad smile and handing her a bitter coffee. he sat quietly, letting nancy give eddie her attention. dustin sat on the other side of eddie, also opting to stay quiet. what was anyone supposed to say?
honestly, the only thing eddie wanted to hear was your voice.
might rewrite this properly - its a midnight idea i had and i like it enough to post it 🥰
#im very angsty lately#its been like … so much fun#stranger things#eddie munson#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson fic#eddie munson fanfic#stranger things fic#stranger things s4#stranger things fiction#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson angst
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MIWI COLLECTION
(Gift for @ birdbath09 on insta)
#byler#will byers#mike wheeler#miwi#byler fanart#stranger things#byler brainrot#mike x will#will x mike#FOR EVERY 3 FLUFFY ARTWORKS I HAVE TO MAKE ONE ANGSTY ONE (THATS JUST HOW I WORK I GUESS)#🎨#💙💛#🫶🫶🫶#MIWI SNOW DAY#CHESTER
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thinking thoughts about avoidant attachment steve (because try and tell me he isn't, with THOSE parents? get out) getting scared when he realizes he's in love with eddie because being in love is scary and hasn't gone well for him in the past. he's always been the one who loves harder, he's always been the one who puts others first, and never had someone do the same for him. now that he and eddie feel like they're on equal footing, he's fucking terrified of having that ripped out from under him. so, subconsciously he starts pulling away because when he's gonna get hurt he might as well be prepared for it, try and at least put up some walls so that when eddie breaks his heart he won't just be standing there obviously crushed like, y'know, the last time.
cut to eddie thinking he's done something terribly wrong because his previously sweet and warm and cuddly bordering on clingy steve is suddenly being so quiet and so distant, not really initiating any of the touches he usually does. he's not pulling away but he's definitely not doing that (annoying, but insufferably adorable) thing where he pointedly removes eddie's guitar from his lap to sit there himself and demand attention anymore. and yeah, eddie would always roll his eyes and sigh loudly at first, but he loves giving steve his undivided attention. he misses those moments already and it's only been like this for a week.
so, he confronts him about it. he tries to do so carefully, because he doesn't know what he did wrong and he thinks maybe it should be obvious or whatever. he's preparing for an, "are you serious, i really have to tell you?" but maybe he's a bit too vague about it because steve just looks like a deer caught in headlights for a second before his face goes cold, blank.
and steve's thinking this is it, this is eddie about to rip off the bandaid, and he's obviously trying to go about it gently and there's a tilt to his eyebrows that says he feels bad about it, so steve might as well just go and do it for him, y'know? says it's fine, he'll leave if eddie wants him to, and he's got his hand on the doorknob before eddie can say anything. completely misses the confused look on his face.
and eddie has to just about chase him out the door before he can reach his car because steve doesn't seem to be hearing when he's calling after him that what the fuck, no he doesn't want steve to leave, he's in– but he stops himself from saying that, because something is clearly upsetting steve and it's got to be his fault and now's not the fucking time. but he does manage to get his hand on the window of steve's car door before he can get in, hold it closed so that steve will finally look at him. so he can ask steve to please talk to him.
and you can imagine eddie's confusion and then shock when steve just starts mumbling (actually mumbling which is so out of place for him because he hates when others mumble to him, because he can't fucking hear) and he keeps cutting himself off mid-sentence and starting over and he won't look at eddie at all and this is all so out of character for steve, until eddie finally manages to piece together some of the abandoned sentence fragments into something that's starting to sound a lot like steve thinking eddie's going to get sick of him sooner or later, or sick of his bullshit (the look steve gets on his face on this word suggests there is more under the surface here, but again now is not the time) so eddie should just get it over with and that it's okay. but steve isn't looking like he actually thinks it's okay, in fact he's looking like he's trying so hard not to cry.
so, speechless for maybe the first time in his life, eddie just pulls steve into the tightest hug he can. hugs him until he stops his rambling, keeps hugging him until he feels steve's arms wrap loosely around his waist. only when he finds the words again does he pull back, doesn't even let go really, just moves one of his hands to steve's chin, makes him look at him.
"i'm not going to get tired of you, steve," he says, "i love you. i'm in love with you."
but steve doesn't look relieved or happy to hear it, not at first. no, he looks like he doesn't believe it, which is confirmed when he says, "don't say it if you don't mean it. i can't- i can't do that again."
and doesn't that just break eddie's heart into a bunch of little pieces, because here's possibly the best, most caring, bravest person he's ever met and yeah, maybe he acts a little bitchy sometimes but he's got a heart full of love for those around him. here he is, seeming utterly convinced that he's not going to receive that love in return. seeming like he's been shown time and time again he's never going to receive in return the level of love he puts out.
eddie's determined to show him otherwise, though, and he starts by repeating himself; in between soft, slow kisses at first (thankfully it's night time, and no nosy neighbors in sight) but the kisses get lighter and start to travel all over steve's face and by the time eddie's kissing the little space between his eyebrows, steve's smiling, he's actually kind of laughing. it's a nervous, i'm-not-convinced-this-is-real laugh, but it's there and eddie wants to hear more of that laugh and less of the sad, defeated mumbling he was doing earlier so he brings steve back inside where it's warm and he takes his time pressing kisses all over steve and telling him every single reason he loves him. he knows off the top of his head because he actually made a list of them all, he was trying to write a song about it, was planning on dropping the big L word with a grandiose gesture of flowers and candles and his acoustic guitar before steve started pulling away from him. oh well, he thinks he has some candles stashed away somewhere anyway.
#i was listening to my angsty steddie songs#sorry#hey i remembered a read more this time hdjkghjkdfg#anyway here's some sad shit#stranger things#steveddie#steddie headcanons#steddie hcs#steddie headcanon#i got carried away with this it was just supposed to be a couple paragraphs#steve harrington#eddie munson#steddie
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𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 [𝐀 𝐆𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐬]
Summary: Years after Hawkins was saved, Nancy and Steve’s wedding draws everyone back together and with it, you are reminded of the love you lost at the price of fame. [Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader; WC: 17.4k]
Warnings: language, exes to lovers, mutual pining/yearning, frightened lil beans in love, heavy angst.
A/N: I worked on this for weeks. I am very nervous to post it, and I hope you enjoy it (excuse any errors, it's time consuming loves).
What is it like to be loved?
There was something in that room that made you question it. The palpable, sudden feeling that permeated around it like a fog; a special dance that so many would be able to feel, yet it seemingly evaded you.
Her dress was beautiful. An ivory lace with sleeves that covered her soft skin. The brown of her hair so vibrant against the spring flowers she held as the chapel’s old stones warmed with the feeling reverberated with the words of the priest.
He was tall and stoic; filled with a slight fear that his true colors would show in his dark suit and dotted tie. He was joyous; he was a radiant boy filling his father’s suit and marrying the girl of his dreams.
Nancy and Steve.
For a moment, while the priest held everyone’s attention in a moment of prayer, it was quiet enough to imagine love physically filled the space before you. Head lightly dipped, the bouquet in your hand distracting you from the eyes of every person in the chapel.
A silence was asked for and responded to with grace. The silence of baseless words washing over the room in a wave of down-turned heads and folded hands. However quiet, however peaceful the room had become, that floating feeling hung from the rafters. You felt your heart sink. That heaviness of sorrow that plagued beautiful moments from a pain buried in your bones that you weren’t even sure really existed. Love. A tragic thing.
All you could ask was:
What is it liked to be loved?
Maybe it was the wedding that made you teary-eyed and soft hearted. You weren’t a hopeless romantic. You weren’t searching constantly for Mr. Right because he didn’t exist. They had shown you that, he had shown you that. Not some Marilyn Monroe waiting for the next man to sweep you off your feet and carry you into a raging bloody sunset in Los Angeles. No. The cards were dealt with precision and meaning; each turned over when the time allowed and burned when the bells tolled.
Love brewed and bubbled; love ached and pained; love existed and diminished; love stood in front of you screaming to break free but the cries fell silent—dead on the cold, stone floor.
Steve’s eyes called to Nancy like a ship lost at sea. The tears that brimmed at the corners whispered to fall after years of trauma and resolution. But they were relieved and elated and somehow, Nancy returned the sentiments with eyes elated. And it hurt to see your closest friends happy when you couldn’t be.
‘And from this day forward they would walk hand and hand into everything that You have destined them to be.’
The words echoed and echoed. The priest as happy to say them as Ted and Karen Wheeler nodded as if it were true from the pews. Steve’s parents had actually shown up too, along with hundreds of other people. Friends, coworkers, and the guests each of them brought.
‘We give our hearts and beings to You now in adoration.’
People like you didn’t give their hearts willingly. Not like Robin, not like Nancy. You weren’t sure about Max or Eleven, but perhaps they gave theirs willingly enough too as they stood beside you up on the alter. And you wanted that. You wanted to give it willingly. As their heads hung and their eyes diverted from above, there was a calling. Probably not from some higher God you weren’t sure even existed, but something—a gut feeling. One that simmered and bristled against negativity and anxiety; the same one that painfully squeezed that arduous organ in your chest. That feeling told you not to bow your head. It told you not to close your eyes and whatever it did, it made you shift your head in the slightest.
The groomsmen were just across the way beside Steve. Dustin helmed them, walking you down the aisle and reminding you that as they embraced adulthood, you were also getting older. Over one age milestone of established adulthood and half of the kids you babysat as a teenager were closer to marriage than you.
Angled perfectly with your shoulder—bare from the design of your green gown. The shape of your nose and chin and the style of your hair falling sleekly into a perfectly haloed outline as though a magician had cast their greatest spell. And when it turned just enough, where the platform was illuminated by the rays of the sun, one other head remained as perfectly crafted as yours, looking back as though the universe said: here it is.
This is what it feels like.
Those butterflies? Love. The heart bursting panic that set off inside you? Love. The painful realization that you could have it and you could nurture it with passion? Love.
It existed.
And it did so in the cruelest of forms.
Because the sheen of your eyes from the beautiful wedding and the widely spoken words of the priest meant more when staring back at the one thing you had always wanted. It was one feeling, one person, and that’s what you swore you couldn’t have.
He had chosen that for you. Six years ago in a tiny apartment on the west side of Chicago, he decided his career was more important.
He was him. He was a brilliant, foul-mouthed metal rock star with impeccable hair and sense of style that made your heart leap for quiet bursts of love. He was complicated and corny and filled with a truth you hadn’t been able to recognize because everyone else clouded life. What life could be and what it could hold.
Eddie Munson was a rock star. Eddie Munson was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Eddie Munson was a friend, a hero, and Eddie Munson was the man who broke your heart and it could never heal itself.
And yet love remained deep down.
It’s regretful nature resurfacing because love was tangible in the chapel in Nantucket.
It was love. It existed. It was real. It was palpable in that room, in his eyes, against the prayer, across the aisle and in all of the pews.
‘And we welcome Your Holy Spirit amongst us. Amen.’
And the chorus filled the room. The pews creaked and heads returned upright. You lost the sight as Steve and the others lifted their heads, but the feeling remained. It sunk to the pit of your stomach where the realization remained.
“Hey,” a hushed whisper sounded near your right ear as your body jolted minutely from the call. Robin’s head tried to follow your direction but couldn’t find the destination. There were hundreds of people in that room. But she should have known. She should have known.
“Everything alright?”
Her concern was evident. Had you been that rigid the entire time? Was the look of love one of fear? Were the tears in your eyes truly that clear?
“I’m fine, Rob. Really.”
It hadn’t convinced her but you returned your attention to the ceremony instead. Robin waited, glancing over your shoulder again and again to try to find her answer. The sentiment of conflict appearing much faster in times of clear disruption than she remembered. The feeling of the world tilting on its axis for something you couldn’t control.
Her eyes looked for the answer. Searching the crowd with an unfathomable hardened gaze until it landed back to the groomsmen and she felt everything click back into place. You had reassured Nancy and Robin that everything was fine; that you were friends. That there was no animosity nor tension remaining over the years but it had. They just wanted to believe the best, yet all the signs were there.
The way you stood so still; scared of yourself as emotions took their hold.
Six years of separation meant nothing. Its degrees scorching the earth every moment not together, bound by the universe yet torn apart by wants, not needs.
They had all believed you. They believed Eddie’s lies that he had moved on—the woman looking straight out of a Vanity Fair magazine in the fifth row the one he brought to prove such a tale.
No.
They had all been wrong.
The two of you had imploded the meaning of love because if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, it couldn’t exist at all.
Steve and Nancy wed on a Saturday in March.
The morning had greeted everyone with golden rays. Sunlight streaming in from the curtains of the Wauwinet’s rooms waking its patron’s with a sprinkle of joy. Early morning glow; warm and intoxicating on a day such as that.
You couldn’t see the beach from where you laid; the white comforter covering your shoulders high, eyes peeking out from the space between the blankets and your pillow. High above on the second floor, the sky reflected its yellow and pink hues until they faded to blue. Not a cloud in the sky.
The two days you had spent on the tiny island thus far had been a reflection of that sunrise. An excitable shimmer of beauty and grace only to fade into a familiar blue–a melancholy gloom that you hadn’t expected to feel. You stepped off the plane only to be greeted with every feeling that ran in its opposite direction; Robin and Nancy clung to you with joy, Steve and the boys, who you should probably call young men now, hugged you tightly.
And then a cloud formed.
The cloud was ugly, gray, and filled with matter you had buried deep. Years of pretending everything in your life was going smoothly–that you were exactly where you wanted to be–lingering above you like a joke. Laughing, jesting you with the past as happiness was rubbed into a wound like salt.
He had a smile plastered onto his face the first time you saw him that weekend–the night before the ‘I do’s.’ He was sitting in the wine cellar with Steve, reminiscing about the past as the future was gently placed on Nancy’s finger; sparkling against the shine of the hotel’s lighting as night had long fallen on a Friday evening.
As the thoughts lingered in your mind as the sun began to rise, it hadn’t been seeing Eddie for the first time in years that had thrown your world off its axis. The woman, clad in the most casual New England fashions, who sat beside him with her arm resting on his, did.
A petty, jealous feeling at the sight rose within you rapidly.
You felt there was no right for you to feel that way.
Six years. Six years had left an open season for both he and you to find new people to love, hate, and screw, but the idea that there was a reality that existed where Eddie no longer loved you was jarring.
The fear of it became engrained in your bones. Tattooed onto skin that was untouched and permanently stained with words that hurt and stung and ultimately resulted in the reason you had come to that wedding alone.
Eddie had scarred you–in a beautifully tragic way that you’d never be the person you were at seventeen when he asked you to go see Temple of Doom at a theater two towns over. It was a shame you’d always tie him to that film… because you really fucking liked the movie but all you could think about was how Indy left Marion in the dust and hell, you felt like Marion sometimes.
He just sat there. A gorgeous woman on his arm and smiling at Steve as though not a day had gone by. He looked older, more sure of himself, and dare you think it, had a bit more style than he did before. Nice, in a ‘formal but not too formal’ kind of way.
They were all sipping on some hundred-dollar wine. He could afford it now. Red-soled shoes, a jacket with no fringe, and a bottle of wine that cost as much as your monthly rent.
Nancy had been perched on a stool at the high-top beside Steve. The two had been going over the rehearsal that Eddie conveniently missed as well as the dinner from hours before. From what Robin had divulged, he had a show in Boston and would make his way out to Nantucket after it was over.
You didn’t think Nancy ringing your suite for drinks would mean he’d be there too.
The thunder from the cloud above you rumbled when Nancy caught your eye in the entryway.
Everything, from the clothes you wore to the company of the room, felt out of place. Like you were looking from the outside and into a world that was completely yours but never one you recalled. The people in it–sparingly familiar but strangers all the same.
Nancy had taken a sip of her wine, swallowing quickly as she perked up and waved at you. The attention drawing each eye away from Steve and to you, unwelcome and afraid of familiarity. Two looked happy, one looked curious, and the other looked like the whole world had stopped.
A moment in time paused. No calm waiters tending to guests, no heads turning toward him because he was identifiable; it was blank. Two worlds gone completely still because for the first time in six years, you and Eddie had finally converged to one place.
Some expensive hotel on Nantucket Island for a wedding between two people you both held near and dear to your hearts. It took nothing to imagine that if things had gone right, perhaps it would not be Steve and Nancy meeting at the alter tomorrow afternoon.
In the stillness, a reunion is not bound by the trivial “it’s good to see you” or “its been too long.” A mind playing funny tricks and sending you back to years before–the way his entire person disappeared beyond the bedroom door only to be followed by the slamming of the front one. An apology sputtered at the end of a fight that had been brewing for weeks.
The last time you saw Eddie Munson he had come home from a tour with no direction but up. Up to a new place, to a new life, and one that kept the past behind. Questions of love, home, and loyalty tested two people who were holding onto a fine thread before it snapped.
Now, its lingering shreds brushed together with an easterly wind.
You don’t know what he was thinking when the words stopped fumbling from his lips.
“Hey!” Steve cheered happily from his spot as Eddie went quiet. “Come on, join us!”
You felt like a fool standing there idle. Feet glued to the floor, eyes trained on Eddie a moment too long because as soon as the fifth second passed, the woman by his side asked:
“Who’s that?”
Steve said your name, waving at you the same way Nancy had, “She’s Ed–“
“My Maid of Honor!” Nancy cut in, giving the woman a smile in reassurance that it was the description most accurate to who you were. Nancy didn’t know why she cut Steve off like that; the side-eyed glance she received from him as Eddie stared back at you should have told her everything.
Not friend, not best friend, not former classmate, but Eddie’s ex-girlfriend. What a label to have.
Your planted feet begged you to move. The awkwardness of standing still for lingering seconds in time drawing eye after eye, raising questions as to whether or not you were having a medical emergency or just plain stupid. Your feet took those commands and walked, before your mind could even process that the night had continued to move forward without being truly ready to interact.
“I told you she’d join us,” Nancy hit Steve’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand, “Can’t spend the last few hours of us together as an unmarried couple without those who brought us back together.”
Steve gave her a smile, hand squeezing her kneecap under the table because in reality, there wasn’t an ounce of a lie there. Not that any regular person would understand, but Steve had always dreamed of this moment: the night before he went to sleep one last time as an unmarried man, sipping chilled wine in an expensive hotel with his bride-to-be, his closest friends, and the reason he and Nance were at this stage.
One piece of that puzzle had gone mute, silent as though they never heard him talk. As you approached the high top that was tucked into a corner by the windows that looked out to the Atlantic Ocean, Eddie couldn’t form words. He had prepared himself for this moment for years and yet his mind had gone blank. Emotions barren from his chest like he was an empty, cavernous being and not a person. He felt nothing–like the world had been obliterated and there was only him in space; alone and helpless to save his sanity.
And if it hadn’t been so long since he last laid eyes on you, perhaps he could have recognized the same emotions bleeding out of you. That the wound had never truly closed and there was much unsaid floating around the two of you that the air was hard to breathe.
But against it all, it was you who offered the closed smile and a small:
“Hi.”
Eddie’s relief that the first words weren’t “fuck you,” or “I still hate you.” Just a simple “hi” that replayed in his mind as the seconds transpired and the ball had fallen into his court.
But those words were hard for you to even muster.
“It’s good to see you,” he settled on, not leaving his chair to wrap his arms around you or whisk you away to hear how your life has been since he left. He sat there, as still as you had in the entryway, and let you take the spot beside Nancy because it was the furthest away from his own that you could take.
Eddie had completely forgotten about the woman to his right.
No one had thought anything of the interaction. In two minds, it played out differently because the truth existed somewhere between two people unwilling to face it. For people like Nancy and Steve, there had been one story that had been told yet no one questioned the absence of the other on specific holidays, birthdays, or more.
“We broke up,” that was what you had told Nancy and he had told Steve. Word for word, the same story. “Distance was getting too hard and we thought we’d take a break. It’s better this way and we’re still friends–we we’re friends before everything so…”
For every truth, there were two lies.
Nancy flagged down the waiter, tapping on her glass and holding up two fingers. You shifted in your seat as one leg crossed over the other and glanced at the woman to Eddie’s right.
She wasn’t familiar at all. Still hanging on Eddie’s arm and fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. In all of your years together, you had never seen Eddie wear a dinner jacket.
And against your feelings, you extended your hand over the table toward her. Eddie didn’t know what to think of that. You introduced yourself.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he knew the voice. It was the kind someone would use on the telephone if they were talking to a co-worker or boss, not a friend.
“Veronica,” she lifted her hand from Eddie’s arm and graciously shook yours over the wine glasses; a tiny set of flickering candles beside a small relish tray beneath it. “I hear you’re the Maid of Honor?”
“As much as one can be,” you told her, eyes looking over her face and form. Eddie could see it now that you were comparing yourself to her, an unfortunate circumstance of choice. “The other bridesmaids have helped a bit with planning and what not… it’s not easy work,” you scoffed, tipping your head at Nancy and the bride shook her head with a grin.
“I promise I’m not one of those crazy brides,” Nancy jokingly defended herself to Veronica who admired the friendship before her. She knew you all of two seconds and could see how comfortable the two of you were.
“Yeah, sure…” you trailed off as the waiter returned with two new glasses of wine. You thanked him and took a long, needed sip as the white wine’s bubbles barely had time to settle.
Steve cleared his throat as you drank, glancing at Eddie before turning to you. “We were just catching him up on what went down at the rehearsal. Told ‘em that Robin tripped down the aisle so he’s gotta hold onto her tightly.”
You snickered at the memory. Robin Buckley couldn’t walk in heels even if she tried to. Nodding your head, you didn’t make eye contact with Eddie to reiterate the sentiment.
“She’ll topple over if you don’t.”
“Will do,” Eddie replied quietly, differently than he normally would have and Veronica put her hand on his arm again, rubbing it up and down as if she knew. For once, he just wished she would stop.
“We’re going to–“ Steve’s voice drowned itself out as he rattled on about the plans of tomorrows festivities.
Every now and again when you’d catch a word of Steve’s, you couldn’t help but look at Eddie. Those eyes still telling of his emotions rather than the words he spoke; wide and pupils blown from both the environment and alcohol.
You weren’t shameless about it when he caught you looking. He couldn’t help it either; it was as though he was drawn to a magnet that kept pulling him in. Just as you had observed him, everything was familiar yet strangely different. The way you held yourself, the clothes you wore, makeup and hair just enough having changed to make him notice that he didn’t know you now as he had then.
However, he still felt that hand on his jacket.
Yet he was looking at you. And he felt like a coward for thinking he’d rather have you cling to him like that then her. She, Veronica, didn’t deserve to have a man think that of her.
“Are you still in Chicago?” He blurted out over Steve’s talking. Like walking in a path of quicksand, Eddie did not want to drown before his life truly began. Steve stopped and glanced at Eddie as though his friend had a stroke.
“Mhm,” you murmured over the lip of the glass Nancy had secured for you. “Still in California?”
“Yeah, near Bell Canyon.”
“Is that…” Of course you wouldn’t have known exactly where that was. It wasn’t like you had a map inside of your brain or tracked his every movement. Based on the question on whether or not he still lived in California, he wondered if you read anything about him at all.
“It’s near Los Angeles… like suburbs of it.”
“Ah, alright,” you met his eyes briefly before taking another long sip of your wine. He could see the way you practically folded in on yourself; anxiety and fears bubbling within you the same way they used to.
“And you still live…” he trailed off in a veiled hope that the implication went unspoken. ‘At the apartment, our apartment.’
“No,” you shook your head, “I moved a few years ago… have a nice view of the lake,” the thought of it brought a small smile to your face. It was nice. It was nearly perfect.
“No more of the ‘L’ ruining your sleep?”
He saw the hint of smile play on your lips.
“It’s pretty quiet now,” for a multitude of reasons he could think of.
“That’s good,” Eddie nodded, glancing at Steve and Nancy who provided no support to make the situation any less awkward.
“So,” Veronica began with a perky voice for eleven-thirty at night, “Eddie said you all went to high school together?”
The model wore these big, curious eyes. She was kind, in a doxy kind of way but her sentiment’s with her words transcended through each of you. This woman, a date, hadn’t been a steady, familiar thing to Eddie. Anyone who knew him as close as a formal, long-term partner did, would have known about the crew from Hawkins.
“Yeah,” Steve answered as a savior, “But we weren’t all friends then… that took some time. We were all pretty different.”
Nancy hit his arm playfully, giving a scowl as Steve quirked his eyes at Eddie. The latter had simply taken the labels he was given and ran with them–a transformative play for the man with a lengthy petty crimes list and could out smoke Pablo Escobar.
“It doesn’t matter what we were like! We’re all friends now and those three–“ Nancy gestured her hand over Steve, Eddie, and yourself, “were in the same class.”
“Oh!” She beamed. “How cool! I don’t really talk to anyone from my class so it’s nice to see it works for some people.”
Everyone just gave her tight smiles. Having friends from childhood didn’t make you less of a person. It meant stronger connections and the fact that no one could say why you were all bonded so closely made things more difficult.
“And the rest of your friends?” Veronica turned her face toward Eddie who shrugged.
“In their rooms, I’m guessing. I think we got here a little late,” he chuckled.
“They know you had a commitment,” Nancy reassured him. “Besides, Dustin and the others will be just as thrilled to see you in the morning.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “After the bachelor party, I didn’t think half of us would even make it here so it’ll be a nice surprise.”
Thank God for Steve and his stupid jokes. It broke some tension, a smile actually cracking Eddie’s face again and one that reached his eyes. The brown, doe-eyed ones that Robin once said made her sad were recalling that party like it was the funniest thing he had ever experienced.
‘It probably was’, you thought, ‘Steve Harrington always knew how to party.’
“So,” Veronica interjected, pointing a finger between you and Nancy, “the bachelorette party wasn’t anything to write home about?” Quick judgement.
“We went wine tasting in the Valley,” Nancy’s eyes lit up at the memory, “and then we went hiking… which in retrospect wasn’t something any of us liked.”
It was the end of summer when everyone could get together and the heat ate at each of you as the sun rose higher, the drinks flowed more, and the guides took in their amusement of each woman.
“Went to some museums, ate too much food…” you said additionally.
“El learned she was allergic to pears and Max got stung by a bee,” Nancy interjected, “and our heroes Lucas and Mike came to save the day when we got stranded in the middle of lake because the engine died on the boat we rented.”
“I think we’ll stick to spa days and cooking classes next time,” you picked up your glass, a side-eye to Nancy as she quickly agreed. Veronica perked up, still clutching Eddie’s arm.
“Who’s getting married next? You?”
She meant nothing by it. Her eyes were friendly and voice high pitched, interested in the conversation to just be a part of something more than a two-person bubble. You choked on the wine, the question startled you because it hadn’t been something you thought of in a long time.
You put the glass down as your hand went to your mouth, wiping it dry and you, unintentionally, looked from her to Eddie. Steve noticed, Nancy didn’t.
“No!” You replied a bit too loudly. “Sorry,” shaking the embarrassment from you, “I just–no. Not me. I would put money on Dustin and Suzie once they’re done at MIT… He’s loved her since he was in middle school.”
She smiled at the idea of everlasting young love. “That’s cute! Sometimes, if you know, you know, right?” And she squeezed Eddie’s arm the same way her hand squeezed your heart at the sight.
Eddie dropped his arm into his lap after her grip loosened. Her hand fell onto the table and whether she realized it or not, the rejection she felt showed on her face.
“How did you two meet?” Nancy picked an olive with a toothpick from the small dish on the table. Veronica peered at Eddie to answer but he wasn’t going to.
“At an event for our agency a couple…three? months back.”
Three months.
“Cool,” Steve mumbled as he followed Nancy’s lead and took one of the pickles from the tray. “So what are you? An agent? Model...?”
“I model for magazines, yeah,” she nodded and focused her hands at the base of her wine glass. You watched Veronica tap her white nails on the table cloth before bringing them back to the foot. “Sometimes do commercials or videos and stuff.”
Steve sat back in his chair; a thought pondered in his mind as he watched your eyes divert from the table and out the window to your left. It was dark, you couldn’t see anything beyond ten feet. The arm that had been taken off the table now sat at Eddie’s side with his hand in his lap. He had taken his thumb and twisted at the ring that rested on his ring finger–the one with a dark stone he had worn since forever.
The groom reflected back to his bachelor party, three weeks ago, and how Eddie made no mention of Veronica but very drunkenly admitted something he didn’t want to see the light of day.
Buried; six feet deep with the memories he had locked away in Pandora’s box. There was key to unlock them, let them fly away and spread like stars in the sky but it was booze and a little bit of weed that truly let them sing.
Steve wasn’t sure if Eddie realized what he had told him that night.
The way he was twisting his rings made him think that if he didn’t, Eddie was at least thinking the same thing now.
“You know,” Steve crossed his arms as he leaned back, glancing at Veronica first before allowing his eyes to wander to you, then Eddie. “If you asked me a few years ago if I thought that Eddie, Eddie Munson, would be dating a supermodel… I would have laughed.”
Veronica chuckled, a light blush forming on the balls of her cheeks as Eddie shook his head. It was Steve’s tone that made you turn to him.
“Not really your type, dude,” Steve said and the woman’s face went flat. The chuckle cease and Nancy forgot how to breathe for a second. Maybe Steve had too much to drink, maybe he was done for the night, and if she whisked him away now, he wouldn’t be hung over for the wedding.
“Come on, man…” Eddie shifted his head to the side, glaring at Steve to knock-it-off before things crossed a line he wasn’t prepared for. Eddie thought himself a jackass sometimes but he never wanted others to feel uncomfortable.
“No offense, Veronica,” Steve held out his hand as if saying ‘I don’t mean anything by it.’ “It’s just…” He clicked his tongue, “you want the best for your friends, right? And for the last decade or more I’ve never seen you fawn over the looks of a model.”
“Steve,” you interjected, providing the same look Eddie had given him because he was trying to open that box. “Stop being an asshole.”
You turned to Veronica, “he’s just a little drunk, that’s all.” Nancy supported it with a smile and put her hand on Steve’s shoulder.
Steve laughed at your words like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “That’s kind of rich coming from you.”
“I think we should–“ Nancy began but Steve leaned forward on his elbows.
“You like Lord of the Rings, Veronica? Or ever go to a thrift store and absolutely wreck the clothes you bought? Play D and D?” She looked confused so Steve stopped, “Dungeons and Dragons? Like the game? No? How about drugs? Do you do those?”
“Steve! Fuck man…” Eddie hit Steve’s shoulder, “I think we’re a little past a buzz, huh?”
“Tell me, Eddie,” Steve took the whack to his shoulder in stride, “You’re not thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about.”
“Okay,” Steve drug the ‘a’ out of the word, “fine!” He looked to you, “are you thinking what I’m thinking then? And when I said it’s funny, I meant in you defending her when–“
“Jesus Christ, Steve!” Eddie said loudly, “would you just shut the fuck up for once! I was so worried about us getting into it,” he threw a hand up and motioned between the two of you, “but you took that and ran right the fuck away with it!”
As Eddie argued with Steve, you turned to Nancy.
“I think you better take him to his room,” you saw how mortified she was, “or I can call up Lucas and Dustin to come get him too?”
“I’ve got him,” she took your hand and held it tightly. “He’s just up-“
“—OH!” Steve’s voice cut through hers, “like you’re not giving ‘fuck me eyes’ to each other! Goddammit! It’s like living with divorced parents! No wonder you switch off holidays!” Steve pointed at you, “was that your idea? I bet it was.”
“Wait,” Veronica cut in after Steve’s ‘divorced parents’ comment, “did you two date?” her eyes flicking between Eddie and yourself. Her question went unanswered as Steve continued his tirade.
“And Dustin reassured me there wouldn’t be an issue!”
“There wasn’t an issue until you brought it up!” Eddie said pointedly. You downed the rest of your wine in one gulp and Nancy hopped off her chair as people started to go quiet at the surrounding tables.
“Please!” Steve lamented, “you got fuckin’ plastered in Miami and told me and the boys that you wished it was you gettin’ married not me!”
“When the hell did I say that?” Eddie furrowed his brows, voice still loud and defensive. Nancy shrugged on her cardigan that was on the back of her chair, Veronica looked befuddled, and you felt like you blanched. Even if they couldn’t see it, you felt it.
“At the shitty strip club!” Not something he should have shouted in a place like this. “You got all weird and drank yourself to pieces because, and I quote,” Steve said crazed, “the wedding makes you fucking sad and you didn’t know how to handle it.”
“Oh fuck you, man,” Eddie soured, rolling his eyes at Steve as Nancy grabbed his arm gently.
“Steve, come on,” she coaxed him, “we better get going.”
“If you want to convince people you don’t still love each other,” Steve chided, “then maybe stop acting like the world will fall apart the moment you walk into a room.”
“Wait,” Veronica added again, shaking her head in misunderstanding, “still love each other? When did this happen?”
“We don’t love each other,” Eddie answered for both of you without a second to spare. “And it won’t fall apart! Look! We’re here now!” He motioned his hand between the two of you across the table again but didn’t look at the way you listened to every word like you had when you fought in the kitchen that horrible evening.
“Yeah,” Steve nodded as if he didn’t believe Eddie in the slightest, “Swear on Dustin? On your… shit… I don’t know, guitar!? Say that to her face and tell her like you didn’t just tell me you make a fucking mistake years ago.”
Mistake.
There were two paths of a mistake.
One, where his choice to follow his career without you was a mistake because it wasn’t as it seemed or it wasn’t complete without you; or two, that being with you entirely was a mistake because it clouded his wants for his future.
Eddie sighed, head bowing as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair before coming up again.
“Do you really want this to be how you remember the night before you get married?” Eddie asked Steve as the groom sat there with his bride clutching his arm in a pleading motion to exit the wine cellar.
“Do you want this to be how you remember the day you chickened out on being a man for once?”
Steve knew it cut deep. The wound open and bleeding for all to see as Eddie’s face scoured into the in-between of pissed off and irate.
“Go, Steve,” Eddie said flatly, “Big day tomorrow. Don’t want to be late.”
Nancy gave you a supportive, closed lip smile as Steve finally got off his chair and walked to the door. She let him leave first.
“I’m sorry about him…” She laughed with embarrassment, “He’s just overwhelmed with everything.” And Nancy wasn’t telling you or Eddie that, but Veronica.
“It’s alright,” she told her kindly in reply, “wedding’s aren’t wedding’s without a little drama, right?”
For that, Nancy was grateful. She looked between you and Eddie–still separated by the table yet the string still bristled.
“Be in the bridal suite by nine, okay?” She told you, “and I think the guys are getting ready at like ten so, don’t sleep in.”
“Got it,” from Eddie and a “yeah, okay,” from you.
“Sorry again,” Nancy apologized, leaving to go scold Steve as the table now sat quiet and awkward.
The flames flickered as the noises from other tables now filled the void of conversation at your own. Veronica tapped her glass, yours sat empty, and Eddie was still facing the empty seat where Steve had been.
“So,” Veronica pursed her lips, “you two dated then?”
You bit the inside of your cheek. It provided her the answers of why Eddie had been acting the way he had and the conciseness of dialogue that existed amongst you. The way he gazed, the way you diverted it; his own curiosity and knowledge of the sound of the elevated train that impacted your sleeping and the way the admittance that Eddie now lived in a suburb sent you the wrong way.
Even then, you glanced at Eddie to see if he’d answer. She was his guest, after all. He turned back around in his seat–back flush against the chair, shoulders slouched.
“Yes,” he treaded carefully, “we did.”
“For how long?” It may have been worse that she said none of it with malice.
Eddie flicked his eyes from where they were trained on the table top to you. And fuck, they sucked you right back in and spit you right back out.
“About eight years…” You told her, ready to flee.
“That’s a long time,” she nodded to reaffirm her words. “And you lived together?”
“Mhm,” Eddie hummed as if he didn’t want her to know every detail of his life. He looked down at the table. “For four years of it.”
“More like three,” you mumbled passively, pushing your wine glass forward on the table.
“Four,” Eddie said firmly and his eyes shot back up to you. Sensitive subject, you suppose. He remembered every word you had said to him that evening and the comments about his time spent at home stuck. “Four,” he reiterated.
“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?”
You didn’t forget your words either.
Your expression pinched; eyebrows shooting up for a brief second before your head cocked to the side with silent words. You weren’t going to embarrass yourself or this table any further by getting into a spat with Eddie over something as trivial as years spent in a shabby apartment in Chicago.
The wine glass was already pushed; two chairs empty as bed appeared to be the best option to end the night. A soft, hotel pillow to help you replay every image your mind could remember from what you had, what you lost, and what had just happened.
You hated that. But it was better than arguing with someone you didn’t want to argue with.
Breathing in a deep, sharp breath, you retracted your gaze from Eddie and gave Veronica the softest one you could muster.
“It was good to meet you,” you told her. It wasn’t her fault Eddie took your heart and ran away with it. “I hope Steve’s little scene didn’t scare you off. He can be a drama queen when he drinks.”
“All good,” she gave a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Happens to the best of us.”
“So it does,” you replied, giving her a nod before sliding off your chair and letting the space return to two. Eddie’s sigh was loud; the way he closed his eyes in frustration hadn’t gone unnoticed.
As you passed on her side exiting the corner table, you put a hand on the table when your feet came to a stop. Veronica looked at you curiously and waited for another ball to drop on her toes but it didn’t.
“Don’t let him smoke a whole pack, alright? Won’t do any of us good if he does.”
And then you walked away.
Veronica had only been romantically linked to Eddie for three months. She hadn’t seen any side of him that resembled the man sat beside her before and from what she knew, Eddie was not a smoker. The only comment that had surprised her more than the outburst from the groom was when Steve admitted Eddie had become hammered from the booze and weed at his bachelor party.
But before you could escape the wine cellar fully, Eddie turned around in his seat and shouted your name across the restaurant.
In a full, obnoxious manner that reminded you of the boy you had fallen in love with in high school.
“I quit. Six years ago.”
When the sun rose to its blue hue and the reminder of the night before replayed in your mind like a fresh, unadulterated film, there was a conflict brewing within you.
The idea of love.
Love was precious; an almost a forgettable thing when the daily grind became too much for simplistic thought yet it was what people craved the most. To love, to be loved. On a day like that–where there was not a raincloud in sight and when two people were joining each other in matrimony bound by the tethers of love–it was hard not to think about how the feeling evaded you.
It touched you once.
It gripped its claws into your flesh and left fatal wounds in its wake, yet you desired it so. Love, the splendid little thing that meant mountains but fell to cavernous trenches.
You don’t know which part of Eddie you had fallen in love with first. Juvenile, childish love was innocent at seventeen. As you grew older and the complications of adulthood and circumstance of living in Hawkins transformed life, the reasons for loving him changed too.
It wasn’t always about how he could make you laugh or the way his eyes were so expressive; the comfort he brought or the way he helped you love yourself through him loving you in return.
It was doing the dishes together at the end of a long night. Falling asleep on the couch because making it to the bed after one of his gigs was too exhausting, but he’d wake up in the early hours of the morning and make sure you’d both end up there anyway. How Eddie made time for everyone and everything until life stopped allowing him to do so.
It was moments where you and Eddie would be waiting for the train at Clinton station and he’d link his finger with yours because winter gloves constricted full hand movements.
Those times made you hate what love often resolved itself with: pain and bitter resentment that life was cruel.
And the clock ticked away as you thought of it.
When Nancy put her veil on, Robin was the first to cry. Then Max, then Eleven, and Karen was close behind them all. You stayed for a few minutes before excusing yourself to the hallway because the sight painted you blue.
You felt horrid for feeling bitter when Nancy’s fairytale was not an hour away.
In the hallway, there was a series of doors that led to varying rooms. Ones that held the groomsmen and Steve, one for the flower girl and ring bearer’s families. It was decorated with seaside decor of light yellows, blues, and whites. A table down ten feet and across the way had a mirror hung above it cased in gold.
The woman in the reflection was one you neglected to see for a long while. The apparent dissatisfaction of your own circumstance on a day filled with joy riddled on every feature. A necklace clutched in your palm feeling the brunt of sweat and aggravation as Eddie filled your thoughts again.
You wanted to love him, to be loved by him. You tried to hook the clasp. Missed.
Why couldn’t you just move on and be happy with someone else? Again, the clasp dug into your finger. Missed.
Could you even remember what it truly felt like to be loved?
The clasp evaded you. It was mocking, laughing as you struggled in the hallway mirror and began to sweat the idea that you’d never be able to secure it. Heaving a deep sigh in the mirror, you clutched the necklace in your hand and leaned against the table with two fists.��
“Get it fucking together,” you told yourself quietly.
Regaining your posture, you tried again, ignoring the sounds of a hall door opening and closing down the way. Your fingers trembled as the clasp caught air once more.
“You need help with that?”
You stared at your reflection and pretended not to see where he had stopped. Jaw tense, you shook your head and attempted the connection for the tenth time.
When you missed again, he scoffed.
“Give it to me,” he held out his hand palm up, ready to take it from your timid fingers and do it for you. “Come on,” Eddie egged on.
“I don’t need help,” you told him.
“Yes, you do,” he said pointedly. He could see the indentations of the small lever on your index finger. “Just let me help you.”
He wasn’t going to leave. Your eyes met in the mirror and he rose his brows expectantly. More hesitantly than he wished, you held out the necklace and let it ring into his palm. A nod from your head gave him the assent he needed.
In the silence of the hallway, you felt squeezed—both your mind and heart. Eddie moved to stand behind you and you could barely breathe; the simple gesture of helping you put on a necklace far more harrowing than previously realized. He was so close. So close. His fingers trailed to the back of your neck, brushing away the hair with his fingertips and letting it fall where it would not infringe the task.
You couldn’t bear to look at him. Focused on the sconces beside the mirror, you tried not to enjoy the feeling of his hands on you for the first time in half a decade. You tried not to remember the way his touch intoxicated you; every stroke and graze intentional as his eyes watched you struggle.
Eddie lifted his arms above your head and let the jewelry fall onto your collarbone. You wondered if his heart was beating as fast as yours.
“How does she look?” Nancy. His voice was low, quiet in the hall to not disturb the others getting ready. You hadn’t even taken him in yet.
The suits Steve chose were all black, form-fitting with ties instead of bow ties. The pocket squares were filled with a white handkerchief, and the shoes were a clean, shiny black. On his lapel, a single rose was pinned.
“She looks beautiful,” you replied but still wouldn’t look at him. You heard the clasp make it. The necklace sat firm but his hands did not move. They lingered, tracing the line of the back of your neck to the tops of your shoulders.
“You look beautiful.”
You didn’t want him to say that.
“Don’t say that,” you replied morosely.
“Why?” Eddie’s fingers brushed the necklace’s golden chain. “It’s true.”
The bottom of your lip trembled dangerously.
“Because you can’t say that.”
“But I did,” he sounded hopeful which dug into that wound a bit further.
“You brought a date.”
“Why won’t you look at me?” He whispered, fingers still gliding. He said your name softly, “look at me, please. Talk to me.”
You felt your heart constrict, sending a shuttered breath through you and your eyes blinked rapidly. There was no way in Hell you would let Eddie see you cry. He had moved on. He brought a date. A goddamn runway model that, in your opinion, ran circles around you in every way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.
“I need to go,” you stepped away from him, shaking your head and jetting off down the hall. “I’m sorry.”
He called your name once, twice, but you ignored him. You grasped the golden handle with a heavy hand, breathing unsteady as he stood in the distance in your peripheral. As though the world stood still again, Eddie felt that he had broken through. You would turn, talk to him, and let him relish in the company of you.
Yet, you grasped that handle tighter.
But, you did turn.
And when you opened the door back to the dressing room, it wasn’t only you whose memories transported you back to the night in Chicago that plagued your mind, but Eddie too. Straight back as he made his way to the men’s dressing room in the opposite direction.
“Stop being such an asshole!” You stood in the kitchen, hands clutching the sink as the anger seethed out of you. Eddie paced in the living space just beyond the island to your right.
“What do you want me to say, huh?” He threw his arms up in defeat. “For once in my life things are finally looking up and people just don’t get signed to a label and expected not to do—” he fumbled his words, “everything that comes with it!”
“I’m not asking you to give up music, Eddie!“
“Then what are you asking me?” He craned his head to the side, hands on his hips and breathing hard. “I can’t work from here. I have to go there and the least you could do is come with me.”
The least you could do. The least you could do.
You tossed the dish rag that had been strangled in your grip into the sink, focusing on the window positioned across from it and scoffed. A view of the goddamn ‘L’ train tracks you despised.
“Well I can’t just get up and move,” you said as calmly as you could. “Why is it so easy for you to ask that of me but when I bring up what I want, it becomes a problem for you?”
Eddie shook his head, hair mused as he ran a hand over it. “I don’t make it a problem, baby.”
“Yes, you do!” You laughed exasperatedly. “You just fucking said—“ a frustrated groan left your lips and you bounded off the sink and faced him from behind the counter. “It’s not like this is Hawkins; it’s goddamn Chicago and I’ll be dammed if there isn’t a music producer in one of those skyscrapers.”
“They’re not like they are out there. If we want any chance to make music–actually make music of our own that sells platinum records and wins awards–those producers are out there,” he pointed to the door as if it signified a world beyond this one.
“What? So, it’s all about money?”
“No! But hell, if that isn’t a major part of it I’d be lying!”
“And what about our home here?” You put your hands on the counters ledge and the nails on your fingertips motioned against it with rhythmic clicks. “Everything we’ve built here goes to shit because of one possible record deal?”
“It’s not just one deal,” Eddie groaned your name in frustration, “It’s the only deal and this… this here,” he motioned around the apartment, “was only ever temporary.”
News to you.
“Like Hawkins was. This isn’t really home.”
“Not home?” You furrowed your brows at him. “Then where the hell do you think it is? You bolted from Hawkins the second you got the chance and as far as I am concerned, this is my home. You see those pictures on the wall?”
You tipped your head in the direction of the wall that the couch sat up against. Above it was a collage of frames that held so many memories. From Nancy to Max, from Steve to Mike, everyone was on that wall.
“Those people helped us find this one.”
“Well,” he shook his head, “they can help us find another in California. There are people out there, baby. Real goddamn people that know just what we need.”
Not you, Corroded Coffin. What they needed.
“It’s not going to find us all the way out here.”
“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?”
He had been traveling the world with Corroded Coffin for a year and a half. In all of that time, he had come home for approximately two months. Eight weeks out of seventy-eight. This wasn’t the first fight about it; he had changed. The stronghold fame was suffocating him and was the very thing drawing you apart.
“Hm?” You hummed as he diverted his eyes to the apartment door.
“I’m here now.”
“That wasn’t my question, Eddie,” the ground rumbled beneath you. The way his eyes darted to the door as if it were calling him to leave. Foundation cracked and crumbled, fragmenting as the words threatened to tumble out. “Do you even want to be here?”
“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here, yeah?” He looked annoyed, lips nearly flattened. That’s how you knew he was angry. Angry at life, at you, at the world.
“Eddie,” you pleaded softly in one last attempt to salvage the broken platform, “stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Yes, you are!” You breathed in deeply, thinking of the unthinkable questions that pondered in your mind. “I’m not asking you to stay because I don’t want you to follow your dreams—you twisted my words—but why can’t I be the selfish one and want to stay here? You’ll have more money, you can visit and we— “
Can work it out. It was already over when he said he had been signed that godforsaken deal.
He said your name dejectedly. It hung there in the air as if saying ‘stop trying.’ You felt a lump form in your throat as you looked him, already decided in what he wanted because he was going after his dream. Halfway there, this was his out.
The tears gathered at the sides of your eyes, “you don’t even try.”
Eddie always had something to say but he couldn’t form words in that moment.
“What?” You steeled your wet eyes on him, “can’t even say that you had? Or that you were? Eddie, I’ve been doing this alone for so long that I don’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me and you meant it.”
That set him off. He pointed a bitter finger at you. “I always mean it when I say it. Don’t play that card.”
“Card!?” You cried, “I’m not trying to guilt trip you into staying but you don’t mean it! Eight weeks! Eight weeks in a fucking year and a half and you expect me to get up and throw my life away for you?”
“I was on tour! Halfway across the goddamn world!”
“Exactly!” You exclaimed, turning away from him and trying to escape to the bedroom but you could hear his heavy feet following.
“Stop it,” he said your name over and over as you gripped the door and tried to close it. He pressed his palm against it with a hard slap and pushed it against the wall with a deafening thud. “Would you just stop!”
“For Fuck’s Sake!” You yelled, “I can’t move! I don’t want to move! I have a lease, a good job, and I want to stay here and build my future!”
“You can have that in California!” He yelled back.
His eyes were wide, trying to pretend the antithesis of the fracture was anything less than his career.
“No, I can’t!”
“Why not!?”
“Because of you! You don’t want what I do!” You screamed at him, voice breaking as you cried and realized that this was the end. Eddie would move out to California and you’d be left in a tiny apartment in Chicago alone.
“I want a family, Eddie. I want to raise kids here or in the stupid suburbs, and grow old here. You want to be a—” you swallowed hard, cheeks wet and eyes getting puffy, “—rock star and those lives don’t mix. They just don’t.”
He was only twenty-five. He didn’t really know what he wanted from life.
“You don’t want to be here. That’s why you haven’t come home and I get it, I do. The band is growing, you’re popular, you have a million women to choose from, but I can’t keep pretending that my wants have to be ignored for you to succeed.”
“Are you saying I’ve ignored you?”
“You tell me, Eddie,” you shrugged, “how would you feel if the person you loved most was gone for months only to be reassured that everything was fine by a phone call every few days?”
He let his head tip to the floor, eyes closed because although many of the cracks stemmed from his choices, this wasn’t what he wanted. Eddie wanted to be happy, to be in love and be loved. But he was at the precipice of being what he always wanted and decisions had to be made.
Callous and resentful decisions.
“Do you hate me?” Eddie’s eyes spurred something in him. A hatred for himself, a despised feeling growing that a part of him that had always been missing—family—was being ripped away for a dream.
“I don’t hate— “
“Yes, you do,” he looked up, giving you a knowing look as his bottom lip trembled.
“No, I don’t. But I’m hurt and I don’t think you see that.”
“So,” he cleared his throat, breath hitching in his chest, “this is it then? We’re just going to give up?”
“I didn’t give up, Eddie,” you needn’t say the rest to indicate that he had. “We just want different things.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do,” you shook your head, sitting down on the edge of the bed with your face turned away from him. “Right now we do and it’s not doing anything for either of us.”
It was quiet for a few minutes. Minutes. A thick fog fell over the room; marinating in every picture, the clothes folded away in the dresser, the shampoo in the shower, the two dinner plates half-cleaned in the sink. Domesticity wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough.
You weren’t sure how long it had been, but Eddie’s socked feet moved from the spot he stood in and approached the bed—carefully and freely. He knelt down, hands on the outsides of both your thighs and his thumbs rubbed the tops of them gently, the pressure soothing when it shouldn’t have been through your jeans.
“I want you to be happy…” he swallowed thickly as he chose his words gently. There was no point in trying to stop you from crying when he couldn’t do so himself. “I want you to have what you want, sweetheart… and if I can do that… someday… we’ll find each other again.”
“Eddie…” Your heart ached as you shook your head. Hope was the killer of it all.
Hope that perhaps one day you’ll find each other again; that you’d both be free to choose the paths that crossed while maintaining your own personalities and careers without giving one up. Hope that a future existed when the flame was extinguished on a cold evening in Chicago.
“I’m sorry,” he rubbed your thighs tenderly.
“Me too.”
“I love you,” he said softly as if were one last confession. The tears were quietly flowing when you leaned forward, cupping the back of his head with your hands and resting your forehead on his own.
Just to hold him one last time.
“I love you too.” He left the apartment an hour later and it was the last time you had seen him. No contact, no cards, and no one, in the group of friends you shared, brought up the other on purpose.
The reception was noisy.
Like a zoo full of animals that were awakened by a whistle only they could hear; sounds of song’s you hadn’t heard since high school played from the small band the Wheeler’s had insisted on just beyond the designated space for dancing. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will were losing it on the floor since the second a Michael Jackson song emitted its first few strings.
Steve and Nancy were hand in hand greeting guests at their tables as others made their way to the bar, dessert table, or chatted with drinks in their hands.
At the head table, El and Max were positioned at the end talking in whispers about the people in the room and you sat like a lone duck near the center of it. An abundance of flowers in white and yellow flanked the table before you, empty dishes and scattered bags and goods littered its table top. Mike left a pack of cigarettes in his spot while Dustin’s best man speech was crumbled in a quarter-fold beside his sweating glass of coke.
Time had left you behind; sitting solemn at your best friend’s wedding while everyone else put on their best smiles and grinned their way through the evening. And maybe that’s what observation had led you to believe, that you looked as though you were wallowing in self-pity for an absence of love in your life. Loveless at an event so full of it.
You fiddled with the necklace absent mindedly.
The room of excitable tunes slowed.
Couples–married and not, grabbed their partners for a dance. Robin and Eddie were standing near the center of the room beside the table that all the parents were at when Veronica slid next to Eddie, her hand slinking down his arm and into his palm as she nodded to the growing group on the dance floor.
Hours ago, you had looked back at him when he pleaded with you to stay. Now, as his hand was gripped by a woman he wasn’t sure why he had even invited, Eddie looked back from the center of the room and to the head table where you sat.
Veronica pulled him away before he could make a choice.
Robin leaned against one of the chairs, watching as Eddie trailed behind the woman in orange. She did not realize Joyce and Hopper were still sitting at the table she rested against.
“What the hell was that?” Hopper voiced, hand pointing in Eddie’s direction like a finger gun. He had a mustache that was perfectly trimmed and highlighted his frown well. Joyce crossed her arms with scrutiny.
Robin shrugged, sighing as she turned around and pulled out a chair to sit at the table. “Two idiots in love, I think.”
“Jesus,” Hopper scratched his forehead, “I knew it was a bad idea…” he mumbled as he watched Eddie pretend to be interest in what the woman was telling him as they danced.
“What?” Robin shook her head, “What was a bad idea?”
“Them breaking up!” He said as if it were obvious. “I got a call from one of the bartenders at The Hideout that there was a scuffle goin’ on one Friday night a few years ago and when I got there, Eddie was there just fuckin’ bombed on the sidewalk.”
Joyce nodded along to his words because she had heard the story before. Robin listened intently as Hopper continued.
“I couldn’t understand a word he was sayin’ so I put him in the truck and offered to drive him to her parents’ house because that’s where they always stayed when they came to town and he just… cried. Drunk and sobbing his goddamn eyes out in the front of my truck.”
“Was this recent or…?” Robin pondered.
“No,” Hopper shook his head, “years back but he was goin’ on about how he was a bad boyfriend and they broke up and he was moving to California in a few days… I just thought to myself ‘shit, man, I have never seen someone so bent out of shape from a breakup.’ Those two… If it weren’t Steve and Nancy gettin’ hitched, I would have bet money on it that it was them instead.”
“Every Tuesday he’d pick her up from Melvald’s and take her out. He had flowers for her every time,” Joyce recalled. “I asked her about it once,” she nodded and looked at how you watched Eddie with the other woman, “she said that he never had a good example of what it meant to be a good boyfriend. I guess his dad was a piece of shit,” Hopper hummed a knowledgeable assurance that she was right. “And he wanted to be the only example he could think of–be that good guy that she deserved.”
“I didn’t know that,” Robin said quietly.
“I told him he needed to fly back to Chicago and fix things,” Hopper added, “but I guess he was too beaten up about it; probably thought she’d slam the door in his face.”
“Doubt it,” Robin snorted, “I don’t think they’re idiots,” she corrected herself, “I think they know exactly what the other one is thinking but are too scared to get hurt again if it doesn’t work out.”
Hopper scooted his chair back, adjusting his pants and jacket as he stood from the table. “Well, then we’ll just have to make it happen–or,” he clarified, “get them in the same spot.”
Robin swiveled in her chair as Hopper rubbed Joyce’s shoulder as he passed behind her, heading straight for the head table and directly to you.
Jim Hopper wasn’t a man that could be missed in a crowd of hundreds. His bulky frame that towered over guests and moved about the room like a boulder in grass drew your eyes to the movement immediately. He passed by Max and Eleven at the end of the table, never missing the opportunity to pat the girl he raised into a wonderful young lady on the head.
It was a nice distraction from Eddie and Veronica swaying to a melodic tune.
“Hey kid,” Hopper pulled out the chair beside you labeled with a table marker for ‘Robin Buckley.’
You gave him a closed smile. “Hi Chief.”
“I guess I can’t really call you ‘kid’ anymore,” he groaned, chuckling as he sat down with an ache all older men his age did. “I blink and you all grow up… makes me feel like a real old man,” and then he gave you that sly, side grin that made you wish Hopper was your dad instead of the one you had.
“You’re not old, Hopper,” he managed to pull a small laugh from your lips. The dejected film washing away for a brief second in time.
“Well,” he cleared his throat as he put an elbow on the table and adjusted himself in the seat to face you, “that makes me feel a little better about my age. So,” Hopper gave a pointed look that answered the hundreds of questions as to what Robin was chatting to him and Joyce about, “what are you sitting all the way over here for? Don’t want to chat or dance?”
“Just tired,” you told him, “Nance didn’t pick the most sensible shoes.”
“Robin took hers off; I’m sure you can do the same.”
“And walk barefoot on this floor?” You snorted. “Never.”
He shared the amusement before turning his gaze to the groups of people beyond the tables as they danced. A goddamn direct view. ‘Cruel,’ he thought. And surpassing the stone of the church from hours before, the beach where it trickled rain as photos were snapped for scrapbooks forever, and the smells of delicious food filled his belly before reaching his mouth, Jim Hopper felt the love that filled the room.
It touched him, as it had you and everyone else on the wedding weekend of Steve and Nancy Harrington.
Joyce was attempting to occupy Robin in conversation but every time Jim’s eyes met hers, he knew they were both far too curious and nosey to not be gossiping about longstanding drama that befuddled even the most romantically inclined.
The woman that restored his faith in the prospect of love and devotion had witnessed the earliest of your own. Tuesday’s at the local mart, the way Eddie would hold the door for you and attempt to steal magazine’s off the rack just to get your attention. How Eddie drove you around when your car was in the shop and eventually, would take the little rascals of Hellfire with for soda and snacks before their campaigns began–but also because he wanted to see you if even for a minute.
Although people often judged the idea of love at a young age, Jim and Joyce both recognized its honesty between Eddie and yourself. It was pure, unadulterated, and basked in a light that only belonged to the longevity of companionship.
“You know, the moment I knew I loved Joyce, I thought I’d never get her.”
Hopper could see Eddie and his date having their own conversation, whatever it may have been, because a blank face melted from one of an increasing lack of emotion, to one of strife.
“And when I did, I thought she’d see a different man than the one I believed I was.”
“She would have been blind not to see the real you, Hopper,” Joyce smiled at you as you caught her eyes. “You always tried to help us be the best versions of ourselves and she did too. If that’s not a perfect match, I don’t know what is.”
“Are you the best version of yourself now?” He questioned, tapping his finger onto the white tablecloth of the table. “Weddings can be… sobering… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person look as distant as you.”
“Flattery never was your strong suit, Hopper,” you grimaced, “and I’m fine,” you weren’t fine. “You didn’t have to come save me from myself.”
“So, there aren’t a million thoughts swimming around in that mind of yours? I know I’m not the most intuitive dad there is but believe me when I say I’ve been trained to know when somethin’ just quite ain’t right.”
“I have hundreds of thoughts racing through my brain. ‘Why is the cake so far away?’ ‘Rob and Joyce can stop staring at me any second now,’ and perhaps my favorite thought, ‘why does Jim Hopper care about my state of mind?” Combative. He knew the signs.
“Maybe Jim Hopper knowns that the girl deep down inside of you just needs to heal,” he said honestly. “But there is only one way to heal what’s been lost and let me tell you, it’s not going to come waltzing on down here as you sit and mope.”
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” You scoffed at yourself, “that this wedding has only made me jealous about what I don’t have.”
“I don’t think you’re jealous, kid,” Hopper deflated, “I think you’re realizing a mistake was made somewhere along the lines of your own life.”
Mistake. It was that goddamn word again.
“There’s been no mistake,” you shook your head at him, “everything has played out the way it was meant to.”
“And you really believe that?”
“There had been nothing in my life to prove me otherwise.”
“And lying was never your strong suit, kid,” he put on his ‘dad’ face. “You don’t have to talk to me, fine, but if I asked to be the first person to ask for a dance tonight, would you say no?”
How could you deny Jim Hopper, Police Chief and hero of Hawkins, Indiana? You couldn’t. Even if you were flailing for support in an ocean of heartache, sparing one dance for the man was cinch. He rose from the chair, holding out his arm in hopes that you would link yours through his and entertain him one dance as Steve and Nancy added themselves to the pairs on the dance floor and swayed gently to a new song.
His stature would block a view you’d rather not see.
“You may be the only person to ask me to dance,” you joined him on your feet. “I can’t say no to you, Chief.”
“That’s the spirit, kid.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Veronica’s voice cut through the music as couples and pairs settled onto the dance floor with the melodic hum of a song playing through sets of speakers. Instead of dancing like an adult, she had flung both her arms over Eddie’s shoulders and linked her hands behind his head. He had no choice other than to put his hand at her waist; the fabric of her orange dress was coarse under his fingertips.
“I asked you to come,” Eddie replied. “I thought I told you that last night.”
Ah, yes. Last night; where Steve made a scene about Eddie’s lingering feelings of letting another woman go while she sat beside him with the best intentions.
Veronica did not know Eddie Munson–the guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks by fate, the one who had a strange group of friends that shared varying interests and ran in different social circles, or someone who threw everything he had into a career he realized wasn’t as glamorous as the cameras and magazines made it out to be.
He cursed those Rolling Stone magazines he scoured when he was a bit too early for closing time of Melvald’s.
“Yeah,” Veronica said as if that hadn’t mattered in the slightest, “and here you are, barely even touching me or sparring me a second look. You know I had to sit by some stoner guy for dinner and they didn’t believe you could bring someone like me.”
Eddie narrowed his eyes, taken aback by her comment. “What’s that supposed to mean? Those are good people. And I was a huge fuckin’ stoner once too.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she shook her head, “I mean, they didn’t see me with you. Not because of who I am or who you are, but because it wasn’t right.”
“You know,” Eddie lowered his voice when he caught the eye of Dustin dancing with Suzie not two feet away from him, “you’re sounding an awful lot like someone who’s about to dump someone else.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Her eyebrows quirked as she tipped her head to the side. “Why waste more time on me?”
Even if his heart raced in another direction, the sound of someone saying that to Eddie was bothersome.
“Please don’t say that,” he said, “you’re not a waste of time.”
“But for someone else’s love, I am,” Veronica’s lips extended into a thin line. “That’s not a bad thing, Eddie… It just means I’m not the one for you.”
The chords of the music sobered him.
Across the room, sitting desolate at the dinner table, his heart called.
“Afford me this dance,” Veronica continued, “and when the time comes, do what makes you happy, however difficult that may be. She may not run into your arms as she once did,” as the motions swayed the pair, she faced the table as Jim Hopper approached. “That doesn’t mean love doesn’t exist.”
She felt Eddie’s shoulder’s deflate from the tension he had been holding in the entire day–nay, two days–since the prospect of you had become a reality.
“I abandoned her,” Eddie admitted quietly to her, “like a fucking ragdoll for some dream that really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”
Veronica did not know every detail. She did not know the exact history, nor did she fully grasp the levity of a near decade of love being tossed to the side for a pipedream. But she did know what it was like to leave an abundance of life behind to chase a want.
Yet the model had never seen a group so peculiar as the one he belonged to. The tightknit communal that leaned on each other like family even though many were from different corners. She had seen the binds of friendship like never before. She had seen a broken love bonded by pain from across a candlelight tabletop and wondered why she had ever been invited if that would always have been the outcome. It was as though two ships hadn’t sailed passed one another but docked; lengths of a life finally running out of individual ink before relying on two for competition.
“You both hurt each other,” she settled, “that is what separation does. But…” she chuckled, “I have been in love before and I’ve never witnessed such a feeling when being in the presence of the two of you–and I don’t even know her…”
“She won’t talk to me,” Eddie confided. “I tried, earlier today because she was on the verge of a breakdown over a necklace and she could barely look at me.”
“Don’t you think it may be because if she did, she’d fall all over again?”
The song was coming to a close.
“There is nothing wrong with pain, Eddie. Feeling pain, wanting to be healed, and being scared of that healing… and maybe she’ll need time. She loves you. I know she does because when women know, they know.”
Jim Hopper stood from the chair.
There was a comradery he felt in Veronica. Romance beside itself, the woman was a chakra. She had looked into a future he could barely imagine himself and pulled the heroic card before it was dealt. These cards overturned like quicksand settling between his toes.
“You know,” Eddie gave her a sly, friendly grin, “you sound an awful lot like those odd fortune tellers that sell their services on the strip.”
Veronica laughed; whole-heartedly, warmly. “Maybe in a previous life I was,” she played, “but in yours, there has always been one path and I guarantee you, from one romantic to another, loneliness was never an option for you. It’s what kids dream about–that ‘fairytale…’ Even if it is a little bit messy.”
You linked your arm with Jim’s.
“I’ve always been a little too messy,” Eddie said sheepishly.
“I can tell,” Veronica groaned, “You don’t have to be perfect for her. Imperfection seizes our hearts faster than perfection… it’s enough to haunt us when perfection tears that apart.”
“El isn’t dancing with anyone.”
Jim Hopper held one hand in his and the other on the upper half of your back. It was as though he was dancing at an elementary father-daughter dance than anything else, stiff in his hulking frame. The music did nothing to silence your rapidly forming thoughts that Eddie and Veronica were feet away; Eddie’s eyes caught yours as Jim helped you to the floor, an anguish in them acted as a puzzle waiting to be pulled apart.
In the eyes that watched Veronica rip the persona he had gathered for himself in the years past, Eddie could only imagine you. He waited for them to turn into your own, for her laugh to morph into yours, for her hands to run through his hair as yours once did, and the comfort of her presence to become you. Looking for that glimpse, Eddie found it inside of his imagination; searching every corner of it to find a home for his torment–self-inflicted and its mortal consequences bleeding life from him like a sieve.
“It’s those sensible shoes…” Hopper joked. “Her feet are killing her. A couple blisters later, she’s sworn them off forever.”
“I don’t blame her,” Lucas and Max joined the pairs beside you. The red-headed girl rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed in the utmost content state she could be in. True love.
“How many dances do you have in your feet?”
“Why?” You questioned. “Am I a better partner than Joyce? She was always rather clumsy.”
“No,” he laughed but could not disagree, “I just think those boys won’t end the evening without asking you. I think Dustin’s always had a little crush on his former babysitter.”
“I don’t think,” you tipped your head at him, “I know he’s always had a crush on me.”
Dustin Henderson had always been a cute boy. His pure child-like imagination and motivation had inspired you to explore your own interests without fear. You had watched him from five until his mother decided he didn’t need you anymore, but you were lucky to call him a friend now.
“But he’s got Suzie,” you could see the two giggling as everyone danced around them. “And I can’t think of a more natural person for him. I think they’re next,” your eyes moved themselves around the room, “to get married.”
“Too many childhood sweethearts in my opinion,” Hopper’s gruff voice was certain in that. “Not everyone is meant to be with their first loves.”
“I think they are… just like Steve and Nancy, just like Max and Lucas.”
“And you and Eddie.” Not a question, a statement.
It was the scoff that left your lips that made his hopes for you feel weak. “That chapter ended, Chief. He’s moved on, so have I.”
“No,” he clarified, “you haven’t. You wouldn’t have been moping around your best friend’s wedding if you were.”
“I wasn’t moping,” you defended, “Jonathan was moping. I’m pretty sure he cried and had decent reason to but I was just… people watching.”
“Person watching. You were watching Eddie and there’s nothing wrong with it,” he asserted. “You love him. There is no shame in it.”
“Why is everyone so interested in how I feel?” Your face put on the mask of a scorned lover. Eyes drawn narrow and brows forming a crease in its center. “This is Nance and Steve’s wedding, their only wedding if they’re lucky, and I’ve had person after person question how I feel about something I no longer have.”
“Maybe it’s because for once we all see the truth of it all…” He had seen the truth as a washed-up Eddie cried in his truck. “That the pain of the past isn’t worth the loneliness of the future.”
“A true poet,” you mumbled, “but I’m fine. I promise you, I’m fine.”
“I’ve said it before,” Hopper chuckled, “and I will always say it to you, but you’re a terrible liar.”
“Lies be lies, Chief. But there’s no point in trying to make me feel better about feelings I can’t control.”
“No one is asking you to control them,” you turned your head away from Jim’s and clocked Lucas eavesdropping. He gave a strained, tight smile before resting his cheek onto Max’s head. “That isn’t what we’re trying to do… I want the kids I watched grow up to be happy and you’re not happy, he’s not happy. I don’t know if the answer to that equation is the two of you finding each other again but I’ve never been a man capable of understanding the love you had. And that sound ridiculous coming from someone as old as your old man.”
“I can’t even be in the same room as him without feeling like breaking down,” your voice was quiet, a mere whisper of what it was because the prospect of Eddie still having feelings for you was frightening. You didn’t want to end up becoming a ghost again.
“It’s like I’m a nobody in a room full of somebody’s and they can’t see me.”
“Someone will always see you,” his eyes were gentle. “He saw you when he couldn’t see himself.”
“Then why did he leave?”
And the way Hopper’s body stood taller, his gaze no longer meeting yours, and turning you cold told you the world was ending. This love, imploded if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, was bubbling to the surface like a volcano. Here, on the island of Nantucket, a tsunami couldn’t save you from emotional ruin.
“I think that’s a question you’ll have to ask him.”
Veronica’s hand extended into your peripheral vision. She held it out to Jim like a lifeline.
“Do you mind if I steal him?” Her body came into view and you needn’t know the conversation the two had to know she had led Eddie back to you. “I need to hear all about this ‘hero of Hawkins!’”
“I’m not the hero,” Jim said rather sheepishly. “That’s all him.”
You could feel Eddie’s presence in a room of hundreds of a room of one. It enveloped you into a cocoon against your fighting mind.
“Those are strong words coming from you, Chief.” His voice rung out against the music. Eddie had been on the poor graces of Chief Jim Hopper for many a year before the man had seen Eddie for what he was: a good, kind man with a fierce complex.
Jim looked to you. “You got this, kid. I’ve got another partner now, so do you.”
He took Veronica’s arm and linked it through his arm like an elderly man who needed help walking. He wasn’t that old. She took him away without a glance back at the one who had asked her to come.
“Now,” Eddie cleared his throat from behind you, “I could ask you to dance or,” he had put on that voice like there were more options than he had, “we can go outside, sit down, and maybe you’ll talk to me.”
‘Look at me. Why won’t you look at me,’ his words echoed in your mind.
When you turned around to face him, he got his wish.
Eddie looked hopeful, as if it were the permanent face he wore. His eyes were the smallest bit glassy, hands stuffed into his pockets, and the shine of his shoes to the wear of his tie was different than he had ever worn before. He was still him, yet so different all the same.
“If we talk,” you felt like you swallowed a frog, “no lies. I don’t want to hear any lies.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
The night was cold.
Springtime enfolded the shores of Nantucket; cattails and tall grasses billowing, soft sounds of ocean waves lapping muted the music from inside. Adirondack chairs lay vacant, pillows dewed and their wood smooth.
You couldn’t bear to sit down.
Allowing the night air to take you, Eddie shut the door behind him and felt the scene before him play at the edge of a cliff; every piece of you blowing away against a yearning to stay. He began shrugging his jacket off and you held out a hand in front of you.
“I’m fine,” the frost bit at your voice. “Keep it.”
“You’re freezing,” Eddie continued to remove his piece. “I’m not going to be an asshole and let you freeze to death because you’re stubborn.”
You scoffed. “I am not stubborn. I don’t need it, end of story.”
He tugged it off, folding it in his hands before tossing it on one of the chairs that separated the distance between you. His tie was long undone, the two buttons at the top of his shirt undone but the cufflinks remained. You wanted to take the jacket. You wanted to recall his scent and warmth but your stubbornness in protection vexed you.
“Fine,” he huffed.
“Fine,” You replied in kind.
Only the note of waves filled the stillness. You both looked at one another as though a million years had gone by in the blink of an eye. Not unlike the seconds passed in the wine cellar the night before, the world seemed to dissipate to a single existence of two former lovers. Two people, in spite of themselves, who haven’t felt whole since a single moment six years before.
Goosebumps raised on your skin, the jacket appeared delectable yet an item of fear as it sat, calling to say ‘put it on,’ only to be followed by a whisper of ‘forgive me.’
“I can’t imagine that small talk is what you wanted to discuss,” you started.
“I don’t believe it’s what you would want either,” he countered, “and we both know that would get us nowhere.”
“So, what?” You lightly shook your head. “You want me to ask how your life has been and catch up on all I’ve missed? There’s a reason I don’t read gossip magazines anymore… I don’t need to see beautiful women rubbed in my face or success showing me that my pain was worth something more.”
“A lot of those things are lies,” Eddie walked his icy path with steady feet. “You don’t need to read them, no. But I would hope you still cared enough to ask about me when you visit Rob and Nance, not to mention Steve never brings you up to me.”
“Oh, you mean the literal effort they all put in to never mention you around me?” You gazed at him as though the reason you never asked about him, or they never spoke about him, was obvious. It hurt too much. “It’s not exactly a cake walk, Eddie, to hear about your fantastic life when I could barely hold my own together.”
“It’s not fantastic and if you asked, you would have known that.”
“And it’s my responsibility to learn that? Did you want me to reach out, ask how you’ve been, and get lunch like you didn’t fucking break my heart?” You gawked. Eddie took his hands from his pockets and put them on his hips–a Steve move he had taken upon after establishing their friendship. “If I couldn’t talk about you, I don’t know how the hell I would have talked to you.”
“Then maybe I should have called,” like an easy solution, “and maybe instead of… what was it Steve said? Trading holidays liked a divorced couple, we could have been civil and spent time with our friends together.”
“Was that when you were traveling the world or recording records?” You pursed. “Or when you moved out to California and visited once a year? Tell me, Eddie, is a hypothetically cordial relationship something you really want with me? I can barely feel the world turn as it is when I’m in your presence, I doubt I would be able to have a good time with our friends.”
Eddie laughed savagely. “I didn’t know all the fun had been sucked out of you.”
You took a step back, careening your head out toward the ocean as you bit your cheek. He had gall. He was bold and unflinching, but his eyes told the truth. His own pain and suffering at the consequences of his actions had let the light leave him for so long. When pain overtook a person’s being, anger and callous language followed.
“If you’re going to be an ass,” you looked back to him, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“It isn’t the truth, though? I’ve at least tried to have a halfway, goddamn decent time at this wedding and every time I looked at you, you’ve been nothing but bitter.”
“No one asked you to look at me, Eddie. You brought a date. You should focus on her.”
“How could I!?” A dam had broken inside of him. He couldn’t not look at you. “Every time I think I’ll give someone else a chance, it’s like seeing a fucking ghost in my mirror! I have to look at you. I need to look for you.”
“No, you don’t!” You exclaimed with as much passion. “You lost that when you walked out! I am sorry that I am so shitty for being sad at a beautiful wedding. I am sorry for wishing that this time, maybe it was me walking down that goddamn aisle. And for fuck’s sake, I am so sorry that I am fearful that you’ll finally move on and want to marry someone else! Jesus fuck! It’s been six goddamn years and I still think that you’ll come walking through the door and say you made a mistake but I don’t want to hear that tumbling out of Steve’s mouth. I don’t want it to be based in lies because you feel bad I am sad at my best friend’s wedding.”
“I love you,” he blurted out without reason.
“Don’t say that!”
“Why!?”
“Because it isn’t true! IF I was, you never would have left! You wouldn’t have asked me to throw my life away and follow you to the ends of the fucking earth! If I wasn’t just some body, maybe somebody would love me enough to stay,” You argued loudly.
“I do love you,” He argued back with the same ferocity.
“You did. You don’t anymore.”
“I do love you. I do. I haven’t fucking stopped loving you since I was seventeen and I don’t think I ever will stop. I will always love you, I have always loved you, and I know that when I am dying, I will die loving you,” he was breathless. Angered and pent up with emotions he had buried deep where his eyes were fiery and his tone was firm.
“You can’t say things like that…” Fuck the tears that loved to threaten to fall.
“Why!? Tell me why I can’t tell the truth. You asked me not to lie and I wouldn’t do that to you!”
“Becau–” you stammered the word as your mind racked itself for answers, “because it’s not fair to me! I can’t live another day knowing that someone else out there loves you in a way that I do. I can’t keep waiting around in my shitty, fucking life for someone who walked out of it for something bigger than me.”
“And it was a mistake! I will never forgive myself for it but please, even if it’s the last thing you do, please believe that it was. I never should have asked that of you, I was selfish. I knew what I wanted in life then because it hasn’t changed. It existed deep down but was scared to come to the surface and I needed to be pulled under to see that. I love you. I love you so goddamn much that every day without you has been the most unbearable few years of my life. I want you, and only you.”
“Don’t lie to me,” your lip trembled, face hot.
“I’m not lying,” his own eyes watery. “Please, I am not lying to you.”
“I don’t think you know how much you hurt me, Eddie,” you shook your head at him. “There are times when I don’t feel like myself because you took that away from me. I don’t depend on anyone; I’d never say that I lost everything when you left but you cracked me open, slaughtered me in the place we shared because of a dream. And believe me, really, that I am so happy you found that life but how can I know that my suffering was worth it?
“You don’t think I suffered too?” He exclaimed loudly at the sky. “I went to Hawkins, you know, after everything because I didn’t have anywhere to go.” You didn’t know.
“I got so fucking drunk at a bar that Hopper had to come scrape me off the sidewalk and from what I remember, I exploded in the truck when he tried to take me to your parent’s place. Do you know what he did? Let me sleep on the couch and when Eleven got up the next day, she held my hand and told me that I’d be okay and I haven’t been okay. I’ve never been okay without you and I’m not scared to admit that. You are my lifeline, sweetheart. I have tried to replace that feeling but I can’t.”
“Do you know how long I wished for you to walk through that door?” You pointed to the door you walked through as if it could transform itself into the one of the apartment you shared. “I sat there, waiting for you because I barely remembered a life where you weren’t part of it and that was hard enough to imagine when it slammed in my goddamn ears,” you huffed, eyes nearly ablaze as his committed declarations of love echoed through every vacant place inside of you and right back to the moment he left.
“There is not a day that goes by where I don’t question why you let it go so easily.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Eddie stressed your name exasperatedly, “nothing about that choice was easy.”
“You made it seem like it was.”
Eddie felt the grounding he had built in his mind with his vow of love was strong. He felt the ghosts of the past begin to grip his feet; haunting and pulling him to the depths of his former despair to face a choice chastened by ambition. On the cold, concrete sidewalk and the airy Nantucket patio, it ruptured in spouts.
Pain, longing, abjection tied to every word; you had tried in obstinate strength to keep the fortress from becoming invaded. That somewhere in your heart there was a knowledge it was stronger than the force of the man that had left you to bleed but it wasn’t. It felt his bullets like bandages. They neither wounded nor massacred its path forward, binding the holes left behind with attestation.
“When I said we wanted different things, why didn’t you tell me what you wanted?” You asked in a voice wavering. “I thought you wanted this life,” a hand painted his figure against the night, “he one with the glitz and glamor and women like Veronica. If you wanted what I did, why toss it to the side?
Eddie shook his head, backing away from you and throwing his hands on top of his head in a connected grasp. He looked out to the water so dark he couldn’t see yet heard. “You remember what I told you about my parents?”
After a second, he returned his gaze to you and in return, you nodded.
Eddie’s perception of self was deeply rooted in the disjointed childhood he had been forced to experience. Every feeling, every action questioned by himself as to whether the receiving party had viewed it as strange, difficult, or simply heartless. He kept his heart on his sleeve, however, he kept it tethered there. When someone tried to hold it in their own palms, Eddie pulled away.
It had taken years for him to be comfortable enough with himself to be willing to be someone he liked.
“It doesn’t just go away with time,” he sighed. “I will always doubt myself. I always fear that I’m one step away from becoming him even if I know I’m nothing like him.”
For a child of a loveless marriage, a brutal life, the most fearful thing they could imagine was not whether or not they could be loved later in life, it was turning into the people they hated most.
“It’s not every day that someone comes to your concert and wants to sign you without so much as a demo session… and that overtook me. I know that now, and I knew that the second I walked out the goddamn door. I will apologize for the rest of my life if it means you know how I feel.”
Eddie let that sit.
“You can hate me forever, I don’t mind. But don’t convince yourself I never cared enough about you.”
“I don’t hate you. I never hated you. And I’m sorry if I made it seem that way.”
Perhaps he would have to convince himself that you never hated him just as you would that he loved you.
“Even when I left?”
“There was not a piece of my body strong enough to feel anything more than empty when that happened.”
“I felt it too, you know,” his eyes shimmered in the lamplight. No joy, no hilarity–just hope that you knew the truth.
“I do now,” you told him.
“I’m not asking you to give me a second chance,” Eddie shrugged his shoulders lowly. In a nearly defeated sigh, he took the words he replayed in his mind for two thousand, one hundred and ninety days, “but fuck… I told you I’d find you again if the time was right and the minute I saw you in the archway I knew that was my shot… you’re the same but different… I loved you then and I love the you that you are now. And I’m sorry that it took me that long to realize it.”
“What did you feel in that church today?”
A cosmic connection, a fleeting moment he wished to hold onto forever.
“Eddie,” you took a step forward, closing the distance, “tell me what you felt.”
“I felt…” He paused. Breathing in deeply, it was not his admissions of love that proved to be most difficult. It was the regret of letting it go that scarred the deepest. “I felt… bitter.”
“Bitter?”
“Because I don’t have what they do,” he threw a lazy arm toward the door. “Or I did have that and I let it go because of a silly dream.”
“I don’t think your dream was silly,” you admitted, “it worked out of you in the end.”
“But at what cost?” Eddie took a step closer to you; the chair with this tuxedo jacket the space that separated you. “Why do those dreams take everything away to make them happen? I didn’t want to do that, this, alone. Not without you.”
“I felt helpless,” you disclosed. “In that church with the sun streaming in… like a fucking… higher power was saying to me that the way I loved you still existed inside of me. It hasn’t ever truly gone–as much as some moments I wish it was–yet it stays.”
“Helpless because you love me?”
“Helpless because I can’t have you.”
“And why can’t you have me?” Another step closer. “Why do you, the only woman I have ever truly loved, feel you cannot have me?”
“Because someone else does,” your eyes flashed toward the doors as if Eddie’s proximity and both of your vulnerabilities were forbidden. “Because someone else loves you.”
“She doesn’t love me,” Eddie’s fingers eclipsed your own. Fanning in a light flutter, it was discovering touch again. “She isn’t mine and I am not hers.”
He stepped closer again and every one of your senses went spiraling. Eddie leaned his head forward and rested his forehead on your own. Two sets of eyes closed at the sensation.
“You have all of me. Every part of me since the moment I saw you.”
“And what do you want?”
‘I want you to have what you want, sweetheart,’ his words were distant from the past.
“What do you want now?” you asked him, breaking away as your eyes shone to his. His free hand cradled the back of your neck gently, he rubbed his thumb over your cheek. “I know what I want, but I need to hear it from you. No lies.”
“No lies,” he repeated, a quick glanced down at your lips had him soaring. “I want you, baby. I’ll only ever want you.”
“Good,” you whispered, lips barely tracing his for the first time in six years. “Because we’re not letting this go this time.”
“Never.”
And he pulled your lips to his.
To answer the question the chapel had asked you, ‘what is it like to be loved?’, there is only one answer:
This is what it feels like. Pain, beauty, and joy. There is no bind without strife, nor is there passion without sacrifice.
And in the years in between said sacrifice, the tethers of a string brushed together until they found one another again on a little island off a blustery coast for the wedding of Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler.
A/N: As always, comments, reblogs are kindly encouraged :) thank you for reading!
#eddie munson x fem!reader#eddie munson x female reader#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson#eddie x reader#reader x eddie munson#eddie munson x y/n#eddie munson x you#x reader#fanfic#fanfiction#stranger things#x female reader#stranger things 4#joseph quinn#angsty as hell bitches#sunday saddies on
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Wayne didn’t know why the world hated his nephew. Through his eyes, he saw the same innocent boy that was dropped on the stoop of his trailer with only a garbage bag and a black lunchbox to his name.
He certainly didn’t see the murderer and cult leader that the rest of Hawkins saw. Or the freak that the world would come to know him as. Eddie Munson was the softest kid Wayne had ever known; crying when bugs got stepped on, cuddling stray kittens at the trailer park, and adopting all of the outcasts that the preppy bitchasses turned on.
Even though Eddie was now 20 and struggling to graduate high school for a third time, Wayne loved him. He was the light of his life and the reason he woke up every day. Wayne’s brother may have screwed up everything in his life but the one good thing he brought to the world was Eddie.
When that Dustin kid gave Wayne Eddie’s guitar pick necklace, he felt his heart die a little bit. The love deep in his soul flickered out to join Eddie wherever he was. But still, he moved on. He cleared Eddie’s name and helped the kids pin the murders on the Creel boy. Wayne kept going like his purpose in life hadn’t died in those earthquakes.
And on one random day when a knock on the trailer door turned out to be a scarred and an emaciated Eddie, his heart started beating again. Because his boy was back, he wasn’t gone after all.
(Wayne didn’t mind the large flock of teens that came with Eddie’s return. He didn’t mind the fluffy haired kid that always held Eddie and kissed his face. No, with his boy back in his life, Wayne had more than enough love for all of them.)
#I can’t decide if this is mushy or angsty hmmm#stranger things#steddie#ish#steve harrington#eddie munson#wayne munson#uncle wayne
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I keep getting teary-eyed thinking about how season one Steve Harrington went to the Byers's house to apologize to Jonathan, not even knowing Nancy was there.
He literally ditched his friends and immediately started trying to fix the things that he actively did harm to. Starting with helping the man at the theater, then presumably, immediately after, went to Jonathan’s house to apologize. Steve actually wanted to make things right! He wanted to let Jonathan know that what he did–and said–wasn't okay, he knew he did something wrong.
That's why I loved him in season 1, and I was so fucking happy to see his character in the rest of the series evolve. Like he really is the babygirl, our redemption king, and I love that for him.
#im going to cry if anything happens to him in s5#steddie#steve harrington#jonathan byers#nancy wheeler#stranger things#this does have something to do with my steddie fic btw so like hint hint#a nice angsty p0rnwithplot abo steddie one shot
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Will is wearing blue. If we get a mike wheeler leak in yellow I will scream.
#hoping for another byler fight/angsty scene#stranger things#byler#stranger things 5#will byers#mike wheeler#byler nation
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When Steve’s parents finally come back to Hawkins several months after the end of the end, they cut Steve off fairly quickly.
There have been rumors, you see, from the few of their friends still left in Hawkins. About the company Steve keeps, galivanting all over town with that Satan-worshipping murderer Munson. And when they finally arrive back at their large, cold house and Munson’s the one who answers the door, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers and one of Steve’s old basketball t-shirts? Well, what their son has really been up to becomes all too clear to them, and, careful not to make a scene that the neighbors will hear, they find Steve and tell him that he’s out in no uncertain terms.
Not wanting either of them to get caught in the cross-fires of his dad’s anger, Steve grabs as many of his belongings as he can and goes without much of a fight, at Eddie’s insistence following his van in the Beemer all the way back to the Munson trailer.
Steve moves in with Eddie and Wayne. It isn’t even really a conversation; Eddie just takes it as a given fact, and Steve feels compelled to argue, but every time he starts Eddie cuts him off with a reminder that they’ve practically been living together anyway, shuffling back and forth between the trailer and Steve’s big empty house.
“What, big boy, you gonna rebuff my advances now?” Eddie asks, teasing but laying on just a subtle enough guilt trip he knows Steve won’t be able to say no. He’s a pushover that way, always caves to the people he cares about. Eddie can’t help but love that about him.
They don’t leave Hawkins. It’s hell, sometimes, what with Eddie’s reputation, and the whisperings now that Steve no longer lives in the big Harrington house. But they saved this town from hell itself, and that makes them both develop a certain stubbornness about it. Plus, the kids are still in school, and there’s an unspoken certainty that Steve won’t leave until they do, even with the threat over and the Upside Down gone.
But the general atmosphere makes finding gainful employment hard. Eddie still has a few connections at the shop in town, Thacher Tire, with the folks who weren’t susceptible to the things other people said about Eddie to start with. They recommend him to the guys at a garage a few towns over about thirty minutes away. Not completely outside the scope of rural Indiana gossip, but distant enough most people don’t recognize Eddie right away, don’t put the pieces together between his name and the boy who was plastered all over the six o’clock news.
Steve, without making any mention of it, had quietly applied to Indiana Tech, certain he wouldn’t get in.
By some miracle, he’s almost certain, he does, enrolled with a declared major in elementary education. Steve hasn’t quite settled on what path he wants to take, mulling over teaching as well as guidance counseling, but it’s a start. It’s something. He transfers his home campus to the same one where Eddie’s new shop is and quits his job at Family Video, working there agonizing with Robin off at college.
Eddie picks him up off the ground and spins him around when he tells him, despite Steve’s laughing protests.
“I knew you could do it!” Eddie crows, triumphant.
“You did not, you didn’t even know I applied,” Steve argues, still laughing.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you, Stevie? I’m secretly a telepath,” Eddie taps the side of his head, grin wide and mischievous. “Can’t keep secrets out of this steel trap, I know everything.”
It’s Steve’s turn to tackle him in a playful hug, wrestling a minute before he pulls out his “winning move”: tugging Eddie by his belt loops into a kiss.
“It’s not even like it’s that big a deal,” Steve says once they’ve parted, shrugging. “Since it’s only part-time for now.”
He leaves the reasons why unsaid, but Eddie hears them loud and clear, anyway.
“Me and Wayne will chip in,” Eddie assures him.
“You don’t--that’s not--” Steve starts to argue, cut off when Eddie presses a finger against his lips.
“Can’t get rid of us now, Stevie boy. You’re family, now. Which means we’re in this together, right? Isn’t that what you always tell me?”
Steve huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I really hate it when you use my own arguments against me, Eds.”
Eddie grins, all-teeth. “I know.”
Steve opens his mouth again, and Eddie can sense the lingering guilt and shame in the line of his shoulders, the way he hunches in on himself as he no doubt to mounts another argument, trying to discourage Eddie further. That won’t do.
“Now you know how it felt,” Eddie cuts in gently, “when you used to offer to pay for shit all the time.”
“That was different,” Steve tries to insist.
“Oh, yeah?” Eddie cocks an eyebrow at him in challenge. “Different how?”
Without missing a beat, Steve replies, a bit of a grin starting to curl at the corners of his mouth, “Because, technically, I was stealing that money from my dad.”
Eddie can’t help but let out a bark of helpless laughter, any tension breaking.
So Steve accepts the “this is what we’re here for” argument, especially once Eddie makes clear Wayne won’t have it any other way, but he can’t quite convince Steve to bump up his status to full-time, not yet. Steve won’t let the Munsons pay his full way, is insistent he nail down a job, too, so they compromise with what they’ve got.
Steve looks for a job in downtown, not far from the school and Eddie’s work. There’s a beauty salon on one corner hiring and Steve figures what the hell? He hasn’t gone to cosmetology school, but he knows hair, and he’s gotten decent at doing Robin, Max, and El’s nails at sleepovers. Plus, he’s willing to learn, and that has to count for something.
His niche hair care product knowledge is enough to get him the job on the spot with the promise that he can apprentice a bit, learning as he goes.
Though it’s only part-time, the job turns out to be a perfect fit. Not only has he got the skills, but he’s friendly with a good personality and doesn’t mind indulging in a little small town gossip when it isn’t about him and his boyfriend. The clients quickly grow to love him, many starting to ask for him by name.
Steve and Eddie commute together, trading off who drives and saving on the gas money. The drive isn’t so far that they can’t drop Dustin and Max off at school on their way to the garage and campus respectively. (”At least until they get their licenses,” Eddie teases. “God, don’t remind me.” The mournful way Steve buries his face in his hands makes Eddie cackle.)
Their schedules keep things pretty hectic. They grab food together at the diner on main street during Steve’s free period and Eddie’s lunch hour. On the days Steve has night classes, Eddie hangs around the college library, using his boyfriend’s student ID to check out a few thick fantasy novels to keep him busy. The ladies at the salon all know Eddie by name from the times he’s been the one driving and picked Steve up, asking after Wayne when he sticks around to chat for a few minutes while Steve finishes up. When Steve has day classes and is free by early afternoon, he does his homework on the old leather couch in the garage’s lobby while he waits for Eddie to get off work. Sometimes Eddie finds him dozing off on the sofa. Sometimes Steve finds Eddie doing the same at a library table.
For the sake of safety, they’re discreet enough in public most people don’t catch on; Steve suppresses a snort every time one of Eddie’s work buddies has called Steve his “roommate.”
“Yeah, I’m some roommate,” Steve says drily later, when they’re alternating making out in the back of the van and splitting a joint between them.
“Best roommate I ever had, sweetheart,” Eddie leans in and catches Steve’s bottom lip between his teeth.
A few folks have cottoned on, however. One of the other mechanics is an old friend of Wayne’s from the war and their post-war protest days, and shares Eddie’s uncle’s stoic open-mindedness, asking after Eddie’s “fella.” The owner of the salon calls Eddie Steve’s “special friend” with a twinkling sort of knowingness, but she means well enough.
But, there’s other types of knowingness, too. Frankie, the middle-aged woman at the garage who gives the boys a nod with a twinkle in her eye on her way out when she catches Eddie practically throwing himself into Steve’s arms in the parking lot. Serenity, the punk stylist with multi-colored hair and piercings down her ear that mentions her own roommate to Steve with a Cheshire cat smile. Teddy, the shy 17 year-old taking classes while he’s still in high school with an eye on the cosmetology school who asks Steve if he can put in a good word for him at the salon.
“Did Robin tell you about that club they’ve got up at Emerson?” Steve asks one night over their dinner of cheeseburgers and fries. “The...GLA?”
“GSA,” Eddie corrects, “yeah, she told me. Gay-Straight Alliance, right? What about it?”
Steve hums, thoughtful.
“Maybe I’ll try to start one, next year. At Tech.”
There’s a delicate anxiety that ripples in the air between them, but there’s excitement, too, at the idea.
Eddie’s smile widens.
“That’s a great idea, Stevie.”
Friday nights are reserved for Corroded Coffin concerts, the boys rushing from work to the Hideout to make it in time for Eddie’s gig. The crowd is still modest, but growing, Eddie’s reputation, both tainted and reformed, a bolster that drew people in. “I mean, yeah, sure, but it’s the talent that got them to stay. Seriously, who could look away when Eddie’s the front man?” Steve is quick to insist whenever someone brings it up, hair teased and wearing his own band shirt proudly. By Saturday afternoon, the kids are all piled in around the coffee table for Eddie’s latest campaign, Steve setting out snacks and crowding around the table with them to watch, keeping up a commentary of snarky or confused asides just to rile Mike up. On Sundays, Steve cuts coupons at the Munson family dinner table, glasses he realized he needed a few weeks in to trying to make out the class blackboards slipping down his nose.
In between, he studies for long hours on the couch, determined not to mess things up this time. When he gets too tired, the words starting to blur on the page and his frustration becoming visible, Eddie will take the textbook from his hand and read it out loud to him, Steve tucked up contentedly against his boyfriend’s side.
Robin calls twice a week, spending at least an hour on the phone with Steve as she gives him the latest rundown on college life and how she and Nancy are faring. The rare times they all manage to be home at the same time, Steve and Eddie cook together, sharing a family meal with Wayne. They go to every one of Lucas’s basketball games they can manage, and Eddie has even made the special trip back to Hawkins to go alone when Steve can’t make it due to night school. His half butchered attempt to recount what happened afterwards always makes Steve giggle.
The following Christmas, Eddie buys Steve a pastel pink polo shirt he knows cost too much. Steve decides it’s the best piece of clothing he’s ever gotten, more aware of its worth than he had been of anything else hanging in his closet before. Eddie can barely get him to wear a coat over it even though it’s snowing outside.
They come together, like disparate pieces of a puzzle, to form this mosaic of a life they’ve built for themselves.
Steve thinks about it, one morning, as he watches Eddie pouring coffee into Steve’s ‘World’s Greatest Mom’ mug and Eddie’s own personal favorite, the one with the rainbow on the front. About picket fences and cross-country RV road trips with a gaggle of kids in the back.
This isn’t that, exactly. Not the life Steve had pictured for himself, clinging on desperately to a dream that comforted him when the world seemed dark. Certainly not the life his parents’ had wanted for him, if anything the exact opposite.
Maybe he’ll have the fantasy someday. Not the typical suburban nuclear family version of it, sure, but a version all his own.
And maybe he won’t. Steve wouldn’t trade it for this, anyway, even a second of it.
Because, for once, in his life, he’s happy. Tired, sure, and always unbelievably busy, but incandescently happy.
When Eddie turns and places Steve’s coffee in front of him, black with two sugars just the way Steve likes it, he catches Steve’s gaze. His eyebrows draw together at Steve’s expression, smile confused.
“What’re you staring at, big boy?” Eddie wipes at the corner of his mouth. “I got drool on my face or something?”
“Nothing,” Steve murmurs, still sleepy-eyed as he pulls Eddie down into a kiss, “just love you.”
“Yeah?” Eddie exhales the word against his lips, breathless like he still doesn’t quite believe it. “I love you, too, baby.”
Maybe they’ll move out of Hawkins, some day, when the kids finally graduate and scatter, follow Dustin to University of Chicago or wherever he ends up. Maybe they’ll take up an apartment near Nancy and Robin on the East Coast, or spend a summer with Jonathan and Argyle in San Fran, having a wild, queer time.
But, those are thoughts for the far distant future. For now, they’re happy. Safe. Satisfied.
Home.
#steddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#stranger things#my stuff#my things#my writing#something something building a life for yourself against the odds in a small town in the 80s#it sounds angsty at the start but i promise this is happy#more impossibly long not!fic from yours truly
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