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dreamsteddie · 4 months ago

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Enamored with an Eddie who comes back from the Upside Down completely changed and turns to writing as his only solace, eventually turning it into a successful career.

When Eddie realized that the grate wasn't closed properly and the bats started swarming, when he saw the fear in Dustin's eyes as they quickly lost control of the situation, he had been well and truly prepared to die. Part of him, privately, was hoping to die.

The town was out for his blood, his friends hadn't even come to the trailer park to check on him, and despite what he said, he knew 86' was not going to be his year. Not even close. At least if he died in the Upside Down, he died as a hero. Not a failed rockstar, or a high school dropout, or another victim of Hawkin's endless bloodthirst for anyone outside of their preconceived ideas of "normal". Not a mirror image of Al Munson.

So when he wakes up in the hospital, bedridden and dehydrated, it doesn't feel like a victory.

When Dustin comes in to see him, positively bursting at the seams with excitement at Eddie's long-awaited return to consciousness, Eddie can't say a word. He has to watch as the light in his too-wise eyes dims as Eddie just stares. He's trying, he's trying so fucking hard, to say anything, but the words have dried up.

All Eddie can think about is the lack of anything worthwhile waiting for him out in the big, scary world. He's missing the pinky on his left hand, and the corresponding elbow has been chewed to bits. Even through the opioids, he's aware of an odd, sharp tingling that screams nerve damage. He knows that he'll never play again, and if he does it will never be worth anything to anyone. He's not going to graduate, which is the one thing Wayne always wanted for him. The one thing that has always kept him going despite how much the world has tried to bury his head in the sand has been taken from him, his excitement to get out into the world.

When Eddie looks out the window in his hospital room, all he can think about is how badly it wants to swallow him up and spit him back out.

Dustin has to be dragged out of the room by Steve and Robin as Eddie's silence seems to make him hysterical. He's screaming at Eddie, mad and desperate and sad.

Eddie doesn't see him for a week. When he comes back he's sheepish but determined, carrying a load of books under his arm. Eddie still won't say a word, but Dustin sits by his bedside and reads out loud until his voice is hoarse. Tolkien, Le Guin, Pratchett. He ends every visit by taking his hand, squeezing it tight, and telling him he's glad he's alive. Eddie can't agree with him, but he's grateful that doesn't stop him from saying it.

Wayne is faithfully by his bedside. He doesn't say much, content in Eddie's silence the same way he was in the midst of his endless chatter. He holds his hand, brushes his hair, turns the TV to all his favorite channels, and settles in for the long haul the same way he always has. Eddie doesn't know what he would do without him.

The rest of the monster fighting crew are in and out. Steve is there the most, standing in a corner with his arms crossed near the door during Dustin's visits. He never says much, but Eddie thinks Steve might understand him the best. He thinks back to those moments in the Upside Down.

"Don't be cute"

"Please be safe"

"we are noooot heroes"

"We'll try our best"

"Steve...make him pay"

"I'm scared, but I'll keep him safe"

When Steve looks his way, it feels like someone is hearing him, hearing how loudly he's screaming in his head.

He's in the hospital for five months and not once during that time does he breathe a single word. He feels hollowed out in a way that's foreign to him, like a great void has taken the place of organs, veins, and muscles and left him cold and stiff.

When he gets home, a new but almost identical trailer sitting in the same plot as the last one, he's far from better. He's weak, and sore, and tired to the bone. Wayne has to go back to work, no two ways about it, so Eddie spends his days wasting away on the couch. Dustin is back at school, leaving long stretches of time where Eddie is alone with his void and the sound of him screaming into it, so he turns to his books.

Except there are only so many books in his possession and even if he wanted to leave his house, a feat that seems insurmountable in his current condition, he still can't walk more than the length of the trailer without feeling like he's going to collapse. So, he turns to his notebooks.

At first, it's just reems and reems of sloppy-looking screams. He tries to make them as loud and angry looking as the voice in his head. His hand aches, weak from damage and disuse, but when he's done his throat feels just a little looser. Like maybe that void just got a little smaller.

That's how Steve finds him, sitting on the couch huffing like he just ran a marathon, surrounded by pages and pages of frantic writing. He's been coming by once a day, usually for an hour or two after work, to sit with Eddie and hang out. Eddie is pretty sure Wayne asked him to, but he honestly doesn't care. Steve is a little more chatty in the confines of the trailer when it's just the two of them, and Eddie craves the presence of someone who gets it. Gets him.

Steve takes in the scene, gives a low whistle, and asks if Eddie feels a little better getting that all out. Eddie still can't talk, kind of hoped for a moment there that he would, but when all he does is nod Steve still gives him that annoyingly charming smile and a firm pat on the back with a wide, warm hand.

And, well, Eddie doesn't think he's ok, but for the first time in a long time, he thinks maybe he will be.

After that, it's like something is unlocked. He spends almost all day every day writing away in his notebooks. They used to be for songs and campaigns, but even the thought of music and DnD makes him feel like he's going to be sick, so instead he writes stories.

Eddie has always loved to spin a tale. As a child, his mom would make up stories of knights and princesses, bards and bakers, peasants and children, love and life. When she died, Eddie wrote as many as he could remember in a book that sits proudly on his shelf. He can't bring himself to crack it open, crack himself open, when he's already so vulnerable, but the act of building a narrative makes him feel closer to her.

He writes stories about a young alchemist falling in love in a foreign land. A scribe reluctantly taking up with a rouge knight until she reaches a more accepting kingdom. A princess working to expose the ugly underbelly of her village.

A handsome prince abdicating the throne to fight on the side of the rebels.

A disgraced bard finding his way home.

Day by day, page by page, the void gets smaller.

The first person he shares his writing with is Dustin. The younger boy spends all Saturday at the trailer with Eddie, chattering away about Suzey, the Party, school, and all the things a kid his age should be worried about. He never asks what he's writing, which probably means Steve warned him not to, which Eddie can't help but appreciate.

Eddie wordlessly hands him a notebook. The one he's been filling for the better part of the last two weeks. Dustin takes it with eager hands, flipping through pages until his eyes are clouded with tears and he's flinging himself into Eddie's side.

It's about two brothers, separated at birth but brought together by a mutual cause. They adventure across the kingdom, seeking the knowledge that will end the brutal war ravaging their homeland. In the end, the eldest must sacrifice himself for the other, but the youngest defies fate to save him. It ends with the eldest, unable to live the life he once thought he would lead, thanking his brother for fighting for him when he wasn't brave enough to do it himself.

He lets Dustin take that one home with him.

Ultimately, it's Steve that gets him to speak.

He doesn't try, never seems bothered by Eddie's lack of voice, content to pass notes and relish in the silent company.

Eddie hands him their story, the one about a handsome prince and a voiceless bard, and for the first time since he woke up is met with that terrible smile. The one that isn't a smile at all, but an apology. While Eddie and Max may have come out the worst, no one came out of the years of interdimensional terror unscathed, especially not Steve.

He explains that since last summer, his ability to read has deteriorated steadily. The doctors aren't sure exactly what the cause is, but they assume the continued damage to his head has damaged the centers of the brain dedicated to reading and writing.

But Edddie needs him to read this, needs him to know this. Because this is the only way Eddie can think to confess. Writing has become so much of who he is since he left that hospital bed, and he wants more than anything to offer it to Steve.

When he speaks, it's rough. Scratchy and almost incomprehensible but when he chances a look up Steve is giving him his undivided attention. It takes him all day, stopping and starting and getting water and fighting off the pull of the void. The only thing that keeps him going is the stars he sees in Steve's eyes.

When he's done, there's no room for the silence to build back up because Steve is cupping his face in his wide, warm palms and telling him how much he loves him, too.

In the end, Eddie never regains his voice entirely. He goes days, sometimes weeks without saying a word. A year in, when they've all accepted that Eddie will never be the same as he was, Robin invests in a handful of ASL books and drills them all in sign language until their fingers cramp.

Two years in, Steve and Eddie watch as the kids walk across the stage, all six of them flipping Principle Higgins the bird as they accept their diplomas. Eddie cheers so loud his throat aches the next day, telling them how proud he is of them even as their parents tell them off.

The year after that, Nancy confiscates one of his books and sends it to her friend in publishing, mailing him a generous publishing offer and a heartfelt letter that makes him cry. Steve holds him tight as they call Nancy to work out the details, his boyfriend talking into the phone for him as Eddie signs frantically.

Five and a half years after Eddie survived, Eddie's first book opens like this:

To the love of my life

Who hears me in my silence

And to myself

For filling the void with words