#it was a good trailer but even as a kid I was like….. that doesn’t look like Link

[cookie-waffle]

do ya’ll remember that fake April Fool’s trailer that IGN made? And it was like, exceptionally convincing, aside from the fact that the guy playing Link looked almost nothing like him.

[bleedingoptimism]

Eddie was ugly when he was a kid. Ugly with a capital U. And not like, his peers said he was, so he thought he was ugly, but he really wasn’t, no. He was UGLY. Big bottomless eyes, a big round nose, big mouth, full lips, small face, and with his head shaved even his ears looked too big. Plus he was thin and long-limbed... He looked like a bug! He was U-G-L-Y

But it’s okay. It’s just a universal truth and not a problem anymore because he grew up. And he grew into the too-big features that made him look bad. Now they are part of his charm. He grew up and he looks good now, and he knows it. His big dark eyes, his round nose, and his plump lips are attractive features now. 

The thing is, it didn’t bother him then, and it doesn’t bother him now. It’s an inconsequential matter, laughable really. So why is he wrestling Steve Harrington in his living room to stop him from looking at the photo he found while cleaning up Wayne’s trailer? Who knows, maybe, and just maybe he doesn’t want to hear Steve call him ugly. Maybe he’s vain like that. Maybe he doesn’t want the most beautiful boy he’s ever met to think he’s ugly. Maybe he doesn’t need confirmation that Steve will never notice him like that because he’s so out of his league they are not even playing the same sport. Not that Eddie knows anything about sports. Whatever.

Steve had come over to help him move out. He is moving in with Jeff to a tiny place that’s closer to college and Eddie had wanted to surprise Wayne by giving him back his room and leaving it spotless and fit for a grown man. And Steve had kindly offered to help when he’d told him about it.

They were just finishing up boxing some books when a photo fell out of an old copy of Moby Dick. Why was it there in the first place?! Eddie’s eyes had gone wide when he saw it was a ridiculous photo of him, standing straight and with a huge smile on his face hanging on to a pass-me-down backpack on his first day of school. He’d dived to the floor to try and grab it but when Steve saw he didn’t want him to see what it was…

Steve wanted to know what it was now, obviously.

He took the photo and ran back to the living room, screaming and laughing with Eddie close behind as he screamed bloody murder and jumped on top of him, clinging to his back. Steve stopped just long enough not to let him fall but then started running again trying to shake him off. Eddie let himself fall off Steve and grabbed him by the waist, pulling him close to him to try to grab the photo that Steve, giggling uncontrollably, was keeping at arm's length.

Eventually, when their lungs couldn’t get enough air, they stopped struggling and sighed in unison, which prompted another laughing fit. And then, Steve looked at the photo, with Eddie still holding onto him from behind, looking over his shoulder.

When he saw the picture again Eddie flinched waiting for Steve’s laugh. And laugh he did but not meanly, instead he said,

“Oh my god, Eddie you were so cute!” 

“Shut up. No, I wasn’t” he answered with a scoff. Then, and just then, he noticed the position they were in. How close he was standing to Steve. He swallowed loudly and looked at Steve, to see if he noticed too, to see if he’d pull away.

But Steve was smiling at the photo, biting his lip and letting little giggles escape from time to time, “You were!” he insists. 

Eddie laughs, “Dude, stop I was not. You don’t have to mean about it” starting to get a little annoyed but Steve shakes his head looking way too sincere.

“You are not serious,” Eddie frowns searching his eyes which are still looking at the picture, “Look at my tiny face and the ears!” He says exasperated.

Steve chuckles again, “I know, they are huge! And the eyes! Oh my god- You looked like a bug Eddie-!” he laughs, and yep. There it is. Eddie thinks bitterly- “You were so pretty!” Steve exclaims actually cooing at him.

And wait- 

“You are ridiculous” Eddie laughs and Steve finally turns to look at him and notices how close they are. He blushes furiously and Eddie is so close to his face that he can feel the heat on his cheeks now. Eddie removes his hands from Steve’s waist so he doesn’t feel trapped by him, but moves his face a fraction closer and smirks flirtingly at him, “Were?” he asks.

Steve blinks at him and Eddie can feel his eyes moving across his face as if it were a caress. He looks at his eyes, his nose, his jaw, his lips, he swallows and his eyelids fall a little before he looks back up at Eddie’s eyes and smiles shyly before he says, “Are. You are pretty.” and Eddie closes the distance between them. 

💋

a drink? ☕🥐💕

[loveinhawkins]

The problem is that a part of Steve knows the spider isn’t real.

But it’s the suggestion of it, right? Cobwebs in his hair, movement just out the corner of his eye; it’s all enough to convince him that there’s something crawling on his skin, to let out a panicked whisper to Nancy, there was a spider. It’s a black widow.

He tries to disregard it as a one-off. It’s an old creepy house. Just got him spooked for a bit, that’s all.

But then… diving into Lover’s Lake. Bats biting into his flesh. Overwhelming dizziness.

Nancy wrapping torn strips of clothing tight around—there’s something crawling, crawling underneath his skin, no, there isn’t, no, there—a bike ride through The Upside Down; one hacking cough, pushing through it, pushing through it—

Swallows it all down. Ignores the sweat, the tackiness around his bandage. Shh. Calm, calm.

Drives the RV. Doesn’t know how he’s even moving, is just grateful—grateful that his mind on autopilot seems to still function.

The War Zone. In and out. Parked. Sun in his eyes. Kids outside.

The feeling comes back. Something. Something under his skin. (In his blood, in all of him—)

“S’there something in my hair?” he asks Eddie, who’s mid-step out of the RV.

Eddie turns back with an air of amusement. “Nope,” he says. “Looks perfectly coiffed to me, man.”

“Can you—can you just check?”

Look closer, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.

“Uh, sure,” Eddie says, bemused. He sits next to Steve and tilts his head before lifting a hand uncertainly. “You want me to, uh?”

“Yeah, thanks. Just… there was a spider on me.”

It’s not what Steve wants to say at all, but there’s a sudden, terrifying disconnect between the thoughts in his head and what actually comes out of his mouth.

“Oh, you don’t like them, huh?”

Eddie’s not even teasing, just sounds understanding; he lifts up a few sections of hair carefully, taking his time. He’s so kind. Steve abruptly wants to cry.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” Eddie continues. “I have the same thing with mice. The way they move. Creepy little feet.” He shudders dramatically.

Steve wants to laugh at that. Can’t.

Eddie runs his fingers through Steve’s hair a couple more times, gentle.

You don’t have to, Steve thinks. Make it hurt. Get it out. Did you find it? Please say you found it.

“Good news, you’re officially spider-free, Harrington.”

Eddie claps him on the shoulder, stands up.

Steve doesn’t move.

Eddie pauses again, halfway out the door. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Just need some air.”

He goes through the motions of prepping for the fight. Chats with Robin. She talks about a terrible, gnawing feeling, and he wants to scream yes, I know, I know, but he can’t tell her, why can’t he tell her?

Shh. Calm, calm.

Drives the RV. Forest Hills.

He brakes with no warning, sends bottles of alcohol rolling across the floor. He’s mad suddenly that they didn’t smash. He’s so—

Slip away.

Eddie’s trailer. Lets himself in.

Bathroom.

The wound on his stomach pulses. He doubles over the toilet. Throws up.

His skin is crawling.

There, in the back of his mind, a creeping coldness. A thought that is not his own.

I will kill them all. And I will make you watch.

Oh, God. Oh, God, he’s been so stupid.

-

Eddie finds him first.

He picks up one fallen bottle of alcohol before a gut feeling pulls him out of the RV—because Steve Harrington is a good driver, and he’d only brake like that if he had no choice.

“Steve?”

But Steve’s not waiting for them on the porch, he’s not even by the Gate.

Clattering; a strangled cry.

Eddie’s stomach lurches.

He runs towards the noise, opens the bathroom door and is instantly hit by the acrid smell of vomit.

“Steve! Jesus Christ.”

Steve’s pushed up against the cistern. There’s a damp patch all across his stomach, and his chest is heaving.

“Oh my God, Steve, what’s—”

Eddie reaches for him instinctively, and Steve flinches as if he’s been struck.

“No, don’t!”

“Jesus, you’re burning up,” Eddie whispers, drawing his hand back; Steve’s skin is feverishly hot, slick with sweat. He looks around frantically for a cloth, turns on the cold water. “Gotta get you cooled—”

Something slams into him; he’s pinned against the sink, Steve’s hand clamped around his throat.

“No,” Steve repeats. “Don’t.”

“Okay,” Eddie manages. He chokes on a swallow. “S-Steve, you’re—you’re—”

His hand flails, trying to pry Steve’s fingers off.

Steve’s grip loosens ever so slightly. His eyes are wide, bloodshot. Pleading.

“Eddie,” he says through gritted teeth. “You need to hurt me.”

With the last of his strength, Eddie gets his knee up and jabs—it’s barely anything, but it works enough to break Steve’s hold.

Eddie staggers; his back slams against the door. He’s shaking.

Steve stares at him. He’s gripping onto the sink so tightly that Eddie thinks it’s a miracle that it doesn’t crack.

And then there’s a horrible, guttural noise like Steve’s started to choke too, like he’s at war with himself.

Barely audible, he says, “Get… get Nancy.”

Eddie runs.

He nearly falls into Nancy as he opens the front door. He’s breathless, can’t think of what to say, save from—

“Wheeler, he needs you.”

It happens in an instant: Nancy’s brow pinches, and then she goes very pale, and she’s shouting for Robin and Dustin to stay in the RV, like she can turn on a dime, launched into an unknown crisis.

She pushes past Eddie, and he follows her, back into the bathroom.

The cold water is still running.

Steve’s got his hands in the sink. He looks at Nancy desperately.

“S-stop me.”

Another choking sound is ripped from Steve’s throat; Eddie realises that it’s actually a dry sob.

“Nance,” Steve says. It’s half her name, half a pained whine. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I—I know everything.”

And then he’s suddenly launching towards them—it’s only the fact that he’s so completely freaked out that makes Eddie move in time, saves him from getting strangled again.

He grabs Steve’s wet hands, pins them behind his back and tries to hold him still.

“Jesus! Wheeler, what the fuck is going—”

“Do you have anything that can knock him out?” Nancy says.

“What?”

“Drugs, Eddie!”

“Are you crazy? There’s no way—oh my God, what are you—”

Crack.

Nancy’s grabbed the cistern lid, brought it down upon Steve’s head. Eddie looks at Steve lying eerily still on the floor in abject horror.

There’s blood in his hair.

Eddie feels sick.

But Nancy just watches, as if to confirm that Steve’s not moving. She looks Eddie in the eye.

“Come on. That’s only gonna work for so long.”

Eddie just follows her out, too shocked to even attempt speaking.

It’s chaotic at the RV; Dustin sees them coming, leaps out of the door as Robin yells at him.

“Where’s Steve?”

“Get back inside.”

“Nancy, where the hell is he?”

“We can talk inside.”

“Bullshit, I’m—”

“Dustin, he’s Flayed,” Nancy says, her voice breaking, and all the fight goes out of Dustin at once.

“No, that’s—he can’t—”

Eddie finally finds his voice. “Can someone tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”

Nancy doesn’t speak, not until they’re in the RV, the door locked behind her.

“I think it’s the—the bites—”

Robin swears, a hand over her mouth.

“Flayed?” Eddie persists.

“The Mind Flayer,” Dustin says numbly. “It’s what we—it’s a part of The Upside Down. It—it used Will to… to spy on…”

“And what, it’s—” Eddie swallows. “It’s inside him?”

“Like a virus. He’s part of the Hive Mind,” Nancy says.

Eddie’s knees feel weak.

“Fuck,” Dustin says. “He knows where we are, he’ll know—”

“It’s too late to change that,” Nancy says. “We just have to—at least someone needs to stay with him.”

“I will,” Robin says instantly, eyes blazing.

“Me too,” Dustin says.

Nancy glances at him, shakes her head—firm but apologetic. “You can join Erica.” And as Dustin opens his mouth, no doubt to argue, she adds, “I’m sorry, Dustin. It’s just—we might need to… to fight him.”

Dustin doesn’t reply, but looks so utterly devastated that Eddie wishes he’d insisted on diving first, that the bats had torn into him instead.

“Keep him warm,” Nancy tells Robin urgently. “And I don’t mean just—it’s got to be unbearable.”

Robin nods, ashen-faced.

Nancy catches Eddie’s eye. “The one thing that fucker can’t stand is heat.”

She paces up and down the RV, checking for stray bottles. Then she comes to a stop right in front of Robin.

“He—he might beg,” she whispers. “And it won’t—it’ll sound like him. Like he just wants the pain to stop.”

Robin’s eyes look glassy. “Nance, I don’t—don’t know if I can—”

“I’ll do it,” Eddie says.

He feels everyone’s eyes on him, but he just looks at Nancy, at the determined set to her jaw.

He doesn’t know when he made the decision, if he can even pinpoint a conscious moment of thought—but now that the words are out, he feels the vow he’s made, deep in his chest.

Nancy hands him a bottle and cloth.

A lighter.

She fixes Eddie with a piercing look. “It’s going to look like you’re killing him,” she says.

Eddie nods.

He turns, offers Robin his hand.

“C’mon, Buckley. Let’s get that bastard out of him.”

[solarmorrigan]

Hands Where I Can See Them, Part 4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The only thing Eddie is dreading as much as Steve’s return for his things is Wayne’s inevitable question about where Steve is at all.

After all, Steve has practically been living with them for weeks – something that Eddie may not have allowed himself to consider the significance of, but which Wayne cannot have failed to notice. Though Steve had (apparently) felt the need to do things around the trailer to stay in Wayne’s good graces, he really didn’t have to worry about it; Wayne likes him, and he’ll be asking sooner or later just where Steve has gone.

‘Sooner’ comes two nights after Eddie royally fucks things over. It’s Wayne’s night off, and there’s really no avoiding him; their new trailer is bigger than the last, but it’s still close quarters, and Eddie gets caught when he passes through the living room to get a drink from the kitchen.

“Noticed Steve isn’t here tonight,” Wayne says, blunt as hell, because he doesn’t see the point in doing things any other way.

“Nope,” Eddie says shortly, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it from the tap.

“Wasn’t here last night, either,” Wayne goes on.

“He was not,” Eddie confirms.

“Wasn’t here when I got in yesterday morning,” Wayne says.

“You are a veritable font of observation tonight,” Eddie says, only a little snarky.

Wayne shrugs. “Hard not to notice when he’s here nine days out of ten, then suddenly up and disappears,” he says. He pauses a moment before adding, “Stuff’s gone from the bathroom, too.”

Eddie occupies himself with slowly swallowing down half his glass of water before he answers. “Yeah.”

“Don’t suppose he’s going on a trip,” Wayne doesn’t quite ask, and Eddie lets out a bitter sort of laugh.

“Loving the optimism from you, but no, not… not so much.”

There are a few beats of silence, and then Wayne lets out a slow sigh. Eddie knows him well enough to understand the sound of it – he’s just decided to get involved.

“You two have a fight?”

“Something like that,” Eddie mutters.

“Well that’s vague as hell, son. You have a fight, or didn’t you?” Wayne prods.

Slowly, Eddie shakes his head. “No, I– I don’t think so. I think it was all me,” he says, finally looking up from his glass and meeting Wayne’s questioning gaze. “I fucked up, Wayne.”

There’s no immediate judgement coming from Wayne, no suspicion or scorn, not even a shake of the head and some variation of “Of course you did.” There’s only a measured sort of curiosity in his stare, the same way it’s been since Eddie was a kid and Wayne was trying to figure him out; it’s sort of comforting in its familiarity, in its neutrality.

“You wanna tell me about it?” Wayne asks.

Eddie knows that if he says no, Wayne will let it go. He might keep sending curious and worried looks Eddie’s way, he might ask a few more prodding questions over the next few days, but he won’t make Eddie say anything he doesn’t want to. And Eddie doesn’t really want to – but he thinks that maybe he needs to.

“If… you had to define mine and Steve’s relationship, what would you say?” Eddie asks after a moment.

Wayne cocks an eyebrow at him. “I’d say that feels like a trick question.”

Eddie lets out a little huff of a laugh. “It’s not, I swear. I’m seriously curious,” he says. “There are no wrong answers – go.”

“Well,” Wayne says, still eyeing Eddie consideringly, “I don’t know if you kids put labels on things these days or what, but from the outside, I’d say you’re dating. I’d say that boy is fully in love with you and that you’re at least halfway to loving him back.”

“Right.” Eddie gives a jerky nod. “Seems like that’s what pretty much everyone thinks.”

“But that’s not what’s going on,” Wayne takes a guess.

“Well, that depends on your perspective,” Eddie says, a little high and tight.

“Well, the only perspectives worth a damn here’re yours’n Steve’s,” Wayne shoots back. “So what would those be?”

Eddie drains the last of his water, turning away to put the glass in the sink. “Steve… shares your perspective. Or, uh– he did. But I… I didn’t realize he was so serious. I thought we were just kind of messing around.”

The silence from behind Eddie is so thick that he can’t help but finally turn around and meet Wayne’s gaze again.

“That’s a hell of a blind spot, Ed,” Wayne says simply, and Eddie folds in on himself a bit, crossing his arms over his chest. His main defense has always been to become larger than life – to make big gestures and even bigger speeches, but everything about this situation makes him feel like nothing so much as small.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“So, what, you figured out how serious he was and thought you didn’t want that?” Wayne asks, and Eddie hunches a little further in on himself.

“Nope. No, that– would’ve been better, actually. If that’s what happened. But that’s not what happened, because did I mention I fucked up? Because I seriously fucked up.” Eddie’s rambling is stemmed by an expectant look from Wayne. “It’s just – the other night, when the guys were over, we got to talking about it. The whole… me and Steve thing. As in, they thought me and Steve were a thing. And they asked me about it. While Steve was out of the room. And then he, uh. Hm.” Eddie rubs a hand nervously over his chin. “He walked back in when I was in the middle of telling them that he's just a friend and that we’re just having fun. And that’s… when I found out how serious he was.”

“Eddie…”

“I know. I know!” Eddie doesn’t even have to look at Wayne to catch the disappointment coming off of him, so he doesn’t. He scrubs hands over his face and then just leaves him there, telling the rest of the story to his palms. “He was so fucking upset, Wayne, I think– I think I actually made him cry? And the only reason he hasn’t been here to get the rest of his stuff out of the trailer yet is because he was down with a migraine the next day. Like, I hurt him so badly I made him physically ill. So I didn’t just fuck up, but I’m actually a horrible human being and should probably spend the rest of my days living in isolation so I don’t ruin anyone else’s life.”

Wayne is silent for so long that Eddie is eventually forced to peek out from behind his fingers.

“You’re not gonna tell me how bad I fucked up?” Eddie asks, still a bit muffled.

“Seems like you have that covered already,” Wayne says, then he holds up one arm in offer, nodding towards the empty spot beside him on the couch. “C’mere.”

He doesn’t need to ask Eddie twice. No matter how old he gets, Eddie doesn’t think a genuine hug from his uncle will ever stop being comforting, and regardless of whether or not he thinks he actually deserves it right now, he’s going to take it. He crashes down onto the couch and leans heavily into Wayne’s side, sighing as Wayne wraps his arm around his shoulders.

“You’re not a bad person, Ed. You made a mistake, s’all,” Wayne says, and Eddie scoffs.

“Pretty big fucking mistake,” he mutters.

“Yep, that was a doozy. You hurt someone you care about, and you might not be able to fix it all the way. But that doesn’t make you terrible. Makes you human.” Wayne gives Eddie a comforting squeeze. “And Steve ain’t a bad person, either. He’ll know you mean it when you tell him you’re sorry.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly.

“You think about what you’re gonna do when he does show to get the rest of his stuff?” Wayne asks.

“Besides grovel?” Eddie shoots back.

“I mean, what’re you gonna grovel for?”

Eddie lets out a long breath. “I… I know I might not be able to fix it, but I just – I want the chance to try. I’m hoping he’ll just give me that chance.” Eddie pauses for a moment, choked by the dread of the thought that Steve might not give him that chance. “Things don’t have to go back to the way they were, but I at least want him to know that even if I’m shit at showing it, I do care.”

“Sounds like a decent place to start,” Wayne says.

“Think so?” Eddie asks.

“Mm.”

“Well… I hope Steve thinks so, too.”

Wayne gives his shoulders another squeeze and says nothing more, but he doesn’t really have to. He’s already settled Eddie’s nerves more than he’d thought possible; just this is more than enough.

Now Eddie just has to try to hold onto the feeling long enough to talk to Steve.

-

It turns out, Eddie doesn’t have to hold onto the feeling for very long at all; the very next morning—two days after Robin had read Eddie the riot act and left him to begin tentatively planning—another knock comes at the door.

It’s ten in the morning – not as early as Eddie had expected, but early enough that he’s not long out of bed when he opens the door to find Steve on the other side.

In contrast to Eddie’s sweatpants and t-shirt, Steve looks like he’s trying very hard to look like he’s alright. His polo is clean and tucked in, the collar is straight, his hair is as perfectly styled as ever – but there’s still something off. There are dark circles under his eyes, stark against a paler than normal complexion, and none of the ease or contentment that Eddie has grown used to shines from his face. He feels a little like he wants to mourn its absence.

“Hey,” Steve says, nodding in greeting.

“Hey,” Eddie says back, because for all his thoughts and planning, he hadn’t really considered how to start this encounter.

“I came to get my shit out of your way,” Steve says, and Eddie frowns.

It’s not in my way, he wants to say. You’re not in my way. Leave your stuff. Stay.

“Uh. Yeah, sure,” Eddie says instead, stepping aside to let Steve in.

Steve is carrying a cardboard box, but doesn’t seem to have anything or anyone else in tow. For as spread throughout Eddie’s life as Steve has become, he wonders if all of him will fit into that one box.

“Kinda surprised you didn’t bring Buckley to help pack,” Eddie says, glancing back out the screen door, as if Robin might appear out of nowhere.

“Just dropped her off at work,” Steve says. “I figured she probably already had… words for you when she picked up my meds, and I didn’t think any of us needed an encore.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says quietly. “The stuff she said got me thinking.”

In the process of grabbing a jacket he’d left behind off one of the hooks by the door, Steve only glances back at Eddie. “I’m sure she had a lot to say,” he says, carefully neutral.

“Yeah. She, uh – definitely did. Can we talk?” Eddie asks.

Steve sighs. “Eddie…”

“Just hear me out, please. Then I’ll get out of your way and let you pack in peace, I promise,” Eddie says.

“We don’t– have to talk about it,” Steve says, turning back to face Eddie. “Look, I’m sorry for putting my weird expectations on you. I was reading into stuff that wasn’t there, and I made assumptions instead of just talking to you, and that’s on me. So I’m gonna just – get out of your hair, and you won’t have to deal with my stupid, delusional bullshit anymore.”

“No, that’s not– Steve–” Eddie reaches out for Steve as he tries to brush past on his way to the bedroom, where most of his belongings are. He gets a hand around Steve’s bicep and, though Steve doesn’t jerk away this time, he goes stiff and still beneath Eddie’s touch, prompting Eddie to let go.

It hurts; even though Eddie’s done it to himself, the reaction still hurts. He’s always reached for Steve in the past, always had his hands on him, and Steve had always welcomed him, even before they’d started sleeping together. Now, Eddie takes a step back, forcing himself to give Steve some space.

“That’s not what I want to say at all,” he says. “I mean – I would’ve liked if we’d talked about it, because then I would’ve known, and I could’ve appreciated what it was – what we were doing.”

Steve turns back to face Eddie, his gaze snapping straight to him with equal suspicion and confusion. “What?”

“Steve, you weren’t reading into things that weren’t there, you’re not– you’re not stupid or delusional, I was just – I was sending you mixed signals,” Eddie says. “I was so wrapped up in thinking that I knew what was going on, that I didn’t look at what I really had, and I’m sorry. But if I knew, if I’d just gotten my head out of my ass, you have to believe that in a heartbeat, I would have–”

“Don’t,” Steve cuts in sharply.

“Steve–”

“I don’t need whatever this is, Eddie,” Steve snaps. “You don’t need to have pity on your pathetic ex-whatever I am to you, okay? It’s okay, just– just let it go.”

“This isn’t pity,” Eddie insists with an incredulous little laugh. “It’s fucking not, I swear! This is me saying that I fucked up and I hurt you and I want to make it up to you. I haven’t done anything to deserve it, but I want the chance to show you how sorry I am and how much you mean to me– in whatever capacity you’ll let me.”

“Whatever capacity?” Steve stares at him, brows furrowed.

“Whatever you’ll be comfortable with. As a friend, or… as more, if that bridge hasn’t burned,” Eddie says.

“What, so now I’m relationship material?” Steve asks, pointed.

Eddie winces. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said any of that, and if I could go back in time and slap myself upside the head before I let any of that shit out and hurt you with it, I would. I know that… I know I didn’t pay enough attention to you, but I also wasn’t paying very much attention to how I was feeling,” he says. “Because honestly? I’m kind of a moron, Steve. I’ve never had sex with someone I really liked, with someone who was anything like a friend, and when I started wanting to be around you all the time, and always wanting you within reach, and when every little thing started to remind me of you, I just thought… yeah, this is what friends-with-benefits feels like. Y’know, like a fucking idiot.”

Steve doesn’t laugh. “I don’t know if I can trust you on that,” he says softly, and that’s fair.

It hurts, but it’s fair.

“Then let me earn your trust back. Please, Steve, just… give me the chance,” Eddie implores, doesn’t even care that he’s basically begging – Eddie doesn’t beg, but for Steve, he’ll make an exception. For Steve, he thinks he’ll do just about anything.

Pursing his lips, Steve looks at the floor beside Eddie’s feet for a long moment, and Eddie gives him the time to sort his thoughts out.

“I want to say yes. Part of me just wants to accept your apology and pretend that none of this happened. Just keep going the way we were,” he says. “But I can’t keep doing that – ignoring shit. I just… can’t.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Eddie says. “I don’t want things to be like they were before, I want – I want to be better. I want to do better.”

“How?” Steve asks, both challenging and curious.

“I want to do it right. I want to show you how much I appreciate you, and how much you mean to me. I want to treat you like you deserve to be treated,” Eddie insists. “And if that’s just by being the best friend I can be, then that’s what I’ll do, but I would love—love—if you’d let me romance you.”

That briefly breaks through Steve’s stony façade, and he lets out a huff of a laugh. “Romance me?”

“Shit, yeah. Flowers and chocolates and candle-lit dates – the whole nine yards,” Eddie says with a slow grin. “All the things you’ve given other people but that no one has ever given you.”

“I…” Steve starts, his own humor fading quickly. “I don’t know.”

It’s better than an outright ‘no.’

“That’s okay,” Eddie promises. “You don’t have to know right now. I can wait. I’m a patient kinda guy.”

(That’s an absolute lie, and they both know it, but Eddie will find all the patience in the world if Steve needs time to think.)

Slowly, Steve nods. “I think… Just, give it a couple of weeks, okay? Really think about it, and if this – if I’m something you still want by then, come talk to me again,” he says. “Alright?”

“Yeah.” Eddie nods rapidly. “As much time as you want. I’m not going to up and change my mind. Two weeks, I’ll ask again.”

Steve shrugs, taking a step back towards the bedroom.

“I will,” Eddie promises – not defensive, but certain. He can wait two weeks. He can wait as long as Steve needs him to. Maybe he can take the time to get his shit together.

He does care about Steve. He does pay attention – and he’s going to prove it.

But in the meantime, the only thing Steve has asked for is space, so Eddie gives it to him. He retreats to the kitchen to let Steve pack up in peace, trying hard not to feel bereft at the thought of the gaps Steve will be leaving behind.

If he’s lucky—if he’s very, very lucky—it won’t be forever.

Part 5

-

Tag List (drop me a line if you want on or off the ride): @bushbees @y0urnewstepp4r3nt @gleek4twd @hellfireone @westifer-dead @anne-bennett-cosplayer @starman-jpg @mugloversonly @swimmingbirdrunningrock @alycatavatar @y4r3luv @rhapsodyinalto @vinteraltus @lilpomelito @tillystealeaves @noctxrn-e

I did my best to catch everyone, but there were a few people Tumblr wouldn't let me tag. Sorry if I missed you!

[steddielations]

Wayne pov, implied neglect, abandonment

Wayne gets a call from Hawkins Elementary that Eddie hasn’t been to school in two days.

They couldn’t get ahold of Al on the phone, as usual. Wayne hopes his suspicions are wrong, but he already knows what he’s going to find when he shows up to the shabby old house on Philadelphia street with a McDonald’s bag in hand.

His knock on the door goes unanswered, but he sees small fingers and big round eyes peeking through the side window blinds. 

“Hey, Eddie, it’s your Uncle Wayne. Open the door, it’s alright.”

Eddie shuffles away from the window, but there’s still no answer.

“You hungry? I brought those nugget things you like, that’s all. Some kinda toy in here too.”

After a moment, the door slowly opens a sliver. One big button eye peeks through the crack and a pale skinny arm reaches out.

Wayne hands over the food. “Gonna let me come inside?” 

Eddie’s arm snakes back in with the bag like a claw machine. But after another moment, the door swings open fully, revealing Eddie in rumpled clothes at least a couple days worn. The shadows under his eyes tell Wayne all he needs to know.

“Dad’s gone to the store,” Eddie smiles nervously, he didn’t inherit Al’s ability to lie behind it. “He said he’ll be right back.”

Wayne just nods as he comes inside. One look around confirms what he already knew. By the window, there’s a blanket and a scatter of candy wrappers and empty soda cans where Eddie’s been sleeping. Waiting and watching the driveway for Al.

This wouldn’t be the first time Al’s gone off and left Eddie to fend for himself. Wayne’s been helping out as much as he can since Eddie’s poor mama passed. He doesn’t know much about raising kids but he knows Al’s one dumb selfish bastard to be leaving Eddie alone for days since the ripe age of 8.

Wayne ignores the twist in his chest and the stab of anger he feels and doesn’t mention it. He follows Eddie to the coffee table in front of the couch where Eddie digs into the McDonald’s sack.

“School called and said you weren’t there. You feelin’ bad?” He reaches out, gently pushing back Eddie’s wild curls to feel his forehead. He’s surprised Eddie lets him, too busy scarfing down chicken nuggets. “No fever.” Wayne notes, but Eddie’s hair needs a good wash.

Eddie’s narrow shoulders slump a bit. He doesn’t look at Wayne, tearing open his chocolate milk with his teeth. 

“I just— didn’t wanna go today. I hate school. Miss Taylor always gives me a bad behavior grade even when I act the best in class. She calls me Junior. Munson Junior.”

“Thought you liked being called Junior. Like your dad.”

Eddie shrugs, those shadows darkening on him. “Everyone forgets I have my own name too. Sometimes I just wanna be Eddie.”

Already, he’s feeling the weight of his last name. Al taught him to hotwire the second he turned 10 and how to pick locks even before that. Munson tradition, Al wouldn’t listen when Wayne told him that’s bullshit. What seem like cool tricks to Eddie now already make him guilty in everyone’s eyes. Wayne’s been feeling it all his life, thanks to his old man and now Eddie’s got Al to thank for making it even worse.

“That’s good, you just keep reminding them,” Wayne says, being careful with his next words. “When you finish that, why don’t you go pack a bag, alright? You can come stay with me until your dad gets back.”

Eddie goes stiff, chewing slower now. “It— it hasn’t been long. He said he’d be right back.” His eyes drift over to Wayne, checking to see if he buys it. Wayne doesn’t. So Eddie huffs, “I wanna stay here. I hate the trailer park.”

That’s just him repeating Al’s shit talk, so Wayne doesn’t take offense. “Your friend’s been askin’ about you. That little girl next door.”

Eddie perks up at that, “Ronnie?” Wayne nods and thinks that does the trick for a second, but Eddie stubbornly sulks again. “I can’t go. Dad told me to stay here until he gets back.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be here alone. You don’t have to be.”

“I’m not scared to stay by myself,” Eddie insists, sitting up straighter, looking even younger trying to look older. “Dad said I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m 10 now and I can look after myself. He taught me to use the stove and everything. I always do fine on my own.”

“So he’s been leaving a lot, then? You know you can call me to come pick you up,” Wayne tries not to frame it like it’s Eddie’s fault, pointing to where his phone number is pinned on the fridge with a magnet.

Eddie’s lip wobbles despite how he tries to square his jaw.

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“You ain’t—”

“You said to call if I need you and I don’t need you, Wayne! I'm fine!”

Eddie shoves the food away, his eyes wide and shiny when he cuts them back to Wayne. Not glaring with anger, just hurt. 

“It’s not fine,” Wayne tells him, gentle as the first time he held him, just a tiny thing all bundled up in Elizabeth’s knitting. “Your dad’s got his head in his ass again. You can’t stay here on your own, no matter what he said. I ain’t leaving you by yourself.”

“I’m not going.” Eddie’s more pleading now than arguing. “I have to stay here so Dad can find me when he gets back. Don’t you get that? If I’m not here, I won’t see him.”

That’s what it’s really about, Eddie thinking it’s his responsibility to keep up with his Dad. Instead of the other way around.

“If he comes looking for you, he’ll know where to find you.” But Al won’t. It’s never Eddie that he comes back for. Wayne doesn’t tell Eddie that, but now Eddie’s starting to learn that on his own. Al proved it to him time and time again.

“Why do you even care?” Eddie’s angry now. But it’s not really Wayne that he’s mad at. They both know that.

“It’s alright, son, c’mon now.” Wayne reaches for him but Eddie quickly pushes his hand away.

“You aren’t my dad.” Tears escape with the words, and seeing his pain hurts Wayne more than anything he could say, or do. He pushes Wayne again. “So why do you care? Why are you here?”

He doesn’t need an answer, he just needs to let it out.

So Wayne sits there while Eddie shoves his chest and cries harder, “You aren’t my dad. Why do you care?” Wayne curls his hands around Eddie’s smaller ones as the question turns to, “Why aren’t you?” Then it’s a broken little sob of, “Why aren’t you my dad?”

Wayne catches Eddie when he finally tires himself out, and instead of pushing Wayne away, Eddie’s clinging to him. Eddie’s holding on like Wayne’s all he’s got left in the world. Wayne hugs Eddie to his chest, wishing there was more he could do.

Al put a hole in Eddie and he’s digging it deeper everyday, one that Wayne won’t ever quite fit into. He tries to fill it the best he can, giving Eddie the only bedroom in the trailer, going to the talent show because Al never makes good on his promises to be there for Eddie, not letting Eddie stay in this damn house alone waiting for someone who’s never gonna show up. Maybe Wayne’s not that someone, but he can still be here for Eddie. And he’s gonna be.

“C’mon, let’s get you outta here.”

[steviesbicrisis]

Steve’s best relationship wasn’t even a relationship. He could barely call it a fling, a flirt. They never even went on a date. They never kissed.

Steve still thinks of it as the best whatever-it-is he has ever had with someone.

At the beginning it was mostly infuriating, how quickly Eddie managed to win the kids over, compared to Steve’s months of work as babysitter/nailbat swinger/monster fighter. Steve had to literally bleed multiple times to get an ounce of respect, Eddie only had to run a nerdy club about fictional bleeding and monster-fighting.

Then somehow, and Steve still has trouble pinpointing when and how it happened, everything changed.

Taking the kids back home from hellfire became something he impatiently waited for.

He and Eddie would barely talk for a few minutes and he would find himself replaying the conversation in his head for days. Anything he could say to get a reaction out of Eddie became fundamental, and if he started by picking subjects to piss him off, he ended learning about Eddie’s favorites, because few minutes after hellfire were never enough and Steve needed Eddie to talk as much as possible, until the kids were begging to drop it and go home.

Steve never questioned the change, most likely out of fear. He doesn’t think he ever was clueless, just really scared about what would potentially mean to be staring at another dude’s eyelashes as he goes on a rant about why Ozzy Osbourne is the best artist of his generation. Or blush whenever said dude would call him “baby”, or “sweetheart”.

Steve convinced himself that the thing he and Eddie were having was as good as it was going to get, nothing more.

Then Chrissy Cunningham died, Eddie ran, and Steve realized that the thing will never be enough for him.

He couldn’t not have Eddie. Not watch him as he entertains a bunch of freshmen, as he stomps with his worn out sneakers on top of forniture, as he puts his terrible music on to push away anyone who doesn’t care enough about him to stay.

Steve needed to see Eddie being alive, doing what his heart desires, and he needed to be next to him when he does.

Obviously, this realization came at the worst possible time.

Steve tried to tell him so many times: when they found him at the boathouse, when he was hiding at refer Rick’s house, when they were taking a stroll in the upside down, and even when they were driving a stolen trailer to a gunshop.

But, it seemed, Eddie had come to a realization just as important and he tried his best to avoid Steve at every given chance.

Steve tried to initiate the conversation as Eddie did his best to run away from it. And he ran until Steve had no chances left to tell him how he actually felt.

———

Steve doesn’t know if he’s allowed to say he lost something he never had. To mourn a relationship he never began. A partner that, technically, never became a partner.

After Eddie dies, Steve has no one to be next to but he can’t say he ever did.

Steve just exists waiting. He can’t tell if he’s waiting for the pain to go away or for Eddie to jump out of a bush and yell “ah! I got you sucker!! By the way, I’m in love with you too.”

For obvious reasons, that never happens.

What does happen, is a call.

It’s a normal Tuesday, as normal as you could define it after Hawkins almost collapsed into the upside down. Steve got into a routine, between checking on the ones at the hospital, helping out at the shelter, allowing Robin to check on him to see if he’s still alive.

The call happens while Robin is doing her kitchen check up - aka making sure he has food and that he’s eating it-, so she picks the phone like she did a million times before.

“Harrington residence, this is Robin” she says, cheerfully.

Steve doesn’t pay much attention to it as he’s folding his dad’s old clothes that intends to donate to the shelter, until he hears Robin’s loud gasp.

“What is it? Is it the hospital? Is it Max?” He rushes to the other room where Robin is.

She doesn’t answer but she gives him a look as she passes him the receiver.

Steve goes quiet, a million thoughts going through his head as he takes the phone from Robin.

He’s still unprepared when he hears that unmistakable voice “Baby”.

Steve gasps for breath “Eddie?”

Is that really you? What happened? Are you hurt? Isn’t this impossible? Is what goes on in Steve’s head, but he ends up just asking “are you okay?”

He can hear a chuckle, Eddie’s wicked chuckle, a further confirmation that it is him, “I’m- hanging in there… are you okay?”

Steve finds the question absurd. He isn’t the one who got left in the upside down, the one that got eaten by demonic bats, the one who died before Steve had the chance to tell him how he felt.

He answers truthfully nonetheless, “I’m… I’m not okay.”

“I’ll be there soon, I promise.”

“Please Eddie, come quick.”

“I’ll break the sound barrier for you.”

[eldritch-thrumming]

i would never pretend to not know you, pt. 1

eddie shifts his van into park and approaches the big red double doors of the harrington house. before he can knock, the door on the right swings open, revealing a smiling steve harrington.

“heard you coming,” he says by way of explanation. “your uncle’s in the kitchen. come on.”

eddie follows steve down the hallway to the expansive white kitchen. the room could fit the entire munson trailer in it two times over. wayne turns from the sink when he hears them coming.

“hey, son,” wayne greets him, wiping his hands on a rag he has tucked into his work belt. “i’ll be done in a few minutes, just gotta get underneath here and sort some things out.”

eddie stands there awkwardly for a minute before steve waves his hand.

“c’mon, we can wait in the den. you want something to drink?”

eddie shakes his head and then follows steve into the next room, which is filled with a big, squishy looking couch. steve practically throws himself down onto the middle cushion. eddie sits as close to the arm of the couch as possible.

“how’d you do on o’donnell’s test today?” steve asks, a crooked grin on his face. “i feel like she might be writing them to torture me specifically.”

“eh, i don’t think it was too bad.” eddie tries to say it in a way that puts an end to the conversation, not really interested in making small talk.

“yeah, well. you’re, like, really good at english.”

“what?” eddie looks over, surprised.

“i mean, i can tell. when you talk in class?” steve looks a bit confused, like he doesn’t know why eddie’s so surprised. “you notice things i wouldn’t have ever even thought about.”

“oh. i don’t know about that. i just say stuff that seems obvious.”

steve snorts. “yeah, obvious to you. it’s cool, you know. how smart you are. i wish i could think like you.”

“you’re smart.”

steve just smiles then, shaking his head a little. just then, wayne comes into the doorway that leads from the kitchen into the den they’re sitting in.

“all right, fellas? i’m all done in here, steve.”

“okay, thanks, mr. munson.”

eddie stands, wiping his hands down the front of his jeans.

“well, see ya,” he says to steve, turning to follow wayne out toward the front door.

steve follows. “hey, maybe you could come a little earlier next week and we could talk about the next quiz?”

eddie looks back at steve. if eddie didn’t know any better, he’d say steve looked almost hopeful.

“uh, yeah, maybe.”

steve smiles. “okay, cool.”

~*~

“you know, steve’s a pretty good kid,” wayne says out of the blue halfway through their drive home.

eddie gives a vaguely positive-sounding grunt in return.

“he could use some friends, i think. he has a tough time.”

“steve?” eddie turns from where he’s focused on the road in front of him to look at wayne in surprise.

“his parents… well, it’s not my thing to tell, but. he’s alone a lot. lonely. you could be nice to him.”

“i’m always nice to him,” eddie grumbles.

“i know, son, but you know what i mean. you remember how you were when you first came to me. isolated. remember how good it felt when you met gareth and finally had a friend to talk to at school?”

“steve has friends,” eddie insists.

wayne sighs. “just think about it, okay?”

“sure.” eddie will do no such thing.

~*~

eddie’s right. steve does have friends. he has people he talks to at school, he has his basketball teammates and his lunchmates, he has the swim team.

but wayne’s also right, because if eddie looks a bit closer, he notices how steve walks home from school alone. how every week when eddie comes to pick wayne up from his maintenance work at the harrington house, steve always answers the door and he’s never seen a trace of his parents there. how steve sits at the diner alone on weekends, struggling through his homework.

~*~

the next week, eddie shows up an hour early to the harringtons’ to pick up wayne. when he rings the doorbell, it takes about two minutes for steve to let him in.

“oh,” steve says surprised. “hi? i think wayne’s still working out back.” he glances down at his watch.

“no, yeah.” eddie rubs at the back of his neck. “you mentioned talking about the next quiz last time?” he holds up the worn paperback he’s been holding at his side.

steve smiles, wide and bright. “cool.”

he leads eddie into the same room they’d sat in last time, flopping down on to the cushions again. eddie takes the same position up against the couch’s arm. he can see steve’s school things spread across the coffee table, papers covered in barely legible chicken scratch.

“you weren’t in lunch today,” steve says, matter-of-factly.

“uh, no. we do hellfire on wednesdays.”

“thats that game, right?” steve sounds genuinely curious.

“yeah, dnd.”

“what’s it about?”

“what do you mean?”

“how do you play?”

“steve harrington wants to know how to play dungeons and dragons?” eddie sounds a little incredulous, even to his own ears.

steve smiles, a bit smaller than he had at his front door. “yeah, man. you’re into it, right? that’s kind of cool.”

eddie snorts. “i don’t know that anyone has ever been called cool for playing dnd before.”

“you care about it. a lot. that’s cool.”

eddie clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. he shifts where he sits.

“or we could talk about the book,” steve says softly.

“yeah, let’s… do that.”

~*~

they’re finishing up work on steve’s review sheet when wayne comes in through the kitchen.

“it’s all cleared up out there, steve,” he calls as he moves to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.

“okay, thanks, mr. munson. i’ll let my parents know.” steve stands from where he’s been sitting and stretches before walking into the kitchen. eddie follows him.

wayne smiles when he sees them. “didn’t know you were here already.”

“yeah,” eddie replies. “just working on some homework.”

“he was helping me understand the book we’re reading in class,” steve adds. “i don’t get it at all, but eddie’s really good at it.”

“that so,” wayne says, drying his hands.

“yeah, you should hear him in class. it’s pretty impressive.”

eddie can feel himself blushing.

~*~

“that was a nice thing you did, kid,” wayne tells him once they’re in eddie’s van. “real nice.”

“just doing homework. easier to do it together than alone, i guess.” eddie shrugs.

“sure.”

~*~

it becomes a regular thing. eddie shows up about an hour early every wednesday and helps steve with his english homework.

“this is really cool of you, man,” steve says after a few weeks.

“everything’s so cool to you, harrington,” eddie smiles, laughing a little. steve pushes at his shoulder, laughing along.

“no, i mean,” steve runs his hand through his hair. “i know people at school think i’m annoying or whatever—”

“i don’t think anyone thinks that.”

steve gives him a look. “i’m not very smart and i ask dumb questions in class. i can hear people sighing when i raise my hand.”

he has a point about the questions. “it’s not a crime to ask a question, steve. how else would you learn,” eddie says anyway.

“well, whatever. i’ve had tutors before but they’ve all kind of—quit or whatever. i can be… frustrating.”

“you’re not frustrating. you just learn differently. that’s not a bad thing. you are smart.” eddie sees the skeptical look still on steve’s face. “and anyway, i’m not your tutor.”

“you’re not?”

“no. i like you, steve. we’re friends.”

steve smiles.

~*~

it’s not that steve harrington himself is a bully. he’s not. he’s nice, actually. eddie has never even seen him so much as surreptitiously trip some poor nerd in the hawkins high hallways.

but he holds a space in the collective hellfire imagination onto which they can project their own high school feelings of inferiority.

steve is good looking. he comes from a good family. he has a lot of money and his clothes are always clean and new. he’s well-fed and girls love him. he somehow skates through all his classes. he is everything that nerdy outcasts hate.

so eddie doesn’t tell his friends about the budding friendship between him and steve. he doesn’t tell them that every week when they ask him to go get milkshakes or to come play video games or to catch a movie that what he’s really doing when he lies to them and tells them he has plans with wayne is spending time with steve.

his friends can’t know. he’s gone on enough tirades against the capitalist jock class that he’d look like a total hypocrite to be hanging out with their de facto king. he’s not sure he’d survive them finding out.

~*~

“did you mean it?” steve asks the following week.

“hm?” eddie doesn’t look up from the page he’s reading.

“when you said you liked me. did you mean that?”

eddie looks up in surprise. “of course i did.”

steve smiles. “good. because i like you too.”

“yeah?” eddie returns his smile.

steve nods, moving a bit closer on the big squishy couch. “but, um. i’m not sure if we mean it the same way.”

eddie swallows. “what do you mean?”

“i mean, i might like you as more than a friend.”

eddie laughs. “why?” he doesn’t mean to say it. it just comes out.

steve doesn’t laugh though. “you’re smart. you think about things in ways that other people don’t. you care about the things that are important to you, even when other people might think they’re stupid. you’re nice to me when you don’t have to be.” steve’s closer now. “have you ever kissed anyone before?” eddie nods. “i haven’t. only in those stupid games. not for real.”

eddie looks into steve’s eyes. he looks hopeful. eddie swallows again.

“okay…” eddie’s still not sure where this is going. he could take a wild guess, but things don’t usually go the way he hopes.

“would you…” steve bites his bottom lip. “i know i’m—would you want to? kiss me, i mean.”

eddie takes a deep breath and then nods before closing the distance between them, so much smaller now than when they’d first sat down.

steve’s lips are warm against his. the kiss is more chaste than anything, short and sweet before they break apart.

“oh,” steve whispers with his eyes still closed. he licks his lips. “that was—” he opens his eyes, smiling at eddie. “that was really nice.”

“yeah.” eddie doesn’t take his eyes from steve’s lips.

“do you want to—”

eddie’s lips are back on steve’s before he can even finish his question.

~*~

they break apart when they hear wayne coming in through the back door of the kitchen.

steve’s breathing slightly heavier than usual, smiling up at eddie.

eddie tries to smile back, but the reminder of the world around them brought on by wayne’s presence in the house with them has his gut roiling. he’s not sure what shows on his face, but he can see the worry as it creeps onto steve’s face.

“is this—was this okay? are you okay?” steve asks.

“yeah,” eddie replies, trying again for a smile. he thinks he’s a bit more successful this time. “just, uh. this was really fun but. can we…”

“can we?” steve prompts when eddie trails off.

“let’s just keep it to ourselves, yeah? like, don’t tell anyone at school.”

eddie regrets it the minute he says it. steve’s eyes shutter as he watches.

“oh, right. obviously. like anyone would believe me anyway,” steve laughs, but it doesn’t sound quite right.

they’re sitting upright on the couch again when wayne comes into the doorway.

“all set, ed?”

eddie gathers his school bag.

“see you next week, steve,” he says, and follows wayne out of the house.

to be continued perhaps… (no taglists, sorry)

[strangersteddierthings]

Bad News First, Eddie

Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇FInal Part

A continuation of Bad News First, Eddie. I am absolutely floored by the responses I received, and I will try my best to tag everyone who asked. I know it's not Eddie's part, but chronologically, Wayne's part felt right.

-

Of all the things Wayne’s been called, unobservant isn’t one of them. He’s lived in Hawkins his entire life. He knows who is who, what is what, and to keep his head down and believe there’s a cougar in the woods when he’s told.

So, when Nancy Wheeler shows up, asking questions, Wayne has answers. Is willing to give those answers because he remembers when little Will Byers went missing, and how Nancy and her friends had done more to try and find him than the entire police force of Hawkins. Nancy and her friends always seemed to be in the orbit of whatever terrible thing was happening in Hawkins these last few years.

So, foolishly, terribly, he doesn’t intervene. He thought they were like that Scooby Doo cartoon Eddie used to love; kids solving mysteries. If he’d known the true extent of the horror, he wouldn’t have let those kids go it alone. But he didn’t know then.

-

Still didn’t know the day he pretends to not know who Dustin Henderson is while swapping out Eddie’s missing poster. It’s easier than having to face someone who knows Eddie, someone who had been looking for him but failed to find him.

Until Dustin calls after him. Until Dustin speaks to him. Hands him Eddie’s necklace. Wayne can’t stand anymore, this breaks him. Dustin says he was with him, in the end. Calls Eddie a hero, said people would have loved him had they known him. It’s nothing Wayne doesn’t already know.

Eddie is his hero. He loves Eddie. And if he’d stepped in sooner, chased down these kids and asked just what the fuck was happening, maybe he could have changed the ending of this story.

-

Hawkins explodes into a hellscape days later and Wayne sets out to find Nancy Wheeler. If Eddie gave his life to protect these kids, then Wayne must strive to do no less.

Nancy’s got a good head on her shoulders, willing to accept any help offered. He can see how she’s survived this long. She gets in in touch with Hopper, who introduces him to Doctor Sam Owens and Lt Colonel Jack Sullivan.

-

He doesn’t think it’s fair that the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old girl.

-

It’s Dustin who tells him the whole story, the night before the end. Either Eleven will win tomorrow, or she won’t, but the outcome gets decided then.

“I’m s-so sorry, Mr. M-Munson. We just… just left him there!” Dustin breaks down crying and Wayne reaches out to him, an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. If Wayne sheds a few tears, too, well. Who can blame him?

“Doctor Owens, a word,” Wayne pulls the man aside after the kids have gone to bed. “Dustin said… my boy is just yards away from our trailer. He didn’t even get out of the park. I understand it’s an all hands on deck situation, but can anyone be spared? Can anyone bring my boy back? I’ll go myself if I have to.”

Doctor Owens, a genuinely kind man, Wayne can tell, has tears filling his eyes just at the request. “Mr. Munson, we will do everything in our power to bring your boy home.”

-

Doctor Owens pays for the headstone. Said it was the least he could do since his team failed. Wayne tries not to be bitter about it.

The graffiti starts up almost immediately. Wayne doesn’t understand why.

-

He thinks he’s caught someone in the act, grabs roughly at the perpetrator and yanks. The Harrington boy stumbles up and back, a little bit of fear in his eyes but no paint in hand. He’s holding a rag and small container of paint thinner. A quick look between Harrington and the grave, he can see the half-cleaned headstone.

He’s never spoken much with Harrington, but Dustin has nothing bad to say.

“You know my boy?” because he can’t bring himself to say ‘knew’ just yet.

Harrington looks just about as haunted as Wayne feels when he says, so quietly, “Not as well as I would have liked, sir.”

-

Wayne is observant, but even he can admit it takes longer than he thought to figure out Steve Harrington. That boy had put himself between those kids and danger again, and again, and again, and lived. Eddie did it once and… well, Wayne reckons Steve thinks it should have been him. He won’t say so out loud, but Wayne sees a lot of his younger self in Steve, knows him in much the same way he knows himself.

Steve lives with a guilt he shouldn’t; this was Eddie’s choice. His reckless, dangerous, courageous choice. And they’ve got to learn to live with it. Steve’s parents are absent, and Wayne’s nephew is gone. Without any conscious decision about it, they’ve adopted each other.

Steve wants to know everything about Eddie. Every little story Wayne can come up with. And he, well, he loves that someone wants to know. Wants to remember Eddie with him.

“Bad news. I regret not knowing him sooner,” Steve confesses to him one day as they scrub the headstone clean again.

“Good news. You know him now,” Wayne replies.

“Do I?”

Wayne can’t answer that. Not honestly one way or another. How well can you know someone from secondhand information? Steve spent a total of five days in his nephew’s company but he helps keep his memory alive. “I don’t know. What I do know is that Eddie Munson won’t be forgotten when I die. And that matters.”

-

He gets in an accident at the plant. He doesn’t remember what happened, not fully, but he knows that Steve never left his side. Demanded his come stay in his big empty house. Easier to move around in, with all the open space.

Wayne wasn’t really attached to his apartment anyway. If he was going to live the rest of his life in a home that had never known Eddie’s presence, it could at least be with someone who had known Eddie’s presence, however briefly.

-

Wayne wonders if he’s done the right thing sometimes. Indulging Steve’s need to know Eddie. At first, he thought it was fine, because learning about Eddie seemed to alleviate Steve’s guilt. But now.

He’s watching the boy fall in love with a ghost.

Helping it happen, even.

Robin and Steve aren’t nearly as quiet or subtle as they think, and Wayne’s observant. They seem to forget that Wayne’s just old, and not deaf and blind.

Or maybe, they’re comfortable enough that they don’t truly hide from him.

And it hurts his heart to think this (because he’s thinking it about his Eddie, wonderful, loving Eddie) but Steve deserves to love more than a ghost.

-

And then the kids graduate. Start to go to college. Steve acts fine, but he’s not. Wayne knows. It’s like he’s losing his purpose, but Wayne’s just as broken. Not strong enough to push Steve away. To make Steve go, too.

Honestly, he’s a little afraid that if he tried, then Steve would follow right after Eddie.

So, he doesn't. He decides he needs Steve, and perhaps even more so, Steve needs him.

-

Then, five years after Eddie’s death, the call happens. It’s about his piece of shit little brother, Wyatt. He’s gotta go, though. Because this is one last strand of Eddie. Eddie’s mother has been gone longer than Eddie, and fuck, Wyatt deserves to know. Wayne doesn’t claim to be a saint; if his brother wasn’t being released, he’d probably never tell him. He’d let him die in that prison believing his son is alive.

He doesn’t even know if Wyatt will care that Eddie’s gone. But he’s got to find out.

Steve drives him to the airport and no matter how many times Wayne says he’s coming back, Steve doesn’t seem to believe him.

-

But it’s not his shitty little brother waiting to greet him in Tennessee. It’s Eleven.

“Sorry for the lie, Mr. Munson,” she says. “I wanted to tell you as soon as I learned but Doctor Owens said that, this one time, we needed to be right before we could be honest.”

It’s Eddie. It’s Eddie Wyatt Munson, who looks at him shyly, almost as if afraid, from the apartment doorway Eleven takes him to. “Hey Uncle Wayne.”

It’s five fucking years too late but he pulls Eddie in a bone crushing hug. “I love you so much, you little bastard. Don’t you ever, ever do this to me again.”

-

Wayne learns.

They had found him, barely alive. It was better, they said, to take him away. Let the town cool down while Eddie healed, but he was catatonic for the better part of these last five years.

“Eddie woke up empty,” Eleven says softly, apropos nothing sitting next to Wayne as they watch Eddie discuss next steps with Owens. “He could be told to do things. Drink this. Eat that. His eyes never focused on anything. Doctor Owens called him a shell. I asked what that means. He said that Eddie’s body worked, but his mind did not because Eddie was not in his own mind anymore. But I knew he was in there. I had to get him back.” She reaches a hand out, waving in the general direction of Eddie’s head.

This surprises Wayne. “You brought him back?”

“Memory by memory,” Eleven says, picking at her pants leg. “Even the painful ones. Doctor Owens says every memory shapes who we are, even tough ones.”

Wayne looks at Eleven, a young woman of nineteen now, but remembers how scared and brave she’d been at fourteen.  “Words cannot express how thankful I am for you.”

“I did it for you. And maybe a little bit for me.”

Wayne makes a humming noise. Not truly questioning, but an acknowledgment of what she said. If she wants to share her reasons, he won’t stop her. He’s just not going to pry.

“I chose my friend. I chose Max.”

He knows. “You made the right choice.”

“I know. I am not guilty about it,” she frowns as she thinks about her words. “But Dustin is my friend, too, and I knew Eddie was his friend. But I cared more about Max. I had to do all I could to make it right. For you. For Dustin. For me.”

Wayne doesn’t have words, so he just pulls Eleven into a hug. It must convey all he needs because when she pulls back, she beams at him.

-

Wayne fills Eddie in on what has happened as best he can. It’s such a jarring difference, speaking to Eddie about Steve than it had been speaking to Steve about Eddie. Eddie just looks confused for most of it and doesn’t really ask followup questions, but Wayne understands. Eddie had known Steve for five days and he’s got time to really get to know Steve now. Steve thought all he’d ever have of Eddie is someone else’s memories.

“Just give him a chance, Eddie,” Wayne says.

“Give him a chance? As if I’d waste it,” Eddie breaths out, all wonder and awe and- Well, maybe Wayne isn’t as observant as he had always thought. “He took care of you when I couldn’t. He cares. I don’t think there’s a chance I wouldn’t give him.”

“How long have you had a thing for Steve?”

Eddie stutters over his words, eyes wide and wild. “That’s not- why would you think- when have I ever!?”

“You think I wouldn’t know this about you?” Wayne chuckles and lies, as if he hadn’t just watched all the pieces slot together in this moment.

“So, we’ll be living with Steve Harrington?” Eddie is blushing but he blows past Wayne’s question. “Will he… be okay with me being there?”

Steve’s been loving a ghost, is what Wayne thinks. Steve’s been in love with a ghost and this. This is a ghost story that can have a better ending. But he’s not going to make those declarations for Steve, so what he says is, “yeah. Steve and I had each other when we needed it. Now I need you, so Steve won’t mind at all.”

Eddie smiles to himself, pulling a strand of his hair to hide his face behind.

If he hadn’t just figured it out two minutes ago, that would have been a dead giveaway that his boy might be a little bit in love with Steve.

-

He calls Steve. Tells him he’s coming home and bringing a guest. Steve says that’s fine, he’ll fix up Robin’s old room into a guest room.

-

“This isn’t the way to the Harrington house,” Eddie observes from the passenger seat of the rental car Doctor Owens had paid for, to get them from Indianapolis back to Hawkins.

“Steve won’t be there. He comes here when he’s overwhelmed.”

“The cemetery?”

Wayne shrugs, “we both come talk to you. Steve always starts with the bad news, you know. I think you should start with good news. Just this once. Ah. See, there he is.” Wayne points and Eddie’s eyes follow.

Something akin to wonder passes over Eddie’s face and he all but falls out of the car before it’s even stopped.

Wayne thinks he’ll give them five or so minutes before following.

[dont-touch-the-phlebotinum]

The first time Eddie calls Wayne 'Dad' he's three years old. He's been staying at Wayne's for a few days now; dropped off by his parents without warning and with the vague promise that they'd be back for him soon, already screaming at each other before they're back in the car and speeding off out of sight. Wayne doesn't even have a change of clothes for him, doesn't have any toys or books or much of an idea how to take care of a toddler. Luckily the kid seems happy enough getting into every nook and cranny of the trailer, and toddling around watching Wayne clean up in Eddie's wake like a particularly rambunctious shadow.

Right now he's sat on the kitchen floor, one of Wayne's baseball caps hanging off his tiny head, bashing happily at the array of pots and pans he's dragged out of the cupboards. It's one hell of a racket, but after three days of this either Wayne's headache can't get any worse or he's starting to get used to Hurricane Eddie. Besides, it's good to see the boy having fun, unbothered by whatever chaos has been going on at home.

The crashing comes to a sudden stop, silence ringing through the trailer, and Wayne looks over to see Eddie swaying in place, blinking like he's having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The boy's like a puppy, Wayne's learning. Either he's bouncing off the walls or he's asleep, not a whole lot of in-between.

"You tired, kid?"

"No," says Eddie, even as his head droops and a yawn near bigger than he is shakes its way through him.

"Uh-huh. Come on, Charlie Watts; let's get you to bed."

Eddie lets Wayne scoop him up into his arms with only a half-hearted whinge in response. He doesn't even have the energy to fight off Wayne's attempts to brush his teeth and scrub away the grime Eddie somehow manages to accumulate over the course of a day, already drifting off against Wayne's shoulder as he carries Eddie down the hall and tucks him into bed.

"Night, Eddie."

"Goodnight, Dad," Eddie murmurs as Wayne's about to turn off the light.

He freezes in place. The hell's he supposed to say to that? Your dad's not here, kid; God only knows when he's coming back? There's no need to upset the boy. But there'll be hell to pay if Wayne's brother comes back for Eddie only to find out he's taken to calling Wayne 'Dad' instead.

Luckily for Wayne, Eddie's fast asleep before he can figure out what to say for the best.

He presses a kiss to Eddie's mop of curls, and closes the door behind him.

.

Eddie's nine years old now. He's still short, still so skinny he looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in his life, close to bald 'cause the kid can't go two weeks without catching lice, but he seems happier these days than he has in a good long while. That's all that matters to Wayne.

It's his first birthday since Wayne officially became Eddie's guardian – probably the first birthday anyone's ever given a shit, considering the way Eddie's eyes turn to saucers when Wayne hands him his gift.

"Holy shit!" Eddie says as he opens the case and pulls the acoustic guitar from inside. It's not much, just a beaten up old thing Wayne bought off one of the guys at work, but Eddie clutches it reverently, pulls it into his lap like he's amazed he's being allowed to touch it.

"Watch your language," scolds Wayne. He doesn't have the heart to be stern, though. Not when Eddie's staring down at the guitar as if it's the greatest thing he's ever seen.

He watches with a smile as Eddie plucks tentatively at the strings. Maybe he'll come to regret giving Eddie a way to make even more noise than usual, but it might at least manage to hold his focus, maybe even keep him still for more than five minutes at a time.

And God knows, after the past couple years the kid deserves something special.

"You like it?"

"Yeah! Thanks, Dad." Eddie's head snaps up, and his grin falters as he looks over at Wayne sat beside him. "Uncle Wayne, I mean," he says quickly. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." He gives Eddie a gentle pat on the back. It's enough for the kid to brighten up again, his attention already back to his guitar, the moment forgotten. "Now how 'bout you take that to your room and start practicing while I fix us some breakfast?"

"Birthday pancakes?" says Eddie as he follows Wayne into the kitchen with a hopeful grin, still clutching the guitar against his chest.

"I don't remember promising birthday pancakes."

"I remember, old man."

"Who're you calling old, you little punk?" Wayne says, and shoos Eddie back out of the kitchen. "Go on, get out of here."

He watches Eddie bound down the hall to his bedroom, and after a moment the first clumsy notes fill the trailer.

 .

When Eddie's fourteen Wayne gets a call from the sheriff's office, and he arrives at the station to find Eddie cuffed to one of the desks, sullen and stubborn and looking too much like Wayne's brother for comfort. It's not the first time Eddie's landed himself in trouble, but it is the first time the cops have been involved.

He just prays it'll be the last. Wayne's seen this story play out enough times to know how it usually ends.

When he catches sight of Wayne waiting for him, Eddie just rolls his eyes.

"I 'spose you're about to tell me it was all Jeff's idea," says Wayne once they've piled back into the truck and put the police station firmly in the rear-view. He's not expecting an answer, doesn't expect Eddie to grunt more than a few words at a time to him lately, but the awkward silence is still too alien for him to let it sit.

"It was my idea."

"So you're stealing cars now, huh?" He keeps his tone light, as if they're just talking about Eddie's latest obsession, like always. As if his newfound hobby isn't breaking into cars over in Loch Nora.

"I wasn't gonna steal–" Eddie starts, before he's clamping his mouth shut like don't talk to cops extends to Wayne as well now. He glares back out of the window.

"You know next time it happens the sheriff ain't gonna be so lenient."

"Thanks for the lecture, Dad." Eddie lets out a bitter laugh that can't quite mask the hurt behind it. "Oh, wait a sec…"

Wayne sighs. The subject of Eddie's dad has come up enough times these past few months they're gonna have to have a good long talk about him sooner or later. "That what this is about?"

"No."

"But he's been on your mind, right?"

He glances over at Eddie. He's slumped even lower in his seat, arms folded tight across his skinny chest, and determinedly not making eye contact.

"Trust me, kid, he ain't anything worth looking up to."

"Yeah, well what if I'm a screw up just like he is?"

"You're not."

Eddie scoffs. Wayne watches him until the light up ahead turns green.

"The way I see it," he says, "your life's 'bout to fork in two different directions. You keep on down this road, you end up either dead or in a cell right next to your old man's."

Eddie's quiet beside him, but Wayne can tell he's listening, can see the little furrow to his brow as he turns the words over in his mind.

"Or, you take all that pain and anger you got inside you, and you turn it into something worthwhile."

Finally, Eddie looks back at him. "Like what?"

"Don't have to be big. Don't have to be important. All that matters is it means something to you."

They slip back into silence for the rest of the drive, but it's a more comfortable kind this time, a thoughtful kind of silence. Wayne kills the engine and they climb out onto the dirt in front of the trailer.

"Uncle Wayne?" says Eddie, his voice small. He's still lingering by the truck when Wayne peers back at him.

"Yeah?"

"Sorry," he says. "For being an asshole."

"You're not an asshole, Ed. And you ain't about to turn into one. Not on my watch."

Eddie's mouth twitches. It's not a smile, but it isn't far off. "Promise?"

"Yeah, kid. I promise," says Wayne with a smile of his own, and he curls an arm around Eddie's shoulders, hugging him tight as he steers them inside.

 .

At nineteen, Eddie's lying in a hospital bed.

Wayne's been sat at his bedside for God only knows how long at this point – the days have blurred into a steady stream of doctors and beeping machines, hours and minutes fallen to the wayside. The only time he leaves Eddie's side is when Eddie's friends come by to keep their own vigil.

They're all still waiting for him to wake up.

One hand clasping Eddie's, Wayne reads the paper to him to pass the time. He knows Eddie doesn't much care about what's happening out in the real world, and nor does Wayne right now, but any books of Eddie's are lost in whatever mess the quake left of their trailer, and Wayne needs something to keep his eyes from the angry red bruises circling Eddie's neck.

He looks like he's been strung up. The way the town has been baying for Eddie's blood, it wouldn't be much surprise. The rest of his injuries, though – well, no-one seems to have any explanation for those.

Maybe one day Eddie will be able to provide one himself.

There's a tiny noise above him, and Wayne's head snaps up to Eddie's face. He's watched every flutter of Eddie's eyelids, every twitch of his fingers, heart in his throat until the moment passes and Eddie sleeps on. But this time, Eddie stirs.

"Eddie?"

"Dad?"

He frowns with the effort of cracking his eyes open, struggling under the weight of his own body.

"It's all right," Wayne says. He brushes his thumb over Eddie's cheek, careful to avoid the stitches, and squeezes the hand tucked in his tighter. Eddie grips him back. "I'm right here."

Eddie's bleary eyes focus on Wayne, crinkling at the corners with the smile that spreads across his face. "Dad," he rasps again as tears spill down his cheeks.

Wayne's face is wet with his own as he presses a kiss to Eddie's forehead. "Welcome back, son."

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 19

Part 1 Part 18

Eddie comes back to himself with Will Byers slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He’s standing in front of his trailer, panting like he’d run all the way here.

He probably had. His thighs have their own heartbeats, pulsing off-beat with the thrumming of his heart where it’s up in his throat.

He puts Will down. The kid’s crying. Eddie is, too.

He wants to run back, find Steve. Even with his legs shaking so hard they barely hold him. Even without a weapon. Even if Steve’s probably already dead. But Steve said to keep the kid safe, so that’s what he’s going to do.

He pushes the door open, leading Will in by the shoulder. His fingertips are numb – static running through them until he can’t feel Will’s body hitching with sobs. The sound of them is muffled, too.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, feeling very far away. His throat feels like mincemeat. Has he been screaming? He can’t have been. There’s no monster on his door.

“My Mom—” Will says. He’s curled into a ball in Wayne’s chair. When did he get there?

“Steve’ll keep her safe.”

Eddie knows it’s true as he says it. Remarkably, Steve Harrington is a good dude, and isn’t that the worst fucking thing in the world to realize right now? Steve Harrington had risked his life for a little kid he barely knows, a lady he’s probably only met in the grocery store check-out line, and a high schooler who’s guts he hated a few days before.

And now he’s dead.

Eddie keeps thinking about his last words. They keep running through his mind, steady enough to keep time with, even as his heartbeat speeds up enough to make his blood vessels feel tight. “I’ll see you at home.” Home being the Munson’s trailer. Home being where there’s a little boy and Eddie fucking Munson waiting for him to make it out alive.

Who says that?

Steve fucking Harrington promised to come home when there was no chance of making it out alive.

Will is still crying in Wayne’s recliner, and Eddie wishes, desperately that his Uncle were here now. He’d know how to comfort Will, how to get out of here. How to keep Steve safe.

But he’s not here, so Eddie kneels by the chair and hold Will’s hand while he cries. It could last hours or minutes. Eddie doesn’t know. He’s not really here.

Not when Will asks, “will Steve be okay?”

Not when he replies, “Steve’s like an action hero, Byers. He’ll be walking through that door at any moment.”

Not when Will’s answering silence echoes through the room like condemnation.  

His tears have dried on his face, sticky with salt. He doesn’t notice when Will reaches over and wipes them away.

Eddie Munson isn’t in the living room waiting for Steve Harrington to come through the door.

He’s still in the Byers’ hallway, watching King Steve raise his gun. There’s no fear on his face, just a heartbreaking mix of wistfulness and resolve.

Eddie wants to know what he was thinking in that moment, with that expression. Was he standing there with a monster in front of him, wishing more than anything that he was hiding back in Eddie’s bedroom all the while, knowing his rightful place was right there saving lives?

Was he back further still, both in that hallway, and in the cafeteria trading pudding cups with Carol Perkins, standing at the threshold of a realistic fantasy and an unending nightmare?

Maybe he wasn’t thinking anything at all.

Eddie will never know. Steve Harrington is dead. And Eddie wasn’t there.

“Eddie?” Will asks. He sounds scared. Eddie comes back. Steve said to keep Will safe, and he will. “You need water.”

Eddie laughs. It sounds more like he’s choking. “You’re the one crying, baby Byers.”

Neither of them comment on the dried tracks running down Eddie’s own cheeks.

Eddie’s knees feel like concrete as he gets up to go retrieve his backpack. It’s not by the door, not along the path from the entrance to the living room. He checks his bathroom and bedroom, can’t quite remember where he’s been. It’s not there.

“I think I left my backpack at your house,” Eddie says, then laughs, struck hysterical at the way it comes out. Like he’d just gone to Will’s house after school to hang out, and not to contact his Mom from the wrong side of the beyond.

“I still have mine,” Will says.

He slithers forward in the chair, giving himself enough room to slide it down his shoulders from where it’s still strapped to his back.

They only put two bottles in the kid’s pack, not wanting to bog him down, but it should be enough for today, at least.

As they drink from separate bottles, grimacing at the taste of silt, Eddie’s thinking about how he’ll have to get more water tomorrow. Without Steve. Should he go alone? Should he bring the kid? Should he curl up in a ball and die?

Steve took the only viable weapon and fucked off to die. It hits him suddenly; how goddamn angry he is. How dare he? Couldn’t he have pulled this shit a few days ago when his only attachment to Harrington was that he was another living person, that Eddie wouldn’t have to be alone? How could he do this, after they’d played D&D, and played truth and dare, and survived together.

Steve Harrington had carved out a little spot for himself in Eddie’s sternum and then went off to die.

He doesn’t notice his hands shaking until Will crouches in front of him, grabs the open water bottle, and caps it.

“Shit,” Eddie says. “Sorry, kid.”

“Steve will be okay,” Will says, like he believes it and not like he’s just repeating Eddie’s own bullshit back at him.

Eddie nods. The anger is sucked out of him as quick as it arrived. His chin is trembling, and it feels like a lozenge is stuck in his throat. He swallows it, coughs out a “yeah.”

Will pushes Eddie’s bangs back and almost petting him in a move he definitely learned from Mama Byers. At the edges of his eyesight, he can see his bangs spring back down at wonky angles. He doesn’t bother fixing it.

“He beat Xanathar, he can definitely kick a Demogorgon’s butt,” Will says, smiling with his lips, but not his eyes.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, trying for his usual pep, moving forward anyway when it falls flat. “He’s going to come bursting through the door at any moment on his noble stead and tell us tales of his vanquishment of the great evil.”

They smile at each other vacantly. Will folds himself into Eddie’s side. The warmth is comforting. Nice. Eddie slides his arm around the kid, pulling him closer.

They wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Will’s asleep, face pressed into his ribs, by the time Eddie’s eyes start drooping. The stressful day is catching up to him. The days of hunger and fear stacking on top of his eyelids, pulling them down. But he can’t sleep.

If he falls asleep, the day will be over, and Steve Harrington won’t have come back.

He fights it. He loses. He sleeps.

The door creaks when it’s opened – a rusty hinge Uncle Wayne’s meant to oil for years.

It’s not Sir Steven on his noble steed, with his sword held high in victory. No. It’s even better. Steve Harrington stands at the threshold, a little worse for wear. There’s a bloody scratch cutting across his forehead, heading alarmingly up and into his signature hair. His shirts muddy, and there’s a bruise blooming alone his cheekbone. But he’s breathing. He’s alive.

Eddie loses time again, but it’s okay now because he’s in front of Steve, and he’s looking into his pretty, brown, living eyes. He slaps his face, once, too hard. Doesn’t even notice his hand moved until the sound echoes through the room.

Eddie darts forward, kissing the spot, three times quickly. He’s smearing snot and tears across King Steve’s face, and he couldn’t care less.

He feels out of control, untethered and wild, until Steve wraps his arms around Eddie tight. Eddie hugs back, harder than he should when Steve’s injuries remain largely a mystery.

But if he doesn’t keep his hold on the other boy, he thinks he might shake apart.

“You’re alive,” he says, wet and shaking, voice muffled into Steve’s neck.

Steve laughs. It vibrates through Eddie’s cheek, shakes something loose in his chest. “Yeah.” It’s barely a breath, but he hears it. “I said I’d come home.”

Steve Harrington is alive. And he came home.

Part 20

[imfinereallyy]

Eddie draws on the edge of Steve’s hip, where his shirt rides up from stretching across Eddie’s bed. He’s humming to himself a song Steve doesn’t recognize, but it soothes him.

“What are you drawing?” Steve speaks softly; something about the moment feels gentle. He doesn’t want to break it.

“Hmmm, it’s a secret.” Eddie peaks beneath his bangs and smiles.

Steve leans up on his elbows, “Well, that’s not fair; I think I should know what’s going on my body?”

Eddie only looks at him with mischief as he continues to doodle. “Be grateful, Harrington. You’re getting an original Munson for free.”

Steve can’t help the laugh that escapes him. It is just like Eddie to say something like that. Playful and mean, it makes something settle in Steve. For a long time, he only knows the pain from harsh comments or a sentence with a bite. It is a welcomed change, to feel a bubble of happiness after a light jab.

“Whatever you say, Munson. Just let me see.” Steve tries to push up further to sneak a peek, but Eddie uses his free hand to push him down to the bed. He just happens to catch Steve off guard, sending him into a sprawl that can only be described as a starfish.

“I’m not finished yet.” Eddie grabs his hips and pins him still while he draws. After a few more moments, he says, “Done!”

Steve looks at his work and releases a snort that breaks the careful tension between them. “Are those boobs?”

“Why yes, they are, and a good representation if I say so myself.”

“Do you even know what boobs look like? Like the live version?” Steve knows he should be mad at the sharpie-drawn breasts on his body, but he can’t find it in him to have an angry tone.

“We’ll no. I don’t. And I would much prefer to keep it that way.”

Steve chokes on his spit a little bit, “Did you just come out to me, Eds?”

Steve isn’t sure what he expects. Denial, maybe, Eddie taking back what he said. Steve knows he isn’t handling this right. He doesn’t think Robin would be too happy with his response.

Steve thinks maybe he should see a little bit of fear in Eddie’s demeanor. That shakiness that comes with telling someone a dangerous secret.

What he gets, in the end, isn’t something he could have predicted. Eddie smiles softly, a little bit of his tooth peeking out, and lays his head gently on Steve’s leg. He’s calm and collected. He’s happy, Steve realizes.

“Yea, I guess I did. Not like it was much of a secret, though. Are you upset?” Eddie draws soft circles around the drawing on Steve’s hip—the rough callous on his thumb contradicting his tender touch.

Once again, although the conversation should be anxious, it’s not. Eddie’s question is spoken like he already knows the answer. Maybe he does.

“No, Eddie. I’m not mad. Never would be for that. Just thought it was a funny way of sharing a secret. Though, gotta admit, a very you way of doing it.”

This time Eddie throws his head back when he laughs, before settling back down on Steve’s leg. His giggles never really settled. “Like I said, Stevie wasn’t much of a secret anyway. Well, between us, that is at least. I like to think some, if not all, the kids are oblivious.”

“Erica definitely knows.”

Eddie’s eyes widen in mischief, “Oh, for sure. Pretty sure she would kick the others' asses, too, if they gave me shit for it. And she kicks hard too.”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh. He’s never had this before, this casualness to serious conversations. Before, Steve is used to screaming and punching, drunken confessions in the bathroom, and throwing up on the mall floor. It isn’t like this, now, with Eddie in his trailer bedroom. It’s good. It’s safe.

“Thank you for telling me, Eds. Something like that is hard to share no matter who you tell it to.”

The softness is back again, “Like I said wasn’t much of a secret. Besides, I don’t think there isn’t any secret of mine you don’t know, Stevie. I think even when I don’t tell you, you kinda already know, don’t you?”

Steve leans one arm forward, while he places his weight on one elbow. He gently takes Eddie’s face in one hand, rubbing circles in the same motion as Eddie’s thumb on his hip.

God, I want to kiss him so bad sometimes, Steve thinks.

“Yea, I already know.”

[eddywoww]

Thinking of a Steve who has a “my body is all I have” mentality

It starts because of the upside down, obviously. All he can do is try to protect these kids, try to protect this family that he’s made. He doesn’t know what else to do because he’s spent the majority of his life being made into a puppet for his father. He’s never been seen as smart, he’s never been seen as capable. But he can fight and take care of people and so, Steve is his body. As long as he can move, he can help.

I think this has the potential to twist on its head for him. He’s too emotional, he’s too needy in every relationship he attempts. So if he’s too much, how can he ever be enough? But he has his body. He has his sexuality, he was his charm. He knows how to use it, who to use it on. Even if it’s clunky at best sometimes, he can still manage. But then he feels like just a body again. Like he’s this figurine for people. He’s nice to look at, nice to spend a night with. But that’s about it. So he would adapt to that. “My body is all I have.” And it’s a joke that he makes, something sly and funny. Because obviously he was a slut growing up, right? Everyone knows that. It’s fine because it’s funny that he slept with soccer moms, it’s funny that he slept with cheerleaders, it’s funny that he could seduce someone if he really wanted to.

It’s so funny that everyone else makes jokes about it too.

And Robin tries to get them to stop but Steve can be convincing when he wants to be. It’s fine, he’s okay. He doesn’t mind.

But somewhere deep inside, he does mind. It twists again, like a knife to the stomach. Because after all the pain, after rebuilding their world, Steve is no longer just his body. His body hurts. He has scars. His hearing isn’t the same, his eyes get blurry every morning and he needs glasses now. Sometimes he limps when it storms too much. He’s not just his body because now he thinks his body is bad. What use is he if he can’t fight? What use is he if he’s not attractive enough to pull someone in with looks alone? He’s stained and he hates it because before he was just a body but now he’s just a mess.

Eddie sees it. He sees it and notices it because he feels the same way but not the same at all. He’s insecure and always has been. Too loud, too excited, too much this, too much that. He just is. But surviving something horrific, being pulled from the flames of the supernatural…it leaves a mark that lasts longer than any scar ever could. He’s not as chatty, not as funny. He becomes just a body in a different way. His personality feels sapped, he feels like the ghost of his former self. He just is.

He tries for Dustin, for all the kids. But he knows they can tell that something is off about him, that he’s one hundred shades of fucked up.

So, of course they see each other through it all. Different ends of the spectrum. Eddie, who feels like he’s walking through life as an intruder. Steve, who feels like he’s had everything he’s worth taken away from him. They talk about it. They sit out by a nearby lake and talk about how deep the black hole inside them feels, how badly they just want to wake up and have it be gone. Erased, washed away. Steve shows Eddie his scars and Eddie does the same and it’s cliche but it feels good. Lit under moonlight as they use too much bug spray, unwilling to just go home. Unwilling to invite the other one over because then it’s Something. Then it Means Something.

But eventually they would cave. Eddie would bring Steve to his new trailer, the one they got with hush money. He’d smoke with him, play him some records. Steve would confess as much as he could about how he feels like he lost his worth, how he’ll never amount to anything. Eddie would talk about how he isn’t the same and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get back to who he was.

Neither of those things are true, neither of them hold weight.

But they’ll heal together. They’ll talk it out again and again and they’ll use kinder words each time and they’ll start living life like they used to, only not quite the same. It’ll take time and adjustment but eventually, Robin will see the difference and she’ll be able to breathe again because she felt like she was losing not only her best friend but the guy that came along with him in the end.

[pedgito]

please please PLEASE do a blurb of eddie fucking the reader and shes like struggling and saying “have.. to.. be.. quiet” while eddie is just cooing her telling her that she doesn’t/no one is home

author’s note: i will die on the hill of ‘struggling to be quiet’ fucking, thank you for coming to me ted talk and i hope you enjoy my poorly written smut.

cw: 18+ (minors dni), unprotected sex (pulling out), exhibitionism (sort of), eddie being a menace, just another reason to write depraved smut

word count: 1.6k

You were accustomed to the quickies that happened, more often than not, in the back of Eddie’s trailer—early mornings, late nights. Eddie wasn’t particularly fond of fucking you in the back of his van anymore, feeling rushed and uncomfortable, and you deserved to be treated beautifully—not forced onto your knees in the back of some metal death machine, scrapping them up for the sheer idea of getting laid. You deserved a bed, at least—but the only downside to that, despite his lack of being a teen, Eddie still lived with his uncle.

And as often as Wayne was gone, he also couldn’t stay gone forever. Most of the time it could be managed without worry—Wayne was gone more evenings and nights, aside from the rare occasion he had a day off, but Eddie didn’t have any qualms when it came to you and when he needed you—and there really was no denying him, not when you wanted it just as badly.

His uncle doesn’t question when you start staying overnight, it’s not his business and he knows Eddie’s grown and level-headed enough to make good decisions—and you’re good for Eddie, he sees it in the way Eddie carries himself now and in the way he does everything possible to accommodate to you first—it really isn’t necessary, but Wayne raised him to be a gentleman and he’d be damned if he didn’t see that through.

Regardless, Eddie loves to catch you at the most inconvenient times—particularly the warm, summer weekends when Wayne was off, saddled up on the couch in the living room catching up on the latest sports game, television blasting through the trailer.

He knew. He had to.

Besides, Wayne had been nice enough to give Eddie the only bedroom in the trailer—and as a hormonal kid in his last year of high school, it was probably for the best.

He shuts the door with a soft click, the mix of his radio and the booming television drowning out everything else—still, when he fucks you, his hand is clasped tightly over your mouth to drown out every last moan he pulls from you.

Eddie loves it, face lighting up in excitement as you struggled to keep quiet, eyes nearly rolling back in your head at how hard he was fucking into you, panting his own soft breaths over the back of his hand, his face so close your eyelashes could touch.

“Fuck,” He groans brokey, voice cracking on his final thrust, pulling out swiftly to come over the soft expanse of your stomach, pulling his hand away from your mouth,“—baby—“

It’s too loud for your liking, springing up from your reclined position to clasp your hand over his mouth, his eyes falling shut as he tugs at his dick, working through the aftershocks of his orgasm. He mumbled something against the palm of your hand, another curse or filthy remark, you’re not sure—but you’re more than thankful to have muffled his mouth because there was no surviving the shame of having to walk back to the entrance of the trailer after this.

When Eddie finally calms down, releasing his dick to pull at your hand, he’s laughing—and you can’t help but look at him with absurdity, shoving gently at his bare stomach.

“Eddie,” You say in a hushed voice of warning, “are you trying to get us caught?”

“He’s not stupid,” Eddie replies half-heartedly, shrugging, “He probably went out for a couple smokes anyways—he usually does.”

“Still,” You stress, “If you can’t wait, at least don’t make it so fucking obvious.”

Eddie smiles, tipping your chin up with his forefinger, the curved metal of his ring bumping against the skin.

“You can always say no,” Eddie reminds you playfully, “It didn’t seem like you cared a few minutes ago.”

Your eyes narrow, trying to look as intimidating as you could despite your soft features, “I was trying to be quiet. You were being loud on purpose.”

“You feel good.” He defends weakly, “Sue me.”

You roll your eyes fondly, swatting his hand away gently.

“Well, for my sake, try a little harder please?”

Eddie agrees with cautious regret, knowing he definitely didn’t have enough self control, but if it was for you—he would. And it becomes normal after time, almost too easy, and Eddie takes full advantage of it.

You’ve never fucked in a storage closet, let alone at school, but it’s something you can say you’ve tried at least once—all thanks to Eddie’s steadfast determination. He’s even bold enough to fuck you in the bathroom of your parent’s home during a big dinner with other friends and family—and no one had a clue. Eddie always knew how to take full advantage of every situation, both a blessing and a curse.

But when the rare occasion does come, leaving you both alone for the night and Eddie free of his Hellfire duties, it’s like you don’t know how to handle yourself, forcing yourself to keep quiet out of habit.

You pull your bottom lip tight between your teeth, snuffing out the soft whines begging to escape, the slow, full thrust of Eddie’s hips overwhelming when mixed with his calloused fingers working at your already sensitive clit. He moans unabashed, tossing his head back to throw his hair over his shoulder, free hand gripping your hip like a vice, pulling you against him just as eagerly as he thrust into you.

“Love watching you like this,” Eddie says softly, voice shot from pleasure, “—look so pretty on my cock, sweetheart.”

You nod jerkily, agreeing with whatever he said at that point, brows pulling together in concentration, mouth falling open on a soundless gasp.

“What’s wrong?” He asks teasingly, tongue peeking out past his lips and near the corner of his mouth, smug as fucking ever.

“Have to—“ You pant softly, “have to be quiet, Eddie.”

Eddie pouts endearingly, pulling you against him in a rough snap of his hips, your hands grabbing at his messy sheets.

“No, baby,” He shakes his head, “—it’s just us.”

“But—“ You start to protest, but Eddie's hand comes to grab at your face, gentle despite his quickening pace, less restrained than earlier. “—what if your neighbors, you know—“

It was true, sound traveled far too well in the tiny trailer park—but Eddie couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“I want to hear you,” Eddie tells you honestly, eyes falling upon your face, mouth gaping open in his grip, you nod slightly, “—unless you need me to force it out of you.”

And he could with no problem.

“Turn around,” He instructs softly, pulling out momentarily to adjust your hips until you push up onto your knees, face shoved gently into the mattress, “don’t hold back, baby.”

Eddie came in with a plan, sliding into you with ease, hips snapping at a hurried pace that had you gasping into the sheets, even then they were muffled, all semblance of thought and self control gone, practically drooling into his sheets at the brutal pace he’d set.

It isn’t enough for Eddie though, his hand winding into the back of your hair until it hits the root, yanking your head up tenderly—the strain is bordering on uncomfortable, but it’s worth it, the sound he releases as he thrusts into you with furious precision.

“Fuck—you feel so good,” He says in a haze, head tilted down to watch himself sink into you, squeezing at the dip of your hip, “squeezing me so tight, sweetheart.”

You nod, mumbling a soft “Uh huh,” in response, but it’s not what Eddie wants—he knows you have it in you, keeping it so calmly at bay.

“Am I making you feel good, too?” Eddie asks teasingly, another quiet nod, the motion weak against his tight hold on your hair. “Say it, baby—who makes you feel like this?”

“You,” You reply softly, pulling gently against his grip until he lets go, palms pressed against the bed to keep you upright, using your own momentum to slam your hips back against him, plunging Eddie so deep your vision feels like it goes spotty, “—fuck, you do.”

“Say it, sweetheart.” He instructs in a sweet tone, leaning back on his calves until you’re seated in his lap, “say my name.”

You gasp as his fingers reach around to find your clit in a desperate attempt to pull you to a quick orgasm—“Eddie.”

“Louder.”

You sob softly, the muscles of your legs twitching as the pressure builds, your body going white hot with euphoric pleasure as you come around Eddie’s cock, crying out a broken, “EddieEddieEddie—“

Eddie curses as he comes a few seconds after, over the swell of your ass, feeling desperate to catch your breath. He leans down a moment later, pressing a soft kiss to the middle of your back, running his hands along your arms gently. He lifts you up slowly until you can face him again, face at chest level from where he stood above you. His face is outlined by the low light of the room, another satisfied grin pulling at his face.

“Don’t act so innocent,” Eddie teases, “I knew you had it in you.”

You roll your eyes light-heartedly, shoving your fist against his abdomen gently, his fingers coming to wrap around your wrist with ease.

“I never said I didn’t.” You counter and Eddie grins even wider.

It’s safe to say that Eddie goes out of his way to make sure the trailer is always cleared from then on, never depriving himself of such an experience ever again.

[loveinhawkins]

The Reid family live in the trailer opposite Eddie and Wayne’s. They’re a pleasant bunch, sure, but more importantly, they always give Eddie a freshly cooked burger on the Fourth of July, which he readily accepts—why would he waste his time on overpriced fair food when he could get it on his own doorstep for free?

Tonight’s burger is more than a little on the charred side.

It’s no big deal to Eddie (that’s how he prefers it, really), and he gets that you really have to keep an eye on some of those portable grills—otherwise you’ll end up with incinerated chunks of meat in the blink of an eye. But even so, it’s not like Matthew Reid to be so distracted.

“Wayne got the night off?” Matthew asks.

He keeps glancing over his shoulder towards his home, almost misses Eddie nodding. He puts another singed burger on a bun, then places it on Eddie’s plate.

“Thanks,” Eddie says. “Uh, I’ve got some sparklers kicking around, y’know, if the kid wants to…”

He makes it sound more of a happenstance than it had been: yes, he’s had a decent run of orders from seniors and recent graduates, all wanting to let off some steam at the county fair; money is a damn sight better than it had been.

But the truth is that Eddie had been saving up anyway, would’ve bought the sparklers even if funds were tight.

It’s become a little tradition at this point: making his own annual ‘firework show’ with the Reid’s son.

Eddie’s known Daniel since the kid was six years old—he’s fourteen now, still has a bright-eyed naivety that Eddie hopes Hawkins High doesn’t completely stamp out.

He’s got a shock of blonde curls and a gap tooth, loves swimming so much there’s a running joke in the town that he’s part dolphin, what with the amount of time he spends at the community pool.

When his parents had heard that Eddie was repeating senior year yet again, instead of going for the usual commiserations or ‘helpful advice’ angle, they just quipped that it would be good for their son to see a familiar face at high school.

To be honest, Eddie can’t see Daniel needing a familiar face all that much; he imagines that after the typical first year nerves have come and gone, the kid will settle in quite comfortably, that he’ll be on the swim team by October.

At the mention of sparklers, Matthew’s face falls. He looks back to his trailer again and says, “Ah, m’sorry Eddie, couldn’t get him outta bed. Maybe later?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Eddie leaves him to it—if they were closer, perhaps he could’ve encouraged Daniel outside, made a difference somehow. But he just knows the family with a distant kind of friendliness—a shouted, “Morning!” when he’s running late, or a wave at the end of a long school day, their lives only overlapping briefly.

He goes inside to give Wayne his burger, so when it happens, he almost misses it.

He’s pouring himself a glass of water when he hears Louise Reid shouting indistinctly. She’s not usually one to argue, although Eddie’s noticed that she’s seemed tetchy lately—only yesterday, he’d been woken up by the sound of an almighty row that, as far as he could tell, was just about misplacing a bottle of bleach.

By the time he’s out on his porch, he’s just in time to see the back of Daniel as he heads out of the trailer park. It doesn’t exactly look like he’ll stop for anyone.

Louise is watching him go, her lips a thin line.

“Just let him cool off, darlin’,” Matthew says.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do with him. That’s—that’s not normal, I don’t know what the hell’s going on in his head—”

”He’s a kid, Lou, he’s just acting up, that’s all. He’ll grow out of it.”

Louise sighs exasperatedly. When she shuts the front door, she does it with such force that it just bounces back open again. Neither she nor her husband fix it.

Eddie reckons that he’ll time it: fifteen minutes, give or take, and Daniel will be back. Ten minutes more, and he’ll have made up with his mom, before sheepishly asking Eddie for a sparkler.

Eddie’s left counting for much longer than fifteen minutes.

Matthew walks down the road leading up to the park’s entrance, over and over again. Comes back and shouts into his trailer, maybe a little frantically, that he can’t find Daniel, that maybe he’s gone to one of his friend’s places.

Eddie hears Louise start up a round of phone calls. A knot forms in his stomach as each one ends the same way. Call me if you hear anything.

It gets darker. Wayne heads out to the woods with Matthew, flashlights in hand, and it reminds Eddie of when they’d done the same not all that long ago, when Will Byers went missing.

The knot in his stomach grows. Tightens.

Wayne returns with a shake of the head. Eddie makes coffee just for something to do.

“They reckon he hitched a ride somewhere.”

Eddie scoffs. “Where the hell’s he gonna go, Wayne? Chicago?”

They drink their coffee on the porch. The Reid’s door is still left open, so when the phone rings again, it sounds as loud as a gunshot.

Someone picks up.

A scream.

“Wayne,” Eddie whispers. He feels suddenly desperate.

Wayne’s face is white. “Stay here, Ed.”

And then he’s running over to the Reid’s.

Eddie shouldn’t get closer. Shouldn’t look. But he does.

He tiptoes across the grass, just close enough so he can see…

Louise is on the floor. She’s clinging onto the wall phone, the cord stretched to breaking point, and Wayne’s talking to her, too softly for Eddie to make out; he gets down on his knees and puts an arm around her.

Her scream turns into wailing, then guttural sobs.

Eddie staggers backwards.

A flashlight being dropped on concrete. Matthew running inside.

“Lou? Lou! Jesus, what’s—”

Eddie looks away.

He goes back home, tries to shut out the noise. No matter how loudly he plays music, he can still hear them.

Eventually Wayne returns; he doesn’t say anything, just switches Eddie’s music off and puts on the radio.

There’s names being read out. Daniel is one of them.

Eddie sits out on the roof that night. He lights a sparkler, thinks about writing Daniel’s name in the sky, and then is immediately furious at himself for the thought. The kid should be here to do it himself.

When he eventually falls asleep, it’s to the memory of a sparkler burning the back of his eyelids.

A few days pass in what feels like one slow blink.

Eddie doesn’t know what to do with himself. He ends up just wandering down town—it’s ghostly quiet here, has been so ever since the mall opened.

It’s overcast, as if the tragedy has made summer die quicker. That doesn’t stop Eddie’s skin from itching.

There’s a small diner near where Radio Shack once existed; it’s a hole in the wall, still somehow in business.

Eddie doesn’t know why he goes in. He hasn’t even brought his wallet.

All he knows is that he’s suddenly inside, and the place is absolutely dead, and the only person sat at a booth is—

“Jesus,” Eddie breathes. “What happened to your face?”

Steve Harrington stares back at him, looks decidedly unimpressed. There’s a basket of fries in front of him, and he’s presumably going for the ‘stoic silence’ route, because he picks up a fry, goes to eat it, and immediately winces. No fucking wonder, too; it’s a miracle he can even try and eat anything through that busted lip.

Eddie scoffs. “Yeah, doubt something hot with salt was the best choice, Harrington, considering uh,” he waves a hand in front of his face, “everything.”

Steve frowns. “I just wanted them,” he says, on the edge of petulant, and Eddie wonders if he also ended up here by chance; if his skin is itching, too.

“Hang on,” Eddie says.

At least he has something to do now.

He asks for a cup of ice at the counter, wraps up some cubes inside a bunch of paper towels. He brings it back to Steve, who’s watching him in faint surprise.

“Uh. Thanks, Munson.”

Eddie shrugs.

Steve takes the bundle of towels, pressing them to his lips with a small hiss. He nods for Eddie to sit opposite him.

It’s a whole lot, up close: one of Steve’s eyes is heavily swollen, and along with the busted lip, his face is a mess of fresh bruises that must ache something fierce.

“You can ask,” Steve says, mumbled from talking behind the ice. He sounds resigned, like he’s one step away from adding everyone else does.

“All right.” Eddie crosses his arms. “What happened?”

“I worked at the mall. Broken down elevator.” Steve slams his hand down on the table. “It dropped.”

“Holy shit,” Eddie mutters.

But his mind is already elsewhere.

Steve’s unaffected eye narrows. Shit. He’s on to him.

“What’s eating you, Munson?”

“It’s just…” Eddie sighs, leans forward. “So a fire broke out. Like, after closing? But people were still inside.”

Steve doesn’t blink. “You ever worked in retail? People just hang around for no reason.”

“Sure, but—but—” Eddie feels a sudden urge to tug on his hair in frustration. “But he wouldn’t do that, he’d…”

Steve sets down the paper towels. “Who wouldn’t?” he says quietly.

Eddie tells him.

Steve listens in silence. He shifts in his seat when Eddie’s done and says, almost gently, “It sounds like he went to—”

“No, he hated the mall,” Eddie says vehemently. “Dragged his feet when his folks took him to the opening. He wouldn’t—he’d—I don’t know! All of it, it’s—”

“Crazy,” Steve finishes. He looks down. “Yeah. I know.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it, man. And, like, that family never fought, but the day before it—his mom was biting his head off over, like, losing some bleach or something stupid like—woah, Jesus, you okay?”

Because Steve suddenly looks like he might be sick. He swallows, breathes in and out cautiously.

“I’m fine.”

Eddie pauses. “Okay,” he says, uncertain. When Steve looks a little less pale, he goes on; he can’t stop himself. “I just—what if—did you, um. Did you see him?”

“No,” Steve says slowly. “But Eddie,” he says, and for some reason, he almost sounds like he’s pleading, “he was there.”

“How do you know? How does anyone—you know, like Will Byers, everyone thought… And then he…”

“It’s not always like that,” Steve says, sounds both sad and bitter. “Some people just stay dead.”

It’s a lousy rebuttal, in Eddie’s opinion, but for some reason it hits him anyway, leaves him abruptly exhausted. He runs a hand over his face.

“Yeah.” He steps out of the booth. “See you around, Harrington.”

“Wait.” Steve gets up too, with slow ginger movements. His fries remain untouched. “If I brought my car, I’d have given you a ride home, but…”

“Don’t think you’re in any condition to be driving,” Eddie says.

Steve gives a tiny shrug with one shoulder. “You wanna get the bus?”

“I didn’t bring any money.”

“It’s fine, I’ll get your ticket. I’m just gonna ride all the stops anyway.”

And it’s an unexpectedly comforting thought, that Steve is also at a loss for what to do.

They go to the back of the bus, sit in silence for the first couple of stops. Steve turns from where he’s been looking out the window and says, “Are you still, y’know, doing your thing?”

Eddie’s used to that being a euphemism for “Are you still selling?” But then he sees that Steve is miming a dice being thrown, and he’s momentarily surprised into a half-smile.

“Yeah. Will be, when school starts up again.”

He’d typically be using the summer as time to work on a new campaign, but that had gone out of his head with… everything.

They’re nearly at Forest Hills when Steve speaks again.

“I… I knew him. Not like you did, but I—I used to be a lifeguard, and his butterfly was phenomenal, I’d get the stopwatch out sometimes. There was a group of us, we worked on rotation, we’d call him part—”

“Dolphin,” Eddie says. “Yeah. That’s right.”

He feels his bottom lip threaten to go. Stupid. He rubs the feeling out with the tips of his fingers, digging in harshly.

It’ll be his stop soon. He stands up to make his way to the front, doesn’t expect Steve to rise with him, but he does. His breathing is suspiciously light; Eddie suspects he’s got some broken ribs to go with the pummelled face.

“Eddie,” he says, and even though he’s keeping his balance perfectly well, his hand brushes Eddie’s wrist anyway.

It’s not enough to chase away the itch in Eddie’s skin. But for a fleeting second, it helps. It helps.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “It sucks to lose someone.”

It’s a platitude, but there’s feeling behind it. Weight.

Eddie wants to say that he didn’t lose anyone, that the thought would be a disservice to Daniel’s parents, but…

It’s like Steve’s words give him permission to feel it. Just for now.

“Thanks,” he says tightly. On the last step before he exits, he turns and says, “Rest up, Harrington.”

“Oh yeah,” Steve says. “I’ll be here for hours.”

It’s said like it’s a joke, but Eddie thinks he means it.

Steve’s halfway back to his seat when the bus turns back onto the road, but he manages to wave just before he disappears from view.

Eddie starts the short walk home.

The Reid’s trailer is dark, a For Sale sign placed in front of it. Eddie hadn’t even known they were leaving, must have missed it in the haze of the last few days.

He gets it; if he were in their shoes, he doesn’t know if he could have stayed either. Everything would be a reminder of their son—the places he’d go, where he should be.

But he almost wishes that they were still here, so he could try and stumble his way through telling them Steve Harrington knew your son. He’ll remember him, too.

He doesn’t know if that would’ve been a comfort or not. He doesn’t know.

People come and go. Steve won’t be on that bus forever—he’ll go home eventually. July will become August will become…

Eddie lets himself in and collapses onto his bed. There’s still a prickle of wrongness in his skin, but he can’t untangle it. There’s nothing to make sense of.

He finds one of his journals. There’s some notes he made for a future campaign only last month. Feels like a lifetime ago.

He ignores the remaining unlit sparklers left in a corner of his room. Starts to write.

He can control this world, at least.

[sp0o0kylights]

"I feel him." El insists. "Alive." 

She hasn't said his name since Will first raised them all over the walkie, but every person in the room knows who she means. 

Not that Steve can say his name either.

"But we watched him die." Nancy says gently, before Dustin properly loses it from where he sits in the corner. "Owen's even sent someone back through to check." 

"Yes." El agrees, but it's clear she's frustrated. "He died here. But he's not alive here, he's alive over there." 

"In the Upside Down?" Steve asks, and pretends his voice isn't cracking with desperation and barely concealed hope.

"No!" El snaps, before taking a deep breath and collecting herself to try again. "Through the other gate." 

"Okay." Hopper cuts in, hands waving in some kind of "stay calm" gesture. "El, honey, I think we're all still hung up about the other gate." He pauses, before adding. "And how Creel dying opened it." 

El gives him a thousand yard stare. 

"I'm getting the crayons." Joyce sighs as she stands up. In a mutter she continues, "Should have gotten them to begin with." 

Silently, Steve agrees. 

xXx Eddie xXx

It goes like this.

A bat breaks through the side of the trailer. It swoops low, teeth rattling, but it doesn't attack. 

It emits an odd, echoing screech, before  flying through the gate, to the Rightside-Up. 

"Shit." Dustin curses wildly. "Shit, they're gonna try and invade!" 

"I thought they were guarding the gate!" Eddie protests, as that echoing scream returns tenfold, coming from the mouths of too many demobats. “If they wanted to invade wouldn’t they have done that already!?” 

"No, because Vecna was focused on opening more gates! This must be his plan--to open enough gates to push an army through. We have to lead them away!"

"Dustin-!" Eddie calls out desperately, but finds himself overwhelmed by bats as more and more break through. 

He fights through them, trying to get to Dustin, trying to listen to what the kid’s screaming.

He can’t hear him.

Not over all the screeching, the beating bat wings and the thudding noises as they smack at his head. Their teeth snap, tearing into every piece of him they can reach.

Eddie doesn’t know how long he’s been surrounded, but he hears the trailer door bang open--and shut.

"Dustin!" He screams this time, voice as loud as he can make it.

The kid’s faster than he is.

He’d planned this--or at least, had thought about it long enough to get himself a solid head start, leaving Eddie scrambling after. 

Fighting through the torrents of bats. Abandoning the gate because Hawkins can burn for all he cares--but there are people who don't deserve to go down with it.

People like Henderson, who have bright futures ahead of them.

Eddie tears his way towards Dustin, unthinking, just running.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid-!’ He thinks, but not at Dustin. 

At himself, because he knows the kid. Knows what to expect from how he acts in games. 

Steve even called it--and Eddie’s not stupid enough to think he was talking to both of them when he warned them about not being a hero. He was included purely because Dustin would fuss otherwise and they were short on time.

Dustin’s on the ground when Eddie finds him, and he whips his spear at the few dozen bats that attack him, their bodies circling, teeth biting. 

He gets in two good hits before shit hits the fan. 

To his right something explodes, flames high and reaching, a thunderous boom whipping out so loud that Eddie's ears ring. 

A shockwave nearly takes him off his feet, bandana pulled from his head and freeing his hair. 

Eddie crashes on the ground next to Dustin.

 Sees all the blood and doesn't know what to do. 

"Come on man." Eddie pleads. "Come on!" 

He doesn't get an answer. 

It goes like this.

Vecna’s dead. 

The blast that killed him was from some kind of explosion that took out all of Creel House. 

It fireballed skyward, and the Upside Down rapidly began doing….something, seconds after. 

Returning, Eddie decides, to whatever it was before the asshole got thrown in here. 

Or dying, maybe.

(This is easier to think about than the fact that no one could have survived that blast. That there's a black hole Eddie can see, and it has to wrap miles and miles around the Creel House because he's still near his trailer.

It the trees down the stupid hill didn't make it then Robin, and Nancy, and Steve--

He stops. Shakes his head.

If Eddie thinks about it, it will make it real. 

He can't let it be real.),

The monsters all fall as one, dropping to the ground like puppets with cut strings. 

Eddie had been pummeled by a few demobat bodies before he could get clear, though given how some still occasionally twitch and hop around weakly after, Vecna's death doesn't necessarily equal their own.

Madly, he crushes a few beneath his boots. 

Knows that won't bring his friends back. 

Stomps on a few more because he can't do anything about that, and he can't cry any harder.

It goes like this.

Eddie gets back topside to find Vecna's revenge in action.

 It's an act worthy of a mad god, not that Eddie would ever give him such a title. 

Hawkins wasn't split. It was consumed, with large portions falling deep into the earth that opened under it. Smoke chokes half the town from an outburst of fires, while downed trees and electrical lines make walking a chore. 

The road is a cracked and pitted mess, littered with holes large enough to swallow entire cars. 

Passage is nigh impossible by car, and downright dangerous by foot.

It makes Eddie want to sink to his knees in despair.

There were still people around, that first day. 

There were still people around the second and fifth days too. 

But then the monsters appear. 

They're not the demobats, or demodogs or even the demogorgons that Eddie was told of. 

They're something--else.

Mutated and mutating, taking on appearances that reflect both the Upside Down and the Right-Side Up (a term coined by one of the freshmen--Eddie can't recall which.) 

Actual flowers, great purple and orange looking blooms sprout teeth and attack. Vines stick out of arcade cabinets, carting them around like a hermit crabs shell. 

Some people breathe the falling little pieces of ash and suddenly aren't people anymore.

(It was Erica, who had coined the term. The Right-Side Up. 

Erica who was also deceased, because the fucking explosion didn't just take out the Upside Down version of the Creel house, but the real one too. 

Which meant Max and Lucas and Erica…

But Eddie's not thinking about that.)  

It goes like this.

Wayne's gone.

He'd been at the plant when the Earth had swallowed it, his first day back to work because he'd used all his PTO trying to find Eddie.

The coworker who watched it happen makes sure to tell Eddie his uncle insisted he was innocent. That the old man never stopped looking.

Likewise, the trailer is gone. 

It fell barely a day after Eddie had climbed out of it, one half eaten while the other teetered dangerously on the edge.

There's cops at the borders of the city. 

They’re been commandeered by the military and the feds both, and people in heavy gear prowl around like guard dogs just waiting to be let off leash.

Helicopters fill the air, always circling and searching. Units of men and women begin parading around with guns as they escort tanks and other battle equipment through the streets. 

They're looking for something besides the monsters, and they're happy to cut the phone lines and police the survivors to find it.

No one's allowed in--or out. 

Eddie tries to escape the first few days, after he realizes everyone who knew the truth is gone. 

Thinks maybe he can get to the Byers, and that super powered girl out in California, but keeps getting cut off.

Twice they've nearly caught him, which means twice Eddie has been forced to come to terms with the fact that he's one of the things they're after.

They know him by name.

They know he was involved in Creel's takedown.

Eddie"s not just being hunted by the town now. 

He’s being hunted by the United States as a whole. 

It goes like this.

Eddie doesn't want to die. 

Can't bring himself to take his own life, forever too much of a coward. 

So he berates himself while he hides.

Wonders what the fuck his plan is here. 

Focuses on surviving, stealing food, sleeping in people he loves houses and hoping maybe some of them made it out.

(Given how Gareth's and Jeff's places are both untouched, he doesn't think they did.) 

He’s never prayed before but now he’s praying to every deity he can think of. Hoping, wishing, that if he can’t get out alive, he at least goes down quickly. 

It goes like this.

Steve Harrington walks out of the woods with a nailbat in his hands, like a blood soaked fever dream. 

Eddie doesn't care. 

He hugs him so hard his own ribs hurt and the crazy thing is Steve hugs him back even harder. 

"You're alive." Eddie sobs, face buried in Steve's shoulder.,"You're alive, you're alive…" 

Steve grips him for a moment before whispering back; "And so are you." 

He pulls away and Eddie struggles against him, not ready to let go, fingers grasping at his shirt. 

Steve strokes his hair, his stupid tangled, gross hair and Eddie looks at him, desperately needing the contact to prove that Steve is real. 

That he’s here. 

 "I need you to listen--I'm not your Steve." Steve says, and Eddie’s so desperate for contact that the words don’t register for a moment. 

Not that they make sense when they do. 

"What?" Eddie asks. 

"There’s a--okay.” Steve sighs, before saying; “I am going to absolutely blow the explanation, but I need you to trust me.”

“I do.” Eddie says, even as Steve fulfills his own prophecy, and gives a completely nonsensical explanation.

At the end of it, Eddie can’t bring himself to care. 

As long as he has Steve back--even if it’s not technically his Steve, Eddie will follow him wherever he goes.

[harringtown]

wrap me up in all your—

still not over that obscure friends to lovers prompt list so I did number 30 w Eddie!!!!

pairing: eddie munson x reader

summary: everyone forgets Eddie’s birthday except the reader (aka a cupcake, a joint, a gift, and a confession or two)

word count: 1.5k

warnings: cursing and weed/smoking mention

-

The trailer park is quiet. The autumn chill has settled over town like a blanket, unearthing winter jackets and beanies from closets and marking every breath with a plume of white air.

Eddie sits beside you on his front porch, and though the light swinging overhead flickers every few seconds, and the wooden stairs are halfway to rotted, it’s his favorite place in the world.

Anywhere that has you in it is his favorite place in the world.

He’d like to blame that sappy sentiment on the joint you surprised him with an hour ago and have been passing back and forth, but if he’s honest, Eddie feels that way sober.

You make him feel and think all that sappy shit he was sure only existed in movies.

You showed up, with a dorky birthday hat and a joint sticking out of a cupcake, and Eddie instantly felt high.  And so, even though his day started at crappy and only got worse from there, it’s looking to have a decent ending.

As far as birthdays go, this certainly isn’t the worst. It’s almost better that everyone forgot. No last-minute, hasty gifts or the off-key singing of some waitress and his uncle.

It doesn’t even matter that everyone else forgot. Because you didn’t.

“I got you a present,” you say eventually, jabbing out the last burning embers of the roach and tossing the filter into the tiny pile at the bottom of the steps. Other filters from other nights smoking on this porch, the best of them with you.

“I thought we just smoked the present,” Eddie says.

You snort a laugh and bump Eddie’s shoulder with your own.

“No, that was the candle,” you say. “It would have been better if you rolled it. You’ve got magic hands.” You lift your arms and do jazz hands, making Eddie laugh, and then cough, which makes you laugh, too. Then you’re just two high idiots giggling on a crumbling porch, but Eddie is happier than he has been in a long time.

“Not everyone has the magic touch,” Eddie says. He raises his own hands, and doesn’t miss the way your gaze falls and lingers on each finger, each ring and crooked knuckle and calloused fingertip. Eddie drops his hands. “So. What’s this present you speak of? It better be damn good, after all you’ve hyped it up.”

“I did no hyping,” you accuse. You tear your gaze from Eddie’s and drop it to your lap, where you’re worrying the hem of your hoodie between your fingers. “And it probably isn’t that good—”

Eddie blames the weed on his sudden confidence. He takes your chin in one hand, forcing you to look at him, and he doesn’t realize how close you are on the porch until he almost smashes your nose with his own.

“Whatever it is, sweetheart,” he says, gentler than he intends, “I’m sure I’ll love it.” Your eyes dip, dip to his mouth, and now Eddie is looking at your lips, and he can’t stop.

He clears his throat and sits back. “You’ve never gone wrong before. Christmas ‘82?” He shrugs his shoulders and flashes you a lopsided grin. “Alright, yeah, you kind of screwed future you, there. How the hell do you follow thatup?”

You roll your eyes, but Eddie can tell you’re pleased. He’s known you so long that nonactions are actions, too.

“You and that damn guitar,” you say.

“What can I say? You did good, kid,” Eddie says. He bumps your shoulder again. “C’mon. Quit stalling. Let’s see it.”

You scrunch your nose. “Technically, there’s not really anything to see. I mean, I have a piece of paper, like a written agreement, but—”

“Earth to y/n,” Eddie says in a singsongy voice, though honestly, he’d be content to watch you talk about nothing for hours.

You nod a few times. Clear your throat. Don’t look at him as you say, “I kind of… booked you a gig.”

And Eddie’s dry mouth becomes the Sahara desert.

“You—what?”

“And I don’t know if I’d really call it a gig. More of an… audition? That fancy new club, The Tunnel, is looking for a local band to play Friday nights, and they want something different, so I played them one of your tapes. The manager liked it. He said if you do well at the show in a few weeks, you could be in there every friday night—”

“Are you serious?” Eddie asks.

You stop. Meet his eyes. “Of course I’m serious.”

“Holy shit.” Eddie pushes off the porch steps, onto the dirt below, and shakes his head. “Holy shit.” He wraps his arms around his torso and turns to you, shaking his head again. “Are you serious?”

You laugh, and say, “For the second time, yeah, I’m serious.” You swipe at your nose and sniffle. “Not that your usual joint isn’t great, but I figured, maybe you and the guys wanted to change it up a bit¸—”

And Eddie can’t hold back anymore. He rushes you, throwing his arms around your waist, knees digging into the step below you, burying his face in your neck.

You laugh again, and hug him back, and when you dip your face against his, your cool lips graze his temples. His stomach lurches, and his pulse sings, and yeah, he’s definitely high, but it’s most certainly not all from the weed.

All his reservations fall away. Fall apart. Never fucking existed at all, and he’s just been kiding himself.

Eddie pulls back to look at you.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” he says. “I love you.”

You let out a little laugh. “I love you, too, dude.”

He shakes his head. Peels himself away from you and drops onto the step beside you. “No. I mean, I love you. I’m in love with you. And I have been since we were sixteen. I was doing a pretty good job of not doing anything about it, trying to maintain the friendship and all that, but then you show up here, and you tell me you booked my band a gig—”

“Technically not a gig!”

“—a gig,” Eddie says. “And suddenly, I don’t give a shit about maintaining anything. So, thanks for that. And I love you. I really fucking love you. Sorry if that screws things up.”

For a long second, you just look at him, and Eddie thinks he could die right there on that porch—which is ironic, considering he kind of almost did, if the grass near this porch in a parallel universe counts.

“Do you have any idea,” you ask, “how long I’ve been waiting for you to admit that?”

Eddie jerks back. “What are you—you knew?”

You tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear and look away, a sheepish smile on your face.

“I mean, of course I knew,” you say. “I’ve known you since we were ten. I know you. But time went on, and you still never said anything, and I wasn’t sure if I was wrong, or if you just had no goddamn clue how you felt, and then—“

“And how do you feel?” Eddie asks.

Your smile shifts. It shines like a thousand stars, brighter than anything in the night sky.

“I really fucking love you too,” you say. And then you kiss him, and you taste like frosting and weed and a thousand future kisses.

Eddie ends it sooner than he’d like—if he doesn’t, he’ll do something non-gentlemanly things on his porch, and he’s really trying to be a gentleman—and you drop your head onto his shoulder. You lace your fingers through his, fiddling with his rings with your free hand.

Sometime later, you lift your head, and say, “You never told me your wish.”

The cupcake with the joint. You instructed him to make a birthday wish on the first hit.

Eddie averts his gaze, swiping the hair from his eyes.

“My wish?” He shrugs. Meets your eyes. “You know the rules. Secret.” He draws his fingers across his lips and mimics throwing away a key.

You roll your eyes. “Humor me.”

Eddie inclines his head and considers a moment.

“You really want to know?”

“I want to know everything in that head,” you say, lifting two fingers to his temples.

Eddie knows he’s smiling like a dork, but he doesn’t care.

“It was you,” he says. “It’s always you.”

You press your lips together, but a smile tugs them up. You wind your arms around his neck and dip your forehead against him.

“Well,” you say softly. “You’ve got me. Time to find a new wish.”

“I’ll figure it out later,” he says. “Now, I just really want to kiss you again. You cool with that?”

You laugh, and say, “Yeah, I’m cool with that.”

Then you kiss him again.

And Eddie thinks this might be the best birthday he’s ever had.

-

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