Darling [Steve x Eddie]

Chapter 5

Eddie crept into the janitor's closet and began to root around for a strong cleaning spray. He had the guitar leaned against the wall outside and the door was slightly ajar. He could hear soft voices echoing from the classrooms down the hallway, but so far no one seemed to be going by the little room.

He spotted an ancient bottle of lysol in the corner, buried haphazardly beneath dusty mops and dirty rags, and began to reach for it. It was a little difficult because he was practically up to his knees in various buckets of sponges and toilet paper, which rattled profusely whenever he tried to move.

Just as his fingers began to brush against the nozzle of his goal, he heard running footsteps coming rapidly his way.

"Fuck," he swore and pulled reluctantly backwards to take a look outside.

He was a second too late and the tip of his nose was almost clipped off as the janitor closet's door swung shut with an ominous click of the lock.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he shouted and thumped his head against the wall.

There was no sound from outside, so his attacker must have run away. Eddie slowly began to realize that he could be there for a long time. That's when the school's bell rang and he listened as hundreds of rowdy students packed into the halls. There was no way that anyone would be able to hear him if he tried to let them know of his existence.

He began to wonder how much oxygen the closet would have and for how long it would last.

He slid back against the door and slumped on the floor, his head against his knees.

"Fuck me."

Eddie didn't really consider himself a particularly panicky person, but even he had his limits. If there was one thing that always got to him, it was being alone and trapped in small spaces.

When he was in the Upside Down, just after he got Dustin to safety, he remembered feeling the deepest silence, despite the grate of metal on claw as the demobats pierced through the roof of his trailer. It had filled him with an empty fear that propelled him to the door and out into the burning night. When he had biked as far as he could, and fell into the swirl of the bats, he had never felt more claustrophobic in his life.

Eddie really wanted to die a hero. He wanted his life to end up meaning something at last. That was the thought that he had chosen to focus all of his energy on in that moment, just before he made his last stand.

Unfortunately, it very obviously hadn't worked because he was still alive and breathing, albeit a little shallower than before, in a janitor's closet. He shook his head into his knees and frantically tried to think about anything other than dark corners filling him in.

"I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things..." he began to sing softly into his skin.

The tears burning in the creases of his eyes wavered.

"We can do the tango just for two."

The room slowly began to feel a little bit bigger.

He sighed and hummed the rest of the verse.

Then he tugged out his music again and started to figure out the finger movements and placements on his trusty air guitar.

Which made him remember his darling outside, leaning against the wall.

"Fuck, I hope you're still out there," he muttered, freezing for a moment.

Maybe it would help someone to find him, though.

He needed to stay distracted, so he pushed away all thoughts of the real guitar and settled for the make-belief instead.

Twenty excruciating minutes passed, according to Eddie's best estimate. The lightbulb, at that point, was flickering a lot more than when he first entered the room, and he wondered how much more light he would have. If the bulb died, he didn't think that he would be able to survive any longer.

His experience with the Upside Down had left him with many unwanted side effects, like a general twitchy-ness, which had already been there before, but the trauma accentuated it. More embarrassingly, he sometimes had little panic attacks and he was scarily afraid of the dark at the best of times.

In situations like these, he knew that no lights would mean gasping for breath as his lungs tightened around him.

He abandoned the sheet music beside him on the floor and closed his eyes, trying to put the idea out of his mind. It was more scary because he half wanted it.