Darling [Steve x Eddie]

Chapter 8

Eddie's old trailer home had been destroyed during the opening of the Upside Down and he'd been virtually homeless for a week or two after he was discharged from the hospital. His uncle wasn't in town during that time, so he'd worked out an arrangement of sleeping on different friends' couches in daily rotations. He saw a lot more of Mike's dad than he ever wanted to and Dustin's new cat developed a strong connection to him.

But due to the large number of people who left Hawkins after the attack, Eddie managed to scrape up enough cash to purchase someone's old trailer home, which had been unharmed from it's position in the far corner of the park.

While it was hard to live near all of the memories, Eddie was grateful to have a permanent roof over his head and it was better than being dead.

He walked there that afternoon, along the half-empty streets past abandoned storefronts and tipped garbage cans. Hawkins, once the epitome of the all-American town, was something more of a derelict shopping strip now. Half of it's residents fled when the very foundation of the town cracked and people were too afraid to come back when everything was fixed.

Eddie felt like the town had gained an unshakable, spooky flavour that reminded him of abandoned cult grounds and hospitals. He preferred to bike home on most days because cutting down main street was not something that he liked to linger at doing and when he walked, there was a greater chance of seeing something that shouldn't be a ghost, but which always felt like one.

Anything from a broken vase left on the concrete to an old man sitting outside of his empty shop could make Eddie feel sad, which he didn't like to admit to anyone so he never complained when his uncle or Dustin's friends borrowed his bike. Right now, Mike was practicing wheelies on it with Will, somewhere in the backstreets where no one would look for them.

Eddie didn't like to speculate, but the two boys had been seeing a lot of each other lately, just the two of them. He was pretty sure that something more was going on than just playing, but he didn't say anything. Mike never talked to him about love stuff, so it would have been weird to bring it up randomly. As for Will, Eddie didn't know him well enough to have a discussion about sexuality with him, but he got a definite vibe from him.

But he'd been wrong before. When Robin had a crush on Vickie, he'd believed that Vickie was bisexual. It turned out that she was just curious and she eventually decided that boys were alright on their own, which he respected, but he didn't like that she'd hurt Robin in the process.

Robin had been absolutely crushed and she slept over at Eddie's for a while, alternating between being annoyingly bright about the whole thing and crying into his shoulder. They'd skipped school for one of those days and stayed up the whole night, talking about soulmates and getting high. Eddie came out to her that night as well and she was the first person that he'd told. She had been sworn to silence about it.

It made the two of them much closer because queerness wasn't something that either of them had been able to openly talk about before. Eddie was grateful for the connection because he no longer felt alone in Hawkins. Robin was the first person who was his age and queer that he had ever been friends with, that he knew of, and he was surprised by the confidence that it gave him.

He could only hope that eventually, when they felt comfortable, either Mike or Will or both of them would talk about that stuff with him, so that he might be able to give them the same thing.

But for now, he hoped they were out in the woods, kissing against tree trunks and smiling at each other.

Everyone needed a break from reality sometime.

Eddie's was getting high, which he was sorely tempted to do now. He knew that it would relax his body after the stress of the afternoon and the idea of being present for the next five hours before he had to sleep was a sobering thought.

He reached the trailer door and unlocked it, stepping inside.

"Fuck it," he said as he threw the keys down on the couch. "Let's live in the sky for a bit."