Darling [Steve x Eddie]

Chapter 13

Eddie piled into his van and pushed the keys into the ignition, hands trembling slightly.

°Please work, baby," he muttered, attempting to start the engine.

The van shuddered and coughed.

"For fucks sake."

He tried again and waited with a shaky breath as the vehicle began to jolt awake.

"Thank you, darling."

He could not have handled an engine fail, not today. He was too nervous as it was, both about what Robin was going to say, and about what Steve would do when he arrived. They hadn't spoken since he'd helped Eddie, but even thought it hadn't even been a full day since then, Eddie already doubted that Steve would act nicely towards him. It just seemed too easy that he could change so much because of one visit to Eddie's trailer.

He shook out his hands and put the van in reverse.

There wasn't enough room for Steve Harrington in his mind.

He pulled out of the trailer park and as soon as he was on the main road, he flipped on the radio.

That's What Friends Are For blasted out, with a broadcast about the AIDS crisis playing over top. Eddie thrummed his fingers on the wheel and hummed along. He was familiar with the song, as it played just about everywhere, but the movement that it was related to was something much bigger to him.

He really wanted to drive out to New York once he graduated, which would be in two months exactly, and join in with the Wall Street protests, but he didn't know how he could just leave like that, what with Wayne and everything.

Eddie hadn't totally come out to his uncle yet, mostly because the Upside Down majorly interrupted their lives, but also because he didn't know how to bring it up.

It wasn't like he could just randomly say "I like boys" and then walk out of the room.

"Or you could."

That was what Robin had suggested three weeks ago, at the beginning of April, when the two of them briefly talked about the idea of coming out to their guardians.

"Right," he'd responded sarcastically.

He'd told Robin, of course, but that had been easy because she told him about herself first. He didn't have to introduce the subject or ramble his way through the awkward parts with her either, because they both understood each other.

Maybe tonight, he could bring up coming out again.

He just hoped that Steve wasn't going to be at Robin's for too long, because he definitely didn't want him to know that he was gay. Harrington already had enough ammunition as it was. Eddie didn't even want to imagine the colourful adjectives that the boy could string together with his name in the hallways at school or the streets of Hawkins.

He shuddered and flipped the radio off.

He was almost at the Buckley residence and the songs were starting to annoy him. He'd struggled through Venus four times already and it sounded like True Colors was about to come on again.

"Why can't the lovely media broadcast a little Metallica for once?" he muttered under his breath as he pulled onto Robin's street.

As he parked across the road from her house and walked up the drive, he noticed that her parents' car was conspicuously absent from it's usual place.

"Guess good ol' Richard and Melissa Buckley decided to run away," he joked aloud.

"What was that?"

He looked up sharply and spotted Robin leaned against the porch banister, grinning with a lollipop stuck between her lips.

"Your parents out?" he rephrased, jogging up the stairs as he spoke.

"Yup. Castle Buckley is open for business." Robin gestured grandly to the front door, which hung open to reveal the warmly lit interior of the house.

"Thanks."

Eddie knew that she would understand everything behind the word.

The soft look that she gave him confirmed it.

They stepped inside and as soon as the door shut, her arms were around him and all of the oxygen in his lungs dissipated. He buried his head in her hair anyways and fell completely into the squeeze of the hug.

"You have a lot of stuff to tell me."

"I know, and I'll tell you everything, I promise."

He breathed in the smell of her shampoo and felt his body finally relax.

"I couldn't be alone tonight," he murmured into her shoulder.

"I know."