You Never Said Goodbye.

6: Neither Did You.

"You didn't even seem to talk to him a lot!" He yelled, "All you did was say hi and stare at him like he was a crazy person! Hell you hit him with an oar when you first met him, and you still didn't do any of that shit, you didn't double-check we were good or anything while we were distracting the stupid bats! Did you care? Did you really fucking care? Did you even-"

Steve's head came up sharply, "I loved him! Okay? I fucking loved Eddie 'The Freak' Munson. Head over heels, alright?" Steve stood up and wrapped his arms around himself as if hugging himself would stop the shaking coursing through his shoulders, "His stupid doe eyes and his stupid curly hair and his fucking annoying hands that seemed to know how to do so much stupid shit on guitar I don't even fucking know why but I met him and I couldn't hold together my shit!" Steve took a shaky breath, his eyes wide as if terrified, "I didn't even know I loved him until I lost him and suddenly-" Steve had to pause to take another shaky deep breath, "and suddenly I didn't want to be anywhere without him anymore. I didn't want to feel my heart beating or hear my own breathing because it shouldn't have been him, it should have been me."

Dustin stared, mouth agape, arms limp as Steve screamed, he couldn't speak and all he did was watch as Steve turned around and started leaving.

"I loved him, Dustin, I love him. So much it hurts."

Dustin stood for what felt like months, watching Steve walk away, the crunch of his footsteps and the sound of the breeze snaking through the leaves in the trees, shaking them. His mind worked like machinery, clicking when it got the answer he was looking for. Why Eddie seemed to stare at Steve back, why he had given Steve his vest, that vest was his prized position, his armor. Why Steve had looked so uncomfortable talking to Nancy about his 'dream.' Less and less did it look to him like Steve was trying to convince Nancy, and more like he was trying to convince himself. It all started to make sense.

As Steve disappeared from Dustin's view, Dustin let himself start to move, the first to move was his knees, shaking as he lowered himself down to sit, he kept his eyes on where Steve had been, he blinked and a tear dripped down his cheek, he knew Steve couldn't hear him if he was screaming so he let himself cry again.

Over how he hadn't noticed it, over Eddie, over how he had just assumed such mean things. He took a shaky breath, and after a couple of minutes of feeling terrible, he began to stand up. His legs were shaky, but they held him up enough it was fine. He began the trek home, clouds beginning to block out the sky as he did so, the starting drops to a sheet of rain falling just before he reached his front door.