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44cowboycryptid44 · 2 years

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you’re not coming back (and i can’t say it out loud)

Fandom: Stranger Things Pairings: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler (mentioned) Characters: Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, Eddie Munson(referenced), Dustin Henderson(referenced), Mike Wheeler(referenced), Will Byers(referenced), Jonathan Byers(referenced) Argyle(referenced), Steve’s Parents Warnings: Spoilers for Season 4 Volume 2, content warnings for death, grief, mourning, and a panic attack/mental breakdown, USE OF THE F SLUR (written by a queer(pansexual) man), Steve’s parents are assholes Length: 2k words Synopsis: Steve knew it was a possibility, of course he did. He just hadn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that he could lose Eddie before he even truly had him. He hasn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that Eddie is dead. So he stays at Rick’s cabin sometimes, and spends his days looking for Eddie.

Steve still goes over to Reefer Rick’s cabin sometimes.

It’s illogical, he knows, but part of him just can’t accept that he’s gone.

Like, gone. He’s not coming back. And Steve doesn’t know how to deal with that.

So he doesn’t. He doesn’t. He just packs a bag, cuts all communication, and stays in Rick’s cabin for a few days every month.

He’s pretty sure Robin has figured him out- Dustin too. He scared the shit out of them the first time he left without saying anything, so he always makes sure they know now. Takes a few days off from work, shows up to Family Video before he goes, bag on his shoulder, and teases Robin for a bit before heading out.

She doesn’t understand. At least not fully. She doesn’t know.

He and Eddie were- well, they weren’t dating. But they were going to try, when they all got out of it alive. When.

He knew it was a possibility, of course he did. He just hadn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that he could lose Eddie before he even truly had him.

He hasn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that Eddie is-

Well. He hasn’t wrapped his mind around some other things either.

So he stays at Rick’s cabin sometimes, and spends his days looking for Eddie.

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On the day it all goes to shit, Steve wakes up in his house. His parents are home for once, and when Steve trudges downstairs in his pajamas, they’re sitting at the dining room table, Eddie’s vest between them. That wakes Steve up very fast.

“Mom? Dad?”

“Ah. Steven,” his dad says.

“Come sit down,” his mother says, patting the chair in between the two of them.

He does, hesitantly.

“Um.” Steve frowns. “What’s this?”

“Steven,” his mother says, gently. Oh, he’s in deep shit. “Where did you get this vest?”

“Um, one of my friends gave it to me.”

“Which one,” his father grunts out gruffly.

“Does it matter?”

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.

“Yes it matters!” his dad exclaims, slamming his hand down on the table. “This is a- a Satanic vest! Look at this! Dio?” He pronounces it die-o.

“Dio,” Steve corrects quietly. “It’s a band.”

His father is gearing up to yell again, but his mom reaches over Steve and lays a hand on the older man’s forearm.

“We’re not angry, honey, are we?” She says, pointedly, then looks back at Steve. “But we heard about that Satanic devil worshipper who murdered those poor children. We heard he- he was a queer.” She whispers out the last word, like even daring to acknowledge that gay people exist out loud would send her straight to hell. Steve cringes. He remembers when he was like that. Stupid fucking closeted King Steve was such a goddamn asshole.

“And what if he was?” Will Steve ever learn to keep his mouth shut? Jesus.

This, apparently was too much for Steve’s dad to handle, and he exploded.

“How dare you say that? I thought I raised you better than that! Thank God that bastard died, if he was turning my son into a faggot.” He spits out the word like it’s a curse.

“He’s not fucking dead!” Steve screams back. “He’s not dead!” Oh shit.

He feels the tears coming on, and he feels like a stupid, immature child, but he needs to get out of there before he fucking loses it in front of these dicks.

He grabs Eddie’s vest and storms out of the house, flipping his parents off as he slams the front door. He gets into his car and speeds off, barely able to see the road through his tears.

________________________________________________________________

By the time he gets to Reefer Rick’s cabin, Steve doesn’t realize that he’s made a mistake not telling anyone where he was going. He just gets out of the car, still clutching the vest in his shaking fist, slams the door to the car, and storms into the cabin.

He’s stayed here enough that it’s started to shift into something… nicer. Homey. Steve can imagine Eddie here with him, hanging his stupid metal posters over the mattress Steve dragged in and shoved into the corner of the room, coming in one day with an amp and a guitar stand, setting it down in the opposite corner without a word, just a wink in Steve’s direction. He can imagine Eddie, Eddie everywhere, sitting on the kitchen counter in a pair of Steve’s boxers and a Metallica shirt, Steve by the stove singing along to the radio and flipping pancakes. He sees it so clearly it could be a memory, reaching out his hand and pulling Eddie down off the counter into a twirl, dancing terribly with him around the kitchen, Eddie laughing and whipping his bandana out to fan the smoke detector when the pancakes inevitably burn.

He sees it, and he mourns what never was, and he feels insane, because he didn’t even know this guy that well. Or maybe he did. Shared trauma gets you well acquainted with near strangers very well. But Steve is here on the floor of a drug dealer’s cabin, knees pulled up to his chest as he leans against a wall, tears streaming down his face, and he’s imagining a whole life with someone he knew for a week.

________________________________________________________________

Steve can’t decide, he thinks that night as he lays in bed, if the fact that Eddie wanted him too made it better or worse. If knowing that they could have tried, if Eddie had just done what he was supposed to, knowing he wouldn’t be alone under the covers right now. He wants to say he’s not angry at Eddie, but he can’t, not really. He knows it’s wrong to be angry at someone who died protecting you, but Steve told him not to. Eddie died for a town that hated him, and he left him. He left Steve before Steve even got a chance to have a life with him.

Sure, they had kissed that day in the field. They had a moment alone, before they all went into battle, Steve and Eddie in the camper while everyone else was outside manufacturing weapons. Steve was pacing, going over the battle plans and Eddie just reached out and touched him, and it was so gentle. Steve doesn’t remember the last time someone touched him kindly. But Eddie did, and Steve knew he was going to have an identity crisis in like five seconds, but he didn’t care. He just turned around and looked at Eddie, and then they were kissing, and it was perfect.

Steve had begged him, after the fact, to stay safe. Not for the first time. Not for the last. He held Eddie against his chest and pressed his face into Eddie’s hair, and he whispered against his forehead:

“Please don’t leave me.”

And Eddie looked up slightly, eyes turned up to Steve, smile on his lips that had been pressed against Steve’s only a minute ago.

“Never.”

________________________________________________________________

He wakes up the next morning to the sound of the phone ringing. He’d installed it so that Robin could call to check on him. He doesn’t feel like talking anymore.

He opts to ignore the harsh trill, instead throwing the vest over his shoulder and heading out of the cabin to look for Eddie, hope bubbling in his chest.

Today, he decided, was the day he was going to find him.

________________________________________________________________

Today, he realized six hours later, trudging through the woods and shaking from hunger, was not the day he was going to find Eddie. Not for lack of trying, but he really needed food, so he would go back to his cabin, get something to eat, and keep going. But after six hours of searching up and down the woods, over by Lover’s Lake, it was starting to look like today wasn’t the day.

That’s okay though, because Eddie is out there, Steve tells himself. He is because he can’t be gone and he isn’t gone and Steve honest to god doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Eddie is gone forever and he’s never going to see him again and it’s over before it even began, but he doesn’t have to worry about that, because Eddie Is Alive.

When he gets back to his cabin he’s so sick with worry for Eddie that he can’t bring himself to eat, passing out on the floor before he can even hear the phone ring.

________________________________________________________________

He wakes up to someone frantically shaking his shoulder and shouting his name.

Eddie?

He flinches into a sitting position, hands shaking, grasping at Eddie. He breathes out his name like a prayer, over and over, checking his body, because he’s alive, and Jesus he’s needed this for so long, holy shit. And he’s holding on to Eddie’s arms and breathing out his name and his ears are ringing and then they clear and he can see and-

It’s Robin.

It’s Robin, and she looks terrified, and she’s staring at him wide eyed.

“Steve?”

“Robin?”

“Thank god, you’re back, you scared me half to death there, you thought I was Eddie, which wouldn’t make sense, unless you were dead and-”

“Robin.” He cuts off her rambling and she takes a deep breath. “Eddie’s not dead.”

“Wait, you saw him?”

Steve shakes his head. “N-no,” and why is he stuttering, there’s nothing to be nervous about, Eddie is alive he knows it. “Um, no. I haven’t seen him. But I know he’s not dead. He can’t be.”

Robin’s frantic face drops gently into one of sad concern and understanding. Which Steve doesn’t understand. There’s nothing to be sad about. Eddie is alive. Steve just needs to find him.

“Steve, honey,” she whispers, and pulls him against his chest, brushing his hair out of his face, and oh, he’s crying, why is he crying?

“Baby, he’s gone. He’s gone. And I’m not trying to be dismissive, but… why- why are you struggling to accept that?”

“Because he’s not dead,” Steve chokes out. “We were going to try, when we all got out of it alive. We were going to try, and he promised me he would never leave me and he wouldn’t break a promise, I know it!”

“Oh,” Robin breathes out, soft and sad.

He’s crying harder now, the tears are coming faster, and somewhere in the back of his mind Steve knows he’s hysterical, but he can’t be dead, he can’t be, because he promised he would live for him, he promised they would get to try and they never got to try and-

“Honey.” Robin’s gentle but firm voice cuts off his hyperventilating. “He’s gone.”

And Steve breaks.

________________________________________________________________

He only remembers it later in a haze, the frantic wailing into Robin’s chest as the hard rock of acceptance settled into his stomach.

He’s heard of the five stages of grief, of course he has, but they must have been lying, Steve thinks. Acceptance was portrayed as the end of the experience of grief, but it just started the whole cycle of anger and depression all over for Steve.

It was a hard few months. That breakdown was far from his last.

But he’s home now. He’s in his home, the cabin that used to belong to Rick, and now it’s his, and maybe, there’s a little bit of Eddie there too. There’s Eddie in the metal posters Steve hung up in his bedroom, the electric guitar he’s learning to play. Eddie is in the small painting Robin made for him, framed by his bed. He’s in Friday night D&D games hosted at Steve’s, in Mike’s long black hair, in the way Will leans into Mike ay the end of a movie night and Mike kisses his forehead. Eddie is in Dustin’s newfound love of metal, in the way Robin makes an effort to touch him kindly every day, even in the way Steve and Jonathan and Argyle have become Saturday evening pot buddies. Steve can see him sometimes in the smoke, smiling at Steve, telling him he’s proud of him, and Steve is. Well. It’s hard. But Steve is happy.

________________________________________________________________

He still lays awake at night sometimes, wondering what could have been. He still goes down to Hawkins every morning to drive the kids to school, and sometimes he’ll stop by Eddie’s grave and leave him flowers from his garden.

He sees his mom at his dad’s grave sometimes, and she’ll acknowledge him, and they’ll go their separate ways without saying a word. There’s nothing that can be said. Nothing that needs speaking out loud. And that’s okay.

Steve has made peace with what he has. With morning pancakes, dancing around the kitchen with Eddie’s memory, black handkerchief flying around in his back right pocket. He’s made peace with the rainbows hand-stitched onto Eddie’s Dio vest that has become theirs. He’s made peace with quiet mornings by the lake with his coffee, with a bouquet of anemone and baby’s breath flowers from his garden floating out on the lake. He’s made peace with the fact that Eddie is dead. Because he’s not gone, not really. Eddie is everywhere, all the time, and maybe Steve never got a real chance with him.

But this is enough.

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