Chapter Text
Eddie Munson never expected to be in the woods with Chrissy fucking Cunningham, but he was. He surely never expected to watch her die that night, either.
That happened, too, and being left to fend for himself, on the run and terrified of what could happen, he found himself hidden under the tarp covering Reefer Rick’s old boat. He thought life had hit it’s peak of the worst after Robin stormed away from his van. He thought it hit the worst when Steve Harrington called him a freak.
It always just seemed to get worse and worse, didn’t it?
He also found out one thing about himself that he didn’t expect. He was a coward. A sniveling, terrified little baby, with no one told hold him when it got too scary.
The monsters in Scooby Doo were real, and Steve wasn’t there to tell him they weren’t.
He shit on himself a lot, hell, he was beginning to think that it was his new favorite past time, and this was just more material to use. More stuff to toss at himself when he laid in his bed, curled on his side under a mass of blankets, trying to sleep. More stuff to remind himself of when he licked his wounds after a fight with Jason.
Too bad Eddie would never be able to do that again. Instead, he could throw it at himself while he laid wide awake in the boat. While he waited for the day when the police would find him and haul him off to jail, and he could plead his case that an invisible monster killed Chrissy, not him.
He could see it now. The look of disappointment on Uncle Wayne’s face. The sadness in his eyes, the way his mouth would hang open in awe while Eddie described the sound of Chrissy’s bones snapping in his living room. He would watch them haul Eddie away, watch them give him life in prison, or the death sentence. Wayne would mourn Eddie like he had to mourn his sister.
He’d been scared so many times before, but nothing compared to this. Nothing came even relatively close. Especially not when the lights of flashlights being shone through windows illuminated the walls around him, hitting the tarp and making it crisscross clear. Eddie tensed, gripping tightly to the broken off end of a glass bottle he’d found outside of the boathouse.
Eddie had felt like he’d met his tragic end many times in his life. He had cried himself into breakdowns where felt felt like he was dying. He’d thought he’d died when his head hit the pavement during his fight with Tommy H. But none of it was the same as this moment.
He though this was the moment when he would truly never see the light of day again.
The door busted open, and he felt his heart rate pick up in his chest. Adrenaline started pumping, filling him with energy he hadn’t had since he was a child.
Something was hitting the tarp, dangerously close to himself, until it stopped. He could hear talking, but over the blood pumping in his ears and the fear he felt, he couldn’t make any of it out.
Before Eddie could process what he was doing, he had a glass bottle to Steve Harrington’s neck. The younger boy looked directly at him, eyes blown wide and face pale as a sheet. He heard yelling then, shouts of his name while he stared directly back into Steve’s eyes.
Steve looked terrified.
Eddie hadn’t seen Steve Harrington since he’d graduated. He hadn’t wanted to see him. He knew Steve picked up the kids from DND nights, but Eddie always kept his eyes averted from the driver’s seat when they left. He never wanted to see Steve again.
But here he was, damn near trembling under Eddie’s grip on his chest. “Eddie? It’s okay! We’re just trying to help you.” It was Dustin’s voice that he recognized first.
He took a moment, before dropping the bottle and stepping back, releasing Steve from the wall. Steve fell forward, stumbling away from him and towards Robin. Robin looked at Eddie like he was a wild animal.
Eddie assumed that he was.
“Go away.” He grumbled, turning and starting to move towards the boat again. Things could’ve been so much different if he’d made alternative choices. He kicked himself for it.
He wondered what it would be like if he had allowed Steve the conversation three months ago. If he had listened to the other boy talk, instead of assuming the hatred was still boiling and a beating would be at the other end of the talk.
Maybe if he hadn’t kicked Robin out of his car, then? If he’d listened to her, when she said that Steve wasn’t all that bad, but Eddie just couldn’t believe a word that left her mouth. Steve Harrington? There wasn’t a way in hell that Eddie would ever get to talk to Steve like he had when he was a child.
He knew that now, especially after holding the bottle to his neck, that Steve would simply never get to know what Eddie had written in those letters he never sent. He could live his life oblivious to Eddie’s struggles. Oblivious to the fact that he had left Eddie behind when he’d truly needed him.
Maybe if he hadn’t screamed at his mom, she would’ve still been alive, and he would’ve never gone down the hole of truly becoming the Hawkins Freak.
“Eddie, we know what happened. We know you didn’t do it.” Max said, his neighbor. He turned to look at her, squinting down. “We know.”
“You guys won’t believe me.” He muttered, quickly looking at all of them. Steve held a bat, now, nails hammered through the end. Robin stood a half step behind him, almost hiding. Dustin and Max stood closer, though, flashlights pointed at Eddie, but not directly in his face.
“Try us.”