Archive of Our Own

You never intended to be friends with, let alone date, Eddie Munson. It just kind of…happened. He had been the only person in this God forsaken school who had been kind to you, who didn’t mock you. Sometimes, being the only deaf kid at Hawkins High really sucked. You were an easy target for even those on the lower echelons of the social hierarchy. For the most part, it didn’t really phase you because all you had to do was look away and you magically didn’t know what they were saying about you. Still, knowing that they’re even doing it in the first place should hurt, but you’ve grown numb to it. Plus, most of it was nothing new; most of it you had heard from your parents at least a handful of times.

You came to Hawkins your sophomore year, Eddie’s (first) senior year. Being new, you caught his eye. You intrigued him, given you rarely spoke, and when you did, the words never sounded quite right. He didn’t think you were foreign, but it did take him a while to figure out that you were deaf. And by took him a while, you of course mean that it took you quite literally spelling it out for him. He had taken the liberty of plopping down at the table you sat at by yourself at lunch, and you looked at him expectantly. He had asked what your deal was, and you weren’t feeling very conforming that day, refusing to speak (it may or may not have had something to do with an argument you had gotten in with your mother). You knew that most children when they were very young learned a few signs, some finger spelling, so you spelled it out for him. It took him a hot second with each letter, but he got there.

“I’m Eddie,” he said, very slowly and unsurely finger spelling his name, and you bit back half a laugh.

You nodded your head and formed the letter “e” with your hand, waving it down the side of your head before pointing at him.

“Is that my sign name or something?” he asked, and you nodded. “So, “e” for Eddie… What’s the wavy part?”

You leaned across the table and lifted up his hair before releasing it back down.

“Really? My hair? You couldn’t have chosen a cooler aspect of my appearance or personality?”

You gave him a look as if to say like what, but you didn’t expect him to understand your look.

“I don’t know. Like my amazing guitar skills or my loving eyes or my big heart,” he went on.

You scrunched up your nose and shook your head, reiterating the sign name you made for him, and he smiled as he conceded the argument.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

You finger spelled it for him but never gave him a sign name for it. He asked about it, but you shook your head and took your pointer finger to your temple before pointing at him.

“You want me to think of it?” he clarified, astonished.

You nodded. He asked how long he had to think about it. You shrugged as if to say however long you want to take with it. He seemed to understand that well enough.

He spent that year trying to teach himself sign language (and you prayed that it wasn’t the reason he failed his senior year that first time around) so that way you wouldn’t feel forced to talk like you normally were – and he eventually came up with a sign name for you, beginning signing cynical, but when he pulled his index and middle finger away from under his eyes, he formed your first initial. Not even your parents had done that, and it felt weird to you for someone to put in all this effort like that. It made you almost uncomfortable. Which meant you spent a lot of your time around Eddie in this weird state of uncomfortable gratefulness.

But it made it easier to run from him when you had to. Like when he had bore witness to one of the many times that year that Steve Harrington and his posse tortured you. It wasn’t the deaf and dumb jokes that got to you though. It was after that had passed, and they were walking away. You had mumbled a curse at Steve, mainly to yourself, but you didn’t have the best volume control and had said it way louder than you had originally intended apparently. He turned back toward you and marched right up to you.

“What did you just say to me?” he asked in what you had to assume would be a threatening tone given the context.

“Bastard,” you repeated.

He spent a moment mocking the way you sounded before saying, “That’s really funny considering I’m the only one of us that has a dad that’s around.”

That’s what did it for you. That’s what got the itch beneath the skin on your arms going again, crying for your attention, begging you to do that one thing you knew would solve everything if only for a few minutes. That’s when you ran off to the lighting booth of the school’s auditorium that you had claimed as your sanctuary when you needed it when it was lunch period and it was empty. That’s when you were in such a rush that you didn’t even bother to lock the door to the booth, just digging around your bag frantically for the razor blade hidden within, taking off your hoodie and breaking skin on your forearm within seconds of getting in the booth.

Staring down at the blood gathering on your arm, you didn’t see him walk into the booth until it was way too late. You didn’t know he was there until you saw his shoes as you stared at the blood, and your eyes snapped up as you held your breath waiting for the hammer to drop, waiting for Eddie to use this moment to turn on you. But he didn’t. He just looked at you, eyes caring yet so full of fear as he gently took your right hand in both of his and coaxed the blade out of it. He took his bandana out of his back pocket to try to clean up some of the blood, but before even a drop could get on it, you pulled back and shook your head.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

You looked at him frustratedly and gave him that universal gesture of wait, and despite his suspiciousness, he did as instructed. You rooted around the front pouch of your bag and pulled out alcohol swabs, gauze, and medical tape. He looked at you sadly. He didn’t want you to be that accustomed to it that you carried around this stuff. He didn’t want to think this was something you did so frequently that you knew you would need it at any given time. But, as he looked at your arm, he knew that was wishful thinking.

After that, you had tried to push him away, avoid him, but he was very…you’d call it persistently annoying, he’d call it worried. It went on like that for months, and the worse you felt, the more insistent you were on keeping him away from you. And he didn’t know the boundaries with you yet; he didn’t know when he should let you have your space or when he should all but force you to not be alone. He, for the most part, tried to let you have your space in spite of the fact that he knew what you were likely to do given it. Sometimes, if he didn’t see you at lunch, he would check the lighting booth just to be sure. Except you’d learned and had been avoiding going there in favor of the girl’s bathroom (yeah, it was more public, but at least he wouldn’t find you in there).

So, he thought you were okay. He thought that since you weren’t going to the lighting booth, you weren’t mutilating yourself. At least not at school. But then in the spring you’d gotten into it with Tommy before lunch and ran off towards the girl’s changing room in the gym. Eddie followed you and spent a few good minutes debating himself about whether or not he was going to go into that changing room and make sure you were actually okay. It was lunch, so nobody else should be in there. Just to be sure, he knocked on the door and called out, knowing that every other girl in this school would scream at him to go away after hearing his voice. But after nobody yelled, he assumed it was just you and went in.

You were sitting on one of the benches with your arms resting on your legs and your head down. He saw you playing with the blade, debating whether or not you were even going to do this today. He made his way over to you and crouched down to be on your level and caught you eye.

Why are you here? You signed to him.

“I thought it was better,” he spoke as he signed slowly and very unsure of the movements that he was making whereas he would normally not think twice about messing it up. “I see now that I was wrong.”

He carefully took your arms and lifted them up towards the light, seeing how now it extended to your right arm. The cuts there were more jagged, less steady, less consistent in depth. He didn’t want to know where else you did this (yes he did).

“Those assholes aren’t worth this,” he told you.

It’s not just them, Eddie. There’s more than you know, you signed.

“There’s more, yeah, I assumed. But I don’t want to wake up one day and my best friend isn’t here anymore, Y/N.”

You couldn’t hold back the quick laugh that escaped you. It made him smile for half a second, but it was replaced by an inquisitive look.

First: I didn’t know we were ‘best friends.’

“Of course we are! Actually, I think I’m your only friend, which is 100 levels of sad by the way. And you’re definitely mine.”

No. You have your funny friends that you play…something with. Those are your best friends.

“The Hellfire Club?”

You nodded.

“They’re my friends. But not my best friends. That’s you.”

Liar, you scoffed, but smiled anyway. You couldn’t help yourself. But second: Dying isn’t the goal here.

“Okay, um, dying something…it’s not…goal! It’s not your gial? Because you could have fooled me.”

No. This helps me.

“Helps you what?”

You didn’t know how to say the concept with signs you knew, so you had to resort to finger spelling, G-R-O-U-N-D.

“I can think of other ways to help ground you,” he smirked and got a flirtatious look in his eye.

You rolled your eyes and gently shoved at him, and he dramatically fell backwards in full Eddie fashion.

“But seriously,” he said, sitting up. “I wish you’d find me and try to talk with me before…”

You know I can’t promise that.

I know, he signed back. I want to help you.

Why do you care so fucking much?

I like you; you’re my friend. Why would I not?

Before you could answer, someone slammed open the door, meaning at some point the bell rang. You looked over and saw Nancy Wheeler paused in the doorway, looking at you and Eddie, eyes bouncing between the two of you before settling on your arms. She backed out just as quickly as she had entered, and you started to freak out because she saw. But before you could spiral, your “best friend” looked at you and told you he’d handle it and went out after her.

And once he figured out you lived in the same trailer park as he did? Forget it; there was practically no more avoiding him. You considered yourself lucky you had managed to hide that little detail this long. He insisted on taking you to and from school because the thought of you walking there and back alone apparently frightened him.

“You can’t hear if a car honks.” … “You shouldn’t cut through the woods. Didn’t you hear what happened to the Byers kid? Well, not hear but.”

But the thing was: you didn’t like being in cars. Not after your dad. Not after everything that happened. Not that Eddie, poor sweet Eddie, knew that. So, instead, sometimes he would walk with you rather than driving. Unfortunately, he did eventually corrode you to the point where one day after school, you relented, decidedly trusting him enough, and got in his van. Then it just…kept happening.

At the end of that school year, he asked you out. It was kind of funny, actually. He was all excited to show you this new thing he learned in sign language and signed, Do you want to go out with me?

Is that a real question or a demonstration? You giggled. Honest to God giggled. You were almost disgusted with yourself about it, but that was an issue for a different time.

Real question.

To say you were hesitant with your answer would be an understatement. In fact, you sat there without answering for so long that he tried to backtrack and say it was alright if you wanted to just be friends and that he didn’t want you to feel pressured into it or anything. The sweetness kind of killed you a little bit, but you were also a little suspicious. Life had taught you thus far to generally be suspicious of everyone; so far most of them had been out to get you, and you felt better safe than sorry. Eddie kind of contradicted that world view. He hadn’t (yet) shown any malintent. Then that begged the question: Did you want to give him the chance to?

I don’t know if you noticed, but when it comes to people, I can’t be… you trailed, trying to find the right word.

“Closed-off? Paranoid?” he supplied.

You tilted your head a bit and raised your eyebrows. Cute, you scowled.

I try. But I’m not wrong.

Fine. Yes, paranoid. Excuse me if I’m a little wary of the situation.

“Yes, you have walls. Trust me, I know.”

I can’t promise anything, Eddie.

I know.

I’ll push you away.

“We’ve done that before, yet here we are,” he said with a small smile.

You grunted and looked towards the sky, silently asking God to throw you a rope here, give you a real excuse that he wouldn’t brush off, but even He was saying ‘go for it, girl.’ And you were terrified, but you said yes.

That summer was a lot of finding some sort of happy-medium between your wildly varying needs for social interaction and contact. With the right people, Eddie was a little social butterfly, truly the entertainer of his group, and apparently to him you counted as the right people. But you were content with being alone no matter how much you liked someone. There was safety in solitude. So, you each had to compromise a little. And you hated to say it, but it was nice. You taught him more sign language, finding it to be entertaining more often than not.

You weren’t sure if it was because of Eddie or not, but you had more good days than bad that summer. There had been a nice little bubble where for the most part, you were valued as a human person. And the second you stepped back in those God forsaken hallways of Hawkins High, your bubble popped. Gone were the days where the only person who treated you poorly was your mother, who you rarely saw anyway, the days where if you interacted with someone, it was someone that really wanted you there.

That year, out of nowhere, Steve suddenly wasn’t terrorizing you and, let’s face it, most of the school. He was no longer playing the part of King Steve. But he was just replaced with the new kid, Billy, who transferred in during October. He was so much worse than Steve had been. He would get physical with anyone; it wasn’t just verbal with him. It only took about a month before he got physically violent with you. You weren’t having that great of a day anyway, so it was kind of icing on the cake for you. He shoved you into some lockers when apparently you didn’t heed his warning to move, your head smacking loudly against the metal. Then the same thing that happened with Steve last year happened again. As Eddie was trying to check your head while you batted away his fretful hands, you had mumbled “asshole” louder than intended, and right back toward you Billy came. Eddie tried to get between you, seeing the anger in the other boy’s face, but you stepped back out in front, shooting him a warning glance to not do that again. You easily dodged out of the way when Billy’s fist came toward you, which made him angrier. Though, nothing enraged him more than when your open palm made contact with his face. Before you could fully retract your hand, he grabbed your arm. Hard. You couldn’t stop the wince that it produced because, even though you had been mostly okay, even though you wanted so badly to take your boyfriend up on that promise of you talking to him before you did anything, you hadn’t exactly stopped.

“Touch me like that again, and I’ll kill you,” Billy said to you.

“Promise?” you bit back.

By that time, a crowd had already surrounded you. Eddie pulled you back from the situation as a teacher backed Billy away, though the two of you kept a hateful stare for a solid moment until he was ushered away, and you turned to Eddie.

“Thin ice,” you spoke to him for the first time since you’d met him, poking him in the chest with your finger as you said each word before walking away.

“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled before chasing after you out the front door of the school.

He got in front of you and prevented you from continuing, asking you where you were going.

Home, you signed.

Okay, let’s go.

Not we. Me.

“Why? So you can go home and do something stupid that you’re gonna regret later?”

You shook your head.

“No? No you’re not gonna do it or no you’re not gonna regret it? Because after that last bit in there, I don’t know anymore.”

If I do it, I’m not going to regret it. I never have.

Alright, we’re going home now. Not you. We. And then we’re gonna talk. Okay?

You rolled your eyes but nodded your head and signed yes because you knew you kind of owed it to him at this point. He’d always been open with you, even when you didn’t ask him to be, but you still really hadn’t told him anything besides the fact that your dad was dead and that, while you didn’t see your mom often or for long because she worked two jobs, you and her fought what felt like all the time – upon neither of which you elaborated any further. You knew a relationship couldn’t survive like that. Even you could admit that the walls had to start coming down if you wanted this to last, which you did.

You both went to your trailer, knowing that your mom wouldn’t be there and that his uncle hadn’t left for work yet. You went back to your room, and he sat cross-legged on the foot of your bed and looked at you expectantly. He met your confused gaze and motioned for you to sit opposite him on the bed. You sighed but did as asked anyway, sitting at the head of the bed, your back sitting upright against the wall.

Please talk to me, he begged.

About what, Eddie?

“We could start with why I’m apparently on thin ice?” he kind of laughed but was serious all the same. Because the second you opened your mouth at him and spoke, he knew he was treading on thin ice with you; he just didn’t know why.

Why did you try to get in between me and Billy?

What do you mean?

When he came back to me, the first thing you did was get between us.

“I wanted to protect you; I know what he’s like, how quickly he gets violent. I knew-”

I’m not a child, Eddie! I can protect myself. I can fight my own battles.

“You’ve never fought back to anyone before. I wasn’t gonna risk it.”

My dad didn’t teach me a lot when he was alive, but he taught me that you never throw the first punch. Nobody’s hit me until now. Fighting back has been unwarranted. I can take a lot of shit from people, but even I draw the line somewhere.

You never talk about him. Your dad.

I know. Soon. I promise.

“Speaking of promises! What the fuck was that at the end there when he was threatening to kill you?”

I don’t know.

He scoffed. “You never speak without clear intention. And I saw you wince, Y/N. So, really, how bad is it?”

It’s under control.

That’s not what I asked.

It’s the answer I gave.

He gave you an apologetic look then asked, “Will you please take off the sweatshirt?”

You didn’t move to do so immediately, but you didn’t know why. It’s not like he hadn’t seen your arms (or the rest of you for that matter) before. Hell, he’d caught you actively slicing into yourself on more than one occasion by now. It’s not like he didn’t know.

Please, he signed, desperation evident in his eyes.

You unzipped the hoodie and placed it next to you, refusing to look at him while he looked at your arms. He didn’t need to ask when the most recent ones were made because it was painfully obvious that it was probably this morning. It’s not as if he had expected you to stop; he knew it would never be fair to ask that of you. But there were many more newer cuts, scabs, and scars than he would have thought. He tried to talk to you, but you still weren’t looking at him, so he placed a finger under your chin gently and turned your head toward him.

“I don’t see how this is under control, babe.”

4 at a time.

What?

I never do more than 4 at a time anymore.

You know you can talk to me, right? He asked.

I never *said* anything, but I have gone to you instead of doing this before.

Yeah?

You nodded.

“You could have said something. I could have helped you.”

You did help me. Just because you didn’t know it, doesn’t mean you didn’t.

“Do I even want to know how many times you’ve used sex to replace that?”

There were a few times that it naturally evolved into that, but it’s not like I ever said to myself ‘I’m gonna go fuck Eddie so I don’t take a razor blade down my arm today’.

“I only got some of that, but I think I got the message,” he said, though he didn’t look certain about it.

Never intentionally.

He nodded his head.

You weren’t lying when you told him that you’d talk with him about your dad soon. You had every intention of opening up to him eventually. You just weren’t prepared to have to do it at Christmas, when on Christmas Eve (2 a.m. was technically actually Christmas, though) you and your mom got really into it. She was drunk and depressed and mourning her late husband which was par for the course since he died. This was only your second Christmas without him. She was yelling, and sometimes you yelled back. But when you got fed up with it, you left. She followed you out, and you had no doubt she was yelling still behind you. Hell, you were surprised she hadn’t woken up the whole damn trailer park.

But Eddie hadn’t gone to bed yet, and he sure as shit heard it. He popped his head out of the trailer, not even realizing it was your mom yelling at you at first. And then he saw your familiar silhouette walking away from the trailer as your mother had yelled that you killed him – he assumed the ‘him’ referred to your father – and then called you things that he was grateful you weren’t facing her to see. He walked out the door to go to you before you could disappear in the night, breaking into a run when she threw a bottle at your head, and it shattered on impact. Your mom went back inside, and he ran to you as you bent down, picking up a piece of broken glass and making your way towards the woods, blocking your way before you could get there and do what he knew you were going there to do.

You looked at him and signed, Move, Eddie.

No.

Eddie.

Y/N.

You rolled you eyes at him and tried to step around him, but he was the most persistent person you’d ever met (though, that’s probably not saying a lot). He placed his hands on your shoulders before taking his left one gently to the side of your head and bringing it back between the two of you with blood staining it.

Please, he signed, taking his right hand off you.

You may be stubborn, but you weren’t stupid. You knew you had to clean up this head wound soon, so you relented and went with him, a notable look of relief dancing through his features before you started walking to his, holding your hand oddly firmly until he sat you down on the couch and went in search for a first aid kit. When he returned, he sat down in front of you and started picking little shards of glass out of your hair and using a damp cloth to clear away some of the blood.

He paused for a second, looking at you as he asked, “What happened?”

You saw what happened.

He sighed in frustration, knowing he wasn’t going to get anything out of you about it right now. Plus, he wanted to focus on fixing this head wound first instead of trying to split his attention between fixing you and watching you sign. He got all the glass pieces out and had cleaned up a fair amount of blood. He went to try to put some disinfectant on as much of the cut he could, but you stopped him momentarily.

It'll be easier if I put up my hair, you explained, moving to take a hair elastic off your wrist only to find that you didn’t have one.

Before you could even sign anything else, Eddie was pulling one of the likely 100s you’d probably left here over the past few months off his wrist and handing it to you. You gave him a questioning look.

I always have one for you. Just in case, he said.

That is sickeningly sweet.

You went to use the mirror in his bedroom to carefully part your hair around the cut that your mother’s bottle of bourbon had left. It was in a weird place to part on the side of your head, but you managed…well, not quite a bun, but your hair was definitely pulled back in some fashion. You knew this would leave a scar on the left side of your head, but, hey, at least now you’d have one to match the one that was on the right side. Life was all about balance, after all.

You let Eddie finish with the head wound as best he could, and you knew you were going to have to tell him at least some of what happened seeming as though he was the one that was quite literally cleaning up the mess.

“I heard what your mom said to you,” he said, cutting straight to the chase. “I don’t know anything about your dad or what happened to him, but I know it wasn’t your fault.”

No, that part she’s right about.

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

So, you reluctantly told him the story. Before Hawkins, you lived in Virginia and attended a school for the deaf. Your mom didn’t like it, but your dad insisted on it even though it made things financially tight. You had a complicated relationship with him. Most of the time, he was on your side when it came to you and your mom arguing about how being deaf should and shouldn’t affect your life. He understood the importance of you learning sign language, of going to a school with other students and teachers like you. But by the same token he, like your mother, refused to learn sign language besides the very limited Homesign system you had come up with when you were very young. He thought that the most important thing was for you to learn to lip read and speak. So, yeah, complicated.

He took you to school in the mornings and picked you up in the afternoons. Last year, though, in April, towards the end of the school year, you had gotten into it with your mother yet again. Not unusual. But that time you had fought back for the first time against her. Your father was pissed off and was trying to lecture you on your way to school. With a hearing child, that would have been fine. But you weren’t hearing; you had to be able to see his lips to even begin to try to understand what he was saying. That meant that he had to look at you while also trying to look at the road. At a red light, a few miles from school, he was looking at you, and you assumed he was yelling at you because of how red he was in the face. The light had turned green, which you guess he saw in the corner of his eye, and he began to accelerate while still looking at you. He didn’t see someone barreling down the road that you were crossing, didn’t see that they were going to completely blow the red light that opposite direction now had.

You could still feel the collision, feel your skull go through the passenger window. You could still see him clear as day, lying limply, crushed by the metal, pinned to his seat. Not that not being pinned would have helped; he died on impact. You could still smell the burning rubber and metal, could practically still taste the blood in your mouth.

There is nothing you could say or do to convince me that it wasn’t my fault, you signed at the end, fighting to keep your tears unshed.

But it wasn’t…

If he hadn’t had to yell at me, if I hadn’t fought back with my mom that day, he would have seen that car. He would be alive. But I fucked up, Eddie. It’s on me.

How was that more important than watching the road?

You shrugged and shook your head. You didn’t know, but clearly it was. And it doesn’t negate the fact that you were the reason for it in the first place. You picked up the broken piece of glass that you had taken before but since placed on the table in front of the couch, twirling it around in your fingers as he watched you carefully. But you refused to look back for the moment. Or until he tried to take it back out of your hands after too much time had passed for his liking of you staring at it.

I wasn’t going to, you said, and you were met with a very skeptical look. I really am trying, you know, and I- you stopped signing abruptly, not sure you wanted to admit it, but he wasn’t stupid.

“You already did 4 today,” he finished for you.

Yeah.

“Yesterday or today? Like, within the last two hours or before that?” he clarified.

Both.

He nodded and mumbled something but then froze. “So, before I got to you, and you were walking off towards the woods with that glass, you were prepared to keep going past your 4?”

Maybe. I don’t know; it’s been like this for days, Eddie. Me and my mom and the fighting and the blaming and the yelling and the pushing you away and avoiding you.

Slow down, Y/N, he said.

You were getting worked up about everything, and you were spiraling. It’s been over a year that you’ve known Eddie, and you considered both of you lucky that he had never seen you spiral, truly spiral. But good things never last long, and it seemed that tonight – this morning? – he was gonna end up with a front-row seat. Part of you wanted to run, get out of here as soon as possible, as far away as possible so that he didn’t. But a small part of you was screaming for you to just finally let someone help you. And almost like a Christmas present to yourself, you let that little part win this time.

The issue became that when you were worked up like this, your signing speed increased ten-fold and so did your signing errors. Eddie was trying to follow the best he could, but it was useless. He tried to tell you to slow down again, said he didn’t understand. He wanted to help more than anything, but your frenzy was preventing that. The last thing he really got was that you and your mom had been fighting for days, and that frustrated you that you had to double back through everything you’d been trying to say up until this point, and you just gave up on signing because right now being understood seemed more important than your preferred mode of communication. So, in a move that surprised him and shocked him to his core, you started talking.

“I’m just so tired of all the fighting and the yelling and the blaming with my mother, and I’m exhausted from trying to push you away, keep you away, avoid you. I can’t be surprised, though, because it was like this last year, too. Every single fucking day with her yelling shit I already know. I know it’s my fault! I know I’m not the daughter she wanted! I know I’m difficult! I know that trying to love me is a fruitless endeavor! And you know what? I’m beginning to think she’s right; it should have been me.”

His heart felt like it was snapping in half at your words. Tears had begun to slowly trickle down your face despite your best efforts to keep them at bay, and he brushed them away with his thumbs before pulling you towards him. You let yourself melt into him as he stroked your hair, being careful of the wound that he had just so lovingly cared for minutes ago. You stayed like that for a few minutes before he pulled back.

What do you need? He asked. Besides that.

I don’t know. Just…sit with me?

I can do better than that. Let’s go lay down; you’re worn-out.

You nodded your head and went back to his bedroom, and you curled up into him with your head on his chest where he resumed carding his fingers through your hair. You laughed to yourself when you felt vibrations through his chest. This certainly wasn’t the first time this happened, but for some reason, maybe given everything that has happened the past few days or maybe just how generally shitty you felt, you couldn’t stop laughing about it. He tilted your head up towards him.

What’s funny? He asked.

I can feel you talking. I have to assume it’s to yourself because I sure as hell don’t know what you’re saying, you continued laughing.

You can feel it?

You nodded. I don’t mean to laugh, I’m sorry. It’s just…I don’t know. It’s comforting, I guess?

He placed your hand on his chest and spoke, “You guess?”

I like the way it feels, I guess. I like how your voice feels.

“Then I’ll never shut up,” he smiled.

I didn’t know you currently did.

He put his hands over his heart and lolled his head to the side as if he were dead. You gently shoved him, and he went to roll over, grabbing your waist as he went and pulling you with him. He held you for a few more minutes, continuing what you thought now was humming or even singing given that the vibrations began to have some sort of rhythm. And while it grounded you a little bit, it wasn’t enough, and your thoughts went back to spiraling. You shifted just a little bit and used your right hand to squeeze your left arm over your sweatshirt where you had cut earlier, trying to draw on that to stop yourself. But as soon as you did, Eddie’s humming stopped, and the two of you sat up once more.

Talk to me, Y/N. What’s going on in that head of yours? He asked you, wiping a few tears off your face that you didn’t even know you had shed in the first place.

My thoughts just keep going back there.

Back where?

Is she right? Would everyone be better off if it had been me instead?

“No! And don’t you ever think that that’s true. Do you understand me?” Eddie said.

But, you started to sign, but he grabbed your hands before you could finish your thought.

“No buts. You are right where you should be. And I know I wouldn’t be better off without you, so just get that thought out of your head.”

Obviously, the thought didn’t leave your head; it never did. It remained there and likely always would. And you’d like to say that after being really honest with him about things at Christmas you went to him more frequently instead of slicing your skin open, but you would be lying. Even through the spring, you hadn’t broken your 4-cut limit, though, so that was something. As April neared, and things once again got worse with your mom, Eddie was always right there to pick up the pieces and try to save you from yourself when he could. Sometimes it worked, but April was just a different ballgame. It was like Christmas all over again, but you got through it.

That summer was weird to say the least. The mall fire that came out of nowhere affected so many lives throughout Hawkins, and for half a second, people were a little more caring towards one another.

Unfortunately, that kindness didn’t last through to the school year. It didn’t matter much, though. It was nothing that you hadn’t faced before. And Eddie was being oddly protective, just waiting for a new Billy to emerge from the crowd of assholes that this school was comprised of. It was funny to watch him try to find your line of allowing him to worry for you and be protective without crossing into fighting your battles for you.

The two of you had all your classes together this year, and you were determined to get him to finally fucking graduate. Although, the way he actually started passing his classes was completely unintentional. A huge reason he started doing relatively well in class was because he was paying attention for the first time. And taking notes. It was suspicious, but you didn’t question it and chose to just simply be proud of him. You found out while studying for your first test of the year that he was taking notes for you. It baffled you why; you had a 3.8 GPA on your own before and were certain that you would get by just fine.

You always said every time you missed a question on a test it was because it was something that was discussed in class but not necessarily covered in the book. This way you know what was said in class, he told you.

You don’t have to do that, Eddie.

Don’t do that, Y/N. Don’t tell me that I’m going out of my way for you and that I shouldn’t. Don’t say ‘It’s just me, Eddie. Don’t do all that just for me, Eddie.’

What if I was going to say thank you? you asked.

You weren’t. I know you too well, and you were going to tell me to not do things for you, to not help you. Why do you do that?

I don’t know, you confessed. Lame attempt to push you away?

You know, in two years you’ve never told me why you push me away when I already know and have seen everything.

The truth?

That would be nice, he said.

I feel like comfort and love are too foreign; they feel weird. Plus, if I get used to them, it’ll just hurt more when this all implodes because all good things eventually do. Which, yes, I know will eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy because pushing you away will be the thing that makes this implode.

And then he did what he always did when you got like that. He assured you that whatever ideas your parents had put in your head, whatever lies they told you over the years were bullshit (not that it assured you as much as it provided a small whisper to fight back with the yelling in your head).

Toward the end of Christmas break, a new family had moved into the trailer across from Eddie’s. If you weren’t mistaken, it was Billy’s family. Well, minus his dad. You had read that Billy was one of the ones claimed by the mall fire, and you assumed that his dad then left his stepmom and stepsister. And the stepsister – you were pretty sure her name was Max – had a haunted look in her eyes that you knew all too well. A guilt that weighed down on her until she felt like she was drowning with no hope of a lifeline that you were all too familiar with. And her mother started to drink in a way that mirrored your own.

You wanted to help her because you didn’t want her to feel like you did. You didn’t want her to drown. You wanted to offer her some sort of life preserver or something. And you noticed that the group of other freshmen she tended to hang out with, or at least they tried to hang out with her, and they seemed to have some sort of history. They were the new kids that Eddie had recruited into the Hellfire Club and had seemingly adopted, though there was one in particular – Dustin? – that he seemed to have adopted more than the other two.

You used this to your advantage at the beginning February, when you did something that you rarely do: Went to the table Eddie sat at with his crew for lunch. The past two years you had generally kept your lunch periods separate from each other given that you see each other so much, and you begged him to spend more time with people that weren’t you; you refused to be his only social life. Plus, this year you had every class with him, too. And to say he lit up noticing you coming towards him and his group would be an understatement. It was kind of adorable, and you thought maybe it would fix your fucked up, terrible day that he didn’t even know you were having.

Don’t get your hopes up, Eddie, you signed before he could say anything. I’m not staying.

Why not? He pouted.

You stood next to him, intent on leaving after doing what you had to do.

I’m just here to ask something of your little freshmen children. And I would be eternally grateful if you would do the actual talking part.

He gave you a pensive look, as if he were going to actually say no to that. You were sure he wouldn’t, but on the off chance that he would, you leaned down and gave him a quick kiss before signing, Please?

He grinned at you and nodded.

“So, you want to talk with Mike and Dustin, the new blood?”

He looked to two boys who were staring at you in disbelief.

“You’re real?” asked the boy with curly dark hair.

I think so? You signed and Eddie spoke for you.

“Eddie always said he had a girlfriend, but we’ve never seen you around and just assumed…” the child said.

I don’t even want to know why he’s talking about me to you.

Eddie went to say something to you, but the light-haired boy started speaking first, and you let your attention go to him instead.

“I don’t know if I would call it ‘talking’ as much as I would ‘gushing’ about you,” he said and a few of the others laughed.

You narrowed your eyes at your boyfriend who let out a nervous laugh. “Why do I feel like I’m in trouble now thanks to Dustin?”

I haven’t decided yet, you signed, but he didn’t voice it to the guys. We can talk about it later. Right now, I need to talk to them.

“Talk away, my dear,” he said, and you turned to the freshmen.

You two are friends with Max, right? The redhead?

“Yeah, sort of. She’s been a little distant lately, but we are friends,” Mike said.

“She’s been through a lot, and we try but…” Dustin continued for him.

Will you be seeing her sometime today?

“I have History with her next period,” Dustin said.

Perfect! Will you please give this to her? I keep trying to catch her but never seem to be able to track her down, you signed before digging through your backpack for a letter you had written to her.

You could have left it at her house, but you didn’t want to risk her mom getting to it before she did and potentially throwing it away. You wanted to ensure Max read your words – that you were probably the only person here who could empathize with her, and that your door was always open. You may not be able to lend an ear in a literal sense, but you were an exceptional lip reader. Even if she just wanted to sit in silence together to not be alone, you’d be happy to do so. If she couldn’t find you, odds were that you were across the way at Eddie’s and would happily ditch him to hang out with her.

You ignored Eddie’s skeptical look, keeping your eyes on the two first-years. Dustin nodded his head and said that he’d make sure Max got it. And you were about to bid your farewell, but then Mike had to speak.

“Why is Eddie talking for you? Don’t you speak?” he asked.

You scoffed and rolled your eyes. For just a second, you thought Eddie was gonna lose it on this kid, but you shook your head at him.

When Mike saw the anger on Eddie’s face and the admonishing looks of his peers he continued, “I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just…wouldn’t it be easier?”

“Mike…” Eddie warned him.

You’d never really seen Eddie lose his temper, but the way this Mike kid was going, you might witness it today. But unlike him, you weren’t getting mad at Mike because this is the first time you think you had gotten that question without the asker clearly having cruelty as their main goal. He looked annoyed that you didn’t speak, but he didn’t look like he was trying to be mean either. He was just a child who’d never encountered someone like you before.

Before you could answer him, Dustin began to say, “Dude, Steve told us-”

But you missed the rest of what he had to say, your head snapping to your boyfriend instead.

Steve? You asked, using his specific sign name that you had taught Eddie, which was the sign for ‘dick’ with his initial. He nodded and you went on. You adopted two newbies who are apparently good friends with fucking Steve Harrington?

Yes, but it’s not like they are Steve Harrington. Mike may be pushing it right now, but they’re good kids.

For now.

Plus, Max is one of his kids, too, and you seem very intent on getting to her, he signed angrily. And need I remind you she’s related to Billy? Who was arguably much worse than Steve ever was.

So, what? She deserved what’s happened to her? She deserves to be alone and suffer because her brother was an asshole?

His face softened a bit. That’s not what I meant.

My dad was a dick, so did I deserve what happened? The aftermath?

No! Don’t put words in my mouth, Y/N. Or in my hands. What is wrong with you today?

You shook your head. Forget it. I don’t know what going on with me. I’ll see you later.

He stood up before you even turned around to walk away, and you flinched back. He wasn’t blind, and he wasn’t stupid. There was normally only one reason someone would have that reaction. You’d never done that before (that he noticed, anyway) which meant it would have been a very recent development in your home life.

You knew the look on his face. It was his patented “we’re gonna have to sit and have a serious conversation because you are pushing me away a little too much for this to be normal” which you had seen a few more times than you would have liked.

I know, you sighed. Later, okay? I need a few minutes, Eddie.

That day is when the nosebleeds and headaches started. It’s when you swore you started seeing an old grandfather clock, but you didn’t say anything to anyone about the latter because even you knew how bananas that would sound, even to Eddie. Obviously, you couldn’t necessarily hide the nosebleeds and headaches from him, and while they didn’t happen very frequently, it was enough to cause him concern. To be fair, though, he worried about you too much and started freaking out about it after it happened more than once. But you just brushed him off and told him you were fine because physically you were. Sure, you’d been a little weird emotionally, but when weren’t you?

Two days later, Max started to come around to your trailer. You found yourself relieved that she had taken your letter seriously. When you spent time with her, most of the time she was listening to her music and was grateful that you didn’t want to make her talk about everything or force her to do so. Sometimes she would give you little tidbits of information here and there, but nothing too deep, nothing too personal. And you understood that with your entire being. You were just glad she wasn’t trying to do this the way you did: alone.

She was surprised to see that you were serious in your letter in that you would happily ditch hanging out with your boyfriend to spend time with her if and when she needed it. She told you that she really did try to refrain from doing that because she didn’t want you to drop everything just for her. But she was sassy and feisty, and you really did enjoy spending time with her.

It's not really ‘dropping everything’ when the only two friends I have are you and Eddie, you had written to her. You had taken to writing down what you wanted to say in a notebook when you were with her.

“Your only two friends are a freshman and your boyfriend?” she asked, laughing. “That’s fucking pathetic.”

You nodded and laughed a bit with her before changing the topic.

How are your nightmares?

She stiffened. “How are yours?”

That bad, huh?

“Yours too?”

It’s making me feel like the one person in my life who has never been out to get me is, and, well, you know.

“And you’re paranoid, so it may as well be true?”

You scowled at her but knew she was right. Deep down, you thought you knew that Eddie would never in reality say what he did in your nightmares. But you also knew that good things didn’t last and that he was always just a stone’s throw away from changing into the Eddie that plagued your nightmares. So, you pushed him away a little more than you would normally. You’d tell him, but he’d just tell you the same thing that Max did: That you’re being paranoid and mixing your nightmares with reality.

By March it was just getting worse. The nightmares, the headaches, the nosebleeds, everything. You knew Max’s were too. If you were with her when they happened, you would help her clean her face of the blood or you would wake her up, or you would offer her Tylenol and card your hands through her hair. You never let her return the favor. You knew she had said something to Eddie about it at some point because eventually they both ganged up on you about it.

“Why do you never let anyone help?” she asked.

There’s still hope for you, Max. I’m a lost cause.

“What does that mean?”

“Yeah, babe. That sounds a little decisive to me, and I don’t think I like that decision,” Eddie said.

I just mean you haven’t yet had time to settle into rock bottom, Max. That’s all. I just want to make sure you don’t start to take comfort there, you clarified.

Things only devolved from there. Chrissy died. In Eddie’s trailer no less. And he just…left. Of course, the police asked you where he was, but you wouldn’t tell them anything. It’s not like you could because you didn’t know. He didn’t tell you anything before he went to deal with Chrissy after school, and you certainly didn’t know why she was at his trailer anyway. That had been Friday, and you had heard nothing since then. It was now Monday. If you were freaking out before, you didn’t have a word for what it had turned into now.

In the afternoon, you saw Max with Steve, Dustin, and some other kid – Lucas? – stop by her trailer. As much as you didn’t want to interact with Steve, finding Eddie was more important, and something told you that that group knew where he was. You walked up to the guys standing around Steve’s car and couldn’t help the scowl that overtook your features. The older immediately began to act strangely when he saw you. As if you were old friends. As if you got along.

“Hey, Y/N. How’s it going?” he greeted you, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

You pointed a finger at him in warning to cut the shit and signed, Eddie.

“Yeah, it’s a shame what happened, huh? Then I heard he just took off.”

You know.

“What do I know?”

You shoved at him. “Where’s my boyfriend?” you vocalized.

Dustin got in between you and Steve. The way Eddie talked about this kid you didn’t have it in you to shove him too.

“He’s safe. For now,” Dustin told you. “I promise we’re trying to help him. He doesn’t want you caught up in everything that’s happening.”

“Tough shit,” you said.

You felt a hand on your arm from behind you, turning to see Max. She started saying something about a letter she had for you, but you couldn’t read it or something, but then very abruptly stopped and swore before looking to Steve and Dustin.

“She’s at risk, too,” she said to them, and you turned to stand between Max and the guys to be able to try to see everyone’s lips.

“What?” Dustin asked.

“She’s been getting the nightmares, headaches, and nosebleeds, too.”

Steve moved to stand right in front of you. When his arms moved up, you instinctually put your arms up in a defensive maneuver, and he grabbed them. Though, it is worth noting that he didn’t do so maliciously. The problem then was that his grip pulled your sleeves down just a bit, just enough that he caught a glimpse of a few scars before you could get your sleeves back in place. Luckily, he didn’t mention them. You remembered him from high school so clearly, you doubted he even gave a fuck.

“Y/N, this is really important, okay? It’s going to sound super weird and crazy, but have you seen a clock?” he asked.

When you didn’t answer, choosing instead to look down and to the right, he let go of you and started pacing while running his hands through his hair. He looked like he was mumbling something, and Lucas said something that you missed, and you kind of lost things from there until Steve stopped and looked at you again.

“You gotta come with us,” he said. “Everybody in the car.”

The two freshman boys followed his instructions, but you didn’t move, and neither did Max because you didn’t.

“Come on,” she nodded at you, as if trying to convince you it was okay for you to do so.

“Y/N, we don’t have the time. You need to get in the car,” Steve told you, but you shook your head no. “Look, I know you don’t like cars after what happened with your dad, but-”

Your face contorted in anger before you snapped over to Max accusatorily.

“I didn’t say shit,” she assured you, but you didn’t know if you trusted her in that moment. What could you say? She had been right; you are paranoid sometimes.

“Hawkins is a small town, and rumors have been flying since day 1,” he explained. “Do you trust me?”

You scoffed and vigorously shook your head.

“Do you trust Eddie?”

You rolled your eyes and nodded your head as if to say duh.

“Well, right now, Eddie is trusting me, and I need you to, too,” he said. “Please.”

Okay, but your eyes, you started, and Max put her hand on you.

“Just don’t take your eyes off the road, Steve,” she said before leading you to the car.

And to his credit, he didn’t. His eyes stayed (more or less) firmly on the road. He spared a microsecond-long glance here and there to his passengers, but he never completely, blatantly took his eyes off the road ahead.

When you first saw Eddie, part of you wanted to berate him for just taking off like that; part of you wanted to know what the fuck Chrissy was doing at his trailer; but the biggest part of you was just so fucking relieved that he was okay that it cancelled out the other two. But apparently, he didn’t think that was they way you were going to lean.

Let me guess, he started before you could even get within five feet of him. Thin ice?

“Absolutely not,” you said before closing the distance and wrapping your arms around him, afraid that if you let go, he would slip away again.

He stroked your hair and held you for a moment before letting go and pulling back. I’m okay. It’s okay.

I thought running and pushing away was my thing, you laughed nervously.

I thought worrying to death was mine.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of this reversal.

Instead of responding to you, he moved his attention to Steve and the kids. You didn’t take your eyes off of him, though, and only caught his response to them of, “She deserves to know.”

That’s how you found out about the underbelly of Hawkins, Indiana. You always knew it was a hellhole, you just didn’t know it was so literally such. A lot had gone down in the past two years, and it didn’t seem to be subsiding anytime soon. The lab turned out to be a super fucked up experiment on children; there were creatures from that other plane of existence that leaked through to this one; there were Russians at the mall; these two rivaling Hawkins’ were essentially fighting for dominance for the right to exist in the same spot. And now there was some new big baddie that had marked you and Max. The only thing was they didn’t know why both of you were marked when only one more victim was needed. If they had to venture a guess, they would say that it was because Max was putting up more of a fight against Vecna than he had anticipated. He may see you as an easier target.

At some point during the story, Robin and Nancy joined you all. When Nancy found out you were marked, her face fell as she drew the same conclusion as the others. Granted, she knew (accidentally) a little more than they did. The kids didn’t know anything, and Steve may or may not have drawn his own conclusions earlier when your sleeve had slipped.

It was all… a lot. It was a lot. You needed a minute to digest everything and walked away from the group momentarily so as to not feel distracted while you sat with the new information. Eddie was hesitant to let you go anywhere at all, but you assured him you were literally going to be 30 feet away. You had no intention on leaving him either. He may not be marked for death like you were, but that didn’t mean you were any less scared of not seeing him again.

And he tried to keep his eyes on you, he really did. But he had been sucked into the conversation with everyone else and looked away for a minute. He swore it was only a minute. But when Max went over to you to check on you (she knew how crazy all this shit sounded), she started freaking out.

“Guys,” she said hesitantly at first. “Guys!”

Everyone looked at her before looking at you and noticing your lulled back eyes. Obviously, everyone ran to you, but Eddie was freaking out way more than anyone else.

“What do we do?” he asked, panicking.

“Music!” Lucas suggested because that’s what they had done for Max.

“She’s fucking deaf, Lucas!” Eddie shouted. He hadn’t necessarily meant to yell at the freshman, but this was very literally life and death, and they didn’t have the time for this.

“Okay, then we need to figure out something else to ground her,” Steve said.

Eddie and Nancy exchanged a look for the briefest of moments, knowing exactly how you normally did that, and he prayed he wouldn’t have to do that to you. He remembered, though, that you had mentioned before that feeling his voice helped you. Not as much as the cutting, but it did help. So, he took you in his arms, placing your head on his chest and neck and just started talking, ignoring the looks his companions were giving him.

“Please don’t do this, Y/N. Don’t you dare leave me like this. I love you so fucking much; you can’t go,” he begged, not caring that all the others were witnessing this, not caring that they were seeing the tears start to streak down his cheeks. “I’m finally graduating this year because of you, and I want you there to celebrate with me.”

“Eddie, what are you doing, man?” Dustin asked. “She can’t hear you.”

“I know that!” he snapped. “But she can feel the vibrations of my voice.”

But it wasn’t working. It wasn’t bringing you back from Vecna’s grasp. And there was only one other thing left to do.

“I need you guys to leave,” he said. It wasn’t his secret to out.

“Are you fucking insane?” Steve said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Robin, take the kids somewhere else,” Nancy said.

“What?”

“Please.”

“Steve, you too,” Eddie requested.

“No,” the blonde replied as Robin tried to gather the freshmen.

“Do you think it’s going to work?” Max asked.

Eddie didn’t know that Max knew. He didn’t know how she did. It didn’t seem like something you would openly disclose to her, no matter how often the two of you were together. But he guessed it didn’t matter how at this juncture.

“It has to,” he said.

“Ok,” she said before turning to Robin and the boys. “Let’s go guys.”

They walked away, leaving just Eddie, Nancy, and Steve with your vacant body. Eddie wanted to tell at least Steve to fuck off, but he didn’t have the time. You didn’t have the time.

“You sure, Eddie?” Nancy asked.

He didn’t even answer her, just taking off the hoodie you were wearing and apologizing in spite of the fact that you couldn’t hear him. Nancy and Steve both had sharp intakes of breath when your arms were fully exposed, neither knowing how bad it really was. It was worse than the last time Nancy saw it all those years ago. Steve had only had that one small glimpse, but he never would have imagined that you had mutilated yourself this badly, and it was clear as daylight why Vecna would move from Max to you.

It wasn’t any worse than the last time Eddie had seen your arms, but that didn’t mean there was a lot of blank space for him to cut into. He had his pocketknife in his right hand, trying to find a place that wouldn’t overlap with some other cut or go over a bruise that he definitely didn’t remember seeing a few days ago.

“Eddie,” Steve said.

“I know.”

He didn’t know how deep or how long to make the cut to draw you back to reality. He didn’t know how many he would have to add to your already too-expansive collection. He didn’t want to hurt you. But he had to. So, he just kind of went for it, cutting just a little deeper than barely scratching the surface and just a couple of inches long. He waited a few moments before doing it again, hoping you would snap out of it without him having to do too many. He hated every second of it.

Nancy and Steve each held one of your hands tightly in hopes that the feeling of it would reach you. Nancy had even placed your hand on her throat as she spoke to you. You’d never felt her voice before, but she thought it would be worth a shot, even if it meant you came back just to tell her how much you hated it. Steve followed her lead, and Eddie rested his head on top of yours and turned your head just a bit so that your cheek was resting on his throat as he kept talking to you. Hey, maybe if they did enough stuff to replace the music that they couldn’t play for you like they did Max, you would find your way back to them.

After six cuts, each one ripping a shred of Eddie’s heart out of his chest, you returned to them. The three sighed in relief, and Eddie’s grip on you tightened. Steve and Nancy wanted to hug you but knew that the three of you weren’t friends. At least not like that, and definitely not with Steve.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Eddie signed over and over again to you. I didn’t want to hurt you, but we were out of options.

You looked to Steve and Nancy before returning your attention to your boyfriend.

What are they doing here? You asked as you reached to get your sweatshirt out of Eddie’s hands.

Nancy already knew, remember? And you know Steve: he’s a dick and wouldn’t leave with the others when I asked.

He took his bandana out of his back pocket to clean up the mess he had made of your arm. You started to pull back, not wanting him to, but he didn’t give you much choice, busying his hands with cleaning it up the best he could before tying the cloth around your arm to staunch the bleeding.

“We’re not at school or at home, babe,” he said as he worked. “You don’t have your first aid supplies, and I care more about keeping your injuries clean and stopping the bleeding than I do the fucking bandana.”

“School?” Steve asked you, standing in front of you. “You’ve done this at school?”

You nodded, and he looked to Nancy in surprise. He was expecting to find solidarity in his response, but she had already known.

“Did you ever… Because of…” he trailed, not being able to actually say the words.

You signed to him, but he didn’t understand, and Eddie had to translate.

“She said it’s not a blame game, Harrington. Though, I would argue differently.”

It doesn’t matter, Eddie.

“It does matter, Y/N.”

We both know that whatever scars he may or may not have caused would have ended up there eventually anyway.

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t cause some.”

Where are the others? Where’s Max?

Eddie sent Nancy and Steve to go get everyone else at your request. As soon as they were out of earshot, you spoke.

“I know you’ve never really heard it before, and I need to hear it at least once in your life,” you prefaced. “I am so fucking proud of you, Eddie Munson. I’m sorry that it’s my voice it’s coming from and not someone else’s but I am proud of you.”

He scrunched his eyebrows. “Your voice is the only one that matters. At least to me. And what the hell are you talking about?”

Before you had the chance to answer, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Lucas, Max, and Dustin came back over to the two of you. Max immediately ran to you and encased you in a hug that you hesitantly returned. That modicum of hesitation is what gave you away, though. It’s what told her something was wrong.

“What happened?” she asked.

You debated signing and having Eddie relay your messages, but you didn’t want to risk him either messing up the message or not conveying it at all based on what you had to say. Sure, you would run the risk of them mocking your for how you sounded, but it didn’t matter anymore.

“The good news is I got Max off the hook,” you said.

Y/N… Eddie signed to you, knowing where this was going.

“At what cost?” she asked.

“I asked for 24 hours to say goodbye and get my things in order. After that, I won’t put up a fight when he takes me.”

Everyone’s expressions morphed into something either angry or sad or some sort of mixture thereof. And they all started talking, and you didn’t know where to look, so you just looked at Eddie even though you were pretty sure you already knew what he was going to say.

Why would you do that? he asked.

I had to make sure Max was safe. This was the only way to do that. She doesn’t deserve to die, Eddie.

But you do?

I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

And it didn’t. Whether or not you deserved to die didn’t matter anymore. Because, whether you did or not, whether you thought it or not, in one day you would be dead. And the one thing everyone agreed on: they had to figure out something else in that time. They seemed to have hope that they could, though even they looked unsure of it. The only thing anyone was sure of was that they were going to save you or die trying.