Chapter Text
Eddie wakes up alone.
It shouldn't feel like a surprise. Apart from a few nights after he first moved in with Wayne when nightmares chased him out of his own bed and the few foggy memories of his childhood and mom that weren't colored by the looming presence of Al Munson he has always slept alone. Likes it that way in fact, he gets to stretch out and move, leave a light on if he wants it, pace next to the bed if he needs to.
Still, he thought...
This thing with Steve had been a surprise. Absolutely no part of it was predictable, starting with a broken bottle and Reefer Rick's shitty boathouse, racing through the closest to hell Eddie ever wants to see not once but twice, and then the hospital room.
Eddie hadn't even had the chance to make full eye contact with the guy when suddenly they were invalid neighbors, ass-baring hospital gowns and all.
Two weeks at Hawkins General, another month in Loch Nora while Wayne got their new place sorted and Eddie spent almost every waking minute feeling his mangled bites healing with Steve beside him, a full companion in misery.
Eddie had never spent that much time with another person, not one on one. The kids came and left without warning and Buckley had taken up part time residence on the living room couch but there were a lot of hours where it was just Eddie. And just Steve.
They talked about everything.
The full tale of the Upside Down was their first topic of conversation, with the rest of the party popping in to add details and commentary. Then it was music, and school, and family. They talked about their pasts, the shared moments they had discovered talking through everything else and the moments that neither had ever shared before.
They talked about the future. Eddie's first and truest love was stories. It's why he read. It's why he played D&D. It's why he loved the music that he loved.
Steve talked about family, both the one he had been born into and the one that had built up around him.
It had built so slowly over the weeks and Eddie had never felt something like this before so he didn't realize he was falling in love until he was well and truly right in the middle of it. And wonder of wonders it felt like Steve was there with him.
So why did Eddie wake up alone?
After all the time they spent hanging out together Steve had finally insisted they have an official date or as close to one as it was safe to get. They drove out of town, visited a diner neither of them had ever seen before where they knew nothing and no one and no one knew them. They had burgers, and split a plate of fries. Two vanilla milkshakes that they traded halfway through their meals, not quite sharing but as close as they could get to the single shared milkshake of Eddie's first date dreams. So close it took Eddie's breath away, that he could have something like this.
Steve drove Eddie home, dropped him off at the door with a chaste kiss. Like a gentleman. Like a knight.
And then an hour later he climbed through Eddie's window with a bag of chips and a movie.
They had fallen asleep together in a pile of crumbs and though Eddie couldn't see Steve's face in the dark, he assumed the other boy was smiling too.
Eddie rubbed his eyes. They were dry. He wasn't crying. He wasn't going to cry.
His head felt heavy with the tears he had decided, as an adult, not to cry. He used the bathroom without turning on the light and then headed out to the living room, half hoping Wayne would be there, half hoping he might be alone to mourn something that had barely begun before it ended.
"Hey there, kid," Wayne murmured behind the newspaper. "Have a good night?"
Eddie sighed. "It was. The morning, not so much."
"Yeah, I saw your boy off this morning."
"That's more than I can say," Eddie scoffed.
Wayne put the paper down and Eddie felt pinned in place by his uncle's eyes.
"Look, it's fine," Eddie said. "We had a good night but he had to leave. And I get it. This is a lot. I'm a lot." Eddie gestured at himself and if he flailed his arms a little more than usual it was fine. He was just... on edge.
Wayne looked at Eddie again and his concerned expression faded into something almost like... glee?
Eddie pointed at his uncle. "What are you laughing at, old man?" He had to admit he felt a little betrayed. Wayne had been almost as excited about this date as Eddie was.
"Look at your arm, son," Wayne says softly before picking the newspaper up again.
Eddie stepped back. "What?" He looked down at his arms.
Scars and the tattered remnants of his tattoos, nothing he hadn't seen before. He twisted his arms, trying to see whatever it is Wayne had seen and high on his bicep he saw it.
Thick black marker lines, smudged into his skin in the shape of Steve's terrible penmanship.
'At work babe. Love you.'
"How the fuck did he do this," Eddie muttered.
"You sleep like the dead," Wayne muttered. "He could have written an essay if your arms weren't so damned skinny."
Eddie gasped, then laughed. "Wayne! How could you?"
Wayne just laughed, the paper jostling with his breath.
Eddie stumbled his way to another kitchen chair, his eyes still focussed on the note.
"Don't think he wanted to leave," Wayne said. "Practically had to shove him out the door."
"Yeah," Eddie said, softly. He could get it tattooed. Those words. 'Love you.'
"I expect he'll be back tonight?"
Eddie nodded, then stood up sharply. "Not if I go to him first!"
Eddie charged for the door. Too many times had Steve chased after him, now it was Eddie's turn.
"You might want to put a shirt on," Wayne called.
Eddie froze in space, his outstretched fingers only inches away from the doorknob.
After he put a shirt on. And probably shoes. And grabbed his keys.