Chapter Text
Steve Harrington was throwing a party. Eddie knew this because Robin Buckley was currently bouncing in his new trailer, begging him to come. Robin was gesticulating wildly with her hands, tossing them about as she bounced on the balls of her feet and told Eddie all about the party and the plans and how he simply had to be there. The bouncing was definitely shaking the trailer's shitty foundation, and it was starting to hurt his eyes a little bit to keep track of her as she bopped around like a video game character in waiting mode.
“Buckley,” Eddie said, trying to calm down his singular queer friend in all of Hawkins. “I’m not actually part of your group. Your, uh, ‘party’,” he corrected, using air quotes.
“Yes you are!” Robin insisted. “It’s a ‘We Survived’ party, you survived, you’re included! And the kids are coming, you know Dustin will throw a fit if you don’t come.”
She was right, and Eddie hated it a little bit. As much as he loved Dustin, and the party had saved his life, there was this dark shame hanging around Eddie since he had woken up from surviving the Upside Down. Some little voice in the back of his head, biting at him every time he was invited or included in something. You didn’t deserve to be saved. Eddie swallowed it down.
“Buckley,” Eddie repeated. He thought back to the Halloween parties in high school, the ones he had shifted on the edges of, holding red solo cups full of nasty alcoholic mixtures and getting called freak and fag by drunk teenagers. “I don’t… I’m not a party person.”
“It’s not a party-party,” Robin said. “It’s a Harrington party.” Eddie’s mind flashed to the Harrington parties of his high school days, full of loud music. Robin must have Harrington party mistaken with something else. She was still rambling, “-and you have to come or everyone will freak out that the world is ending all over again.” She was right, again, and Eddie sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“Please,” she begged, holding out the word and doing her best sad puppy dog impression. Goddamn it, that always worked on him. Eddie was a sucker for puppy dog eyes, and Robin and Dustin had perfected them.
“Fine,” he said. A Harrington party still sounded like something where there would be people shot-gunning beers, swimming fully clothed, and like Tommy Hagan would be there flipping him off and calling him every name in the book. Eddie dragged his hands across his face. “Fine, I’ll be there.”
“Great!” Robin bounded over and gave Eddie a huge hug. She was certainly the closest person he’d been with since waking up, since she was so dead set on including him in everything. Maybe it was their mutual queerness, their shared hyperactivity, or maybe Robin thought that Eddie looked like a kicked puppy, but she was always trying to get him to hang out with the party beyond playing DnD with the remnants of Hellfire.
Eddie hissed a bit through the hug, and Robin let go a bit. It wasn't her fault, and Eddie wished that he had stopped himself from making noise, but sometimes a tight hug hurt his scars in ways that he wasn't used to yet. He was technically healed, technically "all better", back to regular life. But the new skin around his scars still stretched tight, and he had learned that living in pain was his new normal. It was always there with him, lingering in his nerves, keeping him up at night and occasionally searing through him like the world was ending all over again.
“Sorry,” Eddie said. “Just too tight.” Robin nodded, letting go completely. She kept her hands on his arms, looking into his eyes with her bright blue ones. She was still smiling, even though Eddie had basically just made her stop hugging him. He knew she understood, but he also knew that when she was touchy, it usually meant that she needed the touch more than the other person did.
“Okay, I’ll see you there, okay? Please come, we all want you there!” And then, she was gone, bounding back out with that infinite Buckley energy that Eddie loved.
When she was gone, he sighed, dropping to the couch. He hated parties. And Harrington would be there, with that thousand watt smile, making Eddie feel things beyond the survivor’s guilt and pain of being alive that he wasn’t ready to deal with. Not only would he be there, he would be hosting. Eddie’s stomach fluttered with something that was almost crush-y butterflies. He clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his hair.
God, Eddie was so fucked.