I’LL MAKE THIS FEEL LIKE HOME
cw: nsfw, 18+. minors and ageless blogs will be blocked for interacting. wc 6k. todoroki fam lore. bnha manga + s6 spoilers. angst and fluff and smut and love and
“Do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you?”
- Midsommar (2019)
Touya was eight years old when his youngest brother was born—the same age realized that his house no longer felt like home.
And while it never fit the traditional cookie-cutter feeling of a home before then, it was comforting in its own kind of way. It was definite, something that he could hold onto and strive towards. Something that was there at the end of the day, no matter how badly his hands burned or how quiet the dinner table was.
Because before Shouto was born, there was still a chance.
Fuyumi and Natsuo were just as much of failures as he was—it was anyone's game. He could keep pushing, train his hand to defy the science of his body and deal with it. Become what his father wanted so badly he’d kill for. That was home, the knowledge that there was still a chance for him.
But the moment Shouto was born, hair perfectly split the same as his flawlessly cursed body, Touya knew.
Instantly, he knew that his time was over—that there was no saving his dream of making his father proud. He hadn’t been enough, and he would have to live with that, in a house that's no home with a family that lives in the shadow of what he never got to be.
He carries that feeling everywhere he goes. Like an eternal kink in his neck, it weighs heavy on his shoulders and disintegrates the marrow of his bones. Forever the boy without a home, Dabi continues to do what he does best—or maybe worst—and he survives.
But, you don’t remember when Dabi became home to you.
Well, that's not entirely true. Like all other things, you suppose it happened slowly, then all at once.
You remember meeting him when you shouldn’t have. Recognizing his appearance from the local news, you remember the heavy feeling in your chest, like a child who was caught doing something wrong. The fear, the confusion. The part of you that wanted to help, the other than wanted to run.
But you don’t remember how fast it all happened.
Sewing his wounds and scrubbing his blood from your floor. Letting him sneak in to hide out, and waking up to an empty bed. You don’t remember the days bleeding into nights, but you could never forget the way his skin felt against yours.
You remember the impact, but the falling is all a blur. The stranger sleeping on your couch who has now read all of the books on your bedside table. The one who hissed and snarled for you to stay away, now crawls home to you on his knees.
One day he wasn't, and the very next day, he was.
You think that’s enough for you, but Dabi knows it’s too much for him.
…
The sound of your window creakily opening no longer scares you in the middle of the night. If anything, it brings you a sick sense of comfort.
Dabi slides through your living room balcony with ease, far too familiar with the routine of navigating your apartment in the dark. It does the job for him—keeps him out of the cold, gives him a bed to sleep in, a roof over his head. He finds that he enjoys the perks of your shitty building complex.
Oh, and you're there, too. But, he swears that has nothing to do with the magnetic urge that keeps pulling him back to the fire escape on the fourth floor that remains unlocked.
He opens your cabinets in search of something, anything, to fill his stomach in the slightest. He’s thin, almost alarmingly so, if you didn't know him—didn’t know his body is constantly working against him, eagerly taking the destruction he so carelessly puts it through.
Your sudden voice doesn't scare him. He doesn't so much as flinch at your clear tone in the silence of your home.
“Cremation.”
He briefly looks at you over his shoulder, humorously expressionless, before turning his back to you and rummaging through the cabinet again.
“Gesundheit,” he scoffs.
“It’s what your name means,” you breathe, tone still devoid of any emotion he can detect—or deflect.
The realization burns him like his quirk, oddly painless but still alarmingly there. He holds his breath without realizing it, and its not until he coughs that he mindlessly exhales.
Dabi. Cremation.
True, he thinks. It’s no secret by any means, but he still finds his muscles tensing up as if you’d just said something you shouldn’t have.
He doesn’t let his facade falter as he plucks a box of saltines from your cabinet. “Doesn't take a genius to do a basic translate search.”
“It’s not your real name,” you state, addressing the elephant infiltrating the room.
And at this, he fully turns to you. You stand in the entryway of the dark kitchen, arms crossed and eyes filled with sleep (or lack thereof, Dabi isn't sure he can tell the difference just yet).
You're not angry. No, he's seen you angry before. This is different, harder. It's almost stoic. And while Dabi can’t put his finger on the exact feeling of the pit in his stomach, he knows he doesn’t like it.
He sticks his hand in the cardboard box before plucking a cracker and plopping the snack in his mouth. The salt burns the cuts on his lips when he sarcastically speaks, “You’re on fire with the observations today.”
He watches you shrug, expression still void of any true indication of whatever your heart is feeling. The only light in the tiny apartment comes from the stove behind him. He can just make out your silhouette and barely your face through hardened focus and adjusting eyes.
He thinks he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t want to see the details of your dissapointment when you see the real him.
“Figured it was a bit too coincidental,” you rest against the doorframe. Dabi takes it as a good sign, you're not stiff.
“Quirks don’t even manifest until a few years after birth, unless you were unnamed for the first five years of your life.”
Should’ve been, he bitterly thinks. Things would've been easier that way.
He bites his tongue.
The only sound that can be heard is the crunching of his teeth against the cracker he gnaws on. After a moment, he offers you one. You don’t move a muscle at his extended hand. He lets it sink back slowly, defeated, as he clears his throat.
“It fits, doesn't it?”
It’s a rhetorical question, one he doesn’t actually expect you to answer. Because his name is all that’s known of him. Of course it should fit. Because when you look at him—his peeling and charred skin and hand that wields nothing but pain—it’s evident that all he can do is cremate.
His breath hitches when you speak up.
“To some, sure,” you decide.
With the way his chest tightens at your declaration, Dabi decides he doesn't like your tone.
He shields himself with his bark. “What’s that mean?”
“It means I want to call you something different,” you ache, but Dabi can read between the cracks you let falter. I deserve to call you something different, is what your heart bleeds onto the floor. I’m different.
He refuses to let that be the truth.
“Didn't think you’d be one for pet names, doll.” He tosses the half-eaten box back into your cabinet, lazily shutting the wood and wiping his crumby hands on his sleeves.
“I don’t see you how they see you,” your voice is stern now, he hears the determination in your shaky words. “I want to know your name.”
Your real one, the lines read once again. But in a split second, Dabi realizes he’s come too far to ruin whatever this is now.
“Fat chance in hell,” he dismisses, brushing your shoulder as he leaves the kitchen.
You’re quick to follow—as you always are, he’s begun to notice. You're like a mosquito constantly buzzing in his ear. No matter how many times he swats and repels, you come back stronger. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t hate it.
“Please.”
“No,” he’s even quicker to bore. “M’not dragging you into my shit.”
Too late, the voice in the back of his mind laughs. He’s always been his own worst enemy.
“There's more to you,” you continue to press, wanting something tangible, more from him. “You're not just what they make of you. You're a person, someone's son, someone’s–”
“Don't,” a balloon bursts behind his eyelids. His voice comes louder than ever before and it unsettles you, him, and the floorboards beneath your toes.
“Don't you ever...fucking say that again. You hear me?” With his finger in your face, Dabi shakes. He prays to whoever is listening that you see it as fury, and not what it truly is—fear.
And based on the tears flooding your eyes, he’d bet money he doesn't have that he’s right. In the silence of your home, you nod.
Dabi decides he’s had enough for one night, done enough to make you hate him just the right amount to forget about fixing him.
On the way out, Dabi mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Say something stupid like that one more time and you'll never see me again.”
…
Dabi is exhausted.
His burner rings obnoxiously through the bedroom in the middle of the night.
You’ve begun to associate the loud melody with the feeling of a knife—the blade cruelly trickling its tip against your skin. Cold, sharp, barely applying enough pressure to make you hyperaware of its potential to rip everything you've ever known away from you with a mere movement forward.
You never know who’s on the other end of the line, and this time is no different. When the infamous sound sends a chill up your spine, Dabi answers it without a second thought. He wordlessly picks up, listens intently, and hangs up as quickly as it rang.
Then, he’s out of bed and putting his shoes on.
He knows you're not asleep, so there's no point in pretending to be when you crawl out of bed and follow him to the den of your home.
He grabs the remote, flicks the television on, and eagerly surfs the channels until he lands on the local news. Endeavor runs through the barren and obliterated streets of downtown, defending the city and fighting some… creature. You don't miss the way Dabi’s eyes don't blink whenever the hero is on screen.
He’s too focused, too emotional when it comes to him. It's unlike anything you've ever seen from him, and you're tired of pretending not to see the smothering fire in his eyes whenever the man is brought into discussion.
The reporter on the screen flips to another battle somewhere else in the city, with other heroes and other creatures and other things that should matter right now but for some reason don't. Because when Dabi finally takes his eyes off the screen to slip into his shoes, you spill.
“Why him?”
He harshly tightens the laces of his boot, “Huh?”
“Endeavor,” falls from your lips, and he nearly hisses at the sound of the name on your tongue. “Why him out of all heroes?”
He hesitates in the slightest. The average eye wouldn't have noticed his pause, but you know him. You see the way he clenches his jaw and fiddles with the staples sealing his chin.
He merely shrugs before tying his other lace, “He’s number one.”
“He wasn't always,” you contest, a bit too accusatory for his liking.
“Why does it matter?” Dabi bites. Bites the hand that feels him, shelters him, listens to him and chooses to remain quiet with what it knows. He bites the hand that loves him, and he almost regrets it when he sees your slight shock.
Almost.
His stomach churns as he watches you slightly falter before finding your footing once more. “It seems to matter to you.”
So it matters to me, your heart aches to drill into his rock-solid mind. His eyes feel hot on your skin as he shakes his head and stands from where he sits.
“He’s not a good guy, none of ‘em are.”
“How do you know?”
His grip on his coat tightens in frustration. “I have a ton of shit on him. He’s not the savior you think he is.”
“I don’t think he’s a savior,” you retort, and it comes out a bit childish, like a belief you wish to convince yourself of. “I don’t know him.”
“But you trust him,” Dabi is quick to jump, almost as if you've fallen right into his trap. He looks a bit wild, as if you’re prey in his hands, saying all the right things so sweetly just for him to do what a predator does and hunt. Sink his teeth into your flesh and ruin you for the thrill of it.
“Cause he’s the face of the fuckin’ country?” he coos with a venomously fake smile. “Cause he’s big and strong and always does the good thing, right?”
He’s trying to scare you, you know this—but you’ve never been scared of Dabi. Not when he’s tried to make you be, not when he’s done unspeakable things. He doesn’t scare you, but he’s upsetting you. He’s being mean, which isn't new to you but still rare enough to sting.
“I trust you,” your voice cracks, making his stomach churn with shame, “so if you don’t trust him, then I trust you have a good reason not to.”
Silence overtakes the room and Dabi’s chest burns with bile rising.
You trust him? On what grounds? What reason has he given you to just hand over your patience without a fight, without a reason?
Most importantly, if the thought of you trusting him makes him sick to his fucking stomach, then why does he find his lips moving before he can stop himself?
“He beats his kids.”
The television cuts to a commercial. A car drives by below, honking furiously at something or other. He says it casually, eyes looking away from yours.
Your voice is barely heard, “His kids?”
You didn't even know he had kids. Come to think of it, you knew of one boy. Fire and ice who attends the hero facility downtown that's always getting into trouble. Set to follow in his father's footsteps, according to the tabloids.
Dabi’s face doesn't falter at your surprise, immune to the violence he knows lives within his words. “Wife, too.”
The pieces don't add up in your mind. Dabi’s never been one for morals, not one for evening the tides and setting the universe straight when it comes to what's right and what's wrong. He does what he wants, he’s selfish. So why on earth would he care about a tragedy that doesn't involve him?
He interrupts your thoughts when he walks over to the front door. The sound of him fiddling with the lock makes your heart drop—because it means he’s leaving, and for how long, you never know.
“Doesn’t anymore, apparently, but he did for years,” he scoffs in disgust. “Claims he’s turned a new leaf. Wants to be father of the year, all of a sudden.”
Leaving before you can process any thoughts to convey into words, he sneaks through your door without a second thought.
“The good guys aren't actually good, y’know,” he warns as he leaves you.
You don’t see him for two weeks.
…
Dabi doesn't fuck you with caution.
It's the same every time. Rough, quick, desperate. You on your stomach and him towering behind you. He doesn't look at you or say much other than a grunt or curse here and there. Always pulls out, if he even cums, and always leaves right after, if not in the middle of the night.
But that doesn't mean it’s not good. Because fuck, it's great.
While short-lived and based on nothing but selfish, primal needs, it's a private moment of feeling nothing but him. His hands are everywhere and his teeth are never too far behind. His skin is on fire and his pace is nothing short of eager.
Your back is arched as your face is pressed to the mattress. You feel his cock throb as it swells against the insides of your walls with every rushed and eager thrust.
“Fuck, please,” he hears you breathily whine, and you feel his smirk against the skin of your back.
He uses your polite desperation to reward you, snap his hips extra hard and bury himself to the hilt of your cunt. He sits and burns inside of you, grip tight on your waist as he pulls you as close to him as he can without swallowing you whole.
His tip dances directly at the opening of your cervix, just barely brushing the overly tender spot with a feather-light prodding that somehow feels like too much and not enough. He lets himself continue to stretch you, to mold you, to enjoy the only thing he believes was made for him before he ruins it.
He feels you repeatedly clench around him as you mewl, “Please, more please.” You’re already completely spent when you plead, “Please, Dabi.”
And just like that, a switch is flipped inside of him.
His grip on your hips tightens, “Don’t.”
He goes to pull out of you completely, but your cry from his movement halts his hips. “Oh, nnnngh, Dabi—!”
In a whirl, you're flipped onto your back and met with a harsh gaze.
“Don’t,” he growls into your throat, “call me that.”
Frozen in place from both shock and pure need, you airily gasp when you feel his cock head brushing itself through your folds. With a scarred wrist, Dabi swipes his tip between your folds, eyes fully absorbing and watching your expression twitch with every sensitive brush.
“Touya,” he tells you through a slack jaw, watching your eyelids flutter at the teasing.
He pushes himself into your cunt, not fully, but enough for you to cry in slight release, before pulling out to where his tip is the only part of him swallowed by you.
“Touya,” he repeats, nearly chanting as he aches to engrain it into your system. So it’s all you’ll ever know, the only word your tongue will ever taste from now on, no matter who is sticking what inside of you. He works to make your body remember that the only thing it should think of when feeling the slight stretch of your throbbing cunt is—
“Touya,” he bleeds. It almost doesn’t even sound like a word. “Say it. Touya.”
And you do. It crawls breathy and drunk from your throat as if your lips were made to form its syllables. Like a holy mantra falling from your lips, his whole body shivers when he hears your sweet heaves.
“Touya,” is whimpered into his lips.
He holds his breath for a beat, before shakily recollecting himself from his quickly approaching high and readjusting his grip on your jaw.
“Again, fuck.”
“Touya,” you gasp at his now snapping hips. It’s deeper, slower, and even more desperate than you thought it was before. It's messy and tired and he cradles you in his palms as you chant his name like a prayer.
Touya. Touya. Touya.
He abruptly finishes inside of you, his spurting warmth easily sending you over the edge, too.
While it was something that was always offered, Touya has never once come inside of you, always choosing to pull out last second, if he finished at all. You savor the moment, letting him rut his cum into you until your both dry with exhaustion.
Breathing returns to a normal rate and Touya lets himself soften inside of you. With his head burrowed in your neck, he makes a move to pull out of you. To leave, your chest tightens at the realization, so on instinct, you let your legs wrap around his torso, crossing your ankles and keeping him as your own for just a little bit longer.
Without a fight, he lets you. He lets himself stay inside of you as he drifts to sleep in your hold.
“Touya,” he hears you coo, listens to you taste it on your tongue and determine that you like its flavor.
“S’pretty,” you decide in a sleeping daze. “Fits you better.”
Dabi drifts to sleep thinking about the irony of that statement.
…
The puzzle pieces itself together rather quickly after that.
It turns out Endeavor does have kids—four, to be exact. Three boys and a girl, all different equations of fire and ice and grief.
It's not hard to find articles on what happened at Sekoto Peak. What happened to Touya Todoroki, the boy who died for nothing, who you now know somehow sits alive on your couch with a bowl of ramen noodles and a wet head.
He focuses on the television before him. A cheesy horror film from the late 80s plays through the grainy screen. His feet are resting on top of the coffee table and the bowl in his lap is steaming. He uses his chopsticks to dive in regardless of its heat.
Sitting on the opposite end of the couch, you can smell your eucalyptus shampoo in his hair from where you sit. Though his head is still damp, you can tell the color has gotten lighter. While still practically jet black all over, you're able to see the slightest tint of light peeking through his roots. You know better than to ask, but you're sure your guess is as good as any.
Touya must feel your gaze on him because his eyes flicker to the side where you quietly admire his profile. Through a mouthful of noodles and steaming broth, he mumbles.
“What’re you doing?”
You smile at the lack of enunciation in his words before innocently shaking your head. “Nothing.”
Unconvinced, his eyes narrow. “Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?” he accuses.
You roll your eyes out of habit though your heart is anything but irritated, “What, I can’t look at you, now?”
He uses the next bite he takes to hide the smirk growing on his face. “Not with that stupid look on your face.”
He takes pride in watching you get flustered, scrunching your nose and giggling out a horrified, “What look?”
He reaches across the couch to close the gap between the two of you, before flicking your forehead.
“That look,” he declares.
He doesn't move back to where he was sitting. He lets himself remain next to you, your head lightly resting on his shoulder as the sound of the movie webs throughout your living room.
It’s easy, too easy. It’s natural and warm and feels like the closest thing to a home he’s ever held in his calloused and weeping palms.
And Touya is selfish.
He wants to grasp onto it, white-knuckled and pressing crescents into his palms—he wants to keep you. Wants to keep this. But he knows better.
Touya knows that the stupid look on your face was one of love. Pure and undeniable. But he doesn't let himself think too much about it.
…
The weather changes with the wind, and it’s colder in Japan when Touya gives you a piece of him you never thought you’d get.
He’s just arrived back from god knows where doing god knows what, but you’ve learned not to question it. You welcome him in every time with a warm smile and an urge to hold him, and he thinks maybe thats why he hears himself suddenly spilling.
“Saw him today,” he breathes evenly.
His words hold no context, no prior conversation triggering his statement. It just exists in the space between the two of you on the couch, and the ball is in your court.
Your head tilts in careful thought, “Who?”
“Downtown,” he ignores your question, “cornered him for a second and everything.”
And though you know nothing and shouldn’t be able to understand the man beside you, you do.
You feel his pain in the way his eyebrow twitches, how his fingers crack against his palms. You might not get it, but you try. You’ll always try for Touya.
You encourage him, “And what happened?”
The wind howls outside, and you feel your home settle beneath its harsh hit. The walls crack with movement as the two of you remain seated beside one another.
After a moment, Touya clears his throat.
“Nothing,” he bitterly laughs to himself. “Absolutely nothing.”
The tea in your hand buzzes heat through its mug, and it feels like Touya’s touch. When he’s careful and cautious and places his hands on your stomach, treating you like glass he needs to mold.
“Looked me dead in the eyes, felt my fuckin’ flame, and—” he cuts himself off at the emotion crawling into his words with a cough, “and nothing.”
You say nothing, but Touya knows that nothing needs to be said. He can sit on his couch with the tea you made him and the look you're giving him and he knows he can trust you. As much as he doesn't want to, he can.
With his head hung low in shame, he rips off the only bandaid he’s ever had for the deepest wound he never got the chance to properly clean.
“He’s my old man,” he harshly swallows.
After a moment of silence, he drags his head up from the floor.
You're still looking at him the same, eyes dancing with love and some sick want to understand him.
You simply reach across the cushion and squeeze his hand.
“I know,” you whisper.
And in what Touya imagined to be an earth-shattering conversation, he feels the corner of his mouth pulling upwards into an ironic smile.
“’Course you do,” he laughs under his breath. It's not malicious or accusatory, it's a matter of fact.
Because of course, you know. Of course, you would see through his master puppetry and barring fangs. Of course, it wouldn't change how you see him.
Of course.
In what should be a terrifying moment, Touya lets himself smile. He shakes his head as he sighs, “Father of the fuckin’ year, right?”
…
“M’gonna do something,” Touya tells you solemnly one afternoon in bed, “and you’re gonna hate me for it.”
The freshly setting sun shines through the window, and you can feel its heat warming up your legs through the frame. The rays feel oddly contrasting to his cloudy day words.
You open your eyes to find his. They’re already looking back at you, glasslike as they flicker across your features. Like he’s searching for something neither of you have an answer to.
Your foot brushes against his calf as you shift to face him.
“I could never hate you,” you softly remind him, “you know that.”
Touya fights the urge to roll his eyes, and you bite back a smile at the agitation wrinkles forming on his forehead. Your fingers move without thinking, using your thumb to iron and smooth over his delicate skin.
“Fine,” he huffs, but you don’t miss the way he softens beneath your touch.
“I’m gonna do something and you’re gonna yell at me for it,” he follows up more gentle this time, like a tainted whisper afraid to be too loud in the honeyed quietness of your home.
It fills your stomach with a familiar sense of unease.
“Well, do you deserve to be yelled at?”
He softly smiles, one equal parts of happy and sad, “Probably.”
You return the look as you sit on his words. He’s treading lightly, which is a thoughtful change compared to his usual acting on impulse.
He’s cautioning you. Preparing you for something bitter, and while you appreciate the warning, you know it can’t be anything good. It feels a lot like the breathtaking sunset before a disastrous overnight storm.
Your voice is a whisper when you meekly ask him, “Can you tell me any more?”
And though the look on his face is regretful, his answer comes all the same.
“No,” he swallows.
And like the saint you are, Touya doesn’t know why he’s surprised when you merely bob your head in understanding and smile.
“Okay,” you nod.
You expect that to be all. Because Touya’s never been one for words, let alone more than the bare minimum amount needed. And you were deemed lucky enough to get a vague warning.
That should be the end of the conversation, but it’s not.
Touya reaches for your wrist and his fingers dance along the bone lightly. He doesn’t remove his eyes from where they bore into yours when he breathes.
“M’sorry.���
The words are foreign on his tongue, and his smallness unsettles you. Something feels wrong, like nausea brewing and waiting for bile to finally strike.
You sit up, cradling his face in your palms as you coo words of reassurance. He feels cold, his body temperature ironically contrasting the heat that runs through his veins. He’s trying so hard to keep whatever he knows inside the clear cage of his mind, but you can practically hear the cracking of the glass beneath it’s weight.
“Hey, no,” you exhale between kisses to his hairline. “No, don’t start that shit.”
Because while he doesn’t tell you everything, Touya tells you enough, and it’s more than you ever thought would be true with someone as out of reach as him.
He may not tell you he loves you, but he says it through his eyes. He doesn’t tell you how he has so much respect for you it could swallow him whole, but sometimes, in the glimpse of his stolen glances, you can feel it.
He can’t tell you what he’s going to do, but he can tell you he’s sorry. And that is something in and of itself.
Touya closes his eyes at the affection. He wishes he could freeze time and savor this moment forever. Keep it as a souvenir to place on his shelf and keep him company on lonely nights to come. He doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want to be anywhere else that isn't here, right now, with you.
He does his best to soak in how your lips feel against his as you promise, “We’ll figure it out, yeah?”
But he’s not so sure, because while you think he’s apologizing for not being able to tell you more, Touya is apologizing for the hell he knows is to come.
…
He’s dead. He has to be dead.
The screen in front of you feels like a cruel joke as it flashes clips of the scene. Not Dabi, but Touya, on national television—spewing venom to the entire country with a smile. .
He speaks slowly, solemnly, like he's thought this through. Like he’s rehearsed and planned this all along. He speaks like a spiraling politician, and it cuts like a blade in your back.
You think about the television screens across the city right now.
A family whose gameshow night got rudely interrupted. A cafe whose workers are making their final lattes for the night, sweeping the floors and washing the counters as his rambling mindlessly plays in the background. You wonder if anybody is home at the Todoroki residence, if the television is on, or if it was unplugged years ago.
Touya is dead, and he warned you.
That’s why he did this, why he planned this to unfold the way it did. He told you that you’d hate him, and like a fool, you told him he was wrong.
A knock on the door is barely heard over your heavy breathing, and you debate on answering it.
It has to be the police, or maybe even a hero—looking for you, now an accomplice blinded by a mirror you thought was a window.
Your brain starts to spiral with thoughts that make your chest heave.
Did Touya turn himself in? Go down without a fight? Did someone see him leave your home? Had they known this entire time?
Maybe they were waiting for the right moment to strike, for the dominoes to ripple so they can make their move when you’re too weak to defend yourself. Maybe he double-crossed you, blamed whatever he could on you before driving a getaway car in the opposite direction of your apartment. Maybe he never cared at all—maybe the realest thing you’d ever known was orchestrated from beginning to end.
Another knock comes, this time more urgent and harsh. And there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable—so with tear-stained cheeks and shaking shoulders, you open the door.
And it’s Touya.
With white hair and soggy clothes, he stands in the hallway of your crumby apartment complex.
You want to laugh at the irony of it all. The first time he uses your actually door instead of window, he's a new man.
New hair, new name, a new look in his eye—one that swims of something you can't put your finger on. He’s alive and in front of you, and regardless of the anger overflowing your cup, you need to feel him.
So you pull him through the threshold, inside of your home, and against your skin. You feel the wet leather of his jacket, and smell the ash from the battle mixed with the coffee he had before he left this morning.
He’s here, and you love him.
“I hate you,” your cries vibrate against his chest as you weakly push and punch at his shoulders. “I hate you, I fucking hate you.”
Touya lets you sob into his shirt. It’s covered in your tears and blood that’s not his. He lets you thrash and scream and crumple beneath his hold.
He wants to say I told you so. I told you you’d hate me.
“How could you do that,” he makes out between your hyperventilating and sobs, “how could you do that to me?”
His throat restricts with tears that can’t come as you melt against his body, “I would have never done that to you.”
“I’m sorry,” Touya breathes, and he repeats it. Says it again and again and again until it all bleeds together into nothing but syllables and sobs.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m home, and I’m sorry.
…
The bedroom is cold, the window slightly cracked open as Touya shuffles your quilted blanket off of his clammy body.
He always runs a bit hot at night, though he’s ironically ice to the touch when his quirk isn’t at work.
Now on top of your comforter, his scarred palm lays open to you. He flinches every now and then as you delicately draw shapes into it with a painted fingernail. His eyes are closed, but he’s able to recognize the swirling form of your movements, the same ones you’ve drawn every night since he came back home to you.
He doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt this at peace.
After everything, he’s still here. And not only is he still here, but he’s okay with that, because he’s with you.
“I've never—” he hesitates, but the darkness illuminating the room gives him a surge of confidence.
“I've never had this,” his voice is pained, nearly softer than silence itself.
He feels your finger stop swirling for a moment, but it resumes just as quickly as it halted. He feels you alter your pattern, and with cleaner lines and softer edges, he’s able to recognize the heart you doodle on his skin.
“Had what?” you gently ask.
“A home,” Touya breathes, before correcting himself, “where I’m wanted.”
You smile and Touya feels so loved he nearly makes himself sick. He feels so held, so wanted, so right in your bed and beneath your delicate fingertips.
The stranger in your home. The outlaw who smells of your perfume. The boy who never got a second chance, but the man who got a third.
Touya has so much love for you that he doesn't know where to put it all.
But for a moment, when he looks at your smile and feels your fingertip tracing his palm, he sees it as you offering your open arms to hold any excess he can’t carry.
He feels you grin against the scarring of his wrist.
“Well,” you kiss the tender spot where skin meets stitching, “you might wanna get used to it.”
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so scarlet (it was maroon)
in which eddie gets everything he dreamed of - except you. based off of "maroon" by taylor swift.
→ warnings: smut, severe angst, hurt/no comfort, 18+ minors dni
→ pairings: rockstar!eddie x fem!reader
→ wc: 11.3k+
→ a/n: don't mind me, just trying to see if tumblr will let me finally post this. this is cross-posted from ao3 (and wattpad)
ao3
"When the morning came, we were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf 'cause we lost track of time again. Laughing with my feet in your lap, like you were my closest friend"
“You’re fucking with me,” Eddie sits up to stare at you, lit joint still dangling between his ringed fingers and the last of his latest hit lingering in a ghost of white smoke on his lips.
“I’m not,” you laugh at his reaction, tilting your head forward just enough for where you were sprawled out on his bed to get a better view of him, “I’m scared to take cold medicine now.”
“There’s no way you got high off of the recommended dose!” he cackles, shaking his head in disbelief, a hand coming down on your shin to ground himself. You watch his shoulders shake with laughter, how his curls come down to curtain around his reddening cheeks and his reddening eyes, how his doe eyes are pinched shut and crinkled in the corners.
A map of a million lifetimes, branching out from the corner of those eyes. A million lifetimes, a million possibilities, a million futures. And every single one of them begins and ends with Eddie.
If you stare for too long, you’re going to say something you regret in your high, so you sit up as he had in order to snatch back the joint, “Stop babysitting. Aren’t you the one who’s always chastising me on ‘puff, puff, pass’?”
He feigns offense, mouth wide open and face scrunched up adorably so, as you take a delicate hit. The smoke enters your mouth quickly, wasting no time as it barrels down your throat and curls into every crevice of your lungs. Your chest aches slightly at the intrusion.
His eyes never leave yours. He watches the glaze continue to intensify over them as you slowly exhale. His thumb begins to trace gentle arches over the bare skin of your leg as his warm palm shifts upward, inching until it’s over your knee and resting on your thigh. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”
“Learned from the best.”
“That you did, sweetheart. That you did.”
He holds his free hand back out for the joint, and your fingertips brush as you return it to him.
“So what? Was it better than this kind of high?” he teases before bringing it to his lips. They’re pursed in preparation, and you only lose your concentration for a moment before remembering to answer him.
“I dunno, Munson. You’ve got some good shit here but… Dayquil might be giving you a run for your money,” you mock, tilting your head and leaning in closer to him. He’s grinning again, looking up through shy lashes before he takes his hit.
This time he doesn’t exhale immediately into the cloudy air of the room. Instead, he takes you off guard as he shifts on the bed and pulls you closer. Soon enough he has you in his lap, draping one arm around your waist as he takes the hand not holding the joint and gingerly grabs your jaw.
You already know the drill. You’re familiar with the process of his shotguns as his fingers tap your cheeks and you let your mouth fall slightly open, leaning to meet him halfway. He still doesn’t exhale, not until his lips have grazed over yours lightly, teasing before he finally seals the two of you together. The kiss is messy, as it always is with him; your tongue can’t differentiate between the taste of him and the taste of the smoke as he presses the kiss deeper. You’re not even sure you breathed in enough to capture any of it, but none of it feels like a waste as he’s biting your bottom lip, hands pulling your hips impossibly close. The joint is eventually discarded on one of the ashtrays on his bedside tables as you lose yourselves into each other. His nose presses itself into flat against yours between hot breaths.
“We can’t-” you pull back, a trail of saliva chasing you before Eddie follows, capturing you in another kiss that you pull back from, “The joint-” another interruption with another desperate kiss, “The incense-”
“The incense will be fine, baby,” he insists, pouting slightly, “It’s not going to burn the house down.”
He kisses you once more, wasting no time to fall backwards into his pillows and dragging you with him. For a moment, you’re straddling him, hovering over him, but he quickly turns and presses your back into his sheets before he’s rolling over on top of you, caging you in. You don’t mind it. You never mind him taking up your space, your breath, your mind.
A hand comes up to rest on your neck as you take a moment to press both hands into his chest, forcing distance. His eyes snap wide open, and they’re shining like a dozen moons at once, even with his pupils blown out.
“And if it does? It if does burn down the house?” you whisper, hands beginning to wander, one finding its way up and around the back of his neck, toying with the curls in its path. The other smooths over his shoulder, prepared to pull him back in impossibly close even without an answer.
He’s looking down at you with all the love in all of Hawkins, in all of the world, as he smirks and answers, “Then I say let it burn.”
"And I chose you, the one I was dancing with in New York, no shoes. Looked up at the sky and it was maroon."
Within a year of graduation, Eddie had made it very clear he wanted to get out of Hawkins. Corroded Coffin had been slowly but surely crawling their way to popularity outside of Hawkins, and when the moment was right, he came to you with an offer you couldn’t refuse.
“Come with me. Move to New York. I know, it’s insane, but-”
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. Was it ever really a question, Eddie?”
He was it for you, and so when he’d been prepared to beg you on his knees to move with him, it had been a no-brainer. You packed up all your belongings without second-thoughts, said goodbye to the town that never really deserved either of you, and started your life in a big city.
The apartment was small and impossibly cramped, but the first night you two arrived, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if it was in the dingier part of town, or that you two were going to be penniless the next several months as you barely scraped by with rent. The moment you walked into that one-bedroom apartment, you knew it was yours, and you knew with certainty then that you had done it - you had escaped the bleary town and come out the other side.
“Holy shit,” he sighs as he places down one of the last few boxes you’d brought with you amongst one of the several piles littering the living room. You’re sitting on top of one particularly sturdy stack of boxes, the top one serving as a seat most likely filled with your books from home.
“Yeah,” you breath, looking around, completely stunned, “Holy shit.”
Eddie turns in a full circle, almost as if he was drinking it all in, before he faces you once more. His face is a blank slate only for a second before the serendipity and sudden gaiety takes over his features. He’s unexpectedly running in your direction, arms wrapping around you and lifting you off the boxes as you squeal, swinging you around effortlessly.
“We fucking did it!” he cheers over your giggles. When he finally finishes spinning you, letting your sock-clad feet find stability on the hardwood floors, he still doesn’t let you go. He only pulls you into his chest tighter, “We did it. We’re in New fucking York.”
You smile brightly, pressing your cheek painfully against his t-shirt, nodding as you echo, “We did it.”
The moment pauses as he pulls away as suddenly as he had picked you up, still radiating happiness.
“Hold on, wait here. I’ve got an idea.”
He jogs over to one of the stacks of boxes at the entrance of the kitchen as you just laugh, “Not like I’ve got anywhere to run off to, Munson.”
“You better not!” he calls over his shoulder, digging for whatever his brilliant idea was.
You disobey him indirectly by wandering across the living room, steps slow and careful as you approach the large window offering a lackluster view. All you could see, for the most part, was the large brickwall of the neighboring apartment building. It was old and faded, scattered marks of paints from clear graffiti at random intervals. The city had clearly tried to wash away the few remnants of whatever art the random city vigilantes had covered it with, but the reminders of what once was remained. A nod to the fact that sometimes, no matter how hard you try to wash away things, their legacy lingers stubbornly.
You don’t even hear Eddie setting up one of his old boomboxes with a favorite mixtape of the two of yours until it begins to play from the speakers, probably a bit more loud than you should have if you were attempting to be considerate neighbors.
But neither of you cared.
When you turn, you find Eddie approaching you steadily to the beat of the song playing. He takes a step with each beat, swaying his hips in clear exaggeration.
He’s only several paces from you when he holds out a hand, grinning like a fool as he says, “Dance with me, sweetheart.”
You take it, immediately. There’s not a trace of hesitation as you let the boy who held the sun in your eyes drag you across the barren living room, not even dancing to the beat but growing dizzy with love regardless. You let your own happiness mingle with his. As he spins you for the hundredth time, dipping you low and dramatically, you imagine that this is it - this is as good as it could possibly get. Because you’re with your boy, and you two are dancing to your own beat as the mixtape ends, and there couldn’t possibly be a more perfect person than him.
He brings you back up to him as he stands up straight, and not a word is passed as lips crash together. An eager kiss, all teeth and revelations and silent promises of forever. It’s saccharine sweet as his tongue passes over your lips, begging for more closeness. Your chests are so tightly pressed together that with each breath he gasps in, you’re forced to exhale.
“I love you,” he mutters, pulling back momentarily and staring into your eyes. His arms cradle you so carefully, as if scared that when he lets go, you’ll completely disappear from him, “I love you so goddamn much, it hurts. I can’t believe this is real.”
“It’s real, so you better believe it, rockstar,” you reassure him, “Now shut up and kiss me.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he mutters, already so close to you that his lips brush against yours before he’s back on you, hot and heavy.
You’re not sure how exactly it happens, or who first starts encouraging the steps taken towards the hallway, but you end up with your back against the wall as Eddie leans completely into you. You both feel drunk on each other, giddy on your current reality. After a particularly harsh tug on his hair, in sync with a yearning squeeze on your hip, he whispers ‘jump’ into your kiss. Hands find the back of your thighs, molding them into his knuckles as he carries you into the bedroom.
The room is only filled with a few artifacts: boxes of both of your clothes, Eddie’s prized guitar propped up in one of the corners, and a mattress on the floor only covered in a comforter and no sheets yet. The afternoon light is golden as it flutters in through the open window, the sounds of the city muted by your breaths.
He’s impossibly gentle as he lowers the two of you down onto the mattress, careful as he lets you unwrap your legs and flop back. Even with his carefulness, you find your own eagerness causing your movements to be too rough, bouncing back slightly and bumping noses with him. You both take a break to laugh.
“Careful, you klutz,” he warns, balancing himself up on his forearms as he looks down at you in adoration. You don’t respond, instead lifting yourself to capture his lips in yours, pulling him down. Your teeth clash with his as you both continue to giggle into the open-mouthed kiss.
He gives in, hands roaming as they slip below your tattered shirt you’d worn for the occasion of moving. His warm hands find home on your chest, squeezing softly and thumbs flicking your already pebbled nipples in order to pull gasps from you. He lets his head drop to your neck, his messy curls tickling your nose as he presses wet kisses down your jugular. Each kiss is in sync with the heavy beating of your heart.
He stops when his path leads him down to your collarbone, sucking and nipping before releasing blooming skin to glance up at your face, twisted in euphoria. “This is real, isn’t it?”
His voice is so soft, you almost don’t hear him. But you look down at him, a boy made of contradictions - of sunshine and moonlight, of passionate and tender actions - and can only smile in serenity.
“Yeah, it is.”
It’s the only encouragement he needs to continue his worship, leaving no patch of supple skin unkissed.
"The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me, and how the blood rushed into my cheeks. So scarlett, it was maroon."
It could have been hours later or days when you’d finally tired yourselves out. It took an impossible amount of willpower, but eventually, you two had untangled yourselves from each other, leaving the warmth of your comforter to continue unpacking.
Or rather, you were unpacking. Eddie had taken to stretching out on the bed, back propped up on the bare wall behind him with his guitar in his lap, strumming mindlessly as he watched you begin to pull your clothes from one of the boxes. You took your time, smoothing out any wrinkles that had formed during the move, focused as you hung your shirts on hangers and put them away into their home in your new shared closet.
Eddie pauses whatever song he had been practicing when he catches sight of a particular shirt you pull from the box.
It’s a white t-shirt. Nothing impressive, but what piques his interest is the splotch of once-red-now-maroon painting the center of the fabric. It’s faded, feathered at the edges, but he knows the story behind that stain all too well.
“You really kept that shirt? Even after I ruined it?” he chuckles, shifting his guitar off his lap, scooting towards the edge of the bed.
You hold it up, laughing as well, taking in the stain that refused to wash out, “Yeah. Sentimental value or whatever,” you tease, looking down at him. You take his breath away like this, in nothing but his Judas Priest shirt that barely reaches your thighs, nothing but underwear on underneath, hair in tangles from your previous activities. But you’re glowing, a glow that he’s been lucky enough to witness on multiple occasions, and it takes everything in him to keep his hands to himself, “Never really wear it, though. Guess I should get rid of it, huh?”
“No,” he answers you far too quickly, “Never. Keep it forever. We can frame it, hang it in the hallway.”
You know he’s not serious, but the thought still makes you smile. You’d never really get rid of it, far too attached to the memories it held, even two years later.
Another Harrington party. Another sea of almost-adults getting far too drunk, far too rowdy. You’d been to your fair share of them, but they never really got easier.
There’s an excitement in the air you can’t place. Maybe it was from graduation, still nearly six months away but on the horizon nevertheless. Or maybe it was simply from the holiday - Halloween. Whatever it was, it buzzed through the air and across your chilled skin.
Your costume was last minute. A half-assed attempt at a pirate costume. It had been thrown together with things you could already find in your closet, for the most part - one of your more flowy white t-shirts, black jeans you’d taken scissors to the knees of in an act of temporary rebellion, heavy boots originally bought for hiking. The only real clues as to what you were had been aiming to disguise yourself as were the cheap eyepatch and doltish pirate hat you’d bought when shopping with your friends for the occasion. But you’d long forgone your eyepatch as the alcohol impaired your vision well enough without the loss of use in one of your eyes.
The hat was a cheap velvet-texture, deep maroon in color and an extravagant black feather barely holding on by the factory glue used to secure it.
Your friends had long since abandoned you. One of them went off with a jock who had caught their eye, the other getting dragged into a very serious game of beer pong. It hadn’t bothered you too much - it had left you to your own devices, nursing a cup of whatever punch had been spiked in a dark corner of the kitchen. You watched your classmates trail in and out for their own dose of alcohol without much interest. Until he walked in.
He was glued to the side of the host himself, Steve Harrington. You overheard a couple of scolding sentences coming from Steve’s lips, something about ‘cutting him off’ and how he needed to ‘compose himself’. It was entertaining, at the least, to watch the boy fumble with himself.
“C’mon, you’ve got to have more whiskey around here somewhere, pretty boy!” he whined, leaning into Steve as he lost his balance momentarily.
“No, Eddie! I mean it, you’re cut off! Now stay here or so help me God-” Steve appeared irritated, but was far more patient than you would have been as he carefully guided his friend to lean on the counter across the room from you. He left the room in a hurry, and you snickered under your breath as the predictable happened right before your eyes - once Eddie was left alone, he immediately began to pilfer for more alcohol.
It takes him a second, to your amusement, before he reappeared from the lower cabinets he had crouched in front of, letting out a loud ‘Aha!’ with a bottle of red wine in hand. He wasted no time in digging through multiple drawers as if it were his own house before he found a corkscrew, and the entire time, your eyes continuously flickered to the entrance of the entrance, waiting until Steve returned and would catch his friend red-handed (literally).
He never did, though. Eddie has enough time to begin struggling with the cork, curses and mutters falling from his lips as you watched on. You’re only pulled from your watchful gaze when you hear a loud pop, and hear a triumphant ‘Fuck yeah!’ from the boy.
Maybe you thought you should intervene, considering you were clearly not as far gone as Eddie, but you weren’t quick enough. You’d walked up behind him, about to announce yourself and stop him, when he turned suddenly, a red cup in hand that was nearly overflowing with red wine.
Eddie hadn’t expected you to be so close, hadn’t even realized he wasn’t alone in the kitchen. Immediately, the cup collided with your chest and the red wine sloshed down the front of your shirt.
You gasped, jumping back slightly, as he cursed, “Oh, shit! Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Wide, brown eyes found yours, looking sincere in their apology.
He looked around before grabbing a random kitchen towel, unfortunately also a starch white, and began to try and dab at your shirt clumsily.
“No, no, it’s okay,” you insisted as you felt your cheeks begin to burn. He continued to attempt to rectify the matter, clearly panicked. You have to eventually grab his wrists, pulling him and the now-ruined towel away. He looked back up.
It was almost like slow motion. His eyes met yours and you felt time stop. Your fingers stay pressed into his wrist, feeling the beat of his pulse, for far longer than necessary.
“It’s fine,” you said once more, finally prying your grip from him. You might have been a little too drunk to care, and you’re sure that sober you would be disappointed in the comfortable t-shirt now being collateral damage, but for now, it didn’t matter.
“I had no clue you were there. I’m- Fuck, I’m drunk. I’m an idiot. Sorry,” he slurred, looking down at you.
You shrugged, playing it off, “Shoulda announced myself sooner. Don’t be sorry, it’s a problem for sober me.”
You really had liked that shirt. It was a shame.
“You know, if you really wanted more alcohol, they still have punch left,” you jabbed a thumb over your shoulder, in the direction of the crystal bowl on the counter you had just been leaning on.
Eddie’s face scrunched up in disgust immediately, “Ew, God no. That shit’s way too sweet.”
You bit your lip to fight laughter, “And wine is any better?”
“It can be, when shared with someone as pretty as yourself,” he has a shameless, flirty grin on his features, raising his eyebrows suggestively at you. You broke, laughing softly and shaking your head.
He had a point. The punch wasn’t very good.
“Alright, then, mister ‘you’re cut off’. I suppose I’ll join you in your antics,” you turned to the sink, dumping the remnants of your punch before turning back to him and reaching for the bottle of wine he still held.
His hand flew out of reach, tsking immediately, “Nope. Allow me.”
It wasn’t a good idea, but you let him take your now-empty cup regardless. He put it down on the counter and focused intently on filling it, nearly emptying the wine bottle as he topped it off just as full as his own had been.
“Jesus, you’d make a shitty bartender. You’re definitely overpouring right now.”
“Hush,” is all he replied as he finished the task at hand, setting down the empty bottle once he poured the last few drops into his own cup, attempting to make up for what was now soaking your shirt. It had started to dry, becoming cold and uncomfortably sticky, but you were too distracted with the boy in front of you to care. “M’lady,” he finally handed back the cup, looking far too proud of himself for not making another mess.
“Thank you,” you teased, giving a messy and exaggerated bow, careful to not spill the wine.
Once your glass is back in your own hand, his began to fumble into the pockets of the leather jacket he wore. It led to him spilling some more of his wine onto his own shirt this time, and you considered how lucky he was that he was wearing black.
“Here,” you gave him no choice as you gingerly took the cup from his hand, freeing him up to find whatever it was he was so desperate to find in his pockets. You take the moment to glance over his costume: he was wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. On his face, a pair of small, circular sunglasses were perched haph-hazardly on his nose, the lenses a barely opaque red. You noted the obnoxiously long necklace swinging against his chest, a large silver cross at the end, “What are you even supposed to be dressed up as?”
He yanked a pack of cigarettes successfully from his pocket, grinning like a fool, “Ozzy Osbourne. Duh.”
“Duh,” you mimicked, handing him back his cup of wine before turning more serious,“From Black Sabbath, right?”
His eyes lit up. “You know Sabbath?”
“A little bit,” you shrugged, but that was enough for Eddie.
He slung an arm around your shoulders, cheesy grin and all, as he rattled the pack of cigarettes against your ear. “Say, you smoke?”
You didn’t, but for him, you did. “Yeah, yeah. I could use some fresh air anyways. Lead the way, rockstar.”
"When the silence came, we were shaking, blind and hazy. How the hell did we lose sight of us again?"
“Eddie, you have to call them back and tell them you’ll do it!”
“No! I can’t!”
“You can and you will.”
The fight had started over Eddie’s casual mention of a phone call he’d had earlier that day. It had been six months of New York, of bliss, of living in a pattern of waiting. Every day, you were both waiting; waiting for the next show Corroded Coffin would book, waiting for the next chance he’d have to send off yet another demo to another record label, waiting for the shimmers of what could be his big break. It had been comfortable while it lasted - the two of you were still wrapping your head around having your own routine. Of having something that’s yours.
The phone call today was the end of that waiting game.
The management of a slightly larger band, extending an offer to Corroded Coffin - they wanted them to be the opener for their next tour. It wasn’t an overly large one, it hardly spanned over three months and most of the venues were painfully small compared to what you believed Eddie should be playing, but it was an offer. Gigs, travel paid for, an opportunity for exposure right at his fingertips.
He had told them no.
“I’d have to leave. I’d be on the fucking west coast until December. I’d miss your birthday!” Eddie continues to argue. The two of you were standing in your living room, finally filling out. Shelves had collected framed photos, small knick-knacks that partially came from you and partially came from Eddie. You finally had a couch. It wasn’t a nice one, but it was a couch and it was yours. Something that belonged to both of you.
“You’d be playing shows! Selling merch! Gaining fans! This is your chance. Who cares if you’re not here for my birthday? We can celebrate over the phone, who cares?” your voice was breaking from frustration, not understanding how Eddie isn’t more excited. Instead of the joy you had expected to find on his face when he revealed the news to you, all you could see was fear. He was petrified. You finally drop your voice, taking on a soothing tone as you step in front of your boyfriend, taking his face in shaking hands, “Eddie, I’ll have other birthdays. But this? If you don’t do this… there might not be other tours.”
You could feel tears building up, some from exasperation, but most for the boy in front of you. This was his chance. He was your entire world, and you couldn’t let it pass him by.
He has tears mirroring in his own eyes, searching your face frantically, “I… I don’t want to be away from you. Not right now, not when we’re just figuring all this shit out.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you tearily laugh, “Where would I even run off to, huh? No, stop this bullshit - don’t be an idiot. You go pick up that phone right now and tell that band they have an opener, and a damn good one at that. Right now.”
He’s frozen, leaning his cheeks into your touch, eyes fluttering closed. He just wants to live in this moment. He doesn’t want to think about the enormity of the decision in his hands - he just wants to stay here, in your arms, in the space you two had come to call home.
When your thumb swipes one of his escaped tears from his cheek, he caves. His voice is a ghost of a whisper. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll go call them. But- But when I get back, we’re celebrating the hell out of your birthday, do you understand me? Fuck Christmas, Jesus has had, like, thousands of birthdays. When I get back, all I care about is you.”
You believe him. You believe him with your entire being, never once worrying about him missing something as trivial as the celebration.
“We sure will. Now go on, rockstar. Catch your big break.”
He finally smiles for the first time since he broke the news.
At the moment, all you saw was a world full of beginnings for your boy. This was it, the moment you’d been waiting for, and you couldn’t have been happier for him. The rose-colored glasses never gave you the chance to see it was the beginning for the two of you - the beginning of the end.
"Carnations you had thought were roses, that's us. I feel you, no matter what."
“I miss you.”
Those three months couldn’t have dragged on slower if they tried. But Eddie kept good on his word; every night, like clockwork, he called you. The two of you would take about anything and everything: he’d tell you about the latest crowd that included people who seemed to actually enjoy Corroded Coffin’s set, you’d tell him about the takeout you had for dinner after nearly burning your shared kitchen down, he’d mention the names of cities you could only dream of visiting, and you’d indulge him in theatrically stories of your latest customers from Hell at the small dinner you waitressed at.
“I know you do. I miss you too, Eds,” you sigh over the line, curled up on his side of the bed, even though it had finally stopped smelling like him. Long gone were the scents of late night cigarettes and woodsy cologne, replaced by a nauseating sweetness of your own shampoo and perfume. You hated it, but you’d never let him know that. Not when he seemed to actually be so happy. His breakdown over the offer seemed to fickle now, as it was clear he was enjoying himself. He was living out his dream. Something neither of you had fully processed yet.
“Hey, just two more weeks, right?” you whisper, eyes staring into the shadows across the room. Two more weeks. Fourteen days, and he was all yours once more.
It was your birthday. And it had been the most lonesome to date - a few coworkers had convinced you to go out for drinks after closing up the diner, but the entire time, you had just been anxious to get home and prepare for your phone call with Eddie. Just as the two of you had said, you had committed to somewhat celebrating over the phone.
“Do me a favor. Go into the kitchen real quick,” his voice instructs over the line, and you perk up slightly.
“What? Why?”
“Just trust me, sweetheart.”
You do as he asks, making your way out of the bedroom and down the hall. The apartment is dark, and a bit cold, but you don’t pay it any mind as you make your way to the kitchen.
“Okay, I’m in the kitchen. Now what?”
“The drawer to the left of the fridge. Open it.”
“Our junk drawer?”
“Yes, the junk drawer,” his tone is teasing, never growing irritated with your endless questions, “Open it.”
You hadn’t really touched the drawer since Eddie left, normally only discarded random pens and junk mail filling it. But you're shocked when you find the drawer more organized than you remember it - and in the center of it is a pack of candles.
“Candles?” you ask softly, a smile playing at your lips as your free hand reaches down to grasp the package. You flip it around in your palm, heart warming at the notion, but still feeling confused, “Babe, I appreciate it, I really do, but I don’t exactly have a cake, or even a cupcake, to put these in.
“You don’t? Damn it. If only I had thought of that,” he hums in a teasing tone, making you lower the hot phone from your ear and glare down at his caller id that illuminates the screen, “Well. What a shame. Hey, do you know the time by chance?”
“Munson, I’m gonna kick your ass,” you mutter, turning to look at the clock over your oven, “It’s 7:59. What’s your game here?”
He doesn’t answer, leaving you further puzzled, instead mumbling what sounds like to himself, “Three, two-”
“Why are you counting down?”
“One.”
A loud knock echoes through the apartment, causing you to jump.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” you hiss over the line, gripping the candles impossibly tight.
“Go answer the door.”
“If you’re on the other side of it, I’m kicking you straight in the-”
“It’s not,” he interrupts, “I wish it was, sweetheart. It’s not. But just trust me, yeah? One last surprise, promise.”
You grumble your entire way to the door, still holding the package of candles as you stop in front of your front door. You pause, taking a deep breath.
“That doesn’t sound like you’re opening the door.”
“Give me a second. Jesus, for all I know, you hired a hitman and I’m about to be brutally murdered when I open this door,” you bite back, and you can hear his guffawing laughter over the line. Your chest burns, wishing you could hear it in person instead, imaging the glee on his face in the moment.
“Not a hitman. That’s for after we have life insurance, baby,” he drawls, and you finally muster the nerve to reach out and twist the knob. You swear you can hear chattering on the other side of the door.
It takes you some struggling as you refuse to let go of the candles, but when you finally swing the door open, you gasp.
There in the threshold stands your friends from Hawkins. Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, and Johnathan Byers. It’s clear that Nancy and Steve are mid-argument when you open the door, but Robin stands there, proudly showcasing a birthday cake in front of her, shit-eating grin on her face.
“Surprise!” she yells, capturing the attention of the rest of the gang that you and Eddie had left behind. Everyone faces you now, beaming, as you immediately go teary-eyed.
“Oh my God,” you gasp out, dropping the phone and candles to the floor, in shock. Steve steps in first, chuckling as he pulls you into a hug. It’s only then that you notice the bouquet in one of his hands, cellophane crinkling from how tightly he’s holding you. He shuffles the two of you out of the way just enough so that everyone else can enter.
“Your face! God, Munson was right, that was so worth it!” Robin barks as she steps up to the kitchen table and sits down the cake. She’s the next to hug you, yanking you out of Steve’s grasp and nearly crushing you, “Happy birthday,” she whispers happily into your ear, swaying the two of you as she continues to embrace you. You catch sight of Steve over her shoulder, wearing a look of amusement, chuckling and shaking his head.
Jonathan is the one with half a mind to pick up your abandoned phone and candles at the sound of muffled yelling over the line. He wastes no time, putting Eddie on speaker.
“Hellooo? World’s best boyfriend here, remember me? Wow. Can’t believe you’ve already forgotten me. Guess I’ll go fuck myself.”
You laugh as Robin finally lets you go, reaching up to swipe away the tears of jubilation.
Nancy rolls her eyes. “She’s in shock. Give her a second, Munson.”
Jonathan continues to hold your phone as you’re passed into Nancy’s arms and then his. Each whisper their own soft ‘happy birthday’, rubbing your back gently until your focus is back on the phone.
“Edward Munson-”
“Ah! There she is! She lives! And remembers me!”
“Fuck off,” you half-sob, half-laugh. It may not have been as good as him standing there, on your doorstep and embracing you, but it was damn good, “You’re so dead when you get home.”
“Dead? Wow. Weeks of planning only to meet my demise,” he sighs dramatically, “I suppose it’s a good way to go. At the hands of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Beat that, Harrington.”
“Way to stay humble,” Steve chimes at the mention of his name, still grinning. He suddenly remembers the flowers in hand, suddenly thrusting them in your direction as he says, “From Eddie, by the way. He told me if we didn’t get you flowers, he’d castrate me.”
“And I meant it! That’s still on the table if you guys don’t make this her best damn birthday ever.”
“I’m sure he would,” you sniffle, reaching out and gripping the flowers. Your heart cracks slightly, not knowing how to tell him that despite how absolutely endearing the surprise had been, it’d be impossible for them to make this your best birthday.
He wasn’t here. It could only make the top of the list if he were here.
You feel no resentment, though, as you bring the flowers to your nose, smiling until your cheeks ache. “Red carnations. Pretty,” you hum, lost in the moment.
There’s a beat of silence before Eddie’s voice rings out across the room.
“Carnations? Harrington, I said red roses. You’re a dead man walking.”
"And I lost you, the one I was dancing with in New York, no shoes. Looked up at the sky and it was maroon."
Once Eddie returns home, it’s just as he promises - he almost doesn’t even make it through the door when his lips find yours at 3 AM, his suitcase thrown off somewhere to the side of your entryway. He’s too busy to care about anything else but you at the moment.
“Fuck,” he gasps between kisses, “I fucking missed you. God, I missed you.”
You’re silent as you nod in agreement against him, just eager to feel his touch once more. You’d waited three months too long for this moment, ever since he first left through that door for the tour.
“Needy, baby?” he teases, just as breathless as you are when the two of you finally pull apart, him kicking the door shut behind him. Your hands are grabbing weakly at the lapels of his jacket, too eager to be embarrassed, “God, always so needy for me. Just how I fucking like you.”
He’s always talkative, even during sex, but you have no patience for it tonight. “Shut up.”
“Aw, now that’s no way to greet your boyfriend you missed, is it, baby?” he eggs you on, looking down at you and your swollen lips with a wicked grin.
You open your mouth to snark back, but he refuses to give you the chance before he’s picking you up, lifting you up and throwing you over his shoulder.
“Eddie!” you shriek, but laughter laces the protest. Your hands grip the back of his t-shirt as he begins to walk down the hallway, and you start to kick your feet out of defiance, but a sharp smack sounds through the quiet apartment as he playfully slaps your ass, putting an end to the kicks.
“Yeah, you better warm up those vocal chords,” he chuckles. The moment you’re back in your bedroom, he’s quick to toss you onto the mattress, finally mounted on a frame. The comforter flares around you, your head sinking into a pillow as Eddie is quick to remove his jacket and shirt, climbing up the bed between your legs, “Gonna have you chanting my name like a goddamn prayer, sweetheart.”
He removes your pajamas as he has a thousand times before, but it still doesn’t feel fast enough. You find yourself squirming, trying to help him pull off the flannel pants and t-shirt you’d stolen from his side of the closet, but he stops all movements immediately.
He shakes his head, hovering above you, his hair like a curtain around the two of you as your top lip brushes his bottom one and his mint breath fans over your face. “Slow it down for me, yeah? Wanna enjoy this,” he murmurs.
You obey, stilling below him save for your chest, rising and falling rapidly with waiting breaths. He finally dips down, his pick necklace tickling your collarbones as his mouth covers yours.
A culmination of three long months is spent into the kiss. All the restless nights, long phone calls, endless yearning. You can tell that he had missed you, longed for you, just as much as you had him.
It’s languid, the way your body reacts to each of his touches. As far as it was concerned, no time had passed. He does as he had said, taking his time, savoring each kiss he presses down your throat and over your breasts. He’s memorizing each crevice of you, every soft curve he’d dreamt of for 91 days.
Your squirming resumes when his hot breath reaches your navel, but he doesn’t scold you, bringing his hands to your hips and pressing them down into the mattress. “Let me show you just how much I missed you. Let me take care of you, baby.”
He’s enjoying it, the sound of your whines a better soundtrack than any of the music that had damaged his eardrums during the tour. His fingers dance over your bare skin, skimming right over the band of your underwear and tracing lines down your thighs. It’s agonizing - the waiting is terrible.
Terribly worth it, as it turns out.
When he finally decides to speed up his teasing, bringing a finger to brush across your clothed slit, you gasp. Your hands twist into the sheets at each side of you, but he isn’t having it.
“Now that’s not where those belong,” he mumbles, a hot breath over your panties sending shivers down your spine. He’s quick - his fingers suddenly hook into the waistband, and he’s pulling them down and off over your ankles with an eagerness finally matching your own. He throws them aimlessly to the bedroom floor, joining the rest of your discarded clothes recklessly. Neither of you care - you won’t be needing them the rest of the night.
He settles into the mattress, a leg thrown over each of his shoulders before he grabs your hands and guides them to tangle into his hair. He’s still taking his time, sucking his way up your inner thighs and leaving flowering bruises in his wake. Once he reaches where you want him to most, where you’re aching for him so pitifully, he pauses.
He repeats his earlier words, “God, I’ve missed you.”
He takes you by surprise as he dives right in, tongue flattening and licking a long stride up, starting at your entrance. His nose bumps over your clit before his tongue begins to dance circles, painting a secret language between the two of you over the sensitive bundle of nerves. One of his hands joins him, middle finger circling your entrance slowly before he presses in. He sets a pace quickly, pumping the finger a few times, tongue working magic, before he adds a second one. They curl with intention, pressing into the spongy spot of your walls that he knew like the back of his hand. It’s the exact spot that makes your back arch off the bed.
He pulls back his mouth, fingers continuing to pump and curl vigorously as he looks up at you dreamily. He eases one of his arms over your hips, pressing down, holding you in place.
He’s a dream. A goddamn dream. He’s finally here, looking up at you, grinning like a Devil as he watches you unravel at his hand.
“So pretty. Always so, so beautiful, but especially like this,” he says more to himself, but you hear him, a moan falling from your lips. His mouth returns to you, lips latching onto your clit, sucking harshly.
“Fuck,” you breathe into the still air of your apartment room, not caring if the neighbors hear but your chest too heavy to grow much louder, head fuzzy and all-consumed by him, “Eddie.”
He was right. His name falls from your mouth in pants, chanting to him as if he were your God.
It only spurs him on, fingers working expertly as he alternates between sucking and lapping at your clit. You can hear how wet you are for him, how close you are before the knot forms in your abdomen.
“Oh my God- Oh, fuck. Right there,” your hips buck involuntarily into his face, and he loosens his grip on your hips, letting you, “I’m gonna…G-Gonna…”
“Gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” he encourages, fingers curling harshly, “Cum on my face, baby. Do it.”
He puts his tongue back to work, You force your eyes open to catch sight of him, buried in your pussy, admiring how pretty he looked from this angle. The sight of his tousled curls, twisted tightly in your grip as you yank mercilessly, is all it takes for you to finally come undone.
A broken prayer, repeated over and over as a warmth rushes over you. Your vision goes white, eyes tightly screwed shut, toes curling and thighs clenching over his ears. It doesn’t phase him, continuing his assault until he’s sure you’ve come down. You have to tug on his hair, more intentional this time, to pull him away from you due to how sensitive you grow.
He rises, letting your legs fall limply against the mattress as he wears a boyish grin on his slick lips. Slowly, he makes his way up to you, back to the virtues of patience as he takes his time to finally kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue, a bitter sort of sweetness, as he cradles your face.
“You good?” he gently asks against your lips. You can barely move, nodding lethargically.
“So good,” you croak, a smile breaking out. Your eyes crack open to see him looking down at you with pure adoration, “I missed you.”
You start to run your hand down his chest, reaching the zipper of his jeans before his hand stops you.
“No, not yet. We’ve got plenty of time for that. Just wanna hold you right now, baby,” he nearly pleads. You can’t deny him, not with his eyes shining like that, so you allow him to fall into place on his side of the bed before you curl up against his bare torso.
The two of you stay that way for what feels like hours, his arms wrapped around you as he traces out constellations on your bare shoulder blades. Just outside of your solace, a bubble you’ve trapped yourselves in, you can hear the faint call of the city. Honks from cars on the street, shouts from pedestrians, the occasional siren. It’s all background noise to this moment.
“I have something for you,” he suddenly whispers as you teeter on the edge of sleep. You hum in response, lifting your head lazily. He pats you gently, signaling for you to let him stand before he walks to his discarded jacket by the door. When he returns to your side, he's gripping a small, white box, tied with a scarlet ribbon.
“A gift?” you ask, excitement helping wake you up as you sit up quickly, “For me?”
“For you,” he affirms, taking a seat beside you. Your knees bump as your hands fumble to take the box from him. A soft glow from one of the restaurants on your street floods between the curtains and into the room, a soft neon pink illuminating your features as you carefully unravel the red ribbon.
As the silk falls, you hardly can contain your excitement before lifting the lid off the box.
A necklace.
Your eyes trace over it, already fawning with appreciation for your boy, but then you catch sight of exactly what the necklace is.
“Your mom’s ring?” you can’t hide the emotion that shakes the timbre of your voice. It cracks into a million pieces.
At the end of the delicate silver chain, sits his mother’s ring. The one you hadn’t even noticed missing from his barren right hand.
“Happy birthday,” he whispers, pulling you in and pressing his lips into your temple. You’re still too stunned, too overcome with a million and one feelings all at once.
“Eddie… I- I can’t… this is-”
“I want you to have it. I think she’d want you to have it, too,” he insists, taking the box from your grasp and lifting the necklace from its cotton cushion, “I know it’s not a lot, but I just… I wanted to get you something that let you know how important you are to me. Something for you to always have as a reminder that I’ll come back to you. You’re it for me, sweetheart. This is- this is real to me. The kind of real that lasts forever.”
You can tell he’s growing emotional, too, as his feather light touch brushes your hair to the side, bringing the necklace up around your neck and clasping it securely. When the ring falls to its new home at the base of your neck, cool against your skin, you can feel tears falling. He’s quick to swipe them away, his own watery irises peering into yours.
“You’re everything to me,” he says this with vindication. With such assuredness it terrifies you, burrows into your bones and claims you.
In this moment, you know he has forever stained you. There was no washing this mark he has left you off - there would forever be a piece of your heart occupied by the brown-eyed boy in front of you.
All you can do is lean forward, hands gingerly threading through his bangs as you push them back to plant a kiss on his forehead. A crimson blush spreads across his cheeks and neck at the act of tenderness.
When you pull back, he immediately lifts his fingers to the necklace he’s just gifted you, fingers careful but determined as they tug you back to him, kissing you with everything in him. He pours his soul, his body, and his heart into it.
“I love you,” you exhale against his swollen lips.
“And I love you.”
You believe him, because he believes himself. That’s the thing about endings - no one sees them coming.
"The mark they saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones, the lips I used to call home. So scarlet, it was maroon."
The next year proves you right. After that tour, Corroded Coffin became a phenomenon. A record deal falls into the boys’ laps quickly, multiple one-off shows selling out locally before the news finally comes that they are officially in the position to record their debut album.
The two of you celebrate with cheap wine, but it’s as sweet as champagne in your contentment.
The recording of the album is brutal. Night after night, you attempt to wait up on Eddie, eventually falling victim to drowsiness before he would wake you with his arrival from the studio in the early hours of the morning. You never minded, only happy for his warmth as he crawled right into bed with you, collapsing into you and letting the world melt away.
Long gone are the days of struggling paycheck-to-paycheck as the boys’ can hardly keep up with printing enough shirts for their shows, merchandise selling out in the handfuls.
You catch sight of a young girl wearing one of their shirts one day in the grocery store, and can’t help the flood of pride that overtakes your chest. Your boyfriend, your Eddie, was finally having all of his dreams come to fruition; the world was finally seeing him as the rockstar you’d nominated him as since that first night.
You can tell that it’s tiring. Eddie is exhausted by the time the album is finished, but you can also sense the satisfaction he felt at finally completing it. When the first demo arrived, he wasted no time in electing you to be the first to listen to it. It was an entire ordeal - the two of you ordered your favorite take-out, curling up on your couch and pressing together as the same boombox that had played that mixtape on your first night in your home now plays his songs.
Your reaction was exactly as he had expected, as he had hoped for.
You had always been his number one cheerleader through it all. With each new song, you were gushing to him with admiration and reverence. Pointing out lyrics that tugged particularly taut on your heartstrings, praising the guitar solos and vocals he’d worked tirelessly to perfect. You don’t leave a single stone left unturned, claiming this was your new favorite album.
“Careful, sweetheart. You’re really stroking my ego here,” he warns, but his smile shines as brightly as your own.
“Eddie, this is… this is… it’s fucking incredible!” you cheer, completely at a loss for words. You weren’t exaggerating - to hear all of his hard work paying off, to have watched him grow from covering Metallica in a stuffy garage to this left you starstruck. You were in absolute awe.
He blushes, playing with his hair and bringing it up to hide his emotional reaction.
The album could fail. It could become nothing more than a whisper in the night, but the fact that you liked it was all that mattered to him.
You look at him earnestly, taking his cheeks in your warm and soothing palms, “I’m so fucking proud of you, Eds.”
And you were. You continued to be. The album was a hit.
It climbed the charts with ease, just as you expected. Local alternative stations played it on loop. You were sure to hear it at least once during taxi rides, and had even heard it playing softly over the speakers at the gas station on the corner by your apartment complex. Eddie had been with you, and took pleasure in getting to inform the cashier that it was his song playing, his band was on the radio.
It was New York, so the cashier couldn’t have cared less, but it made you glow with pride.
But with a hit album came a new slew of responsibilities for the band, including a headlining tour.
The night that the band’s manager called Eddie, informing him they were set to start planning the tour, he’d run into the room, so frantic you were worried something bad had happened.
“Holy shit!” he yells, causing you to shush him once you recovered from the scare he’d caused you. He ignores you, grabbing you off the bed, lifting you up and spinning you, just like the very first night, “Holy shit! We’re going on tour! A headlining tour! I’m going to be a goddamn rockstar!”
Once you process his news, you become just as animated in his arms, “What? No fucking way!”
“Yes fucking way!”
“Oh my God!”
“I know!”
You hear banging on the wall from the neighbors, probably shouting at the two of you to quiet down, but neither of you can contain your excitement.
“I’m going to be a goddamn rockstar, baby,” he laughs deliriously, placing you back down so that you’re face-to-face with him, “A rockstar.”
“You’ve always been a rockstar, pretty boy,” you giggle, cheeks sore with elation, “The rest of the world is just finally getting the memo.”
The planning takes a while. Part of you is grateful, selfishly drinking in and enjoying the time you have left with him before you’re sure he’ll have to leave for an extended period. The names of cities you had never had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with once again enter conversations, talks of how far and wide the band would travel becoming Eddie’s favorite topic.
You’re proud of him, you really are. But reality seeps its way into the crevices.
What starts as the possibility of a brief, three month tour - something the two of you had already faced and defeated triumphantly - quickly turns into six months. And it doesn’t stop there. Six months could become eight, easily, with adding in a few pit stops to radio stations to guarantee continued radio-play. There’s talks of signings, of meet and greets, of music festivals. The more time given to planning, the more time given for the band’s popularity to grow even more.
The entire thing expands without consideration, lifting Eddie right up with it, right out of your reach.
The night before he’s set to leave for tour, your anxieties are getting the best of you. You had helped him pack, going over the list of necessities with him three times too many. He had everything he needed, packed tightly into a suitcase - everything except you.
That night, you sit on your side of your shared bed, watching Eddie pace with excitement. You feel guilty that your own anticipation can’t quite match his. All you can think about is how long he’ll be gone: eight months, two hundred and forty five days. Five thousand, eight hundred and eighty hours. Over three hundred thousand minutes. You’d done the math.
“Fuck,” he sighs, finally throwing himself down onto the bed beside you, “I still can’t believe this is happening.”
You can’t bring up your insecurity, your fears, to him. Not when he’s so happy. Not when he’s finally getting everything he’d dreamt about for so long, worked so hard for. No, it would be selfish to share your unease at the time and distance about to spread between the two of you.
Besides, you had done it once before. Not on this scale, of course, but you convinced yourself it would work out all the same. He would call as often as he could. He’d be coming home to you. It would pass - it would work out.
“It’s real, so you better believe it, rockstar.”
An echo of the past. A time that felt so far away from the two of you now. This time around, as you say them, you don’t feel the same joy coating your tongue.
Your tone is supportive, so Eddie doesn’t taste any of the disdain. Later that night, as he’s kissing you, hips rolling to meet yours in a sacred promise, fingers intertwined in yours as you pant each other’s names back and forth, he still doesn’t taste it. All he tastes is euphoria. And he brings you right to it with him, over, and over, and over again.
Euphoria tastes metallic by the end of it.
He leaves bruises painted up and down your neck, covering your collarbones and chest like an art piece hanging in the Louvre. You can’t help but wonder how long it will take for his marks to fade, for the physical reminder that he was here and in your arms to disappear from your grasp.
As he makes love to you, it begins to feel like a goodbye, because it is.
He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but it does.
The first month follows similarly to how his first tour did. Nightly phone calls, whispered love confessions and discussions of each other’s day. For a moment, you convince yourself that all of your fears and anxieties had been silly. They almost recede from your mind completely, fading with his love marks on your collarbone.
But then it begins.
Phone calls become less frequent. Every night because every other night, until they’re eventually weekly. At some point, you only have the privilege of hearing his voice over the line monthly. It is a slow burning fire, turning everything you had built with him to ashes. Conversations that once could drag on for hours turn to ten minute discussions that end in him rushing off the phone, someone on the other end of the line demanding his attention more urgently than you did.
You can’t even fight it. You need him, but they need him more.
You know you’ve lost him when he stops saying he loves you. It’s subtle, you don’t even believe he’s noticed, but one night’s phone call is cut particularly short, and the end arrives.
“Hey, baby, I’m sorry, but they need me for soundcheck,” he says, the line staticky with white noise, making it hard to hear him.
He’s never felt farther away, and they’re not even on the west coast leg of the tour yet.
“Oh,” you whisper, disappointment gripping your lungs, “Oh, that’s fine! Go, they need you.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles. You miss hearing that in person, that soft laughter in the shell of your ear over inside jokes and one too many glasses of wine. “Rockstar duties and all. We’ll talk more later?”
“Of course. Go give ‘em, Hell,” you keep your tone light, but the tears have started to build up across your waterline, “I love you.”
The line goes dead before you can even finish your sentence. The dial tone echoes back to you, and it doesn’t matter how hard you strain, no words of affection can be deciphered in its deafening ringing.
That’s when you break.
The flood comes, tears racing down your cheeks as you roll over and clutch the pillow that you’re not even sure was once his. The bed no longer has a clear boundary, a side that belonged to him and a side that belonged to you. It’s all muddled together now. You’re not even sure you’d recognize the smell of his cologne now.
A heart has never broken so quietly. The sobs are there, but no sounds escape your mouth as you whimper. You had always known it would be hard, everyone had warned you, but you had always assumed you could take it, because Eddie would be by your side, hand slotted with yours as it was the two of you against the world. But now you stood in the storm, and the space beside you was eerily empty. It was all a bit much. A gaping hole forms in your chest that night, gory as it bleeds scarlet red for a boy a world away, and you know that there is not a single bandage in the world to heal it.
He doesn’t call back after that, and the hole tears larger.
There’s a few texts here and there. But none of them ever say the three words you so desperately crave from him. You feel like strangers.
After two months of radio silence, save for two text messages from him, you’ve made up your mind.
He never calls, so you never tell him. You gather what belongings can be called solely yours, which isn’t many, and you write a letter in your cowardice. You find an apartment on the other side of town. There’s a nice job waiting for you, something that pays better than waitressing.
You leave your key on the kitchen counter beside a vase with wilted carnations.
"I wake with your memory over me, that’s a real fucking legacy (it was maroon)."
Six months later, the ache never fades. He calls. When he returns from tour to find an empty apartment, cursive letter calling it quits, he calls. You almost consider changing your number at one point.
There’s a flood of text messages. Small letters on a shining screen filled with all the words you needed to hear so many months before. All of the things he should have said, now revealed too late.
You don’t reply, because if you reply, you’ll change your mind.
You tell yourself it’s for the best. That in order for him to achieve what he’d wanted, he couldn’t have someone back home weighing him down. You were a road bump on his path to everything he was destined to be, and this was for the best.
At some point, he gets the message. You wish he hadn’t, selfishly so, but he does. The phone calls stop. The text messages don’t light up your phone at midnight anymore. You keep up your end of the lease on your once-shared apartment, sending checks to pay your half of the rent until the lease agreement has ended. You have no clue if he moves. Returning to that side of town would simply hurt too much.
A new normalcy is found. It is a lonely one, but it is one all the same. Sparse phone calls are still exchanged with your friends from Hawkins, but none of them ever bring up Eddie. You’re sure they know, that he had told them, that they had witnessed the aftermath (if there had been any). They were always his friends first, though, and so when the calls dwindle, it doesn’t surprise you.
It’s a year later when someone mentions his name to you. You had kept up well enough with Corroded Coffin, the last remnants of your past life being something you couldn’t get rid of. You knew they were thriving; they were in the talks of releasing a second album, and going back on tour soon. His name is mentioned when a coworker brings him up.
They ask you if you want to attend the Corroded Coffin show with them next week. They have a spare ticket and would prefer to not go alone.
You lie and say you have plans.
But the only plans you have on that bustling night are the ones spent in your apartment. Your one-bedroom apartment is in a nicer part of town, better views out of the window now. When you pull back the curtains, you don’t find a brick wall forever tainted by what once was - you can see the entrance to a music venue that’s sign currently advertises tonight’s show.
CORRODED COFFIN, ONE NIGHT ONLY - SOLD OUT
You avoid the window at all costs as you get yourself ready for bed that night. Neighbors had already off-handedly warned you it would be a noisy night, claiming you’d feel as if you were at the show yourself based on proximity. On your way home from work, you bought earplugs.
But the night grows older, a chill in the air as the clock strikes ten, and you can’t help it. You’ve been laying in bed for hours now, earplugs in, only feeling the faint thrumming of intense bass for less than an hour when you finally stand up. You approach the window timidly, scared of what you find. Maybe a ghostly reflection of him, standing in the street, holding up a boombox playing a mixtape of your favorite songs.
It’s a bitter hopefulness that is full of childish dreams.
When you stand in your window, curtains pulled back and earplugs finally disregarded on your nightstand, Eddie Munson isn’t standing on the street. All that is there is the neon glow of a red sign that shatters crimson shadows across your cheeks.
He’s not on the street. He’s too busy on the stage inside, being the rockstar he had always been destined to be. The one he could be now that you had let him go.
All that you see as you look out the window is your own tired reflection, donning nothing but a wine-stained t-shirt and a delicate, silver chain around your neck, a ring you couldn’t bring yourself to return resting heavily between your collarbones.
"That’s a real fucking legacy to leave."
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