#tw: grief/mourning | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ofmermaidstories · 6 months

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You are five when your Quirk manifests for the first time, with Rinchan.

‼️📍 content warnings: implied major character death, death in general, in a myriad of ways (falling, head trauma, old age, drowning, suicide), im a little graphic for emphasis, grief and mourning. there’s also some light smut and implied underage sex.

Rinchan. Rinchan who watches you while your mother goes to work. Rinchan with her big, soft, crepe-paper arms; who holds you in them for as long as you want, singing you songs as she shells peas into a metal bowl—you clinging to her, placid as a koala, your legs dangling over her lap. Rinchan who is probably your most favourite person in the entire world—the entire world being your neighbourhood and your school and the nearby park, overgrown, and the overwhelming shopping centre a car ride away.

Rinchan. Rinchan. Rinchan who, when you are five, starts appearing before you naked and wet, her face covered in blood.

The first time it happens she’s still alive; the sizzle of her cooking coming from the kitchen just behind you as you sit on the floor with a pile of milk-chews in front of you, staring in frozen horror at this other her—shining with water, her mouth stretched open in a startled O, everything about her soft and sagging.

You make a tiny noise—fear, caught in your throat, a baby mouse curled up—and then Rinchan, your Rinchan, Rinchan alive and warm and dry, calls out, “Are you okay, Baby?”

The Other Rinchan’s mouth stretches open further, like it recognises her—like it’s trying to say something back and you—

You wail in answer, scrabbling at Rinchan (living, alive) when she flys in, concerned, asking, “What? What? What is it? What’s wrong?” her soft crepe-paper arms around you tight as you sob into her neck.

She’s bewildered and a little frightened herself; but she hums as she rocks you, a warm hand stroking your back, soothing you both until your sobs are little more than wet snuffling, your hand curling into the fabric of her dress.

You loved her. You love her, still, after all this time. But that love doesn’t save either of you, and you are haunted by the other Rinchan for the rest of that awful summer: in the park, with your friends, Rinchan watching, mouth agape, from the bushes. Walking home, hand-in-hand with your mother, Rinchan behind you. Alone in your bedroom, at night, Rinchan standing over you as you watch the water drip down her skin. You start wetting yourself with the fear, whenever it happens—a response that quickly loses you those parkside friends and worries your mother and living Rinchan sick, the pair of them whispering about you when they think you can’t hear, their fear—your fear—condemning you to pull-ups, like a giant baby.

It doesn’t stop the end from coming.

Rin dies just before Halloween, when the shops are filled with green-faced witches and plastic skeletons that rattle and can’t frighten you, anymore. She dies alone, at night. A fall in the shower, your mother tells you in a whisper a couple of days later, red-eyed. You knew enough by then to be able to picture it: Rin, shining with water, her mouth stretched open in a startled O—her face covered in blood.

Your mother holds your hand at her funeral, too tight, and you cling back and say nothing.

The other Rinchan never comes back. Rin never comes back—cannot come back, no matter how much you love her.

Others do, though.

It’s a parade of the dead, shuffling forward to a dirge only you can hear. You learn, over time, that it’s specific to people you either know or will come to know—people you have some kind of tie to, some bond, good or bad. When you are fifteen it’s your homeroom teacher Miss Aoki: her head and shoulder caved in, her right eye bulging out at you, unseeing. You’d been drinking a bottle of milk-tea when she arrived, the blood stark and jewel-like in the daylight. You do not touch milk-tea for ages, afterwards.

You no longer wet yourself in fear, but you cannot look your teacher in the eye for weeks—it ruins everything. You stop pausing after homeroom to talk to her, stop sharing the music that brought you together, unable to face her, unable to face the bemusement and then the tiny flashes of hurt.

You cannot warn her. What would you warn her about? The trauma to her head could’ve been a fall, or some kind of rock—an accident or murder. And even if you knew, even if you could pinpoint it, she would not believe you. You know that because you had tried, with the ghost after Rinchan—with Yochan. Yochan, a boy from your neighbourhood and once, once before your Quirk had come, a boy you had followed around like a guiding star. You and all the other kids, faithful to him above all. But when your Quirk came and you got weird, he got mean.

“You’re a stupid piss-baby!” He’d shout at you, cackling. The other kids hung back, unsure of how to treat you—and this was how you saw him, the other him, standing behind the others with a swollen, awful face, his Endeavour shirt stained with a creamsicle, his eyes disappeared under the red, weeping slits of an allergic reaction.

You tried. You tried.

“Yochan,” you’d whisper, “please—”

His face would twist in disgust though, any time you came near him. “Freak!” he’d hiss. “Piss-baby! Get lost!”

He’d run away, then, laughing to himself and telling everyone that you had threatened him (“Piss Baby wants me dead!”)—and you had shut into yourself more, haunted by the agonised version of him that only you could see, that would stand there in your bedroom and twitch, the last throes of death.

It came for him, eventually. More than half a year later, during a game of softball where he’d knocked over a wasp nest and stomped over to it, the others too scared.

(The teacher explains it in class the following week and you sit there, in your seat by the window, untouched by the light. Empty.

Miss Aoki dies during the war, caught in the shadow of a collapsing building. You go to her service without your mother to hold your hand, and pray for forgiveness.)

You can map your life by the bodies that follow you. A year after after Miss Aoki it’s Hiroe: the tiny, fierce old woman down the street who grumbles at you every morning. When her doppleganger appears across the street from the pair of you, thin and wan and gasping as the hospital gown slips off her shoulders, the living her angrily talking about her carnations, the only thing you feel is relief. She’ll be in hospital—someone will be with her. It won’t be alone in a shower, or sprawled out on her kitchen floor, blood pooling under her. It’ll be death, still, leeching the life out of a woman who pertly tells you that the colour of your coat doesn’t suit you, but it’ll better than some of the lonely things you’ve seen, you live with.

(But it’s not better at all. Hiroe’s son works too hard, his hours too long in the aftermath of the war, helping the restoration. You visit her after school, bright flowers in hand and some of the colour returns to her face as she complains that you’re already dressing her altar, but her son is never there—and she dies alone, during the night, gasping for breath.)

You’re cursed, you think; cursed to see death everywhere you go, in everyone you know. And then you meet Kouki and realise that your curse smears over your future, too.

Kouki. Kouki with his brilliant red hair, like autumn leaves in the sunlight. Kouki who laughed easily, who would evenutally come to keep his pocket full of those old-fashioned milk-chews, just for you. Kouki, who, before you meet him alive, you meet dead—floating mid-air before you during your walk home one night, his hair dancing around his face, his eyes unseeing as his mouth opens and closes, gulping for air that isn’t there.

You are seventeen by this stage. It had been a hard couple of years with Miss Aoki, with the war, with Hiroe. Kouki appears before you under a streetlamp and you drop your schoolbag, your throat siezing.

“Don’t,” you say to this corpse of a boy you haven’t met, yet. “Don’t—don’t you dare do this to me.”

He opens his mouth; a tiny silver fish darts out and you burst into tears, overwhelmed, your new ghost lingering with you as you sob on the street, alone in the night. You don’t even know him. You don’t even know him.

He transfers to your senior class at the end of the month.

By then you had gotten used to the vision of him, numbly, the drowned boy following you around like a harmless stray—keeping you company on your walks home from your part-time job. You had sat with him as he floated, you solidly on the ledge of a park, unwrapping milk-chews and staring out at the dark before you, undaunted and unafraid, the most haunted thing there as his tiny fish flittered about him, again and again, on loop.

And then he walks into class that first day, and you are—you are frozen, even as he grins at you, bright and undaunted and alive.

“Hey,” he says after class, too interested and too friendly. “You look a little frightened—you good?”

Considering you had woken up that morning to his vestige floating at the foot of your bed, you most certainly were not good. What you say instead though is a curt, “I’m fine,” which proves to be mistake.

His eyes—big and blue—brighten at the challenge, and he grins.

“Fujita Kouki,” he introduces himself. “What’s your name?”

In the daylight, the light of the living where he can soak in the sun and return it, Kouki’s—Fujita’s—eyes are warm, not the milky colour you’ve been haunted with. You should walk away, you think desperately, wavering; you should retreat immediately. But the daylight is seductive. You are seventeen and it has a been a hard year and you are tired of being afraid.

Your lips part, even as you hesitate. But when you give him your name, his smile widens, and it almost—almost—chases the ghosts away.

Kouki quickly becomes your best friend.

Best friend is not the right term; it’s not fair to him and what you know about him. It doesn’t capture the horror of seeing him walk into your classroom that first day, nor the fear that follows you when he’s late to meeting up, or stays home from school because of a cold, because he’s bored. But—

He’s easy going. Refreshing, like cold, sparkling lemonade in the hot sun. He’s friendly and quickly becomes popular with so many of the others in your class and he wants to—he wants to hang out with you, walk you home. With Kouki you’re not the Silent Weirdo that never interacts with anyone. With Kouki you laugh—all the time, like all he wants to do is make you happy. He fills his pockets with those milk-chews and walks with you in the evenings, pushing his bike alongside you, telling you about the way his little brother terrorises his parents and how his father has been wanting to go on a vacation for years, now—and you let him. You let him become apart of your life, you let him walk you home. You let him sink into everything you know, into your pores, the fabric of who you are. He’s the good morning lets gooo texts before you meet up for school. He’s the warmth against you as you sit side-by-side on your park ledge, no longer the most haunted thing in the dark but what you should have always been: just a kid, sitting with a friend. Being with Kouki is easy, too easy. You no longer see the ghost of him—suspended in midair, his silver fish. You just see him, have him—Kouki, alive, chuckling to himself as he hands you another milk-chew.

“My dad’s finally free,” he tells you one night. You’re sitting on your ledge, mouth full of the creamy chews—Kouki (living) before you, lingering close.

“Mmph?” You question, unable to quite pry your jaw open enough for real words.

Kouki laughs like you had said something funny, and despite yourself your stomach flips, pleased to hear it. He’d been subdued; unusually quiet, had been since lunch that day, when Keichan had confessed her feelings to him in front of everyone. Keichan was pretty, effervescent—she laughed like he did, easily and among others who sparkled with her attention. On paper they were a perfect match and you almost wanted it—you wanted Kouki to be happy, however it happened. For as long as he could be.

But he had said no. You, sitting on the edges of the yard and picking at the grass, had been unable to help but watch in the same horrified, fascinated fear as everyone else, all of you silent. Keichan’s pretty face—shocked. Kouki’s red hair shinning brilliantly like fire, as he shook his head.

“Sorry,” he’d said, not sounding the least bit contrite. “I just—I don’t want that.”

In the evening gloom, he nudges your knee.

“The old man’s finally got that time off he wanted,” Kouki explains. You nod, swallowing your chews and trying to ignore how he moves forward—bracketing you, where you sit. “He wants to go fishing.”

“Oh,” you say, a little uselessly. Kouki’s hands are either side of you, distracting—the space between you warm, as he dips his head in closer.

You still. He’s always crowded your space but tonight in the silver light his face—normally so open, light—is afraid.

“You never tell me what you’re thinking,” he says, low, and you shake your head, emptied of words. It wasn’t true—you told him about the books you read, the songs you heard. The way you liked cupping sunlight in your hands because it made them glow, made you feel like you had a different Quirk entirely. You had never told anyone else that.

Kouki’s eyebrows tighten; pull. Frustrated, maybe, even as his hand balls itself into your skirt.

It pulls you closer to him, just a little. Your hand comes up between you—your fingers tracing the fold of his jacket pocket.

“You smell like those milkchews,” he whispers, and your heart is in your throat even as your lips part, his parting in echo as he watches them—

—and you don’t know who pulls who in first but then you are kissing, a hand cupping your face, anchoring you to the moment, to him as your fist tightens into his jacket. You sigh into the cool of his mouth and can almost taste the way he smiles before he presses in harder, hungry.

He pulls away after a moment; only to press more kisses, soft and careful, against your mouth, your nose, your cheek, laughing when you make a tiny, annoyed noise.

“You’re dumb,” he tells you, low, pressing another kiss against your hair, and then another. “And I’m gonna take you out and watch you eat those dumb sweets and make you tell me everything you’re thinking, forever. Until you’re sick of me.”

Your heart lurches. Forever.

“I could never be sick of you,” you tell him, the ache reopening inside of you.

Kouki grins, pleased and so, so alive; his brilliance softening to a glow as he dips his face close again, tracing your nose with his.

“I mean it,” he says, quiet. Promising. “You’re gonna have to chase me off.”

You try to stay in the warmth of him, the light and life, clutching at him, letting him kiss you again, soft.

But there’s a sob in your throat. And when you open your eyes, breathing in as Kouki kisses your jaw, your neck, his spectre is there—mouth gaping open, as a tiny, silver fish darts out.

(You beg him not to go, when his father announces the boat he’s rented, for his fishing trip. The man’s never been out on one before. Kouki has never seen your desperation, your fear, not like this and he almost stays, brows furrowed—but his little brother is excited. His father too. He buys all three of them matching fishing hats.

“It’s okay,” he whispers against the back of your neck, when you’re curled up together in your tiny, childhood bed. The house is quiet; you have it to yourselves, the sunlight dappling in your room, filtered through the tree outside. “I’m a good swimmer. Don’t worry.”

He presses a kiss against your shoulder, his fingers slow, tracing figures in the wet touch of your underwear. You breathe him in and to reassure yourself he’s right, that he will be okay, that you will always have this.

He’s gone by the following week. A storm. Kouki was right—he was a good swimmer. But his little brother wasn’t, and the love that made him go in the first place was the same love that made him search for him, endlessly, after their boat was capsized.

You go to the joint service. Kouki, his father, his little brother. His mother is held together by an older woman, desolate. In a row in front Keichan cries silent tears but you—

You stand there and you stare at Kouki’s portrait, his smiling face. He will never again soak in the sunlight and reflect it He will never again wait for you, his pockets filled with your favourite sweets. He will never again kiss you, with the cool press of his lips, the taste of his laugh behind them.

Fujita Kouki is gone. He is gone, slipping away—taking the you who believed in hope and a future where you could be happy with him.)

The years slip away. One, then two, then three and then four and then five. You move to a bigger city; and then you move again. You work in offices, department stores, a warehouse once, washing carrots—anything that will pay you, pay the bills. You keep to yourself and your coworkers lose interest in trying to keep up small talk with you and you don’t form any kind of tie, good or bad, that could manifest before you, rattling in death.

Kouki would never forgive you for this bleak existence, you think, if he could see it. But wherever he is it’s not with you, not on this plane, and so you keep your head down and when one of your ghosts does come to you, you grit your teeth and ignore it.

Even in isolation, they find a way to haunt you. You start seeing the clerk from the 7/11 you stop in to and from work, his neck snapped, and you avoid the store for three weeks before telling yourself it was stupid of you, that maybe you could say something—only to find someone else there, when you walk in, the guy already replaced.

The new hire at the office you work at starts appearing before you, swinging, his throat and face mottled as hands claw at a rope that’s not there and you—you thank him when he brings you a coffee, and try to be a little kinder, try to watch as he blends in with the others, laughs among them, the crack underneath his smile not showing.

He bungles a client, six months into working there. Your boss chews him out in front of everyone, the guy taking it with a silent, shame-faced nod, and when you try to say, “You worked hard, mistakes can happen to anyone—” he only bows hurriedly, already backing away.

(he doesn’t come back, and two weeks later his desk is cleared.)

Head down, keep to yourself. Another year passes. And then another. And then your curse rears its ugly head one final, terrible time.

You are waiting for the lights to change in the middle of a busy street, on a cold, bright afternoon, when you first see him.

You’re not paying attention; staring into the crowd on the other side of the street, thinking about what you had in the fridge at home and then he’s there, in your line of sight, his face twisting in fury, in grief, as he reaches out, shouting something—

And then there’s a flash of light, blinding and sharp and he is gone, startling you even as the crosswalk starts to sing, people moving around you like water around a stone as your heart races.

No, you think weakly. No. Not again.

He doesn’t return and you stand there, in the same spot, even as the crosswalk blinks back to red.

All your life, your Quirk has worked one way: showing you the death of someone you already knew, for better or for worse. Not someone famous, not a stranger. Kouki had been an—anomaly, you thought, desperate. Some freak tie. Japan had gone through so much in those years during and after the war: reports of abnormal adolescent Quirk growth had spiked, at its worse. You had always thought that maybe yours had been apart of that, that that’s what Kouki’s ghost had been. A result of stress, or your loneliness. Something, anything. And you’d only grown more sure of it when it didn’t repeat—

Until now.

You get home that night and in a fit of anger tear through everything, up end it all. Your clothes, out from the wardrobe or the basket, strewn along the floor. Your pots, clattering thunderously throughout your kitchen. You scream, pitching book after book across the room at your couch, the covers bending, pages tearing. You wouldn’t go through it again, you wouldn’t—

You curl up against your kitchen island, sobbing. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do this. Not again. Not ever again.

(But your heart’s already sinking. Already tender with the hurt, remembered and preemptive. His hair had been golden in the light—like winter sun.

When your hiccups calm, you look up—and he is standing over you, his face twisting again. You shut your eyes but the flash is bright, even then. Nuclear.

When you open them, he’s gone.

“Please,” you whisper to your empty apartment. “Please don’t do this to me.”

But it’s only the silence that answers you, the absence of mercy or comfort and you shudder, your tears nothing but salt in your mouth.)

Your plan, eventually, is simple: just ignore your newest ghost, when you finally meet him.

It should be easy. Even though he was a Pro-Hero he was also a famous one—and how often did you run into famous Pro-Heroes? They always had something to defend, always had someone to save. You just had to keep living your life, squarely and safe and you would be fine. You would skirt past each other and he would live or die just however a Pro Hero should.

A month passes. And then another. You begin to think maybe you’re safe; and then you’re not.

“If everyone can line up, then that’ll make everything go smoother,” your boss calls out, echoed throughout the office. Below on the street is the firetruck—overseeing the drill. You peer over the ledge of the window in worry, trying to count the firefighters out: seven that you could see. If you saw anymore than that while out on the street you were just going to close your eyes and wait it out.

Your boss calls your name—and when you glance to him, startled, he gestures with his megaphone, sheepish.

“Can you run and grab my laptop case for me?” he asks, already half out the door. “You’re closer, and I have a feeling we’ll be down there for a while.”

“Yeah,” you say, already standing. You leave your own things at your desk—as you’re meant to—and dart to his office, partitioned by glass. When you turn around, the case in hand, the office is empty—your boss’s megaphone calling out down the hall, down the stairway, leaving you alone in the wake of it.

You go to the window again, to count the firefighters. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

You freeze. There’s an eighth figure there, standing solidly with them, talking, his arms crossed. A Pro Hero—dressed in black, with bright orange details.

Your ghost, you think in alarm.

He looks up at the window and you jerk away, startled. He shouldn’t be able to see—the glass was tinted—but his face is suspicious and you clutch your boss’s case to you tighter, heart thumping.

Don’t give him a reason to single you out, you think desperately—you hurry to join the others but they have left you on an empty floor, already making their way down the three flights quickly, leaving you and your noisy footfall as you race down the emergency stairs—only to have the door to the lobby thrown open roughly before you could even reach it.

It bangs against the wall; leaving you to stare in silence as he fills the doorway fully, glowering, stopping you in your tracks.

“The hell?” He asks you, roughly. Under his mask his eyes flicker over you, over the case in your hands, unimpressed. “Why didn’t you evacuate with the others?”

You can only shake your head, tucking your hands around the case tighter. Even having his spectre repeat and repeat in front of you—it doesn’t compare to the space and heat of him in the flesh, taking up a doorway. He’s more solid now, more real and when he shifts, just a fraction, you step back in fright.

Something his eyes—ink red under his mask—don’t miss, narrowing.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and mercifully your voice is calm. “I had to grab something.”

“You ain’t meant to take anything,” he points out, barely civil, and you duck your head into a nod—his jaw tightening in response.

You’d rather this, you think, wincing. The brittle patience, barely hiding his rippling irritation. Anything was better than the despair that’d been playing over and over in front of you.

Pro Hero Dynamight—Great Explosion Murder God: Dynamight—scowls at you, jerking behind him. “The extra with the megaphone is doin’ roll call.”

He means your boss. You look at him, curious, and his mouth tightens. It doesn’t thin the curve of his lips, though, and when you realise you’ve noticed that—

You hold your boss’s laptop closer. “Okay,” you say, meaninglessly.

Dynamight only moves out of the way when you go to squeeze past him, your jacket catching against his suit as he grunts.

“Wait,” he commands, annoyed. You stare ahead and will everything within your mind to empty as he pulls you free from the catch of one of his grenades—you mutter a thank-you and don’t look back as you hurry to the glass doors, the light, the open outside away from him and the heat of his space.

(You hide behind your coworkers as your boss commends everyone for their examplumery speed and when one of the firefighters steps forward to walk everyone through the basic dangers of an office building fire it’s Great Explosion Murder God: Dynamight who stands behind him, solid and real and flinty eyed, as he stares everyone down. Someone in front of you giggles; he glares at her until she stops, bowing her head in shame and letting him look directly at—

You. Standing at the back.

His mask moves; his eyebrow raised. You lift yours in a helpless, silent, question. He frowns, like you’re speaking two different languages and morosely you think to yourself, so much for not giving him a reason to single you out.)

It’s just one off-chance meeting, you tell yourself. Just a weird little moment to establish something there, and make you feel a little guilty when you hear about his death on the news.

Only—

Only it keeps happening.

Perhaps it’s your karma, for never saying anything to the ghosts that had followed you. Or maybe it’s one last laugh from Kouki, his evil delight in teasing you manifested. Maybe it’s just plain old bad luck—but whatever it was, it meant you kept running into Great Explosion Murder God: Dynamight over and over again, humiliation on repeat.

He’s—there, in his Pro-Hero gear, at the konbini you get your morning coffee, scowling as the cashier stammers through the burglary you’d only just missed. He’s—crouching amid a group of excitable kids, his grin for them sudden and sharp and bright, distracting even in the middle of a busy street. He’s—walking past you as you startle, safely tucked away into a coffee shop as he patrols past, barely sparing the café window a glance.

He is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And in turn his ghost is too: the blinding flash in your mirror, as you try to brush your teeth, squinting. The nuclear eruption that startles you awake, in the darkness of your room. The silent twist of his face as he reaches out to you, over your counter as you eat your cereal.

It’s worse than it was with Kouki, you think bitterly. When Kouki the living appeared in your life, Kouki the ghost receded. Now you were just being haunted on both ends, both versions just as fleeting as the other.

Your only consolation is that you are, truly, a nobody to him. Just another face amid a city full of them. For all the tiny run-ins, the awful timing, you manage to wriggle away quickly, without attention—or so you’d thought.

You’re walking home under the city dusk: a universe of lights below you as you trek up the winding path that leads home. Work had been awful. You’d seen your vision of Dynamight no less than three seperate times that day, the furious twist of his face, his silent shouting—his disappearing. He was taking you with him, you thought in despair. No other ghost of yours had been so persistent. Distracted, you’d bought a supermarket bento for dinner—some nectarines, for dessert. As you walked the bag swung low and slow, too flimsy; when it splits everything in it splatters, and tumbles.

You swear, skidding as you try to chase the fruit, rolling away as they gain speed—

Stopped by a black boot, it’s orange detailing almost glowing as it scuffs along the ground, blocking them.

Everything within you settles; flattens as you straighten.

Under his mask, Dynamight arches in an eyebrow.

“You good?” He asks.

You shrug, and hold up the remnants of your plastic bag—drifting like a bride’s veil, between you.

The Pro-Hero tsks, crouching, picking up your nectarines. “Weak crap.”

In the twilight the black of his uniform makes him a dark void—until he stands again, holding out your fruit to you. You frown, and watch him mirror it, his wide mouth turning down, unhappily.

“You afraid of me, or somethin’?” He asks, rough. His face is pinched—it makes him look like a little kid, trying to tough out a pout and your stomach squeezes with the guilt. The last anyone would see of him would be a flash of light—and then Japan’s dynamite, Japan’s explosive anger, would be gone forever.

And here you were—making him feel bad in what could, quite possibly, be his last days.

“No,” you admit, opening your handbag to take back the nectarines. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He squints at you, disbelieving.

“Yeah?” He asks. “Then why do you keep runnin’ away like you’ve shit yourself?”

Oh, you think, he’s disgusting.

“I do not,” you say instead, crossly, dropping to the ground grab the remains of your bento.

Dynamight grunts in dismissal. “Yeah you do. Every time I’m walkin’ down a street, or I have to drop into some shitty little place—you’re there, turning tail. If you ain’t on laxatives and you ain’t afraid, then what is it?”

“I’m prejudiced against all Pro-Heroes,” you tell him, stoutly. “And you keep foiling my plans for world domination. Why do you notice, anyway? Why are you here?”

His boots scrape against the path, suddenly loud between you, as he moves in closer.

“‘M on patrol,” he tells you. “It’s my job on patrol to notice weirdoes—and you’ve been the weirdest.”

“Congratulations!” you tell him sourly, skittering around the solid wall of his presence to a nearby trash can. It’s already overflowing, but you squeeze your own rubbish in and turn back to the Pro, as much apart of the world around you as the dark undergrowth of the pathway, or the city lights behind him.

He’s so real, you think angrily. And in days, weeks—maybe months, if he was lucky—he’d be gone, just like that.

“Now what?” You ask him, ask yourself. “What happens now?”

Below, a train screeches past. Great Explosion Murder God: Dynamight shrugs, indifferent.

“Depends,” he says. “You gonna keep being weird?”

You almost laugh. You don’t, though, holding your handbag with your nectarines closer. You are standing in the last, dark moments of a twilight world with a man who will die, God knew when—weird was probably the least you could be.

“Maybe,” you say instead. “I haven’t decided yet.”

The Pro-Hero shrugs again. “Then I do my job, and keep an eye on ya.”

He’s not looking at you when he says it, shifting awkwardly like a school boy and you—

You let your shoulders sag. You are an adult, no longer seventeen—but has been a hard life, and you are tired. Tired of being afraid. Of always being at the edges of your own life.

“Okay,” you tell him, tell yourself. Tell your ghosts, wherever they’re gathered. “I surrender.”

Dynamight snorts, kicking out a loose gravel and when he glances back to you his face has softened from its suspicion—waiting, instead.

A new pattern starts.

He walks past the coffee shop when you’re there and squints at you—acknowledgement you return with the ugliest face you can manage, the woman at the table across from you snorting into her mug.

You walk past him one weekend, surrounded by fans, and he looks up and sees you—bright eyes flickering over the fizzing orange juice in your hand, your wide sunhat, not hiding the startled surprise on your face—and grunts at the kids around him, holding up his hand as he tries to squeeze out, to you.

“Your hat makes you look like a frilly grandma,” he complains, loudly, as the fans follow him, encircling you both.

“I like your hat!” One girl says, brightly. She’s wearing a GEMG:D shirt with his scowling face under his title scrawl; you touch the brim of your hat, self-consciously.

“Thanks,” you say, self-conscious. She beams at you, even as Dynamight starts jabbing at you, trying to get you to move.

“I gotta get grandma home,” he tells everyone, as the group groans. “S’gotta have that nanna nap.”

You let him bully you. You let him pick you out, every time you cross paths. You don’t fight it—and when you start seeing him out of his Pro-Hero gear, his weaponry, your heart tightens in on itself in warning.

“You hungry?” He asks you, one evening. You’d been walking together, the pair of you having finished work at the same time; you in your neat, office wear, your leather handbag. Dynamight in sweats, a loose shirt, a dufflebag over his shoulder.

The sky above you is pink, the moon a silver crescent. A manga moon, you think to yourself; overlooking a love story.

“Yeah,” you answer him, eventually. “I’m starving.”

He nods, resolutely not looking at you—though when you glance at him his jaw tightens, head turning away.

“Denimhead introduced me to a place near here,” he says, gruffly. “They’re decent, ain’t wankers. And they’re cheap. Private.”

He should be doing this with anyone else, you thought to yourself, desperately, watching your shoes. Anyone. Someone who wouldn’t be counting down the days, the weeks, the months.

“I’d like that,” you say instead, softer. “I’d like to go.”

He doesn’t risk looking at you but his smooth face reddens, even as he passes a large hand over the back of his neck, like he could rub the colour out.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Let’s go then.”

It’s a bistro; a tiny pocket of a place only marked by a single, hanging sign of a smiling cow, the sizzle of steak permeating the alleyway. Inside the lights are low—Dynamight stands back to let you sit at the bar first, watching hawkishly, before he follows, the bartender smiling at you both.

“They gotta menu,” he says, nodding to the mirror behind the bar, where a sparse few dishes are written. “Otherwise if ya trust me I can—I can suggest shit.”

His gaze flickers over your face as you watch him in turn. He was so—here. Alive. With every tiny movement—the draw back of his elbow, the flex of his hand—you feel it, too aware.

“I trust you,” you tell him.

He grins—sudden and pointed and startling a smile out of you too, even as you try to bite it back.

(He orders blistered tomatoes, the size of doll heads, dressed in olive oil and a sweet fig vinegar, a soft cheese that bursts over them. There’s toasted baguette—slathered with bone marrow, garlic butter. There’s steak cut like it’s been shared among cavemen, several inches thick and still on the bone, bleeding even as it sizzles. The bartender puts down a little plate of fine, perfectly ruffled pasta in front of you; dressed in pesto, charred greens, tiny flowers and you have to share it with your Pro-Hero, who’s nose wrinkles when you try to offer him a speared garnish.

He is warm and he is close and he smells like the char of a grill and soap and a sweet wood layered over warm skin and neither of you move to touch each other—

But his leg presses against yours, and stays. Your hand slips over his by accident as you move to help yourself to dessert, a soft creamy dish with fruit—and he turns his palm up, catching it. Squeezing your fingers for a brief moment before letting them go, unmooring you only to anchor you again when you walk side-by-side, back to the train station, the warmth of him reassuring, and inescapable.)

Days. Weeks. Months.

You walk together, have dinner sometimes, lunch others. He complains about the other Heroes he works with; you listen, side-eyeing him when he then mentions feeding them, making meals at the agency because everyone was useless—

He doesn’t poke at you to talk, but you start sharing anyway. The book in your handbag; the gossip the others at the office always had.

“Tell ‘em to either deal with it or shut up,” he suggests, and you laugh despite yourself.

Days. Weeks. Months.

He goes away on a mission across the country—after a villain the news was calling Hazard. He’d been responsible for the complete destruction, the levelling, of a factory, a shopping centre, slipping away before anyone could scramble through the rumble and detain him. It rains the entire time Dynamight is gone, leaving you to walk home alone, an umbrella over you, as the news loops over about flood warnings.

(When he comes back it’s an overcast day; finally dry. He’s waiting for you at your usual crossroad, now, and when you see him you smile, his eyes following the curve of it before flickering over you.

“You good?” He asks.

“Better now that you’re back,” you admit, before you can stop yourself.

You were. You had stayed up every night he was gone, on your phone—watching the news, the tags, waiting for his name to appear, footage of the flash that would take him. There’d been nothing; no arrests, no collision.

But your Pro-Hero’s face softens, just slight, and you realise that he’d read something else in it when he says, low, “Yeah. I get it.”

Days, weeks, months. Your heart thumps to it, reminding you and nervously, you shift away.

“Are you hungry?” You ask, wanting to fill the space between you with anything else.

He watches you skitter away, trying to encourage him to move; his eyes ruby.

“Yeah,” he repeats and in relief you turn away, all too aware of his stare, at the back of your head.)

Days. Weeks. When you finally kiss it’s at his table, in his home; empty plates in front of you.

“I think this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” you tell him honestly, quietly, the smears of your tiramisu the only remains as you stand, to take your plate to the kitchen.

“You’re always tryna—dart away,” he says suddenly, still sitting.

You startle at the look on his face—serious, soft mouth trying not to pout.

“I just—I just want to help with the dishes,” you say, but his brow furrows, pinched, and when he stands it’s carefully, slow, the coiled draw of a bow that shivers, waiting.

“I can’t get a read on you,” he admits to the quiet, his knuckles against the table. “Can’t—guess at whatever’s goin’ on in that squirrelly head of yours.”

You swallow, and run your hand across your forearm, too aware of the soft edges of your sleeves, of your Pro-Hero following your fingers.

“There’s nothing,” you whisper, and he snorts; boyish, disbelieving. It makes him less of a threat and more of a man—real, living, breathing, with his own thoughts and his own feelings.

“Like hell there is,” he swears, stepping closer. It brings his warmth in; the smell of coffee, of his cologne, aniseed sweet. “Whatever you’ve got spinnin’ around in there keeps you worlds away from this one. And I ain’t—”

He stops himself, his mouth parted around the rest of his words as his eyes flicker over your face, your lips; the way you can’t breathe for his nearness, hesitating in the space between you.

“—I ain’t gonna let you disappear,” he finishes, low. For a moment he traces your nose with his, and when your lashes flutter he sucks his breath in, tight; his mouth on yours, warm and sudden. A press. And then another. And then another and then the kiss is deepening and you tilt your head as hands fist themselves in your hair, keeping you close even as he pulls away, tiny, to pant against your lips. “Hah—”

You kiss him back. You take him back. Your hands are tight in his shirt, too flimsy to hold him and you whine and you can feel him snarl—or smile?—against you, his teeth hard against the corner of your mouth, scraping your jaw as he nips at your neck.

The plates on the table rattle as you both slide to the floor. You gasp as his mouth meets the bare skin of your thigh, then again as his thumbs hook under your underwear, the cool of his floor a shock. He moans, muffled; free of your ass your underwear drapes, wet and warm against you and he mouths at it, a heavy kiss as you gasp again at his tongue through cotton. He kisses deeper—you gasp again, and again, until you’re panting, tiny ah, ah, ahs that have him squeezing your hip, nosing the wet slop of your underwear out of the way so that his mouth meets your skin and you both moan.

(You are unravelled, on the floor—your clothes pooling, your breasts freed, your legs splayed. His hold is firm and warm and you are heavy-eyed, even as you gasp again, under him. You want to drift away—you want to stay, hissing as his blunt nails claw along the meat of your ass.

He lifts himself to meet you for a kiss—his mouth and chin shiny, his eyes glimmering as his shoulders ripple, panther-lithe as he leans over you.

His mouth is warm. You hum into it as he curses, tasting him—coffee, sex, you—as hot hands smooth the small of your back, the slip of him inside of you so, so easy and wet.

Even in the rut, the thrust, you are safe. You arch off of the floor like you’re trying to escape it, escape into the solid wall of him, waiting with another kiss, long and hard as he thrusts in deeper, deeper still.

You curl your legs against him, your heel in his ass. He grunts, then bites at your chin and your laugh is broken off into a moan as he ruts in hard.

Days. Weeks. When you come it’s sudden, starflash hot; you gasp for a final time and your hero is there to nose against your wet skin, to kiss you, his own undoing a groan, a sigh into your mouth.

There are no ghosts, lingering afterwards. Only him, panting; only you, your legs slipping together, your lips parting. Only him, only you.

He presses a kiss against the side of your head, almost forcefully.

“Wasn’t too shit,” he says, gruff, and you laugh around your breathlessness, anchored and alive.)

Days, weeks. Days.

Your Hero asks you stay over; you do, waking up in sheets that smell like him, that smell like sex, like you. You give yourself the moments—let yourself kiss his shoulder in hello, when he’s brushing his teeth. Lean into his touch, when his hand smooths up and down your waist.

“The others wanna meet ya,” he says one night, grumpily. “Said something about a lunch—I told ‘em s’up to you.”

At the counter, you hesitate. Who knew what you’d see, around them, the country’s frontliners. And it would only make this death, the one you were waiting on, worse—

But your Hero is determinedly not looking at you, his face pink, and you realise—he wants it. He wants you to meet them. Them to meet you.

Oh, you think, stricken. This was going to hurt.

“Okay,” you say. “I’d—I’d like that. Let’s do that.”

When he grins it twists his whole face into childlike brightness. You smile back with a wobble, looking at him and only him—ignoring his ghost behind him, shouting at you before the flash.

Days. Day. It’s a bright Saturday and you were meant to be meeting his friends, at last, the city busy as you hurry to the department store. There was a store in the food hall that sold small, perfectly round cream cakes, with glossy coatings and made to look like fruit—you wanted a tray of them, to take.

The sales clerk is handing you the bag, sealed with a ribbon when the shouting starts.

“RUN!” Someone screams, a flash from the back of the store blinding you. It’s the call, the break through the spell. Everyone panics, shouting as people start to bolt for the stairs to the street outside.

You’re almost torn away from the store—the girl serving you yelping as people barrel past, the force of them moving you, too, until the girl shrieks—trapped behind the counter.

“Wait!” You say, but a man almost shoves you aside and you drop your bag, your cakes, pushing against the others that follow him until there’s a gap. The sales clark is wincing, behind her case, but there’s a ominous rattling above you and you scream, “Come on!” at her, your hand held out as everyone on the floor screams.

She sobs as someone smashes into her counter, shoved up by a crowd and you wedge yourself out of the way and scream again, “We have to go! Now!”

You’re almost blind in your panic, wheezing as your elbowed in someone else’s desperation—but then she’s scrambling with the hatch, reaching out to you too and when her hand is in yours you run, following the crowd.

You’re separated in the push—there’s more screams, as more and more flashes fill the room and someone, an older man, almost claws at your face to get in front of you.

Outside there’s a wail of sirens; someone on a megaphone, shouting for surrender.

The explosion is small. It doesn’t feel like it—everyone tumbles to the ground with the shock wave, the smoke quickly filling the space and trying to tunnel out the same way and someone grabs your elbow and tugs, begging you to move—

You follow them. Her, the girl from the cake stand, her face puffy and bruised. The pair of you crawl over people, stand, and when you break out of the glass doors and into the daylight it’s almost a relief—until you see the ring of Pro-Heroes, police officers, all tense.

Your stomach swoops. The Pros, the cops closest to you are ashen-faced—looking beyond you, to whoever is now holding you in place with a calm, heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Just put your hands up,” one of the cops calls out, over the megaphone. “And surrender. There’s no need for hostages.”

Behind you, broken glass shifts. The hand on your shoulder squeezes tighter, a warning, and you stare out at the crowd, trying to empty your mind even as the clerk, still next you, sobs.

Day. Moments.

Beyond the crowd you can hear his sharp voice, his shouting and you squeeze your eyes shut, not wanting to know, not wanting to see—

But everything within you is attuned to him. The world falls away into white noise and all you can hear is your name, being screamed furiously, and you have to look.

You blink away your tears, and he’s there, two other Pros trying to hold him back as he swears, elbowing out at them; his face twisting in fury, in grief. Your eyes meet—and he surges forward again, shouting something to you as he reaches out, an officer barrelling into him as nails dig into your shoulder—

And then there is a flash of light. Blinding and sharp.

And you are gone.

#‼️📍 content warnings at the beginning of the post 📍‼️#tw: major character death #tw: death #tw: bludgeoning #tw: wasp stings #tw: drowning #tw: suicide #tw: grief/mourning #tw: smut #bakugou x reader #prompts and drabbles and other things #merms apology tour

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penny00dreadful · 4 months

Text

The Parting Glass

Hey I've been through some shit the last few weeks so let's do Christmas the Irish way. By making it ✨miserable✨ and putting Eddie through situations. But with a hopeful ending.

Just as a note of warning, this fic contains death, funerals and Eddie working through his grief. It was originally devised as a part of this fun little challenge and then... welp, I used it to process. 😅

The prompts I got were: Eddie arrives to town recently single to inherit something, Steve lives in the town and is a famous musician (but not here). Eddie falls in love with the holidays, the town and some guy. I'll be honest these prompts got away from me so they're not followed exactly.

AO3

For my granddad.

It was nearly Christmas and Eddie was driving back to Hawkins for the second time in two weeks.

He was alone.

Again.

And for good this time.

The last time, when he had come back when Wayne was sick and not getting any better, he wasn’t supposed to be on his own.

In the days leading up to it, Jack had been in his ear the entire time.

“I’ll be there for you.”

“I won’t let you go through this alone.”

“You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I’ll support you the whole way.”

All over the phone. It couldn’t be helped. Eddie was a writer, he could work from literally anywhere. Or at least anywhere that had an internet connection. Even then, he might not need that. Just a post box.

Jack was back home in their apartment that Eddie had bought them with his first big paycheck.

Eddie had called to tell him that Wayne had passed, numb and monotone and not really fully registering just what that meant. That he was gone. Like gone-gone.

Forever.

He wasn’t just gonna… open his eyes again and start talking. He wasn’t gonna go back home, or sit in his armchair or shout at the tv or lie in his own bed one last time… And… What about his mugs? He… Wayne had so many mugs, what was gonna happen to them? He loved those mugs.

And Jack had said he’d be there. He’d promised.

And then he wasn’t.

Because something had come up at work or he thought he was coming down with something or he hadn’t got enough sleep the night before and didn’t feel safe making the drive and he felt really bad about it, just a steady stream of excuses but also- that was it.

I feel really bad about it. Full stop. No attempt to say, I’ll make it up to you. Or even just the bare minimum of I’ll try my best to be there no matter what.

And like a flash in the pan Eddie went from devastated to angry to just cold acceptance.

“Fine.” He’d grit out over the phone, feeling simultaneously broken hearted and fucking indignant. Because, yes, it was a little selfish to feel like Jack should have thrown all that to the side to be here with him. But his fucking family had just died. He was allowed to be a little selfish.

Eddie needed him there.

Didn’t just want him there, he needed him there.

But instead he had to go through it all, alone.

He was on his own just before Christmas, trying to organise a funeral for the only family he had.

He didn’t have much time to think straight. He resolved to put it all out of his mind until this was all over because Wayne deserved his attention right now.

Eddie had expected it to be small and quiet if he was being honest with himself. Wayne had been a man who kept to himself and all he had was Eddie.

He was just thankful the local funeral home wasn’t completely decked out in tinsel and lights and trees. It was going to be hard enough as it was without a constant reminder of the time of year.

Quiet and subdued, with just a few stragglers, as depressing as that was. He could handle that right?

But then the people started turning up at the funeral home and they just didn’t stop.

The entire trailer park came out to see him, even Mrs. Cartwright, who was stone deaf and half blind with a bad hip, shuffled into the room on the arm of another of the neighbours, a red headed young woman, to offer her condolences. Then there were Wayne’s coworkers from the plant, the farmers he’d talk to in the pub, his fantasy football league, childhood friends that he hadn’t spoken to in years but still wanted to pay their respects, teachers from the school, store workers, the nurses who looked after him. Eddie’s own friends, the Corroded Coffin boys, the Hellfire kids, Rick, even some of his most loyal customers from back in his dealing days.

It kept going, just floods and floods of people young and old passing through the room to pay their respects, offer their condolences and shake Eddie’s hand.

He was completely overwhelmed. By the end of it, his hand was fucking sore, his throat was raw and if he lingered on the thought any longer, of how many people had shown up for his uncle, had loved him, he’d start crying all over again, even though he was pretty sure he’d run dry.

Jeff, Gareth and Grant hung around for hours after they’d been through the procession once, waiting for a moment to talk to him and ask if he wanted them to stay with him for the rest of the funeral and after. For as long as he was back in Hawkins.

It went unspoken that Eddie had been in that room alone and they were trying to save him from that, so he took them up on the offer. Stood with his oldest friends that he really should have spoken to more over the years while Wayne was lowered into the ground.

They took him out for a few drinks afterwards but Eddie didn’t have it in him to make it a whole night thing. He was exhausted, but he promised to stay in better contact.

When it all was said and done, Eddie found it incredibly difficult to get into the car and drive back.

He didn’t want to leave Wayne here alone.

He didn’t want to be states away anymore.

He wanted to be home. In this shitty little small town that he had hated growing up in but was such an important part of his life, that was familiar and sedentary and fucking quaint and most importantly had a memory of Wayne in every single corner.

Jack would never go for it.

But now that Eddie was on his own, in the car, it gave him a lot of time to stew on just how long he’d been on his own already.

Eddie loved fast and Eddie loved hard. If someone gained his trust or his loyalty, he would do anything for them. It would be a very, very hard thing for someone to lose. But it also made him incredibly blind to their flaws.

This wasn’t the first time Jack had pulled out of something at the last second. And most of the time it was just because he didn’t want to do whatever it was, regardless of if he had made promises about it.

And Eddie had let it go each and every time before because, well, it was fine. He got over it and it wasn’t that big of a deal.

But he had needed Jack there this time. And he’d done it all alone.

If the situations were reversed, Eddie would have crawled on his belly through broken fucking glass to be where Jack needed him and nothing less than an explicit “I don’t want you there” would have deterred him.

And when he got back to their apartment and Jack had turned to him with a sympathetic, “How was it?” Eddie fucking lost it.

He’d screamed so loud and with so much anger and devastation, the neighbours called the cops and again Eddie was on his own trying to explain what had happened while Jack just shuffled around in the background looking vaguely guilty and shell shocked, muttering “You never told me you wanted me there” when the cops finally left.

And Eddie was just fucking done. He was broken. It was finished.

“I didn’t think I had to. My family died. And you had been telling me the entire time that you’d be there. You told me you’d be there for me. And then you just weren’t.”

So that was it.

Eddie couldn’t stand to be in that city anymore. Anonymous and lonely and fucking claustrophobic. Couldn’t stand to be in the apartment with its white Christmas lights and expensive baubles and store bought charm without an inch of personality because it “looks prettier this way.”

The fucking cushions that couldn’t be used to prop up his back because he’d squish the filling and the throws that were there for decoration, placed perfectly, giving the apartment the impression of lived in warmth without any actual emotion in it.

He sold the apartment to Jack, waiting for the heartbreak of the end of a years long relationship to finally hit him. But it never did.

Maybe his emotions were all worn out and it would hit him properly later.

The same way he knew he still hadn’t fully registered that Wayne was gone yet.

So.

Now he was here.

Standing in the cold of the trailer park, his breath fogging up in front of him, snow crushed underneath his boots and night blanketing him. He had a box of stuff in his arms, rooted to the ground between his still warm car and the dark and shadowed front door, thinking hysterically for a moment that he hadn’t asked Wayne if he could move back in.

But he couldn’t, of course he couldn’t, Wayne was gone and he wasn’t coming back and Eddie had no way of contacting him in the fucking afterlife if there even was one to ask if he could turn up on his doorstep again in almost the exact same way he had nearly fifteen years ago.

Wayne would have probably given him a light smack over the back of the head and told him he was always welcome, no matter the circumstances.

Still.

It felt wrong to just assume he could be here without checking in with him first.

He could hear his voice in his head, could almost see him standing silhouetted in the warm glow of the doorway, looking soft and worn in. “Get your ass in here son, before you freeze to death.”

Eddie blinked and the door was closed and dark and empty again. There was no noise coming from inside the trailer, no sound of the tv going, no smells of cooking, no heat, no light.

It was an empty shell.

The glow of the other trailers surrounded him, the small muffled noises of life going on inside each and every one, warm yellows spilling out of their windows or multicoloured lights lining their roofs or their porches, Mariah Carey singing her heart out somewhere in the distance.

“No one ever tells you the front door is one of the hardest parts.”

Eddie jumped, whipping his head around to find the same redheaded woman standing off to the side, bundled up in a thick homemade scarf and puffer jacket, her hands in her pockets and winter boots unlaced, like she'd just thrown them on, the grooves in the snow behind her telling him she’d walked to him from somewhere across the park.

Eddie squeezed the box a little tighter to himself, finally feeling the biting cold through his fingers.

“Yeah. I-” he swallowed, looking up at the door again. “How long have I been standing here?”

He could hear the snow crunching under her boots as she came closer. “I don’t know.” Fabric rustled somewhere beside him as she shrugged. “Mrs. Cartwright only told me you were out here a few minutes ago. I dunno how she even noticed, she can barely see five foot in front of her face.”

Eddie turned to the trailer he remembered the old lady living in to see her sitting by the window, squinting out into the snow. She offered him a toothless smile and a little wave when she saw the two of them looking back.

He was just about able to unstick his hand from the box to wave back.

“And you’re her-?”

“Neighbour. But I check in on her as often as I can. She’s good company.”

“Oh.”

The two of them stood there, in the cold, in the snow, just looking at each other and Eddie could feel the spectre of the dark and empty trailer looming over him. Before this redhead turned up, he could have conceivably turned back, gotten into the car and found a motel room or something for the night. This might have all been easier to face in the daytime.

But now he’d been seen, he was trapped and he couldn’t escape. He wasn’t sure if he could do it.

“When my mom died,” the woman said, coming around to face him, “I just kinda switched off. I was on autopilot for a lot of the time but my first day back at the trailer after the burial, I couldn’t go inside. She wasn’t in there anymore. Same as you, I don’t know how long I was out there before Steve came and found me.”

“You’re Max.” Eddie said, his brain finally putting the pieces together. “Wayne talked about you.”

Max’s face broke out into a wide delighted grin. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Eddie smiled back. “He said you never wore your helmet when you were skateboarding.”

She snorted. “Yeah. And the one time he finally convinced me to, I took a hell of a tumble. Broke my-”

“Leg, I think it was?”

“Nah, man.” Max shook her head. “Not just my leg, I broke my damn femur. Strongest bone in the body and snap.” She clapped her gloved hands together, muffling what should have surely been a hard impact. “With six months of therapy to go along with it. Got me into the job I’m in today, though.”

“He said you’re a physical therapist?”

“Yup. And he said you’re a writer.”

Eddie nodded.

“Well then, Writer Eddie Munson. How do you feel about the front door now?”

He looked back up, finding that it wasn’t quite as intimidating as it had been before.

“A little better.”

“Good. I’m glad. Can I give you a hand?”

“Oh, uh-” he looked back down at the box in his hand, flexing his fingers around the keychain he still had hanging off his thumb. “Yeah, actually. If you don’t mind.”

Max nodded, stepping forward and taking the box from him. Eddie gave her a small smile before squaring his shoulders and facing the door once more and stepping up towards the porch before he could stop himself.

Amongst his set of similar shaped keys, he easily found the one to the trailer, the same one he had cut out of a black blank when he was younger and so edgy.

With a deep breath he slipped it into the lock and turned, feeling it catch like it always did halfway through and jostling it in a way that was so familiar from years of doing the same thing, it hit him like a truck.

He swallowed down hard as he gestured Max in, switching the lights on.

It didn’t smell like Wayne anymore. Not really. It had been weeks since anyone had been inside. But the memory of the smell was there.

It was freezing, an empty shell of a building that had been left to hold its ghosts. The pipes were probably frozen through too, but he and Wayne had handled that plenty of times before, this would be nothing new.

Everything of Waynes was still here. His boots were by the door, his jackets were hung up, his mugs lined the walls. The remote was on the floor next to his recliner, like it had been accidentally nudged off of the arm and hadn’t been picked up yet.

It was like Wayne had just stepped out, or was hiding in another room.

Eddie could feel his heart start to crumble just a little more.

The two of them got his boxes and bags unpacked from his car and into the trailer in silence. He was pretty sure Max knew that he was just waiting for her to leave so he could break down in peace but even so, she turned to face him after placing the last box down.

“You can say no.” She said, hands back in her pockets. “But a few friends are flying in on Thursday and we’re going to meet up at Cathy’s. You’re welcome to come if you’re feeling up for it.”

Cathy’s pub, Wayne used to go there all the time. The actual name of the place was The Attic, but no one called it that, everyone called it Cathy’s. As much of an Irish pub as one could get out in Hawkins without actually being an Irish Pub. It just happened to be run by an Irish woman who refused to entertain four leaf clovers and green pints and had kicked people out in the past for calling it ‘Patty’s Day’ instead of ‘Paddy’s Day.’

Eddie nodded at her, his eyes already starting to mist up from everything settling around his shoulders.

“Thanks.” He sniffled. “I’ll think about it.”

She offered him a gentle smile and said her goodbyes, not lingering around when he so clearly wanted to be on his own.

He watched through the window as Max carved a path through the snow back to Mrs. Cartwright’s trailer, before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath and starting to unpack.

Last night had been one of the roughest nights of Eddie’s entire life.

He’d only managed to switch the electric heater on and open one box before the silence got to him.

He’d switched on the tv and had to flip channels for far too long before he found what he was looking for because he didn’t know where the sports channels were hidden away, he’d never wanted or needed to look for them before.

But having the trailer filled with the sound of sports commentators and the crowds in the stadium and an obscene amount of advertisements was enough to make him crack.

He’d ended up in a ball on the floor, crying so much he felt like he’d never stop, breathing so hard he felt himself getting lightheaded.

Every time the tears subsided and he had started to get a handle on himself, he saw something that would start the cycle all over again. The Garfield mug, Wayne’s favourite winter hat, the stash of red vines he kept hidden beside his armchair, a habit he got into and never got out of when they were living together to keep them away from Eddie’s sweet-tooth.

By the time Eddie had pulled himself up to curl into the couch, he had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a nest of Wayne’s clothes surrounding him, the smell just barely lingering.

He drank himself into a stupor.

The morning after was equally rough but in an entirely different way. When he was woken up by the sound of daytime life outside the trailer door, bleary and foggy, he recognised his surroundings before anything else.

“Wayne?” He’d called, half expecting to turn to find him in his armchair, the sounds of the sports channel still filling in the space of the room.

But then he remembered.

All over again he remembered.

He was barely able to do anything for himself that day. Most of it was spent staring off into space, waiting for things to get better, like everyone always said it would. Waiting for the pain to dull and to be able to function again.

He stood in the doorway of what had been Wayne’s bedroom and then his own and became Wayne’s again once he moved out.

He never thought he’d be back here, moving back into this exact same bedroom all over again.

He didn’t sleep in the bed that night. Or the night after.

He couldn’t. Not yet.

He had managed to get the water running, so that was a plus and by the time he had some of his stuff unpacked the trailer no longer looked like a warehouse full of boxes, but instead looked like a cluttered and messy home.

He didn’t have the strength to move any of Wayne’s things, so his own stuff just kind of existed in corners or on countertops and it was fine.

Everything was fine.

This was his life now.

This was what he wanted.

It was fine.

Snow was starting to swirl around him as he stood outside Cathy’s, slowly accumulating in his hair and building up around his boots as the warm light and laughter inside seeped out of the building.

There were twinkling multi-colored lights lining the outside and glittering through the fogged up windows and Eddie could see inside was decorated with green garlands draped from every available surface, red, gold and silver baubles woven in throughout and topped off with a healthy smattering of tinsel.

It was the most inviting thing he had seen recently and he ached to go inside. It was just so full of memories.

But he was stuck.

Rooted to the spot like he had been outside the trailer door a few days ago.

Wayne would have loved all of this.

He loved Christmas.

He loved Christmas late nights at Cathy’s.

And it was only really then, when he’d been so painfully aware of it in the back of his mind for the last few weeks, that this was going to be the first Christmas he had to endure without Wayne.

“Eddie?”

Well, no running now.

But it wasn’t Max this time.

“Eddie Munson, my god. Is that really you?”

Eddie turned and was met by the sight of someone he hadn’t seen in the longest time.

“Chris?”

Chrissy Cunningham was standing in front of him in all her short and bright glory with a blinding smile on her face. Something deep in him warmed under her gaze. They hadn’t been friends for very long before they both skipped town in opposite directions, not to mention the ill-fated crushes they had both quietly harboured for each other once upon a time, but that was never gonna work out.

Even so, a friendly face he recognised was just what he needed right now. Someone to help him brace everything in front of him through those doors. The Wayne of it all. And the terror of potentially being introduced to a whole group of people as a new outsider, in mourning, no less.

A loud burst of laughter rang out from inside as they looked at each other and Eddie felt something fizzle and settle gently in his chest.

In a tiny little moment, they clicked again, still friends after all this time, no matter the distance.

Chrissy looked at him, a thousand emotions passing through her eyes as she worked through what she was going to say. She had definitely heard about Wayne’s death. Wayne had taken her in on more than one occasion when her mother had gotten to be too much.

Eddie had to get his ability to collect strays from somewhere, after all.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. By the time I heard I couldn’t get a flight in time and I should have been here for you.”

“It’s okay.” he smiled at her. And it was okay, really.

She wormed her hand in between his elbow and his side where they were clenched tight from the cold, looping her arm through. “I’ll stick with you the whole night if you want me to.”

Eddie’s whole body sagged in relief, not knowing he needed to hear it until he did.

“Please.”

Chrissy nodded, a steely look of determination on her face and their arms held tight together as they pushed their way inside.

The warm glow and homely smells hit him immediately and he felt his shoulders loosen even more. It was loud inside but not unbearable, the sounds of conversation mingling in with the speakers softly playing out a mix of traditional Irish music and what had to be some Christmas best hits album.

Eddie dragged his eyes across the bar, while Chrissy looked around at the people sitting at various tables and booths.

“Are you looking for anyone in particular?” He asked.

“I only just flew in today. I’m supposed to be meeting up with a number of- oh! There they are.”

She pointed towards the back by the fire that Cathy had put in, claiming it couldn’t be a proper pub without a fire. The series of tables were all pushed a little closer to each other, overflowing with people and Eddie had to blink at them a few times, realising there were definitely a few familiar faces grinning back at him and waving the two of them over.

The first person he recognised was Max, her bright red hair standing out amongst the sea of browns and chestnuts and blacks. It was then that his eye was drawn around the table and saw his Corroded Coffin boys and the Hellfire kids looking back at him.

Damn, he’d forgotten to tell the boys about his impulsive move back here. He hadn’t really told anyone about it apart from Jack. But they didn’t seem to hold it against him. It was plain as day on their faces that they knew he might not exactly be doing things logically right about now.

And then there were the Hellfire kids.

Or he supposed he could hardly call them kids anymore.

They would all be somewhere in their mid-twenties at this stage and wasn’t that just a mind trip?

They all stood to greet Chrissy and himself, hugs and pats on the back all around, the Hellfire kids and Max introducing one of the few truly unfamiliar faces amongst the bunch, El. Another woman he vaguely recognised gave him a small wave but eventually he realised who she was, because this was a small town and everyone at least knew of everyone in one way or the other.

Robin Buckley, from band.

What a strange mix of people.

She and Chrissy shared a long look with each other, eventually revealing that Robin was her long term girlfriend.

Eddie nodded along, told her it was nice to meet her but couldn’t help the taste of bitterness that rose up in his throat when he looked at the two of them, not being able to remember the last time he had been out with Jack and feeling like his company was enjoyed and Jack wasn’t just waiting to go home with or without him.

It had barely been a week since they had broken up but the loneliness had been there for a while.

He had only just managed to get his coat and scarf off before Cathy appeared at their table, a drink in each hand.

“Eddie, darling.” She said, placing the two drinks down in front of him and scooping him up into a hug. “It’s so good to see you back home, love.”

She was an older woman, warm and wrinkled and soft, smelling vaguely of cigarette smoke and perfume in a mix that shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was.

“Thanks, Cathy.” He muttered into her neck, pulling back away only to find his face in her hands.

“If you need anything at all, you know where to find me, right?”

He gave her a shaky smile, not really sure what to do with himself, he could feel everyone else at the table watching them.

“Yeah.”

“Good boy.” She grinned back at him, petting his cheek before gesturing down at the drinks she dropped off at the table.

“This is for you, love. On the house.” She pointed at the beer bottle. “And this one,” she rested her hand next to the glass of whiskey, neat. Wayne’s drink. “It’s tradition. One last tipple for your dear uncle. And none of you,” she whipped around, pointing an accusing finger at everyone in the booth, “are to touch it.”

They all stared up at her wide eyed and nodded while she turned her smile back on Eddie. “You take care of yourself, now. You hear me?”

“I’ll do my best.” He gave her a short salute and she rolled her eyes at him in a good natured way before turning and heading back to the bar.

Eddie swept his eyes over the pub, hoping to get an idea of how much of a scene had been made, as quiet as they had been tucked away in their corner. But before he could take a proper inventory, the doors were pushed open and even from the back of the pub Eddie could feel the cold following in the figure's wake.

The newcomer brushed the snow out of his hair and stomped his shoes out before flashing a smile at Cathy and weaving his way through the tables towards them.

He was almost offensively pretty, his cheeks, nose and lips rosy from the cold, unwinding a scarf from around his neck, giving Eddie a glance at a spattering of moles across his skin. He ran a hand through his hair again, trying to get out the last of the snow.

He looked so familiar.

It had been a long ten or so years since they'd seen each other, but it couldn’t be.

Could it?

“Hi, sorry I’m late, I-”

“Harrington?”

Steve Harrington stopped short, standing in front of him, staring at him with cheeks getting slightly redder.

“Eddie.” He said, a little breathlessly, running his hand through his hair again, but it seemed to be more from nerves this time. “Hi.”

Oh, so they were on first name terms? Okay, he could deal with that.

Except that maybe he couldn’t deal with it, because his childhood Big Gay Crush was standing in front of him, smiling at him and looking like he’d just been beamed out of the campest Christmas movie in existence, the warm glow of the Christmas lights and the fire dancing across his skin, bundled up in a dark red sweater and his hair was somehow still perfect.

But he was saved from having to respond as the group started shuffling around to greet him, Robin reaching out to pull him into a tight hug, like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

Eddie moved back, sitting down at a stool at the edge of the tables, next to Chrissy and across from Robin and Steve who were whispering fiercely to each other, Robin explaining the whiskey on the table wasn’t to be touched and sending what they must have thought were subtle nods in his direction and well, he wasn’t sure what else he expected from tonight.

Apparently he was a local spectacle now.

But still, his boys were here, the Hellfire kids were here, Chrissy was here, he had plenty of people available to him to distract himself from Steve sitting directly across from him.

He had only managed to get halfway through the drink Cathy had brought him before he was approached again, this time by an older man who he recognised as one of the guys on Wayne’s shift.

He placed a fresh drink down in front of Eddie and told him Wayne was a good man, that the world was a little dimmer for his passing and he was a hell of a baseball player back in the day, could throw a ball at speed like no one he had ever seen since.

Eddie smiled and listened as the guy spoke, the clear affection and joy he had for his uncle warming his heart.

It was barely ten minutes after that guy had gone back to his own group that Eddie was approached again, another drink placed down in front of him and more sympathies and stories of Wayne’s past gifted to him from people who had known him.

It went on like that throughout the whole night, a steadily revolving door of people coming to talk to him about his uncle.

Stories of the stupid and dangerous shit they had gotten up to in their childhoods, stories of cow tipping (which Eddie had heard from Wayne’s own mouth was a bold faced lie but a fun one to tell), tractor racing (which he had not heard about) and one time Wayne had been chased out of Farmer Dan’s barn by the man himself wielding a shotgun, convinced he’d been corrupting his daughter.

Stories of nights playing poker, learning to never ever trust his poker face, his abysmal luck when it came to his fantasy football teams and how much he loved to get a bit of drink in him and sing at the top of his lungs, which Cathy always humoured, often joining in.

Almost as if she had been summoned, Cathy appeared at his other side.

“Will we have a little sing-song for your uncle, love?”

Eddie looked up at her and thought about it. To hear the accented and cracking old voices singing along to the songs that just seemed to live in pubs like these would probably hurt, but it would be like lancing a wound.

It would sting but it would be healing.

“Yeah.” He said. “I don’t see why not.”

“Would you do us the honours, then?”

Eddie felt his eyes go wide. He was never really much of a singer. “Oh. No,” he blushed, shaking his head, “I don’t think so, I’ll leave that up to the professionals.” He gestured around to the group of older men he had managed to collect as the night wore on. “If it’s one thing Wayne didn’t hand down to me, it was his singing voice.”

Cathy waved him off. “Oh nonsense, you have a lovely voice.”

He really didn’t.

“I really don’t.”

“We’ll be singing along with you anyway-”

“No, I’d rather not-”

“I could do it for you.”

Eddie turned to face Steve who was looking the least nervous that he had for the entire night, his gaze steady and confident, clearly comfortable in his singing ability. Robin was staring hard at the side of his head, like she was trying to beam thoughts directly into his brain. Eddie’s heart was thumping in his chest and he could feel his cheeks start to heat up, something he was pretty sure had little to do with the drink.

“You sing, Steve?”

Robin’s mouth ticked up at Eddie’s question though she tried to hide it, like she was harbouring a little secret.

“I’ve been known to.” Steve’s own lips curled up, shooting that tiny little smile Eddie’s way and-

Oh.

Oh shit.

Childhood Big Gay Crush, you’ve been upgraded to Current Big Gay Crush.

“Any requests?”

Eddie thought back.

There was only one song that came to mind to kick them off.

Wayne had always loved a certain type of song to sing in the pubs and when Metallica came out with a cover of one of them, a cover of the Thin Lizzy version? It was solidified.

It was their song, regardless of which version was being sung.

Now he just had to try to get through it without bursting into tears.

“Whiskey In The Jar.”

Steve smiled at him bright and blinding. “Thank god you didn’t say The Rattlin’ Bog.”

Eddie grinned back. “I couldn’t dump you in the deep-end like that, sweetheart.”

Cathay was practically bouncing with excitement and when Steve opened his mouth and started to sing, not a hint of bashfulness or embarrassment to be seen, it didn’t take long for Wayne’s friends to join in, singing and clapping along, stomping their feet and whooping.

Eddie just sat and listened. Just for that one song. He could feel it settle around his heart and clog up his throat but he could handle it. Steve’s voice was smooth and clear, like it all came to him with zero effort, like he was born to it, the bastard.

Eddie was able to keep it together through that song and while the applause surrounded him and Steve was starting to field suggestions for more songs, the rest of their table started to join in, the energy of the pub becoming electric.

As the night wore on and Eddie was handed drink after drink, he found himself drifting right into the group, until he was in the middle, Steve’s arm stretched over the back of the booth behind them, squished in together as they were. They didn’t strictly need to be as pressed up against each other as they were, but neither of them were moving and Eddie would take his comforts where he could, listening to the voice vibrating from the body next to him.

Eddie was able to hold it together until they decided they’d do one last song and he knew he wasn’t going to survive it dry eyed.

Of all the money that ever I had,

I spent it in good company.

Steve had barely gotten through the first verse before the tears started, just a slow and quiet trickle but noticed immediately regardless.

Steve’s hand dropped from where it was at the back of the booth to land around Eddie’s shoulders, giving him a little squeeze while Chrissy took his hand, resting her head on his shoulder.

Steve sang slow and unaccompanied, his voice ringing out clear and steady while Cathy and Wayne’s friends listened with heads hung low. He let the last notes fade out, keeping Eddie tucked in tight to his side as the applause rang out and everyone started making their moves to head home.

Even as Eddie had to go through the rigmarole of shaking hands and kissing cheeks, much drunker than he thought he was, Steve held onto him. He heard more than one of Wayne’s friends mutter “You take care of him, you hear?” or “Get him home safe” and each time Steve smiled and nodded, assuring them he would.

He didn’t know exactly when he had become Steve’s problem but he was too drunk to care, it was nice to be looked after for once.

Sunlight was spearing straight through his head. Someone hadn’t closed the blinds properly last night and now he was being assaulted by this world's version of Pelor in what had to be some kind of revenge for something terrible he must have done in a past life.

Dragging his eyes around the trailer, he was thankful that he was on the couch. He hadn’t slept in Wayne’s bed since moving back here. He didn’t think he would be able to for a while yet. At least not until he started moving some of his stuff out and who knew how long that might take.

It didn’t feel right, taking Wayne out of his own bedroom for the second time in his life.

But even so, he wondered which poor misfortune from the pub last night had been the one to deal with him and take him home, probably seeing the state things had been left in and the fact that he was clearly using the couch as a bed.

Maybe it had been Max. He kind of hoped it had been Max, he felt like she could probably relate the best, though Chrissy would have been kind about it too.

Eddie was able to drag himself up to sitting, still clad in his t-shirt and boxers, so at the very least, whoever had spilled him onto the couch last night didn’t get an accidental show.

There was something sticking in the back of his head that it could have been Steve who brought him home but that would be the most embarrassing eventuality of all so he just straight up ignored it, making his coffee as strong as humanly possible and dragging himself and the coffee into the shower.

Today was gonna be… today was gonna be an inside day. He didn’t think he could stomach the outside world, all the brightness and snow and Christmas lights and festive cheer in mourning and hungover.

His trailer was the only one left in the park undecorated. He couldn’t…

He just couldn’t.

Not right now, anyway.

Maybe next year.

He and Wayne had always done it together. Even when Eddie had moved away from home, he’d make the drive back down at the start of December every year to help, staying the night and then going back to Jack for a couple of weeks then coming back again for the week of Christmas.

He-

Oh.

He was going to be completely alone this year.

He didn’t just not have Wayne.

He didn’t have Jack either.

And no doubt, everyone who was back in town was back in town for their own reasons, to see their own friends and family, not to bring in a stray mourner who would undoubtedly bring the mood down.

Well, that was fucking depressing.

But it was fine.

He’d make himself a mountain of waffles and eat nothing but those all day and watch stupid horror movies and smoke himself into oblivion to avoid the destructive hangover and it would be fine.

It would hardly be a Christmas but it would be fine.

A knock at the door made him blink and woke him up from his daily routine of staring off into space. He had finally found himself feeling somewhat human, at least physically. Dressed and dried and on his second round of coffee and first round of painkillers, standing in the doorway to Wayne’s bedroom again when the knock came.

He glanced between the front door and the bedroom, wondering if it was even worth it to see what salesperson or caroler was on the other end. They didn’t deserve his moody ambivalence, but whoever it was knocked again and maybe just the sight of him would be enough to scare them away.

He swung the door open and nearly closed it immediately when Steve looked up at him with a shy smile.

He didn’t know if he could handle this right now.

“Hi.” Steve said, his cheeks pink either from the cold or from embarrassment, Eddie wasn’t sure which.

He was like… fifty percent sure that Steve might be, maybe, giving him some signals but also he got very, very drunk last night and he was pretty sure he remembered crying on someone’s shoulder after he got home too so, he was probably not the best judge of these things.

“Hi.” Eddie clutched his coffee cup tighter in his hand. “I’d invite you in, but I would rather you not see how I’m living right now.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I’ve already- nevermind.” He shook his head. “I can’t stay long anyway, I just wanted to check if you were okay after last night.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows and blew a breath out through his lips. “I’m… I’m. Well. I’m… coping, I suppose.”

Steve nodded, eyes cast down to glance around the porch. There was a flake of snow clinging to one of his eyelashes, Eddie didn’t know how it got there. It hadn’t been snowing that morning, not from what he’d seen anyway, cooped up inside. Steve looked up towards the roof of the trailer and then around the edges, no doubt taking in its depressing and undecorated exterior.

“Listen, I-”

Steve hesitated, his cheeks burning a little brighter, hands shoved in his pockets and arms curled in tight towards himself. Eddie felt a little bad about leaving him out here in the cold, not even inviting him in regardless of how it was inside, it felt unnecessarily mean but he didn’t know if he could handle having Steve in his space right now. He felt like he was at either a knife’s edge or unbearably dull this morning.

“I wanted to offer you- or, I don’t know. If you didn’t have any plans, that- well, I’m hosting everyone at my place on Christmas day and you would be more than welcome if you wanted to come. Y’know… if you weren’t… if you didn’t-”

“If I’m gonna be alone?”

Steve turned his big sad eyes on him, mouth gone slack from shock.

“No! No, that’s not what I meant. I never meant to suggest-”

Eddie shrugged, taking a sip from his mug.

“It’s an unfortunate fact, right now, Stevie. I am alone. It’s depressing but it’s the truth.”

“Well.” Steve took a big breath in. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Eddie hummed, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Who’s everyone? I don’t know if I would be able to handle your parents. No offence.”

Steve scoffed. “None taken. They haven’t set foot in that house in nearly ten years. It’s not theirs anymore, it’s mine.”

“Oh. They dead too?”

To Steve’s credit, he didn’t flinch at the words that were maybe a little harsher than they needed to be, he met Eddie’s eye, determined and unwavering.

“No, they’re not. They left Hawkins, left me the house, called it my inheritance and drove off. They’re in New York now. We exchange Christmas cards but that’s about it.”

Eddie was a little bewildered.

“You don’t talk to them at all?”

Steve shrugged. “We know who we are to each other.”

So Steve still had parents out there in the world and they just… didn’t talk to each other? And from the sounds of it, all three of them seemed fine with that? Now that sounded depressing.

“Steve, I’m… I’m sorry.”

Steve tilted his head, their eyes never once wavering. “It’s a different kind of mourning, I suppose.” He shuffled a little bit in the cold and fuck, Eddie really should have invited him inside, but it looked like he was getting ready to leave anyway. “So, on the day it’ll be me, Rob and Chris. The kids will come over later on in the evening. And I think Dustin has invited those three guys from your band too, so they might show up. Like I said, no pressure, you do whatever it is you’re comfortable with but I think they’d all like to see you, I’d-”

Steve swallowed, his face getting pinker.

“I’d like to see you.”

Eddie could feel a grin tugging at his lips, something giddy and hopeful blooming in his belly despite everything. “Oh, would you now?”

Steve flashed him a charming grin, his shoulders relaxing almost imperceptibly while he dragged his eyes down towards Eddie’s lips and then back up. “I would.”

“Well then, I’ll have to see what I can do.”

Despite the things he said to Steve, he wasn’t sure he was going to turn up until he did.

He’d gotten into his car Christmas morning with a thermos of hot chocolate and an insulated blanket and visited Wayne.

He’d placed Wayne’s old fashioned chipped and battered mug that he only ever drank hot chocolate out of at Christmas time, a painted wreath and ‘Merry Christmas’ decorating the front, down next to the wooden cross dug into the head of his grave.

The headstone wouldn’t be finished for another few weeks.

He spread the blanket down over the snow, wishing he’d thought to bring a cushion but powering through regardless.

He poured out some hot chocolate for himself and Wayne, sat back, drank and just… talked.

He told Wayne about his breakup with Jack, about selling the apartment, about moving back into the trailer, apologised for not checking in with him first before he did. He talked about everyone who came to the funeral and the night at the pub, the songs, the people he spoke to, the friends he found there.

Steve.

He might have spent a little longer talking about Steve. It was nothing Wayne hadn’t heard before, though. Eddie had talked about him a lot during school.

He rambled and tripped over his words and laughed and cried.

He was alone in the graveyard. No one else was visiting at this cold hour of the morning, they would all probably stop by after mass or after dinner but Eddie hated the idea of not seeing him first thing.

Going back home after that was hard.

His hands were stiff and creaking, his ass was so numb from the cold it had come back around to hurting again and he didn’t know if it would ever thaw, but sitting in his van outside the trailer, looking at it cold and empty and undecorated he knew he couldn’t spend the whole damn day here.

He wasn’t sure what time he was supposed to show up to Steve’s but it seemed like an informal enough invite so he tried to distract himself as best as he could before he could make his appearance at an appropriate time.

He called it tidying but it was really just moving things around from corner to corner, trying to find spaces for his stuff to live, but at the very least the trailer no longer looked like Eddie had just dumped his entire life out onto the living room floor.

Which… he had but it didn’t really look like it anymore.

By the time the evening started to close in around him, he figured now was as good a time as any to go, it was certainly a better idea than sitting around with his blank word document, bouncing his knee or chewing on his fingers or staring off into space.

He did try to at least pull himself together to look presentable enough. Or as presentable his ripped jeans would allow him to be.

At the last second he reached for one of Wayne’s flannels, a buffalo check in red and black that felt Christmassy enough, slipping it on over his t-shirt and under his jacket.

Steve’s house was completely decked out. Even from the outside Eddie could tell he’d gone all out, every edge of the roof was crawling with twinkling warm white lights, there were LED candle arches lighting up every window and a large wreath surrounding the door knocker. Through the windows he could see that the inside was much the same.

Steve’s whole face lit up into a bright smile when he opened the door to Eddie standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“You came.” He breathed.

“I did.” Eddie smiled back. “I hope you don’t mind, I'm a little empty handed. By the time I remembered it was polite to bring something to these things it was already too late and I’ve been a little scatter-brained recently-”

“No, no. That’s fine, Eds.” Steve waved him in and Eddie tried not to let his stomach completely fly away with him at the nickname. “Come in. I’m just happy you're here, empty handed or not.”

Just like Steve had that night at the pub in his red sweater and perfectly tousled hair, the entire house looked like it had been transported out of a Christmas movie. The space was warmly lit by various lights strung around the bannister, fresh green garlands swagged over doorways and the fireplace, which was roaring and warm.

Red and green stockings were lined up over the mantle, almost too many to fit, and a large regal Christmas tree was decked out to the nines with a mishmash of different coloured decorations.

The tree and the garlands gave the whole place an inviting smell, complemented by the scent of cooking and baking that was wafting in from the kitchen.

Steve helped him slip his jacket off his shoulders, hanging it up over the coat rack.

“Can I get you something to drink? You’re just in time, dinner should be coming out of the oven any second now.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Steve shot him a blinding smile, turning and disappearing through an entryway while Eddie wandered to stand in front of the fire.

He stared down at it, letting the warmth spread over him wondering if he really should be feeling… more? Less?

He still felt sad that Wayne was gone and excited at the idea that something might be brewing with Steve, but was that right? Was that normal? Should there be other things? He didn’t know.

He was distracted from those thoughts by the sound of bickering coming from the kitchen.

“Rob, let me just-”

“No, get out!”

Steve stumbled through the doorway with a little pout on his face, managing to keep the two wine glasses in his hands from spilling over.

“Did you just get kicked out of your own kitchen?”

“Yeah.” He grumbled, handing one of the glasses to Eddie and Eddie did not blush when their fingers light grazed one another. He was an adult fucking man who’d done many filthy, dirty things in his life. He did not blush at a finger graze. “She won’t let me do anything else. Said I’ve cooked enough already which, I don’t know how that could possibly be true considering it isn’t even finished yet but-”

Steve cut himself off with a bite to his lip.

“Sorry, that’s- nevermind. I’m rambling.”

“It’s okay, Stevie. I don’t mind.”

Steve smiled, a little more to himself than to Eddie and said softly, “I like it when you call me that.”

Eddie had to drag his eyes away, the sweetness of Steve’s grin was too much to handle right now.

“I like it when you call me Eds.”

They were just standing there smiling at each other and slowly rocking on their feet, like they wanted to inch forwards but neither was brave enough to take the leap.

“Are you in the food industry? Is that why Robin gave you the boot?”

“No.” Steve shook his head. “I think I probably would have liked it, but no. I sing. Singer-songwriter, really but- I mean- I’m in music.”

“Really?” Eddie’s mouth was maybe hanging open a little wider than it needed to be, but Steve didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t torn his eyes away. “I mean you have the voice for it, but shit, that’s not an easy industry to be in.”

Steve shrugged. “It could be worse. I work independently so I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck about it.”

“Anything I would have heard?”

“I dunno.” Steve blushed, hiding behind his wine glass as he took a sip. “Don’t really think it’s your type of music.”

“I’ll give anything a try once.”

Steve grinned a little and Eddie could tell there was a joke hidden in there somewhere that Steve graciously didn’t voice aloud. “It’s a mix of everything I suppose. But if you were to put a genre on it I’d call it indie rock.”

“I’m just letting you know right now, little eighteen year old Eddie is green with jealousy. I’ll have to look you up.”

“Please don’t.” Steve grimaced, his whole face bright red. “I don’t think I would be able to live with the embarrassment. And what about you, anyway? How’s the new book going?”

“Uh,” Eddie cast around for an answer before gulping back a mouthful of wine. “It’s going… it’s going. I’ve been kinda stuck at a wall for a few months now, but hopefully something will come to me soon.” He frowned to himself before looking back up at Steve. “How did you hear I was writing a new book? I wouldn’t have even thought you’d remember who I was, like in general.”

“How could I not remember you? You’re hard to forget.”

It was Eddie’s turn to hide behind his wine glass now. He wasn’t exactly sure how true that was, considering everything about his past relationship.

“But… uh. As for how I knew,” Steve rubbed that back of his neck, “I’ve read them. Your books, I mean.”

Eddie’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“You have? And you read them knowing it was me who wrote them?” He laughed to himself. “Didn’t think you’d be into queer vampire action romance.”

“You have no idea what I’m into Eds.” Steve answered, his eyes low and lidded, a smirk pulling up at the side of his mouth.

Eddie was saved from making a further fool of himself when Robin and Chrissy appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Feast’s served!”

The girls each said their hello’s, an arm squeeze from Robin and a hug and a kiss on the cheek from Chrissy before he was practically pushed down into his seat.

The dining table was large enough to have everything on the table, turkey, ham and all the trimmings, bowls with spoons sticking out of them and plates with tongs, even enough space left over for candles and decor in the middle of it all.

As bowls were passed around and both Steve and Robin made the first move on the food, tipping servings out to Eddie and Chrissy before themselves, Eddie found himself getting lost in conversation from all three directions.

He gossiped with Chrissy while Steve and Robin bickered over the best cut of the turkey.

Throughout the dinner, Robin tried to sneakily get rid of her sprouts by dropping them one by one onto Steve’s plate when he wasn’t looking, but he noticed every time, savouring them with a satisfaction that could only come from someone who actually liked them.

He got into his own good natured argument with Robin about marching band while Steve and Chrissy talked sports.

And he flirted.

Brazenly.

Probably far more brazenly than he should have but Steve always rose to meet the challenge with a curl of his lip and a glint in his eye.

By the time dessert was making the rounds he was pretty sure he could have fallen asleep sitting at the dining table, but finding room for the cakes and pies and trifles, as always.

Steve had stopped drinking after that first glass and while Eddie didn’t exactly want to get completely plastered, he still allowed himself to get to a polite level of tipsy.

The girls had no such worries, already rosy cheeked and a little sloppy by the time the kids and Eddie’s band arrived.

The rest of the night was full of Christmas music, the most ridiculous games of charades which Eddie won every time, pulling on his old DM skills and after a passionate argument on what the worst Christmas movie was, the winning candidate was turned on, everyone laughing and jeering along with it like it was a Rocky Horror showing, Eddie pressed into Steve’s side on the couch.

It was during a particularly loud moment, all of them booing the screen when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.

Pulling it out he saw the screen light up with a name he hadn’t really thought of for most of the night.

Jack.

He stared down at the name for longer than he really needed to before sighing to himself.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Steve glanced between the phone and his face before settling into a gentle smile.

“Okay.” He gave his shoulder a small squeeze and Eddie got up, bringing the phone to his ear and stepping out of the room.

“Hello?”

There was a momentary pause on the other line before a quiet voice spoke. “Hi, Eddie.”

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to say back to him. Why are you calling? Why are you suddenly interested? Has the guilt finally gotten to you? Is it because it’s Christmas and you thought I’d be alone?

In the end he didn’t have to say anything.

“I’m just- I guess I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” Jack sounded resigned and a little sad. If they had still been together, Eddie would have been trying to drag him out to the Christmas market or trivia nights or Christmas parties for the last few weeks and they would have been heading out in a day or two to spend the rest of the holidays with Jack’s family in Ohio. Jack had only come back with him for a Christmas with Wayne once before.

But it sounded like Jack was already with his family. Eddie could hear his mothers Michael Bublé Christmas album playing softly in another room.

“I’m doing…” Eddie sighed, leaning back against the wall. “I’m doing okay.”

A loud chorus of laughter burst through the sitting room, shouting and jeering following quickly behind.

“You’re out somewhere?”

Eddie glanced back through the door, watching everyone gathered either talking to each other, pointing in indignation at the tv, tucking into another serving of dessert or knocking back the last of their drink, all backlit by the Christmas lights and the fire.

“I’m with friends.”

“Good.” He could hear Jack nodding, wondering how he was handling his mothers questions or his fathers awkwardness that Eddie usually deflected for him. “That’s good. I’m glad you- I’m glad you’re not alone.”

No thanks to you, Eddie wanted to snap but kept it down. He didn’t have the energy for an argument right now. Didn’t want one. It was Christmas and he wanted to keep the comfortable, fuzzy feeling around for as long as he could.

Steve lifted his eyes, looking right at him and grinning, something soft, something warm and easy, just for him.

Eddie smiled back. “Yeah, me too.”

Steve drove him home that night. It was nearly two in the morning by the time he was bundled up in the car with a lap full of tupperware and his heart feeling lighter than it had for weeks now.

He’d been offered a room to stay in, but had refused. He didn’t want to impose any more than he already had and if he was honest with himself, he wanted to be at home.

Plus he hadn’t brought anything for an overnight.

When they pulled up, Eddie tried to shuffle his way out of the car without dropping anything but eventually had to huff and hand some of the containers over when Steve offered to help him carry them all.

They were inside before Eddie remembered his previous refusal to let Steve in through the door, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Steve gave a cursory glance around but his eyes always seemed to be drawn back to Eddie, placing the containers down on the kitchen counter and assuring him he’d be back in the morning to drive Eddie back to his car.

“I hope you had a good time.” Steve looked at him, all warm and gooey and too good to be true.

“I had a great time, I think I needed it.” Eddie fidgeted with his rings, nervous all of a sudden. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Of course. It was great to see you, I’m glad you came.”

They stood, staring at each other and Eddie had the urge to hide his face behind his hair, but he resisted.

Steve reached out, brushing a curl behind his ear and then leant in, placing a sweet and chaste kiss against his cheek and Eddie was left completely dazed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Eddie breathed, nodding. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

He watched Steve step out onto the porch and slide into his car, driving away with a little waggle of his fingers. Eddie unconsciously brought his hand up to brush over his cheek where he could still feel the tingle of Steve’s lips against his skin.

When the headlights of Steve’s car turned the corner, Eddie closed the door, staring at it in silence for a few moments before a hysterical little giggle burst out of his throat.

His whole body was wracked through with momentary excitement, forcing him to spin in a silly little circle. He stifled another giggle, sighing it out before his eyes landed on the couch.

He looked back up at a photo from a few years ago, of him and Wayne on a road trip that they had taken, sitting on a wooden fence surrounding a national park. Wayne always said it was just “One step at a time, boy. You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t take that first step.”

“Yeah, I hear you, Wayne.” Eddie responded out into the empty trailer. “First step.”

He looked up towards the bedroom.

He felt like, maybe tonight, maybe he could be comfortable with that first step.

Pulling a fresh set of bedsheets out of storage and turning back to the bed with them bundled up in his arms, he figured he’d just have to take it one step at a time.

I made a short playlist to go along with this fic containing the songs sung and the different versions mentioned along with one or two others I think they may have sung and my own favourites.

Some of you may have read I lost a family member a couple of weeks ago and I suppose this is my way of working through my feelings about it. It hit a little harder than I had intended but was healing to write nonetheless.

AO3

As always, my biggest thanks and much love to @hbyrde36 for the beta work with this and to the Stranger Things Writers Guild Discord for their motivation!

Christmas lights divider by @silkholland

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #penny00dreadful #eddie x steve #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #tw character death #tw funeral #tw grief #tw mourning #christmas fic

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