#also i cant write eddie pov without him having a meltdown

[hereforanepilogue]

everything that i say and do (in your eyes is always wrong)

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After Vecna, Eddie tried to make himself…not different, but more palatable. It wasn’t even hard - the doctors had shaved his head while he was out, and all his clothes had sunk into the Upside Down with the trailer.

He wasn’t normal - he never would be - but if he tried to quiet down? Wore plainer clothes, and played his music quieter in the van, and didn’t go back to playing with the band (as if their parents would have let him up the driveway, as if he had a guitar to play)? It wasn’t hard. 

It made it easier on Wayne, on the kids. On Steve.

And wasn’t that a surprise? He hadn’t expected to be left in the dirt, after Vecna, if he survived. He just expected the slow withdrawal, as the kids aged out of hanging out with a high school dropout, and as the older group went off to college. But they clung, and people weren’t kind to them, and Eddie being a little less made that a little easier.

Then Steve kissed him, and told him he wanted more, and that one day they would get out of there together. If only Eddie could hold out a little while longer. He watched Robin and Wheeler the Elder go off to college, and the little sheepies got busy with their own campaigns in the secret, under-the-table Hellfire, but Eddie had Wayne and Steve.

Eddie almost forgot why he started acting like he did in the first place.

“You know,” Wayne told him one day - they were even more like ships in the night now, with Wayne still working nights from the new trailer and Eddie shacked up with Steve half the time - “I don’t know what happened in March, but you ain’t been this quiet since you were about this high.” He’d held his hand up in front of his ribs.

Eddie had been twelve when he moved in with Wayne, and he guessed he must look closer to that kid now than he had in years. So he started trying to fix it. He hunted in earnest for a new leather jacket, and a new denim jacket so he could cannibalize his bloodstained old vest, and band shirts to replace his old ones. It was thrilling, honestly, after he stopped mourning for what he’d lost. 

Still, the transformation was a slow one. He still got glares when he showed his face around town, and even when he was with Steve [his knight, his ever-present guardian] they couldn’t be affectionate. And he understood that, obviously. He was always being watched, they had to be extra careful, and he knows it would be worse for Steve, who’s always been golden. A freak can get away with a certain level of freakiness, even when he’s playing at normal.

It comes to a head almost a year after the boathouse.

~~~

“When are we getting out of here?” Eddie moans, draped over the couch. His hair is long enough to tickle the base of his neck annoyingly. Steve is in the other room, cooking - he never liked to use the trailer if they could avoid it. He didn’t want to get in Wayne’s space. 

“Soon, man. When the kids graduate, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I mean -”

“I just. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, you know?” Steve walks into the living room, glancing at the hook in the foyer where Eddie’s new and improved battle vest was hanging. Some of the patches still had blood stains on them.

“You could make it a little easier for them, I guess.”

“What?” Eddie is suddenly, painfully aware of the awkwardness of his pose, his arms twisted to press his hands into the crevice at the back of the couch, feet stuck between the cushions, head hanging over the edge. But he’s frozen.

“I just -” Steve sighs and scrubs his hand down his face, then rests it on his hip. He leans into the doorframe, in a move that Eddie knows is one of his worst plays at being casual. “You’re - you know I - you’re getting weird again, and people are still freaked out by everything that happened.”

“I’m getting weird again?”

“That came out wrong, you know -”

“I’ve always been weird, Steve, what are you talking about?”

“I mean you’re showing it now! I know you want to dress how you want to dress, but it just - maybe it’s not time yet.”

“Should I cut my hair again too?” Eddie scrambles to sit up, and ends up having to slither off of the couch on his belly. He just stands up instead.

“I mean, it wouldn’t hurt, you could grow it out later?” Steve protests. Something is starting to burn in the kitchen, but neither of them move.

“It’s not -” Eddie takes a breath. This is why he never tried hard to talk to people who didn’t come to him, he thinks. He’s never had to explain this before. “I’m not just dressing like this because I like it. I mean I am, but it’s not…it’s not just that.”

“What do you mean, it’s not just because you like it? That doesn’t make any sense. And I’m not saying don’t dress like you want at - at my place, and at home and stuff. Just maybe not when you’re -”

“What, in public? Around the good, God-fearing public of Hawkins who were just out for my blood a year ago? I’m not like you, Steve, that doesn’t work for me.” 

And Eddie has never been good at thinking fast, when it comes to serious things. He’s snappy, sure, he’s never not had a comeback to a bully, or to his friends’ ribbing, but he could never figure out how he felt, and he’s no better at it now. He’s just empty. Faramir on the way to Osgiliath, knowingly doomed.

But he knows he isn’t that, either, because he’s never been destined to win. And Steve still hasn’t said anything. 

“Is that it? You - what - you’re just gonna bait them until they kill you?”

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Eddie says.

“We can’t leave yet, Eddie.”

“I can’t stay here,” he can feel his brain melting into a stuck record, and he doesn’t know what will happen if he tries to move but he has to try, right? “I want to leave, I don’t want to be here.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Yes.” He feels possessed. “I will say no more yet.”

And he leaves, and Steve doesn’t stop him. He has the forethought to grab his jacket, at least, and when he gets to his car it occurs to him that he left a stack of tapes in Steve’s room last night, but Steve didn’t follow him and he can’t go back, so he pushes them out of his mind and drives away.

One of them was his new copy of The Last in Line and he thinks about having to replace his favorite album twice in one year, and then he’s home and he doesn’t know how he got there.

“Wayne?” he says as he walks into the trailer. Whines, really, his voice has gone all weak, but Wayne hears it (he always does) and sits up on the couch. It’s early for him to be up, earlier than they would usually eat their breakfast/dinner, but Eddie had planned to bring leftover’s from Steve’s.

“What’s wrong, kid?”

“I - remember when you talked to Ray about transfers?”

“C’mere,” Wayne says, and Eddie lets himself be pulled into Wayne’s space like a magnet. He sits next to him, close enough to feel his body heat and get overwhelmed by the scent of oil and metal that follows him home from the plant. Wayne rests his hand between Eddie’s shoulder blades, and he’s twelve again.

“It’d be nice not to have to wash paint off the walls every weekend, right?” Eddie says. He can feel the pause where he might have laughed, if he could’ve landed the tone he wanted.

“What happened?” Wayne says. It’s not the “let’s go, grab your bag” that Eddie is secretly barely-not-hoping for, but Wayne has always known him better than anyone.

“I just can’t do this anymore,” Eddie says. Wayne opens his mouth, so Eddie reassures him. “Nothing happened. I mean, something - I just can’t keep acting like this. I’m not. I tried, I really did, but I can’t make it work.”

“Ah, kid,” Wayne says. It’s the voice Wayne had used when Eddie got sent home in the fourth grade for crouching on a desk and barking at a kid who made fun of him, when Eddie had gone to Wayne’s trailer instead of his parents’. He’d used it when Eddie showed up with his hair buzzed off the first time when he was seven, and he’d used it after the cop that dropped Eddie off after his dad’s last arrest had left, and he’d used it both times Eddie told him he’d flunked.

Eddie leans into it, lets his forehead drop on Wayne’s shoulder.

“I’ll - I’m not just running, okay? I just thought I could hold out, and I can’t. And I don’t think he’s ever gonna leave, you know?”

“S - Harrinton?” Eddie’s mouth twists at the correction, and Wayne taps on his back - once, one finger - when he tenses up. Eddie leans towards him, just a hair, then leans back. 

“Yeah.”

“Did he say that?”

“I mean, I don’t really remember. He - he told me I’m weird again and that I should tone it down.” Wayne rubs his hand up and down Eddie’s back once, then stills again.

“Well, that’s bullshit there, kiddo. I’ve never met a person alive that wasn’t a bit weird, and anyone who says they ain’t is kidding themselves. How’s that song you like go again?”

“‘You’re no dif-’ It’s not the same, though.”

“Look, Ed.” Wayne sighs. “You were never good at hiding how you were different, and that ain’t a bad thing, but it means you’ve gotta find people who’ll stick to you anyway.”

“I know. It’s not his fault, though. That I’m hard to stick to.”

“You ain’t, though,” Wayne says. “You know this kind of thing ain’t easy, even if it’s just your time isn’t matched up to his.”

“I just don’t think he’s ever gonna leave, and I can’t - I can’t stay here. I can’t be like this anymore.”

“So do what you’ve gotta do, and tell them what it is and why. Give them a path to follow you down, if they’re ever ready.”

Eddie takes a shaky breath - he doesn’t know when it got so hard to breathe, but it’s starting to get better. 

“Okay. I. I’ll call tomorrow?” He looks at Wayne’s hand, curled loosely over his uncle’s knee. It’s as close to Wayne’s face as he can get his eyes to go.

“Sounds good, Ed. I’ll start looking into a transfer - nothing permanent, if you change your mind, but I know you’re not like to bring it up if you’re not serious, so just get your end of things worked out and I’ll get mine.” 

“Thank you. I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I’m not easier.” Wayne is quiet for a moment.

“Don’t be sorry, kid. You being miserable isn’t easier.” He taps between Eddie’s shoulders again, then gets up. “I think it’s breakfast time, anyway. Eggs good?” Eddie nods, but Wayne is already on his way to the kitchen.

~~~

The next day he calls around - the guys in the band first, always. Then Steve, before he talks to Robin or Nancy or the kids. The conversations are all short, but he knows it’ll be a couple weeks before Ray can get Wayne set up at his cousin’s plant out of state, so there’s time.

“You know I l- care about you, Eds. Eddie.”

“I know. I don’t wanna not be with you, I just can’t keep living like this. And I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to leave.”

“I’m just not ready yet. When the kids graduate, I’ll think about it.”

“That’s the problem, Stevie.” Eddie feels - not numb, but distant. Like someone turned a key and his thoughts are flowing in order and he has the words for them, and he has to say them even when it feels like the worst thing he’s ever said. “You’re not even thinking about an after, and all I have is an after. The only thing I have waiting for me in Hawkins is hiding everything about myself until I suffocate.”

“I’m in Hawkins. And the kids,” Steve says. He would sound controlled to anyone else, but as always, Eddie knows his tells, and he’s breaking.

“I love you, but I can’t hide forever. And you might be able to, if you want to, but you shouldn’t have to either. We’re not going far - Wayne’s getting a job in Pittsburgh, I think. Right on the way to Robin’s, if you wanna visit.” Steve gulps, and Eddie gets the abrupt sense that Steve thinks he’s lying. “I - I mean that, really. I’m not gonna promise I’ll wait for you, not forever, but I’m not exactly gonna get over you, you know?”

“You love me?”

“I do, yeah,” Eddie says.

“But you’re leaving.”

“I’m gonna die here, Steve, even if I don’t get burned at the stake. It’s not - I’m not me, anymore, and I can’t keep pretending, and it’s not just how I dress or whatever. I know I’m not normal, but it’s not a choice any more than being a queer is, so I’ll get you my new number, and when - if - you’re ready, I’ll pick up.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

~~~

Two weeks later, the last Munsons in Hawkins pack up and leave.

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