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hbyrde36 · 1 month ago

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Runner

Steddie | Mature | WC: 3004 | Angst w/ a happy ending | AO3

“When I got to the shore I tried calling you guys but, uh,” Eddie paused where he crouched under the protective canopy of Skull Rock, taking a long greedy gulp from the canteen Dustin had tossed him as he stared up at their group. Even now he seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid Steve’s gaze as much as possible, a detail Steve couldn’t help but notice.

“My walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now apparently…” Eddie went on, wiping at the water dripping off his chin with the sleeve of his leather jacket, his mouth twisting into a wide, wry smile. “I ran.”

Despite the words being spat with anger and self-deprecating venom, Eddie’s dimples were on full display, a sight Steve hadn’t had directed at him in months. Seeing it now, like this, only made his heart ache.

Eddie wasn’t a runner, was the thing.

Steve knew that. Anyone with eyes knew that. Eddie would gleefully stare down a guy twice his size, go toe to toe with the meanest assholes Hawkins High had to offer without hesitation to keep his people safe. And sure, sometimes Eddie got his ass beat, but he hadn’t cultivated that freak reputation for nothing. These days, more often than not, bullies and their minions stood down when Eddie’s hackles rose.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” Nancy asked, business first as usual. As if she couldn't see the poor guy was on the verge of losing it, or probably she just didn’t care. It was all about the task at hand.

“Yeah, no, I… I know exactly what time it was.” Still wearing that same unnerving smile, Eddie began to unbuckle the watch on his wrist, tossing it at her. “My walkie wasn’t the only thing that got soaked.”

Nancy peered at the watch’s face, reading it off. “9:27.”

“Same time our flashlight went kablooey,” Robin said.

“Which means what exactly?” Steve asked, a hint of an attitude he couldn’t quite shut down before it came out of his mouth. He knew they were pressed for time to figure all this shit out, they were always under the gun when the Upside Down was involved, but he couldn’t help being annoyed about it. Couldn’t the world just stop for five fucking minutes to give them a chance to breathe a regroup? To give Eddie some time to process this mess he’d accidentally fallen into?

As Nancy and Robin continued to brainstorm, and Dustin paced around talking to himself and doing god-knew-what, Eddie took the opportunity to slink away. Either not realizing Steve still had his eye on him, or not thinking he’d follow, Eddie rose, stalking off under the alcove of the giant rock formation and out the other side.

With a pit in his gut Steve did move to follow, the idea of letting Eddie out of his sight now that they’d found him again filling him with panic. Of course, that was also the moment Dustin decided to pay attention to something except that stupid compass of his again, and quickly bounded to Steve’s side.

“I got it, Henderson,” Steve said, dropping a hand on Dustin’s shoulder to stop him in his tracks. “You stay here and put that brain to use or something.”

Dustin gave him a confused glare, and rightly so, Steve supposed. As far as he and everyone else was concerned he’d barely known Eddie before now, beyond the fact that they’d walked the same school halls for four years. Not even Robin had any idea that he and Eddie had a history.

A brief history that hadn’t ended well, because no, Eddie wasn’t a runner.

But it turned out that Steve… Steve was.

He found Eddie only a few yards away, off the trail and deep in the trees like he’d been searching for shadows to hide in, back turned, head bowed, and an almost imperceptible shake to his shoulders.

“Eddie?” Steve called out, softly.

Eddie stiffened at the sound of Steve’s voice, back straightening as he replied. “Leave me alone, man.” He sounded so small, exhausted, and totally unlike himself.

Steve wished he could say something to comfort him, tell him they’d figure this out, that it would be alright. But it would be a hopeful lie at best, and besides, he was probably the last person Eddie would want to take comfort from anyway.

“Come on, Ed—”

“Fuck off, Harrington,” Eddie hissed as he turned around, rubbing roughly at his face.

“I can’t,” was all Steve could say at first. He hadn’t thought through what it would be like seeing Eddie on his own, with no buffer from the group and nothing to distract him from getting lost in the draw of his presence and those dark fathomless eyes.

Eddie sneered, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“I-I mean… I-I just don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone right now,” Steve stuttered out. “For any of us to be alone.”

Eddie scoffed. “Like you care.”

Steve took an involuntary step closer, his hands itching to reach out and brush the hair back from Eddie's face, to feel the stubbled skin of Eddie’s cheek under his palm. It took all his strength to hold back.

“I guess I deserved that,” he said through a puff of air.

He deserved that and more.

It’d all started last summer. A few days after the battle at Starcourt when Steve was desperate for a little pain management, something more effective than the measly Tylenol his parents kept in the medicine cabinet. On a whim he’d ventured over to Forest Hills, recalling rumors that Hawkins High’s own resident drug dealer, Eddie Munson, might sell something stronger than skunk weed if you asked nicely and could pay.

Steve was only hoping for a few prescription painkillers; what he got instead was dragged bodily inside by a boy he’d never shared more than two words with, sat down on a comfortable if well-worn couch, and given a bag of frozen peas for his still sore and swollen eye.

After a wordless once-over of the rest of him, Eddie had ducked out of the room, returning with a tube of some sort of cream and a frown so deep it made his forehead wrinkle.

“For the rope burn,” Eddie’d said in explanation as he carefully rubbed the stuff into the raw skin of Steve’s wrists and a few friction burns on his legs.

“It’s, uh, it’s not what it looks like,” Steve had said, dumbly.

Eddie leveled him with a flat look. “So you’re not a sub?”

“Sub?” Steve asked, crinkling his brow.

“Submissive? You know, dom, sub?”

Steve still had no idea what Eddie was on about, but the other boy clearly wasn’t buying it.

Eddie shook his head, unimpressed. “You don’t have to play cute, Harrington, I won’t tell anyone you were up to some freaky shit. I mean… who would believe me anyway?”

Freaky shit…?

Oh.

Finally, it clicked.

Somehow Eddie had gotten the entirely wrong idea about the nature of his wounds, and not being able to tell him the actual truth, he really had no choice but to let Eddie keep on thinking he’d been dabbling in bondage with an overeager date who apparently, ‘didn’t understand the concept of aftercare.’

“I’m not an expert in this shit or anything,” Eddie was quick to explain. “But I've read some magazines, and taking care of your sub after seems to be, like, the most important part of the whole thing.”

Steve swallowed hard, trying not to think about why Eddie had been perusing bondage mags, and what other reading material he kept stashed under his mattress.

“Good to know.”

He’d spent the rest of that night sinking into the comfort of Eddie’s couch and company, talking, getting to know Eddie, letting himself be known in turn, the whole while puffing on a shared joint until Steve was so high that he’d lost his filter completely. From one moment to the next he went from talking about his very public fight and subsequent break up with Nancy the year before, to telling Eddie how pretty he was, how he wondered what Eddie’s hair would feel like wound up in his fingers, and the next thing he knew he was straddling Eddies lap with his tongue down his throat, gaining an entirely new perspective and appreciation for dry humping.

The weeks that followed were somewhat of a blur.

In his daytime hours Steve refused to think about what he was doing, unable and unwilling to come to terms with what it all meant—about himself, about his sexuality, about what he wanted out of life. But in the night, he always found his way to Forest Hills.

What had started on the couch eventually made its way into Eddie’s bedroom. Steamy make out sessions led to frantic desperate handjobs, handjobs led to the most incredible head of Steve’s life—both given and taken—and when Eddie asked Steve to fuck him for the first time it was like the gates to heaven had flung themselves wide open. Before long Steve found he was living for those few hours where he gave himself over to it, to Eddie.

It was inevitable that the fragile bubble Steve had built would burst. He thought for a while it would be Robin, bugging him relentlessly for why he’d been too busy to hang out with her lately. In the end though, it was his own idiocy at fault. He should have known it was only a matter of time before he wanted more with Eddie than just casually hooking up.

And at the first sign of more, when the vision he had for the future began to shift and change, the children he’d dreamed of having one day vanishing before his eyes, he realized how different it would all be if he gave in to this. How difficult.

He panicked.

Shut down—shut it down.

With no word of goodbye or explanation he stopped showing up at the trailer, refused to answer Eddie’s calls, and did his best to pretend that Eddie had never existed once the calls stopped entirely.

It hadn’t worked.

Because Steve and his traitorous heart had fallen in love with a guy who’d probably only given him the time of day because it was convenient. Even if Eddie had at one point harbored the same feelings for him, by the time Steve came to any sort of terms with his sexuality, he was sure it was too late to go back and make it right.

More than once he thought about trying anyway. Showing up at the trailer unannounced like he had all those months ago to see if Eddie would let him in or slam the door in his face. But then the kids had started high school, and Dustin came bursting into Family Video so excited and fresh off his first day of freshman year to tell Steve all about his cool new friend Eddie who ran the D&D club.

Again, Steve had let himself be spooked, and regretted it every day since.

“Don’t worry about it, pretty boy,” the Eddie standing in front of him said, shaking Steve from his thoughts of the past.

“So we fucked. So what?” Eddie went on with a flippant shrug. “It was nothing. You had your fun experimenting and then went back to your real life. You weren’t the first, probably won’t be the last. Not that any of it matters now.”

“It matters to me,” Steve said, matter-of-factly, hoping Eddie would believe him but knowing with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t.

“Right,” Eddie snorted. “Since when?”

“Since always.”

“Oh please,” Eddie spat, eyes rolling in dramatic fashion. “Give me a fucking break with the good guy bullshit, I aint buying. You don’t have to lie to me just because we’re stuck in this nightmare together.”

“I’m not lying, Eddie, I–I…” Despite the months he’d spent imagining what he’d say to Eddie if he ever got the chance, Steve hesitated, choking on his words

“That’s what I thought.” Eddie gave a single nod, a barely audible sigh escaping his lips as he tried to push his way past Steve and back to the path.

“Could you just fucking stop for a minute!” Steve grabbed for Eddie before he could get completely out of reach, fingers circling his bony wrist and holding on for dear life. His mind was overwhelmed with the irrational fear that if he let Eddie walk away now, he’d never get another chance to fix this.

Eddie shot him a glare, but surprisingly didn’t try to pull his arm away.

“I know I don’t deserve it, but please let me explain,” Steve pleaded.

“I’m all ears, your highness.”

Steve's stomach turned sour at the reference to his old nickname. Eddie knew he hated it, that he hated so much of what and who he used to be, but he couldn’t exactly blame Eddie for wanting to hurt him too. And as much as he despised this tension between them, there was also a twisted part of him that hoped that if Eddie was this mad at him for disappearing from his life, maybe that meant he had cared for Steve too. Maybe it meant… he could care again.

“It wasn’t nothing,” Steve whispered, his thumb rubbing small circles into Eddie's skin where he was still holding on. “Not to me.”

“What?” Eddie breathed, staring down at the spot of contact.

“You said it was nothing. And I guess at first it was but…” Steve started and stopped, raking his free hand through his hair as he struggled to find the words. “When I showed up at your place that first night, all I was looking for was a little relief. I didn’t expect…” he trailed off, getting stuck again but he was determined to force this out now matter how painful it was to admit.

“I didn’t expect to fall for you.”

Eddie’s head snapped up at that, but his mouth remained closed, set into a tight line as he watched the bob of Steve's throat.

“I wasn’t ready to deal with it, any of it. The feelings I had for you, the fact that I was—am, whatever that makes me. I freaked out and I ran away and I’m so sorry. I should have talked to you about it, and instead I tried to bury my head in the sand. But I couldn't even do that right.”

Eddie was still dead silent, his gaze searching Steve’s face for a long beat before he finally spoke. “What are you saying?”

Before Steve could reply, Robin’s voice rang out from somewhere close behind them. “Steve? What are you guys doing out here?”

He resisted the urge to pull away, but looked back over his shoulder to see her standing near, eyes a little wide and confused.

“We, um, we gotta go. Little Einstein figured out how to find a gate and we think there’s one nearby,” She said, and quickly turned back the way she came.

Steve could have kissed her for not addressing what she’d surely seen, though he knew he’d have to deal with her and about a million questions later, which was fine. They were long overdue for this particular conversation anyway.

“Can we finish this later?” Steve asked, quietly when she was out of earshot, giving Eddie’s arm a gentle squeeze before finally letting go.

“Yeah,” Eddie replied, a little rasp to his voice, and looking almost as shell shocked as he had when they found him in the boathouse. “Yeah, okay.”

Steve wasn’t naive enough to think he’d fixed anything, not completely, but as they headed down the path to find others, walking side-by-side, it felt like they’d made a good start.

Steve should have seen it coming.

Wasn’t it the first rule of horror movies or something? Don’t promise someone you’ll talk to them later, and expect them to make it out alive.

Of course, Eddie did make it out alive, thankfully, if not quite in one piece. He’d carry some gnarly battle scars for the rest of his life, but the important bits would heal in time, and if Eddie allowed it, Steve would dedicate his life to making sure Eddie knew those scars of his only made him more beautiful. Proof that he cared so much for Dustin, and for the world, that he’d been willing to put it all on the line.

He just needed Eddie to wake up first.

Two days in the hospital came and went with no signs of change. The doctors all said they didn’t know why Eddie was still asleep, they were sure he’d wake up soon but with every passing hour Steve grew more and more afraid, his heart climbing into his throat whenever there was so much as a flutter of Eddie’s long dark lashes.

Steve refused to leave his side. Once he was cleaned up, bandaged, and medically cleared himself, he’d taken his place at Eddie’s bedside. An unmoving sentry, determined to be there holding Eddie’s hand the moment he opened his eyes. After an evening of false alarms, It was the middle of the night, on the cusp of day three when it finally happened.

“Steve?” Eddie mumbled in the quiet hush of the room as he finally came-to, nose wrinkling under the weight of the oxygen tubes when he tried to turn his head. “What are…” he paused, hacking a dry cough, voice rough with disuse. “What are you doing here?”

Steve raised Eddie’s hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against the back of it. before carefully setting it down on the bed so he could grab the cup at his side, the one he filled with new water every day, offering Eddie the straw and a smile.

“I’m not running away this time, baby.”

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