#anyway don't be like eddie! don't disturb flora in national parks! take only photos leave only footprints

[laundrybiscuits]

(Hanahaki AU tag)

Shops close early in Salt Lake, but they manage to find a diner that’s still open for dinner. Eddie’s used to being stared at, but the looks he gets just walking into the place are something else. 

“Get ready to take off at the crack of dawn tomorrow, Stevie,” he mutters. “I’m not staying a minute longer than we have to in this backwater shithole.”

Steve’s glancing around like he’s actually picking up on how the locals aren’t exactly thrilled to have someone like Eddie around, breathing their air and eating their food. 

“You think they…” He leans in and lowers his voice like he’s in some kind of spy movie. “Think they recognize you?”

Eddie smacks him upside the head. “They sure as hell will if you go around acting like I’m a state secret. But—no, probably not. I don’t know. I just don’t exactly fit in here, don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Steve makes a face and leans back, picking at his buffalo wings. “Yeah, I guess I’m not fitting in too well either.”

It makes Eddie pause for a second, because he’s got no idea what certified prom king All-American golden boy Steve’s talking about. Then he takes another look at the man sitting across from him, a real look: takes in the raised scar tissue on his neck and the untrimmed scruff, the Sabbath t-shirt he must’ve nicked from Eddie at some point, the worn brown leather jacket, the hair grown long enough to tangle at his collar. 

He looks like he could be dangerous. He looks like he could be wild. 

“Sure,” says Eddie, taking a sip of his milkshake to cover how hard he has to swallow. “Life on the road has corrupted you, Steve Harrington.”

———

They head south towards red rock country. It’s a lot more open land than Eddie’s used to, all stunted gray-green bushes clustering low around the highway, broken up by the occasional stand of cottonwoods cropping up where the road cuts closer to the river.

They stop at a pull-off a little after noon, on the outskirts of Arches where the sandstone formations are starting to stack up high, to stretch their legs and scarf down some of the snacks they’ve been hoarding in the back of the van. It’s probably (definitely) not healthy, but Eddie’s made the executive decision not to care about health anymore. There’s got to be some upsides to all of this. He can live on grease and salt and weed for however long he’s got left.

It’s been pretty bad lately. Eddie’s started to do a thing where he coughs flowers up into his mouth and then swallows them back down when Steve’s around. It means they just come up again bigger and worse later, but so far he’s been able to time it so that he can hunch over a filthy gas station toilet when he really has to puke up the botanical equivalent of a hairball. 

There’s been more blood coming out, too. At first it’d been just a drop or two at the edges when he’d spit to clear his mouth afterwards, but now there’s actual streaks on the petals, damning dark russet smeared across that hideous sunshine yellow. 

He can’t fucking stand the sight of flowers anymore. Any of ‘em. He pops another Dorito into his mouth and twists a pale half-unfurled blossom off a nearby prickly pear, squatting in the shadow of a red standstone outcrop to take the flower apart, petal by petal. It feels a little soothing to rip it apart like this, but he knows he’s probably making things worse by letting his brain dwell like this. Just, sometimes his brain’s like a terrier that wants to chase down rats, and if he doesn’t give it enough rats to chase it’ll start gnawing on its own tail. 

Steve comes to lean against the rock by Eddie. “Got a grudge there, man?”

Eddie shrugs, fingers still worrying at the sepals, shredding petals into confetti. “Told you I was dramatic.”

“Y’know, I always wondered if you could like, plant the stuff people throw up with normal flowers. Think they’d survive?”

“Why on earth would you want to do something like that, Harrington?” 

“Well, like—if somebody had the bloom, and then they told the other person and it all worked out, it might be nice to have some kind of memento. Like, living proof that it’s true love. Don’t you think?”

“I think it’s selfish,” says Eddie. “I mean, telling someone you bloomed for them, even if it works out. It’s manipulative. You’re kinda saying: if you break up with me I might literally die.”

“So what, people like that can’t ever be in love?”

“Sure.” Eddie snorts. “They can be in love. They should just have the fuckin’ dignity to perish from it the first time round, save everyone a lot of time.”

“That what you’re doing? Saving time?”

Eddie stops breathing. 

“I don’t know how to tell you this, man,” says Steve. “But you’re not that sneaky.”