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strangersteddierthings · 1 year ago

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Childhood friends AU Idea

Steve and Eddie are best friends who make plans to learn the elvish alphabet from The Hobbit so that they can pass notes without worrying about other people reading them.

The end of the school year (Eddie in 6th, Steve in 5th) brings a sadness to the two. Eddie's going to middle school and Steve's not yet, but they can hang out on weekends, and they have all summer so no worries. (Also, it gives Steve a little more time to learn elvish, since it'll be a whole year until they're in the same school again.)

Except yes worries because two weeks into summer, Eddie vanishes. When Steve bikes to his house to investigate, the whole house is empty. Packed up and gone. Steve goes to Wayne for answer and all he gets is a smile that doesn't really reassure and words of "his dad got a job opportunity, had to move on short notice. But don't worry, kiddo. I'll get you the number to their new place so you can call."

He learns elvish anyway. It's harder without Eddie to help but he's determined. Eddie might return, or maybe he'll get an address one day. Send a letter to Eddie in full Elvish.

Steve never gets a number or address. Summer ends and sixth grade comes. He doesn't want to forget all the elvish he's learned, just in case. So, he decides to keep a journal. He can write all about everything that's happening and when he sees Eddie, he can give it to him. It's a double win. Eddie will know everything he's missed out on AND it'll help Steve practice elvish.

Sixth grade ends. Eddie doesn't return. Steve did make friends with Carol Perkins though, so he's not as lonely. He hopes Eddie made a new friend, too. But not a new best friend. That's Steve's position, always.

Seventh grade brings Tommy Hagan, but still no Eddie. It brings a growth spurt and sports. Steve likes the easy camaraderie that comes with sports teams. It's like having a lot of friends, which Steve will only admit to needing in his journal. Needing many little connections of friendship to hold together the big hole Eddie left behind.

The summer between seventh and eighth grade brings him a Bruce Springsteen concert. He'd never thought of a boy kissing another boy until he'd witnessed it on stage but he thinks about it a lot after. The end of that summer brings an awaken he refuses to shy away from even if he has to hide it

Eighth grade brings popularity. Steve's good looking, rich, and liked among his peers. It brings the first (and last) time his dad says he's proud of him.

(Steve will spend the rest of his high school career chasing his father's approval.)

Freshman year brings Eddie back, but he's different. His hair is longer and his clothes are darker and he's distant. Defiant and angry. Steve would recognize him anywhere, dressed in anyway.

Eddie doesn't want his friendship anymore. Avoids him in the halls and cafeteria, but Steve is nothing if not persistent. He writes a full letter in elvish to slip into Eddie's locker, but Eddie catches him. Shoves the letter back, unopened, unread, with a harsh whispered, "Don't you get it Harrington? I don't want to be your friend. Fuck off."

Steve doesn't understand why. Not until the table top rants start. Conformity and jocks and brain-dead rich kids who get by on favoritism.

It hurts. Steve feels his heart break the day he finally gets the not-so-subtle messages drilled into his mind. Eddie hates sports, and rich people, and stupid people. Eddie hates all the things that Steve is.

Eddie hates him.

Sophomore year brings Steve a lot of things. It brings the acknowledgment that he was probably in love with Eddie, the way his heart twists the day he sees Eddie flirting with a girl in the hallway, the way he wants the lights out when hooking up with someone so he can imagine a different person pressed against him, the way he gravitates towards brunettes with brown eyes and the flickering hope it might make Eddie jealous. (The way he'd said the wrong name when Brent went down on him, too absorbed in the fantasy of someone else to get it right. Brent hadn't been offended by it, he'd been thinking of someone else, too. Steve finds solidarity for a little bit, until the school year ends and Brent leaves Hawkins.)

Junior year turns Steve's life upside down (pun intended) with monster's coming out of walls. There's probably a lot more he should write about but his journal's pretty empty this year. Too traumatized to document. (Too afraid of what Eddie would say because Steve still writes in his journal like he plans on sending it to Eddie one day. Better to write nothing than sound crazy.)

And halfway through his senior year (don't think about how he's in it with Eddie, about the 4 classes they share, about how Eddie still won't meet his eye) he wants to fade into the background. Nancy and he break up. She's with Jonathan and he hears the whispers of how pathetic he is to be eating lunch with his ex and the guy that 'stole' her. Steve knows that's a lie, Nancy made her choice, and no one can say otherwise, but it hurts to hear. He can't be bothered to try and make new friends. How would he explain the nightmares? The skittishness. The fear of the dark, of pumpkin patches, of his own damn pool now that he's had time to process last year?

Then, the next year brings him Robin. Well. First it brings him an embarrassing uniform and then Russian torture (don't think about it. Don't think about how he'll shorthand the stock list by writing it in Elvish sometimes. Don't think about how the Russian's almost believe they just work for Scoops until they find the stock list in his pocket. Don't think about how they don't believe that the strange script they can't identify isn't proof he's a spy), but in the end he gets Robin. A Platonic Soulmate who understands the hidden side of him. She asked if he was ever in love, and he thinks of the Eddie he used to know, longs to know again, and describes her instead. She rejects him in the softest way possible and then confesses about Tammy, and he confesses about Eddie in turn.

1986 brings Eddie back into his life in the worst way possible. With a bottle to his neck and them both acting like they've never spoken before. It brings twisting guts as Steve lies awake thinking about Eddie alone in a boathouse instead of sharing a bed with him like they used to in elementary school. It brings Steve leading them to Skull Rock (popularized as a make out spot but started as a set of boys' favorite place to play pirates during the summer). Dustin and Eddie make references Steve pretends to not know, despite his own copies of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the numerous amounts of notebooks turned journals with elvish scrawled throughout.

There's a trek through the Upside Down. In another universe, Steve imagines he and Eddie talk. In this one, Robin sticks to his side like an extension of him (which she is), and glares at Eddie every time he looks in Steve's direction. Robin knows everything, knows it all, because there are no secrets between them.

They make plans to stop Vecna, once and for all, and Robin confesses she has a fear. That it won't turn out okay this time, but they have to try anyway. Steve clinks his bottle against hers and looks across the field to Eddie and Dustin. The stakes feel so much higher this time.

"I'm going to talk to Eddie if we survive. Make it right," he says.

"No. He's going to make it right because you didn't do anything wrong," Robin says, which is more support than he thought he'd get given the grudge she holds in his favor.

Eddie said make him pay and Steve does. Nancy advances, shotgun shot after shot and Steve's bounding down the stairs. Vecna beats him to the ground floor but not by much.

A hatchet's not the best tool to remove a head with but he manages. When he looks up, Nancy and Robin are looking down, both approving.

They find Dustin sobbing over Eddie and- and-

Steve's certain he's broken several of Eddie's ribs but he's breathing again, Nancy finds his pulse beneath all the blood, and Robin's retrieved the cut sheets to make bandages out of. Nothing is clean in this world, infection could kill him later, he might not save Eddie like he wants, but fucking Christ, at least if death claims him, it'll be on the right side of the world in a hospital.

Dustin, Robin, and Steve are at Eddie's side when Nancy leads Wayne into the room. They knew she went out looking for him (Steve was going to but Nancy had shoved him back in the chair with a look that left no room for argument) but even so they're startled by him.

Wayne has always been stoic and reserved, so it's no surprise to Steve when he just lets out a low whistle and says, "of all the people I might see here, you weren't one of 'em."

Steve swallows thickly and says, "well. I am. Here, I mean."

And Wayne gives him a watery smile and crosses the room. Pulls Steve into a hug that Steve thinks he probably wants to give to Eddie instead, but Eddie's not awake and standing and Steve is. But then Wayne says, "I told Eddie he couldn' chase ya away. That if he just talked to ya, you'd understand. He tried so hard to make ya hate him, and for what? For ya to be at his bedside anyway."

And Steve sobs. Loud and ugly and suddenly Dustin's there, and so are Robin and Nancy, and it's probably the most awkward hug for all the others but it's the best hug Steve's had in years. He doesn't even care that he's crying because how can he? Wayne's all but confirmed that Eddie doesn't hate him, maybe never hated him. That Eddie has an explanation, a reason for it all, and all he wants is Eddie to wake up and tell him.

Steve finally gets his apology two days after Eddie's release. It's the first time they've been alone together since- well, since elementary school. Wayne drove him here then lied about needing to check on something and said he'd be back in an hour or so before abandoned them to the awkward silence in Steve's living room.

"I'm sorry, Steve!" Eddie blurts out loudly, then looks startled by his own yelling.

"I know. I forgive you."

"You shouldn't."

"I know. Still do anyway. Would like to know what happened, though."

And Eddie tells him. How his father's debts came calling and they ran. How his mom got sick real fast, and his father's crime spree and prison sentence following her passing. How Eddie discovered the same thing about himself that Steve did but didn't have the same acceptance of himself. Hated that another thing marked him as Other. Freak.

He tells Steve how he couldn't let Steve back in because he was afraid of losing him again if he ever learned.

"I didn't think you'd be okay being friends with a faggot," Eddie spits the word out, dirty and mean and directed at himself.

Steve makes a decision then. "Follow me." And he helps Eddie up the stairs and into his room. Eddie sits on the bed and watches as Steve digs out notebook after notebook after notebook, until they're a tower on his bed. Then he topples them over in his search for the first.

Eddie takes the offered notebook with confusion on his face, looking from the cover, where 1978 is written on it. The summer Eddie vanished from Steve's life.

"Open it."

Eddie does and gasps. "Steve. Is this-"

"Every single one of these notebooks was written to you. For you. About you. I read The Hobbit for you. The Lord of the Rings. I learned elvish for you. I think I've been a little bit in love with you since the day we met on the playground on my second day of first grade."

"Steve," it comes out breathless and awed.

"Eddie," Steve repeats back to him, just as breathless as Eddie tosses the notebook aside and reaches for Steve instead. Hauls him in to kiss him senseless amongst the proof of Steve's devotion.