#the rest of corroded coffin just think it's him being an eccentric rockstar

[lennadanvers]

Hi hey hello! I'm still alive! I accidentally took some time off(? Anyway, I miss Ex-husband!Eddie, so here you have some (kinda sad) backstory to the relationship. I present to you *drumroll*...

Ex-husband!Eddie who still has nightmares about your first break-up, many years ago! When you two still lived in Hawkins. When you both left crying. The first time you broke his heart.

You'd been dating for quite some time by then. When he thinks about this, it seems to him you both were really young. That he was very immature.

But, then again, Eddie thinks that about himself now, and it's been years. And he lost you again, somehow.

There had been a disscusion. It was probably about the future. Most things wrong in his life involved that. Planning, hoping, being ready to move on. The only way he's ever been able to plan is when playing DM. The only hope he's ever allowed himself is you being happy with him there to see it. At least that worked out, more or less. About being ready to move on, well...

Of course, Eddie didn't see things this way back then. Then, it felt like you were leaving with or without him. Like you could leave, and he coulnd't. Like you had a life waiting for you, and all he had were impossible dreams and an always lingering fight for survival. Like you were taking all he had- his heart- away from Hawkins.

Eddie knows it was wrong, now, looking back- but his secret is that he knew it was wrong back then too. Still, he allowed himself to hurt you. He laughed sarcastically. He called himself a freak, to save you the effort. Eddie admitted that he knew you were too kind to tell the truth: he was some sort of adventure, a way to feel good about yourself by making someone else happy. He didn't say the word charity- it hit too close to home- but you heard it anyway.

You also heard him calling you a people pleaser. Someone without a backbone. He'd been your safe space- he knew, even if he didn't believe it- and it turned out he saw you like everyone else did.

You didn't yell. Eddie was used to noise. To metal through the speakers, to the cars in the trailer park, to the screams in his parent's kitchen. But he was terrified of silence.

You looked at him. He was used to people avoiding his eyes, to the uncomfortable faces. Yours was just empty. As empty as a face wet with tears can be. And you were looking at him, at his eyes, at his soul.

And you left.

He did the same. Eddie had had many people walk out of his life, and fuck if he was going to let you do that too. No, this time he was leaving. Enough of waiting for the people he loved to come back to him.

It didn't matter, because you didn't go back. You put everything he had left at your house and put it in a box. Your college dorm room wasn't big enough for all the things you loved anyway. You filled the box- even put in his favorite sweets, the ones you had bought for when he went to say goodbye to the bus station- and left it home.

He only found out about it when your mom, after leaving you to your brand new university life, dropped it off by his trailer.

Eddie swears nightmares are box-shaped.

By then, it was too late. He likes to think that the way he had to grovel to get your new phone number was heroic. It may not have saved you- you never needed saving-, but it saved him.

It took him a week to call. He kept lifting the phone and crying. Eddie still has the notebook where he planned, mid campaign, what he was going to say.

It didn't matter. When he finally managed to call, he crumbled. You said "Hello?", and you sounded happy. He practically sobbed a "Hi".

You went silent. Eddie heard you whispering on the other side of the line, and a female voice saying she wasn't expecting any calls.

"Who is this?"

He hung up the phone.

Years later, after you got married, you joked he had a phobia of calling you on the phone. He doesn't think it's a joke. Eddie still wakes up after hearing his nightmares ask him "Who is this?".