#who wants to hop on the eddie and nancy are siblings agenda with me?

[unclewaynemunson]

He's standing in the dark, in the rain, invisible to anyone who might pass by. He feels like a shadow – and maybe he actually is. He wishes he could light a cigarette, or maybe a blunt, but the light, however small, would betray his presence right away. Not to mention that the rain would extinguish any attempt at fire immediately anyway.

He shouldn't be here. But it's not like it was a conscious decision to go. His feet merely carried him this way while his mind was still blacked out from what Wayne had just told him.

'Eddie,' his uncle had said in an almost solemn voice, 'If you're gonna be stayin' here in Hawkins with me, there's somethin' you need to know.'

That's how he found out about the secret that his uncle had kept from him for all fifteen years of his existence. Wayne had explained to him how he once made his brother – Eddie's father – a promise, and how he kept that promise even though he personally thought Eddie deserved to know the truth.

But now Clyde Munson isn't here anymore. Wayne has been looking after Eddie with all the love and devotion he has in him – and he decided that it was no longer Clyde's decision to make. It certainly wasn't the decision of the woman who once dropped Eddie on Clyde's doorstep in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the proof of what they had done nine months prior. No, Eddie was Wayne's child now, as far as Wayne was concerned. And that made it Wayne's decision. So Wayne could finally do what he had always thought to be the right thing.

Eddie can almost touch the life that could've been his. A window is the only separation between him and the life he isn't part of: a cozily lit room in a nice house in a quiet street. School books are scattered haphazardly across a kitchen table, accompanied by two steaming mugs and a plate of homemade cookies. And, of course, a mother and a child are sitting side-by-side at said kitchen table.

Eddie can see the mother's mouth form soundless words while she talks her daughter through whatever homework she needs help with. A boy comes in, takes two cookies and leaves, with the mother raising her head to tell him something just a moment before he closes the door behind him. The girl drops her head on her mother's shoulder as they continue.

Contrary to Clyde Munson and his baby, Eddie's mother never left Hawkins. Clyde kept her secret and Eddie has never known who she was. Now, thanks to Wayne, all he knows is that Karen Vasileiou became Karen Wheeler one year after she gave birth to Eddie. Another year later, a little girl was born. A girl who got the kind of life that was never meant to have room for anything messy, let alone a boy like Eddie Munson.

From the other side of the window, it's clear that the girl grew up to be nothing like Eddie, save for their matching big eyes. She has a mother, after all: a mother who helps her with her homework and bakes her cookies and gives her the comfort of a shoulder to rest her head on.

He knows it's not good for him to keep standing there, but he simply cannot stop watching. It takes until Karen sends her daughter to bed for Eddie to awaken from his trance. The rain has died down to a drizzle; he's soaked to his bones and shivering all over. And even though Wayne gives Eddie everything he possibly can, it still stings a tiny little bit that no warm house and homemade cookies will be waiting for him when he'll get home.

Update: this premise was not letting me go so you can now expect multiple follow-up parts. Read part 2 here or head to ao3 where I started cross-posting this as a multi chaptered fic :D