Chapter Text
To say that Eddie’s life has improved since the events in the Upside Down is the understatement of the century.
March and April have come and gone and, with them, some of the creeping sense that he is living on borrowed time, that there is a cracked grandfather clock waiting around every corner, that it’s only a matter of time before another of his friends is stolen away by the chilling, long-fingered monster from his nightmares. It’s been over two months, but being violently startled from sleep drenched in a cold sweat is still a nightly occurrence. Thankfully, with every day that passes, it’s all starting to feel just a little further away.
The suspicions about him that had been raging hot in the hearts of the Hawkins townspeople have mostly gone away too, thanks to the inexplicable workings of the CIA and a very persuasive cover story. He still gets wary glances from elderly people on the street, still sees mothers steer their children away from him by the shoulder when he passes, but it’s a world of difference from being actively hunted by bloodthirsty high school seniors, and for that he supposes he has to be grateful. He's even been able to go back to school, much to his chagrin, which is both a victory and an irritation now that he has had to refocus his priorities back to his diploma. Thankfully, his hand is now being graciously held by the ever-reliable Nancy and her tutoring skills.
The best development, without a doubt, is the friends he has made. As it turns out, there’s no bonding exercise quite like experiencing terrible and life-altering trauma together, and Eddie would almost be inclined to say it was worth it. It would be unfair to the guys from the Hellfire Club that he used to hang out with in the school cafeteria to say that he’s never had friends before, but they weren’t friends like these ones. They were just followers of his, people part of a club he was running who had a shared interest, and they’d ditched Eddie as soon as he was placed under suspicion by the police in any case.
No, these new friends are the kind he has to pinch himself to believe he really has, that he really deserves. Nancy, Robin, Steve, they’ve somehow come together in a strange mishmash of personalities to form a tight-knit group: four people who, from the outside, would appear to have absolutely nothing in common, but who seem to complement each other so perfectly it’s almost inconceivable to Eddie. To his utter disbelief, he suddenly has people who actually care about him, who enjoy his company and personality beyond his role as dungeon master, and who make him feel comfortable in his own skin – mostly. It’s not something he ever really thought he would have, but he’s pleasantly surprised to feel it having a dramatic impact on his quality of life and general sense of contentment.
Then there are the kids, of course. Dustin, Mike and Lucas he already knew from D&D, but he’s been enjoying getting to know Max a little more too, now that she’s recovering. Since she and her mom live so close to him and Wayne, Eddie has made a habit of running errands for them, buying groceries and, of course, feeding the stray dog that Max has effectively adopted while she’s still immobile. The smile he gets from her for that one makes everything he’s ever done worth it. He even drives her to school most days, carefully helping her transfer from her wheelchair to the passenger seat and strapping her in, stowing the chair securely in the back of the van. He drives with a lot more care than he ever has before when transporting the precious cargo that is Max.
It's with a view to driving her to school tomorrow that Eddie finishes up his tutoring session with Nancy at the Wheeler household on a balmy Sunday afternoon in May. Nancy is doing a truly heroic job of trying to teach him algebra and lit and, occasionally, he even feels like he’s getting the hang of some of it. He wasn’t kidding when he said that ’86 was his year, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to have to go through another year of high school after this one, and when he’s finally reached the grand old age of twenty-one, no less.
It's overcast but warm when Eddie steps out of Nancy’s front door and into the spring breeze to the unmistakable sound of kids playing team sports. Backs turned to him, Lucas, Mike, Max, Dustin, Steve and Robin appear to be shooting hoops at the other end of the driveway. The basketball hoop has been put up on a neighbouring fence a little way away from the house, presumably to avoid the very real threat of broken windows, and it clangs loudly as Mike bounces the ball off the rim and lets out a curse of frustration. The six bodies, of various heights and statures but mostly gangly and awkward in their teenage years, mostly standing but one seated, bring a smile to his lips.
Having cut ties in a pretty definitive way a couple of months ago, Lucas is no longer on the basketball team, but he still loves to play, and the rest of the kids seem to have come around a little more to the idea of enjoying it with him. Eddie can imagine how they got here today: Lucas suggesting the location because of the hoop recently put up by Mike’s parents, and the rest of the kids agreeing on the basis that Lucas buys them ice cream, or something along those lines. Mike is here because it’s his house, Lucas because he loves basketball, Max because she loves Lucas, and Dustin because he’ll never in a million years turn down a chance to hang out with his friends. Steve has most likely been cajoled into it by Dustin, and he’s clearly dragged Robin along after their shift at work, since they’re both still in their Family Video uniforms.
He suspects the kids’ newfound respect for basketball might also be their own way of helping to rehabilitate Max now that her casts are finally off. It’s been a month since she woke up from the coma, and she’s doing incredibly well getting to grips with her wheelchair. El, the girl with the powers, had managed to magically save her eyesight, and the doctors had just about given her the use of her arms back, despite the severe damage, but her legs will never be the same and she’s likely to be in the chair for the rest of her life. Eddie knows from talking to her during their rides to school that her arms are still very weak, but at least she has the feeling back and can raise them slightly again. One day, in the not-too-distant future, Eddie hopes she’ll be able to join in properly with the game, fire basketballs at the hoop like there’s no tomorrow, wheel herself around, maybe even do cool tricks in the chair like she used to do on her skateboard. For now, it’s just a question of building up her strength and waiting to see what happens.
As Eddie is watching the gaggle of teenagers fondly, Dustin catches his eye and shouts over to him in excitement.
‘Eddie!’
Five other faces turn, and Eddie is met with a chorus of greetings. Robin waves enthusiastically, and Steve calls out a languid, ‘Hey, Munson.’
Eddie waggles his fingers in a lazy approximation of a wave, a grin sliding onto his face, and flops down onto the porch step to roll a cigarette. Just tobacco – he doesn’t smoke grass around the kids, doesn’t want to be responsible for them breathing in the cheap, nasty ditch weed that he does, but he’ll scratch the nicotine itch as often as he can get away with it. He doesn’t have anywhere to be, and Nancy has already peeled off to the kitchen to fetch them all cold drinks, so he figures he’ll just sit and watch a while.
Robin plops down beside him, all sprawled legs and dramatic huff, just as he’s licking along the edge of the paper and delicately pressing it sealed.
‘Buckley,’ he greets her with faux formality.
‘Munson. How was Miss Wheeler’s class?’
‘Another day, another letter of the alphabet learned. Struggling to keep up with the children?’
‘Shut up,’ Robin knocks him with the side of her knee. ‘Most of them are kids with boundless energy, and the other one’s been sitting behind the counter trying and failing to get dates all day.’
‘Does he ever stop?’
‘Nope. And yet he’s still a total disaster.’
Amused, Eddie squints over at Steve, who manages to bounce the basketball to the left just quickly enough that he evades Dustin’s attempt to steal it, and lets out a triumphant, “Ha-ha!” Eddie gets it, he really does, the reason why the girls had been all over him in high school; he’s athletic, attractive, and effortlessly cool. Although Eddie isn’t delusional enough to think that Steve would ever be into him, he likes to play up the flirting anyway, partly out of sense of wistful masochism, and partly because it’s undeniably funny to watch him bluescreen.
It’s a dangerous line of conversation, one that has crept up on him rather suddenly, but Eddie is emboldened by his and Robin’s easy camaraderie to dip a toe in anyway.
‘I don’t know,’ Eddie teases, ‘some might call him charming.’
Robin makes a face.
‘Steve? Ew.’
Eddie laughs. There’s something there, between them, something that feels like they’re dancing around each other, something pulsing with possibility. He prods at it, just a little, just to see.
‘Oh? Immune to the Harrington powers of attraction?’
Robin gives him a wry smile, and shrugs, ‘He’s not really my type.’
He wonders, not for the first time, if there’s another reason for her lack of interest. He thinks he can catch glimmers of something occasionally, under the surface, although he’s not quite sure exactly what it is other than an instinctive feeling. He doesn’t consider himself an expert by any means, but there’s something about the rough edges in the way she talks, the way she shrugs on her jacket, how she wears her pins, the slope of her shoulders and scuffing of her heels, the abrasiveness of her laugh. There’s no one thing that gives it away, but an accumulation of them that something deep inside him recognises as familiar. The way she looks at him sometimes, like her eyes can pierce straight through into his soul, makes him wonder if she’s noticed the same thing in him, too.
But the kids are close by, and it’s a warm, spring afternoon, and Nancy will soon be reappearing with drinks, and it isn’t the right time to ask. Instead, Eddie just grins and says drily, ‘I’m shocked.’
Nany materialises moments later with a tray holding a large jug of lemonade and eight stacked glasses. Eddie tucks his cigarette behind one ear for later.
‘It’s our lucky day!’ Nancy announces. ‘Mom made lemonade.’
Robin shoots her a dimpled grin as the kids turn tail and make a beeline for where she, Eddie and Nancy are gathered.
‘And when you say “Mom”, you mean you, right?’
Nancy gasps in mock offence, but she doesn’t look too upset.
‘Shut up!’
Eddie stays longer than he had planned. They drink their lemonade, and the kids (plus Steve and Robin) go back to play for a little longer. Mike and Dustin are, predictably, not gifted in the basketball department, but they give it a good go all the same. Robin trips over her own feet and eats shit a couple of times, but Nancy is more than happy to be on hand with band-aids for her grazed knees, and Robin doesn’t seem particularly distressed about being patched up when Nancy is her nurse. Max is wheeled into position a few times so she can make a valiant attempt to shoot, and she’s not too far off when she misses due to the total lack of strength in her arms. Once, when Lucas scores with exceptional skill, he takes her chair by the handles and wheels her around in a victory lap while she pretends to be annoyed.
After the kids leave and Mike heads off to his room, Nancy suggests that the four older teenagers crack open a six-pack from the Wheelers’ fridge, and they sit together in the kitchen chatting and laughing until gone midnight. It’s mostly Robin and Steve bickering, with Eddie revving them up and pitching in with his own, purposely antagonistic, opinions about music and movies, and Nancy looking on in fond exasperation. Eddie can’t quite believe he’s allowed to have this, and it makes him feel warm inside whenever he looks around at his friends, who have actively invited him to be part of their circle. He feels a little like he’s dreaming, like he’s intruding on someone else’s friendship, but then Robin will plea that he back her up on something, and Steve will elbow him in the ribs when he makes a jibe about his hair, and Nancy will absent-mindedly top up his glass of soda, and suddenly he’ll feel right at home, like this is where he’s always belonged.
Eventually, Steve remembers that he drove himself and Robin here from work and he’s probably had one too many beers to take them home again.
‘Want me to drive you?’ Eddie offers easily, only a couple of drinks in. Steve considers, head cocked to one side.
‘You know, as much as I’m terrified by your driving, that might not be a bad idea.’
They wave goodbye to Nancy at the door, and Robin calls shotgun before Steve can even open his mouth, giggling and gangling herself into the passenger side and leaving her best friend muttering curses under his breath as he gets into the back.
They drop off Steve first, who leans over from the back of the van and ruffles both of their hair before hopping out and sloping up his driveway to his unlit house. Eddie doesn’t know a huge amount about Steve’s home life, only that his parents are rarely around and have very little to do with him, hence why he doesn’t like to talk about them much. Eddie feels bad for him, as effectively orphaned as Eddie himself is with a mom who up and left and a father in jail, because at least Wayne has always been there to look out for him. Steve has no one but his friends. Eddie supposes it just makes their own relationship even more important.
It's just Eddie and Robin in the van after that, still chatting away about nonsense until they reach Robin’s house. By the time Eddie pulls up outside, a vaguely tense silence has fallen.
Robin moves to get out of the van, and it’s now or never. Eddie shoots her a glance, mind fumbling for words he can’t catch hold of. He tries his best anyway.
‘Hey, Robin?’
She pauses, hand already on the door handle.
‘Eddie?’
‘Uh…’ Eddie’s mouth feels dry. ‘Man, this is awkward. So, earlier, when we were talking on the porch and you said Steve wasn’t your type. I just… I just wanted-’
A sudden look of horror passes over Robin’s face.
‘Oh my god, you’re not gonna ask me out, are you?’
Eddie balks.
‘What? No! Jesus, no. I mean, no offence, but no.’
‘Thank god,’ Robin slumps back in her seat. ‘No offence to you, either.’
‘None taken.’ Eddie takes a deep breath, pulse loud in his ears, and he can’t look at her, can only stare down at his lap as the words form of their own accord. ‘Look, I don’t know if there’s an easy way to ask this, or whether I should even be asking at all, but… are you…?’
Robin takes pity on him.
‘Gay?’ she asks gently. Eddie thinks he might throw up if he opens his mouth, so he keeps it closed and just nods dumbly. Robin has a faint smile on her face, but there’s apprehension there, too. ‘Yeah.’
Eddie lets out the breath he has been holding in a rush of relief. He hasn’t read this wrong. He’s safe. Robin is safe. Robin is like him.
‘Me too.’
Robin lets out her breath in a huff, just like Eddie a moment before, and suddenly she’s smiling from ear to ear, and Eddie finds himself smiling too, and then laughing with breathless relief. They’re both looking at each other, dumbstruck, giddy and flushed with the excitement of sharing a secret with someone, and having them share the same one back.
Eddie isn’t used to feeling comfortable, seen, understood, safe, but he feels all of those things now.
Robin inclines her head towards her house, still smiling.
‘Do you wanna come in? We’d have to be quiet, because… you know. Strictly no boys.’
And then they’re off again, laughing at the ridiculousness of the rule, and Eddie knows with a sudden certainty that this friendship is one for life.
They sneak inside and up to Robin’s room, quietly and carefully so as to not wake her parents, and they spend hours and hours talking about their feelings and experiences, how they knew, how they tried to ignore it, who they’ve told and who they haven’t, the all-encompassing fear and anxiety, the disgust and, finally, the acceptance.
It’s a strange feeling. Eddie has never told anyone before. It’s been made wordlessly clear in fumbled, messy interactions in the darkness of the woods and the bathrooms of dive bars he’d snuck into, and understood and gently accepted when his uncle had found a stash of magazines he definitely shouldn’t have been looking at. He’s never had anyone to tell. There were his friends from D&D, but like hell was he going to come out in high school. These friends are different: they’d die for each other, and very nearly did. If he can’t tell them, he can’t tell anyone. Now there’s someone on his side, someone who really understands, and he’s endlessly grateful. Maybe it’s even something he could broach with his other friends, too. For now, though, he leaves that as a consideration for another time.
They doze off sometime in the early hours of the morning, lying top-to-tail across Robin’s bed, Eddie not caring that he has school the next day, and he escapes gracelessly out of the bedroom window when the early morning sun has started peeking over the trees.