This is Rokku

There are things missing, though. Eddie’s body had never been found, had fallen into a ravine in the earthquake. All they have is an empty casket under a bloodied headstone. His jewellery was lost in the fiery dirt and Gareth cannot remember a single day when Eddie didn’t wear those huge silver rings or the delicate necklace.

Gareth feels flayed by the time they’re done, but they pack their bags carefully, handling their new possessions like precious relics.

A flash of silver catches Gareth’s eye.

He says he’ll follow, just needs to use the bathroom real quick, but when the door closes he bolts to the side of Wayne’s bed.

The silver ball chain hangs from the bed post, a familiar pick threaded on the end.

It’s impossible.

It’s a copy, has to be.

Gareth carefully unhooks the necklace and is immediately horrified to find tiny flakes of dried blood trapped in the ball links. There’s a small ‘E’ roughly scratched on the back. There’s no doubt it’s real.

Gareth knows it’s wrong the second he thinks of putting in his pocket, but he does it anyway. Wraps his fingers around the chain links and bites his lip trying to stave off tears. He just wants to be close to Eddie. He just needs him. This is the closest he can get.

It’s too much of a risk to wear it during the day, where the other might see it, but when he comes home from school he hurries to his room and slips the necklace over his head. He feels heat radiate from it, the chain always warm against his skin.

At night he dreams.

He’s high above the ground, the sky dark and crackling with red lighting. He’s playing guitar and Dustin is there, and then he sees them, a swarm of bats headed their way, and they run, they leap off the roof and it’s Eddie’s trailer but it’s all wrong, all rotten. The creatures fly at them as they lock themselves in and they’re elated but then the swarm is in the trailer and he gets Dustin out through a hole in Eddie’s ceiling and it doesn’t makes sense, none of it makes any sense.

Then he’s running, grabbing a bike to escape the creatures but they knock him to the ground, and now he’s close he sees the eyeless faces, sees the heads that are just mouths filled with teeth. They pin him to the floor, tails lashing his wrists and ankles and then they bite. Flesh is torn from him and he’s screaming but it’s not him, that’s not his voice and it’s not a dream.

He blinks and Dustin is holding him, tears pouring down his face.

“I love you man.”

“I love you too.”

Gareth wakes with a start and vomits over the side of his bed.

It’s the same the next night, and the next, and he should stop because he’s twisting a knife in a wound that cannot exist.

He comes home from school to find Wayne Munson waiting for him.

“I think you might have something of mine.”

Gareth’s heart thunders in his chest.

“I understand why you took it,” Wayne adds, softly. “But I think you know why I have to take it back.”

The world tips beneath him, because they’re dreams. Nightmares. He lost his best friend and he stole his necklace and his brain his punishing him for it. But Wayne keeps looking at him and there's surety, a calmness, and Gareth knows.

“How?” he ask breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” Wayne admits. “Don’t care to think on it too much, truth be told. Maybe it’s a miracle. Maybe it’s a curse.”

Gareth pulls the necklace from his wallet and hands it back to Wayne. Waynes large calloused fingers wrap around it and hold it close.

“Do you wear it?”

Wayne nods, just once. “Every night.”

Gareth feels the touch of leathery wings and razor teeth and shudders.

“How can you stand it? To see what he went through.”

Wayne shakes his head. “It’s not always like that. Sometimes it’s good. I see him when he was little, running around and laughing. Sitting out on the porch with me in the sun, playing his guitar. Sometimes he’s playing his music or his game with you, and Jeffrey and Matthew.” Wayne smiles to himself. “I see him when he was happiest.”

Eddie’s whole life locked in his necklace, sharing a different memory every night, like a TV set that changes channels on it’s own. Of course it brings comfort to Wayne.

Heat rushes to Gareth’s face.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I took it.”

“It pulls you in.” Wayne clutches the necklace in his hand, thumb caressing the scratched ‘E.’ “Just like he did.”

The wind picks up, fallen golden leaves flutter in the air, and Gareth feels cracked open.

“I should go,” Wayne says, slipping the necklace over his head. “You take care, son.”

Gareth watches as Wayne drives away, taking the last of Eddie with him.

Another one of those ocassions where the idea is too big for the word count, but hopefully it still works.

That was five years ago.

A lot has happened in that five years.

Eddie left Hawkins as fast as he could. Steve followed.

Two years later Gareth turned up on his front door and shouted at him for five minutes before Eddie wrapped him in a crushing hug. Now it’s the three of them and their cat living in their little apartment in the city.

A cool breeze feathers across the back of his neck, and he buries his toes deeper into the sand. He can feel the prickle of shell and pebbles against his skin; before they leave today he’ll wander the beach to check for sea glass. Steve will help, they usually come back with a few nice pieces. He has a box full of them now, keeps meaning to do something with them, make a necklace or something. 

Maybe one day.

Behind him he hears raised voices, so he turns to look. Gareth has returned to the car, a can of something in his hand and evidently nothing for Steve and Eddie. Gareth doesn’t usually come here with them, thinks it stupid, not helping, maybe making things worse. It’s his way, to be loud, stubborn and opiniated, probably more so in the last few years. He’s filling the gaps Eddie left behind. 

Gareth DMs for their new group of friends, people who have no expectations of Eddie because they didn’t know him before he was left as hollow as the shells under his feet. There’s no Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson here, just Eddie the weird guy that doesn’t talk. He can live with that. He has to live with that.

The car doors slam shut but the voices are still loud enough for him to hear snatches of his name. Loud enough for him to know he’s being talked about. Gareth and Steve are a weird pair. Steve tolerates Gareth for Eddie’s benefit, and Gareth promises not to be a dick to Steve, and mostly it works and no one questions their odd little trio. They do it for him but so much of him wishes they wouldn’t; he wants Gareth to go and live his life, to have travelled with Jeff and Matty. The things he could be doing if he would just leave, but instead he stayed behind for Eddie. It eats at Eddie, claws at the blocked words in his throat, begging to come out. Notes on paper telling Gareth to leave don’t cut it.

The truth is Eddie thinks he’d crumble to ash if Gareth left them.

Steve is… Steve is everything.

When Eddie wanted nothing more than to blink out of existence Steve had grabbed him by the hand and kept him there beside him. It was nothing at first, innocent touches, fingers brushing fingers until they were brushing cheeks, until lips were touching lips. Steve enveloping him from the world and pulling him closer, until they were all but one. Lying together in a boneless haze, sheets puddled at their feet, thinking I love him, I love him. Even if he couldn’t say it.

The voices are louder, angrier than usual, arguing about Steve bringing him out here all the time to do this. Eddie grew up in a house filled to the rafters with angry words, this isn’t that. This is from love. Gareth wants him to see a doctor and Steve wants to keep him whole. Neither is right, neither is wrong.

But it’s been brewing for weeks, months probably, their weird little home is a passive aggressive battle ground and he’s leaving for work earlier in the morning and working back later. Other people’s anger lodges in his throat choking his own and he doesn’t have the energy for both.

He stands and steps along the wet sand, the chill water lapping over his feet. He watches the way the water ripples and distorts his skin, the lines of light and shadow playing across his feet and legs. He closes his eyes and fills his lungs to the brim with salty sea air.

And he screams.

The gulls scream back, and Eddie takes another deep breath and screams back twice as loud. He feels it all shift inside him, a tower of bricks ready to tumble if you just take the right brick away. He just needs to find the right brick.

He doesn’t hear them calling his name until they’re right there, Steve’s Nike sneakers splashing in the water as he turns Eddie to face him.

“Eddie? What’s…?”

He feels the brick tumble deep inside him.

“Stop.”

It’s whisper quiet, maybe he imagined it, maybe he didn’t say anything at all. But Gareth gasps behind him and Steve’s eyes are wide, lashes already wet and Eddie knows. 

The tower is falling.

Metallica plays quietly in the background, Gareth finger drumming on the edge of Eddie’s bed, Jeff humming Battery to himself, Matty dozing in his chair. 

“What’s the date?” Eddie croaks.

“Uh…” Gareth checks his watch. “Twenty-ninth.” He can tell Eddie is trying to work it out in his head so he adds “April.”

Eddie frowns.

“I missed it.”

Now it’s Gareth’s turn to be confused.

“Missed what?”

“Ozzy. Metallica.”

Oh shit. He’d forgotten about that. They had tickets to see them on April 8th in Indy. They’d all been looking forward to it for months. And they’d forgotten about it in a heartbeat because they were scared Eddie was going to die.

“Was it good?”

“Was what good?”

Eddie scowls at him. “The concert.”

Oh.

“Dude, we didn’t go.”

“Why not?”

“Are you for real? We weren’t going when we didn’t—“ know if you were going to live, he nearly says, but he stops himself because Wayne doesn’t like to talk about that kind of thing in front of Eddie, doesn’t want to upset him. “We weren’t going without you, dude.” 

Eddie looks crestfallen, but Jeff jumps in. 

“They’ll be back, Eddie, you’ll see.”

Wayne brings Eddie back home to their new trailer at the end of May. He’s weak, sleeps most of the day but when he’s awake he’s almost the old Eddie. Something relaxes in Gareth’s chest bit by bit every time Eddie laughs or makes a stupid joke, and it’s not normal, not at all, but at the same time it feels so close. The band was splintered and broken and now they have a big bandaid across the middle of them while the wound heals. Gareth knows there will be a scar, but they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.

He’d feel even better if someone told him what the fuck Steve Harrington was doing there all the time. 

Steve moves around Wayne and Eddie’s place like he’s always been there, talks to Wayne like they’re old buddies and it’s pissing Gareth off something fierce. But it wouldn’t be a good look to cause a fight over it, so he nods a polite hello when he arrives to find Steve making lunch, or fetching Eddie’s meds, or arguing with Eddie about not smoking. It’d be funny if it weren’t so annoying.

“No.”

“But Wayne—“

Wayne stops what he’s doing and gives Gareth a hard stare.

“No ‘buts’. It’s too soon. He can’t stand that long, you know that.”

“We’ll get seated tickets, he won’t need to stand,” adds Jeff, and Gareth could kiss him because they all know Wayne thinks ‘Jeffrey’ is a good influence on the rest of them. If only he knew.

“He has to get to the seat, Jeffrey. He’s having enough trouble getting to the end of the driveway.”

“Okay, so we’ll take the wheelchair.”

Eddie shuffles into the kitchen, still sleep rumpled. “I am not getting in the wheelchair.” He grabs a carton of orange juice from the fridge. “Why am I getting in the wheelchair?”

“Metallica are supporting Ozzy up in Fort Wayne.”

Eddie spins so fast he wobbles.

“I’ll get in the wheelchair.”

“Ed, I don’t think you’re up to it.“

“Wayne, I am so up to it.”

Wayne doesn’t look convinced.

“We’ll be with him every second.”

Wayne glares at Gareth.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

They argue for another five minutes, but Eddie looks so excited and Gareth watches Wayne’s resolve deteriorate in real time. 

“Alright.”

Eddie’s eyebrows disappear under his messy bangs.

“Alright?”

Wayne sighs and nods, and Gareth’s work is done. He gives a low five to Jeff out of sight.

“But only if Steve goes with you.”

Oh, what the fuck?

Getting to their seats is a bitch with a guy who isn’t that great on his feet, but once they’re settled and have stopped arguing about who is sitting next to who, or more accurately why Steve gets to sit next to Eddie, they relax and start to enjoy themself. Eddie is practically bouncing in his seat from excitement and it kind of hits Gareth in the heart how close they were to not having this. To not having Eddie.

The lights go down and music begins to fill the arena, horns and marching drums and a soaring voice, and Gareth feels the prickle on his skin as every single person in the arena sings along, the crescendo building. 

He doesn’t really know why he’s crying, it’s fucking stupid, but Eddie catches him before he can wipe his eyes, and pulls him close.

They made it, eventually. Better late than never.

If you're a Metallica fan you'll know, but in case you're not - Metallica have played The Ecstacy of Gold from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the beginning of every show since 1983 right before they come on stage. It's a fantastic piece of music in it's own right (the entire score for that film is amazing) but it's electrifying when you're in an arena singing along with thousands of people.

Ozzy Osbourne, supported by Metallica, played the Market Square Arena on 8th April 1986. which Eddie would absolutely have had tickets for. Metallica headlined a gig at the Chicago Aragon Ballroom on May 25th which Eddie would have not been fit enough for and Uncle Wayne would absolutely have vetoed that. The concert they go to is Ozzy/Metallica at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne on 16th July 1986. Steve got to see Ozzy! 🤘🏻

“Could I get a white wine spritzer please?”

Matt laughs. “That’s not very rock n’ roll,” he says and instantly regrets it as her face falls. “No, no I was kidding, it’s totally rock n’ roll! I bet Ozzy drinks it, like all the fucking time.”

Lily visibly relaxes and there’s that shy little smile again. “I’m on a diet, so…”

Matt frowns.

“Why? You’re perfect.”

The way she looks at him makes his heart ache, like no one has ever said it to her before, that she had no idea of what she looks like. She’s curvy and hot as fuck and he wants to get his hands on her hips and kiss her hard.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say that.”

His heart cracks open. “No, I don’t. But it’s true.”

“You’re very sweet.”

Thank god Gareth didn’t hear that, Matt’d never hear the end of it.

Now they’re out here he can see her properly; the black leather jacket a little tight across her shoulders, her Slayer t-shirt - and oh she’s a Slayer fan, thank you Jesus - is a men’s one, long enough to cover her belly, thick thighs in tight black jeans. He can see the heavy concealer over a zit on her chin and the way her mascara is a little smudged under her eyes from sweat.

She’s gorgeous. And he’s going to marry her someday.

Honestly he’s not great at talking to girls, there’s usually no need, they grab him by the hand when they strike out with the rest of the band and drag him to an empty bathroom stall for a quick fuck and then leave him there. Which is…well, he thought he was okay with it, the attention, someone making him feel wanted for a short moment but the way Lily looks at him is totally different. It’s warm and open, and she listens to him like she really cares about what he’s saying.

He’s only just met her and he’s already doomed.

“You’re from L.A., right?”

Matt takes a sip of his lukewarm beer then shakes his head. “No, well yeah, I mean we live there but we’re from Indiana. A little town called Bumfuck. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?’

Lily giggles into her glass. “I think I’m vaguely familiar with it.”

They talk about home, their families, music. She’s a college student, forensic something or other but he misses it because he’s so wrapped up in how she smells like vanilla and peaches and how she twirls her hair with long fingers, nails painted black. 

“You know, you shouldn’t cover your pimples up with so much make-up.”

Lily stands stock still, eyes wide and embarrassed.

“No! Oh god, I don’t mean— no, I don’t care that you have zits—“

Lily drops her glass on the table and starts to leave, red faced and on the verge of tears.

He blocks her path. “No, no listen, that came out wrong, I’m so sorry. I just meant— you’re so pretty and you shouldn’t feel you have to hide anything, that’s all.” He growls, so angry with himself for ruining this. “I am monumentally bad at this and I’m fucking it up.”

Matt takes a deep breath, actually thinks about what he’s going to say this time.

“I want to see you again. Please? I am a total screw up, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve never had a girlfriend because I’m a total fucking disaster. And I would totally understand if you don’t want to see me again, but…” Matt sighs, tips his head back looking for inspiration from the flyer covered ceiling. 

“I would understand if you don’t want to, for lots of reasons, not just because I’m an idiot.  You’re out of my league, like big time. But… You have beautiful eyes, and you’re funny and I really love that you like Slayer. I want to get to know you better. And if I ruined this I will punish myself every day until the end of time, but you need to know that I’m very attracted to you. And… yeah. That’s it.”

Lily pouts, arms crossed against her chest. “You are terrible at this. But…I’ve been staring at you all night hoping that you would talk to me knowing you wouldn’t because you were out of my league. And then you said ‘Hi’ and no one does that to me. They see Sandy, but they don’t see me. I get the odd skeevy asshole that lowers himself to kissing a fat girl, but that’s it.”

Matt feels a flash of anger toward whoever made her feel that way. She deserves better.

“We’re leaving tomorrow, around noon. Let me buy you breakfast, and I’ll try and be normal. Please?”

There’s cheering from inside the club, the band finishing up their set. They don’t have long. Please say yes, please say yes… 

Lily uncrosses her arms with a smile.

“Set your alarm. I get up early.”

That's the second time I've written fluff this week. What's wrong with me?

For detail lovers, the perfume Lily is wearing is Exclamation! I used to love that damn perfume. 😆

“Steve!”

Gareth calls him from across the waiting room and motions him to follow him.

“What happened?”

Gareth winces. “He was playing with the kids. Stacked it on Elliot’s skateboard.

“Jesus Christ.”

Steve’s going to kill him, so it’s just as well Eddie’s in the ER. The idiot has no place being on a skateboard at his age, at any age in all honesty, because he has the balance and finesse of a three legged cow. 

“You said he was mostly okay?”

“Looks like his arm is busted and he’s got some stellar road rash. But he went down hard, has a huge bump on the back of his head. They’re talking about an MRI, just to be on the safe side.”

Fuck, that’s all they need. His priority is Eddie, always, but then it’s going to be medical bills and between them they seem to be racking them up like it’s a shared hobby. Most couples just go bowling, they’re collecting frequent flyer miles from the emergency room.

Gareth steers him toward a door and Steve feels his gut flip. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Gareth, though that fucker will lie for Eddie on command, but he just hates this. Hates seeing his husband hurt, hates seeing him in pain. And Gareth not lying to him is not the same as Gareth not softening the blow to keep him calm. He takes a breath and enters the room.

Eddie’s lying propped up on a bed in the middle of the room. And yeah, Gareth was definitely softening the blow: Eddie’s holding a swollen wrist close to his chest, the road rash spreads from his right temple to his cheek, his hands and knees, his jeans are ripped open and not in the artfully created way they usually are after Eddie has attacked a new pair with scissors and sand paper. 

He looks awful. And Steve’s kind of mad about it.

“Skateboarding? Really?”

It comes out harsher than he had intended. Eddie cracks open an eye before wincing. Steve wants to wrap him up in cotton wool and never let him leave the house ever again.

“I was being a good uncle.”

Steve pulls up a plastic seat beside him.

“Eddie, you’re fifty-eight.”

“So? Tony Hawk is fifty-seven.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you are no Tony Hawk.”

“Don’t be mean to me on my deathbed.”

It’s meant as a joke, Eddie’s a clumsy shit and this won’t be the last time they show up here, but it’s just a little bit too close to the bone for Steve. There was a time when he did see Eddie at deaths door, back in 1986, and the bike accident was another gut punch. But also, they’re getting on in years now and things like this remind Steve of that fact, painfully so. They’re happy, they have a good life and good jobs and Steve doesn’t want to think of the future, of what happens as they age, of ill health.

Of saying goodbye.

He gives himself a little mental slap but Eddie is staring at him, pained doe eyes wide and regretful. He reaches over with his good hand, covered in grit and blood, but Steve takes hold of the offered fingers and slowly kisses each one.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, and he means it, Steve can tell. “I was just having fun with Elliot. He’s so cute, I couldn’t deny him.”

“Don’t blame my kid for your idiocy,” Gareth says from the corner of the room. Eddie makes an aborted attempt at flipping him off with grazed fingers.

Steve gently squeezes Eddie’s thigh to get his attention “I know. But you’re kind of precious to me, you know? So I’d prefer it if you could stay in one piece. Please?”

“Can I have a kiss?”

Steve smiles. God he adores this idiot.

“Only if you promise this is your last visit to the ER?”

“Promise.”

Steve leans in and kisses him gently, doing his best to avoid the scrapes on his cheeks.

They break apart and Eddie sighs. “This is going to cost a fortune, huh?”

“Nah, we’ve got a loyalty card for this place, fifth visit is free. Remind me to get it stamped on the way out.” 

A nurse comes in and introduces herself, looking at Eddie’s notes.

“So, can you tell me what happened?”

“I was on my Harley being chased by the cops. Took a corner too fast, hit some gravel and went flying.”

She looks up in time to see Steve rolling his eyes so hard it hurts, then cocks an eyebrow.

“Want to tell me what really happened?”

“Was on my nephews skateboard going downhill and I fell off.”

He’s an idiot, but he’s Steve’s idiot.

This counts as fluff, right?

It’s maybe the kindness that struck him the most over the last few weeks, how people have just given up being mean, like they got bored of it when it didn’t really matter anymore. Suddenly everyone is a Christian driver, no one cuts lines or complains, everybody smiles at each other, though there’s sadness in every single one of them. Random acts of kindness don’t seem random anymore, they feel necessary, a requirement to making it through the weeks and days and hours.

The looting and violence was there right at the start; people didn’t know what to do with it all, the scale of what they were being told was so overwhelming and everyone had their own way of dealing with it. Eddie drank and did drugs, others looted stores for television sets they wouldn’t need in a few months time. Oddly, it stopped with very little police intervention. Once reality hit home, that this was happening and there was no way out of it, you better suck it up, buttercup, crime plummeted. People gave up. 

The suicides began after that. 

The first he remembered was Gary the sales rep, happy, always joking Gary, dude radiated sunshine from every pore; shot himself in the bath tub so it would be easier to clean up. The Kline’s across the street were a shock, kids and dogs and all. Maybe they’re the ones that planted the seed in Eddie’s head.

He’s thought about offing himself a few times over the years, back when he was a teen living with his dad and his world had been consumed with anger; when he had been on the run and facing down a tsunami of winged monsters; after Wayne died. Steve was his saviour, though, over and over again. And ultimately if it had just been a matter of leaving Steve and their girls behind, well that’s one thing, but leaving them to face this alone was cowardly as fuck, and even he wouldn't stoop so low. So he stayed, though he woke near daily to news of another friend or colleague that just couldn’t deal with it. 

Some of them he accepted with resigned understanding. Others, like Jeff and his wife, kicked the breath out of him.

They’ve made this as nice as they can, a proper family gathering, string lights wrapped round the trees, music playing, mixing and drifting in the air with a park full of other people’s speakers pumping out every kind of music you can imagine; he hears Mozart and Aretha Franklin, and then a gusty breeze brings lines of a song he recognises from his youth, instantly taking him back to the trailer and the warmth of Wayne, and the memory squeezes his heart so hard he feels like he can’t breathe. Then it’s gone as fast as it came, replaced by something modern, something he’s too old to know. It shouldn’t work, it should clash and be ugly but all Eddie can hear is music, notes and rhythm and harmony, and the swell of voices of the young and old rising above all of it. Everything different and separate becoming one. There’s a horrible irony there that he doesn’t wish to spend his most precious moments dwelling on.

“Did you bring your guitar?” Dustin asks him, dropping an over cooked hotdog in his lap. 

Steve pushes himself up from his chair. “I got it,” he says, and then he jogs like he’s still twenty, all the way back to their minivan that they hired to get them all here, though hired probably isn’t the word when the kid had just thrown the keys at them and said ‘keep it.’ 

Gareth pulls a fucking drum out of nowhere, so utterly ridiculous that Eddie can’t help but laugh. Then Matty disappears and comes back with another guitar. They share a look, the three of them. It’s their last concert and they’re a man down and it all hits like a force he’s never known before, the finality of it all. 

“For Jeff,” Gareth says tightly.

They take requests for an hour or so, Robin and their girls throwing pop song after pop song at him trying to get a rise, but he just sucked it up each time, even did his best Rick Astley impression for them. The children are shouting bands and songs they’ve never even heard of, but their disappointment turns to laughter as they rib Eddie, Jeff and Gareth for being so old. 

But they’re not old enough. Not as old as they should be.

As the hours pass the requests change, love songs, mostly, and then people stop asking, they just sing. He does his best to play along, to sing along, but someone starts It’s a Wonderful World and he just can’t, his throat slams shut, he feels the achy wetness of it all, and he’s never realised how hot tears are before. So many thing he’s only noticing now, when they don’t have time for it, don’t have time to marvel at the world.

They took it for granted. All of it. 

There’s a noticeable glow in the sky now, the inky darkness that fell hours ago begins to muddy and brighten with a fiery glow. The sprinkle of stars are smothered one by one. 

The goodbyes begin.

Dustin starts, pulling Erica up from the grass, tapping their kids on the shoulders, grabbing their grandkids tight in their arms. He can tell that Dustin is pointedly leaving them to the end, making their way through the throng of extended family, hugs and kisses and words smothered against skin and cloth as they all clutch at each other. But then he’s standing in front of Steve and Eddie, this man who just breached his sixties; this fourteen year old boy in a Weird Al t-shirt.

They cling to one another but they don’t say a word, because what is there to say that they don’t already know? What is there that they could communicate now after all these years of love and family and friendship? Eddie’s good with his words but there isn’t a single one that would be enough.

It’s Erica’s hand on Dustin’s shoulder that parts them, and then they’re gone, Eddie and Steve watching them disappear through the crowds. They’re going back to their house, just them and the kids and the grandkids. 

Matty says goodbye like he’s going to see him at school tomorrow, but he’s trembling so hard that Eddie pulls him in, hugs him wordlessly before slapping him on the back. 

Eddie’s eyes rove across their little fire pit, but Matty shakes his head.

Gareth and his Irish goodbyes.

It’s the catalyst for the rest of them; this group that were once children who saved the world but are powerless to save it now, who can fight evil but can’t defeat nature. And as always it’s Max who is the defiant one, who refuses to leave. She cranks the volume on their speaker, and hunkers into the blankets and cushions, Lucas and their son right there with her. 

“So long, motherfuckers!” she shouts, angry and sad and tearful.

Eddie’s not sure if it’s to Jane and Mike as they walk away or whether it’s to the rest of the world.

There’s movement around them as people leave, the sound of weeping loud enough to be heard over any music still playing, and a cold hand brushes against his.

Robin stands before him. She does her best to smile, but it’s a sad and horrible thing.

“Hey, Dingus,” she says, but her voice cracks around the words. 

Steve looks so lost but as much as Eddie wants to grab him and run, wants to protect him and hide him from this, it can’t be done. 

Steve had begged her to come with them, to be with them at the end, but she has a wife now, an extended family he’s not part of. She never really answered his question, but it was answer enough.

Eddie wraps his arms around Robin, squeezing her tight, and she whispers in his ear, “Thank you for looking after him,” and he smiles into her greying hair, wet with tears. They both know it was a given, that there was no universe where Eddie didn’t worship the ground Steve walked on. But he plays along for old times sake.

“It was a pleasure.”

He steps aside after a final kiss to her cheek, and Steve reaches for Robin’s hand and drags her away from their shrinking group, and just for a second Eddie panics, thinks that maybe Steve will run away with her, that they’ll go together and leave him behind. But they stop a few feet away, far enough to have some privacy, for their last words to one another to be theirs and theirs alone. This was the goodbye Eddie had feared most, the one with the power to break Steve’s heart, already cracked and fragile from the weight of months of trying to protect his family and friends.

Eddie does his best not to look but he hears a shrill cry and turns in time to see Robin rushing away. Steve stands alone, head tipped back, eyes to the sky, and not for the first time in these awful last months Eddie wants to scream.

As the crowds thin out the atmosphere in the park darkens like the sky above it. Fire pits fizzle out, the maelstrom of music has quietened as people return to wherever it is they’ve decided they want to be for the end. For some of their friends he knows that’s to their homes. For others, like Gareth, he has no idea. 

Mike Wheeler had joked about jumping in Lake Michigan. Eddie’s been afraid of drowning since he was eight years old, when his dad had tried to teach him how to swim in Lovers Lake. He came up for air once, twice and then he sank, arms flailing, lungs filling with water, until sure hands grabbed him and pulled him to the surface and he gasped for breath. His father stood on the dock and laughed as Wayne held him close.

He has wished for Wayne’s love and guidance every day since he died over twenty years ago, has felt the loss of him in every second of his life, but he died peacefully in his sleep and knowing what he knows now Eddie can finally take some solace in Wayne’s passing. He never had to see the world go to shit, never had to see his family suffer. Eddie can at least be grateful for that.

“Daddy?”

Eddie feels his chest tighten at the soft sound of his youngest daughter’s voice. Sarah takes both of his hands in hers, and he doesn’t miss the way they shake. She’s the one he’s always tried to protect the most. Where his eldest daughter, Alice, was bold and confident, Sarah was shy and sensitive, easily hurt by the world. ‘She’s like you,’ Steve always said to him, ‘wears her heart on her sleeve.’  

There’s a gnawing pain deep in his chest from the knowledge that he can’t make this better for her. That he can’t save her this time.

“Yeah, sweety-pie?”

She looks at him, unsure, nervous. “We’re going. Josh and I, we’re…” she looks across to her boyfriend, the only one who ever got a passing grade from him, and he looks back nervously at Eddie. And suddenly with horror, Eddie understands what she’s trying to say.

“I thought you were coming with me and Pop?”

There’s movement behind Sarah, as Alice rises from the ground, wiping grass and leaves from her skirt. And then her husband follows, and Eddie feels his heart race, the painful squeeze of it as he realises what’s happening. 

“Josh and I, we—”

“No, baby. No, you’re coming with me and Pops.”

Sarah, his beautiful, bright Sarah, shakes her head so slowly, like she’s trying to soften the hurt. But how can she? How can anyone?

“Daddy—”

“No!”

“Ed,” says Steve, his voice so gentle, so fucking calm and reasonable, and how dare he? How dare he accept this? “They’ve made their mind up, okay? They want something different. Let them have this.”

The tears are a torrent now, Steve swims before him, and that orange muddy glow in the sky is brighter, and why? Why is this happening? How have they all allowed this to be the way they say goodbye? He should have died when he had his heart attack in twenty-eight, and then he wouldn’t have to be here saying goodbye to his daughters in the middle of a crowd of desperate strangers in a shitty park. 

He should have killed himself when he had the fucking chance.

They say goodbye to their grandsons first, though they don’t say the word. Terror oozes from the boys, and Eddie does his best to get himself in check, to hide his tears and clear his throat before he clutches them to his chest and tells them both how much he loves them. Then it’s Steve’s turn, Steve who adores these boys, who fucking lives for them, and when Eddie overhears Sam’s quiet words, “I don’t wanna die, Grandpa,” Steve sobs into the boys sandy hair. It’s the first time Eddie has seen him truly break through all of this. Their solid family carved from this one single rock, but now Steve crumbles under the weight of it all, the horror, the fear, the grief.

They’ve fought over it, Eddie goading him into a reaction, doing his best to force his own anger and fear onto Steve, trying to get him to react and scream and cry and fight. It wasn’t fair to do that, but it wasn’t fair for Eddie to be the one with his heart hanging out in the world where everyone could hurt it, either. 

But now, as he watches Steve cry into the soft hair of his grandsons, he regrets every second if it. 

Alice and Sarah stand in front of them, holding hands, every bit the little girls they were when they first came to live with them all those years ago. There’s so much he wants to tell them, so much to say to them, but he’s frozen, mouth open.

Steve opens his arms wide and the girls fall against him, huddling for shelter like they were kids in a thunderstorm again. He makes eye contact with Eddie over the tops of the girls heads and Jesus, the pain in Steve’s face rips him open to his core. It pulls Eddie from his stupor, and he piles in, and he and Steve do their best to cradle their girls as they all cry, as the I love you’s tumble from their mouths, as they tell their girls with stuttering breaths how fucking proud they are of them, as they sob and weep. It’s a pain he’s never known, sharp teeth couldn’t imagine the power to hurt someone this much, and if the world wasn’t ending he would die from it. His final goodbye to his beautiful girls would kill him stone dead.

As always it’s Alice that breaks away first, Steve’s courageous girl, every inch the warrior that her father was, and she pulls Sarah away with her and Eddie wants to scream, so he does, and Steve pulls him in, tucks his head in against his chest and doesn’t let him look back, won’t let him watch his babies walk away.

He’s broken. 

Up until now all he’d wanted was for more time, for it to take longer than the scientists said it would, but now he just wants it to hurry up and hit them. 

Steve kisses him softly on the temple and whispers, “It’s time.”

They hold hands as they climb the hill to the top of the park, the whole city lit up below them. They used to run up this hill, racing to the top, falling into a heep. Now they take their time, older and slower, hips and knees creeking and pained.

They’re not alone, others have climbed up here, though probably for more macabre reasons, the best view in the city to watch the end the world. But this is a special place for Steve and Eddie, a place for secret dates, and long summer nights staring at the stars as they kiss, and the cherry blossom tree with their initials carved in the bark, now dulled with age.

They each take an end of their blanket and lay it across the grass, and they slip their shoes off before lowering themselves to the ground. They lie side by side, fingers locked together so tightly that their knuckles are white. The wind picks up, and Eddie hears a faint rumbling in the distance. A train with only one station.

Steve cradles his cheek.

“Eyes on me, okay?”

As if his eyes could be anywhere but on Steve. His love, his heart, his saviour and champion and his whole reason for being. Eddie takes one last look at their city, one last look at their beautiful tree, and then his eyes settle on Steve; salt and pepper hair and barely there lines because he takes care of his skin and Eddie always laughs about it; the moles and scars he has known for their entire life together. The lips he would know blind, that he would find in a sea of them. The taste and touch of Steve Harrington, all he’s ever known and all he’s ever wanted and all he’s ever needed.

Memories bubble to the surface and he finds himself suddenly suffocated by them. His mother’s laughter, his father’s booming voice. Wayne’s large hand ruffling his hair. Steve’s lips on his for the first time, the sun at his back as they kissed in the lake.

He feels the ghost touch of his girls hands, so small, tiny babies; the sand between his toes on his wedding day. The smell of paint in their first house; the smell of grass as Steve mows the lawn.

Wayne’s breath in his ear as he leans in and tells him ‘Proud of you, boy.’

“I love you,” Steve says through his tears, squeezing Eddie’s hand impossibly tighter. “I love you.”

Eddie nods stupidly, over and over.

“I love you too, I love you, don’t leave me, please—”

“I won’t leave you, I will never leave you.”

Steve peppers him in desperate kisses, across his cheeks, his eyelids, his chin, urgent and needy, and Eddie tries to kiss back, because he has to have this too, needs these last moments to push his love into Steve’s skin, needs Steve to know he’s adored and loved and Eddie’s everything. His best friend. His entire universe.

The wind whips around them, the earth rumbles below them and the screaming starts. Eddie can hear the wailing, panicked shouts, the cries of children, a hymn being sung in the distance now being drowned out by the growing roar in the air.

“You’re my world, Steve, you have to know that, you’ve always been my world—”

“I know, I know.”

They’re so close you couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended, and they kiss, and again, and again, like they’re stealing them, and they are, they’re stealing them from time, trying to take what’s theirs before its ripped away from them forever.

It was so good. The life they made together was so good and it’s not fair. This isn’t how their story was supposed to end.

He loves this man, Steve Harrington, the boy of his stupid dreams, the man that saved his life, in so many fucking ways, who made him glad to be alive. This person who has been his, wholly and completely, for over forty years, who will be his to the end of time. 

It’s not long enough.

The abject fucking cruelty of this, of the ripping apart of families and lives, tears him to shreds. 

The air is cooling and a roar chases the wind.

He shakes viciously, so Steve pulls him in closer, wraps his leg over Eddie’s, like he’s trying to consume Eddie, pull him inside his chest, and Eddie wants it so badly. Wants to climb inside him, but even that wouldn’t be enough, they could never be close enough. So all they have is this, their hands and legs entwined, their mouths so close, their noses touching, their breath shared.

“I love you so much, Eddie, every single fucking day of my life, I adore you.”

He repeats the words over and over again like a mantra, as Eddie tries to wipe Steve’s tears away, but it’s a futile exercise, and all Eddie can do is say it back, words of love on a loop until the end of time.

There are more screams as the lights flicker around them. 

Everything goes dark.

The earth shakes

“Look at me,” Steve tells him, “I love you, Eddie, I love you, I—”

That news story about an asteroid heading our way in 2032 really made an impression.