ahoy, ladies

Eddie is NOT charging $25 for a joint in 1986. Eddie would not be charging more than a few dollars at most for a joint in 1986 since you could get an ounce for $100 or less back then. An ounce makes about 56 joints of about half gram size. Now blunts, on the other hand, would be a little more expensive as they contain more weed, and you could get about 28 blunts of about a gram each. There are 28.35g in an ounce but most stoners just say 28g to an ounce.

So, he'd charge $2-3 a joint, and $4-5 a blunt, depending on his own markup.

A joint is rolled in white rolling papers, kinda like the thin sheets of a bible or like those oil blotting papers for makeup. Job or Raw are popular brand options.

A blunt is rolled in brown cigarillo paper, sometimes mixed with tobacco but not always. Think Swisher Sweets or Dutch Masters or Zigzag...you can Google those if you need.

Weed, by itself, is usually sold by quarter or half or full ounces but can also be sold by the gram. Usually, it costs just a bit more to buy by the gram because it's more work for the dealer. So, Eddie would have to be somewhat good at math and doing math on the fly. He'd also have a scale to measure it out with.

Weed is sold in a variety of containers, but the most common is cheap sandwich baggies. The 100 for $1 ones. Usually twisted and tied with a knot. You can also find dealers who use shopping bags, jars, paper towels and more depending on what they have on hand. From what we see in the show, Eddie uses cheap sandwich bags.

Eddie also wouldn't be selling high quality weed. He's probably selling "mid" or mid-grade weed. He might on occasion sell dirt/ditch weed, which is lower quality usually with seeds and stems instead of just bud/flower. He would probably not have access to loud/high tier weed. However, Argyle would, being from California, which was at the time, and remains, a stoner's paradise.

Vickie likes boobies. Likes Robin. And she'll feel so flattered that Robin saw these funky earrings and thought of her. she'll go all pink and blushy and cute and start to ramble. And then Robin will start to ramble back. And they'll be perfect for each other. Steve's done the mental math. He's good at people, he knows how to read them in a way he knows Robin can't.

Which is why he knows that Vickie will love the earrings. And why he's been trying to convince Robin to buy the earrings for the past ten minutes, It feels like longer. Much longer. But if his watch is correct — and it is — then not much time has passed at all.

"But what if she hates them?" Robin asks, voice still strained. She stands up from her half-crouch, turning to Steve with anxious eyes. Gleaming in the sun, shining down on the Saturday craft and farmer's market they're currently wandering through. If it weren't for the pained look on her face, Robin would look really pretty like this. Skin warm, eyes shining, and hair sun-bleached. Vickie would love her.

Steve has a feeling that Vickie would love them even more when she finds out exactly how long Robin's been umming and ahhing in front of the stall. Not even including the time that Robin spent in the car on the drive up talking about getting something for Vickie.

"Now you're just making stuff up," Steve replies, raising an eyebrow as he locks eyes with Robin. Puts a hand on his hip and adjusts his weight, shifts it from foot to foot. His clean white sneakers adjusting with the movement.

"In what world is Vickie, notorious fun earring wearer, going to say no to a fun pair of hand crafted earrings?"

"But it's not even her birthday or Christmas or anything!" Robin argues, gesturing with her hands. Silver bracelets gently clinking together.

" I'd argue that makes it even better," Steve retorts, eyes quickly flickering to the lady running the stall before dropping his voice down low. Quiet enough that only Robin can hear him. "Show that you're thinking of her."

"I don't know!" Robin whines, dragging out the word, the sound of it warbling at the end. She claps her hands to the side of her face, before dragging them down. Stretching her skin and pulling a face.

"Making a new friend is always hard," the lady running the stall interrupts with an empathetic look on her face. "But jewellery never hurts. I'd work on me."

"See!" Steve exclaims, gesturing thankfully at the lady with a splayed out hand. Grateful that the lady took Robin's freak out as only a girl anxious to make a new friend, and not something more Robin wants them to be. "Thank you."

"Okay, okay!" Robin exclaims, taking her hands off her face and sort of fluttering them as she throws them up on the air. "I can see when I'm being ganged up on."

"Can you also see that I'm right?" Steve sort of jokes. "Admitting that you're wrong and admitting that you're being ganged up on are two different things."

"Do you need me to say it?"

"Yes, actually," Steve smiles, trying hard not to feel too smug about it. Given the look on Robin's face, he thinks he fails. But to her credit, Robin turns to him, takes a deep breath and admits that he was right.

"You were right," she starts, not actually sounding all that put out about it. "I'm buying the earrings, I'll regret it if I don't."

"Thank you," he replies, not even bothering to hide how smug he's feeling.

"Yeah, yeah, now help me pick."

The lady running the stall looks endlessly amused by their antics now, as they turn back to the jewellery stand to have a proper look at her wares. She smiles, shakes her head, and then turns to look at some other customers approaching. Greets them with a smile, and it feels like less of the pressure is on Robin now. Not being stared at while she tries to pick a pair of earrings for her crush.

Now that she's conceded that she is in fact buying a gift for Vickie, Robin is taking the decision making part of the processes very seriously. Looking at all of the options — at the look, the colour, the material they're made of. The feel and the way they catch the light. It needs to be perfect.

She looked at the recycled ones, earrings and necklaces and rings and bracelets shaped out of old metal pieces and canvas and carboard. Reinforced and strengthened in ways Steve didn't quite know and strung up for people to wear. Painted and dyed pretty colours. Hearts and flowers and abstract triangles. If you looked close enough you could see remnants and snippets of writing from the material the lady had salvaged.

Steve likes the resin ones. Small flowers and leaves encased in the clear, shimmering resin. Specs of glitter that catches the light. The flowers dried and pressed into flat circles, or triangles, or other shapes so they could be hung from the ear. There were a couple of more alive looking flowers in cubes, the earring hook anchored from one of the corners.

"What about these?" Steve says, holding up a pair of the resin flower earrings for Robin to see. "Very Molly Ringwald."

"It would look cute with her straw hat," Robin considers, running her calloused fingers over the smooth surface of them. "Ooh, and that chunky cardigan with the daisies."

He watches something flicker over Robin, quick as a flash before she's pulling a face. Brow furrowing and nose wrinkling up, as if she's distressed by her own thought.

"But maybe that means that I should get one of the crocheted earrings," Robin whines. "That would go better with her cardigans — but is that too boring?"

"What, too matchy-matchy?" Steve asks with a raised eyebrow. "Like, you're pigeon-holing her or something?

"Yes! Exactly!" Robin exclaims as Steve puts the earrings back down on the table. "Like, 'oh, you wear a lot of crocheted stuff, so I bought you more crochet,' like, that's too surface level!"

"If you've got enough you could get two pairs," Steve suggests with a shrug. "Cover your bases."

"Okay but would that be too much?" Robin asks, wringing, her fluttery, anxious hands. Wondering if she would be too much. If she would be coming on too strong.

"I really don't know why you're asking me that," Steve says simply, thinking of boquets of roses, and simple jewelery bought because 'it made me think of you'. Of picking his girlfriends up and swinging them around, of buying their ticket and their favourite candy before they could even think about asking for it. He gives Robin a knowing look, and she returns it looking understanding, but also a little bit sad. He tries not to think about it too hard.

He wears his heart on his sleeve when he romances, when he cares, when he puts his everything into wooing his partner. There's no such thing as too much if you care about them. If you're thinking if them, you let them know.

You buy them things because you know it'll make them smile. You buy them two pairs of earrings at a market because you know they'll like them.

"Steve," Robin says quietly, all too forlorn for someone so worked up mere moments before. She knows how heartbroken he was after he put himself out there for Nancy. Was too much. He gives her a look in return — soft, thankful — before he lets it fall away.

"Which is why I say to buy two pairs," Steve says simply. Because they both know that if he was in her position, he would. Not only is he confident and unashamed, he's also a total romantic.

And maybe it's Robin's turn to be a romantic. To put it out there. Steve already knows that it's going to be reciprocated. She's going to get a happy ending, if he has anything to say about it. And he does. He's her best friend, of course he does.

"Okay, two pairs." Robin agrees, nodding, before taking a deep breath and redoubling her efforts in looking over the stall. "I got this."

"Steve took that as his queue to pull his attention away from the stall, and to the rest of the market around them. It was bustling, full of a million other people all trawling though the multitude of stalls.

This was no Hawkins craft fair.

Steve and Robin both agreed that they needed some time away from Hawkins, after everything. So they both managed to swing some simultaneous time off work and Steve drove them both to Indianapolis. Booked them in at some cheap and only sort-of sketchy hotel. It came with a double bed only, and the guy at the reception desk gave them both a weird knowing look — which they both resolutely ignored. The focus wasn't on where they were staying, it was what they were doing in the city. There was just so much, and only so much time to cram it all into.

The market was one of Robin's picks, but Steve wasn't complaining. There were a few stalls selling all sorts of antiques where he managed to get a few baseball cards for cheap. That, and there's a few food and drink stands further on that are really catching his eye.

Bur first — earrings for Vickie.

While he was distracted, trying to get a look at the fresh smoothie place a couple of stalls down — Robin had pulled five or six earrings off of the displays and lined them up in front of her. Fingers dancing over them like she was playing the piano. Focusing on how they looked, how they felt, whether they caught the light and how well they matched Vickie's aesthetic.

All of them would — for the record.

"Those two," Steve says, pointing to two of the six Robin had gathered in front of her. One of the cool resin flowers he pointed out before, and a funky triangle design made of the recycled material that Robin was fond of.

Not that she was saying she was fond of it. She just kept coming back to them over and over again. Drawn to them with thoughts of Vickie.

Robin picks up the two pairs Steve pointed out, and holds them out in front of her. Screwing up her face in concentration. Quick eyes darting between them and the other choices on the table. Anxious eyes flicking to Steve and back to the earrings.

"I'm telling you." Steve says, putting a hand on one hip, giving Robin a look. "These two."

"I hate that you're right," Robin replies, voice jovial and mouth twitching up at the corners. Betraying all seriousness she tried to put into her words. She quickly puts the other earrings back in their places, on the display stands and artfully arranged on the table.

"No you don't," Steve replies, smiling as Robin takes his two picks up to the lady running the stall, one hand clutching the earrings, the other digging through her bag for her wallet.

He merely watches as she pays, quickly and safely stowing the earrings and her wallet back in her bag. Following along as Robin leaves the stall and continues through the market.

"Thank you Steve — oh you're so welcome Robin — I never could have done this without you," Steve immitates, pulling a face and pitching his voice up in a poor mockery of Robin.

She snorts. "Thank you Steve."

"Now you just need to actually give them to her."

It still makes his chest hum, when he thinks about it too hard. Makes his lips twitch when he’s spacing out in class, when he’s eating dinner with his parents or when he’s driving to school: because his mind is on Eddie. He thinks about what Eddie might be doing. If his day has been okay and if anyone gave him any shit, if all of his deals went smoothly or if Mrs. O’Donnell still has it out for him.

He wonders if Eddie ever thinks the same about him.

Steve… likes to think he does, especially at times like this. At times when Eddie has Steve’s head pillowed on his chest, when Eddie’s fingers are in Steve’s hair and their legs are tangled together, when the movie they’d been watching is glowing blue on the screen, the tape over, and Steve can’t find it within himself to get up and turn it off.

Eddie’s fingers are scratching behind his ears, and the pattering of rain on the trailer’s tin roof is lulling Steve into a pleasant sort of doze. Sleep always comes easier with Eddie next to him.

“Sweetheart?” Eddie murmurs, and Steve likes this the most. Sweetheart and honey and baby, names that fall so easily from Eddie’s lips like Steve’s something sweet. Like he’s something worth savoring.

He hums and doesn’t move, Eddie’s fingers still in his hair.

“It’s getting late,” Eddie reminds him, “you spendin’ the night?”

Steve shouldn’t. His parents will ask questions he can’t answer and every night they spend with the Bimmer out front is another night of gossip they hand over to Eddie’s neighbors—

But Eddie is warm. His hairy legs are locked around Steve’s like he doesn’t want to let him go and his lips are so close to the crown of Steve’s head he can feel the breath of his words and Steve thinks maybe enduring a phone call with his parents is worth it. He could borrow Eddie’s boxers. He could wear one of Eddie’s more neutral shirts to school tomorrow and the two of them would be the only ones who knew.

“You gonna let me go if I say no?” Steve props himself up on his elbows, the question falling from his tongue because he can’t help but tease, because Eddie’s face always flushes like he’s in awe of it.

Eddie’s legs flex and lock, his arms wrapping possessively around Steve’s middle even as his cheeks darken. “If I had it my way,” he murmurs, tilting his head close, “I’d never let you go.” And Eddie kisses him. Steve parts his lips as Eddie’s tongue slips inside, warm and wet and coveting, licking behind his teeth—

The lights flicker. Steve can see the flash of the them through his closed eyelids and even as he tells himself it’s nothing the hairs on his arms stand on end, his ears begin to ring as his senses heighten, the only noise still the rain on the roof and the wet sounds of their mouths, until it happens again.

Steve breaks their kiss, dread pooling low in his belly as he hovers over Eddie, his gaze darting around the room as he searches for anything he could use to protect them both.

“Sorry,” Eddie exhales, “shoddy electrical in this thing.”

But Steve can barely hear him as the ringing in his ears grows, his skin beginning to tingle as that familiar surge of adrenaline begins to flood him.

“Sweetheart?”

The lights go out.

Steve scrambles off the couch, nearly taking himself out at the knees over Eddie’s coffee table, and lunges for the lamp on the side table. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would be something. It would, if Steve was lucky, be enough for Eddie to—

“Steve—?”

“Get behind me,” Steve interrupts, his palms slick as he wrenches the cord from the outlet, holding the heavy wooden base of the lamp high above his head.

“Stevie, baby, maybe the power doesn’t go out on your side of the tracks but over here it’s—”

“Please.” Steve’s voice cracks over the vowels, desperation flooding him: he can’t lose Eddie. He can’t. Just the thought of it—the thought of Eddie anywhere close to what lies beneath their feet makes his palms slicken, makes his heart jackrabbit in his chest and his blood thunder in his ears.

He can’t let it happen.

The couch creaks as Eddie rises, their backs to the wall as Steve holds up his lamp, unseeing, into the dark.

For long minutes that’s all they do: the only sounds are Steve’s uneven breaths and the pattering of rain on the roof, and Steve’s gaze flicks between every point of entry as his eyes adjust to the dark.

But as the rain patters on, as lightning flashes outside and as the adrenaline begins to wane from his blood, as the lamp he’s been holding over his head begins to feel like it weighs a ton, embarrassment begins to fill him instead.

It was just the storm. It was the rain, and the wind, and the trailer’s old electrical system, and Steve had forced Eddie into a corner over nothing.

Steve sets down the lamp, his arms trembling as the adrenaline surge leaves his muscles tired and shaking. He licks his lips, his mouth bone dry, and brings the heels of his palms to his eyes. Heavily, he sits back on the couch, unable to look Eddie in the eyes. “Sorry,” he croaks, “that was—” but he can’t explain. He can’t explain because that would open Eddie to a world Steve wants—needs—to protect him from.

His teeth begin to chatter, and his hands are trembling so badly he curls them up, pressing his fists into the sockets of his eyes just so he doesn’t look like he’s losing it completely.

The trailer floor creaks, and Eddie, slowly, sits beside him. Just the weight of him makes Steve’s nerves ease, his jaw unclenching.

“I don’t like heights,” Eddie murmurs into their quiet, and Steve has no idea why he’s bringing this up but at least he’s talking, at least he’s not throwing Steve out the door for losing his shit. “Jeff has to drive when we go over bridges.” His hand rests on the small of Steve’s back. “I’m gonna go get some candles, yeah? I’ll be right back.” Eddie rubs a soft circle against Steve’s spine before standing, his footsteps rapid before he clatters around a closet just a few feet away.

He’s quick, and within a minute there’s three mostly-burned candles flickering dimly on the coffee table, and Steve no longer feels like his heart’s going to beat out of his chest when he can finally meet Eddie’s gaze. “Sorry,” he says again, lamely, his voice still shaky, “it’s normally not that bad.”

Because it’s not. Because adding Eddie to the mix—the mere potential of it—had sent Steve into a panic.

“It’s okay if it’s that bad,” Eddie states, simply, like that’s all it boils down to, like what just happened isn’t completely and totally fucking insane. Eddie takes his hand, and Steve realizes how cold his own fingers are against the heat of Eddie’s palm. “It can be that bad around me.”

Tears, unbidden and unexpected flood Steve’s lower lids and he has to stop himself from blinking so they don’t spill. He sniffs hard, instead, and squeezes Eddie’s hand.

“Stevie?” Eddie murmurs, his voice gentle and probing, “this is why you have that nail bat under your bed, isn’t it?”

Too fucking smart. Eddie is too fucking smart for his own good and Steve is livid at himself for falling for someone who’s smart enough to connect any of the dots—but Steve is weak. He’s weak, and he nods instead of denying it, because as desperate as he is to keep Eddie away from it all, to be understood by him, even in this small amount, is a relief he can’t resist.

“Wayne always thought there was something wrong with this town,” Eddie mutters, and Steve can’t help his choked breath of a laugh because of course—of course—Wayne would know. “Always said the government was out here covering it all up.” Eddie nods, like without Steve having to validate any of it, he already knows. “He always says they’ve got ways of keeping people quiet.” Eddie mutters. He stares, and Steve realizes that, really, was a question.

He barely moves, but Eddie is watching, and his eyes widen when Steve tilts his head, just slightly, forwards.

And then Eddie’s scooting closer. He’s wrapping Steve up in his arms and the smell of cigarettes and cedar wraps around him, and his face is pressed into Eddie’s warm neck and Eddie’s fingers are back in his hair.

“You’re okay,” Eddie murmurs, and then, after a moment, like he was hesitating, adds, “and I’m okay, too, sweetheart. ’S just us, here.”

Steve clings back, his fingers pressing deep and desperate against Eddie’s back, like his very hold could be what keeps Eddie next to him, safe.

And Steve’s not letting go.

✨✨✨

And then they lived happily ever after and nothing bad happened to them ever again 🥰

Thank you for the prompt! It feels so good to be able to post these again!

Also, I’m so sorry, but it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything on here that I lost my permanent tag list. I think that’s just my sign that I’m not going to do it anymore 😅 apologies to anyone who is unhappy about that 🫶

Around him, the guys are clamoring, a loud cacophony that essentially amounts to, “What?!”

“I broke up with him,” he says again, almost disbelieving. His mind is already racing. He can take this back. He can fix this. He just needs to drive to Steve’s house and tell him that he didn’t mean it. That he was body snatched or possessed or Vecna’d.

Okay, maybe not that last one. But, god --

Gareth crows with laughter, breaking through the spiral of Eddie’s thoughts. “Seriously? Good for you dude. We’ve been waiting. And thank god. He was such a square.”

Jeff rolls his eyes at Gareth. “Does it make you a square if you call someone a square?”

“Shut up, man.” Gareth shoves at him and Jeff shoves back.

Grant nudges Eddie from where he sits on the floor next to him, waits for Eddie to look down at him before asking softly, “Seriously, are you okay?”

“I—I don’t know. Did I fuck up?” His voice sounds funny, far off. His eyes refuse to focus. Jeff and Gareth immediately stop their tussling. Gareth leans up from where Jeff has him pinned to the floor, eyes blazing.

“No. This is a good thing. He was a douchebag.”

“You guys were around him for one night,” Eddie argues.

Jeff pushes up from the floor and stands in front of Eddie, serious in a way he rarely is. “Yeah, but Eddie, you’ve been fucked up for months. I know we don’t know what you went through, and I’m not asking you to tell us, but it’s sucked watching you be a freaking zombie.”

“We didn’t even really get to watch you for most of it,” Grant breaks in. “It was like Harrington had you on house arrest. Half the times we tried to visit you and he was there, he refused to let us near you. Every other time, he kicked us out after like five minutes. We had no idea what was going on, we couldn’t talk to you.”

“He was just being protective,” Eddie protests, but it’s weak. Steve had been pretty militant about visitors during the early days after spring break. But Eddie hadn’t minded. For most of his recovery, he hadn’t wanted to see anyone. He’d never explicitly told Steve to keep people away, though. He’d somehow just known. Eddie can only imagine to his friends, though, it looked like they were being deliberately, even maliciously kept away by a known asshole who probably wouldn’t know Eddie from Adam.

Jeff nods at Grant’s words. “We’re your best friends, man. We were terrified over spring break. Then suddenly you’ve got this guy who you couldn’t stand playing guard dog over you, and we’re just supposed to accept that?”

“Now that you’ve been out of your cage for a little while,” Gareth breaks in, “and we get to hang out with both of you for real, he acts like he’d rather be anywhere else. Doesn’t know our names, doesn’t talk with us, can’t even be fucked to remember shit that’s important to you. So, yeah. I think this break up is a good thing.”

Ten minutes ago, so had Eddie. But now all he can see is the devastation on Steve’s face.

“You guys mind if I skip the cleanup? I can get most of the stuff later.”

“Yeah, mean, get out of here. We’ll see you next week.”

“Or before then, if you want to hang out,” Jeff says. “Now that we’ll actually be able to see you.”

Eddie scoops up the papers with his DM notes on them, but leaves his screen, dice, and books to grab later, and trudges to his car.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next week is a blur. Eddie barely leaves his room, barely leaves his bed. He hears most of the kids talking to Wayne at various points, but Wayne, like the saint he is, turns them away, leaves Eddie to rot in peace.

He misses Steve. It’s honestly stupid for him to stay in his room the way he does, because Steve is in every corner of it. He’s left so much shit there (including but not limited to: a Hawkins High baseball raglan, a Springsteen cassette, at least two pairs of boxers, and memories, memories fucking everywhere). Eddie can still smell him on his sheets. In his weaker, weirder moments, he finds himself trying to hotbox Steve’s scent, comforter pulled over his head as he buries his nose in his what’s now Steve’s pillow and sniffs hard enough to cause a headache.

Eddie almost drove to Steve’s house after leaving Gareth’s that awful day. Made it three blocks away before he turned around and went home. His brain had been a mess, unable to decide what to do or how he felt, and it still is days later. He goes over everything obsessively - the epic failure of their date, the argument in the car after, the two days he spent ruminating on their fate, and then the break up itself and Steve’s reaction to it.

Eddie’d felt so solid in his decision the minute Steve had opened his mouth at Gareth’s. But as soon as he said it, all his reasons seemed flimsy. Who cares that they had one bad date, that Steve had been at less than his best one time in front of Eddie’s friends, that he’d run the second Eddie had tried to talk about it? Eddie could have tried again, gone over to his house the next day or called him up, talked about it when their heads were cooler. And who cares that they don’t have anything in common? Steve still acts interested in whatever Eddie wants to tell him most of the time. Asks questions, smiles at him so, so sweetly and tells him to keep talking every time Eddie laments that he's boring Steve.

But there’s just been an itch at the back of Eddie’s mind since he got out of the hospital. A shadow at the corner of his eye that disappears when he turns to look at it fully. It tugs at him at odd moments, when things seem to be going fine, good, even, but there’s something off. He can’t see a pattern, but he knows he feels it more when Steve’s around. And every time his friends or Wayne push back against Steve, every time something Steve says hits a sour note, the shadow grows bigger and more menacing.

He’d felt the shadow swell at The Hideout as he waited in the parking lot, watching the minutes tick by. He tried to shake it when Steve showed up, tried to ignore it pulling more insistently as he clocked Steve’s attire, his inattention, his apathy, and his anger. But it grew and grew until it was almost suffocating, until he saw him at Gareth’s and it exploded in words he couldn’t…didn’t want to?…take back.

Now here he is. Midway through a D&D session with his three closest friends and three kids who clearly know something’s up with the way they’ve been trying him since the session started. Lucas and Mike are just being annoying, having side conversations, making Eddie repeat himself when they don’t pay attention to the narration, but Dustin’s actively hostile, antagonizing Eddie’s NPCs at every turn, tossing out snide remarks at the other players unprovoked, even the way he rolls his dice is disrespectful.

“You okay over there, Henderson?” He finally asks, the third time Dustin’s tossed his dice so hard across the board they’ve flown off the table.

Dustin accepts his dice back from Jeff who’d scooped them off the floor easily enough, but he sneers at Eddie. “What do you care, Munson?”

Even though Eddie knows the likely reason Dustin’s acting out, he still revels in the eyes going wide around him, the quiet ooohhs at Dustin’s words. Eddie smiles like a predator indulging its prey.

“A Dungeon Master always cares if his party members are having a good time,” he says, low and dangerous. “So if you have a complaint, I say out with it. Share with the class, please.”

The words and the tone pass over the kid who used to cower at the thought of Eddie being upset with him. The shadow grows larger.

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Oh, really?” Eddie says, menacing, meeting Henderson’s head-on stare unflinchingly. “Well, if you don’t have anything to say, then—”

“What did you do to Steve?” Mike breaks into their standoff. Eddie’s attention snaps to him.

“Excuse me?”

Mike rolls his eyes at the theatrics, something Eddie wouldn't have imagined possible before spring break. “You heard me.”

“Why do you think I’ve done anything to him?”

“You haven’t been around at all, and Steve hasn’t mentioned you once since our last session. Normally he can’t shut up about you.”

“Mike!” Dustin hisses. Mike throws up his hands.

“It’s true! And his hair’s been all droopy!”

“Jesus Christ, Mike,” Lucas says, dropping his head in his hands.

“Oh no, not his hair!” Gareth cracks up with Grant and Jeff.

“Shut up, man,” Lucas says, with enough annoyance that the other guys stop laughing. Lucas never talks back.

“He dumped him,” Henderson bites off. “For no goddamn reason.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eddie stares Dustin down from behind his DM screen. Yeah, he did do that. But he had his reasons…mostly…and he’s not going to let some snot-nosed freshman, no matter what they’ve been through together, act like he’s the bad guy in this situation. He did what he had to do.

“Yes, I do.”

“What,” Eddie scoffs. “Did Steve run and tattle to you?”

“What is he, five? No he didn’t tattle to me.” Dustin rolls his eyes, which Eddie’s getting real tired of seeing. “It’s not tattling to tell your best friend something bad that happened to you. Besides, he didn’t even want to tell me, but I caught him crying and made him.”

That brings Eddie up short. “He was crying?”

“He was crying.” Dustin says, somehow smug and angry and sad all at once. “I’ve seen Steve after he was tortured and I’ve never seen him cry.”

“After he was what?”

“Dude!” Mike smacks him on the arm, gives him a look as he gestures to the rest of the Hellfire guys whose eyes are all wide as saucers.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Metaphorically tortured,” he amends. Eddie glances at the guys and can see it doesn’t help. Eddie needs to end this now, before anyone says something they regret, or anyone exposes something they really shouldn’t.

“Henderson, listen—” But he’s cut off by a herd of elephants galumphing down the stairs.

“All right, children, it’s time to go! Move your butts!” Instead of elephants, it’s Robin, entering the room like righteous whirlwind. Eddie clocks immediately that she’s spitting mad, eyes ablaze, mouth set.

Gareth, with zero sense of self preservation, whines, “But we haven’t finished yet!” The look Robin shoots him is pure venom.

“Yes, you have.” She dismisses him, and turns back to the kids who are already gathering their things without protest. “Now move it, chop chop. Nancy’s in the station wagon outside.” The kids don’t grumble the way they normally do when…when it’s Steve come to get them and is hurrying them out of the room. Dustin shoulder checks Eddie on the way out, knocking him off balance metaphorically if not physically.

As the kids file upstairs, Robin lingers.

“I need to talk to you,” she says to him. “In private, please.” It’s not a request. Eddie nods. Time for a reckoning.

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Next up! Robin and Eddie have it out, and we get more insight into this "shadow" that Eddie feels.