@steddiemicrofic - Steady - word count: 666 - Rated: T cw: mcd, grief
They aren't part of each other's lives in any significant way. Steve can't even remember the first time he saw Eddie, but he can remember the thousandth of times that followed.
A flash of denim at the end of the hallway. The echo of a laugh that carried just a bit too far. The way Eddie would cut across the parking lot instead of using the sidewalk, like the rules were nothing but a suggestion made for others.
They never really talked.
A sarcastic comment here or there, sure. Even an absent “Move, Harrington,” whenever Steve stood in his way. There was even one time when Eddie kept the school door open for Steve with the toe of his boot; he didn't look back, probably didn’t even realize he was doing it or for whom. But it happened and Steve mumbled a small thanks before disappearing into the sea of students.
That has been the extent of their relationship for years.
Eddie had become part of the scenery. Something familiar for Steve to hang on to when all he had ever known got turned upside down.
Steve would catch himself looking for that familiar leather jacket between classes. He would hear someone playing the guitar behind the gym and think, “There he is”, without even walking over. He would walk the school grounds trying to calm his mind before Biology started and he’d have to spend the hour in a dark classroom watching whichever video the teacher had deemed important, when he would catch a glimpse of Eddie sitting on one of the picnic tables with the rest of Hellfire, and all of a sudden everything would finally quiet down.
He had even spotted Eddie in the library once — face down on a textbook, hair spilling over the table — he probably hadn’t even bothered to read the book, only needing something to substitute as a pillow while he napped.
Eddie was always just there. Familiar enough that Steve had stopped noticing he was noticing.
Until Eddie wasn’t there anymore.
Until Steve could no longer notice him.
The first day, Steve didn't even notice, too busy dealing with the aftermath of their final Upside Down encounter or earthquake the government had dubbed it. So, no, he didn’t notice, not at first.
It was just one of those mornings where everything feels just a bit off. Nothing new. Steve has had many of those ever since his first encounter with the Upside Down.
But that’s the thing right? Absence is strange. It doesn’t come knocking on your door to announce itself, but it isn’t always present either, or at least we like to think so.
The only thing it does is settle in the cracks we leave unattended thinking what’s the harm? It will hold, but behind those cracked walls a flood is slowly building and when the pressure finally becomes too much and the walls give in, grief comes down on us in waves, drowning us in what we so desperately tried to ignore.
Steve eventually learns this in the way his eyes scan every crowd he passes, searching for that leather jacket he just can’t seem to find. In the way he freezes whenever black curls pass him by. How, whenever he hears the playing of a guitar he thinks of him, but by the sound of the notes he knows that it isn’t Eddie who’s playing.
It will never be Eddie, not anymore.
He knows this, but habits linger. Like reality hasn’t caught up yet and sometimes Steve wonders if it ever will.
That’s the cruelest part; the way the heart lingers behind the mind when it comes to loss.
In his head he knows Eddie is dead.
But his heart keeps on searching for him by the entrance to the trailer park, by the benches outside the library, on the corner of every street. And while his head keeps on telling him: he’s gone, his heart keeps on saying: he’s just late.
