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Eddie ripped more grass from the ground, frustrated and bored.
Who knew prepping for an apocalypse would involve so much waiting?
Normal people would probably enjoy the down time. The first bit of relaxation and calmness he had all week, ever since Chrissy was murdered in his trailer.
He’d been on the run, never having a moment to stop and think.
Or just sit.
But Eddie was not the type of guy to stop and think.
He could never understand people who were.
Just two minutes of down time was all it took for him to become restless and irritated at the stillness.
He hated stillness.
He hated feeling like he was the only thing in the world moving.
The relative quiet and calm of others around him making his skin itch in much the same way he’d been told his constant movement irritated others.
He just didn’t get how people could be so content in the quiet.
Were they not also bombarded with constant thoughts, all the time?
How could they stand it?
The quiet, or the slow moving lazy days or all of that relaxation, meditation, lie back and enjoy the sun or whatever.
He wasn’t built for it.
He was built for loud music and players shouting around a table and movement and always being able to find something to do, even if that was just finally fixing the squeaky hinge on their cabinet under the sink or picking up the newest electronic do-dad that had been dumped in the junkyard and ripping it apart to inspect just because he could.
He was not built for quiet and sedentary.
Eddie looked up from his slowly growing shredded grass mountain.
Mount Green, he’d named it because apparently a lack of food, sleep and an over abundance of adrenaline had affected his previously endless wells of creativity and imagination.
Bummer.
Everyone else seemed to be handling the moment of quiet just fine.
The kids were huddled around in a circle on the ground, talking quietly between themselves, Nancy was in her own world, rhythmically cleaning her gun, and Robin was sitting outside of the Winnebago, fingers laced over her belly, ankles crossed out in front of her, head back against the wall of the camper van, looking every bit the sentry, the guard.
Her posture was relaxed but eyes open wide and watching, making sure nobody came to disturb the sorely needed sleep her soulmate had to be bullied into taking inside.
The only person who didn’t want Steve to take a moment to himself was of course, Steve.
The beautiful stubborn asshole.
He had pouted and pushed back and whined and bitched and complained until the combined forces of Robin, Dustin and Erica overpowered him.
Robin was guarding anyone from coming out before they had deemed him well rested enough, just as much as she was guarding anyone from going in.
There was a tentative layer of calm over their party now, things had been quiet for just long enough to allow their shoulders to drop ever so slightly.
They should have all known that was a terrible omen in and of itself.
Things could never stay chill for long, not in this group, Eddie had learned.
Something always happened.
A sound cut through the easy air of the field.
A heartbroken, devastated, angry wail.
The wail of a person who was at the end of their rope.
The wail of someone who had lost everything and gained nothing and was going to make the world pay for it.
And it was coming from inside the Winnebago.
Robin was on her feet in less than a second, an anguished cry of “God fucking damn it!” screaming out from inside the metal walls, so tormented and painful it almost hurt Eddie to hear it.
The door to the Winnebago slammed open with such force it bounced off the wall, nearly taking Robin out with it.
Steve burst through, eyes rimmed red, furious, terrifyingly enraged.
And he was marching right towards Eddie.
Eddie scrambled to his feet, destroying Mt. Green in the process, sending grass scattering.
He looked like he wanted to kill him.
Despite the fury and rage of the rapidly approaching Harrington, Eddie didn’t find himself fleeing for his life like he would have if it was Carver coming towards him with the same look.
Because this was Steve, right?
Steve wasn’t like them.
Right?
He was sure of that, he was.
Always had been.
It was why he had dropped the broken bottle as soon as the fog of war had left his vision.
But now… the way Steve was looking at him…
It was like he wanted to rip his arms off.
“Woah, woah, hey Steve, what-” his words were halted in their tracks as Steve grabbed him by the lapels of his leather jacket and hauled him in close, almost spitting in his face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Steve hissed out like the words themselves could poison him. “Why did you fucking do that?”
He shook Eddie, hard. So hard that Eddie’s grip on Steve’s wrists, trying to pry them away slipped and he was swiftly reminded of the fact that this man in front of him wasn’t just more athletic than him, fitter, stronger, with large hands and large muscles currently shaking Eddie around like he was a rag doll, but that Steve was also a man who had tangoed with Death multiple times and won.
Eddie’s neck tried desperately to keep his head on his body as he was shaken again, violently and without mercy.
“Why?!”
Eddie could do nothing but stare at Steve in complete open mouth shock, stunned into silence in a way he so rarely was.
This was not a position he was unused to, deals gone wrong, hookups gone wrong, dear old dad taking his rage out on a little boy.
He was used to being shaken around like this.
But not by him.
Not by Steve.
Never by Steve.
“I should have chosen different,” Steve almost whispered to him, yanking him so close their noses were brushing, nothing but venom in his voice and a wild, desperate look in his eyes. “I should have called the fucking cops on you the second I found out you were in Ricks boathouse. That would have made all this bullshit so much easier!”
Eddie’s heart crashed straight down into the topped Mt. Green.
How… how could Steve possibly think he was guilty?
After everything they’d already been through… the fucking… the lake, the bats, the guns, plural in Wheelers bedroom?
Steve was a part of the group that explained everything to him!
Part of the group that assured him this supernatural nonsense wasn’t just in his head and he had definitely not killed Chrissy.
“Every time.” Steve shook him again, vibrating with anger. “Every fucking time, you promise me. You promise and then you go and do it again. Do you have any idea what it’s like? To watch you, over and over again. I- I don’t know why I thought this time would be different. I don’t know why-”
Steve huffed and finally let go with such sudden force Eddie landed hard on his ass. “Forget it. I can’t. I fucking can’t. Not this time around. I can’t do this again. I need a fucking break.”
Steve didn’t look back at him as he stomped away, barefoot, his arms, sides and neck freshly bleeding with his heightened pulse.
He nearly ripped the door to the Winnebago from its hinges as he yanked it open and then slammed it closed again.
The entire party watched him, silently stunned into inaction, even Robin unable to move in light of Steve’s scorching anger.
Eddie could guess that none of them had ever seen Steve lose it like that.
There was the roar of an engine and before any of them could do anything about it, the Winnebago kicked up a plume of smoke.
The wheels spun, mud splattering underneath and with a terrifying lurch and wobble the vehicle tore out of the field.
Abandoning them.
Leaving them all behind.
Deliriously, the only thing Eddie was thinking as he saw it get smaller in the distance was;
Where did Steve learn to hotwire?
Eddie blinked.
Closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
And he was sitting.
Legs crossed.
A fistful of grass in his hand.
Mount Green, tall and proud by his knee.
Robin had her hands resting gently over her belly, her legs crossed in front of her.
The kids were huddled and gossiping.
The Winnebago was sitting innocent and quiet.
Everything was calm and still.
The kind of calm and still that made Eddie’s skin itch.
There was…
What…
Something was… fading a little.
The door to the Winnebago opened, slow and ominous, creaking on it’s hinges, a bandaged arm slowly pushing it open.
Steve stepped out, somber and subdued.
He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
He didn’t look in Eddie’s direction.
He looked like a beaten dog.
Steve dropped to his knees next to Robin, put his head down into her lap and began to cry.
Eddie blinked again.
Mount Green, tall and proud by his knee.
Robin had her hands resting gently over her belly, her legs crossed in front of her.
Everything was calm and still.
The door to the Winnebago was pushed open from the inside. Steve stepped out and he looked… he looked fucking heartbroken.
Like his soul had been destroyed.
There was something in him, something burrowed in Eddie deep down that he felt like hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.
An almost primal need to go to him, to check on him, make sure he was okay. Wrap him up safe in his arms, keep him close and cradled and kiss that mole next to his nose.
Along with that was an almost inexplicable and overwhelming feeling of guilt.
Like all of this, somehow, was his fault.
Eddie wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt it in his bones, like a tremor running up his spine.
It pulled Eddie forward before he even fully realized he was moving.
Mt. Green was kicked aside, unnoticed.
Eddie’s heart was thrumming in his throat, almost panicked and desperate, just to get to him, just to hold and comfort and make everything better, make everything okay.
He needed to fix it.
This was his fault.
And he needed to fix it.
Steve watched him approach with an almost wary apprehension, still inside the door, resigned to some kid of devastating fate that only he knew.
Robin watched the two of them, cautious but still. She didn’t stop Eddie as he got closer. Didn’t stop him as he stepped up into the RV and didn’t stop him as he closed the door behind him.
Steve had stepped back to allow Eddie to enter, shoulders drooped and those sad, sad eyes staring at him and through him all at once, a world of memories flowing behind them that Eddie could never reach.
“Please don’t do that to me again.” Steve whispered, barely above a breath, but Eddie heard it regardless. “This has to be the last time.”
He didn’t really know what Steve was asking of him, moments and scenes were warring with him in his head;
Everyone gearing up in their purchases from Warzone, getting ready for the fight ahead.
Steve freaking out, asking everyone, anyone to listen to him, that it wouldn’t work.
Eddie leaning over Steve’s shoulder, instructing him as he pulled wires out from under the steering column of his Bimmer, their roles all but reversed as Steve leaned back into his space and called him Bambi.
Eddie staring silent and open-mouthed as the Winnebago tore down the street, leaving all of them behind.
Steve weeping into Robin’s lap.
Eddie opening his mouth to say something stupid like make him pay and Steve stopping the words in their tracks with his own mouth, his tongue, his hand on the back of Eddie’s neck, in his hair, tight around his waist.
Faint, far gone memories of pain, so much pain, clouding everything, so much of it, everywhere, all at once, like a fog over a dream.
Steve looked at him with so much depth and feeling that had not been there when they had first driven into this field.
Eddie reached out, both hands on either side of Steve’s jaw, cradling his face, holding him in a way that he somehow knew Steve loved to be held.
He leaned forward and kissed the mole next to Steve’s nose.
“Never again.” He promised.