idiot - steddie

Two

I heard a rustle come from behind us, and caught the eye of Eddie Munson, who was jumping off a rock he must've been hidden behind.

I turned around to face him slowly, and I could tell he had already been staring at me with that smug grin smeared across his face, almost as if he had slept with a hanger in his mouth. He was dressed in very dark clothes, and his hair looked even more damaged than usual, with small twigs and leaves to decorate his brunette waves.

His gaze lifted off of me for a second, and his eyes shot to Dustin. "I concur. You, Dustin Henderson are a.. total butthead." He repeated after me, giving me a quick wink, a wink you could've missed if you happened to close your eyes for a single second longer than a snap.

He cracked his back, sticking his thumbs down into his back pockets as he let out a great exhale.

Dustin's face lit up, "Jesus, we thought you were a goner." He breathed out, and he immediately ran to him with open arms, stopping and shoving himself up to Eddie for a hug.

The long-haired male seemed surprised at his antics, but still wrapped his leather-rigged arm around Dustin's back, slapping the other one onto the blue fabric of his worn-out backpack. They swayed in the wind as Robin and the others emerged from the same bush me and Dustin had.

Eddie's ring-soaked hands squeezed Dustin, and he glanced up at me. "Yeah, me too, man." He patted Dustin's back as he pushed him away, disconnecting their odd, but sweet embrace.

I offered a short smile to him as a greeting, contradicting Dustin's over-the-top hello. He nodded at me, pulling his face into a tight grin and staring at me, his eyes scanning my face observingly.

I shrunk under his gaze, and Robin took notice of his stare, glancing at me knowingly as Dustin poured out his backpack full of snacks, letting them fall to the ground in a large pile. Eddie silently shook his head, his hair bunching up around his shoulders and stringing down along his forehead, taking a seat next to a rock that had been holding up the larger skull, jutting his knees out to avoid the muddy terrain to wrench open a canister of water.

"When I got to shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh.." he took a swig from the metal bottle, detaching it from his chapped lips with a pop. "My walkie was busted, man." He shook his head, as if replaying the series of events from the previous night. "Drenched." He added, glancing down at the metal canister again, screwing the cap on tightly. "So i did the thing that I do now, apparently." He said with a sarcastic smile, wiping his mouth free of the fluid with his leather jacket's sleeve, looking up at me. "I ran." He chuckled, separating his intertwined hands just to connect them again. He rubbed his thumb soothingly over his index finger's knuckle, pushing downwards on his skin as hard as he could as his gaze slowly receded away from me, and wandered towards everyone else. His smile lines were very evident on his face, courtesy of the sun peaking through the cracks in the yellow leaves above us, lighting his face up with as much color as I had ever seen on him. His keen, brown eyes had a mischievous glint in them, but it was washed away but the non-avoidable look of utter fear and despair that flickered into them every now and then.

Nancy's face twisted, and she lifted her dark brown eyes to meet his, her arms crossed along her chest line. She had her usual stern, serious face turned onto full gear as she spoke, and her curly hair blew ever-so-slightly in the small presence of a late afternoon breeze. "Do you know what time this was? The attack?" She asked, her voice spazzing out a bit as Eddie cut in suddenly. "Yeah, no, I... I know exactly what time it was." He said, looking away from Nancy and down at his tattoo-ridden wrist, undoing his digital black watch from it. "Cause my walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked." He said unashamedly, shaking the broken watch in his left hand, lowering it with his lips pressed together in dissatisfaction as he threw it across the mound of leaves before them to Nancy, who caught it even though she was a bit off-guard.