𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙊𝙣𝙚-𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙩𝙨 (gay warning)

14- 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙈𝙚

It was a shitty, regular Hawkins weekend, a few weeks after spring break. Eddie Munson had survived the upside down. The charges against him were cleared with the help of the kids and his new friends, Steve, Nancy, and Robin.

But he couldn't sleep at night. Every night when he closed his eyes he was back in the upside down. He checked his watch, which read 10:07. The memories were brought back every night. The blood. The creatures. The fear. Chrissy, his only middle school friend.

He didn't know what he could do to make it go away. He hadn't been around people, he ignored calls, he isolated himself. He knew his uncle was worries about him, he knew the kinds were too. He was so ashamed, so embarrassed. So many things had changed about him and everything around him.

The guys on the basketball team that were after him were all dead, but he felt like people were still greatly against him, even more than before because he's a "freak". Eddie stepped out of the trailer onto the front steps and smoked. He couldn't sleep, so why not get high.

He slowly smiled joints for the next hour, lost in thought the whole time. He was stressed about so many big things, and even stupid little things. Stupid little things like weird feelings that he tried to ignore. Weird feelings for not weird people, unlike him, because he was a weird person, a least to everyone else in the world.

*

Max looked out of her window and watched Eddie for an hour in a concerned manner. This weekend so far had been especially boring for her, as she didn't have plans until the next day.

Something seemed wrong with Eddie, so she thought she should call someone close to him. The girl thought of who to call, and she thought of two options but decided on one.

The phone ringed twice before the person on the other line picked up.

"Hey, Steve."

"Hey, Max. What's up?"

"Eddie's been smoking outside his trailer for like an hour. It seems like something's wrong, he looks stressed. You think you could call him or something?"

"Yeah, sure. And are you doing okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah I'm alright."

"Thanks, bye Steve."

"Bye, Max."

She walked away from the window, knowing that Steve would handle the situation. He acted different with Eddie, as did Eddie with Steve. They were closer than she had seen Eddie with anyone before, even Dustin. It would be a nice time for her to talk to Lucas, unless he was asleep, that was. Max decided to call him. They talked a lot, and Max still felt bad about ignoring him at the start of the school year, but he reassured her that it was alright, as they had "started over". This made her happy, and she felt like everything would be okay.

She knew everything would be okay for Eddie too, eventually. He deserved to live with peace, not trauma.

*

Eddie smoked another joint, his thoughts making his brain feel like mush. Honestly, he felt so alone and he didn't want to be for once. Isolation is what he thought was best for himself, but he missed seeing the kids, which he only saw at D&D, and he missed someone else in a different way, a lot.

Tears started streaming down his face. Apparently not even a joint could make him feel better at this point. Why was he so fucked up?

He heard a car pull into his driveway, and he could barely see it as it was dark. What if it was someone bad, someone trying to hurt him? Eddie was scared. Hadn't he been through enough?