Your parents decide to relocate after an incident the summer before your freshmen year of high school, one that leaves you irrevocably changed.
But after three years away, you decide to stop running from your demons and return to Hawkins High for y...
"Eddie!" Dustin yelled outside Eddie's trailer, pounding on the door. "Eddie, are you there?"
Eddie walked to the trailer's front door, using one hand to open it while the other hand tried to finish pulling a fresh shirt over his head. He had just got in from your house and regrettably showered your perfume off of him.
"What the hell, Henderson? It's early."
"What happened last night?" he asked, eyes wide. "You were drinking all the whisky in the place and then you were yelling about Y/N being a slut and she gave you a huge whap!" he pantomimed your slap for dramatic effect, causing Eddie to roll his eyes.
"Are you and Y/N...you know..." he gave a toothy grin, wiggling his eyebrows, before his face grew serious. "Or were you? Did she cheat on you? Was this a secret love affair?"
"Jesus H. Christ, Henderson, sit down," Eddie grumbled, pushing Dustin down onto the ottoman by his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I'm just. That was my first high school party, and wow, was it intense!" he said beaming.
"No, kid. It was very wrong. I was very wrong. I was very drunk and I said a lot of shit I shouldn't have," Eddie said, setting his jaw tightly, rubbing hands together between his legs.
"So....then what is going on?" Dustin asked, leaning forward, ready to hear everything. Sweet kid, Eddie thought. Hopeless puppy, clueless sometimes. But a sweet kid.
Dustin idolized Eddie. It made Eddie want to be a better man. Before Dustin, Will, Mike and Lucas came to the high school and joined Hellfire, Eddie was a nightmare to pretty much everyone. Those kids were one of the first people to begin to soften him from what had happened with his parents, with what happened to him daily at Hawkins High, thanks to everyone from people like Jason to the teaching staff who had no faith in him anymore.
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Eddie took a huge sigh, stalling to decide how much to tell Dustin. "I know I told you at a D&D meeting a few weeks ago that Y/N was tutoring me so I don't fail yet again...and that in exchange I'd teach her some guitar..."
"Yeah..." Dustin interjected excitedly, having a feeling he knew where Eddie was going. It seemed Dustin's mind was constantly on girls ever since he started dating his "Suzie Poo," his girlfriend who Eddie was initially very certain was imaginary, but ended up being very real, and very much for him.
Eddie shot him an annoyed glance for interrupting, so Dustin slapped his hands over his mouth. "Sorry, continue," he mumbled into his hands.
"Well, we're dating, I guess, now? I mean, I haven't asked her to be my girlfriend yet but...I was dealing with my dad's shit last night and I had way too much to drink and I saw dickhead Carver kiss her and Gareth had told me some bullshit rumors about Y/N that made me think maybe she was kissing Carver back and...I just wasn't thinking. I was pissed and I didn't think and I said some really fucked up shit. She had every reason to hit me."
"Wow," Dustin nodded, eyes still wide. "So...what were the rumors?"
Eddie waved his hand as if to wave the question away. "It's not important." It wasn't his business to tell. "The point is, I think everything's okay now. I honestly can't believe she forgave me after the shit I said," he said quietly.
"Oh dude...You really like her, huh? Eddie...likes a girl."
"What the fuck, Henderson? I've always liked girls."
"No, you take girls home from The Hideout. That's different. You feel about Y/N the way I do about Suzie," he says excitedly. This fuckin' kid, Eddie thinks. He's fucking Romeo now that he has a girlfriend.
" I don't know about that," Eddie said, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. He did know though. He knew the minute you put your arms around him at The Hideout. He'd never felt the way he did about you before with anyone else; he could only assume he was falling in love with you. You're all he thought about.
That morning, which was really nothing in terms of sexual experiences compared to what he'd experienced with other women, but... he had felt something he had never felt before. This morning meant something to him. That morning wasn't about him and his needs, and it wasn't a means to an end, a temporary escape and release from his issues. The feeling of your soft skin, your breath on his neck, the way your hips moved against him, the noises you made...he wanted to experience it all over and over again. He wanted you to feel good. But most importantly he wanted you to feel safe, to feel special. Because you were.
At the same time, he couldn't completely shake the nagging feeling of inadequacy. You were amazing, in every sense of the word. Tenacious, vulnerable, funny, smart, driven... and he was a fuckup who was going to grow up, live and die in the trailer park of Hawkins. He'd get a blue collar job and be able to scrape by. If you two stayed together, if you didn't find someone when you went to college, what kind of life would he be able to provide you? He certainly couldn't afford to give you the lifestyle that you were used to, in the big house your parents had. And speaking of your parents, if you were to become exclusive, it would only be a matter of time before they found out about him; and what would they think of him? They would certainly come to the same conclusion he was trying to push out of his mind: that he wasn't nearly good enough for you.
"Eddie," Dustin looked at him, his mouth set in a serious line, pulling Eddie out of his thoughts. "I don't know much. But I know love when I see it."
Spoken like a true freshmen who finally got a girlfriend, thought Eddie. But he also knew that he wasn't wrong, so he let Dustin continue uninterrupted.
"I know your dad messed you up yesterday. But if you don't want to lose Y/N you're going to have to stop worrying about whether you're too good for her or you'll mess it up. You need to let her in...and let her decide if he thinks you're good enough for her," Dustin said slowly, pushing his fingers into his chest for dramatic effect on the last part.
"You're right. You're right. Thanks, Henderson. For the advice and for checking in."
"Aw shucks, Eddie," Dustin smiled all the way up to his eyes.
"Now get out of here, I gotta finish actually writing this stupid paper for English or my tutor will have my ass," Eddie said smiling, but not before he leapt up from the recliner chair to put his arm around Dustin's neck and give him a good noogie.
Eddie was going to have to figure out a way to show you how much you meant to him. He wanted to make you his girlfriend, make you his officially. And he wanted to make it special.
And it didn't take him long to decide how he'd do that.
