til the end of time ➸ it/stranger things crossover [reddie/mileven]

001; the arrival of eddie kaspbrak

The day after Eddie Kaspbrak ran away from home was a cold one. The chill November air made the small boy shiver as he trudged through an unknown wood in an unknown town in Indiana - a whole one thousand, one hundred and sixty-eight miles from Maine. From home, he thought bitterly, but he wasn't sorry for running. Eddie didn't consider Derry, Maine anymore of a home than the mystery place he was currently in.

He had always read in books that home was a place that was safe and warm. A place where you go for shelter from the world. A place that offered love and happiness and comfort. Eddie's 'home' was pretty warm, with the fire always roasting around winter, and it was certainly safe, and he knew that his mother did love him, in her own sick way, but it never felt like home. Not to him. To him, it was just a house.

The impulsive decision to hop on the bus on his way back from school, shove all the money he had in his pockets into the hands of the driver, and demand the surprised man to take him as far away as possible was shaping up to be both the best and worst decision Eddie had ever made in his fourteen years of living. The driver had stopped at the edge of Indiana after many hours, saying this was as far as his route allowed him to go. Eddie had nodded, thanked him, and got off quietly. Then, after the bus drove out of sight, he began walking.

He had no idea how long he had been walking for. His legs were aching, and he kept catching himself closing his eyelids out of pure exhaustion. It was turning light outside now, meaning he already been gone for one night, and he could hear an owl hooting somewhere in the tall trees. Eddie would never admit it, but the thrill of what he had done was wearing off and slowly becoming replaced with fear. He was sure he was going to

(starve you're going to starve and die out here and no one will miss you)

eventually run out of the tinned cafeteria food he had stolen and stuffed in his schoolbag at lunchtime the previous day. His only friend, Ben Hanscom, had raised his eyebrows. "Eddie, what are you doing? You hate cafeteria food," he had said, a hint of worry in his voice. But, then again, Ben was always worrying. It was a side effect of being too kind, Eddie had told him once.

"Oh," Eddie had said, and he stopped shovelling the tins into his bag for a moment. "I just, uh, need to get some for my mother. She, er, told me she wanted to check that what I'm eating is... you know... good."

Eddie was always a pathetic liar.

Luckily, Ben had figured it was something personal and simply nodded warily, shaking his head slightly as he bit into the shiny, red apple in his hand. Eddie had felt his stomach lurch and suddenly wanted desperately to tell Ben everything- about the trouble at his home,

(house)

about his god-awful mother, about running the fuck away from this shitty town

(about what he had done)

-but ultimately kept quiet. Eddie loved his best friend, he really did, but Ben could not keep a secret for the life of him. More importantly, Ben would definitely try to stop him

And so, when they had parted at the bus stop where Eddie usually got on at, Ben had no clue that, if all went to plan, he wouldn't see Eddie again for a long, long time. Eddie had watched his friend's back as he walked down the street and disappeared around the corner and felt extremely guilty for the rest of the time he spent waiting for his bus to arrive.

Eddie was promptly snapped out of the memory when a bird decided to shit directly on his shoulder. He froze, feeling the urge to gag, and made a quiet screeching noise because, as well as being impulsive, Eddie Kaspbrak was a fucking drama queen.