"AND JUST LIKE ALL THOSE TIMES BEFORE, YOU WEAR YOUR BEST APOLOGY. BUT I WAS THERE TO WATCH YOU LEAVE."
summary: you finally see all the damage done.
warnings: strong language, angst, mentions of alcohol and drug abuse, direct mention of cocaine usage, reactions to possible overdose, mentions of making someone throw up/someone throwing up, thoughts of death/losing someone. dead dove - do not eat. and, please, minors dni.
wc: 5.3k+
a/n: i need to emphasize the warnings for this chapter. it's not a pretty one, and i must emphasize that this is not meant to be glorifying this behavior at any capacity - if anything, take note of how damaging and destructive it is. if you are unable to read due to warnings, let me know, and i will post a more direct summary of this chapter to be read in place of it. thank you to my love @hellfire--cult for beta-reading this one (and for always letting me ramble about this story endlessly) <3
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Show me what you’ve become, Eddie.
You need to be more careful what you wish for these days.
Gareth nearly runs into you when you pause mere steps within the apartment, looking around and trying to swallow down all your shock. He’d warned you, tried to prepare you for the worst, but you hadn’t expected this.
The penthouse is hardly recognizable from how you’d witnessed it during the weekend.
It’s a mess, an explosion of loose-leaf paper and empty beer bottles across every room within view – the living room, the kitchen, the hallway. Not one, but two ashtrays filled to the brim sit patiently on the coffee table. You can make out butts of cigarettes, as expected, but there’s also plenty of roaches to catch your eye. Burnt down to the filter, sucked dry for all they were worth. You swear you see broken glass, and when you find the strength to stumble forward one more step, you confirm it.
Not broken out of anger, but seemingly having slipped off the edge of the coffee table.
“Fuck,” the expletive falls from your lips before you can think better of it. The longer you stare at the scene, the worse it all comes to light.
Pens thrown astray, plenty of glasses laying on their side on both the floor and couch. Sticky rims, sparse ashes flickered about. You see one empty bottle of whiskey, and have no doubt there’s another – possibly multiple – scattered throughout the apartment.
“I told you,” Gareth says weakly, placing an attempt of a comforting hand on your shoulder, “It gets bad.”
How can so much damage happen over four measly days?
You try to shrug off Gareth’s hand, but he tightens his grip, “Look, maybe we should leave. Matt and I can handle this-”
“No,” you snipe, pulling far from him, taking several steps into the wreckage. “I told Matt that Eddie was my problem now, and I meant it. You can leave if you want, but I’m staying.”
Eddie’s clearly not out here in the living room. There’s a deep imprint on the couch that looks like he may have been there recently, but he’s long gone. All that’s left is the mess, and a sinking feeling in your gut as you spy another terrible item on the coffee table.
Gareth spots it just as you do, as well.
“Listen, I really think we should leave.”
The magazine with that blurry, candid photo of the two of you on the cover, bold and bright letters obscuring it. Those, and the little white line you can spot remnants of across the shiny paper.
“I’m not fucking leaving, Gareth.”
What the fuck happened in the last four days?
Had you said something wrong that night? One wrong step, in a fatal direction, sending Eddie right into this crash out? Had it been the contract, and how hastily you had signed it, that sent him straight into spinning out of control?
You lean down to snatch up one of the glasses discarded onto the floor, unphased by the residue of alcohol that clings to your fingers. The overwhelming and nauseating scent of pure whiskey almost makes you sick.
“Does this happen every time?” you ask, trying to keep your voice even, almost too quiet to be heard over the drumming in your chest, “Does this- is this fucking normal to you guys?”
He gets this way.
You kick a pile of papers, eyes wandering over deeply scratched words in black ink.
This is sort of normal for him.
“Do you guys just-” you struggle to find the words, looking around at this mess. All the red flags, all the reasons to run, and all you feel is a terrible pull towards Eddie. The need to find him, the need to refuse to leave him alone through this all, is rampant in your chest. “Do you guys really just leave him during times like this? When he clearly needs you most?”
You swear, you’ve started to see red.
When you turn to face Gareth, he’s holding his hands up, face twisted in defensiveness, “Hey, listen, it’s not like that-”
“Then what is it like?”
If Eddie’s in this apartment, he can surely hear you. Your voice is no longer quiet and timid, wavering with each syllable. Loud and clear, ready for a fight.
“You haven’t been here this last year!” Gareth raises his own voice to match yours, seeming more desperate than agitated, “It’s not like we just- just- gave up on him!”
And yet, that’s exactly what it looks like has happened.
Every single person that has become a staple in Eddie’s life has seemingly given up on him. They’ve given up fighting for him, on pushing him, on offering a helping hand. They claim to have grown weary, broken bones and patience alike in the battle of forcing Eddie to be a better person. And standing here in this apartment, seeing what they so clearly try to cover up and ignore, you know they’re going about it wrong.
You don’t have to force Eddie to be a better person. He already is a good person, somewhere deep down.
“That’s exactly what it looks like!” you laugh coldly, waving about the apartment, “You all clearly knew what to expect, what- what this place was going to look like. You knew what was happening, and you’re doing nothing.”
Gareth’s nostrils flare with one deep breath, and you already know what he’s about to say is going to cut deep, “Aren’t you the one that simply vanished on him? On all of us?”
He’s right. The blow of the truth would have jarred you more had you not been prepared.
“I didn’t know,” you say lowly, narrowing your eyes at the boy before you, “I had no idea he had gotten this bad-”
“Oh, c’mon,” Gareth shakes his head, turning and walking carefully through the damage, gesturing about just as you had been, “You’re not stupid. We both know you aren’t. What else did you think was happening?” Another step, and you can hear the crunch of glass beneath the sole of his shoe that has you cringing, “That Eddie was just… having the time of his life? That everything was perfect?” he pauses on the other side of the couch, and you can see a world of hurt behind his big brown eyes. “You knew better than that. You knew him better than that.”
What had you thought was going on when Eddie pulled away so suddenly?
Had you really known Eddie as well as Gareth is assuming right now?
Your eyes flutter shut as your throat tightens, because the hard pill to swallow is that’s exactly what you had thought. That Eddie’s life was finally perfect. That he was living his wildest dreams. That there was only one bump in the road to his otherworldly success, in the terrible shape of you.
“You…” You don’t know what those last months were like. You don’t have the sound of Eddie’s voicemail memorized. You don’t wake up from nightmares to the sound of a dial tone in place of future plans bursting into flames. You don’t know the silence. “You’re right.”
You could spend days standing here as you made excuses. One after another, a list longer than the miles once put between you and Eddie. Dissect every possibility you’d deemed possible, and drudge up all the ones you’d simply refused to see in the daylight.
Fighting with Gareth doesn’t make this right. Fighting with one of the boys you’d grown up with doesn’t erase the situation at hand.
“Everything was going to shit a long time before you left, y’know,” Gareth’s voice finally breaks a bit, and you look up to find the rims of his eyes pink as they hold back tears, “I don’t know why you left, none of us do, but I’m willing to bet all the blood money I’ve made from this band that it’s because of something an awful lot like this.”
“I did what I had to do,” you defend yourself so weakly that even you don’t believe the words.
“Exactly. Just like we have been since you left.”
There’s more to say and more to argue about, but it’s enough for now. You don’t want to waste another second here, pointing fingers at who’s in the wrong and who’s to blame. Really, all you want to do is find Eddie.
So you do just that. You decide to make a beeline for the hallway.
“I-” Gareth takes a few steps towards you, but you don’t slow down. He has the common sense to follow, “Where are you going?”
“He’s obviously not in there,” you say through heavy breaths, fighting tears and pausing between the two doors at the end of the hall. The in-house studio, or the bedroom. “We can fight about it later. I don’t care, I just-”
You choose the bedroom.
All your words die on your tongue as you throw open the door and see him, all the oxygen in your lungs expelled forcibly to make room for a hole like never before in your chest.
He’s sprawled out across the bed, still in a t-shirt and jeans that look eerily similar to what he had worn Sunday.
“Eddie.”
You’re not sure if it’s your voice or Gareth’s that echoes through the room as you throttle forward, body in autopilot.
What happened to him? Is he okay? Is he breathing? Is he alive?
The bed jumps from the weight of you as you crumble beside him, quick to press your ear to his chest.
Is he alive?
The first thing you notice is the warmth of him beneath your palms. A good sign.
Please be alive.
The next thing you notice is the shaky breaths resonating within that chest you cling to. A heartbeat mingling somewhere beneath the press of your cheek as you slump in relief. A grunt as the weight of you pins him down.
“What the-”
The words are croaked and slurred, as if Eddie hadn’t spoken out loud in days. You feel him start to shift beneath you, and the moment of serene relief that had overcome you from him just being alive evaporates as quickly as it had momentarily lived within your chest.
Please stay alive.
You sit up straight, eyes finding his, “What did you take?”
Blown out pupils. Whiskey breath. Powder residing at the tip of his nose, barely noticeable until you were as close as you currently were.
“I-” Eddie blinks up at you slowly, mouth ever so slightly agape, looking confused as ever, “What do you mean?”
I need to keep him alive.
“I mean,” you hiss out, sitting up fully and dragging him with you. You can’t focus on the fear creeping up at seeing him this way; it’s as though he might not be within his body, like he’s vacated the premises and you’ve been left with an uncoordinated vessel. “What the fuck did you take, Edward Munson?”
“Maybe we should give him a sec-” Gareth starts, but he’s cut off when you stand up entirely, Eddie in tow with your hands around his biceps.
The boy makes no move to help you, clearly shocked, but Eddie is pliable. He lets you toss him around like a ragdoll, no protests to be heard beyond ragged breaths that you can’t quite be sure you aren’t just imagining joining your own.
I need him to stay.
You’re not giving him a second. Depending on what he’s taken, that second could be the line between life and death.
“Tell me,” you grunt with persistence, working your way under Eddie’s arm to support his weight against your body properly, “What you’ve taken,” Gareth takes a step forward but pauses at your sharp glare, “So I can make sure you don’t fucking die on me, Munson.”
Your voice is terribly fragile as you start dragging him along towards the bathroom. His feet are moving, stumbling right along with you, but he remains mostly slumped against your side. Head lolling, eyes closed every time you sneak a glance through your struggle.
I need him to stay with me. Please.
Gareth is a foreign stranger, a mere on-looker to the catastrophe.
That’s fine. It’s fine. It’s becoming abundantly clear that he doesn’t recall any of Eddie’s speeches, lectures, regarding the mixing of drugs that he gave once the group had discovered his side gig back in Hawkins.
Which drugs did he warn against mixing? Which substances should I be worried about getting out of his system first? What symptoms should I be watching for?
You rack your brain with each step towards the bathroom, only being able to remember one thing crystal clear. If nothing else, you recall Eddie telling you the easiest way to sober someone up a great deal, across most substances they might have taken.
The shower. You need to get him in the shower.
It’s not the cold water you need, although it’ll certainly help. Maybe it can shock him out of this trance just a bit, doing away with his droopy lids and any lingering substances on his body. Sweat, cocaine, alcohol – it’ll clean him up, surely, but that’s not your only goal.
“Anytime Rick has seen someone try to mix the harder stuff with alcohol,” Eddie had once drawled to you in his van after a party he’d let you join him in attendance of, a milkshake in both of your hands as you’d reminisced on the night, “He makes ‘em chuck it all up. It’s gross. But efficient. Gets ‘em in a shower, or out in the yard, and just… makes it vomit town. Doesn’t do much but does somethin’, I guess.”
All your movements are robotic, your mind hardly your own as you go through the motions. You don’t know how you’ve dragged him fully into the bathroom so quickly, no help from Gareth – but you have. You don’t know how you kept him upright, pressed tightly to your side as you turn on the water – but you have. You don’t know how you manage to situate him on the floor of the tiled shower, water soaking his knees and calves – but you do.
Your body isn’t your own. Just like Eddie, you’ve become a witness to the events, no longer feeling as though you’re actually partaking in them as you take the final step.
It’s not a pretty sight.
You don’t register the feeling of you shoving your fingers down Eddie’s throat, but soon enough, his head is hanging between his knees and Gareth is hovering behind you in sheer distress.
“Did he just-” he starts to question, trying to peer past your kneeling figure to get a better look.
You don’t make him finish the sentence, doing the honors, “Throw up all that shit in his system? Yes.”
Look at me. Stay with me. Stay alive.
Your chest feels two sizes too tight as you look at his heaving shoulders, a hand hesitating in mid-air as it reaches out to land on his back. That space between your palm and his shaking back. Two inches of space as your skin constricts a bit tighter.
Stay with me. Please.
Gareth is saying something, probably having a complete meltdown as you should be, but it’s static noise. Nothing else matters as you completely destroy that final bit of distance, and you let your palm fall against his back. Feather-light, so unsure, quivering even more than his figure as you go deathly still.
You can feel every breath. Every little hiccuping gasp he takes as he regains composure.
Look at me, please.
Your pride, your fear, and your panic all collide as you give in. Your still hand is now in motion, palm rubbing his back feverishly with desperate comfort. You collapse entirely on the ground, letting yourself fall half into the shower to be close to him. You don’t care about the metal railing digging into your thighs and hip, you don’t care about your clothes growing damp as you enter the edges of the stream of water now washing away all the vomit.
You only care about him.
You’re about to open your mouth to say his name, surely being your voice this time as Gareth continues to hang back in shock, when umber brown eyes are finally looking up at you.
The rivers of blood below the surface of your skin run far colder than the stream of water coming from his shower ever could.
It’s simple syllables, the quietest of noises, and it has the power to absolutely crush you – all he does is sigh your name, and the world stops.
You can’t speak. He slowly leans back up, back colliding harshly with the tiled wall of the shower, and you can’t speak. You hardly even move that pathetic attempt of a comforting palm out of the way in time.
He’s squinting as he groans, eyes darting between you and Gareth, “What the fuck happened?”
You lean back out of the water a bit, unaffected by the feeling of wet jeans sticking to your skin, as Gareth scoffs out, “You went on a fucking bender. That’s what happened. Again.”
“It wasn’t a bender-”
“Bull-fucking-shit.”
All his words are still slurring. His pupils are still just a tad bit too big for those whiskeyed eyes.
“I was just having a bit of fun-”
“What about this is ever fun?” Gareth’s voice raises, louder than he had even been when fighting with you in the living room. “The part where we find you high out of your mind, half-dead in your apartment? Or the part where we’ll be cleaning up your mess?”
I just wanted him safe. Alive. With me.
You can’t join in the fight, because you weren’t looking for a fight. You had been so focused on simply finding Eddie, making sure he was okay, that you’d never considered what would happen once you did.
“Oh, fun,” Eddie laughs coldly as his head throws back carelessly, and you flinch at the way he lets his skull bounce against the tile. Your fingers twitch, aching to have stopped it, to prevent any further damage, “We’re gonna have this argument again.”
I just needed him alive.
Your palms are sweaty against the tops of your thighs, pressed down tightly to prevent from reaching out to Eddie. There’s a ferocious need to clean him up further, to kick Gareth from the bathroom, to focus more on getting him sober than scolding him right now, but-
“Damn right, we are!” Gareth’s sneakers narrowly miss your lower back, and you’re looking over your shoulder with shock as he begins pacing, “Yeah, we fucking are having this fight again. How many times is it going to take? How many times am I going to have to explain to someone new how this is your normal now? How many times is someone going to stare at me like I’m the asshole here when I don’t do anything to prevent it, because I can’t?”
“Gareth-” you whisper, trying to calm him down, moving to stand up when Eddie laughs again.
“I don’t even fuckin’ know why she’s here,” you aren’t looking at him when he says it, and you’re almost glad for it. It’s in the way he says it – words easily mistaken for the ringing of a blade being sharpened, “What’s the point? Go ahead and do it now, Sugar.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, you turn back towards Eddie, “Do what?”
Dagger in hand, eyes so cold, he finally hits his mark, “Leave. That’s what you do, right? So just do it. Leave.”
Just how much blood can the human body spill?
There must have been a time you learned that fact.
Some time long ago, in a faraway classroom, the fact fell from the lips of a high school teacher in a droning tone. But you can’t remember it, because somewhere in that mystifying glimpse of the past, you’re sitting in a chair beside the man in front of you. You’re not bothered with facts of the human body or blood loss, because all you know is passing notes and giggles covered with coughs, the gentle tickle of knuckles brushing and knees bumping beneath desks. Your mind was on afterschool plans, which diner you’d meet up at and which of you would be picking the flavor of the milkshake you two would share. Who would claim they don’t want fries, and who would be sliding their plate across the table to let the before liar have easier reach. Who would be dozing off on the other's shoulder, as the other one finally brought up the responsible topic of homework.
Trivial things. Things taken for granted. Things that fall out of reach when you finally extend yourself towards them, with the whisper of never being able to go back. The weight of Eddie’s cheek pressed to your bare shoulder over the roar of summertime cicadas outside a diner window, or the flat tone of a teacher informing their students of a fact they’ll seemingly never utilize again in their life.
You don’t remember, because back then, you’d never expected the man before you to make you bleed.
You start to shake your head, but he prevents you from defending yourself, “You can’t deny it. You did it – it happened. We wanna air out all my dirty laundry? Cool, let’s start with yours.”
“Eddie,” Gareth has quieted down as you’d wanted, but you wish he hadn’t, “Give her a break, man.”
Every atom in your body is hardening to try and prepare itself for his next blow. All expression drained from your face, the life fading from your eyes.
“Why should I?” When he leans forward, you don’t even worry if he might get sick again all over you. He levels you with a wintery stare, and it’s the eyes of a stranger looking into yours now, “Why should I give her a break, or get my hopes up, when we both know how this ends? I’m saving us both some heartbreak, ain’t I, Sugar?”
The way each word bleeds into one another should lessen the blow. The haze over his eyes should make everything feel a little more dull, a little less precisely sharpened. The sluggish movements and the constant sway of his body even when frozen in place should make it all less painful.
But drunken words are honest thoughts, and you can’t help as the first crack of emotion bursts in the form of burning eyes.
Stay with me. I need you to stay with me.
You don’t have it in you to defend yourself, to defend whatever this is that you two have pulled out of the rubble.
All you can do is meet his stare, so vacant and so chilling, as you say, “I’m not leaving.”
And then, ironically, you do exactly that. You leave.
Shoulder bouncing against Gareth’s, you move as quickly as you possibly can out of the suffocating bathroom, the tables turning entirely. The roles have switched, and now you’re the one gasping for air.
“Hey, hold on,” Gareth tries to reach out for you, but you’re quicker than him in pulling yourself away from the two of them entirely.
“Clean him up,” you instruct flatly, unwilling to look at Eddie. You’ve seen enough, bled enough, for one day.
Neither man replies to you verbally, and all you hear as you exit the room is the pattern of water breaking against the tile. It almost sounds like your heart, if Eddie Munson hadn’t already done the honor of tearing it apart in his current state.
—
You stay true to your word.
You don’t leave.
Not the apartment, at least.
For the next hour, you put yourself to work, digging under Eddie’s kitchen sink and finding a large enough trash bag for the current task you busy yourself with. You never let a single tear fall as you glide around the living room, the kitchen, the hallway.
You don’t go near the bedroom. Near the bathroom. Near Eddie.
Gareth only shows his face once the entire duration, stepping outside of the room briefly but never glancing your way. You can only assume it’s to let Eddie get dressed, his clothes probably needing to be washed after the entire ordeal.
If he flinches as he hears you toss all the trash within reach of your hurricane in the bag particularly violently, you don’t say a word.
By the time there’s any sign of life on Eddie’s part, you’ve already cleaned up most of the apartment. Ashtrays emptied, all glasses not broken in the sink, a semi-neat pile of any pages you could decipher his handwriting upon. You were cruel, if Eddie’s presumption of knowing how this ends was anything to go off of, but you weren’t so cruel as to toss away anything he might have written for his career.
This time, you don’t snoop. You know better than to read a single line on the pages. If Eddie has something he wants to say to you now, he’ll have to say it to your face.
There’s a creak from down the hall as you’re finally collapsing onto the couch, a photo frame in hand as the overflowing trash bag is discarded to the floor temporarily, fingers already working nimbly at getting the back of the frame off before whoever it may be enters the room.
Just as the creased photograph is in your grasp, a throat clears from behind you.
“I…” he sounds smaller than he had in the bathroom, voice a bit clearer, “Uh, thank you. For…. for earlier.”
Slow, steady steps. No longer blundering, or needing the support of another body to guide him.
“I’m-”
If you were to turn around, you know you’d see the Eddie Munson you swear you know. The one who had sat beside you in science class, the one you would kiss under the bleachers every Friday night. You’d see the boy you’d followed across states, followed all the way to New York, sprinting to catch up with him as he’d trailed ferociously after his dream. Clear eyes, somber face, not a single blade in hand.
But you can’t keep chasing after that boy. You think before Eddie ever turned his daggers towards you, he had taken them to that boy first, and he was buried long before you could even think to say goodbye.
“Don’t apologize,” you force out, letting the words leave you as easily as the breath you were holding. The air in your lungs, however, stays put. “You were fucked up. It’s fine.”
Over the edge of the photograph you hold, you see his bare feet. New tattoos on unfamiliar ankles, the hems of pants he’d bought without you at his side.
“It’s not fine, and I shouldn’t have said that,” Each word drips with sincerity. Then again, his accusation in the shower had as well, as you recall it now, “Will you- Please look at me.”
Please look at me.
Please look at me.
Please stay with me.
You can’t say that you break. Because, truthfully, you hadn’t been whole to begin with. Some sort of chasm had torn you apart the moment you walked into this apartment - no, the moment you had walked into that damned meeting room and seen his face for the first time in years.
Two years. Twenty five months. One hundred weeks.
Your brain has no capacity to break down the hours, minutes, seconds. All the time spent without him, unknowing that the man you had loved was rotting away in the ground six feet under, as the ghost of him haunted stages across the world.
“I need to finish cleaning,” you say suddenly, jumping up off the couch, keeping your vision downwards.
What if you look at him, and you decide to leave?
What if you look into his eyes and see the picture once painted by dial tones and automated voices announcing an electronic mailbox was full?
What if you just weren’t as strong as you were determined to be?
“I have all the cups in the kitchen sink,” the words slip over a frantic tongue, one hand twisting at the plastic material of the bag until your nails are piercing right through the thin veil to prod painfully at your palm as the other won’t let go of that damned photograph, “I emptied all the ashtrays, and-”
Why should I give her a break, or get my hopes up, when we both know how this ends?
When we both know how this ends?
How does it end? You want to scream at him, ask him the question that chokes you up now. Is this how it ends, with awkward encounters and coming to the rescue recklessly? Does it end with hurtful words said out of spite over the stench of intoxication, or does it end more quietly, over the whispers of apologies and thanks that should never have been necessary to begin with?
Does it ever really end? Because surely, it didn’t end for you two years ago. Twenty five months ago. One hundred weeks ago.
Why does this love of yours insist upon being a weapon, just as Eddie had written in his song?
“Sugar, please,” he tries to stand in your way, force you to look up, but you won’t, “Please, stop cleaning, and-”
“I can’t.”
“You can, just sit down, let’s talk about-”
“I can’t.”
“Gareth can get the rest of it all, it’s fine-”
“I can’t!”
You both stop all movements, Eddie’s shuffling and your attempts to escape him, as the yell falls off your lips. Finally, you look up at him, shocked to find red-rimmed eyes.
They weren’t that pink when you’d found him. Even when intoxicated.
The tears gathered proves it.
“I almost lost you, Eddie!” It feels good to scream. Feels good to watch him crumple right along with you as your voice bounces around the hollow room. “You almost left me this time, okay? And not- not in the- you wouldn’t just be somewhere out there!” At some point, your hands begin to curl into shaking fists, and you let them fall against Eddie’s chest in a broken pattern. Thump, thump, thump, “You’d just be fucking gone! There would be no contracts to fix it! I can’t make a deal with the fucking Devil or God to bring you back!” His fingers wrap around your wrists, fists still in motion. Not stopping you, simply holding onto you, “Gone!” Another smack to his chest, “No second chances!” Tears had started to fall, finally, but you pay your blurry no vision any mind as sobs tear out of your throat along with every weak toss of your fists, “De-”
You can’t finish the word. It’s coiled up at the back of your throat, a stopper to all the sobs you’ve started choking out.
A chest two sizes too small, a heart with a hole in the center of it.
Maybe you had been born with the hole in the shape of the man that catches you when you collapse against him. It was always there, nothing to be done about it, except to let him fill it. Slot himself right into your life, place himself over it just like a bandage, wrap his arms around you as small shushes fall from his lips.
It’s selfish – terribly, terribly selfish – that he’s comforting you now.
But he does. He lets you cry out, slumped against him without complaint. As though simply holding you might fix this. As if this entire day may be capable of being erased by this very moment.
At some point, you have no sobs left in you. Your entire body has been pressed into Eddie’s chest, and he’s clinging to you as though his life might rely on it as he buries his cheek against the crown of your head, but not a cry is left to give.
“I’m not leaving,” he repeats your words from earlier in the softest of tones.
They hold an entirely different weight on his tongue.
But the entire Universe holds its breath as it’s set into stone – neither of you are leaving. You’re both here, headstrong with feet cemented where you stand, and you are not leaving this time.
Your fist still homes the photograph, albeit adding new wrinkles to the picture as it curls within your hold.
Carefully, you start to pull back from Eddie, and he lets you. Arms dropping away as you take one step backward, sneakers crunching on the broken glass scattered about the rug below.
There, in your palm, there’s a lifetime you think you may always miss. A time that you’ll always remember like a sore ache in your back molars.
You, and Eddie, and Gareth. Even Dustin Henderson is in the photo.
“What’s that?” Eddie asks as his eyebrows wrinkle and he attempts to get a closer look at the treasure you stare blankly at now.
“A photo,” you blandly explain, another step back before you can collapse onto the couch once more. Eddie joins you this time, “From that first big show at the Hideout.”
There’s more words turning stale on the tongue, but you don’t need to reminisce anymore. You get it now. Sort of.
It hurts, it might hurt for a while, but it’s over with. It’s never going to be fair to continue to compare the two of you to what once was. You can’t go back, you can’t change a past already written. Two graves need to be laid to rest now, after one hundred long weeks, and it’s time to leave the cemetery.
That chapter was closed. The book wasn’t.
“I meant what I said, you know,” Eddie whispers. You swear you can hear noises from down the hall, suddenly remember that Gareth was still here, “I… I didn’t say it the way I should have, but I meant it. If you want out, I’ll let you go.”
Maybe the Universe had gotten the memo, but Eddie hadn’t.
You look at him with wild eyes, “What? I don’t-”
“I know, I know. The contracts and stuff. But I could get them nullified. If it’s what you want, I’ll force them to let you out,” you’re stunned into silence as he smiles sadly at you, “You didn’t sign up for this shit, Sugar. I can scrap the album, too, if you want. The guys can help me write new stuff, stuff not about us, and we can just-”
You toss that photo right onto the ground, let it flutter down to settle beside the trash can. Like flowers on a grave.
“Do you want to know what my first thought was when I came in here?” you interrupt him, staring up at the front door as you fight back tears. He doesn’t respond, so you continue on, “Please be alive. My first thought was for you to just be alive, be okay.”
That’s what it had been. No care for nostalgia or all that once was. Simply needing him to be breathing inside this apartment.
The callous laugh that escapes him isn’t quite as cold as the ones he’d let out in the bathroom, but there’s still no trace of humor, “Can I be honest? I’m definitely alive, and some of that credit belongs to you, but… Jury’s still out about being okay.”
You turn your body towards him, blinking your sore eyes slowly, “Then talk to me about it.”
His shock proves that this has clearly become a foreign concept.
“What?” he tries to chuckle, tries to force a little laughter into the tone rather than sheer nerves, but it’s useless when it comes to you. He used to laugh like that any time that he lied to Wayne – it was always his giveaway. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but like I said, you didn’t sign up for any-”
“I did,” you stress, almost reaching out to grab each side of his head, shake some sense into him if possible. Just make him understand. “When I signed Matt’s contract, I signed up for it. When I agreed to get just a cup of coffee with you, I signed up for it,” you pause, taking a deep breath, eyes shutting for only a moment to compose yourself. It’s hardly a second, a long blink if anything, just so you can keep him in your sights, “You keep acting like you’ve forced me into this, but I’ve always been able to walk away if I really wanted to. Every step of the way. I could have refused to take Corroded Coffin on as a client, I could have told you to go to Hell and meant it. I could have laughed in Matt’s face when he suggested the contract. But I didn’t. Get it through your dense skull, please, Munson – I’m here, I’m staying, and I signed up for it.”
He’s quiet, dead silent as he stares at you with red eyes. You can see the bags shadowing beneath, all the damage done over four days that you can’t clean up with a trash bag and enough anxiety to fuel you for days. Things that take longer to heal, things that eat away at someone if they don’t talk about it.
You remember all that anger you’d felt when you’d realized this wasn’t the first time that Eddie had done this, that this was his new normal.
How it had stunned you that none of them had ever just offered to talk to him.
‘You knew him better than that.’
Gareth had been right. You do know Eddie better than that.
“I can’t force you to talk about it all,” your voice drops, something for just the two of you, “But I can ask you to stop bottling it up. I can ask you to stop self-destructing. Because, trust me, I’ve been there – and look where it left us.”
He tilts his head as he opens his mouth, but you’ll never hear his argument as Gareth finally enters the room.
“I, uh, cleaned up the room and bathroom,” he holds up a smaller trash bag, free hand rubbing the nape of his neck, “I just tossed his- your old clothes into the laundry basket, but…. Yeah. It’s clean.”
A small correction, a shifting of the eyes to acknowledge not just you, but Eddie.
“Thank you,” Eddie says, terribly earnestly, twisting his body to settle his arm along the back of the couch. You’re still thinking about that tilt of his head, and whatever he had to rebuttal you with, “I… I appreciate it.”
The words sound uncomfortable on Eddie’s tongue, as though he hasn’t said them in a while.
“I also called Matt and let him know you’re alive,” Gareth breezes right past the gratitude, but it moves as though a weight in the air has finally been lifted as he circles around the couch to drop his bag of trash beside yours, “He said to take a few days to recover, but… Keep in touch. Not specifically with him, if you don’t want to, just- Anyone.”
Gareth’s eyes catch yours as he says it, and you know exactly what he means.
Eddie won’t, can’t, speak to them – but maybe he can find a way to talk to you.
“Thanks, Gar,” you can’t fight the slightest twitchings of smiles on the corners of your mouth as you say it, and Gareth is quick to roll his eyes. It almost feels normal. It’s almost enough to forget what’s happened.
“If you’re going to start calling me that, I might just have to tell the guys that the pizza date is cancelled,” Eddie’s head snaps from Gareth to you, not angry but simply confused, “They still haven’t stopped talking about that, by the way. Better be good on your word, Hellfire.”
All you can do is nod, and try to not sink too deeply into the warmth sparking up in your chest at the nickname.
“Hellfire?” Eddie, for the first time since you’ve found him, is laughing genuinely. It’s a tired sound, a little breathless, but it’s actual laughter. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”
“Haven’t had her around in a while,” Gareth is quick as he nods in your direction before finally moving towards the front door, “I’m heading out now, but… Call me if you need me. Or if you start craving pizza. Or… Don’t. I don’t know, I don’t control you two.”
You almost ask him to stay, but you’re starting to suspect Gareth had heard more of your private conversation with Eddie than you’d like, and that it might be better for him to leave before you two can continue talking.
Before you ask Eddie about the tilt of his head, the argument on his tongue.
“See you around, Gareth,” you hum, waving as you sink back further into the couch. Already preparing to settle in for a long night, a long talk.
“See ya,” he makes the effort to not just nod in response to you, but Eddie as well. Just as his hand is on the door, though, he suddenly turns back around, “Oh, and before I forget - catch.”
Your hands move faster than your mind, thankfully, as a shining object flies through the air from Gareth’s palm and into your chest, “What the f-”
“Matt can make a new copy if he really wants one. I think you’ll make better use of it than us for now.”
You look down at the silver key that Gareth had produced right as you had been on the verge of getting inside the apartment, of getting to Eddie.
Eddie sees it too, and his brows furrow quickly, “When the fuck did Matt get a key to my place?”
“Who cares?” Gareth shrugs, “Just be glad he did, or else you’d probably be replacing your front door from her kicking it in.”
It’s your turn to let out a sincere scoff, pocketing the key regardless. He’s right – your ankle almost screams out it’s thanks as you think about whether you would have tried (you would have) and if you would have been successful (you wouldn’t have been).
With that, Gareth leaves.
The front door doesn’t slam shut as you and Eddie are left properly alone. A new key to add to your own chain heavy in your pocket, and a million questions weighing down your mind.
You and Eddie turn back to one another in sync. Something simmers in the air – something hopeful, something promising. The rosy glow of sunset outside the skyline windows illuminates the room just so.
“Now that we’re alone, I’m going to ask you one more time, and I want you to be honest,” you start strong, sure, ready. Eddie nods along with each word, never shying away from your gaze, “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering immediately, Eddie suddenly shuffles around his position on the couch. You’re taken back, freezing up, but don’t dare protest once you realize what he’s doing.
His head falls into your lap with minimal hesitancy, and suddenly, big brown eyes are staring up at you.
“Honestly, Sugar? No. I feel like shit,” you can’t fathom how he manages to do it, delivering it with a boyish grin that doesn’t feel condescending, only slightly teasing. It should be inappropriate, but if this is how he needs to be in order to open up, then it works. “Got any preference on where I start?”
Your fingers find home in his scalp on instinct, “Wherever you want, Rockstar.”
You can bury the old versions of yourself all you want – some habits will never die. Some things will never change.
“Great,” he sighs, letting his eyes flutter shut for just a moment. You both bask in all the serenity that traces the edges of his face as the dipping sunrise continues to paint his cheeks gentle shades of pink and orange. “Then let’s start with promising I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m never mixing cocaine and whiskey again. Totally cancels out for me. A real buzzkill.”
“Not funny.”
“I know,” his eyes shoot open, and half his mouth raises at a sorry attempt for a grin. Still tired, still truly looking like shit, but there’s promise behind those twisting vines of amber and chestnut looking up at you, “But I mean it… Gotta start somewhere, Sugar.”
He’s right – it’s a start. And you hope he means it. Because, whether it be fortunately or unfortunately, you’re not leaving.
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