for winnebagos

[thefreak]

[ as it turns out, leaving hawkins behind was a lot easier than eddie expected it to be. the hardest part was not saying goodbye. he knew if he set out to do this intentionally, if he announced it to the pack he would never be able to follow through with it. it was better this way, to pack a few bags and take his van to drive as far as his tank of gas will get him out of here.

armed with nothing but a stack of mixtapes and a vague idea of where he's headed, eddie finally runs away one last time. he ignores the ache in his chest and the way his whole self seems to be screaming at him to turn around. it's better this way, he tells himself. wayne won't have to deal with the delinquent jock assholes coming by to spray paint and wreck his van, and egg the trailer. maybe without him, the hellfire club can be rebranded and start anew. it's not like corroded coffin was going to go anywhere, not so long as the rumors surrounding eddie's cult leader status continued.

he knows dustin will never forgive him, but it's a price he's willing to take to finally get some peace of mind somewhere he can be truly anonymous. sure he can't exactly change his name, but he can settle somewhere out west where the name eddie munson doesn't cause a fight to break out.

he doesn't expect to miss steve. he doesn't expect to miss any of them, but he does. and since he never gave anyone his new address or phone number, it's not as if anyone can keep in touch. but every so often, his nightmares will take on a new shape, and instead of the bats coming to terrorize him, it's steve he sees, in lover's lake. steve, who's getting chewed alive but this time eddie's the only one who dives after him, and he's just a little too late.

that morning after he wakes up drenched in sweat, he dials steve's number without even thinking. but when he hears the voice on the other end, eddie realizes what he's doing and hangs up without saying a word. and later, when he's at work and he catches sight of a burgundy bmw, eddie will pretend that his blood doesn't run cold in shameful fear, even though there's no way that can be steve, not when he heard his damn voice mere hours ago. but that doesn't stop his hands from trembling as he tries to focus on the tune-up he's supposed to be doing on the dodge challenger in front of him. ]

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[winnebagos]

( they didn't find out eddie had left until a week after he skipped town. until he didn't show for hellfire club or band practice, and dustin called eddie's uncle, only to find out that eddie left and didn't say where he was going. at first, steve tried to reassure dustin that eddie would probably come back. he was probably just getting something out of his system, trying to cope with the knowledge of alternate dimensions and monsters—not to mention the trauma nearly getting eaten alive by demonic bats. but as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, with no word and no eddie, it started to look like he might not come back. dustin was convinced something bad had happened, this wasn't like eddie, and that they had to go find him. he was so adamant, he had steve half-convinced.

so steve looked into it. he figured that if anyone knew where eddie was, it was probably the feds. they didn't like loose ends, and eddie munson leaving hawkins without warning (and, most likely, without permission) was one very obvious loose end. steve didn't like asking for favors or talking to authority figures, but—for dustin's sake—he did both. he went to hopper, and hopper went to owens, and within a week steve had a location and the name of a garage where eddie apparently worked now.

steve thought about driving out there himself. part of him wanted to make sure eddie was actually okay. that it wasn't just another government cover-up, the kind he'd witnessed firsthand several times at this point. but he told himself that was just dustin's conspiracy theories messing with his head. another part of him wanted to confront eddie. to demand to know what the hell he'd been thinking when he just up and left without so much as a goodbye, after all they'd been through. in the end, steve wound up stashing the paper with the place names in his nightstand and pushing it out of his mind. why should he care what eddie does with his life?

then comes the phone call. it's early enough that the ringing jolts steve out of a dead sleep. he's annoyed when he answers, and the person hangs up without saying a word. it was probably just a wrong number, but for some reason steve can't help wondering if it was eddie.

that thought sticks with him. he thinks about the paper again, with the town and garage name on it. and the longer he thinks about it, the angrier he gets, until he comes to a decision. he calls out of work, grabs the paper, grabs his keys, and hits the road, driving until he arrives at that town, that garage.

and sure enough, there's eddie.

and he looks fine. not a scratch on him. steve should be relieved, but instead it just pisses him off more. he should've used all his driving time to think of what he wanted to say, but he didn't. he parks and gets out of the car, shoves his hands into his pockets as he approaches eddie and the dodge challenger. he should've thought of what he wanted to say, but since he didn't, he says the first thing that comes to mind as soon as he's standing next to eddie. )

You've got some kind of nerve. You know that?