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The old Ford Galaxie bounces down the dark and stony road towards Roane County Cemetery. It's suspension is shit, like so much else about it, but it was all he could afford to replace the Beamer after his poor car gained the dubious distinction of becoming the furthest man-made machine from planet earth. In Henderson's estimation, anyway.
Whatever. Gone is gone. His dad did not accept his excuse, and refused to put any money towards a new car. So he's downgraded into this fifteen year old Ford which rattles worryingly every time he starts her up.
Blessed silence falls as he parks up outside the main gate and the engine lulls back into sleep. Darkness creeps in around him. With his headlights gone the full moon is the only light available. It glows, cold and aloof, reflecting off the brown glass of the six pack of beer on his passenger seat.
He should turn around. Go home. Get some sleep. But an emptiness has been building and building inside him for days. It's a familiar feeling, and by now he knows it always leads him here. There's no other way to stop it, or reset it, all he can do is wait for it to become unbearable, then buy his six pack and drive out to the cemetery. He sighs, and lifts the cardboard holder. Clutching the beer to his chest, he shoves open his door and steps out into the night.
The night is cool, the breeze soft. There's no floral scent on the air here, not like his mom's carefully maintained garden. It's inert. A general green outdoors smell that's neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It smells of endings, of rest. Enforced peace which came whether the recipients wanted it or not.
He wishes he didn't know each stone he passes quite so well. His eyes drag unwillingly across the words. Row after row of platitudes alongside the litany of names which accompanies him each time to his destination
In Memoriam
Rest In Peace
Gone But Not Forgotten
Most of all, In Loving Memory. It appears over and over again. In Loving Memory. In Loving Memory. In Loving Memory.
He hates it. The tragedy and agony of death condensed into short, trite phrases. Sanitized. Written over. Like always, irritation swells the further down the line he goes. It's all so senseless. So futile.
He comes to a stop in front of a small stone. One of the smallest in the whole place.
EDWARD MUNSON
Now At Peace
1966-1986
Staring at the few meager words the empty feeling inside his chest swells until it pushes the breath out of his body. It fills his lungs, his heart. Every place inside him turns hollow. There's something he hates about these words, Now At Peace, more than any other phrase he passed on the way here. Despite all the night-time visits he's made in the last few months he still can't decide what it is.
He lowers himself down to sit in front of the stone. Ignoring the damp which immediately starts to seep through his jeans. The bottles in his six pack clink as he pulls one out. A low hiss and the cap goes spinning off into the scrubby grass. The first bitter sip makes his stomach clench and roll, it always does, but he swallows it down anyway. Before he knows it, half the bottle is gone. He holds it loosely, only exerting just enough force to keep it from slipping and spilling it's contents onto the grass. When it's empty, he lays the bottle down next to him and immediately opens another one. The beer sits on his stomach but other than that he doesn't feel it yet, and he knows he won't until the third or even the fourth. It's strange, he doesn't drink much at all any more, except here. This is his ritual, apparently, and he doesn't understand it enough to be able to stop it.
"Steve?" His muscles tense in shock at the low call of his name. "Is that you?"
Dustin. What the hell is he doing out here at this time? In all the months he's been doing this, he's never once seen another soul. Living or dead. Not that he really expects to see a ghost. Psychic powers and inter-dimensional wormholes might be real, but El never once hinted at being able to communicate with the dead. That would have been a step too far, even for her.
"Steve?" Dustin says again.
The urge to run fights with the emptiness which drew him to this place. He wishes he could somehow become invisible, so Dustin could do whatever he came to do and leave him the hell alone.
"What are you doing here?" Dustin asks.
He sits down next to him and Steve sighs. He tips his head back, filling his mouth with beer. Partly because it's what he does here but mostly to put off having to talk for a little longer. Because he really has no idea what the compulsion is that brings him out here. And as much as he loves Dustin, like the little brother he never had, he knows him well enough to know that he won't accept that for an answer.
"Steve?"
"Yeah," the word escapes in a low croak.
"Is everything OK?"
"Fine."
Everything is fine. It should be fine. They won. Henry Creel is dead. The Upside Down permanently destroyed. The military gone. Hawkins is rebuilding. They've had months of peace. It's more than fine. Except it isn't. He isn't.
"Do you come here often?" Dustin asks. A glance tells Steve he's not looking directly at him. His eyes are locked ahead, staring at that small stone which makes Steve feel so…nothing.
"Do you?"
"Yeah," the kid admits. "Pretty often. Never at this time though."
"So why tonight?"
"I don't know." He shrugs. "Couldn't sleep I guess."
Steve drains the last of his beer and reaches for a third.
"Can I have one?"
Something deep inside him rebels. Howling. No. No. No. It's his ritual. Every time he comes here he drinks exactly six beers and then waits until it's light for the buzz to wear off so he can drive home. Every time. It's his. He needs it. Needs that buzz to replace the seething pit of nothing threatening to consume him whole. But he can't exactly say that to Dustin without inviting more questions he has no answer to.
"Did you drive here?" he asks instead.
"No, but you did." Dustin snorts indignantly.
Shit. He's got nothing else. Not now Dustin's seventeen and knows full well that Steve would be a raging hypocrite to turn him down because of his age. He sighs and hands a bottle to him.
Dustin takes it with a grin which Steve can't bring himself to return. The hiss of the bottle opening is louder, somehow, than his were.
"So I notice you never answered my question," Dustin says after taking a sip. "Do you come here often?"
"Not really," Steve shrugs. "Just…sometimes."
About once a month if he's honest, and that's only because he puts it off until the empty is so huge it's like his mind isn't a part of the rest of his body any more.
"It's OK to miss him, you know."
Something sick and hot clutches at Steve's heart. His grip tightens on the bottle, the damp label squeezing against his palm.
"I don't miss him" he spits. "I barely knew him."
He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Eddie was Dustin's friend, he meant a lot to him. He really, really doesn't want to start an argument again. Not now they're finally back to where they were. But Dustin doesn't look mad, just thoughtful.
"You must have known him a little," he says. "You were at school together way before I came along. He was hard to miss."
"I guess," Steve admits.
"Tell me what you remember about him. From back then. Before I knew him."
Steve really doesn't want to. Dustin's doing what he always does. Needling. Pushing. He came here to be alone. To drink until he can sort of feel again. Not whatever this is.
"I mean, what's to tell?" he says bitterly. "You knew him. He was loud, kind of a dick sometimes. I only had a couple classes with him." Dustin watches him in silence, his face cast in shadow. In the quiet an old memory wells up, and the beer he's drunk lets it out before he makes the conscious decision to share. "He used to tap his pen all the goddamn time. Until I wanted to scream at him. He was three desks across from me and all I could focus on was the way his hands never stopped moving. When spring rolled around those dumbass rings would catch the light and almost blind me."
Dustin laughs quietly, and looks away, back towards the stone again. It makes it easier to keep talking.
"He just grinned at me when I finally snapped at him, and started doing it more. You know how he was, he never seemed to care what anyone thought. Not even when people were whispering about him, and there were plenty of rumors that went around."
"Like what?"
He shrugs.
"All stuff you already know. He was trouble. Rumors about the cops coming for him, getting pulled over in town, that sort of thing. Everyone knew his dad was in jail, and just assumed it was only a matter of time until he joined him."
They lapse into silence again, leaves rustling around them. Steve passes his beer bottle from hand to hand, feeling the slosh of the liquid inside and resisting the urge to press his thumbs up through the wet label and rip it off.
"Then there were the parties," Steve says when he can't take it any more. "No one ever admitted to inviting him but he was usually there. In a corner or sitting out back."
"Eddie?" Dustin's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "At parties? The popular kids parties?"
Dustin doesn't have to say it directly, he can hear exactly what he means. Steve shudders a bit at the reminder of exactly how big a douche-bag he was when he was a part of that crowd. That Steve would never have been open friends with Dustin. To his shame, he's not even sure he would have been able to do what Eddie did, had he still been a senior during Dustin's freshman year. Whether he would have looked out for him, like he should have, or tried to turn him into something he's not just so he wouldn't have a target on his back.
"He hated them," Steve confirms. "Or he acted like he hated them. Like he hated us…" he pauses, raising the beer to his lips once more. "The feeling was mutual. If you wanted to step out for some air, bam! there he was. Smoking. Waiting for a customer and passing the time by commenting on your outfit or your hair or something."
He can still smell the wreathe of stale smoke which clung to Eddie that one time he'd drunkenly failed to seen him, and walked right into the dude in the dark. Hear the sarcastic, "mind the goods, pretty boy," as he messed up Steve's hair before shoving him out of the way. Eddie was stronger than he looked. His smoky, ring-adorned fingers had dug into his upper arm only briefly, but he'd felt them for days.
"He did not let people ignore him," Dustin agrees, raising his beer in a sort of toast towards the grave.
"Ignore him?" Steve scoffs. "Not possible. He was obnoxious. You know he stole my beer once?"
"Really?" Dustin looks like he's trying to hold back laughter, and honestly Steve can't blame him. He smiles fondly at the memory.
"Right out of my goddamn hands, just strolled between me and Nance and took it. Even had the audacity to wink at me as he drank it."
At the time he'd been outraged, glaring at the guy for the rest of the night no matter how many times Nancy told him to drop it. Eddie knew it too. Would give him a little wave every time he caught him staring. He'd give anything to be able to rewind time back to that moment.
"You know you were the only thing Eddie and I ever really argued about," Dustin says, interrupting Steve's thoughts. "I mean a real argument, not like a debate over the rule book or something."
Steve frowns. It seems so unlikely. He can't imagine Eddie or Dustin backing away from an argument. Surely they must have butted heads over more.
"I'm serious," Dustin insists. "He would not have it that you were a real friend. Simply did not believe it. And this is the guy who let Lucas join Hellfire even though he was on the basketball team. Didn't even question it. But the thing is, in all his justifications for why he hated you, he only ever talked about how awful Tommy H was, or Kyle, or Jason, or Andy. There never seemed to be a story about you going after one of the nerds or punching him in the face, or anything at all."
The dust had swirled around them in the Upside Down as Eddie had admitted to him that he'd actually been jealous of just how much Dustin looked up to him. How he couldn't accept that Steve was actually decent. They'd been sticking close together but Eddie, as always, had to push it, leaning into his space, getting in his face. Body heat like a furnace, radiating through the cold air. His wounds pulsing. The slick denim of Eddie's vest resting on his shoulders. The scent of weed and cheap drugstore cologne woven into its fibers.
"I think I know why you're here."
Dustin's murmured declaration brings Steve back to their Hawkins, now the only Hawkins. To the night air and the quietness of the cemetery. Unexpected nervous dread clenches his stomach.
"I didn't realize at first," he continues. "I was too upset to see it, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about it." Dustin takes a deep breath. "That day in the lab I thought you were just mad at me, because of how I pushed you away, and you lashed out at Eddie because of that. But it wasn't, was it? You were mad at him. Directly at him. You were so mad at him for dying."
Steve's hands are shaking. He doesn't know where Dustin's going with this, but his body knows it's a thread he really doesn't want pulled. He should stand up and walk away. Leave this place until the next time the emptiness drives him back. Preferably alone. He should, but he doesn't, he's frozen to the spot as Dustin unveils the final piece of his theory.
"Over the last few months I got a chance to really think about Will, and everything he said, and I started to wonder if maybe there was another reason you were so mad at Eddie?"
Dustin's meaning takes a second or two to land. When it does it hits him like a freight train. Sending his mind spinning out of his body all over again.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Jesus Christ, Henderson," he bursts out. "No. Absolutely not. No."
He can't say it enough times. No. That's not what this is. He wasn't in love with Eddie. He couldn't stand Eddie for most of his life. He'd only just started seeing him as a potential friend when he died. It wasn't that. It wasn't that at all. He's not like that. He can't be.
"If you say so," Dustin answers with a nonchalance which suggests he absolutely does not believe him.
Steve lurches to his feet. Heart hammering in his chest as though there's a demogorgon coming after him. He wants to pace, to run, but only makes it two steps before he turns back and gestures fiercely at Dustin with his almost empty bottle.
"I'm not…" He can't finish the sentence. The word is small but it stops up his throat. "That's not what this is," he spits out instead. He downs the last of the beer in the bottle, hoping it will cool him off. It doesn't.
"Then what is it Steve?" Dustin argues back. "Why are you here?"
"I don't know, alright," he shouts. "I don't know." He turns and launches the bottle through the air. There's a dull thump as it hits a tree then falls to the ground. Jesus, he can't even break a goddamn bottle to make himself feel better. Worst of all, Dustin's just sitting there, all calm and smug as though everything Steve is doing is confirming his crazy theory.
"I just can't stop thinking about how it's bullshit," Steve spits. "It's so unfair." He gestures at the grave. "He did nothing wrong, not a goddamn thing, and we were all gung-ho to go and kill Vecna rather than helping him, and he went along with it? Who does that? He didn't say, 'ah, hey, guys, when this is all done how the hell do we explain all these murders without me going to jail?' he just strode off into Mordor, whatever that means." He's not really pacing, but he can't keep still. Twisting and turning and gesticulating at Dustin who watches on in silence, an infuriating expression on his face. "And then, then, he goes and does the most dumbass, reckless thing imaginable. He takes on a whole flock of killer bats so they don't go after you or fly through the gate into Hawkins and he dies." His voice breaks. "He dies. How is that fair? When any one of us should have died four or five times by that point already with all the stupid stuff we've done, but he doesn't even get one pass? Not one tiny bit of luck?"
"It's not fair," Dustin agrees. So quiet and sad that it just makes Steve even angrier.
"Everyone, from day one, assumed the worst of him." He thumps his chest. "Even me. Especially me. And he never gets to clear his name. They're still whispering about him. He gets to go down in history as a goddamn serial killer who died before he could be brought to justice. Even here, look at it, all he gets is this shitty little stone and it's bullshit. It's all so much bullshit."
He throws himself back down on the grass and grabs another beer. His fourth but the fifth in the pack thanks to Dustin. The alcohol in his veins is only a low background hum, and it's suddenly not enough. He wishes he'd brought more. Maybe a bottle of his dad's Scotch. That's what he really needs. Not just a simmering buzz, but to get properly hammered. Full on blackout drunk. Perhaps that would unblock whatever part of his brain won't let him forget and move on. All he has is beer though. He lifts the bottle and drinks.
Dustin takes a much smaller gulp of his own beer then gestures at the stone in front of them.
"You know Wayne almost didn't put this up," he says.
Steve lowers the bottle, staring at him.
"He didn't?"
"Nope. It cost a crazy amount of money. Even when there's no body they make you pay for the ground the stone is sitting on as well as the stone itself. He couldn't afford it. But he wanted it. He wanted there to be a place where Eddie could be remembered, by the people who really knew him. So I went around Hellfire Club. We all pitched in whatever we could. Lucas, Mike, Gareth, Jeff, Doug. Even Robin handed over some of her savings. Erica convinced her parents to let her forgo her allowance for a couple months and put that towards it. When I handed the money over it was the second time I saw him cry. This was all we could afford."
Whatever residual anger he had dies instantly, buried under a wave of shame.
"Why didn't you ask me?"
"I didn't think you would care." At Dustin's words something hard and painful lodges itself in his throat. His eyes burn. Dustin pats his arm. "I was wrong," he says simply. "I'm sorry."
Dustin lets the apology hang in the air until Steve acknowledges it with a short nod. The hand on his arm squeezes once, then withdraws.
"You know," Dustin says, "with everything we've been through one of the things I've learned is how much people hide, and how easy it is to hide in plain sight. Whether it's Lucas suddenly wanting to play basketball, or Max hiding behind her Walkman. Or Will and Robin keeping such a huge part of themselves locked away. Even me. I know now that I wasn't ever really annoyed at you, I just didn't want to get hurt again. I was hiding too. But unlike them I wasn't just hiding from the world, or my friends, I was hiding from myself."
Dustin tips his head back, punctuating his speech with a drink.
"I also learned that it's when we hide things from ourselves that's when we end up hurting ourselves the most. So if you don't want to tell me the reason why you're here, that's fine. I'm not going to push. But I think you need to be honest with yourself about it, even if it's hard."
Steve stares at the stone in front of them. Now At Peace. The mix of guilt and shame and he doesn't know what stopping his throat drains away into a kind of hopelessness, and he understands in a flash that he hates it so much because this stone, as well as marking Eddie, also erases him. Someone walking past this stone wouldn't even know he was Eddie, not Edward. That he tapped his pen incessantly, or always wore that ripped denim vest covered in patches. They wouldn't have a mental image of his mocking smile leaning out of the driver's side of his van. Wouldn't know about the unexpected strength of his touch or the way his hair got so frizzy on wet days Steve seriously contemplated sticking a few bottles of Aqua Net into the guys locker. He didn't, of course, because that would have been weird, but damn he wanted to.
Whatever was in his throat lands in his stomach. It clenches tighter and tighter, until he can't stand the thought of taking another sip of his beer. Why though? With everything and everyone they've lost, why does he feel so strongly about Eddie in particular? Strongly enough to drive him back here every few weeks with a six pack, incapable of stringing two thoughts together.
There's no hiding from how it looks. No wonder Dustin thinks he's pining over a lost love. If it were anyone else in the ground…if it were Nancy…
A hot flush burns the back of his neck. It can't mean that. It just can't. He's always looked at women in that way. Always. Eddie might have been a good-looking guy, although he never really noticed that until he grew his hair out, but it doesn't mean anything. He's never had a crush on a guy, and he definitely didn't look at Eddie in that way at all. Definitely not.
He was irritating, un-ignorable, and just when he thought he'd never have to hear about Eddie Munson ever again Dustin suddenly latched onto him, so goddamn full of his new friend every time they spoke. And not as an annoyance either. To Dustin he was this cool guy who was into all the same nerdy shit and who stepped in to protect him from the everyday dangers of high school. Of course Steve was jealous. He should have told Eddie. After all, Eddie had been honest with him about feeling the exact same way. But for some reason he hadn't been able to admit it at the time. They should have been able to regroup afterwards. Shoot the shit for a bit over a beer or two and actually get to know each other. But just at the point when he'd finally been ready to talk, really talk with the guy, suddenly he was gone.
Why didn't he tell him? He meant to tell him. Why on earth did he spend most of that conversation just listening?
The answer wells up in a rush.
Because Eddie kept on getting way too close and it made Steve's mind go blank every damn time.
Oh god.
'I didn't see it myself, not for the longest time.'
Will's words, his confession. 'I didn't see it.' Has he spent all this time not seeing something right in front of him? The last few pieces click into place and he can't hide from them any more.
Eddie was annoying, because Steve couldn't look away. Just like Robin couldn't stop staring at Tammy, annoyed when Tammy couldn't stop staring at him. Eddie irritated him, because he always knew exactly where he was. Because he couldn't ignore him. Because Eddie's presence made him feel something he didn't understand or want to acknowledge.
Everything went so fucking warm whenever Eddie got close. They'd never really gotten physically close, other than the beer incident and when Steve walked into him accidentally, not until they were in the Upside Down together. Whenever it happened he couldn't get his brain to work, especially when he leaned in close.
"Eddie would have liked Will," Dustin pipes up. Steve can't answer. He's finally connected to his mind again but it's whirling so much faster than it should be with the alcohol. Dustin was right. Goddamn it, Dustin was right.
"I mean, 'zombie boy' is metal as hell," he continues, "but also Will loves DnD so much and Tolkien, and Eddie thought his art was really cool. I showed him a couple of pictures Will did of my character and he lost his shit over them." Dustin pauses, glancing at Steve as though he's not sure he should continue. He does though. "They had something else in common too. Something Eddie didn't know I knew."
Steve's eyes are burning again, and this time he knows it's with the effort of fighting back tears. He both does and doesn't want to know this. The weight of everything that could have been is building and building on his shoulders, pressing him down into the grass. If it gets much heavier he might never be able to move from this spot.
"Are you saying he…" he can't finish that sentence. It's too much. Because whatever the answer is it won't make him feel any better.
"Liked guys?" Dustin finishes for him, blunt as ever. "Yeah. He didn't do a great job hiding some magazines in his van once. I never told him I saw. I never told anyone, until now."
The knowledge sits in his stomach like a boulder. Eddie liked guys. He, apparently, liked Eddie. Eddie always got way too close. Teasing him. Mocking him. Wetness spills down his cheeks. He chest spasms, too tight to breathe. Only it's not emptiness this time, filling him to the point he can't feel anything else, it's regret. It's grief. It's the crushing weight of everything he didn't even know he wanted to say to Eddie until this moment. Of everything he's realized much, much too late.
"I don't think he hated you half as much as he wanted to believe. I think he…"
"Please don't say it."
It's too much. Too heavy inside him. If he hears it out loud it will bury him. Because it means Eddie died not knowing he was loved. Or that he would be remembered with love. He died believing that Steve only tolerated him for the sake of Dustin.
Dustin's hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes tightly.
"I'm sorry," he says. "And I'm sorry it took me so long to realize what you were going through."
"How could you?" Steve shudders, desperate to keep the sobs out of his voice. "I had no idea either."
Dustin just nods, carefully not looking at him, then points to the final beer.
"Are you going to drink that?" he asks. Steve shakes his head. He's lost all taste for it. Oblivion doesn't feel like a relief any more. It's a lie. False comfort. It's a betrayal of Eddie's memory, and that's all he will ever have of him now.
"Maybe we should share it with Eddie," Dustin says gently. "I think he'd prefer that to flowers or something."
Wetly, Steve snorts an involuntary laugh at the image of Eddie Munson being confronted with flowers. He scrubs his sleeve across his face. Grateful that Dustin hasn't said anything about it. Especially because he can't seem to stop. He grabs the final beer and opens it. Standing next to the stone he turns it upside down and watches the beer pour out and foam up on the grass. When it's gone he places the empty bottle carefully on top of the stone.
He should say something too, but he can't. Not yet. Maybe next time. Maybe the next time he comes here he'll be able to tell Eddie all about it. Tell him that Now At Peace chafes so much because he deserved better. More. He deserved to be remembered. He deserved to be loved. He was loved, and didn't even know it, and now he never will.
Maybe he'll be able to tell him something else too.
He'll tell him that even if he does find love and happiness one day, he'll never leave this place. Not truly. A part of him will always be here, buried alongside everything that could have been. Lost with a love that never got a chance to be discovered.
"Come on," Dustin says, his hand on Steve's shoulder again, "I'll drive you home."