Like a Face Between Your Palms

by thickskeleton

Summary:

“Through the window, Eddie could hear the late night traffic rolling continually down the street. One of their neighbors was on their balcony, talking on the phone. It had always mystified him, the way the world kept on moving after his mother died. It felt like everything, even the sunrise, should've stopped.”

Moments from Eddie Munson's life, 1974 - 1986

Notes:

"to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again."
- The Thing Is, by Ellen Bass

Chapter 1: January, 1979

Eddie was fourteen the first time Steve Harrington caught him off guard. 

It was snowing so heavy that they should’ve cancelled school, but they didn’t. The buses coming in to drop students off struggled slowly up the hill, their tracks disappearing immediately behind them in the white tundra. Kids waddled into the building, bundled so heavily they could barely walk. It was only Eddie's second winter in Hawkins.

He was struggling with his locker, so close to the entrance of the school that he got hit with a blast of cold air every time someone opened the door. Wayne’s old beanie was too big on him and kept falling over his eyes, and he had forgotten his grammar book at home. He slammed his locker shut with a grunt and shivered when the front doors opened yet again. He looked up to see a kid in the grade below him walking inside.

He knew of Steve. Even that young he was already popular, handsome, and charming, though Eddie had never really thought much about him, or his crew of rich douchebags. But that morning Steve was walking in alone with his sherpa lined coat wrapped up to his chin, and he looked beautiful. His cheeks were red from the cold, his eyes bright and awake; seemingly excited for this meaningless, snowy Tuesday. His stupid, perfect hair was predictably stupid and perfect, brown and soft-looking even under the florescent lights. Eddie stopped in the middle of the hallway, stunned. Had men always been so pretty? Had Steve? The other boy walked right past him without looking at him, and that close Eddie could see the snowflakes that had collected on his long, dark eyelashes hadn’t yet melted. Eddie swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and did not think about Steve Harrington again for three years.