Let's Burn Down Our Hometown

14. God, Make Them Run

Eddie woke to the sound of shouting. More like squabbling and similar to something you would hear on a playground, but fighting nonetheless. The bickering reached a crescendo, for a moment, before falling into the recalled hushes they were supposed to maintain. 

He peeled his eyes open to a sliver of sun peeking through the clouds, and by chance, the windows. Casting a gentle glow across the bed. Slicing through Robin, who was still passed out cold, Eddie, and Max, whose face was turned up toward the ceiling. It wasn't a soft morning light, but rather a harsh glow that had Eddie turning away.

"You awake, Red?" Eddie yawned, shifting Robin off of him as his right leg gave a scream of protest and ruptured with pins and needles because of her dead weight. She went without a sound of protest, curling into one of the pillows.

"For hours," Max whined though the grin on her lips was enough to know she was fibbing. "Mike started a fight, again." She groaned.

"About?" Eddie asked, just as he heard a kitchen chair topple over, and Joyce's quiet pleas though hushed in an effort to not wake the rest of the house. It was clear by the following lift in bickering that she had been ignored.

"I'm not really sure," Max admitted, picking her head up off the mattress. Her hair was tangled, knotted, and swept horribly to one side. Eddie thought, briefly, about offering to brush it. But he had an overwhelming feeling that the offer would be met with sorrow and resentment. So he kept his lips tight as Max continued. "They're bouncing around and talking about shit that happened way before I knew them." She shrugged.

Eddie also wondered briefly why Max hadn't bothered to wander into the kitchen and find out, or potentially join in. But he took note of her hand curled over Robin's calf of her good leg, and decided perhaps leaving the bed alone hadn't been an option for her.

Eddie sighed, stretching both his legs and his arms before sitting up with a start. Scrubbing his hands over his face and into his hair before nodding. The slice of the sun had moved on, terrorizing someone else, leaving behind only a cover of gray clouds. Dusting the room in soft shadows.

"Let's go see what we can do." He muttered and stood. Hand already wrapped around Max's forearm.

She went grumpily, dragging her feet as she went. Muttering about boys and tempers and crying, then they rounded the corner.

It was clear only the kids, minus Holly and Joyce were awake. As everyone else, including Wayne, was absent. Though Eddie suspected Hopper and Wayne were both electing this decision to not be awake through conscious effort, and not because they were still actually sleeping.

"You never went to his basketball games!" Will whisper-shouted harshly, jabbing Mike in the shoulder. Though his hand flailed at the last moment, it was really more of a loving tap than anything fueled with malice.

But the meaning of the touch was clear on Mike's face, offended that Will had even tried, and his voice rose in pitch to match the anger now rolling across his features.

"He never asked!" Mike shouted in return, gesturing to Lucas who was slumped in his chair, arms folded over his chest, and glaring at the ceiling. Either given up or beaten down.

"I've tried, but none of them are listening," Joyce explained, dropping dry cornflakes onto the table with a clatter. Two of the three boxes fell over, though none of the boys reached to fix it up right. Dustin only fixated his eyes on the last standing box, as if trying to make it topple like the rest with his mind.

"He shouldn't have to ask!" Will hissed, glaring at Mike now. "You should have been a better friend!"

"I was a great friend!" Mike defended at once.