A/N - This chapter was inspired by the song Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. I hope you all enjoy it.
It had become pretty normal for you to sneak over to Eddie's place once your parents had gone to sleep. The first time, he'd been a little surprised when you'd knocked on the door, grinning up at him when he'd opened it in his pyjama bottoms, his hair all messy from where he'd fallen asleep on the couch watching TV. The second time, he'd been expecting you though, swinging the door open with a dramatic flare and welcoming you inside as if it were a castle, rather than just his home. And after that, you'd sort of just not stopped showing up. I mean, Wayne was always out at work. Your parents didn't tend to notice that you were missing. You missed Eddie. It was a no-brainer, really.
In fact, you'd been staying at Eddie's every night for almost a month when you'd heard Wayne's car pull up at 2 AM, causing you to sit bolt upright and out of Eddie's arms.
"What?" he grumbled, lowering his book to his stomach to watch you carefully as you stood on the mattress to peer through the window into the front yard.
"Shit," you muttered, moving at such high speed that Eddie couldn't really keep up as you gathered up your clothes, shoving your feet into your shoes as quickly as you could manage.
"What's going on?" he uttered again, sitting up and frowning.
You glanced back at him as you pulled your sweatshirt over your head. "Wayne's here," you muttered, watching as his brow furrowed.
"So?"
"So, if he catches me hanging around here in the middle of the night, he'll know I've been staying over-"
"Baby, we're 18," Eddie hummed, catching your hand in his. "And Wayne's pretty chill about this sort of stuff."
"What if he tells my dad?" you muttered. "My dad isn't chill, Ed. My dad will lose his shit."
Eddie held his hands up in surrender. "We can just say you came over to hang out and we lost track of time."
"No, he'll see right through that-"
"Baby, he's going to see you no matter what, alright?" he interrupted. "So, unless you're planning on jumping out the window, we need to think of something to say to keep you from getting yourself grounded, okay?"
Your eyes darted over to the window for a moment, as you bit down on your bottom lip. "It's not that high a window," you murmured.
"I was kidding," Eddie uttered, shaking his head in frustration.
"But it isn't a bad idea, Ed. It's not that long a drop and that way Wayne won't even know I was here. We'll be home free."
Eddie still didn't look convinced, shaking his head slightly. "You're the clumsiest person I've ever met. You'll hurt yourself."
"I'm not that clumsy-"
"You fall over your own feet and walk into furniture all the time."
You stayed staring at him for a moment, your eyes darting over to the window for a moment. "That's because I'm not normally concentrating, but I'll be really careful this time."
"Y/N-"
"Ed, If my dad finds out I've been sleeping here, he'll go totally mental. He'll ground me and we won't be able to spend any time together anymore. And right now, we haven't got any other options."
He sighed, shaking his head. "Fine," he uttered, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. "But be careful, alright?"
You nodded, offering him a sweet smile and you leaned in to kiss him quickly. "I'll see you tomorrow, Baby," you told him, pulling away to climb onto his bed, and heading straight for the window.
You managed to pull yourself up onto the window ledge before Eddie was standing beside you, watching you like a hawk. "Be careful," he reminded you.
"I am being careful," you bit back, shuffling around until you had one leg hanging outside. "Quit looking at me like that."
Eddie was frowning deeply, watching you so intently that you couldn't help but feel a little bit of added pressure to not mess up. "Just focus on being careful-"
"I am being careful," you repeated, shooting him a glare, but just as you were about to scold him for distracting you, your grip on the ledge slipped, sending you tumbling out of the window a little quicker than you'd been expecting and landing flat on your ass on the concrete outside.
"Shit," you heard Eddie bite out, followed by a heavy thud as he jumped from his bed and footsteps that went flying through the trailer before the door was flying open again and he was taking the steps two at a time to get to you. You saw Wayne's head appear around the doorframe, shaking his head at the two of you before ducking back into the trailer, just as Eddie came skidding to a stop next to you, kneeling at your side. "Are you hurt, Baby?"
You shook your head, lifting your hands to look at your scraped-up palms. "I'm fine," you grumbled, wiping the mix of blood and dirt off of your palms onto your sweatpants. "I just lost my grip."
"You're bleeding," he pointed out, catching one of your hands to look at them closely. "We need to clean these out."
"It's fine, Ed."
"It's not fine. You're hurt."
You let out a soft snort of laughter. "I'm fine. It doesn't even sting that bad."
He hesitated for a moment, watching your face for any sign of a lie. "Well, let me drive you home, anyway. You shouldn't ride your bike with fucked up hands-"
"They aren't fucked up-" you fell silent when you caught the frown on Eddie's face, a real frown, not one of the fake pouty ones he sometimes used to get his own way. "Fine, you can drive me."
Eddie helped you up, watching carefully to check you weren't hurt anywhere else, and then helped you up into the van.
By the time he was pulling out of the trailer park, your hands were really starting to sting, and digging around in his packet of cigarettes wasn't going as well as you had hoped it would. You let out a disgruntled sigh, throwing them down on the seat between you.
"Ed, do me a favour, Baby?"
He hummed, glancing over at you. With a short nod, he plucked out one of the cigarettes and placed it between your lips before grabbing the lighter and quickly lighting it for you.
"Thank you, Baby," you hummed out, taking a slow drag and letting your head fall back against your seat.
Eddie could've sworn that he'd never loved you more than he did at that moment. This woman who was willing to throw herself out of a window to try and make sure she could see him again. The woman who was probably clumsier than anyone else he had ever met. This woman who he was pretty sure he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Yeah, right now, he knew for certain that he loved you more than anything else in the world.
"You doing alright, Baby?" he murmured, reaching his free hand out to squeeze your knee.
You nodded, letting out a puff of smoke. "Doing just fine," you told him, peeking your eyes open to look in his direction. "Thanks to you, Doc," you teased, watching a smile pull at the corner of his lips.
"Well, you are my favourite patient," he chuckled, giving your knee another light squeeze. "You get all my best bedside manners."
"Maybe I should hurt myself more often-"
"Don't you dare," he interjected, shooting you a warning look that had you giggling at him. "That's not funny," he muttered.
"Sorry, Baby," you hummed, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "I promise I'll be more careful."
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