( long before demogorgons and the mind flayer, jonathan was a nonparticipant in his own life.
he woke up, he made breakfast, and he filled in all the gaps in joyce and lonnie’s parenting — and it had been okay. okay because he loved his mom with all her intricacies and complications; midnight cigarettes on the porch even though she quit a year ago, nail-biting and pacing, sometimes hyper obsessive to the point of missing all else but also because she put in over-time for the food on the table, the electricity, the water, and the byers’ boys favorite presents under the tree and she never complained to them, about any of it. okay because he loved will with his too-wide eyes and his bravery, somehow not ruined by his status as an outsider because he made these amazing connections with kids like mike, lucas, and dustin. he was soft, allowed to be young, and yeah, maybe a little weird, but jonathan wouldn’t have him any other way. he would take will’s eccentries over a thousand boring nobodies that looked and thought exactly the same.
after the demogorgons and the mind flayer, he still has a tendency to withdraw and retreat to the security blanket of a camera lens. because after the exposure of blood and violence, of reacting on adrenaline and instinct—kill or be killed—he needs to burrow away and regather himself, figure out how to be himself again when people have witnessed him, vulnerable and raw. there’s nothing like a heaping shovelful of trauma to knock down the wooden beams and plaster of his walls, wallpaper and nails scattered on the floor. he feels like walking wreckage these days, trying to rebuild from scratch; a repeated starting point, one that’s never fully reconstructed before someone takes an axe to his progress.
the battle of starcourt resolves and jonathan doesn’t try to stuff seventeen years of his life into as few boxes and bags as possible ( what’s important when you’ve known real paralyzing loss? ) and joyce doesn’t sell the house, doesn’t uproot the byers from a quiet town in indiana to bustling california. hopper takes eleven home to what’s left of their cabin and then promptly moves in ( sorry, “stays over until he can find other accommodations” ) and the byers house is full, all the time. there are arguments, sure, fighting that doesn’t make jonathan take will to the fort behind their house ( that also had to be rebuilt ) because it’s also full of laughter.
more often than not, it’s still jonathan that’s a designated driver, captain of pick-ups and drop-offs. but there’s this thing ( this almost ), something he’s never put much stock into but that’s been there the whole time, running in the background like a song on repeat. steve coming back into his house and taking a bat to the demogorgon that would have killed him, steve kissing nancy in front of him at their lockers, looks that are too long to just be looks, and sideswiping billy out of the path of nancy and the station wagon. he should hate him. there are so many microaggressions and real agressions growing up that jonathan can conjure, yet somehow they aren’t overtaken by the good ones. a replaced camera, a hand on his sleeve, the twirl of a bat.
some days, jonathan sees steve more than he sees nancy, chronically buried in the paper, while they begrudgingly share cold, leftover pizza at family video or upstairs sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for the biggest and longest game of dungeons and dragons to come to a pause. he comes in for vhs tapes that are returned already rewound, never having watched them, for a movie night that never existed. and when he gets a temporary job at some mom and pop-owned electronics store, steve stumbles in for batteries like he can’t pick them up at the nearest convenience store. jonathan asks him about movies that aren’t artsy enough for him to bother with and steve gets jonathan talking about the cutting edge in turntables, despite the fact that the harringtons have enough money to have twelve of them in their house. and probably do.
it’s weird, of course it’s weird, but as previously declared, all the best things are.
he can’t really explain why they’re sitting on the floor of the apartment he and nancy share, listening to a mixtape he may have made specifically for steve to try and give the poor sap some culture or why they’re there at all instead of at the byers place or the wheelers. but they’re like this, more often than not, with a walkie nearby and the phone line always clear ( just in case ), with nancy milling around, occasionally thrusting articles or ideas in their faces for their input. sometimes it’s legs draped on the couch, heads on shoulders, nancy and steve asleep at his sides while the credits roll but he’s determined not to disturb them.
but here on the floor, hot in the sticky summer with a fan blowing on them, steve gesturing wildly with wet lips and a piece of watermelon in his hand, jonathan isn't content with sitting on the sidelines. )
You have — ( a grin, yes, he's grinning ) The most abhorrent taste out of anyone I've ever met in my entire life.
( should be venomous but he's laughing, all malice mysteriously absent from his observation. the coffee table's pushed back, closer to the television set, steve with his back to the couch and jonathan with his to said table, bowl of watermelon slices behind him. in his animated excitement, their knees collide — a brush, really, no harder than a tap, but it feels loud like thunder. )
Edited (you don't see any typos ok) 2022-06-02 21:31 (UTC)
[ sometimes steve harrington has no idea who he is anymore.
and wow, alright, that was dramatic. over-dramatic, even. he can almost hear robin rolling her eyes at the very thought because steve sounds worse than some fainting lady in the new romcom they'd just gotten into the store a few weeks back. pathetic. dramatic. unnecessary. which she wouldn't be wrong - so he'll go back and rephrase.
steve harrington, the one of today, is so different from the steve harrington he'd been just a year or so ago, that it kind of makes his head spin.
especially right now, sitting on the floor of this apartment, with jonathan byers. sitting with his back to the couch, and jonathan facing him. there is music that steve is actually really enjoying playing over whatever stereo speaker jonathan's brought over. right now, in the middle of the summer heat, with the hum of the fan and steve in a tshirt and shorts, saying something about how the song that was playing reminded him of this one movie that came through the store that he and robin actually sat down to watch and oh my god, jonathan, you have no idea how bad- actually it wasn't that bad, i've seen worse, but the music-. steve is gesturing, too caught up in his story to realize that the juice from the watermelon was dripping down his own wrist, though not too caught up to take a bite every now and then before he picks up just where he'd left off. the music keeps playing, and it is good. of course it's good. jonathan's taste has always been good, though sometimes a bit too artsy.
it wasn't all that long ago that steve was calling the other boy a freak, that he was straight up bullying him in the hallways at school (something that even after their fight, even after showing up at jonathan's house to apologize, even after the replaced camera and this new place they both find themselves in, that steve still feels bad about. guilty about. something that eats him up inside.) it wasn't that long ago since he was spray painting the theater sign and driving around town like he owned the whole place, like he had everything figured out, like he knew what the world had in store for him.
and then there'd been the demogorgon. the baseball bat. the fight of his life alongside nancy wheeler and jonathan byers, and from that moment on, everything just kept changing. like picking up speed down the biggest hill in town, steve just held on. from his and nancy's official break up to now whatever this is supposed to be. to harcourt mall and the russians. to dustin becoming what was now one of the most important people in steve's life despite the fact that kid could be annoying as fuck, and somewhere alongside all of that, was jonathan.
jonathan, who steve had watched stand up straighter, inch by inch. who steve watched come into the video store over and over, for movie after movie, despite his hunch that they never left the box. joanathan, who steve definitely did not go out of his own way just to stop by the electronics store, for batteries. batteries. and jonathan, who didn't hesitate to grin on days like this, to a point where steve feels the urge to stare, just for a moment, as if he might never see it again. (he will, he knows he will) if steve's being honest, the only person who he feels hasn't changed all that much is nancy - nancy, who has always been a badass. nancy, who has always been too smart for her own good. nancy, who has her pistol tucked in next to her pumps in her and jonathan's closet and steve knows that. and nancy, who is supposed to be home any minute now but who has probably gotten held up down at the library during one of her research binders. not that steve minds - they're barely halfway through side a of this mix tape, and he doesn't have another shift until tomorrow evening. ]
Hey- [ their knees collide, just a brush, and jonathan is grinning so brightly at him that steve almost wonders if his heart is stuttering a bit at the sight of it. and then he intentionally hits jonathan's knee with his own again, though this time it's more of a push. a shove. because steve has always been an affectionate guy, and they're at that point here, aren't they? ] Rude. I have great taste- it's just not as...weird as yours. [ a beat, as steve eats the last bite of his slice of watermelon, rolling his eyes. ]
Sorry- artsy. [ it's not the first time this joke has come up, apparently. ]
( lining up all the facts in the row, there are other people in town with worse taste. they simply aren’t in jonathan’s scope. they’re nonfactors. steve used to be one of them, until he wasn’t. he hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but he co-starred in most of the photographs from the night of barb’s disappearance and if jonathan’s willing to look inward, which he isn’t always, it’s for a bigger reason than steve happened to be standing next to nancy. that party, creeping through the brush in the woods, feels like a memory from a lifetime ago. categorized as the lifestyle of the rich and privileged because they had the luxury of ignoring the reality of a missing sibling, they could go on, they could take it easy.
jonathan used to think that everything came easy to people like steve harrington and nancy wheeler — money, clothes that weren’t from a thrift store, cars that weren’t covered in rust, friends. because friends were for people that had time to be present, had time to do more than pick up extra shifts and show up ( sometimes ) in the same shirt as yesterday, as long as will went to school with breakfast in his stomach and his mom remembered to take toast and an apple with her.
and he hasn’t been able to decipher how it is that these two people that he once resented are somehow the most interesting people in his age group. will’s his best friend, always will be, but nancy and steve are people he can count on with his back against the wall and jonathan’s never had that security. joyce loves her sons with every piece of herself that she has to give, more than that even, but he didn’t grow up with an older brother to put band-aids on his skinned knees or someone to turn the music up. jonathan’s just had to figure out how to carry on, how to pick himself up, and how to be okay with not being okay on his own.
being alone has taught him to appreciate music and the anger in rock and roll, the glamorization of being an outcast and fighting a system that wasn’t built for people like him to flourish in. if he likes and recognizes the camera work of certain directors, it’s because he’s obsessed with these storytellers who put the truth on a screen, on film, because they too know the power of watching people and seeing how they unfold in a singular moment. he handpicks every song on the mixtape for steve, thinking that part of him that he’s hidden from the rest of the town for so long will get something out of it. some kind of absolution, something akin to being seen.
he sees him so certainly now that he’s not sure how he ever missed it before.
if nancy is an immovable object, then steve is an unstoppable force. and nancy has always been this breathtaking, relentless, beautiful person in pursuit of knowledge and truth. but steve? steve came out of left field so hard that jonathan is still internally screaming in the stands. he’s stupid in a manner of speaking, the kind of dumb that makes him courageous because he doesn’t see x, y, and z as a reason not to do something, he just does it. he’s ridiculous hairsprayed hair and casually unaffected by nearly everything. he’s also surprising in that whenever jonathan’s sure he has him nailed down, he busts out of some dystopian horror cocoon, emerging like a mutilated phoenix. his finest quality: he gets back up.
not only does steve acknowledge the bump of knees, he retaliates, leaving jonathan to defend himself. he catches steve’s knee in his hand, lest he get any ideas about nudging him again. a playful grab, the warning prelude that comes before roughhousing in a household of boys. ( funny, pinpointing that, when neither one of them is the shining example of masculinity. ) his palm outlives its welcome, should drag away instantly with the cautionary glance given in tandem, but jonathan keeps his hand there thoughtlessly. yes, absently, not having to overthink each move with the company involved. )
You wouldn’t know artsy if your life became an independent film in french.
( childishly, he reaches behind him with the hand that had been clutching at steve's knee to thump him in the chest with a wedge of fruit, square against his white t-shirt. and maybe he should have the good sense to run ( he does ) but he stays planted. just sort of arbitrarily pokes steve in the side with his sneaker. )
[ perhaps that is what is most insane about this - not the fact that they live in some nowhere down in central usa that has a monster problem. not the fact that there is some crazy world that works in opposite of this one that a bunch of kids have them all calling the upside down, and not that steve finds himself still here, even after graduation. in this town. living at his parents house. the king of hawkins high, turned...what? deadbeat? who didn't go to college and who doesn't really have a plan for his life going forward? it feels wrong, in some weird way, though. because steve doesn't feel stuck.
because for years, years, it had been all about finding his footing in the tiny world of hawkins. he had a leg up in a lot of ways, ways he can acknowledge now. he came from money, which automatically attracts friends. he's not bad looking and he learned how to actually dress and take care of his hair, which shifted his popularity with the girls as they all got older, too. add in his natural athleticism and general ability to talk and make jokes and ease situations, and you have the makings of a full-on douchebag who thought the entire world was contained within the borders of hawkins, indiana. and part of steve wishes he could say that all it took was learning about monsters and dark scary creepy opposite worlds for him to open his eyes to the truth of it all, but he knows that when it comes down to it, it was nancy. nancy wheeler - always searching for the truth, relentless and powerful and magical all in one stunning body - who looked at him and knew he was phoning it in. he'd gone to jonathan's that night to apologize because nancy had been who had opened his eyes, but the demogorgan had helped that along, too.
because steve hadn't even known jonathan byers before then, really. and maybe that goes to show just how similar he and jonathan were, without even realizing it. because in the same way that jonathan looked at most of the people in hawkins as nonfactors, because they didn't matter, they weren't part of his world, steve had done a lot of the same. circles occupying similar spaces, but encompassing different worlds. jonathan hadn't even been in his scope beyond that weird kid in the grade below him until will had disappeared. and then the weird kid who had taken those photos. and now?
now steve can't help but be drawn in by it, by him. the amount that jonathan knows about the world, about music, about art. the things he can recite about books and movies and world news. the way that he could do all of this, have his sights set out to something so much bigger than any of them, and could be here, too, in the same way. it's taken some time, perhaps. taken steve's new position as dustin's ride, extended conversations upstairs at the wheeler's house, taken specific decisions where steve could have just gone home but instead decided that maybe it was worth heading across town just to ask jonathan what he knew about this or that. but through that time, steve's realized he's getting bits and pieces of a person that very few others knew.
like just how tight knit his family really is. like how well he and will get along. like the record collection he keeps in his room and how his dad is an asshole who isn't really in the picture. and steve, without realizing what was happening, found himself pulled in by this life, by this force, by the way he felt being around jonathan and nancy and robin. like he could be himself, whatever that new version of himself was supposed to be. and they all kind of flourish in that space of having each other, of watching the younger kids grow tighter and tighter, of watching hopper and joyce pretend they're being subtle when they're around each other. steve's not entirely sure how he's gone from the most popular kid in hawkins to hanging out with outcasts and nerds and feeling like, for the first time, he's comfortable with the shoes he's standing in, but it's the truth.
for all that jonathan feels like he can see steve, it's the same in opposite. steve feels seen, like there's not some image he's trying to fill, like maybe if this is it, he can be pretty okay with that.
even if he knows that this can't go on forever - nancy and jonathan are going to college together, soon, and then they'll take on the world. dustin and his friends are going to age through high school. robin will find the love of her life and move off to new york like she's always dreamed. and maybe, just maybe, joyce and hop will finally get married. steve, too, at some point, will have to get a real job and move out himself. will have to grow up, get a life, move on. this won't last forever, but maybe it can be just like this for a little longer.
( steve doesn't like to think about it - about losing nancy and jonathan, about robin leaving him too. in every version he runs through, it's always him being left behind. of course it only happens now that he knows what he'll lose. )
for now, steve will take advantage - of the rock and roll and synth through the mix tape. of the smile on jonathan's face. on the smell of watermelon and whatever it was jonathan made for breakfast in the small, hot room.
he pushes back because it feels like he should, like he could, and jonathan retaliates back. steve's never had siblings, never known what it is to rough house like that, but he played sports. he's had enough friends. he knows that by catching steve's knee in his hand, jonathan is sending a silent message. a retaliation. a challenge. he recognizes that this could escalate, that roughhousing could come into play, or maybe something entirely different, but in the face of it steve simply laughs - it's light, it's bubbly, it's easy. ]
Yeah? And do you speak french, Byers?
[ it's childish in return, but steve doesn't try to be any more mature about it either. jonathan tosses the piece of fruit at him and it thumps against his chest and steve moves to sit up, grabbing the piece, but he's still laughing. ] Cheap shot! What the hell! [ this is happening now. steve immediately throws the piece right back to jonathan with a bit more force. ]
it’s dark. it’s so impossibly dark, inky and deep and silence embodied and it isn't at all like the fires of mount doom coming to claim him. eddie stands in the midst of nothing, and the void-like depth ripples like water underfoot. he doesn’t remember the how or the why and there’s blood on his hands and in his hair and he doesn’t feel real.
no! — a girl’s voice travels through the dark. it’s unfamiliar. he’s never heard it before but it sounds angry, a command and refusal against this, whatever it was and the inky blackness closes in fast and he flinches and —
— and eddie munson gasps in air that turns to vicious coughs, curling onto his side and fighting against the pain of being alive.
everything hurts, and his mind scrambles, tries to figure out how this is even possible because he knew he died. he knew. he never thought about how it would feel, to die, and yet there was something unquestionable about the cold of it all.
but here he was, blood and dirt under his nails, caking his rings. ] Holy shit — [ wheezed, voice like sandpaper.
he didn’t run this time, he thinks. he didn’t run and he had bought dustin time and he hopes everyone else had gotten out in time. had achieved killing vecna, and had saved Red and everyone else.
he didn’t run, but there’s a part of him that right now wished he did, if only because this really fucking sucked and he calls out to dustin once, twice, but quiets fast.
the makeshift spear serves as a way to leverage himself up, eyes drawn skyward as crimson lighting still lances across the grey clouds. as the bright red seems to be angrier and brighter, like a rift. like a big bleeding wound across the sky and he thinks of those portals and there’s anxiety rolling in his chest as his mind inevitably ends on the faces and names of everyone he really didn’t want to see hurt.
(dustin, lucas, erica, red. wheeler, robin. harrington. harrington better have made it out of this, he thinks, and it surprises him, maybe a little, how his thoughts stumble over to the name. someone has to be there to look out for the rest of the sheep and while dustin promised eddie as much, a part of him knew that he should have always been asking steve to make sure that everyone is okay because the guy is a natural-born babysitter and eddie is terribly disappointed that he hadn’t had the chance.
it’s why he, vehemently, hopes harrington wasn’t trying, as he himself so put it, ‘to be cute’ and just got the hell out of here alive and in one piece. got everyone else out, too.)
and finally, eddie contemplates where he should go. he contemplates a whole lot of things, really. like how the hell someone just revivified his ass. how the hell did some chick just say no like she was reprimanding death itself and suddenly he has pushing air back through the old windbags.
it takes some time, to make it over to a place he recognizes. he walks and walks and wipes away angry tears because he’s alone and he’s scared and wishes he was neither.
this was supposed to be his year. his. and now he’s stuck in this upside down, with no actual proof that vecna wasn’t still out there, that vecna wasn’t going to come for him next or that those insane bats wouldn’t return to finish the job. or re-start the job. he wasn’t sure, at this point.
thunder claps above him, echoes through the red fissure in the sky and he keeps walking, through backyards of houses he doesn’t particularly recognize. a bit too far from the trailer park. he would keep walking - likely towards the school, or maybe wheeler’s house, the only other place he’d seen through the myopic lens of the upside down, but there’s a faint glimmer that catches in the corner of his eye that makes him jolt to a stop.
an outdoor sconce flickers not too far from him, through a crack in the fence and it takes a little effort to vault over it. his injuries strain and it’s less of an elegant jump and more a painful flop that lands him in dead bushes. they crunch and creak and groan nearly as much as he does, makeshift spear clattering away and across the pavement, nearly tipping over the edge of the —
— of the pool?
eddie stands at the edge of the empty pool and feels pinpricks across his skin, already sticky with grime and sweat and blood and tries not to stare too long at a particularly dense set of vines in one of the corners and oh god why does it look person shaped and no no stop looking and it better not start moving he is so not in the mood and he instead teeters closer to the flickering light.
softly glowing specks dance around it like starlight and he reaches his hand out, relieved at the familiarity. it threads through his fingers and he swears it almost feels warm as the lamp glows brighter.
they’d done this before and he thinks of the ceiling light. he thinks of harrington yelling around in the living room and hearing voices of dustin beyond and he hopes, god he hopes that someone is on the opposite end of this light as he taps out s.o.s in morse code. ]
Hello? [ he ventures, not too loud. another s.o.s. and another. ] Hello? Can anyone hear me out there? Hello!?
[ please, please. man, everything hurts just a little bit more when hope is so close. eddie never considered himself strong, or brave. but at the very least, he could be determined. he could keep doing this, for as long as he had to, until someone can hear him and he just really hopes that someone on the other end can. ]
it’s not some dramatic thing, necessarily. this isn’t steve’s first rodeo, and while it may have been his first time into the upside down, he’s not new to this. there are always, always days after hawkins has to fight the haunted nightmare world it apparently lives on top of that he finds himself here. days where he had been too terrified to even look at christmas lights, where he jumped every time a dog barked. where he was convinced, convinced, that the russians had found him and robin. where they’d come to finish the job.
and this time…this time it worked, didn’t it? they’d roasted the shit out of vecna, max was still breathing, hawkins still stood - albeit on cracked, crumbling legs. compared to the alternative, this was okay. their plan didn’t fail. against all odds. he should be celebrating, they all should be, and steve does the best he can to keep them moving. to get them back home. to get them on with the next day, and then the day after.
it shouldn’t be this bad.
( the truth is - steve can’t stop seeing eddie’s body. can’t unsee the crumpled way dustin had been curled over him, still sobbing, when they’d made it back. how steve had to peel him away, had to all but carry dustin to the portal, back to hawkins. no matter how much he tells himself there was nothing to be done, how much he tries to reason with himself, every time he closes his eyes he sees eddie’s face, his body, matted with blood. torn apart, not dissimilar to how steve had been, just…what? days ago? )
right now, steve is out in his backyard - his house is empty, his parents gone on some other trip, and he just. he can’t sit inside anymore. he can’t be inside. so he finds the dregs of some forgotten joint from months ago and a beer from the fridge and he goes out to the plastic chairs with few plans other than to get high and maybe try not to think for a few hours.
and it’s stupid, he knows, but after the earthquake the pool lights aren’t really functioning, so he takes one of his dad’s camping lanterns out with him. why? honestly, he couldn’t tell you. part of him just couldn’t be in the dark.
when the flickering starts, steve just…doesn’t really notice. there’s been a lot going on these last few days, and honestly, he doesn’t want to have to look for it anymore either. honestly, there’s no telling how long it does take for his eyes to glance over. to see the pattern, repeated over and over, and for it to send him jerking upright so quickly his head spins a bit, just to watch the lantern again.
s. o. s.
he’d watched eddie munson tap out that very same thing. steve might not know morse code in the actual sense, but he knows that. ]
Shit. Shit. Uh- [ steve looks around, tries to remember how this even went. how this goes. if there’s anyone even here. ]
Hello? [ steve doesn’t even have the forethought to think who would be, who would even be in the upside down right now.
( for all he knows, mike wheeler got himself screwed over and ended up down there. or dustin, dustin - who hasn’t stopped saying they should go back to the upside down to get eddie’s body. fuck.
no, he needs to. he needs to figure this out before he panics. )
[ the light flickers in familiar beat and with each passing tap — short holds three times, long three times, short thrice again — and eddie’s hope begins to fade the longer this goes on.
the initial adrenaline of seeing the lamp — drawn to it like a moth to a flame — was fading fast, leaving his hands trembling and giving him another opportunity to damn himself for it. this was so stupid, as if anyone would be out there listening, as if he ever had any good luck left.
and what would he be even crawling back to? a town that hates him? a town that still thinks he did all of this? and okay, so maybe now, despite his current state, he could say he had people he'd want to go back to, that was a ludicrous line of thought when he was shoved so far up the ass-end of the upside down, and still not fully convinced any of this was real in the first place.
he sniffs, pressed both hands into his face, closes his eyes and sinks to the ground. he is so tired. so bone tired and everything just hurts and why did he even think this could work the same way it did before —
Hey, Can you hear me? — breaks his self-loathing spiral, catches his throat in something between a sob and manic laughter and holy shit does that voice sound familiar?
does that sound like harrington, of all people?! the goddamn hero is alive and eddie really hopes that’s true, as he springs to his feet, head spinning. ]
Harrington? [ eddie’s yell is loud and desperate, echoing through the haze. ] Harrington, holy shit is that you?
I can hear you! It’s Eddie! [ his voice feels raw, hand jamming back into the cloud of sparkly light and he squints against the brightness. ] Please, please tell me you're hearing me, man?
[ steve might be losing his mind. it’s possible that the joint was just…bad. which, he’s not even sure if that’s possible, but somehow hallucinating from a bad strain of weed somehow feels more plausible than the alternative.
but the light…it was flickering. more than flickering. it was signaling. s.o.s. holy shit. holy shit. okay, he is. he is doing this. someone is trying to contact him from the upside down. ]
Hello? [ the flickering stops, and steve panics. in part because he doesn’t know if he’s still hallucinating and in part because- oh god. what if he did something wrong? what if he said something wrong? ]
Shit, shit, shit. Think, Harrington, think- [ steve stands, suddenly, pacing as he tries to remember. what happened last time? he could hear dustin while they were in mike’s house, and steve had done his best. had yelled, screamed, followed him around. but it wasn’t until-
the light. ]
Uh! [ his voice is louder, again, his eyes scanning all around until it goes back to the light. ] If you’re talking to me, I can’t hear you! [ yes, okay, he can do this. ] You have to use the light! [ his voice drops, talking to himself for a moment. ] If you’re- god damn I hope I’m not insane. [ but he has to try, because if there’s someone still there. if someone is still in trouble…
but who is it? ]
Listen! You have to use the glowing things! The light. Just- tap it twice if you can hear me?
[ it's been a few days since steve all but dragged eddie the freak munson back from the upside down. a few days since eddie the freak munson was not dead, and had apparently been told no, and brought back to life by the sound of some girls voice. it has been a few days, which is the only reason they kind of sort of know that girl turned out to be el, and that any of this is even beginning to make sense.
eddie is still staying at steve's place - they haven't figured out yet if it makes sense to tell eddie's uncle, because they don't really want the town catching on to the fact he's back until they can - as nancy puts it - control the narrative. what that has meant has basically been house arrest, with eddie living out of steve's guest room, and steve in his own. steve still goes out for food and updates, helps out at the high school when he can, checks in on the rest of the kids when he can't. everyone in their circle knows about eddie, which is for the better, considering how bad steve is at keeping that sort of secret, and now it's just waiting to figure out when - if - hopper's government contacts will show back up (because he's also apparently not dead???).
steve's actually not all that mad about the situation, either. his parents had finally checked in, asked about the house, and in hearing that their stuff was pretty unharmed and steve was doing okay, said they would try to get home but it's going to be a few more weeks. steve, as always, told them it was fine, hoped they were having a good time, and hung up without much else to say. eddie staying with him at the very least meant that steve wasn't coming back to an empty house, that he had a reason to come back to the place at all, and that when it came to sleeping, well. again- having another body around was a kind of night and day difference, even if he was down the hall.
except that it didn't fix everything, did it? the nightmare still came like they always did, this time with bats and vecna's face and the upside down, creeping up into his room, until he forces himself awake - gasping for air, damp with sweat. part of him is glad that at least it's shifted away from the russians, away from fists and bodies and blood, though he supposes seeing eddie's body, lifted up into the air, bones breaking in each different direction, is hardly better.
it's a few days later, though, one night when steve is awoken up out of his own nightmare, that he hears it. a sound, a kind of whimpering cry, coming all the way from down the hall. and yes, okay, at the first moment of it, steve had frozen to the spot - terrified there was something in the house - until he remembered.
eddie.
he all but completely jumps out of bed, his heartbeat pounding until he gets to the other's door, pushes it open, prays to whatever god is supposed to be listening that he won't find him floating. please, please, just not-
when the door opens, and with the dim light coming in from the window, steve takes his first breath since waking up. eddie is still in the bed, sheets and blankets tangled around him. the whimpering is him, a kind of broken, terrified noise as he moves in the bed, and steve gets it. a nightmare. it's not all that surprising, hell, steve had just woken up from his own, and he supposes he should just let eddie be. but just as steve's about to turn back to his room, eddie says something. it's in his sleep, sure, mumbled somewhere in the broken, terrified noises he's making, but it stops steve where he stands. not only that, but it draws him into the room, his bare feet padding softly on the thick carpet, all the way over to the side of the bed. worry (and yes, it's always worry - eddie will probably make fun of him for it, too, but steve just can't leave him like this-) has his hand reaching out, settling on eddie's shoulder amid his tossing and turning. ]
Hey- [ he tries to say softly, prepared if eddie strikes out. ] Hey, Munson, it's a nightmare.
[ the first day of coming back from the dead, eddie had — in all sorts of irony in the phrase — slept like the dead, in the blissful nothing of exhaustion, of a body and psyche worn down to the bone. and he had to hand it to harrington — that guest bedroom mattress was comfortable. it had been a nice few hours, before daylight happened and along came the complicated realities. the reality of reunion, difficult but heartfelt and eddie didn’t hide the fact that he cried then too. the reality of hiding again. expected, maybe, but he was just over it. over being called a murderer, and a cultist and blamed for ritualistic sacrifices and it made his stomach turn thinking about it.
though, it was still nothing short of incredible that steve harrington, infamous king of hawkins high and entirely unexpected in so many ways, had not so much as offered his guest bedroom as insisted and the man had all the persuasion, the charisma in the world when he wanted to and at the end of the day eddie munson, fugitive, cultist, alleged dead-man, was bunking down at harrington’s for the next foreseeable future. maybe he ought to feel a little bad, a little like he's intruding. but he doesn't — whether its because munson can be rather shameless, or because harrington really didn't seem to mind, is anyone's best guess. maybe a bit of both.
because after all the noise settles, after henderson finally leaves to go back home; after wheeler stops her strategizing and talks of changing the narrative and all that hopeful crap (he appreciates, it, he truly does), after all of that — including getting help from sheriff hopper, who had absolutely busted his ass several times in the past — after all of this there still remains steve, coming home, because it’s his house after all, and eddie munson doesn’t have a moment to feel alone.
the nights shortly following that fateful first morphed into a much different story, and no cloud mattress and soft bedsheets could keep the nightmares at bay. they taunt him. replay memories of chrissy’s death first, and then the bats and it ebbs and flows and changes the longer he stays asleep. it had become a bit of a personal fight — fighting against closing his eyes, until he finds himself bolting awake with contracted lungs and drenched in sweat.
tonight isn’t all that different other than the fact that the nightmares are worse, instead of showing any signs of mercy. sheets tangle along restless limbs, as eddie tries to fight off an intangible evil and the phrase that might catch steve’s attention is hissed out and desperate —
no, not him, don’t you dare — panic, as the nightmare lifts harrington from the ground, as his bones come so close to breaking he can almost feel it in his own and eddie is helpless again, not again, not steve and —
— and he startles awake, a pressure on his shoulder jolting him back. his hand shoots out in front of him, grasps out at whatever steve is wearing, fist curling as his forearm flattens to steve’s chest. there’s a long-bated moment of where he simply stays like that, wide-eyed and panting. strands of hair plastered to his forehead, heart racing and not-quite healed injuries straining from the tension as he looks up at him — ] Shit — [ eyes try to focus as he leverages himself up to an elbow, as if he’s checking to make sure that harrington is both real and okay, currently leaning over him. the fabric of his shirt remain bunched up between fingers, as though that would keep him from floating up. ] — sorry. Shit. [ a breath longer before his grip eases away, before he seems to come to his senses enough to relax and feel bad about it. ]
[ maybe that is exactly the thing that pulls him in - because while a part of steve had thought to leave him alone, had assumed that maybe being woken from a nightmare was an embarrassing enough thing that eddie wouldn't want to have to face (on top of everything else, of course), steve can't quite pull himself away. not when he hears him, hears those words. no, not him, don't you dare. steve doesn't even know who he thought it was eddie was worried about, whoever it was his nightmare was taunting him with. it could have been anyone - his uncle, an old friend, his dad, dustin, and it's that last option that has steve closing he distance. setting his arm on eddie's shoulder.
he expects the startling, expects the hand shooting out, so steve doesn't react too too much when eddie's fist grabs hold on his ratty old sleep shirt, fingers curling in the worn fabric. if anything, steve specifically holds still through it, even as eddie's forearm flattens to his chest, and the two of them look at each other.
steve watches, a bit mesmerized, as eddie comes back to himself. watches each piece of him come back into focus, his wide eyes and panting breaths. he can't help but notice the details, can't help but watch them play out so close to him. the color of eddie's eyes in the reflected light, the hair stuck to his damp forehead, probably from sweat. steve swears he can feels eddie's heartbeat from where steve's hand holds tight to his shoulder, can feel his own heightened heartbeat. shit eddie says, and tries to sit up, though he doesn't let go of steve's shirt. sorry he follows up with, even if it takes another moment or two before he lets go. and perhaps the worst part about all of this is that steve gets it, that he knows how this feels. ]
You're good, man. Really. [ is all he offers after a moment, as eddie slowly eases back to his senses. as steve can hear something like guilt, or perhaps embarrassment, settle in. there are another few passing moments that steve just makes sure eddie is breathing before he straightens up again, letting his hand fall from eddie's shoulder and in a kind of attempt to brush off whatever eddie might have tried to fill the space with, he moves to step away from the bed, to walk back into the bathroom and return with a cup of water that he sets on the bedside table. ]
The nightmares are killer, huh? [ he tries to offer with a small smile, though the smile itself feels shaky. steve's always a bit shaky in the middle of the night.
and then, a bit suddenly and without even asking, steve just ends up sitting down on the floor next to the bed - back to the bedside table - and lets out an exhale. ] You good?
[ heartbeat so loud in his ears, feeling like it’s in his throat, eddie tries to blink away the nightmare as he looks at up at steve. tries to ignore the imagery still plastered in his brain as the loose sleep shirt slips out of his grasp, as steve’s hand moves away from eddie’s shoulder and his skin feels cold again.
he lifts himself up to sit with a groan, one knee bending to prop an elbow on, hands rubbing at his face, near reluctant in looking away. instead he hears the tap run, and looks over to the glass being set on the bedside table.
his throat is dry, suddenly and sharply so, as his eyes are back on harrington — and as his mind reminds him of the last seconds before he was torn out of fitful sleep. the floating, the goddamn floating, the screeching of those demobats, the impossible angles in which harrington was starting to bend and the tail wrapped around his own throat —
it could have been anyone else that he saw. sometimes it was. not dustin though, not yet. perhaps some part of his psyche spared him of that, if only just. ] Yeah, [ he wheezes out, and it sounds only mildly manic, and tries to return steve’s shaky smile with one of his own, though it probably looks more like a grimace. ] Yeah, I’m good.
[ his stomach rolls, briefly, and he reaches for the glass of water and downs the thing, just in time to catch steve dropping down to sit on the floor, on the thick carpet, right by his bed.
that seems to surprise him, enough to pull him out of the final dregs of fear and eddie, without much thinking, throws his legs over the edge of the bed and slides slowly down until he’s sitting there, on the floor and planted firmly on the plush carpet too. something about that seemed right — more right than anything else has lately been — and it was definitely not so that eddie was simply closer. it definitely had nothing to do with how steve made the noise quieter, how steve sharpened eddie’s focus onto him and away from the rest.
his head tips back, until it leans against the edge of the bed. the ceiling is considered, briefly, before he slides his attention back to steve. ] Yeah, [ he repeats, frowns at that. ] Yours too? [ he’d worry that he had woken him up — worry that he’d pulled steve from rare rest, but something about him already implied that wasn’t true. ]
hair gel the why is really very simple if you think about it, but i’ll have some mercy on the braincells working overtime upstairs this once it’s kind of gross to get a hard on every time i smell hair gel now. your fault.
( he's been back in hawkins for about five hours, before his throat starts to get dry.
it wasn't much of an issue in the upside down, where the scant demon bat every so often makes a good enough snack to subside on for — a few hours? time is weird, there. he walked around in some sort of numb, starved daze for what felt like ages, until he'd finally gotten enough rat and bat juice in him to remember something other than the hunger. oh yeah, he's eddie. eddie munson. eddie the coward. eddie the dead beat. eddie who managed to do exactly one good thing in his entire life, which was saving henderson from a gorey fate. giving the guys some time to beat the bad guy.
only — they didn't win. only — eddie didn't die. at least, not completely.
it's easy to find a gate once he knows what he's looking for, climbing out of the huge gashes in hawkins with his bloody, dirty fingers, coming out on the other side with a heaving gasp. maybe he should've thought more about it, given that after he climbs from the ditch he's swarmed by police officers, scientist, government officials in tight suits and stupid glasses. right, wanted for murder. duh. only — it's kind of a non issue. they move to arrest him and he says don't, so they don't. he says you didn't see me and they didn't. it's very obi-wan. very strange. compulsion that he pushed into his words with his own desperation. the force is with him, and all that.
finding the video shop is easy. someone is taking pity on him, because steve and robin are both working. he says sup guys? and ignores how keenly aware he is of the pulse beating in steve's neck, how vibrant and flushed he looks under the unscenic fluorescent lights. steve looks great, actually. edible, someone might say. yeah, robin's there too, but she's not as — tasty.
he's brought to the basement of the store. open sign turned to closed. robin offers him water and eddie groans, shaking his head, unable to think of anything more vile than that. she goes to make a call, probably, or to head out and pick up the kids, but once eddie is in a room alone with steve he's on him, surprisingly quick, hands gripping at either of his biceps while he stares intently at steve's neck. )
Steve — I gotta eat, man. ( he shudders, but fights the urge, body supernaturally strong as he holds steve still, pining him to the wall without much force behind it. almost twitchy, he bends forward, pressing his mouth to steve's pulse in a kiss — a long, hot lick laving over his vein. ) Hungry, dude. I just need a bite.
[ getting back to things is easier than it should be, with how everything has changed. with how they all didn’t come home. dustin has barely left his home, the government is still crawling through hawkins like the city itself has turned into a lab, and yet aspects of the town just. keeps going. like how he and robin had gotten the call two days after the “earthquake” asking if they were leaving town or if they could in.
turns out everyone who wasn’t mass-high tailing it out of hawkins really needed entertainment, and what better than the movies? between that and the rest of the staff leaving town, steve and robin have been working pretty consistently, and honestly? steve is kind of appreciative of it. it gives him something to do, something to keep busy, something to get him to think about anything else other than what he’s been thinking about. the gates, the failed mission, max, eddie. steve feels like he’s been sick for days, with how his thoughts can’t quite stop, how he can’t quite sleep.
he’s at work when it happens - when the door opens and the bell chimes and he and robin stop whatever conversation they were having to greet whatever customer and-
steve’s heart stops as eddie munson walks through the door.
the store closes after that, shuffling them all back into the back room, and steve just kind of watches. robin offers water, mentions how everyone has to know, how she can’t believe how this is possible, and steve feels a bit like he hasn’t quite caught up.
eddie is alive. eddie is alive and here. eddie looks like shit, like he literally just climbed back out of the gate, blood still caked on his clothes, covered in dust and grit and whatever else is in the air of the upside down. and he looks like shit, gaunt and off and wrong but he’s here and steve almost can’t believe it. can’t take his eyes off of him for more than a second because he’s not sure he’ll still be there when he looks back.
robin says something about going to get the kids and steve should be more worried that the only car she has access to is his but she looks at him and says watch eddie and steve feels relieved, more than anything else, that he doesn’t have to leave.
as the bell chimes and the door locks and robin is gone, steve turns to eddie expecting to say something. anything. dude or this is insane or what the fuck? but before he can say a single thing, eddie is on him. faster than he has any right to be, really, but steve’s not even thinking about that. instead, he’s thinking about how familiar this is - eddie shoving him back against a wall, eddie twitchy and a little shaky, eddie close and threatening (somehow even now) - but also very, very different. like how eddie’s mouth is on his neck, how cold he feels where he’s holding steve’s bicep. ]
The fuck, man? [ did he just say he was hungry? right as he pressed his tongue to steve’s throat? he tries to shove back against him, hands curling over eddie’s shoulders, but even as he pushes back he finds eddie a solid wall. powerful, strong, unnaturally so.
steve’s heart rate spikes, but he’s not afraid. not really, somehow. it’s just- he doesn’t know what’s going on. ] We might uh- we have snacks. At the register. [ his fingers curl into the fabric of eddie’s jacket, unable to get leverage to push him off. somehow, he ends up leaning his head back against the wall, subconsciously giving eddie more of his neck, or maybe just trying to look across the room. ] We can get something there- shit.
( everything that isn't the vein under his tongue feels — vague. steve is vaguely complaining. vaguely resisting. the clock somewhere mounted on the wall is vaguely clicking a one, two tune as eddie rubs his tongue, back and forth, against the protrusion of blood under his lips. god. steve harrington is decidedly not a bat, and it feels — impossibly good. he's so full of blood and vitality, he smells so good as all the blood rushes around in his body, panicked and frenzied. eddie hums, or groans, sucking the skin of his neck lightly, rubbing teeth that feel like a little too sharp against his sensitive flesh.
is he supposed to fight this urge? probably, if he were decent — or actually the hero he once tried to become. but steve stretched his neck, unveiled the path of his skin like he wanted it, and eddie. well. he doesn't run, at least. he keens right into the urge, two thick fangs descending from his gums, serpentine as they rub up against his skin. it's almost apologetic, for the upcoming pain. soothing an ache that isn't there, yet. )
Stay put, Harrington. ( it's sounds like he's talking with a mouthful of marbles. ) Just a bite.
( just a bite. though — eddie has never bitten something that he didn't kill in the process. he's also never bitten anything as big as steve, holding as much blood inside him. not that he's thinking about anything like that. no, he just thinks about his teeth, pressing into his neck until they pierce, until steve blood coats his mouth and he takes a long, hard pull from the spigot.
it's good. steve tastes sweet in a way he's unused to, like eddie just realized he's been subsiding off rotting bats with moldy, black blood for the last however long, and just tasted a cream-filled cupcake. he groans, tugging, swallowing two mouthfuls which is ordinarily his fill — but there's so much and he tastes so good, eddie can't help but swallow more, dragging more of steve inside of him. strange flashes of memories. there's nancy spread on her fluffy, white sheets. robin in a sailor hat. dustin —
yeah. dustin. the vision of the kid makes eddie pull off with a sudden jerk, watching the blood bubbling up from steve's neck with a strange look of horror and arousal. not wanting to waste a drop, he licks the wound, sealing it off with his weird, vampire spit. he swallows the last dregs down, until he can pull away, cheeks suddenly flush, hands cupping steve's waist to make sure he doesn't fall. or — jesus, die. )
So — okay, yeah, dude, I mean — somethings are a little different now! Shit, Steve. ( shit is right. it's a weird slap in the face — a dawning reality that he's the complete and exact opposite of a hero now. he's evil. he's what the papers say he is — demonic, cultist, murderer. he can't stay here, a threat to the only people who ever tried to help him. he's — ) Sorry, sorry, Jesus Christ. What the fuck. Sorry.
and he meant a that truthfully. the fact he was asked to come into work days after gates bisected hawkins is insane. the fact that max is in a coma she might never wake up from because eleven said no is insane. eddie munson is alive, and that’s insane too. which almost makes steve wonder if i’m the grand scheme of things, this, and all this is, isn’t all that insane after all.
( that’s when eddie runs his tongue across his throat again, when eddie groans, and steve can feel it against his skin. feels it go directly down to his gut. and then lower still. )
no, no, this is decidedly crossing a line into insanity that steve’s not sure he’s prepared to cross, and he just very nearly has a spike of energy, a sudden rush of strength, to fully get eddie off of him. ] What are you even-
[ stay put, harrington.
the words carry a kind of weight in them that steve’s not prepared for, and they settle over him like a wave. any energy, any strength, any fight he might have had is gone in an instant, seeped out of him like a switch flicking. part of steve thinks he might not even be breathing, and for some insane, crazy, impossible reason, even that is okay. because he is staying put.
that’s when his brain finally catches up to the puncturing against his neck. when he realizes what is actually happening. because sure, okay, part of him had truly thought that maybe this was just some weird side of eddie munson. being in the upside down fucks you up, and if eddie needed comfort, if eddie needed…wherever this was leading, steve’s not entirely sure he would have said no. now, as he comes to this realization, steve is very aware he hadn’t assumed that would also include sucking his blood, and yet even still…
the point where eddie’s mouth is on his neck is hot. impossibly hot. it feels a bit like he’s burning, like a flame has started right there, and is slowly spreading over his skin. steve’s knees go a little weak, but not enough that he has to over correct, not enough that he’s worried about his balance. some voice in the back of his head says you will stay right here, you will stay put, and so he does.
steve feels lightheaded, a bit like he’s floating, the searing heat of eddie’s mouth just the beginning as every inch of him slowly begins to heat up. there are images of nancy that cross his vision, then of robin, of dustin. some disconnected part of him wonders if he’s dying, while another part replies with would it be that bad? and then just as it started, it ends, and eddie’s pulling away from him. separating his mouth from steve’s neck. he licks a stripe across the spot but steve can’t quite piece together why because very suddenly, very very suddenly, that dizziness is back. the entire world starts to move around him.
thankfully eddie is holding him up (he thinks) because steve sways, trying to blink his eyes back into focus. ] The fuck… [ he mumbles, all but crumpling forward into eddie, something about the loss of that heat, but also a sudden bout of something else, overwhelming him. and if steve stopped to think about it, he might realize exactly where that remaining heat has pooled. instead, or at least in this moment, he focuses on the death grip he has on eddie’s shoulders, the fact that eddie is ranting about something or maybe he’s just talking in that same way he always does but he looks better, there is more color to him, and steve…likes that, in a weird way. ]
Did you- [ another blink or so and it’s coming back, he’s coming back, and he turns to look more directly into eddie’s face. ] Did you just drink my blood?
It's closer to 2, but that's still a fair question. I'm okay, just not sleeping.
[ anymore. because nightmares. ]
Yeah? Perfect. Hypothetically perfect, obviously. Because I would pick getting to peek into the future, so yours paired with mine would be pretty unstoppable. *if not just because it means never being blindsided by something, ever again.
and let's just...not talk about how he feels about being a good pair with nancy. definitely not something a nearly-three-am steve harrington should be thinking about. ]
right yeah that sounds like a great thing especially in hawkins but uh can i ask why you're thinking about this so intensely?
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S3-divergent??? up to date though. here is your tl;dr
he woke up, he made breakfast, and he filled in all the gaps in joyce and lonnie’s parenting — and it had been okay. okay because he loved his mom with all her intricacies and complications; midnight cigarettes on the porch even though she quit a year ago, nail-biting and pacing, sometimes hyper obsessive to the point of missing all else but also because she put in over-time for the food on the table, the electricity, the water, and the byers’ boys favorite presents under the tree and she never complained to them, about any of it. okay because he loved will with his too-wide eyes and his bravery, somehow not ruined by his status as an outsider because he made these amazing connections with kids like mike, lucas, and dustin. he was soft, allowed to be young, and yeah, maybe a little weird, but jonathan wouldn’t have him any other way. he would take will’s eccentries over a thousand boring nobodies that looked and thought exactly the same.
after the demogorgons and the mind flayer, he still has a tendency to withdraw and retreat to the security blanket of a camera lens. because after the exposure of blood and violence, of reacting on adrenaline and instinct—kill or be killed—he needs to burrow away and regather himself, figure out how to be himself again when people have witnessed him, vulnerable and raw. there’s nothing like a heaping shovelful of trauma to knock down the wooden beams and plaster of his walls, wallpaper and nails scattered on the floor. he feels like walking wreckage these days, trying to rebuild from scratch; a repeated starting point, one that’s never fully reconstructed before someone takes an axe to his progress.
the battle of starcourt resolves and jonathan doesn’t try to stuff seventeen years of his life into as few boxes and bags as possible ( what’s important when you’ve known real paralyzing loss? ) and joyce doesn’t sell the house, doesn’t uproot the byers from a quiet town in indiana to bustling california. hopper takes eleven home to what’s left of their cabin and then promptly moves in ( sorry, “stays over until he can find other accommodations” ) and the byers house is full, all the time. there are arguments, sure, fighting that doesn’t make jonathan take will to the fort behind their house ( that also had to be rebuilt ) because it’s also full of laughter.
more often than not, it’s still jonathan that’s a designated driver, captain of pick-ups and drop-offs. but there’s this thing ( this almost ), something he’s never put much stock into but that’s been there the whole time, running in the background like a song on repeat. steve coming back into his house and taking a bat to the demogorgon that would have killed him, steve kissing nancy in front of him at their lockers, looks that are too long to just be looks, and sideswiping billy out of the path of nancy and the station wagon. he should hate him. there are so many microaggressions and real agressions growing up that jonathan can conjure, yet somehow they aren’t overtaken by the good ones. a replaced camera, a hand on his sleeve, the twirl of a bat.
some days, jonathan sees steve more than he sees nancy, chronically buried in the paper, while they begrudgingly share cold, leftover pizza at family video or upstairs sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for the biggest and longest game of dungeons and dragons to come to a pause. he comes in for vhs tapes that are returned already rewound, never having watched them, for a movie night that never existed. and when he gets a temporary job at some mom and pop-owned electronics store, steve stumbles in for batteries like he can’t pick them up at the nearest convenience store. jonathan asks him about movies that aren’t artsy enough for him to bother with and steve gets jonathan talking about the cutting edge in turntables, despite the fact that the harringtons have enough money to have twelve of them in their house. and probably do.
it’s weird, of course it’s weird, but as previously declared, all the best things are.
he can’t really explain why they’re sitting on the floor of the apartment he and nancy share, listening to a mixtape he may have made specifically for steve to try and give the poor sap some culture or why they’re there at all instead of at the byers place or the wheelers. but they’re like this, more often than not, with a walkie nearby and the phone line always clear ( just in case ), with nancy milling around, occasionally thrusting articles or ideas in their faces for their input. sometimes it’s legs draped on the couch, heads on shoulders, nancy and steve asleep at his sides while the credits roll but he’s determined not to disturb them.
but here on the floor, hot in the sticky summer with a fan blowing on them, steve gesturing wildly with wet lips and a piece of watermelon in his hand, jonathan isn't content with sitting on the sidelines. )
You have — ( a grin, yes, he's grinning ) The most abhorrent taste out of anyone I've ever met in my entire life.
( should be venomous but he's laughing, all malice mysteriously absent from his observation. the coffee table's pushed back, closer to the television set, steve with his back to the couch and jonathan with his to said table, bowl of watermelon slices behind him. in his animated excitement, their knees collide — a brush, really, no harder than a tap, but it feels loud like thunder. )
RUBS HANDS TOGETHER. god i missed our tl;dr ;A;
and wow, alright, that was dramatic. over-dramatic, even. he can almost hear robin rolling her eyes at the very thought because steve sounds worse than some fainting lady in the new romcom they'd just gotten into the store a few weeks back. pathetic. dramatic. unnecessary. which she wouldn't be wrong - so he'll go back and rephrase.
steve harrington, the one of today, is so different from the steve harrington he'd been just a year or so ago, that it kind of makes his head spin.
especially right now, sitting on the floor of this apartment, with jonathan byers. sitting with his back to the couch, and jonathan facing him. there is music that steve is actually really enjoying playing over whatever stereo speaker jonathan's brought over. right now, in the middle of the summer heat, with the hum of the fan and steve in a tshirt and shorts, saying something about how the song that was playing reminded him of this one movie that came through the store that he and robin actually sat down to watch and oh my god, jonathan, you have no idea how bad- actually it wasn't that bad, i've seen worse, but the music-. steve is gesturing, too caught up in his story to realize that the juice from the watermelon was dripping down his own wrist, though not too caught up to take a bite every now and then before he picks up just where he'd left off. the music keeps playing, and it is good. of course it's good. jonathan's taste has always been good, though sometimes a bit too artsy.
it wasn't all that long ago that steve was calling the other boy a freak, that he was straight up bullying him in the hallways at school (something that even after their fight, even after showing up at jonathan's house to apologize, even after the replaced camera and this new place they both find themselves in, that steve still feels bad about. guilty about. something that eats him up inside.) it wasn't that long ago since he was spray painting the theater sign and driving around town like he owned the whole place, like he had everything figured out, like he knew what the world had in store for him.
and then there'd been the demogorgon. the baseball bat. the fight of his life alongside nancy wheeler and jonathan byers, and from that moment on, everything just kept changing. like picking up speed down the biggest hill in town, steve just held on. from his and nancy's official break up to now whatever this is supposed to be. to harcourt mall and the russians. to dustin becoming what was now one of the most important people in steve's life despite the fact that kid could be annoying as fuck, and somewhere alongside all of that, was jonathan.
jonathan, who steve had watched stand up straighter, inch by inch. who steve watched come into the video store over and over, for movie after movie, despite his hunch that they never left the box. joanathan, who steve definitely did not go out of his own way just to stop by the electronics store, for batteries. batteries. and jonathan, who didn't hesitate to grin on days like this, to a point where steve feels the urge to stare, just for a moment, as if he might never see it again. (he will, he knows he will) if steve's being honest, the only person who he feels hasn't changed all that much is nancy - nancy, who has always been a badass. nancy, who has always been too smart for her own good. nancy, who has her pistol tucked in next to her pumps in her and jonathan's closet and steve knows that. and nancy, who is supposed to be home any minute now but who has probably gotten held up down at the library during one of her research binders. not that steve minds - they're barely halfway through side a of this mix tape, and he doesn't have another shift until tomorrow evening. ]
Hey- [ their knees collide, just a brush, and jonathan is grinning so brightly at him that steve almost wonders if his heart is stuttering a bit at the sight of it. and then he intentionally hits jonathan's knee with his own again, though this time it's more of a push. a shove. because steve has always been an affectionate guy, and they're at that point here, aren't they? ] Rude. I have great taste- it's just not as...weird as yours. [ a beat, as steve eats the last bite of his slice of watermelon, rolling his eyes. ]
Sorry- artsy. [ it's not the first time this joke has come up, apparently. ]
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jonathan used to think that everything came easy to people like steve harrington and nancy wheeler — money, clothes that weren’t from a thrift store, cars that weren’t covered in rust, friends. because friends were for people that had time to be present, had time to do more than pick up extra shifts and show up ( sometimes ) in the same shirt as yesterday, as long as will went to school with breakfast in his stomach and his mom remembered to take toast and an apple with her.
and he hasn’t been able to decipher how it is that these two people that he once resented are somehow the most interesting people in his age group. will’s his best friend, always will be, but nancy and steve are people he can count on with his back against the wall and jonathan’s never had that security. joyce loves her sons with every piece of herself that she has to give, more than that even, but he didn’t grow up with an older brother to put band-aids on his skinned knees or someone to turn the music up. jonathan’s just had to figure out how to carry on, how to pick himself up, and how to be okay with not being okay on his own.
being alone has taught him to appreciate music and the anger in rock and roll, the glamorization of being an outcast and fighting a system that wasn’t built for people like him to flourish in. if he likes and recognizes the camera work of certain directors, it’s because he’s obsessed with these storytellers who put the truth on a screen, on film, because they too know the power of watching people and seeing how they unfold in a singular moment. he handpicks every song on the mixtape for steve, thinking that part of him that he’s hidden from the rest of the town for so long will get something out of it. some kind of absolution, something akin to being seen.
he sees him so certainly now that he’s not sure how he ever missed it before.
if nancy is an immovable object, then steve is an unstoppable force. and nancy has always been this breathtaking, relentless, beautiful person in pursuit of knowledge and truth. but steve? steve came out of left field so hard that jonathan is still internally screaming in the stands. he’s stupid in a manner of speaking, the kind of dumb that makes him courageous because he doesn’t see x, y, and z as a reason not to do something, he just does it. he’s ridiculous hairsprayed hair and casually unaffected by nearly everything. he’s also surprising in that whenever jonathan’s sure he has him nailed down, he busts out of some dystopian horror cocoon, emerging like a mutilated phoenix. his finest quality: he gets back up.
not only does steve acknowledge the bump of knees, he retaliates, leaving jonathan to defend himself. he catches steve’s knee in his hand, lest he get any ideas about nudging him again. a playful grab, the warning prelude that comes before roughhousing in a household of boys. ( funny, pinpointing that, when neither one of them is the shining example of masculinity. ) his palm outlives its welcome, should drag away instantly with the cautionary glance given in tandem, but jonathan keeps his hand there thoughtlessly. yes, absently, not having to overthink each move with the company involved. )
You wouldn’t know artsy if your life became an independent film in french.
( childishly, he reaches behind him with the hand that had been clutching at steve's knee to thump him in the chest with a wedge of fruit, square against his white t-shirt. and maybe he should have the good sense to run ( he does ) but he stays planted. just sort of arbitrarily pokes steve in the side with his sneaker. )
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because for years, years, it had been all about finding his footing in the tiny world of hawkins. he had a leg up in a lot of ways, ways he can acknowledge now. he came from money, which automatically attracts friends. he's not bad looking and he learned how to actually dress and take care of his hair, which shifted his popularity with the girls as they all got older, too. add in his natural athleticism and general ability to talk and make jokes and ease situations, and you have the makings of a full-on douchebag who thought the entire world was contained within the borders of hawkins, indiana. and part of steve wishes he could say that all it took was learning about monsters and dark scary creepy opposite worlds for him to open his eyes to the truth of it all, but he knows that when it comes down to it, it was nancy. nancy wheeler - always searching for the truth, relentless and powerful and magical all in one stunning body - who looked at him and knew he was phoning it in. he'd gone to jonathan's that night to apologize because nancy had been who had opened his eyes, but the demogorgan had helped that along, too.
because steve hadn't even known jonathan byers before then, really. and maybe that goes to show just how similar he and jonathan were, without even realizing it. because in the same way that jonathan looked at most of the people in hawkins as nonfactors, because they didn't matter, they weren't part of his world, steve had done a lot of the same. circles occupying similar spaces, but encompassing different worlds. jonathan hadn't even been in his scope beyond that weird kid in the grade below him until will had disappeared. and then the weird kid who had taken those photos. and now?
now steve can't help but be drawn in by it, by him. the amount that jonathan knows about the world, about music, about art. the things he can recite about books and movies and world news. the way that he could do all of this, have his sights set out to something so much bigger than any of them, and could be here, too, in the same way. it's taken some time, perhaps. taken steve's new position as dustin's ride, extended conversations upstairs at the wheeler's house, taken specific decisions where steve could have just gone home but instead decided that maybe it was worth heading across town just to ask jonathan what he knew about this or that. but through that time, steve's realized he's getting bits and pieces of a person that very few others knew.
like just how tight knit his family really is. like how well he and will get along. like the record collection he keeps in his room and how his dad is an asshole who isn't really in the picture. and steve, without realizing what was happening, found himself pulled in by this life, by this force, by the way he felt being around jonathan and nancy and robin. like he could be himself, whatever that new version of himself was supposed to be. and they all kind of flourish in that space of having each other, of watching the younger kids grow tighter and tighter, of watching hopper and joyce pretend they're being subtle when they're around each other. steve's not entirely sure how he's gone from the most popular kid in hawkins to hanging out with outcasts and nerds and feeling like, for the first time, he's comfortable with the shoes he's standing in, but it's the truth.
for all that jonathan feels like he can see steve, it's the same in opposite. steve feels seen, like there's not some image he's trying to fill, like maybe if this is it, he can be pretty okay with that.
even if he knows that this can't go on forever - nancy and jonathan are going to college together, soon, and then they'll take on the world. dustin and his friends are going to age through high school. robin will find the love of her life and move off to new york like she's always dreamed. and maybe, just maybe, joyce and hop will finally get married. steve, too, at some point, will have to get a real job and move out himself. will have to grow up, get a life, move on. this won't last forever, but maybe it can be just like this for a little longer.
( steve doesn't like to think about it - about losing nancy and jonathan, about robin leaving him too. in every version he runs through, it's always him being left behind. of course it only happens now that he knows what he'll lose. )
for now, steve will take advantage - of the rock and roll and synth through the mix tape. of the smile on jonathan's face. on the smell of watermelon and whatever it was jonathan made for breakfast in the small, hot room.
he pushes back because it feels like he should, like he could, and jonathan retaliates back. steve's never had siblings, never known what it is to rough house like that, but he played sports. he's had enough friends. he knows that by catching steve's knee in his hand, jonathan is sending a silent message. a retaliation. a challenge. he recognizes that this could escalate, that roughhousing could come into play, or maybe something entirely different, but in the face of it steve simply laughs - it's light, it's bubbly, it's easy. ]
Yeah? And do you speak french, Byers?
[ it's childish in return, but steve doesn't try to be any more mature about it either. jonathan tosses the piece of fruit at him and it thumps against his chest and steve moves to sit up, grabbing the piece, but he's still laughing. ] Cheap shot! What the hell! [ this is happening now. steve immediately throws the piece right back to jonathan with a bit more force. ]
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LETS GOO BAYBEE
it’s dark. it’s so impossibly dark, inky and deep and silence embodied and it isn't at all like the fires of mount doom coming to claim him. eddie stands in the midst of nothing, and the void-like depth ripples like water underfoot. he doesn’t remember the how or the why and there’s blood on his hands and in his hair and he doesn’t feel real.
no! — a girl’s voice travels through the dark. it’s unfamiliar. he’s never heard it before but it sounds angry, a command and refusal against this, whatever it was and the inky blackness closes in fast and he flinches and —
— and eddie munson gasps in air that turns to vicious coughs, curling onto his side and fighting against the pain of being alive.
everything hurts, and his mind scrambles, tries to figure out how this is even possible because he knew he died. he knew. he never thought about how it would feel, to die, and yet there was something unquestionable about the cold of it all.
but here he was, blood and dirt under his nails, caking his rings. ] Holy shit — [ wheezed, voice like sandpaper.
he didn’t run this time, he thinks. he didn’t run and he had bought dustin time and he hopes everyone else had gotten out in time. had achieved killing vecna, and had saved Red and everyone else.
he didn’t run, but there’s a part of him that right now wished he did, if only because this really fucking sucked and he calls out to dustin once, twice, but quiets fast.
the makeshift spear serves as a way to leverage himself up, eyes drawn skyward as crimson lighting still lances across the grey clouds. as the bright red seems to be angrier and brighter, like a rift. like a big bleeding wound across the sky and he thinks of those portals and there’s anxiety rolling in his chest as his mind inevitably ends on the faces and names of everyone he really didn’t want to see hurt.
(dustin, lucas, erica, red. wheeler, robin. harrington. harrington better have made it out of this, he thinks, and it surprises him, maybe a little, how his thoughts stumble over to the name. someone has to be there to look out for the rest of the sheep and while dustin promised eddie as much, a part of him knew that he should have always been asking steve to make sure that everyone is okay because the guy is a natural-born babysitter and eddie is terribly disappointed that he hadn’t had the chance.
it’s why he, vehemently, hopes harrington wasn’t trying, as he himself so put it, ‘to be cute’ and just got the hell out of here alive and in one piece. got everyone else out, too.)
and finally, eddie contemplates where he should go. he contemplates a whole lot of things, really. like how the hell someone just revivified his ass. how the hell did some chick just say no like she was reprimanding death itself and suddenly he has pushing air back through the old windbags.
it takes some time, to make it over to a place he recognizes. he walks and walks and wipes away angry tears because he’s alone and he’s scared and wishes he was neither.
this was supposed to be his year. his. and now he’s stuck in this upside down, with no actual proof that vecna wasn’t still out there, that vecna wasn’t going to come for him next or that those insane bats wouldn’t return to finish the job. or re-start the job. he wasn’t sure, at this point.
thunder claps above him, echoes through the red fissure in the sky and he keeps walking, through backyards of houses he doesn’t particularly recognize. a bit too far from the trailer park. he would keep walking - likely towards the school, or maybe wheeler’s house, the only other place he’d seen through the myopic lens of the upside down, but there’s a faint glimmer that catches in the corner of his eye that makes him jolt to a stop.
an outdoor sconce flickers not too far from him, through a crack in the fence and it takes a little effort to vault over it. his injuries strain and it’s less of an elegant jump and more a painful flop that lands him in dead bushes. they crunch and creak and groan nearly as much as he does, makeshift spear clattering away and across the pavement, nearly tipping over the edge of the —
— of the pool?
eddie stands at the edge of the empty pool and feels pinpricks across his skin, already sticky with grime and sweat and blood and tries not to stare too long at a particularly dense set of vines in one of the corners and oh god why does it look person shaped and no no stop looking and it better not start moving he is so not in the mood and he instead teeters closer to the flickering light.
softly glowing specks dance around it like starlight and he reaches his hand out, relieved at the familiarity. it threads through his fingers and he swears it almost feels warm as the lamp glows brighter.
they’d done this before and he thinks of the ceiling light. he thinks of harrington yelling around in the living room and hearing voices of dustin beyond and he hopes, god he hopes that someone is on the opposite end of this light as he taps out s.o.s in morse code. ]
Hello? [ he ventures, not too loud. another s.o.s. and another. ] Hello? Can anyone hear me out there? Hello!?
[ please, please. man, everything hurts just a little bit more when hope is so close. eddie never considered himself strong, or brave. but at the very least, he could be determined. he could keep doing this, for as long as he had to, until someone can hear him and he just really hopes that someone on the other end can. ]
yells loudly
it’s not some dramatic thing, necessarily. this isn’t steve’s first rodeo, and while it may have been his first time into the upside down, he’s not new to this. there are always, always days after hawkins has to fight the haunted nightmare world it apparently lives on top of that he finds himself here. days where he had been too terrified to even look at christmas lights, where he jumped every time a dog barked. where he was convinced, convinced, that the russians had found him and robin. where they’d come to finish the job.
and this time…this time it worked, didn’t it? they’d roasted the shit out of vecna, max was still breathing, hawkins still stood - albeit on cracked, crumbling legs. compared to the alternative, this was okay. their plan didn’t fail. against all odds. he should be celebrating, they all should be, and steve does the best he can to keep them moving. to get them back home. to get them on with the next day, and then the day after.
it shouldn’t be this bad.
( the truth is - steve can’t stop seeing eddie’s body. can’t unsee the crumpled way dustin had been curled over him, still sobbing, when they’d made it back. how steve had to peel him away, had to all but carry dustin to the portal, back to hawkins. no matter how much he tells himself there was nothing to be done, how much he tries to reason with himself, every time he closes his eyes he sees eddie’s face, his body, matted with blood. torn apart, not dissimilar to how steve had been, just…what? days ago? )
right now, steve is out in his backyard - his house is empty, his parents gone on some other trip, and he just. he can’t sit inside anymore. he can’t be inside. so he finds the dregs of some forgotten joint from months ago and a beer from the fridge and he goes out to the plastic chairs with few plans other than to get high and maybe try not to think for a few hours.
and it’s stupid, he knows, but after the earthquake the pool lights aren’t really functioning, so he takes one of his dad’s camping lanterns out with him. why? honestly, he couldn’t tell you. part of him just couldn’t be in the dark.
when the flickering starts, steve just…doesn’t really notice. there’s been a lot going on these last few days, and honestly, he doesn’t want to have to look for it anymore either. honestly, there’s no telling how long it does take for his eyes to glance over. to see the pattern, repeated over and over, and for it to send him jerking upright so quickly his head spins a bit, just to watch the lantern again.
s. o. s.
he’d watched eddie munson tap out that very same thing. steve might not know morse code in the actual sense, but he knows that. ]
Shit. Shit. Uh- [ steve looks around, tries to remember how this even went. how this goes. if there’s anyone even here. ]
Hello? [ steve doesn’t even have the forethought to think who would be, who would even be in the upside down right now.
( for all he knows, mike wheeler got himself screwed over and ended up down there. or dustin, dustin - who hasn’t stopped saying they should go back to the upside down to get eddie’s body. fuck.
no, he needs to. he needs to figure this out before he panics. )
he raises his voice a little. ]
Hey! Can you hear me?
keeps yelling
the initial adrenaline of seeing the lamp — drawn to it like a moth to a flame — was fading fast, leaving his hands trembling and giving him another opportunity to damn himself for it. this was so stupid, as if anyone would be out there listening, as if he ever had any good luck left.
and what would he be even crawling back to? a town that hates him? a town that still thinks he did all of this? and okay, so maybe now, despite his current state, he could say he had people he'd want to go back to, that was a ludicrous line of thought when he was shoved so far up the ass-end of the upside down, and still not fully convinced any of this was real in the first place.
he sniffs, pressed both hands into his face, closes his eyes and sinks to the ground. he is so tired. so bone tired and everything just hurts and why did he even think this could work the same way it did before —
Hey, Can you hear me? — breaks his self-loathing spiral, catches his throat in something between a sob and manic laughter and holy shit does that voice sound familiar?
does that sound like harrington, of all people?! the goddamn hero is alive and eddie really hopes that’s true, as he springs to his feet, head spinning. ]
Harrington? [ eddie’s yell is loud and desperate, echoing through the haze. ] Harrington, holy shit is that you?
I can hear you! It’s Eddie! [ his voice feels raw, hand jamming back into the cloud of sparkly light and he squints against the brightness. ] Please, please tell me you're hearing me, man?
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but the light…it was flickering. more than flickering. it was signaling. s.o.s. holy shit. holy shit. okay, he is. he is doing this. someone is trying to contact him from the upside down. ]
Hello? [ the flickering stops, and steve panics. in part because he doesn’t know if he’s still hallucinating and in part because- oh god. what if he did something wrong? what if he said something wrong? ]
Shit, shit, shit. Think, Harrington, think- [ steve stands, suddenly, pacing as he tries to remember. what happened last time? he could hear dustin while they were in mike’s house, and steve had done his best. had yelled, screamed, followed him around. but it wasn’t until-
the light. ]
Uh! [ his voice is louder, again, his eyes scanning all around until it goes back to the light. ] If you’re talking to me, I can’t hear you! [ yes, okay, he can do this. ] You have to use the light! [ his voice drops, talking to himself for a moment. ] If you’re- god damn I hope I’m not insane. [ but he has to try, because if there’s someone still there. if someone is still in trouble…
but who is it? ]
Listen! You have to use the glowing things! The light. Just- tap it twice if you can hear me?
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mordors.
eddie is still staying at steve's place - they haven't figured out yet if it makes sense to tell eddie's uncle, because they don't really want the town catching on to the fact he's back until they can - as nancy puts it - control the narrative. what that has meant has basically been house arrest, with eddie living out of steve's guest room, and steve in his own. steve still goes out for food and updates, helps out at the high school when he can, checks in on the rest of the kids when he can't. everyone in their circle knows about eddie, which is for the better, considering how bad steve is at keeping that sort of secret, and now it's just waiting to figure out when - if - hopper's government contacts will show back up (because he's also apparently not dead???).
steve's actually not all that mad about the situation, either. his parents had finally checked in, asked about the house, and in hearing that their stuff was pretty unharmed and steve was doing okay, said they would try to get home but it's going to be a few more weeks. steve, as always, told them it was fine, hoped they were having a good time, and hung up without much else to say. eddie staying with him at the very least meant that steve wasn't coming back to an empty house, that he had a reason to come back to the place at all, and that when it came to sleeping, well. again- having another body around was a kind of night and day difference, even if he was down the hall.
except that it didn't fix everything, did it? the nightmare still came like they always did, this time with bats and vecna's face and the upside down, creeping up into his room, until he forces himself awake - gasping for air, damp with sweat. part of him is glad that at least it's shifted away from the russians, away from fists and bodies and blood, though he supposes seeing eddie's body, lifted up into the air, bones breaking in each different direction, is hardly better.
it's a few days later, though, one night when steve is awoken up out of his own nightmare, that he hears it. a sound, a kind of whimpering cry, coming all the way from down the hall. and yes, okay, at the first moment of it, steve had frozen to the spot - terrified there was something in the house - until he remembered.
eddie.
he all but completely jumps out of bed, his heartbeat pounding until he gets to the other's door, pushes it open, prays to whatever god is supposed to be listening that he won't find him floating. please, please, just not-
when the door opens, and with the dim light coming in from the window, steve takes his first breath since waking up. eddie is still in the bed, sheets and blankets tangled around him. the whimpering is him, a kind of broken, terrified noise as he moves in the bed, and steve gets it. a nightmare. it's not all that surprising, hell, steve had just woken up from his own, and he supposes he should just let eddie be. but just as steve's about to turn back to his room, eddie says something. it's in his sleep, sure, mumbled somewhere in the broken, terrified noises he's making, but it stops steve where he stands. not only that, but it draws him into the room, his bare feet padding softly on the thick carpet, all the way over to the side of the bed. worry (and yes, it's always worry - eddie will probably make fun of him for it, too, but steve just can't leave him like this-) has his hand reaching out, settling on eddie's shoulder amid his tossing and turning. ]
Hey- [ he tries to say softly, prepared if eddie strikes out. ] Hey, Munson, it's a nightmare.
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though, it was still nothing short of incredible that steve harrington, infamous king of hawkins high and entirely unexpected in so many ways, had not so much as offered his guest bedroom as insisted and the man had all the persuasion, the charisma in the world when he wanted to and at the end of the day eddie munson, fugitive, cultist, alleged dead-man, was bunking down at harrington’s for the next foreseeable future. maybe he ought to feel a little bad, a little like he's intruding. but he doesn't — whether its because munson can be rather shameless, or because harrington really didn't seem to mind, is anyone's best guess. maybe a bit of both.
because after all the noise settles, after henderson finally leaves to go back home; after wheeler stops her strategizing and talks of changing the narrative and all that hopeful crap (he appreciates, it, he truly does), after all of that — including getting help from sheriff hopper, who had absolutely busted his ass several times in the past — after all of this there still remains steve, coming home, because it’s his house after all, and eddie munson doesn’t have a moment to feel alone.
the nights shortly following that fateful first morphed into a much different story, and no cloud mattress and soft bedsheets could keep the nightmares at bay. they taunt him. replay memories of chrissy’s death first, and then the bats and it ebbs and flows and changes the longer he stays asleep. it had become a bit of a personal fight — fighting against closing his eyes, until he finds himself bolting awake with contracted lungs and drenched in sweat.
tonight isn’t all that different other than the fact that the nightmares are worse, instead of showing any signs of mercy. sheets tangle along restless limbs, as eddie tries to fight off an intangible evil and the phrase that might catch steve’s attention is hissed out and desperate —
no, not him, don’t you dare — panic, as the nightmare lifts harrington from the ground, as his bones come so close to breaking he can almost feel it in his own and eddie is helpless again, not again, not steve and —
— and he startles awake, a pressure on his shoulder jolting him back. his hand shoots out in front of him, grasps out at whatever steve is wearing, fist curling as his forearm flattens to steve’s chest. there’s a long-bated moment of where he simply stays like that, wide-eyed and panting. strands of hair plastered to his forehead, heart racing and not-quite healed injuries straining from the tension as he looks up at him — ] Shit — [ eyes try to focus as he leverages himself up to an elbow, as if he’s checking to make sure that harrington is both real and okay, currently leaning over him. the fabric of his shirt remain bunched up between fingers, as though that would keep him from floating up. ] — sorry. Shit. [ a breath longer before his grip eases away, before he seems to come to his senses enough to relax and feel bad about it. ]
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he expects the startling, expects the hand shooting out, so steve doesn't react too too much when eddie's fist grabs hold on his ratty old sleep shirt, fingers curling in the worn fabric. if anything, steve specifically holds still through it, even as eddie's forearm flattens to his chest, and the two of them look at each other.
steve watches, a bit mesmerized, as eddie comes back to himself. watches each piece of him come back into focus, his wide eyes and panting breaths. he can't help but notice the details, can't help but watch them play out so close to him. the color of eddie's eyes in the reflected light, the hair stuck to his damp forehead, probably from sweat. steve swears he can feels eddie's heartbeat from where steve's hand holds tight to his shoulder, can feel his own heightened heartbeat. shit eddie says, and tries to sit up, though he doesn't let go of steve's shirt. sorry he follows up with, even if it takes another moment or two before he lets go. and perhaps the worst part about all of this is that steve gets it, that he knows how this feels. ]
You're good, man. Really. [ is all he offers after a moment, as eddie slowly eases back to his senses. as steve can hear something like guilt, or perhaps embarrassment, settle in. there are another few passing moments that steve just makes sure eddie is breathing before he straightens up again, letting his hand fall from eddie's shoulder and in a kind of attempt to brush off whatever eddie might have tried to fill the space with, he moves to step away from the bed, to walk back into the bathroom and return with a cup of water that he sets on the bedside table. ]
The nightmares are killer, huh? [ he tries to offer with a small smile, though the smile itself feels shaky. steve's always a bit shaky in the middle of the night.
and then, a bit suddenly and without even asking, steve just ends up sitting down on the floor next to the bed - back to the bedside table - and lets out an exhale. ] You good?
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he lifts himself up to sit with a groan, one knee bending to prop an elbow on, hands rubbing at his face, near reluctant in looking away. instead he hears the tap run, and looks over to the glass being set on the bedside table.
his throat is dry, suddenly and sharply so, as his eyes are back on harrington — and as his mind reminds him of the last seconds before he was torn out of fitful sleep. the floating, the goddamn floating, the screeching of those demobats, the impossible angles in which harrington was starting to bend and the tail wrapped around his own throat —
it could have been anyone else that he saw. sometimes it was. not dustin though, not yet. perhaps some part of his psyche spared him of that, if only just. ] Yeah, [ he wheezes out, and it sounds only mildly manic, and tries to return steve’s shaky smile with one of his own, though it probably looks more like a grimace. ] Yeah, I’m good.
[ his stomach rolls, briefly, and he reaches for the glass of water and downs the thing, just in time to catch steve dropping down to sit on the floor, on the thick carpet, right by his bed.
that seems to surprise him, enough to pull him out of the final dregs of fear and eddie, without much thinking, throws his legs over the edge of the bed and slides slowly down until he’s sitting there, on the floor and planted firmly on the plush carpet too. something about that seemed right — more right than anything else has lately been — and it was definitely not so that eddie was simply closer. it definitely had nothing to do with how steve made the noise quieter, how steve sharpened eddie’s focus onto him and away from the rest.
his head tips back, until it leans against the edge of the bed. the ceiling is considered, briefly, before he slides his attention back to steve. ] Yeah, [ he repeats, frowns at that. ] Yours too? [ he’d worry that he had woken him up — worry that he’d pulled steve from rare rest, but something about him already implied that wasn’t true. ]
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predictably nsfw
guess what my fingers smell like
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i have no idea
why?
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the why is really very simple if you think about it, but i’ll have some mercy on the braincells working overtime upstairs this once
it’s kind of gross to get a hard on every time i smell hair gel now. your fault.
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[ why are you TEXTING THIS TO HIM. he’s at WORK. ]
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vampy nsfw.
it wasn't much of an issue in the upside down, where the scant demon bat every so often makes a good enough snack to subside on for — a few hours? time is weird, there. he walked around in some sort of numb, starved daze for what felt like ages, until he'd finally gotten enough rat and bat juice in him to remember something other than the hunger. oh yeah, he's eddie. eddie munson. eddie the coward. eddie the dead beat. eddie who managed to do exactly one good thing in his entire life, which was saving henderson from a gorey fate. giving the guys some time to beat the bad guy.
only — they didn't win. only — eddie didn't die. at least, not completely.
it's easy to find a gate once he knows what he's looking for, climbing out of the huge gashes in hawkins with his bloody, dirty fingers, coming out on the other side with a heaving gasp. maybe he should've thought more about it, given that after he climbs from the ditch he's swarmed by police officers, scientist, government officials in tight suits and stupid glasses. right, wanted for murder. duh. only — it's kind of a non issue. they move to arrest him and he says don't, so they don't. he says you didn't see me and they didn't. it's very obi-wan. very strange. compulsion that he pushed into his words with his own desperation. the force is with him, and all that.
finding the video shop is easy. someone is taking pity on him, because steve and robin are both working. he says sup guys? and ignores how keenly aware he is of the pulse beating in steve's neck, how vibrant and flushed he looks under the unscenic fluorescent lights. steve looks great, actually. edible, someone might say. yeah, robin's there too, but she's not as — tasty.
he's brought to the basement of the store. open sign turned to closed. robin offers him water and eddie groans, shaking his head, unable to think of anything more vile than that. she goes to make a call, probably, or to head out and pick up the kids, but once eddie is in a room alone with steve he's on him, surprisingly quick, hands gripping at either of his biceps while he stares intently at steve's neck. )
Steve — I gotta eat, man. ( he shudders, but fights the urge, body supernaturally strong as he holds steve still, pining him to the wall without much force behind it. almost twitchy, he bends forward, pressing his mouth to steve's pulse in a kiss — a long, hot lick laving over his vein. ) Hungry, dude. I just need a bite.
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turns out everyone who wasn’t mass-high tailing it out of hawkins really needed entertainment, and what better than the movies? between that and the rest of the staff leaving town, steve and robin have been working pretty consistently, and honestly? steve is kind of appreciative of it. it gives him something to do, something to keep busy, something to get him to think about anything else other than what he’s been thinking about. the gates, the failed mission, max, eddie. steve feels like he’s been sick for days, with how his thoughts can’t quite stop, how he can’t quite sleep.
he’s at work when it happens - when the door opens and the bell chimes and he and robin stop whatever conversation they were having to greet whatever customer and-
steve’s heart stops as eddie munson walks through the door.
the store closes after that, shuffling them all back into the back room, and steve just kind of watches. robin offers water, mentions how everyone has to know, how she can’t believe how this is possible, and steve feels a bit like he hasn’t quite caught up.
eddie is alive. eddie is alive and here. eddie looks like shit, like he literally just climbed back out of the gate, blood still caked on his clothes, covered in dust and grit and whatever else is in the air of the upside down. and he looks like shit, gaunt and off and wrong but he’s here and steve almost can’t believe it. can’t take his eyes off of him for more than a second because he’s not sure he’ll still be there when he looks back.
robin says something about going to get the kids and steve should be more worried that the only car she has access to is his but she looks at him and says watch eddie and steve feels relieved, more than anything else, that he doesn’t have to leave.
as the bell chimes and the door locks and robin is gone, steve turns to eddie expecting to say something. anything. dude or this is insane or what the fuck? but before he can say a single thing, eddie is on him. faster than he has any right to be, really, but steve’s not even thinking about that. instead, he’s thinking about how familiar this is - eddie shoving him back against a wall, eddie twitchy and a little shaky, eddie close and threatening (somehow even now) - but also very, very different. like how eddie’s mouth is on his neck, how cold he feels where he’s holding steve’s bicep. ]
The fuck, man? [ did he just say he was hungry? right as he pressed his tongue to steve’s throat? he tries to shove back against him, hands curling over eddie’s shoulders, but even as he pushes back he finds eddie a solid wall. powerful, strong, unnaturally so.
steve’s heart rate spikes, but he’s not afraid. not really, somehow. it’s just- he doesn’t know what’s going on. ] We might uh- we have snacks. At the register. [ his fingers curl into the fabric of eddie’s jacket, unable to get leverage to push him off. somehow, he ends up leaning his head back against the wall, subconsciously giving eddie more of his neck, or maybe just trying to look across the room. ] We can get something there- shit.
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is he supposed to fight this urge? probably, if he were decent — or actually the hero he once tried to become. but steve stretched his neck, unveiled the path of his skin like he wanted it, and eddie. well. he doesn't run, at least. he keens right into the urge, two thick fangs descending from his gums, serpentine as they rub up against his skin. it's almost apologetic, for the upcoming pain. soothing an ache that isn't there, yet. )
Stay put, Harrington. ( it's sounds like he's talking with a mouthful of marbles. ) Just a bite.
( just a bite. though — eddie has never bitten something that he didn't kill in the process. he's also never bitten anything as big as steve, holding as much blood inside him. not that he's thinking about anything like that. no, he just thinks about his teeth, pressing into his neck until they pierce, until steve blood coats his mouth and he takes a long, hard pull from the spigot.
it's good. steve tastes sweet in a way he's unused to, like eddie just realized he's been subsiding off rotting bats with moldy, black blood for the last however long, and just tasted a cream-filled cupcake. he groans, tugging, swallowing two mouthfuls which is ordinarily his fill — but there's so much and he tastes so good, eddie can't help but swallow more, dragging more of steve inside of him. strange flashes of memories. there's nancy spread on her fluffy, white sheets. robin in a sailor hat. dustin —
yeah. dustin. the vision of the kid makes eddie pull off with a sudden jerk, watching the blood bubbling up from steve's neck with a strange look of horror and arousal. not wanting to waste a drop, he licks the wound, sealing it off with his weird, vampire spit. he swallows the last dregs down, until he can pull away, cheeks suddenly flush, hands cupping steve's waist to make sure he doesn't fall. or — jesus, die. )
So — okay, yeah, dude, I mean — somethings are a little different now! Shit, Steve. ( shit is right. it's a weird slap in the face — a dawning reality that he's the complete and exact opposite of a hero now. he's evil. he's what the papers say he is — demonic, cultist, murderer. he can't stay here, a threat to the only people who ever tried to help him. he's — ) Sorry, sorry, Jesus Christ. What the fuck. Sorry.
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and he meant a that truthfully. the fact he was asked to come into work days after gates bisected hawkins is insane. the fact that max is in a coma she might never wake up from because eleven said no is insane. eddie munson is alive, and that’s insane too. which almost makes steve wonder if i’m the grand scheme of things, this, and all this is, isn’t all that insane after all.
( that’s when eddie runs his tongue across his throat again, when eddie groans, and steve can feel it against his skin. feels it go directly down to his gut. and then lower still. )
no, no, this is decidedly crossing a line into insanity that steve’s not sure he’s prepared to cross, and he just very nearly has a spike of energy, a sudden rush of strength, to fully get eddie off of him. ] What are you even-
[ stay put, harrington.
the words carry a kind of weight in them that steve’s not prepared for, and they settle over him like a wave. any energy, any strength, any fight he might have had is gone in an instant, seeped out of him like a switch flicking. part of steve thinks he might not even be breathing, and for some insane, crazy, impossible reason, even that is okay. because he is staying put.
that’s when his brain finally catches up to the puncturing against his neck. when he realizes what is actually happening. because sure, okay, part of him had truly thought that maybe this was just some weird side of eddie munson. being in the upside down fucks you up, and if eddie needed comfort, if eddie needed…wherever this was leading, steve’s not entirely sure he would have said no. now, as he comes to this realization, steve is very aware he hadn’t assumed that would also include sucking his blood, and yet even still…
the point where eddie’s mouth is on his neck is hot. impossibly hot. it feels a bit like he’s burning, like a flame has started right there, and is slowly spreading over his skin. steve’s knees go a little weak, but not enough that he has to over correct, not enough that he’s worried about his balance. some voice in the back of his head says you will stay right here, you will stay put, and so he does.
steve feels lightheaded, a bit like he’s floating, the searing heat of eddie’s mouth just the beginning as every inch of him slowly begins to heat up. there are images of nancy that cross his vision, then of robin, of dustin. some disconnected part of him wonders if he’s dying, while another part replies with would it be that bad? and then just as it started, it ends, and eddie’s pulling away from him. separating his mouth from steve’s neck. he licks a stripe across the spot but steve can’t quite piece together why because very suddenly, very very suddenly, that dizziness is back. the entire world starts to move around him.
thankfully eddie is holding him up (he thinks) because steve sways, trying to blink his eyes back into focus. ] The fuck… [ he mumbles, all but crumpling forward into eddie, something about the loss of that heat, but also a sudden bout of something else, overwhelming him. and if steve stopped to think about it, he might realize exactly where that remaining heat has pooled. instead, or at least in this moment, he focuses on the death grip he has on eddie’s shoulders, the fact that eddie is ranting about something or maybe he’s just talking in that same way he always does but he looks better, there is more color to him, and steve…likes that, in a weird way. ]
Did you- [ another blink or so and it’s coming back, he’s coming back, and he turns to look more directly into eddie’s face. ] Did you just drink my blood?
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text; 2:14am
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are you okay???
and uhhhh
stop time
definitely
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I'm okay, just not
sleeping.
[ anymore. because nightmares. ]
Yeah? Perfect.
Hypothetically perfect, obviously.
Because I would pick getting to peek into the future, so yours paired with mine would be pretty unstoppable. *if not just because it means never being blindsided by something, ever again.
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its way too late
but i get it
[ after all...he is awake.
and let's just...not talk about how he feels about being a good pair with nancy. definitely not something a nearly-three-am steve harrington should be thinking about. ]
right
yeah
that sounds like a great thing
especially in hawkins
but uh
can i ask why you're thinking about this so intensely?
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