[ stepping away was — difficult. but so was moving in general, and that would serve as a good enough excuse. with the distance back between them, the cold of this place seeped back around him. it felt bone deep and maybe that was actually just him and all the overexertion after a goddamned resurrection (or whatever the hell that was) catching up in a dead sprint and it would be absolutely mortifying to pass out now.
it was frustrating, how stabilizing harrington was. not just in the tactile reassurances that eddie never thought he needed all that much. eddie, who was good at being alone but never wanting to admit that he rather not be; the outsider, the metalhead freak, the fantasy nerd. but here he was, not alone and what a fucking relief. who would have thought the line between fantasy and reality was such a blur?
thoughts hazy, and it takes effort to refocus them now. but they were. so. close.
then steve's hand is back at his elbow. back, like an anchor calling him to something real and the rope falls into eddie's hands, rough against dirt-covered palms. he stares at it, for a moment before harrington's doing that eye thing again and eddie is nodding along before he can reconsider.
but — as they get closer and closer to getting out, he catches steve's wrist, pulling on rope until he's hanging on to the other end. ] Since you're so prepared, Harrington — we're not taking any chances, right? [ if you squint, there's an attempted pinch at a dig, though it is neither particularly biting nor clever.
maybe someone else would have said nothing's going to go wrong, or we got this or whatever other optimistic bullshit that would do wonders in a place like this. but this is eddie munson, self-proclaimed cynic, we're talking about here.
and maybe steve was going to tie them off anyway but eddie is not taking any more chances either. and maybe they're wasting precious time, standing on the very edge of the rolling gate steve just emerged from moments before, but it doesn't take much time at all for eddie to loop the rope around harrington's forearm, tying it off into a slipknot. a glance back up at him from under his curling bangs. ] We should, um — [ taking a moment to slip the other end of the rope around his own arm, loop around twice. he doesn't hide the wince, doesn't think to, as some bite is aggravated by the friction. ] — go through together though. Right? [ please. ]
[ he moves to crouch beside the gate, inadvertently tugging steve down after him. a hand lifts, hovers at the edge. there's a second of consideration, taking this place in. the horizon, the rolling thunder in the distance and the strikes of scarlet lighting. for a second, he squints, thinks he catches the silhouettes of things that makes his heart jump in his throat, and it seems to dredge up enough adrenaline to break the weird reverie of this moment. shock his system into action one last time and — ] Okay, yeah nope, let's go. Let's go, [ who cares if it was his imagination. who cares if they were so far away they probably wouldn't have even noticed. who cares whether or not those things were even there. it's enough to give him the short burst, to slide his hand up to steve's back and push him forward, into the portal —
— and when he emerges on the other side, it's with a gasp. hands grasp at pavement, scrape painfully on dull rocks and only now does he actually believe this worked. ] Holy fucking shit!
[ steve doesn't focus too much on the chill of the air. doesn't focus too much on how there is always, always that unsteady feeling of what this place is. he doesn't trust it, doesn't trust the ground they're standing on or the air they're breathing and definitely not the dust that still flitters around the air around them. eddie steps away from him, pulls away, and it feels a bit like steve's whole chest tenses. like without the touch, without that grounding contact, eddie could just slip away again.
but he swallows back that fear - they are so close. steps away. and he knows that it's always this home stretch where everything goes wrong, where this could go bad, and maybe that's part of the reason steve is so quick to grab eddie's elbow. so quick to get a hand back on him, even if he could mask it by the steps. by handing him the rope, explaining the next steps. it's the only way that steve can keep himself moving, really - focusing on the next step, on the way out, on the plan.
eddie is still responding, still following, so steve thinks that maybe this could work. that maybe they could make it. that he's being ridiculous, being this nervous about everything when they're so freaking close. that is - until eddie's hand is there, around steve's wrist, catching him before he even tries to step away further. we're not taking any chances, right? steve looks down at where eddie's hand is around his wrist, if only because for some reason it seems easier to look at that first, as if he could see something else there, before his eyes go to his eyes. his brow furrows, as if confused, at the question. right? ] No, we're not. [ steve says simply, turning his hand in eddie's grip to grab eddie's own wrist in turn. to hold him, to squeeze it, as if eddie needs the reassurance. ] Don't be a hero. Not again. [ and maybe, maybe steve's a little more genuine and a little more intense than eddie's attempt at a dig would have suggested. steve sequeezes eddie's wrist, once, as if to reaffirm it. don't be cute. not again.
that's when eddie ties the rope around them both, around steve's arm and then his own. there is something off about the movement, about the somewhat desperate way that eddie barely even looks at him through the curtain of his bangs. we should go through together. steve watches eddie wince when he ties his own bit of the rope, watches the obvious pain. curiosity flickers across his face, because steve's not exactly sure why eddie would feel the need to go this far, to hurt himself just for the confirmation that he won't be left behind. steve could think of four or five other ways to reaffirm that, two or three that wouldn't have left behind such pain, but steve decides not to comment on it. instead, he hears the unspoken please and just. nods. ] Yeah- together.
[ eddie moves to crouch down by the gate, and steve gets pulled down along with him. he goes easily enough, moves to sit along the edge, to situate his pack and his materials and to make sure eddie isn't having second thoughts. thunder rolls off in the distant, just loud enough to catch steve's attention, to see the shadows and the lightning and what every the hell else is out there. it shoots a sort of tension through him, right at the same time eddie says yeah nope, let's go, right at the same time eddie's hand is on steve's back. without thinking, steve's arm shoots out and grabs at the front of eddie's shirt, to get a fistful of the fabric and to all but drag eddie munson along with him.
and then they're through, back into the other side, and steve - without really realizing it - uses the moment to pull eddie through and even after, it sends him a little further into the pavement, the rocks. steve, also gasping for a moment or so just to settle the curled feeling in his gut, looks up. around. to make sure nothing followed, to make sure nothing is there. eddie's voice rings out again, holy fucking shit, and something bubbles up from steve's stomach. bubbles up, and then escapes as a kind of laugh. not manic, nothing like eddie's, but a bark of relief. they're out. it worked. eddie - safe back in hawkins.
steve gets to his feet, pulls off the rope, the adrenaline still pumping through him. still pushing him forward. he gets up, wipes off his knees, and then manages the step or two over to stand in front of eddie and hold out a hand. an offer to help eddie to his feet, too. steve is smiling, when eddie looks up at him. he can't help it. ]
[ don't be a hero would have been funny enough on it own, coming from steve harrington. not again strikes a small cord of disbelief and sends inexplicable butterflies rustling around in his chest and eddie was glad to have busied his hands then, thumb pressed to steve's pulse. he must have mumbled a — ] Nah, no way, man. Me? [ some sardonic, autopilot response, when all he could think of, while tying the rope around, was the helplessness he felt when chrissy was killed. he was powerless to do anything then, other than stand by, frozen in fear. and when feeling finally returned to his legs, he just ran. and ran, and ran. maybe a small part of him, deep down and unresolved, is a little proud that there was the one time he didn't. and they were okay, steve had said, everyone was okay and sure there was some addendum in there somewhere, a but sitting between the lines that would be later addressed. and it isn't that he thinks a single rope would be their salvation, or that he would be doing something particularly heroic enough right this very instant or that this was a particularly brave thing to do at all.
but it was action regardless, something that helped him not feel useless, juxtaposed against how quickly steve had come down to help him. how steve brought supplies, a pack ready with who knows what else. how steve kept talking, plan in hand. so even if it was just some stupid buddy system, eddie felt like at least he was doing something. the pain was secondary — impossible to avoid when every part of you ached anyway.
but steve goes along with it, going down beside him and then everything that happens next feels like it both takes seconds and hours. steve's hand is bunching the fabric of eddie's shirt when they go through, together. eddie's stomach lurches, the world turns upside down and topside up and maybe he yells out and it all spins and it takes a moment of looking up at the star-speckled sky to slowly find his bearing. somewhere beside him he hears a single laugh, rope taut enough to tell him he wasn't alone, that harrington didn't get left behind.] Jesus H. Christ.
[ and eddie munson, lying on the cold asphalt in the middle of a ruined highway, doesn't disappear into a puff of smoke, contrary to his own expectations. eddie munson, somehow, had managed to cheat death. his chest heaves, his heartbeat a loud ringing in his ears, racing hummingbird quick in the birdcage of his ribs.
steve comes into focus above him, upside down and smiling and eddie answers with a grin of his own, suddenly elated. his hand reaches out to grasp steve's offer. real. this was all real and solid still and no one was disappearing in any smoke or illusion or bats and bad memories.
it takes some effort to leverage himself back up. there's a part in his brain — some remnant of self-preservation — that understands he's tapped out. there comes that dip in senses, that white-out lightness in his head as the tinnitus reaches a peak, as he lifts himself back up and only in large part thanks to steve, grip back on the forearm and holding tight, does he not go teetering face first into the asphalt. his grin, a touch lopsided, stays. there's an unsteady laugh spilling back out.
his other hand slides up to rest back on the junction between shoulder and neck; there's a short squeeze. comfort in the returned proximity, gratitude and a curious sort of fondness he never expected to have. but they did fight — and win, and lose — to a very real, very unimaginable evil and maybe that allowed for him to be all...this about it. whatever this was. he just cheated death and steve fucking harrington, former king of hawkins high, just saved his ass from being stuck in that stupid place forever. what a crazy, crazy world this was.
and, obviously, he's just holding on so he doesn't fall over. of course. ] Never thought I'd actually be happy to hear that, Harrington.
[ he finally chances a better look around them, eyes landing on harrington's beamer, ostensibly parked not too far away. he points at it with a wobbly finger and pretends to ignore the tremble returning to his hands. ] Now, I'm — going to go sit. In there. Before I eat shit right front you. [ that cool with you? is intoned between the lines, he hopes. not that he doubts the ability of your strong beautiful arms to carry his unconscious self over to your car but...there were limits, man. ]
[ in another time, in another place, with all the world to argue and bicker and spend cutting the legs out from all of eddie munson's theatrics, steve would have argued with him. nah, no way his ass. and maybe for even a brief moment, the urge to just shake eddie is there, to pull away and grab his face and shake him, because he died. he died to give them all time. to run out there and pull the bats away. eddie could try and argue with him as much as he wanted, but there's enough of steve- no, there's more than enough of steve- who would fight right back. because he told him not to be cute, he told him not to, and yet still it was steve who had to drag dustin away from eddie's body.
no, it doesn't matter. not right now. because steve could fix this- steve could fix all of this, if they just go through. it's part of why he lets eddie tie the rope, why he doesn't point out that he doesn't plan to let go of eddie even as they flip through. why, when they make it to the other side and the world rights itself back up again, he just. lets them sit there, eddie with his back to the asphault and his eyes to the sky, and steve, on his hands and knees. steve, who is looking at eddie, who suddenly feels like he takes the first full breath of air since those two taps at his lamp.
he gives himself those couple of moments to get back to his feet. he's unsteady, more exhausted than he's ever felt in his entire life, but they're not home yet. he pushes up with a kind of determination that feels way too familiar, and moves to stand above eddie. watches him for a moment, just a breath, because the image is almost too similar to when they'd first made it back. to eddie, part of the plan, back to the mattress. eddie, who looked breathless, but alive, ready to join them on this hell of a ride they've already taken too many times.
( steve tries not to think about this, too, feels a bit like relief. that this moment, seeing him, seeing eddie with that lopsided grin and those brown eyes and him, looking up at him. taking his hand. )
steve is very aware that he does a lot of the lifting, very aware that eddie is just nearly spent. his own mind is already onto the next step of all this - getting eddie into his car, taking him back to his house, getting him cleaned up - that he barely notices the hand back on his shoulder. barely notices the squeeze. instead, it feels more like they've righted something that had felt off, like having eddie's hand on his shoulder and getting his own hand around to eddie's side is where it should have been this whole time. ] Yeah, well, it's better than the alternative.
[ there isn't enough energy in him to even think about the town's reaction to eddie. not enough to really worry about what this can all mean, or how eddie might feel. steve's energy and worry and focus is entirely on eddie, who is not in the upside down. eddie, who is breathing, and warm, and may or may not be swaying. who may or may not just collapse right in front of him. ] Yes. [ he says, glancing up like he's actually checking to make sure his car is there before he's looking back at eddie. ] Yes, okay, right. Here- [ and whether or not eddie tries to pull away, it doesn't really matter, because steve's hands are moving, his whole body is turning, and before eddie probably even knows it, steve's got one of eddie's arms around his own shoulders and his arm around eddie's waist.
they're going to make it back together, one way or another, and steve's got enough on eddie that he can force this if he needs to. even if he doesn't think he will. he walks them both to the car, gets eddie situated in the passenger side seat, equipped with water and snacks and a towel and honestly, steve may be coming across a little manic, a little rushed, but he's trying. and whether or not eddie wants the stuff, it gets set in his lap as steve sits him inside and closes the door and runs around, throwing himself into the drivers seat.
home. next step. he can do this. he turns on the car and puts it in drive, speeding off down the highway. ]
[ there’s an odd little moment where things quiet. where the night around them is silent, when all eddie can hear is the sound of their breathing and for a moment somehow that’s more than enough and the air feels cool on his flushed skin and it strikes him, how this cool isn’t the same coldness of the upside down. how the ground doesn’t inspire vertigo with each step. even if it’s a little difficult to tell right now. and how the air feels cold and crisp and alive, instead of the stagnant ash and stale petrichor of the upside down.
steve seems to operate on a beat much faster, much quicker than eddie is able to be on, because he barely even comprehends the fluid twist harrington makes before eddie’s arm is thrown around a shoulder and a hand is wound around his ribcage. there’s an exhaled oof as meanwhile, his brain plays catchup, some stray thought of well, hewas co-captain of the swim team as explanation and where the hell did that come from?
but in the end, he’s silently grateful for this, for how steve moves and leaves no room for argument, because he isn’t sure he’d be walking to the car. he might have been crawling, were he on his own. maybe he’d have crawled into a bush and slept for five days, even if the thought of sleep inspires a weird sort of inexplicable nausea.
grateful for harrington’s incessant need to keep moving and doing and while wheeler might have been the strategist of the group, the master planner with just enough crazy tenacity to make eddie buy into whatever she said, steve was — well, shit. steve was the one running around and making sure everyone was okay, wasn’t he? who dived in first, who thanked eddie for saving his ass when he did it all himself, who ran around the kids like a border collie trying to keep them all in line. who came to get him. who told eddie not to be the hero and in all honesty, munson thought that mantle was solidly and firmly sewn upon steve’s capable shoulders anyway. it still was, and would remain there.
eddie drops into the passengers seat with very little ceremony and more like a bag of bones. he is about to say something — when a pile of items is dumped onto his lap and his grunt of surprise is somewhat indignant and the car door is slamming shut before eddie can rattle off a retort.
within the span of the steps it takes harrington to slide into the drivers seat, eddie turns his gaze down to actually look at the items on his lap. towel, water, snacks. huh. that was…kind of endearing actually. however, with the manic energy of being fucking alive, being out of a hellscape and the realities of being back in a town where he is wanted for murders not yet having caught up, the look he gives steve when he slides into the driver’s seat is deadpan, allowing his old self to seep back in. ] Harrington, stop, you spoil me.
[ — and then steve takes off with a rumble of the engine and while eddie is notoriously insane in his driving, the lurch knocks him back into his seat, and his hand blindly feeling for the door handle to grip onto. ] Yep-okay —!
[ but it isn’t long until he leans his head back, watching the silhouettes of dark trees race by. he doesn’t even care where they’re going. doesn’t ask, or doesn’t think to because finally, finally, after all the senses have been fired up from tension, from the fear and the stress and the pain, it feels downright euphoric to just be sitting. his hands fold over the hem of his shirt, curl tentatively over his side. the fabric is torn up and gray and mottled with blood stains. there’s a grimace across his face, before one hand goes to his neck. it sports similar bruising to what steve had been walking around with days before, and eddie’s eyes, subconsciously, fall to look at steve’s neck in turn.
quietly: ] Hey, ah, Harrington?
Thanks. For coming to get me. [ he shakes his head, and his smile is wobbly, much like the single laugh spilling from a raspy throat. ] Would have been real embarrassing to, you know, die twice.
[ steve barely even notices the night air, now that they're free from the thick, unsteady feeling of the upside down. and that probably has more to do with just how much time has passed, how he'd been in hawkins for long enough to get his footing again, before he dove back under. before he immediately turned back. he hates this idea that going to the upside down is turning into something that just happens, that he can drive out to a highway in the middle of the night to make a quick trip, but...
but eddie was alive. is alive. and if it meant saving him over and over again, steve wouldn't hesitate. wouldn't even have to think about it.
it doesn't matter, though, because it's over. it's finally over. all of them are out of there, for good, and eddie is whole. here. even if steve is kind of carrying him on their way to the car. he barely even feels the weight of it, and that is saying something. steve, who hasn't slept in days. steve, who feels wrung out and exhausted and piecemeal even now. steve, who - if needed - would probably carry eddie all the way home to his house. it makes him feel a bit invincible, the way the feeling of success floods through him. so much so that he has to remind himself they're not safe yet.
eddie lands into the passenger seat with a thud, and if steve wasn't so focused on just getting on the road he might have worried over even that. instead, steve is all but diving into his own driver's seat. is turning on the car and letting whatever music he'd had in there blast through the speakers. eddie says you spoil me and for whatever reason, that just makes steve laugh - something exhausted, something a little too bubbly, something that might just be thinking this worked. ]
Shut up, Munson. [ for whatever reason, it's said with a smile. a glance over into the passenger seat as steve all but tears off across the highway. he should be worried about a cop, worried about curfews and other people out on the road, but he feels too...what? good? relieved? ecstatic? he keeps his eyes on the road and avoids any of the cracks left behind, two hands on the steering wheel. after a short time he does manage to slow to something more manageable, but it's hardly the speed limit.
the music must shift just at the right time, must turn to a slower song, because steve is just able to make out the quiet ah, harrington?. it draws steve's eyes over, catch eddie looking back at him.
( his chest does not tighten, his heart does not skip a beat. ) ]
Huh? [ he says, eloquently. because in all reality, steve doesn't quite get what eddie is getting at. what he's trying to say. the confused look is probably familiar to the other boy enough by now, but still steve can't help but look over at him again, brow furrowed.
thanks for coming to get me he says, and steve just...doesn't get it. why eddie thinks he wouldn't have. it very nearly makes steve angry, a flash of something protective and a little dark, but he shakes it off. turns his eyes back to the road. tries not to think of a world where he couldn't have had this chance, where instead of eddie breathing, alive, here, it had been the alternative.
steve swallows. ] I mean, yeah, man. Of course. [ a beat, and then against steve's best efforts to keep his eyes on the road, he looks over at eddie a third time. ] Is that what happened? Did you really...you know. Die?
[ there’s levity returning, with the portal getting further away in the rearview. further away and more and more as confirmation of their success. finally over. there’s still plenty of cause for concern - the fissure wasn’t so big before, the cracks spindling across the road as harrington navigates around the worst of them, wheel only catching on the inevitable stray bumps until that, too, clears out a bit more. eddie wants to ask, but a part of him is still scared to.
maybe — maybe he can just sit in the bliss of ignorance for a little bit more, before he goes in for the questions. maybe he’s earned that much. maybe he can later ask steve why he thought he was talking to max before, why the town looks turned upside down (did they lose?), was he still wanted for murder and why steve looks like hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. the guy looked haggard too, bags under the eyes.
eddie watches steve’s profile for a moment longer, catching the motion of him looking away from the road to him and back to the road. catches the defined confusion. seems to remember that he’s staring, which might be bordering on rude so he looks away.
of course, steve says, like it’s the easiest, most obvious thing in the world and eddie can’t help but wonder how everything about him seemed to come so simply. maybe that aligned with the reputation of being the unseated king. maybe it aligned with henderson’s worship, which Eddie would loathe to admit he now understood. it surprised eddie to no small degree that he too was tugged into that orbit, with how natural falling back into this seemed to feel.
at the question, eddie snorts, turning back to look at the road ahead, at the rushing trees that open up into town. the song on the radio is slow and lulling and not at all good. he twists a ring on his finger, unable to keep too still. ] Yeah, yeah I think so. [ it’s hard to answer — and maybe steve can forgive that much, given that eddie is ostensibly back from what most people don’t return from. ] I just — I remember it being cold. And Henderson, you know, getting to me? And then — kind of like nothing, man. Nothing for a really long time, until I heard some girl’s voice? [ fingers pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes close briefly and he shakes his head. is it bad that he just needs a beer? ] I don’t think I recognized it, but she just said no. Just nope! [ a wave of his hand, some fingerwag for emphasis.] And I was suddenly back there again, and I guess alive because if I was anything else this shit wouldn’t be stinging so much, you know?
So — so I guess I was something, at least, but I know I was gone. [ he laughs, and it strains enough to teeter off into a groan. ] I know that sounds insane. Or well, [ he considers it a moment, tipping a crooked little smile. ] More insane than everything else.
[ he clears his throat, rubs both hands across his face, before going for the water bottle. ] But, you know, enough about me — what the hell happened to Hawkins? Why does it look like the shit we were trying stop actually happened?
[ steve doesn't think much about the state of hawkins as they speed through it, seeing the breaks and splits in the road as obstacles to get through rather than things to update eddie on. because honestly? honestly, the town is in tatters, panic and mass evacuations, missing people, bodies. steve supposes he'll need to tell him about the earthquakes, the high school, the chaos. but right now, it doesn't feel like it matters - none of it matters. his entire world feels limited to this single car, and a destination laid out in front of him.
( he doesn't know what it means, how okay with that concept he is. how part of him wishes they could just stay here forever - in this car, surrounded by shadowed trees, his headlights the only thing pushing them forward. eddie, who is definitely staring at him, who is living and breathing and looking at him, and steve... he's kind of okay with it. with this. with whatever this is. )
steve feels a bit sick, when eddie says yeah i think so. feels his hands tighten around the steering wheel. there's really no reason that it should hurt this much, hearing eddie's side of this, dustin getting to him, feeling nothing at all. he hates even thinking about it, which makes it that much easier to focus on the next bit of information, to feel his face scrunch up even as his eyes are on the road. ]
No? That's all she said? Just no? [ steve almost asks who, but eddie just said he didn't know. and because that doesn't make any sense. like - it is crazy, right? crazier than normal? though steve might not have a great handle on what that's supposed to even mean, these days, with a crater fully quartering off the entire town.
and maybe he should be taking that into account. how this is crazy, yes, but everything is always crazy. this isn't the first time that steve's entire world view has been turned on its head, and it probably would be the last. if anything, it's the sound of eddie's groan that worries him, how the laugh can barely hang on. it tightens something inside his ribs, something painful and protective, but steve just keeps driving. keeps wishing he could either go faster, or that he lived closer.
which of course means eddie asks him exactly what steve wasn't even thinking about. about the shell around them, the chaos he and the others have been trying to work through for the last day or so. steve sighs, keeps his eyes on the road. ]
They're calling it an earthquake, but something must have gone wrong. The gates opened and cut through town - four segments, just like we were afraid of. I don't know if it actually happened, because he's not...you know. Here? Vecna, I mean. But something happened.
[ there was definitely some unspoken comfort in — this; this vague in-between car ride that feels like the calm after the storm. there's no sun rays cutting through the clouds, no, but there's a liminal sort of peace. eddie imagines it will end when they arrive to wherever steve is driving to with a lead foot, and the spell will be broken.
in a selfish way, eddie would be fine with this lasting longer than it will, and he really doesn't feel like thinking on the why.
eddie shrugs, a hand thrown up, some defeated gesture in the face of steve's reaction. in the meantime, the water bottle is chugged down. who knew one could get so thirsty walking around for hours half dead in an alternate dimension? the plastic crunches under his hands, and it almost makes him frown. like the sound is too harsh for the lull of this spell, like that might snap it too. ] Yep, that's all! Just no. I — I can't even describe the place I was in, dude. [ if nothing was a place, it would be where he was. it wasn't biblical in any stretch. no stairway to heaven or highway to hell. it had been a little less than death. he doesn't go into trying to describe it further, though. it wouldn't make sense, and he'd just sound more and more like a madman. which was saying something and it isn't that he thinks that steve fully disbelieves him but — look, the guy already looked stressed as it was and some part of eddie rallies against that, concern crawling up to sit somewhere in the back of his mind, chased closely by some want to prevent any more. they've been through enough, he'd reason, were he to reflect on it. that steve had a tendency to carry the weight of responsibility on those shoulders of his and maybe there's guilt somewhere in there at the prospect of adding more. so what he supplies is dismissive. they wouldn't get their answers like this anyway. ] Look, someone just revivified my ass and I have no idea why, or how. Maybe — maybe I just got lucky, somehow, I don't know.
[ what steve tells him about the town is disconcerting. horrible, really and eddie listens with some dread creeping up to sit in the hollow of his suddenly dry throat. months back, if someone were to ask, eddie would say he cared about hawkins just about as much as hawkins cared about him. and while he held no illusion that it wouldn't care if eddie munson, accused murderer, never returned from the unknowable death, this wasn't a fate he ever wished upon it. actually, it was something he had adamantly wanted to help prevent and he tries not to feel like it's just one big slap to the face. ] Shit. An earthquake? [ he hopes this is where the parallels to the vecna he'd known before they gave the name to a very real, tangible evil, stopped. he hoped that he couldn't come back, that this was just a last stand thing, that — his eyes widen, head snapping back to steve. ] — wait, but the gates opening — I thought he needed to get four kills, [ it feels difficult to say out loud, without his mind going to the night chrissy died, to mayfield — ] — but you said everyone made it out. Including Red?
[ maybe its a moot point, maybe he should back off with the questioning. he's tired, he's so tired and so is steve but he can't stop from asking. there's a part of him that wants to make sure that it was worth it. that his was the only loss. ]
[ the plastic crunching noise does feel a bit foreign, given the hypnotic sort of hum they've gathered around themselves, but steve can't find it in himself to be too thrown off. the comfort wouldn't be good, that distant hope that whatever peace it is they've built for themselves might be dangerous. they're not out of the woods yet. they make it around a bend and steve chances another glance in eddie's direction, gesturing down with his chin towards the bag at eddie's feet. ]
There's another in there if you're still thirsty. Food too. [ and no, eddie, for the love of god do not make fun of him right now. then he's sitting back, back to driving, back to listening to eddie explain what he is pretty sure is damn near impossible, and yet...
he's getting tired of thinking the impossible is actually impossible. and maybe, this once, he'll just have to be okay with it. with the fact that this worked. with the fact that eddie is-
part of steve seizes up, panics, almost slams the car to a stop just because he needs to reach over and make sure that eddie munson is still breathing. it catches him off-guard, the sudden need to double-check, but then eddie is speaking about being revivi-whatevered and sounds dismissive and exhausted and steve doesn't really blame him. nothing they are going to talk about here will change anything, they're not going to find venca or fix hawkins or wake max up. all they can do, really, is getting eddie back. get him cleaned up, let him sleep, maybe feed him a little more. steve tries to hide how that moment of panic is still rattling somewhere behind his ribcage, tries to breathe normally as they drive, and then there is the question. the one that has steve wincing, the one that has him sighing.
because the truth is - he doesn't know about red. none of them do. he sat at the hospital for hours with lucas and erica and dustin. he did what he could with the parents, explaining what happened, pushing off nurses who tried to look too closely at his neck. dustin, who had just finished sobbing. lucas, who couldn't stop. it makes steve's skin crawl, thinking about her in that bed, thinking about any of those kids in that room. and after billy- ]
She's alive. [ steve says, his eyes still to the road in front of them. his words are clipped, stern, almost like he's trying to convince himself as much as eddie. ] But she's not... [ he bites into his lip, tries to swallow back the tightness in his chest, that very same guilt that steve just can't quite shake. ] The doctors said she's in some kind of coma. She's breathing, still, but hasn't woken up yet. They're not sure when she will.
[ if she will, he doesn't add. they're getting close to his place, just another couple of miles. suddenly, the car is feeling a little too small. suddenly, he misses the rv. ]
[ not out of the woods yet at all. and clinging to a liminal space created within a late night car ride after an impossible rescue would only last so long.
there might be an urge to make a comment about how well prepared steve was. and maybe eddie does so without vocalizing, a look to his feet then back at steve with brows that quirk up, something minutely amused in the expression that steve may or may not catch in his periphery.
in the gaps between his speaking of his not-death and dropping off to reconsider, eddie's attention catches on to the palpable tension quickly — eyes on steve's hands, suddenly white-knuckling the steering wheel. thinks he hears the hitch of breath and he's perceptive enough to recognize the telltale signs of panic. the guilt follows soon after, some worry of having been the one who caused it by asking, or being, or whatever. there's guilt and there's worry and the inexplicable urge to reach out. instead, his hands play with the corner of the towel still sitting on his lap, awkwardly unmoved from where steve had dumped it.
she's alive, but there's a but, of course there is and eddie just sighs. ] She will. It's Mayfield we're talking about here. [ he says, quietly. he doesn't know that for sure but there's something in the back of his mind that pulls on that thought anyway. and he can't help but think of that place again, of that vast void of an in-between, glassy surface and dark for infinity and he can't explain why his mind tries to reach for that connection, but he finds himself hoping she's not stuck there too.
he stays quiet for a little while longer — not too long, silence hanging only for a few beats before eddie gently asks, can't not after he'd caught steve's mostly well-hidden panic: ] Hey — you okay?
[ steve doesn't quite catch the raised brow, the small amount of amusement, and honestly he would have probably shrugged it off if he did. he learns, okay? he heard about the state that will came back from the upside down in, he experienced it first hand, walking barefoot through that hellscape for hours. and that's all steve could really think about when he was packing, what he wished he'd had. what eddie might need, if he'd still been dealing with half the injuries he had when they found dustin.
but then there is the panic, the tension, the sudden feeling that maybe none of this is real. that maybe this is just another vecna vision, because they'd never found his body, did they? this could all be some lie, some weird vision crafted by that stupid dark wizard because he knows who it was who barbequed them. and maybe that is where this fear is coming from, this panic. maybe part of steve is terrified that this whole thing has just been a hallucination and he's actually floating fifteen feet over his pool in his back yard.
none of that is helping though, so steve reminds himself to just keep driving. to focus on the next step in front of him. eddie, in the passenger seat, still breathing. eddie, asking about what happened and steve just sort of. doing his best to explain it. she's still breathing, he reminds himself. she's still breathing. ]
Yeah. [ steve doesn't meant to sound so down about it. doesn't mean to sound defeatist. he knows the only thing they can do at this point is wait, and eddie is right, it is mayfield. if anyone was going to beat this, it would be her.
the silence that follows has steve...not spiraling, necessarily, but worried. concerned. his mind bounces from eddie to dustin. dustin, who he still needs to tell. to lucas, who is probably still at the hospital. robin, who steve probably needs to check on, and nancy, who still can't reach mike, whose mom is a wreck. and then his own parents, who definitely haven't called home, who had been on another work trip and probably don't even know what's happening, and-
eddie's voice breaks through his thoughts, and while steve doesn't jump, necessarily, there is a kind of wince. a kind of belated realizing that he'd sort of drifted off, thought wise, away from the drive. you okay? ] What? [ a glance over, and steve presses his lips together. not quite a smile, but something. ] Yeah- no, I'm okay. [ a small shake of his head as he's looking to the road again. he pulls down his street, just another few houses and they'll be there. steve resettles in his chair, trying as best to ignore just how fake his answer had sounded. trying to think about how he doesn't really know why it feels like he's lying when, objectively, yeah. he's fine. ] It's just weird, I guess. Usually when this shit happens, it just...goes away. Now... [ his fingers lift up from the wheel, sort of half gesturing to the road around them. to hawkins. to the battlezone the whole town has become. ]
[ were this a more lighthearted mood and eddie's brain was a bit more on, he might have considered slipping in a few mom jokes that harrington had, admittedly, set himself up for perfectly a few times now. something knee-jerk about picking on him, when in all honesty, it had been far too considerate for eddie's chest not to tighten at the thought.
but, if this isn't real, if this is vecna's idea of revenge and steve was floating fifteen feet over a pool, then eddie would hate to think where he would be.
but — pain makes things a little more real. its tangible, its difficult to ignore and while he isn't sitting in head-splitting agony, there's dull aches and pulls enough to remind him that he's still a mess, that that'll be something he needs to take care of, that it's going to suck even worse tomorrow.
he can almost hear steve thinking — if such a thing was even possible and while he can't even begin to guess what's going on inside that head of his (seriously, how does his hair do that after going in and out of the upside down?), it must not be anything too good and almost in unprompted unison that might have been an inevitability, munson thinks of them too. you better wake up, red, he thinks, because he hates the idea of how devastated lucas must be. the kid had constant puppy eyes when he looked at her. and then there was dustin — dustin, who eddie wanted to see so badly, but also found the thought difficult. difficult not to feel guilty when the last interaction you had with the closest thing to a little brother was you dying in their arms, bloodied and afraid and that's one hell of a trauma. and buckley and wheeler and —
yeah, nope. a bad spiral to go down on. a spiral for later, later.
he can sympathize with the turmoil evident in steve's head, really, and eddie listens with a hum of acknowledgement, and doesn't buy that bullshit non-answer, makes a mental note to annoy harrington with that question again at another time. ] Mhm, yeah. Yeah, sure. [ eddie watches the turn down the street, watches the houses passing on by with a frown. this was a way opposite neighborhood from the trailer park. nice houses with nice lawns, with a nice backdrop of ruin somewhere a few streets down. where were they — was steve taking him to his house? ] Can't really shove this one under a rug. Wonder if they'll say it's because of the cult stuff? [ see, its funny, because it's true. though now that he says it outloud, that's probably exactly whats happening and he find himself laughing under-breath. ] I'm going to have to keep hiding, aren't I?
[ another house passes by and it feels like they're getting close but eddie finally, finally runs out of patience enough to ask — ] And seriously, pray tell, where are you taking me?
[ they both are at a bit of a loss, when it comes to being on. there's more steve could probably say, more that steve could probably do, to lighten things. part of him almost reaches for the same story he'd told nancy, about the brood, about going to california, about how now is as good a time as any to get the hell out of here. it wouldn't help where it concerns the mom comments, wouldn't help eddie's teasing at all, but it would fill the silence. maybe keep his mind off of the rest of it.
a part of steve tries to focus on the specifics. on the feel of his car under his hands. on the lights on the road, the pot holes, the breaks in the asphalt. it's better to focus on that, right? on what he can do, on eddie breathing in the seat next to him, on what is coming next and then right after. steve knows he's not a strategist, knows he's not going to be of help to anyone if he even tries, so he puts the effort into not worrying.
at least eddie doesn't bug him about it now. whether or not he believes the answer, he lets that lie hang in the air instead of trying to poke at it, and the appreciation steve feels is immeasurable. eddie mentions something about cult stuff, about rugs, about what people could possible do with this town, but steve only listens to half of it. instead, he focuses on the familiar road. on what he's going to do once they get here. on if he remembers if he should clean eddie's wounds first or if she should shower first or-
i'm going to have to keep hiding, aren't i?
a part of steve deflates at that. ] Yeah, man, probably. At least until we can reach...I don't know. The government guys. [ steve vaguely recalls their contacts, that hopper always had someone to reach. but that doesn't help them much, now, does it? not with him dead. not with joyce in freaking california and no one able to reach will or mike or jonathan or-
the questions catches steve off-guard, mostly because he'd gone into this with his house as part of the plan. had known every step would involve coming back here. it surprises him, in a weird way, that eddie wouldn't also just. assume. ] My place. [ he says, checking his rear view mirror before making the last turn and driving up into the driveway. the house is dark (it always is) and the driveway is otherwise empty other that steve's car. ] C'mon- you can get cleaned up inside. [ steve puts the car in park and starts getting out, all but throwing his door open before the thought strikes him and he turns. ] You need help?
[ so back to hiding it is. it isn't that eddie expected different. though being fair, it wasn't at though he was coming back with any sort of expectation. it was, at first, a messy end to a messy chapter, but it had been an ending.
maybe if he hides long enough, people will forget. he's yet to see the posters the town has been putting out, and maybe that remains for the better. he's still the town witch, then. still wanted for murder, grand theft auto, and whatever else they can strap in on top of that and truly was he living up to the munson name after all. wouldn't dad be proud. at steve's answer, he can't help but to chortle. ] Oh yeah, the government guys. Of course, they'll definitely help — hey, who did you say started this whole psychic superpower kid program thing? [ look, it isn't that he isn't trusting steve, it's just that — when did the government is the history of time immemorial actually help in a timely, beneficial fashion? and he's not yet met the efficienct connections of hopper and the unstoppable tenacity of one joyce byers, doesn't know of their existence near as much as steve doesn't know of their survival. he doesn't know those forces combined could take on a work camp in kamchatka and win, so what would be a few precise little phone calls?
besides, he doubts there's a fix-all for the town's accusations. no, no, the fix all is time. its hiding until they're no longer interested, until they've moved on. he'll have to — he'll have to figure it out.
(in the back of his mind, somewhere, near insidiously, a thought forms of would steve let him crash in his place for a while? and then comes the appropriately timed answer.)
he shouldn't feel giddy about getting to see king steve's house, but there's a sort of spike of curiosity when steve tells him, when they turn into the driveway with the dark house at the end and it looks — starkly similar to the myopic version of it that munson had found in the upside down. he leans forward in the seat, hands on the dash, to get a better look. everything looked so different down there, he thinks, covered in those vines, ash and haze. it's followed by the realization that he was talking to steve by his pool. he certainly wasn't going to assume part of steve's plan was to bring him back to his house, and yet he can't stop the smallest warmth of satisfaction at the thought.
he hears steve swinging the door open. eddie follows that motion automatically, reaches for his own and brushing the offer off. ] Nah, man, I'm good. I'm toootally — [ something stubborn rears its head at that, that steve has already done plenty, that eddie can drag his sorry, half-alive ass inside himself. though it isn't at all elegant, the way he gets out. right foot slips out, arm grasping blindly for a hold and then he's twisting out with a death grip on the door but goddamnit he's fine!] — good.
[ with that stubborn little intent, he makes a move for the front door. ]
[ steve probably should be a little more sensitive to how eddie feels about having to go back into hiding. about being in hiding in general. he can only imagine just how much it would suck, how much it would have to drive him crazy. he went down into the upside down to kill vecna, apparently did die, comes back to life, and to what? a town that still blames him for chrissy cunningham's death?
there's no real way to spin this, though. no real way to make this better than it is. steve wishes he could, a positive outlook he'd told robin way back when. but there's only so much you can do with this. which, for all the sarcasm that eddie munson bites back with, steve is kind of glad for that, too. ]
Well- okay, yeah, it was the same guys who started it, but they also always come back and clean up after all this shit, too. They don't want it getting out, you know? Like with the mall fire. [ did they tell eddie about that? steve doesn't know, but it's also not a matter of trusting the government or not trusting the government. because really? steve doesn't even know how he feels about it. but the truth of it is that after every situation, every other time they've fought these things, had to deal with the upside shit, the government had never been far behind. whether or not they'll do anything, whether or not they'll help, they will be there. it's a factor they have to take into account.
steve doesn't notice the curiosity. or, maybe he does, but he takes it for something else. maybe worry, maybe pain, maybe...honestly, he has no idea. he's never been all that good at reading people, so what would make him think he'd be able to read eddie munson, of all people? but there's something in the way eddie's hands go to the dash, something about how he leans forward to try and get a better view, it's almost...cute? steve kind of smiles to himself for half a moment, just half, before they're pulling into the drive and steve is hesitating before he gets out. watching as eddie brushes off the offer and goes for the door and-
yeah, it doesn't really fly. steve's all but jumping out of his side of the car, slapping the door closed behind him, and then he's already on the other side - at eddie's side, just in time to watch his foot miss that step. ] Dude, you don't- [ but it's stubborn, it's there, it's eddie brushing past him and heading for the door and steve... well. steve follows him there, hovering about a step away just in case there's a moment that the slip turns to something more. because that's all it will take, one slip, and then steve will be there, hand at eddie's elbow again, or around his waist.
the door's unlocked, if eddie gets there by himself. if not, steve will reach for it himself, pushing open the door and pulling them both inside. ] It's fine, no one's home. Here- watch your step.
[ sometimes, things were the way they were, and no amount of silver linings would actually brighten up that shit. sometimes, things just sucked. it was what it was and, for all of the dread that the thought of returning to hiding might carry with it, for all of the uncertainty, when you face off evil, and somehow fend off death, the rest seemed less impossible to navigate. he'll have to figure it out and eddie certainly wasn't going to get ahead of himself and panic about it now. tomorrow? maybe a different story. ]
Yeah, you know, there was a whole lot off about that mall fire story. [ he continues the passing comment, but doesn't exactly carry on with the point. doesn't think its necessary to point out that if they didn't want things getting out, maybe they would try to clean things up faster than a group of tweens does. but that's neither here nor there either. he just hopes — he hopes he isn't the convenient scapegoat, a nonconformist freak on the sidelines thats the easy way out.
in retrospect, he considers the fact that steve would have more experience there, that steve spoke in passing about some russian lab and this or that and honestly? in that moment, that expertise would be enough.
he carries on with the approach to the house, trying to wave him off, can feel the guy hovering behind his every step and only comes close to slipping once, until they reach the front porch and eddie stops at the door, as though politely. there's some uncertainty there too, brows creased as he wonders how much more sneaking he would need to be doing until harrington answers it for him and says no one's home, reaching across to open the door and eddie is a little too slow to get fully out of the way — just enough to lean back, maybe. ] Oh, great. Because, you know, I didn't bring a fruit basket or anything. [ seeing it as much an invitation as anything, eddie walks on through, a little (a lot) stiff, before he's throwing looks around the spacious room. its quiet, telltale feelings that make it seem a lonely house, for all its rooms. ] So - this is home sweet home, hmm?
[ he'll fall back, and wait instead to follow steve in, giving him a slightly sheepish smile. the more time he spends standing, the more aware he is of how much he hates the motion, how much better sitting felt, and how heavy the jacket is sitting.
he rolls weary shoulders to shrug it off along the way — or tries to, if the action doesn't send pinpricks of pain through the shoulder up the neck, if his elbow doesn't get stuck in the sleeve, if the action doesn't feel entirely impossible right now and he must make some disgruntled noise as he struggles through it, only to knock a knee into a cabinet in the process. ] Ah, shit, come on.
[ eddie had no idea just how much was off about that mall fire. before all this bullshit with vecna, that had generally been the source of all of steve's nightmares. russians, showing up at work to drug him again. giant, spider like monsters crawling up and over any building he walks by, the school, downtown. sometimes, on the worst nights, he even sees billy hargrove, pierced through the middle, hanging limp from one of the legs.
off was one way of putting it, yeah. but steve didn't have the energy to even start getting into that.
so instead, he hovers behind eddie as they make it up to the door. eddie stops right inside the porch, like he's waiting for an invitation, for someone else to ring the bell. there's a brief, unasked for thought of like a vampire before steve huffs a kind of laugh, reaches forward and opens the door for them both. eddie mentions something about a fruit basket, and steve sets a hand to his back, pushing him through the threshold, and potentially grabbing a fistful of that tattered leather jacket just in case he pushed too hard. ]
Can you not be weird for like, once? [ he says, almost fond. almost joking. and then they're both walking through into a dark entry way. steve, once he is confident enough that eddie can remain standing, will push through further inside and flip on the lights.
home sweet home eddie says with all the same level of drama and sarcasm that steve's started to expect from him. so instead of answering, steve just snorts a laugh that lacks any actual humor to it. it's a house, more than it is anything. a place he was raised, maybe, empty hallways and sterile rooms and parents who don't trust each other. parents who are never home. steve doesn't think about it, never really lets himself think about it, and instead just moves through the house like he doesn't actually belong here (because it doesn't really feel like he does) and drops the backpack at the foot of the stairs. he has plans to maybe head back to the kitchen, if eddie really can walk as well as he says he can, but at the clamor of noise, steve looks back over to see eddie teetering and in two quick steps he's back to eddie's side, hand back to his elbow again. ]
Dude, okay, time to get cleaned up. [ and if eddie even tries to put up a fight, steve will force him. also, don't perceive his mom tone, either, munson. ] Upstairs, let's go.
[ maybe eddie should worry about his own insensitivities. maybe if he knew more, knew the deeper traumas of the event, he'd drop the topic all together, though for the time being, it seems to come to its own natural conclusion in steve's silence that follows.
but then there's a hand on his back urging him through, jacket taut where steve had gripped onto it an and there is time enough for a grin to be tossed over his shoulder because maybe steve should know better than to ask for something less than weird from one eddie munson, tattered jacket and near giddy from blood loss and all. (not that the absence of either would take away that particular quirk of his personality anyway. no, steve, it would appear you're stuck with it.)
though something about steve's reaction on home gives eddie pause — something recognizably familiar in how harrington moves through this place like he's existed in it alone more days than not and eddie never considered king steve to be one so well acquainted with the sort of independence that comes from of an absent family. maybe he's jumping to conclusions, drawing connections that aren't there. maybe he can sympathize.
he thought he'd be more elegant about shedding the tattered outer layer, and has just about righted himself away from the cabinet when steve is holding him byt the elbow again, distance closed and he kind of still finds himself surprised at the assurance of it. (still here, still real, still no illusions to be found. on and on and repeat). but he doesn't have long to contemplate that any further, like a broken record as it is, as he's albeit being pivoted towards the stairs.
there'll be some resistance, something impulsive that tries to sell the idea to eddie that he's doing better than he is, that he didn't just get up after dying and walk for miles, or lose way more blood than a body should be without. the hesitation gives way only after a moment, as soon as his head spins a bit too much (not dissimilar to a bad hangover, really) before he lets himself be directed upwards. his hand reaches out to grip a handrail. ] Okay, but just so you know, you're like walking into mom jokes left and right. [ eddie chances to toss another look over his shoulders, midway up the stairs. ] I mean, you always this bossy, Harrington? [ and if that can sound suggestive, that's none of eddie's concerns, is it? ]
[ that is the problem, though, isn't it? how none of them really communicate any of this. how steve wouldn't even know where to start. he hasn't thought much about what this sort of stuff does to people, how steve could think back on the growing list of things that are traumatic that he's just sort of accepted happens. and maybe it's because the kids, god, the kids have gone through so much worse. dustin has gone through so much worse. and how is steve supposed to sit and let this affect him when that kid just gets up every day and keeps going?
so, you know, he doesn't. doesn't let it affect him (as much as he can). he gets up and he goes to work and he just keeps putting one foot in front of the other, a lot like he does now. one foot, and then the next, a hand to eddie's back, not quite shoving him up the stairs. and yeah, eddie might shoot him a grin over his shoulder, and yeah, that grin might be a little unwieldy and a little loose but it's still there, because eddie is still there, and steve doesn't bother holding back the partial smile that follows his rolled eyes. ]
Yeah, yeah. [ but eddie is still walking up the stairs, still following steve's guidance, and for all the sharp words or sarcastic remarks, he's not really putting up a fight. steve sees eddie' reach for the handrail and slows down a bit in his pushing, if only because he doesn't want to send him off-balance. plus, steve can be patience, waiting to make sure eddie's steady again before he continues up after him, glancing up just in time to see eddie shoot that look over his shoulder. to catch the suggestive-ness about it.
and steve, to his credit, just sort of laughs. ] I guess I kind of am. Guess that happens when I end up babysitting whenever the world is going to shit. [ not that anyone ever - the kids especially - listen to him. ever. but that's besides the point. right now? right now steve will be as bossy as he needs to be if it means getting eddie settled, keeping eddie okay.
and right now, for steve, that means getting him up into that guest room and getting him cleaned up and bandaged, considering steve is pretty sure he can smell the blood that currently coats eddie's clothes. ] Up here on the right.
[ considering that eddie noticed about steve's reaction to the house itself, the guest room is probably a fantastic representation of that same feeling. it's nice, nice enough, decorated to the best of steve's mom's ability. the colors, the painting on the wall, the bed. but there's a kind of distance even still, a kind of sterile feeling despite the tasteful interior decorating. but steve doesn't really care, because it does have a bed, and it does have an en-suite with a shower, and steve's room is right down the hall.
as soon as eddie steps inside, though, steve's hand leaves his back and he's moving again, turning on the lights in the main room and also the bathroom, pulling out towels, checking to see if there's any first aid stuff under the sink or if he put it all in his backpack which he did leave downstairs. ]
I'll get a change of clothes for you- [ steve says, still rustling around under the sink. he lets out a sigh, mostly because yeah, no, there's nothing here, which is annoying, but not the worst thing in the world. he assumes, distantly, that eddie will be trying to peel off that vest, that jacket, the bandana that is somehow still tied around the top of his head. ] -but there are towels and stuff in here. Don't worry about the sheets or anything, Robin showed me this great trick to get blood out of everything, and it's not like my parents even come up here even when they're home.
[ funny, how much your brain can start to compartmentalize out of simple necessity. survival is messy that way. sitting back there at the boathouse, back when all this mess first started, back when chrissy cunningham had met her end on the ceiling of his trailer and he was rambling like what he felt was a madman, only to be given (an albeit) condensed version of the events a bunch of kids and their unwitting babysitters had gone through — well, yeah. there was too much unsaid, too much to infill within the spaces and maybe acting like it was the most normal thing in the world was the only way to cope. considering the fact that everyone in this room had nearly died a thousand times is what steve had said and granted, the prodding oar took away from listening to that statement too closely at that time, eddie could now tell harrington was exaggerating less than one would have thought. and that? that alone was a horrifying statement.
and if steve and dustin and everyone else can just keep going, then eddie would have to as well. considering he was given that chance in the first place.
but, it was becoming easier, really, to count the times he's made steve roll his eyes at him already, in the span of this rescue and even now, even with the current state of things and harrington's focus, it was starting to be fun. despite, you know, walking half-dead up the stairs and stinking of blood and he laughs. ] Can't catch a break, huh?
[ the guest room looks and feels more like something out of one of those decorating magazines than it does belonging in someone's actual house. eddie, taking the chance to catch his breath when steve isn't looking, lest he come on worrying and hovering again, considers the space and tries not to feel insanely out of place. even harrington moved more like a stranger the more eddie turned his attention to it - focused instead on something pragmatic — like being a host — rather than like...well, eddie's not sure. rather than like he lived here, maybe. ] Yeah — ah, cold water right? [ he says so absently, only half listening to what steve is telling him as he focuses on trying to de-layer himself, becoming a little too aware at how clean the room around him is and how starkly stained his clothes are. like how the light is too bright, and just how much blood is on him, between his rings.
the bandana drops off first, and the vest shrugs off the simplest, a heap at his feet, until he actually gets back to trying to peel off the leather jacket and one arm is halfway out while the other catches in the sleeve again and the mobility is limited enough as it is and nearly knocks the breath out of him, fabric snagging against one of the many bites thats coagulated over his ribcage and he tries to play it off cool, except that steve is also saying something about towels and clothes and he should be following along and eddie just tries to angle himself out of his current predicament as best as he can. which, likely, leaves plenty to be desired, but yet again — stubbornness rears its head. ] Uh-huh, yeah — [ he adds, hopes it was in good timing to steve's rundown of instruction. ]
[ that might be it. compartmentalizing. steve's always been good at that, whether it was the long lasting friendship with tommy h or the complicated and tense dinner conversations between his mom and dad, to the weeks on end he'd be left alone, sometimes without warning, because of course he has a car. he can get where he needs to go. there's dinner on the table for food the credit card for emergencies, and then...that was that. it was something steve hadn't even been that aware he was good at until all this shit started going down, until he saw nancy unable to do it, crumbling under its weight.
but they had to carry on. they had to keep going. steve had to, for dustin if no one else. and now for eddie, it seemed, who steve almost thought he caught half moments where the last week tried to catch up to them both. eddie, who had just died, and who steve was now apparently setting up in his guest room and who steve would have to tell dustin, and robin, and nancy about at some point and-
eddie, who for some reason, despite the one being nearly ripped in half and stumbling up the stairs, keeps making steve almost laugh. keeps bringing him out of his thoughts when they get heaviest. eddie, who steps into the guest room and looks so wholly out of place and steve who likes it. likes it more than he probably should. the dark clothes, the blood, just him, who would never otherwise be here, but who is. ] Eh, I think so? Something about cold water and hydrogen peroxide or something. I'll call her to make sure, but-
[ and however it is the timing works, steve is turning back just in time to see eddie's breath catch. he's already out of the bandana, out of the vest, and had - steve assumes - been going for the jacket when something went wrong. and the worst part is, steve doesn't even hesitate to ask what, to make sure eddie can do it himself, because in a manner of moments he's right back to him, hands on the jacket, muttering something like- ] Stop, you're going to- here, just put your arms down, let me help. [ steve remembers the feeling, of those bites. of those claw marks. he remembers how his entire body had been sore, torn apart. how even now it feels like he's not quite back together. and eddie's? eddie's were so much worse, punctured through his vest and jacket and shirt, shreds taken from his sides. half a pound of flesh. ] I'm not a doctor, so I can't sew you back together if you rip things open, just. Put your arms out. [ they're simple directions, gentle but firm. bossy, probably, just as bossy as he's been this whole night, but it feels good to kind of have an idea of what he's doing. of what they're doing.
steve's hands are gentle as he slowly, carefully, goes to peel the jacket off and keep aware if it's catching on anything else. and, by doing so, it gives steve his first real look at the damage, at everything, and it stills his hands for a moment because all he can really do is stare. ]
[ sometimes you just have to put this into messy little shelves and shove them back somewhere, and firmly decide not to deal with them at all. and maybe that's not healthy. maybe that leads one to get high off an old blunt and sit alone in the dark by his swimming pool. maybe it feels like you're somewhere on the cusp of losing your mind (only on a daily basis). and who could have thought that eddie munson would find so much solidarity in steve harrington.
the thing that munson was coming to learn more and more about steve, is that the guy didn't seem to stop. stop moving, or doing or worrying too, and that all of it was done with some mix of chaotic efficiency. and then he hears him talking about calling robin — which inspires thoughts of the others again, that tightening apprehension he can't quite define or explain. maybe because it's a reminder that everyone will have to deal with it. that is a series of ups and downs and they're back at compartmentalizing again.
then there's eddie, sticking out like a sore thumb in the crisp neutrals of harrington's guest room. the room smells nice, actually, something like clean linens and a floral soap. and he's thinking he finally caught his breath enough to keep pulling at a sleeve when steve is again just right next to him and he almost jumps. let me help and there's that bossy tone again and it isn't that he hates it that much (or at all) and maybe it other circumstances, he'd take the opportunity to tease him about it some more. see how patient steve is, one high charisma player to another. ] Okay, okay. Jesus. [ eddie says, still a little breathless, reluctant, though seemingly without much protest. only tries to wiggle out of the sleeves where he can and wonders how steve was just up and running only a short while after wheeler wrapped a dainty piece of a sweater around him when the bats came for his pound of flesh.
some errant comment strolls into his mind as harrington tugs down the jacket, something like buy me dinner first, that he bites his tongue on. halfway because he has to, jaw clenched tight.
until steve stills and eddie looks back over to him — with that telltale lurch of worry, with that creeping panic over silence — only to find him staring. he snorts, following the look down to himself, pinching at the torn once-white fabric of the hellfire club shirt. its full of holes now, shredded in some (most) parts. bummer, he liked that shirt a lot. aaand it's going to suck to get out of, isn't it? but there's a lopsided smirk as his eyes turn back to steve, though the humor is half-assed. ] It's these sick tatties, right? [ its definitely the ink, isn't it? though inevitably, his own eyes fall to steve's neck, still carrying the healing remnants of his own run-in with the demobats. he doesn't even want to know how his looks like right now. what comes to mind instead is the quiet ask of: ] Yours still hurting?
[ it's not the first time that steve has found himself finding solidarity with the exact sorts of people he never would have spoken to otherwise. i mean, if you really needed proof, please look at his current best friend. his right hand. his platonic with a capital P, robin buckley. steve is pretty sure every year that he gets further away from hawkins high, every year that passes since nancy wheeler gave him the biggest bonk on his head of his entire life, he is going to find someone else he was a dick to. someone else that he's going to find himself finding solidarity with. getting to know.
but steve doesn't think too much about that, maybe because it falls into that messy shelf or maybe because he hates remembering the kind of person he used to be. either way, it's just easier to move forward. easier to focus forward (he's already spent enough of his life moving backwards, anyway). and that movement forward apparently, includes eddie munson who tries to move like his entire body isn't in pain. who keeps making jokes and keeps commenting on steve's bossiness and who remains, even after all this shit, so very eddie the freak munson that steve can't help but be grounded by it. steve is careful as he tugs at the jacket, tries his best to keep it from tugging at any of the other wounds, at any of the open, torn apart areas of eddie (and there are so many, so many, that steve starts to feel a little overwhelmed by it). they do get the jacket off, but that feeling remains, and it is probably why steve stills at the sight of it. of eddie's chest, sides, and arms. at the blood, caked over the tears. unwanted, images of eddie's dead body comes to mind. of dustin's hands, gripping at him, saying no, no, no, no, no over and over.
but once again, right as steve feels himself slipping, there is eddie. eddie, who says it's these sick tatties, right? and instantly, steve is back here. in the now. blinks, and he sees more than just the blood and flesh. he does catch some of the ink, some of the tattoos, and steve can't help the way he snorts. ] Sure, it's your sick tatties. [ and even the words feel ridiculous in his mouth, his tone reflective of it. when steve's eyes glance up, he catches eddie's lopsided smile just as it fades, just as eddie's eyes go to steve's neck, where there is still a red, angry mark from the demobats tails.
the quiet of eddie's voice is what strikes steve the most, something fragile, but honest in it. steve lets out a breath as he drops the shredded leather jacket to the bed. your still hurting? and steve considers his answer for a moment, because there's no point in lying, is there? no point in trying to push it off? robin had asked him about his neck, nancy about his sides, and for both of them he'd pushed it off. nah, not much, it's fine. here, though, in the quiet of his own home, with eddie munson, bloodied and loud and different, looking to him and asking if he hurts, steve can't find it in himself to sugar coat it. ]
Yeah. [ he says, just as quietly, as his hands move slowly to the hem of eddie's shirt. the next step, the next job. it's going to suck, peeling this off, but they have to do it. but even then he hesitates, just a few inches away from the shredded cotton, as if waiting for eddie to give him the okay. ] It's better, but...yeah.
[ maybe they’d met one another at just the right time — when steve was no longer the person he was, and eddie was just the right amount of jealous to see what dustin was even talking about when it came to him. maybe there was more solidarity found in the shared horror of experience.
it’s easier to make jokes than to let the silence seep in. because if he doesn’t stop focusing on harrington, on that bossiness that carries its own convincing charm, on harrington’s older injuries, a sharp face made sharper still by the evident tiredness, messy hair somehow still falling infuriatingly perfectly (seriously? is it the shampoo??) — if he doesn’t stop focusing on all of that he’s worried about where that would leave him. that it would leave him with his own pain and his own fears and the memories threatening to replay themselves every time he blinks and it would leave him alone —
thankfully, steve answers, looks back at eddie and it feels honest and he lets out a short huff, shakes his head. ] Sorry. That sucks, huh. [ is it too early to say he gets it? he’d probably be the best one to get it though, all things considered, standing here looking like a wreck. inevitably, his own thoughts go to that night on the boat. never would have jumped in after you in normal circumstances, and here they were, nothing normal left in the spaces between, and eddie wouldn’t think twice about taking that dive again now.
eyes drop to steve’s hands, reaching for the hem of his shirt, clear enough in intent and eddie makes some non committal wave first, makes some move to try and see if he can lift it off of him himself — only to wince, flinch, and manage to look mildly sheepish when he says — ] Looks like I’ll still need the help of your capable hands, Harrington.
[ he does laugh though, short as it is, a hand hovering over his ribs for a moment longer. ] Pound of flesh.Sooo wish you’d been kidding.
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it was frustrating, how stabilizing harrington was. not just in the tactile reassurances that eddie never thought he needed all that much. eddie, who was good at being alone but never wanting to admit that he rather not be; the outsider, the metalhead freak, the fantasy nerd. but here he was, not alone and what a fucking relief. who would have thought the line between fantasy and reality was such a blur?
thoughts hazy, and it takes effort to refocus them now. but they were. so. close.
then steve's hand is back at his elbow. back, like an anchor calling him to something real and the rope falls into eddie's hands, rough against dirt-covered palms. he stares at it, for a moment before harrington's doing that eye thing again and eddie is nodding along before he can reconsider.
but — as they get closer and closer to getting out, he catches steve's wrist, pulling on rope until he's hanging on to the other end. ] Since you're so prepared, Harrington — we're not taking any chances, right? [ if you squint, there's an attempted pinch at a dig, though it is neither particularly biting nor clever.
maybe someone else would have said nothing's going to go wrong, or we got this or whatever other optimistic bullshit that would do wonders in a place like this. but this is eddie munson, self-proclaimed cynic, we're talking about here.
and maybe steve was going to tie them off anyway but eddie is not taking any more chances either. and maybe they're wasting precious time, standing on the very edge of the rolling gate steve just emerged from moments before, but it doesn't take much time at all for eddie to loop the rope around harrington's forearm, tying it off into a slipknot. a glance back up at him from under his curling bangs. ] We should, um — [ taking a moment to slip the other end of the rope around his own arm, loop around twice. he doesn't hide the wince, doesn't think to, as some bite is aggravated by the friction. ] — go through together though. Right? [ please. ]
[ he moves to crouch beside the gate, inadvertently tugging steve down after him. a hand lifts, hovers at the edge. there's a second of consideration, taking this place in. the horizon, the rolling thunder in the distance and the strikes of scarlet lighting. for a second, he squints, thinks he catches the silhouettes of things that makes his heart jump in his throat, and it seems to dredge up enough adrenaline to break the weird reverie of this moment. shock his system into action one last time and — ] Okay, yeah nope, let's go. Let's go, [ who cares if it was his imagination. who cares if they were so far away they probably wouldn't have even noticed. who cares whether or not those things were even there. it's enough to give him the short burst, to slide his hand up to steve's back and push him forward, into the portal —
— and when he emerges on the other side, it's with a gasp. hands grasp at pavement, scrape painfully on dull rocks and only now does he actually believe this worked. ] Holy fucking shit!
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but he swallows back that fear - they are so close. steps away. and he knows that it's always this home stretch where everything goes wrong, where this could go bad, and maybe that's part of the reason steve is so quick to grab eddie's elbow. so quick to get a hand back on him, even if he could mask it by the steps. by handing him the rope, explaining the next steps. it's the only way that steve can keep himself moving, really - focusing on the next step, on the way out, on the plan.
eddie is still responding, still following, so steve thinks that maybe this could work. that maybe they could make it. that he's being ridiculous, being this nervous about everything when they're so freaking close. that is - until eddie's hand is there, around steve's wrist, catching him before he even tries to step away further. we're not taking any chances, right? steve looks down at where eddie's hand is around his wrist, if only because for some reason it seems easier to look at that first, as if he could see something else there, before his eyes go to his eyes. his brow furrows, as if confused, at the question. right? ] No, we're not. [ steve says simply, turning his hand in eddie's grip to grab eddie's own wrist in turn. to hold him, to squeeze it, as if eddie needs the reassurance. ] Don't be a hero. Not again. [ and maybe, maybe steve's a little more genuine and a little more intense than eddie's attempt at a dig would have suggested. steve sequeezes eddie's wrist, once, as if to reaffirm it. don't be cute. not again.
that's when eddie ties the rope around them both, around steve's arm and then his own. there is something off about the movement, about the somewhat desperate way that eddie barely even looks at him through the curtain of his bangs. we should go through together. steve watches eddie wince when he ties his own bit of the rope, watches the obvious pain. curiosity flickers across his face, because steve's not exactly sure why eddie would feel the need to go this far, to hurt himself just for the confirmation that he won't be left behind. steve could think of four or five other ways to reaffirm that, two or three that wouldn't have left behind such pain, but steve decides not to comment on it. instead, he hears the unspoken please and just. nods. ] Yeah- together.
[ eddie moves to crouch down by the gate, and steve gets pulled down along with him. he goes easily enough, moves to sit along the edge, to situate his pack and his materials and to make sure eddie isn't having second thoughts. thunder rolls off in the distant, just loud enough to catch steve's attention, to see the shadows and the lightning and what every the hell else is out there. it shoots a sort of tension through him, right at the same time eddie says yeah nope, let's go, right at the same time eddie's hand is on steve's back. without thinking, steve's arm shoots out and grabs at the front of eddie's shirt, to get a fistful of the fabric and to all but drag eddie munson along with him.
and then they're through, back into the other side, and steve - without really realizing it - uses the moment to pull eddie through and even after, it sends him a little further into the pavement, the rocks. steve, also gasping for a moment or so just to settle the curled feeling in his gut, looks up. around. to make sure nothing followed, to make sure nothing is there. eddie's voice rings out again, holy fucking shit, and something bubbles up from steve's stomach. bubbles up, and then escapes as a kind of laugh. not manic, nothing like eddie's, but a bark of relief. they're out. it worked. eddie - safe back in hawkins.
steve gets to his feet, pulls off the rope, the adrenaline still pumping through him. still pushing him forward. he gets up, wipes off his knees, and then manages the step or two over to stand in front of eddie and hold out a hand. an offer to help eddie to his feet, too. steve is smiling, when eddie looks up at him. he can't help it. ]
Welcome back to Hawkins, Munson.
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but it was action regardless, something that helped him not feel useless, juxtaposed against how quickly steve had come down to help him. how steve brought supplies, a pack ready with who knows what else. how steve kept talking, plan in hand. so even if it was just some stupid buddy system, eddie felt like at least he was doing something. the pain was secondary — impossible to avoid when every part of you ached anyway.
but steve goes along with it, going down beside him and then everything that happens next feels like it both takes seconds and hours. steve's hand is bunching the fabric of eddie's shirt when they go through, together. eddie's stomach lurches, the world turns upside down and topside up and maybe he yells out and it all spins and it takes a moment of looking up at the star-speckled sky to slowly find his bearing. somewhere beside him he hears a single laugh, rope taut enough to tell him he wasn't alone, that harrington didn't get left behind.] Jesus H. Christ.
[ and eddie munson, lying on the cold asphalt in the middle of a ruined highway, doesn't disappear into a puff of smoke, contrary to his own expectations. eddie munson, somehow, had managed to cheat death. his chest heaves, his heartbeat a loud ringing in his ears, racing hummingbird quick in the birdcage of his ribs.
steve comes into focus above him, upside down and smiling and eddie answers with a grin of his own, suddenly elated. his hand reaches out to grasp steve's offer. real. this was all real and solid still and no one was disappearing in any smoke or illusion or bats and bad memories.
it takes some effort to leverage himself back up. there's a part in his brain — some remnant of self-preservation — that understands he's tapped out. there comes that dip in senses, that white-out lightness in his head as the tinnitus reaches a peak, as he lifts himself back up and only in large part thanks to steve, grip back on the forearm and holding tight, does he not go teetering face first into the asphalt. his grin, a touch lopsided, stays. there's an unsteady laugh spilling back out.
his other hand slides up to rest back on the junction between shoulder and neck; there's a short squeeze. comfort in the returned proximity, gratitude and a curious sort of fondness he never expected to have. but they did fight — and win, and lose — to a very real, very unimaginable evil and maybe that allowed for him to be all...this about it. whatever this was. he just cheated death and steve fucking harrington, former king of hawkins high, just saved his ass from being stuck in that stupid place forever. what a crazy, crazy world this was.
and, obviously, he's just holding on so he doesn't fall over. of course. ] Never thought I'd actually be happy to hear that, Harrington.
[ he finally chances a better look around them, eyes landing on harrington's beamer, ostensibly parked not too far away. he points at it with a wobbly finger and pretends to ignore the tremble returning to his hands. ] Now, I'm — going to go sit. In there. Before I eat shit right front you. [ that cool with you? is intoned between the lines, he hopes. not that he doubts the ability of your strong beautiful arms to carry his unconscious self over to your car but...there were limits, man. ]
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no, it doesn't matter. not right now. because steve could fix this- steve could fix all of this, if they just go through. it's part of why he lets eddie tie the rope, why he doesn't point out that he doesn't plan to let go of eddie even as they flip through. why, when they make it to the other side and the world rights itself back up again, he just. lets them sit there, eddie with his back to the asphault and his eyes to the sky, and steve, on his hands and knees. steve, who is looking at eddie, who suddenly feels like he takes the first full breath of air since those two taps at his lamp.
he gives himself those couple of moments to get back to his feet. he's unsteady, more exhausted than he's ever felt in his entire life, but they're not home yet. he pushes up with a kind of determination that feels way too familiar, and moves to stand above eddie. watches him for a moment, just a breath, because the image is almost too similar to when they'd first made it back. to eddie, part of the plan, back to the mattress. eddie, who looked breathless, but alive, ready to join them on this hell of a ride they've already taken too many times.
( steve tries not to think about this, too, feels a bit like relief. that this moment, seeing him, seeing eddie with that lopsided grin and those brown eyes and him, looking up at him. taking his hand. )
steve is very aware that he does a lot of the lifting, very aware that eddie is just nearly spent. his own mind is already onto the next step of all this - getting eddie into his car, taking him back to his house, getting him cleaned up - that he barely notices the hand back on his shoulder. barely notices the squeeze. instead, it feels more like they've righted something that had felt off, like having eddie's hand on his shoulder and getting his own hand around to eddie's side is where it should have been this whole time. ] Yeah, well, it's better than the alternative.
[ there isn't enough energy in him to even think about the town's reaction to eddie. not enough to really worry about what this can all mean, or how eddie might feel. steve's energy and worry and focus is entirely on eddie, who is not in the upside down. eddie, who is breathing, and warm, and may or may not be swaying. who may or may not just collapse right in front of him. ] Yes. [ he says, glancing up like he's actually checking to make sure his car is there before he's looking back at eddie. ] Yes, okay, right. Here- [ and whether or not eddie tries to pull away, it doesn't really matter, because steve's hands are moving, his whole body is turning, and before eddie probably even knows it, steve's got one of eddie's arms around his own shoulders and his arm around eddie's waist.
they're going to make it back together, one way or another, and steve's got enough on eddie that he can force this if he needs to. even if he doesn't think he will. he walks them both to the car, gets eddie situated in the passenger side seat, equipped with water and snacks and a towel and honestly, steve may be coming across a little manic, a little rushed, but he's trying. and whether or not eddie wants the stuff, it gets set in his lap as steve sits him inside and closes the door and runs around, throwing himself into the drivers seat.
home. next step. he can do this. he turns on the car and puts it in drive, speeding off down the highway. ]
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steve seems to operate on a beat much faster, much quicker than eddie is able to be on, because he barely even comprehends the fluid twist harrington makes before eddie’s arm is thrown around a shoulder and a hand is wound around his ribcage. there’s an exhaled oof as meanwhile, his brain plays catchup, some stray thought of well, hewas co-captain of the swim team as explanation and where the hell did that come from?
but in the end, he’s silently grateful for this, for how steve moves and leaves no room for argument, because he isn’t sure he’d be walking to the car. he might have been crawling, were he on his own. maybe he’d have crawled into a bush and slept for five days, even if the thought of sleep inspires a weird sort of inexplicable nausea.
grateful for harrington’s incessant need to keep moving and doing and while wheeler might have been the strategist of the group, the master planner with just enough crazy tenacity to make eddie buy into whatever she said, steve was — well, shit. steve was the one running around and making sure everyone was okay, wasn’t he? who dived in first, who thanked eddie for saving his ass when he did it all himself, who ran around the kids like a border collie trying to keep them all in line. who came to get him. who told eddie not to be the hero and in all honesty, munson thought that mantle was solidly and firmly sewn upon steve’s capable shoulders anyway. it still was, and would remain there.
eddie drops into the passengers seat with very little ceremony and more like a bag of bones. he is about to say something — when a pile of items is dumped onto his lap and his grunt of surprise is somewhat indignant and the car door is slamming shut before eddie can rattle off a retort.
within the span of the steps it takes harrington to slide into the drivers seat, eddie turns his gaze down to actually look at the items on his lap. towel, water, snacks. huh. that was…kind of endearing actually. however, with the manic energy of being fucking alive, being out of a hellscape and the realities of being back in a town where he is wanted for murders not yet having caught up, the look he gives steve when he slides into the driver’s seat is deadpan, allowing his old self to seep back in. ] Harrington, stop, you spoil me.
[ — and then steve takes off with a rumble of the engine and while eddie is notoriously insane in his driving, the lurch knocks him back into his seat, and his hand blindly feeling for the door handle to grip onto. ] Yep-okay —!
[ but it isn’t long until he leans his head back, watching the silhouettes of dark trees race by. he doesn’t even care where they’re going. doesn’t ask, or doesn’t think to because finally, finally, after all the senses have been fired up from tension, from the fear and the stress and the pain, it feels downright euphoric to just be sitting. his hands fold over the hem of his shirt, curl tentatively over his side. the fabric is torn up and gray and mottled with blood stains. there’s a grimace across his face, before one hand goes to his neck. it sports similar bruising to what steve had been walking around with days before, and eddie’s eyes, subconsciously, fall to look at steve’s neck in turn.
quietly: ] Hey, ah, Harrington?
Thanks. For coming to get me. [ he shakes his head, and his smile is wobbly, much like the single laugh spilling from a raspy throat. ] Would have been real embarrassing to, you know, die twice.
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but eddie was alive. is alive. and if it meant saving him over and over again, steve wouldn't hesitate. wouldn't even have to think about it.
it doesn't matter, though, because it's over. it's finally over. all of them are out of there, for good, and eddie is whole. here. even if steve is kind of carrying him on their way to the car. he barely even feels the weight of it, and that is saying something. steve, who hasn't slept in days. steve, who feels wrung out and exhausted and piecemeal even now. steve, who - if needed - would probably carry eddie all the way home to his house. it makes him feel a bit invincible, the way the feeling of success floods through him. so much so that he has to remind himself they're not safe yet.
eddie lands into the passenger seat with a thud, and if steve wasn't so focused on just getting on the road he might have worried over even that. instead, steve is all but diving into his own driver's seat. is turning on the car and letting whatever music he'd had in there blast through the speakers. eddie says you spoil me and for whatever reason, that just makes steve laugh - something exhausted, something a little too bubbly, something that might just be thinking this worked. ]
Shut up, Munson. [ for whatever reason, it's said with a smile. a glance over into the passenger seat as steve all but tears off across the highway. he should be worried about a cop, worried about curfews and other people out on the road, but he feels too...what? good? relieved? ecstatic? he keeps his eyes on the road and avoids any of the cracks left behind, two hands on the steering wheel. after a short time he does manage to slow to something more manageable, but it's hardly the speed limit.
the music must shift just at the right time, must turn to a slower song, because steve is just able to make out the quiet ah, harrington?. it draws steve's eyes over, catch eddie looking back at him.
( his chest does not tighten, his heart does not skip a beat. ) ]
Huh? [ he says, eloquently. because in all reality, steve doesn't quite get what eddie is getting at. what he's trying to say. the confused look is probably familiar to the other boy enough by now, but still steve can't help but look over at him again, brow furrowed.
thanks for coming to get me he says, and steve just...doesn't get it. why eddie thinks he wouldn't have. it very nearly makes steve angry, a flash of something protective and a little dark, but he shakes it off. turns his eyes back to the road. tries not to think of a world where he couldn't have had this chance, where instead of eddie breathing, alive, here, it had been the alternative.
steve swallows. ] I mean, yeah, man. Of course. [ a beat, and then against steve's best efforts to keep his eyes on the road, he looks over at eddie a third time. ] Is that what happened? Did you really...you know. Die?
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maybe — maybe he can just sit in the bliss of ignorance for a little bit more, before he goes in for the questions. maybe he’s earned that much. maybe he can later ask steve why he thought he was talking to max before, why the town looks turned upside down (did they lose?), was he still wanted for murder and why steve looks like hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. the guy looked haggard too, bags under the eyes.
eddie watches steve’s profile for a moment longer, catching the motion of him looking away from the road to him and back to the road. catches the defined confusion. seems to remember that he’s staring, which might be bordering on rude so he looks away.
of course, steve says, like it’s the easiest, most obvious thing in the world and eddie can’t help but wonder how everything about him seemed to come so simply. maybe that aligned with the reputation of being the unseated king. maybe it aligned with henderson’s worship, which Eddie would loathe to admit he now understood. it surprised eddie to no small degree that he too was tugged into that orbit, with how natural falling back into this seemed to feel.
at the question, eddie snorts, turning back to look at the road ahead, at the rushing trees that open up into town. the song on the radio is slow and lulling and not at all good. he twists a ring on his finger, unable to keep too still. ] Yeah, yeah I think so. [ it’s hard to answer — and maybe steve can forgive that much, given that eddie is ostensibly back from what most people don’t return from. ] I just — I remember it being cold. And Henderson, you know, getting to me? And then — kind of like nothing, man. Nothing for a really long time, until I heard some girl’s voice? [ fingers pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes close briefly and he shakes his head. is it bad that he just needs a beer? ] I don’t think I recognized it, but she just said no. Just nope! [ a wave of his hand, some fingerwag for emphasis.] And I was suddenly back there again, and I guess alive because if I was anything else this shit wouldn’t be stinging so much, you know?
So — so I guess I was something, at least, but I know I was gone. [ he laughs, and it strains enough to teeter off into a groan. ] I know that sounds insane. Or well, [ he considers it a moment, tipping a crooked little smile. ] More insane than everything else.
[ he clears his throat, rubs both hands across his face, before going for the water bottle. ] But, you know, enough about me — what the hell happened to Hawkins? Why does it look like the shit we were trying stop actually happened?
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( he doesn't know what it means, how okay with that concept he is. how part of him wishes they could just stay here forever - in this car, surrounded by shadowed trees, his headlights the only thing pushing them forward. eddie, who is definitely staring at him, who is living and breathing and looking at him, and steve... he's kind of okay with it. with this. with whatever this is. )
steve feels a bit sick, when eddie says yeah i think so. feels his hands tighten around the steering wheel. there's really no reason that it should hurt this much, hearing eddie's side of this, dustin getting to him, feeling nothing at all. he hates even thinking about it, which makes it that much easier to focus on the next bit of information, to feel his face scrunch up even as his eyes are on the road. ]
No? That's all she said? Just no? [ steve almost asks who, but eddie just said he didn't know. and because that doesn't make any sense. like - it is crazy, right? crazier than normal? though steve might not have a great handle on what that's supposed to even mean, these days, with a crater fully quartering off the entire town.
and maybe he should be taking that into account. how this is crazy, yes, but everything is always crazy. this isn't the first time that steve's entire world view has been turned on its head, and it probably would be the last. if anything, it's the sound of eddie's groan that worries him, how the laugh can barely hang on. it tightens something inside his ribs, something painful and protective, but steve just keeps driving. keeps wishing he could either go faster, or that he lived closer.
which of course means eddie asks him exactly what steve wasn't even thinking about. about the shell around them, the chaos he and the others have been trying to work through for the last day or so. steve sighs, keeps his eyes on the road. ]
They're calling it an earthquake, but something must have gone wrong. The gates opened and cut through town - four segments, just like we were afraid of. I don't know if it actually happened, because he's not...you know. Here? Vecna, I mean. But something happened.
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in a selfish way, eddie would be fine with this lasting longer than it will, and he really doesn't feel like thinking on the why.
eddie shrugs, a hand thrown up, some defeated gesture in the face of steve's reaction. in the meantime, the water bottle is chugged down. who knew one could get so thirsty walking around for hours half dead in an alternate dimension? the plastic crunches under his hands, and it almost makes him frown. like the sound is too harsh for the lull of this spell, like that might snap it too. ] Yep, that's all! Just no. I — I can't even describe the place I was in, dude. [ if nothing was a place, it would be where he was. it wasn't biblical in any stretch. no stairway to heaven or highway to hell. it had been a little less than death. he doesn't go into trying to describe it further, though. it wouldn't make sense, and he'd just sound more and more like a madman. which was saying something and it isn't that he thinks that steve fully disbelieves him but — look, the guy already looked stressed as it was and some part of eddie rallies against that, concern crawling up to sit somewhere in the back of his mind, chased closely by some want to prevent any more. they've been through enough, he'd reason, were he to reflect on it. that steve had a tendency to carry the weight of responsibility on those shoulders of his and maybe there's guilt somewhere in there at the prospect of adding more. so what he supplies is dismissive. they wouldn't get their answers like this anyway. ] Look, someone just revivified my ass and I have no idea why, or how. Maybe — maybe I just got lucky, somehow, I don't know.
[ what steve tells him about the town is disconcerting. horrible, really and eddie listens with some dread creeping up to sit in the hollow of his suddenly dry throat. months back, if someone were to ask, eddie would say he cared about hawkins just about as much as hawkins cared about him. and while he held no illusion that it wouldn't care if eddie munson, accused murderer, never returned from the unknowable death, this wasn't a fate he ever wished upon it. actually, it was something he had adamantly wanted to help prevent and he tries not to feel like it's just one big slap to the face. ] Shit. An earthquake? [ he hopes this is where the parallels to the vecna he'd known before they gave the name to a very real, tangible evil, stopped. he hoped that he couldn't come back, that this was just a last stand thing, that — his eyes widen, head snapping back to steve. ] — wait, but the gates opening — I thought he needed to get four kills, [ it feels difficult to say out loud, without his mind going to the night chrissy died, to mayfield — ] — but you said everyone made it out. Including Red?
[ maybe its a moot point, maybe he should back off with the questioning. he's tired, he's so tired and so is steve but he can't stop from asking. there's a part of him that wants to make sure that it was worth it. that his was the only loss. ]
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There's another in there if you're still thirsty. Food too. [ and no, eddie, for the love of god do not make fun of him right now. then he's sitting back, back to driving, back to listening to eddie explain what he is pretty sure is damn near impossible, and yet...
he's getting tired of thinking the impossible is actually impossible. and maybe, this once, he'll just have to be okay with it. with the fact that this worked. with the fact that eddie is-
part of steve seizes up, panics, almost slams the car to a stop just because he needs to reach over and make sure that eddie munson is still breathing. it catches him off-guard, the sudden need to double-check, but then eddie is speaking about being revivi-whatevered and sounds dismissive and exhausted and steve doesn't really blame him. nothing they are going to talk about here will change anything, they're not going to find venca or fix hawkins or wake max up. all they can do, really, is getting eddie back. get him cleaned up, let him sleep, maybe feed him a little more. steve tries to hide how that moment of panic is still rattling somewhere behind his ribcage, tries to breathe normally as they drive, and then there is the question. the one that has steve wincing, the one that has him sighing.
because the truth is - he doesn't know about red. none of them do. he sat at the hospital for hours with lucas and erica and dustin. he did what he could with the parents, explaining what happened, pushing off nurses who tried to look too closely at his neck. dustin, who had just finished sobbing. lucas, who couldn't stop. it makes steve's skin crawl, thinking about her in that bed, thinking about any of those kids in that room. and after billy- ]
She's alive. [ steve says, his eyes still to the road in front of them. his words are clipped, stern, almost like he's trying to convince himself as much as eddie. ] But she's not... [ he bites into his lip, tries to swallow back the tightness in his chest, that very same guilt that steve just can't quite shake. ] The doctors said she's in some kind of coma. She's breathing, still, but hasn't woken up yet. They're not sure when she will.
[ if she will, he doesn't add. they're getting close to his place, just another couple of miles. suddenly, the car is feeling a little too small. suddenly, he misses the rv. ]
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there might be an urge to make a comment about how well prepared steve was. and maybe eddie does so without vocalizing, a look to his feet then back at steve with brows that quirk up, something minutely amused in the expression that steve may or may not catch in his periphery.
in the gaps between his speaking of his not-death and dropping off to reconsider, eddie's attention catches on to the palpable tension quickly — eyes on steve's hands, suddenly white-knuckling the steering wheel. thinks he hears the hitch of breath and he's perceptive enough to recognize the telltale signs of panic. the guilt follows soon after, some worry of having been the one who caused it by asking, or being, or whatever. there's guilt and there's worry and the inexplicable urge to reach out. instead, his hands play with the corner of the towel still sitting on his lap, awkwardly unmoved from where steve had dumped it.
she's alive, but there's a but, of course there is and eddie just sighs. ] She will. It's Mayfield we're talking about here. [ he says, quietly. he doesn't know that for sure but there's something in the back of his mind that pulls on that thought anyway. and he can't help but think of that place again, of that vast void of an in-between, glassy surface and dark for infinity and he can't explain why his mind tries to reach for that connection, but he finds himself hoping she's not stuck there too.
he stays quiet for a little while longer — not too long, silence hanging only for a few beats before eddie gently asks, can't not after he'd caught steve's mostly well-hidden panic: ] Hey — you okay?
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but then there is the panic, the tension, the sudden feeling that maybe none of this is real. that maybe this is just another vecna vision, because they'd never found his body, did they? this could all be some lie, some weird vision crafted by that stupid dark wizard because he knows who it was who barbequed them. and maybe that is where this fear is coming from, this panic. maybe part of steve is terrified that this whole thing has just been a hallucination and he's actually floating fifteen feet over his pool in his back yard.
none of that is helping though, so steve reminds himself to just keep driving. to focus on the next step in front of him. eddie, in the passenger seat, still breathing. eddie, asking about what happened and steve just sort of. doing his best to explain it. she's still breathing, he reminds himself. she's still breathing. ]
Yeah. [ steve doesn't meant to sound so down about it. doesn't mean to sound defeatist. he knows the only thing they can do at this point is wait, and eddie is right, it is mayfield. if anyone was going to beat this, it would be her.
the silence that follows has steve...not spiraling, necessarily, but worried. concerned. his mind bounces from eddie to dustin. dustin, who he still needs to tell. to lucas, who is probably still at the hospital. robin, who steve probably needs to check on, and nancy, who still can't reach mike, whose mom is a wreck. and then his own parents, who definitely haven't called home, who had been on another work trip and probably don't even know what's happening, and-
eddie's voice breaks through his thoughts, and while steve doesn't jump, necessarily, there is a kind of wince. a kind of belated realizing that he'd sort of drifted off, thought wise, away from the drive. you okay? ] What? [ a glance over, and steve presses his lips together. not quite a smile, but something. ] Yeah- no, I'm okay. [ a small shake of his head as he's looking to the road again. he pulls down his street, just another few houses and they'll be there. steve resettles in his chair, trying as best to ignore just how fake his answer had sounded. trying to think about how he doesn't really know why it feels like he's lying when, objectively, yeah. he's fine. ] It's just weird, I guess. Usually when this shit happens, it just...goes away. Now... [ his fingers lift up from the wheel, sort of half gesturing to the road around them. to hawkins. to the battlezone the whole town has become. ]
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but, if this isn't real, if this is vecna's idea of revenge and steve was floating fifteen feet over a pool, then eddie would hate to think where he would be.
but — pain makes things a little more real. its tangible, its difficult to ignore and while he isn't sitting in head-splitting agony, there's dull aches and pulls enough to remind him that he's still a mess, that that'll be something he needs to take care of, that it's going to suck even worse tomorrow.
he can almost hear steve thinking — if such a thing was even possible and while he can't even begin to guess what's going on inside that head of his (seriously, how does his hair do that after going in and out of the upside down?), it must not be anything too good and almost in unprompted unison that might have been an inevitability, munson thinks of them too. you better wake up, red, he thinks, because he hates the idea of how devastated lucas must be. the kid had constant puppy eyes when he looked at her. and then there was dustin — dustin, who eddie wanted to see so badly, but also found the thought difficult. difficult not to feel guilty when the last interaction you had with the closest thing to a little brother was you dying in their arms, bloodied and afraid and that's one hell of a trauma. and buckley and wheeler and —
yeah, nope. a bad spiral to go down on. a spiral for later, later.
he can sympathize with the turmoil evident in steve's head, really, and eddie listens with a hum of acknowledgement, and doesn't buy that bullshit non-answer, makes a mental note to annoy harrington with that question again at another time. ] Mhm, yeah. Yeah, sure. [ eddie watches the turn down the street, watches the houses passing on by with a frown. this was a way opposite neighborhood from the trailer park. nice houses with nice lawns, with a nice backdrop of ruin somewhere a few streets down. where were they — was steve taking him to his house? ] Can't really shove this one under a rug. Wonder if they'll say it's because of the cult stuff? [ see, its funny, because it's true. though now that he says it outloud, that's probably exactly whats happening and he find himself laughing under-breath. ] I'm going to have to keep hiding, aren't I?
[ another house passes by and it feels like they're getting close but eddie finally, finally runs out of patience enough to ask — ] And seriously, pray tell, where are you taking me?
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a part of steve tries to focus on the specifics. on the feel of his car under his hands. on the lights on the road, the pot holes, the breaks in the asphalt. it's better to focus on that, right? on what he can do, on eddie breathing in the seat next to him, on what is coming next and then right after. steve knows he's not a strategist, knows he's not going to be of help to anyone if he even tries, so he puts the effort into not worrying.
at least eddie doesn't bug him about it now. whether or not he believes the answer, he lets that lie hang in the air instead of trying to poke at it, and the appreciation steve feels is immeasurable. eddie mentions something about cult stuff, about rugs, about what people could possible do with this town, but steve only listens to half of it. instead, he focuses on the familiar road. on what he's going to do once they get here. on if he remembers if he should clean eddie's wounds first or if she should shower first or-
i'm going to have to keep hiding, aren't i?
a part of steve deflates at that. ] Yeah, man, probably. At least until we can reach...I don't know. The government guys. [ steve vaguely recalls their contacts, that hopper always had someone to reach. but that doesn't help them much, now, does it? not with him dead. not with joyce in freaking california and no one able to reach will or mike or jonathan or-
the questions catches steve off-guard, mostly because he'd gone into this with his house as part of the plan. had known every step would involve coming back here. it surprises him, in a weird way, that eddie wouldn't also just. assume. ] My place. [ he says, checking his rear view mirror before making the last turn and driving up into the driveway. the house is dark (it always is) and the driveway is otherwise empty other that steve's car. ] C'mon- you can get cleaned up inside. [ steve puts the car in park and starts getting out, all but throwing his door open before the thought strikes him and he turns. ] You need help?
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maybe if he hides long enough, people will forget. he's yet to see the posters the town has been putting out, and maybe that remains for the better. he's still the town witch, then. still wanted for murder, grand theft auto, and whatever else they can strap in on top of that and truly was he living up to the munson name after all. wouldn't dad be proud. at steve's answer, he can't help but to chortle. ] Oh yeah, the government guys. Of course, they'll definitely help — hey, who did you say started this whole psychic superpower kid program thing? [ look, it isn't that he isn't trusting steve, it's just that — when did the government is the history of time immemorial actually help in a timely, beneficial fashion? and he's not yet met the efficienct connections of hopper and the unstoppable tenacity of one joyce byers, doesn't know of their existence near as much as steve doesn't know of their survival. he doesn't know those forces combined could take on a work camp in kamchatka and win, so what would be a few precise little phone calls?
besides, he doubts there's a fix-all for the town's accusations. no, no, the fix all is time. its hiding until they're no longer interested, until they've moved on. he'll have to — he'll have to figure it out.
(in the back of his mind, somewhere, near insidiously, a thought forms of would steve let him crash in his place for a while? and then comes the appropriately timed answer.)
he shouldn't feel giddy about getting to see king steve's house, but there's a sort of spike of curiosity when steve tells him, when they turn into the driveway with the dark house at the end and it looks — starkly similar to the myopic version of it that munson had found in the upside down. he leans forward in the seat, hands on the dash, to get a better look. everything looked so different down there, he thinks, covered in those vines, ash and haze. it's followed by the realization that he was talking to steve by his pool. he certainly wasn't going to assume part of steve's plan was to bring him back to his house, and yet he can't stop the smallest warmth of satisfaction at the thought.
he hears steve swinging the door open. eddie follows that motion automatically, reaches for his own and brushing the offer off. ] Nah, man, I'm good. I'm toootally — [ something stubborn rears its head at that, that steve has already done plenty, that eddie can drag his sorry, half-alive ass inside himself. though it isn't at all elegant, the way he gets out. right foot slips out, arm grasping blindly for a hold and then he's twisting out with a death grip on the door but goddamnit he's fine!] — good.
[ with that stubborn little intent, he makes a move for the front door. ]
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there's no real way to spin this, though. no real way to make this better than it is. steve wishes he could, a positive outlook he'd told robin way back when. but there's only so much you can do with this. which, for all the sarcasm that eddie munson bites back with, steve is kind of glad for that, too. ]
Well- okay, yeah, it was the same guys who started it, but they also always come back and clean up after all this shit, too. They don't want it getting out, you know? Like with the mall fire. [ did they tell eddie about that? steve doesn't know, but it's also not a matter of trusting the government or not trusting the government. because really? steve doesn't even know how he feels about it. but the truth of it is that after every situation, every other time they've fought these things, had to deal with the upside shit, the government had never been far behind. whether or not they'll do anything, whether or not they'll help, they will be there. it's a factor they have to take into account.
steve doesn't notice the curiosity. or, maybe he does, but he takes it for something else. maybe worry, maybe pain, maybe...honestly, he has no idea. he's never been all that good at reading people, so what would make him think he'd be able to read eddie munson, of all people? but there's something in the way eddie's hands go to the dash, something about how he leans forward to try and get a better view, it's almost...cute? steve kind of smiles to himself for half a moment, just half, before they're pulling into the drive and steve is hesitating before he gets out. watching as eddie brushes off the offer and goes for the door and-
yeah, it doesn't really fly. steve's all but jumping out of his side of the car, slapping the door closed behind him, and then he's already on the other side - at eddie's side, just in time to watch his foot miss that step. ] Dude, you don't- [ but it's stubborn, it's there, it's eddie brushing past him and heading for the door and steve... well. steve follows him there, hovering about a step away just in case there's a moment that the slip turns to something more. because that's all it will take, one slip, and then steve will be there, hand at eddie's elbow again, or around his waist.
the door's unlocked, if eddie gets there by himself. if not, steve will reach for it himself, pushing open the door and pulling them both inside. ] It's fine, no one's home. Here- watch your step.
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Yeah, you know, there was a whole lot off about that mall fire story. [ he continues the passing comment, but doesn't exactly carry on with the point. doesn't think its necessary to point out that if they didn't want things getting out, maybe they would try to clean things up faster than a group of tweens does. but that's neither here nor there either. he just hopes — he hopes he isn't the convenient scapegoat, a nonconformist freak on the sidelines thats the easy way out.
in retrospect, he considers the fact that steve would have more experience there, that steve spoke in passing about some russian lab and this or that and honestly? in that moment, that expertise would be enough.
he carries on with the approach to the house, trying to wave him off, can feel the guy hovering behind his every step and only comes close to slipping once, until they reach the front porch and eddie stops at the door, as though politely. there's some uncertainty there too, brows creased as he wonders how much more sneaking he would need to be doing until harrington answers it for him and says no one's home, reaching across to open the door and eddie is a little too slow to get fully out of the way — just enough to lean back, maybe. ] Oh, great. Because, you know, I didn't bring a fruit basket or anything. [ seeing it as much an invitation as anything, eddie walks on through, a little (a lot) stiff, before he's throwing looks around the spacious room. its quiet, telltale feelings that make it seem a lonely house, for all its rooms. ] So - this is home sweet home, hmm?
[ he'll fall back, and wait instead to follow steve in, giving him a slightly sheepish smile. the more time he spends standing, the more aware he is of how much he hates the motion, how much better sitting felt, and how heavy the jacket is sitting.
he rolls weary shoulders to shrug it off along the way — or tries to, if the action doesn't send pinpricks of pain through the shoulder up the neck, if his elbow doesn't get stuck in the sleeve, if the action doesn't feel entirely impossible right now and he must make some disgruntled noise as he struggles through it, only to knock a knee into a cabinet in the process. ] Ah, shit, come on.
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off was one way of putting it, yeah. but steve didn't have the energy to even start getting into that.
so instead, he hovers behind eddie as they make it up to the door. eddie stops right inside the porch, like he's waiting for an invitation, for someone else to ring the bell. there's a brief, unasked for thought of like a vampire before steve huffs a kind of laugh, reaches forward and opens the door for them both. eddie mentions something about a fruit basket, and steve sets a hand to his back, pushing him through the threshold, and potentially grabbing a fistful of that tattered leather jacket just in case he pushed too hard. ]
Can you not be weird for like, once? [ he says, almost fond. almost joking. and then they're both walking through into a dark entry way. steve, once he is confident enough that eddie can remain standing, will push through further inside and flip on the lights.
home sweet home eddie says with all the same level of drama and sarcasm that steve's started to expect from him. so instead of answering, steve just snorts a laugh that lacks any actual humor to it. it's a house, more than it is anything. a place he was raised, maybe, empty hallways and sterile rooms and parents who don't trust each other. parents who are never home. steve doesn't think about it, never really lets himself think about it, and instead just moves through the house like he doesn't actually belong here (because it doesn't really feel like he does) and drops the backpack at the foot of the stairs. he has plans to maybe head back to the kitchen, if eddie really can walk as well as he says he can, but at the clamor of noise, steve looks back over to see eddie teetering and in two quick steps he's back to eddie's side, hand back to his elbow again. ]
Dude, okay, time to get cleaned up. [ and if eddie even tries to put up a fight, steve will force him. also, don't perceive his mom tone, either, munson. ] Upstairs, let's go.
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but then there's a hand on his back urging him through, jacket taut where steve had gripped onto it an and there is time enough for a grin to be tossed over his shoulder because maybe steve should know better than to ask for something less than weird from one eddie munson, tattered jacket and near giddy from blood loss and all. (not that the absence of either would take away that particular quirk of his personality anyway. no, steve, it would appear you're stuck with it.)
though something about steve's reaction on home gives eddie pause — something recognizably familiar in how harrington moves through this place like he's existed in it alone more days than not and eddie never considered king steve to be one so well acquainted with the sort of independence that comes from of an absent family. maybe he's jumping to conclusions, drawing connections that aren't there. maybe he can sympathize.
he thought he'd be more elegant about shedding the tattered outer layer, and has just about righted himself away from the cabinet when steve is holding him byt the elbow again, distance closed and he kind of still finds himself surprised at the assurance of it. (still here, still real, still no illusions to be found. on and on and repeat). but he doesn't have long to contemplate that any further, like a broken record as it is, as he's albeit being pivoted towards the stairs.
there'll be some resistance, something impulsive that tries to sell the idea to eddie that he's doing better than he is, that he didn't just get up after dying and walk for miles, or lose way more blood than a body should be without. the hesitation gives way only after a moment, as soon as his head spins a bit too much (not dissimilar to a bad hangover, really) before he lets himself be directed upwards. his hand reaches out to grip a handrail. ] Okay, but just so you know, you're like walking into mom jokes left and right. [ eddie chances to toss another look over his shoulders, midway up the stairs. ] I mean, you always this bossy, Harrington? [ and if that can sound suggestive, that's none of eddie's concerns, is it? ]
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so, you know, he doesn't. doesn't let it affect him (as much as he can). he gets up and he goes to work and he just keeps putting one foot in front of the other, a lot like he does now. one foot, and then the next, a hand to eddie's back, not quite shoving him up the stairs. and yeah, eddie might shoot him a grin over his shoulder, and yeah, that grin might be a little unwieldy and a little loose but it's still there, because eddie is still there, and steve doesn't bother holding back the partial smile that follows his rolled eyes. ]
Yeah, yeah. [ but eddie is still walking up the stairs, still following steve's guidance, and for all the sharp words or sarcastic remarks, he's not really putting up a fight. steve sees eddie' reach for the handrail and slows down a bit in his pushing, if only because he doesn't want to send him off-balance. plus, steve can be patience, waiting to make sure eddie's steady again before he continues up after him, glancing up just in time to see eddie shoot that look over his shoulder. to catch the suggestive-ness about it.
and steve, to his credit, just sort of laughs. ] I guess I kind of am. Guess that happens when I end up babysitting whenever the world is going to shit. [ not that anyone ever - the kids especially - listen to him. ever. but that's besides the point. right now? right now steve will be as bossy as he needs to be if it means getting eddie settled, keeping eddie okay.
and right now, for steve, that means getting him up into that guest room and getting him cleaned up and bandaged, considering steve is pretty sure he can smell the blood that currently coats eddie's clothes. ] Up here on the right.
[ considering that eddie noticed about steve's reaction to the house itself, the guest room is probably a fantastic representation of that same feeling. it's nice, nice enough, decorated to the best of steve's mom's ability. the colors, the painting on the wall, the bed. but there's a kind of distance even still, a kind of sterile feeling despite the tasteful interior decorating. but steve doesn't really care, because it does have a bed, and it does have an en-suite with a shower, and steve's room is right down the hall.
as soon as eddie steps inside, though, steve's hand leaves his back and he's moving again, turning on the lights in the main room and also the bathroom, pulling out towels, checking to see if there's any first aid stuff under the sink or if he put it all in his backpack which he did leave downstairs. ]
I'll get a change of clothes for you- [ steve says, still rustling around under the sink. he lets out a sigh, mostly because yeah, no, there's nothing here, which is annoying, but not the worst thing in the world. he assumes, distantly, that eddie will be trying to peel off that vest, that jacket, the bandana that is somehow still tied around the top of his head. ] -but there are towels and stuff in here. Don't worry about the sheets or anything, Robin showed me this great trick to get blood out of everything, and it's not like my parents even come up here even when they're home.
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and if steve and dustin and everyone else can just keep going, then eddie would have to as well. considering he was given that chance in the first place.
but, it was becoming easier, really, to count the times he's made steve roll his eyes at him already, in the span of this rescue and even now, even with the current state of things and harrington's focus, it was starting to be fun. despite, you know, walking half-dead up the stairs and stinking of blood and he laughs. ] Can't catch a break, huh?
[ the guest room looks and feels more like something out of one of those decorating magazines than it does belonging in someone's actual house. eddie, taking the chance to catch his breath when steve isn't looking, lest he come on worrying and hovering again, considers the space and tries not to feel insanely out of place. even harrington moved more like a stranger the more eddie turned his attention to it - focused instead on something pragmatic — like being a host — rather than like...well, eddie's not sure. rather than like he lived here, maybe. ] Yeah — ah, cold water right? [ he says so absently, only half listening to what steve is telling him as he focuses on trying to de-layer himself, becoming a little too aware at how clean the room around him is and how starkly stained his clothes are. like how the light is too bright, and just how much blood is on him, between his rings.
the bandana drops off first, and the vest shrugs off the simplest, a heap at his feet, until he actually gets back to trying to peel off the leather jacket and one arm is halfway out while the other catches in the sleeve again and the mobility is limited enough as it is and nearly knocks the breath out of him, fabric snagging against one of the many bites thats coagulated over his ribcage and he tries to play it off cool, except that steve is also saying something about towels and clothes and he should be following along and eddie just tries to angle himself out of his current predicament as best as he can. which, likely, leaves plenty to be desired, but yet again — stubbornness rears its head. ] Uh-huh, yeah — [ he adds, hopes it was in good timing to steve's rundown of instruction. ]
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but they had to carry on. they had to keep going. steve had to, for dustin if no one else. and now for eddie, it seemed, who steve almost thought he caught half moments where the last week tried to catch up to them both. eddie, who had just died, and who steve was now apparently setting up in his guest room and who steve would have to tell dustin, and robin, and nancy about at some point and-
eddie, who for some reason, despite the one being nearly ripped in half and stumbling up the stairs, keeps making steve almost laugh. keeps bringing him out of his thoughts when they get heaviest. eddie, who steps into the guest room and looks so wholly out of place and steve who likes it. likes it more than he probably should. the dark clothes, the blood, just him, who would never otherwise be here, but who is. ] Eh, I think so? Something about cold water and hydrogen peroxide or something. I'll call her to make sure, but-
[ and however it is the timing works, steve is turning back just in time to see eddie's breath catch. he's already out of the bandana, out of the vest, and had - steve assumes - been going for the jacket when something went wrong. and the worst part is, steve doesn't even hesitate to ask what, to make sure eddie can do it himself, because in a manner of moments he's right back to him, hands on the jacket, muttering something like- ] Stop, you're going to- here, just put your arms down, let me help. [ steve remembers the feeling, of those bites. of those claw marks. he remembers how his entire body had been sore, torn apart. how even now it feels like he's not quite back together. and eddie's? eddie's were so much worse, punctured through his vest and jacket and shirt, shreds taken from his sides. half a pound of flesh. ] I'm not a doctor, so I can't sew you back together if you rip things open, just. Put your arms out. [ they're simple directions, gentle but firm. bossy, probably, just as bossy as he's been this whole night, but it feels good to kind of have an idea of what he's doing. of what they're doing.
steve's hands are gentle as he slowly, carefully, goes to peel the jacket off and keep aware if it's catching on anything else. and, by doing so, it gives steve his first real look at the damage, at everything, and it stills his hands for a moment because all he can really do is stare. ]
Shit, Munson. [ eloquent, he knows. ]
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the thing that munson was coming to learn more and more about steve, is that the guy didn't seem to stop. stop moving, or doing or worrying too, and that all of it was done with some mix of chaotic efficiency. and then he hears him talking about calling robin — which inspires thoughts of the others again, that tightening apprehension he can't quite define or explain. maybe because it's a reminder that everyone will have to deal with it. that is a series of ups and downs and they're back at compartmentalizing again.
then there's eddie, sticking out like a sore thumb in the crisp neutrals of harrington's guest room. the room smells nice, actually, something like clean linens and a floral soap. and he's thinking he finally caught his breath enough to keep pulling at a sleeve when steve is again just right next to him and he almost jumps. let me help and there's that bossy tone again and it isn't that he hates it that much (or at all) and maybe it other circumstances, he'd take the opportunity to tease him about it some more. see how patient steve is, one high charisma player to another. ] Okay, okay. Jesus. [ eddie says, still a little breathless, reluctant, though seemingly without much protest. only tries to wiggle out of the sleeves where he can and wonders how steve was just up and running only a short while after wheeler wrapped a dainty piece of a sweater around him when the bats came for his pound of flesh.
some errant comment strolls into his mind as harrington tugs down the jacket, something like buy me dinner first, that he bites his tongue on. halfway because he has to, jaw clenched tight.
until steve stills and eddie looks back over to him — with that telltale lurch of worry, with that creeping panic over silence — only to find him staring. he snorts, following the look down to himself, pinching at the torn once-white fabric of the hellfire club shirt. its full of holes now, shredded in some (most) parts. bummer, he liked that shirt a lot. aaand it's going to suck to get out of, isn't it? but there's a lopsided smirk as his eyes turn back to steve, though the humor is half-assed. ] It's these sick tatties, right? [ its definitely the ink, isn't it? though inevitably, his own eyes fall to steve's neck, still carrying the healing remnants of his own run-in with the demobats. he doesn't even want to know how his looks like right now. what comes to mind instead is the quiet ask of: ] Yours still hurting?
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but steve doesn't think too much about that, maybe because it falls into that messy shelf or maybe because he hates remembering the kind of person he used to be. either way, it's just easier to move forward. easier to focus forward (he's already spent enough of his life moving backwards, anyway). and that movement forward apparently, includes eddie munson who tries to move like his entire body isn't in pain. who keeps making jokes and keeps commenting on steve's bossiness and who remains, even after all this shit, so very eddie the freak munson that steve can't help but be grounded by it. steve is careful as he tugs at the jacket, tries his best to keep it from tugging at any of the other wounds, at any of the open, torn apart areas of eddie (and there are so many, so many, that steve starts to feel a little overwhelmed by it). they do get the jacket off, but that feeling remains, and it is probably why steve stills at the sight of it. of eddie's chest, sides, and arms. at the blood, caked over the tears. unwanted, images of eddie's dead body comes to mind. of dustin's hands, gripping at him, saying no, no, no, no, no over and over.
but once again, right as steve feels himself slipping, there is eddie. eddie, who says it's these sick tatties, right? and instantly, steve is back here. in the now. blinks, and he sees more than just the blood and flesh. he does catch some of the ink, some of the tattoos, and steve can't help the way he snorts. ] Sure, it's your sick tatties. [ and even the words feel ridiculous in his mouth, his tone reflective of it. when steve's eyes glance up, he catches eddie's lopsided smile just as it fades, just as eddie's eyes go to steve's neck, where there is still a red, angry mark from the demobats tails.
the quiet of eddie's voice is what strikes steve the most, something fragile, but honest in it. steve lets out a breath as he drops the shredded leather jacket to the bed. your still hurting? and steve considers his answer for a moment, because there's no point in lying, is there? no point in trying to push it off? robin had asked him about his neck, nancy about his sides, and for both of them he'd pushed it off. nah, not much, it's fine. here, though, in the quiet of his own home, with eddie munson, bloodied and loud and different, looking to him and asking if he hurts, steve can't find it in himself to sugar coat it. ]
Yeah. [ he says, just as quietly, as his hands move slowly to the hem of eddie's shirt. the next step, the next job. it's going to suck, peeling this off, but they have to do it. but even then he hesitates, just a few inches away from the shredded cotton, as if waiting for eddie to give him the okay. ] It's better, but...yeah.
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it’s easier to make jokes than to let the silence seep in. because if he doesn’t stop focusing on harrington, on that bossiness that carries its own convincing charm, on harrington’s older injuries, a sharp face made sharper still by the evident tiredness, messy hair somehow still falling infuriatingly perfectly (seriously? is it the shampoo??) — if he doesn’t stop focusing on all of that he’s worried about where that would leave him. that it would leave him with his own pain and his own fears and the memories threatening to replay themselves every time he blinks and it would leave him alone —
thankfully, steve answers, looks back at eddie and it feels honest and he lets out a short huff, shakes his head. ] Sorry. That sucks, huh. [ is it too early to say he gets it? he’d probably be the best one to get it though, all things considered, standing here looking like a wreck. inevitably, his own thoughts go to that night on the boat. never would have jumped in after you in normal circumstances, and here they were, nothing normal left in the spaces between, and eddie wouldn’t think twice about taking that dive again now.
eyes drop to steve’s hands, reaching for the hem of his shirt, clear enough in intent and eddie makes some non committal wave first, makes some move to try and see if he can lift it off of him himself — only to wince, flinch, and manage to look mildly sheepish when he says — ] Looks like I’ll still need the help of your capable hands, Harrington.
[ he does laugh though, short as it is, a hand hovering over his ribs for a moment longer. ] Pound of flesh. Sooo wish you’d been kidding.