[ it's been a few days since steve all but dragged eddie the freak munson back from the upside down. a few days since eddie the freak munson was not dead, and had apparently been told no, and brought back to life by the sound of some girls voice. it has been a few days, which is the only reason they kind of sort of know that girl turned out to be el, and that any of this is even beginning to make sense.
eddie is still staying at steve's place - they haven't figured out yet if it makes sense to tell eddie's uncle, because they don't really want the town catching on to the fact he's back until they can - as nancy puts it - control the narrative. what that has meant has basically been house arrest, with eddie living out of steve's guest room, and steve in his own. steve still goes out for food and updates, helps out at the high school when he can, checks in on the rest of the kids when he can't. everyone in their circle knows about eddie, which is for the better, considering how bad steve is at keeping that sort of secret, and now it's just waiting to figure out when - if - hopper's government contacts will show back up (because he's also apparently not dead???).
steve's actually not all that mad about the situation, either. his parents had finally checked in, asked about the house, and in hearing that their stuff was pretty unharmed and steve was doing okay, said they would try to get home but it's going to be a few more weeks. steve, as always, told them it was fine, hoped they were having a good time, and hung up without much else to say. eddie staying with him at the very least meant that steve wasn't coming back to an empty house, that he had a reason to come back to the place at all, and that when it came to sleeping, well. again- having another body around was a kind of night and day difference, even if he was down the hall.
except that it didn't fix everything, did it? the nightmare still came like they always did, this time with bats and vecna's face and the upside down, creeping up into his room, until he forces himself awake - gasping for air, damp with sweat. part of him is glad that at least it's shifted away from the russians, away from fists and bodies and blood, though he supposes seeing eddie's body, lifted up into the air, bones breaking in each different direction, is hardly better.
it's a few days later, though, one night when steve is awoken up out of his own nightmare, that he hears it. a sound, a kind of whimpering cry, coming all the way from down the hall. and yes, okay, at the first moment of it, steve had frozen to the spot - terrified there was something in the house - until he remembered.
eddie.
he all but completely jumps out of bed, his heartbeat pounding until he gets to the other's door, pushes it open, prays to whatever god is supposed to be listening that he won't find him floating. please, please, just not-
when the door opens, and with the dim light coming in from the window, steve takes his first breath since waking up. eddie is still in the bed, sheets and blankets tangled around him. the whimpering is him, a kind of broken, terrified noise as he moves in the bed, and steve gets it. a nightmare. it's not all that surprising, hell, steve had just woken up from his own, and he supposes he should just let eddie be. but just as steve's about to turn back to his room, eddie says something. it's in his sleep, sure, mumbled somewhere in the broken, terrified noises he's making, but it stops steve where he stands. not only that, but it draws him into the room, his bare feet padding softly on the thick carpet, all the way over to the side of the bed. worry (and yes, it's always worry - eddie will probably make fun of him for it, too, but steve just can't leave him like this-) has his hand reaching out, settling on eddie's shoulder amid his tossing and turning. ]
Hey- [ he tries to say softly, prepared if eddie strikes out. ] Hey, Munson, it's a nightmare.
[ the first day of coming back from the dead, eddie had — in all sorts of irony in the phrase — slept like the dead, in the blissful nothing of exhaustion, of a body and psyche worn down to the bone. and he had to hand it to harrington — that guest bedroom mattress was comfortable. it had been a nice few hours, before daylight happened and along came the complicated realities. the reality of reunion, difficult but heartfelt and eddie didn’t hide the fact that he cried then too. the reality of hiding again. expected, maybe, but he was just over it. over being called a murderer, and a cultist and blamed for ritualistic sacrifices and it made his stomach turn thinking about it.
though, it was still nothing short of incredible that steve harrington, infamous king of hawkins high and entirely unexpected in so many ways, had not so much as offered his guest bedroom as insisted and the man had all the persuasion, the charisma in the world when he wanted to and at the end of the day eddie munson, fugitive, cultist, alleged dead-man, was bunking down at harrington’s for the next foreseeable future. maybe he ought to feel a little bad, a little like he's intruding. but he doesn't — whether its because munson can be rather shameless, or because harrington really didn't seem to mind, is anyone's best guess. maybe a bit of both.
because after all the noise settles, after henderson finally leaves to go back home; after wheeler stops her strategizing and talks of changing the narrative and all that hopeful crap (he appreciates, it, he truly does), after all of that — including getting help from sheriff hopper, who had absolutely busted his ass several times in the past — after all of this there still remains steve, coming home, because it’s his house after all, and eddie munson doesn’t have a moment to feel alone.
the nights shortly following that fateful first morphed into a much different story, and no cloud mattress and soft bedsheets could keep the nightmares at bay. they taunt him. replay memories of chrissy’s death first, and then the bats and it ebbs and flows and changes the longer he stays asleep. it had become a bit of a personal fight — fighting against closing his eyes, until he finds himself bolting awake with contracted lungs and drenched in sweat.
tonight isn’t all that different other than the fact that the nightmares are worse, instead of showing any signs of mercy. sheets tangle along restless limbs, as eddie tries to fight off an intangible evil and the phrase that might catch steve’s attention is hissed out and desperate —
no, not him, don’t you dare — panic, as the nightmare lifts harrington from the ground, as his bones come so close to breaking he can almost feel it in his own and eddie is helpless again, not again, not steve and —
— and he startles awake, a pressure on his shoulder jolting him back. his hand shoots out in front of him, grasps out at whatever steve is wearing, fist curling as his forearm flattens to steve’s chest. there’s a long-bated moment of where he simply stays like that, wide-eyed and panting. strands of hair plastered to his forehead, heart racing and not-quite healed injuries straining from the tension as he looks up at him — ] Shit — [ eyes try to focus as he leverages himself up to an elbow, as if he’s checking to make sure that harrington is both real and okay, currently leaning over him. the fabric of his shirt remain bunched up between fingers, as though that would keep him from floating up. ] — sorry. Shit. [ a breath longer before his grip eases away, before he seems to come to his senses enough to relax and feel bad about it. ]
[ maybe that is exactly the thing that pulls him in - because while a part of steve had thought to leave him alone, had assumed that maybe being woken from a nightmare was an embarrassing enough thing that eddie wouldn't want to have to face (on top of everything else, of course), steve can't quite pull himself away. not when he hears him, hears those words. no, not him, don't you dare. steve doesn't even know who he thought it was eddie was worried about, whoever it was his nightmare was taunting him with. it could have been anyone - his uncle, an old friend, his dad, dustin, and it's that last option that has steve closing he distance. setting his arm on eddie's shoulder.
he expects the startling, expects the hand shooting out, so steve doesn't react too too much when eddie's fist grabs hold on his ratty old sleep shirt, fingers curling in the worn fabric. if anything, steve specifically holds still through it, even as eddie's forearm flattens to his chest, and the two of them look at each other.
steve watches, a bit mesmerized, as eddie comes back to himself. watches each piece of him come back into focus, his wide eyes and panting breaths. he can't help but notice the details, can't help but watch them play out so close to him. the color of eddie's eyes in the reflected light, the hair stuck to his damp forehead, probably from sweat. steve swears he can feels eddie's heartbeat from where steve's hand holds tight to his shoulder, can feel his own heightened heartbeat. shit eddie says, and tries to sit up, though he doesn't let go of steve's shirt. sorry he follows up with, even if it takes another moment or two before he lets go. and perhaps the worst part about all of this is that steve gets it, that he knows how this feels. ]
You're good, man. Really. [ is all he offers after a moment, as eddie slowly eases back to his senses. as steve can hear something like guilt, or perhaps embarrassment, settle in. there are another few passing moments that steve just makes sure eddie is breathing before he straightens up again, letting his hand fall from eddie's shoulder and in a kind of attempt to brush off whatever eddie might have tried to fill the space with, he moves to step away from the bed, to walk back into the bathroom and return with a cup of water that he sets on the bedside table. ]
The nightmares are killer, huh? [ he tries to offer with a small smile, though the smile itself feels shaky. steve's always a bit shaky in the middle of the night.
and then, a bit suddenly and without even asking, steve just ends up sitting down on the floor next to the bed - back to the bedside table - and lets out an exhale. ] You good?
[ heartbeat so loud in his ears, feeling like it’s in his throat, eddie tries to blink away the nightmare as he looks at up at steve. tries to ignore the imagery still plastered in his brain as the loose sleep shirt slips out of his grasp, as steve’s hand moves away from eddie’s shoulder and his skin feels cold again.
he lifts himself up to sit with a groan, one knee bending to prop an elbow on, hands rubbing at his face, near reluctant in looking away. instead he hears the tap run, and looks over to the glass being set on the bedside table.
his throat is dry, suddenly and sharply so, as his eyes are back on harrington — and as his mind reminds him of the last seconds before he was torn out of fitful sleep. the floating, the goddamn floating, the screeching of those demobats, the impossible angles in which harrington was starting to bend and the tail wrapped around his own throat —
it could have been anyone else that he saw. sometimes it was. not dustin though, not yet. perhaps some part of his psyche spared him of that, if only just. ] Yeah, [ he wheezes out, and it sounds only mildly manic, and tries to return steve’s shaky smile with one of his own, though it probably looks more like a grimace. ] Yeah, I’m good.
[ his stomach rolls, briefly, and he reaches for the glass of water and downs the thing, just in time to catch steve dropping down to sit on the floor, on the thick carpet, right by his bed.
that seems to surprise him, enough to pull him out of the final dregs of fear and eddie, without much thinking, throws his legs over the edge of the bed and slides slowly down until he’s sitting there, on the floor and planted firmly on the plush carpet too. something about that seemed right — more right than anything else has lately been — and it was definitely not so that eddie was simply closer. it definitely had nothing to do with how steve made the noise quieter, how steve sharpened eddie’s focus onto him and away from the rest.
his head tips back, until it leans against the edge of the bed. the ceiling is considered, briefly, before he slides his attention back to steve. ] Yeah, [ he repeats, frowns at that. ] Yours too? [ he’d worry that he had woken him up — worry that he’d pulled steve from rare rest, but something about him already implied that wasn’t true. ]
[ steve knows the feeling - after the first fight he had with the demogorgon in the byers living room, steve didn't sleep for what felt like months, torn awake by gunshots and screams. he hadn't really had time to think about it, with his own graduation lingering, with nancy, still shaken up about barb. with everything else. and it did always feel like right as he might have had time to get through it, where they weren't keeping him up all night, there was something else to deal with. steve knows that feeling well, of blinking awake and trying to remember what is real and what isn't, trying to push through what your brain offers and what is really in front of you.
it's part of why he waits until eddie pulls away from him, first, before he does. part of why, once he does, steve steps over to the bathroom to give him a second to settle. when he sets the glass back down, though, and eddie's eyes shoot up to him, steve freezes to the spot. there's something in that look that settles, cold and hard, in steve's chest. a feeling he understands, yeah, but it still hurts, because there isn't much for him to do about it, is there? and it holds him there, just for that second or moment or however long it takes, up until eddie says yeah and steve feels like he can breathe again, too. eddie gives a shaky grimace, but it's somehow so eddie munson that it works, and he says i'm good and they both know it's a lie, but neither of them have to say anything more about it, and then eddie is drinking the water and steve takes it as his moment to take his seat.
he supposes he probably should have asked, first, if eddie even wanted him to hang out. should have made sure eddie didn't just want to be alone, to deal with all this on his own. but steve feels a bit like he's been strung out himself all night, the memories of his own nightmares fading, but fresh enough to keep his heart beating. he's not going back to sleep any time soon, and if the remnants of that panic in eddie's face is anything for him to go by, neither is he.
what he doesn't expect, though, is for eddie to join him. to throw his legs over the side of the bed and slip down onto the floor next to him, but against the bed, and steve watches as eddie settles into the spot. looks up at the ceiling. breathes, wearing an old tshirt and old sweats of steve's. his hair is still damp, still a bit sweaty, but steve thinks he's calming down bit by bit. steve sets his feet to the carpet, his knees bent and arms crossed over his chest. when he feels eddie's eyes on him, eddie looks back, waiting for whatever question or whatever it is he wants to say, and he exhales at the question. ]
Yeah. [ yeah. because what else is there? there is a small pause that follows, just a few moments of silence, before steve is running his hand over his face and up into his hair. ] They usually get better after a while, but. Yeah.
[ eddie is no stranger to long and sleepless nights. but those had been typically spent high or a few beers in, with metallica blasting in the background and learning to play along on the strings, or staying up too late re-reading a beat-up copy of lord of the rings or planning the next sick d&d encounter. most of those times had been spent alone, in his uncle’s trailer, hours filled other things. but that was simpler then - idyllic in a sort of fucked up way those things can be now.
and now instead the sleepless nights are this and there’s too little of them yet to call it a habit but it will inevitably turn into one, that much he can tell. that this isn’t just a bad week of dreams, of parsing out reality to a messed up dreamscape, that something about that place, about the upside down and vecna and everything there had sunk its reach straight into eddie's mind and made its home there, insidious and sharp. that he can still feel the place crawling along his skin, leaving gooseflesh along its wake.
and in that newly forming habit, panic, wake up, ignore, rinse and repeat — there sits steve harrington and eddie can’t help but wonder if he, too, will become a habitual fixture. a part of eddie hoped so. steve harrington, coming so far out of left field, and nearly being the only thing that made any sense.
they sit on the floor in the guest room, eddie in an old shirt that still smells of harrington, one leg outstretched and the other folded under him. he wrings his hands together, twists around the rings and there was never a single moment where munson had thought to ask steve to leave him alone. ]
A while, [ he repeats, eyes back on steve, cast in a sidelong glance. see, say what you will about eddie (the freak) munson, but he liked to think of himself as fairly perceptive when he wanted to be. it was easier to be, in the quiet space of some 2:36 am, when it was just them, with a big house cloaked in pin drop silence. when steve held his entire focus, there in the dim light of the bedside lamp, flicked on or never turned off to begin with. he’d be embarrassed about that, but it lets him see enough of steve’s expression too, of the pupils blown as wide as his own, of his own come-down of a bad proverbial high.
he thinks that if this was bad for him — how much worse it must be for harrington, just considering that this wasn’t his first stint with things worse than make-believe. not even his second.
he folds inward, draws his legs up and props his elbows to his knees, head propped between his hands. fingers threaded back through hair. ] It’s like — you’re so tired but, man. Fuck sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see — [ he cuts himself short, as though remembering just who he’s talking to, mouth twisting up in a slight frown, before gently saying: ] — I guess you can image.
[ he considers it for a moment longer, hums. ] They're not better for you yet, huh, Steve?
[ part of steve actually thinks he might be over-assuming in a lot of this. because yeah, alright, he's had his fair share of nightmares. of sleepless nights where his brain never really turns off and the worries stack higher and higher until he's fairly certain he's going to collapse under the weight of them. he knows the creeping, unexpected fears that wrap themselves around your ribcage and slowly tighten until you forget what it is to take a full breath for the first time, and he knows the bone aching exhaustion that follows.
but eddie..eddie died. eddie was torn apart by bats. eddie was left in the upside down because they'd all thought it was over, and he found his way back. found some way to communicate, to get steve's attention, to keep going. eddie was left behind in the upside down because he had been dead, and now he was breathing, and steve couldn't even begin to think what that could do to someone's brain. vecna's influence, the upside down's shadow, the demobats' scars. those are grounds for nightmares, and maybe steve is being an ass by being here. if he's inserting himself into the aftermath of every one of eddie's bad nights because some niave part of him thinks that if he can't fix his own shit, maybe he can help eddie's.
a while eddie repeats, and part of steve thinks he said something wrong, while a larger part seems to relax at the companionship in that repeat. in the fact that maybe, somewhere in the early morning and the shadows of the guest room lamp, they both understand.
eddie shifts a bit in how he's sitting, and steve kind of just lets himself watch. lets himself be a bit selfish in how it does help some distant part of him just to watch eddie moving. to watch him breathe, talk, just...move. and maybe it's because these are the hours of the night that steve is usually the most lonely. when he's the most out of touch. there's something about eddie just being here that has been grounding for him, even when he is curled over himself, the tight curl of his frown when he says i guess you can imagine.
and steve just nods, because yeah, he can imagine. he remembers seeing max lifting up into the air. remembers the fear, the panic, the way he'd just screamed. and max had survived. but eddie? the guilt returns, there, turning his stomach in some kind of way that steve almost misses the hum. almost misses the question. but when he catches the end of it, his brows lifting like he's coming back from zoning out. ]
The nightmares? [ even if he'd known that was what eddie meant. still, steve asks, and then whether or not eddie answers, he gives a small shrug of his shoulders. ] Sometimes I think they are, but then other times they're worse than ever. You get kind of used to them, though, which helps. Kind of.
[ there's a pause here, before steve seems to deflate. just a hair, just a breath, but enough. ]
[ maybe this entire thing is based on over-assumption. over-assumption in staying, over-assumption in how eddie feels around steve — quieter, familiar, safe — or how he wonders how steve feels about all of this. about sitting on the floor, not quite criss-cross-applesauce, not quite just hanging out, because the breathing is still broken, still fumbling around the post-nightmare haze. crazier things have happened, he’d have to argue, than king steve wanting to spend time sitting on the floor talking about how neither of them could sleep.
the true depth of the events behind them haven’t exactly caught up with eddie. perhaps there’s cerebral understanding in the fact that he was dead, once, but there is a lack of comprehension. there is still the unshakable dread, that sickly sort of cold that feels sticky on his skin and he can still feel the dark. maybe — maybe the upside down takes more from you than just a pound of flesh. and in all of this, dying had ultimately been the easier part. not in any of the events that led up to it, not the fear or the pain, but — well, he’s not sure how to define it. a part of him didn't want to. but then there was the first breath back, and then everything was moving and thinking and doing and trying to get out, and if it wasn’t for steve, he hates to think how much longer he’d have need to spend down there. so no, steve wasn't ass. steve was a goddamn hero.
eddie turns back around to steve, only to catch him already looking. he blinks, but it’s slow, and the edges of his frown lessen; tightness around his eyes softens. it seems like steve is caught up in his own head and eddie waits with quiet patience, and finds himself wanting to know more of what’s rattling inside there in the first place.
sometimes they’re worse than ever, and eddie deflates at that too. deflates because it givens the unspoken understanding between them shape.
his laugh is sardonic and dry. ] I wouldn’t call it sleeping, Steve. I’d call it losing the battle, maybe.
I’d call it avoiding the inevitable, and you can only run from that for so long, so — [ he exhales, defeated, though the humor seems to be at his own expense. running again and this time from his own mind and doesn't that ever feel like a step down. ] — so I don’t know. Probably got as much sleep as you did, man. [ a gentle callout, if anything, holding steve's gaze for a moment. ]
It feels like it takes a part of you, right? Sometimes I think I'm still there — [ he shakes his head, feels bad for even speaking of it again. ] — if you hadn't come for me, man. If you hadn't —
[ he cuts himself off with a shaky laugh. it's — not that eddie was particularly afraid of being vulnerable as much as maybe he wasn't good at it. and it's just that this particular vulnerability comes with a particularly sharp sense of guilt. the feeling that maybe he's in large part responsible for steve's sleepless nights. sure, even if he stayed dead, it would have stayed the same (over-assumption?) but steve still had to return to go and get him out. because he was too weak and scared of doing so himself. his next words are muttered, quiet and only for the space between them. ] — sorry you had to come down there again. If that — I don't know. Made it worse somehow.
[ there is something about seeing eddie soften that curls, almost dangerously, in steve's chest. or, maybe it's not curling necessarily, but unfurling. loosening something that had been intentionally wedged tight. eddie's frown eases and the lines in his face are a little less defined, his eyes on steve while steve's are back on his.
the sound of his laugh is nice, it's a reminder, even if there is a dark tint to it that steve wishes he could reach across and rub away, like film across a window pane. i wouldn't call it sleeping, steve and steve can't help the way his face does break into something of a self deprecating smile. because yeah, yeah, okay. it's dark, it's kind of edged, but it's true - neither of them are really sleeping, are they? and maybe losing a battle is a sort of over exasperated, dramatic way of putting it, but it's so very eddie that steve can't help but get wrapped up in it. ]
Yeah, yeah, alright. [ and eddie's right, because of course he is. they can't always run from this, they can't always run from everything, and sometimes in those late nights when steve is trying his damnedest just to turn his brain off, it feels a little bit like running.
there is a moment where steve almost tries to make a joke of it, to match pace with eddie's sardonic laugh, to say something about how he bets eddie munson never could have imagined talking about shared nightmares on the floor of steve harrington's guest room. but before he has the chance to open his mouth, eddie's already talking again, saying still there and if you hadn't come from me and sorry and any of steve's smile, any of the humor he'd been holding on to because eddie had offered it to the space between them, slips away. instead, steve just finds himself back to looking at the other boy again. really looking.
steve drops one of his legs flat to the carpet, reaching it over so that his foot pushes at eddie's. he doesn't know why that is what he goes with. why he feels a very sudden need to just have some point of contact, and how that contact can obviously only be shared in a sort of shove, but steve...he doesn't know. he just needs to. ]
Dude. [ because that was the purpose, wasn't it? to get eddie's attention back from whatever thoughts he just lost himself in. to pull him back to this moment, in the semi-dark, while they're sitting on the floor together. and steve...when he speaks next, it's with a kind of exhausted honesty. something he doesn't even try to filter, no matter how vulnerable, or honest, or direct it comes out. ] It can feel that way sometimes, sure, but you're out of the Upside Down, you're never going back. And if for whatever weird, insane, impossible reason you did end up back there, I would go back in there again to get you back. However many times it took. Okay? [ because that's the easier part, and steve - with one leg still outstretched so that his foot is pushed up against eddie's calf and steve's arms still crossed over his chest - smiles, in that exhausted sort of way, as his head falls back against the bedside table. lets his eyes fall closed. ] And if anything, going back in there to get you made my nightmares better, not worse. So don't...don't apologize for any of that.
[ in the time and space that seems to be reserved for only them, in the quiet hours of not quite-morning that brings everything to that liminal pindrop standstill, eddie finds it difficult to look away from steve's face and all the thoughts that pass along the tired, sharp angles. from the easing expression, that beginnings of a smile that further quirk up a corner of his own. that starting hint of humor that seems to come to the surface until eddie keeps talking and that expression changes. that lightness , such as it was, is wiped clean and its back to something serious and dire and eddie hates himself a little more for it. its what makes him stop the flow of words, and look away, back to his knees.
thinks its likely back to something tense, or regrets that he kept talking, until steve's foot is shoving up against his calf and it has him looking back over with some marked sense of surprise and he'd be lying, he'd so be lying if he said his heart didn't skip a beat at the moment when he looks to steve and that tired smile and those honest words as his head falls back against the bedside table, as his foot just sort of flattens against his leg. eddie's eyes fall to the column of steve's neck, with how his chin tips up. to the fading, though no less angry mark encircling around it.
he swallows against a lump in his throat. ] ...Yeah. Yeah, okay. [ voice low, the beginnings of rough, because he's again met with the undeniable fact that he is not, simply, alone. for every moment he doubts it, for every moment he thinks there could be a wall built back between him and the guy he was inexplicably jealous of days before, steve comes careening through all of it with a defiance of expectation, and settles further and further into eddie's ribcage until eddie isn't sure if he'll ever be able to be without him. maybe its dramatic, but eddie had a particular penchant for dramatics anyway.
his leg, gently, gives a single push back against him and that dimpled smirk, that single corner of his mouth tipping back up. ] I mean, I'm definitely not planning on it. On going back, I mean. But — [ he sighs, and maybe there's that penchant for theatrics again, but it doesn't lessen the vulnerability in his own tone, thick with sentiment. ] — I would if I had to, you know? [ he looks surprised, as though he hadn't expected that from him either. ] Like if you had to do your hero shit again and go back in for any other reason, I guess — I guess I'm just saying I'd have to go in after you too. [ it feels like a messy sort of confession. ] 'Cause, you know, now that I owe you like, a Wookiee life debt and all.
[ it's a poor joke, and maybe it won't land, but eddie tries to soften it, to tie it all together with a light pat atop steve's shin. ] So, ugh — right back at you.
[ you made my nightmares better, he'd said. eddie wants to ask if he could stay, for the rest of the night; if they needed rooms separating them. he's so much less afraid now. except for the fact that — he still holds his tongue. and yet, it seems that neither make to move away from this any time soon. ]
[ it does feel like their own space, doesn't it? something safe, even when they both know better. something theirs, even if the room itself is sterile, like something out of a magazine. eddie's been staying here for a couple of days now, sleeping in this room, making his mark on steve's life. and honestly, that is probably why this place feels safe at all. because it's not just the guest room anymore. it's eddie's - little details left around, things messed up, a bed that hasn't been made in days.
he huffs a kind of laugh when eddie agrees with him, the relenting in the yeah, yeah. eddie pushes back against steve's foot, and it has steve cracking open one of his eyes, just in time to see the smile. the dimples. the dramatics in everything he does. but the words that follow are what settle in steve's chest - i would if i had to - and that wipes whatever smile off of steve's face again. that has both his eyes open, his head lifted up from where it had been leaning on the bedside table, because he suddenly feels like he can't let this go. like there's something else in those words that he can't quite catch.
and it's not just the fact he...does not recognize what a wookie is. ]
A what debt? [ because he just doesn't....know. what that is. he blinks, and then shakes his head, his eyes going immediately to where eddie's hand is in his shin, and then back up to him. there's the smile again, as if he's offering something here. like there is something he is handing over across this space, something he hopes eddie can take. will take. what it is, he's not even sure, but it feels...fragile. hopeful, but fragile. ]
Listen, Eddie, this whole shit- [ and honestly? steve doesn't even know what he's saying. and whatever it he's trying to say, he's probably saying wrong. but it feels...important for him to say something. so he just. keeps talking. ] I'm sorry you got wrapped up in it. It sucks- like. Really sucks. But we'll get something figured out- or, I mean, Dustin and Nancy and the rest of them will be the ones to get it figured out. I won't be a lot of help there. But it will work out, it always does.
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mordors.
eddie is still staying at steve's place - they haven't figured out yet if it makes sense to tell eddie's uncle, because they don't really want the town catching on to the fact he's back until they can - as nancy puts it - control the narrative. what that has meant has basically been house arrest, with eddie living out of steve's guest room, and steve in his own. steve still goes out for food and updates, helps out at the high school when he can, checks in on the rest of the kids when he can't. everyone in their circle knows about eddie, which is for the better, considering how bad steve is at keeping that sort of secret, and now it's just waiting to figure out when - if - hopper's government contacts will show back up (because he's also apparently not dead???).
steve's actually not all that mad about the situation, either. his parents had finally checked in, asked about the house, and in hearing that their stuff was pretty unharmed and steve was doing okay, said they would try to get home but it's going to be a few more weeks. steve, as always, told them it was fine, hoped they were having a good time, and hung up without much else to say. eddie staying with him at the very least meant that steve wasn't coming back to an empty house, that he had a reason to come back to the place at all, and that when it came to sleeping, well. again- having another body around was a kind of night and day difference, even if he was down the hall.
except that it didn't fix everything, did it? the nightmare still came like they always did, this time with bats and vecna's face and the upside down, creeping up into his room, until he forces himself awake - gasping for air, damp with sweat. part of him is glad that at least it's shifted away from the russians, away from fists and bodies and blood, though he supposes seeing eddie's body, lifted up into the air, bones breaking in each different direction, is hardly better.
it's a few days later, though, one night when steve is awoken up out of his own nightmare, that he hears it. a sound, a kind of whimpering cry, coming all the way from down the hall. and yes, okay, at the first moment of it, steve had frozen to the spot - terrified there was something in the house - until he remembered.
eddie.
he all but completely jumps out of bed, his heartbeat pounding until he gets to the other's door, pushes it open, prays to whatever god is supposed to be listening that he won't find him floating. please, please, just not-
when the door opens, and with the dim light coming in from the window, steve takes his first breath since waking up. eddie is still in the bed, sheets and blankets tangled around him. the whimpering is him, a kind of broken, terrified noise as he moves in the bed, and steve gets it. a nightmare. it's not all that surprising, hell, steve had just woken up from his own, and he supposes he should just let eddie be. but just as steve's about to turn back to his room, eddie says something. it's in his sleep, sure, mumbled somewhere in the broken, terrified noises he's making, but it stops steve where he stands. not only that, but it draws him into the room, his bare feet padding softly on the thick carpet, all the way over to the side of the bed. worry (and yes, it's always worry - eddie will probably make fun of him for it, too, but steve just can't leave him like this-) has his hand reaching out, settling on eddie's shoulder amid his tossing and turning. ]
Hey- [ he tries to say softly, prepared if eddie strikes out. ] Hey, Munson, it's a nightmare.
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though, it was still nothing short of incredible that steve harrington, infamous king of hawkins high and entirely unexpected in so many ways, had not so much as offered his guest bedroom as insisted and the man had all the persuasion, the charisma in the world when he wanted to and at the end of the day eddie munson, fugitive, cultist, alleged dead-man, was bunking down at harrington’s for the next foreseeable future. maybe he ought to feel a little bad, a little like he's intruding. but he doesn't — whether its because munson can be rather shameless, or because harrington really didn't seem to mind, is anyone's best guess. maybe a bit of both.
because after all the noise settles, after henderson finally leaves to go back home; after wheeler stops her strategizing and talks of changing the narrative and all that hopeful crap (he appreciates, it, he truly does), after all of that — including getting help from sheriff hopper, who had absolutely busted his ass several times in the past — after all of this there still remains steve, coming home, because it’s his house after all, and eddie munson doesn’t have a moment to feel alone.
the nights shortly following that fateful first morphed into a much different story, and no cloud mattress and soft bedsheets could keep the nightmares at bay. they taunt him. replay memories of chrissy’s death first, and then the bats and it ebbs and flows and changes the longer he stays asleep. it had become a bit of a personal fight — fighting against closing his eyes, until he finds himself bolting awake with contracted lungs and drenched in sweat.
tonight isn’t all that different other than the fact that the nightmares are worse, instead of showing any signs of mercy. sheets tangle along restless limbs, as eddie tries to fight off an intangible evil and the phrase that might catch steve’s attention is hissed out and desperate —
no, not him, don’t you dare — panic, as the nightmare lifts harrington from the ground, as his bones come so close to breaking he can almost feel it in his own and eddie is helpless again, not again, not steve and —
— and he startles awake, a pressure on his shoulder jolting him back. his hand shoots out in front of him, grasps out at whatever steve is wearing, fist curling as his forearm flattens to steve’s chest. there’s a long-bated moment of where he simply stays like that, wide-eyed and panting. strands of hair plastered to his forehead, heart racing and not-quite healed injuries straining from the tension as he looks up at him — ] Shit — [ eyes try to focus as he leverages himself up to an elbow, as if he’s checking to make sure that harrington is both real and okay, currently leaning over him. the fabric of his shirt remain bunched up between fingers, as though that would keep him from floating up. ] — sorry. Shit. [ a breath longer before his grip eases away, before he seems to come to his senses enough to relax and feel bad about it. ]
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he expects the startling, expects the hand shooting out, so steve doesn't react too too much when eddie's fist grabs hold on his ratty old sleep shirt, fingers curling in the worn fabric. if anything, steve specifically holds still through it, even as eddie's forearm flattens to his chest, and the two of them look at each other.
steve watches, a bit mesmerized, as eddie comes back to himself. watches each piece of him come back into focus, his wide eyes and panting breaths. he can't help but notice the details, can't help but watch them play out so close to him. the color of eddie's eyes in the reflected light, the hair stuck to his damp forehead, probably from sweat. steve swears he can feels eddie's heartbeat from where steve's hand holds tight to his shoulder, can feel his own heightened heartbeat. shit eddie says, and tries to sit up, though he doesn't let go of steve's shirt. sorry he follows up with, even if it takes another moment or two before he lets go. and perhaps the worst part about all of this is that steve gets it, that he knows how this feels. ]
You're good, man. Really. [ is all he offers after a moment, as eddie slowly eases back to his senses. as steve can hear something like guilt, or perhaps embarrassment, settle in. there are another few passing moments that steve just makes sure eddie is breathing before he straightens up again, letting his hand fall from eddie's shoulder and in a kind of attempt to brush off whatever eddie might have tried to fill the space with, he moves to step away from the bed, to walk back into the bathroom and return with a cup of water that he sets on the bedside table. ]
The nightmares are killer, huh? [ he tries to offer with a small smile, though the smile itself feels shaky. steve's always a bit shaky in the middle of the night.
and then, a bit suddenly and without even asking, steve just ends up sitting down on the floor next to the bed - back to the bedside table - and lets out an exhale. ] You good?
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he lifts himself up to sit with a groan, one knee bending to prop an elbow on, hands rubbing at his face, near reluctant in looking away. instead he hears the tap run, and looks over to the glass being set on the bedside table.
his throat is dry, suddenly and sharply so, as his eyes are back on harrington — and as his mind reminds him of the last seconds before he was torn out of fitful sleep. the floating, the goddamn floating, the screeching of those demobats, the impossible angles in which harrington was starting to bend and the tail wrapped around his own throat —
it could have been anyone else that he saw. sometimes it was. not dustin though, not yet. perhaps some part of his psyche spared him of that, if only just. ] Yeah, [ he wheezes out, and it sounds only mildly manic, and tries to return steve’s shaky smile with one of his own, though it probably looks more like a grimace. ] Yeah, I’m good.
[ his stomach rolls, briefly, and he reaches for the glass of water and downs the thing, just in time to catch steve dropping down to sit on the floor, on the thick carpet, right by his bed.
that seems to surprise him, enough to pull him out of the final dregs of fear and eddie, without much thinking, throws his legs over the edge of the bed and slides slowly down until he’s sitting there, on the floor and planted firmly on the plush carpet too. something about that seemed right — more right than anything else has lately been — and it was definitely not so that eddie was simply closer. it definitely had nothing to do with how steve made the noise quieter, how steve sharpened eddie’s focus onto him and away from the rest.
his head tips back, until it leans against the edge of the bed. the ceiling is considered, briefly, before he slides his attention back to steve. ] Yeah, [ he repeats, frowns at that. ] Yours too? [ he’d worry that he had woken him up — worry that he’d pulled steve from rare rest, but something about him already implied that wasn’t true. ]
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it's part of why he waits until eddie pulls away from him, first, before he does. part of why, once he does, steve steps over to the bathroom to give him a second to settle. when he sets the glass back down, though, and eddie's eyes shoot up to him, steve freezes to the spot. there's something in that look that settles, cold and hard, in steve's chest. a feeling he understands, yeah, but it still hurts, because there isn't much for him to do about it, is there? and it holds him there, just for that second or moment or however long it takes, up until eddie says yeah and steve feels like he can breathe again, too. eddie gives a shaky grimace, but it's somehow so eddie munson that it works, and he says i'm good and they both know it's a lie, but neither of them have to say anything more about it, and then eddie is drinking the water and steve takes it as his moment to take his seat.
he supposes he probably should have asked, first, if eddie even wanted him to hang out. should have made sure eddie didn't just want to be alone, to deal with all this on his own. but steve feels a bit like he's been strung out himself all night, the memories of his own nightmares fading, but fresh enough to keep his heart beating. he's not going back to sleep any time soon, and if the remnants of that panic in eddie's face is anything for him to go by, neither is he.
what he doesn't expect, though, is for eddie to join him. to throw his legs over the side of the bed and slip down onto the floor next to him, but against the bed, and steve watches as eddie settles into the spot. looks up at the ceiling. breathes, wearing an old tshirt and old sweats of steve's. his hair is still damp, still a bit sweaty, but steve thinks he's calming down bit by bit. steve sets his feet to the carpet, his knees bent and arms crossed over his chest. when he feels eddie's eyes on him, eddie looks back, waiting for whatever question or whatever it is he wants to say, and he exhales at the question. ]
Yeah. [ yeah. because what else is there? there is a small pause that follows, just a few moments of silence, before steve is running his hand over his face and up into his hair. ] They usually get better after a while, but. Yeah.
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and now instead the sleepless nights are this and there’s too little of them yet to call it a habit but it will inevitably turn into one, that much he can tell. that this isn’t just a bad week of dreams, of parsing out reality to a messed up dreamscape, that something about that place, about the upside down and vecna and everything there had sunk its reach straight into eddie's mind and made its home there, insidious and sharp. that he can still feel the place crawling along his skin, leaving gooseflesh along its wake.
and in that newly forming habit, panic, wake up, ignore, rinse and repeat — there sits steve harrington and eddie can’t help but wonder if he, too, will become a habitual fixture. a part of eddie hoped so. steve harrington, coming so far out of left field, and nearly being the only thing that made any sense.
they sit on the floor in the guest room, eddie in an old shirt that still smells of harrington, one leg outstretched and the other folded under him. he wrings his hands together, twists around the rings and there was never a single moment where munson had thought to ask steve to leave him alone. ]
A while, [ he repeats, eyes back on steve, cast in a sidelong glance. see, say what you will about eddie (the freak) munson, but he liked to think of himself as fairly perceptive when he wanted to be. it was easier to be, in the quiet space of some 2:36 am, when it was just them, with a big house cloaked in pin drop silence. when steve held his entire focus, there in the dim light of the bedside lamp, flicked on or never turned off to begin with. he’d be embarrassed about that, but it lets him see enough of steve’s expression too, of the pupils blown as wide as his own, of his own come-down of a bad proverbial high.
he thinks that if this was bad for him — how much worse it must be for harrington, just considering that this wasn’t his first stint with things worse than make-believe. not even his second.
he folds inward, draws his legs up and props his elbows to his knees, head propped between his hands. fingers threaded back through hair. ] It’s like — you’re so tired but, man. Fuck sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see — [ he cuts himself short, as though remembering just who he’s talking to, mouth twisting up in a slight frown, before gently saying: ] — I guess you can image.
[ he considers it for a moment longer, hums. ] They're not better for you yet, huh, Steve?
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but eddie..eddie died. eddie was torn apart by bats. eddie was left in the upside down because they'd all thought it was over, and he found his way back. found some way to communicate, to get steve's attention, to keep going. eddie was left behind in the upside down because he had been dead, and now he was breathing, and steve couldn't even begin to think what that could do to someone's brain. vecna's influence, the upside down's shadow, the demobats' scars. those are grounds for nightmares, and maybe steve is being an ass by being here. if he's inserting himself into the aftermath of every one of eddie's bad nights because some niave part of him thinks that if he can't fix his own shit, maybe he can help eddie's.
a while eddie repeats, and part of steve thinks he said something wrong, while a larger part seems to relax at the companionship in that repeat. in the fact that maybe, somewhere in the early morning and the shadows of the guest room lamp, they both understand.
eddie shifts a bit in how he's sitting, and steve kind of just lets himself watch. lets himself be a bit selfish in how it does help some distant part of him just to watch eddie moving. to watch him breathe, talk, just...move. and maybe it's because these are the hours of the night that steve is usually the most lonely. when he's the most out of touch. there's something about eddie just being here that has been grounding for him, even when he is curled over himself, the tight curl of his frown when he says i guess you can imagine.
and steve just nods, because yeah, he can imagine. he remembers seeing max lifting up into the air. remembers the fear, the panic, the way he'd just screamed. and max had survived. but eddie? the guilt returns, there, turning his stomach in some kind of way that steve almost misses the hum. almost misses the question. but when he catches the end of it, his brows lifting like he's coming back from zoning out. ]
The nightmares? [ even if he'd known that was what eddie meant. still, steve asks, and then whether or not eddie answers, he gives a small shrug of his shoulders. ] Sometimes I think they are, but then other times they're worse than ever. You get kind of used to them, though, which helps. Kind of.
[ there's a pause here, before steve seems to deflate. just a hair, just a breath, but enough. ]
Have you slept at all the last few nights?
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the true depth of the events behind them haven’t exactly caught up with eddie. perhaps there’s cerebral understanding in the fact that he was dead, once, but there is a lack of comprehension. there is still the unshakable dread, that sickly sort of cold that feels sticky on his skin and he can still feel the dark. maybe — maybe the upside down takes more from you than just a pound of flesh. and in all of this, dying had ultimately been the easier part. not in any of the events that led up to it, not the fear or the pain, but — well, he’s not sure how to define it. a part of him didn't want to. but then there was the first breath back, and then everything was moving and thinking and doing and trying to get out, and if it wasn’t for steve, he hates to think how much longer he’d have need to spend down there. so no, steve wasn't ass. steve was a goddamn hero.
eddie turns back around to steve, only to catch him already looking. he blinks, but it’s slow, and the edges of his frown lessen; tightness around his eyes softens. it seems like steve is caught up in his own head and eddie waits with quiet patience, and finds himself wanting to know more of what’s rattling inside there in the first place.
sometimes they’re worse than ever, and eddie deflates at that too. deflates because it givens the unspoken understanding between them shape.
his laugh is sardonic and dry. ] I wouldn’t call it sleeping, Steve. I’d call it losing the battle, maybe.
I’d call it avoiding the inevitable, and you can only run from that for so long, so — [ he exhales, defeated, though the humor seems to be at his own expense. running again and this time from his own mind and doesn't that ever feel like a step down. ] — so I don’t know. Probably got as much sleep as you did, man. [ a gentle callout, if anything, holding steve's gaze for a moment. ]
It feels like it takes a part of you, right? Sometimes I think I'm still there — [ he shakes his head, feels bad for even speaking of it again. ] — if you hadn't come for me, man. If you hadn't —
[ he cuts himself off with a shaky laugh. it's — not that eddie was particularly afraid of being vulnerable as much as maybe he wasn't good at it. and it's just that this particular vulnerability comes with a particularly sharp sense of guilt. the feeling that maybe he's in large part responsible for steve's sleepless nights. sure, even if he stayed dead, it would have stayed the same (over-assumption?) but steve still had to return to go and get him out. because he was too weak and scared of doing so himself. his next words are muttered, quiet and only for the space between them. ] — sorry you had to come down there again. If that — I don't know. Made it worse somehow.
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the sound of his laugh is nice, it's a reminder, even if there is a dark tint to it that steve wishes he could reach across and rub away, like film across a window pane. i wouldn't call it sleeping, steve and steve can't help the way his face does break into something of a self deprecating smile. because yeah, yeah, okay. it's dark, it's kind of edged, but it's true - neither of them are really sleeping, are they? and maybe losing a battle is a sort of over exasperated, dramatic way of putting it, but it's so very eddie that steve can't help but get wrapped up in it. ]
Yeah, yeah, alright. [ and eddie's right, because of course he is. they can't always run from this, they can't always run from everything, and sometimes in those late nights when steve is trying his damnedest just to turn his brain off, it feels a little bit like running.
there is a moment where steve almost tries to make a joke of it, to match pace with eddie's sardonic laugh, to say something about how he bets eddie munson never could have imagined talking about shared nightmares on the floor of steve harrington's guest room. but before he has the chance to open his mouth, eddie's already talking again, saying still there and if you hadn't come from me and sorry and any of steve's smile, any of the humor he'd been holding on to because eddie had offered it to the space between them, slips away. instead, steve just finds himself back to looking at the other boy again. really looking.
steve drops one of his legs flat to the carpet, reaching it over so that his foot pushes at eddie's. he doesn't know why that is what he goes with. why he feels a very sudden need to just have some point of contact, and how that contact can obviously only be shared in a sort of shove, but steve...he doesn't know. he just needs to. ]
Dude. [ because that was the purpose, wasn't it? to get eddie's attention back from whatever thoughts he just lost himself in. to pull him back to this moment, in the semi-dark, while they're sitting on the floor together. and steve...when he speaks next, it's with a kind of exhausted honesty. something he doesn't even try to filter, no matter how vulnerable, or honest, or direct it comes out. ] It can feel that way sometimes, sure, but you're out of the Upside Down, you're never going back. And if for whatever weird, insane, impossible reason you did end up back there, I would go back in there again to get you back. However many times it took. Okay? [ because that's the easier part, and steve - with one leg still outstretched so that his foot is pushed up against eddie's calf and steve's arms still crossed over his chest - smiles, in that exhausted sort of way, as his head falls back against the bedside table. lets his eyes fall closed. ] And if anything, going back in there to get you made my nightmares better, not worse. So don't...don't apologize for any of that.
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thinks its likely back to something tense, or regrets that he kept talking, until steve's foot is shoving up against his calf and it has him looking back over with some marked sense of surprise and he'd be lying, he'd so be lying if he said his heart didn't skip a beat at the moment when he looks to steve and that tired smile and those honest words as his head falls back against the bedside table, as his foot just sort of flattens against his leg. eddie's eyes fall to the column of steve's neck, with how his chin tips up. to the fading, though no less angry mark encircling around it.
he swallows against a lump in his throat. ] ...Yeah. Yeah, okay. [ voice low, the beginnings of rough, because he's again met with the undeniable fact that he is not, simply, alone. for every moment he doubts it, for every moment he thinks there could be a wall built back between him and the guy he was inexplicably jealous of days before, steve comes careening through all of it with a defiance of expectation, and settles further and further into eddie's ribcage until eddie isn't sure if he'll ever be able to be without him. maybe its dramatic, but eddie had a particular penchant for dramatics anyway.
his leg, gently, gives a single push back against him and that dimpled smirk, that single corner of his mouth tipping back up. ] I mean, I'm definitely not planning on it. On going back, I mean. But — [ he sighs, and maybe there's that penchant for theatrics again, but it doesn't lessen the vulnerability in his own tone, thick with sentiment. ] — I would if I had to, you know? [ he looks surprised, as though he hadn't expected that from him either. ] Like if you had to do your hero shit again and go back in for any other reason, I guess — I guess I'm just saying I'd have to go in after you too. [ it feels like a messy sort of confession. ] 'Cause, you know, now that I owe you like, a Wookiee life debt and all.
[ it's a poor joke, and maybe it won't land, but eddie tries to soften it, to tie it all together with a light pat atop steve's shin. ] So, ugh — right back at you.
[ you made my nightmares better, he'd said. eddie wants to ask if he could stay, for the rest of the night; if they needed rooms separating them. he's so much less afraid now. except for the fact that — he still holds his tongue. and yet, it seems that neither make to move away from this any time soon. ]
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he huffs a kind of laugh when eddie agrees with him, the relenting in the yeah, yeah. eddie pushes back against steve's foot, and it has steve cracking open one of his eyes, just in time to see the smile. the dimples. the dramatics in everything he does. but the words that follow are what settle in steve's chest - i would if i had to - and that wipes whatever smile off of steve's face again. that has both his eyes open, his head lifted up from where it had been leaning on the bedside table, because he suddenly feels like he can't let this go. like there's something else in those words that he can't quite catch.
and it's not just the fact he...does not recognize what a wookie is. ]
A what debt? [ because he just doesn't....know. what that is. he blinks, and then shakes his head, his eyes going immediately to where eddie's hand is in his shin, and then back up to him. there's the smile again, as if he's offering something here. like there is something he is handing over across this space, something he hopes eddie can take. will take. what it is, he's not even sure, but it feels...fragile. hopeful, but fragile. ]
Listen, Eddie, this whole shit- [ and honestly? steve doesn't even know what he's saying. and whatever it he's trying to say, he's probably saying wrong. but it feels...important for him to say something. so he just. keeps talking. ] I'm sorry you got wrapped up in it. It sucks- like. Really sucks. But we'll get something figured out- or, I mean, Dustin and Nancy and the rest of them will be the ones to get it figured out. I won't be a lot of help there. But it will work out, it always does.