Chapter Text
“Steve?”
Yeah, no—Steve is gone, the full Chrissy effect settling into the stiff posture of his body as his back straightens despite his kneeling position. Eddie resists the urge to hurl, forces himself to look away, to escape the temptation to relive what had happened in his trailer. (Though it felt like a lifetime ago, now.)
He has to focus, but that’s never been his strong suit, ever, in fact—it’s almost entirely the reason he’s continued to fail school, aided by a hatred from his teachers and a general educational exhaustion. Eddie Munson is good at knowing when it’s time to pack it up and go home.
Which is why he’s going against every rule in the Munson Doctrine by still being here, trying to make sure Steve Harrington of all people doesn’t become Vecna’s next victim. Vecna, the inter dimensional mind demon.
Eddie’s always been told he’s had one foot in crazy, but this feels beyond insane.
Nonetheless, he signals Dustin through the window, flashing the torch to indicate the start of phase three—and gets no response.
Eddie trusts Dustin. Trusts him more than anyone else in their little gaggle of monster fighters—he’s one of his best friends, no matter how lame that feels to say to other people. But when he flickers that torch time and time again and gets no response? That’s when Eddie begins to worry.
So Eddie turns and looks at Steve, who’s still kneeling (not floating yet, thank god), his eyes rolled back to milky whites instead of the chocolate browns he’s so used to, his body slack yet stiff.
Wills him to tell him what to do here. Because Steve is heroic, Steve dives into lakes headfirst to find supernatural gateways, Steve kills doglike demons with a bat, Steve tears underworld creature apart by the teeth. Steve would know what to do.
But Steve is busy doing those stupid heroics—and that leaves Eddie. Eddie the Banished, who flees at the first glance of danger—but he hasn’t run yet. Instead, he rushes around trying to make sure everything is ready for when Steve does begin to float, not willing to experience a rerun of Chrissy, especially not with Steve.
Eddie still remembers the cutting, childish jealousy that came whenever Dustin would launch off a tangent about how badass Steve was, who at the time Eddie only knew as King Steve, the same guy who’d lost his girlfriend to Jonathan Byers and had gone fisticuffs with him behind the theatre.
(That kind of news always sent shockwaves across the little freak community at Hawkins High, Gareth had told him all about it with a blunt between two fingers, definitely more invested than he claimed to be:
“I’m just saying, it’s crazy . Steve Harrington losing a girl like Nancy Wheeler to Jonathan Byers, of all guys. Either Steve’s losing his touch or maybe guys like us stand a chance,”
And he’d elbowed Eddie when he’d said that, as if Eddie would ever be interested in a girl like Nancy Wheeler, or any straight-laced, flowery-scented girl at all. But Gareth was never intentionally cruel, nor did he really have ill-intentions in conversations like these, so Eddie would always just tune him out.
Take another hit and blame it on the good stuff.)
But King Steve had become Stevie as soon as Eddie reluctantly followed them all down into the hellscape that was the Upside Down, just to save his life—or maybe, more specifically, Steve had become Stevie when Eddie’s heart nearly stopped. Over that bat. The bat he’d taken into his mouth and shredded with his teeth.
That sort of stuff does things to a guy who’s Hawkin’s given middle name was The Freak. The kind of thing that had him calling Steve big boy, or getting up in his space, just to see how close he could get before he hit the atmosphere and burnt up into nothingness.
And that kinda thing couldn’t be carried into a place like this. No way. Eddie had bundled up all inappropriate urges for Steve Harrington and left them on the doorstep of Creel House like a fresh little orphan in a cute little basket.
In doing so, however, Eddie Munson had unfortunately learnt a few things about himself:
- In shedding those less-than-holy advances at the door, he’d left himself open to the possibility of discovering that maybe they weren’t all sexually based.
- The feelings weren’t all sexually based.
- He was staring at Steve Harrington now, stupid, aggravatingly attractive Steve Harrington, and when shunning the craving to tear his clothes off (for shame) he was left only with a deep, instinctive fondness.
- He had no idea how to deal with the revelation of having feelings about Steve Harrington when he was the sole way that said lean-bodied loved-up golden boy would get out of the night alive.
- There was someone climbing the stairs.
There was someone climbing the stairs.
Warily, Eddie assumes it’s Dustin, and calls out to him.
- Eddie is wrong, sometimes.
- (It’s not Dustin.)
Jason Carver slams his way into the attic of the Creel House, shoulders as firm as iron, face as venomous as the tail end of a super pissed off scorpion. Distinctly, Eddie remembers having a nightmare similar to this, being discovered by Chrissy’s boyfriend and suffering the slow, agonizing consequences.
“ Eddie Munson,” With a flake of humour amongst a sea of fear, Eddie notes just how much Jason Carver speaks like a typical, corny movie villain. “You’ve been a hard guy to find, recently, Munson.”
He’s not sure what to do, where to stand—so he settles for positioning himself in front of where Steve kneels, like a child trying to cover a mess they’ve made. “You and your buds haven’t exactly made—being out and about easy for me.”
It looks like Jason’s lip curls to make another spiteful quip about Eddie’s general existence, before he falters. In trying to shelter Steve, he only drew more attention to the other boy in the room—and judging by the expression on their guest’s face, made everything ten times worse.
“Harrington?” Circling, Jason tries to get a better look at Steve, finding Eddie in his path.
Instead of going, Hey, Eds, don’t suppose you mind shuffling to the left a little, I wanna get a good peak at Steve, there, Jason Carver bares his teeth, and takes a gun out of his letterman jacket, kindly leveling it at Eddie.
“Step aside,”
And Eddie, though he does hesitate, stumbles a little to the left—because if he gets shot, there’s nobody to save Steve. And then they’re all fucked anyway. Four deaths? Game over.
Unfortunately, letting Jason see Steve from the front made any chance of negotiating his way out of this attic alive about a million to one.
“What have you done to him, devil worshipper?!” Because in hindsight, he supposes he can understand where Jason might’ve got that idea from. Steve Harrington, pretty-faced, straight-laced, golden-boy of the century, kneeling at what looked like an altar, eyes so far back into his head he seemed the loveliest little caricature of a possession victim.
(Then again, he sort of was that.)
But Eddie, because that’s just who he is, chokes out a pained dismissal, an earnest, “I didn’t do this, Carver, you gotta listen to me,”
Apparently, telling the guy who thinks you murdered his girlfriend to do anything is a really bad idea, because abruptly Eddie gets a kick to the chest, toppling backwards against one of the roof beams.
“No, you’ve gotta listen to me, you goddamn freak. I know what you are,” (Boy, doesn’t that sound familiar, Eddie thinks, bitter with the irony), “I know about your transpondence with Satan. I know you’re his vessel.”
To this, Eddie realizes that the tiny inklings of utter insanity Jason Carver had shown before in his school-wide pep talks and the like had congealed and become one, big, monstrous mega-monopoly of total blazing lunacy.
“What have you done to Steve Harrington?! I won’t ask you again, freak!” The gun gets up and personal in Eddie’s face, now, the butt of it forced into his cheek, Jason Carver spitting with rage. From this close, Eddie can really see the way he shakes with it, with the sheer power a kid gets with a weapon in hand, with any sort of control over life like that.
“It wasn’t—Jason, Jason, J— Jason, man,” Taking only light gasps of air in through his mouth, Eddie’s hands dig into the wood of the roof support beam behind him, trying to find some semblance of stability. “Man, man, I promise you this— this isn’t me, this, the—the. Everything, nothing, it wasn’t me, it still isn’t—” He’s cut off by his own cry of pain when Jason grows tired of him talking and cracks the barrel of the gun against his jaw so hard, Eddie marvels over the strength of the bone for resisting a fracture.
Jason’s breath is hot on his face, and Eddie whimpers, whimpers for shame, for fear, for guilt—because if this goes any more sideways, they’re all going to die here.
“You’re a vile liar, freak. Let me take a guess, we’ll see how right I am,” Metallic-smelling hand gripping Eddie’s face so hard he can barely breathe through his fingers, Jason presses on, a fire blazing in his eyes. “Steve Harrington. You’ve failed school, what, twice, now? So you two would’ve started out together. You’ve known him for a while, but you guys don’t really run in the same circles. He’s popular, he’s funny, he’s got friends, girls, money, a pretty nice picket-fence future set up on the horizons,”
“Maybe he’s an asshole to you, maybe you guys butt heads back when he was in school. I don’t remember you guys scuffling, at any point—so maybe you’re a friend of Byers. Freaks stick together, right?” The tip of the gun is dragged down Eddie’s temple, rendering him entirely too terrified to move.
“Let’s say you’ve been planning this for a while. Nancy Wheeler picks him out—seduces him, makes him the perfect target for you and your cult. Byers kicks him when he’s down,” The way Jason paints the picture—it’s grandiose, but Eddie can see it, in a way.
The way that you ‘understand’ a five year old thinking that money actually grows on trees for a while until someone explains that it was a joke.
“You did something to him, you and your cult, over thanksgiving. He came back broken. Nancy Wheelers your temptress, and when he wouldn’t join you, you all did something,” The gun is glued to his temple. “I don’t know what. But he hasn’t been the same. He was the star, Munson. We all wanted to be like him.”
And that makes sense, too. Jason, idolizing Steve—he’s older, and once would’ve been Jason’s senior, the captain of his basketball team when Jason was a freshman and bench warming. Guys like Jason would’ve given anything to get a piece of King Steve.
“What, you think—you think we did something to him, just—just because, ‘cause he came back and realized he’d been a—an A-grade, grade asshole,” It comes out a little shaky when his jaw won’t move the way he wants it to.
Jason doesn’t like that. No, Jason wraps his hand around Eddie’s throat and squeezes. “I’m talking, freak. Shut your goddamn mouth before I blow it wide open,” And then the gun sits on Eddie’s bottom lip, and he struggles for just a second until Jason forces it against his teeth, and he realizes then that he’s crying, he’s dry-heaving and trembling hard enough to hurt.
“Whatever you’ve done to him, it’s all—all been leading up to this, hasn’t it? You took Chrissy, then Fred, Patrick… all of this, he’s your true sacrifice, isn’t he?” There’s a wildness to Jason’s eyes, something so out of reach that Eddie is frightened, because he leaves no door open to empathize with him, let alone talk him down.
(Not that he could with a gun in his mouth.)
“What I don’t get is why him? Why Steve?” Yet again, he refuses to let Eddie respond, smacking the gun against the front of his teeth hard enough that he can feel his gums bleed. “Out of all the guys, he was one of the better ones to you freaks. If you were doing it because you hated him, had some vendetta, it makes no sense. There are people who’ve called you worse, Munson.”
Dread drips like sweat down the dampness of his neck, and as soon as Eddie understands where Jason is going with this, and the guy seems to see that, feed on it. “You must be in love with him, freak.” Eddie knows what word he really wants to use. “Maybe this is what you think love is. Sending him to be with your Devil in hell for eternity,” He raises his voice, then, taking Eddie across to where Steve kneels by the neck, drawing the gun from out of his mouth to press against the back of his head, military style.
“Wake him up.”
Steve’s milky white eyes glare back at them.
“I can’t,” Jason grabs a fist of Eddie’s hair and snaps his head back against the butt of the gun. Not the answer he wanted, clearly. “If—If I do, if I wake him up now, more people will die,”
Jason clicks his tongue. “ No, Munson, if you don’t wake him up, you die. For Chrissy, for Patrick, for Steve. I’ll blow your fucking brains out right here by his goddamn body.”
It’s at that moment that Steve decides now he has to start levitating.
And despite his fear, despite the body-numbing, mouth-bleeding terror, it’s exactly what Eddie needs.
While Jason’s head snaps to marvel at Steve’s body beginning to lift, Eddie swerves out of his line of fire before turning and tackling him to the floor. He takes his wrists and straddles him, going for the gun—it’s the only thing Eddie really succeeds at, tossing it across the room.
In doing so, he leaves himself open for Jason to roll them over, smacking Eddie’s head against the floor once, twice—he loses count after the fourth or fifth, and Jason loses interest, deciding that fists are much more exciting instead. Eddie can see Steve, though blurred and tinged with the red of his own blood running into his eyes—lifting higher, higher, limbs falling stiff out behind him.
Not that it matters—Eddie was never a fighter. Eddie never started fights, they sought him out and beat him down, it was never fair, or even, just someone deciding they didn’t like him, the freak, deciding that his mere existence had earned him the taste of his own blood, earned him a crooked nose that was now entirely facing the wrong way.
Jason had definitely decided this was the case—he sits on Eddie’s chest and tears out handfuls of hair, swings and swings and swings until Eddie can’t see, can’t hear anything but his panting cries that this was all for Chrissy, but if Eddie knew anything about Chrissy, kind, gentle Chrissy—she wouldn’t have wanted this whether Eddie murdered her or not.
When he’s certain that Eddie’s in no state to follow after him, Jason stands, and barrages him with kicks in his side, gives his fists a rest—he doesn’t stop, not until he can hear the crack of Eddie’s ribs, until his cries of pains subside into muted whimpers.
Eddie can’t move. He’s a little sure that he might be missing one or two teeth, too. There’s blood coming from his nose in gushing waves, a wound on his head that’s blinding him as it streams down his face.
His fingers aren’t broken, at least. Jason didn’t get there yet.
It’s dwelling upon Jason when Eddie comes to the horrifying comprehension that Jason is gone. And Eddie can’t follow after him.
The cool metal of the gun against the back of his head confirms his worst suspicions.
“Jason. Jason,” Eddie spits out one of his teeth, dry heaving over the floorboards of the attic. He knows it’s useless, begging for his life—Jason decided that he wanted Eddie dead as soon as Chrissy’s body was found in his trailer. But he can’t help it, nor can he help sobbing, sobbing bitterly because he can’t believe this is how it all ends, how Nancy’s plan is totally ruined, because Eddie’s brains are about to decorate the floor in the Creel House and nobody will save Steve, and Hawkins will fall.
Jason gives him no comfort into the hands of death. Instead, he kneels, picks Eddie up by the hair and laughs, cruelly, into his ear, and clicks the safety off. “See you in hell, freak,”
And there’s a crack, an ugly, gruesome crack. It doesn’t sound much like a gunshot, but Eddie supposes it might sound different when it’s lodged in his brain.
A handful of seconds pass.
Eddie’s not dead. Jason Carver collapses in a heap next to him.
“Eddie!” With the last of his strength, he rolls over onto his back, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
He could cry for joy. It’s Dustin. Worse for wear, but Dustin. Grinning, bruised and definitely beaten (by one of Jason’s friends, no doubt, he thinks, sick to his stomach) holding Steve’s nail bat like the Olympic torch.
His other hand is stuck out, an offering. Urgent—as he notices Steve, poor Steve, convulsing in the air, the time he has left slim, yet crucial—for all of them.
Steve’s arm breaks.
They’re out of time.
Taking it, Eddie stands, choking back the urge to throw up his insides—and takes his guitar, standing at the foot of Steve’s hovering body, and uses whatever last life he has left kicking in him to play that stupid, corny song he likes.
He sings, though his voice is raw and pain litters his every word. He strums his guitar though his fingers shake and he thinks his shoulder might not be in its socket.
Eddie plays for every person Vecna killed, for every injury inflicted on the kids since this all begun, for Nancy Wheeler and her felony shotgun, for Robin Buckley and her clumsy charm, for Max Mayfield and her admirable stubborn fire, for Lucas Sinclair for his deep compassion, for Erica Sinclair and her wits, her bravery despite her age. Eddie plays for Dustin, who can barely stand, but does so, stands with him, keeping him upright, his light in the darkness, his best friend.
Eddie plays for Steve, swears he can hear his voice, his anguish—and Eddie plays harder, plays until tears are running rampant down his face, til he can barely breathe for pain and love and relief and fear.
Plays for Steve and his stupid, lopsided smile, plays for Steve and his perfectly mussed hair, plays for Steve and his earnest affection, Steve and his moronic bravery, Steve and his utter dedication to protecting them all.
And Eddie knows that if this isn’t enough—if they lose, now, that they would’ve fought as hard as they could. Steve, Eddie and Dustin, together, on the dusk of their final day, bleeding together, dying together.
Eddie thinks that if he should die, there are no better people for him to die with.
He pushes that sentiment into the rasp of his voice, contorts his body to force it to keep playing, refuses to fall, now, though he can feel death clambering at him, clawing.
Eddie plays for Steve. Plays with more heart than he’s ever had.
Steve drops.
Eddie follows suit.
The hospital only had pink left for Steve’s cast. Eddie thinks it’s cute, Dustin thinks it’s funny.
The three of them are in the same wing of Hawkin’s medical for a couple days, with Eddie and Dustin’s ribs both a sorry state, though Eddie much worse for wear. He supposes that Dustin must take after Steve that way—he managed to fend of Jason’s sadistic friend far better than Eddie did Jason, and it’s evident. Evident in the way that boot prints climb up his side and his back, evident in the way that the nurse saw the break of Eddie’s nose and said if Jason had hit any harder it might’ve killed him for good. Evident in the severe shoulder injury they say he might never fully recover from, evident in the minor fracture of his jaw and the severe concussion that knocked him out in the attic, leaving Dustin with his two favorite, older male friends completely unconscious at his side.
Hawkins Lab were quick with Eddie’s government pardon—they brought it into the hospital with the three of them, in fact, confirmation of another killer, some made up serial murderer from Europe, as opposed to an alternate dimension.
Eddie’s grateful for that. He doesn’t really fancy being cuffed to a hospital bed, it’d be a bit on the nose and it’s not how he likes it to go, typically.
(Steve had laughed at that, the first time he made the joke. Dustin had just scrunched up his face and looked confused.)
Physically, Steve got off the best of the three of them. Mentally, not so much. The entire stay at the hospital he refused sleep, the doctors hooking him on the real good stuff without mentioning it until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
It didn’t work, though. Vecna’s curse clearly triumphs over all human drugs, because Steve had a couple hours of shut eye until he woke up in complete, screaming, sobbing hysterics.
Eddie had clambered into his bed, after that. Had curled up like a wounded dog at his side and listened, casting a hand through his hair as Steve whispered every last horror he’d been shown from start to finish, Eddie unsure whether to be flattered or sickened by his repeated guest appearances.
Eddie listens, and realizes that he’d take another life-threatening beating from Jason before having to go through something like that, the way Steve viscerally describes it, sometimes having to pause just to stop himself from heaving again.
(It doesn’t help dissuade Eddie from thinking, just maybe, that Steve might be the most fucking badass guy in the universe.)
Max is one of the first kids to visit, or maybe they gave her a chance to come and see Steve alone. Either way, Eddie wakes up in the early morning and she’s there, a nasty wound on her neck almost identical to Steve’s, whispering away in hushed voices as Dustin snores lowly and Eddie tries to keep his breath even.
Steve talks through what he saw with her. He sounds a little less aggrieved, but he also can’t bring himself to go into as much detail as he did with Eddie.
Eddie feels bad when he’s pleased by that. Mostly because he knows that Steve is trying to spare her, she’s already had her time with Vecna, she doesn’t need the additional nightmare fuel of Steve’s more… elongated experience.
Nancy, Robin, Lucas and Erica come together as a unit. They explain their end of things—the vines that had almost killed the girls, Lucas speaking of the bat that had almost killed Max, showing off his own gnarly scar he got from saving her. Robin speaks in colour and depth about how amazing Nancy’s kill shots were, then gushes about Erica and her total vicious destruction of Vecna’s physical form.
Steve catches Eddie’s eye across the room, and finds himself met with the same fondness for their guests.
The girl with superpowers comes to make sure that Steve is alive. Their conversation is a bit stilted, no doubt because from what Steve had said, this girl had seen a little too far into his brain—but he gives her a hug nonetheless, thanks her for saving the day. For saving him.
Eddie could feel jealous about that, but he doesn’t—because Steve had climbed into his bed, in the middle of the night, wordlessly lying beside him for a while. Then he can’t stop talking, mumbling thank you’s and sorry’s, Eddie finally discerning the strange tinge of Steve’s expressions as guilt. Guilt every time he sees his sling, the bandages around his head, the bandages around his middle.
Eddie calls him stupid. They kiss.
(Not quite in that order.)
Dustin goes home, first. Mrs Henderson comes in and fusses over the lot of them, cries, and kisses all three of them on the head until Dustin is so mortified he flees the building entirely.
Eddie is discharged alongside Steve by lunchtime.
Steve can’t drive, so they walk—it’s a long trek, but Eddie feels like they need the air and the space, the time to just be side by side without the threat of death. They’re quiet, and it’s nice, comfortable—their hands are linked and Eddie is thinking about the stupid guilt on Steve’s stupid face and that’s when he calls him stupid, out of the blue.
Steve takes it well—he’s heard it before, mostly because it’s true. He is stupid. Eddie finds it charming.
They argue playfully, taunting each other until they’re both so worked up they decide that no guilt is allowed for either of them, and Steve lasts not even five seconds before he tries to refute that again—
So, naturally, Eddie pins him up against a tree and kisses him. Kisses him in the middle of the forest, bathed in midday light yet also the cool shelter of the thick wildlife above them.
Steve takes a minute to reciprocate, but Eddie doesn’t take it personally—Steve is sometimes a bit slow on the uptake, even when the uptake is another boy trying to make out with him against a tree. Nonetheless, they get there, and they kiss until Eddie is groaning in pain from his broken and bruised ribs, and Steve is about ninety percent sure that if they continue he’s going to pop some stitches the hospital did their best sewing in over the demobat flesh wounds.
When they reach Eddie’s trailer, Steve waits outside.
Eddie reunites with his Uncle Wayne—who’s clearly been told to expect him, a suitcase by the door as he sits, stone-faced on the sofa, warmth flooding the lines of age and easing them into pure, unadulterated relief when his nephew finally returns.
Insults fly readily at him, bouncing off of him like the waxy layer on a leaf against rainwater. Eddie is just grinning, crying, and then hugging his old man, who promises he never doubted him, not even for a second—and Eddie believes him, because Nancy Wheeler had told him all about his Uncle Wayne adamantly defending him like his own.
“You are my own,” He’d said, before making a remark about how Steve was probably going to keel over if Eddie left him outside for much longer.
(Eddie invites Steve inside.)
They sleep together in the trailer, in Eddie’a bed, a tangle of sore limbs and injured sides, concussed and high on the good stuff Hawkins sent them home with. It’s tender, just a night of lying there in silence with each other, basking in the aftermath of their trauma, their fear.
Eddie tells Steve he don’t think he’ll ever be okay. Steve says he doesn’t think he will be either.
Maybe they’ll heal together. Maybe they’ll crash and burn, self destruct.
Eddie doesn’t think he minds—so long as they do it together.