Chapter Text
It’s late by the time he gets to talk to Eddie again.
Steve and Robin bicker through their grocery run, as usual. They stop by the junkyard on their way back from the grocery store, as usual. They find an orphaned car door and a piece of rebar and Robin tries to force Steve to re-enact scenes from Star Wars. It’s all their garden variety Hawkins hellscape version of mundanity, except Steve can feel the absence of phantom touches like an itch. Keeps expecting to hear Eddie’s chuckle low in his ear.
They drive back with their haul, and Robin stops him before he gets out of the car. “You sure you don’t need any help? With the- Eddie thing.” Steve’s pulse thuds in his ears, but he takes a deep breath and pushes it back down. “Naw, Rob, I’m good. I’ll talk to him about it later.” Robin's gnawing on her lip and looking at him expectantly. He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Really. I promise. But thanks.” She raises her eyebrows into her bangs, but shrugs. “You got it.” A wicked grin flits across her face, and she leans over the console briefly. “Big boy”, she sing-songs into his face, shooting out the passenger door and dodging the half-hearted smack that she’d startled out of him. He’s grinning despite himself as he follows her out.
Jonathan and Nancy leave right after dinner, taking most of the kids with them. Steve doesn’t miss the anxious glance Nancy exchanges with Eddie before she goes, nor the way Eddie seems to relax after they’re gone, sagging minutely like someone had just let the pressure out of an overinflated balloon. His gaze still skitters a little when Steve tries to catch his eye, though he tries to cover it with a shaky grin.
After dinner, Hopper finds a worn pack of cards and Eddie teaches Max how to play spit, El watching seriously over her shoulder. Their hands fly fast on the table: Eddie’s fingers long and practiced, Max’s hands a little shaky but still scrappy and quick. Max is good at it, almost too good. Once or twice, Steve swears he sees the card fly onto the table an inch or so ahead of her hand, but when he looks over, El’s nose is buried into Max’s shoulder, gaze still fixed on the cards. He narrows his eyes at her, but she just returns his gaze levelly. Eddie doesn’t seem to notice or mind. Then again, Steve’s not sure how much Eddie understands about El’s powers (and more importantly, El’s willingness to use them for extremely petty purposes).
When Steve and Robin finish the dishes, Robin joins them in the living room, and Eddie just hands Robin the pack of cards, stage-whispering “good luck” into her ear and slipping out the door to the back deck again. Steve puts away one last plate and closes the kitchen cabinet. Robin catches his eye, craning a little to see him as she sets up the cards on the table again.
Steve feels like he’s about to crawl out of his skin, has been itchy around Eddie all evening. It’s like Eddie’s got his own fucking magnetic pull, and Steve’s tuned only to him. Like Dustin’s compass at Skull Rock, pulled away from true north by the presence of something stronger.
Robin mouths go after him with a quick jerk of her head, and she doesn’t have to tell Steve twice. He follows Eddie out.
Eddie starts when Steve opens the door, but he doesn’t turn around from where he’s already sitting at the edge of Hopper’s deck. Steve walks over, moving a little slowly, giving Eddie a little extra time. Time to- Steve doesn’t know what. Eddie doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look up when Steve stands next to him. Steve looks down to where his legs are dangling over the edge of the deck, kicking a little restlessly.
When Steve crouches down, Eddie finally looks up, his eyelashes dark against the pale plane of his cheeks. Steve’s eyes are still adjusting to the dark, and Eddie’s face looks white and masklike, like Nancy’s had the night before. A little ghostly. Steve suppresses a shiver.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Steve sees Eddie’s grin, teeth bright, like a rictus glowing in the dark. He doesn’t know where to start, so.
“You okay?”
Steve hears a sigh, sees the blurry shape of Eddie’s body slump forward. One long-fingered hand comes up and disappears under Eddie’s curtain of hair. He thinks he sees Eddie shake his head, slightly.
Steve tries again. “Eddie, did I do something wrong? This morning?”
Another shake, so slight Steve might be imagining it. But his eyes are finally adjusting to the dark, and he can now make out the shape of Eddie’s other hand, clasped hard around his ribcage. Too hard, Steve realizes. Knuckles too sharp and white; muscles tight and jumping in his forearm.
Steve’s stomach drops, that creeping, back of the mind, something’s really wrong, like monsters wrong sense prickling unpleasantly along the back of his neck. “Eddie?” he says, dropping his voice, knees hitting the deck and hand already brushing Eddie’s shoulder, ready to shake him out of whatever this is-
“Shit!” Eddie curses, jumping about six inches into the air and out of Steve’s hand. He looks over at him, eyes impossibly bigger, hand covering his mouth and dark hair carving night into the edges of his face, making Steve think of a dark halo.
His eyes dart over Steve’s face, and something seems to click into place. “Shit, Steve, I’m sorry, it’s not-“ He rubs his hand across his mouth, eyes skittering away and then back. He sags a little against the deck. “It’s not like that- I’m okay. No need to call in the national guard.”
Steve nods, allows himself exactly ten seconds to feel relieved about the fact that Eddie isn’t currently possessed by Vecna or in some other sort of upside-down related crisis. “Okay”, he says carefully. Eddie nods back. They both nod at each other for a few seconds.
Steve leans back a few inches, giving Eddie a little space. “So”, he tries again, “What is it like, then?”
Eddie leans back a little too. He shoves a shaking hand into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, fumbling with the lighter for a minute before it flares to life. It casts his face in bronze, and Steve feels his chest tighten.
Eddie clears his throat, and when he speaks he’s a little hoarse. “Still kind of hurts,” he says. “To smoke.” He pats his hand across his throat, where Steve can’t see - but does remember - another series of silvery scars. “Worth it, though.”
Steve nods.
Eddie exhales, blowing his smoke toward the trees, away from Steve, before he turns back toward him. He seems to be steeling himself for something, tilting his head and letting his hair fall around his face momentarily before he pushes it back.
“You asked me where I slept last night.”
Steve nods again, slowly.
Eddie smiles in the dark. “I didn’t sleep.”
Something pangs low in Steve’s chest. “Oh.”
“I haven’t slept since I’ve been back,” he continues. Looks up at Steve, mouth twisted. “Haven’t slept since I- woke up.”
Steve’s nodding, faster now, because he thinks he can work with this. He's already reaching into his jacket pocket.
But Eddie’s still talking. “I don’t know if I can sleep. I didn’t feel the need to, when I woke up. I was just kind of there.” He grits his teeth around the words. "I thought maybe it was the upside-down, like… maybe you don’t need to sleep, down there. Alternate dimension thing. But then last night I just - couldn’t. It wouldn’t come.”
Eddie’s voice is dropping to a mutter, like he can’t bring himself to talk any louder. Like he’s scared to. Steve has to lean in closer again to hear him.
"I’m so tired, but it feels like I’ll never sleep, like-“ He inhales sharply, looking at Steve. Seems to decide something. “Like maybe my body doesn’t need to anymore.”
He covers his face with his hands. Takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. He looks up at Steve through the cage of his fingers.
“What if this is- it, now? What if I’m not-“ another shudder - “not really me, anymore? Never gonna be again?”
His voice is coming thicker, now, like there’s a sob caught in his throat, and Steve is suddenly vividly remembering Reefer Rick’s boathouse again. His hands are frozen around the bottle of pills that he had already pulled from his pocket. Steve had thought maybe nightmares, not... this.
Going on instinct, then. Fine. Steve can do instinct. He ducks his head, trying to meet Eddie’s eyes.
“Eddie.” He hears a juddering breath. “Eddie, we’re gonna figure this out. Okay?”
There’s a strangled noise, and then Eddie is shaking against Steve’s chest, big, heaving breaths that make his hair tremble and set Steve’s ribcage vibrating. One of Eddie’s hands is fisted in Steve’s jacket and the other is trapped between them, bracing against Steve’s thigh. Steve swallows his surprise and frees his hands, putting both arms around Eddie’s shoulders.
They stay like that for awhile. Truthfully, Steve doesn’t know how long. The tickle of Eddie’s hair against his chin is eerily familiar; the weight of his body in his arms, less so. Steve isn’t complaining. Eventually, Eddie’s trembling slows to something more intermittent. Steve feels him shift, struggling to free his trapped hand from under his own weight. Steve loosens his hold so Eddie can move.
The pill bottle rattles to the deck between them, knocked out of Steve’s lap. He feels Eddie stiffen, can almost hear the question mark hanging in the air.
“Steve.”
“Eddie.”
Eddie snatches the bottle before Steve even has time to contemplate hiding it. He’s not sure why he’d bother, anyway.
The bottle rattles in his face. “What is this?”
Steve sighs, sitting back to free the pins and needles in his feet. Eddie’s still sitting very close to him, just barely shifted out of Steve’s lap.
“I, uh.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I went to therapy.”
Eddie’s so close that Steve can feel the surprised air that huffs out of his mouth. “You went to therapy.”
“Yeah.”
“And so these are…”
“Just sleeping pills.” Steve interjects quickly. Feels the need to explain. “I thought- when you said you weren’t sleeping…”
“Are you not sleeping?”
Steve suddenly doesn’t know where to go from here. This is why he came out here, why he said he needed to talk to Eddie in the first place, and yet. He hesitates.
Eddie suddenly seems to realize something, leaning away from Steve and putting some space between them. “I mean- it’s cool, man, we don’t have to talk about it.” He’s threading a hand through his hair, twiddling with the strands nervously, and shit, Eddie has no reason to be nervous; Steve’s the one who’s nervous.
“I was dreaming about you.”
Eddie freezes. Steve freezes. He unglues his tongue from the roof of his mouth and forces himself to keep going, to explain. He sits up a little, clasps his hands together in his lap. Like maybe if he fixes his posture, gets his body under control, this will all come out a little less weird.
“I was- struggling. After you were gone. I think most of us were, like Dustin and Lucas, but nobody would talk about it. And I kept having dreams about you, for months. Which was weird, but not, like, weirder than most of the shit I’ve seen and done, so-“ Steve swallows, rearranges his hands, squeezing and then relaxing them.
“And then like, four days ago… it got weirder. I started, um, hearing and feeling things. Which has never happened before. It kind of freaked me out. I didn’t know if it was Vecna stuff, or grief stuff, or if I was finally going crazy. Just, really completely over my head. So I went to therapy. And she prescribed me sleeping pills.”
Steve takes a deep, shaky breath. “It stopped, yesterday. I didn’t dream last night. After you got back.” He forces himself to meet Eddie’s eyes.
And shit, Eddie looks freaked out. Like, really freaked out. His eyes are big and his mouth is hanging open slightly and his hands are clamped frozen shut around the bottle of pills.
“Eddie?” Steve tries, cautiously, heart sinking a little.
Eddie shakes his head quickly. He reaches out and grabs Steve’s knee. “Remember when you asked me if I knew how long I had been- awake? Or back, whatever? And I said I didn’t know?”
“Yeah?”
Eddie lets out a strangled laugh, hand catching in his hair again, twisting. “I lied. I guess, I don’t know why. I woke up four days ago.”
Steve feels his own mouth fall open. He blinks at Eddie, because what.
“But you’re telling me-“ Eddie continues, head shaking in disbelief, “-that you actually felt all that?”
“Felt-“ Steve starts, mouth opening and closing. “Felt all- what?”
Eddie’s covering his mouth with his hands again. “Steve.” He closes his eyes, lifts his head skyward, and groans loudly into his hands. “I went looking for you.” Steve feels something like a snake coiling in his belly.
“Before El found me, in her head-“ Eddie drags his hands away from his face, and meets Steve’s gaze. Holds it. He looks like he’s bracing to run after what he’s about to say, but is determined to say it anyway. “I found you.”
The snake in Steve’s stomach twists, not unpleasantly. It was real it was real it was real- “You- it was you?”
Eddie nods. “Remember when you heard Dustin, in the upside-down version of the Creel house? It was like that, where I kind of just- reached out, and then I could hear you there. Except I could also see you. But I-“ he laughs, the nervousness back, “-I didn’t actually think you could hear or feel me.”
Steve sits back for a moment, puts his head in his hands. Hoooly shit. I’m not crazy, he thinks, a little hysterically. It was really him, it felt so much like him and it was really- “You came looking for me,” he whispers, low and wondering, meeting Eddie’s eyes again. And oh, that’s almost too much, Eddie’s eyes are big and dark and he’s twisting his hair in front of his face uncertainly, like he’s not sure how Steve is going to react.
Steve wants to do something reassuring, say something that will make Eddie relax, but he’s reeling and honestly not sure where to begin. He puts his hand over Eddie’s where it’s still gripping his knee, feels Eddie’s fingers flinch in surprise and then relax.
He searches Eddie’s face, tries to picture Eddie trapped in the upside-down touching Steve, actually brushing his hands over his cheek or his shoulder, or whispering in his ear.
“Why?” he whispers.
Eddie’s watching him, and as Steve asks the question he sees the uncertainty still flickering in Eddie’s eyes. The little hint of nervousness still folded around his eyelids and the corners of his mouth. He watches as something shifts in Eddie’s face. And then Eddie’s leaning closer, impossibly close. “Can I”, he breathes, almost into Steve’s mouth.
Steve wants to.
So he does.
Eddie’s so close to him that Steve barely has to sway forward at all to brush their lips together. It’s careful, at first, like there’s porcelain in their mouths. Eddie’s lips are dry and a little chapped and make Steve, inexplicably, think of the yellow pages that Eddie had flipped his fingers through to get to the War Zone. Hands whispering over fine, soft paper. Eddie brushes his thumb over the bone of Steve’s cheek and the gesture is so familiar and Steve puts his hand up over Eddie’s, holding it there against his own face. Pushes forward a little and kisses him again. It’s like Steve’s had a song stuck in his head all month without really knowing the words, and now he’s actually hearing it loud and clear for the first time and it’s familiar and brand new all at once.
By the time they pull away, Eddie’s lips are wet. His hand is still curled around Steve’s cheekbone hand, reaches up to thumb over the ridge of his eyebrow. Steve turns his face into the curve of Eddie’s palm, reaching blindly out to take Eddie’s other hand in his lap. He feels Eddie drop the bottle of pills to fold their fingers together.
Eddie’s careful fingers are pressing into Steve’s hairline, feeling the scars on his forehead. He curls his hand around the back of Steve’s ear, down to his nape, tugs gently at the taper of hair there. The bottle clatters on the ground between them. Steve kind of can’t breathe.
Sleeping pills, he thinks. Eddie’s fingertips scratch gentle at the base of his scalp. Twenty-four hours ago I needed fucking sleeping pills. And now-
The noise that leaves his throat is utterly horrifying. Steve feels Eddie pause with his lips pressed to Steve’s neck. And then, because after everything, the universe is still funny, somehow, it happens again. Steve is powerless to stop it. He watches himself, as if from a great distance, as the sound coming out of him turns into a choked-off laugh. He tries to muffle the sound in Eddie's shoulder.
"Stop, stop it", he mumbles - to himself, not to Eddie, but Eddie pulls back anyway. Steve doesn't let him, leans forward to keep his face hidden in Eddie's shirt until the two of them nearly overbalance and topple over. Steve snorts, shoulders heaving harder, shaking with laughter.
"Okay, okay-" he hears Eddie say somewhere up and to his left, feels the words rumble in Eddie's chest beneath him, and isn't that something - "very funny, what's the big joke, Steve? Huh?"
Steve shakes his head, tries to talk around some of Eddie's hair that's found its way into his mouth. He pulls back, just a few inches, to look Eddie in the eye.
"This-" he raises a hand, fingers still intertwined with Eddie's, to gesture vaguely at everything, then again between them - "you really buried the lede here, y'know?"
Eddie's smiling, a little uncertainly still, but the corner of his mouth twists down at Steve's words. "Steve, I- ow", he swears as Steve thunks both of their still-joined hands into Eddie's chest, putting a little force behind it.
"Don't do that again."
Steve still has a laugh half-caught in his throat. He keeps his hand pressed against Eddie's chest, giving him another little push for emphasis.
"I thought- man, I really thought I was losing my mind."
He shakes his head.
Eddie's watching him, mouth parted. He pulls his hand away from Steve's.
"I'm sorry", he breathes, low and nervous. "I didn't- I never would've touched you if I thought you could feel it. You just looked so- you looked really sad, Steve. And I thought-" He swallows around a laugh, but it's dry and humorless - "I guess I thought I was beyond consequences, for either one of us."
He steeples his fingers for a moment before sweeping them outward. A little ghost, a more subdued mimicry of theatrical Eddie. "Beyond death, in a purely parallel existence. Dungeons and Dragons fantasy type shit. Everything's safe because nothing's real."
He ducks his head forward, hair shadowing his face. "I shouldn't have done it anyway. Wasn't right."
"It's not that." The words come out automatically; Steve doesn't know they're true until the moment they leave his mouth. Beyond consequences. "It's not that," he repeats, brushing the back of his hand across Eddie's cheekbone, a mirroring gesture.
But what if you had known each other better before he died? What might that have looked like?
"It's the hero thing." Eddie's looking back up at him, now, eyes wide and uncertain. Steve watches as he starts to chew on his lip then seems to stop himself. Steve can't look at him, has to break away and look out at the woods for a moment. Can't think straight with Eddie watching him.
"Eddie, you flirted with me for three days straight and then went and got yourself killed." Steve shakes his head again, feels himself getting mad now. Mad like he gets at Dustin or Max or Lucas for getting themselves in over their heads, except this is different because Eddie should know better. "I mourned for you and I didn't even understand what I was mourning! I watched Dustin and Lucas try to-" Steve's voice gives out, and he turns back to Eddie, because he needs him to understand. His next words need to be enough for this.
"Don't do that. Again."
Eddie's still silent, shaking his head, hands hovering in his lap uncertainly. He rolls one of his rings between the fingers of one hand, like he’s picking through words buried in a pile of loose change. His fingers are shaking a little.
Steve wants him to say, I'm sorry. He wants him to say, I didn't mean to leave. He wants him to say, I won't do it again. Steve is picturing the sword of Kas leaned up against Hopper's kitchen counter, talking to Eddie, and the crease between Nancy's brows when she left.
Instead, Eddie finally looks up from underneath his hair. "I'm here now, right?" The corner of his mouth twitches, like he wants to smile but isn't sure it's safe yet. He reaches out, palm up, on the deck between the two of them. Like he's expecting the universe to drop something into the palm of his hand.
It's not what Steve wants. But, he thinks, as he meets Eddie's gaze, steady now like he's made up his mind, it's what we've got. But, he thinks, as he folds their hands together like closing a book, it'll be okay. But, he thinks, as he leans back in to cup Eddie's face and kiss him, it'll do.