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When the whole Vecna thing has finally ended – El saving everybody’s asses after popping back out of nowhere with restored powers, Hopper apparently still alive, sporting a bald head – the world turns silent.
It’s silent as Nancy and Jonathan hug and part; it’s silent as Will and Mike draw closer to their friends; it’s silent as Joyce shoots them a worried glance.
It’s silent as Hopper and El reunite and everyone – save for Robin, Eddie, and Argyle, who don’t really know him – cries a little at that heart-wrenching father-daughter reunion. Nobody comments. Instead, they take turns to hug Hopper, each lasting a good ten seconds, tight and fierce. It’s been roughly 9 months since they last saw him, and Steve can’t even phantom how bad it was for him: while they somehow had one another, he was lost and alone god-knows where.
“You took good care of them.” Hopper says, looking gratefully at the older kids before inhaling, as if he was just now breathing the suffocating, yet familiar, air of Hawkins.
It’s silent as they take in one another, dirty and bloody and tired, but alive, nonetheless.
It’s silent then as the whole bunch of them piles up into Nancy’s car and Argyle’s van – if Hopper notices the guy’s a stoner, he doesn’t say anything – and the former leads the way to Steve’s house, apparently the only safe and police-less place with a roof they could think of after defeating a monster from another dimension.
As soon as he’s sat in the trunk, Steve starts to feel tired and aching. It’s not like he wasn’t before, his brain just seems to reconnect with his body at last, when the threat is theoretically dead and gone. He’s numb and sensitive at the same time, aching all over, barely, yet acutely aware of his surroundings. Nancy is driving, one hand on the wheel, the other clasped with Robin’s and if it weren’t for the world almost ending again, Steve would probably tease her for it. In the backseat, Lucas sits in the middle, an unusually silent Erica on one side, a typically silent Max on the other, headphones sitting around her neck like a precious jewel.
Eddie is next to him in the trunk, hair messy, holding his guitar as if it was a lifeline – it had been, in a moment of panic, when Nancy had started floating and everybody had feared the worst. Their legs are pressed together and their heads bump from time to time whenever Nancy hits a bump on the road. At some point during the ride, they lock arms – he doesn’t know who took initiative and he doesn’t really care but it’s soothing, and it’s enough human contact for Steve to feel something akin to peace again. It’s frighteningly close to what he felt around Nance back when they were dating, but this time it’s different, new, deeper maybe. When the Upside-down happened the first time, he was young, stupid, a douchebag who pretended to know shit about the world. He’s grown since then, and he’s proud of the person he’s become. So, finding that sort of feeling in someone like Eddie, a guy, he thinks, doesn’t punch him in the face like it would’ve four years ago but still, it shakes him and threatens to send him spiraling. Deep down he knows that if he was in his right mind, it would be easy to put a name to that feeling.
That’s something for later, he tells himself, eyes drooping, I’ll have to talk to Robin.
They get to his house after a while, city still asleep and streets lit faintly by the dim streetlamps, cops nowhere to be seen. Eddie helps him out of the car and shoots him a worried glance when he winces loudly as he starts walking. Ignoring the surging pain coming from his bat-gnawed torso, Steve retrieves the backup keys from the small bush of the front flowerbed and unlocks the door, Eddie hovering by him as they step inside.
He hasn’t been home in a while, he realizes, taking in the empty, lifeless house. How he manages to live here, he doesn’t know. His parents are away until summer – although they will probably call last-minute to tell him they won’t come home, again – and he’s never been so glad to have a bunch of beaten-up people to harbor.
The foyer fills with people and Steve is suddenly aware of how many they are and the conditions they’re in: El has what he think is the worst nosebleed he’s ever seen and he’s pretty sure she has a sprained wrist; Hopper’s ankle doesn’t look good either and it seems like he hasn’t seen a house in a long time, which is probably true; Lucas has a nasty cut on his leg, long but not deep, similar to the one Max has on her upper arm; Eddie was limping before, now he’s holding himself up on the wall while he offers an arm to Steve as if he’s afraid he’ll suddenly fall – Steve would be lying if he said he didn’t care about the gesture. The others are overall okay, some scratches but nothing serious. Luckily, Robin is already on the move. “We’re going to get the first-aid kits from the bathrooms” she says, heading to the one on the ground floor while Nancy goes upstairs. The two of them already know their way around the house, not even bothering to ask Steve where to go.
He turns to Joyce, who’s guiding the kids towards the living room. “There should be food and drinks in the fridge and pantry.” He points to the kitchen, the movement straining his muscles, but he bites his lip. “If it’s not enough, there should be plenty in the cellar downstairs.” The woman nods, offering him a smile that feels a lot like a thank you.
Then, he calls up every kid who can move easily and walk around – Erica, Dustin, Will and Mike – and instructs them to find every single blanket and pillow he has around the house. After telling them where to find them, he recruits Eddie, Murray, Jonathan, and Argyle and goes with them to dig up old mattresses from the basement and the garage – they manage to find two double ones and a single, along with three air mattresses Steve hasn’t seen since he was ten.
After fifteen minutes, during which he pointedly ignores Eddie and the girl’s attempts to make him sit down and check his wounds, the living room doesn’t look like a living room anymore: the couches are pushed back and the mattresses, covered in blankets and pillows, are positioned to make a big bed in front of them; the armchairs have turned into half an emergency room, Nancy and Robin taking care of bruises and wounds; the coffee table has become a buffet straight out of a teenager dream, Joyce gently dispensing food and water. He offers showers and some of his clothes, but the kids are too tired to wash up or change.
To kill time, and to avoid Eddie and the girls, Steve goes around the house, checking doors and windows. He even stops by the pool, but memories of Barb start coming back so he goes back inside, trying to imagine how bad it was for Nancy to go through such a thing. We were so young, he thinks, we are so young.
When he’s satisfied, he enters the living room, grabbing a glass of water from the table and downing it in one gulp.
The kids are huddled on the mattresses on the floor, Erica the one sleeping while the others simply enjoy each other’s presence. Max has somehow managed to sneak her tape into the stereo system, and the song plays softly in the background while they talk in hushed voices. Hopper, who was the only one to take up the offer of a shower – he was the one who needed it the most – is sat on one of the armchairs, dressed in an old tracksuit Steve found in a drawer, with El in his lap, holding Joyce’s hand in his, as she sits on the armrest. Murray is somewhere on a call – Steve hopes he’ll be able to get their names, especially Eddie’s, cleaned after this mess. Jonathan is half asleep in the other chair, Argyle snoring at his feet – Steve has no idea who the guy is, but he’ll ask questions in the morning.
He turns to leave for the kitchen, probably where Eddie, Rob and Nance are, but as soon as he moves pain shots through his right side, skin burning against the make-shift bandage, forcing him to fold onto himself, groaning. His legs give out and before he knows it, he’s on the foyer’s floor, vision blurred, head dizzy, and ears ringing. There are many sounds around him as he crouches down, but Eddie’s voice is crystal clear in his head. “Ok, that’s it, Steve. We need to check you up.”
He tries to protest as someone gets him up to a standing position, but his vocal cords seem to have bid him farewell and gone to sleep.
When he starts seeing again, he’s in the bathroom – the one on the ground floor – sat on the toilet, Eddie kneeled in front of him, Robin, and Nancy right behind the boy.
“Is he alright?” Dustin’s voice is far away, right past the door – Steve suddenly feels too tired to even try to see if he’s there – and he sounds worried.
“If he’s not too stubborn, he’ll be soon.” Robin answers, concern tinging her tone.
Steve attempts to come up with a witty retort, but three voices shush him, so he stays quiet.
“Alright,” Eddie begins, assessing him all over, “let’s see what we’re working with here.”
At that, he gently tugs at the lapels of the denim vest, slowly guiding his arms out of it. Steve shivers as they touch – he doesn’t mean to – and for a second all he can see, hear, smell, feel is Eddie. When he’s out of the vest, he stares at the item as though he’s seen it for the first time. It doesn’t look good – not as it did when Eddie was wearing it and they hadn’t dived in the lake or ended up in the Upside-down yet – it’s stained, and the pins are scratched.
“Ow, I bled all over it, I didn’t mean to,” he manages to croak out, “sorry.”
Eddie chuckles at that as he puts it aside, a smile crossing his face and quickly fading when he observes Steve’s chest up close, grimacing.
“Here.” Nancy hands him some pills and a glass of water, and Steve takes it, eager to stop the pain before it gets too much, swallowing it down and handing it back to her, earning a pleased nod.
“How are you feeling, Steve?” It’s Robin, now sat on the edge of the tub at his right.
His jaw is heavy, his tongue swelled, his teeth too big for his mouth, but he manages to talk anyway. “Numb.”
“Okay, Steve.” It’s Eddie now, voice soft and gentle. “Now I’m going to take the fabric off. It’ll probably hurt a bit, but you’re strong, right?”
As soon as Steve nods, Eddie’s hands are on him, grazing his skin, carefully lifting the now crimson cloth and unwrapping it from his wounded abdomen – if Steve feels his cheeks flush every time Eddie’s face gets closer, his mind doesn’t really register it, too out and almost asleep.
Soon, he’s reached the part that’s directly glued to his skin, flesh and fabric as one, and despite taking the pills, Steve still feels it all, hissing in pain as his wound is ultimately uncovered.
“You did great, sweetheart.” Eddie’s voice is distant, lost in the shrill that has taken up residence in his head, but Steve catches it anyway, warmth flooding to is chest at the random pet name.
After that, he doesn’t get much: he feels antiseptic burning, a worried voice – Joyce, he thinks – asking for an update, a gauze put on his skin, and a big, warm, ringed hand wiping away the tears he didn’t know he’d spilled on his cheek.
Someone lifts him to his feet and, as he struggles to walk, moves him outside the bathroom, guiding him through the house until, somehow, he finds himself in his own bedroom – he has no idea who carried him upstairs, for now, all he cares about is the soft fabric of his sheets, familiar yet unknown.
Voices of different pitches and color lull him to sleep, somebody is stroking the soft skin between his neck and his right shoulder, tapping lightly to a slow beat.
“We should call someone; he doesn’t look great.” Lucas says at some point.
“I heard you, Sinclair” he retorts, sparking a laugh from the small crowd he can just make out, crammed just outside of his door. “Is everyone ok?” He must make sure no one is hurting anymore.
“Yes, Steve, everyone’s ok, you did great, don’t worry” Joyce answers.
“He can talk, that’s good right?” Max’s worried tone strikes him at the heart, and a pang of guilt and fear surges at the idea of leaving the kids. You are not dying, he tells himself. It sure feels like I am, he retorts, arguing with his own high mind.
“Yeah, it is.” Robin is nearer, on his left this time, and he reaches out for her. He tries to catch her hand, squeezing it when he takes it in his. “Just…” he starts, trailing off for a second – his eyelids are heavy – and thinking about what he has to say before he drifts to sleep “Make sure I don’t leave. Can’t do that to the kids. Or you. Or Nance. Or Eddie. I’m not cruel.”
He’s not dying – his heart beats strong under his skin, inside his ribcage – and he knows it, but the world as he once knew it is as good as gone, so everything is on the table, even the remote and scary thing death is.
“Steve, oh my god” He can hear Dustin’s eye roll from the way he’s talking. “You’re not dying, you dramatic idiot.”
Someone laughs. “Well, Harrington,” it’s another voice, Eddie’s, even closer on his right – Steve recognizes his hand on his shoulder, cold rings brushing his neck from time to time. “You were gnawed by demo-bats and kicked around by an ugly old dude while you were saving our asses. You’re not exactly in one piece right now, but, still, your face is too pretty for you to die this young.”
Steve can’t help but smile at that. Pretty, he thinks, that’s new.
“Sleep, Steve, you’ll be alright”
---
He doesn’t know what time it is when he wakes up: the sun is shining, judging by the light coming from the windows, the house is silent – some birds are chirping outside, but he can’t hear them very well – and the world is saved.
It takes a moment for Steve to assess himself: his head is finally back onto his shoulders, dizziness gone, and the pain is still there – not that he expected it to go away – but it’s faint, latent, it’s definitely better. There’s something foreign, though. He feels a hand resting high on his shoulder, a welcome weight, a warm presence, so he turns to the right, only to find himself facing a mop of dark hair, sprawled on the pillow next to his head.
He's still not awake – or okay – enough to process the image of Eddie Munson sleeping in his bed, next to him, so he stores it away for later inside the Things I Should Ask Robin Because Robin Knows Better Than Me Box – surprisingly, it’s fairly full, but Steve would never admit it out loud.
He quickly glances around, taking in Robin and Nancy huddled on his comfier, bigger armchair – he’ll let them take the bed next time, but they seem fine anyway – and notices a bottle of water on the nightstand at his left. Suddenly thirsty, he cautiously lifts himself up, gently moving Eddie’s hand – and mourning the loss of warmth that came with it – and sits on the left side of the bed gulping down some water, silently thanking whoever thought of putting it there.
After checking the bandage – it’ll need to be changed in a few hours – he tries to stand up, walking around to test his movements and carefully makes his way downstairs as soon as he’s sure his legs won’t betray him.
When he peeks in, the living room is bathed in the light coming from the glass doors, kids sleeping peacefully, adults doing the same – he notices Murray is gone but finds a note saying he’s back at his place for a while to figure out stuff with the government – and he stares for a moment, letting the soft snores coming from Argyle fill the silence. A smile crosses his lips, and he silently sets of towards the backyard, taking in the state of the whole place as he does. His house is stained all over with blood and goo, but at least it feels like home, for once, so he doesn’t mind.
Outside, the sky is clear, and he can finally hear the birds singing – he wonders for a second if their call is somebody’s favorite song, and he think it probably is. He stays in comfortable quiet for a while, sat on a chair, basking in the light, hoping it’ll cancel out the darkness inside him – as well as the one inside the people he cares about the most – and he tries not to think, not to dwell too much on it, not to hurt himself more than this whole thing has already done. At least, he knows he’s not alone. It’s cold comfort, but it’s enough and they will do with what they have.
“Didn’t peg you as a morning person, I’ll be honest, Harrington” Eddie sits on the ground next to him, apparently not in the mood for a chair, and looks up, squinting at the sun. The light makes him glow, touching his skin and hair – still gorgeous even with a bedhead – in a way that makes Steve’s stomach flip. He doesn’t ignore it this time, he acknowledges it and stores it aside as evidence to analyze later. “I don’t think the typical rules applies to this situation.”
Eddie exaggerates surprise – his brown doe-eyes honey in the sun. “Are you saying that fighting an interdimensional monster doesn’t affect your sleep schedule? I would’ve never thought of it.”
They chuckle, but the sound dies quickly, leaving Steve uneasy. He’s known the boy for just a few days, but his way of deflecting through jokes is blatant. Besides, he’s the new one and Steve still remembers how it was for him the first time around. “Is that why you’re here?” He asks tentatively. “Nightmare?”
Eddie shrugs and avoids his gaze. “Yeah, kind of.”
“You want to talk about it?” He puts it there, the kindest offer he can give, the one Eddie can choose to accept or refuse, the one he’s heard thrown around in the group far more that it’s supposed to be normal.
“Maybe later, I don’t know.” He moves, laying his head on Steve’s right knee – if Steve stares at his neck for too long, it’s his business and nobody else’s – his eyes up to the sky, a hand in his lap as he fidgets with some loose threads, the other toying with his hair.
Steve offers him a sympathetic smile when Eddie shifts his gaze to look at him, hoping it’ll be enough for now. “Just know that if you’ll ever need someone to talk to, there’s a bunch of people inside who would be ready to listen and would understand what you’re going through. Myself included.” He doesn’t know what possesses him to do so, but he reaches out and takes Eddie’s hand in his, the skin calloused but soft anyway. The other boy looks at him oddly at first, then he relaxes and squeezes back.
Steve has no idea what this means, he just hopes it’s something good.
“Whenever you’re ready.”