Chapter Text
Eddie hit the mattress on the floor of his uncle’s trailer, his stomach flipping from the switch back to the regular world. He shook his head and grinned as Dustin pulled him up.
“That was fun. Shit.” He stood next to Robin and the others, looking up through the gateway on the ceiling, where Steve and Nancy still were, upside down and opposite from the rest of them. He subconsciously smiled a bit at the sight of Steve in his vest, still not over how he looked in it, despite the state he was in.
Nancy moved to climb up the rope, then froze.
Oh, shit.
She was in a trance, Vecna’s trance, the same way that Chrissy had been. Eddie felt his breath stop. He took a step back, his mind reeling. He couldn’t watch this happen again. Not again. Robin noticed him move, glancing back with a concerned look. He stared at the floor, focusing on a spot of dirt on the rug. This couldn’t happen again, in his trailer, too-
There was a thud as someone hit the mattress on the floor. He looked up.
Nancy. Thank fuck. He let out the breath he was holding. After getting the “there’s another world under ours and monsters are real” talk, he’d been trying to act as normal as possible, but in truth he had no idea how all these kids dealt with this shit. He’d barely slept in days, unable to get Chrissy out of his mind, and this gang of freshman had dealt with this for years already? What the fuck.
Nancy clambered off his mattress, standing shakily, and everyone crowded around her, asking if she was okay. Still in the upside down, Steve started climbing up (down?) the rope back into the trailer. Eddie noticed him wince as he moved, and again when he hit the floor. He definitely didn’t envy those demobat wounds. He held out a hand to pull Steve off the floor.
“Thanks, man,” he said, breathily. Eddie nodded at the cloth wrapped around Steve’s stomach, slowly soaking through with blood.
“Y’alright?” Their hands were still clasped, but Eddie couldn’t find it in himself to let go.
Steve met his eye contact, brown eyes meeting. “Yeah, I’ll be alright. Could be worse.” He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it already was from sweat and blood and the general grime of the upside down. He couldn’t look much worse, and yet somehow he still didn’t look bad at all. Eddie could still barely comprehend that Steve Harrington, king of Hawkins High, was anything more than a prettyboy playboy. Seeing him covered in dirt and blood- and wearing his, the freak Eddie Munson’s, denim vest- it was definitely something. In high school, neither of them would have given each other the time of day.
“Try not to get blood on my vest, at least, Harrington,” he said, trying to be lighthearted. Steve laughed once, dryly.
“I’ll do my best, Munson.”
Their hands parted. Steve turned to check on Nancy, who was looking rather shaken up. He watched the two of them as Steve fussed over her, remembering the conversation he had with Steve in the upside down. There certainly seemed to be some kind of true love between those two, but there was something else, too. Steve seemed to still be in love with Nancy, and yet, when he looked at Eddie, there was a hint of that something else in his eyes- or maybe he was just imagining things. Eddie shook the thought from his mind. He knew he was into guys himself, but into Steve? He had to get rid of that before it turned into a problem. There was no chance in hell Steve Harrington would even think about thinking about him like that. He didn’t even know how he felt about the whole being gay thing. Because- well, he’s Steve Harrington.
They all regrouped in the trailer before deciding to find a different place to stay, at least for a night. Vecna could wait the few hours; they were all exhausted, and Steve desperately needed rest. The Wheeler’s was out of the question now, after running from the cops, and Eddie had to stay hidden anyway. The other kids’ houses wouldn’t work, with parents around. They landed on Steve’s house; apparently his parents were away on some sort of business trip. It wasn’t the most hidden place in the world for someone wanted for murder to be, but it would be fine enough for now. So off they went, to Steve Harrington’s house.
Eddie knew what he expected the Harrington house to be like, and it was exactly that. There couldn’t be a bigger difference between Steve’s place in the upper class side of town, and Eddie’s trailer, a crime scene in a trailer park. He couldn’t imagine living in a house this big. They separated into various rooms to sleep, on couches, guest beds, and air mattresses, and somehow in the chaos of things Eddie found himself in Steve’s room. With Steve. Who was rapidly getting less dressed in front of him. He shrugged Eddie’s vest off and handed it to him rather carefully.
“Here, I don’t want to mess it up.” Eddie took it, rather touched on the seemingly genuine care that he had for something of his. Steve sat on the edge of his bed, wincing as he slowly unwrapped the makeshift bandage Nancy had tied around him. Eddie sat gingerly in Steve’s desk chair, suddenly hyper aware of how disgusting he must be after the days hiding in sheds and running around in the woods and the upside down. Steve nodded at him, gesturing toward the door. “There’s a bathroom down the hall on the left. Get me a real bandage, would you?” Eddie nodded without a word and headed to the bathroom for the supply run, grabbing hydrogen peroxide and a washcloth too. He returned to Steve sitting on the bed, entirely bandageless and shirtless. He sat on the edge of the bed, supplies in hand. Steve leaned forward to grab the stuff with a wince, and Eddie turned toward him, pressing a hand on his chest to push him back against the pillows. His hand lingered for a millisecond too long.
“Don’t even think about moving. Let me help you.” He tilted the bottle into the washcloth, wetting it with the antiseptic. “This is going to hurt, I’m sorry. Shit, you really had to get yourself all beat up, huh?” Steve rolled his eyes at the remark, then gritted his teeth as Eddie touched the cloth to his side, trying his best to be as careful as possible. The bats had really dug into him, and Steve was still bleeding. He got off as much of the dried blood as possible, then unrolled the bandage. “Sit up, Harrington, let me wrap you up.” He waved the bandage in his hand with a smile. Steve pushed himself upright with a low groan and raised his arms up for Eddie to reach around him. He started to wrap the bandage around Steve’s torso, having to reach an arm around him to get it evenly wrapped around. He tried not to think about how close they were. How he could hear Steve’s soft breathing, feel it. How Steve’s hands, still in the air, were falling ever so slightly closer to Eddie’s hair. He reached the end of the bandage in his hands, and tied the ends securely, keeping it just tight enough to hold pressure against the wounds. He pulled away from Steve, his hand brushing his waist as he did. “There you go, then.” His voice was softer than he’d meant it to be. Fuck, his whole demeanor was falling apart.
Steve nodded. “Thanks, really.” He gestured to the hall again. “Why don’t you go get a shower, get cleaned up.” His eyes glanced down to Eddie’s clothes, the same Hellfire Club tee and dirty ripped jeans he’d been wearing for days.
Eddie managed a characteristic smirk. “Trying to tell me I stink?”
Steve raised his eyebrows and looked away. “Yeah, like a pig, Munson. Go shower.” He nodded to the dresser against the wall. “You can wear something of mine, if you want.” Eddie nodded. Right. Something of Steve’s. He opened the drawers and grabbed the first things off the top, which happened to be a dark blue crewneck and fleece track shorts. God, Steve dressed so painfully boring, but he wasn’t about start digging through his clothes. He glanced at him laying on the bed as he left the room. Steve was looking back at him.
In the bathroom down the hall, Eddie dropped the clothes on the floor and shook out his arms, trying to shake the feeling in the back of his mind that he was actively trying to ignore. He’d felt it before, and he wasn’t about to deal with it over Steve Harrington, of all people. He shed his own clothes and started the water, stepping into the hot shower with a relieved sigh. The streams of water running through his hair and down his back distracted him from Steve, letting him just relish in the shower, especially the nice ass shower in the Harrington house. The water washed away the layers of grime from the past few days, but the experience was still very much there and present in his mind. He tried to shake the sight of Chrissy and Patrick, held up in the air with an invisible curse, their bodies broken and twisted right before his eyes, with absolutely nothing he could do except run. Again. He tried to remind himself that there’s no way he could have helped them. If the freak group of freshmen could deal with this kind of shit, then there’s no way he shouldn’t be able to.
He got out of the shower looking and feeling significantly less gross than before. He left his hair to air dry and got dressed in Steve’s clothes. He smelled like Steve Harrington’s shampoo, and he was wearing his clothes. Somehow, this was the strangest thing to happen to him yet.
When he got back to Steve’s room, he saw him fast asleep, still on top of the covers. He’d put on a t-shirt over the bandages, but he was still wearing the pants he had been. His hair was still a mess, and he looked more peaceful than Eddie had ever seen him before, eyes closed, mouth parted slightly, breathing softly. Eddie left his clothes in a neat pile on the floor, and laid in the bed next to Steve, unfolding the throw blanket at the end of the bed to spread over the two of them. Straightening the blanket, he noticed again the red marks on Steve’s neck, raw from being choked by bat. Shit, how did he deal with all of this? Eddie had escaped the upside down with nothing more than a few scrapes and scratches, meanwhile Steve had been stabbed in the stomach and nearly choked to death and he seemed to hardly notice it half the time.
He curled up on his side under the blanket, laying as far away from Steve as he could without being left blanket-less. He already knew his reputation, the last thing he needed was for Steve Harrington to wake up next to him cuddled way too close under the same blanket. He pulled the edge of the blanket up to his ear, hiding his face in the soft fleece and doing his best to fall asleep despite the thoughts rattling around his mind and the fact that he was sharing a bed with the king of Hawkins High. He managed it, eventually, sleep inevitably taking over.