Chapter Text
They don’t talk about it. At least, not at first.
Months pass, and they talk about Eleven and Erica and Max (poor Max). He watches his kids do what they do: hold each other and learn to heal together. He watches the look in Will’s eyes when he looks at Mike. He watches Jonathan and Will, as they slowly remember how to knit each other back together.
But they don’t talk about it.
He watches Dustin as he sits beside Eddie’s uncle Wayne, and he sees the moment Wayne’s face crumples like old paper. Watches Dustin’s eyes as he hands over the last piece of Eddie that he has left and tells Wayne that his nephew was a hero. Sees him struggle to stay in the moment, in Hawkins High’s gymnasium-turned-emergency-shelter, when Steve knows, he knows, that part of him stayed in the upside-down next to Eddie. That part of him, even though he had to leave Eddie there alone, never left. Never came back.
Steve doesn’t talk about it.
He buries his silence in conversations about Vecna and the gates opening and what to do now that Eleven is back and in her power. About the town and how to explain Hopper’s return. About the public response to Jason’s death, and how they’re going to deal with the rise of angry townies with guns in addition to everything the fuck else they’ve got going on.
Steve is so damn busy not talking about it that he almost convinces himself that he doesn’t think about Eddie at all.
~
They’re in the backyard of Hopper’s cabin, and robin and Nancy are arguing loudly about whether to build the sensory deprivation tank in the backyard or in the basement. Nancy is firmly pro-basement.
“As far as we know, Eleven is still wanted by Brenner’s people and the government. Do we really want her physical body floating somewhere visible when she’s off doing her psychic superhero thing?”
Robin shoots her a look that Steve can’t entirely decipher. “Haven’t you had enough of creepy basements for a lifetime? Because I know that I have.”
Steve is about to back her up on that front when Nancy retorts, a little loud, a little manic: “Have we learned nothing about needing to keep this stuff hidden? Have we learned nothing from the witch hunt for Eddie?”
Steve sees Dustin flinch out of the corner of his eye. Watches him turn his head away, face hidden underneath his baseball cap. Nancy shrinks back uncertainly as she realizes what she’s done.
“I’m sorry, I just- this town has really rallied behind Jason in a way that scares me, and Eddie was basically a fugitive for weeks, and I don’t want El to get hurt-"
It’s Mike who interjects softly. “It’s okay.”
Steve watches Mike stand from his seat on top of the bags of rock salt. He reaches down for Dustin’s hand, pulls him up. Leads him away inside the cabin. Across the yard, Steve watches Jonathan get up and follow them in, ruffling Will’s hair as he passes him. Will and El sit alone, looking at Jonathan and then each other.
Nancy catches Steve’s eye, looking pained, mouthing I’m sorry. Steve’s throat is dry. He shrugs. Twists his hands together.
~
Steve is fixing up the back doorframe to the cabin. He’s using the back end of a hammer, levering up the wood where it’s soft, damp and long-rotted away. It should be satisfying, but something about the loaminess, the sickly-sweet smell, reminds him of the upside-down and makes him want to set the whole thing on fire.
Hopper finds him sitting with his head against the doorframe, rubbing his thumb across the head of the hammer over and over. Sour taste in his mouth. Steve doesn’t look up, but he sees out of the hazy corner of his vision as Hopper quirks an eyebrow.
He feels more than sees when Hopper sits down next to him, boards creaking beneath the shifting weight. Takes the hammer from his hands and replaces it with a cup of coffee, black and pungent and steaming. Steve tightens his hand around the mug just enough so that it doesn’t fall. Notices that the mug was cracked once, feels the hard edge of the repair against his palm.
Hopper still looks pretty wrecked, Steve thinks. He’s got scars and bruises and a sunkenness to his features where the hunger did its ugly work, chipping away at him. Still, there’s something oddly peaceful about him. A calm that wasn’t there before. A gift that trauma sometimes leaves, as a peace offering for those who survive it. Steve raises his mug, feeling the bite of the cracked edge against his lips.
“You know,” Hopper starts, and Steve feels his stomach drop. “Dustin and Mike. They miss him a lot.”
Oh.
Hopper eyes him, just once, searchingly, and then looks away. Steve wonders what he sees. “But it will be okay, Steve. Those kids are tough. They have each other, and you."
No shit.
Steve nods. Toys with the idea of brushing it off. Pictures himself stiffening his back, looking at Hopper with a sympathetic scoff and a smile and a yeah, those kids will be the death of me, but they’ll be fine. The thought makes him ache somewhere below his ribs. He closes his eyes instead.
Eddie Munson’s face hair eyes hands smile flash behind his eyelids. He can feel where his hair brushed against Steve’s jaw, there in the woods in the upside-down. Still suuuuper jealous. Larger than life, all up in Steve’s face, joking but softer and more earnest than Steve had ever expected to see him.
Something prickles in the back of Steve’s throat, and his ribs throb. He forces himself to open his eyes. He sneaks a glance over at Hopper, who’s still looking away, just holding his own cup of coffee and looking out into the woods.
Hopper doesn’t know. Steve breathes. Hopper smiles a little, out toward the darkening woods.