Chapter Text
Eddie could hear Dustin's screams, desperately calling him, getting lower and lower as he moved away from the Upside Down version of the trailer where he lived with his Uncle Wayne. He held tightly to the pick necklace he always wore, and he remembered the day his uncle had come home with it as a gift, handing it to his nephew, who was still just a scared kid trying to assimilate what had just happened to him. That day, his uncle hugged him tightly, repeating how much he loved him. Despite everything, he still considered this one of the best days of his life. Eddie took a deep breath and rode his bike even faster. He needed to buy time, not just for his friends, but for Wayne.
Eddie looked ahead, seeing the lightning turn the sky red each time it strikes, and heard the noise of the monsters following him getting louder, sending a shiver down the back of his neck. He was getting tired, not just physically, but from this feeling of just running away once more. However, every time his frustration got more than he could handle and he decides to would stop and face the Demobats, a voice repeats inside his head:
“Don’t try to be cute, or a hero, or whatever”
No, Eddie definitely was not a hero. And he played enough D&D to know that normally facing this amount of monsters alone doesn't work, and he wasn't feeling lucky enough to roll a crit. But even so, he was getting tired.
In a moment of distraction, one of the Demobats flew into Eddie's bike, knocking him down immediately. He hit his knee hard, and rose in pain. His first instinct was to get on his bike again, but as he looked at the army of Demobats around him, getting closer and closer, he thought again of his uncle. Wayne had sacrificed himself to take care of a traumatized boy who wasn't even his problem, losing much of his own life for him.
Eddie also thought about his few friends from the Hellfire Club, he hoped they were all okay...
“No, focus Eddie.” He shook his head as the guilt he felt for putting everyone at the club in danger returned to his mind. No, this was not the time for that.
Finally, Eddie thought about his new friends. A group that until the day before were just people he saw in the halls of high school, who he imagined also considered him just a “freak”, but who quickly became important to him. He smiled. A common trauma really brings all different types of people together.
Eddie wants to keep being a part of their little club. He wants to be able to teach Robin what real music is, definitely wants to learn from Nancy how to be as badass as she is, he wants Steve…he wants Steve…
He shook his head again. To be a part of this Upside Down Survivors club, he would have to earn it. Harrington will have to forgive him, but he needed to become a motherfucking hero too.
Eddie ran to get the shield, and raised it in defiance of the Demobats, who were circling him menacingly.
“Come on! I'm gonna bite all of your heads off, you fuckers!”
The Demobats started attacking him. Eddie managed to fight them for a while, but they were too many. He felt bites on his belly and back, but he couldn't but couldn't defend himself in time, as they wouldn't stop attacking him. The boy ended up falling to the ground, screaming in pain. He felt stupid. That’s what he gets for trying to be what he never was, never could be. Eddie tightened his grip on his necklace again, closed his eyes, and thought that with him dead, at least his uncle would have his life back.
Suddenly, everything was silent. Eddie slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He was alone.
“…what the fuck?” He whispered, leaning on the shield to get up. Unfortunately, the pain from his wounds caused him to fall back onto the floor. He looked around once more and found no bats in sight, so he lay down on the ground, putting his hands on his face.
"Eddie!" He heard Dustin's voice again, getting closer and closer. Before he took his hands away from his face, he felt the weight of the boy, who threw himself on top of him, making him let out an "oof"
"Eddie, why did you... You're alive! I thought I was going to lose you, don't you ever do that to me again..." Dustin kept talking on and on, but his head was sunk into his chest, and his voice was muffled by the crying, Eddie gave up trying to understand what he was talking about.
“You're heavy, kid,” Eddie said, but still hugged him tight. "I'm okay, stop crying please"
"I'm not crying!" Dustin said, crying even harder. Suddenly he backed away, probably because he noticed Eddie's bloodied shirt. "Shit, you're bleeding. I need to get you out of here right now!"
Eddie looked down and yep, he was beeding indeed. Suddenly, all the adrenaline he got from being impulsive was gone, and he felt the full intensity of the pain coming from his injuries. “Well, isn’t that just lovely?.” he said, smirking.
“Eddie, focus!” Dustin yelled and tried to lift him, but his body didn't have enough strength, and Eddie was in a lot of pain.
"Sorry buddy, seems like my body doesn't want to obey me" Eddie apologized, and Dustin tried again to pull him back up.
“Hey, what are you guys doing here?”
Eddie turned and saw Steve, Robin and Nancy approaching them. They were bruised, but looked okay. Dustin got up and walked as fast as he could towards them, hugging Steve.
"Hey, Henderson, calm down. Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" Eddie heard Steve asking worriedly, turning Dustin around so he could examine him. He smiled, really Steve was the mother of the group.
The two girls went to Eddie, kneeling around him.
“Hey Munson, what happened?” Robin asked worriedly. "Oh god, You're bleeding." She looked at Nancy, desperately "Nance, he's bleeding, I don't know how to deal with bleedings, do something".
Eddie was distracted by Robin's outburst and didn't notice Nancy lifting his shirt to see his injuries. “Demobats. The same injuries as Steve.” Nancy spoke up, already tearing a piece of her shirt to stop the bleeding.
"You're going to run out of shirts like this, Wheeler," Eddie said, but let out an "ouch" when Robin gave his arm a light slap. "Don't hurt a man who's already down, Buckley."
"If your brain has the strength to try to be funny, it also has to understand that you can't fight alone thousands of Demobats!" Robin yelled. Eddie groaned in pain as Nancy finished bandaging his wounds, with a little more force than was necessary. Apparently they weren't very happy with him.
Steve finally got closer to the group, with Dustin pulling him by the arm. “Come on, Steve! Eddie can't get up, help him!"
Steve crouched in front of Eddie, staring at him silently. Eddie tried to stare back but ended up looking down, feeling embarrassed. Steve finally said, “What did I say about trying to be a hero, Munson? Not cute at all”
Eddie didn't know if it was the near-death experience, but he suddenly felt brave. "I'm sorry, Harrington. I’ll try harder to be cute for you next time.” And ended with a wink.
Apparently he was in more pain than he thought, because Eddie swears he saw Steve turning red before he turned his back to him, still bent over. “Come on, up”
Eddie blinked several times. “You wanna me to piggy ride you?”
"Do you want me to carry you in my arms like a princess?" He asked, looking back at Eddie.
"Well..." Eddie started, and Steve cut him off.
“Come on, Munson, hurry!”
Eddie got up, with help from Robin and Dustin, and wrapped his arms around Steve's neck, holding on tight, while Nancy made sure the bandages were tight on his body after all the moving he did. Steve got up slowly, his injuries were still fresh, he was probably still in pain. Still, Eddie relaxed for the first time in what seemed like many years, and leaned his head on Steve's shoulder wearily, speaking close to his ear, "Thanks, Steve."
Steve settled him on his back, and after a while he whispered back, "You're welcome, Eddie."
The group finally returned to the trailer, after a slow walk, with everyone injured and exhausted.
“Hey, why is there a hose hanging from the gate?” Robin asked, confused.
“I had to… improvise” Dustin said and ran to the hose “Look, it's strong, it'll hold us up”
“Why did you have to improvise?” Robin asked again.
Eddie immediately tensed up. In the heat of the moment, he didn't even realize that, in order to keep Dustin from following him, he was removing the only way to escape from the other three teens who were still in the Upside Down. Steve must have sensed the tension in his body, since he immediately shifted him onto his back and said, "It doesn't matter, Robin. I just wanna get out of here."
Robin, Nancy and Dustin went first, Steve stayed behind to lift Eddie while the others pulled him. It was intense teamwork, but a few minutes later, everyone was lying on the mattress on the floor of the trailer, staring at the ceiling where the gate was starting to close.
Suddenly, Dustin sat down on the mattress and looked at everyone seriously. “Hey guys”
Everyone remained lying down, but looked at the younger boy. Dustin continued. “That….was…AWESOME!!” He ended up throwing his arms in the air.
“That was kinda awesome,” Nancy agreed, laughing at the boy's excitement.
“We set that son of a bitch on fire!” Robin screamed while hitting the mattress.
“And did you hear Eddie's guitar? It was so metal!” Dustin spoke while pretending to play an imaginary guitar.
Eddie was immediately embarrassed. But before he could say anything, Steve, who was lying next to him, turned his head, that was closer to his face than it should be, and said “We heard you playing. You're good at it, Munson” and Eddie decided to blame his injuries for the butterflies in his stomach as he heard the compliment. Steve continued “By the way…” he got even closer and whispered and Eddie almost lost it. Steve finished “we made him pay”
Eddie's eyes widened. There was no way Steve could remember that. He smiled and looked down, moving his face away like a coward. But on his defense, if he stayed in this situation a little longer, his injuries wouldn't be the worst problem he’d have to deal with. Could it be that Steve didn't know how to speak normally to someone without flirting? Eddie knew about his fame, but damn, people weren't exaggerating.
"Hey, dingus, you're bleeding again! What’s up with all the bleeding today?" Eddie heard Robin talking. He immediately looked at Steve's shirt, which was getting red where his injuries from the Demobats were. He heard Steve saying under his breath a “shit”.
Dustin looked startled, and Nancy got up and went to look closely. Eddie noticed Steve tensing up as she approached. Of course, with everything that had happened he'd almost forgotten about the absurd sexual tension the two of them had. He mentally chuckled at himself for merely considering some form of flirtation happening on the other man's part when he had Nancy Wheeler.
Nancy lifted Steve's shirt, and after looking at the bandages closely, said "The wounds must have reopened when you had to..." she stopped and looked at Eddie, stopping immediately. Great, now Eddie was feeling even more guilty.
“Hey, I’m okay, and I’m sure Munson would’ve done the same for me, right?”
Would Eddie stop being surprised by Steve “The Hair” Harrington today? He was so stunned that he realized he hadn't answered until he saw that everyone was staring at him. “Sure, yeah, of course man”
Nancy, once again, assumed the posture of leader and stood up. “Okay, we need a way to get you both to the hospital.”
One more thing Eddie had forgotten. He was still wanted by the police, accused of murder and being a cult leader. Even though they had killed the real murderer, it was impossible to make the town believe that a demon was responsible, and not the weird drug dealer metalhead. He sat slowly on the mattress and put his hands on his head. "It's not exactly going to be easy to get me to a hospital, is it?"
Everyone fell silent, remembering Eddie's little problem.
"Eddie..." Dustin approached, worried.
“Take Harrington, I'll stay here. You've already sacrificed enough to help me.” Eddie continued, slowly getting up off the mattress and heading to his room, where he flopped down on his bed.
The other four followed him there, Steve sitting on the bed as well.
“Hey Eddie, don't worry. We've dealt with far worse situations than these, haven't we?” Nancy spoke, looking at her friends, who immediately agreed.
"I can't see a scenario where this ends in a good way for me, Wheeler." Eddie sat carefully on the bed, leaning against the wall. “I managed to make an entire town hate me. I surely made daddy Munson prouder than ever…”
Eddie stopped talking when he felt a slap on his face, and his eyes widened as he realized it was Dustin, who grabbed him by the shirt and started screaming. “That's not the Eddie Munson I know! We are your friends and we won't give up on you, but YOU can't give up on yourself too! Where's your usual "fuck it" attitude?"
The other teenagers in the room were shocked.
“Wow man, too much” Steve said, while Robin said “Brutal”
“Sorry,” Dustin apologized, letting go of Eddie's shirt.
Eddie smiled. He really loved this boy. "No, it’s okay. You're right.” He straightened up on the bed and looked at everyone. “This town won't get rid of me that easily” he said, making hand horns and getting a laugh from Dustin, who did the same as him with both hands.
Steve was silent for a moment and leaned against the wall too, sitting next to Eddie. “Okay, you will stay at my place until we figure out what to do”
Eddie looked at Steve like he'd grown a second head “Wait, what?”