Chapter Text
It is not fate nor divine intervention that saves Eddie Munson’s life. It is Steve Harrington, CPR-certified lifeguard, who wrenches him back from the clutches of death with his hands and breath.
He does it without thinking, without flinching. No reservations, no hesitance. He pinches Eddie’s nose with sure fingers, seals their mouths together, and breathes air into his lungs. His palms slip on wet blood and fluid as he presses them to his still chest, but he pushes down hard, hard enough to feel the give of ribs, hard enough to make a heart beat.
When Eddie gives a pitiful wheeze, when Steve holds two fingers to the slick skin of his neck and feels a thready pulse, he gathers his body in his arms. Eddie’s head rolls against Steve’s bruised throat. Wet breaths puff against his skin, too fast and few. It sends a chill through Steve, gooseflesh prickling down his arms, and on some level he’s aware of how intimate this is. Pushing and breathing life back into Eddie “The Freak” Munson’s body, cradling him as he brings him to safety.
Through the gate, the trailer is awash with flashing blue light. He squints his eyes against it, the brightness sending zings of pain through his head. He might have a concussion again, but he can’t feel his body enough to really tell. Everything’s just numb, now that the danger has passed.
Outside in the chilly morning, the cops surround them and demand answers to questions he can’t answer. He feels more than sees the flash of the cameras. Reporters clamor toward them, tripping over themselves, snapping pictures. Steve turns his face away, dread growing with each camera flash, but he's rooted to the spot.
The trailer park around them buzzes with intrigue. Residents stand on their porches, men in slippers and women in their bathrobes, all murmuring at the sight before them. Four teens and one fugitive, all appearing out of thin air, covered in blood.
When the ambulances come, their sirens wail at a hair raising pitch. Eddie doesn’t stir at the noise. He doesn’t even twitch.
The lights flash oddly before Steve’s eyes, red and white and confusing. There’s the screeching of tires, the cacophony of raised voices, and then hands are on Steve, on Eddie, prying the two of them apart. Dustin cries out, but Steve lets them strap Eddie to a stretcher. He grabs Dustin and holds onto his shoulders, half restraining him and half keeping him upright. The kid trembles and Steve presses his thumbs into the nape of his neck.
“We gotta go with him,” Dustin says, thick and wobbling. “Steve, we gotta—”
“I know, I know.” Steve’s voice doesn’t sound like his own, anymore. His tongue feels fat, his cheeks stiff and numb. “I’ll ask, okay? Just… just chill out.”
Steve moves, but Dustin’s broken ankle gives out and the kid nearly face plants. Steve grabs him and decides to let the paramedics come to them.
In the ambulance, the EMTs are bent over Eddie’s body, and their mouths say a jumble of numbers and words that Steve doesn’t understand. They open Eddie’s jacket and slide scissors through his shirt, but Steve’s eyes are not glued to the blood weeping from the puncture wounds. Instead, he stares at a grotesque skull with bulging eyes and a spider with spindly legs—both permanently etched into Eddie Munson’s skin.
And Steve doesn’t mean to, but he looks closer, and beneath the ink are small, circular scars. Deep in the center, surrounded by odd, jagged ridges, almost like someone carved a small hole into his skin. He stares until a paramedic blocks his view, and then he glances at Dustin. The kid sits, silent, white faced. When he lowers his head onto Steve’s shoulder, Steve doesn’t tease him. He lets Dustin’s curly hair tickle the skin of his jaw and he doesn’t say a word.
The doors to the ambulance shut with twin thuds and the vehicle moves, bouncing on the gravel of the trailer park. Eddie’s hand hangs off the stretcher, palm up. His rings are still on his blood-stained fingers, glinting uncertainly beneath fluorescent lights, so Steve reaches out, unthinking, and links their fingers together. His heart skips, resolve weakening, but his grip tightens anyway. It feels good, having something to hold onto.
The ambulance barrels toward the hospital, rocking on the uneven pavement. The EMTs press hard on Eddie’s wounds and the siren is so loud, it’s piercing, and Steve’s head throbs to the beat of his heart and it’s such beautiful chaos, such perfect insanity that it makes his chest ache in a way he wants to bottle up and save. He’s high on the pandemonium, has been since this started again, and when the sensation fades it’s going to be hard to go back to normal. He knows that, when he clocks into Family Video once more, he’s going to stand at the counter and shake and pick at his skin, just like he did after Starcourt.
But right now, in the back of this ambulance with Eddie’s rings biting into his skin, he is so fucking alive that it doesn’t matter.