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“Steve.” He thinks someone is saying, but the ringing in his ears is deafening and Steve thinks he might pass out. He spins around and his wavering eyes land on a teary, breathless Robin. She says it again, he thinks. It looks like his name on her lips, but he can’t hear her over Eddie dying.
Eddie is dying and Dustin is screaming, but the ringing won’t stop. Steve feels himself drop to the ground as Robin is yelling something again. Eddie’s eyes are lulling open and close and there’s blood everywhere. Too much blood. There’s too much blood. He whips around to Nancy who is pulling the jacket off of Steve’s shoulders before he can object. It throws him off kilter again but Robin is beside him with a steadying hand on his shoulder.
Steve watched, frozen, unmoving as Nancy tied the jacket around Eddie’s middle, hard and firm, rolling him over to fasten it at his back resulting in another unsettling scream.
Dustin is shaking but halted on his knees next to them. As his eyes dart to Steve’s, the tears streaming down his face and the terror in his features throws Steve out of his stupor. He leaps up, stutters on his feet a little and moves to help Nancy lift Eddie to his feet and then onto Steve’s back. The groans Eddie lets out are traumatising and Steve is sprinting to the trailer before he can think about the others. Nancy must have pulled Dustin to his feet because just as he reaches the door of the trailer, he shuffles with his hands clasping Eddie’s legs. Before he can figure out how to open the door, Nancy is leaning in front of him to open it and lead them all into the trailer. She’s quick on her feet to move the disgusting couch from the other side of the room to where she’s kicked the mattress out of the way below the gate. Robin quickly follows to help her drag the dilapidated sofa to the centre.
Steve feels every delayed, huffing breath from Eddie’s nose on the side of his neck and he tries not to count the time between them because he knows it will alarm him more.
Just hold on Eddie, please god, hold on. Steve watches as Robin is hoisted through the gate by Nancy as she stands on the edge of a precarious stack of pillows on the sofa. Steve feels something warm and sticky on his back and in the discomfort he manages to grapple with the fact it’s Eddie’s blood. He adjusts his grip on Eddie’s thighs and gives a reassuring squeeze.
He watches as Robin throws through a new rope of sheets, tied to the end of the half which hand landed on the other side of the gate. Steve steps forward and prays to every sentient god he can think of that this works. That throwing Eddie through the gate alone won’t solidify the death of the already dying boy in his arms.
Nancy is climbing through and pleading with Dustin to follow her, because
“Steve’s going to need help, please Dustin.” Dustin is staring at Steve and Eddie. With a reluctant nod and the most encouraging smile Steve can muster he agrees and repeats.
“You gotta go, we’re gonna need your help okay?”
As Dustin climbs through after Nancy, Steve takes the moment to turn his head to Eddie.
“Eddie, you’re gonna hate me for the next five minutes. But, Jesus christ just hold on. Don’t let the fucker win, okay?” Steve’s voice is low and he can only vaguely hear Nancy on the other side of the gate, telling him to hurry.
Steve is thankful when a groan escapes Eddie’s lips. He ducks his head to lay a grimy but gentle brushing kiss to Eddie’s arm draped around his neck and finally, finally looks up.
The gate looks… different.
His friends on the other side look wrong, like he’s peering though a magnifying glass. There’s a shimmer to it as well. It appears to be pulsing and as Steve readies himself to climb onto the couch he notices it.
His breath catches in his throat and he freezes for a disbelieving, unsettling beat.
The gate is moving, it looks alive . The edges of the portal begin to curl and twist slowly. Steve’s eyes lock with Nancy’s through the shimmering window and watches as she comes to the same finalising, horrifying conclusion.
And suddenly everybody is screaming and yelling for Steve to move. And the groaning in his ear from the dying man is drowned out by the desperation and fervour.
Steve stumbles as he climbs onto the edge of the couch, leaning back so it doesn’t tip. Eddie’s head brushes the gate and Steve heaves a painful and deep breath before he hoists the man up and over his shoulders. The scream that escapes Eddie is expected but it doesn’t scare Steve any less when he hears it. He bites down on the inside of his cheek and forces Eddie’s legs above his head. Eddie almost falls before Robin and Nancy are leaning up to catch him, Dustin delays a moment but snaps out of his trance just in time to grab Eddie’s legs as he drops through the steadily shrinking opening.
Steve let’s out the breath he didn’t realise he was holding. He’s distracted a moment too long at the sound of sirens on the other side; watches as the others drag Eddie’s body away from Steve’s view.
This allows him realise that view is steadily shrinking. The Portal is now scarcely the size of a door way and Dustin is screaming again at Steve to “Please hurry the hell up.”
Steve wastes no time now, adrenalin retuning, he’s leaps up and grabs at the edges of the portal. He just pushes his hips hips through as the gate steadily closing, crushes the wounds at his sides and Steve falls with a resounding thump. Before he can recover from the fall, there’s a flurry of people entering the trailer. Flashing blue and red lights spill through the gaps in the curtains and stream through the ajar door as it is propped open by an apparition of a police officer. Steve watches in morbid curiosity as the bone deep exhaustion finally catches up to him.
They made it.
Eddie’s getting help. It feels like less than a minute before Eddie is being carted off on a stretcher, Nancy glued to its side, rattling off a million questions to the paramedics as they exit the trailer.
Steve still hasn’t moved from Eddie’s mattress. He watches in a trance as the gate curls and twists closed, shrinking to a hole so small he can just make out the couch on the other side. In no time at all it shrinks shut with a low growling noise and Steve finally realises the gravity of what’s just happened. The tears that have been burning at the edges of his eyes for what feels like a century finally fall, cutting through the layers of dirt and grime caking his cheeks and rolling down to dampen the mattress beneath him. Steve still has not moved.
He comes to notice the trailer has fallen airily silent and for a lagging moment, Steve lets his eyes fall shut. Just so he can breathe.
Steve isn’t sure how long it’s been when a hand lands on his shoulder. His eyes fight themselves open to face a gaunt and skittish Robin crouching beside him.
“Let’s go home, Steve.”
Steve doesn’t want to go anywhere, he wants to lay here until the world stops spinning. Wants to lay here until Eddie is alive. Wants to be anywhere but home. But Robin looks broken. Her eyes are heavy and she’s the definition of battered and bruised in more ways than one. The look she is giving him is concern and care and kindness. So Steve nods, and allows her to take his hand and lead him up and out of Eddie’s trailer.
The ride in the back of the tinted sedan driven by some suit or other is a blur. And the sequence of showering and changing and actually collapsing into his bed is unmemorable but he knows Robin is there the whole time. Never more than a few feet away, guiding him from one action to the next.
Steve sleeps like a dead man. Thought he may as well have been. Every abusing and exhausting moment of the last week had finally caught up to his mind and body and he can’t compel his body to fight the morbid blackness, doesn’t want to, can’t; let’s it swallow him whole for a day.
When he wakes, it takes a solid five minutes for his body and mind to reboot.
The clock on the dresser says 5.23. There’s a space next to him where Robin should be and he blearily shifts to engage his muscles to move out of the bed. He spots a glass on the bedside table and without thinking quickly engulfs the whole glass of water.
“Hey sleeping beauty.” Robin is in the door-way. The bags under her eyes are visible from where Steve sits, she leans casually against the frame, arms crossed, brow cocked.
Taking her in sends an unexpected wash of uneasy guilt over him and his shoulders slump against his will.
“Eddie’s alive.” She says plainly. Answering Steve’s next question before he can ask it let alone think it. Steve looks at her, eyes vacant, mind somewhere else.
Robin is quick to rush across the room and scoop Steve into a her, as a sob rakes his body and burns his throat. His head rests in her elbow as she casts a grounding, careful hand through his hair.
-
Somehow Steve’s BMW is resurrected in his driveway, like the events of the last 72 hours never happened. Parked, waiting for the next chance to cart Dustin from one end of town to the other.
Robin gave him a reassuring look and handed him the keys, before walking to the car silently.
The address Robin gives him isn’t a hospital, and Steve wastes twenty minutes more than needed taking several wrong turns and retracing their steps.
When they finally arrive, Steve is sure he’s been here before. The unsettling sterility of the unmarked building is enough to heighten his senses and set him on edge. More on edge, really. When they exit the car, a tall broad man approaches them, dressed in all black and an unreadable expression on his face.
He greets them by their last names and tells them to follow him. They trail cautiously into the building, the white overpowering fluorescent lighting does nothing to stop Steve’s mind wandering to a similar hallway in his head. Robin clasps his hand and gives him that smile again.
As soon as they round the corner into the airy, expansive hospital-like room, Steve bolts. Eddie is laid out on a the bed at the centre of the room. Everything around him, the sheets, the pillows, the equipment and walls is white. Eddies hair is fanned out around his head, eyes closed and impossibly long lashes blanket his cheeks.
His chest moves steady, rhythmically up and down. It’s a stark difference from the last time Steve saw him, clinical, clean and resting. Steve is at his side in a heartbeat. He takes his time taking in the young man’s form, taking reassurance in every right thing about him. His hair was still wild and curly, his faces still dusted with freckles, though marred by a few scrapes and a black eye blooming with tinges of green and yellow. His hands lay at his sides, ten fingers still attached and unscathed. Eddie was more or less in one piece and alive.
He vaguely heard the same man speaking to Robin in muffled tones in the doorway , before she joined him at his side a minute later.
“He’s gonna be fine. He’ll be here a while, but he’s okay.” Robin passes on, leaning her head on Steve’s shoulder and watching Eddie as well. Steve clears his throat and nods, swallowing hard.
“Nance was here all day and night, only left a couple hours ago, apparently.” She adds. Steve smiles at that, remembers her bossy, no-nonsense attitude the other night, mentally notes that he had to thank her personally soon.
After a moment, they both fall into two chairs both mirroring one another at each side of Eddie.
Steve spends some time taking in their surroundings. The room was a blank slate if not for the bed against the wall and few stray monitors around it. The rest of the airy space surrounding them was disconcertingly empty, white walls suffocatingly blank and imposing.
“This place is weird.” Robin utters into the knee she’s resting her head on, reaching the same conclusion as Steve.
Steve frowned at her, unsure.
“Sorry?”
“I said, this place is weird.”
Steve nodded.
“Yeah, total freak show.” He mused.
Time passes begrudgingly. Steve and Robin talk mindlessly as much as they sit in quiet and several hours pass without change. A woman comes in and writes a few things down on a clip board a couple times, checks Eddie’s observations and smiles politely before leaving.
After a while Steve looks up from staring at Eddie’s eyelashes to see Robin has fallen asleep. Her head craned back against the uncomfortable chair. He’s positive her neck will be sore when she wakes, doesn’t have the heart to disturb her though. Opts for sitting in silence and staring at Eddie again, memorising the constellations of the freckles dusting his nose and mapping the patterns of the curls that frame his face. After the lights in the hall outside are dimmed, Steve realises it’s probably getting late, doesn’t care, daydreams about the Eddie before instead.
Steve is itching to hold Eddie’s lanky, nail polish chipped, ring-less hand. He thought about the kiss and the uncertain unspoken looks that followed it, he wondered if maybe Eddie will regret it when he wakes up. Finally decides that he can hold Eddie’s hand, shuffles his chair a little closer, gingerly lifting his left hand and intertwining it with Eddie’s limp one.
He sits like this for a long time and when he feels his head getting heavy and eyes fighting to stay awake, rests his head next to their joined hands and let’s the sleep take him away from it all.
“Harrington.” Someone is saying and Steve is slow to shake his brain from its sleepy fog before looking around the room. He noted that Robin was still sound asleep in an odd pretzel like position on the chair off to the left and upon further inspection there was no one else in the sterile room. And then brown eyes meet, stunned.
“Harrington.” Eddie repeats, scratchy and breathy, hardly audible. Steve cannot compute that Eddie is awake, and spends an awkward amount of time just gawking at him.
“You-you’re awake.” He said numbly “Eddie-“ Steve’s voice breaks, caught in his throat. This time he can’t bite back the tears already spilling, the sob already racking his body and burning at his throat. Eddie smiles sadly back at him and shrugs. Before he can think, Steve is already standing and pulling himself against Eddie. Breaths him in, snuffling. Eddie brought a hand up to drift over Steve’s back, before stuffing his head into the crook of Steve’s neck.
“Thank god.” Steve sobbed into Eddie’s hair.
“Eddie, actually.” Eddie mused, Steve immediately slapped at his shoulder.
“Shut up.” He said, but didn’t pull away.
Worried he might be hurting Eddie with the weight of him, Steve finally pulled himself from Eddie’s arms.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Steve mutters, staring at their joint hands. “You are such an idiot, don’t ever do something like that again or I swear to god, I’ll kill you myself.” Eddie huffs a laugh, eyes crinkling with a half version of his signature grin.
Steve sat back and stared at Eddie again, no shame or discomfort in the action anymore after having done so for so many hours already.
Eddie is eyeing him back cautiously, squeezing Steve’s hand which is still laced with his own.
Steve has never looked more tired and Eddie feels utterly guilty for having contributed to it. Eddie takes attendance over every new overwhelming and tiring sensation his body is suddenly feeling. He notes that every muscle in his body is fighting a tenseness that feels like someone had poured concrete into each of his limbs that is now begrudgingly setting. There’s a giddiness that is steadily rolling through him which he fights to settle, unplaceable and ill-fitting for the current temper of conversation. And the haze that borders everything will only further aid in the misjudging of the discussion no doubt about to occur. Blames it on the drugs that are pumping through the IV in his left arm.
A comfortable beat passes in silence, the two boys just taking one another in and coming to terms with the other again. A tentative Eddie Munson smirk builds on Eddie’s face.
“Who would’ve thought it would take the world ending for Steeeeve Harrington’s hair to be anything less than cover-shoot ready.” Eddie teased, cocking an eyebrow and staring at the mop of deflated hair atop Steve’s head.
“Yeah, well I’ve had other things to worry about the last 24 hours.” He explains, tapping at the palm of Eddie’s hand.
Another comfortable silence settles, Steve knows he’s thinking, coming to terms with the events just past, making the same conclusions he had been throughout the day. Eddie smiles at the contorted sleeping figure of Robin in the other corner.
“She okay?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah, exhausted and traumatised like the rest of us but she’s okay.”
“Dustin.” Eddie says, not a question or an observation but an audible thought.
“He’s okay too, Robin called the kids this morning, they’re all staying at the Wheelers. He knows you’re okay, think the suits just don’t want any more people here right now than needed.” He explains by way of explanation of Dustin’s absence. A sad smile spreads Eddie’s face and his eyes darken. Steve squeezes his hand.
“Rob said someone has been trying to get ahold of your uncle too. He hasn’t been at the trailer, but there’s been new missing posters around town, so they think he’s around.”
Eddie meets Steve’s eyes as he nods solemnly. Steve grips the hand loosely clasped in his tightly, bringing his other hand up and grabbing their joined hands.
“We thought- I thought I was gonna lose you.” Steve whispered, eyes cast down.
“I’m okay. We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.” Eddie reassures, looking fixed at their joined hands. Steve nods, sniffs softly as he sits back in his chair and reverts to holding Eddie’s hands loosely with his own. They sit in comfortable silence, occasionally watching Robin snore quietly, trying to enjoy the reassuring simplicity of each other’s company.
Eddies cuts through the quiet. He clears his throat softly, commanding Steve’s attention as he turns toward the man.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Steve considers it for a moment before his spiralling is promptly cut short by Robin stirring on the other side of the room.
She looked up blearily, squinting and frowning, before her eyes widened comically.
“Eddie. You’re awake!”
“Hey Robin.” He smiled brightly. Robin swiftly untangled herself from her chair and stumbled slightly as she made her way to the bedside.
“Can I hug you?” She asked dumbly hovering near the bed. Eddie huffed a laugh and nodded eagerly. They embraced for a moment before Robin pulled away and ruffled Eddie’s hair playfully. “Glad you’re okay, rockstar.”
“Me too. Hey, thank you for everything.”
“You don’t have to- it’s whatever.” Robin rambled, eyes darting to their joined hands and then to Steve’s demeanour, only now realising what situation she had bombarded.
“Uh- I’m gonna see if they have a bathroom in this place.” Robin blurted before ducking out of the room and disappearing into the hall.
“I love her.” Eddie shook his head fondly.
“Me too.” Steve said easily, smiling back.
Eddie’s eyes coasted the room again in thought.
“Do you wanna talk about it, Steve?” He repeated, gentle and sweet, serious tone returning to conversation.
“Huh- ah - um. I’m not sure if there’s much I can say other than it was surprising.” Steve stuttered out, looking as his lap nervously avoiding Eddie’s gaze.
“Bad surprising or?”
“Good- god - good surprising of course. It’s just- I’ve never-“ Steve groaned internally, he was really fucking this up.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“We don’t have to do this, we can just say ya know… the world was ending. It- it doesn’t have to mean anything unless you want it to.” Eddie drew his hand back and brought it to his chest in a guarded manner, still lightly smiling, attempting to mask every thought pounding, running through his head. For the first time he thought of asking Steve to leave, I don’t know if I can do this, he thought. He thought of the possibility of every interaction with Steve from now onwards being laced with an uncomfortable air of unspoken truth and regret. He couldn’t do that. But, he also couldn’t coerce or convince Steve into this if he wasn’t ready, wasn’t sure. Eddie looked back at Steve, finally. He’d been quiet a moment too long, and Eddie couldn’t so much as guess what his response would be. His face was equally unreadable, a lip stuck between his teeth and his features hauntingly blank.
“Steve.”
His head snapped up, like he woke from a heavy sleep, mild confusion wearing on his face and slightly startled.
“I said-“
“I know what you said.” Steve cut in, tone monotonous and dejected. “Did you mean it?” He asked.
“You- you kissed me.”
“I know. But, did you mean it?” Steve sounded too calm, too collected, too okay, Eddie didn’t want to say the truth, didn’t want to add an new uneasy air to the already unusual tone of conversation.
“Yes.” Eddie breathed, blurted, whispered; terrified but grounded in haunted honesty.
“Okay.”
Eddie snapped up to gape at Steve, what.
“What?”
“Okay.” Steve repeated firmly, a slow satisfied smile building. Eddie wanted to scream. Steve had an indescribable way of getting underneath Eddie’s skin, making him jumpy and antsy and igniting something low and burning within him. He felt ready to snap.
“Steve?” Eddie huffed out.
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me.” The words tumble out just faint enough to hear, something elated and utterly sincere. A wash of concern played Steve’s face.
“What about-“ Steve motioned to Eddie’s bruised face, gravel burn and matching busted lip.
“Kiss me.” He repeated sternly.
Steve did not want to be told a third time. He stood shakily from his chair, ghosted to Eddie’s side and sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress. Steve and Eddie’s eyes met once more, charged, heady and nervous. As Eddie brought his previously linked hand up to cup Steve’s neck, Steve darted forward to place a chaste brushing kiss to Eddie’s lips.
“I won’t break, ya know?” Eddie mused against Steve’s ghosting kiss, before jolting forward and pressing firmly into Steve’s mouth. Steve lingered, before returning with equal fervour, hands moving up to Eddie’s jaw and tugging into his hair.
Steve would be the first to admit he wasn’t exactly the virgin Mary when it came to his sex-life. And he’d say he’s kissed his fair share of girls in his time. But this was so startlingly different. Eddie was firm where girls had been soft and eager where they were tentative. Eddie matched him tooth and nail at every urge and impulse. Steve decided he would be happily sealed to the delightful push and pull of kissing Eddie forever.
Steve pulled back when they could no longer continue without breath and rested his head against Eddie’s. A soft chuckle escaped Eddie’s mouth and washed over Steve’s face, sending a pleasant shiver down his back. The smile cracking Eddie’s face beckoned Steve forward again to press another slow, tender kiss to Eddie’s chapped lips.
“Thank you.” Steve breathed when he pulled away, moving to link their hands again. A soft smile spread his face.
“What for?” Eddie’s tone had a breezy, amused lilt, Steve wanted to kiss the stupid dopey smirk off of his face.
“Making that happen.” Steve all but whispered through his betraying smile. Eddie’s face spread into a wide grin once more.
“Anytime.” He laughed.