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In the hollow of night, woken fresh from a nightmare, Steve started to have conversations with the dead air in his bedroom. It started as short, assuring affirmations in a scratchy sort of mumbling, something to calm him down. But now, it’s to somebody.
Eddie Munson.
He’s not wearing the green vest or the combat boots or the black bandanna. He’s not covered in blood and looking beyond Steve’s shoulder. No, Eddie’s clean and vivacious and in his usual everyday—the black leather jacket and the Hellfire Club t-shirt and dark blue, near black denim jeans. All that’s missing is the vest, but Eddie has turned him down every single time he’s offered it up.
The vest was clean, Steve made sure of that. Every patch in its place. All the buttons, the pins were stabbed through the material; just as Eddie left it. Just as Eddie gave it to him. And Steve knew, within half-conversations with Dustin, that battle vests really meant something. It was armor, a safety blanket, a flag, and a promise. To stay true to oneself.
But it seemed like Eddie didn’t need Steve’s help on that front. Because he swore, beyond everything, that Eddie was alive in his room. He was speaking and flailing and grinning. He was joking and laughing and holding himself casually. Sometimes, he swore that Eddie would reach out to him, like he was gearing up to brush back his hair or soothe a palm down his tense bicep or hold his trembling hand, but then he’d hesitate with some awful, sour sort of realization. He’d give up right then and there.
It happens again tonight.
It’s four in the morning. The sun not up yet. Early December, almost Christmas, and Steve is somehow sweating himself out of his clothes. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, gripping to the mattress with his aching fingers, looking at the carpet below his bare feet. And he notices when Eddie joins him because he settles on the mattress, too. Makes the bed dip. His weight barely anything, but Steve has known how to gauge him months ago.
“The bats,” Eddie’s voice croaks. It’s not a pretty sound. Almost a rasp, something on the verge of…death, but Steve makes himself stave that thought off. His voice echoes, too. Like a whisper in a cathedral. Hauntingly close.
Steve nods his head in response. Whispers, “I couldn’t stop them from getting to you…again.”
Eddie hums beside him. “You couldn’t stop them in the first place, Steve,” he states, “they came for me when you weren’t there.”
“I should’ve been”—
“No,” Eddie’s quick to murmur, “no, Steve. It was my choice. Nothing would’ve changed my mind, I promise you that.” It’s the same thing he says every time Steve has the nightmare about the demobats. It’s the same dismissive murmur. It’s the same factual thing. Steve hates it, but won’t say that. Doesn’t think he really can.
There’s silence in the room now. Tense and rigid and thick. He wants to cut it with a knife or tear it apart with his bare hands, but can’t even lift his fingers away from the mattress, can’t even make them curl into his own palms.
The mattress shifts next to him. Eddie’s cold, fog-heavy, wind-like presence icy on Steve’s arm. It’s the closest thing to touching they can get. All he wants is to rest his head on Eddie’s shoulder, wants to smell his hair, wants to trace his fingers over the soft parts of his cheeks where those wounds are noticeably not present. Though, part of him is petrified of what happens if he does. A part of him wonders if it’ll be like in Hollywood—the ghosts touching their loved ones and then disappearing into a nothingness. A yearning, empty nothingness.
“I passed by Dustin’s before I came over here,” Eddie breathes into the space. That echo ever present, ever stomach curdling. “He was sound asleep. All curled up under his blanket. He was…there was this faint smile on his face and it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen since his head banging during our crazy, alter-dimension performance. I didn’t stop inside, though. Didn’t want to wake him.”
He swallows. Doesn’t know why Eddie’s telling him this. But he just responds low and careful, “He’s been keeping himself busy with Hellfire. Got a lot of responsibility now, y’know? I watched him do that master stuff or whatever…he’s got a talent for it, at least I think so.”
“Dustin was always going to be my pick for when I graduated,” Eddie says, a soft smile present in his voice. It soothes something racing in Steve’s veins, but he’s not ready to sleep, not ready to see Eddie’s face close behind the blackness in his eyelids. “I’ve heard a bit here and there of his campaigns. He…uh…he makes me an NPC a lot, doesn’t he?”
Steve sucks in a sharp breath. Murmurs, voice crackling, “He always saves you. Always, Eds. You always join the party members as a companion. Sometimes, you’re the only one still standing.” He finally lifts his gaze from the floor to look into Eddie’s eyes. His dark, yet cold and ghastly eyes. “I don’t think he can handle you dying again,” he admits, “I don’t think anybody can. Not even me.”
Eddie blinks at that. His mouth barely twitching into a frown before going neutral again. Lets out a soft, aching sigh. “The only thing I regret about dying is that all of you guys are so hung up on it,” he says, voice gone flat. Devoid.
Cold.
“Jesus Christ, Eds. That’s”—
“Brutal?” He finishes. “Yeah, Steve, I know. But it’s the truth.” His body shifts again, crouching to stand. And in the blink of an eye, Steve is looking up at Eddie, at him standing and hovering. Hands on his hips, gaze pointed out to the backyard, watching the curtains shiver from the small opening in the window. “I was going to be sentenced to the death penalty, you know that? They were going to ask for my last meal. Which I’d say the same thing I requested—Honeycombs, YooHoo, maybe some beer if they’d allow it. Then they were going to execute me. I think that’s more brutal, don’t you?”
And then he stares directly into Steve. Into. His gaze burns. Despite the icy edge to his irises. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe—he doesn’t need to do that anymore anyway.
A moment later, he looks away and continues, “I didn’t want that. I wanted to go out on my own accord. And I wanted it to mean something. It did, in the end, it ended up saving the world.
“I, Eddie Munson, former freak of Hawkins and three time senior—I was a hero at the end of the day. Even though you told me not to. I know what you told me. But sometimes you gotta bend the rules in order to make things right.”
“But, Eds…Eddie, the town still thinks”—
“Fuck what they think, Steve. I know what I am.” He moves at that. Crouching on the ground in front of Steve. Down on his knees. Face looking up to Steve’s sad gaze. His hands hover over Steve’s bare knees. “I know what I am,” he repeats, a murmur. “I don’t regret my death. I don’t regret what had to be done. I just hate that all of you always remember, you guys are constantly mourning. Over me? You’re mourning over me? We hardly knew each other!”
Steve sniffs. His lips wobble when he opens them to speak. There are tears sitting in his waterlines, hot and spiky and ready to spill. “I wanted to know you, Eds. I like when you’re here. I like dreaming about you because then we can talk and I can”—
“Baby,” Eddie coos sadly, “baby, this isn’t doing you any good.”
“It is!” Steve crows, “it is and now…now that you saw me tonight, I can go back to sleep and it’ll be fine.” He even scoots up the mattress, carefully, and situates himself under his blanket. “See? Cozy and warm. I’ll go to sleep and everything will be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
There’s a stunned, slow moment of silence. Eddie isn’t on the floor anymore, instead sitting on the edge of the mattress. All his movements hidden in between blinks, when Steve’s shifting and can’t see him. He can hear Eddie audibly swallow, hard enough that it sounds like he’s consuming rocks. But he doesn’t speak.
“Right?” Steve asks again, soft this time. So soft that it nearly gets lost on its way over the comforter. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. I’ve got a funny story to tell you and we can”—
“Steve,” Eddie finally breathes. He looks over. Dark eyes hauntingly crestfallen. Piercing Steve like the sharp end of that stupid syringe. It makes him ache in all the worst ways. Just on the cusp of a heart attack. Eddie’s right hand shifts from his lap, moving slow over the blanket, hovering on the left side of Steve’s face. Contemplating. “Steve, I want to go. I…I’ve seen all I need to. You’re the last one.”
“Eds,” he murmurs.
“I want to go home, sweetheart. I want to see my mom. I want…I want to be in my childhood home. I want to dance with her. I want to go. Please.” And with the faintest of touch, he swipes his cold, ghostly thumb under Steve’s eye, into his hairline, over the top of his ear. He doesn’t disappear, but Steve doesn’t even want to blink. “I’ll still be in here, when you want me,” he says, tapping at Steve’s temple. “But I can’t be in here anymore,” and he states that with a wide arm gesturing around the bedroom.
He blinks, finally. Tears spilling hot and fast over his cheeks. Lips trembling. Nose stuffed up and snotty. Eddie’s still not gone, not yet, at least. “Okay,” he squeaks. “I just…I think I”—
“I know,” Eddie whispers, “I know, baby. I feel the same way.” His touch gets heavier, firmer on Steve’s cheek. In slow motion, his legs begin to wisp away. Steve hates that he was right about this part. “I love you, too, Stevie. I’ve had so much fun with you all these nights. I just want to rest, too.”
Steve closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Eddie go, but he nods his head slow against his pillow. Sinking into the last bit of touch Eddie will ever give him. “Promise me something?”
“Anything,” Eddie breathes, voice far away.
“Save me a spot?”
His thumb presses hard into Steve’s cheek. There’s a smile to his voice again, “Always, Stevie.”
“Okay,” Steve sighs, relaxing into his mattress. “Goodnight, Eds.”
The only response is the faint brush of wind from the window.
It’s almost like a kiss.