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Saying that Steve was on edge would have been the euphemism of the year.
He could not believe they were stuck in the Upside Down without a single idea on how to get out. He was grateful for Nance’s idea about her guns, obviously, but it was just a matter of time until Vecna would find them. And he had the sneaking suspicion that even if the Hawkins PD had grenades, at that point it would not have been enough.
“Do you think he can hear us?” Robin whispered, a couple of steps in front of him. He opened his mouth as a reflex, but Nancy, slightly ahead of her, was faster.
“He shouldn’t be able to. As long as we don’t hit the vines, we should be alright.”
“That’s an awful lot of shoulds.”
Robin wasn’t wrong, Steve thought. It had been on everyone’s minds since the beginning: they had gone in almost completely blind, every time they had taken an action, from the very beginning. Munson himself, the freshest pair of eyes on the whole situation, had not stopped loudly complaining about every new detail not making sense every time a piece of the puzzle was added to the story.
“Yeah, well, that’s about as much information as we’ve got, so we’ll have to make it work,” Nancy commented bitterly, sealing a couple of seconds of silence before Robin’s voice broke it again, still whispering despite the reassurances.
“God, I hope I don’t slip and fall.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
Steve chuckled, amused by the bickering. Just a week ago he wouldn’t have given a penny to the possibility of Nancy and Robin becoming friendly - hell, before the whole Russian ordeal, he hadn’t even been sure that his personality would work with Robin’s, but Nancy felt like a whole step further. The only thing the two had in common was their graduating class, an unlikely connection with Steve and, well, a common will to kill Vecna in the most painful way possible.
Yet, out of the four of them, that wasn’t even the most unlikely pair. Eddie still stuck out of the group like a sore thumb, looking around him with wide eyes and pursed lips. He was handling it a lot better than his first time in the Upside Down, to be fair. Or he was a much better actor.
Steve’s money was on the second.
“Hey, man,” he started tentatively, and Eddie’s eyes shot up, darting around him before settling his gaze back on the vines he was trying to avoid. His breath was rhythmic, in line with his steps, but shallow, as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Steve sucked his teeth, wondering how to help. Despite his anxiety, he was happy Munson was around - and not just because he had fought the demobats. It turned out he was kind of alright, after all. After months and months of cringing at Dustin’s tales of woe and adventure, he was finally starting to see what Henderson had seen in the man.
For one, he was impressed by how Eddie had not backed down once in the last week. Steve’s first interaction with the Upside Down had ended with him fleeing to his car; and sure, he’d come back, but Munson had just… stayed put. He had trusted Dustin with his life since the beginning, drinking in tales of demogorgons and kids with superpowers and not batting an eye. And despite it all, he’d retained a weird streak of jokes, sprinkled here and there to crack the tension. All in all, he’d proven himself a lot more - well, more normal than the few distant interactions the last years of high school had let on.
Not that any of them had any claim to normalcy at this point. Birds of a feather flock together, or something like that.
“Hey, Eddie. Uh… just wanted to say, thanks. You know, for saving my ass like that,” Steve attempted, clearing his throat.
Maybe he couldn’t give him a solid plan, but a bit of distraction could always help.
“Shit, you saved your own ass, man,” Eddie glanced up again, surprised. “I mean, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.”
“Ozzy?”
“When you took a bite outta that bat.”
Steve sighed, slightly frustrated, mentally going through their high school’s roster to find an Ozzy that had any relation to bats - and just staring at Eddie cluelessly as he failed.
“Ozzy Osbourne. Black Sabbath? Bit a bat’s head off on stage?”
So, not a high school acquaintance. Fair. Not a whole lot of people Eddie would have considered cool enough at Hawkins High, after all.
“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie shook his head, hair bobbing with every movement. “It was very metal, what you did, all I’m saying. Henderson told me you were a badass. Insisted on it, matter of fact. I just didn’t believe him-”
Wait, what?
“Dustin? Said I was badass?”
There was a certain satisfaction to his tone, and he didn’t care to hide it. Sure, he hadn’t been interested in being King Steve for a long while, but it was nice to know that he hadn’t quite been demoted to the rank of babysitter to Dustin and the kids just yet.
“Oh yeah. Shit, kid worships you. Like, you’ve got no idea. It’s rather annoying, to be honest,” Eddie admitted, this time looking straight in front of him, and Steve felt his lips opening up in a dumb smile. Months of hearing about “Eddie here,” “Eddie there,” and “the Hellfire Club,” and groaning at Henderson enthusing about them in any given situation - and all this time, he’d been annoying Munson in the very same way. There was even a hint of bitterness in Eddie’s words, and god, Steve recognized it. He’d been feeling it, too.
Maybe they did have a couple of things in common, after all.
“I don’t know why I even care what that little shrimp thinks, but, uh, I actually got, like, a little jealous about it,” he continued casually, still avoiding any hint of black on the ground, and this time it was Steve’s turn to gaze up at the other man’s face, almost starstruck.
Eddie was smiling, it turned out, and he wore a little embarrassed twinge at his lips, but he did not stop; not even after calling Dustin a little shrimp, not even after admitting to him, Steve Harrington, that he’d been jealous of him. The man seemed to have no filters at all - and if Steve was completely honest with himself, it was his turn to be a little jealous of that.
“And like, now I get it. Hellfire is cool, but it’s not quite like 'saving the world from demogorgons in the god damned underworld' cool. And when I actually met you, shit, turns out you’re actually a pretty cool dude, which is just, well, not fair if you ask me-”
“No way,” Steve laughed dryly. “You’re uh, pretty cool yourself, Munson. And you have nothing to be jealous of. Dustin’s been talking about you, like, non-stop since the first week of high school.”
This was what got the metalhead to finally stop in his tracks, boots tucked into what looked like a greyish puddle of mud, and he nodded to himself before continuing forward, a hint of a smile on tight lips.
“He does, doesn’t he.”
“Dude. I don’t even play DnD, and I’ve heard of so many wizards. I’m pretty sure I could draw the map of Castle Amber from memory.”
Eddie cackled next to him and lightly punched Steve on the shoulder, his fist lingering just long enough for Steve to take note. “For what it’s worth, Harrington, I think you’d make a damn good paladin.”
“For what it’s worth, Munson, I had no idea what that meant.”
The snickering fell into a comfortable silence, almost strident against the grey, desolate landscape around them. Nancy and Robin were still squabbling ahead, getting farther from them, but still close enough for Steve to keep an eye on them in case anything happened. Nothing else broke the monotony of putting one foot in front of the other, watching out for vines, watching out for weird shit, and do it all again.
“So... how does a super senior adopt a bunch of first years, anyway?” Steve found himself asking, and Eddie’s smile was back again. It had been the right move. To be fair, it didn’t take much to notice that the man basically lit up anytime he talked about Dustin - and every time, there it was again, the familiar tug at Steve’s stomach.
“They looked lost, man. All alone in the cafeteria, looking around with these huge eyes. Dustin had a Weird Al t-shirt on...”
“You remembered how they were dressed?”
“Come on, dude, who in their right mind wears a Weird Al t-shirt on the first day of high school? Henderson, that's who. That was half the reason I invited them to Hellfire. Which was a good call, man. They’re dorks, but their roleplaying-”
It only took the first mention of Dungeons and Dragons for Steve to zoom out, limiting himself to offer polite “mmhm”s whenever there was a stall in the conversation (which didn’t happen often anyway). It was a skill he’d honed with Dustin, and it had served him well in the last few months in any not-so-rare occasion when the topic of Hellfire campaigns came up.
Instead, he took his time observing Munson - really observing him, battle jacket and curls and all. Where an anxious ball of nerves had been mere minutes before, now Eddie was flaunting big, excited arm movements, with eyes sparkling even in the faint darkness of the Upside Down. Steve thought for a second that he really hoped Vecna couldn’t hear them, because between Eddie’s voice, his arms swinging around, and his foot-
“Eddie, wait!”
Steve could have sworn he'd been too late - and yet, for once, luck was on their side. Eddie's foot had stopped mere millimeters away from the vine, and Steve hoped Vecna wasn’t ticklish, or they were going to be in for a surprise very soon.
“Shit, dude,” Munson breathed out, his voice suddenly trembling again. “Thanks, sorry, I-”
Steve hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he saw Munson’s hair slide further down his forehead as he let it all out at once - and then it took him one more second to notice that he was practically hugging Eddie. He had flung both arms around the other man’s torso, his nose full of the acrid smell of smoke and old clothes, holding him back from his next step with the weight of his body.
He gulped. The more details he took in, the more there was to notice - and he found himself suddenly very aware of how close their faces were, how their arms were intertwined, and how warm he was starting to get. And on top of it all, he could have sworn he felt Munson’s knee-jerk reaction, even before he opened his mouth to speak.
“I know I’m no Wheeler, Harrington, but I’d let you manhandle me anytime,” Eddie grinned, batting his eyelashes. He was back to his dorky, doofus expression, with just enough fear in his eyes to stop it just short of being fully genuine.
Steve squeezed Munson’s shoulder, opening his mouth to say something that would have surely taken a coherent form once he started talking - when the ground itself started shaking.
“Shit shit shit shit shit-”
It would have taken much less for Steve to lose what little balance he had left. He felt his legs give out and closed his eyes, fully expecting to meet the floor with his face - and instead, his wrists welcomed a now-familiar hold.
“One for me, one for you!”
Never had he been happier to hear Munson’s smart-ass remarks as he felt in that moment. He felt Eddie’s arms now wrapping around his shoulders and he followed suit, fingers holding on to the other’s skin as tightly as they could. In the distance, they could hear Robin yelling about how much he hated earthquakes - but if Steve had any attention left that was not employed in trying to stay alive, it was now fully directed at Munson’s focused expression.
“Man, I don’t wanna tell you how to live your life,” he joked, ”but an earthquake feels like, the worst moment to have your tongue between your teeth-”
“Why so interested in my tongue, Harrington,” he grinned again, eyebrows wiggling up and down before a stronger shock than the others threw them off their feet. He braced himself, ready for the impact on his stomach wound - and instead, he felt himself being turned around, held by his elbows, and falling on his back, on top of something softer than he would have expected.
Eddie.
“Oof. Ouch, dude. You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. You?”
“Yeah man. I think we avoided most of the vines, so, uh, maybe don’t move.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Steve breathed out, hands searching for something to hold on to and finding Eddie’s arms, still tightly wrapped around his torso as he was splayed on top of him.
Leaning onto him, he realized he was probably squeezing him more than Eddie was letting on. Steve knew he was taller, of course, but he had never quite noticed really how scrawny the other guy was. Yet - it felt.. good to have someone else attempt to take care of him. After years of babysitting in the most cursed town in America, he had almost forgotten what it felt like, even if just for a couple of minutes. Fuzzy gratitude filled his chest, just ever slightly warmer where he felt Eddie’s jacket around him, and he chuckled.
“Would never miss a chance to cuddle with you, Munson.”
Eddie’s dry laugh pierced through the low rumble of the quake - and something tugged at his stomach again. This time, it wasn’t recognition. It was something else - something that made him want to crawl deeper into Munson’s hold. He closed his eyes, letting his head rest on Eddie’s shoulder. He was tired - so tired, and Eddie’s chest was so comfortable…
“You’re always full of surprises, big boy,” Eddie’s raspy voice murmured somewhere in the vicinity of his ear, tickling it with his breath. “I gotchu.”
He could have sworn that he was being held by both of Munson’s arms, but he must have been wrong, because he felt a light brush of ringed fingers on his cheek. He sucked in his breath, and he could have sworn that Eddie had also stopped breathing - but it had been so delicate and short, in fact, that Steve wasn’t sure it actually happened until he moved his head every so slightly towards it, meeting his fingers again, and again, and again, until the quakes stopped, as suddenly as they had started.
Despite his best intentions, there was no way Steve was gonna stand up immediately. He lingered just a few seconds - taking a deep breath in, letting it all out, and squeezing Eddie’s arms a little tighter. It was only when Eddie squeezed back twice that he allowed himself to get up, as slowly and carefully as his wounds would allow.
“Steve! Eddie! Are you alright?”
“We’re alright,” Steve yelled back, but his eyes did not leave the other guy as he took his hand and used it to prop himself up. Eddie stared right back, shit-eating grin still printed on his face, but eyes just a little softer as he rubbed his hands on his dirt-stained jeans. Steve smiled back, ignoring the warmth of his cheeks.
“A paladin full of surprises, you are.”