Chapter Text
//Backstory//
It has been forty months since the death of Eddie Munson. Forty months since Dustin’s role model and emotional brother had died in his arms. Forty months since the Party had grieved. Forty months since Dustin Henderson had to explain to a grieving, heartbroken Wayne Munson that his nephew, a boy that he had seen as his son for years, was dead. Forty months since the town had determined that Eddie Munson was not at fault for the death of Chrissie Cunningham.
It had been twenty months since the Party had graduated. Twenty months since all of the kids had broken off, gone their own separate ways, and all went off to normal lives and happiness that all of them deserved. And it had been ten months since Robin Buckley had heard from Steve Harrington.
After the war, everything was fine. Steve talked to everyone, came to the graduation, and helped out the kids with getting their stuff to college. Visited Dustin at his college on his breaks, helped him get situated and everything. But then, five months after the Party’s high school graduation… Steve had gone completely radio silent. No communication to anyone. He stopped talking to the Party. Didn’t say anything to Robin. When Nancy checked, his house looked lived in, though he was never there when she was. It was as if Steve went somewhere during the entirety of the day, then came back at night, lived a bit, and then left again, very early, the next morning.
Robin and Nancy, along with a very hesitant Johnathan, staged an intervention. They waited at Steve’s house for the whole entire day, and the only thing that they got in return was more radio silence. Robin was getting worried. Nancy was getting worried. Even Johnathan, who barely even talked to Steve, was getting worried. And nobody knew what was happening.
No one, except for Eddie Munson.
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The first thing that hit Eddie Munson when he regained consciousness was that he had no idea where he was. The ground beneath him was soft, a stark contrast to the rough rocks of the Upside Down where he had died. The sun was shining, another thing that struck Eddie as shocking. But the thing that hit him the hardest?
He was alive.
Eddie had felt life leave him. Felt the blood seeping out of him from the numerous wounds on his body where the Demobats had chewed on him like a chicken leg. But now? He felt warm. Like there was a colossal weight that had been lifted off of his body.
The second thing that hit Eddie was Eleven. Eddie barely had time to process what the hell was going on before El’s hand connected with Eddie’s cheek, stinging. “Ow, what the living fuck!?” Eddie can’t help the scream that rips from his stinging and aching chest. El smiles, clearly unfazed by his outburst. “You must be Eddie Munson. Dustin mentioned you once or twice.” Eddie is stunned. This was THE girl? She looked so… normal. So… peaceful, in a way that Eddie had always dreamed of being. “Yeah. I… I guess that’s me. You’re El?” He mutters with a wince as he stands up, testing his (somehow) reshaped legs.
El smiles again, a movement that was not even close to forced. It was genuine in a way that made Eddie's heart ache with both jealousy and respect. “Yeah. I go by Jane. Seems more fitting, after all.” Eddie’s head is pounding, blurring his vision slightly. But he realizes that El, or Jane, apparently, wants him to respond, so he does. “Fuck. Sorry. That’s… good? Personal development, I guess…?”
Eddie may want his body to work. But his body does NOT want to work. His legs give out, and before he can even react, he’s back on the ground. “Goddamnit.” He hisses, rubbing his hand over his pounding eyes. “I’m sorry.” He mutters to Jane before he sits up fully.
A gentle hand finds his shoulder. “It’s ok. You just got all of your muscle mass back randomly. That and you just came back to life. Well, you weren’t really dead, but you were sort of just hovering the line between life and death, but I did my best to bring you back, and apparently it worked and everything, so…-”
Eddie cuts her rambling off quickly. “Go back to that. Weren’t really dead? I’m pretty damn sure that I died. Felt my life force leaving me and all that shit. Fuck you mean I wasn’t dead? And how in the name of Christ did you bring me back?” Jane was smiling slightly. “Oh. I forgot to explain to you. Well, the Party managed to kill Vecna, and I sort of sacrificed myself to get rid of the gates to the Upside Down. I ended up here. Somehow, your body ended up here too. I could feel your soul, just floating around your body aimlessly, and I figured that, if you were here, I might as well try to help you come back with the little power that I had left. Turns out, you were very eager to come back to your body. I healed you, brought back everything the Demobats had taken, and then you woke up. I think you can figure out the rest.”
Eddie’s mind was racing. What the living fuck. “Where… where the hell are we? This isn’t Hawkins.” He whispers as he looks around at the waterfalls and fields of green, healthy grass. Jane smiles at his panicked response, nodding as she gestured to the beautiful scenery around them. “I don’t really know. It’s a place. Place of peace. But I assume that you don’t want to be here, do you.” She says, her voice soft and reassuring in a way that Eddie had only ever heard from Wayne. He nods quietly. “I need to get to Hawkins. I… shit, how long has it even been? Since I died?”
Jane smiles, but this time, it’s sad. “Almost four years.” Eddie’s breathing stops. Four. Years. The kids had graduated by then. Everything, everyone, had moved on. “Four… four years? Are… Please tell me that you aren’t serious.” Eddie’s voice is barely a whisper. But by the look on Jane’s face… she’s very serious. Eddie’s eyes, despite how much he holds it back, fill with tears. “Four years…” He whispers, his hands trembling. “They’ve all moved on.”
Jane quietly nods. “They’re all in college now. Happy. Despite everything with Vecna… we all got our happy ending.” Eddie has learned enough about reading people to know when someone isn’t telling him something. And at this current moment? Jane is holding some very important information back from him.
“But? I can hear the but in your voice, Jane. Tell me.” He whispers. Jane’s face falls. “Everyone but Steve Harrington. I assume you know who that is?” Eddie’s body tenses. Of course he knows who Steve Harrington is. The man that, despite every single ounce of Eddie’s soul objecting, had captured Eddie’s heart. The man who Eddie desperately wanted to be with, though he knew that the stars would never align in a way that would make that possible.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know who Steve Harrington is. He… didn’t get a happy ending?” Eddie’s voice cracks a few times, showing the depth of his inner turmoil despite how much he wished to hide it. Jane sighs. “Well… he didn’t get a bad ending. He just… Well, let me rephrase it. He has it alright. He didn’t die, he survived, everything moved on. But the thing was, everyone moved on except for him. He’s drowning in his own thoughts, his own memories, his own regrets. He hasn’t talked to anyone in almost a year, not even Robin or Nancy or Johnathan. He’s drowning in his own regrets and guilt and he won’t let anyone pull him out. He hasn’t spoken to any of the party members in almost a year. He isn’t reaching out to anyone to have them help him because he thinks that he deserves solitude.”
Eddie didn’t know what he had been expecting. Maybe Steve had just not gotten a job after the video place got destroyed, or maybe he had been rejected by another girl in the town or something. But this? He sure as shit had not been expecting this. Steve Harrington, so deep in depression that he hadn’t even spoken to Robin? “That… that doesn’t sound like Steve.” Eddie whispers, his heart clenching despite the rejection that he had given himself on Steve’s behalf.
Jane sighs quietly as she sits down next to Eddie on the soft grass. “No. It doesn’t. But that is because Steve never showed anyone his pain. His true feelings. His depression. Steve had been struggling to stay afloat for a good long while. I’m sure you heard about the shit with Nancy breaking up with him and everything?” Eddie nods. Steve hadn’t really gone into detail, of course, but Eddie didn’t need the details to know that there were unresolved issues between the two. And the fact that Steve looked at Nancy with a glitter of pain in his eyes every time they made eye contact. “Yeah. It was mentioned once or twice…”
Jane nods. “Yeah. Well, that was technically his first real relationship. I mean, it would probably be better if he told you this, but he isn’t here, and you need to know what you are walking back into.” She takes a deep breath before she continues. “Steve loved Nancy. Dearly. And she broke up with him, when she was drunk, and told him that the love he had for her was bullshit. Almost a direct quote. When he asked her if she loved him, she said it was all bullshit and left him alone.”
Eddie can feel his blood boiling. Fucking Wheeler, breaking Steve like that. But Jane wasn’t done. “Steve had issues with latching onto people. His parents had practically abandoned him, and were never around. His mother told him, when he was eight, that she never loved him, and that his father had never wanted a son. He had to deal with wanting their love, but never getting it. So when he started dating Nancy, he gave her all of the love that he had never been able to get. Steve loves hard. And apparently, in his mind, that was too much for Nancy. So he kept himself on a leash, not letting himself love anyone else too hard with the fear that they would all leave him.”
Eddie feels sick. The anger that he had felt was quickly morphing into something like sheer grief for Steve. But Jane doesn’t stop to let Eddie interject. “He never told anyone about the shit with his parents. He never told anyone about the shit that happened with the Russians. Non disclosures and all that. But I can tell you that whatever happened to Steve down there… they fucked him up. He can’t hear properly anymore. He gets constant migraines that are bordering on seizures because they hurt him so much that they send his body into seizure mode. He has constant nightmares where he wakes up, shaking so bad because he remembers the demobats. He blames himself for everything that happens to the party. He blames himself for your death. He blames himself for all of the pain that the rest of the party went through. He blames himself for not being able to help Max. He blames himself for every negative thing that happened to him. That maybe, if he had just been better, none of it would have happened. And he tells no one about his pain, because he is too worried that he is going to have a repeat situation of Nancy or his parents, and then he is going to have no one.”
Now Eddie is sick. The nausea is building in his stomach, and he physically has to cover his eyes to stop the bubbling that was working its way up his throat. “Steve… Steve actually thinks like that? That negative?” He whispers, his voice hoarser than it ever had been. Jane quietly nods. “Yeah. It’s bad, Eddie. Steve… he went to your uncle a while after you died. Brought him all of your stuff that had ended up in his possession when Dustin decided he couldn’t be around it anymore. Apologized profusely to Wayne, saying that it was all his fault and that he wished that he could replace you. Wayne knew that it wasn’t Steve’s fault, but seeing Steve like that… It hurt him. Steve noticed that tears were in Wayne’s eyes, and he took that as the fact that he was hurting Wayne by being there and that Wayne blamed him for your death too, so he ran. No one has heard from him since.”
Tears are falling down Eddie’s face before he even acknowledges or notices the heat. Steve. His poor Stevie. The man that Eddie loved, had loved for quite a bit, in so much emotional and physical pain that he took everything that anyone said as a personal attack. Not because it was, but because he was so deep into his depression that he turned everything into an attack on himself. “Where is he now? You can see him, right? Where is he?” Eddie whispers, rubbing the tears off of his face quickly. Jane sighs, waving her hand.
A translucent, 2-D oval appears in front of them, misting ever so slightly. In the image, Eddie sees Steve. And the sight makes him even more sick than he already had been. Steve was skinny. Way too skinny. He was sitting next to a marble headstone, just staring at the words engraved onto the marble. Edward Wayne Munson, Dead at 20 years old. Steve’s hands were shaky as he fiddled with a guitar pick. Eddie, with a shock, realizes that it was one of his. His favorite, actually.
“There’s audio, if you want it.” Jane says quietly from next to him.
Eddie didn’t think that he could nod so quickly. But he does. When Jane quietly flicks her hand, the soft sound of rain hits. That’s why Steve looks drenched. But then, a quiet voice. Barely a whisper. So deeply filled with grief that Eddie physically flinches. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I failed you. I should have gone with you instead of Dustin. I should have done something. Should have saved you. Should have made you safe. Should have made you live.” A quiet sob, then Steve continues. “I visited your uncle 10 months ago. He looked good, considering the circumstances. But he was so sad when I came. As if he knew it was my fault.” Another soft sob. “I should have done something, dammit. You shouldn’t have died… it was supposed to be your damn year, Munson, why did you have to die…”
Steve breaks down, his quiet sobs filling the peaceful world around Eddie with a grief so deep that even Eddie begins crying. Jane sighs quietly as she watches Steve shake with sobs before getting up, drying his tears forcefully, and walking out of frame. Eddie looks at her. “Is there more? Please tell me there is more. I need to see him…” He whispers, his voice thick with his sadness.
Jane nods quietly, waving her hand. The picture shifts into something darker. The room in the image is dark, but Eddie can very clearly tell that it is Steve’s house. Steve walks into the frame, drying himself off with a towel as he looks around the room, seeing the food and notes that were, likely, left by Robin and Nancy and Johnathan. Eddie watches as Steve’s eyes narrow with self-deprecation and self hatred as he picks up the food, putting it in the fridge, which is almost entirely empty, save the expired, half empty jar of peanut butter and 4 eggs.
Steve goes back to the notes, reading them, before he scoffs quietly. “They should stop trying. I’m not worth the care they’re trying to give me.” Eddie’s heart breaks. Oh, Stevie.
Eddie watches Steve for a good while, staring at the man on the projection as Steve stares at the ceiling, unmoving. Eddie simply watches him, hundreds of thousands of thoughts flooding through his head at one time. Five minutes in, however, Steve doubles over, whining in pain. “Migraine.” Jane says quietly when Eddie looks to her desperately for an explanation. “The Russians did shit to his head. I think it was one too many concussions or something.”
Steve looks truly broken. Tears are rolling down his face as he holds his head tightly, rocking back and forth on the couch as he cries. Eddie can’t help the jerk in his chest and the tears that fall from his own face as he watches the scene in front of him. “Why isn’t he taking any meds… what’s going on…” Jane sighs at Eddie’s weak response.
“Cause the meds don’t work. The only thing that works is drugs. Your drugs. Every week, he would go to Ray to buy the last of the weed that you made. But when Ray eventually realized that Steve wasn’t talking to anyone but him to buy weed, he cut Steve off, not knowing that the weed is literally the only thing that is able to help him sleep.”
Eddie has heard enough. He runs his hands through the misty image in front of him, clearing it, tears running down his face as he stands up shakily and turns to the girl beside him. “I need you to take me to him. Please. I need to see him in person, I need…”I need to hold him. The words are unsaid, but Jane can read between the lines. She quietly nods, snapping her fingers.
A portal appears in front of the two. Eddie can see furniture in front of him, and the smell of leather and wood, and a very familiar smell that feels like home, fills his nose. He turns to Jane. “Who’s house?” He murmurs. Jane smiles quietly. “Wayne’s. Got a new house after the trailer.” Eddie smiles, feeling warmth settle in his chest despite his worry for Steve. “Thank you. For showing me. For telling me. For… saving me.”
Jane smiles brightly. “Of course. Now go save him. I can tell how much you care. Make sure he can tell too.” Eddie nods. He wasn’t about to let this second chance go to waste.
With Jane’s words, Eddie steps through the portal into his second chance at life with one goal.
Find Steve.