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They’re about halfway through crawl number 37, and with Dustin conspicuously absent from his usual post in the back of the Squawk van, the love of Eddie’s miserable little life couldn’t be any more transparently upset with him about it.
The cherry on top of the shit sundae is that Jonathan Byers is there for it all.
Pardon Eddie’s French, but that guy is the absolute fucking worst.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jonathan says about Dustin for, like, the umpteenth time, as if that’ll do anything at all to soothe anyone’s (read: Steve’s) already frayed nerves.
He’s probably only just saying it to fill the silence, because otherwise the air would be stiff and still and horribly, intensely awkward. It kind of only makes things worse, though. Steve’s grip tightens on the steering wheel even though the car is in park. His shoulders are raised, jaw clenched.
He’s so damn pretty all the time, even when he’s pissed as hell. It used to drive Eddie wild in the worst kind of way, the reminder flitting around his head like a gnat, loud and annoyingly persistent, refusing to die.
Now it just makes him want to bow down, worship, and devour. In that order. Oh, what he would give to be able to draw Steve as close to his own body as physically possible, sink his teeth into his neck and suck.
“Right,” Steve says tersely. “Fine.”
He still hasn’t looked at Eddie. His face is directed entirely forward, gaze uncompromisingly set on nothing at all. There is just fog and darkness and a grey road leading nowhere and still Steve stares ahead stubbornly because he knows it drives Eddie crazy.
God, Eddie likes him so much. What a blessing.
Most of the time.
Eddie decides he better try to rectify this situation as best he can. “Steve.”
“Edward.”
Shit. He’s mad-mad.
“Baby,” Eddie tries. “You know I don’t like it when you’re angry at me.”
“I’m not angry,” Steve says angrily.
Eddie sits up a little in his seat, bringing his legs down from where they were kicked up on the dash. “It’s okay if you are. You have every right to be, probably. I just don’t like it, because then you get all passive-aggressive and mean, and I get loud and then we’ll be yelling at each other for no good reason. I don’t want to do that. I generally never want to fight with you, but I really don’t want to do it in front of Byers here.”
“Please don’t,” Jonathan says from the back.
Steve’s eyes cut to the rearview and he squints. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on finding the signal?”
“I’m trying. It’s gone. Also, for the record, this is kind of really only Dustin’s thing. I’ve never done this before.”
The mention of Dustin chafes all over again. Steve huffs, annoyed. “Whatever, man. Just do something helpful back there. And I don’t get passive-aggressive, Eddie.”
The vein in his temple is throbbing a little. Eddie can see it. At this point, he’s kind of really afraid that Steve is going to stress himself right into an early grave. His obituary will say something extremely pitiful like God bless Steven B. Harrington, a young parent of seven-ish equally horrible children, whose heart gave out from the overwhelming anxiety of it all; he is survived by the aforementioned horrible children, his manic disc jockey lesbian best friend, and…
Well.
Whatever the hell Eddie is to him. They’re still figuring it out.
Eddie tries to sound as patient as possible when he says, “Yes, you do, sweetheart. You’re, like, the most passive-aggressive person I know. Your bitchiness is unparalleled. You, my dear, are absolutely uncontested in the realm of snide comments and sassy one-liners. I love that about you. It’s hot as hell. Just, you know. Not when it’s directed at me.”
“You guys are weird,” Jonathan murmurs. Asshole.
Eddie whirls around in his seat. “Hey, Byers, maybe get the signal already so we can get this thing moving along. Fucking voyeur.”
Jonathan huffs incredulously, shaking his head like he cannot possibly believe the situation he is currently in. All high and mighty. He pisses Eddie off to absolutely no end.
It really doesn’t make any sense that Eddie gets along swimmingly with literally everyone else in their shitty little trauma-bonded group—prissy Nancy Wheeler and band geek Buckley, and also of course Steve the Hair Harrington, each of them living out of one another’s pockets as easy as breathing—but that Jonathan makes his skin crawl in the worst kind of way.
Eddie has learned that not a lot of things make sense around here, though, and has stopped questioning it. He will continue to give Jonathan grief whenever possible just because the guy gets on his everloving nerves. Also, it’s incredibly rewarding to see Steve suppress a smirk anytime Eddie slings a particularly witty or steely quip Jonathan’s way.
God, Steve really has messed him up, hasn’t he? Steve Harrington. This kind of feels like a fucked-up dream Eddie might have had back in sophomore year: he’s driving around Hawkins with the most popular boy in school, trying to define their mindfuck of a relationship and pointedly ignoring the pretentious holier-than-thou dweeb in the backseat.
“It’s just that he should’ve been here,” Steve bursts finally, and Eddie turns back to find him scrubbing at his face with his wide hands. “And he isn’t, and I know it’s because those fucking assholes came after him. They’ve been on him all year.”
“I know,” Eddie says.
It—stings. Every part of this. Dustin being a victim of misdirected hatred, vitriol spewing from the mouths of asshole jocks all over him when it should be on Eddie.
All he wants to do is insert himself into this situation. Nobody will let him. Probably because he’d rip those assholes to shreds with his bare hands, immediately get caught and hauled away to be locked up in a prison or a lab, withering away the rest of his life, and he would only regret it the tiniest bit.
“Yeah, but you don’t get it.”
“I am no stranger to high school bullies, Steve,” he says patiently.
“You were always smart about it, Eddie. That’s the difference. You never really provoked anything you couldn’t already handle, you know? And you could handle yourself and all. It’s just—Dustin’s sensitive. It’s easy to rile him up and to hit a nerve, and he’s been encouraging them all year,” he says, and it’s all in one breath like he can’t get the words out quick enough. “He’s been graffitiing their lockers and saying shit to them in the hallways about Hellfire and I know those guys. They’re idiots with huge egos and the minute they get hurt they have to—I don’t know.”
“Retaliate?”
“Yes! And Dustin’s just a kid.”
“He’s sixteen,” Eddie says, aiming for his tone to be gentle and probably coming off a little more harsh than he’d like. “What were you doing when you were sixteen? You want to know what I was doing? Nothing good, I’ll tell you that much.”
Steve finally looks at him but it’s only to scowl. “That’s not the point.”
“No, it isn’t, but you get what I’m saying, right?” Steve shifts in his seat and gnaws on his lip which is probably as much of an admission as Eddie will get. “He’s getting older. He’s at that age where he’s gotta start figuring this shit out. We can’t always be there for him. Right? He’s—he’s gotta figure out on his own that some fights aren’t worth the trouble, just like I did.”
It’s the truth, and it’s the truth in the way that neither of them would fully like to admit. Both Eddie and Steve—and hell, even Jonathan—have had to grow up way quicker than they would’ve probably preferred. Steve’s essentially been living on his own and taking care of himself ever since middle school, his parents jetting off to God knows where and leaving only sticky notes and credit cards behind. Eddie’s got his own myriad of issues, dead mom and deadbeat dad and broke as all hell in the meantime. Looming in the midst of all of it, the Upside-Down and all of the accompanying bullshit, the trauma and the loss and the heartbreak.
And here comes Dustin, still full of all of the things they never got quite right: hope, innocence, humor, and the ability to share all of it without hesitation. Naturally, they’d want to shield that. Protect it. Keep anything else from snuffing that light out.
All Eddie wants to do is keep the kid safe, tucked away where the bad shit can’t get him. Not just the Upside-Down and Vecna, but the real-life shit too. Bills, living paycheck to paycheck, loneliness, shitty coping mechanisms. High school bullies. But what kind of life is that to live?
In trying to protect Dustin, they’d keep him from ever growing. He’d eventually come to resent them for it.
Steve kind of deflates. He’s definitely come to the same conclusion. “I hate when you’re right.”
Eddie chuckles. “Lucky for you, it doesn’t happen all that often.”
“Yes, it does.” He sighs, suddenly looking a little guilty. “Sorry. For being so… I don’t know. Robin says I’m kind of neurotic.”
“That, my darling, would be the pot calling the kettle crazy.”
Steve squints. “So you do think I’m crazy.”
“Hey,” Eddie says softly. He reaches over, setting a hand on Steve’s wrist where it had fallen limp to his lap. “I like your crazy. Makes me feel more normal. Just a little bit, though.”
“Right,” Steve says, eyes scrunching a little. He’s too cute. Makes Eddie want to bite something all over again. “Because you’re definitely crazier than me.”
“Not even gonna deny it.”
“But I think our crazies match up pretty well. Right? Like a puzzle.”
“Absolutely.
“Guys?”
Eddie groans. “What, Byers—“
“Think we’ve found Dustin,” Jonathan says. Eddie whips around to find him staring out the driver’s side window. “Or, uh, he found us.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Steve says, looking at what is ostensibly the shape of Dustin—bloodied and bruised to high hell.
Agreed, Eddie thinks, an intense and all-consuming fury rising so swiftly up his chest and throat that he momentarily fears choking on it.
Eddie had just spent approximately 45 or so minutes placating the apple of his eye about the sudden disappearance of the child they are currently—not raising, but, uh—tentatively supervising together, reassuring Steve that Dustin is fine, that he can handle himself, that he has to learn when to hold back and when to unleash hell when it comes to high school bullies. That they cannot keep interfering the way that they tend to.
Then Dustin had shown up beaten black and blue and red all over, and, well.
Eddie’s always been something of a hypocrite.
“Names.”
He’s loud all the time but not when he’s mad like this, when he’s got what feels like pure venom coursing through his veins.
Dustin squirms. They’re back at the radio station and he’s got a plastic baggie full of ice pressed to his face. Steve’s actually the one smushing it there, as if his incessant fussing might make the swelling of Dustin’s face go down any quicker.
Also, some of the rest of their group is here, which is definitely unfortunate. Joyce is more than happy to take a step back and let them hash it out, although she does appear just as upset as them about Dustin’s bloodied face. Will is glowingly sympathetic, continuing to shoot Dustin the most worried glances Eddie’s literally ever seen in his life.
Robin is also present, very much attuned to what is happening and radiating pure nervous energy. She won’t stop pacing back and forth, skittering around Steve and Dustin and interjecting randomly into their argument. Eddie loves her, but her anxious hovering is absolutely no help at all; her calling Steve neurotic is genuinely laughable.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Dustin is saying. "I handled them just fine."
“Dustin.”
“Eddie,” Steve tries.
“Tell me who did this to you right now and maybe I won’t rip their throats out.” This is a lie. They all pick up on it.
“You absolutely can not do that,” Robin contributes.
“I started it,” Dustin says.
“No, you didn’t. Nice try though,” Eddie replies. “And you know what, even if you did, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck. Who was it?”
“Eddie,” Steve tries again. He lifts the ice off of Dustin’s battered face. “You know you have to calm down.”
“Was it those basketball fucks? Carver’s little lackeys? Andy, right? Was it him?”
Dustin refuses to answer.
Eddie turns to Will, sitting on the couch silently. He kind of shrinks back under Eddie’s scrutinous gaze.. “Will the Wise. Was it Andy?”
Will goes rigid, opens his mouth then closes it. That’s confirmation enough.
“Alright,” Eddie says.
His bones creak audibly, shifting beneath his skin. His nail beds itch, gums starting to throb fiercely. He pictures the shift, thinks about the limbs growing between his shoulder blades, the wings that'll enable him to fly across Hawkins, then the talons that'll let him slash some throats.
Not that he's ever done so before, but the current urge is irrepressible, almost animalistic; someone needs to pay for what they did to his kid.
“Ugh, gross! I hate it when you do this,” Robin says, like that’ll dissuade him from shifting in any way.
“Eddie,” Steve says again sternly. “Stop.”
Eddie doesn’t exactly stop, but he does pause. He has a hard time not doing what Steve tells him. “Look at him, Steve.”
“I am looking at him. Weren’t you just lecturing me about being too—you know—when it comes to the kids?“
“Too what?” Dustin asks. “Wait, were you guys talking about me?”
Steve huffs, pushing the ice back into Dustin’s face a little less gently than before. Dustin hisses.
“This is different,” Eddie snaps. “You know it is. They hurt him. They put their hands on him. That’s—there’s a line, right, that separates the things that we can’t get involved in and the things that we absolutely should stop, right, and it’s literally just been crossed. Calling each other names is one thing. Trying to trip him in the halls, or—or writing mean stuff on his locker. But this? This is fucked. I won’t let it happen. I can’t. So let me go pay those guys a visit and I’ll be back in a second. You won’t even know I was gone.”
Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Eddie. I hate it as much as you. You know this. But you can’t kill them.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Um, hello, the whole town still thinks you’re dead, genius. I shouldn't have even let you come with us on the crawl, for Christ's sake—“
“Oh, come on, that was totally fine. Everyone's forgotten about me already, they won’t even recognize me—“
“Yes they will, and you’d be an idiot to go out there by yourself and risk being seen just to teach some assholes a lesson—“
“Especially as your vampy self. Very conspicuous,” Robin adds helpfully.
“Yes, exactly, thank you, Robin. The minute the military clues in on the fact that we’ve got fucking Dracula on our side, flying around and eating jocks, they’ll go ballistic. Do you want to be stuck in a lab for the rest of your life?”
“He’s definitely less Dracula, more David from the Lost Boys,” Robin chimes in; this statement is generally less helpful and is thus ignored by the group.
Steve shakes his head. “The point is, you’re not going anywhere or doing anything to anybody. We’re all staying right here, right now, and waiting until we hear back from Nance.”
“I’m with Steve,” Jonathan fucking Byers chimes in at the worst possible moment, the prick.
“Nobody asked you, Byers,” Eddie barks. “Would you mind your fucking business? This has nothing to do with you.”
“It kind of does,” he mutters, but then he fucks right off again to do God knows what. Probably trudge around the rest of the basement and mope about his girlfriend.
Good. This is a family matter. Doesn’t concern him.
“I think everyone just needs to calm down,” Dustin says, a little slurred because he’s all swollen and has dried blood plastered around his mouth. “Eddie, you’re not gonna go anywhere, because we’re technically still mid-crawl and we need to find Hopper.”
This settles Eddie, at least a little bit. Hopper’s in the Upside-Down. The Wheelers are in the hospital, Holly is missing, Nancy and Mike are investigating, and everyone is separated, strung out around Hawkins, and he needs to calm the fuck down. He needs to regain control, to self-regulate, and they need to get back on track, and after everything—after Vecna is dead and the Upside-Down is closed and everyone makes it out alive—then, Eddie will go and kill those asshole jocks.
He won't let anyone stop him.
“Fine,” he spits, and his bones right themselves, everything shifting back to the way it's meant to be. It almost hurts, reversing it. Pushing those instincts back down, shoving them somewhere he can't quite reach. But it's necessary for the time being. Dustin's right. He needs to calm down.
"Oh, thank God," Robin murmurs, looking a little faint over the sound of crunching, churning. He'll give it to her—it's more than a little gross, the shifting. He doesn't like to do it. Most of the time it just happens. Like when he's angry. Christ, he's just basically a sadder, scrawnier version of Bruce Banner. It's almost tragic.
"Good, thank you," Dustin says.
“But listen to me, Henderson, when I say that after all this shit is over, we will be addressing it.”
“Fine,” Dustin echoes. “Be my guest.”
The tension disperses a bit, then. Robin leaves to find an old WSQK sweatshirt and flings it at Dustin’s battered head. At the same time, Will approaches with one of their dozens of first aid kits. They both set to fix him up, wiping away the crusty blood and sticking way too many butterfly bandages on the kid's poor face.
Steve monitors this situation a bit, eyes far away. Eddie remains a little farther back, removed, trying to retain control, trying not to let the rage take over again. Once Dustin is cleaned up, Steve tugs him close to whisper something quietly into his hair. Dustin nods, squeezing his eyes shut.
When Steve pulls away he looks appeased, if only for the moment. He ruffles Dustin's curls with a careful hand. Then he turns, pushes past Eddie, and disappears up the stairs.
Eddie sighs. He catches Dustin's eye. They should talk. There's a lot to address. There's a lot Eddie wants to say to him, and he's known for his way with words, his ability to spin stories and smith beautiful sentences, and he has no earthly idea where to even start. An apology, maybe, or a lecture, or just a simple I'm glad you're relatively okay.
Dustin senses this. He shakes his head. "We don't have to do this now. Later. Like you said," he tells Eddie. His eyes flit to the stairs, knowing. "You should probably go."
Too smart for his own damn good, this kid.
Eddie nods, placated, then follows Steve.
He's on the roof, standing close to the edge. Not close enough to be worrying. Just enough to feel the the wind, to hear the rustling of crunchy leaves preparing to fall.
There’s a chill in the air. The stars are out but the sun will be rising soon. Eddie remembers the sky in the Upside-Down. He remembers staring up at it as life leeched away from him, bleeding out in Dustin’s trembling arms. It was just grey for miles. Clouds and red lightning. Absent of life, of rich color.
He’s memorized the contours of the dark, has seen it in his recurring nightmares and sometimes—although he neglects to talk about it to anyone other than Steve—in the haze of the hivemind. The vision of it plagues him, leaving the worst kind of mark. But it also makes the moonlight seem that much more beautiful.
Especially the way it coats Steve’s face in silver.
“I’m still pissed at you,” Steve informs him as Eddie approaches. He doesn’t turn around. He can apparently recognize Eddie merely by the cadence of his footsteps. Eddie feels normal about that.
“Okay.”
“What, that’s it?”
He shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. I want you to argue with me. Or to tell me that you’re pissed at me, too.”
Eddie could say a lot of things, here. Mostly that it doesn’t make sense for either of them to be pissed off at the other right now. They’ve been pissed all night, sniping at one another back and forth for no good reason, and Eddie’s just so tired. And they’d reached a resolution, more or less, for the time being. Steve doesn't have to know about Eddie's ill-advised plan for revenge, tentatively placed on the back burner.
Instead, he says, “I don’t think I could ever really be mad at you.”
Steve kind of jerks a little. He peers over at Eddie. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“You just—you love me too much, sometimes. I don’t really know what to do with it.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Just keep it, I guess.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I’m a lot. You knew what you were getting into before you got into it.”
“Yeah. Guess I did.”
It’s silent for a moment. Eddie’s standing beside Steve and they’re both looking out at Hawkins. Quiet, sleepy, a little bit evil, but still beautiful in the way that most small towns in the Midwest just are: flat land and corn fields, golden trees in autumn, wonderful little two-bedroom houses, everyone knowing everyone. Still quarry waters, small movie theaters, a trailer park that never sleeps. Dogs barking. People smoking on their porches. Children running on a playground in perpetual twilight.
All Eddie's ever wanted was to get the hell out of here. Go to a big city where he's just another nobody trying to become somebody, where other people look like him, talk like him, like all the same things as him. All he's ever wanted was to make it big, make money, move Wayne out of this shitty little town and into a big old house on a coast somewhere, where he doesn't have to work another day in his life, doesn't have to lift a finger ever again.
All Eddie's ever dreamt of was leaving.
But after all this is over, he might actually stay.
It’s kind of crazy how suddenly and drastically things can change. He’s kind of crazy, though. So is Steve; Steve is also staying.
Steve decides at some point during the silence that he doesn't care about being mad anymore. He turns and leans into Eddie's body. He kind of slouches just so he can rest his head on Eddie’s shoulder. He smells like hairspray, all artificial sweetness. Eddie leans in and inhales the scent even though it's probably killing his brain cells.
“You seriously can’t do anything to those assholes, you know,” Steve tells him quietly. “As much as you want to. Hell, even as much as I want you to. We can’t risk anyone seeing you. You coming on the crawl today was risky. I don’t know why I even let that happen. I shouldn't have. I don’t know—” he stops. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”
“Steve.”
“I—I’ve been doing this part on my own for so long, you know? I mean, we’ve got Robin and Nancy and Jonathan, and Hopper and Mrs. Byers, sure, but it’s just different. I feel responsible for those kids and they all trust me with them and you’re the only one who gets it the same way I do. And I saw Dustin, back when you almost died, and I can’t even imagine—I don’t want to imagine how terrible life would’ve been without you. So you can’t go and do anything stupid. Okay? You can’t risk getting caught by anyone. Promise me. Right now. Promise me.”
It clogs Eddie’s throat. It might be a lie. “Promise,” he says. He says it against the skin of Steve’s forehead.
Steve sighs. His shoulders fall. The stress alleviates momentarily. Then it’s quiet, the wind whispering gently. If Eddie closes his eyes and soaks in the feeling, he can picture it lasting longer than single fleeting moments taken where they can get them.
“You know, I like sharing this with you,” Steve murmurs.
“This,” Eddie repeats. It’s not so much a question: he knows what this means. This is panic and hope and care; this is love and light and the promise of a future; this is life. Steve’s hand in his. Skin against skin. Taking in the same air, the same breath, without even taking the time to define anything. Just an intrinsic knowing. Eddie's never had that before.
“Yeah,” Steve confirms. “This.”
“Good. I like it, too. And I’m sorry for losing my cool earlier. That was—I need to get better at managing—you know. This,” he finishes lamely, gesturing vaguely at himself. “I mean, it’s been weird, and really hard to deal with, and I wish sometimes that I was normal again, but I won’t ever be, so I have to get better at dealing with it.”
“Eddie, it’s fine. I get it, you know? You don’t have to explain yourself to me or anything," Steve says, so sweetly, genuinely. "I’ll take you as you are.”
“Sap,” Eddie tells him, face warm, heart pitter-pattering. The moment swells and expands, golden and lovely. Eddie can't help being himself, though, so he just has to go and burst it by saying, “But seriously, can we do something about Byers? Dude's the fucking worst.”
Steve laughs so hard he snorts a little. Then he leans up and in and plants his lips on Eddie's cheek, right by his mouth, like he couldn't resist the urge, not even if he wanted to. Like he finds all of Eddie's quirks and faults and peculiarities endearing. “You make no sense. You should like him.”
Indignant, Eddie says, “Why, ‘cause we’re both weirdo freaks? No, thank you. He’s so fuckin’ pretentious. Drives me nuts. The only thing good about him is his taste and music and even that is questionable at times. Eugh. What the hell Wheeler sees in him, I’ll never know.”
“Alright, alright, simmer down,” Steve shakes his head. “You know, if we’re gonna beat Vecna with the power of friendship, you’re gonna have to get over this weird hatred you have for him.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass, thank you.”
“Do it for the kids.”
“Hm."
Steve looks up at him. A little bit of hair falls into his eyes. Eddie's hand is reaching up to brush it back before he can even really process the thought. “What about for me?”
Eddie would do anything for him. It’s hard to say so, sometimes, the words falling to the back of his throat, sticky and raw. “Yeah, alright. Maybe.”
Steve smiles, satisfied. Then he looks back out at the horizon. "We should probably head back in. Dustin might have a concussion, so we should make sure he stays awake and also that he's not doing anything stupid. I tried to go for a run after I got my first concussion and I threw up for, like, an hour, which sucked. Let's try to prevent that if we can. I don't want to have to clean up his barf."
"It's a good thing he has you," Eddie says. "All of the kids, really."
He doesn't really think about it. He just says it. It's an undeniable truth, anyway, one Eddie would've been hard-pressed to admit before getting involved with all of this bullshit. But now he knows that Hawkins is a hellmouth to another dimension and that these kids have been busy preventing the end of the world since 1983 and if they didn't have Steve, they might not be here. He knows Steve now, knows him intimately. He knows that Steve is a good person. He knows that he loves those kids deeply, that he's probably a little too empathetic, and that all he wants is for everyone to make it out okay. He wants everyone to stay together. He wants a happy ending.
Eddie wants that, too.
A good life together in a small town sounds really fucking good right now.
"Nah," Steve denies. His warm eyes are crinkled at the corners. He's so beautiful. He's worth everything. "I'm lucky to have them."
Eddie can't help himself: he leans in, kisses Steve soundly on the mouth, chaste, succinct, but hopefully expressing everything he has a hard time saying.
Steve kisses back. Of course he does. Eddie never doubted him for a second.
"Ready?" Eddie asks, breathing in Steve's smell: sweat and coffee breath and his weirdly expensive deodorant, lavender and anise, all botanical and shit. Steve's skin is so warm and soft. Eddie wants to feel him all over forever.
"Yeah. Let's go."