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Eddie would be lying if he said he hadn’t pictured his own death before, but he could honestly say that even in his worst nightmares, demonic bats hadn’t been part of the concept. He sort of wishes he’d been more imaginative and come up with that in advance, because then maybe he wouldn’t be slowly being drained of his life force by the ones wrapped around him and latched onto his side. It was a struggle to breathe when he was just being choked, but now the remnants of air are being ripped from his lungs by the screams he can’t hold back at the agony of teeth sunk into his torso and tails tightening around him. They’ve even pinned his limbs, so there’s nothing he can do to fight them. All he can do is yell and swallow down the harsh metallic taste in his mouth.
Another bat dives down from the swirling cloud above him, its gaping maw aimed straight at the other side of his stomach. Mere seconds before it can connect, it’s kicked out of the way by a firm boot. Eddie looks up through the haze of pain to see a familiar figure, dark hair dishevelled and military jacket a little worse for wear as he swings an axe into the bat around Eddie’s neck and yanks the one off his side.
“Steve,” Eddie croaks out as he claws away the severed tail, gasping in air. “How…?”
Steve gives him a look that’s somewhere between a smirk and a frown. “Had a feeling you’d do something stupid.”
As he turns back to fight off the horde above them, Eddie pulls off his bandana and lets out another strangled scream as he presses it to the wound on his side. The flow of dark red stemming from it is slow and sluggish, and the fabric does just enough to stop him from bleeding out. If he makes it back home alive, which at the moment he’s unsure about, he has no idea how he’ll explain this to a hospital. Will they believe he’s been attacked by a dog, or maybe a rabid raccoon? Will he even make it to hospital before getting arrested? Maybe one of the group will have to patch him up; if they’ve been through this sort of thing in the past, surely one of them has learned first aid. He can only hope.
With gritted teeth and tear-filled eyes, he watches Steve swing his axe with ferocity. If he’d been able to ask his younger self, whether that was from a few years ago or even last week, what he thought of the guy, the answer would no doubt have been some sort of sardonic retort about the futility of high school popularity and his distaste for people who make their flaws everyone else’s problem. But now he has to admit: Steve is hot. Not just in the fact that he’s conventionally attractive, that’s the least of Eddie’s concerns. No, it’s the fact that he’s witty yet sincere, reckless yet level-headed, that he clearly cares about Dustin, who also means a lot to Eddie, and also seems to care enough about Eddie himself to be here putting his life on the line even though they only met a few days ago. And fine, the fact that he’s dressed for battle and wielding that axe like it’s an extension of his own body is kind of doing it for him too. He’d like to think it’s only the adrenaline and steady flow of blood from his wound that has his heart pounding hard enough to rattle his ribs, but he knows that’s not true. In spite of himself, he’s fallen for a former jock with a death wish. It’s a stark contrast to himself, a metalhead who is suddenly overcome with a need to stay alive long enough to see how this pans out. He doesn’t know whether he’ll act on his feelings, but it would be nice to have the option. His eyes flicker shut briefly, allowing the exhaustion to wash over him as he teeters on the brink of consciousness and pictures how it might work out. If it could work out.
Neither of them are quite sure how it happens beyond a guess at something affecting the hivemind, but out of nowhere all the bats drop from the cloudy red sky with a final ear-splitting screech. Instantly, Steve drops the axe and drops to his knees.
“You still with me, Munson?”
Eddie cracks open one eye, groans, and offers a strained smile. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Harrington.”
To his surprise, Steve glares, but it’s tinged with worry. “Good. Means I can kill you myself.”
The opportunity to ask what he means, though he suspects he knows, is interrupted by Dustin hobbling into view. Shit. Eddie should have known the kid would find a way to get back after he stranded him in their home dimension for his own good, and apparently that way was just flinging himself back through the gate. Does nobody in this group have any survival instincts? Not that he can judge, he did just try to sacrifice himself to a swarm of killer bats.
“Eddie!” he yells as he approaches, falling to the ground beside Steve and enveloping his prone friend in a hug. “Thank god you’re alright.”
Eddie returns the gesture, trying to hide his wince at the full force of the younger boy slamming into his torso. At least it holds the bandana in place, leaving him free to wrap his arms around Dustin’s shoulders. “Yeah, just about.” He hesitates. “I’m sorry, man, I shouldn’t have left you like that.”
Dustin shakes his head against his shoulder. “It’s okay, I get why you did.”
Over the top of his head, Eddie steals a look at Steve. The guy is still glowering, but there’s that soft edge lingering behind his expression. It takes him a little by surprise, and he wonders if things might not be entirely hopeless, that there might be a chance for things to work out if he survives not only getting home but whatever talking to Steve clearly has planned for him.
“Shouldn’t you be with Nancy and Robin?” Dustin turns to Steve.
“Yeah, I should,” he replies sharply, “but apparently I can’t leave you two alone for five minutes without you immediately going back on your word.”
“I wasn’t trying to-” Eddie starts, but the thunderous look that he receives makes the words die in his throat. He’d promised he wouldn’t try to be a hero, and he’d kept that promise. That wasn’t what he was doing at all. He was just trying not to be a coward, trying to keep Dustin alive in a way he hadn’t managed to do for Chrissy. “Well, I’m not dead, thanks to you. I think I can keep it together if you need to go back for them.”
Amazingly, Steve shakes his head. “They can handle it. Let’s get you lunatics out of here.”
Before they can go anywhere, the ground trembles beneath their feet, more so than ever. Instinctively, Steve wraps one hand around Eddie’s shoulder and grabs Dustin by the jacket with the other. This time is different. It’s not just the rumblings of a disturbed world like it had been when it was just the four teens; there’s something bigger happening. The three of them watch in horror as a fiery orange light splits apart the roof of Eddie’s trailer, tearing through the trailer park and heading towards the centre of town.
“What the fuck?” Eddie mutters.
Dustin stares, wide-eyed. “The gate.”
“Why has it got bigger? What does that mean?”
“It means we failed.”
“Vecna,” Eddie breathes.
“Max,” Dustin whispers.
“The girls,” Steve hisses, leaping to his feet. “Stay here, unless that thing starts coming this way. I’ll be back.” He casts a glance over his shoulder, his gaze lingering on Eddie a beat too long before it flicks to Dustin too. “Don’t die. Either of you.”
Steve is halfway to the Creel house when he sees it: that same reddish glow stark against the gloom, and the silhouette of the house ruined in the distance. His heart sinks even as his feet start moving faster. He’s still reeling from the fear that gripped him when he saw Eddie on the ground that he’s not ready to grapple with the possibility of losing Robin and Nancy as well (not that he did lose Eddie, not that Eddie was ever his to lose, but he still feels like he has).
“Nance! Robin! Please!” he yells into the darkness. His body doesn’t feel quite sure whether to propel itself onwards into oblivion or collapse in despair, when two figures careen towards him from the direction he’s headed. Nancy lowers her gun the moment she spots him, while Robin almost collides with him in her haste and he grasps her shoulders before she takes them both down. “Rob, Robin, hey, it’s alright.”
“Steve, we gotta go,” she rushes, words tripping over one another as they spill from her panting lips. “Vecna’s gone, not in like a dead way but in like a ‘we set him on fire and Nancy shot him straight in the chest and then he just vanished’ way, and then the clock started chiming and the house got ripped apart which means that he’s done it. Max is dead and we are too if we don’t get the hell out of here.”
Steve glances at Nancy, who gives a solemn nod. That’s it, then. If even she has no proof she actually killed Vecna, it means he isn’t dead. “Come on then. Dustin and Eddie are still at the trailer, and the gate’s cracked open there too. We can get out that way.”
Nancy hoists her shotgun again, just in case, and leads the way.
Dustin, ever the genius, has managed to cobble together an improvised dressing for Eddie’s wound by the time the others arrive. He’s no longer on the brink of death, but he’s deathly pale and coated with a sheen of sweat and blood. The bottom of his Hellfire shirt is torn and red, and as Steve draws closer he spots deep welts around his neck and wrists. Without realising, his hands drift to the matching mark around his own neck and the bandage wrapped tightly beneath his top. It’s strange to think that he and Eddie have gone from having barely anything in common to being irreversibly branded with what will eventually become matching scars. It’s so much more than that, though: they’ve been through literal hell together. It’s interesting, Steve thinks - first he got involved with the Upside Down because of Nancy, who he loved, then Dustin, who he was and is very protective of, and now Eddie. He shouldn’t be invested, or at least not enough to have thrown himself into danger for the guy, but he did it without thinking. Maybe it’s just instincts from having dealt with it so many times already. Maybe it’s because he’d rather risk himself than his friends, who he knows would help regardless. But maybe it’s more than that. The way his chest tightens at the sight of Eddie, a shadow of the boy who just a few days ago had him by the throat with a broken bottle (which definitely didn’t start this whole dilemma), tells him that the latter isn’t so far outside the realm of possibility.
Dustin pushes himself up onto his knees at the sight of his friends. “Oh, you’re alive! What happened?”
“They can tell you on the way out of here,” Steve says as he holds out a hand to help him up onto his good foot, nodding for Robin to come and take his weight. “Get him home in one piece,” he tells her quietly. “I’ll help Eddie.”
Robin nods, and she and Nancy help lead Dustin towards the rift.
Steve turns back to the boy on the ground, who somehow seems to have become even paler.
“Can you stand?”
Eddie scoffs. “I’m not the one with a broken foot.” He hoists himself up, a little too quickly, and stumbles, his eyes rolling back. Steve is there before he can blink, catching him in an awkward half-hug. “Well, hello to you too,” Eddie tries to joke, but it’s offset by the whimper lodged in the back of his throat and the fact he’s turned almost completely white.
Steve scowls. “You’re such an idiot.”
Something snaps in Eddie. He knows he’s screwed up, but there’s no need for Steve to treat him like this. He did what he thought was best, damn the consequences, and knows that’s something his saviour can relate to. “Look, man, if you’ve got a problem with me, you can just go. Nobody’s asking you to be here.”
“Oh yeah, and how would that have gone if I hadn’t shown up?”
“You mean you playing hero? The same thing you’re mad at me about?”
“That’s different,” Steve mutters, his anger suddenly subsiding, replaced by an almost bashfulness.
Eddie falters, taken aback by the change in energy. “Is it? Doesn’t seem like it.”
“It just is, okay?”
“Well do you mind explaining-”
“Just drop it.”
“-because I don’t really see-”
“Eddie…”
“-how you get to call me on it when-”
“Because if I die that’s on me, and if you die that’s also on me, and I know who I’d rather risk!”
Eddie freezes, becoming aware that Steve stopped walking beside him and now there are a few paces and a chasm of silence between them. He turns, taking in the potent blend of emotions across the other boy’s face - frustration, guilt, embarrassment, and something almost like grief. It feels like all the air has been swept out of his lungs, drawn into the vacuum that is widening between them.
“Steve, that’s…” he begins, before the moment passes.
Steve tries to make it pass anyway. “Forget it.”
Eddie moves a step closer, ignoring the sensation of his dressing shifting against his wound. It stings, but this hurts more. “You know that’s not a normal way to think, right?”
“It’s fine.” Steve won’t meet his eyes. “I can handle it, and I’m not just going to stand by and watch the people I care about get hurt.”
Wait. Eddie falters again, but this time more in disbelief than shock or outrage. “You saying you care about me, Harrington?”
A small smile, a tiny glimmer of hope against the dark expanse of the Upside Down, cracks across Steve’s face. The sight of it makes Eddie’s heart leap in his chest. “Don’t flatter yourself. I still think you’re an idiot.”
“Oh, I think we’ve established that,” Eddie grins, gesturing to his blood-soaked T-shirt. “But now let’s move on to the fact that you like me.”
Steve rolls his eyes as he finally moves back into the other boy’s space, wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him up as they surge on towards safety. “You make me sound like a high schooler with a crush.”
“When in fact you’re an adult with a crush.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh my god, I’m actually right, aren’t I?”
“One more word, Munson, and I swear to god-”
“Anything you say, lover boy.”
Steve glares, but there’s a sparkle in his eyes for the first time all week. “You’re insufferable.”
“Nope, just suffering,” Eddie grimaces. “This really puts into perspective how metal you were biting that bat’s head off. I mean, you were bleeding out just as badly as I was and you still fought back. It was pretty impressive, and almost as attractive as that stunt you pulled with the axe back there.”
Steve considers it. He hadn’t felt impressive in the moment, just sore and scared and determined to survive long enough to keep his friends alive. Then again, that was how he felt during most of these moments. First the Demogorgon, then the tunnels, then the Russians, now this. Always throwing himself headfirst into the fray without really stopping to consider his own safety. Eddie’s right; it isn’t normal, but it’s the only way he knows how to cope with the horror of the life he’s found himself leading. But maybe he doesn’t have to keep doing it alone any more. That’s all he wants, someone to share the load. His dream of a partner and six kids seems like a distant fantasy compared to where he is now, he isn’t sure he’s able to have something so normal, but there’s a version of that life out there if he sticks around long enough to see it. He hasn’t expected to find it in a badly wounded and surprisingly flirtatious metalhead and the fourteen year old nerd of whom they’ve both decided to claim parenthood, but that’s what he needs: people who know what he’s been through and stick around in spite of, or because of it. He blinks at Eddie, vulnerable and amazed and still processing the fact that he just called him attractive like Steve hasn’t been secretly thinking the same thing since that night in the boathouse.
“For the record, we all care about you and seeing you get hurt, too,” Eddie continues, unaware of the swirling thoughts in the boy propping him up as they draw closer to the rift. “Not just me and Dustin, but I know Nancy and Robin are ride or die for you and the rest of the kids seem to be.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” Steve murmurs, tugging him fractionally closer. Eddie’s started trembling, the cold and the blood loss and the lack of adrenaline finally getting to him. “Now can we double back to you calling me attractive?”
Eddie glances up to see Steve smirking down at him. God, he really is attractive. “Technically, I just said that what you did was attractive, not you personally.”
That earns him an elbow in his good side. “So you force me into admitting I like you but you won’t do the same? Real bold.”
“I don’t recall the words ‘I like you’ ever leaving your lips, unless that’s what ‘shut up’ means now.”
“Well, it’s better than ‘not you personally’,” Steve jokingly scoffs.
“Fine,” Eddie stops, almost at the edge of the rift. “You’re super hot, okay? Jesus Christ, I’ve been flirting with you this whole time, I thought you’d realised.”
Steve turns, still supporting Eddie while he faces him. “I thought you were messing with me! Look, I really like you, but I’m… I’ve not done this in a while, and I didn’t want to be weird about it.”
To his surprise, Eddie lets out a low chuckle. The sound worms its way into his chest, curling up in the soft warm space between his lungs. “Steve, we’ve both been half eaten alive by demon bats in an alternate hellscape. You’d have to do something pretty insane to come off as weird, especially to me.”
Steve cocks an eyebrow as he does the only thing that’s been on his mind for the past few minutes. It is a little insane, but also feels as natural as breathing. He drags Eddie closer and brings their lips together.
Eddie gasps. Despite their admissions, he didn’t expect Steve would actually do it. He sort of regrets that he didn’t make the first move, but this feels right - Steve’s spent so long following his instincts out of fear, that it’s reassuring to see him allow his feelings to take the lead in a different direction. He feels Steve smile into the kiss, satisfied by the shocked reaction he’s elicited, and tastes the hint of coffee that lingers on his lips. He kisses him back firmly, gripping his hips to keep him close and keep himself upright (it’s no longer just his injuries that are making his knees weak). Any hint of hesitation drains from Steve the moment he knows the gesture is reciprocated, and he winds one of his hands into Eddie’s hair. For a beautiful, brief moment, the rest of the world melts away until it’s just the two of them, bodies tangled together and lips locked. Finally, they break apart for breath.
“The others will be wondering where we’ve got to,” Eddie says quietly against Steve’s lips.
“Let them wonder.” He tries to lean in again, but is stopped by a ringed hand on his chest.
“I mean they’ll be worried.”
“Oh.” It’s still hard to reconcile the fact that people actually care whether something happens to him, but hearing it from Eddie while their arms are still around each other helps the message get through. “Come on then. Let’s get you home.”
Eddie hesitates on the edge of the rift, on the brink of home and hell, glancing back at the way his trailer has been torn asunder. “Uh, I don’t think I have a home to go home to. And I’m still a wanted man, remember?”
Steve shrugs. “You can hide out at mine. I’ll even find your uncle, there’s plenty of room for both of you. If you want, that is?”
With a smile, Eddie leans over and places a quick kiss on his cheek, before starting to lower himself to the ground. He grimaces at the strain it puts across his stomach. Steve is quick to kneel, hands around his waist and thigh a convenient handhold, much to Eddie’s delight.
“See you on the other side, lover boy.”
He’s halfway through the rift when hands grasp him. Two wrap carefully around his bruised ankles, lifting him to the surface; another snakes around his back to drag him up enough for its partner to grip around his shoulder, and a final pair take him by the hand and finally pull him through to reality.
It’s Dustin’s hands in his, and as Robin’s on his back help him upright the boy’s wrap around him. “Jesus, Eddie, you took your time.”
He ruffles the kid’s hair where it pokes out between his hood and bandana. “I was half-dead, dude, I’m not exactly gonna sprint.”
Nancy peers at him curiously. “You look… better. Your cheeks have got some colour, but we should still get you looked at.”
His gaze flickers to Robin. She’s giving him a smug smile, and he suspects she knows the real reason it took him so long, but she says nothing, just turns back and offers a hand to Steve as he crawls through behind them. She whispers something to him, and Eddie watches his cheeks glow as their eyes meet. He tears his eyes away long enough to look around at the wreckage. The rift is as it was in the Upside Down, glowing a deep red as it winds across the ground and up the side of his trailer towards the roof. He can never live there again, he knows that much, but as he stares in defeat he realises something. It’s torn through his living room wall. The collection of baseball hats and shelf of ceramics will be long gone, but the rest of his stuff should be mostly untouched. Not caring whether anyone tries to stop him, he staggers towards the door.
“Eddie!” he hears Dustin and Steve yell, but he’s too focused to listen. His hand is on the handle before he feels Steve behind him, gripping his shoulder.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I just need to get something,” Eddie says vaguely.
Steve shakes his head. “It’s not safe, we need to get out of here.”
“I’ll only be a minute.”
He purses his lips tugging Eddie’s hand away and replacing it with his own. “Then I’ll go.”
Eddie moves in close. “What did I tell you? You don’t always have to be the one who puts yourself in harm’s way, not for any of us. I’ll be okay. I promise.”
“If you’re not out in one minute…”
He risks a quick squeeze of Steve’s hand when he’s sure nobody’s looking. “Then you can come and rescue me.”
As much as he looks like he’s going to complain, he finally relents and opens the door for Eddie. “Sixty seconds, Munson.”
“I’m counting down, Harrington.”
Inside is warm and cloying, unnatural in the eerie red light. He shudders at the thick black vines weaving across his ceiling. It’s not his ceiling any more, he thinks. It’s just some place now, full of too many bad memories. He hopes Wayne is okay, wherever he is, but he can find him later (or Steve can, if he holds up his end of the deal, which he already knows he will) - right now, there’s someone else he needs to get to.
“I’m back, sweetheart,” he grins as he spots his beloved guitar. She looks different being back in the normal world instead of the pale blue glow of the other trailer, but no less striking. The stretch of lifting her off the wall makes him grunt and he’s convinced he’s reopened his wound, but it doesn’t matter. He and that guitar have been through more than he could ever have imagined, and it would have broken his heart to lose her. With a relieved sigh, he hoists her over his shoulder and steps back out of the trailer.
Steve gives an exaggerated look at his watch as Eddie emerges. He almost sighs at the sight of the guitar strapped across Eddie’s back, amazed that that’s what he risked going back for, but the way the boy’s face has lit up at being reunited with it makes him bite his tongue.
“You don’t mind me bringing her with us, do you?” he asks. Oh, so it’s a her.
Steve wraps an arm back round him to lead him away, careful not to jostle the guitar. He flinches when he feels a small damp spot on the fabric of Eddie’s top. “Are you bleeding again?”
“Quite possibly,” Eddie admits sheepishly.
“God, you’re such an idiot,” Steve rolls his eyes, his voice tinged with concern and affection. “Want me to carry her or you?”
Eddie gives a cheeky waggle of his eyebrows, before holding out the guitar. He trusts Steve, has done for a while now, and today has cemented it. “Be careful with her.”
The boy nods, as serious as the grave. “I’ll protect her like she was my own child.”
“Good,” Eddie huffs a laugh as he presses his hand on his wound and links his other through Steve’s arm to be led out of the trailer park and towards the Winnebago hidden in the woods. “I suppose since we’re practically co-parenting Dustin at this point, I can cope with sharing custody.”
Steve smiles, watching the boy in question up ahead as Nancy and Robin help him hobble over the uneven ground. Maybe two out of six kids isn’t too bad, even if one of them is an instrument; he’ll take what he can get, especially if it’s with Eddie. “Then let’s get the family home.”