Chapter Text
🎵 Movement, by Hozier 🎧
No one knew how Eddie survived. No one but Steve, that is.
Steve had clear thoughts — and dreams — of Dustin's face finding their body as Steve dragged Eddie out of Lover's Lake, bloodied and dirtier than he's ever been in his entire life.
"He's... what the fuck. What the fuck! Steve, how the fuck is he alive?"
His lack of answer back then could be attributed to his panting, the tiredness in his bones from carrying both of their bodies, all the blood — god, there's so much blood — and, of course, the need for a goddamn doctor.
"Steve! How is he alive?! What the hell! You can't do that shit to me, you can't just run back through one of the gates and tell me to goddamn WAIT, then—fuck, he's bleeding so much. Is someone on stand-by? This is a Code Red! A code red! We need a doctor!"
Steve held Eddie's body in his arms while they waited for the ambulance, and avoided every other one of Dustin's questions. He might've passed out at some point, but he woke up before the sirens came.
He was alive. Everyone was.
On his ride to the hospital, Steve closed his eyes and prayed that would be enough this time.
For two weeks, Steve was surrounded by the faces of doctors and the smell of sterile rooms.
Even though he needed only a few days at the hospital to tend to his wounds, he was one of many of them who needed a doctor.
Everything was a mess, too, outside of their bubble of 'I Just Saved the World': Hopper was back, but he now worked with the Government in the shadows, trying his best to come up with an excuse (lie) to get Eddie rid of his charges and explain everything that happened, as well as why he was back.
Max almost died.
That one hit Steve in the chest harder than bullets or any demo-bats biting chunks of meat out his body. Max almost fucking died, and Steve felt a sour taste in his mouth every time he blinked and was reminded of that by the sight of her arriving at the hospital with two broken bones, passed out from the shock of the pain and with tears of blood streaming down her face. Max Mayfield, the sass and sunshine aura hidden behind death glares of the group, she had almost died if Eleven hadn't found inside of her the strength and willpower to fight Vecna before he finished his job and it was too late.
What would have happened if Max had died?
"Four sacrifices. Four gates."
Steve dreamt about four gates opening up in his town. Splitting Hawkins into pieces. Sometimes, the gates looked like four gaping eyes. Others, they connected. However the gates appeared in his dreams, it was a sight from hell, but none of them worse than seeing Max pale and comatose.
There was also the fact that Eddie was alive, but things were far from easy for him.
Due to Lucas's statement, painted and curated with the help of Eleven, Joyce, and Hopper, the charges were taken away. There was no cult, the perpetrator of the deaths was being "searched" and they all had witnessed "Henry Creel" tying up Max, trying to perform some sort of "ritual". All the air quotes were necessary and said on live TV by Sheriff Powell. It offered some sort of explanation, along with a whole other lot of bullshit, and removed his charges 'officially', but a town like Hawkins would never forget and drop the opportunity of demonizing the D&D Master of something called Hellfire Club.
So for two weeks, Steve went to the hospital.
He visited Max along with the other kids, read to her, tried his best a teasing remark here and there about 'I'm gonna call a lawyer if you don't wake up soon and see what I can do about getting those Wonder Woman comics I heard you have to myself... I'm serious, Mayfield. I love Wonder Woman', but the silence that followed never got easier.
When not in Max's room, Steve was at Eddie's.
He was there so often, in fact, that Wayne Munson became sort of his... friend.
Well—Steve called him a friend. Getting more than a grunt or a nod from Wayne was as easy as getting candies out of a kid's hand, so the small conversations meant he must at least tolerate Steve's presence. Wayne asked about his day, offered small talk, even let him be alone with Eddie, something he did only for Dustin and the other boys of Hellfire.
Steve visited him, talking to him whenever he found him awake.
By the third visit, Eddie learned to stop asking the same question Dustin pestered him with: How is he alive, Steve? He was surrounded. What did you do?
Steve avoided them all until they stopped asking.
He was getting good at that.
At one point, Eddie just shook his head, looked Steve up and down, then sighed. "You know, Harrington..."
"Yeah?"
"I have no idea how you did it," Eddie paused for dramatic purposes, pinning Steve under his piercing eyes, saying you know what I'm talking about without opening his mouth, then continued. "But... however it was. Thanks. I mean it. I..." He snickered. "I think I might still have a battle or two left in me, so—" he let out a shuddery breath. "I'm happy I'll be here for them."
"No more battles," Steve said, talking straight out of his ass. Will's words had already arrived in his ears: He's alive. Henry's alive. "Not for a while, at least. I fucking hope not," Steve chuckled humorlessly, looking away from Eddie for a second. "We all need at least a goddamn winter of peace, don't we?"
"Sure do."
"Yeah. So let's hope for that."
"Thought you were gonna say 'pray' for that for a sec," Eddie laughed. Steve joined, finding the same humor in the thought.
"Pray to who?" Steve laughed harder.
"No clue. I always had lots of thoughts on the concept of a god or whatever and why we humans cling to this idea of something 'bigger' than us 'protecting' and 'watching over us', but I am not nearly high enough to get into those." Eddie did air quotes, and Steve noted this is where he got the habit from now.
Two times Robin threw him her weird judgy look when he did air quotes in the middle of their conversation, and Steve just realized that ah... so this is where I saw it first.
Steve nodded. "So you're telling me that when you get high your go-to topics are... god and immortality?"
"Precisely, darling."
"Wow. You sound like a delight to be around when high." Steve should be used by now to the way Eddie called him nicknames and how easy it was to banter with him—they'd done it plenty. Steve was in charge of bringing Eddie any news or supplies when he was hiding, and whether they were walking around woods or stealing vans they had enough bickering to fill in any silence, but it still got to him sometimes. Darling. Big boy.
Eddie stopped staring at him, snorting. "I am." He grinned, dimples and all. Steve had to look away because—his dimples. He laughed, shaking his head and averting his eyes. "I always made Gareth and Jeff almost piss themselves."
"Because Gareth and Jeff are such tough audiences, huh? They barely worship the ground you walk on," Steve offered back with enough sarcasm to make Max proud.
Eddie lifted his arm just to shake a finger in Steve's face. "Nuh huh. You're confusing them with Dustin and Mike."
"God! How could I."
"It's okay, Stevie, you'll get the hang of who my admirers are in no time." Eddie laughed curtly. "They'll be the only handful of people trying to convince the whole town not to burn me with pitchforks when I get outta here."
The image of people crowding outside the hospital doors with pitchforks, yelling 'kill the freak!' among other things made any sort of glee leave Steve's face, and he looked back at Eddie with creased eyebrows. "No one's gonna burn you." Never gonna happen. I won't let it happen. Didn't do what I did to let some human lay a finger on you. Steve swallowed the anger, that familiar sickening feeling he was growing more and more accustomed to these past days, and breathed through it before it took over him. "Stop talking shit, Munson."
"Oops. 'Munson'. Sorry, I won't talk of my haters."
"'s not funny."
"Hey—" Eddie's tone brought Steve's eyes up to his. They looked open, and so earnest that Steve's anger evaporated into thin air. "I know there are people who don't like me, but I know—" he bit his lip, then tried again. "I'm used to their looks, and judgment, and shit. I'm not gonna let it get to me. I know Hopper and Powell are working to make stuff go away."
Steve breathed another moment, then nodded. "Yeah." Things will be fine. He said those words to himself every day and night, even if he barely believed in them.
Eddie nodded back with a tight-lipped smile. "And..." his tone said here it comes. Steve braced himself for the terrible joke. "Even if these people thought they were clever enough to do something to me... they've got nothing on my crew."
It was the smugness in his lips that made Steve feel that tingle in his nape. He was part of Eddie's crew. Somehow in the last few weeks, Steve went from being jealous of him, a mere stranger, to help him escape the law and, later, helping save the city with him. Now he visited him daily. Watched him when he slept, sometimes. Prayed to the darkness he'd be okay, and tried running away from his best friend's inquisitive eyes every time she asked 'are you okay, Steve?' because it sounded a lot like 'where did your mind go to, Steve' and his mind only went to one place now. He shook his head. "Is that right?" Is your crew really that badass?
"You fucking bet it is," Eddie smiled wider. Steve's stomach fluttered at the sight—he loved Eddie smiling so much it made him sick. "My crew's got only Level Twenty bad motherfuckers. And one of 'em is, like, thirteen! D'you know how sick that is?" Eddie blew raspberries. "What are they gonna do against the wrath of Erica Sinclair?"
That made Steve laugh out loud. The idea of anyone having the upper hand against the youngest Sinclair was funnier than anything on TV. "Alright, you've got a point. They have nothing against your crew."
"Damn right they don't," Eddie nodded.
"They don't what?" Wayne's voice asked from the door.
Both Eddie and Steve turned their heads to him, equally surprised by his presence. Steve wondered how long he'd been there, watching their weird exchange.
From Wayne's corner of the mouth smile, he was amused by their antics. Steve knew the rest of the corridor probably weren't as happy with their loud laughter and loud voices, but it seemed to amuse Wayne seeing his kid smile that much.
"This town has nothing on me and my friends," Eddie repeated.
Wayne entered the room nodding and extended one of the two cups in his hands towards Steve, who accepted it with a smile and a thankful nod. "I mean. If everything you kids told me is true, then..." He drifted off, then snickered behind his cup. "Yeah. Sounds about right."
Wayne was way calmer about learning everything Hopper and Joyce had to tell him than any other parent probably would.
Steve lingered in the room a little while longer, happy to be there to witness Wayne and Eddie's awkwardly-paced, yet adorable conversation. They were a lot similar, and Steve could see where Eddie got his dry and quick sense of humor from.
Plus—it was nice seeing a parent who cared.
All Steve got when he showed up bruised and battered in his house was scorn and disdain from both parties.
It was fine.
Steve had his crew, and Eddie was spot-on about one thing: They were a goddamn good crew.