Chapter Text
Steve
The dream started as it always did.
For the past three nights, seemingly the second Steve closed his eyes, he saw red. Red with black flecks. Ash and slime. He knew this place. Knew it in his bones. Last time, he’d been here with an ax and two friends. Last time, Eddie had died.
Steve suddenly found himself outside the trailer park, staring down at where Eddie’s body should be. Now there was nothing. Not even blood. Like his death had never happened.
Steve slammed into wakefulness, sweating and gasping. He never woke up agitated like this from dreams. He never dreamed period. But this had been three nights in a row. Three nights. One was chance, two was a coincidence, three was a pattern.
He needed to talk to Eleven.
“I do not know, Steve,” El said once he’d explained it to her the following morning over Pop-Tarts and plotting in Joyce Byers’s kitchen-turned-war-room. “When I have dreams, they have meaning. When Will has dreams, they have meaning. Why not you?”
Steve leaned over his hands where they rested on the kitchen table. Maps covered every available inch of space. Maps and diagrams drawn in hasty scribbles as Will desperately tried to share what he was seeing in his mind with the rest of them. It was all pretty much useless. None of the soldiers who had gone into the rift over the last week had come back out alive. And none of the ones going in now or tomorrow or the next day would either.
Just like Eddie hadn’t.
It bothered Steve more than the other deaths. It itched at him. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t been particularly close to Eddie. But something pulled at him. Gnawed at him. He couldn’t get Eddie out of his mind. Especially after the dreams had started.
“What’s happening?” Dustin asked as he entered the room, a backpack on his back and a walkie strapped to his hip. None of them went anywhere without walkies now.
“Steve has—”
“Nothing,” Steve interrupted quickly. He didn’t want Dustin to know. The kid had been so lost when Eddie died, and his face always fell whenever Eddie’s name came up. “I just had a stupid idea that El shot down for me.”
El raised her eyebrow at Steve but didn’t contradict the lie.
“What idea?” Dustin asked. He sounded weary but not at the prospect of a new direction. Just tired. They all were. “I’d take a stupid idea at this point. We’ve gotten nowhere with the smart ideas.”
Shit, now Steve would have to come up with something that sounded plausible enough for him to have mentioned it while still being impractical enough that El would shoot it down. He was such a shitty liar.
El gave Steve an amused smirk, waiting for him to answer. No help from that quarter.
“Never mind,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his fingers over them. He was starting to get a headache. Probably from lack of sleep as well as everything else. “We’ll come up with something. Any progress on pinpointing Vecna’s new base?”
And Dustin was off again. So easily distractible, thank Christ. Steve tuned him out after the first rambling paragraph that shot way over his head. Something about Suzie calculating the algorithm of the something-something variable. Steve could never make heads or tails of it. And what he really wanted to think about was Eddie. If the dream was real, then Eddie wasn’t where he’d died. But if he wasn’t where he’d died, where the hell was he?
Hell. He was in hell. Or the Hawkins version of it.
What if he was alive? Steve blinked in shock. Why hadn’t Steve thought of that before? If Eddie’s body wasn’t where they’d left it, and Steve was dreaming about it, and if Steve’s dreams were somehow real, where were they coming from?
The only two options were from Eddie or from Vecna.
“Earth to Steve… Steve, are you even listening?”
Steve blinked again, this time to return his focus to the room, and more specifically Dustin.
“I swear, I mention one mathematical equation, and you just completely shut down.”
“Sorry,” Steve said, not feeling up to his usual self-effacing quips.
“Hey, man, are you okay?” Dustin reached out and squeezed his arm.
That was another change between them all—the easy, almost constant touching. Like they all needed to reassure themselves that they were real, that their friends were real. That they weren’t alone.
“No,” Steve said honestly, scrubbing his face with his free hand, then raking his fingers through his hair. It was longer now, his hair. Took his fingers a second or two more to get all the way through the strands. But it wasn’t like he could just stroll into his local barbershop and get a trim. “Nothing to worry about, though. It’s just the normal, end-of-the-world not-okay.”
Dustin eyed him for a minute, not quite believing Steve’s brush-off remark, but then he shrugged and let it go.
El leaned against the kitchen wall. Her hair was longer now as well, curling around her ears. She looked both younger and older than she did when it was shaved close to her skull.
“The short answer is no, we do not know where Vecna is,” she said on a tired sigh, as she folded her arms across her body. “And until we do, no one—” she paused to give Steve a significant look “—is going into the rift to look for him.”
Dustin frowned. “But—”
“No one,” El repeated with emphasis, as if her word were law.
Clearly, El had been the wrong person to talk to. Steve picked Mike next. Mike was much more likely to come up with a plan, and to be just unhinged enough to actually carry it out. Plus, El listened to him. Hell, even Hopper listened to him. And if, for some reason, Mike couldn’t help, Nancy lived in the same house, and she was the smartest person Steve knew. Yeah, the Wheelers were the answer. You could always trust a Wheeler.
“Absolutely not,” Mike said, before Steve even finished telling him.
Mike had been moving boxes of supplies from his mom’s station wagon to the garage, but he’d set the box he’d been holding back down on the car’s bumper when Steve had walked up. The sky was cloudy and threatening, but it hadn’t started raining. Yet.
“What do you mean, ‘absolutely not’?” Steve countered. “I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
Mike flailed an arm in exasperation. “I know exactly where this is going, and it’s nowhere good. How do you know it’s not Vecna just trying to lure us down there?”
“I don’t,” Steve answered honestly. “But what if it is Eddie? The way it was Will. Remember Will?”
“Will communicated through lights and phone calls. Not dreams. Only Vecna sends dreams.”
“But Will is mentally connected to the Upside Down, and not to Vecna.”
“You’re just proving my point,” Mike said. “Will is mentally connected to the Upside Down, but he hasn’t seen anything about Eddie, has he?”
Steve clenched his teeth in frustration and looked down. “I haven’t asked him.”
“But he hasn’t mentioned it, and he of all people would have,” Mike said. “He’d never leave anyone alone in the Upside Down if there was even a whisper of a hint that they were still alive.”
“I know,” Steve snapped, more brusquely than Mike deserved. “I know,” he repeated, more gently this time.
The next morning, Steve drove Lucas to the hospital to visit Max, another dream about Eddie fresh on his mind. They ran into Joyce, who was on her way out, having delivered a bright bunch of daisies to Max’s room.
Steve followed Joyce out, giving Lucas some privacy. Steve couldn’t imagine what it would be like if it were Nancy and not Max in that bed. Though it wasn’t really Nancy he was picturing there now. Strangely, it was Eddie he saw superimposed over Max, his brown curls swept neatly to the side, bracketing his too-pale face from the sheets. Seeing Eddie there in his mind made Steve feel worse, because at least Max had made it to the hospital. Here, in Hawkins. Eddie was…who knew where Eddie was.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Joyce said. And it was just surprising enough that it pulled Steve out of his head.
“What?” He must not have heard her right.
“Come on.”
She linked her arm with his and, with a conspiratorial smile, pulled him along with her to the diner. The waitress didn’t look twice at them as she scribbled down Joyce’s two-beer order and hurried to the next table. A group of soldiers sat in the booth across from them, arguing tactics over coffee. It was barely ten in the morning.
A few minutes later, the harried waitress dropped off their beers. Joyce held off just long enough for the woman to retreat out of earshot, before she turned the conversation to brass tacks.
“So when are you going?”
Steve nearly choked on his swallow of beer. “Sorry?”
“Mike told me. About Eddie.”
“I didn’t tell Mike I was going.” Steve glanced around furtively to make sure no one—especially the group of soldiers across from them—was listening.
Joyce gave him that knowing look perfected by moms everywhere.
“I get it, Steve, I do. You couldn’t have kept me out here when Will was trapped in there. I’d have found a way in if I was half dead and chained to a wall.” She took a long swig of her beer and then started picking at the label with her thumbnail. “You’re like me, Steve. The rest of them are fighters, thinkers, magicians. But you and I are different. We’re protectors. We make sure that Will and El, Nancy and Mike, Dustin and Robin and the rest survive. That goes for Eddie, too.”
Steve leaned back against the warm vinyl of the diner booth, considering. She wasn’t wrong. There was a reason Steve was part of this group, and it wasn’t his ability to battle the Mind Flayer.
“It’s probably a trap,” he admitted. “I probably won’t make it back.”
“Every trap needs live bait,” Joyce said. “And I wouldn’t count you out. We protectors are pretty fierce when we need to be.”
Steve smiled at that. Fierce was just about the last word he’d apply to himself. But he had a bat with nails in it, and a strong, familiar feeling in his gut that someone needed him.
“So what can I do to help?” Joyce asked.
Which is how Steve found himself in an empty classroom in Hawkins Middle School with his trusty nail bat, a substantial first aid kit, and an ARC flamethrower Joyce had “borrowed” from her friend at the army command center.
It had been years since Steve had set foot in here. He was pretty sure it had been a science classroom, based on the periodic table of elements poster peeling off the dusty wall. No one used the school now. It wasn’t worth sending kids to learn about quadratic equations when the world was ending.
Steve mentally shook off the idle thoughts. Procrastination wasn’t really his thing. Jumping in without thinking at all was more his style. So he tightened his grip on the bat and made his way to the wall at the front of the room.
The chalkboard El had destroyed when obliterating the demogorgon had been replaced. There was almost no sign of the gate El had unconsciously opened when she’d done so, flinging herself into the Upside Down version of the school. El had eventually closed the gate after using it to reenter Hawkins, along with the other temporary gates that been opening here and there across town the last couple of years. But there was still weakness between the worlds at each of the gate sites, temporary or not. It’s why the classroom, and everywhere else a gate had been found, was off limits now. But there wasn’t enough manpower to guard them all, not when the giant fissures quadrisecting downtown Hawkins kept spewing monsters and ash and malice.
Steve pulled a crowbar from his pack and used it to pry off the chalkboard where it was bolted to the cinderblock wall. It came off in thick, flat chunks, and he was overly warm in the heatless classroom by the time he was done. He shoved the chunks aside with his foot as he faced the wall. Then he shouldered his pack, the nail bat safely tucked into the straps on the front like a makeshift scabbard, and rested the tip of his flamethrower to the patched-up concrete where he estimated the center of the gate to have been.
Dustin’s latest theory on the gates was that high-powered pinpoints of energy opened them, connecting the worlds. The source and type of energy didn’t much matter, hence why both El’s psychic energy and the Russians' radioactive drill had a similar effect. Fire was energy, too, and Steve reasoned that a hastily patched-over gate probably didn’t need much in the way of energy to reopen.
For the first few minutes of blasting the cement with the flamethrower, nothing seemed to be happening beyond a growing singed black spot. But then the spot started widening faster, and there was a different quality to the smell—the acrid stink of man-made chemicals conceding to the more putrid smells of organic bile and rot.
Steve immediately shut off the flamethrower. He didn’t want to open the gate much wider than his shoulders. He hated the idea of leaving the thing open and unguarded for any Upside-Down horrors to crawl through. It was bad enough they were getting into Hawkins through the rift.
He poked his head through the gap to check that no demo-anything was lying in wait on the other side. But a quick sweep of his flashlight failed to illuminate any creepy-crawlies. So he quickly slid off his pack and the shoulder strap attached to the flamethrower. Then he shoved both pack and flamethrower through the hole. They fell with a muted thump on the other side of the gate.
Fear slid icy fingers down his spine at being separated from all his weapons, but he’d need both hands to climb through. In less than a minute, he slipped through the wall feet first, landing as lightly as possible on the other side. Then he scooped up his stuff and crept through the hallways, keeping as close to the vine-covered wall as he dared.
The whole place was still but for the sooty particles floating through the air, and not for the first time, Steve wondered how on earth he was going to locate Eddie. If he was still alive—and that was a big if—he couldn’t be at the trailer park anymore. The Hawkins version had been destroyed when the rift tore through town. He had to imagine it would have been just as devastating in that area of the Upside Down. But as he didn’t have any other leads, he would head in that direction anyway, holding out hope that he’d somehow run across Eddie’s trail from when he’d…walked? crawled? been carried?…away from there.
He ran into his first obstacle when he reached the school door—the obstacle being himself.
“Just open the door and peek out,” he muttered, trying to psych himself up. “If the demo army is there, you can just go right back through that hole. Have El shut the gate. Be home by dinner. If not…” He swore under his breath. “If not, then this trip will get a hell of lot more interesting.”
He eased the door open a fraction, then a crack, then a few inches. Just enough to get a line of sight to the parking lot.
It was empty. No cars, so signs of life. Nothing but twilight and ash and the twin smells of rotting vegetation and flesh. So Steve took a deep breath, held it a second, and stepped out into the perpetual night of the Upside Down.
In the end, it was El who found Eddie.
Steve nearly jumped out of his skin when she called him on the walkie while he was making a slight detour to Merril’s farm for, he hoped, a gas can to refill his flamethrower.
Static. “Steve, you idiot.” Static.
He fumbled the flamethrower in his panic at the sudden noise. That was a great sign about just how well he’d handle a surprise attack from an actual enemy. He let the flamethrower hang from its strap around his shoulder and took the walkie out of his pack.
Steve paused a moment to breathe, shutting his eyes. Then he pressed the call button.
“Hello to you, too, El. Lovely weather we’re having.”
Static. “Shut up, Steve. Joyce told us. Mike says you are in deep shit.” Static.
Steve looked at his surroundings and thought this an apt assessment. He pressed the call button again.
“So is this a social call, or…?”
Static. “Come home now.” Static.
“I’m not going back until I find him. I know he’s here, one way or the other.”
Static. “…” Static.
Static. “Fine. I will try to find him in the void. But if I cannot, you will come home.” Static.
Steve thought about that. On the one hand, he had no interest in negotiating his plans, but on the other, El using the void to locate Eddie could shave off hours of searching.
“Okay, fine,” he said finally, rationalizing that he could always break his end of the deal if he had to.
By the time he’d found a gas can at Merril’s and refilled the flamethrower, El had given Steve the first good news since he’d started on this half-baked quest.
Static. “I found him.” Static.
For the second time, Steve butterfingered the flamethrower in his surprise. Once he regained control, he pulled out the walkie and pressed the call button.
“Where?”
Static. “The hospital.” Static.
“Is he okay?”
Static. “Unclear. Injured. But he seems to be looking for supplies. Get him and come home.” Static.
“Understood.”
Static. “Be careful, Steve.” Static.
“Careful is my middle name.”
Static. “I thought your middle name was Alexander.” Static.
He pressed the call button to respond but then decided it was just better to let it go. Besides, now he had a direction.
Steve quickly backtracked through town, taking a long detour around one of the rift branches, and then another long detour around a pack of demodogs. The pack was far enough off in the distance that Steve went unnoticed, but he detoured further afield anyway just to be safe. Eddie certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if his rescuer brought along instant death as a bonus.
When he got to the hospital, it was as silent and desolate as every place else. Unlike the school doors, these doors were glass, which let him confirm that the lobby was empty before he opened anything. It didn’t mean that Eddie wasn’t in the building, though. And it also didn’t mean that something nasty wasn’t in there with him. So Steve pulled out his nail bat, gripping it in one hand and the flamethrower in the other. If Eddie had made it this far, then so would Steve.
As Steve explored the first level of the hospital, he eventually traded his nail bat for the flashlight. The interior was dark with the very occasional flickering of a fluorescent light, and with the chaotic clutter and network of spy vines, Steve needed to be able to see as much as defend himself.
Steve ignored the shadowed stairwells entirely. As injured as Eddie had been, he wouldn’t have bothered going up for supplies he’d have just as much luck finding on the ground floor. Whatever had happened to the people who’d lived in the Upside Down, they had no need of medical supplies now.
The search yielded no results, though—no demobeasts, no Eddie—until he reached the final corridor on the west side of the building. In the darkness, Steve almost stumbled over the first body.
“Shit!” he yelped, his heart pounding in his ears as the flashlight beam illuminated the mangled remains of a very dead demobat. He nearly slipped in a puddle of gore as he jumped back. He’d have slapped a hand over his mouth instinctively if he’d had a free hand to do it with. As it was, he took a few gulps of putrid air, trying to calm his panic.
After a moment, he raised the flashlight to see further up the corridor.
“Shit,” he said again, this time on a quiet breath.
The hallway was littered with demobat corpses, all of them broken, twisted, and bleeding. These creatures had not died of natural causes. It appeared that the gruesome trail led to an emergency-exit door wedged slightly ajar.
“Shit,” he said a third time, as his brain finally put two and two together. “Eddie.”
Then he scrambled forward, ignoring the dead, as he raced for the back door. He paused at the barrier to exchange the flashlight for his nail bat. Then he shouldered his way through and out into the night, bat and flamethrower in combat-ready position.
What he saw nearly sent him to his knees.
Eddie slouched on the ground, his upper back propped against the cement bolster of a light pole, the only pitiful excuse for cover in the otherwise empty parking lot. Except it wasn’t empty. A whirlwind of demobats circled over Eddie, diving as far down as they dared. Meanwhile, Eddie was giving as good as he got. He had no weapons, nothing to shield himself with. Instead, he tore at the air with his hand. Any time his closed fist came down, a demobat ten feet up, well above Eddie’s physical reach, would come crashing to the asphalt, dead.
Eddie was using psychic power. Like El. Like Vecna.
Steve shook off his shock, taking in the scene in a split second, and charging into the fray in the next. His nail bat connected with several of the flying fuckers nearest him. Wings buffeted his head and shoulders, but they hadn’t fully realized he was there yet. He took out as many as he could before they caught on that they were being attacked from a new direction. He didn’t dare use the flamethrower except as a last resort. He couldn’t afford to attract the attention of anything worse in this completely open space.
He whirled and swung, soft bodies thudding, delicate bones crunching. It wasn’t a dance so much as a panicked flailing, but he seemed to be winning. The bastards had finally noticed him, and he now had more than a few nicks and bites. Nothing serious, though—nothing that would stop him pushing through to Eddie.
With a screeching cry of rage, the demobats finally broke ranks and fled up into the night sky, taking off in greasy, black streaks in all directions. Steve watched them, letting his batting arm relax as he accounted for every last one.
He turned to look at Eddie then. The guy looked understandably rough, bleeding from multiple wounds, clothes torn and covered in blood, hair tangled and saturated with sweat and god knew what else. Steve felt suddenly awkward. He should have brought Dustin, or at least Nancy. Either of them would have known what to say to make Eddie feel better.
“Hey,” he said with a vague, cringeworthy wave. “Need a ride home?”
Instead of answering, Eddie stared at him. Then he raised a hand, curled as if gripping something. Steve didn’t know what to make of the gesture, until he felt that grip around his throat. And then his body was hoisted off the ground by that grip. Steve clawed at the invisible fingers, kicking his legs, his lungs reaching fruitlessly for air.
“I may have to die here, you gaslighting son of a bitch, but I don’t have to do it in a way that helps you.” Eddie spat blood onto the asphalt as he held Steve up like he weighed nothing.
“Not— not— Vecn—” Steve tried. But he could barely get the words out at a whisper. He needed to convince Eddie.
On impulse more than thought, Steve reached for Eddie’s hand. If he could just touch it, somehow Eddie would know.
It took several agonizing seconds—seconds that Steve could not afford—but he finally managed to touch a fingertip to Eddie’s closest knuckle.
Eddie gasped, his hand, and his power, falling away in an instant. Limply, Steve crashed to the gritty pavement, never in his life so grateful to feel gravel poking into his cheek and palms. He gulped in huge helpings of rank air, coughing as his greedy lungs filled with soot.
“It’s me,” Steve said between coughs as soon as he could get words out. “It’s me, I swear.”
“Steve?”
Eddie’s voice was so small and so full of heartbreak that Steve almost choked again.
“Steve, I… Steve, I… Steve.”
“Eddie, breathe,” Steve said, pushing himself to his knees and shoving his hands into Eddie’s. He coughed into his sleeve. His voice was raspier than that time he’d temporarily lost it due to a bad bout of bronchitis, but he needed Eddie to calm down. “Breathe, Eddie. With me, all right? In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. In, two, three, four…”
He led Eddie through several more rounds until he felt Eddie’s breathing even out. But with the easing of his panic, Eddie also started to lose consciousness.
“Eddie, no, no, no. Eddie, wake up. We can’t stay here. Come on.”
But Eddie’s wounds were too many. He’d lost too much blood. If Steve didn’t act fast, Eddie really would die this time, mysteriously unlocked power or not.
“Shit!” Steve said again. It was becoming his new favorite word, apparently.
He quickly checked Eddie over, but it seemed Eddie had managed to bandage the worst of his wounds before the most recent demobat attack. They needed more staunching, of course, but Eddie’s insides should stay in place until Steve could get them to better shelter.
The hospital was out. Too many corridors, too many ways in, not enough ways out. The only other building close to their location was the Hawk Theater, which had some tactical advantages. Very few windows. The projector booth was small, isolated, up high, and easy to defend. If Steve could get Eddie there and give him some time to recover while he waited for El’s next status check, they might just stand a chance of getting back to the school, to the gate, and home.
Steve let the flamethrower dangle by its shoulder strap and stowed the nail bat. Then he ducked under Eddie’s arm and hauled him to his feet with a groan.
“Come on, Eddie boy. We’re going to the movies.”
Steve gauged the distance to the pen cup as he hefted the pencil like a javelin. A couple of practice jabs, and then he let the pencil fly. It hit the inside lip of the cup with a thunk and then cartwheeled out, skittering along the floor and disappearing under the loveseat Eddie was half hanging off of, completely passed out. Steve checked his watch on autopilot, though it had stopped working when he’d entered the Upside Down. It didn’t matter. It had been long enough.
Steve got to his feet. The pins and needles in his left leg were not optimal. He’d have to be more careful. Just because nothing had tracked them to the movie theater didn’t mean they were in the clear. Yeah, the projection room they were in had only one entrance, which was secured by a sturdy, locked door, and there were no windows, save for the tiny porthole between the projector and the theater. But Steve needed to stay on guard. Neither of them would make it out alive if he didn’t have his head in the game.
He walked over to Eddie’s couch and sat in the folding chair at the end near Eddie’s head. First, he checked all of Eddie’s bandages. Steve had done what he could with the first-aid kit he’d brought. He’d even given Eddie some over-the-counter painkillers Joyce had dug up. But Eddie was in rough shape. He’d fallen asleep almost instantly after taking the pills, and Steve had been waking him every two hours, give or take, to make sure he was still okay. The last time Steve had gently shaken his shoulder, Eddie had given Steve the finger, covered his head with the filthy couch pillow, and gone instantly back to sleep.
Steve smiled, remembering the relief he’d felt at that tiny act of defiance. He grasped Eddie’s shoulder again now, shaking it carefully.
“Mmmgrrph,” Eddie said. “Fuck off, Steve.”
“Time for more water and pills.”
No answer.
“Come on, Eddie. You can go back to sleep after.”
No answer.
“Eddie, don’t make me shave your head.”
One eye popped open, glaring at Steve balefully. “You don’t have the balls.”
“I think you’ll find that I do.”
Eddie snorted. Or rather tried to snort. It was pretty pitiful, all things considered.
“You don’t have any clippers.”
“You think I go anywhere without hair supplies?”
That got a full-fledged Eddie smile, which warmed Steve in ways he wasn’t prepared to examine too closely. Stress must be getting to him.
“Fine. You win, Harrington.”
Eddie pushed himself up to his elbows, then seemed to get stuck. Groaning, he said, “That’s my limit. Just toss the pills into my mouth like popcorn.”
Steve chuckled and got up to awkwardly help move Eddie into more of a seated position. Eddie winced as he maneuvered himself against the couch cushions. Steve handed him the pills and canteen. Eddie obediently swallowed all four tabs and several gulps of water, before closing his eyes and swearing colorfully and at length under his breath.
“Not sure why I bother drinking anything,” he said when the litany of curses dried up. “There are so many holes in me, I must look like a goddamn water fountain.”
“You’re not a cartoon character, last I checked,” Steve said as he handed Eddie a Fruit Roll-Up.
Eddie took it but didn’t unwrap it right away. He fiddled with the edge of the wrapper, looking at it instead of Steve.
“How are we getting out of here?”
He sounded so hopeless that Steve’s heart sank a bit.
“I assume the cavalry isn’t coming, or it would’ve been here by now,” Eddie continued when Steve didn’t respond.
“I’m not cavalry enough for you, Munson?” Steve joked, not quite managing to hide the undertone of worry.
Eddie looked up at him then, his eyes shining with pain. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. I really didn’t want to die alone.”
Steve squeezed Eddie’s uninjured knee gently. “Nobody’s dying today.” Then to distract him, he said, “So…psychic powers, huh? How’d you get those?”
Eddie shrugged a shoulder as he unwrapped the Fruit Roll-Up. “Hell if I know, man. I died, I think. And then I…woke up? The demobats were gone, the trailer park was gone. I was face down under some bleachers at the county fairgrounds. I was so out of it. I have no idea how long I laid there before I realized how much blood I was losing.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry, man. We should have tried to come back sooner.”
Eddie shook his head, taking a bite of the fruit leather. “It didn’t even occur to me that someone would come back for me,” he said, around the chewy bite. “I remember putting my hand against my side, where most of the blood was coming from. And I thought, ‘I need to stop this.’ And then…I can’t explain it…it’s like this force pushed out of my hand against the cut. And the blood just…stopped.”
“Wow,” Steve breathed, staring at Eddie. “And you have no idea how it worked?”
“Not a clue. Best guess is it has something to do with dying in the Upside Down. But it doesn’t really matter. Once I realized I had a fighting chance, I decided to try my luck at the hospital.”
“Is that when you started sending me dreams?” Steve asked.
“Dreams?” Eddie looked up, genuinely puzzled. “What dreams?”
Steve explained about his dreams, about how he knew they meant something, that he had to come and see for himself.
Eddie blinked at him. “Oh, my god, Steve. That’s the most harebrained thing I’ve ever heard. Literally. Ever.”
Steve made an aggrieved noise. “Excuse you. I was clearly onto something.” He gestured to Eddie’s obviously alive presence.
Eddie leaned forward intently, his arm slung across his abdomen, supporting his weight. “You’re ridiculous. I can’t believe they let you come here. On your own. Because of a dumbass dream.”
“They didn’t exactly let me come,” Steve admitted.
Eddie’s eyes widened. “Who knows you’re here, Steve? Tell me someone knows you’re here.”
“They all know,” Steve assured him, knowing that Eddie getting all hot and bothered was not going to be in anybody’s best interest, least of all Steve’s. “I’ve been in contact with El through the walkie.”
“It works down here?”
“Not as such. El uses her power to connect to it.”
“Cool,” Eddie said, almost to himself, a ghost of his smile returning as he polished off the last of the Fruit Roll-Up.
“Look, we’re getting out of here. I just need you to be well enough to walk, okay?”
Eddie’s small smile faded. “Walk where?” he asked, concern knitting his brow.
“Just to the middle school. Two and a half blocks, max.”
That seemed to relieve Eddie somewhat. Though he said, “I can’t imagine walking two steps at the moment.”
“The meds will kick in,” Steve said. “Give it a few more minutes.”
“Is that all we’re waiting for? Me to be on my feet?”
Steve got up and walked to his pack. He took out the walkie and set it on the small, rickety side table between Eddie’s couch and Steve’s folding chair.
“We’re waiting for El to check back in,” he said to Eddie. “Then we’ll go. For now, you need more sleep.”
“Such a fucking babysitter,” Eddie teased. “I’m not twelve, you know.”
“Then why do you act like you are?” Steve teased back. “You’re still vertical, Munson.” Then he pointed to the noxious pillow Eddie had been cuddling with earlier.
“You could at least tell me a bedtime story,” Eddie said with a groan as he dutifully stretched out as best he could on the too-short couch. His movements still looked far too painful and guarded for Steve’s liking. If they needed to move fast, Eddie would struggle to keep up.
“Fine,” Steve said, as he sat back down in his chair. “There once was this prick named Eddie…”
Eddie chuckled low, his gaze on the ceiling, his less injured arm resting across his forehead.
“Sounds like the start of a dirty limerick,” he said. “I like it. Go on.”
“There once was this prick named Eddie, who woke up one day and thought, ‘You know what? Today I think I’ll be a goddamned hero.’ And he got himself eaten by a monster. And his friends—the ones he was trying to save—got real upset about that. Way more upset than Eddie realized they would.” Steve leaned forward, elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together. “In fact, some of them were downright traumatized. Not just by how it happened, but at losing Eddie specifically.”
Eddie didn’t move, didn’t say anything. The smile had dropped off his face. Steve watched as Eddie’s Adam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow.
“You see, Eddie was this chump who thought that no one cared about him, that he wasn’t really worth caring about. Why he thought that is anyone’s guess. Yeah, the town thought he was a serial killer. But the people who knew Eddie, who really knew him, they loved him, you know? And it really hurt them what Eddie did. Such an asshole, that guy.”
Eddie swallowed again. “Is he all right?” he said finally, his gaze still on the ceiling. He didn’t have to say Dustin. They both knew which ‘he’ Eddie meant.
“What do you think?” Steve said, remembering all the times over the last week he’d caught Dustin wiping away tears when he thought no one was looking.
“I did it to give you more time.”
“You did give us more time. We probably would have died if you hadn’t done it.”
“Then why are you chewing my ass about it?”
“Because that’s not the only reason you did it,” Steve said.
“What are you talking about?”
Steve leaned back against his chair, sighing heavily. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“No, tell me, Oh Great Steve, the Wise and All-Knowing. Why did I do it if it wasn’t to save you?”
Steve mentally kicked himself. He shouldn’t have brought it up. But it had been bugging him since Dustin told them all what had happened to Eddie. It hadn’t sat right with him, Dustin’s explanation. Because Steve knew enough to surmise that Eddie’d thought he had something to prove.
“Why did I do it, Steve?” Eddie insisted, glaring at Steve directly now, unflinching and with a different kind of pain behind his eyes.
Hell. Might as well finish what he started.
“Because you don’t value yourself. You think you’re expendable.”
“I don’t—”
Steve raised an eyebrow at Eddie—his best imitation of Nancy’s no-bullshit eyebrow. He wasn’t letting Eddie off the hook with this. Both their lives depended on him growing the fuck up. Right now.
“Tell me I’m wrong, then,” Steve challenged. “Tell me that you didn’t think you weren’t worth saving when you cut off your only escape route and threw yourself at those bats. That you didn’t think it when you woke up here alone and bleeding. That you don’t think it now.” Steve studied Eddie’s face, not letting him hide from this. “Tell me you think it was worth one of us risking our lives to come get you.”
Eddie made a squeaking noise, his eyes wide. But he didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought,” Steve said, gripping Eddie’s wrist. “Well, I’m calling the shots from here on out, Munson. Until we get home, your job is to do exactly what I say. And if I catch you even once trying to throw yourself into danger to give me a chance to get away or some shit, I will knock you out and carry you back. And when you wake up, you will be scrubbing toilets for a month. Am I clear?”
Eddie didn’t answer. Just shifted his gaze back to the ceiling again.
“I’m not leaving here without you, Eddie,” Steve said, his voice softer. “I wouldn’t do that to Dustin. And neither should you.”
Eddie turned onto his more injured side to face the back of the couch, pulling his arm out of Steve’s hold as he did so.
Steve took the hint and went to check that the projector window and door were still secure.
Static. “Steve?” Static.
Static. “Steve? Are you there?” Static.
Steve’s eyes popped open. Shit. What time was it? He looked at his watch, which of course still wasn’t working.
“Shit,” Steve said, pushing himself blearily to his feet. “Eddie.”
Static. “Steve? Are you there? Over.” Static.
Steve stumbled forward, nearly tripping over his own feet as he grabbed for the radio. He pressed the call button, though he wasn’t sure it was strictly necessary, given that El was using her power to operate the thing.
“Here. I’m here. We’re—”
Static. “Steve, there is not much time.” Static.
Hearing El’s voice was a relief. Steve was starting to worry the rest of the crew wouldn't be able to find an exit strategy for them.
Static. “Here is the plan. Hopper’s team will cause a distraction where the Eggo store used to be.” Static.
Eggo store? Did she mean Bradley’s?
Static. “You must go back through the gate while—" Static.
Steve pressed the call button. “What was that last part? I didn’t copy.”
Eddie was sitting up by this point, eyeing Steve with concern.
Static. “—and I will meet you at the—” Static.
Shit. “Meet us when?” Steve said too loudly into the walkie.
Static. “—min—” Static.
“El?” Steve said, knowing it was pointless and trying anyway. “Can you hear me?”
Silence.
Why wasn't it working if she was using her power? If something was blocking her, that couldn't be good.
“Are we fucked?” Eddie asked, gripping the couch arm so hard his fingertips turned white.
Steve took a few seconds to assess Eddie’s condition as objectively as he could. He was holding himself stiffly, one arm wrapped around his middle again. His face was lined with fatigue and pain, but also determination. It was the best Steve was likely to get.
“Get up,” he said curtly. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Then he tossed the walkie into his backpack, along with the last of their medical supplies, the flashlight, the canteen, and whatever snacks he hadn’t managed to get Eddie to choke down. Then he slung on the pack and got to his feet, the nail bat in one hand and the flamethrower in the other.
“Let me take the bat,” Eddie said as he hobbled up behind Steve.
Steve looked over his shoulder at Eddie. “Hell, no. I need you force-choking the shit out of those fuckers.”
The corner of Eddie’s mouth kicked up at that, which was all the signal Steve needed that they were as ready as they were ever going to be.
He counted to three silently in his head and then yanked the door open, flamethrower up and powered on, his finger on the trigger. The stairwell was empty, so Steve carefully moved down the stairs, counting on Eddie to follow without speaking. He kept his eyes trained on the door leading from the stairwell to the main theater corridor.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Steve glanced through the portal window into the corridor. It seemed empty, or at least empty of demobeasts. There were plenty of vines and floating soot particles, but as long as they watched their feet, they’d probably be okay. Steve prayed it stayed that way for the rest of the walk to the middle school.
He opened the door again, pushing the flamethrower through the opening first. Then he swiveled quickly to confirm there weren’t any demobeasts on the other side of the corridor waiting to pounce on them. But again, there was nothing.
Steve motioned toward the theater lobby. If they could get through the doors without issue, then there was a good chance Hopper’s distraction would work well enough to keep the Upside Down’s attention off him and Eddie.
But, of course, just thinking that jinxed them all to hell.
“Fuck!” Eddie cursed and threw up his hands as five demogorgons rushed them from seemingly nowhere.
Steve pushed past Eddie and pulled the trigger on the flamethrower, lighting up the demogorgon crouched on the concessions counter. It screeched in pain, distracting the others enough for Eddie to psychically grab one near the ticket booth and break its neck with a sickening crack. It dropped limply to the ground as the third leapt at Eddie, rightly judging him to be the greater threat.
Steve dodged in front of Eddie, letting the flamethrower dangle from its shoulder strap as he positioned the bat for a hard, left-handed swing. The nails caught in the demogorgon’s torso and ripped gashes through its flesh as Steve followed through. The monster screamed as Eddie stepped up to Steve’s shoulder and blasted the creature back through the glass front of the building.
It likely wasn’t dead, but it was damaged enough for them to shift priority to demogorgon number four, which had been trying to flank Steve while Eddie was dealing with demogorgon three. It launched itself at Steve’s right side while he was still off balance from the swing, but Eddie had clocked it and did that wrenching motion he’d done with the demobats. The demogorgon squealed in pain, its bloodied head ramming into the floor. Steve caught up the flamethrower and toasted the son of a bitch before it could get back up.
That left demogorgon number five, which had…disappeared?
“Shit, where is it?” Eddie asked, turning in a frantic circle, his eyes searching. Steve did the same and saw nothing. No movement.
“Damn it,” Steve said. “We gotta go, Munson. Now. Move it.”
“But—”
“I said, move it!”
And to his credit, Eddie obeyed, preceding Steve through the glass door, carefully avoiding the knocked-out demogorgon. Steve considered torching it before they left, but he didn’t want to waste what little fuel he had if he didn’t have to.
The walk through town was deadly quiet, which itched at Steve’s nerves even more with a demogorgon on their trail. The dread was worse than the fighting. He wanted something tangible he could do. A decision he could make. Not this endless waiting for the trap to spring.
“Steve,” Eddie said, his voice raspy. “We have to slow down.”
“We can’t slow down. We slow down, we die.”
“I can’t keep up. I’m bleeding again.”
Steve swore and gripped the bat handle hard enough to bruise his palm. He turned abruptly, dropping the flamethrower to hang by the strap again, and caught Eddie by the front of his shirt, dragging him into the alcove leading to the antique store. It wasn’t great cover, but it would do.
“Bleeding where?”
Eddie pointed to his side. “I think I broke it open again when we were—”
Steve slid his pack and flamethrower strap off his shoulders and then whipped off his shirt.
Eddie stared at him. “What are you—?”
Steve balled up the fabric and pressed it to Eddie’s side. Eddie winced and hissed in pain, pressing his hand against Steve’s. Steve looked into Eddie’s eyes, his hand tingling where Eddie touched it.
“That help?” Steve asked, chalking up his breathlessness to their mad dash to the gate.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, his expression worried and…sad? And was that blood on his lips? Steve lifted his other hand to Eddie’s mouth before he thought, and brushed his thumb across Eddie’s lower lip.
Eddie gasped, a small, sharp intake of breath. Steve blinked at the sound, realizing he must have hurt him.
“Shit, sorry,” he said, dropping his hand and his gaze. Then he lifted the bag onto his shoulders again, looping the flamethrower strap over his head and grabbing his bat, and checked to make sure the street was clear before leading them out of the alcove.
He slowed his pace, but Eddie still had trouble keeping up. His breath hitched every fourth step. Then every third. They were passing the remains of Family Video now, which meant they only had a block and a half to go. But it was a block and a half without any cover, and it might as well have been the moon for the likelihood he and Eddie would make it before they were attacked or Eddie passed out or both. He had told Eddie he’d carry him if need be, but he didn’t think he could carry Eddie and fight off a demogorgon at the same time.
Eddie surprised him by not once suggesting Steve leave him behind. Steve’s little pep talk must have sunk in, thank Christ for small favors. If he had to argue with Eddie on top of everything else, Steve might scream.
“One more block,” Steve found himself saying, though whether it was to comfort Eddie or himself, he couldn’t have said. In any case, Eddie didn’t answer him. Probably saving his breath for keeping his feet moving. Steve let the flamethrower drop so he could reach back and catch Eddie’s hand. “I promise, when we make it back, I will personally buy you a new guitar. Any model you want.”
Eddie wheezed in what Steve interpreted as amusement. “You’re going to regret that, Harrington,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Probably Steve wouldn’t be able to keep the promise anyway. Hawkins wasn’t selling a lot of guitars these days. But he would keep the promise behind the promise. He would get Eddie home. If he had to kill every demogorgon in the Upside Down, he’d do it.
By the time they stumbled up the steps to Hawkins Middle, they’d used up every drop of luck they’d had left. Behind them, the hunting growl of multiple demogorgons rumbled through the still air. They had seconds at most.
Steve wrenched open the damaged door to the school’s lobby, checked it was clear, then shoved Eddie in.
“Science classroom, lower level. Gate should still be open.”
“Steve! I’m not—!”
But Steve ignored him as he whirled back around in time to torch the demogorgon that had just launched itself at his back. The others—there must have been a dozen of them, though Steve hardly had time to count—dropped to all fours or circled to the side, assessing him before charging again. Steve took the opportunity to back quickly inside with Eddie, hauling the broken door closed as best he could. It wouldn’t delay them long.
“Go!” Steve ordered Eddie, and Eddie didn’t argue.
They jogged down the hallways toward the classroom, Eddie’s breaths coming in loud, labored gasps. Steve was heedless of all the vines he stepped on, given that the bastards all knew where they were at this point. But he carefully watched Eddie’s footing, nudging him to the least dangerous path whenever he wasn’t torching tangles of vines attempting to trip or snare them.
They’d just about reached the gate when the demogorgons caught up to them.
“Age before beauty, Munson,” Steve said, as he pushed Eddie toward the gate.
“But—”
“Now!”
Then he lit the nearest demogorgon on fire.
“Steve! We got him!” That was Mike’s voice. “Come on!”
Steve wasted no time. He dove through the gate, scraping the side of the hole with the flamethrower. For a terror-filled second, the top of his pack got wedged, and he couldn’t pull himself all the way through. But Lucas and Will each grabbed one of his hands and pulled while El pushed her own hand through a gap near Steve’s side and psychically blew the nearest demogorgons back against the far hallway wall.
“Hurry!” she screeched.
Steve twisted and wiggled but couldn’t unstick himself. Then Eddie grabbed the top of the pack and shifted it so that it finally slipped through, allowing Steve to fall in a heap on the linoleum floor. In Hawkins. Home. Safe.
Will and Lucas dragged Steve away from the wall as El knitted the hole back together. The demogorgons screeched and howled but couldn’t move while El closed the gate. Eddie seemed to be watching what El was doing, fascinated, while Steve’s lungs heaved, gulping in the fresh, ambrosiac air of Not-the-Upside-Down.
“We have to go,” El said, her tone curt and maybe even a little furious. “Hopper and the others are putting themselves at risk. And with the amount of power I just used, the Hive Mind will know our location, here in Hawkins.”
“Got it,” Steve said, as he pushed shakily to his feet. Meanwhile, Lucas and Mike slammed into Eddie with savage hugs. “Hey! Careful, you nerds. He’s wounded.”
“Right, sorry,” Mike said, as he and Lucas stepped back. “But it’s good to see you, man. I really thought… We all thought…”
“I know,” Eddie said, his eyes glassy.
“We need to go!” El reminded them, her voice bypassing urgent and going full-on authoritarian. Then she stalked out of the room, back and shoulders rigid. Steve wouldn’t have been surprised to see flames coming out of her ears.
Mike rushed after her. “El, it’s okay. We have time…”
Steve missed the rest of what Mike said, as Will stepped up next to him and said, “She’s not angry at you. She’s just worried. She was really scared when you and Eddie were in there all alone.”
Steve smiled at that. He knew what worrying and feeling helpless was like.
He caught Eddie’s eye, then gave him a quick once-over, assessing his condition now that they were home. He actually seemed a little lighter. As if escaping the Upside Down alone had added years back to his life. He looked alive. And that made Steve’s heart do funny things. Pleased things. Happy things. He’d done it. He’d brought Eddie back.