Chapter Text
If he looks far back enough, it started with Billy. But then Billy was gone and he was desperate to hide and suppress all memories that had to do with that night, the night they thought they finally stopped hell breaking loose.
But now that their world has been turned into hell and Vecna is still around somewhere in the depths of the upside down, Steve doesn't think about Billy for different reasons. He doesn't think about him or Chrissy or Jason or even Nancy, despite the fact they still talk on the phone, states away while she's settling into college life. All he can think about is Dustin's expression as he reached him and Eddie. All he can feel is Eddie's perfectly still, unnaturally still body in his arms as Steve carried the man out of hell. All he can hear is his own panicked, tired breath and the gasp that made air flow through Eddie's lungs again.
Seeing the man like that left Steve with a gashing wound deeper than any demobat could ever manage. After all the loss, after Max, after watching his friends almost die in that hell… Steve is unable to think of anything else. He lies awake at night, afraid that if he closes his eyes Vecna might come for them again, that he will be forced to face death again. When he does sleep, it is fitful and it brings those scenarios to life in his nightmares.
They haven’t spoken that much since then, him and Eddie. Steve visited him once in the hospital, when everything settled. Seeing him lying there, unmovable aside from the subtle rise of his chest, made Steve recoil in fear. The image alone pulled at the seams of his being until he unravelled, all thoughts tumbling out of his mind, the only thing left of him being a shiver of anxiety in his chest.
It was the first panic attack he had. It wouldn’t be the last one.
#
A sob rakes through his chest, rattling his ribcage as he startles himself awake, gaze darting around the room, investigating every dark corner, half expecting to see Dustin’s body a few feet in the air. When he blinks, however, the echo of his nightmare is gone and he is left gasping for air in the low light of his room. Beyond his window, a full moon sits atop a few dark clouds, the stars muted on the cupola of the sky.
For some reason, the only thing he wants is to hold someone’s hand. Perhaps he wants to remind himself that he is alive - that he and his friends are still here, that they made it out…
His hand reaches for the phone on his nightstand and he searches his brain for a number to call. Robin is the first option he wants to reach for. Robin and her wicked smile and the way she doesn't know how to shut up, her laugh and nervousness that turns into pure selflessness when it truly matters. He doesn’t have the heart to wake her up, however and he puts the phone back, picks it again and puts it back as he tries to work out what the time is for Nancy. What if she’s in class? What if she has enough on her plate?
All of a sudden, Steve feels alone and tired, a shiver in his bones, his gaze hazy with tears as he holds the phone receiver against his chest. He can feel his breath coming in and out, a soft sound of pain behind each exhale. Before he knows it, he’s dialling a number, shaky fingers holding the receiver against his ear. His other hand pushes through sweat damp tresses, before matting his equally sweaty forehead.
There’s a crackle and the sound of a breath that sounds exactly like the one that follows him in his nightmares and then a soft:
“Yeah?”
Steve doesn’t say anything for a few moments, breathing heavily and letting the echo of Eddie’s voice settle the frantic rise and fall of his chest.
“Hello?” Eddie says again, more insistent this time, a subtle note of frustration playing on the edges of his voice.
“It’s Steve,” he finally breathes, his voice strained, choking on his own breath as he presses the heel of his free hand against his eye, holding it there until he feels like he can keep the tears back. He swallows thickly when there is no answer, trying to push down the sob that is trying to crawl out of his chest.
“Steve?” he hears from the other end, the high pitched ringing in his ears subsiding now as he lets himself listen to Eddie’s voice, as sparse as the words are. “What’s wrong, Steve?”
Nothing.
“Steve?”
He hums in response.
“Gotta talk to me, Steve, what the hell is wrong?”
The louder Eddie says his name, the more he believes he is indeed Steve Harrington. The same Steve Harrington that was able to push this all down just a few months ago and pretend that all he cared about was getting a girlfriend. The Steve that exasperated Robin, the Steve that was jealous about how much time Henderson spent with Eddie… As the thought crosses his mind, he is reminded Eddie is, in fact, on the other end of the phone.
“Nothing, man,” he says and his voice sounds broken even to his own ears. “A nightmare,” he adds, quietly, before Eddie calls him out on his bullshit.
“Yeah?” Eddie replies and it’s the same soft, unguarded, vulnerable tone that greeted him when Eddie picked up. “Wanna… Talk about it?” he asks and Steve can tell the man is holding something back. He doesn’t know why or how he knows that, but he can feel it in his bones.
“Nuh-uh,” he makes, voice clipped, still unsure why he’s on the phone with Eddie Munson of all people. He could be on the phone with Robin or Nancy or Dustin or even Jonathan fucking Byers, to be honest, but instead… It’s Eddie's breathing he’s listening to. His gaze lands on the digital clock on his nightstand and he leans against the headboard, letting out a pale sigh.
It’s four in the morning and he’s sitting in his bed, Eddie Munson on the phone, both quiet as if saying anything might undo them both. They treat each other as you treat an unhealed wound, trying not to pick at the thin stitches holding them together, trying to let a scar form before they are brave enough to look at the wound again.
“I had mac and cheese for dinner,” Eddie says, all of a sudden, sleep etched his tone. “You?” Steve sits in silence for a few more moments, his breath sticking to his lungs still, yet not galloping anymore.
“Roast chicken and green beans,” he says in the end and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. “I made it,” he breathes, his knuckles still white with the force he’s holding the phone receiver with. But as Eddie keeps speaking, he can feel his own body relax, his muscles lax and warm and his body turning to liquid in his bed, finally comforted.
“You cook? Of course you cook, you’re such a good boy.”
“Good boy?”
“Yeah, you know… Perfect, good boy Steve Harrington, all perfect and good, used to be an asshole but now he never puts a foot wrong Steve Harrington. You get it?” Eddie is rambling and, despite the fact that he makes little sense and he sounds like he’s half asleep, it makes a small smile pull at the corners of Steve’s lips.
“No, I don’t get it, Munson,” he says and he hears a soft groan, a little protest as Steve prompts Eddie to explain himself.
“It’s five in the morning, are you really fishing for compliments?” At that, Steve lets out a chuckle on the trail of a sigh and lets his hand settle on his chest. It doesn’t hurt anymore and he feels like he can breathe again after months of feeling life he was walking through water. Months of feeling like something of himself was left at the bottom of Lover’s Lake.
“Thanks, Eddie,” he says after a moment of silence and he swears he hears shuffles on the other end, as if he just startled the man awake.
“You’re thanking me?” Eddie asks and the uncertainty in his voice almost makes Steve breath dissipate in his chest because they are getting close to it… They are getting close to admitting and facing what happened to them, they are almost brushing against the nightmares that Steve keeps having and… Steve can’t deal with it.
“Hey, uh… Is it cool if I come around sometime to hang out?”
“Yeah,” comes a reply from Eddie, almost instant, as if he didn’t even need a second to think about it. That alone makes Steve grimace softly, before schooling his expression into something more neutral, despite the fact Eddie can’t see him.
“Okay,” he says, “then I’ll see you around?”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, Munson.”
#
On Tuesday, Steve finishes his shift and makes plans with Robin and Vickie. They are still circling around each other and Robin begged Steve to come out with them so he can tell her if there’s really something there. Steve knows he’s not the smartest guy, but if there’s something he knows is recognising when women are interested (he hopes). It also keeps him away from his own thoughts, so he accepts and they end up jumping from one place to another, the bowling alley and then a diner and finally Robin’s house.
On Wednesday, he wakes up on Robin’s couch and leaves before his friends are awake. A chill has settled in the air and there’s a sharp wind pinching his cheeks as he makes his way to his perfectly clean car. He spends his day off from work watching movies until he turns restless and needs to do something so he picks up the cleaning supplies and starts scrubbing his whole house. His parents are still not home and apparently Hawkins falling apart is too inconvenient for them, despite the fact that they could probably invest their money or use their influence to help rebuild the town. He gets angry at them and cleans harder and, by the time he’s finished, his body aches in all the wrong places. He takes a shower and falls into a deep sleep, before he’s woken up by another nightmare early the next morning.
On Thursday, he meets Dustin and the kids after work, driving them to the mall and playing babysitter. He would lie if he said he didn’t appreciate the distraction. Sometimes, he pays extra attention to Dustin, trying to see if the teenager still feels the echoes of almost losing Eddie. He seems his usual smartass self, however, exasperating him to no end, despite what his hidden smile says. They’re thinking about starting a new campaign, Eddie’s name comes up eventually and Steve feels his heart leap in his throat when it does.
“Will he be up to it?” asks Will, thoughtfully, in that way that makes Steve feel like he’s thirty steps behind the teenager.
“Why wouldn’t he be into it?” Steve asks, trying to feign casualness, his voice strangled by anxiety however. His question gains a few surprised looks, and Henderson clears his throat, silence encompassing them until Erica speaks up.
“You haven’t talked much to him, have you? He’s all quiet and weird!” she says, sounding almost frustrated with Eddie’s apparent lack of energy. Steve tries to think of their call and how Eddie sounded… Fine. Well, not fine, but fine enough not to worry Steve.
He hears himself ask Eddie if they could hang out and he remembers the way Eddie breathlessly, almost desperately accepted, as if in that one syllable word he was pleading, begging for something… Anything that Steve could give him.
On Friday, Steve decides to visit the apartment complex where Max and Eddie have been temporarily housed, following Hawkins being destroyed by what everyone thought was an earthquake. With the town being torn apart, nobody cared about the ‘murders’ anymore - all everyone cared about was surviving, making their way out of Hawkins or trying to put the town back together somehow.
He swallows a shaky exhale and instead takes in a deep, calming breath. His fingers rap lightly against the wood and he can hear the shuffling of steps behind the door, before a woman with wild, red hair smiles up at him inquisitively.
"Steve?" she asks, his name still sounding a tad foreign on Max' mother's lips.
"Hi, Ms Mayfield, is Max…" He wants to ask if she wants to see him, or anyone for that matter, but before he finishes his sentence, the woman is already ushering him inside, kicking with her foot a pair of running shoes that have been discarded in the hallway.
"Come in, yeah. Don't mind the mess, please, we're still… Settling in," she says with an awfully kind smile that makes his breath stop in his chest. He grunts, an unsure smile adorning his lips yet not reaching his eyes.
He follows her through the small apartment, taking in the bare, white walls and the boxes stacked along them. Max is sitting on the couch, her arm and leg still in a cast, now slightly less pristine white compared to months ago. She looks up and, before her mother can open her mouth to say anything, the redhead girl speaks, her voice trembling:
"Steve, hey," she says and he swears that if his chest wasn't riddled with panic, he would break down in the middle of their living room. Instead, he makes his way to the couch, almost on autopilot.
"Max, how are you?" His voice is a strangled mess, the letters barely able to make it to his lips as he sits down next to her, trying his best not to look at her cast.
"Yeah, okay," she smiles and he realises that they're alone, the sounds of Max' mother doing something in the kitchen wafting to them, combined with the cacophony of noise coming from the TV.
"Can I hug or does it hurt?" he asks, breathlessly, and she lets out a soft, almost sarcastic chuckle before opening her arms and letting herself be tucked against his chest.
"I missed you, you idiot," she says on the end of a soft sniffle and his stomach drops, his arms wrapping tighter around her for a moment.
"Me too," he says, and it's the most open thing he's said since that night. They sit there, in silence, putting themselves back together before facing each other again.
Max tells him about her recovery, he tells her about how he visited her in the hospital. Max tells him about how Lucas is there every day and gives him a playful roll of the eye and he tells him about what he's been doing all this time. They both stay away from the topic of that night, they talk about everyone else but themselves until they run out of people to talk about.
"Eddie's been here a lot," she says, finally, her face turned towards the TV as if she's actually paying attention to it, despite the way he sees her replaying the night in her mind.
"Yeah?" He doesn't know what to say or ask - he's not sure he wants to ask anything. He's not sure he wants to know more than he does.
"Yeah… Being resurrected by a girl with magic powers really helps with bonding," she says and, when she turns her face to him, she's wearing a smile that he wishes he could erase. It's the kind of smile people only smile if they've lived through enough to fill three lifetimes.
"Is he…" he doesn't know how to continue, so instead he averts his gaze, now being the one to stare blankly at the TV.
"You mean you haven't seen him? I thought you…" She doesn't finish, instead mimicking his position, tenseness hanging in the air, pressing on their shoulders. "He's okay? Lucas doesn't think so and he knows him better than I do, but with me… I don't know, he seems normal." She paused, sighs and the corners of her lips curl into a grin. "We're bonded, though, you know?"
He doesn't know, but he nods either way and smiles a clipped smile that barely resembles one.
"That's good," he breathes, before letting Max fill in the silence with everything else. She asks questions and he answers, but his mind keeps reeling, until he feels the tremble of anxiety shaking his chest. It's late, he realises, and Max gets progressively quieter as she melts into the couch. He catches Ms Mayfield's shadow in the door to the kitchen which prompts him to softly slap his knees and rub his palms against his jeans, before giving Max a smile.
"I'll get going then, but I'll come around when I get the chance, yeah?" he asks and Max opens her arms as she did earlier. As he hugs her, he can't help but feel his chest overflowing with affection for her. If anyone had told Steve Harrington that he would be on the verge of tears for a bunch of teenagers and lose sleep about what could happen to them, he would have bullied that person into social exile. But now, as he wraps Max in his embrace, all he wants to do is never let her go - never let any of them go.
If he could give himself away to whatever monster or horror wants to hurt them, he would do it in a breath. He would put himself between the abyss and them any day of the week and have no regrets.
By the time he makes it out of the Mayfield residence and is staring down the hallway, Steve is not sure he can hold back his tears. Especially if he is to be faced with the man he's been trying his absolute best not to think about and that yet haunts his every waking moment.
He lets out a shaky breath in the silence of the corridor, the sound of his own exhale bouncing against the sterile white walls of the building. The sound of his steps is muffled by the constant, accelerating thrum of his heart. Before he can change his mind and turn on his heels and run, however, he knocks on the door at the end of the hallway, breath held as he stares at it intently, almost wishing it didn't budge.