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It’s been days since Eddie was able to close his eyes without the constant threat of being hunted down —either by a bunch of angry middle classed religious fanatics, the police or a supernatural monster—, for the first time he has a semblance of peace, of knowing he’s surrounded by people who would help him in case whatever gets to him first comes knocking, so he should be able to sleep at least for a few well-deserved hours. Right?
He can’t sleep.
Every time he closes his eyes, adrenaline spikes through his body, every nerve screaming that he’s at risk and he should be alert and ready to flee once more. Again. And again. Always running.
With a sigh, he gets up and carefully tiptoes around the sleeping kids spread through the abandoned cottage, a mess of knotted limbs, clenching to one another, their paused breathings intermixed with the faint sound of Max’s life-saving music.
Eddie makes his way to the kitchen, searching for the bottle of Whiskey whoever used to live her left half-finished on a drawer, but once he has it at hand, he hesitates. His mind races back to those fucking demon bats, and the perspective of fighting them while buzzed is terrifying enough to make his stomach turn. He can’t even drink in peace anymore, apparently.
“Fuck,” he hisses, as he makes his way outside. At least he can have a damn cigarette to calm his nerves.
As soon as he opens the front door, three pairs of eyes turn towards him. It shouldn’t surprise him, in hindsight, their hyperawareness and the tension that lingers behind their haunted eyes a couple seconds until they recognize he’s just good old Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson and not an otherworldly threat. Still, something about those looks makes his skin crawl with some primal awareness that he’s in the presence of dangerous people, even as they look away and get back to their business. Apparently, he’s not the only one who can’t sleep.
Upon further inspection, he notices that Wheeler’s eyes are red-rimmed and that Robin and her are speaking in low hushed tones, voices shaking with held back tears here and there. So he decides to take himself and his cigarette elsewhere, until his feet find Steve, a few feet away from the house, swinging around a baseball bat like he’s preparing for a match or something... except the bat is filled with goddamn nails.
“What the hell is that?” He asks, stopping his approach.
“What?” Steve asks, like he isn’t holding what could be a murder weapon in his right hand. Then, he looks down and fucking shrugs. “Oh, it’s actually not mine. Well, I guess it is. It was Jonathan’s, he let me keep it.”
“Byers?” Eddie asks, eyes darting back towards the front porch.
He regrets the move immediately, because Steve’s eyes follow his and his expression sours.
“Sorry.”
Steve shakes his head, dismissively, without looking away, but whatever pain crossed his expression earlier is quickly replaced by concern. Eddie takes a drag of his cigarette and leans next to the car, by Steve’s right.
“She alright?”
“Yeah, it’s just... that thing, fucking Vecna was taunting her about Barb.”
“Barbara Holland, right? That’s the girl that went missing couple years ago. Why would- oh.” Eddie connects the dots a little too slowly. He thinks of Crissy, of Patrick, of how many more must have been taken by these monsters without anyone ever finding out. “Shit, dude.”
“She was taken from my house, actually,” Steve’s voice sounds hoarse, as he leans back against the car too, his eyes distant. “We were- we didn’t even realize, didn’t do anything. Nancy... she could never forgive herself. Or me,” he adds that last bit with a bitterness deeper than anything Eddie would’ve thought him capable of a couple days ago.
“It’s not like it was your fault,” he offers.
Silence. Steve doesn’t even dignify the attempt with a reply, he just shakes his head again, eyes boring into the grass between their feet. Eddie runs a hand through his dirty hair, nervously, trying to find a way out of this dark hole of a conversation. His nervous eyes land on the bat hanging limply between Steve’s hands.
“So how’d you end up with that, if it’s Byers’s?”
“Oh, this?” Steve wakes up slightly, letting out a huff that is barely a laugh. “First time I fought a monster.”
“First time?” Eddie’s eyebrows arch. “When did Henderson drag you into this?”
“Dustin?” Steve finally looks up, face full of surprise. “Nah, man. I was in it way before I became friends with Dustin. Kinda dragged myself into it, to be honest.”
“How?”
“By not walking away. I was- Nancy and I, we were dating back when Barb went missing and I was... well, I was kind of an asshole back then. I mean, I- I’m not anymore. At least, I don’t think I am...” he rambles absentmindedly, running a hand through that stupidly fluffy hair of his like he wants to pull it off his skull. Eddie’s brow knits. The possibility of still being an asshole seems to disturb him far more than anything they saw in the Upside Down. And then, Harrington forces a smile and looks up at him. “Anyway, I was as much of a douchbag as you probably think I am.”
“Thought,” Eddie corrects. “Thought you were.”
“Either way,” Steve goes on like Eddie didn’t interject, “some... stuff happened, and I went around to Byers to apologize and Nancy was there and I thought she was hurt and- I don’t know, I guess I freaked out, so I barged in expecting a fight or something, right? But I found them gearing up to fight a monster.”
“One of those bats?”
“What? No. The first monster we told you about! Demo- something.”
“A demogorgon?!” Eddie’s back straightens as he recalls the illustration from the Monster Manual.
“That’s the one,” Steve purses his lips. “Anyway, if you think you were freaking out back at the lake, you should’ve seen me. I fucking ran out of that house as fast as I could. I was losing it, man,” he pulls at his hair again, eyes low.
On one hand, Eddie feels a wave of fucking relief at the notion that he’s not the only coward who ran away as soon as he set eyes on one of those horrible things. On the other, nothing he’s seen about Steve Harrington so far fits with that idea. It doesn’t add up.
“So I’m outside, right?” Steve keeps going. “And I’m struggling for my keys, desperate to get away... and then the fucking lights start flickering. And the monster is back. So I... I ran back in, picked up Jonathan’s bat and hit it. Again, and again, and again, until we were able to trap it and light it on fire. Byers let me keep the bat after that.”
“Wait, you’re telling me you saw one of those things, and you ran back in to fight it?”
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs.
“W-why?” Eddie asks, surprised that his own voice sounds so indignant. “Why would you- why would anyone do that?!”
Steve’s eyes bounce quickly to the porch, then back at him. His face is open and honest and almost sad when he says, “I couldn’t leave them to fight it alone. I just- I couldn’t.”
And there it is. The Steve Harrington he’s known for about 48 hours. The dude that came to his rescue only because Dustin Henderson asked and dove into a lake to search for an interdimensional gate and tried to brush off the fact that he almost got eaten alive.
“I would have run,” he admits, quietly, shamefully.
“Yes, but I’m an idiot,” Steve deadpans.
That startles a laugh out of Eddie, a little too loud. Steve smiles back at him, satisfied.
“So Henderson...”
“Fucking ambushed me outside of Nancy’s house one day, hopped into my car and demanded I brought the bat along.”
“Sounds like that little shit,” Eddie sighs, flopping down until his back is resting against the car’s hood and his eyes on the stars.
“Yep. So I did... I signed up to be a babysitter that fights monster dogs and tries to keep those kids alive.”
“Because you’re an idiot.”
“Now you’re getting it, Munson.”
Except Steve’s not an idiot. At least, it’s not the word Eddie would use to describe him. There’s other words, all out of his fantasy books and games, that would fit him far more, but he doesn’t want to risk saying them out loud and losing the chance of actually being friends with Steve. Cool guys that make out with pretty girls and co-captain sports teams and fight monsters don’t tend to associate with nerds like him.
But Steve Harrington lets his weight drop next to him and sets his sight on the dark sky above them like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Honestly? Don’t tell Henderson this, but that’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever done. I mean- Sure, he and his friends are a pain in my ass and I’ve nearly died trying to keep them in one piece at least a dozen times, not to mention being tortured by some Russian spies, and-”
“What?”
“Not the point. Thing is, after Nance... before Robin... it was all kinda shitty. Kinda lonely, you know? My friends were assholes so when I ditched them... I was alone for a bit.”
Lonely. Finally something Eddie understands. He sighs, turning to look at him. Steve Harrington, bruised and battered and dirty, glaring at the stars with some kind of heaviness that is oddly familiar to Eddie. He’s never really been alone, not like that, at least. He has the Hellfire Club, and he has his band, and he even has his uncle... but he wonders if any of them like him enough to fight monsters, to fight the claims that he is one, if any of them would go to hell for him the way Nancy and Robin did for Steve last night. He isn’t sure. Whatever binds those three together is stronger than anything he’s seen before. Whatever it is... he craves it, too.
“So what’s the deal with Robin?” He asks, as his mind spins around this tangled web of people he’s found himself in.
Steve’s face turns abruptly, eyes finding his, expression suddenly tense, oddly defensive for a guy who was just spilling his guts a second ago. Something about that expression, suddenly all hard edges, makes Eddie want to recoil in fear. He is sharply reminded that he’s dealing with someone dangerous.
“What about her?”
Eddie swallows thickly, before he dares push the words out. “I- I mean- what’s her deal in all this? How did she- you know, how did she get involved?”
Thank goodness, it’s not the wrong question. He doesn’t know what the wrong question would’ve been, but this one must be alright judging by the way Steve’s face softens.
“Oh, right, that one’s on me, actually,” he says, voice all warmth again, like nothing happened. “Though, really, she kinda dragged herself into this, too. I mean, she can blame me all she wants, but she’s the one that insisted on decoding the Russian secret messages.”
“Seriously, are you fucking with me with this Russian thing?” Eddie asks, propping himself on an elbow to glare down at Harrington.
“I wish,” he deadpans.
Eddie’s eyes narrow with disbelief and that is apparently what gets Steve Harrington to lose his nerve.
“Oh my god!” He groans, shaking his hands like he wants to strangle him before sitting back up. He grabs him by the arm and all but drags him towards the front porch, marching indignantly all the way through. Eddie doesn’t fight it (not like he could, because Harrington is way stronger than he looks). Steve stops right before the girls, whose quiet and calmer conversation halts as they look up at them, eyebrows raised in mirrored bemusement. “Robin,” Steve says, pointing at the girl, “were we or were we not tortured by Russian spies last summer!”
“We were! Though I think you got more tortured than I did. I only got the truth drugs.”
“See?” Steve gestures at her, like her sole word is definitive proof he’s telling the truth.
Eddie, to his own surprise, believes her.
“You’re shitting me.”
“They are not,” Wheeler whispers behind her cup of tea. Her eyes are still swollen, but she smiles before taking a sip.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“It’s alright,” Robin smiles cheekily at him. “I was the new kid once. You’ll catch up.”
There’s a promise there of a future, of time to catch up, of being the “new kid” because he belongs to the group now. It makes Eddie’s chest feel wide and warm, like it might burst.
“I think I need to lay down.”
“You should sleep,” Nancy says. And then, more firmly, “you both should.”
Steve opens his mouth to complain, then closes it again. He repeats the movement a couple times, like he’s a fish gapping for air. Nancy’s eyes pin him down like a hook. Robin stares, chuckling, like fishing is her new favorite sport.
“Right, okay, fine. I guess I could use some rest before I bleed out or something,” Steve finally grumbles.
“C’mon, man, we better go before she makes you bleed again,” Eddie grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him inside. He can hear the girls giggling outside. Neither struck him as the giggling kind, but he’s learning to let go of whatever idea he had of anything by now.
They go back inside and each find a spot close to the children. Max’s miraculous music still sounds faintly in the dark. Steve groans as he sets himself down.
“You good, man?”
“Yeah,” Steve’s voice sounds clipped, though. Holding back something. Pain, probably. “I’m good. I’m used to getting the shit kicked out of me by now.”
“Harrington, do me a favor, alright? Leave the self-deprecating humor to the cowards like me, okay? When cool monster-hunting dudes try it, it only sounds fake.”
Steve laughs, a little too hard for the dark silence of the cottage, and the sound turns into a groan. “Whatever, Munson. Next time, you can get eaten alive by monsters, and then you can make the jokes.”
“Next time?”
“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you? That’s the thing with this group. Once you’re in, you’re in forever. Life’s never gonna be normal again. Sorry.”
Eddie breathes slowly, trying to figure out if the fear or the excitement in his chest will win. In the end, both emotions come to a tense standstill. For now, at least, he doesn’t want to run. He almost feels brave when he says, “good.”
When sleep comes, it does without warning. In the darkness, his last thought is that if he dies tonight, at least he’ll do it surrounded by friends. And if he lives... maybe he’ll do it surrounded by friends, too.