Archive of Our Own

Steve jerks awake. Lightning shoots through his veins. Air rushes into his lungs. The water in his lungs disappear and the red lightning flashing before his eyes fade, leaving him to blink rapidly at the ceiling above his bed; blinking away the monsters and the shadows of a junkyard cast in red.

The sound of his own breathing is loud. It jerks in and out of his nose in an uncontrolled, heavy force, as if he held his breath while asleep. Jerky movements bursts from his chest with his every breath, the movement of air passing through him staccato and sharp.

At first, he is frozen in place. Every muscle in his body locked up and stiff, aching through him, and he has to convince himself there are no monsters nearby, who will be woken up and find him, if he moves; his house is empty; the gates are closed; Vecna is gone and the only monster in his house, is the one his parents leave behind, when they leave for their next business or extended weekend trip, in the early hours of morning or while he is at work, with only a small message on the answering machine or a post it note in his mother's fine and tinny handwriting, on the kitchen counter, informing him so.

  When he finally convinces himself, it is safe to move and wrenches his body out of frozen stupor, with his heart hammering inside of his chest, like it is trying to escape out of his ribs, he lifts a hand to rub at his face and finds it shaking. Both of his hands are. Trembles so great, it is like a second, shaking heartbeat inside each of his fingers, quivering and shaking everything from his wrist to the very tips of his fingers.

Blowing a shaky breath out into the palm of his hand, he pulls his trembling fingers up into his hair and wipes his fringe away from his face, pulling at the locks until the final few strands, sticking to his sweat-slick and clammy forehead, have all disappeared up into his hair.

  The clock on his alarm standing on his bedside table reads 02:09 in a bold red.

Waking up in the heels of a nightmare is not exactly a surprise.
These days, nightmares are a dime a dozen and Steve is hardly surprised, when they come knocking at his door anymore. It is falling asleep in the first place, that is harder.

It is not like it was in the beginning, after '83, when Nancy was still his girlfriend and he was still in high school. He fell asleep easily enough, but even then, more often than not, he jerked awake, chased from his sleep by a nightmare, his heart pounding a mile a minute against his chest, skin clammy with sweat and his mind convinced something was moving inside of the shadows.

Back then, he would fall asleep as easy as he has ever done. Hit the pillow and lights out after barely five minutes.
What changed after that night in the Byers' house, was that he would wake up from nightmares three to five times a night, grasping for the nailed bat just within reach beside his bed.
Half the time he would forget the details of his dream and only remember the shape of a monster against flashing lights and just how small Nancy and Jonathan could look, when lying broken and still on the floor.
Waking up, only remembering the shape of his dream, he would forget that the fight was over and it would take a while to convince himself, he could let go of the nail bat.

  Now, it takes hours for him to fall asleep, and most of the time, he only stays asleep for an hour or two. He will wake up, surging out of the heavy embrace of sleep, and blink at the numbers beside his bed and find only an hour has passed, since he last looked at the clock, blearily, just before he managed to fall asleep.

Sometimes, he won't even have the shadows of nightmares flashing in the darkness of his eyelids; he is simply woken up by his body, unable to sleep for longer than a few small hours at a time; woken up by nothing but his own heartbeat and the air in his lungs.

But whether a nightmare wakes him up or not, often, he will lie in bed, an hour after getting woken up for the second time that night, eyes heavy and exhausted, blinking and slipping shut, unable to hold them open any longer, only to jerk awake, as if his veins have been shot through with lightning. And he has to spend another ten minutes calming down and convincing himself, nothing is going to crawl out of the walls.

  When those sleepless nights first began, after Starcourt, he just ended up crying, angry at himself for being scared of the dark and angry that even with the lights on, he couldn't sleep without the shadows following him into his dreams.

He does not cry anymore. He doesn't even scream into his pillow or hit his mattress. He just waits.

Another thing that has changed over the years, aside from how far away sleep is from him, is that the nights where he wakes up alone get fewer and farther from each other. The empty space in bed next to him, so often filled with Robin or Eddie, or even Nancy, these days.
But some nights it will be empty. It cannot be avoided. Not when his parents come home for a week or a few nights, as long as they can stand to be near him, really, and their disapproval cuts sharp enough to keep him home, forcing him to face the beginning of the night on his own. Unable to be with Eddie or seek solace in Robin's arms or be comforted by Nancy's old familiarity or Dustin's natter and Claudia's warmth.

Those nights, he lies in his bed, waiting to fall asleep or for his parents to retreat to their bedroom. Whichever comes first.

When they do, or his first nightmare or his perpetually awake body chases him out of sleep, he escapes in his car.

Nowadays, he does not drive for long. He only drives as far as the trailer park, parks it and knocks on Eddie's window until the man wakes up, trudges to the door and lets him in.
Well. In the beginning, after Vecna, when Steve began to find his way here, he would knock.
Now, he has a key and can let himself in. And he will make his way through the trailer by the small light lit in the kitchen, until he reaches Eddie's bedroom, where he will collapse on the bed next to him.

Sometimes, Eddie will immediately stir and throw an arm around him, pulling him close, mumbling under his breath and nuzzling his nose against the side of Steve's head.
Other times, Eddie will be awake already. Sat with his guitar in his lap, fingers picking at the strings, following the notes of a soundless song, keeping it unplugged as he does at night or he will have woken up, from the noises Steve made, arriving at the door. Either way, he will always reach an arm out to him, catching him as he crumbles into his arms.

  Sometimes, before the night can even begin, Dustin calls him. And Steve goes, because there will never be a time, when Dustin will call and Steve will not answer. So, when Dustin calls, Steve ends up at the Henderson's and basically gets muscled into a chair at the dining table, by Dustin with Mrs. Henderson smiling at him and tutting, when he says, he didn't get his invite today, "That seat is always open for you, Steve, you know that." She will shake her head again, chuckling lowly, and add, "Silly boy."

  And later, with the food and dishes gone from the table, washed by Steve – and Dustin, when he feels particularly generous or Steve manages to bully him to helping. Later, when the lights in the kitchen are off, but stays on in the hallway and a single one in the living room too, because Claudia may not know about the Upside Down and interdimensional monsters, but she knows about the night lamp Dustin had when he was a kid, and how it suddenly found its way back into his room between one day and the next, while she was out of the house. A lamp Steve managed to find in their loft, buried in a pile of cardboard boxes, after Dustin quietly admitted about his nightmares and how scared he was, every night, waking up alone in the dark.

Later, when evening falls over Hawkins, Dustin pulls him to his room, where there's already a mattress on the floor, inflated and covered with linen and the night lamp casts a soft, yellow glow over everything.

Later, Steve stays without anyone saying a single word to it. As easy and natural as the home he has built in the arms of the three other people, who dove into Lover's Lake to make sure Steve would make it back out again.

Other days, where Dustin is with Mike or Lucas or Max or El, Will, Mrs. Byers and the returned Hopper (or all of them) and Robin does not stay over; Steve is left to his empty house. The walls hollow and empty, the bones of his family framed in the hollow picture frames hung up on the wall along the staircase, but not on the mantelpiece; freeze framed photographs that look more like strangers caught with grimaces on their faces, these days.
Steve is no longer sure, if he just has not seen his parents for long enough to recognise them beside him, these last few years, or if he just no longer feels at home beside them.

On the days where Steve stays in his house, usually because he does not have to escape out the door, to go find Robin, Eddie or Nancy, because they are already on his couch or in his bedroom; he wanders.

He never goes outside. He cannot get himself to go outside alone.
After Starcourt, he escaped to his car as often as he could. But not now. Now, he cannot bring himself to go out the door. Not once night has fallen. Not unless, he is desperate for Eddie, Robin or Nancy to be by his side, if they aren’t already.

Some nights, his house is too quiet, so he goes to the stereo and presses play on the tape he left newly rewound in the player from the last time; needing the music to play in his ears, so he knows, he will be able to find his way home, if he should get lost in his own mind.

Only part of that is Vecna, lingering in the back of his mind, an ever present whisper in his ears of what if and a ghost touching the back of his neck, making him look over his shoulder so many times in just a single hour.

The other half–

  Well, music is good at bringing Steve back from more than just Vecna.

At night, he only ever goes into the rooms, he knows have the curtains shut on them.

It is like clockwork. If Steve is home, when the hands on the clock hit a certain number, he goes around and pulls down the curtains of the rooms he knows, he will not be able to avoid; he shuts the door to the rest. Watching as the light of the world beyond disappears behind the fabric as he pulls it shut. Not quite fading yet, but close to.

When he is not home, he makes sure to shut the curtains and close the doors, before he leaves.

He wanders, because sleep will not come to him and Steve is tired of waiting for it.

It has gotten harder and harder to reach over the years.

After the first time, after that fall of Will going missing and Barb and a handful of others following him, with only Will returning. Of Christmas lights and flickering bulbs. Of losing his standing in school and his friends, but finding himself instead. The year after that, Steve slept as he had always done. Quick and easy. But the monster he saw in the flickering lights of Mrs. Byers house followed him there. And always did he wake in hot sweats, gasping for breath and the nail bat, in the middle of the night. Eyes darting all over the room and chasing the shadows, trying to pull nightmare and reality from it and still failing to convince himself, which was which.
That was also the year he started sleeping with the light on, so at least, once he woke, the nightmares would not follow him into his room.

The second time. Of Dustin and walking all over Hawkins with buckets of meat. Of losing Nancy, but gaining the kids. Of demodogs and Hawkins lab. Of getting his heart broken and a concussion, but managing to scavenge a brother out of all the broken parts that Halloween left behind itself. He was still able to sleep, but the nightmares got worse, the body count it left behind so much bigger and so much worse. Always leaving him desperate to call Dustin to make sure he had made it out of the tunnels and no one had been lost to the demodogs.

The third time, after Starcourt, that was when he started having trouble sleeping. There was a buzz in his veins, a desperate need to be outside, to see the night sky and feel the cold air blow in through the window, smacking against his cheek. A desperation much the same, but so much deeper, telling him to check on the kids; to check on Robin, to make sure she was okay. Telling him he needed her by his side.
So, he would drive. He would just get in his car and drive, soon enough finding himself parked by Robin's street and Robin would spot him and join him without a word said. And they would drive around aimlessly or find a quiet spot to park, only to crash in the back seat with the golden light of dawn washing over them, or they would end up in Steve's house and sleep pressed against each other. Steve would listen to her heartbeat and Robin would listen to his, but neither spoke about it.
Whenever he did not drive, when he was finally exhausted enough and his hands shook from more than fear, he would try to sleep. It took him longer to fall asleep and any noise would wake him like a shot. And once he woke, it took hours to fall asleep again. So, most of the time, he stopped trying.

Now, Steve and Robin call each other. Every day, every night, the phone rings. Sometimes, the phone call is enough and they can go to sleep in their separate houses, without seeing each other.
Which is how, some nights, Steve is at home.
But these days, even when Robin stays at home or with Nancy and Dustin does not ask for him, he is rarely alone.

Tonight, his parents are out of town, so the space in the bed next to Steve is filled.
Tonight, Steve is not alone.

He knows this.

There is a warm body in bed, right next to him, pressed up against him. A soft, deep breathing fills Steve's ears. The steady flow deep beneath his own, shorter and still far too superficial breathing. His chest, rising and falling against his own body, pushing out and caving in with every sound of breathing, grazing through the air.

But despite the comforting weight pressed next to him and the leg thrown between his own; the quiet breaths rising and falling steadily next to him. Despite the soothing sound of Eddie breathing, alive and well, right next to him, Steve cannot stay. No matter how much he aches to bury himself deep into Eddie and disappear into him, as if, if he only tries hard enough, he can absorb into his skin and tuck himself away into his heart, where he can be warm and secure, and keep Eddie's heart safe and beating at the same time. No matter how much he aches to stay, he just cannot stay in a bed where the nightmares are just waiting for him to fall asleep again; where he can still feel the shudder of his own breathing, the tremble of his hands and the shaking of his heart.

Had his nightmare shown him Eddie lying on the ground with Dustin cradling his broken body, torn apart and ravaged by the same beasts that had left similar marks on Steve; he would not have been able to leave.

He would have reached for the body beside him own, wrapped his arms tightly around him, pulled him close and buried his face in his chest and neck. Breathing him in. Feeling him close and whole and alive. More often than not waking Eddie up.
Stirring awake, Eddie would bring his arms further around Steve and pull him close, mumbling some reassurance against his hair or skin, that would get lost in the grasp of sleep, still keeping him somewhat under its spell.

But that had not been his nightmare. Not tonight.

Sometimes, when his body is not left shaking and trembling, Steve tries to go back to sleep. Knowing the nightmares will simply just start back up again, grab him by his ankle and plunge him into their depths, drowning him, like the vine that had grabbed him in Lovers Lake and dragged him to the Upside Down.

Tonight, everything is shaking. His hands and heart shakes and trembles. The air he breathes shudders inside of his lungs. And monsters lie in wait in the shadows cast by the light they leave on.

No matter how he tries, everything still shakes. Still trembles.

Inside of his chest, his heart pounds against his ribs. Blood roars in his ears.

Eddie's body is warm and solid beside him, but with him gone and still asleep; face peaceful and calm, one arm curled beneath his pillow, the other splayed out across Steve's stomach, hooked in his shirt, fingers slightly twisted in the fabric, as if keeping himself tethered to Steve; palm resting right above his heart, as if he fell asleep to the beating of his heart. It is not enough. Not right now. And Steve does not want to wake him up. Not when he gets just as little sleep as Steve himself does.

So, Steve gets up.

Touch gentle and soft, Steve picks up the hand on his chest and gently tugs the fabric out of his hand.

Lifting the hand up to his face, he kisses the back of it and lays it down on the mattress beside himself.

One eye on Eddie beside him, he eases his legs out of bed and pushes off, finding his feet beneath him.

Feet padding softly against the floor, Steve leaves his room and walks down the stairs to the living room.

Down here, he wanders back and forth for a bit. He even takes a turn of the dining room and the kitchen, before he comes to walk the length of the mantelpiece in the living room, finger trailing over the sharp clean line of it. As if he does not know why he left the bed. As if he does not know exactly what will make his hands stop shaking.

Still. For a short moment, he lingers there by the mantelpiece.

It is empty of anything but a small golden, ticking clock, encased in a domed glass case; haunted by the ghosts of the happy families Steve usually sees, when he looks to mantelpieces in other people's homes. These days though, the ghosts lingering around the mantelpiece only nips at his heels, when the wind of his parents’ departure blows through the house at a door opening is particularly cold. Or when the answering machine blinks with another message left in his fathers detached, cool business voice or his mother's steady tone, like reading a lecture for a room full of people; informing him they won't be home for another two weeks.

Even if his parents are hardly home to notice any changes he makes, he does not add anything to the mantelpiece.

He does not have to.

This house has never been anything but the heavy weight on his shoulders, like an echo of his father's hand, lying expectant and waiting on his shoulder.

Instead, the desk in his room, no longer needed for homework, has been filled to the brim with framed photos of Dustin, Max, Robin, Eddie, Nancy and the other kids. Their beaming smiles and bright eyes, shining out at him from his desk, somehow wraps around him and manage to lift the weight off his back, even when they are not beside him.

And his desk is not the only thing, chasing the ghosts of his parents’ eyes away from him.

When Robin started hanging in his room after the Russians, she found his box of photos, a mix of Polaroid and developed photographs and she began taping them to his mirror.

Perhaps, she caught sight of the weight on his back and the ghosts haunting the mantelpiece and the staircase, but she kept going despite his complaints about her making a mess of his stuff. Picking out a new photo and sticking it to his mirror. A new one every day.

  These days, his room is warmer than the entire house has ever been and only part of it, are the people, who follows him into bed, like it is the most natural thing in the world, to slot into place beside him.

  Steve turns to the large instrument standing in the corner, framed by a bookshelf that is collecting more dust than books on one side and a wall of windows leading to the backyard on the other; his hand trailing off the mantel piece and dropping down to hang limp by his side.

Crossing the room, he heads to the piano. Heavy curtain cover the wall of windows beside the instrument, keeping the night and its twisting shadows away.

Sitting down on the stool before the piano, he lifts his hands and sets them lightly over the keys, simply just grazing his fingertips over the smooth materiel of the white keys.

For a moment, he runs his fingers hesitatingly over the keys. Simply touches the pads of his fingers to the smooth, white keys before him. Fingers sliding smooth and soft over them.

The piano was bought long before Steve was put in front of it to learn. Mostly just as a showpiece and decoration, a quiet declaration of his parents growing wealth, just like the extra rooms in a two story house for three people were; just like the pool, glowing blue against their walls and overhanging roof; just like everything else ever brought into the house in the hands of his parents, from the designer lamps and furniture, to the designer clothes that are always cleaned and ironed to perfection.

Steve was not even the first one to play the piano.

It was a rare moon, but sometimes, in Steve's childhood, piano notes would ring clear and clean through the house, too sharp and too nearby to come from the record player, TV or any stereo. The sound would bring Steve into the living room, and he would cling to the corners and the walls, and watch his mother sit by the piano, her graceful fingers moving swiftly over the keys.

No matter the day or time, the notes always hooked onto Steve. Like a fish caught on a hook. Or a magnet drawn to a fridge. Always, would he follow the music. Walking on his tiptoes, with his heart in his throat, peeking around corners and huddling behind furniture. Knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around himself and his breath held in his lungs, breathing carefully in and out of his nose on the longer and louder notes, as to not be heard.

One day, his mother paused in the middle of a song, Steve hiding behind one of the armchairs, head balanced on the top of his knees, eyes closed. And he waited. Waited to hear the click-clack of his mother's heels walking across the floor. The piano left behind for now.

But it never came.

"Steven," is what was said instead. "You can come out. You know what your father would say, if he saw you hiding like that."

Scrambling to his feet, Steve came out from around the chair, hands curling on the side of it, body pressed into it, not quite able to leave it behind, even if he was taller than it then.

"Come." Maria reached a hand out to him, palm open.

When Steve walked forward and took it, eyes a little wide, his mother tugged him forward until he sat on the stool with her. Her body warm beside his own, as it so rarely was, even those days. "You've been listening to me play. Haven't you?"

Unable to speak, he nodded.

"Do you like the piano, Steven?"

And Steve had not yet learned to read between the lines then. Had not yet learned to watch where he stepped around his parents. Did not yet know to watch where he placed his feet, for the traps laid out by the same hands meant to keep him safe from them. So, smiling, he nodded.

Turning back to the piano, his mother picked up another song.

  That afternoon, Steve sat side by side with his mother, listening to her play and watching graceful hands pluck their way across the white and black keys for longer than ever. Not once did his mother put any space between them and for the first time in so very long, Steve was warm and loved.

  Almost two weeks later, when he heard the piano again, he did not hide. But came into the living room and sat listening to her. That time, he sat in the armchair, for she did not reach for him, when he came near and he might not have learned some things then, but a few things he already had.

That day, a few song passed. Then his mother stopped playing and raised her head towards him.

"Would you like to learn a little?" And Steve remembered a warm afternoon, sitting pressed up against his mother, her smiling down at him and so he nodded.

That was how he spent another afternoon side by side with his mother on the piano stool. Carefully watching her hands picking at the keys, but this time, he raised his own hands and mimicked hers, watching for her smile and a new warmth in her eyes, whenever he did it right. Her voice soft and gentle in his ears. And once more, he was warm.

 The next few weeks, he spent a few scattered hours with his mom by the piano and Steve had never been as happy, as he was then.

But then, one day, when his parents came home from work and his babysitter left, his mother called for him and there she was, standing by the piano, a stranger by her side.

The woman was Mrs. Walker and she would be Steve's piano tutor. His mother was so happy, he had taken an interest in the piano, you see. And after he had only ever shown interests in sports, she was more than happy to sit through the first hours with him. But work was getting busier and busier, and, 'You know, your father and I have so much on our hands with work. And really, Mrs. Walker is the finest in Hawkins, he could not learn from anyone better.'

And so the warm hours with his mother ended and piano lessons begun.
Steve found he liked the piano, but had always loved his mother more. Everything warm and happy and soft about it, left the room with her, leaving Steve with a cold teacher and an even colder piano.

Music notes were confusing and Steve's hands ached from pressing down the keys and from getting raps over his knuckles, when he whined about wanting to be outside playing ball or swim in the pool or see his friends.

As the years went by, his parents left more and more often.

They left notes and money, babysitters and the piano teacher.

Whenever they called, his mother always made sure to ask about his progress, even if it was to reiterate what she had already heard from his tutor.

When they came home, and his mother was not nursing a head ache or stress, she asked him to play for her. She never played herself anymore. But she would listen to Steve. Sometimes, she would correct him; other times, she would just nod and then leave once he was done. Sometimes, his dad listened too. But it was always with this expectant glint in his eyes. The one that Steve saw more and more off the older he got.
Eventually, the comments about him not being good enough, fast enough began to come. Picking at his piano play, every time he sat down and played while they were in the house. Eventually, his dad stopped smiling and began frowning, always watching him with heavy and furrowed brows.

Sometimes, when they were home, they had house guests. And Steve was called on to play. Expectant eyes and tight smiles directed at him. And Steve's hands would shake and the notes in front of him would blur and jump out at him and he would miss more notes than he would hit. And never had the weight of his father's hand, hanging like a ghost on his shoulder, weigh more.
At least, that was what it felt like, with his father's shark, hawk-like eyes on him, and the guests looking at him like he was just another price being weighed up.

The only one among the guests he never minded watching him was his grandmother. She would watch everything from her spot on the couch, her palms on the handle of her cane, placed on the floor before her legs. The turn of her mouth stiff, but her eyes kind. Kinder than he was used to, even then. It was from her, he had learned the word 'kind' and what it meant to hold. Even if he forgot it for a little while, in the years to come. He found it again, even if he had to pick it up from other people's hands, among nailed baseball bats, broken cameras and cigarette stained fingers.

Christmas especially was a time, where she would sit down, facing the piano and ask him to play a few of her favourite songs. With her asking and her steady presence in the periphery of his vision, Christmas would mean an hour or two of sitting by the piano, playing song after song and for once, Steve found love in the arms of the piano again.

At last, she’d say, “Play our song, Steven.” And ‘our song’ would mean the song she had once shared with his grandfather, her husband, a man who Steve had been too young to remember. He only knew his name and the fact that his grandmother would not listen to their song, not since he had passed, but she would if Steve played it.

 It was among his favourite memories of playing the piano, even if the edges of it had always been sharp and cutting in his mind, leaving his hands and heart bleeding and raw.

The piano had already been cold and unwelcoming, but after his grandmother's death, it got even colder and the two following Christmases Steve only ever played the songs, she had ever asked him to. And still the house was quiet, the silence of his parents so much heavier than it had ever been, or maybe, Steve was finally beginning to see the silence for what it was and not for what he wanted it to be.

  After seven years, Steve finally managed to get the piano lessons dropped. With him on the high school basketball team and swim team, he convinced them that it was more important for him to dedicate his time to keeping in shape and practice for that. Any remaining spare time would be needed for studying, so there would be no time left for piano.

The lessons ended and Steve avoided the piano like its touch burned.

When Vecna came, he had not touched it for years.

After Vecna was gone, Steve spent as much time as he could with Robin, Eddie and Nancy in the aftermath. The four of them finding each other and clinging to each other, as if alone they would all sink, but together they could form a lifeboat, and keep each other afloat.

Eventually, they had to separate and try to breathe on their own, so when the door closed on Eddie, the last to leave, and the house was quiet for the first time in what felt like forever, Steve found himself lingering around the piano for the first time in years. And he was more than a little reluctant, almost as scared to sit down on the stool, as he had been watching Max lift up into the air from nothing, but a whisper in her ear and the shadows underneath her feet.

But, after one nightmare too many and his hands would not stop shaking, with monsters and ghosts lingering in the corners of his eyes, so much worse than his parents and childhood had ever been, and his heart too shaky to find out, if he would be welcome on Eddie, Robin or Nancy's doorstep so soon after they had only just found the strength to separate; he finally sat down by it again.

It took a long time, longer than he would admit, but eventually he brought his hands to the keys and played the first few notes.

The sound of the clean piano ringing out and echoing through the entire house was like watching the shadows of night disappear at the touch of the dawning sun and suddenly, the shadows in the corner of his eyes were just shadows and Steve believed for the first time, since he had caught El after she dealt the final blow and fainted, exhausted and wrung out from the fight, that Vecna felt well and truly gone.

So, Steve started playing. And he kept playing. Returning to the piano again and again. Night after night. Chasing his nightmares and ghosts away with the sound of the piano.

What was once a source of discomfort and pain, of disappointment and his first heartbreak, is the one thing to bring him calm and comfort, when nothing else can.

Now, finally, he puts pressure on his fingers and begins to play.

Letting himself, fall into the soft embrace of music, Steve plays. A simple piano piece. Fingers running smoothly over the keys. After a minute of picking slowly at the keys, the notes transform under his hands; the simple piece turning into something heavier and bigger. One of the pieces of classical music he actually managed to learn and remember.

Halfway through the piece, quite without meaning to, his fingers shift over the key, pushing down and the familiar notes to a Frank Sinatra song plays out. One of his mom's favourites, she played back when she still turned to piano occasionally, but now it’s only the music that plays from the stereo on the rare times she's home to fill the house with her sweet perfume and the tap of her heels over the floor. Frank Sinatra, John Lennon and Cher, those are the artists his mother will play from the stereo. Elvis and Dean Martin, when both of his parents are in a good mood, which is almost as rare as their visits home, at least it is, whenever Steve is in the room, clouding everything with his inadequacy and failure.

Between the notes of the piano playing a quiet rendition of 'Let It Be', a soft padding of feet nears him.

"You didn't have to come down," he says softly, not taking his eyes off the keys.

"You know, I'd rather be with you, if you can't sleep." The soft footsteps come nearer. A warm body lines up against his back, pressing into him. Arms wrap around his shoulders, hands winding up together and resting on his chest. A blanket covers his limbs, trailing behind them. Dark, curly hair falls over him, tickling against the side of his face.

Steve pauses. Hands resting on top of the keys, fingers splayed out across them.

He leans back into Eddie. Lifts his hands off the keys and curls them into his arms, fingers curling around his wrists.

Tipping his head back, he looks up at Eddie. The back of his head touches his chest, pressing lightly into it.
The blanket of Steve's bed covers Eddie's shoulders. It wraps around him like a shawl, trailing down his arms.

Eddie tips his head down and presses a kiss to Steve's forehead.

"Want to talk about it?" he asks, without having to ask what brought Steve out of bed; he knows.

Leaning back into him, Steve hums noncommittal. He runs his fingers lightly over the back of Eddie's bare forearms. The hairs on his arms tickles softly against his skin. "It wasn't anything substantial. Just the usual remix of confusing images of endless lakes and dark junkyards and monsters."

Eddie hums. "Still. You can talk to me."

"I know." He rubs his thumbs over Eddie's arm. "Thank you." Dipping his head down, he kisses his arm.

Around him, Eddie's arms give a squeeze.

For a moment, Steve leans into him. He tips his head to the side, resting it against his arm.

Eddie keeps his head resting on top of Steve's. Head turned to the side, cheek pillowed against him.

A slight hum builds in his chest, rumbling against Steve's back, he gently sways from side to side, his arms around Steve pulling him along.

"It's okay," Eddie says, voice soft, "keep playing." His arms around him tighten. Giving him a light squeeze. "You know, I love to hear you play."

"It doesn't exactly help us go back to sleep."

"No, but it helps you." He tips his head down, planting a kiss on the top of his head. "And anything that helps you, helps me too."

A soft smile spreads across Steve's cheeks. "Anyone ever told you, you're a sap?"

"You tell anyone and I'm telling them, you keep a bear in your closet named Bowie."

Steve rolls his eyes. "He has a bowtie. It made sense!" One of his hands flies up from Eddie's arm, flapping lightly in the air.

"Well, now you know my conditions," he speaks the words into his hair, voice soft and light. The smile across Eddie's lips is audible in his voice, so much Steve can picture it so easily before him. He never even has to turn around to look at him.

Steve pats his arm. "I'll take it to my grave."

After another minute of relaxing into Eddie's chest and his arms, Steve puts his hands back on the keys and begins playing.

Eddie stays with him. Wrapped around him, his chest and stomach pressing warm and solid into Steve. Chin pillowed on top of his head. Listening to Steve play.

  The night is a long one and sleep still does not come easy or kindly, but the shadows slowly recede with the warmth of Eddie against his back and the sound of music, drifting from the piano out to the rest of the house.