Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break."

Marya Hornbacher, Wasted

"Do you think you weren't loved enough?"
"Somewhere between 'not enough' and 'not at all'. I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once."

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Steve had always been weird when it came to people touching him, it was okay when he himself was reaching out but someone else reaching out to him? It made his skin crawl, made him feel like something was trying to claw its way out of his body, battling his instincts that were screaming at him, fight or flight, fight or flight.

It had always been that way; hugs, someone brushing against him by accident, even handshakes, everything that entailed someone else's skin coming in contact with his made Steve feel like he was on fire, burning up with no way extinguish the flames.

There was something uncomfortable about physical touch.

After Vecna the government offered up an in the know therapist for all of them and once Steve started opening up about his struggles she had carefully explained that the lack of physical intimacy in his childhood due to his ever traveling parents might have lead to his touch-starvedness and quite possibly the touch aversity, everything that had happened over the years only intensifying the latter. Steve knew she was correct but it still irked him to have such a telling reaction to something so common, a mere touch having the potential to send him into a crisis.

There was no way to be used to something that wasn't ever really present, as soon as he had reached the age of two his parents had hired nannies, leaving him with them more often than not, a new one every few months and none of them ever were as free with their affection as the people around other kids his age.

His father going on business to another state every other month, taking Steve's mother with him and leaving Steve at the mercy of his everchanging caretakers. At least until he reached the age of twelve and suddenly he was completely on his own, his parents home every weeks but never longer than a few days.

Steve had realized only later on, that it wasn’t normal to leave your child on its own, that usually parents would or at least should stick around for their offspring. 

It explained a lot of his behavior and how whenever someone had touched Steve he felt like a raw wire, like he was skinned and nobody could see it, only he himself could feel it. 

Throughout highschool he had let people mistake his touch aversion for aloofness, encouraged the idea that he thought himself above them, wielded arrogance like a shield. Hurling slurs instead of screaming "Stay away, you're hurting me!", building a mask no one could look behind.

Let them think he was an asshole, instead of showing the festering hurt, attack as a form of defense. Never show your soft underbelly.

Drinking at parties and realizing the only time he could stomach touch was when he was either drunk or high. 

It ended in him slowly but surely fucking his way through the people interested while drunk and hating himself the next morning but he couldn't stop, skin hunger higher than ever but recoiling when he was sober. 

A vicious cycle of consuming to endure the touch he deeply craved while loathing himself as soon as he came back to himself.

Puking the next morning due to disgust rather than being hungover but pretending in front of others. Securing the crown for himself, walls coming up higher and higher, King Steve walking the halls of the school with his head held high.

There had always been cracks in the walls, hidden by venom spewing from his mouth. For a while Steve had been able to keep them from visibly growing.

It changed when he met Nancy. She had been shy in the beginning, hidden behind her sweetness and intelligence the need to prove herself, to prove she could be more than just a housewife, more than a pretty face.

With her Steve had wanted to try, wanted to show affection in a way he had never known himself, only seen. He held her hand even if it felt like burning, kissed her sweetly and held her as close as he could, trying to be the perfect boyfriend. 

Will disappearing and the Upside Down rearing its ugly head for the first time were the beginning of the end for his fledgling relationship. 

It was no surprise that his issues with touch got even worse in the aftermath of it.

Jonathan beating him up, which to be fair Steve had deserved, maybe not the concussion but he knew it wasn't okay what he had said and done.

The thing hurting him on an even deeper level was that even years later Steve was still waiting for Jonathan to apologize for the pictures he had taken of Nancy and him the day Barb died but most likely would never get an apology for, nor for the fact that he had slept with Nancy while she was still with Steve.

Steve was painted as the reformed bully who had apologized while Jonathan and Nancy were the victims and working through it with his therapist made the realization that it hadn’t been okay fully sink in. Yes, he had fucked up but he had owned up to it, had tried to make amends, forgave the hurt they had caused but neither of them had ever owned up to their mistakes and it stung.

Especially because it was his need to apologize that got him into the mess with the Demogorgon in the first place, leading to Steve struggling even worse in the aftermath, not even alcohol or drugs helping anymore.

Every touch made him think of fists and claws and sharp teeth, reminding him of Barb dying in his pool while he was upstairs, touching.

He didn’t know it yet but looking back it was clear that ever since that day his relationship with Nancy was over, her blaming him for their actions that lead to Barbs demise, despising him for his need to go back to normal while all she wanted was the truth.

It had been no surprise that it ended with her running into Jonathan's arms after calling Steve bullshit, he just wished she would have told him, would have ended things in a way that wasn’t her cheating and acting like it was over without ever talking about it.

When the Upside Down came back the second time, amidst the chaos something truly astounding happened, the kids, most of whom he had already known, chose him and for the first time Steve was chosen not for who his father was or what he could do for their popularity but for himself. 

He became their protector, their babysitter and chauffeur.

Along with them came Billy and the next concussion, plate shards stuck in his head and feeling half dead but still following the kids into the tunnels, desperate to protect them, to not let them get hurt even worse.

The flinching started afterwards, he had always felt high strung whenever someone had touched him in any way but Steve had been able to hide his reaction or play it off, now he couldn't.

Someone brushing against him on accident and Steve flinched away from the contact out of reflex, unable to bear it.

The kids hugging him and Steve shuddering before freezing, after a while the hugs stopped and it felt safer. 

It didn't feel good because the skin hunger was still there, more intense than ever with no way to cope but nobody could hurt him.

Until the night the mall burned down, Russians in the base underneath and Steve bound to a chair, fists raining down on him, needles stuck into him and fearing for his life when he saw the torture instruments laying on the table across from him. 

But he'd rather they focus on him than on Robin, who should have never been dragged into this, she should be at home celebrating with her family and not bound back to back with a person she couldn't even stand. 

Whenever she moved he could feel her shoulders and it made him clench his jaw but he couldn't move away, wanting to give her reassurance even at the cost of himself.

Later in the stall after puking everything out and answering Robin's question about if he'd ever been in love, telling her about Nancy, he ended up talking about his problems with touch, opening up about it for the first time. 

Ending with a whisper of: "I think there's something broken inside of me and every time something happens it gets worse."

In the stall next to him Robin hummed and for a moment Steve feared what she'd say, if he had said too much, was too weird. 

"Well I guess we can be broken together, if people knew me, they'd think I was wrong too. A secret for a secret, the reason I couldn't stand you was Tammy. I wanted her to look at me the way she looked at you." 

Her voice was shaking and Steve couldn't see her face but maybe that was what made it possible to be brave enough to say what they had said.

Chapter Text

"It does me no good; violence has changed me.

My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;

now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,

with the sense it is being tested."

Louise Glück, October

“I think I wait for people to hurt me,” she said quietly, “and when they do I feel a certain smugness at being right. And, after that, I just feel pain.”

Sue Zhao

Billy and Hopper had died that day and it had changed everything.

Joyce had decided that she wanted to leave, get away from this town that had only hurt her and those dear to her, making it a reality a few weeks later, taking two of Steves kids and Jonathan with her to California, leaving behind a gap that couldn't be filled.

Grieving and unable to handle the love and support from those around her, Max started pulling away, snapping at everyone who dared to try to show her care, shutting them all out. 

Lucas decided to try out for basketball and fell in with the popular crowd while trying to balance the team with Hellfire and failing to connect to Max. 

Dustin and Mike took a deep dive into Hellfire, obsessing over Eddie Munson, telling tales of his wicked campaigns and talking about how cool the older guy was in every other sentence. Both worshiping him in one way or another, slowly but surely taking on his mannerisms and in Mike's case his style too.

Steve had known that it was going to happen sooner or later, he was used to being left behind as soon as someone better appeared. 

Mike never liked Steve to begin with on the basis of him first being Nancy's boyfriend and later on her ex, nevermind the fact that she had cheated on him and it was her breaking his heart not the other way around.

Dustin was the little brother Steve never knew he wanted until he had him and he thought that feeling of family had been mutual. They never had much in common except for both being sucked into the Upside Down mess so if Steve was completely honest with himself he wasn't exactly surprised by that development either. 

It hurt like hell but it was to be expected, he knew his worth was in being able to keep them safe when the world came crashing down, knew his empty house and car were perfect for escaping their parents and they might have thought he was cool once upon a time but he didn't hold a candle to Eddie Munson.

Eddie could give them everything Steve had never been able to, could relate to them, had the same hobbies and so Steve pulled back. 

He knew from experience when he wasn't wanted or needed anymore and he couldn't bear hearing them say the words, he'd rather leave before they told him to.

He still drove them around whenever they demanded a ride but there were no more movie nights or trips to whichever shops carried their nerd stuff. Those were things that started being Hellfire exclusive. 

The party splitting up, the walkie talkie staying quiet.

Robin had tried to get Steve to talk to the kids but there would be nothing coming from it, just Dustin accusing Steve of being jealous once more and he'd rather not hear that again. 

It wasn't jealousy when he had just been waiting to be replaced and got hurt due to it actually happening. Robin tried to make him see that he meant a lot to the kids, that he was important to them but relented when she saw Steve starting to shut down.

Watching Eddie ruffling hair and giving out hugs like it was nothing when he picked the kids up after Hellfire and wishing it could be just as easy for him. Maybe he wouldn't have been quite as easily replaceable if he could at least give that.

Telling Robin about it made tears well up in her eyes, she knew how desperately he wished it was easier, that his deepest desire was skin contact, hungering for it behind all those flinches. 

“You aren't easily replaceable even without the ability to show affection that way. Otherwise I am too.” 

The words remind him of whispers in the dark of night, when Robin stayed over more often than not after the fateful night at the mall. Her telling him about growing up as a girl loving girls, fearing the platonic affection that was seen as normal between girls, flinching away, afraid of lingering too long, scared to be found out, to be outed and condemned. 

Choosing the easier way of pretending to detest being touched, to act like that way of showing affection just wasn't for her and being on the outside looking in. Watching everyone forming bonds and her being the outcast, rambling and general awkwardness making her even less interesting in the eyes of the people surrounding her.

Ending in her being alone more often than not, band and her parents her only real contacts and even those were superficial because none of them knew the truth. 

“You're the only one who knows and it might have been the truth serum but you didn't run, didn't look at me like I was disgusting afterwards and you have no idea how much that, how much you mean to me.”

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by a hand itching closer to his on the counter of Family Video and Steve hesitantly lets their pinkies overlap, a surge of uncomfortable heat but at the same time comfort. He takes a shuddering breath, tries to let go of the tension in his body and starts shaking when he's able to, a dry sob clawing its way out of his throat. Robin leads him towards the backroom without touching him any further and he collapses on the floor, his back against the wall and hands gripping his own hair. 

“I'm so goddamn tired of losing people because I'm not enough.”

Robins hears it and they spend the rest of the shift sitting side by side in the backroom, the store staying closed despite the hell Keith will rain upon them should somebody complain.

They never speak of his breakdown again, Robin tries once or twice but seeing Steve pull away when she tries to press luckily makes her stop, at least for the moment.

Around December the nightmares that never really left in the first place start getting even worse and Steve spends his nights unable to fall back asleep after waking up screaming and shaking. Robin had started sending him worried looks after a while but Steve just shrugged, telling her there was nothing he could do about nightmares except endure them and hope that it gets better soon.

The sleep deprivation made it harder to deal with the hurt the kids unknowingly inflicted on him and his temper flared up more than once ending in Dustin screaming at Steve to pull his head out of his ass or stop talking to him.

Shadows were moving in the corner of his vision and Steve would have sworn that he'd heard someone calling his name more than once by the time spring began. 

He had started getting regular nosebleeds, visiting the doctor had ended in being told that it was quite normal to get nosebleeds when the weather changed and he should come back if it hasn't eased up in a few weeks.

Robin cursed them for being useless and basically moved in with Steve to ease her worries to the horror of her parents. 

It was nice not being alone quite as much and her presence in the house made him feel a bit lighter, nightmares still a bother and sleep a rarity but it felt good not being as lonely.

The day before Spring Break started came with Lucas' first serious match and while Steve might not have really talked to the kids in the previous months, he could tell something was weighing the boy down. Taking him aside a day before the match to ask what was going on ended in the knowledge that Dustin and Mike had picked Hellfire over Lucas. All due to Eddie not wanting to move the finale of their campaign to allow Lucas to take part, making him choose and grumbling about stupid jocks when Lucas chose basketball.

"I thought they were my friends and would support me but they've been picking up on what Eddie says about jocks. Seems like they decided me wanting to play basketball to stay safe means I'm not really one of them anymore."

Steve ended up promising to come to the game, he didn't have the same struggles but he remembered how many people were racist bastards and for the kids to forget that Lucas being bullied was never just about him being a nerd, that a bigger part of it was actually the color of his skin and to shame him for using popularity as a shield made him angry beyond belief. He remembered too well how he himself had used the same thing as protection for different reasons.

The kids had been so close but it all started crumbling with the mall of hell, Max slowly but surely pulling away, El and Will leaving and now Eddie Munson with his disgust for jocks pitting Dustin and Mike against Lucas.

Steve tried to not think about how Eddie basically did the same when it comes to the kids and him. 

Well it's fair isn't it? You started highschool as a bully and later on just stood by, never helped. It's no wonder it was so easy to pit them against you, you stand for everything they hate. It’s no wonder they left as soon as they found someone better than you.

It wasn't his voice but he couldn't help but agree with the words, he would have bullied his kids if they had been in highschool while he was still reigning as King Steve and while the kids might have known that Steve had been a massive jerk when he was younger, there was a difference between just knowing and hearing actual stories. Eddie would have more than enough of those.

Yes, they must know and it's no surprise that they pulled away from you. You've always been a disappointment, it's why your parents are never around isn't it? Weird boy with too many problems.

Something wet was dripping down his face and when he licked his lips Steve tasted copper.

Chapter Text

“In me something is broken. I try over and over again to understand what happened.”

Anaïs Nin, Nearer the Moon

“Everything I want to say

I swallow.”

Lyric Hunter, A Garden

Going to the match ended up being one of the worst things Steve could have done. The stands were full and there were too many people brushing against him, too much contact and Steve wanted to run but he had made a promise.

Neither the splitting headache nor his touch aversity would stop him from fulfilling it; showing Lucas the support he needed was a priority.

Always putting everyone first, huh? Despite the fact that nobody would ever do the same for you. You're always the afterthought. Lucas wouldn't even have told you if you hadn't asked. Does he even want you here? Remember how uncomfortable he looked?

Steve could remember the fidgeting all too well, could remember Lucas telling him that he didn't have to come watch him but relenting when Steve said that he wanted to. Was Lucas trying to tell him he shouldn't come without being too obvious? Was he just trying to keep the peace? It didn't seem like something Lucas would do, he might be relatively mild mannered but he wasn't one to mince his words either.

Well you've been snapping at them, he could be afraid of you. Eddie told them stories about you, remember? Your old glory days, not that different from Billy, were you? You only changed after everything crashed down around you and was it ever really enough of a change? Going from bully to observer. Pretending like taking care of some children would make a difference. It's all bullshit.

Shaking his head to try and refocus on the game Steve couldn't help but think about the truth in those words. He hadn't been that different from Billy, maybe not quite as volatile and without the blatant racism but he'd made the life of people a living hell, had hurt too many people and was his change really enough?

Thinking back to how Robin had hated him until a few months ago, the disdain Mike held for him and Nancy. Hearing someone say bullshit still hits him harder than he wants to admit despite all the time that had passed since that party.

The crowd around him was getting rowdier, the band playing, Robin playing, and he could see Lucas entering the field. Standing up to cheer for the boy he had watched grow into himself the past two years and he couldn't help but be proud when he watched him make a basket. Suddenly someone's arm brushed against him and there was the flinch and the freeze in the aftermath, feeling bile gather in his throat, trying to swallow it down, trying to ignore the desperate need to get away from whoever had accidentally touched him. 

For a moment he still hears the ruckus around him but then in a matter of seconds it all went quiet and Steve looks around, seeing no one, the stands empty, nobody left on the field, all he could see was an old clock at the end of the row.

Fear filled him, something was wrong, the bile he had previously tried to swallow came back up and this time he couldn't fight it, couldn't stop his stomach from emptying itself. 

Heaving and choking on what made its way out, shock hitting when he saw the red at his feet, bile mixed with a copious amount of blood, worms swimming and wiggling in the mess, looking strangely like the one he had seen coming out of El's leg in summer. Before he knows it's going to happen he is already clawing at his throat, desperate to get whatever lives inside him out, wanting it to stop more than anything else.

Interesting isn't it? I could take you away with a fingersnip but not yet, your time is coming, I promise. You will be worth something for once in your worthless life.

Like nothing had ever happened the people around him were back, cheering for something Steve hadn't seen. The puddle at his feet was gone like it had never been there to begin with but he still felt the burning sensation in his throat, still felt the claw marks he had left on himself even if he couldn't find them when he touched his own skin.

There was no clock at the end of the row, only teenagers and when the end of the game rang Steve stayed, he couldn't find the energy to leave the stands with all these people, couldn't stomach the idea of having to make his way through the masses when he felt this raw.

The knowledge that something had happened that shouldn't made him more afraid than he'd ever been, something was seriously wrong with him and this time nobody could help him. There were no monsters to be hit with his bat, the kids wouldn't listen, El and Will were in California with Joyce and Robin would only worry more than she already did.

It was time to pull his walls up, at least until he was back home, time to congratulate Lucas, time to listen to Robin talk about Vickie, time to repress the shit out of what had just happened.

There was nothing to be done about it, it didn't matter, he didn't matter.

What felt like hours later, but must have been mere minutes, he made his way down to the field, looking at the team still present, at the way Lucas was laughing so freely, pride and joy clearly visibly in his every action and he felt his lips spreading in a smile.

“Oi Sinclair, great game!” His voice came out clear and Steve was grateful, he had been anxious that it wouldn't.

"Steve!" Lucas ran towards him, grin wide on his face. “You really came! Did you see? I made the winning basket!”

That must have been the cheering he came back to, Steve wishes he could have seen it but it didn't matter. “Hell yes and you were awesome! They won't be able to leave you on the bench when you play like this!”

The grin on Lucas' face seemed to grow even wider, joy radiating from him. One of his teammates (James, Jones? wait no, Jason. He had been a freshman when Steve had graduated, something about him had always made Steve uncomfortable, too preachy while being one of the worst bullies at the same time) came up to them, slapping a hand onto his back. “Sinclair, you did great! Afterparty at my house!” A nod towards Steve and he left again, rejoining the rest of the team. 

Lucas' eyes had widened with the invitation, surprise clear on his face until disappointment settled visibly. “My parents would never allow me to go to a party.” His eyes settled on Steve, something calculated in them, he must have had an idea. “Unless you would cover for me? I could tell them we're having a movie night at your house and they would be totally fine.”

Steve sighed already knowing he wouldn't say no. After talking it out, Lucas called them from the school phone and with Steve confirming the plan, vouching for Lucas, they were in the clear. 

“Just promise me that you call me if anything makes you uncomfortable or you get too drunk.” With a grin Lucas gave the promise and with a wave he left to rejoin his team and Steve went out to the parking lot, Robin already waiting by his car.

“Dingus! What kept you so long? I've been waiting for ages!” Steve kept quiet about what happened at the game but told her about Lucas and the cover story for his first high school party. 

They were in the parking lot long enough to see Hellfire exit the school, Dustin and Mike doing a double take when seeing Steves car and promptly going to Nancy's car instead of lingering like they usually would.

See how much they hate you? Leaving when they see you, not even greeting you, pure ignorance. You mean nothing to them. All of them would be better witho…

“Steve?” Robin's worried voice pulled him away from listening to the hurtful words. “You just froze and didn't react, are you okay?”

Slowly he nodded, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "Let's just go home Rob.”

While driving out the parking lot he could see Chrissy Cunningham entering Eddie's van and he might have wondered what a cheerleader wanted from the three times senior but it was none of his business, he had other problems to deal with.

Later that night, body turned to the wall, blankets surrounding him, shielding him, he told Robin about the clock and the bloody puke, about it all being gone. 

“It had been so real, I could still feel everything but there was no proof, I don't know what's happening to me but I'm scared.”

Robin wanted to call the kids, sure that it must be Upside Down related and that they had to be informed, had to know that something was happening again but Steve was vehemently against it. “They would just think I was going to desperate measures to get their attention back.”

And they wouldn't care would they? It's just you, it's not someone important to them. Why should they care what's going on with you? You don't matter to them, you just were the guy driving them around, the stupid one that never understood what they were talking about.

The next day made it clear that the Upside Down really was back. The kids appearing at Family Video, Chrissy Cunningham having died under mysterious circumstances at Eddie Munson's trailer and Eddie disappearing into the night.

It ended in Steve pressed to a wall, a bottle to his neck and panic in his blood. Logically he knew he wasn't in danger but he was too vulnerable, broken glass at his jugular, he could feel Eddie's breath and the warmth of his body, he was too close and Steve felt himself spiralling.

“Let him go, for fucks sake Eddie, we're here to help!” Robins voice filtered through the haze, anger in her voice and there was another voice but he couldn't identify it. 

Suddenly he was let go and wide eyed Steve looked around, couldn't recognize anything, just saw the door and ran. 

He hid behind the boathouse and made himself small, shaking and hyperventilating. It was all too much, he wasn't safe, nowhere was safe.

You've never been safe and people are always too close, aren't they? Disrespecting you and your boundaries. It's because they don't care, it's because you don't matter. You're just a bother, only good for what you can give and what people can take from you.

It was true, it had never mattered what Steve wanted, had never mattered what he needed. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Robin approaching him. “Dingus? Are you okay to come in again? It's really happening again, something killed Chrissy in the trailer and we're sure it's hellscape related.”

Slowly Steve stood up, he knew there was no choice but for him to be okay enough to come back inside.

There's never a choice for you is there? You always have to do as you're told don't you? Never a choice.

Back in the boathouse he stood as far away from everyone as he could, the door always in sight, walls up as high as possible, ignoring every questioning look. The only people not seeming confused by his behavior were Robin and to his surprise Max. There was something strangely knowing in her eyes and it left him uneasy so he tried to ignore it, brushing it to the side for now, listening to the others instead while they started to make a plan but most of all reassure Eddie that he wouldn't be alone, that they stood with him.

The next days were chaos, learning that what had happened to him was a curse, that the same was happening to Max, trying to make Robin keep quiet about him being cursed as well and staying on the sidelines, doing as he was told while the voice of the curse got louder and louder.

It all came to a head when Patrick died over Lover's Lake. 

Skull's rock was looming behind them and about to leave for another suicide mission when Robin decided that it wasn't his choice anymore whether or not the other's should know.

“No Steve! I don't care anymore that you don't want me to!”

Robin turned to the group, ignoring his “Robs no!” and made them stop talking with a simple “Hey!”. Everybody was looking at her, waiting for her to speak, faces drawn and Dustin looking more than a bit annoyed at being interrupted. “You can't just… This is important! We have to go NOW!”

Robin was giving Dustin a look that made him shrink. “This is important too and if you hadn't been an asshole for months you would have known. Stevie-boy here didn't want to tell you but I seriously don't care anymore, you need to know. He's cursed too and has been since December.”

Silence fell over them as everybody turned to Steve, really looking at him for the first time and Steve knew what they were seeing; the eyebags, the haunted eyes, the gauntness, how he shrunk with their attention, eyes darting around looking for a way out.

There was the knowing look in Maxs eyes again and the horror in everyone else's. Dustin was stumbling forward, away from Eddie and towards Steve, something childlike in the way he was reaching out and his facial expression. “What, no, it can't, Steve, why haven't…?” He didn't seem to be able to finish the question and his face crumbled when the realization hit that none of them had cared enough to look, that none of them had really interacted with him since they had started highschool.

He just wants your reassurance so he doesn't have to feel guilty for replacing you. Wants you to say that it didn't hurt, wants you to console him and isn't it funny? You are the hurt one but they still want you to take care of them.

Hearing those words made Steve shut down, ignoring the anxiety and hurt in the faces around him, turning his back towards them. “Dustin is correct we have to go now, it doesn't matter that I'm cursed, standing around and talking about it won't change anything, we have a monster to kill.” 

Diving into Lover's Lake a while later and being dragged through the portal made him, not for the first time, wish that he would have never gotten involved in the first place. Already knowing that being dragged into the Upside Down was only the start of something horrible.

Chapter Text

“You are embarrassed about your blood, its redness, the way it is just coming out of you with no concern for anyone's feelings. You are (...) embarrassed to be alive.”

Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“You're supposed to grow out of horridness, aren't you? I don't think I ever grew out of mine. Sometimes I think it's still inside me, like something nasty I swallowed, that got stuck…”

Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger

Being dragged across the ground of the dried out lake by vines was in the top three of most uncomfortable things to ever happen, stones and dirt ripping his back open and a feral sounding scream ripping its way out of Steves throat. Trying to struggle his way out of the vines was impossible, they just gripped harder and suddenly there was screeching like he'd never heard it before.

And then pain, something was tearing chunks out of Steve, taking bites and his arms were flailing around, trying to stop the attack on his most vulnerable parts. Strength was leaving him fast and even faster when something started choking him, his eyes wide open but unseeing. Hurt, why was he always hurting?

There was noise that wasn't there before, new silhouettes moving around him and the tearing stopped, giving him back enough strength to try and disentangle what was choking him. Shock when he saw the bat-like creature in his hands, base instincts telling him to destroy, to tear apart. Biting and ripping, black blood dripping down his hands and he bared his teeth.

Trying to stand up, struggling until there were hands on him and he scrambled up and away. “Don't touch me!” Rawness in his voice as he started to become aware once more what was happening around him.

Shock on Nancys face, hands still reaching out, it must have been her he forced himself away from, panic in Robins, staring at his stomach which he realized was bleeding, parts ripped out, eaten, gone forever and a bit further away, panting and oar still in his hands, Eddie. 

They must have followed him when he was dragged down and while Steve was grateful they had saved him he couldn't help but think that it would have been easier if they hadn't.

Running towards the Upside Downs version of Skull Rock was quite the hassle, wounds bleeding and it felt like there wasn't enough air in his lungs.

Standing still for the first time without something to hold on to had been a bad idea, a dizzy spell hitting him and he found himself stumbling down, barely able to stop from falling face down to the ground. The rock was cool against his open back and he might have been worried about his wounds but they had been filled with gravel and dirt to begin with so it didn't matter what he'd do.

In front of him Nancy was arguing with Robin about how they had to take care of Steves wounds and Robin just repeating again and again that yes they truly had to but that they couldn't touch him. Nancy didn't relent and suddenly there were hands on him again. A scream made its way out of his throat and before he could think further on it he was pushing her away and scrambling further up the rock.

“I fucking told you to not touch him Wheeler! Are you always so sure you’re right that you never listen?”

Robin stood in front of him, facing away and he could hear the anger in her voice. It was safer with her protecting him, keeping the others at distance.

Nancys eyes were wide and her hands were shaking, she hadn't expected his reaction but she never knew, did she? He had never been able to make himself trust her enough and later on she hadn't cared, was only thinking of what things did to her, she had never really seen him.

Eddie was watching him curiously, something calculating in eyes, like he had something figured out and Steve felt too seen, too known, the sudden urge to hide nothing new but unwelcome either way. He needed something that would take his mind off the gaze on him.

“Rob, can you give me the bandages we packed?” The second she heard his voice she moved around, searching in her jacket for a moment before laying the asked items into his hands.

“Do you need help with pulling them tight enough?”

He nodded and together they bandaged him, Robin taking special care to not touch him, to not make what happened even worse for him.

At least someone was able to respect his boundaries and didn't make him feel like there was something horribly wrong with him due to them.

“Okay I think this is the best we can do right now.” Robin was looking critically down at the bandages around his stomach. “I wish we could have at least cleaned them but that's gonna have to wait till we're back in our Hawkins.”

Nancy had been weirdly quiet during their interaction, watching critically but not stepping closer again. 

Always judging isn't she? She always knew you were nothing but a stepping stone, nothing but a possible means to an end and when she realized you couldn't be who she wanted you to be she left. They're all always leaving you, your parents, Tommy, Nancy, the kids. Robin will go to college and you will die in the town you grew up in. You're just holding them back and pulling them down with you. Wouldn't it be better if you would just let go?

“Shut up!” Steve was pressing his hands into his eyes, hoping to get the voice to stop, to get Vecna to leave him alone, there was no time, they had to get out of here. He was already a burden with his wounds, he couldn't be even more of a liability.

“Dingus? Did you hear any of what we just said?” Looking up at his best friend he tried to tell her without words that he didn't, that Vecna had his focus again and the world around him was just…gone for a while. “Okay, we decided we're going to the Wheeler house, time to gather the big guns or at least the two hidden in Nancys bedroom.”

With a nod Steve fought his way up into a standing position, fighting against the dizzy spell and taking a few careful steps forwards, away from the rock he had used as a crutch, letting out a sigh of relief when he didn't crash. Straightening his back with a wince and walking with a bit more confidence. “Let's go, we've got no time to waste.”

The others were following but before Steve could make it far he heard Eddie calling his name. “Wait Harrington, take this.” Holding out the vest Steve had never seen him without, denim with patches of bands Steve had never heard of sewn on, the love and care that had gotten into making it clearly visible. “At least some cover against the hellscape, still not sure how all of this is actually real but well.”

Taking the vest and shrugging it on instantly made some of the tension inhabiting his body go, shoulders sagging and a deep breath leaving his lungs. “Thanks dude, I appreciate it.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see a curious look on Eddies face, most likely having noticed how Steve relaxed a fraction once the fabric graced his body, but thankfully not commenting just nodding once and letting it go.

They're walking close to the forest, trying not to trip over any of the vines, not wanting to give Vecna the knowledge of where they are. None of them are talking and Steve is getting lost in his head, thinking about what they're supposed to do against someone who is able to get into their minds, able to let them see and hear things that aren't there, how should they protect Max? Would it even be possible for all of them to get out alive this time?

The mall had been hell, they had lost Hopper and Els powers right alongside him but at least they had been able to see the enemy. This time the enemy was invisible and in Steves case in his head.

Eddies voice ends the slow spiral he had found himself in and when Steve looks to the side he sees Eddie already watching him, fiddling with his rings while talking.

“The kids told me about you, you know? And I didn't believe a word they said, Steve Harrington being a badass and good guy, protecting a bunch of nerdy kids? No way in hell.” Eddie looks away before continuing. “Guess I was wrong. You've been protecting them for years from what Henderson said and I…”

There's a pause and Steve realizes they had both stopped walking, the girls getting further away from them. Eddie is still not looking at him, he looks guilty?

“I'm sorry for the part I played in them pulling away from you, I should have listened instead of letting my personal feelings about jocks and your past self get in the way.”

Steve shrugs and starts walking away, the words leaving him with a bitter taste in his mouth, it doesn't feel deserved. “Thanks but that apology isn't necessary, it's not like you telling them about who I was in highschool is lies. I was a bully and I was an asshole and even when I stopped taking part I was still a bystander.”

Spluttering can be heard behind him and then there's steps moving fast to keep up with him. “Harrington what the fuck, those things don't mean you don't deserve an apology when other people fuck up! You changed and me vehemently denying that to the point of hurting you ended up making me just as bad as all the people I despise.”

It always needs death or destruction for people to start seeing you, doesn't it? The kids, Robin and now Eddie. That shows how much you changed, when none of them have been able to see it before. You're still the same but somehow even more disappointing, can't make people see your change without life threatening circumstances. You parents despise you more than ever, too stupid for college and their expectations. Uninterested in leaving this town and unable to give them a reason. Too broken and weird for everyone.

He tastes copper when he comes back to himself, feeling the slowly dripping blood and the first thing he sees is Eddies worried face. “Are you… What's your favorite song? We have to get you a walkman with it once we're out of here.”

Nancy and Robin are out of sight, not having realized that something was wrong and continuing on towards the Wheeler house without a look back, leaving Steve alone with the wide-eyed man in front him, caring and worrying about someone he hadn't looked at without contempt before.

“I…” Steve stammers, not knowing what to do with the kindness handed to him; how to react, when all he wants to do is hide and carry on like nothing had happened, pretend like it doesn't matter. How is he supposed to deny the care without pushing too hard, without pulling up the walls too high and spewing venom? “I don't… We can figure that out later, for now we have to catch up to the others, gathering weapons and getting out of here as fast as possible has priority.”

Suddenly the earth starts shaking and Steve lets out a scream, crumbling when it sends a spark of pain through his whole body, Eddies arms the only thing keeping him from falling to the ground, the other guy having reached out without a second thought, trying to keep Steve stable, standing, safe. It's not something Steve is used to, he is usually the one keeping others safe, protecting everyone around him at the cost of himself and he can't help but stare in wonder at the ringed hands holding him up despite the uncomfortable heat radiating through his body.

The second the earthquake stops Eddie lets go of him and swiftly steps out of his space.

“You're right we should…” He awkwardly waves into the direction the girls went and walks away, leaving Steve to stare after him for a moment, unable to comprehend what just happened and most all why he somehow misses Eddies hands on him.

Shaking himself out of it he slowly follows, thoughts racing and skin still burning where Eddie had touched him.

Chapter Text

“People do not see you,

They invent you and accuse you.”

Hélène Cixous - The Perjured City

“To feel anything deranges you.

To be seen feeling anything strips you naked.”

Anne Carson

The rest of the walk to Nancys house went by fast, no more words were exchanged between Eddie and Steve, Steve had been sneaking glances every now and then, wondering but ultimately deciding it was neither the time nor the place.

The house was completely covered in vines and it took ages for them to find a way in without touching any of them, once inside Nancy went up to her bedroom, leaving Eddie, Robin and Steve behind to look around the house, Steve hadn’t been in here since they had unofficially broken up. From what he’d seen so far at least in this version not a lot had changed except for the vines growing over everything and it being a lot more dreary than in their version, none of Hollys toys were out and the kitchen had no dishes out, it used to be a comforting place for Steve, more home than his own empty house, it stopped feeling like home when Nancy ripped his heart out and this felt even less like home.

The quiet of the place was disturbed by a voice that sounded like Dustin but Steve had learned to ignore the voice of every person he couldn’t see through the last few months, the voice of Vecna in his head mimicking the people around him, mocking Steve and making him feel even worse about all the things that had happened and continued happening. He couldn’t trust in what he was seeing, couldn’t trust in what he was seeing, couldn’t trust himself.

It wasn’t long until Eddie, Robin and Steve met up again, the ground floor just containing the kitchen, living room, a hall and a bathroom. “Didn’t find anything interesting either?” Both of them shook their heads no and they kept waiting for Nancy to come back down with her guns, wanting to leave the place as soon as possible. They weren’t talking, Robin sending worried glances to Steve every now and then and Eddie just aimlessly looking around, fiddling with his rings, nervous energy in the air, at least until Dustins voice could be heard once more. “...would come here..don’t know…what…do?” It had Eddie and Robin looking around, searching for the source and Steve sighed in relief, for once it wasn’t him hallucinating.

“So you guys heard it too? I thought earlier it might be Vecna again so I didn't say anything.”

Just as they started looking around for a way to communicate back, Nancy came back down the stairs, frazzled looking and stressed. “They aren't here and my diary stops in 1983, the day Will disappeared.” A look was shared between them all, a new possibly valuable information. They shared their findings with Nancy, telling her about having heard Dustin. “We were just looking for a way to give him a sign back, I still remember the Christmas lights at the Byers house.”

With all four of them it didn't take long to find a way and after giving a sign through the glowing light in the living room, they went upstairs, taking Hollys lightboard for a way to say more than ‘yes’ and ‘no’, making it easier to make a plan.

Steve was keeping away from the three people huddled around little Hollys board, the pain in his body flaring up, a hiss leaving his mouth, the only noise he'd allow himself to make while everybody was occupied and less likely to focus on him.

“...take the bikes to the trailer and get out through that portal, we'll be waiting there!”

Riding a bike, easy in theory but the wounds littering Steves body made it sound like hell but he wouldn't say anything, they had to get out of here as fast as possible and it wasn't like Steve wasn't used to having to keep going despite hurting.

They're not thinking of you at all are they? It's always “Steve can do this” without a care, without a thought. I can make it all go away, once I've got you, you will never hurt again, you'll finally be able to rest. No more having to go on despite the wounds. No more uncaring people making it worse. You'll finally just be and it's not like they really need you. It's never you making the plan, you just take the hits and afterwards you're useless, worthless. Nothing more than a punching bag, a shield when they're in danger and a way to get back at the bullies that made their life hell. You're nothing Steve Harrington.

“...eve? STEVE!” Blinking and confused he looked at Robins face, so close to his their noses were nearly touching. “Oh thank god, you're okay, you were starting to float and we don't have music, dingus, please don't do this again. We’re gonna have a long talk about it later but for now, whatever he’s telling you; it. isn't. true!” With a start the feeling in his body came back and there were hands on him, holding him down, with a flinch he broke out of their hold, stumbling away, putting distance between them. Looking at them, their hands still reaching out, they were scared, scared for him, and while slowly fear was replaced by relief, relief that he was okay, that he didn't die the same gruesome way Chrissy has died, that Fred and Patrick had, the undercurrent of fear stayed. Steve had been lucky so far and even if it didn't feel like it with Vecna in his head, feeding his insecurities and fears, feeding off of his trauma, he could acknowledge it, he had been able to get away, get out every single time despite not having the same protection they had given Max.

“Well Harrington, I think it's time to share your favorite song so as soon as we're out of here and back at my trailer I'll be able to give you a pretty headphone necklace and with a bit of luck the tape needed will be in Waynes or my collection.”

Before Steve had the chance to say something Nancy chimed in; “It was something by Tears for Fears if I remember it correctly, so I doubt you'd have it.” Robin shook her head. “No you got it wrong, it's either Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds or Hammer to Fall by Queen.” A smile spreads across Steves face and he nods his head in her direction; “She’s right and I think the first one would work better currently. So yeah Munson, if you got a tape with that song I should be good.”

Eddie looks thoughtful for a moment, seems to think about his collection and ends up nodding, confirming that a tape with the song is in his possession. “You’ll get my walkman too, please try and take care of it.” Steve gives him a tight smile, he always took care of things lend to him, he might have grown up with money but in his later years he had to make things last, had to be careful to not damage necessary items or he’d have to replace them with his meager pay and his last saved up money. Steve also got that Eddie wouldn’t know that, would think of the big house and his expensive clothes, would think about the parties Steve used to throw, the expensive car and about who Steve used to be, the version of him that died years ago. “Of cause, don’t worry. Thanks man.”

Going into the garage to grab the bikes and just seeing them made the anxiety in Steve rise once more, he wasn’t looking forward to having to ride on the whole way to the trailer park, already knowing that his wounds wouldn’t thank him for it. He knew that it was possible he’d end up making things worse, the fact he hadn’t been able to take care of them already was a problem, but to put the strain of riding a bike on them? Steve knew he didn’t have another choice but it still made his skin crawl, made him wish there was another option.

The Wheelers of 1983 had three bikes that were the right size in the garage, none of them were small enough to safely use Mikes and when seeing this Robin looked towards Steve, saw him slightly hunched over, holding his sides and staring with contempt at the bikes. “Eddie, you take Steve with you, he shouldn’t ride alone and I honestly don’t think he has the strength to do it either.”

Her words made Eddie and Nancy look over and while the attention made Steve feel uncomfortable he was grateful for Robin saying what she said, it meant he wouldn’t have to be the one to mention his obvious weakness or try to pull through and hurt himself worse. 

Swallowing, struggling to let the words out but wanting to nonetheless; “I…She’s correct. I don’t think… I don’t think I’d be able to ride the whole way without making the wounds even worse and I’d rather not be completely useless in the end.”

“What the fuck, you are not useless Steve! Don’t talk about my best friend like that!” Shocked Steve looked at Robin, not having expected the outburst, it wasn’t like he had said anything untrue, he wasn’t the brain of the operation, he was always just the shield and comedic relief, the others poking fun at him not understanding things or him talking without thinking it through. It ended in him rather keeping to himself by now, not interested in being belittled even more, he had always struggled in school, the words moving and the teachers too fast and uninterested in helping the Harrington boy. The concussions had made it even worse, fucked his memory up, short and longterm, and ended in him needing more time to grasps things sometimes, which only gave everyone around him more fodder, the slow, simple, stupid Harrington boy. The thought makes Steve scoff. “It doesn’t matter Robs we have to go, I want to get out of here and finally clean and patch up my sides.”

He takes one of the bikes and motions for Eddie to follow him out, outside he realizes for the first time what sharing a bike will mean. He’ll have to touch Eddie and not just a hand on his arm but stomach to back, pressed together and Steves arms around Eddie, the thought makes him freeze. It was one thing to have his hands on him when the earthquake hit and for it to be less uncomfortable than Steve is used to but this was something completely different, this was their bodies pressed together. It had been years since the last time he had been this close to a person and this time he was sober with anxiety in his bloodstream and fight or flight in his brain.

“This is going to be a disaster.”

He didn’t mean to say it out loud and he hopes it had been quiet enough so nobody heard it, not wanting to let on that the realization had made him start going down a spiral. Hopefully the ride would be over fast and he’d be able to put distance between him and everyone else once more. Distance always has been and always would be easier, he might not get what he craves but at least nobody can hurt him, at least he isn’t on fire.

Swinging one leg over the big Steve had been holding, Eddie grins wide at him; “Your chariot awaits, make yourself comfortable.” Swallowing thickly Steve rests a hand on Eddies shoulder and he can feel his muscles tense but he pushes through, takes a seat behind Eddie and once the girls are out and ready to go, he carefully puts his arms around Eddie, taking a deep breath before pressing his front against Eddies back. It had to be okay.

It didn’t take as long as Steve had feared and it wasn’t as bad either, his skin was crawling and he wanted to flee but at the same time Steve wanted to stay this close, wanted to soak up the closeness, it made the ache inside of him so much worse, always torn between craving and needing it while being unable to stomach the thing that would make life so much easier for himself, would help him feel calmer. 

When they arrived at the trailer and they had to separate from each other Steve felt unmoored for a moment, lost, like something was missing but at the same time relieved and finally able to breathe again. 

The trailer was just as vine-infested as everything else but there was a closed portal on the roof, finally a way out of hell. Just when all of them had gathered underneath it, tge surface started rippling and suddenly it ripped open, the grinning face of Dustin greeting them.

“Welcome back guys!”

Chapter Text

“I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.”

Anaïs Nin - The Diary of Anais Nin

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

Charles Bukowski - Screams from the Balcony

Climbing through the portal shouldn’t have been a big deal and the act itself wasn’t but Nancy getting a vision from Vecna was. Despite their frantic search, music hadn’t been needed in the end, Vecna just wanting someone to relay his plans, a middleman and he had chosen Nancy to fill the role. Ending in her being fussed over by the others and Steve being able to disappear into the background, at least mostly. Eddie and Robin noticed, coming after him, worried, Eddie holding a tape and a walkman in his hands. “Put the headphones on and we’ve got to clean your wounds.” Robin nodding and having a few choice words of her own to add. “Yeah Dingus, we can’t leave them like this and risk them getting inflamed. Pretty sure dirt isn’t the right way to make them heal correctly.”

Steve clenched his jaw, he wasn’t in the right headspace to let himself be that vulnerable in front of other people, but it wasn’t like he’d actually had a choice. He wouldn’t be able to take care of his back, the stomach and his sides, maybe, if the pain was bearable but the way they were hurting right now told him that as soon as he started disinfecting them, he was going to end up screaming. His pain tolerance was pretty high but there was a difference between a concussion or bruises and relatively fresh fleshwounds.

Following them into the small bathroom of the trailer felt nearly impossible, listening to Robin ramble and watching Eddie, who was already moving around, gathering the medical supplies available and a bottle of cheap vodka as a substitute for disinfectant, strangely calmed him down a bit, made it easier to stomach the fact that he’d have to remove the bandages, would have to let them patch him up. Hopefully he’d be lucky enough to not have one of his flare ups, to not push them away despite knowing that it has to be done, knowing that they just wanted to help. It was weird how easily Eddie seemed to fit in with them, someone who not even a week ago had hated Steve or at least had a very strong distaste for him, for the version of him Eddie had known in Highschool.

It’s highly possible that he’s pretending, you are here to help him of course he’s trying to stay on your good side. Who’s to say that he won’t just go back to hating you once this is all over? It would be really easy, the kids are only around when something bad is happening too. They depend on you to protect them at all costs and afterwards you’re on…

Tell me your troubles and doubts

Giving everything inside and out and

Love's strange, so real in the dark

Think of the tender things that we were working on

Vecna got interrupted in the middle of his sentence by the music suddenly flaring up and Steve once more was face to face with someone, Eddies big brown eyes watching him intently this time and Steve could feel the headphones on his head, Eddie must have put them on him when he stopped reacting to stimuli around him, successfully saving him from having to listen to another lecture made to break him even further down.

Eddie was still as close as he’d been when Steve had come back to himself, he could feel every exhale on his face and it made him swallow thickly. Pushing how much the closeness was affecting him into a box far in his brain to examine further once they’d all made it out of here alive.

“We should…” His voice was a low whisper, not wanting to break the moment, in the end it was Robin doing it for him, coming back into the bathroom loudly. “I’ve got snacks for all of us and something to drink!” Proudly displaying the looted honeycomb and beef jerky but letting it all fall down when she realizes how close they are, a surprised “Oh!” escaping her before composing herself again and trying to act like it was a daily occurance to see them in that position. Steve wonders what it was looking like to her before Eddie flinched away when she let everything fall, did it look like something more than it actually was?

The situation was forgotten fast when they took Steves bandages off and were faced with the wounds littering his body, varying in depth but all looking horrifying, teeth marks clearly visible and Steve closes his eyes, not wanting to see how they had disfigured him. Self-consciously he raises a hand up to his throat, fingers touching the raised line the tail that wrapped around it had left behind. He’d be unable to hide the scars this would leave behind from anyone, if he wasn’t going to wear a turtleneck everyday for the rest of his life, the scar around throat would be visible for all to see.

There wasn’t a lot left he prided himself on, his looks had been one of the last things he’d been proud of, taught from a small age, that as long as he was pretty it didn’t matter that he’d never be the smartest person, as long as he was handsome, he’d always have at least one advantage in life. These scars would end that, he’d always be the guy with the scar around his neck and he could already hear them gossiping about what could have possibly happened to leave such a scar behind. Steve felt bile rise in his throat, swallowing on reflex to keep it down, trying to focus on the music playing through the headphones, his song on repeat. 

Tried to focus on Eddie and Robin, both with wet towels in their hand, trying to clear around his wounds as gently as possible, not wanting to irritate the wounds even more. The bursts of pain distracted him from his spiraling thoughts better than the music had been able to, keeping him in the present and unable to think much. As soon as the cleaning was done they took the vodka, drenching another set of towels with it and as soon as those came in contact with his flesh he couldn’t stop the scream escaping him, the desperation of a dying animal, something deeply feral in it. 

The door to the bathroom flung open, Dustin standing in the door, wide-eyed and afraid. “What is…Oh.”
“Sorry Henderson.” Hissing through clenched teeth, trying to not let another scream out, hoping they’d be done fast, he knew they’d have to put ointment on all of them before dressing them but hopefully none of this would hurt quite as much as disinfecting.

Closing his eyes again, he tried to breathe through the pain, to relax his muscles as much as possible, making it easier on himself and the two people taking care of him.

Half an hour later they were finally done, Steve was bandaged up like a mummy and felt like he could sleep for two days, Eddie and Robin had been as fast as possible but it had felt like forever. He wanted to lay down and rest but knew it wouldn’t be possible. Vecna was out there, using Max’ and his head, trying to take either of them as his fourth victim and tear open a permanent way between the Upside Down and Hawkins.

They needed a plan and they needed to be sure that it would work, it was just the people currently hidden away in the trailer and they would have to be enough.

Looking around the living room of the trailer, seeing how exhausted all of them were, Steve couldn’t help but fear how this would end. They needed to rest to be able to plan but time was running out and Steve wasn’t sure where they’d even find a safe place to rest, they couldn’t stay here, it was still a crime scene and even Max’ trailer wouldn’t be safe, they’d still be too close.

“Do we have some way to possibly get to my house? It would be safer there, less risk of the police finding us.” Steve spoke before he had thought it through, he knew there was no way, none of the three able to drive had their cars here and even if one of them did, there was no possible way to fit 8 people into one car.

Nancy was staring at him with a frown on her face and Steve wishes he hadn’t opened his mouth, the kids didn’t even react to his inquiry, except for Dustins headshake, Robin was fidgeting and Eddie? He had a thoughtful look on his face, tipping his fingers on the wall, a rhythm for a song Steve didn’t know.

“Well, it’s not mine, but the neighbors have a camper that we might be able to take. It would fit us all but we’d need a place to hide it. Might get in trouble for it but what’s one more thing when I’m already wanted for murder.” 

There’s a dark look on his face and he’s whispering something under his breath that Steve wouldn't have heard if he wasn’t standing right next to him. “Time to make my father proud and step into his footsteps.”

Steve isn’t sure if it’s actually a good idea from the way Eddie looks when he stops talking but it’s also the only way.
They shuffle around the trailer, trying to find a way to mask themselves, wanting to hide, to not be caught doing something that would end in an even bigger mess, they already have too many problems, they don’t need another thing on their list of crimes and they absolutely don’t need the police on their tracks.

Getting into the camper ended up being unproblematic despite it being the middle of the day, the owners were out either working or just getting groceries, nobody saw them when Erica climbed in through the window, opening it from the inside.

All of them filed into the vehicle and Eddie took his place in the drivers seat, tools close by as he got to work, cutting cables and holding them together, waiting for a spark, for the engine to start up. 

Steve was standing behind him, looking at what he was doing with interest, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from Eddie and smelling the stench of cigarettes, lake water and sweat and it should have been off putting but none of them smelt like roses right now and there was comfort in it. The cables Eddie was holding together at an angle were sparking and Steve could see how he was biting his lip in concentration, eyes focused downwards, letting his lip go just to whisper: “Come on, please work.”
“How did you learn how to hotwire?” Steve flinches, Robin had appeared behind him out of nowhere but it was a good question even if Steve thought he might already know, thinking back to what Eddie had whispered after giving the idea of stealing the camper.

Eddie grinned up at them, something feral in his grin that Steve felt in his gut. “Well Buckley, while other dads taught their kids how to play soccer, mine was busy teaching me how to hotwire.” 

Robin was leaning forward, over Steves shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of what exactly was going on but grumbling when she realized it would have no results. “I don’t love the idea of you driving Munson, I’ve seen how you drive.” Just as she spoke the engine came to life and Eddie let the cables fall.

“No need to worry, I just started our getaway car, Harringtons got her, don't ya big boy?” The smirk could be heard even before Steve saw it and when Eddie turned around his nose was touching Steves, once more they were close enough that Steve couldn’t help but let his gaze drop to Eddies lips, bitten and red from Eddie worrying it while starting the car.

Before Steve could do something stupid Eddie sprung out of the seat, leaving Steve to scramble into it and press a foot on the gas, driving out of the trailer park as fast as possible, taking backroads and staying away from the busier streets.

He was grateful that his house was on the edge of the forest, neighbors far off and nobody asking questions, parents never home. Taking a deep breath Steve turned the volume of his headphones up, they were laying around his neck, music blaring from them, he felt himself relax as soon as he heard Jim Kerrs voice clearly again. Thinking about his parents never led him down a good path, not even before Vecna got into his head.

Taking the bumpy roads through the woods took them longer and he heard Dustin groaning about it from the back of the camper but Steve ignored it, safety was the priority right now. They had a wanted man with them, a group of kids that had already been grabbed by the police once, a girl who had been found to have a connection to one of the victims and Steve himself with wounds that couldn’t be explained.

Twenty minutes of a crawling pace had them arrive in a clearing that Steve would always recognize, having spent more than one night using the dead tree as a target for his nailbat.

“We’re here, it doesn’t take long to get to my house and nobody ever comes out here except for me so the camper is in a safe place too.”

Faster than anyone can react Steve is out of the door, only waiting until he sees them following him outside before taking the familiar trek to the haunted mansion he has to call home for now. The castle, he thinks bitterly, with the only inhabitant being him.

The backyard becomes visible and Steve gulps, seeing the pool would never not bring up a mess of negative emotions, Nancy might have never actually realized it, but Barb dying in his backyard was the first trauma the Upside Down gave him.

He gets inside the house as fast as possible, taking a deep breath once everybody else is inside too, they have made it safely.

“Okay everybody, time to call your parents and tell them you’re with me so they don’t send a search troop. Tell them we’re having a movie night to get your minds off of things.”

With a bit of grumbling Dustin, Erica, Lucas and Max made their way to the telephone and one after another Steve could hear their voices, either talking to them directly or leaving a message.

Nodding to himself he made his way into the kitchen, ignoring the looks from the older three, and gathered all the ingredients he would need for a simple pasta dish, knowing that what all of them needed was food and then rest before they could even think about coming up with a plan. It might be hard to get them to understand it but they wouldn’t be able to actually get anything done with empty stomachs and the exhaustion they all currently felt in their bones.

Tomorrow they could plan and afterwards? It was time to go to war again and hope that they’d all make it out.

Chapter Text

“There’s a difference between broken and ruined. With one, you can hope to piece the object back together, but the other - there’s just no coming back.”

Alexandra Bracken - In the Afterlight

“That was my last act of love.”

Sylvia Plath - Voices and Visions

Morning came faster than Steve had anticipated, he had been tossing and turning most of the night, checking on the others, making sure they were okay, that they were safe, that nobody had broken in, that Max wasn’t floating. Even the short bursts of sleep he had gotten hadn’t been refreshing, nightmares and Vecnas voice torturing him, pulling him from his sleep, leaving him shaking.

The clock on his nightstand read 6am when he gave up on sleep for good, a shower was out of the question unless he wanted to ask someone for help and after emptying his bladder he ended up laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling. 

He had Eddies walkman next to him, music turned up loud enough to not have to wear the headphones and Steves thoughts circled around Max, she had always pretended like she was tougher than she actually was, an abusive home teaching her to hide her vulnerabilities in a way the other kids currently in his living room hadn’t. They had to live with bullies or in Lucas’ case with racists on top of that but they were safe at home, their parents might not always be as present as they should be but they cared for their kids, were there when they were struggling, fed them, loved them. 

Max hadn’t had that in all the time Steve had known her, first her sorry excuse for a stepfather and stepbrother and now her mother who was disappearing more and more, leaving Max to fight for herself. Leaving Max alone with her grief, with her complex feelings regarding her late stepbrother, with the burden to suffer through it in silence. She had pushed every single one of them away, not wanting to ask for help and feeling suffocated by the support offered.

During the summer she had sometimes come along with Lucas and Steve when they headed to the park to shoot some loops, Steve helping Lucas with his form while Max either practiced tricks on her skateboard or just layed on the grass. Otherwise she was either at home, preparing for the move to the trailer park or over at the Byers’ house, trying to support a grieving El while suppressing her own grief.

Once El had moved to California with the Byers Max had started to pull away completely, no more joining any of them, denying every last attempt to connect with her. 

Only now that they were pushed together by the Upside Down to fight once more did she slowly let them in again but it hurt Steve to know that the things that had been happening to him were bothering her too. 

The nightmares, the hallucinations, Vecnas voice whispering to him at all times of the day, the worsening mental state, all the feelings Vecna was able to drag up and most of all the souldeep ache to just disappear. 

He wanted to take it all away from her, how could he protect her from something that was happening in her mind? It made Steve feel useless, there was nothing for him to hit with his bat, there was no monster he could stand in the way off; it was the same faceless being that plagued Steves own mind and how could he protect her when he hadn’t even been able to protect himself from it? He just wanted all the kids safe, wanted them to have even a resemblance of a childhood, all of them had to grow up way too fast.

A crashing sound and quiet cursing pulls him out of his thoughts, a look at the clock telling him that over an hour had passed and it seemed like by now everybody is either awake or got woken up by the noise.

As he went down the stairs he could hear voices from the kitchen, Eddie and Robin from the sound of it, and rather than go and check on everybody else he decided to join them, breakfast would have to be prepared and after the night he had caffeine wouldn’t hurt.

When he entered the kitchen he found them leaning against the counter on opposite sides, a heated discussion between them and he only heard “but he’s…” before they noticed him and promptly fell quiet. The silence rang loud and Steve felt uncomfortable with their eyes on him, their attention suddenly focused on him instead on the conversation he had interrupted. 

“You guys don’t have to stop talking, I just…” Steve swallows, fidgeting and looking anywhere but at them. “I just wanted to make breakfast and most of all coffee.”

Robin snorts and it makes his head automatically snap to her, she shakes her head at him. “Dingus, that’s so typical, mother hen mode activated as soon as there’s people to take care of. You should be resting! Don’t think I don’t know about your little night check-ins.”

Steve feels the frown taking over his face while she talks, she isn’t wrong but; “There’s no time Robin. I would rest if the Upside Down wasn’t fucking knocking again, there’s two people with fucking Vecna in their head and I don’t know about you but I would really like to save Max from the bastard.”

Both are staring at him now, there’s a sadness in both their eyes and Robin looks angry, Steve doesn’t know what he said that made them react like that. It’s Eddie that answers his unasked question in the end.
“I think you forgot someone, it isn’t just Max who should be saved.”

“Well yeah, you should too, once we have Vecna you will also be sa…” Robin is still staring at him, the anger was exchanged for anguish and Steve is glad for the interruption, feeling like he’s missing something important.
“No Steve, I meant you.” 

Eddie steps away from the counter and gets closer to where Steve is still standing in the door. “You should be saved too. The reason all of us are here isn’t just Max and me. I can promise you; every single person in this house, me included, wants you to get out on the other side safe and sound too.”

Steve swallows, Eddies eyes on him are intense, it feels like he’s trying to sear the words into Steves brain, wants to lodge them somewhere deep inside to make Steve believe in them. The intensity makes Steve stumble a step back, shaking his head, he’s just the protector, the shield, the guy with the empty house. The only one who had seen more in him in the past months had been Robin and she had always been meant for more than this little town, destined for cities and bigger, better things.

Suddenly it’s Robin between Eddie and him, reaching out and grasping his hand between hers. “Stevie, you deserve to be saved and I need you to get out of this alive. What am I supposed to do when I don’t have you to drive me places? Who else should I complain to about all my woes?”
She drags him back into the kitchen, one hand reaching for the fridge door. “Pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast?” Her voice is wavering, like she’s trying not to cry and Steve hates himself for making her worry, for knowing that if it comes down to any of them or himself, he would always choose the other person and she knows it. 

He tries to smile at her attempt at normalcy. “And coffee for us, juice for the kids.” Robin lets out a wet laugh and gathers the ingredients from the fridge, leaving him to gather the dry ingredients.

They include Eddie in the process, giving him easy tasks and when Dustin enters the kitchen to sneak a bite he’s instructed to set the table despite his protests, leaving the three of them behind giggling. 

Breakfast is a feast but they only get to enjoy a few bites before Nancy interrupts the easy atmosphere. “So, what are we going to do? We need to make a plan.”

For a second Steve had forgotten why they were all here, for a moment it was just a normal breakfast after one of the movie nights they used to have, with Eddie having joined, but the illusion crashed with Nancys words.

Eight people that have to somehow defeat a sibling of El, that has the power to get into your head and has a whole army of monsters at his side.

The plan looks as follows, Nancy and Robin go back in the Upside Down, making their way to the Creel House, attacking Vecnas body while in the Rightside Up Steve is ditching the music and inviting the monster inside his head, making it possibly for Nancy and Robin to hopefully kill Vecna before he kills Steve. 

At first Max had wanted to be the bait but Steve couldn’t let her do it, the danger was way too high and she was so young, he couldn’t let her be the possible sacrifice, instead she was the lookout, sending a sign as soon as Steve was under and making sure that no one would disturb them. Lucas had wanted to stay with them but after a few scathing words courtesy of Max he had relented, leaving Eddie, Erica, Dustin and Lucas to be the distraction for the bats. It was the part of the plan that had Steve anxious the most, three kids and Eddie against an army of bats that seemed to like the taste of flesh.

“I want someone to go to a butcher and buy enough meat to feed a small army, tell them there’s a cookout if they ask. It doesn’t feel safe to only use noise and maybe in addition a boombox to leave playing when you go back through the gate?”

So while Steve, Robin and Nancy went to gather what they needed from the War Zone, Erica, Dustin and Lucas took a walk to the nearest butcher. Planning and gathering everything they needed took longer than Steve had expected, lunch time long gone once they reunited at Steves house but there wasn’t time for a break, they had decided to go in the same night, not wanting to wait any longer and risk putting themselves into even more danger. 

After eating a few sandwiches and grabbing a couple of coolers for the meat the kids had been able to buy they were making their way back to the camper, wanting to use the clearing to prepare their weapons while being able to store them away without having to haul them through the woods later on.

It had been nice to see the kids just being kids for a while despite them making makeshift weapons and shields. They had been running around and roughhousing, Eddie easily joining in and egging them on.

Meanwhile Robin and him had been making Molotovs, Robins anxiety fueling Steves own and while he wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else in those moments before they had to go back in, her whispered confession of having a bad feeling about it and fearing that they wouldn’t all make it out had left him feeling even more uneasy.

Steve hadn’t felt confident about their chances to begin with, four teenagers and four barely adults versus monsters and Vecna, it didn’t sit right with him but there was no else. The government had never helped before, only swooping in with NDAs once they'd handled the mess they had created, preparing a cover up and leaving them to rot with the knowledge of what they had seen.  

The Byers, Mike and El were in California, even if they had been able to get through to them it wouldn’t have mattered, Hawkins too far away and El powerless. The only other adult who could have helped was dead, they were on their own. No matter how anxious their plan made Steve, it was the only one they had and they had no other choice but to hope that Robins feeling didn’t become a reality.

They had returned to the house after preparing all they could, leaving the camper behind once more, resting as much as they could until it started to get dark outside. Steve had enlisted Eddie and Robins help to change his bandages once more, this time with actual disinfectant from his first aid kit; it had been wellstocked ever since his first run-in with the demogorgon in 1983. It hadn’t been quite as painful as the day before, still more than he could take but more manageable. 

“We bought protective jackets and everybody who goes into the Upside Down has to wear one, yes Munson, you too, your leather jacket with the broken zipper does not count as protective.” Steve had seen Eddie open his mouth to protest, hand on his leather jacket but snapping it shut when Steve continued.

The jackets didn’t look badass as he was told by an unimpressed Erica but he didn’t care, the jackets weren’t there to make them look cool, they were there to keep them just a tiny bit safer, to give them a better chance of survival.

Once all of them had changed into the protective gear, Steve led them outside, leading them to their death , a dark part in him thought. The trek through the woods was quiet and it didn’t help the uneasy feeling. 

At least three of the people in their group usually had a hard time keeping quiet and he’d prefer Robins anxious rambling or Dustins lectures over the uncomfortable silence but he couldn’t bring himself to break it either. Instead he chose to put on the headphones that had been just laying around his neck, hearing the song on full volume instead of as a background noise, protecting his mind before Vecna could take the chance to latch onto the anxiety currently filling him.

The camper was even more cramped than the day before, weapons and coolers filling the space alongside them, the kids filling the space and Eddie took a seat in the drivers seat for a moment, grabbing the same wires as last time and holding them together until the engine started. Steve stood behind him once more, leaning over his shoulder and watching again, couldn’t help himself, wanting to be close again even if only for a moment. A bit of comfort in the face of what they were about to do.

Once the engine flared up they exchanged places, Steve driving them to the Creel house and Eddie? Instead of going into the back he chose to stand behind Steve, leaning over him, long hair touching Steves neck and Steve could feel every single breath he took. He still didn’t know what it was about Eddie that made his closeness less uncomfortable, made it seem less daunting to his brain but he would soak up whatever comfort he could.
The warmth seemingly radiating of him and Steve gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles nearly white, wishing to hide his shaking hands. He had to be strong for a while longer, just until all of them were in position and he could ditch the music. 

There was no time for him to let go, not now that he was about to leave them to go into the Upside Down without him, he couldn’t be there to protect them but he could give them one less thing to worry about.

It didn’t take long to reach the Creel House, the drive over faster than Steve had hoped, Robin hugged him for a second, arms tight around him. “I know you’re not a fan of people touching you but I… Just please come back okay? I can’t do this without you.” The kids took that as a sign that it would be okay for them to do the same, arms around him at the same time and Steve felt choked up. Tears starting to gather in his eyes but he blinked them away. There was no time.

Eddie didn’t hug him and a part of Steve was disappointed by it despite mostly being glad to not get even more overwhelmed, instead choosing to clasp his shoulder. “Don’t let him get you.”

Steve swallows, a lump in his throat and Max snorts. “All of you are sappy bastards, come on Steve we gotta go.”

“Yeah you’re right. Be safe guys, don’t do anything stupid and give the bets and Vecna hell. We’ll be fine.” Steve tries to smile but fails miserably, it feels more like a grimace than anything else. “Please just get out of there alive.”

He turns away from all of them and flees the camper, not wanting to hear anymore, the mask was cracking and he needed them to get on with their plan. Max is already outside and it isn’t a long walk to the old house, he hears the camper starting up again in the background, Nancy having taken over and driving them to the Trailerpark, their chosen gate on Eddies ceiling.

The house looks just as creepy as the first time they had been there, old and abandoned, cobwebs and an eerie atmosphere. The stairs creak when they make their way up into the attic, the clock they pass on their way still gives Steve the creeps and Max doesn’t seem to feel any different about it, giving the clock the side eye until it’s out of their field of view. 

“From your reaction I gather you’ve seen it too?” The only reaction he gets from her is a curt nod, it seems to be getting to her too what they’re about to do and what she might witness.

Once they arrive in the attic they take place against a wall, a flashlight between them, waiting for the sign that the others had arrived at their destination. Both of them are wearing their headphones and when Steve pushes his down he can hear her song playing softly. It’s calming that even if they have to be silent it isn’t quiet.

It feels like hours have gone by until the light finally flickers, giving them the sign they had been waiting for and Steve carefully takes the walkman out of his pocket, still remembering Eddies words, and hands both it and the headphones over to Max. 

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before going into the middle of the room.

“Hey, no more music, no more shield, I’m here for the taking. I guess I always knew I would never amount to anything but when I met the kids I kind of had hope for the first time in forever you know? I could be useful, I could protect them, give them a safe place and it had been better for a while. LIke sure my parents are never home and they don’t love me but they never really did to begin with but I had the kids. Even if they only came around for the rides and the empty house, for a way to get away from their parents, they still came to me but I always knew that it wouldn’t last. And I was right wasn’t I? Replaceable, unlovable, useless and I don’t really want to do this anymore, I just want it to stop. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

He doesn’t know when he closes his eyes but when he opens them again he’s back in his kitchen, there’s glass shattering and he can hear his father scream at his mother. “It’s your fault he turned out like this, always coddling him, it’s no wonder he’s such a weakling and did you see his grades? Why is our son so fucking stupid, can’t get anything right. A fucking stain on the Harrington name.”
Steve swallows, he remembers that day, it had been in 1984, not long after Hargrove had bashed his face in, leading to another concussion and an inability to concentrate or read for long. But his father didn’t want to hear any of that, called it excuses and that he should have never been in the fight to begin with, should fucking man up and pull himself together, stop acting like a kid and take responsibility.

He also remembers what happens after his father was done screaming at his mother, he cradles his hand protectively to his chest on instinct, the memory of his father stepping on the hand and grinding his fancy shoe down until a crunching sound can be heard rises in his head and he feels bile rise up, he has to get away.

Turning around and running up the stairs, into his room and climbing down the drainpipe, his only thought is getting away before he actually relieves the memory. He remembers the pain and going to school while acting like his hand had been in a bandage the whole time, the fingers broken to begin with, he flexes the hand and feels the leftover ache, the fingers having healed but ending up slightly crooked. 

The backyard isn’t safe either, Barb is sitting by the pool and grinning at him when she sees him, blood is dripping from her mouth and nose, dark holes where her eyes used to be. “Remember me?”

As if Steve would ever be able to forget her, her death had been haunting him, his pool a reminder every single day. Instead of reacting he runs into the forest, hoping to escape from whatever Vecna sends for him.

Why are you running away? You chose to come to me didn’t you? Was that just a lie, same as everything else? Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing all this time? Just running away from your problems and pretending they don’t exist? You’ve suffered so much and I promise you it’s about to end but you have to stop running. A coward that’s what you are.

For a second he’s face to face with Eddie in the bathroom again, looking at his lips and the feeling he had shoved into a box deep inside of spreads through him once more. 

You know exactly what that feeling is, don’t you? You know what it means and you are afraid, your father sure loves dykes and faggots, doesn’t he? Maybe that’s just another reason he never loved you. He knew what you were even before you did. Maybe he saw something when you were younger, saw your softness, saw the way you looked at Tommy when you were younger and made up his mind. 

He’s thrown back to when he was twelve, Tommy and him having a sleepover, sharing Steves bed instead of using the air mattress beside it and his father seeing it. A look of disgust on his face and from that day on Tommy had to sleep in the guest room, no more late night talking until they were older and by then they rather shared with a girl. Steves father had never stopped looking disgusted when he had to interact with Steve.

Neither of your parents ever cared about you, a dress up  doll for your mother until you were too old and she lost interest, rather running after your father to keep him from cheating on her than take care of her child and your father? He didn’t care when you were younger and as you got older he found more and more flaws until ultimately deciding you were nothing more than a disappointment, a stain on his name, unable to achieve any of the things he had expected of you. Taking care of kids and running around with a dyke, making eyes at a guy instead of going to college and marrying the daughter of one of his business partners.

It's December and he’s driving the kids home, it’s the day Dustin had snapped at him after Steve had lost his cool for a second and he remembers how afterwards he hadn’t even been asked to drive them anymore unless it was an emergency. Going from first to second to last choice in a matter of months and it still stung.

But you’re not even taking care of them anymore are you? They replaced you pretty fast, found someone better, someone who’s like them. They acted hurt and surprised when they realized it wasn’t just Max having me in her head but afterwards they didn’t once ask how you were doing, just once more taking for granted what you were doing for them while complaining. It’s always been like that with them, using you but never really caring about you. You let them because it’s the closest you ever got to feeling loved. 

Steve swallows, the words struck something deep inside of him, a chord he had never wanted to play, all the late night thoughts of being unlovable, never being good enough no matter what he did, no matter how much he gave it was never enough to make someone stay.

They all left didn’t they? And if they haven’t yet they will soon, Robin is off to college in the fall isn’t she? She’ll forget all about you, find people who’ll actually be able to keep up with her and not hold her back the way you do. The kids have people that take care of them, Nancy has Jonathan, your parents never wanted you to begin with, so what is holding you back? You won’t be missed.

Steve finds himself watching the kids playing their Dragon game with Eddie, somewhere he’d never been before, a throne of some sort Eddies seat of choice, the kids were laughing and talking excitedly. They looked carefree and happy and something in Steve ached when he saw the way they looked at Eddie, adoration clear in their eyes, all eyes on him as he started narrating their adventure. He had seen them play a few times before, even joined after Starcourt but he had never seen them quite as alive and passionate while playing.

If he was completely honest with himself he had never seen them like that in all the time he had known them and most of all never because of something he did.

It didn’t stung as badly as it would have before actually meeting Eddie, knowing what he did now, the charisma of the man was something to behold and his easy way of making people feel comfortable in his orbit, it was no wonder the kids loved him. 

It was no wonder they preferred him over Steve, who even on his best days was more of a nagging mother hen with bitchy tendencies than someone who made people comfortable around him.

You see they’ll be better than fine. They don’t need you, you’re only useful to them when they need a shield or do you really think you would have been Dustins first choice when he lost the Demodog? It had been a coincidence that he met you, he wanted Mike and the rest of the party but you were there and beggars can’t be choosers. Do you really think Robin would have told you she was a lesbian if it wasn’t for the truth serum? Who is to say she isn’t just your friend so you keep her secret? You could destroy her life if it gets out and she knows it.

Steve thinks of Robin, of the way she cares about him, how she supports him, the only person who isn’t just taking, who is giving just as much and he can’t imagine her pretending, it might be true that she wouldn’t have told him that she likes girls quite as fast but he can’t imagine a world where they aren’t as close. Can’t imagine a universe where they aren’t platonic soulmates, a universe where it’s not RobinandSteve. 

You might be important to her now but it’s a small town and she has been alone until you hasn’t she? No close friends, her parents don’t know this big part of her and you’re the first person who actually knows her so of course she is holding on tightly, she doesn’t want to be alone again. Once she’s in the city she’ll find more open-minded people, find people that get her or maybe… There have always been rumors about Eddie, about him being gay, maybe she doesn’t even need the big city, maybe she’s already got someone here who gets her, who knows himself enough to be open about it with her, to be vulnerable. It couldn’t be you, you are too scared to even think about it., everything gets pushed down and hidden away in a box. I’ve seen it, you are so scared of what it means, so scared of all the pain inside of yourself, so afraid to feel it.

He’s in his bedroom, it’s night and he doesn’t know if it’s a specific memory but it doesn’t matter, it’s dark outside and when the moon is high his thoughts run wild, fears and feelings he pushes down during the day consuming him until he’s not sure what is left of him or who he is.

It always starts small, things he did or said that day that made him feel weird afterwards, reminded him of how good with people he used to be and how out of his depth he feels now.

It spirals from there.

His parents and their disdain for him.

Former friends and their snide comments.

Nancy and her easy dismissal of him.

Bullshit.

The kids and how easy they replaced him.

There’s a crunching sound and he knows it’s his bones snapping, remembers the way the other victims died, but he can’t feel the pain, it’s nothing against the emotional agony and he feels numb.

He wants it to stop.

He just hopes the others are fast enough, that his death will count for something, that at least in death he’ll be worth something.

The way every time someone says something negative it stays with him, repeats itself over and over until it’s his only thought.

He’s not good enough, never will be and never has been.

He’s always been broken.

Unable to handle something as mundane as touch, shying away from it.

Always pushing everyone away.

You were never supposed to survive. You were never able to live. I can soothe the pain. You can finally be…

“Steve!”

It’s Els' voice and Steve finds himself looking around for her, so used to always looking after his gaggle of kids that even now he can’t stop. 

The movement makes pain explode through his body, the shattered bones demanding to be perceived and he feels himself crumble.

“El, you’re here.”
She grins, her hair is buzzed again but she looks alive and happy. “Yeah, I piggybacked from the back of a pizzavan!”

Eleven, what are you doing here? Do you really expect to win against me? What a foolish child. You could have been great.

Steve can finally see him, no longer just a faceless voice and Vecna doesn’t look human anymore, there’s nothing left of the child they had seen in the picture.

It’s fitting for his outside to reflect his actions, monstrous. Vines are keeping him together and he’s looking like Freddy Krueger, fitting when he thinks about how it all started with nightmares.

“Henry, I got stronger since you last saw me and I won’t let you hurt anyone anymore, no more deaths.”
She throws her hand out and Steve can see Vecna fly back, crashing into a boulder and Steve only now realizes that they’re no longer in his room, it’s barren land and he can see the Creel House.

There’s more boulders and he thinks he can see bodies but he’s starting to get dizzy, the pain taking over and dots are dancing before his eyes.

“Steve go! I’ve got this.”

His song is playing and there’s a portal, he sees Max on the other side, screaming and he has to get to her but it’s getting harder to run, his arms useless at his side. Bursts of pain with every step.

The last thing he sees before falling through the portal is blood running down Max’ head and there's only one thought on his mind before it all goes dark.

‘I couldn’t protect her.’ 

Chapter Text

“There are all these moments you think you won’t survive. And then you survive.”

David Levithan

“Didn’t you wake up feeling that you had no future? Didn’t you walk around drained of all meaning, without the right to even the slightest danger? Didn’t you have to promise, a hundred times, not to die?”

Rainer Maria Rilke - The Prodigal Son

When Steve becomes aware of his surroundings again it’s to the sound of machines beeping and for a second he doesn’t know why he’s in the hospital until it comes crashing over him.

Vecna had him.

He did not expect to wake up again, he did not expect to survive but somehow he did.

And now he’s here.

He doesn’t know how and he doesn’t have the energy to think about it, he’s so tired.

Steve tries to open his eyes but it feels heavy and the exhaustion hits, pulling him under once more.

The next time he wakes up, opening his eyes doesn’t feel impossible anymore and the second he has his vision back he tries to take his surroundings in. 

It’s a typical hospital room, white walls, white, white, white wherever he looks. Out of the corner of his eye he can perceive the machines that had been keeping him alive and still did their job, a constant beeping. 

A groan leaves his mouth but it’s muffled due to the tube in his throat and he hears more than he sees Robin springing up. A chair tipping over and a sob escaping her before she’s suddenly leaning over him. 

“Steve! You’re awake!” 

She scrambles away again, tripping over something and then the sound of a door.
“He woke up! Could someone please get a doctor?”

She’s back before he can make sense of the words and she’s crying, he wants to reach out but he can’t move. 

Why can’t he move?

Panic is starting to surge up, he’s desperately trying to move but it’s like he’s tied down.

Everything is becoming muffled and he can’t hear .

It’s getting darker and his chest is heaving.

There’s hands on him and he can’t breathe.

Can’t scream.

Can’t escape.

He feels a stab and he sinks into nothingness.

When the sedation leaves his body and he comes back to himself he remembers. 

It had felt like he was back with the Russians, unable to escape, unable to protect himself, helpless.

Bile is rising up but has nowhere to go and he’s choking.

There’s a scramble and a sound and suddenly there’s a stranger leaning over him, talking but he can’t hear over the white noise in his ears.

Robin is there again and she’s chewing her lip, Steve tries to focus on her and it gets easier, the white noise is quietening.

“...rrington, we need to remove the tube, please calm down, otherwise we will have to sedate you again.”

Can’t they see he is trying? Deep breaths are hard to take when he has a tube in his lungs!

He feels the panic rising when the tube is pulled out, it’s over faster than he expected and not fast enough at the same time.

The second it’s out someone helps him lean to the side, a dish held before him and he vomits, there’s not a lot coming out but afterwards it’s easier to breathe.

Easier to calm down.

“...normal reaction. The removal often leads to an emptying of the stomach. It’s nothing to be worried about.” 

He hears footsteps but he doesn’t quite know whether it’s someone coming closer or leaving. His mind feels fuzzy and he’s tired.

Why is he so tired?
He had done nothing but sleep.

Steve doesn’t even know how long it had been, if everybody else made it out.

Robin is back at his side and she’s reaching for his hand but remembering his touch-aversion at the last second and draws back swiftly.

“What…” He coughs, throat suddenly very dry and in desperate need of water. Before he can even try to ask for it, a cup with a straw appears in front of his face and he carefully takes the offered straw between his teeth, sucking it in and taking the smallest sip to test.

When it doesn’t make him nauseous he drinks the rest of the water down, a satisfied sigh leaving him when it’s empty.

“Thank you.” 

The cup goes back on his nightstand and the sound of flowing water tells him Robin is refilling it just in case.

“What happened? Did everybody…” He’s scared to finish the question, afraid that maybe this time they lost someone else, that losing Hopper hadn’t been enough.

Robin stares at him and it feels like someone has cut all her strings with the way she falls back into the chair next to his bed. She stares at her hands for a long minute before she starts talking, voice faint and shaking.

“Both Eddie and you barely made it, he’s in the room next to you and there had been talks about merging your rooms now that you’re both out of the coma. Everybody else is mostly okay, Max had a concussion but she knocked out Carver before he could destroy the walkman, honestly please remind me to never go against her, these kids are terrifying! Dustin, Erica and Lucas are pretty much unharmed, a few scratches and Dustin has a broken ankle from jumping through the portal after Eddie cut the rope. Eddie, he…”
She swallows and swallows again and instead of continuing she breaks down. Heavy sobs shaking her frame and Steve can’t do anything.

His best friend is falling apart next to him and he can’t move, can’t comfort her.

“Robbie, we’re here, we’re alive, we made it, maybe not unharmed but we’re here.”
“You nearly weren’t!”

She falls forward, for a second forgetting his injuries and pressing her head into his leg, hands coming up and grabbing anywhere she can, needing something to anchor her to the now.

“You nearly weren’t, you were bleeding out and your arms were broken in so many places and they weren’t sure if you’d wake up.”

She looks up, eyes red and swollen, her next words barely loud enough to hear. “It took you over a month to wake up. It’s May, Steve. I was so scared.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say, he wishes he could hug her, could somehow assure her that he’s alive, that he got out.

He still doesn't know how but somehow he’s still here, somehow they all made it out.
Something loosened inside of him with the knowledge that all of them had made it, that they hadn’t lost another person. All the kids were accounted for, Robin was here and Eddie was in the next room.

His hand wiggles closer to the hand that is gripping his waist and he tries to grasp her fingers but all he has the strength for is laying his hand on top of hers. The gesture has her choking out a sob and Steve can just lay there as his best friend is breaking down, allowing all the pain of the last weeks to finally be let out.

It takes a while for her to cry it all out and when she does she sits up, looking embarrassed, skin splotchy and wet, tears and snot running down her face, eyes nearly swollen shut.

She's staring at the wet stop she has left behind on his blanket and for a second it looks like she wants to apologize but she shakes the urge off. It's good she does, otherwise Steve would have had something to say about it.

“Better? And I'm sorry that I made you worry, I didn't mean to get this hurt.”

It's true, he hadn't planned it and when he realized how bad it was he hadn't expected to survive but now he's here and has to deal with it.

“Dingus, it's not your fault Freddy Krueger…”

He interrupts her, grinning wide when the words are out. “You've seen it too? That was my first thought when he showed his ugly face.”

She stares at him for a second, mouth gaping, then she starts laughing.

“Of course I did! Scarred face, the nightmares he gave you and his other victims; it's so fitting!”

They grin at each other and for a second everything is okay, for a second it's them at Family Video joking, for a second nothing hurts but reality bleeds back in.

They're in the hospital and while Steve might not feel it with the amount of pain meds pumped into his body, he barely survived, he can't move and Robin isn't just talking about something that happened at school or a stupid customer.

They're talking about the monster that had killed three people and nearly took Steve down too. It’s no laughing matter, at least not yet, maybe never.

Robin's eyes are teary again but she blinks them away. “It’s not your fault Dingus, please don’t think that.”
He wants to argue but a yawn is leaving his mouth before he can get another word out. Robin's smile is forced when she tells him to go back to sleep, that she’ll be here when he wakes up, maybe he’ll even have his roommate the next time.

Steve falls under thinking that it would be more than nice to have Eddie here when he wakes up.

There’s no second bed and it’s dark, Robin is asleep in the chair next to him and Steve doesn’t want to wake her. 

He’s sure she hadn’t slept enough the last few weeks, too worried to sleep and spiraling even more due to the sleep deprivation. Anxiety levels on a high and driving the people around her insane but still pretending that she’s handling it..

Steve stares at the ceiling and thinks about what had happened, the last months filled with nightmares, all his fears and insecurities dialed to the max.

He doesn’t feel a difference between Vecna being in his head and Vecna being gone again. He still feels the same, kind of hopeless, scared and lonely. 

None of the kids had been in and he doesn’t know if it’s their parents or Robin keeping them away or if they just don’t care. All he knows is two years ago nothing had stopped Dustin from barrelling into his house to check on him, not his mother who had given him house arrest nor the idea that maybe Steve wasn’t interested in having anything to do with him.

“You’re a member of the party now!” Near toothless grin as he said it and a walkie talkie pushed into Steve's hands. 

Steve tries to remind himself that things had changed, the kids hadn’t actually cared even before Vecna had started messing with his head and was it really a surprise that they weren’t interested now either?
He remembers what Vecna had said about them being shocked and saddened when they learned he had been cursed too but later on just taking the things he did for granted, whining and complaining but never once asking how he was holding up.

His mind is drifting to his parents, wondering if they had been notified, how they reacted, if they pretended to care. He doesn’t even know what they would have been told, doesn’t have a clue what kind of coverup the government came up with this time.

How they planned to explain three dead teenagers and two more that were brought into the hospital in critical condition.

Wondering what happened with El, with Vecna, what Carver had been doing at the Creel House in the first place and what had happened to Eddie.

So many questions and he wouldn’t get an answer to any of them, at least not now.

There was a clicking sound and instantly he felt the pain medication take effect. His muscles unclenching and he felt himself drift back to sleep.

It was another week of fading in and out of sleep, Robin was there nearly every time and after two days there was another bed, the curtain that was normally used to give them privacy wide open and he could see a head full of curls laying on a pillow.

Eddie had been moved into his room while he was asleep and for the first time since he woke up he feels calmer. 

The only other person that had been hurt badly enough to need a hospital stay was close by and he could assure himself as many times as he needed that the other was alive, that he was breathing, that he was safe.

Robin, unharmed, safe, alive. 

The kids, mostly unharmed but safe and alive.

Nancy. unharmed, safe, alive and “totally badass, the way she shot Vecna, Steve!”.

Everybody accounted for, in theory nothing to worry about but Steve couldn’t stop, it had been over before, how could they be sure it actually was this time?
How was he supposed to go back to normal, go back to his job, pretend to be a normal human being that had never seen hell?

How was he supposed to explain his injuries, his scars?

Would he be able to live with everything that Vecna had dragged out in the open? The things he had kept hidden in boxes inside of him, pushed back so far he had been able to mostly ignore them but now?
Everything was right in the front of his head, he couldn’t stop thinking about them, couldn’t stop feeling them.

No matter how many times the others tried to reassure him he couldn’t stop .

Sometimes after he woke up Eddie told him about the kids visiting, grinning wild when he tells Steve about their whining for a new campaign, about shy Will asking if they could make a joint campaign once he’s out of the hospital and Steve is happy for him.

He really is, but he can’t help feeling like they’re purposely only visiting when he’s asleep. Going out of their way to continue not interacting with him and it’s one of those things he had pushed away but can’t handle anymore, can’t pretend it isn’t hurting him and he doesn’t want to take it out on Eddie.

Eddie, who had been nothing but kind, who helped Steve without questioning and looked at him in a way that made Steve feel like maybe things would end up okay, that maybe he’d get out of this okay.

So he puts on a smile when Eddie excitedly tells him all about it, about their ideas, about what they’d been up to. He listens and soaks up the information, telling Robin about it when she visits while Eddie sleeps, trying to not make his problems everybody else's. 

It works for a while, two weeks go by with Eddie none the wiser and it would have continued that way if it wasn’t for Steve waking up one afternoon when the kids were sitting around Eddie’s bed.

The second they saw Steve waking up they started making their excuses.

“My mum wants us to be outside on time today!” 

It’s Dustin who says it and Eddie is looking between all of them, confusion clearly visible on his face. “But you just got here? Didn’t you say you had a few hours until Nancy would be picking you guys up?”
Dustin stares at him and the other boys are uncomfortably looking at the door, none of them look directly at Steve.

Before any of the kids can start making more excuses Steve speaks up, voice hoarse from sleep: “You never realized they’re only here while I’m asleep? They’re avoiding me and have been for months.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrow and he’s staring at the kids, something like anger in his eyes but Steve doesn’t care, he just turns his head away, he’s so tired of people leaving.

He tries to ignore whatever is going on with Eddie and the kids but it’s hard to ignore a conversation that is happening right next to him.

“All of you have been telling me about how great Steve is, how you worship him, how much you owe him and sure I didn’t believe a word you said in the beginning. But the stories I told you were stuff that happened in the past and you of all people should have known Steve better than that. I already apologized to him for it and I thought, I had hoped you would have too. Because while I might have told the stories, it was you who decided to listen to me, a person you barely knew at that point, rather than stand up for the person you know.”
Steve turns back around, staring at Eddie and seeing the kids, looking between the exit and Eddie, guilt and shame clear in the way they held themselves but Eddie wasn’t finished.

“I'm extremely disappointed to learn that you have neither apologized nor talked to him in the first place. Rather slinking in and out of here and avoiding the person who has saved your asses more than once and nearly died this time than own up to your fuckup. I don’t want you to come back here unless you actually do something about this and there sure as hell won’t be a campaign in the near future with the way you behave.”

The kids all flee instead of reacting and Steve? He’s still staring at Eddie. It’s been a long time since anybody but Robin had stood up for him and she doesn’t have nearly as much sway over the kids. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped but I can’t let them continue believing that their behavior is okay, that’s not how you treat someone who’s important to you.”

Steve just shakes his head, tells him he didn’t, that it’s fine and he sees Eddie’s eyes softening, a small smile and he has to tear his eyes away. He’s about to cry and he knows why but it doesn’t feel like it’s justified. Someone was kind to him, it shouldn’t make him want to cry or scream at that person to just leave it.

Instead of saying another word he turns his head away and Eddie just whispers: “Sweet dreams Stevie.”

The day Steve mentioned his surprise about the government not having shown his ugly head is the day they arrive, fresh NDA’s in their case for Eddie and him. The rest had already signed theirs and they came with news.

“We know you have all gone through something deeply traumatic and in the name of the government we would like to apologize for any difficulties this might have caused. In the face of what we heard we have decided that all of you have to go to at least five mandatory sessions with Dr. Thalia Anderson, she’s a government approved psychologist who has worked with patients connected to the Upside Down before.”
Steve isn’t happy about it, he doesn’t need therapy, he doesn’t need someone that’ll just tell him it’s all in his head and that he should pull himself together. He doesn’t say any of it, already knowing that it wouldn’t be negotiable, they’d get their way in the end.

Eddie’s only question about it is whether or not they have to pay for it themselves and when he gets told all medical costs would be covered he just nods. Seemingly fine with it once his worry about the finances is soothed.

The meds he’s been on in the beginning were slowly but surely reduced and by now he can feel most of the leftover pain, it’s nothing compared to when his bites were fresh and he’s glad he doesn’t remember what it felt like to come back into his broken body.

The last thing he really remembers is El appearing, everything afterwards is fuzzy, like a dream you try to remember but can’t grasp, the emotional pain is more than enough for him.

They make him go to physical therapy, he had to regain the strength in his body, arms weak after being broken in so many places and nearly two months of mostly laying in bed taking its toll on the rest of his body.

Eddie is right there alongside him and they suffer through the different tasks they are given, moaning about being sore once they’re back in their room.

It’s nice to not have to go through it alone even if at times it’s exhausting for Steve to constantly have someone around, he is used to being on his own most of the time and he went from an empty house to sharing a room with someone who is just as talkative as Robin.

He can’t think as much and doesn’t have the chance to get caught in one of his spirals but Eddie seems to be overcompensating. They all went through something traumatic, Eddie had seen two people be killed in front of him, was hunted by his classmates and both of them nearly died while trying to save everyone.

Eddie doesn’t seem like he actually processed any of it or maybe Steve is just projecting his shortcomings, his struggles on Eddie.

A week after the suits came he had his first session with Dr Anderson.

For once Eddie and him didn’t go to physical therapy together and it felt wrong, it had been their normal, something Steve could rely on and now he was alone in their room with a stranger.

He was sitting up in his bed, blanket spread out over his lap, hands clenched tightly in the fabric. 

“Mr. Harrington, I’m Dr. Thalia Anderson, I gather you were told that we’d be seeing each other for at least five sessions and possibly longer if necessary.”

She has a soft voice, fitting for the kindness she radiates and if it wasn’t for the way he had been forced into this situation he might have appreciated that but he just wanted her to leave.

He wanted Eddie to come back and he wanted to keep pretending.

“Mr. Harrington?”

Steve looks at her and he just stares, he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t want to talk, there is nothing to talk about.

“I heard about what has happened this year and the years before but I would be interested to hear it from your perspective if you are inclined to share.”

Steve doesn’t want to share but he knows if he doesn’t talk they might make him see her longer, they might decide to lock him away until he talks and he’s scared so he starts. Tells her the bare bones of what has happened in the past few years; Barb, the Demogorgon, the Demodogs, the Mindflayer. the mall in combination with the Russians and then he…

He falters, doesn’t know how to talk about what had happened with Vecna without baring his soul, without opening up his ribcage and screaming: “Look, here’s my soft core, this is where it hurts!”

No more words left him that day and instead of prompting him to talk more Dr. Anderson thanks him at the end for sharing what he did.

“I’ll see you again next week. Take good care until then.”

He nods, tries to smile but it feels more like a grimace.

When Eddie comes back he takes one look at Steve and seems to understand that his usual type of excitement wouldn’t be appreciated, instead he goes to sit on his bed and grabs a book.

“Want me to read out loud?”
Steve swallows, a soft “please” leaving his mouth and it takes everything out of him to accept this act of kindness when he feels this raw, feels like he doesn’t deserve the people around him.

He’s asleep before Eddie finishes the first chapter, exhaustion claiming him and pulling him under.

Another session happens before he’s released from the hospital, he still has to come in once a week for physical therapy but he’s healed up and strong enough that the doctors see no point in keeping him.

Eddie will have to stay for a week or two more, they had been worried about whether or not the skin graft would heal properly and they wanted to keep a close eye on it.

It felt weird to leave him behind, packing up the things Robin had brought him and knowing Eddie wouldn’t be there right alongside him.

He’d go back to the empty loneliness of his house and he felt anxiety rising in him, it hadn’t taken him long to get used to having Eddie around and now he was going to lose it, him.

He would have to go to the office Dr. Anderson usually worked in rather than seeing her in Eddie and his room.

Everything was going to change again and Steve wasn’t ready for it.

He was scared.

He hadn’t stopped feeling scared since he looked into the maw of the Demogorgon.

Looking death in the face and not dying year after year.

Never feeling safe.

Feeling like it would never end, like it would never be okay.

Eddie’s easy kindness had been the first thing in a while that had given him hope.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it and now he was about to lose it.

Swallowing, he grabbed his bag and took a glance at the empty bed, just his luck that Eddie wasn’t even there when he was about to leave.

Nodding to himself, he made his way out of the room, out of the hospital. It would be easier to go without saying goodbye, ripping off the bandage instead of prolonging the pain.

What he didn’t expect was for Eddie to be waiting for him at the exit; smiling wide when he saw Steve.

“Hey Stevie, I thought it would make more sense for me to stay here so I wouldn’t miss you. Can’t let my roommate leave without saying see you soon now, can I?”

Steve felt tears welling up in his eyes, another unexpected kindness and he nearly wishes Eddie wouldn’t have done it, would have just gone back to his room. It would have hurt less to leave without talking to him again.

“Hey, hey, everything is okay!” Eddie stepped towards him, an arm reaching out to pull him close for a moment and Steve let it happen.

“Dude, everything is fine, it’s just weird to leave here, you know? But I’ll be back later this week for physical therapy.”
Eddie is trying to catch his eyes but Steve is ready to leave, to get away, to finally rip off the bandage.

“I’ll see you around man.”

Steve is walking towards the door but Eddie catches up, holds him in place and leans towards him, making Steve face him.
“Hey, I’ll see you soon, okay? I won’t let you slip away.”

Steve doesn’t believe him, he wants to but he can’t.

He just hums and walks out the door.

Time to pretend to go back to normal, whatever that means this time.

Chapter Text

“memory taps a gun to your inner skull & demands you bring back the dead”

Donte Collins - Grief Again

“most days I am a museum of things i want to forget”

E.E. Scott - Every Day I Am Trying New Techniques To Make Myself Disappear

The first thing Steve had to do when he came back home was tidy the mess they had left behind with their abrupt departure. It didn’t matter that his doctor had told him to rest, he had to keep busy, keep the demons at bay.

It had always been like this, the first days back in his empty house after another apocalypse always were the worst, no one around to stop him from spiraling but by now he had learned that the thing he had to do was keep his hands busy. 

Don’t rest.

Don’t stop.

It didn’t matter if his body ached in protest, he’d rather feel the physical pain than let himself be dragged into the abyss of his own mind.

Everything was better than that.

His arms ached with every movement and he couldn’t help but feel like the universe was laughing at him, making an even bigger joke out of him than he already was.

After half an hour of manual labor his arms gave up, still weak and ways to go until they were fully healed and no matter how much he tried to keep going his body denied him his wish.

The voice of his father was loud in that moment, telling him to man up, to pull himself together, to stop being so weak and before he knew it he found himself in his room, hidden in a corner and crying.

He couldn’t stop the tears, couldn’t stop the way his breathing started getting faster and faster, the sob that clawed its way out of his throat and the way he broke, unable to hold himself together any longer.

So much had happened over the years and he had been able to push it back, act like it didn’t change him, like it didn’t affect him but there had never been someone in his head before.

Vecna had been in his head.

He had been pulling every hurt out in the open and Steve couldn’t handle it anymore, couldn’t pretend. 

The silence of his house an uncomfortable reminder of his loneliness, of the souldeep longing, craving for love, for people to love him unconditionally, the ache for companionship, for someone who was right there with him. 

The wish that his parents would love him enough to be around, to be proud of the person he was instead of disappointed because of who he wasn’t.

The ache, the craving for someone to look at him, to see him and to see something worthwhile.

Robin soothed his aching soul but he was terrified that one day she’d see what everyone else was seeing, that Steve Harrington wasn’t enough.

That he was too much, too different, unlovable in a way that even his parents, the people who were supposed to love him, to care for him, must have already seen when he was young and decided to stay away.

He had wished, he had begged for someone to stay, for someone to see him and most of all for someone to want him and not just for a night or for what he could give, just for himself.

When he woke up he was disoriented for a moment, couldn’t remember where he was nor falling asleep in the first place, darkness had seeped into the room while he was asleep and for a second it felt like Vecna had him again.

Shaking the eerie feeling wasn’t easy, it felt like despite the monster being dead he was still haunting Steve, like he had left a part behind and Steve had to deal with the fallout on his own.

Maybe not completely on his own, Max must deal with something pretty similar, he should reach out to her, find out how she was holding up. He hadn’t seen her since the day they had been in the Creel house and Steve hoped that now that Vecna was dead she was at least talking to the others again.

El was back in Hawkins, permanently, that might make it easier for Max, the bond between them had always been something that had made Steve extremely happy, both of them deserved so much better than the cards they had been dealt and it would be good seeing them joined at the hip once more.

With Hopper somehow back from the dead, he had heard Russians and instantly clinked himself out of the conversation, El was doing a lot better from what he had heard through Robin and if it was true that it was really over she would finally have the chance to be a normal teenager, no more government, no more monsters from another dimension, just being a normal kid for a change.

Steve hoped for all of them the Upside Down would never show its ugly head again, they were damaged enough by what all of them had to endure. 

The clock read 4:26am and it wasn’t the worst time to be awake in Steve’s opinion, especially when he thought about the fact that it had still been light outside when he had cried himself to sleep.

A shower and afterwards breakfast sounded like a good plan to start the day and once he was clean, having washed away the stench of hospital, he felt a lot better and the idea of facing the day was a lot less daunting.

Steve had barely finished his toast when the doorbell rang, it wasn't even 6am and he grabbed his bat before making his way to the door. His arms might not actually be strong enough to swing the bat yet but he wouldn’t let that stop him. 

To his surprise it was Max standing there, arms around herself, an imitation of a hug, a way to self-soothe, shorts and a striped T-shirt, her skateboard leaning against the doorstep.

“You gonna let me in or just stare at me?”

Blinking Steve stepped out of her way and gestured towards the kitchen, following her when she took careful steps into the house.

“Do you want breakfast or have you already eaten?”

Max thought about the question for a moment before calling him a goddamn mother-hen and accepting the offer of free food.

A few waffles later they were sitting around the counter in the kitchen, the coffee Max had begged him for in a steaming cup infront of her and Steve looked at her and was glad to see that she seemed healthy, that she looked alive .

“I thought of you earlier, was thinking about reaching out, seeing how you were handling everything.” 

His words are carefully picked, he doesn’t want to come on too strong and push her away, wants to know how she’s really doing, how she’s holding up.

Wanting to know but not ask if she also feels like Vecna left something in her damaged, the same way he did in Steve.

She takes a sip of her coffee, face scrunching up for a second and Steve can’t help but laugh and she flips him off.

“It’s starting to get easier, Dr. Anderson is helping, even if I didn’t want to talk to her in the beginning but it’s good to talk about everything. Wasn’t exactly healthy to keep everything inside in the end.”

Max is looking at him with a knowing glint in her eyes while speaking, it had been the same for him, keeping it all inside, suppressing every single thing and pretending that things were better than they actually were.

“Is it really helping to talk to her? How do you just…” He stops and looks away from her, shaking his head as if shaking all the thoughts away.

“How do I?”

His voice is a whisper when he continues his question: “How do you just talk about those things? It feels like I’m unable to get the words out whenever it’s getting deeper than surface level.”

Max hums and stares off into space for a minute, absently stirring her coffee.

“You have to push through it, I’ve seen her longer than you have and the first few weeks I wasn’t able to either. It took me a while to be able to do it and even longer to actually listen to her. I had my eighth session this week and don’t get me wrong, I still find myself choking on words but it’s easier. It’s all about trying, even if it feels like it’s impossible and like it’ll never get better.”

There’s the knowing look again and Steve feels flayed open but there’s his answer, it’s always about trying, trying, trying.

A nod is his only reaction to it, the lump in his throat is back and he doesn’t know how to get words out, too caught up in his emotions to even try. He knows what he has to do now, doesn’t quite know how to do it yet but he will.

He makes himself busy with washing the dishes, needing a second to pull himself back together before asking her what she had been up to the past few weeks.

Max tells him about her time spent with El, about breakfast with her mother, skateboarding whenever she can. “And I visited you a few times when you were still in the coma, it was scary to see you just laying there, you know? I was spending a lot of time over at the Byers’ place, nobody wanted to leave me on my own so I had a hard time getting away and those stupid boys only told me they were visiting after they came back.”

Steve looks surprised when she tells him about visiting him but it’s the last part that makes him snort out a bitter laugh.

“They told you they visited me?”

“No, but they said they were at the hospital for a visit and Eddie and you shared a room, so it wasn’t hard to guess what they meant.” Her face scrunches up, eyebrows drawn together. “Or did I miss something?”

Steve tries to wave it off, tries pulling his mask up but she’s on him now. 

“No, no, no, no pretending, what have I missed? What have these idiots done now?” Max looks pissed and her guess that it was them wasn’t wrong but Steve still can’t help but feel like the whole thing is somehow his fault.

“They pulled back last year, shortly after joining Hellfire. Eddie…” A pause, again, Steve doesn’t want Max to go after Eddie, has to make it clear that Eddie isn’t at fault for this, isn’t the guilty party. “Eddie has apologized by now and honestly I can’t be mad at him for it.”

“For what?”

“He told them stories about how I used to be in school, didn’t believe them when they said I had changed and in the end they chose to believe him. It’s why nobody except for Robin knew about…” He waves at his head, doesn’t want to speak his name. “They continued to ignore me. Their visits were solely for Eddie, they only came around while I was asleep. Once Eddie realized it, he told them to stop coming around at all unless they apologized for fucking up.”

During his tale Max had sprung up from her seat, pacing back and forth, a dark look on her face, when he spoke the last word, she spun around, facing him, a hard look on her face.

“I hope you know I will make their lives a living hell for that. You protected us for years, took care of us and this is how they thank you? Believing someone else just because they fell in love with his ability to lead their stupid little game? Denying everything they know about you and throwing you away and for what? For a stupid dice game they didn’t even want to play anymore last summer.”

She’s fuming and Steve can’t help but be glad to have another person that tells him there’s something wrong with the way they had treated him. Her anger made him think back to what Robin had said about Max in the hospital, how Robin didn’t want to get on her bad side, scared of what she might do.

“I’m still struggling with acknowledging that it isn’t okay if I’m completely honest. Something I’m working on.” 

Privately he thinks that it might be something to talk to Dr. Anderson about, his next session would be tomorrow so he could test out what Max had told him, starting with something that while hurtful wouldn’t tear him apart.

“I’m going to tear them a new one. Fucking up and instead of owning up to it and apologizing for it they rather make it worse. Don’t let them get away with it, when they come crawling back don’t you dare just wave it off once they apologize. They fucked up badly and they need to feel the consequences of it.”

Steve nods, he wouldn’t be able to just wave it off either way, it had hurt too much, had pushed too many of his buttons and Steve knows even if they come crawling back, he’s going to struggle for a long time to trust them again. The fact that they had to be told, that multiple people had to make them aware of how badly they fucked up made it even worse. He’d question if they had actually wanted him back in their life or if they had felt pressured by people like Eddie and Max.

Steve mentioned the last part to Max, his fear that it would only happen because other people told them to and not out of their own free will.

She furrows her brows, a thoughtful look on her face and the words coming out of her mouth make sense to Steve but his fear is still louder. 

“I get that but I saw them with you, I heard them talk about you all the time, they love you, even Mike, despite the fact that you would have to hold him at gunpoint to have him admit it. They’re not used to being the bully and don’t know how to swallow the fact that in this case they are.”

Max didn’t stay much longer after their conversation about the boys, stating that she had something to handle, both knowing what she meant but not stating it outright when she grabbed her skateboard and waved before disappearing down the street.

His arms still kept him from doing as much as he wanted, mind running wild until he decided to watch TV, mindlessly switching between channels and before he knew it it was starting to get dark, shadows growing longer. 

Food, he should eat something, hadn’t done that since the breakfast he had shared with Max. As if on command his stomach started making noises. 

There wasn’t a lot left in his kitchen foodwise. Grocery shopping would have to be added to his to-do list for the next day. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too exhausted after his therapy session, the thought of having to go back and forth twice in one day left him feeling off kilter.

Maybe he should go before his appointment but leaving everything in his car was a recipe for disaster, cold and frozen foods wouldn’t survive an hour in his car in the heat. It would have to be after.

The last bagel eaten Steve made his way upstairs, he hadn’t done a lot but the little he did left him feeling exhausted.

Sleep that night eluded him despite the weariness he had felt in his bones when going to bed. It took him a while to fall asleep in the first place and not even an hour later he was pulled from his sleep screaming, a nightmare still having its ugly claws in him, laying there shaking, his breath too fast, feeling like he was suffocating.

“Leave me alone!” 

Screaming into the dark to try and diffuse the hold the terror still had on him but it was no use, he doesn't know how long he lay there awake before sleep had taken him under again.

The next time he woke it was still dark out but the thought of falling back asleep only to have another nightmare sink its teeth into him stopped him from even trying another time.

There were dark circles under his eyes when he looked into the mirror and he felt like he was looking at a stranger. Hair unstyled and oily, the scar around his neck still red and there were scratches, reminding Steve of his first time waking, the way he had clawed at his own throat, feeling like the Demobat’s tail was choking him again, desperately wanting it gone, gone, gone.

It hadn’t actually been there but it had felt too real, he remembered all too well how it had felt, the fear that he would die in an alternate dimension, alone, alone, alone.

Carefully he touched those marks with his fingertips, hissing at how sensitive they felt, especially where he had scratched over the scar.

He doesn’t know who the person in the mirror is, he knows it’s supposed to be him but there’s barely any recognition. 

There’s a stranger that’s supposed to be Steve in the mirror but Steve doesn’t know him, the sad eyes, the dark circles under them, hair and skin oily, stubble on his jaw, scars. He looks older than he should.

Closing his eyes he turns away, taking a shower would have to be enough, he couldn’t be bothered with shaving and everything else wasn’t something that could be fixed as easily.

Taking off his clothes made him once more uncomfortably aware of the way the rest of his body had changed, scars all across his stomach and hips, he was just glad that he wasn’t able to see his back and that at least these scars could be mostly hidden by his clothes.

Stepping into the shower and standing under the slowly warming water brought him back to himself, his body not feeling quite as strange anymore, feeling more like it actually belonged to him and less like he was held captive inside a stranger's body.

For a second he felt normal while letting the water run down his body, forgetting about the day ahead of him, about the nightmares that had plagued him.

For a second it was just a normal day and he was getting ready to pick Robin up to take her to school and go work an early shift at Family Video on his own.

For a second Vecna had never happened.

Reality came crashing back down when he stepped into his room, towel around his waist and seeing himself in his full-body mirror.

The scars were slowly starting to pale, still red in some places but others were starting to fade away into a light pink.

His body was healing so why did he still feel so raw?

Why was the saying time heals every wound only accurate when it came to his physical wounds?
They were healing just fine while his inside still felt like a raw wound, like he was freshly flayed open.

Steve doesn’t know how long he stood there looking at his reflection, trying to catalog the new scars, the changes. Comparing who he was now, how he looked now to before and feeling like he was coming up short.

Doesn’t like the person he was but not liking who he has become either.

When he looks at the clock again he only has 20 minutes left until he has to leave the house to be on time for his appointment.

Putting on the first clothes he sees before scarfing down a waffle and calling it breakfast.

He nearly forgets his wallet and keys when it’s time to leave, stressed out, not wanting to make a bad impression when the conversation with Max is still fresh in his mind, when he knows what he wants to do that day.

It’s exactly 1pm when he rings the bell and Dr. Anderson is smiling when she opens the door for him.

“Hello Mr. Harrington, it’s good to see you, come in.”

She steps out of the way to let him in, directing him towards an open door to the left. The room looks comfortable, there’s two armchairs and across from them a couch with a side table, a clipboard and pencils marking it as Dr. Anderson’s side.

Steve slowly makes his way towards one of the armchairs, taking a seat and looking around, in a corner there’s a table with some brightly colored building blocks, a teddy bear sitting on the ground next to it. Not far from it are two overflowing bookcases and they make the room feel lived in, less like he’s in a doctor’s office, less clinical.

The desk near the window is nearly overflowing with papers and there’s differently colored post-it notes all over the wall.

When he looks over at the couch again Dr. Anderson is already watching him and he feels like he was caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“How have you been the past week and how is being back at home working out for you?”

Steve looks away from her, choosing instead to look out the window when he answers her, telling her about the nightmares and about Max, mentions struggling with not being able to keep as busy as he would like to due to his still healing arms.

He looks back to her afterwards, wanting to see how she chose to react to what he had told her before trying to tell her about the kids and the way their abandonment had hurt him.

“It must be hard to be limited by your body, are there less physical things that also help to keep your mind off of things? Otherwise we could make a list of things to try if you want.”

Steve looks at his hands, he doesn’t have many hobbies to begin with, most of his time was spent doing shit other people wanted to do and his being a jock bled over into his hobbies.

“There’s not a lot that’s non-physical. I tried watching TV but I don’t really like spending all my day sitting around. It tends to make me nervous, too much energy that wants to get out.”

She hums and makes a few suggestions, taking walks, reading if it was something he could imagine enjoying, listening to music or audiobooks, taking a bath, going to see a movie and the list went on.

“Try as many of them as you want and you can tell me how they worked out when we see each other next week. Now is there anything else you would like to talk about this week?”

Steve looks at her, she’s sitting on the couch, clipboard laying on her lap and pen in her hand and she’s patiently waiting for him to speak. He thinks about Max’s words and he tries, pressing his nails into his hands and taking a deep breath.

“There is something else, yes. I…” He stops, the lump in his throat is back and it feels unbelievably hard to get more words out.

“You know about all the kids, I used to be pretty close with all of them until, until last year.”

Steve looks around the room, trying, trying, trying, he has to start somewhere.

“They are really into D&D and joined a club at Highschool, I was, I was an asshole in High School, hurt a lot of people, I started pulling back from the people I surrounded myself with back then when everything with the Upside Down started.”

He told her all about Eddie and the way the kids had abandoned him without a second thought, about what Vecna had said concerning them.

“And he was right, you know? They didn’t care, they acted like they were sad and shocked but when it came right down to it they didn’t care. Continued to ignore me unless they had something to whine and complain about it.”

When he finishes his throat feels sore and his eyes are burning and he doesn’t know where to look, doesn’t want to look at Dr. Anderson and see her reaction to it.

“I’m sorry they did this to you and I’m sorry that they continue to treat you this way. You grew up and changed, it doesn’t matter that it started due to your first contact with the as you call it Upside Down. It isn’t fair to you that they chose to judge you based on stories about your younger self while knowing who you are now. Especially when the person only knew your younger self and realized their error once they met you as you are now. You mentioned a few things I'd like to talk more about, if it is okay with you I would like to focus on you feeling like it was deserved and inevitable.”

Steve's eyes are wide open when his head spins around to face her, he doesn’t want to focus on those things, already feels too open, too vulnerable as it is but there’s Max’s voice again, telling him that it gets easier after talking about it.

He swallows before nodding, doesn’t know if he’s able to speak right now, feels like he’s choking on the words that want to come out but can’t.

“You said that you knew from the beginning that they would find someone better and that they only were around due to what you were able to give them or do for them. Have you always felt like this when it comes to the people in your life, like you have to offer enough for them to stay?”

Steve looks down at the hands in his lap, there’s a scar along the back of his right hand and he focuses on it to keep the tears at bay when he gives a simple nod.

“Okay, was it only with your friends or did your family make you feel the same way?”

There’s another scar running across his pinky and it moves when he bends the fingers, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, doesn’t know how to answer the question without opening his mouth and spewing the ugliness crawling up his throat all over the room. 

With a few questions she found one of his earliest hurts and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Mr. Harrington?”

Steve just continues staring at the scar on his pinky, head nodding without his input, just a reaction, his mind feels floaty and it should scare him but it dampens the hurt.

“Mr. Harrington, I see that you are struggling right now but I need you to say something.”

He tries but his throat doesn’t seem to work, the only thing coming out is a croak and he can feel the tears he had been trying to suppress starting to run down his face.

Frustration starts to build, why is he always unable to do the simplest things?

Can’t stand touch.

Can’t talk.

Can’t be strong enough.

“..ington, please focus on my voice.”

Trying

Trying

Trying

“Breathe in, that’s good, breathe out, just listen to me.”

She talks him through it until he’s able to breathe normally again, until he’s back in his body. Exhaustion hits him suddenly and he’s so tired. He’s so tired of all of this.

“Thank you.” His voice is shaky and he has to swallow, throat to dry and he wishes he had had the forethought to take something to drink with him.

Suddenly a glass of water appears in front of him. “Here, you should drink something. This must have been taxing for you and hydration should be helpful.”

Steve gulps the water down and it makes him feel better, a bit clearer. “I don’t know what just happened.” He feels smaller than he had in a while, helpless, uncertain, unsafe .

“You were dissociating, your mind wasn’t able to handle the severity of the emotions you were feeling so it was starting to cut itself off, giving you a way out of a situation without actually leaving. It can also dampen your surroundings, making it feel like you experience everything through a fog of sorts. Have you experienced something like this before?”

Thinking back a lot of situations come to his mind, he doesn’t remember them cleary, they’re a bit fuzzy, like a dream he’s trying to remember but can’t quite grasp,

“Yes, it’s been happening for years but more often ever since…” He stops, not wanting to talk about the monster that had made itself a home in his head.

She nods, making a note on her clipboard and looks up at him again. “I see, thank you for your honesty. Now this has been our third session and before you leave I have something I want to talk to you about. Is that okay with you or would you rather wait until next week?”

Steve thinks it over for a second and tells her he’d rather do it today.

“Okay, I would like to talk to you about whether or not you’d be willing to extend the number of sessions we have left. The way I see it, I would like to keep you on as a patient for longer than the remaining two sessions. I think you would benefit from it.”

He doesn’t even have to think about it, he knows he can’t handle the things on his own anymore, his reaction to a few simple questions showing him that going on like he had wasn’t an option anymore.

“I would like to extend it, I think… I don’t think I’m able to handle this on my own, not anymore.”

A smile spreads across Dr. Anderson’s face, her eyes crinkling. “I will file the paperwork and now that this is settled, I hope you will have a good week and if possible try out some of the things we talked about.”

She stands up, making her way towards the door. “I’ll see you again next week at the same time, take care of yourself as best as you can until then.”

He nods, overwhelmed all of a sudden and just whispers “bye” when he walks out the door, making his way towards his car in a daze.

It had been a lot, he didn’t expect therapy to be this exhausting.

Steve remembers that he wanted to go grocery shopping after therapy but the thought of having to face other people makes him want to scream. Maybe he’d just order in today and leave braving the outside world for tomorrow.

Robin comes over that night, apologizing for not having been there earlier, her parents had wanted her to be home after she’d spent the past three months mostly at Steve’s side.

“Robs, it’s okay and I’m grateful that you’re here now. Today was a lot.”

“Oh Stevie.”

They spent the night on the couch, watching movie after movie until they fell asleep. It had felt good, especially after how unmoored he had felt that day. Therapy had left him feeling shaky and unsure and Robin’s presence was a soothing balm.

She went grocery shopping with him the next morning before he had dropped her off back home and he was so grateful for her company during something he had been anxious about.

The next few days passed in a blur of nightmares and trying out things from the list he had made with Dr. Anderson.

Sooner than expected a week at home had passed and he had to go back to the hospital for physical therapy. 

He had tried to not think about how much he felt Eddie’s absence and how much he had missed his former roommate during the last week but when he entered the doors of the hospital and found the other man standing there, waiting for him with a big smile, it hit him all at once.

“Stevie, I missed you! It’s been so weird not seeing your pretty face every day.”

Steve choked on a laugh, tears welling up but he blinked them away, instead choosing to get closer to Eddie, a smile on his own face. “I missed you too. It’s been very weird to not have someone talk all the time.”

He laughs at the affronted face Eddie makes.

“Are you talking about me? How dare you accuse me of such things?”

It doesn’t take long until they’re both giggling.

While they walk towards the office of their physiotherapist Eddie tells him that he’ll finally be released the next day. 

“Means you won’t be safe from me anymore sweetheart.” He winks and Steve nearly stumbles across his own feet, barely catching himself.

Before he can react they reach the door they need and both groan when they see the big smile on the man's face. This would be another session of torture disguised as helpful exercises.

When they walk back out, both sweaty and hurting in places Steve didn’t even know could hurt, Eddie grabs his shoulder.

“I’ll come over tomorrow after I’ve unpacked my stuff. Wayne has the nightshift so he’ll sleep after picking me up and honestly I don’t really feel like the silence will do me any good. Neither does it any good to you.”

Steve furrows his brows. “I don’t want a pity visit.”

Eddie starts laughing, shaking his head and looking at him like Steve had said the most idiotic thing Eddie had heard in a while. “Oh sweetheart, there’s absolutely no pity involved. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”

Steve stares after him when Eddie walks down the corridor, taking a shortcut to their, no his room and he knows what the warmth spreading through him means but he can’t, won’t name it.

He’s too damaged, can’t entertain the thought of possibly falling for someone when he can’t even get through a night without waking up screaming, when he can’t even talk about the things hurting him without his brain trying to escape in any way possible, when the thought of touching someone more than those little accidental touches or the hugs Eddie seems to love to give makes him want to vomit.

How is Steve supposed to make someone stay when he wasn’t even able to keep the people around him when he was much less broken?

That night the nightmares are even worse in a way, instead of himself nearly dying he dreams of Eddie, surrounded by bats feasting on him, bleeding out, dying for a town that hated him and didn’t care whether he lived or died.

He wakes up screaming twice, arms scratched bloody, throat raw when he gives up on sleep.

It’s 2:47 am and he stares at the ceiling, watches the shadows move when a while later the sun starts to rise, tries his best not to think. 

It’s 5:48 am when he leaves his bed, takes a shower and puts ointment on his scratches.

It’s 6:57 am when he drinks his first coffee and stares into nothingness, too exhausted to function properly, nearly falling asleep while sitting at the counter more than once.

It’s 8:27 am when the doorbell rings and he gets pulled from his accidental nap.

Steve needs a second to process what had happened and it isn’t until the doorbell rings another time that he makes his way towards the door, wondering who would come over this early.

It’s only when he opens the door and sees Eddie standing at the door, a backpack slung over one shoulder, that he remembers Eddie’s words from the day before, bright and early was what he had said and indeed, it was very early.

“Good morning, sweetheart, are you gonna let me in?”

Steve blinks, mind still half asleep and steps aside, letting Eddie inside and watching how he looks around, like he hadn’t been in the very same house barely three months ago, before making his way into the kitchen.

“I’ll make coffee or would you rather nap? I wouldn’t say no to a few more hours of sleep myself.”

Steve just stands in the hallway, he’s still sleepy, barely awake, can’t really process what is going on as he follows Eddie into the kitchen.

Eddie takes one look at him, at his eyebags, his barely open eyes and nods. “Sleep it is, let’s go, we'll share if you don’t mind. Had an easier time dealing with those nightmares while you were still my roommate.”

He drags Steve up the stairs and Steve is too dazed to do anything but follow, lets himself be dragged into his room and tucked into bed.

The last things Steve is aware of before falling back asleep are the way the bed dips, Eddie’s warmth and Eddie whispering something to him, voice soft and warm: “Sweet dreams, I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

Steve can’t really process them but he gives a sleepy hum.

He feels warm and safe .

Chapter Text

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

Charles Bukowski - Screams From The Balcony

“I was happy three days ago. Today I am depressed. What happened? Nothing. An inner crutch slipped. Some poorly suppressed memory rose to the surface.”

Mihail Sebastian - For Two Thousand Years

It becomes a regular occurance for Eddie to sleep over in the following weeks and slowly but surely Steve builds a routine he doesn’t hate.

Therapy once a week, going to physical therapy with Eddie, having Robin over every other night and Eddie, who never really leaves.

In the beginning it had been weird, he had gotten used to the loneliness again, empty house and haunted corridors, no sounds except the ones he fills the silence with but Eddie’s presence had a way of being unobtrusive despite how bright and loud he was. It felt like they were back in their shared hospital room, the comfortable bubble they had built for themselves during that time and Steve loved it. By the time a few weeks had passed Eddie not being there was more of a surprise than him being there, it started to feel like home with Eddie there, Robin coming and going however she pleased, El and Max stopping by every now and then.

People are present because they want to be there and it’s truly astounding to Steve that they want to stay , that they choose to be around Steve.

Not having to beg for scraps of attention and affection, instead both being given freely.

It soothes something inside of him that seems to have been ripped open from a young age, the loneliness of having to live in a building that is supposed to house a big family but more often than not just had one inhabitant.

The absence of his parents a festering wound that has never quite scabbed over completely, rather Steve had gotten used to the ever present hurt and tried to pay it no mind.

Gaining the knowledge that his parents had been notified of his stay in the hospital but chose not to come back nor to contact their only child in any way, didn’t surprise him but it still ended up being a topic at his session with Dr. Anderson.

“I knew they don’t care, so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt to learn that even while I was in a coma they couldn’t even pretend to act like they do. I haven’t spoken to them in over half a year and even then it was just my father telling me that he’s disappointed in me.”
He had stared out the window while speaking, not wanting to have to see pity in the eyes of his therapist despite knowing by now that he wouldn’t find it.

“You were still hoping for them to care, hoping that maybe this time they would act differently than before, that for once they would actually be your parents. Knowing something doesn’t take away the wish for it to be different. It is understandable that it still hurts despite the knowledge.”

Steve had only nodded that day and not spoken another word.

His parents were a topic more often than he liked, he’d rather not think about them at all but they were the root of a lot of his problems and he understood that it wouldn’t get better unless those issues were addressed.

It didn’t change the fact that he’d rather ignore the hurts they had caused, the only thing stopping him from going down that path once more was his inability to act quite as well as he used to after the parasitic form that demolished all his walls.

All those festering wounds he had tried his best to hide behind a mixture of aloofness, bitchy comments and the pretense of being invulnerable.

It had worked quite well for a time, kept people at arm’s length and his emotions suppressed in a way that made them incomprehensible even to himself, pushing away every hurt and keeping them all in boxes, never to be looked at again.

At least that had been his plan but now all was out in the open, haunting him, a jumbled mess of hurts that he had to untangle with the help of Dr. Anderson, slowly but surely facing all those things he had tried his best to never confront or even think about.

Unlearning took such a long time, it was a harder fight than he would have ever expected and he regularly found himself falling back into old patterns, pushing the people around him away, shutting them out and pretending like things were okay.

Lying about what was going on and being as productive as possible to avoid having to think, avoid having to process all the things that had happened, that bothered him to this day. Avoiding the traumas that had formed him from a young age, the soul-deep loneliness, the disappointment and negligence of his parents, the harsh words that hurt more than any hit ever could, the way he had learned to be quiet rather than utter a word in situations other children would have been shown love and support.

“Stevie, you’re lost in your head again.”
It’s Eddie’s voice that pulls him out of his dark thoughts, another regular occurrence, something else that Steve was trying to get used to, someone being around who cares, a person being around regularly, someone who knew him , who was starting to become strangely familiar with all the things that made Steve Steve . Someone who knew his mannerisms, who saw the signs of when to step in.

While Robin might have known him rather well, the intensity of Eddie’s presence and his focus on Steve was something he had never known before, it was all-consuming.

It made him feel uncertain, it was a sort of attention he had never gotten, someone who was constantly around, who cared for Steve and wasn’t afraid to show it, uncaring what other people might think of a guy caring so openly for another guy.

It was something he had never seen before meeting the kids and even then he thought it was partly due to their age, Eddie had changed that perspective, a guy older than Steve showing his affection and care in an even bolder way than the kids did.

Something about it made Steve feel exposed and he struggled with the feeling of being seen despite having no wish that ran deeper through his being.

He knew why it was so hard for him to comprehend the sudden attention and affection, it didn’t make it easier to handle it either way, the unexpected and new always made him feel unsteady in a way, unsure how to proceed, how to behave.

Eddie had seemed to have gotten used to Steve’s awkward reactions, the staring and nervous fidgeting, his inability to look at Eddie whenever his voice got soft and his words affectionate in nature.

Affection that wasn’t disguised by jokes and jabs was new to Steve, even Robin usually followed her words with some sort of funny comment, unable to keep things vulnerable, always looking for a way to make things feel less serious if possible, Eddie left the words hanging in the room.

Not softening them with humor, rather letting them sit there until Steve could feel them in his very being and only then did he say something else, a change of topic rather than letting the vulnerability slide.

He seemed to thrive on showing his feelings, on caring and letting people know how important they were to him, not satisfied with just letting actions speak for themself and Steve felt like he was just along for the ride, getting swept up and dragged along by a flood he hadn’t expected and had no defense against.

Not to say that he even wanted to be able to defend himself from it, he just didn’t quite know what to do with it and it would take time to not shrink away from every kind word.

Steve had always been more used to knives and fists rather than affection, care and kindness.

“Mr. Harrington, Steve, it is not normal what your parents did, they should have been around, they should have cared or at least kept someone around who would take care of you. Children and teenagers are not meant to be on their own, they are meant to be loved and protected. And your worth should have never been defined by how much you resemble the person they expected you to become. You have always been your own person and what makes a parent is the ability to see their child as their own person and love them for that, rather than for what they could be. Expectations are something completely normal but they should never be more important than the child themself.”
Steve stares at her, everything she said are things he had already known, thinking about them when he looks at the kids and their families but never quite having connected those words to his own situation.

It had always felt like a ‘They shouldn’t do this to them, I’m used to this but they should never feel the same way’ type of situation, normal for Steve but the kids didn’t deserve it.

That’s exactly what he ends up telling Dr. Anderson, seeing her nod with understanding and once more being glad to not see pity in her eyes.

“You grew up that way, you only learned that it could be different when you were older and by then their behavior towards you was your normal. You might have seen other adults behave differently but even then your young mind had already internalized the thought that it must be your fault that your parents are so different, it must be because you didn’t fulfill their expectations and other children did, they earned the love. But listen closely, love isn’t earned, love is given, it grows and needs to be nourished but it is not and never has been something that needs to be earned.”

At that point of time Steve hadn’t understood what she was trying to say, he had always felt like he had to do something to be worthy of love but by now he was beginning to understand what she had been trying to make him see.

Eddie was giving his love freely to the people around him without expecting anything in return and Steve felt unworthy, like he hadn’t done enough but it reminded him of the words Dr. Anderson had spoken.

Love isn’t earned, love is given.

He was beginning to understand what those words meant even if he was struggling with accepting it for himself, accepting that he didn’t have to earn love, it was a hard pill to swallow.

Robin had hated him until he had protected her from the Russians, the kids only started caring once he protected them from monsters and everybody else wasn’t even worth being mentioned.

It had always felt like he had to earn it, like he was only lovable when he had something to give, only loved as long as he had something to give, as long as he could prove his worth to them in some way.

It had never been enough to be just himself but thinking about it now with those words in mind it wasn’t quite true, was it?

His bonds had started out that way because of the Upside Down, it had nothing to do with him as a person.
Nurturing those connections, strengthening them, that was something he had an active part in and all those people surrounding him chose him the same way Steve had chosen them and they continued to choose him.

All of them chose to love him.

It struck something deep inside of him, that part that had thought himself to be inherently unlovable and it cried out, a child taught that nothing they ever did would be enough to earn the love his parents had chosen not to give him.

It had never been Steve’s fault, it had been his parents.

The thought took root in the gloomy depths of his mind, creating a beacon of light in a place that had never seen it before.

He had been told that it wasn’t his fault, that it couldn’t have been on him and he himself had known it too on a strictly logical level but the words had never felt like they were true. Steve had never allowed himself to believe in them, too sure in the knowledge that something must be wrong with him, that something must be broken in him when the only common factor for all the people he lost was that they left him, that they didn’t love him.

How could it have been anything but his own fault?
His parents; emotionally unavailable and uninterested in anything but their own gain, seeing Steve as a means to an end instead of his own person, an asset instead of a child.

Carol and Tommy; they had been bullies and when Steve started changing, wanting to be a different person they grew apart.

Nancy; they hadn’t been compatible no matter how much Steve thought they were back then and no matter what some of the people around him thought, it hadn’t just been him who was in the wrong back then.

The kids; in the end they were kids and found someone sharing their interests who hated Steve for who he had been in the past but it had also been them choosing .

It all came back down to choice, people choosing to do things or not to do them, choosing the people they surround themselves with and while Steve might be able to influence their choice, in the end it would always be up to them and both parties had to live with the consequences of their actions.

It felt soothing to realize that no matter what he did in the end it wasn’t solely on him what people did and the fact that it took him so long to realize that he wasn’t responsible for the actions of others while holding himself accountable for them for years.

A fundamental change in the way he looked at things, the realization that for years he had denied the autonomy of everyone around him, taking all the blame and fault for himself, holding himself accountable for the choices everybody else made.

It had been a while since the realization hit and he still found himself thinking about it nearly every day, it had been such a mind blowing thought and it still shook him to his core.

The foundation of his self-destructive behavior and self-loathing rattled and unstable, close to collapse and he was bound to be buried under the rubble. It would take time to crawl out but once he did he would be able to start building a foundation that wasn’t built on over a decade of neglect and unhealthy thought patterns.

It was scary but what was even more terrifying was thinking about what would have happened had he never gotten caught up in the destruction brought on by the Upside Down, how long would it have taken for his walls to break and the suppressed feelings and memories to overwhelm him.

What would have happened once it did?

Would he even have survived the fallout?
There were positive parts to the suffering the hell dimension brought with it; the people, his therapist and his own growth.

All those things that wouldn’t have happened or at least wouldn’t have happened quite as fast, decades of suffering to come without understanding why.

Standing in his kitchen, hearing Eddie sing along to a song playing in the living room, Robin coming over later.

All these moments of joy that make it worth it.

That make him want to live, that give him the strength to fight his way through the horror that was his own mind.

It’s small things, like Eddie holding a mug with perfectly made coffee out to him, Max coming over and snarking at him but choosing to be there all the same, Robin grinning at him from the other side of a room, it’s all those little things that accumulate and suddenly they aren’t little at all and maybe they never have been to begin with.

Steve would have had none of this if it hadn’t been for the Upside Down and it was time to stop wishing it could be different because no amount of wishing would ever change it.

“What are we gonna make for dinner today? Robin’s coming over later isn’t she?”

Domestic is the only word that comes to Steve’s mind when Eddie appears beside him, asking about what they’ll cook, like it was normal, like it wasn’t astounding to have this, to be allowed to have this.

“I was thinking maybe pasta with the cheesy tomato sauce all of us had enjoyed? Could make the sauce from scratch so we’ll get some vegetables.”

In the fridge were enough tomatoes and peppers for a decent amount of sauce, he could grill them, add some onions and garlic for some taste. Healthy and tasty at the same time.

It felt unreal, thinking back a few months and this would have been impossible, take-out, microwave meals and other ready-made food the only way he would eat at all.

No cooking unless it was for someone else and even then he’d rather go down the easy route, nothing that needed more than one pot or pan. 

A glaring difference to what had happened the last few weeks, fresh produce slowly making its way back in and Steve started to find his joy in cooking again, in making something and being proud of the end result.

Eating regularly instead of once a day or less, the nightmares were slowly receding, not gone yet and they might never be but he didn’t wake up screaming every night anymore, finding joy in the things he used to enjoy once more.

It felt like slowly coming alive again, waking up after a long winter and realizing it’s finally spring.

“Mhmm, yes please, that sounds real good sweetheart. You want my help preparing the veggies?”

Sweetheart

Eddie’s use of petnames had picked up quite a bit since he basically moved in with Steve, sweetheart, darling, baby and if it’s not one of those it’s Stevie, never Steve and it sends a shiver through him every time. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to it and if he even wants to.

It makes him think maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t end in a disaster should he ever open up about the feelings that had taken residence in his ribcage, the warm feeling spreading through his body whenever Eddie came close, the way his words sent tingles across Steve’s scalp and most of all the way Eddie made him want , made him crave things he didn’t dare verbalize.

There was a lot to unpack before he would dare to utter a word about the unfortunate infatuation that had started during their trek through the cursed lands of the hellscape.

In between trying not to stumble over vines and slaying monsters, Eddie had crawled into the cavern of his chest and made himself a home there without even knowing it.

What they had now was more than enough for Steve but with every petname, with every night they shared his bed the voice whispering ‘Maybe we could have it all’ grew louder and his arguments why it was a bad idea weaker.

Love is a choice.

Maybe Eddie would actually choose him.

“Yeah, you can quarter the peppers and cut three onions, half them and cut them into slices. I’m gonna get the tomatoes and garlic.”

Side by side, shoulders nearly brushing every time one of them moves, the sound of a knife hitting the cutting board the only sound, it’s comfortable, it’s domestic and Steve loves it, sharing those things with someone else, sharing his life with someone.

It’s so different from the life he had led mere years ago and even more different from the life he had expected to have, it’s more than he could have ever wished for.

They’re lounging in the living room, the smell of roasted vegetables in the air when Robin storms in, words spilling from her lips and it feels like home.

“Mr. Harrington, how have you been faring the past week?”

Their sessions always start the same, Dr. Anderson sitting across from him, legs crossed and hands holding her clipboard, smiling and waiting for him to answer, an opening for him to direct the conversation to what he needs most that day.

“It’s been a good week and it scares me. What if it all comes crashing down? What if everything I built my routines around collapses or something triggers me and suddenly I am right back where I started?”

He was fidgeting, in his hands a bracelet El had gifted him the last time she had come around with Max. 

“It’s like a tiny sunset you can carry around, sunsets make me happy and I think you could use some more happiness.”
She grins wide, her hair slowly growing back out, curls sticking in all directions and she finally looks her age, just a teen, able to make all those memories she had missed out on when she was younger.

Holding out a bracelet made of orange, pink and yellow string braided together and grinning up at him makes her look even younger and it makes a burst of joy spread through him.

It still brings a smile to his face, she was such a sweet girl and ever since that day he hadn’t taken the bracelet off, carrying the sunset around with him and with it something by a person who chose him.

“I’m glad that you had a good week but it sounds like these questions have been plaguing you. The progress you have made won’t be lost, recovery has ups and downs and there is nothing to do about it, it’s a part of it no matter how much we might wish it wasn’t. It is important to keep in mind that even if you crash, it won’t erase the progress you have made and it will still be there once you are in a better headspace again. It might not feel like it in those moments but it still holds true.”
What she says makes sense but knowing that it is highly likely that he’ll crash again, that it’s going to get bad again, it makes him want to scream. Having to heal from something other people had inflicted on him, all the ups and downs, all those negative thought patterns, everything he had to unlearn, years of his life spent hating himself for something that hadn’t been his fault to begin with and he was finally starting to heal, was finally starting to get better.

“I’m terrified of falling back down, I’m slowly getting used to feeling okay, to having good days and the thought of it crashing down scares the hell out of him. How am I supposed to handle feeling like I did before now that I know how it can be? How am I supposed to cope with the fact that now I know that it can be different? I don’t want to go back to not wanting to wake up.”

Just thinking about it makes him want to cry, no matter how much it scared him on some level that things were good for once, the thought of it being gone was even more terrifying. The thought of potentially losing everything he had fought so hard for the past months.

The dark hole he had crawled his way out of with the help of all the hands reaching for him, losing his grip and falling every now and then but he was finally out of it, staring into the open sky and at the sun in wonder.

“I’m worried that people are going to leave if it gets bad again. How could they possibly want to stay when I go back to the version of myself that pushes them away, that suppresses shit because I can’t deal with it. The version of myself that can’t leave the bed, can’t eat, can’t do anything except stare at the ceiling and wait for time to pass? How could they still love me?”

He is staring at the wall above Dr. Anderson, unable to look her in the eyes, the words had been rushing out of his mouth without himself having any say in the matter.

Thoughts spilling from his lips that he tried his hardest not to linger on, fears that haunted him when he was in bed, unable to sleep at night.

“I don’t mean to belittle your fears, based on your past experiences they are valid but I want you to think about what you were like when you met them. You were in a bad place back then and it didn’t stop them from loving you. They stayed with you all these months, laying side by side with you in bed when you felt unable to leave it, caring for you and loving you no matter the headspace you were in.”

It’s another of those things that he knows on a strictly logical level and it makes sense but it does nothing to soothe the fear. He knows they wouldn’t stop loving him, knows they would understand, especially Max who was going through a pretty similar thing but it feels like it’s different with her even though he knows it isn’t. It’s his own negative thought patterns creeping in once more and sowing seeds of doubt, of fear and trying to set fire to a good thing.

He knows all those things but it doesn’t feel like it, past experiences anchored in everything he does and thinks.

“I know what you are saying is correct and when I think about it I’m sure they wouldn’t stop loving me and that they wouldn’t just leave but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like as soon as I am not this new version of me they’ll get tired of having to deal with me, of having to constantly deal with a mess.”

She nods, scribbling words down on her clipboard and Steve wishes he could take a look at what she was writing, at all the things she had written so far. Was it just rephrasing what he had said? Was she adding her thoughts about the matter? Writing down how all those things lead back to him being broken in some way?

“I want to change the topic, I don’t want to think about it any longer, I don’t like the idea of potentially triggering the crash myself.”

He feels himself already closing off while talking, no longer interested in discussing any topic that might sour the past weeks, it might be true that his mood dropping once more wouldn’t mean all progress was lost and it might be highly likely that it is going to drop someday soon but he does not have to push it down the hole himself on purpose.

He has no interest in being the one pushing himself back into a hole he had barely made it out the first time and the thought of having to do it again was nearly enough to make him stumble his way down.

Another thing to ignore for as long as possible and pretend like it isn’t real, like it can’t hurt him.

“Our session is nearing its end either way, do you have anything planned for the following week you are looking forward to? It might be a nice topic before we part for the time being.”
It is a good question but more often than not he doesn’t plan things out of fear that it might not work out, taking it one hour at a time, day by day.

“I don’t have anything planned but I’m looking forward to the domesticity, it feels soothing. The routine I’ve built is what gives me safety and I am quite content without any added things.”

Dr. Anderson smiles and stands up before waving towards the door. “Well Mr. Harrington, that has been a very nice answer, content with what you have right there. I wish you a good week and we will see each other again next week at the same time. Take care until then.” 

A nod and goodbye later he was sitting in his car, hands gripping the steering wheel, unseeing and feeling more off kilter than he had in weeks, talking about his fears had thrown him off and wishes he would have never uttered a word about it, would have kept it inside and pretended like it wasn’t there.

If it wasn’t real it couldn’t hurt him and if he didn’t say it out loud it wasn’t real.

It was too late for that now.

The thoughts were rattling through his brain and he felt unable to push them down, it was going to be an interesting week.

With a groan he let his head hit the steering wheel, the loud horn blaring and making him flinch back, looking around in a panic before realizing that it had been his own car.

“Oh for fucks sake!”

Cursing he started the drive home, ignoring the shaking of his hands whenever he loosened his grip on the wheel the slightest bit.

Three days after the last session Steve is staring up at the ceiling, trying to make himself leave the bed, not wanting to believe that what he had feared would happen actually did.

The curse of spoken words becoming reality once more hitting and he can’t help but think that it’s his own fault that he’s here again.
He should have stayed quiet, should have kept going the way he had, focus on the good things and ignore the anxiety swirling in his head.

Maybe he could have stopped this from happening a while longer, kept his head above the ground and stare at the sun instead of the rot still spreading across the ground, pretending he couldn’t see tendrils reaching out for him from the darkest corner.

Things had been going so well and he had been so grateful for it.

Steve hated that he now was once more lying here in bed, rotting , instead of basking in the joy domesticity had been.

Feeling like he wanted to fuse with the mattress or already was, unmoving and feeling incredibly heavy.

A knock and the door opens, Eddie’s head appearing in the opening, a soft smile on it. “Hey Stevie, you want some coffee? I’ve made a cup for you.”

Without waiting for a reaction he enters the room, looking at Steve laying in bed without loosing his smile instead holding up the mug he held in his hands, ‘BEST MUM’ in pink letters, flowers surrounding them. It had been a gift from Max, pushed into his hands a few weeks after his release from the hospital and had been his favorite ever since.

It’s the easy acceptance of him being unable to leave the bed that day and Eddie’s way of showing his care, his love that makes the tears flow in the end.

Eddie setting the mug down on the bedside table before settling cross-legged on the end of the bed and Steve is bursting into tears.

It’s all too much and he can’t… doesn’t know how to do it.

“I just wanted it to stay okay, I don’t want to be like this again.” 

A part in him is embarrassed by his outburst, wants to hide his face away from Eddie’s eyes but the bigger part desperately wants comfort, wants someone to tell him it will be okay, that he won’t be alone, wants the reassurance that even when he’s like this he’s still loved, still worthy of the people around him.

Eddie had moved while he was busy crying, kneeling at Steve’s side, arms crossed on the bed next to Steve’s pillow, resting his chin on his arms and looking at Steve.

“Hey, look at me for a second sweetheart.”

Steve already is, taking in the way Eddie is solely focused on him and it’s intense.

“You’ll be just fine and even if you’re not right now, you won’t be alone. We’ll stay here today, I’m going to grab something to eat later and tomorrow we’ll try again, one day at a time. Can’t always get high rolls baby, sometimes luck runs out and you roll a nat 1 and have to deal with it.”

Steve had heard enough about D&D the past months to know what Eddie was trying to say; things won’t be good every day but that doesn’t mean that every day will be bad, some days are just shitty and there’s nothing to do but somehow make the best of it.

“Okay, yeah, that sounds, that sounds good. Thank you.”

His voice wavers while speaking, getting through the day somehow and waiting to see what tomorrow would bring sounded like the best option, everything else too much.

Trying desperately to hold on to what Dr. Anderson had said; crashing once more didn’t erase his progress, recovery wasn’t linear. 

He would be just fine even if it didn’t feel like it.

Chapter Text

"If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known,"

Tim Kreider - I know what you think of me

I want to trust but it scares the skin off my bones.

Tahereh Mafi - Unravel Me

It isn’t any easier the next day either and Steve is staring at the ceiling upon waking up, thinking about what Dr. Anderson and Eddie both said, trying to hold onto the thought that people won’t stop wanting him around, loving him, just because he is feeling unwell. 

Eddie is already puttering around in the kitchen from the sound of it and it makes Steve feel guilty, it should be him making breakfast, taking care of Eddie not the other way around but the voice of his therapist is in the back of his head: “It’s okay to let yourself be taken care of, to let people love you. I understand that it is hard for you with the way you grew up but I promise you it is okay to let other people do things for you, to allow them to take care of you for once instead of only you taking care of them.”

And Steve is trying, it’s hard to not go down a spiral but he is managing, repeating the things he had been told over and over again, until Eddie enters the room, a tray in his hands, today it’s eggs on toast and there’s coffee just how Steve likes it.

“Good morning sleepyhead, time for nourishment so the day will feel a bit less daunting.”
It’s like Eddie knows, he always just seems to know, and as always the simple fact of being known so well, of being seen, is fucking Steve over more than anything else, it makes him feel so unbelievably loved that he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Eddie’s on the bed next to him, tray on their legs and he’s close enough they’re pressed together, warmth seeping into Steve’s clammy skin, and he’s unconsciously trying to get even closer, wanting more of that feeling, it surges through his veins, the uncomfortable feeling that usually accompanies touch barely present and all too easy to ignore in favor of the easy affection Eddie bestows upon him.

Breakfast feels like a stone in his stomach and all he wants to do is go back to sleep, but he knows it wouldn’t do him any good, would only allow the darkness inside of him to fester, to drag him under even further.

“I was thinking later we might have a movie night with Buckley, and the girls if they want to join.”

It was a way to get him downstairs, to give him a reason as to why he should leave the bed while at the same time not being demanding, not exhausting him even further, rather giving him something that might help him regain his strength, being surrounded by his loved ones, by the people that chose to stay at his side. 

Despite what a big part of him craves he agrees, knowing that it would be the healthy decision, hiding away wouldn’t do him any good no matter how much he wishes to do so, it would only leave him feeling worse.

“Can you call them and ask? I don’t think I…” He trails off, not even knowing what to say, all he knows is he can’t, feels unable to ask anything of anyone, it’s already terribly hard to ask Eddie, who would even unprompted do everything to lessen the burdens on Steve’s shoulders, all that he had carried his whole life without uttering a single word of complaint once he had come to learn that it would only complicate everything further.

There were so many things he had to unlearn, and the mountain before him makes him want to turn and run, go back to the way he had been but something in him had broken wide open when Vecna had picked through the memories in his mind, all the walls that had kept him safe, kept him numb had crumbled down to the ground leaving him wide open, having to try and come to terms with all that he would have to do to make this life worth living.

What made it even harder was that it was Eddie, Eddie doing all these things for him, being so thoughtful and loving, taking care of Steve in a way not even Robin had done, bound by the rules her parents gave her, having to be home more often than not because her mother demands it, not wanting her around a boy too often, fearing what it would do to her reputation, while Wayne didn’t care if Eddie wasn’t home, as long as he knew how to reach him, knew he was safe and doing fine. 

As opposed to Robin’s parents Wayne was glad that Eddie had found a place, somewhere he could be where he wouldn’t be alone, having someone who was around, who wanted Eddie around, and Wayne visited whenever work allowed it, spending hours at the Harrington house that was turning more and more into a home.

And it was Eddie, who made it feel like home, bringing life into the house that more often than not had felt like a prison to Steve, making Steve himself feel alive, loved and seen and wanting nothing in return, giving without demanding to be repaid, instead choosing to give more and more with a soft smile on his face and Steve wondered if Eddie knew how much it meant to Steve. If Eddie knew that he was one of the main reasons as to why Steve was trying so hard, had been doing so much better for a while, was feeling able to stomach the idea of having to fight his way through the darker days, knowing that even on the start of those he would be greeted by Eddie’s presence.

“Thank you Eddie.”

It doesn’t feel like enough, no amount of words would ever be able to express how grateful Steve was that Eddie, someone who had barely known him prior to the mess of spring break, who had only seen the worst sides of him, had chosen to take care of him, to look at him and see past all the masks and defense mechanisms Steve had built over the years and decided there was something worth loving hidden underneath.

“You don’t have to thank me Stevie.”
He can feel lips pressed to his temple and he can barely suppress the tears wanting to well up in his eyes.

“Come on, up you go, pretty sure Robin is going to come over soon, there’s nothing that could keep that girl away for long when she knows you might need her.”

Steve knows he’s right, it most likely won’t take longer than an hour or two for Robin to come through the doors, grabbing Steve and demanding they spend time one on one, wanting to be updated on the on-goings in his life, to be in the know and she is his home in a different way to how Eddie feels like home, they are his people.

Robin is there even sooner than expected or Steve just lost his feeling for how time passes, he has barely taken a seat on the couch when the doorbell rings and it is Eddie who goes to open the doors, soft voices can be heard in the living room and something in Steve relaxes, a feeling of safety despite all the wretched darkness trying to seep into his very being.

“Hey Dingus, heard you’re having a bit of a rough time. I already told Eddie that it’s time for him to stop hogging you, that nerd gets to have you 24/7, I want my Steve-time. Without us working together I rarely get to see you.”

Steve loves that she is calling it ‘rarely seeing each other’ when in reality Robin is over at least every other day, they might not be working together currently and due to that they’re not seeing each other every day but it is by no means infrequent.

But having her next to him feels like a missing puzzle piece is back where it’s supposed to be, and with Eddie somewhere in the house everything feels right, they’re his people despite them not having been in his life for more than a year, or at least not in the way they are now.

“My last appointment with Dr. Anderson kind of left me feeling unsettled, I told her about my fears of it getting bad again and, I don’t really know, somehow the second I spoke those anxieties out loud they became a reality. Guess I’ll just have to try and cope with the mood as it is now, and try to not let myself wallow in it, even if it feels like it would be so much easier.”

Robin just nods and holds a hand out, giving him the chance to decide whether or not he wants her touch right now, and he’s beyond grateful for it, and without even thinking he is reaching back, after all those weeks of Eddie holding him, of Robin wordlessly asking for his consent, it’s so much easier to allow himself to entangle their fingers and most of all easier to ignore the feeling of unease that always seems to be in the back of his mind.

Sometimes it makes him wonder what he would have been like if he had them in his life when he was younger, would things have been different for him? Would the unlearning have started a long time ago? Would he be a different version of himself already? Less plagued by the monsters that seem to devour him alive at times?

And he can’t help but think about it despite knowing that there is no use to think about ‘what if’s’, that it would lead him nowhere to question all these things when he knows perfectly well that he’ll never be able to find answers to all of these things, there is no way to find out how different things could have been.

“And Eddie’s doing a pretty good job at keeping you from sinking further, isn’t he? I would be way more worried if you were on your own in this house, like you were in the beginning after being released from the hospital, you were not doing good back then, and I was kind of scared what would happen to be honest.”

Steve wonders what Eddie had said to her when he had let her in, did he tell her about making Steve food? Planning a movie night just so he’d be able to urge Steve to go downstairs? How Steve had started crying the night before because everything was too much and Eddie had just chosen to hold him through it?

“It’s…yeah, he is and I’m so grateful for him, for both of you and for Dr. Anderson, even if I really didn’t want to see her in the beginning but I’m glad that I ended up going even if I struggle with the idea that there’s so much that is…not really wrong with me but wrong with me, if you know what I mean?”

Robin just hums, playing with his fingers, looking at their hands together, the way hers look so small in comparison to his, and waits for him to continue speaking, knowing that there is more he wants to say.

“I never expected there to be so many issues caused by my parents or for them to be the root of every single thing I struggle with and it’s… it’s hard to kind of relive everything all over, to realize how different I could have been if they’d just loved me like they were supposed to.”

He swallows, thinking about all the things he had talked about, all the things he had realized and how hard some of them were to stomach.

“I look at Max or El or I think about the other kids, even if they haven’t been around, but I look at them and I ask myself how my parents couldn’t love me? Like they aren’t even mine, they’re just kids I started babysitting because of all the bad shit that happened but I look at them and I can’t help but love them but my parents looked at their own child and somehow they just didn’t or couldn’t?”

It’s something he just can’t seem to wrap his head around, that they had given him life but somehow never managed to love him the way a parent should love their child and despite knowing better sometimes he can’t help but wonder if it had been him, if there had been something about him that just made it impossible for them to love him.

He knew that Dr. Anderson would have a lot to say about that should he mention this train of thought in her presence once more, it had been a topic that had come up over and over again, this deep sitting anxiety that it was something about him as a person, that there was something so deeply wrong with him that everybody could sense it.

Eddie and Robin’s continuous presence in his life were enough to dispute this fear, how could they love him so easily unless there also was something wrong with them and Steve would never dare to think anything along those lines about them, they meant everything to him, both of them were wonderful people and even if people thought them to be weird it only meant that none of them ever looked close enough to see who they truly were. At the same time it made Steve have to believe that there couldn’t be something wrong with him on a fundamental level either, that it must be his parents who were just too cold, too focused on what they wanted, on money, on wanting to be perceived as better than anybody else that they were unable to love what didn’t fit into their narrow world view.

“If I could I would kill your parents, I hate what they did to you, you were only a small child and they just left and made you feel like it was your fault. Listen to me, you’re my best friend, my platonic soulmate and you mean everything to me, okay? I don’t care, or well I do care but I would never abandon you, just because you are struggling. This, us, never was just about good times.”

Before Steve can react the doorbell rings again, and he can hear Eddie coming down the stairs, and when the door opens El and Max greet him, making their way towards the living room without even waiting for Eddie to react and Eddie’s laughter rings through the house, making a soft smile appear on his face at once.

The arrival of those two means it’s time to get the movies out, or rather let Eddie present whatever he had found to Robin and the two girls for inspection, Steve already knew he wouldn’t pay attention to whatever they would end up watching, the change of scenery alone had exhausted him and all he wanted to do was cuddle up with Eddie and Robin and recharge. With those four around it would be easy to let himself rest, to feel safe enough to let go and just bask in all the love.

It’s nice to see El and Max, they look and sound happy, and it makes something in him relax, the simple knowledge that despite everything that has happened they are going to be just fine, maybe different than what they would have been like without the trauma but happy nonetheless, able to be normal teenagers for once in their lives.

“All good Stevie?”

While Steve had been busy looking at the girls, listening to them arguing with Robin about what movie to watch, Eddie had taken the spot next to him on the couch, leaving the space Robin had been in prior to joining El and Max empty, an arm on the back of the couch behind Steve, wordlessly inviting him to get closer, and just as is normal for them by now Steve is pressing into his side and enjoying the way Eddie readily pulls him even closer.

“Feels good to have them here, I am just a bit exhausted, I might nap while you watch whatever they end up choosing.”

Eddie just hums, the arm around his shoulders tightening for a second and the only sound is their breathing and the girls' voices, it doesn’t take them long to decide on a movie and Steve has no idea what is playing, all he knows is that as soon as Robin takes her place next to him again he’s drifting off, lulled to sleep by Eddie’s warmth and feeling safe surrounded by people who love him, the darkness can’t sink its claws into him with them close by. 

He’s safe and what a revelation that is, safety found in a place he never thought he would find it.

The TV is silent when he wakes up again, soft voices filter in as he slowly comes alive again, he’s warm and comfortable, Eddie’s still holding him and he’s feeling better than he had that morning, still kind of fragile and like the smallest thing might have him crumbling all over but better, less like he’s about to shatter this very second.

Blindly feeling for Eddie’s hand that’s resting on his chest, intertwining their fingers and turning his head, rubbing it against the fabric of Eddie’s shirt before daring to open his eyes and when he does it is to find the other man already looking at him, expression all soft and sweet and it’s a lot to look at first thing after waking up, the affection that is so vividly visible in everything Eddie does and it’s not the right time but Steve can’t help but think that maybe the feelings that kept building aren’t a bad thing in the end.

“Steve! Good you’re awake, help me settle this, the diner across the old cinema or the one by the arcade? El and I prefer the first one but Robin insists on the latter and Eddie’s agreeing with her so now we’re tied.”

Max’s voice makes his head snap around, seeing her and El sitting on the floor in a nest of pillows and blankets they had gotten from somewhere, most likely the guest bedroom downstairs, both staring up at him and waiting for his answer.

He’s a bit overwhelmed at first, needs a second to gather himself enough to let a hum out before thinking about it but it’s an easy decision, he’d spent so much time in the arcade diner with Robin, watching over the kids while they were playing their games that it would always hold a special place in his heart and maybe he’d be able to make even more memories with both Eddie and Robin there soon. His answer ends up getting booed by Max while El is smiling at him upon hearing his reasoning, friends and good memories are just as important to her as they are to him, it’s what influenced her choice as well.

“You guys want to order some food before we kick you out? Stevie here needs his beauty sleep, gotta rest those tired eyes.”

Hell would have to be frozen over before the offer for food would be denied, Eddie ends up making the kids call, stating he’s too comfortable to be bothered to stand up and as they are the guests that are mooching off them the least they can do is make themselves useful and place the order for all of them.

It’s with a lot of complaining that they do it, mostly by Max, but El is chiming in too and it makes Steve grin, it’s good to see such typical teenage behavior from her, she’s been so timid and anxious when he had first met her but slowly but surely she’s blooming, growing into herself more and more as time passes.

Steve is still mostly listening rather than contributing to the conversation, it’s soothing to just hear the conversation flow, to hear about what El and Max had been up to, Hopper and Joyce had chosen to combine their household rather than live separately, not wanting to give it up to chance again, too scared that something would come and pull them apart once more, not seeing sense in waiting when they had already been waiting for ages. While Max and her mum had been given a small house and they were slowly but surely making it a home, her mum had been trying ever since Vecna, Max nearly dying had been what pulled her out of the dark place she had been in, fear a powerful motivator to change your life, something Steve himself was experiencing at times now.

“I just hate physical therapy and I really hope that it will be done soon, it’s so annoying to have to go there every week now that I’m finally nearly back at full strength but my mum’s been driving me, staying sober more often than not which is definitely a perk. I really hope it will stay that way when she doesn’t have to drive me around town.”

It continues with stories about the days El and Max spent together, both still ignoring the boys for the most part, the only one not getting the cold shoulder is Will, and it honestly seems to do them good to spent so much time just the two of them, less fights and El has an easier time figuring herself out without someone, Mike, trying to tell her who she is or trying to keep her sheltered.

Food arrives not long after, and the pizza cartons get handed around until everybody has their order, it’s only then that Steve separates himself from Eddie, sitting up so Eddie can use both his hands and most of all keep the carton in his lap.

It’s comforting to share meals with other people, to not sit alone in a too big kitchen and wonder what the point is but rather surrounded and there’s laughter, sauce smeared on faces and giggling, no one around to berate him for being messy and it’s so easy to eat one piece after the other until suddenly he has an empty carton in his lap, looking at the people around him and feeling nothing but gratefulness.

It’s truly astounding when he compares his life now to what it had been like when he was the same age the teens are now, he had been so lonely and compensated for it with a horrible attitude and now here he was, Eddie and Robin next to him and across on the floor El and Max, people he had only met due to horrible circumstances but now they were a permanent part of his life and he couldn’t imagine it without them anymore.

Not long after the pizza had been eaten all three of them make their excuses, until once more it is only Eddie and Steve, exchanging a glance and deciding without a single word exchanged that it’s time to move upstairs, to get ready for bed, even if they wouldn’t sleep  right away.

It’s routine by now, brushing their teeths side by side and while Eddie might have his own room, it isn’t used as more than a place to store most of his things, the bed has been unused, instead it is Steve’s bed they both end up in every night.

In the beginning there had been blankets separating them but by now everything is shared, and it always sends tingles down Steve’s spine when they curl up together, feeling the steady thrum of Eddie’s heart, his breath tickling Steve’s bare skin, spikes of discomfort every now and then, that are easily subdued by the immense comfort Steve gets from it.

Despite everything going on in his mind Steve had never felt better, never felt more safe in his own skin than he does now.

Another day of going through the door to the now familiar office, Dr. Anderson greeting him with a smile and waving him through, the chair he is so used to and the all too familiar exchange of words.

“It scared me, the way it only took me speaking those words out loud for it to happen and I am anxious that no matter what I do whenever I open up about a fear it is going to come true. I only mentioned being scared that it might come crashing down again and somehow it did, and I’ve been struggling with it ever since I left the office last week.”
She hums, noting something down on her clipboard before facing him once more, asking him how he had been coping with it, if he had been supported by the people around him and he tells her about Eddie, about all the things the other man had done for him, about the girls coming over, about trying to spend as much time downstairs as possible.

“I’ve been talking to Eddie a lot but I feel guilty for putting this all on him. He’s been struggling with all that had happened too and I know he’s seeing you too but a part of me can’t help but think he didn't sign up for this. I offered him a place to stay and I know that he doesn’t mind taking care of me, he even likes it and he said himself that it’s not a burden but I was always the strong one and he might have not actually known me before but I just…”
He pauses, looking away from his therapist, staring once more at the bracelet El had made him, fingers twisting the band around and around and around, before continuing, words spilling from his lips with no hope of stopping.

“I just can’t help but think this isn’t what he signed up for and he shouldn’t have to deal with this version of me and I am scared that he’s staying because he somehow feels responsible for me. That he won’t leave and will continue taking care of me because he somehow thinks he has to, not because he actually wants to. I don’t want to be another task on the list of the people close to me. I don’t want Eddie to feel like he has to take care of me, for Robin to feel like she has to come around, for El or Max to feel like they somehow owe it to me to hang out. I just want them to be there on their own free will, to not feel like they have to do something. And I know that it’s just fear and that they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t want to but I am so terrified to wake up one day and they’re just gone and I am on my own again.”

Dr Anderson just lets him talk, lets him get all the word vomit out and when he starts crying during it she wordlessly holds out a box of tissues, allowing him to get it all out and when he stops talking she waits for him to calm down, to dry his face before reacting.

“Mr Harrington, Steve, I know it’s hard, we’ve talked about your parents quite a bit, about the way their actions from when you were a child affect you now and I am sure you know what I am about to say. Your parents left you to fend for yourself at such a young age that your normal is having to do it all on your own, isolating yourself and keeping away from people rather than reaching out. That is precisely what made you an easy target for Henry, the habit of keeping problems to yourself, of dealing with everything yourself and now in the aftermath of something that left you vulnerable, that splayed you wide open for the people around you to see, people no longer let themselves be pushed away and you have to somehow accept the support you are getting while at the same time struggling with the cost this kind of help would have had when you were younger.”

She waits until he’s facing her again before she speaks the next words, words that leave him feeling like someone had dug into his brain, pulling out something that had been rotting inside of him ever since the first supportive action, an ache he had been trying his best to ignore because it was just too painful.

“These people are not like your parents, Eddie, Robin, El, Max, all of them want to do these things for you. There is no hidden cost, there’s no price you will have to pay in the future and I can’t promise you, and neither can they, that there won’t come a point in life where your paths divide, but it won’t be because it was too much for them to love you. Taking care of the people you love isn’t a hardship, it isn’t a chore. Most importantly you are not a chore. With your past it is completely understandable that these fears come up, especially now that we are talking about them and trying to find ways for you to move forward, to move past them. It won’t get easier in the manner of days, it will take time until it really sinks in. There’s years of being conditioned into thinking you are not allowed to have support, that you are not worth the effort, to be undone but I can say one thing with certainty, you are worth the effort and the people around you see the very same thing.”

It’s almost too much to hear, too hear that he is worth the effort when most of his life it had been repeatedly drilled into his head that he wasn’t. That he wasn’t worth the effort, that he was too much of a burden, being told to figure it out himself, to not bother them, to be told they’re too busy, that there are more important things to deal with.

That day he leaves the office crying, staring unseeing at the steering wheel when he’s in his car and having to go back up again when it becomes clear that the flood of feelings won’t let up, asking Dr Anderson if he can make a call, dialing the all too familiar number that he’d usually give out rather than call himself. Too used to nobody picking up, or the rare times they do to be greeted by a cold voice, but this time somebody does pick up and the voice is anything but cold and when he stutters out the question if Eddie might be able to pick him up, it is the first time that he calls that number and isn’t met with refusal, instead barely ten minutes later an old van is parking behind Steve’s beamer.

Eddie doesn’t even wait for Steve to get into the car, instead choosing to get out and gather Steve in his arms, pressing a kiss to his head and telling Steve that things would be okay, another crack in the rotting basement that had somehow managed to get by undetected so far, hidden under the rubble of the already crumbled floor he had mistaken for the fundament.

The next morning Steve feels like he had been flayed wide open, bleeding heart on display and all the sadness oozing out of him, dripping from his veins and staining the sheets he is laying in.

Despite it all he forces himself out of bed, wanting to be an active participant in his life instead of going back to just being a ghost haunting this house, there had been enough ghosts haunting it to last several lifetimes.

Eddie’s already downstairs, the doors to the backyard wide open and Steve can see him sitting on the bench next to the pool house, staring into the woods behind it, a cigarette in his hand. He’d taken the habit back up after the stay in the hospital, stating that if he couldn’t smoke weed anymore now that Rick is behind bars he at least needed that, something to keep his mind calm.

Steve makes a detour to the kitchen, making coffee for both of them, a ridiculous amount of sugar in Eddie’s, before joining him on the bench.

“Morning.”
Holding the mug with the dragon he had found at a thrift store while he was out with Robin out to him and only taking a sip of his own once Eddie had taken it.

He still feels raw, emotions whirling inside of him but he feels safe out here, even if he can feel the swimming pool in the back, an ominous presence even if the Upside Down is closed for good, it doesn’t erase the memories, the scars it has left in its wake, the deaths.

“Thank you for calling me yesterday. That must have been hard for you, I know how much you struggle with asking for anything.”

Steve feels weird, to be thanked for something that his mind is telling him had been a burden for the other person, it was a heavy thing, it felt like he should be the one thanking Eddie, and most of all apologizing for inconveniencing him. Eddie must have just gotten back home when Steve had called, barely back and already having to leave again, just because Steve had been unable to handle his own emotions.

“I…yeah it was and feels like I should be thanking you not the other way around.”
Eddie lets out a snort, blowing smoke into the air before putting the cigarette out in the ashtray Steve had found for him.

“You already did that quite a few times yesterday and I’m just glad that you asked for help instead of trying to somehow handle it on your own.”
He’s turning towards Steve now, something intense in his eyes as he’s looking at him, if it was anyone else it would make Steve want to hide away, but never with Eddie.

“I want you to ask me when you need help and you have no idea how happy I was when you called yesterday, not because you were feeling bad, never because of that, but because you were choosing to ask me for help. You don’t know how special it makes me feel that out of all the people in your life you chose me.”

It feels like there are so many things between the lines of what Eddie just said but Steve is scared to look too closely, focusing just on what was said rather than on what isn’t, heart unable to take too much hope, especially after yesterday, still trying to cope with all that Dr Anderson had said.

“You are special and I… You make me feel safe.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide at those words and it’s not surprise, but something closely related, that flickers in his eyes and he’s opening his mouth as if to say something but Steve isn’t quite done yet.

“I’m just… I don’t want to be too much, I know you’re struggling too and I don’t want to be just another burden for you. Feels like all you do is help me and take care of me and I’m scared that it’s…” 

Steve has to look away from the too expressive eyes, from the sadness on Eddie’s face before saying the last bit, correcting himself because the thing he is most scared of isn’t that the situation will be too much but rather that Steve himself will be.

“...that I am going to be too much for you.”

When he looks back at Eddie he looks like somebody had slapped him and Steve can’t help but feeling guilty, he had been the one putting that look on Eddie’s face, but he’s trying to swallow the guilt down, he needed to say it, had to tell Eddie about that fear because while he was anxious about the same thing happening with the others Eddie was the person most present in his life next to Robin, but even Robin had never been as involved in his day to day struggles and if Steve is honest with himself often times he hadn’t let her be there for any of his struggles, only when she had dug deep enough or had caught him before he was able to pull his walls up high enough.

“I wouldn’t do all of that if I thought it was too much for me, Stevie. I like taking care of you and I like being the one you choose to come to when you need something. I promise you I would tell you if I don’t have the energy, and I wouldn’t do things I wasn’t capable of doing. And…”
It is clear that Eddie isn’t done talking but rather than continuing to speak he is pulling Steve closer, dragging his head into Eddie’s neck, pressing a kiss to his head and taking a deep breath.

“Most of all, you’re not too much for me, you’re just the right amount and you’re not wrong, I am struggling too, but you being there helps a lot, not being alone helps, knowing that I am somewhere where I am wanted. All of that helps more than I could ever explain.”

And Steve gets it, it’s the same for him, Eddie’s presence alone is helping in ways Steve isn’t able to put into words without letting all that he is feeling spill out right alongside it, all of it too entangled to be expressed on its own.

It’s still too much to have it spelled out like that after all that Dr Anderson had said the day before he’s feeling too raw, like a live wire and the words latch onto a part that is trying its hardest to shut all the doubt down, trying to make Steve see that all of it is real but it feels almost too good to be true, for Eddie to be soothed by his presence alone as well, to be enough for someone just the way he is when all he’s learned until the kids, until Robin was that he wasn’t and he is trying.

At the same time Eddie’s word make him think once more that maybe he should do something about the feelings that had been growing more and more, almost devouring him alive at times, the affection that had sparked when the world had been ending steadily growing into something more, something bigger, all the time spent with Eddie only making him think that maybe it would be worth the risk, all the little things that accumulated until they weren’t just little things anymore, too many signs to ignore but he still wasn’t sure, maybe it was time to talk to Robin about it instead of shutting her down every time she brought it up.

It seems a phone call was in order when Wayne would come over later that day, his presence would be enough to give Steve time to talk to Robin without risking Eddie overhearing anything that Steve wasn’t ready to talk to him about.

“Okay, I believe you but please tell me if that changes and like you can talk to me or ask for things when you need them? I hope you know that I would do anything for you.”
Maybe it’s too much to say but it’s the truth, Steve would do anything for Eddie, anything to make things a bit easier on him, anything to see him smile, to make sure that Eddie was doing fine, anything to make him stay.

And maybe that wasn’t healthy, maybe it was Steve once more being a pushover for a person but Eddie seemed to be the same regarding Steve so maybe this time it would be just fine for Steve to be willing to give everything.

“I know sweetheart, just as I would do anything for you.”

The smile on his face is soft and Steve knows it’s mirrored on his own, it really was time to talk to Robin and to get a second opinion on all of it, figure out if it was all in his head or if he actually had a chance.

It’s a few hours later that the bell rings, whenever Wayne stops by it’s before he needs to work the last nightshift, stating it just makes sense even though the plant is farther away from Loch Nora than it is from the trailer park, not that it actually matters, Eddie is always happy to see him and usually Steve would be right there with them, getting an update on how Wayne is doing, the neighbors, work, talking to him about the results of the last game but not today.

Today he greets him and disappears upstairs, telling Eddie he promised Robin he’d call her which isn’t a lie but also not the entire truth.

In their, and it definitely is theirs by now, bedroom Steve dials the only other number he knows by heart, waiting for someone to pick up and he lets out a breath of relief when it actually is Robin.

“Buckley residence hello, who am I speaking to?”

He can’t hold back the giggle that comes forth upon hearing her talk like that.

“Harrington residence speaking, calling to see whether Robin may be available for a not in person playdate.”

His way of asking if she has time to talk has her snorting and that alone is worth it to call but he really needs her opinion on Eddie and all the things that have happened of the course of the past few months.

“Yeah, I always have time for the Dingus, I gather you have something you need to talk to me about? Something that might be about Eddie? Because if I remember correctly, Wayne should be over right now and if you’re not down there talking sportsball and making Eddie wonder why he likes you that much, it means you have something to say you don’t want him to hear, am I right?”
And Steve isn’t surprised that she looked right through him, despite his walls she is one of the people who knows him best, and she’s always been able to read him quite well and she had been seeing this coming ever since he first allowed Eddie to touch him without flinching away.

“You’re right, it’s time, I just… you said likes me that much, so I’m really not imagining things? Do I really have a chance? It wouldn’t be a mistake to tell him? But what if…”
Before he can start word-vomiting and throwing himself into an anxiety spiral she interrupts, laughing and calling him a Dingus once more before telling him that it was quite obvious that Eddie was head over heels for him and that there was no way it would end badly.
“That guy’s so in love with you you can almost smell it when you open the door. He’s all over  you all the time and I’ve never seen someone look more than a lost puppy than he does when you leave the room, well except for you, you’re so much worse. So please do me a favor and finally rescue us all from the pining that’s been going on, all of us and most of all you will be so much happier once you’ve finally confessed your gay big feelings. I’m already  looking forward to seeing you be all disgusting and cutesy.”
It sounds like a speech she had prepared quite a while ago, only waiting for him to finally talk about and waiting for the day he was ready.

There’s safety in knowing that he wouldn’t be rejected even if it still doesn’t help the anxiety in his gut, this feeling that even if Eddie really feels the same he would still be rejected because something in Steve Harringotn was unlovable.

They continue talking for a while, Robin talking about Vickie and how maybe they’re better off as just friends, she’s too similar to Robin in all the wrong ways for it to work out but she’s a great friend, and maybe that’s enough.

“Once I move out of here, whenever that happens, I’m going to find someone that feels right, there’s got to be more queer people in the city.”

Most likely there are and maybe they’d be able to be themselves more easily, less worrying about who might see them and come to the wrong or rather right conclusions.

It’s a good dream, a good plan for the future to get out of Hawkins and be in a place that isn’t haunted by all the memories they had made here.

Robin’s opinion about how Eddie clearly liked him back was stuck in Steve’s head all week, overshadowing everything else and it’s no wonder that it’s the first thing he blurts out when Dr Anderson asks how his week has been. It’s scary and he feels frozen, doesn’t know if she’ll be homophobic, if maybe he’ll have to worry about being sent away but she just nods.

“So you are ready to speak on it? It had been quite obvious how important Eddie is to you and most importantly how deep your feelings for him run.”

It’s not actually surprising that she knows, Steve always had worn his heart on his sleeve, unable to hide what he is feeling unless he is actively hiding everything behind his masks and walls, he’d always been sensitive and emotional, traits his parents had hated.

“I… I guess I am, it’s been getting harder to swallow the feelings down, he’s just… Eddie’s just everything to me but what if I’m wrong or what if there really is something wrong with me and Eddie does love me back but would rather not try to see if we’d be able to make it work? I don’t want to say anything and potentially destroy what we have now. It’s so much more than I ever had before.”

She looks at him for a moment, clearly thinking about what he said and how to best react to it, the question she asks isn’t what he thought she’d say.

“What is it you like about Eddie and do you really think he would react badly to you confessing to him?”

He stares at her for a second before starting to list all the things that make Eddie Eddie, all the things that had made him fall in love with Eddie in the end and it’s a lot of things, his kindness, his excitement about the smallest things, the way he’d go all soft whenever they cuddled, the easy way he made Steve laugh and how everything turned into an adventure with him, how he made every place feel like home.

“It’s not that I’m scared of him reacting badly, I think it’s more the idea that things might change, that I might lose him because I was always either too much or not enough for people or they figured out that in the end I am just… bullshit.”

Even years later that word still causes echoes of the hurt from back then, feels like he’s a teenager at a halloween party again, trying to distract his girlfriend for a night and getting told that she’s not in love with him for his troubles.

“It was your ex-girlfriend who told you you were bullshit, wasn’t it? And wasn’t that also the person who not even a few days later cheated on you? You told me about that in the beginning and I would like to remind you, just because you weren’t the right person for her doesn’t mean you won’t be the right person for Eddie or that every relationship has to end in heartbreak, the way that one did. You can’t let past experiences stop you from something that might make you happy. And from what you told me about Eddie I would say there is nothing to fear. You also talked to your friend about it and it might be good to take her advice into account too.”

It makes sense and Steve knows she is right but he can’t help but be anxious about the consequences it could have if he really told Eddie that he loves him but at the same time he knows that he won’t be able to keep it locked away for much longer.

Most of all he doesn’t want to keep it to himself much longer because Dr Anderson is correct, parts of his fears are based on what happened with nancy back then and he doesn’t want to let the messy end to that relationship dictate the rest of his life.

When Steve gets back home that day Eddie is in the kitchen, worry on his face that starts to fade once he sees Steve, instead a smile takes its place and he goes back to putting away the groceries he had been getting while Steve had his appointment. Eddie had been doing that for the past few weeks, telling him the other day that he didn’t like being at the house when Steve wasn’t there, that it feels empty and he’d rather they just be out at the same time instead of leaving each other on their own.

“How was therapy today? You seem less shaken than you usually are after your sessions.”

Steve can’t help but think about all the things he had told Dr Anderson about Eddie that day, all the little things that made it so easy to love the other man, that made it so hard to remember why Steve had been so scared of falling for him in the beginning.

“We talked about you.”

It slipped out without Steve having a chance to stop it, too used to saying what comes to his mind when he’s around Eddie and he doesn’t seem to mind from the looks of the smile on his face upon hearing it.
“Oh? What about me? Good things I hope.”

It’s always good things when it comes to Eddie, ever since everything went down there hadn’t been a single thing that made Steve think it was a mistake to let him move in, only wanting him closer, feeling happier just by being around him.

“About how much I like you and how much it scares me. Not because it’s you but because I am me.”

It takes a second until Steve realizes what he had just spoken out loud and once he does a curse leaves his lips, eyes wide and anxiety cursing through his veins, he might be pretty sure that his feeling were required but that didn't change the fact that he hadn’t planned to say anything, was planning to keep it inside for a little while longer and he’s terrified that he might be wrong, that Eddie would only ever see him as a friend, that Eddie would…

“Good thing I like you just the way you are isn’t it?” 

While Steve had been busy silently spiraling Eddie had stepped closer, a hand hovering just above Steve’s cheek and a question in his eyes that Steve answers with a tiny nod, anxiously biting his lip as the hand makes contact, carefully tilting his head up.

“I really hope we’re talking about the same like here, otherwise I am very sorry for what I’m about to do.”

Steve doesn’t understand what Eddie is talking about until there’s a pair of lips pressing against his and it feels like time is standing still for a second, Steve is frozen and Eddie is starting to pull back, having gone ridgid, most likely thinking he was wrong and Steve can’t let that happen, can’t let him think that Steve isn’t right there with him. One of his hands goes to grab Eddie’s neck, pulling him back in and moving his lips against Eddie’s, everything is soft and sweet and it’s the best first kiss Steve ever had, maybe because he never wanted it quite as much as he does now.

He can feel the tears starting to gather in his closed eyes and spilling over, trailing down his cheeks and when the moisture meets Eddie’s hand, the other man lets out a sound in the back of his throat, surging forward, trying to somehow get closer despite the kiss staying chaste, but they’re pressed together, holding each other tightly. 

They’re staying in each other’s orbit when their lips separate, foreheads pressed together and Steve doesn’t want to open his eyes, scared that somehow this has been a dream and when he opens them he’ll realize that he had been sleeping in his car after today’s session with Dr Anderson, that he fell asleep behind the steering wheel dreaming up scenarios of what might happen once he gets home.

“Stevie? Baby? Can you please look at me?”

Only once Eddie prompts him to do so he ends up opening them, and he finds the most radiating smile he had ever seen on Eddie’s face, there’s tears in his eyes too, but he looks so unbelievably happy and relieved and Steve can’t hold back the sob that has been building in his throat.

“Fuck, I promise you these aren’t bad tears but goddammit Eddie, I…”

He doesn’t know what to say, he hadn’t expected that he’d really be allowed to have this, that it really was an option despite hoping that maybe, just maybe Eddie really reciprocated the love Steve felt for him, seeing all the signs and fearing that he was reading too much into it only to now know what Eddie’s lips feel like, what joy looks like on his face.

What he looks like when he’s in love even if Steve already knows that, thinking back to all those mornings they had woken up in each others arms over the past few months, thinking about the late nights whispering to each other, telling secrets, telling truths that would be too hard to say out loud in the daylight, holding each other during it and pressing kisses into exposed skin.

Domestic routine that Steve never wants to miss again, cooking together or for each other, household chores no longer a bother when there’s someone right next to him, cleaning ending in laughter and a pruned hand in his equally pruned one.

So many pieces fitting themselves together until it is glaringly obvious that all along it had been as Steve had hoped, but he had been too scared to look closer, terrified to realize that it wasn’t, terrified that he’d end up pushing Eddie away but now he knows that he had been right there with Steve.

“I love you so much.”

His voice sounds wet, he’s full on crying while they stand in the kitchen they had spent so many hours in, hands holding Eddie’s face and pressing their lips together in another short kiss, needing to feel it again, to know that it was okay he said those words he had kept inside for far too long out loud, that he really was allowed to have this and it is the most beautiful feeling, only made better when Eddie’s breath tickles his lips, separating them just to let out words Steve had been aching to hear.

“I love you too, so much baby.”

It’s everything and it feels like sunlight shining upon the dark sludge that had been in Steve’s mind, the fear of being rejected, of being found unworthy for some reason, being burned up by the sheer joy that being told he’s loved is bringing forth in him.

He is loved.

Something he hadn’t expected to happen, at least not the romantic love he had been aching for all his life, he knows Robin loves him, he knows El and Max love him, he knows the boys still love him even if they haven’t talked to him in months but he hadn’t expected someone would choose him, not when he still was struggling with getting up in the mornings, when he was still feeling like the world might end some days but here was Eddie, telling him he loves him like it was the easiest thing in the world.

And while things are still hard, and he’s struggling with the weight upon his shoulders, with the mountain ahead of him, he can’t deny that life is good and will only get better.

Where there had only been fear and desperation, pushed back behind a mask of aloofness, there now was hope, more than he ever had.

Seeds of joy sown by the people choosing him, by his therapist and most of all by himself and he was going to try his best to nurture them.

Chapter Text

Two years later

It’s been three months since they finally moved away from Hawkins, leaving the village that had caused both of them more pain than anything else behind, exchanging life in a house with too many empty rooms with a little two room apartment in the city. Despite already having been there for a while and neither of them owning much, there are still boxes strewn across the flat, little things that haven’t quite found their place yet, just like Eddie and Steve themselves haven’t quite found theirs yet.  

Two years have passed since their first kiss and sometimes when Steve is looking at Eddie, watching him doing mundane things around the house and now their flat, their home, he still can’t believe that he really is allowed to have this, a life filled with love, with people who care for him so deeply.

And he just has to leave the front door and cross the hall to knock on the door of Robin’s new home, they had talked about getting a flat together in the beginning but after she had lived with them for a while it had been her who had decided she'd rather live on her own.

“You know this is the third time this week I walked in on you fucking on the couch, you could have least have the courtesy of doing it behind closed doors when you know there’s a chance of me coming home. I’d rather not see Eddie’s pale ass, not doing much for me Dingus.”

Steve only splutters, he can’t say anything in defense of himself, they had kind of lost track of time and most of all got lost in each other, completely forgetting about Robin and that they weren’t living on their own anymore.

“I’d say it won’t happen again but honestly at this point I simply can’t promise that and I’m really sorry it happened again.”

He’s not really ashamed of it, it had happened too many times in the past few months and by now he was almost used to it happening, that wasn’t to say he liked it, he’d rather not have Robin walking in on them over and over but there wasn’t really anything to do about it, he could say over and over again that they’d go to the privacy of their room for anything that wasn’t strictly PG but they more often than not got lost in the heat of the moment.

“I know we've been flat hunting for the three of us but I think maybe looking for two in the same house would be better for all of us. A smaller space most likely means traumatizing myself even further and I really don’t want to think about what you’ve been up to in the bathroom while I shower when both of you were just in there before me.”

It has Steve thinking because she most likely is correct, they’re already having a hard time in a house of that size, it would be even worse in a flat that would most likely be the size of their current living room. 

“Like I love you Dingus but please don’t make me look at Eddie’s pale ass even more often, that’s a platonic soulmate violation.”

Steve can’t help laughing, and in the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t matter whether it’s one or two flats, as long as they were together, as long as Robin would be close by everything would be just fine.

Not even taking in account that her parents most likely would be much happier with that arrangement, they had already been unhappy when Robin had announced that she would move in with Eddie and Steve.

And they had been in luck back then, they had found two flats on the same floor, directly across from each other and the house might be rundown, there always seems to be some sort of draft no matter what they do but it’s home. 

Two little flats on the outskirts of the city that finally allowed them to have a space of their own, with nobody dangling their freedom right in front of their noses only to snatch it away once they were reaching for it.

Steve couldn’t say that he isn’t still struggling some days but the bad days have become less, no longer the majority, most of the time he is doing okay, even good and it’s still something that gives him anxiety sometimes, that all of this could be taken from him should depression take a hold of him again, but he has learned how to handle the fear when it threatens to overwhelm him.

All the techniques Dr Anderson had taught him, and he’s glad he’s still in contact with her, he no longer sees her once a week but rather once a month now and it’s enough, there’s been a lot they had worked on, a lot of things Steve was still in the process of unlearning but he had made progress and when looking back it is almost startling how much he has changed for the better since that first appointment he didn’t even want to go to.

“Do you want to order pizza later sweet boy?”

Steve doesn’t startle anymore, too used to Eddie just throwing his arms around him and pulling him close, always wanting to be close, it had only intensified since they had confessed, and Steve loves it, the easy affection he had been starved for for most of his life, body deciding after a while that touch wasn’t any good, would only ever lead to pain, at least until Eddie had come along. Eddie and the way he’d always reach out for everyone around him, always holding onto someone in some way.

“Before Vecna and learning about the Upside Down touch was a way to make sure the people around me knew they were loved but after it all it is also a way to reassure myself that all of this is real, that you are real, that I am real.”

They’re standing in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and it’s no longer unusual for them to speak about heavy truths in the daylight, there’s no need for the cloak of darkness as their shield when they can protect each other, hold the other even when the sun is high or when it is slowly fading into dusk like right this moment.

“I know that you were having a hard time with it in the beginning and I tried to hold back as much as I could but honestly it was you I was most terrified of just disappearing. You were struggling so much, first Vecna and then the injuries on top of that and you faced the asshole so Max wouldn’t have to and I was scared, even afterwards the fear just wouldn’t let go of me.”

Steve can relate to that and while it still pains him how much worry he had caused Eddie, he can’t help but be glad that something in Eddie had decided to care, had chosen to focus on Steve the second he had learned there was more to him than the mask he had presented to the world and he would never be able to put into words how grateful he was for the older man.

How grateful he is to be loved by him and to have him present, that he had been there in the beginning when Steve barely got out of bed and chose to stay anyways, wanted to be there even when it wasn’t easy, when Steve more often than not woke up crying and couldn’t make himself leave the bed because everything felt too heavy and now here they were almost a year later, falling more and more in love each day.

“You kind of saved me back then you know? Made me feel safe and all that shit and you still do but in those early days and during the mess in the Upside Down your presence kind of helped even if I didn’t know what to make of it. I felt pretty empty and lost when I was released from the hospital and I was sure it would be over, you going back to your life and back to ignoring me but instead you stuck around, moved in with me and Robin tried you know? She tried her hardest to support me and to help but her parents hate when she’s here overnight or hanging around here every day so no matter how much she wanted to she couldn’t, but you? You just snuck past all my defenses and chose to be exactly what I needed without even trying and it scared the shit out of me and I tried to push you away but you saw right through it all.”

Eddie just shrugs, pulling Steve close and pressing a kiss into hair, sending a shiver down Steve’s spine, he still isn’t quite used to it all, everything feels new, feels weird but in the best way possible and by now Eddie doesn’t even make any of his alarm bells ring anymore, no pain mixed with the pleasant feeling of affection.

“I just wanted to be close, and reassure myself that you were doing okay or if you weren’t, at least make it easier for you and take care of you, it was as much for you as it was for me. I would have gone insane alone at the trailer worrying about you and wondering what was happening to you. I remember how you were at the hospital and how weird it was to see someone who usually was taking so much space with their presence alone to be so small, to get lost in their own head so much and you looked so goddamn sad when you had to leave, like your life was falling apart all over again and it’s all I could think about while I was alone in our room.”

They never really talked about that time, about how much they had depended on each other during their stay in the hospital, grown closer and closer, until a hospital room had started to feel like home to Steve, watching Eddie get angry on his behalf, defending him, the seeds that had been sown in the Upside Down soon sprouted, fragile little plants living in the gloom, nurtured by kindness and care, by laughter and affection, by silence shared and promises.

“I was terrified that you would push me away when I appeared on your doorstep that day but instead you let me stay and allowed me to look behind the masks. Do you know how special it makes me feel that I am allowed to take care of you? That you let me do that back then when you hadn’t even let anyone except for Robin see how bad you had been doing? And you let me, Eddie The Freak Munson, take care of you, you let me love you and the day you started leaning into my touch? I’m so glad I found you, you’re my goddamn world baby.”

There’s tears falling from both their eyes and the kiss they share is wet with salt but it’s home, they’re each other's home and Steve never was as in love as he is now.

And the love had only grown since then, Steve can’t imagine life without Eddie in it, can’t see himself ever growing tired of the other man, can’t see himself ever falling in love with somebody else.

“Yeah, let’s order pizza, maybe invite Robin over?”

Eddie nods into his neck, pressing a kiss there and murmuring something about the kids and Steve laughs, adding that of course they could invite them too, but there was no way they’d drive up from Hawkins just to eat with them.

“Of course they would, they love you so much baby. Dustin bawled his eyes out the day we left, and even Mike had to hide his tears after hugging you.”

Steve shrugs, moving Eddie’s head with it and the other man turns him around, staring at him, eyes fluttering over Steve’s face before shaking his head.

“Baby you are so goddamn loved by every single one of those little monsters. But okay how about we only ask Robin today but tomorrow we call the kids and plan something for next weekend, have them come up here and show them the city. They’ve been whining about wanting to see it but honestly they just want to see us, you!”

It’s one of his recurring topics with Dr Anderson, the kids. El and Max had been fine and those two he talks to at least once a week, wanting updates on their lives, that more often than not consist just of them talking about the dates they went on. They are unbelievably sweet together, the way they slowly grew from friends to something more, it had been beautiful to watch and they were fitting together so well. But the other kids, it had been hard and still was. They had asked to speak to Steve a few weeks after Eddie and him had kissed, and it had been a very heartfelt apology and all of them had been trying to make it up to Steve but the cracks were there and it would take time for Steve to get over the betrayal he had felt back then. To forget the hurt of being abandoned the second they heard something they didn’t like, of feeling like he was so easy to leave, like he wasn’t worth it, his belief that he was unloved once more validated and even if it partly had been Vecna scrambling with his mind, a big part had been Steve and the anxieties he had been running from for over a decade at that point.

So while the kids had apologized, even now Steve is still struggling with believing that they want him in their lives, still coming to terms with them so easily changing their minds and fearing that they would do so again the second Steve starts to trust in their words and actions.

Dr Anderson had said that she’s glad that he is trying and that she understands that he is having a hard time with it but that it’s a good sign that he is giving them the chance to prove it rather than denying them the chance to fix it, even if it’s hard and on some days he wishes he had sent them away.

It’s only Dustin at first and it kind of hurts Steve to look at him, the boy he sees as a brother whom he thought felt the same about him leaving without a second thought and not caring for longer than a second when he found out that Steve had been cursed, not bothering to talk to him when he was laying in a hospital bed but gladly visiting Eddie and pretending Steve didn’t exist whenever he’d wake up during their visits.

Now he’s here, looking to the floor, at the walls, anywhere but at Steve, and stepping from one foot to the other, nervous energy pouring off of him.

“I don’t think saying I’m sorry is even close to enough but I am so sorry Steve. You’re my brother, you’re a member of the party and we, I, forgot everything you’ve done for us, for me specifically just because I heard stories about the person you haven’t been in years, haven’t even really been back then. And I have no excuse for it or for my behavior the past few months.”

He stops for a second, looking at Steve for the first time and he’s changed so much, it’s been nearly a year since they last actually talked and the pain he had felt ever since Dustin pulled away aches all over again. 

Dustin’s eyes are wet and a few tears have already escaped and there’s a sad little smile on his face that looks so out of place when he continues speaking.

“Max nearly knocked my teeth out a while ago when El and her talked to us, or rather Max was screaming at us about how we’re horrible friends and that there’s a reason the both of them aren’t interested in hanging out with us anymore. Will isn’t exactly happy with us either and he took their side, told us that he’s always kind of scared to say anything because we tend to bulldoze over everyone and if someone doesn’t share our opinion we, most of all Mike or me, are pretty loud about our displeasure.”

Steve wishes he didn’t have to agree but what Will said is correct, whenever Steve would say something either Mike or Dustin didn’t agree with there would be hell to pay and he would have to get ready to be side-eyed for the next weeks to come, to get lectured for it even longer, for it to be brought up over and over again at later times.

And he knows they don’t do it on purpose, that they don’t even realize it but it’s hurtful nonetheless, or the countless times that had ribbed Steve for his interests, for not getting things, had made snide comments whenever he asked for something to be explained. They were just kids but especially they should know what it feels like to constantly be belittled by the people around them.

Steve understood that he was an easy target in a way, a safe person to let their frustration out on but it didn’t excuse their behavior.

“I want to do better, like we’ve all had sessions with Dr Anderson and I know what I did wasn’t okay, was pretty far from it actually and she helped me see a lot of things I did from a different perspective and I am sorry for how I treated you. You are my brother and in some ways I treated you worse than the bullies at school treat me. Because I’m not their friend but you are mine.”

The other kids had come over later that day, saying their piece and they had been trying ever since, had been doing better but to this day Steve is struggling with it but he’s trying not to let it show in front of them, tries his best to behave like he had always done, to not treat them any differently, he’s still having a hard time calling them out whenever they do end up falling back into old habits and most of the time it’s either Eddie, Robin or Max saying something about it but they don’t have to do it quite as often anymore.

“You got one of your spacey days baby?”

It’s what Eddie had started calling the days Steve got lost in his head, memories on the forefront of his mind and constantly distracted by them, going down spirals that weren’t healthy.

“Yeah sorry, can we maybe call them in a few days? I’m kind of having a hard time thinking about it right now. Kind of reminiscing a lot about how we got here, about the past two years, so many things happened during that time and so much changed and I’m kind of…”

He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, how to explain that he’s still grieving in a way but at the same time he’s never felt better, life has taken a sharp turn and it only improved further since they moved here but sometimes he gets lost in it all, there’s been so much change and he’s struggling to adjust to it all on some days.

Eddie gets it even without words, having been around for too long to not understand, sometimes he knows Steve better than Steve knows himself and it used to be kind of terrifying for Steve but by now it just feels good to be loved, to be known, to be seen.

“Of course we can, you wanna help me unpack one of the boxes before Robin gets here? In one of them there’s my lucky guitar pick but I honestly can’t remember which one it’s in, so I’m just going to look through them one each day.”

If they really unpack one box a day they’d be done by the end of the week or at the latest beginning of the next, they’d be finally settled in, everything would have found its place and maybe some things would find their way into the trash can. 

Eddie already has let go of Steve, grabbing the first one he sees and settling on the ground instead of on the couch, grinning up at Steve and petting the spot next to him, urging Steve to keep him company and he gladly takes the spot, pressing a kiss to Eddie’s cheek and looking curiously at the unassuming box, wondering what they’d find in there.

The tape is easily removed, already partly peeled off from when they thought they’d be able to tackle everything at once, the first thing Eddie pulls out is a bundle of kitchen towels and he starts laughing the second he sees them.

“We’ve been looking for these for ages, finally no need to let the dishes dry on their own anymore.”

Grinning at Steve as he holds them out to him, and Steve can’t help but grin back, Eddie’s joy had always been infectious and today was no different, he keeps the towels in his lap for now, later they’d find their way into the kitchen cabinet but for now he doesn’t want to leave Eddie’s side.

There’s lots of small things afterwards, some missing forks, tiny figurines the kids had won at the arcade and decided Steve should have them, a few pieces of jewelry Eddie had been looking for, mourning the fact that they might have gotten lost and the tiny wooden robin they had found at a flea market a while ago.

Eddie ends up upturning the box, shaking it to see if there’s anything that got stuck and a key falls out, the key to the Harrington house, it must have been the box they had packed last, when they already were in the car and Wayne had been kind enough to bring them another one for all the little things they hadn’t been able to find space for.

Steve remembers panicking that day, scared of leaving but at the same time being relieved to finally end that chapter of their life, trying to keep in mind all that Dr Anderson had said when he first told her about their plan to leave Hawkins.

“We’ve been talking about moving out of Hawkins and it’s… I like the idea but I can’t help but be scared of even more change and what if the Upside Down isn’t gone? If as soon as we’re somewhere else it happens all over again? But this time there’s no one protecting the kids.”

Steve has felt the anxiety brewing inside ever since Eddie had mentioned them moving to Indianapolis the first time, it had been an off-hand comment after they had encountered someone while shopping that had tried to call the police on Eddie, demanding that they finally do their job and arrest the murderer, ignoring that he had been found innocent and all charges had been dropped over a year ago.

Robin had been thrilled by the idea, the city would give them freedom, would offer up places where they could be themselves without fearing what might befall them, queer spaces tucked away, a safe space for Robin to find more people like her and for Steve and Eddie to be a couple openly, rather than hiding it away and more often than not pretending one of them was dating Robin instead.

“You’ve seen it return over and over again so I completely understand why you fear what may happen but I would like to repeat something I said to you a while ago, you can’t let past experiences stop you from living your life. From my perspective a change of scenery might be healthy for your healing process, right now you are still living in the house where your parents had caused you a lot of grief, the house where in 1983 someone died and I know Barbara’s death has been haunting you to this day. Not even to speak of the opportunity to learn new things, to meet new people that haven’t been touched by the Upside Down, a new environment that might help you grow.”

She waits a minute, allows him to take in all that she had said, to think about it for a moment and only when he gives a nod does she continue.

“You have been in survival mode for most of your life, and later on you have been living your life to protect others. By now you are on a good way to live your life for yourself, to build yourself one that you enjoy and a move might be a good decision. It would allow you to break out of the mold you still find yourself in some days, and give you a space that is truly yours and not your parent’s. And the change you are scared of; I will gladly drive up to Indianapolis once a week or later on once you’ve grown accustomed to your new surroundings once a month. You will not be on your own. You have a support net and if I understood it correctly it would be Eddie, Robin and you making the move, and I would say that it is a good plan for all three of you to get out of this village, find a space for yourself and make it your own. Make new memories and experience new things. Don’t let the horrible things that have happened here stop you from living your life. And the kids won’t be alone, Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers are here, and if there is even the smallest sign that it might happen again those two will sound the alarm and they won’t stop until it is dealt with.”

It had taken a few weeks until Steve really was on board with the move, anxieties creeping up every now and then and the fear that Eddie and Robin might grow sick of him if they live together, when he had mentioned it both had started laughing and reminded him that they already were living together and neither of them could see themselves ever growing sick of Steve. 

“You’re my platonic soulmate Dingus.”

“You’re the love of my goddamn life sweetheart, no way am I ever going to grow tired of having you around.”

And here they are now, two tiny flats in Indianapolis and all three of them happier than ever, the box Steve and Eddie had just unpacked is folded up and stored with the others, everything had found its spot, the towels and forks finally in the kitchen where they belong, the arcade wins proudly presented on a shelf in the living room with Eddie’s miniatures and the key is in a box in the wardrobe with all the other things they had no use for currently.

Eddie’s on the phone, calling the pizza place they had found the day they had moved in, ordering food for all of them and Robin’s timing for once is perfect, just as Eddie ends the phone call she’s knocking on the door.

She has a key but she doesn’t like using it, jokingly stating that she fears once more seeing Eddie’s pale ass as reason and grinning every time she brings it up, it has become a recurring joke now that they’re no longer sharing a living space.

Steve opens the door for her, being greeted by her grinning face, hand still held in front of her and as has become her routine knocking once more but this time on Steve’s chest.

“I’ve got great news Dingus, Clarisse from my literature classes is in fact bisexual, and she asked me on a date!”

College had been good for Robin, meeting new people and being able to focus on the things that actually interest her, being liked for her brand of weirdness rather than being excluded and she found herself a group she’d study and hang out with regularly, dragging Steve and Eddie along whenever they did something fun and neither of them had to work.

Steve was working with kids at a nearby youth center, and he was thriving, just as Dr Anderson had said, while Eddie had found a music store that had been looking for help, bringing home new things every now and then and building his collection up again.

“I’m so happy for you Robs, that’s amazing!” Turning around once they’re inside, looking around for Eddie and smiling wide at him. “Did you hear? Robin has a date!”

Eddie lets out a cheer at those words, pulling Robin in for a hug and swirling her around a few times until she starts complaining about dizziness and boy germs but she’s laughing, there’s so much joy and happiness and Steve feels drunk on it, this is home, this is his family.

A while later they’re sitting on the couch in the living room, their pizzas on the table in front of them, and Robin and Eddie had started arguing about whether or not pineapple really was a good pizza topping with Robin firmly on Argyle’s side, stating that the sweetness added something wonderful while Eddie was of the opinion that fruit doesn’t belong on pizza.

“I wouldn’t want strawberries or apples on it either so pineapple can stay far away from my cheese, not even to speak of the fact that it is literally eating you right back.”

They’re both talking with their hands, forgetting all about their food and Steve can only shake his head, smiling fondly at their theatrics and finishing the last piece of his own pizza.

Wayne was going to be calling later, he’d started calling once a week, wanting to be updated on their lives and knowing that Eddie would lose track of time and forget about it, feeling guilty about it and to avoid the unnecessary guilt Wayne had decided early on that it would be him calling, reassuring Eddie that it was absolutely fine with him, allowed him to have everything he needed to get done done and being able to fully concentrate on the call without worrying about his laundry or his car.

As if summoned the phone rings and Eddie springs up, Robin’s and his argument coming to an abrupt end.

“That must be Wayne!”

And when Eddie picks up the phone the smile on his face tells Steve that it is indeed Wayne and he waves both of them towards the phone, all three of them around one phone, hearing Wayne’s voice ringing from it.

And Steve once more thinks that this is home, this is his family, answering the questions directed at him and telling Wayne about some of his favorite kids, how the flat was coming along and he is reminded of the day they got here, it had been the four of them and a mess of boxes and furniture. 

“Let’s get everything upstairs and afterwards we’ll sort what belongs into which flat because honestly I think you kids don’t even know yourself and I sure as hell don’t either.”

They’ve driven up there with three cars, Eddie’s van, Steve’s car and Wayne drove the rented van that housed most of their furniture, somehow they managed to store everything the three young adults owned into the three cars, Robin had chosen to drive with Steve to no one’s surprise and they were here. Parking in front of the house their new homes were in, two small flats on the second floor and Steve was already dreading having to carry everything upstairs.

The kids had wanted to help too but there had been no more spaces with all the boxes and furniture pieces and none of the other people allowed to drive had been up to making the drive, either because of work or because they just did not want to be stuck in a car with the teens.

Either way, the only one who ended up helping had been Wayne, renting the other van for them to give them more storage when they realized that they’d have to make the drive at least three times if they’d just used Eddie’s and Steve’s cars, helping them pack everything and now already having the first box in his hands, waiting by the door for one of them to unlock it for him.

In the end between the four of them it takes them 5 hours until everything is where it belongs and while all of them might be tired they know that they have to at least build their beds and get the basics unpacked.

“Anybody wanna figure food out? This is the city, there must be some place close by.”
Robin volunteers for the task, glad to get outside for a while, asking Wayne for his order, already knowing Eddie’s and Steve’s by heart before leaving and it takes less than an hour for her to return, 4 boxes of pizza in her hands.

In the meantime they had tackled the beds, building their own as well as Robin’s and preparing the pull-out couch for Wayne, who had been planning to stay for the first few days, to help them settle in before going back home.

“There’s a small restaurant just around the corner and they're even delivering, I got flyers for us!”

They’re using a few of the boxes as their table and they’re all exhausted but they really did it, they left Hawkins, and it’s a mess, packing paper and boxes strewn across the flat, unbuild furniture waiting to be assembled but it already feels like home to Steve when he’s surrounded by family.

It’s late when Robin leaves, and Eddie is already gathering the trash, disappearing into the kitchen while Steve turns off the light, making his way into the bathroom, washing his face and brushing his teeth, giving Eddie a foamy smile when he joins him, watching Eddie as he goes through his own routine, rings going into a small bowl and using his own toothbrush, both of their clothes going into the basket next to their washing machine.

Everything is quiet as they settle into bed, and Eddie is pulling Steve close just like he has done a million times before, pressing their lips together for a moment and he tastes minty, leaving Steve’s lips tingling, just like every night.

And just like every night Steve falls asleep feeling the rise and fall of Eddie’s chest, breath tickling his neck and it’s home.

Almost three years ago everything had been a mess and Steve thought he would die and now he’s here, in love with the life he is building, no longer terrified for the most part and the good days outweigh the bad ones.

Touch no longer feels like he is being set on fire and he can say with surety that he is loved, and on some days it still overwhelms him, the knowledge that people know him and chose him not despite it but because of it.