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Steve sleeps more fitfully than ever after Vecna. After they lose Eddie and barely avoid losing Max.
After the fissure opens between worlds and breaks Hawkins into pieces.
For a while, he doesn’t have nightmares simply because he never sleeps long enough in one go to get to that stage.
It takes a week for his body to be so sleep deprived that he passes out one night. He sleeps for a good four or five hours before he wakes up clawing at his sheets, screaming Eddie’s name.
He doesn’t expect anything to respond.
“Fuck.” Steve kicks at the blankets, trying to get free. He needs air on his skin, needs his limbs unrestricted, but he’s stuck in the sheets, groaning and–
Something rips the blankets away and flings them violently to the floor. Steve yelps, scrambling up his bed. After the demogorgon all those years ago, he’d rearranged his room, put his bed against two walls instead of just one.
Of course, the demogorgon had literally come out of the walls and ceiling of the Byers home, so it wouldn’t do Steve a lot of good if push came to shove. Then again, if push came to shove, it’d be his own will to live versus the Upside Down, so why not lean into the illusion of security?
The illusion shatters in a flutter of falling sheets.
“What the fuck? What the fuck?!” Steve fits himself into the corner, already mentally calculating. One of his nail bats under his bed, walkie on the desk with a whole crew of defenders on the line, including Eleven.
On that same desk, Steve’s radio buzzes to life, flipping rapidly through static and stations.
‘Eddie’ – static – garbled voices – ‘Eddie kept singing’ – static – a guitar whining through part of a solo – ‘Eddie’s coming out tonight’ – more guitar
Steve sucks in a breath. The radio goes dead silent, making the room seem eerily quiet.
“Eddie?”
The denim vest that has been hanging on the back of Steve’s desk chair falls to the floor. Steve watches it land on the carpet in a heap of fabric, pins, and patches. He doesn’t know what to say or do. He waits for something else, for a means of talking to Eddie properly, for a transparent face to appear before him and smile.
Something, anything.
He feels cold on his cheek, tracing the bone like so many snowflakes kissing his skin.
“Oh.” Steve swallows thickly as the sensation continues. Back and forth, brushing across his skin. Slowly, his limbs start to relax. Steve sinks onto his mattress again, his arm colliding with something cold.
It’s not unpleasant. It’s like the first breath of fall at the end of a long summer. A breeze instead of a shock. It makes his skin tingle pleasantly.
“That feels good,” Steve says, the world going hazy, sleep coming back for the rest of its due. “I wish you’d touched me like this when you were alive.” There’s a small halt in the movement, a hiccup in the rhythm. Steve hears something like a distorted sigh, and then the otherworldly caresses start up again.
In the morning, he wakes up alone. He calls Eddie’s name and doesn’t see or feel anything.
Someone has put his blankets back on him though, draping them loosely over his body.
It happens again a few days later. Another nightmare wakes him. Eddie’s death again. In the dream, Steve’s with him when it happens, both of them being torn apart by tails and talons and teeth.
Steve is woken by a balled up pair of socks hitting him in the face. His blankets are tangled around him like he’d been writhing in his sleep. The radio flares to life and finds a soft rock station.
“Didn’t peg you for an Air Supply fan, Munson.”
The lamp on Steve’s desk falls over, and Steve laughs.
“Seriously though, thank you for waking me up.” Steve puts his blankets right, balling his comforter up in his arms and hugging it tight. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re, like, trapped and can’t go onto the afterlife or whatever. Heaven? Whatever the Greeks believed in? I don’t know.”
That snowflake touch drags down Steve’s arm. Goosebumps follow. Steve never got the chance to say how much he liked that Eddie touched so casually. After Nancy, people had rarely touched Steve. An occasional shoulder bump from Robin and Dustin’s intricate handshakes, but that was about it.
Eddie had touched him constantly. Bumps of his body against Steve’s, casual adjustments of the vest he lent him, a casual arm on Steve’s shoulder while they talked through plans to defeat Vecna.
Steve hard started missing those touches the very moment they were gone.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice knowing you’re around. I don’t want you to go or anything.” Steve sighs. “I hate that we can’t talk, but that feels so good, man. I want you to know that. It’s not like the movies at all where they make it all cold and creepy.”
The touch keeps dragging up and down his skin.
“Can ghosts be the big spoon?” Steve asks, and Eddie pulls his hand away. Steve frowns, wondering if he said the wrong thing. He’s about to apologize when he feels cold settle against his back and drape across his middle. “Oh. That’s… Yeah, that’s nice.”
As though the layers of blankets are a mere suggestion, Steve can feel Eddie’s touch on his bare skin, gentle strokes of tingling cold that lull him back to sleep.
“Theoretically, how would you talk to a ghost?” Steve asks.
“Who is this?”
“Sorry, Mr. Clarke. Looked you up in the phone book. This is Steve. Harrington.”
“Do you know it’s 8 p.m. on a Saturday, Steve Harrington?”
“I do now.”
“You’re old enough for me to say I have a girl in my house right now, Steve. A woman who is romantically interested in me. I don’t need to spell out for you that you’re interrupting.”
“You do not. Would that woman be interested in, I don’t know, a movie night as a second date if, say, a certain Family Video employee’s finger slipped on the ‘customer used coupon’ button?”
“We are currently on our fourth date, and I’m hanging up now.”
Shit. What else does Steve have to—
“Weed?”
“What?”
“Purple palm tree delight. California weed, Mr. Clarke. What about that? I can bring it over anytime.”
A beat of silence.
“Bring it now, and we’ll talk.”
Steve pulls the old shoebox out from under his bed and finds a couple of pre-rolled joints. Jonathan’s friend Argyle is pretty generous, so it’s not even close to Steve’s entire supply. It is, however, plenty to bargain with.
Steve checks the phone book again for Mr. Clarke’s address. One short drive through Hawkins later, he’s knocking on the door of a simple house, Mr. Clarke answering in a pair of jeans and a henley. It’s tight on his arms, and Steve has to admit if he was closer to Mr. Clarke’s age…
“Do you want to pretend to shake hands?” Steve asks. “Or should I step inside to give you these?”
Mr. Clarke moves out of the doorway and lets Steve in.
“This should be enough for a nice night.” Steve hands him the baggie of pre-rolls, and Mr. Clarke opens the top and inhales deeply.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, it’s good shit.” Steve had smoked some with Jonathan and Argyle and, oddly, Hopper. He remembers staring at the clouds for hours, drifting through reality until Hopper said something that was such a ‘weed thought’ that the three of them discussed it for about an hour.
“You think snakes view worms the way we do monkeys?”
That had been a pretty good afternoon all things considered.
“What was your question again?” Mr. Clarke asks.
“If, theoretically, ghosts were real. In theory, how would you talk to one?”
“What kind of ghost? Residual or intelligent? Some people believe residual hauntings are very real, that there are places on Earth with magnetic fields that allow them to act essentially like video recordings. If that theory were true, they’re not so much ghosts in those instances as they are natural recordings of an event in history. You can’t really interact with the recording any more than you can interact with Kevin Bacon in Footloose. You can only watch the event happen again and again.”
“And an intelligent haunting is when the ghost is, like, an actual being that used to be alive?” Steve asks.
“Lots of different philosophies there too. Heck, it could even be carbon monoxide poisoning. But for the sake of argument, sure.”
“Right, so say there’s an intelligent haunting and the thing can, I don’t know, walk through walls and knock stuff over. How would you talk to him?”
“If it can move objects, there’s always the favorite of seances and slumber parties. A talking board.” Mr. Clarke wiggles his fingers like he’s finishing a magic trick.
“A what?”
“A Ouija board, Steve.”
“Oh!”
“There’s also a question of energy in general. Providing more energy for a spirit, in theory, might help it manifest or do more. Of course, this is purely theoretical. Science doesn’t really acknowledge the—“
“Right, of course.” Steve nods, already fumbling for the door knob. “Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Enjoy your night and all.”
“Right. Thank you for…” Mr. Clarke shakes the bag of joints. “You won’t tell anyone about this?”
“About what?” Steve winks and slips out the front door.
Steve looks for a Ouija board at the general store and finds nothing. What he does find is foamcore board and craft paint (and a cashier glaring at him and saying “we close in fifteen just so you know.”) He checks out and dashes out with five minutes to spare.
Back at home, he sits down at the kitchen table and paints a messy alphabet and a few choice phrases on the foam: hello, goodbye, yes, no, and—because it’s Eddie and because it amuses Steve to put a swear on the board and think about some, like, Civil War ghost using it—fuck.
By the time the board is set and dry, it’s close to midnight. Steve takes it out to the garage along with a clear water glass. He vents the door and cranks up the generator his parents have for power outages, thankful there’s still fuel in the propane tank.
“Uh, Eddie?”
Steve stands over the talking board where he’s set it on top of a work bench his dad has probably used all of never.
For a good few minutes, nothing happens.
“Eddie, it’s Steve.” God, that feels ridiculous to say. Who the hell else would it be? Though Steve guesses he has no way of knowing if Eddie is paying anyone else visits. For all Steve knows, everyone in the group has been haunted and is just keeping it to themselves.
“Eddie, are—?” The water glass slides across the foam to land on “hello.”
“Hell yes!” Steve pumps his fist. “Uh, can you prove it’s you and that you’re not, like, Vecna or a demon or something?”
The glass swings to the “fuck” and then to the “o” before hitting “f” once and spinning out to hit it a second time. It’s on to the “b” after that.
“Fuck off big boy,” Eddie spells.
Steve barks a laugh. “Yeah, hi Eddie.”
The glass darts back to “hello.”
“Do you want to, um—fuck.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration because he doesn’t know what to ask. All the questions he can come up with seem so obviously stupid.
Are you okay? Of course not because he’s dead.
How are you? How do you think, Steve?
While Steve’s thinking, the glass swings to “yes.”
“Yes?” Steve’s brow furrows. “I didn’t ask you anything.”
“U did,” Eddie spells.
“No, I…” Steve thinks about what he’d said. Oh. Oh. He snorts. “Good to see you still have your sense of humor.”
“No.” The glass chips the paint a bit as it slides, black flecks littering the board like glitter. “Not kidding.”
“You’re not kidding. You want to, what, ghost bang me?”
“Yes.”
Steve’s brow goes up in surprise.
At the same time, something like regret sinks into the pit of his stomach, the bittersweet knowledge of what could have been in another reality, in another lifetime.
Being into guys wasn’t some revelation for Steve. He’d figured that out after Starcourt. Finding out he knew someone gay in real life had opened him up to examining his own shit—Tommy and the time they’d kissed for practice, Jonathan Byers, Jon Bon Jovi.
There had been times during all the shit with Vecna when he thought he caught Eddie looking, but of course it hadn’t been the right time for all of that.
After, Steve had thought.
But Eddie hadn’t gotten an after.
Steve takes a deep breath, the generator’s low roar suddenly very grating.
“Not to derail this important conversation, but is the generator helping you be here?”
“No.”
Steve turns it off and closes the garage up. He’s about to move their conversation into the house when the glass moves again.
“You do,” Eddie spells. “Help.”
“So it’s just me then? Who you’re visiting.”
“Yes.”
“I’m gonna go inside if that’s okay,” Steve says, and Eddie replies that it is. Steve puts the board back on the dining room table where he made it, picking at a smudge of paint on the wood so that he won’t have to hear about it later when his parents inevitably do drop in.
It’s not long before he feels Eddie join him, the glass moving.
“Well.”
Or, Steve supposes it’s probably more of a question. Steve pops the black paint open again and adds a question mark to the board.
The glass immediately moves to it, smearing the wet paint.
“No idea what it’ll be like for me,” Steve says, “but I’m game to find out. You can always hear me, right? Like if I tell you to stop or something?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Then, yeah, let’s, uh, have ghost sex or whatever.”
“Freak,” Eddie spells, and Steve snorts.
“I would have made a much different board if I’d known you were just trying to get into my pants.” Steve wipes his hands on his jeans.
“Don’t need to,” Eddie spells, and Steve’s about to respond when he feels Eddie’s touch on his skin, cold tingles sliding up his thighs.
Oh. Right. Just like Steve’s blankets, the fabric of his clothes aren’t an obstacle for Eddie. Steve sucks in a breath when Eddie drags his fingers back down toward Steve’s knees.
That’s how Eddie touches him for a long time, ghostly hands trailing up and down his thighs, moving a little higher with each pass.
Steve’s cock takes that opportunity to get very, very hard.
“I need to…” Steve reaches for the zipper on his jeans. The touch stops, the glass moving over the board.
“Yes strip.”
“Thought you didn’t need me to?” Steve asks.
b-r-a-t
Steve lets out an amused huff. "Takes one to know one.” Steve pulls his shirt up over his head before working on his pants, stepping out of them and kicking them under the table.
“I wish I could see you naked too,” Steve says. “Fuck, I wish I could just kiss you. Make out for hours or whatever. Your mouth, dude. Ridiculous.”
The glass moves a fraction of an inch.
“Eddie?” Steve asks. Because that would be his luck. Get seduced by a hot ghost, and then have the ghost get sucked back into the ether or whatever.
The glass moves again, wiggling back and forth in one place. Steve gets it then. Eddie’s thinking.
Patiently, Steve watches him spell out what he wants to say, compiling it into proper sentences in his head, adding Eddie’s voice as he remembers it.
“Me too, Steve. But there’s now.” A pause. “Lay down?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Steve starts to lay on the floor, but if Eddie needs to talk to him, Steve won’t be able to see it. So he climbs up onto the dining room table instead, situating himself next to the talking board. The gentle cold-kiss touch of Eddie’s fingers returns to his thighs as soon as he’s settled, inching closer and closer to Steve’s cock where it sits hard and heavy.
“I wonder if I’ll be able to tell what you’re doing or if I’ll have to guess. Like I think those are your hands right now. But if you touched my dick, would I know if—?”
Eddie, of course, chooses that moment to touch his dick. It is very clearly Eddie’s hand.
It’s not at all like being touched by a living person. There’s the temperature for one thing. Still, there’s no mistaking the way Steve can feel each individual finger wrapping around him one at a time.
It’s intentional—Eddie making sure he knows exactly how he’s being touched. Steve pictures glinting rings when Eddie does his first stroke up and down Steve’s cock.
Steve sighs softly. He wasn’t sure what to expect. Eddie’s ghostly touches have always felt so gentle, so safe—sometimes more of a suggestion of touch than an actual caress.
Steve can feel this though, a nice bit of pressure. It makes sense, he supposes. If Eddie can move the talking board glass and knock down clothes and lamps, then why couldn’t he jerk Steve off?
“Fuck, that’s good. It’s weird but it feels so good.”
And it does. Whatever Eddie’s touch is, it’s like it’s happening both on and under Steve’s skin, brushing across every nerve in the process. Steve relaxes into the feeling, letting Eddie have him. Any way Eddie wants him, Steve is willing.
It really does feel so good, each up and down of Eddie’s spectral fist making Steve hum with quiet pleasure, one hand curled over the lip of the table, flexing around the wood.
When Eddie stops, a little whine slips out between Steve’s lips.
“Eddie, please.”
A brush down Steve’s ribs, fingertips wrapping around his waist on either side.
Just like Steve knew Eddie had a hand on his cock, he can tell when Eddie puts his mouth on him. It’s nothing at all like getting a blow job. There’s no sensation of wetness. No heat. What there is though is that same tingling pressure and a low pull of suction.
It’s different—fucking strange. It’s—
Steve moans, back arching up off the table. Whatever it is, his dick loves it.
“Fuck,” Steve says, head thumping against the mahogany. “Fuck, that’s so good.”
Up and down his cock, Eddie moves, that sucking pressure changing and shifting and making Steve writhe and groan like the slut he is.
Like the slut he would have been for Eddie Munson if the universe had allowed it. Though, is this the universe allowing it? Steve can’t say he wouldn’t let Eddie ghost fuck him for the rest of his natural life if he’s being honest.
And God, it feels like Eddie sucks on him for an eternity, peppering in tingly kitten licks. Then it stops.
“No, no please,” Steve mutters before he hears the sound of glass sliding on foam. He sits up on his elbows to watch, his abs flexing.
“Anal?” Eddie asks in plain black and white.
“Oh, uh…” Steve wipes sweat out of his eyes, pushing his hair back. “Honestly never tried it as far as receiving goes. But I’d… if you want. Yes.”
“Edge.”
“What?” Steve asks.
“Move.”
Steve tries to process that with a good amount of his brain’s blood supply being routed elsewhere. He’s about to ask for clarification when he feels Eddie tugging at his legs.
“Oh, I think I understand.” Slick with sweat, Steve moves his body across the wood until his legs dangle over the side of the table.
If he and Eddie were two living boys, Eddie would be able to stand between his legs and take him. Steve has to imagine that’s sort of what’s happening here, especially when he can feel Eddie touching him, pushing his thighs up to expose his hole.
Cool tingles slide from Steve’s balls to his ass, circling him and lighting up nerves he didn’t know he had. He gasps, goosebumps crawling down his spine and dripping like liquid down his arms.
“D- do we need lube for ghost anal?” Steve asks, and he swears he hears a quiet laugh. It’s garbled like it came from a distorted cassette, but it’s definitely Eddie’s. The glass moves again, hitting “no” before moving on.
O-k-?
“Yes. Yeah, I was just joking, dude,” Steve says. “Sorry. Nervous. I’ll tell you to stop if I don’t…”
Eddie moves Steve’s thighs higher before Steve feels that butterfly-kiss otherness pushing into him with quiet insistence. Steve knows exactly what’s happening without even having to wonder. It’s Eddie’s cock this time, slowly entering him.
Slowly being the operative word.
Eddie stretches him open like he’s got access to some eternal well of patience. Steve wishes he could see his face—if he’s straining to hold back, if he’s looking at Steve with care and the first sparks of something that could grow into love.
That last thought makes Steve’s heart clench for what can never be. He balls up those feelings and shoves them deep into that box he already labeled ‘do not open.’ It wouldn’t do him any good to look at them too hard, especially not right now when Eddie is…
Steve’s body finally stops resisting, Eddie sliding all the way in. Eddie pulls one of Steve’s legs onto what must be his shoulder before touching his cock, jerking it just enough to make Steve’s eyes flutter.
Sprawled on the table, Steve’s chest heaves, his breaths heavy and needy. He stares at where he thinks Eddie’s face might be and waits, drowning in anticipation. With care, Eddie starts to fuck him.
It’s different. Weird. Steve isn’t quite sure how he feels about it. He’s still waiting for something to help him decide conclusively when Eddie pushes his thigh higher, changing the angle. That tingling feeling seems to catch on something deep inside of him, like a match being struck on an old box.
A spark.
A promise that the right combination of events could send Steve careening into something white hot and burning.
“Oh.” Steve pushes up on his elbows again. What he’s trying to see, he doesn’t know. Eddie isn’t visible, and Steve can’t see his own ass unless…
Unless.
Steve’s eyes fly to the mirror above the sideboard.
“Holy shit.”
There in the glass, Steve can see himself stretched wide open where Eddie is inside of him. He can see the rim of muscles moving with rhythmic Eddie’s thrusts. There is a distinct hand-shaped impression on one of Steve’s thighs.
Steve’s brain goes haywire—shorting out like someone trying to microwave a fork.
“Oh. Oh God.”
The match is catching. Oh, it’s fucking lighting up like a sparkler.
Steve’s elbows slip out from under him, body hitting the tabletop with a loud thump, one hand finding the beveled lip again and white-knuckling it, the other scrabbling against the wood, looking for anything to hold onto.
“Fuck, fuck. Oh fuck.” Steve reaches out, wishing he could sit up and grab onto Eddie, that he could dig his nails into Eddie’s back. Mark him up and know he’d written his name on Eddie’s skin in red scratches, in sucked-on bruises.
“Please, I…”
Eddie catches his hand, cold slipping between his fingers and grabbing tight. Eddie bends closer, pushing Steve’s thigh higher with his hand and his body.
Steve lets out a strangled sound. “Coming. Eddie, I’m…”
The sound that leaves Steve’s mouth is practically inhuman.
Like the laugh before, Steve hears a guttural groan break through—distorted and feral.
Eddie. Letting go.
The first spurt of his own come lands hot and wet on Steve’s belly. He squeezes back against Eddie’s ghostly hand, moaning his name over and over like a prayer.
Eyes fluttering shut, Steve imagines the scene—Eddie naked and covered in ink, one of Steve’s legs hooked over him, the other shoved up with a bruising grip.
Eddie, holding his hand while Steve comes all over himself, while Eddie comes inside of him.
When Eddie slips out, Steve pictures the mess that would follow if Eddie were alive, Eddie’s come sluicing onto the tabletop and puddling beneath Steve’s bare ass.
With a quiet sigh, Steve opens his eyes. Eddie’s still holding his hand. Steve can see the the grooves and gathers on his skin. Steve can feel Eddie’s thumb gently rubbing at him as Steve lowers his shaky legs.
For a long time, they stay like that, Eddie gripping his hand, Steve trembling softly on the dining room table. It’s Steve who breaks the silence of course.
“Okay, so turns out I like anal.”
Eddie’s laugh comes through clear as crystal, warming every single inch of Steve down to his bones.
When Eddie finally lets go of him, it’s to move the glass again.
“Spoon?”
“Hell yes. Just need to clean up.”
In the guest bathroom, Steve wets a rag and hastily wipes down before grabbing the talking board and going upstairs to lay down.
Body fucked-out and eyes heavy, Steve feels Eddie slip into bed behind him. Steve falls asleep wrapped up in the quiet, haunting presence that is Eddie.
Steve stands between Argyle and Robin in Hopper’s cabin. He, Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, Argyle, Joyce, and Hopper are bent over a map of the town.
“So,” Nancy says. “I’m thinking here and here might be—“
“Steve?”
Steve turns his head toward Eleven, she and Will both staring at him, Will touching the back of his neck.
“What’s up?” Steve asks.
“Are you okay?” Eleven stares at him like she’s trying to puzzle something out.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re connected,” Will says. “To the Upside Down. I can feel it.”
“Oh shit,” Robin whispers. “The bat bites.”
But Steve can’t help but wonder if…
“Eddie?” Steve asks, and he feels that cold kiss against his neck, fingertips playing at the baby hairs on his nape. Steve fights a smile. “It’s, uh, it’s not me. It’s Eddie. He’s… I didn’t tell anyone because it seemed crazy even for us, but he’s, like, a ghost.”
My ghost.
Eleven closes her eyes and reaches out toward Steve. Without even being asked, Will cups his hands over her ears.
“Don’t hurt him,” Steve blurts. “Don’t make him leave. Whatever you’re doing, please don’t make him go.” It probably shows Steve’s hand. It probably shows a lot if the way Robin tilts her head is any indication, but Steve doesn’t care.
He likes waking up from his nightmares and knowing he’s not alone.
He likes the ever-growing collection of foam boards covered in common words and phrases. He likes that Eddie seems to have a little more energy after they do something intimate, whether it’s sex or Eddie’s ghostly tongue in his mouth for hours on hours.
Steve has heard his voice again now, and he’s too fucking selfish to give it up.
Eleven opens her eyes and wipes at her nose.
“You are connected, Steve,” she says. “To something in the Upside Down.”
Steve feels his face do something pained. “To… to a body?”
“No,” Eleven says, and nearly everyone in the room starts trying to talk.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘no?’” Steve feels like all of his bones go liquid, like he could slump right onto the floor.
“Like Will,” Eleven says. “Eddie is like Will.”
Without a second thought, Steve takes two long steps toward where his bat leans against the cabin wall, picking it up with a twirl.
“Can you get me through?” Steve asks. “Like how you got us out that night?”
Eleven thinks and then nods. “I can.”
“Fuck off, Steve.” Robin picks up a machete. “Like you’re going alone.”
“What she said.” Dustin grabs his spear.
When they find Eddie, it’s all of them—Steve, Robin, Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, Hopper, Joyce, Will, Eleven, Mike, Lucas, and Erica. Murray and Dmitri too. Max is the only one missing, still recovering after Eleven found her mind in the dark and led her home.
Eddie looks like absolute hell. They have to pry him free from the vines and fight off the monsters that come to stop them.
But when they pull him through the gate, Eddie takes a shuddering breath of real air. With a hand gripped loosely around a tanned wrist, Eddie speaks in a voice that is hoarse and shaky but very much alive.
“Steve.”
"Hey." Eyes burning, Steve finds the ‘do not open’ box lodged somewhere deep in his chest and kicks the lid clean off.